Friday, September 12, 2014

Selfie Queen of Our Narcissistic Society

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore
comments_image 275 COMMENTS

Why Kim Kardashian Is the Perfect Icon 

for Our Sick Society

275 COMMENT 
 
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.comSeptember 4, 2014  |  
 
 
 

Whether she is Insta-gramming her butt, or spending $827,000 on gold-plated toilets for her new mansion, or in her latest exploit, posing nude on silver sheets for GQ, Kim Kardashian has the American media in a fawning frenzy of non-stop headlines.
Her body!
Her money!
Her fame!
Kardashian represents the pinnacle values of late-stage American-style capitalism: opportunism, effortless celebrity, obsession with wealth and image, narcissism, and above all, making a fortune doing nothing useful.
In her ripened curves, the fruits of unbridled capitalism are made flesh. In her dogged ambition to be rich and be seen, she is the Lady Bountiful of the Celebrity-Industrial Complex, endorsing any product that will have her, no matter how contradictory. Diet systems? Of course! McDonald’s? Mais oui! The mirror image of the market stripped of regulation, she is the Marketer unburdened by responsibility.
Turning the world into a camera, Kardashian takes self-obsession to new heights: She is the queen of the Selfie, compiling a 352-page series of snaps into an unpublished Book called “Selfish,” soon available to all in hardcover. Her Smartphone gaming App, “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” invites players to follow her animated image as she frolics through a commercial playground. The App is already worth $200 Million after a midsummer release, its candy-colored cartoons perfectly reflecting the Infantile Ethos she represents.
Kim Kardashian is simply the ID of capitalism run wild, the narcissistic force that wants what it wants, when it wants it, an incarnation of the fulfilled wish to talk and think about absolutely nothing while rolling in snuggly designer sheets.   Unattached and oblivious, the spoiled child becomes the American avatar of freedom and self-expression, something elevated and even holy.
Americans love to fetishize Wealth, viewing a person’s Monetary success as a direct sign of Righteousness. So revered is the act of Marketing the self that Kardashian's cartoon image accrues metaphysical weight. For a certain strain of Gen Y, Kim Kardashian is held up as a feminist icon: Katie Gonzalez of Elite Daily gushes that “Kim has become another voice that attempts to uplift her fellow females,” while Suchi Sundaram of Feminspire explores her mythic dimension: “From Helen of Troy to Kim Kardashian, Women have been constantly defining their roles and powers in a Patriarchal society.”
Not only can you be famous for absolutely nothing, you can be feminist, too. Why not a Nobel Prize winner? The Poet Laureate?   No need for action or insight. Accumulation and Consumption are the only skills required.
So why are we stuck with her?   The answer lies in the fact that the American economy is in a stage where most people are not getting what we need, much less what we want. As we become more alienated and work harder and harder for our neo-feudal overlords, our dreams are constricted and our futures foreclosed. Celebrities are the Gods we Create to distract ourselves from our own Incompleteness, from the hunger for things we cannot have. We spend our lives following their every move to get our attention away from the Lack that we will always feel, until this system is transformed.
Kim Kardashian has just been named British GQ magazine's Woman of the Year, but perhaps she is more than that. She is the woman of the Era, the most visible symptom of our society’s particular Sickness. In a Healthy society, the ID cannot Dominate, and milking a twisted system for all it’s worth is Not seen an act of Heroism, but the mark of a person for whom the human condition is nothing more than perpetual imprisonment in the Self.   Appropriately, Kim Kardashian is very fond of corsets. She is the illusion of bounty and freedom that covers the Deformation and restriction of the Human Spirit.
Is it all her fault? Of course not. She’s the Prison we made for ourselves.
Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of "Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture." She received her Ph.D. in English and cultural theory from NYU. She is the director of AlterNet's New Economic Dialogue Project. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.
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Tom Hayden on Obama's Speech

NO EXIT STRATEGY
TOM HAYDEN    September 11th, 2014

A disturbing omission in President Obama's Iraq War speech was its lack of an exit strategy. Instead, Officials predict a Mission lasting beyond Obama's second term.
So we are invited to submit our lives, fortunes and tarnished honor to the newest chapter of the "long war" envisioned by certain Pentagon planners as lasting 80 to 100 years over the "arc of the crisis" where both Islamic radicals and reservoirs of oil lie waiting. Instead, each administration escalates enough to avoid defeat and pass it along to its successor.
It's War on an installment plan.   Or, as former Obama adviser Bruce Riedel says, "Until we kill them, they're going to keep trying to kill us."
The current phase is not due to President Obama's "premature" withdrawal or to short sightedness by the anti-war movement. It's the consequence of the U.S. policy of abandoning the Sunni population of Iraq to a sectarian, oppressive Shiite regime in Baghdad, which we armed, funded and installed in power.
The Baghdad regime is an ally of Iran and a mortal enemy of the Sunnis, who previously were the Privileged class in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. It's no accident that the Shiites would take revenge against the Sunnis. The only question is why we maintained the illusions of "pluralism" and "democracy" while the ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population went on under our gaze.
The disenfranchisement of the Sunnis led to the sweeping military counterattack by the Islamic State and elements of Iraq's former Baath Party. They cannot be stopped by the Shiites even with U.S. air power.  Nor are they likely to be stopped by tinkering with Baghdad politics and rhetoric about token "inclusion."   Only a grant of virtual autonomy to the Sunnis, similar to the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan, will provide for the representation, security and power sharing that Sunnis need in a new confederated and pluralistic state.
The President's call for a unified Iraq may be too late, and requires drastic measures. Concessions will have to be provided to those Sunnis who want to preserve an Iraqi state and not be absorbed into a caliphate without borders. Otherwise, the future is one of a sectarian civil war in which the American people have no interest.
Syria has become a vast rear base for the insurgency in Iraq because of the Islamic State group's gains against the Alawite regime in Damascus. Obama is intervening in that sectarian War from the Air while scrambling to build up non-Islamic State militias on the ground.   His task in both countries is staggering, as in the nursery rhyme:   All the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again.
The U.S. military intervention complicates the opportunity to confront the Islamic State at its most vulnerable political weak point: its preposterous claims of being the new center of the entire Islamic world. That claim of legitimacy is violently disputed among many Muslims and will surely lead to internal differences weakening the Islamic State from within. That's why the Islamic State wants the Americans to bomb and eventually invade in order to unite all Muslims against the "infidels."
Obama should accept the need for Congressional debate and Authorization. That is the only way the Public will be drawn into making choices.
Congress probably will green-light the War, but with important conditions:
1) a demand for an exit strategy with a timeline,
2) an estimate of the budgetary costs and Fiscal effects on Civilian programs,
3) a demand for support from a majority of Islamic countries,
4) enforcement of the Leahy Law barring U.S. assistance to any Military units committing Human Rights Violations, and
5) a statutory Ban on the use of American Combat units directly or indirectly.
At the risk of being contradictory, the President should repeat over and over that there is no military solution, and that we have no interest in a sectarian civil war.   He should avoid a credibility gap by drawing a red line against the further use of U.S. troops on the ground.   He should conduct Fair and aggressive Diplomacy through the United Nations, which will require accommodating the interests of Iran and Russian.
His comparisons to Somalia and Yemn suggest that Obama expects a low-visibility quagmire at little cost in American lives.   He also should remember how South Vietnam ended in total regime collapse amid Washington paralysis and historic Peace protests.
Obama is tragically wrong in asserting that America's domestic agenda can move forward despite U.S. involvement in multiple battlefields. The greatest tragedy of this conflict is that it will undermine "nation-building" at home.
Tom Hayden, who served in the California Legislature for nearly two decades, is the author of 20 books and an enduring progressive voice in politics.
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Monday, September 8, 2014

Profit Motive for Crashing Mortgage Market

Profiting From America's Misery

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
aaaGoldBars(Photo: Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited)Self-indulgent capitalists have turned much of America against its own best interests by promoting a winner-take-all philosophy that reaps great rewards for a few people at the expense of everyone else. To the neo-liberal, vital human needs like health and education are products to be bought and sold.

Here are some other examples of greed and the pain it causes.

Water

The city of Detroit, which is positioned next to the greatest supply of fresh water between the polar ice caps, has lost its access to water because of bad financial deals that have left unsuspecting Citizens with over a half-billion dollars in interest payments. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr responded by putting the whole Water System up for sale.

The United Nations has reminded us of the obvious, that water is a human right. 
But the prominent water company Nestle says water is Not a human right. The Nestle company has taken this essential ingredient of human life and sold it back to us at a million percent profit.

Meanwhile, as average Citizens of America and the world face increasing hardships from climate change, Wall Street firms are, according to Bloomberg, "investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter."
Housing

Blackstone is a corporate model for making money at the expense of desperate former homeowners. Since the recession, it has become the nation's leading landlord, buying up tens of thousands of homes at rock-bottom prices, and then renting them back, often to the very people who lost them.
It's a perfect business, a well-designed process of predatory equity.

1. Buy Foreclosures.

2. Rent Them at Exorbitant Prices. Only one-third of Blackstone's Los Angeles renters are paying affordable rent, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development standards.

3. Skimp on Maintenance. According to a Homes for All study, 46 percent of residents reported plumbing problems, 39 percent reported roaches or insects, and 90 percent of Los Angeles renters have never met their landlords.

4. Package the Properties into "Rental-Backed Securities." These sound disturbingly like the mortgage-backed securities that crashed our economy a few years ago. Companies like Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are doing it to America all over again.

Savings  Payday Loan Predators

The financial industry indiscriminately targets all struggling Americans, from the impoverished class to the low-income class to the middle class. At the lowest level loom the payday lenders, with about as many locations in the U.S. as all the McDonalds and Starbucks combined, and with annualized interest rates that can reach 1,000 percent or more.  (Ed.  Criminal 25 years ago.)
For families with incomes in the $25,000 range, about 10 percent of their income goes for fees and interest to financial institutions. The average under-served household spends $2,412 each year on alternative banking services.

For middle-class Americans trying to save for retirement in a 401(k), bank fees take about $2 of every $5 over a lifetime of investing.

Justice Itself

With the highest incarceration rate in the world, and with imprisonment skewed toward minorities, our business-oriented society has effectively turned our poorest citizens into products, with an emphasis on product volume.

Private Prisons make deals with local Governments 
to ensure full jail cells.   

Company owners have taken advantage of the legalized slavery clause of the 13th Amendment, paying as little as 93 cents an hour for their Labor.

Still other companies step in during probation periods, charging fees that keep poor people at the mercy of the 'justice' system.

And in the county that contains Ferguson, Missouri, as noted by author Radley Balko, some of the towns "can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts." Fines and fees for traffic offenses, fare-hopping, loud music, uncut grass, trespassing, wearing saggy pants, or failing to subscribe to the town's garbage service.

Poverty Capitalism: The Free Market At Work

A staunch capitalist might point out that America's growing poverty has created markets for anyone able to capitalize on destitution. Each of us, after all, is a source of profit, as long as we rent or own, save a little money, and drink water.
---
Paul Buchheit is a writer for progressive publications, and the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org).
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Sunday, September 7, 2014

Post 9/11 PD Train for Innocents' Cash

Stop  and  Seize


Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes  

Written by Michael Sallah, Robert O’Harrow Jr.,Steven Rich

After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to
 become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways.
Local officers, County Deputies and State Troopers were encouraged to act more
 aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The
Departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on Police training.

The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view:
 the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the Seizure of 
hundreds of Millions of dollars in Cash from Motorists and others Not Charged
 with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money 
back.
Stop and Seize: In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back.
Part 2: One training firm started a private intelligence-sharing network and helped shape law enforcement nationwide.
Part 3: Motorists caught up in the seizures talk about the experience and the legal battles that sometimes took more than a year. (Coming Tuesday)
Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms
 that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.
One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Co.; Notification System that enabled Police
 nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — Criminals 
and the Innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses 
and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
Many of the reports have been funneled to Federal agencies and Fusion Centers as part
of the Government’s burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems — despite 
warnings from State and Federal authorities that the information could 
violate privacy and constitutional protections.
A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see 
who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs.

Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.
“All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy
Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. 
Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction
 training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created 
Black Asphalt.
Hain’s book calls for “turning our Police Forces into 
present-day Robin Hoods.”
Cash seizures can be made under State or Federal civil law. One of the primary
ways Police departments are able to Seize money and share in the proceeds at the
Federal level is through a long-standing Justice Department civil asset forfeiture 
program known as Equitable Sharing. Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the Government to take cash and property without
pressing criminal charges and then requires the Owners to prove their 
possessions were legally acquired.
The practice has been controversial since its inception at the height of the drug war more
 than three decades ago, and its abuses have been the subject of journalistic Exposés and Congressional Hearings.   But unexplored until now is the role of the Federal Government
 and the private Police Trainers in encouraging Officers to target cash on the nation’s highways since 9/11.
“Those laws were meant to take a guy out for selling $1 million in cocaine or who was trying
 to launder large amounts of money,” said Mark Overton, the police chief in Bal Harbour, Fla., 
who once oversaw a federal drug task force in South Florida. “It was never meant for a 
street cop to take a few thousand dollars from a driver by the side of the road.”
To examine the scope of asset forfeiture since the terror attacks, The Post analyzed a database of hundreds of thousands of seizure records at the Justice Department, reviewed hundreds of federal court cases, obtained internal records from training firms and interviewed scores of police officers, prosecutors and motorists.

Civil forfeiture cash seizures

Under the federal Equitable Sharing Program, police have seized $2.5 billion since 2001 from people who were not charged with a crime and without a warrant being issued. Police reasoned that the money was crime-related. About $1.7 billion was sent back to law enforcement agencies for their use.
Amount seized by all agencies (in millions)
$104060100200
  •  Mass.
  •  R.I.
  •  Conn.
  •  N.J.
  •  Del.
  •  D.C.
Select a state to see local agency rebates
Money sent back to local police  for seizures made alone or with others
Note: Table does not include statewide agencies or task forces and only includes local agencies who received more than $250,000.
Source: A Washington Post analysis of Department of Justice data.
The Post found:
  • There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing 
  • Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more 
  • than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies
  •  received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800.
  • Only a sixth of the seizures were legally challenged, in part because of the costs
  •  of legal action against the Government. But in 41 percent of cases — 4,455 — 
  • where there was a challenge, the Government agreed to return money. 
  • The Appeals process took more than a year in 40 percent of those cases, and often
  • required owners of the cash to sign Agreements ot to sue police over the seizures.
  • Hundreds of State and local Departments and Drug Task forces appear 
  • to rely on seized cash, despite a Federal ban on the money to pay salaries 
  • or otherwise support budgets. The Post found that 298 departments and 210
  •  task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.
  • Agencies with police known to be participating in the Black Asphalt intelligence network
  •  have seen a 32 percent jump in seizures beginning in 2005, three times the rate of other
  •  police departments. Desert Snow-trained officers reported more than $427 million in cash seizures during highway stops in just one five-year period, according to company officials. 
  • More than 25,000 police have belonged to Black Asphalt, company officials said.
  • State Law Enforcement officials in Iowa and Kansas prohibited the use of
  •  the Black Asphalt Network because of concerns that it might Not be a legal
  •  law enforcement tool.   A Federal Prosecutor in Nebraska warned that Black Asphalt reports could violate laws governing civil liberties, the handling of sensitive law
  •  enforcement information and the disclosure of pretrial information to defendants. But 
  • officials at Justice and Homeland Security continued to use it.
Justice spokesman Peter Carr said the department had no comment on The Post’s overall
findings. But he said the department has a Compliance Review process in place for the
Equitable Sharing Program and Attorneys for Federal Agencies must Review the Seizures
 before they are “Adopted” for inclusion in the Program.
“Adoptions of State and local Seizures — when a State and local Law Enforcement agency
requests a Federal Seizing agency to adopt a State and local Seizure for Federal Forfeiture — represent an average of only 3 percent of the total forfeiture amount since 2007,” Carr said.
The Justice Department data released to The Post does not contain information about race.
Carr said the department prohibits racial profiling. But in 400 federal court cases examined by The Post where people who challenged seizures and received some money back, the majority 
were black, Hispanic or another minority.
A 55-year-old Chinese American restaurateur from Georgia was pulled over for minor 
speeding on Interstate 10 in Alabama and detained for nearly two hours. He was 
carrying $75,000 raised from relatives to buy a Chinese restaurant in Lake Charles, La. He
 got back his money 10 months later but only after spending thousands of dollars on a
 lawyer and losing out on the restaurant deal.
A 40-year-old Hispanic carpenter from New Jersey was stopped on Interstate 95 in Virginia
 for having tinted windows. Police said he appeared nervous and consented to a search.
  They took $18,000 that he said was meant to buy a used car. He had to hire
 a lawyer to get back his money.
Mandrel Stuart, a 35-year-old African American owner of a small barbecue restaurant in
Staunton, Va., was stunned when police took $17,550 from him during a stop in 2012 for a
minor traffic infraction on Interstate 66 in Fairfax. He rejected a settlement with the
Government for half of his money and demanded a jury trial. He eventually got his
 money back but lost his business because he didn’t have the cash to pay his overhead.
“I paid taxes on that money. I worked for that money,” Stuart said. “Why should
I give them my money?”
Edited.... Remainder of exciting article is at the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/?tid=trending_strip_6


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