The UN Deception

Thanks to Brian for the video.

Oops...looks as if this video was Orwelled...here's a completely treasonous piece by Jeffrey Goldberg in the New York Times on 5/16/2009:

Op-Ed Contributor
Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal

By JEFFREY GOLDBERG
Published: May 16, 2009
WHEN the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the White House on Monday for his first stage-setting visit, he will carry with him an agenda that clashes insistently with that of President Obama. Mr. Obama wants Mr. Netanyahu to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu wants something else entirely: the president’s agreement that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Mr. Netanyahu, in his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, earned a reputation for conspicuous insincerity. It is therefore possible to interpret his fixation on Iran — he told me in a recent conversation that it is ruled by a “messianic apocalyptic cult” — as a way of avoiding the mare’s nest of problems associated with the Middle East peace process, especially the escalating pressure from the Obama administration to curb Jewish settlement on the West Bank.
This reading of Mr. Netanyahu holds that he is, at bottom, a cynic (or, if you agree with him, a pragmatist), who will bluff vigorously but bend whenever he thinks it expedient or unavoidable. In his first term, he betrayed the principles of the Greater Israel movement by relinquishing part of Judaism’s second-holiest city, Hebron, to the control of Yasir Arafat. His pragmatism evinces itself, as well, in his apparent belief that the relationship between Israel and Washington is sacrosanct. In other words, Mr. Netanyahu, despite his rhetoric, would never launch a strike on Iran without the permission of Mr. Obama — permission that in no way appears forthcoming.
But this is to misread both the prime minister and this moment in Jewish history. It is true that Mr. Netanyahu would prefer to avoid hard decisions concerning the Palestinian issue, for reasons both political (he is not, let us say, sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian self-determination) and strategic (he believes the Palestinians, divided and dysfunctional, their extremists firmly in the Iranian camp, are unready for compromise).
Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”
“Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit.
If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think. In our recent conversation, Mr. Netanyahu avoided metaphysics and biblical exegesis, but said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a “hinge of history.”
“Iran has threatened to annihilate a state,” he said. “In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there’s no j’accuse — there’s no shock.” He argued that one lesson of history is that “bad things tend to get worse if they’re not challenged early.” He went on, “Iranian leaders talk about Israel’s destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance.”
Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t believe that Iran would necessarily launch a nuclear-tipped missile at Tel Aviv. He argues instead that Iran could bring about the eventual end of Israel simply by possessing such weaponry. “Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella,” he said. This could lead to the depopulation of the Negev and the Galilee, both of which have already endured sustained rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.

You'll need to read the rest at NYTimes.com.

Xymphora has a good analysis of the op-ed - I simply posit that we cannot go on having people with dual-loyalties embedded within our government.

NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS.

Oh...found a alternate version of the video:

Corporate Executives Overpaid, Undertaxed - by Holly Sklar [February 14th, 2009]

Corporate Executives Overpaid, Undertaxed

by Holly Sklar / February 14th, 2009

In today’s mad world, underpaid workers are bailing out banks and corporations run by overpaid, undertaxed bosses who milked their companies and our country like cash cows.

While workers across America were losing jobs, homes and health insurance, Merrill Lynch paid nearly 700 employees more than $1 million each in bonuses last year, amounting to a $3.6 billion bonus bonanza while Merrill lost $27 billion.

Workers have been sacrificing for years. Average worker paychecks are worth less now than in 1973, but CEOs and other rich Americans not only make much more, they pay less in taxes.

Average full-time workers made $41,198 in 1973 and $37,606 in 2008, adjusted for inflation.

CEOs made 45 times as much as workers in 1973 and more than 300 times as much as workers now. The top tax rate was 70% in 1973 and just 35% now; taxpayers pay the top rate on the portion of taxable income that falls within the highest bracket and pay lower rate s on income below that. The top rate for capital gains on the sale of stock and other assets was 36.5% in 1973 and 15% now.

Irrational pay and tax cuts have generated a massive redistribution of income and wealth from workers to CEOs, hedge fund managers and others in the richest 1%.

By 2006, the richest 1% had increased their share of the nation’s income to the second-highest level on record. The only year higher was 1928 — on the eve of the Great Depression.

According to the latest IRS data, excluding tax-exempt interest income from state and local government bonds, the richest 400 taxpayers had an average adjusted gross income of $263 million each on their federal income tax returns in 2006 — up from $221 million in 2005 and $67 million in 1992, adjusted for inflation.

Remember, that’s annual income, not accumulated wealth. $263 million comes to more than $5 million a week.

In 2006, the 400 ultrarich were taxed at an average rate of 17% — down from 26% in 1992. The ultrarich get most of their income from capital gains. The capital gains tax was cut from 28% in 1992 to 20% in 1997 and cut again to 15% in 2003.

To make matters worse, the rich cheat more on their taxes. Forbes recently reported on a study using IRS data showing that taxpayers with income between $500,000 and $1 million a year understated their adjusted gross incomes by 21% in 2001, compared to 8% for those earning $50,000 to $100,000, and lower rates for those earning less.

We should raise taxes at the top so the nation’s richest bosses no longer pay lower effective rates than workers and we can start reversing the obscene rise in inequality rather than reinforcing it. President Obama’s plan to cap CEO cash pay at $500,000 for senior executives at companies on the government dole sounds better than it is, affecting few firms and full of loopholes.

At the very least, President Obama should not delay restoring the top tax rate to the 39.6% rate that prevailed in 2000. The Bush tax cuts saved the top 1% nearly half a trillion dollars between 2001 and 2008, reports Citizens for Tax Justice.

The $79.5 billion in tax cuts for the top 1% in 2008 was more than the budgets of the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency combined. In 2008, it took an annual income greater than $462,000 just to get into the top 1 percent.

Even better, we should add a top rate of 50% on income above $1 million, as advocated by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings among others.

People for whom $1 million and above is an annual paycheck should pay more so people for whom $1 million is an unattainable lifetime fortune don’t have to.

If we don’t start taxing the wealthy more now, then you can be sure that the mountain of debt created by tax cuts and the bailout will be used to drive “entitlement reform.” Workers’ last forms of security — Social Security and Medicare — will be on the chopping block to pay for the wrec k the truly entitled made of our economy.

Holly Sklar is co-author of A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future and Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us. She can be reached at: hsklar@aol.com. Read other articles by Holly.

This article was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 9:01am and is filed under Capitalism, Corporate Globalization, Corruption, Labor.