JRBehrman's Blog

JRBehrman Commented on Crackpot Realism by Todd Gitlin

2009-01-09T19:40:24Z

"Nuclear Testers" is one of many "constituents" of the Black Budget. It has been the largest single black program at times.

I think we know why the Black Budget started with the Manhattan Project: Germany had a small atom bomb project as early as 1917. We did not want to encourage a nuclear arms race that Germany might, save for their self-inflicted race problem, might have won.

And, there was some thought, during the Cold War, that we could and should keep strategic technology secret or, failing that, enforce an export embargo.

That was a much more complex argument, and I am not sure it was ever really settled since it involved huge controversies between and within both political parties as well as discrimination among allies. I think strategic export embargo ended up being more corrupt and ineffectual than not.

We ended up with a GOP nuclear ordnance establishment at LRL and a Democratic one at LASL. In addition, rivalries between the Army, Air Force, and Navy were frozen into the Treaty of Miami by Congress. And, we have a non-proliferation regime which the executive has asserted, only to subvert, in the case of Israel.

It is not clear that the Soviet Union was ever fooled or impeded by any of the secrecy or that, say, France or South Africa were inconvenienced by the embargo.

Still, the Black Budget was supposed to work-around some of all of that and provide executive flexibility in the face of Congressional rigidity or ... the old-fangled constitution.

Bi-partisan Congressional leaders have now been entranced, too. A few have acquired power over the rest by becoming sponsors of bloated black programs they never have to account for in any respect.

That is, I think, why we still have a Black Budget even there is no need for strategic, only operational, security.

Color me skeptical of the renamed Congressional "accountability" office and the new executive "performance" office. These are buzz-words now, which may mean the opposite of what we are supposed to think.

JRBehrman Commented on Part-Time Government Employees Earn $160,000 a Year by Dean Baker

2008-12-25T17:07:16Z

This is government run as a black-tie charity by a self-serving elite of government concession-tenders, now, with Racial Tokenism re-labled as Affirmative Action! These individuals are not proficient or patriotic.

But, I think you will find that they are well-connected contributors to the DLC/DSCC/DCCC.

If the Democratic Party continues to countenance such outlandish corruption and betrayal of its alleged "values", all the while hand-wringing over a middle-class that our political elite have nothing but contempt for, we -- I are one! -- are going to get frog-marched to the electoral gallows by a red-hot resurgent GOP in a Gingrich-type campaign by 2010.

Did Barack Obama just get elected or was it that Credit-to-his-Race and former Country Club waiter Andrew Young?

Just asking...

JRBehrman Commented on Temporary Auto Fix by Jon Taplin

2008-12-07T02:31:16Z

Corrupt financial institutions can be bailed-out. It is simple, and it works fine until they have to be bailed-out again on a larger-scale. They are just feudal conduits for redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class, financing mercenary armies, and beautifying or de-oderizing wealth extracted from overseas slavery, wars, plantations, or mining.

You can call financial institutions a "financial services industry". But, they are not and never were an industry. They do not create or add-value to anything. At best, they are a necessary complement to industry and commerce, not a substitute for them.

Today, these institutions in extract monopoly-rent and indirect taxation (a) by creating money from fractional-reserves (commercial banks), (b) by building short-lived pyramids out of mud bricks from the bond-lawyers, water-soluble morter from the credit-rating agencies, and sugar-coated decoration from the accounting firms (investment banks) or just (c) by barter of arms and drugs (merchant banks).

Industry (and commerce) require (1)uniform and efficient prices, (2) planning, (3) standards, (4) regulation, (5) competition, and (6)protection all at various times, to certain degrees, in particular places. This is harder than what one is taught to do in law or business school. But, as long as a robust suite of patriotic professions and trades can keep all of those in good working order, financial intermediation across time and space will work. Jews, Unitarians, and others can all earn decent livings in the various sorts of banks.

But, when a financial institution, organized crime syndicate, or other criminal enterprise starts calling itself an industry or, rather, hires lawyers, lobbyists, even preachers, doctors, and, of course, either Senator from Connecticut to do so, you can be sure that the cringing liberals and faux-conservatives in Congress are conspiring (bi-partisan! bi-sexual! bi-ethical!) to (a) steal your money, (b) rape your daughter, and (c) kill your son ... with mere words.

JRBehrman recommended Very Clever and Good Idea by Josh Marshall

2008-12-06T22:52:14Z

JRBehrman Commented on Preserve the Nation State by Michael Lind

2008-12-05T19:10:23Z

There is an interesting discussion on piracy and terrorism going on over at Abu Muquwqama referencing recent Op-Eds at the New York Times.

I mention this because I do not think that "liberal internationalism" as Michael LIND describes it will be "too passive, heartless and unambitious". On the contrary ...

It will be very hard. It will require the sort of Navy that the other LIND, Bill LIND, talks about.

Here is my own comment on "Terrorism and Piracy".

JRBehrman Commented on Congressional Inquiry Needed on Surveillance by Kate Martin

2008-11-28T15:10:56Z

Unlikely, so long as Steny Hoyer is Majority Leader

The torture and detention matters arose in the Executive Branch with this administration. The surveillance program is very long-standing and deeply embedded in a Cold War culture of self-deception.

It hides behind the FISA ratification court which deals with cases the NSA puts before it that are either of low importance to the agency or likely to be approved.

The FISA court protects the NSA not the country or the constitution. Above all, it protects the military organs from serious evaluation of its intelligence and counter-intelligence mission. So, NSA is now mostly just DoD pork. That, of course, leads to Hoyer and the Congressional Leadership (so-called).

And, it has grown larger and large by being implemented with no or "black" Congressional authorization, only to be authorized after the fact at an opportune time.

Total Information Awareness, for instance, was not authorized, even after 9/11, but has been largely realized under other funding titles.

So, it is hard to see how deeply complicit and profoundly negligent, if not simply corrupt, Congressional leaders can do anything about this but keep up the ruse. After all, the DoD can now blackmail them into subservience.