Those Central American kids & more...

Those Central American Kids

You may have read the latest “news” that Central American kids sneaking into the U.S. threaten to overwhelm our capacity to assimilate them. For example, Darrell Steinberg’s recent piece in the Bee intelligently touts aid for education in Central America rather than what we have previously done (supporting death squads and military dictatorships).

Says Aviva Chomsky in her recent editorial:

“The situation is not really hard to grasp.  There are three main reasons that Central American youth are crossing the border: they are fleeing lack of opportunity; they are fleeing violence; and they are seeking to reunite with parents and other family members already in the United States.  Although the media talk about “Central American children,” almost all of the detainees are, in fact, coming from only three of the six countries of Central America:  Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.  There are almost none from Belize, Nicaragua, or Costa Rica.  Anybody who remembers the 1980s can probably guess why.  The enormous quantities of military “aid” that the United States poured into Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras helped create an environment of violently enforced inequality whose bitter fruits are still being reaped.”

The three things of note here are:

a) as Ms. Chomsky points out, the immigration is nothing new, but the “news” is being manufactured to turn out the anti-immigrant vote in November

b) U.S. military depredations into Central America, like the overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, play a significant role in this flood of immigrants. And finally,

c) our commitment to “free” trade amounts to an attack on the economies of these countries whose infant industries, including agriculture, can’t possibly compete with the U.S.

In the wake of NAFTA, not only did the U.S. have to supply the Clinton administration’s $20 billion to deal with capital flight (so no banks would lose money), the population experienced a 34% decline in real incomes (Source: Ravi Batra Greenspan’s Fraud). The flood of subsidized U.S. corn put many subsistence Central American corn farmers out of business, and they naturally migrated to supply “Gringolandia” with the immigrant labor it needs so they could survive and feed their families.

To give you an idea of what “34%” means: GDP in the U.S. declined 34% in the Great Depression. After the withdrawal of Russian subsidies in the early ‘90s, the Cuban economy experienced a similar decline in real incomes. I’ve read the average Cuban lost 20 pounds after that.

So… don’t be fooled by the divide-and-conquer tactics being staged for the upcoming elections.

And don’t forget that, in addition to voting for the Iraq war, voting to tighten the law so student loans can’t be retired by bankruptcy, and recently criticizing Obama for not being belligerent enough, Hillary supported the military coup in Honduras that is at least part of the problem here.

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The Real “Great Satan” … Private Banks

I’ve been reading Ellen Brown’s The Public Bank Solution (From Austerity to Prosperty), and it keeps getting better and better.

Did you know that publicly-owned banks were part of New Zealand's, Canadian and Australian history? How about the U.S? Does anyone remember the RFC (Reconstruction Finance Corporation), a publicly-owned bank that began in the Great Depression, and funded vast infrastructure projects throughout the U.S?

For example, it funded the Bay Bridge from the East Bay to San Francisco. The original tolls: 50¢ ($4.50 in current, inflation-adjusted dollars).

How much of current revenues from the bridge goes to pay interest to private banks? Fifty-five per cent. The RFC funded self-liquidating projects (e.g. bridge tolls paid the loans), and manufactured the money itself, just like the privately-owned banks ("fractional reserve lending"). The difference is that the profit was reinvested in the communities, not some plutocrat’s private hoard.

Even more astonishing is the history of how banksters subverted these public banks, taking control of the currency, and making astronomically larger national “debts” as a consequence.

Remember, the RFC did not contribute to national “debt,” its self-funding projects made money.

I’ve reminded you that current public financing funds the likes of Goldman Sachs. The vampire squids of Wall Street are responsible for everything from worsening the Greeks’ current (worse) version of the Great Depression, to financial failures in the U.S. like Alabama’s Jefferson County’s bankruptcy.

And they’re setting up another one in Sacramento with the Kings’ subsidy. Goldman Sachs is selling those bonds--and, not incidentally, provided the advice that Sacramento would have to pay the higher, non-tax-exempt interest rate for this project's financing.

The question is: When is the public going to wake up to the parasitic nature of the financial sector? It’s grown out of hand, its frauds remain un-punished (except for fines that amount to the cost of doing business), and its current business model remains just that: fraud.

More links:

Recommended: An interview with Cornell West about Obama. Hint: He thinks Obama is a a “drone president,” a phony. Another hint: he’s right.

Propaganda is everywhere: The New Yorker defends GMOs. Vandana Shiva, the Indian anti-GMO activist subject of the article writes a rebuttal pointing out just how full of propaganda is even the New Yorker's work here. 

What's astonishing about this is the lengths to which the likes of Monsanto will go to squeeze profits out of even the poorest farmers, and then the lengths to which it then goes to promote the propaganda that it is a social benefactor. It's enough to make a person suspicious...