“Anonymous” Posts Video Describing “Operation Payback” In Defense Of WikiLeaks
» 10 commentsby Colby Hall | 12:15 pm, December 9th, 2010video
For those unfamiliar with the depths of Internet sub-culture, “Anonymous” is a hard concept to understand. Simply put they are an anonymous crowdsourced set of vigilantes responsible for puling off some of the most newsworthy stunts in Internet history. But past projects like punking Scientology of flooding YouTube with porn fail in comparison to their recent attempts to disrupt the established entities who they deem to have alligned with the wrong side of justice over the WikiLeaks story. Now, in eerie and awesome fashion, a new video has been posted that describes their agenda in the most historic terms.
The video comes with the following text:
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
~George Orwell
“You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won’t help, but that is no excuse, you must still act.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither”
~ Ben Franklin Hello World. We are Anonymous. What you do or do not know about us is irrelevant. We have decided to write to you, the media, and all citizens of the free world to inform you of our intentions, potential targets, and our ongoing peaceful campaign for Freedom of Expression. Anonymous is peacefully campaigning for Freedom of Expression everywhere, in all forms, for all platforms.
The recent news of our efforts have been, at best, misinformed. We are not a terrorist organization or a group of “hackers” as governments, demagogues, and the media would have you believe. We are a diverse group that touches every aspect of philosophy, religion, and politics ever conceived by man. At this time, Anonymous, as a distributed consciousness, is focused on protesting peacefully for Freedom of Expression on the Internet. We ask the world to support us, not for our sake, but for your own. When governments control information they control you. We will resist until our dying breath. Pay attention citizens and governments of the world.
History is full of examples that show that governments can change when people stand united.
As an example in recent history: During the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1960s access to many businesses were blocked as a peaceful protest against segregation. In their efforts, the protesters of the time managed to make drastic changes to police and governments by refusing to be silenced.
In the spirit and memory of that movement and many others we will refuse to be silenced. We will protest!
It is here that we proclaim: Any individual, organization, corporation, and/or government entity which supports Freedom of Speech and a Free Internet is an ally of Anonymous. If you work to suppress Freedom of Expression and a Free Internet your efforts will be halted. Where others have made this promise and failed, we make this promise and aim to keep it for everyone. We would like to ask that you as a citizen, organization, media entity, or government do the same by joining us.
Signed,
Anonymous
The debate over the actions of Julian Assange have been hotly discussed in recent days, often in the most hyperbolic terms. The status quo have predictably labeled him a terrorist and enemy combatant, but libertarians and extreme leftists, who both share a deep distrust of governments and secrets, seem to agree that Assange should be labeled a hero.
Operation Payback is a loosely organized effort that is reported to have been responsible for attacking several websites of corporate institutions who have stopped supporting WikiLeaks efforts, namely Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, Paypal’s Blog and Swiss based Postfinance.
Watch the video from Anonymous below:
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10 comments
Atticus Draco says:
0
4
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. … Welcome to the desert… of the real. What if when you woke up, you didn’t know the difference …
lane says:
I’m not watching the video, just like I don’t watch the ones from Al Quada. But, I will say that Assange and his groups should be properly labeled anarchists. The rest of us are too busy working hard and raising families and contributing to society to care.
For those companies affected, it’s a good test of their systems. We build in many redundancies and other security plans, and you’ll see the companies will simply get a good test of their systems. We build in all sorts of redundancies not just for outages but also natural disasters.
The funny thing is, these idiots are too stupid and childish to realize how much companies experience these attacks, and any affects will be temporary and quickly resolved. Hacking isn’t new, and systems are created to handle all sorts of issues like hacking, natural disasters, etc.
lane said:
I’m not watching the video, just like I don’t watch the ones from Al Quada. But, I will say that Assange and his groups should be properly labeled anarchists. The rest of us are too busy working hard and raising families and contributing to society to care.For those companies affected, it’s a good test of their systems. We build in many redundancies and other security plans, and you’ll see the companies will simply get a good test of their systems. We build in all sorts of redundancies not just for outages but also natural disasters.
The funny thing is, these idiots are too stupid and childish to realize how much companies experience these attacks, and any affects will be temporary and quickly resolved. Hacking isn’t new, and systems are created to handle all sorts of issues like hacking, natural disasters, etc.
WOW,, good entry
i sense you didnt stock up on cheeze whiz during the Y2K debacle?
Pablo says:
What you do or do not know about us is irrelevant.
I think the 16 year old hacker that was just arrested in the Netherlands is rethinking that notion right now.
The ReaI Royal King says:
These hackers support wikileaks which published documents of the Obama administration. Can’t we just label them as racisits and call it a night? Or doesn’t that work anymore?
thx Atticus, Y2K was a lot of work, but the issue was know years in advance, the code was reviewed and fixed.
It’s just like this, Hackers attack sites all the time, and even too much good activity can bring it down for a bit. None of this is new. Due diligence is boring but very effective.
Kitsune says:
These are people who are in it for a revolution, so they can say they were the ones who shaped history, that it was “their” era. They couldn’t really care about either political ideology. They get off on ruining lives, and figure as long as they start with “acceptable targets” (like Scientology), they’ll have more support when they go for sewing real chaos.
lane said:
thx Atticus, Y2K was a lot of work, but the issue was know years in advance, the code was reviewed and fixed.
It’s just like this, Hackers attack sites all the time, and even too much good activity can bring it down for a bit. None of this is new. Due diligence is boring but very effective.i was just joking with ya about the Y2K thing,,
weak joke i guess,,
I was impressed about how calm, cool and collected you were in discussing the matter of “Anonymous”
The way you presented yourself is out of the NORM as of late, compared to what else is being said about it
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Anonymous Video of Operation Payback | Operation Payback | Mediaite
mully 
Bristol University | News from the University | Queens School of Engineering
Doctor Who's trusty invention is anything but sci-fi
Press release issued 6 December 2010
Television's favourite Time Lord could not exist without his trusty sonic screwdriver, as it's proved priceless in defeating Daleks and keeping the Tardis in check. Now Doctor Who's famous cure-all gadget could become a reality for DIY-ers across the world, say engineers.Sonic screwdriver to solve future DIY woes
Ultrasonic engineers at Bristol University and The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair are uncovering how a real life version of the fictional screwdriver - which uses sonic technology to open locks and undo screws - could be created.
Professor of Ultrasonics, Bruce Drinkwater, who is working with The Big Bang to inspire young scientists of the future, says the answer lies in ultrasonic sound waves. By operating the waves at frequencies way beyond the realms of human hearing, they can be used to apply forces to objects.
The technology is already being trialled in modern manufacturing to fix parts together and ultrasonic force fields are being developed within the medical field to separate diseased cells from healthy cells. Professor Drinkwater and The Big Bang team are now exploring whether super powerful versions of these sound beams could bring Doctor Who's iconic device to life.
He says: "Doctor Who is renowned for bending the rules of science. But technology has radically moved on since the Doc first stepped out of his Tardis in the sixties. Whilst a fully functioning time machine may still be light years away, engineers are already experimenting with ultrasonic waves to move and manipulate small objects."
Engineers are looking into how ultrasonic waves can be spun at high speed to create a twisting force similar to that of a miniature tornado, which could undo screws remotely. They have also experimented with rotating ultrasonic force fields which would act like the head of a real screwdriver.
Doctor Who and DIY fans may still have to wait before they can add the sonic screwdriver to their Christmas wish lists. However, Professor Drinkwater hopes his work to make the impossible possible will inspire engineers, technologists and inventors of the future.
"Doctor Who's adventures have captured the imaginations of millions, young and old. And, however far fetched the Time Lord's encounters may seem, there are engineers and scientists out there who are using their skills to bring the magic to life.
"The sonic screwdriver may still be sometime in the making but ultrasonic technology is already making its mark in the medical and manufacturing arenas with some exciting results."
Professor Drinkwater has teamed up with The Big Bang, one of the UK's biggest celebrations of science and engineering, to inspire young people from all walks of life.
Taking place at ICC London ExCeL from 10 - 12 March 2011, The Big Bang offers young people the chance to take part in a host of free interactive shows and workshops including Sky One's Brainiac Live! and BBC One's Bang Goes the Theory. It is also the ideal place to find out about the exciting career options available in science and engineering. The Big Bang hosts the finals of the prestigious National Science & Engineering Competition and also kicks off National Science & Engineering Week 2011.
Please contact Joanne Fryer for further information.
Further information:
The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair will take place from 10-12 March 2011 at ICC London ExCeL and will celebrate and raise the profile of young people's achievement in science and engineering and enable more young people to experience the excitement and opportunities available through science, technology, engineering and maths with support from their parents and teachers. School groups will be invited to visit the first two days of The Big Bang, which will also be open to the public on the Saturday. Young people will leave enlightened about how science and engineering feature in everything they wear, eat and do. A number of apprentice, graduate and experienced engineers and scientists will be on hand to quiz and young people will have the opportunity to discover a great career.
The Big Bang hosts the finals of the prestigious National Science & Engineering Competition and also kicks off National Science & Engineering Week 2011.
How awesome is this?
How the Future of Big Tobacco Could Be Tiny Lithium Batteries
The tobacco mosaic virus [1] is a destructive beast infecting over a hundred different species of plants, including tomatoes. But it may have a weird eco benefit: Incorporated into lithium batteries, it can increase storage capacity [2] ten times.
Scientists in the U.S. had already worked out how to coat the tiny rod-like cells of the virus with conductive materials. But the recent breakthrough has seen the nanorods incorporated into battery technology, with astonishingly beneficial results. The tobacco mosaic virus is a perfect candidate because it's the right size and shape to aid construction of battery electrodes, and it's self-replicating and self-assembling and can bind to metal.
The idea is that TMV nanorods are bound to the electrodes in a lithium cell--without the need for any bonding agent--and automagically increase the surface area of the electrode. This is a critical matter in battery design, since it affects how much electrical energy the battery can hold, and TMV's benefits mean a similar cell can hold up to ten times more charge than a more conventional one.
This has all sorts of implications for mobile technology. Imagine every lithium battery in every mobile device you own lasting up to ten times longer. That would mean Apple's new MacBook Airs could hang on in standby mode for 10 months, and Amazon's Kindles may only require charging once every year. Smartphones could have useful call times extending up to a week, and as well as changing how we think about our tech this could have an eco upshot--you'd probably not leave your charger plugged in, sucking down vampire power as much as it does right now.
Alternatively, batteries could be made with the same capacity that they have now, only ten times smaller--freeing up designers to create all sorts of practically useful gadgets that would be impossible at the moment. Micro-batteries are also possible, meaning rechargeable batteries could replace disposable ones in devices like hearing aids.
If the scientists at the University of Maryland driving this research find a way to scale up the invention to a commercial scale, then tobacco growers around the world may find themselves contributing something more positive to society, and the way we think about mobile technology may change radically.
To read more news on this, and similar stuff, keep up with my updates by following me, Kit Eaton [3], on Twitter.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
DU Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit | EFF
Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit
Commentary by Kurt Opsahl
Righthaven is attempting to make a business out of suing Internet websites for copyright infringement. It has filed 180 copyright actions so far —without ever first asking that a work be removed from the target website—in each case alleging “willful infringement” and attempting to extract settlements by threats of statutory damages (up to $150,000), attorneys’ fees and seizure of the domain name.
Democratic Underground -- represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers -- was sued by Righthaven on August 10 for a five-sentence excerpt of a Las Vegas Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, with a link back to the Review-Journal website.
Democratic Underground, a political message forum, refused to be intimidated by Righthaven’s action. They retained counsel and responded with a counterclaim that joined Righthaven’ affiliate and funder, Stephens Media, LLC (publisher of the Review-Journal), and laid bare the numerous defects not only in Righthaven’s claims, but in its business model itself. Not surprisingly, Righthaven now wants out—so badly, in fact, that it has moved to voluntarily dismiss its claim with prejudice in order to avoid a decision on the merits. However, Righthaven pleads to be let off the hook for Democratic Underground's fees and costs defending the lawsuit.
Democratic Underground responded to Righthaven's motion yesterday. DU agrees that this case should be over—indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked. To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating innocent defendants who refused to be coerced would be unjust and unsupportable. Accordingly, Democratic Underground asked the Court to deny the conditions Righthaven wrongfully proposed for the motion for voluntary dismissal and instead grant summary judgment in its favor.
In addition, Stephens Media has filed a motion to be let out of the case, piously claiming that it is just an innocent bystander, having done nothing but assign a copyright to Righthaven. To the contrary, Stephens Media has publicly admitted that it “grubstaked and contracted with a company called Righthaven," and made numerous public statements discussing Stephens Media’s ownership interest in Righthaven, its control over who Righthaven sues, and Righthaven’s business practices that are based on agreements with Stephens Media: with its general counsel representing, for instance, that “I can tell Righthaven not to sue somebody.” Democratic Underground responded to that motion as well, asking the court to reject Stephens Media's attempt to walk away from the copyright troll it created, and allow the counter-claim so that the online forum can receive full justice.
Related Issues: Copyright Trolls
Related Cases: Righthaven v. Democratic Underground
How America will collapse (by 2025) - U.S. Economy
SalonThis piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.
Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.
Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.
But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.
Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.
Significantly, in 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited "the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history," as the primary factor in the decline of the "United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm." Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the U.S. would long "retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally" for decades to come.
No such luck. Under current projections, the United States will find itself in second place behind China (already the world's second largest economy) in economic output around 2026, and behind India by 2050. Similarly, Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America's current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation.
By 2020, according to current plans, the Pentagon will throw a military Hail Mary pass for a dying empire. It will launch a lethal triple canopy of advanced aerospace robotics that represents Washington's last best hope of retaining global power despite its waning economic influence. By that year, however, China's global network of communications satellites, backed by the world's most powerful supercomputers, will also be fully operational, providing Beijing with an independent platform for the weaponization of space and a powerful communications system for missile- or cyber-strikes into every quadrant of the globe.
Wrapped in imperial hubris, like Whitehall or Quai d'Orsay before it, the White House still seems to imagine that American decline will be gradual, gentle, and partial. In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offered the reassurance that "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." A few days later, Vice President Biden ridiculed the very idea that "we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended." Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing "misleading metaphors of organic decline" and denying that any deterioration in U.S. global power was underway.
Ordinary Americans, watching their jobs head overseas, have a more realistic view than their cosseted leaders. An opinion poll in August 2010 found that 65 percent of Americans believed the country was now "in a state of decline." Already, Australia and Turkey, traditional U.S. military allies, are using their American-manufactured weapons for joint air and naval maneuvers with China. Already, America's closest economic partners are backing away from Washington's opposition to China's rigged currency rates. As the president flew back from his Asian tour last month, a gloomy New York Times headline summed the moment up this way: "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage, China, Britain and Germany Challenge U.S., Trade Talks With Seoul Fail, Too."
Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be. In place of Washington's wishful thinking, let’s use the National Intelligence Council's own futuristic methodology to suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, U.S. global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today). The future scenarios include: economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, and World War III. While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future.
Economic Decline: Present Situation
Today, three main threats exist to America’s dominant position in the global economy: loss of economic clout thanks to a shrinking share of world trade, the decline of American technological innovation, and the end of the dollar's privileged status as the global reserve currency.
By 2008, the United States had already fallen to number three in global merchandise exports, with just 11 percent of them compared to 12 percent for China and 16 percent for the European Union. There is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse itself.
Similarly, American leadership in technological innovation is on the wane. In 2008, the U.S. was still number two behind Japan in worldwide patent applications with 232,000, but China was closing fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400 percent increase since 2000. A harbinger of further decline: in 2009 the U.S. hit rock bottom in ranking among the 40 nations surveyed by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation when it came to "change" in "global innovation-based competitiveness" during the previous decade. Adding substance to these statistics, in October China's Defense Ministry unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A, so powerful, said one U.S. expert, that it "blows away the existing No. 1 machine" in America.
Add to this clear evidence that the U.S. education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sank to 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.
Such negative trends are encouraging increasingly sharp criticism of the dollar's role as the world’s reserve currency. "Other countries are no longer willing to buy into the idea that the U.S. knows best on economic policy," observed Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. In mid-2009, with the world's central banks holding an astronomical $4 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes, Russian president Dimitri Medvedev insisted that it was time to end "the artificially maintained unipolar system" based on "one formerly strong reserve currency."
Simultaneously, China's central bank governor suggested that the future might lie with a global reserve currency "disconnected from individual nations" (that is, the U.S. dollar). Take these as signposts of a world to come, and of a possible attempt, as economist Michael Hudson has argued, "to hasten the bankruptcy of the U.S. financial-military world order."
Economic Decline: Scenario 2020
After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, Washington slowly pulls U.S. forces back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter. By now, however, it is far too late.
Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying the bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers, great and regional, provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace. Meanwhile, amid soaring prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in real wages, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and divisive debates, often over remarkably irrelevant issues. Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal. The world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.
Oil Shock: Present Situation
One casualty of America's waning economic power has been its lock on global oil supplies. Speeding by America's gas-guzzling economy in the passing lane, China became the world's number one energy consumer this summer, a position the U.S. had held for over a century. Energy specialist Michael Klare has argued that this change means China will "set the pace in shaping our global future."
By 2025, Iran and Russia will control almost half of the world's natural gas supply, which will potentially give them enormous leverage over energy-starved Europe. Add petroleum reserves to the mix and, as the National Intelligence Council has warned, in just 15 years two countries, Russia and Iran, could "emerge as energy kingpins."
Despite remarkable ingenuity, the major oil powers are now draining the big basins of petroleum reserves that are amenable to easy, cheap extraction. The real lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was not BP's sloppy safety standards, but the simple fact everyone saw on "spillcam": one of the corporate energy giants had little choice but to search for what Klare calls "tough oil" miles beneath the surface of the ocean to keep its profits up.
Compounding the problem, the Chinese and Indians have suddenly become far heavier energy consumers. Even if fossil fuel supplies were to remain constant (which they won’t), demand, and so costs, are almost certain to rise -- and sharply at that. Other developed nations are meeting this threat aggressively by plunging into experimental programs to develop alternative energy sources. The United States has taken a different path, doing far too little to develop alternative sources while, in the last three decades, doubling its dependence on foreign oil imports. Between 1973 and 2007, oil imports have risen from 36 percent of energy consumed in the U.S. to 66 percent.
Oil Shock: Scenario 2025
The United States remains so dependent upon foreign oil that a few adverse developments in the global energy market in 2025 spark an oil shock. By comparison, it makes the 1973 oil shock (when prices quadrupled in just months) look like the proverbial molehill. Angered at the dollar's plummeting value, OPEC oil ministers, meeting in Riyadh, demand future energy payments in a "basket" of Yen, Yuan, and Euros. That only hikes the cost of U.S. oil imports further. At the same moment, while signing a new series of long-term delivery contracts with China, the Saudis stabilize their own foreign exchange reserves by switching to the Yuan. Meanwhile, China pours countless billions into building a massive trans-Asia pipeline and funding Iran's exploitation of the world largest percent natural gas field at South Pars in the Persian Gulf.
Concerned that the U.S. Navy might no longer be able to protect the oil tankers traveling from the Persian Gulf to fuel East Asia, a coalition of Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi form an unexpected new Gulf alliance and affirm that China's new fleet of swift aircraft carriers will henceforth patrol the Persian Gulf from a base on the Gulf of Oman. Under heavy economic pressure, London agrees to cancel the U.S. lease on its Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, while Canberra, pressured by the Chinese, informs Washington that the Seventh Fleet is no longer welcome to use Fremantle as a homeport, effectively evicting the U.S. Navy from the Indian Ocean.
With just a few strokes of the pen and some terse announcements, the "Carter Doctrine," by which U.S. military power was to eternally protect the Persian Gulf, is laid to rest in 2025. All the elements that long assured the United States limitless supplies of low-cost oil from that region -- logistics, exchange rates, and naval power -- evaporate. At this point, the U.S. can still cover only an insignificant 12 percent of its energy needs from its nascent alternative energy industry, and remains dependent on imported oil for half of its energy consumption.
The oil shock that follows hits the country like a hurricane, sending prices to startling heights, making travel a staggeringly expensive proposition, putting real wages (which had long been declining) into freefall, and rendering non-competitive whatever American exports remained. With thermostats dropping, gas prices climbing through the roof, and dollars flowing overseas in return for costly oil, the American economy is paralyzed. With long-fraying alliances at an end and fiscal pressures mounting, U.S. military forces finally begin a staged withdrawal from their overseas bases.
Within a few years, the U.S. is functionally bankrupt and the clock is ticking toward midnight on the American Century.
Military Misadventure: Present Situation
Counterintuitively, as their power wanes, empires often plunge into ill-advised military misadventures. This phenomenon is known among historians of empire as "micro-militarism" and seems to involve psychologically compensatory efforts to salve the sting of retreat or defeat by occupying new territories, however briefly and catastrophically. These operations, irrational even from an imperial point of view, often yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the loss of power.
Embattled empires through the ages suffer an arrogance that drives them to plunge ever deeper into military misadventures until defeat becomes debacle. In 413 BCE, a weakened Athens sent 200 ships to be slaughtered in Sicily. In 1921, a dying imperial Spain dispatched 20,000 soldiers to be massacred by Berber guerrillas in Morocco. In 1956, a fading British Empire destroyed its prestige by attacking Suez. And in 2001 and 2003, the U.S. occupied Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. With the hubris that marks empires over the millennia, Washington has increased its troops in Afghanistan to 100,000, expanded the war into Pakistan, and extended its commitment to 2014 and beyond, courting disasters large and small in this guerilla-infested, nuclear-armed graveyard of empires.
Military Misadventure: Scenario 2014
So irrational, so unpredictable is "micro-militarism" that seemingly fanciful scenarios are soon outdone by actual events. With the U.S. military stretched thin from Somalia to the Philippines and tensions rising in Israel, Iran, and Korea, possible combinations for a disastrous military crisis abroad are multifold.
It’s mid-summer 2014 and a drawn-down U.S. garrison in embattled Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is suddenly, unexpectedly overrun by Taliban guerrillas, while U.S. aircraft are grounded by a blinding sandstorm. Heavy loses are taken and in retaliation, an embarrassed American war commander looses B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters to demolish whole neighborhoods of the city that are believed to be under Taliban control, while AC-130U "Spooky" gunships rake the rubble with devastating cannon fire.
Soon, mullahs are preaching jihad from mosques throughout the region, and Afghan Army units, long trained by American forces to turn the tide of the war, begin to desert en masse. Taliban fighters then launch a series of remarkably sophisticated strikes aimed at U.S. garrisons across the country, sending American casualties soaring. In scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, U.S. helicopters rescue American soldiers and civilians from rooftops in Kabul and Kandahar.
Meanwhile, angry at the endless, decades-long stalemate over Palestine, OPEC’s leaders impose a new oil embargo on the U.S. to protest its backing of Israel as well as the killing of untold numbers of Muslim civilians in its ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East. With gas prices soaring and refineries running dry, Washington makes its move, sending in Special Operations forces to seize oil ports in the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, sparks a rash of suicide attacks and the sabotage of pipelines and oil wells. As black clouds billow skyward and diplomats rise at the U.N. to bitterly denounce American actions, commentators worldwide reach back into history to brand this "America's Suez," a telling reference to the 1956 debacle that marked the end of the British Empire.
World War III: Present Situation
In the summer of 2010, military tensions between the U.S. and China began to rise in the western Pacific, once considered an American "lake." Even a year earlier no one would have predicted such a development. As Washington played upon its alliance with London to appropriate much of Britain's global power after World War II, so China is now using the profits from its export trade with the U.S. to fund what is likely to become a military challenge to American dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.
With its growing resources, Beijing is claiming a vast maritime arc from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the U.S. Navy. In August, after Washington expressed a "national interest" in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce that claim, Beijing's official Global Times responded angrily, saying, "The U.S.-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be."
Amid growing tensions, the Pentagon reported that Beijing now holds "the capability to attack… [U.S.] aircraft carriers in the western Pacific Ocean" and target "nuclear forces throughout… the continental United States." By developing "offensive nuclear, space, and cyber warfare capabilities," China seems determined to vie for dominance of what the Pentagon calls "the information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace." With ongoing development of the powerful Long March V booster rocket, as well as the launch of two satellites in January 2010 and another in July, for a total of five, Beijing signaled that the country was making rapid strides toward an "independent" network of 35 satellites for global positioning, communications, and reconnaissance capabilities by 2020.
To check China and extend its military position globally, Washington is intent on building a new digital network of air and space robotics, advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, and electronic surveillance. Military planners expect this integrated system to envelop the Earth in a cyber-grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield or taking out a single terrorist in field or favela. By 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will launch a three-tiered shield of space drones -- reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, and operated through total telescopic surveillance.
Last April, the Pentagon made history. It extended drone operations into the exosphere by quietly launching the X-37B unmanned space shuttle into a low orbit 255 miles above the planet. The X-37B is the first in a new generation of unmanned vehicles that will mark the full weaponization of space, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before.
World War III: Scenario 2025
The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new and untested that even the most outlandish scenarios may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. If we simply employ the sort of scenarios that the Air Force itself used in its 2009 Future Capabilities Game, however, we can gain "a better understanding of how air, space and cyberspace overlap in warfare," and so begin to imagine how the next world war might actually be fought.
It’s 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2025. While cyber-shoppers pound the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest home electronics from China, U.S. Air Force technicians at the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) on Maui choke on their coffee as their panoramic screens suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the U.S. CyberCommand's operations center in Texas, cyberwarriors soon detect malicious binaries that, though fired anonymously, show the distinctive digital fingerprints of China's People's Liberation Army.
The first overt strike is one nobody predicted. Chinese "malware" seizes control of the robotics aboard an unmanned solar-powered U.S. "Vulture" drone as it flies at 70,000 feet over the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan. It suddenly fires all the rocket pods beneath its enormous 400-foot wingspan, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the Yellow Sea, effectively disarming this formidable weapon.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident that its F-6 "Fractionated, Free-Flying" satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to the flotilla of X-37B space drones orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, ordering them to launch their "Triple Terminator" missiles at China's 35 satellites. Zero response. In near panic, the Air Force launches its Falcon Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle into an arc 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and then, just 20 minutes later, sends the computer codes to fire missiles at seven Chinese satellites in nearby orbits. The launch codes are suddenly inoperative.
As the Chinese virus spreads uncontrollably through the F-6 satellite architecture, while those second-rate U.S. supercomputers fail to crack the malware's devilishly complex code, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of U.S. ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised. Carrier fleets begin steaming in circles in the mid-Pacific. Fighter squadrons are grounded. Reaper drones fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. Suddenly, the United States loses what the U.S. Air Force has long called "the ultimate high ground": space. Within hours, the military power that had dominated the globe for nearly a century has been defeated in World War III without a single human casualty.
A New World Order?
Even if future events prove duller than these four scenarios suggest, every significant trend points toward a far more striking decline in American global power by 2025 than anything Washington now seems to be envisioning.
As allies worldwide begin to realign their policies to take cognizance of rising Asian powers, the cost of maintaining 800 or more overseas military bases will simply become unsustainable, finally forcing a staged withdrawal on a still-unwilling Washington. With both the U.S. and China in a race to weaponize space and cyberspace, tensions between the two powers are bound to rise, making military conflict by 2025 at least feasible, if hardly guaranteed.
Complicating matters even more, the economic, military, and technological trends outlined above will not operate in tidy isolation. As happened to European empires after World War II, such negative forces will undoubtedly prove synergistic. They will combine in thoroughly unexpected ways, create crises for which Americans are remarkably unprepared, and threaten to spin the economy into a sudden downward spiral, consigning this country to a generation or more of economic misery.
As U.S. power recedes, the past offers a spectrum of possibilities for a future world order. At one end of this spectrum, the rise of a new global superpower, however unlikely, cannot be ruled out. Yet both China and Russia evince self-referential cultures, recondite non-roman scripts, regional defense strategies, and underdeveloped legal systems, denying them key instruments for global dominion. At the moment then, no single superpower seems to be on the horizon likely to succeed the U.S.
In a dark, dystopian version of our global future, a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral forces like NATO, and an international financial elite could conceivably forge a single, possibly unstable, supra-national nexus that would make it no longer meaningful to speak of national empires at all. While denationalized corporations and multinational elites would assumedly rule such a world from secure urban enclaves, the multitudes would be relegated to urban and rural wastelands.
In "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis offers at least a partial vision of such a world from the bottom up. He argues that the billion people already packed into fetid favela-style slums worldwide (rising to two billion by 2030) will make "the 'feral, failed cities' of the Third World… the distinctive battlespace of the twenty-first century." As darkness settles over some future super-favela, "the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression" as "hornet-like helicopter gun-ships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts… Every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and eloquent explosions."
At a midpoint on the spectrum of possible futures, a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2040, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.
Another possibility: the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated before modern empires took shape. In this neo-Westphalian world order, with its endless vistas of micro-violence and unchecked exploitation, each hegemon would dominate its immediate region -- Brasilia in South America, Washington in North America, Pretoria in southern Africa, and so on. Space, cyberspace, and the maritime deeps, removed from the control of the former planetary "policeman," the United States, might even become a new global commons, controlled through an expanded U.N. Security Council or some ad hoc body.
All of these scenarios extrapolate existing trends into the future on the assumption that Americans, blinded by the arrogance of decades of historically unparalleled power, cannot or will not take steps to manage the unchecked erosion of their global position.
If America's decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.
If only 15 years remain, the odds of frittering them all away still remain high. Congress and the president are now in gridlock; the American system is flooded with corporate money meant to jam up the works; and there is little suggestion that any issues of significance, including our wars, our bloated national security state, our starved education system, and our antiquated energy supplies, will be addressed with sufficient seriousness to assure the sort of soft landing that might maximize our country's role and prosperity in a changing world.
Europe's empires are gone and America's imperium is going. It seems increasingly doubtful that the United States will have anything like Britain's success in shaping a succeeding world order that protects its interests, preserves its prosperity, and bears the imprint of its best values.
WikiLeaks: Winning the Info War Despite Assange's Arrest -- Printout -- TIME
Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2010Why WikiLeaks Is Winning Its Info War
By Massimo Calabresi / Washington
There was a time when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's voluntary surrender to the British authorities might have put an end to the crisis created by the Internet provocateur's dissemination of tens of thousands of state secrets. But in the upside-down world of transnational crowdsourcing unleashed by WikiLeaks, in which thousands of activists around the globe can be rallied to defend and extend its work, Assange's arrest is a win, not a loss, for his organization.
The asymmetrical info war initiated by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables is all about spectacle — the more Assange is set up by world powers, the more powerful his own movement becomes. "The field of battle is WikiLeaks," wrote John Perry Barlow, a former Grateful Dead lyricist and founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the First Amendment advocacy group, in a message to his followers. "You are the troops." WikiLeaks admiringly forwarded the post to 300,000 of its own followers. As the U.S. and other governments attempted to close down WikiLeaks over the past week, those "troops" have fought back. And so far, it doesn't look like much of a contest. (Read TIME's interview with Julian Assange.)
First, the U.S. government pushed WikiLeaks off the servers of Amazon, its U.S. host — thanks in part to an effort by the office of Senator Joe Lieberman, who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee. After the rogue site was pushed off a smaller, backup host in the U.S., it moved first to a Swiss domain, then to a simple numeric one. WikiLeaks has complained, and some news outlets have reported, about apparent hacker attacks against the website. The effect of all that pressure, however, was very much like cutting the head off the mythical Hydra. By Tuesday evening, WikiLeaks listed 507 Web addresses that it said were hosting the site worldwide.
The U.S. and its allies have taken other steps to curb WikiLeaks' activities. The French Industry Minister Eric Besson called for the site to be banned from French servers. Swiss bank PostFinance announced it had frozen $41,000 in an account set up as a legal-defense fund for Assange. The bank said it took action because Assange had claimed Geneva as his domicile when opening the account, but this had proved incorrect and he could not show that he is a Swiss resident. PayPal, MasterCard and Visa have all blocked donations to WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks' backers are fighting back, though their hacker attacks on some of the sites that shut off WikiLeaks funding may be less effective. (See all of TIME's WikiLeaks coverage.)
Assange's detention is not without its costs to him and WikiLeaks. Swedish prosecutors say he has been accused of having had unprotected sex with a woman, identified only as Miss A, despite her insistence that he use a condom, and that he had unprotected sex with a second woman, Miss W, while she was asleep. Both scenarios would be crimes in Sweden, and the attention to the charges has divided some of his supporters. Assange has not been formally charged with any crime and denies any wrongdoing.
But the principal effect of his arrest has been to rally the troops. Assange, who was in hiding in England, turned himself in to British police on Tuesday morning. That afternoon, he faced a hearing in which his British lawyer pledged to appeal again against extradition to Sweden. Several people present offered tens of thousands of dollars worth of bail, but the judge ordered him held without bail. Supporters cheered Assange as he left the courthouse. (Read "WikiLeaks' War on Secrecy.")
And the David vs. Goliath stagecraft continues. Assange's Swedish attorney, Bjorn Hurtig, told Reuters on Friday that he suspects "somebody has an interest in getting [Assange] to Sweden and maybe asking for him to be extradited to another country [from there]." In fact, extradition from Europe to the U.S. is hard, and even if Assange could be extradited it's not clear what he could be charged with.
There is, of course, a limit to how much Assange can win. In the U.S., officials are finding that while there were certainly structural reasons like expanded technology and overclassification behind the theft of the leaked documents, practical reasons were equally important. Thanks to an imperative from then commander of the U.S. Central Command David Petraeus and others to share information with allies on improvised explosive devices and other threats, the Central Command allowed the downloading of data from its secret in-house network, SIPRNet, to removable storage devices, officials tell TIME. The information was then carried to computers linked to secret networks used by allies and uploaded. The process was derisively called "sneaker net," because it was so inefficient, although it replaced the prior need to manually retype all information into the allied computers. (Comment on this story.)
New restrictions on downloading media have been imposed over the past six months, restoring the restrictions that existed before the leaks. That may be one victory for the U.S. in its attempts to fight WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, Assange's lawyer said Tuesday that a new editor in chief of WikiLeaks would step in during Assange's absence.
— With reporting by Eben Harrell / LondonRead "WikiLeaks' Assange: Under Arrest, Fighting Extradition."
- Find this article at:
- http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2035817,00.html
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Monday, December 06, 2010
How Acupuncture Affects Pain Perception in the Brain - TIME Healthland
The idea of pricking your body with needles in order to relieve pain seems nothing if not counterintuitive, but thousands of acupuncture patients swear the treatments are effective in addressing pain of all kinds.
But how does it work? How much of the relief is due to the placebo effect — the mere perception that the needles are actually dulling pain — as opposed to a real biological change in the way nerves signal the brain to pain? (More on Time.com: Who Are the 5 Most Stressed Americans? The Answer May Surprise You)
A new study lends support to the notion that acupuncture may actually modulate the brain's perception of pain. In a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track brain activity both before and during acupuncture, researchers led by Dr. Nina Theysohn at the University Hospital in Essen, Germany, and colleagues at University of Duisburg-Essen documented a specific pattern of brain activation during acupuncture that may represent an accessible pathway for addressing pain.
In the small trial, which involved 18 volunteers, each volunteer was placed in the fMRI scanner and then given a small electrical stimulus in the left ankle to generate pain. Acupuncture needles were then inserted at three places on the right side corresponding to regions known to modulate the ankle pain, and the fMRI was repeated. Comparing the brain scans before and after acupuncture, the scientists found that areas of the brain that were active during the pain stimulus were dampened during acupuncture, suggesting that the needles actually do cause a change in the way that the brain perceives and processes pain. (More on Time.com: Amnesia and a Camera: Photos as Memories)
“This study helps to clarify the brain's function in terms of how or where it processes pain and where that processing can be modified by the application of acupuncture intervention,” says Dr. Michael Brant-Zawadzki, an adjunct professor of radiology at Stanford University, commenting on the study.
What's most exciting, says Brant-Zawadzki, is that the brain regions identified in the fMRI scans may lead researchers to find a more standardized approach to treating pain that may help more sufferers. “If we could find one part of the brain that modulates the pain response in the vast majority of individuals, we could address pain through acupuncture or drugs or even sham acupuncture,” he says, “and we would have a better approach to the pain conundrum than we currently have.” (More on Time: Could Painkiller Use in Pregnancy Cause Problems in Baby Boys?)
The study authors were not able to match up the brain regions activated by acupuncture with similar scans of those treated with medications or other pain relieving treatments, but such studies could help to narrow down the most potent pathways to alleviating pain of all kinds. Theysohn cautions that the findings are too preliminary to draw any conclusions about how acupuncture actually works, acknowledging that “we don't exactly know what is going on in there, but we can say that brain activity in all regions of interest was lessened under acupuncture.” It might be further proof that acupuncture's benefits may, after all, be all in your head.
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Why All’s Not Well in the World of Martha Stewart - TIME NewsFeed
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Domestic bliss? Not as of late. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the suddenly struggling Martha Stewart.
We might all want to be Oprah, but it's tough going for Stewart. According to the Times, Stewart's empire lost $19 million in 2009 and, with much of her television programming struggling to find an audience on the TV backwater that is the Hallmark Channel, the one-time domestic diva is facing a "do-or-die moment." Martha's maintaining her flagship show on NBC, but a plan to launch eight-hours of Stewart-centric programming on Hallmark ultimately failed to outperform the reruns of The Golden Girls that once occupied the time slot. (Betty White: She can't be stopped.)
Do people just not like Martha? Stewart faces competition from Oprah and fresh-faced Rachel Ray on TV and from myriad blogs online. That and in a time-strapped, recession-crunched world, perhaps we don't value Martha's particular brand of perfection-at-all-costs like we once did. All this means a push for Stewart to make things simpler and faster.
(See Martha Stewart as one of the 25 most powerful women of the past century.)
Stewart refuses to call it a reinvention, casting it instead as a refocus: "Yes, we're bringing people back to basic values in this economic downturn, but people forget that we've always been doing that, since Day 1," she tells the Times. (Via the Los Angeles Times)
Tooth decay to be a thing of the past? Enzyme responsible for dental plaque sticking to teeth deciphered
ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2010) — The Groningen professors Bauke Dijkstra and Lubbert Dijkhuizen have deciphered the structure and functional mechanism of the glucansucrase enzyme that is responsible for dental plaque sticking to teeth. This knowledge will stimulate the identification of substances that inhibit the enzyme. Just add that substance to toothpaste, or even sweets, and caries will be a thing of the past.
The results of the research have been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The University of Groningen researchers analysed glucansucrase from the lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri, which is present in the human mouth and digestive tract. The bacteria use the glucansucrase enzyme to convert sugar from food into long, sticky sugar chains. They use this glue to attach themselves to tooth enamel. The main cause of tooth decay, the bacterium Streptococcus mutans, also uses this enzyme. Once attached to tooth enamel, these bacteria ferment sugars releasing acids that dissolve the calcium in teeth. This is how caries develops.
Three dimensional structure
Using protein crystallography, the researchers were able to elucidate the three dimensional (3D) structure of the enzyme. The Groningen researchers are the first to succeed in crystallizing glucansucrase. The crystal structure has revealed that the folding mechanism of the protein is unique. The various domains of the enzyme are not formed from a single, linear amino acid chain but from two parts that assemble via a U-shaped structure of the chain; this is the first report on such a folding mechanism in the literature.
Functional mechanism
The unravelling of the 3D structure provided the researchers with detailed insight into the functional mechanism of the enzyme. The enzyme splits sucrose into fructose and glucose and then adds the glucose molecule to a growing sugar chain. Thus far the scientific community assumed that both processes were performed by different parts of the enzyme. However, the model created by the Groningen researchers has revealed that both activities occur in the same active site of the enzyme.
Inhibitors
Dijkhuizen expects that specific inhibitors for the glucansucrase enzyme may help to prevent attachment of the bacteria to the tooth enamel. Information about the structure and functional mechanism of the enzyme is crucial for developing such inhibitors. Thus far, such research has not been successful, states Dijkhuizen: 'The various inhibitors studied not only blocked the glucansucrase, but also the digestive enzyme amylase in our saliva, which is needed to degrade starch.'
Evolution
The crystal structure also provides an explanation for this double inhibition. The data published by the Groningen scientists shows that glucansucrase proteins most likely evolved from amylase enzymes that degrade starch. 'We already knew that the two enzymes were similar', says Dijkhuizen, 'but the crystal structure revealed that the active sites are virtually identical. Future inhibitors thus need to be directed towards very specific targets because both enzymes are evolutionary closely related.'
Toothpaste and sweets
Dijkhuizen points out that in future glucansucrase inhibitors may be added to toothpaste and mouthwash. 'But it may even be possible to add them to sweets', he suggests. 'An inhibitor might prevent that sugars released in the mouth cause damage.' However, Dijkhuizen doesn't expect that toothbrushes have had their day: 'it will always be necessary to clean your teeth.'
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Groningen.
Journal Reference:
- A. Vujicic-Zagar, T. Pijning, S. Kralj, C. A. Lopez, W. Eeuwema, L. Dijkhuizen, B. W. Dijkstra. Crystal structure of a 117 kDa glucansucrase fragment provides insight into evolution and product specificity of GH70 enzymes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1007531107
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Autonomous quadrotor navigation with a Kinect - DIY Drones
This is too cool for words!!
Sunday, December 05, 2010
McConnell's Reality Distortion Field on Tax Cuts - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
"It's pretty clear taxes not going up on anyone in the middle of this recession," Sen. Mitch McConnell said on "Meet the Press." "There's bipartisan opposition to raising taxes on anyone at this time."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
(Credit: Win McNamee)
On Saturday, Senate Republicans voted down Democratic efforts to limit extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans. Five Democratic Senators joined Republicans on one or both of the votes.
The Republican Senate minority leader has been arguing that the outcome of the midterm elections confers a mandate on Congress to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, which are set to expire Jan. 1.
But the bipartisan opposition and an electoral mandate to extend the Bush-era tax cut or block all other legislation is at odds with recent polling of the American public — those whom McConnell and Congress are supposed to represent.
A recent CBS News poll indicated that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year.
(Credit: CBS)
Only 26 percent indicated they support extending the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of income level. Among Republicans polled, 41 percent support the White House proposal to extend tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000 and 46 percent support extending all the Bush-era tax cuts.
A recent Gallup poll found 44 percent of Americans want to keep the tax cuts but set limits for wealthy Americans, and 40 percent favor maintaining the Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans. A majority in the Gallup poll (57 percent) would set the bar on taxing households at $500,000 rather than $250,000, which is the figure the White House prefers.
A majority of Americans believe the tax cuts should be temporary — 45 percent, versus 37 percent who believe the tax cuts should be permanent.
In the AP-CNBC poll, 50 percent of Americans were in favor of expiring the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning over $250,000 and 34 percent favor extending the tax cuts for all Americans.
Apparently ignoring the signals presented in the polls (which politicians sometimes do), McConnell and 41 other Republican Senators said they would block votes on all legislation, including the nuclear arms reduction START agreement with Russia and an extension of unemployment benefits, unless an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts includes the highest income earners.
"Life is a series of choices," McConnell said in reference to linking a vote on the START treaty to extending all the Bush-era tax cuts.
His strategy of holding up legislation, and giving the White House a something-or-nothing "series of choices," may be working. The White House has said that it is "negotiating" a compromise tax deal in the next few days, which will extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, but not indefinitely.
Following the midterm election, McConnell and the GOP have been able to create a reality distortion field surrounding the tax cuts, and the White House and majority of Democrats are about to enter it.
Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here. You can also follow him on Twitter.