Posted by Anthony Gregory on 11/20/09

Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald discusses the meaning of yesterday's victory for Fed transparency:

The bill still faces substantial hurdles in becoming law, of course, but yesterday's vote has made that outcome quite possible, and it's worth noting several important points highlighted by what happened here:

(1) Our leading media outlets are capable of understanding political debates only by stuffing them into melodramatic, trite and often distracting "right v. left" storylines.  While some debates fit comfortably into that framework, many do not.  Anger over the Wall Street bailouts, the control by the banking industry of Congress, and the impenetrable secrecy with which the Fed conducts itself resonates across the political spectrum, as the truly bipartisan and trans-ideological vote yesterday reflects.  Populist anger over elite-favoring economic policies has long been brewing on both the Right and Left (and in between), but neither political party can capitalize on it because they're both dependent upon and subservient to the same elite interests which benefit from those policies.

For that reason, many of the most consequential political conflicts are shaped far more by an "insider v. outsider" dichotomy than by a "GOP v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right" split.  The pillaging of America's economic security by financial elites, with the eager assistance of the government officials who they own and who serve them, is the prime example of such a conflict.   The political system as a whole -- both parties' leadership -- is owned and controlled by a handful of key industry interests, and anger over the fact is found across the political spectrum.  Yesterday's vote is a very rare example where the true nature of political power was expressed and the petty distractions and artificial fault lines overcome.

(2) As Grim expertly describes, the effort to defeat the Paul/Grayson amendment came from all of the typical Washington power centers using all of the establishment's typical manipulative tools.

Read the whole article.

Posted 11/20/09 Heata Jonesborough, TN

Im a completely confused that Campaing for Liberty was not mentioned even *once* in his article....

Posted 11/20/09 Paul S. Brighton, MI

That's our job :-)

Posted 11/20/09 usapatriot Milton, VT

Another outstanding article by Glenn Greenwald. I would highly recommend his blog at "salon.com" and his excellent book "How Would a Patriot Act". I think it is somewhat inaccurate and insulting to describe Greenwald as a "liberal", except in the classical sense. He has written several scathing criticisms of the Obama administration and their decisions to continue Bush administration policies regarding executive privilege, indefinite detention and military commissions. I was very disappointed with his column which described the DOHS report on "Right Wing Extremism" as poetic justice for conservatives who lauded Bush's civil liberties abuses. I think we need to familiarize him with the Campaign for Liberty, and the principled conservatives, which, like he, are opposed to government tyranny regardless of who is imposing it.

Posted 11/20/09 navnek Mauston, WI

Amazing that Greenwald's list did not give much if any credit to the tireless efforts of Ron Paul, the soundness of arguments he and his Austrian School mentors have been making for decades, nor the value of folks in different parties working together for (excuse me for this) the common good. (Usually that phrase is upchucking to me, as it is used most often used to justify the most horrendous assaults on liberty.) But that is about as good as it gets from Mr. Greenwald.

Posted 11/20/09 navnek Mauston, WI

And let me add that given Frank's position on other monetary issues, his phony support did not surprise me. Hopefully he will finally pay at the polls.

Posted 11/21/09 Trent Phoenix, AZ

"And it reveals a winning formula: where there is a strong and principled leader in Congress willing to defy the Party's leadership and the Washington establishment (Grayson)" Seriously? While I most certainly agree that Grayson deserves some credit, Ron Paul is the one who has been doing this for over 30 years!

Posted by Anthony Gregory on 11/19/09

Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-Tenn.) writes:

There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we could buy off every warlord in Afghanistan for $1 billion.

Posted 11/19/09 MikeKlamecki Elkhart Lake, WI

So.. does he think that there is something conservative about the war in Iraq or the spending to keep our military in over 100 bases around the world? Are they finally waking up?

Posted 11/19/09 BruceKoerber Cedar Rapids, IA

Thursday, November 19, 2009 War Is Not Conservative, Liberal, or Progressive! War is not 'conservative' nor is it 'liberal' nor is it 'progressive.' War is, however, partisan. It is part of the division that stems from counterfeiting. There is the party that receives the illicit benefits of counterfeiting and there is the party which loses its wealth and its culture and its life. The party affiliation, at least in the United States, is that of the unConstitutional coup. It masks itself through bribery and corruption in the form of rhetoric from 'conservatives' and 'liberals' amd 'progressives,' but these voices are merely those of politicians who are lusting after power and willing to do whatever the unConstitutional coup asks them to do in return for political ascent. War is a sign and symbol of the perversity of ego-driven intervention and it is very much a manifestation of the economic terrorism of the unConstitutional coup.

Posted 11/19/09 WinstonSmith1984 Oceania, United Kingdom

Quick buy off Afghan warlords for $1B while the dollar is still worth something! ;)

Posted 11/19/09 JustinMurray Jacksonville, FL

One easy step to have avoided the billions spent and hundreds of lives lost in Afghanistan - offer $10 billion and US citizenship to whoever brings in Osama's head. That would have solved a ton of problems.

Posted 11/19/09 caseyfan14 Port St. Lucie, FL

Jimmy Duncan voted against the war in Iraq with Ron Paul. Don't be ignorant in thinking all Republicans besides Ron Paul were warmongers during the Bush administration. Do your research before you speak.

Posted 11/19/09 Ike Hall Clarkston, GA

Not to mention all of those dead people and destroyed lives. But at least he deplores the money spent. *sigh*

Posted 11/20/09 ZelieDad Zelienople, PA

Yes, quickly pay off the warlords for $1 B. Maybe they will take GoldMoney.com. Then bring all the troops home, everywhere.

Posted by Anthony Gregory on 11/16/09

See this important WSJ article on the "rationing commissions" we can expect.

Posted 11/16/09 Glenn Cumming, GA

Thanks, Anthony. To quote the article: "White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms." On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."" And who said drones wouldn't be turned loose on Americans. Beaureacrats with keyboards will target you from hundreds of miles away, sitting with lattes and bran muffins in drab government buildings, denying you treatment. Suckers.

Posted by Anthony Gregory on 11/12/09

Although the statist left wishes to monopolize the anti-racist cause, the true American legacy against racial oppression is more tied up with classical liberalism and individual liberty. See Jonathan Bean on the controversy his book Race and Liberty has ellicted. The socialists argue that capitalism, individualism, constitutional federalism and commercial liberty have always been the enemies of racial harmony. From William Lloyd Garrison to Zora Neale Hurston, there is a forgotten tradition of anti-racist libertarianism. Also see Ron Paul's article on racism and government, as well as my C4L piece on racist collectivism.

Posted 11/12/09 Horsea Winnipeg, Canada

Antiracist libertarianism? That's something only white people would give a hoot about or identify with. What do you say to those races with a hive consciousness who will NEVER give a hoot for libertarianism or equal rights for white people, the people they despise but want to live near, anyway.

Posted 11/14/09 Glenn Cumming, GA

Thanks for this post, Anthony. Appreciate the additional links. On a topic such as this I always like to be sure I know the definitions. From my dictionary applet, I get this: "WordNet (r) 2.0" racist adj 1: based on racial intolerance; "racist remarks" 2: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion syn: antiblack, anti-Semitic, anti-Semite(a) n : a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others syn: racialist So, for me, rascism is a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others. The other definitions (1) & (2) expand the definition to include bigotry and discrimination, which is not racism. The statists and collectivists want me to see other races as a group. There's a Race A man, so I need to assign certain attributes to him because the state says so - mainly he's disadvantaged. Oh, there's a Race B man, he's advantaged. So, how's this for a twist. The very group of people that claim to be anti-racist are the very ones that believe that one group is superior over others so that it can advance its collectivist policies. Race-based bigotry and discrimination abound everywhere and is really not a problem in a free society. It is only when the racists try to use the state to erase them that causes problems.

Posted by Anthony Gregory on 11/11/09

In the Wall Street Journal. Like many such establishment pieces, the basic line is this: We don't need a broader audit, since the Fed is already subject to all the oversight it needs; at the same time, we can't have an audit, since it will wreck the Fed's "independence." We all know how "independent" the Fed is -- conveniently pumping easy credit whenever a war or election demands it. But taken at face value, the argument is still nonsensical: HR 1207 "will only produce redundancies" and yet will "undermine the Fed's independence." Well, which is it? Is HR 1207 superfluous, or revolutionary? Will it disrupt the apple cart too much, or fail to do anything that's not already being done?

Of course, the Fed shouldn't be "independent." As Murray Rothbard wrote in The Case Against the Fed:

The standard reply of the Fed and its partisans is that any such measures, however marginal, would encroach on the Fed's "independence from politics," which is invoked as a kind of self-evident absolute. The monetary system is highly important, it is claimed, and therefore the Fed must enjoy absolute independence.

"Independent of politics" has a nice, neat ring to it, and has been a staple of proposals for bureaucratic intervention and power ever since the Progressive Era. Sweeping the streets; control of seaports; regulation of industry; providing social security; these and many other functions of government are held to be "too important" to be subject to the vagaries of political whims. But it is one thing to say that private, or market, activities should be free of government control, and "independent of politics" in that sense. But these are government agencies and operations we are talking about, and to say that government should be "independent of politics" conveys very different implications. For government, unlike private industry on the market, is not accountable either to stockholders or consumers. Government can only be accountable to the public and to its representatives in the legislature; and if government becomes "independent of politics" it can only mean that that sphere of government becomes an absolute self-perpetuating oligarchy, accountable to no one and never subject to the public's ability to change its personnel or to "throw the rascals out." If no person or group, whether stockholders or voters, can displace a ruling elite, then such an elite becomes more suitable for a dictatorship than for an allegedly democratic country. And yet it is curious how many self-proclaimed champions of "democracy," whether domestic or global, rush to defend the alleged ideal of the total independence of the Federal Reserve.

Posted 11/11/09 larry101 New York, NY

The amount of misinformation on this topic is out of control. The Fed is audited on an annual basis by a private auditor. http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/RptCongress/annual08/sec6/c2 .htm and has it's own internal controls audits http://www.federalreserve.gov/oig/ Greenspan was incompetent and Reagon, Clinton, and Bush shoulder the blame. But Fed run by Congress would be exponentially worse than Greenspan

Posted 11/11/09 frozenfiresoul pittsburgh, PA

Whose asking for a fed run by congress?

Posted 11/11/09 Anthony Gregory Berkeley, CA

larry101, who is implying the Fed is not audited? The key is that it's not meaningfully audited. It should not be independent of Congress. It's a government-created agency with power, and should be held in check by Congress, so long as it exists.

Posted 11/11/09 BillNM Carlsbad, NM

Who's asking for a FED...?

Posted 11/11/09 josephrobertsullivan Austin, TX

larry101, watch this short video -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlxBeAvsB8 Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.

Posted 11/12/09 mookrit Melbourne, Australia

I wonder if the WSJ would allow Ron Paul or another libertarian economist to reply to this piece on their opinion page? I doubt it, but it's worth a shot.