Show details for January 25th, 2009

This week’s guests:

– Katherine Austin Fisk on the markets, the financial crisis, and the bailout.

– We take your pledges of support for KPFT and The Monitor!

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CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS

Catherine Austin Fitts offers a unique perspective on the global financial system and on the political economy. Her background includes Managing Director and member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and President of Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC investment bank.

Catherine has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date, has led portfolio strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities and has participated in the private and public workout and turn around of billions in mortgage, real estate and banking fraud.

Catherine serves on the board of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, a non-profit civil rights and educational organization which advocates and undertakes litigation against illegal collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial securities. Catherine publishes a column “Mapping the Real Deal” in Scoop Media in New Zealand.

WEBSITE:
Catherine Austin Fitts’ Blog: Mapping the Real Deal

SELECTED BOOKS:
The Washington-Wall Street Game: An Insider’s Story of How Dirty Money Rules Our Lives… and What You Can Do About It!

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

QUOTE:

When I served as Assistant Secretary of Housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the first Bush Administration, I discovered that the government was paying billions of dollars to large banks, defense contractors and universities to collect and manage data on the people and resources of the United States.

The lead defense contractor at HUD was paid approximately $150 billion to run the systems. (That was later to increase by even greater amounts.) No matter how much we paid to create and maintain rich databases, it was almost impossible for me to get any data that I needed to do my job. What I did get required a extraordinary effort on my part.

My efforts to get basic management and financial information was met with fear, lies and endless passive aggressive behavior. I soon learned that data about money in government was like cigarettes in prison. It was a currency, traded for power and position. Data that was supposed to be public was not easily available to government officials and it was certainly not available to the average person. Data that was supposed to be private appeared easily accessible to a variety of financial interests.

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Thank you to our listeners for your generous support!

Because of you, The Monitor had a very successful second week in KPFT’s winter pledge drive!

We would not be able to broadcast without the very generous support of our listeners, and we are grateful for your sustaining gifts and for listening!

Show details for January 18th, 2009

Thank you to our listeners for your generous support!

Because of you, The Monitor had a very successful first week in KPFT’s winter pledge drive. Please join us again next week for our second week of the fund drive, and let us know how much you appreciate The Monitor!

We would not be able to broadcast without the very generous support of our listeners, and we are grateful for your sustaining gifts and for listening!

Show details for January 11th, 2009

This week’s guests:

– Richard Falk on the continuing conflict in Gaza, and his recent detention in Israel which interrupted his human rights mission on behalf of the United Nations.

– Melvin Goodman on President-elect Obama’s nominations for high-ranking intelligence officials.

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RICHARD A. FALK

Richard A. Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2001 he served on a three person Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestine Territories that was appointed by the United Nations, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order after Iraq. He received his B.S. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; L.L.B. from Yale Law School; and J.S.D. from Harvard University.

ARTICLES:
“My Expulsion from Israel”
Published in The Guardian
December 19, 2008
by Richard Falk

WEBSITE:
United Nations page on the Occupied Palestinian Territory

VIDEO: Richard Falk discusses his expulsion from Israel (YouTube)

SELECTED BOOKS:
Achieving Human Rights

Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East, with Howard Friel

The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order after Iraq

QUOTE:

Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel’s approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.

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MELVIN A. GOODMAN

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow and director of the National Security Program at the Center for International Policy. Melvin A. Goodman is a former professor of International Security Studies and chairman of the International Relations Department at the National War College. He was division chief and senior analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency from 1966 to 1990. He was a senior analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department from 1974 to 1976. He was an intelligence adviser to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks in Vienna and Washington. He is co-author of The Wars of Edvard Shevardnadze (2nd edition, 2001), The Phantom Defense: America’s Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion (2001), and Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk (2004), and author of The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

ARTICLES:
“Righting the CIA”
November 19, 2004
By Melvin A. Goodman

WEBSITE:
National Security Program at the Center for International Policy

SELECTED BOOKS:
Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA

Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk

QUOTE:

Over the years, there have been many attempts to politicize intelligence. But no government has been so blatant as the Bush administration, which used phony intelligence to justify the war against Iraq and has introduced a new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, to conduct a political housecleaning at the highest levels of the agency…. Instead of negotiating the intelligence reform proposals of the Senate and House, it is time for the intelligence committees of the legislature to monitor the political behavior of the CIA director and to ensure that the agency provides objective and balanced intelligence assessments to policy-makers. It is quite possible that no restructuring or reorganization is necessary and that no additional funds are needed for the intelligence community. What is needed, however, is a return to the original mission of the CIA: telling truth to power. –November 19, 2004

Show details for January 4th, 2009

This week’s guests:

– Ali Abunimah on the conflict in Gaza.

– Robert Dreyfuss on his latest book, Devil’s Game.

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ALI ABUNIMAH

Ali Abunimah is a Fellow at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, an expert on Palestine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, and author of the book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

ARTICLES:
“Obama’s deady silence”
January 2, 2009
by Ali Abunimah

“Gaza massacres must spur us to action”
December 27, 2008
by Ali Abunimah

WEBSITE:
Electronic Intifada
Co-founder

SELECTED BOOKS:
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

QUOTE:

But today’s horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel’s method of killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel’s idea of a truce. It is very simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

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ROBERT DREYFUSS

Robert Dreyfuss has worked as an independent journalist who specializes in magazine features, profiles, and investigative stories in the areas of politics and national security. In 2001, he was profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review. In 2003, he was awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story on the role of oil in U.S. policy toward Iraq. He has appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including MSNBC, National Public Radio, and Pacifica’s Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

Based in Alexandria, Dreyfuss has been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. Dreyfuss is also a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect.

He is best known for ground-breaking stories about the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. In 2002, he wrote the first significant profile of Ahmed Chalabi by a journalist, for The American Prospect. Also in 2002, he also wrote the first analysis of the war between the Pentagon and the CIA over policy toward Iraq, which included the first important account of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.

ARTICLES:
“Bush’s Last War Crime?”
January 4, 2009
by Robert Dreyfuss

WEBSITE:
Robert Dreyfuss Official Website

The Dreyfuss Report at The Nation

BOOK:
Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

QUOTE:

The Israeli invasion of Gaza, launched Saturday, might very well be George W. Bush’s last and final war crime. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalled ignorance of the Middle East with supreme arrogance. It is precisely that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance that is on display now, as a politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolds with the full support of the Bush administration.