OurFuture.org Blogs: Philip Palij

Georgia and Kosovo: A Single Intertwined Crisis

Philip Palij — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:01:57 -0400

Phil writing: This article has been posted as an original piece of writing because you need a login to access it. It is a fair and reasoned assessment on the true historical context of the Georgian-Russian war. The grubby mitts of the power brokers and their propoganda machines on both sides are hard at work and as usual the facts lie between the two..

Georgia and Kosovo: A Single Intertwined Crisis

August 25, 2008

By George Friedman

The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance.

There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions and of U.S. and European perceptions of Russian capabilities. This context shaped the policies that led to the Russo-Georgian war. And those attitudes can only be understood if we trace the question of Kosovo, because the Russo-Georgian war was forged over the last decade over the Kosovo question.

Yugoslavia broke up into its component republics in the early 1990s. The borders of the republics did not cohere to the distribution of nationalities. Many — Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and so on — found themselves citizens of republics where the majorities were not of their ethnicities and disliked the minorities intensely for historical reasons. Wars were fought between Croatia and Serbia (still calling itself Yugoslavia because Montenegro was part of it), Bosnia and Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. Other countries in the region became involved as well.

One conflict became particularly brutal. Bosnia had a large area dominated by Serbs. This region wanted to secede from Bosnia and rejoin Serbia. The Bosnians objected and an internal war in Bosnia took place, with the Serbian government involved. This war involved the single greatest bloodletting of the bloody Balkan wars, the mass murder by Serbs of Bosnians.

Here we must pause and define some terms that are very casually thrown around. Genocide is the crime of trying to annihilate an entire people. War crimes are actions that violate the rules of war. If a soldier shoots a prisoner, he has committed a war crime. Then there is a class called “crimes against humanity.” It is intended to denote those crimes that are too vast to be included in normal charges of murder or rape. They may not involve genocide, in that the annihilation of a race or nation is not at stake, but they may also go well beyond war crimes, which are much lesser offenses. The events in Bosnia were reasonably deemed crimes against humanity. They did not constitute genocide and they were more than war crimes.

At the time, the Americans and Europeans did nothing about these crimes, which became an internal political issue as the magnitude of the Serbian crimes became clear. In this context, the Clinton administration helped negotiate the Dayton Accords, which were intended to end the Balkan wars and indeed managed to go quite far in achieving this. The Dayton Accords were built around the principle that there could be no adjustment in the borders of the former Yugoslav republics. Ethnic Serbs would live under Bosnian rule. The principle that existing borders were sacrosanct was embedded in the Dayton Accords.

In the late 1990s, a crisis began to develop in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Over the years, Albanians had moved into the province in a broad migration. By 1997, the province was overwhelmingly Albanian, although it had not only been historically part of Serbia but also its historical foundation. Nevertheless, the Albanians showed significant intentions of moving toward either a separate state or unification with Albania. Serbia moved to resist this, increasing its military forces and indicating an intention to crush the Albanian resistance.

There were many claims that the Serbians were repeating the crimes against humanity that were committed in Bosnia. The Americans and Europeans, burned by Bosnia, were eager to demonstrate their will. Arguing that something between crimes against humanity and genocide was under way — and citing reports that between 10,000 and 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing or had been killed — NATO launched a campaign designed to stop the killings. In fact, while some killings had taken place, the claims by NATO of the number already killed were false. NATO might have prevented mass murder in Kosovo. That is not provable. They did not, however, find that mass murder on the order of the numbers claimed had taken place. The war could be defended as a preventive measure, but the atmosphere under which the war was carried out overstated what had happened.

The campaign was carried out without U.N. sanction because of Russian and Chinese opposition. The Russians were particularly opposed, arguing that major crimes were not being committed and that Serbia was an ally of Russia and that the air assault was not warranted by the evidence. The United States and other European powers disregarded the Russian position. Far more important, they established the precedent that U.N. sanction was not needed to launch a war (a precedent used by George W. Bush in Iraq). Rather — and this is the vital point — they argued that NATO support legitimized the war.

This transformed NATO from a military alliance into a quasi-United Nations. What happened in Kosovo was that NATO took on the role of peacemaker, empowered to determine if intervention was necessary, allowed to make the military intervention, and empowered to determine the outcome. Conceptually, NATO was transformed from a military force into a regional multinational grouping with responsibility for maintenance of regional order, even within the borders of states that are not members. If the United Nations wouldn’t support the action, the NATO Council was sufficient.

Since Russia was not a member of NATO, and since Russia denied the urgency of war, and since Russia was overruled, the bombing campaign against Kosovo created a crisis in relations with Russia. The Russians saw the attack as a unilateral attack by an anti-Russian alliance on a Russian ally, without sound justification. Then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin was not prepared to make this into a major confrontation, nor was he in a position to. The Russians did not so much acquiesce as concede they had no options.

The war did not go as well as history records. The bombing campaign did not force capitulation and NATO was not prepared to invade Kosovo. The air campaign continued inconclusively as the West turned to the Russians to negotiate an end. The Russians sent an envoy who negotiated an agreement consisting of three parts. First, the West would halt the bombing campaign. Second, Serbian army forces would withdraw and be replaced by a multinational force including Russian troops. Third, implicit in the agreement, the Russian troops would be there to guarantee Serbian interests and sovereignty.

As soon as the agreement was signed, the Russians rushed troops to the Pristina airport to take up their duties in the multinational force — as they had in the Bosnian peacekeeping force. In part because of deliberate maneuvers and in part because no one took the Russians seriously, the Russians never played the role they believed had been negotiated. They were never seen as part of the peacekeeping operation or as part of the decision-making system over Kosovo. The Russians felt doubly betrayed, first by the war itself, then by the peace arrangements.

The Kosovo war directly effected the fall of Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The faction around Putin saw Yeltsin as an incompetent bungler who allowed Russia to be doubly betrayed. The Russian perception of the war directly led to the massive reversal in Russian policy we see today. The installation of Putin and Russian nationalists from the former KGB had a number of roots. But fundamentally it was rooted in the events in Kosovo. Most of all it was driven by the perception that NATO had now shifted from being a military alliance to seeing itself as a substitute for the United Nations, arbitrating regional politics. Russia had no vote or say in NATO decisions, so NATO’s new role was seen as a direct challenge to Russian interests.

Thus, the ongoing expansion of NATO into the former Soviet Union and the promise to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO were seen in terms of the Kosovo war. From the Russian point of view, NATO expansion meant a further exclusion of Russia from decision-making, and implied that NATO reserved the right to repeat Kosovo if it felt that human rights or political issues required it. The United Nations was no longer the prime multinational peacekeeping entity. NATO assumed that role in the region and now it was going to expand all around Russia.

Then came Kosovo’s independence. Yugoslavia broke apart into its constituent entities, but the borders of its nations didn’t change. Then, for the first time since World War II, the decision was made to change Serbia’s borders, in opposition to Serbian and Russian wishes, with the authorizing body, in effect, being NATO. It was a decision avidly supported by the Americans.

The initial attempt to resolve Kosovo’s status was the round of negotiations led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari that officially began in February 2006 but had been in the works since 2005. This round of negotiations was actually started under U.S. urging and closely supervised from Washington. In charge of keeping Ahtisaari’s negotiations running smoothly was Frank G. Wisner, a diplomat during the Clinton administration. Also very important to the U.S. effort was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, another leftover from the Clinton administration and a specialist in Soviet and Polish affairs.

In the summer of 2007, when it was obvious that the negotiations were going nowhere, the Bush administration decided the talks were over and that it was time for independence. On June 10, 2007, Bush said that the end result of negotiations must be “certain independence.” In July 2007, Daniel Fried said that independence was “inevitable” even if the talks failed. Finally, in September 2007, Condoleezza Rice put it succinctly: “There’s going to be an independent Kosovo. We’re dedicated to that.” Europeans took cues from this line.

How and when independence was brought about was really a European problem. The Americans set the debate and the Europeans implemented it. Among Europeans, the most enthusiastic about Kosovo independence were the British and the French. The British followed the American line while the French were led by their foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who had also served as the U.N. Kosovo administrator. The Germans were more cautiously supportive.

On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized rapidly by a small number of European states and countries allied with the United States. Even before the declaration, the Europeans had created an administrative body to administer Kosovo. The Europeans, through the European Union, micromanaged the date of the declaration.

On May 15, during a conference in Ekaterinburg, the foreign ministers of India, Russia and China made a joint statement regarding Kosovo. It was read by the Russian host minister, Sergei Lavrov, and it said: “In our statement, we recorded our fundamental position that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo contradicts Resolution 1244. Russia, India and China encourage Belgrade and Pristina to resume talks within the framework of international law and hope they reach an agreement on all problems of that Serbian territory.”

The Europeans and Americans rejected this request as they had rejected all Russian arguments on Kosovo. The argument here was that the Kosovo situation was one of a kind because of atrocities that had been committed. The Russians argued that the level of atrocity was unclear and that, in any case, the government that committed them was long gone from Belgrade. More to the point, the Russians let it be clearly known that they would not accept the idea that Kosovo independence was a one-of-a-kind situation and that they would regard it, instead, as a new precedent for all to follow.

The problem was not that the Europeans and the Americans didn’t hear the Russians. The problem was that they simply didn’t believe them — they didn’t take the Russians seriously. They had heard the Russians say things for many years. They did not understand three things. First, that the Russians had reached the end of their rope. Second, that Russian military capability was not what it had been in 1999. Third, and most important, NATO, the Americans and the Europeans did not recognize that they were making political decisions that they could not support militarily.

For the Russians, the transformation of NATO from a military alliance into a regional United Nations was the problem. The West argued that NATO was no longer just a military alliance but a political arbitrator for the region. If NATO does not like Serbian policies in Kosovo, it can — at its option and in opposition to U.N. rulings — intervene. It could intervene in Serbia and it intended to expand deep into the former Soviet Union. NATO thought that because it was now a political arbiter encouraging regimes to reform and not just a war-fighting system, Russian fears would actually be assuaged. To the contrary, it was Russia’s worst nightmare. Compensating for all this was the fact that NATO had neglected its own military power. Now, Russia could do something about it.

At the beginning of this discourse, we explained that the underlying issues behind the Russo-Georgian war went deep into geopolitics and that it could not be understood without understanding Kosovo. It wasn’t everything, but it was the single most significant event behind all of this. The war of 1999 was the framework that created the war of 2008.

The problem for NATO was that it was expanding its political reach and claims while contracting its military muscle. The Russians were expanding their military capability (after 1999 they had no place to go but up) and the West didn’t notice. In 1999, the Americans and Europeans made political decisions backed by military force. In 2008, in Kosovo, they made political decisions without sufficient military force to stop a Russian response. Either they underestimated their adversary or — even more amazingly — they did not see the Russians as adversaries despite absolutely clear statements the Russians had made. No matter what warning the Russians gave, or what the history of the situation was, the West couldn’t take the Russians seriously.

It began in 1999 with war in Kosovo and it ended in 2008 with the independence of Kosovo. When we study the history of the coming period, the war in Kosovo will stand out as a turning point. Whatever the humanitarian justification and the apparent ease of victory, it set the stage for the rise of Putin and the current and future crises.

Tell Stratfor What You Think

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Its Official Its the Worst Congress Ever

Philip Palij — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:43:57 -0400

For Progressives who have been following Cindy Sheehan's campaign for election against Nancy Pelosi its a testament to the effect commitment and integrity can have. The sense of optimism and hope is an inspiration for the future. The full campaign email is included here for illustrative purposes.

It's Official - Worst Congress Ever!!!!‏

From:

Cindy for Congress (campaign@cindyforcongress.org)

Sent:
22 July 2008 02:39:01

Reply-to:

email@cindyforcongress.org

To:
ppalij@hotmail.com

Dear Phil,

We're having an impact! Today we reached a quarter of million mark, a huge fundraising milestone. We've collected almost 8000 signatures from committed voters in San Francisco. And for the first time since she's taken her seat Madame Speaker (Pelosi) has had to talk about why's she's taken impeachment off the table.

This week the House Judiciary Committee will hold clearly imperfect and pandering hearings into the "abuses" of the Bush administration. Cindy for Congress, of course, believes with the vast majority of San Franciscans that impeachment hearings should have begun in January of 2007 and, if so, would have been completed by this time.

Yesterday, John Nichols, editor and political writer for The Nation magazine was a guest on KPFA this morning and said this about the hearings: "a reason that the hearing is going to be held is because Cindy Sheehan is running as an independent against Nancy Pelosi."

Click here to listen to the interview.

Since Cindy's son was killed in Iraq, she has traveled the world taking a principled stand for peace, accountability, justice and economic equality. Since Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House, she has not taken any principled stands and has in fact supported the Bush administration in many of his crimes. Yesterday, at the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin Texas, she said she was not holding Bush accountable because

she is "bi-partisan," which Cindy for Congress equates with being "bi-responsible." One DOES NOT work with murderers, torturers, and war profiteers.

Cindy for Congress alerted you to

Nancy Pelosi's collaboration with George Bush on torture, war, and killing the 4th amendment by absolving George and the telcos from accountability in those crimes.

Nancy Pelosi has the audacity to call George a "total failure" when she has been such a loving supporter of his over the years and when her Congress has the

lowest approval ratings of any Congress in our nation's history.

Please send a donation to Cindy for Congress to thank her for always standing and fighting for true progressive values.

Visit our Grassroots Action Center to download our petition, sign it, get 9 friends/family to sign and drop it off or mail it to our office.

Tell a friend about Cindy's courageous campaign.

Attend our volunteer meetings on Tuesdays at 6:30pm

click
here to unsubscribe

The Fed and the Fix

Philip Palij — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:37:09 -0400

The fix has been in since 1913 and the Federal Reserve Act. Basicaly the scam works like this.

The Fed creates money(notes) out of nothing and loans it to the US Government at interest, your taxes pay the interest. Its called the national debt.

Step 1Fiat "money" creation begins when the U.S. Congress is ready for more debt. They instruct the Federal Reserve Bank to raise the debt limit by $1 billion.

Step 2 Congress instructs the U.S. Treasury to print $1 billion interest bearing bonds and sell them to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Step 3 The U.S. Treasury prints the $1 billion interest bearing bonds and sells them to the Federal Reserve Bank!! As security or collateral they offer the INCOME TAX collected from the taxpayers. The U.S. Treasury prints only the Principal . . . not the usury or interest.

Step 4The "Federal" Reserve buys the usury bearing bonds and credits the U.S. Treasury for $1 billion. The government must now pay back the bonds with interest. As the interest was not created, it can NEVER be repaid with "Federal" Reserve Dollars

The US Government pays interest on the principle. The people pay the interest via taxes. On their own money. Money created out of nothing.

Franklyn, Jefferson, Jackson, Washington, Lincoln, JF Kennedy AND signer Woodrow Wilson recognised it for what it was a fraud. It would lead to poverty, loss of property and enslavement of the American People and the world by degree over the coming centuries.

Bankers make money by creating boom and bust periods. They do this by creating booms with easy money (S&L, sub prime,Roaring Twenties) expanding the amount of money in circulation then busts (The Depression, foreclosures) by restricting money with high interest and reducing the amount of money in circulation.

In busts they buy your assets for peanuts, then start the next cycle then sell out at the top. This is the business cycle.

International Bankers do this simply because they can. It appeals to their vanity and greed to control the world this way. The Federal Reserve is allied to International Bankers who control the worlds central banks, its supply of money, the governments of those countries, and in the end you.

The founding fathers understood this scam, they had watched the Bank Of England's progress from 1694 and put a clause in the constitution to say the US is entitled to print its own money at NO interest, God bless em because here is the solution.

Issue USN's notes at no interest to pay off the National Debt held in interest bearing Federal Reserve Notes. (Yes the government can do this!) at the same time issuing enough USN's to the regional banks to safeguard the amount of money in circulation. There is a precedent President Jackson in 1836 did just that. Abraham Lincoln wanted that. JF Kennedy wanted it with decree 11110, which is still in force but never implemented.

Easy isn't it? America has had this money in circulation from time to time, periods of wealth and prosperity.

The process of 'fleecing the flock' has been under way for centuries. This is what International Bankers do. Service debt (National Debt) created by wars, which they finance and it doesn't matter which side. Boom and Bust is a policy.

Now this to some extent explain why the financial engineers like Cayne get such big payoffs, they are doing their job. They manage the booms or the wreckless and immoral expansion of the money supply, get fired, booted out along with the blame and recriminations and are replaced by the managers of the next boom. These guys know what they are doing it doesn't happen by chance they are just juniors.

What you and America's life plan looks like. Why an increasing number of families need two incomes to get by.

Create and increase National debt. Finance the wars that create it through an international central banking system (USA the Fed). War=Profit, debt=profit,

Create personal debt with cheap money and deregulation (Free Trade)

Create bubble with expansion of money supply. (Inflation)

Burst the bubble with contraction of money supply (deflation)
Buy assets, property, shares under value. Throw as many as possible out of their homes and off their land.
Skulk in the background of international finance for a prudent period. Endure a period of public self rightous wrist slapping. Start all over again

Understanding is one thing, however I can't help you with your justified outrage and helplessness as your country, you and your children become slaves.

Homeless and impoverished debt Slaves.

Hillary Clintons True Nature

Philip Palij — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:54:47 -0400

Over the years I have become aware of the history of Bill and Hillary Clinton and been non plussed by their selection as suitable leaders for the American People. To understand my own reservations and opposition please view the video stories below. Its an indictment of insider Washington and the standards of business as usual you could expect were they once more to acquire power. Its not hatred its understanding.

"Bill & Hillary Clinton: Their Secret Life" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0-HkVcMOSw

and HRC in the biggest campaign finance election fraud in American history http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq8aopATYyw&feature=related

Please review and reach your own conclusion

True People/Senator Power Ratio

Philip Palij — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:45:21 -0400

With figures from the US Census 2006 Estimate you can see just how undemocratic the Senate Is. There should be 142 Californian Senators for 2 Senators in Wyoming

This table shows how many Senators each state would return if it had the same people/senator ratio as Wyoming.

Table of State/Senators Power Ratio

State | Population | Senators Wyoming 515004 2 District of Columbia 581530 2.26 Vermont 623908 2.42 North Dakota 635867 2.47 Alaska 670053 2.6 South Dakota 781919 3.04 Delaware 853476 3.31 Montana 944632 3.67 Rhode Island 1067610 4.15 Hawaii 1285498 4.99 New Hampshire 1314895 5.11 Maine 1321574 5.13 Idaho 1466465 5.69 Nebraska 1768331 6.87 West Virginia 1818470 7.06 New Mexico 1954599 7.59 Nevada 2495529 9.69 Utah 2550063 9.9 Kansas 2764075 10.73 Arkansas 2810872 10.92 Mississippi 2910540 11.3 Iowa 2982085 11.58 Connecticut 3504809 13.61 Oklahoma 3579212 13.9 Oregon 3700758 14.37 Puerto Rico 3927776 15.25 Kentucky 4206074 16.33 Louisiana 4287768 16.65 South Carolina 4321249 16.78 Alabama 4599030 17.86 Colorado 4753377 18.46 Minnesota 5167101 20.07 Wisconsin 5556506 21.58 Maryland 5615727 21.81 Missouri 5842713 22.69 Tennessee 6038803 23.45 Arizona 6166318 23.95 Indiana 6313520 24.52 Washington 6395798 24.84 Massachusetts 6437193 25 Virginia 7642884 29.68 New Jersey 8724560 33.88 North Carolina 8856505 34.39 Georgia 9363941 36.36 Michigan 10095643 39.21 Ohio 11478006 44.57 Pennsylvania 12440621 48.31 Illinois 12831970 49.83 Florida 18089888 70.25 New York 19306183 74.97 Texas 23507783 91.29 California 36457549 141.58

United States 299398484 1175.96

Debugging Democracy: The People of the United States

Philip Palij — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:40:49 -0400

You have to believe your vote will count for something otherwise whats the point in voting.

Only 36 percent of voters from ages 18-24 showed up to cast their votes for the 2000 presidential election.
80 Million Americans, approximately 40% of the people, didn't vote in the last Presidential election
A survey of 100,000 high school students in 2005 revealed that students who say they either don't know how they feel about their First Amendment rights or they just take them for granted came out at 73%. These students will be voting in the coming elections.

The rule of the majority and the principle of free elections are the foundation of modern western democracies and most of the American democratic model as we see it today. All eligible citizens around 200 million of them can vote though too many don't. The system isn't working the way it should. Why?

Visualizing huge numbers is difficult think of them in massive anonymous groups and you lose the intrinsic qualities of the individual. To make any sense of the numbers you have to look at it another way, as a citizen. Every citizen has equal rights and responsibilities in the electoral process, so looking through the eyes of an individual as they enter the polling booth and the influences on them at that critical time, what they see, think and feel makes more sense.

The test of citizenship, your rights and responsibilities and the Bill Of Rights are included in the reference section below, its not a comprehensive list but a fair reflection of what the voter understands about the part they play in act of voting.

Next, depending on your state and the nature of your city and town council is the list of elections you can decide to participate in,. This list covers Utah local, state and national voting.

Elections you can vote in during 2008

President and Vice President
State Governor and Lieutenant Governor
State Attorney General
State Auditor and Treasurer
U.S. House Districts
US Senate Districts( 2010)
State Senate Districts
State Legislature
State Board of Education Districts
Council Elections
Mayoral Elections

This is a lot of elections, a huge number of issues and can anybody put hand on heart say they know the exact date and time they take place and the candidates stance on every issue at every level when they vote? Chances are they don't. Who has participated in ALL elections they were eligible for?

For the dedicated citizen willing to spend time finding out about all the issues to be fought for in these elections, legal, technical and weigh up all the arguments at all levels is a big job. It takes time and you have to be motivated. Picking a candidate who's policies and thinking are in line with yours is a matter of compromise, finding the best fit. The average voter with a family, job, mortgage and life to run is not dedicated to politics they are dedicated to the safety, security, health and well being of their families and themselves. So they turn to the professionals, the media to keep themselves informed or simply don't bother due to apathy.

Voter apathy and alienation
Apathy is a term used to mean indifference toward things you are not responsible for and can't control. For 80 Million Americans in the last presidential election there was a disconnect between themselves and the office of the President. It just wasn't worth voting. So how did the citizen get into this condition?

Thomas Jefferson once suggested that we should have a revolution every ten years to keep the government in line. Yep. Thomas Jefferson said that. Thomas Jefferson who had to take the presidential oath to protect and preserve the constitution and defend the country against enemies both foreign and domestic. Apathy is our enemy, and one must ask the question 'When did this start?'.

And we as a people aren't acting. When there are 50,000,000 persons aged 18-29 (the youth vote) most of which are pretty vocal about their beliefs and only 7,000,000 of them voted in the last presidential election, there's a problem. There is apathy. There is not spirit of revolution. And this makes me cry.

Go To Original Article

Citizens take their rights for granted

A survey of 100,000 high school students in 2005 revealed that students who say they either don't know how they feel about their First Amendment rights or they just take them for granted came out at 73%. These students will be voting in the coming elections.

The knowledge that every American is protected by the constitution and bill of rights, is not fully understood by the electorate and if they dont understand this then they dont fully understand each individuals responsibility to protect their rights.

Only when their first amendment rights are infringed in some way does the Bill Of Rights become meaningfull and the link is made between it and democracy. People who dont know what rights they have don't complain if their rights are taken away without their knowledge and are unaffected as an individual. Life goes on as normal so they are not motivated to vote.

How do you motivate someone like this out of complacency?

A Citizen may think their vote doesn't matter

17 US presidents have been put in power when only a minority voted for them. George W Bush is the latest example. That is undemocratic, the will of the majority has no legal standing, and in the days

Who can forget the lines of congressional representatives addressing Al Gore as 'Mr President' trying to object to the election of the new 'president' appealing for the support of just a single senator for an investigation. The bizarre sight of Al Gore himself overruling the objections. This sent a very powerful message to the voters.

Nixon, Bill Clinton, Bush/Cheney and the 935 lies that got the US and the coalition of the willing into an illegal war in Iraq and the Democrats willingness, even when voted into power to stop it again damaged the American democracy's credibility.

Now the obvious and glaring economic damage caused by deregulation, they voters did not vote for this and yet they are powerless as are the representatives they elected to stop it.

Citizens Distrust all politicians

Who can blame them, the constant stream of court cases and investigations at local, state and national level revealing the ever present, secretive, lawful and unlawful links between big money and their elected representatives own interests. Its not a question of if you are being lied to its a question of how much and voting accordingly. However the lesser of a dozen evils is still evil.

For a humorous look at the issue see this opinion and as true today as it was then in 2000 before the US presidential Elections.

The bugs have been in the system a long time.

Distrust of the Election System
America has one of the most mobile workforces, people move around a lot and voter de-registration /registration is not uppermost in their minds when they move or when they die. Electronic voting has opened up a whole raft of potential weaknesses in the system. Providing ID's, registration manipulating dead voter roles all contribute to a perception of distrust.

Some voter fraud stories bearing witness

Voter Fraud 2000 - Presidential Election
Recovered History: U.S. Election Fraud Circa 2000
Sludge Report #164 - Vote Fraud 2004 – WTF!!!
This story on 'Dead Men Voting'
For an eye opening list on voter fraud commencing 2004 Go Here
Voter Fraud (The Machines)
"Myth" of Voter Fraud Focus of Senate Hearing 2007

How could they get away with it?

This is just a few of the cases, the last one shows how you can disenfranchise a voter by convincing them not to vote by encouraging apathy. I will be looking more deeply at the election process in a coming post.

The result of an election should be fair and verifiable, if it is not, then your system is in big trouble. Another problem to look at is the long list of allegations compared to the number cases prosecuted, why?

Press Detachment From The Citizen
Blame the media

In this article Emma Claire Sohn, as an individual, blames the media for apathy and Brian Pierce makes the case that the media is not responsible. That the media is self service these days and its the responsibility of the citizen to go find what they want he ignores Emma's argument that she did. Brian's argument is spurious as you can never find whats not reported. The medias duty is to serve up only the most popular news and entertainment, the stuff that makes the most money.

The first amendment guarantees the individuals right to free speech and the freedom of the press. In supreme court judgments the press has rarely been given rights over and above that of the citizen. Its based on the assumption that the press should accurately reflect the citizens voice.

Here is the bug, in Emma's case the press does not reflect her voice and her needs as a citizen. It does this by not informing her of elections or even recognizing a duty exists to tell her elections are coming, the issues and who is standing for what.

Although at a local level it highlights a change in the role of the press in society one which should be recognized at a state and national level. The difficulty comes in identifying how much is evolution and how much is orchestrated.

All media have a commercial interest in selling as much advertising space as they can and if they have to ditch space on local or national democracy for something sexier to attract readership and revenue they will. Plus they can't afford to get involved in expensive court cases, they might win the legal case but go bankrupt doing it. This means they go after only popular uncontroversial stories. Self Censorship.

Media Owners may not invest simply to make profit but also to promote their own political views and suppress those they disagree with. Own enough media outlets and you can control the stories the people rely on to keep themselves informed.

The point is you cant argue, form an opinion or vote about something you don't know about.

Disenfranchised Voters - Voter Suppression – Voter Caging

Voters in general are made aware that this goes on, but not the scale of it because it is hard to prove and prosecute. I'm going to leave this to the post on electing Congress and the office of the President as this is something done to the citizen, something they are not aware of when they vote. Just like the citizen the perception this section gives is a somewhat uncertain feel about the worth of voting.

From the Huffington Post: Could the Republicans Pick the Democratic Nominee? -- The Untold Story of How the GOP Rigged Florida and Michigan" Posted March 31, 2008

Some believe they are more equal than others

Something I will just touch on here but it will be a large part of my argument later on.

You run a large corporation or a political party or you own a bank, you could be a General, your word is law in the domain you have created for yourself. The democratic system limits you to just one vote. Your vote has the same weight as the man or woman you employ to shine your shoes.

How can you exert political and economic influence in proportion your wealth, education, politics and breeding within a democratic system? You can't, Its very humbling for you and your peers to have exactly the same democratic power as an unemployed man or woman living in poverty. So that won't work, you have make the wealth or power you have tell another way.

As an honest political strategist and tactician how do you bring the undemocratic wealthy and powerful into the American representative democracy.

Summary

When Joe or Jane Public goes to vote they sacrifice time and effort to figure out who they are voting for and have some understanding on why they will vote the way they do. All the stuff written above and in the reference section below will be absorbed over time and form the background for their decision as they enter the polling booth and face the voting machine.

Now put on your power elite hat and think of ways you can use these bugs to control the outcome of elections and ensure that your view. Its really not that hard. There are a lot of other Press Issues which need to be identified and fixed but I am leaving those for my post on the role of the press here its the role and perceptions of the citizen.

The bug list

Bug People #1: Citizens take their rights for granted
Bug People #2: A Citizen may think their vote doesn't matter
Bug People #3: Citizens Distrust all politicians
Bug People #4: Distrust of the Election System
Bug People #4.1: Voter Fraud
Bug People #4.2: Disenfranchisement
Bug People #4.3: Voter Suppression
Bug People #4.4: Voter Caging
Bug People/Press #5: Citizens are not fully and fairly informed by the press
Bug People/Press #5.1 : The press has no obligation to be the citizens voice or to inform the electorate of pending elections, the issues or candidates so local democracy suffers
Bug People/Press #5.2: The press is risk averse it self-censors stories where legal action may follow despite credible evidence. This is big money at work throughout the US and western democracy. It is censorship through intimidation.
Bug People/Press #5.3: People love human issues, it sells, so framing political issues in a personality and image becomes more important than the issues they represent.. The more personally controversial the better. You are voting for the person not the issues. For most people its easier and more natural to form an opinion about a person than an issue
Bug People/Press #5.4: The Mainstream Media will over time, through the appointment of editors and staff reflect the political opinions of its owner, the owner in turn may be susceptible to or willing to promote the political views of others through publishing or suppression of stories.

Bugs will be analyzed in the final post in this series. Next....... Bugs in the Constitution 2008

References For The Citizens View.

Eligibility To Vote In State and Federal Elections

Be a citizen of the United States
Be a resident of your state at least 30 days before the next election
Be at least 18 years old by Election Day

There are other classifications but this covers the majority.

The citizens Rights and responsibilities

The following basic list of citizen rights and responsibilities comes from http://www.voteutah.org/ It covers the state of Utah. I chose this as a fairly representative site advising citizens old and new of their rights.

Citizen Responsibilities

Obeying Laws - Mandatory
Paying Taxes - Mandatory
Jury Duty - Mandatory
Serve as a Witness - Mandatory
Register for the Draft - Mandatory
Voting – Optional

Citizens Rights

Freedom of Religion – First Amendment, the establishment clause prohibits the government from passing laws that will establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another. The free exercise clause prohibits the government from interfering with a persons practice of their religion
Freedom of Speech - First Amendment, the right to speak publicly or privately
Freedom of the Press - First Amendment, the right of the citizen to express themselves publicly through the press.
The Right to Assemble – First Amendment, Citizens can assemble to exchange ideas or protest peacefully any issue and demand reform.
The Right to Petition - First Amendment, The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances guarantees people the right to ask the government to provide relief for a wrong through the courts or other governmental action. It works with the right of assembly to allow people to join together to seek change from the government.
The Rights of Black Americans – After a tortuous political and military journey through American history the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This law bans discrimination because of a person's color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. The act primarily protects the rights of blacks and other minorities.
The Rights of All Americans - In recent times, legislation has focused less on the rights of ethnic and racial groups. In 1980 the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act ensured that the rights of persons in institutions, such as government-run hospitals, nursing homes and prison, are protected against unconstitutional conditions. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has helped strengthen the rights people with disabilities.

First Amendment: The Bill Of Rights

Full Bill of Rights in their original form with pre-amble can be read here

Amendment I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III - No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII - In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Debugging Democracy: Understanding the Architecture

Philip Palij — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:43:32 -0400

Coming across references like 'Kleptocracy, Military-Industrial Complex, Parallel Government, Neo- Con conspiracy, Corporate America...' makes you wonder whats behind it all. The founding principle of democracy is one man one vote, elections, free speech and the rule of the majority under laws created for the common good or as Plato put it the 'rule of the governed'. So whats happening?

Western style democratic government is a relatively recent phenomenon. British, French and US revolutions led to the appearance of governments based on similar principles around the world. Democracies bounded by physical, legal and fiscal borders set out their own democratic principles on their own patch of the good Earth; respecting some aspects of their own history and culture, each with a distinctive flavor. At the political and economic heart of the western democracies is the US and its version of the Democratic Model.

There have always been un-democratic forces at work inside the US, today more than ever we need to understand them. They are able to exert power and influence far in excess of one vote, even more than any given elected congressional representative, to be honest their full reach is not known. Its my intention to give these forces a name and come up with a working model of how their influence and power imposes itself on the conventional democratic political system.

It is a political movement and the adversary of Democracy and all other political systems. It has unique characteristics which allow it to evolve and exist as a parasite on any political system and does particularly well in the US Democratic model. This bundle of concepts and ideas are not new and surprisingly simple to understand, they are somehow lost in a crowd of outraged voices.

The plan is to define the systems components, what they are supposed to do, what they actually do, in cases where they don't do as they should looking at the reasons why. Starting at the top and working down you can examine each component of democracy, its ideal role in the democratic model and the forces acting on each, legal and illegal, the way things should work and where they don't. As I have only one lifetime I will only use enough cases to establish a general pattern, a modus operandi of a political movement which should be recognised and given a name.

The top tier components of the US democratic systemI to look at are:

The people of the United States
The constitution
The office of the President
Congress
The Justice System
The Press

Un-democratic forces influencing democracy

Historical Perspective: Athens to Washington Plato via Genghis Kahn to George W Bush
Wealthy Individuals and families within the US
Wealthy Individuals and families outside the US
The Federal Reserve
Multi National Corporations
The Military
Globalization

Summary: Give the movement a shape or form all can identify, give it a name, Say who they are and how they do what they do.

So here we go the start point and the reason I am on the trail of the Oligarchs, my comment and feelings on a story which appeared in the Salem News web site in Oregon

Philip Palij January 3, 2008 1:28 pm (Pacific time)

The truth is the American people are waking up to the fact their democracy is failing. Their rights and freedoms are being systematically ground down by a premeditated destruction of the principles of the constitution.

Let down docile house of representatives filled with self serving career politicians susceptible to big money corporate lobbying and detached from the people who put them there, failing in their duty to hold the executive branches of government to account for their crimes.

Not informed by a sugar candy mainstream press corp that should be challenging abuses but are muzzled by the real politik of big news rooms where real stories that matter, like a concerted attack on the constitution, are quietly left aside.

Finally, the people, yes the people of America are to blame for allowing this state of affairs to come about. "Who cares?" sums up their attitude. Well you get the government you deserve and if by hook or by crook this government is not held to account or get us all into another world war starting with Iran they will care very deeply. Those that survive.

Salem-News deserve thanks for at least trying on behalf of the people.

I am going to make mistakes so criticism, feedback, ideas and suggestions are welcome. Subsequent posts will deal with each of the components in turn. Its probably been done a million times before but what the hell I am going to try.