On 2 November 2008, the New York Times Magazine headlined “Questions for James K. Galbraith: The Populist,” which was an “Interview by Deborah Solomon” of the prominent liberal economist and son of John Kenneth Galbraith. She asked him, “There are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis” which had brought on the second Great Depression?

He answered: “Ten or twelve would be closer than two or three.”

She very appropriately followed up immediately with “What does this say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?”

He didn’t answer by straight-out saying that economics isn’t any more of a science than physics was before Galileo, or than biology was before Darwin. He didn’t proceed to explain that the very idea of a Nobel Prize in Economics was based upon a lie which alleged that economics was the first field to become scientific within all of the “social sciences,” when, in fact, there weren’t yet any social sciences, none yet at all. But he came close to admitting these things, when he said: “It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.” His term “useless” was a euphemism for false. His term “blot” was a euphemism for “nullification.”

On 9 January 2009, economist Jeff Madrick headlined at The Daily Beast, “How the Entire Economics Profession Failed,” and he opened:

At the annual meeting of American Economists, most everyone refused to admit their failures to prepare or warn about the second worst crisis of the century.

I could find no shame in the halls of the San Francisco Hilton, the location at the annual meeting of American economists. Mainstream economists from major universities dominate the meetings, and some of them are the anointed cream of the crop, including former Clinton, Bush and even Reagan advisers.

There was no session on the schedule about how the vast majority of economists should deal with their failure to anticipate or even seriously warn about the possibility that the second worst economic crisis of the last hundred years was imminent.

I heard no calls to reform educational curricula because of a crisis so threatening and surprising that it undermines, at least if the academicians were honest, the key assumptions of the economic theory currently being taught. …

I found no one fundamentally changing his or her mind about the value of economics, economists, or their work.”

He observed a scandalous profession of quacks who are satisfied to remain quacks. The public possesses faith in them because it possesses faith in the “invisible hand” of God, and everyone is taught to believe in that from the crib. In no way is it science.

In a science, when facts prove that the theory is false, the theory gets replaced, it’s no longer taught. In a scholarly field, however, that’s not so — proven-false theory continues being taught. In economics, the proven-false theory continued being taught, and still continues today to be taught. This demonstrates that economics is still a religion or some other type of philosophy, not yet any sort of science.

Mankind is still coming out of the Dark Ages. The Bible is still being viewed as history, not as myth (which it is), not as some sort of religious or even political propaganda. It makes a difference — a huge difference: the difference between truth and falsehood.

The Dutch economist Dirk J. Bezemer, at Groningen University, posted on 16 June 2009 a soon-classic paper, “‘No One Saw This Coming’: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models,” in which he surveyed the work of 12 economists who did see it (the economic collapse of 2008) coming; and he found there that they had all used accounting or “Flow of Funds” models, instead of the standard microeconomic theory. (In other words: they accounted for, instead of ignored, debts.) From 2005 through 2007, these accounting-based economists had published specific and accurate predictions of what would happen: Dean Baker, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Stephen (“Steve”) Keen, Jakob B. Madsen, Jens K. Sorensen, Kurt Richebaecher, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Robert Shiller.

He should have added several others. Paul Krugman, wrote a NYT column on 12 August 2005 headlined “Safe as Houses” and he said “Houses aren’t safe at all” and that they would likely decline in price. On 25 August 2006, he bannered “Housing Gets Ugly” and concluded “It’s hard to see how we can avoid a serious slowdown.” Bezemer should also have included Merrill Lynch’s Chief North American Economist, David A. Rosenberg, whose The Market Economist article “Rosie’s Housing Call August 2004” on 6 August 2004 already concluded, “The housing sector has entered a ‘bubble’ phase,” and who presented a series of graphs showing it. Bezemer should also have included Satyajit Das, about whom TheStreet had headlined on 21 September 21 2007, “The Credit Crisis Could Be Just Beginning.” He should certainly have included Ann Pettifor, whose 2003 The Real World Economic Outlook, and her masterpiece the 2006 The Coming First World Debt Crisis, predicted exactly what happened and why. Her next book, the 2009 The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers, was almost a masterpiece, but it failed to present any alternative to the existing microeconomic theory — as if microeconomic theory isn’t a necessary part of economic theory. Another great economist he should have mentioned was Charles Hugh Smith, who had been accurately predicting since at least 2005 the sequence of events that culminated in the 2008 collapse. And Bezemer should especially have listed the BIS’s chief economist, William White, regarding whom Germany’s Spiegel headlined on 8 July 2009, “Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis.” (It is about but doesn’t mention nor link to https://www.bis.org/publ/work147.pdf.) White had been at war against the policies of America’s Fed chief Alan Greenspan ever since 1998, and especially since 2003, but the world’s aristocrats muzzled White’s view and promoted Greenspan’s instead. (The economics profession have always been propagandists for the super-rich.) Bezemer should also have listed Charles R. Morris, who in 2007 told his publisher Peter Osnos that the crash would start in Summer 2008, which was basically correct. Moreover, James K. Galbraith had written for years saying that a demand-led depression would result, such as in his American Prospect “How the Economists Got It Wrong,” 30 November 2002; and “Bankers Versus Base,” 15 April 2004, and culminating finally in his 2008 The Predator State, which blamed the aristocracy in the strongest possible terms for the maelstrom to come. Bezemer should also have listed Barry Ritholtz, who, in his “Recession Predictor,” on 18 August 2005, noted the optimistic view of establishment economists and then said, “I disagree … due to Psychology of consumers.” He noted “consumer debt, not as a percentage of GDP, but relative to net asset wealth,” and also declining “median personal income,” as pointing toward a crash from this mounting debt-overload. Then, on 31 May 2006, he headlined “Recent Housing Data: Charts & Analysis,” and opened: “It has long been our view that Real Estate is the prime driver of this economy, and its eventual cooling will be a major crimp in GDP, durable goods, and consumer spending.” Bezemer should also have listed both Paul Kasriel and Asha Bangalore at Northern Trust. Kasriel headlined on 22 May 2007, “US Economy May Wake Up Without Consumers’ Prodding?” and said it wouldn’t happen – and consumers were too much in debt. Then on 8 August 2007, he bannered: “US Economic Growth in Domestic Final Demand,” and said that “the housing recession is … spreading to other parts of the economy.” On 25 May 2006, Bangalore headlined “Housing Market Is Cooling Down, No Doubts About It.” and that was one of two Asha Bangalore articles which were central to Ritholtz’s 31 May 2006 article showing that all of the main indicators pointed to a plunge in house-prices that had started in March 2005; so, by May 2006, it was already clear from the relevant data, that a huge economic crash was comning soon. Another whom Bezemer should have listed was L. Randall Wray, whose 2005 Levy Economics Institute article, “The Ownership Society: Social Security Is Only the Beginning” asserted that it was being published “at the peak of what appears to be a real estate bubble.” Bezemer should also have listed Paul B. Farrell, columnist at marketwatch.com, who saw practically all the correct signs, in his 26 June 2005 “Global Megabubble? You Decide. Real Estate Is Only Tip of Iceberg; or Is It?”; and his 17 July 2005 “Best Strategies to Beat the Megabubble: Real Estate Bubble Could Trigger Global Economic Meltdown”; and his 9 January 2006 “Meltdown in 2006? Cast Your Vote”; and 15 May 2006 “Party Time (Until Real Estate Collapses)”; and his 21 August 2006 “Tipping Point Pops Bubble, Triggers Bear: Ten Warnings the Economy, Markets Have Pushed into Danger Zone”; and his 30 July 2007 “You Pick: Which of 20 Tipping Points Ignites Long Bear Market?” Farrell’s commentaries also highlighted the same reform-recommendations that most of the others did, such as Baker, Keen, Pettifor, Galbraith, Ritholtz, and Wray; such as break up the mega-banks, and stiffen regulation of financial institutions. However, the vast majority of academically respected economists disagreed with all of this and were wildly wrong in their predictions, and in their analyses. The Nobel Committee should have withdrawn their previous awards in economics to still-practicing economists (except to Krugman who did win a Nobel) and re-assigned them to these 25 economists, who showed that they had really deserved it.

And there was another: economicpredictions.org tracked four economists who predicted correctly the 2008 crash: Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Med Jones, the latter of whom had actually the best overall record regarding the predictions that were tracked there.

And still others should also be on the list: for example, Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider headlined on 21 November 2012, “The Genius Who Invented Economics Blogging Reveals How He Got Everything Right And What’s Coming Next” and he interviewed Bill McBride, who had started his calculated riskblog in January 2005. So I looked in the archives there at December 2005, and noticed December 28th, “Looking Forward: 2006 Top Economic Stories.” He started there with four trends that he expected everyone to think of, and then listed another five that weren’t so easy, including “Housing Slowdown. In my opinion, the Housing Bubble was the top economic story of 2005, but I expect the slowdown to be a form of Chinese water torture. Sales for both existing and new homes will probably fall next year from the records set in 2005. And median prices will probably increase slightly, with declines in the more ‘heated markets.’” McBride also had predicted that the economic rebound would start in 2009, and he was now, in 2012, predicting a strong 2013. Probably Joe Weisenthal was right in calling McBride a “Genius.”

And also, Mike Whitney at InformationClearinghouse.info and other sites, headlined on 20 November 2006, “Housing Bubble Smack-Down,” and he nailed the credit-boom and Fed easy-money policy as the cause of the housing bubble and the source of an imminent crash.

Furthermore, Ian Welsh headlined on 28 November 2007, “Looking Forward At the Consequences of This Bubble Bursting,” and listed 10 features of the crash to come, of which 7 actually happened.

In addition, Gail Tverberg, an actuary, headlined on 9 January 2008 “Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008,” and provided the most detailed of all the prescient descriptions of the collapse that would happen that year.

Furthermore, Gary Shilling’s January 2007 Insight newsletter listed “12 investment themes” which described perfectly what subsequently happened, starting with “The housing bubble has burst.”

And the individual investing blogger Jesse Colombo started noticing the housing bubble even as early as 6 September 2004, blogging at his stock-market-crash.net “The Housing Bubble” and documenting that it would happen (“Here is the evidence that we are in a massive housing bubble:”) and what the economic impact was going to be. Then on 7 February 2006 he headlined “The Coming Crash!” and said “Based on today’s overvalued housing prices, a 20 percent crash is certainly in the cards.”

Also: Stephanie Pomboy of MacroMavens issued an analysis and appropriate graphs on 7 December 2007, headlined “When Animals Attack” and predicting imminently a huge economic crash.

In alphabetical order, they are: Dean Baker, Asha Bangalore, Jesse Colombo, Satyajit Das, Paul B. Farrell, James K. Galbraith, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Med Jones, Paul Kasriel, Steve Keen, Paul Krugman, Jakob B. Madsen, Bill McBride, Charles R. Morris, Ann Pettifor, Stehanie Pomboy, Kurt Richebaeker, Barry Ritholtz, David A. Rosenberg, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, Robert Shiller, Gary Shilling, Charles Hugh Smith, Jens K. Sorensen, Gail Tverberg, Ian Welsh, William White, Mike Whitney, L. Randall Wray.

Thus, at least 33 economists were contenders as having been worth their salt as economic professionals. One can say that only 33 economists predicted the 2008 collapse, or that only 33 economists predicted accurately or reasonably accurately the collapse. However, some of those 33 were’t actually professional economists. So, some of the world’s 33 best economists aren’t even professional economists, as accepted in that rotten profession.

So, the few honest and open-eyed economists (these 33, at least) tried to warn the world. Did the economics profession honor them for their having foretold the 2008 collapse? Did President Barack Obama hire them, and fire the incompetents he had previously hired for his Council of Economic Advisers? Did the Nobel Committee acknowledge that it had given Nobel Economics Prizes to the wrong people, including people such as the conservative Milton Friedman whose works were instrumental in causing the 2008 crash? Also complicit in causing the 2008 crash was the multiple-award-winning liberal economist Lawrence Summers, who largely agreed with Friedman but was nonetheless called a liberal. Evidently, the world was too corrupt for any of these 33 to reach such heights of power or of authority. Like Galbraith had said at the close of his 2002 “How the Economists Got It Wrong“: “Being right doesn’t count for much in this club.” If anything, being right means being excluded from such posts. In an authentically scientific field, the performance of one’s predictions (their accuracy) is the chief (if not SOLE) determinant of one’s reputation and honor amongst the profession, but that’s actually not the way things yet are in any of the social “sciences,” including economics; they’re all just witch-doctory, not yet real science. The fraudulence of these fields is just ghastly. In fact, as Steve Keen scandalously noted in Chapter 7 of his 2001 Debunking Economics: “As this book shows, economics [theory] is replete with logical inconsistencies.” In any science, illogic is the surest sign of non-science, but it is common and accepted in the social ‘sciences’, including economics. The economics profession itself is garbage, a bad joke, instead of any science at all.

These 33 were actually only candidates for being scientific economists, but I have found the predictions of some of them to have been very wrong on some subsequent matters of economic performance. For example, the best-known of the 33, Paul Krugman, is a “military Keynesian” — a liberal neoconservative (and military Keynesianism is empirically VERY discredited: false worldwide, and false even in the country that champions it, the U.S.) — and he is unfavorable toward the poor, and favorable toward the rich; so, he is acceptable to the Establishment.) Perhaps a few of these 33 economists (perhaps half of whom aren’t even members of the economics profession) ARE scientific (in their underlying economic beliefs — their operating economic theory) if a scientific economics means that it’s based upon a scientific theory of economics — a theory that is derived not from any opinions but only from the relevant empirical data. Although virtually all of the 33 are basically some sort of Keynesian, even that (Keynes’s theory) isn’t a full-fledged theory of economics (it has many vagaries, and it has no microeconomics). The economics profession is still a field of philosophy, instead of a field of science.

The last chapter of my America’s Empire of Evil presents what I believe to be the first-ever scientific theory of economics, a theory that replaces all of microeconomic theory (including a micro that’s integrated with its macro) and is consistent with Keynes in macroeconomic theory; and all of which theory is derived and documented from only the relevant empirical economic data — NOT from anyone’s opinions. The economics profession think that replacing existing economic theory isn’t necessary after the crash of 2008, but I think it clearly IS necessary (because — as that chapter of my book shows — all of the relevant empirical economic data CONTRADICT the existing economic theory, ESPECIALLY the existing microeconomic theory).

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

Cartoon: Martha Rosenberg.

There are multiple sides to Evanston resident Martha Rosenberg. Those who know her mainly from her cartoons for the Evanston RoundTable (she was staff cartoonist from 2001 to 2021) think of her as a visual commentator on modern life, while readers of her 2023 exposé of Big Pharma and agribusiness, Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Lies (original 2012 title: Born with a Junk Food Deficiency) see her as an investigative journalist, raking the fragrant muck of the food and drug industries and the federal agencies that ostensibly regulate them. With the recent publication of Food, Clothes, Men, Gas and Other Problems, Rosenberg reveals her lighter side, mining the humor, awkward moments and small-scale triumphs of everyday life.

Her book is a congeries of comic vignettes, sharp observations about the strange times we live in, as well as interviews conducted over the last 20 years or so with movers and shakers. Also included are more than 50 of her distinctive, thick-lined cartoons and illustrations, which underscore the book’s droll, wise-gal spirit.

If there’s anything that binds together this wide-ranging collection of Rosenberg’s pictures and prose, it’s the simultaneously engaged and ironic tone she maintains. It’s a cool tone, without overt anger or accusation, but leaving no doubt where she stands. One catches a whiff of Erma Bombeck here and there, especially in the pieces on home and the work world. Rosenberg’s book, however, isn’t just about wry acceptance of life’s ups and downs. There’s usually a critique under the surface, but it’s delivered with a gentle touch. In a world with altogether too much pontification and dogmatism, Rosenberg never addresses us from on high. Her stance is that of an Everywoman going through what we go through, and sharing her stories the way a friendly neighbor or co-worker would.

The interview was conducted by e-mail and edited lightly for clarity and space.

HI: Tell me a little bit about yourself, Martha. How did you get into the writing and cartooning field?

MR: I began writing for underground newspapers in New Orleans, then did a stint as an advertising copywriter – which got me so mad at corporate spin that I returned to underground reporting. A few years ago I experienced writers block (nature’s own rejection slip, as they say) so I began cartooning, a skill that uses the right rather than the left hemisphere of the brain. I also attended medical school, which made me more health-oriented.

My writing and reporting style were inspired by Village Voice writers like Alexander Cockburn, James Ridgeway, James Wolcott and Eliot Fremont-Smith, as well as the inimitable Tom Wolfe – writers who could be funny while also challenging the status quo.

HI: What inspired you to write this particular book?

MR: I’ve been reporting on corruption in the food and drug industries for 20 years and just got sick of being such a Debbie Downer. There are so many things that are funny in this world: romance and its mishaps, job searches and interviews, the cluelessness of the fashion industry, etc. I just wanted to be less serious and do some standup-type writing for a while. I especially wanted to look at under-reported social developments like apartment rage during COVID, transit rider aggravations, the changing retail and food landscapes, and the decline of print journalism.

HI: The title – “Food, Clothes, Men, Gas and Other Problems” – suggests this is a woman’s book. But I found much of interest here. How should men approach this book?

MR: The jokes about single women, clothes, PMS and men not helping with housework certainly skew female. But most of the book is general humor about the economy, bad employers, romance, driving, sexuality, Starbucks, cooking, working from home, family and other topics that I think and hope will amuse everyone.

HI: Do you think America has less of a sense of humor than it used to? Have we become a nation of finger-wagging killjoys? If so, why – and what can be done about it?

MR: Good question. Old-time wit has taken a hit as people prefer to listen instead of read and talk rather than write. Universities now consider listening to audio “reading.”

Also, I think a lot of once-tolerant Americans – including maybe myself – have morphed into social justice warriors. Nothing is funny because everyone is potentially offended. People are quick to feel “unsafe” or become victims of “microaggression.” Reactivity and proxy indignation are the national emotions. In the chapter about telling a joke, I note that you can’t tell a “dumb blonde” joke even if you are a blonde, as I am. In Mad Magazine days, people used to say, “That’s not funny; it’s sick.” Today the meme is more like, “That’s not funny; I’m offended.”

But if you look at comedians of the past like Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory or George Carlin, you see that humor can change society, too. Bill Maher certainly gets people mad but his humor gets them to listen.

HI: In addition to the comic observations, your book contains a series of interviews with political and cultural figures. Who was your favorite interviewee?  

MR: Well, I had the good fortune of interviewing some public figures like Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart; William Moyers, addiction expert, author and eldest son of television journalist Bill Moyers; former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick J.  Kennedy; and psychology experts Melody Beattie and Brene Brown.

One of my favorite interviews was with Gail Collins of the New York Times, who wrote a book called As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda, as well as America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. She is witty, and had me in stitches with an anecdote about the late Charles Keating, the crooked banker central to the S&L crisis of the 1980s and ’90s. When Collins was a girl, Keating lectured her class at a Catholic school on behalf of an anti-pornography group called “Citizens for Decent Literature.” In his speech, he blamed a fatal car accident on a woman wearing Bermuda shorts.

One of the funniest interviews in the book is with the late cartoonist John Callahan. He was an alcoholic wheelchair user with a spinal cord injury who would joke about his own situation, as in the title of his book, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot. One of his cartoons shows a woman at a 12-step meeting for arm amputees crying “I just need a hug.” He titled one of his cartoon collections, Digesting the Child Within.

HI: Talk about your friendship with the late film director – and one-time National Lampoon editor – John Hughes, whom you interview here. Was he a big influence on you?

MR: John, known for movies like Mr. Mom, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and many others, was a huge influence on me. He taught me how to find a kernel of sociological truth in characters and events – the skill that made him the undisputed cinema chronicler of the 1980s. John also taught me how to write a screenplay.

If you had met John, you would never have known he was a Hollywood great. He was humble and inquisitive. He thirsted to know about other people’s experiences whether they drove a truck, worked as a landscaper or were 12 years old.

HI: In part, this book is a reflection on social change. In what ways has America changed dramatically for better or for worse, or both, over the past generation?

MR: Certainly, gender roles have changed – for example, as one essay here asks, what would the Camel Filters Man think about cell phones, bottled water and messenger bags – and the recession and COVID have severely squeezed the American pocketbook and workplace.

In terms of quality of life … well, just try to find a live person on the phone or at a reception desk today. Thanks to Amazon, the Internet and cell phones, food, retail products and information are accessed more quickly but are not of better quality. As a result, too many people are overweight, depressed and isolated.

Just as bumper stickers used to read, “Hang up and drive,” I think people need to “Unplug and laugh.”  They need to go on a run, a hike, or visit a friend … in person, not online.

HI: Your book points to so many absurdities and nuisances that all of us – men and women – face every day, from the fact that women’s clothing is often designed by men to the widespread inability to tell a joke. If there was one problem you could solve with a stroke of the pen, what would it be?

MR: If there were any way to abolish AI, I would – though of course we can’t; we’ve created a monster. Not only has AI put many writers and others out of work, it is framing our news, creating and placing ads (including clickbait), and spying on our purchasing and computer habits for profit. It has become the new Fourth Estate. I do not talk about AI in Food, Clothes, Men, Gas, and Other Problems because it’s not funny!

The post Looking at the Lighter Side of Life: An Interview with Martha Rosenberg appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Hugh Iglarsh.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Calls are growing for President Biden to posthumously exonerate Ethel Rosenberg following newly publicized documents proving that the FBI knew of her innocence long before she was prosecuted by the federal government more than 60 years ago. Rosenberg and her husband Julius were charged with sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union and executed on June 19, 1953. A federal pardon or exoneration would be “the right thing to do,” says Massachusetts Congressmember Jim McGovern, who is part of an effort led by the Rosenbergs’ son Robert Meeropol “to get history right.” Ethel Rosenberg “was framed,” says Meeropol. “She was not a spy.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Many more self-described leftists and liberals are supportive and participate in national security state/Democratic Party attacks on Trump and his supporters. In doing so, first, they are oblivious to the fact that these repressive police state operations will be used against them in the future. We saw that when we okayed blocking access to Alex Jones’ website because of his abusive and cruel attacks on the Sandy Hook families and killings as a hoax. Once we tolerated that, the national security state used the same measures against hundreds of our own anti-war websites.

Second, in supporting police state operations against Trump, leftists are caving into the Democratic Party and the national security state, some at a faster rate than others. Traditionally, liberals and leftists have always considered, either consciously or not, the Democrats as the “lesser evil.” They paint Republicans, particularly with the rise of Trump, as a fascist threat that must be stopped. In reality, the ruling class has no need for fascism in the present political climate of a quiescent and disorganized working class.

The Man with the Horned Hat and “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding”

We saw liberal and left supporters of civil liberties silent after the imprisonment of Jacob Chansley, the January 6 man with the horned hat. He was sentenced to 3 ½ years for “obstruction of an official proceeding,” even though the prosecutors admitted he was non-violent, that the videos of him in the Capitol showed he was respectful of the police, and was actually guided around by some of them.

Jimmy Dore reported that police agencies had infiltrated the groups involved in January 6 long before it occurred, so they knew well enough what to expect. Dore also reported over 100 undercover police (FBI, Department of Justice and Homeland Security police, DC Metro Police, Secret Service, etc.) were part of the January 6 crowd both outside and inside the Capitol.

For those of us who see the need for fundamental social change in this country, as most in the US now do, obstructing an official proceeding will sooner or later be obligatory – if many of us have not done so already. 

Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes and Seditious Conspiracy

Liberal and left supporters of civil liberties were also silent after Stewart Rhodes, head of the police-infiltrated Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years for “seditious conspiracy.” Key Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins, was tried but not found guilty of “seditious conspiracy.” She is, incidentally, is a transwoman — so much for the view that these right-wingers are “transphobic.”

Seditious conspiracy is codified as:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. 

To “conspire” to use “force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” In contrast, Martin Luther King proclaimed, “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

“Seditious conspiracy” was used to imprison Puerto Rican nationalists opposed to the US occupation of their country. In 1936, Pedro Albizu Campos and other leaders of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party were found guilty of the “crime.” Later, 17 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party were charged after four of them carried out the 1954 shooting inside the Capitol, wounding five Congresspeople. Oscar Lopez Rivera, who declared, “By international law, a colonized people has the right to fight against colonialism by any means necessary, including the use of force,” was imprisoned for seditious conspiracy and other charges.

On January 6, thousands of people went to the Capitol to protest, and hundreds went inside, some by violently attacking the police, some by breaking in, some let in by the police. The Oath Keepers were not some driving force behind the riot. It is silly to think a few hundred people, without guns, could seize control of the Capitol from armed police forces, let alone overturn an election. 

Stewart Rhodes, leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers, didn’t engage in violence against the government, didn’t carry a weapon, didn’t go inside the Capitol, didn’t vandalize government property, and wasn’t commanding those outside or inside the Capitol. His crime was apparently talking about revolution in private chats and lamenting after the event that “we should have brought rifles.” How is that so different from the Black Panthers? The Oath Keepers didn’t bring guns to the Capitol, and they didn’t take part in an “insurrection” — everyone left the Capitol after just a few hours when asked to. Rhodes was basically convicted for mouthing off to his associates — a common occurrence among leftist revolutionaries. The government prosecution failed to prove they had a coordinated plan to seize the Capitol, let alone overthrow the government.

In spite of this, the sentencing judge declared Rhodes conspired with others “to take up arms and foment revolution.” That is exactly the reason many leftists support some version of the Second Amendment. Rhodes had his sentence jacked up to 18 years with a “terrorism enhancement” charge, in part because the Oath Keepers had weapons elsewhere.

The judge could assert, “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.” Rhodes’ lawyer legitimately stated his case was about the “weaponization of speech by the Department of Justice.” Exactly the same was true of Eugene Debs and later Socialist Workers Party leaders for their “seditious conspiracy” convictions for opposing US involvement in World War I and World War II.

Sedition and conspiracy prosecutions, like those the Biden administration pursue, turn advocacy of ideas into a crime. This conviction of Rhodes, if not thrown out, you can expect to be used against a working class left wing in the coming years.

Donald Trump and the Espionage Act

Last summer President Biden branded so-called MAGA Republicans as “semi-fascists” who “threaten the very foundations of our Republic.” Liberals and leftists use the same label to describe Trump supporters, who they claim are white supremacists and reactionaries.

In January 2017, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer bluntly admitted who really controls Washington when he said President Trump was “being really dumb” by challenging the US police state apparatus. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” he foretold.

The latest national security state operation is the Biden administration attempting to jail and exclude his chief rival in the upcoming presidential election, Trump, by charging him with treason. That is unprecedented in US history. There would be outrage and cries of a fascist government takeover if in 2020, sitting President Trump had charged his chief presidential rival, Joe Biden, with treason and aimed to imprison him for having classified and secret government documents in his garage and elsewhere. Trump could just as easily have done that, just as he could have charged Hillary and Obama with treason for the same reason.

Previously the Espionage Act had been used against Eugene Debs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Daniel Ellsberg, and Julian Assange. Obama used the Espionage Act more than all previous presidents combined in order to shut down public knowledge of criminal US military policies abroad and at home. The Obama administration charged Jeffrey Sterling with espionage, a former CIA officer who publicized details of covert CIA spying on Iran; Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency official who attempted to blow the whistle on NSA spying; Chelsea Manning, who provided information about US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan; John Kiriakou, who leaked information about the illegal torture of detainees; Edward Snowden, who showed the NSA was engaged in massive illegal surveillance against the world population; and Daniel Hale, who leaked documents about the Pentagon’s drone assassination program.

The national security state and its puppet Biden are using this same Espionage Act to try to lock up Biden’s main opponent in the 2024 presidential campaign. Trump is an anathema to them in part because he is against their proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, just as he was against their war on Iraq. Tucker Carlson made this point in a show now seen by 101 million.

Tulsi Gabbard highlighted that this prosecution of President Biden’s rival is like “authoritarian regimes around the world [that] wield the power of the state to silence or eliminate opposition.” She called out the blatant double standard when it came to the same by Clinton, Biden, when CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied under oath to Congress, when 51 senior intelligence officials deliberately lied and labeled Hunter Biden’s laptop Russian disinformation, when FBI officials spread the Russia-Trump collusion hoax.

Carlson’s and Gabbard’s positions are ones that leftists and defenders of civil liberties should be taking. However, because of widespread anti-Trumpism in the liberal-left milieu, they don’t because they worry of losing their “left” credentials by standing up and condemning Democratic Party backed police state operations against right-wing groups, against Trump, against the attempt to deny people’s right to vote for Trump. We also saw this fear of standing for people’s rights and against the Democrat and police state operations with their support for the Russiagate hoax, with their condemnation of the Ottawa protestors, with unjustified sentences of those January 6 protestors who were non-violent. We even see it with the hesitation of many liberals and the left to defend Julian Assange and the Uhuru Movement, as they are considered “pro-Russian.”

Given liberals and leftists paint the Republicans as a fascistic party, it follows they see — whether they admit it or not — the Democrats as the lesser evil. No matter that all Democrats in Congress vote to arm Ukraine fascists in the war on Russia, and only Republicans, a minority, oppose it. It is irrelevant to the Democrats how much you criticize them and what names you call them if in November you ok voting for them to stop the Republicans from winning. That makes you an election time supporter of the Democratic Party. That makes people like Bernie Sanders, even Cornel West and “left” groups, sheep dogs for the Democratic Party because in the end they say the Republicans are so dangerous we can’t let them win.

This amounts to caving into the Democratic Party, the national security state, and inevitably to the ideology they push. One counterproductive result is that Trump becomes seen by much of the public as one real opposition to the national security state. He said after his indictment, the “deep state…they want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom…They are not coming after me, they are coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way….” He is standing in their way, he is seen as a threat to their controlling power, though he differs from his enemies only in the manner of maintaining US imperial world rule. But in the end, Trump is right: what the national security state does to him, they will later do to us.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stansfield Smith.

Photograph Source: Roger Higgins – Public Domain

The case, many say, is long closed.

It’s been 70 years since the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of spying for the Soviet Union.

It’s been 28 years since the public release of decrypted Soviet cables revealing that Julius Rosenberg was indeed guilty, and at least strongly implying that Ethel Rosenberg knowingly participated in his espionage work — not just typing documents to hand over to his handlers, but even actively recruiting her own brother into the operation.

But we still don’t know the whole truth, and not everyone who’s interested in the truth has forever to wait around for it.

Michael and Robert Meeropol are, respectively, 80 and 76 years old.

They were, respectively, ten and six years old when their parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, went to their graves as convicted spies.

“Though we grew up believing in our parents’ innocence,” the brothers say in a June 16 statement, “as adults we adjusted our views as we learned more about the case. … the truth was more important than our beliefs.” The Soviet decrypts convinced them of their father’s guilt. But “we would like to know the full truth about our mother’s case before we die.”

The National Archives informs the Meeropol brothers that it possesses half a million pages of still-classified information that could be relevant to a Freedom of Information Act request they filed in pursuit of that truth. The NSA admits to  possessing still more such information. “We were told that it will take years just to review the documents, let alone declassify them and make them public.”

It’s already BEEN years. Seventy years since the Rosenbergs’ executions, 72 years since their convictions, 73 years since their arrests, and for that matter more than 30 years since the Soviet Union disappeared into history’s dustbin.

The kind of information involved — on, per Wikipedia, “American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs” — has all almost certainly long since become widely known, or obsolete, or both.

Similarly, any information pertaining to US intelligence “sources and methods” has been superseded by new sources and new methods.

Why does the US government continue to keep these particular secrets?

The only answer that fits is “because they can.”

And not just in this case. The US government has continued to hide information on the JFK assassination case,  “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” aka UFOs,  and heaven only knows what other things, for decades on end, without penalty and absent any accountability, throwing out the phrase “national security” as a trump card any time they’re pushed on such matters.

We really need to fix that. All of it. ASAP.

And we should start by getting two old men some answers about their mom before they follow her into eternity.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior and was authored by Andrea Chalupa & Sarah Kendzior.

The post Barry Rosenberg: a Fearless Force for Wild Nature appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.

In the second half of the show, we learn about the iconic, pathbreaking civil-rights activist, lawyer, clergy, and feminist, Pauli Murray (1910-1985), from Simki Kuznick, author of a newly-published Murray biography. That which Murray fought for foreshadowed and impacted many of the civil rights campaigns that continue to this day.

Notes:

Tracy Rosenberg is Executive Director of Media Alliance, a San-Francisco-based advocacy organization involved in a wide array of campaigns, including net neutrality, personal privacy, and many other issues.

Sue Buske is Vice-Chair of ACM West, and heads a consulting firm (the Buske Group) assisting local governments and nonprofit organizations on cable-TV matters. The California Assembly bills discussed on the show are AB2635 and AB2748.

Simki Kuznick is the author of “Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life” (from Rootstock Publishing). While living in California, she helped found the group Interracial Pride. Now based in the Washington, DC area, she is a writer and editor, holds an MFA in Creative Writing.

The post Special Guests Tracy Rosenberg, Sue Buske, and Simki Kuznick appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.