James Petras: US Elections: From the Lesser to the Greater Evil!

There is ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political spectrum further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues Obama has embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor, and in the process devastating what remained of the peace and social movements of the past decade. Moreover, the Obama Presidency has laid the groundwork for the immediate future, promising a further extension of regressive policies, following the presidential elections: Cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Incumbents and their opposition compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding from wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the post election period in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements, anti labor and environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put forth by the Obama campaign, but numerous militarist and regressive social policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign, playing off of the reactionary proposals of the Romney Tea Party alliance: A coverfor his own record of unprecedented military spending, sequential wars, immigrant expulsions, mortgage foreclosures and Wall Street bailouts. In the process, critical liberals have crossed the line, surrendering their integrity by deflecting attention from Obama's militarist socially regressive policies, to focus on opposing Romney as a greater evil: Progressives and critical liberals have multiplied and magnified the duplicity of the Obama political apparatus. In the name of opposing Romney, the current greater evil, they dare not enumerate and specify the wanton political crimes and monumental socio economic in justice perpetrated by their lesser evil candidate Obama. Will the progressives ever honest and publicly state: We back Obama in swing states because he has only murdered 10,000 Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis, is starving 75 million Iranians via sanctions, gives $3 billion for Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally oversees the arbitrary executions of US citizens, and promises an extended kill list, because Romney promises to be worse.   

Chris Hedges: The S&M Election!!

I learned at the age of 10, when I was shipped off too a New England Boarding school, where the hazing of younger boys was the principal form of recreation, that those who hunger for power are psychopathic bastards. The bullies in the forms above me, the sadistic masters on our dormitory floors, the deans and the headmaster would morph in later life into bishops, newspaper editors, college presidents, politicians, heads of state, business titans and generals. Those who revel in the ability to manipulate and destroy are demented and deformed individuals. These severely diminished and stunted human beings, think Bill and Hillary Clinton, shower themselves, courtesy of elaborate public relations campaigns and an obsequious press, with encomiums of piety, patriotism, devoted to public service, honor, courage and vision, not to mention a lot of money. They are at best mediocrities and usually venal. I have met enough of them to know. So it is with some morbid fascination that I watch Barack Obama, who has become the prime "dominatrix" of the liberal class, force us in this election to plead for more humiliation and abuse. Obama has carried out a far more egregious assault on our liberties, including signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), than George W Bush. Section 1021(b)(2), which I challenged in federal court, permits the US military to detain US citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. US District Judge Katherine B Forrest struck down the law in September. The Obama administration immediately appealed the decision. The NDAA has been accompanied by use of the Espionage Act, which Obama has turned to six times in silencing whistle blowers. Obama supported the FISA Amendment Act so government could spy on tens of millions of us without warrants. He has drawn up kill lists to exterminate those, even US citizens, deemed by the ruling elite to be terrorists.     

Tom Burghardt: HSBC Caught in New Drug Money Laundering Scandal

While HSBC's Canary Wharf masters are back peddling furiously over charges that they gave a leg up to terrorist financiers and drug traffickers as a recent US Senate report charged, new evidence emerged that its business as usual for the multinational banking giant, founded by Hong Kong based British opium merchants. Earlier this month, The Independent reported that French police had intercepted one of the dozens of go fast cars which transport cannabis at high speed from Spain to Paris. The seizure banal in itself unraveled an extraordinary network of drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud and tax evasion, which sprawled over the invisible barrier which separates Paris from the city's poor, multiracial suburbs." The bank embroiled in this latest scandal? Why HSBC, of course! According to reporter John Lichfield, "bank notes handed by clients to street drug dealers in the suburbs were ending up, French and Swiss investigators discovered, in the safes of seemingly law abiding, well heeled citizens in the French capital." But that's not the only place where crisp bundles of cash were turning up. "A trio of Moroccan brothers, including a prominent fund manager in Geneva, are alleged to have concocted an elaborate scheme to launder money by balancing two illegal flows of cash," The Independent averred. At the center of this multimillion euro money laundering spider's web were: Meyer El Maleh, the managing director of the fund management firm GPF SA, and brothers Mardoche El Maleh, the alleged bagman of the cannabis for cash scheme and Nessim El Maleh, a fund management specialist with the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA. The Independent reported that the trio "are suspected of handling up to 12m euros in cash , gold ingots, art treasures and guns."

Julian Pecquet: Russia Skewers US Election as Undemocratic!!

The Russian government is lambasting the US presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle, amid growing concerns about the country's own commitment to free and fair elections. The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy, following reports that some US states would turn away international election monitors at the polls. The Kremlin funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged US election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country, and the short shift given to third party candidates by the American media. The US electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared this week, "is the worst in the world." Observers say the attacks against America's election system are largely fueled by domestic politics in Russia. Voting has become a touchy subject for the Kremlin, following the massive demonstrations that pro democracy activists staged against the legislative elections that were held in December. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the fraud allegations that sparked the turmoil raised "serious concern." Further, observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said President Vladimir Putin's election to a third six year term in March was marred by "serious problems." The US Russia relationship "has become a part of the chess game of domestic Russian politics," said Matthew Rojansky, the deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's not surprising that attacking the United States, and trying to diminish the credibility of what is said by Americans and what comes from Washington, is very much now in the interest of the Russian authorities," Rojansky said. "It says something about the state of the relationship. There's not a lot of trust right now. We're defaulting to a lot of bad old habits, this kind of tit for tat criticism, which was common during the Cold War." 

Emilio Godoy: Social Cleansing in Mexican Cities!

Homeless People and Panhandlers Targeted by Police: Non governmental organizations in Mexico are presenting a complaint before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights about government mistreatment and "social cleansing" of thousands of people living on the street in several of the country's cities. Among the cases cited by the plaintiffs are Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, on the US border,where they allege that homeless people and panhandlers are being removed outside the city limits by the police. The same practice, with variations, is occurring in the western city of Guadalajara, which has an urban planning program designed to remove the homeless from the center of the city, and in Mexico City itself, where they are being taken from the historic center of the city and forced to live under bridges, viaducts or elevated highways, increasing their vulnerability. Activists say the common denominator of all these actions is the violation of the rights of street people, a sector for which the outgoing Mexican government of conservative President Felipe Calderon lacks specific policies. The session of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights "will make the state give an appropriate answer, and will open up a long term process for human rights violations to be redressed as part of a public agenda," Juan Martin Perez, the executive director of the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (REDIM) told IPS. Perez, whose coalition is made up of 73 child rights advocacy groups, will attend the hearing of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC. Perez, whose coalition is made up of 73 child rights advocacy groups,will attend the hearing of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC.  

Juan Cole: Five Disturbing Signs Romney Would Steer Us Wrong!

The mainstream media and even Democrats, have been slow to call Mitt Romney's deliberate falsehoods "lies." But after just calling them what they are, it is also important to analyze their meaning. Lies on Romney's scale do not simply show contempt for the intelligence of American voters. They show contempt for democracy, and display some of the features of capitalist dictatorship of a sort that was common in the late twentieth century. Mohammad Reza Pahlevi in Iran, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, Park Hung Chee in South Korea, and PW Boetha in South Africa are examples of this form of government. Capitalist dictatorship has declined around the world in favor of capitalist parliamentarism, in part because of the rising power of middle and working classes in the global South. Capitalist dictatorship has many similarities to fascism, but differs from it in lionizing not the workers of the nation but the entrepreneurs of the nation. Fascism seeks a mixed economy, whereas capitalist dictatorship privileges the corporate sector and attacks the nationalism. Both glorify military strength and pick fights with other countries to whip up nationalist fervor. Both disallow unions, collective bargaining and worker strikes. Both typically privilege one ethnic group within the nation, marking it as superior and setting up a racial hierarchy. One big difference between capitalist dictatorship is the willingness of the business classes to play by the rules of democratic elections, to allow a free, fair and transparent contest, to acknowledge the rights of unions, and to respect the universal franchise. Businessmen in such a society share a civic ethic that sees these goods as necessary for a well ordered society, and therefore as ultimately good for business. They may also be afraid of the social disruptions that would attend any attempt to whittle away workers' rights. Attempts to limit the franchise, to ban unions, and to manipulate the electorate with bald faced lies are all signs of a barracuda business class that secretly seeks its class interests above all others in society.

Stephen Rosenfeld: Republicans Whip Up Fears of Rigged Voting Machines!

The Republican National Committee has opened another front in its propaganda war to discredit potential election results in a half dozen swing states. The RNC sent a letter to top state election officials this week, saying that it has received reports of electronic votes that are cast for Romney, immediately turning into votes for Barack Obama. The top election officials in two of those states, Nevada and North Carolina, quickly wrote back letters calling the RNC's charge "irresponsible and unfortunate," and based on little more than "rumors and Internet hysteria." Both gave detailed explanations why the RNC's alleged vote hopping scenario was little more than a blip. They said machine errors occur, but noted that voters are given multiple chances to review and change their choices. "The rumors and Internet hysteria surrounding allegations of DREs, direct recording electronic voting machines switching votes in North Carolina has centered around Guilford County," wrote Gary O Bartlett, Executive Director of North Carolina's Board of Elections. "Since early voting started in Guilford County October 18th, there have been reports of 24 alleged incidents on DRE machines. That is out of more than 1000,000 ballots cast. These incidents occurred early in the voting period, and all these voters in the alleged incidents noticed the concern in the review ballot and changed their vote." "Unfortunately, your letter fails to provide any direct evidence that any particular voter in Nevada experienced 'errors' with their voting machine, or any details which could be used to open an investigation," wrote Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, in his reply to RNC Chief Counsel John R Phillippe Jr. "To date, our multi jurisdictional task force has not received any direct, first hand complaints from voters experiencing voting machine errors of the type you describe."