"These deeds reflect the character of our people."
Topic: Business & Labor

"And let us continue to support the expanded trade and debt relief that are the best hope for lifting lives and eliminating poverty. (Applause.)

When America serves others in this way, we show the strength and generosity of our country. These deeds reflect the character of our people. The greatest strength we have is the heroic kindness, courage, and self-sacrifice of the American people."

So spoke the current incumbent American President, mouthing the phrases that normally evoke pride, charity, humility and compassion in even the simplest minds hearing his words. The greatest, most powerful and most economically capable nation on earth? How should it spread the wealth, reach out to the poorest societies among us and teach the next generation about sacrifice and the highest good of all concerned? Our Christian in the White House, using simple declarative sentences, attempted to invoke spiritual images of Good Samaritans. Seeking to inform the world that as the leader of a nation of generous souls, Mr. Bush and his call to charity find themselves immediately faced with an opportunity to put up or shut up. Based on what I've seen so far, I think I'd rather he shut up. Words are cheap. Godly phrases to fool the masses is the cheapest of publicity tricks .. and the cruelest of public hoaxes. Debt relief to the poorest nations on earth? We must put up and give out, or tell our President to shut up. Read or listen to the entire text or broadcast this week from Democracy Now.

“Vulture fund” companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company trying to collect $40 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million. [includes rush transcript]"

I listend on my iPod while walking - and found myself of a sudden no longer in a healthy power-walk, but an anger-stomp. And why is it we have to get the most important truths from sources abroad like the BBC because our home-grown media think deceased ex-bunnies and diapered astronauts are the things most important for us to know. What the hell are all these folks talking about? Greg Palast says it this way:

"Here's how the vultures got Zambia. In 1979, Romania lent them $15 million. By 1998, Zambia was broke, so Romania offered to write off the entire debt for just $3 million. But before the deal was final, a vulture swooped in, and somehow snatched Romania’s cheap offer for his own company.

Michael Sheehan and his associates are now suing Zambia, not for the $3 million they paid, but for the original debt, plus interest: $42 million. But even bigger money is to be made in the US courtrooms, where Sheehan and others are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars from several desperately poor nations.

And George Bush can put an end to it all with a stroke of a pen. Under the US Constitution, the President has the power to stop the vultures from collecting a penny in a US courtroom, but he hasn't done it, even though just last month George Bush publicly committed his government to debt relief."

 

Again these words from Mr. Bush's 2007 SOTU:

"And let us continue to support the expanded trade and debt relief that are the best hopes for lifting lives and eliminating poverty."

Well, if a guy is trying to shore up support for one questionable decision about staying a course of bloodletting in Iraq, wouldn't it make sense to shore up support by donning a white hat with something that makes a dramatic statement about supposed compassionate conservatism? Palast lays it all out:

"Under US law, the President of the United States has the absolute power to stop any vulture fund from collecting money from a poor nation, under the US Constitution. It’s called the power of comity. The African nations are pleading with George Bush to stop his big donors from collecting. Now, what's happening is, is that in the State of the Union, George Bush said we have to give debt relief to the poorest nations. The US taxpayers are putting up more than a billion dollars to write off the debts of the African nations, but what Bush isn't saying is that he is then allowing that money to be captured by his biggest donors, like Paul Singer, so that the money for debt relief is not going to the African nations, where they're desperately in need for, you know, funding for medicine for AIDS, for education, which is what it's earmarked for. These guys are actually going into US courts and saying, “Give us the money.” Now, George Bush, again, has the absolute power, and the judges are waiting for him to write a note. They're saying, “George Bush can ask us to dismiss this case in one minute, but we need something in writing from the White House. ... We've asked the White House again and again. We called 10 Downing Street. The British government is absolutely adamant that the money should not go to the vultures. They call them vultures. It should go to the people of Zambia, the people of Congo and other suffering people in Africa. The Bush administration has been completely silent. Completely silent. We can't get them to respond. I stood outside the White House. I’m trying to get some type of response. ... What's horrendous is the kind of con that's going on. You have a president of the United States standing up in front of Congress, saying give us money, give us billions to write off, in the State of the Union. He puts it in the budget, without anyone saying that, in fact, it's not getting to Africa, it's going to his biggest donors, who are short-stopping it by interjecting themselves and buying up the right to collect and then using the US courts and the British courts. Bush can put a stop to it tomorrow morning. The problem is, is that he's not been responding.

I know that the president of Congo came to visit the White House, and the vulture, Paul Singer, his operation ran a whole smear campaign in the US press about what a terrible Marxist, horrendous president this is of the Congo. They did kind of a Hugo Chavez on the guy, to try to dissuade Bush from listening to him. But it's not the corrupt government that would be making the -- it’s not the guys who’ve put money in their Swiss bank accounts that will be making the payments to the vultures, it's the people of the Congo, the people of Zambia. That's the problem."

Enter U.S. Representative John Conyers, interviewed here by Amy Goodman (Democracy Now):

AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now from Capitol Hill is the new chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers of Michigan. On Wednesday, he and more than two dozen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with President Bush. It was the President's first meeting with the caucus in over two years. Joining us still in studio is Joslyn Barnes and Danny Glover. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Congressmember Conyers. REP. JOHN CONYERS: Always a pleasure, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how your meeting went with the President yesterday? REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, we talked essentially about Iraq, Katrina and the domestic breakdown that's going on right now. But it was my job, I felt, to raise the whole question of this bond speculation that goes on at the expense of poor debtor countries, in which their debt is bought up and then they're sued for the full amount. It’s bought up at pennies on the dollar, and then they're sued. And I wanted to thank you for revealing this to us, because it allowed me to ask President Bush two questions: one, about Paul Singer and Michael Sheehan; and two, whether he would be willing to stop this incredible misuse of our government’s charity toward funding aid to our poorer nations. JUAN GONZALEZ: And what was the President's response to your questions? REP. JOHN CONYERS: His response was, “I didn't know anything about this.” And he assigned a staffer to get on it right away. And so, it's our position that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Comity Doctrine brought from our Constitution allows the President to require the courts defer in individual suits against foreign nations. And so, we're conducting a couple of things. First of all, we want to know where these practices are going on at the present time, and, two, how we can get this information to President Bush so that he can, as he indicated to us, stop it immediately.

Apologies to Herodotus and the U.S. P. S. :