One year after Mohammed al-Bouazizi lit himself on fire in protest against mistreatment by police, sparking a movement that has toppled regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, a global wave of popular protest continues, from the Arabic-speaking world to Europe, India, Chile, the United States and Russia. Today, democracy advocates protest unlawful detention, arbitrary power and socio-economic injustice across the world.

December 17, 2011, marks the one year anniversary of Mohammed al-Bouazizis desperate self-immolation, the 24th birthday of Bradley Manning, a US Army private held in solitary confinement in conditions some have described as torture, for allegedly releasing secret documents, and the three-month mark of the Occupy Wall Street movement seeking to take back public spaces, Constitutional liberties, and the fundamental right to active participation.

Tragically, in Egypt, this day of worldwide celebration and peaceful protest is being marked by a deliberate campaign of killing against unarmed civilian demonstrators, by the last holdouts of the old criminal regime, who now say democratic gatherings are counter-revolutionary activities that warrant deadly force.

The news from Cairo today: military police squads stormed into Tahrir Square, lit the protest camp on fire, have shot and killed an unknown number of unarmed civilians, and have allegedly begin throwing people off of a bridge into the Nile River. The depraved indifference to human life is so extreme, the civilian advisory council, that was supposed to lend some legitimacy to the military junta running the country, has resigned in protest.

It now appears that under the negotiations agreed after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the military council now longer wields any legitimate authority, and it is time forth international community to apply maximum pressure to force all military personnel out of power and implement an immediate, and orderly, transition to 100% civilian rule.

All acts of violence against civilian demonstrators must now be treated by the international community as deliberate, coordinated crimes against humanity, and arrest warrants and/or material witness warrants issued for every member of the ruling military council. International warrants should be put on hold only if the crimes committed are prosecuted through a credible, legitimate, transparent system of due process, in Egypt.

In Syria, after 9 months of resistance to the escalating aggression and violence of the Assad regime against its own people, at least 35 people have been killed in direct military assaults against civilians. Russia and China are blocking direct action through the United Nations Security Council, but Assad has now lost all legitimacy, and will likely be the next dictator swept from the scene. One can only hope it is achieved before he kills another 5,000 of his own people.

In the United States, the use of paramilitary tactics and alternative combat weaponry (including chemical agents, LRAD sound cannon, flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets) to evict or shut down Occupy protest camps, has become commonplace. There is, now, a mounting popular concern about the commitment of elected officials to the fundamental principles of the Constitution.

Instead of honoring the historic force of principle being expressed by the American people, city governments across the US have given in to the darkest temptations of arbitrary power, and have declared the commons off limits for peaceful protest, using potentially deadly force at times to bar citizens from exercising their constitutional rights to free assembly, free speech and open protest (to petition the government for a redress of grievances, many and far-reaching).

But TIME Magazine, recognizing the worldwide wave of citizen awakening that has marked the year 2011, has named The Protester its Person of the Year. Across the middle east, across Europe, in India, Chile, the United States, and now in Russia, a movement of citizen-centered activism is not only occupying public spaces to demand immediate positive change in political and economic structures, but is now publishing, webcasting and building a global collaboration to bear witness to any and all obstacles to genuine democracy.

On December 17, 2011, hundreds of thousands of people across the world are honoring the cause of humanity: freedom, dignity, equal treatment and equal opportunity, and the primacy of the citizen over the power of the public servant. #D17 is intended to be a global day of celebration and resistance.

The Occupy movement in the United States marks its third full month in practice today, and a transition to focused actions to right injustices is underway. Occupy assemblies are discussing and deciding plans for new encampments and an OccupyHomes movement is spreading, as legal advisers, protesters, concerned citizens and others, join together to literally take back foreclosed homes from banks the occupiers accuse of criminal activity and predatory mortgage and foreclosure practices.

The world will enter the year 2012 infused with a now explicit and spreading demand for an end to all forms of tyranny, including that great weapon of all tyrants: official secrecy. Technology, democratic process, creative media and nonviolent civil disobedience are converging to allow citizen volunteers to retake the reins of the decision-making process, potentially turning advisory protest movement into a new civic order, designed to uphold and propagate genuine democratic rights and safeguards.

Engaged citizens everywhere should demand that every public official at every level honor the primacy of citizens over the exercise of power.

Amid the mounting fiscal and economic crisis that is threatening to undermine the project of European integration, the Group of Lecce has issued a new statement on the need to reform European economic governance. The Group of Lecce aims to develop policies “to strengthen economic and financial multilateralism”, strengthening the democratic underpinnings of the Union, along with the dynamism of the European economy, through advanced ongoing cooperation.

According to this report: “we do not see any alternative to reinforcing cooperation and to achieving stronger unity across and within the EU, with the very same spirit that has animated in the past all major reforms of the European institutions. Indeed, a major step forward to greater cooperation and unity would make Europe the strong international player that all its national economies need to face the challenges of todayrsquo;s globalised world.”

As today’s more-than-ever integrated Europe faces a crisis of unprecedented proportions, and some in government speak openly of dismantling, at least in part, the common currency or other mechanisms for long-term cooperative integration, the Group of Lecce argues that major structural reforms are needed, to move the Union closer to real, viable, and more agile, policy integration.

The report also concludes that: “We strongly believe that the apparent trade offs between democracy and efficiency, and between solidarity and rigor in managing EU economic policies can be resolved by establishing an adequate system of checks and balances, and by limiting to the extent possible emergency and transitory intergovernmental measures and actions. Severe difficulties seem to lie in the different degrees of integration characterizing the Euro area and the other EU members. A higher economic and fiscal integration is necessary for the European Monetary Union to work effectively…”

• To read the full report, visit ProjectQuipu.net

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are gathering for a nonviolent “Last Chance” pro-democracy protest. Military police have killed at least 41 unarmed civilians since last Saturday. Today, the massive numbers of civilians who turned out are demanding an end to military rule, and an orderly transition to genuine democracy. The 9 months of military rule have seen little progress in the dismantling of the violent, corrupt Mubarak regime.

Once again, Egyptian citizens of all ages have converged on the square which was the heart of the peaceful uprising that brought an end to three decades of dictatorship under the presidency of Hosni Mubarak. The demonstrators include families with small children, and a broad cross-section of Egyptian society. The massive show of public support for the pro-democracy movement is yet another show of defiance as civilians demand an end to the use of lethal force against to crush dissent in Egypt.

The Egyptian-American writer and activist Mona Eltahawy, traveled to Cairo, to join the new round of demonstrations, to support her people and her country, and to stand with those brave souls calling for an end to violence and a real transition to democracy. She was detained, battered and abused, and says multiple guards attempted to sexually assault her. She said her treatment was not unique and that such brutality was one of the motivating forces behind the Tahrir Square demonstrations.

The spreading Occupy movement has seen one after another sit-in, protest camp or march brutally and inexcusably assaulted by paramilitary police actions, using chemical agents and other weapons of war, against unarmed, nonviolent citizens exercising their basic constitutional rights. The result has been a rash of unfettered violence across the world against pro-democracy advocates.

In Egypt, officials have openly said they should be allowed to use military violence against civilian demonstrators, because it is being done across the United States. After the atrocities of Oakland, when police fired rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters at point-blank range at penned-in, unarmed demonstrators, sending ex-Marine Scott Olsen to the hospital with a fractured skull and brain injuries, the use of paramilitary tactics seems only to have spread.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week staged an unannounced, midnight raid on the original Occupy Wall Street protest site, using chemical weapons, LRAD combat sound cannon, and police officers in riot gear swinging wildly with billy clubs against anyone in sight, regardless of threat or posture. There has been no penalty, and no punishment, for officers engaged in aggravated assault against civilians.

Mayor Bloomberg deployed counter-terrorist police helicopters to the scene of the violent assault, to prevent news helicopters from filming what occurred. Press were banned from the site, by what authority it remains unclear. At least 26 journalists were assaulted, beaten, injured, and/or detained, on the night of the Zuccotti Park raid. There was a planned, deliberate use of violence and combat tactics against unarmed, nonviolent, even sleeping and prone demonstrators.

The brutality of the raid was so severe that when City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Washington Heights) rushed to the site to observe and to make the case against the use of violence to disperse the protesters, he was assaulted by police and arrested for disorderly conduct. According to the New York Daily News: Several people detained with him told me Rodriguez was bleeding badly from a gash in his forehead. Still, by 6 p.m., he had not been arraigned and his lawyer, Leo Glickman, had not been allowed to see him.

Glickman says his client is not even being afforded the basic due process protections afforded to any arrestee and that the citys treatment of the protest and of the councilman is an effort to silence the movement. At least one retired state Supreme Court justice also found her attempts to provide legal observation to the raid obstructed. The Daily News reports the scene as follows:

Retired Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith can’t believe what she saw this week. At the urging of her son, who joined the Zuccotti Park protests weeks ago, Smith had volunteered to be a legal observer in case of mass arrests.

She received a text message early Tuesday that a bust was imminent, so she got to Zuccotti around 1:30 a.m. As she exited the subway at Broadway and Dey St., she met a wall of cops in riot gear who were preventing people from getting anywhere near the park.

“There was a black woman standing next to me,” Smith said. “She kept frantically telling the cops her daughter was in the park and she wanted to make sure the girl was okay.”

“All of a sudden, a cop takes his baton and cracks her in the head,” Smith said. “She hadn’t done a thing. Then they started chasing people down the street.”

Smith’s efforts to get police to recognize her as a legal observer proved futile. Likewise, several reporters who were arrested while covering the protest found their press credentials worthless.

Crimes were committed by authorities that directly violate the Constitution of the United States and its fundamental protections for free speech, freedom of the press and the freedom of the people to peaceably assemble. The denial of access to counsel for some and the barring of press and legal observers from the scene is a clear attempt to circumvent the right of the people to petition their government for the redress of grievances. Some First Amendment advocates have accused the city of barring press and legal observers in order to 1) undermine the evidentiary process and 2) allow for impunity in the use of extreme force by police.

Across the United States, we are witnessing, sadly, one after another mayor decide that the free exercise of constitutional liberties is a threat to public order, only to deploy paramilitary tactics to crush peaceful protests.

There are accusations of a coordinated planning strategy among mayors to determine what level of force they will deploy, and by what means, to crush the demonstrations. Some mayors offices have claimed the right to secrecy for security reasons, and there are Freedom of Information filings being made to learn who knew what when, and who gave which order that led to police firing on demonstrators, or using chemical weapons in unprovoked attacks against citizens.

In Egypt, where the nonviolent Tahrir Square uprising brought down the dictator Hosni Mubarak, in just 18 days between January 25 and February 11 of this year, authorities are now openly citing the actions of American mayors and police forces as justification for their use of extreme violence against nonviolent civilian demonstrators calling for genuine democratic reform. Mayors Bloomberg, Emanuel, Quan and others, are aiding and abetting the use of extreme violence to crush pro-democracy movements across the world.

This is not hyperbole. This is not interpretation. This is what is happening:

• In the streets of New York City, paramilitary forces were deployed, using tactics designed for armed combat in a warzone, using weapons designed specifically for combat in a war zone, deploying chemical weapons against unarmed civilians and banning all press coverage of the event.
• In the streets of Oakland, police shot a former Marine in the face at point-blank range, while he was penned in, and despite his having no weapon of any kind, posing no threat to anyone, and doing nothing of any kind in violation of any law. When he fell to the ground, gushing blood and good samaritans rushed to his aid, which not one of the police present did, an Oakland police officer fired a flash-bang grenade apparently loaded with tear gas directly into the huddle of people trying to help him, as if to finish off the protest with one last shot.
• At UC Davis, police walked along a row of nonviolent student protesters linking arms, and deployed a chemical weapon directly into their faces, with reckless and abject disregard for their health, their wellbeing, their rights, the rule of law or their own obligation to protect and serve.

In each case, the authorities behaved in direct contravention of the Constitution of the United States, and carried out brutal, wanton, physical assault against unarmed civilians. The violence against journalists in New York City is among the most worrying developments, because it suggests a depraved disregard for American law at the highest levels and directly mirrors the kind of planned atrocities being carried out in countries where corrupt regimes are actively trying to stamp out all pro-democracy protest.

In Egypt, the escalation of official violence against protesters has left 33 people dead since Saturday. The lesson of military impunity taught by Mayor Bloombergs assault on demonstrators has been learned, and is being treated almost as legal precedent by corrupt regimes unwilling to consent to any genuine open democratic process. The consequences are increased impunity, increased suffering, the deaths of innocents and an attempt across the region to roll back the democratic gains of the Arab spring.

People across the United States should stand together, regardless of party or ideology, and demand that there never again be even one instance of law enforcement being deployed to use force against any civilians exercising their basic rights.

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Related:

• The Oakland Crackdown (discussion)
• What is the Meaning of This?
• Occupy Wall Street, with a People-centered Investment Bank

Robert Reich explains how big money is taking over the privileges of democratic rights, to the exclusion of ordinary people, and to the detriment of citizens who seek to exercise their basic civil liberties. The violence of police against unarmed civilians is absolutely inexcusable, and it is motivated in part by a systemic disregard for the value of the human individual, of basic rights, of citizenship and of the obligation public servants have to work for, not against, the people they are elected to serve. Says Reich: “WE NEED TO OCCUPY OUR DEMOCRACY.”

The European Union has reached an agreement to relieve Greece of half of its sovereign debt, and to boost the Eurozone bailout fund to €1 trillion. The agreement may well be funded, in part, by non-European governments, even private investors, but it shows a new commitment to the Union as such, even amid a surge of anti-Union feeling in several key democracies. For years, the leading obstacle to true integration of the European economies has been seen to be cultural and political reluctance to fully embrace political union.

Will this new commitment to shared responsibility and the future of the Euro currency mean the European Union itself will begin to commit more fully to long-term political union? - Join the discussion here

We need a system of cooperative public-private infrastructure financing, a national infrastructure bank. But we also need to use that fabric of cooperative investment and output to foster specific areas of major improvement to our national economy. The model could be replicated across the world, but the US is uniquely positioned to deploy this solution and to vastly improve its chances of restoring vibrancy to the wider middle class by doing so.

Two parallel projects are necessary to make the infrastructure redevelopment and economic recovery strategy a success:

• a renewable energy infrastructure bank – to help target some of the wider funding options to the project of building a sustainable, smart energy economy, free of the massive externalized costs of carbon-based fuels
• an economic opportunity bank – to aggressively, specifically and persistently direct funds to businesses that are hiring, building capacity at the community level, and restoring real wage gains to the middle class

The first is our topic here: a national renewable energy infrastructure bank. To build such a bank, we would need to first establish how a cooperative public-private infrastructure financing scheme would work. Ideally, it needs to work much like an investment bank, where individual investors see visible gains, but money is kept in the pot for a long enough period of time to produce gain across the full spectrum of investor contributions.

In other words, there has to be commitment to the project, and that shared commitment of resources will yield shared substantial gains to all parties. In the area of clean energy investment, this is possibly much easier than with other types of infrastructure investment, because the industry is entering into a period of massive, and necessary, prolonged expansion. Big investors understand that big investment will help to secure that prolonged expansion.

If Congress acts to incentivize this investment, massive amounts of private-sector capital will flow to clean energy resources. There are three reasons why this will happen:

1. Fossil fuels carry with them massive production costs that have long been externalized; the economy can no longer afford to continue such a strategy.
2. Clean energy technologies offer a major opportunity for prolonged expansion of business value, as information technologies have shown over the last 30 years.
3. There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars of private capital sitting on the sidelines, waiting for directional certainty that fossil fuels cannot provide.

So, how to structure such an operation? The renewable energy infrastructure bank would need the following to reach its full potential:

1. A national price signal or clear set of incentives to direct investment to clean energy
2. An investment strategy that looks at best practices, value to community, prospects for building aggregate demand, and structural resiliency
3. A focus on job-creation, skilled retraining, and positive value feedback loops that favor consumers
4. A legislative charter that sets forth priorities favorable to public-sector, private-sector and start-up investors alike
5. A model for redirecting funding when key elements of a project require support or restructuring
6. A focus on rewarding institutions, individuals and investors who do cutting-edge R&D that is practicable, 100% carbon-emissions-free and scalable
7. Short-, medium- and long-term investment strategies for building, optimizing and utilizing the smart grid

Suggestions for deployment:

1. Implement a national carbon fee and dividend policy, to correct market failures in the pricing of carbon, return control of the energy economy to households and incentivize major private capital investment in the rapidly expanding clean tech sector
2. Identify, build or support and expand, focus facilities in cities and regions across the country, to operate as cooperative laboratories of R&D, start-up incubators, and investment engines (examples might be Brooklyn Navy Yard or Philadelphia Navy Yard, or the Fab Labs project)
3. Motivate scalability planning for distributed clean energy production projects, to ensure sustained investment opportunities, and optimized overlap between community-building, job-creation and investment strategies, for higher overall cost efficiency
4. Ensure legal support for avoiding corrosive business models, favoring generative ones, to ensure Investment flows to the new technologies and collaborative strategies that build future prosperity, not to extraction-oriented investments
5. Reward rapid ramping up of high-efficiency clean energy tech, because this will build structural resiliency, favor the highest-value market-healing technologies, and help to revive the middle class

We can begin doing this nationally tomorrow, if:

• We focus first on wind and solar, due to their naturally occurring US domestic supply far outstripping total demand and all possible demand growth
• We commit to decentralizing innovation, influence and income-growth in the energy sector, so community and regional economies are empowered by the transition
• We recognize the need to fully develop leading-edge infrastructure at all levels
• We identify and elevate the pioneers who already know how to motivate and execute this transition
• We charter public-private partnerships to manage investment flows to stakeholder-defined initiatives

The clean energy economy is coming, and to fully enable its expansion, the US needs to flex the muscle necessry to turn the ship of state, to wrest from entrenched industries and financial investment patterns rooted more in extraction than in generative payoff the ability to decide what comes next. There is nothing beyond clean and renewable in terms of energy production and distribution, except the work of achieving the most advanced efficiency gains and making robust power generation an ever more ephemeral affair, at an ever faster rate.

To lead in that new economy, we need to be the first to build its value.

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Originally published October 12, 2011, at ProjectQuipu.net

The Occupy Wall Street movement—now being called “the American Autumn”, after the Arab Spring, or the September 17th movement, after the day it got started in lower Manhattan—is now completing four weeks on the scene. Yet we can still be astounded to hear so many incredulous “experts” unable to understand how a grassroots movement, infused with the zeitgeist of very problematic times, is working toward anything constructive. What is the meaning of this? Why don’t they have a ready-to-go list of demands? What are they asking us to think?

It’s actually very simple. It’s self-evident, but if you’re at a loss, you can also go to Zuccotti Park, or to any of the Occupy Together protest sites, and just talk to people, and what did not seem evident will rapidly become so. The meaning of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is spreading across the United States like wildfire is: democracy. The unifying sentiment, which is actively put into practice every day at Occupy encampments, is that citizens have a right to participate. They are building a participatory process to restore the principle of informed citizen participation to our political system and our economy.

Listen to the protesters: “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” This is not pretend protest; this is the message. The message is that people have a right to free assembly, have a right to free expression, have a right to govern their own destiny, have a right to earn a living, to expect that as citizens of a free society, as implicit signatories to the social contract that gives legitimacy to our democracy, they have a right to be treated with dignity.

Above all, they believe it is necessary to restore to prominence the idea that we all have a right to expect that the powers that decide the shape of our everyday existence 1) represent us, and 2) be accountable directly to us, to the people. Participation and transparency are antidotes to the temptations of unfettered power, elite negotiating environments, and deals that ignore the interest of most people and structure outcomes to favor insider interests. Participation and transparency are democracy; their absence is not.

The non-violent citizen-action uprisings that ousted dictators in Tunisia and Egypt early this year inspired a wave of protest across Spain, in which people calling themselves Los Indignados—the indignant—occupied central squares in Madrid, Barcelona and cities across the country, with semipermanent encampments: acampadas. They formed asambleas by topic or task and held asambleas generales to decide the direction of the national movement through direct democracy.

OccupyWallStreet.org describes the American movement as follows:

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET is a people powered movement for democracy that began in America on September 17 with an encampment in the financial district of New York City. Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy … join us!

There is now a nationwide OccupyTogether movement that seeks to coordinate the actions, debates and proposals of protesters across the United States, and across the world. As of today, they have rallies planned for 1,539 cities, large and small.

The global movement inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings has spawned not only the Spanish acampadas and the American Occupy protests, but also the Chilean student uprising, which has shut down much of Chile throughout the southern winter, as students demand wider access to high quality public education.

Some participants have been very vocal that the message should consistently be anti-corruption. And it clearly is. In every sense, the non-violent, sleep-on-the-street, do-for-others, collaborative enterprise that is the Occupy Wall Street movement, has persistently demanded transparency, integrity, corporate social responsibility and accountability. It is very much about transcending what is corrupt in the current system. But it is also about something deeper than that.

Last week, with a large crowd echoing her words in chorus—a practice called “the people’s mic”, done to amplify spontaneously, at the human scale, without electrified amplification—Naomi Klein said the movement was attempting one of the most arduous, improbable and time-consuming tasks: that of “changing the underlying values of our culture”.

There have been crazily tone-deaf responses from some in the political establishment, calling citizens engaging in constitutionally protected non-violent assembly “mobs” and referring to calls for justice, fairness and the restoration of middle class opportunity “class warfare”. What motivates such comment is hard to fathom, though pundits, activists and foreign observers alike seem to think it is simply an unwillingness to see the obvious truth: that the powers that be have forged a dysfunctional and distorted economy that does not benefit most people and does not foster real democratic freedom at the human scale.

The movement has consistently made reference to “the 99 percent“, the vast majority of people not earning 7-figure annual income. The movement seeks to represent the right of that 99 percent of all people to be heard, to have a direct role in helping to fashion the policies that determine what kind of society they and their children and families will inhabit. Messages describing the complaints and motivations of those who want better treatment of the 99 percent are posted at We are the 99 percent.

And they have won support from many of the 1 percent that do benefit from the policies that disadvantage so many. A Tumblr page called We stand with the 99 percent is recording their messages of support for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Occupy Wall Street movement seems only to be spreading, gaining support and becoming more organized, because it is focused on restoring a sense of reason and justice to a nation too long forced to accept widening inequality, rigged markets and pervasive corporate tax dodging. The cause is as close to universal as one can get. It is about calling on those with responsibilities to hundreds of millions of people, whose decisions affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, to behave as if that responsibility carried some weight in the calculus of their decisions.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is about people willing to give voice to those without a voice. In the assembly process, people don’t just debate ideas, or choose leaders. They aren’t caucusing for positions, or jockeying for influence. The assemblies allow anyone to speak, and aim for consensus. The consensus building process entails hearing all voices, considering competing ideas, then building coalitions of support in order to achieve real consensus among those in attendance. The plan is direct democracy, plain and simple, but specifically a kind of direct democracy in which no one is marginalized.

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Originally published October 14, 2011, at ProjectQuipu.net

News emerging this morning from the battle-torn city of Sirte, hometown of ousted dictator Col. Muammar Qadhafi, suggested Qadhafi was wounded in battle, captured, and had died from his injuries. Al Jazeera quickly began broadcasting images of a body it said was Qadhafi’s. Images were then published showing a young Misratan TNC fighter brandishing a gold-plated handgun he says he took from Qadhafi when he captured him.

Throughout the afternoon, we have seen images of Qadhafi’s body spread across the internet and global media. There are conflicting accounts of what happened in the moments leading up to Qadhafi’s death, including claims by supporters he was killed by the Transitional forces, perhaps executed by a single shot from his own gold-plasted pistol, claims by the Transitional forces that he had been wounded in combat and died of his injuries, and still other claims that he had been accidentally killed by his own fighters.

Video this evening appears to show he was killed by a bullet wound to the head. CNN is reporting that he suffered, in addition to the fatal shot, two other shots to the head and neck and five shots to the back.

The town of Sirte is now in the hands of the revolutionary forces, and it now appears the fight is over. There are reports at least one of his sons was killed as well, and that another was injured. The Transitional National Council forces who captured Qadhafi say he was not executed, that they were transporting him to a hospital for treatment when he died.

There has been anticipation of his capture, along with a trial, an open hearing of four decades of crimes against his people.

The capture appears to have come in the wake of a NATO strike against a pro-Qadhafi convoy. The airstrike is reported to have included French fighter jets and a US “Predator” drone. There is speculation that the strike may have sent the top ranks of Qadhafi’s remaining loyalists into disarray, paving the way for the final seizure of Sirte by revolutionary forces.

As the images of Qadhafi’s bloodied corpse spread across the internet, spontaneous mass celebration spread across Libya. The people of Tripoli, so long held by and tormented by pro-Qadhafi forces, poured into the streets to celebrate the irreversible end of 42 years of brutal authoritarian rule. The new Libyan flag was visible in celebrations across the country, as hundreds of thousands of Libyans cheered the end of the Qadhafi era.

In the US, Sen. John McCain, the Republican rival to Pres. Obama in the 2008 election, said this evening “I’d like to congratulate the administration; they helped out enormously. I think that they deserve great credit. I think greater credit goes to our British and French allies, who really were leaders.” McCain lamented that the NATO campaign had not included “the full force of American airpower”. He then added, “The fact is this is another success for the Obama administration.”

Perhaps more importantly, the demise of Qadhafi showed the forces from Misrata and Benghazi working together to put an end to the pro-Qadhafi resistance, and as some commentators have noted, the rebels can now stop being rebels. The civil war in Libya is over, and the rebuilding of civil society, after four decades of cruel persecution, can proceed.

With gasoline prices at record highs in 2008, 2009 and 2010, 2011 has looked like a microcosm of the longer oil-market trend: consistent increases in pricing, fuel costs hurting small business and the middle class, slowing the pace of economic growth in the US, and—maybe most strangely of all—no national policy to motivate a rapid, comprehensive transition away from fossil fuels and the volatility and cost inefficiency of their products to the wider marketplace. Instead, we have seen a recommitment to ramping up production, expanding drilling and exploration, and prioritizing local importation (from Canada and Mexico), instead of real coordinated policy planning to end dependency on foreign-sourced fuels.

With the oil strain on an already precarious American economy at an historic extreme, Pres. Bush in 2008 pushed Congress to hold an “up-or-down vote” on renewed exploration of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) before its August recess. Opponents protested vocally that none of any oil found there would be available for production for 10 to 15 years, the total amount would do little to ease the overall dependency on foreign-sourced fuels, and that the OCS plan was little more than an aggressive attempt to deliver to hugely profitable oil firms an unjustifiable gift, taking advantage of the pressurized situation of exorbitant prices.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA), evaluating the OCS strategy, found that opening offshore sites in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico would still not produce enough oil and natural gas to have a significant effect on domestic reserves, even as far out as the year 2030. In July 2008, as the debate raged over drilling, CNN reported that Democratic members of Congress were saying a preliminary investigation was attributing more than 50% of the soaring oil prices to speculation, while traders were saying OPEC had deliberately held production low in order to drive prices up. Dependency on speculation-susceptible foreign-sourced fuels was building unaffordability into the US economy.

So, after three years of prolonged economic malaise, with the energy and fuel sectors continuing to extract massive amounts of wealth from our local and regional economies, transferring economic leverage away from the middle class and spontaneous job creation, we must face the underlying truth: that fossil fuels work on the marketplace in ways that are corrosive to the long-term health and stability of democratic societies conducive to a vibrant middle class. And given the massive negative externalities, which all of us are funding all of the time, and the unaffordability of so much of the stagnant, status-quo industrial economy, we must also face the increasingly clear economic reality that carbon emissions are not just destructive to the health of our natural environment, but that they have real economic costs not directly related to ecosystem resilience, such as human health, and the cost of industrial activity related to clean-up and to the obsolescence of devices running on combustible fuels.

Devoting increasing amounts of our energy economy to combustible fuels at a time when prices are soaring—a periodic reverse trend of a few months of gradually easing prices is not a reversal of the long-term trend—has a multiple-negative economic effect. The key to understanding what is happening, and which looks likely to make recourse to nuclear and carbon-based fuels counterproductive, is to understand that we are no longer living in a traditional industrial energy economy. We are now dealing with the consequences of that economy’s exploration and combustion burden. The “carbon footprint” is not merely an environmental ethics concern, but a serious economic factor potentially mitigating future productivity, or added long-term costs on a scale never before seen.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the 2008 Republican nominee for president, proposed building 45 new nuclear plants across the country in order to bring down energy prices overall. The idea was borrowed, to a large extent, from then Vice President Dick Cheney, who had long been close to the nuclear lobby and who included nuclear energy as part of his initial proposals for a new national energy policy. Yet the economic reasoning behind such proposals is dubious: no plants have been built in the US in three decades, and environmental and cost concerns, including pending court rulings, make the strategy unlikely to be implemented.

The state of California—the world’s 5th largest economy—has only two nuclear plants, so the amount of energy sought in producing 45 plants is more than ambitious, especially when compared to the promise of new alternative fuel and energy-production options. That each plant could ulimately cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in construction, maintenance, security, decomissioning, insurance, health and environmental costs, makes the proposition seem like an ill-informed proposed detour into fiscal collapse.

The entire nation has only 104 nuclear reactors, so the commitment to 45 new nuclear power plants—under McCain’s 2008 plan—would be serious, even as new options become available. What’s more, the history of accidents and near accidents is widely unknown among the public. We know the word “Chernobyl”, but most people don’t know that the V.I. Lenin Memorial Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station had four reactors, only one of which exploded in the cataclismic disaster of 1986. The other three reactors were finally shut down only years afterward, in 1991, 1996 and 2000, respectively. And, the Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant, also Europe’s largest, at Zaporizhzhia, has six pressurized light-water reactors.

We saw this spring what kind of unrelenting social, economic and biological catastrophe can result from the failure of multiple reactor cores, containment strategies and engineering and regulatory mechanisms, when Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi complex went into meltdown, after being struck by a tsunami. That crisis has yet to be fully contained, and no government agency in Japan or elsewhere, seems willing to publish definitive statistics detailing the full scale of the radiation released into the air and water. We know that contaminated rain has fallen on the other side of the Pacific Ocean—which covers half the globe—and so the US is living with fallout from the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

We have heard of the serious nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in March 1979, in which partial core meltdown in one reactor led to the release of 43,000 curies of radioactive krypton (1.59 PBq), and 20 curies (740 GBq), considered a relatively small amount of the especially dangerous iodine-131 isotope, into the surrounding environment. But few people are aware of the major explosion, following core meltdown, in January 1961, at the National Reactor Testing Station in the Idaho desert. All three people working the plant during the explosion were killed and the radioactivity levels were so intense, they were required to be buried in lead coffins.

A massive 890 square-mile complex, now known as the Idaho National Laboratory, was the site of the first success in producing electricity from nuclear reactions, and is in part a national historic landmark. But among its 52 reactors, only three are currently operational, and there are reported to be plans to use at least one to produce plutonium-238 for classified national security purposes.

Now, given the intense security concerns related to nuclear power, rapid construction is literally impossible. Federal public health and environmental laws also require fastidious attention to detail, which has intensified since the last plant was constructed 3 decades ago. Failure to meet with absolute precision all the security requirements can result in catastrophic accidents and/or major cost-overruns in relation to federal regulatory fines and/or takeovers. This means that entirely new systems for construction need to be designed and tested before even the first construction of any new plant can begin.

There is, simply put, no way that new nuclear plants can affect current gas prices.The timeline here has also been pushed back as far as 2030 for any significant shift on percentage of national energy production derived from nuclear power, if the massive new construction project were undertaken.

With both offshore drilling and new nuclear construction likely to delay the infusion of new supply into the domestic energy economy, the real economic result of committing to these strategies for expanding domestic energy production may actually be the increase in prices for oil and automotive gasoline, as it becomes clear that overall supply depends heavily on these resources for the foreseeable future. Over the last few years, as carbon pricing legislation has stalled, discussion about future economic development has shifted to the need for funding the broad expansion of national infrastructure for renewable resources, like wind and solar power.

It is fair to say that given the revolutionary advances in cost-effective construction and comparable end-user cost for renewable resources—we now know existing wind and solar technologies can power the entire US economy—, there has not been enough attention given to the potential for rapid infrastructure development that could bring new sources of energy production online within 2 to 3 years.

We face a stark choice, at this moment of economic division, confusion and peril: we can continue to heavily invest in the old, dirty, costly energy paradigm, or we can deploy smart policies to price carbon accurately, in a way that is designed to return economic influence to the middle class, to innovators and communities, and build a local, user-centered smart energy economy.

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A version of this report was originally published July 31, 2008, at CafeSentido.com

The above video shows the altercations leading up to the unprovoked macing of two women by an NYPD detective inspector, identified by online activists as Anthony Bologna, a finding confirmed by the NYPD itself. The incident has raised serious questions about what the planned response to the protests was, and whether there were orders in place for officers to intervene to halt the peaceful demonstrations. In the video, there are numerous incidents where individual officers, apparently acting in a disorganized and spontaneous fashion, physically strike, tackle, drag or pepper-spray unarmed civilians on a public street.

It is clear that police officers do heroic work in service of the public order, and that their active role in promoting the rule of law and keeping the peace is vital to the functioning of an open, democratic, civil society. But it is also clear that citizens cannot permit the justice system to be corrupted by undisciplined, unruly or even violent individuals who betray their uniform and their oath to serve and to protect the public. The NYPD is facing a decision, about whether to side with an absolute ban on unprovoked assaults of unarmed civilian bystanders legally entitled to both assemble and to use public streets for personal business or to condone the unjustified, unlawful physical assault of such persons by officers operating beyond their legal authority.

The choice is that stark, and the City of New York should make clear that there is no moral dilemma to consider: any unprovoked assault by an officer of the law against any unarmed civilian—including where the officer believed he was being forced to listen to uncomfortable words and slogans—must be treated as a violent, unprovoked assault, not as the lawful conduct of police business. All accused should be accorded appropriate due process, but unlawful physical violence against civilians cannot go unpunished if the rule of law and the integrity of the authorities of the City of New York are to be credible.

It is ultimately citizens, not agents of the government, who govern in the American system of democracy. It is citizens who have the higher standing before the law. Citizens are subject to reasonable prohibitions enacted in law, but so are law-enforcement officers. It is the law-enforcement officers whose freedom to act without deference to others is constrained by the Constitutional principle that only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution can accrue to the government.

No such provision exists for treating unarmed civilians as hostile combatants simply for walking on a public street, gathering to chant slogans, or discussing matters of controversy. In fact, numerous amendments to the Constitution specifically prohibit such actions by police.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to free assembly, to free expression and to petition the government for redress of grievances. For police to claim they were forced into violent acts because people expressed their views, gathered in public or voiced complaints about police activity, is as absurd as it is irrational. It is not a legal defense.

The Fourth Amendment protects the rights of all individuals against “unreasonable search and seizure”. Altercations in which police lay hands on unarmed civilians without legal just cause are incidents occurring outside the law, and which directly violate the Constitutional protection of civil liberties. Such incidents are an affront to due process and an abdication of any special authority under the law.

Any incident in which physical force is used to coerce behavior, coerce movement, retaliate for words spoken, or otherwise improperly seize control of the person or the property of any civilian, is an aggression against the citizens of the United States generally and against those individuals personally, and should be treated as a criminal act. We write with a spirit of genuine sympathy for the hard-working people of the NYPD, and for their normally world-leading professional service to the public. But we believe that as citizens, we all have a right to demand that no arm of our government ever be forced to undergo the shame and corruption of direct association with such unlawful behavior or such fundamentally undemocratic pretensions to unassigned powers.

The City of New York has an opportunity, provided by the nonviolent protest movement seeking to use purely peaceful, entirely lawful, strictly democratic means of protest, to show to the world what a genuinely stable, upstanding, and secure civil society does when there is widespread public dissatisfaction. The City of New York has an opportunity to show it stands with the people who comprise its body politic, the people who in fact govern and whose consent gives legitimacy to those who serve in government office.

The choice is clear: reprimand, suspend, investigate and punish—according to the evidence and the law—all acts of physical violence against unarmed civilians. Do this, and show deference to the rule of law, the virtues of a vibrant civil society, and the need for an active, informed citizenry. The soul of the City of New York is now on trial.

Today, the 20th of September, 2011, the discriminatory US military policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which required thousands of gay personnel to serve their country while keeping their private life secret. Honorable people were discharged only because someone else found out they were not heterosexual. In some cases, the ideal military officer for a highly skilled, difficult-to-fill position were discharged despite being the most qualified person for operationally vital positions.

“The strength of America is her ability to undo her faults,” said Alexis de Tocqueville. For nearly two decades, the United States military has lived with a law that hampered its readiness, undermined the shared trust of its service members, and threatened to ruin the professional lives of some of its most committed and selfless patriots. From today, those committed professionals and selfless citizen volunteers, will be able to serve honorably, and openly, improving the readiness and excellence of our military.

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ends a tragic example of prejudice ordained by federal law, and helps to restore the dignity and integrity of a nation of law, founded to uphold the equal, natural, universal rights, of all people.

The four coordinated hijackings, resulting in three deliberate attacks and one downed passenger jet, took 2,977 innocent lives and sowed fear and dismay across the world. They were acts of unconscionable evil intended to not only harm innocents and terrify the wider population, but to destabilize American democracy itself, and derail a people’s journey through history, possibly to erode its most virtuous contributions.

It was a clear, sunny morning and the first plane crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center had sparked a sustained global news flash, bringing hundreds of millions of eyes to the television footage. There was confusion and disbelief, and just as it was becoming clear there must have been a devastating loss of life, a massive fireball engulfed the top half of the South Tower, clearly signaling a deliberate terrorist attack was underway.

Less than 2 minutes later, the White House chief of staff told the president, then in a public event with schoolchildren, that “America is under attack.” A third plane flew into the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Dept. of Defense, while the fourth crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers reportedly made a fateful and heroic decision to rush the cockpit and take back the plane from the hijackers.

In the days after the attacks, it was often said such heinous acts would not be allowed to change our open, democratic culture or to reduce our commitment to moral leadership in the world. Pres. Bush made a visible, conscious effort to ask that no one treat Muslims or people of Arabic origin or descent, as anything other than members of an open, democratic society, as neighbors and possibly as victims, of the attacks.

But in the months and years that followed, the pressures and temptations inherent in legislating and prosecuting the war on terror drew the US federal government into planning and implementing policies that marked an appreciable and concerning detour away from many of our most cherished shared principles.

We have suffered, in the aftermath of the attacks, fully a decade of war. From the standpoint of an idealist democracy, or of just war theory, from the standpoint of a civilization committed to peaceful coexistence and negotiated outcomes, war is failure. It is the failure of peace, of the institutions of peaceful negotiation; it is the threat of a descent into chaos. War tests the moral fiber of a society more than any other experience.

In one of the most emotional and solemn of the speeches given to commemorate the legacy of those lost, Vice President Joseph Biden noted that “Never before in our history, has America asked so much over such a sustained period of an all volunteer force. I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration that the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced.”

He spoke of 4,478 “fallen angels” who died in Iraq, another 1,648 who gave their lives in Afghanistan, over ten years, many of them in recent weeks, and the more than 40,000 wounded in both wars. Biden has visited the wounded soldiers many times, and said “I am awed not only by their capability, but by their sacrifices, today and every day.”

To this day, military strategists disagree about whether going to war as a response was a major strategic blunder. It was important, and positive, to oust the Taliban from power, to end the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein, but the unity and the worldwide human fabric of sympathy that grew immediately after the 9/11 attacks bled away as a politics of division and confrontation took hold.

Some professional politicians deliberately adopted the attacks as a “wedge issue”, and sought to paint rivals to their political philosophy or to their job security as enemies of the state. A naturally occurring sense of democratic, civic unity was replaced by a push for ideological uniformity. Many Americans began to feel, for the first time in their lives, as if dissent, or even critical thinking, was not welcome in the public discourse.

The very idea of engaged citizenship was challenged by a prevailing attitude of hardline politics, and for many, fear and suspicion. In retrospect, it may have been possible to depose the Taliban and to counter Al Qaeda, without ever going to war in Iraq, without adopting interrogation techniques borrowed from Cambodian death camps, and without giving in to the suspicion that due process was somehow a risky departure from the best service of justice in a free society.

In retrospect, there may have been better ways to channel the collective emotional upheaval that followed the attacks. Historians were already talking of how quickly the political capital of the moment was “squandered”, as less than two years after the attacks, an aggressive, unilateralist drive had totally overtaken American foreign policy. There was, for several years, a great risk that American democracy would be forever changed, and many of its most vital ideals eroded.

But today, in northern Virginia, Vice President Biden reminded us of something else: the attackers misunderstood the nature of the event they had planned and its likely impact on the nation they were targeting. While the risk was there that our culture could be comprehensively destabilized by the grief and anger that follow such an event, Biden suggested we were ultimately protected against that deviation by something Al Qaeda may never have understood:

With the fully restored Pentagon behind him, Biden intoned: “The true source of American power does not lie within that building, because as Americans, we draw our strength from the rich tapestry of our people.” He added that “The true legacy of 9/11 is that our spirit is mightier, the bonds that unite us are thicker, and the resolve is firmer than the millions of tons of limestone and concrete that make up that great edifice behind me.”

Biden explained the miscalculation of a small group of extremists who “never imagined” that the killing of 3,000 people would inspire 3,000,000 to volunteer for military service, to strengthen and defend a population of over 300,000,000. He spoke of the “sleeping giant” that was awakened by the shock and horror of the attacks. He was speaking not of a will to violence or retaliation, but of a spirit of aid to one’s fellow citizens.

In the hours after the attacks on New York City, a fleet of ferries, fishing boats, tug boats, small craft, commercial vessels and patrol boats, spontaneously gathered around lower Manhattan. The United States Coast Guard then sent out a message to “all available boats” to “report to Governor’s Island”. Hundreds of boats converged on the city to assist in the evacuation, arriving at what witnesses describe as astonishing speed.

After the North Tower collapsed into its footprint, engulfing lower Manhattan in a cloud of toxic dust, heat, smoke and debris, tens of thousands of evacuees—some injured, some in shock, many hysterical with panic, some just acting in service of those around them—were flooding the waterfront. Some were jumping into the water, despite the heavy boat traffic, desperate to get off the island and if possible swim to safety.

In what is now referred to as the great Manhattan “boatlift”, nearly 500,000 civilian refugees were evacuated in just nine hours. It was the largest evacuation by sea in history. By comparison, the legendary military evacuation of Dunkirk, during some of the darkest days of World War II, evacuated 350,000 French and British soldiers from France to Britain.

The great Manhattan boatlift was possible because conscientious citizen volunteers from across the region shot into action, heading into the unknowable dangers of an unprecedented disaster zone, risking their lives and livelihoods to help total strangers in desperate need. This was emblematic of a society infused with a strong sense of public trust and civic responsibility, where citizenship and shared destiny are implicit in our sense of who we are.

Ten years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, we have seen a spiritual recovery, in which people recognize that the values of such a society cannot be cast aside for any temporary sense of security. Our politics have seen a reversal, in which an unprecedented number of people voted, in 2008, for a politics of unity and civic engagement. And the hotly contested political campaigns have continued, with fevered disagreement over policy and ideology, but we can, perhaps say, that the freedom to disagree so vehemently is a celebration of the virtues of a free and open society.

Vice President Biden said to the families of victims today, “My prayer for you is that ten years later when you think of them, ten years later when you think of them, that it brings a smile to your lips instead of a pain in your heart.” There are many ways in which the legacy of the 9/11 attacks has long since been reclaimed from both the terrorists and the hardliners, and has come to inspire a commitment to service and shared responsibility.

Speaking of the bond between her family and the family of her brother’s great friend, coworker and fellow victim of the 9/11 attacks, Debra Epps today said, at the opening of the World Trade Center’s new 9/11 Memorial park, that the tragedy had brought the lesson that “People really do catch you, when you fall. It’s been a blessing.”

There are societies where unity in service of the civic space and one’s fellow citizens is a rare, if not unthinkable eventuality, and there are societies that are strong because free people naturally and voluntarily engage with each other with a sense of holding the civic space in trust, with a sense of commitment to the virtues and the vulnerabilities of their common humanity.

Ten years after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has been through many choices, many complexes of complicating choices, in response to the attacks. Many of those choices were controversial, and many have been reversed. Many curbs on civil liberties are still in place, and top officials disagree vehemently about whether there needs to be a trade-off between commitment to Constitutional protections of civil liberties and security.

Now, we enter a new period, in which withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan is already underway, a sometimes clumsy and always complicated process of nation-building is giving way to remote security actions, forceful “smart diplomacy” and a cooperative effort to prevent civil war in both countries. Osama bin Laden, and a number of “second-in-command” and “third-in-command” Al Qaeda operatives have been killed.

Some say the struggle against militant groups with “global reach” may be entering a more conscious deliberative phase, where the liberty-security tradeoff is not seen as being so economical. There is a hunger for reviving a less militaristic civic space, in which the cooperative voluntary citizenship of free people is the strength and the hope of a great democracy, in which the value of the service of millions of volunteers can be truly honored as an expression of their selflessness.

9/11 should, after this 10th anniversary, and in the aftermath of the deviation from and restoration of core values that we have undergone, become a national day of solemn recognition, collaborative restoration, and an affirmation of our civic space, in which citizenship is a sacred trust and human interest in the principal goal of our activity. It should be a day of national reflection and of the reaffirmation of the value of an open, democratic and voluntary civic space.

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Cross-posted from Independents of Principle

Across the eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine, there is an intense and well-ordered preparation underway to brace against and limit the fallout from Hurricane Irene. In North Carolina, 300,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Outer Banks and low-lying coastal areas. The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas in all five boroughs.

New York City evacuations are underway—the first mandatory evacuation in the city’s history. This afternoon, mass transit will be entirely shut down. 370,000 New Yorkers are in the evacuation zone. With a substantial amount of the city expected to be subject to severe flooding if the storm makes a direct hit, the Bloomberg administration is taking care to do everything that was not done in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans.

The highest winds yet recorded were 110 mph, at Cedar Ferry Terminal, North Carolina. MSNBC is reporting that hurricane-force winds are extending 90 miles out from the eye of the storm, even several hours after landfall.

There have been reports of at least one tornado touching down in Maryland, and a federal tornado wach zone now covers eastern parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey. The latest satellite modeling suggests the storm’s most intense winds will rake the coasts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, hitting New York City with winds in excess of 70 mph. Delaware’s governor has ordered mandatory evacuations.

The state of New Jersey is under a blanket state of emergency, with some coastal areas under mandatory evacuation. The counties are issuing evacuation updates, including official state-backed shelters for evacuees. The NJ Office of Emergency Management has posted pdf documents with advised coastal evacuation routes. New Jersey storm surge maps have also been made available through the Office of Emergency Management.

New Jersey Transit will be entirely shut down as of noon today. New York’s public transit will be shut down at noon, as well. Five New York area airports will be closed, with thousands of flights canceled.

Hospitals and nursing homes are also being evacuated, a first for many of them. Some of the world’s most powerful financial institutions are in the mandatory evacuation zone, including Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Nomura Securities, RBC Capital Markets and the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Map: Click here for a pdf map of New York City’s mandatory evacuation zones.

Planning: Click here for a pdf guide to hurricane readiness, evacuation and response, for NYC.

This morning, Mayor Bloomberg issued the following statements, with a press release:

“During the storm, please stay off streets and sidewalks to prevent injury, and stay away from the windows if you live on the tenth floor of a high rise or above that. The risk of window damage is greater, so it’d be smart to stay away from the windows or go to a lower floor.

“If the low-lying areas of our city begin to flood, I mentioned the Con Ed may have to shut down their power lines. NYCHA buildings will be shutting down their elevators, as will other buildings. And if you’re using generated power, please do not have a generator inside your house or your apartment. Carbon monoxide fumes kill.

“In terms of our city buildings: All construction has been stopped. Our inspectors are working to make sure that construction sites are locked down.

“Homeowners and residents: If you haven’t done so already, please bring outdoor furniture inside – plywood, trashcans, any loose items that can blow around.

“So in conclusion: If you live in a low-lying Zone A areas or in the Rockaways, you have to leave, and you should start right now. Do not delay. Do not wait for the weather to be bad. It’s starting to rain here in Coney Island right now. This is just the beginning. You say it’s a few drops – this is going to be a very serious storm. No matter what the track is, no matter how much it weakens, this is a life threatening storm to people here.”

The city’s maps and readiness guide are also available in the following ten languages:

An additional 470,000 people live in the mandatory evacuation zones on Long Island, one of the most densely populated areas of the country.

Nassau County: Evacuation notice and resources

Suffolk County: Emergency preparedness resources

Most will likely have to evacuate inland or to official shelters, as New York City’s evacuation procedures and public transit shutdown will make it difficult to get through to the mainland. Some ferries may be able to move people from Long Island’s coastal areas to Connecticut, but these services will shut down when heavy winds and rough seas arrive, if they have not already. Evacuees should check with local authorities and transport services.

Fox 29 Philadelphia is reporting that the 8+ inches of rain expected to hit Philadelphia and New York would be equivalent to more than 60 inches of snow, a measure better understood by residents of the northeast. Some worst-case estimates are for twice that amount of precipitation. The National Hurricane Center is warning that before the storm relents, at least 15 inches of rain are expected to have fallen on North Carolina.

FEMA’s Craig Fugate is warning that tornadoes are expected to accompany the storm, and that anyone outside evacuation zones should remain indoors and keep away from doors and windows. The tornado warnings will last longer than usual, because the risk is tied to the full cyclone.

Storm surges have already been seen in North Carolina, roadways are beginning to see serious flooding, and Fugate also reminded the public that some of the worst floods ever seen came with tropical storms, not hurricanes. Hurricane category ratings are linked to wind-speeds and storm surge projections, not to rain volume.

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Hurricane Emergency Maps for New Jersey:

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New York

Suffolk County links:

• To find a list of open shelters, please click here.
• To find a Red Cross Shelter near you, please click here
• To see the coastal evacuation routes for Suffolk County, click here.
• To see the storm surge zones for Suffolk County, click here.

Nassau County:

• Evacuation notice and list of shelters
• Evacuation routes, maps and instructions
• County evacuation route map

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More links and emergency planning and evacuation resources:

Washington, DC, area

• News releases from the Mayor’s Office
• Follow Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Twitter and Facebook
• Register for Alert DC

• DDOT website information and on Twitter
• DPW website information and on Twitter
• HSEMA and 72hours.dc.gov
• DISB provides flood insurance information and tips on storm recovery
• MPD website information
• DCOA offers tips for preparing
• Evacuation route planning tool

Federal Government

• Ready.gov – hurricane preparedness and response resources
• NOAA Watch – tracking maps for Hurricane Irene
• National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Irene Public Advisory
• NOAA / NHC - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook

Two days after taking control of most of the capital, and a day after two of Qadhafi’s sons escaped house arrest as pro-Qadhafi forces staged a challenge to the rebel onslaught, Libya’s pro-democracy rebels swept into Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. Reports from the Libyan capital spoke of scenes of rebels destroying images of Qadhafi and symbols of his regime, and seizing much of the extravagant wealth he had accumulated over four decades of authoritarian rule.

Beyond Libya’s borders, the capture of Qadhafi’s own main compound is being touted as the true collapse of his regime, though it has not yet brought word of outright surrender by his closest supporters. The whereabouts of Col. Qadhafi himself are as yet unknown, with reports and rumors suggesting he may be hiding in Tripoli itself, or that he may have fled to remote southern Libya, near the Chad border region.

There is also concern the pro-Qadhafi forces’ shelling of civilian areas in Tripoli and Misrata may cause some among the armed rebels to become more radical in the post-Qadhafi era. But the Transitional National Council has reiterated its intention to establish the rule of law, refrain from revenge-oriented actions, and prosecute regime leaders according to recognized standards of due process.

There is optimism that the fall of Bab al-Azizya—Qadhafi’s heavily fortified compound inside Tripoli, guarded by sharpshooters and special forces, and where he survived US airstrikes nearly three decades ago—to Libyan freedom fighters means Libya will see the end of the bloodshed of Qadhafi’s last days. But the mystery of Qadhafi’s whereabouts became all the more urgent this evening, when the missing leader reportedly broadcast a message, saying he would accept only victory or “martyrdom”.

Al Jazeera reported:

“After what we have seen today, after what Mahmoud Jibril (a leader of the rebel National Transitional Council) said, and the international recogntion of NTC as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, it means that Gaddafi is now just a sought after criminal. The idea of Gaddafi as ‘the Libyan leader’, is over.

Meanwhile, 30 journalists remained holed up in Tripoli’s Rixos hotel on Tuesday. The New York Times reported that journalists from the BBC, CNN and other international news organisations were stuck inside the hotel with no electricity and described the hotel as a “prison”.

The capital is still very much a war zone, and pro-Qadhafi soldiers and mercenaries are reportedly threatening the lives of civilians and journalists, in an effort to hold onto the little terrain that has not been taken by the rebel forces. There had been rumors Qadhafi was holed up in a bunker beneath the Rixos Hotel, and there is concern the civilians inside the hotel might be in danger if they are not allowed to leave.

Seif al-Islam, Qadhafi’s 38-year old son, once thought of as a reformer and now a committed combattant fighting to defend his father’s dictatorship, said his father is safe and inside Tripoli. Observers have expressed skepticism about that possibility, and worry a prolonged manhunt could ensue, disrupting the potential for a peaceful transition to democracy. Others say Qadhafi should be treated as an international fugitive, to be arrested on sight, under indictment from the International Criminal Court, as soon as he emerges, wherever he emerges.

There was also fighting reported today in Ajelat, and in Ageila, along the coast outside Ras Lanuf, a key oil facility. It was reported that Qadhafi loyalists were attacking Ajelat with missiles and tanks and that scud missiles were fired from Sirte, Qadhafi’s hometown, toward Misrata, a city besieged by Qadhafi for four months, and only recently liberated by the rebel forces.

The morning after Tripoli fell to rebel forces, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, leader of the Transitional National Council, has called on all Libyans to coexist peacefully, and to respect the rule of law, as the war comes to a close. Abdel Jalil said there will be no street justice, and that regime figures will be tried fairly in a court of law. He called for restraint and “self control” and respect “for the lives and properties of others”, and an atmosphere of cooperation in rebuilding civil society.

There has been concern that after 6 months of war, which began when Qadhafi’s regime began full-scale military assaults on crowds of unarmed civilian protesters, elements in the rebel movement might begin to carry out vigilante attacks against former supporters of the regime. Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who defected when Qadhafi ordered the killing of protesters, has said, however, that the rebel movement is committed to a peaceful transition to democracy and to the rule of law.

The leader of the interim Libyan government gave the following statement:

“During the last few days the revolutionaries in Tripoli have really proved that they are the revolutionaries of the capital. And that the calls for Tripoli to be our capital were rightful calls.

“Muammar Gaddafi will be remembered and his period of rule through the acts that he committed against the rebels and the world. From political assassinations, arrests and mind games. And oppressing all the efforts of the Libyan people to oust him since the first year of his revolution. There were many, many attempts to oust Gaddafi. The Libyan people never submitted to Gaddafi, since the first year of the revolution..or, rather, since the first year of the coup.

“But God has chosen that Gaddafi’s end should be at the hands of these youths, so that they can join the Arab Spring that is going around the Arab nations.

“And now I say with all transparency that the era of Gaddafi is over.

“Libyans must realise that the coming period will not be a bed of roses. We face many challenges and we have many responsibilities. Beginning with healing the wounds and putting our hands in one another’s. All this in loyalty to the blood of our martyrs. And to the principles tat this revolution was created for: creating safety, security, peace and prosperity. These principles can only be achieved through reconciliation, forbearance and tolerance.

“All of this will be done after we put the finishing touches and we identify those who are responsible for acts in Libya.

“Therefore I call upon all Libyans to practice self control and to protect the lives and properties of others.”

The whereabouts of Col. Qadhafi are, at present, unknown. He has been referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and there are reports of fierce fighting still in the area around his main compound in the capital. Rebels now control as much as 85% to 90% of the territory inside Tripoli.

Throughout the night, they took more territory, and there is now video showing rebels storming into the home of Qadhafi’s daughter. There was also a dramatic phone interview last night, after his son Mohammed surrendered, in which gunfire is heard and he says repeatedly “They are inside my house”, before the line cuts off.

Across the world, there have been celebrations, as Libyan exiles and émigrés marked the fall of Qadhafi’s regime by gathering in public squares and outside government buildings, in London, in Australia, in Washington. In front of the White House, Libyans chanted “Libya is free” and “Thank you, Obama”. One Libyan celebrating the fall of Tripoli waved a green, red and black rebel flag, with the words “Thank you, NATO! Thank you, Obama!” across it.

According to Al Jazeera’s reporting:

The mother of two, who arrived in the US in 1984 with her brothers and sisters after receiving political asylum, also had kind words for France, which was among the first countries to call for international intervention in Libya.

“We want to say thank you to President Nicolas Sarkozy and the French people who were the first, even before the Americans, to support the Libyans in their struggle,” she said.

Al Jazeera reported overnight:

Euphoric Libyan rebels have moved into the centre of the capital, Tripoli, as Muammar Gaddafi’s defenders melted away and thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air.

The rebels’ surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall on Sunday, they had advanced more than 32km to Tripoli.

Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said from the Green Square: “There’s a party in the Libyan capital tonight. The people are in charge of the city. They’ve decided the square is now called Martyrs’ Square, the original name. They’re shouting ‘We’re free’ and shooting at a poster of Gaddafi.”

Skirmishes continue, however, with the BBC reporting tanks and heavy artillery under the control of Qadhafi’s military commanders are still holding key positions inside the capital. Even as the world appears unified in celebrating the fall of the four-decades-long regime, there are concerns that further fighting could lead to deaths and revenge killings. The Transitional National Council is now working to coordinate an official takeover of security operations across the nation, even as some cities have not yet recognized its authority.

More reporting on the Libyan liberation movement:

• Libyan Rebels Capture Qadhafi Son, Enter Tripoli (video) – updates - Aug. 21, 2011
• Qadhafi Under Siege as Rebels Move into Tripoli – updates - Aug. 20, 2011
• Libyan Rebels Advance on Tripoli, Take Key Cities - Aug. 20, 2011
• US Now Recognizes Transitional Council as Legitimate Libyan Government - July 15, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime Abuse of al-Obeidi Crime Against Humanity - Apr. 4, 2011
• UN Action in Libya is Bid to Rescue Democracy Movement - Mar. 27, 2011
• Airstrikes Underway Against Libya, as Qadhafi Refuses to Pull Back - Mar. 19, 2011
• UN Security Council Votes to Support Strikes Against Qadhafi - Mar. 17, 2011
• Qadhafi ‘has lost the legitimacy to rule’ - Feb. 27, 2011
• Protesters in Central Tripoli Fired on by Irregular Army Loyal to Qadhafi - Feb. 26, 2011
• Ban calls for action to stop Qadhafi killing… - Feb. 26, 2011
• Qadhafi Declares War on His People - Feb. 25, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime on Brink of Collapse - Feb. 22, 2011
• Qadhafi’s Son Warns of Civil War, as Libyan Military Appears Split - Feb. 21, 2011
• Violent Crackdown in Libya; Bahrain Protesters Take Pearl Square - Feb. 20, 2011
• Qadhafi Crackdown Has Killed at Least 84 - Feb. 19, 2011
• Spirit of Democratic Revolution Spreads Across Mideast - Feb. 15, 2011

UPDATE: Rebel forces have taken much of Tripoli, celebrate with civilians in Green Square and control the Tripoli airport

Reports from Tripoli, the capital of Libya, suggest rebel forces have taken territory inside the capital, and captured one of Qadhafi’s sons, after a top security official ordered troops to lay down arms and let the rebels in. There are reports of convoys of rebel soldiers moving into the capital, being welcomed and celebrated by unarmed civilians. Some news reports have talked of “uprisings” in the suburbs, and possibly within Tripoli itself.

According to Reuters:

In a coordinated revolt that rebels have been secretly planning for months to end Gaddafi’s 41-year rule, shooting started on Saturday night across Tripoli moments after Muslim clerics, using the loudspeakers of mosque minarets, called people on to the streets.

The fighting inside Tripoli, combined with rebel advances into the outskirts of the city, appeared to signal the decisive phase in a six-month conflict that has become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings and embroiled NATO powers.

A source inside the regime reportedly told Reuters that 376 people were killed, on both sides, in overnight clashes inside the capital. In the village of al-Maya, pro-Qadhafi forces reportedly clashed with the rebels, who took the town, painted the walls to declare their presence and their march to Tripoli, then continued with the convoys flowing into the capital.

According to CNN and the Baltimore Sun:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) — Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, a son of Libya’s ruler Moammar Gadhafi and a top official in the regime, has been captured by opposition forces, a rebel official said Sunday night.

Ali Said, general secretary of the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, said that the arrest had taken place in Tripoli. The head of the same rebel group also confirmed the capture in an Al Jazeera interview. There was no immediate reaction from Libyan government officials to the report.

Al Jazeera English reported, on its Libya Live Blog this evening, that one of Qadhafi’s sons, Mohammed, “has surrendered” to the rebels. That marks the closest any of the top-level defections has come so far to Qadhafi himself. With two of his sons now in custody, and his family apparently splitting over whether to fight or surrender, it is expected Qadhafi himself may attempt to negotiate his own surrender.

But Muammar Qadhafi has been defiant, stating as recently as this morning that he would “fight to the end”. This evening he repeated calls for residents of Tripoli and other cities to rush to his defense and to fight the rebel “rats”.

On Twitter, the news is pouring in, with anecdotal reports mixing with video, audio and official news reports. @ArabRevolution posted this re-tweet: “RT @LibyanLion17 AJA Caller – BREAKING – NATO is taking out the walls of Bab alAziziya so that FFs can move in. #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“. (“FF” has become Twitter code for freedom fighter.)

@LibyanLion17 posted this update around the same time: “BREAKING – Saadi, Mohammed and Saif al-Islam have ALL been captured by FF. 4 more to go. #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“, around 6:00 pm EDT, midnight in Tripoli. Less than half an hour later, reports broke that Muammar Qadhafi himself had fled the country and was in hiding in Algeria. That report has not been confirmed, and NATO’s secretary general was unable to answer questions about whether Qadhafi had left Libya or not.

- – -

UPDATES

At 12:01 am, 1:01 am Monday, Tripoli time, London’s Guardian newspaper reports:

Tripoli resident Hakeem Guja has told the BBC: “We celebrate the victory. The people are very happy and want to thank the Nato forces for helping us.”

A few minutes before 1:00 am, Tripoli time, @LibyanLion17 tweeted “BREAKING – ALJAZEERA – THERE IS NEWS THAT GADDAFI HIMSELF HAS BEEN CAUGHT #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“. But Al Jazeera reported only minutes later that “The ICC has confirmed that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been detained, and NOT his father, Muammar Gaddafi.”

The BBC is reporting the International Criminal Court has confirmation that at least one of Qadhafi’s sons, Saif al Islam, has been taken into custody. CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeted, also shortly after 1:00 am Tripoli time: “When the Rixos minders run away, it means the regime has given up on trying to mold the message. Game over. #Libya #Feb17“.

(1:11 am, Tripoli) From the Guardian’s Libya Live Blog:

12.11am: The International Criminal Court prosecutor’s spokeswoman says it has been confirmed that Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam has been detained, Reuters reports.

12.09am: The Libyan rebels reach Green Square in the centre of Tripoli, Sky News reports.

The US State Dept. is urging Libya’s rebels, and the governing authority under the Transitional National Council, to begin planning for the post-Qadhafi period. According to Reuters:

“Clearly the offensive for Tripoli is under way,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

“We continue efforts to encourage the TNC to maintain broad outreach across all segments of Libyan society and to plan for post-Gaddafi Libya. Gaddafi’s days are numbered. If Gaddafi cared about the welfare of the Libyan people, he would step down now.”

A spokesman for the Council, which has been recognized as Libya’s legitimate governing authority, said in recent days that mistakes had been made in the early days after rebel takeovers in the east, and that a plan for secure, non-violent government would be in place once Tripoli falls.

Shortly after 1:00 am, Tripoli time, Reuters reported the rebels had reached Green Square. Other reports suggested the fighting there had ceased and civilians were welcoming the rebels.

At 1:42 am, Tripoli time, Al Jazeera English reported that the rebels had taken control of the Tripoli airport. There have been intermittent reports that fighting had ceased, but news continues to pour in of skirmishes, rebel advances, with no clear sign the regime has fallen, but no clear sign of a forceful ongoing resistance. At 1:44 am, Tripoli time, AJE reported that Libyan state television is “blacked out”, not active.

Reports from journalists in Tripoli that regime “minders” had fled have been taken as a suggestion that the regime is no longer actively seeking to fight the rebel offensive or control the media message. There are rumors the rebels seek to detain fleeing government officials at the Tripoli airport, but no confirmed reports at present of top-level detentions there.

1:48 am Tripoli time: Libya’s ambassador to the UAE (representing the Transitional National Council) tells AJE there is an atmosphere of “jubilation and relief” as cities across Libya celebrate what appears to be the last night of the Qadhafi regime. He said the transitional stabilization team was working to build a non-violent democratic transition process “according to the best practices of stabilization and reconstruction work”.

The ambassador also pledge that there would be no campaign of vengeance against former loyalists or loyalist enclaves and specified that a peaceful post-war was necessary to ensure that the “suffering and pain of so many Libyans and Libyan families does not go in vain”. There are reports at this hour of contacts between US and European officials and representatives of the transitional Libyan government regarding ways to manage the peace.

At 1.59 am, Tripoli time, ThinkProgress posted this report on Twitter: “RT @Reuters: REBELS SAY ALL TRIPOLI IS UNDER THEIR CONTROL EXCEPT GADDAFI’S STRONGHOLD OF BAB AL-AZIZIYAH”.

Representatives of the rebel movement say the Transitional National Council will replace the Qadhafi-era name Green Square with Martyrs’ Square, in honor of the Libyan democracy advocates who died fighting to defend civilian populations against the regime.

2:04 am: @SultanAlQassemi, commentator on Arab affairs, tweets: “Al Jazeera: Sources: Libyan Revolutionaries have taken control of the State TV & Radio building in Tripoli #Libya“. The capture of state media is being treated as an important development for the democracy movement, as Egyptian protest leaders have expressed concern they have not been able to better guide the public debate in the post-Mubarak era.

Unconfirmed cell-phone images are now emerging purporting to show celebrations in the streets of Tripoli.

2:14 am: There are reports on CNN that regime snipers are still holding key positions inside Tripoli, even as rebel forces are said to be holding all territory surrounding Qadhafi’s compound. A statement has been made suggesting the compound is now being seen by rebels as “a five-star prison” for Qadhafi, if he remains inside. There is no confirmed information in the global media about whether clashes continue at the site of Qadhafi’s compound.

11:45 pm EDT, 5:45 am in Tripoli: Al Jazeera is now reporting:

Euphoric Libyan rebels have moved into the centre of the capital, Tripoli, as Muammar Gaddafi’s defenders melted away and thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air.

The rebels’ surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall on Sunday, they had advanced more than 32km to Tripoli.

Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said from the Green Square: “There’s a party in the Libyan capital tonight. The people are in charge of the city. They’ve decided the square is now called Martyr’s Square, the original name. They’re shouting ‘we’re free’ and shooting at a poster of Gaddafi.”

11:17 am EDT, 5:17 am in Tripoli: Update from Mother Jones’ Hamed Aleaziz and Asawin Suebsaeng:

Deborah Haynes, an editor at London-based newspaper The Times, is on the ground in Tripoli. Haynes just sent out an unsettling tweet, indicating that the battle for Tripoli may be far from over: “Just been in Green Square. Gunfire erupted, sending rebels scattering. Then saw eight fresh corpses on way out. Tripoli ain’t secure.”

Also, Sarah Sidner, a reporter for CNN, tweeted around 5:15 a.m. Monday in Tripoli that “Green square nearly empty. We were warned to get out. Rebels say Gadhafi troops advancing toward square.”

12:03 am EDT, 6:03 am in Tripoli: The BBC is reporting there are fierce battles raging in the area around the Tripoli Hotel, where the Qadhafi regime has been basing its media operations. Al Libya TV is reportedly offline, but pro-Qadhafi forces are defending the Tripoli Hotel, and there are reports Qadhafi spokespeople claim as many as 35,000 troops may be in and around the capital, “ready to fight” to fend off the rebels.

The Transitional National Council has said rebels will not occupy the city militarily, if Qadhafi and his family leave power.

12:35 am EDT, 6:35 am in Tripoli: US president Barack Obama has called on Col. Muammar Qadhafi to “relinquish power once and for all.” He added that “Qadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end”. He said “The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people,” and said the US would work closely with the Transitional National Council, which it recognizes as the legitimate governing authority.

Obama went on to say that “We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected. We will continue to work with our allies and partners in the international community to protect the people of Libya, and to support a peaceful transition to democracy.”

12:49 am EDT, 6:49 am in Tripoli: Al Jazeera English Live, tweeting as @AJELive, reports: “Nasser, #Tripoli resident, says they will let NTC take care of anything, are forming local security battalions, won’t take revenge #Libya“. Reports suggesting rebels are ready to establish law and order and to institute a transition guided by the rule of law are winning encouragement, and optimism that the six-month Libyan war may be ending.

More reporting on the Libyan liberation movement:

• Qadhafi Under Siege as Rebels Move into Tripoli – updates - Aug. 20, 2011
• Libyan Rebels Advance on Tripoli, Take Key Cities - Aug. 20, 2011
• US Now Recognizes Transitional Council as Legitimate Libyan Government - July 15, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime Abuse of al-Obeidi Crime Against Humanity - Apr. 4, 2011
• UN Action in Libya is Bid to Rescue Democracy Movement - Mar. 27, 2011
• Airstrikes Underway Against Libya, as Qadhafi Refuses to Pull Back - Mar. 19, 2011
• UN Security Council Votes to Support Strikes Against Qadhafi - Mar. 17, 2011
• Qadhafi ‘has lost the legitimacy to rule’ - Feb. 27, 2011
• Protesters in Central Tripoli Fired on by Irregular Army Loyal to Qadhafi - Feb. 26, 2011
• Ban calls for action to stop Qadhafi killing… - Feb. 26, 2011
• Qadhafi Declares War on His People - Feb. 25, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime on Brink of Collapse - Feb. 22, 2011
• Qadhafi’s Son Warns of Civil War, as Libyan Military Appears Split - Feb. 21, 2011
• Violent Crackdown in Libya; Bahrain Protesters Take Pearl Square - Feb. 20, 2011
• Qadhafi Crackdown Has Killed at Least 84 - Feb. 19, 2011
• Spirit of Democratic Revolution Spreads Across Mideast - Feb. 15, 2011

After 42 years in power, ruling throughout with authoritarian force, the regime of Muammar Qadhafi now appears to be falling. Abandoned by the international community, his top commanders defecting, and reports his troops have laid down their arms and fled, the rebel forces are now reportedly moving into the capital Tripoli.

Al Jazeera is now reporting that “Gaddafi forces shrink on all battle fronts”. According to the Arabic-language news service:

At a news conference, Bani said rebels captured the city of Zlitan, 140km southeast of Tripoli, after more than two months of fighting.

“Zlitan is now completely liberated after a severe fight, and for the first time I can say we have control over it,” Bani told reporters on Saturday.

As rebels battled for towns on either side of Tripoli on Saturday, fighting spilled across the border into Tunisia, where Libyan infiltrators clashed with Tunisian troops.

Tunisian security sources said their forces intercepted Libyan men in vehicles with weapons and fought them through the night in the desert. They reported several casualties.

With the opposition now controlling Misrata, Az Zawiyah, Zlitan, Gharyan, and most of the key port city of Brega, while governing much of the country from Benghazi, rebel forces have reportedly taken control of Tajoura, a suburb to the east of the capital. The rebels have also reportedly cut off supply routes from Tunisia, along the coast and from the east of the country, a key tactical achievement to lay the groundwork for an offensive against Qadhafi’s forces, after months of combat.

- – -

UPDATES

Posted 11:20 pm EDT—From thepoliticalnotebook:

Reports on Twitter regarding Libya are moving very quickly. The front in Zawiya is moving to Tripoli as the fighters plan for an early morning offensive. There are reports, confirmed by Richard Engel of NBC, that there is fighting in the city itself.

Follow the Al Jazeera live blog, which is beginning to update more attentively.

Posted 11:22 pm EDT—From Al Jazeera English:

Head of the Political affairs of the NTC, Fathi Baja, told Reuters:

“There is certain information tells that forces loyal to Gaddafi withdrew and left their weapons behind in areas outside Tripoli. And I think everything is in order in Tripoli, rebels are approaching al-Sareem Street nearby Bab al-Azizia complex.

Gaddafi may be coerced to flee if he managed to co-ordinate it with some countries, but I hope to arrest him to be tried with his sons and his assistants in Libya”

Posted 11:25 pm EDT—From Al Jazeera Live Blog Libya:

Bashir Sewehli, a Libyan activist, tells Al Jazeera that the clashes in Tripoli are still ongoing.

“The military airport is under control of the rebels, and there are other areas in and around Tripoli as well. The rebels are wating for reinforcements.

The news has not been coming through because of the fighting, but we will know more in the next coming hours. The rebel fighters that I have spoken to said they will not go home until this is over.

Most of the people involved in this fight against Gaddafi troops are only civilians.”

- – -

More reporting on the Libyan liberation movement:

• Libyan Rebels Advance on Tripoli, Take Key Cities - Aug. 20, 2011
• US Now Recognizes Transitional Council as Legitimate Libyan Government - July 15, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime Abuse of al-Obeidi Crime Against Humanity - Apr. 4, 2011
• UN Action in Libya is Bid to Rescue Democracy Movement - Mar. 27, 2011
• Airstrikes Underway Against Libya, as Qadhafi Refuses to Pull Back - Mar. 19, 2011
• UN Security Council Votes to Support Strikes Against Qadhafi - Mar. 17, 2011
• Qadhafi ‘has lost the legitimacy to rule’ - Feb. 27, 2011
• Protesters in Central Tripoli Fired on by Irregular Army Loyal to Qadhafi - Feb. 26, 2011
• Ban calls for action to stop Qadhafi killing… - Feb. 26, 2011
• Qadhafi Declares War on His People - Feb. 25, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime on Brink of Collapse - Feb. 22, 2011
• Qadhafi’s Son Warns of Civil War, as Libyan Military Appears Split - Feb. 21, 2011
• Violent Crackdown in Libya; Bahrain Protesters Take Pearl Square - Feb. 20, 2011
• Qadhafi Crackdown Has Killed at Least 84 - Feb. 19, 2011
• Spirit of Democratic Revolution Spreads Across Mideast - Feb. 15, 2011

Futurismo Verde :: Desde el comienzo de la civilización humana, el proceso de montar sociedades organizadas, formular historias compartidas y diseñar visiones del futuro humano, el ser humano ha buscado maneras de profetizar y de pronosticar. La ciencia moderna ha descubierto indicios fiables que ayudan a describir el mundo, pero para saber qué vendrá después del momento actual, tenemos que aprender a medir la salud de los sistemas naturales que deciden cómo vivimos.

El hecho es que la Tierra es un complejo de sistemas naturales, separados de los ecosistemas terrestres más remotos sólo por la intervención de otros ecosistemas. De alguna forma, todo el material del planeta, orgánico y no orgánico, está en constante comunicación a través de esta red de interacciones. El mundo viviente prospera debido a la interacción sana y sustentable de distintos sistemas naturales, alternando entre competencia y colaboración, y ganando por esa relación sana más flexibilidad de adaptación, más elasticidad.

La crisis vital viene a un ecosistema cuando deja de ser lo bastante elástico como para enfrentar el desafío sistémico del momento. Esa rigidez puede nacer de muchas causas distintas, pero suele arraigarse en una tendencia a la uniformidad y a la reducción de contacto dinámico con otros sistemas contra los que tendrá que competir, en un momento u otro.

La intervención humana, entonces, ¿qué significa para un ecosistema? Eso depende del tamaño y de la intensidad de la huella que deja esa intervención humana. Si se trata de construir una ciudad, es posible que la inmensa mayoría de los ecosistemas naturales desaparecerán o se desplazarán de forma integral y posiblemente fatal. Si se trata de eregir por dos días una tienda de campaña, y comer sólo lo que existe en el ambiente, sin dejar rastros de química sintética o productos industriales, la intervención será mínima, y todos los ecosistemas ambientales seguirán su curso, casi sin interrupción alguna.

Para la mayoría de los seres humanos del planeta, la decisión de intervenir o no en un ecosistema ha vuelto una decisión pasiva: las ciudades ya existen, los pueblos ya tienen su huella física y ambiental, y las decisiones de aumentar el terreno ocupado por un asentamiento humano suelen ser decisiones organizadas y municipales, no de un sólo individuo.

Por lo tanto, es fácil distanciarnos del problema sin darnos cuenta del serio y duradero papel que nuestras actividades tendrán en los sistemas naturales de los que dependemos y de los que depende el medio ambiente más extenso. Esta distancia conceptual influye no sólo en nuestro imaginario cultural y económico, sino además en el futuro tratamiento mutuo entre la economía humana y la naturaleza.

Los servicios naturales más valiosas—producción de oxígeno, agua limpia, ritmos y corredores fiables de lluvia, la corriente global del océano profundo—exceden por mucho todo el valor económico de la actividad humana en conjunto. Privilegiar y promover elasticidad y resistencia en los sistemas naturales es la única manera de prevenir los efectos corrosivos a largo plazo de una industria inconsciente de sus efectos.

Un nivel adecuado de elasticidad y resistencia ecosistémicas es necesario para asegurar el suministro alimenticio global y el suministro de agua limpia. Es necesario para asegurar un promedio de estabilidad climático: la diversidad de influencias promueve la estabilidad sistémica a largo plazo; la reducción de influencias promueve precariedad sistémica.

Una referencia útil sería la inversión financiera: un rango mínimo y más uniforme de inversiones expone a uno a mayor probabilidad de fracaso y pérdida de valor total; un rango más diverso y variado de inversiones protege a uno de la inestabilidad de valores y proporciona mayor estabilidad y mayor probabilidad de aumento de valores.

El futuro económico, a escala global y local, depende definitivamente del nivel de elasticidad y resistencia en los sistemas naturales de los que toda la actividad humana depende. La economía humana se funda en la biología, el organismo humano, y las necesidades vitales del conjunto de todos los seres humanos. El medio ambiente es un sistema en el que participamos, y la elasticidad de ese sistema decide nuestra resistencia ante los cambios emergentes o sorprendentes que pueden presentarse en un momento dado.

After six months of fighting, the Libyan rebel forces, representing the pro-demcoracy movement that came under military attack by 42-year dictator Muammar Qadhafi, are reportedly advancing on the capital Tripoli. Since the fighting began, the rebels’ Transitional National Council has won support from world powers, the international community and ultimately the United Nations, as the official governing and diplomatic authority for Libya. Now, an isolated Qadhafi looks likely to lose power in the coming weeks or months.

According to the New York Times:

With unexpected swiftness, the ill-trained and ill-equipped rebels from the western mountains this week overtook much of the strategic coastal town of Zawiyah, with its enormous oil refinery, just 30 miles west of Tripoli. By Saturday morning, there were reports that they controlled it completely.

They had also taken Gharyan, an important outpost along the trade route to the south. And a correspondent for the Arab news network Al Jazeera in the town of Zlitan, a crucial Qaddafi barracks town east of Tripoli, reported that it too had fallen to the rebels. Qaddafi troops had concentrated in all three towns, and their retreat in the face of the amateurish rebels raised new doubts about the will and cohesion of the loyalist forces.

Recent weeks have seen a wave of defections from Qadhafi’s inner circle, as top officials orchestrated their escape from Libya, with their families. The focus is now shifting to Tripoli, where rebels hope to capitalize on their gathering momentum and swiftly end the war.

The main roads supplying Tripoli have now been cut off by the rebel advance. After months of rapidly increasing food prices, the city is now reportedly beginning to experience a siege culture, with reports of waits for gasoline of more than a week, civil services shutting down, garbage uncollected, police missing and a spreading crime wave.

Many are reportedly looking for ways to escape the capital, for fear of a bloody fight to end the Qadhafi regime. Qadhafi and his family had repeatedly vowed to exterminate populations that abandoned him, and barring some unexpected development, are expected to wage a battle of attrition to hold onto power. There are reports of ongoing behind the scenes pressure from the rebels, and possibly from foreign governments to urge Qadhafi’s military leaders to lay down arms.

With rebels now controlling most of the territory of Zawiyah, where the fighting remains fierce, reports suggest NATO bombing is being coordinated, both in the towns recently taken and in the capital Tripoli—where key regime buildings have been under bombardment—to help the rebels advance. The rebel strategy seems to be to take and hold the cities of Zawiyah, Zlitan, Gharyan and Brega, then to close in on the capital and take control of the military and government command structure.

- – -

More reporting on the Libyan liberation movement:

• US Now Recognizes Transitional Council as Legitimate Libyan Government - July 15, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime Abuse of al-Obeidi Crime Against Humanity - Apr. 4, 2011
• UN Action in Libya is Bid to Rescue Democracy Movement - Mar. 27, 2011
• Airstrikes Underway Against Libya, as Qadhafi Refuses to Pull Back - Mar. 19, 2011
• UN Security Council Votes to Support Strikes Against Qadhafi - Mar. 17, 2011
• Qadhafi ‘has lost the legitimacy to rule’ - Feb. 27, 2011
• Protesters in Central Tripoli Fired on by Irregular Army Loyal to Qadhafi - Feb. 26, 2011
• Ban calls for action to stop Qadhafi killing… - Feb. 26, 2011
• Qadhafi Declares War on His People - Feb. 25, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime on Brink of Collapse - Feb. 22, 2011
• Qadhafi’s Son Warns of Civil War, as Libyan Military Appears Split - Feb. 21, 2011
• Violent Crackdown in Libya; Bahrain Protesters Take Pearl Square - Feb. 20, 2011
• Qadhafi Crackdown Has Killed at Least 84 - Feb. 19, 2011
• Spirit of Democratic Revolution Spreads Across Mideast - Feb. 15, 2011

Futurismo Verde :: En servicio al proyecto del Foro sobre Política y Crisis, la Red Hot Spring de innovación y debate plantea una conversación global sobre la seguridad alimenticia y la escasez crónica de agua y comida en África. Las lecciones de este experimento en investigación y brainstorming colaborativos se podrá aplicar a otras situaciones de crisis y escasez alrededor del planeta.

Los temas principales de debate serán:

1. Problemas relacionados con el abastecimiento alimenticio global, sobretodo en aplicación a las poblaciones más necesitadas;
2. La degradación medioambiental: o sea, servicios ecológicos y medidas de bienestar ambiental;
3. Deficiencies en las políticas de uso terrenal: cómo mejorarlas;
4. Caza furtiva de animales y cosecha furtiva de leño;
5. Tendencias corrosivas económicas;
6. La corrupción y la deficiencia urgente de presupuestos;
7. Medidas cooperativas para extender el suministro alimenticio a las zonas de conflicto;
8. Cómo superar los límites de la infraestructura de transporte;
9. Las enfermedades comunicables: tratamiento, educación, efectos socio-económicos;
10. Fallos comunicativos: cómo hacer llegar los datos tanto investigados como anecdóticos a los servicios relevantes.

La meta será idear y modelar soluciones calibradas a los desafíos al parecer imposibles de resolver, en relación a la seguridad alimenticia en diversas regiones del continente africano. Esperamos poder proporcionar ideas nuevas y factibles, prácticas y económicamente virtuosas, para que las poblaciones locales interesadas puedan comenzar a desplegarlas en su entorno.

Click aquí para agregar sus comentarios al foro…

Pres. Barack Obama, who with Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has managed a complex array of shifting diplomatic relations throughout the developing democratic awakening across the Arabic-speaking world, yesterday demanded that Syria’s authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad relinquish power. Assad has engaged in five months of full-scale military attacks on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators.

Obama and Clinton have been diligently working to build a global “coalition of condemnation” of the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown of peaceful protest. Working to win support from China and Russia is crucial, because Assad’s regime benefits from trade with both nations, and substantive action to move Syria into a peaceful transition to democracy will require UN Security Council support for the democracy movement.

With Russia and China agreeing to the US and European demand that Syria end its military assault on demonstrators, Obama was able to say that only the hardline regime in Iran—which also used extreme violence to suppress a pro-democracy protest movement—continues to support Assad. That support for the demand to halt military operations, however, does not equate to a Russian or Chinese agreement that Assad should step down.

Today, Russia expressed opposition to the effort to force Assad to leave power. It is not clear if this opposition would translate into a vote to oppose official UN sanctions or whether the opposition would hold up if Assad continues the slaughter of unarmed civilians.

The government says its troops have pulled out of key cities where the protest movement has swelled its ranks. But protesters in Hama and elsewhere say live fire attacks are ongoing and the Syrian military continues to attack unarmed protesters and civilian bystanders. There are reports at least 17 civilians have been killed by Assad’s security forces today alone, even as he tells the international community he has halted military operations against civilians.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian citizens are reportedly now planning to stage yet another massive protest against the Assad regime, which will soon see revenues declining as new sanctions take hold. The protest movement originally called for reform, but not the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s reaction, using lethal force consistently, and over an ever wider area across the nation, killing literally thousands of his own people, has led to the demand that he resign and leave power.

The Syrian protest movement has asked foreign nations not to intervene militarily, because they want their movement to have the legitimacy of a non-violent protest movement. But spokespeople for the movement say the protesters support diplomatic opposition to Assad’s government and sanctions designed to cut off oil and gas revenues that flow to the ministry of defense, which is engaged in full-blown military operations against unarmed civilian demonstrators.

Syria may be the next of the pro-democracy protest nations to set up a transitional democratic council, to oversee an orderly transition to democracy. This has been done in Libya and in Yemen. The Libyan Transitional National Council has won international recognition as the official legitimate authorities in Libya, after Qadhafi military officers defected, explaining the dictator hard ordered ballistic missile strikes against crowds of demonstrators and Qadhafi himself threatened to annihilate the population of Benghazi, taking every man woman and child from their homes.

The Yemeni transitional council has not yet won support from the international community though there is talk that if Pres. Saleh—currently receiving medical treatment outside the country—does not follow through on his three pledges to step down, he may be detained, in favor of a coordinated effort to support the pro-democracy movement’s transitional governing authority.

El ser humano se ha vuelto tan influyente en los proceso naturales que los científicos ahora temen que la naturaleza ha perdido capacidades vitales de resistencia

Futurismo Verde :: En una reunión de científicos europeos, en Estocolmo, el hombre que inventó el término ‘antropoceno’ para describir una nueva época geológica—en la que la influencia humana domina los proceso naturales—ha anunciado que el término ahora se está aplicando desde múltiples campos de estudio. La importancia real del término es que la información ecológica es cada vez más imprescindible para poder llevar a cabo las ambiciones humanas de una forma responsable y sostenible.

The Financial Times, de Londres, ahora informa que “The EuroScience forum in Stockholm heard on Thursday that climate change was the most obvious of a complex range of man-made effects that is rapidly changing the physics, chemistry and biology of the planet.” [En el foro EuroScience, en Estocolmo, el jueves pasado, escucharon que el cambio climático era el más obvio de un complejo tejido de efectos de la actividad humana, que están cambiando rápidamente la física, la química y la biología del planeta."] Otros efectos tendrán que ver con la resistencia de la cosecha, fertilidad de la tierra, elasticidad de habitat vital para especies de sustento.

El alba de la época Antropocena, en la historia geológica, conlleva una cantidad importante de desafíos y oportunidades. En sentido de llevar a cabo una transición rápida de ubicuos modelos económicos a una metodología sostenible, hay una gran oportunidad de aumentar la producción económica potencial de la economía global. Hacerlo, sin embargo, exigirá cantidades masivas de inversión y de innovación acelerada.

Un grupo de 21 de los científicos e investigadores más respetados ha publicado su estudio de la cronología geológica en GSA Journal, y han confirmado que ocurrió un cambio fundamental a una época geológica definida por el efecto humano en el medio ambiente, a principios del siglo XIX. Lo que ocurre ahora, más allá de eso, es que se está desarrollando una conciencia del impacto severo de 200 años de expansión industrial agresiva, incluyendo explotación de recursos, construcción urbana y remodelación terrenal sin precedentes.

Estamos llegando a un punto de inflexión, después del que la ciencia no podrá evitar la necesidad de reconocer y manejar los impactos de la actividad humana en los sistemas naturales. Se ve ahora alteraciones fundamentales en la sedimentación, calidad de tierra, patrones geológicos y habitat biológico, hasta en la misma flora y fauna que habita los sistemas naturales afectados, y en la atmósfera respirable.

Específicamente:

From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the present day, global human population has climbed rapidly from under a billion to its current 6.5 billion (Fig. 1), and it continues to rise. The exploitation of coal, oil, and gas in particular has enabled planet-wide industrialization, construction, and mass transport, the ensuing changes encompassing a wide variety of phenomena, summarized as follows. [...]

Humans have caused a dramatic increase in erosion and the denudation of the continents, both directly, through agriculture and construction, and indirectly, by damming most major rivers, that now exceeds natural sediment production by an order of magnitude [...]

Carbon dioxide levels (379 ppm in 2005) are over a third higher than in pre-industrial times and at any time in the past 0.9 million years [...]

The projected temperature rise will certainly cause changes in habitat beyond environmental tolerance for many taxa (Thomas et al., 2004). The effects will be more severe than in past glacial-interglacial transitions because, with the anthropogenic fragmentation of natural ecosystems, ‘escape’ routes are fewer.

Los mecanismos principales de resistencia ecológica se ven erosionados, y el medio ambiente natural se encuentra menos capaz de adaptarse a los cambios en los sistemas naturales y su manera de competir dentro de y entre sí. El estudio también cita evidencia de un nivel acelerado de extinción de especies y de la creciente probabilidad de una ola masiva de extinciones, resultado directo de la actividad humana.

La comunidad científica ha comenzado a elaborar modelos informáticos del sistema natural integral, un complejo de ecosistemas e interacciones a nivel planetario. Esos modelos servirán para averiguar hasta qué punto la actividad humana influye en el medio ambiente y cómo se puede actuar para mitigar esos impactos y lograr un futuro más sostenible, y más capaz de seguir proporcionando los beneficios naturales necesarios como base de la civilización humana.

La idea del periodo Antropoceno es más que una clasificación cronológica del momento en el que nos encontramos. Se trata de una conciencia cada vez más desarrollada de la necesidad de modificar nuestras tendencias para colaborar con los sistemas naturales de los que dependemos tanto para la supervivencia. Es un despertar al efecto que tiene nuestro nivel de vida, nuestra producción y consumo industriales, y a lo que significa la integración de las sociedades alrededor del planeta, en una red global de comunicación y un mercado global de intercambio material y cultural.

Es posible ahora hablar de una creciente conciencia global de la necesidad de cambiar las motivaciones básicas de la política estatal, el negocio privado, el consumo y los mercados en general. Es posible ahora hablar de un momento en el que la evidencia existe para darnos cuenta del poder que tiene la industria de una civilización globalizada sobre el medio ambiente.

La época Antropocena existe porque el impacto medioambiental ya no se trata de un impacto local, en un ambiente limitado, sino de un impacto a nivel global, con secuelas en ecosistemas que no parecen tener contacto directo con la causa de su malestar. El cambio de pensamiento que ahora viene tiene que coincidir con una creciente capacidad de imaginación y colaboración, para dejar atrás la dependencia peligrosa que nos ata a los combustibles fósil.

• Geological Society of America: “Are we now living in the Anthropocene”
• Financial Times / MSNBC: “Scientists warn of a new Anthropocene age”
• About.com Geology: “Introducing the Anthropocene”
• Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie: “Anthropocene” [article that coined the term]
• Resilience 2008: “Resilience, Adaptation & Transformation in Turbulent Times” [Conf., Stockholm 14-17 April]
• Albaeco, Sustainability School: “Masking Environmental Feedbacks”

On Monday, the first day of trading after a credit downgrade of US Treasury bonds from Standard and Poors, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 624 points. On Tuesday, it gained 429 points. On Wednesday, it dropped by 509. And on Thursday, it gained 414. It is the first time in its history that the DJIA saw swings of 400 points or more for four consecutive days, swings that far out-strip some of the worst one-day declines in its history.

But perhaps most importantly, Thursday, August 11, 2011, marked the eighth consecutive trading session in which the DJIA changed the direction of its net increase or decrease. The volatility is literally unprecedented, and analysts have been at a loss to explain why. Some say US employment numbers drove the market down, others that they are what pulled the market back up. Some say European banks are “scaring” investors, others that American banks may be less solvent than previously known.

According to Dow Jones, as of Aug 11, 2011:

• The DJIA has changed directions each day for the past eight sessions.
• This is the first time in its history, the DJIA has closed with a net change of 400 points or greater for four consecutive days.
• This is the fourth straight day of 3.5% + moves; the last time this occurred was the four-day period ended November 24, 2008.
• Second largest point and percent gain this year.
• An intraday high of 11278.90 occurred at 15:46:44 today, representing an increase of 558.96 points, or 5.21%.
• An intraday low of 10729.85 occurred at the open today.
• The DJIA has now had six consecutive days of 400+ point high/low swings (549.05 points today) — The last time this occurred was during the six-day period ended 10/29/2008.
• Down 3021.22 points, or 21.33% from its record close of 14164.53 on October 9, 2007.
• Up 7.98% from 52 weeks ago.
• Up 70.20% from its 12-year closing low of 6547.05 on March 9, 2009.

What may astonish many of the uninitiated is that in just one day, on August 11, “The market capitalization of the DJIA rose $140.8B today.” That means the 30 corporations that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average appreciated in value by a total of $140.8 billion, in just a few hours.

What’s more, “All 30 component stocks closed up today; the last session where all 30 stocks traded higher was 08/09/2011.” So, in the midst of this “summer of uncertainty”, every “blue-chip” stock on the DJIA gained in value for two out of the four most volatile trading days in history.

Some have said the reason for the declines was that American businesses are not as competitive; others say Apple’s new position as the nation’s most valuable corporation has buoyed stocks in general, showing that innovation and consumer products can restore economic growth. Some say markets are worried about government policy; others say it is the Fed’s unprecedented decision to set interest rates as near zero for at least two years that has allowed a rebound to occur.

Nevertheless, over the eight sessions in which the DJIA has swung back and forth each day, the overall decline has been 986 points or 8.1%. Since July 22, when concerns that the US would default on its debt actually became credible, as Republicans walked out of talks, the decline has been 1,581 points, or 12.4%.

Why is that important? It is important, because it actually gives us a real and relevant marker of enough significance to explain why the market has seen some of the most intense volatility it has ever seen. It began to become clear, on the 22nd of July, that Republicans in the US House of Representatives were not willing to make a “grand bargain” to reduce the American budget deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, because they had vowed not to raise taxes.

Markets responded by declining steadily. In fact, between July 22 and August 3, the DJIA declined steadily every single day, as the US debt crisis came to a head. Then, on August 4, began the daily reversals that have puzzled so many investors, analysts and policy makers. And there is good reason for this period of intense confusion: US Treasury bonds, the value of which was called into question by the debt-ceiling crisis, underpin the entire global financial system.

August 2011 has posed grave and unanswerable questions to the worldwide financial sector: What would happen if the US defaulted on its debt? What would happen if the most stable financial investment in the world suddenly saw its credit rating downgraded? More confusing still: what if only one agency downgraded it, while the rest disagreed with what are patently unsound calculations by that one agency?

What will happen to the American economy if Texas experiences its fifth energy emergency of the year, while Dallas endures 40 consecutive days of 100ºF heat and the state begins importing electricity from Mexico? What if austerity measures—deep cuts in government spending—in Europe and the US begin to impede economic growth and destabilize major consumer economies?

This period of intense volatility is attributable to a lot of economic challenges, but mainly to the unprecedented confusion over whether the US government will work across party lines to support its long-term debt obligations. That policy logjam has very savvy investors, some of the world’s best, confused as to how best to judge the long-term value of not just US Treasury bonds, but thousands of different kinds of investments.

The relentless inflexibility of anti-tax radicals in the House of Representatives has destabilized the world financial system, in that it has injected irrationality into the management of the most rational, stable, form of financial investment and called into question. The world’s major industrial economies are facing unprecedented coordinated pressures, with food prices and cost of living rising in China, and Europe and the US experiencing massive employment crises and declining overall wages.

While Pres. Obama’s economic stewardship has coincided with the DJIA having gained “70.20% from its 12-year closing low of 6547.05 on March 9, 2009″, he has not had a cooperative opposition, and the steady—if gradual—recovery is seen as being in doubt by many investors. Yet Warren Buffett, thought by many to be the world’s most successful, steady and reliable investor, has said the entire debate is off the mark, that he would give US Treasury bonds a AAAA rating, if one existed.

So, four days of radical stock market swings—eight days of unprecedented back-and-forthing—show… very little with clarity. More than half of all trades are now computerized, following pattern-based programs for investment, which means the markets are not necessarily “commenting” on economic reality, so much as they are being driven by machines trying to maximize returns, given the moment to moment activity of other traders.

Whatever the underlying dynamic, it will surely play out as ripple effects of uncertainty that have very certain impacts, jogging or slowing credit markets and undermining the ability of home-buyers to fund new purchases or new construction. Indeed, in what may be a story of massive overriding significance, 60 Minutes this week began to report on what may yet be the most important economic trend of the year: how banks’ insistence on foreclosure as a tool for optimizing their home-loan ROI might be dragging the housing sector down.

Wisconsin is holding six recall elections tonight in response to popular petition to unseat Republican state senators who supported Gov. Walker’s plan to strip public servants of their collective bargaining rights. Each of the six Republican incumbents occupy senate seats representing districts drawn by Republicans to ensure Republican victories, so any victory represents a significant shift in party preference.

The Democrats need to win three seats in order to take control of the state Senate, and deal a serious blow to Gov. Walker and his allies in the state legislature.

As of 10:02 local time, the Republicans had saved three seats:

• In District 2, Sen. Robert Cowles defeated Nancy Nusbaum—59%-41% (94% reporting).
• In District 10, Sen. Sheila Harsdorf fought off the challenger Shelly Moore—58%-42%.
• In District 14, Sen. Luther Olson defeated Fred Clark—52%-48%.

In the other three races, the story was more favorable to the Democratic challengers:

• In the 32nd district, challenger Jennifer Shilling was leading incumbent Dan Kapanke by 8 percentage points.
• Incumbent Randy Hopper was leading Jessica King by 2, separated by just 500 votes, with King’s base of support in Osh Kosh yet to report.
• But most significantly, Walker ally Alberta Darling—for whom Republican supporters and outside groups spent at least $8 million—was trailing Sandy Pasch by 8%, though there were still some very favorable areas for Darling yet to report.

Just a few minutes later, with 87% reporting, Jessica King had pulled ahead of Randy Hopper by 137 votes.

At 10:08 pm, Democrat Jennifer Shilling became the first challenger to unseat one of the recalled Republicans. John Nichols noted that Dan Kapanke was elected during the Obama landslide election year, and has been removed for office after voting to strip public servants of their organizing rights.

The race between Pasch and Darling shifted quickly, as Pasch first widened her lead, then ceded ground, leaving the race too close to call:

• By 10:11 pm, Sandy Pasch was holding her lead over Alberta Darling by a margin of 55% to 45%, and King and Hopper remained too close to call.
• By 10:18 pm local time, with 57% of the votes counted, Pasch was leading Darling by a margin of 58% to 42%.
• But just two minutes later, with the latest reports showing 63% reporting, Darling had closed the gap to 51% to 49%.

At 10:20 pm, Jessica King was leading incumbent Randy Hopper by less than 200 votes, with 87% of the votes counted. There are concerns that irregularities that occurred during state Supreme Court elections earlier this year might be repeated in some pro-Republican areas. Observers have suggested a Pasch win would be a major defeat for the Republicans, while local Democratic organizers remained confident King would pull ahead of Hopper when the number from Osh Kosh came in.

At 10:30 pm local time, Pasch was holding her lead over Darling, 51% to 49%, leading by a margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.

At 10:38 pm, with 97% of precincts reporting, Jessica King was leading Randy Hopper by 27,123 votes to 25,951—51% to 49%. In District 8, with 67% of precincts reporting, Pasch was leading Darling 52% to 48%, by a reported margin of roughly 1,200 votes.

At 10:39 pm Wisconsin time, in District 18, Jessica King was named the projected winner, becoming the second Democrat to unseat a Republican state senator for supporting Gov. Walker’s anti-union agenda.

- – - 

Suspicion of irregularities: Shortly before 11:00 pm local time, with 68% reporting from District 8, Sandy Pasch was still leading Alberta Darling by a margin of 51% to 49%, but the vote counting reportedly stopped.

Think Progress is reporting that Waukesha County would be providing no further results for at least an hour. The announcement is reminiscent of what has occurred in multiple past elections, where similar stalls in the release of vote counts immediately preceded the “discovery” of new votes that swung a tight election toward the Republican candidate.

The county clerk, Kathy Nickolaus has become known for her involvement in these alleged irregularities, and tonight there has been fast and furious criticism of her handling of elections, her party’s tolerance of what is seen as a deeply flawed track record, and of what appear to be new irregularities.

At this hour, there are mounting concerns that a county official with a history of being involved in irregularities that shift the vote toward the Republican party might interfere with the integrity of the election. One Wisconsin member of the House of Representatives called on the United States Dept. of Justice to investigate the irregularities that took place earlier this year.

With the history of manipulations, allegations of criminal election fraud, and the balance of power in the Wisconsin state Senate at risk, it is suspected that irregularities may be in the works. Democratic State Sen. Jon Erpenbach said it was “ridiculous” that the local county officials stalled the count, because they are using the exact same machines used throughout the state.

At 11:12 pm local time, the news broke that with 79% of local precincts reporting, the incumbent Alberta Darling had taken the lead, by a margin of 52% to 48% over challenger Sandy Pasch. At 11:19, with 80% reporting, Darling widened her lead to 53% to 47%.

Sen. Erpenbach expressed concern about the integrity of the election process in Waukesha County. Mike Tate, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic party, issued a statement shortly after the sudden swing to Darling, suggesting there is now evidence of election tampering and a serious need for a closer look at what has taken place at the county clerk’s office in Waukesha County.

- – -

At 11:31 pm local time, with 82% of precincts reporting, Darling was leading 53% to 47%. After the back and forth swings throughout the evening, the consistent 53% to 47% reporting sparked still more suspicion of irregularities.

— Wednesday, August 10, 2011 —

At 12:36 am, local time, the AP called the election for Alberta Darling, with observers split over whether the recall election had been conducted legally. In Waukesha County, the county clerk has been accused of manipulating the release of ballots, and there are mounting calls for a federal criminal probe.

At 7:41 am, local time, with 100% of all precincts reporting in District 10, the vote count was 39,471 to 34,096, giving Darling a 54% to 46% victory over Pasch. Some Democratic party members have softened their criticism of Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus, while others are alleging election fraud.

As early as one day after the March 11 tsunami sparked the (still ongoing) nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan’s government had advanced radiation fallout and atmospheric modeling showing the area most likely to be hit by fallout from the explosions and the ongoing seepage. The government allegedly concealed this information, to prevent mass panic, but the result may have been the evacuation of large numbers of people to the most dangerous zones.

According to the New York Times:

Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing south and carrying away any radioactive emissions. For three nights, while hydrogen explosions at four of the reactors spewed radiation into the air, they stayed in a district called Tsushima where the children played outside and some parents used water from a mountain stream to prepare rice.

The winds, in fact, had been blowing directly toward Tsushima — and town officials would learn two months later that a government computer system designed to predict the spread of radioactive releases had been showing just that.

But the forecasts were left unpublicized by bureaucrats in Tokyo, operating in a culture that sought to avoid responsibility and, above all, criticism. Japan’s political leaders at first did not know about the system and later played down the data, apparently fearful of having to significantly enlarge the evacuation zone — and acknowledge the accident’s severity.

Officials of the Japanese government have admitted there was a pattern of concealing information, denying known facts, even of releasing data that were modified to achieve more politically expedient outcomes, even as the nation and the world were waiting for a thorough and serious crisis response. The government reportedly withheld crucial modeling projections from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, also known as SPEEDI.

According to the Times, Seiki Soramoto, a former nuclear engineer who was asked for information by the prime minister, said “In the end, it was the prime minister’s office that hid the SPEEDI data, because they didn’t have the knowledge to know what the data meant, and thus they did not know what to say to the public, they thought only of their own safety, and decided it was easier just not to announce it.”

Though at least three of the six reactors were in meltdown, and were known to be, and the government was permitting the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) to dump huge volumes of radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean, the status of meltdown was repeatedly denied, and was not acknowledged for several months.

In June, it was revealed that tellurium 132, an isotope that indicates a meltdown has occurred, was detected on the second day of the crisis, but the readings were kept from the public for three months. It is not clear how the alleged campaign of distorted data and concealed modeling might have impacted the crisis response, but scientists and engineers have expressed concern that the nuclear emergency response was stunted by inadequate information and poor decisions.

There are also likely to be new investigations into the public health consequences of the concealed information.

After the shooting of an unarmed man by London’s Metropolitan Police force, in Tottenham, the community organized a peaceful protest, which through a series of events that remains difficult to trace, turned into clashes between police and youths. A rash of riots have now spread across greater London, with arson attacks, looting, and violent clashes between masked youth and armored police.

Prime Minister David Cameron has, after three nights of the worst violence in London since World War II, returned from his family vacation in Tuscany to deal with the crisis. The prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home secretary, were all out of the country, as the violence erupted. Cameron has now called Parliament into special session for hearings on the violence.

More than 500 people have been arrested, and buildings across London have been burned, including furniture company run by the same family for five generations, and a warehouse holding major inventory for independent record labels. Several independent labels may have seen their entire UK inventory destroyed in the fire.

The violence has now spread not only across London, but to other major cities across England, including Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. In some areas, curfews have been imposed, and cities are mobilizing large numbers of police to secure the streets. Fires have been set, buildings burned to the ground, and there are videos splashed across the Internet showing rioters attacking police lines.

In London, the effort to clean up the damage, after three nights of looting and arson, have brought people together. The hashtags #prayforlondon and #riotcleanup have been top trends on Twitter today, and residents are posting photos that show the solidarity of citizens joining together to counter the violence and erase the scars of the rioting.

Police are now being deployed en masse, with Prime Minister Cameron promising massive numbers of arrests. As many as 16,000 police will be deployed to “flood” the streets of London, in order to prevent a fourth night of arson and looting. On Monday night, police in London used armored vehicles and anti-riot squads to disrupt the violence and clear the streets.

According to the Guardian:

Senior officers say the violence and looting on Monday night was the worst in living memory; eclipsing the 1980s inner city riots in Toxteth, Brixton and Tottenham at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

Armoured vehicles – known as Jankels – were brought in during the early hours of Tuesday morning in Clapham Junction where much of the worst looting and arson took place. The vehicles were driven on to Lavender Hill to push back a crowd of 150 looters who had smashed up Debenhams and other stores and businesses in the area. Jankels were also out in Hackney.

That the riots are occurring now, under the most extreme austerity measures imposed on public services since the Thatcher premiership, has raised criticisms of the Cameron government, suggesting that his policies have been socially unfair, politically biased and economically ill-conceived. Critics are now expressing concern that the UK is undergoing the beginning phases of the “austerity riots” that are threatening to bring down the Greek economy and government.

In Athens, the rioting has been only one element of the response to austerity measures. The protest movement of the “indignants”—similar to the encampments in cities across Spain—is staging massive, persistent, peaceful demonstrations, and urging the ouster of the government, in favor of a new administration focused on healing economic inequities and fostering generalized prosperity.

According to the Montreal Gazette:

Politicians, including Lammy, have been quick to blame the riots and looting on Saturday night and “copycat” outbreaks of violence elsewhere in London on Sunday and Monday on small groups of criminals.

But locals and commentators warn that high levels of long-term and youth unemployment and cuts in services like youth centres in places like Haringey – the borough where Tottenham sits – are creating a tinder box for unrest.

There are concerns that the dysfunctional and obsessive focus of the American political system on austerity may lead to street violence there as well, and some say recent violent assaults by large “flash mobs” in central Philadelphia are the early example. A report from the credit rating agency Moody’s warns that austerity measures in the US could undermine “social cohesion” and lead to outbreaks of violence. The Telegraph reports:

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is being sued for allegedly formulating policies that led to the torture of multiple American citizens, at the hands of American military personnel in Iraq. Now, for the second time this month, in two distinct cases, a federal court has found that Mr. Rumsfeld does not enjoy any immunity for actions occurring either during his service as Secretary of Defense or in a war zone.

The government had argued that Mr. Rumsfeld enjoyed a special immunity from liability for any actions taken during his tenure as Secretary of Defense or for any activities that occurred in a war zone. The two criteria, according to the court, would result in the essential stripping of any right of citizens to seek redress for grievances against public officials or against unlawful military action in a “warzone”, loosely defined—there was never a formal declaration of war against Iraq.

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“We agree with the district court that a … remedy is available for the alleged torture of civilian US citizens by US military personnel in a war zone,” Judge David Hamilton wrote for the two-judge majority.

He said the government’s argument, if accepted, would “deprive civilian US citizens of a civil judicial remedy for torture or even cold-blooded murder by federal officials and soldiers, at any level, in a war zone.”

“United States law provides a civil damages remedy for aliens who are tortured by their own governments,” Judge Hamilton wrote. “It would be startling and unprecedented to conclude that the United States would not provide such a remedy to its own citizens.”

The court’s finding is consistent with other cases, where serious crimes have been alleged and government officials were found to have been involved in ordering, overseeing or condoning the unlawful activity. In Mr. Rumsfeld’s case, it is public knowledge that he helped Pres. George W. Bush institute a program of “harsh interrogation” techniques and military detention without charge.

The lawsuit is likely to open up, in some cases for the first time, details of how the use of the term “enemy combatant” came to be applied in what some constitutional scholars say was an unprecedented campaign of extrajudicial detentions. It is also likely to bring into court some startling revelations that emerged when WikiLeaks released documents detailing official awareness of extreme, and even fatal, methods of torture being used by Iraqi forces.

According to official US government documents, US soldiers reported the torture being conducted by Iraqi military personnel on at least 100 separate occasions to their superiors, but were uniformly ordered, by command “at the highest levels”—reports the Christian Science Monitor—not to intervene.

According to the court filings, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were in Iraq working for a private military contractor, when they became suspicious the company was engaged in corruption. The firm’s reaction, allegedly, was to strip them of authorization to enter the so-called Green Zone—relegating them to urban areas subject to persistent open combat.

Vance and Ertel then took their case to the US Embassy, to ask for assistance. The two men allege that instead of being rewarded for blowing the whistle, they were detained and held incommunicado by the US military. They say they were subjected to phyical and psychological abuse throughout their entire term of detention, and that Mr. Rumsfeld was the government official who orchestrated the type of detention and abuse to which they were subjected, with no foundation in law.

The appeals court ruling brings the case one step closer to a full hearing, and raises the possibility that Rumsfeld could be found personally liable for criminal abuse, illegal detention and civil rights violations, in civil court. Such an outcome would almost certainly raise the prospects for domestic criminal charges against the former Defense secretary, and possibly other officials of the former administration.

creative prosperity is sustainable prosperity

To build a future of vibrant open democracy and robust and sustainable economic prosperity, it is necessary to privilege creative activities and constructive solutions to the challenges we face. Addressing major challenges in constructive, innovative ways, is the single most significant driver, historically, of sustained economic booms. In short, we need to move deliberately and swiftly toward a creative prosperity agenda.

The first consideration, then, is to examine how the creative prosperity agenda would differ from what we are doing now. At present, we are wrestling with the complex fabric of consequence related to long-running economic distortions, most of which we have not yet corrected. Healthcare reform and financial regulatory reform were comprehensive in scope, but moderate in impact, cautious and rooted in the prevailing model; energy reform needs to move forward rapidly and do more to prioritize innovation.

We are facing a major, civilization-wide transition from one way of conceptualizing political and economic power to another. We stand at the dawn of what should be the global solidification of open democracy as the standard for elevating and defending human dignity and freedom of thought. But we need to build creative prosperity into that future, and this will require a fundamental shift in the dominant view which holds that power is more effective when concentrated in fewer hands.

That view comes from ancient times—from prehistoric times, in fact—when the governing principle of human life was the need to survive in competition with forces far more powerful than any one individual, family or band. Power, then, was a combination of accumulated resources and raw force. In that light, power is a destructive force, requiring intense concentration of resources and the ability to draw a line between the inside and the outside of the power circle.

the feudal (concentration) model

Economically, the fact of human society was that there was not enough technology, enough resources, enough liberty, to deliver real comfort to most or all people. In fact, there was only the material wealth to deliver substantial comfort to about 1 in every 100 people. The model of concentration allowed those in that 1 percent to cling to comfort and fight off would-be attackers.

The only way into the circle in which power, means and comfort were concentrated was to pay the toll for access. That might be done by force of arms, or by handing over significant sums of wealth. Paying the toll perpetuated the model, and won significant privileges for those who helped to make sure that system remained viable.

This developed eventually into authoritarian empires and the medieval elevation of aristocracy. The logic of the model of concentration held: those inside the circle must remain there, and the society must be organized to keep them there. They were, it was presumed, worth more than other people, and so they were able to treat their privilege as if it were part of a life of service—maintaining law and order—to those with less.

the democracy (decentralization) model

Modern democracy posits an entirely different model: the model of decentralization. Modern democracy, according to the ideals of the American revolution and the French revolution, requires a comprehensive departure from the status quo of feudal dominance. It requires the engineering of a model for economic and political activity whereby power cannot be concentrated, and where excessive concentration of power brings disadvantage.

A creative prosperity agenda for public policy and economic renewal would put aside the bias of the old model, once and for all, asking enterprises large and small to join together in a fabric of imaginative competition, prioritizing localization, innovation and service value to the marketplace. It would help to recapture the energy of modern democracy, wherein monopolies and juggernauts sputter and trudge, slowed by their weight, and individuals and small businesses are better able to take the field, to effect positive change, to feed a generalized economic expansion.

The key to that model is the vibrancy of an expanding and upwardly mobile middle class. Achieving that means doing what the United States did so effectively in the 1950s and 1960s, decentralizing the levers for creating wealth, allowing more free people to participate not only as citizens but as leaders and entrepreneurs.

losing our former focus on creative (decentralized) prosperity

A period of intensive deregulation in key industries has led the United States’ economy into a period of prolonged slow growth, because it has led to the hyper-concentration of wealth and of access to the levers of wealth-creation generally. Average household income has dropped by about $2,500 since 2000, even as the gap between average pay and the earnings of the wealthiest has expanded to historic highs.

There is a problematic knock-on effect of this, which is that innovation is no longer a priority, as major conglomerates seek first of all to secure their position. Upstarts like Apple are not emerging at the rate they were during previous periods of economic expansion, and the most powerful, most concentrated interests—Apple now among them—are controlling the field of play.

recapturing momentum: how to build a creative prosperity agenda

There are a couple of key changes that need to take place to move toward a creative prosperity agenda:

1. Move from a bias favoring large conglomerates to one against them;
2. Move away from subsidies for high-polluting, low-yield fossil fuels;
3. Move toward clean energy technologies that favor rapid innovation, brainy startups, more robust job creation, and local economies;
4. Revive national commitment, public and private, to infrastructure redevelopment;
5. Provide direct tax credits for real job creation (payable on a per-job basis);
6. Establish sustainability incentives for municipalities (ref: Sustainable Jersey), states and businesses;
7. Establish an aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard;
8. Prioritize higher education spending, including post-graduate studies incentives for businesses looking to sponsor their employees;
9. Introduce critical thinking, macroeconomic studies, engineering basics and public policy debate, to public high schools—judge these as more valuable than test scores;
10. Make sure tax reforms are not regressive; make sure they prioritize family and community-level “thriving”, i.e. asset-building, quality of life and spending power;
11. Tax derivative financial instruments at a higher rate than direct capital investments in enterprise, innovation and hiring;
12. Apply national policy to correct market distortions relating to fossil fuel costs.

The outcome of this process of reform would be:

• accelerated, more widespread innovation;
• entree for creative small business models;
• unprecedented opportunities for sustained hiring;
• more vibrant, resilient local economies;
• a consumer-centered smart electricity grid;
• cleaner air and water;
• a sustainable economy where growth is not tied to the promotion of vast negative externalities;
• more robust civic engagement from citizens, communities and creative thinkers…

The United States is perfectly capable of achieving this kind of virtuous cycle between democratization, decentralization, creative thinking, entrepreneurship and the expansion of the middle class. But substantive policy changes need to be made—to remove the incentive for corrosive activities that favor the unhealthy concentration of wealth and productive capacity and motivate the revival of generative activities that favor the healthy decentralization of assets and productive capacity.

A vibrant middle class—where the best ideas can come to the fore and be implemented and the dignity and worth of citizens and communities takes priority over the naked pursuit of profit—is better suited to fostering creative, sustainable prosperity. The first step is to recognize where we favor profit over people, and then work to change the prevailing model and free human creative talent to achieve that goal.

The United States government, until Friday, had more than twice the AAA debt outstanding as any other category of AAA debt. According to Nomura, while the US had $11.2 trillion in AAA debt oustanding, agency mortgage backed securities account for over $5 trillion, and Germany and France follow with less than $2 trillion. Standard and Poors has now downgraded the credit worthiness of the United States government, though there was no default and no indication the government was in any way likely to default.

S&P has come under fire for reportedly having made a $2 trillion error in its calculations. Though its estimations are based on publicly available data, the ratings agency reportedly estimated $2 trillion more in government spending than actually exists. According to Reuters: “S&P was forced to remove the number from its analysis after Treasury officials discovered that the rating agency’s estimates of the government’s discretionary spending was $2 trillion too high, sources familiar with the discussions said.”

Though the underlying economic reasoning for the credit downgrade was the figure which was $2 trillion too high, and the difference between the debt ceiling deal and the $4 trillion demand made by S&P is less than $2 trillion, the ratings agency refused to forego the credit downgrade. S&P suffered a severe blow to its reputation, when it was revealed that the agency has maintained, with little to no evidence of merit, AAA ratings on subprime mortgage-backed securities, which eventually collapsed, and led to the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Reuters also includes this detail in its report:

Ian Lyngen, a senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Connecticut, agreed S&P now had more than just a credibility problem.

“The fact that they have now downgraded the United States suggests to me that they are now going to be dealing with a relevance issue,” he said. “Because the fact of the matter is that 10-year (Treasury note) yields are near 2.5 percent, and that in no way suggests a lack of sponsorship for U.S. debt.”

Yields on U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR, a benchmark for borrowing rates throughout the economy, fell as far as 2.34 percent on Friday — their lowest since October 2010 and very low by historical standards.

The credit downgrade was expected to impose massive escalating costs on the entire US economy, the borrowing of the US government, and also competing sovereign debt products and commercial investment. The fear, then, would be that a credit downgrade on the entity whose bond products and currency support the entire global financial system could lead to a second great recession, possibly a global economic depression.

But Standard and Poors has possibly waded into quicksand, for six crucial reasons:

1. The United States did not, in fact, default;
2. The ratings agency in question made a $2 trillion error in its calculations;
3. Despite conceding that its chief calculations were erroneous, the agency insisted on the downgrade;
4. Treasury officials were told that S&P was using the downgrade to express its displeasure that a bigger debt package was not agreed;
5. Other ratings agencies have not seen fit to downgrade US Treasury bonds;
6. There does not appear to be a lag in investment in Treasury bonds…

Taken together, it would appear that while there is virtually no evidence to substantiate the downgrade, and with S&P’s only internal justification for the downgrade discredited, S&P representatives expressed a desire to downgrade Treasury bonds—with all the global economic fallout that might entail—in order to express displeasure that their will was not done on Capitol Hill. S&P may now lose relevance, even as its actions may motivate serious economic slowdown around the world.

There are reports that China will immediately seek to begin diversifying its bond holdings and reserves. The S&P downgrade could ultimately threaten the value of the US government’s lending and the Chinese government’s holdings, and undermine the legitimacy and security of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It now appears Treasury officials will be meeting with key players in the world’s financial markets, including major foreign bondholders, like China, to hold off interest rate increases, and possibly to marginalize the S&P finding.

Shoring up the US and the world financial markets is now crucial, as another financial collapse could leave the world economy with negative growth, and could destabilize governments in fractious regions and even do serious harm to the fiscal integrity of the European Union. The S&P downgrade will be less influential if it is limited to one rating agency, and could have massive unintended consequences, if it is not contained.

John Chambers, chair of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, said today that “There are two things that we should emphasize. One is that the political discourse has diminished the credit standing of the United States. The other is a fiscal analysis.” This makes four distinct justifications given so far for the downgrade: the $2 trillion in (non-existent) extra spending; the structural problems that might materialize despite the $2 trillion error; the agency’s expression of “displeasure”; and the fact that “political discourse has diminished the credit standing of the United States.”

In April, a bipartisan Senate committee found that S&P, Moody’s and other rating agencies may actually have directly “triggered” the financial crisis:

In one of the most stark condemnations of the credit rating agencies, a Senate investigations panel said the agencies continued to give top ratings to mortgage-backed securities months after the housing market started to collapse.

The agencies then unleashed on the financial system a flood of downgrades in July 2007, the panel said.

“Perhaps more than any other single event, the sudden mass downgrades of (residential mortgage-backed securities) and (collateralized debt obligation) ratings were the immediate trigger for the financial crisis,” the staff for Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn wrote in their report.

Today, there are mounting questions about how S&P came to make direct policy demands on the United States Congress, under threat of a credit downgrade, and if the agency is now expressing displeasure, what is the actual ask? Numerous economists have taken issue with the S&P demand for $4 trillion in deficit reduction now, in the midst of a slow recovery, warning that draining that amount of capital from the economy could end the recovery and push the economy back into recession.