Tony Blair 10

The US / UK road to Iraq and the corrupting influence of the Anglo-American “special relationship”
By Christopher King

10 December 2008

Christopher King examines the corrosive effects of the Anglo-American “special relationship” on British politics and argues that, if Britain is to safeguard its civil liberties, democracy and independence, it must bring former Prime Minister Tony Blair to account for that ultimate symbol of the “special relationship”, the Iraq war.

You might have heard of the current political row in the British Parliament. The government set in motion an anti-terrorist police action in which Member of Parliament Damian Green’s office in the House of Commons was searched without a warrant. Allegedly, he received information relating to national security which was, in fact, a leak from a government employee that is embarrassing to the government but not even a criminal offence. The police used a catch-all law that they use to harass civil service employees who upset the government. Particularly if you are not British, you might wonder what the fuss is about. This is the tip of an immense political iceberg that connects the United Kingdom to the behaviour of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan.It is not immediately obvious, but the UK has reached the political point at which, in 1793, France removed the heads of its ruling class. Fundamental decisions need to be made. England had an earlier revolution led by Oliver Cromwell, which became a civil war with, in 1649, removal of the head of the king, Charles I. That revolution achieved only marginal gains. Although Parliament won the power struggle and established its ascendancy, the monarchy was restored and continues to have great symbolic power. It was during that 17th century conflict that the doors of Parliament were slammed shut in the face of the king, who was refused admittance. The same struggle between Parliament and the executive re-surfaced last week with the unauthorized entry of the police into a weak Parliament that has lost its identity and its way. On Monday 8 December I watched the government win a vote in Parliament to postpone an investigation of Mr Green’s arrest and the search of his office. Those members who voted in favour did not return to the chamber to hear the outcome. I believe that they were ashamed and if not, they should have been. I have said previously that the British Parliament is politically corrupt and this is further evidence that it is concerned with interests other than the best interests of the UK.Because of the rot at its centre, the country is economically disintegrating – ethical collapse having already occurred. The crisis identifiably dates from Parliament’s vote on the Iraq war. Members followed Anthony Blair who had taken upon himself the royal prerogative to decide for war or peace. Individual members considered Iraq to be, in an infamous phrase, “a country far away, about which little is known”. They considered that it did not matter, that they could vote on the basis of personal interests and allegiances. Issues of war and peace, life and death always matter. Consequently, it is now obvious that Parliament was disastrously wrong in that decision but is unable to admit it. It has continued to assert that Anthony Blair’s and George Bush’s invasion of Iraq (on which I concentrate for clarity) was right and legal when the whole world and Parliament itself knows that it was not. That inner conflict and lack of an ethical base is having a corrosive effect on its effectiveness. To gain Parliament’s consent for the war it was necessary for Mr Blair to present it with gross lies and deception that it failed to examine before abandoning its democratic role of representing the people and its cultural heritage. Parliament thus continues to destroy civil liberties and the country’s morale while maintaining the pretence that there is an external enemy when the enemy is within itself.Gordon Brown’s government has politicized the police, or at least, permitted them to play politics. It is not difficult to see why this has happened. John Scarlett, Prime Minister Blair’s head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was promoted and given a knighthood for supporting the Iraq war despite his own intelligence analysts’ advice to the contrary. It was seen that patronage pays.Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and other senior police got away publicly supporting the government by announcing their wish to extend the period of detention without trial for terrorist suspects when this was debated in Parliament. Conceivably, Commissioner Blair wished to ingratiate himself with the government following his shoot-to-kill-on-suspicion security policy resulting in the death of an innocent man, the Brazilian, Jean-Charles de Menezes. This, the London bombings and the suicide of Dr David Kelly are in direct line of causality from the failure of integrity on the part of the politicized civil servants John Scarlett and the attorney-general, Peter Goldsmith, who declared the war legal. '

Lees verder: http://www.redress.cc/global/cking20081210

The Empire 381

Holiday shopping–just don’t

Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Turn them away this year.
By Dr. Juliet Schor, reprinted from the Los Angeles Times

As if American consumers don’t already have enough on their minds, we’ve just had Black Friday with Cyber Monday still to come, the nation’s annual rituals of mandatory shopping. The looming twosome are like unwanted dinner guests who arrive in the middle of a stressful marital spat or nerve-racking toddler meltdown. We want to say, “Just go away.” But there they are on the doorstep, hungry beasts with cloying smiles, dangling a GPS for under $100 and a Blu-ray player at the amazing price of $128.
I’m betting that overall the pressure to buy will be resisted and this year’s holiday buying season will be different. The usual subtle pressures to shop in order to keep the economy humming have been notably absent. Television coverage of sharp-elbowed shoppers will be replaced by mournful accounts of out-of-work breadwinners and somewhat cheerier how-tos on paying in cash. Neither pundits nor politicians — nor even Op-Ed writers — will dare suggest that the consumer has a duty, patriotic or otherwise, to fork over more money or take on more debt to buy a boatful of cheap, made-in-China items. Trust me, 2008 will be the holiday season that wasn’t.
Americans are facing an economic collapse steeper, more widespread and potentially far longer lasting than anything experienced since the 1930s. The decline in the stock market is the most dramatic of the indicators: Investors have lost all of the gains of the last 11 years. The end of the home-price collapse/foreclosure crisis is still not within sight. And unemployment is soaring. The official rate of 6.5% is a significant underestimate of true joblessness. As early as July, the Economic Policy Institute reported that there were 2.6 job seekers for every open position; that imbalance is sure to be much higher now.
For the last two decades, the U.S. has been a consumer-driven economy. Bursts of spending have lifted us out of a series of short, not-too-painful recessions. And consumers are well aware of their “heroic” role. They’ve been told over and over that their spending is the basis for our economy. (Less discussed is how the consumer binge led to our gaping trade deficit.) But there’s an underlying paradox: Most American households have seen their pay rates stagnate, so buying has only been possible by working more hours or taking on credit. Now there are no extra hours, and wary consumers aren’t taking on credit even when it is available.
These imbalances, at the household, national and global level, appear to be well understood by consumers. They recognize that a business-as-usual binge is likely infeasible and certainly unwise.
Predictably, consumers have clamped their wallets shut. A 1.3% decline in retail spending in September ballooned to 2.8% in October, the largest one-month drop in the history of that statistic. Facing such financial uncertainty, who would buy a new car, TV, stereo or sofa? Restaurant spending is dramatically off too, and credit card use is down. While some consumers have been on a debt-fueled binge for quite awhile, apparently they haven’t forgotten how to sober up. And fast. They’re acting smart and cautious. That’s a good thing. Scaling back on gifts and holiday spending this year suddenly seems like the socially acceptable thing to do. Spending liberally can feel unseemly. Even older children will recognize that these are unusual times.
In fact, reining in holiday spending is a message some have been broadcasting for a while. Adbusters, with its Buy Nothing Day, begun in 1992, urges consumers to boycott Black Friday by refusing to purchase anything on the day after Thanksgiving. Performance artist the Rev. Billy Talen and his Church of Stop Shopping target the excesses of the season. The organization I helped to found, the Center for a New American Dream, helps people simplify the holidays by promoting socially responsible gifts, alternative gift fairs and spending time with family and community.
These and many other groups have long recognized that the consumer binge was unsustainable, financially and environmentally. It has been depleting our savings, to be sure, but also degrading the atmosphere, destroying ecosystems and undermining the potential of the planet to support life in all its magnificent forms. Ecological footprint analysis reveals that by the late 1970s, humans had begun to draw down stocks of “natural capital” — that is, degrade the Earth’s ecosystems. We’re turning arable land into deserts, transforming ocean areas into chemically induced dead zones and heating up the climate.
The U.S. holiday season, with its traditional excess, has long been an outsized part of that decline. Roughly a quarter of annual spending, garbage and ecological impact occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Measured in carbon alone, that represents five tons of emissions for each American.
This means that there’s even more reason to turn away those unwanted dinner guests, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Don’t feel guilty about it. We can find better ways to support one another than funneling our money through giant multinationals in hopes that some trickles down to its employees. Support local and socially responsible businesses when buying what you need. Give all that you can to those who are suffering. Spend less time in malls and more connecting with friends and family. If the experience of those who have already decommercialized their holidays is any guide, you’ll find yourself less stressed, more fulfilled and with a little more money in your pocket. I suggest more music, less wrapping paper.'

Zie: http://www.newdream.org/blog/?p=394

De Commerciele Massamedia 162

Een ontwikkeling die de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia vrezen, nu hun oplagen en kijkcijfers blijven dalen:

'Congrats Web Writers: You Are Now Pulitzer Eligible!
By Huffington Post. 09 Dec 2008-->

Sure, the Tribune Co. has just filed for bankruptcy, Gannett just laid off 2000 workers and The New York Times Co. has to borrow against its building. But the true sign of the times in the media industry: It was announced today that, for the first time, Web-only news outlets will be eligible for Pulitzer Prizes.
Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler told Joe Strupp at my magazine, Editor & Publisher, today that “we are expanding the Pulitzers to include many text-based newspapers and news organizations that publish only on the Internet.” They are “stressing” that all entered material should come from news outlets that publish material at least weekly, “are primarily dedicated to original news reporting, are dedicated to coverage of ongoing stories and that adhere to the highest journalistic principles.”
Gissler said the change, to take effect with the 2009 prizes - to be announced in April — is occurring as part of an effort to “keep up with the changing media landscape.” You betcha, as someone once said.
Asked, for example, if a news outlet such as Huffington Post — which calls itself an “Internet newspaper” and is a mix of personal blogs, link aggregation and original reporting — would be eligible, he declined to comment saying he did not want to discuss any individual outlet.
Sites that call themselves online “magazines” would be ineligible (this might rule out Slate and Salon).
The board has recently allowed newspapers to submit online elements with their entries. But this marks the first time Web-only news outlets will be able to compete. See this link for a full Q & A on the rules.
“This is an important step forward, reflecting our continued commitment to American newspapers as well as our willingness to adapt to the remarkable growth of online journalism,” Gissler said in a release. “The new rules enlarge the Pulitzer tent and recognize more fully the role of the Web, while underscoring the enduring value of words and of serious reporting.” The Board adopted the changes at its November meeting at Columbia University after “a lengthy study by a committee.”
Stand back, Dana Priest, you’ve got some fresh competition!
By Greg Mitchell
Greg Mitchell is editor of E&P. His latest book, on Iraq and the media, is titled “So Wrong for So Long.” His book on the 2008 election campaign will be published next month.'

Zie: http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/12/09/congrats-web-writers-you-are-now-pulitzer-eligible/

The Empire 380

'Dec 9, 2008
NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia

By F William Engdahl

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ministers in Brussels have decided to ignore the wishes of the United States and delay the admission of Georgia and the Ukraine, in effect indefinitely, in what the George W Bush administration is sheepishly trying to claim is a positive "compromise".
The decision, follows the alarm which peaked among European Union member states last August over the prospect of having to go to war with Russia over an erratic leader in the Caucasus who had provoked Moscow into a reaction.
The Germans have a far too deep and painful collective memory of the last war with Russia to be willing to treat the prospect as lightly as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or Washington has. The decision deepens growing fault lines across the Atlantic, and next year will be clearly more turbulent even than 2008 in terms of global geopolitics.
The Brussels decision is even more remarkable if taken as indication of Washington's diminishing power over European NATO members. The NATO Foreign Ministers meeting on December 3 issued what to the naive observer might appear a masterpiece of diplomacy.
They unanimously agreed to sidestep the usual Membership Action Plan vote for Georgia and Ukraine, the first concrete step towards full membership of NATO. Instead, NATO will expand the activities of two existing bodies - the NATO-Georgia Commission and the NATO-Ukraine Commission - basically to oversee the same reforms as would have been contained in the action plan.
NATO ministers also agreed in their communique to renew ties with Russia "in a conditional and graduated manner".
Translated into real political language, Washington has undergone a stunning setback in its agenda of encircling Russia with NATO. Despite the fact that president-elect Obama retained Bush Administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and named a person to be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who has strongly supported bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, key European NATO members, led by Germany and France, blocked what must be a unanimous membership decision.
The real reasons
The real reason for the refusal is the growing realization within European officialdom that it was Georgia's unpredictable President Mikhail Saakashvili, not Moscow, who first sent Georgian troops into the breakaway province of South Ossetia, after getting a go-ahead from Washington.
On November 28, during Georgian official Parliamentary Commission testimony on the background to the August events, Saakashvili made the surprising announcement that he had indeed initiated the war.
According to Saakashvili, the attack on the South Ossetian capital, which involved night shelling of residential areas with multiple rocket launcher systems, was aimed at protecting Georgian citizens. He said it was a response to Russia's "intervention" in the region.
"We did start military action to take control of Tskhinvali and other unruly areas. But we took this difficult decision to fend off our territory from intervention and save the people who were dying. It was inevitable,"
Saakashvili said.
The Georgian president claims Russia moved tanks into South Ossetian territory before Georgia launched its attack. He said: "The issue is not about why Georgia started military action - we admit we started it. The issue is about whether there was another chance when our citizens were being killed? We tried to prevent the intervention and fought on our own territory."
Saakashvili's surprising admission came only hours after the testimony of Georgia's former ambassador to Moscow, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who had testified for three hours before he was shouted down by pro-Saakashvili members of parliament.
A former confidant of Saakashvili, Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia.
He refused to name the officials who told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, as identifying them would endanger their lives. The official US line has been that they had "warned" Saakashvili against taking action in the two enclaves, where Russian peacekeepers were stationed.
Kitsmarishvili's testimony in front of the parliamentary commission was shown live on Georgian television. The chairman of the commission, Paata Davitaia, said he would initiate a criminal case against Kitsmarishvili for "professional negligence". Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria, who was called on short notice to comment on Kitsmarishvili's testimony, called the allegations an "irresponsible and shameless fabrication", adding they were "either the result of a lack of information or the personal resentment of a man who has lost his job and wants to get involved in politics".
Kitsmarishvili was fired in September by the president.
Kitsmarishvili walked out amid the furor last week. "They don't want to listen to the truth," he told reporters. Two days later, Saakashvili proved Kitsmarishvili right.
Full spectrum dominance
As I detail at some length in my book, due out in January 2009, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, the strategy of bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO is part of a far larger and more dangerous strategic long-term plan of Washington to ultimately encircle, confront and dismember Russia as a functioning state. Russia, even more than China, is the most formidable obstacle to a Washington-centered sole superpower, Pax Americana.
Russia's understandable refusal to abandon its nuclear strike force in the face of US violations of agreements made in 1989 between the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev and then US secretary of state James Baker III, namely that NATO would not expand east to the former states of the Warsaw Pact or USSR, presents a dilemma for any plans for sole US superpower domination.'

Lees verder: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JL09Ag01.html

De Israelische Terreur 478

'Obama: Tough Love for Tel Aviv?
Monday 08 December 2008
by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t Perspective

It might have been only a straw in the wind, but The New York Times reported last week that, in his first 100 days, Barack Obama is planning to deliver a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital, most likely Cairo. As a sometime speechwriter, I pity the poor scribbler who will have to put those words together.
Forget the vitriol from right-wing evangelicals, who can hardly wait to lambaste Barack Hussein Obama for pandering to Islam and turning away from their apocalyptic crusade against a quarter of the world's people. Forget, as well, the muttering of conspiracy-mongers, left and right, who will read into the speech far more than Obama will intend. Hopefully, he will not wear a necktie with Islamic green, Israeli blue and white, or Hindu red and yellow.
The real obstacle is more obvious: What will Obama say about bringing peace to the Middle East? If he fails to say something significant on the issue, his silence will overwhelm whatever else he does say. So, it stands to reason that Obama and his advisers would not have suggested the speech if they did not want to say something about how they hope to end the long-standing conflict.
Nor can Obama simply repackage his last major speech on the issue, the talk he gave in June to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington. He spoke the day after he clinched his primary victory over Hillary Clinton, and watching on CSPAN, I thought he came across very presidential. If he felt at all like Daniel in the lion's den, given the vicious rumor campaign to Jewish voters that Hillary's people had directed against him, he never once showed it.
In its wording and delivery, Obama's speech was absolutely brilliant. But, for any Israeli or Palestinian who truly wanted peace in the troubled land they share, or any American who wanted a hint of even-handed justice, the speech was a real letdown.
Talk about pandering, Obama told his pro-Israeli audience everything they wanted to hear - and then some. Giving a sweeping view of Iraq, Iran and the Holy Lands, he presented every problem from the point of view of Israel's security, to which he gave an ironclad guarantee. He barely mentioned the Palestinians at all, and when he did, it was only to lecture them on what they would have to do to achieve any hope of a two-state solution. And he pledged that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."
His statement on Jerusalem was, of course, far more extreme than the position taken by either the Bush administration or the Israeli government. So, it came as no surprise when his campaign rushed to retract the pledge, calling it "poor phrasing" and leaving the question of Jerusalem's final status to the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
One can, I suppose, forgive Obama for saying what he thought he had to say to get elected, though polls suggest that the vast majority of American Jews who voted for him wanted a peacemaker and social reformer, not a hard-line war hawk. But, no matter. The larger truth is that he cannot possibly repeat the one-sided approach of his AIPAC speech in any Muslim capital, not without creating a major international incident.
So, if he goes ahead with the speech, what will he offer to push ahead the process of peace in the Middle East?
My best guess is that he will follow the lead of two foreign policy elders who have advised him throughout the campaign and since - Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisers to the first President Bush and President Jimmy Carter. The two men offered their advice publicly in the November 21 Washington Post in an op-ed piece they called "Middle East Priorities for January 21."
Warning that a loss of hope in the region could lead to increased violence, they saw the resolution of the Palestinian issue as a way to remove a "deep sense of injustice" that is "genuine and pervasive." Resolving the issue, they argued "would liberate Arab governments to support U.S. leadership in dealing with regional problems, as they did before the Iraq invasion. It would dissipate much of the appeal of Hezbollah and Hamas, dependent as it is on the Palestinian's plight. It would change the region's psychological climate, putting Iran back on the defensive and putting a stop to its swagger."
As the two men argued their case, the new element would be for Obama to announce American backing for four basic elements of peace. The first, and most important, would be "1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications." The other three elements would be "compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state." Scowcroft and Brzezinski also suggested deploying NATO troops to serve as peacekeepers and to train the "nonmilitarized" Palestinian troops.
I can quibble with the four points, as will Israelis and Palestinians. But what a wonderful step ahead it would be for the new president of the United States to put himself solidly behind a serious effort for peace.'
Zie: http://www.truthout.org/120808R

Dit wordt de nieuwe zwendel: de NAVO neemt de bezetting van de Israeli's over, zogenaamd om de Palestijnen te beschermen. De Nederlandse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft al troepen toegezegd voor deze absurditeit. Dan hoeft Israel geen geld meer uit te trekken om de Palestijnen te onderdrukken in bezet gebied. Ondertussen blijft Israel weigeren de Joodse nederzettingen op te geven. Zonder dat hierover het Nederlandse parlement heeft gediscussieerd heeft Verhagen deze toezegging al gedaan. Zo werkt onze democratie.

De Israelische Terreur 477

'Dignity to Gaza: "We're Back!" - Fourth Successful Voyage Breaks Through Siege of Gaza
For More Information, please contact:
(Gaza) Caoimhe Butterly, +972 598 273 960 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
(Gaza) Lubna Masarwa, +972 505 633 044 / lubnna@gmail.com
(Cyprus) Ramzi Kysia , +357 99 081 767 / rrkysia@yahoo.com

(GAZA, 9 December 2008) - The Free Gaza Movement ship "Dignity" successfully broke through the Israeli blockade for the fourth time since August, arriving in Gaza Port at 2:45pm, Tuesday 9 December. The ship carried one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula, in addition to a delegation of international academics, humanitarian and human rights workers. Three earlier missions made landfall in Gaza in August, October, and November through the power of non-violent direct action and civil resistance. The Free Gaza ships are the first international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over 41 years.
Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer, journalist, and solidarity worker, pointed out that, "Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day, and it's high time the world turned its rhetoric on human rights into reality. We mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza. The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation - both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition, terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms - but also in terms of the generation of students which have won places at academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity, materials, and the peace and space to make use of them in."
For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, costal region. The World Bank recently warned that the entire banking system in Gaza may soon collapse resulting in "serious humanitarian implications." Already, over eighty percent of Gazan families are dependent on international food aid in order to feed their children.
Lubna Masarwa, another Free Gaza organizer and the current delegation's leader, pointed out that, "The Palestinians of Gaza don't need charity.
What they need is effective political action that changes their lives and ends the Occupation. We can't bring electricity to Gaza on our boats. We can't import freedom of movement or safety. But we can get into Gaza and we are intent to keep coming. We will come again and again and again until the world breaks its silence and we shatter this siege once and for all."

Chef Staf Rahm Emanuel 22

'How Rahm Emanuel Made Mega-Millions and Bought His Way to Power
By Ben Protess, ProPublica.
Posted December 9, 2008.

New details emerge of Emanuel's days as an investment banker.

Since Rahm Emanuel was appointed the next White House chief of staff last month, ProPublica has been retracing his previous life as an investment banker, which earned him more than $18 million in less than three years.
The New York Times recently shed new light on Emanuel's Wall Street days -- and how they helped send him to Congress.
In late 1998, Emanuel left the Clinton White House to work for Wasserstein Perella, a now defunct investment bank run by Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor.
"I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside," Wasserstein told the Times. "It worked out better than I could have hoped."
Indeed, as we previously noted, Emanuel used his political connections to broker major deals while at the firm. (One deal was a $16 billion merger that created Exelon Corp., now one of the nation's largest electric utilities. Another involved SBC Communications, the telecommunications company run by William Daley, Clinton's commerce secretary and the brother of Chicago's mayor.)
After leaving the bank in 2001 to run for Congress, Emanuel benefited from the sale of Wasserstein Perella, which gave him an unusually large payout. Russ Gerson, global head of financial markets for A.T. Kearney Executive Search, told the Chicago Tribune in 2003 that Emanuel's compensation would put him "in the top 3 to 5 percent" of investment bankers at that time.
The cash proved helpful when Emanuel found himself in a tough fight for a seat in Congress. He contributed $450,000 out of his own pocket to the primary campaign, and his leading rival accused him of trying to buy his seat, the Times reports.
The financial industry also heavily financed Emanuel's campaign. From the Times:
After Emanuel left banking to run for Congress, members of the securities and investment industry became his biggest backers, donating more than $1.5 million to his campaigns dating back to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Emanuel also leaned heavily upon the industry while he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2006 midterm elections. Financial industry donors contributed more than $5.8 million to the committee, behind only retirees.
Once he reached Congress, Emanuel served on the Financial Services Committee, which handles legislation involving financial markets and banks.
Neither the Times nor anybody else has suggested Emanuel went on to do the bidding of the financial industry. But there's little question his days as a banker have helped shape Emanuel's perspective. From the Times:
Former colleagues said the insight it afforded him on the financial services sector is invaluable especially now. But Mr. Emanuel built up strong ties with an industry now at the heart of the economic crisis, one that will be girding for a pitched lobbying battle next year as the incoming Democratic administration considers a potentially sweeping regulatory overhaul.
Friends of Mr. Emanuel's from his private-sector days said he still checks in with them regularly to plumb their insights on economic issues.
In an interview with the Times, Emanuel said he often acted against the wishes of the financial industry. "I would say I've been as tough on my friends as others," he said. "I call it like I see it." See more stories tagged with: emanuel, revolving door
Zie: http://www.alternet.org/election08/110396/