Ex-Colombia President Uribe's Sons in New Panama Papers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Telesur

Ex-Colombia President Uribe's Sons in New Panama Papers


[font size=1]
Thomas and Jerome Uribe, the sons of former President Alvaro Uribe, are also being investigated for defrauding the
state. | Photo: EFE

Published 10 May 2016 (6 hours 18 minutes ago)
[/font]
The appearance of Tomas and Jeronimo Uribe in the new leaks come as different figures accuse the two of abusing their father's power when he was president.


The two sons of Colombia’s former president Alvaro Uribe, Tomas and Jeronimo Uribe Moreno, are mentioned in the latest Panama Papers disclosed Monday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

In the database revealing details of more than 200,000 offshore companies, both Uribe brothers Tomas and Jeronimo appear as shareholders of the “Asia America Investment Corporation” registered and associated with an address in the British Virgin Islands, a country included on a widely known list of tax havens worldwide.

The company, which appears to be active, had been registered in July 2008 when their father Alvaro Uribe was still in the presidential office.


Read more: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ex-Colombia-President-Uribes-Sons-in-New-Panama-Papers-20160510-0021.html

[Octafish]

1. Chévere.

US embassy urged Clinton to hold back on praising Uribe during 2010 visit

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141200957

As long as the right people get ahead, it's progress.

[OnyxCollie]

2. Uribe and the Clinton Foundation.

For your edification:

Perhaps the most important modern institution in the field of group power-and it contrasts dramatically with Maitland's picture of clubs, religious associations, and charities preferring the hedge of the trust and the anonymity of unincorporated status- is the "foundation" which flourishes in contemporary America.

The foundation is largely an American creation. No doubt the accumulation of vast wealth was one reason for its rise; another-at least in the days when Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others perpetuated their names through their now world famous bequests-was unquestionably a desire of wealthy and successful men to purge their consciences before God and man and to justify the acquisitive society which had enabled them to accumulate enormous riches by leaving a vast proportion of their wealth for the benefit of mankind.6 But in recent years these reasons for the earlier foundations have become less important, and the incorporated foundation or trust has become predominantly a business device, a paramount instrument in the struggle between the demands of the modern Welfare State and the wish of the individual entrepreneur to perpetuate his fortune and his name. The greatest and most influential of the foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie) are the creations of individuals or families, but the large foundations of the future will increasingly be the creations of corporations. The desires to give and to perpetuate the name of the individual or corporate donor are undoubtedly still important motivations, but the immense growth in the number and size of foundations in recent years7 suggests that business considerations play an increasing role. By either bequeathing or giving during his lifetime a proportion of his estate to a permanent institution established for officially recognized charitable purposes, the donor, usually the controller of an industrial or business empire,8 achieves a number of purposes.9 In the United States gifts to such organizations are exempt from gift taxes, and bequests to them are deductible for estate tax purposes. The organizations themselves are normally exempt from income tax, property tax, and other taxes. A charitable gift intervivos is an allowable deduction from the taxable income of the donor.10 The absence of the latter privilege in English law may be one reason why incorporated charities are not so widespread in Britain (apart, of course, from the vastly greater capital wealth of United States business). Otherwise, motivations for the establishment of charitable companies are very similar." The arithmetics of these benefits vary from year to year and are, of course, subject to legislative changes. Unless, however, there were to be a fundamental change in legislation in regard to charitable gifts,12 the advantages of transferring both capital and annual income away from the personal estate of a taxpayer in the high income brackets or away from a corporation are very considerable.13 But in the age of the managerial revolution and the Welfare State, a motive at least equal to that of providing a suitable mechanism for philanthropy and a tax free reservoir for an otherwise highly taxable income is the power which the foundation gives to the controller of a business or industry to perpetuate his control.14

Friedmann, W. G. (1957). Corporate power, government by private groups, and the law. Columbia Law Review, 57(2), 155-186.

The Clinton Foundation - About
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/our-work/by-initiative/clinton-foundation-in-haiti/about.html

The Clinton Foundation has been actively engaged in Haiti since 2009, focusing on economic diversification, private sector investment and job creation in order to create long-term, sustainable economic development. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, President Clinton formed the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund and raised $16.4 million from individual donors for immediate earthquake relief efforts. Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation has raised a total of $34 million for Haiti, including relief funds as well as projects focused on restoring Haiti's communities, sustainable development, education and capacity building. In 2012, the Clinton Foundation concentrated on creating sustainable economic growth in the four priority sectors of energy, tourism, agriculture, and apparel/manufacturing, working to bring new investors, develop and support local organizations and businesses, and create access to new markets. The Clinton Foundation also continued working to support government efforts to improve Haiti’s business environment and supported programs in education and capacity building.

Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti’s Minimum Wage Increase
http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-47/Washington%20Backed%20Famous.asp

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi’s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.

The factory owners refused to pay 62 cents an hour, or $5 per eight-hour day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. Behind the scenes, the factory owners had the vigorous backing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Embassy, show secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Haïti Liberté by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks.

The minimum daily wage had been 70 gourdes or $1.75 a day.

The factory owners told the Haitian parliament that they were willing to give workers a mere 9 cents an hour pay increase to 31 cents an hour – 100 gourdes daily – to make T-shirts, bras and underwear for U.S. clothing giants like Dockers and Nautica.

Report: State Department-Backed Garment Complex in Haiti Stealing Workers’ Wages
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/17/headlines#10179

A new report by the Worker Rights Consortium has found the majority of workers in Haiti’s garment industry are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally owed due to widespread wage theft. The new evidence builds on an earlier report that found every single one of Haiti’s export garment factories was illegally shortchanging workers. Workers in Haiti make clothes for U.S. retailers including Gap, Target, Kohl’s, Levi’s and Wal-Mart. The report highlighted abuses at the Caracol Industrial Park, a new factory complex heavily subsidized by the U.S. State Department, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Clinton Foundation and touted as a key part of Haiti’s post-earthquake recovery. The report found that, on average, workers at the complex are paid 34 percent less than the law requires. Haiti’s minimum wage for garment workers is between 60 and 90 cents an hour. More than three-quarters of workers interviewed for the report said they could not afford three meals a day.

Clintons' Pet Project for Privatized 'Aid' to Haiti Stealing Workers' Wages: Report
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/16-4

Haiti's Caracol Industrial Park—the U.S. State Department and Clinton Foundation pet project to deliver aid and reconstruction to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in the form of private investment—is systematically stealing its garment workers' wages, paying them 34 percent less than minimum wage set by federal law, a breaking report from the Worker Rights Consortium reveals.

Critics charge that poverty wages illustrate the deep flaws with corporate models of so-called aid. "The failure of the Caracol Industrial Park to comply with minimum wage laws is a stain on the U.S.'s post-earthquake investments in Haiti and calls into question the sustainability and effectiveness of relying on the garment industry to lead Haiti's reconstruction," said Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in an interview with Common Dreams.

Caracol is just one of five garment factories profiled in this damning report, released publicly on Wednesday, which finds that "the majority of Haitian garment workers are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally due as a result of the factories’ theft of their income." This is due to systematic employer cheating on piece-work and overtime, as well as failure to pay employees for hours worked.
...
Financers included the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. State Department, and the Clinton Foundation, who invested a total of $224 million with promises to uphold high labor standards. Its anchor tenant is the Korean S&H Global factory, which sells garments to Walmart, Target, Kohl's, and Old Navy, according to the report.

Bill Clinton met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to get donations for his Foundation. Alvaro Uribe is now on the Board of Directors for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Uribe meets with Bill Clinton
http://colombiareports.com/uribe-meets-with-ex-us-president-bill-clinton/

Bill Clinton, ex-president of the United States and husband of the current U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday in search of resources for the reconstruction of Haiti.

~snip~

While his wife is on a diplomatic tour of various Latin American countries, ex-president Clinton is using the opportunity to raise money for Haiti’s reconstruction following the devastating earthquake that happened there in January of this year. The money is being raised through Clinton’s own charity, the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton will also be taking a look at various projects in Colombia that the Clinton Foundation has helped fund while visiting the country.

News Corp. Nominates Chao, Uribe to Board as Directors Step Down
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-09-04/news-corp-nominates-chao-uribe-to-board-as-directors-step-down.html

News Corp. (NWSA), the media company run by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, nominated ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao as directors, bolstering the board’s government experience.

Uribe and Chao will replace Andrew Knight and John Thornton, who plan to step down as directors following the annual meeting, News Corp. said today in a statement.

The changes presage a broader shakeup in News Corp.’s organization over the next year. Murdoch announced a plan in June to break up News Corp.’s publishing and entertainment divisions into separate companies. Murdoch will remain chairman of both businesses and CEO of the entertainment division.

Chao served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. After that, she became a distinguished fellow of the Heritage Foundation in Washington. The Harvard-educated Uribe was president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and more recently served on an advisory council for JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), News Corp. said.

Some background on Uribe:

Uribe was ‘the head of Colombia’s paramilitaries’: former AUC ringleader
http://colombiareports.com/head-colombias-paramilitaries-former-auc-leader-ex-president-uribe/

Former President Alvaro Uribe was the “head of Colombia’s paramilitary groups,” according to a former paramilitary commander and witness in the case against a presidential candidate loyal to the former head of state.

The accusations were made by Pablo Hernan Sierra, alias “Alberto Guerrero”, former commander of the Cacique Pipinta bloc of the paramilitary group AUC, during an interview with Venezuelan network TeleSur.

“He was our commander,” claimed Sierra. “He never fired a gun; but he led, he contributed, he was our man at the top.”

“The massacres, the disappearances, the creation of an {AUC} group: he is responsible,” said Sierra.

The ex-paramilitary is a key witness in an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties with paramilitary groups, especially his role in the formation of an AUC bloc while governor of Antioquia department from 1995-97, and his use of the AUC to win votes in the 2002 Presidential election.

Details of testimony that involves Uribe in a massacre
http://colombiasupport.net/2008/06/details-of-testimony-that-involves-uribe-in-a-massacre/

The ex-paramilitary Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández declared to the Colombian Attorney General’s
office this past February that President Alvaro Uribe and his brother Santiago participated in planning a
massacre in the north of the department of Antioquia, according to a copy of the testimony obtained by
the Nuevo Herald. Part of the confession of Villalba, whose credibility Uribe attacked this week, was
utilized by the Interamerican Human Rights Court (CIDH) to condemn Colombia for that massacre,
which occurred in the village of El Aro in 1997, according to an extensive decision of that tribunal two
years ago. Villalba did not involve the ruler or his brother in his testimony before the CIDH, but his
narrative was part of the proofs that served the tribunal to conclude that in the slaughter of El Aro
agents of the public security forces collaborated with groups of the United Self-defenses of Colombia
(Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia—AUC) to murder in cold blood at least fifteen campesinos “in a
defenseless position, taking their goods away from others and generating terror and displacement,”
according to the 160-page decision. This same decision cites a testimony to the effect that the
government of the department of Antioquia, at that time led by the currently president, refused to
extend protection to the inhabitants of El Aro, when they learned that the paramilitary attack was
imminent. “In the face of this situation, about two months before the occupation, the Community
Action Board (Junta de Acción Comunal) asked the government for protection, which was
not offered,” says the decision of the CIDH.

Until now, some of aspects of the declaration of Villalba to the Colombian prosecutors were only known
in an indirect and fragmentary way which where revealed surprisingly by Uribe during a radio interview
this week in order to reject what the ex-paramilitary pointed out. But the Nuevo Herald obtained a
complete copy of the declearation that, in fact, contains repeated testimonies of Villalba that Uribe,
when he was Governor of the department of Antioquia, hobnobbed with the highest leaders of the AUC
and gave them carte blanche to carry out the massacre. “{Alvaro Uribe told us} that what had to be
done, that we would do it,” declared Villalba in describing a meting in which AUC leaders, military
personnel and the brothers Alvaro and Santiago Uribe. Villalba’s 19-page declaration describes, using
names and details a close relationship of complicity and camaraderie between military and police
authorities with the heads of the death squads.

Wiretapping scandal increasingly reveals political persecution under Uribe
http://colombiareports.co/wiretapping-scandal-increasingly-reveals-political-persecution-under-uribe/

As Colombia’s Supreme Court investigates illegal spying by the country’s former intelligence agency, an increasing amount of details are revealed about the alleged political persecution of leftist opponents of former President Alvaro Uribe.

A former director of Colombian intelligence agency DAS, Jorge Noguera, is currently on trial for various charges surrounding the wiretapping scandal that has already seen multiple convictions of Uribe’s former chief of staff and a second intelligence chief.

Colombia’s now-defunct intelligence agency, the DAS, did not report to anyone but the president and had been spying on the Supreme Court, journalists, human rights defenders and politicians in a scandal that was uncovered in 2008.

This is what Hillary Clinton had to say about Uribe (hat tip to karynnj).

SECRETARY CLINTON: President Uribe, let me begin by telling you how pleased I am to be here in Colombia for the first time. You have been so gracious in entertaining my husband and my daughter in the past. And now, I finally have completed the family visits to your beautiful country.

This is a trip I have looked forward to making for quite some time, and it is a real pleasure to see how far Colombia has come and how much Colombia is contributing not only to its own people but to those who face similar struggles beyond your borders. So thank you for your hospitality, thank you for the very comprehensive discussion that we have had together today, and for the opportunity to reaffirm the friendship and strong partnership between the United States and Colombia.

In the last decade, Colombia has confronted immense challenges. And by any fair measure, Colombia has made great progress. That is thanks to the leadership of your government and to the resilience and dedication of the Colombian people. And even with continuing challenges in your own struggle, Colombia is playing a positive and increasingly important regional role, whether it be on promoting clean energy or on relief and recovery efforts in Haiti. The United States has been proud to stand with Colombia, and we will continue to stand with you in the future.

President Uribe and I discussed Colombia’s continuing efforts in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime. And I expressed the commitment of the Obama Administration to continuing to partner with Colombia as it works to consolidate the security gains of recent years.

We also discussed Colombia’s efforts to enhance human rights, the strides made, the challenges that remain, the ongoing need for vigilance and commitment. And I also want to publicly express our admiration for President Uribe providing a remarkable example of strong democratic leadership in respecting the constitutional court’s decision regarding another term.

Colombia is such a valued partner and a leader that we look forward to expanding and deepening our partnership. Colombia has helped to lead the way as an active member of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. Just a few examples that we look to and encourage others to do so as well: developing cutting-edge mass transit systems, exploiting the potential of biofuels, becoming a leader in the use of ethanol, spearheading an initiative to help build the infrastructure for long-distance electrical transmissions from Panama, through the Andean states, to Chile.

Colombia has also worked hard to address the historic lack of opportunity for many of its people, and in doing so has provided important models for other countries in our hemisphere. Recently, the United States and Colombia concluded the first steering committee meeting for our action plan on racial and ethnic equality, which will work to improve access to education, employment, and other opportunities for Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities.

We signed a new science and technology agreement today that will facilitate the exchange of ideas and technology to help both our countries compete in the global economy. All these and many other efforts speak to the enduring bonds of friendship and the stronger partnership for the future that we have, not just between our governments but between our peoples.

Mr. President, I speak for President Obama and myself when I say that you, personally, have been an essential partner to the United States. And because of your commitment to building strong democratic institutions here in Colombia and to nurturing the bonds of friendship between our two countries, you leave a legacy of great progress that will be viewed in historic terms. I know, though, as you said yourself in your remarks here today, you realize how much more is yet to be done.

This morning, I met with the two remaining presidential candidates. This is a choice for the Colombian people to make, but I have to say that the first round of voting was a testament to the vibrancy and strength of Colombia’s democracy. And the United States will work closely and constructively with whomever the Colombian people choose in this second round.

So thank you once again, Mr. President. And you’re right; we had a wonderful dinner last night here in Bogota among friends, some Colombian, some American. And we talked about how remarkable it was that such a common event could take place. And as I drove here to the presidential palace and had the chance to look out the window at this absolutely magnificent city, my heart was filled with the hope that I know fills the hearts of so many Colombians, that what has been accomplished will only go from strength to strength. We will stand with the people of Colombia to make that so.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. (Applause.)

[Octafish]

3. That is a PhD worth of material. Thank you, OnyxCollie!

DUers get smarter after reading your posts, OnyxCollie.

To add a 700-level course, something I learned from PaulThompson's HRC timeline:

From his association with a former president, young Frank got a great deal in Kazakhstan:

After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton

By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times, JAN. 31, 2008

EXCERPT...

Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.

The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.

SNIP...

Mr. Giustra foresaw a bull market in gold and began investing in mines in Argentina, Australia and Mexico. He turned a $20 million shell company into a powerhouse that, after a $2.4 billion merger with Goldcorp Inc., became Canada’s second-largest gold company.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html

From his association with a future president, young George got a great deal in Bahrain.

Harken Energy And Insider Trading

by Stephen Pizzo
Mother Jones, September / October 1992

EXCERPT...

Harken Energy was formed in l973 by two oilmen who would benefit from a successful covert effort to destabilize Australia's Labor Party government (which had attempted to shut out foreign oil exploration). A decade later, Harken was sold to a new investment group headed by New York attorney Alan G. Quasha, a partner in the firm of Quasha, Wessely & Schneider. Quasha's father, a powerful attorney in the Philippines, had been a staunch supporter of then-president Ferdinand Marcos. William Quasha had also given legal advice to two top officials of the notorious Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, a CIA operation.

After the sale of Harken Energy in 1983, Alan Quasha became a director and chairman of the board. Under Quasha, Harken suddenly absorbed Junior's struggling Spectrum 7 in 1986. The merger immediately opened a financial horn of plenty and reversed Junior's fortunes. But like his brother Jeb, Junior seemed unconcerned about the characters who were becoming his benefactors. Harken's $25 million stock offering in 1987, for example, was underwritten by a Little Rock, Arkansas, brokerage house, Stephens, Inc., which placed the Harken stock offering with the London subsidiary of Union Bank -- a bank that had surfaced in the scandal that resulted in the downfall of the Australian Labor government in 1976 and, later, in the Nugan Hand Bank scandal. (It was also Union Bank, according to congressional hearings on international money laundering, that helped the now-notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International skirt Panamanian money-laundering laws by flying cash out of the country in private jets, and that was used by Ferdinand Marcos to stash 325 tons of Philippine gold around the world.)

SNIP...

Suddenly, in January 1990, Harken Energy became the talk of the Texas oil industry. The company with no offshore-oil-drilling experience beat out a more-established international conglomerate, Amoco, in bagging the exclusive contract to drill in a promising new offshore oil field for the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. The deal had been arranged for Harken by two former Stephens, Inc., brokers. A company insider claims the president's son did not initiate the deal -- but feels that his presence in the firm helped with the Bahrainis. "Hell, that's why he's on the damn board," the insider says. "...You say, 'By the way, the president's son sits on our board.' You use that. There's nothing wrong with that."

Junior has told acquaintances conflicting stories about his own involvement in the deal. He first claimed that he had "recused" himself from the deal; "George said he left the room when Bahrain was being discussed 'because we can't even have the appearance of having anything to do with the government.' He was into a big rant about how unfair it was to be the president's son. He said, 'I was so scrupulous I was never in the room when it was discussed.'"

Junior alternately claimed, to reporters for the Wall Street Journal and D Magazine, that he had opposed the arrangement. But the company insider says, to the contrary, that Junior was excited about the Bahrain deal. "Like any member of the board, he was thrilled," the associate says. "His attitude was, 'Holy shit, what a great deal!'"

CONTINUED...

http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/harkenenergyandinsidertrading.htm

It must be old fashioned to want to separate bank and statecraft.

"No man can get rich in politics unless he's a crook." -- Harry S Truman

[OnyxCollie]

4. It's PhD material, but I never got my Master's.

Two of the three professors on the committee for my final comprehensive exam gave me failing grades.

Funny thing is, I was told years earlier by a third professor that those two professors would not pass me. (Har de har-har! What a riot!)

Another accurate statement made by that same professor: "This {the University of Akron} is a third-tier school."

[Octafish]

5. Heartbreaking! Lackadaemia is really something.

The idea they are qualified to ration the limited knowledge they possess gives them a right to act as gatekeepers for what is true and who and what passes as authority comes straight from the Dark Ages.

Your academic advocate should have stood as your champion before the other two on the committee. As he knew years ahead of time he would be unable to convince them of your faculties shows the system's corrupt nature. Scarcity is what such minds and hearts know.

Anyone who has had the privilege of knowing you through your writings knows you have what the two prejudiced faculty miss: a caring heart and a first tier mind.

[OnyxCollie]

6. My advocate didn't have tenure, so he kept his mouth shut.

He was the one who passed me on the final comprehensive exam, and he was one of two who approved my thesis, but he was not the professor who warned me about the two who failed me. That professor was outnumbered on the committee who heard my appeal.

Most of the poll-sci department hated me. They were lazy, arrogant, egotistical, and WRONG.

I entered grad school to get an understanding of what the Bush administration was doing, while trying to avoid what Sunstein and Vermeule call a "crippled epistemology."

I studied how the media presents terrorism. I studied SCOTUS cases to understand domestic surveillance. I studied SCOTUS cases to understand the US Attorney scandal. I studied the Hatch Act to understand how the GSA was being used for political campaigning. I studied public policy and the procurement process to understand what Halliburtion et al. was doing in Iraq. I studied Al Qaeda to understand the military tribunals and torture. I studied global biological health threats to understand the response to the anthrax attack.

In 2009, I was told by one of the professors who failed me that the Bush administration invaded Iraq because they were afraid of Saddam Hussein. (A simple miscalculation, easily explained by general political theory. Of course, it doesn't explain domestic surveillance, no-bid contracts, and torture, but instead leaves that to weaker ad hoc explanations.)

In 2010, I wanted to study domestic surveillance and corporate illegal activity for my thesis, but was told by the same professor, "That is not a topic worthy of serious consideration."

In 2011, in the office of one of my professors, I was scolded like a child for about five minutes for daring to suggest that the US is a near-totalitarian state. "The US is not a totalitarian state," the professor told me, "because we have FaceBook."

I was asked by one of the professors who failed me, "Do you want to be a social advocate, or do you want to be a political scientist?" (as if the two were mutually exclusive.)

University presidents are assailed for the presence on their faculties of "reds," or "blues." They may reply, as did President Frank recently, that the existence of both hues of opinion is a guarantee of impartiality. The authentic professors themselves differ as to their responsibility to the student. Honest advocacy, declares one, opens the mind; studied objectivity is hypocrisy thinly disguised. Can an elementary school teacher with no views on matters of social importance be other than dully useful? No claim of special sanctity can relieve schools of the necessity of dealing with the uncertainties upon which propaganda feeds.

Wooddy, C. H. (1935). Education and propaganda. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 179, p. 228.

I was called "paranoid," "passionate" (as a pejorative term), and a "conspiracy theorist" by my professors.

Two months after I lost my appeal, Edward Snowden appeared and vindicated me. (Actually, it was worse than I had thought.)

I'm still a little bitter.

[rockfordfile]

7. I don't like Uribe. The guy has essentially supporter murder