From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 1 00:39:34 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 01:39:34 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Threaten Energy-Efficiency Programs Message-ID: <0BE80284001D4E4B921A1C52BE864CC0@Upstairs> Loan Giants Threaten Energy-Efficiency Programs By TODD WOODY Published: June 30, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO - The Obama administration is devoting $150 million in stimulus money for programs that help homeowners install solar panels and other energy improvements, which they pay for over time on their property tax bills. At the same time, the two government-chartered agencies that buy and resell most home mortgages are threatening to derail the effort by warning that they might not accept loans for homes that take advantage of the special financing. The mixed messages have alarmed state officials and prompted many local governments to freeze their programs, which have been hailed as an innovative way to help homeowners afford the retrofitting of a house with solar panels, which can cost $30,000 or more before incentives. "The thing that is maddening is that this is having a real-life impact with companies laying off people and homeowners in limbo as all these projects are stalled," said Clifford Rechtschaffen, a special assistant attorney general in California. Under the financing programs, a local government borrows money through bonds or other means, and then uses it to make loans to homeowners to cover the upfront costs of solar installations or other energy improvements. Each owner repays the loan over 20 years through a special property tax assessment, which stays with the home even if it is sold. The technique, known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, was pioneered by Berkeley, Calif., in 2008, and 22 states have authorized such programs, which are intended to make it easier and cheaper for homeowners to invest in energy efficiency. So far, only a few thousand people have used them. But the Energy Department wants to promote the programs - and give an economic boost to companies that install energy systems - through the $150 million in stimulus funds, which are intended to help communities cover setup and administrative costs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government entities that guarantee more than half of the residential mortgages in the United States, have different priorities. They are worried that taxpayers will end up as losers if a homeowner defaults on a mortgage on a home that uses such creative financing. Typically, property taxes must be paid first from any proceeds on a foreclosed home. In letters sent to mortgage lenders on May 5, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stated that energy-efficiency liens could not take priority over a mortgage. "The purpose of this industry letter is to remind seller/servicers that an energy-related lien may not be senior to any mortgage delivered to Freddie Mac," wrote Patricia J. McClung, a Freddie Mac executive. However, the agencies did not offer guidance to mortgage lenders on how to handle properties that carry the energy liens. Backers of the programs fear that mortgage lenders, who depend on Fannie and Freddie to buy their home loans, will now start demanding that the entire lien be paid off before issuing a new loan. That is what happened to Deke DeKay of Healdsburg, Calif., when he sold a house in nearby Geyserville in May. Mr. DeKay, who had purchased the foreclosed home as an investment, put in new insulation and heating and cooling systems, financed by $11,000 from Sonoma County's program. "We thought this would be an interesting way of upgrading the home's energy efficiency without adding to the purchase price," Mr. DeKay said. "Then right before the close of escrow, the bank discovered this stuff" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put out and refused to approve the loan without the assessment being paid off first. Now Mr. DeKay is worried about his own home, which carries a $25,500 lien for a five-kilowatt solar array installed last year. "If we ever want to refinance the house, it will be impossible for us to do that," he said. State and local officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, and some members of Congress have jumped into the fray, pressing the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, for clarification of its position on the financing programs. "The letters have had a devastating impact on PACE programs in California, placing at risk hundreds of millions of dollars of federal stimulus funding, hundreds of millions of dollars of state, local and private funding, and impacting California's efforts to promote green jobs and greenhouse gas emissions reductions," Ken Alex, a senior assistant attorney general in California, wrote in a June 22 letter to the housing agency. Cathy Zoi, an assistant secretary at the Energy Department, wrote to the agency in May to express concern that the apparent policy change would weaken the Obama administration's renewable energy program. Fannie and Freddie did not respond to requests for comment. But Alfred Pollard, general counsel for the housing agency, said, "We are very cognizant of the concerns expressed in the communities regarding the PACE programs, and we are working expeditiously to respond to the communications we have received." Local and state officials say that the energy liens are no different than other types of special property taxes, like those used to finance sidewalks and underground utilities. None of those have raised alarms at Fannie and Freddie. Ben Pearlman, a commissioner for Boulder County, Colo., said he was worried that treating the energy liens as loans could set a precedent that would undermine local governments' ability to pay for municipal improvements through tax assessments. Mr. Pearlman noted that the county had financed energy-efficiency upgrades and solar installations for 600 homes so far, but he said that the county had suspended its residential program as a result of the Fannie and Freddie letters. "Because they touch so many mortgages in this country, it makes it impossible for us to proceed," he said. The uncertainty has had ripple effects beyond homeowners. For example, after San Francisco suspended its program, Recurve, a local retrofitting company, was forced to temporarily lay off workers. "We lost almost a quarter of a million dollars' worth of projects overnight," said Matt Golden, Recurve's president. Every PACE program has been affected, according to Cisco DeVries, who developed Berkeley's project and now serves as president of Renewable Funding, an Oakland, Calif., company that devises and administers such programs for cities and counties. "Nobody wants to put a property owner in a position where they have a lender who feels they've violated their mortgage," Mr. DeVries said. It is unknown how many homeowners have encountered such problems. But Rod Dole, Sonoma County's treasurer and tax collector, said one lender declined to refinance a local PACE participant's mortgage unless the assessment was paid off, and a title company had asked the same for a different refinancing. Mr. Dole said Sonoma County, which has enrolled 950 homes in PACE, has continued its program but now discloses the lender letters to homeowners. "We are anticipating a slowdown in interest due to the uncertainty," he said. Katrina Wilhelm, who enrolled in the Sonoma program to finance the installation of a solar array at her 20-acre ranch in Santa Rosa, Calif., said she was unaware of the issue. "That's unfortunate because part of the draw was that the loan goes with the property to the next owner so it can be a win all around, for me and the future buyers," she said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/business/energy-environment/01solar.html?_r=1&hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 1 13:15:01 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 14:15:01 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Fw: "Whites only" lunch counters? Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org To: Henry F. Hain III Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 1:34 PM Subject: Re: "Whites only" lunch counters? Dear Henry, Just over a month ago, Fox News' John Stossel told America that the law that prevents private businesses from discriminating against people based on race should be repealed. He claimed that businesses should be able to serve whomever they pleased, and he's stood by the claim. More than 97,000 ColorOfChange members like you stood up and called on News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch fire Stossel. We're about to deliver the signatures to Murdoch but wanted to get to 100,000 signatures before we do. With a few seconds of your time you could help us get there. We definitely want Fox to drop Stossel but this isn't just about one person at Fox. It's about building a record against Fox, which is why the number of people standing up is especially important. Please click below to help us get to 100,000 signers. It takes just a moment. After you've signed, please ask your friends and family to do the same. http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=1959-889264 Below is the original message we sent, which tells the complete story. -- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team July 1st, 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fox's Stossel: Businesses should be able to discriminate. "It should be their right to be racist." Help us hold FOX accountable now: Dear Henry, On Wednesday, Rand Paul, the GOP?s US Senate candidate for Kentucky repeated his claim that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong, and that businesses should be free to discriminate against whomever they please.1 Paul and his supporters don?t seem to care that without federal intervention, Black people might still be second-class citizens in many aspects of American life: where we eat, where we work, even where we live. Then, on Thursday, FOX anchor John Stossel went even further, calling for the section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that applies to business to be repealed.2 And he?s refused to back down. While Paul may have started this outrage, he can be taken care of at the ballot box ? FOX News can?t. Stossel?s position is an affront to Black America and everyone in this country who believes in racial progress. It?s one thing to be a candidate with backwards views. It?s another to be employed by a supposed news network and to use that platform to push hateful ideas that our nation repudiated decades ago. It?s time that FOX drop Stossel. If people like you stand up in huge numbers and FOX does not act, it will be clear that FOX stands with Stossel and his values ? and we'll go directly after the network with a public campaign unlike anything we?ve pursued to date. Can you add your voice to the call to fire Stossel? And please ask your friends and family to do the same. It takes only a moment ? just click below: http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=1959-889264 FOX has a history of providing a platform for bigoted views and race-baiting. Most recently you helped us hold FOX accountable by stripping Glenn Beck of more than 100 of his advertisers, after Beck called President Obama a ?racist? with a ?deep-seated hatred for white people.?3 But Stossel has arguably gone beyond Beck, echoing segregationist arguments from the Jim Crow era: "It?s time now to repeal that part of the law because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won?t ever go to a place that?s racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I?ll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist." Stossel went on to argue something that history has disproved time and again ? that private business will do the right thing, without being compelled by laws, because no one would patronize a business that discriminates. It?s a blind belief in market fundamentalism that just isn?t in sync with reality. In the '60s, white-owned businesses that allowed Blacks as customers lost business. Market forces actually perpetuated discrimination; they didn?t combat it. Simply put: segregation would still be active in parts of this country if government hadn?t stepped in. And recent history has shown that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act is still needed. In 1994, it was used to hold Denny?s Restaurants accountable, after the chain repeatedly refused to seat Black customers.4 Just last year, it was used to go after a Philadelphia pool that prevented Black children from swimming there.5 It?s time for FOX News to make a choice. Are they going to give Stossel a platform to revive dangerously outdated perspectives? Or will they move with the rest of the nation into the 21st century? Please call on FOX News to fire John Stossel. And once you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same: http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=1959-889264 Thanks and Peace, -- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team May 22nd, 2010 Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here: https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/ References: 1. ?Rand Paul On ?Maddow? Defends Criticism Of Civil Rights Act, Says He Would Have Worked To Change Bill,? Huffington Post, 5-20-10 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/246?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=8 2. ?Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act,? Media Matters, 5-20-10 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/247?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=10 3. ?Beck?s UK broadcast runs without ads; over 100 companies have ditched Beck,? Jack and Jill Politics, 2-16-10 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/248?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=12 4. ?Denny?s Restaurants to Pay $54 Million in Race Bias Suits,? 5-25-94 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/251?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=14 5. ?Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, Country Club Alleging Discrimination,? US Department of Justice press release, 1-13-10 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/252?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=16 Additional: ?Dancing with the Devil,? ColorOfChange.org, 3-14-07 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/249?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=18 Summary on FOX News and coverage relating to Black Americans http://act.colorofchange.org/go/250?akid=1488.1080199.UEqCcw&t=20 -- You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 13:32:19 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 13:32:19 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Oil surf pushed inland by hurricane Alex Message-ID: <781E01CA0D8C449BB8211C4DC4BACBD3@agingCHS072729> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/30/rough-seas-from-hurricane_n_630774.html Rough Seas From Hurricane Alex 2010 Pushing Oil Closer To Gulf Coast Beaches First Posted: 06-30-10 11:58 AM GRAND ISLE, La. (AP)-- Rough seas generated by Hurricane Alex pushed more oil from the massive spill onto Gulf coast beaches as cleanup vessels were sidelined by the far-away storm's ripple effects. The hurricane was churning coastal waters across the oil-affected region on the Gulf of Mexico. Waves as high as 6 feet and winds over 25 mph were forecast through Thursday just off shore from the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. In Louisiana, the storm pushed an oil patch toward Grand Isle and uninhabited Elmer's Island, dumping tar balls as big as apples on the beach. "The sad thing is that it's been about three weeks since we had any big oil come in here," marine science technician Michael Malone said. "With this weather, we lost all the progress we made." The loss of skimmers, combined with gusts driving water into the coast, left beaches especially vulnerable. In Alabama, the normally white sand was streaked with long lines of oil. One swath of beach 40 feet wide was stained brown and mottled with globs of oil matted together. Dozens of vessels that were being used to combat the oil spill were tied to docks Tuesday as Alex, more than 500 miles away, approached the Texas-Mexico coast. Most days, the fleet would have been skimming oil from the Gulf and ferrying workers and supplies. But the hurricane turned many people fighting the 11-week-old spill into spectators. And they will be for days. The nasty weather will likely linger in the Gulf through Thursday, National Weather Service meteorologist Brian LaMarre said. Officials scrambled to reposition boom to protect the coast, and had to remove barges that had been blocking oil from reaching sensitive wetlands. Those operations could soon get a boost. The U.S. accepted offers of help from 12 countries and international organizations. Japan, for instance, was sending two skimmers and boom. Alex is projected to stay far from the spill zone off the Louisiana coast. It is not expected to affect work at the site of the blown-out well. But the storm's outer edges complicated the cleanup. Early Wednesday, Alex had maximum sustained winds near 80 mph (130 kph). The National Hurricane Center said the Category 1 storm is the first June Atlantic hurricane since 1995. It is on track for the Texas-Mexico border region and expected to make landfall Wednesday night. As Alex approached, skimming efforts off the coasts of Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi had mostly stopped. At the main staging area for oil cleanup efforts around Grand Isle, stacks of boom, bottled water, ice chests and cleaning materials stood ready to load up when the work restarted. Brothers Otis and Vahn Butler of Houma got jobs there just three days ago. "We've been steady busy until today," Otis Butler said. "Now we're mostly standing around and looking around. We just find things to do when we can today. But once this is over, I bet we'll be twice as busy." The rough seas and winds aren't all bad, though -- scientists have said they could help break apart the oil and make it evaporate faster. The wave action, combined with dispersants sprayed by the Coast Guard, have helped break a 6-by-30-mile oil patch into smaller patches, Coast Guard Cmdr. Joe Higgens said. "It's good news because there is less on the surface," Higgens said. "It's surface oil that washes up on the beaches." On the beach, cleanup workers struggled with wind that blew sand into their eyes and mouths and humidity that let the sand stick to their skin. Jefferson Parish Council member Chris Roberts said the oil was entering passes Tuesday at Barataria Bay, home to diverse wildlife. A day earlier, barges that had been placed in the bay to block the oil were removed because of rough seas. Boom was being displaced and had to be repositioned, he said in an e-mail. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement said 28 platforms and three rigs in the path of the storm in the western Gulf have been evacuated. Still in the water are vessels being used to capture or burn spewing oil and gas and those drilling relief wells that officials say are the best hope for stopping the leak for good. Hurricane warnings were posted for parts of the coast along Mexico and Texas. Except for the border area itself, though, most of the warning area is lightly populated. So far, between 70.8 million gallons and 137.6 million of oil have spewed into the Gulf from the broken BP well, according to government and BP estimates. The higher estimate is enough oil to fill half of New York's Empire State Building with oil. From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 13:39:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 13:39:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Oil hitting Mississippi beaches by the ton Message-ID: http://www.sunherald.com/2010/06/29/2298348/oil-hitting-beaches-by-the-ton.html By DONNA MELTON - dmelton at sunherald.com BILOXI - Out of curiosity, James and Cathy Adams drove 380 miles from Pontotoc to see the oil coming ashore in Harrison County. At the water's edge behind Snapper's Seafood Restaurant, Cathy Adams peeled a pancake of oily material from the beach and held it in her hands. It was like soft caramel, she said. "This is the first tar balls we've seen," she said. The Adamses are saddened to find the deposits along what should be clean, white sand. "It's just ruined," she said. "This is one of the best vacation places Mississippi has." Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team workers scoured the beaches in Harrison County, scooping more than a ton of contaminated sand mixed with tar patties, mats and balls into clear-plastic garbage bags. Tar balls are weathered oil; patties are just like balls, but newer and with a more liquid consistency. Tar mats can be a combination of the two mixed with debris such as sediment or plant matter. Advisories extended The state departments of Marine Resources, Environmental Quality and Health extended the beach advisory in Harrison County from the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor east to Azalea Avenue in Biloxi. According to a jointly issued news release, the beach in this area had significant amounts of tar mats and tar patties. The heaviest concentrations were between White Avenue in Biloxi and Cowan Road in Gulfport. MDEQ and the Beach Monitoring Task Force recommend people avoid contact with oil-related materials such as tar balls and tar mats and stay out of the water if these materials are visible. The Jackson County advisory issued Monday remains in effect and includes the area from Main Street in the Belle Fountaine area west to Seashore Avenue. Beaches are not closed, but beachgoers advised to use common sense and avoid direct skin contact with the oil. DMR and DEQ on Tuesday also closed more territorial waters to all commercial and recreational fishing, including all species of finfish, crabs, shrimp and oysters. The only areas still open are immediately south of Cat Island and the area from just east of Pass Christian to just west of Port Bienville. The precautionary closure is a result of oil sightings in this area and their potential effects on Mississippi's coastal marine life, officials said. DEQ staff, through aerial surveillance with the Mississippi National Guard, DEQ response staff and SCAT workers, observed the following by 3 p.m. Tuesday: continues: http://www.sunherald.com/2010/06/29/2298348_p2/oil-hitting-beaches-by-the-ton.html From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 13:42:33 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 13:42:33 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Toxic FEMA Trailers Return for Latest Gulf Disaster Message-ID: <7FF4AE25F9D34261BE19287B45133E92@agingCHS072729> Toxic FEMA Trailers Return for Latest Gulf Disaster http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/us/01trailers.html?_r=2&emc=eta1 From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 14:22:24 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 14:22:24 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Video/song] I read some Marx (and I liked it!) Message-ID: <1E57148AEF87452EA605DB44C26B5B44@agingCHS072729> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyqJ9wxZ9L0 From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 16:24:12 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 16:24:12 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] An analysis of the G20 protest and the black bloc Message-ID: <7C4058F0380848B692A58ADD7DDB25F0@agingCHS072729> http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/an-analysis-of-the-g20-protest-and-the-black-bloc/ Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist July 1, 2010 An analysis of the G20 protest and the black bloc Filed under: anarchism - louisproyect @ 1:37 pm (This appeared as a comment by Ritch on my last post. It deserves to be highlighted as a guest post.) The events at the G20 demonstration on Saturday have provoked a series of responses already. This article is not meant to review the events of the day itself but to look at the questions raised by the demonstrations. Suffice to say the reaction of the police in arresting, detaining, and brutalizing nearly 1,000 people in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history exposes the serious attacks on civil liberties we face. On Friday before the demonstration I was having a beer with a comrade in Halifax and of course discussion turned to the G20, we both agreed that this would be the perfect demonstration to go off without any property damage. If at the end of the day tens of thousands marched, thousands did sit-ins by the fence but the tactic of smashing windows was not employed then the summit would be a defeat for Harper. We drew this analysis based on the fact that every where you went there was anger at the billion dollar price tag for security. At a time when thousands are struggling to make ends meet and see the cost of the Summits as exorbitant. Many, consciously or not, recognize that this money is being spent to the architects of the crisis; protecting those who gave billions to the bank while leaving workers and the poor to pay for it. Furthermore, in the lead-up, there was a growing polarisation with many being angry or frustrated with Harper's attacks on civil liberties, on women's rights, on the climate, on the economy, and more. To have had a day of mass demonstrations and militant but non- violent action would have left Harper with egg on his face and given more confidence to those want to find ways to challenge Harper and the market. Instead, the day went just like clock work-much like other summits. There's a mass demonstration. A layer of people do a split from that march and then some engage in expressing their rage against the system by smashing windows and other acts. Given the world we live in, it is surprising that more of this doesn't happen more often. In response, the police hold back until the main march disperses. They wait for some damage to be done, and then they go on the offensive. They round-up and brutalize everyone left on the streets, including passers-by, peaceful protesters and those engaged in property damage. In Seattle, Quebec, Genoa, etc. this script has played out over and over again. The police wait until the mass organisations leave, then go after the rest. This strategy suggests that the police and the state are keenly aware of who they want-and don't want-to provoke. Within this the "black bloc" and their supporters utilise the larger rally and split marches to launch attacks on property and the police. Usually the police wait long enough for damage to be created before they respond. In these situations it is one of the few times the police wait to crack down. Then, when the cops attack, the "bloc" usually retreats and tries to merge with others. In Genoa, the black bloc ran through a group of nuns engaged in a sit-in which resulted in the police attacking the nuns. In New York City, at a demonstration against WEF, the black bloc ended up running from the police and trampling down women Steelworkers from Toronto, who were then attacked by the police as the black bloc hid behind the Steelworkers. Then the media and police trot out the usual line "We are ok with protests, but a small minority of criminals can't be tolerated". Those innocents that were arrested were an unfortunate by-product of protecting the city and its inhabitants. The police and politicians then justify the violence against protestors as necessary to stop any further violence. In the process, hundreds get arrested while the media spends the next several days reducing the estimated numbers of demonstrators, erasing on-site reports of police brutality, critiquing the police as being too passive. Then the police say they weren't able to protect property at the start because they were committed to facilitating the peaceful protest. Afterward they "did everything possible to restore order". Throughout all this, stories begin to emerge about undercover officers mingling with crowd, engaging in and trying to stir up "action". Eventually a handful get charged with some serious offences and the majority arrested get released with few or no charges. Despite the media hype there was nothing new about the events in Toronto. The question for militants is: what are the lessons? How do we interpret events and what do they mean for the left? To answer, we need to look at what the mobilisations can achieve and why they are important. This is the critical starting point. Since the rise of the anti-globalisation movement, this has been a point of debate. The mobilisations around summits are important because they provide an opportunity to mobilise people beyond the ranks of those already active. It is more possible because the media builds the events far beyond the reach of the left. The fact that the summits raise a broad set of issues, mean that they unite in opposition broad sets of movements. The demonstrations that result can often be greater than the sum of the parts of movements. They unite various movements - labour and environment for example. They provide an opportunity to bring wider layers into the.movement. Some have argued that these demonstrations are pointless one-off events and that those who go to them are "summit-hoppers". Strangely these critiques are often raised by people who themselves go to the events. But this misses the point that while the mobilisations are one-off's they are important in the sense that they pull struggles together and allow those not plugged into activism to find a space to join the movement. Secondly the protests show to millions of others that there is mass opposition to the system. Of course the idea that the protests themselves will change the agenda of the rulers is mistaken and naive. But the more important point of the protests is to galvanise and mobilise opposition to the system. For the left, the demonstrations offer a crucial opportunity to grow and sink deeper roots in new areas. These mobilizations also help maintain momentum and break down barriers between struggles that often go on in their own silos. In short, these protests forge new bonds of solidarity. So it is important to mobilise against these summits, not because we can change the agenda or that capitalism will grind to a halt if the summit is shut down. Some thought because of the collapse of the Doha round or the inability to get a deal at the FTAA Qu?bec City round, that capitalism would be forced into a retreat. But the reality is that these summits are attempts to overcome divisions between various ruling classes in various nation states. What they can't get through global agreements, they will try through regional agreements. What isn't accomplished regionally is taken up bi-laterally. Basically, summits are where the world's largest economies jockey with each other for a better deal for their own ruling classes. This doesn't mean we can't wrestle reforms from these leaders, and without the demonstrations it would be even harder to win reforms or prevent even more damaging policies from being implemented. Even NGO's who aren't committed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, understand that mobilising is vital to back their call for reforms. In this context, the object of mobilising for the summits should be to try and take advantage of the moment presented to broaden and deepen the left and build the movements. This is the objective from which our tactics flow. It is not the summit itself that matters but the ability to draw larger numbers onto the streets and into action. It offers the potential to increase people's confidence and consciousness. To establish tactics before determining the larger strategic objectives, raises tactics to a point of principle and robs the working class of the tactical flexibility that will maximize success. It is juvenile and creates the quixotic adventures we saw on June 26. So what about "diversity of tactics" and the black bloc? It should be clear that the actions of the black bloc reflect their politics. The actions in Toronto mirror those tactics used elsewhere. The tactics and politics regardless of their intent are inherently elitist and counter-productive. In fact they mirror the critique of reformism many on the left have. The NDP says vote for us and we'll do it for you, the black bloc says in essence the same thing - we will make the revolution for you. At best the tactics of the black bloc are based on a mistaken idea that the attacks on property and the police will create a spark to encourage others to resist capitalism, at worst they are based on a rampant individualistic sense of rage and entitlement to express that rage regardless of the consequences to others. The anti-authoritarian politic they follow is imposed on others. Very rarely will you see a black bloc call its own rally, instead the tactic is to play hide and seek with the police under the cover of larger mobilisations. Further as has been noted in many cases, the tactics and politics of the black bloc and some anarchists and some others on the left, leave them prone to being manipulated by the state. In almost every summit protest, police and others (in Genoa it was also fascists), infiltrate or form their own blocs to engage in provocations. The politics of secrecy and unannounced plans and a quasi-military (amateur at best) approach to demonstrations leave the door open to this. The tactics also open the door for the justification of further police repression. This has been debated before, with some arguing that the state doesn't need justification for repression. The idea that the state doesn't need justification for further repression exposes the total lack of understanding of both the state and the consciousness of ordinary people. If the state didn't need justification for repression, then we would all be in jail. Capitalism isn't a democratic system, but needs the facade of political rights to maintain some buy-in about how free we all are. If the state didn't need justification for repression, then we accept that people are just automatons who do what they are told. But the reality is that most people oppose police brutality and most people believe we are living in a democracy. Therefore when the police go on a rampage, they have to have an excuse. It is highly naive to think that the police and the state won't and don't need a justification to repress people. If they didn't we wouldn't have a war on drugs - it would have just been a war on the poor. Some argue that we have to support some of these tactics because they are "radical". But what is indeed "radical". Let us put aside the notion of "economic disruption" caused by a few burning cop cars and broken windows, as some use this to justify so called militant actions. The reality is the Tamil community created much more economic disruption with their non-violent occupation of the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. Further the workers in Sudbury valiantly fighting Vale Inco are doing much more to disrupt the economy than a thousands black bloc actions ever could. The tactics of the black bloc make it clear that for them, it is more important to smash windows than to try and march with thousands of workers and engage them in arguments about how to move struggles forward or that the problem is capitalism. So how radical is it to trash a few windows? It depends on what one means by radical. Radical is about workers gaining confidence and consciousness to fight back, not just at work, but in solidarity with others. Radical is about developing a sense of mass power, organising based on moving others into struggle, winning others to challenge the power in their workplace or community collectively, beyond the individualisation of our society. Radical is about going to the roots of the system-not trashing its symbols. So it is much more radical organising a Starbucks, or winning co-workers to fight homophobia, or defending women's rights than it is smashing a window. When the black bloc does its thing, does it move struggles forward or backward? Does it in the eyes of those questioning the system, or moving into struggle, or thinking that something is wrong, radicalise them and give them confidence? The answer is that outside of a small minority, these actions at best can inspire passive support from those who do not like police. But the majority have no confidence to engage in these actions themselves or agree with them. Instead of giving confidence, the tactics generally produce confusion and play into the hands of the state that would prefer it if no one ever protested. They allow the state to justify its repression and expenditures. In essence outside of an already radicalised minority they don't leave anyone with a deeper sense of confidence about the ability to fight capitalism. Instead at best they leave the impression that the fight against capitalism can only be carried out by a heroic minority at worst they leave people worrying about going to demonstrations. The tactic is far from radical because it does nothing to challenge capitalism in any way; it does nothing to instil confidence in others to resist. The debate shouldn't be about violence, per se, but about tactics and strategy. Of course we defend the right of workers and oppressed communities to self-defence. The response from the left to the riots in Toronto after Rodney King is a good example: many defended the justified outrage at both the racism of the justice system and the beating of Rodney King. It was a justifiable rage against a system of racism, but it also wasn't a strategy to defeat racism. The black bloc however, isn't an oppressed community resisting oppression and defending itself. Those on the left who see the problems with the black bloc and the cover given to them by those who elevate "diversity of tactics" to a principle need to organise coherent responses to this. We need to join the battle for interpretation without getting distracted by blanket pronouncements of "pro" this or "anti" that. We need to focus on strategy and the tactics that flow from it. This will allow us to regroup those activists who see the centrality of the working class as the key to social change, who recognize that intended or not, "diversity of tactics" is not radical but a cover for self-aggrandisement by some sections who have no faith in the self-activity of the working class. The need for a bigger stronger socialist movement in Toronto couldn't be greater. But the role of socialists isn't to gingerly tail those who support "diversity of tactics", but to politically debate and expose the bankruptcy of those ideas for moving struggles forward. And it goes without saying that while we do that, we must also be defending those arrested, exposing the brutality of the police and patiently explaining to co-workers and neighbours what really happened and why people protested. We need this clarity to avoid the sort of splits that occurred after Qu?bec City and after 9/11. We need this clarity and upfront politics to win those pulled by the anger at the system and its barbarism to a more effective-if less sexy-strategy, based on building a mass struggle against capitalism that can pull the system up by its roots. From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 19:03:30 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 19:03:30 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] John Michael Greer: Merlin's Time Message-ID: <2E75E36C877F4944A36665F26433D3DA@agingCHS072729> http://www.energybulletin.net/53295 Published Jun 30 2010 by The Archdruid Report, Archived Jul 1 2010 Merlin's time by John Michael Greer Perhaps the most interesting responses to the discussion of mass movements here on The Archdruid Report have been those that insisted that the only alternative, either to a mass movement in the abstract or to some specific movement, was defeat and despair. That's an odd sort of logic, since mass movements are hardly the only tool in the drawer; I suspect that part of what drives the insistence is the herd-mindedness of our species - we are, after all, social mammals with most of the same inborn habits of collective behavior you'll find in any of the less solitary vertebrates. Still, the pressure toward some such movement has another potent force driving it: the awkward fact that the vast majority of people today simply do not want to hear how difficult their future is going to be. It doesn't matter how good your evidence is or how well you make your case, most of your listeners will simply look uncomfortable and change the subject. Why this should be the case is an interesting question; I suspect that much of the blame lies with the cult of positive thinking Barbara Ehrenreich anatomized in a recent book, though I'm quite willing to hear alternative explanations. Still, for whatever reason, an extraordinary blindness to the downside has become crazy-glued in place straight across contemporary culture. From economists who insist that the bubble du jour (right now, in case you haven't noticed, it's government debt) can keep on inflating forever, through technology fans who believe devoutly that their favorite piece of drawing-board vaporware will necessarily solve the world's problems without side effects and with spare change left over, to millions of ordinary people who can't or won't imagine a future without the material abundance of recent decades, we seem to have lost the collective capacity to recognize that things can and do go very, very wrong. It's not merely a matter of blindness to the "black swan" events Nassim Nicholas Taleb made famous, either; we're just as bad at seeing white swans coming, even when they've been predicted for decades and the sky is so thick with them that it's hard to see anything else. It's an appalling predicament: how can a community prepare for a troubled future if most people tune out even the slightest suggestion that it might be troubled? It's for this reason, seemingly, that many people in the peak oil scene have chosen to downplay the difficulties and insist that we can have a bright, happy, abundant future if we just pursue whatever baby steps toward sustainability we all find congenial. I've been assured by some of the people making such claims that they're perfectly aware that the situation is far more difficult and dangerous than that, but that the need to get as people involved in some kind of movement toward sustainability is so great, they say, that waffling on that point is as justified as it is necessary. As it happens, I think they're making a hideous mistake. I've discussed the reasons for that perception at length in several recent posts, and won't rehash them here. The question that remains is whether there are any viable alternatives, and that's the question I want to address in today's post. To explain the option I have in mind, though, it may be useful to borrow a metaphor from history. I don't know how many of my readers know this, but my most recent publication is a translation of a very strange book from the Middle Ages. Its title is Picatrix, and it is one of the sole surviving examples of that absolute rarity of medieval literature, a textbook for apprentice wizards. Those of my readers who grew up on stories about Merlin, Gandalf et al. take note: those characters, legendary or fictional as they are, were modeled on an actual profession that flourished in the early Middle Ages, and remained relatively active until the bottom fell out of the market at the end of the Renaissance. By "wizard" here I don't mean your common or garden variety fortune teller or ritual practitioner; we have those in abundance today. The wizard of the early Middle Ages in Europe and the Muslim world, rather, was a freelance intellectual whose main stock in trade was good advice, though admittedly that came well frosted with incantation and prophecy as needed. He had a good working knowledge of astrology, which filled roughly the same role in medieval thought that theoretical physics does today, and an equally solid knowledge of ritual magic, but his training did not begin or end there. According to Picatrix, the compleat wizard in training needed to get a thorough education in agriculture; navigation; political science; military science; grammar, languages, and rhetoric; commerce, all the mathematics known at the time, including arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy; logic; medicine, including a good knowledge of herbal pharmaceuticals; the natural sciences, including meteorology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology; and Aristotle's metaphysics: in effect, the sum total of the scientific learning that had survived from the classical world. Now it may have occurred to my readers that this doesn't sound like the sort of education you'd get at Hogwarts, and that's exactly the point. Whether you believe that the movements of the planets foretell events on Earth, as almost everyone did in the Middle Ages, or whether you think astrology is simply a clever anticipation of game theory that gets its results by inserting random factors into strategic decisions to make them unpredictable, you'll likely recognize that a soothsayer with the sort of background I've just sketched out would be well prepared to offer sound advice on most of the questions that might perplex a medieval peasant, merchant, baron or king. Nor, of course, would someone so trained be restricted in his choice of active measures to incantations alone. This is arguably why so many medieval kings and barons had professional sorcerers and soothsayers on staff, despite the fulminations of all the dominant religions of the age, and why wizards less adept at social climbing found a bumper crop of customers lower down the social ladder. The origins of this profession are, if anything, even more interesting. Pierre Rich?'s useful study Education and Culture in the Barbarian West showed in detail how the educational institutions of the late Roman world imploded as their economic and social support systems crumpled beneath them. In Europe - matters were a little more complex in the Muslim world - they were replaced by a monastic system of education that, in its early days, fixated almost entirely on scriptural and theological studies, and by methods of training young aristocrats that fixated even more tightly on the skills of warfare and government. Only among families with a tradition of classical letters did some semblance of the old curriculum stay in use, and Rich? notes that while that custom continued, those who learned philosophy, one of the core studies in that curriculum, were widely suspected of dabbling in magic. It's not too hard to connect the dots and see how a subculture of freelance intellectuals, equipped with unusual knowledge and a willingness to stray well outside the boundaries set by the culture of their time, would have emerged from that context. All this may seem worlds away from the issues raised earlier in this essay, but there's a direct connection. The wizards of the early Middle Ages were individuals who recognized the value of certain branches of knowledge and certain attitudes toward the world that were profoundly unpopular in their time, and took it on themselves to preserve the knowledge, cultivate the attitudes, and make connections with those who shared the same sense of values,or at least were interested in making practical use of the skills that the knowledge and attitides made possible. There was no mass movement to support the survival of classical science in the sixth and seventh centuries CE, and no hope of starting one; the mass movements of the time - when they weren't simply stampeding mobs trying to get out of the way of the latest round of barbarian invasions - embraced the opposite opinion. How much of a role wizards might have played in the transmission of classical learning to the future is anyone's guess, since records of their activities are very sparse, but it's clear that they were an intellectual resource much used during an age when few other resources of the kind were available. I've come to think that a strategy of the same kind, if a bit more tightly focused, might well be one of the best options just now for an age when very few people are willing to make meaningful preparations for a difficult future. Certain branches of practical knowledge, thoroughly learned and just as thoroughly practiced by a relatively modest number of people, could be deployed in a hurry to help mitigate the impact of the energy shortages, economic dislocations, and systems breakdowns that are tolerably certain to punctuate the years ahead of us. I'm sure my readers have their own ideas about the kind of knowledge that might be best suited to that context, but I have a particular suggestion to offer: the legacy of the apppropriate technology movement of the 1970s. This was not simply a precursor of today's sustainability projects, and the differences are important. The appropriate tech movement, with some exceptions, tended to avoid the kind of high-cost, high-profile eco-chic projects so common today. Much of it focused instead on simple technologies that could be put to work by ordinary people without six-figure incomes, doing the work themselves, using ordinary tools and readily available resources. Most of these technologies were evolved by basement-shop craftspeople and small nonprofits working on shoestring budgets, and ruthlessly field-tested by thousands of people who built their own versions in their backyards and wrote about the results in the letters column of Mother Earth News. The resulting toolkit was a remarkably well integrated, effective, and cost-effective set of approaches that individuals, families, and communities could use to sharply reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and the industrial system in general. It was not, I should probably point out, particularly esthetic, unless you happen to like a lively fusion of down home funk, late twentieth century garage-workshop, and hand-dyed back-to-the-land hippie paisley; those of my readers who own houses and are still fretting about their resale value (and haven't yet figured out that this figure will be denominated in imaginary numbers for the next several decades at least) will likely run screaming from it; those who were incautious enough to buy homes in suburban developments with restrictive covenants will have to step carefully, at least until their neighbors panic. Apartment dwellers will have to pick and choose a bit; on the other hand, those of my readers who will spend time living in tarpaper shacks before the Great Recession ends - and I suspect a fair number of people will have that experience, as a fair number of people did the last time the economy lost touch with reality and imploded the way it's currently doing - will find that very nearly everything the appropriate tech people did will be well within their reach. What's included in the package I'm discussing? Intensive organic gardening, for starters, with its support technologies of composting, green manure, season extenders, and low-tech food preservation and storage methods; small-scale chicken and rabbit raising, and home aquaculture of fish; simple attached solar greenhouses, which make the transition from food to energy by providing heat for homes as well as food for the table; other retrofitted passive solar heating technologies; solar water heating; a baker's dozen or more methods for conserving hot or cool air with little or no energy input; and a good deal more. None of it will save the world, if that hackneyed phrase means maintaining business as usual on some supposedly sustainable basis; what it can do is make human life in a world suffering from serious energy shortages and economic troubles a good deal less traumatic and more livable. This is the suite of technologies I studied as a budding appropriate-tech geek during the late 1970s and 1980s, and it was central to the training program that earned me my Master Conserver certificate in 1985. One teaches what one knows, and I'm going to take the gamble of devoting much of the next year or so of Archdruid Report posts to the details. My hope is that I can encourage at least a few of my readers to follow the very old example mentioned earlier, and become the green wizards of the decades ahead of us. For that, I have come to think, is one of the things the soon-to-be-deindustrializing world most needs just now: green wizards. By this I mean individuals who are willing to take on the responsibility to learn, practice, and thoroughly master a set of unpopular but valuable skills - the skills of the old appropriate tech movement - and share them with their neighbors when the day comes that their neighbors are willing to learn. This is not a subject where armchair theorizing counts for much - as every wizard's apprentice learns sooner rather than later, what you really know is measured by what you've actually done - and it's probably not going to earn anyone a living any time soon, either, though it can help almost anyone make whatever living they earn go a great deal further than it might otherwise go. Nor, again, will it prevent the unraveling of the industrial age and the coming of a harsh new world; what it can do, if enough people seize the opportunity, is make the rough road to that new world more bearable than it will otherwise be. I also propose to have a certain amount of fun with the wizard archetype in the posts to come. Still, that's an example of what the Renaissance alchemist Michael Maier called a lusus serius, a game played in earnest, a dead serious joke. The present time, as I've suggested here more than once, has plenty of features in common with the twilight years of classical civilization, the age that gave rise to the legends of Merlin and Arthur, and made it in retrospect a poetic necessity for the greatest of all legendary kings to be advised by the greatest of all legendary wizards. Thus there's a certain lively irony in the fact that, back in the days when I was sanding blades for a homebuilt wind turbine and studying the laws of thermodynamics in Master Conserver classes in the meeting room of the old Seattle Public library, one of my favorite bits of music was Al Stewart's Merlin's Time: Who would walk the stony roads of Merlin's time, And keep the watch along the borderline? And who would hear the legends passed in song and rhyme Upon the shepherd pipes of Merlin's time? In its own way, that's the question that upcoming posts will pose to my readers; we'll see what the answer turns out to be. ======================= Original article here: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 1 20:12:31 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 20:12:31 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Congressional Out of Afghanistan Caucus Opposes Obama Admin's $33B Escalation Message-ID: <69E4ED8751DB4F81AE153C3D95D1AB28@agingCHS072729> http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/1/conyers Democracy Now! July 1, 2010 Rep. John Conyers and Out of Afghanistan Caucus Oppose Obama Admin's $33B Escalation of Afghan War Conyers Guest: Rep. John Conyers (D.-MI), chair of the House Judiciary Committee and co-chair of the Out of Afghanistan Caucus. JUAN GONZALEZ: We're joined by Democratic Congressman John Conyers. He's the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the co-chair of the "Out of Afghanistan" caucus. He's speaking today at a press conference with other lawmakers opposed to the $33 billion earmarked for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. The funding is contained in the supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010. The press conference is being held one day after the end of the bloodiest month for international troops in Afghanistan. Congressman Conyers, welcome to DEMOCRACY NOW! REP. JOHN CONYERS: What a pleasure to be on the show. Top of the morning to both of you. JUAN GONZALEZ: Can you tell us in terms of your efforts now to oppose this increase in funding, why you're doing it and what do you see, especially after this conversation we've been having here on the sacking of General McChrystal, as to what the future holds for our nation in Afghanistan? REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, it's never been clear to me that through war we can bring peace, especially when we're the invaders, we're the ones using drones. We're causing civilian deaths to many people who would otherwise be more friendly to us. We're creating the terrorists. This is not being lost on most of the people in the country now. Our constituents now want us out of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and what we're doing now is forming a way to discuss this with our president in an effort to make him more comfortable with doing what most people want him to do and what we thought he was going to do in the first place, namely, to clearly disengage from the military, increase the diplomatic activity, and bring in some help in terms of food supplies, aid, and positive build up of these countries and to make as many friends as we can over there rather than this ninth year of what has now become a debacle in every respect. AMY GOODMAN:Congressman Conyers, what is the War is Making Your Poor Act? REP: JOHN CONYERS: The War is Making You Poor is a brilliant device by Grayson, my colleague Alan Grayson, in which we're doing just three things. One, we limit the amount of funding of the wars in both countries. We eliminate the federal tax on all Americans that make less than $35,000 a year. And as a result, and this has been confirmed by the Joint Committee on taxation, we reduce the debt by almost $16 billion. Our debt. So it's a combination of things that are happening now, Amy, that make it clear to more and more members of Congress that you can't keep a straight face on all of this incredible indebtedness, talk about all of the money that we have shoveled out to Wall Street and credit isn't loosening up, unemployment is still at all-time highs. We're projected in Detroit to have more foreclosures on homes than last year. So we've got to turn with especially all of the shouts about being fiscally conservative, the way to climb out of this is to reduce the obligations of our government. Here we are in hundreds of billions of dollars of war debt and our President is saying we now have to have an emergency funding which is merely another way of saying we're going to specially fund the Afghanistan surge. It makes no sense and I thing militarily it is not logical and of course morally, I can't remember anything like this since Korea and Vietnam, to be honest with you. LISTEN -- WATCH Real Video Stream http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2010/july/video/dnB20100701a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=00:37:38 Real Audio Stream http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2010/july/audio/dn20100701.ra&proto=rtsp&start=00:37:38 MP3 Download http://traffic.libsyn.com/democracynow/dn2010-0701-1.mp3 From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 2 00:23:21 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 01:23:21 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Pope once held critical decision-making position over abuse cases, but failed to act Message-ID: <75BA45B165094D879E160D0453C919FA@Upstairs> Amid Church Abuse Scandal, an Office That Failed to Act By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and DAVID M. HALBFINGER Published: July 1, 2010 In its long struggle to grapple with sexual abuse, the Vatican often cites as a major turning point the decision in 2001 to give the office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the authority to cut through a morass of bureaucracy and handle abuse cases directly. The decision, in an apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II, earned Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, a reputation as the Vatican insider who most clearly recognized the threat the spreading sexual abuse scandals posed to the Roman Catholic Church. But church documents and interviews with canon lawyers and bishops cast that 2001 decision and the future pope's track record in a new and less flattering light. The Vatican took action only after bishops from English-speaking nations became so concerned about resistance from top church officials that the Vatican convened a secret meeting to hear their complaints - an extraordinary example of prelates from across the globe collectively pressing their superiors for reform, and one that had not previously been revealed. And the policy that resulted from that meeting, in contrast to the way it has been described by the Vatican, was not a sharp break with past practices. It was mainly a belated reaffirmation of longstanding church procedures that at least one bishop attending the meeting argued had been ignored for too long, according to church documents and interviews. The office led by Cardinal Ratzinger, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had actually been given authority over sexual abuse cases nearly 80 years earlier, in 1922, documents show and canon lawyers confirm. But for the two decades he was in charge of that office, the future pope never asserted that authority, failing to act even as the cases undermined the church's credibility in the United States, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, an outspoken auxiliary bishop emeritus from Sydney, Australia, who attended the secret meeting in 2000, said that despite numerous warnings, top Vatican officials, including Benedict, took far longer to wake up to the abuse problems than many local bishops did. "Why did the Vatican end up so far behind the bishops out on the front line, who with all their faults, did change - they did develop," he said. "Why was the Vatican so many years behind?" Cardinal Ratzinger, of course, had not yet become pope, a divinely ordained office not accustomed to direction from below. John Paul, his longtime superior, often dismissed allegations of pedophilia by priests as an attack on the church by its enemies. Supporters say that Cardinal Ratzinger would have preferred to take steps earlier to stanch the damage in certain cases. But the future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction. More than any top Vatican official other than John Paul, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the scandal from metastasizing in country after country, growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own papacy. As pope, Benedict has met with victims of sexual abuse three times. He belatedly reopened an investigation into the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful religious order - and a prot?g? of John Paul's - and ultimately removed him from ministry. He gave American bishops greater leeway to take a tough line on abuse in the United States, and recently accepted the resignations of several bishops elsewhere. And on June 11, at an event in St. Peter's Square meant to celebrate priests, he begged "forgiveness from God and from the persons involved" and promised to do "everything possible" to prevent future abuse. But today the abuse crisis is still raging in the Catholic heartland of Europe: civil investigators in Belgium last week took the rare step of raiding church headquarters and the home of a former archbishop. The Vatican under Benedict is still responding to abuse by priests at its own pace, and it is being besieged by an outside world that wants it to move faster and more decisively. Vatican officials, who declined to answer detailed questions related to Benedict's history, say that the church will announce another round of changes to its canon laws, as it did in 2001, so that the church can improve its response to the abuse problem. But the suggestion that more reforms are ahead is a nod to the fact that there is still widespread confusion among many bishops about how to handle allegations of abuse, and that their approaches are remarkably uneven from country to country. National bishops' conferences in some countries have adopted their own norms and standards. But several decades after sexual abuse by priests became a problem, Benedict has not yet instituted a universal set of rules. Scandal and Confusion The sexual abuse scandal first caught much of the world's attention in 2002, with reports that the Boston archdiocese had been covering up for molesters for years. But the alarm bells had already been sounding for nearly two decades in many countries. In Lafayette, La., in 1984, the Rev. Gilbert Gauth? admitted to molesting 37 youngsters. In 1989, a sensational case erupted at an orphanage in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. By the mid-1990s, about 40 priests and brothers in Australia faced abuse allegations. In 1994, the Irish government was brought down when it botched the extradition of a notorious pedophile priest. Bishops had a variety of disciplinary tools at their disposal - including the power to remove accused priests from contact with children and to suspend them from ministry altogether - that they could use without the Vatican's direct approval. Some used this authority to sideline abusive priests, minimizing the damage inflicted on their victims. Other bishops clearly made things worse, by shuffling abusers from one assignment to the next, never telling parishioners or reporting priests to the police. But as court cases, financial settlements and media coverage mounted, many prelates looked to the Vatican for leadership and clarity on how to prosecute abusers under canon law and when to bring cases to the attention of the civil authorities. In the worst cases, involving serial offenders who denied culpability and resisted discipline, some bishops sought the Vatican's guidance on how to dismiss them from the priesthood. For this, bishops needed the Vatican's help. Dismissing a priest is not like disbarring a lawyer or stripping a doctor of his medical license. In Catholic theology, ordaining a priest creates an indelible mark; to return him to the lay state required the approval of the pope. Yet throughout the '80s and '90s, bishops who sought to penalize and dismiss abusive priests were daunted by a bewildering bureaucratic and canonical legal process, with contradicting laws and overlapping jurisdictions in Rome, according to church documents and interviews with bishops and canon lawyers. Besides Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, bishops were sending off their files on abuse cases to the Congregations for the Clergy, for Bishops, for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and for the Evangelization of Peoples - plus the Vatican's Secretariat of State; its appeals court, the Apostolic Signatura; and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. "There was confusion everywhere," said Archbishop Philip Edward Wilson of Adelaide, Australia. A new Code of Canon Law issued in 1983 only muddied things further, among other things by setting a five-year statute of limitations within which abuse cases could be prosecuted. During this period, the three dozen staff members working for Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were busy pursuing other problems. These included examining supernatural phenomena, like apparitions of the Virgin Mary, so that hoaxes did not "corrupt the faith," according to the Rev. Brian Mulcahy, a former member of the staff. Other sections weighed requests by divorced Catholics to remarry and vetted the applications of former priests who wanted to be reinstated. The heart of the office, though, was its doctrinal section. Cardinal Ratzinger, a German theologian appointed prefect of the congregation in 1981, aimed his renowned intellectual firepower at what he saw as "a fundamental threat to the faith of the church" - the liberation theology movement sweeping across Latin America. As Father Gauth? was being prosecuted in Louisiana, Cardinal Ratzinger was publicly disciplining priests in Brazil and Peru for preaching that the church should work to empower the poor and oppressed, which the cardinal saw as a Marxist-inspired distortion of church doctrine. Later, he also reined in a Dutch theologian who thought lay people should be able to perform priestly functions, and an American who taught that Catholics could dissent from church teachings about abortion, birth control, divorce and homosexuality. Different Focus for Cardinal Cardinal Ratzinger also focused on reining in national bishops' conferences, several of which, independent of Rome, had begun confronting the sexual abuse crisis and devising policies to address it in their countries. He declared that such conferences had "no theological basis" and "do not belong to the structure of the church." Individual bishops, he reaffirmed, reigned supreme in their dioceses and reported only to the authority of the pope in Rome. Another hint of his priorities came at a synod in 1990, when a bishop from Calgary gingerly mentioned the growing sexual abuse problem in Canada. When Cardinal Ratzinger rose to speak, however, it was of a different crisis: the diminishing image of the priesthood since the Second Vatican Council, and the "huge drop" in the numbers of priests as many resigned. That concern - that the irrevocable commitment to the priesthood was being undermined by the exodus of priests leaving to marry or because they were simply disenchanted - had already led Cardinal Ratzinger to block the dismissal of at least one priest convicted of molestation, documents show. "Look at it from the perspective of priestly commitment," said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, a former student of Cardinal Ratzinger's and founder of the conservative publishing house Ignatius Press. "You want to get married? You're still a priest. You're a sex offender? Well, you're still a priest. Rome is looking at it from the objective reality of the priesthood." After another abuse scandal in 1992 in Fall River, Mass., bishops in the United States pressed the Vatican for an alternative to the slow and arcane canonical justice system. Without a full canonical trial, clerics accused of abuse could not be dismissed from the priesthood against their will (although a bishop could impose some restrictions short of that). In 1993, John Paul said he had heard the American bishops' pleas and convened a joint commission of American and Vatican canonists to propose improvements. John Paul rejected its proposal to let bishops dismiss priests using administrative procedures, without canonical trials. But he agreed to raise the age of majority to 18 from 16 for child-molestation cases. More important, he extended the statute of limitations to 10 years after the victim's 18th birthday. It is not known whether Cardinal Ratzinger spoke up in the internal deliberations that led to the two changes, which applied only to the United States. But those changes clearly did not go far enough. And as the crisis steadily spread in other countries, bishops and church administrators from across the English-speaking world began meeting to compare notes on how to respond to it. After gathering on their own in 1996 and 1998, they demanded that the Curia, the Vatican's administration, meet with them in Rome in 2000. Frustrations Boil Over The visiting bishops had reached the boiling point. After flailing about for 20 years, with little guidance from Rome, as stories about pedophile priests embroiled the church in lawsuits, shame and scandal, they had flown in to Rome from Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, the United States and the West Indies. Many came out of frustration: the Vatican had too often thwarted bishops' attempts to oust pedophile priests in their jurisdictions. Yet they had high hopes that they would make the case for reform. Nearly every major Vatican office was represented in the gathering, held in the same Vatican hotel that was built to house cardinals electing a new pope. "The message we wanted to get across was: if individuals are to hide behind church law and use that law to impede the ability of bishops to discipline priests, then we have to have a new way of moving forward," said Eamonn Walsh, auxiliary bishop of Dublin, one of 17 bishops who attended from overseas. (He was one of several Irish bishops who offered the pope their resignations last year because of the abuse scandal, but his has not been accepted.) Yet many at the meeting grew dismayed as, over four long days in early April 2000, they heard senior Vatican officials dismiss clergy sexual abuse as a problem confined to the English-speaking world, and emphasize the need to protect the rights of accused priests over ensuring the safety of children, according to interviews with 10 church officials who attended the meeting. Cardinal Dar?o Castrill?n Hoyos, then the head of the Congregation for the Clergy, set the tone, playing down sexual abuse as an unavoidable fact of life, and complaining that lawyers and the media were unfairly focused on it, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. What is more, he asked, is it not contradictory for people to be so outraged by sexual abuse when society also promotes sexual liberation? Another Vatican participant even observed that many pedophile priests had Irish surnames, a remark that offended delegates from Ireland. "Prejudices came out," said Bishop Robinson of Australia. "There were some very silly things said at times." Though disappointed, the visiting bishops were not entirely surprised. "It wasn't that there was bad will in Rome," Bishop Walsh said. "They just didn't have the firsthand experience that the dioceses were having around the world - experience with the manipulative, devious ways of the perpetrators. If the perpetrator said, 'I didn't do it,' they would say, 'He wouldn't be telling a lie, he has to be telling the truth, and he's innocent until proven guilty.' " An exception to the prevailing attitude, several participants recalled, was Cardinal Ratzinger. He attended the sessions only intermittently and seldom spoke up. But in his only extended remarks, he made clear that he saw things differently from others in the Curia. "The speech he gave was an analysis of the situation, the horrible nature of the crime, and that it had to be responded to promptly," recalled Archbishop Wilson of Australia, who was at the meeting in 2000. "I felt, this guy gets it, he's understanding the situation we're facing. At long last, we'll be able to move forward." Clarity Comes in a Letter Even so, the meeting served as much to expose Cardinal Ratzinger's inattention to the problem as it did to showcase his new attitude. Archbishop Wilson said in an interview that during the session he had to call Vatican officials' attention to long-ignored papal instructions, dating from 1922, and reissued in 1962, that gave Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Holy Office, sole responsibility for deciding cases of priests accused of particularly heinous offenses: solicitation of sex during confession, homosexuality, pedophilia and bestiality. Archbishop Wilson said he had stumbled across the old instructions as a canon law student in the early 1990s. And he eventually learned that canonists were deeply divided on whether the old instructions or the 1983 canon law - which were at odds on major points - should hold sway. If the old instructions had prevailed, then there would be no cause for confusion among bishops across the globe: all sexual abuse cases would fall under Cardinal Ratzinger's jurisdiction. (The Vatican has recently insisted that Cardinal Ratzinger's office was responsible only for cases related to priests who solicited sex in the confessional, but the 1922 instructions plainly gave his office jurisdiction over sexual abuse cases involving "youths of either sex" that did not involve violating the sacrament of confession.) Few people in the room had any idea what Archbishop Wilson was talking about, other participants recalled. But Archbishop Wilson said he had discussed the old papal instructions with Cardinal Ratzinger's office in the late 1990s and had been told that they indeed were the prevailing law in pedophilia cases. Just over a year later, in May 2001, John Paul issued a confidential apostolic letter instructing that all cases of sexual abuse by priests were thenceforth to be handled by Cardinal Ratzinger's office. The letter was called "Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela," Latin for "Safeguarding the Sanctity of the Sacraments." In an accompanying cover letter, Cardinal Ratzinger, who is said to have been heavily involved in drafting the main document, wrote that the 1922 and 1962 instructions that gave his office authority over sexual abuse by priests cases were "in force until now." The upshot of that phrase, experts say, is that Catholic bishops around the world, who had been so confused for so long about what to do about molestation cases, could and should have simply directed them to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith all along. Bishops and canon law experts said in interviews that they could only speculate as to why the future pope had not made this clear many years earlier. "It makes no sense to me that they were sitting on this document," said the Rev. John P. Beal, a canon law professor at the Catholic University of America. "Why didn't they just say, 'Here are the norms. If you need a copy we'll send them to you?' " Nicholas P. Cafardi, a Catholic expert in canon law who is dean emeritus and professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law, said, "When it came to handling child sexual abuse by priests, our legal system fell apart." There was additional confusion over the statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases - or whether there even was one, given the Vatican's reaffirmation of the 1922 and 1962 papal instructions. Many bishops had believed that they could not prosecute cases against priests because they exceeded the five-year statute of limitations enacted in 1983, effectively shielding many molesters since victims of child abuse rarely came forward until they were well into adulthood. Mr. Cafardi, who is also the author of "Before Dallas: The U.S. Bishops' Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children," argued that another effect of the 2001 apostolic letter was to impose a 10-year statute of limitations on pedophilia cases where, under a careful reading of canon law, none had previously applied. "When you think how much pain could've been prevented, if we only had a clear understanding of our own law," he said. "It really is a terrible irony. This did not have to happen." Though the apostolic letter was praised for bringing clarity to the subject, it also reaffirmed a requirement that such cases be handled with the utmost confidentiality, under the "pontifical secret" - drawing criticism from many who argued that the church remained unwilling to report abusers to civil law enforcement. Reforms, but Limited Reach After the new procedures were adopted, Cardinal Ratzinger's office became more responsive to requests to discipline priests, said bishops who sought help from his office. But when the sexual abuse scandal erupted again, in Boston in 2002, it immediately became clear to American bishops that the new procedures were inadequate. Meeting in Dallas in the summer of 2002, the American bishops adopted a stronger set of canonical norms requiring bishops to report all criminal allegations to the secular authorities, and to permanently remove from ministry priests facing even one credible accusation of abuse. They also sought from the Vatican a streamlined way to discipline priests that would not require a drawn-out canonical trial. The Vatican initially rejected the American bishops' proposed norms. A committee of American bishops and Vatican officials, including Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy, watered down the American mandatory-reporting requirement to say only that bishops must comply with civil laws on reporting crimes, which vary widely from place to place. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reserved for itself the power to dismiss a man from the priesthood without a full canonical trial - the kind of administrative remedy that American bishops had long been begging the Vatican to delegate to them. Even so, the American bishops got most of what they asked for, and Cardinal Ratzinger was their advocate, said Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, then the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Americans were allowed to keep their zero-tolerance provision for abusive priests, making the rules for the church in the United States far more stringent than in most of the rest of the world. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also said it would waive the statute of limitations on a case-by-case basis if bishops asked. Archbishop Gregory said he made 13 trips to Rome in three years, almost always meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger. "He was extraordinarily supportive of what we were doing," Archbishop Gregory said in an interview. Other reforms enacted by American bishops included requiring background checks for church personnel working with children, improved screening of seminarians, training in recognizing abuse, annual compliance audits in each diocese and lay review boards to advise bishops on how to deal with abuse cases. Those measures seem to be having an impact. Last year, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 513 people made allegations of sexual abuse against 346 priests or other church officials, roughly a third fewer cases than in 2008. Yet the Vatican did not proactively apply those policies to other countries, and it is only now grappling with abuse problems elsewhere. Reports have surfaced of bishops in Chile, Brazil, India and Italy who quietly kept accused priests in ministry without informing local parishioners or prosecutors. Benedict, now five years into his papacy, has yet to make clear if he intends to demand of bishops throughout the world - and of his own Curia - that all priests who committed abuse and bishops who abetted it must be punished. As the crisis has mushroomed internationally this year, some cardinals in the Vatican have continued to blame the news media and label the criticism anti-Catholic persecution. Benedict himself has veered from defensiveness to contrition, saying in March that the faithful should not be intimidated by "the petty gossip of dominant opinion" - and then in May telling reporters that "the greatest persecution of the church does not come from the enemies outside, but is born from the sin in the church." The Vatican, moreover, has never made it mandatory for bishops around the world to report molesters to the civil authorities, or to alert parishes and communities where the abusive priests worked - information that often propels more victims to step forward. (Vatican officials caution that a reporting requirement could be dangerous in dictatorships and countries where the church is already subject to persecution.) It was only in April that the Vatican posted "guidelines" on its Web site saying that church officials should comply with civil laws on reporting abuse. But those are recommendations, not requirements. Today, a debate is roiling the Vatican, pitting those who see the American zero-tolerance norms as problematic because they lack due process for accused priests, against those who want to change canon law to make it easier to penalize and dismiss priests. Where Benedict lies on this spectrum, even after nearly three decades of handling abuse cases, is still an open question. Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/world/europe/02pope.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 2 00:47:55 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 01:47:55 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] PAUL KRUGMAN: Myths of Austerity Message-ID: <4D224890E7FB4C70A6006ADA9F863DDD@Upstairs> This conventional wisdom isn't a prejudice, but just another tactic of the right to to starve the government until its small enough to drown it in a bathtub. Myths of Austerity By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 1, 2010 When I was young and na?ve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions. Which brings me to the subject of today's column. For the last few months, I and others have watched, with amazement and horror, the emergence of a consensus in policy circles in favor of immediate fiscal austerity. That is, somehow it has become conventional wisdom that now is the time to slash spending, despite the fact that the world's major economies remain deeply depressed. This conventional wisdom isn't based on either evidence or careful analysis. Instead, it rests on what we might charitably call sheer speculation, and less charitably call figments of the policy elite's imagination - specifically, on belief in what I've come to think of as the invisible bond vigilante and the confidence fairy. Bond vigilantes are investors who pull the plug on governments they perceive as unable or unwilling to pay their debts. Now there's no question that countries can suffer crises of confidence (see Greece, debt of). But what the advocates of austerity claim is that (a) the bond vigilantes are about to attack America, and (b) spending anything more on stimulus will set them off. What reason do we have to believe that any of this is true? Yes, America has long-run budget problems, but what we do on stimulus over the next couple of years has almost no bearing on our ability to deal with these long-run problems. As Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently put it, "There is no intrinsic contradiction between providing additional fiscal stimulus today, while the unemployment rate is high and many factories and offices are underused, and imposing fiscal restraint several years from now, when output and employment will probably be close to their potential." Nonetheless, every few months we're told that the bond vigilantes have arrived, and we must impose austerity now now now to appease them. Three months ago, a slight uptick in long-term interest rates was greeted with near hysteria: "Debt Fears Send Rates Up," was the headline at The Wall Street Journal, although there was no actual evidence of such fears, and Alan Greenspan pronounced the rise a "canary in the mine." Since then, long-term rates have plunged again. Far from fleeing U.S. government debt, investors evidently see it as their safest bet in a stumbling economy. Yet the advocates of austerity still assure us that bond vigilantes will attack any day now if we don't slash spending immediately. But don't worry: spending cuts may hurt, but the confidence fairy will take away the pain. "The idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect," declared Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, in a recent interview. Why? Because "confidence-inspiring policies will foster and not hamper economic recovery." What's the evidence for the belief that fiscal contraction is actually expansionary, because it improves confidence? (By the way, this is precisely the doctrine expounded by Herbert Hoover in 1932.) Well, there have been historical cases of spending cuts and tax increases followed by economic growth. But as far as I can tell, every one of those examples proves, on closer examination, to be a case in which the negative effects of austerity were offset by other factors, factors not likely to be relevant today. For example, Ireland's era of austerity-with-growth in the 1980s depended on a drastic move from trade deficit to trade surplus, which isn't a strategy everyone can pursue at the same time. And current examples of austerity are anything but encouraging. Ireland has been a good soldier in this crisis, grimly implementing savage spending cuts. Its reward has been a Depression-level slump - and financial markets continue to treat it as a serious default risk. Other good soldiers, like Latvia and Estonia, have done even worse - and all three nations have, believe it or not, had worse slumps in output and employment than Iceland, which was forced by the sheer scale of its financial crisis to adopt less orthodox policies. So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you'll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we're bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we're good. And real-world policy - policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families - is being built on that foundation. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 3 00:56:56 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 01:56:56 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Glenn Greenwald: The administration defends its assassination program Message-ID: <263DF67B16A341ACB17A3DCE9E47AE91@Upstairs> Thursday, Jul 1, 2010 13:02 ET The administration defends its assassination program By Glenn Greenwald In the wake of Leon Panetta's public defense of the targeting of American citizens suspected (but never charged or convicted) of Terrorism, Obama officials are now apparently going around the country and, with chest-beating rhetoric, overtly defending their right to target Americans for assassination with no due process of any kind: "If someone like Anwar al-Awlaki is responsible" for part of a plot "to kill more than 300 people over the city of Detroit," [director of the National Counterterrorism Center Michael] Leiter said, "I think it would be wholly irresponsible for citizens like me, Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary (Robert) Gates, and ultimately the president, not to at least think about and potentially direct all the elements of national power to try to defend the American people" . . . A woman in the crowd who identified herself as an American Civil Liberties Union member asked why there was no judicial review of such kill orders, citing the standard warrant requirements facing a policeman before entering a citizen's home. Leiter explained that while "a police officer does need a court order to go after a house," the lawman "has a right of self-defense if someone pulls out a gun." The U.S. government, Leiter insisted, has the same right. He added that there is congressional oversight of such actions. For several reasons, this is misleading in the extreme. First, nobody disputes the military's right (or the police's) to use force if they seek to apprehend someone and that person begins shooting at them. That situation has nothing whatsoever to do with the presidential assassination program, which authorizes targeted killings without any attempt at apprehension and no matter what the person is doing at the time: i.e., sleeping, riding in a car, watching television with their children, etc. (indeed, the administration has already tried to kill Awlaki in exactly this fashion without trying to apprehend him). If, as Leiter deceitfully suggests, this were only about the military or CIA's use of force in the event that a suspect starts using violence during an attempted apprehension, then no presidential order would be needed because they already have that right, and there'd be no controversy. That's just obvious. Instead, "[t]he Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing [] targeted killing" of Americans. The police don't have the right to put a bullet in the back of a suspect's head while he sleeps or by sneaking up behind him while he walks on the street, which is the actual Police analogy to what the Obama administration is doing. Second, Leiter's claim "that there is congressional oversight of such actions" is both irrelevant and materially false. It's irrelevant because the President does not have the right to assassinate American citizens without due process just as long as he tells a few member of Congress what he's doing (that was always the Bush excuse for its lawless behavior: well, we told Congress what we were doing). And it's false because, as Time's Massimo Calabresi reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "in the middle of an ugly fight with the President -- as well as the CIA . . . about Congress's watchdog powers over the U.S. intelligence services." As Calabresi writes -- using the term "center" to mean "copying Bush/Cheney policies" -- "the battle is turning into the biggest confrontation yet over Executive power between the liberal House Speaker and a White House that has moved steadily to the center on national security matters." As Russ Feingold explained, "the Obama administration is continuing some of the stonewalling practices of the George W. Bush administration when it comes to providing full intelligence briefings to the relevant committees in Congress." Specifically, Pelosi is demanding -- and the White House is vowing to veto -- a new intelligence law to require "the CIA and other intelligence agencies to inform all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees when they launch any covert action or other controversial program" and to allow "the Government Accountability Office (GAO) [] to audit[] any intelligence program, . . . a power the GAO has for classified Pentagon programs but not for the intelligence agencies." That's because the current process -- which the White House is fighting desperately to maintain -- provides no meaningful oversight of the "most sensitive" intelligence programs, which is how the Bush administration was able to claim it "briefed" members of Congress (including Pelosi) on its torture and eavesdropping programs while telling them very little that would enable meaningful review. As Richard Clarke and so many others have explained, the intelligence "oversight" system in place now is a sham and (quoting Clarke) a "farce." The suggestion that someone whom the President targets for assassination is given anything resembling meaningful due process all because a few members of Congress are told by the CIA about it is so ludicrous as to be insulting. Finally, note Leiter's decree -- for which no evidence has been offered and which has never been reviewed by any court -- that Awlaki "had a 'direct operational role' in the plot that allegedly sent Christmas Day bombing suspect Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab to attack a Detroit-bound airliner packed with nearly 300 passengers." Could the individuals who trust the U.S. Government to essentially convict people of Terrorism and impose a death penalty through imperial decree (i.e., without any trials or judicial review, and based solely on the unchecked say-so of the Executive Branch) please identify themselves, and particularly explain the basis for that trust in light of this disgraceful and error-plagued record? We really are talking about a President who believes he has the right to send the CIA to murder American citizens based purely on allegations and suspicions of wrongdoing; to describe the seized power is to illustrate its perversity. * * * * * As the first commenter notes, we also find here the central justification for most of what was done under the Bush administration: anything and everything is justified if it can be cast as helping to "protect the American people," as though Security is the overarching presidential duty. In fact, the actual oath taken by the President as compelled by the Constitution -- that irritating, purist, Far Leftist document which he incessantly told us he studied and taught -- is this: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." To fulfill that duty, he might want to begin by looking here: "No person shall . . .be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/07/01/assassinations -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 3 00:49:42 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 01:49:42 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Glenn Greenwald: New study documents media's servitude to government Message-ID: <86FBC89A0C3E4F3F96773A4D386D1EC6@Upstairs> Wednesday, Jun 30, 2010 05:31 ET New study documents media's servitude to government By Glenn Greenwald (updated below) A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way: Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as "torture" when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it's the U.S. employing that technique: As always, the American establishment media is simply following in the path of the U.S. Government (which is why it's the "establishment media"): the U.S. itself long condemned waterboarding as "torture" and even prosecuted it as such, only to suddenly turn around and declare it not to be so once it began using the tactic. That's exactly when there occurred, as the study puts it, "a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboading." As the U.S. Government goes, so goes our establishment media. None of this is a surprise, of course. I and others many times have anecdotally documented that the U.S. media completely changes how it talks about something (or how often) based on who is doing it ("torture" when the Bad Countries do it but some soothing euphemism when the U.S. does it; continuous focus when something bad is done to Americans but a virtual news blackout when done by the U.S., etc.). Nor is this an accident, but is quite deliberate: media outlets such as the NYT, The Washington Post and NPR explicitly adopted policies to ban the use of the word "torture" for techniques the U.S. Government had authorized once government officials announced it should not be called "torture." We don't need a state-run media because our media outlets volunteer for the task: once the U.S. Government decrees that a technique is no longer torture, U.S. media outlets dutifully cease using the term. That compliant behavior makes overtly state-controlled media unnecessary. In his proposed Preface to Animal Farm, George Orwell noted how completely the British Government during World War II was able to control media content without formal or official censorship: The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. . . . So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. . . . At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. In 2007, Rudy Giuliani was widely mocked for explaining that whether a particular technique constitutes torture "depends on who does it" -- rarely does one find such an unapologetically nationalistic theory of morality and even language -- but that's exactly the same standard not only our government but also our establishment media has adopted. The real issue here is the same one raised by the malleable, manipulative use of the term "Terrorism." It's to be expected that governments will try to propagandize their citizenry by applying completely different standards -- even completely different language -- to their own conduct as opposed to when other countries engage in exactly the same conduct. But when the media copies that behavior (as ours does), they're amplifying and bolstering government propaganda rather than critically scrutinizing and debunking it. Isn't that a fairly serious problem? The behavior is even more egregious when government dictates (as of now, this is no longer torture) lead directly to the change in media behavior. And the ultimate effect of this joint government/media obfuscation is to further entrench the destructive notion that we're different, exceptional, better, and therefore we deserve even a different language to describe what it is that we do. This Harvard study documents the exact process by which the political class convinces itself and others that bad and illegal things are, by definition, only what those Bad, Other Foreign Countries do, but never ourselves. UPDATE: For a classic example of the Everything-Is-Intrinsically-Different-When-We-Do-It syndrome, see the update to the prior post. http://www.salon.com/news/media_criticism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/06/30/media -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 153409 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 83391 bytes Desc: not available URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 3 09:52:35 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 09:52:35 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Sticking the public with the bill for the bankers' crisis Message-ID: <8C69EC0CB4A544ACBEE35FACF3F70630@agingCHS072729> Globe and Mail June 28, 2010 Sticking the public with the bill for the bankers' crisis How else can we interpret the G20 communique that includes not even a measly tax on financial transactions? by Naomi Klein My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I'm not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday. I'm talking about the heads of state who, on Sunday night, smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession. Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world's wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill. How else can we interpret the G20's final communique, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013. This is a huge and shocking cut, and we should be very clear who will pay the price: students who will see their public educations further deteriorate as their fees go up; pensioners who will lose hard-earned benefits; public-sector workers whose jobs will be eliminated. And the list goes on. These types of cuts have already begun in many G20 countries including Canada, and they are about to get a lot worse. They are happening for a simple reason. When the G20 met in London in 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, the leaders failed to band together to regulate the financial sector so that this type of crisis would never happen again. All we got was empty rhetoric, and an agreement to put trillions of dollars in public monies on the table to shore up the banks around the world. Meanwhile the US government did little to keep people in their homes and jobs, so in addition to hemorrhaging public money to save the banks, the tax base collapsed, creating an entirely predictable debt and deficit crisis. At this weekend's summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper convinced his fellow leaders that it simply wouldn't be fair to punish those banks that behaved well and did not create the crisis (despite the fact that Canada's highly protected banks are consistently profitable and could easily absorb a tax). Yet somehow these leaders had no such concerns about fairness when they decided to punish blameless individuals for a crisis created by derivative traders and absentee regulators. Last week, The Globe and Mail published a fascinating article about the origins of the G20. It turns out the entire concept was conceived in a meeting back in 1999 between then finance minister Paul Martin and his US counterpart Lawrence Summers (itself interesting since Mr Summers was at that time playing a central role in creating the conditions for this financial crisis - allowing a wave of bank consolidation and refusing to regulate derivatives). The two men wanted to expand the G7, but only to countries they considered strategic and safe. They needed to make a list but apparently they didn't have paper handy. So, according to reporters John Ibbitson and Tara Perkins, "the two men grabbed a brown manila envelope, put it on the table between them, and began sketching the framework of a new world order". Thus was born the G20. The story is a good reminder that history is shaped by human decisions, not natural laws. Mr Summers and Mr Martin changed the world with the decisions they scrawled on the back of that envelope. But there is nothing to say that citizens of G20 countries need to take orders from this hand-picked club. Already, workers, pensioners and students have taken to the streets against austerity measures in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Greece, often marching under the slogan: "We won't pay for your crisis". And they have plenty of suggestions for how to raise revenues to meet their respective budget shortfalls. Many are calling for a financial transaction tax that would slow down hot money and raise new money for social programs and climate change. Others are calling for steep taxes on polluters that would underwrite the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change and moving away from fossil fuels. And ending losing wars is always a good cost-saver. The G20 is an ad hoc institution with none of the legitimacy of the United Nations. Since it just tried to stick us with a huge bill for a crisis most of us had no hand in creating, I say we take a cue from Mr Martin and Mr Summers. Flip it over, and write on the back of the envelope: Return to sender. _____ Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007). From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 3 12:56:06 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 12:56:06 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] BP - A Long, Bloody History of Reckless Greed Message-ID: <034437ED6EF84FB0A410F12A259563D9@agingCHS072729> http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=561 BP - A Long, Bloody History of Reckless Greed by Al Hart, Editor, UE News 24 June, 2010 British Petroleum, the company responsible for the worst single-source environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, has over its 100-year history caused a number of environmental and workplace disasters. But the harm BP has caused goes further. In the early 1950s, BP and the British government convinced the U.S. to overthrow the democratic government of Iran - an action that has had disastrous consequences for Iran, the U.S., and the Middle East to this day. Before the Gulf disaster - and the stupidly arrogant statements of its CEO Tony Hayward - many Americans probably didn't even know that BP was a British company. In the 1980s BP began gobbling up U.S. oil companies - Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) in 1978, Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco) in 1998, and Atlantic Richfield (Arco) in 2000. It's now the third-largest energy company in the world. The April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 oil workers and started the giant oil leak that has devastated the Gulf of Mexico. For BP, this deadly explosion may be the worst, but certainly not the first. In 1965 the BP oil rig Sea Gem collapsed, killing 13 workers. In September 1999 BP agreed to pay $22 million - including a $500,000 criminal fine - for its hazardous waste dumping on Alaska's Endicott Island. In 2005 BP's refinery in Texas City, Texas exploded, killing 15 people, injuring 180 and trapping thousands of residents in their homes. OSHA concluded that the management failures behind the explosion reached to BP's corporate headquarters in London. The company pled guilty to felony violations of the Clean Air Act and paid a $50 million fine. In 2009 OSHA fined BP another $87 million - the biggest OSHA fine ever - for failing to correct the hazards that caused the 2005 explosion. To understand BP and its contempt for environmental and human rights, we have to go back to the company's origins, in British efforts to dominate Iran and its natural resources. BP IMPERIALISM BP's original name was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It owes its existence to the corruption of Iran's monarchs, who over several decades sold off the country's resources to foreigners to support their own lavish lifestyles. The reigning Shah of Iran in 1891 sold Iran's entire tobacco industry to the British Imperial Tobacco Company for #15,000; the Tobacco Revolt, a mass boycott by the Iranian people, forced him to cancel the deal. In 1902 his son, the next shah, sold exclusive rights to Iran's oil and natural gas to a London financier, William Knox D'Arcy. A group of British investors formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) to exploit what was called the D'Arcy concession. By 1913 Anglo-Persian was extracting huge amounts of Iranian oil and had built the world's largest oil refinery at Abadan. With World War I imminent, at the urging of Winston Churchill the British government bought a 51 percent share of the company. (In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher privatized the government's BP holdings.) The terms of the D'Arcy concession were obscenely one-sided. Churchill called it "a prize from fairlyland beyond our wildest dreams." Iran was promised a 16 percent royalty, but the Brits cheated on the calculation and in 1920 paid Iran a pitiful #47,000, while they made millions from its oil. "The standard of living that people in England enjoyed all during the 1920s and '30s and '40s was due to Iranian oil," says journalist Stephen Kinzer. "But at the same time, Iranians were living in some of the most miserable conditions of any people in the world." Oil workers at the Abadan refinery - whose labor was largely responsible for Britain's prosperity - were paid 50 cents a day with no benefits. They lived in a shantytown called Kaghazabad (Persian for "Paper City") with no running water or electricity, surrounded by mud, stagnant water, and biting flies. The monarchy's sell-off of Iran's patrimony fueled popular opposition to the Qajar dynasty, which had ruled Iran since 1794. A rebellion in 1905 forced the Shah to accept a parliament (the Majlis) and constitution. But the monarchy and the British reversed many of the democratic reforms. In 1919 the British imposed the Anglo-Persian Accord giving them control of Iran's army, treasury, transport and communications - making Iran a virtual British colony. In a final revolt against the Qajars, the Majlis in 1925 deposed the hated Ahmad Shah and offered the Peacock Throne to an uneducated but ruthless military officer named Reza. Reza Shah ruled with an iron fist - he allowed no labor organizing nor press freedom - but enacted some modernizing reforms and pushed back against the British. In 1928 he demanded a better deal for Iran's oil. Anglo-Persian stalled negotiations for four years. Only when the Shah angrily declared the D'Arcy concession cancelled did the company yield a little - it gave up claim to some territory, agreed to pay a minimum annual royalty of #975,000, and changed its name to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) because the Shah did not like the name Persia. Reza's pro-Nazi sympathies led the British to overthrow him in 1941, placing his 21-year-old son Mohammad Reza on the throne. But removing the strongman had unintended consequences. In March 1946 oil workers at the Abadan refinery arose in an unprecedented strike, demanding better housing, healthcare, and AIOC's compliance with Iran's labor laws. The British refused to negotiate, stirred up divisions between majority Persian workers and ethnic Arabs, and arranged for two British warships to show up just off shore. They ended the strike with promises to obey the labor laws, which they never did. With Reza Shah gone, the Majlis also came back to life. The movement in parliament and in the nation for democracy and freedom from British domination soon centered around Mohammad Mossadegh, long one of the country's most principled and incorruptible politicians. 'THE IRANIAN GEORGE WASHINGTON' In early 1951, the Shah and the British lost control of Iranian politics. On March 15, with overwhelming popular support, the Majlis voted unanimously to nationalize AIOC's assets, creating the National Iranian Oil Company. On April 28 the Majlis overwhelmingly elected Mossadegh - Anglo-Iranian's strongest opponent- as prime minister. The British sought revenge. Anglo-Iranian removed all of its managers and technicians (it had refused to train Iranians for such positions.) It refused to ship Iran's oil in its tankers (Iran owned none) and organized a global boycott of Iran's oil. The British navy even seized an Italian tanker carrying Iranian oil. The British position was that Iran had "stolen" its oil. They wanted U.S. help, but President Harry Truman was sympathetic to Iran and demanded that the British negotiate with Mossadegh - something they had no intention of doing. Truman, however was unwilling to buck the British economic blockade of Iran, which was strangling its economy and tightening the screws on its democracy. Anglo-Iranian wanted a British military invasion of Iran. Not only did Truman object, but Labor Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee had no stomach for it. Not so Winston Churchill, who returned to power in the 1951 British election. In the campaign the Conservative Churchill attacked the Labor Party for lack of aggressiveness against Iran. Spies operating out of the British embassy worked to overthrow Mossadegh. When Mossadegh learned of this, he broke off diplomatic relations, closing Britain's embassy and expelling its spies as well as its diplomats. Mossadegh came to New York in October 1951 for a UN Security Council debate on a British resolution condemning Iran's oil nationalization. Mossadegh, a skilled lawyer and parliamentary debater, clearly beat the British UN ambassador, and increased public support for Iran in the U.S. and worldwide. He went to Washington to meet President Truman, stopping in Philadelphia to visit the birthplace of American democracy, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Time magazine put him on its cover as "Man of the Year," calling him "the Iranian George Washington." Over many years Britain developed a network of Iranian agents and bribed officials. But with its Secret Intelligence Service kicked out of Iran, it couldn't do much. The 1952 election of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower revived British hopes, and the two brothers chosen to run Eisenhower's foreign policy - John Foster Dulles as secretary of state and Allen Dulles as CIA director - signed on to British coup plans even before the new administration took office. President Eisenhower resisted, but the Dulleses won him over not on the basis of British oil interests, but with Cold War fears of an imagined Soviet takeover of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt, a top CIA operative and grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, ran "Operation Ajax" from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. He took up where the British left off, bribing generals, newspaper publishers, street gang leaders and Muslim clergy. Stories planted in newspapers and riots by hired mobs painted a false picture of Mossadegh as an ally of Russia and an enemy of Islam. KILLING DEMOCRACY FOR OIL Iranians overwhelmingly supported Mossadegh and his policies. He advanced the rights of women, enacted sick pay and unemployment compensation for workers, and freed peasants from forced labor for landlords. But with the cooperation of the Shah and key military leaders, a few CIA agents in August 1953 overthrew Mossadegh and killed democracy in Iran. The new regime arrested the 71-year-old Mossadegh, tried and convicted him of treason, and sentenced him to three years in prison and life under house arrest. He died in 1967. The coup installed General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister, but he lasted only two years. The Shah regained the absolute power of earlier shahs, and he hired and fired prime ministers at will. Officers loyal to Mossadegh were shot, as were other democrats and dissidents, and for the next 26 years the Shah ruled through the terror of his secret police, the Savak. Iranian democracy died so the British could own Iran's oil. But because the U.S. government overthrew Mossadegh, the British lost their monopoly. AIOC - renamed British Petroleum in 1954 - got 40 percent control of Iran's oil. Another 40 percent went to the five major American oil companies, and the remaining 20 percent to Royal Dutch Shell and the French Petroleum Company now known as Total. In 1963 the Shah gained a resolute enemy when his police arrested Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who as a young Shiite cleric had opposed Mossadegh. But the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah included much more than Islamic fundamentalists. In the mass demonstrations of 1978 and '79, many carried pictures of Mossadegh. This was both a protest against his overthrow and a call for the kind of secular democracy he had represented. The first post-revolution governments were dominated by people associated with Mossadegh and his principles, including Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr. But when President Carter allowed the ex-Shah to come to the U.S. for medical treatment, many Iranians feared a repeat of 1953 - a U.S. coup to restore the Shah. A group of Islamic militants seized the U.S. embassy - the place from which the 1953 coup had been organized - and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The hostage crisis doomed Carter's re-election - and enabled Islamic fundamentalists around Khomeini to consolidate power. The past 31 years of bad U.S.-Iranian relations have their roots in the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh, on behalf of an arrogant British oil company. Few Americans remember what happened in Iran in 1953, but nearly all Iranians do. When U.S. presidents preach about the virtues of democracy, it sounds like hypocrisy to millions of people around the world who know that Iran once had the beginnings of a democracy, but the U.S. government killed it. Long before BP poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, our government's support for that company poisoned our foreign relations. Perhaps it is time for us to do what Prime Minister Mossadegh and the Iranian people did in 1951, and declare that BP is unfit to control our resources - and that our oil, our environment, and our government should belong to us. From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 3 23:38:09 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 00:38:09 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Voting opens in Mexico amid rising violence as drug cartels burrow deeper into nation's politics. Message-ID: <7B38D4B63DED479CAD8FE8A63245C607@Upstairs> Elections highlight challenges facing drug-scarred Mexico By William Booth Sunday, July 4, 2010 CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- To meet with H?ctor "Teto" Murgu?a, the leading candidate for mayor of the city dubbed the deadliest in the world, a visitor parks at Murgu?a's paint factory, watched over by bodyguards with automatic rifles, then passes through three sets of steel vault doors into a windowless office. "Welcome to the bunker," his press secretary says. Elections in 12 Mexican states Sunday are taking place across a tense landscape of escalating violence and widespread fear that drug cartels are burrowing ever deeper into Mexico's politics, using corruption, intimidation and murder. Murgu?a said, "I fear only God." But he also said he's not an idiot. "The security is for my family." He declined to reveal how many children he has. On Wednesday, authorities discovered a headless corpse nailed to a tree near his home. The 57-year-old candidate is a tough old-school politician, pugnacious with the press and popular among the city's poor, who likes to kiss babies and give away bags of cement. He is a wealthy businessman -- a land developer and factory owner -- from a prominent family. He served as mayor from 2004 to 2007. His chief of police, who was a friend and business partner, was arrested shortly after Murgu?a's term ended for smuggling more than 900 pounds of marijuana across a bridge into neighboring El Paso. Voters in Sunday's election are being asked: Is Murgu?a linked to the drug-smuggling mafias that have turned Ciudad Juarez into "Murder City," where warring gangs of street-corner thugs and professional contract killers routinely execute a dozen people a day? Murgu?a's main opponent, C?sar J?uregui, a baby-faced 43-year-old lawyer and lifelong political operative, said the former mayor is dirty and, at the very least, has ties to organized crime. Billboards put up across the city by the J?uregui campaign shout: "Reject the criminals -- no more narco-politicians!" On Monday morning, as J?uregui was stumping in downtown Juarez, shaking hands with drivers stopped at traffic lights, his cellphone rang with the news that Rodolfo Torre Cantu, the front-runner for governor of the border state of Tamaulipas, had been assassinated minutes earlier by armed commandos. Cantu's brother is now running in his place. "We are competing against people with a very bad history," said J?uregui's wife, Angelica Morena, who was passing out campaign fliers. "They are people who associate with very bad people. So I'm afraid for him because I don't want anything to happen to him." J?uregui said he does not surround himself with bodyguards because he is an honest man with no criminal ties. "Look at what just happened in Tamaulipas," he said. "If they want my head, they will get it." Constant targets Across Mexico, small-town politicians and big city mayors are increasingly targeted, for assassination or arrest. In May, Gregorio Sanchez, the mayor of Cancun, who is running for governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, was arrested and charged with assisting two drug-smuggling organizations, including the Zetas, who authorities say killed the mayor's own security chief last year. Sanchez is continuing his campaign from his prison cell. Two weeks ago, Manuel Lara Rodr?guez, the popular mayor of a farm town near Ciudad Juarez who had denounced the cartels and the violence, was gunned down in front of his family. No one is running in his place. The outgoing mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Jose Reyes Ferriz, recently told The Washington Post that he has received at least four credible death threats. He sleeps each night at a second home he maintains in El Paso. In Ciudad Juarez, Murgu?a is running under the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for most of the 20th century with a gloved fist of crony capitalism, political patronage and rigged elections until it was successfully challenged -- first here in Juarez and the state of Chihuahua -- by the National Action Party (PAN), which nominated J?uregui to run. The challenges facing the new mayor of Ciudad Juarez are known to many, including the U.S. State Department, which plans to pour money into the city as part of an anti-drug program called the Merida Initiative. Last month, 303 people were killed in this city, which earned the title of most dangerous for its murders and other violent crimes, according to the Mexican advocacy group Citizen's Council for Public Security and Penal Justice. More than 5,300 have died since President Felipe Calder?n sent 10,000 federal police and army soldiers to control the city in 2008. Fight or flight Juarez is falling apart. Years of neglect have left streets mined with potholes. The parks are ruins, the playing fields nothing but weeds, the once lively cantinas shuttered. There are few schools on the poor side of town, where barrios of cement-block houses have been abandoned by fleeing residents, who went home to their villages or crossed illegally into the United States. The city's business elite have moved to El Paso. Although the poor have always struggled here, they are now hungry. J?uregui said that if elected, he would rid the city of federal police and the military. He accused the federal police of being incompetent and corrupt, saying they favor one cartel over the others. Though he is a member of Calder?n's PAN party, he called the president's strategy a failure. As he campaigned downtown, a pickup filled with masked federal police drove by. "There go Chapo's guys," he said, referring to Joaqu?n "El Chapo" Guzm?n, head of the Sinaloa cartel, which is fighting the resident Juarez cartel and its associates, known as La Linea, whose ranks are filled with former city police -- many recruited during Murgu?a's tenure as mayor. "I cannot assure you that H?ctor Murgu?a is a drug trafficker," J?uregui said in an interview. "But some people think that Murgu?a's candidacy is a good thing because if he is linked to drug traffickers, maybe he can negotiate and end the problem." Interviewed in his bunker, Murgu?a said of his opponent: "I wish there was a law that would permit that bigmouth to be put in jail immediately. Because he doesn't present evidence. He just talks. I don't have a single link with organized crime. I've never had one and I never will. Because I've always believed that he who has links with organized crime will sooner or later pay." When his former chief of police, Saulo Reyes Gamboa, was sentenced to eight years in U.S. federal prison for drug trafficking, Murgu?a said, "Who would have thought, in what crystal ball, that three months after my administration left office that Saulo Reyes would be caught trying to pass a load of marijuana into El Paso, Texas?" Polls suggest that Murgu?a will win the election and return to city hall. "You can't choose the time -- you can't say when you want to serve or not," he said. "I think that those of us who love our city cannot neglect our service to Juarez under the current circumstances." Researcher Monica Ortiz Uribe contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/03/AR2010070303111.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 3 23:47:30 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 00:47:30 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies Message-ID: <1D59D7F816ED4A37A3FBBA702B11B217@Upstairs> As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies Oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process. By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI Published: July 3, 2010 When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig's owner to significantly reduce its American taxes. The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes. At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon - a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began. With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil. But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process. According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry. And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by var-ious credits. These companies' returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before. "The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant," said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who has worked alongside the Obama administration on a bill that would cut $20 billion in oil industry tax breaks over the next decade. "There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer." Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers. By helping producers weather market fluctuations and invest in technology, tax incentives are supporting an industry that the officials say provides 9.2 million jobs. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry advocacy group, argues that even with subsidies, oil producers paid or incurred $280 billion in American income taxes from 2006 to 2008, and pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than most other American corporations. As oil continues to spread across the Gulf of Mexico, however, the industry is being forced to defend tax breaks that some say are being abused or are outdated. The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday announced that it was investigating whether Transocean had exploited tax laws by moving overseas to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Efforts to curtail the tax breaks are likely to face fierce opposition in Congress; the oil and natural gas industry has spent $340 million on lobbyists since 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors political spending. Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs. "These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe," he said. "So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them." But some government watchdog groups say that only the industry's political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent. "We're giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway," said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. "That's not an incentive; that's a giveaway." Some of the tax breaks date back nearly a century, when they were intended to encourage exploration in an era of rudimentary technology, when costly investments frequently produced only dry holes. Because of one lingering provision from the Tariff Act of 1913, many small and midsize oil companies based in the United States can claim deductions for the lost value of tapped oil fields far beyond the amount the companies actually paid for the oil rights. Other tax breaks were born of international politics. In an attempt to deter Soviet influence in the Middle East in the 1950s, the State Department backed a Saudi Arabian accounting maneuver that reclassified the royalties charged by foreign governments to American oil drillers. Saudi Arabia and others began to treat some of the royalties as taxes, which entitled the companies to subtract those payments from their American tax bills. Despite repeated attempts to forbid this accounting practice, companies continue to deduct the payments. The Treasury Department estimates that it will cost $8.2 billion over the next decade. Over the last 10 years, oil companies have also been aggressive in using foreign tax havens. Many rigs, like Deepwater Horizon, are registered in Panama or in the Marshall Islands, where they are subject to lower taxes and less stringent safety and staff regulations. American producers have also aggressively exploited the tax code by opening small offices in low-tax countries. A recent study by Martin A. Sullivan, an economist for the trade publication Tax Analysts, found that the five oil drilling companies that had undergone these "corporate inversions" had saved themselves a total of $4 billion in taxes since 1999. Transocean - which has approximately 18,000 employees worldwide, including 1,300 in Houston and about a dozen in Zug, Switzerland - has saved $1.8 billion in taxes since moving overseas in 1999, the study found. Transocean said it had paid more than $300 million in taxes so far for 2009, and that its move reflected its global scope, with only 15 of its 139 rigs located in the United States. "Transocean is truly a global company," it said in a statement. Despite the public anger at the gulf spill, it is far from certain that Congress will eliminate the tax breaks. As recently as 2005, when windfall profits for energy companies prompted even President George W. Bush - a former Texas oilman himself - to publicly call for an end to incentives, the energy bill he and Congress enacted still included $2.6 billion in oil subsidies. In 2007, after Democrats took control of Congress, a move to end the tax breaks failed. Mr. Menendez said he believed the Gulf spill was devastating enough to spur Congress into action. But one notable omission in his bill shows the vast economic reach of the industry. While the legislation would cut many incentives over the next decade, it would not touch the tax breaks for oil refineries, many of which have operations and employees in his home state, New Jersey. Mr. Menendez's aides said the senator thought it was legitimate to allow refineries to continue claiming a manufacturing tax credit that he wants to eliminate for drillers because refining is a manufacturing business and because refineries do not benefit from high oil prices. Mr. Menendez did not consult with New Jersey refineries when writing the bill, his aides said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?_r=1&hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 4 00:06:43 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 01:06:43 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] FRANK RICH: Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 Message-ID: <2D5AF35D6F984108A5645BF58514BF29@Upstairs> Op-Ed Columnist Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 By FRANK RICH Published: July 2, 2010 ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America's original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today. Of all the countless attempts to dispel that shadow over the nation's birth, few were more ambitious than the hard-fought bill Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law just in time for another Fourth of July, 46 summers ago. With the holiday weekend approaching, Johnson summoned the television networks for the signing ceremony on Thursday evening, July 2. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, first proposed more than a year earlier by John F. Kennedy, banished the Jim Crow laws that denied black Americans access to voting booths, public schools and public accommodations. Johnson told the nation we could "eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country" with the help of a newly formed "Community Relations Service" and its "advisory committee of distinguished Americans." Talk about an age of innocence! Still, there were some heartening reports of America's first full day under the new law. A front-page photo in The Times on July 4 showed 13-year-old Gene Young of Kansas City being shorn by a white barber at the Muehlebach Hotel shop "formerly closed to Negroes." But that Norman Rockwell-like tableau was paired with the image of a white businessman, Lester Maddox, and a teenage accomplice respectively wielding a pistol and an ax handle as they turned away blacks from Maddox's restaurant in Atlanta. The summer of 1964, which had begun with the lynching of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., would soon erupt in a bloody wave of terrorism, marked by dozens of bombings of black churches, homes and businesses. A presidential campaign was in the wings. The soon-to-be Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater, had committed heresy by casting one of the Party of Lincoln's few Senate votes against the Civil Rights Act. But not even Goldwater had been as implacably opposed as a Democratic senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd. Of all the filibusters trying to block the bill, largely from Southern and border state racists then welcomed by the Democratic Party, Byrd's was the longest (some 14 hours) and perhaps the most appalling. As the historian Taylor Branch recounted, Byrd even let loose with ornate "segregationist interpretations of Luke and Paul." This was typical of Byrd. He had been an Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1940s. As he moved toward a political career after World War II, he wrote to a notorious bigot, the Democratic Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, to rage at President Truman's efforts to integrate the military: "I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels." That letter was not unearthed until the late 1980s, but by then Byrd had long since renounced and apologized repeatedly for his ugly past, with words as well as deeds, including his avid support for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1983. Byrd referred to his K.K.K. association in interviews as an immutable stain. He always noted with rue, not complaint, that it would haunt his obituaries. He wasn't wrong. But when those obituaries finally appeared last week, after his death at 92, Byrd's r?sum? in racism was dwarfed not just by his efforts to atone for it but by his legislative achievements on many fronts during his epic Senate career. Byrd's evolution often parallels that of a country that has now elected its first African-American president. But the story of America and race is hardly resolved, and progress is not inexorable. Even in the new century, we still take steps back and forward in bewildering alternation. New Yorkers could only be embarrassed to learn last week, courtesy of The Times, that in a city where the non-Hispanic white population is 35 percent, 70 percent of the senior officials hired by Mayor Michael Bloomberg are white - a record worse than that of all three American cities of comparable population, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. The title that an independent panel gave to its newly issued report on the altercation between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and a Cambridge, Mass., police officer - "Missed Opportunities, Shared Responsibilities" - might apply here too. Yet paradoxically the news in New York was preceded by happier tidings from South Carolina, where the flag of the Confederacy still flies at the state Capitol. Republican primary voters there gave victories both to an African-American candidate for Congress, Tim Scott, and an Indian-American gubernatorial hopeful, Nikki Haley. Liberals have argued that these breakthroughs come with a caveat: Scott and Haley are often ideologically to the right of even their conservative competitors. True enough, but that doesn't alter the reality that some very conservative white voters in the land of Strom Thurmond did not let any lingering racial animus override their other convictions. They voted for Haley, the daughter of Sikh immigrants, despite the urging of a local G.O.P. official that they reject a "raghead." Scott's victory had an added irony because he defeated Thurmond's son. But we shouldn't read too much into these results from low-turnout primaries - just as we shouldn't draw too much solace from the pleasing morality tale of Byrd's atonement. Even as Washington paid homage to Byrd's triumph over his origins last week, the Capitol played host to what the Supreme Court's only black justice, Clarence Thomas, might call a "high-tech lynching." The victim was, of all people, Thurgood Marshall - the nation's first black solicitor general and first black Supreme Court Justice, nominated to both jobs by L.B.J. The pretext was Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings in the Senate. Marshall had been a mentor to Kagan, for whom she clerked in 1988. He is also a hero of our history, a brave and brilliant lawyer whose advocacy in many civil rights cases, and most especially Brown v. Board of Education, helped open the doors for landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even before last week's ceremonial hazing of Kagan, the G.O.P.'s only national black political figure, Michael Steele, attacked her for writing approvingly of a speech Marshall had given calling the original text of the Constitution "defective" - a restrained adjective, actually, for a document that countenanced slavery. On the first day of the Kagan hearings, Marshall received many more mentions (35) than even that other Republican archenemy, President Obama, in the accounting of Talking Points Memo. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said they weren't sure they could have voted to confirm Marshall to the court. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a state that suffered years of economic boycotts because of its opposition to the King holiday, faulted Marshall's jurisprudence for advancing "the agenda of certain classes of litigants" (wonder who?) and for being out of the "mainstream." These senators were in the tradition of Thurmond, not Byrd - indeed, they are Thurmond's direct heirs. Like Byrd, Thurmond had been an ardent Democratic foe of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unlike Byrd, he left his party in disgust that year and endorsed Goldwater, jump-starting the migration of the Democrats' racist cadre and their political toxins to the G.O.P. and setting the stage for the Republican "Southern strategy." That strategy isn't dead. Witness just recently the Virginia governor Bob McDonnell's declaration of a Confederate History Month that omitted any mention of slavery, and the Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul's revival of Goldwater's "constitutional" objections to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond, who died at 100 in 2003, never recanted his racist past. He chose instead to pretend it never happened. He told interviewers that his "reputation as a segregationist" was "just misunderstood" and that he helped "the people of both races" throughout his lifetime. This from a man who, when running as a Dixiecrat for president in 1948, exclaimed that "all the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation." Only after Thurmond's death did we learn that his record also included fathering a daughter with a teenage black maid in the 1920s - and then shunting her into the shadows. The senators trashing Marshall last week almost uncannily recycled Thurmond's behavior from July 1967, when, as a freshly minted Republican senator on the same committee, he pelted Marshall for an hour with windy, truculent and arcane questions during Marshall's own Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Indeed, some of the coded invective - such as Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions's decrying Marshall as "a well-known activist" - was coined by Thurmond and his peers then. Thurmond not only voted against Marshall but declared him too deficient in constitutional knowledge to qualify for the court. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," wrote our current Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, in a smug majority opinion nibbling away at Brown v. Board of Education in 2007. His conservative self-righteousness, a product of his time, is as delusional as L.B.J.'s liberal faith in the efficacy of a federal "Community Relations Service" was in 1964. On this Fourth, as on the 233 that preceded it, America is still very much a work in progress. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/opinion/04rich.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 4 08:35:42 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 08:35:42 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Religious intolerance 'the new racism' Message-ID: RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE 'THE NEW RACISM' Religious intolerance is "the new racism" and one of the main causes of persecution of minorities across the world, according to the annual Minority Rights Group International report -- http://www.minorityrights.org/10068/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2010.html - - published today. 1/7/2010- In an overview of government policies, global trends and personal accounts, the campaign group argues that counter-terrorism efforts and economic marginalisation are increasingly being associated with religion, not ethnicity. "Religious intolerance is the new racism," said Mark Lattimer, director of Minority Rights Group International. "Many communities that have faced racial discrimination for decades are now being targeted because of their religion." The report notes that Muslims have been increasingly targeted by authorities in Europe and the United States as part of counter-terrorism measures. This is evident from police stop-and-searches to the US restrictions introduced after a Nigerian Muslim was accused of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day 2009. The restrictions applied to citizens from 14 countries - 13 of them predominantly Muslim, the report notes. It also highlighted how religious groups can be the focus of nationalist campaigns, such as in Switzerland, where voters chose in a referendum to ban the construction of new minarets after a campaign by a far-right party. Meanwhile in Iraq and Pakistan, which are on the frontline of the so-called "war on terror", attacks against religious minorities have also escalated in recent years, the report said. It notes religious groups in Iraq such as the Christians, Mandaeans, Baha'i and Yezidis have become targets of violence since the US-led invasion in 2003. And in Pakistan, the Taliban have targeted Christians for attack through killings, torture, forcible conversions and burning of churches, it says. Other discrimination occurs through government registration schemes for religious groups, a practice used in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan since 2001. In Egypt, all identification papers must list religious affiliation - but the choice is restricted to Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This means the Baha'i cannot get ID papers, and therefore cannot work or access healthcare. ? AFP http://www.afp.com/english/home/ From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 4 08:48:53 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 08:48:53 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Whoops!: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay Message-ID: <36AF850E344842A2B320990D79AB238D@agingCHS072729> http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100218/REVIEW/702189986/1008 thenational.ae February 18, 2010 The pure products go crazy John Lanchester set out to pen a novel about the financial world, but found the topsy-turvy logic of modern finance stranger than any fiction. Whoops!: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lanchester Allen Lane, 2010 by Christian Lorentzen Much about the present financial crisis has baffled members of the public not intimately familiar with the workings of Wall Street. How did a bursting housing bubble bring down the economy of Iceland, paralyse international credit markets, put Lehman Brothers out of business, and necessitate government bailouts of private institutions to the tune of trillions? Volumes chronicling, lamenting, and apologising for the crisis have poured forth from journalists, economists, Wall Street insiders, and public officials. Most of the crisis literature - if it deserves that name - has thus been written in the language of the business pages or the policy elite. What has been lacking is the perspective of an enlightened outsider: someone who might see through the many veils of jargon, dogma and excuse-making in order to connect the dots for the rest of us. The novelist John Lanchester is ideally suited to that role. Lanchester, whose father was an international banker, set out in the summer of 2007 to research a novel set in the world of London finance. But he soon "realised that I had stumbled across the most interesting story I've ever found". The novel was laid aside and Lanchester began to write about the crisis itself. Those efforts, published in the London Review of Books and the New Yorker, became the foundation for a book called Whoops! Why Everybody Owes Everybody and No One Can Pay, a highly readable and elegant guide to the last two years of financial calamity. Though Lanchester's literary flair is evident on every page, Whoops! does not resemble a novel. The author makes no attempt to tie the events of the past two years into a coherent linear narrative or to draw any characters at great length. Instead he has written a broad and lucid dissection of an arcane system and its recent implosion. Laymen may find the financial crisis as impenetrable as Finnegans Wake. For good reason, argues Lanchester: finance "underwent a change in the 20th century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts - a break with common sense, a turn toward self-referentiality and abstraction, and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English". (Lanchester's facility in explaining derivatives, securitisation, collateralised debt obligations, and credit default swaps is one of the work's great virtues.) Lanchester dates this seismic change to the 1973 publication of an article in the Journal of Political Economy under the title "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities" by Fischer Black and Myron Scholes. The authors put forth an equation that made possible the calculation of the price of financial derivatives according to the value of the underlying assets. (Black died in 1995, but Scholes was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1997 for their joint work.) It was as if a casino had been opened. "It still seems wholly contrary to common sense", writes Lanchester, "that the market for products that derive from real things should be unimaginably vaster than the market for things themselves". These new financial instruments presented an apparent paradox: complex derivatives allowed traders to hedge against shifts in the value of underlying assets, minimising risk; they were equally useful as tools for speculation, capable of producing immense profits if the right bets were placed on future asset values. But the potential downside to any miscalculation could be immense: it was now possible, as happened in January 2008, for a reckless trader like Jerome Kerviel of Societe General to lose $7.2 billion in a matter of days making allegedly unauthorised bets on European stock markets. Such catastrophic losses are rare. But, Lanchester argues, once they become possible - as a result of lax corporate oversight, "over-the-counter" trading, and scant regulation - their periodic occurrence becomes practically inevitable. Bankers, Lanchester explains, view risk differently than the rest of us: the greater the risk, the greater the opportunity for profit. The trend that perhaps rendered the financial crisis inexorable was the new practice of swapping the risk that a borrower would default. Thus lenders could lend without worry that the borrower might not be able to pay because they could sell off the risk, which could then be bundled off and sold again. Banking, Lanchester writes, "is a guaranteed way of making steady money forever ... as long as one all important rule is followed: the bank has to be careful about to whom it lends money". Subprime lending emerged as a formalised method of being uncareful about to whom money might be lent. Lanchester, a fan of the television programme The Wire, visits Baltimore, where more than 30,000 households have fallen to mortgage foreclosures. Lawsuits have been filed by the city and various non-profit against lenders such as Wells Fargo. Home ownership for the low-income and largely black victims of predatory lenders has now led to homelessness, after foreclosure ruins their credit and they are no longer able even to rent. A non-profit lawyer explains to Lanchester that the best hope for stopping such practices lies in establishing precedents convicting lenders of criminal activity when they pursue predatory lending practices: "This is the idea: how do you drive change in America? Real, noncosmetic change? Answer: by finding ways for lawyers to make money." There are few particular villains in Lanchester's telling. He has a certain respect for bankers and observes - as they are also quick to point out - that the majority of the profession was not involved in the sort of lending, securitising, and hedging that brought down the economy. He does blame them, however, for "a failure to admit that this was a cultural issue, not just the result of a specific set of actions". It is unquestionably a culture marked by arrogance - for evidence one need look no further than the profession's unofficial embrace of Tom Wolfe's ironic moniker "masters of the universe" - and the arrogance goes hand in hand with the universal assumption that when it comes to questions of government policy the answer is always further market liberalisation. One figure who earns Lanchester's scorn is former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. "I made a mistake", Greenspan said, "in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms". Lanchester blames Greenspan for keeping interest rates low and perpetuating the housing bubble, despite various "funny smells" that should have warned him that such growth was unsustainable. The crisis, for the Maestro, represented "the collapse of an entire ideological edifice". Yet this notion directly conflicts with an idea that governs the mentality of those who invest in sectors that are clearly experiencing bubbles: "the greater fool theory", that is, "that even though everyone knows that what's happening is crazy, there's still money to be made by buying stocks and selling them a little while later to the eponymous 'greater fool' ". The greater fool theory is perhaps the best argument to be made for more stringent regulation of the financial industry. For until the masters of the universe are reined in, deglamourised, and made to serve society by allocating capital and credit in the manner of a public utility - like a power company - the victims of their follies will always be the greatest fools of all: taxpayers. From the bubble, when huge profits were channelled into to private hands; through the crisis, when AIG had the public "over a barrel"; and now a year past the bailouts, as banks post record profit while the rest of the economy continues to sag - the banks have evaded the damage their industry has wreaked on the world. Lanchester sees this for what it is: "100 per cent pure socialism for the rich". _____ Christian Lorentzen is a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine. From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 4 10:50:34 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 10:50:34 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Communal Power in Caracas Message-ID: <1CC4DF5383FA405DA331CE0940D040B1@agingCHS072729> http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/382.php#continue The B u l l e t Socialist Project . E-Bulletin No. 382 July 4, 2010 Communal Power in Caracas: An Interview with Wilder Marcano Susan Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber We caught up with Wilder Marcano, director of the network of Comunas in Caracas, on the morning of June 18, 2010. He talked with us just before addressing a crowd of a few hundred representatives of different comunas from around the capital who had gathered in the offices of the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes and Social Welfare to discuss a whole series of issues related to building popular power from below in the poorest barrios. What is the role of the comunas in the construction of socialism in Venezuela? Right, in Venezuela we have a national political project for the country. In relation to organizations of popular power we have the communal councils, and the commune is the principal organ of this political project. This project has to have a strategic orientation, and at the heart of this is the stimulation and participation of the people. We believe that building up from the starting point of the comuna is the way of realizing and concretizing the political project. The comuna is a way of radically reorganizing territory, a geographical radicalization in which human beings are put at the centre, where the real needs of human beings are responded to, and from where a distinct form of economy can be constructed. The new economy needs to replace the failed capitalistic economy, and the new economy needs to be based in the principles of socialism. What are the most important challenges facing the comunas? The biggest challenge is that we have to break with the old way of doing politics here in Venezuela. One example is the need to build a participatory rather than representative democracy. In the Bolivarian Constitution it stresses that our democracy has to be participatory and protagonistic. This means that the people have to liberate themselves from their fears and anxieties and assume their role in the construction of this new reality. Breaking with the old way of doing politics, having people become protagonists is one of the biggest challenges we face. The second challenge has to do with the theme of the economy, which is a tremendously important issue. We need to make the comunas centres of production for the people, and we need to improve their organization. Why? Because we're talking about breaking from a system with hundreds of years of history, which has left behind an ideology of capitalism that is deeply ingrained in people. This ideology has many mechanisms through which it reproduces itself. Our socialist project is not yet fully understood at the grassroots level. There is still a great deal of learning and education that has to take place. This is part of the role of the party [the PSUV], and is necessary in order to build a new economy based in the values of socialism. What is your vision of socialism in the long term? In the concrete case of Venezuela, we see socialism as a path of opportunity. If we look around the world at all the tragedy, if we look at our own tragedies in the history of Venezuela, it's clear that the capitalist system does not function. We see socialism as a way of making our independence that began with Sim?n Bol?var real and authentic. We see it as the way in which we can build a new and distinct reality for Venezuela, in which the needs of human beings are placed at the centre, where the hateful inequalities of capitalism are overcome, where we have real freedom in all the sphere of social life, a society which is not run by the private owners of the means of production and the owners of the media. In essence, a country in which children can pursue an enriching life, where they can study, be guaranteed education and health, where they have security, where they can have the possibility to be happy and free. This is the vision that we have. We can see that there are really two central facets to the struggle from below in this country. The struggle for workers' control, on the one hand, and the struggle for popular power in the comunas, on the other. What needs to be done to facilitate the union of these two sets of struggles? This is the fundamental task that the PSUV is taking up in its leading role in the struggle for liberation of society in its totality. Workers' control has to do with controlling and managing the means of production, with the takeover of enterprises. The comuna has to do with territorial control in the communities, with themes of production in these locales, with meeting the needs of the people in their neighbourhoods. Their objectives in many ways are the same. It's about people having control over every aspect of their lives. The party [PSUV] is one mechanism for uniting these aims, and it draws from these sources, because it has the long term vision of building socialism. . Susan Spronk teaches in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is a research associate with Municipal Services Project and has published several articles on class formation and water politics in Bolivia. Jeffery R. Webber teaches politics at the University of Regina. He is the author of Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia (Brill, 2010), and Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation and the Politics of Evo Morales (Haymarket, 2011). From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 4 21:23:25 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 21:23:25 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [UK] Seven activists acquitted after trashing US-owned armaments factory Message-ID: <7C27FD68330247A98388145D628C06D1@agingCHS072729> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/02/brighton-mp-support-gaza-campaigners The Guardian 2 July 2010 Brighton MP declares support for acquitted Gaza campaigners Green Party's Caroline Lucas 'delighted' over activists cleared of damaging arms factory in protest against Israeli war crimes Bibi van der Zee and Rob Evans Britain's Green MP today declared her support for seven acquitted campaigners who caused ?180,000 damage to an arms factory, backing their direct action. Caroline Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, said she was "absolutely delighted" that the activists had been cleared, after successfully arguing they were seeking to stop Israeli war crimes. The three-week trial at Hove crown court ended today when the final two activists, accused of causing the damage to the Brighton factory, were acquitted. The jury had found the other five not guilty on Wednesday. The seven, who called themselves "decommissioners", had argued during the trial that they had a "lawful excuse" to smash up the factory, because it was manufacturing military equipment for the Israeli military, which was illegally killing Palestinian civilians, including children. Outside the courthouse, Lucas said :"I am absolutely delighted the jury has recognised that the actions of the decommissioners were a legitimate response to the atrocities being committed in Gaza. I do not advocate non-violent direct action lightly. However, in this situation it is clear the decommissioners had exhausted all democratic avenues and, crucially, that their actions were driven by the responsibility to prevent further suffering in Gaza." She added: "I do think that there is a time when [non-violent direct action] is legitimate and I think that this was such a time." The seven had admitted breaking in and destroying parts of the factory in January last year, in response to the Israeli military offensive against Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, but claimed they had a lawful excuse. Chris Osmond, 30, from Brighton and Elijah Smith, 42, from Bristol, were acquitted of conspiracy to cause criminal damage on the directions of Judge George Bathurst-Norman. Osmond said: "During Operation Cast Lead 1,400 people were killed, 350 of which were children. The international community appeared to be completely helpless. The UN could not even protect its own compounds. The only light at the end of the tunnel for the people of Palestine is if ordinary people like us take direct action on their behalf." Lydia Dagostino, the defendants' lawyer, said: "This result shows the jury agreed with the defendants that in this situation there was really no other course but direct action." The others acquitted are Simon Levin, 35, of Brighton, Tom Woodhead, 25, Ornella Saibene, 50, Bob Nicholls, 52, and Harvey Tadman, 44, all of Bristol. Other peace and climate change activists have deployed the "lawful excuse" defence to get acquitted after using direct action against the targets of their campaigns. Activists have been campaigning to close down the factory, owned by the EDO MBM arms firm, for six years. Sussex police said that, while they respected the decision of the court, 20 people had been convicted following four demonstrations against the US-owned firm over the past two years. Chief superintendent Graham Bartlett, Brighton and Hove city commander, said: "Sussex police want to facilitate peaceful protests to ensure the safety of both participants and members of the community and to minimise disruption to the city." The activists had broken into the factory in the middle of the night, after recording video statements justifying their actions and distributing them to the public. From hain at antcolbks.com Tue Jul 6 00:54:58 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 01:54:58 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Glenn Greenwald: The BP/Government police state Message-ID: <5DBA8957D75945E99F965C049FA9BA19@Upstairs> Monday, Jul 5, 2010 13:06 ET The BP/Government police state By Glenn Greenwald ABC/CNN In June, Adm. Thad Allen told ABC, "Media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations." The new rule contradicts that statement. (updated below) Last week, I interviewed Mother Jones' Mac McClelland, who has been covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf since the first day it happened. She detailed how local police and federal officials work with BP to harass, impede, interrogate and even detain journalists who are covering the impact of the spill and the clean-up efforts. She documented one incident which was particularly chilling of an activist who -- after being told by a local police officer to stop filming a BP facility because "BP didn't want him filming" -- was then pulled over after he left by that officer so he could be interrogated by a BP security official. McClelland also described how BP has virtually bought entire Police Departments which now do its bidding: "One parish has 57 extra shifts per week that they are devoting entirely to, basically, BP security detail, and BP is paying the sheriff's office." Today, an article that is a joint collaboration between PBS' Frontline and ProPublica reported that a BP refinery in Texas "spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies" two weeks before the company's rig in the Gulf collapsed. Accompanying that article was this sidebar report: A photographer taking pictures for these articles, was detained Friday while shooting pictures in Texas City, Texas. The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said that shortly after arriving in town, he was confronted by a BP security officer, local police and a man who identified himself as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. He was released after the police reviewed the pictures he had taken on Friday and recorded his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information. The police officer then turned that information over to the BP security guard under what he said was standard procedure, according to Rosenfield. No charges were filed. Rosenfield, an experienced freelance photographer, said he was detained shortly after shooting a photograph of a Texas City sign on a public roadway. Rosenfield said he was followed by a BP employee in a truck after taking the picture and blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station. According to Rosenfield, the officers said they had a right to look at photos taken near secured areas of the refinery, even if they were shot from public property. Rosenfield said he was told he would be "taken in" if he declined to comply. ProPublica's Paul Steiger said that the reporting team told law enforcement agents that they were working on a deadline for this story about that facility, and that even if DHS agents believed they had a legitimate reason to scrutinize the actions and photographs of this photographer, there was no reason that "should have included sharing them with a representative of a private company." These are true police state tactics, and it's now clear that it is part of a pattern. It's been documented for months now that BP and government officials have been acting in unison to block media coverage of the area; Newsweek reported this in late May: As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials -- working with BP -- who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers. The very idea that government officials are acting as agents of BP (of all companies) in what clearly seem to be unconstitutional acts to intimidate and impede the media is infuriating. Obviously, the U.S. Government and BP share the same interest -- preventing the public from knowing the magnitude of the spill and the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts -- but this creepy police state behavior is intolerable. In this latest case, the journalists were not even focused on the spill itself, but on BP's other potentially reckless behavior with other refineries, and yet there are DHS agents and local police officials acting as BP's personal muscle to detain, interrogate, and threaten a photographer. BP's destructive conduct, and the government's complicity, have slowly faded from public attention, and there clearly seem to be multiple levels of law enforcement devoted to keeping it that way, no matter how plainly illegal their tactics are. UPDATE: More evidence here (h/t bamage): Journalists who come too close to oil spill clean-up efforts without permission could find themselves facing a $40,000 fine and even one to five years in prison under a new rule instituted by the Coast Guard late last week. It's a move that outraged observers have decried as an attack on First Amendment rights. And CNN's Anderson Cooper describes the new rules as making it "very easy to hide incompetence or failure". . . . [S]ince "oil spill response operations" apparently covers much of the clean-up effort on the beaches, CNN's [] Cooper describes the rule as banning reporters from "anywhere we need to be" . . . . A "willful" violation of the new rule could result in Class D felony charges, which carry a penalty of one to five years in prison under federal law. The new rule appears to contradict the promises made by Adm. Thad Allen, the official leading the Coast Guard's response to the oil spill. "Media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations, except for two things, if it's a security or safety problem," Allen told ABC News in June. . . . "[T]o create a blanket rule that everyone has to stay 65 feet away from boom and boats, that doesn't sound like transparency," [said Cooper]. The rule has come under severe criticism not only from journalists but from observers and activists involved in the Gulf Coast clean-up. "With this, the Gulf Coast cleanup operation has now entered a weird Orwellian reality where the news is shaped, censored and controlled by the government in order to prevent the public from learning the truth about what's really happening," writes Mike Adams at NaturalNews. . . . Reporters have been complaining for weeks about BP, the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard working to keep reporters away from wrenching images of oil-covered birds and oil-soaked beaches. We've frequently heard excuses that the Federal Government has little power to do anything to BP, but they certainly seem to have ample power to do a great deal for them. Public indifference about such things is the by-product of those who walk around like drones repeating the mantra that political officials know what's best about what must be kept secret, and that the Threat of Terrorism (which is what is exploited to justify such acts) means we must meekly acquiesce to such powers in the name of Staying Safe. http://www.salon.com/news/louisiana_oil_spill/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/07/05/bp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 41374 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Tue Jul 6 00:38:45 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 01:38:45 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] U.S. Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank Message-ID: <9C47231F715F4F1C914DF3DB0F05C47D@Upstairs> "As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them. " Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank By JIM RUTENBERG, MIKE McINTIRE and ETHAN BRONNER Published: July 5, 2010 Graphic Sending Money to the Settlements HAR BRACHA, West Bank - Twice a year, American evangelicals show up at a winery in this Jewish settlement in the hills of ancient Samaria to play a direct role in biblical prophecy, picking grapes and pruning vines. Believing that Christian help for Jewish winemakers here in the occupied West Bank foretells Christ's second coming, they are recruited by a Tennessee-based charity called HaYovel that invites volunteers "to labor side by side with the people of Israel" and "to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in Yeshua, messiah." But during their visit in February the volunteers found themselves in the middle of the fight for land that defines daily life here. When the evangelicals headed into the vineyards, they were pelted with rocks by Palestinians who say the settlers have planted creeping grape vines on their land to claim it as their own. Two volunteers were hurt. In the ensuing scuffle, a settler guard shot a 17-year-old Palestinian shepherd in the leg. "These people are filled with ideas that this is the Promised Land and their duty is to help the Jews," said Izdat Said Qadoos of the neighboring Palestinian village. "It is not the Promised Land. It is our land." HaYovel is one of many groups in the United States using tax-exempt donations to help Jews establish permanence in the Israeli-occupied territories - effectively obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state, widely seen as a necessary condition for Middle East peace. The result is a surprising juxtaposition: As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them. A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas. In some ways, American tax law is more lenient than Israel's. The outposts receiving tax-deductible donations - distinct from established settlements financed by Israel's government - are illegal under Israeli law. And a decade ago, Israel ended tax breaks for contributions to groups devoted exclusively to settlement-building in the West Bank. Now controversy over the settlements is sharpening, and the issue is sure to be high on the agenda when President Obama and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, meet in Washington on Tuesday. While a succession of American administrations have opposed the settlements here, Mr. Obama has particularly focused on them as obstacles to peace. A two-state solution in the Middle East, he says, is vital to defusing Muslim anger at the West. Under American pressure, Mr. Netanyahu has temporarily frozen new construction to get peace talks going. The freeze and negotiations, in turn, have injected new urgency into the settlers' cause - and into fund-raising for it. The use of charities to promote a foreign policy goal is neither new nor unique - Americans also take tax breaks in giving to pro-Palestinian groups. But the donations to the settler movement stand out because of the centrality of the settlement issue in the current talks and the fact that Washington has consistently refused to allow Israel to spend American government aid in the settlements. Tax breaks for the donations remain largely unchallenged, and unexamined by the American government. The Internal Revenue Service declined to discuss donations for West Bank settlements. State Department officials would comment only generally, and on condition of anonymity. "It's a problem," a senior State Department official said, adding, "It's unhelpful to the efforts that we're trying to make." Daniel C. Kurtzer, the United States ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005, called the issue politically delicate. "It drove us crazy," he said. But "it was a thing you didn't talk about in polite company." He added that while the private donations could not sustain the settler enterprise on their own, "a couple of hundred million dollars makes a huge difference," and if carefully focused, "creates a new reality on the ground." Most contributions go to large, established settlements close to the boundary with Israel that would very likely be annexed in any peace deal, in exchange for land elsewhere. So those donations produce less concern than money for struggling outposts and isolated settlements inhabited by militant settlers. Even small donations add to their permanence. For example, when Israeli authorities suspended plans for permanent homes in Maskiot, a tiny settlement near Jordan, in 2007, two American nonprofits - the One Israel Fund and Christian Friends of Israeli Communities -raised tens of thousands of dollars to help erect temporary structures, keeping the community going until officials lifted the building ban. Israeli security officials express frustration over donations to the illegal or more defiant communities. "I am not happy about it," a senior military commander in the West Bank responded when asked about contributions to a radical religious academy whose director has urged soldiers to defy orders to evict settlers. He spoke under normal Israeli military rules of anonymity. Palestinian officials expressed outrage at the tax breaks. "Settlements violate international law, and the United States is supposed to be sponsoring a two-state solution, yet it gives deductions for donation to the settlements?" said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. The settlements are a sensitive issue among American Jews themselves. Some major Jewish philanthropies, like the Jewish Federations of North America, generally do not support building activities in the West Bank. The donors to settlement charities represent a broad mix of Americans - from wealthy people like the hospital magnate Dr. Irving I. Moskowitz and the family behind Haagen-Dazs ice cream to bidders at kosher pizza auctions in Brooklyn and evangelicals at a recent Bible meeting in a Long Island basement. But they are unified in their belief that returning the West Bank - site of the ancient Jewish kingdoms - to full Jewish control is critical to Israeli security and fulfillment of biblical prophecies. As Kimberly Troup, director of the Christian Friends of Israeli Communities' American office, said, while her charity's work is humanitarian, "the more that we build, the more that we support and encourage their right to live in the land, the harder it's going to be for disengagement, for withdrawal." Sorting Out the Facts Today half a million Israeli Jews live in lands captured during the June 1967 Middle East war. Yet there is a strong international consensus that a Palestinian state should arise in the West Bank and Gaza, where all told some four million Palestinians live. Ultimately, any agreement will be a compromise, a sorting out of the facts on the ground. Most Jewish residents of the West Bank live in what amount to suburbs, with neat homes, high rises and highways to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Politically and ideologically, they are indistinguishable from Israel proper. Most will doubtless stay in any peace deal, while those who must move will most likely do so peacefully. But in the geographically isolated settlements and dozens of illegal outposts, there are settlers who may well violently resist being moved. The prospect of an internal and deeply painful Israeli confrontation looms. And the resisters will very likely be aided by tax-deductible donations from Americans who believe that far from quelling Muslim anger, as Mr. Obama argues, handing over the West Bank will only encourage militant Islamists bent on destroying Israel. "We need to influence our congressmen to stop Obama from putting pressure on Israel to self-destruct," Helen Freedman, a New Yorker who runs a charity called Americans for a Safe Israel, told supporters touring the West Bank this spring. Israel, too, used to offer its residents tax breaks for donations to settlement building, starting in 1984 under a Likud government. But those donations were ended by the Labor Party, first in 1995 and then, after reversal, again in 2000. The finance minister in both cases, Avraham Shohat, said that while he only vaguely recalled the decision-making process, as a matter of principle he believed in deductions for gifts to education and welfare for the poor, not to settlement building per se. In theory, the same is true for the United States, where the tax code encourages citizens to support nonprofit groups that may diverge from official policy, as long as their missions are educational, religious or charitable. The challenge is defining those terms and enforcing them. There are more than a million registered charities, and many submit sparse or misleading mission summaries in tax filings. Religious groups have no obligation to divulge their finances, meaning settlements may be receiving sums that cannot be traced. The Times's review of pro-settler groups suggests that most generally live within the rules of the American tax code. Some, though, risk violating them by using the money for political campaigning and residential property purchases, by failing to file tax returns, by setting up boards of trustees in name only and by improperly funneling donations directly to foreign organizations. One group that at least skates close to the line is Friends of Zo Artzeinu/Manhigut Yehudit, based in Cedarhurst, N.Y., and co-founded by Shmuel Sackett, a former executive director of the banned Israeli political party Kahane Chai. Records from the group say a portion of the $5.2 million it has collected over the last few years has gone to the Israeli "community facilities" of Manhigut Yehudit, a hard-right faction of Mr. Netanyahu's governing Likud Party, which Mr. Sackett helps run with the politician Moshe Feiglin. American tax rules prohibit the use of charitable funds for political purposes at home or abroad. Neither man would answer questions about the nature of the "community facilities." In an e-mail message, Mr. Sackett said the American charity was not devoted to political activity, but to humanitarian projects and "educating the public about the need for authentic Jewish leadership in Israel." Of course, groups in the pro-settler camp are not the only ones benefiting from tax breaks. For example, the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla seeking to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, says on its Web site that supporters can make tax-deductible donations to it through the American Educational Trust, publisher of an Arab-oriented journal. Israeli civil and human rights groups like Peace Now, which are often accused of having a blatant political agenda, also benefit from tax-deductible donations. Some pro-settler charities have obscured their true intentions. Take the Capital Athletic Foundation, run by the disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In its I.R.S. filings, the foundation noted donations totaling more than $140,000 to Kollel Ohel Tiferet, a religious study group in Israel, for "educational and athletic" purposes. In reality, a study group member was using the money to finance a paramilitary operation in the Beitar Illit settlement, according to documents in a Senate investigation of Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding clients and bribing public officials. Mr. Abramoff, documents show, had directed the settler, Shmuel Ben Zvi, an old high school friend, to use the study group as cover after his accountant complained that money for sniper equipment and a jeep "don't look good" in terms of complying with the foundation's tax-exempt status. While the donations by Mr. Abramoff's charity were elaborately disguised - the group shipped a camouflage sniper suit in a box labeled "Grandmother Tree Costume for the play Pocahontas" - other groups are more open. Amitz Rescue & Security, which has raised money through two Brooklyn nonprofits, trains and equips guard units for settlements. Its Web site encourages donors to "send a tax-deductible check" for night-vision binoculars, bulletproof vehicles and guard dogs. Other groups urge donors to give to one of several nonprofits that serve as clearinghouses for donations to a wide array of groups in Israel and the West Bank, which, if not done properly, can skirt the intent of American tax rules. Americans cannot claim deductions for direct donations to foreign charities; tax laws allow deductions for domestic giving on the theory that charities ultimately ease pressure on government spending for social programs. But the I.R.S. does allow deductions for donations to American nonprofits that support charitable projects abroad, provided the nonprofit is not simply a funnel to another group overseas, according to Bruce R. Hopkins, a lawyer and the author of several books on nonprofit law. Donors can indicate how they would like their money to be used, but the nonprofit must exercise "some measure of independence to deliberate on grant-making," he said. A prominent clearinghouse is the Central Fund of Israel, operated from the Marcus Brothers Textiles offices in the Manhattan garment district. Dozens of West Bank groups seem to view the fund as little more than a vehicle for channeling donations back to themselves, instructing their supporters that if they want a tax break, they must direct their contributions there first. The fund's president, Hadassah Marcus, acknowledged that it received many checks from donors "who want them to go to different programs in Israel," but, she said, the fund retains ultimate discretion over the money. It also makes its own grants to needy Jewish families and monitors them, she said, adding that the fund, which collected $13 million in 2008, was audited and complies with I.R.S. rules. "We're not a funnel. We're trying to build a land," she said, adding, "All we're doing is going back to our home." Support From a Preacher Late one afternoon in March, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. landed in Israel and headed to his Jerusalem hotel to prepare for a weeklong effort to rekindle Middle East peace talks. Across town, many of the leading Israeli officials on Mr. Biden's schedule, among them Prime Minister Netanyahu, were in a convention hall listening to the Rev. John Hagee, an influential American preacher whose charities have donated millions to projects in Israel and the territories. Support for the settlements has become a cause of some leading conservative Republicans, like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. "Israel exists because of a covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 3,500 years ago - and that covenant still stands," Mr. Hagee thundered. "World leaders do not have the authority to tell Israel and the Jewish people what they can and cannot do in the city of Jerusalem." The next day, Israeli-American relations plunged after Israel announced plans for 1,600 new apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital. Israeli officials said Mr. Hagee's words of encouragement had no effect on government decision making. And the preacher's aides said he was not trying to influence the peace talks, just defending Israel's right to make decisions without foreign pressure. Still, his presence underscored the role of settlement supporters abroad. Nowhere is that effort more visible, and contentious, than in East Jerusalem, which the Netanyahu government says must remain under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal. The government supports privately financed archaeological projects that focus on Jewish roots in Arab areas of Jerusalem. The Obama administration and the United Nations have recently criticized a plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make room for a history park in a neighborhood where a nonprofit group called El'Ad finances digs and buys up Arab-owned properties. To raise money, groups like El'Ad seek to bring alive a narrative of Jewish nationalism in living rooms and banquet halls across America. In May, a crowd of mostly Jewish professionals - who paid $300 a plate to benefit the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim - gathered in a catering hall high above Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens to dine and hear John R. Bolton, United Nations ambassador under President George W. Bush, warn of the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. A few days earlier, the group's executive vice president, Susan Hikind, had gone on a Jewish radio program in New York to proclaim her group's resistance to American policy in the Middle East. The Obama administration, she said, did not want donors to attend the banquet because it believed Jerusalem should "be part of some future capital of a Palestinian state." "And who's standing in the way of that?" Ms. Hikind said. "People who support Ateret Cohanim's work in Jerusalem to ensure that Jerusalem remains united." The Jerusalem Reclamation Project of Ateret Cohanim works to transfer ownership of Arab homes to Jewish families in East Jerusalem. Such efforts have generated much controversy; Islamic judicial panels have threatened death to Palestinians who sell property in the occupied territories to Jews, and sales are often conducted using shell companies and intermediaries. "Land reclamation is actually sort of a bad name - redeeming is probably a better word," said D. Bernard Hoenig, a New York lawyer on the board of American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. "The fact of the matter is, there are Arabs who want to sell their homes, and they have offered our organization the opportunity to buy them." Mr. Hoenig said that Ateret Cohanim bought a couple of buildings years ago, but that mostly it helps arrange purchases by other Jewish investors. That is not mentioned, however, on its American affiliate's tax returns. Rather, they describe its primary charitable purpose as financing "higher educational institutions in Israel," as well as children's camps, help for needy families and security for Jews living in East Jerusalem. Indeed, it does all those things. It houses yeshiva students and teachers in properties it helps acquire and places kindergartens and study institutes into other buildings, all of which helps its activities qualify as educational or religious for tax purposes. The American affiliate provides roughly 60 percent of Ateret Cohanim's funding, according to representatives of the group. But Mr. Hoenig said none of the American money went toward the land deals, since they would not qualify for tax-deductible donations. Still, acquiring property has been an integral part of Ateret Cohanim's fund-raising appeals. Archived pages from a Web site registered to the American affiliate - taken down in the last year or so - described in detail how Ateret Cohanim "quietly and discreetly" arranged the acquisition of buildings in Palestinian areas. And it sought donations for "the expected left-wing Arab legal battle," building costs and "other expenses (organizational, planning, Arab middlemen, etc.)" An Unyielding Stance Deep inside the West Bank, in the northern region called Samaria, or Shomron, lie 30 or so settlements and unauthorized outposts, most considered sure candidates for evacuation in any deal for a Palestinian state. In terms of donations, they do not raise anywhere near the sums produced for Jerusalem or close-in settlements. But in many ways they worry security officials and the Palestinians the most, because they are so unyielding. Out here, the communities have a rougher feel. Some have only a few paved roads, and mobile homes for houses. Residents - men with skullcaps and sidelocks, women with head coverings, and families with many children - often speak in apocalyptic terms about the need for Jews to stay on the land. It may take generations, they say, but God's promise will be fulfilled. In November, after the Netanyahu government announced the settlement freeze, Shomron leaders invited reporters to watch them shred the orders. David Ha'Ivri, the public liaison for the local government, the Shomron Regional Council, has positioned himself as a fierce yet amiable advocate. As a leader of an American-based nonprofit, he also brings a militant legacy to the charitable enterprise. Mr. Ha'Ivri, formerly David Axelrod, was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, and was a student of the virulently anti-Arab Rabbi Meir David Kahane and a top lieutenant and brother-in-law to the rabbi's son, Binyamin Kahane. Both Kahanes, who were assassinated 10 years apart, ran organizations banned in Israel for instigating, if not participating in, attacks against Arabs. The United States Treasury Department later added both groups, Kach and Kahane Chai, to its terrorism watch list. As recently as four years ago, Mr. Ha'Ivri was involved in running The Way of the Torah, a Kahanist newsletter designated as a terrorist organization in the United States. He has had several run-ins with the authorities in Israel over the last two decades, including an arrest for celebrating the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in a television interview and a six-month jail term in connection with the desecration of a mosque. Treasury officials said a group's presence on the terror list does not necessarily extend to its former leaders, and indeed Mr. Ha'Ivri is not on it. Mr. Ha'Ivri said he no longer engaged in such activism, adding that, at 43, he had mellowed, even if his core convictions had not. "I'm a little older now, a little more mature," he said. A Sunday in late May found him in New York, on a stage in Central Park, speaking at the annual Salute to Israel celebration. "We will not ever, ever give up our land," Mr. Ha'Ivri said. He posed for pictures with the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, and distributed fliers about the "501 c3 I.R.S. tax deductible status" of his charity, Shuva Israel, which has raised more than $2.6 million since 2004 for the Shomron communities. Although I.R.S. rules require that American charities exhibit "full control of the donated funds and discretion as to their use," Shuva Israel appears to be dominated by Israeli settlers. Mr. Ha'Ivri, who lives in the settlement of Kfar Tapuach, was listed as the group's executive director in its most recent tax filing; Gershon Mesika, the Shomron council's leader, is the board's chairman; and Shuva Israel's accountant is based in the settlement of Tekoa. Its American presence is through a post office box in Austin, Tex., where, according to its tax filings, it has two volunteers who double as board members. "I've never been to the board," said one of them, Jeff Luftig. When asked about his dual status as leader of the charity and an official with the council it supports, Mr. Ha'Ivri said he was no longer executive director, though he could not recall who was. He said he was confident the charity was following the law, adding that the money it raises goes strictly toward improving the lives of settlers. Exacting a Price If Mr. Ha'Ivri has changed tactics, a new generation has picked up his aggressive approach. These activists also receive American support. Their campaign has been named "Price Tag": For every move by Israeli authorities to curtail settlement construction, the price will be an attack on an Arab mosque, vineyard or olive grove. The results were on display during a recent tour through the Arab village of Hawara, where the wall of a mosque had been desecrated with graffiti of a Jewish star and the first letters of the Prophet Muhammad's name in Hebrew. In the nearby Palestinian village of Mikhmas, the deputy mayor, Mohamed Damim, said settlers had come in the dark of night and uprooted or cut down hundreds of olive and fig trees. "The army has done nothing to protect us," he said. Though the attacks are small by nature, Israeli commanders fear they threaten to scuttle the uneasy peace they and their Palestinian Authority partners have forged in the West Bank. "It can bring the entire West Bank to light up again in terror and violence," a senior commander said in an interview. Israeli law enforcement officials say that in investigating settler violence in the north, they often turn to people connected to the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement. After the arson of a mosque in Yasuf in December, authorities arrested the yeshiva's head rabbi, Yitzhak Shapira, and several students but released them for lack of evidence. Rabbi Shapira denied involvement. He is known in Israel for his strong views. He was co-author of a book released last year that offered religious justification for killing non-Jews who pose a threat to Jews or, in the case of young children, could in the future. A plaque inside the recently built yeshiva thanks Dr. Moskowitz, the hospitals entrepreneur, and his wife, Cherna, for their "continuous and generous support." Another recognizes Benjamin Landa of Brooklyn, a nursing home operator who gave through his foundation, Ohel Harav Yehoshua Boruch. Mr. Landa said he donated to the yeshiva after its old building was destroyed in an Arab ransacking. None of the American donations have been linked to the campaign of attacks. The Israeli military has activated outstanding permit violations that have set the stage for the yeshiva's threatened demolition. And officials have barred some of the yeshiva's students from the West Bank for months on end. Od Yosef Chai's director, Itamar Posen, said in an interview that the military was unfairly singling out the yeshiva because "the things that we publish are things that are against their ideas, and they are frightened." Mr. Ha'Ivri and Mr. Mesika have charged the military with jeopardizing the men's livelihoods without due process. A settler legal defense fund, Honenu, with its own American charitable arm, has sought to provide a safety net. An online appeal for tax-deductible donations to be sent to Honenu's Queens-based post office read, "If the 3 men can have their families supported it will cause others at the Hilltops to brave military and government threats against them." Reached last month, one of the men, Akiva HaCohen, declined to say how much support he had received from American donors; Honenu officials in Israel declined to comment as well. There is no way to tell from Honenu's American tax returns; none was available through Guidestar, a service that tracks tax filings by nonprofits. Groups that raise less than $25,000 a year are not required to file. But a review of tax returns filed by other charities showed that one American family foundation gave it $33,000 in a single year, enough to have required filing. Asked whether it had ever filed a tax return, Aaron Heimowitz, a financial planner in Queens who collects Honenu's donations there, responded, "I'm not in a position to answer that." Opaque Finances Religious charities are still more opaque; the tax code does not require them to disclose their finances publicly. Mr. Hagee is one of the few Christian Zionists who advertises his philanthropy in Israel and its territories, at least $58 million as of last year, distributed through a multimedia empire that spins out a stream of books, DVDs and CDs about Israel's role in biblical prophecy. Mr. Hagee's aides say he makes a large majority of his donations within Israel's 1967 boundaries and seeks to avoid disputed areas. Yet a sports complex in the large settlement of Ariel - whose future is in dispute - bears his name. And a few years ago, according to officials at the yeshiva at Har Bracha, Mr. Hagee donated $250,000 to expand a dormitory. The yeshiva is the main growth engine of the settlement, attracting students who put down roots. (Some are soldiers, and the head rabbi there has called upon them to refuse orders to evict settlers.) After the yeshiva was started in 1992, "the place just took off," growing to more than 200 families from 3, said the yeshiva's spokesman, Yonaton Behar. "The goal," he added, "is to grow to the point where there is no question of uprooting Har Bracha." Various strains of American pro-settlement activity come together in Har Bracha. The Moskowitz family helped pay for the yeshiva's main building. Nearby, a winery was built with volunteer help from HaYovel ministries, which brings large groups of volunteers to prune and harvest. Mr. Ha'Ivri's charity promotes the program. The winery's owner, Nir Lavi, says his land is state-sanctioned. But officials in the neighboring Palestinian village of Iraq Burin say part of the vineyard was planted on ground taken from their residents in a parcel-by-parcel land grab. Such disputes are typical for the area, as are the opposing accounts of what happened that February day when HaYovel's leader, Tommy Waller, and his volunteers say they came under attack and the shepherd was shot. "They came up screaming, slinging their rock-slings like David going after a giant," Mr. Waller said. A Har Bracha security guard came to the rescue by shooting in the air, not aiming for the attackers, he added. But, in an interview, the shepherd, Amid Qadoos, said settlers started the scuffle by throwing rocks at him as he was grazing his sheep on village land a few yards from the vineyard, telling him, "You are not allowed here." He and his friends then threw rocks in retaliation, he said, prompting the security guard to shoot him in the back of his leg. His father, Aref Qadoos, added, "They want us to go so they can confiscate the land, through planting." Though two volunteers were hurt, Mr. Waller said neither he nor his group would be deterred. "People are drawn to our work who believe the Bible is true and desire to participate in the promises of God," he said. "We believe the restoration of Israel, including Samaria and Judea, is part of that promise." In the last year, he said, he brought 130 volunteers here. This coming year, he said, he expects as many as 400. Isabel Kershner and Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html?_r=1&hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 14936 bytes Desc: not available URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 20:53:15 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 20:53:15 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Pocket-sized volume deflates Canada's "peacemaker" myth Message-ID: <7DAF63FE4EE240CC879D6ED924CDA502@agingCHS072729> Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid by Yves Engler Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd. Publication date: September 1, 2010 ISBN-10: 1552663558 ISBN-13: 978-1552663554 ====================== http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11372.shtml Book review: pocket-sized volume deflates Canada's "peacemaker" myth Hicham Safieddine, The Electronic Intifada, 6 July 2010 Most Canadians today would probably agree that their country's foreign policy is pro-Israel. Even Canada's "liberal" supporters of Israel complain about this policy. Siding so explicitly with Israel, they lament, damages Canada's long-time role of a peacemaker. It signals a shift away from the country's perceived balanced approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in his latest book, Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, Yves Engler contends that Canada's lopsided support for Israel is neither a shift nor the product of current government policy. Engler argues that the support goes as far back as Zionism itself, long before conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper or his anti-immigration minister Jason Kenney learned the alphabet of pro-Israel speak. Pocket-sized, thin and with an appendix of web sources for activists, the book may be easily pigeonholed as an anti-Zionist activism manual. But Engler, an iconoclast of Canada's foreign policy mythmaking, delves deep into the diplomatic, economic, ideological, religious and security ties between the two countries that span over a century. The material is already out there, but the author skillfully constructs a coherent narrative that brings it together into one accessible volume. His well-referenced and easy-to-follow expos? leaves little doubt of the strength and longevity of the Canada-Israel relationship. More arguably perhaps, Engler adheres to a Chomskian interpretation of this alliance. Namely that it is driven more by Canada's backing of American-led imperialism rather than the appeasement of the Zionist lobby. The latter, Engler claims, plays an undeniable role in funding Israeli apartheid. But in terms of steering policy in Ottawa, it is pushing against an open door. Ottawa, the author says, is already sold on backing a satellite of imperialism like Israel in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Jewish vote in Canada is too scattered to make a substantial difference in most electoral districts. Engler stresses the fact that the roots of Zionism in Canada are Christian rather than Jewish. He chronicles Canada's involvement at every state of Zionist history by citing the prominent role Canadian Zionists played at each of those stages: businessman and Christian Zionist Henry Wentworth Monk was campaigning to raise funds and buy land in Palestine long before Herzl "thought of a Jewish state." In 1881, Monk proposed setting up a National Jewish Fund. Clergymen like Albert Thompson and Charles Russell spoke of turning the "wilderness" of the holy land into the "very garden of the lord." But Monk's efforts bore little financial fruit. By 1906, Canadian Zionism had raised a mere $6,000 in support funds. Things changed during the First World War. Close to 400 Canadian soldiers took part in British General Allenby's invasion of Ottoman Palestine. Some were mobilized by then-president of Zionist Societies of Canada Clarence De Sola. Following the war and Britain's Balfour Declaration in November 1917, which declared support for a Jewish national home in Palestine, Canadians raised close to half a million dollars for Zionism between 1919 and 1921 -- a giant increase compared to Monk's time. The Canadian military contribution to the British conquest of Palestine turned into outright participation in the 1948 Palestine War and the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine. The main recruiter for the Zionist Haganah militia in Canada -- and heir to giant retailer Tip Tops -- Ben Dunkelman put the number of Canadians who fought to establish Israel at 1,000. Canadian participation left its clearest mark perhaps on Israel's air force. Engler states that the Zionists' central base commander was Canadian Sde Dov while Canada's most decorated Jewish serviceman Sydney Shulemson is considered the "father of the Israeli air force." At least 53 Canadians are believed to have enlisted in Israel's small air force during the 1948 war. The birth of Israel also marked another watershed in Canada's commitment to Zionism at the official level. This is symbolized by the influential role of one of Canada's most revered Prime Ministers, Lester B. Pearson. Pearson was Undersecretary of State for External Affairs at the time and chaired the UN Committee on Palestine in 1947 (UNSCOP). Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ivan Rand was also a member of the commission and is considered by some as the chief architect of the UN's partition plan of Palestine. Pearson actively lobbied and advocated for the partition plan. Engler identifies the Pearson era as a time of gradual transfer of Canada's services from British-led imperialism to those of the United States. Canada for instance gladly obliged when the Eisenhower administration was hesitant to directly sell heavy weapons to Israel lest it upset Arab governments and by extension Washington's Cold War planning in the region. Ottawa struck the arms deals in lieu of Washington. The weapons sales, among other things, set the stage for a much more institutionalized form of cooperation between Canada and Israel that spanned the intelligence, military and business fields. Engler cites reports by Canadian diplomats on the close cooperation between the two countries' spy agencies. The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Israel's Mossad not only share information, but also conduct joint operations according to these sources. One of the most contentious issues surrounding joint security operations is the use of Canadian passports in Israeli assassination operations. Israeli agents who carried out the 1997 botched assassination attempt of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Amman entered Jordan on Canadian passports. Although the Mashal incident brought the passport issue to public attention, Engler traces this practice all the way to the 1970s. At that time, Israel had also promised not to use Canadian passports when assassinating Palestinians abroad after two such cases were exposed. In By Way of Deception, former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky described Israel's passport forgery factory and laboratory and claimed that in the 1980s he saw more than a thousand blank Canadian passports, which were the Mossad's favorite. Intelligence collaboration between Canada and Israel reached new heights in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. Fighting "terror" eventually led to forging formal CSIS-Mossad relations under the rubric of a border and security agreement between the two countries -- even though they don't share any borders! Intelligence ties were matched by military ones. Israel was invited to joint military operations with the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) in Canadian skies. In addition, Canadian companies actively maintain Israeli technical infrastructure of the military-industrial complex that sustains its occupation of the Palestinian territories and apartheid policies. Canadian support for the Palestinian arm of this infrastructure, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus, was also fostered in the last few years and grew following the election of Hamas to power in 2006. On the financial and business front, Engler points to the charity status in Canada of discriminatory institutions like the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the millions of dollars invested by Canadian banks and communities in Israel Bonds (the highest per-capita investment in the world). Attempts to legally challenge this charity status in the 1990s did not bear fruit. Mining magnates like Peter Munk and Seymour Schulich have also pumped millions of dollars into Canadian and Israeli academic institutions. At the political level, Engler points out that support for Israel is bipartisan. He singles out Pierre Trudeau as the only prime minister who at times did not tow Washington's line of uncritical support for the Zionist state. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien comes a distant second. But even Trudeau's occasional criticism remained in the realm of words and was moot in the face of overwhelming support of Israel among his party members and base. Engler does not spare the Canadian left from his critique. The left, he argues, failed to stand up against pro-Zionist policies. Canadian Unions, the author points out, purchase close to $20 million worth of State of Israel Bonds annually. Engler argues that there has been a "significant reversal" in left-wing support for Israel since the mid-1980s, and more so in the wake of the mounting boycott, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid across North American university campuses and beyond. Engler unfortunately doesn't devote as much space for the latest developments in BDS. This shortcoming applies to his discussion of the current machinations of Israeli apartheid and Canada's role in it, something readers might have expected given the title of the book. The book is also short on discussing proposals for different courses of action to counter apartheid (less than 10 pages). Engler lists a number of long-term goals such as halting all weapons sales to Israel, revoking the JNF's charitable status, pressuring unions to divest from State of Israel Bonds, and rescinding security agreements with Israel. More generally, he calls for "de-ethnicizing" the conflict -- namely emphasizing that it is not an Arab or Jewish question but one about basic human dignity. This is the direction the anti-apartheid and BDS campaign has taken for many years now. Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid is a harsh reminder of what this campaign is up against. Engler seems to think the issue is mostly about ignorance. If only Canadians knew what their government was up to and the realities of the conflict, then most would support his long-term goals and strategies. But just as one cannot underestimate the power of moral argument and human solidarity appeals, one must not overestimate it. Moral imperatives are necessary but not sufficient for political change. Calculations of cost and benefit are crucial. The BDS campaign is well aware of that. Israel will only relent when the cost of its apartheid system outweighs the benefits. The same logic applies to mainstreaming BDS beyond the conscientious few. There are billions of dollars in education, industry and business at stake in the joint building of apartheid between Canada and Israel. The question Engler's book forces us -- and hopefully him -- to consider is this: after showing the ugly face of Canadian-Israeli collusion, how can one make ending it more beneficial than costly for most Canadians? Hicham Safieddine is a Toronto-based researcher and journalist. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 21:02:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 21:02:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Spanish Court Seeks Arrest of CIA Agents Message-ID: <9EE4D02A206843A3A73772900DE405A5@agingCHS072729> http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=203592&Itemid=1 Prensa Latina July 6, 2010 Spanish Court Seeks Arrest of CIA Agents Madrid, Jul 6 (^Prensa Latina) A Spanish court on Tuesday was seeking the arrest of undercover CIA agents it says used false documents in Spain during the dirty war on terrorism ordered by the George W. Bush administration. That revelation, reported by the local press, was offered by judicial sources investigating U.S. civilian flights with stopovers in Spanish airports between 2003 and 2005. Prosecutor Ismael Moreno with the Audiencia Nacional (National Court)asked the United Kingdom for help in taking statements from Olivier Minkwitz, the author of a report by the British NGO Reprieve which demonstrates that members of those flight crews used fake IDs in their many stopovers in Spain. Reprieve is an organization of lawyers representing individuals locked up on terrorism charges without trial or evidence in the prison maintained by the United States on the its naval base in Guantanamo. According to members of the Reprieve team, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in at least seven kidnappings and illegal transfers of prisoners from Afghanistan and to secret jails in Europe and Africa. The Spanish prosecutor Moreno demanded the arrest of 14 alleged CIA agents who were part of the crew of one of the flights that stopped over in Palma de Mallorca in 2004. According to the court, those individuals were carrying false passports and did not report their presence to Spanish authorities in accordance with the law for undercover operations. hr/rab/abo/por Modificado el ( martes, 06 de julio de 2010 ) From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 21:10:54 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 21:10:54 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] IKEA furnishing the occupation Message-ID: <1B058C1C6A674B60A1F8AB8BAE1C0D06@agingCHS072729> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11363.shtml IKEA furnishing the occupation Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 5 July 2010 Swedish Radio reported on 23 June that home furnishings retail giant IKEA in Israel discriminately ships to Israel's illegal settlements but not Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank. Swedish Radio's correspondent in Israel, Cecilia Udden, explained that she was moving to the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and asked the staff at IKEA Israel if her furniture could be delivered there. She reported that behind the store's counter was a huge map of Israel that showed no boundaries for the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, or the Syrian Golan Heights. Although IKEA's cost of transport is calculated according to distance, to Udden's surprise, transport to Ramallah was not possible. However, the store did inform her that furniture could be delivered to various Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank. Ove Bring, a professor of international law, explained to Swedish online magazine Stockholm News that IKEA's policies discriminate against Palestinians. In addition, the shipping policies violate the company's code of conduct, which is published on its website ("IWAY Standard" [PDF]). IKEA stated in Udden's report that because it relies on local transport companies for deliveries it is bound by local rules. However, Bring challenged the company's assertion and stated that IKEA must examine whether the transport companies are truly unable to deliver to all customers who request the products. Indeed, when Udden insisted on an answer from the transportation company about why her furniture could not be delivered to Ramallah, she was informed that the Israeli military prohibits the deliveries to customers in Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank. In its historic 2004 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice emphasized the illegality of activity that normalizes Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Indeed, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center -- which is building a Museum of Tolerance on a historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem -- told the California-based Jewish weekly J. that the opening of an IKEA store in Israel "will be another chink in the attempts that are still out there to boycott Israel" (""IKEA's 1st Israeli store to open in spring," 12 January 2001). Ironically, before the opening of an IKEA store in Israel in 2001, the retailer was threatened with boycott by the Wiesenthal Center because the company's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was a member of the fascist New Swedish Movement in the 1940s. The Wiesenthal Center also suspected IKEA of complying with the Arab League boycott of Israel because it appeared to avoid commercial involvement in Israel despite possible opportunities. In a December 1994 letter to the Wiesenthal Center, IKEA President Anders Moberg stated that IKEA had not participated in the Arab League boycott and that company was in the process of investigating the possibility of opening an IKEA store in Israel. Today IKEA's empire boasts 300 stores in 35 countries, including two stores in Israel; the company intends to open a third store in Haifa in 2012. The IKEA brand survived the revelations of its founder's links to fascism during his youth and the company demonstrated its sensitivity to a possible consumer boycott. In yet another irony, the boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel movement is already mobilizing in Sweden. At the end of June, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of goods to and from Israel. The action by the SDU was in response to a call by Palestinian trade unionists in the context of Israel's three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and its attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship on 31 May. Meanwhile the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden has called on IKEA to immediately stop deliveries to the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It remains to be seen whether IKEA will rectify the racist policies of its store in Israel before such practices inspire a new consumer boycott threat. Editor's note: the original version of this article inadvertently omitted the information that the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden has called on IKEA to stop delivering its merchandise to West Bank settlements. This version of the article has been corrected to include that information. Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 21:24:50 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 21:24:50 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Leading Canadian Peace Activist Targeted by Home Break-In in Lead-Up to G20 Message-ID: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/sid Leading Canadian Peace Activist Targeted by Home Break-In in Lead-Up to G20 As we continue our G20 coverage, we hear from Sid Lacombe, the national coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. Lacombe had his house broken into and ransacked in the lead up the G20 summit. [includes rush transcript] Sid Lacombe, national coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. He had his house broken into and ransacked in the lead up the G20 summit. AMY GOODMAN:Also in Toronto, I spoke with Sid Lacombe. He was in front of the U.S. consulate in Toronto. He's the national coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. I spoke to him just before he was planning to march toward the major demonstrations that were happening on Saturday. He described how his house was broken into and ransacked the night before. SID LACOMBE: My name is Sid Lacombe, I'm the national coordinator of the Canadian peace Alliance and what happened last night was I got home after I was at the shout out for global justice, everyone else and I got back to my house and the entire place had been ransacked, drawers pulled, things moved. There were certain things stolen, but a peculiar collection of things that were stolen. Tools were stolen, but the money on the dresser was not touched. All of the files were clearly routed through back and forth. And whoever this was was sophisticated enough to get through two sets combination dead-bolts without even a scratch which is not the common thing you see in my neighborhood. It's usually someone who smashes through the window. We don't know what this is but coming on the day before the G-20 mobilization as one of the organizers of the rally here today, we assume there's some sort of-actually, what should I say on that, I haven't actually gone through that particular part yet. So yeah, there has been other intimidation of other activists. People were rounded up last night. There were six activists organizers apparently were picked up last night. So I'm just wondering if it was fact that I wasn't home last that means I didn't end up getting picked up under those circumstances. But it's clearly quite suspicious that this would've happened at this moment and again, that they would not have stolen electronics and the money and all those bits and pieces. But ultimately it is about the police presence that you see in the G-20 here, where we've seen them really really go over the top with police presence and attacks on people and constant violations of civil liberties. AMY GOODMAN: Are you saying you had two dead-bolts on your door? DAVE VASEY: On the outside door and inside door. And both of them, again, not a scratch on them. AMY GOODMAN: Sid Lacombe is the coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. We were speaking at about 1:00PM on Saturday of the major protest. It was raining outside. He had joined other peace activists as well as a mother of a Canadian soldier who was serving in Afghanistan. She was speaking out against the war in front of the U.S. consulate in Toronto. They were joining the mass march taking place that was taking place that day. This again the G-8/G-20 summit was happening. Just hours before his home had been broken into. And that was just hours after, or he assumed, he and thousands of other people packed into Toronto's Massey Hall, the largest in Canada's largest city, to oppose the G-20 agenda. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 21:33:35 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 21:33:35 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] SEIU Funds New Book to Rewrite History Message-ID: <0C1F55A65A60415DB9CEAFDCA083E848@agingCHS072729> SEIU Funds New Book to Rewrite History By Steve Early June 30, 2010. BeyondChron http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8274#more In the last five years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization. Some of SEIU's negative publicity is a product of right-wing union bashing. But a huge amount is self- inflicted - the result of conflicts with other unions, internal corruption scandals, and unseemly battles with its own members in California. To bolster its fading progressive brand, SEIU commissioned a documentary film in 2008 called Labor Day. Several million dollars worth of membership dues money later, Labor Day was dead on arrival. Now, SEIU has produced a slick $25 dollar coffee table book called Stronger Together: The Story of SEIU. Among its questionable claims is that Andy Stern's meddling in the UNITE HERE divorce led to attacks on SEIU by other unions, a unique perspective on that dispute, to say the least. Among true believers at SEIU headquarters in Washington, hope springs eternal in the self-promotion department, just as it does in Hollywood. The fact that one narcissistic project has crashed and burned doesn't mean the next one will be a dog too. If people don't want to watch a movie about SEIU, maybe they'll buy book a book about it - like a 276-page, largely wart-free organizational portrait penned by the husband of the union's general counsel? Thanks to a further expenditure of dues money (the full scale of which won't be revealed until SEIU files its financial disclosure form with the Labor Department next year) and a Vermont publisher not previously known as a vanity press, we now have a fitting sequel to Labor Day. Cobbled together, with lots of headquarters help, the book takes Labor Day Director Glenn Silber's heroic narrative (about how SEIU single-handedly elected Barack Obama 'to change the direction of the economy and the country') and adds thirty-four more chapters to round out the union's history. Unfortunately, a lot of the new material is equally self- congratulatory or factually challenged. If Stronger Together were your only source of information about SEIU, reading this book would surely make any union- minded person a big fan of what Andy Stern once called his 'Purple Army.' There has been, in the past, much to admire about SEIU and, in some areas of organizing strategy, for others to emulate. (My own alma mater, CWA, certainly did, in at least one major campaign that I assisted.) Author Don Stillman highlights the kind of creative organizing, bargaining, political action, and community coalition-building that most distinguished SEIU, in a positive way, from the rest of the pack. Justice for Janitors, child-care and home care worker campaigns, support for immigrant rights, green jobs, jousting with Wal-Mart, protecting hospital workers from needle-stick injuries -it's all there, along with a whole chapter on how SEIU came to embrace the color purple. (Not just any old shade, mind you, but Pantone 268c exclusively.) Stillman argues that the union's corporate-style branding campaign was critical to raising its public profile and creating a common union identity for a disparate membership composed of nearly 2 million health care workers, public employees, janitors, security guards, and others. It's when his book deals with crucial matters of substance, rather than form - like the thorny controversies of today, not SEIU's past glory - that Stronger Together begins to lose credibility fast. The author once aspired to a higher calling in the field of labor journalism - and greater candor about union-related topics - than his current 'work for hire' would indicate. As editor of the rank-and-file paper, The Miner's Voice, Don Stillman helped union dissidents in Miners for Democracy (MFD) topple the murderous dictatorship of Tony Boyle in the United Mine Workers (UMW) four decades ago. After the MFD's election victory in 1972, he headed an editorial team at the United Mine Workers Journal (that I was privileged to be part of and that, more prominently, included the renowned photo- journalist Earl Dotter and future SEIU and Teamsters communications director Matt Witt). In 1975, the Journal managed to win a National Magazine Award for our investigative reporting on coal industry issues - a rare honor for a union rag (and a testament to Don's close ties to the Columbia School of Journalism, which doles out those prestigious NMAs.) We tried, wherever possible, to cover internal controversies, member complaints, and union setbacks, instead of just touting what everyone knew, in real life, was not an endless stream of UMW 'victories' (in an era when the union even had a few.) The fact that coal miners could find, in their Journal, more than just front-to-back pictures of the top officialdom, along with flattering transcriptions of their every word and deed, gave us some street cred and a more engaged readership than most labor publications enjoy. The always-looming gap between union rhetoric and workplace reality was actually narrowed a bit, at least for a while. With its glossy paper, nice color photos, clean lay-out and many true-to-life SEIU war stories to retell, Stronger Together is not a 'crappy infomercial,' by any means, and is a cut above Labor Day, which the Village Voice called, a crappy infomercial. But given who's footing the bill for this official history, the author's own lucrative past consulting work for Andy Stern, and his close personal ties to SEIU (his wife Judy Scott, is the union's top lawyer), it's not surprising that Stronger Together so often substitutes the ideal for the real, and reads like an extended SEIU press release. Producing a book, for internal union consumption, with the look and feel of a labor 'family album,' fully-airbrushed and leadership friendly, is no heavy lifting for a writer and editor of Stillman's ability. Overcoming the skepticism, anger and concern that has been aroused, among so many SEIU members and friends, by its multi-faceted misbehavior in recent years, is quite another journalistic challenge. And the Don Stillman of today - now a comfortable Washington, D.C. labor insider and well-paid SEIU consultant - doesn't even try to meet it. Instead, he makes sure that the beatific visage of Mary Kay Henry, the union's new President, appears more often than any other in the book, by far. Stillman also helps burnish her resume for the job she was held since May by providing Mary Kay-centric accounts of campaigns like the 'Breakthrough At Catholic Healthcare West' (Chapter 15). At CHW, a lot of the real work on the ground to win a 'fair elections deal' and thousands of new members was done by folks now in the rival National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). But since Stern seized control over United Healthcare Workers (UHW) - an action taken to 'expand accountability,' according to Stillman - these ex-UHW activists have been consigned to SEIU's version of what George Orwell, in 1984, called 'the memory hole.' Some of Stronger Together's shortcomings in the area of truth and memory are on display in chapters dealing with fellow unions, not just its own former organizers. Who knew, for example, that Change To Win was still doing so well as a robust alternative to the larger federation headed by Rich Trumka? Stillman's chapter on SEIU's bid to 'reform the AFL- CIO or build something stronger' reads like it was written right after the 2005 labor movement split. The author doesn't even note that two of the seven Change To Win founding unions have quit since then, with one (UNITE HERE) returning to the AFL-CIO. Nor does his account acknowledge the general consensus that, despite all its PR sound and fury at the time, the split really hasn't changed much - other than reducing the dues income of the national AFL-CIO and the per capita dues burden of the five unions still paying less to CTW. In Stronger Together, we get no sense of the scale of the rank-and-file backlash against SEIU's own 'transformative ' restructuring - imposed via forced mergers of local unions, dysfunctional trusteeships, and related suppression of membership rights. If any group of workers ever tries to flee SEIU, it's not because they're unhappy about such things; they've just been misled, by either external or internal evildoers engaged in a 'brazen raid.' For example, Stillman informs us that the Canadian Auto Workers tried to distract SEIU from its 'growth course' north of the border with a 'fracas' that left it 'with fewer members.' 14,000 fewer members, to be exact. And they only turned to a new union when Stern, against their wishes, tried to merge multiple locals in Ontario and imposed an unpopular trusteeship to achieve his goal. Elsewhere in Stronger Together, we learn that the current and much larger potential exodus from SEIU - in California health care - is basically the work of an equally pernicious pied piper named Sal Rosselli. After Rosselli's 'secret' anti-SEIU plotting was exposed and he was ousted from UHW through another Stern trusteeship in 2009, 'the local quickly shifted to a member-focused union that was winning major gains for its members.' SEIU better ship copies of Stronger Together out to Kaiser Permanente right away, in bulk, because thousands of UHW members there have apparently decided that the way to make 'major gains' is by calling for the largest NLRB election in seven decades and switching to NUHW. Among Stillman's more glaring omissions is any mention of SEIU's own widespread and much-condemned 'raiding.' There's a whole chapter on its 'successful organizing' in Puerto Rico, but nothing about its failed attempt to replace the 40,000- member FMPR, the island's largest union. This squalid 2008 adventure featured SEIU collusion with the Governor, who was trying to crush the left-led FMPR after a militant strike; it ended up costing members on the mainland many millions of dollars (to no avail) and further tarnished the union's reputation, here and there. Stillman's account of the implosion of SEIU's alliance with UNITE HERE in the 'multiservices sector' makes you wonder why he didn't just give John Wilhelm's union the FMPR treatment. Clearly, pouring millions of dues dollars down the drain, in an inter-union battle that wreaked havoc within the progressive wing of labor, is better explained not at all. But here's Don's take on the UNITE HERE divorce and SEIU's completely innocent role in it: 'The merger of UNITE HERE collapsed in 2009. About 100,000 members largely, from the former UNITE, then joined SEIU as ??~Workers United.' The break-up UNITE HERE came about because of difficulties within that union. The move of Workers United to SEIU proved very contentious and led to attacks on SEIU by other unions. SEIU repeatedly sought a negotiated settlement - but no agreement had been reached as this book went to press.' (underlining added) Attacks on SEIU by other unions? Perhaps Don is losing track of his time frame here and describing (what SEIU used to call, in 2007-8) 'attacks' by the always-menacing California Nurses Association, a union 25 times smaller than SEIU? (Of course, those that couple kissed and made up a year ago, and began coordinating their organizing at HCA in Texas and other states, a so-far successful venture never mentioned in the book -perhaps because their truce is fraying or an equally torturous re-writing of CNA-SEIU history would be required to explain it?) One thing that is impressive about Stronger Together is its solicitation of feedback from readers who 'spot an inaccuracy or other problem.' In the book's preface, they are urged to send any comments or corrections to seiu.book at gmail.com. My query, already sent to that address but with no reply yet, raises the question of money - as in how much the author was paid for SEIU's latest publishing venture? Thanks to L.A. Times reporter Paul Pringle, we know that SEIU or an associated non-profit paid Stillman $210,000 (over four years) to help Stern write his own 2006 memoir-cum-policy tract, A Country That Works, and knock out another SEIU- subsidized collection called Since Sliced Bread: Common Sense Ideas From America's Working Families in 2007. Stronger Together draws heavily on 'Organizational Change at SEIU: 1996-2009,' a yet unpublished report by three Rutgers University academics and a Washington, D.C. labor consultant that cost about $650,000 in all. Yet no defenders of the union have received as much total union funding as Don and Judy Scott, his always cheerful spouse. Judy was a key legal architect of the UHW take-over, and related litigation, that Don describes so dispassionately in Stronger Together. (In footnote #168, we are assured that 'Scott recused herself' from any involvement with the book and had attorneys who report to her conduct an arms length 'legal review' of it.) As a Washington, D.C. power couple (in labor circles at least), their joint journalistic and legal endeavors on behalf of SEIU leaders are a marvel of inside-the-Beltway synergy. Once the salaried head of the union's legal department, she now works far more lucratively as an 'outside' general counsel for SEIU and partner in the Washington, D.C. firm of 'super lawyers' known as James & Hoffman. Scott's firm was one of four involved in the controversial lawsuit against NUHW and its founders, which has cost SEIU members nearly $10 million so far but produced a damage award of only $1.5 million (now being appealed). For its invaluable work on that case and other SEIU matters, James & Hoffman received more than $2 million last year (and, as of December 31, was still owed another half million); Scott's personal salary and benefits in 2009, for her SEIU work alone, was more than $240,000. Her share of the firm's profits added nearly $90,000 to that. And then we also have a more cryptic SEIU LM-2 report entry for 2009 indicating that the author in the Scott-Stillman household was paid more than $90,000 by SEIU for 'Support for Organizing.' In other words, Don and Judy are definitely among those who, as the back cover of Standing Together proclaims, 'have won a better future for themselves and their family through SEIU.' The economic condition of many SEIU dues-payers in California is far more precarious, which is why putting a convincing shine on all things Pantone 268c is not easy here - on screen or in the pages of a book. [Steve Early got his start in labor journalism as a staff member of the United Mine Workers Journal. He later worked for 27 years as an organizer for the Communications Workers of America. He is the author of two books--Embedded with Organized Labor (Monthly Review Press, 2009) and the The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor (forthcoming from Haymarket Books next year)] From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 6 22:26:59 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 22:26:59 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression Message-ID: The US is still in deep trouble. Banks are sustained by trillions of government dollars, unemployment is approaching 25 million and the long-term future of the economy is in doubt. In Epic Recession, Jack Rasmus shows that we need a new way of understanding the crisis if things are to improve. Rasmus interrogates US economic history to show that the current predicament is what he terms an 'Epic Recession', neither a full-blown depression or a short-lived period of contraction followed by a swift return to growth. He then shows that the only way to prevent the onset of depression is to radically restructure the economy through a massive job creation program, nationalisations, a fundamentally new kind of banking structure and a long-term redistribution of income through better healthcare and benefit systems. Epic Recession provides a rallying point for trade unionists and concerned citizens who want to ensure that any recovery is felt further than Wall street. Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression Jack Rasmus ISBN: 9780745329987 Extent: 352pp Release Date: 12 May 2010 Size: 230mm x 150mm ?17.99 Buy direct from Pluto Press: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329987& ================ In These Times July 6, 2010 Our Epic Recession: How Did it Happen, and How Bad will it Get? By Carl Finamore In the not too distant past, bankers, financiers and investors could do no wrong. They were the wizards of Wall Street, ushering in a new era of economic expansion. But by around 2006, it became very clear their magic was just an illusion. The only thing real was millions of homeowners defaulting, millions of pensioners watching their 401Ks evaporate and millions of workers losing their jobs. Investors and bankers didn't fare nearly as bad. They seemed to just shut down their old hustle, moved on down the road and reopened for business as if nothing had happened. Billionaire Warren Buffet's two rules to investors were in full force and effect and backed up by the U.S. Treasury: "Number one rule is to never lose money and number two rule is to never forget rule number one." In fact, big business pretty much made up its own rules during the last three decades. Taxes for corporations and the wealthiest were continually lowered and regulatory obstacles to domestic and offshore investments were eliminated. At the same time, conversely, wages for the majority remained stagnant since 1973. Not surprisingly, a dramatic shift in wealth occurred during this time. Forbes Magazine lists the 400 wealthiest Americans with a total net worth of $1.27 trillion. Their poorer cousins, the top one percent, control 40% of our wealth if housing alone is excluded. On the other hand, the majority is being squeezed more and more and purse strings tightened. Simply put, the average consumer has been losing ground in the last thirty years. Extensions of credit to family households concealed this decline and kept the economy going until debt burdens finally led to the current wave of defaults, especially in the housing market where speculators drove prices to unprecedented levels. Too much money in the hands of too few fundamentally led to the crisis, according to Jack Rasmus, a former elected union official turned college professor and writer, whose latest book, Epic Recession, Prelude to Global Depression, has just been released by Pluto Press. "A massive amount of liquidity in the hands" of "wealthy individuals, their various investing institutions like hedge funds, private equity firms, private banks" and corporations have created over the last three decades a "global money parade...that sloshes around the global economy in pursuit of the greatest short-term returns, which in recent years have become increasingly speculative in nature." Rasmus cites 2006 statistics that reveal both the relative value of global financial assets and their infinite variety such as cash, stocks, bonds, options, certificates of deposit, commercial paper, money funds, foreign currency, precious metals, commodity futures, derivatives, redeemable insurance contracts, accounting receivables and more. The endless, toxic brew of financial cocktails outstripped the world's total production of commodities by a factor of three. In the United States, it was worse, the enormously lucrative financial sector accounted for four times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of all the goods and services produced in this country. Numerous investment schemes were concocted to attract this excess glut of global capital that saw more profit in paper transactions than in production of real goods and services. As demand for speculative ventures multiplied, so did the stock market. The Dow Jones jumped an incredible 8000 points from 1994-2000, the largest leap in its history. All seemed to be going good, too good as it turned out. Little of real, hard physical value was being produced as the global economy was awash with trillions of dollars in the pockets of the wealthiest among us, all swimming toward the next big speculative venture. Cracks began to appear during the Asian currency crisis and the Dot.com bust of the last decade, creating what billionaire financier George Soros described as a "longer-term super bubble." But, thinking they held all the cards, the Federal Reserve Bank threw more chips into the pot by dramatically lowering interest rates. The Fed often worked this way by making sure the money faucet flowed anytime Wall Street got a little thirsty. With more money on the table, banks in the first years of this decade actually aggressively pursued home buyers just to keep the casino doors open. More home buyers meant higher home prices meaning even more eager purchasers of mortgage-bundled investments. With new blood in the water, the feeding frenzy by speculators continued. Thus, warning tremors were ignored as profits continued to flow. Few recognized or wanted to admit that the economy was built on shallow landfill unprepared for the next "Big One" to hit. However, when consumers could no longer afford the skyrocketing price of a home, the hot item topping the menu of speculators the last few years, the housing market finally collapsed. The resulting sag in home purchases in 2006 was compounded by the growing number of defaults, thus triggering an enormous free fall of the fragile financial structures that depended so heavily on the fantasy that home prices would steadily and endlessly increase. How did this Happen? New financial packages were developed in the U.S. housing sector that profited enormously as each mortgage of the original physical asset, a home in this example, was bundled together with assorted other stock portfolios, hedge funds and securities that was passed along a chain of sellers and buyers. Each investor profited from every subsequent exchange even as the paper trail extended far beyond the initial real, material asset of the home. Speculators of home mortgages both produced and greatly benefited from the surge in housing prices. In fact, higher home prices were essential to maintaining the profitable sale and resale of these bundled mortgage investments to new investors climbing on board. As is the nature of Wall Street thrill seekers, no one believed the ride would end. In fact, to keep the wheel of fortune turning, lenders began desperately and aggressively offering no interest home loans to credit-deficient working people who subsequently defaulted when the Federal Reserve Bank began raising their credit line from a floor of one percent to over six percent after 2003. Hundreds of thousands of defaulting families, often portrayed by Wall Street apologists as causing the deep recession, are really the victims and pawns of these shady pyramid schemes. The whole scheme depended on housing prices rising and this worked for awhile as speculative demand for housing derivatives increased. But, at some point, the material asset of a home, for example, must actually correspond to a more real set of values. Rasmus makes the point that supply and demand restraints do not equally apply to speculative ventures. In fact, it is demand that is the driving force there and as demand grew for the sale and resale multiple times of home mortgages to investment firms, for example, so did the price of each subsequent transaction escalate. Profits and fees were added along each step, thus, also driving higher the price of homes. The price of the real, physical entity of a home, unlike its various speculative paper derivative counterparts, however, is affected by market supply and demand as Rasmus explains. So, when home prices outdistanced the ability of cash-strapped and debt-ridden consumers, a cascade of defaults resulted, adding to the housing glut and leading to dramatic declines in home prices. The boom finally went bust. But Buffet and the other billionaires are still smiling. They either profited enormously in those years or were bailed out by the Bush and Obama administrations that subsidized several trillion dollars of losses of the 19 largest banks and investment firms in the United States. But not one dollar was extended by the government to homeowners directly. In effect, nothing has been done to solve the underlying problem which is that working families have become chronic under consumers. The problem is acerbated since being deprived of credit which was the one life line to compensate for lower wages and higher health care costs. The author does not, therefore, exclude the economy descending even further. The current situation is nothing more than a holding pattern, a stalemate that only temporarily avoids descent into depression. The fragile banking system was beefed up but little has been done to rebuild the deteriorating condition of worker consumers in this country and no recovery is possible without this being addressed. Depression of Recovery? Not surprisingly, the former labor organizer offers a political theme in his final chapter recommending solutions. In it, he expresses more confidence in a rejuvenated union movement that champions working class economic and social reforms than he does in the politicians in Washington who have amply demonstrated their class bias favoring banks and investors. The book contains descriptions of several other epic recessions in our past such as in 1907-1914 and in1929-1931 where little or no government spending on jobs led to what the author calls severe "consumption fragility," setting the stage for long-term stagnation on the road towards a full blown depression. These economic catastrophes were only averted by massive government spending leading up to WW1 and WW11. For Rasmus, turning the economy around today means learning from these experiences by, first, closing the widening gap in wealth between the top and the bottom and by, secondly, investing that surplus directly into productive sectors of the economy. It starts with substantial tax reform of capital income. For example, the huge state deficits of California and New York could be wiped out today by applying a one percent tax on the top one percent of their wealthiest residents. Many European countries do this. With a correct tax program, there would be no national, state or municipal deficits. In fact, there would be a tax surplus resulting from more working people employed and earning a decent living. It would shift the side-tracked political discussion in this country away from using existing deficits, mostly induced by war spending and bank bailouts, as an excuse to halt government spending on jobs and social programs. "These are key political points," Rasmus told me, "that must be raised and discussed more, otherwise folks will think the only alternative is to cut the deficit which means immensely more pain for the working class and, inevitably, a descent into depression" His other solutions include nationalization of key banking transactions to provide no-interest home loans, the same benefit provided to bailed-out banks and investment firms. The fraudulent nature of the economic boom of the last decade has been exposed. The book explains how it happened, how previous recessions and depressions arose and abated, how dramatic structural changes of the economy must go well beyond reinstituting needed banking regulations and how the government should acquire funds through a fairer tax system and then spend these trillions of dollars for social programs and jobs to upright a thoroughly imbalanced economy tilted toward the super rich. The reader is conveniently provided three distinct book sections which can each be read independently: a discussion of broad economic theory, a description of U.S. economic history and an analysis of the causes and solutions to the current epic recession. The introduction gives an excellent overview of all three of these chapters. Thus, the author is the exception to George Bernard Shaw's observation that "if all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." On the contrary, Professor Rasmus has plenty of opinions, all fact-based, and plenty of conclusions, all well-documented. But the author does face the obstacle wittily noted by another famous authority, the late liberal American economist John Kenneth Galbraith who once wrote that "economics is a subject...resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say the response is ill advised." Students, workers, social activists, and those who simply want to examine more closely the collapsing world economy dramatically affecting us all, would be well advised to plunge ahead. To be sure, this is not a happy face book that can be read leisurely with your Ipod blasting away. This is a scholarly work on a serious subject that deserves to be studied thoughtfully. This does not mean it is too difficult to understand. On the contrary, the book shatters the mystique of economics. Human decisions, not Adam Smith's legendary "invisible hand," have brought us to the brink of disaster. If you want to understand better the world around us, better understand the current turmoil engulfing us and better understand and even anticipate future events that lie ahead for us, Epic Recession belongs on your bookshelf. =================== About the reviewer Carl Finamore first met then-CWA Business Agent Jack Rasmus some thirty years ago when Rasmus was leading a militant strike in Oakland, California. Company security thugs unexpectedly rushed a small strike rally and tried to break it up. Pickets reacted immediately. The goons were literally picked up and thrown out on their ears with their surveillance film equipment flung in all directions. Finamore never tires of retelling that story. He is a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He can be reached at local1781 at yahoo.com About The Author Jack Rasmus is a Professor of Economics at St. Marys College and Santa Clara University. He is a freelance economics journalist and author of The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan To George W. Bush (2006) and several stageplays. He has been a business economist, market analyst, vice-president of the National Writers Union and elected local union president and organizer for various labor unions. From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 7 00:52:26 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 01:52:26 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The FBI: Foiling its own plots since 2001 Message-ID: <4446C9126A1147328887CACA84DDC961@Upstairs> Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010 18:07 ET The FBI: Foiling its own plots since 2001 Many failed "terrorist" attempts would never have gotten off the ground without aid from the authorities By Stephan Salisbury This originally appeared on TomDispatch. Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers, the go-to guys in the never-ending domestic war on terror. They regularly do the dirty work -- suggesting and encouraging the plots, laboring as bag men to move the money, fashioning the bombs, and eliciting the flamboyant dialogue, even while following the scripts of their handlers to the letter. They have attended to all the little details that make for the successful and now familiar arrests, criminal complaints, trials, and (for the most part) convictions in the ever-distracting war against... what? Al-Qaeda? Terror? Muslims? The inept? The poor? The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four -- each has had their fear-filled day in the sun. None of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money to buy missiles or cell phones or shoes and fancy duds -- provided by the authorities; plans for how to use the missiles and bombs and cell phones -- provided by authorities; cars for transport and demolition -- issued by the authorities; facilities for carrying out the transactions -- leased by those same authorities. Played out on landscapes manufactured by federal imagineers, the climax of each drama was foreordained. The failure of the plots would then be touted as the success of the investigations and prosecutions. A band of virtually homeless and penniless men in Florida, we were told, were planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. They just needed the right combat boots to pull it off, and a little free money. A cell of New Jersey roofers, handymen, and cab drivers was scheming to use a laminated pizza delivery map to guide them through a devastating attack on Fort Dix, the enormous military base in Burlington County, south of Trenton. Ex-cons in Detroit, mostly known for patronizing a weekly soup kitchen to stave off hunger, were also planning to set up their own country in Michigan under Islamic law. And a band of Orange County New York parolees and former drug peddlers placed bombs at two Bronx synagogues and was preparing to launch missile attacks on military cargo planes at Stewart National Guard Air Base in Newburgh. In the Liberty City Seven case, which revolved around two informants paid in excess of $130,000 for their services, the government tried the hapless defendants three times before finally wresting a conviction from a jury. One defendant was acquitted at the first trial, another in the third, and five were eventually convicted of at least some terrorism-related charges. In the Fort Dix case, jurors were shown horrific films said to be on a computer owned by one of the defendants, who claimed an FBI informant demanded more and more videos for viewing. Another defendant actually called the Philadelphia police, mid-plot, and said he was being pressured to commit radical acts by what turned out to be an FBI informer. Prosecutors dismissed this as an obvious decoy maneuver. The key informer in that case -- the FBI eventually paid two people to spy on the group -- an Egyptian on probation, received $236,000 for his services. Most recently, this duplicitous landscape of war-on-terror "success" has been illuminated yet again by the case of four alleged Newburgh, New York, conspirators -- the Newburgh Four -- and in the botched arrest and fatal shooting (a first for federal authorities) of an African American imam in Detroit, leader of the so-called Ummah Conspiracy. As the details have slowly emerged, these two cases offer vivid examples of how government-scripted many of the terror plots "uncovered" in the U.S. in recent years have turned out to be. Each case, in fact, offers a window onto a stark world in which nothing is what it seems to be. The "Un-Terrorism Case" In the years following 9/11, when I was reporting my book, "Mohamed's Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland," many defense and immigration attorneys I interviewed insisted that the mere mention of "terrorism" has often been enough to knock down any and all defenses. In the Newburgh conspiracy, however, the federal judge, Colleen McMahon, has shown a more questioning attitude toward what, in a May 28, 2010, pre-trial hearing, she took to calling the "un-terrorism case." After their May 2009 arrests, the four Newburgh conspirators were portrayed as Jew-hating Muslim converts who intended to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes based at Stewart Airport in Newburgh. "It's hard to envision a more chilling plot," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder at the time, describing the defendants as "extremely violent." The men were indeed arrested only after placing bogus bombs (courtesy of the FBI) near two Bronx synagogues. New York Police Chief Raymond Kelly said the plotters believed "it would be alright" to kill Jews. The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement noting that the uncovered plot cooked up by "the jihadist terrorists" showed "that the dangers from such fanaticism have not passed and that American Jews must maintain their vigilance." New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg reiterated that vigilance remains a necessity for all concerned. With their anti-Semitic bona fides established and the men caught in the act, all that seemed left was a perfunctory trial, followed by life in prison for James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen. A decade earlier, Cromitie had been arrested for dealing drugs behind a school. Payen, a Haitian immigrant, is a crack addict and certified paranoid schizophrenic, often found living on the street; his earlier deportation had been on hold due to his mental instability. Onta and David Williams, not related, had pasts pocked by drug busts and spotty work at minimum wage jobs scrounged from Newburgh's depressed economy. All four men were black. Almost immediately, however, questions about the conspiracy began to arise. For one thing, the FBI informer who broke the case was a Pakistani named Shaheed Hussain, who arrived in Newburgh in the summer of 2008 driving a flashy Mercedes, showing lots of money, and promising jobs to down-and-out African American hangers-on at Masjid al-Ikhlas, Newburgh's main mosque. Convicted in a fraudulent driver's license scheme in 2002, he agreed to work undercover for the FBI shortly afterward to avoid deportation and turned out to have been an informer in a previous terrorism case in Albany in 2004. The Albany case, in which an imam and a pizza shop owner were convicted of money laundering as part of a phantasmagorical scheme to kill a Pakistani diplomat with a missile, was bitterly contested by defense attorneys. They claimed that the elaborate plan had been concocted by Hussain himself. The jury didn't buy it, convicting both imam and pizza shop owner. The Newburgh case shares much with the Albany case, especially a fondness for baroque plotting, the flashing of great wads of money in front of needy people, and the aggressive use of an informant by the FBI in a house of worship, in this case Masjid al-Ikhlas. The intricate plotting and the use of an informer made it into the criminal complaint, but all that flashing money didn't. There was no mention of the enticing job offers made by the seemingly well-to-do informer. Nothing about his offer of a $250,000 payment for carrying out the plot. Nothing about the BMW he pushed on Cromitie, who didn't even have a driver's license. Nothing about the $25,000 he was ready to pay anyone willing to act as a "lookout." Maybe Cromitie wasn't the brightest hustler in town, but he was quite capable of grasping the significance of such sums of money in distressed Newburgh. He assured Hussain that dangling cash would lure participants, no matter what. "They will do it for the money," he said. "They're not even thinking about the cause." Nor did the complaint mention, as the defense now maintains, that even the anti-Semitic talk was triggered by the informant. He baited the defendants, telling them that Jews were responsible for the U.S. wars in the Middle East and for other acts of violence against Muslims. Cromitie had an unexpected reaction during one of these conversations, according to government transcripts. "I'm not gonna hurt anybody," he said, after being badgered about possible attacks. "The plane thing. is out of the question." On the streets of Newburgh, relatives and neighbors say that they have never heard the four men even mention Jews or jihad, let alone link the two together in murderous rants. Lord McWilliams, the severely ill brother of David Williams, called such a characterization "crazy." Hussain, he insisted, had promised his brother so much money that he would have been able to pay for the liver transplant that Lord desperately needed. In fact, more substantial members of the mosque had pegged Shaheed Hussain as an informer almost the moment he arrived, but had no idea what to do about him. "Maybe the mistake we made was that we didn't report him," Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, imam at Masjid al-Ikhlas, told congregants shortly after the May 2009 arrests. "But how are we going to report the government agent to the government?" The Ummah and the Death of an Imam Money also played a role in the deadly Detroit case involving 53-year-old Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, born Christopher Thomas, and gunned down during a sting operation run by the FBI in a Dearborn, Michigan, warehouse on October 28th of last year. For at least three years, FBI informants had filed copious reports on the conversations and activities of Abdullah, as he ministered to his largely indigent congregation at Masjid al-Haqq, a mosque so poor it could not even pay property taxes in disintegrating Detroit. Al-Haqq was evicted from its long-time home on Michigan Avenue early in 2009 and moved its operation -- a soup kitchen and religious services regularly attended by several dozen largely African American families, ex-convicts, former addicts and alcoholics, and homeless men and women -- into a house on Clairmount Street on Detroit's west side. It is from this pathetic building, surrounded by an increasingly vacant and collapsing neighborhood, that the FBI contends Abdullah was plotting rebellion, hiding weapons, and planning efforts to move stolen goods. A 43-page criminal complaint describes Abdullah as "a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African Americans" whose "primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state ('The Ummah') within the borders of the United States, governed by Shariah law." The complaint opens with page after page of over-the-top political trash talk, provided by three informants listening to (and sometimes recording) Abdullah's sermons and conversations, tying the imam to H. Rap Brown, a 1960s radical and a former leader in the Black Panther Party now serving life in prison for the shooting deaths of two Georgia state troopers. According to the complaint, Abdullah was rarely without a gun or knife. He daydreamed about cop killing, engaged in elaborate revolutionary plotting, and enthusiastically told anecdotes about past violent encounters, largely with police. In effect, the complaint conjures up an old-time boogeyman: the angry, gun-toting Black Panther given over to "anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric" -- now dressed up with sympathy for Osama bin Laden. But in its efforts to be all-inclusive, the complaint also features an extraordinary section that describes an FBI informant offering Abdullah $5,000 "to pay to have someone 'do something' during the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit." The imam rejected the offer. "Abdullah said he would not be involved in injuring innocent people for no reason," the complaint blandly states. So much for entrapment on the political front. Despite page after page of braggadocio from Abdullah, following the rebuff over Super Bowl violence, no further effort was apparently mounted to entice him into a terrorist "plot." The complaint outlines no grounds for charges of treason, none for terrorism, and nothing even for a charge of material support for terrorism (that reliable catch-all used to ensnare dozens of American Muslims and institutions and even human-rights groups). Despite the heavy emphasis on descriptions of violent radicalism, the criminal complaint ultimately accuses Abdullah and several congregants of the pettiest of fencing operations -- 54 powertools, 46 TVs, and the like -- involving small amounts of money ($100, $200, $500). FBI agents worked out a simple but comprehensive sting. Undercover operatives rented a warehouse and offered the imam and his congregants money for help in moving batches of furs and small electronic items. Money, goods, trucks, warehouse, and plans were all supplied by covert federal agents, and all activities were reported, virtually in real time, by informers close to Abdullah and inside the mosque. Then, as the sting unfolded on October 28th, Abdullah was gunned down by FBI agents as they sought to round up the purported members of the fencing operation. No one else was harmed. The FBI claimed Abdullah fired first, killing a police dog, which was taken by helicopter to a veterinary hospital. After he was shot, the imam was handcuffed behind the back and dragged from the warehouse into a trailer full of TVs and other "stolen" goods. Presumably, at this point he was dead, though no information has been released describing his condition or the circumstances of his removal from the warehouse. Abdullah's body was photographed in the trailer and picked up by the Wayne County medical examiner, who then declined to release autopsy findings. The head of the local FBI office claimed that he was "comfortable with what our agents did" to protect themselves. This whole murky incident with a still unfolding aftermath has caused deep anxiety and not a little anger in Detroit's African American and Muslim communities. Why was the imam shot in the back? Why was the dog given emergency medical treatment and the imam handcuffed and dragged around? Was he dead when the shooting ended? Did he even have a gun? Was Abdullah's death an instance of score settling for his unrepentant association with Rap Brown, known as Jamil Abdullah al-Amin since the 1970s? In a conversation I had recently with a black leader in Philadelphia, he said that rumors are spreading on the street of nationwide interrogations of African American Muslims who, in the past, associated with al-Amin. (In Philadelphia, a mosque founded by civic-minded entrepreneur Kenny Gamble, well known for his efforts to assist the black community, has been attacked by anti-Islamic groups for its purported association with "The Ummah.") Members of Abdullah's congregation and prominent Muslims in Detroit told me that Abdullah was indeed incensed by the poverty and racism he saw all around him and could indeed deliver harsh attacks on the government -- but that hardly distinguished him in a city as ravaged and beaten down as Detroit. Moreover, those who knew Abdullah insist that they never heard him promote any violent separatist effort on behalf of any organization. National Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Alliance in North America, insist as well that "The Ummah" is nothing more than an association of largely African American mosques. ("Ummah" is an Arabic term that refers to the Muslim community.) The alliance calls the FBI description of the Ummah "an offensive mischaracterization." (Abdullah El-Amin, an imam at the largest African American Detroit mosque, told the New York Times that he had heard Abdullah discuss a separatism that would be "sort of like the Pennsylvania Dutch have their own communities and stuff." There are similar comments from Abdullah in the criminal complaint.) In any event, the indictment that followed Abdullah's death, naming 11 of his congregants and associates, makes no mention of radical politics or the shadowy "Ummah" or "offensive jihad" -- all highlighted in the earlier criminal complaint. The 11 were indicted as petty criminals, charged with selling and receiving stolen goods, tampering with vehicle identification numbers, and weapons offenses. Many officials and organizations, including Congressman John Conyers, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, the local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil-rights and advocacy organization, the ACLU, and the NAACP, have called for an investigation of the killing -- calls unanswered so far by the Obama administration. The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is reviewing the case. The state attorney general named a prosecutor to look into the matter after the FBI refused to hand over documents to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office because, the bureau said, the documents were "classified." In early June, Cyril Wecht, a well-known forensic pathologist asked by CAIR to review the autopsy findings (they were finally released in February), said Abdullah's face was pierced by wounds and lacerations consistent with a dog attack. His jaw was fractured. Wecht also said there were two gunshot wounds in Abdullah's back, not one. This prompted Wayne County Medical Examiner Carl Schmidt to defend his findings and accuse Wecht of emotionalism, according to a Detroit Free Press report. "We don't always say what others would like us to say," Schmidt commented. "We can only describe what we see." As the wait for reviews and investigations and answers drags on, the immediate area served by Abdullah's mosque -- blighted, black, and destitute -- frays further, and is in danger of losing a small but critical social and economic resource. Abdullah ran a well-attended soup kitchen for years, worked to rid the neighborhood of gang violence, and sought to provide support for the poor, the homeless, and ex-convicts. His family and his depleted mosque are now struggling to keep the house of worship and soup kitchen going. Mosque attendance has plummeted and contributions, never robust, have evaporated; law-enforcement investigators continue to fan out through the community. "People are still scared," said Omar Regan, one of Abdullah's 13 children, who makes his living as an actor, comedian, and motivational speaker based in Los Angeles. "They are still interrogating people. The more people push about injustice, the more they harass Muslims in that area [of Detroit]. My father took care of all these people. They leaned on him. He was a reason a lot of them didn't commit suicide. They came for food. For shelter." Regan is incensed that the FBI provided the money to acquire stolen goods, the actual goods as well, and even the warehouses to store them in, while working out plans for moving the goods through informants and undercover employees clustered around Luqman Abdullah and the Masjid al-Haqq mosque. And now Omar Regan's father is dead. "It's the FBI setting the whole thing up," he lamented. "How can that be legal?" It's a question more and more people are asking as the war on terror grinds on, now directed by the Obama administration. If nothing else, the cases of the Newburgh Four and the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy show that street-smart accused conspirator James Cromitie knew what he was talking about when he said that chronically poor people will "do it for the money" and "don't care about the cause." This simple fact underlies both the Detroit and Newburgh cases. The FBI contends that the Detroit sting was not about terror, but about mundane criminal activity. If that's the case, why was the criminal complaint larded with characterizations of Luqman Abdullah's supposed violent political views? What relevance does H. Rap Brown, now in prison, have to moving stolen goods in Dearborn? Beyond that, what justification do federal authorities have for characterizing "the Ummah" as a threatening separatist movement? Many Muslim leaders argue that such a characterization is a fantasy akin to tales spun by the FBI's most imaginative informers. Both Newburgh and Detroit are, indeed, instances of "unterrorism," as the Newburgh judge said of the "plot" before her. Yet both are starkly framed by the on-going war on terror, both involve elaborate set-ups arranged by federal informers and covert agents, and both ensnared inept, virtually destitute black people scrambling to get by in post-racial America. It remains to be asked: How expansive will the stage become for creative informers and their government directors now working the theater of the Great Recession? Stephan Salisbury is a cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His most recent book is "Mohamed's Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland" (Nation Books). Catch Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Salisbury discusses how terror cases are created via entrapment and informers by clicking here, or to download to your iPod, click here. [Note on sources: The criminal complaint for the Detroit Ummah conspiracy can be found in pdf file format by clicking here.] Copyright 2010 Stephan Salisbury http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/07/06/fbi_foiled_terrorism_plots -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 7 00:58:41 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 01:58:41 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Glenn Greenwald: Rules of America's rule of law/ Alleged Army whistleblower Bradley Manning felt angry and alone Message-ID: <22C9FE882DDB4BE28F3FC0123CF43A0E@Upstairs> Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010 16:07 ET Rules of America's rule of law By Glenn Greenwald (updated below) The U.S. today charged Bradley Manning with a variety of crimes relating to his alleged leaks of classified material to WikiLeaks, most prominently including the Apache attack video that spawned worldwide debate over the American occupation. The 22-year-old whistle-blower faces 52 years in prison. Marcy Wheeler has interesting analysis of the charges, including some contradictions with the account previously offered by Wired, and I'll have more on this shortly, but for now, I just wanted to review the contemporary rules governing the Rule of Law in the U.S.: * If you torture people or eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, you receive Look-Forward Imperial Immunity. * If you shoot and kill unarmed rescuers of the wounded while occupying their country and severely wound their unarmed children sitting in a van -- or if you authorize that conduct -- your actions are commended. * If you help wreck the world economy with fraud and cause hundreds of millions of people untold suffering, you collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses. * If you disclose to the world evidence of war crimes, government lawbreaking, or serious corruption, or otherwise embarrass the U.S., you will be swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and face decades in prison. I hope those rules are clear because, as this all shows, Justice is Blind and We're All Equal Before the Law. In America -- clearly -- these are not mere slogans. WikiLeaks said today, and I agree, that "if the charges against Manning are true, he will be the Daniel Ellsberg of our times." Ellsberg himself has said the same. Perhaps Manning should have tortured people or criminally eavesdropped on Americans as he leaked these documents; then he could have availed himself of that sweet Presidential protective shield. As was true for Ellsberg, the issue isn't that Manning is being prosecuted; the issue is the extreme disparities in how such decisions are made and what that reveals about the objectives and priorities of those responsible for these decisions. UPDATE: The discussion over the charging documents at Marcy Wheeler's blog reveals just how many important, unanswered questions there continue to be in this case. That fact, combined with the obvious seriousness of this case, render absolutely inexcusable Wired's ongoing concealment of the Manning/Lamo chat logs except for the very heavily edited parts they selectively released. Yet again, we find an outlet claiming it engages in "journalism" to be playing the lead role in concealing key facts. Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010 15:21 ET Alleged Army whistleblower Bradley Manning felt angry and alone Intelligence analyst calls himself a "hactivist," draws comparison to Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press With his custom-made "humanist" dog tags and distrust of authority, Bradley Manning was no conventional soldier. Ostracized by peers in Baghdad, busted for assaulting a fellow soldier and disdainful of the military's inattention to computer security, the 22-year-old intelligence analyst styled himself a "hactivist." On Tuesday, the U.S. Army charged him with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data and putting national security at risk. Manning is suspected of leaking a classified video that shows a group of men walking down the street in Iraq before being repeatedly shot by Apache helicopters. In a series of online chats in late May with a fellow computer geek, Manning claimed he had leaked a staggering 260,000 classified diplomatic reports, along with secret video of U.S. service members killing civilians, to the whistleblower website Wikileaks.org. Whether or not Manning was the source, Wikileaks in April posted a video clips shot from a cockpit in 2007, of excited, laughing U.S. troops gunning down a group of men that included a Reuters news photographer and his driver. An internal military investigation concluded the troops acted appropriately, despite having mistaken camera equipment for weapons. The case has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leak 40 years ago of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of the Vietnam War. And it has bolstered perceptions that the Obama administration, despite a stated policy of open government, is as determined as its predecessors with keeping secrets. Manning's online confidant, former outlaw computer hacker R. Adrian Lamo, reported their chats to U.S. authorities in late May, partly out of concern, he says, that national security was at stake. Manning's military defense attorney, Capt. Paul R. Bouchard, didn't return calls and e-mails. The Army said Tuesday in a statement that a military version of a grand jury hearing will determine if Manning should face a trial by court-martial. Manning is a slight, boyish-looking son of divorced parents from Crescent, Okla., population 1,400. His Facebook page shows him smiling, with stylish, upswept hair and a stated affinity for gay-rights groups including Repeal the Ban, which seeks to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals serving in the U.S. military. Growing up in a house he shared with his parents and older sister, Manning had a sharp intellect and an interest in science, history and computers, said Jordan Davis, a boyhood pal. He said Manning also was determined at a young age to join the Army. "It always seemed to me that Bradley was actually was more patriotic than probably even your average person," he said. Chera Moore, another childhood friend, described Manning as highly intelligent and helpful. But she said he had "anger issues" and could get furious when people disagreed with him. When Manning's parents split up in middle school, he left Oklahoma to live with his mother in Wales, Davis said. After Manning graduated from high school and returned to Oklahoma, he quit or lost jobs in food service and retail in Tulsa, Davis said. Settling briefly in Chicago, Manning moved in with an aunt in Potomac, a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., and took community college courses before joining the Army in 2007. Davis said Manning trained in Arizona, probably at Fort Huachuca, where he trained in compiling intelligence reports. Such reports help the military determine changes in enemy capabilities, vulnerabilities and probable courses of action. In recent months, Davis said, Manning seemed to have grown more aware of social issues, including the gay-rights movement. Manning's family members declined interview requests from The Associated Press. According to partial chat logs Lamo shared first with Wired.com, Manning started communicating with Lamo on May 21, a couple weeks after he was reduced in rank from specialist to private first class for assaulting another soldier. In one of many personal asides, Manning told Lamo he had been the only nonreligious person in a town that had "more pews than people," and that he had custom-made dogtags reading "humanist." Manning said he was pending discharge for an "adjustment disorder," according to the chat logs, but Army spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Bloom said Manning wasn't facing discharge when he was detained May 29. The chats reveal Manning's frustration at being "regularly ignored" at work. "I've been isolated so long," he wrote. "I just wanted to be nice, and live a normal life ... but events kept forcing me to figure out ways to survive ... smart enough to know what's going on, but helpless to do anything." According to the chat logs, Manning's turning point came when he watched Iraqi police detain 15 people for printing anti-Iraqi literature that turned out to be a scholarly critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "After that ... I saw things differently," he wrote. "I was actively involved in something that I was completely against." Manning wrote he had copied onto compact discs "possibly the largest data spillage in American history" while listening and lip-synching to Lady Gaga's "Telephone." He wrote that he exploited "a perfect storm" of military computer vulnerability: "weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, inattentive signal analysis." His motive, according to the chat logs: "I want people to see the truth ... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public." Manning wrote that he hoped to provoke worldwide discussion, debates and reform, according to the chat logs. Lamo told the AP he grew concerned "when it became apparent that he was leaking classified information to a foreign national" -- Wikileaks' Austrian founder Julian Assange. Early in their online conversations, Manning told Lamo that he had sent 260,000 State Department diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Lamo said he turned the chat logs over to Army criminal investigators after consulting with a friend who had worked in Army counterintelligence. "It was a combination of an act of conscience and an act spurred by my understanding of the law," Lamo said. "I did this because I thought what he was doing was very dangerous." Ellsberg said he considers Manning and Assange heroes for publicizing information the government wanted suppressed. He said Manning's alleged leak was possibly more significant than his own, which exposed the secret expansion of the Vietnam War. "He is the first person in 39 years to do something comparable to what I did -- and really better than what I did, because it's current," Ellsberg said. Both Ellsberg and Gabriel Schoenfeld, an author who supports cracking down on leakers, said that the Obama administration has gone further than the Bush White House in pursuing alleged whistleblowers. The charges against Manning follow April's indictment of former National Security Agency worker Thomas Drake for allegedly lying and obstructing justice in an investigation of classified information leaks to The Baltimore Sun. The Army's decision to charge Manning also followed a federal grand jury's reissuance in April of a subpoena seeking the names of some sources for journalist James Risen's book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." Schoenfeld, author of "Necessary Secrets" and a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said leaks of military information during wartime run counter to America's interests. "We're serious about trying to win, and it's extremely damaging to the morale of our troops," he said. "It inflames the local opinion, where we have a real battle for hearts and minds." ------ Associated Press writers Sarah Karush in Washington and Tim Talley in Crescent, Okla., and Monika Mathur at the AP's News Research Center in New York, contributed to this report. http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/07/06/law -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 7 14:32:52 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 14:32:52 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] It's not just BP's oil in the Gulf that threatens world's oceans Message-ID: <354432B81CBC416C838DD854716D455D@agingCHS072729> http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/04/96966/report-oceans-deteriorating-health.html Posted on Sunday, July 4, 2010 It's not just BP's oil in the Gulf that threatens world's oceans By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather. The report, in Science magazine, brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health. "This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report. John Bruno, an associate professor of marine sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the report's other co-author, isn't quite as alarmist, but he's equally concerned. "We are becoming increasingly certain that the world's marine ecosystems are reaching tipping points," Bruno said, adding, "We really have no power or model to foresee" the impact. The oceans, which cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface, have played a dominant role in regulating the planet's climate. However, even as the understanding of what's happening to terrestrial ecosystems as a result of climate change has grown, studies of marine ecosystems have lagged, the report says. The oceans are acting as a heat sink for rising temperatures and have absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities. Among other things, the report notes: .The average temperature of the upper level of the oceans has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, and global ocean surface temperatures in January were the second warmest ever recorded for that month. .Though the increase in acidity is slight, it represents a "major departure" from the geochemical conditions that have existed in the oceans for hundred of thousands if not millions of years. .Nutrient-poor "ocean deserts" in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans grew by 15 percent, or roughly 2.5 million square miles, from 1998 to 2006. .Oxygen concentrations have been dropping off the Northwest U.S. coast and the coast of southern Africa, where dead zones are appearing regularly. There is paleontological evidence that declining oxygen levels in the oceans played a major role in at least four or five mass extinctions. .Since the early 1980s, the production of phytoplankton, a crucial creature at the lower end of the food chain, has declined 6 percent, with 70 percent of the decline found in the northern parts of the oceans. Scientists also have found that phytoplankton are becoming smaller. Volcanic activity and large meteorite strikes in the past have "resulted in hostile conditions that have increased extinction rates and driven ecosystem collapse," the report says. "There is now overwhelming evidence human activities are driving rapid changes on a scale similar to these past events. "Many of these changes are already occurring within the world's oceans with serious consequences likely over the coming years." One of the consequences could be a disruption of major ocean currents, particularly those flowing north and south, circulating warm water from the equator to polar regions and cold water from the poles back to the equator. Higher temperatures in polar regions and a decrease in the salinity of surface water due to melting ice sheets could interrupt such circulation, the report says. The change in currents could further affect such climate phenomena as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Scientists just now are starting to understand how these phenomena affect global weather patterns. "Although our comprehension of how this variability will change over the coming decades remains uncertain, the steady increase in heat content in the ocean and atmosphere are likely to have profound influences on the strength, direction and behavior of the world's major current systems," the report says. Kelp forests such as those off the Northwest U.S. coast, along with corals, sea grasses, mangroves and salt marsh grasses, are threatened by the changes the oceans are undergoing, the report says. All of them provide habitat for thousands of species. The polar bear isn't the only polar mammal that faces an escalating risk of extinction, the report says; penguin and seal populations also are declining. "It's a lot worse than the public thinks," said Nate Mantua, an associate research professor at the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group. Mantua, who's read the report, said it was clear what was causing the oceans' problems: greenhouse gases. "It is not a mystery," he said. There's growing concern about low-oxygen or no-oxygen zones appearing more and more regularly off the Northwest coast, Mantua said. Scientists are studying the California Current along the West Coast to determine whether it could be affected, he added. Richard Feely, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said the report in Science seemed so direct because one of the authors was Australian. "Australians come at you full-bore and lay it on the line," Feely said. Even so, he said, the condition of the oceans is indeed deteriorating. "The combination of these impacts are tending to show they are additive," he said. "They combine to make things worse." Asked what the oceans will be like in 50 years if trends aren't reversed, Bruno, the UNC professor, said that all the problems would have accelerated and there'd be new ones. For instance, he said tens of thousands of species found only in the Pacific might migrate across the top of North America as the sea ice melts and enter the Atlantic, where they've never been. Bruno said a 50-year time frame to consider changes in the ocean was way too short, however. "I am a lot more worried about 200 to 300 years out," he said. MORE FROM MCCLATCHY Report: Ocean acidification rising at unprecedented rate http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/22/92728/report-ocean-acidification-rising.html Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/06/09/69751/scientists-global-warming-has.html Report: Greenhouse gases imperil oceans' web of life http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/11/11/55606/report-greenhouse-gases-imperil.html Oceans' growing acidity alarms scientists http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2007/12/16/23138/oceans-growing-acidity-alarms.html From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 7 20:50:22 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 21:50:22 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] SCIENTISTS BEG FOR CHANCE TO TAKE BASIC MEASUREMENTS OF GULF OIL SPILL Message-ID: <753731A3ACF74F86B87E0488FC6A3432@Upstairs> THE PROGRESS REPORT July 7, 2010 by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Alex Seitz-Wald, Tanya Somanader, and Matt Duss SCIENTISTS BEG FOR CHANCE TO TAKE BASIC MEASUREMENTS OF GULF OIL SPILL: Nearly three months after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are still struggling to obtain even basic measurements of the oil disaster's magnitude. In response, "a group of independent scientists, frustrated and dumbfounded by the continued lack of the most basic data," have released a report, detailing a project "intended to definitively measure how much oil has spilled and where and how it is spreading throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico." Team leader Dr. Ira Leifer, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, stressed that accurate data would have prevented BP's failed "top kill" and "top hat" plans, saying "effective containment systems available now, if we'd had the measurements." Ideally, the team would "begin its experiments at the well site, capturing data and imagery with remotely-operated vehicles that would produce authoritative measurements of the flow," thereafter focusing on the water column and current to understand "how the oil is interacting with the water." Although Leifer's group has the support of Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who successfully pressured BP to release live video of the oil leak, the scientists still require the approval and monetary support for their efforts from BP or the federal government. If the past is any indication, approval does not seem imminent -- last month, BP rejected the help of thousands of volunteers, many with expert training and experience in handling offshore oil disasters and oil spill cleanup. http://pr.thinkprogress.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 7 20:58:26 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 21:58:26 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] "More than 27, 000 abandoned oil and gas wells" may be leaking in the Gulf, but neither industry nor government is checking. Message-ID: <2397E3982C004EE4AC2D36C2418B65BD@Upstairs> Jul. 08, 2010 Enviro Groups Stunned That Govt Ignoring 27K Wells 'Shell-shocked' Environmental Groups Call For Better Oversight Of 27K Abandoned Wells In Gulf (AP) Leading environmental groups and a U.S. senator on Wednesday called on the government to pay closer attention to more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico and take action to keep them from leaking even more crude into water already tainted by the massive BP spill. The calls for action follow an Associated Press investigation that found federal regulators do not typically inspect plugging of these offshore wells or monitor for leaks afterward. Yet tens of thousands of oil and gas wells are improperly plugged on land, and abandoned wells have sometimes leaked offshore too, state and federal regulators acknowledge. Melanie Duchin, a spokeswoman with Greenpeace, said she was "shell-shocked" by the AP report and upset that government wasn't "doing a thing to make sure they weren't leaking." Of 50,000 wells drilled over the past six decades in the Gulf, 23,500 have been permanently abandoned. Another 3,500 are classified by federal regulators as "temporarily abandoned," but some have been left that way since the 1950s, without the full safeguards of permanent abandonment. Petroleum engineers say that even in properly sealed wells, the cement plugs can fail over the decades and the metal casing that lines the wells can rust. Even depleted production wells can repressurize over time and spill oil if their sealings fail. Regulators at the Minerals Management Service - recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement - have routinely been accepting industry reports on well closures without inspecting the work. And no one - in industry or government - has been conducting checks on wells that have been abandoned for years. In its investigation, the AP found a series of warnings. For instance, the General Accountability Office, which investigates for Congress, warned in 1994 that leaks from offshore abandoned wells could cause an "environmental disaster." The report stated: "MMS does not have an overall inspection strategy for targeting its limited resources to ensuring that wells are properly plugged and abandoned." The GAO report suggested MMS set up an inspection program, but the agency never did. According to a 2001 study commissioned by MMS, agency officials were "concerned that some abandoned oil wells in the Gulf may be leaking crude oil." But nothing came of that warning. The oil that has been gushing from a BP PLC well since an exploratory oil rig exploded April 20 is an uncomfortable reminder of the potential for leaking at abandoned wells. The well was being prepared for temporary abandonment when it blew out, setting off one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Wells are abandoned temporarily for a variety of reasons. In the case of the BP spill, the well was being capped until a later production phase. Oil companies also may temporarily abandon wells as they re-evaluate their potential or develop a plan to overcome a drilling problem or damage from a storm. Some owners temporarily abandon wells to await a rise in oil prices. Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year - and then an annual review - though the AP found those rules are used to allow wells to remain "temporarily" abandoned forever. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., sent a letter Wednesday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking whether regulators have authority to do inspections of abandoned wells. He said regulators may ultimately need to check industry paperwork more carefully or inspect the work itself. "We can't afford the leak that's now occurring. We certainly couldn't afford additional leaks in the future," Udall said. He added that there's generally been a trust of industry, "but I think this is a case where we ought to trust - but we ought to verify." Environmental activists called for the government to study the extent of leaking, conduct inspections and monitor these wells over the years. Melinda Pierce, deputy director of national campaigns for the Sierra Club, said the AP investigation shows that the government must do more to prevent another oil disaster. "From exploration to drilling to the sealing of abandoned wells, the government must step up safety inspections and oversight to ensure that oil companies don't cut corners that could put our marine resources and coastal economies at risk," she said. Derb Carter, a director with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said government inaction on abandoned wells is "not unlike the way we dealt with hazardous waste years ago where we just buried it somewhere and didn't think about it." Elgie Holstein, the senior director of strategic planning for the Environmental Defense Fund's land, water and wildlife program, said "it certainly makes sense" for the government to periodically inspect abandoned wells to ensure that they have been properly plugged. Holstein is a former U.S. Energy Department official during the Clinton administration who was on President Obama's transition team. After repeated requests, federal regulators acknowledged Tuesday that some abandoned wells have leaked in the past. However, a government petroleum engineer, Eric Kazanis, told the AP that abandoned wells aren't considered a risk and aren't "supposed to leak." Oil companies say they plug correctly, and that seals on properly plugged wells should last virtually forever. Greg Rosenstein, a vice president at Superior Energy Services, a New Orleans company that specializes in this work for offshore wells, maintained that properly plugged wells "do not normally degrade." When pressed, though, he acknowledged: "There have been a few occasions where wells that have been plugged have to be entered and re-plugged." The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/07/ap/business/main6652971.shtml -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 8 00:15:22 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 01:15:22 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Owner of Exploded Rig Exploits Offshore Status & has questionable ties in Myanmar and with Iran and Syria. Message-ID: <6622C93CA3B24E85835CA04C31452773@Upstairs> Owner of Exploded Rig Exploits Offshore Status By BARRY MEIER Published: July 7, 2010 Transocean is the world's largest offshore drilling company, but until its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, few Americans outside the energy business had heard of it. It is well known, however, in a number of other countries - for testing local laws and regulations. Human rights advocates have called for an investigation into Transocean's recent dealings in Myanmar. They cite its involvement in a drilling project that apparently included a company that is suspected of having ties to two men accused of laundering money for Myanmar's repressive government, which is under United States trade sanctions. Transocean has disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings that its drilling equipment was shipped by a forwarder through Iran and that until last year it held a stake in a company that did business in Syria. The State Department says Syria and Iran sponsor terrorism. In Norway, Transocean is the subject of a criminal investigation into possible tax fraud. The company has said in S.E.C. filings that Norwegian officials could assess it about $840 million in taxes and penalties. The filings also said that a final ruling against Transocean could have a "material impact" on the company, which has suffered a drop in its stock price of more than 40 percent since the Gulf of Mexico incident. And in the United States, a federal bankruptcy judge recently found that one of Transocean's merger partners had repeatedly abused the legal system to try to avoid potential liability in a pollution case in Louisiana. Transocean is also the target of tax inquiries in the United States and Brazil. Transocean declined though an outside spokesman to make company officials available for comment. The company said in a statement that it had always acted appropriately and believed that it would prevail in any investigations. It is not unusual for large multinational companies like Transocean to find themselves in legal or tax controversies around the world and Transocean has noted the issues that face it in public filings. The company's most significant safety problem overseas involved a 2007 episode in which eight people died off the coast of Scotland when a support vessel capsized while towing a huge chain used to position a Transocean rig. A Norwegian board of inquiry found that missteps by several parties, including Transocean and the support vessel's owner, had contributed to the incident. But the company's practices in the United States and abroad have come under new scrutiny since the oil spill in the gulf. Last week, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said that the panel would investigate whether Transocean had used its corporate base in Switzerland to exploit United States tax laws. In its dealings with lawmakers, Transocean has stood its ground. Last month, in response to a demand that Transocean delay a planned distribution to shareholders of $1 billion in dividends, the company declared that paying the dividend "in no way affects Transocean's ability to meet it legal obligations." Transocean has largely blamed BP, the well's operator, for the spill, describing it as a company that took shortcuts on safety. Transocean has had a long relationship with BP, and for the last two years, BP has been Transocean's largest single customer, accounting for 12 percent of its $11.5 billion in operating revenue in 2009, public filings show. Industry analysts said that strong ties between the companies reflected the fact that both had staked their financial futures on pushing oil exploration as far off shore as possible. Transocean, which drills in some 30 countries and employs more than 18,000 people, owns nearly half of the 50 or so deepwater platforms in the world. "These people are capable and considered the gold standard of deepwater drilling," said Peter Vig, managing director at RoundRock Capital Management, an energy hedge fund in Dallas. Transocean's evolution into the world's biggest deep-sea driller follows a decade-long acquisition and merger spree. It began in 1996 when a Texas-based company called Sonat OffshoreDrilling acquired Transocean ASA, then Norway's largest offshore driller. Three years later, the company, now known as Transocean, shifted its headquarters for tax purposes to the Cayman Islands from Houston, though a vast majority of its executives still work in Houston. In subsequent years, it acquired or merged with other drillers including R&B Falcon, the drilling unit of Schlumberger and GlobalSantaFe. Then, in 2008, for tax purposes, it moved its headquarters again, this time to Switzerland from the Cayman Islands. The tax investigation in Norway involves how Transocean represented the sale of 12 drilling rigs owned by its Norwegian subsidiary to another company unit, said a spokeswoman for an agency known as Okokrim, which investigates economic and environmental crimes. The case "raises several important questions regarding the taxation of multinational corporations," said the spokeswoman, Mie Skarpaas, who declined to discuss the investigation further. A Norwegian newspaper, Dagens Naeringsliv, reported several years ago that a Transocean rig, while returning from a repair yard in Norway to a drilling site in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, diverted for several hours into British waters. During that time, Transocean transferred ownership of the rig between subsidiaries and later argued that it did not have to pay Norwegian taxes because profits on the transaction had been earned outside the country. The company subsequently settled the case involving that rig. In 2008, Norway's highest court ruled that Okokrim and tax authorities could share documents and computer files seized during raids of Transocean and Ernst & Young which was the company's tax adviser. That ruling also said that at least three people, including two Ernst & Young employees, were under investigation in connection with the episode. In its statement, Transocean said that its "tax returns are materially correct as filed" and that it "will vigorously defend any claims to the contrary." A spokesman for Ernst & Young, declined to comment. In Myanmar, formerly Burma, a Transocean rig was under contract to a Chinese government-controlled oil company, Cnooc, as recently as this spring. Another apparent stakeholder in the drilling site, according to Cnooc, was a Singapore business. That business has been linked to two men identified by the United States Treasury Department in 2008 as major operatives and money launderers for the Myanmar government. At the time, American authorities described both men as longtime heroin traffickers. Transocean said in a statement that its contract was with Cnooc and did not mention either man. Transocean also said it had not violated the trade sanctions against Myanmar. "No Transocean affiliate that is subject to the U.S. ban has ever done business in Myanmar," the company said. In the United States, the recent ruling by a federal bankruptcy court judge involved one of Transocean's merger partners. Judge Kevin Gross of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware found in May that the partner, GlobalSantaFe, had entered into a misleading bankruptcy scheme that included the use of shell companies to avoid potential liabilities in an oil pollution case. Judge Gross found the actions so egregious that he ordered GlobalSantaFe and related units to pay $2 million in sanctions to another company involved in the case. In a statement, Transocean said the issues involving GlobalSantaFe had occurred before their 2007 merger. Judge Gross did not mention Transocean by name. But in his ruling, he said that GlobalSantaFe and its units were still involved in a "gamesmanship with the judicial system" to thwart potential claims. Asked about Judge Gross's ruling, Transocean said, "We are confident we'll prevail in the remaining legal issues that have yet to be decided." Walter Gibbs contributed reporting. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/business/global/08ocean.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 8 13:40:49 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 14:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Panel in Britain clears scientists of misconduct allegations in 'Climate-gate' Message-ID: <53CAA74B74944F599B0108684BEE154E@Upstairs> Panel in Britain clears scientists of misconduct allegations in 'Climate-gate' By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 8, 2010 An independent commission in Britain cleared climate-change researchers of charges of academic misconduct Wednesday, completing an inquiry begun after hundreds of e-mails from the scientists were released to the public. The commission, chaired by a Scottish university administrator, was the latest to find no evidence that researchers embroiled in the "Climate-gate" scandal had violated academic standards. After examining e-mails and research from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, the commission said, "we find that their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt." The scandal began last fall, after more than 1,000 e-mails were taken from the unit's servers. In one, Phil Jones, the unit's director, wrote a colleague that he would "hide" a problem with data taken from Siberian tree rings with more accurate local air temperature measurements. In another message, Jones talked about keeping research he disagreed with out of a United Nations report. The university also investigated and found "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice" in the e-mails. Another inquiry, at Pennsylvania State University, examined e-mails sent by Professor Michael Mann, and found that "there is no substance" to allegations that he violated research standards. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070705001.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 9 00:37:17 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 01:37:17 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] 'Tan tax' causes the crazy Right to feel "the pain of racism." Message-ID: 'Tan tax' discussions include allegations of reverse racism By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 8, 2010; 5:18 PM Mention the new "tan tax" in a major news outlet and cries of discrimination and reverse racism often follow. Poll: Is the 'tan tax' racist? Some at Arlington salon grow heated over 'tan tax' Tanning industry in Neb. burned over new tax The complaint surfaced on reader comment boards to blogs and news Web sites back in December, when it became clear that the levy -- a 10 percent surcharge on the use of ultraviolet tanning beds -- was likely to be included in the new health-care overhaul bill. Since then, it's been repeated by conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Doc Thompson, a fill-in host for Glenn Beck who intoned in March, "I now know the pain of racism." When an article about the fallout from the tax -- which took effect last week -- appeared on the Washington Post's Web site Wednesday, dozens of commenters questioned the tax's legality. The case can seem deceptively simple: Since patrons of tanning salons are almost exclusively white, the tax will be almost entirely paid by white people and, therefore, violates their constitutional right to equal protection under the law. But does the argument have any merit? Not remotely said Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School specializing in racial conflict and law. "There is no constitutional problem at all, because a plaintiff would have to show that the government intended to disadvantage a particular group, not simply that the group is disadvantaged in effect," he said. Kennedy said that this is why courts have upheld a raft of other laws that also happen to have a disproportionate impact on particular groups. For example, laws that impose higher penalties for possession or trafficking of crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine resulted in far harsher sentences for African Americans compared to whites. And laws that offer preferential treatment for veterans are much more likely to benefit men than women. But in both cases judges ruled that, because lawmakers did not intend to disadvantage black people or women when drafting those laws, they are legal. What would it take to prove that President Obama or members of Congress intended to discriminate against white people when they included the tan tax in the health-care law? There would have to be some record of direct or indirect comments by the officials involved, Kennedy said. Or there would have to be no possible alternate reason for adopting the tan tax. But the levy's supporters argued from the start that it had a dual purpose: to raise funds to cover some of the cost of extending health coverage to the uninsured and to discourage a habit that scientific studies have linked with increased risk of cancer. "To say that this health rationale was a mere pretext for wanting to stick it to white people is completely implausible," Kennedy said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/08/AR2010070804488.html?hpid=moreheadlines -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 9 00:46:24 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 01:46:24 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are the Rich Message-ID: <54168530214A401CB0A458B105729FD5@Upstairs> Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are the Rich By DAVID STREITFELD Published: July 8, 2010 LOS ALTOS, Calif. - No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars. Multimedia Graphic Giving Up on a Big Loan The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley. Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population. More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic. By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent. Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment. "The rich are different: they are more ruthless," said Sam Khater, CoreLogic's senior economist. Five properties here in Los Altos were scheduled for foreclosure auctions in a recent issue of The Los Altos Town Crier, the weekly newspaper where local legal notices are posted. Four have unpaid mortgage debt of more than $1 million, with the highest amount $2.8 million. Not so long ago, said Chris Redden, the paper's advertising services director, "it was a surprise if we had one foreclosure a month." The sheriff in Cook County, Ill., is increasingly in demand to evict foreclosed owners in the upscale suburbs to the north and west of Chicago - like Wilmette, La Grange and Glencoe. The occupants are always gone by the time a deputy gets there, a spokesman said, but just barely. In Las Vegas, Ken Lowman, a longtime agent for luxury properties, said four of the 11 sales he brokered in June were distressed properties. "I've never seen the wealthy hit like this before," Mr. Lowman said. "They made their plans based on the best of all possible scenarios - that their incomes would continue to grow, that real estate would never drop. Not many had a plan B." The defaulting owners, he said, often remain as long as they can. "They're in denial," he said. Here in Los Altos, where the median home price of $1.5 million makes it one of the most exclusive towns in the country, several houses scheduled for auction were still occupied this week. The people who answered the door were reluctant to explain their circumstances in any detail. At one house, where the lender was owed $1.3 million, there was a couch out front wrapped in plastic. A woman said she and her husband had lost their jobs and were moving in with relatives. At another house, the family said they were renters. A third family, whose mortgage is $1.6 million, said they would be moving this weekend. At a vacant house with a pool, where the lender was seeking $1.27 million, a raft and a water gun lay abandoned on the entryway floor. Lenders are fearful that many of the 11 million or so homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will walk away from them, especially if the real estate market begins to weaken again. The so-called strategic defaults have become a matter of intense debate in recent months. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental mortgage finance companies that own most of the mortgages in America with a value of less than $500,000, are alternately pleading with distressed homeowners not to be bad citizens and brandishing a stick at them. In a recent column on Freddie Mac's Web site, the company's executive vice president, Don Bisenius, acknowledged that walking away "might well be a good decision for certain borrowers" but argues that those who do it are trashing their communities. The CoreLogic data suggest that the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind, especially when it comes to investment and second homes. Nor do they appear to be particularly worried about being sued by their lender or frozen out of future loans by Fannie Mae, possible consequences of default. The delinquency rate on investment homes where the original mortgage was more than $1 million is now 23 percent. For cheaper investment homes, it is about 10 percent. With second homes, the delinquency rate for both types of owners was rising in concert until the stock market crashed in September 2008. That sent the percentage of troubled million-dollar loans spiraling up much faster than the smaller loans. "Those with high net worth have other resources to lean on if they get in trouble," said Mr. Khater, the analyst. "If they're going delinquent faster than anyone else, that tells me they are doing so willingly." Willingly, but not necessarily publicly. The rapper Chamillionaire is a plain-talking exception. He recently walked away from a $2 million house he bought in Houston in 2006. "I just decided to let it go, give it back to the bank," he told the celebrity gossip TV show "TMZ." "I just didn't feel like it was a good investment." The rich and successful often come naturally to this sort of attitude, said Brent T. White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied strategic defaults. "They may be less susceptible to the shame and fear-mongering used by the government and the mortgage banking industry to keep underwater homeowners from acting in their financial best interest," Mr. White said. The CoreLogic data measures serious delinquencies, which means the borrower has missed at least three payments in a row. At that point, lenders traditionally file a notice of default and the house enters the official foreclosure process. In the current environment, however, notices of default are down for all types of loans as lenders work with owners in various modification programs. Even so, owners in some of the more expensive neighborhoods in and around San Francisco are beginning to head for the exit, according to data compiled by MDA DataQuick. In Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and the most expensive neighborhood in adjoining Mountain View, defaults in the first five months of this year edged up to 16, from 15 in the same period in 2009 and four in 2008. The East Bay suburb of Orinda had eight notices of default for million-dollar properties, up from five in the same period last year. On Nob Hill in San Francisco, there were four, up from one. The Marina neighborhood had four, up from two. The vast majority of owners in these upscale communities are still paying the mortgage, of course. But they appear to be cutting back in other ways. The once-thriving Los Altos downtown is pocked with more than a dozen empty storefronts in a six-block stretch. But this is still Silicon Valley, where failure can always be considered a prelude to success. In the middle of a workday, one troubled homeowner here leaned over his laptop at the kitchen table, trying to maneuver his way out from under his debt and figure out the next big thing. His five-bedroom house, drained of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity over the last 13 years, is scheduled for auction July 20. Nine months ago, after his latest business (he has had several) failed in what he called "the global meltdown," the man, a technology entrepreneur, said he quit making his $9,000 monthly payments. "I'm going to be downsizing," he said. The man spoke on the condition of anonymity because, he said, he did not want his current problems to interfere with his coming reinvention. "I'm a businessman," he explained. "I have to be upbeat." Carol Pogash contributed reporting. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/business/economy/09rich.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 9003 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 9 00:51:30 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 01:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Top Colleges Spent More on Recreation Than Instruction Message-ID: <202E7427B3A5425CB371D85DFBB6F712@Upstairs> "This is the country-clubization of the American university." Top Colleges Spent More on Recreation Than Class By SAM DILLON Published: July 8, 2010 American colleges are spending a smaller share of their budgets on instruction, and more on recreational facilities for students and on administration, according to a new study of college costs. The report, based on government data, documents a growing stratification of wealth across America's system of higher education. At the top of the pyramid are private colleges and universities, which educate a small portion of the nation's students, while public universities and community colleges serve greater numbers, have fewer resources and are seeing tuitions rise most rapidly. The study of trends in revenues and spending by American institutions of higher education from 1998 through 2008 traces how the patterns at elite private institutions like Harvard University and Amherst College differed from sprawling public universities like Ohio State and community colleges like Alabama Southern. The United States is reputed to have the world's wealthiest postsecondary education system, with average spending of around $19,000 per student compared with $8,400 across other developed countries, says the report, "Trends in College Spending 1998-2008," by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit group in Washington that advocates for controlling costs to keep college affordable. "Our analysis shows that these comparisons are misleading," said Jane Wellman, the project's executive director. "While the United States has some of the wealthiest institutions in the world, it also has a 'system' of postsecondary education with far more economic stratification than is true of any other country." Community colleges, which enroll about a third of students, spend close to $10,000 per student per year, Ms. Wellman said, while the private research institutions, which enroll far fewer students, spend an average $35,000 a year for each one. Undergraduate and graduate enrollments nationwide grew to 18.6 million students overall in 2008 from 14.8 million in 1998, an increase of 26 percent, the report said. Among all the sectors that make up American postsecondary education, public community colleges added the most students over the decade, growing to 6.3 million from 5 million. Enrollment at private colleges and universities, by comparison, grew to 2 million students from 1.8 million in the 10 years. Tuition, on average, rose more rapidly over the decade at public institutions than it did at private ones. Average tuition rose 45 percent at public research universities and 36 percent at community colleges from 1998 to 2008, compared with about 21 percent at private research universities. But the trend toward increased spending on nonacademic areas prevailed across the higher education spectrum, with public and private, elite and community colleges increasing expenditures more for student services than for instruction, the report said. The student services category can include spending on career counseling and financial aid offices, but also on intramural athletics and student centers. "This is the country-clubization of the American university," said Richard Vedder, a professor at Ohio University who studies the economics of higher education. "A lot of it is for great athletic centers and spectacular student union buildings. In the zeal to get students, they are going after them on the basis of recreational amenities." On average, spending on instruction increased 22 percent over the decade at private research universities, about the same as tuition, but 36 percent for student services and 36 percent for institutional support, a category that includes general administration, legal services and public relations, the study said. At public research universities, spending for student services rose 20 percent over the decade, compared with 10 percent for instruction. Even at community colleges, with their far smaller budgets, spending on students services increased 9.5 percent, compared with 3.4 percent for instruction. The study also said that the recession that began in the last months of 2008 has dramatically changed the economics of higher education, probably forever. "The funding models we've created in higher ed are not sustainable," Ms. Wellman said. "We ran up spending in the '90s and early 2000s to levels we can't maintain, and this is true not only in the elite privates, but in many of the public institutions, too." Now, with private-college endowments battered and state legislatures slashing university budgets coast to coast, "policymakers as well as university presidents and boards must learn to be better stewards of tuition and taxpayer dollars," she said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/education/10education.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 9 00:59:15 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 01:59:15 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?PAUL_KRUGMAN=3A_Pity_the_Poor_C=2EE=2E?= =?iso-8859-1?q?O=2E=27s?= Message-ID: <59FA6976C485418A944E92A12B574DAA@Upstairs> Pity the Poor C.E.O.'s By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 8, 2010 Job creation has been disappointing, but first-quarter corporate profits were up 44 percent from a year earlier. Consumers are nervous, but the Dow, which was below 8,000 on the day President Obama was inaugurated, is now over 10,000. In a rational universe, American business would be very happy with Mr. Obama. But no. All the buzz lately is that the Obama administration is "antibusiness." And there are widespread claims that fears about taxes, regulation and budget deficits are holding down business spending and blocking economic recovery. How much truth is there to these claims? None. Business spending is indeed low, but no lower than one would have expected given widespread overcapacity and weak consumer spending. Business leaders are feeling unloved, but giving them a group hug won't cure what ails the economy. Ask the Obama-is-scaring-business crowd for some actual evidence supporting their claim, and they'll tell you that business spending on plant and equipment is at its lowest level, as a share of G.D.P., in 40 years. What they don't mention is the fact that business investment always falls sharply when the economy is depressed. After all, why should businesses expand their production capacity when they're not selling enough to use the capacity they already have? And in case you haven't noticed, we still have a deeply depressed economy. Historically, there has been a close relationship between the level of business investment and the "output gap," the difference between the economy's actual output and its long-run trend - which means that there's nothing surprising about low investment now, given the fact that the output gap is hugely negative. If anything, it's surprising how well business investment has been holding up. Alternatively, we can look directly at measures of unused business capacity. Capacity utilization in industry is up over the past year, but still far below historical norms. Vacancy rates at industrial and retail properties are at historic highs. Again, given that businesses have plenty of idle structures and machines, why should they be building or buying even more? So where's the evidence that an antibusiness climate is depressing spending? The answer, supposedly, is that this is what you hear when you talk to entrepreneurs. But don't believe it. Yes, when you talk to business people they complain about taxes, regulations and the deficit; they always do. But the Obama's-socialist-policies-are-wrecking-the-economy chorus isn't coming from businesses; it's coming from business lobbyists, which isn't at all the same thing. Read the report on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the latest Washington Monthly: peddling scare stories about what Democrats are up to is a large part of what organizations like the chamber do for a living. Or read through the latest survey of small business trends by the National Federation for Independent Business, an advocacy group. The commentary at the front of the report is largely a diatribe against government - "Washington is applying leeches and performing blood-letting as a cure" - and you might na?vely imagine that this diatribe reflects what the surveyed businesses said. But while a few businesses declared that the political climate was deterring expansion, they were vastly outnumbered by those citing a poor economy. The charts at the back of the report, showing trends in business perceptions of their "most important problem," are even more revealing. It turns out that business is less concerned about taxes and regulation than during the 1990s, an era of booming investment. Concerns about poor sales, on the other hand, have surged. The weak economy, not fear about government actions, is what's holding investment down. So why are we hearing so much about the alleged harm being inflicted by an antibusiness climate? For the most part it's the same old, same old: lobbyists trying to bully Washington into cutting taxes and dismantling regulations, while extracting bigger fees from their clients along the way. Beyond that, business leaders are, as I said, feeling unloved: the financial crisis, health insurance scandals, and the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico have taken a toll on their reputation. Somehow, however, rather than blaming their peers for bad behavior, C.E.O.'s blame Mr. Obama for "demonizing" business - by which they apparently mean speaking frankly about the culpability of the guilty parties. Well, C.E.O.'s are people, too - but soothing their hurt feelings isn't a priority right now, and it has nothing at all to do with promoting economic recovery. If we want stronger business spending, we need to give businesses a reason to spend. And to do that, the government needs to start doing more, not less, to promote overall economic recovery. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09krugman.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From may at applebybooks.net Fri Jul 9 11:17:34 2010 From: may at applebybooks.net (May at Appleby Books) Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:17:34 -0700 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Labor Losing to DC Elites Message-ID: <4C374B9E.1020008@applebybooks.net> Published on Thursday, July 8, 2010 by In These Times Labor Losing to DC Elites Over Job Creation, Unemployment? by Art Levine In a fight over paying for Social Security, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and his allies took on The Washington Post this week as part of a running battle against Washington insiders' drive for deficit cutting. The emerging political consensus, essentially supported by the White House, favors cutting spending over creating jobs or helping the unemployed, two million of whom have lost benefits so far because of the Senate's delay in passing an extension. Even as the White House and Democratic leaders nominally support extending unemployment benefits, the conventional wisdom they share about the menace of deficits undercuts their ability to rally political support for the needed spending to create jobs or aid the unemployed. This consensus of most Washington elites can have deadly consequences: near-permanent unemployment or underemployment for millions, while the joblessness epidemic is fueling a sharp increase in calls to suicide hotlines, AOL News reports. This latest skirmish over the deficit isn't as arcane or removed from the lives of working people as it might appear at first. It involves a snarky Ruth Marcus column in The Washington Post that took Richard Trumka to task for favoring increasing taxes on the rich and opposing raising the retirement age to qualify for Social Security?an essential, if meager, lifeline in tough economic times. As the AFL-CIO Now blog observes: Here's a great way to save some Social Security money. Let more folks die before they can get a check. Cold? Maybe. But pretty darn effective according to Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. Marcus seems to have taken offense at AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's objection to raising the retirement age and his call for the better-off among us to pay the Social Security tax on all their income, just like the rest of us do. This is all part of a growing indifference to the unemployed, led by the Republicans but also enabled by the White House and some Democratic leaders. The Huffington Post compares the emerging view of the White House political team?over the objection of some economists?to the anti-scientific know-nothingism of the Bush administration: Today, a new band of Mayberry Machiavellis has gained control, counseling President Obama to ignore the advice of his economic team and press forward with deficit reduction ahead of job creation. Senior White House adviser David Axelrod told the New York Times recently that "it's my job to report what the public mood is." The public mood, said Axelrod, is anti-spending and anti-deficit and so the smart politics is to alleviate those concerns. "I've made the point that as a matter of policy and a matter of politics that we need to focus on this, and the president certainly agrees with that," said Axelrod of the deficit hawkery that the administration has engaged in over the last several months. It's an odd political strategy because Axelrod knows that if it succeeds, it will be both bad policy and bad politics. He said as much when asked about the pressure from economic advisers to focus on stimulus and job creation. "I'm very much allied with the economic group, because even as a political matter it would be very shortsighted to take steps that would send us backward," he said. But the Mayberries have already taken those steps: by using the bully pulpit to highlight deficit fears, by proposing an across-the-board spending freeze, by creating a commission to reduce the deficit and stacking it with hawks, by making it clear to progressive allies that the White House political team believes a deficit-reduction focus is important for the midterm elections. What's just as troubling is the way this self-destructive political perspective has gained so much ground so fast. Now, liberal economist Brad DeLong flatly declares in a new column that the pro-spending Keynesians among economists have lost, Paul Krugman and a few outliers notwithstanding. DeLong not only illustrates how the pro-spending forces have lost, but offers some potential reasons?some of it due to the current political weakness of the labor movement compared to Big Business. DeLong observes, citing the President's claim on Friday that the economy is "headed in the right direction": The employment-to-population ratio has been flat since November. Over the past six months?since the downturn ended?the U.S. economy has not been recovering from its near-depression, and not been putting a greater and greater portion of its potential labor force to work. Rather, it has been bumping along the bottom. There is a big difference between the economy getting "better" and the economy "no longer getting worse rapidly." The president's calm rhetorical pose is not helpful to policy-making. As Ezra Klein writes, "the White House's broad approach...is to emphasize how much improvement there is, rather than how much needs to be done. That makes political sense." But it also "makes it difficult for the White House to run around with its hair on fire about how bad things are and how necessary it is that Congress doesn't abandon the labor market in order to pretend to care about the deficit." Premature declarations of victory are especially worrisome because the Congress is only one of the many centers of power in the global economy that have decided too much has already been done to boost global demand, and that the next policy moves must serve the opposite goals of austerity, retrenchment, and contraction. From the German and British governments to the U.S. Federal Reserve, and from all 50 U.S. states to the European Central Bank, economists seeking additional stimulus have lost the argument. Those of us who believe that double-digit unemployment, accompanied by less-than-single-digit inflation and record lows for nominal long-term government bond rates, signals a crisis of confidence not in the government but in the banking system and the private sector find that we have no policy traction. The upshot of these economic trends is a crisis that sees counselors fielding calls from desperate people out of work as their benefits disappear?and few jobs are available, with five applicants for every one job. As AOL News reports: In one of the darkest tallies of the nation's still-sputtering recession, experts say financial desperation has played a significant role in increased calls to suicide-prevention hot lines?and likely has led to increased suicide rates. While government statistics on suicides often lag by two or three years, experts say the easier-to-track calls to hot lines have grown significantly. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which operates 24-hour crisis help lines around the country, reported an increase of 18 percent from January to May this year. The rates have fluctuated wildly, from 13,424 in January 2007 to a peak of 59,500 two months ago. Dr. John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, said it's hard to tell whether the increased pace reflects more people needing help, or whether it's the effects of media attention on the problem and increased outreach by crisis counselors. But Draper has no doubt the need is there. AOL highlights some recent examples of the hard times ratcheting up the stress on those already vulnerable to mental illness and suicide: * An armed man facing foreclosure in Chattanooga, Tenn., who called police early July 1 threatening suicide. Authorities said that after officers arrived, the man talked with them from the porch of his house and then burst down the steps waving his gun while screaming, "Suicide by cop!" He died in a hail of bullets. * A husband and father in Anaheim, Calif., facing foreclosure and a mountain of credit card debt, last month shot and killed his wife, critically wounded their 3-year-old son, shot at but missed their 5-year-old son and then killed himself, police said. For those running out of options, such extreme acts are fortunately quite rare, but the pain afflicting families today is widespread. So the policy-making fights among economists and Washington politicians over the direction of our government's approach to joblessness have had all too clear an impact. Why are the advocates for more spending for the unemployed well on their way to losing? DeLong pinpoints a few key potential factors: The situation is grim. So why isn't everybody running around with their hair on fire? Why aren't there irresistible political demands for more government action to steer us toward a better economic recovery?or at least to hedge against a double-dip in what seems likely to be called not a "recession" but a "depression" when historians get around to writing about it? I have my theories: - widening wealth inequality and an upgrading of the class position of reporters and pundits, who are no longer ink-stained wretches immersed in mainstream America; - the collapse of union power, which ensures that nobody who sees real workers on a daily basis sits at the table when the deals are made; - increasing job security for the powerful in Washington, aided by the growth of the lobbying apparatus that envelops the mixed-economy government; - the collapse of professional integrity among the Washington press corps, which no longer dares to call balls and strikes as it sees them, preferring to say only that the Democrats say it was a strike and the Republicans say it was a ball, and that opinions on the shape of the earth differ. How would the political world in Washington be different if there were a truly powerful labor movement fueled by greatly expanded organizing, millions of new members, and genuine union rights through, say, an Employee Free Choice Act? In addition, if labor wasn't facing plummeting private sector union membership and a 60 percent drop in union elections, would this political apathy in Washington over the unemployed be so great? I doubt it. ? 2010 In These Times http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6207/labor_losing_to_dc_elites_over_deficits_unemployment/ From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 9 13:43:08 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 14:43:08 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] CNN Senior Middle East News Editor Fired Over Tweet. UK Ambassador to Lebanon Removes Blog Post Under Pressure. Message-ID: <26F83A29F9EE461DA032DFAE19EBAC83@Upstairs> Octavia Nasr,20-year CNN career ended over a tweet. UK ambassador Frances Guy removes blog post under pressure. Posted on July 8 2010 by Cecilie Surasky There's really little to add to Glenn Greenwald's comprehensive post on the hypocritical firing of (until now, the very safe and non-controversial) CNN Senior Middle East News Editor Octavia Nasr over just one short tweet she posted this weekend: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah . . . . One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." Fadlallah was one of the world's most revered Shia leaders. He was also the religious leader most associated with the political party of US ally Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Upon his death, UK ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy wrote in a piece (which, believe it or not, she has now taken down, presumably due to pressure after the Nasr uproar- on her official blog) called (cached version) The Passing of Decent Men, "When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person. That for me is the real effect of a true man of religion; leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith.The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints." After the Twitter controversy first happened, Nasr wrote a thoughtful explanation. But to no avail. Greenwald goes on: That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Right outlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neocon precincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her. The network - which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as its primary news anchor for the last 15 years - justified its actions by claiming that Nasr's "credibility" had been "compromised." Within this episode lies several important lessons about media "objectivity" and how the scope of permissible views is enforced. First, consider which viewpoints cause someone to be fired from The Liberal Media. Last month, Helen Thomas' 60-year career as a journalist ended when she expressed the exact view about Jews which numerous public figures have expressed (with no consequence or even controversy) about Palestinians. Just weeks ago, The Washington Post accepted the "resignation" of Dave Weigel because of scorn he heaped on right-wing figures such as Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. CNN's Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan, was previously forced to resign after he provoked a right-wing fit of fury over comments he made about the numerous - and obviously disturbing - incidents where the U.S. military had injured or killed journalists in war zones. NBC fired Peter Arnett for criticizing the U.S. war plan on Iraqi television, which prompted accusations of Treason from the Right. MSNBC demoted and then fired its rising star Ashleigh Banfield after she criticized American media war coverage for adhering to the Fox model of glorifying U.S. wars; the same network fired its top-rated host, Phil Donahue, due to its fear of being perceived as anti-war; and its former reporter, Jessica Yellin, confessed that journalists were "under enormous pressure from corporate executives" to present the news in a pro-war and pro-Bush manner. Bottom line-the tectonic plates are shifting. And yet, with all this movement, in the mainstream media in the US, as Greenwald says, holding the Israeli government narrative is still seen as neutral, while anything even slightly more critical (or, I would argue, more reality-based) is seen as biased. Cross that line, and as journalist Letty Pogrebin calls them, "the Israel right or wrong mafia" won't hold back in making sure a price is paid. It is shameful that institutions of all kinds capitulate to such threats. It's only a matter of time, though, before the extremist settler ideology pit bulls are revealed to have nothing in their favor but empty threats. Meanwhile, bigots can feel safe knowing that they can offer racist platitudes about Arabs and Muslims, celebrate Israeli terrorist attacks on civilians and so forth, and remain good friends to the US, and respected journalists in good standing. http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2010/07/08/20-year-cnn-career-ended-over-a-tweet-uk-ambassador-takes-down-blog-post/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 9 16:37:01 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 16:37:01 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Mafiosi buy votes to prevent travel to Cuba Message-ID: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/international-i/9-julio-mafiosi.html GRANMA INTERNATIONAL Havana. July 9, 2010 Mafiosi buy votes to prevent travel to Cuba Gabriel Molina THE U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surprised congress members by warning that it proposes to "monitor votes" on the bipartisan bill aiming to reestablish the right for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba and sell food to the island in a more normal way. The tone of letters expressing support for a relaxation of the measures against Cuba never implied a virtual threat like it does now. Bruce Josten, lobbying chief for the Chamber of Commerce, said that they will watch the count closely if the bill - passed on June 30 by the Agriculture Committee - gets to the floor. The unusual warning came after an expos? by the Federal Elections Commission over vote-buying by the U.S. Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee (PAC), which prompts the Miami ultra-right Cuban-American lobby, which has directed more than $73,000 in the first four months of 2010 to block approval of the bill. The PAC "donated" around $11 million to close to 400 candidates and legislators between 2004 and 2008. According to a statement from the Public Campaign non-party group, 53 Democratic legislators received more than $16,000 per head and at least 18 of them changed their position. Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln and Mario D?az-Balart and Democratic Senator Robert Men?ndez have benefited the most. A survey taken in 2008 by World Public Opinion concluded that 70% of U.S. citizens are in favor of travel to Cuba. Among Cuban Americans, 55% are against the so-called embargo. For example, Congressman Mike McIntyre, Democrat, North Carolina, said that he had spoken with Miami Republicans Lincoln and Mario D?az-Balart about their family's experience in Fidel Castro's Cuba and he changed his vote "because of the horrors that they suffered." It is not difficult to realize that that experience is only one of support for the Batista dictatorship, given that Rafael J. D?az-Balart, founder of the dynasty and the grandfather of Lincoln and Mario, was the legal adviser of the United Fruit Company in Banes - likewise the birthplace of Fulgencio Batista. He was government minister from 1952 to 1958. His son Rafael, father of the congressmen, was deputy minister. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat for Weston, has received $75,700 from the Committee; Kendrick Meek, Miami Democrat, is at eighth place on the list. Montana Republican Denny Rehberg changed from being an enthusiastic opponent of the blockade to voting in favor of the prohibitions, after receiving $10,500 from the PAC. As majority leader, in 2004 legislator Tom DeLay prevented the restoration of U.S. citizens' right to travel to Cuba, which had been passed with a wide majority in both Houses via a bipartisan initiative. DeLay made the bill disappear in complicity with the D?az-Balarts. The Cuban travel ban was established close to half a century ago, in January 1961, by Dwight Eisenhower. At the end of his term, President William Clinton eased travel to Cuba in order to win influence on the island. But President George W. Bush prohibited it again, in order to thank ultra-right Cuban Americans whose vote fraud in Florida made it possible to strip Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, of the presidency. Bill HR 4645 is sponsored by 62 congress members, led by Democrat Collin Peterson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, and Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas, and is backed by more than 140 business, social, economic, political and religious organizations. In addition to the Chamber of Commerce and the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), which groups together more than 300 important U.S. companies, these include USA Engage and the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), which also sent letters of support to legislators. As did the Council of Churches (Protestants) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) and the American Farm Bureau Federation; the Fund for Reconciliation and Development and the National Corn Growers Association. General James Hill, ex-commander in chief of the Southern Command; General Barry McCaffrey, former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Colin Powell, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and nine more former high level members of that country's Armed Forces have acknowledged that the current policy of isolating Cuba has failed. Jos? Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, expressed the same sentiment in a Congress hearing. All those players agree that the initiative is not doing away with the embargo (blockade), but is of high interest to the United States. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, cited a study undertaken last March by Texas A&M University, which revealed that reducing restrictions on exports to Cuba could start a boom, because it would lead to sales worth $365 million, 6,000 new jobs and an economic impact amounting to $1.1 billion for the country. But Congress is still being subjected to the pressure of bribes distributed by the Miami Mafia with government funds. Steve Yoder, chair of the NGFA's Joint Trade Policy A-Team and of the U.S. Grains Council, affirms that the embargo is affecting ranchers and farmers. In the 2008-09 growing season, Cuba was Washington's tenth-largest corn customer. In order to retain this market Yoder admits that they need to eliminate payments in advance and the requirement to use banks in third countries, provisions that the H.R. 4645 bill would suppress, in addition to the quotas that generally accompany those permits. It also established that the permits will have the same payment requirements as U.S. exports to other countries. So Cuba would not have to pay in advance and in cash before a ship leaves a U.S. port with merchandise for the island. The bill could be debated in the House after August 8 and it has been said that it needs 13 votes more than those committed to date. In the Senate, Democrat Byron Dorgan and Republican Mike Enzi were confident that a similar bill to that of the House will be passed. They are confirming that they have the 62 votes needed. But Cuban-American Robert Men?ndez, chair of the Senate Democrats, has threatened a filibuster in order to bring the session to a close without a vote. The battle will continue to be a difficult one. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 9 20:12:42 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 20:12:42 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowou Message-ID: <92F280945D2246EE87B0A8450DFB07A7@agingCHS072729> TODAY'S DEMOCRACY NOW!: * Report: 27,000 Abandoned Wells Pose Threat to Gulf Coast * Concerns are being raised about the hazards posed by thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells throughout the Gulf Coast. An Associated Press investigation found more than 27,000 abandoned sites are in danger of leaking, with about 13 percent said to be particularly worrisome. Regulations forcing companies to plug the wells have been routinely ignored with no government intervention. We speak with Jeff Donn, the AP reporter who broke the story. Listen/Watch/Read http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/9/report_27_000_abandoned_wells_pose * ProPublica: BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout * Just over three months ago, thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals begin spewing into the skies from BP's massive oil refinery in Texas City. The release began on April 6, two weeks before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, but it took BP weeks to even realize there was a problem. BP now estimates 538,000 pounds of chemicals escaped from the refinery over a 40-day period. We speak with reporter Ryan Knutson of ProPublica and Frontline who traveled to Texas City to investigate what happened. Listen/Watch/Read http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/9/propublica_bp_texas_refinery_had_huge From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 9 20:15:58 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 20:15:58 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Update on G20 Detainees Message-ID: <62D100E1B2CB433392109236C908D66D@agingCHS072729> http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/4126 Free Our Friends! Community Update on G20 Detainees While G20 leaders met behind a steel cage and a 1-billion dollar Fortress Toronto operation, we witnessed an unprecedented coordinated police operation in the city of Toronto. Police brutality against protest participants, journalists, legal observers, medics, and random passersby came in the form of indiscriminate arrests, beatings, pepper spray, rubber bullets, police horse charges, illegal searches and seizures, and extended arbitrary detentions. While in custody, people were forced into steel cage cells with up to 40 people per cell; made to sleep on concrete floors with open bathrooms; denied food, water, toilet paper, and sanitary products; subjected to sexual harassment, threats, humiliation, and intimidation; and refused access to medical attention, phone calls, and legal counsel. Many were beaten and brutalized, leading to serious injuries and hospitalization. According to an article authored by resident physicians of the Toronto Street Medics, "All of the serious injuries we treated were inflicted by the police. While violence against property received a great deal of coverage, violence against people -- broken bones, cracked heads and eyes filled with pepper spray - has yet to feature prominently in any mainstream media. Our teams of medics witnessed and treated people who had been struck in the head by police batons, had lacerations from police shields and had been trampled by police horses." Over the weekend, there were 1090 arrests, of whom 113 were released without charges on the street, 714 were held for breach of the peace and released within 72 hours, and 263 released with pending charges. Around 20 people still remain in custody. While the exact numbers and charges of some of those still being held in detention are unclear at this time, we know that 17 people are facing a variety of trumped up and politically-motivated allegations including conspiracy. *At the time of writing (July 8), three have been released with stringent bail conditions; one was denied bail; and others are awaiting bail hearings over the next 1-2 weeks.* These seventeen people are our friends. They come from towns and cities across Ontario and Quebec and are respected and committed activists for a multitude of causes such as environmental justice, women's rights, economic justice, antiwar, Indigenous rights, queer and trans liberation, and migrant justice. They envision and embody worlds rooted in love, justice, freedom, and self-determination. They are also known in their communities as legal workers, students, animal lovers, childcare providers, and academic researchers. Many were targeted and arrested, including at gunpoint, in pre-emptive raids before the protests even began. We remain steadfast in standing by our friends. Targeting organizers is intended to weaken our thriving social and environment justice movement, to isolate effective and vocal community activists, and to criminalize dissent against the violent policies of the G20 that perpetuate environmental degradation, militarization, labour exploitation, theft of Indigenous land and resources, and misery for the world's majority. This escalating attack on certain individuals and groups is intended to intimidate and silence us all in our various movements and communities across Canada. Make no mistake, if these politically motivated charges against organizers are not defeated, police will seek to use them against organizers in all sectors of our movement. A recent Toronto open letter against police state tactics with prominent signatories calls for a full campaign to defend the civil rights of those facing excessive charges. The Asian Canadian Labour Alliance - Ontario Chapter is demanding the immediate release of all detainees still being held, and an end to the persecution and daily criminalization of Indigenous, migrants, and marginalized communities. We encourage our allies to build on this growing solidarity within our diverse social movements to free our friends, and to keep organizing for liberation for all people, especially those who daily bear the brunt of police, state, and corporate oppression. They cannot jail our hearts. - Direct Support Committees of G20 detainees still being held at Maplehurst Men's Detention Centre and Vanier Women's Prison in Ontario. To donate to the legal defence fund in Ontario: http://g20.torontomobilize.org/ To donate to the legal defence fund in Quebec: claclegal2010 at gmail.com From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 9 20:32:03 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 20:32:03 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Build Your own Passive Solar Water Heater Message-ID: <5F3B0AEA5FF64ADB99CCC7E609D39A58@agingCHS072729> http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes/2007-10-01/Build-Your-Own-Solar-Water-Heater.aspx?utm_content=07.09.10+GEGH&utm_campaign=GEGH&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email Build Your own Passive Solar Water Heater A passive solar water heater can be simple to construct and reduce your utility bills. We'll explore the various types of solar water heaters, and learn to build an easy and affordable model. October/November 2007 By David A. Bainbridge For the do-it-yourselfer seeking an inexpensive, easy-to-build solar water-heating system, the integral passive solar water heater (IPSWH, pronounced ips-wah) is a dream come true. All you need to build this down-to-earth water warmer is a discarded electric water heater tank, a homemade insulated plywood box to house the tank, a sheet or two of used window glass or clear plastic, a few common plumbing fittings, some pipe and a bit of insulation. Add a few satisfying hours of measuring, thinking, sawing, hammering, painting and wrench-turning, and you'll have a continuous supply of hot water, provided virtually free of cost by that friendly furnace in the sky (the only safe nuclear reactor, 93 million miles away). First, let's review the basics of solar heating for new recruits to the wonderful world of renewable energy. There are two basic types of solar water heaters, active and passive. Active systems depend on external power to run pumps to circulate the heat they gather; passive setups don't. Passive systems may be less efficient at any given moment, but they are much more dependable and cost less per unit of heat captured. Integral passive solar water heaters, also called batch heaters, are the simplest of the passive systems, and their reliability and independence from external power lead to long-term production at a very low cost. I know of a system in Davis, Calif., that has operated for 30 years at a cost per kilowatt-hour equivalent of about a penny. Batch heaters have long been known as the best choice in warm climates or for seasonal use in colder areas, and recent work with improved materials and designs suggests they may also be the best choice even in colder areas. For owner-built applications, they outshine their flat-plate and evacuated-tube competition in almost every way, including reliability and ease of installation. They have excellent potential for retrofits and are ideal for a range of farming and commercial applications, providing low-cost hot or warm water for washing or preheating for higher temperature uses. Five Hot Ones Now that you know the basics, let's take a look at five of the many types of batch heaters in use today. The Solar Shower is really a small-scale batch heater, a classic design using clear and black plastic to make a portable and surprisingly effective solar water heater. Water is placed in the bag and then set out with the clear side facing the sun. Within an hour, the water starts to heat up, providing a delightful shower on even a cool day if the sun is bright. I have used these for years while camping and am always impressed with how well they work. The single-tank batch heater is often dubbed a "breadbox" heater, because some of them look a lot like an oversized old-fashioned breadbox. Overall, it's probably the most economical, least complicated of the permanent batch heaters to build, requiring only easily acquired materials and basic construction skills. For the "econo-model" breadbox, a salvaged standard electric water heater tank is housed in an insulated plywood box or an old refrigerator or freezer shell. Glazing material (usually glass, fiberglass or high temperature resistant molded plastic) covers the box. Incoming water enters the breadbox near the bottom of the tank, and sun-warmed water is drawn from near the top and routed to the backup unit in the house. A horizontally oriented breadbox is easier to build and less visible than a vertical one, but tilting the tank increases the stratification of the water and improves the solar angle, resulting in higher temperatures. The vertical three-tank batch heater is similar but increases performance with more storage and collector area. For the triple-tanker, three water heater core tanks are enclosed in a large, well-insulated box. Glazing material covers the south-facing side and the top of the box. An insulated lid or roll-down cover could be installed to improve heat retention, but I never found it to be necessary. The three tanks are plumbed in series, with the central (therefore best insulated) tank serving as the final stage before the heated water is discharged. The greater collection surface area, improved thermal stratification caused by the tilted position and the series hookup provide better heating than the smaller, horizontal, single-tank breadbox. To test the efficiency of the three-tank heater, I installed and monitored one for a full year at my home in north-central California and found that it supplied an impressive 70 percent of my family's hot water! A greenhouse batch heater may be the best option for performance and freeze protection in colder climates or during the winter months. Almost any configuration can be used inside your sunspace or greenhouse. Usually, the solar water heater is tucked up near the peak of the greenhouse roof to take advantage of the warmest air and best sun exposure (see gallery illustration). For maximum efficiency and freeze protection in cold climates, an insulated, glazed box may be desirable. Insulate your pipes if the sunspace gets cold at night. A building-integrated batch heater is built into the attic or a south-facing wall, where the tank is more easily protected against freezing. Pipes can run in heated space. When it's time to reroof, there is no need to remove and replace the heater. (This is when many solar systems are junked, even if they still work.) An insulated box is created in the attic with a glass skylight. A drain pan may be a good idea to minimize leak risk. Make sure you can reach the heater easily for repairs or replacement if necessary. How Batch Water Heaters Work A few basic principles and considerations govern the design, installation, use and maintenance of batch heaters. IPSWHs are called batch heaters because the heart of the system is the "batch" of water stored in the tank(s). The basic batch heater design is based on a tank or a series of large diameter pipes or tanks. The tank is painted flat black or coated with a selective surface that absorbs solar heat easily and transfers it to the water stored inside. To increase heat collection and reduce heat loss, the tank is enclosed in an insulated box covered on the south-facing side or top with a glazing material. In the standard batch heater, cold water enters the solar collection tank through a side inlet near the bottom or through a "dip tube" that enters at the top and discharges cold water near the bottom. The heated water exits through an outlet near the top where the water is warmest, then moves to a backup conventional heater (fueled by gas, electricity or wood) where it's heated all the way to the desired temperature. Batch heaters use waterline pressure for circulation, eliminating the need for expensive pumps and controls. During the summer months, or where it is warm and sunny year-round, the backup heater often can be turned off and bypassed, with the batch heater providing all your hot water needs. In Davis, Calif., my three-tank heater provided all our hot water for nine months. The relatively low temperature of the collector minimizes expansion and contraction of components, reducing wear and tear. The mass of the water in the system helps protect it from freezing and extreme high temperatures that can harm materials, which leads to long system life. Research in Europe suggests that up to 20 percent of the water in the collector can freeze without damaging the tank, but keep in mind pipes are still at risk unless protected or drained. The 6 Commandments of passive solar water heaters If your heater's specifications and installation follow these six commandments, it will work admirably and will supply inexpensive solar-warmed water, no matter which specific design you choose. 1. Locate your heater for maximum solar exposure. Find a sunny, south-facing location, preferably close to the backup heater to minimize piping distance. You might have to do some calculating to be sure your solar collector will be exposed to the sun when you want hot water, but placement and orientation are the single most important considerations. Remember the sun is high in summer, low in winter. Specific optimum angles for your location during any month of the year can be found here. (Click "Data Services," then select "Altitude and Azimuth of the Sun or Moon During One Day.") Next, determine where your heater will be installed - roof, platform, wall or ground - keeping in mind that a filled three-tank 90-gallon system can weigh more than 800 pounds when full of water. For most applications, it's best to keep a large solar heater on the ground or on a specially built platform. A rooftop installation may be placed above a load-bearing wall or reinforced section of roof. Ground mounting is easiest, and eliminates the weight problem. 2. Make the collector and storage tank(s) as efficient as you can. First, decide on the type of tank(s) you'll use for your heater. Tanks come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, but long, thin cylinders are the most efficient (they have the greatest ratio of surface area to water volume). The cheapest and easiest of these to obtain are used electric water heater cores. Examine the "sacrificial anode," a rod made of metal with a low resistance to corrosion that is inserted into the tank from the top to attract any corrosive elements in the water. Replace it if substantial corrosion and/or consumption is evident. A new one costs only a few bucks, and it will add measurably to the longevity of your system. Check carefully for leaks, and never use a tank that you have doubts about. Wire-brush it and paint it with rust-resistant flat black paint, or apply a selective surface coating if you can afford it. If you prefer new tanks, you can order glass-lined electrical water heater cores - minus the heating element, outer insulation and sheet metal cover. Stainless steel tanks also may be available in some areas. (See "Solar Sources" below.) 3. Ensure that your system will retain heat. There are a number of options for glazing the top and the south-facing wall of your unit, including single- and double-paned glass or fiberglass and plastics designed for extended solar exposure. In most cases, you should use two layers of your chosen glazing material with an air space between to provide maximum heat retention. Glass is generally a suitable glazing for owner-built heaters, unless you get severe hail. Twin-wall polycarbonate is a tough alternative. Be sure to flash the glazing carefully to avoid leaks and to caulk and seal the panes to avoid condensation, which can limit energy capture. 4. Size your heater appropriately. To determine the size you need, allow 30 gallons of hot water per person in your household (a conservation-minded family might get by with only 10 gallons per person). Depending on your environment and glazing, you'll want to plan for 1 to 2.5 gallons of water per square foot of glazing as a general ratio for good heating. A smaller water-to-glazing ratio speeds up heat gain considerably but can increase the freezing risk. If you can't meet the ideal, don't lose heart. A smaller system will still provide economical solar water pre-warming and conserve nonrenewable energy and cash. Batch systems with relatively small tanks and simple enclosures are common, and many are still doing well after 30 years, long after most of the more complex systems have disappeared. 5. Make an efficient, freeze-resistant connection to the backup system. Minimize pipe runs and insulate the pipe carefully using foam or fiberglass insulation with aluminum jacketing. Build it to last - if you just use foam it will break down within a few years. It can take up to 72 hours at 12 degrees to freeze an exposed water heater tank, but pipes are much more vulnerable. In a brief freeze, you can leave the hot water on slightly to keep the pipes from freezing. In very cold winter climates, drain the collector tank and pipes in the fall. Set the system up so you can turn off the backup heater and run solar hot water directly to users, and so you can bypass the solar water system if you want to drain it and shut it down in winter. Make sure the connections are building code approved. After finishing the plumbing system, bleed the air out of the tank through the screw plug at the top of the tank until the system is full of water. 6. Build your system to last. Use the best materials you can afford or scrounge, and take proper care in the construction of your unit. It should work for 20 to 30 years, so it's worth doing it right. Be safe: Make sure the tank supports are strong enough to bear the load they'll carry, and get some help with moving tanks safely. If you build a high performance heater, consider adding a tempering valve near the backup heater so no one gets scalded in a shower. If you use galvanized tanks and fittings with copper tubing, make sure the two metals are separated by appropriate non-conducting, dielectric fittings to prevent accelerated corrosion. I've had good luck using copper tubing, plastic dielectric connections and galvanized fittings on my tanks. The Heat Goes On The only shortcoming of batch heaters is lower early morning temperatures as a result of nighttime heat loss - not a problem for people who like to shower before they go to bed, but a boosted "wake-up" factor for those who take early morning showers. More recent research has shown we can reduce nighttime cool-down in several ways. The most effective strategy is a set of insulated lids that are closed at night and raised during the day, with reflective undersides that catch and direct additional solar energy to the tanks. But this can be difficult to operate unless the system is mounted on the ground. Automatic lids also could be made using thermal lifters commonly used to vent greenhouses. If a lid is possible, it's a good idea: It's easy to make an insulated hinged lid serve double duty as a reflector when it's raised to its daytime position, and thus improve efficiency. Reflectors can extend the season into the fall and allow it to start earlier in the spring. A simpler method to minimize heat loss relies on an ultramodern, special selective surface coating, such as Thurmalox paint. A can of spray paint sufficient to coat 50 square feet costs less than $20. Watch Your Backup Neglect of your conventional backup heater can result in unnecessarily high water-heating bills, in spite of the solar heater! Four common forms of neglect are inadequately insulating the room in which the conventional water heater is housed; failing to insulate the tank sufficiently (inexpensive and easy-to-install "thermal blankets" can be added in minutes); maintaining an unnecessarily high temperature setting (sometimes the fault of a bad thermostat); and allowing sediment to build up on the bottom of the tank, insulating the water from the heat source (drain sediment from the tank once a year). Check your backup heater when you install your solar heater. In fact, even if your solar unit is only a dream at the moment, it makes good energy sense to tune up your conventional water heater right now. If it is reaching the end of its life, consider replacing it with a flash or "on demand" water heater that heats water only when it is wanted. Consumers in European countries long ago realized that it doesn't make sense to keep 30 or 60 gallons of water hot during hours when no one needs it. The Convenient Solution Passive solar water heaters are cost-effective in a wide range of climates, but are easiest to build and operate in warm climates. This technology offers the energy-conscious do-it-yourselfer an attractive alternative to costly hot water and conventional energy dependence. One of the best ways to get started is with a group of friends. Build a series of water heaters together and make it a fun project, sharing labor and expertise. Someone will have the plumbing tools and skills; someone else, the carpentry skills and tools. The combined good sense of the group will get the job done quickly and safely. If you're not a do-it-yourselfer, there are numerous effective commercial solar hot water systems available for virtually any location in the world (for more information, click here.) In colder areas, a thermosiphon system is often a good choice. Freeze protection can involve liquid antifreeze with heat exchangers, drain-back or other systems to avoid freezing damage. Many products now use evacuated-tube collectors to heat the water, which then rises into a well-insulated storage tank. Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. Look around, read around, shop around, and - most important - build for yourself. I think you'll come to the same conclusion I did years ago that integral passive solar water heaters provide the most economical, efficient, down-to-earth method of water warming under the sun. ----------------------------------- Modest Beginnings, Hot Results The principles used in modern batch heaters are the same as those first applied to solar water heating more than 100 years ago. Robber's Roost, Butch Cassidy's 1880s hideout in Utah, reportedly still includes the remains of a passive solar water heater: a large black can filled with water and placed in the sun. The first commercial solar water heater, patented in 1891 by Clarence Kemp, used four cylindrical water tanks housed in a pine box covered with single-pane glass. By 1900, more than 1,600 of these units were in use in the United States. In 1898, Frank Walker, of Pasadena, Calif., applied for a patent on an improved design. Walker's model was recessed into the roof, instead of exposed on top of the roof like Kemp's heaters. The Walker unit also incorporated connections to a woodstove with a water-heating tank for backup heating, the direct forerunner of today's most common batch heater application: a solar preheater feeding into a standard water heater in the house. As successful as these early heaters were, they gradually disappeared as oil, electricity and natural gas became available. These new, seemingly cheap energy sources brought high costs in environmental damage, human health, global warming and habitat damage - but these costs were, and still are, ignored. Fortunately, these new energy developments didn't bring solar water-heating research to a total standstill. At the University of California, Davis, in 1936, F. A. Brooks tested several heater designs and demonstrated that tank-type solar heaters could produce water temperatures in excess of 120 degrees. He also discovered that upright tanks placed on an incline delivered hotter water than horizontal units. Brooks concluded that batch heaters could produce hot water at a cost consistently below that of flat-plate solar systems. Solar Sources Materials Solar Components Corporation (dead link) Growers Supply (polycarbonate glazing) http://www.growerssupply.com/farm/supplies/home Vaughn Manufacturing (tanks) http://www.vaughncorp.com/ Manufactured systems See source URL at header for links to Copper Heart, Solar Direct, Real Goods and Hydro Quest ------------------------------ David A. Bainbridge was awarded the American Solar Energy Society's prestigious Passive Solar Pioneer Award in 2004. He is an associate professor at Alliant International University in San Diego. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 9 20:56:23 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 20:56:23 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] wind-driven geothermal system Message-ID: <0D3105DA3B814C1DB7E71CD8114CB988@agingCHS072729> I sent information on the "Windspire" to the FreshInk list back on February 25, 2008. At the time I didn't realise how one might combine alternative technologies, but the Windspire, which is a "plug-in system" could easily supply the energy needed for a geothermal pump, so you can go completely off-grid and still have your geothermal heating/cooling system. Other turbines, such as the magnectic wind turbine manufactured in the Hamilton area, will also supply the power to drive geothermal. I also sent information on that to this list with the quite funny video with Jay Leno, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/08/jay-lenos-maglev-wind-tur_n_156192.html . More to come on this.... Richard M. From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 10 12:23:26 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:23:26 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?Mark_Twain=27s_unexpurgated_autobiogra?= =?iso-8859-1?q?phy_to_be_published_revealing_his_reincarnation_in_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Noam_Chomsky?= Message-ID: <2F12272B4EF84530A5BD7E7A15A3DA22@Upstairs> "From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out," Twain instructed them in 1906. "There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see." Dead for a Century, Twain Says What He Meant By LARRY ROHTER Published: July 9, 2010 Wry and cranky, droll and cantankerous - that's the Mark Twain we think we know, thanks to reading "Huck Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" in high school. But in his unexpurgated autobiography, whose first volume is about to be published a century after his death, a very different Twain emerges, more pointedly political and willing to play the role of the angry prophet. Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic - at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as "uniformed assassins" - that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld. "From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out," Twain instructed them in 1906. "There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see." Twain's decree will be put to the test when the University of California Press publishes the first of three volumes of the 500,000-word "Autobiography of Mark Twain" in November. Twain dictated most of it to a stenographer in the four years before his death at 74 on April 21, 1910. He argued that speaking his recollections and opinions, rather than writing them down, allowed him to adopt a more natural, colloquial and frank tone, and Twain scholars who have seen the manuscript agree. In popular culture today, Twain is "Colonel Sanders without the chicken, the avuncular man who told stories," Ron Powers, the author of "Mark Twain: A Life," said in a phone interview. "He's been scrubbed and sanitized, and his passion has been kind of forgotten in all these long decades. But here he is talking to us, without any filtering at all, and what comes through that we have lost is precisely this fierce, unceasing passion." Next week the British literary magazine Granta will publish an excerpt from the autobiography, called "The Farm." In it Twain recalls childhood visits to his uncle's Missouri farm, reflects on slavery and the slave who served as the model for Jim in "Huckleberry Finn," and offers an almost Proustian meditation on memory and remembrance, with watermelon and maple sap in place of Proust's madeleine. "I can see the farm yet, with perfect clearness," he writes. "I can see all its belongings, all its details." Of slavery, he notes that "color and condition interposed a subtle line" between him and his black playmates, but confesses: "In my schoolboy days, I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware there was anything wrong about it." Versions of the autobiography have been published before, in 1924, 1940 and 1959. But the original editor, Albert Bigelow Paine, was a stickler for propriety, cutting entire sections he thought offensive; his successors imposed a chronological cradle-to-grave narrative that Twain had specifically rejected, altered his distinctive punctuation, struck additional material they considered uninteresting and generally bowed to the desire of Twain's daughter Clara, who died in 1962, to protect her father's image. "Paine was a Victorian editor," said Robert Hirst, curator and general editor of the Mark Twain Papers and Project at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, where Twain's papers are housed. "He has an exaggerated sense of how dangerous some of Twain's statements are going to be, which can extend to anything: politics, sexuality, the Bible, anything that's just a little too radical. This goes on for a good long time, a protective attitude that is very harmful." Twain's opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers. In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates "the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War" and Gen. Leonard Wood's "mephitic record" as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as "our uniformed assassins" and describes their killing of "six hundred helpless and weaponless savages" as "a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory." He is similarly unsparing about the plutocrats and Wall Street luminaries of his day, who he argued had destroyed the innate generosity of Americans and replaced it with greed and selfishness. "The world believes that the elder Rockefeller is worth a billion dollars," Twain observes. "He pays taxes on two million and a half." Justin Kaplan, author of "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography," said in a telephone interview: "One thing that gets Mark Twain going is his rage and resentment. There are a number of passages where he wants to get even, to settle scores with people whom he really despises. He loved invective." The material in Volume 1 that was omitted from previous editions amounts to "maybe as little as 5 percent of the dictations," said Harriet E. Smith, chief editor of the autobiography. "But there will be a much higher percentage in Volumes 2 and 3," each expected to be about 600 pages. By the time all three volumes are available, Mr. Hirst said, "about half will not have ever been in print before." A digital online edition is also planned, Ms. Smith said, ideally to coincide with publication of Volume 1 of "the complete and authoritative edition," as the work is being called. Some of Twain's most critical remarks about individuals are directed at names that have faded from history. He complains about his lawyer, his publisher, the inventor of a failed typesetting machine who he feels fleeced him, and is especially hard on a countess who owns the villa in which he lived with his family in Florence, Italy, in 1904. He describes her as "excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, obscene, a furious blusterer on the outside and at heart a coward." About literary figures of his time, however, Twain has relatively little to say. He dislikes Bret Harte, whom he dismisses as "always bright but never brilliant"; offers a sad portrait of an aged and infirm Harriet Beecher Stowe; and lavishly praises his friend William Dean Howells. He reserved criticism of novelists whose work he disliked (Henry James, George Eliot) for his letters. Critics, though, are another story. "I believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real value," Twain writes. "However, let it go," he adds. "It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden." As aggrieved as he sometimes appears in the autobiography, the reliable funnyman is in evidence too. Twain recalls being invited to an official White House dinner and being warned by his wife, Olivia, who stayed at home, not to wear his winter galoshes. At the White House, he sought out the first lady, Frances Cleveland, and got her to sign a card on which was written "He didn't." Mr. Hirst said: "I've read this manuscript a million times, and it still makes me laugh. This is a guy who made literature out of talk, and the autobiography is the culmination, the pinnacle of that impulse." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/books/10twain.html?hp=&pagewanted=all Excerpts From the 'Autobiography of Mark Twain' Published: July 9, 2010 One hundred years after his death, the University of California Press is publishing the "Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition" in a series of three volumes, edited by Harriet Elinor Smith and the editors of the Mark Twain Project. It will be the first time the entire text has appeared in print. Here are some of Twain's spicier comments, all drawn from Volume 1. ON THEODORE ROOSEVELT "Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most impulsive men in existence ... He flies from one thing to another with incredible dispatch - throws a somersault and is straightaway back again where he was last week. He will then throw some more somersaults and nobody can foretell where he is finally going to land after the series. Each act of his, and each opinion expressed, is likely to abolish or controvert some previous act or expressed opinion. That is what is happening to him all the time as president." ON THE MEANING OF THANKSGIVING "Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side, consequently it was proper to thank the Lord for it." ON THE AMERICAN BUSINESS CLASS "The multimillionaire disciples of Jay Gould - that man who in his brief life rotted the commercial morals of this nation and left them stinking when he died - have quite completely transformed our people from a nation with pretty high and respectable ideals to just the opposite of that; that our people have no ideals now that are worthy of consideration; that our Christianity which we have always been so proud of - not to say vain of - is now nothing but a shell, a sham, a hypocrisy; that we have lost our ancient sympathy with oppressed peoples struggling for life and liberty; that when we are not coldly indifferent to such things we sneer at them, and that the sneer is about the only expression the newspapers and the nation deal in with regard to such things." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/books/10btwain.html?_r=1&ref=books -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 10 20:08:46 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:08:46 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] RISE OF EUROPEAN FAR RIGHT FUELS 'NEW RACISM' OF RELIGIOUS VICTIMISATION Message-ID: (in case you missed it....) RISE OF EUROPEAN FAR RIGHT FUELS 'NEW RACISM' OF RELIGIOUS VICTIMISATION 5/7/2010- A rise in right-wing radicalism is fuelling the spread of xenophobia and extremist attitudes towards religious minorities in Europe, says the Minority Rights Group International ( http://www.minorityrights.org/ ). MRG's flagship annual State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples report ( ), themed for 2010 on religious minorities, was launched in Budapest, Hungary. It suggests that victimisation against religious groups is in many respects the 'new racism'. The report says that ultra right-wing parties, aiming to establish themselves in mainstream political arenas in Europe, justify their anti-immigration, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric by stoking fears that religious minorities and immigrants are a threat to modern societies. 'Successes in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and at the national parliamentary level, have allowed these populist right-wing parties to shift formerly far-right ideas, on immigration for example, into the mainstream,' says Carl Soderbergh, MRG's Director of Policy and Communications. The report details a sharp rise in Islamophobia in Europe in 2009. In May 2009, ultra right-wing groups held an 'anti-Islam' rally to oppose the building of a large new mosque in Cologne, Germany. When the authorities in Denmark's capital city Copenhagen approved the country's first purpose-built mosque, the extreme-right Danish People's Party launched an anti-mosque campaign in September. Following a campaign by the ultra-conservative Swiss People's Party, a sizeable majority of Switzerland's cantons backed a referendum in November 2009, which proposed a ban on the building of new minarets in mosques. "MRG is deeply concerned about the infringement of religious freedom that the Swiss ban on minarets, and other European Islamophobic initiatives, supposes for the Muslim community. We urge European authorities to abide by their obligations under international law and protect their populations' freedom to practice their religion and be free from discrimination," added Soderbergh. The report also notes an increase in the number of incidents against the Jewish community in Europe. Research shows that during 2007 and most of 2008, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the EU declined, but that it has been on the rise again since December of 2008. The growth in support for European far-right wing parties has also affected other minorities, says IMRG. In Austria and the Czech Republic, racism watchdogs and political analysts have pointed to an increase in crime related to extremism, which they believe is connected to the growing number of supporters of far-right movements. In Hungary, anti-Roma sentiment and violence escalated, taking nine lives and leaving dozens injured in the period between January 2008 and April 2010. The report says that the recent financial crisis has also contributed to the rise in support for far-right organisations which feed resentment towards minorities, blaming them for economic and social problems. According to a European Commission survey in November 2009, 42 per cent of Europeans stated that the economic crisis will contribute to increased levels of discrimination in the labour market on the grounds of religion or belief. "The current economic crisis has had the greatest impact on the poorest and most marginalised communities in Europe. States must ensure better protection of vulnerable groups, such as minorities, in order that the response to this crisis leads to greater rather than less equality," comments Carl Soderbergh. In 2009 the radical right made gains in the European Parliament and won seats in Austria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Romania and the UK. ? Ekklesia http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/ From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 11 00:38:42 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:38:42 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona Message-ID: <89830C49505C48CAAC47032D2739358D@Upstairs> Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona By Dana Milbank Sunday, July 11, 2010 Jan Brewer has lost her head. The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded," she announced on local television. Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they're also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike. But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There's not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer's claim. The Arizona Guardian Web site checked with medical examiners in Arizona's border counties, and the coroners said they had never seen an immigration-related beheading. I called and e-mailed Brewer's press office requesting documentation of decapitation; no reply. Brewer's mindlessness about headlessness is just one of the immigration falsehoods being spread by Arizona politicians. Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong. This matters, because it means the entire premise of the Arizona immigration law is a fallacy. Arizona officials say they've had to step in because federal officials aren't doing enough to stem increasing border violence. The scary claims of violence, in turn, explain why the American public supports the Arizona crackdown. Last year gave us death panels and granny killings, but compared with the nonsense justifying the immigration crackdown, the health-care debate was an evening at the Oxford Union Society. Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been "essentially flat for the past decade." For example, "In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes." The Pima County sheriff reported that "the border has never been more secure." FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago -- yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is "the worst I have ever seen." President Obama justifiably asserted last week that "the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years," yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be "fit for the psycho ward" on the basis of that remark. Without question, illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels are huge problems. And there is a real danger that the alarming and growing violence in Mexico could spread north. But beyond anecdotes -- the slaying of a rancher and the shooting of a sheriff's deputy -- there is no evidence that it has. Yet there is McCain -- second only to Brewer in wrecking Arizona tourism -- telling NBC, ABC and CNN that Phoenix is the "No. 2 kidnapping capital of the world," behind only Mexico City. "False," judged Politifact, tracing McCain's claim to a dubious report by ABC News in February 2009. Law-enforcement agencies generally don't track foreign kidnapping statistics, but experts said rates are far higher in various Central American, African and Asian countries. Reports of kidnapping in Phoenix, meanwhile, are declining. Next, there's Brewer's claim that "the majority" of people immigrating illegally "are coming here and they're bringing drugs, and they're doing drop houses and they're extorting people and they're terrorizing the families. That is the truth." No, it isn't. The Border Patrol's Tucson Sector has apprehended more than 170,000 undocumented immigrants since Oct. 1, but only about 1,100 drug prosecutions have been filed in Arizona in that time. The claim that illegal immigrants are behind most killings of law-enforcement personnel is also bunk. Arizona state Sen. Sylvia Allen claimed that "in the last few years 80 percent of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal." A Phoenix police spokesman told the Arizona Republic's E.J. Montini that the real figure for such killings is less than 25 percent, and that there are no statistics on the wounding of officers. So what is this "terrible border security crisis" that Brewer says has only "gotten worse"? She complained recently to Fox News's Greta Van Susteren about the Obama administration's handling of the border: "They haven't did [sic] their job." But really the person who hasn't did her job is Brewer. She should screw her head back on and start telling Americans the truth. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902342.html?nav=hcmodule -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 11 00:45:34 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:45:34 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/americas/11haiti.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all Message-ID: In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge By DEBORAH SONTAG Published: July 10, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hundreds of displaced families live perilously in a single file of flimsy shanties planted along the median strip of a heavily congested coastal road here called the Route des Rails. Vehicles rumble by day and night, blaring horns, kicking up dust and belching exhaust. Residents try to protect themselves by positioning tires as bumpers in front of their shacks but cars still hit, injure and sometimes kill them. Rarely does anybody stop to offer help, and Judith Guillaume, 23, often wonders why. "Don't they have a heart, or a suggestion?" asked Ms. Guillaume, who covers her children's noses with her floral skirt when the diesel fumes get especially strong. Six months after the earthquake that brought aid and attention here from around the world, the median-strip camp blends into the often numbing wretchedness of the post-disaster landscape. Only 28,000 of the 1.5 million Haitians displaced by the earthquake have moved into new homes, and the Port-au-Prince area remains a tableau of life in the ruins. The tableau does contain a spectrum of circumstances: precarious, neglected encampments; planned tent cities with latrines, showers and clinics; debris-strewn neighborhoods where residents have returned to both intact and condemnable houses; and, here and there, gleaming new shelters or bulldozed territory for a city of the future. But the government of Haiti has been slow to make the difficult decisions needed to move from a state of emergency into a period of recovery. Weak before the disaster and further weakened by it, the government has been overwhelmed by the logistical complexities of issues like debris removal and the identification of safe relocation sites. In some cases, the government has also been politically skittish about, say, creating new slums or encouraging people to return to undamaged homes when the ground beneath them could move again. In others, it has taken charge but gotten bogged down. Since early May, President Ren? Pr?val has personally focused, in granular detail, on returning about 11,600 Haitians camped in front of the National Palace to the Fort National neighborhood. But while Fort National is now a beehive of cleanup activity, no transitional shelters have been erected there yet. In contrast, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, working directly with a hands-on mayor in the Carrefour municipality in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, has already moved more than 500 families from its large tent city into simple pine houses whose concrete foundations incorporate recycled debris. "Even though I lost my mom in the earthquake, I feel so content, so comfortable and so lucky to have this place," Ketly Louis, 33, said, welcoming visitors into her new home on the site of the old home that collapsed on her mother. International organizations here, while empathetic because of the difficulty of issues like land ownership, criticize the government for creating obstacles of its own. Significant delays in clearing supplies through customs, for instance, slow recovery efforts even as they earn the government substantial fees for storage. And with hurricane season under way and many tents and tarpaulins needing replacement or reinforcement, some humanitarian groups complain about what they see as the government's failure to articulate a clear resettlement strategy. "Everywhere I go, people ask me, 'When will we get out of this camp?' " said Julie Schindall, a spokeswoman in Haiti for the international aid group Oxfam. "And I have no answer. There needs to be communication on how all this camp business is going to be resolved." Haitian and United Nations officials urge patience in the aftermath of what they call the largest urban disaster in modern history. They point to accomplishments in providing emergency food, water and shelter and averting starvation, exodus and violence. "What hasn't happened is worth noting," said Nigel Fisher, deputy special representative of the United Nations secretary general in Haiti. "We haven't had a major outbreak of disease. We haven't had a major breakdown in security." Also, they note, the Haitian government, while juggling the sometimes conflicting pressures from international donors, is handicapped by the destruction or damage of most of its ministries and the large numbers of civil servants killed. "I defy any country on earth to be fully functional at this stage after such a disaster," said Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami of 2004, which left the national government intact, it took more than two years to get the displaced population out of tents, Ms. Wall said. Mr. Fisher said: "In terms of speed, it's never fast enough. But this matches what has happened around the world in comparable situations." Perilous Settlements That is little comfort to the residents of the median strip on the Route des Rails. Since the earthquake, displaced people apparently with no alternatives have planted tenuous roots in the most unsettling places - atop a municipal dump, inside a graveyard, on the bank of a soccer field flooded with contaminated water. But the median-strip encampment demonstrates acutely both how miserable many settlements are and how they have become hidden in plain sight. Every day, thousands of drivers pass by the threadbare shanties on this coastal thoroughfare. Only a quarter of the more than 1,200 post-earthquake camps are managed externally by aid organizations; the rest fend for themselves. In the Route des Rails encampment, that means relying on Luma Ludger, the camp leader, who keeps meticulous records in a handwritten ledger - and prays. "God takes care of us," Mr. Ludger said. He pointed across the highway. "And we also have those latrines." In March, Islamic Aid, a French organization, set up the latrines, which require users to dash through traffic, especially trying for the many camp residents who have diarrhea. The Red Cross also came by and handed out hygiene kits. "They told us it was very dangerous to be here, and asked what they could do for us," Mr. Ludger said. "I told them we need land. They said, 'Wow, we cannot help with that' and gave us toothpaste." Gerta Mojene, a mother of four, asked a reporter how to find a safer place to live. Asked where she might want to go, Ms. Mojene lowered her reddened eyes and said, "Wherever you send me." Mr. Ludger said that the mayor had spoken of evicting the median-strip squatters for their safety but had not proposed a substitute location. "Life here is a game of chance, you know," he said. A couple dozen residents have been seriously injured by vehicles; they wear casts and slings. At least three have been killed, among them, relatives said, the father of a baby born on the median strip on the evening after the earthquake. The baby's name is Katastrof Natir?l - Natural Disaster. A Presidential Priority By early spring, when many tent cities appeared to be getting entrenched, President Pr?val decided to make the large one on the Champ de Mars his personal priority. He wanted to demonstrate the logic of the government's plan to return displaced people to their original neighborhoods, in this case Fort National. He wanted to show progress and be associated with results. But Mr. Pr?val created instead a showcase for the difficulties involved in finding a quick alternative to the camps. Fort National, a densely layered hilltop area badly hit by the quake, proved an especially difficult place to clean up and repopulate first. The president's motivation for focusing on the Champ de Mars camp was at least partly political. The raggedy tent city, with its piles of garbage, puddles of standing water, swarms of mosquitoes, packs of thieves and an increasingly restive population, sits in the front yard of the smashed National Palace. At the camp itself, where residents strip and bathe in the open, squatting over small plastic tubs, many remain unaware that they have become the president's pet project. "Nobody tells us anything," said Micheline F?lix, 30. "It seems like they're just waiting for us to wash away with the first big rain." But since May, right next door, Mr. Pr?val has presided over regular, often lengthy meetings of the Champ de Mars-Fort National working group; they begin at 7 a.m. and finish "when the president rises," said Shaun Scales of the International Organization for Migration. According to Leslie Voltaire, Haiti's special envoy to the United Nations, the operating theory was that those with intact homes would be provided some kind of incentive to move back; those with reparable homes would get materials and assistance to fix them; and those with destroyed homes would be given transitional shelters in Fort National or moved to a planned settlement outside Port-au-Prince. It soon became apparent, however, that Fort National was in very bad shape. In an engineering survey, some 55 percent of its structures received a red tag, meaning they were unsafe and destined for demolition. That is much higher than the average of 24 percent red tags elsewhere. At the same time, only 18 percent of the homes in Fort National were tagged green, or immediately reinhabitable - compared with 47 percent in other areas surveyed. Further, rubble removal, a $500 million problem facing the recovery effort, has proved especially difficult in Fort National. International experts say it would take three to five years to remove all the debris from Haiti if 1,000 or more trucks worked daily; fewer than 300 trucks are hauling rubble now. But those trucks cannot penetrate much of Fort National, which has only one main road and lots of steep alleys. In some places, even wheelbarrows cannot be used. Rubble has to be carried out pail by pail, which at least provides jobs. Tortue Larose, 27, who earns $5 a day cleaning up Fort National, stood at the partly cleared summit of the neighborhood recently, pointing at a speck of green plastic in the dirt: "See that green?" he said. "That's where my house was. That's where I was born. That's where I intend to die." Where to dump the rubble that fills Mr. Larose's buckets presents another problem. There is no debris plan for Fort National just as there is no master plan for rubble removal, said Eric Overvest, the United Nations Development Program's country director. Normally, he said, a rubble plan is developed within a month of a major disaster. Port-au-Prince, the capital, did not have a pre-earthquake land use plan, complicating matters. Still, in almost six months the government has identified only one rubble site, the municipal dump called Truitier. More sites are needed - as are decisions on whether rubble will be recycled and how. Additionally, debris contains personal effects, and sometimes bodies; it also has a potential monetary value if it is to be reused. "It's not just the rubble, it's the question of rubble ownership," Mr. Scales said. Most in Fort National are renters but the rubble technically belongs to the property owners. And sorting out who owns what land, and getting their permission to excavate has proved difficult, Mr. Scales said. "It isn't a case of going straight onto land with an excavator," he said. For those few whose homes in Fort National are intact, the government has to determine what kind of relocation package to offer. Will they subsidize tenants or landlords? Will they help pay back rent or negotiate some forgiveness? What help will be given those whose homes are reparable and how can repairs be aligned with a building code that has yet to be released? If a one-room transitional shelter is erected where a multifamily dwelling stood, who gets it? Each issue has generated protracted debate. One international disaster expert, who requested anonymity because he did not want to offend Haitian officials, offered what he called "a microexample" of why bigger questions take a long time to resolve. It involved a flier instructing people on how to secure their tents during the hurricane season. The government emergency management agency first asked that the phrase "hurricane-proof" be deleted, he said, worried about guaranteeing protection, and then that any reference to strong winds be removed. Finally, only rain could be mentioned and even then the flier did not get approved before hurricane season began. "It's as if they imagined themselves to be in a brick and mortar world of real liability," the disaster expert said. "I think it's more than lack of capacity by the government. They're looking at the political landscape, weighing each word like David Axelrod with a focus group." Still, many hope that the Champ de Mars process at least lays the groundwork for a speedier resolution of similar problems elsewhere. And some residents of Fort National, tired of waiting for the government to act, have already moved back, even into dwellings that have been condemned or would be unsafe in a storm. Negriel Dumas built a roughhewn shack for his family on the barren hilltop. "It's better to be here with the smell of the dead bodies than to be down at that camp where it stinks of pee," he said. Aggressive Advocates In late April, Rachelle Derosmy's family of four moved into one of the first transitional shelters to be completed in the Port-au-Prince area. It is a simple pine house, painted grey, with two windows, a concrete foundation and an inclined metal roof fastened with hurricane straps. "Rain used to fall like a monsoon into our tent," Ms. Derosmy, 24, said, standing in her 150-square-foot home, which is still bare. "We feel so much better now, more secure. We hope in the future to have beds, too." Ms. Derosmy's new home is in Carrefour, where most of the 1,300 transitional shelters in metropolitan Port-au-Prince have been built. That is partly because Carrefour's mayor has taken an active role in resolving land issues and partly because the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, long based there, has aggressively negotiated with local officials and landlords. It also settled more quickly than some other aid groups on a shelter design. Transitional shelters are simple wood or steel-frame structures that offer more space, privacy and protection than tents or tarps. They are meant to last three to five years, tiding over a displaced population while permanent homes are repaired or built. But some disaster experts are ambivalent about them, as is the Haitian president, according to a senior government official. President Pr?val worries that transitional shelters might never be replaced, the official said, adding, "He thinks he will be attacked for creating new bidonvilles," or slums. International experts estimate that Haiti will need 125,000 transitional shelters; so far, just over 5,500 shelters have been completed, mostly in the countryside where land issues are simpler. In Carrefour, the Adventist agency has set up a well-oiled production workshop, where imported wood is cut and assembled into kits then constructed and painted on site by local workers. Anton De Vries, a South African engineer who runs the shelter operation, which is co-sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development, said he was determined to provide a home for every family in the Adventist-run tent city. Tall and cheery, Mr. De Vries recently bumped into a local landlord, Henry Frantz St. Surin, on a construction site and displayed some of the hale-and-hearty diplomatic skill that has served him well here. "Thank you for your contribution," he said in a booming voice. "You are one of the few people who allow others to use their land. I'm sure God will bless you." Mr. De Vries also crossed paths with one of his new shelter recipients. "Yoo-hoo!" Ms. Louis cried out to him. She ushered him inside, showing off her d?cor, a m?lange of cloth flowers and stuffed animals, and explained why she preferred her new house to her old one: "If another earthquake happens, this one is not going to kill me." Mr. De Vries said his biggest frustration had been bartering with customs authorities. "We work in very close partnership with the Haitian government," he said with a tight smile. He said that he did not understand why the government did not fast-track emergency supplies and housing materials through its port. He has managed to free 21 shipping containers, enough to complete just over 500 shelters. But another 21 containers have been "held hostage" by the customs agency for more than three weeks now - at a storage fee of almost $16,000 so far. The port problem has pushed Mr. De Vries to buy local wood. Concerned about deforestation, he did not want to. But he is determined to keep building. Talk Versus Action For two months after the quake, Haiti's architects and planners worked in P?tionville to prepare the post-disaster needs assessment and action plan required to obtain international financial support for the reconstruction of Haiti. Their dreams were grand. They envisioned Haiti 2030 as a self-reliant, democratically stable, decentralized and reforested land with decent housing and education for all, a national highway network, a hearty fruit and tuber industry, animal husbandry, industrial zones and tourism. "The government is doing good things in thinking to the future," said Mario C. Flores, director of disaster response field operations for Habitat for Humanity. "I only wish that all those aspirational plans would become operational." At a conference in New York on March 31, donors promised Haiti $5.3 billion over the next 18 months. Two weeks later, although questions about giving up control to foreigners arose, the Parliament approved the creation of an interim reconstruction commission to be led by former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, and Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti's prime minister. It took another couple of months to pick its 26 Haitian and international members, and the search for an executive director is still under way. The reconstruction commission met for the first and only time so far in mid-June. After that meeting, a Haitian journalist asked why there had been so much talk and so little progress. Mr. Bellerive mentioned road-building and other projects in the countryside and said, "There is a lot being done actually but some of it may not be visible if you confine yourself to the Port-au-Prince area," where the bulk of the destruction occurred. Earlier in the spring, Mr. Bellerive and Mr. Voltaire, who is an architect and urban planner, had visited Mr. Clinton at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y. At one point, Mr. Clinton kept getting distracted by incoming e-mail messages. According to Mr. Voltaire, Mr. Clinton said, "If I receive one more suggestion for the ideal house for Haiti, I will explode." And Mr. Bellerive said, "You, too?" After that, the government hired a London firm to solicit and sift through proposals for "the best, safest and most sustainable housing designs of the future. "In October, several dozen model homes will be built and displayed at a housing expo in Oranger, Haiti. People will be selected to live in the prototypes and to evaluate them, Mr. Voltaire said. Eventually, permanent housing will be built, he said, at one of a few sites that the government is seizing through eminent domain and hoping to turn into new population centers. One of those sites is Corail-Cesselesse, about 10 miles north of Port-au-Prince, where the first planned tent city was installed in April on a chalky gravel plane. Hastily created for displaced people who seemed most at risk from flooding or landslides in another camp, it is now home to about 5,000 who live in an orderly grid of white tents far from their bustling urban neighborhood. Some aid groups criticize the location. "That site does not represent clear strategic thinking on the part of the government," said Ms. Schindall of Oxfam. "It's like the Sudan. There's not a tree in sight. And people feel marooned. They are having major issues finding income-generating activities and soon they are going to have trouble feeding themselves. It's inevitable." But several residents interviewed seemed willing to tolerate the camp's remoteness because living there puts them in line for the transitional shelters that are supposed to be erected there, and then for the permanent houses that may follow. Jean M?rite Pierre, a mason, asked visitors to accompany him to the barren land. "Look at all this space," he said, sweeping his arms over an empty lot. "All those people who died lived in houses that collapsed like dominoes. So even if we are uprooted, life could be better here. We were renters, almost all of us. Here, maybe we can own a house someday. That's what they say. You have to believe them." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/americas/11haiti.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 11 00:48:04 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:48:04 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] New Analysis Triples U.S. Plutonium Waste Figures Message-ID: <63255921A6044943918671531CC82EC3@Upstairs> New Analysis Triples U.S. Plutonium Waste Figures By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: July 10, 2010 WASHINGTON - The amount of plutonium buried at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is nearly three times what the federal government previously reported, a new analysis indicates, suggesting that a cleanup to protect future generations will be far more challenging than planners had assumed. Plutonium waste is much more prevalent around nuclear weapons sites nationwide than the Energy Department's official accounting indicates, said Robert Alvarez, a former department official who in recent months reanalyzed studies conducted by the department in the last 15 years for Hanford; the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory; the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C.; and elsewhere. But the problem is most severe at Hanford, a 560-square-mile tract in south-central Washington that was taken over by the federal government as part of the Manhattan Project. By the time production stopped in the 1980s, Hanford had made most of the nation's plutonium. The plutonium does not pose a major radiation hazard now, largely because it is under "institutional controls" like guards, weapons and gates. But government scientists say that even in minute particles, plutonium can cause cancer, and because it takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity, it is certain to last longer than the controls. The fear is that in a few hundred years, the plutonium could reach an underground area called the saturated zone, where water flows, and from there enter the Columbia River. Because the area is now arid, contaminants move extremely slowly, but over the millennia the climate is expected to change, experts say. The finding on the extent of plutonium waste signals that the cleanup, still in its early stages, will be more complex, perhaps requiring technologies that do not yet exist. But more than 20 years after the Energy Department vowed to embark on a cleanup, it still has not "characterized," or determined the exact nature of, the contaminated soil. The department has been weighing whether to try to clean up 90 percent, 99 percent or 99.9 percent of the waste, but because the extent of contamination is unclear, so is the relative cost of the options. For now, the preferred option is 99 percent. Government officials recognize that they still have a weak grasp of how much plutonium is contaminating the environment. "The numbers are changing," said Ron Skinnerland, a radiation expert at the Washington State Department of Ecology, which is trying to enforce an agreement it reached with the Energy Department in 1989 for the federal government to clean up Hanford. So far, the cleanup, which began in the 1990s, has involved moving some contaminated material near the banks of the Columbia to drier locations. (In fact, the Energy Department's cleanup office is called the Office of River Protection.) The office has begun building a factory that would take the most highly radioactive liquids and sludges from decaying storage tanks and solidify them in glass. That would not make them any less radioactive, but it would increase the likelihood that they stay put for the next few thousand years. In 1996, the department released an official inventory of plutonium production and disposal. But Mr. Alvarez analyzed later Energy Department reports and concluded that there was substantially more plutonium in waste tanks and in the environment. The biggest issue is the amount of plutonium that has leaked from the tanks, was intentionally dumped in the dirt or was pumped into the ground. Mr. Skinnerland said much of the waste was 90 or 100 feet underground, too deep to dig out. Some contaminants can be pumped out, but that does not work well for materials that contain low concentrations of plutonium. The Energy Department has researched the possibility of shooting electric currents through the soil to create glasslike materials that would lock up contaminants, but it has not analyzed whether the technique would work at those depths. In?s R. Triay, the assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, did not dispute Mr. Alvarez's new analysis of department figures. She said that decisions on the long-term cleanup would rely not on the 1996 inventory but on a systematic sampling of the waste, which she said had yet to begin. Mr. Alvarez's report has been accepted for publication later this year by Science and Global Security, a peer-reviewed journal published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Another problem raised by the inaccuracies in the 1996 figures is that they could complicate the negotiation of new agreements with Russia or other countries about destroying bomb fuel, said Frank N. von Hippel, a professor of public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and a co-chairman of the journal's board of editors. Gerry Pollet, executive director of the environmental group Hearth of America Northwest, said the government should embrace a cleanup plan that assures that even thousands of years into the future, an unsuspecting public will not be overexposed. "What is reasonably foreseeable is that there are people who will be drinking the water in the ground at Hanford at some point in the next few hundred years," Mr. Pollet said. "We're going to be killing people, pure and simple." Plutonium was first manufactured in World War II for use in bombs. (The one that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945 originated with plutonium made at Hanford.) For decades, the government produced it in military reactors by bombarding a natural element, uranium, with subatomic particles called neutrons, converting uranium to plutonium, and then using chemical processes to harvest the plutonium. The new analysis indicates that the chemical separation process was not nearly as efficient as the government claimed and that a lot of the plutonium was left behind in various stages. It also suggests that estimates of plutonium production by the Energy Department and its predecessors, including the Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project, were not nearly as accurate as scientists and bureaucrats said they were. Releasing declassified figures in 1996, the Department of Energy said that 111,400 kilograms (about 123 tons) of plutonium had been produced at Hanford or taken there from civilian reactors or foreign sources. Of that, 12,000 kilograms were "removed," the department said. Some of that plutonium was consumed in weapons tests or in bomb attacks like the one on Nagasaki, but 3,919 kilograms of plutonium were stored as waste at Hanford, it reported. However, Mr. Alvarez's analysis, based entirely on Energy Department documents, shows that the amount discarded as waste was actually 11,655 kilograms, nearly three times as much, and that the total inventory of plutonium produced and acquired was closer to 120,000 kilograms, not 111,400. Mr. Alvarez's estimate indicates that enough plutonium is buried at Hanford to create 1,800 Nagasaki-size bombs, he said, but he played down any possibility of a weapons threat. "I don't think anybody stole anything," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/science/earth/11plutonium.html?hp=&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 11 00:51:00 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:51:00 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Mental Health A Growing Concern After Gulf Spill Message-ID: Mental Health A Growing Concern After Gulf Spill By REUTERS Published: July 11, 2010 Filed at 1:16 a.m. ET VENICE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Gulf Coast native Kindra Arnesen is so anxious about the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill she is packing up her family and leaving town. "Stress? Dude my clothes are falling off me (because of weight loss). The level of stress here is tremendous. My husband has aged 10 years in two months," Arnesen said on Friday as she loaded possessions into a van outside her trailer home in Venice. Fears are growing of an increase in stress-related illness and mental health problems from the BP Plc spill. Anecdotal evidence abounds but mental health officials say they lack data about the scale and scope of suffering. Arnesen recently set up the Wives of Commercial Fishermen network to respond to pressures in the community. Two days ago, a friend told her he was so upset about his failure to get hired by BP's cleanup program he was considering suicide. Arnesen has her own worries. Her husband cannot work as a shrimper because authorities have closed swathes of Gulf waters to fishing and her children and other relatives have fallen sick from what she believes are airborne toxins from the leak. "The mental health impact here ... (and) the level of uncertainty is taking a toll on people and that's a huge, huge concern," Arnesen said. She declined to say where she and her two children would settle but said her husband would stay behind to work for BP on the cleanup. Thousands of Gulf Coast fishermen face financial ruin because of the spill. Some say the stress is worse than after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. Then it was possible to get back to work despite the destruction. Now it is impossible to say when waters will reopen especially since oil continues to gush into the Gulf. At the same time, many fishermen now rely on BP's cleanup program as a financial lifeline and while that has provided a windfall for a few, others have yet to find employment. FINANCIAL STRAIN "We hear it over and over again," said environmental scientist Wilma Subra of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, a nonprofit group with deep community roots. "It is the stress because of the possibility of not being able to earn a living and pay their bills." Some experts caution it is possible to falsely perceive an uptick in a health phenomenon just by looking for it. But crisis counseling teams working with Gulf fishermen say anecdotal reports point to increased anger and anxiety and "a lot of marital discord," said Acquanetta Knight, director of policy and planning at the Alabama Department of Mental Health. Data on the problems should be available in the next two weeks, she told reporters on Friday. Residents suffering mental distress may hesitate to seek help because of a fiercely individualistic culture and strong ethic of self-reliance on the Gulf, where many earn their living working long hours alone on the water. "This is sometimes a population that's not so accustomed to utilizing traditional services," said Pamela Hyde, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Hyde said her agency, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is looking at national suicide and domestic violence hotlines and state mental health agency reports to find data. Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi state mental health agencies have requested millions of dollars from BP to help pay for expanded mental health monitoring and services. In a June 28 letter to the energy company, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals asked for $10 million and warned that health effects from the spill will be an "ongoing challenge." The department first requested funds for mental health care on May 28. BP has not yet responded to the request. (Additional reporting by Emma Ashburn in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott) http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/07/11/news/news-us-oil-spill-mentalhealth.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 11 17:58:37 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:58:37 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Hayek: The Back Story Message-ID: <> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/books/review/Schuessler-t.html The New York Times Sunday Book Review Essay Hayek: The Back Story By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER Published: July 1, 2010 Last month, a funny thing happened on the way to the best-seller list. A 66-year-old treatise by a long-dead Austrian-born economist began flying off the shelves, following an hourlong endorsement from a right-wing television host better known for pumping political thrillers than for rocking political theory. The economist was Friedrich von Hayek, the book was "The Road to Serfdom" and the host was Glenn Beck, who compared Hayek's book to "a Mike Tyson (in his prime) right hook to socialism in Western Europe and in the United States." As it happens, "The Road to Serfdom" - a classic attack on government planning as an inevitable step toward totalitarianism, published in 1944 and kept in print since then by the University of Chicago Press - had already begun a comeback of sorts. It sold 27,000 copies in 2009, up from about 7,000 a year before the inauguration of Barack Obama. But Beck's endorsement catapulted the book to No. 1 at Amazon.com, bringing a temporary end to at least one tyranny, that of Stieg Larsson. Since the program was broadcast on June 8, 100,000 copies have been sold. That's an impressive number for an academic-press book, if a bit anemic compared with the 1.2 million views for "Fear the Boom and Bust," a Hayek versus John Maynard Keynes rap video that went up on YouTube in January. (Kickoff line: "Party at the Fed!") But in fact "The Road to Serfdom" has a long history of timely assists from the popular media. When Hayek began formulating his ideas in the early 1930s, he was an ?migr? professor at the London School of Economics, watching events in both Europe and Britain with alarm. Like many others, Hayek was frightened by the rise of Nazism. He interpreted it, however, in an unorthodox way, not as the defeat of democratic socialism but as its logical culmination. Hayek started writing the book after World War II began, as a contribution to the war effort. Looking ahead, "Hayek was also worried about what would transpire if the Allies won," as Bruce Caldwell puts it in his introduction to "THE ROAD TO SERFDOM": Text and Documents - The Definitive Edition (University of Chicago, $17). In ominously titled chapters like "The Totalitarians in Our Midst" and "Why the Worst Get on Top," Hayek laid out his case against "socialists of all parties" who he believed were leading the Western democracies into tyranny that mirrored the centrally planned societies of Germany and the Soviet Union. This theme, being taken up today by Beck and other antigovernment sorts, had a plausible basis at the time. Caldwell quotes a 1942 Labour Party pamphlet that declared, "There must be no return to the unplanned competitive world of the interwar years. . . . A planned society must replace the old competitive system." When it appeared in 1944, "The Road to Serfdom" received a courteous if mixed reception in Britain (where paper shortages limited the print run). Keynes, Hayek's friend and lifelong intellectual opponent, called it "a grand book," adding, "Morally and philosophically, I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it." George Orwell, more equivocal, conceded that Hayek "is probably right" about the "totalitarian-minded" nature of intellectuals but concluded that he "does not see, or will not admit, that a return to 'free' competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse . . . than that of the state." It was in the United States, however, that Hayek met with his greatest success - and the most intense hostility. Rejected by several trade publishers, "The Road to Serfdom" was picked up by Chicago, which scheduled a modest print run. It got a boost when Henry Hazlitt, a prominent free-marketeer, assessing it on the cover of The New York Times Book Review in September 1944, proclaimed it "one of the most important books of our generation," a call to "all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look and listen." The political scientist Herman Finer, on the other hand, denounced it as "the most sinister offensive against democracy to emerge from a democratic country for many years." But the most important response came from the staunchly anti-Communist Reader's Digest, which ran a condensed version of the book in April 1945, with reprints available through the Book of the Month Club for 5 cents each. The condensation sold more than a million copies. Reading the book today, it's easy to see why Hayek's message caught on with a public divided over the New Deal, struggling with the transition from a regulated wartime economy and concerned about rising Soviet power. But unlike some of his champions in 2010, Hayek didn't oppose all forms of government intervention. "The preservation of competition," he wrote, is not "incompatible with an extensive system of social services - so long as the organization of these services is not designed in such a way as to make competition ineffective over wide fields." This qualification, however, was left out of a comic-book version of "The Road to Serfdom" printed in Look magazine in 1945 (and distributed as a pamphlet by General Motors), which showed well-intentioned regulation giving way to more sinister forms of control. "In an unsuccessful effort to educate people to uniform views," one caption read, "'planners' establish a giant propaganda machine - which coming dictator will find handy." While Hayek, who moved to the University of Chicago in 1950, built an ardent following of admirers (including Milton Friedman),? his fame gradually waned. By the time he won the Nobel Prize in 1974 he was largely forgotten by the public and marginalized within his profession. In graduate programs in the early 1980s, the economist William Easterly recalled recently on his blog, "Hayek was seen as so far right that you would be considered a nut to read him." (His sunny view of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet probably didn't help.) Today, Hayek continues to inspire noisy ideological debate. In his recent book "Ill Fares the Land," a passionate defense of the democratic socialist ideal, the historian Tony Judt writes that Hayek would have been (justly) doomed to obscurity if not for the financial difficulty experienced by the welfare state, which was exploited by conservatives like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The economist Paul Samuelson, in a reminiscence of Hayek published last December, was more dismissive still. "Where are their horror camps?" he asked, referring to right-wing bugaboos like Sweden, with its generous welfare spending. Almost 70 years after Hayek sounded his alarm, "hindsight confirms how inaccurate its innuendo about the future turned out to be." Hayek also cropped up in the recent controversy over the Texas Board of Education's new high school curriculum, which will now include him and Friedman alongside Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Keynes. In a post on The Times's Freakonomics blog, Justin Wolfers, a professor at the Wharton School, noted that a search of scholarly literature found Hayek, with a mere 1,745 references, lagging far behind Smith (25,626), Keynes (4,945), Friedman (8,924) and even Lawrence Summers (2,064). "The message from the Texas Board of Education seems to be: If you can't win in the marketplace of ideas, turn to government institutions to prop you up," Wolfers wrote, adding sardonically, "I don't think Hayek would approve." Another blogger, redoing Hayek's count, tallied 9,385 citations. But intellectual legacies don't stand or fall on such bean-counting. Besides, Hayek, whose later work on the self-organizing nature of information has been influential far beyond economics, himself said "The Road to Serfdom" was more a "political book" than an economic one. But how relevant is the book to Glenn Beck's America? In his 1960 essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative," Hayek observed, "Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments." Then again, his own strange road to best-sellerdom illustrates that a book's reputation can be determined not just by its contents but by the company it keeps. Jennifer Schuessler is an editor at the Book Review. A version of this article appeared in print on July 11, 2010, on page BR27 of the Sunday Book Review. From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 11 23:57:13 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:57:13 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Historic oil spill fails to produce gains for U.S. environmentalists Message-ID: <647A17439AF84139A5E8CFB2F6B29770@Upstairs> Historic oil spill fails to produce gains for U.S. environmentalists By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 12, 2010 For environmentalists, the BP oil spill may be disproving the maxim that great tragedies produce great change. Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some important piece of American environment is poisoned, exterminated or set on fire. An oil spill and a burning river in 1969 led to new anti-pollution laws in the 1970s. The Exxon Valdez disaster helped create an Earth Day revival in 1990 and sparked a landmark clean-air law. But this year, the worst oil spill in U.S. history -- and, before that, the worst coal-mining disaster in 40 years -- haven't put the same kind of drive into the debate over climate change and fossil-fuel energy. The Senate is still gridlocked. Opinion polls haven't budged much. Gasoline demand is going up, not down. Environmentalists say they're trying to turn public outrage over oil-smeared pelicans into action against more abstract things, such as oil dependence and climate change. But historians say they're facing a political moment deadened by a bad economy, suspicious politics and lingering doubts after a scandal over climate scientists' e-mails. The difference between now and the awakenings that followed past disasters is as stark as "on versus off," said Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale University who tracks public opinion on climate change. "People's outrage is focused on BP," Leiserowitz said. The spill "hasn't been automatically connected to some sense that there's something more fundamental wrong with our relationship with the natural world," he said. The story of 2010 is not that nothing happened after the BP spill, or after the coal-mine explosion that killed 29 in West Virginia on April 5. It's that much of the reaction has focused on preventing accidents -- on tighter scrutiny of rigs and mines -- rather than broader changes in the use of oil and coal. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) recently proposed a plan to cut oil use by shifting to electric vehicles, building better mass-transit systems and switching to biofuels. But the Senate's most important environmental debate, the one over climate legislation, remains stalled. Last year, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would create a "cap and trade" system for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. That bill probably won't fly in the Senate -- too much concern over rising energy costs -- and a compromise is still being worked out. "It's the short-term concerns overriding the longer-term benefits" of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, said Ralph Izzo, chief executive of the Public Service Enterprise Group, a large New Jersey-based utility that supports putting a price on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, for the environmental groups trying to break this logjam, it's hard to imagine a more useful disaster. The BP oil spill has made something that is usually intangible -- the cost of fossil-fuel dependence -- into something tangibly awful. Environmental activists have held "Hands Across the Sand" events at gulf beaches to protest offshore drilling, and in the District they spelled out "Freedom From Oil" on the Mall with American flags. They have organized calls to Congress and have held viewing parties to watch films about oil dependence. It's hard to tell how many people are listening. In public-opinion polls taken after the spill by Leiserowitz and other academics, 53 percent of people said they were worried about climate change. That was only slightly different from January, and still down from 63 percent in 2008. Leiserowitz said there may be distrust of climate science among a small group after the "Climate-gate" scandal last year, in which stolen e-mails seemed to show climate scientists talking about problems in their data. Those scientists have been repeatedly cleared of academic misconduct, including in a report released Wednesday. In addition, U.S. government estimates show that public demand for gasoline and electric power is looking stronger now than last year at this time. If these disasters have made individuals start conserving their energy use, "it's not something that we've been able to observe," said Tancred Lidderdale of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. All of this makes a sharp contrast to 1969, when a far smaller oil spill -- 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons) -- hit beaches near Santa Barbara, Calif. That spill triggered new restrictions on offshore drilling and, along with other disasters such as the fire on Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, it helped spark the first Earth Day in 1970. In the years afterward, the government imposed historic new restrictions to protect clean water, clean air and endangered species. This year's spill hit in the era of recycling, organic food and hybrid cars: In fact, two days after the explosion, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on Earth Day's 40th anniversary, April 22. But, experts say, the reaction to this spill revealed a shift toward quieter, less ambitious environmental politics. One reason is the economy: Concerns about unemployment have made the public and elected officials wary of the costs of change. People still remember $4-a-gallon gasoline a couple of summers ago, and don't want fossil fuel to become more expensive. "There's a caveat," Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said of the rule that great change follows great disasters. "Which is: Great tragedy, with the right timing, can bring great change. . . . When people are in a bunker mentality, sort of hunkered down over the economy, then that's not going to produce significant change." Another factor was likely the site of the spill. Louisiana residents, who are among the most affected by the oil, have vented anger at BP specifically -- but not as much against the wider oil industry, which plays a vital role in the state's economy. And the country's larger climate of mistrust may also play a role. Rich Gold, a lobbyist at Holland & Knight who represents manufacturing companies in the climate debate, said people were not willing to rally behind government as an environmental savior. "There's a feeling: 'The government really can't control all this stuff. They can't keep us safe,' " said Gold, who said he is trying to work out a compromise climate bill that is more amenable to the industry. "After Katrina and 9/11, we're in the post-'government can fix it all' world." At 11 weeks after the spill, some historians say it's too early to say it won't alter national environmental politics. Adam Rome, a historian of the U.S. environmental movement at Pennsylvania State University, said that it could take a year for the public to understand what the spill has done to the gulf -- and for politicians to understand what the spill has done to the public. "If we don't do anything then, then it's a sign that we've entered into some newer, more passive mode of responding to disasters," Rome said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR2010071103523.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 12 07:49:43 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:49:43 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Stanford Ushers In The Age Of Bookless Libraries Message-ID: (another longtime customer bites the dust.... bricks & mortar stores, it seems more and more evident, will become the new (physical) libraries....) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128361395 Stanford Ushers In The Age Of Bookless Libraries by Laura Sydell July 8, 2010 The periodical shelves at Stanford University's Engineering Library are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, most engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions pretty obsolete - and books aren't doing much better. According to Josephine, students can now browse those periodicals from their laptops or mobile devices. For years, students have had to search through volume after volume of books before finding the right formula - but no more. Josephine says that "with books being digitized and available through full text search capabilities, they can find that formula quite easily." In 2005, when the university realized it was running out space for its growing collection of 80,000 engineering books, administrators decided to build a new library. But instead of creating more space for books, they chose to create less. The new library is set to open in August with 10,000 engineering books on the shelves - a decrease of more than 85 percent from the old library. Stanford library director Michael Keller says the librarians determined which books to keep on the shelf by looking at how frequently a book was checked out. They found that the vast majority of the collection hadn't been taken off the shelf in five years. Keller expects that, eventually, there won't be any books on the shelves at all. "As the world turns more and more, the items that appeared in physical form in previous decades and centuries are appearing in digital form," he says. Given the nature of engineering, that actually comes in handy. Engineering uses some basic formulas but is generally a rapidly changing field - particularly in specialties such as software and bioengineering. Traditional textbooks have rarely been able to keep up. Jim Plummer, dean of Stanford's School of Engineering, says that's why his faculty is increasingly using e-books. "It allows our faculty to change examples," he says," to put in new homework problems ... and lectures and things like that in almost a real-time way." A New Trend In Libraries? For the moment, the Engineering Library is the only Stanford library that's cutting back on books. But Keller says he can see what's coming down the road by simply looking at the current crop of Stanford students. "They write their papers online, and they read articles online, and many, many, many of them read chapters and books online," he says. "I can see in this population of students behaviors that clearly indicate where this is all going." And while it's still rare among American libraries to get rid of such a large amount of books, it's clear that many are starting to lay the groundwork for a different future. According to a survey by the Association of Research Libraries, American libraries are spending more of their money on electronic resources and less on books. Cornell University's Engineering Library recently announced an initiative similar to Stanford's - but the move to electronic books is also meeting some resistance. An effort by Arizona State University to use Amazon's Kindle to distribute electronic textbooks was met with a lawsuit because the device wasn't fully accessible to the visually impaired. Meanwhile, back at Stanford's new Engineering Library, librarians are looking forward to spending less time with books and more time with people. "That's what we're so [excited about]," Josephine says, "the idea of actually offering more services, offering more workshops, offering more one-on-one time with students." But some Stanford students express mixed feelings about the shift. Engineering student Sam Tsai is checking out some old-fashioned paper books. "To read a book on the screen is kind of tiring for me," Tsai says, "so I sometimes like [the] paper form. But if I can access books online, it's much more convenient for me, so I would actually prefer that as well." For now, at least, Tsai can have the option of both. =============================== Join the bookseller list-serv 'Fresh Ink' Forward this email with subscribe link below to a friend. To view previous postings or to subscribe: http://booksinternationale.info/mailman/listinfo/freshink =============================== From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 12 07:59:17 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:59:17 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] James K. Galbraith on restoring the rule of law on Wall Street Message-ID: <936643E63211458EB912F15D698B7212@agingCHS072729> http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/76146/tremble-banks-tremble The New Republic July 9, 2010 Tremble, Banks, Tremble The key to financial recovery: restoring the rule of law on Wall Street. James K. Galbraith The financial crisis in America isn't over. It's ongoing, it remains unresolved, and it stands in the way of full economic recovery. The cause, at the deepest level, was a breakdown in the rule of law. And it follows that the first step toward prosperity is to restore the rule of law in the financial sector. First, there was a stand-down of the financial police. The legal framework for this was laid with the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Meanwhile the Basel II process relaxed international bank supervision, especially permitting the use of proprietary models to value complex assets-an open invitation to biased valuations and accounting frauds. Key acts of de-supervision came under Bush. After 9/11 500 FBI agents assigned to financial fraud were reassigned to counter-terrorism and (what is not understandable) they were never replaced. The Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision appeared at a press conference with a stack of copies of the Code of Federal Regulations and a chainsaw-the message was not subtle. The SEC relaxed limits on leverage for investment banks and abolished the uptick rule limiting short sales to moments following a rise in price. The new order was clear: anything goes. Second, the response to desupervision was a criminal takeover of the home mortgage industry. Millions of subprime mortgages were made to borrowers with undocumented incomes and bad or non-existent credit records. Appraisers were selected who were willing to inflate the value of the home being sold. This last element was not incidental: surveys showed that practically all appraisers came under pressure to inflate valuations in order to make deals happen. There is no honest reason why a lender would deliberately seek to make an inflated loan. Mortgages were made with a two-or three-year grace period, with a low, fixed interest rate called a "teaser." These were not real mortgages; they were counterfeits, whose value would collapse when exposed. As with any counterfeit, the profits came early, when the bad paper was first sold. After the grace period, rates would reset, and the lenders knew that the borrowers, who were already stretched by their initial payments, would either refinance or default. If they refinanced, that would mean another mortgage origination fee. And if they defaulted, well ... on to step three. Third, the counterfeit mortgages were laundered so they would look to investors like the real thing. This was the role of the ratings agencies. The core competence of the raters lay in corporate debt, where they evaluate the record and prospects of large business firms. The value of mortgage bonds depended on the behavior of tens of thousands of individual borrowers, whose individual quality the ratings agencies could never check. So the agencies substituted statistical models for actual inquiry, and turned a blind eye to the fact that the loans were destined to go bad. Fourth, the laundered goods were taken to market. The investment and commercial banks transformed the bad mortgages into bonds, obtained the AAA ratings, and sold the stinking mess to American pension funds, European banks and anyone else who took the phrase "investment grade" at face value. (Later chumps would include the Federal Reserve.) The European crisis now underway is a direct result, as their banks and investors, stung by losses on American mortgage bonds, are dumping their risky Greek public debt and seeking the safety of U.S. Treasury bills. When the crisis went public in August 2007, Henry Paulson's Treasury took every step to prevent the final collapse from happening before the 2008 elections, extracting billions from the Federal Housing Authority and from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relieve the pressure on bank balance sheets. It worked until it didn't. In September 2008 the collapse of Lehman triggered the collapse of American International Group (AIG) and the steps that led to the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) and to the effective nationalization of the commercial paper market, meaning that the Federal Reserve has become the primary short- term funder of major American corporations. Upon taking office, President Obama had a chance to change course and didn't take it. By seizing the largest problem banks, the government could have achieved clean audits, replaced top management, cured destructive compensation practices, shrunk a bloated industry, and cut the banks' lobbying power and therefore their capacity to obstruct financial reform. The way to write- downs of bad mortgage debt and therefore to financial recovery would have been opened. None of this happened. Instead the Treasury administered fake "stress tests" and relaxed mark-to-market accounting rules for toxic assets which permitted the banks to defer losses and to continue to carry trash on their books at inflated values. This reassured the banks that they would not be permitted to fail-and so back to bonuses-as-usual they went. The banks survived, and the administration today claims this "proves" they didn't need to be taken over. But to what end did they survive? The banks are bigger, more powerful, and moer obstructionist than ever-and largely uninterested in making new commercial, industrial, or residential loans. Today the former middle class is largely ruined: upside down on its mortgages and unable to add to its debts. With housing prices low and falling, banks are delaying foreclosures because they don't wish to recognize their losses; it is a sick fact that the cash homeowners conserve by non-payment is one source of the anemic recovery so far. But construction remains depressed, state and local budgets continue in a death-spiral of spending cuts and tax increases, the stimulus will soon end, and exports may soon fall victim to international austerity and the rapidly declining euro. Meanwhile the deficit hysterics seem determined to block unemployment insurance and aid to states today, and to cut Social Security and Medicare tomorrow. In this way, the financial sector remains a fatal drag on the capacity for strong growth. And the financial reform bills about to clear Congress will not cure this. The bill in conference has some useful elements but it is neither sufficient nor necessary to clean up frauds, which have always been illegal. Nor will it clean up private balance sheets and permit lending to restart. Still less will it set a new direction for the financial economy going forward. What to do? To restore the rule of law means first a rigorous audit of the banks and of the Federal Reserve. This means investigations-Representative Marcy Kaptur has proposed adding a thousand FBI agents to this task. It means criminal referrals from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, from the regulators, from Congress, and from the new management of troubled banks as they clean house. It means indictments, prosecutions, convictions, and imprisonments. The model must be the clean-up of the Savings and Loans, less than 20 years ago, when a thousand industry insiders went to prison. Bankers must be made to feel the power of the law in their bones. How will this help the economy? The first step toward health is realism. We must first stop pretending that bad assets can be made good, that bad loans will someday be repaid, and that bad people can run good banks. Debt crises are resolved when debts are written down and gotten rid of, when the institutions that peddled bad debts are restructured and reformed, and when the people who ran the great scams have been removed. Only then will private credit start to come back, but even then the result of bank reform is more prudent banks, by definition more conservative than what we've had. So yesterday's borrow-like-there's-no-tomorrow America is done for in any event; there will not be another bank-sponsored private credit boom. The housing crisis (and therefore the middle-class insolvency) won't go away soon. There is no cure for falling housing prices except time and patience; debt relief will at best stabilize the middle class. It follows that the private banks and dealers and borrowing by households are not going to be at the center of the next expansion. We are in the post-financial-crash. We need to do what the U.S. did during the New Deal, and what France, Japan, Korea, and almost every other successful case of post-crash (or postwar) reconstruction did when necessary. That is, we need to create new, policy- focused financial institutions like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to take over the role that the banks and capital markets have abandoned. Thus, as part of the reconstruction of the system, we need a national infrastructure bank, an energy-and-environment bank, a new Home Owners Loan Corporation, and a Gulf Coast Reconstruction Authority modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority. To begin with. A reconstructed financial system should finance the reconstruction of the country. Public infrastructure. Energy security. Prevention and mitigation of climate change, including the retrofitting of millions of buildings. The refinancing of mortgages or conversion to rentals with "right-to-rent" provisions so that people can stay in their homes at reasonable rates. The cleanup and economic renovation of the Gulf Coast. All of this by loans made at low interest rates and for long terms, and supervised appropriately by real bankers prepared to stay on the job for decades. The entire host of neglected priorities of the past 30 years should be on the agenda now. That is the way-and the effective path-toward prosperity. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 12 08:24:10 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:24:10 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Video] David Harvey: `The animated crisis of capitalism' Message-ID: <9253E83BEC0E4F30962F3C5F00EC5B78@agingCHS072729> http://links.org.au/node/1776 Video: David Harvey -- `The animated crisis of capitalism' On April 26, 2010, Marxist geographer professor David Harvey spoke to the the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) to explain how capitalism came to dominate the world and why it resulted in the current financial crisis. He asks: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order? Above is the animated version of the longer speech he gave. You can view the original speech at http://links.org.au/node/1735 Taking a long view of the current crisis, Harvey exposes the follies of the international financial system, looking closely at the nature of capitalism, how it works and why sometimes it doesn't. Examining the cycles of boom and bust in the world's housing and stock markets, and the vast flows of money that surge round the world daily, David Harvey shows that periodic episodes of meltdown are not only inevitable in the capitalist system but, in fact, are essential to its survival. Harvey argues that the essence of capitalism is its amorality and lawlessness and to talk of a regulated, ethical capitalism is to make a fundamental error. Can crises of the current sort be contained within the constraints of capitalism? Or is it time to make the case for a social order that would allow us to live within a different type of system -- one that really could be responsible, just and humane? David Harvey, a distinguished professor in the Graduate Centre of City University of New York and is the author of numerous books, including The Enigma of Capital, David Harvey (Profile Books, 2010) Buy here: http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/welcome.jsp?alumni=A1027&isbn=9781846683084 From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 12 23:35:33 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:35:33 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] John Michael Greer: Seeking the Gaianomicon Message-ID: <8FEA57248237475CADA2155B56BB54A9@agingCHS072729> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/07/seeking-gaianomicon.html The Archdruid Report Wednesday, July 07, 2010 Seeking the Gaianomicon The archetype I proposed as a model for an appropriate-technology revival in the age of peak oil - the archetype of the green wizard - comes with certain standard features in folklore and fantasy. One of them happens to be a full-blown archetype in its own right: the book of ancient and forgotten lore. Those of my readers who plan on becoming green wizards will need to provide themselves with the grimoires, literally "grammars," of that art, and in this post I propose to explain how to do just that. Yes, it involves a quest; the details will follow in a bit. The archetype is more important than it might seem at first glance. Our time, as the media never tires of telling us, is the information age, a time when each of us can count on being besieged and bombarded by more information in an average day than most premodern people encountered in their entire lives. Now it's important to remember that this is true only when the term "information" is assumed to mean the sort of information that comes prepackaged and preprocessed in symbolic form; the average hunter-gatherer moving through a tropical rain forest picks up more information about the world of nature through his or her senses in the course of an average day than the average resident in an industrial city receives through that channel in the course of their lives. Still, the information the hunter-gatherer receives is the sort that our nervous systems, and those of our ancestors back down the winding corridors of deep time, evolved to handle. The contemporary glut of symbolic information-words and images detached from their organic settings and used as convenient labels for mental abstractions-is quite another matter. There are certain advantages to the torrent of abstract information available to people in the industrial world these days, to be sure, but there's also a downside, and one major part of that is a habit of shallow thinking that governs most of our interactions with the information around us. A hundred years ago, by contrast, a student pursuing a scientific or engineering degree might need half a dozen textbooks for the entire course of his studies. Every chapter, and indeed every paragraph, in each of those books would be unpacked in lectures, explored in lab work, brought up in tests and term papers, so that by the time the student graduated he had mastered everything those textbooks had to teach. That depth of study is almost unheard of nowadays, when students shoulder half a dozen huge textbooks a term, and have so little time to process any of the contents of any of them that the bleak routine of memorize, regurgitate, and forget all too often becomes the only option. Combine that with the transformation of much of American higher education into a predatory industry fueled by aggressively marketed student loans, and every bit as focused on quarterly income as any Fortune 500 corporation, and you have the collapse of our educational system sketched out in a recent and harrowing blog post by former professor Carolyn Baker. The resulting ghastly mess is problematic in just about any sense you care to contemplate, but it has a special challenge for potential green wizards, because very few people these days actually know how to study information the way that a project of this nature demands. Treat the material I'll be covering in the weeks and months to come as a formality or a collection of hoops to jump through on the way to some nonexistent degree in green wizardry, in other words, and the result will be abject failure. If you plan on studying this material, dear reader, you need to pursue it with the same total intensity your average twelve-year-old Twilight fan lavishes on sparkly vampires. You need to obsess about the way an old-fashioned computer geek obsesses about obscure programming languages. You need to drench yourself in it it until it shows up in your dreams and seeps into your bones. You need to do these things because the ideas central to the old appropriate technology contradict the conventional wisdom of today's industrial cultures at literally every point. All the things that we learnt about the world by osmosis, growing up in a society powered by cheap abundant fossil fuels and geared toward a future of perpetual progress, have to be unlearnt in order to understand and use appropriate tech. The fact that they also have to be unlearnt to make sense of the world in the wake of peak oil is also relevant, of course; it's precisely because many of us, even in the peak oil scene, haven't yet unlearnt them that you see so many grand plans for dealing with peak oil that assume, usually without noticing the assumption, that all the products of cheap abundant energy will be readily and continuously available in a world without cheap abundant energy. The old archetypal image of the book of ancient and forgotten lore is among the very few cultural images we've got of information that doesn't belong to the read-and-forget category. Consider the Necronomicon, the imaginary tome of occult wisdom from half an hour before the dawn of time that plays so large a role in the horror-fantasy stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft's characters don't page casually through the Necronomicon and then go on to the current issue of People magazine; they search the world and risk their lives to get mere fragments of the text to study, even though they usually end up being dragged offstage by an unearthly tentacle because the fragment they got doesn't contain the Voorish Sign or some other bit of protective lore. Now I trust none of my readers will be dragged offstage by an unearthly tentacle, or even an earthly one, as a result of the studies I propose to offer them, but then a book "concerning the laws of death" (which is what nekronomikon means in Greek) is not going to be particularly useful for a student of appropriate technology. What's needed instead is a Gaianomicon, a book "concerning the laws of Gaia" - if you will, a manual of the theory and practice of applied human ecology. Like Lovecraft's tome, the Gaianomicon exists only in fragments, and your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to gather enough of those fragments to make a start on your education as a green wizard. I've made the first part of your quest easy. Back in the early 1980s, when I worked my way through the Master Conserver program in Seattle, I collected the instructional handouts from the program and stashed them in a binder for future reference. I've still got them all, and have scanned them into a PDF document, which you can download from this page - http://www.culturalconservers.org/apptech.php - on the Cultural Conservers Foundation website. Those of my readers with slow internet connections should be aware that this file is 190 pages long and comes to nearly 8 MB. The handouts cover one part of the curriculum we'll be discussing, the part dealing with energy conservation and renewables, which will be given a more evocative name a little later in this process. I'd like to ask everyone who downloads the file, by the way, to do two favors for me. The first is to print out a copy of the whole thing on paper, and put it away somewhere tolerably safe; the second is to make sure that at least one other person who doesn't read this blog gets a copy of the file, either electronic or printed. I don't actually know for a fact that this is the only set of these handouts in existence, but I have yet to meet or even hear of anyone else who kept their copies, and it would be useful if this material were to get handed on to the future. Think of it as a bit of cultural conservation, of the sort I've mentioned several times already in these essays. That's the first part of the quest. The second is going to be a little more challenging, though only a little. You don't have to go hunting for the lost city of Roong in the mountains of Zarazoola on an improbable third hemisphere of this already overexplored world. Instead, you need to go to a local used book store. It needn't be the biggest and best in your area, if your area has more than one - in fact, in my experience, you'll be more likely to get good results by going to one of those out of the way hole-in-the-wall places where the stock doesn't turn over too quickly and some of the books have been there for a good long time. You're looking, of course, for books from the original appropriate technology movement of the 1970s and 1980s. There were hundreds of them back in the day, a small number from the large publishing houses of the time and a great many more from struggling presses run by individuals, or by the little nonprofit groups that created so much of appropriate tech. You may find anything from professionally bound hardbacks with dust jackets down to staplebound pamphlets with hand-sketched illustrations. You may find them in the gardening section, or in the home repair section, or in the science section, or in the nature section, or in a special section all its own labeled "Homesteading" or "Back to the Land" or something like that. (I haven't yet found a store that labeled it "Naked Hippie Stuff," but hope springs eternal.) You may even find it jumbled up all anyhow with the general nonfiction because the proprietor of the used book store has no idea where to put it. Wherever it turns up, you're looking for a book on organic gardening, energy conservation, renewable energy, or anything related to them, preferably one that includes hands-on projects or ecological philosophy, or some of both. If you get one of the classics - The Integral Urban House, Other Homes and Garbage, Rainbook, The Book of the New Alchemists, The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse, or the like - that's good, but it's not required. It counts just as much if you find a little staplebound pamphlet on composting, or a ragged trade paperback from a small press on building a solar oven, or an old Rodale Press hardback on insulated window coverings, or what have you. There are two points to this exercise - well, actually, two and a half. The first point is that your work with green wizardry certainly shouldn't be limited to what one middle-aged archdruid has studied and practiced, under sometimes sharply limiting conditions, over the last thirty years or so. If you make appropriate tech part of your life - and if you intend to practice it at all, that's pretty much what you need to do - at least a modest library of books on the subject is essential. You will develop your own personal take on appropriate tech, and your own personal style in putting it to work; the books you read and study, whether you agree with them or not, will help you start the process of bringing the take and the style into being. The second point is that many of these books are nearing the end of their useful lives. The limited budgets available to most of the appropriate tech presses meant that most of the books were printed on cheap paper and bound by whatever method cost least. If they're going to become anything but landfill, and if the information they contain is going to find any sort of new home, somebody needs to take responsibility for making that happen and, dear reader, it might as well be you. The half point is that the appropriate tech movement, like any other movement on the fringes of the acceptable, had its own quirky culture and its own distinctive take on things. If you were learning a martial art, let's say, an important part of your early learning curve would have to do with picking up the customs and traditions and little unspoken rituals of the art, which have nothing to do with how to block a punch and everything to do with navigating the learning process and interacting constructively with your teachers and fellow students. This remains important even when the movement no longer exists and the surviving participants have either gone on to other things or have spent the last thirty years laboring away in isolation at ideas and practices nobody else cares about; your task is harder, that's all, and one of the few ways you can get a sense of the culture of the movement is to spend time with its writings and its material products. So that's the second part of your quest for the fragments of the Gaianomicon. The third and final part is simpler, and those of you who are wondering why you can't just do all your book shopping on the internet can take heart, because this part of the assignment can be done online if you like. Your task here is to get a good basic book on ecology. If at all possible, it should be a book from the late 50s, 60s or 70s, when the concept of the ecosystem was central to the field in a way that hasn't always been the case since then; the ecosystem approach is central to the way of thinking we'll be exploring in posts to come, and a good grounding in it will be essential. If you don't have any previous background in the life sciences - and if what you have is what you got in American public schools, that amounts to no previous background - a book I like to recommend is a deceptively simple little volume called Basic Ecology, by Ralph and Mildred Buchsbaum. Originally published in 1957, it has been in print ever since, and provides a clear introduction to the ideas you'll need in a very readable and nontechnical form. If you've got enough background that a serious textbook holds no terrors for you, one to get is Eugene P. Odum's Fundamentals of Ecology, probably the classic statement of the ecosystem approach. There are other good books on ecology to be had, however; while you're at the used book store, you might want to take the time to see what's in stock. So those are your initial textbooks or, to use the archetypal metaphor with which I introduced this post, the tomes of ancient and forgotten lore you need to gather in order to begin your training as a green wizard: the Master Conserver handouts, one or more old appropriate-tech books, and a good introduction to the science of ecology with a focus on the ecosystem concept. If you already happen to have the latter two sitting on your bookshelves, and I know some of my readers do, that's great; if not, please try to get them over the next week or so. Either way, put some time into reading them, and think about how the ideas contained in them might be applicable to the challenges of a world on the far side of peak oil. Next week we'll start weaving some of those ideas together and exploring how the green wizardry of appropriate tech can be put to work. Posted by John Michael Greer at 8:25 PM From hain at antcolbks.com Mon Jul 12 23:44:31 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data on Heart Risks, Files Indicate Message-ID: <678ED32051FD4CFAA9D170480B58274D@Upstairs> Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data on Risks, Files Indicate By GARDINER HARRIS Published: July 12, 2010 In the fall of 1999, the drug giant SmithKline Beecham secretly began a study to find out if its diabetes medicine, Avandia, was safer for the heart than a competing pill, Actos, made by Takeda. Avandia's success was crucial to SmithKline, whose labs were otherwise all but barren of new products. But the study's results, completed that same year, were disastrous. Not only was Avandia no better than Actos, but the study also provided clear signs that it was riskier to the heart. But instead of publishing the results, the company spent the next 11 years trying to cover them up, according to documents recently obtained by The New York Times. The company did not post the results on its Web site or submit them to federal drug regulators, as is required in most cases by law. "This was done for the U.S. business, way under the radar," Dr. Martin I. Freed, a SmithKline executive, wrote in an e-mail message dated March 29, 2001, about the study results that was obtained by The Times. "Per Sr. Mgmt request, these data should not see the light of day to anyone outside of GSK," the corporate successor to SmithKline. The heart risks from Avandia first became public in May 2007, with a study from a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who used data the company was forced by a lawsuit to post on its own Web site. In the ensuing months, GlaxoSmithKline officials conceded that they had known of the drug's potential heart attack risks since at least 2005. But the latest documents demonstrate that the company had data hinting at Avandia's extensive heart problems almost as soon as the drug was introduced in 1999, and sought intensively to keep those risks from becoming public. In one document, the company sought to quantify the lost sales that would result if Avandia's cardiovascular safety risk "intensifies." The cost: $600 million from 2002 to 2004 alone, the document stated. Mary Anne Rhyne, a GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman, said that the company had not provided the results of its study because they "did not contribute any significant new information." The company said that Avandia was safe and that Dr. Freed no longer worked for GlaxoSmithKline. A panel of experts will meet Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether Avandia should still be sold and whether it is ethical to test Avandia directly against Actos. Whether to withdraw Avandia is a question that has split the F.D.A., with some officials arguing that the drug is useful despite its risks and others insisting that it must be withdrawn. According to the documents, Dr. John Jenkins, director of the agency's office of new drugs, who has argued internally that Avandia should remain on the market, briefed the company extensively on the agency's internal debate. "It is clear the office of new drugs is trying to find minimal language that will satisfy the office of drug safety," a top company official wrote in an e-mail message after he spoke with Dr. Jenkins, according to a sealed deposition obtained by The Times. In the deposition, Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang, a former supervisor in the drug safety office who left the F.D.A. after she was disciplined for recommending that Avandia's heart warnings be strengthened, said of Dr. Jenkins' conversations with GlaxoSmithKline, "This should not happen, and the fact that these kind of things happen, I mean, I think people have to make a determination about the leadership at the F.D.A." An F.D.A. spokeswoman said the agency would not comment on the contents of the deposition. Members of Congress, where the Avandia case has led to legislative changes, said they were outraged at GlaxoSmithKline's behavior. "When drug companies withhold data regarding safety concerns about their medicines, they put patients at risk," said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Baucus and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee's ranking Republican, spent years investigating GlaxoSmithKline's development of Avandia. Besides the trial comparing Avandia with Actos, the company also conducted trials comparing Avandia with glyburide, a cheaper and older diabetes medicine. When Rhona A. Berry, a company official, asked about publishing two of the trials, Dr. Freed responded in an e-mail message dated July 20, 2001, that referred to Avandia by the abbreviation of its generic name, rosiglitazone: "Rhona - Not a chance. These put Avandia in quite a negative light when folks look at the response of the RSG monotherapy arm," the message said. "It is a difficult story to tell and we would hope that these do not see the light of day." Hiding the results of negative clinical trials was once widespread in the drug industry. But after GlaxoSmithKline was found in 2004 to have hidden data that showed that its antidepressant, Paxil, led children and teenagers to have more suicidal thoughts and behaviors, the company settled a lawsuit by agreeing to publicly post data from all of its trials. In 2007, Congress mandated such disclosures. But the postings are often little more than cryptic references, so the issue is far from resolved. With Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline has done more than hide trial data. An F.D.A. reviewer who closely examined a landmark Avandia clinical trial called "Record," found at least a dozen instances in which patients taking Avandia suffered serious heart problems that were not counted in the trial's tally of adverse events, mistakes that further obscured Avandia's heart risks. The company's conduct of the Record trial has received sharp criticism from medical leaders for other reasons as well. To compare Avandia and Actos in 1999, researchers at SmithKline measured Actos's effects in patients in the same way that they had conducted earlier trials of Avandia so that the results for the two drugs could be compared. When the results of the study suggested that Avandia was more dangerous than Actos, the company decided against further comparisons. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/health/policy/13avandia.html?_r=1&hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 09:47:42 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:47:42 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Lloyd's adds its voice to dire 'peak oil' warnings Message-ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/11/peak-oil-energy-disruption guardian.co.uk Sunday 11 July 2010 Lloyd's adds its voice to dire 'peak oil' warnings Business underestimating catastrophic consequences of declining oil, says Lloyd's of London/Chatham House report Terry Macalister One of the City's most respected institutions has warned of "catastrophic consequences" for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy. The Lloyd's insurance market and the highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, says Britain needs to be ready for "peak oil" and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in China and India, constraints on production caused by the BP oil spill and political moves to cut CO2 to halt global warming. "Companies which are able to take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. Failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences," says the Lloyd's and Chatham House report "Sustainable energy security: strategic risks and opportunities for business" -- http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/891/ --. The insurance market has a major interest in preparedness to counter climate change because of the fear of rising insurance claims related to property damage and business disruption. The review is groundbreaking because it comes from the heart of the City and contains the kind of dire warnings that are more associated with environmental groups or others accused by critics of resorting to hype. It takes a pot shot at the International Energy Agency which has been under fire for apparently under-estimating the threats, noting: "IEA expectations [on crude output] over the last decade have generally gone unmet." The report the world is heading for a global oil supply crunch and high prices owing to insufficient investment in oil production plus a rebound in global demand following recession. It repeats warning from Professor Paul Stevens, a former economist from Dundee University, at an earlier Chatham House conference that lack of oil by 2013 could force the price of crude above $200 (?130) a barrel. It also quotes from a US department of energy report highlighting the economic chaos that would result from declining oil production as global demand continued to rise, recommending a crash programme to overhaul the transport system. "Even before we reach peak oil," says the Lloyd's report, "we could witness an oil supply crunch because of increased Asian demand. Major new investment in energy takes 10-15 years from the initial investment to first production, and to date we have not seen the amount of new projects that would supply the projected increase in demand." And while the world is gradually moving to new kinds of clean energy technologies the insurance market warns that there could be shortages of earth metals and other raw materials needed to help them thrive. Lloyd's also calls on manufacturers, retailers and the wider business community to reassess global supply chains and their just-in time models because the "current system is increasingly vulnerable to disruption." The report says government needs to do much more to bring additional price stability and transparency if the global carbon market is to become a reality. Richard Ward, chief executive of Lloyd's, said the failure of the Copenhagen climate change talks last December has helped lull many business leaders into a false sense of security about the challenges ahead. "We are in a period akin to a phony war. We keep hearing of difficulties to come, but with oil, gas and coal still broadly accessible - and largely capable of being distributed where they are needed - the bad times have not yet hit ... all businesses ... will be affected by energy supplies which are less reliable and more expensive." . This article was amended on 12 July 2010. The original referred to Chatham House as being the Institute of Strategic Studies. It is the Royal Institute of International Affairs. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 09:54:05 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:54:05 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] FW: Amazing holes Message-ID: (Yesterday I received word that the Harper government has discontinued their grant/rebate program for homeowners wishing to switch heating and cooling systems over to saner and cleaner geothermal pumps.....rm) 1. Kimberley Big Hole - South Africa Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097-meter-deep mine yielded over three tons of diamonds before being closed. 2. Glory Hole - Monticello Dam, California This is the Glory Hole at Monticello Dam, and it's the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second. A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir. 3 Great Blue Hole, Belize This incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize. There are numerous blue holes around the world but none as stunning as this one. 4 Sinkhole in Guatemala This photo is of a sinkhole that occurred February 2007 in Guatemala. It swallowed two dozen homes and killed at least three people. 5. This is the famous Rat Hole in Ottawa. It is capable of swallowing Millions of Tax Payers Money annually, never to be heard from again! It is reputed to contain at least 400 ass"holes". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Photo on Bing.ca: You Could WIN on Canada Day! Submit a Photo Now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter for a chance to get your town photo on Bing.ca! Submit a Photo Now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fgn mailing list fgn at lists.friendsofgrassynarrows.com http://lists.friendsofgrassynarrows.com/listinfo.cgi/fgn-friendsofgrassynarrows.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 63083 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 72651 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 36491 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 41363 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 14934 bytes Desc: not available URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 10:40:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:40:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Isao Hashimoto: "1945-1998" (animation of nuclear explosions) Message-ID: <8E634FD6ABF647C4B91E4C6703D8C7EB@agingCHS072729> "1945-1998" by Isao Hashimoto http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/ From hain at antcolbks.com Tue Jul 13 14:37:51 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?Sanders=27_Amendment_Cutting_Tax_Subsi?= =?iso-8859-1?q?dies_For_Big_Oil_Companies_Defeated=2C_35-61=2E?= Message-ID: By Pat Garofalo on Jun 15th, 2010 at 6:00 pm Inhofe Blocks Sanders' Amendment Cutting Tax Subsidies For Big Oil Companies For the last two years, the Obama administration has proposed ending senseless tax subsidies that the federal government gives to oil companies, despite the fact that oil is an incredibly lucrative industry. Congress has, thus far, not responded, and as Congressional Quarterly reported today, "the numerous tax advantages enjoyed by oil and gas producers appear likely to survive virtually unscathed despite the political turbulence created by the biggest oil disaster in American history." However, that is not due to a complete lack of trying. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed an amendment to the tax extenders bill currently before the Senate, which would cut $35 billion in subsidies for Bil Oil. $25 billion of the savings would go toward reducing the deficit and $10 billion would fund a grant program encouraging energy-efficient buildings. Sanders took to the Senate floor today to point out that, in an age of high, long-term deficits, it makes no sense to subsidize one of the most profitable industries in the country with taxpayer money: Twenty-two percent of the children in this country live in poverty, we have record-breaking deficits, we have a $13 trillion national debt, and Exxon-Mobil receives $156 million in a tax refund after making $19 billion in profit. Mr. President, this has got to stop.I get a little bit tired of hearing my friends come to the floor of the Senate talking about the need to reduce our deficit. I get a little bit tired about people talking about the need for equity. If we can not address a situation in which some of the most profitable corporations in America pay zero federal taxes, and in fact get a tax rebate, then I'm not quite sure what this institution is doing. Sanders then asked for unanimous consent to move to his amendment. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) objected. As CAP's Sima Gandhi has pointed out, these subsidies are not only expensive, but they don't actually add anything to domestic oil production: These subsidies will cost the U.S. government about $3 billion next year in lost revenue and nearly $20 billion over the next five years.And it's not clear that a few billion in subsidies for oil companies does much to impact their business decisions. According to estimates from the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury, removing subsidies for the oil industry would at most affect domestic production by less than one-half of 1 percent. Gandhi has counted nine different subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the oil industry, including refunds for drilling costs and for the cost of searching for oil. This is corporate welfare at its finest, and yet, Inhofe is standing in the way, blocking Sanders' amendment from even coming to the floor. Update The Sanders amendment eventually came up for a vote and was defeated, 35-61. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/15/inhofe-v-sanders/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 17:39:38 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:39:38 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The Hypocrisy of Preaching Nonviolence to Palestinians Message-ID: <6A1AFD2A23F94AF39222C6267D25E792@agingCHS072729> >> For the sake of that peace, it's we Americans, not the Palestinians, who >> need to take up the torch of nonviolence. Until we do, it seems >> hypocritical to be blaming Palestinians for failing to live up to >> Gandhian standards. When oppressed, militarily occupied people resist, >> let's recognize that it's not our place to tell them what means they >> should or should not use -- and certainly not when our own nation is >> contributing so much to their oppression. >> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/12-0 CommonDreams.org July 12, 2010 The Hypocrisy of Preaching Nonviolence to Palestinians by Ira Chernus Nicholas Kristof is in Palestine, though like all mass media journalists he calls it "the West Bank." He has just discovered that many Palestinians are resisting the Israeli occupation nonviolently, though scholars of nonviolence started writing about the Palestinian resistance over 20 years ago. So Kristof is "waiting for Gandhi," as the title of his latest New York Times column http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/opinion/11kristof.html puts it, or at least a "Palestinian version of Martin Luther King Jr." Perhaps I should not be so cynical. Kristof has gained fame as a crusader for human rights, especially women's rights. Now he's taking a real risk by advocating for Palestinian rights and praising Palestinian resistance. Any hint of Israeli wrong-doing has undone many U.S. liberals in the past. And Kristof is giving more than a hint. His previous column http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/opinion/08kristof.html detailed Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and clearly sympathized with their plight. He praised the work of Rabbis for Human Rights as "courageous and effective voices on behalf of oppressed Palestinians." Kristof himself deserves praise for placing the Palestinians alongside all the other victims of oppression he has written about so eloquently. He's moving the mass media one more tiny step toward more honest and balanced reporting on the Israel/Palestine conflict. But if a writer is not careful, every step forward can also be a step backward. By calling for a Palestinian Gandhi, Kristof clearly suggests that Palestinian resistance so far has fallen short of his high moral standards. He complains that "many Palestinians define 'nonviolence' to include stone-throwing," so even when they claim to eschew violence their protests "aren't truly nonviolent." That reinforces a self-serving stereotype we've been hearing from supporters of Israeli policy for decades: We Jews want peace, they say. We've even got an organized peace movement. But there's no Palestinian equivalent. It seems like those Palestinians are all a bunch hot-heads, implacably bent on violence. How can we make peace with them? That kind of stereotyping spurs even more extreme views that are all too familiar: There's "no partner for peace" on the Palestinian side. "Those people" are so steeped in violence, there's no reasoning with them. They only understand one thing: force. And at their worst they ask: What else can you expect from Muslims? I'm sure Nick Kristof didn't mean to promote that kind of simplistic anti-Palestinian prejudice. He sees good guys and bad guys on both sides. But when you are a top columnist for the nation's top newspaper, you are supposed to be smart enough to understand the implications of your words, to know what people can (and some inevitably will) read between the lines. I don't know Kristof, so I can't say why he might have fallen into this trap. But I know the U.S. mass media coverage of the issue pretty well. Even when they begin to break out of their reflexive "pro-Israel" shell, mass media journalists are still plagued by lines of thinking that are so old, so deeply ingrained, that they go unnoticed. "Ain't it a shame those Palestinians are so violent. If only they'd turn to more peaceful ways, all would be well," is perhaps the oldest and deepest of those lines. So it's not surprising that, even when a prominent columnist appeals for sympathy for the victims of oppression, he ends up indirectly but all too obviously blaming the victims. Palestinians might well ask, "Who the hell is Nicholas Kristof to tell us how to resist the occupation anyway?" That's a good question. What can he really know about their situation after being with them for a day or two? Critics of American journalism have long noted the declining quality of our news from other countries. The main culprit, many say, is the ignorance of journalists who show up in a place for a few days or even a few weeks and write for the folks back home as if they were experts. At a deeper level, there's the ever-present tendency among the stenographers of imperial power to assume that they've got the right to preach truth to "the natives" and tell them how to live their lives. Even if Kristof had been living in Palestine for years, though, the question would still remain: Does he, or any non-Palestinian, have the right to tell an oppressed people how to resist their oppression? Maybe they do, if they've joined the resistance and taken all the risks involved for a long enough time to earn that right. But neither Kristof nor most any of the other non-Palestinians who call for a Palestinian Gandhi fit that description. I've been teaching and writing about, and advocating nonviolence for a long time. From the beginning, I felt in my gut that I don't have the right to tell oppressed people to keep their resistance nonviolent, since I haven't shared in their suffering. Eventually, I found in Gandhi's own writings a powerful theoretical argument to explain my gut feeling. It starts with the heart of Gandhi's teachings. He would have rejected the premise of Kristof's column: that nonviolence is a smarter tactic for the Palestinians, the best way to get what they want. For Gandhi, nonviolence was never a tactic or a way to win anything. It was a way -- the only way, he insisted -- to act out moral truth in daily life. The core principle of Gandhian nonviolence is to do the right thing in every situation, regardless how painful or even lethal the consequences. In other words, nonviolence is not about figuring out how to make the other side -- even when they are brutal oppressors -- change their ways. It's not about making others change their ways at all. Gandhi said that such efforts are senseless, because we cannot control the choices of others. All we can control is our own choices, trying to make sure that they are as morally correct as possible. So telling other people what to do, how to live their lives, or even how to resist oppression simply doesn't fit Gandhi's vision of nonviolence. It's only about changing our own ways. But when Gandhi spoke about controlling our own choices, he included in "our" not just himself as an individual but his people. That's why, in the vast corpus of Gandhi's writings, you'll sometimes find indictments of British colonialism and insistence that the British must leave India -- in effect, telling the other side what to do -- but far more often you'll find indictments of Gandhi's own Indian people and insistence that they (Gandhi said "we") stop cooperating with oppression. If you're looking for another Gandhi, then, look for someone who addresses his own people's policy choices rather than telling others about what they're doing wrong and how to fix it. Kristof made a nod in that direction when he repeated the words of Palestinian nonviolence advocates like Moustafa Barghouthi, Ayad Morrar, and Iltezam Morrar. He could have found plenty of others. They've got the right to call for a Palestinian Gandhi, since they are talking to their own people. The only thing Nick Kristof has the right to do -- and the obligation, Gandhi would have added -- is to address his own American people about the choices that Americans are making. If any Americans are publicly waiting for the next Gandhi to appear, they should be waiting and hoping for him or her not in Palestine or any foreign country, but right here in the U.S. of A. Kristof, given his immense readership and influence, has a special responsibility. Rather than flying half-way around the world for a few days and lamenting his failure to find another Gandhi, he could be doing what Gandhi did: writing about America's failure to stand on the side of justice, which is the only way to stand on the side of peace. As Gershon Baskin, Israel's leading expert on conflict resolution, recently wrote , the U.S. must play a central role if Israel and Palestine are to forge a just peace settlement. The two parties mistrust each other so deeply that they need a truly even-handed third party to bring them together and guarantee adherence to a peace agreement. Though the Obama administration has moved a bit closer than its predecessors to an even-handed approach, it is still far from the genuine neutrality that the Palestinians must see if they are to come to any negotiating table. Foolish steps like bolstering Israel's nuclear arsenal http://www.truth-out.org/threatening-world-order-us-and-israel-quietly-announce-plans-reconstitute-their-nuclear-stockpiles61 are bound to move Israel and Palestine away from the peace that both sides need so badly. For the sake of that peace, it's we Americans, not the Palestinians, who need to take up the torch of nonviolence. Until we do, it seems hypocritical to be blaming Palestinians for failing to live up to Gandhian standards. But that does not mean we should sit around "waiting for Gandhi." The Mahatma surely would have scolded Nick Kristof and all of us who waiting for some extraordinary charismatic leader to rescue us from our wars and injustice. It's easier to wait for someone else to do the job than to heed the charge Gandhi famously left us: Be the change you want to see in the world. We Americans have already had our Gandhi. And while we elevated him to the status of a heroic King, most of us conveniently forgot the most difficult parts of his message, his call to recognize our own nation as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world and to practice nonviolence no matter what the consequences. Now, instead of waiting for another miraculously gifted leader, we should each be speaking out and acting up, doing whatever little bit we can. We may not see the greatness of a Gandhi or King again for a very long time. But that's no reason to give up the quest for nonviolent resolution of our problems. It's all the more reason for each of us to take responsibility for ourselves and our own people, to stop telling others what they should do and start, right now, changing what we do. Meanwhile, when oppressed, militarily occupied people resist, let's recognize that it's not our place to tell them what means they should or should not use -- and certainly not when our own nation is contributing so much to their oppression. Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and American Jews at http://chernus.wordpress.com. Contact him at chernus at colorado.edu From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 20:35:53 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:35:53 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Doctorow's "For the Win" available online Message-ID: The full text of Cory Doctorow's "For the Win" is now available online at the link provided below. For a refreshing take on the hoops many authors are forced to jump through, you can read about Doctorow's experience with "digital rights management"; the ridiculous degree to which copyright law has been extended in the UK; the onerous deals that large corporations like Wal-Mart et al foist on authors, and why you won't find Doctorow's book for sale in Kindle or IPad stores. In addition, check out the unique way in which Doctorow decided to support librarians and teachers. He has a great deal of respect for his publisher....one can't help but admire his stance. And while you're at it, and if you have a spare moment, don't miss his excellent introduction to the book! http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 13 21:02:48 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:02:48 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] To end the occupation, cripple Israeli banks Message-ID: <32722FA87CE74B9BB8E000C349DE9D41@agingCHS072729> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11362.shtml Electronic Intifada 30 June 2010 To end the occupation, cripple Israeli banks Terry Crawford-Browne The international banking sanctions campaign in New York against apartheid South Africa during the 1980s is regarded as the most effective strategy in bringing about a nonviolent end to the country's apartheid system. The campaign culminated in President FW de Klerk's announcement in February 1990, releasing Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, and the beginning of constitutional negotiations towards a non-racial and democratic society. If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel's violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict. With computerization, international banking technology has advanced dramatically in the subsequent 20 years since the South African anti-apartheid campaign. Although access to New York banks remains essential for foreign exchange transactions because of the role of the dollar, interbank transfer instructions are conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium. So, instead of New York -- as in the period when sanctions were applied on South Africa-- Belgium is now the pressure point. SWIFT links 8,740 financial institutions in 209 countries. Without access to SWIFT and its interbank payment network, countries are unable either to pay for imports or to receive payment for exports. In short, no payment -- no trade. Should it come to a point where trade sanctions are imposed on Israel, it may be able to evade them. Instead of chasing trade sanctions-busters and plugging loopholes, it is both faster and much more effective to suspend the payment system. The Israeli government may consider itself to be militarily and diplomatically invincible, given support from the United States, and other governments, but Israel's economy is exceptionally dependent upon international trade. It is thus very vulnerable to financial retaliation. South Africa's apartheid government had also believed itself to be immune from foreign pressure. Without SWIFT, Israel's access to the international banking system would be crippled. Banking is the lifeblood of any economy. Without payment for imports or exports, the Israeli economy would quickly collapse. The matter has gained additional urgency with the bill now before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to penalize any person who promotes the imposition of boycotts against Israel. Another important political factor is that SWIFT is not only outside American jurisdiction, it is also beyond the reach of Israeli military retaliation. Israel has long experience in sanctions-busting since the 1948 Arab boycotts. Apartheid South Africa was also well experienced in sanctions-busting -- breaking oil embargoes was almost a "national sport." Trade sanctions are invariably full of loopholes. Profiteering opportunities abound, as illustrated by Iraq, Cuba and numerous countries against which for many years the United States unsuccessfully has applied trade sanctions. Iran conducts its trade through Dubai, which happily profits from the political impasse. Suspension of bank payments plugs such loopholes, and also alters the balance of power so that meaningful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians become even possible. This is because banking sanctions impact quickly upon financial elites who have the clout to pressure governments to concede political change. Trade sanctions, by contrast, impact hardest on the poor or lower-paid workers, who have virtually no political influence. SWIFT will, however, only take action against Israeli banks if ordered to do so by a Belgian court, and then only in very exceptional circumstances. Such very exceptional circumstances are now well-documented by the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel's winter 2008-09 invasion and massacre in Gaza and by the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010. There is also a huge body of literature from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations detailing Israeli war crimes and violations of humanitarian law. The Israeli government, like that of apartheid South Africa, has become a menace to the international community. Corruption and abuses of human rights are invariably interconnected. Israel's long military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, has corrupted almost every aspect of Israeli society, most especially its economy. The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in December 2009 that the Israeli government lacks commitment in tackling international corruption and money laundering. The international financial system is exceedingly sensitive about allegations of money laundering, but also to any associations with human rights abuses. Organized crime and money laundering are major international security threats, as illustrated by the United States subpoena after the 11 September 2001 attacks of SWIFT data to track terrorist financing. The website Who Profits? (www.whoprofits.org) lists hundreds of international and Israeli companies that illegally profiteer from the occupation. Their operations range from construction of the "apartheid wall" and settlements to agricultural produce grown on confiscated Palestinian land. As examples, Caterpillar, Volvo and Hyundai supply bulldozing equipment to demolish Palestinian homes. British supermarkets sell fresh produce grown in the West Bank, but illegally labelled as Israeli. Ahava markets Dead Sea mud and cosmetics. The notorious Lev Leviev claims in Dubai that Leviev diamonds are of African origin, and are cut and polished in the United States rather than Israel. They are sourced from Angola, Namibia and also allegedly Zimbabwe, and can rightly be described as "blood diamonds." Israeli diamond exports in 2008 were worth $19.4 billion, and accounted for almost 35 percent of Israeli exports. Industrial grade diamonds are essential to Israel's armaments industry, and its provision of surveillance equipment to the world's most unsavory dictatorships. Such profiteering depends on foreign exchange and access to the international payments system. Hence interbank transfers are essential, and SWIFT -- willingly or unwillingly -- has become complicit, as were the New York banks with apartheid South Africa. Accordingly, a credible civil society organization amongst the Palestinian diaspora should lead the SWIFT sanctions campaign against Israeli banks. And, per the South African experience, it should be led by civil society rather than rely on governments. Each bank has an eight letter SWIFT code that identifies both the bank and its country of domicile. "IL" are the fifth and sixth letters in SWIFT codes that identify Israel. The four major Israeli banks and their SWIFT codes are Israel Discount Bank (IDBILIT), Bank Hapoalim (POALILIT), Bank Leumi (LUMIILIT) and Bank of Israel (ISRAILIJ). Such a suspension would not affect domestic banking transactions within Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip -- or international transfers to Palestinian banks that have separate "PS" identities. The campaign can be reversed as soon as the objectives have been achieved, and without long-term economic damage. What is required is an urgent application in a Belgian court ordering SWIFT to reprogram its computers to suspend all transactions to and from Israeli banks until the Israeli government agrees to end the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and that it will dismantle the "apartheid wall;" the Israeli government recognizes the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Israel recognizes, respects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees. The writer is a retired banker, who advised the South African Council of Churches on the banking sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. He spent October 2009 to January 2010 in East Jerusalem monitoring checkpoints, house demolitions and evictions, and liaising with Israeli peace groups. He lives in Cape Town. From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 14 00:59:51 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:59:51 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Exxon Valdez spill offers striking parallels to Deepwater Horizon - including a central role played by a consortium led by BP. Message-ID: <6CA8A15DD6A54714B5323E2B877A449F@Upstairs> Lessons from Exxon Valdez spill have gone unheeded By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 14, 2010 The story of the last cataclysmic American oil spill has evolved over time into a straightforward tale of cause and effect: In 1989, a hard-drinking skipper ran his tanker aground in Alaska, and Exxon was unable to prevent crude from spreading along hundreds of miles of pristine shoreline. But the full story of the Exxon Valdez wreck is far more complex, and it offers striking parallels to today's events in the Gulf of Mexico -- including a central role played by a consortium led by British Petroleum, now known as BP. A commission that investigated the Alaska spill found that oil companies cut corners to maximize profits. Systems intended to prevent disaster failed, and no backups were in place. Regulators were too close to the oil industry and approved woefully inadequate accident response and cleanup plans. History is repeating, say officials who investigated the Valdez, because the lessons of two decades ago remain unheeded. "It's disappointing," said 84-year-old Walt Parker, chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which made dozens of recommendations for preventing a recurrence. "It's almost as though we had never written the report." Marine experts predict that the many panels investigating the Deepwater Horizon blowout -- including a presidential commission that began work this week in New Orleans -- will produce reports with numerous findings that could have been cut and pasted from the 20-year-old report written by Parker's commission or another body that examined the Valdez accident. They also fear those findings may have no more impact than the Valdez conclusions have. In the immediate aftermath of the Alaska spill, as in the gulf, there was confusion over who was in charge -- oil companies or government officials. Federal authorities eventually asserted themselves but lacked the equipment and personnel to stem the damage. Storms slowed the response and spread contamination. Cleanup technology was old and ineffective. Environmentalists questioned the toxicity of dispersants and asked whether oil companies were using chemicals to hide damage. The vast Alaska containment effort recovered only a fraction of the millions of gallons of oil dumped into Prince William Sound. The players in the Alaskan drama also look familiar. Although Exxon owned the Valdez tanker, it was not responsible for the flawed emergency response plan and did not lead initial containment efforts. Those jobs fell to the Alyeska Pipeline Service, a consortium operating the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. The consortium's controlling partner was British Petroleum. British Petroleum also supplied the consortium's top executive, who later resigned under pressure. "BP called the shots," said Tom Lakosh, an oil spill researcher. The Alaskan commission concluded that cost-cutting by Alyeska contributed to the disaster, just as critics allege that BP's focus on profits contributed to the gulf spill. "British Petroleum's leadership essentially was 'asleep at the switch,' " the commission's report concluded. BP spokesman Steve Rinehart declined to discuss the company's role in the Valdez response, saying that Alyeska is an independent organization that "works for an owner's committee." "We will actually have very little to say about the Exxon Valdez oil spill," Rinehart said. "In general terms, there were many lessons learned from the Prince William Sound spill, and improvements in response planning and technology were one of them." Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers declined to comment on how British Petroleum and regulators responded to the Valdez accident. But he said it was a "real turning point" at Exxon, which now makes safety a central corporate value. To be sure, the two spills are different: The 1989 incident was caused by a grounded tanker, not a well blowout and a months-long gusher of crude. And the millions of gallons released in Alaska have been surpassed by the amount of crude swirling in the gulf. But experts said the many similarities eclipse the differences. "It's so frustrating," said Zygmunt Plater, who worked for the commission and is now a professor at Boston College Law School. "The lessons weren't met." 'Waiting to happen' On March 23, 1989, Riki Ott, a marine biologist, was speaking to the annual Alyeska Pipeline safety banquet at the Valdez Civic Center. The discussion turned to the threat of a major oil spill. "Gentlemen," she said, "it's not a matter of 'what if,' but when." About an hour later, just past midnight, the Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef on Alaska's south coast, rupturing eight of its 11 cargo tanks and dumping at least 11 million gallons of crude into the sound. The 990-foot-long ship had just left the Alyeska terminal in Valdez, headed toward Long Beach, Calif. Over the next few months, the oil spread across 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline, destroying ecosystems and livelihoods. Investigations determined that Capt. Joseph Hazelwood had been drinking earlier and was not on the bridge when the vessel strayed into the reef. He was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of negligently discharging oil. Two months after the spill, Alaska's governor appointed a commission to study the accident. It concluded that the disaster was "the result of the gradual degradation of oversight and safety practices." The spill "was not an isolated, freak occurrence, but simply one result of policies, habits and practices that for nearly two decades have infused the nation's maritime oil transportation system with increasing levels of risk. The Exxon Valdez was an accident waiting to happen," the report said. Rules then in place called for the British Petroleum-led consortium to handle the initial spill response. But its actions were unexpectedly slow and ineffectual, the report said. A 126-foot barge cited in plans as the centerpiece of any response was not loaded with the proper equipment, resulting in hours of delay. Alyeska spokesman Matt Carle said the consortium does not challenge the commission's findings but stressed the many safety improvements made in and around Prince William Sound. The U.S. Coast Guard and other government agencies proved "utterly incapable" of containing the oil, the commission said. Contingency plans amounted to "toothless tigers," and the equipment shortages and slow responses made a catastrophe inevitable, the report said. Exxon eventually took control of the response effort, working with the Coast Guard and Alaskan authorities. That mirrors the early days of the BP spill, when it was unclear who was in charge. It quickly became apparent that only BP had the submersible robots and other equipment needed to operate at the drilling site, a mile below the surface. Studies suggested that the Alaska spill could have been reduced or eliminated by building in redundant protection: in that case, by equipping tankers with double hulls or double bottoms. A lack of redundancy has emerged as a critical problem in the gulf, where the failure of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer -- designed to instantly seal a well -- has left BP with few alternatives. Alyeska was found by the Alaska commission to have a long history of poor management and cost-cutting that contributed to the accident. One state official wrote that Alyeska "has proven that they will not take any major corrective action unless forced by the regulatory agencies." Those complaints echo allegations made last month by Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and Bart Stupak (Mich.), who questioned whether BP repeatedly chose risky procedures to save time and reduce costs. The congressmen wrote in a letter to the oil company that "BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure." 'Never again' When the Alaska commission examined response plans approved before the accident, they found a "serious gap" between the spill size that companies said they could contain and their true capacity, which was "ridiculously low." Records showed that, as a number of response plans were being developed in Alaska, government reviewers had penciled expletives in the margins, described them as "garbage" and "shoddy," and recommended that authorities "consider prosecution." One review of equipment listed in an Alyeska contingency plan in the 1970s found that of 170 pieces of apparatus itemized, 137 were broken or missing. A drill exercise found an outdated list of emergency contacts. At the time, the report concluded, the consortium "was not a model of preparedness." That echoes the findings of a congressional inquiry into BP's spill response plan for the gulf, which asserted that the company could contain and clean up a spill much larger than today's. Investigators found that the gulf plans also discussed the need to protect walruses, which aren't found in the region, and listed the phone number of a long-dead marine expert. The commission found that the "primitive" equipment available for oil recovery in Alaska -- primarily boom lines and surface skimmers -- represented ineffective methods that had not advanced for at least 20 years. The commission called on the federal government to fund a research and development effort to improve recovery techniques. "Equipment and techniques should be tested well in advance of a spill," the report said. Today in the gulf, the same types of equipment and technology used in Prince William Sound are at work. There is no research effort on the scale sought by the commission. "Never again should the spiller be in charge of a major spill" response, the report said. As if foreseeing the gulf disaster, the commission said that focusing too closely on the individual details of the tanker accident would be counterproductive because "the next great spill is likely to have some other cause completely." The report also gave a hint of what might lie ahead. In Alaska, the environmental and economic damage from the spill was followed by increased alcoholism, depression, anxiety, domestic violence and child suicides. Another report prepared in 1989, this one for President George H.W. Bush, also recommended strengthening government preparedness, clarifying lines of authority and improving cleanup technology. The report was prepared by a team co-chaired by William K. Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, Reilly co-chairs the commission looking into the BP spill for President Obama. It is expected to issue its report by January. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071306291.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 14 01:04:42 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:04:42 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Iranian nuclear scientist heads homeward in anger - says CIA abducted him Message-ID: <321E8805086C488384B0ADD47065F696@Upstairs> Iranian nuclear scientist heads homeward in anger By Greg Miller and Thomas Erdbrink Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 14, 2010 An Iranian nuclear scientist who had disappeared in Saudi Arabia last summer stepped out of a cab in front of Iran's diplomatic mission in Washington on Monday, asking for a ticket back to his homeland. Shahram Amiri told officials that he had been abducted by U.S. intelligence operatives and had spent much of the past year in Tucson being questioned about Iran's nuclear ambitions. This Story a.. Missing Iranian scientist surfaces in Washington b.. Iranian scientist heads homeward in anger c.. Checkpoint Washington: Shahram Amiri videos d.. Mystery deepens over vanished Iranian scientist Amiri's reappearance was as mysterious as his disappearance and came just weeks after a series of Internet videos added to the intrigue surrounding the case. In the videos, Amiri claimed alternately to have been kidnapped by the CIA and to have come to this country on his own accord to pursue a PhD. The case has emerged as a source of embarrassment for both governments. The Obama administration faces the departure of someone whose defection had been considered an intelligence coup. Iran described Amiri's desire to the leave the United States as a setback for American efforts, but Amiri may have compromised the secrecy of Iran's nuclear endeavors. According to an official familiar with the account Amiri gave at the mission, his pleas to be released were finally granted when he was brought to Washington and sent to a nondescript storefront on Wisconsin Avenue, where Iranian representatives work in a space officially operated by Pakistan's embassy. Within hours of arriving at the mission, Amiri told state-run Iranian television that "my kidnapping was a disgraceful act for America. . . . I was under enormous psychological pressure and supervision of armed agents in the past 14 months." U.S. officials disputed Amiri's account, insisting that he defected voluntarily and provided valuable intelligence about Iran's nuclear program before increased worries over the safety of his family in Iran prompted him to seek a return. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Tuesday that Amiri was and always had been free to go. "These are decisions that are his alone to make," Clinton said, noting that Iran has refused to release three American backpackers detained in the country for nearly a year. Amiri's case has provided a rare public glimpse into the espionage sparring between the United States and Iran, much as the capture and swap of Russian undercover operatives this month exposed the extent to which such cloak-and-dagger endeavors have outlasted the Cold War. The United States and other nations contend that Iran is secretly developing the means to build a nuclear weapon, but the Iranian government says its program is entirely peaceful. Amiri, 32, has said he worked at Iran's Malek-e-Ashtar Industrial University, which U.S. intelligence agencies believe is connected to the country's Revolutionary Guards Corps. Amiri is not believed to have been directly involved in the most secretive aspects of Iran's nuclear efforts, but intelligence officials said he provided significant insights during lengthy debriefings with the CIA. "I don't think the U.S. government goes to great lengths to help people come over here unless there is significant intelligence value to be gained," said a U.S. official briefed on the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it. Amiri disappeared under mysterious circumstances in June 2009, about the same time that U.S. officials spoke of an "intelligence coup" involving a high-profile defector. He appears to have been resettled in Tucson, where his presence was a carefully guarded secret until the scientist appeared in videos this spring. In the first, which aired on Iranian television, Amiri stares into what appears to be an amateur Web camera, claiming to have been tortured and pleading for human rights organizations to intervene. But in a subsequent and more polished video that U.S. officials said was crafted with help from the CIA, Amiri is dressed in a suit coat before a backdrop that includes a chessboard and a globe turned to the Western Hemisphere. Amiri says he has never betrayed his homeland and asks "everyone to stop presenting information that distorts the reality about me." Amiri also says he knows that the Iranian government "will take care of and protect my family." U.S. officials said fears for their safety appear to have been behind his decisions to release the videos portraying himself as a kidnapping victim, as well as his effort to return. "The Iranians aren't beyond using family to influence people," said a second U.S. official, who added that Amiri's ability to appear in the videos, as well as reach the Iranian mission, "gives the lie to the idea he was tortured or imprisoned. He can tell any story he wants -- but that won't make it true." Defectors who return to their native countries risk severe reprisals. In one of the most notorious cases, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan in the mid-1990s and began providing information on Iraq's banned weapons programs. He returned after being promised that he would not be punished, but within days he was killed. Amiri arrived at the Iranian mission at 6:30 p.m. Monday, officials said. Only a security guard was present, and the two spoke in Farsi. In meetings with Pakistani diplomats, Amiri said he had been drugged after stepping into a cab in Medina, Saudi Arabia, last summer and woke up in the United States. He said he wasn't physically abused but claimed to have endured severe "mental torture." It was not clear whether Iranian officials had allowed Amiri to speak to his family. Iran has insisted that he would return on a Turkish Airlines flight because of Iran's close ties with Turkey. The next Turkish flight to Tehran via Istanbul was scheduled to leave Wednesday afternoon from New York's Kennedy Airport. Erdbrink reported from Tehran. Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Tara Bahrampour and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071301256.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bridgeofdreams at gmail.com Wed Jul 14 09:43:54 2010 From: bridgeofdreams at gmail.com (Craig Harris) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:43:54 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [bf-insider] Doctorow's "For the Win" available online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Cory is a real demonstration of what the future of writing and publishing could look like - all of his work is freely available for download in multiple formats, and yet he still makes a living from the sales of his real books. With all his other activities and involvements, and a new baby, I wonder if he ever sleeps. Having met him at a performance of a play based on his previous YA novel, "Little Brother," he's cheery, approachable, and apparently well-rested. Cory worked in a bookstore early on, and he also is an enthusiastic supporter of independent bookshops. For a brief speculative take on what the future of bookselling might look like, check out "the story so far . . . and beyond" at: http://bit.ly/bAYfv9 Craig Harris Bridge of Dreams, LLC Books from and about Asia www.bridgeofdreams.com Member, IOBA, Independent Online Booksellers Association Member, MWABA, Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Richard Menec wrote: > The full text of Cory Doctorow's "For the Win" is now available online at > the link provided below. > > For a refreshing take on the hoops many authors are forced to jump through, > you can read about Doctorow's experience with "digital rights management"; > the ridiculous degree to which copyright law has been extended in the UK; > the onerous deals that large corporations like Wal-Mart et al foist on > authors, and why you won't find Doctorow's book for sale in Kindle or IPad > stores. > > In addition, check out the unique way in which Doctorow decided to support > librarians and teachers. He has a great deal of respect for his > publisher....one can't help but admire his stance. > > And while you're at it, and if you have a spare moment, don't miss his > excellent introduction to the book! > > http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "BF-Insider" group. > To post to this group, send email to bf-insider at googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > bf-insider+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/bf-insider?hl=en. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 11:30:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:30:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?Obama=27s_Health_Care_Bill_Is_Enough_t?= =?iso-8859-1?q?o_Make_You_Sick?= Message-ID: (And let's not forget about Obama's other dismal failure that took centre stage on his election platform: the closing of Guantanamo!) http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_health_care_bill_is_enough_to_make_you_sick_20100712/ Truthdig July 12, 2010 Obama's Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick Obama's numerous betrayals-from his failure to implement serious environmental reform at Copenhagen, to his expansion of the current wars, to his refusal to create jobs for our desperate class of unemployed and underemployed, to his gutting of public education, to his callous disregard for the rights of workers and funneling of trillions in taxpayer money to banks-is a shameful list. Passing universal, single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans might have delivered to Obama, who may well be a one-term president, at least one worthwhile achievement. Single-payer nonprofit health care has widespread popular support, with nearly two-thirds of the public behind it. It is backed by 59 percent of doctors. And it would have helped roll back, at least a bit, the corporate assault on the citizenry. By Chris Hedges A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans. The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill-written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists-means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money. "They named this legislation the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and as the tradition of this nation goes, any words they put into the name of a piece of legislation means the opposite," said single-payer activist Dr. Margaret Flowers http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/profile3.html when I heard her and Helen Redmond http://helenredmond.wordpress.com/ dissect the legislation in Chicago at the Socialism 2010 Conference last month. "It neither protects patients nor leads to affordable care." "This legislation moves us further in the direction of the commodification of health care," Flowers went on. "It requires people to purchase health insurance. It takes public dollars to subsidize the purchase of that private insurance. It not only forces people to purchase this private product, but uses public dollars and gives them directly to these corporations. In return, there are no caps on premiums. Insurance companies can continue to raise premiums. We estimate that because they are required to cover people with pre-existing conditions, although we will see if this happens, they will argue that they will have to raise premiums." The legislation included a few tiny improvements that have been used as bait to sell it to the public. The bill promises, for example, to expand community health centers and increase access to primary-care doctors. It allows children to stay on their parent's plan until they turn 26. It will include those with pre-existing conditions in insurance plans, although Flowers warns that many technicalities and loopholes make it easy for insurance companies to drop patients. Most of the more than 30 million people currently without insurance, and the 45,000 who die each year because they lack medical care, essentially remain left out in the cold, and things will not get better for the rest of us. "We are still a nation full of health care hostages," Redmond said. "We live in fear of losing our health care. Millions of people have lost their health care. We fear bankruptcy. The inability to pay medical bills is the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy. We fear not being able to afford medications. Millions of people skip medications. They skip these medications to the detriment of their health. We are not free. And we won't be free until health care is a human right, until health care is not tied to a job, because we still have an employment-based system, and until health care has nothing to do with immigration status. We don't care if you are documented or undocumented. It should not matter what your health care status is, if you have a disease or you don't. It should not matter how much money you have or don't, because many of our programs are based on income eligibility rules. Until we abolish the private, for-profit health insurance industry in this county we are not free. Until we take the profit motive out of health care we cannot live in the way we want to live. This legislation doesn't do any of that. It doesn't change those basic facts of our health care system." Redmond held up a syringe. "I take a medication that costs $1,700 every single month," she said. "I inject this medication. It costs $425 a week for 50 milligrams of medication. I would do almost anything to get this medication because without it I don't have much of a life. The pharmaceutical industry knows this. They price these drugs accordingly to the level of desperation that people feel. Billy Tauzin, the former CEO of [the trade organization of] Big Pharma, negotiated a secret deal with President Obama to extend the patents of biologics, this new revolutionary class of drugs, for 12 years. And Obama also promised in this deal that he would not negotiate drug prices for Medicare." Obama's numerous betrayals-from his failure to implement serious environmental reform at Copenhagen, to his expansion of the current wars, to his refusal to create jobs for our desperate class of unemployed and underemployed, to his gutting of public education, to his callous disregard for the rights of workers and funneling of trillions in taxpayer money to banks-is a shameful list. Passing universal, single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans might have delivered to Obama, who may well be a one-term president, at least one worthwhile achievement. Single-payer nonprofit health care has widespread popular support, with nearly two-thirds of the public behind it. It is backed by 59 percent of doctors. And it would have helped roll back, at least a bit, the corporate assault on the citizenry. Medical bills lead to 62 percent of personal bankruptcies, and nearly 80 percent of these people had insurance. The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $8,160 per capita. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume 31 percent of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year-enough, PNHP estimates, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans. Candidate Obama promised to protect women's rights under Roe. v. Wade, something this legislation does not do. He told voters he would create a public option and then refused to consider it. The health care reform bill, to quote a statement released by PNHP, has instead "saddled Americans with an expensive package of onerous individual mandates, new taxes on workers' health plans, countless sweetheart deals with the insurers and Big Pharma, and a perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today." "Obama said he was going to have everybody at the table," Redmond said, "but that was a lie. Our voice was not allowed to be there. There was a blackout on our movement. We did not get media attention. We did actions all over the country but we could not get coverage. We had the 'Mad as Hell Doctors' go across the country in a caravan, and they had rallies and meetings. If that had been a bunch of AMA Republican doctors, Cooper Anderson would have been on the caravan reporting live. NPR would have done a series. Instead, they did not get much coverage. And neither did the sit-ins and arrests at insurance companies, although we have never seen that level of activity. They turned us into a fringe movement, although poll after poll shows that the majority of people want some kind of single-payer system." Our for-profit health system is driven by insurance companies whose goal is to avoid covering the elderly and the sick. These groups, most in need of medical care, diminish profits. Medicare, paid for by the government, removes responsibility for many of the old. Medicaid, also paid for by the government, removes the poor people, who have a greater tendency to have chronic health problems. Hefty premiums, which those who are seriously ill and lose their jobs often cannot pay, remove the very sick. If you are healthy and employed, which means you are less likely to need expensive or complex treatment, the insurance companies swoop down like birds of prey. These corporations need to control our perceptions of health care. Patients must be viewed as consumers. Doctors, identified as "health care providers," must be seen as salespeople. Insurance companies, which will soon be able to use billions in taxpayer dollars to bolster their lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, know that single-payer nonprofit insurance means their extinction. And they will employ considerable resources to make sure single-payer nonprofit coverage is denied to the public. They correctly see this as a battle for their lives. And if human beings have to die so they can survive, they are willing to make us pay this price. The for-profit health care industry, along with the Democratic Party, consciously set out to confuse the public debate. It created Health Care for America NOW! in 2008 and provided it with tens of millions of dollars to supposedly build a public campaign for a public option. But the organization had no intention of permitting a public option. The organization was, as Dr. Flowers said, "a very clever way to distract members of the single-payer movement and co-op some of them. They told them that the public option would become single payer, that it was a back door to single payer, although there was no evidence that was true." Physicians for a National Health Plan attempted to fight back. It worked with a number of organizations under a coalition called the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. The group, which included the National Nurse's Union and Health Care Now, sought meetings with members of Congress. Flowers and other advocates asked Congress members to include them in committee debates about the health care bill. But when the first debate on the health care reform took place in the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, a politician who gets over 80 percent of his campaign contributions from outside his home state of Montana, they were locked out. Baucus invited 41 people to testify. None backed single payer. The Leadership Conference, which represents more than 20 million people, again requested that one of their members testify. Baucus again refused. When the second committee meeting took place, Flowers and seven other activists stood one by one in the room and asked why the voices of the patients and the health care providers were not being heard. The eight were arrested and removed from the committee hearing. Single-payer advocates were eventually heard on a few of the House and Senate committees. But the hearings were a charade, part of Washington's cynical political theater. It was the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists who were in charge. They dominated the public debate. They wrote the legislation. They determined who received lavish campaign contributions and who did not. And they won. "We are talking about life and death, about the difference between living your life and dying," Redmond said. "And once again it came down to the Democratic Party trumping the needs of the people." From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 11:43:02 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:43:02 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] From a Fishing Village, to an "'Oil Town": Hell Has Come to S. Louisiana Message-ID: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20101 Global Research July 12, 2010 >From a Fishing Village, to an "'Oil Town": Hell Has Come to South Louisiana By Dahr Jamail Dahr Jamail's Dispatches - 2010-07-11 Clint Guidry is a shrimper from Lafitte, Louisiana. As we sit together, he shows me a picture of his house with 18 inches of water in it as a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008. In his deep voice, he looks me in the eye and says, "My fear is repeating this situation, but with this water with oil on top of it." Guidry represents all the shrimpers in Louisiana, given that he is the Shrimp Harvester Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force that was created by the state's governor. Prior to this fishing season, he, like the rest of Louisiana's fishermen, was excited for good season, with the price of shrimp per pound finally weighing more in their favor. "We were primed for a great season," Guidry says, "And it all got taken away." Unlike most fishermen who've had their livelihoods decimated by BP's oil disaster, Guidry has chosen not to work for BP doing skimming and booming operations with his boat. "I worked for Brown and Root in the oil industry," Guidry informs, "I know the dangers of oil and chemicals, so there's no way I'm going to go work out in this stuff. Instead, I'm trying to help make sure BP is paying people, and being safe. But I'm not accomplishing either one yet." Guidry is incensed at what he is seeing. "There has been a BP cover-up from day one," he says, as I write furiously in my notepad, trying to keep up, "The US Government, OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], the Coast Guard, NIOSH [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], all of them are in on it." On May 24th, in Galliano, Louisiana, Guidry testified to a delegation of US Senators, Congressmen, and Agencies and departments under Obama's administration. He sent the testimony to the president as well, urgently requesting help. Here is his testimony, verbatim: - My name is Clint Guidry. I am a third generation Louisiana Commercial Shrimp Fisherman. I am sixty-two years old and a lifelong resident of Lafitte, LA. I am a Vietnam Veteran and the son of a WWII Veteran. I am on the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and the Shrimp Harvester Representative on the LA Shrimp Task Force created by Executive Order of Gov. Bobby Jindal. I have been invited here today to testify about the current disaster that is occurring concerning the blowout and oil spill from the British Petroleum (BP) DeepWater Horizon Catastrophe and what effects it is having on the fishermen and the families I represent. Ladies and gentlemen, HELL has come to South Louisiana. A HELL created by British Petroleum (BP) and a failed U.S. Government response to the disaster. First of all I would like to put into perspective BP's role in this disaster and show them for what they are. BP committed fraud in furnishing oil spill response data required to obtain a permit to enable them to drill the MC 252 location. The reality is they were not prepared to handle or control a blowout and resulting oil spill of this magnitude. Simply put, they LIED. BP, in their haste to cut corners and save money in the completion process on the well location at MC 252, exhibited willful neglect in their duties to complete the well safely which led to the blowout and explosion that killed eleven people. Eleven souls that will never come back. Eleven families with mothers and fathers and wives and children. Children who will never see their fathers again. This neglect and loss of life constitutes negligent homicide and all involved should be arrested and charged as such. So now I have established what kind of people we are dealing with, LIARS and KILLERS. It appalls me that they are still in total control of this disaster after almost a month has passed. Now I would like to speak about our Federal Response to the disaster. The first response to the disaster was the U.S. Coast Guard, who has assumed duties of protecting BP and aiding them in downplaying the spill, providing BP representatives with armed guards to keep away the press and TV camera crews and sending representatives to local communities to provide false information on safety and health dangers related to the oil spill and the chemical dispersants used. The second response came from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who in an effort to minimize the spill and save BP face, unleashed two dangerous chemical dispersants which were injected into the water column at the sea floor and sprayed on the surface over the oil and workers in the areas of the spill and along the coast close to coastal fishing communities. These chemical dispersants contain solvents that are dangerous to marine populations in the Gulf and coastal estuaries and were never fully tested for dangers to humans. In the product sheets for these chemical dispersants, there is always a disclaimer: "This listing does not mean that EPA approves, recommends, licenses, certifies or authorizes the use of this product on an oil discharge." And that IS exactly what EPA did and is still doing with total disregard to marine populations that will collapse because of it and human populations that will get sick and may die because of this decision. "Kill the Ocean, Save the Beaches," a "Trade-Off" decision. Under what logic does this work? The Gulf is the Mother and the Estuaries are the nurseries. If the Mother dies, there will be no children to incubate. The reality is the oil and chemical dispersants are entering our estuaries as we speak. The "Trade-Off" logic FAILED. As I stated, I represent commercial shrimp fishermen. I have members, friends and family presently working to contain and clean-up the spill. They are relating to me BP's total disregard for providing workers with proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I have extensive experience working with hazardous chemicals associated with petroleum. In the 80's and 90's I worked with Brown and Root Industrial Services as a supervisor, General Superintendant and Area Superintendant. I supervised maintenance work in oil refineries and was responsible for worker safety and getting the work done on time. Safety and health of my workers ALWAYS came first with me. I am being told by workers and family members that proper respiratory protection is NOT being provided to the fishermen workers. Petroleum, as it surfaces and spreads over the water and heats, releases dangerous carcinogens and these carcinogens are most concentrated directly over the leaking well and surrounding area where my fishermen are working. There has been NO respiratory protective PPE issued to workers working directly over this most dangerous area, even as a precaution to have available given they are working 60 miles offshore. In fact, when some individuals brought their own respirators, they were told by BP representatives on site that if they wore the respirators they would be released from the job. That disturbs me greatly. My fishermen are more concerned with losing their jobs and the income they desperately need to pay bills and feed their families than their health. >From years of experience I know that, when protected, work in very hazardous environments can be completed safely using the proper PPE. Is BP sacrificing my fishermen's health and lives to protect themselves from liability issues at a later date? How can we believe liars and killers when they say the worksite is safe? This is the same game plan Exxon used in Alaska 20 years ago and Alaska fishermen ?never collected a penny in settlements from Exxon for sickness and deaths related to working clean-up after the Valdez spill. Exxon never issued respiratory protection to fishermen in the Valdez spill. These workers safety issues are my top PRIORITY and need to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. If we are going to allow BP "We the people" 5th Amendment rights in court and use "Taking of Future Profits" to let them off the hook for full responsibility of this disaster, we will be playing the same part as the Alaskans did in the Exxon Valdez Playbook that BP is using on us. It is past time for our elected officials, Departments and Agencies to abandon the influence of "Big Oil's" "Big Money" and do what they were elected and appointed to do, represent and protect "We the People" who voted them in office. This Administration needs to treat BP like what they really are, LIARS and KILLERS and take control of this monumental disaster. This administration was elected to office on a platform of "CHANGE." So far, as it applies to "Big Oil" it is business as usual. The only change we are experiencing in dealing with "Big Oil" is being "Short-Changed." On behalf of the Commercial Shrimpers I represent and the coastal communities who are losing their way of life, I ask that you take control of this out of control situation. Clint Guidry Louisiana Shrimp Association - Like so many others in Louisiana who have any affiliation with the response effort to the oil disaster (which is basically everyone), as his statement indicates, Guidry is appalled at the seeming lack of concern about the heath effects of the dispersants on response workers. "There are incidents the Coast Guard itself has recorded and documented of planes spraying Coast Guard boats, platforms, and fishermen with dispersant," he tells me, "Our biggest battle now is trying to get people protected, and it's pissing me off." Guidry is hearing directly from fishermen he knows participating in the response effort, and they are telling him they are being sprayed. To make matters worse, despite BP being directed by the so-called EPA and Coast Guard on May 26 to dramatically decrease their use of dispersant in the Gulf, recently released Coast Guard records show that BP has exceeded dispersant limits on a near daily basis since that order. Guidry, like everyone I've met thus far in Southeastern Louisiana, is all too aware of the fact that, as he succinctly stated in his testimony, "Hell has come to South Louisiana." Yet he knows the future could bring even worse. "If we have another bout of storms during August, September, and October, which is our severe storm time, that brings one Category 3 hurricane, we'll have oil and dispersant everywhere. Every area of Southern Louisiana beyond hurricane protection will lose their homes, their living, and their heritage." Guidry speaks fondly of how he used to fish for Tuna out in the area where the well is gushing oil into the Gulf. "Blue, White, Brown Tuna, Marlin, Sailfish, it is all out there," Guidry says urgently, "This disaster has punched holes in our marine eco-system that we won't know about for a long time. We don't know what we've done." A short while later Guidry invites us, along with several other friends, on a short boat ride up the Bayou. He expertly guides his boat across the water while pointing out dormant remains of the local commercial shrimping industry. "Nunez Seafood is the only processing plant we have in Lafitte," Guidry explains, "That's where we used to box and freeze our shrimp before it would be sent out across the country. Right now, that freezer space should be completely full of shrimp." Tracy Kuhns, the executive director of Louisiana Bayoukeeper, is riding with us, and watches me staring at the empty facility, that is also surrounded by many empty shrimping boats. "We went from a fishing village, to an oil town," Tracy adds as we pull away from the emptiness that used to be Nunez Seafood. From penney.kome at gmail.com Wed Jul 14 12:27:08 2010 From: penney.kome at gmail.com (PJ Kome) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:27:08 -0600 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [bf-insider] Doctorow's "For the Win" available online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Makes a living from the sales of his real books? Er, yes, and no. Cory Doctorow's online bio says: "He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003.." and also "He is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Open University (UK); in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California." Nothing like a private income and a well-endowed academic Chair to ease the burden of writing for a living! Also, do we know what his partner does (apart from sharing a baby)? cheers, Penney On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 8:43 AM, Craig Harris wrote: > Cory is a real demonstration of what the future of writing and publishing > could look like - all of his work is freely available for download in > multiple formats, and yet he still makes a living from the sales of his real > books. > ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Penney Kome, author and journalist Editor, Straight Goods http://www.straightgoods.ca http://penneykome.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 12:48:00 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:48:00 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] USDA Publications: A Digital Repository Message-ID: <9F53071AAE91404A90E7E89BF88FD6A2@agingCHS072729> A superb resource for post-industrial society! Sending this in rich text to retain the links... United States Department of Agriculture Publications: A Digital Repository Tables of Contents: "AH" Agriculture Handbook (nos. 1-350) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "AH2" Agriculture Handbook (nos. 351-730) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "AIB" Agriculture Information Bulletin (nos. 1-746, with gaps) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "BIC" Bean Improvement Cooperative Publications -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Books" Books, Manuscripts, Miscellaneous Articles, Reports and Images -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Circ" Circular -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "ERS" Economic Research Service - Agricultural Economic Report (1-841) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Economic Research Service - Staff Report (various numbers) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Economic Research Service - Statistical Bulletin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "FB" Farmers' Bulletin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "FVMNR" Fruit and Vegetable Market News Report (various reports) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "HGB" Home and Garden Bulletin (nos. 1-267) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "JAR" Journal of Agricultural Research (1913 to 1949, v.1 to v. 78) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "LFLT" Leaflet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "MP" Miscellaneous Publication (various numbers) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "NFC" News for Farmer Cooperatives (2-volume sample) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "ROS" Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture (1862-1888) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Report of the Secretary of Agriculture (1889-1893) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Rural" Rural Development Perspectives (1978-1995, with gaps) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rural Development Research Report (nos. 1-89) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "TB" Technical Bulletin (nos. 1-630) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "TB1" Technical Bulletin (nos. 631-1260, in progress) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "TB2" Technical Bulletin (nos. 1261-1922, in progress) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "USDA_Div_Bulletin" USDA Bulletins -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "WPC" World's Poultry Science Association Publications -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "YOA1" Yearbook of Agriculture (1894-1937) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "YOA2" Yearbook of Agriculture (1938-1992) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 15:50:27 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:50:27 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] An Open Letter in Defense of Mumia Abu Jamal Message-ID: <6E2ED5A0CEF444AC9B6B19692FD50F1E@agingCHS072729> **Please post widely** AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ABOLITIONIST COMMUNITY IN DEFENSE OF MUMIA ABU JAMAL FROM THE CAMPAIGN TO END THE DEATH PENALTY The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is appalled by the news that several individuals of leading anti-death penalty organizations have signed a confidential memorandum stating that the "involvement of Mumia Abu-Jamal endangers the U.S. coalition for abolition of the death penalty." The memo further argues that the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty should not highlight Mumia's case because doing so "unnecessarily attracts our strongest opponents and alienates coalition partners at a time when we need to build alliances, not foster hatred and enmity." (http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/117) This memo was drafted on December 21, 2009, yet it only recently came to light following the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held on March 4 in Geneva, Switzerland. At this meeting, a telephone call came in from Mumia Abu-Jamal, and he addressed the audience. At this point, several members of U.S. abolitionist groups got up and walked out in protest. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty strongly condemns this action and completely disagrees with the approach to the anti-death penalty struggle that this memo puts forth. First of all, we unequivocally support and endorse Mumia Abu-Jamal in his struggle for justice. We believe in his innocence and see Mumia's case as fraught with many of the same injustices as other death penalty cases--racial bias, police misconduct and brutality, and prosecutorial and judicial prejudice. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the past 28 years and remains there because the courts, under pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police, have thwarted his efforts to win his freedom. From his prison cell, Mumia has galvanized an international movement of support towards his efforts to win justice. He has written numerous books and articles shedding light on our prison-industrial complex as well as other historical and current political issues. He is widely read, known and respected. His commentaries on prison radio are nothing short of brilliant. He has helped to educate millions of people about the true workings of the criminal justice system. But most importantly, he has been an inspiration to all those fighting to win abolition, lending his voice of hope, his encouragement and his unfaltering determination to our movement. So why would a delegation of U.S. abolitionists would get up and walk out of a meeting when Mumia addresses the audience? Shouldn't they have stood and applauded? The explanation for this reprehensible action is explained in the secret memo, which basically puts forth the argument that to have anything to do with Mumia's case ruins the chances of winning abolition of the death penalty. Why? Here is what the memo states, in part: "The support of law enforcement officials is essential to achieving abolition in the United States. It is essential to the national abolition strategy of U.S. abolition activists and attorneys that we cultivate the voices of police, prosecutors and law enforcement experts to support our call for an end to the death penalty." This statement points to a very disturbing direction that we have observed in recent years among some organizations in the abolition movement--of compromising our message in order to win the support of conservatives. This has lead leading death penalty organizations to downplay the impact of race in the criminal justice system and to advocate reaching out to law enforcement as a means of winning abolition of the death penalty. Those who espouse this strategy ignore or downplay the role that police play in railroading many poor people and African Americans onto death row. They ignore the role that police, prosecutors and judges play as guardians of an unjust legal system that disproportionately targets the poor and people of color. The outcome of this strategy has led to the marginalization of prisoners like Mumia, whose voices from behind prison walls are so important in this fight. The individuals who drafted the memo go on to identify the voices that they seek to include: "The voices of the Innocent, the voices of Victims and the voices of Law Enforcement are the most persuasive factors in changing public opinion and the views of decision-makers (politicians) and opinion leaders (the media). Continuing to shine a spotlight on Abu-Jamal, who has had so much public exposure for so many years, threatens to alienate these three most important partnership groups." We in the CEDP couldn't disagree more with this strategy. We believe the most "persuasive factor" in changing public opinion is to build a vocal, visible movement that forthrightly puts forward its demands-- instead of working to make our message palatable to the opposition. Consider the analogies to past struggles. What if Martin Luther King compromised the goals of integration in order to reach out and try to win over segregationists? No, he reached out to organize and uplift progressive forces into fighting for change. That is the kind of strategy we need. The men and women on death row across the country--including the guilty--are not our enemy. The enemy is the system of punitive thought that portrays them as monsters so that the public can feel okay about killing them. It is part of the punitive philosophy upon which the legal system is based--the same system that breeds crime in the first place, that gives so little support to victims of abuse, that says it believes in rehabilitation but then won't fund it, that says it believes in education but then takes money away to build prisons instead. We reject the logic of having the Fraternal Order of Police as a partner or ally. The FOP has organized against our efforts to win justice for Mumia, for Troy Davis, for the Burge Torture victims in Chicago and countless others. Our approach is based on an anti-racist perspective. We know that the history of aggressive policing, sentencing and the death penalty has its roots in slavery--that the tough on crime rhetoric of lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key is racially coded language. The Campaign stands completely and unequivocally with Mumia Abu-Jamal. We also stand by a different strategy to win abolition. Instead of marginalizing voices like Mumia, we should be developing more innovative and creative ways to put them forward--and not just Mumia's, but others, including Troy Davis, Rodney Reed and Kevin Cooper, to name a few. We need to put the human face on this issue. We need to build a movement that challenges the racism and class bias nature of the death penalty--and to point out that these injustices exist in the broader criminal justice system as well. In order to build a fight that can win real justice, we cannot marginalize "divisive" issues like racism. Instead, we have to take them on frontally. And instead of reaching out to the conservative elements in society, we should be reaching out to progressive elements and building bridges there. Let's not forget that the lowest level of support for the death penalty (42 percent) was in 1966, at the height of the civil rights movement. Let's work to place the fight for abolition squarely in the progressive camp, where it most surely belongs. FREE MUMIA! ONWARDS TO ABOLITION! __._,_.___N From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 15:58:56 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:58:56 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Obama's Collapse Message-ID: <29E6F19F4D984FCFA53E2BC489F7DEBF@agingCHS072729> << The Obama who spoke when in Cairo last year of a 'new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world' has been revealed as an eloquent windbag. The war on Afghanistan has been accelerated and with it the deaths of more civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President who declared that 'we will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own' has done just that. >> 05:04 07/11/2010 Obama's Collapse By Jeremy Salt - Ankara The spectacle of an American sucking up to an Israeli Prime Minister is familiar but no less sickening every time it happens. Not since Eisenhower has an American president had the guts to stand up to Israel. With this single exception, all of them have fallen over in their haste to give Israel whatever it wants and to hold it responsible for nothing, not even the murder of its own citizens. The recent meeting between Barack Obama, effectively apologising because his middle name is Hussein, and Benyamin Netanyahu surely marks the lowest point in this sick relationship. Obama has now thrown in the towel. That is what the White House meeting represented. He talked of a peace process which does not exist and Israeli 'concessions' which have never been made. Obama wants the non-existent peace process to be resumed with a Palestinian government that is not the Palestinian government and a Palestinian president who is not the president. Everyone can see that the emperor is wearing not new clothes but no clothes. Can Obama see it himself? Almost certainly. He is a highly intelligent man, but with midterm elections coming up in November this is what he feels he has to say to appease the Israeli lobby. He has thereby gone the way of all American presidents with that single exception of Eisenhower. He has turned himself into a straw man before our eyes. The Obama who last year demanded a halt to all Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem is now a figure of history. He had his moment and he did not have the backbone to stand up for his declared convictions. Netanyahu went back to Israel and thumbed his nose at him. Obama challenged Netanyahu, then backed off and has now surrendered obsequiously. It is a sad moment for the United States, and another disastrous moment for the Palestinians and the Middle East and perhaps even for the world. The Obama who spoke when in Cairo last year of a 'new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world' has been revealed as an eloquent windbag. The war on Afghanistan has been accelerated and with it the deaths of more civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President who declared that 'we will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own' has done just that. Full: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16124 From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 14 16:28:01 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:28:01 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The new normal Message-ID: <94CEB93BF0F241B6ABF27D24C0A73505@agingCHS072729> http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/pers-j14.shtml The new normal 14 July 2010 Two months after the announcement of a ?750 billion European bailout halted a panic on world stock markets triggered by the Greek debt crisis, it is clear that this bailout was the occasion for a sharp reorientation of European and international politics. Claims that the economic crisis was a temporary aberration have been set aside. Instead, the continuous impoverishment of the working class is to be the ?new normal.? The bailout was designed to stem a stock market selloff driven by fears of opposition in the working class and bitter infighting between major European powers over how to fund Greek and international debts. It was reportedly arranged after threats that France would otherwise abandon the euro. European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet warned that relations between the European states were the most tense since the outbreak of World War II. As the ruling class contemplated the risks inherent in dissolving the common currency?the breakdown of European trade, the collapse of German exports, even the possibility of a Franco-German war?it decided to save the euro on the backs of the workers. Funds to repay the bailout, which amounts to yet another gigantic handout to the major banks, are to come from social cuts on a truly unprecedented scale. This decision was seconded by the installation of a British Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in May, and formally ratified by the world?s major powers at last month?s G20 summit in Toronto. The G20 communiqu? declared that ?countries with serious fiscal challenges need to accelerate the pace of consolidation??that is, budget-cutting. The austerity measures extend well beyond the shattered economies of Greece and Spain, where workers now face new cuts every few weeks. They are meant to usher in a transformation of social life throughout the Western world. In Britain, 85 to 100 billion pounds in cuts are expected to cost 1.3 million jobs, a dramatic rise in homelessness, the collapse of infrastructure maintenance and public services, and 25 to 40 percent reductions in local government budgets. Germany, the fiscally strongest European state, plans ?80 billion in cuts. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy plans sweeping pension cuts and a 10 percent reduction in local government budgets, while handing out ?30 million tax rebates to well-connected billionaires like Liliane Bettencourt. This broader shift in policy highlights the significance of the US government?s recent refusal to extend unemployment benefits?a decision threatening to leave millions of workers destitute. Instead, the Obama administration is promoting its National Export Initiative, announced in the president?s State of the Union address last January. This measure aims to double US exports by forcing American workers to compete, through a brutal reduction in their wages combined with higher productivity, with their impoverished counterparts in countries like China, India and Vietnam. The ruling classes sense that their policies will face mass working class opposition. Hence, their austerity programs are accompanied by a press campaign to legitimize dictatorship and war. Coordinated budget cuts, while temporarily staving off inter-state conflict within Europe, only aggravate tensions between the imperialist countries and rising powers such as China. At the same time, the austerity measures decrease the West?s economic and strategic strength relative to newly industrialized countries, threatening the established international order with collapse. Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf notes that, in addition to its technological advantages, which are rapidly being eroded, ?the West reached its pinnacle at least as much by rent-seeking or, to put it more bluntly, by plundering the world?s physical and human resources.? Under these conditions, the use of military force to defend the prerogatives of the Western financial aristocracy seems increasingly appealing to the ruling classes. In a recent International Herald Tribune article calling for more European military spending, French foreign policy expert Th?r?se Delpech warned that Asia must be viewed as a ?strategic headache? due to China?s rising economic importance worldwide. In the case of a US-Chinese conflict, she added, Europe must be ready to wage war against Beijing ?in the Middle East, for example, helping block maritime routes? carrying oil to China. Internal as well as external opposition is to be targeted for violent assault?as shown by the police repression of the G20 protests in Toronto, mass police roundups in Colombo, and the Thai army?s massacre of Red Shirt protestors in May. Underlying this repression is the growing feeling that only such measures will allow the ruling classes to preserve their privileges. In a recent Globe and Mail comment, editorialist Neil Reynolds asked if democracy can ?peaceably? dismantle the welfare state, answering: ?No, it can?t.? Focusing on Italy, he observed that the one force in history that had been able to slash state debt and government expenditure was Mussolini?s fascist regime, which took power in 1922. Such comments highlight the profound political and moral crisis of capitalism. It stands exposed as a system poised to unleash the same poverty and bloodshed it produced in the first half the 20th century. In their drive to slash social spending and prepare for war, the ruling classes turn governments into a chemically pure illustration of the Marxist definition of the state as a collection of bodies of armed men whose purpose is to enforce the material interests of the ruling class. Until now, workers have found themselves blocked from effective opposition to social reaction and war because the existing political organizations are led by middle-class charlatans or right-wing union bureaucrats, hostile to a struggle against capitalism and fight for socialism. Even one-day ?general strikes? in Greece or France are a form of political shadowboxing, in which popular opposition is contained and dispersed by trade union officials who are preparing, negotiating, and helping implement the cuts. Workers can oppose the ruling class policies of social reaction and war only by breaking with these treacherous organizations and undertaking a revolutionary struggle for socialism. Alex Lantier From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 15 00:23:13 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:23:13 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Companies pile up cash but remain hesitant to add jobs Message-ID: <951BDAA6E43044D9BD877E64FD0DA632@Upstairs> Companies pile up cash but remain hesitant to add jobs By Jia Lynn Yang Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 15, 2010 Corporate America is hoarding a massive pile of cash. It just doesn't want to spend it hiring anyone. Nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, roughly one-quarter more than at the beginning of the recession. And as several major firms report impressive earnings this week, the money continues to flow into firms' coffers. Yet all the good news from big business hasn't translated into much promise for jobless Americans, leading many to wonder: If corporations are sitting on so much money, why aren't they hiring more workers? The answer to that question has become a political flash point between the White House and big business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which held a jobs summit Wednesday and accused the Obama administration of dumping onerous regulations on businesses. That has created an environment of "uncertainty," which is causing firms to hold back on hiring as the unemployment rate has hovered near 10 percent, the Chamber said. The White House countered that companies are wary of hiring not because of new regulations but because they're still waiting for consumer demand to return. The administration also claimed credit for 3.5 million jobs created by the stimulus bill from last year. The acrimony over jobs comes at a particularly tense moment in the relationship between business groups and the White House. With the midterm elections looming and polls showing Americans expressing a lack of confidence in President Obama's handling of the economy, White House officials are eager to demonstrate that their policies are helping, not hurting, the prospects for job growth and are making an extra effort to reach out to industry leaders. For the Chamber's jobs event, the White House said it asked for a speaking slot for senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who acts as a liaison to the business community, but the Chamber turned down the request. Chamber officials said Jarrett's office called Tuesday afternoon, the day before the conference, and demanded a speaking slot immediately after remarks from Chamber chief executive Tom Donohue. The White House said that it did not ask for a specific slot. "There are going to be areas where we differ, but we do have different roles," Jarrett said in an interview. "Our job is to both protect the American people and foster a climate where companies invest and create jobs. Their role is to produce profits for their shareholders." White House officials also choreographed a competing set of images for Obama on Wednesday, having him meet separately with famed investor Warren Buffett and, later, with Bill Clinton as well as the chief executives of Bank of America and Honeywell. Obama aides said the business meetings were a coincidence and had been scheduled before they knew of the Chamber event. They said the meeting with Buffett had been in the works for a long time. (Buffett is a director with The Washington Post Co.) The question of how to encourage companies to hire has challenged policymakers. A survey last month of more than 1,000 chief financial officers by Duke University and CFO magazine showed that nearly 60 percent of those executives don't expect to bring their employment back to pre-recession levels until 2012 or later -- even though they're projecting a 12 percent rise in earnings and a 9 percent boost in capital spending over the next year. When asked why companies are holding back so much, many economists cite broader uncertainty that goes well beyond anything happening in Washington. Firms aren't sure whether the economy can sustain a strong recovery. And as long as consumer spending remains low, there's not much incentive for companies to ramp up. The trend of companies holding more cash is not new. Between 1980 and 2006, the average cash-to-assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms more than doubled, according to research by finance professors. One explanation, said finance professor Ren? Stulz at Ohio State University, is that as competition has become more global, it's become harder for individual companies to survive, and so they hold on to more cash to be safe. He added that companies have also increased their cash holdings in the wake of the financial crisis, particularly since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, as the banking system has become more fragile and credit has become scarce. Tech companies in particular tend to build large cash reserves. Intel, which reported on Tuesday its biggest quarterly profit in a decade, brought aboard 400 new employees worldwide in the last quarter, though it would not identify in which countries the hirings took place. Intel spokeswoman Lisa Malloy added that the firm expects to spend more money, from $4.5 billion last year to $5.2 billion this year, investing in capital projects around the world. And yet the firm has $1.7 billion more in cash than it had a year ago. Intel said it is enjoying strong demand for its chips, so low demand doesn't help explain the firm's mountain of cash. Alcoa, which reported strong earnings Monday, said it had $493 million more in cash this quarter compared with a year earlier. Spokesman Kevin Lowery said the company plans to keep its head count steady. Some analysts said it may be hard to create policy that compels companies to use some of their cash to hire workers. "CEOs don't like taking risks. They kind of move in packs," said Zachary Karabell, president of River Twice Research. "There's not a whole lot that you could do to entice companies to hire," he added. "You could cut taxes on them, but they're not going to hire just because they have the extra cash, because they already have the extra cash." Staff writer Michael D. Shear contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/14/AR2010071405960.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 15 23:36:17 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:36:17 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] US-Backed Jundallah Bombs Iran Mosque, Killing at Least 21 Message-ID: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/07/15/us-backed-jundallah-bombs-iran-mosque-killing-at-least-21/ US-Backed Jundallah Bombs Iran Mosque, Killing at Least 21 Revolutionary Guard Members Among the Slain by Jason Ditz, July 15, 2010 At least 21 people were killed and 100 others wounded this evening in a pair of suicide attacks against a major Shi'ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, the capital of Iran's Sistan-Balochistan Province. The death toll is said to have included a number of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Jundallah, a militant separatist group that at one point was tied with al-Qaeda, but has more recently been linked with the US government, claimed credit for the attack, saying it was revenge for the execution of their leader, Abdulmalek Rigi, last month. Iran was quick to blame the US for the latest attack, since US officials have repeatedly acknowledged providing "support and encouragement" to the group, which has been launching terror attacks in Iran and Pakistan for years. The attack is eerily similar to a previous strike in Zahedan in May 2009, which also involved suicide bombers attacking worshipers at the Shi'ite mosque in the largely Sunni province. Jundallah claimed that attack as well. From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 15 23:41:02 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:41:02 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Despite "rift," U.S., Israel talking Iran attack Message-ID: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/15/obama_israel_rift_not_on_iran/index.html Thursday, Jul 15, 2010 11:55 ET Despite "rift," U.S., Israel talking Iran attack We keep hearing that the governments of both countries are at odds. But apparently not when it comes to this issue By Justin Elliott To hear most media tell it before last week's meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, the only relevant question was whether a deep U.S.-Israel "rift" was temporary or permanent. But the idea of some kind of substantive schism between the two countries has always been a bit comical. As Bloomberg put it in an underappreciated piece last month, "Obama's Israel Policy Showing No Difference With Clinton-Bush." The latest evidence of the non-rift comes in this new Time story in which Joe Klein passes on spin he's getting from unnamed U.S. and Israeli government sources about the chances of a U.S. attack on Iran supposedly rising (emphasis ours): Other intelligence sources say that the U.S. Army's Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes -- aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region. "There really wasn't a military option a year ago," an Israeli military source told me. "But they've gotten serious about the planning, and the option is real now." Israel has been brought into the planning process, I'm told, because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own. Hard to know what to make of this, especially as Klein opts not to let us in on which side is feeding him this information. But high-level military cooperation is a useful reminder that talk of a "rift" between the Obama and Netanyahu is pretty much bunk. Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 00:15:58 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:15:58 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?BP=27s_oil_disaster_could_reach_Atlant?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ic_seaboard_by_October?= Message-ID: (meanwhile, BP says the "spill" is stopped. For now. Momentarily, anyway. According to BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells, "Engineers will be monitoring pressure levels in the well over the next six to 48 hours . . . . and BP might need to open the well back up." (see "BP official: Oil has stopped flowing into Gulf of Mexico", at http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/bp_says_oil_has_stopped.html ) ============================ http://digitaljournal.com/article/294610 Jul 13, 2010 By ? Lynn Herrmann Study: BP's oil disaster could reach Atlantic seaboard by October [see 2-minute simulation on YouTube] A team of researchers has released a simulation of the possible spread of BP's oil spill over the course of the first year after the April 20 explosion, showing oil entering the Gulf Stream and impacting the Atlantic seaboard as early as October. Researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Department of Oceanography, and the International Pacific Research Center Hawaii have teamed together in studying a series of computer simulations related to the spread of BP's oil spill during its first year of contaminating the planet's oceans. The simulations follow the spreading of eight million buoyant particles continuously released from April 20 to September 17, 2010. The high-resolution Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator (OFES) was used for the ocean flow data simulations. According to a press release: "The paths of the particles were calculated in 8 typical OFES years over 360 days from the beginning of the spill," says Fabian Schloesser, a PhD student in SOEST's Department of Oceanography. He worked on the simulations together with Axel Timmermann and Oliver Elison Timm from SOEST's International Pacific Research Center. "From these 8 typical years, 5 were selected to create an animation for which the calculated extent of the spill best matches current observational estimates," Schloesser added. Grid boxes about 10 km x 10 km in size were used for the surface particle concentration calculations. The calculations went into April 2011. An estimated flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill site of 50,000 barrels per day over a 150-day period was used, with a concentration of "e.g. 10 particles per grid box in the animation" that corresponds "roughly to an oil volume of 2 cubic meters per 100 square kilometer," according to the report. The animation shows the oil initially spreading in the Gulf of Mexico before entering the Loop Current and narrow Florida Current. From there, oil enters the Gulf Stream and spreads into the north Atlantic Ocean. "After one year, about 20% of the particles initially released at the Deepwater Horizon location have been transported through the Straits of Florida and into the open Atlantic," said Timmermann. The simulation suggests the coastlines of northern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas could see the effects of the oil disaster as early as October 2010. As northeasterly winds intensify near Florida during October and November, the oil in the Atlantic begins moving closer to the shoreline of the eastern US while at the same time retreating from Florida's west coast. The research shows the deep and narrow Straits of Florida as being a logical location for use of a filtering system to help mitigate the spreading of oil. The Straits force the Florida Current into a narrow channel, thereby creating a bottleneck before oil spreads into the Atlantic Ocean. The dispersal of particles in the simulation does not capture the effects of oil coagulation, tar ball formation, or microbial and chemical degradation. In the SOEST press release, the team of researchers note their study is not a detailed and specific prediction, rather a tool to be used in guiding research and mitigation efforts. Meanwhile, crude oil continues spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 00:27:28 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:27:28 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] More than 23,000 now homeless in Iowa Message-ID: <03F3B5012BDA4EFB981B798B3E0D185F@agingCHS072729> New Study: 23,808 Now Homeless In Iowa: http://www.kcci.com/news/24247536/detail.html From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 16 11:14:48 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:14:48 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201007150012 Message-ID: <534F1C929F094A4E8130C2B2373EC924@Upstairs> Tea Party Leader Mocks NAACP "Coloreds" In Online Screed July 15, 2010 1:41 pm ET - Matt Finkelstein On Tuesday, the NAACP passed a resolution denouncing racist elements within the Tea Party movement. Responding to the resolution, Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams lashed out against the civil rights group, claiming that "they make more money off of race than any slave trader ever." Williams continued his assault last night on CNN, telling host Roland Martin, "Racists have their own movement. It's called the NAACP." Williams, however, is doing little to refute the notion that there is racism in the Tea Party movement. Last night, the proud Tea Partier wrote a blog post mocking NAACP president Benjamin Jealous. The post takes the form of a fake letter to Abraham Lincoln, in which Jealous asks the former president to repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments (and to reinstate slavery) because the "coloreds" don't agree with the Tea Party's version of "freedom." The entire post is quoted below: NAACP Resolution: Colored People change minds about emancipation Astonishing. In every one of the dozens of interviews that I have done regarding the anti-Tea Party resolution passed by the NAACP I have brought up the absurdity of a group that calls blacks "Colored People" hurling charges of racism. Whats more, each interviewer has defended that phrase and expressed surprise that I would consider that phrase to be racist! Apparently Colored People are an entirely new race of people and one to which the title applies. Here NAACP President Precious Ben Jealous explains to President Abraham Lincoln the reasons for the resolution in this newly discovered letter : Dear Mr. Lincoln We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop! In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the 'tea party movement'. The tea party position to "end the bailouts" for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds. And the ridiculous idea of "reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government." What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions! The racist tea parties also demand that the government "stop the out of control spending." Again, they directly target Colored People. That means we Colored People would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right. Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government "stop raising our taxes." That is outrageous! How will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society? Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong. Sincerely Precious Ben Jealous, Tom's Nephew National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Head Colored Person http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201007150012 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 129352 bytes Desc: not available URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 13:06:20 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:06:20 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Petraeus promotes civil war in Afghanistan Message-ID: <3A8E71FCC3AE435BA5EB2247ACBE20C2@agingCHS072729> << The Petraeus strategy calls for putting 10,000 job-hungry Afghan villagers on the Pentagon payroll. They will be given money and guns so that they can form militias and shoot and kill other members of their village who are asserted to be either pro-Taliban or opposed to the U.S./NATO occupation. >> http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=9703&news_iv_ctrl=1621 Petraeus promotes civil war in Afghanistan Statement from Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition Badly losing the war in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus has decided to promote a violent civil war in Afghan villages. That is the true intent of the new so-called Local Defense Initiatives that Petraeus forced down the throat of Afghanistan's puppet president Hamid Karzai. The new plan is a variant of the Community Defense Initiative that Gen. Stanley McChrystal tried to impose on Afghanistan after Obama selected him to lead the expanded war effort in 2009. The Petraeus strategy calls for putting 10,000 job-hungry Afghan villagers on the Pentagon payroll. They will be given money and guns so that they can form militias and shoot and kill other members of their village who are asserted to be either pro-Taliban or opposed to the U.S./NATO occupation. The new strategy further underscores the criminal role of the Pentagon generals. Petraeus is consciously fomenting civil war and ethnic rivalry just as he did in Iraq. Gen. James Mattis, Petraeus' new boss at Central Command, when speaking to a crowd in San Diego in 2005 about his experience in Afghanistan, said "it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot 'em." President Obama and his military team recognize that it is less damaging at home, where there is almost no support for this endless occupation, to foment civil war in Afghanistan and pay desperate Afghans to slaughter each other as a means of reducing U.S. casualties. U.S. taxpayers who are experiencing devastating cuts in state and local budgets, layoffs of municipal workers, soaring tuition hikes in public colleges-all because of budget shortfalls-will see billions of their tax dollars go to fund the occupation of Afghanistan and pay the salaries of poor Afghans so that they can shoot other poor Afghans. This is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic used historically by all colonial powers to break up a united resistance by the people whose lands they occupy. The Obama administration and its generals are borrowing a page from Nixon and Kissinger's murderous "Vietnamization" plan, which became the announced policy in 1969. Since there was a rising tide of anti-war sentiment at home, Nixon and the Pentagon wanted the Vietnamese to kill each other in greater numbers as a way of diminishing U.S. war dead. Millions of Vietnamese died during the war, as did 58,000 U.S. service members. The U.S. strategy succeeded in creating an ocean of human suffering, but it failed to alter the outcome. The Vietnamese, like the Afghan people, were unwilling to live under foreign occupation. ANSWER Coalition organizers and volunteers have in recent months been working around the country to support the growing numbers of soldiers, marines, veterans and military families who are speaking out against the war in Afghanistan. We are reaching more and more active duty service members and recently returned veterans who know that this colonial-type war is based on lies by the politicians and the Pentagon Brass. The ANSWER Coalition affiliate March Forward! is reaching out to soldiers, marines and veterans. We urge you to support this work by checking out March Forward's Ten point program and signing up for email updates at www.MarchForward.org. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 13:22:57 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:22:57 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] US Military Surge in Costa Rica May Fan Regional Tensions Message-ID: http://narconews.com/Issue66/article4162.html US Military Surge in Costa Rica May Fan Regional Tensions With the "War on Drugs" as Pretext, 46 Warships and 7,000 Troops Reported to Be Heading to Central American Country and Coast By Jamie Way Special to The Narco News Bulletin July 14, 2010 In a controversial decision that is likely to fan the flames of regional tensions in Latin America, Costa Rica recently granted the US permission to move 7,000 troops and 46 warships (along with their accompanying planes and helicopters) into Costa Rican waters. Officially, the act is considered to be part of the "Drug War," which appears to be increasingly more war-like in nature due to such actions and mounting violence in Mexico and Colombia. Costa Rica's neighbors, however, see the massive military presence as a potential base for regional strikes. Due to the long history of US intervention in Latin America (perhaps most notably in neighboring Nicaragua), the region is clearly justified in its concern over the disproportionate and virtual invasion of troops into an area that could potentially provide such a logistical and geographic striking point. Internally, many Costa Ricans are questioning the military presence and its impact on the nation's sovereignty. One party, the United Social Christian Party, has even brought forth a claim questioning the constitutionality of such an act. The Citizen Action Party, the United Social Christian Party and its former presidential candidate, Luis Fishman, have been amongst the most vocal opponents of the US military presence. Fishman has compared the permission granted to handing the US a carte blanche, and has denounced the act as having negative repercussions for the nation's sovereignty. The US has responded by disregarding opposition. According to a Tico Times article, US Ambassador Anne Andrew responded by saying, "We are not sure why there is this uproar," and furthermore stated that the request was the same as the one that had been submitted each year for the last decade under a bilateral agreement. Past agreements, opposition argues, however, appear to have only granted US vessels permission to enter the area in pursuit of suspects and do not seem to have mentioned troop or warship presence. Furthermore, the opposition argues that the massive military presence of 7,000 troops and 46 warships is a disproportionate and inappropriate measure for fighting narcotics trafficking and money laundering. Regardless of how this act varies from past US actions, it is clear that within the present context, the military surge is more disconcerting. This action comes amidst increasing disappointment with the Obama administration and its failure to create mutual respect between the US and Latin America as many had hoped. In fact, to the contrary, through the shuffling and increase of military presence in the region, not only has the relationship with the US remained strained, but additionally regional tensions have flared. Due to the newly won access to seven bases in Colombia (said to replace the loss of a base in Ecuador), regional relations have been further strained. Tensions remain high between Colombia and many of the countries in the region led my left leaning leaders, who see the US military presence in the region as a direct threat to their democratic rule. In fact, the Colombian-US agreement even drew heavy criticism from President Lula of Brazil, who is widely known to be one of the regions most reasonable actors. >From its Southern border to South America, the US has increased its military presence. Most recently, the Obama administration sent 4,000 troops to the US-Mexico border, further militarizing this already violent area. This regional increase in military presence is also accompanied by an increase in military and police aid. According to a report by the Center for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America, during most of the 2000s, military and police aid accounted for less than 40 percent of all aid that the US sent to Latin America. However this year, before aid to Haiti is added to the equation, military and police aid will total approximately 47 percent of all US aid to the region. Perhaps most telling, after 58 years of inactivity, in 2008 the US government reactivated the 4th Fleet, the navy fleet in charge of the waters in the Southern Command. Amidst a growing climate of US militarism and the militarization of its relations with Latin America, the region is justified in its apprehension over impending threats to its sovereignty. While the media speculates about war against Iran, US solidarity activists are concerned about the near to total media blackout of news about the escalation of US militarism in our own hemisphere. Whether all of this is a mere shifting of the pawns or an increase, this massive military presence in the region (paired with the US's regional track record) necessitates careful vigilance if we are to address US military expansionism. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 15:07:45 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:07:45 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Canada] Vote in Globe & Mail Poll on census questionnaire Message-ID: Note: The "G&M" site is the Globe & Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers. Encouraging numbers at this writing: 31% yes (4048 votes), and 69% NO (9143 votes) (from Murray Dobbin) Pls go the G&M site and vote in the poll asking; "Do you think the long-form census questionnaire is an intrusion on the privacy of Canadians?" The Harper regime, in another attempt to weaken democratic governance, is eliminating one of the most critical parts of the census. The information gathered in these long forms is the source of data for researchers, governments planning social programs and NGO's fighting for government programs. Without this information seeking government action becomes much for difficult as proof of need is more elusive. Go to: From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 16 15:56:33 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:56:33 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The Insidious Transformation of Markets Into Casinos Message-ID: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20121 GlobalResearch.ca July 16, 2010 How Financial Brokers Became Bookies: The Insidious Transformation of Markets Into Casinos by Ellen Brown "You all are the house, you're the bookie. [Your clients] are booking their bets with you. I don't know why we need to dress it up. It's a bet." Senator Claire McCaskill, Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, investigating Goldman Sachs (Washington Post, April 27, 2010) Ever since December 2008, the Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates near zero. This was not only to try to stimulate the housing and credit markets but also to allow the federal government to increase its debt levels without increasing the interest tab picked up by the taxpayers. The total public U.S. debt increased by nearly 50% from 2006 to the end of 2009 (from about $8.5 trillion to $12.3 trillion), but the interest bill on the debt actually dropped (from $406 billion to $383 billion), because of this reduction in interest rates. One of the dire unintended consequences of that maneuver, however, was that municipal governments across the country have been saddled with very costly bad derivatives bets. They were persuaded by their Wall Street advisers to buy credit default swaps to protect their loans against interest rates shooting up. Instead, rates proceeded to drop through the floor, a wholly unforeseeable and unnatural market condition caused by rate manipulations by the Fed. Instead of the banks bearing the losses in return for premiums paid by municipal governments, the governments have had to pay massive sums to the banks - to the point of bankrupting at least one city (Montgomery, Alabama). Another unintended consequence of the plunge in interest rates has been that "savers" have been forced to become "speculators" or gamblers. When interest rates on safe corporate bonds were around 8%, a couple could aim for saving half a million dollars in their working careers and count on reaping $40,000 yearly in investment income, a sum that, along with social security, could make for a comfortable retirement. But very low interest rates on bonds have forced these once-prudent savers into the riskier and less predictable stock market, and the collapse of the stock market has forced them into even more speculative ventures in the form of derivatives, a glorified form of gambling. Pension funds, which have binding pension contracts entered into when interest was at much higher levels, are so strapped for returns that they actually seek out the riskier investments, which have higher returns. That means they can and do regularly get fleeced when the risk occurs. Derivatives are basically just bets. Like at a racetrack, you don't need to own the thing you're betting on in order to play. Derivative casinos have opened up on virtually anything that can go up or down or have a variable future outcome. You can bet on the price of tea in China, the success or failure of a movie, whether a country will default on its debt, or whether a particular piece of legislation will pass. The global market in derivative trades is now well over a quadrillion dollars - that's a thousand trillion - and it is eating up resources that were at one time invested in productive enterprises. Why risk lending money to a corporation or buying its stock, when you can reap a better return betting on whether the stock will rise or fall? The shift from investing to gambling means that not only are investors making very little of their money available to companies to produce goods and services, but the parties on one side of every speculative trade now have an interest in seeing the object of the bet fail, whether a company, a movie, a politician, or a country. Worse, high-speed program traders can actually manipulate the market so that the thing bet on is more likely to fail. High frequency traders -- a field led by Goldman Sachs -- use computer algorithms to automatically bet huge sums of money on minor shifts in price. These bets send signals to the market which can themselves cause the price of assets to shoot up or tumble down. By placing high-volume trades, the largest speculative traders can thus intentionally "fix" prices in any direction they want. "Prediction" Markets Casinos for betting on what something will do in the future have been promoted as reliable "prediction" markets, and they can cover a broad range of issues. MIT's Technology Review launched a futures market for technological innovations, in order to bet on upcoming developments. The NewsFutures and TradeSports Exchanges enable people to wager on matters such as whether Tiger Woods will take another lover, or whether Bin Laden will be found in Afghanistan. A 2008 conference of sports leaders in Auckland, New Zealand, featured Mark Davies, head of a sport betting exchange called Betfair. Davies observed that these betting exchanges, while clearly gambling forums, are little different from the trading done by financial firms such as JPMorgan. He said: "I used to trade bonds at JPMorgan, and I can tell you that what our customers do is exactly the same as what I used to do in my previous life, with the single exception that where I had to pore over balance sheets and income statements, they pore over form and team-sheets." The online news outlet Slate monitors various prediction markets to provide readers with up-to-date information on the potential outcomes of political races. Two of the markets covered are the Iowa Electronic Markets and Intrade. Slate claims that these political casinos are consistently better at forecasting winners than pre-election polls. Participants bet real money 24 hours a day on the outcomes of a range of issues, including political races. Newsfutures and Casualobserver are similar, smaller exchanges. Besides shifting the emphasis to gambling ("Why Vote When You Can Bet?" says Slate's "Guide to All Political Markets"), prediction markets can be manipulated so that they actually affect outcomes. This became evident, for example, in 2008, when the John McCain campaign used the InTrade market to shift perception of his chances of winning. A supporter was able to single-handedly manipulate the price of McCain's contract, causing it to move up in the market and prompting some mainstream media to report it as evidence that McCain was gaining in popularity. Betting on Terrorism The destructive potential of betting on political outcomes became particularly apparent in a notorious prediction market sponsored by the Pentagon, called the "policy analysis market" (PAM) or "terror futures market." PAM was an attempt to use the predictive power of markets to forecast political events tied to the Middle East, including terrorist attacks. Trading in American Airlines shares in the days before the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center was one of the bases of the Pentagon's justification for the program. According to the New York Times, the PAM would have allowed trading of futures on political developments including terrorist attacks, coups d'?tat, and assassinations. The exchange was shut down a day after it launched, after commentators pointed out that the system made it ridiculously easy to make money with terror attacks. At a July 28, 2003 press conference, Senators Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) spoke out against the exchange. Wyden stated, "The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," while Dorgan called it "useless, offensive and unbelievably stupid". "This appears to encourage terrorists to participate, either to profit from their terrorist activities or to bet against them in order to mislead U.S. intelligence authorities," they said in a letter to Admiral John Poindexter, the director of the Terrorism Information Awareness Office, which developed the idea. A week after the exchange closed, Poindexter offered his resignation. Carbon Credit Trading A massive new derivatives market that could be as destructive as the derivatives that contributed to the current economic meltdown is the trading platform called Carbon Credit Trading, which is on its way to dwarfing world oil trade. The program would allow trading not only in "carbon allowances" (permitting companies to emit greenhouse gases) and "carbon offsets" (allowing companies to emit beyond their allowance if they invest in emission-reducing projects elsewhere), but carbon derivatives -- such as futures contracts to deliver a certain number of allowances at an agreed price and time. Eoin O'Carroll cautioned in the Christian Science Monitor: "Many critics are pointing out that this new market for carbon derivatives could, without effective oversight, usher in another Wall Street free-for-all just like the one that precipitated the implosion of the global economy. . . . Just as the inability of homeowners to make good on their subprime mortgages ended up pulling the rug out from under the credit market, carbon offsets that are based on shaky greenhouse-gas mitigation projects could cause the carbon market to tank, with implications for the broader economy." Robert Shapiro, former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and a cofounder of the U.S. Climate Task Force, warns, "We are on the verge of creating a new trillion-dollar market in financial assets that will be securitized, derivatized, and speculated by Wall Street like the mortgage-backed securities market." The proposed form of cap and trade has not yet been passed in the U.S., but a new market in which traders can speculate on the future of allowances and offsets has already been launched. The largest players in the carbon credit trading market include firms such as Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Fortis, Deutsche Bank, Rabobank, BNP Paribas, Sumitomo, Kommunalkredit, Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch and Cantor Fitzgerald. Last year, the financial services industry had 130 lobbyists working on climate issues, compared to almost none in 2003. The lobbyists represented companies such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. Billionaire financier George Soros says cap-and-trade will be easy for speculators to rig. "The system can be gamed," he said last July at a London School of Economics seminar. "That's why financial types like me like it - because there are financial opportunities." Time to Board Up the Casinos and Rethink Our Social Safety Net? At one time, gambling was called a sin and was illegal. Derivative trading was originally considered an illegal form of gambling. Perhaps it is time to reinstate the gambling laws, board up the derivatives casinos, and return the stock market to what it was designed to be: a means of funneling the capital of investors into productive businesses. Short of banning derivatives altogether, the derivatives business could be slowed up considerably by imposing a Tobin tax, a small tax on every financial trade. "Financial products" are virtually the only products left on the planet that are not currently subject to a sales tax. A larger issue is how to ensure adequate retirement income for the population without forcing people into gambling with their life savings to supplement their meager social security checks. It may be time to rethink not only our banking and financial structure but the entire social umbrella that our Founding Fathers called the Common Wealth. Deficit hawks cry that we cannot afford more spending. But according to Richard Cook, who formerly served at the U.S. Treasury Department, the government could print and spend several trillion new dollars into the money supply without causing price inflation. Writing in Global Research in April 2007, he noted that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2006 came to $12.98 trillion, while the total national income came to only $10.23 trillion; and at least 10 percent of that income was reinvested rather than spent on goods and services. Total available purchasing power was thus only about $9.21 trillion, or $3.77 trillion less than the collective price of goods and services sold. Where did consumers get the extra $3.77 trillion? They had to borrow it, and they borrowed it from banks that created it with accounting entries on their books. If the government had replaced this bank-created money with debt-free government-created money, the total money supply would have remained unchanged. That means a whopping $3.77 trillion in new government-issued money could have been fed into the economy in 2006 without increasing the inflation rate. In a 1924 book called Social Credit, C. H. Douglas suggested that government-issued money could be used to pay a guaranteed basic income for all. Richard Cook proposes a national dividend of $10,000 per adult and $5,000 per dependent child annually. In 2007, that would have worked out to about $2.6 trillion to provide a basic security blanket for everyone. The Federal Reserve has funneled $4.6 trillion to Wall Street in bailout money, most of it generated via "quantitative easing" (in effect, printing money); yet hyperinflation has not resulted. To the contrary, what we have today is dangerous deflation. The M3 money supply shrank in the last year by 5.5 percent, and the rate at which it is shrinking is accelerating. The explanation for this anomaly is that the Fed's $4.6 trillion added by quantitative easing fell far short of the estimated $10 trillion that disappeared from the money supply when the "shadow lenders" exited the market, after discovering that the "triple-A" mortgage-backed securities they had been purchasing from Wall Street were actually very risky investments. Whether or not a national dividend is the best way to reflate the money supply, the important point here is that the government might be able to issue and spend several trillion dollars into the economy without creating hyperinflation. The money would merely make up for the shortfall between GDP and purchasing power, replacing the debt-money created as loans by private banks. As long as resources are sitting idle and people are unemployed -- and as long as the new money is used to put these resources together productively to create new goods and services -- price inflation will not result. Creating the national money supply is the sovereign right of governments, not of banks; and if the government wants to remain sovereign, it needs to exercise that right. Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com, www.ellenbrown.com, andwww.public-banking.com. Niko Kyriakou contributed to this article. From may at applebybooks.net Fri Jul 16 23:07:36 2010 From: may at applebybooks.net (May at Appleby Books) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:07:36 -0700 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Rethink Alberta Message-ID: <4C412C88.9050507@applebybooks.net> http://www.rethinkalberta.com/quiz.php From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 16 23:21:56 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:21:56 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] With 96 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of 2009 Message-ID: Regulators shut banks in Fla, Mich, SC By MARCY GORDON The Associated Press Friday, July 16, 2010; 7:39 PM WASHINGTON -- Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to succumb this year to the recession and mounting loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the banks: Woodlands Bank, based in Bluffton, S.C., with $376.2 million in assets; First National Bank of the South, based in Spartanburg, S.C., with $682 million in assets; and Mainstreet Savings Bank of Hastings, Mich., with $97.4 million in assets. The FDIC also seized Miami-based Metro Bank of Dade County, with assets of $442.3 million; Turnberry Bank of Aventura, Fla., assets of $263.9 million; and Olde Cypress Community Bank of Clewiston, Fla., assets of $168.7 million. Miami-based NAFH National Bank, a newly chartered subsidiary of North American Financial Holdings Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of First National Bank of the South, Metro Bank of Dade County and Turnberry Bank. North American Financial Holdings said Friday the acquisitions give it "a strong presence in attractive banking markets," with 10 branches in the Miami area and 13 throughout South Carolina. Bank of the Ozarks, based in Little Rock, Ark., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Woodlands Bank, while CenterState Bank of Florida is assuming the assets and deposits of Olde Cypress Community Bank; and Commercial Bank, based in Alma, Mich., is acquiring the assets and deposits of Mainstreet Savings Bank. The failure of Woodlands Bank is estimated to cost the deposit insurance fund $115 million. Estimated costs for the others are: First National Bank of the South, $74.9 million; Mainstreet Savings Bank, $11.4 million; Metro Bank of Dade County, $67.6 million; Turnberry Bank, $34.4 million; and Olde Cypress Community Bank, $31.5 million. With 96 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 57 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force, and only three succumbed in 2007. As losses have mounted on loans made for commercial property and development, the growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of March 31. The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list jumped to 775 in the first quarter from 702 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter in two years. A majority of institutions posted profit gains in the January-March quarter. But many small and midsized banks are likely to continue to suffer distress in the coming months and years, especially from soured loans for office buildings and development projects. The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $60 billion from 2010 through 2014. The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund. Depositors' money - insured up to $250,000 per account - is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071605070.html?hpid=sec-business -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 17 21:24:31 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:24:31 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Quote of the week Message-ID: Quote of the Week July 13, 2010 'School districts across the country are taking drastic steps to cope with collapsing budgets: firing personnel, increasing class sizes, cutting kindergarten and summer-school programs and, in some cases, moving to a four-day school week. The Associated Press, in a demoralizing report, recently noted: "As the school budget crisis deepens, administrators across the nation have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be axed rather than places where kids learn to love reading and do research." 'What a country. We'll do whatever it takes to make sure the bankers keep living the high life and swilling that Champagne while at the same time we're taking books out of the hands of schoolchildren trying to get an education. ' Columnist Bob Herbert New York Times July 13, 2010 http://tinyurl.com/2c4npxw From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 17 23:48:33 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:48:33 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] number of accidents, spills & deaths regularly occurring in the Gulf has far surpassed the Fed's ability to investigate them Message-ID: <55BA7C15E8B142C3905F826378C474A4@Upstairs> MMS investigations of oil-rig accidents have history of inconsistency By Marc Kaufman, Carol D. Leonnig and David Hilzenrath Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, July 18, 2010 A year and a day before BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, crew members on a neighboring oil rig found themselves bracing for their own potential disaster. A dangerous gas bubble surged up a well pipe, and the blowout preventers hadn't worked. The crew reported hearing a "deafening roar" as fluids shot up, knocking over huge metal equipment on the deck. Alarms sounded. Some workers ran to lifeboats, while others stayed behind to control the well. The accident on the rig, leased by Louisiana Land Oil and Gas (LLOG), was one of the 12,087 oil-related incidents in the gulf reported over the past five years to the federal Minerals Management Service -- the now-revamped agency investigating the BP oil spill. The number of accidents, spills and deaths regularly occurring in the region has far surpassed the agency's ability to investigate them. Until now, 60 inspectors were tasked with investigating all types of incidents. Between 2006 and 2009, those included 30 worker deaths, 1,298 injuries, 514 fires and 23 blowouts that left wells out of control. They conducted 378 investigations in the gulf in roughly the same time period, with 21 considered worthy of more rigorous and extended scrutiny by a panel. As federal inspectors work to dissect the underlying causes of the BP accident -- an issue to be probed this week in a new round of joint panel hearings in Kenner, La. -- The Washington Post reviewed several dozen serious MMS investigations in recent years to assess how they were conducted and found large variations in aggressiveness and outcome. In some cases, investigators ran their own tests, tracked down witnesses and did complicated technical calculations. In others, they relied heavily on information and witness interviews provided by companies. Once their findings were forwarded to agency officials for review, many probes resulted in small fines or none at all. MMS levied financial penalties 154 times in the past five years, agency officials testified last month. Although the agency now may assess fines of up to $35,000 per day, in five years it collected only $8.5 million. Its largest fine between 2000 and 2009 was $697,500, according to an MMS Web site. It took 11 months for MMS to finalize its report in the LLOG case, and along the way it sometimes accepted the accounts of company officials without probing more deeply, the report shows. Investigators asked to see a safety valve provided by a subcontractor, Halliburton Corp. When Halliburton told investigators the device was under repair and couldn't be examined, an inspector accepted the company's assertions and data. Kendra Barkoff, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said Saturday that the valve played no role in the accident. The inquiry concluded that no rules had been broken, no fines were warranted, and the agency's response should be to alert the industry to potential risks. Barkoff noted that "some accidents are just that: accidents that involve no wrongdoing or criminal or negligent behavior." The team looking into that case was led by Frank Patton, a veteran investigator also responsible for monitoring the Deepwater Horizon rig. In recent weeks, Patton has testified that he approved a BP drilling plan that other oil companies and drilling experts have said was deeply flawed. The supervisor who approved the LLOG report was J. David Dykes, co-chairman of the joint panel with the Coast Guard that on Monday begins its second round of hearings into the BP blowout. Dykes referred questions to Barkoff, who also answered for Patton. "Frank Patton and David Dykes . . . are committed to ensuring the safety of offshore energy operation," Barkoff said. In an interview, Michael Bromwich, director of the MMS successor agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy, declined to look back on specific MMS investigations but said he believes performance will improve with the addition of up to 200 new inspectors in coming years. He said there are many dedicated and hardworking inspectors examining the industry. "I've certainly heard and read the agency wasn't aggressive in the past," he said. "And given the revenues coming into the companies, the fines seem like a paltry amount. But going forward, when we find violations we will really impose sanctions that fit those violations." Some observers, like Christopher Jones of Baton Rouge, want assurances that the joint panel looking into the BP accident will hold industry accountable. Jones, whose 28-year-old brother, Gordon, was among the 11 who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, said the oil companies should not be left to "brush aside their inspections and continue doing whatever they want to do." Some panel investigations reflect rigorous scrutiny. They show accident inspectors analyzing complicated calculations, including gas pressure, fluid chemical compositions and equipment strength. Even when inspectors documented long-standing problems, sometimes the companies were not fined, the Post review found. Even the toughest fines appeared to have little impact. Dan Donovan, a spokesman for Dominion Exploration & Production, said he could find no evidence of a $675,500 fine cited against the company on an MMS Web site and questioned its accuracy. "That's the largest fine? That's unbelievable," Donovan said. MMS focused on delinquent paperwork in 2007 after chronicling a leaking pipeline near a Stone Energy platform that had needed attention for six months. The company at first denied responsibility when five small oil slicks showed up near its production platform. A few days later, a larger oil slick, 30 miles long and six miles wide, was reported near the Stone platform. When the larger spill surfaced and an MMS inspector visited the platform, "the Operator initially questioned the possibility" that it was responsible, the report said. Two tests that day requested by MMS verified that the Stone pipe was leaking. In reviewing Stone's paperwork, MMS discovered that required corrosion tests had not been performed for some time. Divers who went down to inspect the pipes found four holes. At the end of its investigation, the MMS team wrote that the corroded pipes had been vulnerable for "at least six months." It did not recommend a fine, penalty or industry warning. Instead, it suggested the agency "reanalyze its procedures" to track delinquent reports. Stone spokesman Tim O'Leary said the company believed the pipeline damage "was not caused by corrosion but by mechanical damage, such as an anchor dragging over the pipeline during Hurricane Katrina." In March 2000, Dykes was called upon to help investigate one of his former employers, Burlington Resources. A crane operator was seriously injured when his crane collapsed while carrying too much load at an unsafe angle. Working at night and in heavy winds, the Burlington rig workers tried to move a heavy tank from a boat onto the rig deck. The crane operator radioed the boat master to reposition, and the master explained the weather conditions were making the task difficult. A supervisor ordered work to proceed anyway. After lifting the tank six feet, the crane snapped in four places. Parts tumbled -- with the operator -- onto the boat. Co-workers pulled him from the wreckage before the rest of the crane toppled. Dykes's team found that Burlington "failed to ensure that daily crane inspections were performed . . . failed to ensure that all onside supervisors adhere to [safety] guidelines" and learned little from a similar 1996 crane failure on one of its platforms. The team cited no violations, and no fines were imposed. The investigators recommended a safety alert instead and urged MMS to audit outdated cranes. While the safety of oil-rig work has improved over the years, death and injury remain ever-present threats. In July 2006, for instance, a crew member of the vessel Lorelay stood in the "pinch point" between two giant pipe segments. As he worked, one of the pipes moved along a conveyor and pinned him from behind, crushing him. MMS investigators tried to assess what set the second pipe in motion. They visited the scene the next day, interviewed some of the crew, gathered documents and reviewed the findings of an investigation by the ship owner. Two workers were nearby at the time of the incident but said they saw nothing. Closed-circuit cameras also monitored the area, but the investigators reported that the cameras did not work on the day of the accident. The panel's findings were inconclusive. "The fatality was caused by the inside conveyor system becoming inadvertently energized," it noted, "causing uncontrolled pipe movement." Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702807.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 17 23:56:10 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:56:10 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Supreme Court ruling raises bar for corruption, fraud prosecutions - "Get Out of Jail Free" cards predicted Message-ID: Supreme Court ruling raises bar for corruption, fraud prosecutions By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 18, 2010 A Supreme Court ruling last month that gutted an anti-corruption tool favored by federal prosecutors is jeopardizing high-profile investigations into politicians and business executives, including several related to convicted ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to legal experts and new court filings. Since the June 24 decision, U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle in Washington has delayed sentencing for one close Abramoff associate, Michael Scanlon, and ordered the government to explain why the court should not dismiss several charges against another, Kevin Ring. Legal experts predict a flood of similar litigation by defense lawyers based on the Supreme Court ruling. The court ruled unanimously that a 1988 federal statute that makes it a crime to "deprive another of the intangible right of honest services" is unconstitutionally vague. The justices limited the law's application to bribes and kickbacks, which several former prosecutors say will make corruption convictions against members of Congress more difficult. "I am worried about whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain an indictment with the new definition of bribery/materiality," Huvelle told lawyers at a July 6 hearing in advance of Ring's trial, scheduled for next month. She asked both sides to file briefs assessing the recent decision. In their June decision, the justices directed lower courts to reconsider the honest-services fraud convictions of former Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, another business leader and a former state lawmaker. Elsewhere, attorneys for former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D) moved unsuccessfully to delay his trial in Chicago, where he faces charges of honest-services fraud, racketeering, attempted extortion, bribery and conspiracy. Attorneys for former U.S. representative William J. Jefferson (D-La.) may raise the matter in the appeal of his 2009 conviction and 13-year prison sentence for crimes including soliciting bribes, money laundering and racketeering. "We don't know how many cases may be affected, but this is one of the most-used tools in public corruption investigations," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Public interest groups say Congress should tighten federal corruption laws, citing court decisions since 2007 that narrowed the types of "official actions" that public servants are barred from performing for people who give them money or gifts. Those rulings also require that prosecutors show more specifically that illegal actions were done in return for money. "All these things are combining to really give members of Congress . . . much less to fear from watchdogs than 10 years ago," Sloan said. Legal experts say the effect of the Skilling decision will vary case by case. Prosecutors increasingly turned to honest-services fraud charges in recent years to target patterns of self-dealing and conflicts of interest by government and corporate officials, even without a direct quid pro quo. Critics said that the law was so vague that it could apply to a government employee skipping work to see a ballgame and that it gave prosecutors too much discretion over whom to charge. Jefferson and Blagojevich may find it hard to benefit from the situation, because their cases include allegations of bribery, and in Blagojevich's case, prosecutors obtained a new indictment with other charges, anticipating the Supreme Court's decision. Abramoff-related cases present some examples of how the high court's decision might be applied. Abramoff is in a halfway house finishing a four-year term after he pleaded guilty to running a wide-ranging fraud and public corruption scheme. The former powerhouse Washington lobbyist admitted dishing out campaign donations, tickets to sporting events, lavish trips and expensive meals to public officials who helped his clients with federal funds, inside information and legislative favors. At least 19 lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials have been convicted. Still under scrutiny is former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Scanlon, a former DeLay aide and public relations executive, is seeking to renegotiate the terms of his 2005 plea deal with prosecutors. Scanlon pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy, and he admitted kicking back to Abramoff half of the exorbitant fees he charged Native American tribes after Abramoff recommended Scanlon's firm to them. Scanlon's attorneys say his agreement to serve up to five years and repay the tribes as much as $20 million was driven by the honest-services law. The government did not oppose delaying his sentencing 60 days, until Oct. 4. But federal prosecutors have said that the high court decision should have no effect on the case against Ring because bribery is a central component. The former lobbyist and congressional aide allegedly helped Abramoff arrange campaign contributions to then-Rep. John T. Doolittle, lied about his knowledge of a lucrative job arranged by lobbyists for Doolittle's wife, Julie, and treated Doolittle's staff to rock concerts, football games and fancy meals. Attorneys for Ring, who have said he is not guilty, argue that the case was grounded in the honest-services law, and they have asked Huvelle to dismiss several counts from his first trial, which ended in a hung jury. The Doolittles say that they are innocent of wrongdoing and that authorities have told them the investigation of them is over. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to estimate how many cases are affected by the court's ruling. Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702339.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 18 00:14:44 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:14:44 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] MAUREEN DOWD: Vatican document links raping children with ordaining women as priests Message-ID: Rome Fiddles, We Burn By MAUREEN DOWD Published: July 16, 2010 If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn't really do that. The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse, rules that the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with "rigor and transparency." The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it's making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it's taking baby steps. The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened. There is no moral awakening here. The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition. All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive. Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution. Can you imagine such a scene in the confessional? "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I am as sorry as my job or school requires me to be." "But my daughter, that is not true penitence. That's situational penitence." After the Belgian police bracingly conducted raids on the church hierarchy, inspired in part by the horrifying case of a boy molested for years by his uncle, the bishop of Bruges, a case that the church ignored and covered up for 25 years, the pope did not applaud the more aggressive tack. He condemned it. In a remarkable Times story recently, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger debunked the spin that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the more alert officials on the issue of sexual abuse: "The future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction. More than any top Vatican official other than John Paul, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the scandal from metastasizing in country after country, growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own papacy." If Roman Polanski were a priest, he'd still be working here. Stupefyingly, the new Vatican document also links raping children with ordaining women as priests, deeming both "graviora delicta," or grave offenses. Clerics who attempt to ordain women can now be defrocked. On Beliefnet, Mark Silk, a professor of religion at Connecticut's Trinity College, suggested that the stronger threat against women's ordination is not "a maladroit add-on" but the medieval Vatican's "main business." After the Vatican launched two inquisitions of American nuns, it didn't seem possible that the archconservative Il Papa and his paternalistic redoubt could get more unenlightened, but they have somehow managed it. Letting women be priests - which should be seen as a way to help cleanse the church and move it beyond its infantilized and defensive state - is now on the list of awful sins right next to pedophilia, heresy, apostasy and schism. Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asserted, "The Catholic Church, through its long and constant teaching, holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times." But if it was reserved to celibate men centuries ago simply as a way for the church to keep land, why can't it be changed? If a society makes strides in not subordinating women, why can't the church reflect that? If men prove that all-male hierarchies can get shamefully warped, why can't they embrace the normality of equality? The Vatican's insistence on male prerogative is misogynistic poppycock - enhancing American Catholics' disenchantment with Rome. In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus "is the one who said, 'Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.' That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus. The cardinals said they must care for their own, going to jail if necessary to protect a priest. We say the same thing, but the 'our own' we care for are the victimized, the poor, the violated. They are Jesus." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/opinion/18dowd.html?hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 20:06:13 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:06:13 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Netanyahu admits on video he deceived US to destroy Oslo accord Message-ID: <543F69D28749457CA6CC6B869C477C78@agingCHS072729> http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100718/FOREIGN/707179891/1135 The National (UAE) July 18, 2010 Netanyahu admits on video he deceived US to destroy Oslo accord Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent NAZARETH // The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass not only Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister but also the US administration of Barack Obama. The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu's knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second intifada. At the time Mr Netanyahu had taken a short break from politics but was soon to join Mr Sharon's government as finance minister. On a visit to a home in the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank to pay condolences to the family of a man killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, he makes a series of unguarded admissions about his first period as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999. Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process. He dismisses the US as "easily moved to the right direction" and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel "absurd". He also suggests that, far from being defensive, Israel's harsh military repression of the Palestinian uprising was designed chiefly to crush the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat so that it could be made more pliable for Israeli diktats. All of these claims have obvious parallels with the current situation, when Mr Netanyahu is again Israel's prime minister facing off with a White House trying to draw him into a peace process that runs counter to his political agenda. As before, he has ostensibly made public concessions to the US administration - chiefly by agreeing in principle to the creation of a Palestinian state, consenting to indirect talks with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, and implementing a temporary freeze on settlement building. But he has also enlisted the powerful pro-Israel lobby to exert pressure on the White House, which appears to have relented on its most important stipulations. The contemptuous view of Washington Mr Netanyahu demonstrates in the film will confirm the suspicions of many observers - including Palestinian leaders - that his current professions of good faith should not be taken seriously. Critics have already pointed out that his gestures have been extracted only after heavy arm-twisting from the US administration. More significantly, he has so far avoided engaging meaningfully in the limited talks the White House is promoting with the Palestinians while the pace of settlement building in the West Bank has been barely affected by the 10-month freeze, due to end in September. In the meantime, planning officials have repeatedly approved large new housing projects in East Jerusalem and the West Bank that have undercut the negotiations and will make the establishment of a Palestinian state - viable or otherwise - far less likely. Writing in the liberal Haaretz newspaper, the columnist Gideon Levy called the video "outrageous". He said it proved that Mr Netanyahu was a "con artist . who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes". He added that the prime minister had not reformed in the intervening period: "Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years." In the film, Mr Netanyahu says Israel must inflict "blows [on the Palestinians] that are so painful the price will be too heavy to be borne . A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority, to bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing". When asked if the US will object, he responds: "America is something that can be easily moved. Moved to the right direction . They won't get in our way . Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." He then recounts how he dealt with President Clinton, whom he refers to as "extremely pro-Palestinian". "I wasn't afraid to manoeuvre there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton." His approach to White House demands to withdraw from Palestinian territory under the Oslo accords, he says, drew on his grandfather's philosophy: "It would be better to give two per cent than to give 100 per cent." He therefore signed the 1997 agreement to pull the Israeli army back from much of Hebron, the last Palestinian city under direct occupation, as a way to avoid conceding more territory. "The trick," he says, "is not to be there [in the occupied territories] and be broken; the trick is to be there and pay a minimal price." The "trick" that stopped further withdrawals, Mr Netanyahu adds, was to redefine what parts of the occupied territories counted as a "specified military site" under the Oslo accords. He wanted the White House to approve in writing the classification of the Jordan Valley, a large area of the West Bank, as such a military site. "Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give [them] the Hebron Agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: 'I'm not signing.' Only when the letter came . did I sign the Hebron Agreement. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord." Last week, after meeting Mr Obama in Washington, the Israeli prime minister gave an interview to Fox News in which he appeared to be in no hurry to make concessions: "Can we have a negotiated peace? Yes. Can it be implemented by 2012? I think it's going to take longer than that," he said. foreign.desk at thenational.ae From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 21:45:56 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:45:56 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky Message-ID: The Independent Friday, 16 July 2010 Hopes and Prospects by Noam Chomsky Hamish Hamilton ?18.99, 336pp. ?17.09 from Independent Bookshops: 08430 600 030 Reviewed by Johann Hari An antidote to lies: Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky is one of the most hysterically abused figures in the world today. Even his critics have to concede that his work in the field of linguistics - beginning to decode the structure of how language is formed in the human brain - makes him one of the most important intellectuals alive. But when he applies the same rigorous method to figuring out how power - especially the American government's - works, he is pepper-sprayed with smears. He is a self-hating Holocaust denier, a jihad-loving traitor, a Pol Pot-licking communist, and on and on. If all you know of his work is the smears, then Hopes and Prospects will be a revelation. In his dry, understated way, he excavates the reality behind the Babel of 24/7 corporate news, and places long-buried truths on the table to examine. Every one is sourced to the leading academic journals, the best experts, the sharpest medical advice - yet each one is a shock if you rely on news brought to you by corporations and corrupt right-wing billionaires. For example, he uncovers the story of why Haiti is so poor, and could be shaken to pieces by an earthquake that would have killed only a handful in California. It's a story of man-made earthquakes, one after another. The country was the first to rebel against slavery and to cast off the whip-hand - and was brutally punished by the French Empire. Every time it has begun to rise to its feet, it has been kicked back down, with the American Empire taking over to topple its elected leaders (the last was put on a plane at gunpoint in 2008) and stifle any moves towards development. But who has heard about it? Who tries to hold our leaders accountable for it? Chomsky is trying to rescue crimes from the memory-hole. He explains that Ronald Reagan - the great hero of the US right - was a great champion of jihadism. It was Reagan who encouraged Pakistan simultaneously to become fundamentalist, and acquire nuclear weapons. Chomsky coolly condemns "the global jihad launched by Zia and Reagan," for geopolitical reasons, with no concern for the after-effects. But Reagan remains unstained. Chomsky quotes the great American historian Francis Jennings, who noted that "In history, the man in the ruffled shirt and gold-coated waistcoat levitates above the blood he has ordered to be spilled by dirty-handed underlings." Instead, Chomsky says, history is too often ruled by Thucydides's maxim: "The strong do as they wish, while the poor suffer as they must." It doesn't have to be this way. This is a book woven through with hope and awe at all the people who slip beyond imperial control and establish real democracy. Chomsky's strongest model - and the world's - is Bolivia's experiment with radical democracy. After 30 years of having neoliberalism forced on them by the West, including the cost of water pushed beyond their grasp, the Bolivian people elected the first indigenous leader since the European conquests. Since then, it has had the fastest fall in poverty and the most rapid growth in Latin America. In his cool blizzard of facts and sources, the hot air of his critics seems to melt away. To pluck one example, the leftist-turned-neocon supporter Nick Cohen has accused Chomsky of being soft on jihadism (as well as of "not being bothered" by "the crimes of Adolf Hitler"). Yet Chomsky points out that an analysis of official data for the government-supported RAND corporation found that the invasion of Iraq caused a "seven-fold increase in jihadism." If you really hate jihadism, you have to figure out what reduces it, rather than engage in bluster. Chomsky supported the path that produces fewer jihadis, while Cohen supports the path that produces more. Chomsky presents all this plainly, and a sly sense of humour. Describing the growing rebellions in Afghanistan, he notes: "People have the odd characteristic of objecting to the slaughter of family members and friends." When I was shamefully wrong about the war in Iraq, it was an email exchange with Chomsky - where he laid bare the best evidence about what was motivating the US government - that helped me figure out where I had erred. Hopes and Prospects is a book that can do the same for many more people - a treasure-trove of truths that shouldn't be left buried in our sandpit of propaganda and lies. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 21:51:56 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:51:56 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Howard Zinn's The Bomb Message-ID: The Bomb by Howard Zinn City Lights Open Media San Francisco, August 2010 paperback, 100 pp $8.95 http://warisacrime.org/node/54059 Howard Zinn's The Bomb By David Swanson The late Howard Zinn's new book "The Bomb" is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society. Those who've read "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments," by H.P. Albarelli Jr. know that this is a year for publishing the stories of horrible things that the United States has done to French towns. In that case, Albarelli, describes the CIA administering LSD to an entire town, with deadly results. In "The Bomb," Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime. In mid-April 1945, the war in Europe was essentially over. Everyone knew it was ending. There was no military reason (if that's not an oxymoron) to attack the Germans stationed near Royan, France, much less to burn the French men, women, and children in the town to death. The British had already destroyed the town in January, similarly bombing it because of its vicinity to German troops, in what was widely called a tragic mistake. This tragic mistake was rationalized as an inevitable part of war, just as were the horrific firebombings that successfully reached German targets, just as was the later bombing of Royan with napalm. Zinn blames the Supreme Allied Command for seeking to add a "victory" in the final weeks of a war already won. He blames the local military commanders' ambitions. He blames the American Air Force's desire to test a new weapon. And he blames everyone involved -- which must include himself -- for "the most powerful motive of all: the habit of obedience, the universal teaching of all cultures, not to get out of line, not even to think about that which one has not been assigned to think about, the negative motive of not having either a reason or a will to intercede." When Zinn returned from the war in Europe, he expected to be sent to the war in the Pacific, until he saw and rejoiced at seeing the news of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 65 years ago this August. Only years later did Zinn come to understand the inexcusable crime of the greatest proportions that was the dropping of nuclear bombs in Japan, actions similar in some ways to the final bombing of Royan. The war with Japan was already over, the Japanese seeking peace and willing to surrender. Japan asked only that it be permitted to keep its emperor, a request that was later granted. But, like napalm, the nuclear bombs were weapons that needed testing. The second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, was a different sort of bomb that also needed testing. President Harry Truman wanted to demonstrate nuclear bombs to the world and especially to Russia. And he wanted to end the war with Japan before Russia became part of it. The horrific form of mass murder he employed was in no way justifiable. Zinn also goes back to dismantle the mythical reasons the United States was in the war to begin with. The United States, England, and France were imperial powers supporting each other's international aggressions in places like the Philippines. They opposed the same from Germany and Japan, but not aggression itself. Most of America's tin and rubber came from the Southwest Pacific. The United States made clear for years its lack of concern for the Jews being attacked in Germany. It also demonstrated its lack of opposition to racism through its treatment of African Americans and Japanese Americans. Franklin D. Roosevelt described fascist bombing campaigns over civilian areas as "inhuman barbarity" but then did the same on a much larger scale to German cities, which was followed up by the destruction on an unprecedented scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- actions that came after years of dehumanizing the Japanese. Zinn points out that "LIFE magazine showed a picture of a Japanese person burning to death and commented: 'This is the only way.'" Aware that the war would end without any more bombing, and aware that U.S. prisoners of war would be killed by the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the U.S. military went ahead and dropped the bombs. Americans allowed these things to be done in their name, just as the Germans and Japanese allowed horrible crimes to be committed in their names. Zinn points out, with his trademark clarity, how the use of the word "we" blends governments together with peoples and serves to equate our own people with our military, while we demonize the people of other lands because of actions by their governments. "The Bomb" suggest a better way to think about such matters and firmly establishes that --what the U.S. military is doing now, today, parallels the crimes of the past and shares their dishonorable motivations; --the bad wars have a lot in common with the so-called "good war," about which there was little if anything good; --Howard Zinn did far more in his life for peace than for war, and more for peace than just about anybody else, certainly more than several Nobel Peace Prize winners. David Swanson is the author of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" http://davidswanson.org From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 22:20:57 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:20:57 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Appeal to the Jewish people from Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire Message-ID: <9DD9E71B65F54431B0478203813351A6@agingCHS072729> Open Letter of Appeal to the Jewish people from Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire Arabisto.com News and Commentary on the Middle East July 18, 2010 Dear Friends, I write to ask for your help in gaining the freedom of a good man, a man of peace, and a man of conscience. In the Jewish scriptures there is great emphasis on justice and freedom and it is for such, for one man, that I write to seek your help. He will not be aware that I am writing this Appeal, but I do so in the hope that, with your help, it will produce his freedom, and not (and this I must risk) cause yet more punishment and cruelty to be inflicted upon him. However, I feel when I tell you the story, it will touch your hearts and there will be those amongst you who will be able to help him gain his freedom. In May, 2010, this man was returned to prison to serve three months for allegedly breaking his prison release restrictions and speaking to Foreign Media. On Sunday llth July, 2010, he had his first visit in seven weeks. His brother, Meir, was granted a 30 minute visit. There was a glass window between them and they spoke via the phone. He wore a prison uniform. He is held in the hardest prison section there is in the prison. It has the most notorious criminals in the country, well known hard murder cases. All about a dozen are in severe isolation conditions. He is in a cell by himself for 24 hours a day, no window but a small wire covered crack at the top part of one wall. He has about an hour's walk a day in a very tiny yard. He was simply thrown in a cell by the security agents, the door locked, and left to suffer there all alone. He has not spoken to anyone in all the seven weeks and this visit was (apart from a short visit of his lawyer 6 weeks ago) the first conversation he had in seven weeks. His food is limited in quality and quantity, and his reading material two books he has with him. Of course his spirits are down as a result of being put in such harsh, inhuman and cruel conditions. His name is Mordechai Vanunu, and he is in an Israeli prison cell. Mordechai is no stranger to prison. In l986 Mordechai Vanunu told the world that Israel had a Nuclear Weapons Programme and he was given 18 years imprisonment for doing so. He is the Israeli Nuclear whistle blower and 24 years later continues to be punished for trying to warn the Israelis and protect both Israel and the world from a Nuclear weapons disaster. Mordechai Vanunu served the full 18 years of his sentence (eleven years in solitary ) and upon release, instead of allowing him to leave Israel, the Israeli Government put severe restrictions upon him, including forbidding him to leave Israel and not to speak to foreign media. It was the allegedly breaking of these restrictions and speaking to Foreign media, which resulted in Mordechai being returned to prison for 3 months. He has 6 weeks left to serve in these harsh prison conditions, and even upon release from prison will still have to remain in Israel until next April, 2011 when the restrictions will be reviewed and probably renewed yet again, as they have been renewed each year for the past 6 years. Some people say Vanunu will never be allowed to leave Israel but will die there, if indeed in the meantime his spirit is not broken by his ill treatment and he losses his sanity. The Shabak continues to tell the Israeli Government he is a security risk and must not be released and the Israeli Judiciary and Government obey them and keep him imprisoned. Vanunu is no risk to Israeli National Security. He has no nuclear secrets. I have asked some Israelis why they think Israel refuses to allow Mordechai Vanunu to leave Israel. Various reasons are given but the most frequent answer is they feel the Israeli Government does not trust its citizens and holding Mordechai Vanunu, forever, if necessary sends out the signal to Israeli Citizens to behave themselves. It seems, if this is so, that the strategy is working. To date only a few courageous Jewish people have raised their voices against such cruelty and injustice perpetrated upon Mordecai, and called for him to be allowed to leave Israel. But I don't believe Mordechai will never be allowed to leave Israeli and will die in Jerusalem. I have met Mordechai many times since he was released from prison on 2lst April, 2004. He is a good man, a man of peace, and a true Gandhian spirit. Instead of punishing him, Israel should be proud of Mordechai Vanunu, and I believe that future generations of Israelis will look back and realize that there lived amongst them a great visionary and man of peace, not only for Israel, but for the human family. It was with great joy I nominated him several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, as did many other prominent names during the past 24 years. He richly serves the NPP as he lives and acts in the true spirit of Alfred Nobel, who left his prize for those who would work for peace and disarmament. However, it is with the deepest sadness that I acknowledge that in spite of world campaigns by many, including Amnesty International (and personal letters from myself to President Obama, President Shimon Peres,) Mordechai Vanunu continues 24 years later to be most cruelly imprisoned and punished by Israel. Most Political and Spiritual leaders, and International Bodies, of our time are silent in the face of Israel's abuse of Vanunu's basic human right to freedom of speech and liberty, which is in violation of many International Laws. However, I have hope that he will be free and I place my hope in those Jewish people who read this story and are moved to right a wrong continuing to be done to Mordechai Vanunu, and they will demand that their Government give him his freedom, and allow him to leave Israel. Shalom, Mairead Maguire Nobel Peace Laureate www.peacepeople.com 14.7.2010 From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 22:35:39 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:35:39 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Chris Hedges: Calling All Future-Eaters Message-ID: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/calling_all_future-eaters_20100719/ Calling All Future-Eaters Posted on July 19, 2010 By Chris Hedges The human species during its brief time on Earth has exhibited a remarkable capacity to kill itself off. The Cro-Magnons dispatched the gentler Neanderthals. The conquistadors, with the help of smallpox, decimated the native populations in the Americas. Modern industrial warfare in the 20th century took at least 100 million lives, most of them civilians. And now we sit passive and dumb as corporations and the leaders of industrialized nations ensure that climate change will accelerate to levels that could mean the extinction of our species. Homo sapiens, as the biologist Tim Flannery points out, are the "future-eaters." In the past when civilizations went belly up through greed, mismanagement and the exhaustion of natural resources, human beings migrated somewhere else to pillage anew. But this time the game is over. There is nowhere else to go. The industrialized nations spent the last century seizing half the planet and dominating most of the other half. We giddily exhausted our natural capital, especially fossil fuel, to engage in an orgy of consumption and waste that poisoned the Earth and attacked the ecosystem on which human life depends. It was quite a party if you were a member of the industrialized elite. But it was pretty stupid. Collapse this time around will be global. We will disintegrate together. And there is no way out. The 10,000-year experiment of settled life is about to come to a crashing halt. And humankind, which thought it was given dominion over the Earth and all living things, will be taught a painful lesson in the necessity of balance, restraint and humility. There is no human monument or city ruin that is more than 5,000 years old. Civilization, Ronald Wright notes in "A Short History of Progress," "occupies a mere 0.2 percent of the two and a half million years since our first ancestor sharpened a stone." Bye-bye, Paris. Bye-bye, New York. Bye-bye, Tokyo. Welcome to the new experience of human existence, in which rooting around for grubs on islands in northern latitudes is the prerequisite for survival. We view ourselves as rational creatures. But is it rational to wait like sheep in a pen as oil and natural gas companies, coal companies, chemical industries, plastics manufacturers, the automotive industry, arms manufacturers and the leaders of the industrial world, as they did in Copenhagen, take us to mass extinction? It is too late to prevent profound climate change. But why add fuel to the fire? Why allow our ruling elite, driven by the lust for profits, to accelerate the death spiral? Why continue to obey the laws and dictates of our executioners? The news is grim. The accelerating disintegration of Arctic Sea ice means that summer ice will probably disappear within the next decade. The open water will absorb more solar radiation, significantly increasing the rate of global warming. The Siberian permafrost will disappear, sending up plumes of methane gas from underground. The Greenland ice sheet and the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers will melt. Jay Zwally, a NASA climate scientist, declared in December 2007: "The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines." But reality is rarely an impediment to human folly. The world's greenhouse gases have continued to grow since Zwally's statement. Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have increased by 3 per cent a year. At that rate annual emissions will double every 25 years. James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's foremost climate experts, has warned that if we keep warming the planet it will be "a recipe for global disaster." The safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere, Hansen estimates, is no more than 350 parts per million (ppm). The current level of CO2 is 385 ppm and climbing. This already guarantees terrible consequences even if we act immediately to cut carbon emissions. The natural carbon cycle for 3 million years has ensured that the atmosphere contained less than 300 ppm of CO2, which sustained the wide variety of life on the planet. The idea now championed by our corporate elite, at least those in contact with the reality of global warming, is that we will intentionally overshoot 350 ppm and then return to a safer climate through rapid and dramatic emission cuts. This, of course, is a theory designed to absolve the elite from doing anything now. But as Clive Hamilton in his book "Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change" writes, even "if carbon dioxide concentrations reach 550 ppm, after which emissions fell to zero, the global temperatures would continue to rise for at least another century." Copenhagen was perhaps the last chance to save ourselves. Barack Obama and the other leaders of the industrialized nations blew it. Radical climate change is certain. It is only a question now of how bad it will become. The engines of climate change will, climate scientists have warned, soon create a domino effect that could thrust the Earth into a chaotic state for thousands of years before it regains equilibrium. "Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point," Hamilton writes. "One thing is certain: there will be far fewer of us." We have fallen prey to the illusion that we can modify and control our environment, that human ingenuity ensures the inevitability of human progress and that our secular god of science will save us. The "intoxicating belief that we can conquer all has come up against a greater force, the Earth itself," Hamilton writes. "The prospect of runaway climate change challenges our technological hubris, our Enlightenment faith in reason and the whole modernist project. The Earth may soon demonstrate that, ultimately, it cannot be tamed and that the human urge to master nature has only roused a slumbering beast." We face a terrible political truth. Those who hold power will not act with the urgency required to protect human life and the ecosystem. Decisions about the fate of the planet and human civilization are in the hands of moral and intellectual trolls such as BP's Tony Hayward. These political and corporate masters are driven by a craven desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of human life. They do this in the Gulf of Mexico. They do this in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where the export-oriented industry is booming. China's transformation into totalitarian capitalism, done so world markets can be flooded with cheap consumer goods, is contributing to a dramatic rise in carbon dioxide emissions, which in China are expected to more than double by 2030, from a little over 5 billion metric tons to just under 12 billion. This degradation of the planet by corporations is accompanied by a degradation of human beings. In the factories in Guangdong we see the face of our adversaries. The sociologist Ching Kwan Lee found "satanic mills" in China's industrial southeast that run "at such a nerve-racking pace that worker's physical limits and bodily strength are put to the test on a daily basis." Some employees put in workdays of 14 to 16 hours with no rest day during the month until payday. In these factories it is normal for an employee to work 400 hours or more a month, especially those in the garment industry. Most workers, Lee found, endure unpaid wages, illegal deductions and substandard wage rates. They are often physically abused at work and do not receive compensation if they are injured on the job. Every year a dozen or more workers die from overwork in the city of Shenzhen alone. In Lee's words, the working conditions "go beyond the Marxist notions of exploitation and alienation." A survey published in 2003 by the official China News Agency, cited in Lee's book "Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt," found that three in four migrant workers had trouble collecting their pay. Each year scores of workers threaten to commit suicide, Lee writes, by jumping off high-rises or setting themselves on fire over unpaid wages. "If getting paid for one's labor is a fundamental feature of capitalist employment relations, strictly speaking many Chinese workers are not yet laborers," Lee writes. The leaders of these corporations now determine our fate. They are not endowed with human decency or compassion. Yet their lobbyists make the laws. Their public relations firms craft the propaganda and trivia pumped out through systems of mass communication. Their money determines elections. Their greed turns workers into global serfs and our planet into a wasteland. As climate change advances, we will face a choice between obeying the rules put in place by corporations or rebellion. Those who work human beings to death in overcrowded factories in China and turn the Gulf of Mexico into a dead zone are the enemy. They serve systems of death. They cannot be reformed or trusted. The climate crisis is a political crisis. We will either defy the corporate elite, which will mean civil disobedience, a rejection of traditional politics for a new radicalism and the systematic breaking of laws, or see ourselves consumed. Time is not on our side. The longer we wait, the more assured our destruction becomes. The future, if we remain passive, will be wrested from us by events. Our moral obligation is not to structures of power, but life. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 23:22:38 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:22:38 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Vandana Shiva: The killing fields of the multinational corporations Message-ID: http://www.asianage.com/opinion/killing-fields-mncsthe-killing-fields-mncs-035 The killing fields of MNCs Jul 14th, 2010 -- Vandana Shiva The Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human history. Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and the injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years will go down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever. The gas leak in Bhopal in December 1984 was from the Union Carbide pesticide plant which manufactured "carabaryl" (trade name "sevin") - a pesticide used mostly in cotton plants. It was, in fact, because of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the tragedy of extremist violence in Punjab that I woke up to the fact that agriculture had become a war zone. Pesticides are war chemicals that kill - every year 220,000 people are killed by pesticides worldwide. After research I realised that we do not need toxic pesticides that kill humans and other species which maintain the web of life. Pesticides do not control pests, they create pests by killing beneficial species. We have safer, non-violent alternatives such as neem. That is why at the time of the Bhopal disaster I started the campaign "No more Bhopals, plant a neem". The neem campaign led to challenging the biopiracy of neem in 1994 when I found that a US multinational, W.R. Grace, had patented neem for use as pesticide and fungicide and was setting up a neem oil extraction plant in Tumkur, Karnataka. We fought the biopiracy case for 11 years and were eventually successful in striking down the biopiracy patent. Meanwhile, the old pesticide industry was mutating into the biotechnology and genetic engineering industry. While genetic engineering was promoted as an alternative to pesticides, Bt cotton was introduced to end pesticide use. But Bt cotton has failed to control the bollworm and has instead created major new pests, leading to an increase in pesticide use. The high costs of genetically-modified (GM) seeds and pesticides are pushing farmers into debt, and indebted farmers are committing suicide. If one adds the 200,000 farmer suicides in India to the 25,000 killed in Bhopal, we are witnessing a massive corporate genocide - the killing of people for super profits. To maintain these super profits, lies are told about how, without pesticides and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), there will be no food. In fact, the conclusions of International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, undertaken by the United Nations, shows that ecologically organic agriculture produces more food and better food at lower cost than either chemical agriculture or GMOs. The agrochemical industry and its new avatar, the biotechnology industry, do not merely distort and manipulate knowledge, science and public policy. They also manipulate the law and the justice system. The reason justice has been denied to the victims of Bhopal is because corporations want to escape liability. Freedom from liability is, in fact, the real meaning of "free trade". The tragedy of Bhopal is dual. Interestingly, the Bhopal disaster happened precisely when corporations were seeking deregulation and freedom from liability through the instruments of "free trade", "trade liberalisation" and "globalisation", both through bilateral pressure and through the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which led to the creation of the World Trade Organisation. Injustice for Bhopal has been used to tell corporations that they can get away with murder. This is what senior politicians communicated to Dow Chemical. This is what the US-India Commission for Environmental Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the call from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one newspaper commented, Bhopal is being seen as a "road block and impediment to trade. the recommendations include removing road blocks to commercial trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear liability regime". Denial of justice to Bhopal has been the basis of all toxic investments since Bhopal, be it Bt cotton, DuPont's nylon plant or the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill. Just as Bhopal victims were paid a mere Rs 12,000 (approximately $250) each, the proposed Nuclear Liability Bill also seeks to put a ceiling on liability of a mere $100 million on private operations of a nuclear power plant in case of a nuclear accident. Once again, people can be killed but corporations should not have to pay. There has also been an intense debate in India on GMOs. An attempt was made by Monsanto/Mahyco to introduce Bt brinjal in 2009. As a result of public hearings across the country, a moratorium has been put on its commercialisation. Immediately after the moratorium a bill was introduced for a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India -the bill does not only leave the biotechnology industry free of liability, but it also has a clause which empowers the government to arrest and fine those of us who question the need and safety of GMOs. >From Bhopal to pesticides to GMOs to nuclear plants, there are two lessons we can draw. One is that corporations introd?u?ce hazardous technologies like pe?sticides and GMOs for profits, and profits alone. And second le?sson, related to trade, is that corporations are seeking to ex?p?a?nd markets and relocate haza?r?d?o?us and environmentally costly te?c?hnologies to countries like India. Corporates seek to globalise production but they do not want to globalise justice and rights. The difference in the treatment of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical in the context of Bhopal, and of BP in the context of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows how an apartheid is being created. The devaluation of the life of people of the Third World and ecosystems is built into the project of globalisation. Globalisation is leading to the outsourcing of pollution - hazardous substances and technologies - to the Third World. This is at the heart of globalisation - the economies of genocide. Lawrence Summers, who was the World Bank's chief economist and is now chief economic adviser to the Obama government, in a memo dated December 12, 1991, to senior World Bank staff, wrote, "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?" Since wages are low in the Third World, economic costs of pollution arising from increased illness and death are least in the poorest countries. According to Mr Summers, the logic "of relocation of pollutants in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that". All this and Bhopal must teach us to reclaim our universal and common humanity and build an Earth Democracy in which all are equal, and corporations are not allowed to get away with crimes against people and the planet. Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 23:33:41 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:33:41 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Towns Rip Up the Pavement: 'Back to Stone Age' Message-ID: <5EF1DA4BB65F4BC19BE8CB07782E1445@agingCHS072729> Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement Asphalt Is Replaced By Cheaper Gravel; 'Back to Stone Age' By LAUREN ETTER SPIRITWOOD, N.D.-A hulking yellow machine inched along Old Highway 10 here recently in a summer scene that seemed as normal as the nearby corn swaying in the breeze. But instead of laying a blanket of steaming blacktop, the machine was grinding the asphalt road into bits. "When [counties] had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here," said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. "Now, it's catching up to them." Outside this speck of a town, pop. 78, a 10-mile stretch of road had deteriorated to the point that residents reported seeing ducks floating in potholes, Mr. Zimmerman said. As the road wore out, the cost of repaving became too great. Last year, the county spent $400,000 on an RM300 Caterpillar rotary mixer to grind the road up, making it look more like the old homesteader trail it once was. Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls. In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel. Full: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 19 23:55:53 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:55:53 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] California dreaming not likely to become a reality here Message-ID: <8C7A1BD1131044219725EDA0830171C8@agingCHS072729> Vancouver Sun July 19, 2010 California dreaming not likely to become a reality here A poll indicates that half of the Sunshine State will vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol in November ballot By Ian Mulgrew While Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government vows to jail marijuana-growers, support grows for California's proposition 19 to legalize, regulate and tax cannabis. A poll last week indicated 50 per cent of the state is ready to vote to transform the demon weed from a black hole in the state's balance sheet -- a drain of police, prosecution and prison expenses -- into a lucrative revenue stream. There also are a couple of other legalize-the-plant laws under consideration by state legislators. Legal pot might remain a Cheech-and-Chong joke in Ottawa, but it's no giggling matter south of the 49th parallel. California is pioneering cannabis legalization, but across America many states are following the path California began blazing in 1996 when it established the first U.S. medical marijuana program. More than a dozen have such programs today. The medicinal market already has sparked Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., to enact regulations overseeing the production and distribution of cannabis products. Proposition 19, which is on the November ballot, will control marijuana just like alcohol: adults 21 and older will be allowed to possess up to one ounce. It also gives the state and local governments the ability to tax sales. Check out www.taxcannabis.org. The state's current subterranean cannabis market is estimated at $14 billion and initiative backers think legalization will produce $1.4 billion in tax revenue. (Those figures, by the way, probably mirror the Canadian underground market.) At the same time, depending on the study, savings in policing, prosecution and prison costs range anywhere from $200 million to $1.9 billion. A report by the main U.S. marijuana legalization lobby group (NORML. org) suggested the regulated pot industry in California predicts between 60,000 and 110,000 jobs paying between $2.5 and $3.5 billion in wages. The new above-ground market potentially could create $12-18 billion in spinoff industries. (The suggestion that the price will drop I think is a canard exposed by Amsterdam, where pot is legally dispensed for prices rivalling Vancouver's. And California's medical dispensaries often charge as much as the black market, as do some of Canada's compassion clubs.) All that said, there is a great irony here: California is considering legalization in part because of the implosion of America's great get-tough-on-crime experiment. The mandatory prison, spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child approach helped push California into financial crisis because the state, along with its other fiscal troubles, couldn't afford the cost of housing the crowds these laws jailed. Conditions were so bad courts were compelled to order the release of thousands upon thousands. Other states, too, awoke to the same fiscal nightmare triggered by the failed War on Drugs. It is unbelievable that the federal Conservatives are intent on repeating this costly and futile mistake in the face of such hard evidence and common sense. Just as we have done a good job controlling tobacco and alcohol through public education, advertising curbs and other mechanisms instead of the criminal law, so too can we regulate pot. A more open and honest environment about drugs, smart doctors on both sides of the border say, gives us a better chance of reaching young people about the true concerns surrounding marijuana use, particularly when smoked in a joint or pipe. When crime rates have plummeted, why should Canadian taxpayers pay for more cops, jail guards and prisons to lock up more guerrilla gardeners and pot consumers? As those pushing Proposition 19 say: It's better to tax and control marijuana. In California they are having a very adult debate about the issue without an overlay of the sophomoric humour that has for too long clouded discussion on this side of the border. We should be listening. Oh, I forgot, there are still some people who think we can't talk about legalization in Canada because Uncle Sam might take offence and retaliate against us. (What are they smoking?) imulgrew at vancouversun.com From hain at antcolbks.com Mon Jul 19 23:55:48 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:55:48 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Is this the latest anti-government police shooting? Message-ID: <22201CC32B9441698E80FA4B44F61C8F@Upstairs> Monday, Jul 19, 2010 19:05 ET Is this the latest anti-government police shooting? By Justin Elliott On Sunday, a heavily-armed Groveland, California, man named Byron Williams allegedly opened fire at police after they pulled over his truck in Oakland. After a dramatic shootout, two officers sustained injuries from flying shards of glass and Williams -- who had a shotgun, a handgun, a rifle, and was wearing a bulletproof vest -- was in the hospital in serious condition. Williams' mother Janice told a local ABC affiliate her son often became angry watching TV news and "[h]e feels the people of this country are being raped by our government and politicians." She told the San Francisco Chronicle that Byron Williams was also upset at "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury News quotes unnamed law enforcement sources saying that Williams, 45, "has a history showing he is anti-government, anti-corporation and against liberal causes. If Williams was indeed motivated by anger at the government -- and it's important to note that police still haven't commented on motive -- then this is, by our count, the third recent case of people angry at the government or the Obama Administration opening fire on police. The other two cases share some strands with the Williams case (bullet-proof vests, lots of guns, traffic stops), but they resulted in the deaths of several police officers. In April 2009, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly opened fire on police who responded to a 911 call from Poplawski's mother. Poplawski, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an assault rifle and two other guns, survived the ensuing four-hour gun battle -- but three police officers were killed. His friends said he feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." This past May, Jerry Kane and his teenage son Joe opened fire on police, killing two officers, when after they were pulled over on the highway in West Memphis, Arkansas. Kane and his son, who were killed by police later that day, traveled the country giving debt-elimination seminars based on an anti-government theory that all bank loans and modern finance are fundamentally illegitimate. Kane had also complained about being stopped at a "Nazi checkpoint" in New Mexico and fantasized about beating up IRS agents. We'll probably find out more about the Williams case in Oakland in the coming weeks. One apparent focus of the investigation is a three-ring binder labeled "California" that authorities found in his truck. California Highway Patrol spokesman Trent Cross told Salon that the FBI, which is assisting in the investigation, showed interest in the binder. "They just put it in a bag, sealed it, and took off. They took it and are being real quiet about it," Cross said. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, referring Salon to the Oakland Police Department, which did not return a call. Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott at salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott http://www.salon.com/news/california/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/07/19/another_right_wing_police_shooting -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Mon Jul 19 23:32:57 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:32:57 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] TOP SECRET AMERICA: A hidden world, growing beyond control Message-ID: <8FB20F0733BD4DBEB473BEFA637EABD2@Upstairs> Posted at 4:50 PM, 7/19/2010 A hidden world, growing beyond control The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine. The investigation's other findings include: * Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. * An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. * In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space. Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks. * Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored. An alternative geography Since Sept. 11, 2001, the top-secret world created to respond to the terrorist attacks has grown into an unwieldy enterprise spread over 10,000 U.S. locations. Launch Gallery ? These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from his seatmate. They are also issues that greatly concern some of the people in charge of the nation's security. "There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that - not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense - is a challenge," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview with The Post last week. In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials - called Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the department's activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is simply no way they can keep up with the nation's most sensitive work. "I'm not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything" was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn't take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ''Stop!" in frustration. "I wasn't remembering any of it," he said. Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered. "I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description." The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe." The Post's investigation is based on government documents and contracts, job descriptions, property records, corporate and social networking Web sites, additional records, and hundreds of interviews with intelligence, military and corporate officials and former officials. Most requested anonymity either because they are prohibited from speaking publicly or because, they said, they feared retaliation at work for describing their concerns. The Post's online database of government organizations and private companies was built entirely on public records. The investigation focused on top-secret work because the amount classified at the secret level is too large to accurately track. Today's article describes the government's role in this expanding enterprise. Tuesday's article describes the government's dependence on private contractors. Wednesday's is a portrait of one Top Secret America community. On the Web, an extensive, searchable database built by The Post about Top Secret America is available at washingtonpost.com/topsecretamerica. Defense Secretary Gates, in his interview with The Post, said that he does not believe the system has become too big to manage but that getting precise data is sometimes difficult. Singling out the growth of intelligence units in the Defense Department, he said he intends to review those programs for waste. "Nine years after 9/11, it makes a lot of sense to sort of take a look at this and say, 'Okay, we've built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?' " he said. CIA Director Leon Panetta, who was also interviewed by The Post last week, said he's begun mapping out a five-year plan for his agency because the levels of spending since 9/11 are not sustainable. "Particularly with these deficits, we're going to hit the wall. I want to be prepared for that," he said. "Frankly, I think everyone in intelligence ought to be doing that." In an interview before he resigned as the director of national intelligence in May, retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair said he did not believe there was overlap and redundancy in the intelligence world. "Much of what appears to be redundancy is, in fact, providing tailored intelligence for many different customers," he said. Blair also expressed confidence that subordinates told him what he needed to know. "I have visibility on all the important intelligence programs across the community, and there are processes in place to ensure the different intelligence capabilities are working together where they need to," he said. Weeks later, as he sat in the corner of a ballroom at the Willard Hotel waiting to give a speech, he mused about The Post's findings. "After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country," he said. "The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing." Outside a gated subdivision of mansions in McLean, a line of cars idles every weekday morning as a new day in Top Secret America gets underway. The drivers wait patiently to turn left, then crawl up a hill and around a bend to a destination that is not on any public map and not announced by any street sign. Liberty Crossing tries hard to hide from view. But in the winter, leafless trees can't conceal a mountain of cement and windows the size of five Wal-Mart stores stacked on top of one another rising behind a grassy berm. One step too close without the right badge, and men in black jump out of nowhere, guns at the ready. Past the armed guards and the hydraulic steel barriers, at least 1,700 federal employees and 1,200 private contractors work at Liberty Crossing, the nickname for the two headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its National Counterterrorism Center. The two share a police force, a canine unit and thousands of parking spaces. Liberty Crossing is at the center of the collection of U.S. government agencies and corporate contractors that mushroomed after the 2001 attacks. But it is not nearly the biggest, the most costly or even the most secretive part of the 9/11 enterprise. In an Arlington County office building, the lobby directory doesn't include the Air Force's mysteriously named XOIWS unit, but there's a big "Welcome!" sign in the hallway greeting visitors who know to step off the elevator on the third floor. In Elkridge, Md., a clandestine program hides in a tall concrete structure fitted with false windows to look like a normal office building. In Arnold, Mo., the location is across the street from a Target and a Home Depot. In St. Petersburg, Fla., it's in a modest brick bungalow in a run-down business park. Every day across the United States, 854,000 civil servants, military personnel and private contractors with top-secret security clearances are scanned into offices protected by electromagnetic locks, retinal cameras and fortified walls that eavesdropping equipment cannot penetrate. This is not exactly President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," which emerged with the Cold War and centered on building nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet Union. This is a national security enterprise with a more amorphous mission: defeating transnational violent extremists. Much of the information about this mission is classified. That is the reason it is so difficult to gauge the success and identify the problems of Top Secret America, including whether money is being spent wisely. The U.S. intelligence budget is vast, publicly announced last year as $75 billion, 21/2 times the size it was on Sept. 10, 2001. But the figure doesn't include many military activities or domestic counterterrorism programs. At least 20 percent of the government organizations that exist to fend off terrorist threats were established or refashioned in the wake of 9/11. Many that existed before the attacks grew to historic proportions as the Bush administration and Congress gave agencies more money than they were capable of responsibly spending. The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, for example, has gone from 7,500 employees in 2002 to 16,500 today. The budget of the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, doubled. Thirty-five FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces became 106. It was phenomenal growth that began almost as soon as the Sept. 11 attacks ended. Nine days after the attacks, Congress committed $40 billion beyond what was in the federal budget to fortify domestic defenses and to launch a global offensive against al-Qaeda. It followed that up with an additional $36.5 billion in 2002 and $44 billion in 2003. That was only a beginning. With the quick infusion of money, military and intelligence agencies multiplied. Twenty-four organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11. Each has required more people, and those people have required more administrative and logistic support: phone operators, secretaries, librarians, architects, carpenters, construction workers, air-conditioning mechanics and, because of where they work, even janitors with top-secret clearances. With so many more employees, units and organizations, the lines of responsibility began to blur. To remedy this, at the recommendation of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the George W. Bush administration and Congress decided to create an agency in 2004 with overarching responsibilities called the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to bring the colossal effort under control. While that was the idea, Washington has its own ways. The first problem was that the law passed by Congress did not give the director clear legal or budgetary authority over intelligence matters, which meant he wouldn't have power over the individual agencies he was supposed to control. The second problem: Even before the first director, Ambassador John D. Negroponte, was on the job, the turf battles began. The Defense Department shifted billions of dollars out of one budget and into another so that the ODNI could not touch it, according to two senior officials who watched the process. The CIA reclassified some of its most sensitive information at a higher level so the National Counterterrorism Center staff, part of the ODNI, would not be allowed to see it, said former intelligence officers involved. And then came a problem that continues to this day, which has to do with the ODNI's rapid expansion. When it opened in the spring of 2005, Negroponte's office was all of 11 people stuffed into a secure vault with closet-size rooms a block from the White House. A year later, the budding agency moved to two floors of another building. In April 2008, it moved into its huge permanent home, Liberty Crossing. Today, many officials who work in the intelligence agencies say they remain unclear about what the ODNI is in charge of. To be sure, the ODNI has made some progress, especially in intelligence-sharing, information technology and budget reform. The DNI and his managers hold interagency meetings every day to promote collaboration. The last director, Blair, doggedly pursued such nitty-gritty issues as procurement reform, compatible computer networks, tradecraft standards and collegiality. But improvements have been overtaken by volume at the ODNI, as the increased flow of intelligence data overwhelms the system's ability to analyze and use it. Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases. The same problem bedevils every other intelligence agency, none of which have enough analysts and translators for all this work. The practical effect of this unwieldiness is visible, on a much smaller scale, in the office of Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Leiter spends much of his day flipping among four computer monitors lined up on his desk. Six hard drives sit at his feet. The data flow is enormous, with dozens of databases feeding separate computer networks that cannot interact with one another. There is a long explanation for why these databases are still not connected, and it amounts to this: It's too hard, and some agency heads don't really want to give up the systems they have. But there's some progress: "All my e-mail on one computer now," Leiter says. "That's a big deal." To get another view of how sprawling Top Secret America has become, just head west on the toll road toward Dulles International Airport. As a Michaels craft store and a Books-A-Million give way to the military intelligence giants Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, find the off-ramp and turn left. Those two shimmering-blue five-story ice cubes belong to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes images and mapping data of the Earth's geography. A small sign obscured by a boxwood hedge says so. Across the street, in the chocolate-brown blocks, is Carahsoft, an intelligence agency contractor specializing in mapping, speech analysis and data harvesting. Nearby is the government's Underground Facility Analysis Center. It identifies overseas underground command centers associated with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups, and advises the military on how to destroy them. Clusters of top-secret work exist throughout the country, but the Washington region is the capital of Top Secret America. About half of the post-9/11 enterprise is anchored in an arc stretching from Leesburg south to Quantico, back north through Washington and curving northeast to Linthicum, just north of the Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. Many buildings sit within off-limits government compounds or military bases. Others occupy business parks or are intermingled with neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers and go unnoticed by most people who live or play nearby. Many of the newest buildings are not just utilitarian offices but also edifices "on the order of the pyramids," in the words of one senior military intelligence officer. Not far from the Dulles Toll Road, the CIA has expanded into two buildings that will increase the agency's office space by one-third. To the south, Springfield is becoming home to the new $1.8 billion National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency headquarters, which will be the fourth-largest federal building in the area and home to 8,500 employees. Economic stimulus money is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for this kind of federal construction across the region. It's not only the number of buildings that suggests the size and cost of this expansion, it's also what is inside: banks of television monitors. "Escort-required" badges. X-ray machines and lockers to store cellphones and pagers. Keypad door locks that open special rooms encased in metal or permanent dry wall, impenetrable to eavesdropping tools and protected by alarms and a security force capable of responding within 15 minutes. Every one of these buildings has at least one of these rooms, known as a SCIF, for sensitive compartmented information facility. Some are as small as a closet; others are four times the size of a football field. SCIF size has become a measure of status in Top Secret America, or at least in the Washington region of it. "In D.C., everyone talks SCIF, SCIF, SCIF," said Bruce Paquin, who moved to Florida from the Washington region several years ago to start a SCIF construction business. "They've got the penis envy thing going. You can't be a big boy unless you're a three-letter agency and you have a big SCIF." SCIFs are not the only must-have items people pay attention to. Command centers, internal television networks, video walls, armored SUVs and personal security guards have also become the bling of national security. "You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol." Among the most important people inside the SCIFs are the low-paid employees carrying their lunches to work to save money. They are the analysts, the 20- and 30-year-olds making $41,000 to $65,000 a year, whose job is at the core of everything Top Secret America tries to do. At its best, analysis melds cultural understanding with snippets of conversations, coded dialogue, anonymous tips, even scraps of trash, turning them into clues that lead to individuals and groups trying to harm the United States. Their work is greatly enhanced by computers that sort through and categorize data. But in the end, analysis requires human judgment, and half the analysts are relatively inexperienced, having been hired in the past several years, said a senior ODNI official. Contract analysts are often straight out of college and trained at corporate headquarters. When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan - and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them every day. The ODNI doesn't know exactly how many reports are issued each year, but in the process of trying to find out, the chief of analysis discovered 60 classified analytic Web sites still in operation that were supposed to have been closed down for lack of usefulness. "Like a zombie, it keeps on living" is how one official describes the sites. The problem with many intelligence reports, say officers who read them, is that they simply re-slice the same facts already in circulation. "It's the soccer ball syndrome. Something happens, and they want to rush to cover it," said Richard H. Immerman, who was the ODNI's assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analytic integrity and standards until early 2009. "I saw tremendous overlap." Even the analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is supposed to be where the most sensitive, most difficult-to-obtain nuggets of information are fused together, get low marks from intelligence officials for not producing reports that are original, or at least better than the reports already written by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence Agency. When Maj. Gen. John M. Custer was the director of intelligence at U.S. Central Command, he grew angry at how little helpful information came out of the NCTC. In 2007, he visited its director at the time, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, to tell him so. "I told him that after 41/2 years, this organization had never produced one shred of information that helped me prosecute three wars!" he said loudly, leaning over the table during an interview. Two years later, Custer, now head of the Army's intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., still gets red-faced recalling that day, which reminds him of his frustration with Washington's bureaucracy. "Who has the mission of reducing redundancy and ensuring everybody doesn't gravitate to the lowest-hanging fruit?" he said. "Who orchestrates what is produced so that everybody doesn't produce the same thing?" He's hardly the only one irritated. In a secure office in Washington, a senior intelligence officer was dealing with his own frustration. Seated at his computer, he began scrolling through some of the classified information he is expected to read every day: CIA World Intelligence Review, WIRe-CIA, Spot Intelligence Report, Daily Intelligence Summary, Weekly Intelligence Forecast, Weekly Warning Forecast, IC Terrorist Threat Assessments, NCTC Terrorism Dispatch, NCTC Spotlight . . . It's too much, he complained. The inbox on his desk was full, too. He threw up his arms, picked up a thick, glossy intelligence report and waved it around, yelling. "Jesus! Why does it take so long to produce?" "Why does it have to be so bulky?" "Why isn't it online?" The overload of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports is actually counterproductive, say people who receive them. Some policymakers and senior officials don't dare delve into the backup clogging their computers. They rely instead on personal briefers, and those briefers usually rely on their own agency's analysis, re-creating the very problem identified as a main cause of the failure to thwart the attacks: a lack of information-sharing. The ODNI's analysis office knows this is a problem. Yet its solution was another publication, this one a daily online newspaper, Intelligence Today. Every day, a staff of 22 culls more than two dozen agencies' reports and 63 Web sites, selects the best information and packages it by originality, topic and region. Analysis is not the only area where serious overlap appears to be gumming up the national security machinery and blurring the lines of responsibility. Within the Defense Department alone, 18 commands and agencies conduct information operations, which aspire to manage foreign audiences' perceptions of U.S. policy and military activities overseas. And all the major intelligence agencies and at least two major military commands claim a major role in cyber-warfare, the newest and least-defined frontier. "Frankly, it hasn't been brought together in a unified approach," CIA Director Panetta said of the many agencies now involved in cyber-warfare. "Cyber is tremendously difficult" to coordinate, said Benjamin A. Powell, who served as general counsel for three directors of national intelligence until he left the government last year. "Sometimes there was an unfortunate attitude of bring your knives, your guns, your fists and be fully prepared to defend your turf." Why? "Because it's funded, it's hot and it's sexy." Anti-Deception Technologies >From avatars and lasers to thermal cameras and fidget meters, this multimedia gallery takes a look at some of the latest technologies being developed by the government and private companies to thwart terrorists. Launch Gallery ? Last fall, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 people and wounding 30. In the days after the shootings, information emerged about Hasan's increasingly strange behavior at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he had trained as a psychiatrist and warned commanders that they should allow Muslims to leave the Army or risk "adverse events." He had also exchanged e-mails with a well-known radical cleric in Yemen being monitored by U.S. intelligence. But none of this reached the one organization charged with handling counterintelligence investigations within the Army. Just 25 miles up the road from Walter Reed, the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group had been doing little to search the ranks for potential threats. Instead, the 902's commander had decided to turn the unit's attention to assessing general terrorist affiliations in the United States, even though the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI's 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces were already doing this work in great depth. The 902nd, working on a program the commander named RITA, for Radical Islamic Threat to the Army, had quietly been gathering information on Hezbollah, Iranian Republican Guard and al-Qaeda student organizations in the United States. The assessment "didn't tell us anything we didn't know already," said the Army's senior counterintelligence officer at the Pentagon. Secrecy and lack of coordination have allowed organizations, such as the 902nd in this case, to work on issues others were already tackling rather than take on the much more challenging job of trying to identify potential jihadist sympathizers within the Army itself. Beyond redundancy, secrecy within the intelligence world hampers effectiveness in other ways, say defense and intelligence officers. For the Defense Department, the root of this problem goes back to an ultra-secret group of programs for which access is extremely limited and monitored by specially trained security officers. These are called Special Access Programs - or SAPs - and the Pentagon's list of code names for them runs 300 pages. The intelligence community has hundreds more of its own, and those hundreds have thousands of sub-programs with their own limits on the number of people authorized to know anything about them. All this means that very few people have a complete sense of what's going on. "There's only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs - that's God," said James R. Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and the Obama administration's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence. Such secrecy can undermine the normal chain of command when senior officials use it to cut out rivals or when subordinates are ordered to keep secrets from their commanders. One military officer involved in one such program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it. Another senior defense official recalls the day he tried to find out about a program in his budget, only to be rebuffed by a peer. "What do you mean you can't tell me? I pay for the program," he recalled saying in a heated exchange. Another senior intelligence official with wide access to many programs said that secrecy is sometimes used to protect ineffective projects. "I think the secretary of defense ought to direct a look at every single thing to see if it still has value," he said. "The DNI ought to do something similar." The ODNI hasn't done that yet. The best it can do at the moment is maintain a database of the names of the most sensitive programs in the intelligence community. But the database does not include many important and relevant Pentagon projects. Because so much is classified, illustrations of what goes on every day in Top Secret America can be hard to ferret out. But every so often, examples emerge. A recent one shows the post-9/11 system at its best and its worst. Last fall, after eight years of growth and hirings, the enterprise was at full throttle when word emerged that something was seriously amiss inside Yemen. In response, President Obama signed an order sending dozens of secret commandos to that country to target and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda affiliate. In Yemen, the commandos set up a joint operations center packed with hard drives, forensic kits and communications gear. They exchanged thousands of intercepts, agent reports, photographic evidence and real-time video surveillance with dozens of top-secret organizations in the United States. That was the system as it was intended. But when the information reached the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington for analysis, it arrived buried within the 5,000 pieces of general terrorist-related data that are reviewed each day. Analysts had to switch from database to database, from hard drive to hard drive, from screen to screen, just to locate what might be interesting to study further. As military operations in Yemen intensified and the chatter about a possible terrorist strike increased, the intelligence agencies ramped up their effort. The flood of information into the NCTC became a torrent. Somewhere in that deluge was even more vital data. Partial names of someone in Yemen. A reference to a Nigerian radical who had gone to Yemen. A report of a father in Nigeria worried about a son who had become interested in radical teachings and had disappeared inside Yemen. These were all clues to what would happen when a Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab left Yemen and eventually boarded a plane in Amsterdam bound for Detroit. But nobody put them together because, as officials would testify later, the system had gotten so big that the lines of responsibility had become hopelessly blurred. "There are so many people involved here," NCTC Director Leiter told Congress. "Everyone had the dots to connect," DNI Blair explained to the lawmakers. "But I hadn't made it clear exactly who had primary responsibility." And so Abdulmutallab was able to step aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. As it descended toward Detroit, he allegedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear. It wasn't the very expensive, very large 9/11 enterprise that prevented disaster. It was a passenger who saw what he was doing and tackled him. "We didn't follow up and prioritize the stream of intelligence," White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan explained afterward. "Because no one intelligence entity, or team or task force was assigned responsibility for doing that follow-up investigation." Blair acknowledged the problem. His solution: Create yet another team to run down every important lead. But he also told Congress he needed more money and more analysts to prevent another mistake. More is often the solution proposed by the leaders of the 9/11 enterprise. After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, Leiter also pleaded for more - more analysts to join the 300 or so he already had. The Department of Homeland Security asked for more air marshals, more body scanners and more analysts, too, even though it can't find nearly enough qualified people to fill its intelligence unit now. Obama has said he will not freeze spending on national security, making it likely that those requests will be funded. More building, more expansion of offices continues across the country. A $1.7 billion NSA data-processing center will be under construction soon near Salt Lake City. In Tampa, the U.S. Central Command's new 270,000-square-foot intelligence office will be matched next year by an equally large headquarters building, and then, the year after that, by a 51,000-square-foot office just for its special operations section. Just north of Charlottesville, the new Joint-Use Intelligence Analysis Facility will consolidate 1,000 defense intelligence analysts on a secure campus. Meanwhile, five miles southeast of the White House, the DHS has broken ground for its new headquarters, to be shared with the Coast Guard. DHS, in existence for only seven years, already has its own Special Access Programs, its own research arm, its own command center, its own fleet of armored cars and its own 230,000-person workforce, the third-largest after the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Soon, on the grounds of the former St. Elizabeths mental hospital in Anacostia, a $3.4 billion showcase of security will rise from the crumbling brick wards. The new headquarters will be the largest government complex built since the Pentagon, a major landmark in the alternative geography of Top Secret America and four times as big as Liberty Crossing. 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Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 902 bytes Desc: not available URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 09:09:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:09:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Tar Sands: What Canadian Politicians are Hiding Message-ID: <9245A9E376CD4CCABE67E00F47F3E135@agingCHS072729> Tar Sands: What Canadian Politicians are Hiding July 19, 2010 As Climate and Capitalism previously reported, Conservatives and Liberals in Canada's Parliament have secretly agreed to suppress a report on the Alberta Tar Sands. Here's what they don't want you to know . (This important article was published in The Tyee on July 15. It was written by Andrew Nikiforuk, author of the award-winning book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.) +++++++ Just two weeks ago the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development abruptly cancelled a big report on the tar sands and the project's extreme water impacts. The parliamentarians even destroyed draft copies of their final report. After listening to testimony from scores of scientists, bureaucrats, lobbyists, aboriginal chiefs and environmental groups, the committee dropped the whole affair like a bucket of tar. (For the record, the Alberta government, a petro-state with Saudi visions of grandeur, refused to show up and testify.) Killing reports paid for by Canadian taxpayers on a $200-billion backyard development is not the sort of behavior one associates with a "responsible energy producer," but there you have it. While federal panjandrums argue that the tar sands may be key to our economic prosperity, our politicians couldn't put aside their partisan views long enough to complete a national report on the project's formidable water liabilities. Fortunately, civilians can do what politicians can't. In the interests of accountability and transparency, I read through 300 pages of evidence and pulled out the sort of uncomfortable revelations that Ottawa doesn't want U.S. oil customers, industry investors or Canadian taxpayers to know. The evidence, of course, all points to one embarrassing conclusion: Ottawa has managed its mandate in the tar sands as irresponsibly as the U.S. Mineral Management Services oversaw the safety of deep sea drilling in the Gulf. Failing to regulate Let's begin with the sorry testimony of federal regulators. They all agreed that Environment Canada has responsibilities in the tar sands under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Migratory Bird Convention and the Fisheries Act. But nobody appears to be standing on guard. Even though Environment Canada has a clear mandate to protect fish from tar sands pollutants, the agency has completed but one fish study on an industrial development with a geographical footprint larger than 20 Calgaries or 17 Denvers.* Fred Wrona, Environment Canada's acting director general for Water Science and Technology, even admitted that a 2003 study found that oil-sand pollutants did indeed poison wild fish. "Beyond that, we have actually done no additional in-field studies looking at fish health effects." Incredible. Asked if the government knew much about the hydrogeology of the region, Ian Matheson, director general for Habitat Management Directorate at Fisheries and Oceans, didn't reach for words like responsible, safe or secure: "I guess we know more than we used to and not as much as we want to.. There's a lot to be learned yet." Leaking and seeping Cynthia Wright, acting assistant deputy minister of Environmental Stewardship branch, explained that Environment Canada was not involved in the design of tailing ponds holding six-billion barrels of toxic fish-killing and cancer-making mining waste that cover an 170 square kilometre area along the Athabasca River because the ponds don't contain fish. Wright also claimed the ponds don't leak. But two University of Waterloo scientists, who study tailings pollution and groundwater for living, gave evidence proving that Environment Canada was out to lunch. James Barker, an earth science professor at the University of Waterloo, testified that the tailing ponds do leak and seep. In particular "seepage of process affected water is occurring from the (Suncor's) Tar Island dike into the sediments of the Athabasca River" at a rate of 67 litres per second. Moreover the risk of more toxic seepage from the expanding tailing ponds into groundwater would escalate as mining projects increase bitumen production. "Newer oil sands tailings operations are forced really by geography to be located closer to or on top of sandy aquifers. the risk of local groundwater contamination is fairly high." George Dixon, an expert on toxins such as naphthenic acids created by bitumen mining, also testified that he knew of at least two leaks from the tailing ponds into groundwater. He also told the committee that the Athabasca River now receives "chemical inputs" from natural bitumen deposits along the river as well as pollution from industrial mining activity. "We don't know that the relative contributions from each are. We don't know whether or not the system can accept any further loading of oil sands type materials beyond what is naturally occurring." He added, "I don't really think we have a fully integrated sustainable management strategy for water in the Athabasca drainage." Both the availability and accessibility of water information remain a critical concern for scientists: "I've been working there for 15 years. and I have difficulty pulling data together." Dixon concluded that the research needs of the oil sands may have exceeded available human scientific resources in Canada. "It's a discomfort in that there are probably more questions that need to be asked than we're fully drawing our attention to at the present time." Climate change? What's that? Although industry folks claim, with the earnestness of BP executives, that city-scaled water withdrawals from the Athabasca River for bitumen processing are safely managed, committee witnesses gave a different story. William Donahue, an Alberta research scientist and lawyer, characterized the controversial Lower Athabasca River Management Framework, a tool for policing industry withdrawals, as inadequate for the job. In particular the framework failed to incorporate a predicted 50 per cent decline in water flows in the river basin due to climate change. The federal and provincial designers of the framework, "arbitrarily decided that 90 per cent of the time, there would be no ecological effect and no need to limit flow extractions." By 2020, mining companies will either have to use 50 per cent less water or find it elsewhere warned Donahue. Arlene Kwasniak, professor of law at the University of Calgary, pointed out even more flaws in the framework. The voluntary agreement, which directs companies to suck out less water during low river flows to save the fish, is probably unenforceable under Alberta's Water Act. "There is nothing that would require compliance, nor is that anything under predecessor legislation.. If we're going to protect the river, we're going to have to have some effective legislated control." But it doesn't exist. Even though industry has now dug up 80,000 hectares of critical peatlands and wetlands, Alberta still has no wetland policy either, said Kwasniak. Yes, it's a huge polluter Contrary to Environment Canada's fairy tale presentations, David Schindler, one of world's most respected water ecologists, told the committee that the project was directly polluting the Athabasca River. In particular, industry emissions were now depositing substantial volumes of bitumen, heavy metals and fish-killing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on the landscape which then run-off into the river. (After his appearance, Schindler published a peer-reviewed paper in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that air pollution alone created the equivalent of an annual 5,000-barrel oil spill on the Athabasca River.) Schindler also told the committee that once upon a time the federal government did good monitoring on the river but then turned it over to Alberta which "turned a lot of it over to industry itself. As a result we have a database that's not available to independent scientists to use." Schindler also poked holes in claims made by Don Thompson, the president of the Oil Sands Developer's Group. Thompson told the committee there is no pollution in the Athabasca River because an industry funded multi-stakeholder group, the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP), couldn't find any. But Schindler described RAMP as a secretive, inconsistent and "unsuccessful" program. He noted that three federal scientists offered a scathing critique of RAMP in 2004. The scientists found that RAMP repeatedly changed what pollutants it studied and where and how it sampled them."all the things that violate the first principles of monitoring programs." 'A pretty unsustainable situation' Although industry claims that in situ projects, which steam bitumen out of the ground, will be more water friendly than mining, that's not what the committee heard. Expert after expert all warned that the steam plants could impact a region the size of Florida by withdrawing almost as much water from the ground as the mines were now taking from the Athabasca River. Some unmapped underground aquifers in the region may even extend as far away as the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. James Bruce, an acclaimed climate scientist and former director of Environment Canada's now defunct Inland Waters Directorate, testified that reports by the Alberta Research Council and the Council of Canadian Academies pointedly concluded that in situ projects have "gone ahead with a completely inadequate understanding of the groundwater regime in the area and they are having significant impacts on water.. We considered it a pretty unsustainable situation." Alfonso Rivera, manager of Natural Resources Groundwater Mapping Program, then confirmed the terrible accuracy of Bruce's testimony. Asked if the government of Canada had studied the impact of the tar sands on groundwater Rivera replied that "The short answer is no. We are not able to provide facts." In fact, the government did not even know "the sustainable safe yield" for Athabasca aquifers. Nor did they know where or what contaminants might be transported by aquifers or how aquifers connected with surface water in the region. David Boerner, an administrator with the Geological Survey of Canada, explained that Canada had only mapped 12 of 30 critical aquifers in the country and that "lack of information is the real problem." The view from downstream Everyone living downstream from the project (more than 40,000 people) bitterly told the committee that the federal government had repeatedly neglected its duties. Chief Bill Erasmus, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations for the Northwest Territories, called for an immediate halt to tar sands expansion until the government prepared emergency plans in case of catastrophic breaches in some 20 tailing ponds. (At least one is as large as the Aswan Dam on the Nile River.) He also called for a dry tailing process as well as a 10-year plan to immediately clean up six billion barrels of mining waste in the region. Michael Miltenberger, environment and natural resources minister for the Northwest Territories, wondered why the federal government had abandoned the Mackenzie River Basin Transboundary Waters Master Agreement. After 25 years of negotiations ,the federal government, four provinces and two territories finally agreed to protect the world's third largest watershed in 1997. But ever since the world's largest energy project started to fill up Ottawa coffers, the federal government ignored an agreement. Miltenberger asked why the transboundary board, with an annual budget of $250,000, was sitting "almost in neutral" and hadn't met for a decade? "Our futures and fates are inextricably linked in the Mackenzie River Basin and we have to recognize that." He also asked why "there's no national water strategy that allows the federal government to play a clear leadership role." J. Owen Saunders, executive director of the Canadian Institute of Resources Law, called the abandonment of the basin's future a grave mistake. "There are important federal interests here and a clear need for federal leadership which has largely been abdicated by the federal government over the last three decades." Chief Jim Boucher of the Fort McKay First Nation eloquently put his finger on the whole ugly problem: "Oil sands development has proceeded on an ad hoc, project-by-project basis within a fiscal and environmental regulatory framework that is seriously out of date. Lacking a coherent and overall plan and strategy, there is only an ineffective, reactive, piecemeal approach to environmental issues such as water management." Boucher knows: his people live in the middle of four mining projects just 75 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. A very bad report So there you have it: some of the dismal evidence that the federal government didn't want to share with the world. The facts show that Canadian regulators have not behaved responsibly, honorably or prudently. Ottawa has squandered surface and groundwater resources in the region. It has failed to collect baseline data making the project both unsafe and insecure. The ponds are leaking and the project is polluting the river. The federal government has failed to issue national standards for regulating tar-sands pollutants such as naphthenic acids. It, too, has neglected to transparently monitor water quality and quantity in the world's third largest watershed. This evidence partly explains why the committee destroyed its final report. Tory MPs that behave like wannabe bitumen salesmen explain the rest. Linda Duncan, an NDP MP who served on the querulous committee studying water and bitumen, promises to soon write her own report. Francis Scarpaleggia, the vice chair and Liberal MP, says he'll do the same. But what stuns Duncan (and should anger every blue-blooded Canadian) is simply this: "The federal government has failed to properly regulate the oil sands and in so doing they've put the resource at risk." Isn't that what corrupt U.S. oil regulators did in the Gulf? From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 10:39:29 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:39:29 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [South Africa] Living in District 9 Message-ID: <099B2569F6B941CC9EE6558719A2208B@agingCHS072729> (from Z Magazine) Living in District 9 By James McEnteer July 2010 A stranger in Johannesburg immediately notices serious security measures everywhere. High walls are topped with electrified razor wire. Dogs are visible or audible behind the walls. Signs warn of alarms that will bring "rapid armed response" from one of many thriving security companies. The presence of so much defensive and offensive hardware prompts a question: what's going on here? South Africans have pondered that question since the late 1940s when apartheid became the country's official policy. Much has changed since the 1940s and much remains the same. Apartheid was abandoned in 1990, after moral censure and economic pressure from the rest of the world. The country's first free elections in 1994 brought a black majority government run by the African National Congress, which continues its monopoly on political power. Under ANC leadership, a new black elite emerged, blurring the traditional South African equation of race with class. Recent demographic data from the Human Sciences Research Council shows that "the proportion of people living in poverty in South Africa has not changed significantly" in the post-apartheid years. In fact, "those households living in poverty have sunk deeper into poverty and the gap between rich and poor has widened." Each morning black workers stream into commercial and residential areas in large numbers, getting down from trains and buses and vans that serve as collective taxis, setting off on foot, sometimes for long distances, to work. Every afternoon, this process reverses as blacks migrate back to the poor townships and shanty towns where they must live. This strange and troubling ritual feels anachronistic and wrong. But with South Africa's rate of unemployment above 25 percent (by some estimates, closer to 40 percent), anyone with a source of income, however meager, is not the least fortunate. Apartheid's bad old days were much worse for the black majority, of course. That past is on display in many places, including the former women's prison downtown, now a museum, where black and white political prisoners were confined separately for their activism. Newtown's Africa Museum has a large exhibit detailing the six-year treason trial of prominent anti-apartheid activists, many of whom later became government leaders. Soweto's Hector Pieterson Museum reruns period TV footage of the 1976 protests in which police opened fire on unarmed students, killing dozens. The Apartheid Museum provides details of massacres like Sharpeville and the cold-blooded state murder of black leader Steve Biko. Last year's off-beat science fiction movie, District 9, identified the shadow over Johannesburg. The movie's plot involves the forcible relocation of aliens-who resemble giant prawns-from their long-time ramshackle detention site in the center of the city to a more remote location. The prawn people are portrayed as detestable and incomprehensible, but highly intelligent and dangerous. Beneath the high-tech make-up and special effects, the film is really a documentary metaphor about South Africa. Forced relocations of "undesirables," a hallmark of the apartheid years, were also part of South Africa's preparations for the World Cup soccer tournament in June. Clean-up efforts involved relocating residents of unsightly shanty towns from their previously visible sites. Under the euphemistic "breaking new ground" policy, Cape Town officials shifted township residents from their homes along a route between the airport and the city to a remote location invisible to soccer tourists, "with minimal infrastructure and far removed from people's places or potential places of work," in the words of reporter Robert Wilcox. "Looking much like a concentration camp, this settlement was named 'Blikkiesdorp-Tin Town,' by those herded there." South Africa hoped that by staging one of the planet's premiere sporting events, the country would receive a financial windfall and lots of favorable international publicity. Germany made a tidy profit hosting the 2006 World Cup, but South Africa will find it harder to duplicate that feat. The long, expensive flights, the recent economic downturn, and inflated ticket prices have caused a revision downward in the number of visitors. According to Bloomsburg's Mike Cohen, "South Africa has spent 34 billion rand ($4.6 billion) to host the soccer World Cup." So who stands to benefit? "The big secret about the World Cup is that only the rich will get richer from it," in the words of South African playwright Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom. The lion's share of World Cup income will benefit sponsors and international media. Some owners of four star hotels and restaurants will no doubt reap benefits. Also profiting are the government officials who got kickbacks from the contractors awarded the construction contracts. Ordinary people, some of whom have been football fans for years, were excluded. As journalist Claire Byrne notes: "The stadium...women from townships who serve up cheap local fast-food at games are being moved out to make way for FIFA sponsors, such as McDonald's." Most South Africans tell pollsters they are "no better off" now than in 1994 when apartheid was abolished. In fact, there has been a net job loss since then. Afraid of racial retribution, nudged out of jobs, or limited in their career trajectories by the ANC policy of black affirmative action, many whites have fled the country, taking needed skills and knowledge with them. The ANC's promised commitment to education in order to train a new generation of skilled workers to run the economy has not materialized. The largest crisis is one of confidence in the government and in the future. Many outsiders think of South Africa in terms of Nelson Mandela's triumphs. Mandela's "long walk to freedom" is surely one of the 20th century's most inspiring stories. But contemporary reality is not Invictus or happily ever after. R.W. Johnson's South Africa's Brave New World provides a disheartening account of how the ANC dumped their socialist agenda in order to appease the IMF and attract international investment. Once in power they succumbed to corruption and cronyism, playing to the aspirations of middle class blacks and their own political elite, ignoring the hopes and desperation of the poor majority who voted for them. Thabo Mbeki, the powerful government organizer behind Mandela and the person who succeeded him in office, dismissed all criticism of ANC's ineptitude or malfeasance as "racist." Conditioned by his decades of exile, dodging assassination attempts as his father sat in prison, Mbeki centralized control and purged his rivals from within the party, sometimes brutally. A few grim statistics from the daily media show how Mbeki's policies are coming home to roost as 1,000 South Africans a day are dying of AIDS-part of Mbeki's legacy. As the nature and the scope of the epidemic was becoming clear in Africa and worldwide, Mbeki construed calls to fight the disease as a political attempt to blame Africans for this plague and stigmatize them anew. He disputed the science and refused to take responsible action when it could have saved millions of lives. South Africa's current president, Jacob Zuma, has pledged a renewed commitment to AIDS education and testing, but he recently opined that the country only has about four more years to blame their former white supremacist rulers-who left office in 1994-before they must assume full responsibility for their own problems. That's almost exactly how much time Zuma has left in his presidential term. Four years seems a long time to justify political drift and not to address pressing social problems such as the crime rate. There are 50 murders a day in a country of about 50 million people, the same number of murders as in the United States, which has 6 times the population. Much of this violence is directed toward foreigners from Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa who are perceived to be taking jobs away from locals, since they will work for less money. Many South Africans would agree that their country is in crisis right now, but conditions in Zimbabwe and the Congo, among other nations, are so much worse, that the flood of immigrants continues unabated. Five-hundred people a day cross the border from Zimbabwe into South Africa. More than 25 percent of the economically active adult population of that country has fled to escape the despotism of Robert Mugabe. For decades Mugabe and his friends have looted the land, ruining the economy and persecuting anyone who objected. As the ruler of Zimbabwe's most powerful neighbor, Mbeki was uniquely placed and morally obliged during his presidency (1999-2008) to intercede against Mugabe's policies and many here and around the world pleaded with Mbeki to do so. But he refused. The result of Mugabe's megalomania has been the slow starvation of a once prosperous nation and a desperate exodus that has caused bitterness and bloodshed in South Africa. ANC youth league leader Julius Malema has built his own career by calling for vengeance against the hardcore resistance of Afrikaner farmers, the Boers. In his public appearances, Malema likes to sing an anti-apartheid song that includes the lyrics, "Kill the Boer," which often receives large applause. In early April, not long after Malema had regaled another audience with this violent anthem, a white separatist farmer named Eugene Terre Blanche was murdered at his farm. A divisive extremist, Terre Blanche founded an Afrikaner Resistance Movement and famously threatened civil war to maintain white rule in Africa. After three years in jail for assault and attempted murder, in 2008 Terre Blanche began calling for a "free Afrikaner republic" to be created inside South Africa's borders. Terre Blanche is only the most recent and most famous white farmer to die from violence. The South African Human Rights Commission estimates that about 2,500 white farmers have died as the result of more than 9,000 violent attacks since the end of apartheid. (White farmers' organizations claim the number of fatalities is closer to 3,000.) The Commission found that the rate of attacks on white farmers has increased 25 percent since 2005. The vengeful racist massacre that many feared when apartheid ended, but which Mandela seemed to have averted, is taking place in its own protracted way. The once-impoverished, poorly educated Malema now lives in splendor in Sandton, one of the most upscale sections of Johannesburg. A few weeks before the World Cup matches began, Malema was publicly reprimanded by the ANC and ordered to attend an anger management class- though most of his outbursts appeared calculated, if not scripted. For Malema, the Boers are convenient prawn-like foils to deflect blame from the enfranchised ANC back to the ghosts of apartheid. Zuma, too, seems content to pin his nation's problems on the past. Many unemployed South Africans, meanwhile, consider the immigrant population, legal and illegal, as the biggest threat to their well-being and perhaps to their survival. The fear and revulsion humans feel for the alien prawns in District 9 holds up a sci-fi mirror to this sort of scape- goating. Infected by the prawns, the protagonist of the movie begins to mutate, slowly becoming a prawn person himself, which horrifies him and everyone he knows. More hideous even than having to co-exist with the Other is becoming the Other. This fear has driven the policies of the Afrikaners and British for 300 years in South Africa, leading to the madness of apartheid, and continuing even today. Z James McEnteer lives in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, where his World Cup runneth over. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 10:59:47 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:59:47 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The high risk of capping BP's gushing well from the top Message-ID: <15D23379C5E7465788DFAAFA1AB709BD@agingCHS072729> (geez - we drill a deep hole and puncture the earth's crust, and it's hot down there! And, oh no, heat rises through all kinds of fissures! And that heat warms the seabed which will in turn vaporize tons of methane crystal hydrate on the ocean floor! What will it take for a complete moratorium on deep-sea drilling -- what? Time to get my generic sign out of the garage -- "Stop the Madness!" The following is an opinion piece, but it highlights the messy holes we dig for ourselves, literally and figuratively. Thanks to Karen Jones for passing it on --rm) http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/19/4704785-the-high-risk-of-capping-bps-gushing-well-from-the-top The high risk of capping BP's gushing well from the top. Opinion - Mon Jul 19, 2010 3:14 AM EDT By BK Lim advertisement -hydrocomgeo at gmail.com 1. What was being reported on capping and well integrity testing of BP's gushing well. After fitting on the new cap and delaying the well integrity test for a day, BP finally got the approval to completely shut off the oil gusher and monitor the pressure build-up within the cased well on Thursday, 1425hrs local time (1925 GMT) 15 July 2010. Below is an extract from Alexander Higgins Blog: Alexhiggins-integrity well test "Retired Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, has said that a pressure reading of 8,000 or 9,000 pounds per square inch (psi) inside the new cap would be ideal, while a pressure reading of 6,000 psi would indicate leakage. But pressures in an intermediate range would create ambiguity and force officials to make a tough decision on whether to keep the well shut in or open it back up and resort once again to containment operations." "The Washington Post is reporting that an insider in the BP control room says the pressure inside BP's blowout preventer has only risen to about 6700 psi which may indicate leaks in the well bore down hole, although he cautioned that it is too early to tell." "Furthermore, since BP has started the well integrity test several people have sent in tips or posted comments claiming they have seen leaks in various areas on the sea floor and I have even received a phone call about the issue. I began watching the live feed from Viking Posiedon ROV 1 soon after they off the well, for well over an hour. I witnessed the ROV cruising the sea floor where I saw large fields of cracks and fissures with oil and gas coming out of them. The ROV travelled over what is clearly a badly fractured seabed. Some the oil geysers looked pretty big as well as what I saw coming out of the cracks in the sea floor, both methane and crude. They have not stopped the oil, but is now surfacing from the sea floor all over the place. The video feed did not show the usual tracking data (heading, depth, etc.) There are leaks everywhere. I saw it between 5:00-6:30 EST. I called a friend and got her online as well and she saw the same thing." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BP and Retired Adm. Tim Allen were reported to be satisfied that the new cap is holding up to the pressure building within the well. Pressure readings after 41 hours were 6745 psi and rising more slowly at about 2 psi per hour compared to 2 to 10 psi on late Friday. Although puzzled by the slow rise in pressure, they were nevertheless cautiously happy there were "no leakage on the sea floor and the continued rise (albeit slow) in pressure. According to Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, if the pressure could rise above 7,500 psi the well would not be leaking. A low pressure reading or a falling one, could mean the oil is escaping. 2. Reported reasons for the puzzling pressure results. Washington's blog on 16 July 2010 compiled four potential explanations for the low pressure readings which you can read in full details at washingtonsblog. (1) There are substantial leaks in the well; (2) There is leakage in the sands deep under the seafloor; possibility crossflow at the bottom of the well. (3) There is some kind of blockage in the well: "If it's rising slowly, that means the pipe's integrity's still there. It's just getting around obstacles" (4) The reservoir has been depleted more than engineers anticipated. Even though there is some truth in (1) and ROV videos did pick up instances of up-welling of disturbed sediment and particles clouds, the leakage volume is too small to account for the over 50,000 barrels/day oil gush previously and the nature of the leaks does not explain the simple escape path from the well. While (2) is the most logical reason, the leakage may not necessary be at the bottom of the well. It is more likely to be at the gas saturated weak sub-formation (GWSF) zone, immediately underlying the non-lithified Quaternary sequence. Leakage at this level will not only explain the puzzling low pressure but also how the blowout occurred in the first place. Capping the well now will make a bad situation even worse leading to more disastrous consequences. If the well had been gushing unhindered for the last 87 days, there is no reason at all for (3). Reason (4) is disturbingly wishful since the oil gush did not show the slightest hint of slowing down even after 87 days. If the well is assumed to have depleted itself by half (since 6700 psi shut-in pressure is roughly half of the original 13,000 psi static pressure in the beginning prior to the blowout) the volume of oil would be significantly less before the capping. 3. How GWSF affects drilling and cementing the top hole section When the GWSF hazards were first discussed more than 15 years ago, drillers agreed that cementing the top-hole section of a well would be extremely difficult even with low pressured GWSF zones. This is because as soon as the well bore penetrates the gas-saturated highly fractured (and faulted) top formation, gases would start escaping into the overlying non-lithified Quaternary sediment (soil). The erosion unconformity (U1) is often overlain by permeable layers of sand which further facilitate the discharge of gas and pore fluid into the well-bore; enlarging the well bore as disintegrated sediment particles get gas-lifted up into the water column. Drillers have no control over the escaping gases swirling outside the well casing; other than speeding up and cementing the top hole as soon as possible. In Total's 1988 Sisi-2 blowout (see figure 1), the gas discharge quickly developed into an uncontrollable massive gas blowout at 800m below sea floor. Figure 2 shows the geological setting for the 1991 Barton-BT5 blowout which occurred years after 4 highly problematic trajectories had been drilled. The early warning signs had been ignored and misinterpreted, culminating into a major disaster which almost shut down the Barton-A platform. With ROV videos showing scary pictures of blown out craters, fissures and spewing gas columns on the seafloor, Sabah Shell Berhad had no choice but to shut down the platform before the feared collapse culminate into an even bigger disaster. Barton-A would not be standing today almost 20 years later, had the voice of geological reasons on the delayed mechanism of GWSF hazards, not prevailed at the very last minute. BP's Macondo blowout, like PTTEP's Montara, Total's SiSi-2, Shell's Barton-BT5 and Bajt-F blowouts are all disasters waiting to happen. It was only a matter of timing and depth. The GWSF hazards zones can be as large as a few km in lateral extent and hundreds of metres deep; depending on the geological structure. Since the chance of sealing the top-hole section in a GWSF zone is virtually zero, the best alternative (precaution wise) is to move the well location off the apex of the GWSF hazards zone. Figure 3 is a map showing previous problematic wells and the extent of the damaged seafloor caused by their near-disaster massive gas discharge at a shelf-edge zone. 4. How BP's Macondo Well blew. Figure 4a illustrates a normal sealed (cemented) top-hole section of a well. Figures 4b to 4d illustrate the difficulty in sealing the top-hole section passing through a GWSF hazards section. The enlarged and irregular well-bore also acts like a vertical conduit connecting the open fractures (fissures) in an already fractured formation. Loss Circulation is common as the heavier high pressured mud invades the fractured formation and in the process forces the formation fluid and gas deeper (laterally) into the formation and upwards into the overlying permeable sandy layers. But this is only a temporary equilibrium. As more gases and formation fluid are squeezed out and displaced, more drilling mud will invade the fractured formation. The GWSF zone in the vicinity of the well bore essentially becomes a hydraulically connected extended gas-charged pressurized (EGCP) zone; the extent of which depends on the drilling practices and geological nature of the GWSF hazards zone. Drilling mud will be forced back into the well whenever the pressure in the well drop below the charged-up pressure in the EGCP zone and vice versa. This is the nightmare scenario drilling through the GSWF hazards zones. Even if a well manages to "drill thru and safely cement" the top-hole section, the poorly cemented top-hole section in a hydraulically connected EGCP zone will continue to act like a dynamic "spring-loaded" charging system; just waiting to blow on the slightest mistake. Despite the nightmares, Transocean's drilling crew managed to control the well until it reached their targeted depth and oil reservoir. Displacing the drilling mud with seawater (too early) was a mistake that triggered the blowout. As the pressure inside the well continued to drop, the mixture of mud, clay slurry and eventually gas were forced back into the well. With continuous gas kicking-in at the top-hole level and no mud column to counter the gas bubbles' rapid ascent through the riser, it was like "sucking" the oil out of the reservoir through a "straw". Naturally, the well's bottom seal gave way to the high pressure oil gushing out of the reservoir. 5. Making a bad situation worse Capping the well from the top is a bad idea. The "Top Kill" attempt was doomed to fail because there is simply no way to overcome the multiple flow-path from a badly damaged top hole section. Capping the well at the top would only make a bad situation worse. Once the pressure in the well builds up, the oil would be forced back into the highly fractured GWSF zone again; recreating an even bigger EGCP zone. There is a possibility that some of the methane gas could have been vaporized insitu from "frozen" methane hydrates, thus providing endless supply of methane gas. As the heavier hydrocarbons from the reservoir warm up the hydrates, more methane gas is vaporized and squeezed through the fissures. They eventually filter up towards the sea floor. Basically, the pressure increase in the well will slowly taper off but never reaching the maximum as the EGCP zone gets bigger and bigger. Methane and lighter hydrocarbons will filter through the sandy sequence, fissures and fractures to reach the seafloor. The heavier oil will remain trapped within the EGCP zone. Given time, the fragile sedimentary (soil) structure will fail, resulting in uncontrollable gas and oil seeps. In reality the weak sedimentary (soil) structure will likely fail first before the steel casing and lining. Keeping the cap on and the pressure high will only lead to uncontrollable consequences. BP well engineers should be aware that the EGCP zone acts like a secondary gas reservoir connected by the well in question. Calculating the correct mud weight might be tricky given the many unanswered questions and uncertainties. It might be prudent to carry out a detailed high resolution 3x3 km geophysical investigation over the ill-fated well. The evidence to date confirms the damage had extended far beyond the normal vicinity of the well. Concentrating on the well alone would be missing the forest for the trees. A correlation of the pre-incident and post-incident survey data would be priceless in understanding the causes of the blowout and oil spill disaster. The mistakes learnt and knowledge earned will go a long way to ensure our environment may never suffer from another mega mishap of this kind again. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 11:48:15 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:48:15 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Oil Debate Spills Into Academe Message-ID: <65A68E09EB404B128838FE6D01998B99@agingCHS072729> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/20/oil Oil Debate Spills Into Academe July 20, 2010 Within three days of the BP oil spill, Joe Griffit was out in the Gulf of Mexico taking water samples to begin assessing the damage. As an assistant professor of coastal sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi, Griffit says he's been eager to assist in the restoration efforts taking shape in the region. So when lawyers representing BP came to Griffit with an offer -- help us assess the damage and find a way to restore what's been destroyed -- Griffit says the option was "initially very attractive" to him and some of his colleagues. "If we were on the inside, we knew we could have some effect on BP," says Griffit, who is stationed at the university's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, in Ocean Springs, Miss. "And after talking with some of the lawyers involved, we all saw it was a nice idea." Griffit now thinks he was perhaps a bit "na?ve." After a single three-hour meeting with BP representatives several weeks ago, Griffit and several other professors resigned from consulting positions they'd held only briefly. The faculty members began feeling anxious about the appearance of siding with BP, particularly when company officials mentioned that the professors would probably be called to testify on the company's behalf as lawsuits inevitably unfold. "We're all employees of the state of Mississippi, and none of us really felt comfortable about testifying on the other side -- even if what we said was scientifically accurate," Griffit says. News of BP's efforts to secure the consulting services of university faculty spread rapidly over the weekend, following a report in the Press-Register of Mobile, Ala., that provided details from contracts being offered to scientists. The newspaper said it obtained a copy of such a contract, noting that the agreement restricted consultants from discussing or publishing their research for at least the next three years. At a time when many have already accused BP of low-balling or playing down the extent of the oil spill's impact, many denounced the notion of professors gathering potentially damaging data for the company and letting BP sit on it for years. "The idea that some scientists are willing to be bought off has caused quite a stir, and I guess the other thing is people don't think too highly of BP trying to do that," says Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. The debate surrounding professors working for BP is not dissimilar from concerns often raised about professors conducting paid drug research for pharmaceutical companies. The fact that BP is pursuing faculty members who work sometimes within eyeshot of the spill's impact, however, appears to have given the conversations additional intensity. A number of professors have backed out of their agreements with BP in recent weeks, even before the Press-Register's article appeared, several administrators told Inside Higher Ed Monday. The reasons vary from ethical concerns about restrictions on the publication of data to the stark realization that BP's demands on faculty time for a project of this magnitude are simply more than a working professor can offer in good faith. BP officials did not respond to requests for comment, nor would they answer specific questions about compensation levels for faculty or the number of professors who've signed on. While Griffit declined to share a draft copy of the agreement, he says he was offered something in the neighborhood of $150 an hour, adding that compensation levels "varied" with the experience of faculty. BP's participation in the assessment of the spill's damage is a byproduct of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. Set up in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, the act provides that industry officials work alongside the federal government in calculating restoration costs. While that approach has drawn critics who question whether BP's participation is appropriate, it helps in part to explain the company's desire to bring on additional scientists to gather data about the damage. The oil company's overtures to faculty have placed public universities in a particularly difficult position. While universities don't want to restrict faculty from engaging in consulting work, professors working for BP are perceived to have taken the side of the company responsible for what some are calling the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Moreover, they'll be supplying BP with research that skeptics assume the company will spin to its advantage, as faculty are contractually obligated to remain silent. But Chris D'Elia, dean of Louisiana State University's School of Coast and Environment, says it's an oversimplification to see work with BP as the only potential conflict for faculty responding to the oil spill. Federal agencies are also seeking out LSU faculty, and they have a vested interest in research that will raise the price tag on the clean-up, D'Elia said. "You're working for a side with a financial interest [either way]," he says. "The federal government is trying to maximize the damage assessment for obvious reasons, and the oil companies are trying to minimize it." "But there's no doubt about it," he adds. "You're much more on the White Knight side if you're with the feds, the aggrieved party." D'Elia says his preference would be for the federal government to provide a pool of money to scientists for the purposes of studying the spill's impact. Absent that, research becomes part of a legal process -- not necessarily a scientific one, D'Elia says. D'Elia says he knows of some Louisiana State faculty who are working for the government, as well as professors working for BP in the wake of the disaster. He couldn't say, however, whether any faculty at Louisiana State had contracts with the kinds of restrictions outlined by the Press-Register. There's no question that the news reports struck a nerve across academe. In response to an e-mail inquiry about the subject, D'Elia wrote "At least seven people have forwarded me this article, which has had a huge impact." At South Alabama, Shipp became a coveted interview subject, spending his day in talks with national outlets that included NPR, the Associated Press, CNN and CNBC, along with Inside Higher Ed. Whether the media attention given to the story will make professors think twice about working with BP is unclear, but it's obvious universities are already thinking about the implications of working with the company. Denis Wiesenburg, vice president for research at the University of Southern Mississippi, says the university quickly ruled out becoming involved with BP on a campus-wide scale. "We made it pretty clear from the beginning that we weren't interested as a university in taking on that particular effort on behalf of BP," Wiesenburg says. "We don't obviously want to become the University of BP in this instance." Individual faculty members, however, are a different matter. Southern Mississippi approved all three requests from professors to work with the company, Wiesenburg says. But of those professors, two have since decided not to consult for BP. "I assume that they felt like there were so many other opportunities for work related to the oil spill outside the BP request [and] they wanted to focus their energies on that," Wiesenburg says. William E. Hawkins, director of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, says professors courted by the company began hearing from colleagues that teaming up with BP might affect their future ability to secure federal and state grants. Would a scientist who provided data to BP in this instance lose credibility for future spill research funding from government agencies? "I think everybody's kind of feeling their way through this, and I think our researchers believed it would be better for their careers that they have access to the funding that would come through the public," Hawkins says. And then, of course, there's the personal animosity some in the most affected regions feel toward BP and its handling of the disaster. For some professors, just having their names associated with the company is almost a non-starter. Take George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, a statewide consortium in Alabama with close ties to the University of South Alabama. Crozier says he first heard about BP's interest in faculty research partners through the university's general counsel, who relayed an e-mail from BP lawyers interested in professors willing to "represent BP." "I'm going to go to my grave remembering the words that said 'Represent BP,' " Crozier says with a laugh. Crozier did, however, attend a meeting between South Alabama officials and lawyers representing BP. The university laid out strict parameters for any potential partnership, including complete control over the use of data collected by faculty. They've not heard back from BP since. - Jack Stripling From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 21:13:55 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:13:55 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Of baboons and racists Message-ID: <099309A5CF6B437DA85425A457089525@agingCHS072729> http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/07/of-baboons-and-racists.html Lenin's Tomb Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Of baboons and racists posted by lenin Recently, the London Review of Books contracted the South African writer and Rhodes scholar R W Johnson to write a series of blog posts on the World Cup. Johnson, an Anglophone liberal, was once the authoritative source for the centre-left press in the UK on apartheid. He has long since moved to the right, disappointed by post-apartheid South Africa and almost comically paranoid about Marxist racist black nationalist conspirators having taken control of the ANC and driven the country into the dirt. South Africa, he bewails, has degenerated every single year since the overthrow of apartheid (which wasn't really an overthrow, but rather an act of staggering generosity and political maturity by F W de Klerk). If he was ever a reliable source, it is fair to say that he has long since ceased to be. Still, if the LRB wants to trade on his reputation, that is the LRB's business. Unfortunately, Johnson has embarrassed his employers with a rather peculiar racist outburst in an article entitled 'After the World Cup' (or rather that appears to have been the title finally chosen - the URL of the now vanished post suggests that it was originally called 'The Coming of the Baboons'). Allow me to excerpt: We are being besieged by baboons again. This happens quite often here on the Constantiaberg mountains (an extension of the Table Mountain range). Baboons are common in the Cape and they are a great deal larger than the vervet monkeys I was used to dealing with in KwaZulu-Natal. They jump onto roofs, overturn dustbins and generally make a nuisance of themselves; since their teeth are very dirty, their bite can be poisonous. They seem to have lots of baby baboons - it's been a very mild winter and so spring is coming early - and they're looking for food. The local dogs don't like them but appear to have learned their lesson from the last baboon visit: then, a large rottweiler attacked the apes, who calmly tore it limb from limb. Meanwhile in the squatter camps, there is rising tension as the threat mounts of murderous violence against foreign migrants once the World Cup finishes on 11 July. These migrants - Zimbabweans, Malawians, Congolese, Angolans, Somalis and others - are often refugees and they too are here essentially searching for food. The Somalis are the most enterprising and have set up successful little shops in the townships and squatter camps, but several dozen Somali shopkeepers have already been murdered, clearly at the instigation of local black shopkeepers who don't appreciate the competition. The ANC is embarrassed by it all and has roundly declared that there will be no such violence. The truth is that no one knows. The place worst hit by violence in the last xenophobic riots here was De Doorns and the army moved into that settlement last week, clearly anticipating trouble. The tension is ominous and makes for a rather schizoid atmosphere as the Cup itself mounts towards its climax. I trust you follow the juxtaposition. African migrants are "baboons", while "local black shopkeepers" are "rottweilers". This is neither subtle nor reticent. For thirteen days, this edit of Johnson's post was allowed to stand, despite complaints from readers. A letter was composed, protesting about the LRB's decision to publish this racist screed, which received the signatures of 73 concerned writers, academics, activists, etc*. In the meantime, the editors received a rather terse e-mail urging them to remove the article. Failure to do so within 48 hours, they were told, would result in a complaint to the EHRC and the PCC. This finally persuaded the editors to act. They removed the post. So, when the letter was sent, a response from the editors stated that "We had already taken this post down before we received your letter. Thank you for your concern." There was no acknowledgment of the reason why the post had been taken down, or of the fact that it was racist. So, the letter was re-drafted to take note of the decision to remove the post, and sent again in the hope that LRB would publish it and acknowledge that something had gone very badly wrong. The editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, declined to do so on the grounds that the letter made explicit a series of connections that Johnson had not made explicit. "This isn't a comparison that should be in anyone's mind," she argued, "and we aren't willing to be the cause of its appearing in print." There would of course be no way to address the racist nature of Johnson's article without making the meaning of his racist juxtaposition explicit, but while Wilmers acnowledged that it was "possible" to interpret it in the way that the letter suggested, she nevertheless implied that the comparison between African migrants and baboons, and between black shopkeepers and rottweilers, had not in fact already been made under the impress of the London Review of Books. Now, it seems to me that the story here is in part one of moral cowardice. The LRB has withdrawn the article, not because it recognised that it was disgusting and offensive, but because it was placed under pressure. They have left no explanation as to why the post was withdrawn, merely citing "complaints". And they decline to have the objections to the article aired in their publication. They are attempting, having only belatedly reacted to the problem, and having then only buried it, and under pressure, to keep it buried. Quite coincidentally, I've recently been reading a collection of Harold Pinter's writings. In one piece, originally written for the Index on Censorship, he describes the fate of his poem 'American Football', a reflection on the Gulf War composed in 1991. He submitted it firstly to the London Review of Books, which is a magazine I occasionally enjoy reading. Pinter explains: "I received a very odd letter, which said, in sum, that the poem had considerable force, but it was for that very reason that they were not able to publish it. But the letter went on to make the extraordinary assertion that the paper shared my views about the USA's role in the world. So I wrote back. 'The paper shares my views, does it? I'd keep that to myself if I were you, chum,' I said. And I was very pleased with the use of the word 'chum'." I suppose the point of citing this anecdote is to demonstrate that a stroke of the publisher's yellow-streak is nothing new; that, whatever advantages appear to derive from such cowardice generally tend to diminish in time; and that the resultant cop out never looks anything other than absurd, petty and grubby in retrospect. Which perspective I hope the LRB's editors might take on board, and adjust their present stance accordingly. *This is the letter as it appeared on its second edit, acknowledging the fact that the post was deleted: 20th July 2010 To the Editor, With its stress on its own 'depth and scholarship and good writing' and its 'unmatched international reputation', the LRB has a responsibility to maintain high standards if it is to retain its enviable position of having the 'largest circulation of any literary magazine in Europe'. We find it baffling therefore that you continue to publish work by RW Johnson that, in our opinion, is often stacked with the superficial and the racist. In a particularly egregious recent post on the LRB blog, 'After the World Cup', 6 July 2010, Johnson, astonishingly, made a comparison between African migrants and invading baboons. He followed this with another between 'local black shopkeepers' and rottweilers. He concluded with what he presumably thinks is a joke about throwing bananas to the baboons. In the particular arena of football, some fans do not need to be encouraged to produce racist abuse. Across Europe for many years, black players have been spat at, subjected to racist chants often including references to monkeys or apes, and have been the focus of monkey chanting noises during matches. Neo-Nazi groups have also been known to use football matches as target areas for recruiting new members and promoting their racist practice. (How ironic that when Johnson does decide to write about 'Football and Fascism', 11 July 2010, he produces a piece about Italy that reveals the dearth of his knowledge.) While South Africa has made great strides, overturning the racist politics of the National Party, it still has a long way to go in combating the racism that thrives among certain communities and individuals. Elsewhere, in the UK for example, this is no time for complacency about attitudes to race. Although British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, may have been humiliated at the recent General Elections, his party now has two MEPs. Let's not forget that young black men in this country are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than young white men, and they comprise a disproportionate number of the prison population. Whilst it might be unfair to pick on a man for his inability to be funny, we believe that it would be wholly wrong to stay silent when he resorts to peddling highly offensive, age-old racist stereotypes that the LRB editorial team deems fit to publish. (Indeed, we note from the comments that at some point the post was edited - and yet, in our opinion, it remained an appalling and racist piece of writing.) We were relieved on Monday 19 July when, finally, the post was taken down. However, we remain appalled that it was published in the first place and appalled that it remained up for 13 days. Several of the comments beneath the post pointed out some time ago that the piece was clearly racist and yet the LRB still chose to leave it online. It is not good enough to remove the post - apart from its URL which, we note, ends 'coming-of-the-baboons' - and expect this nasty episode to be forgotten. We would like to know why it was published in the first place and we would like to read a public apology. It is of deep concern to all of us that the LRB could be so impressed by RW Johnson that his racist and reactionary opinion continues to be published in the magazine and now, in the blog too. And there we all were thinking the LRB was progressive. Yours sincerely, Diran Adebayo, writer & academic, Lancaster University Patience Agbabi, poet Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, journalist & writer Candace Allen, writer, journalist & broadcaster Cristel Amiss, coordinator, Black Women's Rape Action Project Baffour Ankomah, editor, New African Nana Ayebia Clarke, publisher, Ayebia Pete Ayrton, publisher, Serpent's Tail Sharmilla Beezmohun, deputy editor, Wasafiri Benedict Birnberg Professor Elleke Boehmer, University of Oxford Professor Patrick Bond, University of Kwazulu-Natal Victoria Brittain, writer & journalist Dr Margaret Busby OBE, publisher & writer Teju Cole, writer Eleanor Crook, sculptor & academic, University of the Arts Fred D'Aguiar, writer Dr David Dibosa, academic Kodwo Eshun, The Otolith Group Gareth Evans, writer, editor, curator Katy Evans-Bush, poet Bernardine Evaristo MBE, writer Nuruddin Farah, writer Professor Maureen Freely, writer & academic, University of Warwick Kadija George, publisher, Sable LitMag Professor Paul Gilroy, London School of Economics Professor Peter Hallward, Kingston University London M John Harrison, writer Stewart Home, writer Michael Horovitz, poet Professor Aamer Hussein, writer & academic, University of Southampton Professor John Hutnyk, Goldsmiths Dr Sean Jacobs, The New School Selma James, coordinator, Global Women's Strike Gus John, associate professor, Institute of Education, University of London Anthony Joseph, poet & novelist Kwame Kwei-Armah, playwright & broadcaster Candida Lacey, publisher, Myriad Editions Alexis Lykiard, writer Firoze Manji, editor in chief, Pambazuka News Shula Marks, emeritus professor, School of Oriental & African Studies Professor Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand & Duke University Dr China Mi?ville, writer & academic Professor David Morley, University of Warwick Professor Susheila Nasta, editor, Wasafiri Courttia Newland, writer Dr Alastair Niven OBE, principal, Cumberland Lodge Dr Zoe Norridge, University of Oxford Dr Deirdre Osborne, Goldsmiths Lara Pawson, journalist & writer Pascale Petit, poet Caryl Phillips, writer Dr Nina Power, Roehampton University Jeremy Poynting, managing editor, Peepal Tree Press Gary Pulsifer, publisher, Arcadia Books Michael Rosen, poet Anjalika Sagar, The Otolith Group Richard Seymour, writer & activist Dr George Shire, reviews editor, Soundings Professor David Simon, Royal Holloway Lemn Sissay MBE, writer Keith Somerville, Brunel University Colin Stoneman, editorial coordinator, Journal of Southern African Studies George Szirtes, poet & translator Dr Alberto Toscano, Goldsmiths Professor Megan Vaughan, University of Cambridge Patrick Vernon, chief executive, The Afiya Trust Professor Dennis Walder, Open University Verna Wilkins, writer & publisher, Tamarind Books Dr Patrick Wilmot, writer & journalist Adele Winston Professor Brian Winston, University of Lincoln Dr Leo Zeilig, University of the Witwatersrand From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 21:14:26 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:14:26 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] Furs, Fortune, and Empire Message-ID: Fur, Fortune, and Empire (Hardcover) by Eric Dolin 464pp Pub. Date: July 2010 $29.95 List price $21.62 Online Price Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 "Fur, Fortune, and Empire": How the fur trade shaped America Animal pelts helped create our nation -- and spawn a global power struggle. A fascinating new book explains how By Chuck Leddy, Barnes & Noble Review This article appears courtesy of The Barnes & Noble Review Historian Eric Jay Dolin brilliantly argues that the trade in animal skins turned colonial America into a tumultuous frontier where global powers battled for control. From the 17th century right on up to the Gilded Age, the developed world's appetite for fur and its unique qualities made the new continent, with its wealth of fur-bearing wildlife, a seemingly inexhaustible resource. The result, as laid out in Dolin's new book "Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America," was a major boost in the evolution of the colonies into a powerful new player on the world stage. Modern-day Manhattan, for example, owes its existence to the Dutch eagerness to establish dominance in the fur trade: New Amsterdam was first settled in the early 17th century as a trading post where they could exchange European metal goods for beaver pelts brought in by Native Americans. The Dutch wielded military power to oust rival Sweden from the colonial fur trade, yet the popularity of their wares proved their undoing. The intense competition from the English colonies and from French fur traders came with armed backing, and the English Navy ultimately ousted the Dutch from New Amsterdam in 1664. Dolin sheds insight on the ways the fur trade created international tensions - in New England, the Great Lakes and the expanding West. As traders clamored for access to land controlled by Native Americans, tribes were pushed off their land, then given guns and liquor, wreaking havoc on their traditional way of life. The fur trade also triggered exploration more generally; fur traders were often the first white men to map major rivers, forests and mountains. The trade and the broader economy that followed in its wake pulled people west, including Lewis and Clark and Kit Carson, culminating in the monopoly of the 19th-century fur trader and celebrated philanthropist John Jacob Astor, whose American Fur Co. opened up trading posts across America (and whose fortune would endow the library that became a national icon). For all of fur's contentious position in American culture today, Dolin has skillfully illuminated its centrality in our nation's ever-surprising history. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 21:25:55 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:25:55 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The Gulf's Murky Future Message-ID: http://pr.thinkprogress.org/ The Progress Report July 20, 2010 The Gulf's Murky Future By Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Brad Johnson, Alex Seitz-Wald, Tanya Somanader Three months after BP's Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, the Gulf of Mexico faces a murky future of imperfect solutions to intractable problems. The new cap installed on the gushing wellhead has for the first time stopped the flow of oil into the ocean, though there remains serious concerns about the wellbore's integrity. If the cap holds, the region will still have to deal with the millions of gallons of oil spread throughout the Gulf and along hundreds of miles of shoreline as the peak hurricane season approaches. Over one third of the Gulf is closed to fishing, and investigators still do not know what caused the April 20 explosion. In the coming months and years, thousands of scientists will attempt to assess the damage done to the valuable ecosystems of the region, although many will be working for BP. Also unknown are the health effects to the region and the tens of thousands of hired cleanup workers who are handling the toxic oil and dispersants. For many, the BP disaster is just the latest of many heavy blows. The region awaits solutions to its endemic poverty, eroding coast, and dependence on the oil industry that is killing the Gulf. The Obama administration is attempting to brighten this future, announcing yesterday a "new national policy for strengthening the way the U.S. manages its oceans and coasts." Furthermore, "the Senate now must provide additional safeguards for offshore oil production, slash oil consumption, and reduce global warming pollution." CAPS, SEEPS, AND LEAKS: "New problems arose in the struggle to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as bubbles and seepage appeared in four areas around the damaged BP well, but Obama administration and company officials agreed to keep the new well cap closed for at least 24 more hours as they weigh the gravity of the developments." "It's the collective opinion of folks that these small seepages do not indicate there is any threat to the well bore," incident commander Thad Allen said at a briefing in Washington. Even if these leaks prove inconsequential and the gusher is plugged, the region still faces the ongoing degradation and risk of catastrophe from its ties to Big Oil. "Our national response must drive a sustained effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," write Center for American Progress analysts Bracken Hendricks, Kate Gordon, and Tom Kenworthy. "We must target the structural causes of our vulnerability to oil in an effort to rebuild and strengthen our national economy while restoring the economic health of oil-dependent regions." One of the first steps is capping the gusher of billion-dollar subsidies for the oil industry, including the write-off for punitive damages in cases like the BP disaster. The United States must also finally cap the global spill of greenhouse gas pollution and direct energy investment into green jobs instead of toxic disasters. ERODING HOPES: Since early May, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has pushed a crash effort to build artificial "barrier islands" from dredged sand to prevent BP's toxic oil from reaching Louisiana's fragile coastline. He and other Louisiana politicians excoriated the federal government for waiting until June 3 to authorize the $360 million project, even though "categorically, across the board, every coastal scientist" questioned its wisdom. In mid-May, Jindal justified the barrier-island construction by saying it was the "obvious" thing to do. "We know it works, we have seen it work, but if they need to see it work, they need to do that quickly," argued Jindal. On May 27, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) attacked President Obama, calling the administration's caution "absolutely outrageous." In reality, photographs released by Louisiana scientist Leonard Bahr and the US Army Corps of Engineers show that the artificial island E-4 -- intended to reach an 18-mile length -- is struggling to survive at 1,100 feet. Jindal is pressing for the federal government to approve the emergency construction of 125 miles of sand berms, arguing the 0.2 miles constructed are "are doing what they were intended to do." That plan would use up valuable resources and take too much time, notes Climate Progress' Joe Romm. However, Jindal has offered no "obvious" answer for the long-term threats to Louisiana's eroding coastline -- rising seas fueled by global warming, rivers killed by agricultural pollution, and decades of oil industry development. BP COVERUP: Meanwhile, BP is hard at work minimizing the damage to its bottom line, not to America's coastline and gulf economy. BP's legal and public-relations maneuvering has increased as it faces tens of billions of dollars in damages and fines. BP is on a spending spree, buying the silence of Gulf Coast scientists. Scientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, and Texas A&M have "signed contracts with BP to work on their behalf in the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) process" that determines how much ecological damage the Gulf of Mexico region is suffering from BP's toxic black tide. The contract, the Mobile Press-Register has learned, "prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years." "Testimony before a panel investigating the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion grew heated Monday as lawyers for various companies connected to the rig attempted to place blame on one another and angled to expose maintenance problems they say existed before the April 20 accident." Fortunately for BP, Vitter is attacking "trial lawyers" who could threaten its bottom line. BP was even caught posting a doctored photograph of its crisis response center by blogger John Aravosis. "I guess if you're doing fake crisis response," Aravosis commented, "you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center." "Apparently BP is no more adept at doctoring photos than it is at plugging deep-sea oil leaks," the Washington Post's Steven Mufson jabbed. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 22:07:37 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:07:37 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Oil Cap Leaking: Seepage Detected Two Miles From Wellhead Message-ID: <9C407F5F52F243C78A6B1F786F0FA653@agingCHS072729> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/19/oil-cap-leak-coast-guard_n_650851.html Oil Cap Leaking: Seepage Detected Two Miles From Wellhead First Posted: 07-19-10 08:09 AM NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Oil and gas are leaking from the cap on BP's ruptured oil well but the cork will stay in place for now, the federal government's point man on the spill said Monday. The leaks aren't "consequential," retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said, relieving concerns that they are a sign the cap is creating too much pressure underground. That could mean the cap that's stopped oil since Thursday would have to be opened. Allen said BP could continue testing the cap, meaning keeping it shut, for at least another 24 hours. He said BP must keep rigorously monitoring for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation. If there was a quick rise in pressure, the well would be vented immediately to keep from creating leaks deep underground, Allen said. Allen repeated Monday that the next step wasn't clear. "I'm not prepared to say the well is shut in until the relief well is done. There are too many uncertainties," he said. The concern all along - since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected - was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. With the newly installed cap keeping oil out of the Gulf, this weekend offered a chance for the oil company and government to gloat over their shared success - the first real victory in fighting the spill. Instead, the two sides have spent the past two days disagreeing over what to do with the undersea machinery holding back the gusher. "We had some concerns ... about commitments that BP had made that we did not feel that they were adequately living up to in terms of that monitoring," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "That was dealt with last night on a call that lasted late into the evening." The apparent disagreement began to sprout Saturday when Allen said the cap would eventually be hooked up to a mile-long pipe to pump the crude to ships on the surface. But early the next day, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said the cap should stay clamped shut to keep in the oil until a permanent fix. The company very much wants to avoid a repeat of millions of gallons of oil spewing from the blown well for weeks, watched live across the country on underwater video. If the valves are kept closed, as BP wants, it's possible that no more oil will leak into the Gulf of Mexico. Work on a permanent plug is moving steadily, with crews drilling into the side of the ruptured well from deep underground. By next week, they could start blasting in mud and cement to block off the well for good. But the government is worried that the cap on the well is causing oil and gas to leak out elsewhere, which could make the sea floor unstable and cause the well to collapse. That's why federal officials want to pump the crude to ships on the surface. That would require opening the well for a few days to relieve pressure before the pipes could be hooked up, letting millions more gallons of oil spill out in the interim. From menecraj at shaw.ca Tue Jul 20 22:16:39 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:16:39 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] What If Matt Simmons is Right? (on the "spill") Message-ID: <25EE8512D22A4365AC4B7A46D37219D7@agingCHS072729> http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/what-if-hes-right.html#more What If He's Right? By James Howard Kunstler July 19, 2010 8:18 AM Just when America was celebrating the provisional end of BP's Macondo oil blowout, and getting back to important issues like Kim Kardashian's body-suit collection, along comes Matthew Simmons with a rather strange and alarming outcry on doings in the Gulf of Mexico that contradicts the mood of renewed festivity, as well as just about every shred of reportage from any media outlet, mainstream or otherwise. Matt Simmons Houston-based company has been the leading investment bank to the US oil industry for a long time, financing exploration and drilling in places like the Gulf of Mexico. Simmons, 68, recently retired from day-to-day management of the company. For much of the decade he has been what may be described as a peak oil activist. His 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert, warned the public that Saudi Arabia's oil production had reached its limits and, more generally, that an oil-dependent world was entering a zone of serious trouble over its primary resource. He took this aggressive stance despite risking the ire of the people he did business with. Matt Simmons is a sober individual and a very nice man (I've met him twice over the years), a button-downed corporate executive who's been around the oil business for forty years. His knowledge is deep and comprehensive. From the beginning of the BP Macondo blowout incident in April, he's taken the far out position that the well-bore is fatally compromised and that BP has been consistently lying about their operations to stop the flow of oil. Perhaps most radically, Simmons claims that an oil "gusher" is pouring into the Gulf some distance from the drilling site itself. Last week, Simmons came on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC financial show, but he did a longer interview over at the King World News website. (click here for Eric King's interview with Simmons). Simmons's current warning about the situation focuses on the gigantic "lake" of crude oil that is pooling under great pressure 4000 to 5000 feet down in the "basement" of the Gulf's waters. More particularly, he is concerned that a tropical storm will bring this oil up - as tropical storms and hurricanes usually do with deeper cold water - and with it clouds of methane gas that will move toward the Gulf shore and kill a lot of people. (I really don't know the science on this and welcome any reader to correct me, but I suppose that the oil "lake" deep under the Gulf waters contains a lot of methane gas dissolved at pressure, and that as the oil rises toward the ocean's surface, and lower pressures, the gas will bubble out of solution.) Simmons makes two additional points that are pretty radical: he says that several states along the Gulf ought to begin systematic evacuations in counties along the shore now. From his experience in Houston with Hurricane Rita (2005), he says a last-minute evacuation is bound to be a disaster -- the highways jammed hopelessly, drivers ran out of gas, and then the gas stations ran out of gas. Based on where the nation's collective state-of-mind is these days, I can't imagine that any Gulf state governor or mayor will heed this warning and begin preparing an evacuation now. (The practical problems are obvious for householders but what if it really is a matter of life and death?) Secondly, Simmons maintains - as he has from near the beginning of the blowout - that the US military should take over operations from BP and ought to set off a "small" nuclear device down in the well-bore to fuse the rock into glass and seal the site permanently. Simmons says, based on his experience growing up in Utah near the government's underground nuclear testing sites in neighboring Nevada, where scores of very large atomic bombs were set off for years with no measurable consequences above ground, that a small nuclear explosion down in the Macondo well is unlikely to have any effect above the undersea rock surface. I have no idea, personally if this is true. Matt Simmons is taking a position so "out there" that even the radical peak oil website TheOilDrum.com won't comment on his remarks (at least not as of early Monday morning July 19). I don't know how to evaluate Simmons's contentions myself, except to say that I don't believe Simmons is a nut, or that he's lost his marbles. We also must suppose that someone in his position is able to talk with an awful lot of the best people in the oil industry. Simmons has put his reputation on the line. A lot of bystanders and commentators are treating him as a fool. Simmons himself is painfully aware of his lonely stance and seems, in his public appearances, to be a very regretful messenger. In the past twenty-four hours, BP has reported some possible leaks coming out of the seabed some distance from the well-bore. Nobody has been able to confirm yet exactly what is happening down there. One other thing Simmons said is that BP should be barred from the media airwaves since, he says, they have lied consistently in order to cover up their criminal negligence and culpability. The company itself cannot be saved because the claims against it are much greater than the value of its assets - but the people running the company could be sent to jail, so the incentive to keep lying remains high. Jesse at the Jesse's Caf? Am?ricain website makes an excellent point that if Matt Simmons is correct, and it turns out that the US government has been played by BP, then remaining public trust in the competence and legitimacy of government could evaporate. This is not a happy thing to contemplate at a time when the state of the nation and its economy are so fragile. What follows could make the current political situation seem like little more than, well, than a tea party, compared to the politics-to-come. Readers here at Clusterfuck Nation are probably well aware of my past declarations of being allergic to conspiracy theories and crazy ideas generally. I'm not really equipped to evaluate Matt Simmons's warnings about the exact nature of the Macondo blowout and what might happen in the months ahead. But I am confident, having met the guy and corresponded with him and read his books, that he is a straight shooter. I'm sure that he is sincere in proclaiming his extreme discomfort with the position he's taken. Listen and decide for yourselves. (Simmons interview with Eric King, at http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/7/17_Matt_Simmons.html ) ========= Biography from oceanenergy.org Matthew R. Simmons -Founder, Ocean Energy Institute & OEI Board Member Matthew Simmons is the founder and Chairman of the Board of the Ocean Energy Institute. He was past Chairman of the National Ocean Industries Association, and served as energy adviser to President George W. Bush, among others. Simmons is author of the book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which examines oil reserve decline rates to help raise awareness of the unreliability of Middle East oil reserves. Background The Ocean Energy Institute, founded in 2007 by Matthew R. Simmons, is a think-tank and venture capital fund addressing the challenges of U.S. offshore renewable energy. OEI approaches energy R&D and investment from a systems point of view; not just generation, but usage, storage and transmission all together as an interdependent set of opportunities and the next driving force of the international economy. Mission OEI is working to coordinate the diverse factors that will help make ocean energy a reality: energy system architecture, offshore wind technology, environmental interests, stakeholder concerns, industrial partners, academic research, financial firepower and political factors. From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 21 01:04:41 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] NAACP president: "We were snookered" by Fox and Breitbart Message-ID: Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 18:15 ET NAACP president: "We were snookered" by Fox and Breitbart By Justin Elliott CNN Former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod The NAACP, which had originally (and prematurely) jumped all over Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod in response to the edited Breitbart tape that "proved" she was a racist, has now issued a new statement apologizing for getting "snookered" by Andrew Breitbart and Fox News. Said NAACP President Ben Jealous in the new statement: With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias. Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans. ... Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding. The tape of Ms. Sherrod's speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition. According to the USDA, Sherrod's statements prompted her dismissal. While we understand why Secretary Vilsack believes this false controversy will impede her ability to function in the role, we urge him to reconsider. This is the same Jealous who said Monday he was "appalled" by Sherrod's "abuse of power." Good for the NAACP for admitting a mistake. a.. Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott at salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott http://www.salon.com/news/andrew_breitbart/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/07/20/naacp_revises_sherrod_stance -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 54702 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 21 01:08:48 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:08:48 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The FULL Shirley Sherrod video - Tells the whole & opposite story from FOX Message-ID: <5A77174AB1554B5B8F94C6867EC9A624@Upstairs> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 21 01:13:05 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:13:05 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] White farmer says Sherrod is not racist Message-ID: <525F33592977488989F5B81167425107@Upstairs> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWMUOc6H26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 21 01:13:26 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:13:26 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The shame of right-wing "journalism" - hyped, manipulated and selectively edited Message-ID: Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 21:01 ET Joan Walsh The shame of right-wing "journalism" Andrew Breitbart and Tucker Carlson distort facts to smear liberals, and it works. What liberals should learn Video By Joan Walsh It pains me to pay attention to the work of the Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson's vanity project, as Carlson vies to compete with Andrew Breitbart on the right-wing "investigative journalism" frontier. What Carlson's "journalism" has in common with Breitbart's (besides being ethics-free) is blowing up stories that purport to "expose" the left with what are supposed to be the left's own words - except that later, it will turn out that "the left's own words" will have been hyped, manipulated and selectively edited, and that the story was baloney. Today a big Breitbart "scoop" blew up in his angry face, when it was shown that the Big Journalism proprietor selectively edited a clip of an African-American USDA official seeming to admit she treated a white farmer poorly out of her own racial bias. It turns out that Shirley Sherrod was actually telling the story to show how the issue of race often obscures the issue of class, and the fact that poor black farmers and poor white farmers had a lot in common (eventually, she helped and became close to the white farmer and his family) - but Breitbart left all of that out of the video (just as he selectively and unfairly edited his cartoonish ACORN tapes). Unbelievably, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fired Sherrod based on Breitbart's creative editing, which left out Sherrod's real point (and in fact, accused her of making the opposite point) and also made it seem as though she was talking about something she did while working for the USDA, when the experience in question took place 24 years ago, when she worked for a nonprofit. If Vilsack doesn't hire Sherrod back, I will personally contribute to her legal fund. a.. Continue reading Sorry, that's a long but important digression before addressing the story at hand: Carlson's similar dishonesty, in selectively releasing e-mails from the now-notorious Journolist for a story breathlessly headlined: "Documents show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright." Alex Pareene got the basics right, in a War Room post: "Journolist Scandal: Liberals Planned Open Letter." That's really all that happened. Or try this, if you want a little more detail: A handful of liberal opinion writers for openly liberal publications used the so-called Journolist to draft an open letter to ABC News, complaining about its moderation of an April 2008 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (questions about Wright were only one issue raised in the open letter, which ran in the Nation, but I'll go back to that). Later on that same list, the Daily Caller "reveals," after Wright ran amok at the National Press Club and an NAACP event (and Obama had to denounce him), some of the same liberals argued that liberal media outlets should ignore the controversy and attack conservatives who raised it. Other liberals disagreed with them. End of story. Or it should be, except the fact-challenged Sarah Palin has picked up her bullhorn to blast the Caller's "scoop" on Twitter: "Media Bias? What Media Bias? BOMBSHELL!" and to claim that it validated her complaints about the "lamestream media" on Facebook. (So far, she hasn't asked any specific media outlet to refudiate the story.) I anticipate coverage from big MSM outlets any minute now, given that the Washington Post's Andy Alexander and the New York Times' Bill Keller are already on record flagellating their news organizations for ignoring earlier right-wing scalp-taking stories about ACORN, Van Jones and New Black Panther Party. Andy, Bill, other possibly cowed-by-the-right mainstream journalists? Save your resources for real stories, and let me break down the Caller scoop for you. 1) Although the Caller claims that "employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage" (emphasis mine), it only quotes a handful of people, and none of them are employed at anything other than liberal publications. (Thomas Schaller, credited with the idea for the open letter, is an author, a University of Maryland professor and an Op-Ed writer at the Baltimore Sun who periodically contributes to Salon, and more recently, 538.com.) The two people who come off as the most combative Obama zealots are Chris Hayes, who works at the Nation, and Spencer Ackerman, employed by the Washington Independent, both progressive publications. I assume if there had been any evidence that a mainstream media news reporter had colluded in the Journolist "plot" to defend Obama, he or she would have been outed immediately by the Caller. My sources say there weren't any. 2) In fact, the Journolist should have been named "the liberal economists, academics, foundation execs, PR folks, think tankers, pundits and other pals of Ezra Klein" list (the American Prospect blogger, now Washington Post blogger, convened Journolist). Although I was never on the list (more about that later) by all accounts of it I've heard, liberal opinion makers from the worlds of think tanks, academia and progressive punditry outnumbered mainstream media news reporters by dozens to one. 3) The Caller also falsely claims that later, when Wright showed himself to be not merely a guy who made some nasty anti-America and anti-white people comments, but a kook and a narcissist, and Obama denounced him, the Journolist plotted to "kill stories" about it and also to malign conservatives like Fred Barnes and Karl Rove who were trying to make Wright an issue as "racists" - and no one challenged those ideas, except on tactical grounds. In fact, if you read the story, you'll see that several people are quoted strongly disagreeing with the feverish suggestions of Hayes and Ackerman, on grounds that were moral and factual, not merely tactical. Hayes himself told the Caller, correctly: "I can say 'hey I don't think you guys should cover this,' but no one listened to me." 4) Beyond the bounds of the Journolist, the Caller strives mightily to make the case that there was a generalized liberal media conspiracy to ignore the Wright issue - but I can tell you from personal experience, there was none. Just check the archives of Salon. It's true that there were a lot of Obama supporters who tried to argue the Wright story was less important than Obama's stance on Iraq and other issues. There were plenty of us who thought it was our job to pay attention to the Wright mess. (Read Joe Conason's take, here.) I raised questions about the anti-ABC letter at the time it was published. There was, and is, no party line among progressives. Despite the hysterical headline, the Caller story has nothing to tell us about the "media." It does, however, have a little bit to remind us about the American progressive movement in 2008. I'd argue it might give the left some important rearview-mirror insight. I admit it: Reading the Caller story, and the way some individuals revered Obama, brought back a little bit of my PTSD as someone who defended Hillary Clinton from progressive attacks and questioned the reflexive anointing of Obama as the candidate of the left. The same Chris Hayes who the Caller says "castigated his fellow liberals for criticizing Wright" ("All this hand wringing about just how awful and odious Rev. Wright remarks are just keeps the hustle going. Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians - men, women, children, the infirmed - on its hands. You'll forgive me if I just can't quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama's pastor," Hayes wrote) now regularly castigates the predictably centrist Obama, including last night on MSNBC's "Countdown." The Obama-worship of progressives like Hayes and many others on the Journolist, as commemorated by the Caller, set them up for a big fall, so that now they're often unrealistically critical of the president (I now get attacked for defending Obama too much. Let me also say: I like Hayes, and he's not the worst offender here.) It also contributed to Obama and his team feeling confident that they can neglect, even occasionally kick, his progressive base with impunity. Unfortunately, they never had to fight for it. And while I don't think anyone on the Journolist directly took Hayes' or Ackerman's suggestion that they call people who raised the Wright issue "racist" - that happened all on its own - the way many on the left used the "racist" slur during the 2008 campaign was a mistake. As someone who confessed to being disturbed by Wright's worldview as it unfolded like a slow-motion train wreck in the spring of 2008, I was called "racist" so often the word lost its sting. I honestly believe that the wanton use of that terrible term to defend Obama is part of why today, when there is genuine racism against the president from the right and within the Tea Party, it's sometimes hard to get anyone to pay attention. Ultimately, discussing racism brings us back to Andrew Breitbart's lies about Shirley Sherrod. It's a disgraceful story with no heroes - except Sherrod and the white farmers who came forward to support her, Roger and Eloise Spooner. Caught off-guard by the right-wing frenzy over its resolution asking Tea Partiers to condemn the racists in their midst, the NAACP overreacted, took Breitbart's word about Sherrod, and denounced her. (Ben Jealous has now, rightly, apologized.) Tom Vilsack fired her. The White House insists it didn't tell Vilsack to let Sherrod go - but it won't tell him to take her back, either. So to wrap up: Idiotic and false charges of "racism" ultimately backfire to hurt a black woman and, perhaps, our black president, who really can't win here: If Obama is seen to be intervening to help a black woman get her job back, race baiters will have a field day (how fast will Rush Limbaugh say he responded to Sherrod's plight faster than the Gulf's). If he doesn't, he won't sleep well tonight. Watch this interview with the Spooners, below, and tell me who's the racist (hint: It's Andrew Breitbart). Shirley Sherrod is right: A lot of people are spending a lot of energy to get folks like the Spooners and Sherrod to think they should be enemies, when the real issue is class. The left should remember that lesson, because the right is invested in making sure no one learns it. http://www.salon.com/news/tucker_carlson/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/07/20/the_tragedy_of_right_wing_journalism -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 21 09:43:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:43:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] KPFK Radio Interview with Matt Simmons Message-ID: "If we have a storm, let alone a hurricane, what hurricanes basically do is they churn up cold water from the base of the Gulf. This time it's not going to be cold water, it's going to be black poisonous crude. It will also shut down the 18 power plants along the Gulf Coast. "So we're going to entrap 20 million people in harm's way." KPFK Radio Interview with Matt Simmons: http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_100715_170004dbriefing.MP3 From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 21 11:03:28 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:03:28 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?Obama_a_=22Socialist=22=3F_I_Wish!?= Message-ID: http://www.progressive.org/wx071910.html The Progressive July 19, 2010 Obama a "Socialist"? I Wish! By Matthew Rothschild I got an e-mail from a group called 21st Century Democrats, bemoaning the fact that a recent poll shows that 55% of likely voters said that the word "socialist" describes Obama and his policies. The 21st Century Democrats said, "You and I know [that] is not the case." I only wish it were! I wish Obama had pressed for single-payer national health care. I wish Obama had nationalized Citicorp and Bank of America, rather than bail them out. I wish he would have favored breaking up the rest of the big banks so they couldn't destroy our economy. I wish he would have forced any banks taking federal bailout money to freeze foreclosures for at least a year and freeze interest rates on mortgages and credit cards. I wish Obama would have proposed redistributing income from the wealthy to those who really need it by raising the marginal income tax, and the capital gains tax, and the estate tax. I wish Obama would have proposed a transaction tax on every stock sale so as to curb speculation. I wish Obama would have proposed raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour, as Ralph Nader has proposed. I wish Obama would have replaced Ben Bernanke at the Fed with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. I wish Obama would have come out for democratizing the Fed, as Dennis Kucinich has recommended. I wish Obama would have proposed a public works program to put every American who needs a job to work. I wish Obama would have ordered every federal building to be installed with a solar panel, and almost every car in the federal fleet to be a hybrid or electric car. I wish Obama would have proposed opening federal grocery stores in areas that are food deserts. I wish Obama would have addressed the cruel problem of poverty in America. I wish Obama would have proposed 12 months of paid maternity and paternity leave, mandatory paid sick leave, and federal child care. I wish Obama would have advocated the nationalization of the armament companies, as Sen. Robert La Follette did back in 1924. No decent socialist would have implemented policies that have left unemployment at over 9 percent and foreclosures at record heights. No decent socialist would have let the banks get off so easily. No decent socialist would have been caught dead praising the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase and justifying their obscene salaries the way Obama did. ("I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen. I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.") No decent socialist would have left the health insurance industries in the driver's seat. No decent socialist would have empowered a panel to advocate the cutting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. No decent socialist would have expanded the war in Afghanistan, a hopeless war being fought by the sons and daughters of America's working class. So, no, Obama isn't a socialist. Not even close. But we'd be a lot better off in this country if he were. From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 21 19:59:03 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:59:03 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Gulf of Mexico's Food Chain in Poisoned Message-ID: <203C861A6BCA4BCDB0DBD8CE48AE9CB3@agingCHS072729> http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52214 BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico's Food Chain By Dahr Jamail* NEW ORLEANS, United States, Jul 20, 2010 (IPS/IFEJ) - Shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico grow with drops of petroleum inside them, coyotes eat oil-soaked birds, and sharks suffocate when the oil coats their gills. Oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters, says Harriet Perry, director of the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. Many kinds of fish and shore birds feed on those young crabs. And this is just one of the many examples of how the crude oil that began to spill Apr. 20 from British Petroleum's (PB) Deepwater Horizon well has already taken its toll on the Gulf's food chain. Jonathan Henderson, with the Gulf Restoration Network, explained to this reporter that oil-soaked birds are being eaten by coyotes, which are then later eaten by alligators further inland. "Do you know how the pelicans die of oil?" asked Dean Wilson, executive director of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper. "They open their wings, thinking they are drying them in the sun, and they just cook in the sun. Thousands of birds are dying like that because of the greed of a foreign company." The organisation Wilson heads is dedicated to preserving the ecosystems of the Atchafalaya Basin on the Louisiana Coast. He is incensed at the catastrophic impact the BP oil disaster, which has been ongoing for nearly three months. Oil began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion Apr. 20 on the Deepwater Horizon oilrig, which BP leased from the Swiss firm Transocean. Two days later, the platform sank. As of Jul. 20, the company had capped the well and stopped the flow of oil, though tests continue on the cap's structural integrity. Wilson is angry about what he perceives as BP's lack of willingness to implement measures necessary to adequately protect wildlife. For example, the company is not rescuing the chicks of oiled adult birds, nor is it allowing local environmentalists, like himself, to go out and participate in animal rescue efforts. "You have to realise that it takes two parents to raise the chicks in these areas. If one of the parents gets into the oil, the other parent alone cannot raise the chicks, and the chicks are going to die," he said. There are at least as many chicks that have died as there are rescued pelicans, and the number rescued is "only the tip of the iceberg," said Wilson. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as of Jul. 14, 553 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline was oiled, 2,930 birds had been recovered (1,828 of them dead and 1,102 of them oiled), along with more than 500 dead sea turtles and other mammals. More than 45,000 workers are currently responding to the BP oil disaster, but higher-end estimates show that as much as 8.4 million barrels of BP oil has been released into the Gulf, and more than 6.8 million litres of chemical dispersants Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 used (the same chemicals are banned in Great Britain). The dispersants are believed to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, irritation of eyes, nose, throat and lungs, difficulty breathing, respiratory system damage, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic damage and mutations, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage. "This is the second most important delta in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most important deltas on the planet," said Paul Orr, an officer with Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, a group focused on keeping the lower Mississippi River pollution-free. "We just have no idea what this amount of oil in this close proximity to the delta could do. The decision was made to use the dispersants intensively to sink the oil -- the rationale was to minimise shore impacts at all cost," he said. "But now it seems like the real reason they've been doing that is to get the oil to disappear because if it was staying on the surface, at least you could collect it, even if it starts impacting the shore in some way," said Orr. "Now we have unknown millions of barrels of oil floating around in the water column and sticking to the sea floor. We may not ever know some of the long-term damages," said the activist. Orr, like many Gulf region environmentalists and scientists, is critical of BP's lack of adequate efforts towards helping oil-contaminated wildlife. "They have to look like they're doing something," he said, alluding to the relatively small number of birds the company has treated. He is concerned about all the Gulf species, but in particular those that were already endangered before the spill. For example, the Kemp's Ridley and leatherback sea turtles, the sperm whale, the Gulf sturgeon fish, and birds such as the piping plover. "There are at least 75,000 square miles of the Gulf covered in oil as we speak," Henderson told this reporter. Likewise, Wilson expressed concern for microorganisms that are feeding on the oil, particularly in the deeper regions in the Gulf where BP has sunk the oil through the use of dispersants. "There is a big population of whales and whale sharks that migrate right where the oil is. We've already seen that the shark won't avoid the oil. We've seen schools of hundreds of whale sharks migrating through the Gulf of Mexico. They open their mouths to filter plankton -- so the oil contaminates their gills, and they will suffocate." "We can't play around with BP's toxic science experiment and sit around and wait for the outcome in the Gulf," said Henderson. And, with a note of pessimism, added: "I have a feeling this isn't going to be the last of this kind of oil well blowout." *This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by Inter Press Service (IPS), CGIAR/Biodiversity International, International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), and the United Nations Environment Programme/Convention on Biological Diversity (UNEP/CBD) -- all members of the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org). (END) From menecraj at shaw.ca Wed Jul 21 20:02:28 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:02:28 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] US Troops in Costa Rica Message-ID: US Troops in Costa Rica 1. United for Peace & Justice 2. Peace Action Fund of New York State === Warning: US Troops in Costa Rica July 20, 2010 United for Peace & Justice www.unitedforpeace.org The outrageous announcement that 46 US warships and 7000 Marines are heading for Costa Rica to "fight drugs" should alert all peace and justice organizations to the real significance of this action. Such a move will raise legitimate alarm in the Caribbean, Central and Latin America of the real intent of the United States and react accordingly. Regardless whether this was done with the connivance of the Costa Rica government or not, as peace and justice activists, we are opposed to the extension of US military force, especially, at these times, when our Brothers and Sisters in the South are moving forward in their struggle for national sovereignty and independence from US influence. Endorse the "Declaration Against US Military Forces in Costa Rica, the Declaration against Invasion and Military Impunity": - We the undersigned and organizations of our support network, categorically reject the U.S. military ships entering Costa Rican territory, as well as any further increase of militarism to attempt to solve conflicts in global politics. - We oppose the permission granted by the Costa Rican Legislature, which allows for joint patrols against trafficking of drugs into Costa Rica with up to 46 warships, 200 helicopters, 10 AV-8B Harrier aircraft and 7,000 marines. - With this action, the government of Costa Rica aims to join the U.S. military agenda in Latin America. The solution to drug trafficking is social, not military. - Costa Rica, with its neutral and pacifist tradition, cannot allow its territory to be used for a military objective that violates their sovereignty. This U.S. military contingent will be able to move freely throughout Costa Rican territory with immunity for its troops. Such a military presence in a country without an army is unacceptable. - We call on our respective governments and peoples to jointly promote all possible action to defend Costa Rican sovereignty, and to reject this military action. Call to Action: United for Peace & Justice encourages UFPJ Member Groups and other organizations to individually endorse this declaration and communicate it to Hendrik Voss, School of the Americas Watch, hvoss at soaw.org. To support endorsement, we encourage that issue information and calls to action be forwarded to member group constituencies. Background: We Love Costa Rica article, 46 US Warships Plus 7,000 US Marines On Route To Costa Rica? http://www.welovecostarica.com/public/2647print.cfm Global Post Article, 7,000 US Marines Landing on the beaches of Costa Rica http://www.globalpost.com/webblog/costa-rica/7000-us-marines-landing-the-beaches-costa-rica Thank You, We are.... United for Peace & Justice Help us continue to do this critical work: Make a donation to UFPJ today. UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 PO Box 607 Times Square Station New York, NY 10108 === Are We Now at War in Costa Rica Too? New York Peace Network July 19, 2010 www.PANYS.org Dear Peace Activists and Friends, On July 1, 2010, the Costa Rica Legislative Assembly voted 31-8 to grant the U.S. military full in-country access through the end of 2010 to help fight drug trafficking and for "humanitarian missions." 46 warships and 7,000 U.S. Marines have been stationed in Costa Rica, a country that ranks among the most peaceful. We have not been told what they are actually doing. Are they using the same failed techniques being administered in Colombia? Spending millions of dollars to fight their failed war on drugs? We deserve to know what is really going on! Urge your representatives to demand more information, and sign this petition telling the Costa Rica Congress to withdraw the authorization of U.S. Marines: http://www.petitiononline.com/noarmyen/petition.html Peace, Matt Resnick Peace Action Fund of New York State info at panys.org From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 21 23:53:32 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:53:32 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government Message-ID: <8FFC52EE293E432C9AD9EF7FFF878458@Upstairs> Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government By Dan Eggen and Kimberly Kindy Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 22, 2010 Three out of every four lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies previously worked in the federal government, a proportion that far exceeds the usual revolving-door standards on Capitol Hill, a Washington Post analysis shows. Key lobbying hires include 18 former members of Congress and dozens of former presidential appointees. For other senior management positions, the industry employs two former directors of the Minerals Management Service, the since-renamed agency that regulates the industry, and several top officials from the Bush White House. Federal inspectors once assigned to monitor oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico have landed jobs with the companies they regulated. With more than 600 registered lobbyists, the industry has among the biggest and most powerful contingents in Washington. Its influence has been on full display in the wake of the BP oil disaster: Proposals to enact new restrictions or curb oil use have stalled amid concerted Republican opposition and strong objections from Democrats in oil-producing states. Even considering the generally friendly relationship between K Street and Capitol Hill, the number of well-connected oil lobbyists is remarkable. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics calculates that fewer than one in three registered lobbyists in 2009 had revolving-door connections -- less than half the oil industry rate found by The Post. Officials with the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that tracks Interior Department officials who cross over to the oil sector, said they were surprised by the findings. "With these numbers, you can see how the revolving door between the Hill and industry allowed problems in the agency to happen and not be addressed," said Mandy Smithberger, an investigator for the group. As both the House and Senate consider limiting the influence of revolving-door lobbyists, the topic will be a focus of a congressional hearing Thursday chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), who has experienced the phenomenon firsthand: One of his former aides, Jesse McCollum, signed on as a BP lobbyist two weeks after the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Towns's office declined to comment; McCollum did not respond to a message. The Post analysis found that BP and other companies involved in the gulf disaster employ as lobbyists more than three dozen former lawmakers, congressional staffers and bureaucrats. BP alone has hired at least 31 internal and external lobbyists with government experience, records show. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's leading trade group, employs 48 lobbyists with previous federal experience, the analysis shows. They include former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who helped deregulate the natural gas industry, and former congressmen Jim McCrery (R-La.) and Charlie Stenholm (D-Tex.), both of whom strongly backed oil interests while in Congress. "If you want somebody to work on energy issues, you don't hire health-care workers," said Jack N. Gerard, the group's president and chief executive. Few former government officials who joined the oil industry wanted to discuss their new roles. More than 30 individuals, companies and lobbying firms contacted by The Post, including BP, declined to comment or did not respond to messages. All told, more than 430 industry lobbyists once had jobs in the legislative or executive branches, according to the Post analysis, which was based on CRP lobbying data, employment histories and other records. Scores had ties to major committees that shape federal oil policies or to lawmakers who supported industry priorities while in Congress, records show. Focus on ex-lawmakers The analysis suggests the industry has focused on hiring former lawmakers from oil-producing states. Fifteen of the 18 former members of Congress who now lobby for oil and gas firms are from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma or Kansas. Dozens more previously worked as aides to lawmakers from those states. At least three industry lobbyists, for example, previously worked for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), an outspoken critic of President Obama's oil-drilling moratorium in the gulf. During a June hearing, Landrieu warned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that a prolonged halt to deep-water drilling "could potentially wreak economic havoc on this region that exceeds the havoc wreaked" by the spill itself. Later that evening, Landrieu held her annual "Crawfish Fest" fundraiser, and its hosts included seven oil industry lobbyists -- six of whom previously worked on Capitol Hill, the invitation shows. Landrieu said in an interview that she is naturally interested in oil and gas issues given the industry's importance to Louisiana. But, she added, the industry contributes relatively little to her campaign accounts given its size. Out of more than 100 former staffers, Landrieu said, only a handful work for oil firms. They include former legislative counsel Kevin Avery, now representing Marathon Oil, and former energy adviser Jason Schendle, now lobbying for BP and other oil firms. "These two individuals don't have any more special access than anybody else," Landrieu said. Avery and Schendle did not respond to messages seeking comment. Marathon spokesman Lee G. Warren said the company seeks varied backgrounds in hiring for its government-affairs team; records show it has hired at least seven lobbyists with government experience. Warren said former government employees "offer experience and expertise." The party affiliation of lobbyists is fairly evenly divided. About 55 percent of the revolving-door lobbyists with clear partisan affiliations have worked for Republicans, including two former aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who lobby for Exxon Mobil, the records show. Three aides to former vice president Richard B. Cheney, himself a former oil-services executive, now lobby on behalf of oil firms, including former energy adviser Kevin O'Donovan, now a Royal Dutch Shell executive. Former interior secretary Gale Norton is a Shell lawyer. Shell spokesman Bill Tanner said the company looks for "candidates with the academic and professional experience, proven commitment and highest standards of integrity." Plenty of oil lobbyists also have worked for Democrats, including power broker Tony Podesta, whose lobbying firm represents BP and Sunoco. He has co-hosted at least five fundraisers for Democratic candidates this year, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). >From agency to industry Nowhere has government and industry coziness been on display more clearly than at MMS -- recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The Post analysis found more than a dozen former MMS employees working for the oil industry. Lawmakers have asked the agency to provide Congress with the work histories of agency employees. The agency's new director, Michael Bromwich, acknowledged conflicts in the inspecting ranks in a statement to The Post and said new procedures aim to prevent employees from conducting inspections of former employers. One recent example of a revolving-door move within MMS involved Randall Luthi, who left as agency director just weeks before the BP explosion to become president of the National Ocean Industries Association. Although Luthi's salary has not been disclosed, the previous association president made $580,000 in salary and bonuses in 2008, tax records show. Luthi, who declined interview requests, made less than $160,000 at MMS. The Obama administration's single revolving-door appointment at the agency is a former BP executive, Sylvia Baca, who was named deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management in June of last year. (Baca served as assistant secretary for land and minerals management in the Clinton administration.) Salazar spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said Baca does not work on offshore-drilling issues and has been recused for two years, or until next summer, from participating in any cases involving BP. The close ties between industry and government can lead to troubles. In a few cases, fraternal ties and the lure of money have led to criminal convictions. Former Interior officials Milton K. Dial and Jimmy W. Mayberry pleaded guilty in 2009 and 2008, respectively, to charges stemming from a contracting scheme that allowed the men to retire from MMS but continue to earn six-figure salaries funded by the agency. Dial declined to comment. In a telephone interview, Mayberry said, "It was a contracting issue between me and the government, and that's been resolved." When agency investigators examined the MMS's Lake Charles, La., office this year, they found that inspector Donald C. Howard reaped financial benefits from an offshore firm he was supposed to be regulating. Howard was sentenced last year to one year of probation and fined $3,000. He did not return calls seeking comment. Staff writer T.W. Farnam and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072106468.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 22 00:03:40 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:03:40 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Fired USDA official receives apologies from White House, Vilsack Message-ID: Fired USDA official receives apologies from White House, Vilsack By Karen Tumulty and Ed O'Keefe Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 22, 2010 Ousted Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, who was portrayed as a racist in a selectively excerpted Internet video, on Wednesday achieved something almost unheard of in overheated Washington: swift and utter vindication. Shirley Sherrod's firing from USDA prompts firestorm Shirley Sherrod video: Vilsack offers to hire back ousted worker Two days after Sherrod was fired from her job overseeing rural development in Georgia, both the White House and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized to her. Vilsack also offered her another unspecified position with the department. Sherrod said she would consider it. "This is a good woman," Vilsack said. "She's been put through hell. I could have done and should have done a better job. I'll learn from that experience. I want this agency and department to learn from this experience, and I want us to be stronger for it." He was far from alone in vowing to learn from the episode that began when Andrew Breitbart, a conservative activist and blogger, posted to his site the video from a March 27 speech Sherrod gave at an NAACP event. By the time it played out two days later, it had vividly revealed how Washington's political culture is driven by impulse and self-interest -- often instead of judgment. "Members of this administration, members of the media, members of different political factions on both sides of this have all made determinations and judgments without a full set of facts," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing, which CNN broadcast on a split screen with a live shot of Sherrod watching from its studio. In the snippet of video on Breitbart's Web site, Sherrod, who is black, admitted to having been reluctant to help a white farmer who sought her aid 24 years before, when she was working for a nonprofit agency established to help black farmers. What the clip did not show was the larger point Sherrod had made, one that was the opposite of the perception it created. From that episode, she told the NAACP audience, she had recognized her own prejudice, moved beyond it to an understanding that "there is no difference between us," and ultimately had helped the white farmer save his land. In the reaction that followed the posting of the video, Sherrod not only was fired from her USDA post but was denounced by the Obama administration, the media and even the civil rights organization whose local chapter had invited her to speak. Sherrod mounted her own defense in a series of appearances on CNN, and the farmer, Roger Spooner, and his family backed her up. But not until the NAACP released a video of the full speech Tuesday night did it become clear how misleading the excerpt was. In an interview Wednesday, Breitbart said he first learned of Sherrod's speech in April, when a source he declined to name sent him a DVD copy of it. But the DVD did not work. He said he forgot about the speech until last week, when the NAACP denounced what it called "racist elements" of the "tea party" movement. Angry at the NAACP's move, Breitbart said he contacted the source again asking for copies of the speech and obtained two edited clips over the weekend. After Breitbart first referred to the existence of the video clip during a radio interview last Thursday, Sherrod tried to contact Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan through e-mail accounts the department had created for employee feedback. But they are checked infrequently, a spokesman said. As a result, USDA aides did not learn of it until Monday, after Breitbart had posted them. Obama officials rejected accusations that they overreacted out of fear of inciting their conservative critics. Presidential aides insisted that no one at the White House pressed Vilsack to dismiss Sherrod, despite her claims that they had. But when the facts became clear, and the public view of Sherrod flipped from vilification to sympathy, the White House let it be known that someone there -- it wouldn't say who or when -- pressed the agriculture secretary to reconsider. Vilsack was especially sensitive to the issue. Since taking over, he has made it a priority to rectify the injustices of a department with a long history of racial discrimination. After publicly apologizing to Sherrod, Vilsack met with Congressional Black Caucus members on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon. According to a spokeswoman, he was there to apologize and to listen. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072103871.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 14:31:13 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:31:13 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Health Care - A Timely Reminder Message-ID: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/fast-facts-health-care-timely-reminder Fast Facts: Health Care - A Timely Reminder by Pete Hudson Last month the Commonwealth Fund - a United States organisation promoting evidence-based quality health care in that country - published a study comparing the U.S. health care system with that of several other industrialised countries, including Canada. Entitled "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall", it ranked the U.S.A. system last on accessibility, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, equity and health outcomes such as infant mortality. This report went unnoticed in Canada perhaps because it is not news here. Earlier studies by the Fund, as well as by health policy analysts in this country, have all come to the same conclusions. This lack of attention, however, is regrettable because, despite the evidence, there are those who continue to seek to discredit the Canadian system which, beginning in the early 1960s, rejected the US model of private funding and delivery. These critics include influential journalists such as Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail, and even some recent editorials in our own Winnipeg Free Press - perhaps another reason why the media didn't report the story. One key group needing reminding of this data is politicians who present the Canadian system to citizens as "unsustainable" and conclude that it must be left increasingly to private funding and delivery. They point to the increase in health care expenditures as a percentage of total provincial expenditures. They then claim that eventually health care expenditures will squeeze out all else. This ignores the fact that provinces have shrunk expenditures in all other departments, except for education and health care (where cuts would be the most unpopular). Thus health care is bound to show as an increasing proportion of total expenditures. Moreover, a succession of tax cuts by both levels of government beginning in the last half of the 1990s, has created the possibility of "unsustainability" in the first place. Between 1997 and 2004, provincial and federal governments between them gave up $170.8 billion in tax cuts. Commenting on both these facts, health policy analyst Bob Evans states: "had provincial governments not chosen...... to cut tax rates, the share of aggregate provincial revenues devoted to health care in 2005/6 would have been very slightly below its level in 1982/3." And this trend of slashing corporate, consumer and individual taxes mostly advantaging the well off, has continued unabated into the last half of the decade. Media silence is especially harmful given that the two dominant parties are using the same song book on this issue. B.C.'s Liberals cut taxes by a savage 25 percent upon assuming office, and shortly after declared public health care to be unsustainable. Alberta's Conservatives and Quebec's Liberals repeatedly fly the privatization kite. Both parties at the Federal level have been reluctant to act against widespread illegal user fees charged by private clinics. Where are the alternative voices? The Commonwealth Fund study also reminds us that private health care is hugely more expensive than public funding and delivery. One reason is the cost of administration. The Fund estimated that 7.3 percent of total health care expenditures in the USA goes to administration, compared to 2.6 percent in Canada. The reminder is timely because Canada's single pay system, which accounts for the lower administration costs, is currently under siege. One reason is that the prevailing small government, leave-it-to-the-"market" ideology hates public monopolies. Our efficient single pay system is targeted accordingly. The other reason is profit. Owners of private clinics in Canada financed a court challenge to the single pay system in Quebec. They are now contemplating challenges in other provinces. Canada's single pay system is protected by prohibitions in the Canada Health Act on extra billing, and on buying or selling private insurance for services covered under the public plan. These protections are the ones under attack. The Fund study does not consider Obama's recent reforms. But those reforms do not include a single pay system. This was not on the table from the start thanks to lobbying by the powerful private insurance industry. It is hard to see how the administrative costs incurred by the armies of staff required in the USA to sort out billings and process claims, let alone the stress visited on sick people filling out pages of claim forms, will be ameliorated by the reforms. The tragedy is that responding to these attacks uses energies which ought to be devoted to improving the public system. It is instructive to know that expenditures on doctors and hospitals as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product have held steady in Canada. These are the only two components of health care delivery which are one hundred percent publicly funded. Components, partly or wholly in the private sector, are the ones creating the cost pressures. Pharmaceuticals for example has doubled its share of the pie since 1975, from 8.8 percent of total health expenditures to 16.8 percent in 2007 - well ahead now of physician costs at 12.8 percent. Thus one area of improvement would be a national pharmacare program to achieve efficiencies, cost containment, better access and equity. So yes we need to be reminded of the serious flaws in the largely privatised US model because powerful interests seek to revive it here. We could also be reminded of the example of post-war Britain which, despite facing massive reconstruction and debt, committed to comprehensive public health care. As a child contracting scarlet fever there at the time, it is certain that I, and hundreds of others, would not have received the affordable, life-saving care in the absence of that system. Such reminders expose the relentless push towards further private care to be nonsense. Such reminders may yet persuade the Tweedledums and Tweedledees who take turns governing our country, towards building our public system rather than tearing it down. =========== Pete Hudson is a Senior Scholar in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, and a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Manitoba. From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 22:00:04 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:00:04 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Methane readings 100x normal near oil disaster site Message-ID: <009D30984268428DB319C3261875AEAB@agingCHS072729> Scientists from St. Petersburg find high methane readings near oil disaster site By Craig Pittman, Times staff writer July 21, 2010 [photo: Workers clean tar balls from a beach Tuesday in Waveland, Miss. BP said there was no serious leaking from the recently capped well.] ST. PETERSBURG - Two years before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, scientists from SRI International took readings on the levels of methane in the Gulf of Mexico less than 10 miles from the rig. Last year, they went back and did it again. Now, after the rig blew up and gushed oil for more than 80 days, SRI's scientists from St. Petersburg have returned to the same area just northwest of the disaster and taken fresh readings. They found levels of methane - a particularly potent greenhouse gas - are now 100 times higher than normal, SRI scientists said. They can't say for sure it's from BP, said SRI director Larry Langebrake, but "it is a sign that says there are things going on here that need to be researched." Higher levels of methane can cause problems both in the gulf and around the globe. Seeps in the ocean floor put small amounts of methane into the water, where it's consumed by naturally occurring microbes. Higher concentrations of methane can cause the microbe population to boom, gobbling up oxygen needed by other marine life and producing dead zones in the gulf. The other problem, said Langebrake: "Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide." In fact, it's 20 times worse than carbon dioxide, trapping lots more heat close to the earth, contributing to climate change. And it can hang around in the atmosphere for up to 15 years. In addition to the increased amount of methane, the SRI tests "did show indications that the methane was further up in the water column than we had seen it before," said Carol Lutken of the University of Mississippi, which is part of a consortium with SRI that has been doing the tests. The findings from SRI are not the first to suggest that Deepwater Horizon is gushing methane as well as oil. Scientists from Texas A&M who tested the water within 5 miles of Deepwater Horizon reported finding methane concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal. However they do suggest that the methane may be spreading throughout the gulf just like the underwater plumes of oil found by oceanographers from the University of South Florida and other academic institutions. SRI is still analyzing the results. "We're still trying to understand what those things are telling us," Langebrake said. SRI, based in Menlo Park, Calif., is the nonprofit scientific research institute that began as the research arm of Stanford University. In 2006 St. Petersburg persuaded the company to open a marine technology operation here to take advantage of research being produced at nearby state and federal facilities. Its offices opened last year near Albert Whitted Airport. SRI is part of a consortium of institutions that has been studying natural seeps in the ocean floor for what until recently was known as the U.S. Minerals Management Service. The seeps come from deposits of methane gas that, because they are so deep beneath the ocean, have frozen into icy crystals. Disturbing those deposits - say, by drilling an oil well through them - can turn that solid methane into a liquid, leaving the ocean floor unstable, explained Lutken. Worse, the freed gas may explode. One theory on the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster blames a methane gas bubble for causing the explosion and fire that sank the rig. There have been rumors that a similar methane explosion could cause a tsunami, a concern that government officials say is unfounded. Generally the oil industry tries to avoid methane areas during drilling for safety reasons. But the U.S. Energy Department wants to find a way to harvest fuel from those methane deposits, Lutken said. For its research, the consortium persuaded the government to let it take over an area of the gulf floor that turned out to be in the same deepwater canyon as BP's well, Lutken said. But they're to the northwest and on a slope, just over half a mile deep, while Deepwater Horizon's well is a mile below the surface. That means that the methane in higher levels that SRI discovered during the most recent tests on June 25 and 26 has apparently been flowing upslope, Lutken said. What may turn out to be as important as those higher methane readings, though, are the earlier test results from research cruises before the oil rig explosion, she said, because they offer a snapshot of what "normal" should look like. "We have what it was like in the neighborhood before Deepwater Horizon occurred," she said. [Last modified: Jul 20, 2010 10:53 PM] From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 22:21:22 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:21:22 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern about Safety Message-ID: Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern about Safety By Ian Urbina July 22, 2010, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?_r=1&hp WASHINGTON - A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems. In the survey, commissioned by the rig's owner, Transocean, workers said that company plans were not carried out properly and that they "often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig." Some workers also voiced concerns about poor equipment reliability, "which they believed was as a result of drilling priorities taking precedence over planned maintenance," according to the survey, one of two Transocean reports obtained by The New York Times. "At nine years old, Deepwater Horizon has never been in dry dock," one worker told investigators. "We can only work around so much." "Run it, break it, fix it," another worker said. "That's how they work." Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?_r=1&hp From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 22:27:57 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:27:57 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown (Panitch et al) Message-ID: <8E1FBDEDBAA548E8908D63DCCDA53849@agingCHS072729> In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives By Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, and Greg Albo Publisher: PM Press/Spectre Published May, 2010 http://miscprojects.com/Crisitunity Review of "In and Out of Crisis" July 19, 2010 by Daniel Tucker Throughout the counter-globalization movement and into the era of the Bush Administration, I tried to wrap my head around a way to simply explain what is meant by the term "Neoliberalism". I would say to classes, friends, and fellow activists that my take was that "Neoliberalism is characterized by privatization, deregulation of labor and trade and the commodification of more intimate and complex aspects of life than previous eras of capitalism had produced." But then there was the hassle of explaining the "Neo" part, the confused definitions of "liberal" popularly used in the U.S.,the difference between its theory and its practice (often involving a much deeper and more integral role for government than my simple summary could capture). And then comes the "Great Recession", also known as the financial crisis of 2007-2010, and everything changes. It is no longer difficult to plainly see the contradictions of the Neoliberal policies of the last thirty years. Especially the role of the United States government in facilitating the maintenance and consolidation of industrial and financial power despite rhetoric of "deregulation and privatization." The bail-out plan alone makes it hard to deny and easy to understand that the U.S. State is integral and necessary to the recovery and perpetuation of this global financial mess. Canadian political economists Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, and Greg Albo explain this in wonderfully clear terms in their latest book In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives out last spring on PM Press/Spectre Imprint (the imprint is coordinated by Sasha Lilley of the wonderfully insightful podcast Against the Grain). This short book compiles several essays, many of which were developed for or inspired by the work of the Socialist Project, an independent socialist network based in Ontario. It is easy to tell that all three authors are educators (they all teach at York University in Toronto) because of their methodical approach to communicating their ideas. Key passages from the book are broken down in the final chapter as "Ten Thesis on the Crisis" which reviews and simplifies the history and analysis presented in chapters like "Surveying the Crisis: Is Neoliberalism Over?"; "Crisis Management from Bush to Obama"; and "Labor's Impasse and the Left" to name a few. It was written as an educational and organizing tool. What makes this book stand out besides it's post-crisis analysis of Neoliberalism is its belief in the renewal of the Left and its deep connection to actually existing social movements. So many Marxist historians and philosophers write as if there is no social movement worth engaging or if there is a shout-out to an organizing effort, it reads as if it was pulled from a hat. These authors have put time and energy through the years in supporting organized labor throughout North America, particularly with the Canadian Auto Workers Union where Gindin was research director. The book presents the clearest explanation of the "Defeat of Labor" which has occurred in recent decades, going beyond simplistic descriptions of deindustrialization to elaborate on the interconnectedness between off-shoring, automation, free-trade policies like NAFTA, stagnant wages, and the integration of workers into the financial sector through pensions and real-estate investments. The trio's focus is not limited to an exclusively Union way forward, and they repeatedly call for the need to connect organized labor to other social movements to renew working class culture and politics as a step towards creating Left political alternatives to capitalism. The short 129 pages of In and Out of the Crisis make it a useful tool that could be directed towards busy organizers and activists who literally don't have the time to dig into anything else. And it's clearly articulated descriptions of the crisis and possible ways forward make it the most generally useful book to come out of this economic crisis. I hope that it can get used to its fullest potential. - Daniel Tucker, Chicago 7/19/2010 From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 22:28:24 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:28:24 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Bees Get Stung by Israel Message-ID: <9DB294F06CCA4DCA96092C29F60AE00B@agingCHS072729> http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52196 Bees Get Stung by Israel By Eva Bartlett GAZA CITY, Jul 19, 2010 (IPS) - Sa'id Hillis, 60, has kept bees since he was a boy. Until the Israeli attacks changed his business. Sa'id has 20 dunams (a dunam is 1000 square metres) farmland in Sheyjayee, east of Gaza city and roughly 400 metres from the Green Line border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Until 2009 the farm had hundreds of trees, and more than 10,000 chickens. "It was all destroyed during the Israeli attacks," Hillis says. The 2008-2009 23-day Israeli war on Gaza destroyed more than 35 percent of Gaza's agricultural land, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This included chicken and beef farms, and cultivated land. Oxfam notes that the combination of the Israeli war on Gaza and maintaining of the buffer zone renders around 46 percent of agricultural land useless or unreachable. Since their means of living off the land was destroyed, Hillis's family of 13 has survived off the income that Ramzi, Sa'id's oldest son, brings from driving a taxi. "We had 250 boxes of bees, but they were bulldozed by the Israelis in 2004," says Ramzi Hillis, 29, at his house, a kilometre from the border. Walking behind the house, Hillis points out the remains of a family legacy. "After they were destroyed six years ago, we bought more bees and started over." Until the war on Gaza, they had acquired 80 boxes of bees. "Fifteen boxloads of bees died during the bombing," he says. "From phosphorous smoke." Box by box Hillis displays the surviving colony. "Each container should have at least eight slots," he says. The slots are thin rectangular boards to which the bees weld their hives. But they are sparse and patchy. "They're light this year, because of the effects of the bombings." The land from Hillis's home to the line of trees on the Israeli side of the border is largely barren save wild scrub and the valiant attempts of Palestinian farmers to grow wheat under near-daily gunfire from Israeli soldiers. "There used to be so many trees in this area, but they've all been bulldozed or bombed," says Hillis. "The bees can still survive, but they have to work harder, fly farther, to find food." According to Hillis, the bees will fly as far as six kilometres in their search of nutrition. After a winter of meagre natural sources and sugar water supplements, the honey quality is poor, and sells for around 70 shekels (17 dollars) per kilogram. "The honey harvested in September sells for up to 116 shekels per kilo," says Hillis, "because the bees spend the summer feeding off of flowers and fruit trees." Hassan Zaneen, 16, is learning the bee-keeping trade from his father Mohammed. The family has a small farm with bees, a handful of sheep and goats, and some sparse olive trees. Hassan Zaneen takes precautions displaying the hives, donning full-body overalls and a screened head covering. Holding the long handle of a tin container, he lights the dried grass inside afire, waving the smoke at the boxes of bees. "It calms the bees," he explains, "keeps them from going into attack mode when we near their hives." The teen removes slot after slot, searching for the queen bee. Finally, he points out her golden form amidst the striped bodies of worker bees. "She lives longer than the others, up to a year. They live around one month," Zaneen explains. "During the spring, she lays around 1,500 eggs a day." Mohammed Zaneen explains that the bees' lifespan is affected by the scarcity of food and hardships of life. "We used to have over 10 dunams of olive trees. The bees thrived off of these. Their honey was strong and excellent quality. We brought in over 8000 dollars a year just in honey sales," he says. "But now we only have 18 trees, and the oldest are only four years. So the bees are fed with sugar water supplements, and they only produce honey once per year, not twice like they used to." They harvest their honey in April, but even before April there are small amounts of honey to sample. Zaneen digs into one honeycomb, bringing out thick, dark golden honey. The best honey, Mohammed Zaneen and most Beit Hanoun residents agree, used to come from Beit Hanoun. Renowned for its lemon and orange trees, the northern region of Gaza was a haven for bees. Mahdi Zaneen, 19, is from Beit Hanoun and lives two kilometres from the northern border. "Our family has raised bees for over 30 years," he says. "We had 500 boxes, but they were bulldozed in 2003 by the Israeli army." In 2010, the Zaneens tried to re-start their bee colony. "They died, there's no food for them now," says Zaneen, gesturing to a landscape rendered devoid of trees. Abdel Latif Dabous, has kept bees for a decade. "We've got 21 boxes now, but before the Israeli war on Gaza we had 75. Most died from the phosphorous shelling and loud noises of the bombing. Jars of honey lining the windows of his shop in Rafah, Ahmed Zohrob has learned the trade from his father. And while he is an electrical engineer by profession, he prefers the honey business. "Try this," he says, sawing off a chunk of honey. "It's light, with a hint of orange. In the autumn it will be darker, because the bees have feasted on flowers all summer." Some bee farmers, because of the reduced honey output, mix sugar with the honey. One kilo of mixed honey sells for roughly 50 shekels, but pure honey costs more than twice as much. Barrels sit filled to the brim with the nectar Zohrob swears by. "It can be used to treat over one hundred afflictions," he says. But while the honey is quality, it will not leave Gaza, under siege since Hamas was elected in 2006, a siege tightened in mid-2007 to a degree that very little comes in and virtually nothing goes out. "I love this business," Zohrab says with a grin. "It's sweet." (END) From menecraj at shaw.ca Thu Jul 22 22:41:27 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:41:27 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Former MI5 chief demolishes Blair's defence of the Iraq war Message-ID: Former MI5 chief demolishes Blair's defence of the Iraq war By Andy McSmith Wednesday, 21 July 2010 [image: Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed that a surge of warnings about home-grown terrorist threats after the Iraq invasion led to a 100 per cent increase in MI5's budget] Tony Blair's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry that toppling Saddam Hussein helped make Britain safe from terrorists was dramatically undermined by the former head of MI5 yesterday. Giving evidence to the same inquiry, Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed that there was such a surge of warnings of home-grown terrorist threats after the invasion of Iraq that MI5 asked for - and got - a 100 per cent increase in its budget. Baroness Manningham-Buller, who was director general of MI5 in 2002-07, told the Chilcot panel that MI5 started receiving a "substantially" higher volume of reports that young British Muslims being drawn to al-Qa'ida. She told the inquiry: "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people - a few among a generation - who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam." She added: "Arguably we gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before." Her words are in stark contrast to the claim that Mr Blair made in front of the same inquiry on 29 January. The former prime minister told Sir John Chilcot: "If I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better, with Saddam and his two sons out of office and out of power, I believe indeed we are. "It was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office, and I do genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result." But the evidence presented by Lady Manningham-Buller does not just call Mr Blair's credibility into question, it also throws down a challenge to the coalition Government, warned Lord Carlile of Berriew, a Liberal Democrat peer who has acted since 2005 as the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws. He told The Independent: "It's certainly the case that the threat and number of home-grown terrorists - and 'not home-grown' terrorists coming into the UK - increased after the Iraq war. "This makes life difficult both for the old government, who have criticisms to answer, and for the current Government. It makes their review of current terrorism law a delicate exercise because there is no evidence of any significant reduction in the threat. We are where we were." Sir Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, added: "I should be astonished if Mr Blair were to return to give further evidence, but questions will remain as to what it was which prompted him to disregard the reservations of officials and their advice. If only Britain had been as well served by its politicians as it was by Eliza Manningham-Buller then we would never have got ourselves into the illegal mess of Iraq." Lord West, who was counter-terrorism minister in the Home Office under Gordon Brown, told the BBC that he had "no doubt" that the Iraq war increased the threat of terrorism in the UK, which hit the government like a "bow wave" in 2003. Ken Livingstone, who was Mayor of London at the time of the 7 July bombings, said: "Eliza Manningham-Buller's evidence is a damning indictment of a foreign policy that not only significantly enhanced the risk of terrorist attacks in London but gave al-Qa'ida the opening to operate in Iraq too." Before 2003, MI5's concern had been the possibility that foreign terrorists would infiltrate the UK. Afterwards, she said: "We realised that the focus was not foreigners. The rising and increasing threat was a threat from British citizens and that was a very different scenario to stopping people coming in. It was what has now become called home-grown." She added: "We were pretty well swamped - that's possibly an exaggeration - but we were very overburdened with intelligence on a broad scale that was pretty well more than we could cope with in terms of plots, leads to plots and things that we needed to pursue. "By 2003 I found it necessary to ask the Prime Minister for a doubling of our budget. This is unheard of, but he and the Treasury and the Chancellor accepted that because I was able to demonstrate the scale of the problem." The Chilcot panel published a previously classified document which showed that the former MI5 boss was not simply being wise after the event. A year before British troops went into Iraq, she sent the Home Office a memo which - though phrased in official language - demolished the idea that Saddam Hussein's regime represented a credible terrorist threat to the UK. In a memo to John Gieve, Permanent Secretary to the Home Office, in March 2002, Lady Manningham-Buller told him that Saddam was not likely to use chemical or biological weapons unless "he felt the survival of his regime was in doubt". The memo went on: "We assess that Iraqi capability to mount attacks in the UK is currently limited." Lady Manningham-Buller also hinted at tension between Mr Blair's office and MI5 over the dossier that the Prime Minister presented to Parliament in September 2002, to prepare public opinion for the likelihood of war. "We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable," she said. Evidence: What he said - and what she said False claims of links between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein Tony Blair claimed on 21 Jan 2003: "There is some intelligence evidence about loose links between al-Qa'ida and various people in Iraq... It would not be correct to say there is no evidence whatever of linkages between al-Qa'ida and Iraq." Foreign Office spokesman claimed on 29 Jan 2003: "We believe that there have been, and still are, some al-Qa'ida operatives in parts of Iraq controlled by Baghdad. It is hard to imagine that they are there without the knowledge and acquiescence of the Iraqi government." Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, yesterday: "There was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA." Hand-picking flimsy 'intelligence' Blair, to the Commons 24 Sept 2002: "It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability..." Blair, to the Commons 25 Feb 2003: "The intelligence is clear: He [Saddam] continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death." Manningham-Buller, yesterday: "The nature of intelligence - it is a source of information, it is rarely complete, it needs to be assessed, it is fragmentary... We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it [the September 2002 dossier] and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable." Iraq posed no risk to Britain Blair, to the Commons 10 April 2002: "Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also." Manningham-Buller, yesterday: "We regarded the direct threat from Iraq as low... we didn't believe he had the capability to do anything in the UK." Ministers were told that invading Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism to Britain Blair, farewell speech at the Labour conference, 26 September 2006: "This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy." Manningham-Buller, yesterday: "It was communicated through the JIC assessments, to which I fed in... I believe they [senior ministers] did read them. If they read them, they can have had no doubt." The Iraq war made Britain a more dangerous place and allowed al-Qa'ida to gain a hold in Iraq Blair, 29 Jan 2010: "If I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better, I believe we are. The world is safer as a result." Manningham-Buller, yesterday: "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a generation of young people who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as an attack on Islam. We [MI5] were pretty well swamped... with intelligence on a broad scale that was pretty well more than we could cope with in terms of plots, leads to plots and things that we needed to pursue. "We gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before. The post-Iraq plots 7/7 bombers - 2005 The bombs detonated on London Underground trains and a bus in July 2005 killed 52 members of the public and injured around 700. Three of the four suicide bombers had been born in Yorkshire; the fourth, born in Jamaica, came to the UK aged five. In his video, one bomber said: "Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities." London Haymarket/Glasgow Airport attacks - 2007 Bilal Abdulla, a doctor, and Kafeel Ahmed, a PhD engineering student, tried and failed to set off bombs outside a London nightclub on 29 June. The following day they drove a jeep filled with gas canisters into Glasgow Airport. Abdulla's trial heard his involvement was "because of events in Iraq". Liquid bomb plot - 2006 A terror plot was exposed in which liquid bombs were to be smuggled on to airliners. Many of the men made 'suicide' videos citing British foreign policy. Umar Islam said in his video: "If you think you can go into our land and do what you are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and... think it will not come back on to your doorstep, you have another think coming." From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 23 00:03:50 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] More of the Rich Run as Populist Outsiders Message-ID: "Call it the Great Recession paradox. Even as voters express outrage at the insider culture of big bailouts and bonuses, their search for political saviors has led them to this: a growing crowd of ?ber-rich candidates, comfortable in boardrooms and country clubs, spending a fortune to remake themselves into populist insurgents." More of the Rich Run as Populist Outsiders By DAMIEN CAVE and MICHAEL LUO Published: July 22, 2010 MIAMI - When Jeff Greene, a k a the Meltdown Mogul, recently brought his Democratic campaign for the United States Senate to a poor Miami neighborhood rife with the kinds of subprime mortgages that he became a billionaire betting against, did he: A) Arrive in a Cadillac Escalade S.U.V., before stumping for energy conservation; B) Tell the crowd that he was "fed up and frustrated" with Washington while suggesting job-creation ideas previously proposed by Washington politicians; C) Receive a raucous welcome as an outsider who could turn Florida around. The answer? All of the above, of course. Call it the Great Recession paradox. Even as voters express outrage at the insider culture of big bailouts and bonuses, their search for political saviors has led them to this: a growing crowd of ?ber-rich candidates, comfortable in boardrooms and country clubs, spending a fortune to remake themselves into populist insurgents. The number of self-financed candidates has crept up the last few election cycles, and this year seems to be on pace for another uptick. Through just the second quarter of the year, at least 42 House and Senate candidates - 7 Democrats and 35 Republicans - in 23 states had already donated $500,000 or more of their own money to their campaigns, according to the most recent data available from the Center for Responsive Politics. That list does not even include governors' races, and the roster promises to grow as the campaign season progresses and spending escalates. Historically, self-financed candidates have tended to lose. The National Institute on Money in State Politics recently found that of those candidates who received more than half of all campaign contributions from themselves or an immediate family member, only 11 percent won from 2000 to 2009. But this year might be different, with a down economy making it harder for traditional candidates to raise money, and with anti-incumbency fever at record levels. "They're running in a more favorable context," said Jennifer A. Steen, a professor of political science at Arizona State University, who has studied self-financed candidates. "So we should expect them to do better." Having gobs of personal cash to toss into a race seems to be especially potent in California and Florida, with their expensive media markets. The governors' races are a prime example. In California, Meg Whitman, a Republican and former chief executive of eBay, has swamped all other self-financed candidates across the country, using $90 million of her own money to trounce Steve Poizner, who contributed $24 million from his own pocket, in the Republican primary. And in Florida, Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA Healthcare - a large hospital chain that paid $1.7 billion in fines for fraudulently billing government programs like Medicare - has become so visible on television that his latest ads start with him saying "Me again." Mr. Scott has shocked the Republican establishment by becoming the clear front-runner after spending more than $20 million on advertisements. Mr. Greene, though, is the biggest surprise so far. A Democrat who had been a Republican; a brash, gold-watch-and-Prada-sunglasses-wearing investor with friends like Mike Tyson and Heidi Fleiss, even he admits he has been surprised by how quickly his campaign has picked up support. He entered just before the filing deadline in April. Democratic officials laughed him off initially. But not anymore. Recent polls show that Mr. Greene, 55, has pulled roughly even in the primary with Representative Kendrick B. Meek, the Miami Democrat who had been the party favorite, though Gov. Charlie Crist still leads as an independent in a three-way general election. Mr. Greene's campaign finance report filed last week starkly illustrates the impact of his wealth. He took in just $3,036 in outside contributions, while lending himself - and spending - $5.9 million in the second quarter, not far off from what Mr. Meek has raised in 18 months. Mr. Greene insists that for self-financed candidates, now is the moment. "If 2008 was the year of change, 2010 is the year of frustration," he said in an interview. His approach, like that of many other rich candidates, is simple: tap into voter anger ("I'm fed up," Mr. Greene tells crowds) then argue that only those who have succeeded in business can drive economic recovery, without kowtowing to special interests. So Linda E. McMahon, a Connecticut Republican who made her fortune with professional wrestling before her Senate run, has recently produced a television ad declaring that "politicians have had their chance, and blown it" while her jobs plan "is backed by experience." Mr. Greene, in turn, told the crowd in Liberty Square, the poor Miami neighborhood: "My whole life I've created jobs, I mean, literally thousands of jobs. And that's why I'm running." Sara Smith, president of the Liberty Square Resident Council, said she welcomed Mr. Greene's campaign to the area, which Mr. Meek has represented in Congress since 2002. "We're looking for candidates who are going to go up the road and help us," Ms. Smith said. But some skeptical voters, burned by an economy that has often worked for the few, not the many, are asking how voting in the wealthy would actually lead to broad-based improvement. After all, while Carly Fiorina, a Republican who is challenging Senator Barbara Boxer in California, declares on her Web site that she will "fight for every job" if elected, as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard in 2003, she cut about 18,000 jobs. Mr. Greene's claims have also come under scrutiny. In an interview, he said hundreds of people were hired to work on buildings he invested in since he started buying properties in the 1970s in Massachusetts, where he grew up. But most of his fortune, estimated at $1.4 billion by Forbes in 2008, comes from derivatives that let him profit from the collapse of subprime mortgages. Mr. Greene described this as an underdog's victory: "I went up against the big banks and won," he said - even though he first needed two of those banks, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase & Company, to grant him special status as an institutional investor, rather than as an individual. Ultimately for many voters, it will come down to trust. Can these privileged candidates be trusted more than traditional politicians to fight for those who are struggling? Mr. Greene, again, is an extreme test case. He speaks often on the stump about working as a busboy at the Breakers resort in Palm Beach to help pay for college. But these days, he lives in an oceanfront mansion when he is not on one of his yachts or his plane with gold seat-belt buckles. In Century Village - a Boca Raton retirement complex and a petri dish for Democratic Florida opinion - the mix brought both calculated support, and disdain. Marvin Manning, who introduced Mr. Greene to about 150 retirees, said his lack of political experience might be "for the best." But Adelle Pastman, 73, said Mr. Greene seemed to be treating the Senate as just another acquisition. "I just don't like that a person has so much money that they feel they can politic themselves into office," she said. Ms. Pastman winced at the thought from behind large glasses just before Mr. Greene put on his Pradas and drove away in his S.U.V. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/us/politics/23self.html?_r=1&hp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 23 00:24:41 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:24:41 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Climate bill dead Message-ID: Thursday, Jul 22, 2010 15:30 ET War Room Climate bill dead By Alex Pareene Sorry, Earth! Maybe we'll do something about not destroying you next year? Harry Reid has officially given up on passing climate legislation this summer. Reid was originally going to maybe put some Earth-helping stuff in a bill responding to the Gulf oil spill, with the idea that Republicans would be embarrassed to vote against a bill addressing the oil spill, but Republicans are shameless, and so Harry Reid gave up. John Kerry -- who made headlines for incessantly bugging his peers to pass a climate bill despite the fact that no one wanted too -- promises this won't take as long as health care did, which is probably good, because if it takes as long as health care did, there won't be much the Senate can do. Meanwhile: Sea levels are rising faster than scientists predicted just a few years ago. Himalayan glaciers are melting. In the American West, pine beetles (which struggle to survive the cold) are multiplying and killing trees. According to NASA, 2010 is on course to be the planet's hottest year since records started in 1880. The current top 10, in descending order, are: 2005, 2007, 2009, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2004, 2001 and 2008. On the other hand, it definitely snowed last winter. a.. Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene at salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene http://www.salon.com/news/global_warming/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/07/22/climate_bill_dead -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 23 10:37:38 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:37:38 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] A Slow Motion Katrina Message-ID: <1B8457F34F2C431983508A7CDAFF1025@agingCHS072729> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/23-4 CommonDreams.org July 23, 2010 A Slow Motion Katrina: Notes from the BP Catastrophe by Clare Bayard July 18th: I left New Orleans yesterday. On my way to the airport, I saw the front page of the Times-Picayune screaming "Leak Stopped." Half of me aches for this to be true, but I'm terrified that the rest of the country will officially wipe its hands and forget, even while the nightmare keeps unfolding. It's been hard not to feel that way these last couple weeks while walking the torn roads of New Orleans, where five years after Katrina, the reconstruction still hasn't come though everyone else has moved on. The Louisiana wetlands are transcendently gorgeous, and we're losing them. South of Belle Amir, heading towards Grand Isle, you travel for miles between lush sugarcane fields and the wide bayou fringed in cattails and elephant-ears, till cultivation gives way to marshes. Utterly flat, fragmented between land and water, they could go on forever. Except they're rapidly disappearing. Multiple people have told me that they could still be saved if the political will was summoned to implement river re-engineering schemes to replenish the silting that happened naturally until humans monkeyed with the Mississippi. In the 50's, oil companies dredged canals and laid pipe through the marshes as the state sold itself away for cheap to the industry. As Louisiana's economy and political machines entangled themselves with oil, short-sighted and profit-driven engineering and extraction began destroying the land. In Lafourche Parish, heading towards the ground zero of the oil's landfall, dead oak trees poke up through the marshes. Oaks are warrior trees who can survive almost anything but salt water. After Katrina, when the spreading giants on New Orleans' wide avenues returned to life, I thought they were the indicator that life will persist. One of my companions, a Louisianan activist named Jennifer, tells me that marsh trees can survive serious storm winds, but these died before or during Katrina from saltwater intrusion. We've thrown the balance so far off that even the oaks can't endure it. Cover-up or Clean-up? One highway stretches through the 30-mile expanse of Grand Isle, a narrow island that became the first landfall of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Hand-painted signs along the roadside rip into BP, one raging "Can't fish or swim how the hell are we supposed to feed our kids BP?" and another depicting a tarry Spongebob saying "What's an oil plume?" >From the road, the beach is blocked from view by dunes, but you can see the white tops of tents and motionless cranes parked on the beach. At the end of Grand Isle, the public beach facilities have been converted into cleanup operations. BP has several massive, empty tents in the parking lot, air conditioning hoses attached to generators. There are two small cleanup crews raking sand into giant plastic bags on the beach, just a couple pockets of activity along this 30-mile stretch of beach dotted with machinery, tents, giant floodlight stands, and pyramids of sand. We're in BP's Zone 14, where last week orange "tiger booms" lined the water. We walk out on the public fishing pier and watch the tide roll in and out over tarballs that resemble cat turds. Rainbow sheen glistens on the water under the pier like a parking lot after heavy rain. The orange waves rolled in here last week, but today there's nothing so photogenic-- hence our access. I can't smell anything funny, but I have a cold and barely can smell the ocean itself. Hundreds of people are being seen in the emergency rooms of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi hospitals with respiratory, skin, and internal symptoms from exposure and inhalation. Today and tomorrow, in St. Bernard Parish, people will collect 31 independent and verified sightings of oil, in the waters and on the marshes and shoreline, some of it submerged. Tiger booms are a set of three long inflatable bladder lines stacked into a pyramid, then floated out on the surface where they proceed to do nothing at all if not correctly arranged to channel oil into a collector. This week BP has managed, astoundingly, to actually dial down the effectiveness. Thin white floating strings that look as wide as my arm wiggle back and forth in the tide, most of them fixed by one end only, for a couple hundred feet of this 30-mile beach. It's so insulting. I can't even imagine how you could crop this into a photo-op. BP dumped 2 million gallons of Corexit, a chemical banned in European countries, in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 3 months. It's called a dispersant but acts as a submergent, sinking the oil out of sight and into deeper layers of marine life, and creating underwater plumes of oil up to 22 miles long. While the compound "disperses" nothing, surface burnings are releasing the chemical stew of oil and Corexit into the winds. It's one of the more horrifying and short-sighted tactics in BP's "out of sight" campaign. BP is creating and manuevering loopholes to limit their liability, guard their money, desert the damage and take control of the reparations process. Scientists estimated the gusher at 35-60,000 barrels a day. Without knowing the actual volume, efforts to hold BP to any minimal standard of accountability is very difficult. At the same time, BP is manipulating the claims structure, by "creating an escrow account is moving what is a right under Federal law into a discretionary zone," according to attorney Monique Harden of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. "They're just doing it for PR," says a woman from Ocean Springs. She moved there after Katrina flooded her out of New Orleans, and commutes over to help with a civilian cleanup project. She explains to us that BP is only present on the public, visible beach. All the residential areas and mangroves around the other side of the island are fending for themselves. Volunteers led by a birder and a park ranger are cleaning off 542 hermit crabs from the oiled and abandoned wetlands. Most of the volunteers are teenagers, and they explain they were just trying to figure out something that distressed Gulf kids could be involved in. Their operation consists mostly of multiple trays of water and lots of latex gloves; it doesn't look any more promising for the Grand Isle hermit crab population than the oysters, shrimp, fish, birds, turtles, or anything else living in and off the water (including humans). The birder volunteer coordinator tells us about seeing sick dolphins last week. Jennifer, whose momma is also a southern Louisiana birder, tells us her mother heard about the plans the Department of Fish and Wildlife drew up for BP for a recovery plan for each species affected. The "plan" for bears entailed BP buying two high-powered rifles (not tranquilizer guns) in the event that an oiled brown bear is discovered. Recently, BP relaxed its lockdown on parts of Grand Isle. Although they still threaten felony charges and $40,000 fines for approaching their boats or booms, credentialed journalists now supposedly have greater access to cleanup sites. We continue to hear about police and Coast Guard running reporters off, explaining they're under BP orders, calling into question why BP's authority supercedes that of these towns' mayors and sheriffs. Today we can cross the dunes and walk on the top third of the beach, but the orange fencing stops us well before any of the uselessly beached booms. We access the beach near several military jeeps parked under empty vacation homes, and walk right up to a constellation of heavy machinery arrayed on a massive pallet with a black rubber moat. A car-sized propane tank is hooked up to a number of steel boxes and funnels, attached to a small oil tank. Several contractors for an unnamed oilfield company are locking up the site for the day-- and by locking, I mean fastening the gate with plastic chains to a perimeter of plastic fencing. They're significantly more willing to talk than we'd expected, given how 10 days earlier the sheriff had run people out upon sight. "This is the big cleaning experiment," says one of the contractors, who's from Lafayette. "Our company cleans cuttings, so BP contracted us to adapt the equipment for cleaning sand." Will it work? "Oh, I'm very confident. Not for the first run, not for the next two weeks, but then we'll tweak it. This is the first station, the test." He says this is one of several sites where this system is set up along Grand Isle, and if it works they'll build sites along Alabama's coast too. "We were supposed to start today but they're still doing tests," he said, assuring us that the scientists are working overtime to make sure the cleaning process will also remove the dispersant. Oil separated from the sand will be siphoned off into the 2,000 liter tank, and then the sand is returned to the beach. "This is the largest enviromental disaster in U.S. history, and possibly worst cleanup in U.S." says Rose Braz from the Center for Biological Diversity. Another Chapter in Militarized Disaster "Relief" as a Door to Profit We try to visit Port Fourchon, at the other end of Grand Isle, but run into a checkpoint admitting only "official" vehicles. This is how we're told it looks in Cocodrie and Venice, the other epicenters of the cleanup operations: locked down. At the Port Fourchon checkpoint, public schoolbuses are picking up workers. One Jefferson Parish bus has a handwritten sign in the windshield reading "Ashland Tent City." The workers we see are mostly Latino and African-American, and look exhausted, and I wonder how many of them are already sick. BP has been hiring some local maritime and oil workers, and/or their boats, at drastically reduced wages. Oil workers are also working way below their payscale, especially those who are the more specialized laborers and make better money than most Louisianans. Now we're hearing that BP's own data reveals only 28% of claimants are getting anything at all out of them. BP's treatment of undocumented laborers is very familiar from Katrina rebuilding: stealing wages, abusing contracts, and threatening deportation. The New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice exposed reports from immigrant workers that ICE agents ran racial profiling checkpoints and roundups at the cleanup centers in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish. BP has also been continuing the tradition of using slave labor in the form of prisoners. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the country, and 70% of the people it locks up are African-American men. The state runs Angola, the largest maximum-security prison in the country, on the grounds of a former slave plantation, and provides unpaid workers to state entities and companies including BP. Port Fourchon has a directory board at the turnoff to the docks which lists every oil company I've ever heard of and several I haven't. In the convenience store, I talk to two National Guard soldiers who have been there since May. They say there are 6,000 National Guard in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, 2,500 in Florida, and more being deployed. "90% of what we're doing for BP is just for PR," they say, echoing others. They're heartily unimpressed with BP's planning, or inability to stop the actual gusher. The tiger booming was useless, exposed as such with the storms, and most of the efforts have been directed at image rather than effectiveness. The only exception they note is the same one people on Grand Isle mentioned; some civilians on Elmer's Island got ahold of Guard support to build up stone and sand dams to keep the oil out of the wetlands. Andrew calls these "land bridges." BP had nothing to do with this initiative, which I haven't heard about through the news at all, but apparently has been useful. Losses Bigger Than We Can Calculate I knew that southern Louisiana has a very large Vietnamese population, but I didn't and still don't fully understand the unique multiethnic spread of communities living with and off the water on the Gulf Coast there. The United Houma Nation and other indigenous people are still rebuilding after Katrina and Rita. Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian immigrants all brought their maritime traditions. Cajuns, newer-comers than First Nations people but long settled, have developed culturally in direct and unique relationship with that land. They are artisanal workers, who harvest seafood on a small scale using very old, successful, sustainable methods. They can't just transplant and they can't just absorb into industrial scale operations. People are leaving if they can, or staying and risking illness. The coast's culture and communities are being devastasted. Catherine, a New Orleanian, is a doctor who did emergency medical work in the flooded city post-Katrina. She tells me she's seeing the same things coming into the ER now from the BP spill that she did then. We read reports of children with rectal bleeding in Pensacola. In Venice, which like Grand Isle is about 50 miles from the Deepwater Horizon rig, even the EPA has admitted measuring dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and other toxics in the air. People in New Orleans have been ill for months. In Alabama, people are reporting chemical burns from rain. ER patients and water testing have exhibited such high levels of propylene glycol (a minor ingredient in Corexit) that the actual concentration of dispersant in the air and ocean is a terrifying unknown. Mental as well as physical health is straining. An organizer from the Peoples' Institute for Survival and Beyond in New Orleans, lives in Plaquemines Parish. He and others are trying to bring mental health work skills into the communities there; not just dispatch professionals to volunteer in the disaster zone, but build up the local capacity. Unsurprisingly, reports of depression, domestic violence and suicides are increasing. Name the Destroyed Dreams On Grand Isle, we visited a graveyard built by a Cajun fisher family. 101 white crosses bear the names of what they and the neighbors they consulted will miss. A header above the graveyard reads "In Memory of All That is Lost Courtesy of BP and the Federal Government." Handpainted on the crosses: Sand between my toes. Stargazing. Snowy egret. Yellowfin tuna. Frogs croaking. Summer rain. This graveyard makes it more real to me than anything has. I can almost hear their voices. Standing in this graveyard, Jennifer, a southern Louisianan, says, "I love my people. Look, there's both shrimp creole and shrimp etouffe. Trout meuniere and trout almandine." The level of detail about what people are losing in their lives-- not just basic rights like drinkable water, breathable air, homes and jobs and health-- but peoples' delight in their land and love for their lives... this is not in the news. Outsiders like me are challenged to understand and learn from how this multiethnic community exists in, such deep connection to this land, these waterways, these lifeways. As in New Orleans, culture and livelihood are so tied to place. People rebuilt after Katrina and Rita and many previous hurricanes, and many are fighting tooth and nail to stay now. Their fight is inspiring...and enraging, because this devastation is utterly manmade and the people who caused it have names and addresses. Digging Out from Under the Oil: Gulf Residents Fighting for Their Lives I came down to the coast because I needed to make it real for myself, and to see if I could carry anything back of use. I also went because I held this sharp kernel of fear that I need to say goodbye to Southern Louisiana, to the lovely endless horizon of water and land patchworked together, the oaks and the egrets. Dream country. Nightmare country, spiked with oilworks as far as you can see in any direction. At the last New Orleans Organizers' Roundtable, Monique Harden from Advocates for Environmental Human Rights handily summed up one of the BP/Katrina connections with "We're an expendable area not worth protecting. And if you rise up, here's the police." The wealth (and destruction) that has been extracted not just from the land and ocean, but from working-class and poor people in this state; from the contemporary plantation of Angola State Prison, to the destruction of public housing post-Katrina, to the savageness of the oil industry... it makes my head and heart ache. So many New Orleanians told me "it feels like a slow-motion Katrina,"..."I think we're mostly in denial," ... "this feels like the winter of 2005 after the flood," or other variations. In some ways, there feels there is a huge vacuum where massive community and national mobilizations should be. The recent U.S. Social Forum showed a very low level of discussion and focus on the BP spill, even as a symptom of the larger issues many participants are committed to. But many local people are indeed mobilizing. Organizations like Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans, the Workers Center for Racial Justice, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Louisiana Justice Institute, and more have been taking action, speaking out, organizing, documenting, advocating, supporting, and fighting back. Fisher and shrimper folks in the southern parishes who before April had never considered themselves activists, never contemplated organizing press conferences or going after an oil company, have stepped rapidly forward into their power as community organizers fighting for their people and place. In New Orleans, it's in the public dialogue differently because people smell it, just ate possibly their last oysters, or have family sick or out of work in the coastal parishes. You can't go a day without seeing another anti-BP shirt, or some punk in a coffeeshop handing you a flyer on Corexit. Twenty organizations just came together to support the proposed Gulf Coast Oil Spill Legal Liabilities and Claims Act of 2010 in Congress right now. This fightback takes bravery in a state that's drowning in crude. Its politics are so entangled in such a deep matrix of control by the oil companies. For decades, Louisiana has been selling itself out to these companies, to the oil and war industries, and now the economic survival of so many of its peoples has been made dependent on these same industries that are destroying everyone's longterm ability to survive. This week's big news is that Northrop Grumann just announced it will be cutting 5,000 jobs at its shipyard outside New Orleans. In a state that was impoverished before BP destroyed thousands of peoples' livelihoods, the loss of 5,000 positions and the associated jobs supported by those incomes will have a massive impact. 100,000 people work in Louisiana's offshore drilling and its supportive jobs, without even counting drilling operations on land. BP is one of the biggest suppliers of oil to the U.S. military, and Northrup Grumann is one of the major U.S. war profiteering companies. For those of us who work to put the oil and arms industries out of business, our strategies need to encompass alternate plans for the workers caught in the crush of these collapses. We need to think hard and act fast on what conversion from the petroleum-driven war economy means, what it means for jobs for Cajun and Vietnamese and Houma peoples living along the Gulf Coast as well as people in your neighborhood and mine. After the Flames: Hope, Loss, and Lessons for the Future If you haven't forced yourself to look at the photos: do it. Look at the towers of fire and smoke from when BP decided to light the Gulf of Mexico on fire. Look at the dead birds and rays smothered in oil. Can you find images of the Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, some of the rarest in the world, being burned alive? Look at whatever images you can find of the dying bayous. And remember what we're not seeing in the photos. Everything under the water, the unprecedented and unpredictable second disaster of the dispersant, Corexit poisoning the offshore workers and anyone breathing the Gulf air, and sinking new toxics into deep water. Photos aren't showing people with no income who can't make their loan payments on houses rebuilt after Katrina. You aren't seeing the cleanup workers who were fired for bringing their own safety masks after BP warned them not to. BP keeps getting busted for doctoring photo, but they don't even have to Photoshop out the rising rates of domestic violence in these households in crisis. The BP catastrophe is not happening in a historical or geographic vacuum. We remember Shell's mangling of Nigeria, Chevron/Texaco in Ecuador, and Union Carbide in India. Louisiana residents are living (and dying from) the ongoing disaster of the Cancer Alley refineries in the river parishes outside New Orleans. Oil companies refused to reform from previous spills in the Gulf, like the 1970 blowout that burned for months and sent oil as far as the Yucatan Peninsula. None of this is new, or unique. So instead, let's look for the lessons-- what can be learned about justice and healing from these other struggles? Indigenous leaders from Ecuador recently visited the Gulf Coast to connect with Houma Nation leaders there. 25 years after Union Carbide's massacre in Bhopal, people are continuing to expand the movement for accountability and reparations. These are not short-term struggles. When it was time to leave this week, I just couldn't make myself say goodbye to southern Louisiana. I may be just being stubborn, but the people living there are stubborner. Why should I be giving up when they aren't? And to paraphrase Tracie Washington from New Orleans' Louisiana Justice Institute, "Stop calling me resilient when that means you're just going to keep doing things to me." Thanks to everyone who talked BP with me in Louisiana these past weeks, and especially to Jennifer Whitney, Catherine Jones, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, and Monique Harden for giving me so much to think about. A starter list to learn more about and support Gulf Coast leadership: Advocates for Environmental Human Rights: http://www.ehumanrights.org/ Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans: http://www.vayla-no.org/ Louisiana Justice Institute: http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/ New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice: http://www.nowcrj.org/ Louisiana Environmental Action Network: http://www.leanweb.org/ ? 2010 Clare Bayard is an organizer with Catalyst Project (www.collectiveliberation.org) for demilitarization and racial and economic justice. Clare builds support for war resisters, and has worked in solidarity with Gulf Coast Reconstruction movements since Katrina. From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 23 11:47:15 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:47:15 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima Message-ID: <5EB753E6FA7F4382ACC307AF79AB4687@agingCHS072729> http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/fall-j23.shtml The consequences of a US war crime Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima By Tom Eley 23 July 2010 The Iraqi city of Fallujah continues to suffer the ghastly consequences of a US military onslaught in late 2004. According to the authors of a new study, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009," the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945. The epidemiological study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health (IJERPH), also finds the prevalence of these conditions in Fallujah to be many times greater than in nearby nations. The assault on Fallujah, a city located 43 miles west of Baghdad, was one of the most horrific war crimes of our time. After the population resisted the US-led occupation of Iraq-a war of neo-colonial plunder launched on the basis of lies-Washington determined to make an example of the largely Sunni city. This is called "exemplary" or "collective" punishment and is, according to the laws of war, illegal. The new public health study of the city now all but proves what has long been suspected: that a high proportion of the weaponry used in the assault contained depleted uranium, a radioactive substance used in shells to increase their effectiveness. In a study of 711 houses and 4,843 individuals carried out in January and February 2010, authors Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan, Entesar Ariabi and a team of researchers found that the cancer rate had increased fourfold since before the US attack five years ago, and that the forms of cancer in Fallujah are similar to those found among the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors, who were exposed to intense fallout radiation. In Fallujah the rate of leukemia is 38 times higher, the childhood cancer rate is 12 times higher, and breast cancer is 10 times more common than in populations in Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait. Heightened levels of adult lymphoma and brain tumors were also reported. At 80 deaths out of every 1,000 births, the infant mortality rate in Fallujah is more than five times higher than in Egypt and Jordan, and eight times higher than in Kuwait. Strikingly, after 2005 the proportion of girls born in Fallujah has increased sharply. In normal populations, 1050 boys are born for every 1000 girls. But among those born in Fallujah in the four years after the US assault, the ratio was reduced to 860 boys for every 1000 female births. This alteration is similar to gender ratios found in Hiroshima after the US atomic attack of 1945. The most likely reason for the change in the sex ratio, according to the researchers, is the impact of a major mutagenic event-likely the use of depleted uranium in US weapons. While boys have one X-chromosome, girls have a redundant X-chromosome and can therefore absorb the loss of one chromosome through genetic damage. "This is an extraordinary and alarming result," said Busby, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Ulster and director of scientific research for Green Audit, an independent environmental research group. "To produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened. We need urgently to find out what the agent was. Although many suspect uranium, we cannot be certain without further research and independent analysis of samples from the area." Busby told an Italian television news station, RAI 24, that the "extraordinary" increase in radiation-related maladies in Fallujah is higher than that found in the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the US atomic strikes of 1945. "My guess is that this was caused by depleted uranium," he said. "They must be connected." The US military uses depleted uranium, also known as spent nuclear fuel, in armor-piercing shells and bullets because it is twice as dense as lead. Once these shells hit their target, however, as much as 40 percent of the uranium is released in the form of tiny particles in the area of the explosion. It can remain there for years, easily entering the human bloodstream, where it lodges itself in lymph glands and attacks the DNA produced in the sperm and eggs of affected adults, causing, in turn, serious birth defects in the next generation. The research is the first systematic scientific substantiation of a body of evidence showing a sharp increase in infant mortality, birth defects, and cancer in Fallujah. In October of 2009, several Iraqi and British doctors wrote a letter to the United Nations demanding an inquiry into the proliferation of radiation-related sickness in the city: "Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukemias.. "In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 newborn babies, 24 percent of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed.. "Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects, but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, 'a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage.'" (See: "Sharp rise in birth defects in Iraqi city destroyed by US military") - http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/fall-n17.shtml The Pentagon responded to this report by asserting that there were no studies to prove any proliferation of deformities or other maladies associated with US military actions. "No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues," a Defense Department spokesman told the BBC in March. There have been no studies, however, in large part because Washington and its puppet Baghdad regime have blocked them. According to the authors of "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah," the Iraqi authorities attempted to scuttle their survey. "[S]hortly after the questionnaire survey was completed, Iraqi TV reportedly broadcast that a questionnaire survey was being carried out by terrorists and that anyone who was answering or administering the questionnaire could be arrested," the study reports. The history of the atrocity committed by American imperialism against the people of Fallujah began on April 28, 2003, when US Army soldiers fired indiscriminately into a crowd of about 200 residents protesting the conversion of a local school into a US military base. Seventeen were killed in the unprovoked attack, and two days later American soldiers fired on a protest against the murders, killing two more. This intensified popular anger, and Fallujah became a center of the Sunni resistance against the occupation-and US reprisals. On March 31, 2004, an angry crowd stopped a convoy of the private security firm Blackwater USA, responsible for its own share of war crimes. Four Blackwater mercenaries were dragged from their vehicles, beaten, burned, and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. The US military then promised it would pacify the city, with one unnamed officer saying it would be turned into "a killing field," but Operation Vigilant Resolve, involving thousands of Marines, ended in the abandonment of the siege by the US military in May, 2004. The victory of Fallujah's residents against overwhelming military superiority was celebrated throughout Iraq and watched all over the world. The Pentagon delivered its response in November 2004. The city was surrounded, and all those left inside were declared to be enemy combatants and fair game for the most heavily equipped killing machine in world history. The Associated Press reported that men attempting to flee the city with their families were turned back into the slaughterhouse. In the attack, the US made heavy use of the chemical agent white phosphorus. Ostensibly used only for illuminating battlefields, white phosphorus causes terrible and often fatal wounds, burning its way through building material and clothing before eating away skin and then bone. The chemical was also used to suck the oxygen out of buildings where civilians were hiding. Washington's desire for revenge against the population is indicated by the fact that the US military reported about the same number of "gunmen" killed (1,400) as those taken alive as prisoners (1,300-1,500). In one instance, NBC News captured video footage of a US soldier executing a wounded and helpless Iraqi man. A Navy investigation later found the Marine had been acting in self-defense. Fifty-one US soldiers died in 10 days of combat. The true number of city residents who were killed is not known. The city's population before the attack was estimated to be between 425,000 and 600,000. The current population is believed to be between 250,000 and 300,000. Tens of thousands, mostly women and children, fled in advance of the attack. Half of the city's buildings were destroyed, most of these reduced to rubble. Like much of Iraq, Fallujah remains in ruins. According to a recent report from IRIN, a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Fallujah still has no functioning sewage system six years after the attack. "Waste pours onto the streets and seeps into drinking water supplies," the report notes. "Abdul-Sattar Kadhum al-Nawaf, director of Fallujah general hospital, said the sewage problem had taken its toll on residents' health. They were increasingly affected by diarrhea, tuberculosis, typhoid and other communicable diseases." The savagery of the US assault shocked the world, and added the name Fallujah to an infamous list that includes My Lai, Sabra-Shatila, Gu?rnica, Nanking, Lidice, and Wounded Knee. But unlike those other massacres, the crime against Fallujah did not end when the bullets were no longer fired or the bombs stopped falling. The US military's decision to heavily deploy depleted uranium, all but proven by "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah," was a wanton act of brutality, poisoning an entire generation of children not yet born in 2004. The Fallujah study is timely, with the US now preparing a major escalation of the violence in Afghanistan. The former head of US Afghanistan operations, General Stanley McChrystal, was replaced last month after a media campaign, assisted by a Rolling Stone magazine feature, accused him, among other things, of tying the hands of US soldiers in their response to Afghan insurgents. McChrystal was replaced by General David Petraeus, formerly head of the US Central Command. Petraeus has outlined new rules of engagement designed to allow for the use of disproportionate force against suspected militants. Petraeus, in turn, was replaced at Central Command by General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who played a key planning role in the US assault on Fallujah in 2004. Mattis revels in killing, telling a public gathering in 2005 "it's fun to shoot some people.... You know, it's a hell of a hoot." The author also reccommends: Fallujah and the laws of war http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fall-n24.shtml [24 November 2004] Horrific scenes from the ashes of Fallujah http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/fall-n18.shtml [18 November 2004] From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 23 12:40:02 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:40:02 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Book Swaps: the future of the literary event? Message-ID: <998A3976FF154C45B1C92874F10BC057@agingCHS072729> (A fine idea to generate interest in your B&M store....) http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/aug/25/book-swaps-future-literary-event Book Swaps: the future of the literary event? A fresh spin on the read-and-sign gig could be the shape of things to come Now that literary festivals in towns and villages, tents and church halls up and down the country have become a distinctive and established part of British cultural life, the pressure is on to come up with new and original ways to present books and writers to the reading public. Festivals have to have a USP. In the minds of the arts administrators who run these things, it's no longer enough to have authors turn up like travelling salespersons, do their turn, smile a bit, sign copies, and flit off to the next gig. Ideally, there has to be an interaction with the audience. Enter Scott Pack, a name new to book events, though not to bookselling. Pack, formerly an enfant terrible at Waterstone's, is a force of nature, a one-man literary bandwagon who, as a mundane bookseller, was plainly restricted in his ambitions by the tiresome business of actually selling books. After Waterstone's, he set up shop as an innovative online publisher with a business called the Friday Project. This, after many vicissitudes, and quite a lot of red ink, has ended up under the benevolent umbrella of HarperCollins. But I digress. Scott Pack is one of those hustlers the book trade throws up from time to time, someone so obsessed with promoting all kinds of literature to the public, and so wrapped up in the world of books, that he simply cannot stop himself. His latest venture, a kind of mini book festival, has just been launched at the Fire Station in Windsor, Pack's home town. There he has teamed up with another former bookseller, Marie Phillips, whose enjoyable first novel, Gods Behaving Badly, made a bit of a splash two years ago. Marie is as subtle as Scott is unmediated. Last week, this dynamic duo launched what they call the Book Swap, which is certainly a literary event with a difference. Out of the blue, I was invited to participate, and in the spirit of experiment and innovation did so in company with first novelist Jessica Ruston, author of the highly entertaining Anglo-American romp, Luxury. It certainly was an evening with a difference. The Fire Station, recently decommissioned, now has a raked auditorium with seats for about 150, and a small stage, which Pack and Phillips had transformed into a passable imitation of a student bedsit (collapsed sofa, piles of books, tea, coffee etc.) Pack's obsession, apparently, is cake. The evening was punctuated by offers of cake, macaroons, biscuits and so forth. And all Jessica and I had to do was bring along a book we wanted to swap with a member of the audience, and explain what we were swapping. It sounds corny, but it worked wonderfully well. Quite quickly a conversation about books was underway between myself, Marie and Jessica, and several members of the Windsor reading public. In the way of these things, we were soon discussing Anne Tyler, the art of the novel, the role of "word of mouth" and, yes, the power of broadsheet literary pages. Periodically, to keep up th flow, Scott or Marie would toss in a wild card question. And all the time, people were exchanging books. A volume of poems here, a thriller there, and so on. Scott Pack says he will do one of these events a month. I wouldn't be at all surprised (once he's refined the concept) if the Book Swap evening doesn't become the popular way to mix books, writers and the reading public. So far as I know this has not been tried anywhere else in the world. It's certainly original. And if Waterstone's had managed to get some books there, we might have sold some new books as well. (Some things never change.) From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 23 14:16:35 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:16:35 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] GM, Gasses, Irradiation and Big Business: Subversion in the Grocery Store Message-ID: July 22, 2010 GM, Gasses, Irradiation and Big Business: Subversion in the Grocery Store by Cameron Salisbury Wouldn't you know it. Just when we thought that we had made choices that made the adulterated American food supply manageable, Corporate Agriculture finds new ways to quietly and unobtrusively pollute our lunch. We figured a way around the colors, texturizers, hidden gluten, preservatives and taste enhancers with unpronounceable names, and thought we were home free at dinner time. That's the way it used to be. As the twenty-first century arrived the dark clouds that had been gathering for several decades finally turned American food production into a torrent of bad news for consumers and a bonanza for agribusiness. The new food productions and preservation techniques, like genetically modified seeds, irradiation of everything that doesn't move, and gasses that create the appearance of freshness no matter how old the meat, were originally introduced for commercial use in the latter years of the 20th century. None of these changes to the food supply were designed to benefit the health of the consumer. In fact, our regulatory watchdogs, the FDA and USDA have allowed their wholesale introduction into our food supply without serious testing or monitoring. To keep the consumer in the dark, the USDA and FDA deliberately colluded with Corporate Agriculture by allowing them to introduce their spiffy new methods of polluting the food supply and enhancing their bottom line without the labeling that would have allowed the consumers to make their own decisions. The consumer no longer has even the illusion of protection. We are on our own. There has never been more than one purpose to the unending adulteration of the food supply in the U.S., and it certainly was not to benefit us. All of the new pollution methods have been to extend shelf life into infinity and beyond, to sell more and cost Monsanto and ArcherDanielsMidland as little as possible to do it. They have the full collusion of the major grocery chains. Some of the changes to the food supply, like irradiation, indiscriminately kills organisms, the good and the bad alike, and eliminates the need for growers and processor to maintain sanitary conditions on the farm and at the factory. You may be buying and eating filth but at least it has been sterilized. Treatment with radiation also inhibits sprouting in potatoes and delays fruit ripening. In other words, it allows food to be transported long distances and extends shelf life far into the future with no change in appearance. Public Citizen, the Center for Food Safety, and Food and Water Watch have declared the use of radiation on the food supply to be an experiment on the American consumer without informed consent. Radiation-induced changes in human DNA can produce cancer. Do DNA changes to veggies create synthetic eats without the usual life supporting properties? No one knows what food irradiation kills besides pests, or if the food is functionally the same after. And then there are the production problems with the radiation itself: there has already been radioactive leakage from a processing plant into the water supply in a suburb of Atlanta. Thus far, despite continuing industry pressure, the FDA has maintained that irradiated food must contain a radiation symbol, which has limited its use since food processors fear that making consumers aware will hurt their profits. Lobbyists for Corporate Agriculture are working relentlessly to get the requirement for disclosure rescinded. On the flip side of the disclosure issue are the growing and processing methods for which consumers may legally be kept in the dark. Almost all U.S. produced corn, soybean, cotton and beet sugar are now GM. But, have you ever seen a label in the grocery store that would alert you to the presence of something in your veggies, meat, or corn flakes that you might not want to eat or feed your family? No? Unlike European countries where an informed public has ferociously fought the introduction of GM food, it is probable that every pantry and frig in the clueless U.S. contains it. And then there are the gasses, one of the newest unstudied innovations for contaminating food that is also legally allowed to remain undisclosed to the buyer. Most consumers are not aware that virtually all meat, fish and poultry sold at retail has been treated with a gas to extend the surface appearance of freshness. In the old days, say, a year or so ago, only packaged ground meats were treated with gas. Since the gas created a tight, balloon-like appearance to the packaging, they were easy to spot and avoid. These days, processors, with the collusion of large grocery stores, are in the habit of gassing everything possible. Even the fresh fish in the deli has almost always been gassed on its way to you, with the butcher often none the wiser. Packaged fruits and vegetables are also increasingly treated with gas. Food processors were able to convince the FDA and USDA that the gasses they use, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, occur naturally in the atmosphere and therefore qualify as GRAS - Generally Regarded As Safe - and in no need of labeling disclosure. Apparently none of the regulators thought to ask if gasses that enter the airways are metabolized the same as the identical gas that enters the digestive system by way of food. As the millions of people with an impaired immune system already know, they are not. It will probably take many years, as consumers gradually become aware of the impact of contaminated food on their bodies, to undo these regulations. Even without counting the endless list of preservatives, artificial colors and texturizing agents, quietly and invisibly the food supply of the United States has become the most legally polluted on earth. The US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, federal agencies created to protect the public from polluted food and unsafe medications, have been undermined by the corporate, capitalism-at-any-cost, mindset of one presidential administration after another. As mind-numbing as it seems, the activities of these federal regulators are often subsidized and compromised by their corporate regulatees. Scientists who object to the latest toxin proposed for grocery store aisles often have their careers threatened by the regulated, the ones actually calling the shots. In the meantime, U.S. life expectancy and average height, major indicators of the health of a population, today fall far behind other nations. Food allergies and asthma are an increasingly prominent causes of illness, death and disability. When you get a chance, tune in to this video: (video at http://opedinfo.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/gm-gasses-irradiation-and-big-business-subversion-in-the-grocery%C2%A0store/ ) From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 11:44:43 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:44:43 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] House Republicans Introduce Resolution Supporting Israel's Use of Military Force against Iran Message-ID: <58510F73BA5846E39A72C9C846442788@agingCHS072729> FYI, on 22 July 2010, the worst lunatics in the mad House introduced H.RES. 1553: Expressing support for the State of Israel's right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel. (emphasis added) The insane resolution has 46 co-sponsors. Full Text: From hain at antcolbks.com Sat Jul 24 11:44:26 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:44:26 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?New_Israeli_report_on_Operation_Cast_L?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ead_confirms_Goldstone_report=27s_main_findings?= Message-ID: Hybrid States Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place New Israeli report on Operation Cast Lead confirms Goldstone report's main findings by Yaniv Reich on July 22, 2010 Defense Minister Ehud Barak described it as "false, distorted, and irresponsible". Information Minister Yuli Edelstein called it "anti-Semitic". Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren said it "insidiously. portrayed the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents". Foreign Minister Lieberman argued that its true purpose "was to destroy Israel's image, in service of countries where the terms 'human rights' and 'combat ethics' do not even appear in their dictionaries". And the US House of Representatives banded together in bipartisan harmony to pass a resolution (344-36) that called "on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of it. For nearly a year now, vicious attacks on the Goldstone report and on Judge Goldstone himself have been the thing for Israel's numerous apologists to do. There is just one not-so-minor problem with this knee-jerk criticism of the report and infinite stream of ad hominem libel against its main author. A majority of the most damning-and damaging-war crimes that are alleged to have taken place have now been confirmed by the IDF's own investigations into the matter, themselves only conducted in an effort to derail the Goldstone report's referral to the International Criminal Court. IDF confirms over 20 gravest findings of the Goldstone Report Several of the most dramatic instances of war crimes, which previously stirred Israel's defenders into fits, are now publicly admitted by the IDF in the recent update to its official response (which can be found here). Some examples of war crimes include: 1.. White phosphorous in urban areas: This one is probably the most famous admission that emerged after a series of easily disproved lies. Israel's initial response was one of absolute denial, indeed indignation, that people would suggest it had used banned chemical weapons in densely populated areas. But the steady stream of photos and videos depicting phosphorous burns on children and buildings eventually forced Israel to admit it had used these prohibited weapons. 2.. The murder of two unarmed Palestinians carrying white flags of surrender. 3.. The Al-Fakhura Street incident: Israeli mortar fire at a site adjacent to a UN Relief Works Agency compound resulted in multiple civilian deaths. 4.. The use of innocent Palestinians as human shields: The Goldstone report explains that in order "to carry out house searches as human shields the Israeli soldiers took off AD/03's blindfold but he remained handcuffed. He was forced to walk in front of the soldiers and told that, if he saw someone in the house but failed to tell them, he would be killed. He was instructed to search each room in each house cupboard by cupboard. After one house was completed he was taken to another house with a gun pressed against his head and told to carry out the same procedure there. He was punched, slapped and insulted throughout the process." The new Israeli report identifies this anonymous human shield AD/03 and confirms this episode. Other cases of human shield use, e.g. Abbas Ahmad Ibrahim Halawa and Mahmoud Abd Rabbo al-Ajrami, were also confirmed. 5.. Al-Samouni family massacre: The Israelis attacked two houses of the Samouni family, killing 23 people in total. Subsequently, they prevented the Red Cross and PRCS from providing care to the wounded and dying for three days. Confirmed by Israel and the subject of a military investigation. 6.. Firing on Al Maqadmah and other mosques during prayer time. In total, a quick scan through the IDF's new report provides direct confirmation of more than 20 of Goldstone's findings. A number of these are the subject of internal IDF investigations, which are infuriating large swaths of the military. Of course, decent people everywhere should hope that those investigations are conducted in the most unbiased and professional manner possible, and that justice is served appropriately to all those who have committed war crimes. I am not holding my breath, but it's good to throw this wish out there. Israel admits it did not minimize civilian casualties The IDF report states: "IDF orders include the obligation to take all feasible precautions in order to minimize the incidental loss of civilian life or property" [emphasis added]. Israelis accept this statement as an article of faith and become unglued at the suggestion that "everything possible" wasn't done to ensure the safety of innocent people. This expression of faith is often followed by the questions: "What? Do you think Israel wants to kill civilians?" These questions are of course answered far more accurately with data on casualties than with ideological blindness. They are also answered, however, through inadvertent slips in the public relations machine that shapes international media coverage of Israel/Palestine. Today, we are treated to a spate of articles across the English and Hebrew-language press (e.g. here and here) about how Israel "promises" to do a better job of not killing innocent human beings next time around. "The IDF has . implemented operational changes in its orders and combat doctrine designed to further minimise civilian casualties and damage to civilian property in the future," it said. "In particular, the IDF has adopted important new procedures designed to enhance the protection of civilians in urban warfare, for instance by further emphasising that the protection of civilians is an integral part of an IDF commander's mission." Perhaps in a future "update" the IDF can enlighten the world as to how it was previously taking "all feasible precautions" and yet finds only now new tactics to protect civilians. Perhaps the IDF spokesperson can further explain how emphasizing to its soldiers that "protection of civilians is an integral part" of the mission is considered an "operational change" from earlier practice. One must presume that protection of civilians has not been given sufficient attention until now, and only Goldstone's courageous and now confirmed report has forced Israel to reconsider the meaning of "all feasible precautions" and "minimize civilian casualties". As Magnes Zionist has pointed out, Israel seems to think it can get away with a "I didn't do it but will try harder next time" approach. Or perhaps the IDF's commanders and soldiers got a bit confused by all this talk of "protecting civilians" and that talk of the "Dahiya Doctrine." But all of this gives the IDF a bit too much credit, too much benefit of the doubt. This new report is nothing more than a desperate tactic to try and avoid criminal prosecution for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the ICC. Most of the IDF's "investigations" have already been dismissed as part of this whitewash, notwithstanding all the irate IDF officers unaccustomed to the pretense of accountability. All it teaches us is four concrete things: (1) the Goldstone report did a stunningly good job in identifying possible war crimes despite Israel's concerted non-cooperation with the commission, (2) Israel has by its own admission failed to adequately protect civilians in war, (3) many people owe Judge Goldstone a sincere, begging apology for the disgraceful manner in which he has been treated, and (4) justice for the Palestinian victims of Israeli terrorism is still far away. http://www.hybridstates.com/2010/07/new-israeli-report-on-operation-cast-lead-confirm-goldstone-reports-main-findings/ Author Profile: When I was young, as young as my memory still contains, my father and I would build model airplanes together. This joint activity was his manner of sharing his intellectual interests with me and it became a grounding force in my childhood. After careful assembly, we would gather our minute brushes and fine modeling paint to decorate the F-15s and F-16s, especially the F-16s, those perennial favorites, with small Stars of David to match those flown by the Israeli Air Force. My bedroom walls were plastered with action shots of Apache helicopters and the latest high-technology permutations of fighter planes. As a consequence of this passion, I could by the age of eight inform curious listeners about the entire fleet of the IDF, including detailed information about aeronautical capabilities and weapons payloads. Early Israeli Nationalism My father, like nearly all Israeli males, dreamed of being an air force pilot. And like nearly all Israeli males, he didn't make it through the extraordinarily difficult recruitment process, his poor vision eliminating him from contention at the very first cut. Instead, he joined an IDF infantry unit sometime in late 1966. It would have been a terrifying time to become an Israeli soldier. Just a few months after my father joined the IDF, in spring 1967, Egypt's Nasser was busy amassing roughly 100,000 troops in Sinai near Israel's southwestern border. He had just expelled the UN peacekeeping mission that had been in the Sinai Peninsula since the Suez War in 1956, when Israel, England and France jointly attacked Egypt in response to Egypt's attempted nationalization of the canal. Then, on May 22nd, Nasser "closed" the Straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping despite explicit warnings Israel would consider this casus belli, a justification for war. My father's unit, under the overall command of a 39 year old Major General named Ariel Sharon, prepared for war. When Israel struck first and destroyed the entire Egyptian air force in about two hours, the tone was set. As the mythology goes, Israel was attacked by all its neighbors and still managed to defeat the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in just six days. The story of the Six Day War left a powerful impression of nationalistic pride. My family, after being massacred in the death camps of Poland, was now on the winning side. And not just any victorious side, but one famed for its technical expertise, discipline, and morality. This was something my youthful male mind could really appreciate. I saw my father as a sort of military hero. Holocaust: Death and Survival After occupying an Egyptian town on the Sinai Peninsula for a year, my father's military service was completed and he left Israel to go to an American university. A couple years later, my grandparents followed him to the US after growing concern about the future of Israel. Because of this move, my grandparents were ever-present when I was small and so became two of the primary objects of my attention, love, and respect. Their biographies, more than any influence of which I am conscious, gives shape to my current perspective on Israel/Palestine. My grandmother was one of five siblings in her family, which lived in a medium-sized town in south-eastern Poland. She was 14 years old when World War II began. When it ended, two brothers, one sister, and my grandmother had survived, largely because they were young and strong and working as slave labor instead of just being murdered outright. The rest of the family, nuclear and extended, were dead. My grandfather was one of eight brothers and sisters and a proportionally large extended family. But they didn't fare as well as my grandmother's family. By the time the Holocaust ended, he was alone. Completely alone. He spent a few days wandering around the ruins of concentration camps, searching for the only sibling who he did not know for certain had been killed. He was never found. After several months, my grandparents met each other in a refugee camp in Germany. They were among the set of early Jewish marriages in post-Holocaust Europe, people desperate to regain some modicum of the humanity that had been stripped away. My father was born there, in that refugee camp, in 1948. One month later, with my grandmother extremely ill from a breast infection, my grandparents and my baby father boarded a boat for the new, three month old country called Israel. Growing up, Israel always had in my mind the quality of redemption one can easily imagine existing among these Jewish boat people, refugees from ovens and mass graves. Every time I heard Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, I thought about this redemption. Israel's almost metaphysical quality was never tarnished by what I thought was the irrational hatred and violence of the Arabs in the Middle East, which was, in my mind, just a continuation of the prejudice and hostility that my grandparents had already went through. It wasn't until much later, as an adult, that the first couple blemishes emerged in my until then fairly uniformly glowing thoughts about Israel. Overdue Recognition I distinctly remember the first cracks in my Zionist nationalism. I was always taught that Israel was attacked by all its neighbors in the Six Day War, which was, of course, largely why the victory was so impressive. But then I learned it was Israel that had attacked first in what has become a classical case of preemptive self-defense. Yes, Egypt had moved soldiers to the border and closed the Straights, but it was Israel that struck the first military blow. The Egyptian air force was destroyed on the tarmac. This was worrying. Preemptive self-defense, as we learned with the US military misadventures in Iraq, is a very ambiguous and politically charged thing. Now it seems Israel was guilty of the same thing. Would war have broken out if Israel did not attack? We will of course never know, but I was certain that being an aggressor was not something to be taken lightly. The second instance, far more troubling than the first, was learning about the more than one million Palestinians who lived in Palestine before Israel was established. If that's the case, where did the idea of "a land without a people for a people without a land" come from? The catchy idiom adopted a very sinister character. Suddenly, I began to question all my received wisdom on Israel. What I discovered made for an unpleasant, deeply disconcerting period of my life. I learned about Jewish paramilitary activity against the British, about Jewish massacres of Palestinians in 1948, about Israel's relentless bombing of urban Beirut in 1982, about Israel's responsibility in the massacres of Palestinian civilians in Sabra and Shatila, about settlements. I had never heard in all my years as a Jew and Israeli about settlements! My worldview was shifted by this new knowledge. I will never be the same again. My family and friends, indeed my people, escaped from Europe's ghettos not to an empty and inviting land, as was commonly insinuated if not argued directly. The essential fact is that the Jews sought a new life, a new state, that could only arise at the expense of the Palestinians. In my view, the fundamental contradiction of this spiritual and physical project is the primary source of Jewish-Arab conflict since the early 20th century. My grandparents are no longer alive. Yet because of their suffering, shared with me during a million Polish meals, conveyed as another million words left unsaid because of unhealed wounds, I learned how to identify suffering and its social consequences. And because of hearing my grandparents speak about the sheer joy of speaking Yiddish and Hebrew in Israel, to be surrounded by Yiddish and Hebrew speakers, without fear of being pelted by rocks thrown by racist Poles or being rounded up by German executioners, I can grasp perfectly the intoxicating draw of community and power. In other words, my grandparents' history has taught me to empathize with all those who have been dehumanized by violence, both as victim and victimizer. This lesson is in many ways the essence of a hybrid state. As Jews, Israelis, and Americans, we must recognize not only that the maintenance of an ethnically exclusive state for the Jews is anachronistic and possible today only through massive violence. We must also accept that the establishment of Israel in the first instance required the wholesale denial of Palestinian rights, the same rights we were simultaneously claiming for ourselves. This contradiction is the profound burden that Zionism carries, which cannot be avoided except by coming to terms with the historical and contemporary injustice for which Jews are responsible. There is a way for Israel/Palestine to heal. Jews do not need to live under paranoia-causing insecurity. Palestinians do not need to live under the boot of occupation and dispossession. The security of Jews and Palestinians is intertwined with the inherent human rights of both peoples. Our fates are inextricably linked, our national identities are forever interwoven, and so our collective healing is jointly determined. Peace and justice for each nation will come only with peace and justice for both nations. This is the fact of Israel/Palestine. http://www.hybridstates.com/about-2/profile/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 12:06:07 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:06:07 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Activists Gather From Around Globe to Jumpstart Labor Movement Message-ID: <4A8E5D011F0C49E2B5B6B3E5FF7965E9@agingCHS072729> Online Activists Gather From Around Globe to Jumpstart Labor Movement More than 200 people from 28 countries attend LabourStart's first public conference By Stuart Elliott Tuesday, July 13, 2010 Sometimes it's hard to understand the importance of an event or an organization when you're involved in it. As a volunteer correspondent for LabourStart.org and a participant in its "Act Now" campaigns, I obviously think LabourStart an important project. But I really didn't really comprehend its potential until I attended the first public LabourStart conference at McMaster University's School of Labour Studies in Hamilton, Ontario. "As unions confront a 21st century global capitalism, which is imposing a race to the bottom to union-free environments, unions must use new technologies to create a new labor internationalism," said Eric Lee, founding editor of Labour Start. "The mission of LabourStart is to promote those technologies and to practice a consistent internationalism." LabourStart is an international labor news and campaigning site, run on a shoestring and powered by nearly 800 volunteer correspondents. Every day the site publishes links to labor news in 23 different languages, and its news feeds appear on more than 800 union websites. It conducts e-mail campaigns in eight different languages. There was some trepidation among LabourStart leaders about whether an Internet-based, low budget union news and campaigning site could attract an audience of union activists oustide its most committed corespondents. Particularly since, unlike the recently concluded ICTU conference, this was not a delegated meeting. But the conference was able to attract over 200 participants from more than 28 countries. Attendees ranged from presidents of national unions, to representatives of Global Union Federations, to local union officers, to staffers, to grassroots activists. Adam Lee of United Steelworkers International thanked LabourStart for its "tremendously effective" campaign on behalf of Vale nickel miners strikers, who settled a year-long strike just days before the conference began. On the first morning of the strike, which began in July 2009, more than 1,000 emails were sent to the Brazil-based multinational company. Two-thirds were from outside Canada, in eight languages from 80 countries, Lee said, It provided a "real boost" to the workers. And Brazilian workers for Vale were able to win a better than expected contract because the company didn't want to take on two international campaigns at the same time. Robin Alexander, director of international affairs for the United Electrical workers union, said that when she got an appeal from workers at PEMEX, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, the first place she turned for help was LabourStart. As Lennon Ying-Dah Wong, a union leader from Taiwan, spoke on a panel about China, I loooked to my left and saw Benedicto Martinez Orozco, co-president of the Frente Autentico del Trabajo. Michael Eisenscher of US Labor Against the War, Amjad Ali of the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra (Iraq), and Erin Radford of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center spoke on a panel about unions in Iraq. Other panels were devoted to Mexico, Eastern Europe, and Iran. Unfortunately, some people were unable to attend the conference--but the reasons why are enlightening. A leader of Bangladeshi textile workers union canceled his visit because of a monumental campaign in his home country--more than 50,000 workers there are on strike, protesting the lowest wages in the textile industry. Representatives of independent unions in Egypt and Algeria were, at the last moment, denied visas by Canada. (AFL-CIO Solidarity Center representatives ably filled in at a workshop on the revival of unions in those countries.) The ham-handness of Canadian authorities may backire. Derek Blackadder, national representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said that there was so much outrage at the exclusion of the Egyptian and Algerian unionists and so much excitement about their pioneering work that Canadian unionists will be exploring ongoing solidarity work on their behalf. Of course, connecting disparate unionists, spread across different levels of different unions, to unite in international solidarity is no easy task. But LabourStart's global network of 800 correspondents and 70,000 Act Now e-mail activists will continue to be a part of that effort, which must be a central component of the future of the labor movement. From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 13:02:09 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:02:09 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] China Battles Yellow Sea Oil Spill Message-ID: <611E8CBEB3CD48A9866B947CE5CB94E6@agingCHS072729> http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia-pacific/2010/07/201072343013426984.html From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 13:02:37 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:02:37 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] More suffering for the people of Fallujah and why we can't gloss over war crimes Message-ID: http://truth-reason-liberty.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-suffering-for-people-of-fallujah.html Thursday, 22 July 2010 More suffering for the people of Fallujah and why we can't gloss over war crimes Posted by Phil Dickens at 17:11 Doctors in Fallujah have been reporting a rise in birth defects since 2004. Alongside this, a new survey -- http://www.scribd.com/doc/34158205/Cancer-Infant-Mortality-and-Birth-Sex-Ratio-in-Fallujah-Iraq-2005%E2%80%932009 - - has found that cancer, leukaemia and infant mortality are all on the increase as well. According to the report's abstract; There have been anecdotal reports of increases in birth defects and cancer in Fallujah, Iraq blamed on the use of novel weapons (possibly including depleted uranium) in heavy fighting which occurred in that town between US led forces and local elements in 2004. In Jan/Feb 2010 the authors organised a team of researchers who visited 711 houses in Fallujah, Iraq and obtained responses to a questionnaire in Arabic on cancer, birth defects and infant mortality. The total population in the resulting sample was 4,843 persons with and overall response rate was better than 60%. Relative Risks for cancer were age-standardised and compared to rates in the Middle East Cancer Registry (MECC, Garbiah Egypt) for 1999 and rates in Jordan 1996-2001. Between Jan 2005 and the survey end date there were 62 cases of cancer malignancy reported (RR = 4.22; CI: 2.8, 6.6; p < 0.00000001) including 16 cases of childhood cancer 0-14 (RR = 12.6; CI: 4.9, 32; p < 0.00000001). Highest risks were found in all-leukaemia in the age groups 0-34 (20 cases RR = 38.5; CI: 19.2, 77; p < 0.00000001), all lymphoma 0-34 (8 cases, RR = 9.24;CI: 4.12, 20.8; p < 0.00000001), female breast cancer 0-44 (12 cases RR = 9.7;CI: 3.6, 25.6; p < 0.00000001) and brain tumours all ages (4 cases, RR = 7.4;CI: 2.4, 23.1; P < 0.004). Infant mortality was based on the mean birth rate over the 4 year period 2006-2009 with 1/6th added for cases reported in January and February 2010. There were 34 deaths in the age group 0-1 in this period giving a rate of 80 deaths per 1,000 births. This may be compared with a rate of 19.8 in Egypt (RR = 4.2 p < 0.00001) 17 in Jordan in 2008 and 9.7 in Kuwait in 2008. The mean birth sex-ratio in the recent 5-year cohort was anomalous. Normally the sex ratio in human populations is a constant with 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls. This is disturbed if there is a genetic damage stress. The ratio of boys to 1,000 girls in the 0-4, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 age cohorts in the Fallujah sample were 860, 1,182, 1,108 and 1,010 respectively suggesting genetic damage to the 0-4 group (p < 0.01). Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind, care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. Last night, BBC News covered this story in more detail. The report -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10721562 --, though harrowing, is worth watching. However, there is just one minor point to pick up on. Namely, the idea that "fierce fighting between US forces and Sunni insurgents" is at the root of this problem and that "the use of novel weapons (possibly including depleted uranium)" doesn't need to be overtly identified with either side. In fact, what happened in Fallujah can only accurately be described as a war crime perpetrated by the United states military. "Balance," as ever, only obfuscates this fact. The US Army National Ground Intelligence Centre's report on the "Battle of Fallujah I," states that it "was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle whose outcome was far less certain" than military victory. They were concerned that "the effects of media coverage, enemy information operations (IO), and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations." Reading the report, it soon becomes clear why; During the shaping operations, Regimental Combat Team-1 (RCT-1) from the First Marine Division established a cordon of traffic control points (TCPs) on major roads around Fallujah in order to isolate the city's defenders and prevent their escape. Supplies of food and medicine were allowed in, but only women, children, and old men were allowed out. Other MEF units simultaneously conducted aggressive counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the surrounding area (Ar Ramadi, Khaldiyah, Al Kharmah, and Northern Babil) in order to interdict and prevent insurgent groups outside Fallujah from interfering. Civilians were warned to evacuate the city. In other words, whilst the women and children were allowed to escape, the men were contained within the city walls to await their fate. There is a strong parallel here with events in the Srebrenica Massacre during the Bosnian war. There, Serb forces separated the men and boys from the broader group of Bosniak refugees at Potocari, busing out the women and children, and slaughtering the men. As Noam Chomsky has commented, the only major difference is that "with Fallujah, the US didn't truck out the women and children, it bombed them out." Then, according to the NGIC report, "on 5 April 2004, Phase II kicked off;" Two battalion task forces from RCT-1 assaulted Fallujah, about 2000 men in total, mostly light infantry supported by 10 M1A1 tanks, 24 AAVP-7 tracks, and a battery of M198 howitzers. The 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (2/1) attacked from the northwest into the Jolan district while the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (1/5) attacked from the southeast into the industrial district (Shuhidah). (The MEF) During the campaign, at least one US battalion had "orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not." As a result, according to Iraq Body Count's analysis, "at least 572 of the roughly 800 reported deaths during the first US siege of Fallujah in April 2004 were civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children." The US withdrew on May 1st, but went back in on November 8th. This time, the consequences would be even starker. Dahr Jamail was the first to report that "he U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah." This was backed up by reports in the Washington Post that "some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water." The March-April 2005 edition of Field Artillery ran a special on the assault, which stated quite candidly; WP [white phosphorous] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [high-explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. .. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions. Then there was the use of depleted uranium. Deplete uranium is 1.67 times as dense as lead, giving bullets and shells tipped with it a higher pressure at the point of impact which leads to deeper penetration. It is also known to have adverse health effects. In 2001, it was reported that malignant diseases had increased by 200% in Kosovo since the 1998 NATO bombing campaign. It has been linked to Gulf War syndrome and the increased likelihood of veterans to have children with birth defects. At the same time, Iraqis have blamed it for the rise in cancer rates country-wide. The latest survey from Fallujah seems to confirm that link. This makes the campaign there part of a wider tradition going back through the use of Agent Organge in Vietnam to the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: not only horrendous, destructive acts, but ones whose effect reaches far beyond the present. This is what media outlets such as the BBC gloss over when they talk about "fierce fighting between US forces and Sunni insurgents" or fail to identify who is behind "the use of novel weapons." But this needs to be pointed out, and remembered. The seige of Fallujah in 2004 was a horrendous war crime, and for the poor, wretched children being born there the horror of it is only just beginning. By glossing over who the perpetrators of this attrocity are, we are only adding insult to injury. From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 23:15:43 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:15:43 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The Oceans are Coming (Part 1) Message-ID: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/10/oceans-are-coming.html Sunday, October 18, 2009 The Oceans are Coming By Keith Farnish and Dmitry Orlov This article is the first part of a three-part series, which considers the effect of global warming on ocean level rise, and examines life with constantly advancing seas from two perspectives: that of the landlubber and that of the seafarer. [Update, November 2009: The Copenhagen Diagnosis, the heavily peer-reviewed interim update to the IPCC AR4, further validates the sea-level rise assumptions we used in this article: "By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries."] Part I: The Global Mistake In September 2009 the latest global temperature rise projections released by the Hadley Centre, part of the British Meteorological Office indicated an average rise of 4 degrees Celsius (that's a balmy 7.2?F) by 2055 given a business as usual scenario. Some places will be a bit more stable, but the places that particularly matter - the ice caps, the methane-rich permafrosts in northern Canada and Siberia, and the Amazon rainforest - will be melting, off-gassing, and burning, respectively. The report offers some detail on what that would feel like: In a 4?C world, climate change, deforestation and fires spreading from degraded land into pristine forest will conspire to destroy over 83 per cent of the Amazon rainforest by 2100... in a 4?C world there will be a mix of extremely wet monsoon seasons and extremely dry ones, making it hard for farmers to plan what to grow. Worse, the fine aerosol particles released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels could put a complete stop to the monsoon rains in central southern China and northern India... the people most vulnerable to a 4?C rise are also least able to escape it. At 4?C, the poor will struggle to survive, let alone escape. And what of that lodestone, global sea level? This happens to be a very interesting question, because ocean levels are set to rise dramatically. According to UCLA scientists, the last time carbon dioxide levels were as high as they are today was 15 million years ago. At that time, the sea level was between 20 and 36 metres higher (75 to 120 feet), there was no permanent ice cap in the arctic, and very little ice in Antarctica or Greenland. That is where we are headed. The only remaining question is, How long will it take us to get there? The authors of the Hadley Centre report predict a rise of just 1.4 metres by 2100. The IPCC in their 2007 4th Assessment Report predicted something like half a metre by 2100 based on a combination of the fattening of the oceanic envelope caused by thermal expansion and the increased runoff from glaciers and minor ice sheets. None of this sounds particularly catastrophic just yet, but then it turns out that these predictions are not based on anything particularly relevant: the British Antarctic Survey, in 2008, made it clear that the IPCC had not included the source of nearly 100% of the world's potential ice melt - the major ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland - simply because they had little idea of how the ice caps would behave in a heating world: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the issue by suggesting that current knowledge is inadequate to estimate confidently the contribution that ice sheets might make to sea-level rise in coming centuries. While technology makes sea-level rise easier to observe, and we can predict some contributions to future sea-level rise with increasing certainty, we cannot yet fully predict the ice sheets' contribution. There is thus a risk that sea-level rise could be higher than the (incomplete) estimates provided by the IPCC. Thus, the most peer-reviewed piece of climate science ever written turns out to be completely inadequate when it comes to estimating the level of disruption associated with a very important aspect of climate change: the rising seas. If Antarctica contains 90% of the world's land ice (sea ice, like that in the Arctic, does not directly cause the oceans to rise when it melts) and Greenland contains most of the rest, then what's going to happen when they start to melt with a vengeance, and when are they going to start melting? Official science is mute on the subject. What Do We Know? There are some things that we do know. Based on the volume of ice lying upon the landmass of Greenland, it is quite possible to estimate how far the oceans would rise, should all of it melt away: something in the region of 7.2 metres. That may not seem like a lot, but, as you will see in Part 2 of this series, it will be enough to have devastating consequences for the lower lying parts of the world, which, not coincidentally, are the locations of some of the world's largest cities. (In fact, there is something you can do to make reading this article more exciting: find out how high above sea level you live, and, as you read along, keep checking to see if your head is still above water.) Rapid, dramatic change beggars the imagination. The Greenland Ice Sheet is massive, having formed during the first cycle of the most recent major glacial period, and our instinct tells us that it should remain stable in all but the most extreme conditions. It is disconcerting to know that the onset of an ice age can take as little as two decades, implying that an equally sudden melt cannot be ruled out. It is also disconcerting to know that the conditions required for a sudden melt are pretty much guaranteed to occur, and that, in fact, the ice sheet is already melting. We don't have to imagine it. All we have to do is observe: For the first time since measurements were started [in 2002], the extremely warm summer of 2007 saw a decrease in the ice mass at high altitudes (above 2,000 metres). It also became clear that the ice loss is advancing towards the North of Greenland, particularly on the west coast. The areas around Greenland, particularly Iceland, Spitsbergen and the northern islands of Canada, seem to be particularly badly affected. This analysis, by the team controlling the GRACE satellite system, is essentially saying that conditions like those in 2007 are able to counteract the damping effect of even the thickest parts of Greenland's ice sheet. So, when will all the ice melt? There are two schools of thought, but they basically come down to when the temperature of Greenland increases by either 4?C or 8?C above the mean global average of the last 100 years. Four degrees... haven't we seen that first figure before? In fact, a global rise of 4 degrees corresponds to a considerably larger rise of Arctic temperatures: conventionally this is between 5 and 6 degrees, but if you look at the 2009 Hadley Centre forecasts, a global rise of 4 degrees actually corresponds to an 8 degree rise across much of Greenland. Pick any number you like, but Greenland is melting. WAIS To Go? We can take some comfort in the thought that the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet would take at least 100 years once it reached that temperature. But it accounts for just 10% of the global ice volume, the other 90% being locked away in the seemingly impermeable heart of Antarctica. Or not: the East Antarctic ice sheet (that's the big blob that surrounds the South Pole just off-centre) seems to be quite stable, and should remain that way for the next few centuries, but West Antarctica (the peninsula that reaches north toward South America) is not stable at all. The WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) is largely below sea level, having over several million years pushed down and scoured out the bedrock beneath it, but because of its huge area, the part of it that is above water still manages to comprise around 10% of the total Antarctic ice volume. If this were to melt then the oceans would rise by another 5 metres, in addition to the thermal expansion of 1.4 metres, plus whatever has been sloughed off the Greenland ice sheet, giving us 13.6 metres, or close to 45 feet. (Is your head still above water? Please check again now.) Icebergs and glaciers have been calving from West Antarctica at an accelerating rate over the last decade, which groups such as the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) have been carefully monitoring, with increasing alarm. In 2002, to most glaciologists' horror, the entire Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated. It consisted largely of floating ice, and so despite the immense size of the shelf, this development had no effect on sea levels. But it did presage a new era of rapid ice movement, never before recorded in the modern era. It also had another, even more sinister side-effect on West Antarctica: An ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula to Charcot Island has disintegrated. The event continues a series of breakups that began in March 2008 on the ice shelf, and highlights the effect that climate change is having on the region. Images from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on the Terra and Aqua satellites showed the shattering of the ice bridge between March 31, 2009 and April 6, 2009. The loss of the ice bridge, which was bracing the remaining portions of the Wilkins ice shelf, will now allow a mass of broken ice and icebergs to drift into the Southern Ocean. The Wilkins is following a pattern of instability and rapid collapse that many Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves have experienced in recent years. Scientists think that the dramatic loss of these ice shelves, which have existed for hundreds to thousands of years, is an important sign of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere. The loss of an ice shelf can also allow the glaciers that feed into it to start flowing ice into the ocean at an accelerated rate, contributing to a rise in global sea levels. The last phrase is the most important one; at the moment there is no major concern about the status of most of the WAIS, and the temperature seems to be holding, but if the ice shelves are no longer able to hold back the progress of the glaciers, then they will accelerate towards the sea, themselves causing further instability within the WAIS. Going back to the Hadley Centre article again, it was thought that Greenland was invulnerable to change not so many years ago, but the map produced by the Centre shows warming of between 4 and 10 degrees by 2055. This would still keep the vast majority of Antarctica well below freezing; but ice under extreme pressure can exhibit unusual patterns of behaviour, including increasing internal temperature and self-lubrication. This is what often happens at the bases of deep glaciers, allowing them to slide even when temperatures are well below freezing. The results may continue to confound and horrify glaciologists for years to come while sending the rest of us scampering for higher ground. A Storm Surge of Forecasts 2001 was the first year we were able to say with any scientific certainty what was likely to happen to global sea level. It seems strange that it should take so long to provide forecasts, but until a consensus on global temperature rise had been achieved, via the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (TAR), then the (supposedly) largest element of the sea level rise equation - the aforementioned thermal expansion - could not be included. So what did the IPCC say back in 2001? If you read their report, you will discover that of the absolute maximum 0.5 metre rise by 2090, predicted by this august group of scientists, a whopping 74% was due to thermal expansion, with 11cm (22%) dependent on glacier and ice cap melting (mountaintops, essentially), and a miserly 2cm attributable to the possible melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. But then in this report the absolute worst case "business as usual" model shows a 2?C rise by 2050, which we now know to have been a bit shy of the mark. Then, in 2007, the landmark 4th Assessment Report raised the bar in both possible temperature rise (from 5.6?C to 6.4?C by 2100) and global sea level rise, to... wait for it... 0.57 metres! Of this new figure, which hardly seems to reflect the immense strides made in feedback loop analysis in the intervening six years, 38 cm or 67% of the rise is attributable to thermal expansion. With this in mind, it would pay to reflect on the types of changes described in this essay, and consider what the IPCC would have predicted had ice sheet melt been included in the final version. Forward to 2009, and two papers jump out. The first, from the relatively conservative Dr Mark Siddall at the University of Bristol is now talking about a possible rise of 0.82 metres by the end of this century, which is based on the IPCC 4AR maximum temperature of 6.4?C. The second paper, by Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva, again based on the IPCC maximum, suggests that a 1.3 metre rise by 2100 is not out of the question. How much of this can be attributed to Greenland and Antarctica is uncertain, but predicting the future based on thermal expansion plus a paleological record of a few thousand years, during which both ice sheets remained fully intact and temperatures never rose above 1.5?C seems a pretty poor basis upon which to predict future tipping points! If we are to take the two papers at face value and strike a mean of 1.06 metres, by overlaying the latest predictions of temperature rise - which are double the IPCC predictions - we get at least 2 metres globally. That's just thermal expansion plus a few hundred glaciers and mountaintop ice caps. Now consider what happens when you include the following: Tipping point effects above 8?C in Greenland Unknown effects of similar temperature increases on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Increases in storm surge height and storm intensity caused by a rise in oceanic and atmospheric energy levels due to temperature rise Increases in inland flooding due to convectional storms upon hardpan (parched clay soils) and more energetic rainstorms from temperature increases The last two are the inevitable effects of increasing atmospheric energy due to higher temperatures, and are critical because most coastal flooding is the result of either coastal storm surges and high winds, inland flooding inundating river catchments, or a combination of the two. The flooding of eastern England and the Netherlands in 1953, which resulted in the deaths of around 2,500 people, was a combination of a low pressure storm surge, an intense North Sea storm and a high spring tide. Without any inference of global sea level rise, the water rose along the North Sea coast by 4.5 metres. Via Denmark and the German curve, the storm got closer to the Dutch coast. On the night of the 31st of January, the storm over the North Sea got even stronger, reaching gales of force 11. The Dutch coast was being hit with force 10 winds. The storm continued, and in the south-western Netherlands, wind speeds of force 9 were measured for 20 consecutive hours. The power of the storm drove the water so high that the water was unable to retreat away sufficiently. There was no ebb tide. Shortly after midnight, the maximum whip up of the water was measured - the wind drove the water up to 3.1 metres. Three hours later, there was a spring tide. Through the combination of this spring tide, and the huge whipping up of the water, at 3hr24, the highest recorded water level was reached - 4.55 metres above NAP (Normal Amsterdam Water Level). The dikes were not designed to hold such high water levels, and [at] around 3 o'clock that night, the first dikes broke through... * * * And so there we have it. A few degrees warmer, a few metres higher, and a couple of decades later, and there we will be, floating about, holding on to other things that float, perching in tree limbs and on rooftops, and hoping to be rescued. We know where we are going to end up eventually: at least 20 metres (65 feet) higher. The one thing we still do not know is how long it will take for us to get there. We could keep waiting for the scientific community to settle on a consensus forecast, but this may take so long that it will have to be delivered through a snorkel. However, we can already observe that the doubling period of scientific climate forecasts is uncomfortably short, and, to provide for a margin of safety, we should at least double the latest estimates. If the latest forecast is for 2 metres this century, let us assume that we will see at least 4, and plan accordingly. But do the exact forecasts even matter? We already know enough to say that there is a high probability that ocean levels will rise, significantly, within the lifetimes of most of the people alive today, disrupting the patterns of daily life for much of the world's population, which tends to be clustered along the coastlines and the navigable waterways. We also know that ocean levels will continue to rise far into the future, until they are 20 to 36 metres higher than they are today. We know that continuous coastal erosion and salt water inundation, coastal flooding and displacement of coastal populations, which number in the billions, toward higher ground, will be normal and expected. We also know that there is a high chance these changes will occur based on present carbon dioxide levels, regardless of what is being currently proposed by the governments of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, what we do not know is perhaps most important of all if you are in the middle of all this. We have not considered what ways of inhabiting the changing coastal landscape will remain viable. How will we have to adapt if any of us are to avoid being swept up in a continuous, endless surge of refugees feeling for higher ground, abandoning all they own and all they know? These are the questions that the next two parts of this series of articles will examine. Keith Farnish is author of "Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis" (http://www.timesupbook.com) and also writes The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog. He enjoys being a husband and dad, walking around and growing things. From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 23:15:50 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:15:50 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The Oceans are Coming Part II - Living on the Land Message-ID: <970CB5D2BE354EC19D2B3CF840F5CEA6@agingCHS072729> http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/11/oceans-are-coming-part-ii-living-on.html ClubOrlov November 13, 2009 The Oceans are Coming Part II - Living on the Land by Dmitry Orlov and Keith Farnish Are you still talking about Cyclone Nargis? Have you ever heard of Cyclone Nargis? Here's a reminder: on 1 May 2008 a weakening low-pressure system suddenly picked up energy as it approached Burma from the Bay of Bengal. By the second day of this rapid strengthening, Cyclone Nargis was blowing in excess of 135 miles per hour and made landfall on the low-lying southern coast of Burma armed with vast reserves of cyclonic energy, a storm surge beneath, and constant heavy rain from above. The Irrawaddy Delta was devastated, causing at least 140,000 human deaths. Most of us have forgotten about it. One reason you may have heard of Cyclone Nargis at the time, is that for a short while it was the cause of a major diplomatic incident, with the Burmese Junta refusing to accept aid and assistance from the West, while continuing with a meaningless referendum. Another reason you may have heard of Cyclone Nargis is because you live near to Burma; and there's the rub - proximity is the single most important factor in deciding whether a story is newsworthy in the mainstream media, and until Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005, devastating coastal flooding was just something that happened to "other people" as far as the vast majority of Americans were concerned. That's not going to change anytime soon - it's partly down to our natural tendency for prioritising the local and the immediate, for survival reasons; but to a large extent it is also down to the cultural conditioning that exists in most civilisations in order to only value that which benefits the system that you are deemed to be part of. If you are American then that means that anything that doesn't affect America, doesn't matter. You can safely repeat that mantra for any civilised nation. It's not necessarily good, but it's true. In Part One of this article {1}, we examined the best available research, and, given the current best forecast of two metres and the consistent tendency of climate forecasters to undershoot their own subsequent observations, we concluded that a four metre sea level rise over the course of this century is quite likely. In this part, we focus on two areas that are most familiar to the two authors, and also relevant to the majority of readers: Dmitry is going to look at the likely impact of future sea-level rise on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA, not just in terms of the direct effects of flooding on habitation, but the many different indirect effects that sea-level rise will have; Keith is going to do the same for the east coast of England and the Netherlands, two places that have seen their fair share of flooding in the past, and are bound to suffer in the future. The view from New England, by Dmitry Orlov When it comes to addressing the effects of sea level rise that is expected to occur over the course of this century, there are many ways to immerse yourself in the subject. You might do some reading and make some field trips, talk to knowledgeable people, attend some seminars, and write some research papers. Or you might take an entire year to slowly traverse the landscape in question, and get a feel for it through a lot of direct observation, which is what I did. I spent about a year sailing around the Eastern Seaboard of North America, from the submerged coastal mountain range that is the coast of Maine north of Portland to the shifting sand dunes of Saint Augustine in Florida, and most points in between, looking at both nature and historic sites along the way. There certainly is nature to be found further inland, but rather few historic sites. It is very important to understand that, unlike the ancient and compact settlement patterns of Europe, and unlike its dense and active network of navigable rivers and canals, North America consists of a rather narrow but thickly settled coastal zone known as the Northeast Corridor, and the vast expanse of Wild West. Historically, the colonies survived through ocean trade. Until the advent of coal-fired railroads, the only parts of the interior that were economically viable were the ones that were within easy reach of a navigable waterway. Even then many inland settlers found grain to be too bulky for trade, and used it to make whiskey. The Erie Canal made Chicago a town rather than just a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The reason was simple: before the advent of railroads, it cost as much to transport cargo thirty or so miles overland as it did to ship it across the ocean. Until a railroad was built across Massachusetts, goods shipped from Chicago to Boston via the Erie Canal had to be loaded onto barges and floated down the Hudson River to New York, then transferred to schooners that took them up the coast. It is also very important to understand that global trade is not, as one unfortunately often hears, only possible thanks to fossil fuels. Until the 1920s much of the shipping in Boston Harbour was by sail. Most of the ships were relatively small, with vast numbers of schooners of around sixty feet and crews of ten or fewer. The age of container ships, bulk carriers, roll-on roll-offs (ROROs), and other monstrous oil-thirsty craft is quite recent, while the history of global trade is ancient, and proceeded in one of two ways: on foot (leading caravans of pack animals) or by sail. It is also important to note that coal never became competitive with sail in transporting bulk goods, and sail-based shipping persisted until the age of the marine diesel engine, which burns bunker fuel (a slightly upgraded crude oil). This substance will most likely no longer be available in the vast quantities required just a few decades from now, and certainly well before the end of the century. It seems plausible to think that the age of fossil fuels will end as it started, with oil giving way to coal, giving way to wind. And so, in looking at the future of North America, it makes sense to examine historical settlement patterns and patterns of trade. Even after the powerful economic stimulant of fossil fuels is no longer flowing freely, the perennial choice will remain the same: make and ship trade goods, or remain backward and poor. The transportation options will once again be largely limited to the waterways, with the vast landlocked areas of North America becoming stagnant backwaters, unable to trade, and steadily depopulating. Many people look at the end of the fossil fuel age and envision a future that is much more local; and surely it will be, but what they do not envision is the effect of a radically altered transportation topology. The current tightly interconnected transportation mesh of rail links, highways, and airports will be gone; and in its place will arise a sparse, seasonal network favouring single modes of transport for each link (pack animal, river barge, or ocean sailboat), heavily weighted in favour of water transport, and even more heavily weighted in favour of sail. Transporting a few tons of cargo per crew member across the Atlantic will require a few weeks' worth of rations for the crew members and a bit of sailcloth for the ship, but the wind will still be free. Hauling the same amount of freight across the Appalachian mountain range, which runs the length of the Eastern Seaboard, would become something of an epic undertaking. Looking, once again, at the historical settlement patterns along the Eastern Seaboard, it becomes clear that how prosperous and populous any given coastal settlement becomes has a lot to do with how good a harbour it has. The Carolinas present an excellent example of this: their climates and populations are broadly similar, yet North Carolina is poor while South Carolina is prosperous. The difference can be brought down to a single, overwhelming factor: South Carolina's Charleston Harbour. This is a splendid deep-water harbour, sheltered, with a wide inlet. North Carolina is dominated by Cape Hatteras, an area of shifting shoals and wide, shallow bays. To make matters worse, the Cape brings together the warm Gulf Stream, flowing north and turning east, with the terminus of the cold Labrador Current flowing south, and the mixture of the two creates a lot of unsettled weather. To make matters worse yet, it is within reach of tropical cyclones, which shift sand dunes, close and open ocean inlets, and play havoc with coastal communities that depend on access to the ocean. While Charleston Harbour is a major asset, Cape Hatteras is a world-class hazard to navigation. And so South Carolina grew rich by importing African slaves and exporting rice, indigo, and cotton through Charleston Harbour; while North Carolina, with its many shoals and few and treacherous navigable ocean inlets, developed no major towns and subsisted largely through fishing. I've looked closely at many of the successful port towns, large and small, along the Eastern Seaboard: Portland, Newburyport, Salem, Boston, Newport, New York, Charleston, and Saint Augustine, plus a few others. All of these have accumulated centuries of history, much of it connected with the sea and, hence, with faraway peoples and places, and this makes them major tourist destinations. The quality of the harbour, it turns out, had much to do with the relative success of a port: Boston's excellent harbour, with a wide channel and ample anchorages with good holding ground in the lee of a good set of sheltering harbour islands, allowed Boston to compete with New York in transatlantic trade. But beyond geological luck, something else stands out: the quality of the transition between water and land. In every good port there are dredged and marked approaches to piers and jetties, good seawalls high enough to keep out most storm surges, and dry land beyond, which is solid and graded flat. Over its long history as a port town, a hilly town, such as Portland, Boston, or New York, slowly grows an apron of land that is just high enough to be out of reach of most waves. Although some of these shoreline reinforcements are the result of ambitious projects (the cut-stone embankment in Newburyport is a good example), many of them are the result of a slow process of accretion by generations of people plying maritime trades, adjusting the shoreline to different uses by floating in and dumping rip-rap and solid fill, building seawalls, jetties and piers, seeing them pruned back by storms, and learning their lessons. Just how close to the margin these old structures already are became apparent to me last summer: during high tide, and thanks to the extra two feet of water we got for no adequately understood reason, some of the older, abandoned piers in Salem, Massachusetts were awash. Most of these structures have been designed with hundred-year floods in mind, presumably because having to rebuild them every century or so is not such a bad thing. But then, given the expected ocean level rise, every hundred years will become every ten, then every year, and then every neap tide, then every high tide when there is an easterly wind, and then permanently awash at high tide. Who would be up to the thankless task of piling up more rocks and driving in more pilings, just to see them washed away a decade or so later? A related problem is the silting up of channels caused by accelerated erosion. Once waves can reach a stretch of land that hitherto only had to contend with rainwater and snow melt, it often dissolves catastrophically, and what was for centuries a waterside pasture or marshland protected by a bit of rock is transformed within a season or two into a gradually sloping mud flat. The mud then gets scoured out by each tide and settles in the deepest spots, which are the navigation channels. At what point everyone will decide that all of this very temporary shoring up and dredging is just too much work is entirely unclear, but it seems likely that enough other problems will occur at the same time to make the question moot. As we prepare to say "hello" to the rising waters, we should also prepare to bid "adieu" to deep-draught dockage. What other problems might we have? The United States Environmental Protection Agency was nice enough to publish some approximate maps, colour-coding the results of an ocean level rise of up to 1.5 metres as red and up to 3.5 metres as blue for the entire Atlantic coast of North America. Since I am particularly well-acquainted with Boston, that part of their map drew my attention first. The resolution is not very high, but sometimes precision is superfluous. If you expect to find yourself standing on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in 2050, should you expect the water be up to your navel, your nipples, or your eyeballs? Certainly, this would not be the map to consult on that particular occasion, but then would that be a time to consult a map at all? Broad brushstrokes are perfectly fine for the purposes of this discussion, just as a wrecking ball need not be swung with any great precision. But to start with, here is a neat and tidy map of Boston within its current shoreline {2}. Entering Boston Harbour from the Atlantic, we pass between Deer Island with its sewage treatment plant on the right and Long Island on the left. We proceed down the main channel into the inner harbour, passing between City Point on our left and Logan International Airport on our right. Past that, on our left we find the port of South Boston, which handles container ships, and the World Trade Centre, where cruise ships dock, while on our right is East Boston with its one remaining shipyard and marina, but where once the mighty clipper ships for the China tea trade were built. Further down the channel, we round the downtown with its skyscraper-studded financial district on our left. To our right is Mystic River, which has a liquefied natural gas tanker terminal, a dock for scrap iron barges, and a car ferry port. Turning further left, we pass Charlestown Navy Yard and the Charles River Dam (which should have properly been called the Charles River Pumping Station). Beyond is the Charles River Basin, ringed by lovely waterside parks, which, on good days and bad, are full of bicyclists and joggers. The river itself is also normally quite full of sailing dinghies, rowing sculls, canoes, and kayaks. Three large universities - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Boston University - are located right on the river, and each has a boathouse. (Northeastern University is landlocked, but has a boathouse nevertheless.) Before the Charles River Dam was built, Charles River was brackish and tidal, and smelled rather bad. The pumping station houses several large diesel engines that drive turbines that pump down the river during high tides and heavy rains, to prevent the river from leaving its banks. I have spent a year or so living at a marina directly downstream of the dam, and have observed that the pumping station does not run very often, but when it does it is quite an impressive sight. The tidal range is about three metres, and so with a 1.5-metre rise it would have to be running over half of the time, a three metre rise would force it to run continuously, and a four metre rise would likely put it underwater for good. And here is the map prepared by our friends at the EPA {2}. What's red goes under at 1.5 metres rise, what's blue goes under at 3.5 metres rise, tan is either dry or uncovers at low tide at 3.5 metres rise (distinction not shown), and light blue is currently water. As we enter the harbour, Deer Island on our right is now again an island because the dam connecting it to the town of Winthrop is gone, as is much of Winthrop. Long Island, the barrier island on our left, is mostly washed out as well. Logan International Airport still has its control tower above water, but now only caters to sea planes. Port of South Boston and World Trade Centre are no more; same with East Boston's shipyard facilities. Downtown stands as an island, but is rather hard to reach because all the highway tunnels are underwater, as are the docks. Mystic River facilities are gone as well. Charles River Dam is out of commission, and Charles River Basin is once again brackish and tidal all the way upstream to Watertown (off the map to the left), so-called because it has another, smaller dam, and supplied all of Boston's water before an aqueduct was built to a reservoir quite far away. Prior to closing their doors, MIT, Harvard, and Boston University have spent the remainder of their rapidly dwindling endowments on dikes, dams, and pumping stations, to no avail. To be perfectly candid, looking at this map does not fill me with optimism for the future of our fair City on a Hill. It seems that in due course it will turn into a landscape studded with abandoned wrecks of buildings standing knee-deep in a swirling colloidal suspension of excrement and garbage. What are the chances of preserving road access, or the electric grid, or water and sewer services under such conditions? And is it worth anyone's trouble to even try, if it is understood that another decade will bring another few centimetres of ocean level rise, and that in response the shoreline will move a few kilometres further inland? Would it not be wiser to abandon entire areas as the water comes in, understanding that once it is in, it is there to stay? But that leaves open an important question: What about Boston as a port? The same question applies to any other port, or, for that matter, just about any stretch of shoreline, for, as we will see in Part Three, Boston's case is quite typical. Suppose you are a planter, happily growing wheat close enough to the coast to walk it down to the waterline with the help of some mules, and you would like to exchange that wheat (baked into hard biscuits and packed in waterproof tins) with some sailors in exchange for a few bottles of wine, some chocolate, and some silk cloth for a bridal gown (life goes on, you know). You pack the tins in panniers, strap the panniers onto your mules, and walk in stately procession toward the coast (mules aren't exactly swift animals, and one mile per hour is what they generally peg out at). With port facilities permanently submerged, where do you intersect with your sailor friends to effect the exchange? Things are not as hopeless as they would seem. After all, we did manage to colonise the entire planet using sailboats and without any port facilities to start with. A variety of techniques, some ancient, some decidedly twenty-first century, can be brought to bear to solve this problem. The problem most people face in adapting to the rapidly transforming landscape is not technical but psychological: they will insist on attempting to run their existing systems until they crash, simply because they have so much invested in them. This will mean that most people will simply deal themselves out of the game, and that the volume of global trade will diminish, perhaps by several orders of magnitude. But it will not stop altogether, and may eventually recover somewhat. In The European Lowlands by Keith Farnish Walking the grassy embankment between the tidal River Orford and the dusty fields of East Suffolk, it becomes starkly clear what sea level rise would mean to this part of the English coast. As I walk northwards the brackish water laps the broken-down concrete sills and oozes through the cracks, eroding away silt from the dike that I am striding along. Marsh Samphire seems to glow in the October sun; a tasty treat, but rare enough to be a delicacy in these parts. To my left, a cloud of dust is whipped up by the breeze, helped on its way by the harrows of a tractor: it's been a dry month, and the frail earth is easily moved by the action of the wind. Weak, exhausted soil; the result of decades of relentless tillage in a land that is dependent upon constant drainage via a highly complex system of ditches and waterways. The land here may be flat and low, but there is enough height on Orford Ness to mean that I can't make out the North Sea, even from the top of this dike. But I can hear it as it washes through the stones that make up this ephemeral spur of land and then pulls back, moving the shingle in eddies down the coast. Farmland to my left; seas to my right - what must the people who live here think? Constant dread, would be one expectation; but somehow I don't think that is the case. If we make our way 100 miles north-west to the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, then we experience a world of sea-level denial {3}: "The Middle Level is the central and largest section of the Great Level of the Fens, reclaimed by drainage during the mid-17th Century. "Its river system consists of over 120 miles (190 kilometres) of watercourses most of which are also navigations and has a catchment of just over 170,000 acres (70,000 hectares). "The efficient operation of the system is vital to the safety and prosperity of over 100,000 people who live and work in the area. But for the operations of the Commissioners and boards, much of the fen land would be under water for much of the year, accesses from higher ground would be cut-off and many of the present land uses, which are taken for granted, would be impossible." Stern warnings indeed, but calmed by the claims of the Middle Level Commission; something we also see for another of the large Internal Drainage Boards (IBDs), that of South Holland, a 95,000 acre part of Lincolnshire, which states {4}: "Although the entire area is at considerable theoretical risk of river flooding and inundation from the sea, the actual risk is substantially reduced by the work that we do in partnership with Local Authorities, the Environment Agency and Natural England". Everything will be fine if they do their job? There is a clue in the word "fine", as the balancing act between inundation and successful drainage rests on the finest of lines; something you can easily see if you enter a very conservative two metre sea level rise into the Firetree global flood map {5}. That's the Fenlands gone, then, in all practical sense. Plug in something approaching the more dramatic scenarios discussed in Part One of this series, and you see what can only be described as an entirely new landscape: a five metre rise creates a larger North Sea, extending southwards to Cambridge, and taking a five mile slice off the Lincolnshire coast. No more holidays in Skegness and, probably more significantly, about ten Gigawatts of electricity generation capability (about fifteen percent of the UK total) is at or below sea level {6}. That's just in one particular part of England; on a larger scale, given the propensity for nuclear power stations to be on the coast and coal-fired power stations {7} to be near rivers (for cooling water), a five metre rise in sea level would pretty much have the UK's power supply bollixed. You won't see that in any official reports. Back to the fertile croplands of the Fens, and neither will you see this startling fact mentioned: the pumping station at Saint Germans, two miles south-west of Kings Lynn, is just about the only thing preventing the aforementioned 170,000 acres of Fenland (the Middle Level) from flooding, even without sea-level rise. It would only take a power failure during a heavy period of rain or a high spring tide, with the sluice gates down, to quickly engulf the area. With a five metre rise, the new state-of-the-art system - due to be completed in 2010 - will be underwater all the time {8}. With a storm surge, like that experienced in 1953, a mere two metre rise should suffice to flood the whole of the Middle Level, with the Saint Germans pumping station sputtering to an ungainly halt. If you want to see the one thing that lies between safety and the flooding of 265 square miles of land, click on this link {9}. Comforting, isn't it? Do you know what it would mean to bring marshland back to the East of England on the kind of scale envisaged with just a modest sea-level rise? Not only will the land become unstable for the majority of buildings currently in the area, and totally incapable of supporting agriculture of any kind beyond sheep grazing; the Fenlands, the Broads, and the East Suffolk, Essex and Kent coasts will experience the unwelcome return of malaria. Malaria in the UK; something that up until the urgent Canutian shoring up of the coast in the nineteenth century was tolerated as an occupational hazard by the few who lived there, but would be a scourge upon modern towns and cities. As M J Dobson writes, in a sobering paper {10} on the incidence of malaria in England: "On every count, the marshland populations recorded the highest adult and child mortality rates. Average crude death rates were as high as sixty, seventy, or eighty per thousand - levels which could be two to three times those of neighbouring non-marshland parishes. Life expectancy at birth was little more than thirty years for the sickly marshland residents and nearly half of all recorded deaths occurred at age ten years or below. Burial patterns from year to year and season to season were also extremely volatile in the marshes and there was a very close correspondence between fluctuations in summer temperatures and the level of mortality in the autumn and following spring. The hottest summers were always followed by the unhealthiest and most mortal times in the marshlands. A marshy land experiencing rising temperatures: this could be any coastal region in the world, coming to a time near you. Dutch Denial Never underestimate the Dutch: apart from being a race of phenomenally linguistic people who have found an almost perfect social balance between freedom and responsibility, at least compared to the rest of the civilised world, they also manage to keep a level head when a fifth of the Netherlands is only inhabitable by humans because of thousands of miles of dikes. I suppose when you have to squint far into the past to see the deadliest of floods experienced by your people, knowing that in the last 100 years only one flood event has taken a significant number of lives, then a feeling of safety is bound to embrace you to a certain extent. But what if you do peer back? 1717 is regarded as the year of the last great flood in the Netherlands; the Christmas Flood which is estimated to have led to the deaths of 14,000 people in a single night. Return to 1570, and the All Saints flood is said to have taken many thousands of lives. Similarly in 1530, 1421, 1404, 1287 ... Saint Lucia's Flood in 1287 washed away between fifty and eighty thousand rural lives in the low-lying central plains of Holland. Back and back, a pattern of death that should serve to haunt the cultural memories of the Dutch - it really should, regardless of how safe things may feel at the moment: "Of all the United Provinces, Frieseland and Groningen have suffered, and continue to suffer, most from these floods. Exposed to the full rage of the north, north-west, and west winds, the waters of the angry Atlantic and Polar seas rush towards these provinces, pour through the inlets of its barrier reef - the Helder, (Hels-deur - hell's door) the Vlie, and the more northern gates - heap them up in the inland Zuyder Zee, burst or overtop its dykes, and spread themselves over the country, sometimes to the very borders of Hanover. Thousands of men and cattle perish, the gates of the barriers become widened, and the dominion of the inland sea enlarged." This paragraph, from E and R Littell's Living Age (1848) predates any major engineering works, apart from the piecemeal implementation of thousands of local dikes, which were only ever meant to provide temporary respite from flooding. A remarkable plan, albeit primarily motivated by the desire for more farmland and population space, appeared in Modern Mechanix in 1930 - courtesy of the Strange Maps Blog {11} - proposing the construction of a 450 mile long, thirty metre high wall across the central North Sea, with another slightly smaller one curving every which way to block off the southern end. Absurdly impractical, as well as ecologically and politically ruinous, perhaps; but the construction of the Afsluitdijk (literally "Closure Dike") across the mouth of the 2,000 square mile Zuiderzee between 1927 and 1933, was certainly close to the limits of engineering in that period, and is still the largest single land "reclamation" project ever completed. The word "reclamation" is quoted intentionally, for what exactly is "reclaimed" when the oceans are banished from a place where they once existed? This assertiveness, the almost messianic approach to claiming for a nation what was never its property, is foolhardy at best, and pathological at worst. What was once ocean can never truly be land unless the cycles of the climate deem it to be so - and we are undoubtedly taking them in the opposite direction. If we wilfully claim ascendancy over the incumbent waters, as the Dutch and the British have done over the last 800 years or so in their respective lowlands, then eventually the mindset that dominates is one of impregnability. But the waters will return, not only to the coastline of eastern England as the sluice gates fail, but also to overtop the Afsluitdijk which is just seven metres high. Remember back in Part One, when the 1953 flood reached 4.55 metres above the Normal Amsterdam Water Level? Well, the risk is increasing all the time; not only as the sea level rises, but as the energy in the oceans increases and - something that is the epitome of risk - the population grows inexorably. The denial culture that blossoms behind coastal defences is alive and well in the Netherlands, according to Maaskant, Jonkman and Bouwer: "The projected population growth in flood prone areas is higher than the average in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2040. Due to this effect the potential number of fatalities is projected to increase by 68% on average for ten different flood scenarios, not including impacts from climate change and sea level rise. Just sea level rise of 0.30 metres leads to an average twenty per cent increase in the number of fatalities. The combined impact of sea level rise and population growth leads to an estimated doubling in the potential number of fatalities. Taking into account increasing probability of flooding due to sea level rise and extreme river discharges, the expected number of fatalities could quadruple by 2040." -- "Future risk of flooding: an analysis of changes in potential loss of life in South Holland", Environmental Science & Policy, 2009 "Reclaimed land" is an anachronism because you cannot reclaim what you never had - the sea will reclaim the land soon; sooner than you can imagine. _____ For a while yet, coastal destruction caused by sea level rise will be seen as something that happens to someone else, somewhere else (or to you, but then that's just your bad luck). Social inertia will follow its usual course, causing people to insure themselves against fires and other minor accidents, sweat the little details of public health and safety, fight terrorism, while steadfastly ignoring the elephant in the room that is about to sit down on their heads. At what point will it become obvious to just about everyone that the gods saw their plans, laughed at them, and then cancelled them? Will it then be too late to do anything to prepare, or will those near the coast simply join the ranks of environmental migrants? And if you do start taking steps to prepare now, will you be viewed as a harmless eccentric, an alarmist crackpot, or a dangerous subversive? In response to these questions, we are sure to hear a chorus of "Gloom and doom!" Ah, the "doomers" and the doomed, what beautiful music they make! Be that as it may; in Part Three of this series, we will leave questions of denial and social inertia and political climate nonsense behind, and concentrate on What Might Work. Links: {1} http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/10/oceans-are-coming.html {2} http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/11/oceans-are-coming-part-ii-living-on.html {3} http://www.middlelevel.gov.uk/ {4} http://www.wlma.org.uk/index.pl?id=23 {5} http://flood.firetree.net/ {6} http://www.leonardo-energy.org/webfm_send/2573 {7} http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7095736.stm {8} http://www.ice-eastofengland.org.uk/eastofengland/documents/09.04.21%20Essex%20-%20%20St%20Germans%20.pdf {9} http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=52.7022,0.350554&spn=0.006787,0.01929&z=16 {10} http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1291929/pdf/jrsocmed00141-0007.pdf {11} http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/296-the-dykes-of-doggerland/ _____ Keith Farnish is author of Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis: http://www.timesupbook.com. He also writes The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog. He enjoys being a husband and dad, walking around and growing things. Further reading: Climate Change Puts Trillions of Dollars in Assets at Risk Along US Coasts http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem14356.html From menecraj at shaw.ca Sat Jul 24 23:20:00 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:20:00 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Oceans_Are_Coming_-_Part_III=3A_Re?= =?iso-8859-1?q?maining_Afloat?= Message-ID: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/01/oceans-are-coming-part-iii-remaining.html Sunday, January 17, 2010 The Oceans Are Coming - Part III: Remaining Afloat by Keith Farnish and Dmitry Orlov ClubOrlov (January 17 2010) The first two parts of this series drew a surprising amount of vitriol from people who vehemently deny the merits of the case for adapting to rapid climate change and rising sea levels - greater even than the piece ridiculing the Teabaggers {1}. The torrent of comment spam got so bad that I had to shut down comment submission altogether. It was probably fed to some extent by the various interests which were fighting to make the Copenhagen Conference a fiasco. I really do like giving people the ability to publish thoughtful, reasonable, helpful comments, and so as a compromise I have decided to turn comment submission back on, but only for registered users (including OpenID). Those who wish to dispute the reality of climate change should perhaps go to {2}. Had Noah built his arc and the Great Flood never materialized, he would have felt very, very silly indeed! Noah could thank God for such an accurate weather forecast. In the biblical story, once the waters receded, God told Noah that there won't be any more Great Floods, and some of us may still find comfort in this bit of divine dispensation, but rising ocean levels are a fact that more and more of us will be forced to take into account as we redraw our coastal maps. How fast are the ocean levels rising? Well, that's where we have a bit of problem. When making plans, it is helpful to be armed with the most accurate and up-to-date forecasts; laying plans for tomorrow based on yesterday's forecast seems like folly. And yet that is precisely what our incomplete understanding of climate dynamics forces us to do. In Part One of this series, just a couple of months ago, we cheerfully wrote: "The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (that's the big blob that surrounds the South Pole just off-centre) seems to be quite stable, and should remain that way for the next few centuries". That would have been nice, because the East Antarctic ice sheet holds somewhere around eighty percent of all the fresh water on the planet; if it were to melt, the sea level would go up by between twenty and 36 metres (75 to 120 feet) and coastal maps would need to be redrawn more or less from scratch. But then shortly after we posted the second part of this series, Nature Geoscience published a study {3} showing that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was undergoing a decline in thickness: In agreement with an independent earlier assessment, we estimate a total loss of 190 (plus or minus 77) billion tons per year, with 132 (plus or minus 26) billion tons per year coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of 57 (plus or minus 52) billion tons per year, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006. "Accurate quantification of Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance and its contribution to global sea-level rise remains challenging", the authors are quick to caution. Nevertheless, the study concludes that "in contrast to previous estimates ... [the new measurements] indicate that as a whole, Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise". In Part One we cited the aforementioned GRACE satellite system as a way of assessing potential ice losses from Greenland, and based on it we assumed - wrongly as it turned out - that East Antarctica would be safe. Taking into account everything that has been discussed earlier in this series, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Typically, we don't know what exactly to expect or when to expect it, but we do know that it will be worse than what we should have been expecting before. Should we wait to act until scientific certainty has been achieved? If we do, will it be too late to prepare or to adapt? Newsflash! {4} It now appears that a couple of big Antarctic glaciers - Pine Island Glacier and Thwaite's Glacier next to it - have passed their tipping points. They have floated off the sea-bed, and will now disintegrate, resulting in as much as a half-metre rise above previously estimated sea level by the end of the century. We are not in a position to face down the ocean, saying "This far, Ocean, and not a centimetre further!" Our worst-case scenario is that our worst-case scenario is going to continue getting worse and worse. We cannot limit our planning activities to this or that mythical upper bound. When our knowledge fails us, our myths are there to guide us. The success of Noah's mission did not depend on having an accurate estimate of how high the waters would rise, because his arc floated. * * * Were the advances all gradual, as are experienced from day to day on the deep ocean island chains of Tuvalu, Mauritius and The Seychelles (where the governments, perversely, still encourage mass tourism by carbon-spewing jet aircraft) then the threat to the thickly-settled low-lying coastlines of the world could, possibly, be managed in an orderly manner. Managed retreat would certainly be a possibility. The threatened areas could be redesignated as flood-zones, to be used only for low-value farming and aquaculture. Coastal inhabitants would be gradually resettled further inland. As swaths of coastal real estate are knocked down to make room for more sea, abatement procedures would be followed to prevent the coastal waters from being poisoned by toxic chemicals or choked with floating debris. In preparation, new navigation channels could be dug and seawalls and jetties constructed further inland. But no such opportunities will present themselves in most places where cyclones smash into the coast, inundating mile upon mile of lowland with salt water. Storm surges can suddenly overtop shoreline defences that seemed sufficient the day before, spreading their watery fingers across fenlands and farms. Then the storm sewers back up, breeding typhoid-spreading rats and malaria-spreading mosquitoes wherever the water pools in stagnant reaches. In such cases, emergency evacuation and resettlement remains the only option. But emergency management capabilities are restricted, and will become completely inadequate as the frequency of such emergencies continues to increase. As we showed in Part Two, especially with the story of the Netherlands, you can only hold back the tide for so long before the inevitable happens. What is crazy about the way we occupy the coastal region is not that we do it at all - there is a good living to be made there, as the crofters of North West Scotland found prior to the Clearances, and as the seemingly daredevil occupants of the Sundarbans do today. No, what is crazy about the way we occupy the coastal region is that civilized humans assume that the coastline is fixed. Civilized humans are wont to stand at the water's edge and not so much dare it, as deny that the sea can take what they feel is so rightly theirs. Yet anyone with a rudimentary understanding of coastal geomorphology knows that many coastal regions are dynamic, their relative stability dependent on the strength of the currents and waves and the resistance of the material from which the coast is built. Shingle and sand move with the dominant current along the shore, depleting one part of the coast and building up another. Where the coast loses its protective skirt, the water can rapidly eat into the land, causing slumps and falls which themselves are carried away by the water. Some places are luckier than others - and it is a matter of luck - to be blessed with mangroves, salt marshes, coral reefs or natural shoals that reduce the impact of the waves and undersea currents. Other places may be more resistant to change: a granite or basalt coastline will withstand the harshest of conditions for eons, even long after all the soil has been scoured off by storms. Most shorelines are continuously moving. When the sea cooperates, it is possible, for a time, to constrain them using embankments or dikes. But the sea always wins in the end. The sea is the ultimate wilderness. We may play its game and sometimes even win, but it will never play by our rules. This much we know and it would be foolish of us to think that it could be otherwise. Just how foolish? Here is an example {5} from New South Wales, Australia, where the local council have forcefully rejected the do-nothing option: The "do nothing" option will not be considered by Port Macquarie-Hastings Council as a response to the management of coastal erosion at Lake Cathie, says the council's coastal and estuaries committee. Local campaigner and Lake Cathie resident Leslie Williams said that local Illaroo Road residents were pleased to see this option removed and that consideration would now focus on alternatives such as beach nourishment, seawalls and planned retreat. PMHC's development and environment director Matt Rogers said the "do nothing" option had been dismissed in the report to go before the next council meeting, as the council recognised the impact of that option on residents and was unacceptable. The council will also consider moves to permit residents to make contributions to protection work, while development applications for Illaroo Road properties would not be accepted until the erosion issue was resolved. Notice that last bit? It would appear that development applications will not be accepted until Illaroo Road is made safe from the rising oceans. Given the latest ocean rise forecasts, this is a perfectly sensible procedural delay (not to be confused with the "do nothing" option). Illaroo Road will be underwater for a short spell - just a few thousand years - but then, with luck, the Earth will enter yet another ice age, glaciers will grow again, the waters will retreat, and, in due course, Illaroo Road properties will be developed. This is industrial-strength foolishness, and is surely symptomatic of the megalomania that also makes civilized people believe you can keep burning oil and coal as long as you keep pumping the carbon dioxide underground. The erosion issue will never be "resolved": something's got to give ... eventually. * * * Apart from such "proactive" approaches, those living low-lying coastal areas around the world really have just two choices: 1. Keep denying the reality of climate change and the effects of increased storm energy and sea level rise; or, with similar naivete, accept that things are changing but assume that their political leaders will somehow be able to deal with it. 2. Face reality, take matters into their own hands, and find ways to adapt. Take to higher ground, or remain near the coast but prepare for a life afloat and on the move. * * * If you are thinking of ignoring everything written so far in this series and making your decisions based on the business-as-usual scenario our political leaders love so much, we would urge you to reconsider - while you have the option. Even if sea-level rise does not achieve the catastrophic levels that are becoming more and more likely with each new scientific study, your ability to adapt is going to be constrained by the way you get around. Your speed may vary, but overall it will be inversely proportional the speed at which the current petroleum-based transport infrastructure falls apart, as the reality of crude oil's terminal decline and resource scarcity begin to hit home. Before too long, you will be on foot - if you are still on dry ground, that is - and, if not, you will need a boat of some sort. Having an internal-combustion engine to push it around is certainly a convenience, but you wouldn't want to be left stranded due to lack of fuel. One can reasonably imagine that certain internal combustion vehicles will stay in sporadic use longer than others. On the water, smaller motorised craft - dinghies, launches, and tenders - use little fuel, are very energy-effective for the services they render, and so are likely to persist for some time. On land, the pay-off per unit energy is much lower, and so internal-combustion vehicles are likely to be relegated to the realm of pure luxury from whence the "horseless carriage" originally emerged. Limousines for weddings and hearses for funerals will perhaps remain motorised the longest, moving slowly over unpaved roads, since people would still be willing to pay extra for dignity on special occasions. We can also foresee that certain groups, such as governments, mafias, armed gangs and other social predators will be able to secure a supply of fuel the longest. It is difficult to imagine that such a winding-down can transpire uniformly smoothly and peaceably. Inevitably, geography will be the determining factor: remote population centres, to which fuel must be brought overland, will have their supply curtailed long before those that are close to pipelines, railway lines, seaports or shipping channels. In communities that find themselves without access to transport fuels, much of the remaining economic activity will centre around gathering the necessary resources in order to escape, and they will steadily depopulate, leaving behind the old and the sick. We can foresee that road traffic will be greatly reduced, as paved roads revert to dirt and become eroded and, in places, impassable, as bridges collapse from lack of maintenance, and as predation by both local officials and highwaymen increases both the costs and the dangers. Both pedestrian traffic and caravans of pack animals will try to evade official and unofficial predation, opting for the less popular, more circuitous footpaths instead of the direct and open road. Canals and other navigable waterways will once again play a much larger role in inland transport, with barges pulled by draught animals along towpaths and with sail-boats carrying freight and passengers along the sea-coasts. As the sea-ports that currently serve container ships, bulk carriers and tankers are submerged under the rising seas, the current hub-and-spoke transport networks will collapse, and smaller coastal communities will once again find ample reason to want to build and provision ocean-going vessels, to make seasonal migrations and to trade with faraway lands. * * * At the same time, the need for transport will only grow, as millions of environmental refugees diffuse across the world looking for a new place to settle, and, not finding any, remain perpetually on the move. Rapid climate change is putting an end to the last ten thousand years of unusually stable climate. It was this rare episode of climate stability that has allowed agriculture to develop and flourish and previously nomadic tribes to settle down in one place without starving. It even allowed agrarian societies to produce such large food surpluses that cities and towns could become established, eventually growing to millions of inhabitants, all fed using cash crops grown elsewhere. As the climate reverts to its chaotic historical norm, people everywhere will be forced to abandon such sedentery patterns of inhabiting the landscape in favour of the more usual migratory and nomadic existence, minimising the risk of starvation by diversifying food sources across large geographic areas, and making seasonal migrations to avoid extremes of hot and cold. Even as the rising oceans devastate many coastal areas, the areas far inland will become far less welcoming. Global warming will make extreme weather events, such as the 2003 European heat wave, which resulted in 37,451 deaths, an annual happening. Many inland areas, such as much of the southern United States, which are currently only survivable in the summer thanks to widespread access to air conditioning, will no longer be survivable. Ocean water's moderating effect on climate will make the coasts seem relatively inviting in spite of the erosion and the flooding. However, erecting permanent structures on such an impermanent terrain seems like a foolish thing to do. On the other hand, being able to take to the waves is an insurance policy that might pay you double if you are smart enough. Not only will seas and oceans, coastal waters, waterways inevitably reemerge as the default means of movement, but also as the places where the circumstances will force many people to live. This they should be able to do, provided their dwellings can float and move about without energy from fossil fuels. * * * Imagine life on the ocean water, and a community that is connected through its mutual dependence on the wildly dynamic coastal belt. Imagine your home being a boat; moving with the winds, the tides and the currents, rising and settling on the wash of floodwater. This is really not as outlandish as it might sound. Options for post-industrial sailboat-building are described in quite a lot of detail in Dmitry's article "Twenty-First Century Transport", which will appear in Slaying The Hydra, Gillian Fallon and Richard Douthwaite, editors, Green Books, May 2010. The design he proposes has been rather thoroughly thought out and many of its elements rigorously tested. On board are all the systems needed to make it a self-contained mobile survival capsule. Water for drinking and washing is provided through rainwater collection with a solar still for back-up. Illumination and electricity for communications and navigational equipment and lights comes from a few solar panels and a small wind generator. For sanitation, there is a composting toilet, its proceeds used to fertilize bits of permaculture tucked away on shore. For heating and cooking and getting rid of the inevitable damp, there is a wood stove, the wood generally available in the form of driftwood. What's more, it is very hard to starve because the coastal zone tends to be very productive: Dulse seaweed, clams, oysters, mussels, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, conchs, edible periwinkles and what's left of the fish provide a year-round banquet. A sea breeze provides the air conditioning. A few ratty old sails and a couple of long sculling oars provide the propulsion when the time comes for a change of venue. The same boat that can dry out at low tide on a mud flat or nosed onto a sheltered stretch of beach can be sailed halfway across the world quite safely and comfortably. It wouldn't win any races, but then it doesn't have to be sailed by a professional crew of acrobatic sea-monkeys either. * * * The sea exerts a powerful pull on the imagination of the landlubber. Go to any seaside on a warm, sunny day, and you will see quite a few people spread out along the embankment, sitting or standing, staring vacantly over the water. From the water they look like ants. Go ashore and visit any newsstand, even one quite far inland, and you are sure to find some sailing magazines, full of airbrushed photographs of bikini-clad women on top of similarly well-buffed large floating toys. The sea is the ultimate escape fantasy. The landlubbers assume, and rightly sow, that just out of sight of land lies a different world, one which shore-side society will never be able to fully oppress. The shore-side landscape has been carved up into various types of boxes and rectangles. Architects never tire of putting boxes on top of, next to, or inside of other boxes; this seems to exhaust their range of motions. People inhabit these boxes, starting with the crib and ending with the coffin. In the interim, they use four-wheeled boxes to navigate the maze between house boxes, job boxes and shopping boxes. All of this fixation on rectilinear geometry is supposed to make them safe and comfortable, but it also makes them dream of escape. Escape to sea, of course, is an obvious choice, because any body of water - even a smallish one - is automatically a wilderness, while the ocean is a force of nature par excellence - unconquerable by man, guaranteed to utterly destroy and humiliate any human contrivance designed to keep it in check. The land has been carved up into rectangles and boxes, but the sea-coast (the wet side of it, that is) remains a relative wilderness precisely because it cannot be carved up quite so easily. Strange though it may seem, the wilderness starts right at the water's edge. If our ocean-gazers turned their gaze to the boats bobbing around at anchor or at moorings, and looked carefully, they would notice that some of these stationary boats are, in fact, inhabited. Here is a dinghy tied up to the stern of one; another has towels drying on the lifelines; a third has a bit of smoke coming from a chimney above the wheelhouse - somebody is cooking lunch. Unbeknownst to most of the box-dwellers on shore, there is rather a large tribe of "live-aboards" - people who live aboard boats. Some keep their boats in posh marinas and emerge from the cabin in the morning wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Others live at anchor, setting a few crabpots or fishing off the stern to catch their dinner, and rowing themselves ashore periodically to do an odd job or gather some supplies. Some boats make semi-annual pilgrimages in search of warmer or cooler weather; others have a summer holiday, during which they visit picturesque places along the coast; still others stay put, growing a thick beard of seafood. Living on a boat is in general much more economical than living on land, and it is possible, if one is skilled, to make a living of it without very much monetary input at all. But it is certainly not for everybody. Some people try it and after a while give up, others have been living aboard for decades and are not about to stop. Many others are about to start living on the water, even though they don't know it yet. The problem is, their houses don't float, don't move, and they aren't particularly habitable without the wires and pipes that hook them to various services. When the water comes, they are submerged and disintegrate. Living on a boat may have its challenges and annoyances, but living in a flooded house is close to impossible. And so, if the landscape you inhabit is in danger of becoming flooded, cut off from the mainland, or generally uninhabitable, why not build a boat instead of a house, or next to the house, and float away when the time comes. It is quite possible for an amateur with limited funds to build a craft that is roomy enough to house a family, relatively immune to wind and waves, happily sits upright on any relatively level bit of ground, rides well to anchor, and contains all the necessities and even a modicum of luxuries, for a perfectly civilized existence. As a residence, a sailboat offers a unique combination of safety, civilization and freedom. It may be raining cats and dogs and blowing so hard that tree-branches are flying about on shore, but on a boat anchored in a sheltered spot, once you lash down a few things on deck and descend the companionway, you enter a different world. Standing in the cabin, you are up to your chest in water, but the water is outside, while inside it is warm and dry, you have your own source of electricity from the wind generator, fresh rainwater is gurgling down into the water tanks, and, what's more, you do not have to ask anyone's permission or pay anyone for the right to be there. If someone minds you being there, or if the place is uninviting, once the storm passes you hoist sails, pull up anchor, and look for another spot. * * * In a world where rising seas are already putting millions of people at risk of losing their homes, their lives, or both, a programme of building large numbers of inexpensive, practical, utilitarian and versatile sailing craft is a direct way to provide flood-proof, earthquake-proof and storm-proof habitation, to build communities, to create local resilience, and to provide hope for a survivable future. It is a way to create connections between different parts of the planet that can survive into the post-industrial age. It offers a way to transport people and goods in a fashion that avoids predation that will be an inevitable element of a disrupted time. It offers us an opportunity to make sure that we remain a seafaring species even as the fossil fuel era recedes into history, and gives us a way to salvage something very useful out of the wreckage of our industrial past. Links: {1} http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/09/caution-white-people.html {2} http://www.darwinawards.com/ {3} http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/abs/ngeo694.html {4} http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18383-major-antarctic-glacier-is-past-its-tipping-point.html {5} http://www.camdencourier.com.au/news/local/news/general/residents-reject-do-nothing-erosion-option/1706506.aspx _____ Keith Farnish is author of "Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis" (http://www.timesupbook.com) and also writes The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog. He enjoys being a husband and dad, walking around and growing things. From hain at antcolbks.com Sun Jul 25 00:15:00 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] After bailouts, new autoworkers make half as much as veterans in same plant Message-ID: <2835965F3F2E4FCC8D76B2668342F481@Upstairs> "For years, the UAW embodied industrial unionism and the gains of the New Deal. So goes the UAW, so goes the American middle class." After bailouts, new autoworkers make half as much as veterans in same plant By Peter Whoriskey Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 25, 2010 DETROIT -- Among workers building the Jeep Grand Cherokee here, there are few obvious distinctions. Clutching lunch sacks and mini-coolers, they trudge together through the turnstiles at the plant's main gate each day to tinker with the same vehicles, along the same assembly line, performing the same tasks. Yet they fall into distinctly unequal classes: About half make $28 an hour or more, while the rest, the recently hired, make $14. This oddity, which could become the norm in much of the domestic U.S. auto industry, arises from the jury-rigged labor agreement that the United Auto Workers, U.S. automakers and the federal government reached during the industry's near-death experience last year. Now the revival of the U.S. industry depends on a compromise that some on all sides quietly acknowledge is divisive, among other things, and probably cannot last. "How would you feel if you were on the line humpin' and bumpin' all day and the guy next to you gets twice the pay? How would you feel toward that person?" asked Dale Hunt, a veteran tradesman at the plant and former president of the union local. "Of course there is going to be animosity." What factory workers should earn became a central part of Washington's prolonged debate over the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, pitting the advocates of the free market against those for a "fair wage." Although cutting labor costs was viewed by many as essential to the companies' recovery, the issue was never fully resolved. Under pressure from the federal government and the companies to reduce compensation, the United Auto Workers refused to lower the wage rate for its then-current members. But it allowed all new hires to be paid the reduced rate, along with lesser health and retirement benefits. At this Chrysler plant in a blighted section of Detroit -- which President Obama is scheduled to visit this week-- the company is handling demand for its Jeep Grand Cherokee by hiring its largest single contingent of "second-tier" workers, the first time such hiring has unfolded in the industry on this scale. Other companies said they will make similar workforce expansions, and two-tier factories are expected to become more common as they do. After an eight-hour shift attaching oxygen sensors, Jay Johnson, a new hire and a 33-year-old father of three, winced when asked about the pay gap. "It's all mental," he said after a long pause. "If you think about how much the other guys are making, well, it's not going to work for you. I don't think the $28 an hour will ever come back. But growing up around here, I just know I'm blessed to have a job." With that, Johnson was echoing the feelings of many co-workers. Several said they were content, for now, to simply collect a good, regular paycheck, regardless of whether the levels within the factory were set equitably. Less pay? They'll take it. Unemployment rates run over 13 percent in Detroit, and higher than that for African Americans. Many had been unemployed before recently getting hired. "I've got a wife, three kids and a mortgage," said Dealon Norton, 28, who was unemployed for a year and now has a job putting bolts into doors. He is untroubled by the pay gap: "I really needed a job." Others traded lesser jobs -- one was a $10-hourly nurse's assistant, another was an $8-an-hour White Castle manager trainee, a third was machine operator for a local newspaper -- for the upgrade to $14. Johnson said he, too, held a job before this, but it was in Texas, at a company that makes car seats. So while he was making about the same wage in the Dallas area, he could afford to fly up and see his family only once or twice a month. "You gotta be grateful," he said. Indeed, the company also said that despite paying only half of what it once did, it continues to attract good applicants. About 99 percent of the 1,300 new hires hold high school degrees, according to Chrysler, just like the workforce already at the plant. The new hires are also younger: The average age of the previous workers is 46; for the new hires, it is 33. And because of the hard times in Detroit, Chrysler officials expect that workers will look beyond the pay disparity. "If you care about your job, your salary, you look at things in a different way," said Gualberto Ranieri, a Chrysler spokesman. "You realize that in certain areas of this metropolitan area that opportunities for a job are not so wide. You have a different attitude." Even so, Chrysler has seen significant attrition among the newer hires, as they encounter the monotony and regimentation of a job on the line. Ergonomics and mechanization have made tasks easier, but the line's swift pace dictates ceaseless focus. Each chore -- hoisting a power drill, attaching a windshield wiper, attaching a seat -- must be repeated each time a vehicle passes by, which can be every 50 seconds. Breaks are precisely meted out. During one shift last week, work began at 11 a.m., a 13-minute break was held at 12:47, another 13-minute break was held at 2:40, a half-hour lunch came at 4:30 and a 14-minute break came along at 6:01. Workers left at 7:30. "I hate my job," said one veteran worker, John, outside the gates one day last week. He would give only his first name. "And there's no way I would do this for $14 an hour. These new cats are getting screwed. This is [nasty] work. You bust your butt. You really do." John and other veteran workers predicted that as the new job becomes more familiar, the sense of novelty will be overtaken by boredom, discontent and, in some cases, repetitive stress injuries. "Let's wait and see how they feel then," he said. Deeper pay cuts Once one of the nation's most powerful unions, the United Auto Workers is credited by historians with lifting working conditions for all Americans and clearing a path for factory workers into the middle class. Union officials talk about "a fair wage," echoing ideals of justice and morality. But in negotiations before and during the bailout debate, the auto manufacturers, seconded by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), emphasized the virtues of market forces, and a wage that would allow the U.S. companies to remain competitive with foreign rivals, particularly those building "transplant" factories in the United States. Those transplant factories pay as much as $25 an hour, with bonuses but more limited retirement and health benefits. Before pumping billions into GM and Chrysler, the Bush and Obama administrations leaned decisively toward the market view on wages. During negotiations with Chrysler, the Obama administration called for "maintaining all-in hourly labor costs comparable to its U.S. competitors, including the transplants," according to an April memo describing the Treasury proposal. The administration proposal also called for all new production employees to be paid the $14 rate, expanding a 2007 labor agreement that set up the lower rate, though only for some "non-core" jobs. In doing so, the administration went well beyond the pay cuts the automakers had envisioned, sources said. "From the manufacturer's perspective, the line workers were always going to be getting $28 an hour," said a source familiar with the negotiations and the auto manufacturers' thinking. The person, who lacked authorization to discuss the issue, declined to be named. "Those jobs are difficult. But there are other jobs in the plant, and those are not nearly as stressful. Those were going to be the $14." "The government didn't say $28 an hour was overpaying people," the source said. "But they saw the $14 rate as a way to lower overall labor costs to be competitive." The two-tier system won approval, first in 2007 and then in 2009, allowing the automakers to win the government bailout and move beyond the crisis. But some at the union saw the wage compromise as the abandonment of fundamental principles that had guided the organization since its founding in 1935. But the once powerful union has long been aiming to manage an orderly retreat to avoid a rout, according to some observers. "The idea of the UAW and the steelworkers negotiating so that workers could make it into the middle class, of allowing them to make it as manufacturing workers -- that is all gone," Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University. "And it's difficult to see how they will be able to find their way back." The two-tier agreement "effectively ends many of the principles established 70 years ago in the UAW's birth," Bill Parker, a negotiating committee leader, wrote in an unusual dissent. "For years, the UAW embodied industrial unionism and the gains of the New Deal. So goes the UAW, so goes the American middle class." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072402386.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 25 11:41:03 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:41:03 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] [Review] A New Must-Read Book About Mississippi '64 Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/books/19book.html New York Times July 19, 2010 A New Must-Read Book About Mississippi '64 Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy By Bruce Watson Illustrated. 369 pages. Viking. $27.95. [Books of the Times review, posting to SNCC-List] Books of The Times Mississippi Invaded by Idealism By Dwight Garner The comedian Dick Gregory used to joke bitterly during the civil rights era, that you could always spot a white moderate in Mississippi. He was the "cat who wants to lynch you from a low tree." Few in Mississippi got to hear Gregory's crack. When it came to race issues the state operated under a virtual media lockdown in the early 1960s. When James Baldwin was a guest on "Today," NBC stations in Mississippi cut to an old movie. When Thurgood Marshall, then an N.A.A.C.P. lawyer, appeared on TV, a notice flashed: "Cable Difficulty." Mississippi's ABC affiliates didn't want to air "Bewitched," a new sitcom. Marriage between man and witch? Surely that was code for interracial sex, for the coming mongrelization. Mississippi pretended its race problems didn't exist. But as Bruce Watson makes plain in his taut and involving new book, "Freedom Summer," the rest of America in 1964 was beginning to have trouble looking away from Mississippi. Ten years after Brown v. Board of Education and nine years after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, the state hadn't budged. Nina Simone was recording a new single most people in the state wouldn't get to hear either: "Mississippi Goddam." Blacks in Mississippi were almost entirely disenfranchised. Poll taxes, literacy tests and other sorts of "legalistic voodoo," Mr. Watson writes, kept them out of voting booths. Counties in which blacks outnumbered whites had not a single black registered voter... Mr. Watson's book derives its power - at its best, it is the literary equivalent of a hot light bulb dangling from a low ceiling - from its narrow focus. "Freedom Summer" is about the more than 700 college students who, in the summer of 1964, under the supervision of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, risked their lives to travel to Mississippi to register black voters and open schools. It was a summer, Mr. Watson writes, that "brought out the best in America" but "the worst in Mississippi."... It's hard to finish "Freedom Summer" without a comment by the historian Howard Zinn ringing in your ears. To be with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee members during the civil rights era - "walking a picket line in the rain in Hattiesburg, Miss. ... to see them jabbed by electric prod poles and flung into paddy wagons in Selma, Ala., or link arms and sing at the close of a church meeting in the Delta" - was, Mr. Zinn wrote, "to feel the presence of greatness." A version of this review appeared in print on July 19, 2010, on page C1 of the New York edition. Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/books/19book.html ========== [posted to the SNCC-List July 14, 2010} https://lists.virginia.edu/sympa/info/sncc-list Dear Former SNCCs: As a veteran of the Mississippi civil rights campaign of '64, I want to recommend a book I just read about that hellish summer. Full disclosure: I'm in the book, though not much. SNCC folk have long been sensitive, and with good reason, at their treatment in history. Despite all the sufferings, all the beatings, all the cutting edge strategy, SNCC has been forced to take a back seat to the MLK-Rosa Parks school of Civil Rights history. But not anymore. "Freedom Summer: The Savage Season that Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy" gives SNCC its full due. It's also a great book, even if you weren't in McComb, Mississippi, as I was in 1964. The book isn't like other Freedom Summer books because it goes far deeper than the three murders and the FBI investigation. This fresh new look draws on volunteers' letters, journals, and the hourly WATS line reports phoned into COFO. The author, Bruce Watson, also interviewed many of us (full disclosure II -- he interviewed me as well.) So instead of headline stories, you get behind-the-scenes stuff that you may never have known, even if you were there. Did you know that Pete Seeger was singing in Meridian when the three bodies were discovered? I didn't. Did you know that phone threats were made to SNCC during the Ohio training? They never told us. Ever read any of the Freedom School newspapers the students put out? That's the kind of detail this book has. It puts you on the ground, in the heat, under the constant threats, in Mississippi, in 1964. It's about time someone told this forgotten story and "Freedom Summer" tells it well. Check it out. Ira Landess From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 25 14:54:01 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:54:01 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Book Reference: Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neo-Liberal Era Message-ID: (from Sig Laser) Hello all.. In a previous life as a book seller, it was always a kick to get the right book into the right hands at the right time.. So allow me to briefly tout a fine book (I think.) that for me is probably the most important book since Neil Tudiver first introduced me to Harry Braverman's "Labour and Monopoly Capital".The book is Melinda Cooper's, "Life as Surplus" published by University of Washington Press in April 2008. The topic is biotechnology and biopolitics..with great chapters on the security state, feminism, reproductive rights, the evangelical right, etc, etc... It would be wonderfully paired with Naomi Klein's Disaster Capitalism in some political economy course or other.. The U of Washington Press is prepared to provide examination copies and I understand Dafoe has a copy... So check out the links below to the U of Washington Press site and also to the Google Preview site, which allows you to view up to 20% of the book including the Table of Contents and the full Introductory Chapter.. See if you agree.... Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era Melinda Cooper http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/COOLIF.html You can find the Google Books preview of Life as Surplus here: http://books.google.com/books?id=7QjHqfgER74C&printsec=frontcover&dq=life+as+surplus&ei=FW79S8_tFpq8zAT2qfyuCg&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Cheers, Sig (..in the interests of greater sustainability..) From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 25 20:00:10 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:00:10 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Pink Floyd Reunites for Palestinian Benefit Concert Message-ID: Palestine Note July 13, 2010 Pink Floyd Reunites for Palestinian Benefit Concert Washington For the first time in half a decade, rock legends Pink Floyd reunited for a benefit concert in England to raise money for young Palestinian refugees, MSNBC reported Tuesday. Roger Waters and David Gilmour, joined by a full stage of keyboardists and drummers, both picked up the guitar to play for the more than 200 fans gathered to see the Oxfordshire concert. The reunion was unpublicized prior to the curtain's rise. The proceeds from the benefit concert went to the Hoping Foundation, an organization that focuses on the "next generation" of young Palestinians, mostly refugees. Their projects include a film workshop, a scouting group in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, and a UN Relief and Works Agency yearbook. The event raised over half a million dollars to benefit the group. The Pink Floyd duo played a number of classic and fan favorites, including "Wish You Were Here" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)." Waters has been involved in pro-Palestinian activism for years. In 2006 he spray painted "tear down the wall" on Israel's West Bank separation wall in the city of Bethlehem. He also worked with the United Nations to produce a short film about the wall's impact on life in the West Bank. A slew of musicians, including Elvis Costello and The Pixes recently cancelled concerts in Israel in protest of Israel's Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and the deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31st. From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 25 20:43:59 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:43:59 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Booksellers, War and Censorship Message-ID: Booksellers, War and Censorship Posted by rm on July 25, 2010 Just prior to the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq (with Bush Jr. as commander-in-chief), the U.S. administration proudly announced, perhaps a week in advance, its "shock and awe" plan for destruction. Stay tuned, we were told; it was not something to be missed. Quickly, over 400 booksellers from more than a dozen countries around the world put their names to an online petition denouncing these barbaric and cowardly acts against a largely civilian population, 40-50% of which was under fifteen years of age at the time. As some bloggers reported, the petition was a first appearance of this sort of thing: a powerful political statement denouncing war by a disparate group of online booksellers. As the petition stated: "Yet another war, following closely on the heels of destruction in Afghanistan -- and with the United Nations unable to cope even now with global refugee populations and other humanitarian crises -- will have catastrophic effects on civilian populations." and: "We are also appalled at the human and environmental effects stemming from the use of uranium tipped missiles, the use of which, since 1991, has become the norm in modern warfare . . . . . . and teams of international scientists have found underground water supplies in Iraq contaminated with uranium from the Gulf War." Unsurprisingly, over seven years later, the invasion has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, with over four million displaced; possibly over a million dead (although lower figures report "only" 400,000 excess deaths); plundering of artifacts and libraries and the destruction of the written history of an ancient culture; and a truly contaminated environment. Full: http://www.booksinternationale.com/ From menecraj at shaw.ca Sun Jul 25 23:32:43 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:32:43 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer Message-ID: <9050018733404DEA92BE5B7E6264B784@agingCHS072729> The Guardian / By Clancy Sigal America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years? July 15, 2010 | There's plenty of good money to be made / Supplyin' the army with tools of the trade . - Country Joe and the Fish I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP's pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico. I've learned to trust my visions as metaphors for reality. The same news programmes, often as a dutiful throwaway item, will show a jerky fragment of Afghan combat accompanied by the usual pulse-pounding handheld shots of snipers amid roadside bomb explosions, preferably in fiery balls. My delusional mind converts this footage into a phantasmagoria where our M60 machine guns are shooting ammunition belts full of $1,000 bills. Blood, oil, bullets . and cash. Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty - one in five kids - that would put the world's poorest nations to shame? Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition. Historically, Bush and Dick Cheney merely toyed with Afghanistan while visiting shock and awe on Iraq. But President Obama is really, really serious about it. He told us so on his campaign trail, but most of us refused to believe him. We told ourselves: oh, he's a closet pacifist, or he'll somehow find a way out of the impasse, thus sealing a devil's pact with our own consciences. Obama's "way out" is to dig deeper in so that he'll be able to get out, it's said. Where have we heard that before? Exit strategy, my foot. Obama is a willing prisoner of his generals, the latest four-star foot-in-mouther being General George Casey, army chief of staff, who a few days ago confessed to CBS News that the US could face another "decade or so" of persistent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He then fudged it, but the cat was out of the bag.) Our Afghanistan war, which began in 1980 under the Democrats (by weaponising Afghan resistance to the Soviets), and is now truly a bipartisan war, is as bankrupt as our economy. No connection? None that I can hear from Republicans or Democrats and the "liberal base". The war without purpose or common sense is simply a given, like the weather. Other than a few lonely members of Congress, like Florida's Alan Grayson (who introduced a bill titled "The War Is Making You Poor"), the antiwar Texas libertarian Ron Paul and Illinois's Tim Johnson, hardly anybody in public life dares to make a connection between teachers' pink slips, personal bankruptcies (6,000 a day now), our rotting infrastructure, lengthening queues at unemployment offices, child poverty . and the war. You won't hear a peep from mainstream liberals such as Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow. Nor, when Pentagon-funded war industry jobs are on the line, from any of the congressional liberals in my Southern California delegation such as Henry Waxman and Maxine Waters, who, after routine grumbling, just voted for yet another $30bn for the lost war that shores up our local weapons and aerospace industries. Nobody knows whether, if the Iraq-Afghan wars came to a miraculous stop and we shipped the troops home tomorrow, leaving the homegrown Pashtun and Hazara factions to fight it out among themselves, the money would automatically return to our failing economy. But it's a question worth asking out loud. In 2008 Obama Democrats junked the war as an election issue in favour of the economy, and they won by avoiding as a political third rail any connection between the trillions spent fighting colonial wars in the Middle East and the billions we refuse to spend on our own people. As a people we Americans are hooked on a permanent war economy that only here and there, in drips and drabs, creates immediate jobs while undermining any long-term possibility of recovery. The good news is that contracts for new unmanned Predator drone bases have been awarded to deprived areas of South Dakota, Wisconsin and Missouri, much to the local citizenry's joy. Some stimulus. From hain at antcolbks.com Mon Jul 26 12:22:38 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:22:38 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] WikiLeaks.org released a massive archive of 92, 000 classified reports revealing an "unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan Message-ID: <9771E9139DC54683A05D43ACBD64D562@Upstairs> PROGRESS REPORT July 26, 2010 by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Alex Seitz-Wald, Tanya Somanader The Afghan War Diaries Yesterday afternoon, the whistle-blower organization WikiLeaks.org released a massive archive of 92,000 classified reports revealing an "unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal." The archive, containing reports from the ground written during a six-year period from 2004 through 2009, were released to the The New York Times, British newspaper The Guardian, and Germany's Der Spiegel magazine "several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday." While the documents -- which are already being compared to the Vietnam War's Pentagon Papers -- reveal little completely new information, and do not completely contradict the official account, they "confirm what the Afghan War skeptics have been arguing for some time -- and completely invalidate those who have been promulgating a rosier view of outcomes inside Afghanistan." Revelations include reports that the "Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft," weapons which "helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s." The reports also detail the "omnipresence" of and previously unreported problems with drone aircraft in Afghanistan, while revealing new information about the CIA's paramilitary operations, and a commando unit that operated outside the NATO chain of command to hunt top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders. The archive is also "a vivid reminder that the Afghan conflict until recently was a second-class war, with money, troops and attention lavished on Iraq while soldiers and Marines lamented that the Afghans they were training were not being paid," the New York Times noted. As the war becomes increasingly unpopular, "This massive storehouse taken, it would appear, from U.S. Central Command's CIDNE data warehouse -- has the potential to be strategically significant, raising questions about how and why America and her allies are conducting the war," the Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman noted. The White House reaction to the release was swift, with National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones saying in a statement, "The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security." Jones downplayed the significance of the leak and noted that the documents mostly detail events that occurred under the Bush administration. The documents were written well before Obama "announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan...precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years." A spokesperson for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the leader was "shocked" by the size of the leak, but not its contents. Still, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, "However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan." PAKISTAN'S 'DOUBLE GAME': One of the most troubling facts revealed by the WikiLeaks documents is that Pakistan has aided insurgents operating in Afghanistan. Observers of the war "have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan's military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants." The new documents reveal that Pakistan has indeed "allow[ed] representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders." At least 180 files contain allegations of "dirty tricks" by Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), "with accounts of undercover agents training suicide bombers, bundles of money slipping across the border and covert support for a range of sensational plots including the assassination of President Hamid Karzai, attacks on NATO warplanes and even poisoning western troops' beer supply." Some of the reports describe the ISI working "alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks," but experts cautioned that many of these reports come from biased, or unreliable sources, and that "directly linking the Pakistani spy agency...with Al Qaeda is difficult." "Despite all their eye-popping details, the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity," the Guardian notes. "Most of the reports are vague, filled with incongruent detail, or crudely fabricated. The same characters - famous Taliban commanders, well-known ISI officials - and scenarios repeatedly pop up. And few of the events predicted in the reports subsequently occurred," the paper added. In his statement, Jones downplayed this alleged connection, and praised the Pakistani military for "[c]ounter-terrorism cooperation [that] has led to significant blows against al Qaeda's leadership." CIVILIAN TOLL: The archive also reveals nearly 150 incidents in which coalition forces "have killed or injured civilians, most of which have never been reported." "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties," said Human Rights Watch investigator Rachel Reid. "Incident by incident, the reports resemble a police blotter of the myriad ways Afghan civilians were killed -- not just in airstrikes but in ones and twos -- in shootings on the roads or in the villages, in misunderstandings or in a cross-fire, or in chaotic moments when Afghan drivers ventured too close to convoys and checkpoints." The reports "repeatedly indicate" that the dead were not suicide bombers or insurgents. For example, an "airstrike in Azizabad, in western Afghanistan, killed as many as 92 people in August 2008. In May 2009, another strike killed 147 Afghan civilians." The reports show that the Afghan population "grew steadily more exhausted, resentful, fearful and alienated" as the civilian death toll mounted. U.S. Special Forces operators -- including those of the CIA -- attempting to hunt down Taliban leaders were responsible for a significant number of deaths. These "special operations have stoked particular resentment among Afghans -- for their lack of coordination with local forces, the civilian casualties they frequently inflicted and the lack of accountability." "Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous 'escalation of force' conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle," suggesting a systematic problem with the rules under which troops fought. Indeed, under President Obama, the early influence of former commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal can be seen in the reports, as he successfully sought to curb civilian casualties. The spokesperson for Karzai -- who has been very vocal about civilian casualties in the past -- praised the "good progress" made over the last 18 months to lower the number of civilians killed, and said the president will not exploit the documents to publicly berate coalition forces. "[M]ost of this is not new and has been discussed in the past, and has often been raised in the past with our international partners," the spokesperson said. AFGHAN INCOMPETENCE: The documents also "sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence." The U.S. is spending billions to train an Afghan police force, "but the police have proved to be an especially risky investment and are often described as distrusted, even loathed, by Afghan civilians. The reports recount episodes of police brutality, corruption, extortion, and kidnapping. Some police officers defect to the Taliban. Others are accused of collaborating with insurgents, arms smugglers and highway bandits." Coalition trainers repeatedly reported "that episodes of cruelty by the Afghan police undermine the effort to build a credible security force." The portrayal of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) -- the country's army -- is somewhat better than that of the police, but the documents do describe serious problems that could complicate the coalition's eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan. There are reports of ANSF troops using drugs and having "parties" while on duty, but more troubling are reports about at least "50 incidents where local troops opened fire on their comrades," apparently out of confusion. There are also numerous accounts of "[r]ivalries and friction" between the ANSF and the police. "Sometimes the tensions erupted in outright clashes." For example, in December, a shootout ensued between police and ANSF forces after "an argument broke out" between the two sides at the scene of car accident, leaving an "Afghan soldier and three Afghan police officers...wounded." Analysts writing the reports repeatedly note that prevalence of this "[b]ad blood between police and soldiers" will "damage the populace's view" of the government. http://pr.thinkprogress.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 26 17:05:30 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:05:30 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Is there any hope for our overfished oceans? Message-ID: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/08/02/100802crbo_books_kolbert Books The Scales Fall Is there any hope for our overfished oceans? by Elizabeth Kolbert August 2, 2010 [Image: The world's "peak fish" point came in the late nineteen-eighties, but no one noticed.] The Atlantic bluefin tuna is shaped like a child's idea of a fish, with a pointy snout, two dorsal fins, and a rounded belly that gradually tapers toward the back. It is gunmetal blue on top, and silvery on the underside, and its tail looks like a sickle. The Atlantic bluefin is one of the fastest swimmers in the sea, reaching speeds of fifty-five miles an hour. This is an achievement that scientists have sought to understand but have never quite mastered; a robo-tuna, built by a team of engineers at M.I.T., was unable to outswim a real one. (The word "tuna" is derived from the Greek thuno, meaning "to rush.") Atlantic bluefins are voracious carnivores-they feed on squid, crustaceans, and other fish-and can grow to be fifteen feet long. At one time, Atlantic bluefins were common from the coast of Maine to the Black Sea, and from Norway to Brazil. In the Mediterranean, they have been prized for millennia-in an ode from the second century, the poet Oppian describes the Romans catching bluefins in "nets arranged like a city"-but they are unusually bloody fish, and in most of the rest of the world there was little market for them. (Among English speakers, they were long known as "horse mackerel.") As recently as the late nineteen-sixties, bluefin in the United States sold for only a few pennies a pound, if there were any buyers, and frequently ended up being ground into cat food. Then, in the nineteen-seventies, the Japanese developed a taste for sushi made with bluefin, or hon-maguro. This new preference, it's been hypothesized, arose from their exposure, following the Second World War, to American-style fatty foods. The taste for hon-maguro was, in turn, imported back to the U.S. Soon, fishing for bluefin became so lucrative that the sale of a single animal could feed a family for a year. (Earlier this year, a five-hundred-pound Pacific bluefin went for an astonishing three hundred and forty dollars a pound at a Tokyo fish auction.) First, the big bluefins were fished out, then the smaller ones, too, became hard to find. Tuna "ranching," a practice by which the fish are herded into huge circular nets and fattened up before slaughter, was for a time seen as a solution until it was shown to be part of the problem: as fewer bluefins were allowed to reach spawning age, there were fewer and fewer new fish to fatten. Bluefin catches are managed-the word is used here loosely-by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. The commission, known by the acronym ICCAT-pronounced "eye-cat"-is based in Madrid, and its members include the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Canada, and Brazil. In 2008, ICCAT scientists recommended that the bluefin catch in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean be limited to between eighty-five hundred and fifteen thousand tons. ICCAT instead adopted a quota of twenty-two thousand tons. That same year, a panel of independent reviewers, hired by the commission to assess its performance, observed that ICCAT "is widely regarded as an international disgrace." (Carl Safina, the noted marine conservationist, has nicknamed the group the International Conspiracy to Catch All the Tunas.) By most estimates, bluefin stocks have fallen by eighty per cent in the past forty years. According to other assessments, the situation is even grimmer. Callum Roberts, a professor of marine conservation at England's University of York, has calculated that there is now only one bluefin left for every fifty that were swimming in the Atlantic in 1940. Last year, in an effort to save the Atlantic bluefin from annihilation, Monaco proposed that the fish join animals like the giant panda and the Asian elephant on a list of creatures that cannot be traded-either alive or cut up for parts-across international borders. When the proposal came up for a vote at a U.N. meeting in Doha this past March, the U.S. voted in favor of it. "The science is compelling," Tom Strickland, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, told the Times. "That species is in spectacular decline." Nevertheless, the measure was defeated. (The vote-sixty-eight to twenty, with thirty nations abstaining-was widely seen as a victory for Japan.) The following month, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, and oil began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is one of only two known Atlantic-bluefin spawning sites, and April is the start of the spawning season. If the Atlantic bluefin tuna were the first species to be fished into oblivion, its destruction would be shameful. But, of course, its story has become routine. Cod, once so plentiful off the coast of Newfoundland that they could be scooped up in baskets, are now scarce. The same goes for halibut, haddock, swordfish, marlin, and skate; it's been calculated that stocks of large predatory fish have declined by ninety per cent in the past half century. In 1943, Rachel Carson was a young biologist working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when she wrote a booklet titled "Food from the Sea." The point of the boosterish guide was to convince American consumers of the delectableness of fish like the wolffish, an enormous creature with a bulbous head, big teeth, and an eel-like body. Wolffish is "one of New England's underexploited fishes, a condition that will be corrected when housewives discover its excellence," Carson wrote. Apparently, she was so persuasive-and bottom trawling so wrecked its habitat-that the wolffish is now considered a threatened species. The sorry state of ocean life has led to a new kind of fish story-a lament not for the one that got away but for the countless others that didn't. In "Saved by the Sea: A Love Story with Fish" (St. Martin's; $25.99), David Helvarg notes that each year sharks kill some five to eight humans worldwide; meanwhile we kill a hundred million of them. Dean Bavington, the author of "Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse" (University of British Columbia; $94), observes that two hundred billion pounds' worth of cod were taken from Canada's Grand Banks before 1992, when the cod simply ran out. In "Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food" (Penguin Press; $25.95), Paul Greenberg estimates that somewhere in the range of a hundred million salmon larvae used to hatch in the Connecticut River each year. Now the number's a lot easier to pin down: it's zero. "The broad, complex genetic potential of the Connecticut River salmon," Greenberg writes, has "vanished from the face of the earth." The Great International Fisheries Exhibition, which took place in London in 1883, was a celebration of all things piscatorial. More than two thousand exhibitors from around the world displayed herring nets and salmon ladders, trout rods and eel spears, life buoys and lamprey baskets. Awards-dozens of them were bestowed-included twenty pounds sterling for the best collection of smoked fish, twenty-five pounds for the best model of a sailing trawler, and ten pounds for the "best Apparatus for, or Method of, protecting Young Brood and Oysters against Dog Whelks and other natural enemies." Thomas Huxley, who is now mostly remembered for being an early supporter of Charles Darwin, was at the time the president of Britain's Royal Society, and he delivered the exhibition's opening address. As his topic, Huxley chose the question "Are fisheries exhaustible? That is to say, can all the fish which naturally inhabit a given area be extirpated by the agency of man?" The answer, Huxley decided, was a qualified no. Although people might be able to wipe out the salmon in a certain stream by throwing a net across it "in such a manner as to catch every salmon that tries to go up and every smolt that tries to go down," conditions in the ocean were altogether different. "Probably all the great sea fisheries are inexhaustible; that is to say that nothing we do seriously affects the number of the fish," Huxley declared. To the extent that there was a problem with the fishing industry, it was due to its "relative backwardness." Fishing, Huxley said, had failed "to keep pace with the rapid improvement of almost every other branch of industrial occupation in modern times" and still lagged "very far behind scientific agriculture . . . as to the application of machinery." Huxley's views dominated thinking about fisheries for most of the next century. In 1955, Francis Minot, the director of the Marine and Fisheries Engineering Research Institute, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, co-wrote a book titled "The Inexhaustible Sea." As yet, he observed, "we do not know the ocean well enough. Much must still be learned. Nevertheless, we are already beginning to understand that what it has to offer extends beyond the limits of our imagination." In 1964, the annual global catch totalled around fifty million tons; a U.S. Interior Department report from that year predicted that it could be "increased at least tenfold without endangering aquatic stocks." Three years later, the department revised its estimate; the catch could be increased not by a factor of ten but by a factor of forty, to two billion tons a year. This, it noted, would be enough to feed the world's population ten times over. Michael L. Weber observes, in "From Abundance to Scarcity" (2002), that as recently as the nineteen-nineties U.S. policy was predicated "on the belief that the ocean's productivity was almost limitless." In the meantime, "machinery" beyond Huxley's wildest imagining was being developed. Purse seines were introduced in the nineteen-thirties. These giant nets can be played out around entire schools of fish, then gathered up with drawstrings, like huge laundry bags. Factory freezer trawlers, developed after the Second World War, grew to be so gargantuan that they amounted to, in effect, seafaring towns. In the nineteen-fifties, many fleets added echo-sounding sonar, which can detect fish schools long before they surface. Today, specially designed buoys known as "fish aggregating devices," or FADs, are deployed to attract species like yellowfin tuna and blue marlin. So-called "smart" FADs come equipped with sonar and G.P.S., so operators can detect from afar whether they are, in fact, surrounded by fish. In the short term, the new technology worked, much as Huxley had predicted, to swell catches. But only in the short term. In the late nineteen-eighties, the total world catch topped out at around eighty-five million tons, which is to say, roughly 1.9 billion tons short of the Interior Department's most lunatic estimate. This milestone-the point of what might be called "peak fish"-was passed without anyone's quite realizing it, owing to inflated catch figures from the Chinese. (These fishy figures were later exposed as politically motivated fabrications.) For the past two decades, the global catch has been steadily declining. It is estimated that the total take is dropping by around five hundred thousand tons a year. Meanwhile, as the size of the catch has fallen, so, too, has the size of the creatures being caught. This phenomenon, which has become known as "fishing down the food web," was first identified by Daniel Pauly, a fisheries biologist at the University of British Columbia. In "Five Easy Pieces: How Fishing Impacts Marine Ecosystems" (Island Press; $50), Pauly follows this trend to its logical-or, if you prefer, illogical-conclusion. Eventually, all that will be left in the oceans are organisms that people won't, or can't, consume, like sea slugs and toxic algae. It's been argued that humans have become such a dominant force on the planet that we've ushered in a new geological epoch. Pauly proposes that this new epoch be called the Myxocene, from the Greek muxa, meaning "slime." The new fish stories can be read as parables about technology. What was, once upon a time, a stable relationship between predator and prey was transformed by new "machinery" into a deadly mismatch. This reading isn't so much wrong as misleading. To paraphrase the old N.R.A. favorite, FADs don't kill fish, people do. In an effort to figure out what ocean life was like before the modern era, marine scientists have, in the past few decades, cored through seafloor sediments, measured the size of fish bones tossed out at ancient banquets, and combed through the logs of early explorers. As Callum Roberts reports in "The Unnatural History of the Sea" (2007), the work suggests that humans have been wreaking havoc in the oceans for centuries. Consider the example of Britain. Archeological deposits show that around the year 1000 Europe's freshwater fisheries were already in decline, perhaps owing to overfishing or perhaps to the erection of dams and mills that impeded river flows. To make a living, British fishermen set out to sea. Initially, the marine catch appears to have been bountiful; analysis of what might be described as eleventh-century garbage shows that people in what is now Scotland dined on four-foot-long cod and five-foot-long pollack. But gradually local stocks were fished down, and by the fifteenth century British ships were venturing as far away as Norway and Iceland. (The Danes, who claimed Iceland for themselves, complained that the English were setting up entire villages on the island, "putting up tents, digging ditches, working away.") When, in the early sixteenth century, British fishermen turned their attention to the newly discovered fisheries off Newfoundland, they encountered, in the words of one early settler, "Cods so thicke by the shoare that we heardlie have been able to row a Boate through them," and the cycle began all over again. At this point, there are probably no new fishing grounds to be discovered, or, to use Rachel Carson's phrase, any "underexploited fishes" to start serving for dinner. (In parts of Asia, jellyfish are already considered a delicacy.) After the collapse of so many freshwater fish, migratory fish, oceanic fish, and groundfish, like the wolffish, it might seem that we've finally reached the end of the line. And yet this is never where the new fish stories, or stories about the fish stories, wind up. Just when things seem bleakest, hope-dolphinlike-swims into the picture. David Helvarg concludes his memoir-cum-ecological-disaster narrative "Saved by the Sea" by declaring that, owing to a new attitude in Washington, things seem "to be looking up for the ocean." Similarly, Roberts closes his chronicle of more than a millennium of overfishing by asserting, "We can restore the life and habits of the sea because it is in everyone's interest that we do so." The way to keep fishing, according to Roberts, lies in not fishing-or, at least, in not fishing everywhere. He proposes that huge swaths of the sea be set aside as so-called "marine protected areas," or M.P.A.s, where most commercial activity would be prohibited. In "Four Fish," Paul Greenberg argues that the salvation of wild fish lies in farmed ones, though not in the kind you'll find on ice at Stop & Shop. (Today, most farmed fish are fed on wild-caught fish, a practice that only exacerbates the problem.) Greenberg is a believer in what's sometimes called "smart aquaculture," and thinks we should be eating species like Pangasius hypophthalmus, commonly known as tra. Tra happily feed on human waste and were originally kept in Southeast Asia to dispose of the contents of outhouses. Michael Weber, the author of "From Abundance to Scarcity," is encouraged by the introduction of new regulatory mechanisms such as "individual transferable quotas," or I.T.Q.s. The idea behind I.T.Q.s is that if fishermen are granted a marketable stake in the catch they will have a greater economic interest in preserving it. M.P.A.s, smart aquaculture, and I.T.Q.s-these are all worthy proposals that, if instituted on a large enough scale, would probably make a difference. As Roberts notes, it is in "everyone's interest" to take the steps needed to prevent an ocean-wide slide into slime. But it is also in everyone's interest to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Still, it is being fished to the edge of extinction, which is why a hopeful ending is not always the most convincing one. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 26 21:25:14 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:25:14 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Fw: Tuesday Vote Expected on War Escalation Funding Message-ID: WarIsACrime.org Tuesday Vote Expected on War Escalation Funding Here's where the hypocrisy hits the highway. On July 1st, 162 congress members voted to require a withdrawal plan and end date for the occupation of Afghanistan, and 100 voted to fund only withdrawal, no continuation of war, while 25 voted to simply stop dumping any money into this war. Now all of them must vote yes or no, probably on Tuesday, on whether to fund a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan. You won't hear anyone mention it, but this $33 billion is to add 30,000 troops plus contractors to the war. Can you want a withdrawal plan or to fund only withdrawal, and nonetheless vote to fund an escalation? The Queen told Alice: "Sometimes I' ;ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Congress members have been known to do eight. 90,000 new documents exposing the criminality of the war won't change that (but see link to them below). What will change it is the threat of unelection. The House will likely now vote on the Senate version of the war escalation supplemental. This will likely mean something quite unusual: a straightforward vote in which yes means yes more war, and no means no. Whether we block the bill or not, we will now be able to identify clearly and unambiguously the war supporters and war opponents. They will need to be punished and rewarded while they're home for August and at the polls in November. If the majority of Democrats vote against the war funds, we will be able to point out that opposition from the President's own party. And the closer we come to defeating the bill the more we will have to build on as the peace movement joins with the labor and civil rights movements this fall. Our message is simple: Vote no on funding this escalation of war, regardless of whether it's a procedural vote, and regardless of any good measures attached to it. If you vote yes, plan on getting a different job in January. FCNL has a toll-free number to call your representative: 1-888-493-5443, or use the standard number (202) 224-3121. Pull U.S. Troops Out of Pakistan The House is expected to debate and vote on Tuesday on a privileged resolution (HCR 301) introduced by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul to remove U.S. forces from Pakistan. The resolution directs the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan. On this one we want to ask for Yes votes. More info. Call Congress (202) 224-3121. Resources Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation Six Facts No War Supporter Knows Video of Congressman Kucinich discussing both of the votes described above: http://pdamerica.org David Swanson and Dennis Kucinich will be on Lila Garrett's radio show on Monday. Get resources from http://defundwar.org What Happened in Albany, Cleveland, Las Vegas This weekend, many of you attended the peace conference in Albany or the PDA conference in Cleveland, if you weren't at the Netroots conference in Vegas. They can all be watched online for those who missed them: National Peace Conference PDA Conference Netroots Nation Resolutions passed at the National Peace Conference will be posted ASAP at http://warisacrime.org On August 28th the peace movement will join with the movements for jobs, economic justice, and civil rights to march in Detroit, Mich., and Washington, D.C., to launch campaigns for Jobs, Justice, and Peace that will build to a massive March on Washington on October 2nd. Mark your calendars and get ready! ## Support Justice and Peace: Donate through Paypal. Please help us inform you of activities in your town by logging in at http://afterdowningstreet.org Then click on "My account", on "Edit", and on "Personal Information," and type in your state and zip code. If you receive this from a friend, you can subscribe by registering at http://afterdowningstreet.org/user/register If you receive this directly from us and want to unsubscribe, click the Opt Out link at the bottom. You can also unsubscribe or resubscribe by editing your account on the website. One step opt out -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 26 21:43:05 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:43:05 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Omar Khadr and the US Military Commissions Message-ID: http://www.merip.org/mero/mero072610.html Travesty in Progress: Omar Khadr and the US Military Commissions Lisa Hajjar July 26, 2010 (Lisa Hajjar is an editor of Middle East Report and an associate professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She reported for this article from Khadr's hearing at Guant?namo Bay.) At 23, Omar Khadr is the youngest of the 176 people still imprisoned at the US military's detention facility in Guant?namo Bay, Cuba. He has been there for eight years, one third of his life. A Canadian, he is the only citizen of a Western country remaining in detention, although one British resident, Shaker Aamer, is also still locked up there. Of the 779 people brought to Guant?namo since 2002,[1] only 36 have been charged or designated for prosecution, 26 by the Bush administration and the remainder by the Obama administration. Khadr is accused of violating the laws of armed conflict -- as reinterpreted by the US government after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He is charged with being an "unlawful enemy combatant" (now relabeled "unlawful enemy belligerent") who threw a grenade that killed a US soldier in the heat of battle in Afghanistan. That hot-war murder allegation distinguishes the case against Khadr from those charged with terrorist acts outside a theater of war, including al-Qaeda's 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole and the September 11 attacks, which precipitated the launch of the global "war on terror." Most Guant?namo prisoners facing prosecution are accused of providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. These offenses were refashioned as war crimes in order to enable their prosecution in military commissions, which were decreed into existence by President George W. Bush on November 13, 2001. The Supreme Court ruled these bodies unconstitutional in 2006, but within months Congress had restored them with the Military Commissions Act, which was superceded by an identically named law in 2009. When Khadr was captured on July 27, 2002, following a firefight in the Afghan village of Ayub Kheyl, he was blinded in one eye, shot twice in the chest and buried under rubble. The critically injured 15-year old was airlifted to the Bagram air base on the outskirts of Kabul where he was interrogated for three months, starting as soon as he regained consciousness while strapped to a hospital gurney. In September Khadr turned 16, and in October he was shipped to Guant?namo, where he -- like all prisoners -- was held incommunicado for years and interrogated dozens of times. The Canadians Omar Khadr, at 15, and today. The key to understanding the events that led to Khadr's capture and the allegations leveled against him is his father Ahmed, an Egyptian-born Canadian who became a devotee of a highly conservative interpretation of Islam.[2] Like other devout Muslims, in the 1980s Ahmed supported the Afghan mujahideen waging war against the Soviet-backed government, and he traveled frequently to the country to do relief work with widows and orphans. After the Soviets were ousted and a bloody civil conflict erupted, he continued to move between Canada to raise money in Muslim communities and Pakistan to work with charities that provided humanitarian aid to Afghan refugees. Although Omar and his siblings were born in Canada, they spent significant periods of their childhood living in Peshawar. Locals knew them as "the Canadians." In 1994, Ahmed, who had become a proponent of jihad, sent his two eldest sons, Abdullah, 13, and Abdurahman, 11, to the Khalden camp in Afghanistan so they could learn to fight. In 1995, he arranged a marriage for his eldest daughter, Zaynab, 15, to an Egyptian Islamist who, at the time, was suspected of involvement in a deadly embassy bombing in Cairo (and was later captured in Albania and rendered by the CIA to Egypt for trial). After the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda leadership relocated there from Sudan in 1996, Ahmed became an intimate of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He moved the Khadr family to Afghanistan and, for a period, they lived in bin Laden's compound south of Jalalabad. The Khadr family was living in Kabul on September 11. Following the US-led invasion and the fall of the capital, they fled to the border region of Pakistan, except Abdurahman, who got separated from the family and was captured by the US-backed Northern Alliance in November and handed over to the Americans. In June 2002, Ahmed sent Omar back into Afghanistan with a Libyan al-Qaeda operative, Abu Laith al-Libi, to serve as a translator because he spoke both Arabic and Pashtu. That month, the Pentagon claims, he was given some "one-on-one" weapons training. On the day of his capture, Omar had accompanied three Arabs to translate at a meeting with Afghan militants. After two Afghan soldiers were shot dead when they entered the house, US forces launched an aerial bombardment that reduced the compound to rubble. When the four-hour battle ended, Omar was the only survivor, found when a US soldier stepped on a pile and realized that someone alive was buried underneath. Since that moment, he has been a prisoner of the US. Ahmed was killed in October 2003 in Waziristan by Pakistani forces and his youngest son, Kareem, was severely injured. The surviving members of the Khadr family returned to Canada, except Abdullah, who was arrested and detained in Pakistan in 2004. Abdurahman and Abdullah joined the family after they were released from custody. (Abdullah was arrested in Canada in 2005 and the Obama administration is seeking to extradite him to stand trial in Boston on charges of supplying rockets and other weapons to al-Qaeda and conspiring to kill Americans abroad.) Khadr buried in the rubble in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan. The captured Omar was assumed to be a treasure trove of intelligence about al-Qaeda and Canadian "sleeper cells." On October 7, 2002, for example, he was shown a photo of another Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who at that time was detained at John F. Kennedy airport in New York before he was "extraordinarily rendered" by the US to Syria, where he was brutally tortured. Khadr told FBI interrogator Robert Fuller that he didn't recognize the man in the photo but, when pressed, said that he might have seen Arar at an al-Qaeda training camp. (Arar, who has never been to Afghanistan, became a "person of interest" to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the October 2001 day he had lunch with another Syrian-Canadian engineer, Abdullah Almalki, who was under surveillance because he had worked briefly in Afghanistan in the early 1990s for a charity run by Ahmed Khadr.) Khadr's treatment in US custody was typical of the rampant abuse of prisoners. At Bagram, he was beaten, threatened with rape and snarling dogs, hung by his wrists for hours which exacerbated the pain of his injuries, hooded and soaked with water until he began to suffocate. His captors also shined bright lights into his eyes, which had been damaged by shrapnel. His main Bagram interrogator was later court-martialed in connection with the beating death of the Afghan taxi driver Dilawar (the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side). At Guant?namo, Khadr was again beaten and threatened with rape and dogs, had his hair pulled out, was subjected to protracted sleep deprivation under the "frequent flyer program," and was doused with a pine-scented cleaner and used as a "human mop" on the floor where he urinated after being denied access to a toilet. He was sequestered in isolation for protracted periods, and force-fed after he joined the prisoners' hunger strike. Poster Child The June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Bush paved the way for lawyers to gain access to Guant?namo prisoners. In August, the Center for Constitutional Rights assigned Khadr to American University law professors Rick Wilson and Muneer Ahmad because of their expertise in human rights law and juvenile detention. They met Khadr for the first time in November. Following that meeting, he was interrogated for four days with "extreme physical force" about what he had told his attorneys. At the November meeting and again the following April, Wilson and Ahmad administered psychological questionnaires to Khadr, which they showed to two doctors who assessed that he displayed full-blown symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In the litigation Wilson and Ahmad pursued on Khadr's behalf, O. K. v. Bush, District Court Judge John Bates ruled against motions seeking to force the government to provide them with his medical records and to bar further interrogations. Khadr was one of the first ten Guant?namo prisoners to be selected for prosecution in the military commissions. He was charged with murder for allegedly throwing the grenade that killed a Special Forces sergeant, Christopher Speer. He was also charged with attempted murder because a video retrieved from the rubble shows Khadr, among a group of adults, handling something with protruding wires, alleged to be an improvised explosive device that might have been planted along Afghan roads to attack US and allied forces. And he is charged with conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying. Despite Khadr's youthfulness and, as the defense would argue, his lack of choice in the relations and activities that his father commanded, prosecutors have insisted that he "willfully" joined and conspired with al-Qaeda and that he is criminally culpable. The government's case rests heavily on statements he gave to interrogators between 2002 and 2005. [Illustration: Omar Khadr as seen by the military commissions' courtroom artist.] In 2005, when Khadr's charges were first referred -- the term describing the intent to prosecute -- US officials claimed that his would be one of the "easiest" cases to prove, suggesting that the process would be quick. The Bush administration was eager to demonstrate that the military commission system, which had been subject to withering criticism at home and abroad, was capable of producing convictions. Yet by the time Bush left office, the Khadr case had not gone to trial. Nor, because of pervasive antipathy toward the Khadr family in Canada, has his own government sought his repatriation from Guant?namo. Khadr was arraigned for the first time in 2006. His legal team, which has undergone several transformations over the years, was originally composed of Wilson and Ahmad, who effectively left in the spring of 2007 for reasons eloquently explained in Ahmad's article, "Resisting Guant?namo: Rights at the Brink of Dehumanization." As Ahmad put it, "Why adopt a rights-based strategy in a rights-free zone?" The first military lawyer assigned to his case, Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, sought additional help and was joined and then succeeded by Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler and Lt. Rebecca Snyder. Two Canadian lawyers hired by the Khadr family, Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney, provide legal counsel but, as non-Americans, cannot defend him before the military commissions. In May 2008, the chief military defense lawyer removed Kuebler from the case, possibly in reprisal for his public criticisms of the commissions, but a judge later ordered him reinstated. In September 2008, Cmdr. Walter Ruiz and a civilian attorney working with the Office of Military Commissions, Defense (OMCD), Michel Paradis, were added to the team. The judge assigned to the case, Col. Patrick Parrish, rejected the defense motion that these commissions do not have jurisdiction over crimes of a child soldier, but in October 2008 he suspended the case until after the November elections. When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, there was hopefulness among the rule-of-law-restoration crowd that the idea of prosecuting a child soldier for war crimes would be abandoned in favor of the internationally sanctioned route of rehabilitation, but the hope has long since died. On May 21, 2009, Obama reversed his own cancellation of the military commissions as fundamentally flawed, in October he signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2009 and in November Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khadr was one of five people designated by the administration for prosecution in the commissions. The military commission system is an evolving mess, mired in the contradictions and novelties of invented laws, crimes and rules, and played for partisan political advantage in Washington. According to Katherine Newell Bierman, who worked at Human Rights Watch before joining the OMCD to provide expertise on counter-terrorism and torture, "American military lawyers come into this job with no experience working on behalf of people who have been tortured. It's an added challenge defending people in this system because many of them are so damaged." Khadr's frustration and despondency was exacerbated by disagreements over defense strategies and infighting, and he fired his American lawyers in June 2009. One military lawyer who was not part of his legal team but provided assistance in drafting motions said, "Khadr is the poster child for this farce." Because Khadr had to retain one military lawyer, he agreed to keep Kuebler, who was later replaced by Lt. Col. Jon Jackson. In October 2009, two Washington-based criminal attorneys, Barry Coburn and Kobie Flowers, were assigned to the case. In April and May 2010, the Khadr case moved into the phase of pre-trial hearings on defense motions to challenge and suppress government evidence, including self-incriminating statements he gave to interrogators at Bagram and Guant?namo. Although the four-man prosecution team brought its own witnesses to refute the defense's claims that Khadr had been tortured and coerced, among those who testified at those spring hearings were several interrogators,[3] jailers and medical providers who gave first-person accounts of how he had been threatened with prison gang rape by "big black guys and big Nazis," beaten and put into stress positions, and denied adequate pain medicine for his injuries. Although the 2009 legislation prohibits the use of statements elicited through cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, it falls on military judges to determine what those standards are and how they apply in specific cases. Jennifer Turner, the ACLU monitor who attended the April-May sessions, reported, "During the hearings, the prosecution objected constantly to questions the defense asked of interrogators, especially about standard operating procedures. The judge kept sustaining those prosecution objections. This is very relevant because Khadr doesn't recall that period." The hearings also focused on the veracity of government's evidence that it was Khadr who threw the grenade that killed Sgt. Speer. The military's incident report, filed by a soldier identified only as "Lt. Col. W," originally stated that someone who was subsequently killed hurled the explosive. Several years later, however, a line in the report was altered to state that the grenade was thrown by someone who was injured -- to implicate the only survivor, Khadr. The "revised" version was backdated to cover up the change in the original. In 2008, the defense obtained a copy of the original report, which the government never intended to provide, when it was inadvertently included in some discovery filings. "W," who testified at the spring hearings by video link, claimed he had changed the report "for history's sake" because he believed at the time that Khadr -- who he maintains threw the grenade -- had died. But the same reason "W" adduced for believing Khadr had died casts doubt on whether he could have thrown the grenade: Photographs taken after the firefight, moments after the grenade was thrown, show Khadr, shot and unconscious, buried face down in rubble. Since at least April, prosecutors reportedly had been attempting to negotiate a plea bargain with Khadr and his lawyers. A deal would have spared the government not only the labor and expense of a trial but also the embarrassment of more damning testimony about Khadr's torture and abuse, not to mention averting the ignominy of pursuing the first trial (anywhere in the world) of an adolescent for war crimes since the close of the Nuremberg tribunals. The negotiations collapsed in June and -- although it is not clear if there is a direct connection -- on July 7, Khadr fired his three American lawyers, Coburn, Flowers and Jackson. On July 12, instead of resuming pre-trial hearings on the suppression motions, there was a one-day session on the issue of legal representation. Minutes into the start of the hearing, Khadr stated that he intended to boycott the whole "sham process," adding a new layer of uncertainty to the government's plans for his trial. Cynical Faith Since the military commissions were established, only four cases have concluded. The first, against Australian citizen David Hicks, was resolved by a politically negotiated plea bargain agreement in 2007. To the ire of the prosecuting attorneys, Vice President Dick Cheney pushed through a light deal to accommodate conservative ally Prime Minister John Howard, who was running for reelection and needed to demonstrate to Australians that he was doing something to get Hicks out of Guant?namo. Hicks, a convert to Islam, had been captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 by the Northern Alliance and sold to the US military for a $1,000 bounty. Accused of undergoing military training in al-Qaeda camps and allying with the Taliban, he was charged for the first time in 2004. His military lawyer, Maj. Dan Mori, waged a determined public relations campaign in Australia to build pressure for Hicks' release, including a lecture tour and a march to the office of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. Khadr's lawyers, especially Kuebler, have tried the "Mori model" of public advocacy in Canada, but to far less avail. Following the Supreme Court's June 2006 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the presidentially created military commission system was unconstitutional, all charges against Hicks and others were canceled. But Congress resurrected the system with slight modifications. Revised charges were filed against Hicks in February 2007, and the following month he pled guilty to the newly codified catch-all of providing material support for terrorism. By April he was back in Australia to serve nine months of a suspended seven-year sentence. (Howard still lost the election.) The second person convicted -- the first by trial rather than a deal -- was Salim Hamdan. Like many poor Yemenis, Hamdan had gone to Afghanistan to find work, and he was employed as bin Laden's driver (for $200 a month). He was captured by the Northern Alliance in November 2001, passed to US custody in December and transferred from Bagram to Guant?namo in early 2002. His case was one of the first five to be referred, not because he was accused of being a major terrorist but because he had agreed to plea bargain. The military lawyer assigned to represent Hamdan, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, was instructed that his role was to plead the case out. Instead, Swift joined forces with Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, and Joe McMillan and Harry Schneider from the Seattle-based firm of Perkins Coie, to challenge the legality of the military commissions. As Swift said in a 2005 interview, "All men have rights, including the right to a trial -- a regular trial! The abuse of prisoners indicates that we don't think detainees are human." That sentiment was seemingly vindicated by the 2006 Supreme Court decision in Hamdan, which followed years of litigation and losses in the federal system. The ruling, in addition to invalidating the commissions, also held that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions -- which prohibits torture, cruel treatment and "outrages upon personal dignity" -- applies to "war on terror" prisoners in US custody, and that violations are punishable offenses under the federal War Crimes Act of 1996. But Congress negated the court's landmark decision with the 2006 Military Commissions Act that also authorized retroactive immunity for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by US officials back to 1997. On May 10, 2007, Hamdan was recharged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. His attorneys tried again to fight the commissions, but the Supreme Court declined to hear challenges. Katyal (who now serves as Obama's assistant solicitor general) was not part of Hamdan's commission defense team, but Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer joined Swift, McMillan and Schneider. When Hamdan's pre-trial hearings commenced on February 7, 2008, his lawyers moved to have the charges dismissed on the grounds that those activities were not crimes under military law at the time of Hamdan's capture. That challenge, had it succeeded, would have negated the possibility of prosecuting anyone for material support and conspiracy in military commissions. The presiding judge, Capt. Keith Allred, also refused the defense request to interview Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the self-proclaimed planner of the September 11 attacks, and six other "high-value detainees" who had been moved from CIA black sites to Guant?namo in September 2006 and who could corroborate Hamdan's claims of innocence. At the next round of pre-trial hearings in April 2008, the defense moved to have the case dismissed on the grounds of unlawful command influence, namely that the legal process was being directed and manipulated from above. Former chief prosecutor and one-time head cheerleader for the commissions Col. Morris Davis, who resigned in October 2007 to protest politicized interference, testified for the defense. (Five other prosecutors have also resigned in protest over the years.) On the stand, Davis reiterated his criticism that the government was willing to pursue cases on the basis of tortured and other unreliable forms of evidence, and that the commission's top legal advisor, Gen. Thomas Hartmann, acting at the behest of Bush political appointees, pressured the prosecution about how cases should be handled. Judge Allred did find undue command influence and disqualified Hartmann from any further involvement in the case. Hamdan, whose psychological condition had deteriorated precipitously, was so frustrated by the circumvention of his legal victory in the Supreme Court that he boycotted the pre-trial proceedings. In response to defense motions to suppress his self-incriminating statements, Judge Allred agreed to exclude those from Bagram but not Guant?namo, despite that at the latter his interrogation treatment included 50 days of sleep deprivation under "Operation Sandman." Hamdan's trial began on July 21, 2008, and lasted two weeks. On August 6, the six-officer military jury pronounced its verdict. He was found guilty of providing material support for terrorism but was acquitted of the conspiracy charges. According to Swift, the prosecution strategy to make the case for conspiracy had backfired because when they showed a video of the attack and collapse of the Twin Towers, which Hamdan had never seen, he broke down in tears. The following day, the jury sentenced him to five and a half years and credited him for time served since he arrived at Guant?namo. Five months later, his sentence was up and he was repatriated to Yemen. The fact that Hicks and Hamdan have been charged, sentenced and freed has persuaded some lawyers who represent Guant?namo prisoners that the military commission system, although indisputably flawed, is functionally preferable to the alternatives: indefinite detention without charges (a designation that 48 have been assigned by the Obama administration), or trial in federal courts which, according to one military defense lawyer, "are great for pre-trial and habeas but at the trial stage are not a defendant-friendly ballgame -- they are a meat grinder for prosecutions." Such client-centered "cynical faith" in the military commissions might be explained by the presumption, borne out in Hamdan's case, that military jurors will not be persuaded that material support for terrorism merits a harsh sentence. The right-wing argument that military commissions are inherently "tougher" on terror suspects is contradicted by comparison of the Hicks case to the case against US citizen John Walker Lindh, who was charged with similar offenses and sentenced to 20 years by a federal court. Some lawyers even harbor the hope that a future military jury will balk the commissions' core contention -- widely regarded as bogus by international and military law experts -- that terrorism crimes are violations of the laws of war and subject to military trial, and register their opposition by acquitting the accused. Many military law experts regard the post-September 11 legal edifice as flimsy for three reasons. First, the government reinterpreted the laws of war in order to treat the status of an "enemy unprivileged combatant" -- that is, an enemy of the US who is not a member of a regular army and thus is "unprivileged" to fight -- as the determinant factor in prosecuting the person for war crimes. Second, the offenses included in the war crimes category (if perpetrated by America's Islamist enemies), such as conspiracy, providing material support and solicitation of murder, are not actually violations of the laws of war. They are violations of other kinds of laws. Third, military courts, tribunals and commissions should only prosecute war crimes, whereas non-war crime offenses should be prosecuted in civilian courts, either in the country where the crime occurred or, possibly, in the country of the victims. In the case against Khadr, for example, if the allegation that he killed Sgt. Speer were true, he could be prosecuted for murder in Afghanistan, but killing a uniformed soldier, even if the killing is done by someone who is "unprivileged" to kill in war, is not a war crime because a uniformed soldier is not a "protected person" under military law. If these refashioned law of war violations were regarded and treated as universally applicable, by the same measure that Khadr's "unprivileged" status makes him subject to the war crimes charge of murder, CIA agents, who are non-military and thus unprivileged combatants, could be charged with the war crime of murder for operating Predator drones. Boycott The third conviction, and the last during the Bush years, is instructive in different ways because the outcome was the harshest possible sentence for a non-capital case. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, another Yemeni, went to Afghanistan in 1999 to join the Taliban in their fight against the Northern Alliance. He received military training, became a propagandist for al-Qaeda and made a two-hour recruitment video glorifying jihad and attacks on US targets. Al-Bahlul, who has maintained unrepentant support for al-Qaeda, insisted from the time he was first charged in 2004 that he wanted to represent himself and would not accept the services of any American lawyer. Under the commission rules in 2005, his military lawyer, Maj. Tom Fleener, was obligated to represent him despite his opposition. As Fleener told a GQ interviewer in 2007, "The concept of compelled representation has always bothered the crap out of me. You just don't force lawyers on people. You don't represent someone against his will. It's never, ever, ever done." Al-Bahlul was charged with conspiracy, solicitation of murder and providing material support for terrorism. When Fleener returned to civilian life in 2008, Maj. David Frakt was assigned to his case. The 2006 Military Commissions Act incorporated the right of a defendant to represent himself, and the presiding judge of the commissions, Col. Peter Brownback, granted al-Bahlul's request to go pro se. But Brownback, who was also presiding over the Khadr case, was abruptly removed in May 2008 and involuntarily retired from the Army. Kuebler speculated that Brownback was fired for complaining about being "badgered and beaten and bruised" by the prosecution to set a trial date for Khadr before the November 2008 election. The new judge, Col. Ronald Gregory, revoked Brownback's decision that he could defend himself. Al-Bahlul refused to accept Frakt's representation. When the trial began, he wanted guards to carry him into the courtroom as a demonstration that he was there against his will, but that request was denied. Instead, he held up a handmade sign that read "boycott" to make the point. Judge Gregory refused Frakt's request to be released, but said he could not force a lawyer to mount a defense against his client's wishes. Frakt declared, "I will be joining Mr. al-Bahlul's boycott of the proceedings, standing mute at the table." And so it went: No questions were answered, no testimony was provided, no cross-examination was pursued and the prosecution's case went unchallenged. The military jury convicted al-Bahlul and sentenced him to life in prison. Both the al-Bahlul and Hamdan convictions by trial are undergoing automatic appeal in the Court of Military Commissions Review. The fourth and last conviction -- the first under Obama -- is that of Sudanese citizen Ibrahim al-Qosi. In the early 1990s, al-Qosi worked as an accountant for a company in Khartoum owned by bin Laden, and in 1996 he moved with his family to Afghanistan and worked as bin Laden's cook. When he was charged in 2004, Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer was assigned to represent him. In 2005, Shaffer characterized his interrogations as "possibly torture but certainly inhumane treatment" because he was held in stress positions for protracted periods, exposed to snarling dogs and sexually humiliated. She said, "As a member of the US military, it's scary.to talk to my client about what he has been through because I worry about what will happen to our people when they are captured. We are supposed to be defenders of the rule of law!" Shaffer's defense strategy was to challenge everything, including government plans to reinterrogate her client after he had been charged. She also sought to depose top officials, including former President Bill Clinton because al-Qosi's conspiracy charge alleged conduct dating to 1996, but this motion was denied because the commissions had no rules on depositions. Her allegation of prosecutorial misconduct arising from the disappearance of videotapes of interrogations, including al-Qosi's, was a factor in the resignation of several military prosecutors who refused to participate in what she termed a "travesty of justice." Al-Qosi was recharged on February 9, 2008, and was assigned a new military lawyer, Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier. She has described his case as "Hamdan lite." Because al-Qosi refused to deal with her or any American lawyer, she arranged for Abdullahi An-Na'im, a Sudanese-American who teaches law at Emory University, to meet with him at Guant?namo in August 2008 in order to persuade him to cooperate in his defense. The Sudanese Bar Association sent Ahmad al-Mufti, head of the government-run Sudan Human Rights Commission, to provide counsel and attend his commission hearings. At a December 2009 hearing, the government announced that it intended to add new charges alleging that al-Qosi's conspiracy with al-Qaeda dated back to 1992, but the judge refused to grant that request. At a hearing on July 7, 2010, he pled guilty to conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Citing two anonymous sources who have read the plea agreement, the satellite news channel Al Arabiya reported that he had agreed to serve two more years. If this deal is confirmed at the sentencing hearing on August 9, he will be out of Guant?namo before the next presidential election. "The Rules Are Always Changing" After Khadr fired his American lawyers on July 7, Judge Parrish canceled the pre-trial hearings scheduled to begin the following week that would have featured psychiatrists testifying for the defense and the prosecution about whether Khadr's statements to interrogators at Bagram and Guant?namo should be excluded because coercion, abuse and his youth make anything he said unreliable. Instead, the court convened on July 12 to consider the issue of legal representation. Khadr, dressed in a loose-fitting white tunic and pants, was brought into the courtroom by a contingent of guards and seated at the defense table beside his Canadian lawyer, Edney. On the other side of Edney sat his fired military lawyer, Jackson. Judge Parrish began by asking Khadr to confirm that he had in fact fired his civilian attorneys Coburn and Flowers, and that no one had forced or pressured him to do so. Then he asked, "How do you plan to proceed?" Khadr replied, "I plan to boycott the process. I have my reasons." He explained those reasons by reading to the court a handwritten statement later distributed to journalists: Your Honor, I'm boycotting this military commission because: firstly, the unfairness and injustice of it. I say this because not one of the lawyers I've had, or human rights organizations or any person ever say that this commission is fair or looking for justice, but on the contrary they say it's unfair and unjust and that it has been constructed to convict detainees not to find the truth (so how can I ask for justice from a process that does not have it or offer it) and to accomplish political and public goal. And what I mean is when I was offered a plea bargain it was up to 30 years which I was going to spend only five years so I asked why the 30 years. I was told it make the US government look good in the public eyes and other political causes. Secondly: The unfairness of the rules that will make a person so depressed that he will admit to alligations [sic] made upon him or take a plea offer that will satisfy the US government and get him the least sentence possible and legitimize this sham process. Therefore I will not willingly let the US gov use me to fulfill its goal. I have been used many times when I was a child and that's why I'm here taking blame and paying for things I didn't have a chance in doing but was told to do by elders. Lastly I will not take any plea offer because it will give excuse for the gov[ernment] for torturing and abusing me when I was a child. Perhaps Judge Parrish did not understand Khadr's statement, because he asked, "Will you represent yourself? I'm not going to release Jackson if you choose not to represent yourself." Khadr reiterated that he did not want any lawyer to represent him. Assuming Khadr meant that he wanted to represent himself, the judge asked, "Have you ever studied the law?" Khadr replied, "This is a military commission. You don't need to study the law." Judge Parrish: "What is your education?" Khadr: "Five years in the military commissions." As if the judge knew nothing about Khadr's background or was working off a script, he asked, "Have you ever represented yourself or anyone else in this type of proceeding? Are you familiar with the rules of evidence?" Khadr responded, "The rules are always changing, so knowing the rules doesn't really matter." Parrish: "Are you familiar with the rules of the military commissions?" Khadr answered, "In general. My lawyers are as untrained as I am. No one has any experience in these military commissions." Indeed, the new rules implementing the 2009 Act had materialized late in the afternoon of April 26, the first day of Khadr's pre-trial hearing.[4] Adopting a paternal tone, Parrish advised that effective legal representation must be objective and that "representing yourself is never a good idea." Khadr was resolute. Parrish: "So are you saying that in this process legal training makes no difference?" Khadr: "Yes." The judge asked if there were any responses or questions from the prosecution. At the table sat the chief military prosecutor for the commissions, Capt. John Murphy; the lead prosecutor, Jeff Groharing, who had been on the Khadr case since the beginning and opted to continue even after he had returned to civilian life; and Capts. Chris Eason and Michael Grant. Groharing urged the judge to inquire about Khadr's "possible physical and psychological ailments" and to ask questions "to clarify what about the system the accused thinks is unfair." Groharing also reminded the judge that if Khadr were to be granted the right to pro se representation and it is "incompetent," he would not be permitted to raise the issue on appeal. Judge Parrish duly asked Khadr, "Do you have any mental or physical issues that would prevent you from making these decisions?" Khadr: "This place is not a five-star hotel, so I'm sure it's going to have an effect on me. I don't know." Jackson, who had sat silently, interjected a point for the judge's consideration. Citing Edwards v. Indiana and referencing the fact that Khadr had said he did not know if he is suffering any psychological illness, Jackson urged serious consideration of the issue of competency. Parrish said that the defense's psychologist, Katherine Porterfield, had assessed Khadr as competent to stand trial. Jackson retorted that competency to stand trial and competency to represent oneself are different standards. Groharing, after repeating the point that Porterfield had found him competent to stand trial, asked the judge to inquire further about PTSD and stated that the two evaluators hired by the government, Alan Hopewell and Michael Welner, had drawn different conclusions about Khadr's mental state than the defense experts, Porterfield and Stephen Xenakis. (These evaluations are not publicly available because they have not yet been entered into evidence.) In an effort to project an aura of impartiality about motions as yet undecided, Parrish tiptoed around the issue of torture that might have caused Khadr to be suffering PTSD. "After you were captured, you've been through a number of things, and this might affect your mental state." He asked whether Khadr would want him to consider the reports by the defense experts. Khadr, after Edney whispered in his ear, responded that if the judge was going to consider the reports by the government-hired experts then, yes, he should consider those of the defense, too. Soon, the judge called a recess in order to deliberate on the issue of representation. When the court reconvened, Parrish seemed uncertain how to navigate this confounding relationship between a defendant's rights and the inevitable public relations disaster that would result from prosecuting an unrepresented child soldier for war crimes. The prospect that the Khadr trial might follow the al-Bahlul model, in which another boycotting defendant and his military lawyer sat mute, could not have been a heartening thought for the judge (or the prosecution). Hoping to persuade Khadr to rethink his position, Parrish tried pointing out some of the disadvantages, such as: "If I allow you to represent yourself, you won't have access to material that's classified." Khadr: "I'm boycotting." Then Parrish tried praising the zealous dedication of the lawyers who have worked on Khadr's case over the years. Khadr: "I'm boycotting and I don't want any attorneys." Parrish asked, "Is part of the boycott that you will represent yourself and not talk?" Khadr: "I don't know." Parrish: "If you show up, does that mean you are still boycotting?" Khadr: "I don't understand. I'm boycotting this whole thing. What's the point of representing myself?" Judge Parrish: "So you do not want to represent yourself?" Khadr: "I don't see the point. I don't want to represent myself, and I don't want anyone to represent me. If I was in a formal court, I wouldn't be doing this. But because I'm in this court, I am forced to do this." Judge Parrish: "Then I am not releasing Jackson. He will remain your detailed counsel." Khadr: "You are forcing him on me. I don't want him to represent me." Parrish seemed satisfied that the representation issue had been resolved. Flipping through the court calendar, he mused that if the defense wanted to continue hearings on suppression motions, they could resume on August 10. That would mean, he continued, that the trial could start in October. That scenario disturbed the prosecutors. Groharing asked whether the defense would indeed want to hold additional pre-trial hearings, because if the answer was no, they could go straight to trial in August. And with that, the representation conundrum returned. Who was empowered to make that decision? Khadr offered his preference: "I want this to finish as soon as possible. I'm not calling any witnesses." Was that the final word from the defense? Judge Parrish asked Jackson, who had barely spoken to Khadr and had no idea what his own role would be. He said, "I don't know if the client would talk to me, but I'm willing to talk to him." The judge called another recess. At the start of the third and last session, Jackson said that before taking any position on how to proceed or making any scheduling commitments, he would have to consult with Khadr and with "my licensing authority in Arkansas and the professional licensing branch of the Army." By this point, the prosecutors were apoplectic about the prospect of more delays. Groharing, rifling through the commissions rule book, said that "the obligation is to proceed unless there is a decision that this would pose an ethical problem," continuing testily that Jackson could have made these ethics inquiries weeks ago since Khadr's firing of his lawyers was hardly a surprise. Jackson replied that he had no idea until that day that he would be detailed to represent a client whose intent was to boycott since he had not been privy to Khadr's statement before it was read in court. The prosecutors huddled with the rulebook for several minutes, trying to figure out how to persuade the judge to push forward to trial. Groharing finally stood up to say that "the rules applicable to the military commissions would be paramount over any other licensing authorities." He seasoned the point by stating that any further delay "would create a significant disadvantage for the government." Then he added, "This is the latest of many instances when the accused has attempted to manipulate this process. He's making a mockery of the military commissions." Parrish was unmoved by Groharing's complaints. "I am not going to allow an unrepresented accused in here," he said. "That is not gong to happen." The hearing ended with Parrish asking Jackson to report by August 2 about what he had heard from his licensing authorities. Postscript, Prologue On July 17, the Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg reported that Jackson had received the ethics opinion he was seeking. "I am ethically required to continue representing Mr. Khadr at this time. Therefore, I intend to provide him with a zealous defense." Echoing a sentiment common among military defense lawyers, Jackson also told Rosenberg, "I never envisioned a scenario in my career as an Army lawyer that would require me to defend a child soldier against war crimes charges levied by the United States. I always believed we were better than that." Khadr, according to his Canadian lawyers, has agreed to accept Jackson's defense. On August 10, the court will reconvene to continue pre-trial hearings on suppression motions. After the hearing on July 12, Capt. David Iglesias, who recently joined the Office of the Military Commission, Prosecution, and serves as its official spokesperson, came to the media center to speak to journalists. Iglesias became a national figure in 2006 as the most visible of the seven US attorneys fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for refusing to pursue voter fraud cases against Democrats after they concluded that the allegations emanating from the White house were politically motivated and baseless. Asked whether the prosecution was worried about political fallout from Khadr's trial, Iglesias replied, "Perfect cases don't go to trial." Asked what he thought of the quality of the government's case against Khadr, he pled ignorance of the details but added, "We will go forward no matter what." What did he have to say about the novelty of prosecuting a child soldier on charges that are so widely regarded as specious? "A conviction is a conviction, whether it's for a historical war crime or a more recently added war crime." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endnotes [1] See Andy Worthington, "Guant?namo: The Definitive List," July 12, 2010, available at: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/07/12/guantanamo-the-definitive-prisoner-list-updated-for-summer-2010/. See also Nick Baumann, "Obama's GITMO by the Numbers: A Graphic Look at What Happened to 779 Detainees," Mother Jones, July 16, 2010. [2] For an authoritative and fascinating account of the Khadr family, see Michelle Shephard, Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr (Wiley, 2008). [3] Although the names of the three testifying interrogators are public knowledge, at the hearings they were referred to by pseudonyms and their true identities were deemed classified by the Pentagon. Four reporters (Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, Paul Koring of the Canadian Globe and Mail and Steven Edwards of Canwest) were subsequently banned from Guant?namo for publishing the name of Khadr's main Bagram interrogator. Rosenberg was "unbanned" prior to the July hearing, but the other three were not. [4] See David Frakt, "New Manual for Military Commissions Disregards the Commander-in-Chief, Congressional Intent and the Laws of War," Huffington Post, April 29, 2010. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 26 22:10:33 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:10:33 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] The New Pentagon Papers Message-ID: <35BFC0D817EC484C94D0DAD9DF77A633@agingCHS072729> [interesting how reports from American, British, and German sources vary, since the same information was provided by WikiLeaks to the NY Times, The UK Guardian, and the German Der Spiegel. The NY Times clearly lamented and focused on the fact that Pakistan didn't bow to American pressure in the "war on terrorism"; The Guardian clearly showcased the military cover-up of civilian casualties, and much more than that!; and the powerful anti-war response from Der Spiegel is worthy of an in-depth response all its own -- rm] The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War It's one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/26/the_new_pentagon_papers_wikileaks_releases AMY GOODMAN: It's one the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records from US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. WikiLeaks made the files available this week to the New York Times, The Guardian of London and the German weekly Der Spiegel, who agreed simultaneously to publish their reports on Sunday. The documents, most of them classified as secret, give a blow-by-blow account of the war in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December of 2009. The findings include detailed reports on 144 attacks on civilians by coalition forces, ranging from the shootings of individuals to massive air strikes, resulting in hundreds of casualties; how a secret black ops special forces unit named Task Force 373 hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial. The so-called "kill or capture" list of senior Taliban and al-Qaeda figures includes more than 2,000 names and is known as JPEL, the Joint Prioritized Effects List. The files also reveal how coalition forces are increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada. The records reveal there has a been a steep rise in Taliban attacks on coalition troops and that the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles. In addition, the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation on their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date. And the files reveal NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency. According to the New York Times, the records suggest Pakistan allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, spoke about the files in an interview with independent journalist Stephen Grey for Channel 4 in Britain. JULIAN ASSANGE: We have released 91,000 reports about Afghanistan from the United States military. The reports cover the period from 2004 to 2010 in minute detail. They cover essentially all US military operations, with the exclusion of some special forces operations and the CIA. It covers each civilian kill, each military kill that has been internally reported, where it happened, and when it happened. It is the most comprehensive history of a war to have ever been published during the course of a war. STEPHEN GREY: And how significant is that? JULIAN ASSANGE: There doesn't seem to be an equivalent disclosure made during the course of a war, during the time where it might have some effect. The nearest equivalent is perhaps the Pentagon Papers released by Daniel Ellsberg in the '70s. That was about 10,000 pages. But already that was about four years old by the time it was released. STEPHEN GREY: And how many pages in your report? JULIAN ASSANGE: There's about 200,000 pages in this material. Pentagon Papers was about 10,000 pages. STEPHEN GREY: What can you tell us about the source of this material? How do you know it's--how do you know it's true? JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, we know from looking at, you know, the material, correlating with the public record, speaking to confidential military sources, that this material is true and accurate. As to the specific source, obviously we can't comment. AMY GOODMAN: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The White House has condemned the publication of the files by WikiLeaks. In a statement, National Security Adviser Jim Jones said, quote, "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security." Jones went on to say, quote, "The documents posted by Wikileaks reportedly cover a period of time from January 2004 to December 2009. On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years," he said. Well, today we're spending the hour on this unprecedented release of documents during the war with a roundtable of guests. Here in our New York studio we're joined by Rick Rowley, independent journalist with Big Noise Films, just returned from a six-week trip to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with a Marine division in Marjah. Joining us from Washington, DC, is Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps captain in Iraq and former State Department official in Afghanistan, the highest-level US official to resign in protest over the Afghan war. Also in DC, Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. But first we go to London to speak to independent journalist Stephen Grey, who has spent the past few years reporting from Afghanistan and recently interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about this massive leak. He's author of Operation Snakebite: The Explosive True Story of an Afghan Desert Siege. And we'll go to Daniel Ellsberg in Mexico, perhaps the country's most famous whistleblower, who leaked the secret history of the Vietnam War that many are comparing this massive document leak to, 92,000 documents. Stephen Grey, let's go to you first. You spent a good deal of this weekend with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is responsible for this leak. First, talk about its significance and what he understood he was doing when he released these documents. STEPHEN GREY: Well, I think this is part of, you know, WikiLeaks's strategy. I mean, it's been a--it's a snowball that started with fairly minor disclosures into something that is, you know, absolutely game changing. I mean, I think that this leak is phenomenal. It's almost an act of sort of cyber war journalism. I mean, this has completely compromised the US military's secret system. It's called SIPRNet. It'll probably cost them a billion dollars, I think, to fix it. And this is only the beginning. I mean, if what we're hearing is true, there are thousands and thousands of more documents to come out here. But, you know, the actual contents are also really significant. I've been spending the weekend as well looking through, as far as you can in a short period of time, these 90,000 documents, you know, looking at mentions of these task forces. They're special forces task forces. I actually wrote about this Task Force 373 before. But it's really the extent of it. I mean, you know, I'm sure some of the other people you've got on today have also seen firsthand, you know, incidents like death of civilians. But it's really in the totality of it all that it becomes shocking. It's the fact that you've got absolutely everything here. OK, not the most secret stuff, but it gives an absolutely compelling portrait. I think it will take months, if not years, to really analyze it. It is--you know, the papers this morning, particularly The Guardian in London, I think have done a very good job pulling together some of its conclusions. But, you know, it is incredible to see the raw detail there, and I think it will pull together an actually--an incredible picture of war. AMY GOODMAN: As we are broadcasting this show today, the news conference is going on in London that Julian Assange is holding, revealing all of this. I wanted to turn to Daniel Ellsberg in Mexico. You're hearing of this release. Your response? DANIEL ELLSBERG: I'm very impressed by the release. It is the first release in thirty-nine years or forty years, since I first gave the Pentagon Papers to the Senate, of the scale of the Pentagon Papers, and not the first as it should have been. I would--how many times in those years should there have been the release of thousands of pages showing our being lied into war in Iraq, as in Vietnam, and the nature of the war in Afghanistan? I hope there will be--I hope this will inspire, despite the charges brought against Manning under the UC, under the Universal Code of Military Justice, which is not civilian law, it's not First Amendment law. It's the military law, so he's in deep water here, as I think he expected. But nevertheless, I hope people will not be deterred from realizing that they have the responsibility that, according to the reports we've had of what Manning said in chat logs to the informant, Adrian Lamo, that realize that there is great deception going on, that there is, in Manning's reported words, horrific material, almost criminal, as he put it, which deserve to be in the public domain, that they will consider doing what's been done here, and that is risking their own career and their clearance and even their liberty, maybe for life, in order to save many lives. So, whoever did this--and Manning is charged with it--it remains to be seen whether the government can prove a case against him in the particular charges, but in terms of what he's reported to have said to Lamo, I admire very much the spirit in which he did this. He said that he felt the public needed to know this and that he was prepared to go to prison, even for life--he said that--or even to be executed. That's the first person I've heard in forty years who is in the same state of mind that I was forty years ago. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Grey, just to clarify, Dan Ellsberg is talking about Private First Class Bradley Manning, who was in Iraq, had--says he released these documents. He has now been arrested by the military. What did Julian Assange say about Bradley Manning? And this came out in his conversations with Lamo, another blogger online. STEPHEN GREY: Yeah, I mean, like Daniel Ellsberg, he has, you know, praised what Bradley Manning has said about what he's doing, but he has not confirmed that he's the source. I mean, it's one of the beauties, if you like, of this technology that Julian Assange and his colleagues at WikiLeaks have developed, is that it actually protects the source. So what Julian Assange told me was that he himself does not know who the source is. What they do is verify documents, not sources themselves. So they're not able to actually verify that that was him. But, I mean, what was striking to me was that Bradley Manning said in his so-called confessions to this informer that he had released 265,000 documents to WikiLeaks. Now, they've published 95,000; they say they've held back 15,000. Add that up, I think there's 110,000. So less than half of what he's handed over has actually been published yet. So there's--you know, if he indeed is the leak--and I suppose you can--it looks pretty likely--then there's a lot more to come. AMY GOODMAN: He's been charged with passing on fifty State Department cables. We're talking about the largest document release in US history, outside of Dan Ellsberg, the--actually, including Dan Ellsberg, in the course of a war. Ninety-two thousand pages are being released by WikiLeaks, the website, Julian Assange holding a news conference now in London. Daniel Ellsberg is on the phone with us from Mexico. Stephen Grey, who spent much of the weekend with Julian Assange, is on with us from London. We'll be joined by others when we come back. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: An explosive story today, the release of 92,000 documents coming out of the military. We are joined now by a roundtable of people. Dan Ellsberg, the most well-known whistleblower in the United States, is joining us from Mexico. Stephen Grey, independent journalist who interviewed Julian Assange this weekend, is with us from London. We are also joined by Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps captain in Iraq and former State Department official in Afghanistan. And Rick Rowley is with us here in New York, who's just returned from Afghanistan. He's with Big Noise Films. Rick, your observations of what this six years of document release means based on what you've seen in Afghanistan? RICK ROWLEY: Well, I mean, what these documents show--prove--is that the US military has been whitewashing the war in Afghanistan for years and that most of the media has been along for the ride. They've systematically covered up civilian casualties. They've covered up the successful attacks by the Taliban and their significance. And they've covered up the violent criminality of the security forces that we've created there, security forces that are preying on Afghan civilians. I mean, the picture that emerges from these documents is, on the one hand, of an insurgency that is resilient and adapting and that is winning the war on the ground, and, on the other hand, of an Afghan state that we've constructed there that looks less like a government and looks more like a patchwork of warlords and criminal gangs that's extorting the local population and that has become more hated in many parts of the country than the Taliban who they replaced. A third interesting thing that these documents do is they put flesh on a process that we've been tracking, along with reporters like Jeremy Scahill, for some time, of a transition to what some people call a special forces war, an entirely covert and classified war that's conducted with drone strikes and midnight raids and targeted assassinations, where everything is classified, there are no media embeds, and there's very little accountability. I mean, I think that is the trajectory that this war is taking right now. Now, the White House has responded. They haven't denied anything here. They haven't even denied the conclusions that people are drawing about how terrible the war has been there. Their response has been that this is old news, we knew about this a long time ago, and that, in fact, Obama's war, Obama's surge, the new war that began in December 2009, has changed everything. Well, I came back from Afghanistan ten days ago. And while I was embedded with the Marines in Marjah and elsewhere in the country, I can tell you that this picture matches perfectly with what's going on on the ground there right now. In Marjah, which was supposed to be the poster child of this new campaign, Marjah--you know, it's a small farming community where two Marine divisions were sent in to try to prove that this war was still winnable. Those two Marine divisions have been pinned down for months. We were there at the beginning of an operation called Operation Cobra that was sending in reinforcements, a couple extra Marine companies, to try to, you know, push out their security perimeter. But it's the--Obama's surge has completely derailed. They haven't brought security to Marjah. They have one to three kilometers of security around their forward operating bases. And the biggest disaster is that the government that they were--that they've brought in and tried to stand up, the famous government in a box that was going to roll out right after the Marines cleared the ground, has disappeared. The officials refused to deploy from Kabul and disappeared. Only the mayor comes in, Mayor Haji Zahir, who's brought in by helicopter by the Marines and, like, set down in the middle of shuras and meetings that they set up and then bundled back into a helicopter and flown out. And this guy, Haji Zahir, he's an expat who lived in Germany for years and spent five years in jail for attempted murder in Germany. I mean, that's the caliber of people who we've brought in to make the leaders of this new--of the Afghanistan that we're building. I mean, it is an abject failure, as far as a nation-building operation on the ground. And, you know, whether you're talking about the last ten years of the war or 2010, I mean, the picture doesn't change. AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Hoh, you're the highest-level ranking government official to quit over the war in Afghanistan. You were speaking this weekend in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation. Your response to this massive document release? MATTHEW HOH: That was just an excellent summary we just heard by Mr. Rowley. I think the thing to take away from this is the lack of attention paid to the war by the American public, the lack of involvement by the American media in this war for the last seven, eight years, and, most damningly, the lack of oversight by our Congress on this war. What these documents show--and it provides a very valuable historical record, and this is going to be--this is really a treasure trove for historians for years to come, because it documents daily the actions of the war. And one thing I would be very hesitant--I want to push people on is understand what war is. You know that axium of war is hell. I hope people learn from these documents, that's exactly it, and not attach moral colorations of good and evil to these reports. But this is the basic nature of warfare, and this is what it's been like, and it's been consistent since really '04, in terms of how poorly things have been going on in Afghanistan. And I shouldn't say "consistent," because every year, as we've increased troops, it's gotten worse and worse. So, I think these documents are providing a valuable service. But like I said, the main point to take away is that why weren't we paying attention to this these last five or six years? Where was the media? Where was the American public's interest? And most importantly, where was that congressional oversight? AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Hoh, you're a Marine Corps captain. You served in Afghanistan as a government official. What were you most shocked by in these reports? MATTHEW HOH: I wasn't shocked by anything. These are your standard reports that the military produces internally for a host of reasons. These are reports that are done on a daily basis. They're reports that are done based upon intelligence activity or based upon what we call significant activities, or SIGACTs. So it really was just very similar to the things I saw in both Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of reporting. The daily actions, the actual what occurs in the course of a day at war, that's what these documents show. I certainly have not gone through as many as I should by now, but they seem to be your standard reports that the military uses to communicate internally with itself. AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Gareth Porter. Can you talk about the documents that refer to Pakistan aiding the insurgency, the Pakistani ISI, the spy services, working with the forces in Afghanistan who are killing US soldiers? GARETH PORTER: Yes. This is perhaps the closest thing to a major story that--in terms of news value that comes out of the collection of documents that have just been leaked. And this is a story that is extremely important politically, in terms of US politics and US policy, because of the Obama administration's admission that it is vital that Pakistan assist the United States in preventing the Afghan Taliban from having the sort of safe havens in Pakistan that they've had in the past. Now, you know, what these documents are indicating is that there's lots of evidence that Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, has indeed been meeting with the Taliban commanders. And although, you know, the American intelligence people were not there on the ground, nor Afghan intelligence people, not there on the ground at those meetings, the supposition was obviously that what's going on here is that Pakistan's intelligence is working closely with the Taliban in terms of planning their strategy, and indeed even specific operations. And this is an extremely damaging story in terms of the fragility of the US war in Afghanistan at this very moment, which is in an advanced stage of basically being--suffering from political--being overwhelmed by political opposition or a lack of support. I would say that it's not too much to say that the Afghan war today is on political life support. It is really very, very close to the position of the Iraq war, George Bush's Iraq war, in very late 2006, when Bush was forced to make some very fundamental decisions about what he was going to do about that war. And in that situation, I think the Obama administration is quite vulnerable to being attacked politically for having a policy that is so clearly unrealistic, that it should be completely reassessed and start heading for the exits. In other words, the information--the new information about Pakistan, which simply reiterates and conforms to what we already know, essentially, about the Pakistani policy of cooperating closely with the Taliban, is a death warrant for any possibility of success of this war. And it should be the basis for new calls for a US exit strategy being put as the top priority right now. AMY GOODMAN: The Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, vehemently denied claims the country's intelligence agency, ISI, has backed the Taliban. He said, "I think that the American leadership knows what Pakistan is doing. We have paid a price in treasure and blood over the past two years. More Pakistanis have been killed by terrorists, including our military officers and intelligence service." And, of course, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just promised Pakistan another $500 million in aid. Gareth? GARETH PORTER: Well, what the ambassador is doing here, of course, is exactly what US officials have done over the past year or so, which is to talk about the militants in Pakistan as though--you know, without differentiating between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani neo-Taliban, to talk about the fact that, yes, the Pakistani government has made progress in dealing with the militants in Pakistan. Well, yes, they have. They've changed their policy significantly in terms of dealing with the Pakistani Taliban, but they have not changed their policy with regard to the Afghan Taliban. That's quite clear. And what you have--it's very interesting--the Obama administration just issued an eight-page paper yesterday which responds to this story, which is made up solely of public statements by US officials over the past year and a half or so about this question of US policy toward Pakistan and the Taliban. And what you find in these statements is utter unwillingness to specifically say right out loud that Pakistan is not only not cooperating with the United States on this issue, but there's no reason to believe that they're going to, because they don't believe it's in their interest to cooperate with the United States against the Taliban. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Stephen Grey in London, who spent part of the weekend with Julian Assange, who's released these documents, the founder of WikiLeaks. In a minute, I want ask you, Stephen, and also go to Dan Ellsberg, about how Julian Assange is being hounded as he travels the world. But first, the special forces, talk more about 373, Task Force 373. STEPHEN GREY: Absolutely. There hasn't been much disclosed before. I did actually write about it in this book I wrote in a title--a chapter called "The Manhunt," because what I noticed is that this war is divided into the public version, if you like, the softer hearts and minds stuff, but if you look at the history of counterinsurgency, you'll know that actually counterinsurgency is not a soft option, and therefore there is this unseen side of the war, which actually has become more and more dominant, which is basically manhunt. You have these kill-or-capture units. They change their code names regularly. But Task Force 373 has been one of those units. And what they're doing is systematically going around and--well, they call it decapitation, removing the sort of the head of this organization that they call the Taliban, and thinking that that will destabilize the Taliban and win. Of course, you know, under the laws of war-- AMY GOODMAN: We just lost Stephen Grey, but we're going to go back to him in a minute. Let me ask the question to Rick Rowley about Task Force 373, about the whole issue of this special forces war. RICK ROWLEY: Yeah. Well, I think journalists like Jeremy Scahill and others have been tracking this for a while, that as the nation-building project fails in Afghanistan--and, I mean, this year was supposed to be the year of nation building. Marjah was supposed to be the prelude to Kandahar. Both of those have been rebranded, canceled, completely dramatically changed. There's been a massive escalation of a second option, which is the special forces war, an entirely covert war. So, I mean, and you're seeing this publicly discussed now. This is the sign of the future. You know, there was the recent Newsweek on it. There's people publicly in the administration talking about this. When we abandon the nation-building project, which everyone recognizes is an abject failure, the new form, paradigm, the war is going to take is drone strikes and special forces raids and midnight assassinations and capturing and abducting people. I mean, this--if you look at the press releases every day, every week, that NATO and ISAF put out, you can see that the majority of the kinetic action, the military calls it, the majority of the people killed and captured, are done by special forces. So there is no real information about them at all. It's all entirely secret. And these are just the ones that are made public. Many more of them aren't made public. These documents that were released, you know, they occasionally cover--in slant ways cover special forces operations, but all of that stuff is a different level of classified. So, I mean, it's absolutely true that there are two parallel wars going on: there's the war for hearts and minds, which is increasingly just a distraction, that the media have access to, where they have a very restricted rules of engagement, where they don't use as many air strikes; and then there's a special forces war, where it's, you know, all systems go, where there aren't the same restrictions, where they routinely kill people who don't represent the same kind of--don't reach the same kind of threat level that they would have to in the conventional war. So I think this is going to be one of the most significant stories going forward into the future, is tracking through these documents how--the evolution of this new kind of war there. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Grey, you were just getting into Task Force 373. STEPHEN GREY: Yeah, I'm not sure quite where you lost me there, but I was just saying that there's this parallel war, and 373 is involved in what they call decapitation operations. They believe that there is a--the Taliban as an organization can be defeated by removing its head and that getting rid of all these leaders will destabilize and help them to win. But it's actually a very conventional way of viewing things, and it goes completely counter to the idea of actually having a peace settlement, because if you remove the leadership of an organization, you have no one to negotiate with, and you end up with a sort of constantly rejuvenated rebellion, which I think is what it is, of more and more extreme people. So it's very questionable whether this thing is actually, you know, productive at all, even in this very conventional way. I mean, I think what comes across overall is that--you know, is that the war is being fought in a very conventional way, despite what's being said. You know, there's all this talk--it's always about how many enemy did we kill. It's all seen in a very sort of--you know, it's as if it's kind of like a World War II situation. You know, you really wonder whether the lessons have been learned. I also think that even the talk of Pakistan--and I think that's--it's an example of the US being played. I think there's a lot of paranoia there. They're being fed information by Afghan intelligence, who--where they get most of their intelligence from, you know? And they see it this great sanctuary, if only we, you know, weren't--it's just like Vietnam, they say. You know, if only we could cross the border, you know, and defeat that sanctuary, somehow this will all go away. I don't think it's like that. I think it's a very complex problem, and I think a lot of it's to do with a straightforward rebellion and unpopularity of the Afghan government, which the US is supporting. AMY GOODMAN: As I said, as we're broadcasting, Julian Assange is holding a news conference in London. Let's just go to a clip of that news conference right now with the founder of WikiLeaks who released the--well, this unprecedented 92,000 pages of documents. JULIAN ASSANGE: I suppose our greatest fear is that we will be too successful too fast, and we won't be able to do justice to the material we're getting in fast enough. That's our greatest problem at the moment. REPORTER: Do you accept that secrecy is an important and a necessary part of government [inaudible]? JULIAN ASSANGE: Secrecy is sometimes perfectly legitimate. For example, your medical records with your doctor are probably, in all likelihood, perfectly entitled to confidentiality. But not always. I mean, some cases where that is not true. REPORTER: So, you make the choice then? You at WikiLeaks would make [inaudible]-- JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, it's a matter about whether the coercive power of the state should be used to stop people sharing information, who have no direct connection to the source of the information. You can't use the coercive power of the state to stop people spreading rumors, to stop people discussing political life, and sophisticated US jurisprudence understands that. And that is why you have things like the First Amendment, which takes the press outside the legislative process, because in the end it is the communication of knowledge which regulates the legislature, which creates the Constitution. AMY GOODMAN: That was Julian Assange. He is holding a news conference, as we speak here, in London on the release of these 92,000 secret records from the Afghan war. They constitute something like 200,000 pages. Daniel Ellsberg, before we go to break, I want to talk about this issue of secrecy and also what is happening to Julian Assange now. CNET reported that federal agents appeared at a hacker conference in New York recently, looking forJulian Assange. Our colleague, Eric Corley, publisher of 2600 magazine, organizer of the Next HOPE conference, said five Homeland Security agents appeared at the conference a day before the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange was scheduled to speak. They told him, if he shows up, he will be questioned at length. Before we go to Dan Ellsberg, maybe Stephen Grey can tell us more about this, having spent the weekend with Julian Assange, that he is very much on the run, that he is very much--says that he is being hunted. STEPHEN GREY: Well, absolutely. He's aware of a great deal of surveillance, and I think he knows that it will all come down to politics, really. The US government would dearly love to arrest and question him, and they've certainly been trying, he says now. They've made a formal request to the Australian government to--this is what he says--to have him arrested, and the Australian government refused to comply. So I think he's resting--and he's noted surveillance people on the plane without luggage, joining him even in Icelend. So he thinks he's being followed wherever he goes, and he's relying on, if you like, the public support that might actually stop that sort of action, it would be counterproductive. And I think the US right now is trying to get somebody else to do it, because they know that if they themselves arrest Julian Assange, then it will create a huge backlash. AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Ellsberg in Mexico? DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, some have said that it's ridiculous to think that Assange is in any actual danger. I don't know--physical danger. I don't know how large that probability is. It's probably small. But it should be zero, and it's not zero. It's ridiculous to say that it is zero that he's in any danger at all. The fact is that when I--they say, because he's so famous, because there's so much publicity on him, that he doesn't need to worry, from that point of view. I speak from an unusual perspective there. In May 3rd, 1972, when I was on trial, in a major political trial with tremendous publicity on me, Richard Nixon, President Nixon, sent a dozen CIA assets up from Miami to Washington, where I was giving a--addressing a rally on the steps of the Capitol with a number of Congress persons there and a large crowd, with orders to incapacitate me totally. Those were the orders given to them. So I can hardly assure Assange that nothing like that could happen again. We now have a president who has asserted--Barack Obama, who has asserted a right to do what other presidents have done in the past, but have done it covertly. He's asserting the right to assassinate American citizens abroad who he suspects, or intelligence suspects, are serving the cause of terrorism. And I'm sure, by the way, that the phrase "the most dangerous man alive," which Henry Kissinger put to me because of the disclosures I was making, that's the way they would think of Julian Assange right now. So he should be--he should be quite safe from that. But as your previous speakers have been saying, we're more and more conducting a war, and not only in Afghanistan, but it was earlier true in Iraq under General McChrystal, a war of death squads, of selective assassination. And those assassinations don't always, to broaden this point just a little bit here, those don't always hit the person who has been condemned to death on a hit list approved by the President. They don't always get--aside from the illegality of that whole process and the absolute denial of due process or of general laws of war, they don't hit the right people. They hit families. They hit other people when they're present. The question is, I think--from this whole release, a question to be asked is this: when you look at this file, which ends in December, as the White House has pointed out, in December of last year, and they try to make the point that that shows that things are all different now, because now we're no longer under-resourcing it, we are now paying for, you know, a lot more death squads and a lot more drones and a lot of other things, and that will make all the difference. What I would like to see leaked--I don't know if it's in these documents or not--is the following bottom line. What was their estimate in December of the order of battle or the strength of all the various groups that we are fighting there in Afghanistan? After the $300 billion that we've spent, how does that compare with a year earlier? And how does it compare with the estimate now? I would like to see a leak to Congress, in the first place, and to the public, of what their estimate is now in June, July of 2010, after we put more troops in there? Is it really smaller? I will make a strong guess that their official estimate, which we should know, of the Taliban forces in their various forms, all different kinds of them, that we're facing is larger now than it was six months ago and larger than it was a year ago. And I'll predict that after the next $100 billion we've spent over there, it will be larger next year and the year after. So this is the time, as I think Gareth Porter--no, as Matthew Hoh very well pointed out, for Congress, at last, to take on its responsibility of questioning whether we should be spending another $300 billion and more on this process of trying to occupy a country that is successfully--has successfully been fighting off foreigners for thousands of years. Actually, what I read in these documents is not just as Matthew was saying, that they're very similar to what he was seeing, as I heard him, in Afghanistan when he was there, they're pretty close to what I was reading, and in some cases writing, in Vietnam, when I was there forty, forty-five years ago. It really confirms what I've been saying for seven years, that we are involved in what I think of as Vietnamistan. And it's up to Congress right now, at last, not to defer to the President on this, not to give the benefit of the doubt to the people who have been keeping these reports secret from us for so long, but to investigate themselves and to take away that money. AMY GOODMAN: Dan Ellsberg, we have to break. Daniel Ellsberg, Henry Kissinger called him "the most dangerous man in America." Rick Rowley with us, of Big Noise Films, just back from Afghanistan. Gareth Porter in Washington. Matthew Hoh, Marine Corps captain, the highest-level government official to quit over the Afghan war. Stephen Grey with us from London, he's just spent the weekend with Julian Assange and interviewed him for Channel 4. Julian Assange just told reporters in his news conference it's up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes. He said what's been reported so far has only scratched the surface. We'll be back in a minute. [break] AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, he released the Pentagon Papers. WikiLeaks is being compared to that. It's the largest release of secret documents in history. More than 92,000 records, that's more than 200,000 pages, have now been released online. Rick Rowley is with us, just back from Afghanistan, with Big Noise Films. Gareth Porter is with us in Washington, DC. Stephen Grey, in London, just interviewed Julian Assange for Channel 4. And Matthew Hoh, highest-level government official to quit his position in Afghanistan because of the war there, also a Marine Corps captain. Matthew Hoh, I want to go to you. You worked with Task Force 373. MATTHEW HOH: Loosely. It's a very integrated--with these special forces operations, I hope people aren't getting the idea that, at least of last year, they're off by themselves running amok. It's a fairly well-integrated operation that spans political efforts, as well. I'll give you an example. As a political officer, you would review the target lists to make sure you weren't--we weren't killing or going after anyone who was actually working with us. A lot of times what happens--the point was made that we kill the wrong people. Well, you know, sometimes we get the right guy, but he's actually just somebody who's been turned in by someone who's got a grudge against him. One of the things I hope people see from these documents is how complex the nature of war is, how difficult war actually is. And so, the question has to be asked, Is it worth it? What we're asking our young men and women to do, is it worth putting them through this? And what benefit is it to the United States? But the other point about the special operations raids, these capture-kill missions, if this worked, if this was a viable method, we would have won this thing back in '04 or '05, you know? And the other point, too, about Dan's--Dan Ellsberg's excellent point about the strength of the Taliban, I'm in complete agreement. If you actually go back and look at comments made by General Barno, who was the commanding general of American forces in '04 and '05, back then he was saying there were only 2,000 Taliban. Last summer they said it was 40,000. And I concur with Dan Ellsberg. We've sent 30,000 more troops into southern Afganistan, and that probably has exponentially increased the strength of the Taliban, because we see the Taliban get their support because of resistance to foreign occupation and resistance to a corrupt and unrepresentative government. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Grey, the newspapers that WikiLeaks worked with in releasing this--and it's still all just being digested. It's less than twenty-four hours ago. By the way, Eric Schmitt, the reporter for the New York Times, said they've been working with the White House now for weeks and carefully going through and redacting names and other sources that might be compromised, said the White House was fully aware of what's in these documents. And he actually said Julian Assange has agreed to hold back a number of documents to go through that kind of redacting process before they're released. But Stephen Grey, The Guardian write, "In many cases, the unit has set out to seize"--talking about Task Force 373--"seize targets for internment, but in others it has simply killed them without attempting to capture. The logs reveal that TF 373 has also killed civilian men, women and children and even Afghan police officers who have strayed into its path." STEPHEN GREY: Well, that's right. And I've been looking through those same documents. I mean, they do show a lot of people are captured; it's not just a kill operation. But on the other hand, they are systematically using methods that don't allow you to capture. For example, there was one missile strike that they used to try and take out one person they were supposedly trying to capture, and, you know, it killed a bunch of children instead. And they tried to--you see them trying to prevent that information being released to anyone other than themselves. And it is quite shocking. AMY GOODMAN: Let's go back to Gareth Porter in Washington, DC. Talk more about the significance, what you think is most important to highlight here, as we go through these hundreds of thousands of pages of top-secret documents, classified documents. GARETH PORTER: Well, again, I mean, there are very few things here that have not, in some fashion, been reported by the news media over the last--particularly over the last year or so. But there is one set of documents, in particular, that I thought were particularly insightful in terms of revealing the basic nature of the society and of the Afghan government that the United States is supporting, and that is a set of documents that show, for example, a police commander, a district police commander, who had raped a sixteen-year-old girl and who was confronted with a civilian complaining about this rape. He ordered his bodyguard, according to this report, to shoot the civilian. The bodyguard refused to do so, and then the police commander simply killed his own bodyguard in order to basically deal with the situation. This sort of laid bare the basic structure that the United States has stumbled into, or, perhaps I should say, has allowed itself to take control of, and--or tried to take control of, and I think what it shows is that this is a war that not only cannot be won, but in which the United States is on the wrong side. And I just want to make one more point about the releases, and that is that I think that the real story here, the most important story, is WikiLeaks itself. I think what we have here is a new institution that is undoubtedly the most important antiwar institution that has been created so far and that I have no doubt is frightening the US military and intelligence establishment, as well as the Obama administration, very strongly. And I think that's for very good reason. I think they understand that this represents a potentially powerful weapon for the future against war crimes as well as other illegal actions by the United States. AMY GOODMAN: I'm going to give, for the last few seconds, Daniel Ellsberg the last word, as we come full circle from Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, that you had released at tremendous risk to yourself, to WikiLeaks right now and this unprecedented release of top-secret documents. DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, this is the closest that I've come to what I've been calling for for years, and that is for people to do not what I did, which is to wait years, until bombs were falling and until more countries have been invaded or escalation, before revealing documents to Congress and the public through the press. From menecraj at shaw.ca Mon Jul 26 23:05:18 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:05:18 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle Message-ID: <38F7CD7D360F4150AA94F348A527C9B8@agingCHS072729> (hat tip to Karen J. for this....) BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle Abe Louise Young July 21, 2010 In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for work? The outfits disappeared overnight. Related Content.Monday Daybook: Reactions to Israeli Attack on Relief Flotilla DAYBOOK for Tuesday: With Afternoon Media & Politics Updates! A Hole in the World How to Help in the Gulf Shill, Baby, Shill About the Author.Abe Louise Young Abe Louise Young is a poet and activist native to New Orleans, LA. She lives in Austin, TX. Visit www.....Related Topics.Natural Disaster Person Career .Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why black people were over-represented in "the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins." Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced-and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process. Known to some as "the inmate state," Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration of any other state in the country. Seventy percent of its 39,000 inmates are African-American men. The Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) only has beds for half that many prisoners, so 20,000 inmates live in parish jails, privately run contract facilities and for-profit work release centers. Prisons and parish jails provide free daily labor to the state and private companies like BP, while also operating their own factories and farms, where inmates earn between zero and forty cents an hour. Obedient inmates, or "trustees," become eligible for work release in the last three years of their sentences. This means they can be a part of a market-rate, daily labor force that works for private companies outside the prison gates. The advantage for trustees is that they get to keep a portion of their earnings, redeemable upon release. The advantage for private companies is that trustees are covered under Work Opportunity Tax Credit, a holdover from Bush's Welfare to Work legislation that rewards private-sector employers for hiring risky "target groups." Businesses earn a tax credit of $2,400 for every work release inmate they hire. On top of that, they can earn back up to 40 percent of the wages they pay annually to "target group workers." If BP's use of prison labor remains an open secret on the Gulf Coast, no one in an official capacity is saying so. At the Grand Isle base camp in early June, I called BP's Public Information line, and visited representatives for the Coast Guard Public Relations team, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Louisiana Fisheries and Wildlife Department. They were all stumped. Were inmates doing shore protection or oil cleanup work? They had no idea. In fact, they said, they'd like to know-would I call them if I found out? I got an answer one evening earlier this month, when I drove up the gravel driveway of the Lafourche Parish Work Release Center jail, just off Highway 90, halfway between New Orleans and Houma. Men were returning from a long day of shoveling oil-soaked sand into black trash bags in the sweltering heat. Wearing BP shirts, jeans and rubber boots (nothing identifying them as inmates), they arrived back at the jail in unmarked white vans, looking dog tired. Beach cleanup is a Sisyphean task. Shorelines cleaned during the day become newly soaked with oil and dispersant overnight, so crews shovel up the same beaches again and again. Workers wear protective chin-to-boot coveralls (made out of high-density polyethylene and manufactured by Dupont), taped to steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic. They work twenty minutes on, forty minutes off, as per Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety rules. The limited physical schedule allows workers to recover from the blazing sun and the oppressive heat that builds up inside their impermeable suits. During their breaks, workers unzip the coveralls for ventilation, drink ice water from gallon thermoses and sit under white fabric tents. They start at 6 AM, take a half-hour lunch and end the day at 6PM, adding up three to four hours of hard physical labor in twenty-minute increments. They are forbidden to speak to the public or the media by BP's now-notorious gag rule. At the end of the day, coveralls are stripped off and thrown in dumpsters, alongside oil-soaked booms and trash bags full of contaminated sand. The dumpsters are emptied into local HazMat landfills, free employees go home and the inmates are returned to work release centers. Work release inmates are required to work for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week, sometimes averaging seventy-two hours per week. These are long hours for performing what may arguably be the most toxic job in America. Although the dangers of mixed oil and dispersant exposure are largely unknown, the chemicals in crude oil can damage every system in the body, as well as cell structures and DNA. Inmates can't pick and choose their work assignments and they face considerable repercussions for rejecting any job, including loss of earned "good time." The warden of the Terrebonne Parish Work Release Center in Houma explains: "If they say no to a job, they get that time that was taken off their sentence put right back on, and get sent right back to the lockup they came out of." This means that work release inmates who would rather protect their health than participate in the non-stop toxic cleanup run the risk of staying in prison longer. Prisoners are already subject to well-documented health care deprivations while incarcerated, and are unlikely to have health insurance after release. Work release positions are covered by Worker's Compensation insurance, but pursuing claims long after exposure could be a Kafkaesque task. Besides, there is currently no system for tracking the medical impact of oil and dispersant exposure in cleanup workers or affected communities. Full: From krjones at mts.net Mon Jul 26 22:43:36 2010 From: krjones at mts.net (karen jones) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:43:36 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] BP uses Prison Labour to Clean Up Spill References: Message-ID: <002c01cb2d3d$e5775890$abfbfea9@yourrvlnhr6v8d> Richard, I thought there was something weird going on with the clean up crews. I thought that they were bringing people from other towns to clean up towns that they didn't live in. I was wrong. This is what really is happening: http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle From hain at antcolbks.com Tue Jul 27 13:34:43 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:34:43 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Is socialism a biblical value? Message-ID: <17366965A7E44D6FBFB196035C7F770C@Upstairs> Biblical values can be misinterpreted Published: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 12:25 AM Letters to the Editor Should America be governed by biblical values? Good idea. Let's begin with this one: "When an alien resides with you in the land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no different than the natives born among you; have the same love for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:33-34). Or this: "The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather everything was held in common. ... Nor was there any needy among them for all who owned property or houses sold them and donated the proceeds. They used to lay them at the feet of the apostles to be distributed to everyone according to his need" (Acts 4: 32,34-35). Is socialism a biblical value? And from which biblical reference did we distort the instruction to "Turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39) into a God-inspired right to carry a weapon into church? Apparently, theocrats believe that the Bible is inerrant only when it supports their political agenda and themselves the only ones qualified to interpret it. And therein lies the problem foreseen by our Founding Fathers. JOSEPH MAY, Hampden Twp. http://www.pennlive.com/letters/index.ssf/2010/07/biblical_values_can_be_misinte.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Tue Jul 27 23:48:18 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:48:18 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] House approves $37 billion war-funding bill - Zilch for domestic initiatives Message-ID: <76BB8794A2F54491919FB0956205BBAB@Upstairs> House approves $37 billion war-funding bill By Perry Bacon Jr. and Ben Pershing Wednesday, July 28, 2010 The House on Tuesday approved spending an additional $37 billion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, overcoming the opposition of some Democrats who have concluded that the Afghan conflict is unwinnable. The funding bill, which passed 308 to 114, had stalled for two months as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers objected to the continuation of the war in Afghanistan and insisted that spending on the conflicts be accompanied by funding for domestic initiatives, to help Americans suffering from the recession. The domestic funding was stripped from the final bill. The legislation was passed by the Senate last week in a voice vote, and it now goes to President Obama for his signature. The disclosure Sunday of more than 91,000 secret documents about the war had little impact on the debate; most of the 102 Democrats who voted against the funding had already expressed doubts about the war in Afghanistan and Obama's decision last December to add 30,000 troops there. They were joined by 12 Republicans. The number of Democrats who opposed the funding was more than double the number who voted down a similar measure last year, illustrating the growing divide between Obama and members of his party about Afghanistan. "What has changed in my mind is I am so discouraged at the chances of our commitment in Afghanistan succeeding that I think it's time to say, no more," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.). Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had urged Congress to approve the legislation, saying the money will be needed soon to support troops in the field. Along with funding for operations by the Defense and State departments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the $58 billion measure includes $13.3 billion to provide payments to Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange and about $3 billion for relief efforts in Haiti. "I am confident General Petraeus and the troops will succeed in Afghanistan, if given the time, space and resources they need," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, who backed the war funding. When the House passed an earlier version of the legislation this month, it contained a variety of domestic spending measures, including $10 billion for a fund to avoid layoffs of teachers, $5 billion for Pell Grants for low-income college students and $1 billion for a program to help teenagers and young adults get summer jobs. Senate Republicans, joined by 11 Democrats, stripped the money last week and instead passed the pared-down bill that the House approved Tuesday. With the spending removed, Democrats likely lost any chance to grant Obama's request for billions of dollars in fresh aid to state governments before Congress leaves for its August recess. Democratic aides said House leaders have no plans to include the money in another bill before the House adjourns Friday for the summer. Neither the domestic funding nor the Afghanistan money was debated intensely Tuesday, as Democratic leaders were eager to move on from the long-stalled bill. The House spent less than an hour debating Afghanistan, even in the wake of the leaked documents. Lawmakers spent several hours on a measure by a pair of war opponents, Reps. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), to remove all U.S. troops from Pakistan, but that was easily defeated. The combination of removing the domestic spending from the bill and authorizing billions more for Afghanistan, however, caused a highly unusual move: the official sponsor of a piece of legislation voting against it. Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, announced before the vote that he could no longer support the war funding. "I have a double, and conflicting, obligation," said Obey, who is retiring at the end of this year after four decades on Capitol Hill. "As chairman, I have the obligation to bring this supplemental before the House to allow the institution to work its will. But I also have the obligation to my conscience to indicate -- by my individual vote -- my profound skepticism that this action will accomplish much more than to serve as a recruiting incentive for those who most want to do us ill." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072704655.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From garyrumor2 at yahoo.com Tue Jul 27 20:22:28 2010 From: garyrumor2 at yahoo.com (Gary Crethers) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:22:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Fresh Ink] Congress Passes Afghanistan War Funding Bill Message-ID: <230386.32191.qm@web65811.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Congress Passes Afghanistan War Funding BillJuly 27th, 2010 Despite the best efforts of Wikileaks to show how the war is unwinnable, the House passed a funding bill today to extend Obama?s war effort. It was passed with the help of a Republican Majority, 12 more than the Democrats. Funny how when it comes to the military industrial complex the Republicans are first ones at the troth, in hog heaven with their defense contractor buddies, waving that old ragged flag like it was George Washington?s continental army they were supporting and not some imperialist incursion in a far away land. Come to think of it the Taliban are more like the colonials fighting for freedom and the USA is more like the British trying to keep one more rich plumb in the queens crown. I guess that is why the Republicans are so gung-ho for war, they are little Red Coats after all anything to spend the tax payers money to make a buck for their corporate friends. What surprised me was the number of Democrats, 102 of them who got a little back bone and opposed the military spending. This is an excerpt from LA Times article about the Bill?s Passage. ?House approves Afghan war funding after debate about Pakistan Some lawmakers urge withdrawal of troops from Pakistan, another sign of rising antiwar sentiment in Congress. By Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau July 28, 2010 Reporting from Washington ? Members of Congress on Tuesday ended a months-long standoff and agreed to fund President Obama?s Afghanistan troop buildup, but not without debating withdrawal of U.S. troops from neighboring Pakistan. The release this week of leaked classified reports about the Afghan war propelled efforts by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to push to bring U.S. military personnel home from Pakistan by year?s end. The House voted 372 to 38 against the resolution to curtail military operations in Pakistan, but the debate served as yet another example of growing antiwar sentiment in Congress. This month, 162 House members voted to set a withdrawal date from Afghanistan. And on Tuesday, more than 100 Democrats voted against the $58.8-billion war funding bill, which passed 308 to 114. Now, the measure, which also provides funds for Iraq and disaster relief in Haiti and the U.S., goes to Obama for his signature. Earlier Tuesday, during a bipartisan meeting with congressional leaders, the president urged passage of the war-spending package. Without it, the Pentagon has said, its funding will begin to run out next month. U.S. military involvement in Pakistan has been a delicate issue for both countries. Congress has not approved combat operations there, as would be needed under the War Powers Act, and the Pakistani public deeply opposes American military involvement. About 230 U.S. troops are known to operate in the country, engaged in security assistance and training. Risks were highlighted in February when three American soldiers were killed in a suicide attack outside a girls? school, which had been rebuilt with U.S. humanitarian aid. The White House has tried for months to secure funds for the president?s decision to order 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. lisa.mascaro at latimes.com Copyright ? 2010, The Los Angeles Times? The bill originally passed the house with funds for domestic spending but the Senate stripped out any money for the American public and sent it back to the House where it passed with the help of the Republicans, sans domestic funds. Anything to keep the warlords happy and to help finance more resort homes in Dubai for Afghani elites. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 28 13:50:15 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:50:15 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Consumer confidence falls as corporate profits rise due to layoffs & overseas sales Message-ID: <3486E51A85E04DF3A11087AB9170CE96@Upstairs> Consumer confidence falls as corporate profits rise By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO Associated Press July 27, 2010, 2:55PM NEW YORK - The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street is growing. Americans' confidence in the economy faded further in July, according to a monthly survey released today, amid job worries and skimpy wage growth. That's at odds with Wall Street's recent rally fueled by upbeat earnings reports from big businesses such as chemical maker DuPont Co. and equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. That's because the pumped-up profits are being fueled by cost cuts like layoffs and overseas sales. In fact, big companies have shown few signs they're ready to hire. The Consumer Confidence Index came in at 51.0 in July, a steeper-than-expected decline from the revised 54.3 in June, according to a survey the Conference Board. The decline follows last month's decline of nearly 10 points, from 62.7 in May, and is the lowest point since February. It takes a reading of 90 to indicate a healthy economy - a level not seen since the recession began in December 2007. "Consumers have a much different view of the economy than the stock market does, and their views matter more to the economy," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo. The index "tells me the economy is heading for slower growth in the second half. We have low expectations for back-to-school." Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, agreed, noting that the fatter profits have shown that companies have been able to squeeze out higher productivity from workers, but that also means that "households are not benefiting." The profit picture is "good news for Wall Street, but not good for workers," he added. The survey was taken July 1-21, beginning just before the Standard & Poor's 500 index hit a nine-month low of 1,022.58 on July 2. It had risen 4.5 percent by July 21 and has since climbed an additional 4 percent as upbeat earnings reports from key manufacturers have made investors more convinced that the economic recovery isn't stalling as much as they had originally thought. DuPont, which has announced thousands of job cuts over the past year, reported that second-quarter income nearly tripled, as revenue surged in most of its businesses. The results were led by revenue gains in the Asia Pacific region. DuPont didn't announce any hiring plans. A rapid, sustainable recovery can't happen without the American consumer. And the second straight month of declining confidence following three months of increases is worrisome, economists say. Economists watch confidence closely because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity and is critical to a strong rebound. Both components of the index declined. They measure how people feel about the economy now, and their expectations for the next six months. The index - which measures how Americans feel about business conditions, the job market and the next six months - had been recovering fitfully since hitting an all-time low of 25.3 in February 2009. The index typically falls before the economy slows down, and on the way out of a recession, the expectations component, which accounts for 60 percent of index, rises sharply, said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. "It's all about jobs. That's still the primary source of income," Franco said. "Until we see the pace of job growth pick up and consumers are confident that this is sustainable, we are not likely to see a significant pickup in confidence." The Conference Board survey, based on a random survey mailed to 5,000 households, showed that consumers' assessment of the job market was more negative than the month before. Those claiming that jobs are "hard to get" increased to 45.8 from 43.5 percent, while those saying jobs are "plentiful" remained unchanged at 4.3 percent. Michelle Banks, 38, a teacher from Bloomfield, N.J., said she's more worried about job security than she was last year because of rampant state budget cuts. So she started saving money for back-to-school items for her 5-year-old son in January. She plans to spend $200, evenly divided between school supplies and clothing. "I'm buying clothes that will last, not fall apart," she said. Economists say the index's expectations component tends to track stock market movements, but Vitner noted that the market's big plunge in May has made such an imprint on consumers that the recent rebound hasn't registered. Retailers had a surprisingly solid start to the year, but business has been slowing since April. With unemployment stuck near 10 percent, Americans are expected to remain skittish through the back-to-school and Christmas season. Concerns are also rising about the housing market. While the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released today showed a 1.3 percent rise in May from April, the home buyer's tax credit, which expired April 30, helped pull more buyers into the market. In fact, the report warned that the recent gains in home prices are not likely to last. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/7126978.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 28 23:37:10 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:37:10 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] White House proposal would add FBI access to records of Internet activity without a judge's approval Message-ID: <9D2C251905D445908E79F15CC657EC72@Upstairs> White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 29, 2010 The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation. The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication. But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records. Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau's authority. "It'll be faster and easier to get the data," said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. "And for some Internet providers, it'll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL." Many Internet service providers have resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records, arguing that surveillance law as written does not allow them to do so, industry lawyers say. One senior administration government official, who would discuss the proposed change only on condition of anonymity, countered that "most" Internet or e-mail providers do turn over such data. To critics, the move is another example of an administration retreating from campaign pledges to enhance civil liberties in relation to national security. The proposal is "incredibly bold, given the amount of electronic data the government is already getting," said Michelle Richardson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel. The critics say its effect would be to greatly expand the amount and type of personal data the government can obtain without a court order. "You're bringing a big category of data -- records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information -- outside of judicial review," said Michael Sussmann, a Justice Department lawyer under President Bill Clinton who now represents Internet and other firms. Privacy concerns The use of the national security letters to obtain personal data on Americans has prompted concern. The Justice Department issued 192,500 national security letters from 2003 to 2006, according to a 2008 inspector general report, which did not indicate how many were demands for Internet records. A 2007 IG report found numerous possible violations of FBI regulations, including the issuance of NSLs without having an approved investigation to justify the request. In two cases, the report found, agents used NSLs to request content information "not permitted by the [surveillance] statute." One issue with both the proposal and the current law is that the phrase "electronic communication transactional records" is not defined anywhere in statute. "Our biggest concern is that an expanded NSL power might be used to obtain Internet search queries and Web histories detailing every Web site visited and every file downloaded," said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued AT&T for assisting the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program. He said he does not object to the government obtaining access to electronic records, provided it has a judge's approval. Senior administration officials said the proposal was prompted by a desire to overcome concerns and resistance from Internet and other companies that the existing statute did not allow them to provide such data without a court-approved order. "The statute as written causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. "This clarification will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information, but it seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993." The administration has asked Congress to amend the statute, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, in the fiscal year that begins in October. Administration officials noted that the act specifies in one clause that Internet and other companies have a duty to provide electronic communication transactional records to the FBI in response to a national security letter. But the next clause specifies only four categories of basic subscriber data that the FBI may seek: name, address, length of service and toll billing records. There is no reference to electronic communication transactional records. Same as phone records? The officials said the transactional information at issue, which does not include Internet search queries, is the functional equivalent of telephone toll billing records, which the FBI can obtain without court authorization. Learning the e-mail addresses to which an Internet user sends messages, they said, is no different than obtaining a list of numbers called by a telephone user. Obtaining such records with an NSL, as opposed to a court order, "allows us to intercede in plots earlier than we would if our hands were tied and we were unable to get this data in a way that was quick and efficient," the senior administration official said. But the value of such data is the reason a court should approve its disclosure, said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It's much more sensitive than the other information, like name, address and telephone number, that the FBI gets with national security letters," he said. "It shows associational information protected by the First Amendment and is much less public than things like where you live." A Nov. 5, 2008, opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, whose opinions are binding on the executive branch, made clear that the four categories of basic subscriber information the FBI may obtain with an NSL were "exhaustive." This opinion, said Sussmann, the former Clinton administration lawyer, caused many companies to reevaluate the scope of what could be provided in response to an NSL. "The OLC opinion removed the ambiguity," he said. "Providers now are limited to the four corners of what the opinion says they can give out. Those who give more do so at their own risk." Marc Zwillinger, an attorney for Internet companies, said some providers are not giving the FBI more than the four categories specified. He added that with the rise of social networking, the government's move could open a significant amount of Internet activity to government surveillance without judicial authorization. "A Facebook friend request -- is that like a phone call or an e-mail? Is that something they would sweep in under an NSL? They certainly aren't getting that now." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806141.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 28 23:44:20 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:44:20 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Illiterate, hashish-growing former warlord is U.S. troops' most reliable friend in Kandahar province Message-ID: <2E0192C6AA884892BAF963FF4DD9AD33@Upstairs> Local strongman is U.S. troops' most reliable friend in Kandahar province By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, July 29, 2010 NOW RUZI, AFGHANISTAN -- Haji Ghani is an illiterate, hashish-growing former warlord who directs a semiofficial police force and is known to show his anger through beatings. In this Taliban nest west of Kandahar, he is also U.S. forces' main partner. Never mind that the district governor says Ghani, 44, works against him, or that U.S. soldiers describe him as Godfather-like and his police as vaguely crooked. In an area rife with insurgents who stalk soldiers' every move, Ghani's militia has carved out a four-square-mile bubble of tranquillity. Farmers can safely collect U.S.-funded seeds, and children will soon attend a new American-backed school. "What's his is ours. What's ours is his," Lt. John Paszterko, 29, said of Ghani, a onetime anti-Soviet commander who now rules his tribal forefathers' lands. "He's a good friend to have." As coalition forces struggle to weaken the Taliban, they insist that the key to doing so lies in bolstering Afghan institutions. Yet with government rule confined to certain densely populated areas, U.S. officials rely on strongmen who can maintain order in the most treacherous locales, even if their commitment to formal governance is dubious. That inconsistency is causing unease in Washington, where Congress is scrutinizing payments of U.S. tax dollars to warlords who protected NATO convoys, and in Kabul, where critics fear that a U.S.-backed plan for village defense groups could spawn rogue militias or undermine government authority. "In that scenario, the Afghan government doesn't gain any strength or legitimacy," one U.S. official working in Kandahar province said of alliances with strongmen who operate independently of the state. But, the official said, "we're on such a short timetable that people are looking and going, 'Oh, well. That area's stable -- full stop.' " Common mission The dynamic is present across this long-embattled nation, where former warlords are a dime a dozen and power is typically won with guns or money. Against that backdrop, Ghani is a minor player. With an AK-47 slung over his bony shoulder, he lords over 3,000 acres of his ancestors' farmland. But Ghani's area, which includes three villages along the fertile Arghandab River, has suddenly become the focus of U.S. forces' latest push to defeat the Taliban. It lies along a critical entry point into Kandahar city used by the Taliban as a supply route, and government leadership here has long been feeble. So Ghani and his force of about 40 "soldiers" -- he has about 50 more in reserve -- are vital partners, according to U.S. troops, who said the force might eventually be incorporated into the new village defense plan. American soldiers and the district governor say that only some of Ghani's men have law enforcement training but that the local police chief, an ally of Ghani, equips them all with uniforms and weapons anyway. On a recent day at Ghani's leafy compound, a few uniformed fighters cleaned tables and served lunch to guests. They are the closest thing in this area to an Afghan security force. The Afghan army soldiers set to share the U.S. outpost near Now Ruzi had not been deployed by early July. So when the Taliban ambushed Pazsterko's soldiers in late June, Ghani's police helped fight them off. After a roadside bomb detonated near the village, Ghani called in elders and menacingly told them to make sure it did not happen again. Ghani is "one of the few people who does feel that responsibility" to fight the Taliban, said Capt. Paul N. DeLeon, 29, commander of Combat Outpost Durkin. That is partly because his lifestyle would be fairly incompatible with Taliban rule. On Ghani's land is a vast field of hashish, which he insists he does not smoke. He offers guests whiskey, though his preferred drink is Red Bull imported from Thailand. He shows off scars from 30 years battling the Soviets and the Taliban under the command of Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, a former Northern Alliance leader whose fighters have been accused of committing atrocities in the 1990s. This Story a.. In Taliban hotbed, any ally will do b.. For Petraeus, rooting out Afghan corruption is a priority He parades a white horse that he says belonged to Taliban founder Mohammad Omar until 2001, when he fled U.S. forces. One of Omar's laborers passed it to a cleric, who gave it to Ghani as a spoil of war. "I am the only one who can keep this horse. Only people who have a weapon can keep this horse," Ghani said of the animal, whose mane and tail, like Ghani's hair, are streaked with henna. "If the Taliban sees this horse with anyone else, they will shoot him." 'It's not Switzerland' Ghani says his wealth comes from his land, which he leases to farmers, and from the "security services" he provides to a Japanese company operating the large gravel quarry on his property. Gravel blankets the U.S. outpost nearby -- a gift from Ghani. His partnership has been rewarded. U.S. soldiers make sure his fighters have ammunition. Flowing through Ghani's carefully tended garden is a gurgling canal, a project recently completed by the U.S. Agency for International Development that beautified a public park on his land. Outside, construction on the schoolhouse -- which U.S. troops refer to as "Haji Ghani's school" -- is almost done. Yet DeLeon said the builders regularly complain that Ghani beats them when he is dissatisfied with their work. Farther west on Highway 1, Afghan army Capt. Safi Ahmad, 36, said truckers complain that Ghani's police demand illegal tolls and "torture" those who cannot pay. "By working with him, we're essentially enabling him," DeLeon said. But DeLeon and NATO officials said they hold out hope that Ghani and others like him will serve as links between the population and the government, even though true government authority would probably work against the strongmen's interests. "This is southern Afghanistan. It's not Switzerland," said Richard Berthon, the Kandahar-based director of stability for international forces in Afghanistan. "This place is always going to be a combination of the new constitutional and traditional tribal structures and mechanisms. And when things work they tend to be a bit of an amalgam of those two playing off each other." So far, that does not appear to be happening. Ghani says the district governor, Karim Jan, is too "inexperienced" to be taken seriously as a leader. Jan, for his part, said Ghani spreads rumors denigrating leaders of rival tribes. Even so, in this Taliban-riddled area, the unorthodox power dynamics are better than the alternative. Soldiers at an outpost visible across the river are ambushed almost daily, and their local power broker is ambivalent about helping. Over slices of watermelon on a recent afternoon, Ghani pleaded with DeLeon to allow his militia to clear Taliban fighters from the area west of his land to Combat Post Ashoque, which he insisted he could do in one day. DeLeon assured him U.S. soldiers wanted that, too, but said first they must make sure there were enough Afghan soldiers or police to set up checkpoints in the cleared area. "I'd like to take it slow, so they feel pressure from all sides," DeLeon said. "Then we'll take them out all at once." Ghani reluctantly agreed, but then he pressed again. He had just one condition. "I will clear this area, I guarantee," Ghani said with a smirk. "But during the operation, just don't ask me, 'Why did you arrest somebody? Why did you kill somebody?' " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806147.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Wed Jul 28 23:59:52 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Pipeline leak puts 800, 000+ gallons of oil in Kalamazoo River threatening Lake Michigan Message-ID: Michigan Governor Warns of Oil Spill Threat By EMMA GRAVES FITZSIMMONS Published: July 28, 2010 BATTLE CREEK, Mich. - Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm expressed growing worry on Wednesday that an oil spill, believed to be among the largest ever in the Midwest, might reach Lake Michigan if efforts to contain the oil were not strengthened. "It would be a tragedy of historic proportions if this reached Lake Michigan," Ms. Granholm said. More than 800,000 gallons of oil spilled Monday into the Kalamazoo River, a major waterway that flows into Lake Michigan, about 60 miles away. The leak came from a 30-inch pipeline that carries millions of gallons of oil each day from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario. Response crews worked Wednesday to contain the oil spill, which had already reached at least 35 miles of the river and left fish and birds coated in oil. On the river on Wednesday, Dan Backus arrived at his favorite fishing spot and found black water and oil-soaked plants. Looking out at the damage from the spill, he mourned the loss of fish and vegetation. "It's all destroyed," said Mr. Backus, 64. "I'm just sick about it." Enbridge Energy Partners, the owner of the pipeline, said the cause of the leak was being investigated. Patrick Daniel, the chief executive of Enbridge, said he did not think the oil would reach the Great Lakes. Enbridge is Canadian owned, but based in Houston. On Wednesday, Enbridge officials said they were doubling the amount of boom on the river to more than 28,000 feet. They also planned to double the number of workers responding to the spill to more than 300. The pipeline remained closed as officials examined the piece of the pipeline where the leak occurred. Federal regulators issued an order on Wednesday saying the company could not reopen the pipeline without approval. "Our intent is to return your community to its original state and the waterways to their normal state," Mr. Daniel said at a news conference on Monday. "We do commit to doing that." The company had responded to criticism from Governor Granholm, who continued to plead for more resources to contain the oil. Ms. Granholm criticized the company again on Wednesday evening, saying the response was still "wholly inadequate." She said the oil had gone farther than previously known, to Morrow Lake, a big lake near Kalamazoo. Other officials also questioned Enbridge's response. Representative Mark Schauer, a Michigan Democrat, said he was angry that it took Enbridge several hours on Monday to report the leak after it was discovered. He said he feared that the leak may have started earlier on Sunday and that the amount of oil in the river could be much more than the company's estimate. Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency said they were investigating the timeline of events surrounding the oil spill. They said Enbridge could be penalized with fines if they did not complete the containment and cleanup work. In this city of about 54,000 people that is best known as the global headquarters of Kellogg Company, residents could still smell oil on Wednesday as black masses of goop streamed down the river. Chris Simmons, the vice mayor who had been leading the city because the mayor was out of town, called the spill "a horrible disaster." The city had worked hard over the years to restore the once dirty river, he said. "This river has bounced back from being mistreated in decades past," he said. "We even had bald eagles come back. Now this is such a setback." Officials have opened a rehabilitation center for birds and other wildlife. Some people have been sickened by the strong fumes. Enbridge has paid for at least 30 families to stay in hotels after they reported concerns about air quality and other problems after the spill. Rachel Campbell said the smell of oil woke her up at 3 a.m. on Tuesday. Ms. Campbell, who is pregnant, lives about six blocks from the river in Battle Creek, and she said she had trouble breathing. "My eyes were burning, and my nose was burning," she said. "It smelled like a diesel tanker had turned over in front of my house." Enbridge paid for Ms. Campbell, her husband and their two children to stay at a hotel downtown. But others were worried about whether the company would follow through with all their promises. David Pike, a 52-year-old auto mechanic who is building a home on the river, had his doubts. "How long is it going to take them to clean it up?" he said. "Right now, I'm frustrated. If they don't fix this, it will turn to anger." Environmental groups were frustrated as well to see another oil spill after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Danielle Korpalski, a regional coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation, said the group would watch to make sure the company restored the environment. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29michigan.html?_r=1&hpw -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 29 00:04:44 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:04:44 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] =?iso-8859-1?q?Federal_District_Court_Judge_Blocks_Ar?= =?iso-8859-1?q?izona=27s_Immigration_Law?= Message-ID: <3E289CE21B424A1CB26FE0E06282CE71@Upstairs> Judge Blocks Arizona's Immigration Law By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD Published: July 28, 2010 PHOENIX - A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law from going into effect, a ruling that at least temporarily squashed a state policy that had inflamed the national debate over immigration. Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against sections of the law, scheduled to take effect on Thursday, that called for police officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws and required immigrants to prove that they were authorized to be in the country or risk state charges. She issued the injunction in response to a legal challenge brought against the law by the Obama administration. A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed the law and has campaigned on it for election to a full term, said Wednesday that the governor would appeal the injunction on Thursday and ask for a speedy review. Legal experts predicted that the case could end up before the Supreme Court. The law, designed to seek and deport illegal immigrants in a state that is the principal gateway for illegal border crossers, had provoked intense debate from coast to coast, drawing support in several polls but generating boycotts of the state by major civil rights groups and several cities and towns. It renewed calls for an overhaul of federal immigration law and led to repeated rebukes of it from President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who maintained that immigration policy is under the purview of the federal government, not individual states. The Mexican government, joined by seven other Latin American nations, supported one of the lawsuits against the law; the attorneys general of several states backed Arizona. The ruling came four days before 1,200 National Guard members were scheduled to report to the Southwest border to assist federal and local law enforcement agencies there, part of the Obama administration's response to growing anxiety over the border and immigration that has fed support for the law. Judge Bolton, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, did allow some, less debated provisions of the law to go into effect, including one that bans cities from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration agents. But she largely sided with arguments in a lawsuit by the Obama administration that the law, rather than closely hewing to existing federal statutes, as its supporters have claimed, interferes with longstanding federal authority over immigration and could lead to harassment of citizens and legal immigrants. "Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced," she said. "There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens," she wrote. "By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose," she said, citing a previous Supreme Court case, a " 'distinct, unusual and extraordinary' burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose." The judge's decision was not her final word on the case. In granting the injunction, she simply indicated that the Justice Department was likely, but not certain, to prevail on those points at a later trial in federal court. She made no ruling on the six other suits that also challenged the law. Her ruling, issued as demonstrators both for and against the law gathered here, and after hearings in three of the seven lawsuits against the it, seemed more likely to add another log to the fire than settle matters. "This fight is far from over," said Ms. Brewer, whose lawyers had argued that Congress granted states the power to enforce immigration law particularly when, in their view, the federal government fell short. "In fact," she added, "it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens." State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican and chief sponsor of the law, said in a statement that he was confident that the sections blocked by Judge Bolton would survive on appeal, noting the state's previous victories in court on other statutes designed to give it a larger role in immigration enforcement. "The courts have made it clear states have the inherent power to enforce the laws of this country," he said. But Gabriel Chin, a professor at the University of Arizona School of Law who has studied the law, called the ruling "a nearly complete victory for the position of the United States." He noted that she ruled in the federal government's favor on most of the points it challenged. Aside from stopping the requirement that the police initiate immigration checks, the judge also blocked provisions that allowed the police to hold anyone arrested for any crime until his immigration status was determined. "Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked," she wrote. She also said Arizona could not make it a state crime for noncitizens to be in the state without proper documents, nor could it allow the police to conduct arrests without warrants if officers believed the offense would result in their deportation. She said there was a "substantial likelihood" of wrongful arrests. The parts of the law she did allow were not challenged by the Justice Department, but do figure in some of the other lawsuits filed. They include forbidding "sanctuary city" policies by allowing residents to sue the local authorities if they adopt policies restricting cooperation with the federal government in immigration enforcement. She also let stand a provision aimed at day laborers, who are mostly Latin American immigrants, by making it a crime to stop a vehicle in traffic or block traffic to hire someone off the street. But she blocked a provision that barred illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places. The law, adopted in April, coincided with economic anxiety and followed a number of high-profile crimes attributed to illegal immigrants and smuggling. It has become an issue in Congressional and local campaigns across the country. Terry Goddard, the Arizona attorney general who opposed the law and is a possible Democratic opponent to Ms. Brewer, was quick to condemn her for signing it. "Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost," he said in a statement. But Republican candidates, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is seeking re-election, criticized the Obama administration for bringing suit. "Instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining that the law would be burdensome," Mr. McCain said in a joint statement with Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, "the Obama administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the federal government has failed to take responsibility." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29arizona.html?hpw -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Thu Jul 29 00:33:28 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:33:28 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Life Insurance Firms Profit From Death Benefits. Ah, the rewards of creativity & innovation Message-ID: <762AE8896C124F50AE6C463C52BC7131@Upstairs> Life Insurance Firms Profit From Death Benefits July 28, 2010 Listen to the Story All Things Considered [9 min 0 sec] Enlarge Bill Cramer/Bloomberg Cindy Lohman is seen holding a photo of her son Ryan, who was killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. She says she feels betrayed by Prudential, his life insurance company. July 28, 2010 Life insurance companies delay issuing death benefits owed to families of service members and others by promising to hold the money in safekeeping, an investigation by Bloomberg Markets magazine found. Senior writer David Evans and Cindy Lohman, whose son was killed in Afghanistan, discuss the findings with NPR's Robert Siegel. Below is a preview of Evans' September 2010 magazine article. Read a transcript of the interview. Millions of Americans are being duped by life insurance companies that have figured out a way to hold onto death benefits owed to families. MetLife and Prudential lead the way in making hundreds of millions of dollars in secret profits every year on money that belongs to relatives of those who die, an investigation by Bloomberg Markets magazine found. Among the people being tricked are parents and spouses of U.S. soldiers killed in battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. Survivors of service men and women are told they'll get a $400,000 life insurance payout. They don't. Instead, Prudential - which has a government contract to provide life insurance for military families - keeps their money. Enlarge Courtesy of The Department of Veterans Affairs A sample "check" sent to survivors as part of Prudential's Alliance Account kit. Courtesy of The Department of Veterans Affairs A sample "check" sent to survivors as part of Prudential's Alliance Account kit. Families are surprised when they receive what looks like a checkbook. In documents, Prudential promises to hold the money in safekeeping for as long as families would like, saying it will pay them 0.5 percent interest. What Prudential doesn't disclose is that it is keeping survivors' money in Prudential's own corporate investment account, where the company is earning five to 10 times as much as it pays to families. The so-called checks have JPMorgan Chase printed on them, but they cannot be used as regular checks. Instead, they are to be submitted back to Prudential to get any money Insurance Companies' Responses A Statement From Prudential A Statement From MetLife A Statement From The American Council of Life Insurers But the money isn't in a bank, and it's not protected by FDIC insurance. None of these facts are spelled out to the survivors; the details are often hidden in fine print. The VA's Response Below is a statement from Mike Walcoff, acting undersecretary for the Veterans Benefits Administration, in response to the Bloomberg Markets magazine report. "The primary goal of the Government Life insurance programs for Servicemembers and Veterans has always been to ensure the financial security of their families and loved ones during a very difficult time. The possibility that life insurance companies are profiting inappropriately from these Servicemembers' sacrifice is completely unacceptable. The VA is conducting a full investigation into the life insurance companies and their procedures in this program to ensure that survivors are fully protected and being treated fairly with the utmost care and respect. The VA is deeply concerned that military and Veteran families may potentially be harmed in some way by the use of the Alliance Account program. At the conclusion of the investigation VA will determine whether to continue the use of the Alliance Account program. Additionally, VA will be contacting the approximately 10,000 current survivors to remind them of their options under the SGLI program." Nor are families told that they could earn more than twice as much interest by opening FDIC-insured money market accounts at banks across the country. Families of fallen soldiers say they often don't want to touch the "checkbooks" because they view them as payments in return for their sacrificed child. As a result, Prudential holds onto the death benefits, often for a year or more. "I'm shocked," says Cindy Lohman, a Maryland woman whose son, Ryan, was killed in Afghanistan in 2008. "It's a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier." Millions of Americans have unwittingly been placed in the same position by their insurance companies. The practice of issuing so-called "checkbooks" to survivors, instead of paying out lump sums, extends well beyond the military. In the past decade, this tactic has become standard operating procedure in an industry that touches virtually every American: There are more than 300 million active life insurance policies in the U.S. MetLife alone holds $10 billion in death benefit money that belongs to grieving families. MetLife makes $100 million to $300 million a year by investing, mostly in the bond market, money that belongs to survivors. Insurance companies say they're providing their customers with a service. Prudential's checkbook accounts are helpful to families of soldiers, says company spokesman Bob DeFillippo. "For some families, the account is the difference between earning interest on a large amount of money and letting it sit idle," he says. (Read a statement from Prudential.) MetLife spokesman Joseph Madden says his company's customers are very happy with the system. "The feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive," he says. "We afford beneficiaries security, peace of mind and time to make an informed decision - while earning interest in the interim." (Read a statement from MetLife.) How big is the unregulated quasi-banking system operated by insurers? There are now more than a million of these accounts holding more than $28 billion at 130 life insurance companies. "It's outrageous that they're profiting off other people's grief," says Mark Umbrell in Doylestown, Pa. His 26-year-old son, Colby, an Army Airborne Ranger who earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, was killed in Iraq in May 2007. Umbrell was among those who got a "checkbook" account. "I think we're being taken," he says. The question for Umbrell, Lohman and a million others with these accounts is whether anyone will hear their cries. State bank regulators say if there are to be any changes, they should be made by their counterparts at state insurance departments. Officials at those state agencies often say they don't even understand what the insurance industry is doing with these "checkbook" payouts. Just six states had any rules for retained-asset accounts as of July 2009, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, North Carolina and North Dakota require insurers to disclose fees and interest rates and to tell survivors they may withdraw all of the money by writing a single check. Maryland, which isn't on the NAIC list, also has rules. Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario, whose state has no rules for retained-asset accounts, says he has asked his staff to prepare a regulation forbidding insurance companies from using such accounts as the default method of paying a death. "It's flown under the radar," says insurance law professor and author Jeffrey Stempel. "Regulators have not done their job." Until public officials wake up, the bereaved will remain a secret profit center for the life insurance industry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reading Between The Lines: Insurance Companies' Fine Print On Death Benefits NOTE: Text highlighted in yellow by NPR. Enlarge Courtesy of Bloomberg Above, a paragraph is found at the bottom of a page, "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions," in Prudential's Alliance Account kit. The highlighted sentence explains that balances in these retained asset accounts are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Courtesy of Bloomberg Above, a paragraph is found at the bottom of a page, "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions," in Prudential's Alliance Account kit. The highlighted sentence explains that balances in these retained asset accounts are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Enlarge Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to inform survivors that their insurance proceeds are not held in a bank. Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to inform survivors that their insurance proceeds are not held in a bank. Enlarge Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to say the account is not "a money market account" and not insured by the FDIC. Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to say the account is not "a money market account" and not insured by the FDIC. Enlarge Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to explain that survivor benefits are held in MetLife's general account and "are subject to MetLife's creditors" and that MetLi"may receive a profit." Left image, Courtesy of Bloomberg; Right image, MetLife via Bloomberg Above are excerpts of MetLife customer agreement documents from 2006 and amended in June 2010 to explain that survivor benefits are held in MetLife's general account and "are subject to MetLife's creditors" and that MetLife "may receive a profit." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128799983 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 157221 bytes Desc: not available URL: From krjones at mts.net Thu Jul 29 10:39:19 2010 From: krjones at mts.net (karen jones) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:39:19 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] BP boss Tony Hayward to get immediate $930, 000 annual pension References: <9771E9139DC54683A05D43ACBD64D562@Upstairs> Message-ID: <003d01cb2f34$369ced50$abfbfea9@yourrvlnhr6v8d> BP boss Hayward to get immediate ?600,000 pension Mr Hayward has been the public face of BP's response to the spill BP chief executive Tony Hayward will get an immediate annual pension worth about ?600,000 ($930,000) when he leaves in October, the BBC has learned. Mr Hayward is to stand down after sustained criticism of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. However, a BP source said he would be nominated for a non-executive position at the firm's Russian joint venture. BBC business editor Robert Peston said that the pension entitlement was "bound to be hugely controversial". 'Honour contract' US Oil Spill a.. Timeline: BP oil spill b.. Profile: Bob Dudley c.. Tony Hayward's gaffes d.. Profile: Tony Hayward BP pension scheme rules say that those who joined before April 2006 can take the pension at any point from age 50. Mr Hayward is 53. He will also receive a year's salary plus benefits worth more than ?1m. Mr Hayward's pension pot is valued at about ?11m and he will keep his rights to shares under a long-term performance scheme which could - depending on BP's stock market recovery - eventually be worth several million pounds. Our business editor said that because Mr Hayward was leaving by mutual agreement rather than being sacked, the BP board felt it had "to honour the terms of its contract with him". He will be replaced by American colleague Bob Dudley, the BBC understands, though no formal announcement has yet been made. Mr Dudley, who is in charge of the Gulf of Mexico clean-up operation, was the former chief of the BP-TNK joint venture, but was forced to leave Russia in 2008 amid a dispute with shareholders. Criticised Continue reading the main story "Start Quote He will become a non-executive member of BP's joint venture in Russia largely because his Russian contacts and knowledge are valuable" Mr Hayward began his career with BP 28 years ago as a rig geologist in the North Sea before working his way up to board level. He was a popular choice for the top job when Lord Browne stepped aside in 2007. But he will be seen to carry the can for being at the helm for the worst year in the company's history. Questions raised When he became chief executive in 2007, Mr Hayward told journalists his number-one task was to focus "laser-like" on safety and reliability. The explosion on the drilling rig off Louisiana on 20 April, which killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil spill in the US, raised questions about his leadership. Mr Hayward has been heavily criticised by residents of the Gulf coast and US politicians for his handling of the clean-up and for a series of gaffes, including saying that he "just wanted his life back" and that the Gulf of Mexico was a "big ocean" following the leak. He was also taken to task for attending a sailing event off the Isle of Wight in June. Mr Hayward was publicly rebuked by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month for "stonewalling" questions at a congressional hearing. Journalist Tom Bower, who wrote a book called The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century, said Mr Hayward's departure was inevitable because he "hadn't changed the culture" at BP following previous accidents in the US. "He knew what had to be done, but he didn't do it properly. He was too slow; he wasn't inspired; he wasn't focused enough," said Bower. PR perspective The man expected to replace Mr Hayward, BP managing director Mr Dudley, took over the day-to-day operations in the Gulf last month. Mr Hayward's attended a meeting of the BP board on Monday Many say that, from a public relations point of view, Mr Dudley has the advantage of being American. He grew up in Mississippi and, according to BP, has a "deep appreciation and affinity for the Gulf Coast". BP has lost 40% of its market capitalisation since the May spill. The company's second-quarter results due on Tuesday are expected to reveal a provision for the costs of the clean-up, compensation claims and fines to be paid. Meanwhile, the official overseeing the US government response to the oil spill has said the operation to plug the ruptured Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico permanently has been put back to allow more time for preparatory work. Retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen said the last bit of pipe needed for the process would be put in place in the coming this week, with the actual plugging operation starting in the first week of August. A temporary cap has stopped oil from gushing for more than a week. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 12616 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 11429 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 30 00:03:02 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:03:02 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Instead of helping small businesses, U.S. program enriched Afghanistan's traditional power brokers. Message-ID: Afghan war spending faces new scrutiny By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 30, 2010 As part of its attempt to boost Afghanistan's economic and political development, the United States is paying thousands of Afghan contractors and subcontractors to perform much of the work that supports U.S. efforts there. But the "Afghan First" program could be achieving just the opposite of its intended effect, according to officials trying to figure out where the money is going. Initial assessments by newly organized military task forces and government investigators indicate that instead of promoting new small and medium-size businesses, building trust and spreading the wealth, many of the contracts appear to have enriched Afghanistan's traditional power brokers and created new ones. "We have the best of intentions," said Rear Adm. Kathleen Dussault, head of a new team of forensic auditors sent to examine military contracts in Afghanistan. But "we need to look at how we're doing business," she added. Dussault's Joint Task Force 2010 is one of several new initiatives after widespread reports that U.S. spending in Afghanistan, in amounts far exceeding the country's own income, may have exacerbated some of the problems it set out to solve and is a major contributor to the corruption that has hobbled U.S. efforts. The reports have led House appropriators to hold up approval of some of the administration's new spending requests for Afghan reconstruction. After eight years in Afghanistan and more than $50 billion spent, the United States still has "no comprehensive database on reconstruction contracts" and no integrated system to track projects that are "completed, ongoing and planned," Special Inspector General Arnold Field told Congress in mid-July. President Obama has asked for an additional $20 billion in fiscal 2011. "It is not enough to simply conduct audits of contracts and program management after money has been spent," Field said. In addition to Dussault's task force, the military's Criminal Investigative Division is conducting inquiries into contracts, and investigations are underway in at least three congressional committees and by the special inspector general for Afghanistan. A separate military task force is looking at security subcontractors -- 93 percent of them Afghans -- who provide protection for U.S. installations and for military supply convoys. As the size of the U.S. military in Afghanistan approaches 100,000 troops, triple what it was when Obama took office, the number of private defense contracts -- about 40,000 this year -- has grown even faster. Those numbers do not include non-military contracts for personnel working with a commensurate expansion of U.S. civilian efforts. Unlike in Iraq, where U.S. companies won most logistic, construction and security contracts, hiring Afghans is an integral part of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. "COIN doctrine," Dussault said, using the military's shorthand for counterinsurgency, "says that when you do things in a battle space, you need to consider the hearts and minds of the people as much as the military kinetic aspects of what you're doing." "Afghan First" is based on lessons learned in Iraq and predates the Obama administration by several years. But the recent spike in U.S. spending has exposed glaring flaws and contradictions. Contracting officials, under heavy pressure to produce results, often favor efficiency over all other factors, military officials said. A recent report by a House oversight subcommittee concluded that tens of millions of dollars spent to protect U.S. military supply convoys traveling through dangerous parts of the country went to local warlords, listed as "subcontractors," in the form of protection money. Some of the funds, the report concluded, likely went to the Taliban. In Kandahar, where 10,000 U.S. troops are in the early stages of an anti-Taliban offensive, vast sums are being spent on economic and governance development. But an internal military analysis last spring found "a significant risk . . . that the flood of additional aid dollars will fuel corruption that undermines, rather than creates, stability." The analysis cited studies and surveys indicating that much of the money ended up under the control of local power brokers who doled out contracts, including for construction and security, to favored businesses in return for kickbacks. "We understand that there are second- and third-order effects to picking a strategy purely because of the efficiency of it," Dussault said. The task force, she said, wants "to look much more closely at the effect of our contracting as opposed to just the efficiency" of it. The "overarching mentality" in Afghanistan, she said, has been "to leverage the marketplace to allow the vendor to perform the contract with an outcome in mind, and we, the government, shouldn't tell them how to do their job." In the case of the trucking contract, that mentality has allowed Afghan prime contractors to build a security component into their bids without having to include information on who will provide it. "The prime contractors here in Afghanistan have built up some intricate, tiered subcontractor relationships which we don't have visibility over," she said. The subcontractor networks, she said, "often become pretty murky." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072905729.html?hpid=topnews -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 30 00:15:30 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:15:30 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Taliban Exploit Openings in Neglected Province Message-ID: Taliban Exploit Openings in Neglected Province By ALISSA J. RUBIN Published: July 29, 2010 PUL-I-KUMRI, Afghanistan - Almost unnoticed, this strategic northern province is slipping away from government control. Baghlan Province contains two of the crucial north-south routes in Afghanistan. As night falls on this provincial capital, the city turns dark and silent. The Taliban have decreed that the cellphone signals go down at night so the main cellphone companies switch off the signals from dusk to dawn. Men with guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers guard illegal checkpoints just north of the capital, waiting for convoys of trucks or other lucrative prey. Shootings erupt almost every day across the province. Deprived of jobs and local government services, people here are turning to Taliban courts for speedy justice and drifting toward those who will pay them - either local strongmen or the Taliban. "The situation of Baghlan is very serious, and day by day it is getting worse and worse," said Mohammed Rasool Mohsini, the chairman of the provincial council and a former commander. Even 15 months ago Baghlan was not like this. It had a few trouble spots, according to Afghans and Americans working on development projects, but for the most part it seemed safe. Afghan politicians, local leaders and local citizens all said they felt that the Afghan government, coalition forces and development groups had focused so intensively on the south, funneling tens of thousands of troops and billions of dollars to communities there, that they had missed the danger signs. "Even two years ago the Taliban had a very small influence in Baghlan and we were telling the government, 'If you don't deal with their small activities, they will grow,' " Mr. Mohsini said. There are no major NATO bases in Baghlan. The nearest is in Kunduz, and until recently it was manned exclusively by the Germans who focused on turbulence in that province. Now the United States Army's 10th Mountain Division has arrived with some 3,000 troops and begun operations in Baghlan, but so far they have brought only temporary quiet. Insurgents have resurfaced elsewhere in the province, said Alyson McFarland, the only American civilian working with the development team in Pul-i-Kumri. Last week a group of at least 80 Taliban fighters briefly took over the main bazaar in another of the unstable districts, Dahana-i-Ghori, engaging in gun battles for several hours. Although the police ultimately forced the Taliban to retreat, eight officers were killed after firing their weapons until they ran out of ammunition, said Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the provincial police chief. Since then, the Taliban have blocked most roads to the district and attacked any government or development workers who have tried to pass, local elders said. The police have returned but are all but confined to a 500-yard area around the district center, said Obidullah Khan, an Uzbek tribal elder in Dahana-i-Ghori. A corrupt judiciary and the lack of government services have made it easy for the Taliban to gain a foothold in rural areas. At least the Taliban judicial system is swift and free of bribes, said Nuria Hamidi, a provincial council member. "They are solving issues quicker than the government, and people in the bazaar say, 'I had this problem or that problem and the Taliban solved it,' " she said. The Taliban have also been able to exploit ethnic differences, suggesting that the Tajik-dominated local government does not care for the Pashtuns here. Indeed, underlying the drift toward chaos is a fractured society where cracks have been papered over and have never fully healed. Baghlan, like many other areas of the north, has long been a political and ethnic crossroads of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. They made up the Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban, whose ranks are dominated by Pashtuns. The three allied ethnic groups live uneasily alongside the minority ethnic Pashtuns, who feel abandoned by the central government, which has allowed local security forces to be dominated by non-Pashtuns. The lack of development is another common complaint. "A lot of developmental progress is in the south, even though they are killing and fighting," said Mohammad Khalil Anwari, another provincial council member. There is little electricity, and rutted roads are common even in the cities. Resentments were fueled when a group of investors that included one of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, Mahmoud Karzai, bought a local cement factory, then cut many of its jobs and paid those who remained lower salaries, according to provincial council members. Baghlan's governor, Munshi Abdul Majid, himself a Pashtun, did not deny the problems and also seemed frustrated by neglect from Kabul, urging the central government to confer with him and local officials about security. A group of Pashtun elders who had gathered at the home of a local senator last weekend discussed the province's security problems as they sat in a traditional open-air tent, eating green melon in the heat of the afternoon. The Taliban began to encroach several months ago, and now the elders find themselves accused of being Taliban by the police, many of whom are Tajiks, even though most people who live in the area oppose the Taliban. "Is the president a Pashtun?" said Sarwar, a former commander who like many Afghans uses only one name. "Before he came to power no one had done such cruel things to us. Since he came, he has been killing Pashtuns from Helmand to here." In another troubled Baghlan district, the only protection other than a few police officers is a local armed group of 100 to 120 men, known as an arbeki and set up by the National Directorate of Security. They seem to operate without any government control or supervision other than that of their local commanders. They are a nightmarish reminder of the early 1990s when strongmen with guns made people follow their orders. "To be honest, the people prefer the Taliban," said Mr. Khan, the tribal elder. "These arbeki men are cruel, violent, taking everything by force from the shopkeepers. They are walking in the bazaar with their rifles, extorting the drivers and traders." General Rahimi, the police commander, would not discuss the arbekis but made it clear that he was opposed to President Karzai's proposal for creating a new local police force in a number of troubled districts that would help the police defend their areas. "The only way to bring peace and security is to equip the national army and national police and increase the number of our trained troops and give us more, better weapons," he said. Nonetheless, the Baghlanis are deeply loyal to their area. "My hopes are still very high," said Mohammed Wakhil, 20, who is studying to be a nurse and looks after his family's small storefront, where they sell plastic flowers and ornaments for wedding celebrations. "I want to see our city become more beautiful than Paris," Mr. Wakhil said. "We need unity in this place; if we can all unite, then. ..." he added before his voice trailed off. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/world/asia/30baghlan.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 22351 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hain at antcolbks.com Fri Jul 30 00:23:40 2010 From: hain at antcolbks.com (Henry F. Hain III) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:23:40 -0400 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Regulators Warned Enbridge Energy Partners on Pipeline Corrosion Message-ID: <872B55A4E03F491AA06063B9ECFA9632@Upstairs> Regulators Warned Company on Pipeline Corrosion By EMMA GRAVES FITZSIMMONS Published: July 29, 2010 BATTLE CREEK, Mich. - The company responsible for a massive oil spill here was warned in January by federal regulators about insufficient monitoring of corrosion on the pipeline that federal officials say leaked more than one million gallons of oil into a major waterway this week. The owner of the pipeline, Enbridge Energy Partners, received several citations from federal regulators in recent years before the warning in January. Company officials said they had routinely tested the pipeline for corrosion. "There was annual maintenance on 6B this year as with all of our pipelines," Patrick Daniel, the company's chief executive, said Thursday, referring to the pipeline that leaked oil into the Kalamazoo River. Federal officials said the estimated amount of oil that spilled from the pipeline into the river on Monday was more than a million gallons, significantly more than the company's estimate of about 800,000 gallons. The leak was in a 30-inch pipeline that carries millions of gallons of oil each day from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario. Mr. Daniel said the company used internal inspection tools to determine the levels of corrosion or cracking on all pipelines. There had not been any repairs or replacements made to the part of the pipe where the spill took place, he said. State officials here have expressed grave concern over the environmental impact if the spill reaches Lake Michigan, more than 60 miles away. Officials for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is leading the response efforts, said Thursday that they were confident that they could prevent that from happening. Ralph Dollhopf, a federal coordinator for the agency, said efforts by response workers had so far stopped the oil from entering Morrow Lake, about 30 miles downstream from the site of the spill. "We do not anticipate that Lake Michigan is at risk," he said at a news conference. Still, officials said it could take months to clean up the spill, which was believed to be among the largest ever in the Midwest. Hundreds of response workers continued on Thursday to lay boom, skim the water and conduct flyovers to assess the damage. Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm had expressed concern on Wednesday that the oil might reach Lake Michigan if containment efforts were not strengthened. Some state officials dispute the claim that oil has not reached Morrow Lake, saying they saw oil sheen there during a flyover. The cause of the leak was being investigated. The pipeline remained closed and cannot be reopened without approval from federal regulators. Local emergency officials said Thursday that they would evacuate 30 more families from homes near the spill site because of health risks. They also asked residents of about 100 homes along the river to use bottled water as a precautionary measure while they tested local water sources. Wildlife officials said that they had opened a rehabilitation center for animals and that Canada geese, swans and turtles had already been rescued. Mr. Daniel, the chief executive of Enbridge, apologized again on Thursday, saying the company took full responsibility for the spill. "We will spend whatever it takes to clean it up," he told reporters. "We have more than enough available for that." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/30michigan.html?hpw -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 30 00:31:25 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:31:25 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Ethnic cleansing in the Israeli Negev Message-ID: <52570AEB3CE145C4B4F3661146943B5C@agingCHS072729> The Guardian 28 July 2010 Ethnic cleansing in the Israeli Negev The razing of a Bedouin village by Israeli police shows how far the state will go to achieve its aim of Judaising the Negev region Neve Gordon Israeli police raid a Bedouin village in the Negev desert. Link to this video http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/jul/28/palestinian-territories-israel A menacing convoy of bulldozers was heading back to Be'er Sheva as I drove towards al-Arakib, a Bedouin village located not more than 10 minutes from the city. Once I entered the dirt road leading to the village I saw scores of vans with heavily armed policemen getting ready to leave. Their mission, it seems, had been accomplished - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10777040 The signs of destruction were immediately evident. I first noticed the chickens and geese running loose near a bulldozed house, and then saw another house and then another one, all of them in rubble. A few children were trying to find a shaded spot to hide from the scorching desert sun, while behind them a stream of black smoke rose from the burning hay. The sheep, goats and the cattle were nowhere to be seen - perhaps because the police had confiscated them. Scores of Bedouin men were standing on a yellow hill, sharing their experiences from the early morning hours, while all around them uprooted olive trees lay on the ground. A whole village comprising between 40 and 45 houses had been completely razed in less than three hours - http://www.dukium.org/index.php?newlang=english. I suddenly experienced deja vu: an image of myself walking in the rubbles of a destroyed village somewhere on the outskirts of the Lebanese city of Sidon emerged. It was over 25 years ago, during my service in the Israeli paratroopers. But in Lebanon the residents had all fled long before my platoon came, and we simply walked in the debris. There was something surreal about the experience, which prevented me from fully understanding its significance for several years. At the time, it felt like I was walking on the moon. This time the impact of the destruction sank in immediately. Perhaps because the 300 people who resided in al-Arakib, including their children, were sitting in the rubble when I arrived, and their anguish was evident; or perhaps because the village is located only 10 minutes from my home in Be'er Sheva and I drive past it every time I go to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem; or perhaps because the Bedouins are Israeli citizens, and I suddenly understood how far the state is ready to go to accomplish its objective of Judaising the Negev region - http://www.negev.org/About/negev_desert.htm; what I witnessed was, after all, an act of ethnic cleansing. They say the next intifada will be the Bedouin intifada. There are 155,000 Bedouins in the Negev, and more than half of them live in unrecognised villages - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrecognized_Bedouin_villages_in_Israel - without electricity or running water. I do not know what they might do, but by making 300 people homeless, 200 of them children, Israel is surely sowing dragon's teeth for the future. Neve Gordon is an Israeli academic and is the author of Israel's Occupation, University of California Press, 2008. His website is www.israeloccupation.com From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 30 00:41:30 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:41:30 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] July 30 Gush Shalom ad in Haaretz Message-ID: <2F99657001A84A5EA6C16AF03EDDE3F8@agingCHS072729> Netanyahu has retrieved >From the Junkyard The bogeyman called "The Eastern Front". The aim: Ethnic cleansing Of the Jordan valley. It started this week With the eradication of Parsieh village. 03-5221732 Help to pay for our activities and ads By sending checks to Gush Shalom, P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033, www.gush-shalom.org info at gush-shalom.org GUSH SHALOM Ad published in Haaretz July 30, 2010 From menecraj at shaw.ca Fri Jul 30 00:55:42 2010 From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:55:42 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] Gaza Gateway: Facts and Analysis About the Crossings Message-ID: <030967E9989B48678D4C282EA57256A6@agingCHS072729> Gaza Gateway: Facts and Analysis About the Crossings http://www.gazagateway.org/ From krjones at mts.net Fri Jul 30 07:38:18 2010 From: krjones at mts.net (karen jones) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:38:18 -0500 Subject: [Fresh Ink] How much freedom can one man stand? References: <52570AEB3CE145C4B4F3661146943B5C@agingCHS072729> Message-ID: <001601cb2fe4$169edcb0$abfbfea9@yourrvlnhr6v8d> How much freedom can one man stand? Not much more, dear hearts, not much more By Joe Bageant Freedom comes in many forms in America, and new forms are constantly being created. The latest has been freedom from basic financial security. The weakened economy has given corporatists an excuse to, as they say, "let workers go." Which sounds as if companies are granting employees some sort of freedom: "Go on George, twenty years on the job is long enough, so git outta here. Have yourself a ball!" By that measure, there have never been a more free people. Now benevolently relieved of their job responsibilities, millions are free to do almost anything they choose, go fishing -- or take up the banjo. At the moment 14 million Americans have been granted freedom, with another three or four million expected to be pardoned before the economy "levels out," meaning more people will lose their jobs, but at a slower rate. Of those 14 million liberated souls, six million are so free they can even take the family on a year-long round the world trip, if they so choose. They need no longer report in at the (un)employment office because their benefits have expired. One little suggestion for their trip abroad: visit the guy in Asia who now has your job. With a little effort, I'm sure you can get over the barbed wire topped steel mesh fence enclosing the factory's "attached employee housing compound" in Sichuan Province. But luckiest of all are those American workers who get to have their cake and eat it too. According to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an additional three million adults over age 25 have both jobs and unprecedented leisure time. These are the working Americans living on "unintentional part time employment." This term carries overtones of some sort of accidental consequence of something the worker did. As in: "Oops, silly me! I didn't realize that I cannot support a family on 17 hours work and $120 a week. So now I must spend all my newfound leisure time seeking more "unintentional underemployment." One must admire government speak for its subtlety. Intentional or not, these working folks are experienc