Vital Concerns for the World: Another Whistleblower Fired

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Another Whistleblower Fired

This is not the first time that we have heard that our government is not kind to whisleblowers, but the new statement by Peter Van Buren [Confessions of an Iraq War Whistleblower: The State Department fired me for telling the truth about US failures in Iraq. Here's why I don'tregret it.] should deeply sadden all of us. We suppose that we reside in a country that honors its claims of the pursuit of justice.

Not much to be proud of here. It reminds me of the response to Fear Up Harsh by Tony Lagouranis: Most people don't seem to want to know about torture of Iraqis even though, in the case of Lagouranis, he has felt deeply ashamed of his part in it.

And the state department doesn't want people to know about the failures in Iraq -- after all, a lot of blood has been spilled there and a lot of taxpayer's cash.

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A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >