Electric power and political power are two sides of the same doubloon. There is no way to separate the power you get through a wire so you can burn your morning toast, from the political power needed to overcharge you for it. – Greg Palast, Vultures’ Picnic

Greg Palast’s latest book contains more stinking shit per page than there is in the tanks at your local sewage works. A detective story that’s all too true, in Vultures’ Picnic, Palast, a forensic accountant and PI turned author and investigative journalist, uncovers the power and money hungry elite who take a big fat dump on our environment and democracy as a matter of course – common decency merely being the cost of doing business for these “high living” scum.

Over the course of the book’s 400+ pages, Palast, a honey-dipper* extraordinaire (who is perhaps best known for being the first to figure out exactly how Bush stole the 2000 election), chases the “turds around the planet” who are responsible for some of the biggest steaming piles of shit to hit newspaper headlines in recent memory.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico and the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor meltdown and radiation leak in Japan may have been conveniently excused under the polite euphemism of “accident” by the companies responsible — and the media that kowtows to them — but it turns out the incidents were entirely foreseeable, cost assessed, and cynically calculated as a risk worth taking by those who care more about the bottom line than they do about the health of our planet and/or human life.

But before Deepwater Horizon, the company in part responsible for the ultra-deepwater blowout, BP, was also to-the-neck deep in an earlier record-breaking oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Palast had spent some quality time on the scene there doing what he does best, uncovering shit, but this time the shit got the better of him. Burnt out and disillusioned by his investigations into the Exxon Valdez “accident” (despite the name on the tanker, there were many fingers, including BP’s big fat one, in that poop pie), and our press and lawmakers apathetic (at best) response when confronted by the truth, he sought out pastures new.

Palast turned to England and The Guardian newspaper in the hopes of finding a culture that still had some semblance of a sense of justice and an outlet that vaguely understood the meaning of journalistic integrity. As this except from Vultures’ Picnic reveals, Palast soon found himself knee deep in some excrement partly of his own making, with his pants literally and metaphorically down by his ankles…

Vultures’ Picnic: We Figured Out Who Murdered Jake

by Greg Palast

Blackpool, England, 1998

Now, if this were a movie, you would hear the audience screaming, DON’T TAKE THE KEY! DON’T GO UP THOSE STAIRS!

The reporter part of my brain was screaming THIS SMELLS BAD, but I couldn’t hear a thing because, while I was out for the story, the memory of Ms. Jamaica’s hand in my pocket had drained the blood from my cerebellum.

So I took the key she left for me at the desk with the message to meet her up in her room. I went up the stairs. Knock-knock. No answer.

DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!

I opened the door.

FOR GOD’S SAKE, DON’T TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES!

I took off my clothes. I needed to change my shirt and pants for the New Statesman party, though if she walked in, hey, we could start the party early.

The door opened. I smiled . . . at the desk clerk and Ms. Jamaica’s husband.

Husband! This bitch has a HUSBAND? The poor pudgy schmuck had a face like the map of Liverpool, lost and pathetic and pugnacious at the same time.

The clerk, turning red, stuttered, “I explained the circumstance, sir. . . .” But I got the impression from the husband’s look that this wasn’t the first time Ms. Jamaica had handed some guy her hotel room key.

Thank god the Lord told me to pull up the pants a moment before the door opened. I babbled. ”How’s the vote count looking for our gal?” She was running for the Labour Party’s leadership council, the hand-picked candidate of the Prince of Darkness. To get the shit on the Prince was the reason I went “undercover” (so to speak).

This was not a nice moment. I fell all over my own words. ”Been trying to, to, trying to call her. Guess I’ll meet up — say, are you coming? — catch up with her at the New Statesman ‘do.’ Guess I’ll get going.”

Guess I will.

[..]

by Nicole Breanne

The boy scouts have a really simple slogan: “Always Be Prepared.” They teach it to 7-year olds. It’s a very simple premise, but it’s so important. So why the fuck can’t a presidential candidate remember that? If you’re going to be on a televised debate when you’re trying to prove you are the best man for the job, maybe you should…oh, I dunno, study your notes? Talk to the half a dozen people you hired to prep you, AND KNOW THE NAMES OF THE DEPARTMENTS YOU’RE GOING TO CUT!

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Last night there was a debate in Michigan (Detroit, what!) and Rick Perry was talking about cutting cabinet positions. This is a direct quote from said debate: “Commerce, Education and the – what’s the third one there? Let’s see…”

Oh, yeah, let’s see…Let me just take a minute to get my thoughts together, not like this is a big deal or anything. Not like I should know this or anything!

He ended up saying it was the Department of Energy, but the damage was done. What’s even better, he thinks it’s no big deal. “I stepped in it, that’s what my wife would say.” He went on to say that he feels this little slip up (little slip up, really?) has made him more human, and people can relate. Look, its no secret, I’m really jaded, cynical, and pretty much bat shit crazy, so forgive me if I don’t want to relate to my President. I don’t want to see the dude and be like, “Yeah, that guy gets me…” ‘Cause if he gets me, he’s got no business running the goddamn country. I know my limits, and maybe these candidates need to know theirs.

Perry then said: “Any time you’re standing in front of however many million people we were and you have a loss of train of thought, sure, it impacts you. But the fact is one error is not going to make or break a campaign.”

That’s true, one mistake won’t, but he’s made a lot of mistakes. He’s no longer a serious (and I use that term extremely loosely) candidate. He’s a joke. The fact that he can’t see it makes it even worse. There’s a bigger issue here then a little brain freeze by Perry. It’s an overwhelming sense that the current culture has that it’s okay to be a fuck up. It’s okay to not be the best person for the job, and still get the job. It’s okay to just believe your own hype.

I blame the internet, and social media. Ugh okay, maybe, I’m just bitter because I’ve been fired from a job where I made really tiny mistakes because I was still learning. But this guy has been a politician for years, and fucks up on a major platform, and he gets to keep his job? I was a freaking secretary and apparently the weight of the company could come crashing down on my typos and inability to format a letter. Guys, don’t even worry about it, I can write letters, I write amazing letters. But my boss was psycho –– I mean it –– I can write a letter! I’ll write a letter right now if I have to! Clearly, I’m not bruised by that experience at all…and do you see how defensive and completely embarrassed I am about this? How I immediately set out to prove that I am capable? Over fucking letters…Yet this dude can FORGET THE NAMES OF DEPARTMENTS live on TV AND then call the African American candidate “brother,” but he gets to stay in the race and just shrug it off, like, “Oh well, I made a mistake. Whoops!”

In the words of my seven-year-old nephew, who’s not even a Boy Scout but still totally grasped this whole debacle, “what a pile of junk.” This whole “Southern boy, awe-shucks, are those my boots under your bed?” act that Perry’s been putting on is getting really fucking old. By the way, that’s not a dig at the South, I currently have a Southern boy’s boots under my bed as I type this. So back off. It’s totally Perry-specific.

The other issue is that everyone is commenting on how he was a front runner, and now that’s over. But why was he a front runner? Well, because the dude’s got bank. That’s what it boiled down to. Money. Not qualifications, not experience, not views, not ethics, but the almighty dollar. I’m getting so disillusioned, and really fed up. Part of me wants to shave my head, hop on my motorcycle, shoot a campaign commercial, and just run on the freak ticket. I’m really good in front of a camera, I know my lines, and I’m sorry but I think I’m a bit better looking Sarah Palin, so I bet I could go really far as long as I don’t have to write my own letters. Oh wait, fuck, it won’t work, I may be at least somewhat qualified in the batshit crazy department, but I’m not a Republican.





by Darrah de jour

Republicans Meet Muslims Halfway, In Bed

If you remember, in my last column, I reported on the New Jersey Republican state senate candidate who relegated his Twitter account to a Joyce Brothers-style dating advice forum. He targeted us rambunctious women by advising us via tweet that if we want to keep our man, we should be “faithful, a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need a 40-something real estate dude chiming in on what I do between the sheets. Or in the back seat. Not to mention, the idea of putting my own needs aside, in an act that is supposed to be about both partners’ satisfaction and connection (or simply for two or more hot and sticky bodies to reach nirvana via some nerve bundles) to serve the man solely. Seems like, how do you say it? Bullshit.

Unless your job is to get paid for sex – you probably want to enjoy it. And since when did a ring on your finger or a nice bouquet of flowers equal whoredom?

Scarier Than Who Killed Amanda Palmer

Malaysia recently made international headlines for starting a “club” not unlike your grandmother’s knitting circle. Only, The Obedient Wives Club teaches Muslim women to reinforce their role at home. National director Fauziah Ariffin stresses that “in Islam there are four things that wives must do to enter Heaven: to pray, to fast during Ramadan, to protect their chastity, and to be obedient wives – and it is often the fourth aspect that modern wives neglect.”

She goes on, “Husbands should treat their wives like first-class prostitutes.”

Huh? Wait, I’m sensing a common thread here. Basically, over in America, GOP national candidate Mitsch tells us we should be a whore in the bedroom to win our man’s fidelity. And clear ’cross town in Southeast Asia, women are taught, via this version of Islam, that they should – be a whore in the bedroom to win their man’s fidelity.

Ariffin continues, “Our wives provide men with top-level service. However, ordinary prostitutes can only provide good sex, but not love and affection which only a wife can provide.

“Hence, as wives, we must treat our husbands better. It’s not just in bed, but everything that a wife can offer. Optimise [sic] your role. If we provide our husbands more than a prostitute can give, then our husbands will not go out looking for it.”

OK, gotcha. So, not just any prosy* will do. It should be a top-level one. Because let’s not leave out classism. Escort party-people. The kind you and I would be. Not that other kind that the poor are.

Fauziah reasoned that obedient wives will not cause husbands to take their partner for granted, but in fact, it will make them better husbands.

“When a husband comes home and receives good treatment from the wife, they become better and more loving husbands. Why would they treat their spouse badly if they are treated well?” she said.

I would ask Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that one.

Even scarier, OWC has launched in Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Britain and France.

This didactic schooling of women, which is pervasive and dates back to whenever it was that witches were broiled and our new patron saint was supposedly a virgin, begs many questions. First off, I can’t help but wonder, why are women told to think sex is bad but harassed to ‘give it up’? Wouldn’t it be smarter to convince us that sex is wonderful, and then prove it patiently and methodically? And, if men are indeed so horny all the time, then why are we whores if we give them what they need in order for them not to ‘get it’ from somebody else?

Perhaps, it has something to do with his voracious sexuality spinning him into a state of utter nonsensical frenzy. This unique, untamed erotic animal roaring to be freed. Into as many different women’s anatomies as possible.

If so, then why are we spending so much time trying to tame women – who apparently have less sex drive than men do? And if sex is dirty, then women are closer to God by virtue of our virtue, so why are we not being worshipped like men are?

Crazy times. Roll with it, dude.

Oh! Ariffin also hypothesizes that, by wives following the above guidelines, rape and incest rates will lower – proving a total lack of understanding around why rape and incest actually occur: control, fear, cycles of violence. And societal breeding. A breeding of entitlement made worse by factions like this encouraging women should neglect their own needs and “service” their mates. (P.S.: A lot of men are visiting sex workers to be led around on a leash and done in the backside with a dildo. Let’s be clear – men often visit prostitutes to live out fantasies they can’t explore at home. I’m not saying wives should don a catsuit, but when we lower stigmas around sexuality in society, perhaps we will also lower rates of cheating. And the less we proselytize to women for exploring their inner sexual voice – maybe, just maybe – fewer women will use sex work as a means to discovering it.)

Sicker Than Secretary, But Not In That Yummy Conscious Way

In case you were itching to know… the men in Malaysia are encouraged to join the male version of the Obedient Wives Club. The Polyamory Club. Founded by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd – a multi-national conglomerate – the controversial Polygamy Club, which opened in 2009, persuades husbands to take more than one wife to satisfy their masculine desires.

Hold the phone. Women are encouraged to be obedient and servile to keep their man and men are encouraged to hunt for more wives? Yup. Roll with it. You’re just along for the ride. Right?

Or maybe…

Girl Zone Loan

Women, let’s stop being so fucking judgmental of one another. If we continue to allow men like this to dictate our morality, we will shrink our ovaries, lose our clitorises, have feet like lotus flowers and hang out in the kitchen more than the board room. We’ll walk around topless and ogled, yet handcuffed to chastity.

I say – say it loud. Say it proud. I like sex and I’m a woman. I won’t be put on mute. I won’t be turned into a meek sexless coward by a Fascist moral dictatorship. I am an erotic Goddess. Now, hubby, please rub my feet. I had a long day at work. And there are more of me than you in the workplace right now. And I make up 51% of the nation. And I’ve served you long enough.

*Prosy is slang for prostitute and was directly lifted from Secret Diary of a Call Girl with Billie Piper. Go rent it.

[..]

By Nicole Powers

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, General Motors’ EV1s were the Apple Macs of cars. Ahead of their time, they were only driven by an enlightened “different” thinking few, but those that did felt passionately about their high tech machines.

A fully electric plug-in vehicle with a range of between 70 and 140 miles depending on model, the EV1 was first introduced into the marketplace in 1996. Available in limited test markets on a closed lease-only basis (whereby no actual purchase was allowed), it was developed by General Motors partly in response to the California Air Resources Board’s requirement that the seven major auto companies in the US had to make at least 2% of their output zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) by 1998 in order to sell any cars within the state (with further graduated steps stipulated up to 10% in 2003).

Though grudgingly produced by General Motors, the vehicle was beloved by the few consumers lucky enough to rise to the top of the company’s reportedly vast waiting list. But it was likely a car that was never intended to succeed. General Motors seemingly put more effort into fighting the CARB mandate in court than meeting existing demand for vehicles or marketing the EV1 to create even more. It was therefore not uncoincidental that the demise of the EV1 occurred in tandem with the gutting of CARB’s ZEV rules. The EV1 program was officially cancelled in 2003, and a total recall was put in motion, with repossessed cars being not only compacted but shredded for good measure too.

A 2006 documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car, chronicled the crushing demise of this groundbreaking car. In it filmmaker Chris Paine highlighted the collusion of the auto industry, oil companies, and politicians, who all had a vested interest in seeing the electric vehicle die an untimely death alongside CARB’s environmentally prudent directives. Catching the zeitgeist, Who Killed The Electric was the third highest grossing documentary that year (Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth being the first).

However, a decade after General Motors presided over the funeral of the EV1, the killing of the vehicle has proven to be a costly mistake. With gas prices rising, Toyota filled the rapidly increasing fuel-efficient void with their hybrid Prius, which went on sale in Japan in 1997. Following its worldwide debut in 2001, Toyota have sold over a million Prius cars in the US alone, and the rest of the auto industry has been scrabbling to catch up.

With revenge being served on a platter less than a decade on, Paine and his documentary team were compelled to reexamine the fortunes of the electric vehicle in a follow up film. The first had centered on activists working from outside the industry, with this film Paine chose to follow a diverse group of instigators working from within. Revenge Of The Electric Car therefore features four EV evangelists (some of whom were more recently converted than others) who are attempting to drive the future of the automobile into the present: Bob Lutz (General Motors’ Vice Chairman up until May 2010), Elon Musk (Tesla Motors’s CEO), Carlos Ghosn (Nissan’s President and CEO), and Greg “Gadget” Abbot (a DIY electric engine retro-fitter).

SuicideGirls recently visited Paine at his ultra green home to talk about his cinematic “I told you so” and the electric awakening of a sluggish car industry that was in need of a shock. After checking out the 2008 Tesla Roadster parked in Paine’s garage, the irony was not lost that we were conversing about, and anticipating the dominance of, the gas-free vehicle in the heart of LA’s oil country amidst the pumpjack nodding donkeys of Baldwin Hills.

Read our exclusive interview with Chris Paine on SuicideGirls.com.

by Nicole Powers

Let me introduce you to a lovely lady I met on October 7th at #OccupyLA. She was there simply to tell her story. Like many people in this economy, she had been finding it difficult to make ends meet, so when Obama’s Loan Modification program began it seemed like a godsend. Little did she know, it would be the start rather than the end of her problems.

She duly completed all the paperwork her bank, Wells Fargo, asked her to, and was told what her reduced payments would be. She continued to pay her mortgage, but at the adjusted rate, as she’d been instructed to by Wells Fargo. She never missed a payment, and was not in arrears.

However, months later, out of the blue, she found out her application, for whatever reason, had been rejected. At this point, Wells Fargo treated her like she had been in arrears, because she’d been paying reduced payments on a mortgage that had failed to be modified. To add insult to injury, Wells Fargo then slapped her with a slew of interest charges and fees, because they in effect retroactively considered her account to be in default because of the Loan Modification decision.

Her bank then suggested she reapply, which she did – twice. Two more times, exactly the same thing happened. Following the third failed application, Wells Fargo began proceedings to repossess her home, even though she had made all her mortgage payments in exactly the way the bank had prescribed.

Turns out, the Loan Modification process is notoriously flawed and has been accused numerous times of causing foreclosures, as was the case here. Richard Gaudreau, an attorney, explains in an essay for Huffington Post exactly why the Loan Modification process fails to help troubled homeowners while lining the pockets of banks (surprise, surprise!):

The government pays mortgage servicers $1,000 for each “loan mod” application. Studies have shown though that mortgage servicers stand to make far more in fees from a foreclosure than they ever will from a loan modification request.

Obviously this kind of behavior is unconscionable. It’s hard to comprehend that a “trusted name” like Wells Fargo would want to force a loyal customer and her family out onto the street in order to make a quick buck on a few fees. But this is happening to untold numbers of people all across our nation at the hands of nearly all the major banks.

My #OccupyLA friend had done everything required of her to meet her obligations, but somehow that wasn’t enough — is that remotely fair? But these days we don’t seem to require fairness, never mind empathy and understanding, from the financial institutions in which we entrust our wealth, our security, and our futures. Clearly this was not an institution worthy of the trust this lady had been placed in it. Is it worthy of yours?

If you need to put a human face on the reasons why you’re being asked to move your money from a big bank to a community institution or credit union on November 5th — Bank Transfer Day — let my #OccupyLA friend be it.

To find a credit union in your area visit: moveyourmoneyproject.org

Related Posts

#OccupyLA — A Remarkably Civilized Society
#Occupy You Must
The Start of OccupyLA
Why Aren’t We Seeing More Prominent People Coming Out In Support of #OCUPPYWALLSTREET?

by Nicole Breanne

So, Herman Cain, the latest opinion polls show Cain, the former chief executive of a chain of pizza restaurants, running about even with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who had been the front-runner. Cain appeals to some conservatives because he is a political outsider at a time of anti-Washington sentiment that could help the Republicans challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012.

Except he doesn’t have the cash for a campaign, and the fact that he’s an idiot, but the Republican’s don’t care about that. First he stated in a PBS interview earlier in the week that China had indicated it is “trying to develop nuclear capability” even though their nuclear weapons testing dates back to the 1960s! 1960, 2011 what the big difference? China sucks according to Cain.

But his lack of knowledge on foreign affairs isn’t what this blog is about; it’s about Herman Cain being down to fuck anyone but his wife (and zombies, but we’ll get to them later).

[..]

by A.J. Focht

As if subjecting the demonstrators at #OccupyDenver to the horrors of hypothermia by refusing to allow them to erect shelter against the recent snow and harsh Colorado nights wasn’t bad enough, during the march held on Saturday October 29, the police used unnecessary force on the otherwise peaceful assembly.

Local Denver activist, @EisMC2 a.k.a Emmi Einstein spoke with SuicideGirls and gave us an account of the events of that day:

The march attracted upwards of 2,000 people to the Capitol at Civic Center Park. While the rally marched, Emmi and others stayed back at the #Occupy site to make sure things were running smoothly. She noticed early on that there were many more cops than the usual one or two that roam the park. When a SWAT team started to assemble, the group used the distraction to rebuild their camp. As the cops massed, Emmi noted one was filming the event .

After those on the march had returned to the park, the rally took a turn for the worse. Police moved into the park en mass, driving their motorcycles directly through the crowds. One police motorcyclist drove through a crowd of protestors, hitting one identified as Frank Roper. Roper shoved the bike in a fit of anger. The officer responded by chasing Roper down, tackling him, and proceeding to split his face in two. This is the event that seemed to trigger widescale police brutality on Saturday, and it was all caught on tape by a woman wanting to be known as Pinky Disaster – see video below.

That incident may have served as a catalyst, but it is clear from the video that police were moving in before it occurred. Law enforcement agencies, dressed in riot gear, were forcing their way through the protestors in unnecessarily large numbers. The officer whose bike was shoved could have just continued on, but he instead dismounted and proceeded to brutalize Roper until he required hospital attention; causing the subsequent disastrous chain of events.

Police admitted using Mace and firing pepper balls; protestors claim they were being hit with rubber bullets as well, and many witnessed police using excessive force with batons. Emmi watched things escalate quickly, even witnessing one man being choked by an officer while pinned to the ground. Some of the more terrifying reports include pregnant women getting pepper sprayed, and a kid (possibly identified as a 21-year-old who was filming the event) who was shot out of a tree by several projectiles (pepper balls or rubber bullets). Emmi herself – a 5’2” 95lb female – was pepper sprayed and beaten with a baton by a cop she identified by the badge #05100.

Many of the police on duty did not feel it was necessary to use such force, and instead attempted to keep things as peaceable as possible. Unconfirmed reports also surfaced online that two Denver police officers quit their jobs because of the attacks, and an unidentified source within #OccupyDenver said they witnessed one officer walking away from the riot line in tears saying he wouldn’t do it anymore.

The police made a big deal out of gearing up and loading the tear gas guns, but they never fired. Instead, they moved into the occupants’ encampment with gas masks and tore it down. Numerous #OccupyDenver protestors were arrested at this point as they tried to salvage anything from police grasp. All of the tents, the kitchen, the protest signs, and much more were taken by the police and tossed into a city dump truck.

The excessive force used on the protestors only kindled their spirits. After being down to under a dozen bodies staying on site 24/7, over fifty people stayed through the night on Saturday. And donations quickly came in to help make up for the movement’s losses. Unfortunately, despite donations of tents, occupants are still being forced to sleep without shelter.

Following the events on Saturday, the #OccupyDenver group held a sunset candlelight vigil on Sunday evening. The peaceful event was a collective stand against the violence of the previous night, and served as a chance to refocus the group back on the socioeconomic goals of the #OccupyWallStreet movement as a whole.

More images can be found at TannerSpendley.com.