Sandra Finley

2015-09-12 The Neoliberal Arts, How college sold its soul to the market. Harper’s Magazine.

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Take back the University  No Responses »
Sep 122015
 
September 12, 2015: [The aftermath of 9/11][Disarmament][Refugees][Rupert Murdoch]

Essay — From the September 2015 issue
The Neoliberal Arts
How college sold its soul to the market

By

Download Pdf
Read Online
Single Page
Print Page
( 2 of 8 )

 

This is education in the age of neoliberalism. Call it Reaganism or Thatcherism, economism or market fundamentalism, neoliberalism is an ideology that reduces all values to money values. The worth of a thing is the price of the thing. The worth of a person is the wealth of the person. Neoliberalism tells you that you are valuable exclusively in terms of your activity in the marketplace — in Wordsworth’s phrase, your getting and spending.

The purpose of education in a neoliberal age is to produce producers. I published a book last year that said that, by and large, elite American universities no longer provide their students with a real education, one that addresses them as complete human beings rather than as future specialists — that enables them, as I put it, to build a self or (following Keats) to become a soul. Of all the responses the book aroused, the most dismaying was this: that so many individuals associated with those institutions said not, “Of course we provide our students with a real education,” but rather, “What is this ‘real education’ nonsense, anyway?”

A representative example came from Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist:

Perhaps I am emblematic of everything that is wrong with elite American education, but I have no idea how to get my students to build a self or become a soul. It isn’t taught in graduate school, and in the hundreds of faculty appointments and promotions I have participated in, we’ve never evaluated a candidate on how well he or she could accomplish it.

Pinker is correct. He is emblematic of everything that is wrong with elite American education. David Brooks, responding to both Pinker and myself, laid out the matter very clearly. College, he noted, has three potential purposes: the commercial (preparing to start a career), the cognitive (learning stuff, or better, learning how to think), and the moral (the purpose that is so mysterious to Pinker and his ilk). “Moral,” here, does not mean learning right from wrong. It means developing the ability to make autonomous choices — to determine your own beliefs, independent of parents, peers, and society. To live confidently, courageously, and hopefully.

00028__JulieCockburn-Harpers-1509-630. -1

Only the commercial purpose now survives as a recognized value. Even the cognitive purpose, which one would think should be the center of a college education, is tolerated only insofar as it contributes to the commercial. Everybody knows that the percentage of students majoring in English has plummeted since the 1960s. But the percentage majoring in the physical sciences — physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and so forth — has fallen even more, by some 60 percent. As of 2013, only 1.5 percent of students graduated with a degree in one of those subjects, and only 1.1 percent in math. At most colleges, the lion’s share of undergraduates majors in vocational fields: business, communications, education, health. But even at elite institutions, the most popular majors are the practical, or, as Brooks might say, the commercial ones: economics, biology, engineering, and computer science.

It is not the humanities per se that are under attack. It is learning: learning for its own sake, curiosity for its own sake, ideas for their own sake. It is the liberal arts, but understood in their true meaning, as all of those fields in which knowledge is pursued as an end in itself, the sciences and social sciences included. History, sociology, and political-science majors endure the same kind of ritual hazing (“Oh, so you decided to go for the big bucks”) as do people who major in French or philosophy. Governor Rick Scott of Florida has singled out anthropology majors as something that his state does not need more of. Everybody talks about the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and math — but no one’s really interested in science, and no one’s really interested in math: interested in funding them, interested in having their kids or their constituents pursue careers in them. That leaves technology and engineering, which means (since the second is a subset of the first) it leaves technology.

2015-09-09 KPMG Offshore sham deceived tax authorities, CRA alleges. Multi-millionaire clients paid virtually no tax in Isle of Man scheme, court documents show

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Sep 092015
 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/kpmg-offshore-sham-deceived-tax-authorities-cra-alleges-1.3209838

By Harvey Cashore, Dave Seglins and Frederic Zalac, CBC News

A wealthy Victoria, B.C., family paid virtually no tax over a span of eight years – and even obtained federal and provincial tax credits – while being involved in an offshore tax “sham” developed by one of the country’s most respected accounting firms, the Canada Revenue Agency alleges.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) believes there may be many more like them.

Court documents obtained by CBC News and Ici Radio-Canada show that in 2000, Peter Cooper and his two adult sons, Marshall and Richard, signed up for a KPMG tax product in the Isle of Man that targeted “high net worth” Canadian residents, promising they would pay “no tax” on their investments.

In 2013, the CRA obtained a judicial order demanding KPMG hand over the names of all the wealthy clients who set up shell companies in the Isle of Man, a small, self-governing territory in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland.

KPMG Canada is fighting that decision in federal court.

Documents show that between 2002 and 2010, the Cooper family paid little or no tax, despite receiving nearly $6 million from an offshore company. KPMG lawyers claim any money the Coopers received were “gifts” and therefore non-taxable.

If you have any more information on this story, please e-mail investigations@cbc.ca or contact Harvey Cashore at 416-526-4704.

The CRA alleges that the KPMG tax structure was in reality a “sham” that intended to deceive the taxman – and that both the Coopers and KPMG knew that $26 million hidden in offshore accounts actually belonged to the Coopers.

“The parties to the structure willfully presented its transactions as being different from what they knew them to be,” the Revenue Agency said in tax court filings in Vancouver.

The CRA also alleges that the Coopers received federal and provincial tax credits during the years they were not declaring the income from the Isle of Man. In 2009, for example, Richard Cooper claimed the full home renovation tax credit on a home in Victoria.

The CRA has slapped the Cooper family with an order to repay millions in unpaid taxes and penalties in a “grossly negligent” scheme the CRA says was set up to “avoid detection” by tax authorities.

‘I’m being drawn into this’

 

Marshall Cooper

B.C. resident Marshall Cooper said he was unaware of Canadian tax laws when he emigrated from South Africa in the mid-1990s. (Facebook)

When reached at his home in Victoria, Marshall Cooper said he was unaware of Canadian tax laws when he emigrated from South Africa in the mid-1990s.

 

“I went to the best people in the country. I’m being drawn into this, and I don’t think I should have been in the first place,” he says.

Cooper referred inquiries to KPMG, which is also representing the Coopers in their appeal in tax court.

KPMG declined to speak to CBC News about the allegations.

“Professional standards and obligations preclude us from disclosing, responding to, or discussing any matters that involve clients,” Kira Froese, KPMG Canada’s director of communications, wrote in an e-mail. “It is inappropriate for us to comment on matters that may be before the courts.”

KPMG Canada, which is both a tax and auditing firm, is perhaps best known for helping the federal government crack down on public misspending. Yet in the Coopers’ court case, it is alleged the accounting giant’s Offshore Company Structure intentionally deceived the federal government. The structure “is a sham and was intended to deceive the Minister,” the CRA alleges in court documents.

‘For internal use only’

Documents filed in court by the CRA also shed light on a secret internal KPMG marketing campaign that had escaped the scrutiny of tax collectors for more than a decade.

 

Isle of Man

Court documents obtained by CBC News show that in 2000, a wealthy B.C. family signed up for a KPMG tax product in the Isle of Man, pictured, that targeted “high net worth” Canadian residents, promising they would pay “no tax” on their investments. (CBC)

 

As far back as 1999, a “product alert” was sent to all KPMG tax practitioners across the country and strictly marked “for internal use only – not for distribution or circulation outside the firm.”

 

The memo outlined a plan that would “target” wealthy Canadian residents worth at least $10 million. It offered them “confidentiality,” protection from creditors and the ability to receive money “free of tax.”

In return, KPMG would take a 15 per cent cut of the taxes dodged. Successful KPMG sales agents and accountants were referred to as product “champions.”

Dennis Howlett, the executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, wants to know exactly how much KPMG Canada and its sales agents profited from the offshore scheme.

“They were given the incentive that they could collect 15 per cent of the taxes avoided,” he said. “We’re talking about millions of dollars here.”

KPMG did not respond to specific CBC queries about how many multi-millionaires invested in their “Offshore Company Structure” nor how much money the accounting firm made in sales and commissions.

Marshall Cooper told CBC News he believes there are many more like him. “It’s huge – huge,” Cooper said, speculating the CRA may find many more KPMG OCS clients.

Millions in undeclared ‘gifts’

According to CRA documents filed in court, Marshall Cooper lived in a posh home in Victoria but paid only $3,049 in total taxes between 2002 and 2011.

He even received tax credits worth $5,420, the CRA alleges.

Government auditors discovered the family invested in excess of $26 million back in 2002 and 2003 with help from KPMG. The money was handed to an offshore company called “Ogral” set up in the Isle of Man, but registered in other people’s names.

The CRA alleges the Coopers first “purported to gift their wealth” to the offshore company.  However, for years they received millions in non-taxable “gifts” back from Ogral that the CRA alleges were never reported on tax returns.

In their court filings, the Coopers insisted they obtained “substantial professional advice” when KPMG helped to set up the company in the Isle of Man. In their defence, the Coopers also say they consulted the law firm Fraser Milner Casgrain (now Dentons) before proceeding.

In the Cooper case, one CRA court pleading notes KPMG collected $300,000 in fees from the family between 2002 and 2008 based on the amount saved through the tax shelter.

KPMG lawyer Mark Meredith is representing the Cooper family in tax court. In a recent CRA court filing, however, the tax agency names Meredith, as well as now-retired KPMG tax partner Barrie Philp, as being the very ones who “developed the idea of an offshore company structure.”

Dalhousie tax professor Geoffrey Loomer says that if the allegations against KPMG hold up in court, the case may have implications for the entire accounting industry.

“It seems to me it’s bad from the point of view of the advisors involved, but it’s also just, you know, an instance of a larger problem where you have high-wealth, high-income taxpayers arguably not paying their fair share,” Loomer says.

“So it just means that more of the tax burden is borne by the middle class.”

2015-02-03 The War You Don’t See, extended. Propaganda.

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Propaganda, Take back the University  No Responses »
Sep 032015
 

RE  John Pilger’s  documentary, The War You Don’t See   https://vimeo.com/67739294.  

Journalists, administrators speak frankly of their personal shame for reporting the propaganda spewed out by the Government spin doctors (propaganda) for the Iraq War.     (At the URL  scroll down through the white space,  there’s a white bar,  click on the left end of it.)

It takes courage to expose yourself in this fashion,  recorded for all to see and hear.  The film is well worth your time.

(I happen coincidentally to be reading Ronald Wright’s What is America? (2008), a myth-busting book about the history of the violence of the U.S.)

 

BLESS JOHN PILGER  for being a journalist who so effectively calls his fellow journalists to account.   Democracy otherwise drowns in seas of propaganda, a real and imposing threat to us today.   How many are aware?

ASIDE:   Earlier postings related to Pilger

 

BIG DEAL IF I APPLAUD PILGER.    (The War You Don’t See . . . EXTENDED)  

What can I do to help John Pilger / his worthy work fighting propaganda ?   . . .   hmmm   . . .   the Universities have become instruments for propaganda.

I was taken aback by Julie Cafley’s recent analysis in the Globe and Mail of the problems at the universities.  The elephant in the ivory towers is corporate influence which she does not even mention.  That is a very serious omission.   It is the vehicle by which the Universities become and are the propagandists.   So I wrote

Reply to Globe&Mail, “Universities need a new model of governance” by Julie Cafley

But why would Cafley be obtuse to the problem?   . . .  what is this organization for which she is a Vice-President,  Canada’s Public Policy Forum?

http://www.ppforum.ca/      Aaaaah!    Take a look.   Explains everything.   These guys PROMOTE corporate inclusion.    

 

I am no John Pilger.   But I can help out.   I left a message on Julie Cafley’s voice mail.  613-238-7858 Ext: 229.   She did not reply.   I need to email her:    julie.cafley@ppforum.ca

I think we have to directly challenge – – well, we actually have to stop – –  these people who so blithely sell-out our democracy.    Corporatized universities are in the propaganda business.    Propaganda is necessary to fascism.

John Pilger understands that.   Most of us understand that.   Why doesn’t a PhD know that?

 

– – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

RELATED:

2012-05-21    Heist of the century: university corruption and the financial crisis. Extract from “Inside Job”.

2004-11-02   “The Insider”, “The Corporation”, & J K Galbraith’s “The Economics of Innocent Fraud”  

 

 

 

2015-09-02 Reply to Globe&Mail, “Universities need a new model of governance” by Julie Cafley

 Take back the University  No Responses »
Sep 022015
 

Universities need a new model of governance,

Globe&Mail, by Julie Cafley

Text and URL to access the on-line Comments is appended.

MY RESPONSE: 

Cafley does not mention the large problem of corporate infiltration of educational institutions.  Fortunately, many of the Comments do.

Will the professor steadfastly serve the public interest in unbiased research and teaching when a corporate entity is the funder?  “Knowledge” for corporate purposes is known as advertising.  In the common vernacular it is “propaganda”.   Example:  Monsanto provided millions of dollars for the Agriculture College at the U of S and has continued to fund research.  Will students learn anything other than GMO agriculture?  The Govt (both under the NDP and the Sask Party (Conservative)) supports the industry financially.  Now there is, in addition to the Ag College, The Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the U.  It is a marketing vehicle for the industry.  The lobbying machine for the chemical-biotech corporations is CropLife Canada.  Lorne Hepworth was a Cabinet Minister in the Conservative Govt of Grant Devine.   When the Conservatives were ousted he became the Head of CropLife, for decades.  He now sits on the Board of GIFS at the University.   There are many lawyers at the U of S.   Yet none of them will disallow a clear conflict-of-interest in the little fiefdom.

The list of transgressions is long.   Dalhousie University taking money from Lockheed Martin Corporation under terms that give the corporation large influence in the teaching and research.

An insidious corporatization of the universities is through The Minerva Initiative.  It’s American.  In Canada we have the “U15” which appears to be taking Canadian universities along a similar path.

http://minerva.dtic.mil/overview.html  http://minerva.dtic.mil/overview.html

“The Minerva Initiative is a Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored, university-based social science research initiative launched by the Secretary of Defense in 2008 focusing on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy.

“The goal of the Minerva Initiative is to improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.  The research program will:

•   Leverage and focus the resources of the Nation’s top universities. …  “

The takeover of our knowledge base is not limited to the “hard” sciences.  It is a cancer that extends into many aspects of education.

I am particularly concerned about that which is absolutely essential for a functioning democracy,  learning that citizens have trusted our educational institutions to deliver.  Corporatized “education” turns out “yes people”, “consumers” without the skills and understanding to participate meaningfully in their (withering) democracy.

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/universities-need-a-new-model-of-governance/article26024030/).

Universities need a new model of governance

JULIE CAFLEY

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published

Last updated

Julie Cafley is vice-president at Canada’s Public Policy Forum. Her research focuses on higher education leadership.

When former University of British Columbia president Martha Piper was asked in 2011 about the impact a university president has, her swift response, after nearly 10 years at the helm before her retirement in 2006 was, “not much.” As Ms. Piper returns to the university as interim president after Arvind Gupta’s hasty departure this month, would she say the same thing today?

And there lies one of the many paradoxes of universities. What other type of institution would consider denying the essential role of its chief leader? Universities are a place where academics who aspire to climb higher are relatively unsupported, and often discouraged from leaving their research and teaching roles. But when they do make the transition from doing to leading, they give up power to stakeholders, always negotiating carefully their support to promote change.

As we’ve witnessed through the public misalignment between UBC faculty and the board, universities don’t work in a typical hierarchical fashion. Universities are not businesses. Thought leadership is not for sale.

University presidents are coming under the microscope in an unprecedented manner. Is this increased accountability making universities stronger? Or are we wasting precious time and resources, decreasing the pool of potential presidential candidates, and subsequently weakening the productivity of our country’s universities? Take a quick look at a few examples in the past six months of the lives of Canadian university presidents.

Ilene Busch-Vishniac was fired last year in a dramatic controversy at the University of Saskatchewan, less than two years into her mandate. She’s launched an $8.5-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the university, naming Premier Brad Wall and the former minister of advanced education among the defendants.

Richard Florizone dealt with uncertainty at Dalhousie when a controversy erupted over misogynistic comments some of the university’s male dentistry students made on Facebook. With the support of his board, Mr. Florizone showed strong leadership through turbulent times.

At the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, Nadia Ghazzali stepped down three years into her mandate after a Quebec government report heavily criticized the school’s governance.

The University of Western Ontario’s Amit Chakma was under fire for receiving double pay at the end of his first mandate, as outlined in his contract with the board. He seems to have survived the controversy, despite a rocky ride from faculty members.

UBC’s Mr. Gupta resigned earlier this month, only one year into his five-year mandate. While the reason for his resignation remains unclear, early signs point to issues of board governance.

Over the past few years, my PhD research has led me to some of the 18 Canadian university presidents who resigned or were fired before the end of their contracts. Many of these presidents share a common story. Each spoke of discord with the board. A lack of communication, a misunderstanding of the academic enterprise, issues related to hiring and transition, and a misaligned relationship with the board chair were some of the concerns they expressed.

All shared a concern about mistrust within their executive team. In many cases, a vice-president worked against the president, communicating directly with the board.

Universities are a paradox. While their governance structures are slow and process-driven, professors enjoy a high degree of flexibility and independence. Universities should be innovative and forward-thinking, yet, conservatism of governance structures plagues many universities and impedes change.

University presidents are juggling multiple relationships with many stakeholders who often hold a contradicting view of the role. They are lead fundraisers, institutional ambassadors, chief pedagogues and government lobbyists. They answer to board members, faculty, students, donors, alumni and government. A committee of 22 people chose Mr. Gupta in a global search that lasted about two years. Did the board fail in hiring or in supporting their leader? The issue of board governance is at the core of this storm. Universities are built on a model of shared governance. They are disruptive institutions where academic freedom and questioning the status quo are a cornerstone of higher learning.

We need to support university leaders through turbulent times and improve governance models. We need to do a better job learning from leadership failures and building our universities to compete on the global stage. We can do better

2015-08-27 How UBC lost a president

 Take back the University  No Responses »
Sep 022015
 

http://www.ppforum.ca/news-room/how-ubc-lost-president

By Simona Chiose and Frances Bula

August 27, 2015 — An unusual group had assembled at the Point Grey campus residence of Arvind Gupta, the president of the University of British Columbia. The gathering was made up of professors and associate deans from the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses, from science to arts and humanities. For a few hours last March, they had the president’s undivided attention.

Dr. Gupta’s spring session on the leafy UBC grounds was atypical in that it did not include administrators, staff and students who generally advise a university president.

“The argument that he made was that he was looking for advice that was [different] … from what he would normally get from his other vice-presidents and administrators,” said John Klironomos, a biology professor and the associate dean of research at the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences. “We sat there and brainstormed and agreed on many things and we had interesting debates. He mostly listened.”

But while Dr. Gupta was spending time with professors – and he invited administrators to the next session – behind the scenes there were smouldering fires. The president had let go several high-ranking executives in the administration; he’d also had disagreements with the board of governors over how much he needed to consult on key decisions.

On July 31, five months after the faculty brainstorming, Dr. Gupta resigned – only one year into what was supposed to be a five-year term. When the departure became public a week later, the campus erupted into rumours and recriminations that threaten to damage the reputation of one of Canada’s globally ranked universities. In the resulting row, faculty demanded to know more about why the president left, but the event has remained shrouded in mystery, protected by nondisclosure agreements that have silenced Dr. Gupta, the university and its board of governors. 

The Globe and Mail has talked to more than two dozen sources, including university administrators – deans, vice-presidents and the former provost – as well as faculty members. Most requested anonymity because they feared harming their careers. Several argued that Dr. Gupta focused too much on building links with professors and didn’t communicate with senior administrators. The university had taken a risk in hiring an innovator, but fatally underestimated his lack of administrative experience, they said. While Dr. Gupta is a computer science professor at UBC, his reputation largely rested on his building of Mitacs, a non-profit powerhouse that had broken down walls between academia and industry. The announcement of his hiring cited his “courage to chart a bold course.”

“The argument [in hiring Dr. Gupta] would have been that we have somebody who is an established researcher, who is an established fundraiser and has good connections to the outside, but he’s from UBC.… It’s an exceptional case because he had no experience as a dean or vice-president,” said Ross Paul, a former university president and the author of Leadership Under Fire: The Challenging Role of the Canadian University President.

The prevailing sentiment on campus now is one of regret. “From the inside, it’s been a tough year,” said one senior administrator. “I would have hoped that had Arvind stayed on, the university would have pulled together and made it work.”

The candidate

Across the country, governments and parents are anxious about the state of higher education in a challenging economy. They are asking for reassurance that the Ivory Tower is not just a place of abstract learning, but one that opens doors to well-paying jobs or helps students become entrepreneurs who can create their own employment.

When Stephen Toope resigned after seven years at the helm of UBC, he left a university facing those pressures head-on: The B.C. government had announced last year that it would tie 25 per cent of public funds to the labour-market outcomes of graduates.

Dr. Gupta seemed like the right man for the times. In his 14-year stint as CEO and scientific director of Mitacs, he had helped link up thousands of graduate students and researchers with internships in industry. In 2013, Ottawa rewarded the group with $35-million over several years.

The future UBC president was well connected to the federal government in other ways as well: In 2011, he served as a member of the Jenkins panel on innovation, which recommended closer collaboration between the National Research Council, universities and business.

“We are in a province where everything seems to be oriented toward LNG and pipelines,” one administrator said. “If what you think you need is better representation in government and in the private sector, Arvind [was] a pretty interesting choice.”

Many in the UBC administration were far more skeptical, describing the hire as a “flyer.” For them, running Mitacs, with its 2014 budget of approximately $100-million compared to UBC’s $2-billion, was not nearly enough preparation.

The first year

The departure of a president so soon in a mandate is unusual, but not unprecedented. In 2010, Concordia fired former French lit professor and experienced administrator Judith Woodsworth halfway through her term. As at UBC, it was Concordia professors who first demanded to know why.

Even before the March meeting, Dr. Gupta had begun building support with professors. He brokered a compromise with the faculty association around how the university could use faculty-created course materials. He protected academic programs from cuts to the university’s budget and argued for closer community connections for researchers.

“As faculty we are skeptical of business, but he was bringing us along,” one science professor said.

But to those who watched him make the rounds, the president looked exhausted. “He probably heard 10,000 opinions on what the university should do,” said one senior administrator. “Symbolically, it was interesting; practically, it was not that helpful.”

Dr. Gupta apparently didn’t treat administrators with the same care. Instead, firings were done in a brusque manner, without sufficient recognition of the contributions of those who left, sources said. The senior ranks began to fear for their jobs.

“Arvind was alienating people one at a time,” is how one administrator described the environment.

There was also resentment of new hires. Political strategist David Hurford, who had worked with former Liberal minister Allan Rock and former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, joined as executive director of the president’s office. Mr. Hurford was known for promoting his political masters aggressively and doing whatever it took behind the scenes to help them drive through their agendas. He continued that approach in the president’s office.

“We have to have [the president] in the news, we have to have a photo op every week,” said one source of how the office was run. (Mr. Hurford left UBC after Dr. Gupta.)

Although things were rocky, by late winter a consensus was forming that these were merely the growing pains of a first year. Then, in April, the president asked David Farrar to step down from his job as provost and take on a new post as a presidential adviser. Dr. Farrar’s departure was a turning point.

“After David Farrar was moved out of the provost’s office, the tone shifted,” one person familiar with the situation said.

In the eight years he had been provost, Dr. Farrar had recruited and groomed some of the university’s top administrators. He also led the school’s successful aboriginal education strategy, which culminated in UBC being the only university that suspended classes this June, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its findings.

It was one of his proudest accomplishments, Dr. Farrar said in an e-mail answer to a series of questions from The Globe.

He never applied for the job of president and has no plans to do so in the upcoming round, he added. “He was an extraordinary team player,” said one administrator of Dr. Farrar.

The deans of many faculties felt adrift after the departure. They e-mailed the president, requesting a meeting. A copy of that note made its way to the chair of the board, John Montalbano.Some deans had already informally talked to members of the board of governors over what they saw as lack of communication from the president’s office. But the goal was never to force the president to step down. Mr. Montalbano would not say how many issues had been raised with him. 

“Anything anecdotal would not be something the board would consider seriously,” he said.

He added that the board offered the president all the help it could muster, from inside and outside the university. Mr. Montalbano declined to say whether Dr. Gupta made use of that help. “I can’t speak for Arvind.…The board made it abundantly clear at any point that Arvind had all the resources available to him to succeed, to allow him to succeed.”

Former administrators and faculty at UBC have said relations between the board and the president could get heated. A former administrator who attended an in-camera board meeting last spring described it as “really ugly.” The chair’s concern, the administrator said, was that Dr. Gupta was making announcements about changes and directions that Mr. Montalbano believed should have been cleared with the board.

Mr. Montalbano rejects that claim: The board and the president had a “cordial” relationship, he said.

On the other hand, a colleague of Dr. Gupta’s said the former president had to deal with an inordinate level of interference by the board chair.

Exactly what happened in the last few weeks is unclear. According to Dr. Gupta’s contract, a performance-review process was to start in June. No such formal review ever took place, according to Mr. Montalbano.

The next president

On Sept. 1, the university will begin the process of closing this chapter in its 100-year history. Martha Piper, who already served as president from 1997 to 2006, will take over as interim leader while a new presidential search begins.

The ramifications are lingering: On Tuesday, Mr. Montalbano temporarily stepped down as chair of the board of governors while the university investigates allegations that he and others infringed on the academic freedom of a business professor who blogged about Dr. Gupta’s resignation.

Many on campus are angered by the entire episode.

“Given the price tag of the search, [the resignation] seemed to have come out of nowhere. You’re way over a million dollars in terms of this search,” said Joey Hansen, president of the university’s staff union. Mr. Hansen says as many as 5 per cent of the university’s workers could be laid off by the end of the year due to budget cuts.

Increasingly, research has found, Canadian university presidents today are less experienced and last a shorter time in the job than a prior generation.

“A lot of change-making is happening … once they’ve gained the trust of stakeholders, once they’ve built those relationships,” said Julie Cafley, who wrote her dissertation on Canadian university presidents and is a vice-president at the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum. “It’s a shame for our system that we are not able to hire well, to transition well, to retain well and really be more supportive of this complex leadership role.”

Editor’s note: The article originally appeared in The Globe and Mail.

Canada’s Public Policy Forum

Where is the Power?

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Aug 312015
 

A.   Dispersed among the people?

B.   In the hands of the government?

C.   In a combination of government and business?

D.   In corporate hands?

E.   In a combination of people plus government plus corporations?

 

If the answer is not A, then it’s not democracy?

 

In the last couple of decades the role of corporations in the decision-making of government has been normalized.

 

The idea that government is not required to regulate, that self-regulation is superior, led to weakening, followed by crisis and potential collapse of economic systems.

 

The individual

The community

The organization

The corporation

The government

 

We learned long ago that we are all both good and bad. That sometimes the bad will prevail. And so we agreed upon the rule of law. We have the rule of law for:

– the individual

– the community

– the organization

– the corporation

– the government

 

We have the rule of law SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE we learned that we are all both good and bad, that self-regulation is not reliable. If it was, we wouldn’t need laws.

 

How, in the name of Goodness, the idea that self-regulation by the commercial function in the society could work ever came to replace the wisdom of the ages, I don’t know.

 

If you have a democracy, the power is dispersed among the people.

 

It is obviously very easy for the government to become the power.  Their power has to be kept in balance.   How do the people in a democracy hold the government in check? .. If you answered through elections, you are wrong. It is fundamentally through the laws of the land.

Governments cannot break those laws. If they do, then they have stepped over the line that defines democracy.

If the people in the democracy cannot bring the government back within the rule of law, the democracy is lost.

It is obvious that the government and corporations must not be allowed to use the laws, policing, law enforcement and jail system as a coercive force against citizens.

That is another boundary which must not be over-stepped . It is something different from “the rule of law”. It is rule by force, a sign that democracy is claimed but not real.

 

It is up to citizens to:

a. not allow the laws to be used in a coercive way

b. disallow the writing of laws that compromise the essential balance between state regulation and self regulation.

 

Breach of the law by the Government of Canada is not a minor matter.   The Government is descending us into a state of lawlessness if it does not obey the laws of Canada and the international treaties we have signed.

The use of the judicial system as a coercive instrument to silence protest is a giant step over the line.

I am curious

is it lost

understanding?

Basic information

One needs

If you live

In democracy

Were you taught?

If not

What purpose was served

In not teaching?

2012-05-21 Heist of the century: university corruption and the financial crisis. Extract from “Inside Job”.

 Take back the University  1 Response »
Aug 242015
 

Why was the response from US academic experts to the global financial crisis so muted? 

In the second extract from his book Inside Job, Charles Ferguson argues that corruption in universities is deeply entrenched

(NOTE:  The Inside Job documentary can be watched for free on-line.)

Charles Ferguson

Monday 21 May 2012 20.00 BST   Last modified on Wednesday 1 October 2014 12.39 BST

Many people who saw my documentary Inside Job found that the most disturbing portion of the film was its revelation of widespread conflicts of interest in universities, at thinktanks, and among academic experts. Viewers who watched my interviews with eminent professors were stunned at what came out of their mouths.

Yet we should not be surprised. Over the past couple of decades medical professionals have amply demonstrated the influence money can have in a supposedly objective, scientific field. In general, medical schools and journals have responded well, adopting disclosure requirements. The economics discipline, business schools, law schools and political science schools have reacted very differently.

Over the past 30 years, significant portions of American academia have deteriorated into “pay to play” activities. These days, if you see a famous economics professor testify in Congress, or write an article, there is a good chance he or she is being paid by someone with a big stake in what’s being debated. Most of the time, these professors do not disclose these conflicts of interest, and most of the time their universities look the other way.

Half a dozen consulting firms, several speakers’ bureaus and various industry lobbying groups maintain large networks of academics for hire for the purpose of advocating industry interests in policy and regulatory debates. The principal industries involved are energy, telecommunications, healthcare, agribusiness – and, most definitely, financial services.

Some examples. Glenn Hubbard became dean of Columbia Business School in 2004, shortly after leaving the George W Bush administration. Much of his academic work has been focused on tax policy. A fair summary is that he has never seen a tax he would like. In November 2004 Hubbard co-authored an astonishing article, jointly with William C Dudley, then chief economist at Goldman Sachs. The article, How Capital Markets Enhance Economic Performance and Facilitate Job Creation, warrants quotation. Remember, this is November 2004, with the bubble well under way: “The capital markets have helped make the housing market less volatile … ‘Credit crunches’ of the sort that periodically shut off the supply of funds to home buyers … are a thing of the past.”

Hubbard refused to say whether he was paid to write the article. He also refused to provide me with his most recent government financial disclosure form, which we could not obtain otherwise because the White House had destroyed it. Hubbard was paid $100,000 (£63,000) to testify for the criminal defence of two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers prosecuted in connection with the bubble, who were acquitted. Last year, Hubbard became a senior economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
Larry Summers has held almost every important government position in economics. Treasury secretary under President Clinton, in 2009 he became director of the National Economic Council in the Obama administration.
Although sensible about many issues, Summers has made a succession of well-documented mistakes and compromises. And his views on the financial sector would be hard to distinguish from those of, say, [Goldman Sachs chief] Lloyd Blankfein or [JP Morgan boss] Jamie Dimon.
Most of our information about Summers comes from his mandatory government disclosure form. Summers’ 2009 disclosure form stated his net worth to be $17m-$39m. His total earnings in the year prior to joining the government were almost $8m. Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000 for one speech.

Summers is a compromised man who owes most of his fortune and much of his political success to the financial services industry, and who was involved in some of the most disastrous economic policy decisions of the past half century. In the Obama administration, Summers opposed strong measures to sanction bankers or curtail their income.

Harvard still does not require Summers to disclose his financial-sector involvements. Both Harvard and Summers declined my requests for information.

The problem of academic corruption is now so deeply entrenched that these disciplines, and leading universities, are severely compromised, and anyone considering bucking the trend would rationally be very scared. Consider this situation: you’re a PhD student, or a junior faculty member, considering doing some research on, say, compensation structures on risk-taking in financial services, or the potential impact of public disclosure requirements on the market for credit default swaps. The president of your university is … Larry Summers.

The chairman of your department is …Glenn Hubbard. Or you’re at MIT, and you want to examine the decline in corporate tax payments. The president of MIT is Susan Hockfield, on the board of GE, a company that has managed to avoid paying hardly anycorporate taxes for several years.

How much do these forces actually affect academic research and policymaking? The available evidence suggests that the effect is large.

Academic commentary on the financial crisis by economists has been remarkably muted. There are, to be sure, some notable exceptions. But for the most part, the silence has been deafening. How can an entire industry come to be structured such that employees are encouraged to loot and destroy their own firms? Why did deregulation and economic theory fail so spectacularly?

The release of the film Inside Job clearly touched a nerve with regard to these questions. I was contacted by a large number of students and faculty, and there has been a great deal of debate. Departments including the Columbia Business School have adopted disclosure requirements for the first time. But most universities still have no such requirements, and few if any have any limitations on the existence of conflicts of interest. The same is true of most academic publications. Newspaper reporters are strictly prohibited from accepting money from any industry or organisation they write about.

Not so in academia.

There has been one significant positive development. Earlier this year, the American Economics Association adopted a disclosure requirement for the seven journals it publishes. But most institutions continue to oppose further disclosure and, when I was making my film, refused even to discuss the subject.

 

This is an edited extract from Inside Job: the Financiers Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century by Charles Ferguson, published by Oneworld at £12.99. Order a copy for £10.39 with free UK p&p here or call 0330 333 6846. Charles Ferguson will appear at the Edinburgh international book festival on Sunday 12 August.

2015-08-20 Wellcome Trust loses millions as its fossil fuel investments plunge in value, The Guardian

 Climate, Energy  No Responses »
Aug 202015
 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/20/wellcome-trust-loses-millions-as-its-fossil-fuel-investments-plunge-in-value?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Fossil fuel divestment  Keep it in the ground

Medical charity sold off two-thirds of its investments in Shell but lost an estimated £175m in the last year due to falling share prices in the fossil fuel sector

The Wellcome Trust, Euston Road, London. Photograph: Graham Turner The Wellcome Trust, Euston Road, London. Photograph: Graham Turner Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The Wellcome Trust’s investments in fossil fuel companies have lost an estimated £175m in the last year, due to sharp falls in share prices. Research by the Guardian shows the medical charity has sold off two-thirds of its holding in Shell but also increased its investment in the fastest falling of its stocks, mining giant BHP Billiton, by 8%.

The Wellcome Trust is the world’s second-biggest non-governmental funder of medical research but has been the focus of a Guardian campaign asking the Trust to sell its fossil fuel investments, which today stand at an estimated £370m.

The Wellcome Trust invests in four major fossil fuel companies, all of which have seen large falls in their share prices

Current fossil fuel reserves are already several times greater than could be burned while keeping below the internationally agreed target of 2C of global warming. But coal, oil and gas companies continue to explore for new reserves. The Keep it in the Ground campaign argues that financing such companies is inconsistent for an organisation dedicated to improving health, given that a recent landmark report concluded climate change threatens to undermine half a century of progress in global health.

The Wellcome Trust – which funds a range of research into diseases such as cancer, malaria and Ebola – invests in four major fossil fuel companies, all of which have seen large falls in their share prices in the last year. BHP Billiton’s share price slid by 45%, Shell’s by 30%, Rio Tinto’s by 29% and BP by 21%.

Bill McKibben, founder of the global fossil fuel divestment campaign which has seen companies, universities, churches, cities and philanthropic organisations around the world divest, said the Wellcome Trust’s failure to divest from fossil fuels meant it had lost money that could have funded its programmes.

“It’s sad that the Wellcome Trust is fine with drilling the Arctic and building vast new coal mines; and it’s sad, too, that their ability to finance their fine work suffers from this myopia,” said McKibben. “I’m sure they’ll wise up eventually, but for the sake of the planet one hopes it happens sooner rather than later.”

A Wellcome Trust spokeswoman said: “The range of individuals and organisations working to improve human health is wide and it would be surprising if this community did not contain a diversity of opinion about how best to reduce carbon emissions. The Wellcome Trust believes that engagement with the small number of energy companies in which we invest gives us the best opportunity to contribute to change, but we understand and respect the views of those who disagree.”

Join us in asking the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust to commit now to divesting from the top 200 fossil fuel companies within five years and to immediately freeze any new investments in those companies.   (Go to the URL:   http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/20/wellcome-trust-loses-millions-as-its-fossil-fuel-investments-plunge-in-value?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2) 

The Guardian’s research reveals that the Wellcome Trust sold off two-thirds of its shareholding in Shell, reducing its investment to £53m today, according to share register data filed on 1 June. Shell has the 8th largest oil and gas reserves of any publicly traded company in the world. It is actively exploring the Arctic for oil and gas and operates in Canada’s tar sands, both of which scientists say are incompatible with dealing with climate change.

But Wellcome increased its holding in BHP Billiton by 8.3%, according to a filing on 1 June, making Wellcome’s stake worth £90m today. BHP’s coal reserves are the 6th largest of any public company. When burned, the carbon emissions would be equivalent to the annual emissions of the US, European Union, India and Russia combined.

Wellcome’s shareholdings were unchanged in its two other major fossil fuel investments, BP (£131m) and Rio Tinto (£97m). BP’s oil and gas reserves are equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the US and Russia, while Rio Tinto’s coal reserves are equivalent to the combined annual emissions of all the nations in the European Union.

 

 

 

 

2015-07-20 Gmail accounts and LinkedIn. Riddle solved.

 Propaganda, Technology  2 Responses »
Jul 202015
 

We live in a digital age.  We had better understand the implications.

I do not like this.   You may wish to share, so others will know how it works.  It applies between Google’s Gmail and a different entity, LinkedIn.   I do not know if there are other instances.   If I am wrong,  let Google explain.

It is not a  “so what?!”.

 

I received an email in November 2014, see Message from Dan Morgan, request to add  him to my LinkedIn network.   Dan Morgan is the American author of “Merchants of Grain“.    A phone call confirmed, as I suspected, he had not sent a request to me.

But how did LinkedIn connect him to me?   The riddle was solved when I stumbled across an email from 2010.

This comes at a time when I am reading “The Age of Cryptocurrency” (encrypted currency or secure, anonymous, electronic money).

 Page 47:.

But all those who used their knowledge in a bid to enact social change saw cryptography as a tool to enhance individual privacy and to shift power from big, central institutions to the human beings who live in their orbit.  

(I think of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, but this was even before their time.)

Page 50: 

Guided by the principle that in the digital age protecting privacy would be crucial for maintaining an open society, the Cypherpunks set their active minds to creating tools to allow people to maintain anonymity.

 

A few years ago I tried repeatedly to get my profile removed from “LinkedIn” social media.

When I received requests like the one from Dan,  I contacted the person to explain that I do not participate in LinkedIn.    . . . .    But then . . .   hmmm . . .  did the person who originated the request ACTUALLY  initiate a request to join my LinkedIn network (that I don’t actually have)?   Something seemed kind of fishy even though using the Dan Morgan example,  the email I received says:

From: Dan Morgan [mailto:member@linkedin.com] 

As mentioned, Dan Morgan, like some others I contacted, had not sent a request to join my LinkedIn network.

SO HOW DOES LinkedIn CONSTRUCT A CONNECTION?

I can see a link between work I have done (crop production, Canadian Wheat Board)  and Dan’s book, “Merchants of Grain”.   But how would LinkedIn make the connection?

As you will see below, LinkedIn has access to the content of your Gmail account (if you have one).   Gmail is a Google product;  Google is a “big institution”!

I looked to see if Google owns LinkedIn.   The answer is no.   (2011)   LinkedIn Goes Public But Who Owns The Biggest Slice Of The Pie?  

Dan:  LinkedIn got access to all my “contacts”, which includes every email I have ever sent or received — then sent out “invitations” to all of them unbeknownst to me.

The access has to be to both “contacts” and emails sent and received, because people do not keep everyone in their “contacts” file.

THE MYSTERY

Dan Morgan had suggested on the phone back in November 2014, that he and I must have exchanged emails or something similar that caused LinkedIn to make the connection.   I have known of Dan’s book for a long time, but could not recall being in contact with him.

By accident, 8 months later I stumbled on a brief email exchange we had back in 2010.  5 years ago.   Mystery solved.    . . .   Funny,  I am not experiencing my usual elation at solving a riddle!   All I can say is, “Bless and support the cryptographers,  the ones who recognized two and three decades ago, where internet technology would take us.  And the associated dangers for open society.”

I get especially nervous when I see the impunity with which lies and manipulations manufactured in this case, by LinkedIn by way of Gmail (Google),  affect me directly.  I don’t even have to “imagine” it! 

Googling around discloses that LinkedIn creates profiles that the person themself has not erected on LinkedIn.  (http://appmagma.com/hey-linkedin-nobody-wants-this/)  LinkedIn then uses that profile to decoy others into signing up for LinkedIn.

But it goes beyond that.   The notice sent by LinkedIn to me is an actual lie.  It says that Dan Morgan sent the email.   He did not.   And LinkedIn accessed private email messages to construct the connection.  None of this is right, not in an open and democratic society.

I do not have a gmail account  (Dan Morgan does). And I hate the new Outlook software that keeps trying to make me sign up for Microsoft’s “OneAccount”.

 

I wish to share my exchange with Dan, so others will at least know the way in which their information is used.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – –  –

DAN MORGAN AND SANDRA FINLEY,  HOW DID LINKEDIN MAKE THE CONNECTION?    AN EMAIL EXCHANGE IN 2010.

FIRST,  TWO EMAILS FROM 2010, FORGOTTEN ABOUT  (Skim past them)

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Sandra Finley wrote:

Dear Dan Morgan,

I am from Saskatchewan.  Your book Merchants of Grain is still treated as a piece of holy scripture!

Can you tell me:  is The Merchants of Grain published in 2000 the same as was published in the 1980’s?  I would like to send the most current edition to Manfred Ladwig in Germany.  The copy I have is a 1980 publication date.  Do I need to find a copy with a 2000 publication date?

Manfred is a documentary filmmaker for German Public Television.  I met Manfred a few years ago when he came here in relation to a documentary on GM crops.  He subsequently did a documentary on Monsanto.

Manfred is now working on the Grain Corporations.  He writes:

I prepare a story about corporate power at the example of the world wheat trade: my story line follows this keywords: wheat from food to commodity: corporate influence (the big so calledABCD`s: ADM,Bunge,Cargill,Dreyfuß) prices of bread, feeding the world, hunger. I know- a big task, but I try to tell something about the real power in the background. Is there anybody you know as an insider of those big TNC`s (especially ADM and Cargill), who by the way own our german wheat importing companies?

Also, maybe you would be a good person for Manfred to talk with?  and so I am sending this email to connect you to each other, “just in case”.

I was in touch with Brewster Kneen who wrote Invisible Giant (Cargill) – see appended.  Brewster feels that he is now out-dated in his information base.   He recommended Mary Hendrickson at the University of Missouri whom I emailed, but have not heard back from.

I will repeat Manfred’s question to you:

Is there anybody you know as an insider of those big TNC`s (especially ADM and Cargill), who by the way own our german wheat importing companies?

 

Thank-you for your journalistic and other efforts to create an informed citizenry.  We may yet find our way back to democracy!   I increasingly use “corporatocracy” to describe our current form of Government.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From: Dan Morgan  Sent: February 5, 2010 7:30 PM    To: Sandra Finley   Subject: Re: Merchants of Grain – for German Public Broadcasting Documentary

the latest version of the book is the same as the original..  it has not been updated. glad there is still interest..

I believe a Senate committee recently put out a report on the manipulation of the wheat market by outside speculators — mainly commodity index funds — in 2008.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THEN, IN NOVEMBER 2014, I RECEIVE   Message from Dan Morgan, request to add  him to my LinkedIn network.

I tracked down his phone number and asked:  Did you send this request? , , ,   The answer is no.   We had a short discussion.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From: Sandra Finley  Sent: July 19, 2015 1:05 PM    To: Dan Morgan   Subject: FW: Merchants of Grain – for German Public Broadcasting Documentary

Hello Dan Morgan,

I phoned you a couple months ago to inquire if you had requested to be connected to me through “LinkedIn”.   (I had received a notice from LinkedIn that you had.)  Your answer was “no”.

The appended email exchange with you from Feb 2010, which I came across today, probably answers the question of how it is that LinkedIn technology was able to generate a message to me, connected to you.

The question is how they obtained access to a private exchange.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From: Sandra Finley   Sent: July 19, 2015 1:37 PM   To: Dan Morgan   Subject: (2 of 2) The answer re LinkedIn is gmail account ?

Hi again Dan,

Sorry to bother you.    I googled because other people must be experiencing the same re LinkedIn.

From this URL, I gather that LinkedIn has access to GMAIL accounts.   It would explain how it is that LinkedIn generated a request by (not) you to connect with me.

http://appmagma.com/hey-linkedin-nobody-wants-this/

/Sandra

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From: Dan Morgan  Sent: July 19, 2015 1:26 PM   To: Sandra Finley    Subject: Re: FW: Merchants of Grain – for German Public Broadcasting Documentary

Sandra, thanks for your msg.. it appears that LinkedIn got access to all my “contacts”, which includes every email I have ever sent or received — then sent out “invitations” to all of them unbeknownst to me. This is how they jack up their numbers for the benefit of Wall Street, I suppose.

sorry to have bothered you..

right now I am at work on a major project involving the development of the U.S. biofuels industry.. haven’t looked much at Canada, but I should.. interesting stuff.

— Dan Morgan

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

BREWSTER KNEEN,  AUTHOR OF “THE INVISIBLE GIANT”  (CARGILL)

http://www.ramshorn.ca/invisiblegiant.html

Invisible Giant: Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies, Second Edition by Brewster Kneen. Pluto Press/UBC Press, 2002, 222 pages

Brewster Kneen writes: “When Pluto Press asked me to produce a second edition of Invisible Giant, I was shocked and  amazed at the changes I found since the first edition appeared in 1995. Not only had the number of global corporate players shrunk alarmingly, but they have virtually eliminated competition between themselves through complementary strategies and business activities while at the same time forming joint ventures and partnerships amongst themselves, again to reduce the inefficiencies of competition.

Cargill has played this game with great skill and dedication. Its reward last year was sales of US$51 billion derived from having some component of just about everything we eat pass through its hands at some point in its journey from farm to supermarket.

My purpose in writing this book is not, however, to overwhelm the reader-eater with indigestion and despair. I remain convinced that as corporations such as Cargill get bigger and bigger, and appear to exercise ever greater control over the global food system, their sheer size limits their agility and activity.  By understanding the rules they play by and the businesses they are involved in, we can gain an understanding of how we should proceed if we want a different game and a different kind of business, one in which the goal is to ensure that everyone is adequately nourished while living respectfully and harmoniously with all Creation.”

2015-07-08 Dick Cheney Should Be Prosecuted for War Crimes: Former International Court of Justice Judge

 George Bush war criminal  1 Response »
Jul 102015
 
Published on
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
by Common Dreams
Renowned human rights expert Thomas Buergenthal said Cheney and a number of CIA agents ‘should appear before the ICC.’
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
(Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/cc)

Former ICC judge Thomas Buergenthal said he believes that the architects of mass torture during the George W. Bush era, such as former vice president Dick Cheney, will eventually face prosecution. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/cc)

A former judge for the International Court of Justice and renowned expert on human rights law told a reporter this week that former vice president Dick Cheney should be prosecuted for war crimes and torture.

Eighty-one-year-old Thomas Buergenthal told Newsweek journalist Robert Chalmers that “some of us have long thought that Cheney, and a number of CIA agents who did what they did in those so-called black holes [overseas torture centers] should appear before the ICC [International Criminal Court].”

“We [in the USA] could have tried them ourselves,” added Buergenthal. “I voted for Obama but I think he made a great mistake when he decided not to instigate legal proceedings against some of these people.”

The former judge added that, despite the inaction so far, he believes eventual charges are inevitable: “I think—yes—that it will happen.”

Buergenthal was born in the former Czechoslovakia and currently lives in Maryland where he works as a professor of law at George Washington University. He served for a decade as a judge for the International Court of Justice—the main judicial arm of the United Nations—before retiring in 2010. Chalmers described him as the “most distinguished living specialist in international human rights law.”

The occasion for the interview was the release of Buergenthal’s new memoir, A Lucky Child, about surviving the Holocaust. The conversation covered far more territory than the war crimes of the former U.S. vice president, touching on the plight of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, as well as anti-black racism in U.S. police departments.

Buergenthal also described former President George W. Bush as “an ignorant person who wanted to show his mother he could do things his father couldn’t.”

 Older Entries  Newer Entries