Things More Important Than the Spitzer Spectacle
There are few more riveting spectacles than the public exposure and humiliation of a major hypocrite. So it was with New York State’s fallen governor, Eliot Spitzer.
As a former prosecutor Spitzer relentlessly crusaded against financial, political and moral malefactors, including those involved in prostitution cases. Some saw him as a future presidential candidate.
Watching this modern Savonarola exposed dallying with outrageously priced call girls suggests there is indeed natural justice — except, of course, for the humiliation inflicted on his brave, loyal wife.
U.S. media has overflowed with silly commentary by feminists and shrinks about “why did he do it.” He did it because he was a typical man, genetically programmed to lust after multiple sexual partners. As the old saying goes, if a man isn’t thinking about sex, his mind is wandering.
Too many Americans still have adolescent views of sex and marriage.
Europeans, by contrast, shrug off men’s need to stray as normal and acceptable, provided it is done discreetly. Powerful, busy men such as Spitzer who have no time to court and romance women resort to prostitutes for simple physical release.
However ruthless, self-serving and hypocritical Spitzer was about prostitution, he was doing one good thing: Going after Wall Street’s crooks and fraudsters largely responsible for the current financial crisis.
Spitzer’s downfall this week unfortunately obscured two far more important events.
Saddam and al-Qaida
First, the White House refused to release an exhaustive Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents that found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any links with al-Qaida.
This al-Qaida connection was the second big lie propagated by the Bush White House to justify invading Iraq. So successfully was it spread by the administration and tame media, that on the eve of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, 80% of Americans blamed Saddam for 9/11.
A small, al-Qaida affiliate appeared in Iraq only as a result of the U.S. invasion. But most misled Americans still believe they are fighting Osama bin Laden’s men in Iraq. No wonder the White House is trying to suppress the Pentagon study.
Spitzer’s pillorying also masked another profoundly shameful act. On Tuesday, 188 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to uphold President George Bush’s veto of a Democratic-sponsored bill to ban the CIA from using torture to interrogate enemy detainees. Their party-line vote was strong enough to prevent the 225 Democrats who voted to overturn the president’s veto from achieving the required two-thirds majority.
Republicans now have become the party of torture. Never has the Grand Old Party sunk so low. Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.
Among tortures America now routinely inflicts on captives: Water torture, near suffocation, beatings, confinement in cramped positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, freezing rooms, ear-splitting noise, mock executions, psychotropic drugs, food laced with excrement and, of course, water-boarding.
Condoning torture
The White House and Republicans claim none of these is really torture. Republicans just love euphemisms. These tortures are merely “enhanced interrogation.” Overthrowing foreign governments is “regime change;” assassination, “taking them out.” George Orwell warned such double-talk was the hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Even the KGB did not use all these tortures.
The president and his party are violating American and international law, and UN agreements against torture.
Their sanction of torture, and its apotheosis in the Guantanamo gulag, have disgraced America’s name around the globe and will continue to haunt the United States for decades to come. Captured American soldiers now know what to expect.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain — the latter a torture victim — all properly condemn the White House for promoting torture. But McCain, who should know better, fudges, saying he won’t restrict the CIA to interrogations in the Army Field Manual, which bans most forms of real torture. That is ominous.
The Spitzer follies should not distract us from the Bush administration’s continuing violations of American and international law, and the values America used to hold dear. Nor ally Ottawa’s slide in the same illegal direction.
Eric Margolis writes a regular column for The Toronto Sun.
Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc.
Governor Spitzer leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Someone I admired greatly
let me down. That being said, it is true that tabloid reporting has won again. Fucking is a private issue(even if purchased). In the larger picture,
the criminality that has gone on in the past seven years eclipses anything
Governor Spitzer has committed.
I endorse neither arrogancies, but let’s get a sense of proportion. Which
set of arrogant bastards has done the most harm?
Even the KGB did not use all these tortures.
But the Inquisition and Nazis did.
I now have this feeling that I am living in the movies “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Hostel”.
Spitzer was a distraction. I knew when I saw Lou Dobbs on CNN railing against him that this was more than a conincidental finding. Why would Lou Dobbs, who is supposed to be a journalist and not a commentator, but who is the “money guy” on CNN, be so indignant that Spitzer was caught using the services of a prostitute? I could see the buildup to a massive media feeding frenzy beginning in the early hours of the announcement of the news. Turns out the Spitzer story effectively drowned out the other news of the week - torture and lies. Small minded Americans find it easier to get outraged that someone who did great things had a secret side, but don’t care to look at the immense amount of damage Bush/Cheyney and their band of thugs have done to this country and to the world. Fed by the media, colleagues expressed their outrage at Spitzer’s hypocrisy, but when I asked why they were not outraged about the war, the economy or the other life and death issues that affect us all, I was told it was too “complicated”. That sums it up. Sex is easy to understand and easy to condemn. An illegal invasion and occupation of another country based on lies and propoganda resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands is too complicated, too difficult and therefore ignored. When I leave the safety of Common Dreams, Pacifica Radio and like-minded progressives, I am frightened by the ignorance and pliability of my fellow Americans. They are so easily distracted, and are so easily manipulated. Another fake attack on America would easily get them whipped up for harsher measures than those that have already been taken - perhaps a crackdown on our own soil, further media restrictions, spying, detentions, so that the criminals in Washington can complete their neoconservative revolution and finally control the world.
Turn off your TVs so that you are not affected by their mind control techniques!
The Dept of Justice’s Public Integrity Section (PIN) investigates Democrats six times more often than Republicans. They are now investigating Barack Obama’s church.
The odd pattern of payments Spitzer made to his prostitute would normally not have been caught. The bank says they were concerned that they were bribes, but the amounts were so low (esp for someone as rich as Spitzer, who inherited his fathers real estate empire) that ordinarily no action would have been taken, unless someone had complained about a bribe (but no one did). And wouldn’t Spitzer be TAKING a bribe rather than paying it, given his influence? The bank wasn’t investigating a possible crime, they were investigating a person.
There was nothing ‘routine’ about the Justice Departments subsequent investigation, given the innocuousness of the payments. This was a politically motivated investigation in which your tax dollars were used to take down someone who couldn’t be taken down at the voting booth.
Remember the ‘DC Madam’ investigation? Federal prosecutors have shown little interest in exposing the Madam’s customer list, but have limited themselves to taking down the prostitution ring only. Is that what’s happening here? The two cases expose a clear DOUBLE STANDARD in the way prostitution is prosecuted in this country. Republicans who use these services are safe; Democrats are not.
We used to live in a country whose Justice Dept investigated crimes rather than people. Spitzer was targetted, plain and simple, and your tax dollars were used in the targetting. Along with Iraq and doubling the national debt, the politization of Justice in America is perhaps Bush’s worst crime against the country.
And given those other two crimes, that’s really saying something.
Spitzer also helped to regulate Wall St, did he not? And with the sub prime debacle and the way it’s being handled to ensure more of same, any dissenting voices of reason must be gotten out of the way.
NELSON you are so right about the mentality once one leaves the CD website. I find the ignorance of my neighbors so appalling, but they think they are getting informed from CNN and anyone who actually listens to Rush wants a license to hate others who are different. Their reptile brain has overcome any potential for empathy with their quite human brothers and sisters of other shades and cultural hues.
As for the comment that men need many sexual partners, that’s quite sexist. Women like variety, too? Or is this an offset of the imbecile from an Ivy League school trying to suggest that the number of sperm so overwhelm the number of female eggs as to justify the numbers game behind centuries of sexist abuse justified by supposedly biological urges for polygamy.
“However ruthless, self-serving and hypocritical Spitzer was about prostitution, he was doing one good thing: Going after Wall Street’s crooks and fraudsters largely responsible for the current financial crisis.”
And after grabbing his “crusader” headlines, Spitz then invented “deferred prosecution” for the biggest economic criminals in our history, allowing them to pay a pittance, not admit ANY “wrongdoing,” and get back to work - also known as robbing us blind.
One “good” thing, eh?
EM missed another important Spitz coincidence: just the day before, the FBI admitted to committing tens of thousands of felonies “by accident,” on top of the tens of thousands of felonies they’d already admitted to committing from ‘02-’05.
And not a single FBI agent has been charged with a crime. Imagine that?
Then, the next day, the same felonious FBI nails the Gov of NY, proving that INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY no longer applies in America. Now it’s FELONS make accusations and your life is destroyed before any charges are brought.
We’re number 1!
How sad to realize that two of the major legacies of Bush II came right out of Nazi Germany. We now proudly share with that enlightened nation the new - to us - concept of “the Homeland,” and the age old concept of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It sounded even better in the original German: “verschärfte Vernehmung.”
The spectacle is too absurd for words. Spitzer’s private life is not the public’s business. Sure, he can be called a hypocrit but he didn’t hurt anyone. He’s an evolving and imperfect person like everyone else. What the news media has done, has hurt a lot of people, both in this little drama, and by supporting the barbaric dogs of war.
Mafia money and billionaire Jews apparently own New York. Spitzer apparently pissed the wrong people off.
In Europe, they laugh (and worry) about the ugly Americans. The USA is the world’s #1 creator of horror - both on the world stage and in the cinemas.
What a horrible “prize”.
If Hilary or McCain take the white house, then I think we’ll see lots of good people leave the USA for good.
Do not ever underestimate the ignorance of Americans is an old adage that bears repeating. Millions turned in to the whore’s web site according to some reports, and we are told there might be a movie or book or hugh music sales. It is not surprising, then, that the mass media would find its usual common denominator in the hundreds of hours spent creating the “story” of the whore. NPR should have been an outlet for those who were seeking something more informative than the usual radio and T.V. junk, but sadly, NPR is almost as devoted to trivial and right wing nonsense as the other media. It is a sad state of affairs in the U.S. today, and it is likely to get worse..
Nelson: “further media restriction”
Check out the 3/12/08 entry at corporatecrimereporter.com
And so it goes…
I think it is so sad that Governor Spitzer has been brought down by is own indiscretions and overt hypocrisy; I feel very sad for his wife, Silda. Mrs. Spitzer of lately has been the subject of much commentary about the publically wronged wife and rightly so. It takes a lot of courage to “stand by your man” in such a time of humilation and hurt. I will keep this woman in my prayers that God will heal her heart and give her the calmness and clarity to get on with her life. I remember that there have been several other prominent wives in her situation - one of whom was Senator Hillary Clinton. Strength in adversity is a quality I greatly admire and all of us not involved, should take a second look at the recovery Senator Clinton has accomplished.
Margolis’ title thesis is correct, but he seems totally unaware of what is really going on with Spitzer.
ubrew12 just covered 1 aspect, that this was a massive invasion of privacy by the feds since they investigated legal behavior, and found no illegal (by fed law) behavior.
The key is the reason for dumping Spitzer, because he scared big business shitless. www.gregpalast.com
In 2003 80% of Americans blamed Saddam for 911. Mr. Margolis, thats the problem and nothing has changed. 80% of Americans are so politically, sophomoric ,moronic and apathetic that they remind me of what it must have been like to be in Germany in the minority,in the 1930’s, and see what is happening.The smart ones got out as they knew it was hopeless as Hitler and the Nazi regime had the whole country brainwashed. Sound familar?
Great Republicans huh ?! Margolis talks the talk now, i suppose it sells more papers this way !! But this old embedded Republican has definitely come a long way from when he had tremendous access to power (the very power he condemns now). This newly minted, reformed Margolis is easier to digest than the old Reagan loving, war-mongering cold warrior ! Yeah COMarc … go ahead and spew your guts …
Did eliot spitzer set himself up?
He could have been more discreet and he chose not to. why?
I am underimpressed with this particular story. I usually like reading Eric Margolis, but Reagan spinning in his grave? Please. Look at Reagan’s history. To be sure, he was mostly out of touch with reality, but he had no problem with CIA black ops in Central America. And just how much does Eric Margolis know about KGB methods?
And it’s natural for men to meet their sexual needs chasing after other women? So Spitzer was too busy to waste time seducing a woman? Or perhaps an illicit relationship might be threateningly messy for a public man. The problem is more likely a lack of real intimacy in his primary relationship. There is a high correlation between men - and women - in powerful positions and sex addiction. Any addiction is a distancing from the self and a lack of capacity for intimacy. Men’s “needs”. There are men who do not “need” additional sex partners for sexual satisfaction. Eric Margolis is normalizing infidelity for men and talking about brave loyal wives. Does this go both ways for him?
kathyodat
The USA is perverted…most people hate violence and love sex…the USA is scared shitless of sex and loves violence.
IF the USA were a person, they would be declared a dangerous psychopath and locked up.
NRA..was it campaign cash or his own cash? I hear he had plenty of his own. I guess it could be called a legitimate political transaction…was he just was “polling” her, or was he just screwing the electorate one person at a time?
last question…did the hooker Spitz-er swallow?
kathyodat — “Eric Margolis is normalizing infidelity for men and talking about brave loyal wives. Does this go both ways for him?”
You nailed it. But then Margolis has always justified capiatlism, imperialism, sexism, racism as long as it fits his world view.
By the way … spitzer has oodles of his own cash and doesnt need campaign cash to bust a nut ! I still think this is between Spitzer and his wife … he was able to go after Wall Street unlike most others and that deserves a heckuva lot more praise than his personal character. He is not a personal friend so I dont give a f~!@k what he does with his time !!
Why is Common Dreams publishing Eric Margolis . . . ?
Let’s also recall the $200 BILLION new printing job by the FED passed over in new “bail out” money for Wall Street and the banks —
Meanwhile, is there absolutely nothing wrong with prostitution, except that it’s illegal?
All over the world with the rise of the right we see the increased market for kidnapping and enslaving females in the sex trade. It’s an “occupation” of last resort, often
violent, often harmful to the females engaged in it. It is
organized crime which profits from the delusion that “buying sex” is sex.
Eeyore: I think you’re a bit confused on Nazi terminology. The closest word (in implication) to “Homeland” in German is “Heimat.” (There was a brilliantly satirical German film — made in the 1990s, I believe — with that title.)
During the Nazi era, Germany was referred to — by Germans — as the “Fatherland” (Vaterland).
“Why is Common Dreams publishing Eric Margolis”
I believe it’s sort of the Canadian position from a liberal paper demonstrating a sincere concern about US torture. The one page article isn’t a position paper on the ethics of Capitalism or prostitution. Torture is a serious issue which should be analyzed in more depth and in a serious scholarly manner in the US including in Common Dreams. That’s Margolis’s argument in a nutshell.
Reagan would be spinning in his grave, so, iow, Reagan was an honourable president, Margolis says. He, actually both, are NUTS. Margolis just lost credibility, enough that I’ll likely never bother with reading his articles again. Even if I’ve appreciated the little that was appreciable in a few of his articles over the past several years, having read maybe six or so over these years, they’ve NEVER been particularly significant in terms of substance or value; although might help the Toronto Sun to sell a few more issues than it otherwise might.
Like riddimboy says, Margolis is capitalist and not of well-balanced kind; and anyone who’s that way is someone to never entrust human rights and dignity with, NEVER. They are materialists, valuing material gain too much.
And BeForKids, kathyodat, on the sexual relations matter is right. Another way of stating what she says is, ‘ESCAPISM’; people trying, wittingly and not, to escape from their serious personal insecurities, as kathyodat says; or else basically says anyway. People who are truly secure about themselves would feel, and would be right to feel, insecure if they screwed up on their spouses; while the reverse happens with people who are really insecure.
And don’t confuse the latter, for such insecure people can be very confident, hence feel very secure, about some things, and in appearance anyway. F.e., and if frank1569 is right, Spitzer having put on a good show in going after Wall Streeters, while really amounting to nothing worthy of note, is something he’d know and would obviously feel secure enough about doing. Feeding that sense of security would be his knowledge that the powerful Wall Streeters he’s really helping to protect certainly will protect him on this legal “work” he did on (and for) them. If they didn’t have this kind of power, then he might be an obvious nervous wreck.
Bush et al only act as if secure because they know that they hold the reins of police state, the military, the DoJ, and the extremely corrupt DP and RP won’t really act against the Bush administration. Take away these securing factors and Bush et al would be running for their lives, if they lived long enough to be able to start to run anyway.
Their knowledge of being criminals can and likely does make them feel somewhat insecure, but while they’re nonetheless aware of being protected as just explained, above; and this insecurity can probably, if not surely does, “spill over” into insecurity in the person’s intimate relations, like the former, which has a real reason, catalysing, or else contributing to, the latter.
And they will DENY this, which is a “fruit” of their insecurities, again.
People who feel insecure, i.e., worried, for their families futures because the economy really is collapsing, or due to the West’s very extreme and broad wars against peace, or extreme environmental destruction and pollution, etc., or all of these concerns and issues; now this is reasonable insecurity based in or on the unreasonable outer and broad reality of great importance. But personal insecurities that are not really related to the world outside of ourselves are another and unhealthy matter; psychologically, … unhealthy. I believe that not being able to have a truly intimate relationship, instead of a superficial one, is due to either mis-education or insecurity, or a combination. Mis-education might be at the root of the insecurity, f.e.; and perhaps this is always true, wherein speaking of unhealthy, that is, unreasonable insecurities.
Anyway, based on what frank1569 posted, it seems Spitzer isn’t the great anti-Wall-Street crime “hero” I’ve been noticing as the sole reference people make or state about him on this particular topic. frank1569’s post is the very first time I’ve seen what he says, and I’m curious as to whether it’s true or not. I have a feeling he’s right. After all, what he says is … like … TO BE EXPECTED in the USA (also much in Canada, …); it’s “ho-hum” standard in the USA. That he’d be mistaken would be the less, including much less, likely possibility.
So is frank1569 right, or not?
Ashleigh Brilliant [Ashleigh Warren] 1933
The trouble is that sex is a force of nature, and reason is not
Conservatives attack, liberals defend…in the conservative corporate media anyway.
The right to torture is nothing more or less than a display of power. It has nothing to do with getting to the truth. The truth is usually already known. However as long as the echelons of power continue in their lust for status and inward hypocrisy, uniformed and uninformed pecking orders keep society in place, but only just. Mr. Spitzer showed that a lot of his political activities are media performance veil, such that while politicians appear to be doing one thing, they are doing another. His anti corruption crusades enable the removal of political enemies. His resignation was support appearances that what he was doing was not normality, when in fact it is what is happening all of time, all over the place. The resignation was to support the pretense of a religious conforming government. Better still would be not to have resigned , and to say to the American people, “this is what government really does all of the time”. That would have been honest. However I am sure he will now have a lot of money and time to enjoy it all. And may enter the arena again sometime.
The American Presidency stinks so much that one expects to be a fountain of lies. There is hypocrisy whatsoever in Mr President lying and ignoring Congress. There is nothing left of honor or truth in the system to resign over. A sewerage processing plant is more clean and honest in purpose, than the military and oil money laundering agency of the Congress of the US of I. There isn’t even a hollywood facade anymore. So Mr Bush can be and do anything, except behave like a man.
” whatfools March 16th, 2008 4:07 pm
Ashleigh Brilliant [Ashleigh Warren] 1933
The trouble is that sex is a force of nature, and reason is not”
MORONS WILL BELIEVE THAT that statement is wholly truly. But whatfools evidently believes that he was born without a brain, so MINDLESS. Well, I guess that that may be possibly true.
” hedology March 16th, 2008 4:18 pm
The right to torture is nothing more or less than a display of power. It has nothing to do with getting to the truth.”
FALSE AND TRUE, respectively. Well, the false part is somewhat false anyway, and the reason is that I believe that it is more than only “a display of power”; it’s, for ‘display’, a “display of INSECURITY”, being without conscience, etc. However, the initial point that I had in mind is that it is “a display of PSYCHOPATHY”.
Former pope JP II referred to this “display of power” as one of “blood cult Christian”, when he was considering GW Bush’s character as president; considering that he’s ‘blood cult’ “Christian”, while having also wondered about the antiChrist “possibility”. Of course this wasn’t about the torture crimes, but the threat of war on Iraq. Still, I think the reflections JP II was having or expressing applies to both contexts.
I also believe that some of these extreme cases of psychopathy are likely, enough, sometimes related to satanism, literally, or quasi-literally.
Bush is psychopath; it’s as obvious as day and night not being the same. He’s psychotic, or delusional, as hell too; when claiming and, I suppose, believing that he really had or has conversations with God and that He tells Bush to commit murder, and far more. This “lends” to the satanism perspective, if Bush indeed had voices from non-temporal or non-physically temporal (maybe it was entirely, only within his demented mind) source, speak to him this way. Maybe it was Cheney or Rover speaking through an earphone that no one saw; perhaps it was strictly from Bush’s SICK mind; or … non-temporal altogether (?). Anyway, it’s a family that “dabbles” in the evil types of occult crap, and whether it’s satanism in explicit or implicit form, I can certainly treat it as satanism; for it is truly EVIL and Satan’s “king” (prince) of EVIL.
It’s not a [real] power that the Bush administration has; it could not stand on its own for two seconds without the MANY buttresses holding it up. Remove all of the “agreeable” military and police state, and the criminal allies, and what’s left? Bush and Cheney trying to run for their lives, if they are lucky to have enough time to even think of running. They’d be panicking, first of all.
[Real] power is a very distinct matter. Power comes from the supporters. Similarly, true leadership is non-existent without supporters. A person can have true leadership qualities, but unless the person is in a context in which these qualities are applicable, an individual could live an entire lifetime without ever having been able to realise that they have “what it takes” to be true leaders. Many pretend to be true leaders, and they get many ‘dumb animals’ for support, but leading herds of ‘dumb animals’ is not what I consider as being true leadership, which happens only when the supporters are truly intelligent, etc.
Police state and military have real power and it’s very atrociously abused; but Bush and Cheney have no power of their own.
It’s the same thing with any criminal organisation; the leaders of these have no significant power, unless they have their supporters.
A brute can brutalise weaker individuals, but it’s not a significant example of power; it instead is psychopathic bullying and really a display of serious weakness, character FLAW.
Nature’s forces are powerful, but I won’t develop on this basis, for we’re speaking of people possessing, or not, power. Nature doesn’t act with a mind of any kind, healthy or not; it has no mind. People seem to often have no mind, because they clearly have no moral conscience, but they have minds alright; extremely sick ones.
All together, Bush et al and their powerfully equipped and many buttresses, this overall is powerfully evil; but take away the buttresses and the Bush administration will turn into rubble.
Something like this order of consideration anyway, I believe.
OTOH, the people legitimizing and exercising the torture may indeed believe that they’re displaying power; and the persons tortured can certainly feel overpowered, while being able to realise that the torturers are cowards and really character-WEAK. I don’t think it really is power, but can see why people would refer to it as “display of power”.
Loosely speaking I may, if not do, also employ the term ‘power’ without abiding to this above explanation; but if someone was to ask me what I think [real] power is, then I will use the above sort of outlook.
This is my “thumb” assessment, for it’s not a topic I’ve given much thought to; only having occasionally gone through this above reasoning.
The conservatives have already won. Now can we go home?
canadatoimperium — “Torture is a serious issue which should be analyzed in more depth and in a serious scholarly manner in the US including in Common Dreams. That’s Margolis’s argument in a nutshell.”
Thanks imperium. Youve cleared THAT up. Now the only question I still have lingering in my hollowed out brain is — Why is Margolis, an old Taliban-loving (sorry freedom-fighter-loving), washed up, ethically-challenged geezer lecturing us about torture ?
American puritanism is irritating. So what if Spitzer hired a prostitute, who said politicians are paragons of virtue? Why hold him to the standards that many millions of Americans don’t hold themselves to? Power and influence are almost a guarantor of such behaviour. Its just that all of the rage is so badly misplaced. People find it easier to get angry about Eliot Spitzer hiring a prostitute over getting angry about the hugely unethical crimes of Bushco. You may not agree with Eric Margolis as a person or as a columnist but his point remains valid. Many Americans ignore serious issues in favour of the trivial and sordid. Again I’m surprised by people who say, “Why does CD publish X?” As progressives, we should accept other viewpoints, even if we disagree with them. Otherwise we become as censorious as the conservatives we oppose. We don’t have to share every single viewpoint of the people we read in order to accept that they might have something to say. It doesn’t mean we roll over for those people but it does mean that we should at least accept their right to be published and to have a view.
“OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED CALL GIRLS”???
Quite frankly, at least they seem to deliver the goods. Which is more than all these - mostly male - politicians do, and they get a lot more money for it.
And if you view prostitution as a regular job, a beautiful young woman going to bed with some old ugly guy definitely shouldn’t leave him with the impression that she does it because he is so wonderful. So the price is quite okay. It sets the record straight.
It sounds like Spitzer’s “War on Wall Street” would in the limit force the industry to serve the small time capitalist better so that the machine may survive intact and distract far more people from what is the much better economic organization, and that is local economies with strict limits on enterprise size. So maybe the silver lining in the cloud of Spitzer’s downfall could be a hastening of the total downfall of Wall Street and the rise of the local economy, limited to small independent farmers craftsmen and merchants, craftsman guilds and cottage industries, without the gargantuan captitalist parasites on the backs of people.
So the two scenarios compared:
Scenario A, Spitzer prevails: Then Wall Street continues to rule over markets, governments, and people. The people have no say over issues of war, or human or environmental health, wages, or anything else. The people remain dependent on the securities market to suppliment their meager incomes to make ends meet, to pay for college, and for retirement. This is the Wall Street and Forture 500 exec’s dream scenario. The Guilded Age Squared.
Scenario B, Spitzer fails: Then Wall Street continues to sink in the quicksand of corruption, collapses like in the Great Depression, and the people finally wake up and understand the source of their problems is Wall Street, and we finally have our progressive revolution, we shift to localism, limit enterprise size, and the people gain full economic, political and social self-determination. The Enlightenment Squared. Populist Utopia.
I have an idea for reminding the Dumbocrats in Congress about impeachment that will affect their pocketbooks. I don’t know why I’m not seeing this advocated everywhere… Whenever they send me a request for money, I return the request with a penny or two taped to it. I tell them I’d have given more money to reelect them, but first I need them to uphold the Constitution and start impeachment proceedings. When they do, they’ll get the rest of my contribution. I always put a stamp on the envelope, so at least I’m not costing them postage. If every patriotic Democrat did this, they’d have to do something. They need to know that we are out here. We are not wearing tin hats, we are using our logical, moral, and yes, patriotic brains to come to the conclusion that impeachment is ALWAYS on the table.
RTDRURY: There is room for plan C & D and so on…
Margolis sez: “Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.”
??? - The current crop of blood and poverty being reaped in the U.S. - and much of the world - was planted during the term of the doddering nut at the end of this list.
Margolis sez: “McCain, who should know better, fudges, saying he won’t restrict the CIA to interrogations in the Army Field Manual, which bans most forms of real torture.”
So his Senate vote against the banning of torture was a “fudge”?
NRA Freedom sez: “When a Republican is caught sucking someone off in an airport bathroom, that is big news and fodder to denounce all Republicans. But, when a Democrat is illegally using campaign cash to pay hookers, and violating the Mann Act to boot, “there are more important things”?
Nice try Klaus, but reports thus far indicate it was his own money. The real difference in your comparison is that the bathroom republicon sought out his undercover cop while Spitzer was tracked down by the SS. Oh, and bathroom guy gets to keep his job. Don’t worry … the scribblers on this website pose no threat to your beloved Reich.
>>
>> While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an
>> ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just
>> down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board
>> Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200
>> billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry
>> speculators.
>>
>> Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a
>> BIG difference. The Governor was using his own
>> checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.
>>
>> This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its
>> history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth
>> of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’
>> mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot
>> was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking
>> predators who have brought two million families to the
>> brink of foreclosure.
>>
>> Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely
>> politician who stood in the way of this creepy little
>> assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
>>
>> Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the
>> bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
>>
>> How? Follow the money.
>>
>> The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that
>> millions of US families are about to lose their homes
>> because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took
>> loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s
>> blaming the victim.
>>
>> Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to
>> power, a new species of loan became the norm, the
>> ’sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans
>> with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of
>> nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became
>> America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in
>> five home loans, a large chunk of these ’sub-prime.’
>>
>> Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US
>> average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at
>> 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of
>> their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a
>> new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years.
>> But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of
>> spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because
>> their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now,
>> the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover
>> the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly,
>> payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The
>> Grinnings move into their Toyota.
>>
>> Now, what kind of American is ’sub-prime.’ Guess. No
>> peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and
>> Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus
>> 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers
>> aren’t stupid - they had no choice. They were
>> ’steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking
>> business.
>>
>> ‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers,
>> fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent
>> conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were
>> almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton
>> Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and
>> state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.
>>
>> But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and
>> its banking brethren were told to party hearty - it
>> was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.
>>
>> But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney
>> General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these
>> guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.
>>
>> Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok,
>> Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer
>> and states attempting to stop predatory practices.
>> Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of
>> “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to
>> NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.
>>
>> Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block
>> Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage
>> steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially
>> steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across
>> the nation using New York State laws.
>>
>> Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their
>> predatory enablers in the investment banking
>> community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark,
>> its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others
>> joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and
>> Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major
>> profit centers. They did this through a bit of
>> financial legerdemain called “securitization.”
>>
>> What that means is that they took a bunch of junk
>> mortgages, like the Grinning’s, loans about to go down
>> the toilet and re-packaged them into “tranches” of
>> bonds which were stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond
>> rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as
>> sparkling safe investments to US school district
>> pension funds and town governments in Finland
>> (really).
>>
>> When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked
>> off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers
>> were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo
>> Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this
>> year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion
>> dollars - he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.
>>
>> But there were rumblings that the party would soon be
>> over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the
>> weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up
>> were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock
>> was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing
>> to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share
>> blocks.
>>
>> Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable
>> happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s
>> Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior
>> Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George
>> Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators,
>> potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.
>>
>> The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and
>> dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering
>> bankers. They got the public treasure - and got to
>> keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a
>> foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public
>> bailout. Not one family was saved - but not one banker
>> was left behind.
>>
>> Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value.
>> Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The
>> Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion
>> in an afternoon.
>>
>> And that very same day the bail-out was decided - what
>> a coinkydink! - the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall
>> Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.
>>
>> Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take
>> him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works.
>> But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken
>> out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party.
>> Headlines in the financial press - one was “Wall
>> Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s
>> enforcers at Justice who their number one target
>> should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.
>>
>> It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the
>> bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington
>> Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words
>> for the Washington Post about predatory loans:
>>
>> “Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to
>> protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and
>> unprecedented campaign to prevent states from
>> protecting their residents from the very problems to
>> which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”
>>
>> Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the
>> “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President,
>> said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer
>> was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the
>> Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the
>> planet.
>>
>> Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the
>> subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating
>> effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners
>> the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”
>>
>> But now, the Administration can rest assured that this
>> love story - of Bush and his bankers - will not be
>> told by history at all - now that the Sheriff of Wall
>> Street has fallen on his own gun.
>>
>> A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”
>>
>> Back in the day when I was an investigator of
>> racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I
>> was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case
>> based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes.
>> I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name, but
>> I want to mention he was recently seen shouting,
>> “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”
>>
>> Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public
>> exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial
>> discretion.”
>>
>> Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator
>> David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington
>> DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the
>> Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting
>> the pimp-ring that pampered him.
>> Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer - rarely done
>> in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of
>> Bush’s Justice Department.
>>
>> Or maybe we should say, ‘indiscretion.’
>>
>> ************
>> Greg Palast, former investigator of financial fraud,
>> is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Armed
>> Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
WILLY BILLY: Thank you for the important posting. And we know that the prosecutorial discretion process was itself being thwarted by the political appointments and dear Harriet Miers and friends letting Bush know which states attorney generals were “friendly” to his regime, and which might pose “problems,” in the small manner of giving justice any possibility of of a fair rendering. This group has made a mockery of EVERY major law, shit on the citizenry, burned a nation’s people, robbed our treasury, broken countless laws and now their boy McCain is hoping to take over where they left off.
Makes me think they got McCain to go along with Bush 7 years ago by promising him his shot a the throne if he’d only lick the boots of the same regime that made up all kinds of lies to destroy his already thin reputation. Nice bunch. They’ll probably invent a whole new social diversion, the afternoon torture lunch, by invitation only.
” hedology March 16th, 2008 4:18 pm
The right to torture is nothing more or less than a display of power. It has nothing to do with getting to the truth. ”
I DON’T SEE IT THAT WAY, for power really is a neutral term; it can be either good, positive, or bad, negative. What I instead perceive the ability to apply torture, while the torturers and their superiors know that this doesn’t do any good, is simply disgusting INSANITY.
They don’t need to exercise torture to people who are detained and can’t escape in order to feel like they’re exercising power. The power is already illustrated through the detentions, alone.
MORE is just INSANITY, lusting to do wrong, to side with evil, to be of the ‘blood cult’, ….
Take a judo expert who firmly but harmlessly immobilises an aggressor. The judo expert knows very well that he or she then has the ability to inflict serious harm, as well as death; but does not need to exercise this excessive force in order to know that he or she is in a position to be able to do so. It is SANITY that prevents the judo expert from committing any extended or additional harm.
SANITY VS INSANITY, PSYCHOPATHY, EVIL.
Hence we obviously do NOT perceive ‘power’ in the same terms, and I’ll stick with my realisation of what it really means; like in a scientific sense of understanding the term. The distinction, one anyway, is understanding not what power can look like on the surface, but what is really involved.
We ALL need to understand what is going on with the money supply - it is the root of all the problems, and like your great Thoreau said, you got to strike at the root. Banketeering - how the banks have been stealing trillions from you, and the tap is still running http://www.rudemacedon.ca/dlp/box/box01-money.html
Margolis writes:
“Republicans now have become the party of torture. Never has the Grand Old Party sunk so low. Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.”
Excuse me? I seriously doubt torture is anything even remotely new to the US military, or the CIA, or any of the myriad dark ops forces available to the Mandarins of Washington. As for those “great Republicans” named above at least two, and most likely all three would have had “Enemies of America” tortured in a heartbeat. Reagan certainly would have, and you can bet he would have endorsed and implemented the policy even faster than did these 21st century butchers from DC.
Mrs. Spitzer is hot.
Mr Spitzer is not.
Mr. Spitzer got caught
It is blatantly obvious that Spitzer was taken down. If you think he is the only man in a position of power to have his hooker tab traced by the American Stasi, you are incredibly naive.
People should be concerned about what happened to Spitzer, but not for the prima facie reasons. What happened to Spitzer appears to be a symptom of a problem that is endemic to contemporary politics.
You can’t get in unless someone has the goods on you. If Spitzer really were squeaky clean, he would never have been permitted to hold office. I seriously doubt that Mark Brener was an independent operator.
Note well that I am not condoning Spitzer’s conduct, or trying to make excuses for him. I AM saying that what happened to him was not simply a case of getting caught with his pants down.
George Bush and the rest of his gang has f-cked over 3 million Iraqis and not as much as a peep from our media whores. Seems it is every night I have to suffer through one F-ing hero soldier story after another. Don’t get me wrong: MOST of the soldiers have honorable intentions. My issue is that this bunch of corporate-controlled motherf-ckers in the White House and Wall Street are exloiting the men and women who really do mean well.