USA & Canada | The Muffin Post

Feb 27 2013

Tobyhanna Man (Nursery Rhyme)

Govia

Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man
Pennsylvania calls you, Tobyhanna Man.
Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man
Pennsylvania calls you, Tobyhanna Man.

You can go to the left
Go to the right
Go to Mt. Pocono
Day or night
Go to East Stroudsburg
Go to Bushkill
Go to the Crossing
Chic a ching ching.

Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man
Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man.
Pennsylvania calls you
Tobyhanna Man.
Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man.

Go West to Scranton
East to Tannersville
‘Tis where your love grows
Trick-a thrill thrill

Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man
Pennsylvania calls you, Tobyhanna Man.
Tobyhanna Man
Oh, Tobyhanna Man
Pennsylvania calls you, Tobyhanna Man.

Tagged Pennsylvania, Rhyme, Tobyhanna

Mar 02 2011

Leave a comment

Europe, Middle East, USA & Canada, World

The Political Economy of the End of Tyranny

Ronald Bailey

Reason

Poor man rise up and break the shackles that stop your progress!

We live in interesting times. Long-standing autocracies in the Arab world are collapsing like overcooked soufflés. The urgent question is: What happens next? The collapse of authoritarian regimes is not all that unusual. Between 1945 and 2002, 316 authoritarian leaders across the globe fell from power through nonconstitutional means, according to a 2009 study [PDF] in the American Journal of Political Science by University of Illinois political scientist Milan Svolik.

By nonconstitutional means, Svolik includes any exits that were not the result of natural death, a constitutionally mandated process like an election, a vote by a ruling body, or a hereditary succession. Of the 303 despots for whom Svolik could unambiguously ascertain how they lost political power, it turns out that only 32 tyrants were removed by a popular uprising. Another 30 left under public pressure to democratize, e.g., Chile’s Augusto Pinochet. Twenty were assassinated, e.g., Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, and only 16 were removed by foreign intervention, e.g., Panama’s Manuel Noriega. The remaining 205 were ousted by other government members or by members of the security forces—that is to say, by classic coups d’etat. Uneasy indeed lies the head that wears the crown, general’s cap, or keffiyeh.

Svolik develops a model of dictatorship in which autocrats achieve power initially as the first among equals in a ruling coalition. He argues that “a central problem of authoritarian governance is the problem of power sharing between the dictator and the ruling coalition.” Constant jockeying for access to resources and authority among members of the coalition makes holding onto power unstable, so new dictators have an incentive to try to weaken members of the coalition that might challenge them by rewarding loyalists.

However, as Svolik’s data show, this process of power consolidation provokes successful coups d’etat about two-thirds of the time. But the longer a dictator rules, the more secure his power. Svolik finds among tyrants who ruled for less than 10 years, 162 were removed by coups while only 31 died in office. On the other hand, among despots who ruled for 10 years or more, only 41 were removed by coup while 45 died in office. “Thus for dictators who survive in office for at least ten years, the odds of dying of natural causes rather than being removed by a coup improve from less than one in five to more than one in one!,” notes Svolik. He also finds that the tenure of military dictators averages a bit over four years while single-party and personalist dictators average about 11 years in power. Why the difference?

One dynamic is that personalist dictators destroy pre-existing social and political institutions, which eliminates rival centers where would-be opponents might organize and plot. A good case in point is Muammar Qaddafi, who has undermined the army that initially brought him to power. Instead he and his children have created alternative institutions that are dependent for resources directly from them. A good example is the Khamis brigade, a special military unit directly created and run by Qaddafi’s son Khamis. Reports suggest that the Khamis brigade is actively trying to retake towns close to Tripoli now controlled by opponents to the Qaddafi regime. Similarly, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ruthlessly transformed that single-party state into a personalist dictatorship by means of periodic purges, so that all who remained in the government and military were directly beholden to his patronage. Stalin died in his bed.

Tagged revolution and class warfare, the war against the masses, Tyranny against the people, wealth inequality

Feb 24 2011

Leave a comment

Money & Investment, USA & Canada

The result of a casual whistle

"Good fences make good neighbors." - Robert Frost

Francis Anthony Govia

The Muffin Post

When God whistles, the trees shake, and fences fall down.

A developer, a friend of mine in New York City, has much to fear when God whistles. The last time God engaged in that casual pursuit the man’s company received a $40,000 fine from the city.

God has a way of confounding the good, the bad, and the innocent.

Over time I have come to realize that even in a city so pro-Jew as New York that an Israeli complains just as much as the ordinary resident; which leads me back to the original story.

One day God whistled. The fence around the property that belonged to the Israeli developer fell down. The Israeli was in a bitter fight with an “envious” neighbor. The neighbor called the city. An inspector came to survey the worksite and wrote up a violation for the broken fence.

The Israeli paid $100 to get the fence repaired, but the city made sure that his good act received a second violation.

Sometime before God whistled, but during the period that the neighbor became envious of the acquisition of the lot by his competitor, the Israeli had received permission from the city to convert the site into four distinct family dwellings. Therefore, when the fence broke in one corner of the lot, the city cited the developer for two violations times four.

The first violation was due to the Act of God. The second violation was engendered when the developer repaired the broken fence, whose action was subject to a stop work order that intervened.

Now each violation of this kind carries a minimum fine of $5000. So when God whistles in NYC, the developer opens his wallet.

Related story:
Stop a train

Tagged business fines and government, NYC Department of Buildings, property development, real estate in New York, the developer's dilemma

Dec 14 2010

Leave a comment

Middle East, USA & Canada, World

Strategic engagement with Iran

The closer we get to 2012, the harder it will be for Obama to ignore talk of the Iranian threat. -- Gulf News

Daniel Brumberg, Barry Blechman

Foreign Policy

Frustrated by the absence of substantive progress during the latest round of P5+1 talks in Geneva, some Iran analysts would have U.S. policy plunge once again into the murky territory of regime change. Some hope that a military attack might bring about this goal. Others, taking what seems to be the high road, argue that the U.S. should back a people’s democratic revolution. This second idea is deeply alluring. After all, it accords with our most cherished ideas while also offering a solution that serves U.S. national interests. What advocate of democracy would not want Iran’s Green Movement to prevail? In one fell swoop, its victory would bring to the table legitimate Iranian leaders who keenly defend Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power, but who would also provide a far more constructive negotiating partner for the U.S. and its allies.

The problem, however, is that democratic reform in Iran is a long-term proposition. As a result, it cannot serve as the basis for an effective U.S.-Iran policy. If the Obama White House were to rest its efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons on regime change, it would end up with an Iran policy as incoherent as those of the administrations that preceded it.

That incoherence is rooted in the reluctance of both Republican and Democratic administrations to make a decisive choice between making war or talking peace. Given the costs of both it is hardly surprising that our leaders have been unwilling or unable to mobilize political and bureaucratic support for either option. Instead, they have split the difference by using a mix of punitive measures and tepid incentives to in one way or another “contain” Iran — thus avoiding the domestic discomfort that would inevitably accompany a more strategically cogent policy.

Tagged democracy Green Movement, Iran and nuclear proliferation, Iran containment policy, P5+1 talks in Geneva, sanctions

Dec 14 2010

Leave a comment

The Rift, USA & Canada, Videos

Constitution Will Be Victim In Zealous Effort to Go After Assange and Wikileaks

InfoWars

Kurt Nimmo

InfoWars

It looks like Obama’s Justice Department may not prosecute Julian Assange. Fact of the matter is that Assange and Wikileaks are beyond the reach of the Justice Department.

Experts on whistleblower leaks and internet security issues say the Obama administration faces a daunting and perhaps insurmountable series of legal and practical challenges if it wants to take out Wikileaks.

Because the the 1917 Espionage Act is problematic and its use failed when the government tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case, a number of politicians have decided to enact legislation criminalizing the act of whistle-blowing.

The so-called Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination (Shield) Bill was introduced by Peter King, a Republican from New York, who will become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when the new House of Representatives with a Republican majority convenes in January.

The bill is ostensibly designed to make it illegal to publish the names of military or intelligence community informants. It mirrors a previous bill introduced by in the Senate by Joe Lieberman, Scott Brown and Susan Collins. Both bills seek to criminalize ex post facto the activity of Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

Hearings on the bills will not begin until a new Congress convenes in January. However, according to officials, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to begin work this Thursday on how the Espionage Act might be modified to give prosecutors the ability to go after enemies of the state who dare leak information to the American people.

Related story:
Is Treason a Civic Duty?
Assange: “My Convictions are Unfaltering”
Julian Assange’s bail plea exposes double standards in high places

Tagged Constitutional challenges, free press, Julian Assange, Kurt Nimmo, Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination (Shield) Bill

Dec 13 2010

1 Comment

The Rift, USA & Canada, World

Is Treason a Civic Duty?

Julian Assange’s mother has said that she is worried about her son as “massive forces” are working against him and insisted that there is “no way” he is guilty of rape, which he is charged with in Sweden.

Thomas Darnstädt

Der Spiegel

Since 9/11, press freedom in the West has come under attack as governments argue that national security is more important than transparency. But the hunt for WikiLeaks is a greater danger to democracy than any information that WikiLeaks might reveal.

Why do we need freedom of the press? The framers of the United States Constitution believed that such a guarantee would be unnecessary — if not dangerous. There are freedoms that we don’t secure through promises, but which we take for ourselves. They are like the air we breathe in a democracy, whose authority is built on public opinion. The democracy that was founded on the basis of such insights is the American democracy. It is an indication of the American revolutionaries’ healthy mistrust in the power of this insight that they would later incorporate freedom of the press into the US Constitution after all.

Today, more than 200 years later, this old idea seems naïve to all too many people in the Western world. Since becoming embroiled in the war against terrorism, the US government has transformed itself into a huge security apparatus. The Washington Post recently reported that 854,000 people in the US government, or more than one-and-a-half times the population of Washington, DC, hold top-secret security clearances — and this under a president who came into office promising a new era of openness in government. An estimated 16 million government documents a year are stamped “top secret,” or not intended for the eyes of ordinary citizens.

In the crisis, the countries of Old Europe are also putting up the barricades. Germany’s constitution, known as the Basic Law, has a far-reaching guarantee of press freedom and was created after World War II on behalf of the US liberators and in the spirit of the American and French revolutions. But in the 10th year after the 9/11 attacks, one German conservative politician has even pondered whether it might not be a good idea to prohibit journalists from reporting on terrorism in too much detail.

Such people would have been beheaded in revolutionary Paris and probably locked up in Philadelphia. When citizens were revolutionaries, the act of demanding freedom of speech was a revolutionary act. Today, in more peaceful times, we would characterize freedom of speech as a civic virtue.

Tagged Julian Assange, press freedom, Treason vs free press, Wikileaks

Dec 13 2010

1 Comment

Middle East, USA & Canada, World

Clinton signals new attitude to Middle East peace process

Both of you must agree to a single line, drawn on your map that divides Israel from Palestine and to an outcome that implements the two-state solution.

Francis Anthony Govia

The Muffin Post

Also published at Uprooted Palestinians and the Intel Hub.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed frustration with the lack of progress in the Middle East peace process, and said that the next phase of negotiations should center on the borders of a Palestinian state.

In a report prepared by VOA the US Secretary said, both Israel and Palestine “must agree to a single line, drawn on your map that divides Israel from Palestine and to an outcome that implements the two-state solution.”

Earlier this month Brazil and Argentina accepted Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas’ request for diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders. In a phone call to Abbas the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said that that her country’s recognition of a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders was not just a political gesture, but a moral stand. She also expressed frustration about the impasse in the Middle East peace process.

Shortly after Argentina’s move, Uruguay announced that it too would recognize a Palestinian state starting from 2011.

The Israeli government has tried to downplay the Palestinians’ success in their unilateral quest for statehood, indicating that Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay are far from the Middle East. The Israeli approach goes to opinion in the North that diplomatic recognition is only important if it is given by members of the Security Council and other major powers, and acceptable to nations that lie in proximity to the state requesting it.

The Palestinians had in November, 1988 declared an independent Palestinian state. This led to recognition of Palestine statehood by 105 countries, but Israel, the US, the United Nations, among others, refused to recognize it.

The Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton as its top diplomat, has the opportunity to set itself apart from previous US governments that appeared weak and of a mindset that is singular and conciliatory to the Israelis when giving address to Middle East peace process.

The US must initiate a bold move, giving immediate recognition to a Palestinian State with the 1967 borders, and then put all parties (Israelis and Palestinians) on notice that the only thing left for discussion is how to implement the peace plan.

Any delay of purpose will allow those who are opposed to any peace settlement to mount action to weaken and hamper US foreign policy initiatives.

Francis Anthony Govia received a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Boston University where he studied U.S. National Security and Foreign Policy with teachers who inspired him, such as General Fred F. Woerner (Ret.), Ambassador Stephen R. Lyne (Ret.), and Joseph Fewsmith. He received a law degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is a contributor to Activist Post and The Intel Hub.

Tagged Argentina diplomatic recognition of Palestine, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Middle East Peace process, Palestine statehood

Dec 09 2010

1 Comment

Middle East, USA & Canada

US following Israeli 5-Point Plan on Iran

Israeli 5-Point Plan for Iran: " 1. Bring Iran before the UN security council to pursue a third sanctions resolution; 2. Covert measures: Dagan and the under-secretary agreed not to discuss this approach in the larger group setting"; 3. Counter-proliferation: prevent know-how and technology from making their way to Iran; 4. Sanctions - the biggest success so far. Three Iranian banks were on the verge of collapse. Financial sanctions were having a nationwide impact. 5. Regime change. Israel believed more should be done to foment this, possibly with the support of student democracy movements and ethnic groups such as the Azeris, Kurds and Baluchs."

Farhang Jahanpour

Payvand (originally published by http://www.juancole.com)

What is truly alarming about the new batch of Wikileaks diplomatic files is the extent to which US politicians and their Israeli allies are obsessed with Iran. There is virtually no talk of Israeli colonial settlements on the West Bank, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the war crimes in Gaza, the attack on the aid flotilla, and Israel’s arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons, but there is constant preoccupation with Iran’s uranium enrichment and whether Israel or the United States should attack Iran first.

The media has dwelt almost exclusively on the remarks of the Saudi King Abdullah’s ambassador in Washington, calling on America to “cut off the head of this snake”. There are quotes from the rulers of other Western friends in the Middle East, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Jordan, repeating what American officials wanted to hear, namely that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose an “existential threat” to them…

By latching on to the alleged remarks of these autocratic rulers, Western media has tried to convey the idea that Iran does not only pose an “existential threat” to Israel, but to all those other friends of the West as well.

However, the Arab rulers’ nightmare is that while they hate Iran for obvious reasons, most of their subjects look up to Iran as the only country in the region that is championing the Palestinian cause and is standing up to Israel and the West. According to the most recent poll, carried out by the US Zogby polling organisation and the University of Maryland, in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other pro-western Arab states, a majority of the respondents even had a positive view of the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Asked which countries threatened their security, 88% replied Israel, 77% the US and just 10% Iran.1 It is not that US diplomats don’t understand these facts, they have just lost all sight of reality, democratic principles and America’s long-term interests. The experiences of supporting Saddam Hussein, General Musharraf and other dictators should have proved to them that relying on undemocratic rulers would backfire, not to say that it is contrary to the democratic principles that they claim that they are championing.

In view of the fact that the United States is arming its “allies” with billions of dollars worth of the most sophisticated weapons, its protestations about Iran’s military threat sounds hollow. According to The Financial Times, the US plans to reinforce Arab military power by selling an unprecedented amount of USD 123 billion to four Persian Gulf littoral states. Saudi Arabia’s share stands at nearly $67 billion, the UAE at $40 billion, Oman at $12 billion and Kuwait at $7 billion, according to the business daily.

This is despite the fact that those countries and Israel already spend a much larger part of their GDP on arms. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute(SIPRI), while Iran’s military spending in 2009 was $9.174 billion (or 2.7% of its GDP), that of Saudi Arabia was $39.257 billion (8.2% of its GDP), that of the tiny United Arab Emirates was $13.5 billion (or 5.9% of its GDP), and that of Israel was $14.34 billion (7% of its GDP). And whereas Iran’s military spending as a share of its GDP is 2.7% (9.174 billion: 340 billion), that of the United States is nearly 7% (1 trillion: 14 trillion). In other words, Iran’s military spending is less than one per cent of the United States’ spending.

Nevertheless, the US and Israel have the temerity to portray Iran as the main threat to the Middle East and the main obstacle to the “peace process”. There is a wonderful moment in the cables when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, explains to a US congressional delegation on 28 April last year that “a Palestinian state must be demilitarised, without control of its airspace and electro-magnetic field [sic], and without the power to enter into treaties or control its border”. Well, what then does the Obama Administration mean by a two-state solution and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state? What is the point of the “peace process” for which the United States is willing to make so many concessions to Israel?

Tagged Gulf States, Iran, Israel's five point plan, nuclear proliferation, Palestinian statehood, Wikileaks, Zionist's agenda

Dec 06 2010

1 Comment

Middle East, USA & Canada

The truth about Israel, Iran and 1980s U.S. arms deals

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North

Amir Oren

Haaretz

Recently declassified Pentagon documents reveal a strange, not to say illicit, 1980s operation called ‘Tipped Kettle,’ in which weapons stolen by Israel from the PLO in Lebanon were transferred to the Contras and to anti-American elements in Iran.

The collection of declassified documents published two weeks ago by the Pentagon reveals infighting among branches of the U.S. administration and intrigues in foreign countries – including 1980s’ Israel. The impression one gets is not especially positive. The Americans are publishing the documents now not because they are trying somehow to suggest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how he should behave, but because the law obligates them to reveal records in due course following a review, unless there is a genuine reason to keep them secret. In the aforesaid period Netanyahu served as deputy to Moshe Arens, when he was Israel’s ambassador to Washington, D.C. (1982-83 ). Arens’ staff then also included Gen. Menachem Meron, the military attache in Washington, and spokesman Nachman Shai. Arens and his aides constituted an island of sanity in their relations with the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, at a time of hostility in the U.S. capital toward the government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.

The recently revealed documents deal with an operation dubbed “Tipped Kettle,” involving weapons the Israel Defense Forces looted from the Palestine Liberation Organization during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon, and their transfer to the Contras – opponents of the socialistic Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. That was the first episode, of rather questionable legality according to U.S. law, in a more complex story whose second installment, in 1985-1986, became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Part II was patently illegal – a blatant effort by the White House to violate a Congressional order and to cook up a strange deal involving the sale of American weapons (originally supplied to the IDF ) to anti-American Iran, for use in its war with Iraq; the release of Western hostages being held in Lebanon by Iranian-controlled Hezbollah; and the financing of Contras’ activities thanks to the difference between the sum paid by the Iranians and the true value of the weapons – minus a profit for those engaged in the deal.

By the end of that decade, during the trial of U.S. Marine Col. Oliver North and other officials in the Reagan administration, charged with deceiving Congress and providing false testimony to a special prosecutor, Operation Tipped Kettle was also briefly mentioned in the court proceedings. Now, however, the whole picture has come into view, with its emphasis on the behavior on the Israeli side.

Tagged Al Qaeda, Iran-Contra scandal, Israel collaboration, Oliver North, Tipped Kettle

Dec 06 2010

1 Comment

Middle East, USA & Canada

Helen Thomas’ school scraps award over ‘Zionists’ remark

“I can call a president of the United States anything in the book, but I can’t touch Israel, which has Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. No Americans would tolerate that — white-only roads." - Helen Thomas

CNN

The alma mater of journalist Helen Thomas will not bestow an award that had been given in her name, making the decision after the 90-year-old scribe made more controversial comments about Jewish people.

Wayne State University, the Detroit, Michigan, institution that Thomas graduated from in 1942, said in a statement Friday that the school will no longer give out the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award.

“Wayne State encourages free speech and open dialogue, and respects diverse viewpoints,” the school’s statement said. “However, the university strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas during a conference yesterday.”

Thomas abrupty retired earlier this year from her position as a White House columnist for the Hearst media chain after a YouTube video circulated in which she told a rabbi that Israel should “get the hell out of Palestine.” She also said Jewish people should leave Israel and go home to “Poland, Germany … and America and everywhere else.”

Then, at a diversity conference Thursday in Dearborn, Michigan, Thomas voiced her opinion on Jewish people in the United States.

According to the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, she said, “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question.”

Zionist is a term used to describe those who pushed for the creation — and today champion the current state and future existence — of modern-day Israel.

Tagged Helen Thoma, Lebanon, Palestine, Wayne State University, Zionism

The Muffin Post

Online Journal for the common (Wo)Man.

Category Archives: USA & Canada

Tobyhanna Man (Nursery Rhyme)

The Political Economy of the End of Tyranny

The result of a casual whistle

Strategic engagement with Iran

Constitution Will Be Victim In Zealous Effort to Go After Assange and Wikileaks

Is Treason a Civic Duty?

Clinton signals new attitude to Middle East peace process

US following Israeli 5-Point Plan on Iran

The truth about Israel, Iran and 1980s U.S. arms deals

Helen Thomas’ school scraps award over ‘Zionists’ remark

Follow “The Muffin Post”