In the movie plot of a spy thriller, our hero gets captured by agents of a repressive government, and they take him into a dark interrogation room, where the sadistic spymaster hisses at him: “We have ways of making you talk.”
Meanwhile, in real life, the director of our National Security Agency hisses at journalists: “We have ways of keeping you from talking.” Well, not quite in those words, but Gen. Keith Alexander, chief spook at NSA and head of US Cyber Command, did reveal a chilling disrespect for our Constitutional right to both free speech and a free press. In an October interview, he called for outlawing any reporting on his agency’s secret program of spying on every American: “I think it’s wrong that newspaper reporters have all these documents… giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn’t make any sense.” Then came his spooky punch line: “We ought to come up with a way of stopping it… It’s wrong to allow this to go on.”
Holy Thomas Paine! Spy on us, okay; report on it, not. What country does this autocrat represent? Alexander’s secret, indiscriminate, supercomputer scooping-up of data on every phone call, email, and other private business of every American is what “doesn’t make any sense.” It’s an Orwellian, mass invasion of everyone’s privacy, creating the kind of routine, 24/7 surveillance state our government loudly deplores in China and Russia – and it amounts to stomping on our Fourth Amendment guarantee that we’re to be free of “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
That’s the real outrage we should be “stopping.” But no, our constitutionally-clueless spymaster doubles down on his dangerous ignorance by also stomping on the First Amendment. If this were a movie, people would laugh at it as being too silly, too far-fetched to believe. But there it is, horribly real.

“Keith Alexander Says The US Gov’t Needs To Figure Out A Way To Keep Journalists From Reporting On Snowden Leaks,” www.techdirt.com, October 25, 2013.
“NSA chief: Stop reporters ‘selling’ spy documents,” www.politico.com, October 24, 2013.
“Goodbye Free Press? As Europe Erupts Over US Spying, NSA Chief Says Government Must Stop the Media,” www.alternet.org, October 26, 2013.

Geithner’s magical trip through the revolving door

Timmy Geithner has landed.
The Secretary of the Treasury in President Obama’s first term resigned early this year, and we lost track of him for months. But in November, Geithner reappeared, having spun himself through Washington’s revolving door – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – and flung himself all the way up to Wall Street, landing softly in the cushy quarters of Warburg Pincus, one of America’s top 10 private-equity empires. Yes, the guy who was responsible for rescuing and regulating Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail, multibillion-dollar, financial casinos is now president of one.
Writing in The New Yorker magazine, Andrew Huszar says we need not be surprised that the former treasury chief is cashing in on his insider knowledge and contacts. Huszar worked at the New York Federal Reserve bank when Geithner became president of that powerful supervisor of Wall Street firms. He says that rather than promoting knowledgeable regulators from within the Fed, Geithner broke with tradition (and prudence) to put top bankers from JPMorgan Chase, American Express, Goldman Sachs, and other powerhouse firms in key regulatory positions. In other words, the new honcho built his own revolving door in the New York Fed, bringing in bankers to regulate themselves.
Thus, when Obama promoted Geithner to head the Treasury Department, Huszar was again unsurprised that our nation’s overseer of banksters quickly proved to be their comforter and protector. “Geithner never publicly advocated for the truly forceful and clean revamp of Wall Street,” writes Huszar, instead using his influence to convince “Obama and other lawmakers to be more accommodating to the big banks.”
Whether spinning from the inside out, or from the outside in, Geithner is proof the Washington-Wall Street revolving door serves bankers, not the public interests. We need to weld that door shut.

“Tim Geithner and the Revolving Door,” www.newyorker.com, November 20, 2013.
“Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” www.wsj.com, November 11, 2013.

A curse, a blessing, and a good food movement

In 1972, I was part of a nationwide campaign that came close to getting the US Senate to reject Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s choice for secretary of agriculture.
A coalition of grassroots farmers, consumers, and public interest organizations teamed up with progressive senators to undertake the almost impossible challenge of defeating the cabinet nominee.
The 51 to 44 Senate vote was so close, because we were able to expose Butz as... well, as butt-ugly. We brought the abusive power of corporate agribusiness into the public consciousness for the first time. We had won a moral victory, but it turned out to be a curse and a blessing.
First, the curse. Butz had risen to prominence in the world of agriculture by devoting himself to the corporate takeover of the global food economy. He openly promoted the preeminence of middleman food manufacturers over family farmers.
“Agriculture is no longer a way of life,” he barked, “it’s a business.” He instructed farmers to “Get big or get out” – and proceeded to shove tens of thousands of them out by promoting an export-based, corporate-run food economy. “Adapt,” he warned, “or die.” The ruination of farms and rural communities, Butz added, “releases people to do something useful in our society.”
The curse of Butz, however, spun off a blessing. Small farmers and food artisans practically threw up at the resulting Twinkieization of America’s food. They were sickened that nature’s own contribution to human culture was being turned into another plasticized product of corporate profiteers. They threw themselves into creating and sustaining a viable alternative. Linking locally with consumers, environmentalists, community activists, marketers, and others, the Good Food rebellion has since sprouted, spread, and blossomed from coast to coast.

To find farmers markets and other expressions of this movement right where you live, go to www.LocalHarvest.org.