Monday, November 23, 2009

Economic Meltdown -- A Call for Systemic Change

By John Perkins

November 21, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Whenever I hold my two-year old grandson, Grant, in my arms I wonder what this world will look like six decades from now, when he is my age. I know that if we "stay the course" it will be ugly. The current economic meltdown is a harbinger.

Panama's chief of government, Omar Torrijos, foresaw this meltdown and understood its implications back in 1978, when I was an economic hit man (EHM). He and I were standing on the deck of a sailing yacht docked at Contadora Island, a safe haven where U.S. politicians and corporate executives enjoyed sex and drugs away from the prying eyes of the international press. Omar told me that he was not about to be corrupted by me. He said that his goal was to set his people free from "Yankee shackles," to make sure his country controlled the canal, and to help Latin America liberate itself from the very thing I represented and he referred to as "predatory capitalism."

"You know," he added, "what I'm suggesting will ultimately benefit your children too." He explained that the system I was promoting where a few exploited the many was doomed. "The same as the old Spanish Empire -- it will implode." He took a drag off his Cuban cigar and exhaled the smoke slowly, like a man blowing a kiss. "Unless you and I and all our friends fight the predatory capitalists," he warned, "the global economy will go into shock." He glanced across the water and then back at me. "No permitas que te engaƱen," he said ("Don't allow yourself to be hoodwinked.")

Three decades later, Omar is dead, likely assassinated because he refused to succumb to our attempts to bring him around, but his words ring true. For that reason I chose one of them as the title of my latest book, Hoodwinked.

We have been hoodwinked into believing that a mutant form of capitalism espoused by Milton Friedman and promoted by President Reagan and every president since - one that has resulted in a world where less than 5% of us (in the United States) consume more than 25% of the resources and nearly half the rest live in poverty - is acceptable.

In fact, it is an abject failure. The only way China, India, Africa and Latin America can adopt this model is if they find five more planets just like ours, except without people.

Most of us understand what my grandson does not--that his life is threatened by the crises generated during our watch. The question is not about prevention. It is not about retuning to "normal." Nor is it about getting rid of capitalism.

The solution lies in replacing Milton Friedman's mantra that "the goal of business is to maximize profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs" with a more viable one: "Make profits only within the context of creating a sustainable, just, and peaceful world," and to create an economy based on producing things the world truly needs.

There is nothing radical or new about such a goal. For more than a century after the founding of this country, states granted charters only to companies that proved they were serving the public interest and shut down any that reneged. That changed after an1886 Supreme Court decision that bestowed on corporations the rights granted to individuals--without the responsibilities required of individuals.

As an EHM, I participated in many of the events that propelled us into this dangerous territory. As a writer and lecturer, I spent the past few years touring the United States and visiting China, Iceland, Bolivia, India, and many other countries, speaking to political and business leaders, students, teachers, laborers, and all manner of people. I read books about Obama's economic plans, current schemes for reforming Wall Street, and other policies. It struck me that most of the discussions dealt with triage and that while we need to stop the hemorrhaging, we must also ferret out the virus that caused these symptoms.

Hoodwinked presents a plan for a long-term cure. During the days following its November 10, 2009 publication, I spoke about this plan at the United Nations, on radio and TV programs, and at a conference attended by 2400 MBA students at Cornell University.

I come away feeling hopeful that we are finally ready to take Omar's warning to heart and to implement the transformation that will be the salvation for my grandson's generation.

John Perkins is former chief economist at a major international consulting firm. His Confessions of an Economic Hit Man spent 70 weeks the New York Times bestseller list. His website is www.johnperkins.org

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24027.htm

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Deformed Babies in Fallujah. Iraq Letter to the United Nations

Global Research
November 19, 2009

H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki
President of the Sixty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations
New York, NY 10017

October 12th 2009

Your Excellency,

RE DEFORMED BABIES IN FALLUJAH

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 leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented, for example in television documentaries on SKY UK on September 1 2009, and on SKY UK June 2008. Our direct contact with doctors in Fallujah report that:

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.

This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.

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".

As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.

She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.

Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography "Honorable Deception?" Clare Short says "The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie."

We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas's letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.

The use of certain weapons has tremendous repercussions. Iraq will become a country, if it has not already done so, where it is advisable not to have children. Other countries will watch what has happened in Iraq, and imitate the Coalition Allies' total disregard of the United Nations Charter, The Geneva, and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Some countries, such as Afghanistan, will also come to experience the very long term damage to the environment, measured in billions of years, and the devastating effect of depleted uranium and white phosphorous munitions.

If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does "it do body counts", how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of "proportionality" and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the "Storm Shadow" missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.

We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:

1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al - Najaf.

2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.

3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.

4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.

5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court.

Please find enclosed a copy of our letter to Mr Gareth Thomas, dated 12th October 2009, and his letter to The Rt Hon Clare Short, M.P. dated 3rd September 2009, and enclosures relating to this matter.

Yours faithfully,


Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai ( Iraq Minister of Women's Affairs 2006 -2009)



Dr. David Halpin FRCS (Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon)

Malak Hamdan M. Eng in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.

Dr Chris Burns-Cox MD FRCP

Dr. Haithem Alshaibani (Environmental Sciences)

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Author and Journalist)

Nicholas Wood MA, RIBA, FRGS

Enclosures to follow by surface mail:


1: Copy of Sky Television Documentary 1 September 2009 "The Deformed Babies of Fallujah":

2: Copy of Sky Television Documentary June 2008 "The Deformed Babies of Fallujah".

3: Frieder Wagners's film "Deadly Desert Dust" 2006.

4: Report by doctors in Fallujah 4 March 2008 " Prohibited Weapons Crisis"

5: Film the "Dying children of Iraq",compiled by Nicholas Wood.

6: US Army briefing on the use of White Phosphorous in Fallujah on "Shake and Bake Missions"

7: Report "Who Can Forgive the Crime of using Depleted Uranium Against Iraq and Humanity" by Dr Haithem Alshaibani, September 2009 .

8: Written Answer by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to Parliamentary Question. 10 March 2005.

9: Letter by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to The Independent, 20 January 2007, in reply to the 98 Doctors' letter to the Prime Minister.

10:Letter by Rt.Hon. Des Browne, M.P. UK Former Minister of Defence to Rt. Hon. Tony Benn, November 2008

11: Black Country Coroner's District ( Sandwell, Dudley.and Walsall: ) Coroner's Report into death of Stuart Raymond Dyson. 18 September 2009.

12: Calculations of expected child abnormalities in a city the size of Cardiff or Fallujah using UK statistics , David Halpin FRCS

Letter from Mr Gareth Thomas M.P. Duty Minister, Department for International Development, 3 September 2009 to Rt. Hon. Clare Short M.P.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16156

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Would Our Government Really Start a War to Try to Stimulate the Economy?

by Washington's Blog

Global Research, November 16, 2009
Washington's Blog - 2009-11-14

I've written two essays attempting to disprove "military Keynesianism" - the idea that military spending is the best stimulus. See this and this.

In response, a reader challenged me to prove that anyone would advocate military spending or war as a fiscal stimulus.

In fact, the concept of military Keynesianism is so widespread that there are some half million web pages discussing the topic.

And many leading economists and political pundits sing its praises.

For example, Martin Feldstein - chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, an economics professor at Harvard, and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors - wrote an op-ed in the Journal last December entitled "Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus".

And as the Cato Institute notes:



Bill Kristol agrees. Noting that the military was "spending all kinds of money already," Mr. Kristol wondered aloud, "If you're buying 2,000 Humvees a month, why not buy 3,000? If you're refurbishing two military bases, why not refurbish five?"

***


This is not the first time that defense spending has been endorsed as a way to jump-start the economy. Nearly five decades ago, economic advisers to President Kennedy urged him to increase military spending as an economic stimulus...


Similar arguments are heard today. The members of Connecticut's congressional delegation have been particularly outspoken in their support for the Virginia-class submarine, and they haven't been shy about pointing to the jobs that the program provides in their home state. The Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey program wins support on similar grounds. Despite serious concerns about crew safety and comfort, the V-22 program employs workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Texas, and a number of other states.


Professors of political economy Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler write:


 


Theories of Military Keynesianism and the Military-Industrial Complex became popular after the Second World War, and perhaps for a good reason. The prospect of military demobilization, particularly in the United States, seemed alarming. The U.S. elite remembered vividly how soaring military spending had pulled the world out of the Great Depression, and it feared that falling military budgets would reverse this process. If that were to happen, the expectation was that business would tumble,unemployment would soar, and the legitimacy of free-market capitalism would again be called into question.

Seeking to avert this prospect, in 1950 the U.S. National Security Council drafted a top-secret document, NSC-68. The document, which was declassified only in 1977, explicitly called on the government to use higher military spending as a way of preventing such an outcome.



Are they right about NSC-68?


Well, PhD economist Robert Higgs confirms the importance of NSC-68:



 


Previously administration officials had encountered stiff resistance from Congress to their pleas for a substantial buildup along the lines laid out in NSC-68, a landmark document of April 1950. The authors of this internal government report took a Manichaean view of America’s rivalry with the Soviet Union, espoused a permanent role for the United States as world policeman, and envisioned U.S. military expenditures amounting to perhaps 20 percent of GNP. But congressional acceptance of the recommended measures seemed highly unlikely in the absence of a crisis. In 1950 “the fear that [the North Korean] invasion was just the first step in a broad offensive by the Soviets proved highly useful when it came to persuading Congress to increase the defense budget.” As Secretary of State Dean Acheson said afterwards, “Korea saved us.” The buildup reached its peak in 1953, when the stalemated belligerents in Korea agreed to a truce.


 


And Chalmers Johnson - Professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, and former CIA consultant - writes:


 


This is military Keynesianism — the determination to maintain a permanent war economy and to treat military output as an ordinary economic product, even though it makes no contribution to either production or consumption.


This ideology goes back to the first years of the cold war. During the late 1940s, the US was haunted by economic anxieties. The great depression of the 1930s had been overcome only by the war production boom of the second world war. With peace and demobilisation, there was a pervasive fear that the depression would return. During 1949, alarmed by the Soviet Union’s detonation of an atomic bomb, the looming Communist victory in the Chinese civil war, a domestic recession, and the lowering of the Iron Curtain around the USSR’s European satellites, the US sought to draft basic strategy for the emerging cold war. The result was the militaristic National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) drafted under the supervision of Paul Nitze, then head of the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department. Dated 14 April 1950 and signed by President Harry S Truman on 30 September 1950, it laid out the basic public economic policies that the US pursues to the present day.


In its conclusions, NSC-68 asserted: “One of the most significant lessons of our World War II experience was that the American economy, when it operates at a level approaching full efficiency, can provide enormous resources for purposes other than civilian consumption while simultaneously providing a high standard of living”.



With this understanding, US strategists began to build up a massive munitions industry, both to counter the military might of the Soviet Union (which they consistently overstated) and also to maintain full employment, as well as ward off a possible return of the depression. The result was that, under Pentagon leadership, entire new industries were created to manufacture large aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and surveillance and communications satellites. This led to what President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address of 6 February 1961: “The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience” — the military-industrial complex.


By 1990 the value of the weapons, equipment and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in US manufacturing. From 1947 to 1990, the combined US military budgets amounted to $8.7 trillion. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, US reliance on military Keynesianism has, if anything, ratcheted up, thanks to the massive vested interests that have become entrenched around the military establishment.


 


You can read NSC-68 here.

Leading political journalist John T. Flynn wrote in 1944 :


 


Militarism is the one great glamorous public-works project upon which a variety of elements in the community can be brought into agreement.


 


But Flynn warned that:



 


Inevitably, having surrendered to militarism as an economic device, we will do what other countries have done: we will keep alive the fears of our people of the aggressive ambitions of other countries and we will ourselves embark upon imperialistic enterprises of our own.


 


Indeed, the creator of the theory of military Keynesianism himself warned that those who followed such thinking would fearmonger, appeal to patriotism and get us into wars in order to promote this kind of economic "stimulus". As The Independent wrote in 2004:


Military-fuelled growth, or military Keynesianism as it is now known in academic circles, was first theorised by the Polish economist Michal Kalecki in 1943. Kalecki argued that capitalists and their political champions tended to bridle against classic Keynesianism; achieving full employment through public spending made them nervous because it risked over-empowering the working class and the unions.


The military was a much more desirable investment from their point of view, although justifying such a diversion of public funds required a certain degree of political repression, best achieved through appeals to patriotism and fear-mongering about an enemy threat - and, inexorably, an actual war.


At the time, Kalecki's best example of military Keynesianism was Nazi Germany. But the concept does not just operate under fascist dictatorships. Indeed, it has been taken up with enthusiasm by the neo-liberal right wing in the United States.



I disagree that this is a partisan issue. The Independent piece portrays the "neo-liberal right" as special warmongers; I don't believe there is much difference with the "neo-liberal left", or "neo-conservative right", or whatever. Indeed, political labels are fairly meaningless. What is important is the actions one takes, not his rhetoric about his actions.





Washington's Blog is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Washington's Blog

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams

By David DeGraw, Amped Status
Posted on November 21, 2009, Printed on November 21, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/144109/


Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, "The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society."



The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.


1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.


2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.



3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth."


As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.


4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.



5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”


President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.


6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.



This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come."


The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking….” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year.


Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.”


7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared “healthy” and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”



8) As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services."


9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before."  In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history… The public debt topped $10 trillion in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $12.104 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations."



Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt."


Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high.


10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world.


Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. "The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year…. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children.”



Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis:


11) * 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat.


One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp… to EAT!


If you didn’t think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat… Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America."



The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed in December 2008, which means these numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then.


This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.


12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. “The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey."


13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”



A Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance.


The 50 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2013, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon.



Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.


Economic Imperial blowback has hit the mainland.


And the clock is ticking louder by the day…


And here’s two more facts for you:


14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders.



Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!


15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the “uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."


So let’s break down these numbers.


You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.



While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.


We are sitting on a powder keg!


We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society.


You can read the rest of the report here.







© 2009 Amped Status All rights reserved.


View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/144109/

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Lowering the Bar: Kindergarten Recruitment

Tuesday 17 November 2009
by: Jon Letman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

photo
How old is old enough for students to be approached by military recruiters?



High school? Junior high? Fourth grade? How about ten weeks into kindergarten?



Last week at the dinner table, my five-year-old son announced blithely, "Soldiers came to school today." He then added, "They only kill bad people. They don't kill good people."

He made the announcement with the same levity he uses in recalling the plot line of Frog and Toad or a Nemo video.



My wife and I looked at each other incredulously.



"Soldiers came to school? What do you mean?" I asked.



He repeated himself and then I remembered - it was "Career Day" at school. My son mentioned a bus driver too, but it was the soldier who stuck out in his mind. When my wife asked if the soldier was cool, he nodded yes.



The soldier had given my five-year-old a gift. From his yellow backpack, he produced a six-inch, white, plastic ruler with big, bold, red letters reading "ARMY NATIONAL GUARD" next to a waving American flag and below that  www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com.



So, now we know the answer to the above question.



Kindergarteners - children with Dora the Explorer and Spiderman backpacks and bedrooms full of stuffed animals who are still working to master their A-B-C's - are now targets for early conditioning by the US military. Never mind that Hawaii's schools have just cut almost 10 percent of classroom time, dropping the state's public schools' instructional days down to the fewest in the nation. Teacher furloughs or not, time was found for the Army National Guard to give a pitch (and a gift) to wide-eyed five-year-olds.



Fortunately (from the military's perspective), the economic collapse has been a boon for military recruiters  as education and job-hungry young people  flock to a place they know will offer what many other employers cannot - a job with benefits.




And with Department of Defense projections indicating that the baseline Pentagon budget will grow over the next decade by $133.1 billion, or 25 percent (even before war funding), it appears likely there will be plenty need for more soldiers in 2022 when my son and his classmates turn 18.



In his book "The Limits of Power,"  Boston University history Professor and retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich describes a near future in which the US is in an almost constant state of war. He writes, "Rather than brief interventions ending in decisive victory, sustained presence will be the norm ... The future will be one of small wars, expected to be frequent, protracted, perhaps perpetual." If Bacevich's bleak assessment proves true, it's no wonder the National Guard sees value in chatting up kindergarteners.



After raising my concerns about military personnel pitching to my five-year-old on career day to the school's principal, I was told the soldiers (who were dressed in uniform) were there to focus on "the good things they do." To be sure, in times of natural disaster, the National Guard can do a tremendous amount of good.



But in what must certainly have been a first encounter for my son and his classmates, the take-away message was "they kill people. But only the bad ones."



As a parent, how does one explain what killing "only bad ones" means when the child asks why a NATO airstrike obliterated dozens of civilians, an unmanned drone flattened a mountain village killing children just like them or a deeply disturbed soldier goes on a rampage on a US base in Iraq  or in Texas , and projects the violence he has learned against his fellow soldiers?



Whether you find the Army National Guard visiting kindergarteners utterly disturbing or perfectly normal, each of us needs to ask ourselves, in an era when our government spends trillions of dollars supporting wars with no end in sight, at a time when we can't even fund our schools or public services at a minimum standard and only begrudgingly support health care reform, what kind of society and future are we building for our children?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Derrick Jensen Interviews

http://deoxy.org/video/xUtCKNEqfL8
http://deoxy.org/video/uB3uomGshQI
http://deoxy.org/video/3BFJe3FDVMs
http://deoxy.org/video/6G3eehgyz0E
http://deoxy.org/video/pBIudbPDzVw
http://deoxy.org/video/g3d3XTtm6LU

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Fox News host falsifies footage to make GOP protest look bigger

By John Byrne
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 -- 9:02 am

How many protesters were in attendance at Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann's tea party healthcare protest?

"I climbed the Capitol steps just before the event started so that I could get a good view of the whole crowd," the Washington Post's onetime White House reporter and columnist Dana Milbank wrote Friday. "I divided it into sections and counted. That's where I came up with 5,000. It's possible more came after I did my count, but nothing near 10,000."

A few dozen Republican House members attended, aimed at stirring up a crowd against Democrats' healthcare reform bill. Fox News' Sean Hannity interviewed Bachmann following the event.

"20,000+ people showed up," Hannity said. "Were you as surprised as I was?"

Bachmann smiled and replied.

After showing the clip, Stewart said: "Anywhere between 20 and 40,000 people. Or, as the Washington Post put it, 10,000."


Stewart then showed two clips Fox News employed to underscore the size of the event. He pointed out that the clips appeared to have been from two entirely different protests.


"I'm sorry, can we get back again," Stewart remarked. "That was weird. Because when that clip started, it was a clear fall day in Washington, D.C. Not a cloud in the sky, the leaves have changed.


"All of a sudden, the trees turn green again, and it's cloudy, and it looks like thousands and thousands of more people arrived," he continued. "If I didn't know any better, I would think they just put two different days together and acted like they didn't."


The bogus footage, Stewart found, actually came from a Sept. 12 protest two months ago, and was used on Fox News' Glenn Beck program two months ago.



This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast Nov. 10, 2009.




http://rawstory.com/2009/11/hannity-falsifies-footage-gop-protest-bigger/

Anatomy of a Bogus Subpoena: How the Government Demanded the IP Address of Every Visitor to Indymedia.us

http://twincities.indymedia.org/print/5530

Eight-year vigil damns Afghan war

Veterans Day or Rulers Day?

Wednesday 11 November 2009

by: Bob Richards, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

photo
(Photo: The U.S. Army; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

How is it that Veterans Day gets turned around into US Military Hegemony Day? The airwaves were buried under an avalanche of lip service about veterans, but the moving lips were all about the myth that the warfare decisions this country's rulers make have something to do with anyone's freedom. Just as soldiers and sailors are doing around the world today, I did in my time. I was there as a teenager, ignorant of the forces moving me, believing whatever line I was being fed.

I grew up on the hundreds of war/propaganda movies that came out of WWI, WWII and Korea. Today we are deluged with more nationalistic propaganda than ever before in my lifetime. It can't be avoided. The TV spews the images nearly nonstop. Recruiters are in our schools, along with the pop machines. The words Army, Navy and National Guard are on race cars at the drags and the ovals. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has been replaced with "America the Beautiful" with cordons placed at Yankee Stadium to keep fans from going to the bathroom while the dose of nationalism is served up.

Once a year the veterans are rolled out, but without a real veterans' voice. The physical support for veterans comes nowhere near what is needed. Suicides of veterans always wind up taking more lives than the wars that set them up.

It is important to some vets to keep believing the myth they fought for, that going into that foreign country had a bearing on anyone's freedom here. These are the vets who get a voice, as this is the only voice acceptable to the ruling powers. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War may have had some bearing on someone's freedoms, but even then, not everyone's. The former held only for white male property holders, and the latter for humans who were property themselves. In both of these cases, those native to these lands could not be included, as they were busy at the time being relieved of their homelands and freedom.

If you want to thank anyone for your rights and freedoms, thank an activist. No soldier ended segregation in the 1960's. No sailor got women the vote. No National Guardsman got you the 40-hour week or took children off the shop floors or out of the mines. No, they were called out by the states to kill the very people who were fighting for the rights they eventually won for you.

Mostly what the vets have done is to be tricked into serving the forces that have used them, and in many cases, used them up. The vets deserve your support mostly because they believed, and gave what was asked, and were promised something in exchange. When promise-keeping time comes up, they find they have to get in a line and wait and then they must fight to receive what was promised. In many cases, what they get is enough for a little cheap wine and a bed at a shelter. These aren't the vets that get dragged out before the game or race, or at half-time. Nope, those vets are the believers. The "presentable" ones.

So, here we are at war to get Unocal's dream pipeline route across Afghanistan secured and prop up that ex-Unocal employee's stolen election. Then there's still that war we don't talk about so much anymore. The one that the lie to get us in there changed nearly every day, when the truth may have been as simple as the Decider told us himself, that Saddam tried to kill his daddy, and that he would use that war for his own ends.

These two wars send home more corpses and vets every day. These vets are more often acute cases needing the highest levels of attention, overloading the system and triaging the old farts back down the waiting lines. The government will front load the wars with the drones, missiles, guns, mines, ships, planes and trained bodies as its priority. It will use up more than it gets from its taxpayers and hand the debts to the future, and vets will fight for crumbs. This is the record from every war the country has ever done. Still, its propaganda works, and it won't have any trouble finding believers to march in the parades. It can parlay that percentage into a rock-solid myth and keep the guns-and-butter gravy train rolling along.

http://www.truthout.org/1111091?print

Power cut hits millions in Brazil

A massive power failure has blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of the country, leaving millions of people without electricity and causing widespread traffic chaos.

The outage on Tuesday evening began when the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, which supplies much of the country's electricity, suddenly went offline plunging parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities into darkness.

The cause of the failure has not been established, although power to some areas of the country had been restored as of late Tuesday, more than two hours after the outage hit.

The blackout had triggered a huge police mobilisation amid fears of an opportunistic crime wave.

Parts of neighbouring Paraguay, which also receives power from the Itaipu dam, were also affected.

The huge dam straddles the border between Paraguay and Brazil.

The power cut first hit at about 10:20pm local time (1220GMT Wednesday), snarling streets in Rio after traffic lights stopped working.

Subway rail services were also knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo.

Edson Lobao, Brazil's mines and energy minister, said strong storms had uprooted trees near the dam just before it went offline and could be to blame for the sudden outage.

The blackouts came three days after a report on US TV network CBS said that several past power outages in Brazil had been caused by hackers attacking electricity control and distribution systems.

Maria Elena Romero, a journalist in Sao Paulo, told Al Jazeera: "There are also reports of Paraguay being affected by the same power outages.

"The minister of the energy of Brazil has confirmed that the outage was caused by the failure of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam. The minister didn't want to speculate on the causes for this failure, but local media say weather conditions could be the reason."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/2009111132727141870.html

Iraq Veterans Against the War - Why we're against the war

A: Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the war in Iraq?



  • The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.


    The Bush Administration planned for an attack against Iraq before September 11th, 2001. They used the false pretense of an imminent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat to deceive Congress into rationalizing this unnecessary conflict. They hide our casualties of war by banning the filming of our fallen's caskets when they arrive home, and when they refuse to allow the media into Walter Reed Hospital and other Veterans Administration facilities which are overflowing with maimed and traumatized veterans.

    For further reading: www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/index.html




  • The Iraq war violates international law.

    The United States assaulted and occupied Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council. In doing so they violated the same body of laws they accused Iraq of breaching.

    For further reading:

    http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm

    http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/




  • Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq.

    From privately contracted soldiers and linguists to no-bid reconstruction contracts and multinational oil negotiations, those who benefit the most in this conflict are those who suffer the least. The United States has chosen a path that directly contradicts President Eisenhower's farewell warning regarding the military industrial complex. As long as those in power are not held accountable, they will continue... 

    For further reading:

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0714-01.htm


    http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/



  • Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq.

    Despite attempts in training and technological sophistication, large-scale civilian death is both a direct and indirect result of United States aggression in Iraq.  Even the most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths number over 100,000. Currently over 100 civilians die every day in Baghdad alone.For further reading:


    http://www.nomorevictims.org/

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html

    http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70A1EF73C5A0C758DDDA10894DE404482



  • Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war.

    All in service to this country swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. However, they are prosecuted if they object to serve in a war they see as illegal under our Constitution. As such, our brothers and sisters are paying the price for political incompetence, forced to fight in a war instead of having been sufficiently trained to carry out the task of nation-building.


    For further reading:

    http://thankyoult.live.radicaldesigns.org/content/view/172/

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6ZHYcG_EM

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=1dAXQeH7y9g&mode=related&search=

    http://girightshotline.org




  • Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government's negligence.

    Many of our troops have already been deployed to Iraq for two, three, and even four tours of duty averaging eleven months each.  Combat stress, exhaustion, and bearing witness to the horrors of war contribute to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a serious set of symptoms that can lead to depression, illness, violent behavior, and even suicide. Additionally, depleted uranium, Lariam, insufficient body armor and infectious diseases are just a few of the health risks which accompany an immorally planned and incompetently executed war. Finally, upon a soldier's release, the Veterans Administration is far too under-funded to fully deal with the magnitude of veterans in need.


    For further reading:

    http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/

    http://www.vets4vets.us/



  • The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart.

    The use of stop-loss on active duty troops and the unnecessarily lengthy and repeat active tours by Guard and Reserve troops place enough strain on our military families, even without being forced to sacrifice their loved ones for this ongoing political experiment in the Middle East.


    For further reading: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_loss_092704,00.html



  • The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home.

    $10.3 billion per month is spent on a war which could have aided the victims of Hurricane Katrina, gone to impoverished schools, the construction of hospitals and health care systems, tax cut initiatives, and a host of domestic programs that have all been gutted in the wake of the war in Iraq.

    For further reading:

    http://www.costofwar.com




  • The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination.

    Iraqis are subjected to humiliating and violent checkpoints, searches and home raids on a daily basis.  The current Iraqi government is in place solely because of the U.S. military occupation.  The Iraqi government doesn’t have the popular support of the Iraqi people, nor does it have power or authority.  For many Iraqis the current government is seen as a puppet regime for the U.S. occupation.  It is undemocratic and in violation of Iraq’s own right to self-governance.


    For further reading:


  • http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/



  • Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard.

    The majority of troops in Iraq right now are there for at least their second tour.  Deployments to Iraq are becoming longer and many of our service members are facing involuntary extensions and recalls to active duty.  Longstanding policies to limit the duration and frequency of deployments for our part-time National Guard troops are now being overturned to allow for repeated, back-to-back tours in Iraq.  These repeated, extended combat tours are taking a huge toll on our troops, their families, and their communities.


    For further reading:

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military12jan12,0,7198945.story?coll=la-home-headlines


  •  (back to the top)


    A: Why do Iraq Veterans Against the War call for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq?




  • The reasons and rationale given for the invasion were fraudulent.

    There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq during the time of the invasion according to US officials and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. The idea that Al Qeada and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were connected to Saddam Hussein and the Baath party were proven false in the 9/11 Commission Report. Members of the Bush Administration have admitted that they “misspoke” in the run up to the war.




  • The presence of the US military is not preventing sectarian violence.

    The US occupation of Iraq has proven to be unable to prevent sectarian violence and halt an escalation towards a civil war. Despite having an average of 140,000 troops in country since the occupation began, internal violence and attacks against civilians and Iraqi security forces have been on a steady incline.





  • The occupation is a primary motivation for the insurgency and global religious extremism.

    The insurgency can be broken down into many individually named factions with various goals, beliefs, and techniques. However, our membership of veterans believe that the occupation of Iraq is the primary thing encouraging the insurgency and giving it legitimacy in the eyes of many Iraqis. Likewise, other people of the Islamic faith are encouraged to resist America ’s policies internationally based on how they perceive our military operations in the Middle East.




  • We can no longer afford to fight this war of choice.


    The financial burden is destroying our domestic programs that could be used to protect us from natural disasters, provide medical programs, or help improve education. We are jeopardizing the US economy and putting strains on the budgets of important government agencies like the Veterans Affairs Department.




  • National security is compromised.

    Funds that could be used to protect our ports and transportation are being stripped away while our National Guard units are on constant deployments instead of being used to protect and defend us here at home.





  • The world is becoming more dangerous.

    International terrorist attacks have increased and it has become more dangerous for Americans to travel abroad. Approval for US policy has decreased and the dislike of Americans has increased.




  • Our national “moral authority” is being undermined.

    The US has lost credibility to much of the world as the defender of liberty and freedom and our national identity is eroding. We can no longer deploy our armed forces for peace keeping measures with the good faith of the international community. We need to regain the respect and faith of the global community. This begins by withdrawing our troops from Iraq and helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country and society.




  • The majority of American citizens, Iraqi citizens and US military would like to see an immediate end to the war in Iraq.

    If we are truly a democracy and we aim to create a democracy in Iraq our leaders will represent the will of the citizens and lead according to their wishes.




  • The military is broken.

    We are abusing the small population of armed service members with multiple deployments while using inadequate vehicles and equipment. Less than one half of a percent of the American population is serving in the active armed forces, which is the least amount in the last century. Only 25% of the troops in Iraq are there for their first tour, while 50% are there on their second tour, and the remaining 25% are there three times or more. We continue to involuntarily extend soldiers with Stop-Loss, recall them repeatedly for additional service using the Individual Ready Reserve, and send soldiers with diagnosed medical problems into combat.


  • http://www.ivaw.org/faq

    Tuesday, November 10, 2009

    What the CBO Isn't Telling Congress: Climate Change Threatens Million of Jobs

    Tuesday 10 November 2009

    by: Joe Uehlein, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

    While fewer and fewer people are willing to publicly deny the validity of global warming science, those who oppose action to protect the climate have taken up a new strategy: Denying that climate change will have a major impact on the US economy.

    This denial is rejected by most economists who have studied climate change. In a survey of 144 top climate economists released November 4, 2009, by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, 84 percent agreed that "the environmental effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as described by leading scientific experts, create significant risks to important sectors of the United States and global economies." A majority stated that sectors that will be negatively affected include agriculture, fishing, forestry, insurance and health services.

    But the profound negative economic impact of climate change is being largely ignored or denied in the current public policy debate. This denial threatens to have a significant effect on public policy. For example, testimony October 14, 2009, by Douglas W. Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, states, "Most of the economy involves activities that are not likely to be directly affected by changes in climate." He claims that "a relatively pessimistic estimate for the loss in projected real gross domestic product is about 3 percent for warming of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit (F) by 2100." He cites only two studies, one published in 2004; the other, which he describes as "the most comprehensive published study," was published in 2000, a decade before current research on the impacts of climate change.

    This testimony completely ignores the British government's 700-page "Stern Review," widely regarded as the most definitive study so far of the economic impact of global warming, released on October 30, 2006, by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern. It states, "Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

    The CBO testimony ignores many studies that indicate significant negative effects of climate change on the US economy in the coming years. For example, a study by the University of Maryland found that "the costs of climate change rapidly exceed benefits and place major strains on public sector budgets, personal income and job security. Because of the economic costs of climate change, we conclude that delayed action (or inaction) on global climate change will likely be the most expensive policy option."

    The CBO testimony ignores the June 16, 2009, government report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the US," issued by the US Global Change Research Program, which described economically devastating results of global warming already under way:

    * More rain is already coming in very heavy events, and this is projected to increase across the nation. This would have impacts on transportation, agriculture, water quality, health, and more;


    * Heat waves will become more frequent and intense, increasing threats to human health and quality of life, especially in cities;


    * Warming will decrease demand for heating energy in winter and increase demand for cooling energy in summer. The latter will increase peak electricity demand in most regions;


    * Water resources will be stressed in many regions. For example, snowpack is declining in the West, and there is an increasing probability of drought in the Southwest, while floods and water quality issues are likely to be more of a problem in most regions;


    * In coastal communities, sea-level rise and storm surge will increase threats to homes and infrastructure including water, sewer, transportation and communication systems.

    One small example of the way impacts of climate change are ignored: The CBO testimony states that the "medical care" sector will be "relatively insulated from climate effects." "Global Climate Change Impacts in the US" states on the contrary, "Climate change poses unique challenges to human health including heat waves and severe storms, ailments caused or exacerbated by air pollution and airborne allergens, and many climate-sensitive infectious diseases."

    The CBO testimony also ignores a new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, "Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction." After reviewing effects on flooding, hurricane intensity, tourism, public health, water scarcity, shipping, agriculture, energy and infrastructure stress and wildfires, the study concludes, "If global warming emissions continue unabated, every region in the country will confront large costs from climate change in the form of damages to infrastructure, diminished public health, and threats to vital industries employing millions of Americans ... These projected costs of climate change do not include those that are critical but hard to quantify, such as costs stemming from changes to ecosystems and the need to relocate coastal communities."

    The CBO testimony acknowledges that "there is a small possibility that even relatively modest warming could trigger abrupt and unforeseen effects during the 21st century that could result in large economic costs in the United States." It concludes, "The sources and nature of such abrupt changes, their likelihood, and their potential impacts remain very poorly understood." Thereafter, it largely disregards such effects as melting ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels, epidemic diseases and extreme weather events, even though a great deal of scientific evidence has emerged on these threats in recent years.

    Such denial leads to a deadly miscalculation of the economic cost of failure to counter global warming. The CBO acknowledges that "unchecked increases in greenhouse-gas emissions" would "probably reduce output over time, especially later in this century." However, the CBO concludes that the net effects on GDP of restricting emissions in the United States are likely to be negative over the next few decades. That conclusion results from a total failure to consider the devastating impact of climate change on the global and US economies, as revealed, for instance, in the "Stern Review."

    How many epidemics and Katrinas will it take to expose the myth that the US economy is somehow exempt from the threats of climate change? And what terrible price will we pay if we shun the cost of climate protection, but not the far greater cost of climate change?

    http://www.truthout.org/1110099

    Glenn Beck publicly shamed by satirist after losing domain battle

    By Stephen C. Webster

    Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 -- 7:33 pm


    Fox News personality Glenn Beck has lost a battle for a Web domain which jokingly asked whether he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
    Isaac Eiland-Hall, the satirist behind glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, thanked the pundit for his "assistance" in helping spread the rhetorical meme. Beck had filed a dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization to gain control of the domain.

    Following his victory, the Web site's creator voluntarily turned the domain over to Beck and published an open letter publicly shaming the host for assaulting the First Amendment.


    The Web site, which has now been taken offline, was a mockery of the right-wing entertainer's now-famous rhetorical style, asking questions and making hazy connections between many times unrelated people or events, then wondering why he has not gotten a denial of his often loosely-defined allegations.


    A copy of the Web site now resides on GB1990.com. In addition to garnering widespread media coverage due to Beck's complaint, the site has also spawned a chain of copycat parodies.



    Beck's lawyers had argued their client's name was in fact a trademark, leaving Eiland-Hall in breach of intellectual property laws by using it in a domain. They also argued that the site, which is clearly labeled as satire, somehow led users to believe its information was factual.

    The WIPO ruled against Beck on Friday.

    National Public Radio added: "'Even a 'moron in a hurry,' read the decision, quoting Eiland-Hall's attorney, 'would not likely conclude that Complainant sponsored, endorsed or was affiliated with the website addressed by the disputed domain name.'"

    In a letter to Beck that concluded with the username and password to access the domain, Eiland-Hall said:

    "It bears observing that by bringing the WIPO complaint, you took what was merely one small critique meme, in a sea of internet memes, and turned it into a super-meme. Then, in pressing forward (by not withdrawing the complaint and instead filing additional briefs), you turned the super-meme into an object lesson in First Amendment principles.

    It also bears noting, in this matter and for the future, that you are entirely in control of whether or not you are the subject of this kind of criticism. I chose to criticize you using the well-tested method of satire because of its effectiveness. But, humor aside, your rhetorical style is no laughing matter. In this context of the WIPO case, you denigrated the letter of First Amendment law. In the context of your television show and your notoriety, you routinely and shamelessly denigrate the spirit of the First Amendment. The purpose of the expressive freedoms embodied in the First Amendment is not to simply permit the greatest possible scope of expression, but also, in doing so, to also strive for excellence in the conveyance of ideas. Rather than choosing to strive for excellence and civic contribution, you simply pander to the fears and insecurities of your audience. And in the process, you do them, and all of us, a great deal of harm.

    Shame on you Mr. Beck."

    The WIPO clearly agreed in its ruling, calling the site a “satirical critique" of the public figure and “strongly protected” under long standing law safeguarding free speech.

    "The panel [also] found that the URL is, in fact, confusingly similar to Beck's trademark and that people searching for legitimate information on Beck might stumble upon this site," PC Magazine noted.

    Tech reporter Chloe Albanesius continued: "On the second point, however, the panel found that Eiland-Hall had an interest in the URL for political purposes, and that he did not benefit financially from Beck's name."

    "Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations?" the site reads. "We're not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 – in fact, we think he didn't! But we can't help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations."

    The joke was originally created by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who once performed a bit about fellow comedian Bob Saget raping and murdering a young girl.

    "The idea is to force someone to explain away completely baseless charges made by insinuation alone; since Beck already has a reputation for doing this, the joke was supposed to give Beck a taste of his own medicine," explained Nate Anderson at Ars Technica.

    "I imagine [the ruling] may further open a floodgate for the creation of similarly extreme sites should Beck remain as zeitgeisty and controversial as he has been these last few months," Mediaite writer Glynnis MacNicol suggested.

    Glenn Beck did not actually rape and murder a young girl in 1990.

    http://rawstory.com/2009/11/glenn-beck-publicly-shamed-satirist-losing-domain-battle/

    Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower

    Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official

    by Terry Macalister
    guardian.co.uk
    Monday 9 November 2009 21.30 GMT

    OilProduction

    The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

    The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

    The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.
    'There's suspicion the IEA has been influenced by the US' Link to this audio

    In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

    Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.

    "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.

    A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

    The IEA acknowledges the importance of its own figures, boasting on its website: "The IEA governments and industry from all across the globe have come to rely on the World Energy Outlook to provide a consistent basis on which they can formulate policies and design business plans."

    The British government, among others, always uses the IEA statistics rather than any of its own to argue that there is little threat to long-term oil supplies.

    The IEA said tonight that peak oil critics had often wrongly questioned the accuracy of its figures. A spokesman said it was unable to comment ahead of the 2009 report being released tomorrow.

    John Hemming, the MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil and gas, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions that the IEA underplayed how quickly the world was running out and this had profound implications for British government energy policy.

    He said he had also been contacted by some IEA officials unhappy with its lack of independent scepticism over predictions. "Reliance on IEA reports has been used to justify claims that oil and gas supplies will not peak before 2030. It is clear now that this will not be the case and the IEA figures cannot be relied on," said Hemming.

    "This all gives an importance to the Copenhagen [climate change] talks and an urgent need for the UK to move faster towards a more sustainable [lower carbon] economy if it is to avoid severe economic dislocation," he added.

    The IEA was established in 1974 after the oil crisis in an attempt to try to safeguard energy supplies to the west. The World Energy Outlook is produced annually under the control of the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, who has defended the projections from earlier outside attack. Peak oil critics have often questioned the IEA figures.

    But now IEA sources who have contacted the Guardian say that Birol has increasingly been facing questions about the figures inside the organisation.

    Matt Simmons, a respected oil industry expert, has long questioned the decline rates and oil statistics provided by Saudi Arabia on its own fields. He has raised questions about whether peak oil is much closer than many have accepted.

    A report by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) last month said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk. Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were "at best optimistic and at worst implausible".

    But as far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: "If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets … in the end that would suit no one."