Re- Taxes: Follow the Money -- REALLY

Excellent piece by Stephen Herrington at HuffPo:

What damages economies is when money is lost from the economy. In the case of the Great Depression and now our Great Recession, the rich were, and now are, at a peak in terms of how much of the nation's per capita income went to them. Now as in 1929, the rich took money out of the economy and "invested" it in non-productive speculation apart from the real economy. Some $18 trillion in corporate cash are sitting on the sidelines waiting in vain for some market magic to offer some reason to re-enter the real economy. The notion that wealth is invested in economies and finances new homes and factories hasn't been true for over a century, not since Dow and Jones set up shop on Wall Street. The bulk of wealth now circulates in and out of stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and hedge funds and will never see the real economies of the world again unless it is taxed back into it and spent by governments.

Higher taxes on the poor and middle classes don't damage economies except when they are levied in order to spare the rich from an increasing tax burden commensurate with their increasing share of wealth. In 1932 Hoover raised taxes on everyone but levied extra taxes on the working class. He did so in an effort to balance the budget and thus took money out of the economy in order to limit the liabilities of the rich who had appropriated too much for a healthy economy to sustain already. In 1937 FDR did the same thing and worse; he stopped government stimulus spending, removing even more money from the economy, all in order to relieve the rich from returning enough money to the economy, from their takings, to keep it working.

WWII solved the problem of government not understanding what a great world power economy is based on. Wages doubled during WWII and the economy boomed for a generation. Nobody expected that kind of result but Keynes. A world power economy is based on money in circulation and that is dependent on money in either of the hands of the wage earning public or the hands of government, both of whom spend what they take in. Eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the middle class will not harm the economy if it is not commensurate with tax relief for the rich. The only way to improve our economy is to tax the historic levels of wealth and return that wealth to the economy.

More at the link.

I'm afraid I don't have time to write all I'd like to about Obama's compromise tax package, but I will say that (1) if passed, the average family will get a few thousand in tax cuts in the near-term and will lose more than twice that in the longer term, in order to finance the much larger cuts for the rich; (2) I believe the cut in FICA taxes is a poison pill designed to kill Social Security – basically, they're looting funds for our future retirement (again) to pay more bonuses to bankers now; and (3) whatever else this episode shows, it proves that tax cuts for billionaires are so important to Republicans that they're willing to sacrifice everything and everyone else to get them – that those cuts for billionaires are so important that they outweigh everything else combined.

Wikileaks: UPDATES (2010-12-09)

Ok, I'm officially obsessed. To avoid filling this blog with nothing but posts about Wikileaks, I'm now limiting them to one per day (or less), and I'm putting a link to them in the sidebar at left (under "Some of my heftier posts").

Here's the latest:

NEWS:

Good sites for updates: Greg Mitchell's at The Nation and, as always, Democratic Underground. UPDATE: Foreign Policy's Wikileaked blog seems to be rolling now and may be a good source for analysis of the content of the releases.

One of the complainants in the "rape" cases against Assange may have ceased cooperating with the Swedish prosecution.

DDoS attacks by Wikileaks supporters: Anonymous "Operation Payback" members have fully or partially disabled the websites of the Swiss Post Office bank, Visa, Mastercard (see also The NYT), Paypal (see also BoingBoing), Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, and the Swedish government. Wikileaks has issued a statement disclaiming any connection with the Anons, and the latter appear strictly self-deputed (more on them below). UPDATE: Here's a claim that Paypal has agreed to Anonymous's terms. FURTHER UPDATE: More details re- the Anons' attacks here. FURTHER x 2 UPDATE: Per PCWorld, "the collective forces of Anonymous have taken down the PayPal blog (though not PayPal itself), the US Senate Web directory, the site for Julian Assange's Swiss bank, the site for the Swedish prosecutors who are bringing charges against Assange . . . , and the home pages of Visa and MasterCard . . . ." FURTHER x 3 UPDATE: The Anons may be abandoning DDoS attacks in favor of combing through the cables themselves and publicizing juicy bits overlooked by others. I would not be surprised if they found a few; details here. Should they decide to continue the DDoS attacks, as of 4pm ET today, over 44,000 copies of the software used in the attacks had been downloaded (see here; last I'd seen late yesterday, the no. was ca. 31,000).

Technically, Anons are NOT hacking their targets, merely inundating them with service requests (the list of individuals' MC numbers claimed to have been hacked by the group was a fake); and the concerted attacks by Anons began only after similar attacks on the Wikileaks site (the sources of which remain as yet unknown); more here. MSNBC and others, however, continue to refer to the Anons as hackers and to characterize them as a dangerous mob.

Here's a "Letter from Anonymous," describing its efforts as a non-violent, digital sit-in. Their goal: "Win the right to keep the Internet free of any control from any entity, corporation, or government. We will do this until our proverbial dying breath." (Emphasis supplied.) The group is only loosely organized, and as far as I know, they've made no concerted attack except against entities they believe to have acted in bad faith.

Counterattacks: "Operation Payback is facing a little payback of its own. First Twitter closed the pro-Wikileaks group's account. And now we hear the Feds are shutting down some online discussion of Operation Payback attacks." – Gawker. What's left of one discussion allegedly shut down can be seen here. UPDATE: "Late Wednesday, Operation Payback itself appeared to run into problems, as many of its sites went down. It was unclear who was behind the counterattack." FURTHER UPDATE: "A Facebook page, Operation Payback, and Twitter account, Anon-Operation, were both suspended due to them promoting 'unlawful activity'. But the Twitter account has returned with a new handle, Anon_Operationn." See also Forbes.

Information about protests and other events in support of Wikileaks here.

Interview with Julian Assange on the eve of his arrest here.

This article has some background on the allegations of sexual misconduct against Assange and other matters; see also here. Apparently he's been on Interpol's "most wanted" list because he continued intercourse after the condom broke.

In case I haven't mentioned it, the best source I've found so far for daily reporting and analysis of Wikileaks' ongoing releases is the most excellent UK Guardian.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS:

Naomi Wolf has a great piece at HuffPo, "Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police." Sample: "Thank you again, Interpol. I know you will now prioritize the global manhunt for 1.3 million guys I have heard similar complaints about personally in the US alone – there is an entire fraternity at the University of Texas you need to arrest immediately."

Good essay by Jack Hunter at The American Conservative, "The Conservative Case for Wikileaks," e.g., " . . . loyalty to the Republic necessitates treason to the Empire. Their interests are diametrically opposed. Secrecy (and indeed, duplicity) in all dealings of the State is a defining characteristic of empires, and exists primarily to protect the governing class from being held accountable by the governed."

Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The NYT) " . . . has said that labelling the Pentagon Papers leak as 'good' whilst the Cablegate leaks are 'bad' makes no sense. 'That's just a cover for people who don't want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.'" More here. UPDATE: Ellsberg will appear on The Colbert Report tonight.

Good essay by James Moore on HuffPo: "I am Julian Assange . . . and if you care about the truth, you are, too."

Yesterday, on NPR's Fresh Air, David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The NYT, stated that what Wikileaks does is not journalism. I find this claim self-serving and absurd; or alternatively, I only wish The NYT had done more non-journalism in the run-up to our invasion of Iraq based on gov't lies.

And I for one applaud Wikileaks' invention of "scientific journalism," in which you can click on a report and be taken directly to the source, so you can verify it for yourself. This is now easy to provide and could help counteract the proliferating, UNsubstantiated "journalism" on the internet, Faux News and elsewhere. (Assange's recent op-ed in The Australian, in which he discussed "scientific journalism," among other things, is well worth the read.)

One thought from a few days ago: When you see/hear some talking head calling Wikileaks "irresponsible," ask yourself who THAT person is responsible TO? Who signs that person's paycheck – you, or the powers that be?

PREVIOUS POSTS
(excluding a few less-substantive ones):

All posts contain links to sources with more details.

Wikileaks: What's at Stake? - 2010-12-08
A list of many of the issues implicated in the ongoing efforts by the US and other gov'ts to shut Wikileaks down.

Wikileaks: the Big Picture - 2010-12-06
A succinct statement of the big issue: a balance of power requires a balance of knowledge, and these days, Big Bros. know all about us while we know nothing impt. about them.

I'd also like to refer you to John Naughton's excellent Op-Ed for The UK Guardian: "The attack of WikiLeaks also ought to be a wake-up call for anyone who has rosy fantasies about whose side cloud computing providers are on. These are firms like Google, Flickr, Facebook, Myspace and Amazon which host your blog or store your data on their servers somewhere on the internet, or which enable you to rent "virtual" computers – again located somewhere on the net. The terms and conditions under which they provide both 'free' and paid-for services will always give them grounds for dropping your content if they deem it in their interests to do so."

Wikileaks Info Reveals Afghan Meltdown - 2010-08-09
A gif created by yours truly animating Wikileaked reports that show that violence in Afghanistan has increased since the US stepped up its efforts there.

Wikileaks - 2010-07-27
TED Interview with Assange from shortly before Wikileaks' publication of US military docs re- Afghanistan.

Wikileaks Releasing 6,780 Secret Reports Commissioned by Congress - 2009-02-10
Link to article with more details.

Whistle-Blowers' Site Taken Off-Line in the U.S. - 2008-02-18
Nearly three years ago, the US gov't disabled the wikileaks.org domain name in the US, but rescinded the order after the EFF and ACLU intervened; links to more details.

"Kettling," a.k.a. containment or corralling, is a police tactic for the management of crowds during demonstrations or protests.

More on "kettling" at Wikipedia.

What "O" Apparently Stands for

Assange à la Taiwan

From Next Media Animation.

Wikileaks: What's at Stake?

FURTHER UPDATE: For a more recent, complete statement of the case for Wikileaks, see here.

UPDATE: Anonymous's "Operation Payback" has now taken down the main Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal sites.

I'm more or less obsessed with this story for many reasons, some of which are roughly outlined as follows:

• For the chronological coincidence of the prospective disclosure of Bank of America secrets with the dramatic step-up in efforts to shut Wikileaks down by whatever means necessary (see also Market Ticker).
• For the fact that you can now donate to the KKK or the American Nazi Party with your MC or Visa, but you can't donate to Wikileaks.
• For the comparison between the hunt for Julian Assange and the hunt for Bin Laden.
• For the use of the women charging Assange with still unspecified sexual improprieties, considered together with the use of similar charges to neutralize other figures perceived as threats to the powers that be (e.g., Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Gary Condit, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, et al. – see here re- the latter, and see here re- the charges against Assange).
• For the use of the mass media to slander or discount a public figure seen as dangerous to the powers that be (Jimmy Carter, Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, et al.).
• For the comparison between Wikileaks' publications and the publication by The New York Times of the Pentagon Papers.
• For the contrast – to date – between Dr. David Kelly's fate vs. that of Assange, in light of the precautions each did/did not take.
• For what it shows about the toothlessness of the law when it comes to redress for abuses of power – i.e., what redress will Wikileaks have, if it ever establishes that Paypal, Amazon, Mastercard, et al. wrongfully terminated its accounts?
• For the First Amendment/freedom of speech issues.
• For the Fourth Amendment/privacy issues.
• For the comparison between the "treason" alleged to have been committed – though Assange is not a U.S. citizen and, despite frantic, months'-long efforts by governments in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Sweden, and elsewhere, Wikileaks' activities have yet to be argued plausibly to have broken the laws of any country – vs. that of members of the U.S. Congress and executive branch, who, despite their oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution and laws, are known to have committed, acquiesced in, or failed to investigate the following, most of which are still ongoing:

The creation of a "Constitution-free zone" (see here);

NSA/AT&T violations of Fourth Amendment and privacy rights, including mass wire-tapping and mining of e-mails of U.S. citizens (see various posts here and sources cited therein);

TSA and other governmental or quasi-gov'l violations of Fourth Amendment and privacy rights, including unreasonable, invasive searches without the least pretext of probable cause (see posts here {may include some repeats from previous link} and sources cited therein);

Secret service and police violations of First Amendment rights, including preemptive round-ups and detentions of protesters in connection with RNC's and other events (see various posts here and sources cited therein, esp. here and here);

The institution of policies of torture and assassination of U.S. citizens and others (see, e.g., here, here, and here);

The invasion of Iraq based on lies;


Etc.

• For the contrast, speaking of treason, between the efforts made to find and prosecute Assange vs. the relative lack of serious investigation or prosecution of those responsible for the outing of Valerie Plame and attendant destruction of her anti-WMD operations (see here and sources cited therein), or the lies that led to the US invasion of Iraq, or any of the Constitutional violations listed above.
• For what the story shows about how free the internet still is (see essay here).
• For what it suggests about how free the internet isn't (see posts here and sources cited therein), including the terrible risks we take by relying on the Cloud.

Note, not one person is known to have died as a result of any Wikileaks disclosure ever – while as of this writing, the still-mounting, governmentally-confirmed Coalition military deaths in Iraq total 4,748 (not to mention contractors, or the wounded) and Iraqi deaths total 1,421,933 (see the left side bar of this blog).

The inescapable inference is that what the powers that be fear most is not terrorists, but the truth.

As set out in my previous post, a balance of power requires a balance of knowledge; but the way things are now, corporations and the government know everything about us and we know almost nothing important about them.

There's a great deal at stake here, and I greatly fear many possible, negative effects. Perhaps most importantly, I believe we must prepare for the fact that this affair will greatly benefit the powers that be by mapping out in considerable detail the areas in which their control is still relatively weak, e.g., control over internet and other infrastructure, applicable law, etc.

Future Attribute Screening Technology

No joke. More at Wikipedia.

Wikileaks: the Big Picture

There are a lot of issues implicated in Wikileaks' recent publications and the world's responses to them, and I'm not at all sure what the exact resolutions of those issues should be. But I think it's important to keep the big picture in view.

We are living in times of extraordinary incursions against the rightful liberties and powers of ordinary citizens.

A big part of the problem is that knowledge is power, and a balance of power requires a balance of knowledge. But the way things are now, corporations and the government know everything about us and we know almost nothing important about them.

There have been periods in the past when the mainstream media did a better job of fulfilling its proper function as the "watchdog of democracy." It hasn't been doing that for some while. Part of that problem is that, leaving the internet aside for the moment, the vast majority of media worldwide are directly or indirectly controlled by oligarchs (see Wikipedia and the sources cited there).

As for the internet, the oligarchs are already well on their way to controlling most of it; witness the latest proposed FCC regulations.

Wikileaks almost certainly has not broken any laws. The U.S. government and others have been struggling mightily to conjure something to charge someone with for some time now, without success; clearly, they're going to have to get a lot more, shall we say, creative.

W.r.t. the U.S. Embassy cables, WikiLeaks has posted online only a small portion of the material leaked to it, and most of what it's posted was published first by one of its newspaper partners (The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, et al.). Moreover, the material posted by WikiLeaks contains the redactions applied by those papers to protect innocent people and otherwise minimize harm. (See Salon and sources cited therein for details.)

Wikileaks is not a spy operation any more than The NYT is. Rather, it's a journalistic organization whose mission is to publish what other people want to leak to them, if the information is credible and significant (see here).

Basically, I believe that t.m.i. is better than too little. I have more faith in our ability as a species to collectively sort through the info and interpret it helpfully, than I have in the likelihood that any smaller group of individuals entrusted with the power to pick and choose what we should know, without meaningful oversight, will fail to abuse that power.

Do I think no one should be able to have secrets? No. I certainly don't want all my personal info to be known, let alone published.

But there's an important distinction to be made between information held by governments or public corporations vs. individuals' personal info. I am not entrusted with the welfare of large numbers of consumers or citizens; and if I were, again, to the extent any info in my possession related to matters that could affect them, I don't think I should be allowed unilaterally to decide what they get to know about it.

Perhaps, ideally, it would be better to only expose the "sausage-making" processes behind our leaders' decisions (diplomatic or otherwise) to the extent we've actually been misled about the facts justifying those decisions. E.g., maybe it doesn't matter so much who wanted what out of the Iraq war, as that we were lied to about the reasons for starting it.

But it's hard to expose those lies without also exposing the back-room realities of who wanted what, esp. when you're a relatively small, underfunded operation.

And one thing we should all thank Assange for is irrefutable proof that one person can still make a difference.

Finally, I can't resist noting that, w.r.t. timing, it appears to have been Wikileaks' promised release of information on a major bank, believed to be Bank of America, after the end of this year that triggered the recent, dramatic step-up in pressure on Assange.

Let me also just mention, (1) the UK Guardian has published some truly great pieces on the whole affair, w.r.t. both reporting and analysis, including this one and this one (I strongly encourage you to read both); (2) you can download an archive of Wikileaks' releases that's complete as least as of the date of this post here (it's only a few MB's; you'll need StuffIt or something to unzip it); and (3) as of this writing, you can still reach Wikileaks' site here. (You can also find previous c-Blog posts on Wikileaks here.)

UPDATE: "A Twitter posting by American poet and essayist John Perry Barlow[:] . . . . 'The first serious infowar is now engaged' . . . . 'The field of battle is Wikileaks. You are the troops . . . '" "Using the moniker 'I Am Wikileaks,' supporters . . . [have] created more than 570 mirror versions of the Wikileaks website and have called for a boycott of Paypal, Amazon and EveryDNS, three US-based websites that recently severed ties to Wikileaks. . . . More here.

FURTHER UPDATE: Hot off the "press," Assange's Op-Ed for The Australian here (also well worth the read).