From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 1 09:40:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:40:12 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Trumka on race and the elections Message-ID: <48BBD49C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Here's the Trumka link: http://grandrapidsprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/07/video-afl-cio.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From tal1 at cogeco.ca Mon Sep 1 12:02:50 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 14:02:50 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com Message-ID: > Sent: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 1:27 am > Subject: Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - > Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com > > > http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/ > > From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 1 12:30:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:30:47 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Leonard Peltier letter on Obama Message-ID: <48BBFC97.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.counterpunch.org/peltier08282008.html August 28, 2008 An Open Letter to Barack Obama Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change By LEONARD PELTIER I have watched with keen interest and renewed hope as your campaign has mobilized millions of Americans behind your message of changing a political system that serves a small economic elite at the expense of the peoples of the United States and the world. Your election as president of the United States, where slaves and Indians were long considered less than human under the law, will undoubtedly constitute a historic moment in race relations in the United States. Yet symbolism alone will not bring about change. Our young people, black and Native alike, suffer from police brutality and racial profiling, underfunded schools, and discrimination in employment and housing. I sincerely hope your campaign will inspire some hope among our youth to struggle for a better future. I am, however, concerned that your recent statement on the Sean Bell verdict, in which the New York police officers who fired 50 shots at a young man on the eve of his wedding were acquitted of criminal charges, displays a rather myopic view of the law. Until the law is harnessed to protect the victims of state violence and racism, it will serve as an instrument of repression, just as the slave codes functioned to sustain and legitimize an inhuman institution. As I can testify from experience, the legal institutions of this nation are far from racial and political neutrality. When judges align with the repressive actions and policies of the executive branch, injustice is rationalized and cloaked in judicial platitudes. As you may know, I have now served more than three decades of my life as a political prisoner of the federal government for a crime I did not commit. I have served more time than the maximum sentence under the guidelines under which I was sentenced, yet my parole is continually denied (on the rare occasions when I am afforded a hearing) because I refuse to falsely confess. Amnesty International, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, my Guatemalan sister Rigoberta Menchu, and many of your friends and supporters have recognized me as a political prisoner and called for my immediate release. Millions of people around the world view me as a symbol of injustice against the indigenous peoples of this land, and I have no doubt that I will go down in history as one of a long line of victims of U.S. government repression, along with Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket Square martyrs, Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, and others targeted by for their political beliefs. But neither I nor my people can afford to wait for history to rectify the crimes of the past. As a member of the American Indian Movement, I came to the Pine Ridge Oglala reservation to defend the traditional people there from human rights violations carried out by tribal police and goon squads backed by the FBI and the highest offices of the federal government. Our symbolic occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 inspired Indians across the Americas to struggle for their freedom and treaty rights, but it was also met by a fierce federal siege and a wave of violent repression on Pine Ridge. In 1974, AIM leader Russell Means campaigned for tribal chairman while being tried by the federal government for his role at Wounded Knee. Although Means was barred from the reservation by decree of the U.S.-client regime of Richard Wilson, he won the popular vote, only to be denied office by extensive vote fraud and control of the electoral mechanisms. Wilson's goons proceeded to shoot up pro-Means villages such as Wanblee and terrorize traditional supporters throughout the reservation, killing at least 60 people between 1973 and 1975. It is long past time for a congressional investigation to examine the degree of federal complicity in the violent counterinsurgency that followed the occupation of Wounded Knee. The tragic shootout that led to the deaths of two FBI agents and one Native man also led not only to my false conviction, but also the termination of the Church Committee, which was investigating abuses by federal intelligence and law enforcement agents, before it could hold hearings on FBI infiltration of AIM. Despite decades of attempts by my attorneys to obtain government documents related to my case, the FBI continues to withhold thousands of documents that might tend to exonerate me or reveal compromising evidence of judicial collusion with the prosecution. I truly believe the truth will set me free, but it will also signify a symbolic break from America's undeclared war on indigenous peoples. I hope and pray that you possess the courage and integrity to seek out the truth and the wisdom to recognize the inherent right of all peoples to self-determination, as acknowledged by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While your statements on federal Indian policy sound promising, your vision of "one America" has an ominous ring for Native peoples struggling to define their own national visions. If freed from colonial constraints and external intervention, indigenous nations might well serve as functioning models of the freedom and democracy to which the United States aspires. Yours in the struggle. Until freedom is won, Leonard Peltier # 89637-132 U.S.P. Lewisburg, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA USA 17837 Special Note: Please Help Support the LPDOC for Leonard's Freedom As Leonard Peltier marks his 64th birthday on Sept. 12, the LPDOC is redoubling its efforts to win his freedom. We are planning an ambitious organizing drive in our new Fargo office to persuade North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, to investigate the federal government's role in the violent counterinsurgency on the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1973-1976, the FBI's withholding of thousands of pages of documents related to the AIM activist, and the unfair federal trial in Fargo which led to Leonard's conviction in 1977. Leonard is suffering from partial blindness, diabetes, a heart condition, high blood pressure, and prostate problems. He needs your help. We need your help too, if we are to do the work that needs to be done to obtain justice for one of the longest-serving political prisoners in the world. At the moment, we are barely keeping up with our rent and phone bills, our two full-time staff members are working without pay, and we badly need a new photocopier. Due to the damaging actions of a former LPDC employee, who removed valuable office equipment and contributor records, we are rebuilding our committee virtually from scratch. We have found an experienced volunteer editor for our Spirit of Crazy Horse newspaper, but in order to resume publication, we will need your support. If you are able to contribute $20 or more for this campaign, you will receive a free subscription to the newsletter to keep abreast on developments in Peltier's campaign and in Indian Country generally. Please contribute as generously as you are able, and also take the time to write and/or call Sen. Dorgan With your help, we can win Leonard's freedom from the same city in which it was taken away. Even if you are unable to contribute at this time, please send us your name and address to help us rebuild our list of supporters at the state and national level. Please send your donation to: LPDOC PO Box 7488 Fargo, ND 58106 701-235-2206 Thank You, Betty Ann Peltier-Solano, Executive Director Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From orakwa at paulcomm.ca Mon Sep 1 13:46:26 2008 From: orakwa at paulcomm.ca (MohawkNationNews) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 15:46:26 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN Help 6 Nations - OPP attacks, arrests, ransacks, beats, closes roads Message-ID: <0227f6bf$39692$17ef657240625@your-6904db8205> CALL FOR HELP! SUPPORT SIX NATIONS AGAINST OPP ATTACKS ? ARRESTS, BEATINGS, RANSACKING VEHICLES, ROADBLOCKS, THE WHOLE P&O CIRCUS! Call to help 519-717-7043; 519-717-7099 MNN. Sept. 1, 2008. THIS IS A CALL FOR HELP. 3 people are in jail. 5 more are surrounded by cops. They need support and supplies. Take #403 to Brantford, exit at Oak Park Road, turn left at the T Junction; take the first right onto Fen Ridge; the site is across from the Proctor & Gamble distribution facility. The OPP have created chaos at Six Nations ? Again! Suddenly yesterday, on Sunday August 31, 2008, reports starting coming to MNN about harassments and arrests. Highway 6 was blocked. People are being stopped from going to their homes in the Six Nation communities by the Caledonians and the OPP. Everyone?s worried because school starts tomorrow. What?s happening? In Haida Nation and Taku River Tlingit, the Supreme Court of Canada reminded Canadian governments they have a duty to consult and accommodate all indigenous people who are defending legitimate property rights. This applies to the OPP [Ontario Provincial Police]. This law is being systematically broken. Brantford continues to give out illegal permits to foreign corporations. Mega projects continue to be started on unsurrendered Indigenous land. These corporations fraudulently use our land as collateral to raise money at stock exchanges around the world from an unsuspecting public. No charges have been laid against Brantford officials or foreign corporations for breaking the law. Instead the cops are being siked on anyone who attempts to defend our legal rights. Yesterday, a man was grabbed by the cops from his van and held incommunicado for hours. His 14 and 16 year old sons were arrested. The cops ransacked another van looking for something to charge the driver with. Eventually they charged him for driving without a license. Two more youths were arrested. None of the parents were allowed to speak to their children. Today, at 7:00 am. Labor Day, the OPP raided the demonstration at the illegal construction site of the Irish company, Kingspan. This had been shut down by Six Nations defenders. Two more youths were arrested, according to sporadic reports. Why has this situation degenerated so three groups are blocking Highway 6: the OPP, the Caledonians and the Six Nations? Is this is Canada?s idea of consultation and accommodation? Every inch of land in Canada is unsurrendered native land. Canada doesn?t want to face this. Our property rights are extremely well documented. That?s a problem for them. The rights Canada and Ontario have been violating at Six Nations were documented before either the Canadian state or the province of Ontario were founded. Canada is a product of fraud. Is that why they don?t want to sit down and work out a reasonable plan for peaceful co-existence? So far Canada?s response has been violence. Bring out the guns and bats! Canada and the world knows this is wrong. They have no choice but to deal with us, the landowners. We are the legal trustees of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island. Each time they hit us, they remind us of our duties. We struggle even harder to uphold them. The use of force can never produce a legal result. The Supreme Court of Canada and international law agree with our law, the Kaianerehkowa/Great Law. The only legal way to solve problems is through discussions, negotiations and understandings. Canada must start listening to our legal reasoning. The violence against Indigenous peoples has got to stop. We know what?s right and wrong. The more they beat us, the more they make it clear that they are wrong. They must back off, stop arresting us, stop beating us up and stop shoving their kangeroo court documents down our throats. On Tuesday, at 9:00 a.m., some of our people will be brought into the Brantford Court. There is no proof that it has jurisdiction over our people and our land. Many Indigenous people have been asserting our law. They have refused to attorn to the court. They have declared that they stand on the law of the land, the Kaianerehkowa. Or they have demanded proof of the court?s jurisdiction. So far Canada?s colonial courts have all refused to provide proof for their authority. They know they have none. So they find some way of putting things off. They don?t know what to do when indigenous people who have been accused for political reasons demand proof of their jurisdiction or evidence of the valid termination of our law. They know full well that we never gave our informed consent to become Canadians. We are not Canadians. If you can, please come to witness the court proceedings and provide support. We need to tell Kingspan of Ireland, Hampton Hotels of the U.S. all the other shysters trying to trespass on our land to go away. MNN Staff www.mohawknationnews.com Contact: Sonehahs 519-761-8094 Please Note. It?s becoming critical for legal actions to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen. Go to MNN ?Six Nations? category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois From tal1 at cogeco.ca Mon Sep 1 22:58:39 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 00:58:39 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Britain: More Calls For New Crimean War Message-ID: <132501E781F04E688D774E7E9619000A@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 10:20 PM Subject: [stopnato] Britain: More Calls For New Crimean War http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/31/do3101.xml [Allusions to the Crimean War of 1854-56 are rife in the British press since Foreign Secretary David Miliband's recent trip to Kiev where he, attempting to ape Winston Churchill, called for a 'world coalition against Russian aggression.' Attempts to turn the Black Sea into NATO's mare nostrum and to 'defend' Ukraine currently have the same intent as the Crimean War did: To drive Russia out of the Black Sea, prevent it from entering the Mediterranean, and deny its navy any warm water ports. This is what in the Anglo-Saxon universe is called 'confronting the new Ivan the Terrible.' (See below.)] Sunday Telegraph August 31, 2008 Europe must stand up to the Russian bully By Malcolm Rifkind Sir Malcolm Rifkind is MP for Kensington and Chelsea and was foreign secretary and defence secretary, 1992-97 -A tough reaction by the United States and Europe over Georgia and South Ossetia is necessary not because changing the frontiers in the Caucasus will directly affect our security but because, if Russia sees the West as weak and indifferent, it will be emboldened to repeat its behaviour in Ukraine - and in Crimea, in particular. -Russian-speakers in Crimea are now citizens of Ukraine, and Moscow has no right to control its so-called "near abroad". -European leaders - not just Britain and France - when they meet tomorrow, must resolve to develop a much more substantial military capability for the difficult years ahead. And they must be willing to share their military experience and capability in a more substantial way. France's stated intention to return to full membership of Nato is very much to be welcomed. -Nato is able to intervene with military force if it wishes to do so, even on behalf of non-members. This is what it did, rightly or wrongly, in Kosovo.... -Putin - who remains the real power in the country - is no new Lenin waging ideological war. He is more like a 19th-century tsar trying to extend Russian power, like all tsars since Ivan the Terrible. "The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance." So said Lord Palmerston during the Crimean crisis 150 years ago. If the United States and Europe are not careful we may end up with a new Crimean War in the not-too-distant future. European Union leaders, meeting in emergency session in Brussels tomorrow, therefore have an awesome responsibility when deciding on future relations with Russia. They cannot leave it all to Washington. Russia is part of Europe. Russia is Western Europe's neighbour. Recent events in the Caucasus are not the start of a new Cold War. But Russia's behaviour in Georgia marks the worst deterioration in its relations with the West since the end of the Soviet Union. However, Russian aggression against Ukraine that would be the deepest crisis for the international community. We are right to back the democratic government of Georgia but our strategic interests in that country are only slightly greater than our interests and support for the struggling people of Zimbabwe or Tibet. A tough reaction by the United States and Europe over Georgia and South Ossetia is necessary not because changing the frontiers in the Caucasus will directly affect our security but because, if Russia sees the West as weak and indifferent, it will be emboldened to repeat its behaviour in Ukraine - and in Crimea, in particular. Such a crisis would cause massive instability in Europe. Ukraine is a major country with a frontier with the EU. While it is true that parts of Ukraine - including Crimea - have a largely Russian-speaking population, that is far from unique in Europe. Dare I say it, Russian minorities in Ukraine, Latvia or elsewhere are like the Sudeten Germans in pre-war Czechoslovakia. [Rifkind fails to mention that Ukraine and Latvia, the latter on and off but more on than off, were part for Russia for centuries, hence the Russian-speaking populations there. The Sudetenland had never been part of a German state prior to 1938.] Demanding the absorption of the Sudeten Germans into the Third Reich was the prelude to the Second World War. Russian-speakers in Crimea are now citizens of Ukraine, and Moscow has no right to control its so-called "near abroad". Nor would it be entitled to demand changes of international boundaries on ethnic or national grounds. The US and EU must be tough. But can the EU meet such a challenge or must it be left to the US? The Russians are not going to be impressed by rhetoric from Brussels.... The truth is that Europe remains terribly weak militarily. Only Britain and France are significant military powers and they are both overstretched, with inadequate defence budgets. Furthermore, on oil and gas, Europe is deeply divided, with Germany too dependent on Russian gas to be prepared to fight for a really tough European energy policy. There has also been a disinclination by the EU to consider the use of hard power to achieve political ends. The EU has seen itself as the champion of "soft diplomacy" just as Russia has reverted to its historic role as an expansionist empire. Washington has few illusions as to what Russia respects; the Europeans are more ambivalent. So European leaders - not just Britain and France - when they meet tomorrow, must resolve to develop a much more substantial military capability for the difficult years ahead. And they must be willing to share their military experience and capability in a more substantial way. France's stated intention to return to full membership of Nato is very much to be welcomed. But calling for a tougher European strategy is not the same as saying that Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine is part of the answer. I do not doubt that if Georgia had been a member of Nato it is less likely that Russia would have behaved in the way it did. But that is precisely the point. It is less likely; not unlikely nor impossible. For Russia, the Caucasus is a crucial area: vital, as they see it, to their southern security. The Russians are not na?ve. They would have known that the US, Britain and France would not go to war with them to force South Ossetia back into Georgia against the wishes of its own people. So if Georgia had been a member of Nato, President Saakashvili would have invoked Article 5 and demanded military intervention by the rest of the Alliance. This would have been refused and Nato, and its members, would have responded much as they are doing now. The real damage, however, would have been to Nato's credibility and to the security of the UK and other European countries, which have relied on Article 5 for over half a century. A member state would have been attacked without Nato rushing to its defence. Some in the US may be fairly relaxed if Nato becomes more of a political alliance and less of a mutual defence pact. After all it is the US that provides most of the military guarantee. But for the Europeans, including Britain, the weakening of Article 5 would require major increases in defence expenditure and force the British Government into a more substantial common European defence policy, probably under the EU. This would suit some, but the Conservative party, in particular, must be alert to this risk. The alternative to Nato membership is not to throw Ukraine or Georgia to the Russian wolves. The main prize they should and can be offered is membership of the EU - bringing economic benefits and greatly increasing their political security. Finland, Austria and Sweden are no less secure from Russian aggression than Lithuania or Latvia, despite not being members of Nato. In any event, in a real crisis, Nato is able to intervene with military force if it wishes to do so, even on behalf of non-members. This is what it did, rightly or wrongly, in Kosovo. The difference is that Nato had choice. It had no treaty obligation. So Europe must be tough but also realistic with Russia. Putin - who remains the real power in the country - is no new Lenin waging ideological war. He is more like a 19th-century tsar trying to extend Russian power, like all tsars since Ivan the Terrible. It is not the end of history, but the Russians must be made to realise it is the end of empire. Sir Malcolm Rifkind is MP for Kensington and Chelsea and was foreign secretary and defence secretary, 1992-97 =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 5New Members Visit Your Group Drive Traffic Sponsored Search can help increase your site traffic. Yahoo! Groups w/ John McEnroe Join the All-Bran Day 10 Club. Popular Y! Groups Is your group one? Check it out and see.. __,_._,___ From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon Sep 1 18:23:48 2008 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:23:48 +1000 Subject: [A-List] What's new at Links: Bolivia, Venezuela, Diego Garcia, Kashmir, Caucasus, Cuba, Malaysia, ecology & capitalism, Argentina Message-ID: <48BC8794.1030704@greenleft.org.au> Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links./* * * * Bolivia: Two years of `post-neoliberal' Indigenous nationalism -- a balance sheet By the Bolpress editorial board, translated by Sean Seymour Jones for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal State intervention in economic activity -- the nationalisation of businesses, restrictions on exports and price controls, among other measures -- doesn't appear to be contributing to the materialisation of the structural changes postulated by the National Development Plan (PND) of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). This is the evaluation of business leaders, analysts and political leaders from the right-wing opposition in Bolivia. However, according to the government of President Evo Morales, the brutal and desperate reaction of the dominant classes "in relegation" proves that something is changing. * Read more Venezuela: Solidarity needed for trade unionists under attack; please sign protest letter By Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke August 23, 2008 -- The owner of Fundimeca, an air-conditioning factory in Valencia, Carabobo, is waging an intense campaign of terror and intimidation against the factory's workers. Fundimeca's workers has been fighting to ensure that the company complies with Venezuela's constitution and labour laws, in particular an order by the labour inspectorate to rehire nine workers. Fundimeca employs 360 workers, 80% of whom are women. One worker has been shot in the leg by armed thugs and 18 workers and three union leaders are currently facing trial in Carabobo courts, accused of various charges including criminal gang activity with the threat of jail terms looming over their heads. Among those standing trial is Stalin Perez Borges, a national coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT) and Venezuela's principal delegate to this year's International Labor Organisation convention -- where after seven years, the delegation successfully removed Venezuela from the list of countries that supposedly violate union freedom. * Read more Behind the communal flare-up in Jammu and Kashmir By the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation August 18, 2008 -- The communally and politically motivated May 26 decision of the Congress Party-People's Democratic Party (PDP) government of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to transfer forest land [in Muslim-majority Kashmir] to the Hindu Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) [for use as a pilgrimage site near a sacred Hindu cave] is having costly repercussions, with the added danger that it may emerge as a communal [flashpoint] nationally. The land transfer, taken in the context of irresponsible official remarks recommending changes in the demography and "culture" of the region as a "solution" to the Kashmir "problem", was like a spark to the tinderbox of pent-up resentment in the Kashmir Valley. Lives were lost when police opened fire on protesters; the PDP tried to distance itself from its ministers' decision in favour of the land transfer by pulling out of the government; and the government on July 1 was belatedly forced to roll back the land transfer decision. * Read more Nationalism, revolution and war in the Caucasus By Tony Iltis August 27, 2008 -- Since the European Union-brokered ceasefire brought the shooting war between Georgia and Russia to an end on August 12, there has been a war of words between Russia and the West. One point of contention is the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia-proper (that is, Georgia excluding the de facto independent territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia), in particular the towns of Gori, Zugdidi and Senaki and the port of Poti. * Read more Cuban trade unionist: `Workers are key participants in the Cuban revolution' August 27, 2008 -- Gilda Chacon is the Asia, Oceania, Africa and Middle East representative of the Cuban Confederation of Trade Unions (CTC) and an elected delegate of the People's Power Municipal Assembly. Annolies Truman interviewed her during her August 17-20 visit to Perth, Australia, to liaise with Western Australian trade unions. * Read more Malaysian socialists say Anwar Ibrahim by-election victory a 'marker of massive change' The landslide victory by Justice Party leader Anwar Ibrahim in the August 26 Permatang Pauh by-election is welcomed in this commentary by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, the first federal parliamentarian of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) , as a "marker of the massive change" and another development that will open up democratic space in Malaysia. * Read more Capitalism and social classes in Venezuela: The historic mission of the working class By Jes?s Germ?n Far?a, Venezuela' vice-minister for social security, ministry of popular power for labour and social security translated by Federico Fuentes for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Capitalism is a system based on the private ownership of the means of production. The capitalists, who own these, employ [workers'] labour power in exchange for a salary to be able to carry out their business. Obviously, this hiring of workers does not occur because of altruistic values. The ultimate aim of this decision - like any other under capitalism - is the possibility of obtaining profits. Moreover, the workers, who own no means of production, are left with no other option than to sell their labour power, converting themselves into waged slaves. * Read more Slideshow: Ecology against capitalism Ecology Against Capitalism by Christopher Pickering * Read more Debunking the `Tragedy of the Commons' By Ian Angus August 24, 2008 -- Will shared resources always be misused and overused? Is community ownership of land, forests and fisheries a guaranteed road to ecological disaster? Is privatisation the only way to protect the environment and end Third World poverty? Most economists and development planners will answer "yes" -- and for proof they will point to the most influential article ever written on those important questions. Since its publication in Science in December 1968, "The Tragedy of the Commons" has been anthologised in at least 111 books, making it one of the most-reprinted articles ever to appear in any scientific journal. It is also one of the most quoted: a recent Google search found "about 302,000" results for the phrase "tragedy of the commons". * Read more Secret CIA prison on Diego Garcia confirmed By Andy Worthington August 2008 -- The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the "War on Terror" and recent revelations in TIME -- based on disclosures by a "senior American official" (now retired), who was "a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings" after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that "a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island" -- will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely. * Read more Argentina: Winners and losers of the agricultural conflict Continuing Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal's presentation of various positions in the debate within Argentina's left around the rural crisis, we publish an exclusive translation of a recent article by Claudio Katz, an economist, researcher, professor and member of Economista de Izquierda (EDI -- Left Economists). Translated by Janet Duckworth. * Read more * * * /Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. * ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 16138 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080902/c202964a/attachment.txt From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Sep 2 04:01:18 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:01:18 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The mask of altruism disguising a colonial war Message-ID: <48BD0EEE.1080203@attglobal.net> Oil will be the driving factor for military intervention in Sudan by John Laughland The Guardian (August 02 2004) If proof were needed that Tony Blair is off the hook over Iraq, it came not during the Commons debate on the Butler report on July 21, but rather at his monthly press conference the following morning. Asked about the crisis in Sudan, Mr Blair replied: "I believe we have a moral responsibility to deal with this and to deal with it by any means that we can". This last phrase means that troops might be sent - as General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the general staff, immediately confirmed - and yet the reaction from the usual anti-war campaigners was silence. Mr Blair has invoked moral necessity for every one of the five wars he has fought in this, surely one of the most bellicose premierships in history. The bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998, the 74-day bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, the intervention in Sierra Leone in the spring of 2000, the attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, and the Iraq war last March were all justified with the bright certainties which shone from the prime minister's eyes. Blair even defended Bill Clinton's attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan in August 1998, on the entirely bogus grounds that it was really manufacturing anthrax instead of aspirin. Although in each case the pretext for war has been proved false or the war aims have been unfulfilled, a stubborn belief persists in the morality and the effectiveness of attacking other countries. The Milosevic trial has shown that genocide never occurred in Kosovo - although Blair told us that the events there were worse than anything that had happened since the second world war, even the political activists who staff the prosecutor's office at the international criminal tribunal in The Hague never included genocide in their Kosovo indictment. And two years of prosecution have failed to produce one single witness to testify that the former Yugoslav president ordered any attacks on Albanian civilians in the province. Indeed, army documents produced from Belgrade show the contrary. Like the Kosovo genocide, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as we now know, existed only in the fevered imaginings of spooks and politicians in London and Washington. But Downing Street was also recently forced to admit that even Blair's claims about mass graves in Iraq were false. The prime minister has repeatedly said that 300,000 or 400,000 bodies have been found there, but the truth is that almost no bodies have been exhumed in Iraq, and consequently the total number of such bodies, still less the cause of their deaths, is simply unknown. In 2001, we attacked Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and to prevent the Taliban from allegedly flooding the world with heroin. Yet Bin Laden remains free, while the heroin ban imposed by the Taliban has been replaced by its very opposite, a surge in opium production, fostered by the warlords who rule the country. As for Sierra Leone, the United Nations human development report for 2004, published on July 15, which measures overall living standards around the world, puts that beneficiary of western intervention in 177th place out of 177, an august position it has continued to occupy ever since our boys went in: Sierra Leone is literally the most miserable place on earth. So much for Blair's promise of a "new era for Africa". The absence of anti-war scepticism about the prospect of sending troops into Sudan is especially odd in view of the fact that Darfur has oil. For two years, campaigners have chanted that there should be "no blood for oil" in Iraq, yet they seem not to have noticed that there are huge untapped reserves in both southern Sudan and southern Darfur. As oil pipelines continue to be blown up in Iraq, the west not only has a clear motive for establishing control over alternative sources of energy, it has also officially adopted the policy that our armies should be used to do precisely this. Oddly enough, the oil concession in southern Darfur is currently in the hands of the China National Petroleum Company. China is Sudan's biggest foreign investor. We ought, therefore, to treat with scepticism the US Congress declaration of genocide in the region. No one, not even the government of Sudan, questions that there is a civil war in Darfur, or that it has caused an immense number of refugees. Even the government admits that nearly a million people have left for camps outside Darfur's main towns to escape marauding paramilitary groups. The country is awash with guns, thanks to the various wars going on in Sudan's neighbouring countries. Tensions have risen between nomads and herders, as the former are forced south in search of new pastures by the expansion of the Sahara desert. Paramilitary groups have practised widespread highway robbery, and each tribe has its own private army. That is why the government of Sudan imposed a state of emergency in 1999. But our media have taken this complex picture and projected on to it a simple morality tale of ethnic cleansing and genocide. They gloss over the fact that the Janjaweed militia come from the same ethnic group and religion as the people they are allegedly persecuting - everyone in Darfur is black, African, Arabic-speaking and Muslim. Campaigners for intervention have accused the Sudanese government of supporting this group, without mentioning that the Sudanese defence minister condemned the Janjaweed as "bandits" in a speech to the country's parliament in March. On July 19, moreover, a court in Khartoum sentenced six Janjaweed soldiers to horrible punishments, including the amputation of their hands and legs. And why do we never hear about the rebel groups which the Janjaweed are fighting, or about any atrocities that they may have committed? It is far from clear that the sudden media attention devoted to Sudan has been provoked by any real escalation of the crisis - a peace agreement was signed with the rebels in April, and it is holding. The pictures on our TV screens could have been shown last year. And we should treat with scepticism the claims made for the numbers of deaths - 30,000 or 50,000 are the figures being bandied about - when we know that similar statistics proved very wrong in Kosovo and Iraq. The Sudanese government says that the death toll in Darfur, since the beginning of the conflict in 2003, is not greater than 1,200 on all sides. And why is such attention devoted to Sudan when, in neighbouring Congo, the death rate from the war there is estimated to be some two or three million, a tragedy equalled only by the silence with which it is treated in our media? We are shown starving babies now, but no TV station will show the limbless or the dead that we cause if we attack Sudan. Humanitarian aid should be what the Red Cross always said it must be - politically neutral. Anything else is just an old-fashioned colonial war - the reality of killing, and the escalation of violence, disguised with the hypocritical mask of altruism. If Iraq has not taught us that, then we are incapable of ever learning anything. _____ John Laughland is an associate of Sanders Research Associates jlaughland at sandersresearch.com http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/aug/02/sudan.oil http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Tue Sep 2 07:54:13 2008 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 05:54:13 -0800 Subject: [A-List] Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82b839ea0809020654m662dacfeg4cedf44ccb8c98b@mail.gmail.com> More on the subject and a couple of points. I recall the Minneapolis/St Paul area to be quite liberal years ago, but apparently, protests are bad for business. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/gopc-s02.shtml AND, Amy Goodman managed to get arrested...... http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/1/update_democracy_now_s_amy_goodman_sharif_abdel_kouddous_and_nicole_salazar_released_after_illegal_arrest_at_rnc ST. PAUL--Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon. All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, "I'm Press! Press!," resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman's arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested. On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as well as the broader police action. These will also be available on: www.democracynow.org Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press. On 9/1/08, Tony B. wrote: > >> Sent: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 1:27 am >> Subject: Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - >> Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com >> >> >> http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/ >> >> > > > > From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 2 08:04:58 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:04:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com In-Reply-To: <82b839ea0809020654m662dacfeg4cedf44ccb8c98b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: You gotta be kidding! In the 1930s, Gov. Floyd B. Olson had to call in the National Guard to protect striking teamsters from being attacked by the local police paid for by their employers. The worst right-winger was the war hawk Hubert Humphrey, Minneapolis's mayor who played his usual despicable role in applying the Smith Act to the only wartime example, against the Trotskyists and Teamster leaders in 1941. Charles Rumford Walker's book "American City" gives a good background of Minneapolis, its support for Lindbergh's Nazism, etc. I knew most of the leaders growing up as a child there. Our dinners were filled with descriptions of the most recent arrests, police brutality, etc. Michael On 9/2/08 9:54 AM, "MARGARET WYLES" wrote: > More on the subject and a couple of points. I recall the > Minneapolis/St Paul area to be quite liberal years ago, but > apparently, protests are bad for business. > > http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/gopc-s02.shtml > > AND, Amy Goodman managed to get arrested...... > > http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/1/update_democracy_now_s_amy_goodman_s > harif_abdel_kouddous_and_nicole_salazar_released_after_illegal_arrest_at_rnc > > ST. PAUL--Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel > Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody > in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on > Monday afternoon. > > All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel > Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms > scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and > back. Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during > which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, "I'm Press! > Press!," resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial > pain. Goodman's arm was violently yanked by police as she was > arrested. > > On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as > well as the broader police action. These will also be available on: > www.democracynow.org > > Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful > detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried > out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the > Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been > defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press. > > > > On 9/1/08, Tony B. wrote: >> >>> Sent: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 1:27 am >>> Subject: Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis - >>> Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com >>> >>> >>> http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/ >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > From orakwa at paulcomm.ca Tue Sep 2 10:57:55 2008 From: orakwa at paulcomm.ca (MohawkNationNews) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 12:57:55 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN CANADA IS NOT A "STATE" Message-ID: <012540f3$39693$0db35402201389@your-6904db8205> WHY CANADA IS NOT LEGALLY A "STATE" By Ieri?wa:onni and MNN Mohawk Nation News Staff MNN. Sept. 2001. Since the dawn of time, we Indigenous people have been conscious that we exist as part of the natural world. We belong to the land. We co-exist with the animals and vegetation that sustained our ancestors and that continue to sustain us today. We are born or adopted into clans. These form the foundation of our nations. Our society is based on equality, where everybody has a voice. Our constitution, Kaianereh:kowa [Great Law of Peace], embodies these relations. This is the law of the portion of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island, which has been put into our trust. Before European ?visitors? floated over the ocean and stumbled onto our shores, we formed a federation according to the Kaianerehkowa. The Rotinoshonni:onwe Confederacy is made up of Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora. Hundreds of Indigenous nations formed alliances with us and became our friends and allies. No non-Indigenous nation ever joined our confederacy or accepted to live according to our constitution. Though a few individual Europeans have been adopted into our society, most have proven unwilling or unable to live according to the social, political and economic philosophy of the Rotinoshonni:onwe. All Euro-Canadians know and understand that we were here, on Onowaregeh, first. The Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged this fact as part of Canadian law. We did a lot of work to create the paradise that the Europeans found when they arrived. So far Canadians do not understand or acknowledge that we never agreed to join their colonial regime or to give up our original law or nationality. We did form nation-to-nation alliances with various European colonists. Some of our nations were allies of the British during many famous battles. However, we were NEVER British subjects. We always dealt with colonial visitors as an independent political organization. We even sent ambassadors abroad as seen in the famous paintings of the ?Indian Kings? who visited the court of England?s Queen Anne in 1710. The internationally accepted legal definition of a ?state? was established by the Montevideo Convention of 1933. Article 1 states that: ?The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.? We have a permanent population, a defined territory, and an established capacity to enter into relations with other states. THE ROTINOSHONNI:ONWE CONFEDERACY IS LEGALLY A STATE. Under international law, as set out in United Nations Resolution 1541XV, and confirmed by the International Court in the Western Sahara case, relations between peoples may be organized on the basis of independence, free association or incorporation. No state may legally incorporate another without the free and informed consent of the majority of the population as expressed in a free and fair election. This standard was endorsed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Reference re the Secession of Quebec. Quebec could not separate from Canada without the consent of a clear majority of its people in response to a clear question. Quebec had been fully incorporated into Canada because it plays a major role in Canadian institutions. It?s elected representatives agreed to join with other British colonies to form Canada. It has representatives in Parliament and on the Supreme Court. It has supplied many Canadian Prime Ministers. The Rotinoshonni:onwe Confederacy never agreed to join Canada. It has no representation in Canada?s parliament or on Canadian courts. Between 1876 and 1951 Canadian law excluded ?Indians? from the definition of a ?person?. THE ROTINOSHONNI:ONWE CONFEDERACY HAS NEVER BEEN LEGALLY INCORPORATED INTO CANADA AND REMAINS INDEPENDENT. When the Rotinoshonni:onwe Confederacy first established diplomatic relations with European colonists, the Europeans were organized in monarchical states. The people were called ?subjects?. Under British law, the relationship between the subject and the monarch was considered to be a personal bond. The subject owed the monarch obedience and in return the monarch owed the subject protection. You could become a subject either by conquest or by swearing an oath of allegiance. The Rotinoshonni:onwe were never conquered. Only a few eccentric or deluded individuals ever voluntarily swore an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. THE ROTINOSHONNI:ONWE NEVER BECAME BRITISH SUBJECTS. The Rotinoshonni:onwe Confederacy has issued its own passports since the international passport convention was passed in 1920. The ?Dominion of Canada? was formally established when Britain?s Parliament passed the British North America Act, 1867. It was founded to promote the interests of the British Empire as part of an administrative re-organization that united some of the colonies established on Onowaregeh. (British North America Act, 1867, Preamble). A ?Dominion? is legally defined under British law as ?a colony?. The people of the colonies that joined the Canadian confederation remained ?British subjects?. The Queen of England remains the Queen of Canada. Britain continued to manage all international matters. Britain has only authorized Canada to conduct international relations on behalf of ?the empire? (British North America Act, 1867, s. 132). All treaties signed with Indigenous peoples on Onowaregeh were negotiated on behalf of the British monarch. Canada did not sign any international treaty until Britain allowed it to sign the Halibut Treaty with the United States in 1923. CANADA DID NOT BEC0ME AN INDEPENDENT STATE IN 1867. Britain?s ?Dominions?, which also included Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, contributed so much money and lives during World War I (1914-1918) that they wanted more control over their imperial obligations even though they did not want to leave the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 gave them equality with Britain under the monarch. This became British law when Britain?s Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Canada and the other ?Dominions? remained under the same British monarch and legal system. Their passports continued to be issued by the British monarch. Canadian citizenship was not established as a legal status until 1947. Britain?s parliament kept the power to change Canada?s constitution and Canadians remained British subjects. In 1982 Britain?s parliament renamed the British North America Act, 1867 as the Constitution Act, 1867. Britain gave Canada permission to amend its constitution by passing the Canada Act, 1982 and appending Canada?s Constitution Act, 1982. It took effect on January 1st, 1983. Britain formally terminated ?British Subject status? without the informed consent of the Canadian people. According to the Preamble to Canada?s Constitution Act, 1867, CANADA IS STILL LEGALLY PART OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. The Rotinoshonni:onwe Confederacy never gave possession of any territory to any European people. The Kaianerehkowa does not allow this because the land is held in trust for the coming generations. The Rotinoshonni:onwe cannot speak for the other nations of Onowaregeh. There is no evidence that any of them ever gave their free and informed consent to come under British dominion or to become British subjects. According to s.91(24) of the British North America Act, 1867, the British monarch gave Canada?s parliament authority to make laws regarding ?Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians?. No state can give something it does not possess. Britain only possessed authority to make alliances and agreements with the people it called ?Indians?. Britain did not own any land on Onowaregeh. So s.91(24) only grants Canada authority to negotiate with ?Indians? concerning international relations and land use. The Rotinoshonni:onwe never ceded any land or authority to Canada. The Charter of the Hudson?s Bay Company was issued by the British monarch. It granted protection for a British trading monopoly. It could not grant land on Onowaregeh because the British monarch did not own any. When the Hudson?s Bay Company assets were transferred to Canada, Canada only gained a trading monopoly. It did not legally acquire any land on Onowaregeh because the Hudson Bay Company did not legally own any. There is no evidence that Canada has any land. Canada does not meet the requirements of the Montevideo Convention. CANADA IS NOT A ?STATE? ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. TOP 3 REASONS WHY CANADA IS NOT A STATE: 1. Canada does not have a permanent population. The people it claims as citizens are transients who come and go. They are not a ?nation?. ?Nationality? is not defined in international law. European dictionaries define ?nationality? as having a common birth and parentage. Canadians come from all over the world. They have no common origin or heritage to distinguish them from other human beings in general. Most have in common the experience of settling on our territory without legal permission from us. Canada?s exploitive and environmentally destructive habits prove that few have any commitment to future generations. 2. Canada does not have a ?government? of its own. Its constitution acts of 1867 and 1982 are acts of the British Parliament. Its other constitutional documents are proclamations of the British monarch. 3. Canada does not have a territory. None of our land that it claims was legally ceded to Britain. We never agreed to become part of the British Empire or the Canadian state. So quit your bitchin? Canada! Face the facts of life. Every square inch of land you?re standing on is ours. We are holding it in trust for our future generations. You have no authority over us or our land. You can only boss around your subjects. No us! Stop attacking us! Just about everything you?re doing is illegal! We ask you ?How did you get authority over us and our land?? If you are honest, you will have to answer, ?Legally, we don?t. We have some bad habits. We have to stop threatening, assaulting, abusing, jailing and killing you. We have to stop lying to you and about you. We have to learn how to follow the laws and live like civilized people.? Ieri?wa:onni and MNN Staff www.mohawknationnews.com katenies20 at yahoo.com Please Note. It?s becoming critical for legal actions to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen. Go to MNN ?Canada? category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois From cbcox at ilstu.edu Tue Sep 2 12:01:06 2008 From: cbcox at ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:01:06 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Massive police raids on suspected protestors inMinneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com References: Message-ID: <48BD7F62.58D65804@ilstu.edu> Michael Hudson wrote: > > You gotta be kidding! The cofusion comes from identifying DP & Left as related terms. That Minnesota was always solid Democratic would lead to the misconception that its leaders were "liberal." Was Humphrey's greatest achievement the 'cleansing' of the Dem-Farmer=Labor party of all its radicals? I also understand that the Minnealpolis union leaders had supported him for Mayor on the basis of his pledge to check with them (just check with them, not necessarily follow their advice) on the appointment of the police chief. The first thing he did on election was to appoint the business community's candidate for the position. And yet 40 years ago, just as today, all sorts of fair-wather 'leftists' were urging a vote for the DP. Carrol From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Sep 2 12:56:38 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:56:38 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Vietnam and Indonesia boost defence ties Message-ID: <48BD5428.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Vietnam and Indonesia boost defence ties -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: PEN Subject: [Pen-l] Vietnam and Indonesia boost defence ties August 26, 2008 Vietnam and Indonesia boost defence ties http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/news/260808/domestic_vnd.htm Deputy Defence Minister Senior Lieut enant General Nguyen Huy Hieu said Vietnam and Indonesia have witnessed developments in their defence relations in recent years. http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/news/260808/domestic_vnd.htm This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 2 12:58:49 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:58:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Massive police raids on suspected protestors inMinneapolis - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com In-Reply-To: <48BD7F62.58D65804@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: All I can say is that my father never trusted him -- or the Democrats for that matter. When Castro sent an emissary to ask my father in 1960 to represent Cuba, the visitor kept on outlining how he wanted to attack Republicans and Dulles. My father, Carlos Hudson, kept trying to tell him that the Democrats were just as much the enemy of Cuba and friends of Batista. The Cuban couldn't understand this. I assume he changed his mind with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Later, Humphrey gave a speech which I still remember, saying that liberals "had to grow up" to realize that America had a vested interest in fighting Communism for democracy in Vietnam. (He was supported by Michael Harrington and Max Schachtman who had led their socialists into the Democratic Party.) This contributed to Humphrey's 1968 loss. re Democrats being "left," I guess we can all be very glad that Bush stole the 2000 election. This saved us from Lieberman = Cheney, with the difference being that Leiberman would now be the Democratic presidential candidate. Michael On 9/2/08 2:01 PM, "Carrol Cox" wrote: > > > Michael Hudson wrote: >> >> You gotta be kidding! > > > The cofusion comes from identifying DP & Left as related terms. That > Minnesota was always solid Democratic would lead to the misconception > that its leaders were "liberal." Was Humphrey's greatest achievement the > 'cleansing' of the Dem-Farmer=Labor party of all its radicals? > > I also understand that the Minnealpolis union leaders had supported him > for Mayor on the basis of his pledge to check with them (just check with > them, not necessarily follow their advice) on the appointment of the > police chief. The first thing he did on election was to appoint the > business community's candidate for the position. And yet 40 years ago, > just as today, all sorts of fair-wather 'leftists' were urging a vote > for the DP. > > Carrol > > From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Sep 2 13:44:50 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:44:50 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Biden quoted as saying that Israel will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran Message-ID: <48BD5F73.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ? Biden quoted as saying that Israel will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran By Haaretz Service Tags: Biden, Obama, Jews Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was quoted Monday as telling senior Israeli officials behind closed doors that the Jewish state will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran. In the unsourced report, Army Radio also quoted Biden as saying that he opposed "opening a additional military and diplomatic front." Biden, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long been considered strongly pro-Israel. His nomination as Barack Obama's running mate had been expected to shore up the Democrats' strength with U.S. Jewish voters. Advertisement Army Radio said Israeli officials expressed "amazement" over the remarks attributed to him. "Israel will have to reconcile itself with the nuclearization of Iran," Army Radio quoted Biden as telling the unnamed officials. "It's doubtful if the economic sanctions will be effective, and I am against opening an additional military and diplomatic front." Last year, in a widely quoted interview with year the Jewish American Shalom TV, Biden said, "I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist," adding that "Israel is the single greatest strength that America has in the Middle East," and that its presence as a strategic ally meant that America need station far fewer troops and warships in the region. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Sep 2 14:13:26 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:13:26 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Peace demo Message-ID: <48BD6628.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Yesterday, on a hot and humid day in St. Paul, Minnesota, upwards of 40,000 people marched to the front door of the Republican National Convention to say 'US Out of Iraq Now', 'Money for Human Needs, Not War'; 'No to the Republican Agenda'; 'Yes to Peace, Justice, and Equality'. Like most major marches, no one knew for certain how many people would turn out for the March on the RNC. The media coverage of the long struggle with local officials for permit rights had, in the end, helped organizers get the word out throughout the Twin Cities area for the march. Groups all around the upper Midwest organized buses, vans, and carpools to bring people into town. It was clear that this was an opportunity not to be missed. As the Republican Party was beginning its four-day gathering to nominate John McCain as their presidential candidate, we would be on the streets to raise a clear strong voice addressing the war and a range of other issues. The demonstration began with a two-hour rally that felt even longer. It was hot as the sun beamed down. The weak sound system prevented lots of people from hearing the speakers on the stage, one of which was UFPJ's Co-Chair George Martin. Yet, everyone was patient, knowing that it was important to give people time to gather before heading out for the march. A little after 1:00 PM, the march kicked off and was led by a contingent of veterans and military families ? some of the people most impacted by the war in Iraq. I watched the march go by, and what a sight that was! People from many walks of life, some young, some old, some from close-by in St. Paul and Minneapolis, some from faraway places ? all of them gathered for the march. Contingents of immigrants, labor, poor people, young people, doctors, religious, and faith-based groups and much more took part in the march, carrying tons of great homemade signs and banners. Literally, tens of thousands of people united in their call to end the war now! It was a powerful statement of the deep opposition to the war in Iraq that exists in every corner of this country. It was a clear call for an end to the threats of war with Iran. You couldn't miss the demand to turn our nation's priorities around and start meeting the needs of our communities and stop feeding the machinery of war with our tax dollars. The march took a route that went in front of the Excel Center, the site of the RNC ? though, once in that area, marchers had to walk in an area with huge fencing on both sides of them. While there was hardly any police presence at the rally site or with the march itself, there was a massive police operation in the downtown area, especially near the Convention Center. The march route turned around at this point and returned to the starting location on the lawn of the State Capitol. All but a few hundred people left the downtown area, exhausted and hot but glad to have been a part of this important mass mobilization against the war. Some people stayed downtown; and before too long, there were confrontations with the police. I was not in attendance downtown during the melee, and I'm not able to report back firsthand, but from the information that I have received and heard, it is clear that the police overreacted and used excessive force, using pepper spray, hitting people with batons, pushing people back with horses, and much more. Regardless of how we feel about the activities of the some of the people in downtown St. Paul, the actions of the police force were deplorable. In the end, the police arrested 284 people, including at least four journalists. United For Peace and Justice was proud to have been part of the locally-led coalition that organized the demonstration, and we congratulate the organizers for a job well-done. We are pleased that we helped get the word out and mobilized people to be at this march and other activities in St. Paul during the RNC, just as we did in Denver for the DNC. We urge you to keep watching the news to see how things unfold in the next few days, especially in terms of police conduct. They need to know that people around the country are watching! UFPJ was also working to spread the word about the major national mobilization, Million Doors for Peace, scheduled for September 20. A group of staff and volunteers was actively leafleting in both Denver and St. Paul, at a whole host of locations in both cities, to ensure that people and the groups they are associated with become involved in this very important mobilization. More information on the Million Doors for Peace mobilization will be sent out shortly. To hear more about this effort, click here and sign-up to be a volunteer, willing to knock on forty doors in your own neighborhood for voter education, petition-signing, and other related items. You can sign-up here. http://www.milliondoorsforpeace.org/signup.php?code=ufp http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3949 Peace, Leslie Cagan, UFPJ National Coordinator This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Sep 2 14:49:18 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:49:18 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Decoupling Message-ID: <48BD6E8F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Time to pay the bill? By David Oakley and Rachel Morarjee Financial Times August 28 2008 In the bars of downtown Moscow, there is still a buzz as if all is well in the world. At the Ritz-Carlton Hotel?s glass-domed rooftop lounge, which looks out on to Red Square, dark-suited oligarchs enjoy $50 cocktails, seemingly unperturbed by the deterioration in international relations that has followed the Kremlin?s military intervention in Georgia ? even though it has made foreign investors take flight. ?We?ve been very busy in the last few days. Even wealthy Georgians who live in Moscow come here,? says Sergei Logvinov, a hotel official. With Russian equities down by 15 per cent for their biggest monthly fall in almost eight years, foreign exchange reserves have dropped by $16bn (?8.7bn, ?10.9bn), a slide not seen since Russia?s economic crisis of 1998. Yet Russia is by no means the only emerging market where confidence is on the wane. Not only has political risk also escalated in countries such as Pakistan but, across the industrialising world, inflation is dogging growth and the recent rise in commodity prices is faltering. Sceptics wonder whether the party is coming to an end for these developing economies, after a five-year bull run. In spite of the credit crisis, the MSCI emerging market index rose by nearly 40 per cent in 2007, prompting many investors to suggest that the developing world was insulated against the problems in the west. But these hopes that emerging markets could power ahead regardless ? a theory known as decoupling ? now look misguided. Since the turn of the year, emerging stocks have tumbled, most notably in China, where the Shanghai Composite index has fallen 52 per cent. Russia?s stock market has fallen by 27 per cent since January, India?s by 37 per cent and Brazil?s by 5 per cent. As investors rushed for the exits in nearly every market, it seemed that the financial ills of the west were infecting these locations. Many analysts fear the US and European economies will continue to deteriorate, putting even greater strains on growth in the emerging world. So what are the remaining dangers and, as some investors and analysts are starting to argue, are economic fundamentals strong enough that the torrid experience of the past few months has left valuations looking attractive once more? Certainly, fears about a slowdown in the west co-exist with worries that the largest emerging economies are overheating. Inflation is rising across the emerging world. China?s average inflation rate for 2009 is forecast to accelerate to 6.8 per cent from 4.8 per cent this year, Brazil?s to 5.3 per cent from 3.6 per cent, India?s to 8.4 per cent from 6.4 per cent and Russia?s from 9 per cent to 14.6 per cent, according to economists at HSBC. These rises are being fuelled not only by commodity prices that are still near historical highs but also by limits to industrial capacity. Philip Poole, global head of emerging markets research at HSBC, says: ?There has not been enough investment to sustain growth, so we are seeing many economies running into capacity constraints, adding to production costs. This is putting pressure on inflation.? Of the so-called Bric nations ? Brazil, Russia, India and China ? only China has plenty of spare capacity, he adds. On commodities, a further weakening in prices would undermine the revenue streams of resource producing countries such as Brazil and Russia. Indeed, the commodity factor also raises the question of how useful the phrase ?emerging market? really is. It covers more than 150 economies as different as Indonesia and Chile, some of which are rich in resources while others are not. This partly explains why equity markets in commodity producing countries have fared better this year than countries that must import resources, such as India. Even if inflation were stoking up their economies, the theory was that they were benefiting from oil and food prices, which remain high in historical terms. However, analysts insist the outlook for many of these countries has also been helped by other factors. One is that the health of their public finances, the extent of their exposure to foreign debt and the respective monetary and fiscal management of their economies have all improved beyond recognition since the wave of emerging markets crises in the 1990s. In these terms, the Brics read well. Banks in the big four emerging countries have not borrowed heavily overseas, curbing their exposure to the credit problems in the west. Foreign debt held by Chinese banks as a percentage of gross domestic product is only 2 per cent, for India 4 per cent and for Brazil and Russia 13 per cent, according to Deutsche Bank. These countries have also all been fairly quick to raise interest rates to tackle the inflationary threat. China?s foreign exchange reserves, excluding gold, are forecast to stand at $1,900bn this year, India?s $330bn and Brazil?s $205bn, HSBC?s projections show. Even Russia, in spite of the conflict in Georgia, is forecast to have reserves in excess of $500bn by year-end. As some analysts put it, the countries all have money in the bank should things grow even more ugly in the financial markets and global economic climate. On top of this, Brazil and Russia have assets in the ground. Russia, for example, produces more than $1bn a day from its vast oil reserves, while Brazil is a big producer of corn, wheat, sugar and oil. Many Latin American and African nations are also rich in resources and showing signs of improved political and economic stability, while the Middle East is awash with oil. Commodities provoke the sharpest divisions of opinion. Already down more than 20 per cent, should commodity indices suffer further significant falls, it would take the steam out of inflation but at the same time hit exporters? coffers. However, analysts note that even an oil price of $100 a barrel would provide substantial sums for countries such as Russia. Another plus for the Brics is also a central plank of the ?decoupling? thesis ? that they have a diminishing reliance on the developed markets as a destination for their exports. They export more to other emerging markets than ever before, while their economies are increasingly boosted by domestic demand rather than by the vagaries of the US or European consumer. They are also spending heavily on infrastructure. In Russia?s case, barely 5 per cent of its exports go to the US, although Brazil at 14 per cent, India at 15 per cent and China at nearly 20 per cent would be more affected if US growth, after its strong second quarter performance, turns weaker again. The strengthening of the dollar will also help these and other emerging economies, particularly those in the Middle East and Asia that have currencies pegged to the US unit and have suffered extra inflationary strain because of its weakness. Yet some of the other developing nations will come under pressure as financial conditions worsen and inflation rises. Kazakh-stan, with foreign debt equivalent to 71.4 per cent of GDP, is one example of a country that enjoyed the good times perhaps a little too much, borrowing heavily to fund expansion in its property sector. Mexico is highly exposed to the US economy, relying on it for 85 per cent of its exports, while many of the central and eastern European economies depend on the eurozone for export earnings as well as running large current account deficits. In short, the outlook is varied for the differing emerging nations, depending on political and domestic economic factors. The next few months will be rocky for foreign investors in Russia and eastern Europe. ?In a nutshell, this is a short-term problem for Russian markets. Fundamentally, nothing has changed in Russia,? says Vladimir Savov, Russia strategist at Credit Suisse. But for most emerging markets, the long-term prospects are arguably rather brighter than the recent turbulence might suggest. There are reasons to hope that they can continue to outperform their western rivals in terms of growth ? and benefit from wealth transfers from the advanced to developing nations. Nigel Rendell from RBC Capital Markets says: ?In terms of years rather than months, the emerging market economies are looking in good shape. They are likely to continue growing strongly, more strongly than the western economies ? [particularly] the US and the eurozone.? Since 2000, emerging nations have contributed an increasing amount to the world?s output. The International Monetary Fund estimates that these economies will provide more than 80 per cent of global growth this year ? up from less than 50 per cent at the turn of the millennium ? as they now make up $18,100bn of world GDP, a 30 per cent share. The IMF forecasts that this proportion will grow to 35 per cent, or $28,850bn, by 2013. What of their stock markets? During last year?s burst of optimism over emerging equities, these commanded a higher multiple of earnings than developed market stocks, according to MSCI indices. This has now reversed and emerging markets trade at a substantial discount to the developed world once more. That could encourage bargain-hunters who believe in their long-term growth prospects. But overall, if the four Brics are anything to go by and if growth is the right benchmark to measure the health of an economy, analysts generally expect them to weather the present difficulties. Consensus forecasts indicate that China?s GDP growth is expected to slow to 9.2 per cent next year from a peak of 11.9 per cent in 2007, Brazil?s to 3.8 per cent from a high of 5.4 per cent in 2007, Russia?s to 7 per cent next year from its 2007 peak of 8.1 per cent, India?s to 7.7 per cent from 9 per cent last year. These growth levels are still relatively strong and will certainly outperform the west, suggesting a soft rather than a hard landing and a bright long-term outlook. ?By 2015, today?s current emerging markets will be a much larger part of the world economy,? says Dalinc Ariburnu, head of emerging markets at Deutsche Bank. ?I am sure that when we look back in years to come, we will say the period between 2005 and 2015 was a remarkable decade ? remarkable because of the transfer of wealth from developed world to developing world,? he adds. ?In the next few years, you will continue to see the economic power shift east.? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Sep 2 14:50:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:50:08 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Decoupling Message-ID: <48BD6EC2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Endurance test Aug 21st 2008 The Economist DURING the six months to the end of June commodities posted their best performance in 35 years, rising by 29%. In July they had their worst month in 28 years, falling by 10%. The slide continues: an index compiled by Reuters, a news agency, shows that prices are almost a fifth below the pinnacle reached in early July. The Economist?s index, which excludes oil, has fallen by over 12%. Breathless headlines have hailed the bursting of a bubble. But most analysts are more reticent. They cite various reasons for the recent drop in prices, chief among them the darkening economic outlook in rich countries. In recent weeks it has become clear that Europe and Japan are faring even worse than America, and so are likely to consume less oil, steel, cocoa and the like. But that does not necessarily presage a collapse in commodity prices, they argue, thanks to enduringly strong demand from emerging markets such as China. Oil consumption, for example, has been falling in rich countries for over two years. Goldman Sachs expects them to use 500,000 fewer barrels a day (b/d) this year than last. But it reckons that decline will be more than offset by an increase of 1.3m b/d in emerging markets. It predicts China?s demand for oil will grow by 5%. A similar story could be told of many commodities. Marius Kloppers, the boss of BHP Billiton, a huge mining firm presenting its results this week, argued that emerging markets were much more important to the firm?s fortunes than rich ones were. Developing countries, he said, consume four to five times more raw materials per unit of output than rich ones do. He predicted that China?s use of steel, already greater than any other country?s, will double by 2015. China?s continuing and rapid industrialisation, he argued, would outweigh any temporary slowdown in exports owing to the weakening world economy?although demand for metals that are used in consumer goods, such as aluminium and nickel, may suffer somewhat. As Mr Kloppers pointed out, emerging markets, and China in particular, now account for the lion?s share of growth in global demand for raw materials, and a good chunk of overall consumption. China?s appetite for such goods is growing more slowly than it did in the early part of the decade?when oil consumption galloped ahead by more than 10% a year. And China?s economy has also slowed slightly?although it is still growing at a rate of about 10%. The IMF expects developing countries to grow by almost 7% this year. That should be enough to keep demand for most commodities expanding briskly. In terms of supply, however, the picture is more mixed. Farmers, encouraged by high prices, have been planting more grain. Heavy rains in America?s farming heartland earlier in the year did less damage to crops than expected. The International Grains Council, an industry group, now expects a record wheat crop this year, 9% bigger than last year?s. China and India, meanwhile, have produced record amounts of soyabeans, while Thailand and Vietnam have harvested bumper crops of rice. Although stocks of most farm commodities remain alarmingly low, and demand continues to grow, the increasing evidence of a strong supply response has helped to push prices down. The world?s output of industrial metals is also expanding, and prices have been dropping for over a year. But progress has been fitful. At many mines, the quality of the ore is falling as the richest seams are exhausted. Mr Kloppers spoke of BHP?s woeful shortage of tyres for its huge trucks, big mechanical shovels, bearings and all manner of other equipment. Such bottlenecks have been hampering the opening of new mines and the expansion of existing ones. Kona Haque of Macquarie Bank points out that copper mines have produced 1m tonnes or so less than planned in each of the past three years (over 5% of global output), and are likely to do so again this year. High commodity prices have created something of a vicious circle by adding to the expense and difficulty of expanding output. This week, Xstrata, another big mining firm, suspended operations at a nickel mine in the Dominican Republic while converting its power supply to run on coal, rather than?more expensive?oil. Power shortages have disrupted mining and smelting in several countries. The Chinese government has started to discourage the expansion of energy-intensive industries, including aluminium and steelmaking, in an effort to ease the burden on its grid. All this is hampering the production of metals around the world, and so slowing the fall in prices. Nonetheless, the output of most metals is still growing much faster than that of oil?which is barely expanding at all. The oil industry, too, is suffering from shortages of equipment and engineers. Even worse, all of the countries best equipped to pump more of the stuff are members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Saudi Arabia, the cartel?s biggest producer, has increased its output in recent months, even as the rich economies, still the largest consumers of oil, slowed. That helped to push the price down from $147 a barrel to less than $115. Despite a rise in American inventories, global stocks do not appear to have grown much, suggesting that buoyant developing economies absorbed most of the increase in supply. Meanwhile, more hawkish members of OPEC, such as Venezuela, are calling for a cut in output to stop oil prices falling further. When OPEC last cut production, early in 2007, prices doubled in just over a year. Other factors also influence commodity prices. Some see commodities in general, and gold in particular, as a hedge against inflation, and so may sell if their fears about rising prices abate. Other investors may sell to cover losses in other markets, or to rebalance their portfolios in light of falling share and bond prices, or to avoid the wrath of America?s politicians, who have vowed to crack down on ?speculation?. Commodities also tend to move in the opposite direction to the dollar, which has risen of late. All that notwithstanding, argues Francisco Blanch, of Merrill Lynch, as long as economic growth holds up in the developing world, the price of commodities should too. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Sep 2 17:40:34 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:40:34 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Coup de Grace Message-ID: <48BDCEF2.3000701@attglobal.net> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) www.kunstler.com (September 01 2008) As I write at 6:30 Eastern Daylight Time, Hurricane Gustave grinds out of the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall on the Louisiana Coast at Port Fourchon, the marshalling yard for the oil and gas industry - where the oil companies move people and equipment to the rig zone offshore. The storm spent the wee hours of the morning chewing through a wad of offshore drilling platforms and, perhaps more importantly, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (or LOOP), where all the oil supertanker ships from Middle East come to offload their cargos. It will probably be days before we know what was chewed up out there - not to mention the spaghetti-like network of pipelines that run all over the shallow bottom to carry the oil and gas from the platforms to the refineries just up the Mississippi corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. So, at this hour nobody knows yet what the outcome will be, either for the city of New Orleans and its suburbs, or for the oil and gas industry. My guess is that enough oil and gas will come off-line, be shut-in, or get disrupted to severely affect the normal operations of America for a couple of weeks. At the least, our just-in-time gasoline and diesel supply system will take a forced time-out. Those refineries on-shore are in the path to get hit. If they are damaged then we'll probably see shortages of motor fuels all over the eastern US. If we see a shortage of motor fuels, we may also get a disruption of trucking for the just-in-time food delivery system that keeps the supermarkets stocked. So, there is a possibility that Americans will experience both fuel and food shortages this back-to-school week - and in some places it may be the not-back-to-school week if there is any trouble getting fuel for the yellow bus fleets. There has also been chatter about possible far-reaching damage to the old-and-fragile electric grid if this storm trips just the right switches, but that's in the category of idle talk for now. All the above is unknown so far, and I won't even venture to guess what may happen in the city of New Orleans itself - except that the morale of its citizens must be badly strained as three years of re-building gets undone and the long-term future becomes an even more dubious proposition. Projected damage estimates on CNN early this morning ran into about the $30-billion range. This hit, and the potential disruptions to the everyday economy, could be the shot that finally pushes the long-teetering banking system over the edge. Surely the insurance industry, which is tied to banking and its worthless alphabet securities, will not be in position to cover all its billions of dollars in payouts. This may be what finally stops the game of musical chairs in which insolvent banks pretend to be capitalized by showing up for loans at the Federal Reserve's teller cages. For instance, when last seen before the Labor Day hiatus, Lehman Brothers was desperately scrambling for life-support from anybody and anything with a few billion spare bucks. As the hiatus ends and real-life reasserts itself, Lehman may finally find itself free-falling into the abyss, and the chain of mutual obligations, cross-collateralizations, and Ponzi plays connecting it to the other banks could break, bringing on a domino fall of insolvent banks and institutions. All the hurricane action has come at a bad time for the Republican Party. The roll-out of John McCain's ridiculous and cynical choice of a running mate, complete with pompom pumping cheerleaders, will remain front and center in the public's consciousness now while the party delegates go through a few procedural motions in Minneapolis - taking it light on the funny hats, and the other usual festive hijinks, which would only seem indecent against the background of a profound natural disaster. Despite the poll numbers currently showing a fairly close race between Obama and McCain, the Republicans are well on-track to being regarded as "the party that wrecked America". So it's fitting that their quadrennial meeting should be solemn and restrained. This official last day of summer, Labor Day Monday, with roughly twenty percent of America's oil production getting chewed up, and the financial markets shut down, and the public in other places than the Gulf states kicking back with weenies and burgers, or watching the hurricane on TV, may be the last day of seeming normality in this country for quite a while to come. I will come back to this week's blog later this afternoon or evening when more is known about the outcome of Hurricane Gustave. Update, 7:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time, September 1: Hurricane Gustave has now moved away from New Orleans and is stumbling northwest through the backwaters of Louisiana toward Texas. Damage to the city of NOLA seems to be minimal at this time. But there is something very strange about coverage coming across on the cable news networks. While trumpeting the "dodged bullet" story-line, and the triumph of post-Katrina government bureaucracy, there have been absolutely no reports of what's happened to the oil-and-gas platforms offshore, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), or the tangle of pipelines running along the sea floor from these things to the onshore terminals and refineries. I'm quite sure we will not get any comprehensive news about these things for days, because it will require a huge effort of up-close inspection. Gustave roared over that area as a category three storm. It is possible that a great deal of damage has been sustained and that we may still look forward to trouble with gasoline, diesel, and methane gas supplies in the weeks ahead. Playerz on the oil-and-gas futures markets must have been watching CNN and MSNBC all day - and have no idea whether we actually have a problem out in the rig zone. ____________________________________ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/09/as-i-write-at-630-eastern-daylight-time-hurricane--gustave-grinds-out-of-the-gulf-of-mexico-to-make-landfall-on-the--lo.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue Sep 2 20:34:09 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 22:34:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Safe in our cages Message-ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/26/civilliberties.labour > > Safe in our cages > Proposals to monitor all our communications are an intolerable assault on > liberty in the name of security > AC Grayling > Tuesday August 26 2008 > guardian.co.uk > > > In the Queen's speech this autumn Gordon Brown's government will announce > a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act > of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this > information will be gathered, stored, and "made accessible" to the > security and law enforcement agencies, local councils, and "other public > bodies". > > This fact should be in equal parts incredible and nauseating. It is > certainly enraging and despicable. Not even George Orwell in his most > febrile moments could have envisaged a world in which every citizen could > be so thoroughly monitored every moment of the day, spied upon, > eavesdropped, watched, tracked, followed by CCTV cameras, recorded and > scrutinised. Our words and web searches, our messages and intimacies, are > to be stored and made available to the police, the spooks, the local > council ? the local council! ? and "other public bodies". > > This Orwellian nightmare, additionally, is proposed for a world in which > leading soi-disant liberal democracies run, and/or permit rendition > flights to, Guantanamo Bay. How many steps separate an innocent British > citizen from some misinterpretation or interference or error in the > collected and 'made accessible' data of text messages and emails, and a > forthcoming home-grown version of Guantanamo Bay for people whose pattern > of phone calls does not fit the police definition of acceptable? > > Two things have made this ghastly development possible: the technology, > and politicians. The technology is way ahead of the game: Siemens of > Germany are already supplying 60 countries with a device that monitors and > integrates data from phone, email and internet activity; its software > establishes patterns of uses and alerts monitoring staff to deviations > from the patterns. As New Scientist reports, the system is already known > to throw up huge numbers of false positives; that could have been > predicted by a rudimentary acquaintance with human nature and human life. > But it is a fact that has to be added to the brilliance and reliability of > government and law enforcement agencies in keeping data secure, unhackable > and unlosable. > > The second point concerns the quality of our politicians. They say they > are putting us all under suspicion for our own good. They wish to protect > us against terrorists and criminals, and to make bureaucracy more > efficient. The efficiency of bureaucracy has one of its finest moments in > the neat and sorted piles of false teeth, hair and spectacles at the gas > chamber doors. Oh no: better the milling crowd than the police-disciplined > queues of bureaucratic efficiency; better the irritation of dealing with > human fallibility than the fear of dealing with jack-booted gendarmes > whose grip on one's arms follows stepping out of the queue. > > But as to the first matter: protecting us ? by making us all suspects, all > potential criminals and terrorists ? from terrorism and criminality. Well: > the first duty of our politicians should be to protect our liberties, and > to encourage us to see that liberty carries risks, which we should be > trusted to understand and accept so that we can make our own lives our own > way. But no: these politicians ? Brown and Labour, once the party of the > people ? are going to keep us safe by not keeping our liberties safe; they > are going to keep us safe by making us unfree. Yet the putative benefit of > protecting us from terrorism and crime is unattainable. They themselves > say 'there is no 100% guarantee of safety': but they are going to spy on > us all anyway! In fact they are going to create crime: a huge new criminal > industry awaits for stealing, copying, falsely creating and manipulating > that newly-created precious commodity, "identity". A huge new impetus > awaits for techno-crime to disrupt the monitoring and data storage systems > on which the government intends to spend billions of our tax money, > creating its unblinking eye in our bedrooms. As surely as night follows > day, the new surveillance society will do more harm than good. > > The potential for profoundly negative uses of technology has escaped us. > It is with despair that I conclude that we have to start all over again > with the demos and resistance, the campaigns and arguments, to roll back > this huge and ultimately destructive assault on our civil liberties. Once > upon a time the authorities worked at frightening everyone into thinking > that the unblinking eye of a deity exercised surveillance and > data-gathering over them. Now we have Gordon Brown and Siemens, the real > thing, not a myth: the unblinking eye of the security services, the local > council, "other public bodies", in our bedrooms, our text messages, our > emails, our internet searches. Torquemada and Stalin would have given > their right arms for what Gordon Brown will tell us in this autumn's > Queen's speech he is intending to introduce. Brown has not even thought of > that comparison, shame and double shame upon him. Might it help to read > the glutinous websites of the Home Office on surveillance and protection > of our liberties? Enjoy, if you can: or weep. > > Is this adequate to today, before the new universal surveillance comes on > stream? Is it adequate to future developments in surveillance technology, > to future even less benign governments, to increased "security" powers in > actual or alleged future states of emergency? What new crimes, new > criminals, new threats to society, will need to be plucked from the > watched masses? Smokers? Readers of unauthorised books? Will old crimes > return - homosexuality, Catholicism, Jewishness, atheism, adultery, > pre-marital sex? Will every individual have to be a tight-lipped, > right-thinking, timid, dutiful, obedient, queue-forming clone to escape > the censure of the unblinking eye now being opened by the state upon us? > > We need to stop this assault on civil liberies going further, we need to > roll back the attritions they have already suffered, and we need a rock > solid written consitution to protect us from those who aim to make us all > suspects in the gaze of the unblinking universal eye. > > Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008 > > If you have any questions about this email, please contact the > guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp at guardian.co.uk. > From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Wed Sep 3 06:51:02 2008 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:51:02 +1000 Subject: [A-List] Lessons of the Caucasus war: Imperial ambitions need to be blocked | Links Message-ID: <48BE8836.9070904@greenleft.org.au> By *Andrey Kolganov* and *Aleksandr Buzgalin, *translated by /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal?/s *Renfrey Clarke* Moscow, September 2, 2008 -- To most Russians, it was obvious from the beginning that the latest war in the Caucasus began with an attack by Georgian forces on South Ossetia, and that ultimately, it was unleashed on the initiative of the United States. To the West, meanwhile, it was just as clear from the outset that the August war in the Caucasus represented an assault on small, defenceless and democratic Georgia by huge, aggressive and authoritarian Russia. This is what almost all the world media have asserted, and continue to assert. To a significant degree, this is even believed by a significant section of world civil society, including by anti-globalisation activists who for the most part have little sympathy for the US establishment. Why was this? Why are there such directly counterposed versions of the same events? Why, after nearly 20 years of warm post-Soviet ?friendship?, have Russia and the US so rapidly, and in such radical fashion, taken up positions on the opposite sides of the barricades? Are the politics of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev so different from those of Russia;s first post-Soviet President Boris Yeltsin? Has Russia really become either an ?enemy of democracy? (from the point of view of the West), or the ?defender and hope of the anti-imperial forces? (from the point of view of Russian state officials)?What does the conflict in the Caucasus signify? Is it the prologue to a new worldwide confrontation between the ?democratic? empire of the West (with its centre in the US) and Russia?s mini-empire on the periphery? Or is it ?merely? one in a series of local wars? Full article at http://links.org.au/node/611 Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 3 08:24:56 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 10:24:56 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Iran and the Left in Latin America Message-ID: Sep 4, 2008 Iran and the left in Latin America By Kaveh L Afrasiabi Bolivian President Evo Morales is in Tehran this week, ushering in a new chapter in his country's economic and strategic cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has promised a hefty investment in Bolivia's energy sector and other joint ventures, some involving other Latin and Central American countries, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, not to overlook Cuba. In a joint communique, Morales and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad have signed off on the need for "concrete political steps against every type of imperialism", while also condemning the intervention of the United Nations Security Council in Iran's nuclear program as "lacking any legal or technical justification". Bolivia may be a poor country, but it is strategically located and represents an important ally for Iran that can act as a catalyst in enhancing Iran's growing cooperation with other Latin nations, especially those considered leftist or populist. In his visit to Bolivia last year, Ahmadinejad promised that Iran would make a US$1 billion investment in Bolivia's underdeveloped oil and gas sector and the two sides are now much closer in turning this into reality. Certainly, Morales' decision to set aside any hesitation and fully support Iran's position in the current nuclear standoff goes a long way in cementing Iran-Bolivia friendship. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 3 09:49:31 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 11:49:31 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?La_gestion_de_l=27eau=2C_un_d=E9fi_pour?= =?windows-1252?q?_demain_=E0_traiter_aujourd=27hui?= Message-ID: La gestion de l'eau, un d?fi pour demain ? traiter aujourd'hui LE MONDE | 03.09.08 | 14h24 ? Mis ? jour le 03.09.08 | 17h21 MONTPELLIER ENVOY?E SP?CIALE Les soci?t?s humaines doivent r?former rapidement leur gestion des ressources en eau douce, sur lesquelles p?sent des pressions de plus en plus importantes. Sans changements, la s?curit? hydrique, alimentaire et ?nerg?tique de certaines r?gions du monde serait compromise. Tel est, en substance, le message des organisateurs du 13e congr?s mondial de l'eau, qui a lieu ? Montpellier du lundi 1er au jeudi 4 septembre. "Pendant longtemps, la ressource en eau a ?t? disponible, en grande quantit?, et de bonne qualit?. Elle ?tait consid?r?e comme in?puisable, r?sume Cecilia Tortajada, pr?sidente de l'Association internationale des ressources en eau (IWRA), co-organisatrice du congr?s. Ce n'est plus le cas, nous approchons maintenant des limites. Notre objectif est de g?n?rer de la connaissance sur ce sujet, et de pousser les d?cideurs ? anticiper les d?fis ? venir." Le congr?s de Montpellier, ? dominante scientifique, se tient quelques mois avant la r?union du Forum mondial de l'eau, fix? en mars 2009 ? Istanbul, qui rassemblera politiques, industriels et organisations non gouvernementales. Quelque 260 communications sont pr?vues en H?rault : ?volution du d?bit des fleuves ouest-africains, impact du r?chauffement climatique sur l'irrigation du riz en Chine, gestion des conflits entre usagers en Espagne, etc. Toutes explorent les multiples facettes d'une m?me r?alit? : au moment o? la population mondiale s'accro?t, l'eau se fait plus rare. Premi?re cause de d?s?quilibre : le r?chauffement climatique. La temp?rature augmentant, l'?vaporation de l'eau des fleuves et des rivi?res est plus importante, donc la quantit? d'eau disponible dans l'environnement moindre. Le r?gime des pluies ?tant aussi affect?, les disparit?s entre r?gions du monde, d?j? consid?rables, devraient ?tre accentu?es. SUREXPLOITATION Le deuxi?me grand facteur de rar?faction est l'accroissement des pollutions d'origine urbaine, industrielle ou agricole. "Tr?s peu de pays traitent correctement leurs eaux us?es, remarque Cecilia Tortajada. A Mexico, le principal cours d'eau est tellement pollu? que la ville doit aller pr?lever son eau potable ? des kilom?tres." La salinisation des eaux douces, due ? la surexploitation des nappes phr?atiques c?ti?res ou des fleuves, les rend ?galement impropres ? la consommation sans de co?teux traitements pr?alables. Or les besoins en eau augmentent. La croissance de la population mondiale, qui a lieu essentiellement dans des m?gapoles, concentre la demande dans l'espace, ce qui complique l'approvisionnement en eau potable. Mais ce sont surtout les volumes n?cessaires pour assurer l'alimentation de la population mondiale ? l'avenir qui inqui?tent. Aujourd'hui, 70 % en moyenne du volume d'eau douce pr?lev? dans le monde vont au secteur agricole. "Les cultures irrigu?es ont un rendement deux ? trois fois sup?rieur aux cultures pluviales, explique Michel Jarraud, secr?taire g?n?ral de l'Organisation m?t?orologique mondiale (OMM). L'irrigation devra ?tre d?velopp?e, mais son efficacit? dans l'utilisation de l'eau devra s'accro?tre." Le choix des plantes cultiv?es devra ?galement tenir compte de la moindre disponibilit? en eau, selon M. Jarraud. De plus, l'augmentation du prix de l'?nergie et la lutte contre les ?missions de gaz ? effet de serre incitent les Etats ? d?velopper les ressources alternatives, comme l'hydro?lectricit?, mais aussi les centrales thermiques ou nucl?aires, qui ont besoin de gros volumes d'eau pour leur refroidissement, ou les agrocarburants, eux aussi consommateurs d'eau. Ces ?volutions imposent des r?ponses tous azimuts : meilleure connaissance des ressources, cr?ation d'infrastructures de stockage et de traitement des eaux us?es, ma?trise de la consommation et des pollutions, r?examen des politiques agricoles, nouvelles m?thodes d'arbitrage entre des usagers qui entreront de plus en plus en conflit... Les participants au congr?s de Montpellier l'ont martel? : ces r?ponses doivent ?tre ?labor?es par les Etats, les collectivit?s locales et les usagers concern?s. "En mati?re d'eau, chaque situation est particuli?re. Et, contrairement au p?trole, l'eau ne peut pas ?tre transport?e sur de longues distances, rappelle Pierre Chevallier, directeur de l'Institut languedocien de recherche sur l'eau et l'environnement (IDEE) et pr?sident du comit? d'organisation du congr?s. La correspondance entre les quantit?s disponibles et les usages ne peut se trouver qu'au niveau local." Ga?lle Dupont Chiffres R?serves d'eau. En 2025, 8 milliards d'habitants devront se partager la m?me quantit? d'eau douce qu'aujourd'hui. Les r?serves s'?l?veront en moyenne ? 4 800 m3 par an et par habitant, contre 7 300 en 2000 et 16 800 en 1950. Eau disponible. L'Am?rique du Sud dispose du quart de l'eau disponible dans le monde, mais n'accueille que 6 % de la population. A l'oppos?, 60 % des habitants de la plan?te vivent en Asie, qui ne d?tient qu'un tiers de l'eau disponible. P?nurie d'eau. 30 % de la population mondiale dispose de moins de 2 000 m3 par an et par habitant. Les r?gions les plus expos?es par la p?nurie d'eau sont le Sahel, la M?diterran?e, le Moyen-Orient, le sud des Etats-Unis et l'Asie. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 3 10:01:43 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 12:01:43 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Argentina to Repay $6.7 Billion in Paris Club Debt Message-ID: Argentina to Repay $6.7 Billion in Paris Club Debt Move Seeks to Allay Investor Concerns Of Another Default By JOHN LYONS September 3, 2008; Page A12 Argentina, which committed the world's biggest debt default in 2001, said it will repay $6.7 billion it owes to foreign governments in an attempt to allay investor fears that it is headed for another economic meltdown. Argentina's populist president, Cristina Kirchner, described the payment as evidence that the South American nation was committed to avoiding a second debt crash -- a commitment that some investors had come to doubt in recent months. The move highlights rising problems for Mrs. Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, Nestor Kirchner, in power but has seen her approval ratings drop after an attempt to raise taxes on soy exports caused a farmers strike. The country bounced back from its 2001 crash as it stiffed creditors, instituted unorthodox policies such as price controls, and profited from high global commodity prices. Recent commodity-price declines could worsen Argentina's economic outlook, and moving to restore the country's credibility with lenders could broaden Mrs. Kirchner's options. Argentina will use part of its $47 billion in foreign-currency reserves to pay the debts, owed to a group of creditor nations including France, the U.S. and Japan that are known together as the Paris Club. Argentina defaulted on the debts during its last crisis and the outstanding obligations have remained a sticking point for other possible lenders. Clearing the marker may encourage private companies and state-run lenders to extend credit to Argentina's energy industry and other sectors, though not directly to the government, observers said. While investors said the announcement was a positive signal, market reaction reflected a view that the payment won't fundamentally alter Argentina's sovereign-debt predicament. Default insurance on Argentine bonds in the credit-default swap market -- already among the world's costliest to insure -- was essentially unchanged Tuesday after the announcement. To be sure, many analysts say Argentina can meet debt payments through next year -- on paper anyway. But while Argentina has amassed big international reserves as its commodity-rich economy has benefited from an export-led expansion, its outlook is tricky. Credit-ratings firm Standard & Poor's cut its Argentina rating last month, and domestic confidence in the banking system has slipped amid concerns Mrs. Kirchner will devalue the peso to energize the economy. Even though Argentina lopped off around 70% of its debt load in a hard-nosed restructuring following its 2001 default, the South American country is once again facing a daunting pile of debt notices coming due. Argentina's financing needs will double to at least $12 billion next year, according to the investment bank Morgan Stanley. But while Argentina was a darling of the international lending community the last time around, its list of willing lenders has shrunk -- in large part because of skepticism about the policies of Mrs. Kirchner and her husband. Argentina is essentially shut out of the international bond markets because of legal tangles with investors still trying to get money returned from the 2001 default. Argentina's once-thriving domestic market for inflation-linked bonds is also closed because bond investors believe that Argentina's official inflation numbers are fudged. Argentina claims its inflation rate is around 9%, while economists believe that it is well over 20%. The Kirchners have shunned the International Monetary Fund, which wouldn't lend to Argentina until questions about its inflation data are cleared up. Indeed, Argentina's main source of funding in recent years has been Venezuela. But even Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez appears to be growing wary. Venezuela charged Argentina a stiff 15% interest rate on its last $1 billion bond purchase. Write to John Lyons at john.lyons at wsj.com Argentina to Repay $6.7 Billion in Paris Club Debt (Update3) By Eliana Raszewski and Bill Faries Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina will repay its $6.7 billion of defaulted debt with the Paris Club group of creditors, seeking to ease companies' access to financing as growth slows in South America's second-biggest economy. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said she signed a decree allowing the central bank's international reserves to be used to pay the Paris Club, an informal association of creditors that includes the U.S., Germany, Italy and Japan. ``This reaffirms Argentina's willingness to pay its international commitments,'' Fernandez said today at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. ``This payment puts companies that can get financing abroad in the pole position, which they haven't had before this decision.'' An accord with the Paris Club would help shore up investor confidence in the country as economic growth slumps. Gross domestic product will expand 6.8 percent this year and 3.2 percent in 2009, a slowdown from more than 8.5 percent in each of the past five years amid a recovery from a default and currency devaluation in 2001 and 2002, according to a report today by Merrill Lynch & Co. Xavier Musca, president of the Paris Club, said he welcomed Argentina's decision. Musca, speaking in a telephone interview, said the organization is working out details of the decision with Argentine Finance Secretary Hernan Lorenzino and plans to discuss the payment at its Sept. 15 meeting. Corporate Credit The move may smooth access to international investment credits for companies in Argentina, Cristiano Rattazzi, president of Fiat Argentina SA, told reporters at the presidential palace. Argentina received just 5.4 percent of the $105.9 billion in foreign direct investment in Latin America and the Caribbean last year. Brazil got 33 percent, Mexico 22 percent and Chile 14 percent, according to the United Nations. The central bank's foreign reserves swelled to $47.1 billion as of Sept. 1, recovering from a low of $8.2 billion in January 2003. The country has increased reserves thanks to a boom in agriculture commodity prices that helped the government increase tax revenue. ``This will have some positive impacts, but it will also raise more questions about how the government uses central bank reserves,'' said Daniel Marx, a former finance secretary, in a telephone interview in Buenos Aires. Central bank President Martin Redrado said Argentina's foreign reserves will remain ``robust'' after the debt payment. Reserves This is the second time since 2006 that Argentina has used central bank reserves to pay off international lenders. In January 2006, Fernandez's husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner used central bank reserves to pay the International Monetary Fund $9.5 billion in a move he said would allow the country to reclaim its ``autonomy.'' Kirchner renegotiated $95 billion in defaulted debt in 2005, offering investors 30 cents on the dollar. Since then, the government has refused to open talks with the holders of about $20 billion in defaulted debt who rejected the government's offer. ``This shows the government is trying to make amends with the market,'' said Eduardo Levy-Yeyati, head of Latin American research at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. ``The negative side is that given all the concerns about the country's financing needs, using reserves to pay off this debt means they'll have fewer liquid reserves to meet those future needs. It's not a zero-sum game, but it's not a big positive either.'' Net borrowing needs will climb to at least $11.3 billion next year from $6.1 billion, according to Barclays. `First Step' Robert Shapiro, co-chair of American Task Force Argentina, a group that represents some of the bond holdouts, said via e-mail that the Paris Club payoff should be a ``first step'' in efforts to repay all defaulted debt. Argentina's 8.28 percent dollar bonds due in December 2033 were unchanged on the news. The country's main stock index, the Merval, fell 1.1 percent to 1757.94. Shares of Argentine banks including Grupo Financiero Galicia SA and Banco Hipotecario SA surged more than 3.8 percent. ``This decision doesn't change Argentina's global situation,'' said Silvia Marengo, who manages about $130 million of emerging-market bonds at Clariden Leu in London. ``The problems that the government must face are not related to this debt. Those problems are high inflation, the energy infrastructure and a possible new conflict with farmers, and these problems remain.'' To contact the reporter on this story: Eliana Raszewski in Buenos Aires eraszewski at bloomberg.net; Bill Faries in Buenos Aires wfaries at bloomberg.net Last Updated: September 2, 2008 18:49 EDT From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 10:33:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:33:14 -0400 Subject: [A-List] DID A MISSISSIPPI RAID PROTECT RIGHTWING POLITICIANS? Message-ID: <48BE840A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> DID A MISSISSIPPI RAID PROTECT RIGHTWING POLITICIANS? By David Bacon TruthOut Feature http://www.truthout.org/article/did-a-mississippi-raid-protect-rightwing-politicians LAUREL, MS (8/31/08) -- On August 25, immigration agents swooped down on Howard Industries, a Mississippi electrical equipment factory, taking 481 workers to a privately-run detention center in Jena, Louisiana. A hundred and six women were also arrested at the plant, and released wearing electronic monitoring devices on their ankles, if they had children, or without them, if they were pregnant. Eight workers were taken to Federal court in Hattiesburg, where they were charged with aggravated identity theft. Afterwards Barbara Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), stated the raid took place because of a tip by a "union member" two years before. Other media accounts focused on an incident in which plant workers allegedly cheered as their coworkers were led away by ICE agents. The articles claim the plant was torn by tension between immigrant and non-immigrant workers, and that unions in Mississippi are hostile to immigrants. Many Mississippi activists and workers, however, charge the raid had a political agenda - undermining a growing political coalition that threatens the state's conservative Republican establishment. They also say the raid, which took place during union contract negotiations, will help the company resist demands for better wages and conditions. Jim Evans, a national AFL-CIO staff member in Mississippi and a leading member of the state legislature's Black Caucus, said he believed "this raid is an effort to drive immigrants out of Mississippi. It is also an attempt to drive a wedge between immigrants, African Americans, white people and unions - all those who want political change here." Patricia Ice, attorney for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), agreed that "this is political. They want a mass exodus of immigrants out of the state, the kind we've seen in Arizona and Oklahoma. The political establishment here is threatened by Mississippi's changing demographics, and what the electorate might look like in 20 years." In the last two decades, the percentage of African Americans in the state's population has increased to over 35%, and immigrants, who were statistically insignificant until recently, are expected to reach 10% in the next decade. Mississippi union membership has been among the nation's lowest, but since the early 1980s, workers have joined unions in catfish and poultry plants, casinos and shipyards, along with those at Howard Industries. Evans, other members of the Black Caucus, many of the state's labor organizations, and immigrant communities all see shifting demographics as the basis for changing the state's politics. Over the last seven years their growing coalition has proposed legislation to set up a Department of Labor (Mississippi is the only state without one), guarantee access to education for children of all races and nationalities, and provide drivers' licenses to immigrants. MIRA organized support in the state capitol for those proposals and Evans, who sponsored many of them, chairs MIRA's board. Earlier this year, however, the legislature passed, and Governor Haley Barbour signed, a law making it a state felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job, punishable by 1-5 years in prison and $1,000-10,000 in fines. Employers are given immunity for employing workers without papers, so long as they vet new hires through an ICE database called E-Verify. It is still not known whether the people arrested at Howard Industries will be charged under the new state law. Evans says the law and the raid serve the same objectives. "They both just make it easier to exploit workers. The people who profit from Mississippi's low wage system want to keep it the way it is," he alleged. In the week before the raid, MIRA organizers received reports of a growing number of ICE agents in southern Mississippi. They began leafleting immigrant communities, warning them about a possible raid and explaining their rights should people be questioned about their immigration status. When agents finally showed up at the Howard Industries plant, many workers say they tried to invoke those rights, and warn others that a raid was in progress. One woman, later detained and then released to care for her child, began to call workers who had not yet come to the factory on her cell phone, warning them to stay away. "She first called her brother, and then began calling anyone else she could think of," explained her mother, who works in a local chicken plant. Both feared being identified publicly. "An agent grabbed her arm, and asked her what she was doing, so she went into the bathroom, and kept calling people until they took her phone away." Howard Industries, like most Mississippi employers, has a long record of opposing unions. Workers there chose representation by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on June 8, 2000, by a vote of 162-108. Employment at the plant, which manufactures electrical ballasts and transformers, grew considerably after the election, and the company now employs over 4000 workers at several locations in Mississippi. In 2002 it received a $31.5 million subsidy for expansion from the state government, and at one point state legislators were all given HI laptop computers. "The company is very well-connected politically," says Evans, who noted that its owners donated to the campaigns of former Democratic governor Ronnie Musgrove, and then to Mississippi's current Republican governor Haley Barbour. As it grew the company hired many immigrant Mexican and Central American workers, diversifying a workforce that was originally primarily African American and white. The company has declined to comment, and released a press statement that said, "Howard Industries runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for jobs. It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants." During the organizing drive the union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging intimidation and violations of workers' rights. After the union and company agreed on a contract, more charges followed. NLRB Region 15 issued a complaint against the company for violating the union's bargaining rights. Roger Doolittle, attorney for IBEW Local 1317, says other charges allege that the company threatened a union steward for trying to represent workers in the plant. In June the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced it intended to fine the company $123,000 for 36 violations of health and safety regulations at the Pendorf plant, where the raid took place, and another $41,000 in fines for a second Laurel location. Tension between the company and union increased after the collective bargaining agreement expired at the beginning of August. According to one immigrant worker, who was not detained because he worked on swing shift and did not want to be identified, the union was asking for a wage increase of $1.50/hour and better vacation benefits. Company medical benefits are also an issue among workers, he said, because family coverage costs over $100/week, putting it out of reach for most employees. Mississippi is a right-to-work state, and labor contracts cannot require that workers belong to the union. Instead, unions must continually try to sign workers up as members. In past years, according to other union sources, IBEW Local 1317 had a reputation as a union that did not offer much support to its immigrant members. According to the swing shift worker, who did not belong to the union, there were just a few hundred members at the Pendorf plant, and in negotiations the company used that low membership as a reason not to sign a new agreement. To increase its ability to negotiate a contract, Local 1317 began making greater efforts to sign up immigrant members. Spanish-speaking organizers were brought in, and they handed out leaflets in Spanish explaining the benefits of membership. They visited workers at home so they could talk about the union without being overheard or seen by company supervisors. According to the swing shift worker, many began to join, especially the immigrants who'd been hired most recently. IBEW's national newspaper, Electrical Worker, reported that over 200 had signed up last April, according to Local 1317's African-American business manager Clarence Larkin. "It's a constant process to keep the union alive and growing," he told the paper. That's when the plant was raided. Local 1317 will now have to try to negotiate a contract after the loss of many of its members, who were among those detained. Those members, who joined the union in hopes of better wages and treatment, instead have been imprisoned for days in Jena, Louisiana, a two-hour drive from Laurel. ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez would not provide an estimate of how long they might be jailed, but said "the investigation of their cases is ongoing." The day after ICE agents stormed the factory MIRA began organizing meetings to provide legal advice, food and economic help. According to MIRA director Bill Chandler, Howard Industry representatives told detainees' families, and women released to care for children, that the company wouldn't give them their paychecks. On August 28 MIRA organizer Vicky Cintra led a group of workers to the Pendorf plant to demand their pay. Managers called Laurel police and sheriffs, who threatened to arrest her. After workers began chanting, "Let her go!" and news reporters appeared on the scene, the company finally agreed to distribute checks to about 70 people. The swing shift worker was so frightened by the raid that he hadn't gone back to work after almost a week, and wasn't sure he'd have a job waiting if he did. "Everyone is still really scared," he said. Doolittle agreed, and said that fear would affect more than just the workers taken away. "Workers get apprehensive anytime something like this happens," he said. "That's just human nature." Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, explained that "raids drive down wages because they intimidate workers, even citizens and legal residents. The employer brings in another batch of employees and continues business as usual, while people who protest get targeted and workers get deported. Raids really demonstrate the employer's power." The Hattiesburg American reported Friday that Howard Industries sent a letter to customers two days after the raid, assuring them that production would be back to normal by the end of the week, and noting that the company has not been charged. Spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez claimed ICE waited two years after receiving a call from a "union member" before conducting the raid, because "we took the time needed for our investigation." She declined to say how that investigation was conducted, or what led ICE to believe their tip had come from a union member. The picture of a plant in which union members were hostile to immigrants was reinforced after the raid by media accounts of an incident in which workers "applauded" as their coworkers were taken away. But on August 29, when Cintra and the braceleted women sat in front of the plant for a second day, demanding more paychecks, African American workers came up to them as they left work, embraced the women, and told them they supported them. "It's hard to believe that a two-year old phone call to ICE led to this raid, but whether or not the call ever took place, that possibility is a product of the poisonous atmosphere fostered by politicians of both parties in Mississippi," says MIRA director Chandler. "In the last election Barbour and Republicans campaigned against immigrants to get elected, but so did all the Democratic statewide candidates except Attorney General Jim Hood. The raid will make the climate even worse" During the 2007 election campaign the Ku Klux Klan organized a 500-person rally in Tupelo, and when MIRA organizer Erik Fleming urged Barbour to veto the bill making work a felony for the undocumented, he was attacked by state anti-immigrant organizations. Some state labor leaders have contributed to anti-immigrant hostility. After the Howard Industries workers, many of them union members, were arrested, state AFL-CIO President Robert Shaffer told the Associated Press that he doubted that immigrants could join unions if they were not in the country legally. U.S. labor law, however, holds that all workers have union rights, regardless of immigration status. It also says unions have a duty to represent all members fairly and equally "This raid will just make us more determined," Evans declared. "We won't go back to the kind of racism Mississippi has known throughout its past." For more articles and images on immigration, see http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/imgrants.htm Just out from Beacon Press: Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002 See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575 See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html -- __________________________________ David Bacon, Photographs and Stories http://dbacon.igc.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 11:09:42 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:09:42 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Britain: More Calls For New Crimean War Message-ID: <48BE8C96.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: "A-List" Subject: [A-List] Britain: More Calls For New Crimean War From: "Tony B." Dare I say it, Russian minorities in Ukraine, Latvia or elsewhere are like the Sudeten Germans in pre-war Czechoslovakia. [Rifkind fails to mention that Ukraine and Latvia, the latter on and off but more on than off, were part for Russia for centuries, hence the Russian-speaking populations there. The Sudetenland had never been part of a German state prior to 1938.] ^^^^ CB: Not to mention if they want to make an analogy to Nazi Germany, it is the US , which has invaded Iraq in violation of the Crimes Against Peace UN law, and NATO that are like Nazi Germany in the current world context, not Russia. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 14:53:37 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:53:37 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Claim that social movements go to DP to die is false when historical record examined Message-ID: <48BEC111.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Charles Brown ^^^^ CB: Come to think of it, it can be argued that the Civil Rights Movement debilitated the Democratic Party, given the success of the Nixon/Reagan Southern Strategy in pinning the Dem Party as the party of Black people with various degrees of white racists who shifted to the Reps, and have caused the Reps to dominate for almost 30 years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S. Artesian -clip- The discussion included the discussion of the fact that the "dramatic" movements of the 20th century originated outside that party, and when "moving" into it, which certainly does not mean that the rank and file of that movement participated in any way shape or form in the forming of program and policy of that party, the movement was debilitated. ^^^^ CB: Lets test this claim with respect to the Civil Rights Movement/anti-Jim Crow Movement of the 1950's and 60's. Did the Democratic Party debilitate the Civil Rights Movement or did the Democratic President and Congress pass Civil Rights statutes and Constitutional Amendments ? How about the women's suffrage movement ? How about the labor movement to legalize unions in the 1930's ? How about the anti-Vietnam war peace movement ? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 14:55:43 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:55:43 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Social movements don't die in the DP Message-ID: <48BEC18F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yes, Charles, let's test that. In each and every case you mention--woman suffrage, civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movement--the impetus to change came from people functioning independent of the electoral parties. As the movements grew stronger, they forced officeholders to make concessions. ^^^^ CB: Yes, and contrary to Sartesian's claim, none of these dramatic movements of the 20th Century was debilitated by the Democratic Party. So, his claim fails the tests of factual history. All of these movements succeeded to a substantial degree. In the case of the Vietnam war peace movement, it basically took over and "debilitated" the Democratic Party in 1972 with McGovern as the candidate whose main platform plank was end the Viet nam war. That debilitated the Dem Party , in the sense that Nixon won by a landslide. In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, it "took over" the Democratic Party in a large sense - federal civil rights laws passed, dozens of Black/ urban mayors and city council members, legislators winning office, and the Republicans instituting the "Southern Strategy" by which they basically won decades of Presidential elections based on identifying the Democratic Party with Black people ( the Civil Rights Movement) in the minds of various strains of racists. ^^^^ As an aside, it was the Democratic Party that provided the greater obstacle to woman suffrage in the heyday of the movement. And the Democratic Party was responsible for needing civil rights legislation in the first place, since it was the party that established and tightened segregationist standards as late as the 1950s. And the Democratic Party started and escalated the Vietnam War. ^^^^^ CB: Yea, there is a historical reversal of the roles of the Parties with FDR, fyi. At any rate, the women's suffrage movement was not debilitated by the Dem Party, as Sartisian claimed. It succeeded. ^^^^^^^ We're not discussing ancient history here. Have we forgotten? ^^^ CB: I think Sartisian said 20th Century. ^^^^^^^ ML This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 14:57:36 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:57:36 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Social movements don't die in the DP Message-ID: <48BEC200.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> - One think that the link to the comic below points out is that FDR, a Democrat, was the first president since Grover Cleveland in the Pullman Strike to use the military to break a strike. All gains made by working people have been won outside of the DP...I don't know if I've followed this thread closely enough but has anyone mentioned the old say, "The Democratic Party in the place where social movements go to die"? ^^^ CB: Yes, Sartesian is essentially saying that ( go to be debilitated) , but when we look at some historical facts it isn't an accurate generalization for the main social movements - women's suffrage, unionization of industrial labor, Civil Rights/anti-Jim Crow, Vietnam peace, modern women's lib . _None_ of them died in the Democratic Party. They all achieved significantly their historical goals. And in the case of the Civil Rights Movement it can be said that the Democratic Party sacrificed itself in a big sense in that the successful Republican Southern Strategy of the last 40 years is based on the Democratic Party support and actualization of the Civil Rights Movement, the complete opposite of this "old saying". ^^^^ http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vx_Yf3S3yJ8/SLMdeE25ztI/AAAAAAAAAFU/KVSIjLiSe64/s1600-h/General-Strike-%236asendoutth.gif Christopher Hutchinson This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 3 15:54:51 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 17:54:51 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia's Collective Farms: Hot Capitalist Property Message-ID: August 31, 2008 The Food Chain Russia's Collective Farms: Hot Capitalist Property By ANDREW E. KRAMER PODLESNY, Russia ? The fields around this little farming enclave are among the most fertile on earth. But like tens of million of acres of land in this country, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they literally went to seed. Now that may be changing. A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture. The change is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new reform allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia. "Where else do you have such an abundance of land?" Samir Suleymanov, the World Bank's director for Russia, asked in an interview. As a result, the business of buying and reforming collective farms is suddenly and improbably very profitable, attracting hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, Swedish portfolio investors and even a descendant of White Russian ?migr? nobility. Earlier reformers envisioned the collective farms eventually breaking up into family farms. But the new business model rests on a belief that Russia's long, painful history of collectivization is destined to end in large corporate factory farms. These investments are also a gamble in a country accustomed to government control of business. Some officials have hinted at the prospect of a government takeover of the farming industry reminiscent of the Soviet era. And Russia's minister of agriculture, Aleksey Gordeyev, speaks often of food in terms of national security. "Russia is very often perceived throughout the world as a major military power," he told a food summit in Rome early in his tenure. "At the same time, and perhaps above and beyond anything else, Russia is a major agrarian power." Russia occupies an unusual niche in the global food chain. Before the Russian Revolution and the subsequent forced collectivization of farming under Stalin, it was the largest grain exporting nation in the world. Today, roughly 7 percent of the planet's arable land is either owned by the Russian state or by collective farms, but about a sixth of all that agricultural land ? some 35 million hectares ? lies fallow. By comparison, all of Britain has 6 million hectares of cultivatable land. Even excluding the slivers of land contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster or by industrial pollution, Russia also has millions of acres of untouched, pristine land that could be used for agriculture. Yields in Russia, however, are tiny. The average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare ? compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada. (A hectare is about two and a half acres.) If Russia could regain its old title of leading grain exporter, it would significantly relieve strained world markets and reduce prices, Mr. Suleymanov said. It could also reduce malnutrition and starvation. What is more, a significant expansion of farming capacity could add to Russia's heft as a world power, much as its prowess in oil and natural gas aided its resurgence in recent years. "The great story of this land is how big it is," said Kingsmill Bond, chief analyst at the Troika Dialog brokerage in Moscow. Troika is closely watching the transformation of the Russian countryside into an investment opportunity. "You can't buy anything like it anywhere else in the world," he said. Analysts say the new companies dedicated to breaking up and reforming collective farms hope to bring huge tracts of land into production ? tracts that can take advantage of economies of scale. Financiers See Potential The last attempt at decollectivization, under the government of President Boris Yeltsin, failed in part because collective farms devolved into small holdings. Those who made the leap to become private farmers failed. The rest remained in the collective farms. Some trade and agriculture experts say there is still a danger that a country like today's Russia, which jealously guards its natural resources, could one day renationalize farms or form a cartel that dictates to landowners. Clearly, that fear is not foremost in investors' minds. Land prices have roughly doubled in the last two years, according to Troika. The average price a hectare was $570 in 2006 and is now $1,000, Mr. Bond said. One of the first investors to see value in the Russian countryside was Michel Orloff, a former director of the Carlyle Group's Moscow office and the scion of a White Russian noble family. He said a visit to Argentina in 2004 inspired him. He saw large landowners making profits without government subsidies, and envisioned a similar model for Russia that would hark back to the noble estates of his family history, only lubricated by modern finance. "In Moscow, they said I was crazy for going into agriculture," Mr. Orloff recalled on a visit to one of his factory farms outside Podlesny ? formerly the Sunrise of Communism collective farm. "Now, they all envy us." His model rested on the idea that the collective farms should not be broken up into smaller plots but consolidated into larger factory farms, able to achieve economies of scale. (He calls the new corporate farms "clusters.") Using John Deere tractors and Western-trained agronomists, he has nearly doubled yields. Last year, Black Earth Farming fields yielded 3.3 tons of wheat a hectare, and the company says it is on track this year to reap 4.4 tons a hectare. To be sure, this is Russia. Though many investors are piling in, their investments remain small relative to the size of the huge agricultural sector. Black Earth, Razgulai and Cherkizovo are large public companies involved in buying and reforming collective farms. (Many Russian oligarchs and regional elites have bought land, too, but their holdings are not generally public.) While Westerners have invested in the companies, the businesses are all local, requiring a Russian connection, as most Russian commodity investment does. That requirement, as well as the possibility that Russia could become a bigger supplier of food, gives pause to some Europeans. They are concerned about Russia's new assertiveness diplomatically and militarily. Provincial Attitudes Even before the recent discord between Russia and the West, the obstacles to tapping Russia's vast farmland were substantial. The rural population has declined precipitously as young people fled to the cities. The title to land, after the failed decollectivization of the Yeltsin era, is often unclear. Rural Russians' work ethic has been shaped by decades on collectivized farms that offered little reward for individual effort. "We see an increasing number of entrepreneurs coming to us with business plans trying to convert this land," Mr. Bond said. "Some will be successful, but most will not be able to do it." Some investors have resorted to hiring psychologists to untangle the village culture and determine how best to instill a work ethic. The best way to motivate the Russian farmer, according to one investor, is not higher salaries for individuals, which tend to create resentment, but rewards emphasizing the team nature of the work, like group bonuses. Outside this village of log homes with decorative wooden trim, with piles of birch firewood in the yard, and where investors have bought several surrounding collective farms, a drunken man slept on a pile of sawdust one recent afternoon. A cow meandered nearby munching grass. Specter of State Control This latest headlong wave of privatization has gone too far and too fast for some in government here. Officials, as is often the case these days, have floated the idea of forming a state monopoly. They would create a Soviet-style grain trading company out of an existing regulatory agency, a notion that has alarmed agricultural experts, though the seriousness of the idea is unclear. Such a monopoly could control domestic grain prices by limiting exports, benefiting low-income consumers but discouraging investment in agriculture. That is not stopping entrepreneurs ? yet. Mr. Orloff's model is spreading quickly. By this year, about 14 percent of Russia's agricultural land had undergone this process of greater consolidation, according to an analysis by Vedemosti, the business newspaper. "In 10 or 15 years, Russia will be the leading force in world agriculture, just because of its mass," Mr. Orloff said. That is if the land rush does not bring muscular government intervention from Moscow or set off rural resentments here. For instance, each member of the Sunrise of Communism collective farm was offered about $100 a hectare. Three years later, the land is worth about $1,100 a hectare, based on Black Earth Farming's stock market value. Mr. Orloff said the collective farmers did not own title to the land, and that the value of management expertise and capital outlays were included in the valuation of his company. Still, Vasili I. Kapechnikov, who sold his shares to Mr. Orloff, considers himself to have been on the losing side of the transaction. Interviewed outside the village store, he explained what he did with the money he received for his land: "I bought a new pair of pants." From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Sep 3 17:31:48 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:31:48 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The McCain Plan Message-ID: <48BF1E64.4030905@attglobal.net> Homer Simpson without the Donut by Greg Palast www.gregpalast.com (August 06 2008) I'm guessing it was excessive exposure to either radiation or George Bush, but Senator John McCain's comments from inside a nuclear power plant in Michigan are so cracked-brained that I fear some loose gamma rays are doing to McCain's gray matter what they did to Homer Simpson's. On Tuesday, the presumptive Republican candidate descended into the colon of a nuke to declare we need to build 45 new nuclear plants - that this is the way out of our energy crisis. Nuclear power, declared the senator, is a "safe, efficient [and] inexpensive" alternative to oil. Really? We can argue all day about whether nuclear plants are safe (they aren't - period). But there can be no argument whatsoever that these giant radioactive tea-kettles are breathtakingly expensive. Nuclear plants are cheap until you actually try to build one. Not one of the last 49 nuclear plants cost less than $2 billion apiece. I'm looking down the road at the remainders of the Shoreham nuclear plant which took nearly twenty years to build at a cost of $8 billion - or close to $7,000 per customer it was supposed to supply. When I say "supposed to", it was closed for safety reasons after operating just one single day. We're told that the new generation of plants will be different. Just like an alcoholic child-beater, the nuclear plant builders promise us that, "This time it will be different". Sure. And McCain believes them. I don't. Maybe that's because I headed the government racketeering investigation of the Shoreham nuclear plant's builders. Stone & Webster Engineering and its partner paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle the civil racketeering claim over the evidence we found of fraud and perjury. Now Stone & Webster (a division of Shaw Group Inc) will cash in big-time under Plan McCain. The other big builder which will hit the jackpot under the McCain scheme is KBR, the one-time subsidiary of Halliburton, whose best known project is the rebuilding of Iraq. (Halliburton dumped KBR last year. Can't blame them.) KBR has built many nukes - not one within a mile of its promised cost. But that doesn't bother McCain. So who is McCain getting his energy advice from? I'm looking at a photo of the perplexed senator inside the control room, looking like Homer without a donut, getting a lecture on the wonders of nuclear energy from a power company CEO, one Tony Early. Early is the former President of LILCO, the very corporation the Feds and State of New York charged with civil racketeering. (We did not name Early as a co-conspirator. When the government got him on the witness stand, it was clear the guy was too clueless to recognize he was in the midst of a billion-dollar swindle. McCain's got quite some team.) Now, you Obamaniacs might not want to read this next paragraph: While McCain is pushing nuclear power, a Senator from Illinois who shall remain nameless (skinny, just gave up smokes), was already embracing radiation as the solution to pollution. This Senator voted for George Bush's energy bill, a law which contained massive giveaways to nuclear energy, legislation which diss'es and dismisses conservation. Indeed, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate has been derided as the "Senator from Commonwealth Edison", the Chicago division of Exelon Corp., the nation's largest operator of nuclear plants - and whose executives were the money backbone to his early presidential campaign. So, we've got both candidates hawking the nuclear snake oil. But there is one difference between them. A big big BIG difference. McCain's ready to spend a hundred billion dollars on nuclear power, no questions asked. But Barack Obama puts a crucial condition on his approval for building new nukes: an affordable method of disposing the new plants' radioactive waste. That's not small stuff. While The New York Times reporters following McCain repeated his line about "inexpensive" nuclear power without question, a buried wire story on the same day noted that the Energy Department is putting the unfunded bill for disposing nuclear plant waste at $96.2 billion - nearly a billion dollars per plant operating today. And no one even knows exactly how to do it, or where. Obama has the audacity to ask about the nuclear waste's cost. "Can we deal with the expense?" he said on Meet the Press. McCain's plan to spend endless billions on nuclear plants without a waste disposal system in place is like building a massive hotel without toilets. D'oh! I suppose you can always tell the guests to poop in buckets until someone comes up with a plan for plumbing. But the stuff piles up. And unlike the fecal droppings of tourists, nuclear waste will stay hot and dangerous for a thousand generations. So there you have our election in a nutshell. We have two candidates who rise above their parties - only to agree on a ludicrous pro-nukes energy plan. But at least Senator Obama, when confronted with an economic question, doesn't have to take off his shoes to add up the facts. _____ Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2002) and Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild (2006). http://www.gregpalast.com/the-mccain-plan-homer-simpson-without-the-donut/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 4 03:49:43 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:49:43 +0900 Subject: [A-List] What's So Heroic? Message-ID: <48BFAF37.9050703@attglobal.net> About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent Civilians by Liliana Segura AlterNet (August 21 2008) This post originally appeared in PEEK's blog. Confession: I have not yet read all six (short, illustrated, large type) chapters of Mike's Election Guide 2008, Michael Moore's, latest work of jaunty political opinion. Am I supposed to discuss it with him on "Meet the Bloggers" tomorrow? Yes. But I'm not worried. It's a breezy read, has already made me laugh out loud, and besides, I may have already found the best part in Chapter One. The title is "Ask Mike!" and, in it, ordinary voters, old and young, pose questions about politics and current events. Some are more serious than others ("If Iran has weapons of mass destruction, we should invade, right?"), which does not make Moore's answers any more subtle. ("Excuuuuuse me? Did you say the words, 'weapons of mass destruction'? Take it back. I SAID TAKE IT BACK!") Of course, the "questions" are really satirical jabs at the media - "When a Republican wears a little American flag lapel pin, what is he trying to say?" "If Obama can't bowl, can he govern?" - but there's one in particular that is worth paying attention to - especially if you happen to be a member of the press and have been utterly unwilling to take McCain's supporters and opponents alike to task for perpetuating a narrative that would be central to a McCain victory, and which has already become a dominant theme in this election: The McCain as War Hero canard. The "question" is posted thusly: "Why did the Vietnamese shoot down John McCain and put him in prison for five years? He seems like such a nice guy". ANSWER: I'm guessing, in spite of his anger management issues, he is a nice guy. He has devoted his life to this country. He was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our nation. And for that, he was tortured and then imprisoned in a North Vietnamese POW camp for nearly five-and-a-half years. That's the set-up. It gets better. Moore proceeds, not to question, as Wesley Clark recently did to so many shrieks of criticism, whether McCain's capture really makes him qualified to be president of the United States - the answer, any thinking person realizes, is "no" - but whether the Vietnam war was a conflict that can really be said to have produced the breed of "American hero" McCain is so often celebrated as. "Sadly", he writes, "McCain's sacrifice had nothing to do with protecting the United States. He was sent to Vietnam along with hundreds of thousands of others in an attempt to prop up what was essentially an American colony, South Vietnam, which was being run by a dictator whom we installed." Lest we forget, the Vietnam War represented a mass slaughter by the United States government on a scale that sought to rival our genocide of the Native Americans. The US Armed Forces killed more than two million civilians in Vietnam (and perhaps another million in Laos and Cambodia). The Vietnamese had done nothing to us. They had not bombed or invaded or even sought to murder a single American. President Johnson and the Pentagon lied to Congress in order to get a vote passed to put the war in full gear. Only two senators had the guts to vote "no". But the parallel between Iraq and Vietnam is not the only point Moore is making. He makes it personal. John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in a campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. During this bombing campaign, which lasted for almost 44 months, US forces flew 307,000 attack sorties, dropping 643,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam (roughly the same tonnage dropped in the Pacific during all of World War II). Though the stated targets were factories, bridges, and power plants, thousands of bombs also fell on homes, schools, and hospitals. In the midst of the campaign, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we were killing 1,000 civilians a week. That's more than one 9/11 every single month - for 44 months. What's not heroic about that? Is it any wonder all politicians speaking in public about John McCain are required to preface their remarks with a fawning admiration for his war service? Alas, McCain does have some regrets about Vietnam. As Moore points out, in his memoir Faith of Our Fathers (Random House, 1999), McCain called it "illogical" and "senseless" that he was limited to bombing only military targets. "I do believe", McCain wrote, "that had we taken the war to the North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we ultimately would have prevailed". In other words, McCain believes we could have won the Vietnam War had he been able to drop even more bombs. When McCain was shot down, on October 26 1967, he was busy bombing what he would describe as a "heavily populated part of Hanoi". What follows is a a rather entertaining passage in which Moore then asks what you would do to a man who "fell out of the sky" after dropping bombs on you or your children. But the most important question comes at the end: John McCain is already using the Vietnam War in his political ads. In doing so, it makes not just what happened to him in Vietnam fair game for discussion, but also what he did to the Vietnamese ... I would like to see one brave reporter during the election season ask this simple question of John McCain: "Is it morally right to drop bombs and missiles in a 'heavily populated' area where hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians will perish?" Of course, no member of the "mainstream" media is going to ask John McCain that question. (And given his famous quips on "Bomb-bomb-bomb-ing Iran" or, when asked to comment on the US exporting cigarettes to the country, on the speculation that "Maybe that's a way of killing them", the answer may be too disturbing to bear.) Regardless, this is the same press that obligingly calls McCain a "maverick" and McCain's campaign bus the "Straight-talk Express". Going after his war hero credentials? Why, that would be ... un-American. Luckily, in the absence of an effective media - or one that takes its cues from Michael Moore - there are some people who are uniquely qualified to ask tough questions about the war hero John McCain, and they can't all be considered "surrogates" for Barack Obama. One of them is a man named Phillip Butler, who, on AlterNet today, has an article whose point, really, is laid out in the title: "I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button" Originally published on Military.com, it's a scathing, point-by-point indictment of McCain that punctures the war hero mythology he has so successfully insulated himself in. It is part fact-check ("Was he tortured for five years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first two years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969"), part much-needed perspective ("Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda"). But perhaps its most compelling characteristic is that it is written by a former POW of a misbegotten war, who has seen the death and destruction firsthand, and who is fearful of what McCain would do as commander in chief. "I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button." Now that's a quote. Maybe it's time for a new three am ad. Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage. (c) 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/95906/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From noreply at coha.org Wed Sep 3 11:39:35 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 13:39:35 -0400 Subject: [A-List] A Case for Extradition: Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and Carlos Sanchez Berzain Message-ID: <20080903173934.B4E013E44EB@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5511 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080903/105fc222/attachment.txt From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 3 14:50:05 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:50:05 -0400 Subject: [A-List] An analysis of the DP convention that works better than Cockburn's, in my opinion Message-ID: <48BEC03D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Mike Friedman mikedf at amnh.org Tue Sep 2 19:18:18 MDT 2008 ------------------ This is exactly what hasn't happened. Since WWII, every independent mass radicalization that has taken place in this country has seen those so-called "radicals within the Democratic Party" try to suck them into the party and thereby neutralize them. Every one. ^^^^ CB: This is exactly, factually wrong. The Civil Rights Movement's demands were most fully achieved by the Democrats , including Johnson, passing not only Civil Rights statutes ,but a Constitutional Amendment against the poll tax !. The Vietnam Peace Movement took over the Dem Party with McGovern in 1972. Although the Dems didn't end the war, that powerful thrust into the Dem Party was significant in forcing the end of the war. ^^^^ From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Sep 4 08:38:08 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:38:08 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?Iranian_Women=92s_Rights_Advocates_Scor?= =?windows-1252?q?e_Stunning_Victory?= Message-ID: Iranian Women's Rights Advocates Score Stunning Victory Rebecca Schiel Sep 04, 2008 Washington DC - After experiencing severe criticism and opposition from women's rights advocates, the "Family Protection Bill" was sent indefinitely back to the Judiciary Commission of the Iranian Parliament. It looks as though in this battle, Iran's women's rights activists have been triumphant. The bill was originally introduced in last August and was passed in July of this year before being sent back to the parliament for further reconsideration due to considerable protest from women's rights activists. In a shift from the polygamy laws of the past which allowed a man to have up to four wives as long as there was consent from the first wife, this new bill did away with that restriction. Article 22 provides for temporary marriages without registration, a move which would leave both women and the children who are products of these marriages bereft of both legal and financial protection under the law. According to experts, articles 23 and 24 are financially discriminatory in that they tax the dowry that a woman is paid upon marriage and they do not require a husband to have the financial resources necessary before taking another wife. Amid other stipulations, this bill would make it more difficult for women to secure a divorce and it would become criminal for a woman to marry a foreigner without the necessary approval. In what has been described as a stunning victory for Iran's women's movement, the Majlis has agreed to consult with women's rights activists before resubmitting the changed bill to parliament. Iran, however, remains one of the few states that have not signed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).. Iran stands out even when compared to its neighbors in that regard - countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Egypt are all signatories of CEDAW. From noreply at coha.org Thu Sep 4 08:41:40 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:41:40 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Stiglitz is Right, Friedman is Wrong Message-ID: <20080904144138.201413E487D@mx-out2.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5050 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080904/43ab6af8/attachment.txt From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Sep 4 14:22:28 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:22:28 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Social movements don't die in the DP Message-ID: <48C00B43.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> There is a dogma on this group of left related lists that the US Democratic Party is the place where social movements go to "die". I just realized that this is in complete conflict with the historical record. Charles ^^^^ Social movements don't die in the DP Marvin Gandall JScotlive writes: > The simple truth is that the US 'white' ruling class views America's > blacks with such fear that the repression visited upon any radical black > social movement or voices that dares raise?their head is so fierce and > violent that without mass support from the white working class such a > movement has virtually zero chance of succeeding independent of the > mainstream. > Ultimately, the failure of black radical and social movement to sustain > and succeed is the failure of the white working class to offer active > solidarity with their struggle. =============================== Ruling classes always are fearful of mass discontent, and when it threatens to become destabilizing, they respond with concessions or repression or a combination of both. Actually, repression was much fiercer before the universal franchise, elections, the limited right to demonstrate and to strike, and other forms of bourgeois democracy were introduced as a safety valve. But, still, the most bloody repression was not sufficient to stop the masses in Russia, China, Cuba, and elsewhere from moving towards victorious revolutions when the system was unable to meet their most basic needs for economic and physical security. I think there were many whites who supported the civil rights struggle and others who were bitterly hostile to it. Working class whites in general, while oppressed in their own way, had already won the right to vote and other reforms that the blacks were seeking, and were not discriminated against in housing, employment, etc. The kind of unqualified solidarity you are demanding between privileged and less privileged sectors of the working class requires a much higher level of consciousness, perhaps a revolutionary consciousness. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Sep 4 14:23:50 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:23:50 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Social Movements don't die in the DP Message-ID: <48C00B96.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > struggle and > others who were bitterly hostile to it. Working class whites in general, > while oppressed in their own way, had already won the right to vote and > other reforms that the blacks were seeking, and were not discriminated > against in housing, employment, etc. The kind of unqualified > solidarity you > are demanding between privileged and less privileged sectors of the > working > class requires a much higher level of consciousness, perhaps a > revolutionary > consciousness.> > > Your argument of benign indifference among working class whites, in > the south as well as in northern cities such as Chicago and Boston, > is mistaken. Sure, many working class whites supported civil rights, > but among those who did not, it was due in no small part to the fact > that they saw their interests threatened directly by the erasure of > the color line at the level of employment. This was of course due to > racism, a racism which told them that what little job security and > benefits they had would be erased once blacks began competing for > their jobs. And at the mass psychological level, the white workers > needed to feel somehow better than the black workers to shore up > their identity as superior, because in most cases this psychological > feeling was all they had to distinguish them from the black workers, > given that the material benefits for participation in the system were > not exactly forthcoming, or were at best negligible. I think you > underestimate the pernicious effects of the color line on the minds > and behavior of white southern workers in particular, but also among > some northern whites whose racism was no less virulent. Who does not > remember the hostile reception MLK received in Chicago, or the anti- > busing reaction among the racists of Boston? > > And what political party in the south benefitted from jim crow over > the years? Johnson may have figured the realpolitic was in his favor > in the long run, but among white democrats at the local level in > southern towns and cities, the opposition to ending jim crow was > strong. The opposition was so strong that de facto segregation still > exists in towns and cities all across the south, as well as in the > north. =============================== I agree with this. I was replying in haste to the list comments directed my way before turning to other matters today, and did not lay as much stress as I could have on the material interests of the "privleged...sectors of the working class." Your post admirably fills in the gap. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Sep 4 14:32:54 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:32:54 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ecuador Giving U.S. Air Base the Boot Message-ID: <48C00DB6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Ecuador Giving U.S. Air Base the Boot By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 4, 2008; A06 MANTA, Ecuador -- When U.S. officers stationed in this humid coastal city give reasons they should continue their decade-old airborne surveillance mission, they talk not only about fighting drug runners on the open seas but about the $71 million they've spent to renovate and maintain the city's airport, and the $6.5 million they inject each year into the local economy. But the government of Ecuador has decided, and Washington has apparently agreed, that one of the most important foreign outposts in the United States' war on drugs will close. The 450 U.S. Air Force personnel and contractors stationed at a military base that shares the airport's runway will be leaving next year. This decision reflects both the prevailing political climate here -- standing up to the United States tends to be widely popular -- and a new economic reality. With major projects underway in Manta by the Venezuelan government and a Hong Kong company, the U.S. dollars don't amount to much. President Hugo Ch?vez of Venezuela stood alongside President Rafael Correa of Ecuador in July to announce a jointly financed $6 billion oil refinery to be constructed on the outskirts of Manta. And Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings has begun building what will be among the largest deep-water ports on the west coast of South America, a $523 million project with piers, cranes, tuna-boat terminals, roads, and the capacity to eventually handle 1.6 million shipping containers a year at the continent's closest point to Asia. "The U.S. stopped being the benchmark of what is good for Latin America," said Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador's security minister. "Because Latin America did everything that the U.S. asked it to do and wasn't able to get out of poverty, the North American myth lost political weight." In the waning days of the Bush administration, governments in Latin America are rejecting many U.S.-funded programs, particularly anti- narcotics efforts, with rhetoric championing sovereignty and denouncing "imperialism" from the north. In Venezuela, anti-drug officials say, cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has deteriorated sharply. In Bolivia, coca farmers decided in June to expel the U.S. Agency for International Development from part of the country amid accusations that it was conspiring against President Evo Morales. The pushback resonates well politically in many parts of Latin America, where U.S. policies are often seen as security-obsessed Cold War vestiges or bitter economic pills forced down the throats of unwilling governments. The leading spokesman of such anti-Americanism is Ch?vez, but other South American leaders often join in. During his campaign for president, Correa said he would not renew a 10-year agreement reached with the United States in November 1999 that allowed the U.S. military to operate from the base at Manta. In late July, Ecuador's Foreign Ministry officially notified the United States that it must evacuate by November of next year. The air base serves as a launching pad for surveillance flights over the Pacific Ocean to spot seaborne drug traffic and over Colombia to spot unauthorized planes. According to U.S. figures, the missions resulted in the seizure of about 230 tons of cocaine in 2007. Whether the Americans stay or go "is a political thing," said Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Leonard, who recently completed a tour as commander of the U.S. contingent in Manta. "I don't think it's necessarily tied to our successes or the impact to the local folks. It's just a political thing." But Ecuadoran officials say there is little benefit in the base. For one, their country is a minor player in the Andean world of coca and cocaine production. And the U.S. surveillance flights do nothing to help them uncover drug labs hidden under vast stretches of forest canopy. "This is a problem for us of sovereignty," Larrea said. "It's as if we had a base in New York. This would be incomprehensible for North Americans." The original agreement was signed by President Jamil Mahuad shortly before street protests and a military revolt forced him from office in 2000. Many Ecuadorans say the terms heavily favored the Americans. The United States, for instance, does not pay rent for the base. The agreement was negotiated "in a moment of anguish" by a government that needed a loan from the International Monetary Fund but did not get it, said Adri?n Bonilla, director of FLACSO, a think tank in Quito, the Ecuadoran capital. "The political cost of a foreign base is very high. And the national need is very low," he said. "The political culture of Ecuador is very nationalistic. And it is mistrusting of the United States. . . . It's very popular to throw out the gringos from the Manta base." U.S. officials don't yet know where they might move after Manta. Colombia is often mentioned. In other neighboring countries, such as Panama, officials have publicly ruled out letting the Americans move in. The loss of Manta, according to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, would leave a "serious gap" in the U.S. drug fight. But other officials, such as Leonard, say the U.S. planes could operate out of an existing base on the Caribbean island of Curacao for the time being and cover the same territory. "The success will be slightly less. But I still think we'll have the coverage out there," Leonard said. "It's not like it will just disappear." In Bolivia, the decision by the coca growers federation, still led by President Morales, to stop working with USAID in the Chapare region, was also motivated by a growing desire for self-determination. That part of Bolivia is home of the slogan "Long live coca, death to the Yankees." Residents express long-standing frustrations with U.S. efforts to eradicate the crop or persuade farmers to plant often- unviable alternatives. "The famous macadamia nut? The cardamom? These were very expensive projects that resulted in what? In nothing," said Felipe C?ceres, Bolivia's vice minister of social defense and a former coca grower. The USAID contingent, about 100 employees and contractors, whom C?ceres described as "all right-wingers," have left the Chapare. Morales has accused USAID of funding opposition groups to foment protests against him, allegations U.S. officials have denied. C?ceres said last month that the Bolivian government plans to "nationalize" the war on drugs in Bolivia by controlling for itself how the aid money is spent. While C?ceres praised the cooperation between his government and the DEA, he ridiculed USAID projects as wasteful spending that often came with burdensome conditions. From 1998 to 2003, Bolivian farmers could receive USAID funding for help planting other crops only if they eliminated all their coca, according to the Andean Information Network, a research group based in Bolivia. Other rules, such as the requirement that participating communities declare themselves "terrorist-free zones," simply irritated people, said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network. "Eradicate all your coca and then you grow an orange tree that will get fruit in eight years but you don't have anything to eat in the meantime? A bad idea," she said. "The thing about kicking out USAID, I don't think it's an anti-American sentiment overall" but rather a rejection of bad programs. Another factor cited by Bolivian officials is that the European Union and Venezuela have stepped in as major sources of development funding without so many strings attached. The E.U. has earmarked about $350 million for Bolivia for the period from 2007 to 2013. "Most importantly and in line with the Bolivian authorities, activities have not been made conditional on the eradication of coca," said an E.U. strategy paper on Bolivia from late last year. Meanwhile, U.S. aid for Bolivia's drug fight has been steadily dropping, C?ceres said, from more than $100 million a year during the 1990s to $26 million this year. This government has done the best job of fighting drugs, he said, "but each year we are getting less." To U.S. anti-drug officials, the impending loss of the base in Ecuador and the halt of USAID projects in the Chapare do not portend disaster but suggest a lack of commitment to halt the flow of cocaine. "I think it's a setback in the interests of the American people and the people of Ecuador and Bolivia," said John P. Walters, the White House drug policy chief. "But again, we respect the sovereign authority of the leadership of those countries, and we'll try to make the partnership work the best we can." Correspondent Juan Forero contributed to this report. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 4 17:59:57 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:59:57 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Manufactured Famine Message-ID: <48C0767D.4030400@attglobal.net> A new wave of food colonialism is snatching food from the mouths of the poor. by George Monbiot Published in the Guardian (August 26 2008) In his book Late Victorian Holocausts (2001), Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history", between twelve and 29 million people died {1}. Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger. Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair's favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world's poorest people. Seventy per cent of the protein eaten by the people of Senegal comes from fish {2}. Traditionally cheaper than other animal products, it sustains a population which ranks close to the bottom of the human development index. One in six of the working population is employed in the fishing industry; some two-thirds of these workers are women {3}. Over the past three decades, their means of subsistence has started to collapse as other nations have plundered Senegal's stocks. The European Union has two big fish problems. One is that, partly as a result of its failure to manage them properly, its own fisheries can no longer meet European demand. The other is that its governments won't confront their fishing lobbies and decommission all the surplus boats. The EU has tried to solve both problems by sending its fishermen to West Africa. Since 1979 it has struck agreements with the government of Senegal, granting our fleets access to its waters. As a result, Senegal's marine ecosystem has started to go the same way as ours. Between 1994 and 2005, the weight of fish taken from the country's waters fell from 95,000 tons to 45,000 tons. Muscled out by European trawlers, the indigenous fishery is crumpling: the number of boats run by local people has fallen by 48% since 1997 {4}. In a recent report on this pillage, ActionAid shows that fishing families which once ate three times a day are now eating only once or twice. As the price of fish rises, their customers also go hungry. The same thing has happened in all the west African countries with which the EU has maintained fisheries agreements {5, 6}. In return for wretched amounts of foreign exchange, their primary source of protein has been looted. The government of Senegal knows this, and in 2006 it refused to renew its fishing agreement with the EU. But European fishermen - mostly from Spain and France - have found ways round the ban. They have been registering their boats as Senegalese, buying up quotas from local fishermen and transferring catches at sea from local boats. These practices mean that they can continue to take the country's fish, and have no obligation to land them in Senegal. Their profits are kept on ice until the catch arrives in Europe. Mandelson's office is trying to negotiate economic partnership agreements with African countries. They were supposed to have been concluded by the end of last year, but many countries, including Senegal, have refused to sign. The agreements insist that European companies have the right both to establish themselves freely on African soil, and to receive national treatment. This means that the host country is not allowed to discriminate between its own businesses and European companies. Senegal would be forbidden to ensure that its fish are used to sustain its own industry and to feed its own people. The dodges used by European trawlers would be legalised. The UN's Economic Commission for Africa has described the EU's negotiations as "not sufficiently inclusive". They suffer from a "lack of transparency" and from the African countries' lack of capacity to handle the legal complexities {7}. ActionAid shows that Mandelson's office has ignored these problems, raised the pressure on reluctant countries and "moved ahead in the negotiations at a pace much faster than the [African nations] could handle". If these agreements are forced on West Africa, Lord Mandelson will be responsible for another imperial famine. This is one instance of the food colonialism which is again coming to govern the relations between rich counties and poor. As global food supplies tighten, rich consumers are pushed into competition with the hungry. Last week the environmental group WWF published a report on the UK's indirect consumption of water, purchased in the form of food {8}. We buy much of our rice and cotton, for example, from the Indus Valley, which contains most of Pakistan's best farmland. To meet the demand for exports, the valley's aquifers are being pumped out faster than they can be recharged. At the same time, rain and snow in the Himalayan headwaters have decreased, probably as a result of climate change. In some places, salt and other crop poisons are being drawn through the diminishing water table, knocking out farmland for good. The crops we buy are, for the most part, freely traded, but the unaccounted costs all accrue to Pakistan. Now we learn that Middle Eastern countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are securing their future food supplies by trying to buy land in poorer nations. The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia wants to set up a series of farms abroad, each of which could exceed 100,000 hectares. Their produce would not be traded: it would be shipped directly to the owners. The FT, which usually agitates for the sale of everything, frets over "the nightmare scenario of crops being transported out of fortified farms as hungry locals look on". Through "secretive bilateral agreements", the paper reports, "the investors hope to be able to bypass any potential trade restriction that the host country might impose during a crisis" {9}. Both Ethiopia and Sudan have offered the oil states hundreds of thousands of hectares{10, 11}. This is easy for the corrupt governments of these countries: in Ethiopia the state claims to own most of the land; in Sudan an envelope passed across the right desk magically transforms other people's property into foreign exchange {12, 13}. But 5.6 million Sudanese and ten million Ethiopians are currently in need of food aid. The deals their governments propose can only exacerbate such famines. None of this is to suggest that the poor nations should not sell food to the rich. To escape from famine, countries must enhance their purchasing power. This often means selling farm products, and increasing their value by processing them locally. But there is nothing fair about the deals I have described. Where once they used gunboats and sepoys, the rich nations now use chequebooks and lawyers to seize food from the hungry. The scramble for resources has begun, but - in the short term at any rate - we will hardly notice. The rich world's governments will protect themselves from the political cost of shortages, even if it means that other people must starve. www.monbiot.com References: 1. Mike Davis, 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. Verso, London. 2. ActionAid, 11th August 2008. SelFISH Europe. http://www.illegal-fishing.info/uploads/ActionAidSelFISHEurope.pdf 3. ibid. 4. ibid. 5. Vlad M. Kaczynski and David L. Fluharty, March 2002. European policies in West Africa: who benefits from fisheries agreements? Marine Policy, Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 75-93. doi:10.1016/S0308-597X{01}00039-2 6. Tim Judah, 1st August 2001. The battle for West Africa's fish. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1464966.stm 7. UNECA, EPA Negotiations: African Countries Continental Review, African Trade Policy Centre, February 2007. Quoted by ActionAid, ibid. 8. Ashok Chapagain and Stuart Orr, August 2008. UK Water Footprint: the impact of the UK's food and fibre consumption on global water resources. Volume one. http://assets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_uk_footprint.pdf 9. Javier Blas and Andrew England, 19th August 2008. Foreign fields: Rich states look beyond their borders for fertile soil. Financial Times. 10. ibid. 11. Barney Jopson and Andrew England, 11th August 2008. Sudan woos investors to put $1bn in farming. Financial Times. 12. For discussions of how landrights in Africa are overruled, see: Lorenzo Cotula, September 2007. Legal empowerment for local resource control. International Institute for Environment and Development. http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/12542IIED.pdf and: 13. Camilla Toulmin, 2006. Securing Land and Property Rights in Africa: Improving the Investment Climate. Chapter 2.3 of the Global Competitiveness Report, World Economic Forum, Switzerland. Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/26/manufactured-famine/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Thu Sep 4 19:43:12 2008 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 17:43:12 -0800 Subject: [A-List] Manufactured Famine In-Reply-To: <48C0767D.4030400@attglobal.net> References: <48C0767D.4030400@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <82b839ea0809041843k30de4800w30c5152d30ed6459@mail.gmail.com> George Monibot..... >While > Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other > extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history", > between twelve and 29 million people died {1}. Only Stalin manufactured > a comparable hunger. I see that the 29MM figure can point to a reference, but where did Monibot come up with the assertion that "Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger." I guess the point is that sometimes capitalists are almost as bad as communists.....and we ALL know how bad they are!!!! M > From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Sep 5 07:05:27 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:05:27 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Strange Fruit Message-ID: <48C12E97.90207@attglobal.net> A hard commercial logic dictates that the only way to get good fruit today is to grow your own. by George Monbiot Published in the Guardian (September 02 2008) I feel almost shy about writing this column. It contains no revelations, no call to arms. No one gets savaged: well, only mildly. The subject is almost inconsequential. Yet it has become an obsession which, at this time of year, forbids me to concentrate for long on anything else. Though we still subsist largely on junk, even bilious old gits like me are forced to admit that the quality and variety of most types of food sold in Britain has improved. But one kind has deteriorated. You can buy mangoes, papayas, custard apples, persimmons, pomegranates, mangosteens, lychees, rambutans and god knows what else. But almost all the fruit sold here now seems to taste the same: either rock hard and dry or wet and bland. A mango may be ambrosia in India; it tastes like soggy toilet paper in the UK. And the variety of native fruits on sale is smaller than it has been for 200 years. Why? Most people believe it's because the supermarkets select for appearance not taste. This might be true for vegetables, but for fruit it's evidently wrong. Green mangoes, Conference pears, unripe Bramley, Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples look about as appealing as a shrink-wrapped stool. Appearance has nothing to do with it. What counts to the retailer is how well the variety travels. Take the Egremont Russet, for example. It's a small apple that looks like a conker wrapped in sandpaper. But it has one inestimable quality. It can be dropped from the top of Canary Wharf, smash a kerbstone and come to no harm. This means it can be trucked from an orchard at Land's End to a packing plant in John O'Groats, via Sydney, Washington and Vladivostock, then back to a superstore in Penzance (this is the preferred route for most of the fruit sold in the UK) and remain fit for sale. The supermarkets must have had some trouble shifting it because of its strange appearance, so they promoted it as a connoisseur's apple. Such is our suggestibility that almost everyone believes this, though a dispassionate tasting would show you that it's as sweet and juicy as a box of Kleenex. For the same reason, we are assaulted with Conference pears, most of which resemble some kind of heavy ordnance, rather than any one of a hundred exquisite varieties such as the Durondeau, Belle Julie, Urbaniste, Glou Morceau, Ambrosia, Professeur du Breuil or Althorp Crasanne. It is because these pears are so delicious that they cannot be marketed. They melt in the mouth, which means they would also melt in the truck before it left the farm gate. As the best pears, plums, peaches and cherries are those which go soft and juicy when ripe, the grocers ensure that we never eat them. To compound the problem, the supermarkets demand that fruit is picked long before it ripens: it doesn't soften until it rots. This makes great commercial sense. It also ensures that no one in his right mind would want to eat it. But, happily for the retailers, we have forgotten what fruit should taste like. The only way to find out is either to travel abroad or (the low-carbon option) to grow your own. I find myself becoming a fruit evangelist, a fructivist, whose mission is to show people what they are missing. When I lived in Oxford, at a time when allotments were underused, I spent a week in the Bodleian library reading Hogg and Bull's Herefordshire Pomona, a massive book of apples and pears, written in the 1870s (you can now buy it on CD from the Marcher Apple Network). Then I cleared two and a half plots and planted the best varieties I could find. I left just as the trees were ready to fruit. But land here in mid-Wales is cheap. I bought half an acre and have started planting a second orchard. When I first tried to place an order, I caused great excitement among the nurseries I phoned. Where had I seen these apples? Who recommended them? Two of them, I discovered, had been extinct for at least fifty years. So I have had to settle for second best, by which I mean breeds which still exist. I began by planting a Ribston Pippin and an Ashmead's Kernel. These apples, both exquisite when fully ripe, can be stored from October till May. To spread the fruit as far through the year as possible, I have ordered an apple called the Irish Peach, which ripens in early August; a St Edmund's Pippin (September) and a Wyken Pippin (December to April). After a long search I think I have pinned down the apple I once tasted and loved in a friend's garden. I'm pretty confident that it was a Forfar, also know as the Dutch Mignonne, so I've bought one of those too. If I'd had more space, I would also have planted a Catshead, a Boston Russet, a Sturmer Pippin and a Reinette Grise. I have bought two pears - a Seckle and a Beurre Rance - a green plum (the Cambridge Gage), a fig, a medlar, a peach, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, loganberries and blueberries. But what excites me most are the suggestions made by a man called Ken Fern. Once a London bus driver, Fern has spent most of his life cataloguing and growing the edible species of fruit and vegetable which can survive in this country. His list now extends to 7000, some of which are featured in his book Plants for a Future (2000). I've decided to buy an Arnold Thorn (Crataegus arnoldiana), which belongs to the same genus as the hawthorn, but grows sweet juicy fruits the size of cherries, and to replace my hedge with Eleagnus x ebbingei, which produces sweet red berries with edible seeds, in (uniquely) April and May. This means, if it works out, that I can eat fresh fruit all the year round. I can store apples and Beurre Rance pears until the Eleagnus fruits, then my strawberries should be ready more or less when it stops. One day when I can afford it I will buy more land and plant a few dozen of the weird species Fern has found. Most people have less space than I do, but even a tiny garden can support half a dozen apple trees, if you grow them as cordons (single stems with short spurs) eighty centimeters apart against a wall. If you have room for only a couple of pots, you could grow blueberries, strawberries, cranberries or some of the little shrubs Ken Fern recommends, such as Vaccinium praestans and Gaultheria shallon. Or you could become a guerilla planter or guerilla grafter, growing fruit on roadsides, on commons and in parks and wasteland. Apple twigs of any kind can be grafted onto crab trees. Medlars and one breed of pear (a delicious variety called Josephine des Malines) can be grafted onto hawthorn. Kiwi fruit, passion fruit and a vine called Schisandra grandiflora will climb into trees of any kind. It's not just the produce I love. When you start growing fruit, you enter a world of recondite knowledge, accumulated over centuries of amateur experiments. You must choose the right rootstocks and pollinators and learn about bees, birds and caterpillars. But above all you must learn patience. Growing fruit forces you to think ahead, to imagine a sweeter future and then to wait. Perhaps it is this, as much as the forgotten flavours, that I have been missing. www.monbiot.com Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/09/02/strange-fruit/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 5 09:23:02 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 11:23:02 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Moscow Forced to Shore Up Rouble + Russia Reviews Trade Deals after Conflict Message-ID: Moscow forced to shore up rouble By Charles Clover in Moscow and Peter Garnham in London Published: September 4 2008 20:37 | Last updated: September 4 2008 20:37 Russia's central bank intervened heavily to support the rouble on Thursday as analysts said $21bn of foreign capital might have been pulled out of the country as Moscow paid the price for its conflict with Georgia. The rouble fell as low as R30.41, its weakest level since the Russian central bank adopted its euro/dollar basket in February 2007. The central bank governor admitted there had been capital outflows since the war but said the amount was much lower. The currency intervention was the first since the height of the war with Georgia at the beginning of August. Before the conflict the central bank's interventions in the market were aimed at stemming the rise of the rouble, which it manages to a basket weighted 55 per cent in dollars and 45 per cent in euros. The attractions of resource-rich Russia, a net foreign creditor with sustainable trade and fiscal surpluses and the third-largest foreign exchange reserves, had made the rouble a one-way upward bet. However, the rouble has suffered as foreign investors have pulled money out of Russia. The outflow of capital from Russia has slowed markedly from its pace in the middle of August, when capital flight was $21bn in the two weeks to the end of August 22, according to Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, and foreign currency reserves fell at their most precipitous rate since the 1998 currency crisis. Capital outflows in the week ending August 29 were a much lower $1.7bn, though over the past two days the value of the rouble against the dollar and euro sank 2 per cent indicating renewed capital flight. To stop the rouble falling further, the central bank sold $3.5bn-$4bn in reserves, currency dealers were reporting. Dealers at MDM Bank in Moscow believe the central bank sold up to $4.5bn in an effort to halt the rouble's fall, said Mikhail Galkin an MDM analyst. The rouble sell off is a sign that in spite of the stabilisation of the conflict in Georgia, and the absence of tough sanctions on Russia, investors still perceive political risk. Russia's Rts stock market index fell 3.94 per cent after dropping 4.25 per cent on Wednesday. The central bank said that the capital outflow from Russia last month, when unnerved investors headed for the exits, was $5bn. "According to very preliminary estimates, the outflow [in August] totalled around $5bn," said Russian news agencies quoting Sergei Ignatyev, central bank chairman. Ivan Tchakarov, a vice-president of emerging markets research at Lehman Brothers, said: "We find CBR claim that only $5bn has left Russia in August highly unlikely ... In our view, August capital outflows may amount to at least $15bn-$20bn." Russia's central bank still has an impressive war chest to defend its currency. Its reserves measured in this week at $582bn, the third-largest foreign currency reserves in the world. Russia reviews trade deals after conflict By Alan Beattie in London and Luke Peterson in New York Published: September 3 2008 22:31 | Last updated: September 3 2008 22:31 The collateral damage from Russia's dispute with Georgia over the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has spread to encompass its trading relations with the rest of the world. In the past week Moscow has announced it will suspend agreements to import pork and chicken, banned 19 US companies from exporting poultry to Russia and blocked Turkish trucks at customs posts. This week it announced it would review its trade agreement with Ukraine, which allows free passage of most goods into Russia. Moscow said that Ukraine, having joined the World Trade Organisation this year, could become a transhipment point for cheap exports from other WTO member countries to enter Russia. The announcement underlines the potential for international trade to become embroiled in politics. Analysts said warnings by the US and others that Russia's actions had endangered its own application to join the WTO had encouraged a show of defiance from Moscow. Joe Guinan, a trade analyst at German Marshall Fund think-tank in Brussels, said: "It is unfortunate the US approach over Russia's WTO membership has provoked this reaction. Tit-for-tat trade wars don't help anyone." Given the global supply shortages of food and oil, two of its biggest exports, Russia's trading partners have limited scope to punish it with trade sanctions. Indeed, one of the EU's conditions for Russia to join the WTO was an agreement not to block its own sales of raw materials abroad. Mr Guinan said high commodity and energy prices had strengthened Russia's hand. "Objective circumstances in the global economy have maximised their leverage," he said. Russia's dispute with Georgia could also hamper the resolution of disputes involving companies that have been active in both countries, which arose after the Mikheil Saakashvili government came to power. Georgia is locked in a dispute with Itera, a big player in the Russian natural gas market, which supplied gas to Georgia from 1996 until 2002. In the months before the 2003 rose revolution in Georgia, Itera says that it struck a gas delivery deal with Georgia's ministry of energy for $46.4m. Itera claims payments are overdue. However, the Saakashvili administration disputes the agreement's validity, leading Itera to sue in a Moscow arbitration court. In legal papers filed in Florida, where Itera has its headquarters, Georgia exp?ressed suspicion of the timing of the agreements. It speculated that Itera and its allies feared a loss of "influence in Georgian government circles" following any regime change. The ministry also alleged that the contested agreements "bear certain indicia of fraud". As yet, the Moscow arbitration court has not given a ruling. The proceeding was suspended in 2006 when a Russian travel embargo prevented Georgian officials from representing themselves in Moscow. The current hostilities could complicate Georgia's defence. Itera has also filed an arbitration claim at the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes accusing Georgia of breaching investment protection treaties with the US and the Netherlands. From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 5 09:24:13 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 11:24:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] BP Makes Deep Concessions in Agreement with Russian Partner Message-ID: September 5, 2008 BP Makes Deep Concessions in Agreement With Russian Partner By ANDREW E. KRAMER MOSCOW ? In a deal that will allow BP to keep a crucial asset, but at a cost of ceding some control, the company came to an agreement with its Russian partners Thursday over its joint oil venture here, ending months of acrimony and threats. In the end, BP agreed to dismiss the American chief executive it had appointed to head the joint venture and give some board seats to its Russian partners. In exchange, BP will retain its stake in the joint venture, TNK-BP, and with it, access to the large oil fields of Siberia. Although BP ceded to every demand from its partners, analysts said the outcome could have been worse for the company. Indeed, for months it looked as if BP would lose all or part of its Russian assets in a forced sale to a state company. Now that prospect looks less likely. But the relief is relative. "Just like when somebody comes and puts a gun to your back and says, 'Your wallet or your life,' and you are glad you got out with your life," Caius Rapanu, chief analyst at Kit Finance in Moscow said in a telephone interview. Both the Russian oil giant Yukos and Shell's Sakhalin Island development were part of forced sales to state companies. BP's stock climbed more than 3 percent on news of the compromise. Though BP was compelled to make concessions, senior Russian officials were quick to cast the deal as a positive signal to Western investors in the wake of the war in Georgia, in a move meant to counter a slide in the Russian stock market and in investor confidence. But the resolution of the conflict ? for now at least ? also underlines Russia's significant sway over Western interests, 17 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its joining the world economy. Like China, another country that sometimes falls from favor politically, trade has made it integral to the profits of many American and European companies, even outside oil and gas. Boeing and Airbus, for example, rely on Russia for more than 50 percent of the titanium in their airplanes, including such critical parts as the landing gear on the new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to make its maiden flights this fall. "Russia wants to have an open economy, believe it or not," Roland Nash, head of research at Renaissance Capital, said. "Russia really wants to have foreign investment." Since the war in Georgia, though, relations with the West have grown increasingly contentious. The first warnings of a possible trade war came soon after the guns went quiet. Russia bowed out of negotiations to join the World Trade Organization and will remain the world's largest economy that is not part of the group. Frozen chicken thighs, a major American export to Russia, quickly rose to the attention of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who said suppliers including Tyson Chicken of Arkansas would be banned, ostensibly on health grounds. The Bush administration signaled it would halt work on a deal to allow Russia to export nuclear reactor fuel to the United States. Yet current customers of Russian nuclear reactor fuel, including Switzerland, France and Germany, did not raise the prospect of halting this business. Russia's Tvel company supplies 17 percent of the world's low-enriched uranium fuel, mostly to Eastern Europe, China and India. Thanks to globalization, Avisma, a formerly closed military plant in the Ural Mountains, now supplies titanium to both Boeing and Airbus, and is a major supplier to the jet engine makers Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce. "Severing the business would be catastrophic for either side," Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an industrial analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, said. "There is mutual dependence." The European Union, which has a generally softer line on Russia than the United States does, accounts for 50 percent of Russia's trade, principally gas and oil; the United States accounts for 5 percent. But Russia's vulnerabilities are longer term. The country is pursing an economic diversification plan called 2020, hoping to escape the boom and bust commodity cycles that plagued the Soviet Union and Russia for decades. To do so, its businesses must both globalize and attract foreign investment and expertise into Russia. Energy revenue now accounts for 70 percent of exports and 60 percent of the budget. The oil wealth, however, has made Russia a major buyer of dollar bonds for its Central Bank and sovereign wealth funds, including bonds of mortgage backed securities. The country has the largest reserves after China and Japan, and dumping these bonds could weaken an already troubled American banking system. "I don't think Russia would suffer much," Ivan Tchakarov, vice president for emerging market research at Lehman Brothers, said in a telephone interview of the outcome of any trade war after the real war. "The West would suffer more." Under the BP deal, the American chief executive, Robert Dudley, will resign before the end of the year. He will be replaced by a director nominated by BP and approved by the board under a memorandum of understanding BP signed with the consortium of Russian billionaires that owns 50 percent of the joint venture, known as TNK-BP. In addition, there will be three independent seats on the board, though how they will be appointed is unclear. BP and the Russians partners will each appoint four other representatives. The value to BP of retaining the licenses held by the joint venture could hardly be overestimated at a time when oil companies are struggling to find new reserves. TNK-BP is Russia's third-largest oil producer and accounts for about a quarter of BP's worldwide oil output. It is also one of Russia's most high-profile foreign investments. Russian authorities said flatly the deal should signal to investors that Russia welcomes their business. "The participants in the talks arrived at an agreement on the level of shareholders, without the involvement of third parties, such as the government," deputy prime minister Igor I. Sechin said in a statement released by the Russian partners. "This is the right signal to the whole market." Mr. Sechin, when he was a member of Mr. Putin's presidential administration, was seen as instrumental in the dismantling of Yukos. To be sure, businesses are still on edge. The RTS stock market dropped to a two-year low on Thursday. And the government's bellicose tone is spooking investors, at a time when dropping oil prices are already making Russia a less attractive investment case. "They've thrown the rule book out the window," said one banker, who did not want to be quoted criticizing the government. "Now they say, 'If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it?' " Many big investors were skeptical that this dispute was really over. "It's a neat compromise, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating," said Alan Beaney, a senior fund manager at Principal Investment Management in Sevenoaks, England, said of the BP settlement. "Whether the new C.E.O. will satisfy both sides is a big question," he added. "In essence it's a good company, but do you want to be caught in between those two sides? I don't think we've seen the end of it yet." From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Fri Sep 5 09:53:40 2008 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:53:40 -0700 Subject: [A-List] From John Paul Jones To The Present - A Fleet-ing Confrontation Between The US And Russian Navies Is Brewing Message-ID: <48C15604.60108@gmail.com> [September 05 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: From John Paul Jones To The Present - A Fleet-ing Confrontation Between The US And Russian Navies Is Brewing In The Black Sea... Sitrep In... 'other' news: We're Dealing! (with "Yesterday's Osama") - Condoleezza Rice scores a 'victory' in the foreign policy restoration of relations with Libya. History and Sitrep. If they catch you, you can 'deal' - Jack Abramoff, legislative grafter Extraordinaire was in court for sentencing yesterday, and he got 4 years which works out to 2 plus a few months with 'good time', which we can be reasonable sure he'll have at what will most likely be a country club with gates HE can't unlock prison. The vice president of Iraq calls for local elections by the end of the year whether or not the national government has an election plan. More. Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/tth_080905 My Site: http://leighm.net/wp/2008/09/05/tth_080905/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Sep 5 14:11:24 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:11:24 -0400 Subject: [A-List] CNBC: How Close Bears Stearns Came to Causing a Market Meltdown Message-ID: <48C15A2B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> CNBC: How Close Bears Stearns Came to Causing a Market Meltdown johnaimani johnaimani ------------------ Is Lehman the next domino? http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=843935062&__source=CNBC|MW|video3| This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Sep 5 15:49:28 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:49:28 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Palin: Queen WASP of the US Bloody Empire Message-ID: <48C17129.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Yea, at first I thought there might be something to the analysis of Palin being able to appeal to ?regular? folks. But as it sunk in I?m thinking she?s a fake regular folk, and that will come out. She?s also like the Queen of the creatures in the movie ?The Alien?, the biggest monster of them all, or Queen Elizabeth I or Queen Victoria, Queen Ants/WASP?S of the Bloody Empire. Yea, that?s it. Palin is a Queen WASP of the Bloody US Empire (with lipstick; do wasps have lips ? smile). Now that?s at the top of the Elite (E-light). Anyway, I bet there are dozens of videos of her talking passionately about real nutsy ,right-wing ,bizarro-fundamentalist stuff, specifically anti-women stuff. It should be possible to graphically illustrate that she?s an anti-woman woman, a Clarence Thomas of women, not to mention an anti-people person in general. Obama already started in on them that not knowing what a community organizer is shows the Reps are out of touch with everyday people, with real problems, like unemployment, underemployment, ends not meeting, lack of health care, etc. , real life in America. The Reps are ignorant of everyday economics, dismal science. Yes, and perhaps another way to say this is that Palin is pretty certainly a national chauvinist and racist, probably jingoist, in other words, a continuation of Bush. We don?t want another parochial ignoramus like him at number two of the biggest war machine in the history of the world. It?s dangerous for humanity. Her gun happiness suggests she is likely to more readily shoot off the US?s really big guns, i.e that she?s a militarist. What is her position on the war in Iraq ? Probably really dangerous. American recreational gun culture is a continuation of the racist tradition of armed attack on the Indigenous Peoples of America, enforcing the racist creed of ?the only good Indian is a dead Indian?. This American history of mass murder segues too easily into shooting and bombing other peoples , especially of color, around the world, which was what John McCain was doing when he was justly imprisoned by his victims in Vietnam. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Sep 5 17:36:10 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:36:10 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Post-Petroleum Job Ads Message-ID: <48C1C26A.2040609@attglobal.net> by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (September 03 2008) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society The mismatch between the narratives of sudden apocalypse that shape so much of today's debate about the future, on the one hand, and the sluggish pace at which the predicament of industrial society unfolds in the real world, on the other, found a poster child of sorts last weekend. During the days of uncertainty before Hurricane Gustav's arrival on the Louisiana coast, some enthusiastic soul posted claims to the peak oil newsblog The Oil Drum that the hurricane would bring industrial civilization itself crashing down in ruins. I was pleased to note that this announcement seems to have fallen on unsympathetic ears. The Oil Drum's forte is shrewd technical analysis, and its staff - if I may so describe the loose association of regular posters and commenters who give that excellent site its tone and direction - set aside such speculations and did their usual exemplary job, mapping out the oil platforms and refineries likely to be affected by Gustav and posting damage estimates that turned out to be fairly close to the picture now emerging on the ground. Gustav was a moderately strong storm; it forced the evacuation of nearly every offshore and coastal petroleum facility in the Gulf of Mexico, causing substantial short-term production losses; the long-term effects of the storm will not be clear for weeks, but all by itself, $30 billion or so in estimated damage piled atop an already faltering economy will certainly have an impact. The difference between the fantasy of sudden collapse and the reality of one more localized jolt piling additional burdens on a stumbling society is well worth keeping in mind. Like the proverbial frog in the saucepan, those who think of apocalyptic collapse as the only way industrial civilization can break down are far less likely to notice the gradual changes in their environment that are leading in the same direction, just more slowly. It's as though, to shift stories, the boy who cried wolf was convinced that immense armies of wolves would suddenly swoop down and eat up all the sheep in the world at once, and mistook every whistle of wind in the trees for the distant howling of the wolf pack to end all wolf packs; meanwhile, practically under his nose, real wolves - scruffy, undersized, and quite depressingly few in number compared to the massed uber-wolves of the fantasy - were picking off a sheep or two each day from the fringes of the flock. As both these metaphors suggest, the fixation on sudden collapse has practical disadvantages. If you're a frog in a saucepan, and the only idea of heat you're willing to consider involves all the water in the saucepan suddenly flashing into steam, you probably won't jump while your legs are still uncooked enough to do so; if you're guarding sheep from wolves, and groups of wolves numbering fewer than fifty are beneath your notice, your sheep are going to be eaten. In the same way, there are plenty of practical steps that can be taken here and now by individuals, that will likely make the slow unraveling of industrial society much less horrific than it might otherwise be. Most of those steps would be, or at least appear to be, irrelevant in the face of sudden global catastrophe, and in fact it's not uncommon to find believers in some such catastrophe dismissing these practical steps in exactly those terms. Mind you, there are other reasons why those steps are easy to dismiss. Every one of them has a price tag of some sort, denominated in money, labor, comfort, convenience, or unimpeded access to the smorgasbord of distractions today's industrial civilization offers its inmates. By contrast, our culture's two dominant narratives about the future - the narrative of apocalypse and its twin and shadow, the narrative of inevitable progress - are popular at least in part because they push the necessity and the costs of change onto somebody else: the "they" who are expected to think of something just in time to keep progress on track, for example, or the supposedly faceless billions who are expected to hurry up and die en masse so that the flag of some future utopia can be pitched atop their graves. I've talked about some of the steps in question already on this blog, but today I'd like to turn to something a bit different from those previous discussions: the question of how people will make a living during the long unraveling of the industrial age. That's a question that has received surprisingly little attention in recent years, and a good deal of that neglect, I think, can be laid at the door of the apocalyptic narrative. According to that narrative, after all, nothing much changes until everything does; you keep on punching the timeclock at your present job until the day that civilization falls apart, and then, if you happen to be among the survivors, you step into whatever new role the apocalypse has ordained for you - subsistence farmer, tribal hunter-gatherer, protein source for the local cannibal population, or what have you. At the same time, the absence of a nine-to-five routine on the far side of apocalypse is likely to be an important source of the narrative's popularity; I'm far from the only person who noticed, during the runup to the Y2K noncrisis, how many people predicting imminent doom seemed exhilarated by the notion that they would not have to go to work on January 2 2000. If I'm right and the descent into the deindustrial future unfolds over generations, though, that enticing prospect is not in the cards. Rather, the vast majority of us will need to earn our livings in a world that, while it will be changing around us, is extremely unlikely to change in ways that will make that process any easier than it is now. During the period I've described in other posts as the age of scarcity industrialism, something like today's money economy will likely remain firmly in place, though the household economy and other forms of production and exchange outside the money economy will likely play a steadily growing role. During the age of salvage economies that I expect to follow the twilight of the industrial system, money of some sort will likely remain in use on a small scale, as it does in most dark ages, but most day-to-day transactions will take place via barter or other systems of exchange outside the money economy; again, that's standard practice in dark ages. In both periods, though, people will work for their livings - and will likely work a good deal harder than many Americans do today. Nor will their jobs be the same as the ones that employ most Americans nowadays. The flood of cheap abundant energy that surged through the industrial world during the twentieth century reshaped every dimension of the economy in its image, and nearly all the things we have grown up considering normal and natural are artifacts of that highly abnormal and unnatural state of affairs. Very few people in the industrial world today spend their workdays producing goods or providing necessary services; instead, pushing paper has become the standard employment, and preparation for a paper-pushing career the standard form of education. The once-mighty archipelago of trade schools that undergirded the rise of America as an industrial power sank with barely a trace in the second half of the twentieth century. I once lived three blocks away from the shell of one such school; it had been engulfed by a community college, and classrooms that once hummed with the busy noises of machine-shop equipment and the hiss of hot solder were being used to train a new generation of receptionists, brokers, and medical billing clerks. The postindustrial economy proclaimed by Daniel Bell many years ago, and accepted as an accurate description of economic reality since then, was never much more than a shell game. The societies of the industrial world were every bit as dependent on industry as they had ever been; they simply exported the industries to Third World countries where labor was cheap and environmental regulation nonexistent, and continued to reap the benefits back home. Those arrangements only worked, however, because cheap abundant energy made transport costs negligible, and systematic distortions in patterns of exchange pumped wealth from the Third World to a handful of industrial nations, providing the latter with the wherewithal to pay a very large fraction of their populations to do jobs that don't actually need to be done. As energy becomes scarce and expensive again, and the imperial systems that concentrated the world's wealth in a minority of nations are shredded by the rise of new centers of power, those arrangements will break down. As that happens, a great many goods and necessary services now done offshore will need to be done at home once again, and a great many professions that produce no goods and provide no necessary services will likely drop off the economic map. Prophecy is a risky business at the best of times, but it's worth hazarding some guesses about the jobs that will fill the post-petroleum job ads here in America over the next generation or so, through the years of the Great Recession and the disintegration of America's overseas empire. Farmers are among the most likely candidates for the top of the list. By this I don't mean subsistence farmers in rural ecovillages - their time is much further in the future, if it ever comes at all. Rather, market farmers tilling what is now suburban acreage to feed the dwindling cities, and rural farmers producing grains and other bulk crops for foreign exchange, will likely be in high demand, along with support professions such as agronomists. Engineers form another set of trades likely to do well in the generation to come, especially those who know their way around energy production and distribution and the design, building, and maintenance of low-tech transportation networks. In the not too distant future, rail and canal transport will have to take over much of the work now done by trucks, and energy networks will have to cope with a fractious mix of alternative resources, dwindling fossil fuels, and massive conservation programs. The people who actually put the plans of engineers into effect, from skilled machinists all the way down to the gandy dancers who lay the rails, will also be able to count on steady paychecks. Another suite of professions likely to do well barely exists today, though demolitions experts, junkyard workers, and people who run recycling and composting operations represent tentative forays into the territory. A huge fraction of America's potential wealth in the postpeak years consists of manufactured objects that can either be refurbished and put back into circulation, or stripped of raw materials for reuse. When the electricity needed to power elevators and run heating and cooling systems is dizzyingly expensive when it can be had at all, for example, skyscrapers will be worth more as sources of refined metal than as buildings, and most of them will come down. On the other end of the spectrum, a great many consumer products that are now consigned to landfills when they break will be worth salvaging, repairing, and reselling once the cost of the necessary labor is cheaper than the cost of the energy and raw materials for a new model - a state of affairs that existed in America until the 1960s and will likely exist again within a decade or two. The salvage industries, as we may as well call them, may well turn out to be one of the major growth industries of the twenty-first century. Other professions have their own possibilities. It's a useful exercise to locate a city directory from the first half of the twentieth century and flip through the pages, noting the businesses that existed then but are nowhere to be found today. Those that meet actual needs, however unpopular they are as career tracks today, are likely to be more viable and more lucrative in a deindustrializing future than many professions fashionable today. The pundits and publicists of our economic system never seem to tire of explaining that tomorrow's jobs will not be the same as today's, and I suspect they may just be right; what they don't expect, and I do, is that many of tomorrow's hottest jobs will have more than a little resemblance to the careers of yesterday. Those people who make preparations now to move into such jobs as they come open will be doing themselves and their communities alike a favor of no small worth. These preparations need to begin soon - while the time, resources, and knowledge base for many necessary skills are still readily accessible - and this requires, once again, some sense of the way civilizations actually fall, and a willingness to apply that slow, stumbling, unromantic but realistic model to the events going on around us right now. _____ ?John Michael Greer has been active in the alternative spirituality movement for more than 25 years, and is the author of a dozen books, including The Druidry Handbook (2006) and The Long Descent (2008). He lives in Ashland, Oregon. http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/08/no-different-this-time.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 5 18:43:44 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 20:43:44 -0400 Subject: [A-List] NEPAL: A Tale of Two Follies: The lost battles of Khara & Pili -- Sam Cowan Message-ID: > HIMAL SOUTHASIAN - SEPTEMBER 2008 > > Read full article and comment at: > http://www.himalmag.com/The-lost-battles-of-Khara-and-Pili_nw1938.html > > The lost battles of Khara and Pili > By: Sam Cowan > > > Despite the importance of the clashes at Khara and Pili in > turning the trends of Nepal??s decade-long war, both sides > have worked to bury the memory of these battles. > > > > The 10 years of the Maoist conflict in Nepal, 1996-2006, > cost just over 13,000 lives. About 8000 were killed by the > security forces. Many of those who died were civilians, and > some thousands were extra-judicially executed or > ??disappeared?? ?? again, the great majority by the security > forces. An unquantifiable number of combatants were killed > in battles and genuine encounters between the Royal Nepal > Army (RNA) and the armed wing of the Maoists, the > ??People??s Liberation Army?? (PLA). About 350 of these > individuals were killed in two battles that took place in > 2005: at Khara, on 7 April, and at Pili four months later, > on 7 August. The battles are notable for their significant > political consequences, as well as for the fact that the two > commanders-in-chief were personally involved in the > instigation of deeply flawed plans that led to humiliating > disaster and significant loss of life. Both sides, > therefore, have a continuing strong vested interest in > drawing a veil over what happened during these battles, and > why. > > This analysis is based mainly on a study of readily > available Maoist-produced videos, which cover both battles; > and, in the case of Pili, by personal research that confirms > and amplifies what is seen and heard on the videos. Tularam > Pandey, a journalist with the Kathmandu Post, visited the > Pili camp six days after the battle, and his reported > accounts also tie in very closely with those from other > sources. > > This article first examines the battle at Khara. The PLA??s > first attack on the RNA base at Khara, in the mid-western > Rukum District in May 2002, was repulsed with over 150 > Maoists killed. It is hard to understand why the Maoist high > command thought that it could succeed with another attack > nearly three years later, knowing that the RNA had greatly > strengthened the Khara fortifications. The video footage > shows the base to be well sited on high ground, thus > requiring any attacking force to fight uphill through > minefields and elaborate barbed-wire obstacles, all capable > of being covered by machine-gun fire. The fortifications > also included a layout of well-prepared trenches and > bunkers. > > A conventional military assessment would have indicated that > an attacking force would need a strong opening bombardment > of artillery and mortars, perhaps supported by air strikes, > to weaken the defences before assault forces could be > launched with any chance of success. Even with such > preparation, however, the attacking force itself would still > need strong superiority of firepower in order to succeed. > The Maoists enjoyed none of these advantages, and the > lessons of previous failed attacks should have been clear to > them. In November 2002, they had failed to overcome the > strongly prepared RNA positions at Khalanga in Jumla > District, a setback that the Maoists have recently > acknowledged to have been a turning point in the war, and > one that required a serious downscaling in their aspirations > for overall military victory. In March 2004, the PLA > likewise failed to overrun the RNA defences at Beni in west > Nepal, and Khara was a much tougher objective. > > Information on Khara is very difficult to come by. The > battle has now been written out of Maoist history, and no > member of the party seems prepared to talk about it. So why > did this attack go ahead? Why the sensitivity and the > collective amnesia about it? The answers are rooted in the > bitter dispute between the Maoist chief, Pushpa Kamal Dahal > (aka ??Prachanda??), and his longtime number two, Baburam > Bhattarai, which came close to splitting the Maoist party in > late 2004 and early 2005. Much is known about this feud > because, as part of the reconciliation deal, the entirety of > their acrimonious exchanges was made public, including being > published on the Maoist website. > > This dispute came to a head in January 2005, when a > politburo meeting demoted Bhattarai, his wife Hisila Yami, > herself a prominent Maoist activist, and a few other key > supporters to the level of ordinary party membership. They > also had restraints placed on their movement and outside > communications. This dispute had a long history and many > facets, but from early 2004 one key issue had begun to > dominate: for some time, the Maoist leadership had known > that there was no solely military way forward towards > seizing state power. This truth had most likely dawned on > some leaders as early as the setback at Khalanga two years > earlier. All eventually came to agree that an alliance was > needed, but the two sides remained divided over whether it > was to be with Nepal??s political parties, facilitated by > India, or with then-King Gyanendra and his army. Bhattarai > crystallised the division starkly when he characterised his > opponents as ??those who consider feudal autocracy as more > progressive than capitalistic democracy.?? > > We now know that, in late 2004, Prachanda was involved in > direct talks with personal representatives of Gyanendra. > There was the prospect of an imminent meeting between the > two and even ?? or so it is alleged ?? the carrot being > dangled before Prachanda of becoming prime minister. Then > came the body blow of 1 February 2005, when Gyanendra > launched his coup and seized absolute power. Journalist > Bharat Dahal, in an August 2007 article in Nepal magazine, > asserted that this action led directly to the decision to > launch the Khara attack: > > The timing of action against Baburam coincided with the time > when Gyanendra seized power. To Prachanda, all the doors to > the palace, India and Baburam were closed. He prepared a > draft of the attack on Khara in order to prove his > ??brilliance??. The Party??s huge armed forces were > mobilised for the attack, but the plan failed miserably. > > This allegation could hardly be more damning ?? that > Prachanda chose to attack the very strongly held Khara > position to show that, despite what Bhattarai and his > supporters were saying and what Gyanendra had done, there > was a military way forward to seizing state power. The > evidence from the videos shows that the allegation is > soundly based. > > > Prachanda??s folly > > Prachanda committed both the PLA??s Western and Central > Divisions to the Khara attack. In a briefing to troops on > the march, Janardan Sharma (aka ??Prabhakar??), the > commander of the Western Division, linked the need for the > battle directly to Gyanendra??s seizure of power, and > spelled out its extraordinarily ambitious aim. ??Gyanendra > Shahi??s coup is not his success,?? he stated, using the > surname that seeks to reduce the king to a commoner. > > It is the success of the People??s War. This dramatic change > in circumstances has posed a question for us. Should we let > the battle we have fought so far collapse? Should we return > to combatant warfare? Or should we move forward? Should we > demolish our base areas and let all the people there be > massacred and destroyed, or should two to four hundred of us > die in order to open the door of final victory? The question > lies here. > > Opening the door to victory and conquest is a key motif > repeated by all Maoist brigade commanders and commissars > interviewed before the battle. Nanda Kishor Pun (aka > ??Pasang??), the Central Division commander, was given > overall command for the operation. In his orders, the > provenance of the phrase was made crystal clear: ??Let us > take our revolution to that level, and let us really open > the door to revolution, or in the words of the Chairman, let > us ??open the door to conquest??. It is with that commitment > that we have fixed this target.?? Another reply, by Bijaya K > C (aka ??Bikalpa??), the Eight Brigade vice-commander, > underscores the point: ??Our Chairman has a dream, which is > very much linked to reality. And that dream relates to > conquest.?? > > These commanders, like their peers, are full of confidence > about victory in the battle, and about its aftermath. > Birendra Budachettri (aka ??Jiwan??), the Third Brigade > commander, asserted that ??after previous battles, we got > plenty of rest. But now we will launch attack after attack; > we will achieve success after success. We will destroy the > enemies?? forts, and advance by sweeping away the enemy.?? > The sentiments in Jiwan??s words are typical of many. One > can only conjecture how battle-hardened Maoist military > commanders got themselves into such a delusional state of > mind, but it is clear that Prachanda personally convinced > them of the need for the battle ?? that it could and must be > won, and that success would open the way to final victory. > > The final orders for the attack were given using a very > large and detailed model, built to represent Khara??s > features and defences. In the video, Pasang and Prabhakar > are shown sitting side by side, and the body language > between the two is not good. Prabhakar??s contribution is > muted, and a later interview with Bikalpa hints strongly at > differences of opinion between the two divisions over the > plan for the attack. To preserve the vital principle of > unity of command, general military custom would have > required the brigades of Prabhakar??s division to be put > under Pasang??s command, with Prabhakar having no place in > the command chain. In military operations, there must never > be any doubt about exactly who is in charge; there can only > be one overall commander and one aim, in order to ensure > absolute unity and focus of effort. Any other arrangement > risks confusion and disaster. > > The video does not show scenes of actual fighting. But it > does show elements of the lead assault groups being put into > their final starting positions on the afternoon prior to the > attack. What is striking is the scarcity of rifles. Many > combatants had socket bombs, but many others were simply > carrying picks, spades and wire-cutters, in order to dig > under and cut through the barbed-wire obstacles. By 2005, > the RNA had greatly strengthened the fortifications of all > its bases, and there was no chance that a force as lightly > armed as the PLA, however strong its fighting spirit, would > succeed in overrunning the strongly fortified Khara > position. > > Some 250 were killed in the attack, the heaviest Maoist loss > of the entire conflict. The attackers fought long and > bravely against determined RNA resistance, but ??carnage?? > is probably the most appropriate word to describe what took > place, as wave after wave of attackers were mowed down by > machine-gun fire amidst the maze of barbed wire and strong > fortifications. Indeed, with the odds so heavily stacked > against them, it is extraordinary that the PLA was able to > sustain the attack for more than 18 hours; most forces in a > similar position would have cut and run much earlier. > Nonetheless, low RNA losses indicate that, despite their > persistence, the PLA was not able to achieve any significant > penetration of the perimeter defences. > > In an interview with Maoist journalists after the battle, > Bikalpa complained that the battle ended before some of the > people under his command had been committed to the attack. > But his main criticism is more eye-catching: ??There were > many problems when we went to the battle,?? he said. > > There were many weaknesses. As we analyse things, we had to > bear consequences because of certain shortcomings. Things > did not happen the way we had imagined they would because > there was mischief and betrayal. Many things ended up > deceiving us. Whose weakness was it the most? In clear and > straight-forward terms, it was the commander??s weakness. It > was the main commander??s weakness and also ours. > > This criticism of Pasang is completely misplaced. The fact > that it comes from a brigade commander in Prabhakar??s > division, and is filmed by a journalist attached to that > division, simply confirms the suspicions expressed > previously regarding rivalries and lack of unity of command. > No commander of any army could have won the battle of Khara > with the huge disparity in firepower faced by the PLA. > Pasang would seem to have done well to finish the attack > when he did: throwing in more troops would simply have added > to the casualties. > > This heavy defeat was a classic example of what happens when > the strength of the moral component of military power is > elevated and exalted as being supreme above all other > considerations. Before World War I, the French and British > generals committed the same mistake. But they learned the > hard way, and at great human cost, that offensive spirit and > high morale can only carry an attack so far when faced with > the physical realities of barbed wire, well-prepared > entrenchments, machine-gun fire and determined defenders. So > it was for the Maoists at Khara. > > For Prachanda, the defeat must have come as a crushing > personal blow. His much-proclaimed dream about ??conquest?? > was shattered. This was indeed his battle, conceived and > initiated by him for the personal reasons highlighted > earlier. Afterwards, there was only one direction in which > he could turn. Within four weeks of the Khara attack, > Baburam Bhattarai, still technically reduced to being an > ordinary party member, was in Delhi with one of Prachanda??s > right-hand men, K B Mahara, to start the process that > ultimately led to the agreement with the Nepal political > parties in November 2005. > > The Khara defeat also left the Maoist military reputation > bruised and battered. But within a few months, the ??feudal > autocrat?? in Kathmandu would himself order, for equally > wrong and egotistical reasons, a deployment of his army. > This would not only give the PLA the chance to regain its > lost prestige, but also to acquire over 200 modern weapons > and large amounts of ammunition and explosives. > > > Gyanendra??s folly > > On 24 July 2005, elements of an RNA combat engineer > battalion began to deploy to build a camp on the steep-sided > banks of the Tila River, a major tributary of the Karnali in > the mid-western Kalikot District. No security-clearance > operations were carried out in the area beforehand; nor was > any action taken to provide adequate defences on the ground > to cover the actual period of deployment and the building of > the camp. > > The decision was taken at the direct behest of Gyanendra. On > his heavily guarded public-relations ??felicitations?? > around the country, he invariably would nod enthusiastically > and affirmatively to endless requests for roads. Sadly for > his pretensions as the great road builder, however, the > general state of insecurity across the countryside made it > very difficult to build anything in the rural areas. He saw > his credibility as an effective ruler sinking by the day, as > the Maoist insurgency spread and strengthened, and as all > development activities stalled. To boost his public > reputation, he decided that decisive action was needed. > Thus, in early July 2005, at the height of the monsoon, he > ordered his army chief to immediately resume the building of > the Surkhet-to-Jumla road in Kalikot. > > The likely consequences of obeying this command should have > been spelled out to Gyanendra. Instead, the order was merely > passed on, and the soldiers were dispatched to build a camp > in what the RNA official spokesman, Brigadier General Deepak > Gurung, later described with excessive candour as ??a > strategically unfavourable place??. A second report, from 12 > August 2005, quoted him as saying that ??the temporary > security base at Pili was not an ideal location. The > decision to set up the base there was a technical one, not a > tactical one. We didn??t expect our workforce to bear such > an attack.?? It was a massive dereliction of duty not to > have done so. This failure also showed a complete disregard > for one of the most basic tenets of war: never underestimate > your enemy. > > The Maoists heard about the RNA deployment on 2 August, 10 > days after the first soldiers arrived at Pili. Prabhakar was > with the Second Brigade at Dashera VDC in Jajarkot, 70 km > southeast of Pili. Kali Bahadur Kham Magar (aka ??Vividh??), > the vice-divisional commander, was with the Third and Eighth > Brigades in Turmakhand village in Accham District, 70 km > directly west of Pili but on the other side of the Karnali, > preparing to carry out an attack on Martadi, the > headquarters of Bajura District. (A VDC is Nepali > terminology for a community cluster, called a Village > Development Committee.) As soon as the PLA commanders heard > about the Pili camp, they decided that it would be an easy > target and should be attacked as soon as possible. > > > Manarishi Dhital > > Calling all red units: a Maoist with an army communications > system captured in Pili > > Initially, Prachanda was reluctant to give his approval. At > the time, Maoist representatives were already in Delhi in > consultation with the political parties, and a ceasefire was > imminent. At the same time, Prachanda clearly could not risk > going into the ceasefire on the back of a reversal on the > scale of the failed Khara attack. He was assured by his > commanders that success was guaranteed. The key commanders > involved agreed that their forces should set off immediately > with the aim of concentrating the division??s three brigades > at Raut hamlet of Pakha VDC, just one hour east of Pili, > during the early afternoon of 7 August. The justification > for the attack was well defined by Khadka Bahadur B K (aka > ??Prakanda??) the regional bureau in-charge, when he briefed > commanders of the Second Brigade before they set off from > Jajarkot: ??In war, whichever side makes mistakes faces > defeat. Our enemy has just made a big mistake, and we must > move quickly to take advantage of it.?? > > Getting to the objective on time required the three brigades > to do a five-day forced march with little food on two > different routes. The videos show that both routes were very > tough going ?? at the height of the monsoon, and with a > series of 4000-metre ridges that needed to be traversed. The > Second Brigade travelled in an almost straight line from > Jajarkot; the Third and Eighth Brigades first had to head > northeast in order to cross the Karnali at the Jharkot > bridge in Ramkot VDC, well to the north of Manma, the > district headquarters. They then came south over the Chuli > Himalaya to meet up with the Second Brigade at Raut village > at 1 pm on 7 August. It was decided that they would attack > that evening at six. > > The attack achieved total surprise. The landing of an RNA > helicopter 300 metres from the camp distracted the > defenders, as they went to unload it. The Maoist command > decided to take advantage of this opportunity, and the > attack began at 5:45 pm. The Maoists quickly captured a > number of unarmed RNA soldiers who had been unloading the > helicopter, including the commanding officer of the > battalion, who had arrived in the helicopter. The commander > managed to escape during the subsequent confusion, and > turned up two days later at Manma, along with 114 other men > from the battalion who had also somehow managed to escape. > Some evidence of their rapid exit and bedraggled state comes > from Tularam Pandey??s article. Along the trail from Manma > to Pili, he recorded, ??there were torn pieces of uniform, > abandoned boots, caps and cartridges of bullets??. He also > quoted villagers as recalling how the soldiers who escaped > were ??hungry and naked??, and that they gave the soldiers > ??food, clothes, shoes??. > > The RNA later announced that 227 soldiers had been in the > camp at the time of the attack. There were probably a few > more, since we know that 58 were killed, 60 were taken > prisoner and 115 turned up at Manma. This means that about > 120 soldiers stood their ground to resist the Maoists. More > than 3000 Maoists took part in the attack, so it was not > surprising that RNA resistance effectively ceased after two > hours of fighting, by 7:45 pm. The hopelessly outnumbered > RNA men, without a commanding officer and taken by surprise > in what the video confirms was a very badly sited and > unprepared camp, did very well to hold out for so long. The > turning point in the battle came when the single medium > machine gun in the camp, a GPMG, was overrun. > > The Maoists were hungry and exhausted, so their first action > after the battle was to cook a meal from captured RNA > rations. Most slept near the camp, though some remained busy > destroying and salvaging RNA kit and equipment during the > night, an activity that may have misled some villagers about > the actual duration of the attack. The first Maoists began > withdrawing at six the next morning. By midday they had all > left, having stripped the camp of all that was useful to > them, and taking along 60 RNA prisoners. The first RNA > troops arrived at Pili from Manma at 11:00 am on 9 August, a > full day after the Maoist withdrawal. Twenty-six Maoists > were killed in the attack. The RNA prisoners were released > to the Red Cross five weeks later, on 14 September. > > > The propaganda battle > > The aftermath of the Pili battle richly exemplifies the old > adage that truth is the first casualty of war. Maoist > journalists writing for Janadesh, the Maoist news outlet, > with memories of Khara to expunge, had an obvious interest > in exaggerating the length of RNA resistance and the > strength of the defences. Elaborate, largely fictitious > descriptions were offered of the attack. However, given the > direct personal connection of Gyanendra and his army chief, > General Pyar Jung Thapa, to the debacle, it was the RNA who > had the greater interest in distracting people from asking > questions about who was responsible. It quickly became > apparent that there was to be no question of acknowledging > mistakes or of paying proper tribute to the soldiers who > fought bravely under such disadvantageous conditions. > Instead, their sacrifice was to be derided and disparaged in > an attempt to cover up for the gross incompetence and grave > dereliction of duty of the top brass. Not even the dead > bodies of the soldiers were to be exempt from being used in > the public-relations exercise designed to achieve this > nefarious purpose. > > The first RNA effort at distraction was to say that that the > great majority of those in the Pili camp were unarmed > civilians. In a press conference held at the RNA > headquarters on 12 August, this line shifted to make the > contradictory claims that ??the soldiers bravely resisted > till morning?? and that ??most of the deceased soldiers were > non-combatants who had not been provided with personal > weapons.?? This story was repeated multiple times, despite > the fact that combat engineers in all armies are trained as > infantrymen in addition to learning their trade skills. At > the district headquarters Beni in August 2004, it was an > engineer battalion that had held off a force of over 3000 > armed Maoists. > > Another RNA claim was much more serious. On 11 August, > Nepalnews, an online news organisation, stated that it had > been given ??exclusive access?? to an RNA-produced video, > which it claimed ??revealed gory images of dead soldiers. > The rebels had mutilated genitals, limbs and tongues of some > of the soldiers before gunning them down, while some of the > others were burnt alive with hands and legs tied tight with > ropes.?? These were incredible claims to make on the basis > of seeing a video. Without forensic expertise and personal > examinations, no one can distinguish the nature of wounds > resulting from a closely fought battle in which mortars and > thousands of high-velocity rounds have been fired. > > This claim was first made at an RNA press conference on 10 > August, and was given wide publicity through the > state-controlled media. The following day, the UN Office of > the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) urged the RNA > ??to ensure that a full forensic examination of the victims > is conducted by qualified, independent experts??. On 14 and > 15 August, autopsies by such experts were carried out in > Kathmandu on the bodies of the 58 RNA soldiers killed at > Pili. The results were passed to the RNA, OHCHR and the > National Human Rights Commission. The RNA immediately > dropped the stories about mutilation and execution, > presumably because there was no forensic evidence to justify > them. > > This was not the end of the obfuscation, however, and the > next effort at distraction led the RNA to make its most > ludicrous claim yet. On 13 August, the Kathmandu Post > reported Brigadier General Dipak Gurung saying, at a press > conference at the army headquarters the previous day, ??Our > soldiers have a major complaint that the INSAS [Indian > National Small Arms System] rifles stop functioning after > one to two hours of continuous firing. In Pili, the rifles > could not function well after midnight. The soldiers > resisted the Maoists till morning with the support of 81-mm > mortar and GPMGs.?? This claim does not stand scrutiny. The > Pili battle lasted just two hours, and a study of the > relevant Maoist videos shows that most of the assault troops > had a preponderance of socket bombs, and that the rifles > they had were largely .303, with a sprinkling of captured > INSASs and semi-automatic rifles. As a few observers > commented at the time, the battle was fought with Indian > weapons on both sides. The RNA soldiers were not > disadvantaged by their weaponry ?? those who stayed in the > camp to fight had plenty of excellent weapons. > > > A personal army > > Writing 2500 years ago, Sun Tzu said that the apogee of > strategic success is to achieve a situation in which an > attack can be likened to ??throwing rocks at eggs??. Despite > the arduous terrain and difficult conditions, the PLA showed > great dash and skill to achieve at Pili a situation of > advantage akin to Sun Tzu??s ideal. However, they were > greatly helped by the incompetence and extremely poor > judgement of senior RNA commanders, who allowed their > soldiers to be deployed to such a dangerous position without > adequate protection. No effort at public relations can > disguise for long a rout of the scale that took place at > Pili ?? nor the monumental incompetence that caused it. > > Those killed attacking the Khara base and defending the Pili > camp join a long line of soldiers throughout history who > have been victims of the ineptitude and egotism of their > commanders. Some survivors of such disasters have been > fortunate enough to see those responsible for their > suffering and the fate of their comrades held to account and > punished. There was never any chance of that happening in > the autocratic, unquestioning world of Gyanendra??s Nepal > and the army he commanded. Nor was it ever likely to happen > in the closed, secretive world of Nepal??s Maoists. > > With the return of democracy to the country, there is now > the chance to ensure that, in the future, all those > entrusted with the leadership of Nepal??s security forces > will be made fully accountable for their actions, and in a > completely open and transparent way. However, with two > armies still in existence, this will be a very difficult > path on which to make much progress. The Comprehensive Peace > Agreement between the Maoists and the government, which > ended the conflict in November 2006, provided for a special > committee to supervise, rehabilitate and integrate Maoist > combatants, but the process stalled after only a single > meeting. At the highest level, what is needed is a total > transformation and streamlining of Nepal??s bloated security > sector as part of the progressive demilitarisation of what > is, by any standards, a heavily militarised state. This is > necessary both to save money for diversion to health, > education and other programmes, and also to enable democracy > to take stronger root. > > The prerequisite to make any of this happen is to bring the > present Nepal Army under firm political direction. Nepal??s > official army is now subject to less control from the > state??s governing authority than at any time in its entire > history. In May 2006, instead of the previous palace-based > authority over it passing to a functioning Defence Ministry > or Prime Minister??s Office, it passed directly to the army > headquarters and into the personal hands of the current army > chief. There is currently no sign of any political will to > grip the generals, or to build the capacity to make civilian > control of the military a reality ?? both essential > foundations for a democratic state. The rarity of meaningful > discussion on the subject is just one measure of the size of > the task and of the moral courage required to champion its > urgency and importance. > > > > Sam Cowan is a retired British general who knows Nepal well. > > > > - ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > > > > > - -- > *** FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE! *************************************** > * NO ONE LEFT BEHIND: Free all political prisoners! * > * Question authority -- before authority questions you! * > ******************************************************************** > * http://www.supportwendy.com Support Wendy Maxwell / Queen Nzinga * > * http://tassc.org Torture Abolition & Survivors Support Coalition * > * http://www.breakthechains.net Break the Chains * > * http://www.abcf.net Anarchist Black Cross Federation * > * http://www.anarchistblackcross.org Anarchist Black Cross Network * > * http://www.criticalresistance.org Critical Resistance * > * http://www.addameer.org Palestinian Prisoner Support Association * > ******************* *NEVER* Vote Bourgeois ********************* > GPG fingerprint = 2E7F 2D69 4B0B C8D5 07E3 09C3 5E8D C4B4 461B B771 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFIv///Xo3EtEYbt3ERAvIWAKCvbICmzxmp1luV1WP7NXTAq9mDgACg7h21 > yYN73KoFOpJvhXxzgMDv0OQ= > =Bm4O > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 5 18:46:19 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 20:46:19 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Scenarios For Last Ditch US Attempt To Control Ex-USSR, World Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 2:57 PM Subject: [stopnato] Scenarios For Last Ditch US Attempt To Control Ex-USSR, World http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1592 Strategic Culture Foundation September 4, 2008 Georgia: the First Step Towards Chaos Control (II) Part I -[P]reparations for the second phase of the US operation aimed at destabilizing the post-Soviet space are underway. Its start is tentatively scheduled for September-October, 2008 and will probably be marked by a new Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, this time with direct US support by means of space reconnaissance and radio-frequency jamming. Quite possibly, US Special Forces in Georgian army uniforms will be involved in combat. -[T]he US intends to use Georgia as a foothold in a campaign aimed at dragging Russia into a low-intensity conflict as it has been done in Vietnam. The response of the Ukrainian leadership has shown that it is ready to join Georgia in a military confrontation with Russia in case Washington asks it to. -In parallel, the US will be bracing for an attack on Iran. The result will be McCain's victory in the coming presidential race. -The fact that the US elite aims at instigating a series of regional conflicts shows that the US is no longer able to carry the burden of global leadership, and the coming war is the last resort to retain it....The reliance on war demonstrates that the US elite's intellectual potential needed to maintain the status of the US as the only superpower is exhausted. Russia is the key power in the post-Soviet geopolitical space. It is actively reasserting itself, and the process will compel other post-Soviet countries to decide which side to take. As a result the currently amorphous club known as the CIS will split into real military, political, and economic alliances. The core of the new alliance in the post-Soviet space led by Russia will be formed in the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a geopolitical, military, and strategic partner. The new alliance will not be joined by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. [GUAM] A question mark hangs over the future partnership with Belarus. Nevertheless, considering that all of the above countries except for Azerbaijan are not self-sufficient in terms of energy resources and are too weak economically to survive the transition to market-based fuel prices, they will have to look for a justification for their siding with the US and the EU in the situation of domestic economic crises. The initial polarization in the post-Soviet space will be a prologue to a serious geopolitical conflict between the two groups of countries. At times we will see the confrontation evolve into armed hostilities. There are two long-term scenarios for the evolution of the situation. According to the first scenario, the occasionally hot conflict between the two new blocs in the post-Soviet space will be sufficiently protracted to make the existence of the Russian geopolitical space in the de facto imperial form impossible. The second scenario is that Russia and its allies will make serious efforts to gain control over the territories of the above countries. In our view, the latter option is the only one acceptable to Russia since it simply cannot afford a protracted conflict. The CIS split and permanent instability in its space will have an extremely negative impact on European energy security. Europe Currently Europe is divided over strategy and tactics in dealing with the unfolding conflict between Russia and the US. On the one hand, old Europe is tired of being an inferior partner of the US and no longer regards Russia as an ideological opponent.... On the other hand, the East European novices will be trying to profit from the discord between Russia and the US as their economies have no potential to survive the fuel price war the West is dragging Russia into. It should be expected that Europe will fail to formulate a common approach to Russia. However, the US is notorious for its ability to stage provocations. Therefore, it appears likely that in the nearest future the US will organize another massive provocation (similar to the events of September 11) or a series of provocations of smaller proportions in order to break the resistance of a part of the European elite and to entirely subdue the EU. In case the US succeeds in doing so, its conflict with Russia will turn into a cold war in which Europe will - contrary to its continental interests - traditionally play the role of a satellite of the "global island". Asia China and Iran will be important actors in the coming transition. It is clear that if Iran is admitted to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization before it comes under attack from the US and Israel, and China supports Russia in its bid to restore order in the disintegrating Russian...geopolitical space, Russia will avoid fighting a cold war alone. However, it is too early to say what stance Tehran and Beijing are going to adopt. Geo-Economics The threat of a series of local conflicts or of one global military conflict is bound to affect the overall condition of the world economy. Access to natural resources will be of fundamental importance to the stability of national economies. Since Russia is the world's top resource-rich country and it has successfully reformed its traditionally most problem-ridden sector - the manufacturing of consumer products - the Russian economy should be able to endure high food and technology prices. The economy of the majority of Western countries will move from stagnation to long-term recession. The position of the US will be the best among the Western countries since it has large oil reserves and has raised domestic natural gas production by 50% over recent years. Therefore, in case Europe once again allows US strategists to get it involved in a cold war with Russia, its own economy will be particularly vulnerable. Conclusions 1. The conflict in the Caucasus has shown that Russia should as actively as possible move on to implementing its own strategic political projects in the post-Soviet space. The politics of limiting interactions with post-Soviet countries to interacting with their leaders proved inefficient, as we have seen in the cases of Georgia and Ukraine. Russia should address broader audiences including various political elites and the general public in the respective countries. Moscow's policy should not be exclusively oriented towards any particular authority groups in post-Soviet countries. The approach would be equally warranted from the economic standpoint. It will require substantial financial infusions, but it is cheaper than a war. Russia spent $100m a day on the war with Georgia and a serious armed conflict is bound to be even costlier. The budget of a program of cultivating friendly political forces in any of the CIS countries is likely to stay within the $1bn limit. Unless such efforts are made, economic expansion alone will not ensure Russia's influence over its neighbors. 2. In all likelihood, preparations for the second phase of the US operation aimed at destabilizing the post-Soviet space are underway. Its start is tentatively scheduled for September-October, 2008 and will probably be marked by a new Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, this time with direct US support by means of space reconnaissance and radio-frequency jamming. Quite possibly, US Special Forces in Georgian army uniforms will be involved in combat. At the same time, a provocation such as the murder of Russian sailors or a blow-up of a Russian warship will be organized in Sevastopol, the result being a civil war in Ukraine and a direct military conflict between the country and Russia. Obviously, the US intends to use Georgia as a foothold in a campaign aimed at dragging Russia into a low-intensity conflict as it has been done in Vietnam. The response of the Ukrainian leadership has shown that it is ready to join Georgia in a military confrontation with Russia in case Washington asks it to. 3. In parallel, the US will be bracing for an attack on Iran. The result will be McCain's victory in the coming presidential race. American society has given him carte blanche to take drastic measures to deal with the countries which do not side with the US. Nevertheless, war with Iran will stretch thin the US armed forces simultaneously engaged in several conflicts. Though Iran's infrastructure will be largely destroyed during the first days of the US attack and, quite possibly, the US and Israel will subject it to nuclear strikes, its strategy will be to block the Strait of Hormuz and to switch the conflict to a permanent mode. 4. The fact that the US elite aims at instigating a series of regional conflicts shows that the US is no longer able to carry the burden of global leadership, and the coming war is the last resort to retain it. However, the conflict will not last forever and sooner or later the US will have to downscale its military and political presence worldwide. The reliance on war demonstrates that the US elite's intellectual potential needed to maintain the status of the US as the only superpower is exhausted. 5. Under the circumstances Russia's main task is to psychologically survive the first propaganda strike and some 3-6 months of the information war waged by Western media. Subsequently the US will have to withdraw under various pretexts from the conflicts it unleashed unless its victory will be complete and obvious. 6. The result will be a fundamental transformation of the global geo-economic picture and pattern of trade and financial flows, plus a reform of the UN. A new global monetary system will be established based on the economies of Russia, China, Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil. 7. The US dollar will lose its current status of the global currency. The US will no longer be a country with attractive living conditions, and a migration of quality workforce from the country will commence. The US will be plagued by crime and will face the problem of preserving its territorial integrity. The international community will have to dispatch a peacekeeping force to US territory to maintain order in the country and to prevent international terrorists from making inroads into its nuclear arsenals. 8. The EU in its current form will cease to exist. A new system of European collective security will be based on the alliance of Russia, Germany, and France and on a partition of Europe into their respective spheres of influence. Great Britain will be distanced from the continent again and lose its competitive advantages. London will stop serving as the world's financial center. 9. Facing serious time constraints, Moscow should clarify its relations with Belarus, and its Collective Security Treaty Organization and Shanghai Cooperation Organization partners maximally by the moment the above scenario starts to materialize. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Best of Y! Groups Check it out and nominate your group to be featured. Share Photos Put your favorite photos and more online. Y! Groups blog the best source for the latest scoop on Groups.. __,_._,___ From nscchicago at igc.org Fri Sep 5 09:37:00 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 10:37:00 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Full spectrum recruiting disorder - VIDEO WAR GAMES - IT'S GOOD TO KILL BE A MERCENARY Message-ID: <004d01c90f6d$44afe5c0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> From: Banbose Shango [mailto:bshango at yahoo.com] Subject: Full spectrum recruiting disorder - JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS Full spectrum recruiting disorder September 4, 2008 ? No Comments Mom, Can I Play a Mercenary Invading Venezuela? Luigino Bracci Roa - Yvke Mundial Translation: Machetera Finally, after years of development, controversy and ?free? publicity granted by the wire services and videogame websites, ?Mercenaries 2? has hit the streets. Every day, scores of new videogames hit the streets in the United States, but this one has received special attention for its subject: ?a videogame of mercenaries going around in Venezuela specifically, where a power-hungry tyrant has taken over the oil supply, provoking an invasion that turns the country into a war-zone.? The videogame?s first images date from 2005, when there was a great controversy due to the fact that pictures of the La Campi?a headquarters of Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) in Caracas could be seen, destroyed in the invasion. Flames could be seen from the Torre Domus, in Plaza Venezuela, which has been the headquarters for the National Information Technology Center since 2004, and where the web servers for the Venezuelan government websites are located. According to the game synopsis, an important Venezuelan political figure named Ram?n Solano, hires the protagonists (the mercenaries) for a job, but later refuses to pay them. Solano then launches a coup d?etat in Venezuela, becoming the country?s dictator. He seizes Venezuelan oil production and uses it to provoke international incidents. ?It is time the Venezuelan people stop paying for the greed of foreign interests, we will make them pay dearly for our oil. From this day forward everybody pays,? says Solano before the beginning of combat in Venezuelans scenes. Certain scenes from the game, which takes place in 2010, show mercenaries with U.S. accents attacking oil facilities during the bloody coup d?etat. The game shows scenes from Caracas, M?rida and elsewhere in the country. No escape for M?rida from the war in Mercenaries 2 One can even launch nuclear bombs in Venezuelan territory. The armed services who oppose Solano (the ?good guys? in other words) have come together in the ?PLAV? - People?s Liberation Army of Venezuela. The logo will doubtless be quite familiar to all Venezuelans: the fist of OTPOR. OTPOR is the group that has organized student movements to topple the governments of Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and other countries, through so-called ?color revolutions.? The Venezuelan student movement, which reversed the fist from black to white, attaching the word ?Resistencia,? is another one of the groups receiving advice from OTPOR. ?PLAV? are the good guys in the game. Using the OTPOR logo, they claim to be leftists who want to topple the ?dictator.? Note the word ?Resista? on the helicopter From hliu at mindspring.com Fri Sep 5 14:20:25 2008 From: hliu at mindspring.com (Henry C.K. Liu) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:20:25 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Henry CK Liu Commentary on the Friedman/Chicago Affair Message-ID: <48C19489.6090209@mindspring.com> As appeared in Asia Times on Line COMMENT Friedman's misplaced monument by Henry CK Liu The University of Chicago's plans to establish a research institute commemorating economist Milton Friedman, whose now increasingly discredited influence shaped the world, are inappropriate. Opposition can help expose Friedmanite market fundamentalism as a device that rationalizes the exploitation of the many by a few the world over. More than money matters. (Sep 4, '08) http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JI05Dj03.html Also on my website: http://henryckliu.com/page167.html Henry C.K. Liu -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 1348 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080905/b460b940/attachment.txt From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Fri Sep 5 21:38:43 2008 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:38:43 -0800 Subject: [A-List] Scenarios For Last Ditch US Attempt To Control Ex-USSR, World In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82b839ea0809052038t6c0498at57476577c253dd54@mail.gmail.com> Tony, Do you know who this "Strategic Culture Foundation" is? In any case, I found these predictions rather curious. On what are they based other than conjecture. Is there already a plan out there about which everyone at a certain level is aware and the rest of us remain ignorant? M > 3. In parallel, the US will be bracing for an attack > on Iran. The result will be McCain's victory in the > coming presidential race. American society has given > him carte blanche to take drastic measures to deal > with the countries which do not side with the US. > > Nevertheless, war with Iran will stretch thin the US > armed forces simultaneously engaged in several > conflicts. Though Iran's infrastructure will be > largely destroyed during the first days of the US > attack and, quite possibly, the US and Israel will > subject it to nuclear strikes, its strategy will be to > block the Strait of Hormuz and to switch the conflict > to a permanent mode. > > 4. The fact that the US elite aims at instigating a > series of regional conflicts shows that the US is no > longer able to carry the burden of global leadership, > and the coming war is the last resort to retain it. > > However, the conflict will not last forever and sooner > or later the US will have to downscale its military > and political presence worldwide. The reliance on war > demonstrates that the US elite's intellectual > potential needed to maintain the status of the US as > the only superpower is exhausted. > > 5. Under the circumstances Russia's main task is to > psychologically survive the first propaganda strike > and some 3-6 months of the information war waged by > Western media. Subsequently the US will have to > withdraw under various pretexts from the conflicts it > unleashed unless its victory will be complete and > obvious. > > 6. The result will be a fundamental transformation of > the global geo-economic picture and pattern of trade > and financial flows, plus a reform of the UN. A new > global monetary system will be established based on > the economies of Russia, China, Japan, Germany, India, > and Brazil. > > 7. The US dollar will lose its current status of the > global currency. The US will no longer be a country > with attractive living conditions, and a migration of > quality workforce from the country will commence. > > The US will be plagued by crime and will face the > problem of preserving its territorial integrity. The > international community will have to dispatch a > peacekeeping force to US territory to maintain order > in the country and to prevent international terrorists > from making inroads into its nuclear arsenals. > From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 02:55:11 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 04:55:11 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Uneasy Reliance on Russia Likely to Persist + Brussels Told to Pursue Azerbaijan Pipe Dream + Etc. Message-ID: Uneasy reliance on Russia likely to persist By Ed Crooks, energy editor Published: September 5 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 5 2008 03:00 The American and British governments have been holding out hopes this week of the European Union curbing its reliance on Russian gas. Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, and Gordon Brown, prime minister, have stressed the importance of alternative energy supply routes following Russia's clash with Georgia last month. Gas industry experts, however, believe hopes of making a significant difference to the EU's need for Russian gas are likely to be in vain. As Simon Blakey of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the research company, says: "The scale of the inter-dependence is so huge it is really not possible to make a major difference to it even over the space of two decades." US concern about western Europe's dependence on Russia for energy supplies dates back to the cold war. In 1982, following the crackdown on the Solidarity movement in Poland, Ronald Reagan's administration tried to stop the Soviet Un-ion increasing its gas exports to Europe. Worried that Europe's reliance on Russian energy would make it ever more susceptible to Soviet influence, the US blocked exports of equipment for gas production and transport to the Soviet Union and tried to limit west European countries' purchases of Russian gas to 30 per cent of their consumption. Today, the European Union buys about a quarter of its gas from Russia, but that proportion is set to grow. It is likely that the old 30 per cent limit will be exceeded in the next decade. Demand for gas in Europe is likely to rise for another decade, at least. Old nuclear and coal-fired power stations will be going out of use as they end their productive lives. Gas-fired plants are the quickest and cheapest ways to replace them. The EU's emissions trading scheme, which will reward power generators that have lower carbon emissions, will also favour cleaner, gas-fired generation in the next decade. EU countries have agreed demanding targets for increasing the proportion of their energy that is derived from renewable sources to 20 per cent by 2020. But even if that policy succeeds, which many experts doubt, and there is substantial fresh investment in nuclear power, gas demand then will be about the same as it is now, according to Cera. Europe's domestic gas production, meanwhile, is in steep decline. By 2020, it is likely to be only about half of 2006's output of 218bn cubic metres, Cera believes. Russia, with the world's biggest gas reserves on the EU's doorstep, is the obvious place to look to fill that gap. There are alternatives, but all of them have their difficulties. Several European countries have been building new terminals for the import of liquefied natural gas: super-cooled gas carried in tankers. But strong Asian demand and delays in big LNG developments have created a very tight market and pushed up prices. Frank Harris of Wood Mackenzie, another research company, said: "The ability of Europe to diversify away from Russian gas with LNG is strictly limited in the short to medium term." Long term, after 2015 or so, there is potential for more imports of LNG to come from countries such as Nigeria, Egypt and Libya. But in many countries with large gas reserves, their willingness or ability to export is curtailed by strong growth in their domestic demand. Nordine Cherouati, the director of Algeria's hydrocarbons agency, told a conference in Slovenia this week: "We cannot export gas while the needs of the domestic population are unmet." Other countries supply the EU with gas through pipelines, most notably Norway and Algeria. The EU has high hopes for the proposed Nabucco pipeline to bring gas from the Caspian region to Austria and the rest of Europe. Algeria hopes to build a pipeline for gas from Nigeria. But all these countries are subject to the same problems of competing demand for limited resources. Nabucco, for example, is heavily dependent on gas from Azerbaijan, which has plans to increase its production to 40bn cubic metres a year by the end of the next decade. However, its ambitions are viewed sceptically by some analysts. As is widely appreciated in continental Europe, the EU cannot simply cut itself off from Russian gas, or even reduce demand. At the same conference in Slovenia, R?diger Freiherr von Fritsch, the German foreign office's directorgeneral of economic affairs, stressed the "mutual dependence" of Russia and the EU. Geography and economics dictate that the EU is dependent on Russia for gas, whether politicians like it or not. Energy: Brussels told to pursue Azerbaijan pipe dream ? Commissioner pushes for route through Georgia ? Line would reduce energy dependency on Russia * David Gow in Brussels * The Guardian, * Friday September 5 2008 The EU must redouble its efforts to build the $12bn Nabucco gas pipeline and reduce its dependence on imports from Russia in the wake of the Georgian crisis, its energy commissioner said yesterday. The conflict in the Caucasus has led many experts to dismiss Nabucco, the planned 3,300km pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe via Georgia and Turkey. But Andris Piebalgs said the aim of diversifying energy sources and routes was even more important now. "We need more political engagement to remove all the political obstacles to Nabucco to bring gas from the Caspian basin to the EU," he said in the face of evidence that the ambitious project to bypass Russia is foundering. Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, has already offered to buy Azeri gas at world prices and has put its weight behind two alternative pipelines, Nord Stream and South Stream, to Europe. Piebalgs won backing from Nabuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, who said alternative import routes would enhance the EU's energy security and reduce its dependence on Russia. Russia provides 42% of the EU's overall gas imports and 30% of its oil but accounts for up to 80% of energy imports in some countries. Moscow and Gazprom have succeeded in dividing the EU by signing bilateral supply deals, notably with Germany, Italy and Austria, and by persuading member states to take part in its own sponsored transnational pipelines even when they are already involved with Nabucco. But Tanaka, presenting the IEA's first review of EU energy policies, said Russia's dependence on Europe was much higher, with the EU taking 70% of its oil and gas exports. "It's more and more important to have a single European energy market and a single EU voice," he said. "In the long run countries conducting relations on a bilateral basis will lose out." The 220-page IEA report adds: "Speaking with one voice and acting in a consistent and unified manner will be crucial to moving towards closer relationships between the EU and the external suppliers on which it will increasingly depend in the future." The ultimate aim of the six partners in the Nabucco project and the EC is to import gas from the Middle East, including Iraq, via the pipeline. The IEA also urges the EU to step up its efforts to promote renewable sources of energy if it is to reach its 20% target of consumption by 2020 and combat climate change. Tanaka said that an extra $45tn (?25tn) of investment in renewables and other green technologies would be required globally by 2050 if the world were to cut carbon emissions by a half - the EU's own long-term goal. This would be on top of the $22tn required globally to reach interim targets. The agency endorsed the EU's "bold and innovative" energy and climate change policies but said continued use of nuclear power "is almost certainly going to be necessary" to achieve its goals. Nabucco backers remain composed By Haig Simonian Published: September 5 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 5 2008 03:00 The backers of the Nabucco pipeline, an ambitious 3,300km scheme to ship gas from central Asia to Europe, remain confident the project is on track, in spite of the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Christened at a dinner in 2002 after the project's founders had seen the Verdi opera of the same name, Nabucco has been backed strongly by the European Union and the US, keen for Europe to access gas supplies without Russia. Under the ?7.9bn ($11.63bn, ?6.38bn) project, due to start construction in 2010 and ship gas supplies three years later, a new pipeline will run from Baumgarten in Austria to Turkey and on to the Georgian and Iranian borders. That will provide access to new fields in Azerbaijan, due to come on stream in 2013, sufficient to fill Nabucco's initial capacity of 8bn cubic metres a year. Subject to a separate link across the Caspian, Nabucco could go up to 31bn cu m annually via supplies in Turkmenistan. Further links could involve Iran, Kazakhstan, Iraq or even Egypt. "The Georgian conflict has no impact on Nabucco or its planning, which envisages first deliveries in 2013, so there is enough time to solve the political issues," says Reinhard Mitschek, chief executive of the six-nation project. A top manager at OMV, the Austrian energy group that is one of Nabucco's backers, Mr Mitschek is a veteran of the gas infrastructure industry. "We are focused on developing the project properly. Nabucco is on track and all partners are determined and fully committed to realise it," he says. Nabucco, which forms part of the EU's Trans European Network programme, has gained strategic importance as concerns about energy dependence on Russia have grown. Planned to traverse Turkey, rather than Russia or Ukraine, the scheme should improve Europe's energy security. As head of a six-nation consortium, Mr Mitschek is reluctant to discuss the intricacies of Russian foreign policy or aims. "We are watching the situation closely, but prefer not to comment on the political issues. Looking back, we've always had a long-term and stable energy partnership with Russian companies and we have no doubt that matters will stay like that. Russia, the Caspian region and Europe have close common links: everyone has something to offer the other." But cost inflation has made the pipeline a more expensive venture than when it started out and despite announcements of promises from Caspian countries, Europe has yet to secure the gas it needs. Nabucco executives reject reports that the project is late, that supplies are not certain, or that some partners are having second thoughts. A market survey last month suggested "huge demand" for Nabucco's capacities. "More than 100 per cent booking from day one in 2013 shows huge demand," says Mr Mitschek. He dismisses fears that Russian plans for a roughly parallel pipeline, to be called South Stream, could reduce Nabucco's appeal. "South Stream and Nabucco are not competing projects. Europe is facing a strong rise in gas demand in the next 20 years. Our own European gas production is declining, so we will need different projects and additional routes. "It's not a question of South Stream or Nabucco: we will need both." Iran objects to Caspian seabed pipelines Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:38:27 GMT Five countries border the Caspian Sea Iran has questioned plans to lay pipelines on the seabed of the Caspian Sea, saying the move would cause environmental pollution. The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water in the world and is of crucial importance as its littoral states-- Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan-- enjoy vast oil and gas reserves. The body of water, however, is polluted by industrial emissions, toxic and radioactive wastes, agricultural run-off, sewage and oil leaks resulting from extraction and refining. The Caspian environment has also been plagued by a proposal to build The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline to transfer energy to Europe. In cooperation with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the five littoral states signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in 2003. Article 2 of the convention calls for the protection of the Caspian environment from all sources of pollution, including "the protection, preservation, restoration and sustainable and rational use of the biological resources of the Caspian Sea." The parties to the convention are therefore urged to prevent and reduce seabed activities and dumping. A particular challenge for littoral countries will be addressing the potential consequences of the recent growth in oil and gas production. In 2004, regional oil production reached roughly 1.9 million barrels per day, and other oil supplies transit the region via ship and pipeline. A senior Iranian official, however, responded to plans to increase seabed activities in the Caspian Sea on Thursday and declared that Tehran opposes any action that pollutes the environment. "Since suitable conditions for energy transit through Iran and Russia exist, there is no need to jeopardize the Caspian Sea ecology by building pipelines on the seabed," asserted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari. He was speaking on the sidelines of the 23rd working group meeting of the Caspian Sea littoral states in Baku. The working group has been set up to discuss the legal regime of the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea legal regime is based on two agreements signed between Iran and the former Soviet Union in 1921 and 1940. The three littoral states established after the collapse of the former USSR - Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan - do not recognize the prior treaties and have sparked a debate on the status of the world's largest lake. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 03:03:48 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 05:03:48 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Francis Fukuyama: "Russia and a New Democratic Realism" Message-ID: Russia and a new democratic realism By Francis Fukuyama Published: September 2 2008 19:34 | Last updated: September 2 2008 19:34 One idea that you will never hear expressed by either Barack Obama or John McCain in this presidential race is the notion that a chief task of US foreign policy in the next administration will be to gracefully manage an adversely shifting global power balance and significantly diminished US influence. This is not a hypothetical issue, but one that stares us in the face today. The failure to recognise this shift in power has been all too evident in the events leading up to the Russian intervention in Georgia. Since the Yeltsin years, the US has had a series of policy differences with the Russians, including Nato expansion, the Balkans, missile defence, policy towards Iran and human rights in Russia itself. Diplomacy, such as it was, consisted of persuading Russia to accept all of the items on our list and telling them their fears and concerns were groundless. The US never regarded the relationship as a bargaining situation in which it would give up things it wanted in return for things the Russians wanted. Like the proverbial Englishman speaking to a foreigner, we thought we could make them understand us by repeating ourselves in a louder voice. This posture by the Bush administration reflected the balance of power that existed in the 1990s, when Russia was weak and had few cards to play. But that has changed. The contrast between Moscow's intervention in Chechnya in 1994 and Georgia in 2008 is dramatic: much as the US did not like Russian behaviour in crushing Chechen separatism, the Russian military operation was so incompetent that it seemed to set few ominous precedents. Today, all thoughts are on where Russian power will be used next. If we could roll the clock back to before February when Kosovo declared independence with US support, the elements of a bargain were there. Of the desiderata on the American list, the most expendable were anti-ballistic missile defence and support for Kosovo independence. The former was a pointless irritant to the Russians who never believed the US story that it was a response to a threat from Iran. Kosovo independence does not improve the security of Kosovars, but sets an unhappy precedent of legitimising separatism, which explains why Nato members such as Spain did not back it. A more difficult choice was Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine. These democratic countries deserve strong US support. But Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is right in believing that the core of the Nato alliance is its Article V guarantee that an attack on one member should be regarded as an attack on all. This means that the US should be prepared to station forces on a permanent basis to defend any alliance member under threat, as it did on the inter-German border during the cold war. Nato membership is not a talisman that magically confers protection. It requires operational planning and expensive defence commitments. The Bush administration was not and could not have been serious about Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine to the extent that it meant providing not just arms and advisers, but real security guarantees of US forces. To the extent that that was so, leading the Georgians on to believe that we would get them into the club soon was a big mistake. An understanding that may have been possible a year ago is not workable now. The Bush administration has turned Kosovo independence and ABM defence in Poland into faits accomplis, making them unusable as bargaining chips. And rushing to accommodate Moscow while Russian troops are still occupying parts of Georgia proper is unthinkable. In saying this, I do not want to be seen as apologising for Moscow's behaviour. Russia is not justified in holding on to Georgian territory or trying to overturn a democratically elected regime. Mr Putin's talk about Georgian "genocide" and US conspiracies is unsettlingly reminiscent of the "big lie" of Soviet times. The fact that Russian feelings of resentment are understandable does not make them morally right. As Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore pointed out on this page (August 21), one of the chief ways that US power has been diminished in this decade is in its moral credibility. After the Russian intervention, US officials asserted that "21st century powers don't violate the sovereignty of other countries to overturn regimes". Adding the qualifier "in Europe" reduced the snickering only marginally. Democracy promotion ? a good thing ? has been deeply tainted by its association with the Iraq war and US security interests. The past two US administrations could assume American hegemony in both economics and security. The next administration cannot, and a critical task will be for it to better balance what we want with what we can realistically achieve. This does not mean giving up on idealistic goals such as promoting democracy. But the next president will have to "detoxify" (in the phrase of Tom Carothers from the Carnegie Endowment) the very concept of democracy promotion. We will have to think of ways of supporting Georgia and Ukraine other than by new alliance commitments. And we need to plan in concrete terms how to defend existing Nato members ? particularly Poland and the Baltic states ? from an angry and resurgent Russia. The writer is professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and, most recently, author of 'After the Neocons' (Profile, 2006) From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 03:12:15 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 05:12:15 -0400 Subject: [A-List] U.S. Letter Incites Push to Oust India Leader + Protests Halt India's Plant for Cheapest Car Message-ID: September 5, 2008 U.S. Letter Incites Push to Oust India Leader By HEATHER TIMMONS NEW DELHI ? Indian opposition parties are once again calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying that a secret letter from the State Department, made public on Tuesday, shows he lied about a controversial deal that would allow India to buy nuclear fuel and technology on the world market to generate nuclear power. The State Department's letter to Congress said that the United States could immediately halt nuclear sales to India if India conducted any nuclear tests and that the United States planned to withhold technology that poses a security risk. The letter was released by Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Singh told lawmakers last year that "the agreement does not in any way affect India's right to undertake future nuclear tests, if it is necessary." India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a press release on Wednesday that "we do not as a matter of policy comment on the internal correspondence between different branches of another government." The deal has caused troubles for Mr. Singh and his Congress Party for months; in July the Communist Party dropped out of the governing coalition in opposition to the deal, which the party says would strengthen a strategic relationship with the United States. Mr. Singh later survived a confidence vote that he called in Parliament. The Communist Party was among those who called for the prime minister's resignation this week, as did the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party. Prakash Javdekar, spokesman for the B.J.P., said Mr. Singh should "immediately quit and hold elections, as he lied to Parliament and the people on the deal." The release of the letter comes at an awkward time for the Bush administration as it pushes to win approval for the deal. The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs international nuclear commerce, is meeting this week on the agreement, which some countries have opposed, and a vote could come as early as Friday. The administration is hoping for approval from the group soon so that Congress can vote before adjourning to campaign for elections in November. India's Congress Party said the letter was insignificant to India's nuclear plans, and political analysts said calls for Mr. Singh's resignation were unlikely to have much effect. It may be a decade or more before India needs to test another nuclear weapon, several Congress Party officials said Thursday evening during separate appearances on television news shows. At that point, they said, India will have reserves of any nuclear material it may need and will be able to get nuclear supplies and technology from other countries, like France, if the United States cuts ties. The United States imposed economic and military sanctions on India in 1998 after India tested a nuclear weapon, but the Bush administration lifted the sanctions in 2001. September 3, 2008 Protests Halt India's Plant for Cheapest Car By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS MUMBAI, India ? This country's project to build the world's cheapest car has driven into a quintessentially Indian ditch. On Tuesday, the automaker Tata Motors said that political protests over land had compelled it to stop building the plant in eastern India for its much-awaited Nano model. The car was scheduled to go on sale next month for 100,000 rupees, or about $2,250, less than the cost of the optional surround sound system and DVD player on the Lexus LX 570 sport utility vehicle. Late Tuesday, an executive with knowledge of Tata's deliberations said the company would still begin making Nanos in October, under a backup plan to shift production to other sites. For the first two months, Tata will produce 10,000 cars a month instead of the planned 40,000, said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. The Nano has been dogged from the beginning by one of India's most wrenching problems: how to create space for industry by moving farmers off their land and compensating them adequately. In a tale rich with incongruities, the Communist-run government of West Bengal State invited the Tata Group, a symbol of Indian capitalism, to set up its plant in an area called Singur. It acquired 1,000 acres from farmers on the company's behalf. As the project advanced, some farmers who had sold their land demanded it back. The main state-level opposition party, the Trinamool Congress, led protests demanding that the land be returned. Most people sympathetic to Tata accused the opposition of inducing the farmers to protest, while Tata's critics said the farmers had legitimate grievances. The issue simmered for months. But in recent days, protesters began surrounding the plant, blocking roads and preventing Tata workers from reaching the plant. "The existing environment of obstruction, intimidation and confrontation has begun to impact the ability of the company to convince several of its experienced managers to relocate and work in the plant," Tata said in a statement on Tuesday. The halt to the plant has caused many Indian business people to warn of a chilling effect on investment in the country. It is also unclear how Tata will be able to keep the Nano's cost so low, since part of the affordable price reflects the company's savings on the land in Singur. "It's a slap on the face for Brand India," said Suhel Seth, a longtime adviser to the Tata Group and the managing partner of Counselage, a strategic branding firm in New Delhi. "Which foreign company will want to come in when India's most respected group cannot set up industry in a state?" With its briefcase-size trunk, hollow steering-wheel shaft and a rear-mounted German engine that is no stronger than many lawn mowers', the car has been called a "generational leapfrog in terms of cost reduction" by Daryl Rolley of Ariba, a company that helps global automakers find suppliers for parts and did work on the Nano project. Critics say that an ultracheap car is being built for roads that have no space, under a sky already too thick with smog. They complain that Tata received a secret deal from the government and say that it took land from the poor to build cars for a swelling middle class that does not need government help. Abhirup Sarkar, an economist at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, said, "The compensation paid for the land is measly," according to Reuters. "It should be three to four times higher." But Tata rebutted such arguments on Tuesday, saying that it had trained workers in the area and built medical facilities, and that at its peak, the project had employed about 4,000 people, including many local residents. "Operation successful, patient dead," said Mr. Seth, the Tata adviser. "You had a successful political operation, but you've killed the aspirations of people, subverted the process of law and told politicians you can do what you will." From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 03:18:15 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 05:18:15 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia's Role in the Iran Crisis Message-ID: Russia's role in the Iran crisis By Ray Takeyh and Nikolas Gvosdev | September 6, 2008 IT IS ONE of the rites of passage of the fall - every September, the Bush administration returns to the United Nation for another sanctions resolution against Iran. However, this time there is much consternation in Washington that Russia's invasion of Georgia - and the subsequent chill that has descended on relations between Russia and the West - has ended any possibility of cooperation between the United States and Russia in dealing with Iran's nuclear imbroglio. Such fears are overblown. Russia's assault on Georgia may produce no measurable change of its Iran policy. Indeed, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia made it clear that, despite the harsh rhetoric that has been exchanged between Moscow and Washington, Russia continues to support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The primary reason for the continuity is that both Iran and Russia are essentially satisfied with existing US-European policy of applying incremental and largely symbolic UN sanctions on Tehran. Moscow feels that as long as the diplomatic process remains in play, America is in no position to launch a military strike that could destabilize the Middle East. At the same time, the theocratic regime has increasingly adjusted to a sanctions policy whose impact is negated by increasing oil prices. Although Tehran would be grateful for a Russian veto of any future sanctions resolutions, it does seem content with a Russian policy that waters down UN mandates while deepening its commercial ties with Iran. On the one hand, Moscow has supported three previous Security Council injunctions against Iran, yet it has also signed lucrative trade deals and expanded its diplomatic representation in Iran. The incongruity of today's situation is that Russia rebukes Iran for its nuclear infractions while providing technical assistance to the Bushehr plant, which is a critical component of Iran's atomic industry. For its part, Russia is happy with the standoff between Iran and the United States. Not only does it destabilize international oil markets - keeping prices higher than they ought to be - but Iran's large natural gas reserves are effectively off-limits for European use, reinforcing the continent's dependency on Moscow. At the same time, as Iran strengthens its economic links with key Asian powers, it makes it more dependent on Russia and China for its critical trade and investments. Russia can only benefit from Iran's gradual reorientation toward the East. All this is not to suggest that Iran has not benefited from the Russian-Georgian conflagration, but that those advantages have been subtle. Tehran is using the Georgian crisis as a cautionary lesson to the Persian Gulf states. From its podiums and platforms, the message emanating from the Islamic Republic is that the Georgians mistakenly accepted American pledges of support only to pay a heavy price for their naivet?. The Gulf sheikdoms who similarly put much stock in US security assurances would be wise to come to terms with their populous and powerful Persian neighbor. In a region where America is viewed as unpredictable and unreliable, this message has a powerful resonance. The contours of Russia's policy became obvious in the recent meeting of the Shanghi Cooperation Organization. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was unable to persuade Moscow and its partners to extend security guarantees to Tehran, or to gain Russian support for switching oil pricing from dollars to euros. Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continued to urge Iran to be flexible and negotiate a restraint on its nuclear activities. Yet, Moscow also declared support for Iran's nuclear activities that were designed for peaceful purposes. Given the fact that technologies employed for civilian use can be the basis of a military program, it is hard to see the utility of Russia's latest pronouncement. What this means? Russia is not interested in playing an active role in resolving the Iran crisis on terms America will find acceptable. If the next president is going to solve the Iranian nuclear conundrum, he must appreciate that the UN process has reached its limits, and that the only manner of moving forward is for Washington to engage in direct negotiations with Tehran. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Nikolas Gvosdev is a member of the faculty of the US Naval War College. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 03:43:52 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 05:43:52 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ukraine's Coalition Splits Over Powers, Georgia War Message-ID: Excellent. -- Yoshie Ukraine's Coalition Splits Over Powers, Georgia War (Update2) By Daryna Krasnolutska Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's party quit the ruling coalition in a move that may lead to new elections with a campaign focused on reaction to Russia's conflict with Georgia. Yushchenko's allies have accused his one-time political partner Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko of "treason'' for failing to condemn Russia, which has a naval base in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. Timoshenko yesterday joined pro-Russian former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's party in a vote to curtail presidential powers. The president today condemned the two leaders and accused them of staging a "political, anti-constitutional coup.'' Russian designs on Ukraine became an increasing concern in the West after it rolled over Georgia's army and recognized the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia last month. The U.S. suggested that Russia may next pose a threat to Ukraine, a conduit for natural gas exports to Europe, which wants to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union. "The coalition collapse may bring on early national elections as all of the big parties may see some benefits,'' said Oleksandr Lytvynenko, a political analyst at Kiev-based Razumkov Center in a phone interview today. "We may also see a new coalition, formed by Timoshenko and Yanukovych and that might explain Timoshenko's neutral position on the Russian-Georgian conflict.'' 'Territorial Integrity' Timoshenko, who is due to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow this month, has said she supports Georgia's "territorial integrity,'' though her party refused to back a resolution condemning Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That prompted Yushchenko to issue a statement demanding "Ukraine's parliament give a clear view on what happened in Georgia,'' a former Soviet republic like Ukraine. Yushchenko and Timoshenko swept to power in the 2004 Orange Revolution promising to forge deeper ties with the West and become less dependent on Russia. The two have since had a series of disputes over the sale of state assets and ways to fight inflation. Yushchenko first appointed Timoshenko as prime minister in 2005. He fired her several months later, saying economic growth slowed under her rule. Yushchenko tried to make a deal with Yanukovych in August 2006 but then dissolved parliament, accusing the pro-Russian politician of trying to oust him. Timoshenko returned as prime minister in December 2007 after her block and Yushchenko's party won a combined 228 seats in the 450-member parliament in an election in the nation of 46 million people that is similar in size to France. Legal Moves Timoshenko and Yanukovych's lawmakers voted yesterday to strip Yushchenko of the right to reject a candidate for the post of prime minister, the right to appoint a head of the State Intelligence Service and loosened presidential impeachment procedures. "Every law that was voted in the parliament contradicts Ukraine's constitution,'' Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaker of parliament and a member of Yushchenko's party, said yesterday in a statement on parliament's Web site. "Unfortunately, we faced collusion. Political forces made a new configuration.'' Timoshenko today rejected the accusation of betrayal in a statement on her party's Web site. Under the constitution, the president can dissolve the legislature and call general elections if parties fail to form a coalition within a month. "The vote shows Timoshenko's strategy is to make her government independent ahead of 2010 presidential elections,'' said Lytvynenko. All three party leaders are expected to run in the next presidential election and officials in Yushchenko's office have said Timoshenko is trying to secure Russian support before the presidential election, a charge she denies. Ukraine's eastern region and Crimean peninsula are dominated by Russian-speakers who oppose Yushchenko's goal of leading the country into NATO. To contact the reporter on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk at bloomberg.net. Last Updated: September 3, 2008 06:01 EDT Ukraine's coalition on brink of collapse By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev Published: September 3 2008 10:04 | Last updated: September 3 2008 20:11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analysts have said, and polls have shown, that in the event of an election now, Our Ukraine would lose seats, while both Tymoshenko's Bloc and the [Moscow-leaning] Regions party would gain. Fears for Ukraine as pro-west coalition fails By Roman Olearchyk and Stefan Wagstyl Published: September 4 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 4 2008 03:00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An early parliamentary poll could cost Mr Yushchenko's party dearly as it is far behind the Tymoshenko and Yanukovich parties in opinion polls. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Sep 6 03:46:54 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:46:54 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Obama and the Mining Cartel Message-ID: <48C2518E.2030604@attglobal.net> The Senator's Golden Western Strategy by Steve Conn www.counterpunch.org (August 23-24 2008) A few days ago, Fairbanks Mayor Jim Whitaker co-authored an Anchorage Daily News piece in favor of the mining industry's $6 million to $8 million war to put down ballot measure Proposition 4. Then he was invited to speak at the Democratic National convention. It is no coincidence that Obama invited Whitaker to the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week. More than Whitaker's Republican credential is at play. Obama has made friendship with Big Mining part of his Western state strategy. There's gold in them there hills! Political gold for Obama! As every reader of the Alaska Dispatch knows, Proposition 4 targets the Pebble Mine and its monstrous proposal to build earthquake-proof dams bigger than Hoover or Grand Coulee from mine tailings to hold back toxic lakes that could poison the Bristol Bay fishery. Proposition 4, by its language, would ban large metal mines from discharging harmful amounts of toxic chemicals into salmon streams or drinking water supplies. Proposition 4, by its language, would ban large metal mines from discharging harmful amounts of toxic chemicals into salmon streams or drinking water supplies. {1} This insane project is opposed by Alaska environmentalists, bringing as it does to the Great Land, Alaska's own version of what they call in West Virginia, "mountaintop removal". But the mining industry, apparently flush with cash, looks beyond this travesty. It sees Proposition 4 as a nefarious plot to restrict mining everywhere in the state, and it now is flooding the airwaves and print media with a torrent of red herrings, from an attack on the rich boys who use the area as a playground with their own secret, six-figure slush fund, to the measure's unknown fate on future jobs and future mining projects. State and federal candidates are mostly silent. Both NANA Corporation and Willie Hensley, father of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, are adamant that the initiative could devalue claims settlement land and Red Dog's expansion. Subsistence and commercial fishing are pawns. Mayor Whitaker was invited to speak at the Obama-orchestrated Democratic convention as part of Obama's strategy to slide Alaska into his electoral pocket, a winning national strategy, this after Ann Hayes's IBEW-funded poll that showed the presidential race to be a close one. But contributions from friends of mining and the Native corporations to aid his national campaign could be a secondary benefit, win or lose in Alaska. More than a Republican-turned-Obama supporter, Obama has recruited a spokesperson for the mining industry's effort to crush the initiative, it with a mere two year shelf-life, against a strip mine and a toxic threat to a world-class fishery. Where does Obama really stand on mining and its costly aftermath? Research (apparently not accomplished by Seattle-based Timothy Egan in Thursday's New York Times op-ed on Obama and his strategy to woo Western voters) shows that Obama curried favor with miners in both Nevada and Idaho during primary season by opposing statutory amendments proposed to a 1872 giveaway tax law (long termed "corporate welfare" by both Ralph Nader and the Cato Institute). The federal government gets zilch from mining on its land, not even enough to cover clean up costs. The General Mining Law of 1872, wrote Ralph Nader, "is a relic of efforts to settle the West allows mining companies to claim federal lands for $5 an acre or less and then take gold, silver, lead or other hard-rock minerals with no royalty payments to the public treasury. Thanks to the anachronistic 1872 Mining Act, mining companies, including foreign companies, extract billions of dollars worth of minerals a year from federal lands, royalty free. Change is regularly blocked by Western lawmakers." Now Obama has joined the club long peopled by the likes of Don Young. In late 2007, according to CBS, A House-passed bill would have imposed a royalty of four percent of gross revenue on existing hard-rock mining operations and eight percent of gross revenue on new mining operations. The reform bill would have put new environmental controls on hard-rock mining, set up a cleanup fund for abandoned mines and permanently ban cheap sales of public lands for mining, according to CBS. CBS reported: "Obama said the legislation, favored by environmentalists, 'places a significant burden on the mining industry and could have a significant impact on jobs'. He also opposes the proposed fees." Just as he has shifted his position on offshore drilling, he has telegraphed his willingness to be negotiable on mining. He appears to assume that environmentalists will forgive and forget, both in Alaska and nationally, if his chosen symbol of Alaskan Republican support at the Denver convention is also a shill for an Alaskan environmental disaster waiting to happen. After all, the "Vote No to Ballot Initiative 4" is backed with mining dollars for votes far in excess of mining contributions to the presidential race of either candidate {2}. Links: {1} A description by Anchorage Daily News's Bluemink is a must read:- http://eyeonpebblemine.org/wp-content/uploads/pebble-proposes-vast-dams-for-waste.pdf {2} http://www.opensecrets.org/ _____ Steve Conn is a retired professor of justice at the University of Alaska, and former director of Alaska Public Interest Research Group. He lived in Alaska from 1972 to 2007 and is now based in Point Roberts, Washington. He recently helped collect more than 5,900 signatures from Alaskan voters to put Ralph Nader on the 2008 Alaska Presidential ballot. He can be reached at: steveconn at hotmail.com. http://www.counterpunch.org/conn08232008.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 6 03:55:02 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 05:55:02 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Burma's Junta Gave Best Help in Cyclone, Says UN Message-ID: Burma's junta gave best help in cyclone, says UN By Andrew Jack in London Published: September 4 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 4 2008 03:00 The Burmese authorities were by far the greatest providers of medical assistance to its population after cyclone Nargis despite the widespread international criticism of a poor response by the military junta, according to an analysis released yesterday. A report summarised in the latest issue of the World Health Organisation's Bulletin says government doctors, nurses and midwives were far more active in offering treatment and medicines to cyclone survivors than non-governmental organisations and individual volunteers. The findings partially contradict perceptions based on the reluctance of the Burmese authorities to reveal the extent of the crisis and its slowness in allowing foreign official and private charitable assistance to help with relief operations. While there were widespread unmet medical needs after the cyclone in May, Richard Garfield from the WHO's health and nutrition tracking service, who co-ordinated the study, said: "We discovered to our surprise because of such bad PR that there was large-scale mobilisation by government around the country." Although the study was conducted on behalf of the Burmese authorities, the UN and Asean, Mr Garfield insisted that the findings were objective. The study, which covered nearly 3,000 households most affected by Nargis in south-west Burma, also identified that among the survivors, diarrhoea and the common cold were by far the most widespread problems, rather than trauma, wounds and more serious infectious diseases such as cholera, as some experts had warned. Of the 85,000 estimated killed and a further 54,000 missing after the cyclone last May, there were twice as many women who died as men. That confirms for the first time anecdotal evidence never previously quantified from other natural disasters, including the 2004 Asian tsunami which claimed more than 200,00 lives. Mr Garfield said the reasons included the fact that many women in the region had never learned to swim, were killed while trying to save their children, or were too weak to hold on to trees and other objects to keep them safe over long periods until water levels dropped. He said one set of lessons from Nargis should be the introduction of swimming lessons for women, and family evacuation training designed to encourage men to look after older children - which requires greater strength - while women should care for babies. The study also found that the most effective assistance came from countries near Burma. "It was more culturally appropriate and got there in time," he said. From nscchicago at igc.org Fri Sep 5 23:11:37 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 00:11:37 -0500 Subject: [A-List] AMY GOODMAN ON THEIR ARRESTS RNC WELCOMING COMMITTEE ON THEIR CHARGES BANBOSE SHANGO SAYS WHAT OTHERS THINK Message-ID: <007401c90fdf$11c051f0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here and hello Amerika. Goon squad state. St Paul and last week Denver. Amy Goodman relates The RNC Welcoming Committee also and Banbose Shango states our general progressive point of view. Why we there and why we keep going on. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 1025 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080906/ffe1aee9/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 4008 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080906/ffe1aee9/attachment-0001.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: laborexchange at aol.com Subject: [Vensteering] Why We Were Falsely Arrested By Amy Goodman Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:50:40 -0400 Size: 17222 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080906/ffe1aee9/attachment-0003.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Joe Iosbaker Subject: [chicagomayday] Fw: Fwd: Anti-War Committee Day 4 demonstration Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 11:28:26 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Size: 11858 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080906/ffe1aee9/attachment-0004.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Chuck Kaufman" Subject: FW: Final Presentation given at Sept. 1st Demo outside RNC Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 10:27:46 -0400 Size: 13855 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080906/ffe1aee9/attachment-0005.eml From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 6 10:36:01 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 12:36:01 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Scenarios For Last Ditch US Attempt To Control Ex-USSR, World In-Reply-To: <82b839ea0809052038t6c0498at57476577c253dd54@mail.gmail.com> References: <82b839ea0809052038t6c0498at57476577c253dd54@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98AADD56CECE4EF1BBE9D8159A0C3521@TonyPC> Apart from the fact that it's a Russian on-line journal (likely state connected)...no, I don't. When you google it and click on 'about' it says the 'page is under construction'. As for some of the 'conclusions' being "curious". I agree. In fact, I was more interested in the body of the article and on that basis forwarded it before I'd even got to the end. When I did (get to the end) I thought, 'Hmm...a touch of wish-fulfillment here, methinks'. Indeed, not just 'wish-fullment' but outright fanciful. Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "MARGARET WYLES" To: "The A-List" Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 11:38 PM Subject: Re: [A-List] Scenarios For Last Ditch US Attempt To Control Ex-USSR,World > Tony, > > Do you know who this "Strategic Culture Foundation" is? > > In any case, I found these predictions rather curious. On what are > they based other than conjecture. Is there already a plan out there > about which everyone at a certain level is aware and the rest of us > remain ignorant? > > M >> 3. In parallel, the US will be bracing for an attack >> on Iran. The result will be McCain's victory in the >> coming presidential race. American society has given >> him carte blanche to take drastic measures to deal >> with the countries which do not side with the US. >> >> Nevertheless, war with Iran will stretch thin the US >> armed forces simultaneously engaged in several >> conflicts. Though Iran's infrastructure will be >> largely destroyed during the first days of the US >> attack and, quite possibly, the US and Israel will >> subject it to nuclear strikes, its strategy will be to >> block the Strait of Hormuz and to switch the conflict >> to a permanent mode. >> >> 4. The fact that the US elite aims at instigating a >> series of regional conflicts shows that the US is no >> longer able to carry the burden of global leadership, >> and the coming war is the last resort to retain it. >> >> However, the conflict will not last forever and sooner >> or later the US will have to downscale its military >> and political presence worldwide. The reliance on war >> demonstrates that the US elite's intellectual >> potential needed to maintain the status of the US as >> the only superpower is exhausted. >> >> 5. Under the circumstances Russia's main task is to >> psychologically survive the first propaganda strike >> and some 3-6 months of the information war waged by >> Western media. Subsequently the US will have to >> withdraw under various pretexts from the conflicts it >> unleashed unless its victory will be complete and >> obvious. >> >> 6. The result will be a fundamental transformation of >> the global geo-economic picture and pattern of trade >> and financial flows, plus a reform of the UN. A new >> global monetary system will be established based on >> the economies of Russia, China, Japan, Germany, India, >> and Brazil. >> >> 7. The US dollar will lose its current status of the >> global currency. The US will no longer be a country >> with attractive living conditions, and a migration of >> quality workforce from the country will commence. >> >> The US will be plagued by crime and will face the >> problem of preserving its territorial integrity. The >> international community will have to dispatch a >> peacekeeping force to US territory to maintain order >> in the country and to prevent international terrorists >> from making inroads into its nuclear arsenals. >> > > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 6 18:42:29 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 20:42:29 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Pakistan: Women, Children Killed In 3rd Day Of Western Strikes Message-ID: <13C0D86CA20D4B1F8188181D99127078@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 10:08 PM Subject: [stopnato] Pakistan: Women, Children Killed In 3rd Day Of Western Strikes http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?205367 Pakistan Tribune September 5, 2008 4 kids among 7 killed in US missile attack in N Waziristan MIRANSHAH - Seven people including four children have been killed in when US spy plane fired missile in North Waziristan near Pak-Afghan border on Firday. According to witnesses, US spy fired three missiles at two houses in Gorovek village in North Waziristan killing four children and three women on the spot and several injured. This was the third US attack within Pakistan's territory in three days despite the strong protests of Pakistan. ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/5950955/US-strike-claims-innocent-lives-in-Pakistan Radio Netherlands September 5, 2008 US strike claims innocent lives in Pakistan Missiles fired from an unmanned aircraft have killed at least five people in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan. According to local residents and officials, two women and three children died in the strike. This is the third attack on militants operating from Pakistani soil in the past few days. On Wednesday, a helicopter strike allegedly carried out by US-led forces in South Waziristan left 20 dead, including women and children. On Thursday, at least five Taliban militants were killed when a missile from a pilotless plane hit a house in North Waziristan. Wednesday's attack met with outrage in Pakistan. There were calls in parliament to retaliate in cases of incursions into Pakistani territory by foreign troops..... =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. Women of Curves on Yahoo! Groups see how women are changing their lives. Family Photos Learn how to best capture your family moments.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 6 18:47:54 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 20:47:54 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US's, NATO's Unacknowledged War In Pakistan Message-ID: <0003056AFC924A89B95AC1A841007E99@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 10:25 PM Subject: [stopnato] US's, NATO's Unacknowledged War In Pakistan http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=134107 The News (Pakistan) September 6, 2008 All's fair in war? Rahimullah Yusufzai* -Such is the US resolve to carry the fight to Pakistan that it carried out a cross-border raid the day Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani met President George W Bush at the White House and the latter assured that his country respected Pakistan's sovereignty. And barely a day after its ground forces' assault in South Waziristan and despite protests by Pakistan, it launched yet another missile strike from its pilotless predator on Acharkhel village near Miramshah in North Waziristan to kill six people. By sending its Afghanistan-based ground forces into Pakistani territory on September 3 and killing 17 innocent civilians, including five women and four children, the US has made its intentions known. This was an obvious act of aggression as an international border was crossed without caring to inform the government of Pakistan, supposedly an ally of the US in the so-called "war on terror," or identifying the target. It has certainly raised the level of hostility on the Pak-Afghan border and contributed to the distrust characterising the uncertain and unequal relationship between Islamabad and Washington. Pakistan had to condemn the incursion and the deaths of its citizens and lodge protest with the US government. The National Assembly, the Senate and the NWFP Assembly all unanimously adopted strong-worded resolutions condemning the "shameful and unjustified" attack and asking the PPP-led government to take measures to repel such assaults in future with full force. There was outrage throughout the country and the incident would certainly contribute to further rise in anti-US sentiment among the people. As a consequence, Pakistan's new democratic rulers just like President General Pervez Musharraf would lose public support if they are seen to be supportive of the imperialistic and self-centred US policies in the region. However, mere condemnation or assembly resolutions taking the US to task isn't enough as it won't stop the American troops from again intruding into Pakistan's territory and attacking border villages such as Zawlolai, which was assaulted in the early hours of September 3, or the adjoining towns of Musa Neeka and Angoor Adda that have suffered cross-border shelling or aerial strikes in the past. The US hasn't shown any remorse or apologised for past attacks that killed innocent Pakistanis, including 82 young students who perished when a madrassa was hit with Hellfire missiles fired from a CIA-operated drone in Chingai village in Bajaur. That attack appears to have expedited the radicalisation of young men, turning them into suicide bombers. Soon after that assault which the Pakistan Army unwisely and wrongly claimed to have carried out, a suicide bomber struck a Punjab Regiment training centre in Dargai in Malakand Agency and killed 42 soldiers. The US even tried to justify the killing of 13 Pakistani troops when its forces fired missiles to hit a border post of paramilitary Frontier Corps in Mohmand Agency. In fact, the September 3 attack on Zawlolai village wasn't the first ground assault in the real sense because helicopter-borne US forces had landed in the border village of Saidgi in North Waziristan about two years ago, attacked some homes and abducted a couple of Pakistani citizens. The recent ground forces' attack, however, was bigger in scale as the US soldiers riding two Chinook helicopters intruded more than a kilometre inside Pakistani territory and conducted an operation for half an hour while two jet-fighters and two gunship helicopter circled above to provide them air support. The action was executed with impunity as the US forces knew that Pakistani troops in the area would not intervene and that the villagers being attacked were asleep and unarmed. Such is the US resolve to carry the fight to Pakistan that it carried out a cross-border raid the day Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani met President George W Bush at the White House and the latter assured that his country respected Pakistan's sovereignty. And barely a day after its ground forces' assault in South Waziristan and despite protests by Pakistan, it launched yet another missile strike from its pilotless predator on Acharkhel village near Miramshah in North Waziristan to kill six people. It was a clear message that Washington wasn't bothered about the noises being made by Pakistan government and parliament and would continue to attack targets in the Pakistani tribal areas after obtaining 'actionable intelligence.' In fact, such assaults in Pakistani territory would increase as the US-led Nato forces become bogged down in Afghanistan due to the dramatic rise in Taliban attacks and the growing resistance to the presence of foreign troops in the war-ravaged country. Also pertinent is the fact that the US attacks in Pakistani tribal areas have intensified at a time when the Pakistan government announced a ceasefire out of respect for the holy month of Ramazan and also to enable the thousands of people displaced by military operations and Taliban attacks to return to their homes in Bajaur. The US and its allies don't want the Pakistan government to agree to ceasefires and peace accords and would do anything to foil any peaceful means to resolve the conflict in the NWFP and FATA. The US authorities are refusing to officially comment on the ground attack by its Special Forces in Pakistan's South Waziristan. But as usual, unnamed US officials have been leaking information to the American media to justify the attack and to claim that the targeted place was a known al-Qaeda and Taliban hideout and the person being sought was a low-ranked al-Qaeda figure. As no names have been mentioned, the US claims are certainly unsubstantiated and the 'good intelligence' that led to the ground assault appears to be faulty. The unidentified US officials are also disputing the number of civilians killed in the attack, though sections of the Pakistani media have provided the names of the 17 villagers, excluding the women, who died at the hands of the Americans. Angry villagers had brought the bodies of their dear and near ones and blocked the road linking Angoor Adda with Wana for five hours to protest the incident and it was duly reported by the local media. If the Americans still don't want to believe the figure of 17 civilians killed, it means they consider themselves as truthful and everyone else as liars. If reports are to be believed, Afghan troops were also involved in the US-led cross-border raid. Intrusion by US soldiers is bad enough, but the Afghan forces should never have entered Pakistan's soil. In fact, it follows a threat made by President Hamid Karzai recently that Afghan soldiers would cross the border and get Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leaders such as Baitullah Mahsud, Maulvi Omar and Maulana Fazlullah because they were sending fighters to Afghanistan. It seems that threat has been carried out even though none of the above-mentioned men was targeted and instead ordinary villagers were killed. The Afghan troops have done something that Pakistan's armed forces won't be able to forget and forgive. It could have consequences on the already uneasy ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Pakistan's protests and public opinion haven't moved the US to review its counter-productive policy with regard to its assaults in Pakistani territory, it is time to reconsider how best to tackle the situation. The ideal course would have been for Islamabad to physically resist future attacks in its territory as demanded by the country's parliament. In fact, the meek Pakistani response to such attacks in the past and the policy of acquiescence practiced by General Musharraf's regime emboldened the Americans to give themselves the right to violate the international border at will. One thing the new government must do is to take the nation into confidence about any agreements, secret or otherwise, that the Musharraf regime may have signed with the US to grant it permission to attack targets in Pakistan. A section of the US media has mentioned that such agreements exist and Pakistanis would expect their representative government to come clean on this count. Second, Pakistan should review the unlimited access that it has given to the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan to receive logistic support ranging from arms and fuel to food and everything else via Pakistani territory. Without Pakistan's cooperation, the US-led coalition would find life difficult as their supply lines could be disrupted. The US was able to remove Taliban from power in Afghanistan due to active support from Pakistan. And it cannot defeat the resurgent Taliban without Pakistan's backing. Islamabad must use its clout to protect its citizens from murderous US assaults. *The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Groups w/ John McEnroe Join the All-Bran Day 10 Club. Share Photos Put your favorite photos and more online. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to capture family moments.. __,_._,___ From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Sep 6 20:22:58 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:22:58 +0900 Subject: [A-List] How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy Message-ID: <48C33B02.50108@attglobal.net> An Interview with Michael Hudson by Mike Whitney www.counterpunch.com (August 29 2008) Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Company), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world's first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr Hudson was Dennis Kucinich's Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the US, Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new edition, Pluto Press, 2002) Mike Whitney: The United States current account deficit is roughly $700 billion. That is enough "borrowed" capital to pay the yearly $120 billion cost of the war in Iraq, the entire $450 billion Pentagon budget, and Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Why does the rest of the world keep financing America's militarism via the current account deficit or is it just the unavoidable consequence of currency deregulation, "dollar hegemony" and globalization? Michael Hudson: The United States Treasury presently owes $3.5 trillion to foreign central banks. There is no way it can pay this off, even if it had any intention of doing so. So foreign sales of exports - and also of their companies and technology - is a gratis gift to the United States, as is foreign receipt of the dollars thrown off by our international military spending. As I explained in Super Imperialism, central banks in other countries buy dollars not because they think dollar assets are a "good buy", but because their currencies will rise against the dollar if they do NOT recycle their trade surpluses and US buyout spending and military spending by buying US Treasury, Fannie Mae and other bonds. A currency rise would price their exporters out of dollarized world markets. It is this threat of beggar-my-neighbor currency depreciation that enables the United States to spend abroad and get a free international ride without constraint. Other countries do have an array of economic responses available, to be sure. These include: (1) capital controls to block further dollar inflows (foreign central banks would have to approve sales of domestic firms to US buyers or major exports to dollar-area payers); (2) floating tariffs against imports from dollarized economies (the tariff would be equal to the dollar's depreciation against their own currency; this is how the United States protected itself from low-priced German exports when that nation's currency buckled in 1921 as a result of its reparations tribute); (3) buyouts of US investments in dollar-recipient countries (Europe and Asia would use their central bank dollar holdings to buy out US private investments at book value); and (4) subsidized exports to dollarized economies with depreciating currency These are the kind of similar responses that the United States would adopt if it were in the position of a payments-surplus economy facing payments from a fiat-currency country. In a symmetrical world, Europe and Asia would treat the United States in much the way that its Washington Consensus boys treat Third World debtors: buy out their raw materials and other key sectors, including their basic infrastructure, their export plantations, and their government policy makers as well. Whitney: Economist Henry Liu said in his article "Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties ... World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at 'market prices' quoted in dollars". Is Liu overstating the case or have the Federal Reserve and western banking elites really figured out how to maintain imperial control over the global economy simply by ensuring that most energy, commodities, and manufactured goods are denominated in dollars? If that's the case, then it would seem that the actual "face-value" of the dollar does not matter as much as long as it continues to be used in the purchase of commodities. Is this right? Hudson: Henry Liu and I have been discussing this for many years now. We are in agreement, and his Asia Times articles provide a running analysis of dollar hegemony. The paragraph you quote is quite right. Whitney: What is the relationship between stagnant wages for workers and the current credit crisis? If workers wages had kept up with the rate of production, isn't it less likely that we would be in the jam we are today? And, if that is true, then shouldn't we be more focused on re-unionizing the labor force instead looking for solutions from the pathetic Democratic Party? Hudson: The credit crisis derives from "the magic of compound interest", that is, the tendency of debts to keep on doubling and redoubling. Every rate of interest can be expressed as a doubling time. (See the "Rule of 72".) No "real" economy's production and economic surplus can keep up with this tendency of debt to grow even faster. So the financial crisis would have occurred regardless of wage levels. For example, in today's economic march into debt peonage, running up mortgage debt to afford the inflated price of home ownership tends to absorb all the homebuyer's disposable personal income. If wages would have risen more rapidly, the price of housing would simply have risen faster, because employees would have had more take-home pay to pledge to carry larger mortgages. The silver lining of stagnant wages was to help keep the price of houses down to merely stratospheric levels, not ionospheric ones. Labor unions haven't been much help in solving the housing crisis. In Germany where I am right now, unions have sponsored co-ops at low membership costs, as they used to do in New York City. So housing only absorbs about twenty percent of German family budgets, compared to twice that in the United States. Imagine what could be done if pension funds had put their money into housing for their contributors instead of into the stock market to buy and bid up prices for the stocks that CEOs and other insiders were selling. "Labor capitalism" via pension-fund capitalism (which seems to be a "final stage" of finance capitalism) has been a failure, especially now that you see private and public-sector pension funds folding. The idea that pension funds could help workers by promoting finance capitalism in destroying industrial capitalism and its employment functions was one of the great deceptions of our epoch. Whitney: When politicians or members of the foreign policy establishment talk about "integrating" Russia or China into the "international system"; what exactly do they mean? Do they mean the dollar-dominated system governed by the Fed, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO? Do countries compromise their national sovereignty when they participate in the US-led economic system? Hudson: "Integrating" means absorbing - something like a parasite integrating a host into its own control system. WTO and IMF rules prohibit other countries from getting rich in the way that the United States did in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Only the United States is permitted to subsidize its agriculture, thanks to its unique right to grandfather in its price supports. Only the United States is free from having to raise interest rates to stabilize its balance of payments, so that only it can devote its monetary policy to promoting easy credit and asset-price inflation. And only the United States can run a military deficit, obliging foreign central banks in dollar-recipient countries to give it a free ride. In other words, there is no free lunch for other countries, only for the United States. Other countries do indeed give up their national sovereignty by joining the US-sponsored globalization institutions as they become more neocon and neoliberal. The United States never has adjusted its economy to create equilibrium with other countries. But to be fair, this is simply because only the United States is acting fully and totally in its own self-interest. Other countries simply are not "playing the game". That is the problem. They are not acting as real governments. When one party gets a free ride it takes two to tango - an enabler as well as an abuser. The leading foreign governments have become enablers of US economic aggression. Whitney: What do you think the Bush administration's reaction would be if a smaller country, like Switzerland, had sold hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities to investment banks, insurance companies and investors in the United States? Wouldn't there be litigation and a demand that the responsible parties be held accountable? So, how do you explain the fact that China and the EU nations, that were the victims of this gigantic swindle, haven't boycotted US financial products or called for reparations? Hudson: International law is not clear on financial fraud. Caveat emptor is still the rule. Foreign investors took a risk in trusting a deregulated US financial market that makes it easiest to make money via financial fraud. Ultimately, foreign countries joined their US counterparts in putting their faith in neoliberal deregulation. England is now in the same mess. Financial accountability was supposed to lie with US accounting firms and credit rating agencies. But what they wanted was to maximize profits, and this was done by "giving the customers what they want". And they wanted to promote the economic fiction of solvency, just as the United States wants to pretend that foreign dollar holdings are payable, while cities and states here pretend that they can pay the pensions they have offered their public-sector workers. Foreign investors were so ideologically blinded by free market rhetoric (imposed at gunpoint in countries like Chile where the free-market boys had the strongest hand) that they actually believed the fantasies being promoted about "self-regulation" and self-regulating markets tending toward equilibrium, rather than the real-world tendency toward financial and economic polarization in which fraud was the fastest way to wealth and? "Behind every great fortune is a great crime", as Honore de Balzac put it. In other words, most foreign investors lack a realistic body of economic theory to match that of French novelists a century ago. The United States may simply argue that they should take responsibility for their bad investment, just as US pension funds and other investors are told to do. Whitney: The Congress recently passed a bill that gives Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson the unprecedented authority to use as much money as he needs to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac solvent. Paulson assured the Congress that he wouldn't need more than $25 billion but, the 400 page bill allows him to increase the national debt by $800 billion. How will the Fannie/Freddie bailout affect the dollar and the budget deficit? Are interest rates likely to skyrocket because of this action? Hudson: Interest rates are not going to skyrocket, because the Fed can flood the economy with money, Alan Greenspan-style, and other countries don't want to see the market value of their bonds and stocks reduced by high discount rates. At this point nobody really knows what will happen to FNMA and Freddie Mac's stock, but their bonds and packaged mortgages will be supported. The Fed already has provided over $5 trillion of credit guarantees, as I've explained in my Counterpunch articles. In conjunction with the $2 to $3 trillion costs of the Oil War in Iraq, this attempt to reflate real estate and financial markets should put in perspective the government's absurd claims that there is no money to pay Social Security because in another half century or so the system will run up a (mere) $1 trillion deficit. That being said, it looks like the mortgage and financial crisis will get much, much worse over the coming year. We are just heading into the storm where adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are scheduled to reset at higher rates, and where US banks have to roll over their existing debts in a market where foreign investors fear (quite correctly) that these banks already have no net worth left. The principle at work here is "Big fish eat little fish". Wall Street will be bailed out, and banks will be allowed to "earn their way out of debt" as they did after 1980, by exploiting retail customers, above all credit-card customers and individual borrowers. There will be many bankruptcies, and people will suffer more than ever before because of the harsh pro-creditor bankruptcy law that Congress (under Joe Biden's sponsorship, along with that of McCain advisor Phil Gramm) passed at the behest of the bank lobbyists. Whitney: A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial which said that they could imagine two nightmare scenarios if the current credit crisis was not handled properly; either there would be a run on the dollar causing a sudden plunge in its value, or the unexpected failure of a major financial institution could send the stock market crashing. Last week, the former head of the IMF Kenneth Rogoff triggered a sell-off on Wall Street when he said, "We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper; we're going to see a big one - one of the big investment banks or big banks". What happens if Rogoff is right and Merrill, Citi or Lehman go belly up? Is that enough to send the stock market freefalling? Hudson: Not necessarily. Citibank could well be nationalized, then sold off. The principle should be that if a bank is "too big to fail", it should be broken up. Even Citibank shareholders think that it has a greater breakup value than overall market value at this point. Reform should start with a repeal of the Clinton Administration's repeal of Glass-Steagall. "Small is beautiful" is as true for the financial sector as for the rest of the world. Lehman Brothers may be given the Bear Stearns treatment and sold off, probably to a hedge fund. Merrill is much larger, but it also could be parceled out. The stock market's financial index would plunge, but not necessarily industrial stock prices. Whitney: According to MarketWatch: "In the three months from April to June, banks posted their second worst earnings performance since 1991 ... Earnings for the quarter totaled just $5 billion, compared with $36.8 billion a year ago, a decline of 86.5%". Also, according to a front page article in the Wall Street Journal: "financial institutions will have to pay off at least $787 billion in floating rate notes and other medium term obligations before the end of 2009". How are the banks going to pay off nearly $800 billion ($200 billion by December!) when they only earned a measly $5 billion in the quarter! And how can the Federal Reserve keep the banking system functioning when earnings don't even cover current liabilities? Do the banks have some secret source of revenue we don't know about or is the system headed for disaster? Hudson: The banks don't have a secret source of revenue. It's right out in the open. They will take their junk mortgages to the Federal Reserve and borrow the money at full face value. The government will be left with the junk. In this way the traditional way to pay debt is with yet MORE debt. The interest due is simply added on to the principal, so that the debt grows exponentially. This is the real meaning of "the magic of compound interest". It means not only that savings left to accumulate interest keep on doubling and redoubling, debts do too, because the savings that are lent out on the "asset" side of the creditor's balance sheet (today, that of America's wealthiest ten percent) become debts on the "liabilities" side of the balance sheet (America's "bottom ninety percent"). The government can either take over an insolvent bank, as the Bank of England did with Northern Rock when it went bankrupt early this year, or it can let the bank "earn" money by stiffing its customers some more. Guess which solution the lobbyists are paying Congressmen to approve! Whitney: From 2000 to 2006, the total retail value of housing in the United States doubled, going from roughly $11 trillion to $22 trillion in just six years. For the last 200 years, housing has barely kept pace with the rate of inflation, usually increasing two to three percent per year. The Federal Reserve's low interest rates were the main cause of this unprecedented housing bubble and, yet, ex-Fed chief Alan Greenspan still denies any responsibility for what The Economist calls "the largest bubble in history". Did Greenspan understand the problems he was creating with his "loose" monetary policies or was there some ulterior motive to his actions? Hudson: Greenspan simply didn't care about the financial depth charges he was laying. He saw his job as what it had been when he was a Wall Street consultant-for-hire: a cheerleader for special interests seeking to get rich fast. These had been his major clients in his years on Wall Street, and he saw himself as their servant, like a pilot fish for sharks. Mr Greenspan's idea of "wealth creation" was to take the line of least resistance and inflate asset prices. He thought that the way to enable the economy to carry its debt overhead was to inflate asset prices so that debtors could borrow the interest falling due by pledging collateral (real estate, stocks and bonds) that were rising in market price. This required an official Fed policy of asset-price inflation - a financial free ride. To Mr Greenspan's petty bourgeois Ayn-Rand view of the world, any given way of making money was as economically and socially productive as any other way of doing so. Buying a property and waiting for its price to inflate was deemed as productive as investing in new means of production. If balance-sheet assets rose faster than debts, then net worth rose - "wealth creation". Ever since his days as co-founder of NABE (the National Association of Business Economists), Greenspan has looked at GNP and the national balance sheet as the two key economic indicators. Alas, they are fatally "value-free". This is his intellectual and conceptual limitation. He wanted to provide a way for savvy investors to get rich, and the easiest way to get rich is to be passive and get a free lunch. His ideology led him to believe the "free market" patter talk about the financial sector being self-regulating and hence acting honestly. The reality is that he opened the floodgates to financial crooks. His set of measures did not distinguish between Countrywide Financial getting rich (Mr Mozilo became the seventh-highest paid CEO in America) and Enron getting rich, as compared to General Motors or other industrial companies expanding their means of production. The economy was being hollowed out under his watch, but this didn't appear in the measures he watched from his perch at the Federal Reserve. So just as journalists and the mass media proclaim every market downturn as "surprising" and "unexpected", Mr greenspan was as clueless as a lemming running headlong over the cliff. It's an inherent instinct for free-market boys. To see a problem is like being a "premature anti-fascist" was in the 1930s - not what team players want to do. Whitney: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy? Hudson: What do you mean "failure"? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down. The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest ten percent now own 85% of the nation's wealth. Never before have the bottom ninety percent been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy by comparison. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept. You have to realize that the economy's financial managers are trying to roll back the Enlightenment, reverse the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They're not trying to make the economy more equal. Their focus is short-term, because finance always lives in the short run, and their greed is (as Aristotle noted long ago) infinite. What you see as a violation of traditional values is actually a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards; it's the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies to free a new feudal-type elite from oversight. The former Soviet Union provides a model of what the neoliberals would like to create here. Not only in Russia but also in the Baltic States and other former Soviet republics, they created local kleptocracies. In Russia, the kleptocrats founded a Pinochetista party, the Party of Right Forces ("Right" as in right-wing), with made-in-America neoliberal rhetoric and euphemisms. For the American people or any other people to assert greater control over monetary policy, they need to have a doctrine of just what a good monetary policy is and would be. Early in the 19th century the followers of Saint Simon in France began to develop such a policy. By the end of that century most of Central Europe implemented this policy, mobilizing the banking and financial system to promote industrialization, in consultation with the government (and catalyzed by military and naval spending, to be sure). But this has disappeared from the history of economic thought, which no longer is taught to economics students. The Chicago Boys have succeeded in censoring any alternative to their free-market rationalization of asset stripping and economic polarization. I would like to make central banks part of the Treasury instead of what it is at present - the board of directors of a rapacious commercial banking system. I think Henry Liu has come to a similar conclusion in his Asia Times articles. Whitney: Do you see the Federal Reserve as an economic organization designed primarily to maintain order in the markets via interest rates and regulation, or a political institution whose objectives are to impose an American-dominated model of capitalism on the rest of the world? Hudson: Shirley you jest! The Fed has turned "maintaining order" into a euphemism for consolidating power by the financial sector and the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) over the "real" economy of production and consumption. Its leaders see their job as being to act on behalf of the banking system to enable it to make money off the rest of the economy. It acts as the Board of Directors to fight regulation, support Wall Street, block any revival of anti-usury laws, and to promote "free markets" almost indistinguishable from outright financial fraud, to decriminalize bad behavior. But since Mr Greenspan the Fed's job has been to inflate the price of property relative to the wages of labor and even relative to the profits of industry. The class war is back in business. Internationally, the Fed's job is not really to impose the Washington Consensus on the rest of the world. That's assigned to the World Bank and IMF, coordinated via the Treasury (most notoriously by Robert Rubin in Russia, under Clinton) and AID, along with the covert actions of the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy. You don't need monetary policy to do this - only massive bribery, euphemized as "lobbying" and the promotion of democratic values via NGOs whose job is to fight any government's power to regulate or control finance. Financial power is inherently cosmopolitan and, as such, antagonistic to the power of national governments. The Fed and other government agencies, Wall Street and the rest of the economy form part of an overall system. Each agency must be viewed in the context of this system and its dynamics - and these dynamics are polarizing, above all from financial causes. So making the "magic of compound interest" systemic involves expanding to promote "free" credit creation and arbitraging. None of this appears in the academic curriculum. The silence of the major media to address it or even to acknowledge it means that it is invisible except to the beneficiaries who are running the system. http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney08292008.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 07:52:49 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 09:52:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] White House Unveils $1 Billion Georgia Aid Plan Message-ID: September 4, 2008 White House Unveils $1 Billion Georgia Aid Plan By STEVEN LEE MYERS BAKU, Azerbaijan ? President Bush proposed $1 billion in humanitarian and economic assistance on Wednesday to help rebuild Georgia after its short, disastrous war with Russia last month, but he stopped short of committing the United States to re-equipping its battered military. Mr. Bush announced the infusion of aid as Vice President Dick Cheney arrived here in what he described as a demonstration that the United States had "a deep and abiding interest" in keeping Georgia and other neighboring states free from a new era of Russian domination. The aid ? along with Mr. Cheney's high-profile visit to a region the Russians call "the near abroad" ? is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia's leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by providing Georgia weapons and training for its armed forces, while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. The new package of aid, which requires additional approval from Congress, significantly expands assistance to a country that has become ardently pro-American in recent years, though at the cost of the worst relations between the United States and Russia since the end of the cold war. The aid would dwarf the $63 million the United States provided to Georgia last year, roughly a third of it for training its soldiers, police officers and border guards. Excluding Iraq, the infusion would make Georgia one of the largest recipients of American foreign aid after Israel and Egypt. The United States has provided about $1.8 billion over all in the 17 years since Georgia gained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appearing in Washington, said that $570 million of the aid would be made available this year, while the rest would depend on approval by a new administration and a new Congress. It does not include any military aid, she and other administration officials said. The initial money, Mr. Bush said in a statement, would be used to feed and shelter tens of thousands of Georgians displaced during the fighting that began on the night of Aug. 7 when Georgia tried to establish control over a breakaway region, South Ossetia, only to be driven back by Russian forces. Mr. Bush also pledged to support its transition to a democratic market economy. "Georgia has a strong economic foundation and leaders with an impressive record of reform," Mr. Bush said in his statement. "Our additional economic assistance will help the people of Georgia recover from the assault on their country and continue to build a prosperous and competitive economy." President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin have already complained that humanitarian supplies delivered by the American Navy and Air Force were a disguise for delivering new weapons, accusations that administration officials have dismissed as baseless. The American military has so far delivered $30 million in emergency aid, including 1,200 tons of food and relief supplies like tents, delivered by 61 Air Force jets and two Navy ships plying the Black Sea. Mr. Bush also ordered federal agencies to expand trading opportunities between the United States and Georgia and to provide maritime insurance for ships docking in Georgia. "The free world cannot allow the destiny of a small independent country to be determined by the aggression of a larger neighbor," Ms. Rice said in Washington. She also took the occasion to deride the Russian recognition of South Ossetia and the other breakaway Georgia region, Abkhazia, noting that few countries had followed the Russian example. "It isn't really an impressive list to have Abkhazia and South Ossetia recognize each other," she said. The new announcement followed a pledge by the European Union this week to contribute funds to Georgia's reconstruction, and an agreement by the International Monetary Fund to provide Georgia with $750 million in financing. All of those steps have demonstrated broad international support for Georgia's government and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, whom Mr. Medvedev called "a political corpse" this week. Still, there seemed to be little pressure the United States and European countries could exert to persuade Russia to back down in its confrontation with Mr. Saakashvili's government. Many administration officials worry that overthrowing Mr. Saakashvili's government is Russia's unwavering intention. While the administration has made its political, diplomatic and economic support for Georgia abundantly clear, however, it has yet to settle on what steps, if any, it will take to punish Russia. It has failed to do so even as American and European officials vehemently protest that Russia continues to violate a French-brokered agreement to end the fighting and withdraw Russian troops from Georgian territory. The administration is expected to announce soon that it will withdraw its support for an agreement with Russia on civil nuclear cooperation, a linchpin of Mr. Bush's nonproliferation policies, officials said, though one cautioned that a final decision had not been made. That agreement already faced skepticism in Congress, though it would still be a significant step to scuttle an international agreement that Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin hailed as an important achievement. Georgia has also pressed the administration to move quickly to rebuild its armed forces. While officials have acknowledged considering that, they have also indicated that they have reservations about adding fuel to a conflict that is far from resolved. An expanded package of humanitarian and economic assistance is not likely to face significant opposition in Congress. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee and now the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has already expressed support for a sizable aid package. Mr. Cheney directly challenged Russia's dismissal of Georgia's elected leader here in Azerbaijan on Wednesday, the first of three stops to bolster the resolve of countries in the face of a newly assertive and much larger neighbor. Mr. Cheney is the highest-ranking American to visit Azerbaijan since its independence in 1991. He is scheduled to visit Georgia on Thursday, followed by Ukraine. "We met this evening in the shadow of the recent Russian invasion of Georgia, an act that has been clearly condemned by the international community," Mr. Cheney told Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, in a meeting at the presidential residence in Zagulba Baglari on the Caspian coast. "President Bush has sent me here with a clear and simple message to the people of Azerbaijan and the entire region: The United States has deep and abiding interests in your well-being and security." Azerbaijan, like Georgia, is a former Soviet republic that has sought closer ties to the West and the United States, and it is a vital crossroads for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea and beyond that from Central Asia. Underscoring the point, Mr. Cheney's first meetings here in Baku were with representatives of two international oil companies: William Schrader of BP Azerbaijan and Robert Dastmalchi of Chevron, according to a spokeswoman, Megan M. Mitchell. Those meetings came a day after Mr. Putin announced plans for a new natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to Russia, a route that would increase Russia's role in providing natural gas to Europe. Mr. Cheney, who in 2006 accused Russia of using its natural resources as "tools of intimidation or blackmail," expressed the administration's strong support for seeking alternate routes for oil and natural gas from Central Asia and the Caspian. "The United States strongly believes that, together with the nations of Europe, including Turkey, we must work with Azerbaijan and other countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia on additional routes for energy exports that ensure the free flow of resources," he said. "Energy security is essential to us all, and the matter is becoming increasingly urgent." Peter Baker contributed reporting from St. Paul, and Helene Cooper from Washington. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sun Sep 7 08:13:53 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:13:53 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Pipsqueak creates crisis Message-ID: <48C3E1A1.8000406@attglobal.net> Georgia's attack on South Ossetia sets Russia and the US on a dangerous course by Eric Margolis www.torontosun.com (August 31 2008) Pipsqueak Georgia's harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the US and NATO against Russia. In an act fraught with danger, US and NATO warships are delivering supplies to Georgia, watched by Russian men of war. The US Congress may soon vote $1 billion for America's embattled Georgian satellite. The western powers have resorted to fierce Cold War rhetoric. They are playing with fire. Russia has some 6,600 strategic nuclear weapons, mostly aimed at North America and Europe. Besides the US, which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose air force just killed ninety Afghan civilians, sixty of them children, is in no position to lecture Moscow about aggression. France's conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, blasted Russia and shortly will hold a European summit over Georgia in Brussels. As usual, the Harper government faithfully echoed Washington's words. Poland agreed to emplace a US anti-ballistic missile system only 184 kilometers from Russia's border, provoking Moscow's fury. Ukraine and Poland are loudly backing Georgia. Russia's chief of staff, General Yuri Baluyevsky, warns his nation has the right to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against enemies, in line, he tartly noted, with the Bush administration's own policies. Topping off this war of words, two of Senator John McCain's closest right wing allies, senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, went to Georgia and called for "tough" measures against Moscow. They urged isolating Russia for "aggression" and admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. McCain Preview McCain's allies give a good preview of what his foreign policy would look like. Lieberman and Graham, leading proponents of the US occupation of Iraq, had the chutzpah to insist, "Russia must not be allowed to control energy supplies". This ugly mess recalls how the great powers blundered into both the first and second world wars over obscure locales such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Danzig Corridor. The obvious lesson: Act with extreme caution. Few are listening as rhetoric sharpens. The Bush administration - most likely VP Dick Cheney - almost certainly planned or knew about Georgia's attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia launched under cover of the Beijing Olympics. Whether the White House was trying to inflict a quick little military victory over Moscow, or whipping up war fever at home to boost John McCain's prospects in the presidential election, is uncertain. This crisis over a mere 70,000 South Ossetians and 18,000 Abkhazians could have been resolved quietly by diplomacy. Instead, the Bush administration turned it into a major confrontation by accusing Russia of aggression. Washington, which rightly recognized the independence of Kosovo's Albanians from Serb repression, denounced Russia's recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence from Georgian repression. Meanwhile, Moscow, which crushed the life out of Chechnya's independence movement, piously claimed to be defending Ossetian independence. Things may get worse. The US is pressing Ukraine to join NATO, though half of its 48 million citizens oppose doing so. Ukraine's constitution mandates a neutral state. Russia allowed Ukraine to decamp from the Soviet Union with the understanding it would never join NATO, and allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to operate from Crimea. Russian political expert Sergei Markov rightly notes that Washington and NATO see Ukraine as a rich new source of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, wars from which he says NATO leaders cannot withdraw their soldiers without committing "political suicide". "Old Europe" is trying to avoid a clash with Moscow, while "new Europe" - Georgia, Poland, the Czechs, and Balts - frightened of Russia's growing power, eggs on the US-Russia confrontation. Not only did the clumsy US attempt to expand its influence into Moscow's backyard backfire badly, Washington's childish, petulant response is as inflammatory as it is powerless. The Georgian crisis and empty threats against Russia have aroused strong nationalist passions in Russia, which sees itself increasingly isolated and surrounded by the US and NATO. Nationalist hysteria, jingoism, and fevered rhetoric are coming from both sides. We saw such lunacy before: In August 1914, and September 1939. http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/08/30/pf-6619621.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 08:32:47 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:32:47 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Obama Says Pakistan Used U.S. Aid to Prepare for War against India Message-ID: Especially when it comes to Pakistan, Obama is as dangerous as Bush and McCain. He only encourages the Indian Right. -- Yoshie Reuters Blogs Pakistan: Now or Never? Perspectives on Pakistan September 6th, 2008 Obama says Pakistan used U.S. aid to prepare for war against India Posted by: Myra MacDonald Senator Barack Obama has accused Pakistan of misusing U.S. military aid meant to help it fight al Qaeda and the Taliban to prepare for war against India. In an interview with Fox News [LINK: ] he also says the United States must put more pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants, hold it accountable for increased military support, and be prepared to act aggressively against al Qaeda; "if we have bin Laden in our sights, we target him and we knock him out," he says. However he adds that "nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan." The latter part of his comments is not that new, nor indeed that different from the policies of the current U.S. administration. But it is his comment about India that has been seized upon by the media in South Asia. "We are providing them military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use, to Pakistan, they're preparing for war against India," he says. You can see the stories in The Times of India and Dawn here [LINK: ] and here [LINK: ]. Obama's charge against Pakistan serious: BJP Special Correspondent NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday said the United States presidential nominee Barack Obama's charge against Pakistan was a serious issue and the Manmohan Singh government should take it up with the Pakistan High Commissioner here. Mr. Obama had accused Pakistan of misusing American aid for preparing for a war against India. BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was known that terror attacks in Kashmir had increased recently and Bangladesh had become the new nerve centre for Islamic fundamentalists. Now Mr. Obama had made a specific charge against Pakistan. Now that Asif Ali Zardari had been elected Pakistan President, the government must take up the issue and point out that in an agreement with India, Pakistan had said it would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activity against New Delhi. Pakistan must implement that agreement, Mr. Prasad said. From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Sun Sep 7 08:34:23 2008 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 06:34:23 -0800 Subject: [A-List] Pipsqueak creates crisis In-Reply-To: <48C3E1A1.8000406@attglobal.net> References: <48C3E1A1.8000406@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <82b839ea0809070734q5ad378bdg1fe5db80e5ae7fe3@mail.gmail.com> > Pipsqueak Georgia's harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South > Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the US and NATO against > Russia. Does anyone doubt that Shakashvili acted on orders from his US handlers? > > This ugly mess recalls how the great powers blundered into both the > first and second world wars over obscure locales such as > Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Danzig Corridor. > Blundered? We are forced to believe that the attack by the Georgians was a blunder and not part of a purposeful scheme to draw Russia into a conflict before the change in administration and before their strength increases. > This crisis over a mere 70,000 South Ossetians and 18,000 Abkhazians > could have been resolved quietly by diplomacy. Instead, the Bush > administration turned it into a major confrontation by accusing Russia > of aggression. Duh! > > Washington, which rightly recognized the independence of Kosovo's > Albanians from Serb repression,....... Here the author tips his hand. 'Nuf said. M From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 08:44:12 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:44:12 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Venezuela, Russia to Hold Joint Military Exercises in Venezuelan Waters Message-ID: What's next? A joint naval exercise with Iran in the Persian Gulf? -- Yoshie Russian, Venezuelan navies to hold manouvers in Caribbean 07.09.2008, 06.15 CARACAS, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's warships will visit Venezuela from November 10 to November 14, the Globovision television channel reported with reference to the Venezuelan Navy on Saturday. "Russian and Venezuelan navies will hold joint manouvers in the Caribbean Sea, which will contribute to stronger friendship and cooperation," the source said. Rear Admiral Salvatore Cammarata of the Venezuelan Navy Staff stressed that the Venezuelan-Russian exercise to be held for the first time in history "is of great importance for Latin America." Venezuela, Russia to hold joint military exercises in Venezuelan waters www.chinaview.cn 2008-09-07 10:12:12 CARACAS, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela and Russia will hold joint military exercises in mid-November, the first of its kind in the Americas, the Venezuelan military announced on Saturday. The Venezuelan navy and air force, together with four Russian warships with some 1,000 soldiers aboard, will participate in the exercises scheduled for Nov. 10-14 in the Venezuelan territorial waters, according to a statement from the Venezuelan military. Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took office, Venezuela has boosted its military cooperation with Russia. In August, Chavez said his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev planned to send a Russian fleet to visit Venezuela. From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun Sep 7 09:11:54 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 11:11:54 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Risk Of Direct US-Russia Military Clash Worse Than Cold War Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 9:23 AM Subject: [stopnato] Risk Of Direct US-Russia Military Clash Worse Than Cold War http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/785839.html McClatchy Newspapers September 7, 2008 Kremlin-watchers warn of direct U.S.-Russia clash By TOM LASSETER -"The risk of direct military clashes is (now) much higher....This situation is much riskier than the Cold War." -Russian analysts say there are three possible flash points, all centered on or around the Black Sea, once almost lakefront property for the Soviet empire. The sea borders three NATO members - Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania - and two applicants, Georgia and Ukraine. If the two applicants join the alliance, Russia's Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by NATO. In the aftermath of last month's war between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia, Kremlin-watchers in Moscow are worried that Russia and America are closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the end of the Cold War. The rhetoric coming from the Bush administration - and presidential hopeful John McCain - suggests that tensions are still on the rise. During the Cold War, "the sides were very careful of each other. They were careful not to come too close," said Alexander Pikayev, a prominent military analyst in Moscow who works for a government-funded research center. "The risk of direct military clashes is (now) much higher....This situation is much riskier than the Cold War." Both sympathizers and critics of Kremlin policy shared the assessment of a significantly heightened chance of conflict. They expressed hopes that cooler heads will prevail. Vice President Dick Cheney put a spotlight on the standoff during visits to Georgia and Ukraine last week, the countries at the core of the row between Washington and Moscow. He told Georgians on Thursday that the United States will continue to back the country's NATO application - which the Kremlin vehemently opposes - and said that Moscow's intervention "cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner." Cheney traveled on Friday to Ukraine, which also is applying to NATO with strong U.S. support. There, he spoke of the "threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion or intimidation" from Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the same day that it was up to America to decide whether disagreements would get worse. "We are not interested in bad relations with the United States," Lavrov told CNN. "It wouldn't be our choice, but if the United States does not want to cooperate with us on one or another issue, we cannot impose." At the Republican convention Thursday, McCain mentioned Russia just after al-Qaida and Iran. "Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power," McCain said in his nomination-acceptance speech. "As president, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War," he said. "But we can't turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people." Democratic contender Barack Obama promised to "renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can curb Russian aggression." Andrei Klimov, a Russian parliament member with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said he didn't think there would be fighting between the United States and Russia, but acknowledged that he's taken aback by how much more possible it seems now. "If you have a lot of people on the streets with pistols, it is very dangerous," said Klimov, the deputy of the foreign affairs committee in the Duma, the lower house of parliament. Russian analysts say there are three possible flash points, all centered on or around the Black Sea, once almost lakefront property for the Soviet empire. The sea borders three NATO members - Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania - and two applicants, Georgia and Ukraine. If the two applicants join the alliance, Russia's Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by NATO. "Now it looks like there is a certain red line that exists in the heads of Russian leadership and they are willing to do anything to stop it from being crossed," said Nikolai Petrov, a Moscow scholar in residence with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "And this red line is Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO." =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Groups Special K Challenge Join others who are losing pounds. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to take great pictures. John McEnroe on Yahoo! Groups Join him for the 10 Day Challenge.. __,_._,___ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 09:15:24 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 11:15:24 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Sunday Times: "Vladimir Putin Set to Bait US with Nuclear Aid for Tehran" Message-ID: The Sunday Times article probably isn't true because its reports on Iran, Russia, etc. have always been full of psychological warfare based on leaks from anonymous sources. As for S-300, the threat to sell it to Iran and Syria is something the Russians have been willing to use, but if they actually sold it, they could no longer use it as a bargaining chip with the West, so they probably won't do so easily. But they may actually do so, as well as cutting the Russian route to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan, if the West doesn't cease and desist from its military advancement toward Russia. After all, Russia is holding its first joint naval exercise with Venezuela (cf. ). -- Yoshie From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun Sep 7 10:31:23 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 12:31:23 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Report: Venezuela To Host Russian Naval Exercise In Caribbean Message-ID: <89691F2B32464F1B8833918B73458D47@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 12:09 AM Subject: [stopnato] Report: Venezuela To Host Russian Naval Exercise In Caribbean http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=n151929 Focus News Agency (Bulgaria) September 7, 2008 Venezuela to host Russia navy exercise in Caribbean Caracas - Several Russian ships and 1,000 soldiers will take part in joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea later this year, exercises likely to increase diplomatic tensions with Washington, a pro-government newspaper reported on Saturday, as cited by Reuters. Quoting Venezuela's naval intelligence director, Salbarore Cammarata, the newspaper Vea said four Russian boats would visit Venezuelan waters from November 10 to 14. Plans for the naval operations come at a time of heightened diplomatic tension and Cold War-style rhetoric between Moscow and the United States over the recent war in Georgia and plans for a U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Cammarata said it would be the first time Russia's navy carried out such exercises in Latin America. He said the Venezuelan air force would also take part. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington, has said in recent weeks that Russian ships and planes are welcome to visit the South American country. "If the Russian long-distance planes that fly around the world need to land at some Venezuelan landing strip, they are welcome, we have no problems," he said on his weekly television show last week. Chavez, who buys billions of dollars of weapons from Russia, has criticized this year's reactivation of the U.S. Navy's Fourth Fleet, which will patrol Latin America for the first time in over 50 years. The socialist Chavez says he fears the United States will invade oil-rich Venezuela and he supports Russia's growing geopolitical presence as a counterbalance to U.S. power. Chavez has bought fighter jets and submarines from Russia to retool Venezuela's aging weapons and says he is also interested in a missile defense system. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Family Photos Learn how to best capture your family moments. Move More on Yahoo! Groups This is your life not a phys-ed class. Yahoo! Groups Stay healthy and discover other people who can help.. __,_._,___ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 11:03:29 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 13:03:29 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Dick Cheney Goes to Baku, But "Ilham Aliyev Is in No Hurry to Support the Nabucco Project" Message-ID: Sep. 05, 2008 Dick Cheney Mistakenly Staked on Caspian // Ilham Aliyev is in no hurry to support the Nabucco project U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney finished his tour of the South Caucasus, which was intended to strengthen Washington's positions in its struggle for Caspian energy resources. The visit he paid to Tbilisi yesterday went smoothly as expected. However, the talks he held in Baku Wednesday failed. According to the information of Kommersant, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev gave his American guest a cold welcome and sent a clear message that Baku won't support the idea to redirect the energy resources pipelines so that they would omit Russia. He came to that conclusion watching the developments in the neighboring Georgia. Money instead of tanks Yesterday at 11 a.m. Dick Cheney arrived from Baku in Tbilisi, where Georgia's Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze. Before the meeting of the U.S. Vice President with Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili Georgian Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaya revealed the talks' agenda to Kommersant. "First, Dick Cheney wants to demonstrate the U.S. support to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine," he said. "Second, during the negotiations the parties will discuss the security of communication lines that allow shipping the Caspian energy resources to the West omitting Russia." After the talks in the new residence of Georgia's head-of-state, Mikheil Saakashvili stated at the joint press-conference, "Georgia feels the U.S. support, which is strong as never before." The journalists had a chance to assess the strength of that support following Dick Cheney's address. The U.S. Vice President said that Washington allocates $1 billion to restore the Georgian economy. "We stand in solidarity with the people of Georgia. After your nation won its freedom in the Rose Revolution, America came to the aid of this courageous young democracy. We are doing so again, as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory - and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change your country's borders by force that has been universally condemned by the free world," the Vice President stated. "Russia's actions have cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner - not just in Georgia but across this region and indeed throughout the international system." Besides, Dick Cheney reiterated that Washington fully supports Georgia's NATO ambitions. "Georgia will be in our alliance," he claimed. Nevertheless, according to the sources of Kommersant in the Georgian Chancellery, the talks of Mikheil Saakashvili and Dick Cheney didn't go as smoothly as their press-conference did. The discussion mainly focused on the security of the existing pipelines, which were laid in Georgia omitting Russia, and the project of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline Nabucco. Dick Cheney made no secret of the fact that the U.S. is ready to provide the security of these pipelines using political methods only. So, Georgia won't get military assistance from the U.S. now. By the way, Wednesday, U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice made this position public. "It is not yet time to look at the questions of assistance on the military side," she stated in Washington. However, Mikheil Saakashvili declared ready to further support American energy projects in the region. According to the sources of Kommersant, he promised to Dick Cheney that Tbilisi will support the Nabucco project "whatever" in case the U.S. gets the approval of Georgia's neighbors, Baku, first of all. The Baku emissary Meanwhile, according to the information of Kommersant, Dick Cheney's visit to Azerbaijan he made on Wednesday turned out complete failure. The guest of honor, who came in Baku for the first time, was met neither by President Ilham Aliyev nor Prime Minister Artur Rasizade. Instead, First Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyubov and Foreign Office Chief Elmar Mammadyarov met Dick Cheney in the airport. As to Ilham Aliyev, he was in no hurry to receive Mr Cheney. That's why the U.S. Vice President first went to a meeting with BP President in Azerbaijan Bill Schrader and Chevron Azerbaijan top managers. Then he visited the U.S. Embassy in Baku and held a meeting with Ambassador Anne E. Derse. It was not earlier than in the evening that Dick Cheney went to the residence of Azerbaijan's President. According to the sources of Kommersant with the Office of Azerbaijan's President, the talks turned out pretty tough, in spite of the fact that Dick Cheney and Ilham Aliyev have had close ties since Mr cheney worked with Halliburton and Mr Aliyev was SOCAR (Azerbaijan's state-run oil company) Vice President. They discussed the war in Georgia and the prospects of constructing the Nabucco gas pipeline. According to the information of Kommersant, Dick Cheney informed Ilham Aliyev that the U.S. will support its allies in the region and intends to promote the project of the gas pipeline omitting Russia. Nonetheless, Ilham Aliyev sent a clear message that although he appreciates the relations with Washington, he is not going to have a row with Moscow. In fact it meant that under the present circumstances Baku decided to bide its time without fostering the Nabucco project. Kommersant interlocutors with the Presidential Office said that Dick Cheney was irritated by the outcome of the discussion ? he even refused to attend a banquet in his honor. Ilham Aliyev's reluctance to support Washington quarreling with Russia is easy to explain. Baku regrded Tbilisi's definitively losing of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as Russia's tanks entering Georgia as a signal to everyone in the region who is willing to join NATO. Azerbaijan's budget incurs great losses: because of the explosion at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline on August 12 ? Turkey put the blame on the Kurdistan Workers Party ? and the pauses of the work of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, energy carriers export from Azerbaijan in the western direction was suspended. At the same time Baku has no claims to Russia. Moreover, according to the information of Kommersant, Azerbaijan's authorities expressed their gratitude to the Russian Federation because during the military operation and bombardments of the Georgian territory no BTC-related facilities were destroyed. Nevertheless, Baku can't overhaul its stance towards the pipelines on the territory of Georgia. Azerbaijan is said to have increased the workload of the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline. It concluded that in the present situation it's more secure to transport gas to Europe via Russia, rather than Georgia and Turkey. Even more so in June Gazprom offered to buy Azerbaijan's gas at any volumes according to the European pricing formula. During his visit to Baku in July Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev agreed to launch negotiations concerning the matter. It seems the talks will be accelerated, just like the pace of Baku and Moscow's developing closer relations. The Russian leaders have already started work in this direction. In the evening after the talks of Dick Cheney and Ilham Aliyev finished, Dmitry Medvedev called Azerbaijan's President. Sources in the Kremlin explained to Kommersant the necessity of the telephone conversation with Dmitry Medvedev's desire to bring home to Ilham Aliyev, one of the region's most influential players, Russia's position regarding Georgia. Even more so Azerbaijan has a territorial dispute with Armenia, which remains unresolved. "Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyanhas recently visited Moscow and discussed the situation over South Ossetia and Abkhazia during his talks with Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian President thought it important to discuss those matters with the Azerbaijani party as well because Baku belongs neither to SCO nor CSTO ? the organizations Russia has intensified contacts with," a source in the Kremlin told Kommersant. In her turn, Press-Secretary of the Russian President Natalya Timakova told Kommersant that during their conversation the leader of Russia and Azerbaijan discussed a possibility of a meeting in the near future. From orakwa at paulcomm.ca Sun Sep 7 09:08:09 2008 From: orakwa at paulcomm.ca (MohawkNationNews) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 11:08:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN Science of sexual abuse of Indigenous children Message-ID: <011cfe54$39698$17e44639920718@your-6904db8205> DESTRUCTION AND DEATH OF INDIGENOUS YOUTH THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF SEXUAL ABUSE ? ANOTHER LOOK AT PEDOPHILIA IN CANADIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS. By Karakwine & MNN Staff MNN. Sept. 7, 2008. Pedophilia is a violent sexual attack on children. Pedophilia is a covert criminal activity used globally by the elites. The clerical collar and the nun?s robes have been the perfect cover. It has long been a product of the strategies used by the elite to control and dominate the rest of the population. A small minority of human beings [2 to 3%] has no compunction about destroying and killing people to make it to the top of the European-style hierarchy. Governments, judiciary, the police and the Catholic and other Christian churches colluded in this well thought out system of debauchery. It did not happen randomly. Our children were snatched and put in residential schools, debased and many were killed. The elite foisted their depravity on us to weaken and destroy us. These vulgar, immoral and violent acts were meant to bring down our normal healthy self-esteem for many generations to come. We were conditioned to blur the difference between lust and decency. As the owners of the land and resources they coveted, they needed to weaken us, turn us into victims and kill us off. They had to remove us so they could turn Onowaregeh/Turtle Island into a ?terra nullius?, a land with no inhabitants. The program for the mainstream public is different. They are being conditioned to accept treatment as cannon fodder for the irrational connivance of the elite. An example of conditioning is the 2007 Vanity Fair photos of adolescent actor, Miley Cyrus, and her father, Billy Ray Cyrus. This seductive photo of the girl lying across her father?s lap, both dressed provocatively, suggests that the public is being prepared to cross another moral line. Incest! As a 15 year old ?commodity?, Miley Cyrus is a victim too! Even flesh colored baby diapers are designed to make little babies look naked. The internet is satisfying perverted lusts showing men having sex with babies. Babies are sacrificial lambs worldwide. The top players in such a sick scenario are never caught or called to account. They have their ?official? apparatus in place to protect themselves and their minions. Vile perversions are their drug of choice. George Bush Sr., an eastern establishment blue-blood, while he was U.S. President, was touched by a whiff of scandal involving young boys. [www.thelawparty.com/ FranklinCoverup/franklin.htm] Whenever a scandal involving children breaks out, all avenues of inquiry are shut down. Only the low level perpetrators go to jail. The Detroux affair in Belgium is an example. [www.illuminati-news.com/2007/0724a.htm] That monster kidnapped and sodomized hundreds of children and murdered an unknown number. He had 7 villas in Belgium where he tortured, drugged and produced snuff and porn films. Then he killed the little girls and hid their bodies. His wife helped procure many of the children for him. He said at his trial in 2004 that he had accomplices among police officers, businessmen, doctors and high level politicians. None of the officials who perpetrated this perversion were touched. He, his wife and two accomplices are serving long jail sentences. Dutroux is small potatoes compared to the murderous rampage carried out by the Canadian government, Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches FOR OVER A CENTURY!!! Nobody went to jail for murdering over 50,000 Indigenous children in the residential school ?torture dungeons?. Not one person! This is a perversion of justice. Our children were victims of medical experiments, rape, sodomy, starvation, floggings and strangulations. Children were coerced to kill other children and then bury them. Several skeletons of newborn babies were found in school furnaces. The children were rounded up and sent to judges, police, politicians and professionals to be sexually exploited. The residential school program supplied our children in pedophile rings to men in high places who had a taste for very young brown skinned kids. In the book ?Where Eagles Dare to Soar?, the author, Kevin White, said that they preferred to abuse our kids because they got a kick out of degrading our naturally healthy attitude about ourselves. Prime Minister Stephen Harper did say, ?Sorry? and then swept it all under the rug. The Canadian government seems to think that the reparation money they?ve paid out is the price they have to pay to continue raping us. In the subconscious minds of the elite, paying their victims is like going to a brothel and paying for sex. Our kids are in grave danger. In Vancouver and other western cities there are still streets where men go to have sex with little native children. Vancouver is turning into Canada?s Thailand where foreign men go on ?sex junkets? for little brown skinned kids. It is alleged that Boston Massachusetts is the pedophile capital of the U.S. This is where the Catholic church was exposed over priests abusing little boys for decades and being covered up and protected by the church. The church used religion as a sideline to carry out perversion, extract money from the people and to keep their flock dumbed down and forever victimized. The establishment learn early the science of subjugating helpless kids and people. Normal humanity is systematically conditioned out of them and replaced with a cold merciless mindset. The ivy league schools where the upper crust send their children trains them to look down on those they think are the ?unwashed masses?. They are guaranteed top positions to run their criminal cartel. We all know how difficult it is for us ?normals? to get a decent job in their hierarchy unless we are willing to become depraved. For most of us the glass ceiling is very low. We constantly hit our heads on it. It doesn?t matter how much formal education we get. The set up is deliberate. The kids who have been escaping the social chaos caused by the residential school ?brothel? program have been funneled into Canadian cities for decades. It was obvious that safe houses and hospices were needed for these extremely vulnerable young people. Instead of providing protection and support, officials turned a blind eye. They paved the way for pig farmers like Picton in Vancouver to snatch and ?disappear? them on a massive scale over a long period of time. The cops also refuse to investigate the disappearance of over 500 Indigenous young women. Child abductions and suffering of our children and our families appear to be a sexual turn-on for these degenerates. They thirst to subjugate the human race. The fact that drugs so readily come into our communities unabated points to the main culprit - the government. They want to help create a cowering and submissive Indigenous People. This goes against our natural order. In the long run it isn?t going to work. Many drug and alcohol riddled communities are now cleaning up. The public were shocked when they learned the truth about the collusion between governments, police and the church. When will we see popes, presidents, Canadian prime ministers, top judges, top police, senators, members of parliament, all levels of clergy and CEOs go to jail, along with their many flunkies and henchmen? The goal of this deluded scheme is to steal our territory and resources. To them the land owner has to be sexually subjugated and molested. Then in the perpetrators mind they now own the land. The idea is to degrade us so we will become degenerates. It is a deliberate way to destroy the race. We can see what?s going on. We are keeping an eye on our children. Karakwine and MNN Staff contact: katenies20 at yahoo.com MNN Mohawk Nation News Please Note. It?s becoming critical for legal actions to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen. Go to MNN ?Canada? category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 12:17:58 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 14:17:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Robert Bryce on "Energy Independence" Message-ID: March 7, 2008 First Chapter 'Gusher of Lies' By ROBERT BRYCE The Persistent Delusion Americans love independence. Whether it's financial independence, political independence, the Declaration of Independence, or grilling hotdogs on Independence Day, America's self-image is inextricably bound to the concepts of freedom and autonomy. The promises laid out by the Declaration ? life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ? are the shared faith and birthright of all Americans. Alas, the Founding Fathers didn't write much about gasoline. Nevertheless, over the past 30 years or so ? and particularly over the past 3 or 4 years ? American politicians have been talking as though Thomas Jefferson himself warned about the dangers of imported crude oil. Every U.S. president since Richard Nixon has extolled the need for energy independence. In 1974, Nixon promised it could be achieved within 6 years. In 1975, Gerald Ford promised it in 10. In 1977, Jimmy Carter warned Americans that the world's supply of oil would begin running out within a decade or so and that the energy crisis that was then facing America was "the moral equivalent of war." The phrase "energy independence" has become a prized bit of meaningful-sounding rhetoric that can be tossed out by candidates and political operatives eager to appeal to the broadest cross section of voters. When the U.S. achieves energy independence, goes the reasoning, America will be a self-sufficient Valhalla, with lots of good-paying manufacturing jobs that will come from producing new energy technologies. Farmers will grow fat, rich, and happy by growing acre upon acre of corn and other plants that can be turned into billions of gallons of oil-replacing ethanol. When America arrives at the promised land of milk, honey, and supercheap motor fuel, then U.S. soldiers will never again need visit the Persian Gulf, except, perhaps, on vacation. With energy independence, America can finally dictate terms to those rascally Arab sheikhs from troublesome countries, with their burkawearing wives and dubious social values. Energy independence will mean a thriving economy, a positive balance of trade, and a stronger, better America. The appeal of this vision of energy autarky has grown dramatically since the terrorist attacks of September 11. That can be seen through an analysis of news stories that contain the phrase "energy independence." In 2000, the Factiva news database had just 449 stories containing that phrase. In 2001, there were 1,118 stories. By 2006, that number had soared to 8,069. The surging interest in energy independence can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that in the post?September 11 world, many Americans have been hypnotized by the conflation of two issues: oil and terrorism. America was attacked, goes this line of reasoning, because it has too high a profile in the parts of the world where oil and Islamic extremism are abundant. And buying oil from the countries of the Persian Gulf stuffs petrodollars straight into the pockets of terrorists like Mohammad Atta and the 18 other hijackers who committed mass murder on September 11. Americans have, it appears, swallowed the notion that all foreign oil ? and thus, presumably, all foreign energy ? is bad. Foreign energy is a danger to the economy, a danger to America's national security, a major source of funding for terrorism, and, well, just not very patriotic. Given these many assumptions, the common wisdom is to seek the balm of energy independence. And that balm is being peddled by the Right, the Left, the Greens, Big Agriculture, Big Labor, Republicans, Democrats, senators, members of the House, George W. Bush, the opinion page of the New York Times, and the neoconservatives. About the only faction that dismisses the concept is Big Oil. But then few people are listening to Big Oil these days. Environmental groups like Greenpeace and Worldwatch Institute continually tout energy independence. The idea has long been a main talking point of Amory Lovins, the high priest of the energy-efficiency movement and the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute. One group, the Apollo Alliance, which represents labor unions, environmentalists, and other left-leaning groups, says that one of its primary goals is "to achieve sustainable American energy independence within a decade." Al Gore's 2006 documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, implies that America's dependence on foreign oil is a factor in global warming. The film, which won two Academy Awards (for best documentary feature and best original song) contends that foreign oil should be replaced with domestically produced ethanol and that this replacement will reduce greenhouse gases. (In October 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.) The leading Democratic candidates for the White House in 2008 have made energy independence a prominent element of their stump speeches. Illinois senator Barack Obama has declared that "now is the time for serious leadership to get us started down the path of energy independence." In January 2007, in the video that she posted on her Web site that kicked off her presidential campaign,New York senator Hillary Clinton said she wants to make America "energy independent and free of foreign oil." Former North Carolina senator John Edwards believes the U.S. needs "energy independence from unstable and hostile areas of the world." The Republicans are on board, too. In January 2007, shortly before Bush's State of the Union speech, one White House adviser declared that the president would soon deliver "headlines above the fold that will knock your socks off in terms of our commitment to energy independence." In February 2007, Arizona senator and presidential candidate John McCain told voters in Iowa, "We need energy independence. We need it for a whole variety of reasons." In March 2007, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani insisted that the federal government "must treat energy independence as a matter of national security." He went on, saying that "we've been talking about energy independence for over 30 years and it's been, well, really, too much talk and virtually no action. . . . I'm impatient and I'm single-minded about my goals, and we will achieve energy independence." On April 26, 2007, another Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, used the Jerusalem Post's e-mail list to conflate the issues of oil, terrorism, Israel, and energy independence in a fund-raising appeal for his presidential campaign. The e-mail message, which showed a large picture of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asked several questions, including "Do you believe that those who support terrorism against America and against the state of Israel should be held accountable?" The next question: "Do you agree that we must become energy independent and stop sending $1 billion a day to nations like Iran and Syria who use that money against us?" (Syria exports modest amounts of crude oil.) The Democratic Party, which won control of the House and Senate in the November 2006 elections, has made energy independence into a key talking point. About the time of the elections, Nancy Pelosi, the congresswoman from San Francisco who became Speaker of the House, issued the Democrats' "New Direction" agenda. The third point on that list ? right after raising the minimum wage and repealing certain tax incentives ? is "invest in research and development to promote energy independence." It says the Democrats will achieve energy independence "within ten years. We should be sending our energy dollars to the Midwest, not the Middle East. America's farmers will fuel America's energy independence." A Democratic think tank, the Center for American Progress, which was created by a group of politicos from the Clinton administration, has launched a campaign called "Kick the Oil Habit," an effort that seems to imply America can quit using oil with the same ease that a smoker might give up cigarettes. In May 2006, the group's lead spokesman, actor Robert Redford, appeared on TV talk shows and wrote opinion pieces in which he said the U.S. should quit using oil altogether so that it can get away from "dictators and despots." The solutions proposed by Redford and the Democrats: more ethanol, biofuels, and hybrid vehicles. During an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live, Redford said that he supported corn ethanol production because "it's cheaper. It's cleaner. It's renewable. And you know what? It's American because we grow it." In January 2007,Andy Grove, the former chairman of giant computer-chip maker Intel Corp., penned an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he decried the lack of progress toward energy independence: "Even though the importance of the energy independence issue has been recognized and emphasized by every president since 1974, our vital national objective is vanishing like a mirage in the distance." Grove went on to claim that our use of foreign energy "gives great power to other nations over our destiny." In September 2007, S. David Freeman, a longtime advocate of renewable energy who once chaired the Tennessee Valley Authority and has headed several other electric utilities, released a book called Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How. Freeman's book calls for a multidecade effort to close America's older coal and nuclear power plants while focusing on more efficient plug-in hybrid cars. A press release publicizing the book says that "Freeman charges that the reason we aren't already using more renewable energy is that the oil companies and electrical utilities have waged a slick campaign to deceive Americans." In late October 2007, a book with a similar theme ? Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States' Oil Addiction ? rose to number 8 on the Washington Post's bestseller list. The book, by David Sandalow, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former official in the Clinton administration, touts the potential of plug-in hybrid cars, biofuels, and fuel efficiency to cut America's oil consumption. The front cover of the book has a blurb from Al Gore which says that when Sandalow "writes about energy and the environment, we should all pay close attention." Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans are worried about foreign oil. A March 2007 survey by Yale University's Center for Environmental Law and Policy found that 93 percent of respondents said imported oil is a serious problem and 70 percent said it was "very" serious. That finding was confirmed by an April 2007 poll by Zogby International, which found that 74 percent of Americans believe that cutting oil imports should be a high priority for the federal government. And a majority of those surveyed said that they support expanding the domestic production of alternative fuels. The energy independence rhetoric has become so extreme that some politicians are even claiming that lightbulbs will help achieve the goal. In early 2007,U.S. Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat, introduced a bill that would essentially outlaw incandescent bulbs by requiring all bulbs in the U.S. to be as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. Writing about her proposal in the Huffington Post, Harman declared that such bulbs could "help transform America into an energy efficient and energy independent nation." While Harman may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, there's no question that the concept of energy independence resonates with American voters and explains why a large percentage of the American populace believes that energy independence is not only doable but desirable. But here's the problem, and the reason for this book: It's not and it isn't. Energy independence is hogwash. From nearly any standpoint ? economic, military, political, or environmental ? energy independence makes no sense. Worse yet, the inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the U.S. from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces. This book focuses on the need to acknowledge, and deal with, the difference between rhetoric and reality. The reality is that the world ? and the energy business in particular ? is becoming ever more interdependent. And this interdependence will likely only accelerate in the years to come as new supplies of fossil fuel become more difficult to find and more expensive to produce. While alternative and renewable forms of energy will make minor contributions to America's overall energy mix, they cannot provide enough new supplies to supplant the new global energy paradigm, one in which every type of fossil fuel ? crude oil, natural gas, diesel fuel, gasoline, coal, and uranium ? gets traded and shipped in an ever more sophisticated global market. Regardless of the ongoing fears about oil shortages, global warming, conflict in the Persian Gulf, and terrorism, the plain, unavoidable truth is that the U.S., along with nearly every other country on the planet is married to fossil fuels. And that fact will not change in the foreseeable future, meaning the next 30 to 50 years. That means that the U.S. and the other countries of the world will continue to need oil and gas from the Persian Gulf and other regions. Given those facts, the U.S. needs to accept the reality of energy interdependence. The integration and interdependence of the global energy market can be seen by looking at Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer on the planet. In 2005, the Saudis imported 83,000 barrels of gasoline and other refined oil products per day. It can also be seen by looking at Iran, which imports 40 percent of its gasoline needs. Iran also imports large quantities of natural gas from Turkmenistan. If the Saudis, with their 260 billion barrels of oil reserves, and the Iranians, with their 132 billion barrels of oil and 970 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, can't be energy-independent, why should the U.S. even try? An October 2006 report by the Council on Foreign Relations put it succinctly: "The voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future and that encourages the adoption of inefficient and counterproductive policies." America's future when it comes to energy ? as well its future in politics, trade, and the environment ? lies in accepting the reality of an increasingly interdependent world. Obtaining the energy that the U.S. will need in future decades requires American politicians, diplomats, and businesspeople to be actively engaged with the energy-producing countries of the world, particularly the Arab and Islamic producers. Obtaining the country's future energy supplies means that the U.S. must embrace the global market while also acknowledging the practical limits on the ability of wind power and solar power to displace large amounts of the electricity that's now generated by fossil fuels and nuclear reactors. The rhetoric about the need for energy independence continues largely because the American public is woefully ignorant about the fundamentals of energy and the energy business. It appears that voters respond to the phrase, in part, because it has become a type of code that stands for foreign policy isolationism ? the idea being that if only the U.S. didn't buy oil from the Arab and Islamic countries, then all would be better. The rhetoric of energy independence provides political cover for protectionist trade policies, which have inevitably led to ever larger subsidies for politically connected domestic energy producers, the corn ethanol industry being the most obvious example. But going it alone with regard to energy will not provide energy security or any other type of security. Energy independence, at its root, means protectionism and isolationism, both of which are in direct opposition to America's long-term interests in the Persian Gulf and globally. Once you move past the hype and the overblown rhetoric, there's little or no justification for the push to make America energy-independent. And that's the purpose of this book: to debunk the concept of energy independence and show that none of the alternative or renewable energy sources now being hyped ? corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, wind power, solar power, coal-to-liquids, and so on ? will free America from imported fuels. America's appetite is simply too large and the global market is too sophisticated and too integrated for the U.S. to simply secede. Indeed, America is getting much of the energy it needs because it can rely on the strength of an ever-more-resilient global energy market. In 2005, the U.S. bought crude oil from 41 different countries, jet fuel from 26 countries, and gasoline from 46. In 2006, it imported coal from 11 different countries and natural gas from 6 others. American consumers in some border states rely on electricity imported from Mexico and Canada. Tens of millions of Americans get electricity from nuclear power reactors that are fueled by foreign uranium. In 2006, the U.S. imported the radioactive element from 8 different countries. Yes, America does import a lot of energy. But here's an undeniable truth: It's going to continue doing so for decades to come. Iowa farmers can turn all of their corn into ethanol, Texas and the Dakotas can cover themselves in windmills, and Montana can try to convert all of its coal into motor fuel, but none of those efforts will be enough. America needs energy, and lots of it. And the only way to get that energy is by relying on the vibrant global trade in energy commodities so that each player in that market can provide the goods and services that it is best capable of producing. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 12:52:47 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 14:52:47 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Oil Groups Face Capital Stagnation in Spite of Price Rises Message-ID: Oil groups face capital stagnation in spite of price rises By Ed Crooks Published: September 4 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 4 2008 03:00 Everyone knows that oil companies are making spectacular profits. Even John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has described their earnings as "obscene". That popular impression, however, is deeply misleading. While company profits have indeed risen to record highs as the price of oil has soared, their profitability as measured by return on capital employed has stagnated. The IHS Herold/Harrison Lovegrove study of oil and gas companies' upstream businesses found their average return on capital last year was just 1 percentage point higher than in 2004, even though the average price of oil during the year was $30 a barrel higher. With the price of oil already almost $40 a barrel off its peak over the summer, and quite possibly headed lower, the profitability of the industry could signal trouble ahead. "I think we are on the brink of some very dramatic changes," says Bob Gillon of IHS Herold, a research firm. "Demand growth has exceeded supply growth for the past four or five years, leading to a decline in the margin of spare supply capacity. If demand weakens, it will probably weaken the price of oil, and that will put the industry into a very different investment environment from the one it has been in for the past five years." Oil companies' revenues have, of course, soared in line with commodity prices over the course of the decade. But much of the benefit of those soaring revenues has not flowed through to their shareholders. Capacity shortages in the supply chain, in everything from drilling rigs to steel pipes to skilled staff, have sent costs rising in line with revenues. Services companies, which work for the oil producers, have typically done much better out of the boom in the industry. Since the start of 2004 shares in ExxonMobil, the world's biggest quoted energy company, have risen by 89 per cent. Shares in Schlumberger, the biggest quoted oil services group, are up 231 per cent. The other big winners from rising commodity prices have been the governments of resource-rich countries. Governments from Algeria to the UK have been tightening the terms on which they deal with oil companies, through tax increases, contract renegotiations, and in the most extreme cases forced transfers of assets. The IHS Herold/Harrison Lovegrove study found the companies' average revenue per barrel was $13 in 2007, the same as in 2006. Even after giving the service companies and the governments their bigger slice, oil company profits have still been rising to record levels. Their return on capital has been limited however, by the massive investment programmes these companies have been undertaking. Exxon will spend $25bn this year. David Thomas of Citigroup points out that much of the spending oil companies have been making has been on projects that are not yet in production. "These companies have been playing catch-up after the oil price collapse at the end of the 1990s. Low oil prices caused many of them to cut their capital spending, and now they are realising that to maintain production, they need to spend more. So a higher proportion of their capital is now non-productive." As the price of oil falls, some of the pressures that have squeezed profits on the way up will ease. New drilling rigs are coming into service, new engineers are being trained. But Rodney Schmidt, a managing director of Standard Chartered bank, which owns Harrison Lovegrove, warns that that may not be enough to stop profits falling. "Costs do tend to follow commodity prices, but the question is: what is the lag time," he says. "The government take has also increased around the world, and it tends to be stickier on the way down than on the way up." Colin Smith of Dresdner Kleinwort believes that as expectations about future oil prices decline, forecasts of oil companies' earnings will be cut back. High rewards Big oil companies' prospects have for years been overshadowed by their problems in getting access to resources to enable them to grow. If the oil price keeps falling, and the squeeze on profits continues, the pressure for change could be enough to prompt another round of restructuring. Mr Gillon says: "It is an industry in transition. None of the managements of the larger companies are content with zero production growth, so they are looking for ways to change their businesses. "I can see aggressive spending on organic growth, and organic spending on acquisitions." The highest returns in the world for oil and gas companies are to be found in the Asia Pacific region, Russia and the Caspian, and Africa and the Middle East, according to the IHS Herold/Harrison Lovegrove study. The lowest are in Canada, which includes the oil sands and the US. In part this may be a reflection of the risk-reward trade-off. Returns need to be higher in Russia, for example, to persuade companies to invest there when there is the risk of having assets forcibly taken over, as happened to Royal Dutch Shell with its Sakhalin II oil and gas project. However, the study's authors believe the figures also reflect the privileged positions enjoyed by companies operating in countries where resources are plentiful and costs are relatively low. Bob Gillon, of IHS Herold, said: "The high returns in some of these regions look like evidence of the profit potential available for companies with a legacy position in those areas. "It speaks to the lack of access to opportunities in the most attractive locations. Everybody would like to have more access to oil in the Middle East, but how can they get it?" From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 13:02:04 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 15:02:04 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Dependence on "Aid" Message-ID: How donors should cap aid in Africa By Adrian Wood Published: September 3 2008 18:41 | Last updated: September 3 2008 18:41 Ministers from developed and developing countries are gathered this week in Accra, Ghana's capital, for the latest high-level forum on aid effectiveness. Learning from past successes and failures, reformers are pressing for more ownership by developing countries of aid relationships, more predictability of aid flows and less fragment?ation of aid delivery. This agenda is important. If implemented, these reforms would give the taxpayers of rich countries better value for money and increase the benefits of aid to people in poor ones. Aid cannot on its own cause development, but if properly delivered and well used it can be enormously beneficial. However, one can have too much of a good thing. Some developing countries, most of them in Africa, have had high levels of aid dependence ? in excess of 10 per cent of gross domestic product, or half of government spending ? for decades. It is questionable whether this has been helpful. There are various reasons to be concerned about high aid dependence, but the most worrying is the undermining of good governance by distortion of political accountability. Governments that are highly dependent on aid pay too much attention to donors and too little to their citizens. This might not matter if the interests of citizens and donors were identical. But all donors have some non-developmental motives and, even when they seek to promote development, they have their own priorities. The result is confused and shifting policies, volatile aid and spending and, as a result, slower growth. I therefore propose that donors collectively set an upper limit on the amount of aid they give to any developing country. This limit should be 50 per cent of the amount of tax revenue that the aid-receiving government raises from its own citizens, by non-coercive means and excluding revenue from oil and minerals. This would keep the governments of non-mineral countries dependent for revenue mainly on their citizens, and thus give them incentives to pay attention mainly to what citizens want, not donors. It would also encourage governments to raise more taxes from their citizens, since every extra dollar of tax raised would attract a matching increase of 50 cents of aid. Higher taxes would help because there is strong evidence that the tax relationship is vital for accountable government. "No taxation without representation," said the early Americans, and the converse also applies. Budget legislation is central to the political process, forcing governments to justify their actions in open debate. At the micro level, tax collection obliges governments to be in direct contact with most of their citizens and companies. The limit should perhaps be below 50 per cent and certainly not higher. Operating such a limit would raise many technical questions. How should aid and taxes be defined for the purposes of calculating this percentage? Who would monitor and validate the data? Who would determine whether taxes were non-coercive? But practical details of this kind could be sorted out with a bit of effort and ingenuity. More challenging would be how to phase in this limit. About 30 countries with populations over 1m, of which more than 20 are in Africa, now get aid above this limit and in about half of them aid is more than 100 per cent of taxes. Instant cuts in aid or increases in taxes to get down to the limit of 50 per cent would be damaging, so implementation would need to be gradual, over a period of anything up to a decade. Much further ahead would be the issue of how to phase out the aid, as countries ceased to be poor. Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, is whether donors, even if most of them agreed on a limit, would be able to act collectively to implement it. There are many donors with different motives, separate delivery mechanisms and no set of common rules ? these being among the problems that the Accra meeting is trying to tackle. To get donors to act collectively to cap the amount of aid that they gave to a particular country would not be easy. Yet the idea is worth exploring. A lot of countries, including some in Africa, still get too little aid ? well below my 50 per cent limit and below what they could put to good use ? so part of the agenda should still be to increase aid. But the dangers to development of too much aid for too long are sufficiently serious that donors also need to think strategically about upper limits. The author is professor of international development at the University of Oxford and in 2000-05 was chief economist of the UK's Department for International Development From jfgf.consult at mail.telepac.pt Sun Sep 7 13:54:04 2008 From: jfgf.consult at mail.telepac.pt (jfgf.consult at mail.telepac.pt) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:54:04 +0100 Subject: [A-List] nationalizations in USA Message-ID: <1220817244.16ldbniz7rds@w2.webmail.telepac.pt> What about nationalizations de facto of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac? See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122073255846107191.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news Could Michael Hudson, Henry K. Liu and Mike Whitney to comment? Kind regards, Jorge Figueiredo From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Sep 7 14:23:15 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 16:23:15 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Gallup Daily: McCain Moves Ahead, 48% to 45% Message-ID: Maybe this is just a convention bounce, but it's possible that the gasoline prices, which haven't really come down a lot despite the recent big fall in crude oil prices (now heading down to $100 per barrel: ), and the delusion of "energy independence" will determine the fate of the 2008 US presidential elections. The biggest applause at the RNC was heard when the chant of "Drill, Baby, Drill" went up, or so I thought. -- Yoshie September 7, 2008 Gallup Daily: McCain Moves Ahead, 48% to 45% McCain enjoying increase in support following convention From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun Sep 7 21:49:09 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 23:49:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Harrowing Video Shows Western Carnage In Afghanistan Message-ID: <2FB49EBC9AF64B099BCE4D0E720FC159@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 10:53 PM Subject: [stopnato] Harrowing Video Shows Western Carnage In Afghanistan http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4699077.ece The Times (London) September 8, 2008 Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops Tom Coghlan in Kabul As the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift funeral shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with severe head injuries. Women are heard wailing in the background. "Oh God, this is just a child," shouts one villager. Another cries: "My mother, my mother." The grainy video eight-minute footage, seen exclusively by The Times, is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be the biggest loss of civilian life during the Afghanistan war. These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August 21. Last night the Pentagon announced that it was reopening the investigation in the light of "emerging evidence" and was sending an officer to Nawabad to review its previous inquiry. Villagers and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and Afghan troops who came into the village looking for a Taleban commander, with US air support, used excessive force. In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a building that villagers say is used as a mosque; the people were killed apparently during a combined operation by US special forces and Afghan army commandos in western Afghanistan. The film was shot on a mobile phone by an Afghan doctor who arrived the next morning. Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship. .... The villagers' accounts have been supported by separate investigations conducted by the UN, by Afghanistan's leading human rights organisation and by an Afghan government delegation. Two Afghan army officers involved in the operation have been dismissed. The Pentagon's original investigation concluded last week that US forces used close air support after coming under heavy fire during a mission to seize a Taleban commander named Mullah Sadiq. They allege that he died in the operation. The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel. Sources close to one of the investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials the morning after the attack. It corroborates the doctor's footage but has not been made public. In a statement released on Saturday, the commander of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, appeared to back away from previous US accounts. He said: "Following the recent operation in Azizabad, Shindand district, we realise there is a large discrepancy between the number of civilian casualties reported by soldiers and local villagers...." .... Maulavi Gul Ahmad, an Afghan MP who was part of a government delegation that investigated the Nawabad attack, told The Times: "We are not only blaming America - this is destroying the reputation of the international community and undermining their presence in Afghanistan." Other Afghan investigators alleged that US forces had been duped into attacking the village by tribal figures involved in a local feud. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan December 2001 US aircraft attack a convoy taking tribal leaders to the inauguration of new Afghan Government. About 60 killed; US claims al-Qaeda leaders among them July 2002 46 die, many from same family, when a wedding party in Uruzgan province is bombed in error October 26, 2006 Between 40 and 85 civilians are killed in airstrikes and mortar bombardments around the settlement of Zangawat in Kandahar province March 2007 19 people are killed and 50 wounded when US Marine Special Forces fire on civilians after a suicide attack in Shinwar, eastern Afghanistan. The US military apologises and pays compensation to the families July 6, 2008 47 civilians, including 39 women and children attending a wedding party, are killed by a US airstrike in Nangarhar province, an Afghan government investigating team claims Sources: Times archive, agencies =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Best of Y! Groups Discover groups that are the best of their class. Everyday Wellness on Yahoo! Groups Find groups that will help you stay fit. Find helpful tips for Moderators on the Yahoo! Groups team blog.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun Sep 7 21:55:19 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 23:55:19 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Cheney, EU Plot Anti-Russian Caucasus Energy Plans Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 11:21 PM Subject: [stopnato] Cheney, EU Plot Anti-Russian Caucasus Energy Plans http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1288480&lang=EN Trend News Agency September 7, 2008 US Vice President Offers to Invite Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to EU Meeting on Power Engineering Policy At the meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, the US Vice President Dick Cheney offered to invite Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the European Union (EU) meeting on power engineering policy to be held in October 2008. The Italian Minister supported Cheney's idea and said that he would send this proposal to the current EU chairman in France, Associated Press reported. Earlier Cheney visited Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The EU imports 30% of oil and 40% of natural gas from Russia. Within recent years, European leaders regularly stated the necessity to reduce dependence on Russian energy resources, whilst real steps have not been yet taken in this direction. The EU hopes to put into exploitation the Nabucco Caspian gas pipeline in 2013, whilst this project has not had clear prospects, RBC reported. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder. Dog Groups on Yahoo! Groups Share pictures & stories about dogs. Learn to live a full life with these healthy living groups on Yahoo!. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun Sep 7 21:55:44 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 23:55:44 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Condoleezza Rice Wants 'Resolution' Of Western Sahara Issue Message-ID: <9B714C2862064B5D893491613F0BFB68@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 11:02 PM Subject: [stopnato] Condoleezza Rice Wants 'Resolution' Of Western Sahara Issue http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1288543&lang=EN Reuters September 7, 2008 U.S.'s Rice urges end to Western Sahara dispute -The issue...has divided the Security Council, with France and the United States backing Morocco but South Africa and others favouring Polisario. Washington wants Sahara's status resolved.... -U.N.-brokered mediation has failed to break a deadlock over whether the territory should be an autonomous region of Morocco, as Rabat proposes, or have a referendum of its people to decide whether or not it should be independent, as Polisario wants. -Like many African states, Algeria opposes Moroccan control of the territory and sees it as Africa's last colony.... U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged a resolution of the Western Sahara dispute on Sunday, saying she saw "good ideas" for solving an impasse that has long held back north Africa's development. Rice, ending a regional tour that included a meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, said on a visit to staunch ally Morocco that further mediation could help end Africa's oldest territorial disagreement. "It is time that it be resolved," she told reporters after talks in Rabat with Moroccan officials on issues including the decades-old dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement. "There will be a new round of talks soon. We are going to support that round, that mediation, there are good ideas on the table and there are ways to move forward." "We don't need to start over. I hope that we can move forward and get this resolved." The dispute over Western Sahara, which is rich in phosphates and fisheries and potentially has offshore oil, has poisoned relations between Morocco and Algeria and blocked badly-needed economic cooperation and growth in north Africa. The issue also has divided the Security Council, with France and the United States backing Morocco but South Africa and others favouring Polisario. Washington wants Sahara's status resolved so regional states can focus on what it sees as the more important question of combating terrorism. U.N.-brokered mediation has failed to break a deadlock over whether the territory should be an autonomous region of Morocco, as Rabat proposes, or have a referendum of its people to decide whether or not it should be independent, as Polisario wants. Peter Van Walsum, the mediator who led the slow-moving talks since June 2007, left his job last month after angering Polisario by making comments that appeared to favour Morocco. U.N. officials in New York have said he will be replaced. Algeria is the principal ally of Polisario and site of its headquarters. Like many African states, Algeria opposes Moroccan control of the territory and sees it as Africa's last colony, Reuters reported. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Drive Traffic Sponsored Search can help increase your site traffic. Yahoo! Groups Come check out featured healthy living groups on Yahoo! Discover photos and scrapbooking groups in the Familyographer Zone. __,_._,___ From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 05:37:03 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 07:37:03 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Land Question behind the Taliban Resurgence Message-ID: The Dexter Filkins article below clarifies the main reason for the Taliban resurgence, which looks not unlike an Islamic variant of the Maoist "people's war." Without substantial land reform in the tribal areas, the Taliban will continue to grow in Pakistan. Pressuring the Pakistani government to attack the Taliban militarily in Pakistan so as to deny the Taliban in Afghanistan "strategic depth" (the current main US approach), or worse the US military directly invading the tribal areas in Pakistan (the approach that the US will be increasingly taking), is a recipe for disaster, liable to make the whole of Pakistan, which has not become a coherent nation yet, ungovernable. -- Yoshie September 7, 2008 Right at the Edge By DEXTER FILKINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EVERYWHERE I TRAVELED during my stay in the tribal areas and in Peshawar, I met impoverished Pakistanis who told me Robin Hood-like stories about how the Taliban had challenged the wealthy and powerful people on behalf of the little guys. Hamidullah, for instance, was an illiterate wheat farmer living in Khyber agency when, in 2002, a wealthy landowner seized his home and six acres of fields. Hamidullah and his family were forced to eke out a living from a nearby shanty. Neither the local malik nor the government agent, Hamidullah told me, would intervene on his behalf. Then came Namdar, the Taliban commander. He hauled the rich man before a Vice and Virtue council and ordered him to give back Hamidullah's home and farm. Now Hamidullah is one of Namdar's loyal militiamen. "There are so many guys like me," he said, cradling a Kalashnikov. The social revolution that has swept the tribal areas does not bode well for the plans, laid out by Governor Ghani, to oust the Taliban by boosting the tribal elders. Nor does it hold out much promise for the Americans, who have expressed hope that they could do in the FATA what they were able to do with the Sunni tribes in Iraq. There, local tribesmen rose up against, and have substantially weakened, Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 8 07:48:46 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:48:46 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Racists: the worse the better ? Message-ID: <48C4F4FD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=951 Silver Lining Not All White Supremacists Oppose Black President By Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok Intelligence Report Fall 2008 (Corbis) With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America's first black president could be a very good thing. It's not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country's radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory. "He will make things so bad for white people that hopefully they will finally realize how stupid they were for admiring these jigaboos all these years," "Darthvader" wrote on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network (VNN) web forum. "I believe in the motto 'Worse is Better' and Obama certainly fits that description." Another poster on the same thread this summer chimed in with this: "I hope Obama wins because in four years, white people just might be pissed off enough to actually do something. ? White people aren't going to do a thing until their toys are taken away from them. So things have to be worse for things to be better." "Oh man," enthused "Centimanus" on the white nationalist Stormfront website. "I am gleefully, sadistically looking forward to Obama as president. ? It will be a beautiful day when the masses look at the paper and truly realize they have lost their own country." Added "Fulimnata": "To the average white man and woman, they could look at Obama and see plain as day that whites are not in control." Another message, from "TheLastOfMyKind," agreed: "Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black, muslim [sic] rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites throughout the nation." "Actually," said another poster, "if Obama were to win, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Klan. They would have massive growth." And "TeutonicLegion" said that "a whole bunch of people will join us and find these boards" if Obama becomes president. The Leaders Weigh In Figures from the white supremacist establishment seem to agree with the crudely put sentiments of their followers. David Duke, the neo-Nazi and former Klan boss who is the closest thing the movement has to a real intellectual these days, sees clear advantages in an Obama victory in the fall. David Duke "Obama will be a signal, a clear signal for millions of our people," Duke wrote in an essay entitled "A Black Flag for White America" posted to his website this summer. "Obama is like that new big dark spot on your arm that finally sends you to the doctor for some real medicine. ? Obama is the pain that let's [sic] your body know that something is dreadfully wrong. Obama will let the American people know that there is a real cancer eating away at the heart of our country and Republican aspirin will not only not cure it, but only masks the pain and makes you think you don't need radical surgery. ? My bet is that whether Obama wins or loses in November, millions of European Americans will inevitably react with new awareness of their heritage and the need for them to defend and advance it." Richard Barrett, head of the Nationalist Movement, a Learned, Miss. -based white supremacist organization, sounded a similar note, telling the BBC: "The uprising of the American people for majority-rule and real-democracy has been building, but, with Obama turning the White House into the Black House, the upheaval will be overpowering." Barrett added, "The cataclysm will wake people up and the despotism will drive people to act, as never before." "Thomas Dixon Jr.," a Stormfront poster using the name of the racist author who wrote the classic novel The Clansman, put it like this: "As WLP [William Luther Pierce, the late leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance] would say? 'What is bad for the system is good for us.'" "Obama," added "The Patriot" in the same thread, "would be better for our cause in the long run, no doubt about it." Other extremists writing on the topic think that having Obama as president would actually be preferable to Republican John McCain, who is widely seen by white supremacists as a sellout, particularly on the issue of nonwhite immigration into the United States. Paul Gottfried is a professor of humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., who has spoken repeatedly at conferences put on by American Renaissance, a racist journal whose editor describes blacks as "incapable of sustaining" civilization. At the 2008 American Renaissance conference, Gottfried said that he was sure Obama would overwhelm McCain among those attending the conference. "Better a black who is honest about who he is than a conservative who is really delivering the liberal agenda," Gottfried told a reporter. Richard Barrett, leader of the Nationalist Movement American Renaissance Editor Jared Taylor had a slightly different take. He believes Obama will succeed as a kind of post-racial president: "I think he's got the right touch, absolutely the right touch? . He's an intelligent and serious man and he realizes that he cannot be a 'black' president." In Taylor's view, whites will vote for Obama because it will make them feel good about themselves. "For many whites, voting for Mr. Obama will be an act of high patriotism. Electing him will prove America is not 'racist,' and many whites believe that rising above 'racism' is America's sacred calling. One must never underestimate the importance to whites of feeling virtuous," Taylor wrote in a July essay, "Why Obama Will Win." Rocky Suhayda, head of the American Nazi Party, agreed. "White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally, I'd prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals? . Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black woman? . That's the kind of negro that I can respect," Suhayda told Esquire. Death Threats and Violence Yet opinion on the radical right is far from unanimous on the topic of a potential Obama victory. Many more traditional racist extremists believe it would destroy the country and they oppose it mightily. "Worse is not better. It has already hit rock bottom. The next step is to round up all the whites and put them in concentration camps," wrote "White Shogun" on the Caste Football hate forum. "If you are in the same camp as I am, I will slap you for suggesting that we vote for Obama," he added. "Obama as president would do tremendous damage to the cause of maintaining the purity of the white race. Liberals would use him as an example to argue in schools, in churches, on TV, etc., 'Why if your daughter married a black, her child could one day grow up to become President ? like Obama!" wrote longtime white supremacist Ed Fields in his "segregationist" newsletter, The Truth at Last. "We are not going to vote our way out of this mess? . We should have retained that realization in the 'War Between the States,'" wrote "Ibere" on Stormfront. Others have more violent hopes. "Well, we all know what happened to the old JFK. I just hope it happens in the timing of RFK BEFORE he can take office," wrote "Johann Steffansson" in July on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network. Some of the most heated and apparently threatening anti-Obama talk appears to be on Internet sites that allow people to post messages anonymously ? not on sites run by white supremacists, who seem highly worried about attention from the Secret Service and other officials. One such site, JD Underground, is a list ostensibly devoted to lawyers. It has carried a particularly venomous and long-running thread that started in January. It is entitled, "Nigger President." "I'm hoping someone will do his public duty of putting a bullet through Obama's head," said a poster identified as "Kill Da Nigga." Another poster suggested "bring[ing] back lynchings" and concluded with a warning: "LOOK OUT NIGGER. THE KLAN IS GETTING BIGGER!!!!!!" And a third, using the screen name "amerikkkan," said only, "The deep south is making plans." Even the Southern Poverty Law Center's blog, Hatewatch, has received such anonymous threats against Obama. In April, "unknown" posted this: "ATTENTION, IF OBAMA BECOMES PRESEDANT [sic] I WILL KILL HIM MYSELF MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT." Anthony Griggs contributed to this story. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 09:34:16 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:34:16 -0300 Subject: [A-List] The Land Question behind the Taliban Resurgence In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2fa158550809080834i367da07fh665c7396e651e9c9@mail.gmail.com> 2008/9/8, Yoshie Furuhashi : > The Dexter Filkins article below clarifies the main reason for the > Taliban resurgence, which looks not unlike an Islamic variant of the > Maoist "people's war." Without substantial land reform in the tribal > areas, the Taliban will continue to grow in Pakistan. Pressuring the > Pakistani government to attack the Taliban militarily in Pakistan so > as to deny the Taliban in Afghanistan "strategic depth" (the current > main US approach), or worse the US military directly invading the > tribal areas in Pakistan (the approach that the US will be > increasingly taking), is a recipe for disaster, liable to make the > whole of Pakistan, which has not become a coherent nation yet, > ungovernable. -- Yoshie But can Pakistan ever become a ?coherent nation?? In the eyes of the Marxist theory of the national question it would hardly be able to do so. And that's why London carved it out of India, against the wishes of Ghandi. Yes, you don't need to be a Marxist to act according to the Marxist theses on the national question. Unfortunately, it is the ruling classes who do it, not revolutionary socialists. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 10:15:50 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:15:50 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Land Question behind the Taliban Resurgence In-Reply-To: <2fa158550809080834i367da07fh665c7396e651e9c9@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa158550809080834i367da07fh665c7396e651e9c9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 11:34 AM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > 2008/9/8, Yoshie Furuhashi : >> The Dexter Filkins article below clarifies the main reason for the >> Taliban resurgence, which looks not unlike an Islamic variant of the >> Maoist "people's war." Without substantial land reform in the tribal >> areas, the Taliban will continue to grow in Pakistan. Pressuring the >> Pakistani government to attack the Taliban militarily in Pakistan so >> as to deny the Taliban in Afghanistan "strategic depth" (the current >> main US approach), or worse the US military directly invading the >> tribal areas in Pakistan (the approach that the US will be >> increasingly taking), is a recipe for disaster, liable to make the >> whole of Pakistan, which has not become a coherent nation yet, >> ungovernable. -- Yoshie > > But can Pakistan ever become a ?coherent nation?? In the eyes of the > Marxist theory of the national question it would hardly be able to do > so. And that's why London carved it out of India, against the wishes > of Ghandi. > > Yes, you don't need to be a Marxist to act according to the Marxist > theses on the national question. Unfortunately, it is the ruling > classes who do it, not revolutionary socialists. The partition of India was a disaster to begin with, resulting in the largest "population transfer" in history, and with the independence of Bangladesh, the idea of Pakistan as the homeland of Muslims in the subcontinent evaporated: there are about as many Muslims in India as there are in Pakistan or Bangladesh. The Durand line has never been accepted by the Pashtuns in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The Tajiks, the Hazaras, etc. in Afghanistan probably have more in common with Iranians than with the Pashtuns. The Balochi are spread among Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. The Sindhi and the Punjabi in Pakistan don't get along.* As many noted, the only institution that has been holding Pakistan nominally together is the military, which has been financially supported by the USA in exchange for providing a counterweight to India and functioning as a global mercenary force (the biggest contributor to UN peace-keeping forces). Now that Washington has won over the Indian power elite, the value of Pakistan as an asset has gone down. So it's putting more pressure on it. But since the country is only thinly glued together, any more pressure is liable to make it come apart easily. * Archive for Sunday, February 10, 2008 Assassination feeds Pakistani rivalries The death of Bhutto, a native of Sindh province, has heightened hostility toward Punjab, the country's center of power. February 10, 2008 in print edition A-16 On the day Benazir Bhutto died, Yousef Leghari watched his native Sindh province erupt. For five days, people vented their rage by firing weapons, and setting fire to vehicles and buildings. Bhutto was Sindh's native daughter, and she had been assassinated. But not just anywhere. The popular opposition leader had been killed in Punjab province, Pakistan's locus of government and military power, and a source of envy in Sindh and other minority provinces. Along with the tragedy, Leghari now sees opportunity. He and other local politicians have long wanted Sindh to secede from Pakistan, but separatist talk had gained scant support among voters. At Bhutto's funeral, thousands of angry mourners took to the streets. "We hate Pakistan," they chanted. "We don't want to be part of Pakistan!" Said Leghari, "People are waking up. It's time to act." Bhutto's death has heightened bitter regional rivalries in this Muslim nation of 165 million. The fragile federation, founded in 1947, encompasses five major ethnic groups now facing growing social and economic divides. Over the years, successive governments have spent billions of dollars on a strong military to hold the nuclear-armed nation together. Yet dysfunction prevails. Pakistan's three minority provinces ? Sindh, Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province ? have long contended that Punjab, the most populous province, dominates the federal bureaucracy and gets a disproportionate share of resources. Pakistan, or "land of the pure," should be renamed Punjab, for all its bias, Leghari and others believe. They say trouble looms unless other provinces win more power in elections scheduled for Feb. 18. Punjab, with about as many residents as the rest of Pakistan combined, historically has held a majority of seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament. The acrimony is often violent. President Pervez Musharraf moved troops into Sindh to quell unrest after Bhutto's death. His military is already fighting a separatist rebellion in Baluchistan and has lost ground to tribal and religious militants operating in the rugged mountains of North-West Frontier Province and tribal areas near Afghanistan. In Baluchistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province, where battles have been waged sporadically for years, fighting erupted again in 2006 when government security forces killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, a 79-year-old nationalist leader who had led the area's struggle for political autonomy. Demanding a share of the government's gas and mineral wealth, Bugti had ordered attacks on gas pipelines and oil installations. "We have never felt a part of Pakistan," said Sardar Ataullah Mengal, chief of the Baluchistan National Party. "They're colonizing our land and turning our people into a minority. Pakistan doesn't want our people. It wants our resources." Ethnic Pashtuns, who mainly inhabit the country's volatile northwest, also demand that Pakistan's political and economic balance be shifted. Many have joined tribesmen on the other side of the border in Afghanistan for a violent insurgency against both governments. Residents of Sindh, the second-most populous province, say that the central government takes more than it gives. Dams built upriver in Punjab have transformed the once-mighty Indus River into a mere trickle in Sindh, ruining local farmers, people there say. The province, rich in natural gas and coal, and with a regional capital, Karachi, that boasts a lucrative port and a stock market, is the largest contributor of federal tax revenue. Still it receives only a 25% return in government services, studies show. "Sindh can survive on its own," said Leghari, who is also a lawyer and activist. "We've got our own port and enough coal to burn for 5,000 years. Pakistan's civil society is broken. There's no free judiciary or press. Who wants to be a part of that?" But Bhutto's death was the harshest blow of all. She was expected to look out for Sindhi interests if she was returned to power. Instead, she was the third Pakistani prime minister associated with Sindh to die in the Punjabi city of Rawalpindi. Pakistan's first premier, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot to death in 1951, and Bhutto's own father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 after his government was toppled in a coup. "Benazir was killed because she was a Sindhi," Leghari said. "And once again, we have the Punjabis to blame." Experts here dismiss activists such as Leghari as malcontents, a fringe element that has little chance of seeing its dream become reality. They say the intermixing of minorities through migration strengthens the social fabric, making it less likely the nation could splinter on ethnic grounds. "The separatists are living in a false paradise if they think their future is anywhere but in Pakistan," said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Punjab. In Sindh, Rais said, many separatists are middle-class Pakistanis whose message has failed to resonate among the working poor, who look to the national Pakistan People's Party, or PPP, which Benazir Bhutto headed, to win better representation in Islamabad, the capital. As a result, resentment of the PPP has flourished among separatists, and some in the party believe they are harassing its candidates. In a number of places outside the urban areas of Sindh, which is to choose a new administration in the elections, the party's candidates have been intimidated and beaten ? attacks its leaders suspect are the work of separatists. "What votes do they get? They don't get any," said Taj Haider, a PPP organizer. "As a result our people are being attacked." But support for the separatist movement is growing among the poor. "Benazir's death changed everything," said Muslim Soomro, a small man selling fruit on a Karachi street corner. "We're tired of seeing Bhuttos sent home to Sindh in coffins. It's time to do something about it." As tensions rise in Sindh and Musharraf's troops patrol the streets, some are even beginning to talk of armed resistance. At the headquarters of his Sindh Progressive Party in Hyderabad, chairman Qader Magsi posts armed guards as a warning that he means business. He moves in an armed convoy with guards flaunting their weapons even in the face of soldiers. "We don't feel safe here in Pakistan," Magsi said of Sindh residents, as he sipped strong Pakistani tea in his well-guarded office, which features a map of the "Kingdom of Sindh," circa AD 642. "When the soldiers start to kill us, we're not exactly going to present them with a garland of roses." He scoffed at the idea that separatist ideas do not resonate here, claiming that a referendum about seceding from Pakistan would win overwhelming support if ever presented to voters. Magsi said he was jailed for six years as a dissident soon after his party was founded in 1991. Since then his ire has grown. "We don't have tanks and rocket launchers like the military," he said. "But we have the resolve to defend our motherland." Yet he hopes not to resort to violence, he said. "When the Soviet Union broke apart, not a single shot was fired," he said. "We ask Musharraf to be a gentleman like Gorbachev. If you are not prepared to redistribute Pakistan's wealth, then call a press conference and give us our freedom." For now, Leghari bides his time, waiting for the right moment to try to establish a new country. He insists that the world map is continually being redrawn, so why not for Sindh? "We are not just Muslims ? we are not just defined by religion," he said. "We're defined by where we live, what we speak and what we eat. Pakistan has never understood that." john.glionna at latimes.com Yoshie From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 8 10:18:35 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:18:35 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Georgia GOP Congressman Calls Obama 'Uppity' Message-ID: <48C5181B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/04/georgia_gop_congressman_calls.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 10:24:56 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:24:56 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Azerbaijan at Crosswinds of a New Cold War Message-ID: Azerbaijan at crosswinds of a new cold war By Kaveh L Afrasiabi Azerbaijan's presidential elections are a few weeks away and while most experts agree it is a sure bet that the current president, Ilham Aliyev, will easily win re-election, there is less certainty about the future orientation of the country, increasingly caught in the crosswind of a new US-Russia power struggle. In his tour of the region last week, US Vice President Dick Cheney shot many salvos against Russians, accusing them of posing a "threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion" to its neighbors. In his meeting with Aliyev, Cheney was comparatively more reserved and put the emphasis instead on "energy security". Coinciding with Cheney's trip has been a new report by the European Union's energy commissioner, Andris Piebglas, calling on the EU to redouble its efforts to build the US$12 billion Nabucco gas pipeline [1] and reduce its dependence on imports from Russia in the wake of the Georgian crisis that, per a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, has led many experts to dismiss the planned 3,300 kilometer Nabucco pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe via Georgia and Turkey. Not only that, both Russia and Iran have opposed the construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline that would allow the shipment of gas from the Caspian section of Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and then to Europe. Last week, at a meeting of the Caspian littoral states on the legal status of Caspian Sea, held in Baku, Iran's point man on the Caspian Sea, Mehdi Safari, stated, "We object to the trans-Caspian pipeline because of the possible negative impact on sea ecology ... there are Iranian and Russian energy routes and it is unnecessary to jeopardize Caspian ecology." Although there is real concern about the Caspian ecology, both Tehran and Moscow are equally if not more concerned about the geopolitical ramifications of so-called "pipeline politics" in the Caspian basin and the adjacent regions, particularly now that the US and Europe seem determined to lessen the West's energy dependency on both Iran and Russia by cultivating alternative sources. The crisis in Georgia is, however, a powerful wake-up call to Baku concerning "roads not taken". On the one hand, Baku is interested in cultivating closer military ties with the West, in light of the Azeri parliament's recent ratification of an action plan for greater military cooperation with the US. A top US State Department official has recently called for a strategic, trilateral cooperation between US, Azerbaijan and Turkey. And yet, on the other hand, this is precisely the kind of initiative that Baku would be wise to stay away from, unless it is prepared to embrace serious backlashes from its powerful neighbors, Iran and Russia. One such backlash could conceivably come in the form of Russia's support for the independence of the Azeri breakaway region of Gharabagh, given that the leaders of Upper Gharabagh have welcomed Moscow's decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia. For now, Moscow is disinclined to back this scenario and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated last week that the situation in Gharabagh is "different". That may be small music to Baku's ears, yet few leaders or pundits in Azerbaijan can afford to miss the sobering lesson from the crisis in Georgia, that is, the exorbitant price paid for ignoring Russia's national security concerns. This means that, contrary to some hasty conclusions about "Russia's colossal blunder", to paraphrase Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, Russia's military gambit in Georgia has not thrown Russia's neighbors in the bosom of the West, but rather, as in the case of Azerbaijan, prompted them to adopt a more cautious foreign policy approach that is geared to maintaining a balance in foreign relations, partly for the sake of protecting fragile borders and territorial integrity. Instead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, countries such as Georgia and Azerbaijan have the theoretical option of cooperating and or even joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is dominated by Russia and China. At the moment, this may seem not to be in the cards, yet it makes sense from the prism of regional stability. In the Caspian Sea, Iran and Russia rely on the existing legal convention for the Caspian that refers to it as a "common sea". That is why both countries are opposed to the division of the Caspian's surface water. The various bilateral and trilateral agreements for the division of the Caspian's underwater resources do not trump the "shared sea" condominium status of the sea that acts as a hinge shutting the door to a foreign presence in the Caspian. The above means that for the foreseeable future, despite marathon meetings of the five Caspian littoral states, there will most likely not be any new convention, thus guaranteeing the exclusion of NATO or US forces from the important energy hub of the Caspian. As for Baku's geopolitical orientation, its cordial, business-like relations with Tehran, as well as its pragmatic approach toward the Russia-led geopolitical realities in the region, are prudent courses of action that Baku would be ill-advised to forsake in favor of closer ties with the West. After all, the West has been rather helpless in terms of pulling Tbilisi out of the grave mess that its adventurist leadership carved for itself. Concerning the latter, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the US of providing military assistance to Georgia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on the other hand, has tried damage-control in US-Russia relations by not putting the kiss of death on the US-Russia nuclear cooperation agreement and, more importantly, not echoing Cheney's blistering verbal volleys. While we await the results of elections in both the US and Azerbaijan, the latter is likely to thread a cautious middle path that would steer it clear of the headaches gripping the South Caucasus. Needless to say, the pain of such headaches would be much alleviated if Democratic Senator Barack Obama wins in November and somehow succeeds in introducing real change in the hitherto hegemonic orientation of US foreign policy. In that case, the first priority of a president Obama should be to throw water on the new cold war logs fired up by Cheney. Note 1. For more on the Nabucco pipeline, click here, and for more on trans-Caspian pipeliness, click here. Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction. For his Wikipedia entry, click here. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 8 11:08:28 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:08:28 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?utf-8?q?From_the_Cuban_Underground=2C_a_Punk_Rocker?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Protest_Reverberates?= Message-ID: <48C523CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06gorki.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin The Saturday Profile From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 11:14:58 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 13:14:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?From_the_Cuban_Underground=2C_a_Punk_Ro?= =?windows-1252?q?cker=92s_Protest_Reverberates?= In-Reply-To: <48C523CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48C523CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Charles Brown wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06gorki.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin > The Saturday Profile > From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates > By MARC LACEY > Published: September 5, 2008 > THE Cuban government has remained quiet about Gorki's recent > legal troubles. Some supporters have spoken up, though. Walter > Lippmann, an American who runs an e-mail news service that > collects material critical of Washington's embargo on Cuba, > recently wrote, "He helps clarify the precise meaning of the > word 'punk' in the term 'punk rock.' " I notice the article quoted Walter Lippmann. I wish the reporter had mentioned the name of the news service, which would have helped curious readers track it down. Yoshie From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Sep 8 11:19:10 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:19:10 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?utf-8?q?NYT=3A_From_the_Cuban_Underground=2C_a_Punk_Ro?= =?utf-8?q?cker=E2=80=99s_Protest_Reverberates?= Message-ID: <48C5264F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker?s Protest Reverberates Walter Lippmann walterlx at earthlink.net Sat Sep 6 07:20:20 MDT 2008 Previous message: [Marxism] Assessment of Solzhenitsyn in the Weekly Worker Next message: [Marxism] U.S. Rescue Seen at Hand for 2 Mortgage Giants Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each day we live, we make choices. To get out of bed, or to go back to sleep. Newspaper editors to the same thing, and today we're getting a useful object lesson in journalistic decision- making from the New York Times. It's quite an object lesson. Here we see the choices made under a system which likes to proudly describe itself as having "freedom of the press". In recent days the island of Cuba, referred to by its literary designation, "the pearl of the Antilles", survived an assault of an all-to-familiar type, Hurricane Gustav. Much power was knocked out, homes destroyed, agricultural lands were damaged. Not one single life was lost amidst all of the devastation and, an arm of workers and volunteers began to struggle so that the population in the hardest-hit areas was fed, clothed, given a place to sleep, had electric power, and the schools opened on time as quickly as that could be arranged. When we compare that with what we saw happening in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and after Gustav proceeded to the US and New Orleans after pummeling Cuba, you'd think that a few words of praise might be found for revolutionary Cuba's quick capacity for the restoration of public services to meet their people's individual and social need. You would be wrong, to be under any such misapprehension. Cuban society is a complex one, with numerous problems and challenges, as any visitor there with any familiarity knows. Under nearly fifty years of unrelenting pressure from the US blockade, and having made some of its own errors as well, the Cuba Revolution still lives, sometimes it seems as by magic. The NEW YORK TIMES finds all of this of no interest, providing an entirely different focus for its "Saturday Profile" today. This presumably flattering portrait of a cranky opponent of the Cuban Revolution, filled with quotes, noticeably lacks any kind of dateline. He seems to be what in the United States of America is often referred to as a "shit-disturber", someone out to make trouble by any means: "As a logo for their group, they use a Soviet hammer and sickle transformed into a pornographic image." By the activities described here, we have an individual and an admiring chorus of foreign admirers, who hope to create some kind of public incident, some trouble, some provocation, some anything. Based on the quotations from him which are given to readers here, he seems to be quite successful in making a name for himself in the world outside of Cuba. A potty-mouthed individual, had been convicted on a drug charge, who married while in prison to use conjugal visitation rights, he's recently become the darling of a veritable army of Cuba-haters around the world. This can easily fund a career, and you should read this material all the way to the end, as it tells us about the priorities of this newspaper. Gorki makes an interesting contrast with the last Cuban group of dissidents, the "Ladies in White", those quietly respectable mothers, girlfriends and spouses who used to march single-file to and from a Catholic church on Sundays. The "Ladies in White" have recently split, and now the Cuban dissidence presents its image to the world in this basically nihilistic manner. In Gorki, Washington and the media stands up to salute. THIS is what they would use demonstrate as a role model for the kind of "freedom" they want to bring to Cuba? Evidently yes it is. Walter Lippmann Los Angeles, California ================================================================ THE NEW YORK TIMES September 6, 2008 The Saturday Profile This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 11:35:26 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 13:35:26 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?NYT=3A_From_the_Cuban_Underground=2C_a_?= =?windows-1252?q?Punk_Rocker=92s_Protest_Reverberates?= In-Reply-To: <48C5264F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48C5264F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: I just looked up Gorki's music videos at YouTube and found some: . Based on these videos, I'm pretty sure the punk rocker has no chance of hitting it big in a capitalist music market. Yoshie On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Charles Brown wrote: > NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates > Walter Lippmann walterlx at earthlink.net > Sat Sep 6 07:20:20 MDT 2008 > Based on the quotations from him which are given to readers here, > he seems to be quite successful in making a name for himself in > the world outside of Cuba. A potty-mouthed individual, had been > convicted on a drug charge, who married while in prison to use > conjugal visitation rights, he's recently become the darling of a > veritable army of Cuba-haters around the world. This can easily > fund a career, and you should read this material all the way to > the end, as it tells us about the priorities of this newspaper. From pwright at prisonlegalnews.org Mon Sep 8 11:45:35 2008 From: pwright at prisonlegalnews.org (Paul Wright) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 13:45:35 -0400 Subject: [A-List] NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates In-Reply-To: References: <48C5264F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <7D4BCC69980C4BD085FE3EACCAED7B3B@PrisonLegalNews.local> Historically US imperialism and its media flunkies use "dissidents" to undermine regimes they oppose and once they have served their purpose that is it. When was the last time anyone heard a peep about the Soviet era dissidents so beloved by the western media in the 70s and 80s? Once the USSR had collapsed and they had served their purpose it was on to other matters. One thing about Porno for Ricardo. They are certainly no Clash, Crass or Exploited. But then an anti capitalist or anti establishment message in US and UK punk rock music hasn't gone far either. Paul Wright, Editor Prison Legal News P.O. Box 2420 West Brattleboro, VT 05303 802-257-1342 pwright at prisonlegalnews.org www.prisonlegalnews.org Seattle Office: Prison Legal News 2400 NW 80th St. # 148 Seattle, WA 98117 206-246-1022 -----Original Message----- From: a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 1:35 PM To: The A-List Subject: Re: [A-List]NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates I just looked up Gorki's music videos at YouTube and found some: . Based on these videos, I'm pretty sure the punk rocker has no chance of hitting it big in a capitalist music market. Yoshie On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Charles Brown wrote: > NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates > Walter Lippmann walterlx at earthlink.net > Sat Sep 6 07:20:20 MDT 2008 > Based on the quotations from him which are given to readers here, > he seems to be quite successful in making a name for himself in > the world outside of Cuba. A potty-mouthed individual, had been > convicted on a drug charge, who married while in prison to use > conjugal visitation rights, he's recently become the darling of a > veritable army of Cuba-haters around the world. This can easily > fund a career, and you should read this material all the way to > the end, as it tells us about the priorities of this newspaper. From orakwa at paulcomm.ca Mon Sep 8 10:56:06 2008 From: orakwa at paulcomm.ca (MohawkNationNews) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:56:06 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN OPP refuse to protect grandmother beaten by Canada border guards Message-ID: <01e98b7a$39699$11ca5389539815@your-6904db8205> ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE REFUSE TO PROTECT ABUSED GRANDMOTHER AND INTIMIDATES MESSENGERS MNN. Sep. 8, 2008. Since the brutal June 14th 2008 beatings of Mohawk grandmothers, Kahentientha and Katenies, at the Cornwall Ontario checkpoint, there has been no public inquiry and no apology. On Sunday, September 7, 2008, Kahentinetha asked two friends to present an affidavit she signed laying a formal complaint with the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate the assault by the Canada Border Services Agents CBSA. Apparently all Ontario police are required to accept and properly process complaints submitted by the public. About 3:00 pm her friends arrived at the OPP station in Lancaster Ontario just over the border from Quebec . It was locked with a sign directing them to use a phone. They explained their business. Eventually ?Sgt. Legault? opened the door and allowed them into a small waiting room. He said he needed to finish dealing with another matter and to ?get his ducks in a row?. Eventually he returned and said he had no jurisdiction ?to accept the complaint because the Canada-U.S. border was under the authority of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police?. He insisted that if the messengers waited, he could call the Akwesasne police so they could come there and he could give it to them. It sounded like they were already on their way. He demanded to know the names, addresses and birthdates of the messengers. He asked if they had a lawyer. He brought up Kahentinetha?s brother, ?Frank Horn?s?, name, a lawyer who was a witness to the beating. As it wasn?t appropriate for the OPP to make decisions about a complaint they refused to accept, the messengers left. It looks like the OPP don?t want to get involved in this ?hot potato?. Is this why the medics refused to check over Katenies after the brutal attack? In 2005 Teiohontateh was assaulted at the same border. The Akwesasne Mohawk refused to take her charges against the CBSA because they said, ?We can?t?!!! On the Trans Canada Highway 401, as they drove over the Quebec border a Quebec Police SQ car turned onto the highway and started to follow them. They were going 100 km per hour. Everyone else was passing them. The cop hung behind them for a while. Then he drove beside them and took a good look at them. He turned his flashing lights on and then sped away. A few minutes later he sped by in the opposite direction. The following Affidavit to investigate the June 14, 2008 CBSA crimes against the Kanion?ke:haka grandmother was rejected by the Lancaster Ontario OPP: ?I, Kahentinetha, born on April 16, 1940, a resident of Kahnawake [ Quebec ], phone # 450-635-9345, a person of the Kanion?ke:haka/Mohawk Nation, report that a crime was committed and should be investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police OPP. Because of my physical condition as a result of the injuries inflicted on me, I was unable to lay this complaint until now. An illegal assault, arrest and detention by Canada Border Services Agents CBSA took place at the Cornwall Ontario Border control on Cornwall Island in the middle of the Akwesasne community on June 14th, 2008. I was seriously injured, suffering a heart attack. My personal possessions were taken and not returned. I was crossing the said border with two other people. At approximately 2:00 pm we arrived at the Canadian border control. The border agent took our ID and told us to wait under the canopy. They returned to take my car keys. We sat there peacefully for an hour. At approximately 3:00 pm, a platoon of about a dozen guards marched towards the car, all wearing leather gloves, flack jackets and all kinds of equipment hanging about their waists. Throughout the attack that followed, one officer, Maurice Saucier [Badge #16121] was on the cell phone directing operations. The female passenger in my car, also a grandmother, was dragged violently from the back seat of the car by a gang of hefty young men and women. They knocked her down, pinned her to the ground, and forced their knees into her head and back. They handcuffed her and smashed and rubbed her face into the pavement. She received bleeding scrapes and bruises on her face, shoulders, arms and legs. She was taken into the customs building and later to Ottawa . No charges were read to her and her request for medical help was refused. She was held incommunicado for three days. She was not even allowed to call her mother to let her know where she was and to ensure the welfare of her family. After this assault, I was ordered to get out of the car. I was afraid to get out because of what they had done to my friend. I heard Maurice Saucier tell the other agents to ?Take her out?. I feared for my life if I got out of the car. I asked, ?What have I done?? I was not informed of any legal charges against me. Several agents started grabbing me and yanking me out of my car. I was thrown around, assaulted, handcuffed and imprisoned. In the cell, the attack continued. My shoes were taken. Some officers tightened the handcuffs on my wrists several times. This cut the circulation to my hands. Pain shot up my arms. I saw flashes of light and felt sharp pains in the middle of my chest and back. When I cried for help, the guards ignored me and tightened the handcuffs more. They yelled threats at me and kept ordering me to bend down. A man stood behind me and had his hands on my pants. I was afraid of being sexually assaulted. I received scrapes and bruises on my arms and legs. I firmly believe I would have been killed if my brother, Frank Horn, who is a lawyer, had not appeared. He and his son happened to be waiting in the lineup at the border. When he asked to see me, they took off the handcuffs and offered me a chair to sit on. When he saw me, he immediately insisted on calling an ambulance. The Akwesasne police stood by and watched in silence. The ambulance took me to Cornwall Community Hospital and later to the Ottawa Ontario Heart Institute. I remain ned in hospital for 5 days in the trauma unit and intensive care unit. The doctors told me I had a trauma induced heart attack. I was in excellent health before the attack by the border guards. Now my health is fragile. On June 30th 2008 I had a relapse and was hospitalized again. Some of the CBSA officers involved in the attack had the following badge numbers: 17012; 16320; 16511; 16121; and 16275. My shoes and documents that were in the trunk of my car are missing. I have never been contacted by any Ontario police or Canadian officials concerning an investigation of the illegal conduct that took place that day. To my knowledge no such investigation has ever taken place. SIGNED this _____ day of September, 2008, at ____________________ by _____________________ Kahentinetha, at P.O. Box 991 , Kahnawake of Haudenosaunee Territory [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0 450-635-9345. Address of Service: For the purposes of this proceeding only, service to be made care of Julio Peris, 625 Rene Levesque West, Suite 900, Montreal, Quebec H3B 1R2 ? 515-933-4656 Fax 514-933-9587. SWORN BEFORE __________________________ Address: ________________________________________ Date: ____________________ Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com Contact: katenies20 at yahoo.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Please Note. Legal actions have to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991 , Kahnawake [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen. Go to MNN ? Canada ? category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois From nscchicago at igc.org Mon Sep 8 11:38:51 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 12:38:51 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Haiti Workers Emergency Fund - Campaign for Labor Rights Message-ID: <001001c911d9$cd4a8c00$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Quick Links HAITIAN WORKERS HURRICANE RELIEF FUND: Click Here to Make Tax Deductible Contribution IMPORTANT NOTE: You'll be given several donation options. Click the one that says "Other" and type in "Haitian Hurricane Relief". TO MAIL A CHECK OR MONEY ORDER, Make check out to the Campaign for Labor Rights, and put Haitian Workers Hurricane Relief Fund in the memo line. SEND TO: Campaign for Labor Rights Haitian Workers Hurricane Relief Fund 1247 E Street SE Washington, DC 20003 September 6th, 2008 CLR ACTION ALERT HURRICANE EMERGENCY FOR HAITIAN WORKING FAMILIES--PLEASE HELP Haiti has been devastated by a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that have left over 600 dead (so far) and thousands of people wounded, homeless and in dire need. According to Senator Yuri Latortue who represents Gonaives, where the most severe damage has occurred, there are 200,000 people who have not eaten in three days because of the hurricanes. Members of Haiti's largest union, the Conf?d?deration des Travailleurs Haitiens (CTH), have been hard hit and the CTH is organizing and distributing aid to its affiliates and their families and communities. We recently heard from Paul Loulou Chery, the General Secretary of the CTH. He told us that, "Right now, Haiti is living though a very delicate situation as a consequence of the cyclones over our country--many dead, many homeless, so CTH members are in a very critical situation. We are now looking for support from anyone and everyone to help the victims of the cyclones Gustav and Hanna." The CTH has been rebuilding since a 2004 US sponsored coup overthrew Haiti's elected government. This coup was led by groups funded and trained by the International Republican Institute whose Chair of the Board is John McCain. CTH members were targeted because of their support for Haitian democracy and opposition to foreign intervention. Today, the CTH leads the fight against privatization in Haiti and for workers' rights. The Campaign for Labor Rights is collecting funds to send to the CTH to be distributed to union sisters and brothers and their families for hurricane relief. The CTH is an advocate for all the Haitian people. It is a voice that must be kept strong. A great way to show solidarity in this time of need is by making a tax-deductible contribution. All contributions will go 100% to CTH hurricane relief. HAITIAN WORKERS HURRICANE RELIEF FUND: Click Here to Make Tax Deductible Contribution NOTE: You'll be given several donation options. Click the one that says "Other" and type in Haitian Hurricane Relief. TO MAIL A CHECK OR MONEY ORDER, Make check out to the Campaign for Labor Rights, and put Haitian Workers Hurricane Relief Fund in the memo line. SEND TO: Campaign for Labor Rights Haitian Workers Hurricane Relief Fund 1247 E Street SE Washington, DC 20003 This Alert was prepared by the Campaign for Labor Rights. We can be reached by phone at 520-243-0381. You can also email james at afgj.org for more information. Visit our website at: http://www.clrlabor.org/ Forward email This email was sent to chuck at afgj.org by clr at clrlabor.org. Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribeT | Privacy Policy. Email Marketing by Alliance for Global Justice | 1247 E St. SE | Washington | DC | 20003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ LAsolidarity mailing list LAsolidarity at lists.mutualaid.org http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/lasolidarity free hosting provided by http://www.mutualaid.org/ To unsubscribe, send a blank email to LAsolidarity-unsubscribe at lists.mutualaid.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 22771 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080908/eab03259/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 16:08:01 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 18:08:01 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?Once_Spurned=2C_McCain_Finds_Corporate_?= =?windows-1252?q?Support_+_McCain=92s_Bounce_Gives_Him_5-Point_Lea?= =?windows-1252?q?d?= Message-ID: The Democrats manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory again? -- Yoshie Once Spurned, McCain Finds Corporate Support By BRODY MULLINS September 8, 2008 MINNEAPOLIS -- Corporate executives, who once discounted John McCain's campaign, have been key to the Republican presidential nominee's rebound on the fund-raising circuit, a new analysis of campaign donations shows. Since the 2008 presidential campaign began, Democratic candidate Barack Obama has raised more than double Sen. McCain's haul and beaten the Arizona Republican in just about every fund-raising category. But in the months after the two started to square off as their parties' likely nominees, Sen. Obama maintained only a slight financial edge overall, while Sen. McCain claimed the advantage among top industry donors. Sen. McCain's fund-raising advantage among corporate America is a stark reversal from earlier this year, when he struggled to secure donations from executives. In the Republican primary, many executives backed Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, partly because he is a former businessman and partly because Sen. McCain has long battled with industry as a member of the Senate. According to an analysis of fund-raising data released Thursday by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Sen. McCain raised more money in June and July from larger donors in 15 of the top-donating 25 industries than did Sen. Obama. The Republican nominee drew more donations from executives at oil and gas, real-estate, securities and investment and insurance companies, the data showed. He raised $22.3 million from the top 25 industries in the two-month period, compared with Sen. Obama's $19.9 million. Up until June, Sen. Obama had raised $100 million from individual executives at the top 25 industries, nearly double Sen. McCain's $52.3 million, according to a separate analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Overall, Sen. Obama reported a total of $41.9 million in donations for June and July, compared with $39.5 million for Sen. McCain. Before June, Sen. Obama had raised nearly $300 million -- almost triple Sen. McCain's total. In August, Sen. McCain had his best fund-raising month of the campaign, bringing in $40 million overall. Sen. Obama hasn't said how much he raised that month. Because of his success raising money in the primary campaign, Sen. Obama opted to reject government financing and to fund his campaign with private donations, becoming the first major presidential candidate to do so. Sen. McCain has decided to accept the $84.5 million in funding from the government and will be prohibited from raising any more private donations. Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins at wsj.com September 8, 2008 Gallup Daily: McCain's Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead Leads Obama 49%-44% in first results conducted fully after GOP convention September 8, 2008 Convention Rallies Republicans A USA Today/Gallup poll finds 60% of Republicans more enthusiastic than usual about voting in the November election, up from 42% who said the same just prior to the Republican convention. From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 16:54:12 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 19:54:12 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Georgia GOP Congressman Calls Obama 'Uppity' In-Reply-To: <48C5181B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48C5181B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <2fa158550809081554r651490e1g59ae8f0caad36eec@mail.gmail.com> Georgia GOP Congressman?????? Is Tiflis represented in the US Congress? They are luckier than many, who don't have that privilege. Puerto Ricans, for instance. (Yes, yes, I know it is ?Sweet Georgia Brown?, not Gruzinia. But I couldn't help the joke) 2008/9/8, Charles Brown : > http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/04/georgia_gop_congressman_calls.html -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 17:31:21 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 19:31:21 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Georgia GOP Congressman Calls Obama 'Uppity' In-Reply-To: <2fa158550809081554r651490e1g59ae8f0caad36eec@mail.gmail.com> References: <48C5181B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <2fa158550809081554r651490e1g59ae8f0caad36eec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Georgia is well represented in the McCain campaign through Randy Scheunemann -- no joke! Randy Scheunemann: How Mccain Sees the World McCain recognizes there are certain people in the world whom you can't use any word other than evil to describe. By Adam B. Kushner | NEWSWEEK Published Sep 6, 2008 From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 8 20:22:53 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 23:22:53 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Trade between Argentina and Brazil will not be in US dollars any more Message-ID: <2fa158550809081922m64af9f98sa1a80dd87b194e46@mail.gmail.com> This has been informed during the visit of Cristina Kirchner to Bras?lia. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon Sep 8 17:52:30 2008 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:52:30 +1000 Subject: [A-List] What new at Links: Iran; Naomi Klein & S. Africa; Malaysia; Nepal; India; Thailand; Venezuela; Caucasus war; ecology & Marxism; Stalinism; Message-ID: <48C5BABE.6060109@greenleft.org.au> Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links./* * * * Why Washington hates Iran - free pamphlet download The following is the introduction to Why Washington Hates Iran: A Political Memoir of the Revolution That Shook the Middle East, a new Socialist Voice pamphlet published by South Branch Publications. The author, Barry Sheppard, was a member of the US Socialist Workers Party for 28 years, and a central leader of the party for most of that time. In 2005, Resistance Books published the first volume of his political memoir, The Party: The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988 . The new pamphlet is a chapter from the second volume, now in preparation. * Read & download pamphlet In defence of Naomi Klein's analysis of South Africa By Patrick Bond In response to Beware Electocrats: Naomi Klein on South Africa by Ronald Suresh Roberts in Radical Philosophy commentaries, July-August 2008. Klein's chapter on South Africa follows this exchange. * Read more Malaysia - Socialism 2008, November 7-8 Nepal: Prachanda -- `No illusions on the ultimate goal of socialist communism' September 3, 2008 -- In his first interview since he became Nepal's prime minister, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal ``Prachanda'' spoke to Rabindra Mishra of BBC's Nepali Service about the strategies of his new government. * Read more India's Katrina: Bihar floods -- criminal negligence, not divine deluge (+ emergency appeal) By Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation September 2, 2008 -- The regime of Nitish Kumar, which rules the Indian state of Bihar, boasts of ``Bihar Shining''. These claims are now submerged by the cries of ``Bihar Drowning''. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's claims of ``good governance'' have proved a washout in the face of the floods, and now the Chief Minister Kumar is trying to paint the floods as a ``natural'' calamity or divine ``deluge'' (Pralay). Nothing could be further from the truth. * Read more Thailand: Democracy lost in shuffle between royalist `opposition' and Thaksin government By Giles Ji Ungpakorn September 2, 2008, Bangkok -- For the past two or more years, especially since the September 2006 coup, Thai society has been hypnotised into forgetting about the real social and political issues. Instead, the whole of society and, most tragically, the social movements have been entranced by a fight between two factions of the Thai ruling class. On the one side are the deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his disbanded Thai Rak Thai Party, its successor the Peoples Power Party government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. Opposing them are a loose collection of authoritarian royalists comprising the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the pro-coup royalist military, the pro-coup judiciary and the Democrat Party. The authoritarian royalists are not a unified body. They only share a collective interest in wiping out Thaksin's party. * Read more Venezuela: Second wave of nationalisations launched By Federico Fuentes September 3, 2008 -- On August 27, Venezuela's President Hugo Ch?vez announced the end of negotiations with former owner Ternium over the nationalisation of the Sidor steel factory, stating that the government would "take over all the companies that it has here", and that Ternium "can leave". * Read more Lessons of the Caucasus war: Imperial ambitions need to be opposed By Andrey Kolganov and Aleksandr Buzgalin Moscow, September 2, 2008 -- To most Russians, it was obvious from the beginning that the latest war in the Caucasus began with an attack by Georgian forces on South Ossetia, and that ultimately it was unleashed on the initiative of the United States. To the West, meanwhile, it was just as clear from the outset that the August war in the Caucasus represented an assault on small, defenceless and democratic Georgia by huge, aggressive and authoritarian Russia. This is what almost all the world media have asserted, and continue to assert. To a significant degree, this is even believed by a significant section of world civil society, including by anti-globalisation activists who for the most part have little sympathy for the US establishment. * Read more Class struggle and ecology -- An ecosocialist contribution to the discussion on revolutionary regroupment* For socialists in the 20th century imperialism was the great dividing line between those who accepted the logic of capitalist society and those who were willing to challenge it. In the first decades of the 21st century it is apparent that imperialism and war will remain inherent features of late capitalism. To these threats we must add the genuine and serious risks of severe ecological degradation and climate change caused by the capitalist economic model as factors that will shape socialist politics in the coming decades. * Read more Slideshow: Stalinism -- How did the Russian Revolution degenerate and was it inevitable? * Read more Nepal: CPN (M) -- Present situation and our challenges By Basanta August 12, 2008 -- This is an era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. It is known also as the Leninist era. The specificity of this era has been the spread by imperialism through exploitation and robbery of the world, through the economic base of feudalism and the superstructure of bureaucrat and comprador bourgeois in the oppressed countries. * Read more * * * /Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. * ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 12844 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080909/6e3cd0d0/attachment.txt From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 05:16:19 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 08:16:19 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Some details on Peruvian claim against Yale for Macchu Picchu Message-ID: <2fa158550809090416t45866fe6x6cda7f2a6500f51b@mail.gmail.com> 46 000 objects stolen by Indiana Jones-Bingham!!!!!!! PERU INDIANA JONES Y LA ?LTIMA AFANADA. El gobierno peruano anunci? que enjuiciar? a la Universidad de Yale, en Estados Unidos, si ?sta no devuelve el gran n?mero de piezas arqueol?gicas saqueadas de las ruinas incas de Machu Pichu. "Agotamos los caminos del di?logo con la universidad de Yale, y el gobierno de Estados Unidos no colabora", afirm? el canciller peruano Jos? Garc?a Belaunde. Garc?a Belaunde consider? muy posible acudir a los tribunales de Estados Unidos para recuperar los 46.000 objetos incaicos robados en 1912 por el explorador Hiram Bingham. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 06:59:20 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 08:59:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] U.S. Rules Out Unilateral Steps Against Russia Message-ID: It looks like the US has accepted Western Europe's decision. -- Yoshie September 9, 2008 U.S. Rules Out Unilateral Steps Against Russia By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS WASHINGTON ? The Bush administration, after considerable internal debate, has decided not to take direct punitive action against Russia for its conflict with Georgia, concluding that it has little leverage if it acts unilaterally and that it would be better off pressing for a chorus of international criticism to be led by Europe. In recent interviews, senior administration officials said the White House had concluded that American punishments like economic sanctions or blocking Russia from world trade groups would only backfire, deepening Russia's intransigence and allowing the Kremlin to narrow the regional and global implications of its invasion of Georgia to an old-fashioned Washington-Moscow dispute. Even as they vowed to work with allies, administration officials conceded that they wished the European Union had been willing to take firmer action than issuing tepid statements criticizing Russia's conduct. But the officials said the benefits of remaining part of a united front made it prudent for the United States to accept the softer approach advocated by Italy and Germany, among other allies. Some within the administration have argued for a more hawkish response, saying that Moscow probably intends to impose its will among independent states along its borders. They say the Kremlin is signaling to Ukraine, the Baltic nations and Poland that it is back in the game of regional hegemony, and they say it must be deterred. In the first days of the conflict, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney reflected the view of administration hard-liners who saw Russia's offensive as justifying their skepticism and a policy that the Kremlin's actions would "not go unanswered." In his more recent comments, Mr. Cheney has stuck with the administration's emerging position of a more calibrated response. In an interview, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates described the administration as having come to a unified position that calls for "a long-term strategic approach ? not one where we react tactically in a way that has negative strategic consequences." Mr. Gates, a career Kremlinologist and former director of central intelligence, said: "We are all agreed that we need to stay very much in close collaboration with the Europeans and others. I think there is a sense that we do have the time to calibrate reactions carefully. And I think there is agreement not to take any precipitous actions. But there is also agreement on the importance of continued support for Georgia's territorial integrity." He cautioned that "if we act too precipitously, we could be the ones who are isolated." As part of the new strategy, President Bush notified Congress on Monday that, "in view of recent actions" by Russia, he was withdrawing from consideration an agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation that he and Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia's president and now the prime minister, negotiated in April after years of effort. While the step was the most meaningful show of displeasure the United States has made over Russia's military action in Georgia, it also reflected a more cautious response. The deal was all but certain to die in Congress anyway, and the agreement could be revived by the administration should Russia's behavior improve, officials said. The issue of how to manage Russia is also playing into presidential politics. Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, has long called for excluding Russia from the Group of 8 industrialized powers and has urged a firmer response. Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, has criticized the Kremlin's decision to go into Georgia but has made it clear that he favors more engagement. While the United States has been cautious in moving to punish Russia, it has thrown significant support behind Georgia, including a $1 billion economic assistance package that Mr. Bush proposed last week. The aid, officials said, was to shore up Georgia's economy and to help the political standing of President Mikheil Saakashvili, the republic's battered leader. Overall, the administration's strategy reflects a desire to defend Georgia's territorial sovereignty and its symbolic role as an emerging democracy, while not precluding cooperation with Russia on a number of important long-term national security interests, including counterterrorism, nonproliferation and efforts to halt narcotics traffic. While the United States and Russia continue to share a number of national security interests, Mr. Gates said, "We would still like to see Russia headed toward a more constructively collaborative role in dealing with international problems ? rather than throwing their food on the floor." In other interviews, a range of senior administration officials argued that Russia is already paying a price for its actions, as foreign investors appeared to be removing or withholding assets, prompting a decline in the ruble since the Kremlin's forces crossed into Georgia. The Russian stock market has also plummeted. "Russia has been condemned by the European Union, by the Group of 7 foreign ministers and individually by many other countries," said a senior State Department official, who, like some others interviewed for this article, was given anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking. "This is very strong stuff, and they do feel that," the official added. "And even if they didn't feel that, they might feel the billions of dollars of capital that has fled. The Russians are on a course of self-isolation. Nothing we do in a deliberate, punitive way would be as effective in isolating Russia as what they have done themselves." Regarding another possible punishment, a veto of Russian entry into the World Trade Organization, the more likely decision now is for a disciplined silence from powerful voices in Washington that had supported Moscow's membership, other officials said. A renewal of support for membership in the organization would be dependent on Russian behavior. "We were an advocate for Russia, but maybe we just go quiet," Mr. Gates said in describing the emerging strategy. "So it's not a negative decision. Where we were their advocate, maybe we're not so much their advocate anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future." The United States has left much of the direct diplomacy to Europe, including the administration's endorsement of a leading role by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current president of the European Union, who visited Moscow on Monday to urge Russia to abide by the terms of a cease-fire he brokered last month. Inside the Bush administration, cabinet-level meetings of principal policy makers have been held several times since the fighting in Georgia began on Aug. 7. The most recent took place just before Mr. Cheney visited the region last week. The vice president, who visited Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, all former Soviet republics on Russia's periphery, spoke forcefully on Russia for much of last week, but even he did not close the door on improved relations, casting future relations as a choice for Russian leaders to make. "What we do know right now is that Russia's leaders cannot have things both ways," Mr. Cheney said on Saturday at an international forum in Cernobbio, Italy. "They cannot presume to gather up all the benefits of commerce, consultation and global prestige while engaging in brute force, threats or other forms of intimidation against sovereign, democratic countries. To succeed and prosper in the modern world, Russia must relate to the world as a responsible modern power." In Rome on Monday, where the vice president was meeting with Italian officials, a senior administration official said, "The emphasis that the United States wants to make going forward is to make certain that we've got everybody knitted up together in terms of developing a common policy that we can all support." From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Sep 9 07:23:38 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:23:38 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Last Ditch Message-ID: <48C678DA.70905@attglobal.net> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) www.kunstler.com (September 08 2008) ? Why do the big deals always happen over the weekends? So the big boyz in government and finance can take off their neckties when they bargain with each other? So the markets will be closed and unable to register a response one way or another? So the shrinking fraction of the US public that pays attention to anything besides Nascar and pornography won't catch the news Saturday evening? This weekend's big deal was the US government taking over the "government sponsored enterprises" (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that guarantee trillions of dollars in mortgages. The "guarantee" is supposedly accomplished by converting bundles of mortgages from the banks and loan companies that originate them (that make the contracts with the buyers of houses) into bonds that can be sold downstream. Risk was theoretically dispersed among the holders of these bonds. This all seemed to work during the long stable period when our cheap oil economy was chugging along, and house prices maintained a consistent relationship with incomes, and people paid their mortgages dependably. The whole system ran like a reliable machine - like a Chrysler slant-six engine! Until the cheap oil age came to an end. Then, all parts of the system shook apart. It was the end of cheap oil that catalyzed the housing collapse and, by extension, the current huge financial crisis. But the run up to it was like a bounce off a high diving board into an empty pool. The bounce came around 2001 when it became apparent that the US standard-of-living could not be maintained on incomes in a post-cheap-oil economy. The trauma of 9/11 prompted a new and utterly insane consensus to form that the US standard of living could be switched over from income to massive debt. All the normal brakes against irresponsible lending and borrowing came off - embodied in Alan Greenspan's absurd statement that it was a good time to assume an adjustable rate mortgage when interest rates were at a historic low - meaning they could only be adjusted upwards. Why hold Greenspan responsible? Because he was at the apex of the authority vested with establishing norms, and he shoved our behavior into the realm of the recklessly abnormal, and he should have known better. The public went along with it because "free money" and high living are fun. Their behavior was reinforced by other authorities - for instance, President Bush, who told Americans to go shopping after the 9/11 attacks. (They went shopping with credit cards.) Things really wobbled in 2005 - which was, coincidentally, the year of all-time world-wide peak conventional oil production - with hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripping through the Gulf of Mexico oil rigs as a dramatic highlight. (It was also the year that The Long Emergency was published.) Since then, the US economy and the financial part of it that became a nine hundred pound tail wagging a thirty-pound dog, has been held together with baling wire, duct tape, and band-aids. All the debt run up by all parties - home-owners, credit-card holders, business, banks, hedge funds, government - is not being paid back reliably, and all the leveraged arrangements that depend on it being paid back are coming apart. Thus, capital disappears. The wealth of a nation disappears. All that remains is the pretense that we are still a wealthy society Fannie and Freddie are near the center of this black hole of debt. So far, the black hole has been "papered over" by the old stage magician's trick of diverting the audience's attention. The systemic wound that Bear Stearns represented, was covered up with a band-aid applied by the Federal Reserve's exchange of loans for worthless securities. In fact, the capital of Bear Stearns actually did disappear - a mere residue of it, a few cents on the dollar, was shifted to JP Morgan as payment for taking the wrapper off the band-aid. But, basically, the money is gone. Now, the same thing has happened with Fannie and Freddie, except that the scale is an order of magnitude greater. This time, the US Treasury Department is assuming worthless paper and paying out much larger loans to enterprises that are functionally bankrupt. The exact nature of the government's chartered "sponsorship" has always been ambiguous. Professional opinion has generally held that government backing was implied rather than explicit - but that's a ridiculous internal contradiction that went unchallenged for decades as Fannie and Freddie's Ponzi-style operation lumbered on (and their executives made off with obscene payouts). Now the government's role has suddenly been made explicit. It will probably only make things worse, since the enterprises are too big and over-scaled to work under any circumstances, let alone insolvency. One thing this points to is a truth that is uniformly overlooked by kibitzers: that what we developed over the past decade in America was not an "information economy" or a "consumer economy" but a suburban sprawl building economy, meaning an economy dedicated to building a living arrangement with no future. The climax of the sprawl building economy occurred in absolute lockstep with the climax of peak oil. You can date it virtually to the month - May 2005. After that, the future asserted itself and all the financial expectations bound up with sprawl-building went up in a vapor - including the value of mortgages on suburban houses. Everything that followed has been an attempt to cover up this basic reality: that the way we live in America can't continue. The reason our energy debate is so hollow and idiotic is because we can't face this basic reality. The fantasy-du-jour among both political parties is that we can become "energy independent". By this they mean we can keep on living the way we do by means other than oil. This is just not true. We have to make profound changes in everything we do from the way we inhabit the landscape to the way we produce our food. Lately, the only change we've shown any interest in is changing what our cars run on. But that is not going to rescue us, not even a little. Our inability to talk about anything else except the cars will drag us down into poverty and turmoil. The housing market is not coming back. Ever. In the form that we knew it. The suburban project is over. That version of the American Dream is over. We'll be a lot better off if we put aside dreaming altogether for a while and start focusing on reality instead - that part of the day when we're awake and capable of actually doing things. We've got a lot to face and a lot to do. The government takeover of Fannie and Freddie is just another papering-over of our fundamental problem - that until we embark on new ways of being a nation, of living differently and working differently on different things, the other nations of the world will not have confidence in us, or the paper we issue, and we will not really have confidence in ourselves. I have believed all along - and said as much in The Long Emergency - that we would not get through this crisis without passing through a period of hardship. We're entering it now. Even if the stock markets shoot up five hundred points today on the basis of the Fannie-Freddie deal (and the mistaken belief that our troubles are over), we are only at the beginning of a very painful workout. Personally, I think we're in for financial carnage before the election. The Fannie-Freddie deal may be the place where the wheels really come off. ____________________________________ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/09/last-ditch.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Tue Sep 9 08:23:11 2008 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 06:23:11 -0800 Subject: [A-List] U.S. Rules Out Unilateral Steps Against Russia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82b839ea0809090723k20439f4k32304a5845afe900@mail.gmail.com> On 9/9/08, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > It looks like the US has accepted Western Europe's decision. -- Yoshie > > He cautioned that "if we act too precipitously, we could be the ones > who are isolated." > No doubt about it. A major defeat for the neocons. I've heard as well, and am still researching, that the Israelis had a large presence in Georgia and may have had the facilities and intention to strike Iran from Georgia. M From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 08:41:35 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Pakistan Considers Asset Sales to Bolster Economy Message-ID: Just as the USG is decisively turning against Pakistan, and the Taliban are gaining on, the country's corrupt civilian elite are making worse economic moves than Musharraf's that can bring down their own government. Can this country be saved? -- Yoshie September 9, 2008 Pakistan Considers Asset Sales to Bolster Economy By HEATHER TIMMONS NEW DELHI ? Pakistan plans to sell valuable energy assets, beginning with a major gas field, as it tries to reap billions of dollars from deals with investors in industries like banking and farming. The move comes as Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is stepping in as president. Because of a hefty oil bill and a slowing economy, Pakistan is struggling under its biggest budget deficit in a decade, $21 billion; inflation that hit a 30-year high, 24.3 percent, in July; and fast-rising unemployment that is projected to reach 6.6 percent in 2009. Government leaders are eager to raise money, quickly. "The government is going through all their funding options," a banker advising the Pakistani government said. Financial advisers to the government spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to alienate their client. The Qadirpur gas field in Pakistan, a natural gas reserve of 2.9 trillion cubic feet in the Indus River flood plain, may be one of the first big-ticket sales. The field, the second-largest in the country, is valued at about $3 billion. Bids for the field, about 260 miles northeast of Karachi, may be submitted in the next week or so, bankers say. Likely bidders include foreign companies already involved in Pakistan's energy industry, like Kuwaiti state corporations and OMV, a private Austrian energy company. "They're testing the market with an auction," said an energy banker who asked to remain anonymous because he was pricing the deal for a client. The selling of the Qadirpur field could be controversial because it is considered a strategic asset. Pakistan imports more than three-quarters of its petroleum and is struggling to become less dependent on imports. But a person close to the deal said there were no guarantees that the field would be sold. He characterized the bid solicitation as an informal process. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the deal. Some investors are questioning the wisdom of Pakistan's selling valuable assets and are wondering whether sales will be conducted transparently and fairly. But there is no question that the country needs to raise money, analysts said. Pakistan's economic situation is "a result of rising commodity and food prices, exacerbated by a lot of pre-election spending by the previous government," said Gareth Price, head of the Asia Program at Chatham House, a research center in London, referring to the general elections held in February. In an effort to win votes, the previous government, led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, kept subsidies high on food, electricity and oil, helping drive up the budget deficit. The sale of the Qadirpur field is part of a full-scale review of the biggest energy company in Pakistan, Oil and Gas Development, which owns 75 percent of Qadirpur. The review is being led by Merrill Lynch. Pakistan's privatization commission said in late August that it also planned to offer stakes in Kot Addu Power on international stock exchanges this year and to privatize Hazara Phosphate Fertilizers. It invited bidders for 51 percent of Jamshoro Power, a long-discussed privatization deal. Salt and coal mines are also scheduled to be privatized. The list of state assets for sale may not necessarily be followed by deals, analysts warned. "Talk of investing huge sums of money doesn't always materialize, because people are put off by the political machinations" in Pakistan, Mr. Price said. Pakistan's "economic curse" is that the ruling elite ? civil servants, politicians and the military ? have worked in their own interest, not that of the wider population, limiting how much capital the country can raise, he said. One possible source of new investment is the Middle East. "There is a cultural and long-term affinity between the two regions," said Youssef Nasr, the chief executive of HSBC in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, in particular, have been strong supporters of Pakistan. Investors from the Middle East have already bought stakes in telecommunications, banking and industrial companies in Pakistan and have been pleased with the results, he said. One area of cooperation between Pakistan and the Middle East may be agriculture. The arid climate of the Middle East, coupled with rising food prices, has ignited fears about food security. Pakistan, meanwhile, has swaths of arable land that is lying fallow. Government officials on both sides are exploring links that could lead to joint farming ventures, Mr. Nasr said. "It's not going to be a huge industry, by international standards," he predicted, but it could be large enough to make a difference to Pakistan's economy. The Pakistani government plans to raise money in ways besides asset sales and joint ventures. Pakistan's central bank said on Thursday that it would sell bonds compliant with Islamic law in the domestic market and that the World Bank would "fast track" $1 billion in planned investments in the country. Attempts to privatize and sell some state-owned assets have proved contentious. The government's plans to sell Pakistan Steel to a group of investors in 2006 were overturned, in part because the agreed-upon price was deemed to be about a third of the $1 billion value. Other sales of equity stakes have gone through with less controversy. In June 2007, United Bank Limited of Pakistan raised $650 million on the London Stock Exchange. One bright spot for the county's economy has been remittances, or money transferred home by Pakistanis working outside the country, which are on the rise, Mr. Price said. The government is lobbying to get more permits for workers to travel to the Persian Gulf, from which most remittances are sent. From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 11:57:20 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 13:57:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy Message-ID: Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy As the nation continues to debate its energy future, a new report released today shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs by investing in a rapid green economic recovery program, which will strengthen the economy, increase energy independence, and fight global warming. Green Recovery ? A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy [LINK: ] was prepared by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, under commission by the Center for American Progress and released by a coalition of labor and environmental groups. The authors are Robert Pollin, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, James Heintz, and Helen Scharber of PERI. Focusing for now on a short-term clean energy and jobs program, Green Recovery reports that a short-term green stimulus package would create two million jobs nationwide over two years. Later in the fall, PERI and CAP will co-publish a fuller study that addresses the longer-term challenges and opportunities created by building a clean-energy economy. The short-term $100 billion green economic recovery package would: * Create nearly four times more total jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry, and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption. * Create roughly triple the number of good jobs ? paying at least $16 dollars an hour ? as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry. * Reduce the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent from 5.7 percent (calculated within the framework of U.S. labor market conditions in July 2008). * Bolster employment especially in construction and manufacturing. Construction employment has fallen from 8 million to 7.2 million jobs over the past two years due to the housing bubble collapse. The Green Recovery program can, at the least, bring back these lost 800,000 construction jobs. The green economic recovery program addresses the immediate need to boost our struggling economy and accelerate the adoption of a comprehensive clean-energy agenda through a $100 billion investment that would combine tax credits and loan guarantees for private businesses with direct public-investment spending. The recovery program aims to boost private and public investment in six energy-efficiency and renewable-energy strategies: retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency, expanding mass transit and freight rail, constructing 'smart' electrical grid transmission systems, wind power, solar power, and next-generation biofuels. The report shows that the vast majority of the two million jobs would be in the same areas of employment that people already work in today, in every region and state of the country. For example, constructing wind farms creates jobs for sheet metal workers, machinists and truck drivers, among many others. Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings through retrofitting requires roofers, insulators and building inspectors. Expanding mass transit systems employs civil engineers, electricians, and dispatchers. The study's authors conclude that "we can be certain that the green recovery program will serve as a strong counterforce against pressures that are currently pushing unemployment up as well as more broadly increasing economic disparities. The green infrastructure investments proposed here will also generate significant long-term advances toward creating the clean energy economy that we need." The green recovery program investments would fund: * $50 billion for tax credits. This would assist private businesses and homeowners in financing commercial and residential building retrofits, as well as investments in renewable-energy systems. * $46 billion in direct government spending. This would support public building retrofits, the expansion of mass transit, freight rail and smart electrical-grid systems, and new investments in renewable energy. * $4 billion for federal loan guarantees. This would underwrite private credit that is extended to finance building retrofits and investments in renewable energy. About the authors: Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. James Heintz is Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of PERI. Heidi Garrett-Peltier and Helen Scharber are Ph.D. students in Economics and Research Assistants at PERI. This report is part of PERI's ongoing program exploring the renewable energy economy. Watch our website for future reports in this program area. For more information or for media inquiries, please contact Debbie Zeidenberg, PERI's Communications Director. From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 19:13:30 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 21:13:30 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Georgians Question Wisdom of War With Russia: President's Future At Stake, Some Say Message-ID: Georgians Question Wisdom of War With Russia President's Future At Stake, Some Say By Tara Bahrampour Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 9, 2008; A12 TBILISI, Georgia, Sept. 8 -- As open war between Georgia and Russia has subsided into a tense standoff among world powers, Georgians inside and outside the government have begun to question the wisdom of the costly confrontation, and of the leaders who set it in motion. They are doing so carefully, saying they don't want to be seen as supporting the Kremlin's call for the ouster of President Mikheil Saakashvili. But whispers of discontent first heard during the early days of the war have grown louder and bolder. Opposition leaders as well as some longtime supporters of the president are calling for investigations into what they call failures in diplomacy and warfare, and some are predicting Saakashvili will be forced from office by a war they say he hoped would earn him a place in history. In parts of Georgia, Russian troops are still dug in. But since a wartime restriction on criticism of the government was lifted Thursday, the public recriminations have begun. David Usupashvili, leader of the opposition Republican Party, said he had serious concerns about the decision to fight the much larger Russian army. "I don't believe that the Georgian government started this military action, but I condemn my government's action to respond with a full-scale military conflict," he said. "The main fundamental question is why Saakashvili and his administration . . . did not think Russia would respond with all in its power, guns and tanks." David Gamkrelidze, leader of the opposition New Rights party, said that while Russia had long been "punishing" Georgia for its independence, Saakashvili's "unbalanced and very aggressive politics" had helped Russia. "By his military rhetoric, and all kinds of provocations, Saakashvili tried to show that he can return these territories by the military way, that he has this capacity, he has this force." The territories in question are two separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Officials present at some of the prewar discussions said that Saakashvili and a tight group of supporters seemed convinced they had the military power to win back South Ossetia -- which Georgian forces attacked on the night of Aug. 7 -- within a few hours or days and were not interested in opposing points of view. "He has no communication with anybody except this small circle, which is a serious reason why he decided to go to South Ossetia," said a highly placed official who has worked in the government since Saakashvili took office but said he now feels let down. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said Saakashvili "wants to be a hero, not a normal president who increases the taxes, et cetera." Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, described the group around Saakashvili as "patriots" but added: "Maybe their experience is not enough, and they are revolutionaries rather than experienced statesmen." Georgian officials now say they never thought their army had a chance of overcoming the much larger Russian army on its own. Saakashvili said that he had no expectation of outside military assistance but that to preserve the Georgian state he had no choice but to attack the Russian forces. "We did not expect that some ready battalions would be there from the U.S. to come help us," he said in an interview. "That would have been insane of me. And I didn't expect the Europeans to risk their skins for us." Some sort of confrontation with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia had long been brewing. Since leading the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution, Saakashvili had made reclaiming the zones one of his main goals. Saakashvili's Western-oriented government has been hailed as a "beacon of democracy" by President Bush. But many here say that long before the war, the government used tensions over the breakaway regions to flout basic democratic principles, change the constitution to strengthen the ruling party, ignore judiciary problems and suppress the media. Such complaints helped spark massive protests here last November, which the government crushed with tear gas and masked troops wielding batons, staining Georgia's international image. Saakashvili ended the crisis by calling a snap presidential election; he won a second term, though with less support than in the previous election and with allegations of vote-rigging. With an ineffectual opposition, Saakashvili and his ruling majority had seemed securely ensconced for another five years. But now there is serious pressure: A popular opposition member of Parliament has called for an investigative commission, 80 organizations and individuals have signed a petition calling for a "broad debate," and most opposition leaders refused to sign a government pledge of unity, according to a local online newspaper. Critics also accuse the government of dishonesty in its characterization of the war's outcome. Several have blasted the government for staging celebrations during and after the war, and for claiming the conflict was an international public relations victory while blaming others for its failures. "What we are hearing is that everyone is guilty in this but the government itself," Usupashvili said. "They started talking that the events of last year were something which stopped the government from improving the army, or that there are lots of [Russian] agents within the opposition. But they are not looking in their own back yard to see who misled the president by saying the Russians wouldn't respond." Some people here say the war has delegitimized the president. "He no more has the moral or political right to be commander in chief, and he must resign," said Gamkrelidze, who ran against Saakashvili in January and is calling for new elections. One politician seen as a possible alternative is Nino Burjanadze, who helped usher in the Rose Revolution and resigned as speaker of the Parliament in the spring. Burjanadze, who recently visited the United States, said she was not yet ready to criticize Saakashvili publicly but said that for years she had warned him that Russia would attack if Georgia sent troops into the breakaway regions. "I always said this, and I said this at the last meeting," shortly before the war, she said. With his typical confidence, Saakashvili recently answered "absolutely" when asked whether he expects to survive the crisis politically. For all his troubles, his is a familiar face to Georgian voters as well as Western allies, and some people here predict he will finish his term, though perhaps in a weakened position that forces him into power-sharing. Rondeli said he thinks Saakashvili's chances of staying in power are "quite high." "I think there will be political forces that will try to seize the moment and get rid of him, but I think his position is not as weak as it looks for some," Rondeli said. Several critics said they worried that speaking out too soon could undermine their chances of changing the leadership. "A lot of people are afraid that they could be arrested for treason," said a government official who recounted discussing with others in the government ways to challenge the administration. Sitting near an outdoor cafe called KGB: Still Watching You, he pushed his cellphone to the other side of the table, noting, "Now, everybody is quite silent, and moving away from cellphones." The official said he did not expect Saakashvili to last the year but fears what might follow. "If he is forced out by force, I fear that everything that he achieved -- roads, police reform, Euro-Atlantic cooperation -- could be gone. That's why we really need to change it very, very delicately and in a very quiet way." Otherwise, he said, a more authoritarian government could replace the current one. Critics say they are not looking for another revolution. Some envision a scenario in which Saakashvili stays on with diminished power. Several, however, expressed fear that rather than feeling chastened by the war, the ruling party will interpret the $1 billion in aid pledged by the United States last week as a green light to continue its policies. To offer the aid without conditions was "a mistake," Gamkrelidze said, adding that assistance should be tied to judicial, legislative, constitutional and media reforms. "He almost got us into a new cold war, or a third world war. It must be in the interest of the U.S. and European allies to make this country more democratic and more accountable." From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 22:34:19 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:34:19 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia's Kudrin Says against Further Tax Cuts + Oil Stocks Drop on Tax Plan Message-ID: Russia's Kudrin says against further tax cuts Tue Sep 9, 2008 7:24am EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday he expected the government to decide on its future tax policies later this month, but added the oil industry should not expect any more large tax breaks. Kudrin, the government's main fiscal hawk, said the oil industry has already received large tax breaks as part of the most recent reform and this should be enough to revive crude output growth. "(If oil firms are not happy) I'd suggest they offer their assets and fields at open auctions. I'm sure there will be an awful lot of people wanting to buy them with the current tax burden," Kudrin said at an interview at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit. "As an economist, I can say that Russia has reached a line beyond which you cannot cut taxes." Instead, Kudrin argues that the tax burden should be raised in order to fund pension reforms in a country where the average pension stands at just 4,000 roubles ($158.40) a month. "Some will say it (raising taxes) is not a liberal position... But I'm not afraid about my image," he said. He said the country will spend all its reserve fund and national wealth fund, currently at $174 billion, by 2027 as the share of windfall revenues from energy exports will fall to 11 percent of the GDP from around 25 percent currently. "It is almost impossible to reduce taxes in a situation with such a trend," said Kudrin, whose ministry is fighting against the growth-focused Economy Ministry, which wants to cut the value added tax to 12 percent from the current 18 percent. "I don't see any well-founded proposals (from the Economy Ministry). Their proposals are not balanced," he said, adding that the final decision on taxes would likely be taken in September by President Dmitry Medvedev. Russian oil firms have repeatedly asked for additional tax breaks from the government, saying they need more funds to invest in new fields and revive production growth. They have already received around 100 billion roubles in tax breaks from next year and agreed with the government that new and depleted fields will be exempted from levies. But they asked for more from 2010 with proposals ranging from breaks that would allow oil firms to save up to 400 billion roubles, requested by oil major Lukoil, and one for a more modest 100-200 billion, proposed by government and Kremlin officials. Kudrin said he would fight hard to prevent that from happening. "So far, we are not considering such proposals. It could happen in the future... But in 2010 it is unlikely." "All new fields are already enjoying tax holidays. It is a pretty serious measure in itself," he said. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Andrey Ostroukh; editing by Jason Neely) Russia's RTS Falls Most in 2 Years; Oil Stocks Drop on Tax Plan By William Mauldin Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's RTS Index fell the most in more than two years, led by oil producers after crude sank to a five-month low and Energy Minister Alexei Kudrin said oil companies shouldn't expect further tax relief. The dollar-denominated RTS posted the largest fluctuation among national markets included in global benchmarks, tumbling 7.5 percent to 1,395.11. The ruble-denominated Micex Index sank 9.1 percent to 1,158.07, the lowest since June 14, 2006. Kudrin said ``Russia has reached a line beyond which you cannot cut taxes,'' Reuters reported. Kudrin said it is ``almost impossible to reduce taxes'' at a time when oil and gas revenue is falling as a share of Russia's economy, the newswire said. ``Oil stocks are the biggest losers today, hit by both the dropping crude prices as well as signals from the Finance Ministry that the second round of oil-tax cuts might not be such a sure thing,'' said Douglas Rohlfs, international equity salesman at Metropol in Moscow. The Micex Oil & Gas Index sank 9.2 percent, the lowest since November 2005. OAO Rosneft, Russia's largest oil producer, tumbled 9.6 percent to 189.24 rubles, its biggest decline on record. OAO Lukoil, the country's second-largest producer, lost 8.8 percent to 1,601.78 rubles. Russia's RTS Index has fallen 39 percent this quarter, the worst performer among 88 national benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg, after oil prices declined, inflation quickened to 15 percent, the government investigated steel and coal producer OAO Mechel, and Russia sent troops and warplanes into Georgia. `Oil Weakness' Crude fell in New York today as the dollar rose against the euro and as Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said oil supplies are sufficient to meet demand. The contract for October delivery declined $2.05, or 1.9 percent, to $104.29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. ``The oil price looks set for further weakness over the coming week and investors remain wary of emerging-market assets,'' Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow, wrote in a note to investors. Yesterday's advance in Russian stocks may have been merely the ``eye of the market's hurricane.'' OAO Gazprom, the stock with the biggest weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, dropped 18.62 rubles, or 8.3 percent, to 207.20 rubles, the lowest since it listed shares on the Micex. The gas export monopoly had ``no economic or technical basis'' for denying pipeline access to ZAO Trans Nafta in Tatarstan, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said on its Web site late yesterday. The gas giant may face a fine of as much as $250 million, UniCredit SpA said in a note. Falling Metal Prices Falling metals prices hurt the outlook for Russian steel and mining stocks. The Micex Metal & Mining index sank 7.8 percent. OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel fell for a sixth day, dropping 13 percent to 3,241.71 rubles. Nickel fell in London as Posco, Asia's largest maker of stainless steel, said it will extend output cuts for a third month, indicating weaker demand for the metal. Copper fell to a seven-month low. To contact the reporter on this story: William Mauldin in Moscow at wmauldin1 at bloomberg.net. Last Updated: September 9, 2008 11:08 EDT From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Sep 9 22:36:00 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:36:00 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia's Kudrin Says against Further Tax Cuts + Oil Stocks Drop on Tax Plan Message-ID: Russia's Kudrin says against further tax cuts Tue Sep 9, 2008 7:24am EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday he expected the government to decide on its future tax policies later this month, but added the oil industry should not expect any more large tax breaks. Kudrin, the government's main fiscal hawk, said the oil industry has already received large tax breaks as part of the most recent reform and this should be enough to revive crude output growth. "(If oil firms are not happy) I'd suggest they offer their assets and fields at open auctions. I'm sure there will be an awful lot of people wanting to buy them with the current tax burden," Kudrin said at an interview at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit. "As an economist, I can say that Russia has reached a line beyond which you cannot cut taxes." Instead, Kudrin argues that the tax burden should be raised in order to fund pension reforms in a country where the average pension stands at just 4,000 roubles ($158.40) a month. "Some will say it (raising taxes) is not a liberal position... But I'm not afraid about my image," he said. He said the country will spend all its reserve fund and national wealth fund, currently at $174 billion, by 2027 as the share of windfall revenues from energy exports will fall to 11 percent of the GDP from around 25 percent currently. "It is almost impossible to reduce taxes in a situation with such a trend," said Kudrin, whose ministry is fighting against the growth-focused Economy Ministry, which wants to cut the value added tax to 12 percent from the current 18 percent. "I don't see any well-founded proposals (from the Economy Ministry). Their proposals are not balanced," he said, adding that the final decision on taxes would likely be taken in September by President Dmitry Medvedev. Russian oil firms have repeatedly asked for additional tax breaks from the government, saying they need more funds to invest in new fields and revive production growth. They have already received around 100 billion roubles in tax breaks from next year and agreed with the government that new and depleted fields will be exempted from levies. But they asked for more from 2010 with proposals ranging from breaks that would allow oil firms to save up to 400 billion roubles, requested by oil major Lukoil, and one for a more modest 100-200 billion, proposed by government and Kremlin officials. Kudrin said he would fight hard to prevent that from happening. "So far, we are not considering such proposals. It could happen in the future... But in 2010 it is unlikely." "All new fields are already enjoying tax holidays. It is a pretty serious measure in itself," he said. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Andrey Ostroukh; editing by Jason Neely) Russia's RTS Falls Most in 2 Years; Oil Stocks Drop on Tax Plan By William Mauldin Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's RTS Index fell the most in more than two years, led by oil producers after crude sank to a five-month low and Energy Minister Alexei Kudrin said oil companies shouldn't expect further tax relief. The dollar-denominated RTS posted the largest fluctuation among national markets included in global benchmarks, tumbling 7.5 percent to 1,395.11. The ruble-denominated Micex Index sank 9.1 percent to 1,158.07, the lowest since June 14, 2006. Kudrin said ``Russia has reached a line beyond which you cannot cut taxes,'' Reuters reported. Kudrin said it is ``almost impossible to reduce taxes'' at a time when oil and gas revenue is falling as a share of Russia's economy, the newswire said. ``Oil stocks are the biggest losers today, hit by both the dropping crude prices as well as signals from the Finance Ministry that the second round of oil-tax cuts might not be such a sure thing,'' said Douglas Rohlfs, international equity salesman at Metropol in Moscow. The Micex Oil & Gas Index sank 9.2 percent, the lowest since November 2005. OAO Rosneft, Russia's largest oil producer, tumbled 9.6 percent to 189.24 rubles, its biggest decline on record. OAO Lukoil, the country's second-largest producer, lost 8.8 percent to 1,601.78 rubles. Russia's RTS Index has fallen 39 percent this quarter, the worst performer among 88 national benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg, after oil prices declined, inflation quickened to 15 percent, the government investigated steel and coal producer OAO Mechel, and Russia sent troops and warplanes into Georgia. `Oil Weakness' Crude fell in New York today as the dollar rose against the euro and as Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said oil supplies are sufficient to meet demand. The contract for October delivery declined $2.05, or 1.9 percent, to $104.29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. ``The oil price looks set for further weakness over the coming week and investors remain wary of emerging-market assets,'' Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow, wrote in a note to investors. Yesterday's advance in Russian stocks may have been merely the ``eye of the market's hurricane.'' OAO Gazprom, the stock with the biggest weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, dropped 18.62 rubles, or 8.3 percent, to 207.20 rubles, the lowest since it listed shares on the Micex. The gas export monopoly had ``no economic or technical basis'' for denying pipeline access to ZAO Trans Nafta in Tatarstan, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said on its Web site late yesterday. The gas giant may face a fine of as much as $250 million, UniCredit SpA said in a note. Falling Metal Prices Falling metals prices hurt the outlook for Russian steel and mining stocks. The Micex Metal & Mining index sank 7.8 percent. OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel fell for a sixth day, dropping 13 percent to 3,241.71 rubles. Nickel fell in London as Posco, Asia's largest maker of stainless steel, said it will extend output cuts for a third month, indicating weaker demand for the metal. Copper fell to a seven-month low. To contact the reporter on this story: William Mauldin in Moscow at wmauldin1 at bloomberg.net. Last Updated: September 9, 2008 11:08 EDT From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Sep 9 23:52:37 2008 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:52:37 +1000 Subject: [A-List] Why Washington hates Iran - free pamphlet download | Links Message-ID: <48C760A5.20206@greenleft.org.au> The following is the introduction to /Why Washington Hates Iran: A Political Memoir of the Revolution That Shook the Middle East/, a /Socialist Voice/ pamphlet published by South Branch Publications. The author, *Barry Sheppard*, was a member of the US Socialist Workers Party for 28 years, and a central leader of the party for most of that time. In 2005, Resistance Books published the first volume of his political memoir, /The Party: The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988/ . The new pamphlet is a chapter from the second volume, now in preparation. Read and download pamphlet at http://links.org.au/node/619 Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Sep 10 02:46:05 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:46:05 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons: Message-ID: <48C7894D.4040707@attglobal.net> Population and the disguises of Providence by Garret Hardin from Commons Without Tragedy (Shepheard-Walwyn, 1991) edited by Robert V Andelson _____ Note: Here is the 1991 article by Garret Hardin mentioned by Michael Hudson here on August 28th. Compare this 1991 article with the scathing attack by Ian Angus on a 1968 article by the same author also posted here on August 28th. I wonder why Angus didn't even bother citing this article: Was he maliciously using Professor Hardin and his 1968 article as a straw man to knock down, or was he just too lazy to read the 1991 article? I haven't yet read Dr Hardin's ?1998 article from Science Magazine at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5364/682, but I suspect it is much more similar to this 1991 article than the one attacked by Ian Angus. Bill Totten. _____ THE COMPLEX of concerns we blanket with the name 'the population problem' has been with us for almost two hundred years. Any 'problem' that persists that long without resolution should lead us to suspect subconscious resistances. In this instance a major resistance is, I think, centered around the concept of Providence. We would do well to look into the origin and variations of this concept. The word 'Providence' was much used in the eighteenth century, but it is seldom heard now. Nonetheless, the idea behind the word still plays a role in shaping people's thoughts. There seems to be an almost irreducible hunger for this supportive idea. Psychoanalytically speaking, this hunger is no mystery: each of us starts life as a helpless little being to whom all the essentials must be supplied. It is natural and necessary that an infant should expect to be provided for. As we develop we outgrow some of these expectations; but under stress, or when puzzled, we may relapse into an infantile attitude of expecting Providence (under whatever name) to take care of us. The Latin word providere means to see ahead, hence to provide for. As the word 'God' became somewhat unfashionable in the eighteenth century, 'Providence' became its surrogate. The psychoanalytic weight of the two words is much the same. This century was later labeled 'the Enlightenment' by those who approved the change. In the same century another substitution was made, as Robert Nisbet tells us {1}. Turgot, one of the seminal minds of the time, made the personal transition in less than a year. In July of 1750, in a public address at the Sorbonne, Turgot praised the idea of Providence as one of Christianity's great gifts to the world. But by December of the same year he had decided that the idea of progress (which also has ancient roots) was far more deserving of admiration. As Nisbet says: 'with respect to the idea of progress, Turgot, without abandoning the structure or framework of his first address at the Sorbonne, secularized it.' Progress - a secularized version of Providence - soon came to mean principally technological progress. A new faith developed: 'Technology will solve our problems'. This is surely a providential idea. The emotional appeal is the same; the hunger is the same. As the acknowledged historian of progress, J B Bury, says: 'it was just the theory of an active Providence that the theory of Progress was to replace; and it was not till men felt independent of Providence that they could organise a theory of Progress' {2}. We note that in 1751, after he had abandoned Providence for Progress, Turgot renounced his ecclesiastical ambitions. At the end of the same decade, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith gave memorable form to another providential idea: The rich ..., though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, ... divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants; and thus, without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interests of society ... {3} Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is, of course, a figure of speech. Note his clever salesmanship in tying the argument to what would, two centuries later, be called the 'trickle-down' theory of distribution, thus easing the pain of accepting what looks at first like wholly selfish behaviour. The selfish entrepreneur, though he intends only his own good (said Smith), nevertheless acts for the benefit of all society. Such is the faith of laissez-faire; it is surely a providential idea. Seventeen years later Adam Smith developed it more fully in his classic text, The Wealth of Nations. Other men added rhetorical embellishments. Ten years before Smith's classic work, La Riviere asserted that laissez-faire produced l'ordre naturel. Then, as now, the word 'natural' enjoyed prestige. In 1810 David Ricardo, in The High Price of Bullion, claimed that 'Where there is free competition, the interests of the individual and that of the community are never at variance' {4}. I have italicized the word 'never' to call attention to several points. First, italics suggest the authority Ricardo was trying to bestow on the idea. Second, the claim of an invariable correlation of individual and community interests is one that was easily accepted by economists, though it was, as we shall see, denied by many serious students of population, beginning with Malthus. Lastly, for many economists laissez-faire became something of a religious belief, a ready substitute for 'Providence'. Pursuing the history of ideas to their earliest origins one finds the germ of laissez-faire in the writings of Chuang Tzu of the fourth century BC: 'Good order results spontaneously when things are left alone' {5}. Of course few in eighteenth century Europe were aware of what had been thought in China two millennia earlier. Following the idea of 'spontaneous order' all the way to the present we find that the Nobel economist F A Hayek, in a book published in 1988, echoes Chuang Tzu, matching the unqualified praise of Ricardo: 'Order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive' {6}. Few biologists would argue with that assertion: but what is explicitly said hardly justifies that which the author no doubt hopes the reader will infer, namely that human beings can never improve on nature. Even if human-generated order is usually a poor match for nature's designs it does not follow that economic libertarians are wise in holding that humanity should renounce all foresight, all planning and all intervention in the order of nature. The Utterly Dismal Theorem The congruence of self-interest and community interest implied by laissez-faire was a comforting one to the people of the late eighteenth century. Into this complacent world burst Malthus with his assertion that, when population is involved, laissez-faire reproduction does not automatically produce a pleasant world. Unhindered reproduction, he said, causes the population to increase 'geometrically' ('exponentially', we say now), while the means of subsistence increases only arithmetically. Reproduction can easily outrun food production. Malthus was right in the first assertion: in the absence of 'environmental resistance' exponential reproduction is the innate result of all healthy living. We can hardly imagine a different biology. But Malthus' belief that subsistence increases arithmetically has no basis in fact. There is no general law that predicts the rate at which the human species improves the technology with which the environment is exploited. Later commentators suggested that Malthus was dimly aware of the principle of 'diminishing returns'. Malthus denied this explanation. The dispute need not detain us here. It is manifestly clear that Malthus's theory does not lead to the attainment of happiness through laissez-faire reproduction. This conclusion has been expressed unequivocally in our time by another economist, Kenneth Boulding. He first describes Malthus's 'famous dismal theorem of economics' which he summarizes in these words: ... if the only check on the growth of population is starvation and misery, then no matter how favorable the environment or how advanced the technology the population will grow until it is miserable and starves. The theorem, indeed, has a worse corollary which has been described as the utterly dismal theorem. This is the proposition that if the only check on the growth of population is starvation and misery, then any technological improvement will have the ultimate effect of increasing the sum of human misery, as it permits a larger population to live in precisely the same state of misery and starvation as before... {7} In spite of its pessimistic cast the Essay of Malthus was given a favourable reception when it first appeared. But its hard-headed approach to human problems was better suited to the century of the Enlightenment than it was to the succeeding Romantic century. A determined and continuing search was made for 'softer' mechanisms than the 'misery and vice' that Malthus proposed as the great controllers of population size. In 1832 (two years before the death of Malthus) one Thomas Rowe Edmonds put forward an interesting theory: Amongst the great body of the people at the present moment, sexual intercourse is the only gratification; and thus, by a most unfortunate concurrence of adverse circumstances, population goes on augmenting at a period when it ought to be restrained ... When [the working class] are better fed they will have other enjoyments at command than sexual intercourse, and their numbers, therefore, will not increase in the same proportion as at present. {8} Society should make the poor rich, advised Edmonds, so that they will have better things to do with their free time than entertain one another as animals do. This recommendation was no doubt favourably received by many Victorians, who - publicly at any rate - deprecated sexual intercourse. The substitution theory even surfaced more than a century later when it was suggested that television sets be put in every village in India, so that villagers would discover that other recreations are more enjoyable than 'doin' what comes naturally'. Many villages in the Third World now have television sets, but the predicted effect on human fertility has failed to make its appearance. Ten years after Edmonds' ill-starred proposal Thomas Doubleday put forward another: It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists, that if a tree, plant, or flower, be placed in mould, either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases ... There cannot be a doubt that, with the animal creation ... fecundity is totally checked by the plethoric state ... the doe, or female rabbit, and ... the sow will not conceive if fed to a certain height of fatness ... leanness is indispensable to conception ... {9} Is it true that fertility is inversely correlated with the quality of the diet? Doubleday's thesis of 1842 became a priori suspect when Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859. Natural selection has the automatic effect of making good (though unconscious) economizers of all species. It makes Darwinian sense for individuals to convert an increase in food into an increase in progeny; a species that became more fertile under starvation conditions would imperil its survival. Empirical facts corroborate the evolutionary predictions. In reviewing these it will help to make the distinction that has become standard in demography: fecundity is the potentiality for having children, while fertility measures the actual production of children. As far as the fecundity of human beings is concerned the effect of nutrition is beyond controversy. Rose Frisch, a leader in this field of research, has summarized the findings in this way: 'Good nutrition leads to greater weight, more body fat in the female, leading to regular menstruation and higher fecundity, [thus] leading to greater fertility' {10}. The explanation of Doubleday's facts is easily given. The excessive fat of penned-up rabbits and pigs is an artefact of domestication: their relatives in the wild would never achieve such gross fatness, thanks in large part to the regimen of involuntary exercise imposed on them by predators. Natural selection has not had to deal with Doubleday's kind of 'plethoric state'. From the earliest days students of population have tried to induce desired political changes from scientific facts. Edmonds, for instance, saw the hand of Providence at work: 'To better the condition of the labouring classes, that is, to place more food and comforts before them, however paradoxical it may appear, is the wisest mode to check redundancy' {11}. When Providence works this way it is easy for human beings to cooperate with her. But Frisch's findings point to the opposite conclusion, a fact that disturbs her (and no doubt many others). Of Rose Frisch it has been reported that: "She expresses concern that her findings on the fat-fertility relationship might be used as 'scientific' documentation of the negative value of sending surplus food to the underfed populations of the world ... She believes 'a greater effort is needed to provide contraceptive methods together with adequate nutrition' " {12}. The providential bias in population theories has been strong from the earliest days. Going back to 1847 we find that the anonymous translator of the works of a Genevan economist, Sismondi, opined that; 'Sanitary improvements, and whatever tends to lengthen life, are the most effectual means of restraining a too great increase of population' {13}. By the end of the nineteenth century the tenderhearted view of population dynamics had a firm hold on such influential people as those in the Bloomsbury set. Geoffrey Searle has given a telling description of their position: Socialists, predisposed to believe that the solution to all difficulties lay in a radical improvement of the social environment, also noted that there was an inverse relationship between fertility and income. From this they deduced that higher wages and better living conditions automatically brought about a reduction in the birth rate. This was the conclusion reached by the Webbs [Sidney and Beatrice] in Industrial Democracy [1897], which includes a discussion of differential fertility within the working class. Many other socialists followed the Webbs' lead. Thus, Mrs Pember Reeves wrote in 1913: '... for those who deplore large families in the case of poor people, it must be a comfort to remember a face which experience shows us, that as poverty decreases, and as the standard of comfort rises, so does the size of the family diminish. Should we be able to conquer the problem of poverty, we should automatically solve the problem of the excessively large family.' {14} The imputing of the miseries of overpopulation to the actions of injustice was made more explicit in 1952 in the writings of the Brazilian nutritionist, Josue de Castro. In The Geography of Hunger he wrote: 'Hunger has been chiefly created by the inhuman exploitation of colonial riches, by the latifundia and one-crop culture which lay waste the colony, so that the exploiting country can take too cheaply the raw materials its properous industrial economy requires' {15}. Sadly, Castro reports that 'A large part of the world is not yet convinced of the necessity of doing away with hunger once for all', which is unfortunate because: 'when all the world's parts are indissolubly linked into one living whole, it is no longer possible to let one region rot and starve without infecting the rest, and threatening the whole world with death' {16}. One can empathize with Castro's intention - namely, to mobilize the indifferent to eradicate hunger from the world - without accepting his hypothesis that hunger is infectious in the same way that microbial diseases are infectious. If hunger spreads from the poor to the rich it is either because the rich are too stupid to manage their own affairs, or because they become infected by the idea of sharing-without-limit. Ideas, even malfunctional ones, are infectious. All of the many causes proposed for overpopulation suffer from the same logical weakness: they assume that correlation equals causation. But correlation can be read in either direction. Mrs Reeves' assertion that 'as poverty decreases, the size of the family diminishes', implies that wealth is the cause of diminished fertility. Why did she not say, 'as the size of the family diminishes, wealth increases'? In truth, most couples, rich or poor, know that adding another child to their family will, in all probability, diminish their wealth and well-being. So the hypothesis that fertility causes poverty is not an ungrounded speculation. Closer co the truth is the hypothesis that the causal relation of poverty and fertility is a circular one, an increase in either tending to increase the other: a true vicious circle. Long ago logicians labeled the error of deducing cause from sequence as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. ('After this, therefore because of this'.) It's a pity that many scholars continue to fall into this trap. One who did not was Joseph Townsend, an English minister. Commenting on his travels in Spain in 1791 he wrote: 'In a fully peopled country, to say, that no one shall suffer want is absurd. Could you supply their wants, you would soon double their numbers.' {17} Note that this was said eight years before Malthus' Essay was published. Was this insight a new discovery of Townsend's? Undoubtedly it was not. It is highly probable that ordinary folk understood this population principle for millennia, but it was not often voiced precisely because 'everybody knew it'. Then after Malthus it seemed too heartless and pessimistic a thought to state in public. The assertion of more providential principles was a surer path to public favor. Anti-Malthusian hypotheses are legion. The diminution of fertility was, at various times, asserted to follow from: amusements alternative to sex; rich food; excess protein; better sanitation; industrialization; modernization (whatever that is); land reform; social justice; lessening of infant mortality; education; or - according to one's political bias - the adoption of communism or capitalism. The pattern is clear: since the most plausible proposals for controlling population are 'unacceptable', whoever has the temerity to admit that population might be a problem promptly sees a chance to advance the reform of his choice by asserting that his reform is the best way to control population. Providence is in the saddle again. The less doctrinaire commentators sometimes say that simple wealth is all that is needed to bring down fertility. This raises a question of definition, which is implicit in most of the entries on the reformers' lists. What is wealth, really? Both income and wealth per capita are greater in European countries than they are in the 'Third World' countries. By conventional measures, wealth and fertility are inversely related. But it has been remarked that, in Europe at least, 'a housing shortage is the best contraceptive'. Can a shortage be a true form of wealth? A young couple reduced to sharing the inadequate apartment of parents cannot agree that this shortage is wealth. As concerns fertility and population matters, the Gross National Product is a gross and inaccurate measure of real wealth. Statistics are tricky. In the middle of the twentieth century, there appeared a population hypothesis so minimally specified as to be almost mystical in nature, namely the Benign Demographic Transition. The initial adjective has here been added to the usual form of the name for reasons that will be made clear presently. The Benign Demographic Transition Ignoring short-term fluctuations, the population of Europe was nearly stable for many centuries, with both fertility and mortality at high levels (the rate of each being about forty per thousand population per year). In the last few centuries both fertility and mortality have fallen, with mortality falling first. The result has been an increase in population. After a delay of some time, fertility also fell. It is reasonable to assume that, sooner or later in a world of limits, the fertility race must once again equal the mortality rate, but this time at a low level for both. This situation seems to have been reached in some of the Central European countries (Hungary and West Germany, for instance). The change from [High Fertility & High Mortality] to [Low Fertility & Low Mortality] is called the demographic transition. It was first identified in France in 1934 under the name 'revolution demographique' {18}. The anglicization of the name came a decade later. The term 'demographic transition' has come to be more than mere description. Implicitly it is a theory about the way human populations automatically adjust to improved circumstances. It is assumed that the transition will eventually be complete (low fertility = low mortality) and stable, even though there has not been time to validate the latter point. It is also assumed that the forces that keep fertility low will (providentially!) not be painful to contemplate or experience. The fact that pain was not emphasized in the transition experience in European history is no doubt a consequence of two factors: the slowness of the transition (it took place over some two or three centuries); and the fact that most histories were written by the comfortable people who suffered the least from the transition. It was easy for demographers immersed in a European culture to assume that European history was the model for the history of all cultures, sooner or later. The demographic transition was seen as a historical imperative. Such a gratuitous assumption has been condemned by the philospher Karl Popper as historicism {19}. The demographic transition theory is a post hoc fallacy universalized and projected into the future. If the world has limits - which is the only reasonable assumption - terrestrial population growth must eventually come to an end as the aggregate fertility rate once more becomes equal to the aggregate mortality rate. For both to be high, or both low, would equally well bring the transition to a close, but transitionists assume that both will be low: that is the reason for calling the theory they support the Benign Demographic Transition Theory. As used in argumentation the theory implied that making people rich and comfortable would remove the threat of overpopulation. By 1969 a widely used population textbook called transition theory 'one of the best documented generalizations in the social sciences' {20}. Only a few years later the demographer Michael Teitelbaum expressed serious doubts: 'its explanatory power has come into increasing scientific doubt at the very time that it is achieving its greatest acceptance by nonscientists' {21}. In 1985 Teitelbaum and Winter spelled out a more forceful criticism: 'It is doubtful whether this theory was ever truly a theory at all (that is, a set of hypotheses with predictive force) ...' {22}. The literature undercutting the Benign Demographic Transition theory grows ever larger. Etienne van de Walle concludes that 'central Africa is one vast contradiction of the theory: mortality has fallen, and fertility has risen, for two generations, with no end in sight' {23}. Ester Boserup predicts that 'Population increase will be rapid in Africa for many decades ...' {24}. Demographers and other professional students of population have learned their lesson, but still the Benign Demographic Transition theory guides the work of those engaged in professional telephilanthropy - philanthropy targeted on people who are distant in space or ethnic characteristics. There are two reasons for the continued fashionability of the Benign Demographic Transition theory. First, it is a providential theory and hence eminently acceptable. Second, it justifies the jobs of those who are employed by telephilanthropic foundations. The persistence of hunger and poverty in distant lands after millions of dollars have been poured into them discourages domestic donors; an optimistic reference to the Benign Demographic transition can often quiet doubts and loosen purse-strings. As transition theory declined in prestige there developed a realization that perhaps the basic theory of human population dynamics was not providential after all. Perhaps the details of human behavoir needed to be studied more carefully? Fortunately the basis of this study was laid early in the nineteenth century, though it was noticed by virtually no one, probably because the resultant 'theory of the commons' is the very opposite of a providential theory. The Tragedy of the Commons The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus sought an explanation of his dismal theorem in the comparison of his two ratios (one of which we no longer defend). A better approach was taken by another man of the cloth in 1833, the year before Malthus died. This man was the Oxford mathematician and economist William Forster Lloyd. He showed how the properties of a distribution system, interacting with human nature, can produce unwanted effects. In a manner that would develop into a habit in science a century later, Lloyd began by setting up a 'model': Why are the cattle on a common so puny and stunted? Why is the common itself so bare-worn, and cropped so differently from the adjoining inclosures? ... The difference depends on the difference of the way in which an increase of stock in the two cases affects the circumstances of the author of the increase. If a person puts more cattle into his own field, the amount of the subsistence which they consume is all deducted from that which was at the command, of his original stock; and if, before, there was no more than a sufficiency of pasture, he reaps no benefit from the additional cattle, what is gained in one way being lost in another. But if he puts more cattle on a common, the food which they consume forms a deduction which is shared between all the cattle, as well that of others as his own, in proportion to their number, and only a small part of it is taken from his own cattle {25}. A careful reading shows that Lloyd had a clear conception of carrying capacity and the unfortunate consequences of exceeding it {26}. Short-run self-interest drives a herdsman in a common to add animals to his herd beyond the carrying capacity of the domain because the profit from so doing accrues to him alone, while the attendant costs caused by overpopulation are commonized over the entire community of herdsmen. In a common pasture that is managed by no powers other than chose of herdsmen acting individually, the exploiters are caught in a 'Double C - Double P Game' (CC - PP Game): Commonize the Costs while Privatizing the Profits {27}. Unhappily, in the long run all the herdsmen lose in an unmanaged common; but - so long as they cling to this system - they cannot escape ruin. Ruin that is both foreseen and inevitable is the very essence of Greek tragedy: recall, if you will, Oedipus Rex. The idea of the tragedy of the commons has ancient but modest roots. Antiquarians like to quote Aristotle: 'That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest' {28}. Aristotle's statement is undoubtedly a precursor of the theory of the commons, but it is not rich enough in meaning to generate the formal theory. The closest Aristotle's aphorism comes to mathematics is a vague hint of less and more. But what Lloyd said, though he used no mathematical symbols, has led to explicit mathematical equations {29}. The primary interest of the Oxford economist was not in malnourished cows but in human overpopulation. 'Marriage is a present good', he said, 'but in a community of goods, where the children are maintained at public tables, or where each family takes according to its necessities out of the common stock, these difficulties [impinging on the parents] are removed from the individual. They spread themselves, and overflow the whole surface of society, and press equally on every part.' {30} What Lloyd assumes in this model is a distribution system resembling the one Karl Marx praised 42 years later: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' {31}. Marx, ignorant of Lloyd's work, naively promoted his motto as a formula for felicity. It is puzzling that Lloyd should have so emphasized the dangers of commonizing the costs of child-rearing, for in his day and his community these costs were almost entirely privatized. Since Lloyd's time the commonization of the costs of child-rearing has gone much further and Lloyd's strictures are much more appropriate. Guilt-mongers of our time delight in blaming parents for the overpopulation of a nation: such has been the message of Zero Population Growth, Inc, an American organization operating principally on college campuses. ZPG literature never refers to Lloyd's work, This is a pity, for he pointed out long ago that 'the simple fact of a country being overpopulous ... is not, of itself, sufficient evidence that the fault lies in the people themselves, or a proof of the absence of a prudential disposition. The fault may rest, not with them as individuals, but with the constitution of the society, of which they form part' {32}. Not blame but mechanism was Lloyd's quarry as he puzzled over the persistence of human suffering. How was his work received in his day? Apparently it had little impact. The reasons were partly personal {33}. He suffered the handicap of being a member of a sickly family. In five years he gave only a very few lectures at Oxford and then, with private means, retired to Prestwood, Great Missenden, where he lived 'in apparent obscurity' until his death from a stroke at age fifty-eight. In 1953 the United Nations published a large and useful summary of population doctrines and beliefs under the title The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends. Out of a total of 330,000 words only 43 are devoted to Lloyd, and these occur at the end of a long footnote. Worse, in summarizing Lloyd's contribution to the theory of population this scholarly work gets his position 180 degrees wrong. (Since the book is the work of a committee we don't know whom to blame.) It's no wonder that the resurrection of Lloyd's work in 1968 came as a surprise {34}. Laissez-Faire and Equality Production, trade, distribution: what limits to freedom shall we impose on these interrelated functions? The laissez-faire position is that there should be complete freedom for the first two, while the third must be constrained by the rights of private property. Setting aside the vexed question of property, what about the first two functions? Looking at the world as it is, Walter Lippmann once wrote some revealing words (to which italics have here been added): The pure doctrine of non-intervention in production and trade has never in fact been practiced anywhere. Even Adam Smith, let alone John Stuart Mill, recognized exceptions to the rule. One could go further, I believe, and argue plausibly that most men have shown in their behaviour that they wished to impose free capitalism on others and to escape it themselves. Employers have believed in it for their employees, and have appealed to it against factory laws and unionism. But they have not hesitated to call upon the state for protection against foreign competitors. Manufacturers who had to ship goods have not hesitated much about regulating the railroads ... There is no reason to think that business men under capitalism have had any consistent conviction of laissez-faire. Their employees have certainly not had it, They have voted for tariffs when they were told their jobs depended upon them. They have voted to close the labor market by restricting immigration. They have voted for labor laws and they have organized unions. Like their employers they have believed in laissez-faire for others. {35} The paradox can be put in the following terms. However passionately theoreticians may cling to symmetry and reciprocity in elaborating their theories of production and trade, those who are actual practitioners of economic living can be just as passionate in defending asymmetry and non-reciprocity in their daily lives. The merits of the case, as concerns production and trade, will not be argued here: our present task is to take up the distribution function. The thrust of rhetorical pronouncements identified as 'idealistic' is symmetrical and reciprocal. Traditional religions, atheistical egalitarianism, and liberation theology all glorify equality in distribution. But intentions do not necessarily lead to accomplishment. Distributing a community's wealth in the light of Marx's ideal (From each ...) first produces inequality, and then (ultimately) widespread poverty. For two reasons: First, human abilities are the product of the interaction of innate abilities and training. People are unequal at birth, and education exaggerates their inequality. Consequently productivity varies fantastically from one individual to another. Second, what should be the grounds for allocating wealth? Idealists tell us that distribution should be according to a person's 'need'. But who determines 'need'? If agents of the state do so, freedom goes out as restraint and resentment come in. Revolution may be just around the corner. On the other hand, when each individual is the sole judge of his own need, the door is opened to greed. Adam Smith spoke of the 'insatiable desires' of the rich, but the desires of the poor can also be difficult to control. Rich or poor, people vary in their susceptibility to satiation. A political decision to satisfy variable 'needs' would end up giving greater rewards to the insatiable. Is that the 'fairness' that idealists seek? 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' defines a highly asymmetrical, non-reciprocal system of distribution. You must contribute to the common pot according to your ability, while I demand the right to take out of the pot according to my needs, as I reckon them. 'Need creates right', say I. But with every I saying this, in a world of shortages there can be no spontaneously generated stability. (If there were no shortages there would be no problem of course: but that does not describe our world.) We need to look at the commons from another point of view, namely its relation to responsibility. Unfortunately, most of the statements that include the word 'responsibility' are vacuous rhetoric. Typically, a politician who proclaims his responsibility thereby claims power; he will oppose attempts to make him operationally responsible for his errors. To serve the needs of society, responsibility needs to be defined in the following way; An agent is fully responsible when he pays all the costs of the benefits he receives. Is a distribution by the formula of the commons a responsible distribution? The formula for the system of the commons may be written as CC - PP: Commonize the Costs against everyone, but Privatize the Profits - to me. The first term of each dyad represents the actor, which is C in the first dyad and P in the second. Since the actors are different - C versus P - commonizing does not meet our operational definition of responsibility. Irresponsibility opens the door to malfunction and uncontrollable costs. Applications of the theory of the commons extend far beyond common pastures, far beyond overpopulation among human beings. For instance, the theory extends to the capture, by speculators, of gains in the value of real estate as a result of community development. This diversion of community wealth was vigorously condemned by Henry George. Robert Andelson has explained the deep equivalence of George's ideas and commons theory {36}. The theory extends to the dysfunctional multiplication of water projects made possible by the federal commonization called 'subsidies' {37}. The theory is applicable to all insurance schemes, which commonize the losses of a few among all those who subscribe to a system; though insurance is a defensible way of dealing with exceptional losses, it inevitably encourages carelessness and dishonesty. The theory of the commons also applies to the many variants of socialized medicine, as Howard Hiatt first made clear {38}. In the medical case the waste is due less to the abuse of the commonized system by hypochondriacs than it is to its exploitation by liability lawyers whose forensic creativity pushes physicians into the practice of 'defensive medicine', that is, the employment of expensive medical procedures that defend doctors against lawyers, producing a waste of resources that defrauds the general public. Like Proteus of the Greek myth, the irresponsible commons take on ever new forms in a society in which all too many people fail to keep in the forefronts of their minds the economists' anti-Providential assertion that 'There's no such thing as a free lunch'. In the pure case, commonizing leads to ruin. But the modern state operates as a 'mixed economy', and so ruin is less common than simple waste. Moreover, under conditions of true plenty the unmanaged commons is not only tolerable, it may also be the most economical way of exploiting the environment. When an American frontiersman shot a dozen passenger pigeons for his dinner he harmed no one. Restricting such activities of the pioneers would have been wasteful of human time and effort. Criticisms of the Commons Theory After the resurrection and elaboration of Lloyd's theory of the commons several papers were published arguing that even with shortages a commonized resource need not necessarily come to a bad end. Some of the criticisms are just and call for a clarification of the idea of 'commons'. Arthur F McEvoy (1987) spoke of 'the commons myth', maintaining that it: ... misrepresents the way common lands were used in the archetypical case (that is, England before the privatization of landed property). English farmers met twice a year at minor court to plan production for the coming months. On those occasions they certainly would have exchanged information about the state of their lands and sanctioned those who took more than their fair share from the common pool. Likewise, Italian, Chinese, and other immigrant fishing communities in late nineteenth century California kept very tight control over the allocation and harvest of their resources so as to produce what we would now call an optimum yield for their group. As the San Francisco Chronicle put it in 1907, 'if any Italian thinks it is possible to catch crabs for the market without joining the association, let him try it' {39}. McEvoy's criticism has merit, but the merit must be evaluated in the light of a remark made by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: 'All propositions are erroneous unless they are construed in reference to a background which we experience without any conscious analysis' {40}. Clearly, the background of the resources discussed by Lloyd (and later by myself) was one of non-management of the commons under conditions of scarcity. In contrast, the English farmers and Italian fishermen cited by McEvoy were managing access to the resources they were exploiting. The title of my 1968 paper should have been The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons'. The commons discussed by McEvoy were managed by forces that are variously called 'community pressure' or 'shame'. When pressures are given the legislated form of laws the result is sometimes called 'socialism'. By long tradition, the open ocean - far beyond the reach of national sovereignties - is an unmanaged common. That is why the stocks of most oceanic fisheries are now accelerating toward exhaustion. Oceanic fisheries haven't a chance of survival so long as their exploitation is guided by the rubric, 'freedom of the seas' (read, 'laissez-faire' once more). An apparent exception is the Alaska fur-seal resource which has prospered for nearly a century, but that is because the commons of its breeding grounds in the Pribilof Islands are in fact managed jointly by only two exploiters, Russia and the United States. A more serious case is that of air pollution which is out of control because the absorptive capacities of the atmosphere are created as unmanaged commons. As people have become concerned with the proven damage of acid rain and the possible disaster of an atmospheric greenhouse, nations have moved closer to converting the global atmosphere from an unmanaged common to a managed one. (The political roadblocks to this reform are, of course, formidable.) We should speak of the 'commons model', rather than the 'commons myth'. Both Lloyd and I investigated the logical properties of this model (though this use of the word 'model' did not develop until the twentieth century). Whether any particular case is a materialization of that model is a historical question - and of only secondary importance. What human ecologists are most concerned with are the commons of our time that are truly unmanaged (or poorly managed). After these have been identified the next question is, How can we bring about the successful management of the remaining, deteriorating commons? In a strict sense, it is not the commons that need managing, but the people who exploit them. Managing people requires a deep knowledge of human nature - but what is the nature of human beings? McEvoy is not satisfied with the answers he infers from the literature. He says that the 'shortcoming of the tragic myth of the commons is its strangely unidimensional picture of human nature. The farmers on Hardin's pasture do not seem to talk to one another. As individuals, they are alienated, rational, utility-maximizing automatons and little else. The sum total of their social life is the grim, Hobbesian struggle of each against all and all together against the pasture in which they are trapped.' This is a serious misapprehension of the evidence, as can be shown by abandoning the hypothetical model to examine some relevant empirical evidence. The Hutterites of northwestern North America have adapted their behaviour to the providential motto of Karl Marx. (Whether they even know about Marx is not important.) Each Hutterite gives such labor as he or she feels is reasonable to the community, and takes out of the common scores what he/she feels is needful. Hutterites are admirable and successful farmers, and they have discovered something about human nature and its bearing on the limitations of the commons that should interest everyone. John Baden and Richard Stroup describe the problem: There is a saying commonly heard among the Hutterites: 'All colonies (especially "other" colonies) have their drones'. Further, it is recognized that the number of 'drones' increases more than proportionately with an increase in colony size. Given that: (1) all goods are public goods, (2) individual economic incentives are minimal, and (3) material differentials are outlawed, a rational, maximizing person would operate to maximize his pleasure, including leisure. Included in such self-seeking activities are trips into town or to a neighboring ranch to 'check on' or 'pick up' something allegedly relevant to his assigned task. {41} Keeping in mind McEvoy's roster of the shortcomings of exploiters of the commons we must judge that the Hutterites are, on the testimony of Baden and Stroup, rational and utility-maximizing. But, to use McEvoy's term, are Hutterites alienated from their community? Far from it. Many independent accounts make it crystal clear that the Hutterites lead a richly communal life, far from a 'grim, Hobbesian struggle of each against all'. Though the word 'struggle' seems too violent and too colorful, some sort of competition does seem to be going on. No English word is entirely adequate to describe the low-key jostling of wills in a Hutterite community; the word 'competition' will have to do. The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'compete' as 'to strive after (something) in company or together'. It must be said that 'togetherness' is a specialty of Hutterites: as the community increases in size there's many a competition between 'gold-bricks' or 'goof-offs' to see who can get the cushy assignments on the community's work-roster. No bloodletting, no alienation: just quiet 'jockeying for position', to use an image from harness-racing. What is the result of this very human behavior? The Hutterites have learned that they can make the Marxian system of distribution work only within rather narrow limits: from (approximately) sixty to 150 persons in the colony. The lower limit is explained by the economist's favourite 'economies of scale'. The upper limit is explained by 'human nature', more mysterious but just as undeniable a reality as economies of scale. What aspect of human nature is involved in the control of a nominally unmanaged commons? Words are treacherous, but close observation of well-functioning groups exploiting a common resource - herdsmen, fishermen, Hutterite farmers, or whomever - leads to the strong feeling that it is old-fashioned shame that keeps would-be defectors in line. For this to work the size of the decision-making group must be small, apparently less than 150. Let us call this the Hutterite Limit. The observations needed to test the Hutterite limit have usually escaped recording. Traditional anthropology has not been sufficiently numerate to establish the effects of scale. Nevertheless some confirmations of the Hutterite limit have been recorded {42}, with no clear-cut disconfirmations. A study of population control in modern China showed the importance of close observation in discerning the effective social arrangements. The first observation indicated a group of two thousand people as the unit of control in Beijing. More careful observation showed that the actual unit within which control was exerted varied between 50 and 150 people {43}. Conclusion: the Hutterite limit was observed. Intuitively, the scale effect makes sense. It is a matter of common observation that the effectiveness of shame depends very much on face-to-face confrontations. It is easy for a small group to impose a feeling of shame on its errant members; in a large group, the feeling doesn't transmit well. It looks as though self-seeking is something of a biological constant, while shame is diluted by numbers. That is why formal, explicit government is more necessary in large groups than small. Idealists who feel repelled by explicit government - and such idealists are numerous in our society - should be advised to work for reductions in the size of the operational groups. Implicitly referring to groups of trans-Hutterite size, James Madison aptly made the connection between human nature and the necessity of government: Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no Government would be necessary. {44} Wise as it is, the last sentence cries out for correction: 'If all men (and women) were angels, no Government would be necessary'. Observations of unmanaged Commons ('no Government') show that when the Hutterite limit is transgressed non-conforming behavior (which may begin with a minority of one) is infective. The larger the group, the more rapid the infection. Destructive behavior that begins with a minority soon becomes the behavior of the majority. This makes sense. The non-conformer benefits from his actions in a community in which the majority conform to a self-denying ideal. As such a minority visibly prospers, another factor in human nature enters in; envy. One by one, hitherto self-denying conformers, envious of the prosperity of non-conformers, join the ranks of the less-than-angels. Positive feedback sets in. The ideal withers away. The process is sensitive to scale; only by keeping the size of the group small can shame triumph over envy. That this needs saying is evidence of the power of taboo. In the 1960s the 'Free Speech' movement in Berkeley effectively ended the taboo on many four-letter English words, but not on the four-letter word 'envy'. As Helmut Schoeck's scholarly study shows, envy is still one of the most powerfully tabooed words of our society {45}. Much that should be discussed under the subject of 'envy' is often automatically converted into the uncompromising assertion of 'rights'. Psychological denial not only lays a taboo on existent words, it can also slow the coinage of new ones that affront ruling attitudes. 'Optimism' was coined in 1737; 'pessimism' came along 57 years later. 'Shortage' was coined in 1868; 'longage' arrived 107 years later. Optimists who believe in Providence are energized by the word 'shortage' to look harder for more resources, which they are sure must be out there, someplace. To admit that there is a 'longage' of people or demands is to give up the belief in a providential plethora of resources. It is no wonder that 'longage' is not yet an accepted part of the popular vocabulary. The world of terrestrial resources is strictly limited, but not seriously so if we can learn to curb human demands. Given temperate demands, our world is vast - And has more than enough - for no more than enough. There is a shortage of nothing, save will and wisdom; But there is a longage of people. {46} Every asserted 'shortage' of supply can equally aptly be described as a 'longage' of demand. Those who trumpet 'shortages' are likely to fight vigorously for 'rights'. (Remember '... to each according to his needs'.) This position bespeaks an admirable egalitarian sentiment, but how does the natural environment fare in such a rhetorical environment? If 'needs' include the need to reproduce at will, the drive toward equality of per capita distribution will finally exhaust the environment. In an unmanaged - or weakly managed - common, 'shortage' implies 'rights' implies ruin. But if we admit that envy is a natural and powerful part of human nature, a part that needs to be curbed, we will speak less often of shortages of supplies and begin to think about longages of people and longages of human desires. When we see longage as the central problem there is a possibility that we may find ways of controlling the proportions of the various populations and the dimensions of their demands, thus making it possible for at least a modicum of the world's environmental riches to be passed on to our grandchildren. The rhetoric we speak reveals the models with which our minds do their work. The rhetoric we live by determines our effects upon the world. NOTES: {1} Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pages 181-182. {2} J B Bury, The Idea of Progress (1932; New York: Dover, 1955), page 73. {3} Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759; Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Classics, 1976), page 304. {4} V Stark, The History of Economics in its Relation to Social Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), page 24. {5} Ronald Hamowy, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), page 6. {6} Friedrich August Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), page 8. {7} Kenneth E. Boulding, The Image (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1956), page 117. {8} Garrett Hardin, Population, Evolution and Birth Control (2nd edition; San Francisco: W H Freeman, 1969), page 34. {9} Ibid, page 36. {10} Rose E Frisch, 'Demographic implications of the biological determinants of female fecundity', Social Biology, 22 (1975), page 22. {11} E P Hutchinson, The Population Debate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), page 345. (The passage is quoted from a work of Edmonds, 1828). {12} News report, Technology Review, 78, 4 (1976), page 24, {13} D E C Eversley, Social Theories of Fertility and the Malthusian Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), page 201. {14} J DuPaquier, A Fauve-Chamoux, and E Grebenik, editors, Malthus Past and Present (New York: Academic Press, 1983), page 345. {15} Josue de Castro, The Geography of Hunger (Boston: Little Brown, 1952). {16} Ibid, pages 21 and 24. {17} E P Hutchinson, loc. cit., page 131. {18} Etienne van de Walle [Book review], Population and Development Review, 13 (1987), pages 547-550. {19} Karl R Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957). {20} William Petersen, Population (2nd edition; New York: Macmillan, 1969), page 11. {21} Michael S Teitelbaum, 'Relevance of demographic transition theory for developing countries', Science, 188 (1975), page 420. {22} Michael S Teitelbaum and Jay M Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (Orlando, Florida: Academic Press, 1985), page 14. {23} Vide 8, supra. {24} Ester Boserup, 'Economic and demographic interrelationships in sub-Saharan Africa', Population and Development Review, 11 (1985), page 395. {25} William Forster Lloyd, Two Lectures on the Checks to Population (1833; facsimile edition; New York: Augustus M Kelley, 1968), pages 30-31. {26} Garrett Hardin, 'Sentiment, guilt, and reason in the management of wild herds', Cato Journal, 2 (1982), pages 823-833. {27} Garrett Hardin, Filters Against Folly (New York: Viking, 1985), chapter 10. {28} Aristotle, Politics (New York: Viking, 1971), page 27 (Book 2, chapter3). {29} Garrett Hardin and John Baden, editors, Managing the Commons (San Francisco: W H Freeman, 1977). See chapters by H V Muhsam, 'An algebraic theory of the commons' and Daniel Fife, 'Killing the goose'. {30} Lloyd, op cit, page 21. {31} Karl Marx, 'Critique of the Gotha program' in R C Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972), page 388. {32} Lloyd, op cit, pages 22-23. {33} Richard M. Romano, 'William Forster Lloyd - a non-Ricardian?, History of Political Economy, 9, 3 (1977), pages 412-441. {34} Garrett Hardin, 'The tragedy of the commons', Science, 162 (1968), pages 1243-1248. {35} Walter Lippman, The Method of Freedom (New York: Macmillan, 1934), pages 25-26. {36} Robert V Andelson, 'Commons Without Tragedy', this volume, chapter 2. {37} Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert (New York: Viking, 1986). {38} Howard H Hiatt, 'Protecting the medical commons: who is responsible?', New England Journal of Medicine, 293 (1975), pages 235-241. {39} Arthur F McEvoy, 'Toward an interactive theory of nature and culture: Ecology, production, and cognition in the California fishing industry', Environmental Review, 11 (1987), page 299. {40} Alfred North Whitehead, Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), pages 85-86. {41} John Baden and Richard Stroup, 'Choice, faith, and politics: the political economy of Hutterite communes'. Public Choice, 12 (1972), pages 1-11. {42} Nathan Keyfitz, Population and Biology, (Liege: Ordina Editions, 1986), page 150. {43} Ruth & Victor W Sidel, 'Medicine in China: individual and society', Hastings Center Studies, 2, 3 (1974), pages 23-36. {44} James Madison (1788), in The Federalist, Number 50 (New York: Scribner, 1893), page 360. {45} Helmut Schoeck, Envy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969). {46} Garrett Hardin, 'Carrying Capacity' in Stalking the Wild Taboo (Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, 1976), pages 260-261. Garrett Hardin (Ph D, Stanford University), professor emeritus of human ecology, University of California at Santa Barbara, is generally recognized as one of the seminal thinkers of our time. His books include Nature and Man's Fate (1959), Exploring New Ethics for Survival (1972), Naked Emperors: Essays of a Taboo-Stalker (1982), and Filters Against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent (1985). His most widely-reprinted articles are 'The Tragedy of the Commons' (1968) and 'Living on a Lifeboat' (1974). http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From noreply at coha.org Wed Sep 10 07:56:13 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:56:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Brazilian Military Is Back, As It Fleshes Out Its Weaponry And Strategies Message-ID: <20080910135556.7626B3E5828@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4351 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/acfc1fcb/attachment.txt From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 08:40:23 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:40:23 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?utf-8?q?From_the_Cuban_Underground=2C_a_Punk_Rocker?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Protest_Reverberates?= Message-ID: <48C7A416.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06gorki.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin > The Saturday Profile > From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rocker's Protest Reverberates > By MARC LACEY > Published: September 5, 2008 > THE Cuban government has remained quiet about Gorki's recent > legal troubles. Some supporters have spoken up, though. Walter > Lippmann, an American who runs an e-mail news service that > collects material critical of Washington's embargo on Cuba, > recently wrote, "He helps clarify the precise meaning of the > word 'punk' in the term 'punk rock.' " I notice the article quoted Walter Lippmann. I wish the reporter had mentioned the name of the news service, which would have helped curious readers track it down. Yoshie ^^^ You are right. Hopefully , the more savvy ones will put "Walter Lippmann Cuba" in a search engine. Charles This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From pbond at mail.ngo.za Wed Sep 10 08:58:38 2008 From: pbond at mail.ngo.za (Patrick Bond) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:58:38 +0200 Subject: [A-List] (Fwd) The paradox of capital flows from South to North Message-ID: <48C7E09E.4090802@mail.ngo.za> (Comrades who know the various theories of imperialism, especially Michael Hudson and Henry C.K. Lieu, would this sort of analysis below bolster a Luxemburgist approach - in contrast to Lenin who more explicitly described capital export from the North - and would it have any obvious political/policy implications for the left, e.g. restoration of capital controls?) TWN Info Service on Finance and Development (Sep08/05) 10 September 2008 Third World Network www.twnside.org.sg THE PARADOX OF CAPITAL FLOWS FROM SOUTH TO NORTH The capital-poor developing world is lately exporting more capital to developed countries than it receives, a ?puzzle? that approach for financing development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has found. In its Trade and Development Report 2008, UNCTAD said that the puzzle is all the more intriguing because many of these capital-exporting countries have been achieving higher rates of investment and growth than those that rely on the standard economic model of net capital imports. The report questioned the traditional theoretical framework and suggested a new approach to the financing of development, focussing less on capital imports and on increasing household savings, and more on the financing of investment from enterprise profits and from domestic bank credit. Below is a summary of UNCTAD?s findings. It was published in SUNS #6544, Monday, 8 September 2008. This article is reproduced here with the permission of the SUNS. Reproduction or recirculation requires permission of SUNS (sunstwn at bluewin.ch). With best wishes Martin Khor TWN The Paradox of Capital Flows from South to North By Kanaga Raja, Geneva, 5 September 2008* The capital-poor developing world is lately exporting more capital to developed countries than it receives, a ?puzzle? that approach for financing development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has found. In its Trade and Development Report 2008, UNCTAD said that the puzzle is all the more intriguing because many of these capital-exporting countries have been achieving higher rates of investment and growth than those that rely on the standard economic model of net capital imports. The report questioned the traditional theoretical framework and suggested a new approach to the financing of development, focussing less on capital imports and on increasing household savings, and more on the financing of investment from enterprise profits and from domestic bank credit. Using this approach, said UNCTAD, developing countries in many cases can avoid dependence on foreign capital inflows by applying appropriate macroeconomic and exchange-rate policies. A strong increase in official development assistance (ODA) is nevertheless required to help poor, commodity-dependent countries meet the millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations. According to the report, the beginning of the Millennium saw the shift of developing countries as a group from net capital importers to net capital exporters. Indeed, since the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, capital has increasingly been flowing ?uphill? -- from poor to rich countries. The magnitude of this new phenomenon has caused some observers to conclude that some developing countries have been creating a global ?savings glut?. The emergence of developing countries as net capital exporters contrasts with expectations derived from standard growth theories. These theories postulate that with open capital markets, capital will flow from rich to poor countries in order to exploit the higher expected rates of return on capital and bridge the ?savings gap? in capital-scarce countries. The theories also predict that capital inflows will spur economic growth. However, said the report, these predictions are not supported by developments over the past few years. Not only is capital flowing ?uphill?, but net capital-exporting developing countries also tend to grow faster and invest more than those developing countries that receive net capital inflows. Thus, higher rates of investment for diversification and structural change do not always require current-account deficits or net capital inflows, as suggested by standard economic models. Indeed, many developing countries, particularly in Latin America, failed to achieve higher productive investment under the mainstream approach because the monetary and financial policies that attracted waves of capital inflows also led to high domestic financing costs and to currency appreciation. These developments also call into question another hypothesis of standard economic theory, namely that there is a close and positive relationship between capital account liberalization and economic growth. The divergence between these expectations and empirical findings has been described as a ?puzzle?. However, this divergence is puzzling only if viewed from the perspective of the basic tenets of neoclassical economic theory, particularly the idea that the evolution of the current account is driven by the behaviour of a representative agent that has perfect foresight and maximizes an inter-temporal utility function. It is not puzzling once it is recognized that these assumptions do not reflect what actually happens in the real world. According to the report, a main finding is that in countries which are heavily dependent on primary commodities, swings in the current account are driven to a large extent by changes in commodity prices, and that in countries with more diversified export and production structures, the real exchange rate plays the key role in determining changes in the current-account balance. Particularly, the latter finding is in line with recent research that has shown not only that an overvalued exchange rate has detrimental effects on the external balance, but also that a competitive real exchange rate is a key factor for achieving growth of aggregate demand in the short run and of employment in the long run. Out of 113 developing countries and transition economies, 42 were net exporters of capital in 2002-2006. And 60 saw improvements in their current account balances in this period compared with 1992-1996. The reversal of the current-account balances of developing countries started around 1998, probably largely in response to the wave of financial crises that hit the developing world in the second half of the 1990s. The reversal was driven mainly by emerging-market economies. The observation that the overall improvement in the current-account balances is mainly attributable to emerging-market economies can be explained by the fact that the other countries had only limited access to international capital markets and were only marginally affected by the financial crises of the last 10 years. This observation is even more perplexing from the perspective of mainstream economic theory, because it is the emerging-market economies that, due to their greater openness to the international financial markets, would be expected to benefit the most from net capital inflows (or inflows of ?foreign savings?), and thus have greater current-account deficits. Yet, it was in the Asian emerging-market economies in particular that greater gross inflows were more than offset by gross outflows. Evidence shows that current account reversals are typically preceded by positive terms-of-trade shocks and real depreciations, and that the subsequent improvement in the current-account balance enables implementation of a more investment and growth-friendly monetary policy stance, said the report. It noted that a significant number of empirical findings call into question the predictions of neoclassical growth models. While both the structure of these models and the econometric techniques designed to test the validity of their predictions have been developed further with a view to reconciling the differences between these empirical findings with the model's predictions, the remaining difference is often interpreted in a somewhat ad hoc fashion as pointing to structural problems of developing countries -- such as imperfections of their financial markets -- or policy failures. Movements in the real exchange rate and commodity prices are the most frequent shocks for developing countries, and they have immediate and quantitatively significant consequences for trade and current-account balances. An increase in the current-account deficit as a result of an appreciation of the real exchange rate and a concomitant loss of competitiveness of domestic producers may be temporarily financed by a net capital inflow, but it will sooner or later require some form of adjustment -- normally a real depreciation. Indeed, exchange-rate over-valuation has been the most frequent and the most ?reliable? predictor of the financial crises that have characterized the developing world over the past 15 years. One of the outstanding features of the economic process is its proneness to shocks and cyclicality. It is of the utmost importance for sustained growth and catching up that macroeconomic policies effectively absorb shocks, allow a quick resolution of cyclical disturbances and provide enterprises with a stable environment conducive to investment in productive capacity, said the report. Monetary instability, periods of hyperinflation and frequent financial crises have often forced many developing countries to adopt economic policies that generate the exact opposite of what would be favourable investment conditions. ?Sound macroeconomic policies? as prescribed by the Washington Consensus, combined with financial liberalization, seldom led to the desired result of higher investment and faster growth, whereas the alternative policy approaches helped the newly industrializing economies of East and South-East Asia to accelerate their catch-up process. In Asia, accommodative and stimulating monetary policies, with low policy interest rates and government intervention in the financial markets, have been accompanied by undervalued exchange rates since the financial crisis in 1997-1998. Fiscal policy has been used pragmatically to stimulate demand whenever that was required to respond to cyclical developments. In South, East and South-East Asia, the policy interest rate (in real and nominal terms) has been, on average, consistently lower than the growth rate (in real and nominal terms) over the past 20 years, except during the Asian financial crisis. By contrast, said the report, policy interest rates have been considerably higher in Latin America, where monetary policy has focused entirely on avoiding inflation, with the result that investment ratios and growth rates remained low. It is only since 2003 that more accommodative monetary policies and an overall good growth performance have prevailed in the majority of the countries in that region. In pursuing the agenda of the Washington Consensus, which aimed at ?getting the prices right?, many countries got two of the most important prices -- the exchange rate and the interest rate -- wrong. To be sure, a stable environment conducive to investment in productive capacity must include price stability. Countries that are prone to high and accelerating inflation may find it more difficult to start and sustain a process of development and catching up than countries with a history of price stability. It is mainly international speculation searching for interest arbitrage and gains from exchange-rate appreciation that makes it difficult to prevent currency over-valuation and financial crises. Revaluation of currencies as a result of speculative capital flows undermines the normal functioning of the exchange-rate mechanism that would prevent the emergence of large and persistent current-account deficits. The report stressed that strengthened international cooperation in macroeconomic and financial policy may be required to contain speculative capital flows and reduce their damaging impact on the stability of the world economy. Such cooperation could also help prevent governments from manipulating exchange rates to improve the international competitiveness of their economies. A framework of international rules governing international monetary and financial relations similar to those governing the use of trade policy measures in agreements of the World Trade Organization could lend greater coherence to the system of global economic governance. The report noted that the UNCTAD Secretary-General has suggested the adoption of a code of conduct aimed at preventing the manipulation of exchange rates, wage rates, taxes or subsidies in the competition for higher market shares and at preventing the financial markets from driving the competitive positions of nations in the wrong direction. For example, major changes in the nominal exchange rate should be subject to multilateral oversight and negotiations. Only if such rules were to apply could all trading parties avoid unjustified overall loss or gains of competitiveness, and developing countries could systematically avoid the trap of over-valuation that has been one of the greatest impediments to prosperity in the past. The report also featured another fundamental departure from mainstream theory: an increase in household savings, which is difficult or even impossible because of low per capita incomes in developing countries, is not necessary to raise investment. It proposes an alternative view on the savings-investment relationship where the financing of investment depends primarily on savings from corporate profits and on the potential of the banking system to create credit. In this view, the prerequisites for higher investment are no longer households ?putting more money aside? or the availability of ?foreign savings,? but improved conditions for reinvestment of company profits and for an enhanced role for credit created by the banking sector as it seeks to provide long-term investment financing. An influential strand of economic thought views investment as being financed from a savings pool created mainly by household savings. According to this view, entrepreneurial investment will be maximized by increasing national savings and the efficiency of financial intermediation. Policy recommendations stemming from this view include lowering fiscal expenditure to improve government fiscal accounts, and increasing household savings rates and capital imports (?foreign savings?) through higher interest rates. The report said that an alternative approach to the financing of investment -- associated with Keynes and in particular Schumpeter suggests that capital accumulation in industry is financed primarily by savings from corporate profits, while the contribution of voluntary household savings to productive investment is considered relatively less important. The report recalled that in examining the successful economic catch-up of the East Asian economies in the post-Second World War period, UNCTAD had emphasized the importance of the link between corporate profits and savings and a dynamic profit-investment nexus. It attributed high national savings rates to high corporate savings, rather than to high household savings. From a macroeconomic perspective, domestic sources of finance are more appropriate and quantitatively more important than foreign ones. From the perspective of firms, self-financing from retained earnings is the most important and most reliable source for financing investment, with bank loans playing an important complementary role. The report suggested that financing instruments out of retained profits could be promoted by a range of fiscal incentives, such as preferential tax treatment for reinvested or retained profits, or special depreciation allowances. Noting that bank credit is the second most important source of financing for enterprises, particularly for new businesses and small and medium-sized firms, the report emphasized that the power of banking systems to create credit based on liquidity provided by central banks has to be combined with strong institutional arrangements and additional policy instruments to maintain price stability. UNCTAD recommended a stronger role for governments in influencing the direction of credit to strategically important sectors and activities. This can take, for example, the form of direct provision of credit by public financial institutions or interest subsidies for selected projects. Stricter control of lending for consumption or speculative purposes could also encourage credit allocation to investment projects. In instances where high lending rates reflect high perceived risks, government guarantees might be considered for loans to finance promising investment projects of firms that otherwise might have limited or no access to longer term bank credit. Adequate regulation and supervision of the financial sector, particularly the effective monitoring of foreign-currency-denominated debt, is essential for maintaining sound balance sheets of financial institutions, said the report, adding that strict standards of corporate transparency and clear and consistent rules for access to overseas borrowing would help prevent speculative currency positions also in balance sheets in the non-financial sector. Governance structures of public financial institutions should be designed in such a way that the direct and indirect benefits arising from their activities accrue to the economy as a whole (and over a longer time horizon than the one usually considered by the private sector for profit maximization). Without proactive public intervention, it is highly unlikely that the undesired consequences of market failures and segmentation of the financial system can be overcome. A proactive policy, rather than ignoring the persistent financial market imperfections and segmentation, could develop new channels for financing economically and socially important activities (such as manufacturing, agriculture and infrastructure) and actors (such as small and innovative firms) which tend otherwise to be marginalised. The report also noted that although more and more developing countries have significantly reduced dependence on foreign capital flows and have even become net exporters of capital, most poor, commodity-dependent nations with insufficiently diversified production structures continue to rely on foreign capital inflows to finance imports of essential capital goods. For a realistic chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty by 2015, overseas development assistance to poor nations would need to be increased by $50-$60 billion a year above current levels, the report concluded. * This is the second part of a two-part article on the Trade and Development Report 2008. The first part was published in SUNS #6543 dated 5 September 2008. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm _______________________________________________ DEBATE mailing list DEBATE at debate.kabissa.org http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 09:56:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:56:01 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?utf-8?q?_Once_Spurned=2C_McCain_Finds_Corporate_Suppor?= =?utf-8?q?t_+_McCain=E2=80=99s_Bounce_Gives_Him_5-Point_Lead?= Message-ID: <48C7B5D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Once Spurned, McCain Finds Corporate Support + McCain?s Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead The Democrats manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory again? -- Yoshie ^^^^ CB: This ultra leftist claim that the DP snatches defeat from the jaws of victory needs to be reexamined. The DP only snatches defeat from the jaws of victory in the sense that it doesn't pander to racism for votes, i.e. it doesn't desert Black people. The left mantra that the DP is the place where social movements go to die is false, when one really examines the facts of the social movements - labor, civil rights, peace - of the last 75 years. The DP made itself the instrument for achieving the main demands of the anti-Jim Crow civil rights movement. Contrary to the notion of going to the DP to die, the Civil Rights Movement went to the DP to win its biggest victories against Jim Crow. The DP is still paying a price today among racist voters for being the Party of Black people. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 10:26:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:26:08 -0400 Subject: [A-List] 16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq Message-ID: <48C7BCDF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:48:50 GMT Sixteen US troops from the a unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say. Iraqi security sources have revealed that 21 US troops had committed suicide inside a former Iraqi air force base 27 days ago, Fars News Agency reported on Monday. According to the sources, the 21 troops were treated in a hospital but only five soldiers have survived and they are in a critical condition. Security officials said they used potent narcotics to kill themselves. The troops' motivations for suicide are not known but according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to a unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families-- mostly women and children-- in northern Baghdad, said Ali al-Baghdadi an Iraqi security official. The suicides took place in the soldiers' dormitory after the dinner time. "The bodies of the US troops became misshapen such a way that they looked like 5000-year mummies," said a witness. According to Iraqi officials' estimates, some 600 US troops, including senior officers, have committed suicide in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003. Half of the suicide attempts have been successful. SB/DA This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 10:46:25 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:46:25 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Mass suicide of american troops ? Message-ID: <48C7C1A1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Louis Proyect : This item strikes me as bogus. Greg McDonald wrote: > 16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq > Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:48:50 GMT > Sixteen US troops from the a unit of the Airborne Division have > committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources Well I certainly hope you are correct, Louis. I got the article from an Iranian source, below, and have not been able to find any other source to support the claim. Greg This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 11:26:13 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:26:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Having Opted Out of Public Financing, Obama Is Now Scrambling for Money Message-ID: September 9, 2008 Straining to Reach Money Goal, Obama Presses Donors By MICHAEL LUO and JEFF ZELENY After months of record-breaking fund-raising, a new sense of urgency in Senator Barack Obama's fund-raising team is palpable as the full weight of the campaign's decision to bypass public financing for the general election is suddenly upon it. Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts "extremely anemic." At a convention-week meeting in Denver of the campaign's top fund-raisers, buttons with the image of a money tree were distributed to those who had already contributed the maximum $2,300 to the general election, a subtle reminder to those who had failed to ante up. The signs of concern have become evident in recent weeks as early fund-raising totals have suggested that Mr. Obama's decision to bypass public financing may not necessarily afford him the commanding financing advantage over Senator John McCain that many had originally predicted. Presidential candidates in a general election have typically relied on two main sources of money: public financing, along with additional money their parties raise. In choosing to accept the public money, the McCain campaign now gets an $84 million cash infusion from the United States Treasury. Mr. McCain is barred from raising any more money for his own campaign coffers but can lean on money raised by the Republican National Committee, which has continued to exceed expectations. Meanwhile, Obama campaign officials had calculated that with its vaunted fund-raising machine, driven by both small contributors over the Internet and a powerful high-dollar donor network, it made more sense to forgo public financing so they could raise and spend unlimited sums. But the campaign is struggling to meet ambitious fund-raising goals it set for the campaign and the party. It collected in June and July far less from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's donors than originally projected. Moreover, Mr. McCain, unlike Mr. Obama, will have the luxury of concentrating almost entirely on campaigning instead of raising money, as Mr. Obama must do. The Obama campaign does not have to report its August fund-raising totals until next week, so it is difficult to tally what it has in the bank at this point. A spokesman said that August was its best fund-raising month yet and that the campaign's fund-raising was on track. But the campaign finished July with slightly less cash on hand with the Democratic National Committee compared with Mr. McCain and the R.N.C. The Obama campaign has also been spending heavily, including several million more than the McCain campaign in advertising in August. A California fund-raiser familiar with the party's August performance estimated that it raised roughly $17 million last month, a drop-off from the previous month, and finished with just $13 million in the bank. Still, the Obama campaign said last Thursday that it had raised $10 million over the Internet in the 24 hours after the speech by Mr. McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, at the Republican convention on Wednesday, a one-day record for the campaign. David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, said the majority of the Obama campaign's donors during the primary had yet to write checks for the general election. When they do, he said, it will be the equivalent of the large injection of cash the McCain campaign is receiving from the government ? about $70 million or $80 million. "We're confident that we will meet our financial goals, but it's hard work," Mr. Plouffe said. "We have a long way to go in the next six weeks." Members of Mr. Obama's national finance committee were briefed during the convention in Denver by Mr. Plouffe. Penny Pritzker, the Obama finance chairwoman, announced new state-by-state fund-raising goals. The decidedly business-oriented nature of the meeting reflected the burden on the Obama campaign in the coming weeks. "I think McCain made the right call," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who managed Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996. "The Republican National Committee is strong. They have the resources to make this race almost financially on par." Democratic strategists disagree, pointing out that campaign finance rules impose serious restrictions on Mr. McCain's ability to fully make use of his party's bank account. "It's not just the limitation of dollars when you accept public financing, it's the limitations that go with that spending," said Tad Devine, a senior strategist for Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004. Mr. Devine added that choosing to accept public financing was the Kerry campaign's single biggest mistake because it limited the campaign's resources. The McCain campaign had by far its best fund-raising month ever in August, when it collected $47 million for its coffers and $22 million for the party, finishing the month with more than $100 million in the bank that will now be at the disposal of the R.N.C., according to several finance officials. McCain fund-raisers said they also hope to raise an additional $100 million for the party in September and in October, taking advantage of the sizable contribution limits for the party. The party's Internet fund-raising has also picked up significantly since the announcement that Ms. Palin would join the Republican ticket. Combined with the $84 million from public financing, that would leave the McCain campaign with about $300 million at its disposal. A recent e-mail message to McCain fund-raisers unveiled new incentives to spur them in their final push. For the primary, anyone who raised $100,000 or more earned the title of Trailblazer, while those who raised $250,000 or more became Innovators. Now Trailblazers who raise another $100,000 for the party for the general election can become Super-Trailblazers, and Innovators who raise another $250,000 earn the title of Super-Innovators. Officials have also sketched out plans for Ms. Palin to do some 35 fund-raisers over the next two months. Mr. McCain will be dispatched for only four major fund-raisers: one on Monday night in Chicago, in which the party raised about $4 million; another next week in Miami, then Los Angeles and New York in October, finance officials said. But even if the McCain finance team, led by Lewis M. Eisenberg, a former Goldman Sachs executive, and Wayne L. Berman, a Washington lobbyist, meets its goals, the campaign will have complete control over only the $84 million from the federal government, as well as $19 million in party money that is permitted to be used in coordination with the campaign. The Republican Party can spend unlimited amounts of its money independent of the McCain campaign. It can also split the costs of so-called hybrid advertisements with the campaign, commercials that must promote not only Mr. McCain but also other Republicans down the ticket, something media strategists said could be ineffective when trying to create a cohesive message. Nevertheless, McCain fund-raisers pointed out the pressure is now on the Obama campaign to raise far more than it ever has before. The Obama campaign set a goal in mid-June of raising $300 million for the campaign and about $150 million for the Democratic Party over four-and-a-half months, fund-raisers said. As of the end of July, however, the Obama campaign was well short of the $100 million a month pace it had set, taking in about $77 million between the campaign and the party that month. It is not yet clear whether the Obama campaign will be able to ratchet up its fund-raising enough in the final two months of the campaign to make up the difference. Even Mr. Obama's fund-raisers in Illinois were admonished in an e-mail message last Thursday to step up their efforts to "show the other regions that his home state still has it." The donors, who were also reminded they had each promised to collect $300,000 for the campaign, were asked to raise $25,000 each for an event on Sept. 22 at a Chicago museum. The new state-by-state goals unveiled by campaign officials in Denver stunned at least some in the room and included sizable increases for at least some states, according to interviews with several Obama fund-raisers. The campaign has created a fund-raising committee, the Campaign for Change, which allows fund-raisers to harvest additional checks of more than $30,000 that will then be divvied up among state Democratic Parties in 18 battleground states, with Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan receiving the most. In a campaign swing through South Florida over Labor Day weekend, Mr. Obama's vice-presidential running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., met with several small groups of major donors and sent out an e-mail appeal to supporters of his own unsuccessful presidential campaign, as well as to Jewish supporters. The effort brought in more than $1 million in four days. Campaign officials expect their Internet fund-raising engine to ramp up as the election approaches. And they hope that much of the high-dollar fund-raising can be done without Mr. Obama. In the New York area alone, there are some 18 events planned in September, all with surrogates, including Mrs. Clinton, Caroline Kennedy and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. But campaign officials conceded that Mr. Obama inevitably will have to make some appearances. On Friday night in New Jersey, Mr. Obama devoted five hours for two fund-raising events, including one at the home of the singer Jon Bon Jovi, in which the ticket was $30,800 a person. Mr. Obama is also scheduled to appear at back-to-back fund-raisers in Los Angeles on Sept. 16. From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 10 11:36:06 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:36:06 -0400 Subject: [A-List] (Fwd) The paradox of capital flows from South to North In-Reply-To: <48C7E09E.4090802@mail.ngo.za> Message-ID: Adam Smith explained the reason, when he said that countries that had the highest interest rates were often those that were going fastest to ruin. Third World countries have the most unequal wealth distribution, especially as privatization has created a class of billionaire kleptocrats. They become cosmopolitan, sending as much of their money as they can abroad to diversify (e.g., Russians buying English soccer teams). Also, the World Bank and IMF have imposed a debt-intensive Washington Consensus, where debt service becomes the major chronic balance-of-payments drain. This is the result of ?free? capital movements ? a freedom that reduces these countries to national debt peonage. Michael On 9/10/08 10:58 AM, "Patrick Bond" wrote: > (Comrades who know the various theories of imperialism, especially > Michael Hudson and Henry C.K. Lieu, would this sort of analysis below > bolster a Luxemburgist approach - in contrast to Lenin who more > explicitly described capital export from the North - and would it have > any obvious political/policy implications for the left, e.g. restoration > of capital controls?) > > TWN Info Service on Finance and Development (Sep08/05) > > 10 September 2008 > > Third World Network > > www.twnside.org.sg THE PARADOX OF CAPITAL FLOWS FROM SOUTH TO NORTH > > The capital-poor developing world is lately exporting more capital to > developed countries than it receives, a ?puzzle? that approach for > financing development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development > (UNCTAD) has found. > > In its Trade and Development Report 2008, UNCTAD said that the puzzle is > all the more intriguing because many of these capital-exporting > countries have been achieving higher rates of investment and growth than > those that rely on the standard economic model of net capital imports. > > The report questioned the traditional theoretical framework and > suggested a new approach to the financing of development, focussing less > on capital imports and on increasing household savings, and more on the > financing of investment from enterprise profits and from domestic bank > credit. > > Below is a summary of UNCTAD?s findings. It was published in SUNS #6544, > Monday, 8 September 2008. > > This article is reproduced here with the permission of the SUNS. > Reproduction or recirculation requires permission of SUNS > (sunstwn at bluewin.ch). > > With best wishes > > Martin Khor > > TWN > > > The Paradox of Capital Flows from South to North > > By Kanaga Raja, Geneva, 5 September 2008* > > The capital-poor developing world is lately exporting more capital to > developed countries than it receives, a ?puzzle? that approach for > financing development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development > (UNCTAD) has found. > > In its Trade and Development Report 2008, UNCTAD said that the puzzle is > all the more intriguing because many of these capital-exporting > countries have been achieving higher rates of investment and growth than > those that rely on the standard economic model of net capital imports. > > The report questioned the traditional theoretical framework and > suggested a new approach to the financing of development, focussing less > on capital imports and on increasing household savings, and more on the > financing of investment from enterprise profits and from domestic bank > credit. > > Using this approach, said UNCTAD, developing countries in many cases can > avoid dependence on foreign capital inflows by applying appropriate > macroeconomic and exchange-rate policies. A strong increase in official > development assistance (ODA) is nevertheless required to help poor, > commodity-dependent countries meet the millennium Development Goals set > by the United Nations. > > According to the report, the beginning of the Millennium saw the shift > of developing countries as a group from net capital importers to net > capital exporters. Indeed, since the Asian financial crisis in > 1997-1998, capital has increasingly been flowing ?uphill? -- from poor > to rich countries. The magnitude of this new phenomenon has caused some > observers to conclude that some developing countries have been creating > a global ?savings glut?. > > The emergence of developing countries as net capital exporters contrasts > with expectations derived from standard growth theories. These theories > postulate that with open capital markets, capital will flow from rich to > poor countries in order to exploit the higher expected rates of return > on capital and bridge the ?savings gap? in capital-scarce countries. The > theories also predict that capital inflows will spur economic growth. > > However, said the report, these predictions are not supported by > developments over the past few years. Not only is capital flowing > ?uphill?, but net capital-exporting developing countries also tend to > grow faster and invest more than those developing countries that receive > net capital inflows. > > Thus, higher rates of investment for diversification and structural > change do not always require current-account deficits or net capital > inflows, as suggested by standard economic models. Indeed, many > developing countries, particularly in Latin America, failed to achieve > higher productive investment under the mainstream approach because the > monetary and financial policies that attracted waves of capital inflows > also led to high domestic financing costs and to currency appreciation. > > These developments also call into question another hypothesis of > standard economic theory, namely that there is a close and positive > relationship between capital account liberalization and economic growth. > > The divergence between these expectations and empirical findings has > been described as a ?puzzle?. However, this divergence is puzzling only > if viewed from the perspective of the basic tenets of neoclassical > economic theory, particularly the idea that the evolution of the current > account is driven by the behaviour of a representative agent that has > perfect foresight and maximizes an inter-temporal utility function. It > is not puzzling once it is recognized that these assumptions do not > reflect what actually happens in the real world. > > According to the report, a main finding is that in countries which are > heavily dependent on primary commodities, swings in the current account > are driven to a large extent by changes in commodity prices, and that in > countries with more diversified export and production structures, the > real exchange rate plays the key role in determining changes in the > current-account balance. Particularly, the latter finding is in line > with recent research that has shown not only that an overvalued exchange > rate has detrimental effects on the external balance, but also that a > competitive real exchange rate is a key factor for achieving growth of > aggregate demand in the short run and of employment in the long run. > > Out of 113 developing countries and transition economies, 42 were net > exporters of capital in 2002-2006. And 60 saw improvements in their > current account balances in this period compared with 1992-1996. > > The reversal of the current-account balances of developing countries > started around 1998, probably largely in response to the wave of > financial crises that hit the developing world in the second half of the > 1990s. The reversal was driven mainly by emerging-market economies. The > observation that the overall improvement in the current-account balances > is mainly attributable to emerging-market economies can be explained by > the fact that the other countries had only limited access to > international capital markets and were only marginally affected by the > financial crises of the last 10 years. > > This observation is even more perplexing from the perspective of > mainstream economic theory, because it is the emerging-market economies > that, due to their greater openness to the international financial > markets, would be expected to benefit the most from net capital inflows > (or inflows of ?foreign savings?), and thus have greater current-account > deficits. Yet, it was in the Asian emerging-market economies in > particular that greater gross inflows were more than offset by gross > outflows. > Evidence shows that current account reversals are typically preceded by > positive terms-of-trade shocks and real depreciations, and that the > subsequent improvement in the current-account balance enables > implementation of a more investment and growth-friendly monetary policy > stance, said the report. > > It noted that a significant number of empirical findings call into > question the predictions of neoclassical growth models. While both the > structure of these models and the econometric techniques designed to > test the validity of their predictions have been developed further with > a view to reconciling the differences between these empirical findings > with the model's predictions, the remaining difference is often > interpreted in a somewhat ad hoc fashion as pointing to structural > problems of developing countries -- such as imperfections of their > financial markets -- or policy failures. > > Movements in the real exchange rate and commodity prices are the most > frequent shocks for developing countries, and they have immediate and > quantitatively significant consequences for trade and current-account > balances. An increase in the current-account deficit as a result of an > appreciation of the real exchange rate and a concomitant loss of > competitiveness of domestic producers may be temporarily financed by a > net capital inflow, but it will sooner or later require some form of > adjustment -- normally a real depreciation. Indeed, exchange-rate > over-valuation has been the most frequent and the most ?reliable? > predictor of the financial crises that have characterized the developing > world over the past 15 years. > > One of the outstanding features of the economic process is its proneness > to shocks and cyclicality. It is of the utmost importance for sustained > growth and catching up that macroeconomic policies effectively absorb > shocks, allow a quick resolution of cyclical disturbances and provide > enterprises with a stable environment conducive to investment in > productive capacity, said the report. > > Monetary instability, periods of hyperinflation and frequent financial > crises have often forced many developing countries to adopt economic > policies that generate the exact opposite of what would be favourable > investment conditions. ?Sound macroeconomic policies? as prescribed by > the Washington Consensus, combined with financial liberalization, seldom > led to the desired result of higher investment and faster growth, > whereas the alternative policy approaches helped the newly > industrializing economies of East and South-East Asia to accelerate > their catch-up process. > > In Asia, accommodative and stimulating monetary policies, with low > policy interest rates and government intervention in the financial > markets, have been accompanied by undervalued exchange rates since the > financial crisis in 1997-1998. Fiscal policy has been used pragmatically > to stimulate demand whenever that was required to respond to cyclical > developments. In South, East and South-East Asia, the policy interest > rate (in real and nominal terms) has been, on average, consistently > lower than the growth rate (in real and nominal terms) over the past 20 > years, except during the Asian financial crisis. > > By contrast, said the report, policy interest rates have been > considerably higher in Latin America, where monetary policy has focused > entirely on avoiding inflation, with the result that investment ratios > and growth rates remained low. It is only since 2003 that more > accommodative monetary policies and an overall good growth performance > have prevailed in the majority of the countries in that region. > > In pursuing the agenda of the Washington Consensus, which aimed at > ?getting the prices right?, many countries got two of the most important > prices -- the exchange rate and the interest rate -- wrong. To be sure, > a stable environment conducive to investment in productive capacity must > include price stability. Countries that are prone to high and > accelerating inflation may find it more difficult to start and sustain a > process of development and catching up than countries with a history of > price stability. > > It is mainly international speculation searching for interest arbitrage > and gains from exchange-rate appreciation that makes it difficult to > prevent currency over-valuation and financial crises. Revaluation of > currencies as a result of speculative capital flows undermines the > normal functioning of the exchange-rate mechanism that would prevent the > emergence of large and persistent current-account deficits. > > The report stressed that strengthened international cooperation in > macroeconomic and financial policy may be required to contain > speculative capital flows and reduce their damaging impact on the > stability of the world economy. Such cooperation could also help prevent > governments from manipulating exchange rates to improve the > international competitiveness of their economies. A framework of > international rules governing international monetary and financial > relations similar to those governing the use of trade policy measures in > agreements of the World Trade Organization could lend greater coherence > to the system of global economic governance. > > The report noted that the UNCTAD Secretary-General has suggested the > adoption of a code of conduct aimed at preventing the manipulation of > exchange rates, wage rates, taxes or subsidies in the competition for > higher market shares and at preventing the financial markets from > driving the competitive positions of nations in the wrong direction. For > example, major changes in the nominal exchange rate should be subject to > multilateral oversight and negotiations. Only if such rules were to > apply could all trading parties avoid unjustified overall loss or gains > of competitiveness, and developing countries could systematically avoid > the trap of over-valuation that has been one of the greatest impediments > to prosperity in the past. > > The report also featured another fundamental departure from mainstream > theory: an increase in household savings, which is difficult or even > impossible because of low per capita incomes in developing countries, is > not necessary to raise investment. It proposes an alternative view on > the savings-investment relationship where the financing of investment > depends primarily on savings from corporate profits and on the potential > of the banking system to create credit. In this view, the prerequisites > for higher investment are no longer households ?putting more money > aside? or the availability of ?foreign savings,? but improved conditions > for reinvestment of company profits and for an enhanced role for credit > created by the banking sector as it seeks to provide long-term > investment financing. > > An influential strand of economic thought views investment as being > financed from a savings pool created mainly by household savings. > According to this view, entrepreneurial investment will be maximized by > increasing national savings and the efficiency of financial > intermediation. Policy recommendations stemming from this view include > lowering fiscal expenditure to improve government fiscal accounts, and > increasing household savings rates and capital imports (?foreign > savings?) through higher interest rates. > > The report said that an alternative approach to the financing of > investment -- associated with Keynes and in particular Schumpeter > suggests that capital accumulation in industry is financed primarily by > savings from corporate profits, while the contribution of voluntary > household savings to productive investment is considered relatively less > important. > > The report recalled that in examining the successful economic catch-up > of the East Asian economies in the post-Second World War period, UNCTAD > had emphasized the importance of the link between corporate profits and > savings and a dynamic profit-investment nexus. It attributed high > national savings rates to high corporate savings, rather than to high > household savings. From a macroeconomic perspective, domestic sources of > finance are more appropriate and quantitatively more important than > foreign ones. From the perspective of firms, self-financing from > retained earnings is the most important and most reliable source for > financing investment, with bank loans playing an important complementary > role. > > The report suggested that financing instruments out of retained profits > could be promoted by a range of fiscal incentives, such as preferential > tax treatment for reinvested or retained profits, or special > depreciation allowances. Noting that bank credit is the second most > important source of financing for enterprises, particularly for new > businesses and small and medium-sized firms, the report emphasized that > the power of banking systems to create credit based on liquidity > provided by central banks has to be combined with strong institutional > arrangements and additional policy instruments to maintain price stability. > > UNCTAD recommended a stronger role for governments in influencing the > direction of credit to strategically important sectors and activities. > This can take, for example, the form of direct provision of credit by > public financial institutions or interest subsidies for selected > projects. Stricter control of lending for consumption or speculative > purposes could also encourage credit allocation to investment projects. > In instances where high lending rates reflect high perceived risks, > government guarantees might be considered for loans to finance promising > investment projects of firms that otherwise might have limited or no > access to longer term bank credit. > > Adequate regulation and supervision of the financial sector, > particularly the effective monitoring of foreign-currency-denominated > debt, is essential for maintaining sound balance sheets of financial > institutions, said the report, adding that strict standards of corporate > transparency and clear and consistent rules for access to overseas > borrowing would help prevent speculative currency positions also in > balance sheets in the non-financial sector. > > Governance structures of public financial institutions should be > designed in such a way that the direct and indirect benefits arising > from their activities accrue to the economy as a whole (and over a > longer time horizon than the one usually considered by the private > sector for profit maximization). > > Without proactive public intervention, it is highly unlikely that the > undesired consequences of market failures and segmentation of the > financial system can be overcome. A proactive policy, rather than > ignoring the persistent financial market imperfections and segmentation, > could develop new channels for financing economically and socially > important activities (such as manufacturing, agriculture and > infrastructure) and actors (such as small and innovative firms) which > tend otherwise to be marginalised. > > The report also noted that although more and more developing countries > have significantly reduced dependence on foreign capital flows and have > even become net exporters of capital, most poor, commodity-dependent > nations with insufficiently diversified production structures continue > to rely on foreign capital inflows to finance imports of essential > capital goods. > > For a realistic chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, > which include halving extreme poverty by 2015, overseas development > assistance to poor nations would need to be increased by $50-$60 billion > a year above current levels, the report concluded. > > * This is the second part of a two-part article on the Trade and > Development Report 2008. The first part was published in SUNS #6543 > dated 5 September 2008. > > This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from > http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm > > > _______________________________________________ > DEBATE mailing list > DEBATE at debate.kabissa.org > http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate > > > From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 11:37:55 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:37:55 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?Once_Spurned=2C_McCain_Finds_Corporate_?= =?windows-1252?q?Support_+_McCain=92s_Bounce_Gives_Him_5-Point_Lea?= =?windows-1252?q?d?= In-Reply-To: <48C7B5D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48C7B5D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: If race were the main obstacle, Obama would never have gotten nominated, nor would he have had early leads in both polls and donations, which have now evaporated. As US casualties went down in Iraq, and the Bush administration adopted the idea of troop withdrawal "time horizon" in Iraq, put Iran on the back burner, and shifted foreign policy focus on Pakistan, Obama lost his signature issues. Yoshie On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Charles Brown wrote: > Once Spurned, McCain Finds Corporate Support + > McCain's Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead > > The Democrats manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory > again? -- Yoshie > > ^^^^ > CB: This ultra leftist claim that the DP snatches defeat from the jaws of victory needs to be reexamined. The DP only snatches defeat from the jaws of victory in the sense that it doesn't pander to racism for votes, i.e. it doesn't desert Black people. > > The left mantra that the DP is the place where social movements go to die is false, when one really examines the facts of the social movements - labor, civil rights, peace - of the last 75 years. The DP made itself the instrument for achieving the main demands of the anti-Jim Crow civil rights movement. Contrary to the notion of going to the DP to die, the Civil Rights Movement went to the DP to win its biggest victories against Jim Crow. The DP is still paying a price today among racist voters for being the Party of Black people. > > > > This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com > > From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 12:26:29 2008 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:26:29 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Mass suicide of american troops ? In-Reply-To: <48C7C1A1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48C7C1A1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <48C81155.9070109@gmail.com> 6 US troops commit suicide in Iraq Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:48:50 GMT Sixteen US troops from the 57th Unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say. http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/8036 Sep 10, 2008 ... There is no such Army unit as the 57th Unit Airborne Divison, there is no 57th Airborne Division, and the 57th Signal Battalion is not in http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=776418&boardsparam=PostID%3D22068698 I think that about settles it... Leigh Charles Brown wrote: > Louis Proyect : > > This item strikes me as bogus. > > Greg McDonald wrote: > >> 16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq >> Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:48:50 GMT >> Sixteen US troops from the a unit of the Airborne Division have >> committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources >> > > > Well I certainly hope you are correct, Louis. I got the article from > an Iranian source, below, and have not been able to find any other > source to support the claim. > > Greg > > > > > > > > > This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com > > > From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 12:51:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:51:31 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Constantine's Sword Message-ID: <48C7DEF3.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: Louis Proyect ------------------ With its seamless blend of compelling autobiographical material and laser-sharp political analysis of Christian fundamentalism past and present, ?Constantine?s Sword? impressed film critics almost universally when it was released last year. This was one of those rare occasions when the movie was even better than the praise lavished on it. Now available on Netflix and other venues through the auspices of First Run Features, a distribution company specializing in bold independent fiction and documentary film, this movie is an absolute must for anybody concerned about the growing influence of rightwing Christian sects on the body politic today, including the world?s most powerful and sinister sect: the Catholic Church. Based on narrator and co-script writer James Carroll?s 750 page book of the same name, the documentary flows from the personal and political transformation of a most unlikely critic of organized religion. Born in 1939, Carroll had two passions as a youth: the Air Force and the Catholic Church. As a teenager, he had the same passion for Jesus Christ that others his age had for Mickey Mantle. His father was Joseph P. Carroll, a working-class Irish Catholic Chicagoan who went to night school after his shift in the stockyards ended. After getting a college degree, he went to work for the FBI as an Elliot Ness type gang-buster. His crime-fighting renown attracted the attention of the U.S. Air Force which recruited him as a Lieutenant General to head up their newly formed top-secret intelligence-gathering unit after WWII. General Carroll was the Pentagon official responsible for alerting President Kennedy to Cuban missile bases in 1962, thus unleashing a chain of events that came close to ushering in nuclear Armageddon. James Carroll?s mother probably would have been ready for Armageddon given her fanatical devotion to the Catholic Church. In 1959 he accompanied his mother on a trip to Trier in Germany in order to witness a rare unveiling of the robe that Christ allegedly worn during the crucifixion. This garment was the theme of the cheesy 1953 movie titled ?The Robe?, excerpts of which are seen in the documentary. I distinctly remember Victor Mature as a muscle-bound convert to the Cross. As Carroll explains, the Cross was not the original symbol of the Christian church. In its earliest years, it was the fish or the loaf of bread that symbolized eternal life, an altogether positive image in comparison to the blood-soaked icon that inspired Mel Gibson and the Roman Emperor Constantine as well. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/constantines-sword/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 13:02:59 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:02:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Moscow Facing Lending Crisis Message-ID: Moscow facing lending crisis By Catherine Belton in Moscow Published: September 9 2008 20:56 | Last updated: September 9 2008 20:56 An exodus of foreign capital is forcing Russian banks to slash lending as the international reaction to the country's military standoff with Georgia starts to affect the real economy. Bankers say Russia is facing its worst crisis since the August 1998 default. The Russian stock market has plummeted more than 40 per cent since May. A flight of capital estimated by analysts at up to $20bn (?14bn, ?11bn) since the start of the conflict is drying up liquidity. The Russian Trading System index fell another 7.5 per cent on Tuesday to its lowest level since June 2006. Bankers and analysts said real estate and retail businesses were being hardest hit by a slowdown in lending. "There are real estate developers who can't finish projects. They can't get money from anyone, state banks included," said one senior banker in Moscow speaking on condition of anonymity. "No one was ready for the lack of cash to manifest itself so quickly," he said. "Nobody has any money. The country has got all this cash but the banking system and capital markets are not particularly good at allocating it. There is a flood of liquidity in the state's fields and a drought in the private sector." Russia's central bank says analysts' estimates of capital flight are exaggerated and only $5bn left the country in August. But foreign investors have shunned the Russian rouble and stock market. The conflict with Georgia was the final straw in a summer punctuated by ill omens such as Vladimir Putin's attack on Russian steelmaker Mechel that reminded them of the political risks of investing in Russia. Domestic borrowing costs for Russian companies have soared because of greater refinancing risks. Exacerbating Russia's market fall is the fact that many of the country's leading tycoons raised funds for expansion by pledging shares in some of the nation's biggest companies. Now they are facing margin calls from the banks that lent money against the shares, bankers and traders say. That is making the market sell-off worse as businesses fail to find alternative sources of funds. "All the oligarchs that are over-leveraged are being forced to sell off," said Sergei Sidorov, head of capital markets at Unicredit in Moscow. Hans-J?rg Rudloff, chairman of Barclays Capital, said the military standoff between Russia and Georgia had exacerbated fraught nerves in the global investment community and the steep decline in Russian stock prices could have a big impact on the ability of Russian private companies to fund further growth. Calling on the west not to shun Russia, he said: "Geopolitical tensions always interfere with economic planning and could derail growth patterns around the world." Pyotr Aven, president of one of Russia's biggest private banks, Alfa Bank, told a Reuters investment summit on Tuesday that the economy was showing "dangerous" signs of slowing amid accelerating inflation and a slowdown in real income growth. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank in Moscow, said investors were spooked by Russia's slowing economy, question marks over Russian companies' earnings potential after Mr Putin's broadside at Mechel, increasing economic dependence on oil, and potential damage to Russia's ability to attract foreign investment. The Russian government has until now helped shore up liquidity despite the global credit squeeze by placing up to $12.75bn development funds in short-term deposits in the banking system and holding regular cash auctions. In a sign of the growing squeeze however, Russian banks submitted bids for $3.5bn at a cash auction on Monday, while the Finance Ministry made only $2.4bn available. Cash held by banks on deposits at the central bank has been falling day by day, reaching a low of 638.4bn roubles ($25bn, ?18bn, ?14bn) on Tuesday from 675.6bn the day before. Even state banks such as Sberbank, the country's state-controlled retail bank, could face difficulties raising capital abroad in the wake of the Georgian conflict, bankers and analysts said. Sberbank is currently seeking a $1bn-plus syndicated loan on international markets. Alexei Kudrin, the Russian finance minister, attempted on Tuesday to limit the damage. Speaking at a Reuters investment forum, he said the conflict with Georgia had reduced Russia's political risk by eliminating the potential for further military escalation, while the recent resolution of the dispute over the Anglo-Russian energy venture TNK-BP was a sign that Russia was trying to improve its investment climate. But bankers are unconvinced. One banker, however, said: "Investors are . . . likely to ignore Russia. Companies are not going to be able to issue on international markets." Medvedev fails to halt Russian market slide By Rachel Morarjee and Peter Garnham Published: September 10 2008 13:09 | Last updated: September 10 2008 15:48 Russia's stock market tumbled for a second consecutive session on Wednesday despite an attempt by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other officials to shore up the market with promises of government support. Mr Medvedev said on Wednesday that the 45 percent slump in Russian stocks since May is temporary, and the government has the power to bring them back to levels seen at the start of the year. "I think in the end these changes are not dramatic and will bring about a stabilisation. If the right decisions are made, the situation will straighten out," Medvedev was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti, the state news agency. "We will return to the levels that we saw at the start of the year. In any case, I believe this is in the power of the government," Medvedev said. Russia's benchmark rouble-denominated Micex index fell 3.8 per cent to 1114.67 and the dollar-denominated RTS index slid 4.4 per cent to 1334.33. Margin calls on local investors and redemption for foreign equity funds drove sales, analysts said. "It is good that Medvedev cares about the market and the market usually welcomes these kind of comments but in today's environment sales are still due to margin calls and redemption requests," said Tom Mundy, an analyst at Moscow-based Renaissance Capital. Oil giant Gazprom, Russia's biggest company, dropped another 3.1 per cent, to 200.70Rbs on the Micex Stock Exchange, the lowest since it listed shares there in January 2006. On Tuesday the shares fell nearly 8 per cent after Russia's regulator said the state-controlled gas export monopoly would be fined for restricting access for an independent gas producer to its vast pipeline network. JPMorgan reiterated its "underweight" recommendation on Russian stocks, saying concerns about geopolitical risk and political inference in business have been replaced by the souring economic outlook. The rouble eased 0.1 per cent to 30.35 against its euro/dollar basket on Wednesday as Russia continued to pay the price for the conflict in Georgia. Win Thin at Brown Brothers Harriman said while the rouble was suffering from capital flight out of Russia due to political tensions between Moscow and the West, plunging commodity prices were also weighing on the currency. "Given our outlook for lower commodity prices, we think the rouble will continue to fall," he said. Alexei Kudrin, Russian finance minister, acknowledged instability on Russian markets, and said the country should try to make the rouble a safe investment. The rouble "should become a currency to invest in, not flee, as people are doing now," he said. The Central Bank of Russia, which manages the rouble to a basket of 55 per cent dollars and 45 euros, has been forced to intervene heavily in the market to support the currency in recent weeks. Nevertheless, the rouble has fallen 3.4 per cent against its euro/dollar basket since the start of August. The rouble had been a one-way upward bet for currency investors prior to the escalation in hostilities in Georgia on August 8. Before the conflict, the Central Bank of Russia's main concern was keeping a lid on the rouble's strength as capital poured into resource-rich Russia, which also boasts the world's third largest foreign exchange reserves and sustainable fiscal and trade surpluses. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 13:09:31 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:09:31 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ecuador at OPEC Message-ID: Ecuador seeks Opec expertise By Carola Hoyos in Vienna Published: September 9 2008 09:17 | Last updated: September 9 2008 09:17 As Opec begins to discuss the politically and economically fraught issue of reducing its oil output, Ecuador, its newest, smallest and poorest member still believes it made the right decision to join nine months ago. For the Latin American oil and gas producer, Opec is more than a cartel focused on keeping prices at levels comfortable for the world's biggest oil exporters, says Galo Chiriboga, Ecuador's energy minister. "Opec is very important for us. It is a place for us to meet other people and look for cooperation, especially with Venezuela and Algeria," he told the FT. Ecuador is seeking to tap the two countries' expertise and technology in gas exploration and development, rather than oil. Meanwhile, his country played a role in getting the group to back Venezuela - albeit reluctantly - in its fight against ExxonMobil, the world's biggest international energy group, and the only company suing Caracas over the nationalisation of its fields, said Mr Chiriboga. High prices have prompted producer countries to change contract terms, take control of fields and rely more on their national oil companies as well as fellow NOCs from other countries. Opec is once again becoming a place where members like Ecuador can discuss how best to extract as much revenue and, in some cases control, from international oil companies. This marks a return to Opec's role at its inception in the 1960s, when it was a vehicle for countries to demand - often in a joint effort - better concession rights from the all-powerful seven sisters and the other oil companies that controlled almost the entire industry and treated their hosts as little more than colonial serfs. Mr Chiriboga was speaking in Vienna ahead of Opec's meeting where the cartel is likely to agree to maintain current production levels but begin to consider quietly reducing output in the coming months to ensure prices do not fall below producers' comfort levels. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 13:17:37 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:17:37 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Reversal of Fortune for Emerging Markets Message-ID: Reversal of fortune for emerging markets By David Oakley in London Published: September 10 2008 19:25 | Last updated: September 10 2008 19:25 Outflows from emerging markets bond and equity funds reached $29.5bn over the past three months, the highest level since at least 1995, with withdrawals gathering pace over the past week. Investors headed for the exits as rising fears over slowing world growth and the state of the banking system over the past week added pressure on emerging markets ? which were already reeling from weaker commodity prices, inflationary pressures, a stronger dollar and geopolitical concerns. Investors switched $1bn out of equity and fixed income funds on Monday, one of the highest daily outflows since records began in 1995, said EPFR Global, the data provider. Last week there were outflows of $1.6bn, bringing the total since June 4 to $29.5bn, the largest three-month figure since 1995. Nick Chamie, head of emerging markets research at RBC Capital Markets, said: "Since July, investors have finally become aware of the severity of the global slowdown. The emerging markets are a leveraged play on global growth, so in a serious downturn, investors will naturally sell them." David Lubin, emerging market strategist at Citigroup, said: "Emerging market asset prices rose strongly in a world of rapid growth and high commodity prices, creating something like a virtuous circle. "Now we're faced with the risk that this process is unwinding. The strength of the dollar has put emerging economies' currencies under pressure just at the point where a rise in global risk aversion is pushing investors away from exposure to developing countries." The benchmark MSCI emerging market index fell 1.27 per cent to 857.44, the lowest level since March 2007. The fall extended its decline to 4.8 per cent over the past week and 22 per cent over past three months. The hardest hit stock markets in dollar terms are Ukraine, which has fallen 58.8 per cent this year in part on geopolitical worries; China, down 57 per cent amid fears it had risen too far on a bubble; Hungary, down 49 per cent on worries over growth; Pakistan, down 46.7 per cent amid political turmoil; and Vietnam, down 46.4 per cent in the face of a sharp rise in inflation. Russia been under pressure, with the benchmark RTS index down 4.4 per cent yesterday and 46 per cent since its May 19 peak. Emerging market sovereign bond yield spreads have risen to 330 basis points over Treasuries ? highs not seen since mid-2005 ? from 300bp at the start of last week amid rising risk aversion. Bonds of the four Bric countries ? Brazil, Russia, India and China ? have also been hit by rising interest rates this year. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 13:43:30 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:43:30 -0400 Subject: [A-List] "Ultra-nationalists Join the Russian Mainstream" (FT) vs "Russia's Return as a 'Post-ideological' Power" (Daily Star) Message-ID: The contrast between the Financial Times' and the (Lebanese) Daily Star's interpretations is striking. Arabs (even Westernizers among them) are more level-headed than Westerners about Russia. -- Yoshie Invasion's ideologues: Ultra-nationalists join the Russian mainstream By Charles Clover in Moscow Published: September 8 2008 20:09 | Last updated: September 8 2008 20:09 A decade ago, many of the most influential thinkers in today's Russia were in the intellectual wilderness. While some sat in pamphlet-littered basements churning out copies of underground ultra-rightwing newspapers with names such as Lightning and Russian Order, others were in jail following failed coups in 1991 and 1993 against the pro-western "occupation regimes" of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Russia's intellectual journey since then has been dizzying, as the radical has become mainstream and the hardline position increasingly moderate-sounding, with what were the margins emerging as the political centre. Now, against the backdrop of conflict in Georgia and deteriorating relations with the west, Russia's ultra-nationalist thinkers are starting to exert unprecedented influence. The wide acceptance of a group of ideas once dismissed as laughable signals a new era in Russia's foreign relations, as Moscow seeks to protect what President Dmitry Medvedev calls a "region of privileged interest" in parts of the former Soviet Union. Rising nationalist opinion could also mean bigger defence budgets and a race to modernise Russia's military as well a presaging a yet more nationalist approach to economic policy. The government is coming under increasing pressure to invest the country's oil wealth at home rather than abroad and could even respond to international criticism of the war in Georgia by pre-emptively imposing trade restrictions on the US. The war not only boosted the prestige of the military, which enjoyed its first successful campaign in a generation. It has also enhanced the reputations of a narrow group of ultra-nationalist thinkers who prophesied the coming clash with the west. Today's Russia, willing to press its national objectives with military force, unconcerned with the erosion of democracy and dismissive of world opinion, was foretold a decade ago in inky manifestos and in lecture halls full of bearded radicals straight out of Dostoevsky. "I am convinced that now, following the war, there will be a huge shift in the balance of power within the Russian elite," says Aleksander Dugin, leader of the Eurasian Movement, a prominent far-right group. Mr Dugin has seen a remarkable improvement in his fortunes since the days in the early 1990s when he worked out of a basement flat in a gritty central Moscow district penning works on the metaphysics of Christianity. He went on to become a television talk show host and a professor at Moscow State University. Now he has a radio show on the Kremlin-supported 107 FM. "The people that formed the centre under [former president, now prime minister Vladimir] Putin will now become marginal. And another pole will appear that did not exist under Putin at all. That is the army, the military and patriotic movements. That is us. Under Putin we were the extremists: respectable, yes, but radicals. Now we are moving right into the centre," he says. Not everyone shares Mr Dugin's view, but the newly ascendant nationalism is likely to bring new ideas into Russia's mainstream. These form no less than the basis of a looming ideological clash between Russia and the west. "Political momentum has been shifting in [the ultra-nationalists'] direction for quite some time. One could argue that the incursion into Georgia was something new, but it was building on a momentum that we have been seeing," says John Dunlop from Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Viktor Erofeev, a well-known author and one of a small and shrinking minority of Russians who question the reasons for the war against Georgia, attributes the wave of patriotism to a widespread "cult of power". In a recent radio debate, Mr Erofeev described it as "the joy of victory, in sport, in politics, but also in war. It is an archaic form of self-consciousness ... [that] has remained with us, where it has disappeared in more civilised countries." Amid the bombast about reimposition of Tsarist rule, the reconstitution of the Soviet Union or Russian empire and banishing Washington's influence from the region, the new right does have a philosophical bone to pick with the west, which proclaims the "universality" of democracy and human rights and makes the US ready to defend and promote these goals throughout the world ? by military force if necessary. Russia's opposition to "unipolar domination" by Washington is tied to the view pushed by the thinkers of the new right that such universal truths are an illusion, that their nation and civilisation form a unique "whole" that has a right to existence. That this ideological approach has penetrated to the Kremlin can be seen in a now famous speech in Munich in February 2007 by Mr Putin, in which the then president said he considered the unipolar model "not only unacceptable but also impossible in today's world". The model was flawed, he argued, because "at its basis there is and can be no moral foundation for modern civilisation". It was a speech that was labelled by some commentators as the start of a new "cold war" with the west. Russia's insistence on the right to "sovereign democracy", a phrase of Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin's top ideologist, can also be traced to this philosophical opposition to moral absolutes. Mr Surkov argues that each nation has the right to practise democracy in its own "sovereign" way, which rationalises in theoretical terms the fact that Russian democracy is not very democratic at all. Many ultra-nationalists already walk the corridors of power: Dmitry Rogozin, former head of the Rodina (Motherland) party, is Russia's ambassador to Nato. The Duma, or parliament, has also been a hive of activity of radical nationalists since the mid-1990s, regularly featuring the rantings of arch-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. While their liberal western-oriented counterparts spent the decade following the collapse of communism learning the economic theories of Milton Friedman or reading up on the Council of Europe, the venerable organisation dedicated to promoting human rights, Russia's nationalists were studying the Orthodox church, mugging up on French postmodernism or simply "drinking beer, playing chess and lifting dumbbells", as Valery Korovin, leader of the Eurasian Youth Movement, puts it. Russia's military and "special services" such as the former KGB, now FSB, have long had a mysterious connection to these ultra-rightwing groups. The rising stature of the siloviki, as the former uniformed men are known, has accompanied a rise in the prestige of rightwing philosophy. While serving officers tend to keep their political leanings to themselves, several retired officers took on a high profile in the media during the Georgian war and their prestige is only likely to increase with the success of the military campaign. Aleksander Prokhanov, editor of the radical rightwing Tomorrow newspaper and known as the "nightingale of the general staff" for his close links to Russia's top brass, predicts a political crisis between pro-western and nationalist political factions. After the military victory in the Caucasus, the nationalists will need to guard against political setbacks at home, he says. That requires "very fast changes ? social, political, economic and ideological" in Russia, in which the main opponent will be the new pro-western elite "who are loath to give up their assets in the west". The event that gave the new right much of its popularity was Russia's agonising decade of economic collapse following the end of communism: that destroyed the credibility of liberal democratic reformers. In addition, the US campaign against Russia's ally Serbia in 1999 sparked a sea- change in public opinion. Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, opinion polls showed nationalism was a phenomenon associated primarily with lower-income groups, while the upper echelons of society saw imitation of the west in all things, from democracy to liberal economics, as desirable. But already in 2001, a study by the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow noticed a new "ideology" among the middle and upper class ? previously the "agents of modernisation". A majority had come to see Nato as a hostile force and the break-up of the Soviet Union as a mistake. Most viewed Russia as belonging to a unique civilisation separate from the west. Under Mr Putin's eight-year presidency, the popularity of rightwing ideas grew as he deployed belligerent rhetoric and used Kremlin resources to sponsor groups such as Nashi, the youth movement organised by Mr Surkov. Mr Putin, and Mr Medvedev after him, adorned the presidency with the trappings of empire ? regularly featuring the orthodox cross of Tsarist Russia and the red star of Soviet might. Today, Russia's ideological transformation is complete, if contradictory. Just like in the 19th century, when Russia's armies fought against Napoleon while its aristocracy spoke French, today's Russian elite embraces a confusing agenda: Nato is considered a hostile force and they support the war in Georgia, but they still prefer holidaying in the west, owning property there and sending their children to British private schools. However, analysts caution that public support for Kremlin policies is not unconditional. More than on patriotism and national pride, public approval for Mr Putin is based on his ? and now Mr Medvedev's ? presidency delivering higher living standards. Dmitri Simes of the Washington based Nixon Center says there are limits to the sacrifices people will make: "They don't want to be cut off from the west, they don't want to be isolated or ostracised." Russians do not want to increase military spending in a way that would compete with or threaten other national priorities, he says. "Mr Putin was so hugely popular not just because of his national security credentials but because, under him, Russians began to live much better. But a new cold war, a new arms race, would threaten all that." Aleksander Dugin: Author of the influential 1997 book 'The Foundations of Geopolitics', which he wrote in conjunction with a general from the Academy of the General Staff. In it, he theorised that Russia, the earth's largest land power, was the natural antagonist to the "Atlantic world" of the US and Britain. He heads the Eurasian Movement, devoted to that philosophy, and has helped translate European "new right" authors into Russian. He has been a professor at Moscow State University and now has a weekly radio show. Dmitry Rogozin: Elected to Russia's lower house of parliament in 1997, he co-headed the ultra-nationalist Rodina (Motherland) party from 2003. Rodina, a Kremlin-backed nationalist party, was designed to draw votes away from the powerful Communist party, which has been in constant opposition to the Kremlin. Mr Rogozin was removed as a leader of the party in 2006 after losing an internal power struggle. In January 2008 he was named Russia's ambassador to Nato. Aleksander Prokhanov: One of the original nationalist writers to emerge in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, he is now editor of Tomorrow newspaper and a close friend of many of Russia's top generals. Those include Field Marshal Dmitry Yazov, who planned the 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, which ultimately failed. He is a successful fiction author and is often featured on television and radio programmes representing rightwing views. The Middle East and Russia's return as a 'post-ideological' power By The Daily Star Monday, September 08, 2008 Editorial Russia's bold stroke in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia last month has added a new dimension to the resurgence under way for the past few years. The Kremlin has signaled that it is back as major player on the world stage, a prospect that carries far-reaching implications for many regions - the Middle East in particular. Governments and peoples in this part of the world have much to gain from a shakeup of the international order as it has existed since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. To do so, however, they will have to recognize that this new Russian challenge to American supremacy is very different from the one that kept the Cold War going for decades. For one, today's Russia might be described as "post-ideological." Its tussles with the United States (and some other Western countries) are no longer potentially existential ones that lead inevitably to zero-sum games. In addition, despite its growing energy wealth, Moscow no longer has the strategic wherewithal to engage in dozens of far-flung contests with Washington. What it retains includes a determination to protect its own interests (especially close to home) and, increasingly, a willingness to be assertive in doing so. It also has a relatively large population infused with considerable amounts of ability and no shortage of national pride. In short, the days when post-Soviet Russia could be ignored are definitively over. It cannot have been a coincidence that the first foreign leader to visit Russia after the humiliation of Georgia (and its American ally) was another individual with a long history of defying US demands, Syrian President Bashar Assad. This demonstrated that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the real power behind his throne, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, will not shy away from taking their struggles with Washington to venues in the Middle East. The Russians also have grand plans to leverage their huge reserves of natural gas into even greater riches by increasing cooperation with other key producers. In addition, Moscow has sought to slow the flow of sanctions against Iran over that country's nuclear program and is scheduled to complete a reactor for the Islamic Republic in 2009. A new Cold War is not unavoidable, and Russia does not need one to effect the gains its seeks. The United States is badly over-extended militarily, and its influence has been sharply diminished by years of unilateralism. Apart from those in Georgia, recent developments in Lebanon have also made it clear that expressions of American "support" are no guarantee of victory over one's rivals. Situations like these will offer Russia openings to spread its influence, and while most Middle Eastern governments should have learned by now that serving as proxies in a wider struggle can be a thankless business, each would do well to re-examine the new realities. Needless to say, the same applies to the next president of the United States. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Sep 10 14:12:59 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:12:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Parade of anti-Obama Rascals Message-ID: <48C7F20B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Waistlne sent the below to Marxism-thaxis. Amiri Baraka, famed US Black poet and playwright ,_used to be on the A-list/Crashlist_. I think Mark Jones got his email address from me. -list message, RE: [CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:NAder isn't ...Subj: [CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:Nader isn't arousing anything Date: 9/5/00 6 :58:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: ab11 at xxxxxxxxx (Amiri Baraka) Sender: ... archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2000/msg01613.htm - 17k - Cached - Similar pages Re: [CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:NAder isn't arousing anything[CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:NAder isn't arousing anything Amiri Baraka. Re: [ CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:NAder isn't arousing anything John Woodford ... www.mail-archive.com/crashlist at lists.wwpublish.com/msg00956.html - 9k - Cached - Similar pages [CrashList] Re: [BRC-DISC] Re:NAder isn't arousing anythingOriginal Message ----- From: Amiri Baraka To: ; Cc: Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is ?Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean? September 5, 2008 /*by Charley James -*/ ?So Sambo beat the bitch!? This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama?s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination. According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat?s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively. ?It was kind of disgusting,? Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the ?lower 48? about life near the North Pole. Then, almost with a sigh, she added, ?But that?s just Alaska.? Racial and ethnic slurs may be ?just Alaska? and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin. Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N?-Fetch-It, ?darkie musical? swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska?s Aboriginal people as ?Arctic Arabs? - how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description - as well as the more colourful ?mukluks? along with the totally unimaginative ?f**king Eskimo?s,? according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article. But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We?re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive. No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it?s in their genetic code. So much for McCain?s pledge of a ?high road? campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one. more: http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-%25E2%2580%259Cracist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean%25E2%2580%259D/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Sep 10 15:05:06 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:05:06 +0900 Subject: [A-List] An Inside Job Message-ID: <48C83682.6020607@attglobal.net> Who brought down the cooling towers in South Yorkshire? by George Monbiot Monbiot.com (August 29 2008) Warning: When I first posted this up, on August 25th, I received so many complaints from people who took it seriously that I decided to take it down again. In re-posting it, I feel obliged to point out that this is a spoof, satirising the style and substance of the 9/11 truth movement. The event it refers to, however, is a real one. _____ by Lew Knee, published on Monbiot.com, 25th August 2008. According to the MSM, these Twin Towers were "demolished in a controlled explosion": http://newsbbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7578266.stm Lol! Only the CIA-paid shills would believe a story like that. The question you have to ask is Qui Bono? And Chris custodiet? What the MSM doesn't tell you is that ALL the Jews were evacuatted from these cooling towers hours before they were brort down. When the towers collapsed, not a SINGLE Jew was inside them! And the security services warned people to stay away BEFORE they were "demolished". take another look at the footage of the "collapse". Do you see any evidence of "controled demolition"? No. At least 23 witneses, all of who have misteriously disappeared since the attacks saw a plane hit the colling towers just before they came down!!! And NO debris from any plain or missile or even from a holographic image of a VIRTUAL MISILE has been found at the sight!!!! Proving that ALL the debris was cleared away by the goverment as soon as the towers came down, which was why they didn't let anyone near it. If you check out frames 1335-1337 of the film of the "demolition", you can see a BLUR close to the base of Tower 1, just minutes before it came down. You can clearly see that this is the plane/missile/hologram/alien text message dispached by the NWO to destroy these towers!!!! And how did Tower 2 come down when it wasn't even HIT by a plain??? This was obviously an INSIDE JOB! The demolition of these towers was planned WEEKS, if not MONTHS ago!!!! Why else was no one killed in the "explosion"? And why has no one else come foreword to expose it? Because they were all killed???? We need a new truth movement to out the insiders who did this crime on beharf of the NWO and the MSM hacks and shills who will make ab homimen attacks and hit jobs on the people trying to find the answers. We must not stop until we have found the truth and exposed the greatest conspiracy EVER perpettrated on British soil!!!!!!!! Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/29/an-inside-job/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Wed Sep 10 15:22:29 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:22:29 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Holbrooke Thunders At Russia For World Spurning KLA Pseudo-State Message-ID: <3889231746CF4322A8D9B7BFF87F4E1D@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 3:23 PM Subject: [stopnato] Holbrooke Thunders At Russia For World Spurning KLA Pseudo-State http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=09&dd=09&nav_id=53354 Tanjug News Agency September 9, 2008 Holbrooke blasts Russia's Kosovo policy [Despite heavy - the very heaviest - arm-twisting by the US and its NATO partners, only 46 of 192 UN member states have recognized the Western-engineered unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo separatists almost seven full months since it was announced.] PRISTINA - Richard Holbrooke believes the Kosovo government is not the only one to blame for the stalled recognition process. The former U.S. Balkans envoy, currently visiting Pristina, pointed the finger at "Russia's aggressive campaign", and said this country is to blame for the fact only one quarter of UN member states have recognized Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians in the province in February this year unilaterally declared independence, which Belgrade, but also Moscow, rejected as illegal. Today, Holbrooke told Radio-Television Kosovo that "nobody expected Russia's campaign, since it was unnecessary". "This is very serious and represents a great shame, what Russia has done. Still, the number of countries recognizing Kosovo will grow, and that matters the most. I believe that the Kosovo people should not worry about it so much. Your independence and freedom are absolutely guaranteed. What used to be will never return," Tanjug news agency quoted this former diplomat as saying. He also expressed his belief that the Islamic Conference countries, not only Arab ones, are making a mistake when they slow down the process, and added these states should recognize Kosovo. "I hope they will recognize. Still, they have been under great pressure from Russia not to do so. The United States is in favor, but Russia is trying to at every step create problems for the U.S. policies. However, I think this will be overcome. It will take more time, but I wouldn't worry if I lived in Kosovo," Holbrooke reassured his hosts. He also expressed concern about the state of economy in Kosovo, especially the high unemployment rate, and recommended that "the government and the people should create some program that would create jobs". Holbrooke was due to address the assembly in Pristina later on Tuesday. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Share Photos Put your favorite photos and more online. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to capture family moments. Best of Y! Groups Check it out and nominate your group to be featured.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Wed Sep 10 15:37:48 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:37:48 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Poles Oppose Being Hostages Of US Missile Deployments Message-ID: <26ABA99B0EA34FFA83A20020B4B11646@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 11:29 AM Subject: [stopnato] Poles Oppose Being Hostages Of US Missile Deployments http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=32192&cid=58&p=08.09.2008 Voice of Russia September 8, 2008 POLES DO NOT WANT TO BE HOSTAGES OF US MILITARY AMBITIONS -Ordinary people in Poland and the Czech Republic are fully aware that what is meant is not mythical opposition to Iran's nuclear threats but attempts to provoke Russia to reciprocate, and this will not make the life of ordinary Poles and Czechs safer even under a US umbrella. The decision on the deployment of a US anti-missile base in Poland should be taken by the Polish people themselves. This resolution was adopted by a session of the National Council of the Union of the Left Democratic Forces, SLD, which favours the holding of a nation-wide referendum. The Polish Left is a major political party having the third numerically-strongest faction in the parliament. They insist that the treaty on the deployment in Poland of 13 US anti-missiles signed in Warsaw on August 20 should be put to a nation-wide referendum. According to the leader of the Left, Grzegorz Naperalski, in parliament debates should be held during which the government and the president should inform voters of what took place at the talks with the United States. In addition, they should explain what the US anti-missile shield can give to Poland and the Poles. Launching a broad discussion of those problems, the Left proceeds from the assumption that the deployment of US missiles in Poland, that is, actually the creation of a US military base there, cannot enhance the country's security. On the contrary, this can pose only new threats. This was emphasized in the resolution of the SLD National Council. The Left opposition believes that the ruling rightist coalition has ignored public opinion: a majority of the Poles were against the deployment of US missiles at the moment of signing the agreement with the United States. The Left ise also indignant with the fact the final decision was taken without consultations with the residents of Slupsk and Redzikovo where US facilities are expected to be deployed. It is well to remind here that the residents of those settlements have taken a negative attitude to the consent of the Polish government to deploying elements of US anti-missile defenses on their territory. Recent public opinion polls have shown that over 66 percent of the respondents were against it. .... The Polish Left intends to insist on a referendum. In such a way they hope to torpedo excessive military build-up in their country. The situation is quite similar to that in the neighbouring country, the Czech Republic, where the opposition is also working for holding a referendum on the deployment of US radar on the country's territory. Ordinary people in Poland and the Czech Republic are fully aware that what is meant is not mythical opposition to Iran's nuclear threats but attempts to provoke Russia to reciprocate, and this will not make the life of ordinary Poles and Czechs safer even under a US umbrella. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder. Curves on Yahoo! Share & discuss Curves, fitness and weight loss. Cat Zone on Yahoo! Groups Join a Group all about cats.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Wed Sep 10 15:43:56 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:43:56 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Pakistani Party Calls On Government To Retaliate Against NATO Strikes Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 12:57 PM Subject: [stopnato] Pakistani Party Calls On Government To Retaliate Against NATO Strikes http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=134702 The News (Pakistan) September 9, 2008 Imran asks govt to retaliate against NAO strikes LAHORE - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) [Movement for Justice] Chairman Imran Khan on Monday asked the government to retaliate against NATO strikes in the tribal areas, said a statement. Talking to PTI Lahore President Mian Mehmood, Imran slammed the NATO forces for killing innocent civilians in the tribal region of the country while the government was keeping mum. He said the situation would not change after the presidential election. He stressed the reversal of US policies followed during the Musharraf regime. He urged the armed forces to play their role in ensuring the defence of the country, saying the present government was not different from the previous one. He criticised the government for lacking courage to take action against the violation of territorial integrity of the country by NATO forces. The PTI chairman accused the rulers for the prevailing law and order situation, saying the situation would deteriorate further due to the non-serious attitude of the government. He termed the US the biggest terrorist in the world. He condoled with the families of the victims of the NATO bombings. Imran flayed the government for unchecked inflation and termed an increase in the power tariff another bombshell for the poverty-stricken people. He vowed that the PTI would launch welfare projects aimed at serving the people. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 3New Members Visit Your Group Drive Traffic Sponsored Search can help increase your site traffic. Real Food Group Share recipes and favorite meals w/ Real Food lovers. Popular Y! Groups Is your group one? Check it out and see.. __,_._,___ From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Wed Sep 10 18:15:41 2008 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:15:41 -0700 Subject: [A-List] American Ethnic Cleansing Message-ID: <48C8632D.7030804@gmail.com> This showed up in an A.N.S.W.E.R mailing for a movie screening in the SF bay area: "Banished: American Ethnic Cleansings" Between 1860 and 1920 the Black residents of hundreds of U.S. cities, towns and entire counties were expelled from their homes. "Banished" vividly recovers the too-quickly forgotten history of racist "ethnic cleansing," when thousands of African Americans were driven from their communities by violent, racist mobs. "Banished" raises the larger question: Will the United States ever make meaningful reparations for the human rights abuses suffered, then and now, against its African American citizens? Can the long and terrible history of racism and national oppression be overcome without them? 2007, 84 min.(527.63 MB file size) Torrent: http://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/2855/Banished-American-Ethnic-Cleansings-PBS-Independent-Lens-2008-02-19 http://onebigtorrent.org Leigh From bobenoch at shaw.ca Wed Sep 10 19:27:03 2008 From: bobenoch at shaw.ca (bob enoch) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:27:03 -0700 Subject: [A-List] An Inside Job In-Reply-To: <48C83682.6020607@attglobal.net> References: <48C83682.6020607@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <48C873E7.8050103@shaw.ca> By Business Weak special correspondent S.B.Laden; The beltway was abuzz this week about a new start-up business that promises to help cut costs in the Construction industry. E-Z-Crash Ltd. is based on new but proven technology for demolishing steel and concrete structures of at least sixty-seven floors.......flying passenger planes into the structure. Company founder I.B. Credulus said: "the idea is so simple I'm surprised that no-one else has tried it. After all, the whole world knows how it works, or at least the US does, which pretty much amounts to the same thing." The IPO will be handled by Deutche Bank From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 11 02:17:50 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:17:50 +0900 Subject: [A-List] An Inside Job In-Reply-To: <48C873E7.8050103@shaw.ca> References: <48C83682.6020607@attglobal.net> <48C873E7.8050103@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <48C8D42E.7010001@attglobal.net> Thanks, Bob, do you know anyone at Deutche Bank who can get me some of initial shares? Bob bob enoch wrote: > By Business Weak special correspondent S.B.Laden; > > > The beltway was abuzz this week about a new start-up business that > promises to help cut costs in the Construction industry. > E-Z-Crash Ltd. is based on new but proven technology for demolishing > steel and concrete structures > of at least sixty-seven floors.......flying passenger planes into the > structure. > Company founder I.B. Credulus said: "the idea is so simple I'm > surprised that no-one else has tried it. > After all, the whole world knows how it works, or at least the US does, > which pretty much amounts to the same thing." > > The IPO will be handled by Deutche Bank > > > > > From nscchicago at igc.org Wed Sep 10 11:22:44 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:22:44 -0500 Subject: [A-List] HURRICAN RELIEF HAITI & CUBA - VIDEO EN ESPANOL SOBRE LAS ELECCION - NLG ON RNC ARRESTS Message-ID: <00b101c9136d$10f6e9f0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here, friends, and I got three good ones for you. Hurricane Relief - How you can help Cuba has disaster plans and no one dies. Haiti does not. That the arrests in St Paul were on a crazy bad law in a crazy bad way is to me testimony that the United States likes the 16th Century better than the 21st. The state is becoming feudal, Olde Europe witch hunts and public burnings VIDEO en espanol is Latinos talking with Latinos about how this election is coming down. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 1543 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/b8deb3c0/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 4008 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/b8deb3c0/attachment-0001.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: America Maldonado Subject: [LASolidarity] VIDEO Foro Latinoamericano Sobre las Elecciones en los Estados Unidos Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:26:23 -0400 Size: 10051 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/b8deb3c0/attachment-0003.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Nick Stein Subject: [NLGchicago] NLG MN statement on RNC "conspiracy" charges Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:14:48 -0700 (PDT) Size: 14919 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/b8deb3c0/attachment-0004.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: grok Subject: [21stcenturysocialism] URGENT: CUBA/AYITI: Hurricane Relief Appeal for Cuba & Haiti Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:01:44 -0700 Size: 13255 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080910/b8deb3c0/attachment-0005.eml From nscchicago at igc.org Wed Sep 10 23:12:56 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:12:56 -0500 Subject: [A-List] CUBA CALLS ON YOUR HELP BOLIVIA SANTA CRUZ AS US PROJECT GUATEMALA MYRNA MACK AND MORE NEWS Message-ID: <003801c913cd$14c3ced0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here, friends, and quite a load. CUBA and hurricanes. Pastors for Peace is launching caravan BOLIVIA and SANTA CRUZ. Who do you think endorses this notion of autonomy? US ambassador sent packing. GUATEMALA. Myna Mack was murdered by the State. Story pretty much the same. Update from NISGUA. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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From: "Roberto Vargas" Subject: NYT: Bolivia Expels US Ambassador Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:58:56 -0500 Size: 20536 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/4db9ce2b/attachment-0007.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "geodale1" Subject: [LASolidarity] Fw: translation on article about civic coup in Bolivia Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:00:01 -0700 Size: 61471 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/4db9ce2b/attachment-0008.eml -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: [AmericanConscience] Cuba devastated_ Lift the Blockade Now! + Against Gaza siege + The right of no return + Regaining the Initiative + The Unwanted Who Stayed + Forcible Transfer + A Girl from Gaza + Dances with Wolves + FREE THE CUBAN FIVE! + AlterNet Magaz Type: application/octet-stream Size: 11364 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/4db9ce2b/attachment-0001.obj From nscchicago at igc.org Wed Sep 10 23:26:49 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:26:49 -0500 Subject: [A-List] HAITI HIT HARD - APPEAL Message-ID: <011b01c913cf$04d7cf60$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here and these are avenues for your help to the People of Haiti -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:17:25 -0400 Size: 81416 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/5f48a796/attachment-0009.eml From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 11 03:13:44 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:13:44 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: VFPD 'America's Outrageous War Economy!' In-Reply-To: <6tcecr$1fqc91@ipo3smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <6tcecr$1fqc91@ipo3smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: <48C8E148.2080506@attglobal.net> Excellent article, Todd, but you should have saved it for today, Jingo Day. Bill Todd Boyle wrote: > >> Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys >> X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 9375896-m6030 >> To: , , >> , >> , >> , vietnam veterans >> against war >> , VFP Discussion group >> >> From: Ward Reilly >> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:36:41 -0500 >> Subject: VFPD 'America's Outrageous War Economy!' >> Reply-To: vfpdiscussion at yahoogroups.com >> >> >> >> >> 'America's Outrageous War Economy!' >> >> >> >> By >> Paul >> B. Farrell, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal >> >> Aug. 18, 2008 >> >> >> >> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/why-we-love-americas-outrageous/story.aspx?guid=0D31C880-32CD-4BA1-8133-329EA57CB069 >> >> >> ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, America's economy is a war >> economy. Not a "manufacturing" economy. Not an "agricultural" economy. >> Nor a "service" economy. Not even a "consumer" economy. >> >> Seriously, I looked into your eyes, America, saw deep into your soul. >> So let's get honest and officially call it "America's Outrageous War >> Economy." Admit it: we secretly love our war economy. And that's the >> answer to Jim Grant's thought-provoking question last month in the >> Wall Street Journal -- "Why No Outrage?" >> >> There really is only one answer: Deep inside we love war. We want war. >> Need it. Relish it. Thrive on war. War is in our genes, deep in our >> DNA. War excites our economic brain. War drives our entrepreneurial >> spirit. War thrills the American soul. Oh just admit it, we have a >> love affair with war. We love "America's Outrageous War Economy." >> >> Americans passively zone out playing video war games. We nod at >> 90-second news clips of Afghan war casualties and collateral damage in >> Georgia. We laugh at Jon Stewart's dark comedic news and Ben Stiller's >> new war spoof "Tropic Thunder" ... all the while silently, by default, >> we're cheering on our leaders as they aggressively expand "America's >> Outrageous War Economy," a relentless machine that needs a steady diet >> of war after war, feeding on itself, consuming our values, always on >> the edge of self-destruction. >> * Why else are Americans so eager and willing to surrender 54% of >> their tax dollars to a war machine, which consumes 47% of the world's >> total military budgets? >> * Why are there more civilian mercenaries working for no-bid >> private war contractors than the total number of enlisted military in >> Iraq (180,000 to 160,000), at an added cost to taxpayers in excess of >> $200 billion and climbing daily? >> * Why do we shake our collective heads "yes" when our >> commander-in-chief proudly tells us he is a "war president;" and his >> party's presidential candidate chants "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," as if >> "war" is a celebrity hit song? >> * Why do our spineless Democrats let an incompetent, blundering >> executive branch hide hundreds of billions of war costs in sneaky >> "supplemental appropriations" that are more crooked than Enron's >> off-balance-sheet deals? >> * Why have Washington's 537 elected leaders turned the governance >> of the American economy over to 42,000 greedy self-interest lobbyists? >> * And why earlier this year did our "support-our-troops" "war >> president" resist a new GI Bill because, as he said, his military >> might quit and go to college rather than re-enlist in his war; now we >> continue paying the Pentagon's warriors huge $100,000-plus bonuses to >> re-up so they can keep expanding "America's Outrageous War Economy?" >> Why? Because we secretly love war! >> >> We've lost our moral compass: The contrast between today's leaders and >> the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 shocks our >> conscience. Today war greed trumps morals. During the Revolutionary >> War our leaders risked their lives and fortunes; many lost both. >> >> Today it's the opposite: Too often our leaders' main goal is not >> public service but a ticket to building a personal fortune in the new >> "America's Outrageous War Economy," often by simply becoming a >> high-priced lobbyist. >> >> Ultimately, the price of our greed may be the fulfillment of Kevin >> Phillips' warning in "Wealth and Democracy:" "Most great nations, at >> the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world >> wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and >> ultimately burning themselves out." >> >> 'National defense' a propaganda slogan selling a war economy? >> >> But wait, you ask: Isn't our $1.4 trillion war budget essential for >> "national defense" and "homeland security?" Don't we have to protect >> ourselves? >> >> Sorry folks, but our leaders have degraded those honored principles to >> advertising slogans. They're little more than flag-waving excuses used >> by neocon war hawks to disguise the buildup of private fortunes in >> "America's Outrageous War Economy." >> >> America may be a ticking time bomb, but we are threatened more by >> enemies within than external terrorists, by ideological fanatics on >> the left and the right. Most of all, we are under attack by our >> elected leaders who are motivated more by pure greed than ideology. >> They terrorize us, brainwashing us into passively letting them steal >> our money to finance "America's Outrageous War Economy," the ultimate >> "black hole" of corruption and trickle-up economics. >> >> You think I'm kidding? I'm maybe too harsh? Sorry but others are far >> more brutal. Listen to the ideologies and realities eating at >> America's soul. >> >> 1. Our toxic 'war within' is threatening America's soul >> >> How powerful is the Pentagon's war machine? Trillions in dollars. But >> worse yet: Their mindset is now locked deep in our DNA, in our >> collective conscience, in America's soul. Our love of war is enshrined >> in the writings of neocon war hawks like Norman Podoretz, who warns >> the Iraq War was the launching of "World War IV: The Long Struggle >> Against Islamofascism," a reminder that we could be occupying Iraq for >> a hundred years. His WW IV also reminded us of the coming apocalyptic >> end-of-days "war of civilizations" predicted by religious leaders in >> both >> Christian and Islamic worlds two years ago. >> >> In contrast, this ideology has been challenged in works like Craig >> Unger's "American Armageddon: How the Delusions of the >> Neoconservatives and the Christian Right Triggered the Descent of >> America -- and Still Imperil Our Future." >> >> Unfortunately, neither threat can be dismissed as "all in our minds" >> nor as merely ideological rhetoric. Trillions of tax dollars are in >> fact being spent to keep the Pentagon war machine aggressively >> planning and expanding wars decades in advance, including spending >> billions on propaganda brainwashing na?ve Americans into co-signing >> "America's Outrageous War Economy." Yes, they really love war, but >> that "love" is toxic for America's soul. >> >> 2. America's war economy financed on blank checks to greedy >> >> Read Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda >> Bilmes' "$3 Trillion War." They show how our government's deceitful >> leaders are secretly hiding the real long-term costs of the Iraq War, >> which was originally sold to the American taxpayer with a $50 billion >> price tag and funded out of oil revenues. >> >> But add in all the lifetime veterans' health benefits, equipment >> placement costs, increased homeland security and interest on new >> federal debt, and suddenly taxpayers got a $3 trillion war tab! >> >> 3. America's war economy has no idea where its money goes >> >> Read Portfolio magazine's special report "The Pentagon's $1 Trillion >> Problem." The Pentagon's 2007 budget of $440 billion included $16 >> billion to operate and upgrade its financial system. Unfortunately >> "the defense department has spent billions to fix its antiquated >> financial systems [but] still has no idea where its money goes." >> >> And it gets worse: Back "in 2000, Defense's inspector general told >> Congress that his auditors stopped counting after finding $2.3 >> trillion in unsupported entries." Yikes, our war machine has no >> records for $2.3 trillion! How can we trust anything they say? >> >> 4. America's war economy is totally 'unmanageable' >> >> For decades Washington has been waving that "national defense" flag, >> to force the public into supporting "America's Outrageous War >> Economy." Read John Alic's "Trillions for Military Technology: How the >> Pentagon Innovates and Why It Costs So Much." >> >> A former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment staffer, he >> explains why weapon systems cost the Pentagon so much, "why it takes >> decades to get them into production even as innovation in the civilian >> economy becomes ever more frenetic and why some of those weapons don't >> work very well despite expenditures of many billions of dollars," and >> how "the internal politics of the armed services make weapons >> acquisition almost unmanageable." Yes, the Pentagon wastes trillions >> planning its wars well in advance. >> >> Comments? Tell us: What will it take to wake up America, get citizens, >> investors, anybody mad at "America's Outrageous War Economy?" >> Why don't you rebel? Will the outrage come too late ... after this >> massive war bubble explodes in our faces? >> __._,_.___ >> >> Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional >> Change >> settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) >> Change settings via email: >> > Digest>Switch delivery to Daily Digest | >> > Delivery Format: Fully Featured>Switch to Fully Featured >> Visit >> Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of >> Use | >> Unsubscribe >> >> >> __,_._,___ > From rfidler_8 at sympatico.ca Thu Sep 11 08:01:41 2008 From: rfidler_8 at sympatico.ca (Richard Fidler) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:01:41 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons: In-Reply-To: <48C7894D.4040707@attglobal.net> References: <48C7894D.4040707@attglobal.net> Message-ID: Received from Ian Angus: Thank you for forwarding me Bill Totten's A-list posting regarding my article "The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons." A future article on Climate and Capitalism will reply in detail to several of Garrett Hardin's defenders. For now I offer these brief comments. Totten suggests that my failure to cite a 1991 article by Garrett Hardin shows that I was either "maliciously using Professor Hardin and his 1968 article as a straw man to knock down" or else "just too lazy to read the 1991 article." Garrett Hardin wrote literally hundreds of articles, and I willingly plead guilty to not citing all of them. I focused on the most important article he ever wrote, one of the most influential, most-quoted and most-reprinted journal articles of all time. "The Tragedy of the Commons," first published in Science in 1968, appears in more than 100 anthologies and is cited hundreds of thousands of times on the web. Totten admits he hasn't actually read that article, but he nevertheless prefers a much-more obscure 1991 essay which, contrary to his speculation, I have read. It is one of several in which Hardin, very late in his career, tried to rescue his central thesis by qualifying some of his more extreme 1968 arguments. Contrary to some suggestions, he never retracted his core argument ? and unlike his 1968 article, his late-life qualifications had no effect on public policy. I urge Hardin's A-List defenders to read what Hardin actually wrote. You'll find that far from criticizing him maliciously, I may have been unduly respectful towards a man who deserved much harsher criticism. Hardin supported the racist bestseller The Bell Curve. He thought China's limits on child-bearing weren't strict enough. He suggested mandatory sterilization of poor women after one child. He publicly condemned the ACLU for supporting the right of women on welfare to choose whether to have children. He opposed all foreign aid including humanitarian aid in emergencies. He was a Board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group. He believed, according to the Wall Street Journal, "not simply that there are too many people in the world, but [that] there are too many of the wrong kind of people." And as you read, note how often he cites the "tragedy of the commons" in support of his grossly reactionary views. Of course that doesn't prove that his thesis was wrong, but at least it should lead you to pause before defending it. A-List's statement of purpose says it focuses on "Exterminism: the Highest Stage of Imperialism." I hope that my critique of Hardin's 1968 essay, which for decades has provided ideological justification for the destruction of commons-based communities on every continent, contributes to that important discussion. Ian Angus Editor, Climate and Capitalism http://www.climateandcapitalism.com -----Original Message----- From: a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Bill Totten Sent: September 10, 2008 4:46 AM To: a-list Subject: [A-List] The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons: Population and the disguises of Providence by Garret Hardin from Commons Without Tragedy (Shepheard-Walwyn, 1991) edited by Robert V Andelson _____ Note: Here is the 1991 article by Garret Hardin mentioned by Michael Hudson here on August 28th. Compare this 1991 article with the scathing attack by Ian Angus on a 1968 article by the same author also posted here on August 28th. I wonder why Angus didn't even bother citing this article: Was he maliciously using Professor Hardin and his 1968 article as a straw man to knock down, or was he just too lazy to read the 1991 article? I haven't yet read Dr Hardin's ?1998 article from Science Magazine at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5364/682, but I suspect it is much more similar to this 1991 article than the one attacked by Ian Angus. Bill Totten. _____ THE COMPLEX of concerns we blanket with the name 'the population problem' has been with us for almost two hundred years. Any 'problem' that persists that long without resolution should lead us to suspect subconscious resistances. In this instance a major resistance is, I think, centered around the concept of Providence. We would do well to look into the origin and variations of this concept. [snip] From noreply at coha.org Thu Sep 11 08:05:25 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:05:25 -0400 Subject: Space Technology Comes to Latin America: Part of the Hemisphere’s Road to Autonomy Message-ID: <20080911140530.D20BC3E4BF7@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4443 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/7b41391e/attachment.txt From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 11 08:37:51 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:37:51 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons: In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think that Mr. Angus and Bill Totten actually are on the same page. They both criticize Hardin and how he has been picked up as a right-wing ideologue. Bill's point was that Hardin did indeed "soften" his position later and make key concessions. Angus's response was that by this time, Hardin's ideas had taken on a life of their own, and the right-wing ideologues simply ignored his later attempts to make his ideas more realistic. Ideologues don't care about realism; they care about an argument that will lead to their right-wing, anti-social ends. In other words, he doesn't forgive Hardin for his continued right-wing ideology, and doesn't think that trying to use the reasonable qualifications will have any impact on Hardin's followers, so it just doesn't matter. But for the record, I do think it helpful to point out that Hardin later retracted his views. This is like the New York Times trumpeting in big type, "Iraq has WMDs" on its front page, and then a week later, in a small footnote on page 23, "error. There really were no WMDs." Typical political strategy! Michael On 9/11/08 10:01 AM, "Richard Fidler" wrote: > Received from Ian Angus: > > Thank you for forwarding me Bill Totten's A-list posting regarding my article > "The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons." A future article on Climate and > Capitalism will reply in detail to several of Garrett Hardin's defenders. For > now I offer these brief comments. > > Totten suggests that my failure to cite a 1991 article by Garrett Hardin shows > that I was either "maliciously using Professor Hardin and his 1968 article as > a straw man to knock down" or else "just too lazy to read the 1991 article." > > Garrett Hardin wrote literally hundreds of articles, and I willingly plead > guilty to not citing all of them. I focused on the most important article he > ever wrote, one of the most influential, most-quoted and most-reprinted > journal articles of all time. "The Tragedy of the Commons," first published in > Science in 1968, appears in more than 100 anthologies and is cited hundreds of > thousands of times on the web. > > Totten admits he hasn't actually read that article, but he nevertheless > prefers a much-more obscure 1991 essay which, contrary to his speculation, I > have read. It is one of several in which Hardin, very late in his career, > tried to rescue his central thesis by qualifying some of his more extreme 1968 > arguments. Contrary to some suggestions, he never retracted his core argument > ? and unlike his 1968 article, his late-life qualifications had no effect on > public policy. > > I urge Hardin's A-List defenders to read what Hardin actually wrote. You'll > find that far from criticizing him maliciously, I may have been unduly > respectful towards a man who deserved much harsher criticism. > > Hardin supported the racist bestseller The Bell Curve. He thought China's > limits on child-bearing weren't strict enough. He suggested mandatory > sterilization of poor women after one child. He publicly condemned the ACLU > for supporting the right of women on welfare to choose whether to have > children. > > He opposed all foreign aid including humanitarian aid in emergencies. He was a > Board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which the > Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group. He believed, according to > the Wall Street Journal, "not simply that there are too many people in the > world, but [that] there are too many of the wrong kind of people." > > And as you read, note how often he cites the "tragedy of the commons" in > support of his grossly reactionary views. Of course that doesn't prove that > his thesis was wrong, but at least it should lead you to pause before > defending it. > > A-List's statement of purpose says it focuses on "Exterminism: the Highest > Stage of Imperialism." I hope that my critique of Hardin's 1968 essay, which > for decades has provided ideological justification for the destruction of > commons-based communities on every continent, contributes to that important > discussion. > > Ian Angus > Editor, Climate and Capitalism > http://www.climateandcapitalism.com From hliu at mindspring.com Thu Sep 11 08:42:22 2008 From: hliu at mindspring.com (Henry C.K. Liu) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:42:22 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Michael Hudson in Asia Times on Line In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48C92E4E.40802@mindspring.com> http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JI12Dj01.html > > From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 11 12:18:55 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:18:55 -0400 Subject: [A-List] WHAT I LEFT OUT In-Reply-To: <48C92E4E.40802@mindspring.com> Message-ID: Dear Henry, Just coming back from swimming today, I realized that I had forgotten to write up the following: WHAT I LEFT OUT I was a music student at the time, and it says something about U/C?s philosophy that there was no practical musical performance or analysis taught at all. Only theory, forget practice. So even before registering as a freshman in 1955, I enrolled at DePaul and Roosevelt Universities in music at the graduate level (having completed the BA requirements while waiting to graduate from the high school). U/C had the same philosophy of theory, not practice, for language. I learned to read and write French and Italian as well as German, but no practice in actually speaking the Romance languages. (My BA graduation orals were in German, to be sure.) In the 1990s I sought to publish my history of international trade theory, and contacted the editor of University of Chicago Press, who had just come from Pantheon on New York, with which I was on good terms before the mass resignations in the late 1980s. The editor came back to me somewhat chagrined, and said that the entire board of the U/C Press had threatened to resign if they published my book. It was a critique of free-trade theory, especially of Jacob Viner?s censorial history of trade theory. So I recognized that from the U/C?s vantage point, a ?free market? in ideas was one where students were only free to choose the ideology that the U/C supported. Their teaching was like the Terminator. You can?t reason with it. It?s just there to kill the opposition. Michael On 9/11/08 10:42 AM, "Henry C.K. Liu" wrote: > > > http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JI12Dj01.html > >> >> > From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Thu Sep 11 12:54:00 2008 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:54:00 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Analysis - Obama, McCain back Rumsfeld policies - UPI Message-ID: <48C96948.7030009@gmail.com> Obama, McCain back Rumsfeld policies By LOREN B. THOMPSON Published: Sept. 10, 2008 at 2:15 PM Caveat: Loren B. Thompson is chief executive officer of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank that supports democracy and the free market ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. presidential campaigns are so much about posturing that it's easy to miss what's really going on. Take national security policy. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., want you to think they represent diametrically opposed approaches to national security, when in fact they have quite similar views. One of the things they have in common is that neither wants you to realize they see future security challenges pretty much the same way former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did. To prove that point, let's take a little stroll down memory lane. Nine years ago this month presidential candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, gave the most important defense speech of his campaign at a military school in South Carolina called The Citadel. In that speech, he set forth the framework for dealing with national security that he would use if elected: "If elected, I will set three goals. I will renew the bond of trust between the American president and the American military. I will defend the American people against missiles and terror. And I will begin creating the military of the next century." That last item became known as military transformation and was the central goal of Rumsfeld's tenure as defense secretary. During the six years he served under Bush, Rumsfeld carried a card spelling out the key precepts behind what Bush's speech had called "a new architecture of American defense." Defeat asymmetric threats. Optimize intelligence. Bolster homeland security. Build global partnerships. Improve counterinsurgency skills. Integrate military and non-military instruments. Become better at stability operations. Reform Pentagon processes. You could easily conclude from the media coverage since Rumsfeld's resignation that this agenda has been discredited. Guess again. The key security initiatives favored by both McCain and Obama echo the assumptions of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld worldview. Here's McCain, on his campaign Web site: "Modernizing the armed forces also means adapting our doctrine, training and tactics for the kinds of conflicts we are most likely to face. ... These asymmetric conflicts require a very different force structure than the one we used to fight and win the Cold War." McCain differs with Pentagon policy under Rumsfeld in wanting to increase the size of the military. But most of his security priorities are in tune with the Bush approach to transformation, stressing improved homeland security against terrorists and missile attack, better intelligence, more funding for unconventional warfare skills and "working with friends and partners overseas." According to McCain, the military missions of the 21st century "will not center on traditional territorial defense" but on "counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism, missile defense, counter-proliferation and information warfare." McCain says such challenges require "a new mix of military forces." Obama seems to agree with all of these views. He says, "We must meet the full-spectrum needs of the new century, not simply recreate the military of the Cold War era." He then goes on to call for funding of special operations forces, information operations and, surprisingly, missile defense. Obama endorses Bush's call for a bigger military, but he also says, "We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces can succeed in both conventional warfighting and in stabilization and counterinsurgency operations." His positions on cyberwarfare, rebuilding global partnerships and reforming the acquisition process all sound similar to those of McCain. More strikingly, both candidates sound like they think Bush and Rumsfeld were right about what the future requires, even if Iraq was a mistake. -- (Loren B. Thompson is chief executive officer of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank that supports democracy and the free market.) http://www.upi.com/Security_Industry/2008/09/10/Obama_McCain_back_Rumsfeld_policies/UPI-92571221070559/ From bobenoch at shaw.ca Thu Sep 11 13:18:30 2008 From: bobenoch at shaw.ca (bob enoch) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:18:30 -0700 Subject: [A-List] An Inside Job In-Reply-To: <48C8D42E.7010001@attglobal.net> References: <48C83682.6020607@attglobal.net> <48C873E7.8050103@shaw.ca> <48C8D42E.7010001@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <48C96F06.9040105@shaw.ca> Bill Totten wrote: > Thanks, Bob, do you know anyone at Deutche Bank who can get me some of > initial shares? Bob ----------------------------------------- Sure, Bill. I think Buzzy Krongard is handling that file, including the put options. Bob From seanfischer at earthlink.net Thu Sep 11 14:25:41 2008 From: seanfischer at earthlink.net (Sean Fischer) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:25:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [A-List] Fwd: New Zealand Dollar Drops as Rates Cut; Australia Currency Falls Message-ID: <3149945.1221164741786.JavaMail.root@mswamui-blood.atl.sa.earthlink.net> New Zealand Dollar Drops as Rates Cut; Australia Currency Falls http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aviRxUuEfinA&refer=asia From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Sep 11 14:38:13 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:38:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Amiri Baraka Message-ID: <48C94975.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka addressing the Malcom X Festival in San Antonio Park, Oakland, California Born October 7, 1934 (1934-10-07) (age 73) Newark, New Jersey (U.S.) Occupation Actor, teacher, theater director/producer, writer, activist Nationality American Writing period 1961 - Present Genres Poetry, Drama Influences[show] Richard Wright Influenced[show] John S. Hall Official website Amiri Baraka (born October 7, 1934) is an American writer of poetry, drama, essays and music criticism. Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 1934 - 1965 1.3 1966 - 1980 1.4 1980 - today 2 Controversy 3 Works 4 Film Appearances 5 References 6 External links [edit] Biography [edit] Early life Baraka, a convert to Islam,[1] was born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended Barringer High School.[2] His father, Coyette LeRoi Jones, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator, and his mother, Anna Lois (n?e Russ), was a social worker.[3][4][5][6][7] In 1952, he changed his name to LeRoi Jones. In 1967 he adopted the African name Imamu Ameer Baraka, which he later changed to Amiri Baraka. [edit] 1934 - 1965 Baraka studied philosophy and religious studies at Rutgers University, Columbia University and Howard University without obtaining a degree. In 1954 he joined the US Air Force, reaching the rank of sergeant. After an anonymous letter to his commanding officer accusing him of being a communist led to the discovery of Soviet writings, Baraka was put on kitchen duty and given a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty. The same year he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began in this period. At the same time he came into contact with the incipient movement of Beat Poets that was going to have a powerful influence on his early poetry. In 1958, Jones founded Totem Press, which published such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The same year he married Hettie Cohen and with her became joint editor of the Yugen literary magazine (until 1963). In 1960 he went to Cuba, a visit that initiated his transformation into a politically active artist. In 1961 Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note was published, followed in 1963 by Blues People: Negro Music in White America - to this day one of the most influential volumes of jazz criticism, especially in regard to the then beginning Free Jazz movement. His acclaimed controversial [8] play[disambiguation needed]Dutchman premiered in 1964 and received an Obie Award the same year. After the assassination of Malcolm X, Baraka broke free from the Beat Poets. He left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem, considering himself at that time a black cultural nationalist.[citation needed] Later, Hettie Cohen, in her autobiography How I Became Hettie Jones (1996), claimed that Baraka had mistreated her during the time of their marriage. [edit] 1966 - 1980 In 1966, Baraka married his second wife who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. In 1967 he became a lecturer at San Francisco State University. In 1968, he was arrested in Newark for illegally carrying a weapon and resisting arrest during riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and sentenced to three years in prison. Shortly afterwards an appeals court threw out the sentence. The same year his second book of jazz criticism Black Music came out, a collection of previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. In 1970 he strongly supported Kenneth Gibson's candidacy for mayor of Newark; Gibson was elected the city's first Afro-American Mayor. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka courted controversy by penning some strongly anti-Jewish poems and articles, similar to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam. Around 1974, Baraka distanced himself from Black nationalism and became a Marxist and a supporter of anti-imperialist third world liberation movements. In 1979 he became a lecturer at SUNY - Stony Brook for the Africana Studies Department, and was greatly admired by his students. The same year, after altercations with his wife, he was sentenced to a short period of compulsory community service. Around this time he began writing his autobiography. In 1980 he denounced his former anti-semitic utterances, declaring himself an anti-zionist. [edit] 1980 - today In 1984 Baraka became a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure.[citation needed] In 1987, together with Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, he was a speaker at the commemoration ceremony for James Baldwin. In 1989 he won an American Book Award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes Award. In 1990 he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 was a supporting actor in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth. Baraka collaborated with hip hop group The Roots on the song "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" on their 2002 album Phrenology. In 2003, Baraka's daughter Shani, age 31, was murdered in Piscataway Township, New Jersey. In 2006, Baraka regained both fame and infamy when he was listed in David Horowitz's book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. [edit] Controversy Baraka's writings have generated controversy over the years, particularly his use of often-violent imagery directed towards (at various times) women, gay people, white people, and Jews. Critics of his work have alternately described such usage as ranging from being vernacular expressions of Black oppression to outright examples of racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism that they perceive in his work.[9][10][11] The following is a typical example cited, from a 1965 essay: Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank. ? The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped.[12] Amiri Baraka was New Jersey?s Poet Laureate at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He wrote a poem titled "Somebody Blew Up America"[13] about the event. The poem was controversial and highly critical of racism in America, and includes angry depictions of public figures such as Trent Lott, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice. The poem also contains lines claiming Israel's involvement in the World Trade Center attacks: Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away? [...] Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion Baraka has said that he believed Israelis (and President George W. Bush) were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, citing what he described as information that had been reported in the American and Israeli press and on Jordanian television. He denies that the poem is anti-Semitic, and points to its accusation, which is directed against Israelis, rather than Jews as a people.[14][15] The Anti-Defamation League was amongst the critics who denounced the poem as anti-Semitic.[16], though Baraka and his defenders to defined his position as Anti-Zionism. After this poem's publication, Governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from the post, only to discover that there was no legal way to do so. In 2003, after legislation was passed allowing him to do so, McGreevey abolished the NJ Poet Laureate title. In response to legal action filed by Baraka, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that state officials were immune from such suits, and in November 2007 the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal of the case.[17] [edit] Works Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, poems, 1961 Blues People: Negro Music in White America, 1963 Dutchman and The Slave, drama, 1964 The System of Dante's Hell, novel, 1965 Home: Social Essays, 1965 Tales, 1967 Black Magic, poems, 1969 Four Black Revolutionary Plays, 1969 It's Nation Time, poems, 1970 Raise Race Rays Raize: Essays Since 1965, 1971 Hard Facts, poems, 1975 The Motion of History and Other Plays, 1978 Poetry for the Advanced, 1979 reggae or not!, 1981 Daggers and Javelins: Essays 1974-1979, 1984 The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, 1984 The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues, 1987 Transbluesency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones, 1995 Wise, Why?s Y?s, essays, 1995 Funk Lore: New Poems, 1996. Somebody Blew Up America, 2001 Tales of the Out & the Gone, 2006 [edit] Film Appearances Motherland (film) (2009) Ferlinghetti: A City Light (2008) .... Himself The Black Candle (2008) Corso: The Last Beat (2008) Oscene (2007) .... Himself Turn Me On (2007) (TV) .... Himself Revolution '67 (2007) .... Himself Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place (2007) Retour ? Gor?e (2007) .... Himself The Pact (2006) .... Himself The Ballad of Greenwich Village (2005) .... Himself 500 Years Later (2005) (voice) .... Himself Hubert Selby Jr: It'll Be Better Tomorrow (2005) .... Himself Keeping Time: The Life, Music & Photography of Milt Hinton (2004) .... Himself Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004) .... Himself Ralph Ellison: An American Journey (2002) .... Himself Strange Fruit (2002) .... Himself Pi?ero (2001) .... Himself Bulworth (1998) .... Rastaman Furious Flower: A Video Anthology of African American Poetry 1960-95, Volume II: Warriors (1998) .... Himself Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978) .... Himself Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds (1978) .... Himself One P.M. (1972) [edit] References ^ The Cambridge handbook of American literature, By Jack Salzman, Cameron Bardrick, pg.16 ^ Message from Amiri Baraka, New Jersey and Newark Schools' Poet Laureate, dated July 1, 2003, accessed April 13, 2007. "Now, in an attempt to prevent my appearance at Barringer High School (my alma mater) June 30, to give the Commencement Address, they threatened to picket Barringer and otherwise cause disruption." ^ Amiri Baraka Biography (1934-) ^ culturebase.net | The international artist database | Amiri Baraka ^ PAL: Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones (1934- ) ^ Kjali Dialogue with Amiri Baraka - Part I ^ Amiri Baraka ^ Amazon.com: Dutchman: Movies & TV: Shirley Knight,Al Freeman Jr.,Frank Lieberman,Robert Calvert (II),Howard Bennett,Sandy McDonald,Dennis Alaba Peters,Keith James,Devon Hall,Anthony Harvey (II) ^ David L. Smith . Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts of Black Art . boundary 2. Vol. 15, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 235-254. ^ Charles H. Rowell. An Interview With Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Callaloo. Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 444-463. ^ Marlon B. Ross . Camping the Dirty Dozens: The Queer Resources of Black Nationalist Invective. Callaloo. Vol. 23, No. 1, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender: Literature and Culture (Winter, 2000), pp. 290-312. ^ Jerry Gafio Watts. Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual. NYU Press, 2001. pg 332 ^ Amiri Baraka, on line. ^ Katherine Stevens, "Baraka refutes criticism. Controversial N.J. poet laureate denies accusations of racism", Yale Daily News (February 25, 2003) ^ Jeremy Pearce, "When poetry seems to matter", The New York Times (February 9, 2003) ^ Anti-Defamation LeagueAMIRI BARAKA: IN HIS OWN WORDS ^ via Associated Press. "Newark: Court Will Not Hear Poet?s Lawsuit", The New York Times, November 14, 2007. Accessed November 26, 2007. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Amiri BarakaWorks by or about Amiri Baraka in libraries (WorldCat catalog) Baraka at IMDB homepage of Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka in the German National Library catalogue Amiri Baraka Discography Project Modern American Poetry Page: Amiri Baraka 1984 interview with Amiri Baraka by Don Swaim at Wired for Books John Derybshire review Amiri Baraka Multimedia Directory - Kerouac Alley Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka" Categories: African American writers | African American dramatists and playwrights | African American essayists | African American poets | American Poets Laureate | Barringer High School alumni | Beat writers | Beat Generation | Civil rights activists | Jazz writers | American music critics | American Marxists | American Muslims | People from Newark, New Jersey | 1934 births | Living people | Converts to Islam Hidden categories: Articles with links needing disambiguation | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements since July 2008 ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Search Interaction About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Donate to Wikipedia Help Toolbox What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Printable version Permanent link Cite this page Languages Dansk Deutsch Espa?ol Fran?ais Italiano ????? Simple English Sloven?ina Svenska This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From orakwa at paulcomm.ca Thu Sep 11 07:43:41 2008 From: orakwa at paulcomm.ca (MohawkNationNews) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:43:41 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN 6 Nations Call-out - Canada-intl corporations-police target youth, women Message-ID: <0124981b$39702$17db4053391088@your-6904db8205> SIX NATIONS: Call-out for help! Arrest of two activists - Police ?target' Indigenous youth - bring food and phone cards. People as witnesses needed at both construction sites (ASAP) and at the courthouse today and tomorrow. To get to the construction site take the 403 west towards London , Ontario , exit off Oak Park Road . Turn left and drive over the 403. The construction site is immediately on the right hand side. Brantford City Court is on 44 Queen Street . MNN. Sept. 11, 2008. Two native activists were arrested Wednesday in a traffic stop by up to a dozen Ontario Provincial Police and Brantford city police officers. The 19-year-old son of ?Boots? was arrested, along with an unnamed ?young offender?. The police have disregarded the presumption of innocence by calling them ?offenders?. Boots has been living in a teepee in front of these fraudulent development projects. He is trying to remind them that we own the territory. It is a project of the ?First Northwest Business Park Ontario? [John Jones 905-363-3086, jjones at firstgulf.com www.firstgulf.com; Head Office, Century Point Corporate Center, 6860 Century Ave., E. Tower, Suite 1000, Mississauga Ontario L5N 2W5 905-814-6860]. Brantford is giving illegal building permits to international corporations to build on our territory, such as: - -?Hampton Inn Hotels? which is part of the Hilton chain [we need CEO name, headquarters address and contact information];ampton HotH -?Fen Ridge Court? [we need CEO, address and contact info]; and -Kingspan Insulation, Dublin Road, Kings Court Co., Cavan, Ireland, registration #70776 Ph. +353(0)42 9698000 admin at kingspan.ie, CE Gene M. Murtagh, Irish Stock Exchange info at ise.ie. These companies have illegally laid claim to Haudenosaunee Territory . Some have represented that our unceded land is their collateral to raise funds on various stock exchanges. We have put them all on notice that the land is ours. They should be charged with fraud because of this knowingly willful violation of our rights and misrepresentations of their holdings in the public market. Unfortunately, the state authorities are complicit in the fraud. The city of Brantford issues the illegal permits. Boots? son has a bail hearing this morning, September 11th at the Brantford Court . The other youth is up for bail tomorrow at 9:00am. Both are charged with ?mischief?. Janie Jamieson gave the following report: ?Today [September 10] at approximately 11:00am my one-year old son and I were leaving the ?King and Benton? site of illegal construction site in Brantford , Ontario . My sister followed with the two youth. I stopped at a sign and then proceeded through. In my rear view mirror I could see my sister following close behind. Then I saw a non-Native man with a closely shaved head pulling on her truck door with one hand while violently punching the window with a closed fist. I feared she was under attack by ?skinheads? as there were several unmarked cars blocking her in. I went ahead and turned around. When I got back all vehicles were gone, including my sister. I turned right. The same men were parked there but had changed into OPP vests and belts loaded with weapons. There were approximately 8 cruisers marked ?OPP? and ? Brantford City Police?. They were surrounding my sister and the two youth who were being handcuffed. I told the police that according to our law our youth are under the authority and jurisdiction of the Ongwehonwe women and that our youth had EVERY authority to uphold our traditional laws. The police were told to cease and desist their armed invasions and kidnapping of our children. These tactics constitute declarations of war. The cops said everything they were doing was "standard police practice" [in dealing with Indigenous people]. Why do they bother to wear uniforms? Are there any real ?skinheads?? Or are they all cops trying to an end run around the law they swore to defend? Five officers then began searching my sister's truck for "weapons". I put tobacco in the hands of the youth and told them to hold onto it. The police tried to stop me. The youth held onto it and were placed in separate cruisers and taken to the Brantford Jail. Bawa Construction (Hampton Inn & Suites) has resumed illegal construction on our unsurrendered territory despite being warned by us to stop. At no point have any of our people stepped out of the Kaianarekowa. The developers and the police continuously ESCALATE intercultural hostility by targeting our children, women (mothers and grandmothers) and men to protect the finances of local and international corporations. We ongwehonwe will continue to uphold our great-great-grandchildren's right to exist. MNN Mohawk Nation News Staff www.mohawknationnews.com katenies20 at yahoo.com Please Note. Legal actions have to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991 , Kahnawake [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen. http://www.reclamationinfo.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2368#p2368 Splitting the Sky, a Mohawk activist, actor and author will be one of the featured speakers at the March on Ottawa this Thursday, September,11, 2008. It is a commemoration of the massacre of thousands of people at the Twin Towers in New York city on September 11th, 2001. Mohawk ironworkers were some of the construction workers on the Twin Towers and continue to be concerned about this issue. Come hear the arguments to substantiate the allegations. http://www.marchonottawa2008.org/ www.splittingthesky.net Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com Contact: katenies20 at yahoo.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Go to MNN ?Six Nations? category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 11 19:53:41 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:53:41 +0900 Subject: [A-List] State of Denial Message-ID: <48C9CBA5.9010207@attglobal.net> Clear Channel foams our intellectual runway by Robert C Koehler Tribune Media Services (August 28 2008) Talk about naive. The Union of Concerned Scientists apparently thought the Democratic and Republican national conventions would be appropriate events at which to bring up the awkwardly substantive topic of US nuclear weapons stockpiles (6,000 or so) and policy (insane). So, as part of a larger campaign of informative ads in the two convention cities, Denver and Minneapolis-Saint Paul, they rented billboard space at the two airports and greeted travelers with ads depicting an aerial view of that city, with one of those ground zero bull's-eyes superimposed on the downtown area, and the words: "When only one nuclear bomb could destroy a city like (Minneapolis, Denver) ... We don't need 6,000". Below the picture, the party's presidential nominee - one per city - was urged "to get serious about reducing the nuclear threat". Well, OK. Perhaps you will not be surprised to hear what happened next: In Minneapolis, some people found the ad "scary", which it was supposed to be, and "anti-McCain", which it wasn't, but airports are the sovereign turf of Corporate America, which has quite a few values higher than free speech. Chief among them, I think, is "happy, happy". And Northwest Airlines, the official airline of the Republican National Convention, which also controls the advertising space in Concourse G of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, found the ad to be in clear violation of this value. So it requested Clear Channel Outdoor, a branch of the media conglomerate that originally sold the billboard space to Union of Concerned Scientists, to remove the ad. Clear Channel, best known for homogenizing the nation's airwaves (it owns more than 1,200 radio stations, and pushes a lineup of right-wing talk show hosts), did Northwest one better. It yanked the ad in Minneapolis, then preemptively yanked it again in Denver, where no one had complained. Phew - threat averted! Let the conventions proceed with all due hoopla and empty intrigue. "By maintaining thousands of highly accurate nuclear weapons on alert, the United States perpetuates the only threat that could destroy it as a functioning society: a large-scale attack by Russia launched either without authorization, by accident, or by mistake because of a false warning of an incoming US attack". So UCS points out, in a statement on its Web site called "Toward True Security". America's security establishment remains calcified in Cold War paranoia and, incredibly, hair-trigger nuclear alert - and no one talks about it. What threat do we really face? By any rational assessment, the greatest danger to our survival is from nuclear weapons themselves. But we don't have the mechanism for such a discussion, at least not in the common spheres of national life: politics and popular culture. We continue to maintain and upgrade our nuclear arsenal and national life simply moves on around it. Yet: "By giving nuclear weapons so large and visible a role in US policy", the UCS statement goes on, "... the United States has increased the incentive for other nations to acquire nuclear weapons, and reduced the political costs to them of doing so". Nuclear technology is more accessible than ever, and more and more countries feel the need to join "the club", fueling the arrival of what many observers consider a second nuclear age - far more "egalitarian" than the first. At least forty non-nuclear states currently possess large quantities of highly enriched uranium, and the risk of terrorists possessing "suitcase nukes" is greater than ever. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which has been monitoring the state of global nuclear risk since 1947, recently reset its doomsday clock to five minutes to midnight. No, this is not an easy discussion to have, but what is the cost of not having it? What is the cost of remaining in a state of suppressed disquiet, fearing some vague "threat level orange" and watching increasingly bizarre security measures - especially at the airport - tighten around us? What is the cost of not making a nuke-free world a political priority in the United States? "By contributing to a climate in which possessing nuclear weapons is legitimate", the statement continues, "the United States has also undermined the ability of the international community to prevent more states from acquiring them ... The United States can, and should, take the lead in promoting an effort to clear the path to a world free of nuclear weapons". Like I say, what was the Union of Concerned Scientists thinking - trying to put this matter on the agenda of America's major political parties as they meet to choose new leaders and determine our national direction? "Eventually we want to live in a world free of nuclear weapons", UCS spokesman Aaron Huertas told me. But here's the thing. As Clear Channel and Northwest Airlines understood, we can live in that world right now just by taking that unpleasant ad down - no politics in the airport, please - and maintaining a state of impenetrable denial. _____ Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler at tribune.com. http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col461.htm http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Sep 11 20:58:04 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:58:04 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana In-Reply-To: <48C99B82.6040303@alai.info> References: <48C99B82.6040303@alai.info> Message-ID: - - - Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" - - - Con miras a la integraci?n financiera regional Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana Oscar Ugarteche Aurora V?zquez ALAI AMLATINA, 11/09/2008, M?xico DF.- El anuncio de Brasil y Argentina de que iniciar?an su comercio binacional en moneda nacional ha sido la primera noticia latinoamericana orientada en el sentido de la integraci?n financiera regional. La noticia dada el 5 de septiembre desde Brasilia enfatiza que se har?n los pagos en moneda nacional entre ambos pa?ses a partir del 3 de octubre, pero no dice c?mo se har?n con los pa?ses m?s peque?os del MERCOSUR. Este primer paso podr?a ampliarse con la utilizaci?n de una unidad de cuentas de referencia estable que no sea el d?lar. En las ?ltimas ocho semanas desde julio del 2008 a septiembre el tipo de cambio d?lar euro ha pasado por una apreciaci?n del d?lar de 1.60 por euro a 1.40 por euro, sin que exista ninguna raz?n macroecon?mica para explicar dicho movimiento. La inestabilidad de la moneda de dicho pa?s es un reflejo de la inestabilidad de su econom?a y la incertidumbre sobre su crecimiento futuro. Ante un contexto poco alentador en el que se habla de crisis financiera, energ?tica, alimentar?a y ecol?gica, se abre una brecha que permite el paso a nuevas estructuras que no s?lo tienen impacto en la econom?a sino tambi?n en la pol?tica, en la sociedad y el medio ambiente, aunque ?sta a?n es muy peque?a, ya se han empezado a dar los primeros pasos y as? es como Argentina y Brasil, cuya decisi?n de tener un intercambio comercial bilateral con sus monedas. Recientemente en Buenos Aires se discuti? la unidad monetaria sudamericana, una canasta de monedas an?loga al ECU europeo que tiene como m?rito mayor, ser estable ante las variaciones del d?lar y del euro. A diferencia de la uni?n monetaria planteada por Brasil a partir del real hace tres a?os, la unidad monetaria es una canasta de monedas que le deja libertad de acci?n a los bancos centrales para el manejo de sus pol?ticas cambiaria y monetaria dentro de ciertas bandas y con coordinaci?n macroecon?mica. El comercio intra latinoamericano crece a tasas nunca vistas y es comercio de manufacturas. En la medida en que van ganando mayor?a en el comercio total, como en el caso argentino, tener una unidad de referencia regional es conveniente y econ?mica. Ahorra los costos de transacci?n de pasar por una tercera moneda y adem?s desconecta la relaci?n entre las monedas que comercian de una tercera moneda intermediaria cuyo valor es ser una referencia de precios. La creaci?n de una unidad monetaria, como ya vimos permite crear estabilidad econ?mica entre los socios, favoreciendo el comercio intrarregional, al mismo tiempo que crea oportunidades y ventajas para un posterior desarrollo y crecimiento econ?mico. Lo m?s importante es que permite pensar en la regi?n como un ente aut?nomo listo para enfrentar los retos de la globalizaci?n financiera en otros t?rminos, con unidad de criterios ante la incertidumbre.. - Oscar Ugarteche es Investigador del Instituto de Investigaciones Econ?micas de la UNAM y asesor de Latindadd, - Aurora V?zquez es Becaria del proyecto Papiit No. IN-309608 DGAPA-UNAM "Elementos para la integraci?n financiera Latinoam?rica". M?s informaci?n: http://alainet.org From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Sep 11 23:09:27 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:09:27 +0900 Subject: [A-List] A speech that made the world smile Message-ID: <48C9F987.4010107@attglobal.net> An ingenious example of speech and politics occurred recently in the United Nations Assembly and made the world community smile. A representative from Palestine began: "Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Moses. "When he struck the rock and it brought forth water, he thought, 'What a good opportunity to have a bath!' "He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water. "When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished. "An Israeli had stolen them." The Israeli representative jumped up furiously and shouted, 'What are you talking about? The Israeli weren't there then.' The Palestinian representative smiled and said: "And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech" From nscchicago at igc.org Thu Sep 11 21:29:29 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:29:29 -0500 Subject: [A-List] 35 years ago: 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile - Allende Speaks Message-ID: <002601c91487$cbeb0f50$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> ----- Original Message ----- From: Roberto Vargas Subject: Fwd: 35 years ago: 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile - Allende Speaks Allende Vive!! Que Vivan Los Pueblos de Nuestra America Libre!! RV From: Rudy Arredondo hola_5 at hotmail.com : 35 years ago: 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile From: Greg Butterfield (Thanks to Walaa for sending this around!) Salvador Allende's last speech / ?ltima alocuci?n de Salvador Allende In English My friends, Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [paramilitary police]. Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign! Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history. Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power to continue defending their profits and their privileges. I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals who continued working against the sedition that was supported by professional associations, classist associations that also defended the advantages of capitalist society. I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They were committed. History will judge them. Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country. The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either. Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason. ============================================ Espa?ol Amigos m?os: Seguramente esta es la ?ltima oportunidad en que me pueda dirigir a ustedes. La Fuerza A?rea ha bombardeado las torres de Radio Portales y Radio Corporaci?n. Mis palabras no tienen amargura, sino decepci?n, y ser?n ellas el castigo moral para los que han traicionado el juramento que hicieron... soldados de Chile, comandantes en jefe titulares, el almirante Merino que se ha autodesignado, m?s el se?or Mendoza, general rastrero ... que s?lo ayer manifestara su fidelidad y lealtad al gobierno, tambi?n se ha nominado director general de Carabineros. Ante estos hechos, s?lo me cabe decirle a los trabajadores: ?Yo no voy a renunciar! Colocado en un tr?nsito hist?rico, pagar? con mi vida la lealtad del pueblo. Y les digo que tengo la certeza de que la semilla que entreg?ramos a la conciencia digna de miles y miles de chilenos, no podr? ser segada definitivamente. Tienen la fuerza, podr?n avasallarnos, pero no se detienen los procesos sociales ni con el crimen... ni con la fuerza. La historia es nuestra y la hacen los pueblos. Trabajadores de mi patria: Quiero agradecerles la lealtad que siempre tuvieron, la confianza que depositaron en un hombre que s?lo fue int?rprete de grandes anhelos de justicia, que empe?? su palabra en que respetar?a la Constituci?n y la ley y as? lo hizo. En este momento definitivo, el ?ltimo en que yo pueda dirigirme a ustedes,. quiero que aprovechen la lecci?n. El capital for?neo, el imperialismo, unido a la reacci?n, cre? el clima para que las Fuerzas Armadas rompieran su tradici?n, la que les ense?ara Schneider y que reafirmara el comandante Araya, v?ctimas del mismo sector social que hoy estar? en sus casas, esperando con mano ajena reconquistar el poder para seguir defendiendo sus granjer?as y sus privilegios. Me dirijo, sobre todo, a la modesta mujer de nuestra tierra, a la campesina que crey? en nosotros; a la obrera que trabaj? m?s, a la madre que supo de nuestra preocupaci?n por los ni?os. Me dirijo a los profesionales de la patria, a los profesionales patriotas, a los que hace d?as estuvieron trabajando contra la sedici?n auspiciada por los Colegios profesionales, colegios de clase para defender tambi?n las ventajas que una sociedad capitalista da a unos pocos. Me dirijo a la juventud, a aquellos que cantaron, entregaron su alegr?a y su esp?ritu de lucha. Me dirijo al hombre de Chile, al obrero, al campesino, al intelectual, a aquellos que ser?n perseguidos... porque en nuestro pa?s el fascismo ya estuvo hace muchas horas presente en los atentados terroristas, volando los puentes, cortando la l?nea f?rrea, destruyendo los oleoductos y los gasoductos, frente al silencio de los que ten?an la obligaci?n de proceder: estaban comprometidos. La historia los juzgar?. Seguramente Radio Magallanes ser? acallada y el metal tranquilo de mi voz no llegar? a ustedes. No importa, lo seguir?n oyendo. Siempre estar? junto a ustedes. Por lo menos, mi recuerdo ser? el de un hombre digno que fue leal a la lealtad de los trabajadores. El pueblo debe defenderse, pero no sacrificarse. El pueblo no debe dejarse arrasar ni acribillar, pero tampoco puede humillarse. Trabajadores de mi patria: tengo fe en Chile y su destino. Superar?n otros hombres este momento gris y amargo, donde la traici?n pretende imponerse. Sigan ustedes sabiendo que, mucho m?s temprano que tarde, de nuevo abrir?n las grandes alamedas por donde pase el hombre libre para construir una sociedad mejor. ?Viva Chile! ?Viva el pueblo! ?Vivan los trabajadores! ?stas son mis ?ltimas palabras y tengo la certeza de que mi sacrificio no ser? en vano. Tengo la certeza de que, por lo menos, habr? una lecci?n moral que castigar? la felon?a, la cobard?a y la traici?n. -------------------- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 9431 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/6a5bfcd0/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 4008 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080911/6a5bfcd0/attachment.jpeg From nscchicago at igc.org Thu Sep 11 22:06:33 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:06:33 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Information on Haiti Support Message-ID: <00b501c9148f$ff57c1f0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> From: "Panama Vicente Alba" Subject: Information on Haiti Support > Hello All- We have recieved a number of inquires about > efforts to assist Haiti. What follows is all the > information that we have at this time. All of this is New > York based. I spoke to IFCO board member Ninaj Raoul > yesterday. Ninaj says that her group, Haitian Women for > Haitian Refugees planning to deliver badly needed > pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics and other drugs for > emergency and chronic conditions. For more information > contact: hatianwomen at aol.com 718-735-4660 > . Ninaj also directed me to Reynold Julien at > 845-425-4623 in Rockland county. He is with a group > called Kon Bit Neg Lakay, a Haitian group here in the U.S. > Apparently, the State of New York is providing a plane to > deliver emergency aid to Haiti. Call Reynold for more > details. That is all the information that we have at this > point. Best,Lucia Vicente " Panama" Alba panamaalba2 at yahoo.com (917) 626-5847 > > See http://clrlabor.org/ They have begun a campaign on > behalf of Haiti. > "if you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are comrade of mine." "Let's be realistic, let's do the impossible" Ernesto "Che" Guevara From rfidler_8 at sympatico.ca Fri Sep 12 06:48:24 2008 From: rfidler_8 at sympatico.ca (Richard Fidler) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:48:24 -0400 Subject: [A-List] A speech that made the world smile In-Reply-To: <48C9F987.4010107@attglobal.net> References: <48C9F987.4010107@attglobal.net> Message-ID: An amusing story. But the bitter irony, of course, is that there is no "representative from Palestine" in the UN General Assembly, because Palestine is not a member. Its rightful position is usurped by Israel. -----Original Message----- From: a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:a-list-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Bill Totten Sent: September 12, 2008 1:09 AM To: a-list; World City; Totten Bill Funnies Subject: [A-List] A speech that made the world smile An ingenious example of speech and politics occurred recently in the United Nations Assembly and made the world community smile. A representative from Palestine began: "Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Moses. "When he struck the rock and it brought forth water, he thought, 'What a good opportunity to have a bath!' "He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water. "When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished. "An Israeli had stolen them." The Israeli representative jumped up furiously and shouted, 'What are you talking about? The Israeli weren't there then.' The Palestinian representative smiled and said: "And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech" From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 08:39:45 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:39:45 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana In-Reply-To: References: <48C99B82.6040303@alai.info> Message-ID: <2fa158550809120739j450a0c56uc9e85098a74d6bea@mail.gmail.com> Critics of the current Latin American situation are either downsizing the agreements recently reached between Arg and Bra or calling them bourgeois and thus reactionary. But... List members with some knowledge of the history of Germany may well understand that these actions are the Latin American steps towards the Zollverein. It should be also taken into account that the Zollverein was the precondition for Sadowa and for that wonderful trick of history, the Ems telegram. Maybe our Sadowa will be placed somewhere in Colombia, and our Ems telegram will take the form of a diplomatic raffle with an USAmerican attempt at intervention somewhere South of the Bravo River which will end with the concrete constitution of a common military deterrent based upon the strengths of a newly formed South (or Latin) American union. Boldness in thought may save us from recklessness in action. El 11/09/08, Yoshie Furuhashi escribi?: > - - - Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" - - - > > Con miras a la integraci?n financiera regional > Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana > > Oscar Ugarteche > Aurora V?zquez > > ALAI AMLATINA, 11/09/2008, M?xico DF.- El anuncio de Brasil y > Argentina de que iniciar?an su comercio binacional en moneda nacional > ha sido la primera noticia latinoamericana orientada en el sentido d -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 11:49:06 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:49:06 -0400 Subject: [A-List] La derecha boliviana intensifica la violencia Message-ID: La derecha boliviana intensifica la violencia From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 12:00:32 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:00:32 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans Message-ID: Exclusive: Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans U.S. Embassy Official's 'Spy' Request Violated Long-Standing U.S. Policy By JEAN FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSKY and BRIAN ROSS Feb. 8, 2008? In an apparent violation of U.S. policy, Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar were asked by a U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country, according to Peace Corps personnel and the Fulbright scholar involved. Click here to read this article in Spanish. (Haz click aqu? para leer este art?culo en espa?ol.) "I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here," Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz. Van Schaick's account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals. The State Department says any such request was "in error" and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes. "We take this very seriously and want to stress this is not in any way our policy," a senior State Department official told ABCNews.com. The Fulbright scholar van Schaick, a 2006 Rutgers University graduate, says the request came at a mandatory orientation and security briefing meeting with Assistant Regional Security Officer Vincent Cooper at the embassy on the morning of Nov. 5, 2007. According to van Schaick, the request for information gathering "surfaced casually" halfway through Cooper's 30-minute, one-on-one briefing, which initially dealt with helpful tips about life and security concerns in Bolivia. "He said, 'We know the Venezuelans and Cubans are here, and we want to keep tabs on them,'" said van Schaick who recalls feeling "appalled" at the comment. "I was in shock," van Schaick said. "My immediate thought was 'oh my God! Somebody from the U.S. Embassy just asked me to basically spy for the U.S. Embassy.'" A similar pattern emerges in the account of the three Peace Corps volunteers and their supervisor. On July 29, 2007, just before the new volunteers were sworn in, they say embassy security officer Vincent Cooper visited the 30-person group to give a talk on safety and made his request about the Cubans and Venezuelans. "He said it had to do with the fight against terrorism," said one, of the briefing from the embassy official. Others remember being told, "It's for your own safety." Peace Corps Deputy Director Doreen Salazar remembers the incident vividly because she says it was the first time she had heard an embassy official make such a request to a Peace Corps group. Salazar says she and her fellow staff found the comment so out of line that they interrupted the briefing to clarify that volunteers did not have to follow the embassy's instructions, and she later complained directly to the embassy about the incident. "Peace Corps is an a-political institution," Salazar says. "We made it clear to the embassy that this was an inappropriate request, and they agreed." Indeed, the State Department admits having acknowledged the infraction and assuring Salazar that it would not happen again. Yet, it was just four months later that Fulbright scholar van Schaick says he was asked by the same embassy official, Cooper, to "spy" on the Cubans and Venezuelans. A U.S. Embassy official in La Paz, Bolivia said Cooper was referring all calls for comment to the State Department in Washington. Van Schaick says he never considered complying with the request, fearful he would violate Bolivian espionage laws and that he would jeopardize the integrity of the Fulbright program, which yearly sends hundreds of American college graduates to countries around the world. "I am supposed to be a cultural ambassador increasing mutual understanding between us and the Bolivian people," van Schaick explains. "This flies in face of everything Fulbright stands for." The Fulbright program receives its funding from the U.S. State Department and the Peace Corps is a federal agency, but the State Department insists that neither group has the obligation to act in an intelligence capacity. In fact, both have strict regulations against members getting involved in politics in their host country. The press director at the Peace Corps told ABC News in no uncertain terms that the corps is not involved in any intelligence gathering. "Since Peace Corps' inception in 1961, it has been the practice of the Peace Corps to keep volunteers separate from any official duties pertaining to U.S. foreign policy, including the reality or the appearance of involvement in intelligence-related activities," said Amanda Beck, press director of the Peace Corps. "Any connection between the Peace Corps and the intelligence community would seriously compromise the ability of the Peace Corps to develop and maintain the trust and confidence of the people in the host countries we serve." Read the Peace Corps' full statement. Like many of the Peace Corps workers, van Schaick is carrying out his research in the Santa Cruz countryside, where a number of Cuban doctors are deployed providing free medical services as part of Cuba's solidarity with its socialist ally, Bolivia's President Evo Morales. The accusations are likely to reverberate in Bolivia, especially given the already shaky relationship between the Bush administration and President Morales' two-year-old government. "These are serious incidents that we will investigate thoroughly," says Bolivia's Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca in an interview. "Any U.S. government use of their students or volunteers to provide intelligence represents a grave threat to Bolivia's sovereignty." Bolivian law provides severe penalties in espionage cases. According to Article 111 of the country's penal code, "he who procures secretive documents, objects or information&concerning [Bolivia's] foreign relations in an espionage effort for other countries during times of peace, endangering the security of the State, will incur a penalty of 30 years in prison." In lay man's terms: if any U.S. citizen provides information of use in a spying effort, they would be subject to Bolivia's maximum prison sentence. But the U.S. citizens who reported being approached in this way by the State Department official said no mention was made of any legal risks arising from complying with the request to keep tabs on foreign nationals in Bolivia. There is no indication that any of the volunteers made reports to the U.S. Embassy. Van Schaick says he is keenly aware of the Pandora's box now knocked open. The Hoboken, N.J. native, however, was adamant that the incident be brought to light -- in the hopes for change. "I came forward because the Bolivian people have a right to know," former union activist van Schaick says. "Asking Fulbrighters to spy is just not OK." Three of the other four Fulbright scholars currently in Bolivia say they were never asked about Cubans or Venezuelans in their briefings. A fourth Fulbright scholar declined repeated requests for an interview on the subject. Editor's Note: Jean Friedman-Rudovksy is a freelance journalist based in La Paz, Bolivia where she is the correspondent for TIME Magazine and Women's Enews. She has worked as an associate producer for ABC News in Bolivia and is a founding editor of Ukhampacha Bolivia, an online bilingual Web journal on Latin American social and political issues. From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 12:08:21 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:08:21 -0400 Subject: [A-List] CEPR: U.S. Should Disclose its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia Message-ID: Press Release U.S. Should Disclose its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia and Other Latin American Countries - Center for Economic and Policy Research For Immediate Release: September 12, 2008 Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460 WASHNGTON, D.C. - The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) called on the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other agencies to release information detailing whom it is funding in Bolivia -- where violent right-wing opposition groups have wreaked havoc this week in a series of shootings, beatings, ransacking of offices, and sabotage of a natural gas pipeline -- as well as in other Latin American countries including Venezuela. Recent events suggest there may be evidence for Bolivian president Evo Morales' assertions that the U.S. Embassy is supporting groups promoting violence and seeking "autonomy" from Bolivia, and the Center called on USAID and other U.S. agencies to "come clean" in order to demonstrate the U.S. government's good faith. "Washington has decided to keep its ties to Bolivia's opposition shrouded in secrecy, and that's not conducive to trust between the U.S. and Bolivian governments," said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR Co-Director. "If Washington has nothing to hide in terms of whom it is funding and working with in Bolivia, then it should reveal which groups those are." In the midst of the violence and property destruction, Bolivian president Evo Morales declared U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg "persona non grata" and asked him to be expelled, suggesting he is aiding organizations behind the violence and sabotage. Despite numerous requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. has not turned over all the names of recipient organizations of USAID funds. Bolivia is a major recipient of USAID money, with millions of dollars sent to groups there. The U.S. also funds groups in Bolivia through the National Endowment for Democracy and related organizations. "USAID is not supposed to be a clandestine organization, but nevertheless the U.S. government refuses to divulge which groups in Bolivia are supported with U.S. tax dollars," Weisbrot said. "By providing clandestine aid to groups that are almost certainly in the opposition, it gives the impression that the U.S. is contributing to efforts to destabilize the Bolivian government." The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia has been implicated in a number of events that suggest it may be seeking to undermine Morales' government. In February of this year it was revealed that the Embassy had repeatedly asked Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright Scholar [LINK: ] to spy on people inside Bolivia. USAID has an "Office of Transition Initiatives" operating in Bolivia, funneling millions of dollars of training and support to right-wing opposition regional governments and movements. At least eight people were killed and dozens injured in violence Thursday, the latest in over a week of protests carried out by organized youth groups in conjunction with [LINK: ] departmental governors and other opposition leaders that also saw them sabotage a natural gas pipeline, vandalize government offices, ransack the offices of a human rights organization, and threaten to cut off natural gas exports to neighboring Brazil and Argentina. The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University ________________________________ Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009 Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 12:15:18 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:15:18 -0400 Subject: [A-List] NATO Says Won't Take Part in Pakistan Raids Message-ID: FWIW: NATO says won't take part in Pakistan raids 11 Sep 2008 20:38:26 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds New York Times report, paragraph 10) By David Brunnstrom BRUSSELS, Sept 11 (Reuters) - NATO will not take part in a proposed U.S. strategy of conducting raids into Pakistan from Afghanistan against Taliban and al Qaeda militants, a spokesman said on Thursday. "The NATO policy, that is our mandate, ends at the border," James Appathurai told a regular news briefing. "There are no ground or air incursions by NATO forces into Pakistani territory." NATO states would discuss the issue, Appathurai said, but he added: "Let me stress, it is not NATO that will be sending its forces across the border." The 26 NATO defence ministers will hold an informal meeting on Sept. 18-19 meeting in London, but Appathurai said the next opportunity for them to discuss Afghan operations would be at a ministerial meeting in Budapest on Oct. 9-10. The spokesman said a solution needed to be found to growing extremism in tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. "Pakistan needs to take effective action in cooperation with the rest of the international community and the Afghans to address the problem that is increasingly threatening Pakistan's stability as well as Afghanistan's," he said. NATO leads a force of some 53,000 troops in Afghanistan. A separate U.S. force is also battling militants in the country. U.S. RAID Helicopter-borne U.S. commandos carried out a ground assault in Pakistan's South Waziristan, a sanctuary for al Qaeda operatives, last week, the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The raid killed 20 people, including women and children. The New York Times reported on Thursday that President George W. Bush had secretly approved orders in July allowing U.S. special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without approval from the Pakistan government. On Wednesday, the U.S. military conceded to Congress that it was not winning the fight against the Taliban insurgency and said it would revise its strategy to target militant safe havens in Pakistan. U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee he was "looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy" that would cover both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Pakistan, which has been an ally in the U.S.-led war on terror launched after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, condemned the raid and has repeatedly said it will not tolerate foreign troops entering its territory. On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai backed the proposed U.S. strategy change, saying he had been calling for a different approach for years. Violence in Afghanistan has soared in the past three years as al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have regrouped in border areas. From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 12:31:57 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:31:57 -0400 Subject: [A-List] =?iso-8859-1?q?Gobiernos_de_Sudam=E9rica_repudian_el_gol?= =?iso-8859-1?q?pe_terrateniente_en_Bolivia=3B_La_gravitaci=F3n_de_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Santa_Cruz=3B_Etc=2E?= Message-ID: Actualizado el 2008-09-12 a horas: 04:52:04 Gobiernos de Sudam?rica repudian el golpe terrateniente en Bolivia Redacci?n Bolpress Los gobiernos de Argentina, Brasil, Venezuela, Chile y Paraguay expresaron su respaldo incondicional al proceso democr?tico boliviano. Lula da Silva y Cristina Fern?ndez no reconocer?n a ning?n golpista que pretenda sustituir al leg?timo gobierno constitucional de Bolivia. Hugo Ch?vez apoyar? movimientos armados si Evo Morales es derrocado. El secretario general de la OEA dijo que los autonomistas no tienen derecho de apoderarse de bienes p?blicos. Actualizado el 2008-09-12 a horas: 12:12:50 La gravitaci?n de Santa Cruz Ram?n Rocha Monroy La toma de instituciones p?blicas en Santa Cruz y el saqueo desconsiderado de sus instalaciones y equipos son p?simas se?ales de una sombra separatista que comienza a vislumbrarse en el trasfondo de las protestas auton?micas. Al margen del enfrentamiento de esos grupos de activistas con el Gobierno central, quienes vivimos en otras regiones del pa?s nos preguntamos si esos grupos tienen derecho de ser tan desconsiderados con algo que no les pertenece porque es patrimonio nacional. Actualizado el 2008-09-12 a horas: 01:38:01 ?El pueblo d?nde est?? Betty Tejada Soruco (www.laparabaeditorialvirtual.com).- Desde el martes 9 de septiembre en Santa Cruz se realiza de manera violenta la denominada "toma de instituciones del estado". Los protagonistas son cientos de j?venes y mujeres, casi todos con la cara cubierta con barbijos o pa?uelos, armados con palos los m?s pobres, bates y guantes de beisbol los de clase media, piedras, hondas y furia, casi todos. Actualizado el 2008-09-11 a horas: 23:59:29 Shannon advierte que las relaciones diplom?ticas bilaterales se han "da?ado seriamente" Echan a Goldberg y EE.UU. declara "persona no grata" al embajador Guzm?n (Agencias).- El Canciller David Choquehuanca notific? oficialmente al gobierno de Estados Unidos que el embajador Philip Goldberg fue declarado persona "non grata" por conspirar contra la democracia y la unidad de Bolivia. Acto seguido, el gobierno norteamericano declar? "persona non grata" al embajador de Bolivia en Washington Gustavo Guzm?n. From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 12:34:41 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:34:41 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Bolivia: On the Brink of Civil War (junge Welt) Message-ID: 13.09.2008 / Ausland / Seite 2 Am Rand des B?rgerkriegs From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 12 12:46:39 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:46:39 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana In-Reply-To: <2fa158550809120739j450a0c56uc9e85098a74d6bea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Nestor, as you know, the Zollverein was accompanied by public development of railroads and other transport in the public domain. This state expense was recovered by public collection of the real estate gains created, and public infrastructure was provided at cost or at subsidized prices to make Germany more competitive. Also, its banking system implemented St. Simonian principles (based on bank investment in equity of its clients, not only interest-bearing debt) more than in France (where the Credit Mobilier became politically corrupted by insider dealing under Napoleon III). So a tariff union is not enough. There needs to be de-privatization, financial and fiscal reform too. I'm sure you know all this, but it always needs to be borne in mind. Michael On 9/12/08 10:39 AM, "N?stor Gorojovsky" wrote: > Critics of the current Latin American situation are either downsizing the > agreements recently reached between Arg and Bra or calling them bourgeois and > thus reactionary. But... List members with some knowledge of the history of > Germany may well understand that these actions are the Latin American steps > towards the Zollverein. It should be also taken into account that the > Zollverein was the precondition for Sadowa and for that wonderful trick of > history, the Ems telegram. Maybe our Sadowa will be placed somewhere in > Colombia, and our Ems telegram will take the form of a diplomatic raffle with > an USAmerican attempt at intervention somewhere South of the Bravo River which > will end with the concrete constitution of a common military deterrent based > upon the strengths of a newly formed South (or Latin) > American union. Boldness in thought may save us from recklessness in > action. El 11/09/08, Yoshie Furuhashi > escribi?: > - - - Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" - - - > > Con miras a > la integraci?n financiera regional > Hacia una Unidad Monetaria > Sudamericana > > Oscar Ugarteche > Aurora V?zquez > > ALAI AMLATINA, > 11/09/2008, M?xico DF.- El anuncio de Brasil y > Argentina de que iniciar?an > su comercio binacional en moneda nacional > ha sido la primera noticia > latinoamericana orientada en el sentido d -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto > principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 12 12:53:45 2008 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:53:45 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Bolivia: On the Brink of Civil War (junge Welt) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Nur ein lokalischer Krieg, oder auch fremd-inspirierte via dem Washington Konsensus? Michael On 9/12/08 2:34 PM, "Yoshie Furuhashi" wrote: > > 13.09.2008 / Ausland / Seite 2 > Am Rand des B?rgerkriegs > From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 13:38:19 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:38:19 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana In-Reply-To: References: <2fa158550809120739j450a0c56uc9e85098a74d6bea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550809121238r2ed6c50fj163b3aab3895255c@mail.gmail.com> 2008/9/12, Michael Hudson : > Nestor, as you know, the Zollverein was accompanied by public development > of railroads and other transport in the public domain. This state expense was > recovered by public collection of the real estate gains created, and public > infrastructure was provided at cost or at subsidized prices to make Germany > more competitive. Also, its banking system implemented St. Simonian > principles (based on bank investment in equity of its clients, not only > interest-bearing debt) more than in France (where the Credit Mobilier > became politically corrupted by insider dealing under Napoleon III). > So a tariff union is not enough. There needs to be de-privatization, > financial and fiscal reform too. I'm sure you know all this, but it always > needs to be borne in mind. 1) It doesn't really matter whether this humble undersigner is aware of all the above, or not. Of course, I am. But I want to stress something much more meaty. What really matters is that the intellectual architect of all the projects that Ch?vez is advancing, the Brazilian Darc Costa, knew it too. Costa is a direct child of the school of economic planification created by Vargas in Brazil, the ISEB. His "Estrat?gia nacional", in more senses than one the "American Project" for the South, was written precisely on these terms. It is somewhat narrowly Brazilian, in the sense that the propositons are thinking of a "South American" rather than Latin American horizon, but since the main necessity of Venezuela today is to look Southwards, while it will naturally keep looking North out of its own history, what in Brazil acts as a lever for the expansion of the S?o Paulo bandeirante bourgeoisie in Caracas becomes the main force in the construction of a Latin American unity that is worth the name. The Banco del Sur, the South American Railroad, the South American Pipeline, and other projects with which Ch?vez wants to turn the unity of South America into a concrete question, came from Costa. Costa has derided the simpleton bean-counters with a wonderful sentence: ?The productivity of infrastructure cannot be measured, because the result of infrastructure is productivity itself?. You will hardly find something more Saint Simonian than this in current economic literature. All of those projects require a lot more than just tariff union. Costa explicitly states that a ?South American mega-state? is the requisite. That is, precisely, why both imperialism and local oligarchies are trying to blast the whole thing. In this sense, it would be wonderful that in this very moment the Argentinean and Brazilian governments, in a coordinate action, called their Ambassadors in Washington for consultation while at the same time summoning the USAmerican ambassadors in Buenos Aires and Bras?lia to ask for an explanation. This would be perfectly reasonable, given that another USAmerican ambassador has been charged by the President of a friendly country such as Bolivia to have been involved in turmoil in the country that produces a key portion of the energy used by the two largest economies in South America. This seemingly ?merely diplomatic? movement may well bring about a new level of confrontation and soon bring the people at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to their heels. In the South, it would be a strong political gesture, but a gesture underlining the economic ties that already exist between our countries. 2) As to the limits to the analogy with Austria and Germany adequately pointed out by Lueko: by putting the Austro Hungarians out of the "German" game, K?niggr?tz allowed Northen Germany to set loose the forces of capitalism, unhindered by the semifeudal remnants of a monarchy intent on keeping a rentistic revenue (in a sense, pre-capitalist) of the non-German peoples in the AHEmpire. The fate of the worse off Prussian peasant was heavenly as compared to that which befell on the (mostly Slav) oppressed nationalities in the AHE. In South America, of course, the idea is NOT to split South Americans the way Sadowa (as you see, I am fair in naming places) split the German-speaking world. This would be stupid and a folly. But the idea is to strike a blow to our local equivalents of the centrifugal forces in that world during the mid-1860s. Not only newborn separatists and stale oligarchies, but imperialists themselves. At any rate, I would add that analogies with the German situation are (moreover) less adequate for South America today than they were in the past: the degree of destruction that affected Argentina after 1976 turns our situation more similar to that of Italy, where a SINGLE nucleus of unification required that other nucleii be coordinated with it. And even _this_ analogy is faulty. In the end, we shall have to follow the dictum of Sim?n Rodr?guez, the mentor of Sim?n Bol?var: "O inventamos, o perecemos" (Or we invent, or we perish). However, I hope the gist of my argument was clear anyway. Best to all. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 13:39:10 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:39:10 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Venezuelan President Accuses US Of Assassination Plot Message-ID: <64528E51F8D947F4AFDA23C0955931D6@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 9:13 AM Subject: [stopnato] Venezuelan President Accuses US Of Assassination Plot http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/11/content_9920055.htm Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2008 Chavez accuses U.S. of restarting plans to kill him CARACAS - ...Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of restarting plans to murder him. The socialist president...alleged that America was planning to bomb the Miraflores Palace or the studio from where he broadcasts his Sunday TV and radio program "Hello, President." Chavez's latest denouncement of the U.S. came during the inauguration ceremony of a medical center in Flores de Catia, in the west of Caracas. "The plans to kill me are reactivated, and the Yankee forces are looking for active militaries and pilots to bomb Miraflores, or the Sunday program Hello, President," Chavez said in the speech, which was televised. According to Chavez, during the attempt his enemies will paint Venezuelan flags on their aircraft to disguise themselves as being part of a popular revolution. Chavez said the plans to murder him resulted from the despair of "the empire" since the popularity of his government has reached almost 80 percent. "I guarantee you they cannot defeat us. However, I am making this responsible call to the Venezuelan people to alert you, because the expectations of the pitiyankees (U.S. sympathizers) would be smashed," Chavez added. Chavez also said his political rivals planned to utilize the governors' and mayoral elections on Nov. 23 to attack his government, to make the people believe the Bolivarian revolution has failed. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 1New Members Visit Your Group Real Food Group Share recipes and favorite meals w/ Real Food lovers. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to take great pictures. Find Balance on Yahoo! Groups manage nutrition, activity & well-being.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 13:39:52 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:39:52 -0400 Subject: [A-List] BREAKING: Venezuela kicks out U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Message-ID: > > BREAKING: VENEZUELA KICKS OUT US AMBASSADOR TO VENEZUELA: > > From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 12 09:08:46 2008 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (Lueko Willms) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:08:46 +0200 (MES) Subject: [A-List] Hacia una Unidad Monetaria Sudamericana In-Reply-To: <2fa158550809120739j450a0c56uc9e85098a74d6bea@mail.gmail.com> References: <48C99B82.6040303@alai.info> <2fa158550809120739j450a0c56uc9e85098a74d6bea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <100-fe85ca48-37271.233@t-online.de> On Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:39:45 -0300, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > List members with some knowledge of the history of Germany may well > understand that these actions are the Latin American steps towards the > Zollverein. > > It should be also taken into account that the Zollverein was the > precondition for Sadowa and for that wonderful trick of history, the > Ems telegram. > > Maybe our Sadowa will be placed somewhere in Colombia, Just don't carry the analogy too far. The Battle of Sadowa, or K?niggr?tz as it is known in German historiography, was between two German powers vying for dominance over Germany, leading to the permanent exclusion of the defeated power, i.e. Austria from the German nation state, except the short period of "Anschluss" under Hitler's rule from 1938 to 1945. Comradely yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt/Main / Lueko.Willms at T-Online.de From noreply at coha.org Fri Sep 12 10:11:03 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:11:03 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Later Today: COHA will issue two initiatives Message-ID: <20080912161043.E46C93E43D4@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 3182 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/db056825/attachment.txt From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 13:43:34 2008 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:43:34 -0300 Subject: [A-List] Bolivia: On the Brink of Civil War (junge Welt) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2fa158550809121243w13033df1of1f03ae859ca3ba9@mail.gmail.com> A good friend of mine, privy to issues Bolivian and who has been living in Santa Cruz de la Sierra for long years (where he has family and children), has been long preaching a ?local? war against the secessionists in Oriente as the only way out. Of course it will NOT be local in scope, though it will be local in scenario. And most probably it will be short. It seems that Evo counts on the unity of the Bolivian military against the separatists. None of our "local" wars since the defeat of the Generation of Emancipation has ever been "local". You can always discover the British or USAmerican claw behind every and each one of them. 2008/9/12, Michael Hudson : > Nur ein lokalischer Krieg, oder auch fremd-inspirierte via dem Washington > Konsensus? -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 13:44:59 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:44:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Latin American Nations Rally Behind Bolivia Message-ID: <16F815F1DB94473688DFEA5B10D18428@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 10:53 PM Subject: [stopnato] Latin American Nations Rally Behind Bolivia http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/12/content_9938615.htm Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2008 Latin American nations bolster Bolivia's Morales amid opposition violence -"If any of our governments is overthrown, we will give a green light to military operations of any type to get the power back to the people," Chavez said. MEXICO CITY - Countries and regional groups in Latin America Thursday expressed support to Bolivian President Evo Morales amid violent actions to tumble his government. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reaffirmed in a phone conversation with Morales his support to the Bolivian government against rightist groups. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro also called his Bolivian counterpart David Choquehuanca and extended the support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the Bolivian government. Bolivia and President Morales have Venezuela's support "in good and bad moments," said Maduro. Meanwhile, Chavez said on Thursday he is ready to intervene in case that Morales were overthrown. In a TV and radio address, Chavez said that his government would back the use of force in case of a military coup to overthrow or kill Morales. "If any of our governments is overthrown, we will give a green light to military operations of any type to get the power back to the people," Chavez said. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also expressed his support for necessary measures to stop protests by the opposition to demand autonomy. Ortega said what is happening in Bolivia is tragic, adding that "We are with Evo (Morales), we support him and we express our sympathy." The Paraguayan government Thursday expressed concerns for the armed clashes between the pro- and anti-government forces in Bolivia. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo said in a statement he is "deeply concerned" with the violence in many parts of Bolivia that has shaken Bolivia for three days. "Paraguay reaffirms its full support to the Bolivian democracy and government chosen by the people, led by President Morales. We look forward to a conciliatory and pacific solution for the well beings of our neighbor and sister nation (Bolivia)," said the statement. Andean Community of Nations (CAN) Secretary-General Ecuadorian Freddy Ehlers Thursday called on the authorities and political forces in Bolivia to resolve differences in accordance with law. "CAN makes a call to all regional and national authorities and to all political forces in Bolivia to contain their actions with a full respect to the country's constitutional and legal norms," said a CAN statement. Bolivian rightist opposition seeking to tumble Morales attacked the security forces and occupied governmental offices in many regions in the past few days. At least one person was killed and another three could have died in violent clashes throughout the country, Bolivia's Vice Interior Minister Ruber Gamarra told a press conference Thursday. According to local media, on-going violence has killed at least four and injured 30. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Weight Loss Group on Yahoo! Groups Get support and make friends online. Food Lovers Real Food Group on Yahoo! Groups find out more. Best of Y! Groups Check out the best of what Yahoo! Groups has to offer.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 13:51:59 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:51:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile - Allende Speaks Message-ID: <56A11BCA08DB428CAD3B4B038379AE2A@TonyPC> > > Allende Vive!! > Que Vivan Los Pueblos de Nuestra America Libre!! > RV > > From: Rudy Arredondo hola_5 at hotmail.com > : 35 years ago: 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile > From: Greg Butterfield > (Thanks to Walaa for sending this around!) > > Salvador Allende's last speech / > ??ltima alocuci??n de Salvador Allende > > In English > > My friends, > > Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address > you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio > Magallanes. > > My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they > be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their > oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, > Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the > Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only > yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the > Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the > Carabineros [paramilitary police]. > > Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to > workers: I am not going to resign! Placed in a historic > transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my > life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds > which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands > and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. > > They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social > processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. > History is ours, and people make history. > > Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty > that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a > man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for > justice, who gave his word that he would respect the > Constitution and the law and did just that. At this > definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I > wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, > imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate > in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the > tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by > Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector who today > are hoping, with foreign assistance, to re-conquer the power > to continue defending their profits and their privileges. > > I address you, above all, the modest woman of our land, the > campesina who believed in us, the mother who knew our > concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, > patriotic professionals who continued working against the > sedition that was supported by professional associations, > classist associations that also defended the advantages of > capitalist society. I address the youth, those who sang and > gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address > the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, > those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism > has been already present for many hours -- in terrorist > attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad > tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of > the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They > were committed. History will judge them. > > Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal > instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not > matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next > to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity > who was loyal to his country. > > The people must defend themselves, but they must not > sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be > destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be > humiliated either. > > Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its > destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment > when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, > sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again > and free men will walk through them to construct a better > society. > > Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the > workers! > > These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice > will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, > it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, > cowardice, and treason. > > ============================================ > Espa??ol > > Amigos m??os: > > Seguramente esta es la ??ltima oportunidad en que me pueda > dirigir a ustedes. La Fuerza A??rea ha bombardeado las torres > de Radio Portales y Radio Corporaci??n. > > Mis palabras no tienen amargura, sino decepci??n, y ser??n > ellas el castigo moral para los que han traicionado el > juramento que hicieron... soldados de Chile, comandantes en > jefe titulares, el almirante Merino que se ha autodesignado, > m??s el se??or Mendoza, general rastrero ... que s??lo ayer > manifestara su fidelidad y lealtad al gobierno, tambi??n se > ha nominado director general de Carabineros. > > Ante estos hechos, s??lo me cabe decirle a los trabajadores: > ??Yo no voy a renunciar! Colocado en un tr??nsito hist??rico, > pagar?? con mi vida la lealtad del pueblo. Y les digo que > tengo la certeza de que la semilla que entreg??ramos a la > conciencia digna de miles y miles de chilenos, no podr?? ser > segada definitivamente. > > Tienen la fuerza, podr??n avasallarnos, pero no se detienen > los procesos sociales ni con el crimen... ni con la fuerza. > La historia es nuestra y la hacen los pueblos. > > Trabajadores de mi patria: Quiero agradecerles la lealtad > que siempre tuvieron, la confianza que depositaron en un > hombre que s??lo fue int??rprete de grandes anhelos de > justicia, que empe???? su palabra en que respetar??a la > Constituci??n y la ley y as?? lo hizo. En este momento > definitivo, el ??ltimo en que yo pueda dirigirme a ustedes,. > quiero que aprovechen la lecci??n. El capital for??neo, el > imperialismo, unido a la reacci??n, cre?? el clima para que > las Fuerzas Armadas rompieran su tradici??n, la que les > ense??ara Schneider y que reafirmara el comandante Araya, > v??ctimas del mismo sector social que hoy estar?? en sus > casas, esperando con mano ajena reconquistar el poder para > seguir defendiendo sus granjer??as y sus privilegios. > > Me dirijo, sobre todo, a la modesta mujer de nuestra tierra, > a la campesina que crey?? en nosotros; a la obrera que > trabaj?? m??s, a la madre que supo de nuestra preocupaci??n por > los ni??os. Me dirijo a los profesionales de la patria, a los > profesionales patriotas, a los que hace d??as estuvieron > trabajando contra la sedici??n auspiciada por los Colegios > profesionales, colegios de clase para defender tambi??n las > ventajas que una sociedad capitalista da a unos pocos. Me > dirijo a la juventud, a aquellos que cantaron, entregaron su > alegr??a y su esp??ritu de lucha. Me dirijo al hombre de > Chile, al obrero, al campesino, al intelectual, a aquellos > que ser??n perseguidos... porque en nuestro pa??s el fascismo > ya estuvo hace muchas horas presente en los atentados > terroristas, volando los puentes, cortando la l??nea f??rrea, > destruyendo los oleoductos y los gasoductos, frente al > silencio de los que ten??an la obligaci??n de proceder: > estaban comprometidos. La historia los juzgar??. > > Seguramente Radio Magallanes ser?? acallada y el metal > tranquilo de mi voz no llegar?? a ustedes. No importa, lo > seguir??n oyendo. Siempre estar?? junto a ustedes. Por lo > menos, mi recuerdo ser?? el de un hombre digno que fue leal a > la lealtad de los trabajadores. > > El pueblo debe defenderse, pero no sacrificarse. El pueblo > no debe dejarse arrasar ni acribillar, pero tampoco puede > humillarse. > > Trabajadores de mi patria: tengo fe en Chile y su destino. > Superar??n otros hombres este momento gris y amargo, donde la > traici??n pretende imponerse. Sigan ustedes sabiendo que, > mucho m??s temprano que tarde, de nuevo abrir??n las grandes > alamedas por donde pase el hombre libre para construir una > sociedad mejor. > > ??Viva Chile! ??Viva el pueblo! ??Vivan los trabajadores! > > ??stas son mis ??ltimas palabras y tengo la certeza de que mi > sacrificio no ser?? en vano. Tengo la certeza de que, por lo > menos, habr?? una lecci??n moral que castigar?? la felon??a, la > cobard??a y la traici??n. > - -------------------- > > > > > > > > - ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > > > - -- > *** FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE! *************************************** > * BOYCOTT BOURGEOIS MASS-MEDIA * RSS/XML newsfeeds from around * > * Use these links in RSS readers * the planet: Who needs CNN/Fox? * > **** Critical endorsement only **** Most sites need donations **** > * http://rss.newstandardnews.net/business_1.xml Work & Money News * > * http://www.plenglish.com/rss/economy/ Prensa Economy * > * http://www.plenglish.com/rss/sports/ Latina Sports * > * http://www.plenglish.com/rss/travel/ (Cuba) Travel * > * http://www.plenglish.com/rss/alternative/ Alternative * > * http://radio.indymedia.org/syn/newswire.rss IMC Radio * > * http://narcosphere.narconews.com/backend.rdf The NarcoSphere * > *** When the banks do well you can be sure the people aren't *** > GPG fingerprint = 2E7F 2D69 4B0B C8D5 07E3 09C3 5E8D C4B4 461B B771 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFIyenwXo3EtEYbt3ERAhtvAJ9cx/yfSUJYrZSFvjd7pF7DCeUHBwCg6knV > sFEQIN0UnToDpIgZbHfkQCk= > =sRLK > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 14:24:30 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:24:30 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US Third Party Candidates Oppose War In Caucasus, Asia Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: Stop NATO Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 10:34 PM Subject: [stopnato] US Third Party Candidates Oppose War In Caucasus, Asia http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/30258 Russia Today September 11, 2008 Ron Paul urges Americans to vote for third-party candidates The U.S. Presidential campaign has taken a new turn with the former candidate Ron Paul launching a crusade against both John McCain and Barack Obama. At a news conference, Paul joined three third-party candidates in presenting a united front to shift attention away from the front runners. ?By coming together, we represent a majority of the American people. We deserve to be heard. We deserve to be in the debates,? The former Republican presidential hopeful said: The Texas Congressman has generated a devoted following that many have called a revolutionary movement. Dr. Paul even organised his own Convention in Minnesota, attracting 18,000 people. While he has officially dropped out of the race for the White House, his message is one for change but definitely not the type offered by Obama or McCain. ?Obama is not for change. He beats McCain into sending more money to Afghanistan. And they both want to send troops and more money into Georgia,? he said. Ron Paul said he has rejected a plea from the McCain campaign to endorse him, though he did call the republican nominee 'the lesser of two evils.' Instead he?s rallied behind third-party candidates like Ralph Nader, who took the opportunity to criticise media coverage of the election. ?It's demeaning to the media, to the American people and to our status around the world to engage in trivia about political gaffs,? he said. The third-party presidential candidates plan to hold their own debates parallel to those organised for McCain and Obama, in response to the media blackout on their campaigns. The mainstream media has dubbed Nader a ?perennial? presidential candidate and a spoiler for taking votes away from the main candidates. Green Party Candidate Cynthia McKinney also took the floor to declare her independence from the current political order. ?The politics of today is politics of conformity and of control. And basically the two-party system represents just that,? she said. A was message echoed by Charles Baldwin who?s running on the Constitution Party ticket. ?It's a broken system. The two major parties have not only a monopoly but stranglehold a on the political process system that choking the lifeblood out of our country,? he stated. The four candidates share the same views when it comes to foreign policy. They condemn U.S. intervention in Georgia and the decision to send a billion-dollar aid package. ?Have you ever thought when you send a billion dollar aid that maybe there's someone hungry in the United States or who needs medical care?? Ron Paul wondered. McKinney said it was totally inappropriate for the U.S. ?to send so-called humanitarian aid on a naval ship?. She also called NATO's eastward expansion a dangerous move that could stir another Cold War. The third-party presidential candidates have no illusions about sitting down in the Oval Office next January. Their goal is to change the two-party system in Washington. They call it the 'beginning of the realignment of American politics?. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Share Photos Put your favorite photos and more online. Discover photos and scrapbooking groups in the Familyographer Zone All-Bran Day 10 Club on Yahoo! Groups Feel better with fiber.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri Sep 12 14:26:17 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:26:17 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Pakistani Official Condemns 'Almost Daily' NATO Attacks Message-ID: <0321B6A878C34255B75413663BE85277@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 8:54 AM Subject: [stopnato] Pakistani Official Condemns 'Almost Daily' NATO Attacks http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52475&Itemid=2 Associated Press of Pakistan September 12, 2008 NATO forces' forays cause for concern: Ch Nisar LAHORE - Increasing incidents of NATO/ISAF forces operation within Pakistan and almost daily air attacks from across the Afghan border are cause for extreme concern for all Pakistanis. Member National Assembly and PML-N leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan in a statement here Friday said that it is a well known and accepted fact that more often than not NATO forces act on faulty intelligence, killing and maiming innocent citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism. He said that in the recent past even women and children were shot reportedly at close range in the village of Musa Neke in the South Waziristan Agency by troops who came to the area on helicopters. Ch Nisar further said that these extreme unilateral steps serve only to anger the people further and play directly into the hands of the extremists whose ranks grow with every such outrage. He said that the NATO and coalition forces should realize that an increase in terrorist attacks is directly proportionate to the indiscriminate and extreme use of force. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. 10 Day Club on Yahoo! Groups Share the benefits of a high fiber diet. Discover photos and scrapbooking groups in the Familyographer Zone. __,_._,___ From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Sep 12 18:23:11 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:23:11 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Our murderous comedy of errors Message-ID: <48CB07EF.2020202@attglobal.net> Last month, "our" aircraft slaughtered nearly 100 Afghan civilians, two-thirds of them children aged three months to sixteen years, while they slept by John Pilger New Statesman (September 11 2008) Try to laugh, please. The news is now officially parody and a game for all the family to play. First question: Why are "we" in Afghanistan? Answer: "To try to help in the country's rebuilding programme". Who says so? Huw Edwards, the BBC's principal newsreader. What wags the Welsh are. Second question: Why are "we" in Iraq? Answer: To "plant a western-style open democracy". Who says so? Paul Wood, the former BBC defence correspondent, and his boss Helen Boaden, director of BBC News. To prove her point, Boaden supplied Medialens.org with 2,700 words of quotations from Tony Blair and George W Bush. Irony? No, she meant it. Take Andrew Martin, divisional adviser at BBC Complaints, who has been researching Bush's speeches for "evidence" of noble democratic reasons for laying to waste an ancient civilisation. Says he: "The 'D' word is not there, but the phrase 'united, stable and free' [is] clearly an allusion to it". After all, he says, the invasion of Iraq "was launched as 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'". Moreover, says the BBC man, "in Bush's 1 May 2003 speech (the one on the aircraft carrier) he talked repeatedly about freedom and explicitly about the Iraqi transition to democracy ... These examples show that these were on Bush's mind before, during and after the invasion". Try to laugh, please. Laughing may be difficult, I agree, given the slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan by "coalition" aircraft, including those directed by British forces engaged in "the country's rebuilding programme". The bombing of civilian areas has doubled, along with the deaths of civilians, says Human Rights Watch. Last month, "our" aircraft slaughtered nearly 100 civilians, two-thirds of them children between the ages of three months and sixteen years, while they slept, according to eyewitnesses. BBC News initially devoted nine seconds to the Human Rights Watch report, and nothing to the fact that "less than peanuts" (according to an aid worker) is being spent on rebuilding anything in Afghanistan. Such wags, the Welsh. As for the notion of a "united, stable and free" Iraq, consider the no-bid contracts handed to the major western oil companies for ownership of Iraq's oil. "Theft" is a more truthful word. Written by the companies themselves and US officials, the contracts have been signed off by Bush and Nouri al-Maliki, "prime minister" of Iraq's "democratic" government that resides in an air-conditioned American fortress. This is not news. Try to laugh, please, while you consider the devastation of Iraq's health, once the best in the Middle East, by the ubiquitous dust from British and US depleted uranium weapons. A World Health Organisation study reporting a cancer epidemic has been suppressed, says its principal author. This has been reported in Britain only in the Glasgow Sunday Herald and the Morning Star. According to a study last year by Basra University Medical College, almost half of all deaths in the contaminated southern provinces were caused by cancer. Try to laugh, please, at the recent happy-clappy Nurembergs from which will come the next president of the United States. Those paid to keep the record straight have strained to present a spectacle of choice. Barack Obama, the man of "change", wants to "build a 21st-century military ... to stay on the offensive everywhere". Here comes the new Cold War, with promises of more bombs, more of the militarised society with its 730 bases worldwide, on which Americans spend 42 cents of every tax dollar. At home, Obama offers no authentic measure that might ease America's grotesque inequality, such as basic health care. John McCain, his Republican opponent, may well be a media cartoon figure - the fake "war hero" now joined with a Shakespeare-banning, gun-loving, religious fanatic - yet his true significance is that he and Obama share essentially the same dangerous prescriptions. Thousands of decent Americans came to the two nominating conventions to express the dissenting opinion of millions of their compatriots who believe, with good cause, that their democracy is evaporating. They were intimidated, arrested, beaten, pepper-gassed; and they were patronised or ignored by those paid to keep the record straight. Meanwhile, Justin Webb, the BBC's North America editor, has launched his book about America, his "city on a hill". It is a sort of Mills & Boon view of the rapacious system he admires with such obsequiousness. The book is called Have a Nice Day. Try to laugh, please. http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/09/pilger-iraq-bbc-try-obama http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From noreply at coha.org Fri Sep 12 15:44:04 2008 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:44:04 -0400 Subject: Mexico's Other Border: Issues Affecting Mexico’s dividing line with Guatemala Message-ID: <20080912214402.852D23E44DB@mx-out2.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4660 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/775a441a/attachment.txt From nscchicago at igc.org Fri Sep 12 17:06:06 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:06:06 -0500 Subject: [A-List] BOLIVIA CUBA EL SALVADOR VENEZUELA Message-ID: <011b01c9152c$2a94a9e0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here and today's postings: Reports from Bolivia. Oligarchy goons rage with US encouragement - 3 reports US levels false charges pulling dirty punches Venezuela and the FARC CUBA FIVE - for talking at the White House, five people get arrested. Elections in El Salvador. US is helping the oligarchy steal another one. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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From: "Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)" Subject: CEPR: U.S. Should Disclose its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:28:51 -0400 (EDT) Size: 13350 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0008.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Hendrik Voss, SOA Watch" Subject: [LASolidarity] Urgent: Support Democracy in Bolivia and Latin America Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:27:23 -0400 Size: 11026 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0009.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Roberto Vargas" Subject: -- NOTE this is a release FROM the US Dept of Treasury Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:48:17 -0500 Size: 12618 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0010.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Burke Stansbury" Subject: [LASolidarity] =?utf-8?q?Take_the_People=E2=80=99s_Pledge_to_Defe?= =?utf-8?q?nd_Free_=26_Fair_Elections_in_El_Salvador!?= Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:01:51 -0400 Size: 68219 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0011.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Chuck Kaufman" Subject: [venconf] FW: CIVIL COUP IN BOLIVIA, VENEZUELA SENDS US AMBASSADOR HOME Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:05:02 -0400 Size: 31688 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0012.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Cort Greene Subject: [CLAS] Bolivia: Renewed offensive of the oligarchy-time to strike back! Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:23:22 -0700 (PDT) Size: 35130 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/0dbf79ee/attachment-0013.eml From nscchicago at igc.org Fri Sep 12 21:23:09 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:23:09 -0500 Subject: [A-List] [ChicagoCubaList-serve] Five arrested at White House demanding freedom for Cuban Five Message-ID: <003701c91550$15507090$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Please Post. Thank you. Bill Massey Subject: Five arrested at White House demanding freedom for Cuban Five From: Free the Cuban Five Sept. 12, 2008 National Committee To Free the Cuban Five Bulletin 102,000 petition signatures presented Five people are arrested at White House demanding, "Bush: Free the Cuban Five Now!" In an action that received significant media attention, on the 10th anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of the Cuban Five political prisoners, five people were arrested in a civil disobedience action, trying to present 102,000 signatures on petitions that call on President Bush to free the Five. Each of the five arrested represented one of the Five, Gerardo Hern?ndez, Ren? Gonz?lez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Laba?ino and Fernando Gonz?lez. The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five presented 102,000 signatures from 78 countries. Those arrested were Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five; Brian Becker, National Coordinator A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism); Elizabeth Lowengard, A.N.S.W.E.R. Washington-DC organizer, Keith Pavlik, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and Chuck Kaufman, Interim Coordinator of the Venezuela Solidarity Network. During the action they demanded 1.) Free the Cuban Five immediately; 2.) Grant entry visas to Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva, and 3.) Extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Press in attendance included CNN, Al Jazeera English-language TV, Associated Press television, EFE TV of Spain, Univisi?n TV and Russian TV, according to media coordinator Alison Bodine. The civil disobedience actions followed a successful press conference in front of the White House. Featured speaker at the conference was Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Brian Becker; Gloria La Riva and Banbose Shango, Regional Coordinator of the Venezuelan Solidarity Network and Co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, also spoke strongly in support of the Cuban Five. There were also special remarks given by Judge Claudia Morcom of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute. "We are here at the White House to say that George W. Bush is supporting terrorism by harboring Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch while the Cuban Five are imprisoned. The time to free them is NOW," said Gloria La Riva. As the five were being arrested they continued shouting "Extradite Posada! Free the Cuban Five!," along with the crowd. Earlier in the week a letter was also delivered to George W. Bush, signed by Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Martin Sheen and Ramsey Clark among others. Simultaneous events are being organized all over the world in solidarity with the Cuban Five on this important date. Before the Washington DC action there were also events in Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America and more are planned over the next period of action. During this critical time, when three of the Cuban Five are awaiting re-sentencing in Miami, and the case of the Cuban heads to the Supreme Court activists in the United States are committed to continuing the struggle. More photos and video will be available later today at www.freethefive.org. a.. See video of action at White House a.. San Francisco proclamation: Cuban Five Day Contact us: info at freethefive.org Or call: 415-821-6545 Web: http://www.freethefive.org Free the Cuban Five Now! Allow the families' visits! Grant entry visas to Adriana P?rez and Olga Salanueva! Forward email Email Marketing by National Committee To Free The Cuban Five | 2489 Mission St. #24 | San Francisco | CA | 94110 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 69568 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/c2edaebe/attachment-0003.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 1797 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080912/c2edaebe/attachment-0003.gif From pbond at mail.ngo.za Sat Sep 13 00:47:50 2008 From: pbond at mail.ngo.za (Patrick Bond) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:47:50 +0200 Subject: [A-List] 9/11/1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile - Allende Speaks In-Reply-To: <56A11BCA08DB428CAD3B4B038379AE2A@TonyPC> References: <56A11BCA08DB428CAD3B4B038379AE2A@TonyPC> Message-ID: <48CB6216.9020408@mail.ngo.za> (Anyone have information on this?) Coup celebrations turn violent Sapa Published:Sep 12, 2008 Violent clashes have swept Chile on the anniversary of its 1973 military coup, leaving 31 people injured and 234 behind bars. Shops were looted and 190,000 homes left without electricity, after protesters threw chains at power lines in Santiago. Police say four other cities were rattled by unrest overnight, injuring 22 officers and nine civilians. President Michelle Bachelet on Thursday marked the 35th anniversary of the coup, which saw Marxist President Salvador Allende commit suicide. He was replaced by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile until democracy was restored in 1990. > From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 01:29:36 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:29:36 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US Refused to Give Israel Bunker-Busters, Air Corridor to Attack Iran Message-ID: Or so they say. Iran's power elite who have bet that the US has too much trouble on its hands -- what with the financial crisis, the (now rapidly declining but still relatively) high oil prices, Pakistan, now Russia, etc. -- to make war on Iran have done well. They have not opted and are now even less likely than before to go for "freeze for freeze," so there won't be any normalization of the US-Iran relation any time soon. That is a mixed blessing for Iran's workers: the low-level US-Israeli threat won't totally go away (cf. Sadegh Kabeer, "The Not-So-Diplomatic Turn," ), but Iranian workers won't be exposed to the kind and degree of economic liberalization that any normalization with the US is likely to entail. The low-intensity sanctions currently in place impose costs on Iran, especially its private sector, but at their current levels they have not negatively affected Iran's economic development (in terms, for instance, of gross fixed capital formation as percentage of GDP, at least in the statistics available from the IMF and Iran's Central Bank so far, though one has no way of ascertaining if the quantity of investment isn't masking the deterioration in quality of it by just looking at the numbers), beyond what is to be expected from the turbulence of capitalism (the growth rate of gfcf has begun to slow down since 2002 -- see, e.g., Table 2 on p. 4 of IMF Country Report No. 07/101, "Islamic Republic of Iran: Statistical Appendix," March 2007, ). The low-intensity sanctions instead have had a salutary effect of quickly re-orienting Iran's political economy from Europe to China, Russia, Latin America, etc. This is likely to politically strengthen "Third-Worldists" at the expense of "Westernizers" in Iran. In this context, it is more than ever important for Iran's social and political activists to re-orient the culture of their struggle, so they can prevail in the new national and international contexts. -- Yoshie Last update - 14:34 11/09/2008 Israel asks U.S. for arms, air corridor to attack Iran By Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents The security aid package the United States has refused to give Israel for the past few months out of concern that Israel would use it to attack nuclear facilities in Iran included a large number of "bunker-buster" bombs, permission to use an air corridor to Iran, an advanced technological system and refueling planes. Officials from both countries have been discussing the Israeli requests over the past few months. Their rejection would make it very difficult for Israel to attack Iran, if such a decision is made. About a month ago, Haaretz reported that the Bush administration had turned down an Israeli request for certain security items that could upgrade Israel's capability to attack Iran. The U.S. administration reportedly saw the request as a sign preparations were moving ahead for an Israeli attack on Iran. Diplomatic and security sources indicated to Haaretz that the list of components Israel included: Bunker-buster GBU-28 bombs: In 2005, the U.S. said it was supplying these bombs to Israel. In August 2006, The New York Times reported that the U.S. had expedited the dispatch of additional bombs at the height of the Second Lebanon War. The bombs, which weigh 2.2 tons each, can penetrate six meters of reinforced concrete. Israel appears to have asked for a relatively large number of additional bunker-busters, and was turned down. Air-space authorization: An attack on Iran would apparently require passage through Iraqi air space. For this to occur, an air corridor would be needed that Israeli fighter jets could cross without being targeted by American planes or anti-aircraft missiles. The Americans also turned down this request. According to one account, to avoid the issue, the Americans told the Israelis to ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for permission, along the lines of "If you want, coordinate with him." Refueling planes. An air attack on Iran would require refueling of fighter jets on the way back. According to a report on Channel 10 a few weeks ago, the U.S. rejected an Israeli request for more advanced refueling tankers, of the Boeing 767 model. The refueling craft the Israel Air Force now uses are very outmoded, something that make it difficult to operate at long distances from Israel. Even if the Americans were to respond favorably to such a request, the process could take a few years. The IDF recently reported that it is overhauling a Boeing 707 that previously served as the prime minister's plane to serve as a refueling aircraft. Advanced technological systems. The Israeli sources declined to give any details on this point. The Israeli requests were discussed during President George W. Bush's visit to Israel in May, as well as during Defense Minister Ehud Barak's visit to Washington in July. In a series of meetings at a very senior level, following Bush's visit, the Americans made clear to the Israelis that for now they are sticking to the diplomatic option to halt the Iranian nuclear project and that Jerusalem does not have a green light from Washington for an attack on Iran. However, it appears that in compensation for turning down Israel's "offensive" requests, the U.S. has agreed to strengthen its defensive systems. During the Barak visit, it was agreed that an advanced U.S. radar system would be stationed in the Negev, and the order to send it was made at that time. The system would double to 2,000 kilometers the range of identification of missiles launched from the direction of Iran, and would be connected to an American early warning system. The system is to be operated by American civilians as well as two American soldiers. This would be the first permanent U.S. force on Israeli soil. A senior security official said the Americans were preparing "with the greatest speed" to make good on their promise, and the systems could be installed within a month. The Israeli security source said he believed Washington was moving ahead quickly on the request because it considered it very important to restrain Israel at this time. At the beginning of the year, the Israeli leadership still considered it a reasonable possibility that Bush would decide to attack Iran before the end of his term. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in private discussions, even raised the possibility that the U.S. was considering an attack in the transition period between the election in November and the inauguration of the new president in January 2009. However, Jerusalem now assumes that likelihood of this possibility is close to nil, and that Bush will use the rest of his time in office to strengthen what he defines as the Iraqi achievement, following the relative success of American efforts there over the past year and a half. Related articles: # Iran-Israel arms race heats up, both boost naval capabilities # Peres warns Olmert: Attack on Iran could spark wide-scale war From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 02:57:13 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:57:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia Ready to Tap Wealth Fund Message-ID: The Russian leadership were prepared for the Georgian military move against South Ossetia, but they seem to have been unprepared for capital flight. They might have used this occasion to bring the financial sector under state control, instead of talking about using the national wealth fund to support the existing financial market, which doesn't appear to impress capitalists anyway. -- Yoshie Russia ready to tap wealth fund By Charles Clover and Catherine Belton in Moscow and Rachel Morarjee in London Published: September 11 2008 09:48 | Last updated: September 11 2008 18:58 Russia is considering using money from its $32bn national wealth fund and from pension reserves to support financial markets, Alexei Kudrin, finance minister, said on Thursday. His comments indicate the government is under pressure to react to the collapsing stock market. It has tumbled almost 50 per cent since May and lost an additional 2.7 per cent on Thursday. "There are several proposals now for the banking community to improve the instruments that would allow [markets] to calmly work in this environment," the minister told reporters. "Among these there is a proposal to place pension fund money and national wealth fund money on the domestic market." Mr Kudrin added the money would be placed in securities. Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, led the way down on Thursday with a fall of 7.4 per cent ? signalling that instability in the financial sector is the key source of weakness. "There is a shortage of liquidity being felt, and the central bank of Russia is carrying out large-scale operations to refinance commercial banks," said Sergei Ignatiev, chairman of the central bank. The central bank again injected more than $10bn (?7bn, ?5.7bn) in short-term funds into the market on Thursday. The government has for months faced calls to use some of its windfall oil revenues to invest in order to stabilise domestic financial markets. Mr Kudrin's comments are significant, as he had opposed the use of national wealth funds to support markets. Erik DePoy, equity strategist at Russia's Alfa Bank, said Mr Kudrin was the "standard bearer for the conservative approach" of non-intervention. Any intervention by the fund in the Russian market "would be only symbolic". "Even if they did $3bn, that is equivalent to one day's trading. I think they're just trying to talk up the market any way they can." Despite the Russian stock market turmoil, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, chose Thursday to unveil a plan to upgrade the structure of the financial markets, which will be introduced as legislation next year. Mr Medvedev said laws on stock exchanges, clearing activities and a central depository centre were the first in the legislative pipeline. "This is in no way a simple period for the international markets," the president told a Kremlin meeting of senior government and banking officials. "But this perhaps makes our agenda more relevant, not less relevant." Intervention using the wealth fund would knock Russia's sovereign rating if it proved to be more than an attempt to talk up the stock market, analysts warned. "If the government intends to put public funds at risk [funds originally laid aside to shore up the pension system], in order to prop up asset prices, then this would have negative implications for Russia's rating," said Frank Gill, head of European sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor's. Investing the fund's money domestically would require changing the law, which created the entity in February with the purpose of buoying the country's pension system. Chris Weafer, of Uralsib investment bank, said: "There is a group in government pushing for the money to be released domestically. But now that's shifting . . . ?because there is a real risk the market fall will have a broader contagion. "Using the money domestically is a lesser evil. If they don't stop the market falling then the whole house of cards could collapse." If authorities did not use the money now, "$40bn is not going to be of any use". From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 03:01:32 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:01:32 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Libyan "People's Capitalism" according to the IMF Message-ID: IMF Executive Board Concludes 2008 Article IV Consultation with The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Public Information Notice (PIN) No. 08/114 September 9, 2008 Public Information Notices (PINs) form part of the IMF's efforts to promote transparency of the IMF's views and analysis of economic developments and policies. With the consent of the country (or countries) concerned, PINs are issued after Executive Board discussions of Article IV consultations with member countries, of its surveillance of developments at the regional level, of post-program monitoring, and of ex post assessments of member countries with longer-term program engagements. PINs are also issued after Executive Board discussions of general policy matters, unless otherwise decided by the Executive Board in a particular case. On July 18, 2008, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.1 Background Since the lifting in 2003-04 of the UN sanctions, which lasted more than 10 years, Libya has launched a series of structural reforms and accelerated its transition to "people's capitalism." The normalization of diplomatic relations with the U.S. and the EU in the second half of 2007 has contributed to increased foreign investors' interest, particularly in the hydrocarbon, banking, and infrastructure sectors. However, while progress has been made in recent years to liberalize the economy, it remains largely state controlled and heavily dependent on hydrocarbon resources. Crude oil and gas accounted for about 70 percent of GDP, 90 percent of total government revenues, and 98 percent of total exports in 2007. A Wealth Distribution Program (WDP) was launched in March 2008 to distribute part of the oil wealth to the population and reduce the size of the government. Disbursements will be in the form of both cash and shares in projects. The initially announced amount was LD 25-30 billion ($20-25 billion), but subsequently only LD 4.6 billion ($3.8 billion) were approved for this year. The authorities are still considering the size, form, and modalities of the annual distributions in the years ahead. Macroeconomic performance strengthened further in 2007, notwithstanding an acceleration in inflation. Real GDP grew by 6.8 percent, supported by an expansion in the hydrocarbon sector (3.9 percent) and a rapid increase in nonhydrocarbon activities (10.3 percent). Growth was particularly strong in construction, transportation, and trade. At the same time, average inflation increased substantially to 6.2 percent, largely driven by higher food prices and a marked increase in public expenditure. Inflation accelerated further in the first quarter of 2008, averaging about 12 percent (year-on-year). Despite higher oil revenues, Libya's fiscal surplus in 2007 narrowed to 26 percent of GDP, compared to 35 percent in 2006. This reflected a rapid increase in virtually all expenditure items (45 percent), albeit at a slightly slower rate than what was envisaged in the budget. The decision to raise public wages resulted in an increase in the wage bill of around 50 percent. Capital expenditure also grew rapidly. On the external side, The current account surplus declined to 34 percent of GDP, compared to 46 percent in 2006, due to a marked increase in imports (33 percent). Continued high oil exports resulted in a further build up of the net foreign assets of Central Bank of Libya (CBL) to almost $80 billion. The real effective exchange rate of the dinar appreciated by 1 percent in 2007, and about 5 percent in the first quarter of 2008 due to the combined effects of the rising inflation and the strengthening of the euro against the SDR (to which the dinar is pegged). Broad money growth accelerated to 41 percent in 2007, reflecting the substantial increase in net foreign assets and the rapid increase in public expenditure, including on-lending by SCIs. Credit extended to the nongovernment sector by these institutions grew by about 36 percent, while that extended by commercial banks grew by about 15 percent. Interest rates remained low and became negative in real terms with the rise in inflation. In an effort to address excess liquidity, the CBL recently increased its policy interest rate to 2.25 percent and the reserves requirement to 20 percent. It introduced in May 2008 its own certificates of deposit as part of its ongoing effort to enhance the monetary policy framework. The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) was established in March 2007. The authorities plan to invest the LIA's initial $40-50 billion mostly abroad on a commercial basis and ensure that the LIA will be run by a qualified and independent management. Recent enhancements of its operational framework are largely in line with staff's recommendations. Progress has been made in various structural reforms, partly in line with past Fund TA recommendations and the Medium-Term Reform Strategy (Country Report 06/137). A sound framework for the management of the oil wealth has been established through the creation of the LIA. Customs administration has been reformed and a large taxpayer's office established; the presentation of the budget has been consolidated and a macrofiscal unit initiated; a large number of public enterprises have been privatized; and one third of public employees are being retrenched to the private sector. Two large state-owned banks were privatized in 2007 and 2008, and two of the three remaining public commercial banks were merged in April 2008. Most regional banks have also been merged into one bank, and agreement has been reached with financial institutions from UAE and Qatar to establish two new banks. Libya's debt relief to heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) continues to be based on forgiving interest payments and using a combination of swaps and rescheduling of principal. The authorities indicated that agreements based on these modalities have already been reached with some HIPCs, and that negotiations are ongoing with others. Executive Board Assessment Executive Directors welcomed Libya's continued solid macroeconomic performance, as reflected in the acceleration in GDP growth?in particular in the non-hydrocarbon sector?and the large fiscal and external current account surpluses, based on both the favorable external environment and the authorities' ongoing economic reforms. Directors agreed that Libya's medium-term outlook remains positive, but underscored the need to reverse the recent acceleration in inflation?caused in particular by the increase in food prices?and to further advance structural reforms in the period ahead, in support of the authorities' welcome initiative to speed up the transition from a state-dominated to a market economy. Directors stressed that efforts to contain inflation should focus on tightening the fiscal stance by limiting the rapid increase in public expenditure, which could also pose risks for expenditure quality. They welcomed the authorities' plans to limit any further increases in public sector wages and to complete the civil service reform. While recognizing the need to upgrade the infrastructure, Directors encouraged the authorities to continue to prioritize public investment and to stand ready to scale back more of the planned projects if inflationary pressures do not recede. Public financial management also needs to be strengthened further, including by unifying the process of budget preparation and implementation under the Ministry of Finance. Directors welcomed the authorities' decision to limit the scope of the Wealth Distribution Program in 2008?while maintaining the focus on strengthening human capital?against the background of the economy's absorptive capacity constraints and increased inflation. This conservative approach will need to be maintained in the period ahead in order to avoid crowding out priority spending, to discourage rent-seeking activities, and to further reduce inflationary pressures. Directors considered that the planned reform of the public administration in the context of the WDP could present an opportunity to address inefficiencies, but care should be taken not to jeopardize the delivery of essential public services. They recommended that the authorities consider the reform plans carefully in consultation with the World Bank. Directors commended the authorities for launching the Libyan Investment Authority in a transparent fashion, and the recent enhancement of its operational framework. They emphasized the importance of limiting domestic investments by the LIA. Directors encouraged the authorities to continue to enhance the operational framework of the LIA in line with the evolving best practices for sovereign wealth funds. Directors commended the recent efforts of the Central Bank of Libya to tighten monetary policy by raising both the CBL policy interest rate and the reserves requirement. They noted that greater reliance on indirect monetary policy instruments would be beneficial, and in this regard, they welcomed the recent introduction of CBL certificates of deposit. Directors commended the authorities for the progress made in bank privatization and restructuring. They encouraged the authorities to finalize the plans to privatize the two remaining public commercial banks. It would also be important to establish an independent bank restructuring agency that would take over ownership of the specialized credit institutions and oversee their restructuring and privatization. Directors agreed that the dinar's peg to the SDR has served Libya well as it provides a strong monetary anchor while allowing some flexibility in the dinar's exchange rate vis-?-vis individual major currencies. An eventual move to greater exchange rate flexibility would be beneficial, but would need to be gradual and preceded by a switch to market-based monetary management and development of expertise in foreign exchange markets. Directors took note of the staff assessment that the dinar is moderately undervalued at present, but that this undervaluation is likely to be transitory given the expected evolution of the fiscal and current account positions based on current policies. Directors welcomed the authorities' commitment to continue to improve economic and financial statistics in order to facilitate better monitoring and analysis of developments to guide policy formulation. They urged the authorities to establish a framework for Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in line with international standards. Directors encouraged the authorities to continue to provide full debt relief to heavily indebted poor countries in line with the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 03:09:33 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:09:33 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Story of Russia's Liquidity Crunch Message-ID: By FT Reporters Published: September 12 2008 12:06 | Last updated: September 12 2008 12:06 Russian Equities: May 19 Russia's RTS stock index hits an annual high of 2,498.10 ?July 11 Brent crude, the benchmark for European oil prices, touches a record of 147.50 ?July 24 TNK-BP chief executive Robert Dudley leaves Moscow blaming an official campaign of harassment as part of a battle for control of the joint venture oil company between BP and its Russian billionaire shareholders ?July 24 Russian Prime Minister accuses Russian steel company Mechel of price gouging ?July 29 Russia's RTS stock market drops for the fourth consecutive session, down over 10 per cent since Putin's attack on Mechel ?August 5 The rouble touches a high of 29.28, the strongest level since the Russian central bank adopted a dollar/euro basket in February 2007 ?August 8 Following a Georgian operation against South Ossetia, Russia launches an invasion of the country, sparking international condemnation ?August 9 Brent crude drops below $100 a barrell for the first time this year ?September 4 Russia's central bank intervenes in the market to prop up the rouble for the second time in a month ?September 8 The rouble falls to a low of 30.52 against a dollar/euro basket, down 4 per cent from its high ?September 10 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the government can prop up the stock market and push it back to its January levels ?September 11 Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin say the government is mulling using national wealth and pension funds to prop up the equity market From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Sep 13 03:43:19 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:43:19 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Anti-Empire Report Message-ID: <48CB8B37.7020609@attglobal.net> Read this or George W Bush will be president the rest of your life by William Blum www.killinghope.org (September 05 2008) Obama-Biden - Osama bin Laden: A coincidence? I think not. I'm sorry to say that I think that John McCain is going to be the next president of the United States. After the long night of Bush horror any Democrat should easily win, but the Dems are screwing it up and McCain has been running more-or-less even with Barack Obama in the polls. The Democrats should run on the slogan "If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain", but that would be too outspoken, too direct for the spineless Nancy Pelosi and her spineless party. Or, "If you liked Iraq, you'll love Iran". But the Democrat leadership is not on record as categorically opposing either conflict. Nor, it seems, do the Democrats have the courage to raise the issue of McCain not having been born in the United States as the Constitution requires. Nor questioning him about accusations by his fellow American prisoners about his considerable collaboration with his Vietnamese captors. Nor a word about McCain's highly possible role in the brutal Georgian invasion of South Ossetia on August 7. (More on this last below.) Obama has lost much of the sizable liberal/progressive vote because of his move to the center-right (or his exposure as a center-rightist), and he now may have lost even his selling point of being more strongly against the war than McCain - if in fact he actually is - by appointing Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden has long been a hawk on Iraq (as well as the rest of US foreign policy), calling for an invasion as far back as 1998. {1} In April, 2007, when pressed in an interview about his vote for the war in 2003, Biden said: "It was a mistake. I regret my vote ... because I learned more, like everybody else learned, about what, in fact, we were told" {2}. This has been a common excuse of war supporters in recent years when the tide of public opinion turned against them. But why did millions and millions of Americans march against the war in the fall of 2002 and early 2003, before it began? What did they know that Joe Biden didn't know? It was clear to the protesters that George W Bush and Dick Cheney were habitual liars, that they couldn't care less about the people of Iraq, that the defenseless people of that ancient civilization were going to be bombed to hell; the protesters knew something about the bombings of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan; they knew about napalm, cluster bombs, depleted uranium ... Didn't Biden know about any of these things? Those who marched knew that the impending war was something a moral person could not support; and that it was totally illegal, a textbook case of a "war of aggression"; one didn't have to be an expert in international law to know this. Did Joe Biden think about any of this? If McCain had a role in the Georgian invasion of breakaway-region Ossetia it would have been arranged with the help of Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser and until recently Georgia's principal lobbyist in Washington. As head of the neo-conservative Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002, Scheunemann was one of America's leading advocates for invading Iraq. One of McCain's primary campaign sales pitches has been to emphasize his supposed superior experience in foreign policy matters, which - again supposedly - means something in this world. McCain consistently leads Obama in the opinion polls on "readiness to be commander-in-chief", or similar nonsense. The Georgia-Russia hostilities raise - in the mass media and the mass mind - the issue of the United States needing an experienced foreign policy person to handle such a "crisis", and, standard in every crisis - an enemy bad guy. Typical of the media was the Chicago Tribune praising McCain for his statesmanlike views on Iraq and stating: "What Russia's invasion of Georgia showed was that the world is still a very dangerous place", and Russia is a "looming threat". In addition to using the expression "Russia's invasion of Georgia", the Tribune article also referred to "Russia's invasion of South Ossetia". No mention of Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia which began the warfare. {3} In a feature story in the Washington Post on the Georgia events the second sentence was: "The war had started, Russian jets had just bombed the outskirts of Tbilisi [Georgian capital]". The article then speaks of "the horror" of "the Russian invasion". Not the slightest hint of any Georgian military action can be found in the story. {4} One of course can find a media report here or there that mentions or at least implies in passing that an invasion from Georgia is what instigated the mayhem. But I've yet to come upon one report in the American mass media that actually emphasizes this point, and certainly none that put it in the headline. The result is that if a poll were taken amongst Americans today, I'm sure the majority of those who have any opinion would be convinced that the nasty Russians began it all. {5} What we have here in the American media is simply standard operating procedure for an ODE (Officially Designated Enemy). Almost as soon as the fighting began, Dick Cheney announced: "Russian aggression must not go unanswered" {6}. The media needed no further instructions. Yes, that's actually the way it works. (See Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iran, Bolivia, et cetera, et cetera.) The president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is an American poodle to an extent that would embarrass Tony Blair. Until their 2,000 troops were called home for this emergency, the Georgian contingent in Iraq was the largest after the US and UK. The Georgian president prattles on about freedom and democracy and the Cold War like George W, declaring that the current conflict "is not about Georgia anymore. It is about America, its values" {7}. (I must confess that until Saakashvili pointed it out I hadn't realized that "American values" were involved in the fighting.) His government recently ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post. The entire text, written vertically, was: "Lenin ... Stalin ... Putin ... Give in? Enough is enough. Support Georgia. ... sosgeorgia.org". {8} UK prime minister Gordon Brown asserted that Russia's recognition of the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was "dangerous and unacceptable" {9}. Earlier this year when Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia, the UK, along with the US and other allied countries quickly recognized it despite widespread warnings that legitimating the Kosovo action might lead to a number of other regions in the world declaring their independence. Brown's hypocrisy appears as merely the routine stuff of politicians compared to that of John McCain and George W re the Georgia fighting: "I'm interested in good relations between the United States and Russia, but in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations", said McCain {10}, the staunch supporter of US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and leading champion of an invasion of Iran. And here is Mahatma Gandhi Bush meditating on the subject: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century" {11}. Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respected. It compares favorably with the motto on automobile license plates of the state of New Hampshire made by prisoners: "Live Free or Die". Our beloved president was also moved to affirm that the Russian recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: was an "irresponsible decision". "Russia's action only exacerbates tensions and complicates diplomatic negotiations", he said {12}. Belgrade, are you listening? It should be noted that linguistically and historically-distinct South Ossetia and Abkhazia had been autonomous Russian/Soviet protectorates or regions from early in the 19th century to 1991, when the Georgian government abolished their autonomy. So what then was the purpose of the Georgian invasion of Ossetia if not to serve the electoral campaign of John McCain, a man who might be the next US president and be thus very obligated to the Georgian president? Saakashvili could have wanted to overthrow the Ossetian government to incorporate it back into Georgia, at the same time hopefully advancing the cause of Georgia's petition to become a member of NATO, which looks askance upon new members with territories in dispute or with military facilities belonging to a nonmember state such as Russia. But the nature of the Georgian invasion does not fit this thesis. The Georgians did none of the things that those staging a coup have traditionally found indispensable. They did not take over a TV or radio station, or the airport, or important government buildings, or military or police installations. They didn't take into custody key members of the government. All the US/Israeli-armed and trained Georgia military did was bomb and kill, civilians and Russian peacekeeper soldiers, the latter legally there for sixteen years under an international agreement. For what purpose all this if not to incite a Russian intervention? The only reason the United States did not itself strongly attack the Russian forces is that it's a pre-eminent principle of American military interventions to not pick on anyone capable of really defending themselves. Unreconstructed cold warriors now fret about Russian expansionism, warning that Ukraine might be next. But of the numerous myths surrounding the Cold War, "communist expansionism" was certainly one of the biggest. We have to remember that within the space of 25 years, Western powers invaded Russia three times - World War I, the "intervention" of 1918-20, and World War II, inflicting some forty million casualties in the two world wars alone. (The Soviet Union lost considerably more people to international warfare on its own land than it did abroad. There are not too many great powers who can say that.) To carry out these invasions, the West used Eastern Europe as a highway. Should it be any cause for wonder that after World War II the Soviets were determined to close down this highway? Minus the Cold War atmosphere and indoctrination, most people would have no problem in seeing the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe as an act of self defense. Neither does the case of Afghanistan support the idea of "expansionism". Afghanistan lived alongside the Soviet Union for more than sixty years with no Soviet military intrusion. It's only when the United States intervened in Afghanistan to replace a government friendly to Moscow with one militantly anti-communist that the Russians invaded to do battle with the US-supported Islamic jihadists. During the Cold War, before undertaking a new military intervention, American officials usually had to consider how the Soviet Union would react. That restraint was removed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. We may now, however, be witnessing the beginning of a new kind of polarization in the world. An increasing number of countries in the Third World - with Latin America as a prime example - have more fraternal relations with Moscow and/or Beijing than with Washington. Singapore's former UN ambassador observed: "Most of the world is bemused by western moralising on Georgia" ... While the western view is that the world "should support the underdog, Georgia, against Russia ... most support Russia against the bullying west. The gap between the western narrative and the rest of the world could not be clearer." {13} And the Washington Post reported: "Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's influential son, echoed the delight expressed in much of the Arab news media. 'What happened in Georgia is a good sign, one that means America is no longer the sole world power setting the rules of the game ... there is a balance in the world now. Russia is resurging, which is good for us, for the entire Middle East'". {14} Scheming at the convention? Am I the only one to be a bit suspicious about what happened at the Democratic Convention on August 27? Why did Hillary Clinton call for a suspension of the roll call when it reached New York and ask that Barack Obama be selected by the convention by acclamation? Many delegates had worked very hard to get the vote out at their primaries and wanted the opportunity to publicly announce the delegate count. What harm would there have been to allow every state to vote? And why, after Clinton's motion, did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately cry: "All those in favor, say Aye", followed by a large roar, and she then cried: "All those opposed say Nay". It is impossible to say how strong the Nay vote was because the time elapse between Pelosi calling for it and her declaring that "The measure is approved" was no more than one or two nanoseconds. She literally did not allow a Nay vote to be heard. I also can not find a record of the vote that took place before it reached New York. Does anyone else find anything strange about all this? All consciences are equal, except that some consciences are more equal than others The Bush administration has proposed stronger job protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections. Both supporters and critics say that the new regulations are broad enough to allow pharmacists, doctors, nurses and others to refuse to provide birth control pills, Plan B emergency contraception, and other forms of contraception, while explicitly allowing employees to withhold information about such services and refuse to refer patients elsewhere. "People should not be forced to say or do things they believe are morally wrong", Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "Health-care workers should not be forced to provide services that violate their own conscience." {15} It's difficult to argue against such a philosophy. It's also difficult to be consistent about it. Do Leavitt and others in the Bush administration extend this concept to those in the military? If a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan is deeply repulsed by his/her involvement in carrying out the daily horror of the American occupation and asks to be discharged from the military as a conscientious objector, will the Pentagon honor his request because "people should not be forced to do things they believe are morally wrong"? The fact that the soldier voluntarily enlisted has no bearing on the question. A person's conscience develops from life experiences and continual reflection. Who's to say at what precise point in time a person's conscience must rebel against committing war crimes for the objection to be considered legally or morally valid? Signing a contract is no reason to be forced to kill people. Can a health-care worker strongly opposed to America's brutal wars refuse to care for a wounded soldier who has been directly involved in the brutality? Can a civilian doctor, pharmacist, or psychologist in the US refuse to treat a soldier on the grounds that if they help to restore his health he'll be sent back to the war front to continue his killing? Can peace activists be allowed to withhold the portion of their income taxes that supports the military? They've been trying to do this for decades without any government support. National Pentagon Radio WAMU, the Washington, DC National Public Radio (NPR) station asked its listeners to write them and tell them what they used the station as a source for. Some of those who replied were invited in for a recorded interview, and a tape of part of the interview was played on the air. I sent them the following email: June 13 2008 To mysource at wamu.org Dear People, I use WAMU to listen to All Things Considered. I use All Things Considered to get the Pentagon point of view on US foreign policy. It's great hearing retired generals explain why the US has just bombed or invaded another country. I'm not bothered by any naive anti-war protesters. I get the official truth right from the horse's mouth. Is this a great country, or what? I hope you're lining up some more great retired generals to tell me why we had to bomb Iran and kill thousands more people. Just make sure you don't make me listen to anyone on the left. Sincerely, William Blum, who should be on Diane Rehm, but never will be asked [followed by some information about my books] I had no expectation of any kind of positive reply. I figured that if my letter didn't do it, then surely the titles of my books would reveal that I'm not actually a lover of the American military or their wars. But I don't really want to believe the worst about the mainstream media. That's too discouraging. So it was a pleasant surprise when someone at the station invited me to come in for an interview. It lasted more than half an hour and went very well. I expressed many of my misgivings about NPR's coverage of US foreign policy in no uncertain terms. The interviewer said he was very pleased. He expected this was going to be an interesting piece for the station to broadcast. But as it turned out, that was the end of the matter. I never heard from the station again, and my interview was never broadcast. About two months later I sent an email to the interviewer asking if the interview would be aired. I could verify that he received it, but I got no reply. I think the interviewer had been sincere, which is why I'm not mentioning his name. Someone above him must have listened to the tape, remembered where "public" radio's real loyalty lay (to its primary funder, Congress), and vetoed the whole thing. My (lack of) faith in American mass media has not been challenged. And those who work in the mass media will continue to believe in what they practice, something they call "objectivity", while I will continue to believe that objectivity is no substitute for honesty. The audience contributes its share to the syndrome. Consumers of news, if fed American-exceptionalism junk food long enough come to feel at home with it, equate it with objectivity, and equate objectivity with getting a full and balanced picture, or the "truth"; it appears neutral and unbiased, like the living room sofa they're sitting on as they watch NBC or CNN. They view the "alternative media", with a style rather different from what they're accustomed to, as not being objective enough, therefore suspect. The president of NPR, incidentally, is a gentleman named Kevin Klose. Previously he helped coordinate all US-funded international broadcasting: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Central Europe and the Soviet Union), Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio/TV Marti (Cuba), Worldnet Television (Africa and elsewhere); all created specifically to disseminate world news to a target audience through the prism of US foreign policy beliefs and goals. He also served as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Would it be unfair to say that Americans then became his newest target audience? All unconscious of course; that's what makes the mass media so effective; they really believe in their own objectivity. Not to mention the conscious propaganda. NOTES {1} See Stephen Zunes, "Biden, Iraq, and Obama's Betrayal", Foreign Policy in Focus, August 24 2008, www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5492 {2} "Meet the press", April 29 2007, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18381961/ {3} Chicago Tribune, August 28 2008 {4} Washington Post, August 31 2008, page B1 {5} For further discussion of the Georgia issue, see Robert Scheer, "Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?", The Huffington Post, August 14 2008; Pat Buchanan, Creators Syndicate column of August 22 2008; Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation blogs, August 21 2008 {6} Reuters, August 10 2008 {7} Washington Post, August 9 2008. page 1 {8} Washington Post, August 28 2008, repeated September 1. {9} The Guardian (London), September 1 2008 {10} See and hear these actual words actually coming out of the actual mouth of the man - http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/08/13/john-mccain-maybe-doesnt-know-what-the-word-invade-means/ {11} National Public Radio (NPR), August 15 2008 {12} Associated Press, August 27 2008 {13} The Guardian (London), August 28 2008, column by Seumas Milne, quoting from ambassador Kishore Mahbubani's interview in the Financial Times (London) of August 21 {14} Washington Post, August 30 2008, page 18 {15} Associated Press, August 21 2008, Washington Post, August 22 2008 William Blum is the author of:- Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War Two (Common Courage Press, 1995) Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (Zed Books, 2002) West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2002) Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (Common Courage Press, 2004) Portions of the books can be read, and copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org and previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website. To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 at aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area. Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite. Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned. http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer61.htm http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 04:01:51 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 06:01:51 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia Tries to Raise Oil Production (AP) + Transneft Sees Russian Oil Growth until 2012 (Reuters) Message-ID: Russia tries to raise oil production By CATRINA STEWART ? 13 hours ago MOSCOW (AP) ? Home to abundant oil reserves, Russia rarely worried about where the next barrel would come from ? until now. With analysts expecting production to fall this year for the first time in a decade, Russian companies are pushing to find new oil in remote regions such as the Arctic Shelf and East Siberia ? but their efforts are hampered by crippling taxes that give the government much of the recent gains from high oil prices. The Kremlin is now apparently considering tax cuts aimed at letting companies keep enough of the country's windfall from higher oil prices to invest in exploration ? on top of cuts earlier this year that analysts and industry executives said they didn't go far enough. Russia's oil industry is calling for $16.3 billion in further breaks from next year. The prospering energy industry in Russia has been crucial to the career of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who as president oversaw an eight-year, oil-fueled economic boom which improved the lives of many ordinary Russians and helped restore national self-confidence. Declining oil production is bad news for a resource-based economy where revenues from the oil industry account for about 25 percent of GDP ? and undermines Russia's efforts to position itself as an influential guarantor of global energy supplies, providing as it does some 30 percent of Europe's oil imports. "The Kremlin was very uncomfortable seeing the declining production curve," said Artyem Konchin, an oil and gas analyst at UnicreditAton. "If the Kremlin wants to position itself as an energy superpower ? and a place where reserves are abundant, or at least available ? a decline in production is detrimental to this message." Oil production reached 9.87 million barrels per day last year, a 2.3 percent rise. It is down 0.5 percent in the first eight months of the year. While the Energy Ministry is sticking with its forecast of 1 percent production growth this year, analysts expect production to decline by up to 0.5 percent ? its first decline in 10 years ? followed by a rebound next year, as the already approved tax cuts take effect. Older fields ? located mainly in western Siberia ? are nearing maturity, and there are few huge new developments coming onstream to drive production in the next few years, say analysts. Costly exploration is badly needed in areas such as East Siberia and the Arctic Shelf. Rosneft ? the country's largest oil producer ? said last week it would delay the launch of its giant Vankor project and trimmed its production forecasts for the year, further blows to the Ministry's estimates. And according to data from Uralsib bank, Surgutneftegaz and Sibneft ? a unit of Gazpromneft ? both have seen falling output in recent months, while another big oil concern, Lukoil, is roughly flat. "I am worried about the projects... You need to invest in them, and for that you have to find cash. To find cash, you have to get it from your own earnings, or debt. And the debt market is very bad right now ... So where exactly are you going to find this cash?" said Victor Mishnyakov, an oil and gas analyst at UralSib bank. Earlier in the year, the government approved tax breaks for new fields in remote areas, and raised the tax-free threshold to $15 per barrel from $9. The changes ? which are estimated to save the industry $5 billion annually ? come into effect next year. There is an ongoing debate within the government about going further, with the Finance Ministry urging fiscal restraint and the Economy Ministry pushing for cuts and growth. In a recent interview in New York, OAO Lukoil deputy vice president Andrei Gaidamaka told The Associated Press that the taxes have a direct impact on their ability to plow money back into new projects. The government at present takes about $70 of the revenue in taxes from every $100 barrel sold, he said. The approved cuts will on their own give Lukoil a further $2 billion-$3 billion in pretax profits annually. "We are very different from most of our international competitors," he said. "We are way more competitive on the cost side, but we still have lower profitability due to the high tax burden." The oil windfall tax has served the government well, helping it amass $174 billion in a "rainy-day" fund, split off in February into a reserve fund and a national welfare fund. But with oil prices powering through to unprecedented heights earlier this summer, touching $147 per barrel in July, the energy companies have seen little of the benefits. The proposed tax cuts are as yet unspecified, but potentially include raising the tax-free threshold from $15 per barrel to $25, said Deputy Energy Minister Stanislav Svetlitsky recently. A debilitating dispute at Anglo-Russian joint venture TNK-BP, in large part resolved, has also stoked concerns. The company reassigned 148 technical specialists from the country earlier this year amid visa difficulties and litigation. In July, chief operating officer Tim Summers said the Russian shareholders' desire to cut capital expenditure by $900 million in 2008 could wipe up to 1 million tons to 5 million tons from the company's output over the next 12 months. Where once it was common practice for Russian investors to whisk cash out of the company via dividends, analysts say that practice is changing in the domestic oil industry, given the massive investment needs. "If you take money out of the investment cashflow, you will probably face declining production," said Konchin. AP Business Writer Stevenson Jacobs contributed to this report from New York. Transneft sees Russian oil growth until 2012 Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:30pm BST By Tanya Mosolova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil output can grow for at least five years even if the industry doesn't get new tax breaks and despite delays at some major projects, the president of pipeline monopoly Transneft TRNF_p.RTS said on Wednesday. Nikolai Tokarev, boss of the world's largest pipeline company, said Russian oil firms had submitted plans to Transneft which will see the country's production rising by around 1.2 million barrels per day by 2012. "We can not say that oil output is stagnating or falling ... In 2012 we will have a total increase in output of 60 million tonnes (1.2 million pbd) compared to this year," Tokarev said in an interview at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit. Oil production in Russia, the world's second-largest crude exporter, has declined by around one percent since the start of the year after reaching a post-Soviet peak of 9.87 million bpd in 2007. Stagnant oil production -- which has been rising by between 2 and 11 percent over the past decade -- has been a major concern for the government which depends heavily on oil revenues. The government still expects production to be at least flat this year and has offered a series of tax breaks to oil firms. But companies say a deeper tax cut is needed to sustain growth. Tokarev said production could grow even without further tax cuts, but added that Russia should start thinking about capping production in a few years in order not to deplete its reserves too quickly. "In the United States, they keep reserves for the future and fields which are ready to produce are being mothballed and are awaiting their time," said Tokarev. "I believe the state of our finances and budget allow us to think about such a rational approach. There is no need to rush and deplete our resources too quickly," said Tokarev. He said documents submitted by oil firms showed Russia's top oil producer Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) would grow faster than other companies until 2012, adding 22.5 million tonnes to its current production despite a six-month delay to its giant Vankor project announced last week. Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), the oil arm of gas monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), BP's (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) Russian venture TNK-BP TNBPI.RTS, and the country's second largest oil producer LUKOIL (LKOH.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) would also expand production. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Michael Stott, Amie Ferris-Rotman, Katya Golubkova and Robin Paxton; Editing by Jason Neely) From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 04:38:11 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 06:38:11 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia's Bid to Strengthen OPEC Ties May Sow Unease Message-ID: Russia's Bid to Strengthen OPEC Ties May Sow Unease Oil-Cartel Ministers Will Curtail Output Amid Falling Prices By NEIL KING JR., SPENCER SWARTZ and ANNA RAFF September 10, 2008; Page A7 VIENNA -- Russia upped the ante in its faceoff with the West by proposing "extensive cooperation" with the OPEC oil cartel, an idea that would stir concerns among big oil-consuming countries like the U.S. [Chart] Time to Cut? The Russian proposal came just hours before the group's 13 ministers decided to scale back production by around 520,000 barrels a day, or less than 1% of world oil supply, over the next 40 days in the face of falling prices and slowing demand growth. OPEC officials described the move as necessary to avoid a buildup of excess supply, but the group could face criticism for moving to cut production when prices are still above $100 a barrel. The cuts would put OPEC's output -- now at around 32.7 million barrels a day -- back to where it was during the first three months of the year. The decision, following hours of debate, came after U.S. benchmark crude fell Tuesday to its lowest level in five months, settling at $103.26 a barrel, down $3.08, or 2.9%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The offer by Russia's energy czar and vice premier, Igor Sechin, came as a surprise twist at the start of the OPEC session. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries supplies around 40% of the world's oil, while Russian output makes up another 11%. Mr. Sechin made his offer for cooperation in person at the meeting in a visit that OPEC officials said was arranged in recent days. The Russian delegation of more than 20 officials raised eyebrows at the cartel's usually cloistered headquarters along the banks of the Danube; it was among the largest sent to Vienna by a nonmember state, an OPEC official said. It was also the most high-profile visit from Moscow to the cartel in at least a decade. Among the group was Sergei Bogdanchikov, the chief executive of Russian oil giant OAO Rosneft. The Russian outreach to OPEC comes at a time of severe strain between Moscow and the West after Russia's invasion of Georgia last month. While an actual alliance with OPEC seems far-fetched, concerns already run high in the U.S. and Europe that Moscow is trying to increase its chokehold over Europe's energy needs. Moscow supplies Europe with most of its natural gas and much of its crude oil and gasoline. OPEC's first formal gathering in six months was otherwise fraught with politics and posturing as factions tussled over whether to cut output even as oil still hovered above $100 a barrel. Some voices within the group argued that OPEC should exhibit restraint and lower its production. The decision to cut output over the next month means that Saudi Arabia will likely scale back its production to where it was earlier this year, before Riyadh began ramping up in a bid to drive down record prices. Analysts have been closely scrutinizing OPEC's actions for any signs of a consensus on what might be the optimal price that the cartel would seek to defend. The latest action suggests that OPEC sees that price at around $100 a barrel, despite the fact oil is still up nearly 33% from a year ago and nearly quadruple what it was in 2003. The decision came as a surprise after many OPEC officials said in recent days that the market remains healthy, with neither too little nor too much oil washing around. Arriving at his hotel around dawn Tuesday, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi, the principal voice within the cartel, described the market as "fairly well balanced" and "in a healthy position." But that view was contrary to assertions by the Iranian oil minister, Gholam Hossein Nozari, that the market is oversupplied. Libya's top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, also spoke of a supply "glut." OPEC President Chakib Khelil, who is also Algeria's oil minister, said the group's action was unlikely to ease the recent slide in oil prices because weakening U.S. and European demand had allowed crude inventories to build. "It's pretty obvious why we took this action," Mr. Khelil told reporters afterwards. For months, OPEC ministers have blamed everyone from market manipulators to doomsayers for driving oil prices to records, arguing that the price had no relation to the fundamentals of supply and demand. But now the cartel must decide when prices have fallen too far. Mr. Sechin said Russia was working on a draft memorandum of understanding on deepened cooperation between Russia and OPEC. Part of the cooperation, he said, could include providing for a "stable pricing environment" for producers and consumers. He stressed that Russia and Saudi Arabia are the world's two top oil producers, accounting for nearly a quarter of global oil demand. Bringing Russia into OPEC would give the group additional clout but would also present myriad headaches, which is why analysts were largely skeptical that any meaningful cooperation would bloom from Moscow's visit. Saudi Arabia, the biggest power in OPEC, is a close U.S. ally and is loath to see the group used as a forum to take shots at the West. Russian officials didn't specify whether they were seeking admission as a regular OPEC member. Even formal cooperation short of membership would be a watershed for the global oil market, underscoring how relations have soured between Russia and the U.S., the world's No. 1 oil consumer. OPEC officials declined to comment on what might become of the Russian outreach. Mr. Khelil declined to say whether OPEC woud extend Russia OPEC membership. A Russian official said the memorandum of understanding could take two months to sign, suggesting it could be finalized in October when OPEC representatives come to an international oil conference in Russia. Mr. Sechin is the board chairman of Rosneft, a state-controlled oil company that is Russia's largest crude producer. He is a long-time confidant of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and the two men wield great influence over energy policy. --Benoit Faucon contributed to this article. Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king at wsj.com, Spencer Swartz at spencer.swartz at dowjones.com and Anna Raff atanna.raff at dowjones.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 04:53:09 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 06:53:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Is There an Oil Price Floor and Where Is It? Message-ID: Is there an oil price floor and where is it? Rachel Ziemba | Sep 11, 2008 Since mid July, Crude oil futures have fallen almost $50 from their peak, WTI is in the neighborhood of $100 a barrel, and Brent has already closed below $100 a barrel. About two months ago, I suggested that we were finally seeing the fall in oil prices [LINK: ] I'd been expecting to see for some months. Since then demand destruction has taken the upper hand, as it became clearer that a slower global economy would erode demand growth as it has already done in the OECD. However it is a sign of the frothiness of the market that it took only a relatively small decrease in demand to trigger this look back at fundamentals. The oil price also reflected the more general reassessment that led to a USD rally against the Euro and Pound. So where is the oil price heading? This week, OPEC stepped in ? to in part ? try to steer the market to a oil price floor. OPEC's additional oil supplies (mostly from Saudi) had contributed to putting the oil market well in surplus where supply exceeded demand, contributing to lower prices. OPEC had been pretty absent as an actor in the oil market in recent months, with Saudi Arabia taking the lead on adding new supplies, convening a special oil conference in June. The impact of OPEC's cuts back to September 2007 levels will be a matter for coming months ? and assumes that all members including Saudi Arabia will agree to return to those levels. The latter assumption may not be valid. The New York Times suggests that Saudi Arabia may not return to past production levels. It is particularly unlikely to do so until it gauges winter demand - in part because it does not want to be blamed for exacerbating economic woes or pricing its product beyond the means of its purchasers. In the short term the combination of removal of supply and hurricane risks could be a bit bullish for oil. Yet, supplies have been sufficient that despite the threat of real supply shocks [LINK: ], oil has failed to hold gains. And given the outlook for the U.S. economy, it doesn't seem likely demand will pick back up. Especially since even the threat of real supply disruptions failed to have that effect. And investors whipsawed on the way up and down in the energy markets might not want to get back in. Meanwhile new regulations might make it somewhat more difficult to borrow to trade. So all in all, it points to oil in the double digits soon. Yet, there could be a pretty high floor for oil ? perhaps $80 a barrel. Such a price is still high (higher than 2007's average of around $71), even if it seems cheap after flirting with $150 a barrel. UPDATE: However, given limitations on supply, we could see an oil price rebound when (and if) the U.S. and global economies recover. Given that the supply additions, particularly from non-OPEC sources is limited in the near term, we could see a gradual climbing after 2010. But we might not see the kind of trajectory we saw this year unless the same credit constraints and liquidity traps recur as they did this year. However, I should add that my $80 price point is slightly arbitrary and sentiment matters a lot END UPDATE Why that price point? 1) There still isn't that much supply. While Saudi Arabia added new supplies from Khursaniyah, boosting its surplus capacity, there aren't a lot of new supplies from either OPEC or non-OPEC members coming online in the next few years. Following a global recession-induced demand slowing, we could see a mid-term tightening of supplies. 2) The cost of a marginal barrel of oil has risen along. Certainly many unconventional oil sources need about $70 to break even. And countries about to put in motion more investment may want to ensure their investment will pay off. Of course some supplies are still cheaper than others, production costs in the gulf are lower than in many areas, but many of the touted new supplies from Brazil's Tupi or others are in the neighborhood of $50 a barrel break even costs. Supplies and investment programs that became viable at over $100 a barrel may seem less attractive if oil crosses the double digits 3) At a certain price point, Americans (and others) will start consuming more again. And perhaps if credit eases, Chinese might start buying cars again. While some behavioral changes will stick ? you don't go returning the fuel efficient car for a gas guzzler ? others, like a switch to carpooling or public transport, may not. That price point could be in the neighborhood of 70-90 a barrel. I base this on the fact that when oil averaged $60-70 a barrel in 2006 and 2007, few of these behavioural changes had taken effect yet. Demand is price dependent. Finally, more and more oil exporters (OPEC and non-OPEC) need an oil price of around $60+ a barrel to pay their import bills. Ahead of the OPEC meeting, I updated some estimates of the spending and saving patterns of oil exporters. This partly updates a paper I wrote over a year ago, when $70 a barrel seemed kinda high. A quick caveat ? a history lesson of the 1980s would show us that oil exporters can't keep oil prices high just by wishing it so. OPEC's role is clearly significant, especially now that it accounts for much of the incremental supply, but it may be limited in its activities. In general, OPEC, and other cartels have tended to be more effective at pushing prices up by restricting production than bringing it down. Furthermore, if oil prices continue to slide, the determination of OPEC may be tested as some producers may prefer to sell more volume to maintain a certain revenue inflow ? contributing to more supply and lower prices. UPDATE: The following is hypothetical scenario to illustrate the spending patterns of oil exporters. It doesn't necessarily mean that oil will stabilize at $80 in the next few years, but rather shows the vulnerabilities that oil exporters might face if it does. These vulnerabilities, could contribute to OPEC members actually pumping more oil in order to increase revenues. And the trajectory may not be clear END UPDATE My calculations assume that oil averages $110 a barrel this year and $80 a year thereafter, that oil output remains similar to that of the spring of 2008 (ie before Saudi Arabia's increase) and that spending (imports) and non-oil exports continue to climb at current trends. Assuming that oil stabilizes at $80 a barrel, these spending patterns would slow, but it is easier to scale up than to scale down spending (another lesson of the 1980s). Under these assumptions, the current account surpluses of all key oil exporters would erode considerably ? meaning that surpluses in 2009 would be lower than in 2007, when the oil price was slightly lower. See the following estimate of GCC spending and saving ratios. This graph shows the share of each barrel of oil that is spent and what is saved. It uses a broad definition of imports and nets out non-oil exports to show what imports need to be paid from the oil revenue intake. Imports and Current Account Surplus of Emerging Oil Exporters -- expressed in dollars/barrel In aggregate, oil exporters might soon start spending their savings ? and some countries will have to do it sooner than later ? and in aggregate oil savings will still be large. Oil exporter current account surpluses would likely be close to $300 billion in 2009 under the scenario I've depicted, still a lot less than the over $600 billion in 2008 but nothing to sneeze at. Furthermore oil savings actually exceed the current account surpluses in some cases as private capital inflows to countries like the UAE, and Russia have eroded the current account surplus, meaning that oil savings outstrip the net savings of the country. Again the following graphs are somewhat hypothetical, especially as its difficult to forecast out spending rates. Current Account Surpluses of Key Oil Exporters -- Oil at $80/barrel 2009-2012 Some countries will have non-oil exports to cushion the effect of falling prices. Others are more vulnerable. The bigger spenders include Oman, Kazakhstan, Iran, Venezuela. But even more fiscally conservative (until recently) countries like Kuwait and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia, will have surpluses erode as fiscal spending begins to outpace revenues. This in my view will contribute to an oil price floor. Current Account Surplus Expressed in $/barrel oil price Data ? IMF, adjusted by Author Russia attended the most recent OPEC meeting and suggested more cooperation with OPEC ? a rather political statement to be sure and fitting in with its putting trade talks on the back burner. Russia need not actively participate in OPEC to support its goals. Russia's declining oil production (down more than 1% from last year and the first decline in 10 years) means it is unlikely to be a spoiler to OPEC. So we may be in for expensive energy for some time to come ? however, recent prices are clearly a relief for the global economy, which was suffering even at $120 a barrel oil ? even if not for the planet. From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 09:42:43 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:42:43 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Deadly Separatist Violence: Martial Law In Bolivian Province Message-ID: <984397274B8F48EF938F85F9FA6CFFF9@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:49 AM Subject: [stopnato] Deadly Separatist Violence: Martial Law In Bolivian Province http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13068171&PageNum=0 Itar-Tass September 13, 2008 Bolivia's government declares martial law in Pando department BUENOS AIRES - The government of Bolivia has declared martial law in Pando Department, in the country's north, where there have been sanguinary clashes between the supporters and opponents of president Evo Morales. Fifteen have been killed and dozens of others injured. The authorities have described the clashes as blood bath. The nation is in mourning. Interior Minister Alfredo Rada told the media Friday evening that the Pando Department was witnessing instances of terror and unbridled violence. He said the imposition of martial law was expected to protect the lives and interests of civilians. Local people have been prohibited from gathering in groups bigger than three persons, carrying cold steel or firearms and staging rallies or street processions. On the whole the situation in Bolivia is calm. The head of state asked the leaders of opposition departments to enter into a dialogue. According to information available at this point, the invitation was accepted. ------------------------------------------------------ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/13/content_9964943.htm Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008 Bolivian government imposes martial law in violence-hit Pando province ?The Bolivian government on Friday imposed martial law in the northern province of Pando. ?Violence increased in opposition-controlled provinces of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando in Bolivia. ?Morales severely condemned the violence and demanded dialogue with the opposition groups. LIMA - The Bolivian government on Friday imposed martial law in the northern province of Pando where at least nine people have been killed in violent clashes between supporters and opponents of the government. Bolivian Defense Minister Walker San Miguel, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada and Commander-in-Chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces collectively signed a decree to ban protests and the carrying of weapons in the remote Amazon region. During the past few weeks, violent acts have increased in the opposition-controlled provinces of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando in Bolivia. Anti-government protesters continued to blocks roads, occupy public building and destroy public properties to vent their discontent with President Evo Morales' social and economic policies. On Thursday, at least nine Bolivians were killed, 34 were injured and many others went missing in violent clashes caused by anti-government protests in Pando. The deadly incident occurred in a village 13 km from Cobija. On Thursday morning, some Cobija residents who oppose Morales' policies were engaged in a heavy fighting with local villagers, using pistols, choppers and batons. Morales severely condemned the violence and demanded dialogue with the opposition groups, which, however, ignored his call. The Bolivian opposition rightists, which control large parts of the country's wealthier eastern regions, demand more autonomy and a higher share of the oil and gas revenues. Most of Bolivia's oil and gas reserves are located in the eastern part of the country. The opposition groups also demand full restitution of the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons, which Morales reduced by 30 percent to found the so-called Rent of Dignity, which is aimed at helping people over 60 years old who do not have a pension. The opposition is also against holding a referendum to approve the new Political Constitution, which was approved by parliament last December. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Share Photos Put your favorite photos and more online. Yahoo! Groups Wellness Spot A resource for Curves and weight loss. All-Bran Day 10 Club on Yahoo! Groups Feel better with fiber.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 09:43:58 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:43:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] 'NGOs': Nicaragua Accuses US Of Subversion Message-ID: <2A8258A472F94C96B9CE853FD32ED72D@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:46 AM Subject: [stopnato] 'NGOs': Nicaragua Accuses US Of Subversion http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13068155&PageNum=0 Itar-Tass September 13, 2008 Nicaragua accuses US of interference in internal affairs -[T]he White House is angry about Nicaragua's independent foreign policy, specifically, its decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez has canceled his visit to Managua scheduled for the end of September in view of changed circumstances. MEXICO CITY - Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Samuel Santos has accused the United States of using non-governmental organizations for interference in his country's internal affairs. "That interference (by the United States) has existed historically, and now we have evidence of Washington using non-governmental organizations for that purpose," Nicaragua's foreign minister told the media on Friday. Santos said some non-governmental organizations inside Nicaragua, acting on instructions from the United States, were undermining the prestige of the national government and pressing for the cancellation of international programs for aid to Nicaragua. Asked about relations with the United States, the Nicaraguan foreign minister said that decisions as to on what level diplomatic relations with Washington should be maintained were the competence of the president, Daniel Ortega. Santos expects that the president will look into this matter. Earlier, the Nicaraguan leader approved of Bolivia and Venezuela's decisions to declare US ambassadors as personas non grata. Relations between Managua and Washington have entered into a dramatic phase. In particular, the White House is angry about Nicaragua's independent foreign policy, specifically, its decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez has canceled his visit to Managua scheduled for the end of September in view of changed circumstances. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Y! Groups blog the best source for the latest scoop on Groups. All-Bran 10 Day Challenge Join the club and feel the benefits. Popular Y! Groups Is your group one? Check it out and see.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 09:44:49 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:44:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Caribbean: Russian Strategic Bombers Conduct 6-Hour Mission Message-ID: <840055A52D6D4F3C8DA334C0D676C5AB@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:40 AM Subject: [stopnato] Caribbean: Russian Strategic Bombers Conduct 6-Hour Mission http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=32431&cid=47&p=13.09.2008 Voice of Russia September 13, 2008 Russian Tupolev-160 strategic bombers have effectively flown their training mission over the Caribbean Russian Tupolev-160 strategic bombers have effectively flown their training mission over the Caribbean and returned to their air base in Venezuela. This is the first of the training flights to be made from the Libertador air field. The Deputy Commander of Russia's Air Force Long-Range Aviation Major-General Alexander Afinogenov said in an interview with Russian television that no incidents had been registered during the 6-hour flight. Other countries' fighter planes abstained from flying near the Russian bombers. ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13068618&PageNum=0 Itar-Tass September 13, 2008 Russian Tu-160s fly over Caribbean Sea coast MOSCOW - Two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers that arrived in Venezuela have carried out a training mission along the Caribbean Sea coast, the commander of the Russian crews, Deputy Commander of the Russian Long-Range Air Force Alexander Afinogentov, reported by telephone from Caracas. The flight was normal. It lasted about six hours, he said in a live broadcast of the Vesti news channel. The aircraft flew along Caribbean Sea countries. There were no excesses. The equipment worked well. Foreign fighters did not approach the Tu-160s, the commander said. Afinogentov thanked Venezuela for the assistance in the organisation of the flight. A good aerodrome fit for strategic aircraft flights is provided for the Russian planes. The runway is over 3,000 metres long. The cover is good. All conditions are created for the missions to be carried out without problems, without delays. Venezuelan pilots, the personnel, who are at the airbase, display "lively interest" in the Russian guests, he said. They examine the aircraft and talk with the pilots, engineers and technical personnel. It is new for them. They never talked directly with Russian crews. There are very many questions about every day life and service. A contact is established with them, Afinogentov said. "I think all are satisfied. It is also interesting for us to talk with them, to know how they live, how they organise their combat training. It is a good, normal exchange of experience that will be useful for us in the future." .... The two Tu-160 strategic bombers arrived in Venezuela on Wednesday to carry out training missions. President Hugo Chavez welcomed the arrival of the Russian crews and even expressed the wish to fly aboard the aircraft. But the mission on Saturday was carried out without him. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Groups Special K Challenge Join others who are losing pounds. Yahoo! Groups Find balance between nutrition, activity & well-being. Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 10:26:40 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:26:40 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia Says No To Sanctions, War Against Iran Message-ID: <2262686FD89F430D88507A0E82E405B1@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:50 PM Subject: [stopnato] Russia Says No To Sanctions, War Against Iran http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=69201§ionid=351020104 Press TV September 13, 2008 Russia says no to war, sanctions on Iran -A source close to the Russian military said Sunday that Moscow is considering providing Iran with more nuclear assistance amid its escalating tensions with Washington over the August crisis in the Caucasus - which Russia says was orchestrated by the US. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he will not accept military action or new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities. "We should not take any unilateral steps. It is not acceptable to opt for a military scenario," President Medvedev said Friday at the Valdai Club, which sees journalists and academics specializing on Russia. His remarks come as speculation runs high that Israel and the US are drawing up plans to launch a military strike against Iran in a bid to hamper the country's nuclear program. French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested last week that should Iran continue with its uranium enrichment program, it could be attacked by Israel. "We could find one morning that Israel has struck (Iran)," said the French president, adding that no one would question the legitimacy of such an act of aggression. US President George W. Bush and upper echelons in Tel Aviv have repeatedly threatened Iran with war under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), seeks nuclear weaponry. Under US pressure, the UN Security Council has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran, demanding the country to halt its enrichment program. This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent - a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent. The Russian president says Moscow only supports negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, Reuters reported. President Medvedev added that the talks between Iran and the West, led by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, 'have been quite positive'. "We should not adopt any additional sanctions now," he warned. Medvedev's remarks followed a Wednesday US Treasury Department announcement that Washington has imposed new unilateral financial sanctions against Iran. The US envoy to the UN urged members of the Security Council on Thursday to approve the sanctions. Russia's envoy, however, responded that Moscow could decide for itself how to be vigilant about Iranian financial transactions. In its latest anti-Iran measure, the Bush administration targeted Iran's main national carrier, Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), accusing it of aiding the country's nuclear program. Iran called the US move counterproductive and similar 'to other baseless US allegations' against Tehran. Suffering from electricity shortage, Iran has been forced to adopt a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas in the country. In the past decade, Russia has helped Tehran in the construction of a 20,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. The construction of the plant has been delayed, according to Russia's envoy to Tehran, Alexander Sadovnikov, due to the 'sanctions imposed by Western powers'. A source close to the Russian military said Sunday that Moscow is considering providing Iran with more nuclear assistance amid its escalating tensions with Washington over the August crisis in the Caucasus - which Russia says was orchestrated by the US. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to take great pictures. Yahoo! Groups Join people over 40 who are finding ways to stay in shape.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 10:27:11 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:27:11 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ecuador, Honduras Back Bolivia, Venezuela Against US Threat Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:46 PM Subject: [stopnato] Ecuador, Honduras Back Bolivia, Venezuela Against US Threat http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/13/content_9961571.htm Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008 Ecuador, Honduras support Bolivia, Venezuela in expulsion of U.S. envoys LIMA - Ecuador and Honduras on Friday voiced support for Bolivia and Venezuela's decision to expel U.S. ambassadors in their countries in protest of Washington's intervention in their domestic affairs. "The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales and the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, have enough reasons to label (as "persona non gratas") the U.S. ambassador in La Paz, Philip Goldberg, and that in Caracas, Patrick Duddy. I respect those countries' decisions and I am sure that they had their concrete and verified reasons," Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said during his visit to Peru. "Ecuador will make its resolutions in a sovereign way," Correa noted. "I have to acknowledge that former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador always respected my country," the president said, adding that "if any U.S. ambassador or of any place attempts to interfere in our internal affairs or affect the country's security, he will be immediately expelled." Correa made the remarks at a press conference at the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) that groups Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Ecuadorian president had previously met with his Peruvian counterpart Alan Garcia. Meanwhile, reports monitored here said that Hondurian President Manuel Zelaya also voiced support for Bolivia's decision to expel the U.S. ambassador, saying he will not receive the new U.S. ambassador to Honduras for the moment, though he does not want to have problems with Washington. In another development of the day, the Venezuelan government said it formalized the expulsion of U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, after President Hugo Chavez announced the decision on Thursday to show solidarity with Bolivia. The U.S. ambassador was asked to leave the country within 72 hours starting from 19:15 local time (2345 GMT) on Thursday. In a communique, the government declared Duddy as "persona non grata" , saying it subjects the ties with the United States to an intense evaluation "to guarantee the respect to our homeland." Bolivian Ambassador to Venezuela Jorge Alvarado said on Friday that he appreciates Venezuela's sympathy with La Paz, describing the words of President Chavez as a honor and an incentive for the Bolivian people. "The Bolivians, Venezuelans and the Latin Americans should feel proud because our governments are dignifying us," Alvarado said. Alvarado said Latin American nations could not react to the U.S. intervention before, because they lived with alleged help from it. "But we are now showing that we can expel a U.S. ambassador," Alvarado told local VTV channel. Bolivian President Evo Morales on Wednesday requested U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg to leave the country immediately, accusing him of "heading the division" inside Boliviaby encouraging, together with the opposition, the protests agains this government. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. Find helpful tips for Moderators on the Yahoo! Groups team blog. Yahoo! Groups Familyographer Zone Learn how to capture family moments.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat Sep 13 10:28:02 2008 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:28:02 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Bolivia: Army Won't Allow Separatist Attacks, Foreign Intervention Message-ID: <991B1A95758C4113AE0427840DF2FE1F@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:42 PM Subject: [stopnato] Bolivia: Army Won't Allow Separatist Attacks, Foreign Intervention http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/13/content_9962122.htm Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008 Bolivian army says not to tolerate radical actions, foreign interference LIMA - The Bolivian Armed Forces warned on Friday that they will not tolerate any more actions of radical groups or foreign interference in the country's internal affairs. "We will not tolerate any more the violent radical groups' actions that are only looking for clashes among Bolivians, causing pain and deaths," Armed Forces Commandant Chief General Luis Trigosaid, according to information reaching here from La Paz, administrative capital of Bolivia. The army accuses the radical groups of ambushing helpless peasants in the northern province of Pando and killing at least eight people. "We are going to guarantee the nation's legacy, the functioning of the state's system and the public services, as well as the conservation of the strategic resources." Trigo said. Only in a radical case, will it "be used to guarantee the internal order and respond with tenacity and patriotism to any threat from those vandalic and criminal groups that have come to undermine the internal order," Trigo added. No military or foreign forces will be allowed to touch Bolivia's national territory, Trigo noted, vowing to harshly reject any external interference in the country's affairs. Bolivian President Evo Morales on Wednesday requested U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg to leave the country immediately, accusing him of "heading the division" inside Boliviaby encouraging, together with the opposition, the protests agains this government. The situation in Bolivia is drawing high attention, especially from regional countries. On Friday, the South American Union of Nations (Unasur) condemned the violence in Bolivia .... Unasur is composed of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Paraguay, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Andean Parliament (Parlandino) also expressed concern on Friday over the situation in Bolivia. Parlandino President Ivonne Baki told Peru's state news agency Andina that lawmakers will meet on Sunday to discuss sending a mediation mission. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 2New Members Visit Your Group Sell Online Start selling with our award-winning e-commerce tools. Yahoo! Groups Wellness Spot A resource for Curves and weight loss. Discover Tips on healthy living and healthy eating on Yahoo! Groups.. __,_._,___ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 14:17:09 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:17:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Nader on Ballot for 85.2% of Voters, McKinney for 70.5%; and Death of Peter Camejo Message-ID: Both Nader and McKinney are on the ballot for far more voters this year than Nader was in 2004, though the desire for a left-wing candidate has yet to reach the level it did before 2000. That, as well as the relative scarcity of preventive denunciations of "spoilers" on the Left, may say something about Obama, leftists, and/or voters in the USA. On the same day I discovered this promising, or at least noteworthy, trend, I learned that Peter Camejo died. -- Yoshie Ralph Nader Will Be On Ballot for 85.2% of Voters September 13th, 2008 Ralph Nader's name will be on the ballot this year in states containing 85.2% of the national popular vote cast in 2004. This is far better than his 2004 showing, when he was only on before 50.1%. However, it is not as good as his 2000 showing, when he was on in 90.5% of the nation. 1 Comment ? Cynthia McKinney Will be on Ballot for 70.5% of Voters September 13th, 2008 This year, Cynthia McKinney will be on the ballot in states that cast 70.5% of the national popular vote in 2004. This is the second best ballot access showing in the party's history. Only 2000 was better for the Green Party. Of course, the exact state-by-state distribution of the 2008 national popular vote will be slightly different than it was in 2004. Using the 2004 vote totals is the best approximation one can make at this point. In 2004, presidential nominee David Cobb had been on the ballot before 54.8% of the voters. In 2000, Green nominee Ralph Nader had been on before 90.5% of the voters. Peter Camejo Dies September 13th, 2008 On September 13, Peter Camejo died. He was 69 and had been living with cancer for several years. Peter Camejo had been the Socialist Workers presidential candidate in 1976. Some years later, he rejected doctrinaire Marxism, but always considered himself a socialist. He was the Green Party candidate for California Governor three times, and he was Ralph Nader's running mate in 2004. Although he had been born in the United States, his parents were Venezuelan and he grew up in Venezuela. He was on the 1960 Venezuelan Olympics team. He was a successful financial planner and a very good orator. Camejo was a fierce fighter for fair election laws and practices in the United States, and his death is a painful event. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Sep 13 16:17:53 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 07:17:53 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Retrofit Economy Message-ID: <48CC3C11.7040307@attglobal.net> by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (September 10 2008) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society I've suggested several times in these essays that the broad shape of the most likely future facing industrial society, at the end of the age of cheap abundant energy, can be sorted out very roughly into three phases: the age of scarcity industrialism, the age of salvage societies, and - if we are lucky - the ecotechnic age, when new societies based on sustainable high technology will rise on the ruins of our own unsustainable time. For a variety of reasons, any typology of this sort is easy to misunderstand, and it seems worthwhile just now to clarify what I intend to say, and what I don't, in proposing this model of the future. The most important point that needs making, it seems to me, is that these three phases are to some extent ideal types, and the forms they take on the ground of actual history will be far more complex, messy, and idiosyncratic than the simple outline suggests. This isn't simply a result of the fact that none of these phases have arrived yet. The same thing can be said, after all, of the use of economic phases to talk about history that's already happened. When a historian suggests that England embraced a mercantilist economic system in the sixteenth century, for instance, she does not mean that the English economy shifted gears all at once on January 1 1501. Nor does she mean that the English economy in that century lacked important features of the older feudal-agrarian economy or foreshadowings of the capitalist economy that replaced mercantilism later on, nor that the English mercantilist economy was identical to all others. Rather, she means that the traits implied by the term "mercantilism" - an export-based economy geared toward generating a favorable balance of trade with competing nations, foreign policy initiatives pursuing overseas colonies and the expansion of naval power and a merchant marine, and the like - provide a workable sketch of the shape toward which the English economy moved over the course of the century in question. The same rule applies to the phases I've outlined here. The transition from today's industrialism of abundance to the scarcity industrialism of the near future, for example, will likely be just as slow and ragged a process as the rise of mercantilism. Some nations - Russia, for example - have already implemented the political control of resource markets that I've suggested as a core feature of the phase; other nations have barely begun to move in that direction, and other features of the phase are just as unevenly distributed. For that matter, the 1950s-era American autos cruising down the streets of Havana today, repeatedly rebuilt with scavenged and jerry-built parts, show certain core features of the salvage economy already in existence in some parts of the world right now. Thus the world of a hundred years from now, say, will include nations at many different points along the scale. It will very likely be dominated by nations that have embraced scarcity industrialism, while the powers of today's age of abundance will be the fallen empires and failed states of that day. Meanwhile, those nations that draw the short straws in the geopolitical lottery may already be well into the salvage society phase, mining the refuse of the industrial age to meet local needs and to pay for whatever foreign trade can still be had. Nations that lack both fossil fuels and valuable salvage, in turn, will either have fallen back to agrarian or nomadic economies or, given plenty of luck and the necessary knowledge base, may be pioneering the first rough sketch of an ecotechnic society. All of this will take place amid the turmoil of ordinary history: that unending and uneven rhythm of crises, struggles, and the rise and fall of governments and peoples whose embarrassingly premature obituary Francis Fukuyama wrote a few years back, and which tends to hide the slower and broader shifts in economy and subsistence from contemporary eyes. Fast forward another century, when Hubbert's curve will have finished its trajectory and fossil fuels will be rare geological specimens, and the powers of the age of scarcity industrialism will most likely have collapsed in their turn. Those areas with a wealth of salvageable scrap and the political and military savvy to hold onto them will be the regional powers of a world in which global reach no longer exists, while other areas - the modern conception of the nation-state will probably have fallen into history's recycling bin by then, to be replaced by some other form of geopolitical arrangement - will have only sustainable resources to rely on; some of those will likely have settled into some nonindustrial mode for the long term, while others may be building on the first tentative foundations of an ecotechnic system. All these changes, once again, will take their shape amid the rough and tumble of historical events, and may be difficult to track against that wildly variable background. One implication of this vision is that appropriate steps for the present and the near future are not limited to those that have some obvious relationship to the scarcity industrialism of the near future. If, unlikely as it seems, any of my readers belong to the political, economic, or military leadership of one of the world's leading or rising powers, their attention will be, and indeed should be, riveted to the coming of scarcity industrialism; the nations they lead, not to mention their own positions of influence and privilege, depend utterly on how well they are able to manage that difficult transition. For the rest of us, though, a broader focus and a less limited toolkit has many advantages. The end of the age of abundance industrialism means the end of the trickle-down economy that provided so many economic benefits to the middle classes and raised the industrial world's working classes out of abject poverty. To some extent, while the political classes will be entering a new industrial order, those outside that circle may just find themselves passing directly into the world of Dark Age salvage societies. What this implies, in turn, is that the skills and habits of the age of salvage may be well worth cultivating right now. One obvious example unfolds from the implications of the sprawling speculative subdivisions that surround so many American cities just now, in the aftermath of the late housing bubble. For decades now, people interested in sustainable housing have focused their attention on innovative methods of new house construction: cobb and adobe, straw bale, and many more. These are useful and in some cases brilliantly successful technologies, but their application to our present predicament is limited by one overarching factor: here in America, at least, we already have many more houses than we need or can afford, and the economic system we use to pay for new houses is so badly broken just now that it may take a generation or more to get a new one up and running. That being the case, the dream of sustainable Levittowns of cob-built, earth-sheltered, solar-heated houses will remain out of reach for a good long time. The possibilities before us are more limited. We can either struggle on with the hopelessly inefficient housing stock we have now in its current state, or we can learn how to rework our existing homes to improve their energy efficiency: that is, we can learn to retrofit. The word "retrofit" was coined in the 1950s, but its common use is one of the legacies of the energy crises of the 1970s. During those years, a great many homeowners discovered that houses built to take advantage of cheap energy lost most of their advantages when energy stopped being cheap. At the same time, the soaring interest rates and stagflation of that decade made buying a new home a good deal less economically viable than it had been during the preceding years. Many people responded by figuring out cheap, effective ways to improve the energy efficiency of their existing homes. Insulating blankets found their way around hot water heaters, caulk guns traced lines around leaky foundation plates, insulated Roman blinds replaced fashionable curtains, and a surprising number of people discovered that it really is just as comfortable to put on a cardigan as it is to turn up the thermostat on a cold evening. One of the less noticed phenomena of these same years, in turn, was the emergence of home energy retrofitting as a viable economic sector. In every American city and a great many smaller towns, contractors no longer able to find work building houses found a new niche installing insulation, storm windows, and solar water heaters, while hardware stores found room for a new section of home energy efficiency supplies. It was never a large sector, and its growth came to a sudden stop in the early 1980s in the flurry of political machinations that crashed the price of oil and threw away our best chance for a transition to sustainability, but it was one of the few success stories at a time when most American industries were contracting and most families' standard of living was slipping year after year. Many of those same conditions are repeating themselves on a much larger scale as the world stumbles across the uneven plateau on top of Hubbert's peak. Despite the recent volatility in the futures markets, oil remains far more expensive than it was a year ago; one step down for every two steps upward still amounts to steady upward movement. The approaching Great Recession promises to make the stagflation of the Seventies look mild, but to American families it still poses the same challenge of having to get by with less. Thus it's tolerably likely that the same sort of retrofit economy will emerge in the next few years, as those homeowners who stayed clear of the blandishments of fast-talking mortgage salesmen, and keep their homes, find that they have no choice but to make the best of the homes they have. The same considerations apply to other sectors of the economy. The auto industry is facing a similar transition, for example, as mechanics and hobbyists across the country turn used cooking oil into biodiesel, convert hybrid cars into plug-in vehicles, and equip bicycles and scooters with electric motors and batteries. Detroit's much-ballyhooed electric cars, when they finally get around to appearing on the market, are likely to find themselves eating the dust of thousands of ingenious retrofitters who, unburdened with the institutional inertia of Fortune 500 corporations, are getting products to local markets right now. These retrofits won't allow what James Howard Kunstler has usefully labeled "the paradise of happy motoring" to continue; on the other hand, they may well enable a great many Americans to deal with the downside of a social geography designed for cars rather than people, during the inevitable lag time while that social geography becomes a bad memory. A great many more dimensions of American life are likely to need retrofitting in the years to come; nearly every aspect of our economy, culture, and politics depends on cheap abundant energy and will have to be rebuilt to deal with the new reality of energy scarcity. That will apply to little things - for example, plenty of home appliances now controlled by computer chips can be made to work with thermostats, spring-driven timers, and the like, given a little ingenuity and a willingness to tinker - and to much bigger ones as well. In a very real sense, given the sharp limits we face in the near future, our entire lives will need to be retrofitted to deal with the realities so many of us have been trying to avoid for so long. The first job of this foreshadowing of the salvage economy, in other words, will be to haul a viable future out of the scrap heap of the present, and get it back into some semblance of working order while there's still time to do so. _____ ?John Michael Greer has been active in the alternative spirituality movement for more than 25 years, and is the author of a dozen books, including The Druidry Handbook (2006) and The Long Descent (2008). He lives in Ashland, Oregon. http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/09/retrofit-economy.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Sat Sep 13 18:04:26 2008 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:04:26 +1000 Subject: [A-List] Peter Camejo 1939-2008: How to make a revolution in the United States (1969)/Liberalism, ultraleftism or mass Action (1970) | Links Message-ID: <48CC550A.7020607@greenleft.org.au> The tragic news on September 13, 2008, that *Peter Camejo* lost his battle with cancer is blow to all those on the revolutionary left who have been politically and personally influenced by him. As a tribute, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ republishes two of Peter's most influential and enduring lectures, talks that continue to educate young revolutionary socialists to this day. Full http://links.org.au/node/625 From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 18:19:44 2008 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:19:44 -0700 Subject: [A-List] RIP Green Party activist Peter Camejo Message-ID: <48CC58A0.9050100@gmail.com> SacBee bulletin: Green Party activist Peter Camejo, 67, dies - Bee Metro Staff Published 5:04 pm PDT Saturday, September 13, 2008 Civil rights activist Peter Miguel Camejo, an advocate of third party politics, died early today at his home in Walnut Creek, according to Ralph Nader, who notified The Bee in an e-mailed tribute. Nader said Camejo's wife, Morella, was at his side. Camejo, 67 and a onetime resident of Folsom, had been battling lymphoma cancer. Nader said Camejo's condition had deteriorated over the past few days. Camejo was a third party candidate for state and national office. He was Nader's running mate in the 2004 presidential election, and attempted three gubernatorial runs in California for the Green Party. In 2002 he garnered 5.3 percent of the vote. In the 2003 recall election, he debated Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis. "Peter was a friend, colleague and politically courageous champion of the downtrodden and mistreated of the entire Western hemisphere," Nader said in his e-mail. "Everyone who met Peter, talked with Peter, worked with Peter, or argued with Peter, will miss the passing of a great American." http://www.sacbee.com/1089/story/1234065.html From nscchicago at igc.org Sat Sep 13 18:35:45 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:35:45 -0500 Subject: [A-List] US UNDER HANDEDNESS IS AN INSTITUTION WITHOUT END Works to Undermine Peoples Struggles Message-ID: <003501c91601$de1471f0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here and there is concise and clarifying reports on developments in Bolivia Venezuela and damn if Lebannon ain't feeling it too. How well do we realize that this is utter strategy of the US (Amer-Euro dominant culture) to break any and all humanity. It is totally institutionalized anti-democracy. The State has no capacity for dialogue nor compassion. Goon States in its own model and better. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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From: "Peace Seeker" Subject: [AmericanConscience] Fadlallah accuses US of terrorizing nations, thwarting peace process Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:54:08 +0300 Size: 36381 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080913/93b8d115/attachment-0005.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Cort Greene Subject: [CLAS] Venezuela Activates Defense Regions Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:25:42 -0700 (PDT) Size: 5261 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080913/93b8d115/attachment-0006.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Cort Greene Subject: [chi-labor-against-the-war] Bolivia : as the reactionary coup unfolds, action is needed Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:08:18 -0700 (PDT) Size: 13934 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20080913/93b8d115/attachment-0007.eml From nscchicago at igc.org Sat Sep 13 18:46:07 2008 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:46:07 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Latin America Rebelling Against US Interference Now - Serious, bo Message-ID: <005701c91603$4f5bd0a0$0a0110ac@NSCCHICAGO> From: Venezuela Solidarity Network [mailto:vsn at afgj.org] Subject: Latin America Rebelling Against US Interference Now You're receiving this email because of your relationship with Alliance for Global Justice. Please confirm your continued interest in receiving email from us. Venezuela Solidarity Network September 12, 2008 EMERGENCY RESPONSE NETWORK Latin America Rebelling Against US Interference Now! We are in a very dangerous and fluid period regarding US-Latin America relations. Over the last few days a number of serious incidents have occurred, some related and possibly all related: 1. A civil rebellion led by right-wing separatists in the Bolivian prefecture of Santa Cruz have taken at least eight lives and caused millions of dollars of economic damage. 2. Bolivia expelled US Ambassador Philip Goldberg for his support of the uprising 3. The US declared persona non grata Bolivia's ambassador to the US 4. A coup plot against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was exposed including video showing three military officers plotting the coup. 5. Venezuela expelled US Ambassador Patrick Duddy, giving him 72 hours to leave the country. 6. The US declared the Venezuelan ambassador to the US persona non grata in retaliation. 7. The US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) cited two current and one former high Venezuelan official for allegedly providing weapons and material support to Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 8. Russian military jets visited Venezuela. 9. Today Honduras told the new US ambassador not to enter the country. Will other Latin American countries follow suit? This is an escalation of worsening relations with Latin America that include US support for the failed 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Chavez, an attempted assassination, attempt involving shots fired into a caravan that was supposed to have been carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales, and more recently a suspicious fatal helicopter crash of the helicopter in which Morales usually flies. This is on top of electoral interference in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and currently El Salvador. US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are the two agencies primarily responsible for the US efforts to manipulate other countries' elections. Bolivia is the greatest recipient of USAID money in Latin America and was expelled by one prefecture (state) a few months ago after civil society groups complained of its support for the right-wing and frequently racist's opposition. USAID and NED are investing heavily in Venezuela and Nicaragua's upcoming local elections and is deeply involved in El Salvador's presidential campaign in an effort to stop the election of FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes who has a commanding lead in the polls. Visit www.cispes.org and www.respect4democracy.org for more information. These incidents are the result of centurie