Humans are funny birds. We get so wrapped up in habits, comfort zones, and traditions that sometimes we forget who we are, what we care about, and why we even do what we do. Thanksgiving is one such instance, sadly exemplified by its alternative name: "Turkey Day." Thanksgiving is meant to be a day when we celebrate the bounty of the harvest, pause in gratitude for the abundance most of us experience, and share what we have with others. Most people don't stop to think about the nearly 300 million birds that are killed each year in the United States, just to satisfy our taste buds. Of this number, 45 million are killed for Thanksgiving alone.
As someone who teaches vegetarian cooking classes, I've seen many people turn away from meat, dairy and eggs and embrace the array of delicious, nutritious plant-based foods available to us. I've also seen them change the lens through which they view the world, which I think is critical for shedding the comfort zones of the past and creating new ones. Some people have a real fear that they will no longer have satisfying, filling meals -- especially on Thanksgiving. I can say with confidence that they can put their fears to rest.

Our Thanksgiving feast every year is full of comfort foods galore, prepared with organic ingredients from local farms: mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, bread & nut stuffing, mashed rutabagas, cranberries with pecans, stuffed acorn squash, corn bread, Brussels sprouts, corn, peas, pumpkin pie with cashew cream, and apple pie. This was our menu last year, and I'm sure I've left something out. Indeed, there is no dearth of food on our table on this special day, as we share it with our closest friends and family.

For those who have never met them, turkeys are magnificent animals, full of spunk and spark and affection, with individual personalities and charms. These animals, who have been abused and discarded by human beings, whose beaks and toes have been mutilated, and whose genetically overgrown bodies are susceptible to heart disease and leg deformities, still display immense affection towards humans. They are incredibly curious and follow you wherever you go, and their wonderful vocalizations include an array of clucks, purrs, coos, and cackles.

Turkeys love to be caressed, and people often remark that they respond just like their own dogs and cats. Turkeys even make a purring sound when they are content, and not until you've had a hen fall asleep under your arm have you lived. She will literally melt under your touch, relax her body, and begin to close her eyes, softly clucking all the while. It's a sight to see, and I'm moved every time I have the privilege to witness it.

Some turkeys are more affectionate than others, climbing into your lap and making themselves as comfortable as can be. At an animal sanctuary I frequent, a particularly friendly turkey became known for her propensity to hug. As soon as you crouched down, she would run over to you, press her body against yours, and crane her head over your shoulders, clucking all the while. It's amazing how so generous a hug can be given by something with no arms.

They're not all saints, but some are heroes. One turkey became my personal protector when I was trying to clean a barn and was continually accosted by a particularly rude and aggressive bird. Each time the aggressor would begin to close in on me, my hero would waddle over and get between me and his barn-mate. It was remarkable, and it happened over and over (turkeys are very persistent). What made this scene even more touching was the fact that these toms suffered from bumble foot, abscesses on the footpads that resemble corns, a common occurrence in domesticated turkeys. Between their grotesquely large breasts and inflamed feet, turkeys walk very awkwardly and with a lot of effort. I was very touched that such an effort was made on my behalf.

I grew up eating turkeys' breasts, turkeys' legs, and turkeys' wings, and I'm still making amends to these extraordinary animals. I believe we're able to mutilate certain animals for our gustatory pleasure because we don't have relationships with them. We've never meet them face to face. Once I met a turkey, I was never the same again. Once I began to celebrate Thanksgiving as turkey-free holiday, I learned for the first time what "Happy Turkey Day" really means.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is a recognized expert in plant-based cuisine, a food columnist for VegNews Magazine and a contributing writer to Satya Magazine.

Comment: While we appreciate the necessity for persons with type A blood to stick mostly to a vegetarian diet, we here at SOTT still prefer turkey.

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It is now conventional wisdom that the 2006 election was decided on two major issues: Iraq and corruption. Exit polls show that's the case, and even Karl Rove admits it. That this storyline has become such a given is particularly humorous for me. It was just a few months ago that I was criss-crossing the country on a 40-city tour for my book,Hostile Takeover, telling audiences not to listen to Washington pundits who said corruption important; that, in fact, corruption was going to play a major role in the election, and that if Democrats refused to take the issue seriously when they claimed the majority, we could be in for the shortest congressional majority of the last century.
But, many people I met asked, "What does it mean for Democrats to take the issue 'seriously'?" The answer is simple: They must attack not only the headline-grabbing excesses of gifts, trips and meals, but also, more significantly, go after the core of the problem, which is the nexus of money and politics. Specifically, they must push to publicly finance all congressional elections.

I know, I know-I and other groups like Public Campaign have probably sounded like a broken record on this issue for a long time now. But that's only because the campaign financing system really is at the root of corruption. We have a system that is legalized bribery-legal campaign contributions go in, and legal legislative favors go out. But just because it is legal, doesn't mean it isn't unethical and isn't one of the major reasons why our government can no longer solve problems. It is. A government cannot solve problems if members of Congress making decisions are forced by virtue of their campaign finances to appease the Big Money interests that are often at the root of those problems.

So what are the prospects for congressional action on public financing with an election mandate at lawmakers' back? Here is a look at the proponents and opponents-and what will make the difference.

The Good Signs

Buried in a Sunday New York Times article we get our first glimpse of the major players pushing real reform:

"Spurred by the election results, several Democrats in addition to [Illinois Democratic senator] Mr. [Barack] Obama are pushing bigger changes. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, is preparing a proposal for some form of public financing or free broadcast time for congressional candidates to reduce their dependence on campaign donors. Common Cause says that 21 newly elected Democrats, more than half the class, and 69 incumbents have signed a pledge endorsing the idea."

SEN. OBAMA: This is the part of the job I dislike the most, which is having to raise money. It is something that none of us are immune from because of the amount of money that has to be raised in order to get on television and run campaigns. It is a problem that I have to deal with, it's a problem that John McCain has to deal with, it's a problem that Russ Feingold has to deal with. It's something that all of us wrestle with. My belief in terms of moving forward on the ethics legislation is that we've got some low-hanging fruit that we should take care of right away...There are some easy things that we can do that hopefully will build momentum for some of the tougher stuff, which involves, how do we reduce the enormous amounts of money in politics generally? And those are going to be some tough questions, because they might involve, for example, asking the question, "Why don't we have free television time, for candidates, to reduce the amounts of costs?" My suspicion is that NBC, just like ABC and CBS, wouldn't necessarily be wild about those approaches, but that's the kind of conversation over the long term we're going to have to have. This is a starting point.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you consider public financing of campaigns?

SEN. OBAMA: I think that we should consider all approaches that would reduce the amounts of money that are required for campaigns.

"[Public financing] has never gained much traction in Congress, in part because lawmakers balk at the notion of helping challengers who want their jobs. 'You use taxpayer dollars to finance people who may not only be fringe candidates but-I was going to use the term 'nut'-may be mentally incompetent,' Ms. Feinstein said."

Danger to the Dollar

Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now an executive at Citigroup, has been up-front for months in warning of the unsustainability of the Greenspan "wall of money" economy. In statements widely circulated on the Bloomberg financial wire Nov. 15, Rubin said the failure to stem the growing U.S. budget deficit may spook the central banks, hedge funds, and others who have been buying U.S. Treasury notes. "It seems almost inconceivable that this will continue indefinitely," Rubin said, in a videotaped message for a dinner hosted by the Concord Coalition. In a panel discussion at the event, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker concurred, saying that the U.S. borrowing requirements raise the risk of "crisis." "It's incredible people have gone on so long holding dollars. At some point, you will get a situation where people have had enough."

While the time frame Rubin cited for a dollar collapse-two and a half years-is highly understated, he has done his best to convey a sense of urgency about the crisis which the unsustainable borrowing, and speculation, promoted by the Bush Administration, has created.

On Nov. 16, a report by the Treasury Department confirmed the directionality Rubin has been pointing to. Foreign capital flows into the U.S. in September were at "only" $53 billion, starting to fall below the level of funding the monthly U.S. current account deficit. After eight to nine months of inflow in the $80-$100 billion range, it dropped in August to about $65 billion. Net purchase of U.S. Treasuries was also at just about $53 billion, with a net foreign sell-off of short-term T-Bills, and big inflow into long-term T-Notes and Bonds.

While the value of the U.S. dollar is already falling, the collapse in foreign capital inflow could turn it into a rout.

Those Ballooning Derivatives

On Nov. 10, none other than Administration insider, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan, issued his own warning about the danger of a shock to the financial system. He spoke to the New York Bankers Association meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, specifically on the question of derivatives.

Although Dugan's statement was couched in all sorts of reassuring language about the ability of the large banks to "control" the situation, to anyone in the know, his message read more like a warning. Derivatives (i.e., gambling) dominate the world financial environment, whether individual banks are involved in them or not, Dugan emphasized, and if the large U.S. commercial banks-which represent 20% of the total global volume of derivatives-should stumble, that would affect the health of all banks in the United States (he could have also said, the world).

Why should all bankers be concerned about "risks" in the derivatives markets? Dugan asked rhetorically. "Because significant mismanagement of these risks could precipitate market disruptions that affect public confidence in financial institutions generally."

With one in six national banks using derivatives, he said, total credit exposure has now hit $199 billion. This, he stressed, is much less than the total notional value of outstanding derivatives, $119 trillion (an understated figure, according to EIR estimates), but vigilance is required. There must be "constructive cooperation between government and the industry," Dugan said, citing the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (known as the Plunge Protection Team, for its obvious work in pumping liquidity into failing stock markets), and cooperation between derivatives traders and supervisors as examples.

In moving to the question of risk, Dugan understates the case, but, in bankers' language, he succeeds in conveying the danger. I quote:

"As I've already noted, at $199 billion, the net current credit exposure numbers in the banking system are very large... [discussion of how derivatives traders demand additional collateral]. In sum, the very large amount of net current credit exposures arising from derivatives activities of large banks is not quite as worrisome as it may first appear....

"Nevertheless, derivatives credit exposure remains a real and quite significant risk. Fierce competition can have the effect of reducing the level of collateral protection that banks require. Unexpected market disruptions or other stress events can produce dramatic increases in credit exposures that can blow through the collateral required for more predictable market scenarios. Many derivatives counterparties are highly leveraged, producing less room for error in credit judgments. And the balance sheets of such counterparties are frequently opaque, making it impossible for bank dealers to assess risks embedded in 'away trade' that don't involve that bank. For all these reasons, we and other regulators will continue to closely monitor margin levels, stress testing, scenario analysis, and other tools that derivatives dealers need to use effectively to manage derivatives credit risk" (emphasis added).

Of course, monitoring will not stop a blowout, which could occur any day.

That Imploding Real Estate Bubble

Another U.S. financial overseer, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enteprise Oversight James Lockhart, weighed in with a warning on Nov. 9, involving the thoroughly alarming and dramatic statistics on the melting U.S. housing bubble. Also speaking to the New York Bankers Association conference, Lockhart called for bank-regulatory-like powers in order to address "significant" implications to financial markets and institutions of the potential "severe financial difficulties" at the "highly leveraged" Federal mortgage lending agencies known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As of the end of 2005, these two government-sponsored enterprises together owned or guaranteed more than 40% of the residential mortgages in the United States, or about $4 trillion in debt, including mortgage-backed securities. Such rapid growth of portfolios held by Fannie/Freddie, he insisted, has increased "their own potential for causing systemic events."

Banks now face great risk through their overwhelming exposure to mortgage debt, which has since 2000 grown so explosively that it dominates bank and brokerage assets-and which is now falling more and more sharply, as plunging rates of new home starts reported again on Nov. 17, clearly showed. Lockhart said. "In particular, banks with large amounts of this debt could experience losses and liquidity problems, "resulting in a reduction in bank lending or even bank failures." More than 60% of banks held Fannie/Freddie debt, and mortgage-backed securities, and in combination these are worth over 50% (!) of those banks' Tier 1 capital, as of the end of 2005. Many mortgage lenders also "would have difficulties maintaining their business models," Lockhart said blandly.

In fact, none of these impending crises-in the banks, derivatives markets, and housing market-can be prevented, or dealt with, without junking the current bankrupt system, dumping masses of unpayable speculative debt, and putting the financial system back on a sound basis. If these warnings result in alerting policy-makers to study that solution, which has been put forward by Lyndon LaRouche, they will have served a good purpose.



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"As I've already noted, at $199 billion, the net current credit exposure numbers in the banking system are very large... [discussion of how derivatives traders demand additional collateral]. In sum, the very large amount of net current credit exposures arising from derivatives activities of large banks is not quite as worrisome as it may first appear....

"Nevertheless, derivatives credit exposure remains a real and quite significant risk. Fierce competition can have the effect of reducing the level of collateral protection that banks require. Unexpected market disruptions or other stress events can produce dramatic increases in credit exposures that can blow through the collateral required for more predictable market scenarios. Many derivatives counterparties are highly leveraged, producing less room for error in credit judgments. And the balance sheets of such counterparties are frequently opaque, making it impossible for bank dealers to assess risks embedded in 'away trade' that don't involve that bank. For all these reasons, we and other regulators will continue to closely monitor margin levels, stress testing, scenario analysis, and other tools that derivatives dealers need to use effectively to manage derivatives credit risk" (emphasis added).

The acting director of the White House Travel Office was robbed and beaten in Waikiki early on Tuesday morning outside a nightclub, according to Honolulu police.

"He was knocked down, punched, kicked -- his wallet and id were stolen," Honolulu Police Department Capt. Frank Fujii said.

Pitts' passport and international phone were also taken.

Pitts left the bar alone. He walked through International Marketplace, where he was confronted by three men beaten up and robbed, according to a source familiar with the case.

Two of the three Honolulu Police Department motorcycle officers involved in a crash while escorting President George W. Bush to Hickam Air Force Base are in serious condition at The Queen's Medical Center.

The motorcycles reportedly slipped indvidually on a rain-slicked roadway at about 7:10 a.m near the base entry area.

City Emergency Services transported two of the officers to the medical center. Police officials said that by mid-morning two of the officers were in serious condition and the other was in good condition.

First Daughter Barbara Bush had her purse and cell phone stolen as she had dinner in a restaurant in Buenos Aires, Argentina, even though she was being guarded by a detail of Secret Service agents, according to law enforcement reports made available to ABC News.

The purse snatching took place on Barbara's first night in town while she was dining in the picturesque San Telmo neighborhood. According to the reports, the Secret Service agents failed to notice the incident.

A Secret Service agent on the advance detail got into an "altercation" with someone after a night out and was badly beaten, according to the law enforcement reports. The Secret Service said today the incident was an attempted mugging that occurred while the agent was on his own time. The agent is doing fine.

[W]e're living through one of those moments in military history where a powerful, successful military model runs into its limitations. The military-industrial steamroller that won WW II for us and the Soviets was a glorious thing, but then so was the phalanx, and the medieval heavy cavalry, and the British square. They all hit a wall eventually, and so have we. ... [W]hat we've got now is a huge gap between the military force a superpower has and what it's actually ready to use. We've got a problem in the Sunni Triangle, and we're fighting it with mid-20th century weapons, armor and cannon and air strikes. Sure, it's much better armor, cannon and air support than we had in 1944, but we're talking little refinements of old weapons. Cannon have been around for 600 years, people! A 25mm chain cannon is just a much smaller, faster, more accurate version of the humongous, sloppy tubes that blasted the walls of Constantinople in 1453.

Other examples of successful CI, like the Brits against Chinese commies in Malaysia in the 1950s, are a lot more like El Salvador than Baghdad: small groups (ethnic Chinese in Malay territory) with nothing but an ideology to keep up their morale. Ideology, compared to tribal loyalties like we're facing in Iraq, is weak stuff, soymilk compared to Jagermeister. Commies didn't strap on suicide vests like the Jihadis do. We're up against a clan, a big old clan that will fight to the last dummy. Taking out the leadership just won't do it.

Giving the insurgency enough rope to hang itself with an endless civil war. I wish I had time to go into details, but basically what you do is identify the weak element among the insurgent leadership, strengthen it vs. the hardliners (and here's where having a good assassination squad or two can help, by wiping out the most effective hardline commanders) and then force the weak faction to sign a treaty with you.

It's a sure thing that the hardliners won't accept the deal, but it's just as sure the moderates won't give up power, because (a) they like it, and (b) they don't want to be tortured to death along with their entire families. So booya! You've got a nice civil war going between what used to be comrades in insurgency, and you can play one faction against the other, keeping them both weak. You can't stay in open power as the foreign occupier, but you can take a terrible revenge, because this kind of war is one long massacre, neighbor vs. neighbor.

The Israelis tried to do exactly the same thing by ceding Gaza and bits of the West Bank to the PLO. They had Hamas waiting, way tougher and younger than Fatah, and hoped the Pals would duke it out - the old, weak Arafat cronies vs. the bloods from Hamas. The reason they knew Hamas was in the mood to go to the mattress is that it was the Israeli secret services that created Hamas in the first place, as a "counterweight" to the quasi-commie PLO. Hamas was going to be the dumb Islamic faction that would harass the PLO into ineffectiveness, as if the PLO ever needed any help getting there. Well, it worked a little too well. Two intifadas and one Hamas leadership later, the Israelis would give anything to have a pitiful coward pol like Arafat back in charge, instead of these crazy Hamas guys with 17 children each and a bad case of martyr-envy.

See, that's the problem: you set up two insurgent factions at each other's throats and you're likely to be running a tournament, with the meanest and most determined bastards winning. And that's not who you want for neighbors. The Israelis had some early successes sparking feuds between Palestinian factions. ... The hard part, and the part where the Israelis lost their nerve, is staying out of the way long enough to let the puppet government you've set up get strong enough to take on the hardliners in a really big, bloody civil war. ... The Israelis couldn't stay out of the little Palestinian pockets they'd handed over to the PLO, because some Hamas or Islamic Jihad kid would blow himself up in a Tel Aviv deli and the public would demand that the IAF go blast some Pal refugee camp. It made the public happy, but then the public, any public, is a moron. And in the long run, it meant that the Pals never stopped having some new Israeli raid to be mad about, so they couldn't get around to the next step of hating each other enough to get a decent civil war going.

Nobody runs the insurgency, and nobody really runs the Shia militias either, not at national level. Sadr? He's their poster boy as long as he mouths off the way the hardliners want, but he'll go the way of Sistani if he tries to curb the boys' enthusiasm. They don't need help. They're having the time of their lives. It's not so much fun for the other focus groups, like women and men over 25 but for Iraqi boys from 15-25, these are the Wonder Years. The key measurement for insurgencies in all these strategies is leadership, ranging from the almost Inca-style pyramid structure of the VC/NVA to total chaos. The steeper the pyramid, the more room you have to play with CI options, especially the ones involving negotiation. The more chaotic and localized the insurgents, the more you start thinking about those nice, clean red diameter-circles you get with our old friends the nukes.