From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 1 05:55:02 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 20:55:02 +0900 Subject: [A-List] A Struggle of Paradigms Message-ID: <49FAE316.1010805@ashisuto.co.jp> by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (April 22 2009) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society Perhaps the most fascinating factor shaping today's debates about the future of industrial society, and certainly among the most frustrating, is the rapidity with which any such debate plunges into territory outside the reach of rational argument. Watch a conversation about the subject, and nearly always one of two things will happen: either the participants will find they share basic assumptions in common, and will proceed to build a conversation on that firm ground, or their assumptions will differ and they'll spend the rest of the conversation talking past one another. Any number of examples could be cited, but the one that comes to mind just now is the way that communications break down over the subject of environmental limits. It's no exaggeration to say that either you believe in limits or you don't. If you do, it seems glaringly obvious that modern industrial civilization, which depends on ever-increasing exploitation of finite and nonrenewable resources, is in deep trouble, and the only viable options are those that jettison the fantasy of perpetual economic growth and aim at a controlled descent to a level of energy and resource use per capita that can be sustained over the long run. If you don't believe in limits, by contrast, such notions are the height of folly. Since, according to this way of thinking, progress can by definition overcome any limit nature might impose on human beings, it seems glaringly obvious that modern industrial civilization needs to push progress into overdrive so that it can find and deploy the innovations that will get us past today's problems and launch our species onward toward its glorious future, whatever that happens to be. Readers of this blog will have little trouble guessing the side of this division on which I can be found. As a student of ecology, I've learned that environmental limits play a dominant role in shaping the destiny of every species, ours included; as a student of history, I've reviewed the fate of any number of civilizations that believed themselves to be destiny's darlings, and proceeded to pave the road to collapse with their own ecological mistakes. From my perspective, the insistence that limits don't apply to us is as good a case study as one might wish of that useful Greek word hubris, otherwise defined as the overweening pride of the doomed. Still, the fact that these things seem so self-evident to me makes it all the more intriguing that they are anything but self-evident to most people in the industrial world today. This same territory was mapped out the year I was born, from a different perspective, by Thomas Kuhn, whose famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1996) is as influential as it is rarely read. Kuhn was among the first historians of science to put the popular image of scientific progress to the test of history, and find it wanting. In place of the notion that science advances toward objective truth by the steady accumulation of proven facts - a notion that continues to shape histories of science written for popular consumption - he showed that scientific beliefs are profoundly shaped by social and cultural forces, and that the relation between scientific theory and the facts on the ground is a great deal more complex than conventional ideas allow. Kuhn's take on things has been misstated often enough that it probably needs a summary here. During a period of what he calls "normal science", scientists model their work on a paradigm. This isn't some sort of vague worldview, in the sense too often given to the word recently; rather, it's a specific example of science at work, an investigation by an exemplary scientist and the successful and popular theory resulting from that research. In bacteriology, for example, Louis Pasteur's research program in the 1870s and 1880s, which led to the first successful artificial vaccines, became the paradigm that later researchers followed; good bacteriological research - in Kuhn's terms, normal science - was research that followed Pasteur's lead, worked at fine-tuning his theories, and asked the same kinds of questions about the same kinds of phenomena that he asked and answered. Sooner or later, though, a mismatch opens up between the paradigm and the facts on the ground; the research methods drawn from the paradigm stop yielding good answers, and the paradigmatic theory no longer allows for successful prediction of phenomena. Scientists respond by making the theory more elaborate, the way that Ptolemy's earth-centered cosmology had to be padded out with epicycle after epicycle to make it fit the vagaries of planetary motion. Crisis comes when the theory becomes so cumbersome that even its stoutest believers come to realize that something is irreducibly wrong, or when data emerges that no reworking of the paradigmatic theory can explain. Sooner or later the crisis resolves when a researcher propounds a new theory that makes sense of the confusion. That theory, and the research program that created it, then becomes the new paradigm in the field. So far, so good. Kuhn pointed out, though, that while the new paradigm solves questions the old one could not, the reverse is often true as well: the old paradigm does things the new paradigm cannot. (Sailors who navigate by the stars still use Ptolemaic astronomy, for example, because one of the questions it answers elegantly - what does the movement of the heavens look like from Earth? - is awkward to work out using the Copernican system.) It's standard practice for the new paradigm to include the value judgment that the questions the new paradigm answers are the ones that matter, and the ones the old paradigm does better don't count. Nor is this judgment pure propaganda; since the questions the new paradigm answers are generally the ones that researchers have been wrestling with for decades or centuries, they look more important than details that have been comfortably settled since time out of mind. They may also be more important, in every meaningful sense, if they allow practical problems to be solved that the old paradigm left insoluble. Yet the result of that value judgment, Kuhn argued, is the false impression that science progresses, replacing relatively false beliefs with relatively more true ones, and thus gradually advances on the truth. He argued that different paradigms are not attempts to answer the same questions, differing in their level of accuracy, but attempts to answer entirely different questions - or, to put it another way, they are models that highlight different features of a complex reality, and cannot be reduced to one another. Thus, for example, Ptolemaic astronomy isn't wrong, just useful for different purposes than Copernican astronomy. (From the standpoint of relativity theory, please note, this is quite correct: since there are no fixed points in the cosmos, only frames of reference, it's as meaningful to take an earth-centered frame of reference and calculate the movements of the planets from there as it is to take a sun-centered frame of reference and do the same thing.) All these same considerations sprawl outside the limits of the sciences to define the rise and fall of paradigms in the entire range of human social phenomena. This brings us back around to the irreconcilable differences that introduced this post, for the difference between the believers and the disbelievers in limits is, at root, a difference in paradigms. Those who believe that modern industrial society is destined for, or even capable of, unlimited economic expansion have drawn their paradigm from the industrial revolution and its three-century aftermath, with James Watt and his steam engine playing roughly the same role that Louis Pasteur played in the old paradigm of bacteriology, say, or Isaac Newton still plays in some aspects of physics. Like any other paradigm, the industrial revolution defines certain questions and issues as important, and dismisses others from serious consideration. This is where the problems arise, because a solid case can be made - and this blog has tried in various ways to make it - that some of the questions dismissed from consideration by the "normal culture" of industrial expansion are among those our species most needs to face just now, as the depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the soaring costs of environmental damage become central facts of our contemporary experience. The industrial paradigm can only interpret running out of one resource as a call to begin exploiting some even richer one. If there is no richer one, and even the poorer ones are rapidly being depleted as well, what then? From within the industrial paradigm, that question cannot even be formulated; the assumption that there is always some new and better resource to be had is hardwired into the ways of thinking that the industrial paradigm makes inevitable. Thus a change of paradigms is necessary. The belief in limits discussed earlier in this post derives from a different model of this kind - the model of ecology, which is still sorting out its historical vision and has not yet quite found its paradigmatic theory, researcher, and discovery. (Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, and Charles Darwin are among the current contenders.) From within this paradigm, the models that provide the most insight into our contemporary situation are those found in nonhuman nature - specifically, the cycles of increase, overshoot, and dieoff which afflict so many other species that rely on outside forces to control their numbers. Unless we take that model and its implications into account, the ecological paradigm suggests, some of the most important factors shaping our future are completely out of sight. The change from one paradigm to another, however, is not an overnight thing. Kuhn points out that in the sciences, it usually has to wait until most of the older generation of scientists, who have been trained in the old paradigm, have been removed from the debate by old age and death. The same thing is too often true in other fields. Thus it's uncomfortably likely that even as the industrial paradigm fails to explain an increasingly challenging world, a great many people will cling to the faith that progress will bail us out. Meanwhile, those of us who have made the Copernican leap to a universe in which human beings are no longer central will have to accomplish what we can on the smaller scales available to us. _____ ?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: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age (2008). He lives in Ashland, Oregon. http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/04/struggle-of-paradigms.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Fri May 1 06:56:55 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 08:56:55 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN O Kanada, Behind the Lines in Oka - 1990 Mohawk Crisis on YouTube Message-ID: <01ea7566$39934$0cd63728626505@xnote> O KANADA, BEHIND THE LINES IN OKA - 1990 MOHAWK CRISIS ON YOUTUBE MNN. Apr. 30, 2009. At dawn on July 11, 1990, the SQ [Quebec Provincial Police] opened fire with automatic guns and threw tear gas on Kanion?ke:haka Mohawk men, women and children of Kanehsatake. One policeman was killed by friendly police fire. We had been protesting the nearby town of Oka?s plans to expand a golf course over our burial ground and common ceremonial site called THE PINES. Nearby Mohawks of Kahnawake quickly responded to fellow Mohawks by blocking the Mercier Bridge, which connects the south shore with the island of Montreal over the St. Lawrence River. The RCMP and then thousands of Canadian Army with heavy armaments were sent in. The world watched in amazement as a small Indigenous nation faced the combined fire power of these three forces for 78 days. It was a fight for Mohawk identity and territory against the oppressive designs of the colonial occupants of our land. We found ourselves in the middle of a struggle for identity, respect and resistance to oppression by Canada and Quebec. Fifty-two men, women, children and 10 journalists held out in the Treatment Center that we called Concentration Camp TC. We were surrounded by razor wire manned by heavily armed soldiers, guns and tanks. We were without communication with the outside world, little food was coming in and the weather was getting cold. The army was stepping up its psychological warfare tactics. The colonists wanted to end the Mohawk Crisis that had plagued the summer of 1990. They wanted us to surrender. No way! On September 26th 1990, the Ahserakowa gave us a coded message in Mohawk over the Kanehsatake Radio Station. He warned us to immediately vacate Concentration Camp TC because ?something was coming down that night?. We broke into clans ? bear, wolf and turtle ? to make our final plans. Some felt we should stay until Monday when Parliament would start its fall session. The gravest political confrontation in modern Canadian history could then be debated. At 5:00 pm our clans convened. We had all decided to leave in an hour. As two army helicopters hovered above us, everybody went into a flurry of preparations. Everything was thrown into a huge bonfire. A final purification ritual was performed before the sacred fire that had never stopped burning throughout the crisis. We said our good-byes to each other. We did not know what was going to happen when we would walk head-on into the Army. Thousands of people and media had rushed to Kanehsatake. The whole finale was being televised live. We tried to walk out of Concentration Camp TC to freedom. We crossed over the stretchers that had been placed over the razor wire. Immediately soldiers and cops grabbed us and began to kick, punch and beat us with their fists, guns and stabbed one child with a bayonet. In the end we were all captured. The colonists maintained their false position that the Indigenous defenders were criminals and terrorists who threatened the public security of all. The colonists quickly brought us to trial on criminal charges. We were all acquitted except for Lasagna who was found guilty of breaking into a non-native home in Kanehsatake. We had transcended the colonial boundaries set up by Quebec, Canada and the U.S. under a European nation-state model on our territory. Next year it will be 20 years since this attack. The 33 minute film - O Kanada: Behind the lines in Oka - is available on YouTube. It was made by Albert Nurenberg, a reporter who sneaked through the army lines with a camcorder and taped the event from inside: OKANADA: Behind the lines in OKA http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=okanada&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=edd&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv# For the coming year MNN will publish other stories on this siege leading up to the 20th anniversary. Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com katenies20 at yahoo.com Note: At this time your financial help is urgently needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen, thank you very much. Go to MNN ?World? category for more stories on this; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Mohawk Warriors Three $20 including postage. From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 1 15:40:47 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 06:40:47 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Fake faith and epic crimes Message-ID: <49FB6C5F.8050903@ashisuto.co.jp> The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former British prime minister's prosecution by John Pilger New Statesman (April 02 2009) These are extraordinary times. With the United States and Britain on the verge of bankruptcy and committing to an endless colonial war, pressure is building for their crimes to be prosecuted at a tribunal similar to that which tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. This defined rapacious invasion as "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes [sic] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". International law would be mere farce, said the chief US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, the Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, "if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves". That is now happening. Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Britain have long had "universal jurisdiction" statutes, which allow their national courts to pursue and prosecute prima facie war criminals. What has changed is an unspoken rule never to use international law against "ourselves", or "our" allies or clients. In 1998, Spain, supported by France, Switzerland and Belgium, indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, client and executioner of the west, and sought his extradition from Britain, where he happened to be at the time. Had he been sent for trial, he almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity. The then home secretary, Jack Straw, let him escape back to Chile. The Pinochet case was the ignition. On 19 January, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W Bush with that of Pinochet. "Outside [the United States] there is no longer the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime", he said. "So if you try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as 'former president George Bush' [but] as a current war criminal". For this reason, Bush's first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who demanded an invasion of Iraq in 2001 and personally approved torture techniques for use in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, no longer travels. Rumsfeld has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. On 26 January, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said: "We have clear evidence that Mr Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but nevertheless he ordered torture". The Spanish high court is currently investi?gating a former Israeli defence minister and six other top Israeli officials for their role in the killing of civilians, mostly children, in Gaza. Henry Kissinger, who was largely responsible for bombing 600,000 peasants to death in Cambodia in 1969-73, is wanted for questioning in France, Chile and Argentina. Yet, on 8 February, as if demonstrating the continuity of American power, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said: "I take my daily orders from Dr Kissinger". Like them, Tony Blair may soon be a fugitive. The International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, has received a record number of petitions relating to Blair's wars. Spain's celebrated judge Baltasar Garzon, who indicted Pinochet and the leaders of the Argentinian military junta, has called for George W Bush, Blair and the former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar to be prosecuted for the invasion of Iraq - "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history - a devastating attack on the rule of law" that had left the UN "in tatters". He said: "There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation to start without delay". This is not to say Blair is about to be collared and marched to The Hague, where Serbs and Sudanese dictators are far more likely to face a political court set up by the west. However, an international agenda is forming and a process has begun which is as much about legitimacy as the letter of the law, and a reminder from history that the powerful lose wars and empires when legitimacy evaporates. This can happen quickly, as in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of apartheid South Africa - the latter a spectre for apartheid Israel. Today, the unreported "good news" is that a worldwide movement is challenging the once-sacrosanct notion that imperial politicians can destroy countless lives in the cause of an ancient piracy, often at a remove in distance and culture, and retain their respectability and immunity from justice. In his masterly Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, R L Stevenson writes in the character of Jekyll: "Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter ... I could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and, in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete." Blair, too, is safe - but for how long? He and his collaborators face a new determination on the part of tenacious non-government bodies that are amassing "an impressive documentary record as to criminal charges", according to the international law authority Richard Falk. He cites the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul in 2005, which heard evidence from 54 witnesses and published rigorous indictments against Blair, Bush and others. At present, the Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former prime minister's prosecution under the Nuremberg Principle and the 1949 Geneva Convention. In a separate indictment, a former judge of the New Zealand Supreme Court, E W Thomas, wrote: "My predisposition was to believe that Mr Blair was deluded, but sincere in his belief. After considerable reading and much reflection, however, my final conclusion is that Mr Blair deliberately and repeatedly misled cabinet, the British Labour Party and the people in a number of respects. It is not possible to hold that he was simply deluded but sincere: a victim of his own self-deception. His deception was deliberate." Protected by the fake sinecure of Middle East envoy for the Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia), Blair operates largely from a small fortress in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, where he is an apologist for the US in the Middle East and Israel, a difficult task following the bloodbath in Gaza. To assist his mortgages, he recently received an Israeli "peace prize" worth $1 million. He, too, is careful where he travels; and it is instructive to watch how he now uses the media. Having concentrated his post-Downing Street apologetics on a BBC series of obsequious interviews with David Aaronovitch, Blair has all but slipped from view in Britain, where polls have long exposed a remarkable loathing for a former prime minister - a sentiment now shared by those in the liberal media elite whose previous promotion of his "project" and crimes is an embarrassment, and preferably forgotten. On 8 February, Andrew Rawnsley, the Observer's former leading Blair fan, declared that "this shameful period will not be so smoothly and simply buried". He demanded, "Did Blair never ask what was going on?" This is an excellent question made relevant with a slight word change: "Did the Andrew Rawnsleys never ask what was going on?" In 2001, Rawnsley alerted his readers to Saddam Hussein's "contribution to international terrorism" and his "frightening appetite to possess weapons of mass destruction". Both assertions were false and echoed official Anglo-American propaganda. In 2003, when the destruction of Iraq was launched, Rawnsley described it as a "point of principle" for Blair who, he later wrote, was "fated to be right". He lamented, "Yes, too many people died in the war. Too many people always die in war. War is nasty and brutish, but at least this conflict was mercifully short." In the subsequent six years, at least a million people have been killed. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans. Yes, war is nasty and brutish, but never for the Blairs and the Rawnsleys. F?ar from the carping turncoats at home, Blair has lately found a safe media harbour - in Australia, the original Murdochracy. His interviewers exude an unction reminiscent of the promoters of the "mystical" Blair in the Guardian of more than a decade ago, though they also bring to mind Geoffrey Dawson, editor of the Times during the 1930s, who wrote of his infamous grovelling to the Nazis: "I spend my nights taking out anything which will hurt their susceptibilities and dropping in little things which are intended to soothe them". With his words as a citation, the finalists for the Geoffrey Dawson Prize for Journalism (Antipodes) are announced. On 8 February, in an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Geraldine Doogue described Blair as "a man who brought religion into power and is now bringing power to religion". She asked him: "What would the perception be that faith would bring towards a greater stability ... [sic]?" A bemused and clearly delighted Blair was allowed to waffle about "values". Doogue said to him that "it was the bifurcation about right and wrong, that's what I thought the British found really hard [sic]", to which Blair replied that "in relation to Iraq I tried every other option [to invasion] there was". It was his classic lie, and it passed unchallenged. However, the clear winner of the Geoffrey Dawson Prize is Ginny Dougary of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Times. Dougary recently accompanied Blair on what she described as his "James Bond-ish Gulfstream" where she was privy to his "bionic energy levels". She wrote: "I ask him the childlike question: does he want to save the world?" Blair replied, well, more or less, aw shucks, yes. The murderous assault on Gaza, which was under way during the interview, was mentioned in passing. "That is war, I'm afraid", said Blair, "and war is horrible". No counter came that Gaza was not a war, but a massacre by any measure. As for the Palestinians, noted Dougary, it was Blair's task "to prepare them for statehood". The Palestinians will be surprised to hear that. But enough gravitas; her man "has the glow of the newly-in-love: in love with the world and, for the most part, the feeling is reciprocated". The evidence she offered for this absurdity was that "women from both sides of politics have confessed to me to having the hots for him". These are extraordinary times. Blair, a perpetrator of the epic crime of the 21st century, shares a "prayer breakfast" with President Obama, the yes-we-can man now launching more war. "We pray", said Blair, "that in acting we do God's work and follow God's will". To decent people, such pronouncements about Blair's "faith" represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profanation of the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part - or who, like Alastair Campbell, offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some - might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: "Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maimings and traumas". These are indeed extraordinary times. www.johnpilger.com http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/war-crimes-blair-pilger-iraq http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Fri May 1 18:16:03 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 17:16:03 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Israel... They may not control the US financial sector, but what about the DOJ? Message-ID: <49FB90C3.90702@gmail.com> DOJ 'Cops Out' Moves to drop charges in AIPAC case on the rationale: The landscape of this case has changed ..." Poor babies! Throw Condi Rice and other high government officials into the mix, and have to prove that the perps knew that the distribution of the purloined information would be harmful to the United States, so the DOJ folds and leaves the table. U.S. moves to drop charges in AIPAC case WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- U.S. prosecutors filed a motion Friday to drop espionage charges against two former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The move to dismiss came after a series of rulings by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III that hurt the government's case, The New York Times reported. The judge, sitting in Alexandria, Va., ruled that the government would have to prove that Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman knew that their distribution of information would be harmful to the United States and found that the defense could call Bush administration officials, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "The landscape of this case has changed significantly since it was first brought," the Justice Department said in the motion. The case held one potential embarrassment for the Democratic Party. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., was reportedly recorded promising an Israeli agent that she would seek lenient treatment for Weissman and Rosen from the Bush administration in return for assistance in becoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Harman denies any effort to intercede. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/01/US-moves-to-drop-charges-in-AIPAC-case/UPI-29071241206928/ I LUV the way UPI dragged Jane Harman into this... Despite Harman's known pro-Israel position I find it highly unlikely she'd freely support AIPAC's current power-play... war with Iran. From a comment I made @ Juan Cole's Informed Comment: (Her statement on US-Iran diplomacy is linked here but the press release title says it all): I still think she's being set up... Press release: HARMAN CALLS ON DOJ TO RELEASE ALL MATERIALS RELATED TO POSSIBLE WIRETAPPED CONVERSATIONS http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ca36_harman/42109_AGHolder.shtml ...because AIPAC felt she was disposable if she DID NOT back their play on 'war with Iran' so they applied extra pressure in the form of phone calls (which I'm assuming she did not originate, else THAT would have been mentioned prominently) asking her to exert influence... ...to which she replied, ACCORDING TO REPORTS: "Harman told her interlocutor that she would have more pull on the AIPAC case with a White House official than with the Justice Department." http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/nyt_harman_said_shed_have_more_pull_with_white_hou.php She could have been backhandedly saying... "Sorry, that's a lot harder than a quick phone call, and honestly, I just... don't... have... the... time." So someone 'leaks' on her 'carpet', as seen in "The Big Lebowski" (sorry, no screenshot available) Also, and let me put it bluntly, that IS NOT a quote. I want the quote, AND ALSO context for the initial report that stated she said: "This conversation never happened"... which without context could mean a lot, or, absolutely nothing, or even a rebuke to the caller, as in "Don't EVER call me again". Just because she's a supporter of Israel, and turned a blind eye to the siege of Gaza does not mean she's prepared to back AIPAC's pressure for a war on Iran. F'rinstance, this 2007 press release: HARMAN HAILS IRAN NIE Says good policy is to talk to Iran and "sheath the sabers.? http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca36_harman/Dec_4.shtml I'm, SURE AIPAC or someone affiliated with them called her, but what I want to know is whether they were trying to deal, or just looking to create 'dirty laundry' where none existed. C'mon professor, AIPAC's dug Soooo deep into the US military-Industrial-Spy complex that they would be remiss not to know Harman's phone was tapped. Unless further DAMNING evidence appears, and none of what I've seen is, on it's own, lacking context, I'm calling it a setup. Technically, a 'pinch'. If it is, hopefully it will backfire on them. http://www.juancole.com/2009/04/harman-admites-she-talked-to-american.html --30-- From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 2 05:50:15 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 20:50:15 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Prosperity Message-ID: <49FC3377.8020607@ashisuto.co.jp> Freedom from Debt Slavery Welcome to the Website of Prosperity Prosperity is a monthly Money Reform journal based in Glasgow, Scotland, which is dedicated to spreading understanding about the nature of our debt-based money system, and campaigning for publicly-created debt-free money. What is Money Reform? Money Reform (sometimes called, Monetary Reform) highlights the fact that our economy today is "debt-based", meaning that virtually all money is supplied into the economy as a debt owed to the private banking system. We are reliant upon this banking system for the supply of almost all our means of exchange. In Britain today, 97% of our money stock is created by this private banking system as a debt, while only three per cent is created by the government debt-free. As we explain on this website, that is both a technical absurdity and a democratic offence. As a consequence of virtually all our money coming into existence as a debt, we see the indebtedness of people, families and countries growing daily. Money Reformers believe the present debt-based system perpetrates debt slavery, and this is destructive of society, the environment and the planet. Money Reformers believe this debt-based money supply is the big issue which governs all the issues. Money Reformers advocate that the virtual Monopoly of Money Creation must be removed from the private banking system and we work to establish a publicly-created supply of debt-free money, created on behalf of the people, by a public body. This money should be spent, not lent, into society on the basis of proven need. This will gradually reduce the overall burden of debt in society, break reliance upon the private banking system for the supply of money, open potential for change, and empower people democratically. The Money Reformers' proposal is not a left-wing, or right-wing idea. It's just good sense! This website carries some of the articles, interviews, and reviews which have appeared in back-issues of our journal, and which investigate and explain the debt-based money system, and which publicise the debt-free alternative. If our debt-free Money Reform ideas are new to you then we recommend reading the following articles to obtain a comprehensive introduction to our case. For a short, general introduction to the problem of a debt-based money supply see "Bankrolling the World into Chaos" {1} by author Michael Rowbotham, and also see his call that debt-free money is "The Single Most Important Reform" {2}. Then for a fully comprehensive explanation on how the banking system creates money for both private and commercial needs, including a description of how notes and coins are created, how banks create money for national needs, and how international debt is created, see "How Private, Commercial, National and International Money is Created" {3}. Bill Clarke explains "The Case for Monetary Reform" {4} and emphasises the extent to which most people are unaware of the debt-based manner in which almost all money comes into existence. This article should be read with Richard Greaves' summary of "The Negative Consequences of the Debt-Based Money System" {5}. Alistair McConnachie addresses the democratic necessity for Money Reform in his articles "Money for the People" {6} and by the "People and in Publicly-Created Money: The Democratic Imperative" {7} where he also deals with some frequently heard objections to the Money Reformers' debt-free money proposal. James Gibb Stuart is "Making a Case for Money Reform" {8} and laying out a basic debt-free money proposal, while Ron Morrison deals with how such a proposal could be brought into operation, and advocates that we "Establish a State Bank" {9} to provide society with a regular supply of debt-free money. Prosperity developed from the meetings of the Bromsgrove Group which meets annually outside Bromsgrove, near Birmingham. Each issue carries the Group's Statement of Belief which is a succinct general summary of the Money Reform case. Prosperity does not promote any particular "brand" of monetary reform, nor are we critiquing the system from any particular political or religious perspective. It is edited and published by Alistair McConnachie and can be contacted at: Prosperity 268 Bath Street Glasgow, Scotland UK, G2 4JR Telephone : 0141 332 2214 Fax : 0141 353 6900 email: admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk Links: {1} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/bankchaos.php {2} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/mosimprt.php {3} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/moneymake.php {4} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/casefmr.php {5} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/negcon.php {6} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/monftp.php {7} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/faq.php {8} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/caseref.php {9} http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/statebank.php http://www.prosperityuk.com/index.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From noreply at coha.org Fri May 1 10:55:49 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 12:55:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] COHA Honors Semana Magazine; Canada-Colombia FTA Message-ID: <20090501165415.9A1203E478B@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5897 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090501/d539407e/attachment.txt From suzannedk at gmail.com Sat May 2 02:23:40 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 10:23:40 +0200 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] Occupying Hearts and Minds In-Reply-To: <460E7732-12B7-4FF4-AD18-E57A83E77706@shaw.ca> References: <460E7732-12B7-4FF4-AD18-E57A83E77706@shaw.ca> Message-ID: Fine article. It is quite possible to regard the two disciplines, massive conventional military coupled with unconventional scholarship made into a scalpel of war chaos as this is being done now in every European country, especially the tiny one that hosts The International Criminal Court. You only need to be aware of the weapons sociology and anthropology and even the medical community itself have become with no International Human Rights Law. Even the financial crisis may have been planned long ago as an ultimate empire weapon. Look how the world gets torn up from it. Read "Global War on Liberties" by Paye. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Anthony Fenton wrote: > http://dahrjamailiraq.com/occupying-hearts-and-minds > > Occupying Hearts and Minds > > by Dahr Jamail > May 1st, 2009 | T r u t h o u t > > One of the definitions of the word ?occupation? is: the action, state, > or period of occupying or being occupied by military force. Throughout > history, areas or countries occupied by military force have always > resisted, and this resistance has caused the occupier to devise more > suitable methods of subduing the population of the area being occupied. > > The US military has sent shock troops, which also donned helmets and > flak jackets - anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists, > with their own troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of > 2007, American scholars in these fields were embedding with the > military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Pentagon program called > Human Terrain System (HTS), which evolved shortly thereafter into a > $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of > scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades > that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. > > Two years prior to this, the CIA had quietly started recruiting social > scientists by advertising in academic journals, offering salaries of > up to $400,000. The military?s goals for the HTS was to have them > gather and disseminate information about Iraqi and Afghani cultures. > These embedded scholars, contracted through companies like CACI > International, work in the project that is described by CACI as > ?designed to improve the gathering, understanding, operational > application, and sharing of local population knowledge? among combat > teams. > > This new form of psychological warfare is deeply disturbing. > Throughout my five years of reporting on the occupation of Iraq, when > I?ve asked Iraqis what they feel the most damaging aspect of the > occupation is, I have been told that the occupation is ?shredding the > fabric of Iraqi society and culture.? > > Anthropology, in particular, has been referred to through history as > the ?handmaiden of colonialism,? thus putting anthropologists, at > least those with a moral conscience, on guard against anything that > smells like exploitation or oppression of their subjects. Roberto > Gonzalez, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State > University and leading member of the Network of Concerned > Anthropologists, told Time magazine that the militarization of > anthropology will cause the field to become ?just another weapon ? not > a tool for building bridges between peoples.? Anthropology has core > professional ethics standards that require voluntary, informed consent > from subjects, and that anthropologists do no harm. How likely do you > think these will be adhered to by the flack-jacket-wearing, gun- > toting, embedded anthropologists working directly with regimental > combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan? > > In an article titled ?When Anthropologists Become Counter-Insurgents,? > published in September 2007, and co-authored with David Price, author > of the book ?Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Abuse of > American Anthropology in the Second World War,? Gonzalez and Price > wrote: > > ?Although proponents of this form of applied anthropology claim > that culturally informed counter-insurgency work will save lives and > win ?hearts and minds,? they have thus far not attempted to provide > any evidence of this. Instead, there has been a flurry of non-critical > newspaper accounts in publications including the Wall Street Journal > and the Christian Science Monitor that portray these HTS > anthropologists as heroically serving their nation without bothering > to report on the ethical complications of this work. Missing are > discussions of anthropologists? ethical responsibilities to disclose > who they are and what they are doing, to gain informed consent, and to > not harm those they study. Portraying counter-insurgency operations as > social work is naive and historically inaccurate. > > ?In fact, David Kipp of the Foreign Military Studies Office at > Fort Leavenworth, Kansas describes HTS teams as a ?CORDS for the 21st > Century?-a reference to the Pentagon?s Vietnam-era Civil Operations > and Revolutionary Development Support project. The most infamous > product of the CORDS counter-insurgency effort was the Phoenix > Program, in which CIA agents collected intelligence information used > to ?neutralize? (read assassinate) suspected Viet Cong members. > Between 1968 and 1972, more than 26,000 suspected Viet Cong were > killed as a result, including many civilians. > > ?Kipp?s comparison of HTS and CORDS begs a series of ethical > questions which have gone unanswered. If anthropologists on HTS teams > interview Afghans or Iraqis about the intimate details of their lives, > what is to prevent combat teams from using the same data to one day > ?neutralize? suspected insurgents? What would impede the transfer of > data collected by social scientists to commanders planning offensive > military campaigns? Where is the line that separates the professional > anthropologist from the counter-insurgency technician? Although the > answers to these questions are not clear, the history of anthropology > should give us pause. During World War II and the Cold War, US > military and intelligence agencies tended to use anthropologists? work > to help accomplish immediate goals, and discarded all other > information that was counter to their beliefs or institutional models.? > > Adding credence to the points made by Price and Gonzalez is the fact > that one of the top ten US defense contractors, Science Applications > International Corporation, which has been operating in Iraq since the > beginning of the occupation, describes anthropology in its job > advertisements as a ?counter-insurgency related field.? > > Marcus Griffin, an anthropology professor, while preparing to deploy > to Iraq at part of an HTS team, boasted on his blog, ?I cut my hair in > a high and tight style and look like a drill sergeant ? I shot very > well with the M9 and M4 last week at the range ? Shooting well is > important if you are a soldier regardless of whether or not your job > requires you to carry a weapon.? > > Nevertheless, proponents of the program attempt to dismiss any ethical > dilemma encountered by the embedded scholars. Montgomery McFate, a > Navy anthropologist, described HTS as an effort to anthropologize the > military, not militarizing anthropology, told Time, ?The more > unconventional the adversary, and the further from Western cultural > norms, the more we need to understand the society and underlying > cultural dynamics.? > > The program is nothing new, neither for the US empire nor other > empires throughout history. As far as the US empire project is > concerned, there were two programs from the Vietnam era that involved > anthropologists. > > Project Camelot, in 1965, organized by US Army intelligence, recruited > anthropologists to assess the cultural causes of war and violence. > Despite the misleadingly benign sounding name, the project used Chile > as a trial run while the CIA was engineering the election of Eduardo > Frei as president in 1964 to prevent the election of Socialist leader > Salvador Allende. > > The second program from that era, known as CORDS (Civil Operations and > Revolutionary Development Support), was formed to coordinate the US > civil and military pacification programs in Vietnam. CORDS used > anthropological data to map human terrain and identify individuals and > groups that the military believed were sympathizers of the Vietcong, > who were then targeted for assassination. > > It is easy to imagine HTS teams in Iraq being used to exploit existing > fault lines between Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Arab, and even > differences within each group, in order to invoke the classic divide- > to-conquer strategy. For example, the Sahwa (US-created and -backed > Sunni militia) clashing with the US-backed Maliki government in Iraq > is a classic example of Iraqis being effectively turned against one > another so as not to unite against the occupier. > > Another example would be the effective creation and exploitation of > the myth of sectarianism in Iraq, which has lead to the deaths of > hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and threatens to do so once again. > > Documentary filmmaker Jason Coppola is directing and producing a film > titled ?Justify My War.? In the film, an introspective Coppola > explores the question of rationalization of the wars being waged by > our government, from Wounded Knee to Fallujah. I asked Coppola for his > perspective about the ongoing use of anthropologists by the US > military in Iraq and Afghanistan. > > ?This seems to be the most powerful weapon against indigenous cultures > today. Much more powerful than F-16s and M-1 tanks. We see how well it > worked against our own indigenous culture. You need to know a people > before you decide what can corrupt them, what can be used to confuse, > divide and conquer them. The strongest defense against occupation is > an undivided, culturally rooted people, but empires don?t like that.? > > Commenting on experiences from his recent trip to Iraq, Coppola adds, > ?A country can rebuild itself after an invasion, but it is much more > difficult to rebuild a culture after it has been invaded. I realized > this seeing young girls walking the streets of Sadr City, on their way > to school in their traditional hijab carrying their books in a > backpack with a blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie design on it. Confusion > is sewn throughout the Iraq occupation, nobody trusts anybody. And as > I looked up in Baghdad or Fallujah or Sadr City, and stared at > ?Apache? helicopters flying overhead ? I couldn?t help but to think - > mission accomplished - certainly for the Apache people. But what about > the Iraqis? We still don?t know.? > > Price and Gonzalez, along with several other scholars, felt the > problem serious enough to have formed the Network of Concerned > Anthropologists and drafted a ?Pledge of Non-Participation in Counter- > Insurgency? to boycott anthropological work in counterinsurgency and > direct combat support operations. They took their stand against ?work > that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust > with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one > country by another.? > > Similarly, in October 2007, the Executive Board of the American > Anthropological Association issued a statement that warned its members > that activities such as involvement in the HTS program are likely to > violate the code of ethics. As it should have, for it is impossible to > imagine the lethality of a massive conventional military coupled with > unconventional scholarship made into a weapon for use in combat, as it > is in the ongoing US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. > _______________________________________________ > Rad-Green mailing list > Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 12900 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090502/03458e7b/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 2 19:30:31 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 10:30:31 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Bill McKibben and the Technofixers' Tragic Myopia Message-ID: <49FCF3B7.6040503@ashisuto.co.jp> by Jan Lundberg Culture Change (March 30 2009) Like all the global-warming commentators who between them get almost all the press that's not pro-fossil fuels, Bill McKibben is trapped in the faulty logic of the technofix. To understand the pseudo-green vision, read McKibben's recent essay "The Fierce Urgency of Now" that appeared in the Toronto Star and the Common Dreams website (and below). McKibben says in his March 25 2009 essay, as he has repeated many times, that the number 350 (parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) is the goal of our time. Yes, if we don't manage it we're all cooked. But it's in the implementation-scheme that we must not be manipulated and tragically misled. McKibben says we must "reverse the fossil fuel economy", but we must END the fossil fuel economy. Now - not in "ten years". The fossil fuel economy is collapsing anyway, and since it has no future - due to the workings of petrocollapse (discussed in this column innumerable times) - it must be shut down by grassroots action. This will take the form of community survival strategies, not government policy initiatives or green venture capitalism. For McKibben to advocate a "clean energy" transition to a green consumer economy without a fundamental culture change means several things. One is that he does not "get" peak oil or the impossibility of replacing the petroleum infrastructure. Another major error on his part is his corporate position of better cars being the answer; rather, they are the threat. If we waste time on this scam that does not promise to save energy or lives, then McKibben may as well be campaigning for 460 ppm instead of 350. Let us briefly excoriate the corporate news media that is much more friendly to the technofix trap than to fundamental change: How the News Media Are Killing You Corporate news coverage - what most US citizens are getting for print and electronic news - is offering some real and important stories. The trouble is, when it's a game not to mention anything uncorporate, such as car-free living, then the public is not hearing the whole truth of our world that the media pretend to cover faithfully. The list of taboo subjects is pretty significant. Of course the news media can't cover everything, or too many things equally. However, using again the example of car-free living, there are reasons having to do with advertising, for example. Most daily newspapers not only have ads but whole sections of the newspaper once a week called Driving or Car Style. - Jan Lundberg (March 30 2009) Bill McKibben and Common(place thinking) Dreams It may help to imagine "Common Dreams" as rightfully being called "Technofix Dreams". The news service has many a good column, but they stop short of advocating action to bring down the dominant system and immediately begin new economics for the post-collapse world. The editorial staff there has gotten Culture Change reports for several years at three email addresses, but has never acknowledged one inquiry from me or run one of our reports. It's unprofessional, but the reason for this is what's key: They have an agenda, business and political if not psychological. These non-radical reformers, with McKibben in the lead for their enviro dreams, are dangerous for offering false hope to the somewhat clueless, well-meaning consumers who may fear living in a teepee and not being able to drive to the store ever again. The climate-action issue has been framed by McKibben and other liberals as one of "getting" global warming - but on their terms. Understanding the potential disaster is only half of getting it. Even G W Bush "gets" global warming. And to frame the issue as wanting or not wanting a windmill nearby is a clever argument, when that's not the issue. I'm not really fearful of a windmill "out my window" (despite wind turbine syndrome actually affecting one's health), but I'm also for sacrificing the cars McKibben thinks we need. Cars and their global-warming pavement are an eyesore too. I'm for other eyesores, such as a compost heap you have to walk by a few times a day, or the worm bin in the kitchen. Slashing carbon and methane emissions is still unpopular and non-funded as a primary program or movement. McKibben puts "energy conservation" in his short list, but it's not first. And what does it mean? Conserving a fossil fuel for later use, to let our grandkids participate in the consumption of it? Better than energy conservation is energy curtailment permanently in a "new" cultural paradigm. What if you had a serious health crisis and the doctor said "This is due to the patient's misfortune on such-and-such time and at such-and-such place, and we have to take immediate action". Fine, but what if his method is bloodletting? Or just a band-aid? No thanks, get out of the way, Doc. Finally, McKibben's ignoring the fact that the renewable energy industry and a new grid cannot be financed. The economy is finished, or getting there. He doesn't see the connection to petroleum, or the fact that the renewable energy industries are dependent on fossil fuels and cannot renew themselves. So what is a better approach? See the Pledge for Climate Protection {1}. For news and commentary get on the Global Warming Crisis Council {2} listserve. GWCC was conceived for action, not "let's rebuild the infrastructure to maintain our alleged energy needs". The talking heads of today, the good and the bad, will disappear from the scene as collapse unfolds, unless one of them happens to be your neighbor in your local bioregional tribe. The last time I took Bill McKibben to task this way was in 1996 in the Auto-Free Times. I had visited Kerala, India, which he had recently written about. When my daughter and I found his observations were way off the mark and we said so in our magazine, he had an unfriendly reaction in a letter to me that he ordered not be be printed. A couple of years later a friend of his, the editor of Outside magazine, interviewed me for Metropolis magazine that turned out to be a hatchet job on this depaver. I applaud good works and good guys, but I blow the whistle on illogical or tainted positions at a time of life and death for the Earth's ecological biodiversity. Links: {1} http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=201&Itemid=52 {2} http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=156&Itemid=49 _____ The Fierce Urgency of Now Yes, windmills and dams deface the landscape but the climate crisis demands immediate action by Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature (1989) www.thestar.com (March 25 2009) Don't be too "Canadian" about the backlash - this is no time for Mr Nice Guy Watching the backlash against clean energy projects build in Canada has moved me to think about what Americans have learned from facing this same problem. I have been thinking and writing for several years about overcoming conflict-avoidance and the importance of standing up for "Big Truths" even at the price of criticizing fellow environmentalists. It's not that I've developed a mean streak. It's that the environmental movement has reached an important point of division, between those who truly get global warming, and those who don't. By get, I don't mean understanding the chemistry of carbon dioxide, or the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, or those kinds of things - pretty much everyone who thinks of themselves as an environmentalist has reached that point. By get, I mean understanding that the question is of transcending urgency, that it represents the one overarching global civilizational challenge that humans have ever faced. In the US, there are all manner of fights to stop or delay every imaginable low-carbon technology. Wind, solar, run-of-river hydro - these are precisely the kinds of renewable energy that every Earth Day speech since 1970 has trumpeted. But now they are finally here - now that we're talking about particular projects in particular places - people aren't so keen. Opponents of renewable energy projects point out (correctly) that they have impacts - there are (overstated) risks to birds from wind turbines, to fish from run-of-river hydro, that the projects mean "development" somewhere there was none and transmission lines where there were none before. They point out (again correctly) that the developers are private interests, rushing to develop a resource that, in fact, they do not own, and without waiting for the government to come up with a set of rules and processes for siting such installations. The critics also insist that there's a "better" site somewhere - and again they're probably right. There's almost always a better site for anything. The whole business is messy, imperfect. If we had decades to burn, then perhaps the opponents would be right that there's a better site, and a nicer developer. There's always a better site and a nicer developer. But in the real world, we have at most ten years to reverse the fossil fuel economy. Which means we have to do everything quickly - conservation and plug-in cars and solar panels and compact fluorescents and 100-mile food and tree planting. And windmills, windmills everywhere there is wind, just like off the shores of Europe. Whatever natural endowments a region is blessed to have, these are the basis for your green economy: solar in the deserts, wind where it's windy, hydro where water's falling, geothermal if you've got it. Do it all, and do it quickly. In the ideal world, we'd do everything slowly and carefully - but this planet is rapidly becoming the worst of all possible worlds, a place that before my daughter dies may well see temperatures exceeding anything since before the dawn of primate evolution. A planet facing hundreds of millions of environmental refugees as a result of rising seas, with heat waves like the one that killed 35,000 in Europe becoming commonplace occurrences. The evidence gets worse by the day: already whole nations are evacuating, the Arctic is melting and we have begun to release the massive storehouse of carbon trapped under the polar ice. Scientists figure the "safe" level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 350 parts per million. This is the most important number in the world. Go beyond it for very long and we will trigger "feedbacks" that will result in runaway warming spiralling out of any human control and resulting in a largely inhospitable planet. We are already well beyond 350 and accelerating rapidly in the wrong direction. So when local efforts to delay or stop low-carbon energy projects come into conflict with the imperative to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place. Because even if we win every other battle, if we lose 350, it won't make any difference at all. You can "keep" every river and bay and lake and mountain and wilderness, but if the temperature goes up three degrees globally, it won't matter. The fish that live there won't be able to survive, the trees that anchor the landscape will die, the coral reefs will bleach and crumble. Whatever the particular part of the world that we're each working on, it's still a part of the world. Global warming is the whole thing. Believe me that I understand how difficult this is. I have spent a lifetime loving and fighting for the Adirondacks and other treasured areas. Perhaps you've spent your life fighting for birds, and I understand how wrenching it must be to acknowledge that "some birds may die from this wind farm". But what 350 forces us to say is: every bird, every fish, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades. In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of rivers, I want run-of-river hydro. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window. 350 means it is too late to be arguing for theories or cool ideas. In the real world, the one where carbon dioxide inconveniently traps solar radiation, you don't get to argue for perfection. You can say, as opponents of clean energy projects have said, that we'd do more to fight global warming by improving gas mileage in our cars. You can say that we should insulate our homes and build better refrigerators. You can say that we should plant more trees and have fewer kids. And you would be right, just as every Earth Day speech is "right". I've given my share of Earth Day speeches. And if we're to have any chance of heading off catastrophic temperature increase, we have to do everything we can imagine, all at once. Hybrid cars and planting trees, windmills, energy conservation, carbon taxes, emissions caps, closing the coal plants and pressuring our leaders. I understand the opposition to clean energy projects. And I would have supported the opponents years ago - before climate science became clear. I live in the mountains above Lake Champlain, where the wind blows strong along the ridgelines. I'll battle to keep windmills out of designated wilderness if that ever comes up, but right now I'm joining those who are battling to get them built on the ridgeline nearest our home. And battling to see them not as industrial eyesores, but as part of a new aesthetic. The wind made visible. The slow, steady turning that blows us into a future less hopeless than the future we're steaming toward now. _____ Bill McKibben is co-founder of 350.org, a global grassroots organizing campaign on climate change, and a guest blogger on www.zerocarboncanada.ca. Original article at The Fierce Urgency of Now: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/607657 This report is Culture Change Letter #246 This article is published under Title 17 USC. Section 107. See the Fair Use Notice for more information: http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=266&Itemid=26 http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=1 http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Sat May 2 16:41:22 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 18:41:22 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN Arfmed border guards at Akwesasne? Dangerous! Message-ID: <01d6a52c$39935$0d0c7787350116@xnote> ARMED BORDER GUARDS AT AKWESASNE? VERY VERY DANGEROUS! MNN. May 2, 2009. The behind the scenes dictators are slowly tightening the screws. A boa constrictor starts by wrapping itself around you, gradually starts to constrict, tightens almost without notice and then strangles you until you?re dead. The plan is to hypnotize us into accepting this death hold without resisting. For the next month Mohawks of Akwesasne will be protesting colonial Canadian border guards arming themselves with Beretta 9 mm handguns in the middle of our community. They hope to start on June 1. Akwesasne is on both sides of the foreign Canada-U.S. border and home to the whole community regardless of this ?imaginary line?. We never gave our consent for these carpet baggers to carry weapons in our midst to protect their illegal extortion business. Their actions constitute a violation of our law and international law. All three band and tribal councils set up by Canada and the U.S. took part in the rally, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA), the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs. Chris Kealey of the Canada Border Services Agency said the guards are being armed ?for the protection of our officers because ? they are left vulnerable?. To what? The number of attacks against Mohawks has been drastically increasing. Defensive conflicts by the Mohawks has always been infrequent. Kanatakon (St. Regis, Que.) District Chief Larry King believes the incidents between the CBSA and members of Akwesasne are "too few and far between" to justify the weapons. We know we have to stop at the border. Kimberly Jacobs of Cornwall Island said: "Some of the border guards are respectful, while others are intimidating." Her friend, who crosses at least once a day, has been pulled over six times in the last month for random inspection. A woman was strip searched by border officers without a good reason. Without guns they can already isolate us, lock us up, hold us for hours for no reason and almost kill us. They accuse us of just about everything including ?suspecting? us of having drugs, guns and whatever. It?s scary when they take us to the back of the shed. With guns, these power hungry anti-Mohawk lunatics will have unquestioned power to intimidate, strip search and falsely charge us. After investigations most of the bogus CBSA complaints against us are dropped. The Akwesasne situation is being hyped up to justify arming their border guards across Canada. With guns they can more easily intimidate and threaten anyone, especially Indigenous they greatly dislike. Racial slurs by guards are common. "We don't feel it creates a safer environment, putting guns in their hands," said Cornwall Island (Kawehnoke) District Chief Wesley Benedict. A letter was sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to have meetings with Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and his predecessor Stockwell Day over a year ago. There has been no response. We hear that the European settler experience at the border is completely different. They are often waved through without harassment. Threatening, beating and jailing people are becoming common in the U.S. It?s meant to create a climate of intimidation, fear and violence. It looks like Canada doesn?t want to be distinct from the U.S. anymore. The police want authority over people through force and threats. Why are guns essential for the corportatist agents? For hundreds of years British Bobbies never had guns. The crime rate was low. When they armed, crimes and dangerous situations escalated. The level of fear was raised in both the police and the public. The cops were no longer part of society and started to operate under their own rules. To condition people to be controlled by a police state, everyone has to be harassed constantly. The cops have powers to do anything they want with impunity. They divide people against each other. Democracy and freedom are slowly disappearing. Few appear to be fighting back. Many are fighting each other. It took the Germans about 15 years to produce the police state, to condition people to accept totalitarian rule, to be subdued and to have their spirit broken. In the past there were two opposing forces at work, democracy against totalitarianism. Today there is only one ideology, the new world order of money, power and authority over everybody by a few. The plan is to take over the human race, eliminate the weak and put a few rich masters in control. The melt down of the world economy is giving them the opportunity to carry out their agenda. Politics, military, business, educational, professionals and governing institutions have been taken over systematically piece by piece. It is being done subtly through propaganda, books, entertainment, education, enticements and rewards until everybody is sucked in. The disease goes inward. People feel afraid, like we are being cornered and will soon be eliminated. We don?t know what to do. We become defensive. We don?t trust anybody. We think everybody is part of this conspiracy. Children are asked to spy and report on their parents. Everybody is grasping at anything to find a way out. As Louis Karonhiatajeh Hall warned that when we experience these strange occurrences, ?Don?t get pulled into it?. Don?t go to fortune tellers and seers. The elite want us to be pulled into this bottomless abyss and to be directed to unseen esoteric waters. They deceptively call themselves ordained global guardians. They deliberately try to confuse us. Now they want the susceptible, the messed up and the strong minds to be labeled according to their red, green and amber new world order categories to be dealt with accordingly. We have to look at everything with an analytical and questioning mind according to the philosophy of the Indigenous people. Indigenous, U.S. and Canadian people ? everybody knows that guns at the border are bad! Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com katenies20 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 Contact the following contagions: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, SQ1A UK; President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461; The Governor General of Canada, M. Michaelle Jean, 1 Rideau Drive, Ottawa info at gg.ca; Alain Jolicoeur, President, CBSA, Ottawa, ON K1A 0L8, 613-952-3200, 613-957-0612; General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Lance Markell, District Director, Northern Office ? Customs, St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa Ont. K1G 4K3, CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214, General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528, Operator Number: 202-282-8000, Comment Line: 202-282-8495, Jayson P. Ahern, A/Commissioner, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229 Chief Counsel (202) 344-2990; Marco A. Lopez, Jr., Chief of Staff, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; House of Commons, Ottawa, harper.s at parl.gc.ca; Hon. Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons, Ottawa; Hon. Robert Douglas Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, 284 Wellington St., Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8; Attorney General of Ontario, 720 Bay St., 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5G 2K1; Hon. Yvon Marcoux, Minister of Justice and A.G.O., Louis-Phillipe-Pigeon Bldg., 1200 Rue d l'Eglise, 9th Floor, St. Foy G1V 4M1; Hon. Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs, 10 Wellington St., Hull, Que. K1A 0H4 Strahl.c at parl.gc.ca; Premier Dalton McGuinty, Province of Ontario, Queens Park, Toronto ON; Premier Charest, Province of Quebec, Legislature, Quebec City; British High Commission, 80 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5K7; Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater St., 8th Floor Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1; United Nations, 405 E 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017; The Hague, Anna Paulownastraat, 103, 251 BBC, The Netherlands; Coalition for the International Criminal Court, c/o WFM, 708 3rd Ave., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10017 From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Sat May 2 11:58:58 2009 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 13:58:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] Occupying Hearts and Minds In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Susan, Back in the early 1960s, when someone was expected of being a gov?t agent, people would ask jokingly ?Is he FBI or an anthropolgist?? meaning CIA. This was long a cover before they actually DID hire anthropologists. Yet most anthropologists seem to be looking for an alternative to modern life, not to extend a police state. So I bet that the leading institutions might be willing to annul their degrees and blacklist them. Michael On 5/2/09 4:23 AM, "Suzanne de Kuyper" wrote: > Fine article.? It is quite possible to regard the two disciplines, massive > conventional military coupled with unconventional scholarship made into a > scalpel of war chaos as this is being done now in every European country, > especially the tiny one that hosts The International Criminal Court.? You only > need to be aware of the weapons sociology and anthropology and even the > medical community itself? have become with no International Human Rights Law.? > Even the financial crisis may have been planned long ago as an ultimate > empire? weapon.? Look how the world gets torn up from it.? Read "Global War on > Liberties" by Paye. > > Suzanne?????????????????????????????????????????? suzannedk at gmail.com > > On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Anthony Fenton wrote: >> http://dahrjamailiraq.com/occupying-hearts-and-minds >> >> Occupying Hearts and Minds >> >> by Dahr Jamail >> May 1st, 2009 | T r u t h o u t >> >> One of the definitions of the word ?occupation? is: the action, state, >> or period of occupying or being occupied by military force. Throughout >> history, areas or countries occupied by military force have always >> resisted, and this resistance has caused the occupier to devise more >> suitable methods of subduing the population of the area being occupied. >> >> The US military has sent shock troops, which also donned helmets and >> flak jackets - anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists, >> with their own troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of >> 2007, American scholars in these fields were embedding with the >> military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Pentagon program called >> Human Terrain System (HTS), which evolved shortly thereafter into a >> $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of >> scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades >> that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. >> >> Two years prior to this, the CIA had quietly started recruiting social >> scientists by advertising in academic journals, offering salaries of >> up to $400,000. The military?s goals for the HTS was to have them >> gather and disseminate information about Iraqi and Afghani cultures. >> These embedded scholars, contracted through companies like CACI >> International, work in the project that is described by CACI as >> ?designed to improve the gathering, understanding, operational >> application, and sharing of local population knowledge? among combat >> teams. >> >> This new form of psychological warfare is deeply disturbing. >> Throughout my five years of reporting on the occupation of Iraq, when >> I?ve asked Iraqis what they feel the most damaging aspect of the >> occupation is, I have been told that the occupation is ?shredding the >> fabric of Iraqi society and culture.? >> >> Anthropology, in particular, has been referred to through history as >> the ?handmaiden of colonialism,? thus putting anthropologists, at >> least those with a moral conscience, on guard against anything that >> smells like exploitation or oppression of their subjects. Roberto >> Gonzalez, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State >> University and leading member of the Network of Concerned >> Anthropologists, told Time magazine that the militarization of >> anthropology will cause the field to become ?just another weapon ? not >> a tool for building bridges between peoples.? Anthropology has core >> professional ethics standards that require voluntary, informed consent >> from subjects, and that anthropologists do no harm. How likely do you >> think these will be adhered to by the flack-jacket-wearing, gun- >> toting, embedded anthropologists working directly with regimental >> combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan? >> >> In an article titled ?When Anthropologists Become Counter-Insurgents,? >> published in September 2007, and co-authored with David Price, author >> of the book ?Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Abuse of >> American Anthropology in the Second World War,? Gonzalez and Price >> wrote: >> >> ? ? ?Although proponents of this form of applied anthropology claim >> that culturally informed counter-insurgency work will save lives and >> win ?hearts and minds,? they have thus far not attempted to provide >> any evidence of this. Instead, there has been a flurry of non-critical >> newspaper accounts in publications including the Wall Street Journal >> and the Christian Science Monitor that portray these HTS >> anthropologists as heroically serving their nation without bothering >> to report on the ethical complications of this work. Missing are >> discussions of anthropologists? ethical responsibilities to disclose >> who they are and what they are doing, to gain informed consent, and to >> not harm those they study. Portraying counter-insurgency operations as >> social work is naive and historically inaccurate. >> >> ? ? ?In fact, David Kipp of the Foreign Military Studies Office at >> Fort Leavenworth, Kansas describes HTS teams as a ?CORDS for the 21st >> Century?-a reference to the Pentagon?s Vietnam-era Civil Operations >> and Revolutionary Development Support project. The most infamous >> product of the CORDS counter-insurgency effort was the Phoenix >> Program, in which CIA agents collected intelligence information used >> to ?neutralize? (read assassinate) suspected Viet Cong members. >> Between 1968 and 1972, more than 26,000 suspected Viet Cong were >> killed as a result, including many civilians. >> >> ? ? ?Kipp?s comparison of HTS and CORDS begs a series of ethical >> questions which have gone unanswered. If anthropologists on HTS teams >> interview Afghans or Iraqis about the intimate details of their lives, >> what is to prevent combat teams from using the same data to one day >> ?neutralize? suspected insurgents? What would impede the transfer of >> data collected by social scientists to commanders planning offensive >> military campaigns? Where is the line that separates the professional >> anthropologist from the counter-insurgency technician? Although the >> answers to these questions are not clear, the history of anthropology >> should give us pause. During World War II and the Cold War, US >> military and intelligence agencies tended to use anthropologists? work >> to help accomplish immediate goals, and discarded all other >> information that was counter to their beliefs or institutional models.? >> >> Adding credence to the points made by Price and Gonzalez is the fact >> that one of the top ten US defense contractors, Science Applications >> International Corporation, which has been operating in Iraq since the >> beginning of the occupation, describes anthropology in its job >> advertisements as a ?counter-insurgency related field.? >> >> Marcus Griffin, an anthropology professor, while preparing to deploy >> to Iraq at part of an HTS team, boasted on his blog, ?I cut my hair in >> a high and tight style and look like a drill sergeant ? I shot very >> well with the M9 and M4 last week at the range ? Shooting well is >> important if you are a soldier regardless of whether or not your job >> requires you to carry a weapon.? >> >> Nevertheless, proponents of the program attempt to dismiss any ethical >> dilemma encountered by the embedded scholars. Montgomery McFate, a >> Navy anthropologist, described HTS as an effort to anthropologize the >> military, not militarizing anthropology, told Time, ?The more >> unconventional the adversary, and the further from Western cultural >> norms, the more we need to understand the society and underlying >> cultural dynamics.? >> >> The program is nothing new, neither for the US empire nor other >> empires throughout history. As far as the US empire project is >> concerned, there were two programs from the Vietnam era that involved >> anthropologists. >> >> Project Camelot, in 1965, organized by US Army intelligence, recruited >> anthropologists to assess the cultural causes of war and violence. >> Despite the misleadingly benign sounding name, the project used Chile >> as a trial run while the CIA was engineering the election of Eduardo >> Frei as president in 1964 to prevent the election of Socialist leader >> Salvador Allende. >> >> The second program from that era, known as CORDS (Civil Operations and >> Revolutionary Development Support), was formed to coordinate the US >> civil and military pacification programs in Vietnam. CORDS used >> anthropological data to map human terrain and identify individuals and >> groups that the military believed were sympathizers of the Vietcong, >> who were then targeted for assassination. >> >> It is easy to imagine HTS teams in Iraq being used to exploit existing >> fault lines between Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Arab, and even >> differences within each group, in order to invoke the classic divide- >> to-conquer strategy. For example, the Sahwa (US-created and -backed >> Sunni militia) clashing with the US-backed Maliki government in Iraq >> is a classic example of Iraqis being effectively turned against one >> another so as not to unite against the occupier. >> >> Another example would be the effective creation and exploitation of >> the myth of sectarianism in Iraq, which has lead to the deaths of >> hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and threatens to do so once again. >> >> Documentary filmmaker Jason Coppola is directing and producing a film >> titled ?Justify My War.? In the film, an introspective Coppola >> explores the question of rationalization of the wars being waged by >> our government, from Wounded Knee to Fallujah. I asked Coppola for his >> perspective about the ongoing use of anthropologists by the US >> military in Iraq and Afghanistan. >> >> ?This seems to be the most powerful weapon against indigenous cultures >> today. Much more powerful than F-16s and M-1 tanks. We see how well it >> worked against our own indigenous culture. You need to know a people >> before you decide what can corrupt them, what can be used to confuse, >> divide and conquer them. The strongest defense against occupation is >> an undivided, culturally rooted people, but empires don?t like that.? >> >> Commenting on experiences from his recent trip to Iraq, Coppola adds, >> ?A country can rebuild itself after an invasion, but it is much more >> difficult to rebuild a culture after it has been invaded. I realized >> this seeing young girls walking the streets of Sadr City, on their way >> to school in their traditional hijab carrying their books in a >> backpack with a blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie design on it. Confusion >> is sewn throughout the Iraq occupation, nobody trusts anybody. And as >> I looked up in Baghdad or Fallujah or Sadr City, and stared at >> ?Apache? helicopters flying overhead ? I couldn?t help but to think - >> mission accomplished - certainly for the Apache people. But what about >> the Iraqis? We still don?t know.? >> >> Price and Gonzalez, along with several other scholars, felt the >> problem serious enough to have formed the Network of Concerned >> Anthropologists and drafted a ?Pledge of Non-Participation in Counter- >> Insurgency? to boycott anthropological work in counterinsurgency and >> direct combat support operations. They took their stand against ?work >> that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust >> with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one >> country by another.? >> >> Similarly, in October 2007, the Executive Board of the American >> Anthropological Association issued a statement that warned its members >> that activities such as involvement in the HTS program are likely to >> violate the code of ethics. As it should have, for it is impossible to >> imagine the lethality of a massive conventional military coupled with >> unconventional scholarship made into a weapon for use in combat, as it >> is in the ongoing US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. >> _______________________________________________ >> Rad-Green mailing list >> Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu >> To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green >> > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 14143 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090502/ac7c9941/attachment.txt From tboyle at rosehill.net Sat May 2 12:34:45 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 11:34:45 -0700 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] Occupying Hearts and Minds In-Reply-To: References: <460E7732-12B7-4FF4-AD18-E57A83E77706@shaw.ca> Message-ID: On May 1st Dahr wrote, >Price and Gonzalez, along with several other scholars, felt the >problem serious enough to have formed the Network of Concerned >Anthropologists and drafted a "Pledge of Non-Participation in Counter- >Insurgency" to boycott anthropological work in counterinsurgency and >direct combat support operations. They took their stand against "work >that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust >with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one >country by another." >Similarly, in October 2007, the Executive Board of the American >Anthropological Association issued a statement that warned its members >that activities such as involvement in the HTS program are likely to >violate the code of ethics. As it should have, for it is impossible to >imagine the lethality of a massive conventional military coupled with >unconventional scholarship made into a weapon for use in combat, as it >is in the ongoing US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. These actions are not a very promising strategy. The unethical anthropologist will just continue. A few might lose their memberships. And they will *still* continue, because the money is good. Same problem in other professions. (doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc) Even the professional standards themselves have been corrupted. Both the quality standards, and the ethical standards. Regulation of the behavior of professionals will continue to be necessary, because knowledge and specialization itself is so extensive. And, the fraction of the population working in highly specialized domains continues to increase. The share of the GDP taken by these specialists (whose advantage and control of their domain is beyond control of outsiders due to information aspects) is probably > 50%. Ordinary citizens cannot possibly understand or make judgments in all these domains. So, how are we going to erect systems of regulation? I suppose, somebody will suggest that the regulators be regulated. But the history of the auditing profession suggests this will not work. The auditing "profession" lasted only a few decades after the introduction of audits, in the 1930s. The "professional" bodies long ago were taken over by a wealthy elite, who own the fortune 500 corporations, who in turn applied irresistable pressure on auditing firms who controlled the AICPA. We couldn't even maintain standards for the boilers, let alone ethical standards. Look what happened when accountants tried to establish mark-to-market valuations on the balance sheet. I hear the same complaint from *every* other profession. The creeping influence of big money, distorts their standards bodies as well as their regulatory agencies. In conclusion, this war cannot be won by fighting and losing battles in individual professions' standards bodies or regulatory agencies. To make the professions serve the people requires something more fundamental. You need a new vision of how this works, and a bridge, a roadmap of how to get there from here. We have too easily assumed that the advantage of the wealthy is based only on the holdings of money, property, title, or outright control. We hardly noticed the emergence of these professional classes who take undue wealth and control by their asymmetry of knowledge. Todd -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 3795 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090502/e8d767c8/attachment.txt From suzannedk at gmail.com Sun May 3 00:00:27 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 08:00:27 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Israel warns European critics In-Reply-To: <907251956.386841241298200180.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> References: <2029210288.4689281241112901124.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> <907251956.386841241298200180.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> Message-ID: This is fascinating. The gloves are off. The US is fully behind the Israeli threat to the EU. In fact why they give the Israelis anything anytime. "Be our obedient lapdog or we will remove you! " And of course the EU has acquiesced itself into a small corner by all the agreements with the US. Noose-tightening time. Gaza war was an opening Empire move, an ongoing move in the war to remove human rights. This is when the leg and arm shackles come out. We are all of us being ordered to don them, permanently. Genocide is foreign policy. Agree or your world class status is canceled. I wonder if the time frame is days, weeks or merely hours? They are genocidally serious. The EU file-sharing agreements open up all files, all family and cultural connections. The collapse of the thousand year old archives in Germany, the theatrical, tragic attack on the Royal Netherlands family on Queen's Day all play, in national conciousnesses, to changing, shredding peoples' identities. The frames of historical connectedness are being obliterated. Empire by intimidation. The necessary acquiesence is being forced into total obedience, the momentum to do so under way so that obedient silences will seem natural, speech revolutionary, mortally dangerous. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sid Shniad Date: Sat, May 2, 2009 at 11:03 PM Subject: [R-G] Israel warns European critics To: Suzanne de Kuyper http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8026941.stm BBC News 30 April 2009 Israel warns European critics Israel has told the European Union to stop criticising Benjamin Netanyahu's government or risk being excluded from future Middle East peace negotiations. A foreign ministry official called EU envoys in Israel after a commissioner in Brussels suggested freezing a move to upgrade EU-Israeli relations. The commissioner said Netanyahu should commit to talks with the Palestinians. The warning comes ahead of the first European trip by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's new foreign minister. Israeli media say the warnings have been issued by the deputy director for European affairs at the Israeli foreign ministry, Rafi Barak. His main target the EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. The UK embassy in Tel Aviv has confirmed it was contacted by Mr Barak but refused to disclose details of the conversation. "We want the European Union to be a partner but it is important to hold a mature and discreet dialogue and not to resort to public declarations," Rafi Barak reportedly told diplomats, according to a report in Haaretz. He concluded by "warning" that Europe's influence in the area would be undermined. "Israel is asking Europe to lower the tone and conduct a discreet dialogue," Rafi Barak is quoted saying. "However, if these declarations continue, Europe will not be able to be part of the diplomatic process, and both sides will lose." Correspondents say it is far from clear whether Ms Ferrero-Waldner was expressing an official view of the European Union towards Israel. Israeli officials have told the BBC that they requested a month-long postponement of a ministerial-level meeting in May which discusses the EU-Israeli Association agreement regulating bilateral ties. The postponement "is to allow the new government time to formulate its policies" before the meeting, foreign ministry officials said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to back the principle of a Palestinian state while Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a "dead end". _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4752 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/9b69e306/attachment.txt From nscchicago at igc.org Sun May 3 10:13:50 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 11:13:50 -0500 Subject: [A-List] BRAZIL MST AT NO EXIT - THURSDAY MAY 7 Message-ID: <7692BDAE493B46C7A820AF291CD3FCE4@NSCCHICAGO> From: Jeff Frank Come Join us for a Night of Conversation With MST Organizer Music and Dance with Brazilian Band B?-a-b? do Samba! Thursday, May 7th @ 7 pm at the No Exit Caf? in Rogers Park 6970 N. Glenwood Ave. Take the Red Line to the Lunt Ave. Stop and turn Left onto Glenwood. Come out and hear a Landless Worker Organizer (MST) talk about organic farming, food sovereignty and sustainable ways of living in Brazil. Brazil's Landless Worker's Movement is the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless. Since 1985, they have peacefully occupied unused land, established organic collective farms, constructed houses, schools for children and health clinics. There will be a $5.00 cover and all proceeds will go to the MST Florestan Fernandez School which cultivates critical consciousness among urban workers and small scale farmers in Latin America. Sponsored by Chicago Friends of MST Contact: Jeffrey Frank: info at mstbrazil.org for more information. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5027 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/61b10233/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: MST No Exit Cafe.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 340946 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/61b10233/attachment-0001.pdf From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Sun May 3 13:10:19 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 12:10:19 -0700 Subject: [A-List] The 'big picture' plan for a consumer capitalist Afghanistan Message-ID: <49FDEC1B.9050808@gmail.com> From a comment I made @ Abu Muqawama: Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves has left a new comment on the post "Pulling Teeth: An Infantry Platoon Leader's Perspective": http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2009/05/pulling-teeth-infantry-platoon-leaders.html Just found the 'big picture' plan for a consumer capitalist Afghanistan, as seen in one of our early 1900s conquests, the Philippines. "Eighty percent of Filipinos go to the malls at least once or twice a month, according to a 2008 survey by the Nielsen Media Research, even though nearly half of the population lives on $2 a day or less." http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/philippines/090428/mall-nation Mind you, it would have turned out very differently if Kalashnikov had already developed the AK47. --30-- It was a follow up to a previous comment: I've got to say you are easily wowed by narrative, moreso than fact. "I found that no matter how hard it was to get real cooperation out of the Afghan people, many of the villagers we visited greeted us eagerly when we arrived." This sounds like a travelogue. "The dusky villagers all came out to greet our caravan with fresh fruit and nubile young women." I smile and act like I'm glad to meet people who are heavily armed too! It's called survival instinct. Then I call the police. In this case, they'll just tell their more heavily armed brethren you've come to town, are harassing them to cooperate, and give them ALL the targeting information they need to kill you. One... at... a... time if necessary. Now... in a 'strategic hamlet' scenario, they don't get the chance to tell their friends because some foreign soldier is always observing them, and we can ALL see how well it worked in SE Asia during the destruction of Vietnam. It just sat US soldier there watching the hooches and villagers, like ducks... sitting. FWIW, when the British tried occupying Afghanistan, the Afghanis managed to kill at least one a day until the last British soldier left. Americans are apparently easier to kill. and further, have proven themselves to be absolutely incapable of winning 'wars of attrition'. --30-- From tboyle at rosehill.net Sun May 3 14:36:40 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 13:36:40 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Israel/US trying to smash international consensus on anything, everything, forever. Message-ID: This is not a transcript-- please listen to the audio! http://www.btlonline.org/ Cecile Surasky describes actions of Israel and the U.S. which go beyond boycotting the conference, or controlling any statements about Israel: She says the goal of Israel and the U.S. are to forestall any consensus or progress on racism itself, because they would lead directly to remedies or compensation for African Americans. I have long believed as well, that the U.S. works tirelessly to prevent unity and reconciliation in the world because it leads directly towards a global regime of law and accountability, and limits on the sovereign power of states... ---Todd. Disinformation Campaign Attempts to Discredit UN Anti-Racism Conference RealAudio / MP3 http://btlonline.org/2009/mp3/surasky050809.mp3 Interview with Cecile Surasky, communications director with Jewish Voice for Peace, conducted by Melinda Tuhus A United Nations conference on racism in Geneva was convened in late April to review progress since the original U.N. sponsored-Conference on Racism and other forms of discrimination was held in Durban, South Africa in September 2001. The U.S. and a handful of other nations boycotted this year's conference, claiming that its agenda was to bash Israel. That decision was based on the 2001 conference document, in which the Israel/Palestine conflict was the only international dispute mentioned by name, even though it was framed in an impartial way. At the earlier conference, a number of Arab nations had attempted to define Zionism as racism. A controversial speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad given at this year's anti-racism gathering, was widely interpreted as anti-Semitic, playing right into the hands of those who charged that the conference had an anti-Israel bias. Despite the boycott and international press attention on Ahmadinejad's speech, conference delegates adopted a resolution against racism, which covered issues such as xenophobia and intolerance. Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Cecili e Surasky, communications director with the American organization Jewish Voice for Peace, who attended the Geneva conference. She said that even though Israel and others boycotted the conference, its many supporters were there in force. And Surasky noted that many either ignored legitimate Palestinian claims of discrimination or demonized the United Nations, Muslims and Palestinians. From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Sun May 3 16:29:13 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 15:29:13 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Notes from them that's doin': "We came to Henningsvaer. We saw the Skarbakk. We sank the bastard" Message-ID: <49FE1AB9.2040803@gmail.com> One of the net economic effects... "All whaling vessels in Norway have to pay *war insurance premiums* to operate their whaling vessels" Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: Monday, April 27, 2009 Outlaw Whaling Vessel Scuttled in Norway http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-090427-1.html During the evening of April 23rd, conservation commandos from Agenda 21 slipped onboard the Norwegian whaling ship Skarbakk in Henningsvaer in the Norwegian Lofoten Islands. With a monkey wrench they disassembled the salt-water intake valve (used for cooling the main engine). They then opened the valve and flooded the engine room. As the ship settled low in the water, local firefighters arrived with pumps just in time to prevent the ship settling on the bottom. By then the ship had been completely filled with water however, destroying the machinery and electrical systems. This scuttling represents losses for the ship's Norwegian underwriters and for Japanese investors who were partners with the owner of the Skarbakk. The Agenda 21 commandos left a note that read: "We came to Henningsvaer. We saw the Skarbakk. We sank the bastard - Agenda 21" This brings to 6 the number of illegal whaling boats sabotaged in Norway. These regular attacks have kept insurance premiums at exceptionally high rates. All whaling vessels in Norway have to pay war insurance premiums to operate their whaling vessels: Nybraena 1992 Senet 1994 Elin-Toril 1996 Morild 1998 Willasen Senior 2007 Skarbakk 2009 Agenda 21 is a covert group that takes its name from the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment. Captain Paul Watson said at the conference that if Norway did not comply with international conservation law that Sea Shepherd would sink their ships. Captain Watson supervised the sinking of the Nybraena in 1992 and the Senet in 1994. After that the covert and anonymous organization Agenda 21 based in Norway took over the responsibility of enforcing international law against illegal Norwegian whaling operations. "We don't know who they are, and we have no forewarning of their plans," said Captain Paul Watson. "But we do applaud their efforts, these laws must be enforced and Norwegian whalers are in blatant violation of the worldwide ban on commercial whaling. We are happy that Agenda 21 took over this task back in 1996 with the scuttling of the Elin-Toril. If I knew who they were, I'd give them a medal. It's always better when these things are taken care of by citizens in their own country and the Norwegians who are battling the whalers are like the resistance fighters who once took on the Nazi's in Norway - brave men and women trying to defend lives from war criminals. In today's whale wars, those who slaughter the whales are criminals and no different than elephant poachers in Africa. Except in Africa they shoot the poachers." Click here to watch Norwegian News Video of the scuttling Click for Original article From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sun May 3 23:52:38 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 14:52:38 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Bankrolling the World into Chaos Message-ID: <49FE82A6.6090606@ashisuto.co.jp> by Michael Rowbotham Prosperity (January 2000) It is time to ask searching questions about the near total reliance of modern economies upon banking. Getting the right answers can sometimes be difficult. But not asking the right questions in the first place can be a disaster. The industrialised economies are trying desperately to break the cycle of boom and bust and the Asian Tigers are counting what is left after the crash. But no-one is pointing out that modern economies are rendered inherently unstable by a financial system based almost entirely upon lending. The exposure of industrialised nations to the banking system is no less great than that of the poorer nations, and the risk of collapse just as possible. The debts registered against the wealthy nations and their citizens speak for themselves. In the UK outstanding mortgage debts total GBP 420 billion, commercial debts GBP 380 billion and the National Debt stands at GBP 400 billion. In the USA, mortgages currently in excess of $4.2 trillion and a national debt of $5 trillion make one wonder why the wealthier a nation becomes, the more its financial accounts deteriorate. The answer to this conundrum is easy. Under the current financial system, debt is used to create money. Bank of England statistics show that a staggering 97% of the entire UK money stock consists of bank money created by the action of lending to borrowers. Government created currency the notes and coins (MO) at three per cent of the money stock, is now so trivial that the entire economy functions on money created by bank lending. Globally, over ninety per cent of all money is created by the banking system. The ability of lending institutions to create a vast circulating money stock of bank credit is well understood by economists. In most peoples' minds, money is still the stuff you jingle in your pocket. However, most money today consists simply of numbers relayed between bank accounts via computer systems, and created out of thin air every time a loan is made. The problem with a bank-based money supply is this: When a bank makes a loan, a debt is created as well as a credit. So with the GBP 680 billion of bank credit now lubricating the UK economy goes GBP 680 billion of debt in the form of mortgages, overdrafts, commercial loans and other debts. A clear political as well as an economic question arises: is it proper to rely so heavily upon debt to create the nation's medium of exchange? Of course, the citizens of Malaysia, South Korea and Indonesia have not just been having difficulties with the monthly mortgage. Their entire future has been rewritten. After decades of struggle to raise per capita income above the poverty level to a half-decent standard of living, the financial carpet has been suddenly and cruelly pulled from under their feet. Forced to accept massive dollar loans from the IMF and commercial banks, with their currency degraded and now the plaything of international dealers, their commercial assets are now being picked up for a song by foreign investors. The Koreans are already talking about a "lost generation". The Asian crisis reminds the world of the capacity of a bank-based money supply to lead to complete economic collapse. The industrialised nations have not experienced this for many decades. But, we too are suffering from the debt-based financial system. The massive mortgages carried by Western citizens, and the earnings pressure and wage dependency these create, is a form of constant oppression. Should we allow our lives to be so dominated by debt and banking policy, and the stock market manipulation of international capital flows? What are the Money Supply Alternatives? Monetary reform has an ancient pedigree, as applicable to the advanced industrial nations as to the Third World. Bishop Berkeley asked in the early eighteenth century "whether or not it be a mighty privilege for a man to create a hundred pounds with the stroke of a pen?" In the 1930s, during the Depression days of poverty amidst plenty, the financial system brought the economies of the world to a virtual standstill. Then, the public took to the streets in support of monetary reformers such as Douglas, Orage, Soddy and Kitson. The monetary reformers were ignored and Keynsian deficit financing was adopted, that is, the world chose debt. In the 1980s, the Economic Research Council, under Sir Arthur Bryant, advocated that the UK government should take on the responsibility for the issuance of money, thereby obviating the need for a national debt and reducing the burden of money creation placed upon commerce and the general population. Bryan Gould, shortly before he left for New Zealand, displayed his monetary reform credentials when he declared, in the New Statesman (February 19 1993) : "Why shouldn't a socially aware and economically responsible government create credit where it is appropriate ... in order to ensure investment is made and at the same time strike a great blow for the democratic control of the economy?" Government-created credit, like the coins and notes they issue, would be created as a debt-free input into the economy, spent into circulation via public services, and contribute to a stable, circulating money stock. The monetary reformers have history on their side. In the 1950s and 1960s, the money stock consisted of about 75% bank created money and 25% cash currency, created debt-free. Inflation was lower, growth more stable and debts markedly smaller in comparison to average incomes, and related to GDP. Why should the declining use of cash mean that the difference is made up by bank created money and the debt it entails? Just because the economy needs less cash doesn't mean it needs more debt. This question was raised by Lord Sudeley in the House of Lords in May 1998. He asked whether the government intended to take any measure to compensate for the loss of debt and interest free money caused by the declining use of cash. The official reply, contained in a statement of masterly evasion and opacity, was "No". The government issuance of money has always been dismissed as inflationary. But this need not be the case. If sensible restrictions were placed on banks and building societies, the government-issued money supply would be compensated for by curtailing the production of new bank lending. For instance, there could be a limit, and gradual reduction, in the number of times a person is allowed to multiply their annual income as the basis of a mortgage. Since house mortgages support over sixty per cent of the money stock, this could make a dramatic contribution to preventing monetary inflation as well as putting a break on the relentless rise in house prices, which benefits no-one. It would also mean that, over the years, house buying would became a competition based on money people have got, rather than at present, money they haven't got. An entirely new economic agenda is possible, and radically different fiscal conditions would prevail in an economy based on solvency rather than debt. Although this offers a range of government and commercial policy options that amount almost to an economic revolution, it is a reform that can be undertaken gradually, building up the liquidity in an economy and monitoring the effects over a number of years, effectively reversing the recent drift towards ever greater debt. All national economies are now so financially vulnerable that they are constantly taken to the cleaners by powerful multinationals and heavily exposed to the callous and destructive actions of predatory speculation. More liquidity and solvency would afford protection to the real, productive economy, rather than making the source of true wealth subject to the vagaries of finance. In the end, this has to be part of the answer. And as Bryan Gould points out, the questions addressed are fundamental political issues, not just a matter of economics. Why should a nation's people and its commerce drift ever deeper into debt simply to create their medium of exchange? Why should a government the one institution with the constitutional authority to create money delegate this responsibility and power entirely to banks, and thereby oblige the nation to run on debt? These are the questions we should ask as we watch the crisis in Asia deepen and spread, perhaps along with a query as to the sanity of the bulk of our economists, who see no connection between the spiralling debt problems of the world and the way money is currently created. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: PROSPERITY: Freedom from Debt Slavery is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to: PROSPERITY at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/bankchaos.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From nscchicago at igc.org Sun May 3 11:02:09 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 12:02:09 -0500 Subject: [A-List] MAYDAY IN CARACAS BOLIVIA INVADED BY MERCENARIES MOHAWK NATION AND GOONS Message-ID: Tom Baker here and seems to me - We the People are MAYDAY-istas. MAYDAY was more everywhere than before! While some reports on US actions lead off with "numbers down" and numbers as indicator of popular support, let me say we are too cagey for that. First, We the People here are a growingly experienced and committed activist community, we have a strong and effective organizing strategy and gifted, natural leaders; we know what we're doing We the People embrace our diversity. I observed in the Chicago event excellent and fun organizing of logistics, attention to detail, smooth coordination, good revolutionary art. And dig this: We do not march in anger, we march in joyful strength and harmony. Power to the People. The Venezuela MAYDAY piece includes videos from the streets of Caracas. BOLIVIA SANTA CRUZ AND MERCENARIES Conquistador oligarchy has family all the way to Croatia a place to find trained and ready mercenaries who don't give a shit about humanity. AND THE MOHAWK NATION, they being occupied by uniformed goons, too, but these goons work for the state, same attitude. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 2878 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/d8c40244/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/20090503/d8c40244/attachment-0001.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Mohawk Nation News" Subject: [21stcenturysocialism] MNN Arfmed border guards at Akwesasne? Dangerous! Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 18:40:48 -0400 Size: 12763 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/d8c40244/attachment-0003.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Cort Greene Subject: [CLAS] Venezuela Celebrates May Day With Peaceful Protstes and Some Clashes Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 12:41:33 -0700 (PDT) Size: 10930 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/d8c40244/attachment-0004.eml -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Fred Fuentes Subject: [LASolidarity] Say NO to international fascist terrorism and the intention of splitting Bolivia apart! Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 18:51:26 +1000 Size: 13835 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/d8c40244/attachment-0005.eml From tboyle at rosehill.net Sun May 3 14:49:54 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 13:49:54 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [PJH] PMR: 'Waging war after war is the norm' Message-ID: It can't possibly work in the physical sense. The antiwar people are too few and the military has 10s of thousands of troops. And the region around the bases is full of proto fascist elements, who are seriously dangerous and could easily be switched on by their leaders or police as paramilitaries. The right-wing talk radio jocks have activated thousands of the proto-fascists on numerous occasions, the past 5 years. Just as certainly as it cannot work in the physical sense, the PMR actions do indeed work as political communication. They inspire and embolden a global audience, Todd >From: jensenmk at plu.edu >Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 12:56:07 -0700 (PDT) >Subject: [PJH] PMR: 'Waging war after war is the norm' > >COMMENTARY: 'Waging war after war is the norm' > >[Phan Nguyen, a PMR activist, commented on Sunday on the latest PMR >actions attempting a blockade of Stryker convoys moving war mat?riel from >Fort Lewis to the Port of Tacoma for shipment as part of the deployment to >Afghanistan of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Divison, later this >summer.[1] --Mark] > >http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8578/ > >1. > >Commentary > >WAGING WAR AFTER WAR IS THE NORM >By Phan Nguyen > >** But stopping a Stryker convoy -- well, that just isn't civil ** > >May 3, 2009 > >Eleven activists were arrested Saturday night during two blockades of >Stryker convoys from Fort Lewis. All but one has been released so far. >The last person is in the process of being bailed out. > >The Stryker vehicles were heading to the Port of Tacoma for eventual >shipment to Afghanistan in advance of the deployment of the 5th Stryker >Brigade, 2nd Infantry Divison, where soldiers' skills and lives would be >exploited to play up a really fucking stupid "War on Terror." > >One Stryker convoy was halted at the Fort Lewis gate near Exit 122. > >Another Stryker convoy was amazingly forced to a complete stop on I-5 near >Exit 133. > >At times police clearly used excessive force against unarmed nonviolent >demonstrators. One woman was choked on the strap of her messenger bag >while another demonstrator was dragged across the road by his hair while >he was shouting that he was nonviolent. Apparently these police aren't >sure how to handle people who pose no threat. > >Mainstream reporting of these blockades is minimal because no windows were >broken. > >In an isolated incident, one drunk right-winger expressed his contempt for >these actions ironically by pushing activists off the sidewalk and into >the street. > >For sure, many people will pooh-pooh the antiwar actions from their >armchair while they acquiesce to whatever destructive military venture >their leaders tell them to support. Moreover, following these actions, >the newspapers will report on the cost of police overtime, however >minuscule in proportion to the ever-expanding military budget for filthy >wars during this time of economic recession. > >Waging war after war is the norm. You can complain about it with your >friends. But stopping a Stryker convoy -- well, that just isn't civil. > > > >------------------------------------ > >PPJH's website is located at >http://www.tacomapjh.org/ -- others may join by sending an email >to tacomapjh-subscribe at yahoogroups.comYahoo! Groups Links > ><*> To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tacomapjh/ > ><*> Your email settings: > Individual Email | Traditional > ><*> To change settings online go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tacomapjh/join > (Yahoo! ID required) > ><*> To change settings via email: > mailto:tacomapjh-digest at yahoogroups.com > mailto:tacomapjh-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com > ><*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > tacomapjh-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > ><*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4997 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090503/fbe3d0a8/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 4 08:26:46 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 23:26:46 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The IMF Rules the World Message-ID: <49FEFB26.9030906@ashisuto.co.jp> Will the Debtors Fight Back? by Michael Hudson CounterPunch (April 06 2009) Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London - certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a parade of smiling faces and statements of mutual respect for each others' position - so much respect that they have agreed to set up a "study group" or two to kick the diplomatic ball down the road. The least irrelevant news was not good at all: The attendees agreed to quadruple IMF funding to $1 trillion. Anything that bolsters IMF authority cannot be good for countries forced to submit to its austerity plans. They are designed to squeeze out more money to pay the world's most predatory creditors. So in practice this G-20 agreement means that the world's leading governments are responding to today's financial crisis with "planned shrinkage" for debtors - a ten per cent cut in wage payments in hapless Latvia, Hungary put on rations, and permanent debt peonage for Iceland for starters. This is quite a contrast with the United States, which is responding to the downturn with a giant Keynesian deficit spending program, despite its glaringly unpayable $4 trillion debt to foreign central banks. So the international financial system's double standard remains alive and kicking - at least, kicking countries that are down or are falling. Debtor countries must borrow a trillion from the IMF not to revive their own faltering economies, not to pursue counter-cyclical policies to restore market demand (that is only for creditor nations), but to pass on the IMF "aid" to the poisonous banks that have made the irresponsible toxic loans. (If these are toxic, who put in the toxin? To claim that it was all the "natural" workings of the marketplace is to say that free markets curdle and sicken. Is this what is happening?) In Ukraine, a physical fight broke out in Parliament when the Party of Regions blocked an agreement with the IMF calling for government budget cutbacks. And rightly so! The IMF's operating philosophy is the destructive (indeed, toxic) belief that imposing a deeper depression with more unemployment will reduce wage levels and living standards by enough to pay debts already at unsustainable levels, thanks to the kleptocracy's tax "avoidance" and capital flight. The IMF trillion-dollar bailout is actually for these large international banks, so that they will be able to take their money and run. The problem is all being blamed on labor. That is the neo-Malthusian spirit of today's neoliberalism. The main beneficiaries of IMF lending to Latvia, for example, have been the Swedish banks that have spent the last decade funding that country's real estate bubble while doing nothing to help develop an industrial potential. Latvia has paid for its imports by exporting its male labor of prime working age, acting as a vehicle for Russian capital flight - and borrowing mortgage purchase-money in foreign currency. To pay these debts rather than default, Latvia will have to lower wages in its public sector by ten per cent - and this with an economy already depressed and that the government expects to shrink by twelve percent this year! To save the banks from losing on their toxic mortgages, the IMF is bailing them out, and directing the Latvian government to squeeze labor all the more - and to charge for education rather than providing it freely. The idea is for families to take a lifetime of debt not only to live inside rather than on the sidewalk, but to get an education. Alcoholism rates are rising, as they did in Russia under similar circumstances in Yeltsin's "Harvard Boys" kleptocracy after 1996. The insolvency problem of the post-Soviet economies is not entirely the IMF's fault, to be sure. The European Community deserves a great deal of blame. Instead of viewing the post-Soviet economies as wards to be brought up to speed with Western Europe, the last thing the EU wanted was to develop potential rivals. It wanted customers - not only for its exports, but most of all for its loans. The Baltic States passed into the Scandinavian sphere, while Austrian banks carved out financial spheres of influence in Hungary (and lost their shirt on real estate loans, much as the Habsburgs and Rothschilds did in times past). Iceland was neoliberalized, largely in ripoffs organized by German banks and British financial sharpies. In fact, Iceland (where I'm writing these lines) looks like a controlled experiment - a very cruel one - as to how deeply an economy can be "financialized" and how long its population will submit voluntarily to predatory financial behavior. If the attack were military, it would spur a more alert response. The trick is to keep the population from understanding the financial dynamics at work and the underlying fraudulent character of the debts with which it has been saddled - with the complicit aid of its own local oligarchy. In today's world, the easiest way to obtain wealth by old-fashioned "primitive accumulation" is by financial manipulation. This is the essence of the Washington Consensus that the G-20 support, using the IMF in its usual role as enforcer. The G-20's announcement continues the US Treasury and Federal Reserve bank bailout over the past half-year. In a nutshell, the solution to a debt crisis is to be yet more debt. If debtors can't pay out of what they are able to earn, lend them enough to keep current on their carrying charges. Collateralize this with their property, their public domain, their political autonomy - their democracy itself. The aim is to keep the debt overhead in place. This can be done only by keeping the volume of debts growing exponentially as they accrue interest, which is added onto the loan. This is the "magic of compound interest". It is what turns entire economies into Ponzi schemes (or Madoff schemes as they are now called). This is "equilibrium", neoliberal style. In addition to paying an exorbitant basic interest rate, homeowners must pay a special eighteen per cent indexation charge on their debts to reflect the inflation rate (the consumer price index) so that creditors will not lose the purchasing power over consumer goods. Labor's wages are not indexed, so defaults are spreading and the country is being torn apart with bankruptcy, causing the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. The IMF approves, announcing that it can find no reason why homeowners cannot bear this burden! Meanwhile, democracy is being torn apart by a financial oligarchy, whose interests have become increasingly cosmopolitan, looking at the economy as prey to be looted. A new term is emerging: "codfish republic" (known further south as banana republics). Many of Iceland's billionaires these days are choosing to join their Russian counterparts living in London - and the Russian gangsters are reciprocating by visiting Iceland even in the dead of winter, ostensibly merely to enjoy its warm volcanic Blue Lagoon, or so the press is told. The alternative is for debtor countries to suffer the same kind of economic sanctions as Iran, Cuba and pre-invasion Iraq. Perhaps soon there will be enough such economies to establish a common trading area among themselves, possibly along with Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. But as far as the G-20 is concerned, aid to Iceland and "doing the right thing" is simply a bargaining chip in the international diplomatic game. Russia offered $4 billion aid to Iceland, but retracted it - presumably when Britain gave it a plum as a tradeoff. The IMF's $1 trillion won't help the post-Soviet and Third World debtor countries pay their foreign debts, especially their real estate mortgages denominated in foreign currency. This practice has violated the First Law of national fiscal prudence: Only permit debts to be taken on that are in the same currency as the income that is expected to be earned to pay them off. If central bankers really sought to protect currency stability, they would insist on this rule. Instead, they act as shills for the international banks, as disloyal to the actual economic welfare of their countries as expatriate oligarchs. If you are going to recommend more of this consensus, then the only way to sell it is to do what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown did at the meetings: announce that "The Washington Consensus is dead". (He might have saved matters by saying "deadly", but used the adjective instead of the adverb.) But the G-20's IMF bailout belies this claim. As Turkey was closing out its loan last year, the IMF faced a world with no customers. Nobody wanted to submit to its destructive "conditionalities", anti-labor policies designed to shrink the domestic market in the false assumption that this "frees" more output for export rather than being consumed at home. In reality, the effect of austerity is to discourage domestic investment, and hence employment. Economies submitting to the IMF's "Washington Consensus" become more and more dependent on their foreign creditors and suppliers. The United States and Britain would never follow such conditionalities. That is why the United States has not permitted an IMF advisory team to write up its prescription for US "stability". The Washington Consensus is only for export. ("Do as we say, not as we do".) Mr Obama's stimulus program is Keynesian, not an austerity plan, despite the fact that the United States is the world's largest debtor. Here's why the situation is unsustainable. What has enabled the Baltics and other post-Soviet countries to cover the foreign-exchange costs of their trade dependency and capital flight has been their real estate bubble. The neoliberal idea of financial "equilibrium" has been to watch "market forces" shorten lifespans, demolish what industrial potential they had, increase emigration and disease, and run up an enormous foreign debt with no visible way of earning the money to pay it off. This real estate bubble credit was extractive and parasitic, not productive. Yet the World Bank applauds the Baltics as a success story, ranking them near the top of nations in terms of "ease of doing business". One practical fact trumps all the junk economics at work from the IMF and G-20: Debts that can't be paid, won't be. Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of Nations (1776) that no government in history had ever repaid its national debt. Today, the same may be said of the public sector as well. This poses a problem of just how these debtor countries are not going to pay their foreign and domestic debts. How will they frame and politicize their non-payment? Creditors know that these debts can't be paid. (I say this as former balance-of-payments analyst of Third World debt for nearly fifty years, from Chase Manhattan in the 1960s through the United Nations Institute for Training and Research [UNITAR] in the 1970s, to Scudder Stevens & Clark in 1990, where I started the first Third World sovereign debt fund.) From the creditor's vantage point, knowing that the Great Neoliberal Bubble is over, the trick is to deter debtor countries from acting to resolve its collapse in a way that benefits themselves. The aim is to take as much as possible - and to get the IMF and central banks to bail out the poisonous banks that have loaded these countries down with toxic debt. Grab what you can while the grabbing is good. And demand that debtors do what Latin American and other third World countries have been doing since the 1980s: sell off their public domain and public enterprises at distress prices. That way, the international banks not only will get paid, they will get new business lending to the buyers of the assets being privatized - on the usual highly debt-leveraged terms! The preferred tactic to deter debtor countries from acting in their self-interest is to pound on the old morality, "A debt is a debt, and must be paid". That is what Herbert Hoover said of the Inter-Ally debts owed by Britain, France and other allies of the United States in World War One. These debts led to the Great Depression. "We loaned them the money, didn't we?" he said curtly. Let's look more closely at the moral argument. Living in New York, I find an excellent model in that state's Law of Fraudulent Conveyance. Enacted when the state was still a colony, it was enacted in response British speculators making loans to upstate farmers, and demanding payment just before the harvest was in, when the debtors could not pay. The sharpies then foreclosed, getting the land on the cheap. So New York's Fraudulent Conveyance law responded by establishing the legal principle that if a creditor makes a loan without having a clear and reasonable understanding of how the debtor can repay the money in the normal course of doing business, the loan is deemed to be predatory and therefore null and void. Just like the post-Soviet economies, Iceland was sold a neoliberal bill of goods: a self-destructive Junk Economics. Just how moral a responsibility - and perhaps even more important, how large a legal liability -should fall on the IMF and World Bank, the US Treasury and Bank of England whose economies and banks benefited from this toxic Washington Consensus junk economics? For me, the moral principle is that no country should be subjected to debt peonage. That is the opposite of democratic self-determination, after all - and of Enlightenment moral philosophy that economic policies should encourage economic growth, not shrinkage. They should promote greater economic equality, not polarization between wealthy creditors and impoverished debtors. At issue is just what a "free market" is. It's supposed to be one of choice. Indebted countries lose discretionary choice over their economic future. Their economic surplus is pledged abroad as financial tribute. Without the overhead costs of a military occupation, they are relinquishing their policy making from democratically elected political representatives to bureaucratic financial managers, often foreign - the new Central Planners in today's neoliberal world. The best they can do, knowing the game is over, is to hope that the other side doesn't realize it - and to do everything you can to confuse debtor countries while extracting as much as they can as fast as they can. Will the trick work? Maybe not. While the G-20 meetings were taking place, Korea was refusing to let itself be victimized by the junk derivatives contracts that foreign banks sold. Korea is claiming that bankers have a fiduciary responsibility to their customers to recommend loans that help them, not strip them of money. There is a tacit understanding (one that the financial sector spends millions of dollars in public relations efforts to undermine) that banking is a public utility. It is supposed to be a handmaiden to growth - industrial and agricultural growth and self-sufficiency - not predatory, extractive and hence anti-social. So Korean victims of junk derivatives are suing the banks. As New York Times commentator Floyd Norris described last week, the legal situation doesn't look good for the international banks. The home court always has an advantage, and every nation is sovereign, able to pass whatever laws it wants. (And as America's case abundantly illustrates, judges need not be unbiased.) The post-Soviet economies as well as Latin America must be watching attentively the path that Korea is clearing through international courts. The nightmare of international bankers is that these countries may bring the equivalent of a class action suit against the international diplomatic coercion mounted against these countries to lead them down the path of financial and economic suicide. "The Seoul Central District Court justified its decision [to admit the lawsuit] on the kind of logic that would apply in the United States to a lawsuit involving an unsophisticated individual investor and a fast-taking broker. The court pointed to questions of whether the contract was a suitable investment for the company, and to whether the risks were fully disclosed. The judgment also referred to the legal concept of "changed circumstances", concluding that the parties had expected the exchange rate to remain stable, that the change in circumstances was unforeseeable and that the losses would be too great for the company to bear". As a second cause of action, Korea is claiming that the banks provided creditor for other financial institutions to bet against the very contracts the banks were selling Korea to "protect" its interests. So the banks knew that what they were selling was a time bomb, and therefore seem guilty of conflict of interest. Banks claim that they merely were selling goods with no warranty to "informed individuals". But the Korean parties in question were no more informed than were Iceland's debtors. If a bank seeks to mislead and does not provide full disclosure, its victim cannot be said to be "informed". The proper English word is misinformed (viz disinformation). Speaking of disinformation, an important issue concerns the extent to which the big international banks may have conspired with domestic bankers and corporate managers to loot their companies. This is what corporate raiders have done for their junk-bond holders since the high tide of Drexel Burnham and Michael Milken in the 1980s. This would make the banks partners in crime. There needs to be an investigation of the lending pattern that these banks engaged in - including their aid in organizing offshore money laundering and tax evasion to their customers. No wonder the IMF and British bankers are demanding that Iceland make up its mind in a hurry, and commit itself to pay astronomical debts without taking the time to ask just how they are to pay - and investigating the creditor banks' overall lending pattern! Bearing the above in mind, I suppose I can tell Icelandic politicians that I have good news regarding the fate of their country's foreign and domestic debt: No nation ever has paid its debts. As I noted above, this means that the real question is not whether or not they will be paid, but how not to pay these debts. How will the game play out - in the political sphere, in popular ideology, and in the courts at home and abroad? The question is whether Iceland will let bankruptcy tear apart its economy slowly, transferring property from debtors to creditors, from Icelandic citizens to foreigners, and from the public domain and national taxing power to the international financial class. Or, will Iceland see where the inherent mathematics of debt are leading, and draw the line? At what point will it say "We won't pay. These debts are immoral, uneconomic and anti-democratic." Do they want to continue the fight by Enlightenment and Progressive Era social democracy, or the alternative - a lapse back into neofeudal debt peonage? This is the choice must be made. And it is largely a question of timing. That's what the financial sector plays for - time enough to transfer as much property as it can into the hands of the banks and other investors. That's what the IMF advises debtor countries to do - except of course for the United States as largest debtor of all. This is the underlying lawless character of today's post-bubble debts. _____ Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. 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) He can be reached at mh at michael-hudson.com http://www.counterpunch.com/hudson04062009.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Mon May 4 11:23:12 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 10:23:12 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [PJH] PMR: 'Waging war after war is the norm' In-Reply-To: <7o7ghn$4cf5r0@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <7o7ghn$4cf5r0@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: <49FF2480.5080600@gmail.com> Todd Boyle wrote: > And the region around the bases is full of proto fascist elements, It's often 'indentured Facism', semi-voluntary 'Good Germans'. That's because the people who live nearby often depend on the bases for a major part of their livelihood, be it auto sales (payment guaranteed by the military with check-offs, or if not paid, official reprimands/court martials for embarrassing the service) or the waitress working at the local restaurant and pizza delivery driver. Unless the base is near a city there is usually no other major source of work in the area. Tacoma is a larger city, but I would assume that much of the employment there is still directly or indirectly related to servicing the military personnel. Leigh From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 4 18:30:04 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 09:30:04 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform Message-ID: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> by Michael Rowbotham Prosperity (January 2002) The interminable squabble between left and right on taxation and spending priorities does not represent the full range of choices. The real political option is embraced by the creation and supply of money by government. This completely opens up the economic options of extra funding, increases the political choice of expenditure and offers the prospect of true welfare. How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for this or that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? In the context of the responsibility of government to create money, the annual budgets in which politicians divide up 'the national cake' are nothing but a preposterous patronising pantomine; a cheap propaganda exercise in debt-money economics, as a result of which workers and businesses and various sectors of the economy are turned against each other, and jealousy and social division are fostered. The current position is that, whilst farmers, factory workers, businessmen, inventors, house builders, teachers and hosts of others work together to make available the wealth of a country, they are not able to exchange the goods and services that they make without borrowing money into existence. They cannot eat, sleep, take shelter or obtain clothing for themselves and their families without borrowing to buy. Despite the fact that the goods are available, and industries are desperate to sell them, the people of our nation are only granted access to the products of their economy if sufficient and increasing numbers of them first go into debt. That this is an outrageous situation is beyond any dispute. To allow this arrangement to continue, indeed to worsen it by embroiling people ever deeper into debt via mortgages, insurance, pensions, forcing single parents back to work, manipulating the education system to support employment, whilst all around us the economy is propelling people into a future they have not chosen and at a pace they cannot handle, is to usher in an era of such instability and tyranny, erected upon falsehood and confusion, that the very future of all civilisation and of life itself must be in serious doubt. It is no exaggeration to claim that the reform of this debt-based monetary supply system is the single most important area of reform confronting us. Reforming the financial system is more important than the war against poverty and starvation, more important than the movement to protect the environment, the struggle against pollution, the peace movement, the fight against drugs and racism, and the battle for social justice and welfare. Financial reform is more important than all these other problems for the simple reason that the current financial system is responsible, both directly and indirectly for causing, or at least exacerbating them. As a result, however fast people try to tackle these various issues separately, the dominating economic background of an exploitative system of wage-dependency ensures that the situation deteriorates faster than the reforms can cope. The Grip of Death, pages 324-325. On this, at least, the IMF had it right. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/mosimprt.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Mon May 4 19:19:18 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 18:19:18 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Did you expect otherwise? Dems leave Gitmo closing $$ AND $$ for diplomatic efforts in Iraq/Afghanistan out of Mill funding bill Message-ID: Salon Wires 24/7 May 4th, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- Amid fears that terror suspects could be brought to the U.S., House Democrats on Monday rebuffed the Obama administration's request for $50 million to relocate prisoners from the detention facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., dropped the request from a $94.2 billion measure funding military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the fall. At the same time, Obey served notice that President Barack Obama's move to boost troop levels and increase the tempo of military operations in Afghanistan had better show results or else he would rethink his support of the effort. The bill, which was released to key lawmakers Monday, registers about $9 billion more than Obama's $84.9 billion request, reflecting additional money for procurement of cargo planes, armored combat vehicles, helicopters and other items. About $3 billion was added above Obama's $7 billion request for foreign aid accounts, including security aid to Israel, funding to help Mexico fight drug cartels, and $100 million to fight AIDS and other diseases in places like Haiti and the Congo. In Full: http://tinyurl.com/dd4pyn ___________________________________________________________ Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software. Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com. From tal1 at cogeco.ca Mon May 4 21:39:34 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 23:39:34 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ed Herman, "shootdowns and international (in)justice, " Z Magazine Message-ID: > > [Z Magazine, May 2009] > > Civilian Plane Shoot-Downs and International (In)Justice; From 007 to > Rwanda > > Edward S. Herman > > It is enlightening and sometimes even amusing to see how the treatment of > the shooting down of civilian planes is politicized, and how in this area, > as in so many others, the media propagandize in the service of the > government's agenda and party line. On the humorous side, consider the > following New York Times editorial statements: On the Soviet shooting down > of Korean Airliner 007 on August 31, 1983: "There is no conceivable > excuse for any nation shooting down a harmless airliner." This is "cold > blooded mass murder," and the editors ask "whether the Kremlin accepts its > responsibility for a minimally decent international order" (ed., "Murder > in the Air," Sept. 2, 1983). On the Israeli shooting down of Libyan > civilian airliner in February 1973: "No useful purpose is served by an > acrimonious debate over the assignment of blame for the downing of a > Libyan airliner on the Sinai peninsula last week" (ed., "After Sinai," > March 1, 1973). On the shooting down of Iranian Airbus 655 by the USS > Vincennes in the Persian Gulf in July 1988, the New York Times editors > found that in this case, "while horrifying, it was nonetheless an > accident. On present evidence [i.e., on the claims in the immediate > official account], it's hard to see what the navy could have done to avoid > it" (ed., "In Captain Rogers Shoes," NYT, July 5, 1988). > > Now in fact the Soviets didn't know that 007 was a civilian airliner, a > point that the Reagan administration quickly learned from pilot tape > exchanges, but suppressed; but it took almost five years for the Times > editors to admit this as "The Lie That Wasn't Shot Down" (ed., June 18, > 1988). The Times itself didn't learn this by its own investigative effort, > but based on somebody else's use of the FOIA. So they had quickly > denounced the Soviets based on a lie that they themselves failed to > uncover; whereas in the case of the Israeli shoot-down of a Libyan > civilian airliner, it was recognized from the beginning that the Israelis > knowingly shot down a civilian plane, but this didn't bother the editors > at all-in this case no "barbarism" or "cold-blooded murder," but rather > apologetics for cold-blooded murder. > > In the case of the Iranian airbus shoot-down, here too, in the editorial > cited above the editors' biases approach the humorous: the official > account is unquestioned; the editors fail to note that the USS Vincennes > was in the Persian Gulf to assist our ally Saddam Hussein in his war > against Iran, and they make poor Saddam the victim in this war, not the > aggressor (they speak of "Iran's futile eight year war with Iraq"). For > many years the Times failed to mention the fact that David Carlson, the > commander of a nearby US warship, published a letter in the U.S. Naval > Institute's Proceedings of September 1989 on "The Vincennes Incident," > which claimed that the Iranian plane had been in it's proper flight > corridor, that Iranian behavior in the area "was pointedly > nonthreatening," and that Captain Rogers had a reputation as aggressive > and the Vincennes as a "Robo-Cruiser." The Times did have a news article > reporting on the hero's greeting that Captain Rogers received on his > return to San Diego (Robert Reinhold, "Crew of Cruiser That Downed Iranian > Airliner Gets a Warm Homecoming," NYT, Oct. 25, 1988), but never had an > editorial comment on this, nor on his receipt of a Legion of Merit reward > for his "exceptionally meritorious conduct." Imagine what the paper would > have said if the pilot who shot down 007 had received similar treatment in > the Soviet Union. > > It might be argued that this was all editorial opinion, and did not > necessarily impact news. But this would be quite wrong. The failure to > uncover the "lie that was not shot down" or to report David Carlson's > comments on Captain Rogers and his action were first class news failures. > The variation in intensity of coverage was also closely correlated with > editorial bias. The New York Times had 147 articles, covering 2,789 column > inches on the 007 case in the month of September 1983 alone. For ten > consecutive days the paper had a special section devoted to the case. And > with all this coverage it succeeded in suppressing a great deal of > relevant context and critical opinion. By contrast, the shooting down of > the Libyan plane by Israel in 1973 and the Iranian airbus in July 1988 > received much more muted coverage, and no special sections were devoted to > the shoot-downs. Coverage escalated with the shooting down of Pan Am 103 > over Lockerbie in December 1988, just six months after the destruction of > the Iranian airliner. > > Plane Shoot-downs and (In)Justice > > Plane shoot-downs by the United States or one of its clients seem never to > result in punishment for the villains or justice to the victims. But when > the United States or one of its clients is the victim, punishment and some > kind of "justice" is often forthcoming. Thus, in the case of Israel's > shooting down of the Libyan airliner in 1973, no Israeli was punished or > even threatened, and in fact the Israeli Prime Minister was welcomed in > Washington only a week after this shoot-down, and without the intrusion of > painful questions. On the other hand, after the 007 shoot-down, in > addition to the widespread publicity and denunciations of this "barbaric > act," a boycott of Soviet airflights was organized by at least 16 > countries, Soviet officials desirous of attending UN meetings were > harassed, and there was a marked cooling of relations between the Soviet > Union and the United States and its allies. > > Similarly, while the United States suffered no penalty whatsoever for > shooting down Iranian airliner 655, and the responsible Rambo captain of > the Vincennes was greeted as a hero and given a medal of honor for his > outstanding service, there was serious action carried out by the > "international community" against the alleged organizers and participants > in the shooting down of Pan Am 103. There was naturally a suspicion that > the destruction of Pan Am 103 was Iran-based, given what the United > States had done to Airbus 655, and there was soon a consensus of > investigators that the act had been carried out by a noted terrorist > group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command > (PFLP-GC), led by Ahmed Jibril. This group had cells in West Germany, had > used bombs such as that employed on Pan Am 103, and airport security in > Frankfurt was lax. The working hypothesis of an Iranian involvement was > supported further by a claim by Western security officials that Iran had > offered a $10 million reward for a retaliatory act. > > But then, as relations with Saddam Hussein deteriorated in 1989 and 1990, > and the United States sought better relations with Syria and Iran in the > run-up to the first Persian Gulf War, Western officials quietly abandoned > the Syria-Iran connection, followed by a fairly rapid shift from > "definitive" proof of PFLP-Syrian-Iranian involvement to "definitive" > proof that it was a Libyan act. As Paul Foot noted, "The evidence > against the PFLP which had been so carefully put together and was so > immensely impressive was quietly but firmly junked" ("Lockerbie: The > Flight From Justice," Private Eye, May/June 2001, p. 10). Libya provided a > suitable new culprit, as it was already on the U.S.-UK hit list and had > been subjected to a series of efforts at "regime change," a hostility > based on its independence, support of the Palestinians and other > dissident forces (including the ANC and Mandela in their resistance to > apartheid South Africa), as well as occasional support of anti-Western > terrorists. So Libya it was. > > The Libyan connection lasted in pristine condition from 1990 into 2007, > during which time Libya was subjected to intensive vilification, costly > sanctions imposed by the Security Council, and a highly publicized trial > in the Netherlands that resulted in the conviction of a Libyan national > for the Lockerbie murders, with further bad publicity for Libya and > Kaddafi, and a payment of several billion dollars in victim compensation > that Libya felt compelled to provide (although still denying any > involvement in the shoot-down). All this despite the fact that many > experts and observers, including some victim family members, felt that the > trial was a political event and a judicial farce that yielded an > unwarranted and unjust conviction. (For details and analysis, see John > Ashton and Jan Ferguson, Cover-Up of Convenience [Mainstream: 2001]; Neil > Mackay, "UN Claims Lockerbie Trial Rigged": Sunday Herald [Scotland], > April 8, 2001: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-01.htm; Edward > Herman,"Lockerbie and the New World Order Rule of Injustice," Z Magazine, > Dec. 2001: http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/12789 .) > > UN observer Hans Kochler called it "a spectacular miscarriage of > justice;" Robert Black, a Scottish legal authority on the case, spoke of > "an astonishing miscarriage of justice." This belief in the injustice of > the court decision was greatly strengthened in June 2007 when a Scottish > Criminal Cases Review Commission issued a decision that found the 2001 > trial and decision flawed and opened the way for a fresh appeal for the > convicted Libyan. If this decision is validated, the world will be left > without a party responsible for the Pan Am-103 bombing, but with the > strong likelihood that attention will be refocused on the PFLP and its > sponsors, Syria and Iran. Is it not an amazing coincidence that this > second turnaround occurs as Libya becomes more acceptable to the United > States and its allies and these Western powers are now retargeting Syria > and Iran? > > But is it not equally interesting that with the United States a victim the > alleged perpetrator can be subjected to multi-year abuse, costly > sanctions, billions in expenses, and court actions against it that can > never be mobilized against the United States and its clients for similar > or analogous shoot-downs? Enemy shoot-downs are barbarism, U.S. and client > state shoot-downs are at most "tragic errors." > > It is also revealing that the individual victim in the Pan-Am 103 case, > Abdel Basset Al al-Megrahi, almost surely innocent, and suffering from a > terminal case of cancer, remains imprisoned and cannot obtain release via > bail, early pardon, or based on medical or humanitarian considerations. > This is reminiscent of the ICTY's treatment of Milosevic, who could not > get urgent medical treatment in Moscow even with a Russian guarantee of > return (he died two weeks after the denial). It contrasts with the ICTY's > permission of the indicted Kosovo Albanian war criminal and > hands-on-killer Ramush Haradinaj to leave the Hague in 2005 in order to > engage in a political campaign in Kosovo. Haradinaj was also eventually > exonerated by the ICTY, helped along by the unexpected deaths of two > witnesses, but based more fundamentally on structured ICTY bias. In short, > there is a stream of evidence that international (in)justice is a function > of power and affiliation. > > Rwanda and the 1994 Shoot-down-Assassination by Our Man (Kagame) > > On April 6, 1994, a plane was shot-down as it approached Kigali airport, > killing the presidents of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana and of Burundi, > Cyprien Ntaryamira. This was followed by the mass killings, the "Rwanda > genocide," and a closely paralleling conflict between the Rwandan army > associated with the Hutu dominant government of the murdered president > Habyarimana and the rebel forces of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) led > by Paul Kagame. This assassination and war were the culmination of years > of conflict that began with the invasion of Rwanda by elements of the > Ugandan army in October 1990. Paul Kagame, who had been Uganda's head of > military intelligence, led the 1990 incursion, and his Ugandan forces, > most of them Ugandan citizens and Tutsis, many earlier exiled from Rwanda, > broke off from the Ugandan army and became the patriotic RPF. > > This invasion, and the further warfare, ethnic cleansing, and political > and military penetration into Rwanda, was supported by the United > States-Kagame had actually trained at Fort Leavenworth-and Kagame's and > the RPF's advances and successes were very much a result of this > superpower backing, which flowed into support for the RPF by Kofi Annan > and the UN, the IMF and World Bank, and Britain and Belgium (in this > process the United States was deliberately displacing the French from > Central Africa, just as it had displaced Britain in the Middle East). It > also meant support of the RPF by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other > supposed human rights groups. > > Given U.S. support, the invasion of Rwanda by Uganda in 1990 was never an > issue at the UN, just as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Israel's > invasion of Lebanon in 2006 were not issues-in contrast with Iraq's > invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, which elicited immediate UN > condemnation and responsive action. It was also never an issue for HRW, > which focused on alleged human rights violations by the government under > attack from Uganda and being subjected to serious RPF-based and > U.S.-backed subversion from within. > > A problem for Kagame and his U.S. supporters was that Tutsis were only > some 15 percent of the Rwanda population, and large numbers of Hutus were > extremely hostile to the RPF, as the RPF's invasion and ethnic cleansing > in northern Rwanda, and ethnic cleansing by Tutsi forces in Burundi, had > created a huge refugee population. Thus there was no chance that Kagame > and the RPF could win a free election, which had been scheduled under a > 1993 accord for 1995. Power could be won only by a violent RPF takeover. > Is it not remarkable that this power was won by Kagame in just three > months time in 1994, by violence, thus precluding the need for any free > election? Isn't it amazing that he and his Tutsi army and supporters won > such a decisive victory in the face of an alleged "genocide" being carried > out by the losers? Isn't it amazing that all serious evidence points to > more Hutus than Tutsis being killed during this high killing period? > > Isn't it remarkable that following this Kagame victory he and Uganda's > Musevemi (another U.S. prot?g?) have repeatedly invaded the Congo, > stealing and helping others steal in a resource rich area, killing vast > numbers, but again with no impediment on the part of the United States or > "international community"? (For details on these matters, Robin Philpot, > Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard (E-Text as posted to the Taylor Report > Website, 2004 > (http://www.taylor-report.com/Rwanda_1994/)); > Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, The Politics of Genocide (Monthly > Review Press, forthcoming); and Keith Harmon Snow, "Hotel Rwanda: > Hollywood and the Holocaust in Central Africa," November 1, 2007 > (http://www.allthingspass.com/journalism.php?catid=47). > > This brings me back to the plane shoot-down of April 6, 1996. Again, the > convenience of these de facto assassinations for Kagame and the RPF, and > its U.S.-UK-Belgian supporters, was noteworthy and remarkable. It > precipitated the mass killing that followed over the next several months. > In the U.S. mainstream, this was blamed on the Hutus and Hutu government > and paramilitaries, but there are acute problems: It was the Hutu > head-of-state that was killed, and therefore hardly his doing. It was the > RPF that won the ensuing conflict in little more than three months, again > remarkable if the assassination and aftermath violence was planned by the > Hutu government. The United States fought to have UN troops withdrawn from > Rwanda just at the time the supposed genocide by the Hutus was getting > underway in April 1994, which the Hutu government opposed but Kagame > supported. For Samantha Power and other apologists for the standard > model-Hutu aggression and genocide, Kagame as reactive and defensive-the > United States just "stood by." But they had armed Kagame, weakened the > Rwanda government, and were clearing the ground for the planned coup and > takeover by their client. By another remarkable coincidence, just the > previous year Tutsi officers in neighbouring Burundi assassinated their > Hutu head-of-state, Melchior Ndadaye, a development celebrated by the > RPF. > > Still more telling, an investigation of the shoot-down by Michael > Hourigan, an Australian lawyer employed by the International Criminal > Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), reported in 1996 that there was compelling > evidence provided by three RPF participants that the plane had been shot > down by Kagame's RPF forces. When Hourigan gave this information to Louise > Arbour, at that time chief prosecutor for the ICTR, Arbour, after > consulting U.S. officials, closed down the investigation and ordered > Hourigan to destroy his files, on the ground that investigation of this > matter was outside the ICTR's jurisdiction. This was false, as even > Richard Goldstone, the former ICTR prosecutor (and long-time friend of the > U.S. State Department) insisted. Subsequently, in 2003, Carla Del Ponte, a > successor chief prosecutor of the ICTR, proposed a new investigation of > this key 1994 assassination. But she couldn't persuade Kofi Annan to > support her and was soon removed from her position. > > Although this assassination precipitated a celebrated genocide, no > Security Council investigation and action has been taken over the ensuing > 15 years. This April 1994 event was, as Richard Goldstone stated, "the > trigger that started the genocide." But if the "trigger" was pulled by Our > Man Kagame, the entire scenario of a Hutu-planned and implemented > genocide is called into question. It follows that given U.S. power, with > people in service to that power like Louise Arbour and Kofi Annan (et > al.), and with the mass media and human rights intellectuals bamboozled > and/or following the flag, any attempts to investigate this shoot-down are > quashed, and it will not produce any UN Tribunal such as the one just > begun in The Hague to deal with the 2005 assassination of the Lebanese > leader Rafik al-Hariri. > > The rule remains firm: Impunity for the crimes of the United States and > its agents and clients; U.S. and client targets available for > investigations, trials and punishment in accord with the rule of a > politicized system of international (in)justice. > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 5 07:15:49 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 22:15:49 +0900 Subject: [A-List] This Side of Thunderdome Message-ID: <4A003C05.7050102@ashisuto.co.jp> The Archdruid Report (April 30 2009) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society If you want to make the gods laugh, an old proverb suggests, tell them your plans. The three years since I first started posting these essays online make a tolerably good case for that claim. When I launched The Archdruid Report three years ago, I had no great expectations for the project, and I certainly never expected to end up facing the business end of a video camera on a Los Angeles sound stage, talking about Mad Max. Still, that's exactly where I was yesterday, doing my peak oil talking head routine while the camera rolled and the time I usually spend writing my weekly post here went elsewhere (which is why this post is a day later than usual). Warner Home Video is gearing up for a thirtieth anniversary DVD rerelease of Mad Max {1}, with the usual assortment of bonus tracks, and one of the bonuses will be a documentary feature looking at the dystopian future portrayed in the Mad Max movies. When the producers started looking for - what do you call experts on dismal visions of the future? Doomologists? - my name came up; the result, after a flurry of emails, was a quick flight down to Los Angeles. It's popular these days to despise Los Angeles, and certainly there's a lot about it to dislike; the gray smoky soup that passes for air comes to mind, not to mention the relentless rush and clamor of seven million people or so crammed into a modestly sized coastal valley between the desert and the deep blue sea. Still, I have a grudging fondness for the place. Though it often seems as though every single one of those seven million people are there for one purpose - to make a fast buck or, rather, as many fast bucks as possible - it's almost refreshing to see that fact so nakedly on display, free of the bulky garments of hypocrisy that so often bundle them up elsewhere. It's also not too hard, while strolling along Promenade Park in Santa Monica or peering through the smog at the harsh brown slopes of the mountains all around, to glimpse what the area was like before it became Exhibit A in any study of metastatic urban sprawl. Nor is it too hard to imagine what the same region will be like a few centuries from now, when the inevitable dieoff is a matter of fading memory and salvage from all that sprawl will most likely be the economic mainstay of the small population that remains. If you want to talk about apocalyptic futures, in other words, greater Los Angeles is not a bad place to do it. Nor is it an inappropriate place to talk about the way that our collective imagination of the future is shaped by the most unlikely influences. If you asked people to put together lists of believable sources for visions of the future, low-budget action films would probably not appear very often. Yet Mad Max and its two sequels have had an extraordinary impact on the contemporary imagination. Suggest that the near future will look like the settings of Zardoz {2} or Logan's Run {3}, to name two other dystopian-future films of the same decade, and you'll likely get blank looks from those who've forgotten the movies in question, and horse laughs from those who do. By contrast, if you suggest that we're likely headed toward a "Mad Max future", you can be tolerably sure that everyone present will understand what you are saying, and at least a few of them will agree with you. Now of course this is partly because the story lines of Mad Max and its sequels are old hat to anybody who hasn't been hiding under a rock for the last four decades or so. Mad Max is simply another 1970s good-cop-gone-rogue action film set in a vaguely defined future instead of the present; the title character is a member of an elite highway patrol whose running fight with a motorcycle gang ends up costing his wife and son their lives, sending him on a quest for vengeance. The Road Warrior maps the plot of a thousand and one Westerns - the lone gunslinger seeking redemption by rescuing a community threatened by bandits - onto a more detailed future of social collapse and brutal violence. Even Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, which strayed a little further from this sort of formulaic plot, is pieced together from a dozen or so reliable Hollywood themes. As a framework for thinking about the future, a reliance on familiar plot formulas has some severe and predictable problems. Think of the way that the late and unlamented Bush administration based its foreign policy on a storyline that was essentially borrowed from superhero comics. We're the good guys, therefore anything we do to the bad guys is justified; they're the bad guys, therefore their behavior is motivated solely by their own badness, nothing need be done about the abuses they claim to be avenging, and everyone can be expected to cheer when the good guys clobber them. It's a familiar story line. Apply it to war and politics in the real world, though, and it turns into an epic source of failure. The same risk faces attempts to use the formulaic framework of the Mad Max movies in any simplistic way to make sense of the future. Still, certain themes in the movies are at least worth some reflection. The collapse of civilization over the course of the series, in particular, is not a sudden thing. In the first movie, some semblance of government and ordinary society still exists, though both are fraying catastrophically; in the second, civil order has broken down temporarily in a mad scramble for resources; in the third, new social structures with their own laws have begun to emerge, and alternative energy resources have come into their own - I can't think of another attempt to portray a deindustrial future that has achieved the gritty realism of Beyond Thunderdome's Bartertown, with its methane energy economy driven by fermenting pig feces. Nor, I am sorry to say, is the violence central to the film's storyline entirely out of place. My inflight reading on the trips down to Los Angeles and back again was an old favorite, John Morris' The Age of Arthur (2001), the only really comprehensive attempt so far to use the tools of history to make sense of the original context of the Arthurian legend - the collapse, partial recovery, and final defeat of Roman Britain in the fifth century. It's a hefty volume, but worth reading for anyone who hopes to get a sense of what the collapse of a civilization actually looks like. The collapse of social order was a lived reality at that time; Lord Humongous, the hockey-masked leader of the raiders in The Road Warrior, had a close equivalent in the canny Saxon pirate Hengist, who took advantage of civil war among British magnates to ravage Britain and lay the foundations for the later ascendancy of the English; the fragmentary records of that time, with their references to unchecked violence and the collapse of civilized life, find ample confirmation from archeologists. What makes so much current talk about a "Mad Max future" problematic, it seems to me, is simply the assumption that this sort of catastrophic unraveling will be a universal experience. This is a little like suggesting that anyone who lived during the twentieth century must have spent time huddling in an air raid shelter or been interned in a concentration camp. In any future we are at all likely to face, the collapse of social order will be a significant fact in some regions, and the raids and mass migrations that swept away most of Roman Britain and built the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy on its ruins will likely have equivalents in certain places; this is the sort of thing that happens when civilizations break down. Other places, however, will follow very different trajectories, because another thing that happens when civilizations break down is that historical events downshift to a more local scale. To borrow Thomas Friedman's metaphor, civilizations flatten out the Earth, but this is a temporary effect; when civilizations decline and fall, roundness returns, and communities once bound into a sprawling whole find themselves cut loose to shape their own histories. It may be possible to anticipate at least some of the regional differences that will take shape as the industrial age comes to an end, and next week's post will suggest some of the issues involved. In the meantime, it might be a useful exercise for those of my readers interested in exploring the subject to sort through their own images of the future, to get some sense of how many of those images come from media of the Mad Max variety, and to compare them with the way some tolerably well documented example of collapse actually occurred - the fall of Roman Britain is only one of many possibilities, though libraries in the English-speaking world tend to be tolerably well stocked with books on that particular example. Though the Mad Max movies went zooming off beyond Thunderdome, most of us will likely end up a good deal this side of it as the industrial age creaks and clatters toward its end. Links {1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max {2} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz {3} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run _____ ?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/2009/04/this-side-of-thunderdome.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon May 4 23:26:10 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 15:26:10 +1000 Subject: [A-List] What's new at Links: Nepal, May Day, Bolivia, capitalism and flu, economic crisis, Malaysia, Vietnam, Europe, Arabic, Thailand Message-ID: <49FFCDF2.30700@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Nepal, May Day, Bolivia, capitalism and flu, economic crisis, Malaysia, Vietnam, Europe, Arabic, Thailand * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism 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/. * * * May Day, 2009: `Advance the socialist alternative!', `Together we shall restore humanity' May 1, 2009 -- Below are a number of messages to mark International Workers' Day -- May Day -- from revolutionary organisations around the world. * Read more Bolivia: Rich countries must pay their `ecological debt' Submission by Republic of Bolivia to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] (AWG-LCA) April 25, 2009 -- We call on developed countries to commit to deep emission reductions in order to advance the objective of avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and its consequences, to reflect their historical responsibility for the causes of climate change, and to respect the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities in accordance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). * Read more Mike Davis: Capitalism and the flu April 27, 2009 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Mike Davis, whose 2006 book The Monster at Our Door warned of the threat of a global bird flu pandemic, explains how globalised agribusiness set the stage for a frightening outbreak of the swine flu in Mexico. * Read more Former elite resists the `New Nepal' STOP PRESS -- Ben Peterson from Kathmandu reports on May 3, 2009, at 3pm: This morning the Maoists in government made the decision to remove General Katawal from his position of chief of army staff after his repeated political insubordination. This follows 10 days of trying to reach consensus with the other political parties, up until a final cross-party meeting this morning. Failing to achieve consenus, the goverment ordered Katawal's retirement. * Read more The political economy of crisis management in the heart of world capitalism By Arindam Sen May 2009 -- Do we see a faint glimmer of light at the -- still distant -- end of the tunnel?... Meanwhile, a great debate of sorts is raging over contradictory strategy options for crisis management, in the process revealing the class conflicts in US society -- both between the bourgeoisie and the working class, and among various sections of the bourgeoisie. * Read more Malaysian socialists' clenched-fist logo approved April 29, 2009 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (Parti Sosialis Malaysia, PSM), having recently won a decade-long battle for recognition from Malaysia's Registrar of Societies, today announced another victory: that its logo has been approved by the Election Commission (EC). * Read more April 30: Vietnam celebrates Liberation Day By Peter Boyle April 30, 2009 -- Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific -- There are two unforgettable images of Vietnam's Liberation Day on April 30, 1975. The first is the image of liberation fighters entering the Independence Palace (now Reunification Palace) in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The second is the hasty evacuation by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy. Thirty-four years later Vietnam will celebrate not just the end of a 16-year war of aggression by the US, Australia and other imperialist and pro-imperialist states but also the end of the two-decade-long economic blockade that was subsequently imposed by the US on this poor and war-ravaged nation. * Read more Scottish Socialist Party: 'Little Britain' politics and the left By Alan McCombes April 24, 2009 -- Voters who want an isolationist Britain will be spoiled for choice in the European elections on June 4th. On the far right, the BNP and UKIP both demand an independent Britain. Left of centre parties that want British withdrawal include Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Parry and the NO2EU Yes To Democracy coalition. While these four parties promote British independence, the Free Scotland Party campaigns for an independent Scotland outside the European Union. What should be the attitude of Scottish socialists towards Europe? Should the left back British separatism? And does the NO2EU Yes To Democracy campaign represent a progressive step forward? * Read more Swine flu and a sick social system: Why the poor die and the rich sniffle April 27, 2009 -- A World to Win News Service -- It is impossible to predict the spread, severity and consequences of the swine flu epidemic that broke out in Mexico. But influenza epidemics have occurred regularly -- with three pandemics (global epidemics) in the 20th century -- and scientists and public health authorities have known for a long time that new pandemics are inevitable. Some possible parameters and paths of development can be scientifically understood, in both the biological and social spheres. There are two separate and mainly independent factors at work. One is the nature and evolution of the disease itself, which is not caused by human activity. Although social factors -- for instance industrial pig farming -- may have played a contributing role in the appearance of this particular disease, human beings didn't invent viruses or human and animal vulnerability to them. * Read more The Flame, April-May 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language supplement With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, Green Left Weekly -- Australia's leading socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular Arabic language supplement. The Flame will cover news from the Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia. The editor-in-chief is Soubhi Iskander, a comrade who has endured years of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the repressive government in Sudan. * Read more Thailand: Why have NGOs sided with the royalists, against democracy and the poor? By Giles Ji Ungpakorn April 27, 2009 -- In the present political crisis in Thailand, it is shocking that most Thai NGOs have disgraced themselves by siding with the ``Yellow Shirt'' elites or have remained silent in the face of the general attack on democracy. It is shocking because NGO activists started out by being on the side of the poor and the oppressed in society. To explain this situation, we must go beyond a simple explanation that relies on personal failings of individuals or suggestions that NGOs have "underlying bad intentions", or that they are "agents of imperialism". * 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 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 13729 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090505/e10a76e6/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 5 19:24:47 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 10:24:47 +0900 Subject: [A-List] How Private, Commercial, National and International Money is Created Message-ID: <4A00E6DF.80400@ashisuto.co.jp> abridged from the works of Michael Rowbotham Prosperity (April 2000) * How banks create money for Private and Commercial needs * How banks create money for National needs * How International or Third-World Debt is created * How Coins and Notes are created * The World Bank * The International Monetary Fund The financial system currently adopted by all nations is often described as "debt based", since the process of going into debt is relied upon almost exclusively to create and supply money to their economies. By the action of lending to borrowers, commercial banks create credit and advance this to industry, consumers and governments. This "bank credit" circulates in the broader economy until such time as the loan is repaid. Such "bank credit" now forms 96% of the money stock in most industrial nations, with a mere four per cent the notes and coins created by government, and free from a parallel debt. Thus, almost the entire money stock is supported in circulation by vast debts in four main sectors ... * Private debts such as mortgages, loans, overdrafts, credit-purchases * Industrial and commercial debts * Government "national" debts * International, including Third World debt The supply of money is a direct product of borrowing, and debt maintains this money in circulation. Modern debt is, in aggregate, quite unrepayable. Furthermore, difficulty is experienced in the repayment of individual debts in all four sectors. (The Drive Behind Globalisation, 1998, pages 3-4) Money is created in each of these four areas ... How Banks Create Money for Private & Commercial Needs If a bank makes a loan, nothing is lent, for the simple reason that there is nothing of substance to lend. The bank makes what it terms a loan against the amount of money deposited with it at that time. This is all done with the utmost ease. The bank has simply to agree that a person may take out a loan of, say, GBP 5,000. The person taking out the loan can then spend GBP 5,000 and hey presto! GBP 5,000 of new number-money has been created. No one with a bank account is sent a letter telling them that the money in their account is temporarily unavailable, because it has been lent to someone else. None of the original accounts in the bank has been touched, reduced or affected. Nobody else's spending power has been reduced, but GBP 5,000 of new spending power has been created; GBP 5,000 of new number-money enters the economy at the stroke of a bank managers pen, but GBP 5,000 of debt has also been created. Thus, whoever takes out the loan will then make purchases and payments to other people, who will pay that new money into their bank accounts. Result: more bank deposits! As soon as the loan in the example above is spent, GBP 5,000 will find its way into the bank account of a car dealer or DIY store; GBP 5,000 of apparently new money. This is money which has supposedly been loaned but the banking system doesn't distinguish this fact. It simply registers a new deposit, and regards it as new money. Total deposits in the banking system have therefore increased by GBP 5,000. This is the boomerang effect of a bank loan by which a loan rapidly creates an equivalent amount of new bank deposits in the banking system. This effect was neatly summarised in a statement by Graham Towers, former Governor of the Central Bank of Canada ... "Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created - new deposits - brand new money". The new money will provide the banking system with the collateral for more lending. This is the bolstering effect of a bank loan. As the total money held by banks and building societies becomes swollen by loans returning as new deposits this provides them with the basis for further loans. Perhaps the best description of this process of money creation was provided by H D Macleod : "When it is said that a great London joint stock bank has perhaps GBP 50,000,000 of deposits, it is almost universally believed that it has GBP 50,000,000 of actual money to lend out as it is erroneously called ... It is a complete and utter delusion. These deposits are not deposits in cash at all, they are nothing but an enormous superstructure of credit". (The Grip of Death, Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998, pages 11-13) How Banks Create Money for National Needs A country's national debt is completely separate from, and additional to, the level of private and commercial debt directly associated with the money supply. The United Kingdom national debt in 1998 stands at approximately GBP 380 billion. If the private and commercial debt of GBP 780 billion and the national debt are added together, the total indebtedness associated with the UK financial system stands at some GBP 1160 billion, which dwarfs the total money stock of GBP 640 billion! How did this condition of overall negative equity come about? This excessive indebtedness - which is a blatant misrepresentation of the real state of economic wealth enjoyed by the nation - is a position shared by all the developed nations. The national debt is actually composed of thousands of pieces of paper called stocks, bonds and treasury bills. These stocks and bills, known as gilt-edged securities, or gilts, are essentially elaborate forms of government IOU. These IOUs are issued because each year the government fails to collect enough in taxes to cover the costs of its public services and other spending - and it borrows money to cover this shortfall. All government budgets overshoot by many billions of pounds, dollars or deutschmarks annually. This leads to what is called the borrowing requirement for that budget year. A country's national debt is therefore the total still outstanding on all past years' borrowing requirements; thus the UK national debt consists of GBP 380 billion of these gilt edged IOUs, in the form of outstanding treasury bills and stocks. The method of issuing these IOUs and administering the national debt is quite simple. In order to obtain money to cover its annual spending shortfall, an appropriate number of government stocks and bills are drawn up by the Treasury. These are then sold, in fact they are auctioned off in the money markets to the highest bidder. This is done throughout the year to meet the shortage of revenue as it arises, and the announcements, in the form of government advertisements, can be seen regularly in the financial press. These stocks and bills are bought because they promise to repay a larger sum of money at some future date, and are sold at a price that promises a good return to whoever buys them. They are usually denominated in considerable sums of GBP 1,000 or more per bond and are bought by insurance companies, pension funds, banks and trust funds ... anywhere that money accumulates as savings. By selling these stocks, the government obtains the additional money it needs for the public sector, making up the annual shortfall in what it can gather by taxation. As these government stocks mature and become due for payment, the government has to find the money promised on those stocks, and pay it to the financial institutions that bought them. But governments are unable to pay this money owing on their past stock issues. Indeed, each government is confronted by the current year's annual shortfall in taxation receipts. The whole reason for the government issuing stock in the first place was because it could not cover its expenditure through taxation, and this annual shortfall is constant. There is no way a government can pay the money it owes. How then can the government pay up on its maturing stock? It has underwritten promises it cannot keep. What happens is that the government obtains the money to meet the payments due on maturing national debt stocks by selling more government stock to the financial institutions - promising even more money in the future. The government draws up enough new stock to cover the repayments due on the old stock, sells this, and uses the money to pay off the old stock. Of course, when this new stock matures it too has to be paid off from the sale of yet more stock. The government manages to pay off the national debt, and not pay it, at one and the same time ... There is a pretence that this is not the true arrangement, since repayment of national debt stocks is actually accounted as coming from taxation, not from the sale of more bonds. But this repayment from taxation creates such a massive shortage in government revenues that can only be made up by the sale of more bonds so the net effect is that repayment is constantly deferred by the sale of further government bonds. This is what is referred to as interest on the national debt although it is not really interest in the conventional banking sense, but a constant rescheduling of a completely un-repayable debt. This deferral is not, however, the end of the story ... At the same time as deferring and re-mortgaging the existing level of national debt, the government has to sell yet more stock to cover the amount by which taxation falls below what is needed to support its public services. The national debt therefore escalates, increasing by the amount required to re-mortgage the past national debt, plus the shortfall in revenues to fund the public sector. In 1960, the UK national debt was GBP 26 billion; by 1980 it had risen to GBP 90 billion. The national debt in 1998 stands at nearly GBP 380 billion, and is likely to reach a trillion pounds within the next twenty to 25 years. In America, the national debt in 1960 stood at $240 billion; by 1997 it had reached the level of $5,000 billion, or $5 trillion! It should also be remembered that the money held by pension funds and insurance companies, or whoever buys the government stocks, is money that had to be borrowed into existence in the first place. In other words, by this process, governments borrow money which has already been borrowed into existence, and they thus create a second massive institutional debt in respect of money which already has a debt behind it! Adding the national debt to the total of private debt places a country and its people in a position of overall negative equity, owing far more on paper than the amount of money that exists in the economy. (The Grip of Death, pages 96-98) So, in summary: Governments draw up official treasury bonds, and these are auctioned on the money markets. The bonds are bought by both the banking and non-banking sectors. When the non-banking sector (pension and insurance funds et cetera) purchases the bonds, saved monies are recycled into the economy through government spending. When the banking sector buys government bonds, banks and lending institutions create credit: There is an increase in the money stock. This money is spent into the economy through government spending. (Creative Accountancy, 1998, page 29) How Coins and Notes are Created The significant point about coins and notes money created by the government is that this money is created debt-free, and spent into the economy by the government. This is a vital consideration, and it is therefore important to appreciate precisely how this injection of debt-free money is managed. Coins and notes are minted and printed by the government at no cost, apart from that of materials. Of course, governments have no particular need of these coins and notes; banks are the institutions requiring a supply of cash. The government therefore sells the coins and notes that it creates to banks, who pay by cheque, and the government acquires the face value of those coins and notes in number-money. The sum of money which the government obtains, and which is debt-free so far as the government is concerned, is then added to whatever taxation revenue has been raised to fund the public sector. Thus, coins and notes are created by the government, and an amount equivalent to the face value of those coins and notes is spent into the economy as a direct, debt-free input. (The Grip of Death, page 14) How International or Third-World Debt is Created The financial position of even the wealthiest nations is one of acute financial pressure, with massive private and national debt, and budgetary difficulty dominating the economy. How can the wealthy nations, from a position of such perpetual monetary shortage and insolvency, lend money to the developing nations? The answer is that they do not. The money advanced to Third World nations is not money loaned from the wealthy nations. These sums consist almost entirely of monies that have been created, via the commercial banking mechanism, specifically for the purpose of the loan concerned. In other words, the same debt-based, banking process used to supply money to national economies is also employed for the creation and supply of funds to debtor nations. Thus, these monies are not owed by debtor countries to the developed nations, but to private, commercial banks. The World Bank Holding only a nominal reserve contributed by the wealthy members, the World Bank raises large quantities of money by drawing up bonds and selling these to commercial banks on the money markets of the world. Thus, the World Bank does not itself create the money it advances to Third World nations, but sells bonds to commercial banks which, in purchasing these bonds, create money for the purpose. The World Bank therefore functions along the lines of a country's national debt. Just as with the government bonds of a country's national debt, when a commercial bank makes a purchase of World Bank money-bonds, the commercial bank creates additional bank credit. In essence, the World Bank acts as broker for commercial banks, who are the actual money-creation agents and who hold World Bank bonds in lieu of monies they create in parallel with debts registered against Third World nations. Although these loans may be denominated in pounds, dollars or Francs, such loans advanced under the World Bank have no connection with respective national economies, and in no sense represent monies loaned by these nations, nor debts owed to them by developing nations. The debts are owed to private, commercial banks (via the World Bank) in respect of money they have created through the purchase of debt bonds. The International Monetary Fund The IMF presents itself as a financial pool an international reserve of money, built up with contributions, known as quotas, from subscribing nations - that is, most nations of the world. However, credit creation accompanies almost every aspect of IMF funding ... Twenty-five percent of each nation's IMF quota is paid in the form of gold, the remainder in the nation's own currency. The 25% gold quota is the only component of IMF lending capacity that does not, in some way, constitute additional money created in parallel with debt. The 75% of a nation's quota payable in national currency is invariably funded by the government concerned through the sale of bonds, thus adding to that nation's national debt. Therefore the IMF, whilst not itself creating credit, places monetary demands on member countries for quotas that can only be funded via each country's national deficit. This involves the sale of government bonds to commercial banks, leading to money creation by those banks. This source of revenue forms the main fund of IMF monies available to developing nations. Since the monetary demands on the IMF are constantly increasing, due to rising demand for Third World loans, the quota demands by the IMF have reached the point where (so-called) creditor nations such as America and Britain are reluctant to undertake yet more bond issues and further national debt to supply these funds. So, in recent years the IMF has begun to circumvent the restrictions of its overall quota. By co-operating directly with commercial banks to organise more substantial loans than it can fund from its own quota resources, the IMF administers loan packages made up in part from its own quotas and in part from commercial sources. For example, of the $56 billion loan advanced under the IMF to South Korea in the wake of the Asian crisis, only $20 billion was contributed by the Fund; the remaining $36 billion was arranged by direct co-operation with international commercial banks, which created money for the purpose. The total funds of the IMF were substantially increased and its function and status as a money-creation agency clarified when, in 1979, the IMF instituted Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). These SDRs were created, and intended to serve, as an additional international currency. Although these SDRs are credited to each nation's account with the IMF, if a nation borrows these SDRs (defined in dollars) it must repay this amount, or pay interest on the loan. Whilst SDRs are described as amounts credited to a nation, no money or credit of any kind is put into nations accounts. SDRs are actually a credit-facility just like a bank overdraft; if they are borrowed, they must be repaid. Thus, the IMF is now creating and issuing money in the form of a new international currency, created in parallel with debt, under a system essentially the same as that of a bank ... the IMF reserve being the original pool of quota funds. In summary, of the $2,200 billion currently outstanding as Third World or developing country debt, the vast majority represents money created by commercial banks in parallel with debt. In no sense do the loans advanced by the World Bank and IMF constitute monies owed to the creditor nations of the World Bank and IMF. The World Bank co-operates directly with commercial banks in the creation and supply of money in parallel with debt. The IMF also negotiates directly with commercial banks to arrange combined IMF/commercial loan packages. As for those sums loaned by the IMF from the total quotas supplied by member nations, these sums also do not constitute monies owed to 'creditor' nations. The monies subscribed as quotas were initially created by commercial banks through the agency of national debts. Therefore both the contributing nation and the borrowing Third World nation carry a burden of debt associated with these sums. Both quotas and loans are owed, ultimately, to commercial banks. (The Invalidity of Third World Debt, 1998, pages 14-17) Also see article here for how Third World debt can be cancelled: http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/cantwd.php _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/moneymake.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From barmy_basket at yahoo.es Wed May 6 04:13:27 2009 From: barmy_basket at yahoo.es (peripatetic) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 12:13:27 +0200 Subject: [A-List] The Worst Case Scenario (Someone Has to Say It) In-Reply-To: <4A003C05.7050102@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A003C05.7050102@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <4A0162C7.3000801@yahoo.es> This is also the most likely scenario in my view. Excerpt: "...In the interests of providing you with an alternate vision?something outside the mainstream?below are ten predictions for America through the year 2012. This is not boilerplate doom-saying. Rather, I am laying out in highly specific terms what will happen over the next three-odd years. Others have thrown around the term ?Depression?, but I am going to tell you precisely what it means for you, your investments, and your community. When these predictions come true, I expect to be rewarded with a seven-figure consulting gig, a book contract, or a high-level position in whatever administration succeeds the doomed Obama team?that is, if anyone succeeds it at all. Prediction one. The twenty-five-year equities bubble pops in 2009. U.S. and foreign equities markets will stop treading water and realign with economic reality. Stock prices will cease to reflect the ?greater fool? mentality and will return to being a function of dividend yields, which have long been miserable. The S&P 500 will sink below 500. In a bid to stem the panic, the government will enforce periodic ?stock market holidays?, and will vastly expand the scope of its short-selling prohibitions?eventually banning short-selling altogether. Prediction two. With public pension systems and tens of millions of 401k holders virtually wiped out?and with the Baby Boomers retiring en masse?there will be tremendous pressure on the government to get into the stock market in order to bid up prices. Therefore, sometime in 2010, the Federal Reserve will create and loan out hundreds of billions of fresh dollars to the usual well-connected suspects, instructing them to buy up stocks on the public?s behalf. This scheme will have a fancy but meaningless name?something like the ?Taxpayer Assurance Equities Facility?. It will have no effect other than to serve as buyer of last resort for capitulating smart-money types who want to get out of stocks entirely. Prediction three. Millions of new retirees?including white-collar people with high expectations for a Golden Retirement?will be left virtually penniless. Thousands will starve or freeze to death in their own homes. Hundreds of thousands will find themselves evicted and homeless, or will have to move in with their less-than-enthusiastic children. Already strained by the rising tide of the working-age unemployed, state and local welfare services will be overwhelmed, and by 2012 will have largely collapsed and ceased to function in many parts of the country. Prediction four. ?Quantitative easing? will fail to restart previous patterns of lending and consumption. As the government sends out additional ?rebate? checks and takes ever-more drastic measures to force banks to lend, hyperinflation could take hold. However, comprehensive debt relief via a devaluation of the dollar is even more likely. This would entail the government issuing one ?new? dollar for some greater number of ?old? dollars?thus reducing both debts and savings simultaneously. This would make for a clean slate a la Fight Club. As there are many more debtors than savers in the U.S., the vast majority would support devaluation. The Chinese and other foreign holders of our bonds would be screaming mad, but unable to do anything. Every country that has not found a way out of dollar-denominated reserve assets by 2012 will see its reserves eliminated. Prediction five. The government will stop pretending that it can finance continuous multi-trillion-dollar deficits on the private market. By late 2010, the sole buyers of new U.S. Treasury and agency bonds will be the Federal Reserve and a few derelict financial institutions under government control. This may or may not lead to hyperinflation. (See prediction four). Prediction six. As the need for financial industry paper-pushers declines and people have less money to spend on lawyers and Starbucks (SBUX), unemployment will rise until the private sector has eliminated all of its excess capacity and superfluous or socially needless jobs. The government?s narrow unemployment figure (U3) will rise into the high teens by late 2010. The government?s broader unemployment figure (U6) will cease to be reported when it reaches 25 percent?it will simply be too embarrassing. Ultimately, one in three work-eligible Americans will be unemployed, underemployed, or never-employed (e.g. college grads permanently unable to find suitable work). Prediction seven. With their pension dreams squashed, and their salaries frozen or cut, police and other local government workers will turn to wholesale corruption in order to survive. America?s ideal of honest, courteous, and impartial cops, teachers, and small-time local functionaries will have come to an end. Prediction eight. Commercial overcapacity will strike with a vengeance. By 2012, thousands of enclosed malls, strip malls, unfinished residential developments, motels, truck stops, distribution centers, middle-of-nowhere resorts and casinos, and small-city airports across America will turn into dilapidated, unwanted, and dangerous ghost towns. With no economic incentive for their maintenance or repair, they will crumble into overgrown, plywood-and-sheet-rock ruins. Prediction nine. By the end of 2010, tens of millions of households will have fallen behind on their mortgages or stopped paying altogether. Many banks will be unable to process the massive volume of foreclosure paperwork, much less actually seize and resell the homes. Devaluation (as mentioned in prediction four) could ease the situation for those mortgage holders still afloat, but it would also eliminate any incentive for most banks to stay in the mortgage business. In any case, the housing market in many parts of the country will lock up completely?nothing bought or sold. With virtually no loans being made, even the government will finally acknowledge that most banks are fundamentally insolvent. A general bank run will only be averted through a roughly one trillion-dollar recapitalization of the FDIC, courtesy of new money from the Federal Reserve. Prediction ten. As an economy is never independent of the society within which it functions, the next few paragraphs will focus on social and political factors. These factors will have as much of an impact on market and consumer confidence as any developments in the financial sector. Whether rightly or not, President Obama, having come to power at the dawn of this crisis, will be blamed for it by over 50 percent of the population. He will be a one-term president. In response to his perceived socialization of America, there will be a swarm of secessionist and extremist activity, much of it violent. Militias and armed sects will be more prominent than in the early 1990s. Stand-off dramas, violent score-settlings, and going-out-with-a-bang attacks by laid-off workers and bankrupted investors?already a national plague?will become an everyday occurrence. For both economic and social reasons, millions of immigrants and guest workers will return to their home countries, taking their assets and skills with them. The flow of skilled immigrants will slow to a trickle. Birth rates will plummet as families struggle with uncertainty and reduced (or no) income. Property crime will explode as citizens bitter over their own shattered dreams attempt to comfort themselves by taking what is not theirs. Mutinies and desertions will proliferate in an increasingly demoralized, over-stretched military, especially when states can no longer provide the educational and other benefits promised to their National Guard troops. There will be widespread tax collection issues, and a huge backlash against Federal and state bureaucrats who demand three-percent annual pay raises while private sector wages remain frozen or worse. In short, the ?Tea Parties? of tomorrow will likely not be so restrained. Finally, between now and 2012, we are likely to see another earth-shaking national embarrassment on the scale of the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. This will demonstrate conclusively to all Americans that their government, even under a savior-figure like Obama, cannot, in fact, save them. By 2012, there will be a general feeling that the nation is in immediate danger of blowing up or coming apart at the seams. This fear will be justified, given that the U.S. has always been held together by the promise of a continuously rising material standard of living?the famous ?pursuit of happiness??rather than any ethnic or religious ties. If that goes, so could everything else. We were lucky in the 1930s?we may not be so lucky again." Read all here http://seekingalpha.com/article/134820-the-worst-case-scenario-someone-has-to-say-it http://webabuser.blogspot.com/ From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 6 05:08:28 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 20:08:28 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Calling American Swine Message-ID: <4A016FAC.7080504@ashisuto.co.jp> by Dmitry Orlov Club Orlov (May 03 2009) A lot of people are panicked by the swine flu (H1N1) that has recently emerged in Mexico and has since spread across the American continent and far beyond. Panicking is a perfectly normal human response to frightening new things, one which we humans share with our relatives the apes and the monkeys. And, just like them, once we are done panicking, we try to find out what it was that had us panicked. Swine flu seems like a flu like any, spread through coughing and sneezing and (my personal favorite) wet kisses. If you catch it, you will develop a high fever, your joints and muscles will ache, and a day or so into it you might develop a dry cough. My friends in Mexico tell me that misting your throat with a weak solution of grapefruit seed extract effectively stops the cough. In three days or so your fever will subside somewhat, and in a week to ten days you will recover. Unless there are complications. It just so happens that, for the next couple of weeks, I will be taking the subway between East Boston and Downtown. It's just a short hop through a harbor tunnel, but at the same time it is a commute between Latin America (on the East Boston side) and New England. I hardly ever hear any English on that train. I would bicycle, but the bike ride is circuitous and very long. Perhaps you'd think that I should consider myself directly in the path of this new contagion, but I probably am not. The carriers are probably mostly tourists and other recent travelers, not the local Latinos. Flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year, mainly because they are not healthy to start with. All those drunken bums I see lolling around the Financial District next to half-empty bottles of Listerine antiseptic mouthwash look really unhealthy, and will probably die of something sometime soon. I would venture a guess that their cause of death will be noted as something other than terminal halitosis. Swine flu seems like an impressive-sounding thing to put down on a death certificate. The actual cause of death will probably be something like "Despair" but that just doesn't sound scientific enough for us. One thing that makes this particular panic interesting is that American public officials are stoking the panic by declaring a state of emergency. (Even our brave Vice President, "Amtrak" Joe Biden, apparently forbid his family to ride public transportation.) There is a simple reason behind these quick declarations of emergency: there is quite a financial drought right now, state budgets are being cut and public workers furloughed. By declaring a state of emergency, public officials gain access to emergency funds. So swine flu is just an excuse for them to vacuum up and spend some loose change. Another thing that's peculiar is that some nations, notably China and Russia, have banned the import of American pork. Many other countries are following their example. The flu is not spread through eating pork, and so banning it is an economic move and a symbolic gesture rather than a medically motivated public safety measure. But the popular appeal of the symbolism is irresistible: here they have a chance to ban American Swine! American Swine come in three main varieties: the Hog, the Bankster, and the Neocon. The Hog is often a public safety menace, because factory farming practices result in large groups of immunocompromised animals confined in conditions that are perfect for incubating new diseases. These practices should be banned, and banning American pork around the world seems like a step in the right direction. The Banksters who have crashed the world financial system through their fraudulent activities should be banned around the world as well. In addition, it would be nice if they were rounded up and herded into capitalist reeducation camps, where, thanks to hard physical labor, daily capitalist indoctrination sessions, and compulsory public self-criticism, they would, over the course of months or years, be reformed into model capitalists, ready to rejoin a free market economy. Perhaps our Chinese friends would be nice enough to send over some advisers, to help us set up these camps. Unlike the Hogs and the Banksters, the Neocons who illegally murdered, imprisoned and tortured countless civilians across the world should be exported - extradited, that is, to stand trial at an international war crimes tribunal. The list is not that long: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales and a few others. All the ones who "were only following orders" are not important enough. The United States government is bound by international treaty to either prosecute or extradite these people. Since prosecution in the US is unlikely to be carried out properly, extradition remains as the only option. President Obama's recent paying of lip service to this being "a nation of laws" is no substitute for action. Of the three varieties of American Swine, the actual pigs seem like the least troublesome, swine flu notwithstanding. We should certainly do all we can to stay healthy, but in the meantime we should stay focused on doing something about the other two varieties of American Swine. http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/04/calling-american-swine.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tboyle at rosehill.net Tue May 5 11:46:00 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 10:46:00 -0700 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) > >...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for this or >that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member banks? Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to the Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is maintained at the point of a gun, really. The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control whose profits and property values explode most, decide who gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened in 2000 and 2004. The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who is payor and payee of every transaction. todd Todd -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4591 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090505/6b589d28/attachment.txt From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Wed May 6 11:20:12 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 13:20:12 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN New Age Psychbabble being swallowed by a few Message-ID: <01f3b031$39939$0d815556916782@xnote> ?NEW AGE? PSYCHOBABBLE BEING SWALLOWED BY A FEW MNN. May 3, 2009. A near death experience can cause tremendous fear and trauma and could overrule a person?s will. Such pressure is part of a colonial strategy to break us down. Most resist. A few give in. The NAFTA Super Highway from Mexico is coming through the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. In June 2009 non-native guards, who have shown hatred for Mohawks, are being handed guns to intimidate and try to exercise absolute power over us in the middle of our community. RCMP, OPP, military and para military agencies are building huge facilities nearby. Cornwall Ontario will be a center for police activity. Nullifying resistance by Mohawks has been a longtime target. Over the last couple of decades a new age ideology has beset Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island. This new age movement is a tool to bring in one world religion for expediency?s sake. It?s a mishmash of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ghandi, Kabbalah, Scientology, crystals, reincarnation, Raelians, channeling, fortune tellers, seers and whatever else can be thrown into the pot. It?s sprinkled with Indigenous philosophy to give it credibility. This new age religion with feathers, beads and buckskins is being made palpable to Indigenous and others. This false ideology is geared to direct the masses into the new age of one world government, one religion and one economic system to be run by war lords and their criminal handlers. People have to be indoctrinated to become obedient and to subdue their reasoning faculties. The Kaianerehkowa, the Great Law of the Indigenous people is opposite to the new age doctrine. Our philosophy is based on a powerful relationship with the natural world. It strengthens our will, which is the watch dog of humanity. Nothing is supposed to enter that can harm, mislead or control us. This is the basis of democracy and can head off fascism. True democracy is equality and everyone has a voice. To disarm the will, drugs, alcohol, hypnosis, incantations, spells, rituals, seances and trances help nullify the ability to say ?no?. Eventually we can lose charge over our ?doorkeeper?, our will, so that another mental process can be inserted inside us. It tells us, ?I am your friend, your spirit guide, your master. Follow me and I can make you immortal?. It is disempowering. An undercurrent is the message, ?I am strong and I can kill you?. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson got the Quakers to help Handsome Lake whose will was overrun by alcoholism and visions. He started a revitalization movement based on these principles to mess up the Rotino?shonni:onwe, Iroquois. Indigenous history and traditions have been cleverly mixed with new age concepts. We are told that other people inhabited Great Turtle Island before us, that some of us are extra terrestrials, that everybody should be vegetarians, that one world government is necessary and that, if we want peace, we shouldn?t be critical. The Raelians say that our human creators from space brought love and peace through a combination of spirituality, sensuality and science. Scientists from another planet created all life on earth using DNA!! The extra-terrestrials will come back to check on us. We are being told to forgive no matter how bad it is. They don?t suggest change. The victims become confused and weak so that all political, economic, social and military levers of power controlling society can be overtaken. During the time of the drug culture, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau brought in new agers to run Indian Affairs in Canada. He had visited eastern mystics for enlightenment. Indigenous organizations were infiltrated. Healers and Elders were trained and sent among us and even among the non-native youth. It died out for a while. After the 1990 Mohawk Oka crisis Indian Affairs set up the Kumik Lodge to train and certify a new slew of healers. It taught Pan-Indian cleansing, healing circles, sweat lodges and confessions. They went into our communities and jails to learn more about us. Today new age covens are being formed in some of our communities. Ceremonies and meetings are frequently held. CDs on universal teachings are watched, studied and distributed. Some followers say they can?t move products or travel unless the stars are in the right place. The adherents call themselves ?universal? persons, humans of another time or reality. Some have given up all their documents like driver?s licenses, birth certificates, Indian cards, medical cards, membership in their community, nation and confederacy. Psyches are being diverted. Their will has been weakened. We don?t know if they are giving up their properties or bank accounts. Background: The new age movement ensnares susceptible people that are attracted by false spirituality, becoming ?ascended masters? and speaking with ?spirit guides?. Critic, Lee Penn, says: ?New age is a pot pourri of beliefs and practices that fall outside of all faiths?. [www.leepenn.org/LP-NewAgeIndex] According to astrology, crystals, weird workshops and psycho babble, the earth will be cleansed of those who refuse to evolve. Traditional morality and families will disappear. See list of big shots in the movement. At Maurice Strong?s Manitou retreat in Colorado, treatment includes everything being taken away from the follower to suck out the core of their being. Under the guise of meditation and sensory deprivation, they are confined into a small space to strip their identity. A low protein diet is part of this. Barbara Hubbard says: ?Your highest spiritual beings are telling you to access to an inner teacher? that through ?initiation? you can transform yourself into an ?ascended master?. Once our bodies, minds and souls are drained dry by free sex and trafficking with the spirit world, we ought to chose to die. In fact, it seems unethical and foolish to live on?. These new age charismatic movements can affect participants in adverse ways. Intensely held religious or quasi-religious beliefs and ideology are imposed on members. They are promised emotional well-being and a sense of direction. They can?t make a free choice to leave the group. They are pressured to recruit new members, break with families and friends and to socialize mainly with the group. On March 28, 1997, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, thirty-nine young men and women of Heaven?s Gate killed themselves. They believed that their human bodies were physical containers that had to be discarded so that their souls could be transported to a new level of being. Their souls were to meet up with a UFO that was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet passing Earth at that time. In their new plane of existence, they would inhabit new bodies and travel through different galaxies. The charismatic leader was an ex-minister who called himself Bo after Bo-peep who shepherded sheep. He was seen as an omnipotent godlike authority that diminished their anxiety, depression and alienation. Members were recruited personally or through the internet. The Kaianerehkowa goes back to the beginning of time when we started thinking. We have our own stories about our origins here on Onowaregeh. We should remain with our own principles. This new age has nothing to do with us. We sent away our younger brothers because of their insane behavior and they came back worse than before. Some of us may drift away for a time from what a true human being is. For most of us, our will is our plan for survival. Everything goes back to our connection with the natural world. Kahentinetha & Karakwine, MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 Biggies in the new age movement: www.leepenn.org/LP-NewAgeIndex: Robert Muller, former Secretary General of the UN; James Parks Morton, Dean of Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine NYC; Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco; William Swing, Rudolph Steiner Foundation, World Goodwill; Lawrence S. Rockfeller, whose fund has financed new agers; Mathew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard; power brokers ArcherDanielsMidland; CNN; Hewlett Packard; Occidental Petroleum; Carnegie Corp.; Kellogg Foundation; Rockfeller Brothers Fund; Georges Berthain, president the Tri Lateral Commission; Desmond Tutu; Gorbachev, Ted Turner; Fredrico Mayer of UNESCO; Maurice Strong and his Manitou Foundation in Colorado, and many other biggies. Manitou Foundation spirit at manitou.org owned and run by Maurice Strong and his wife, Hanne. http://www.manitou.org/ Raelian Movement www.rael.org From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 6 17:26:54 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 08:26:54 +0900 Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt Message-ID: <4A021CBE.3020203@ashisuto.co.jp> by Michael Rowbotham Prosperity (September 2001) >From Goodbye America [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] Whenever Third World debt cancellation is discussed, it is automatically assumed that somebody, somewhere has to suffer a loss. Either banks must cover the losses, taxes must be raised or Western governments must foot the bill. In fact, Third World debts could be cancelled with little or no cost to anyone. Indeed, cancellation would be not only the simplest process imaginable, but to the general advantage of the world economy. All that is involved is a bit of creative accountancy - something at which the West has shown itself highly adept when this has suited its political purpose. To appreciate this, it is essential to recall that the dominant form of money in the modern economy, bank credit, is entirely numerical. It is an abstract entity with no physical existence whatsoever, created in parallel with debt. Debt cancellation is therefore largely a matter of numerical accountancy. This is emphasised by the fact that only one factor prevents the immediate cancellation of all Third World debts - the accountancy rules of commercial banks. Third World debt bonds form part of the assets of commercial banks, and all banks are obliged to maintain parity between their assets and liabilities (deposits). If commercial banks cancel or write off Third World debt bonds, their total assets fall. Under the rules of banking, the banks are then obliged to restore their level of assets to the point where they equal their liabilities, usually by transferring an equivalent sum from their reserves. In other words, when debts are cancelled, normally banks suffer the loss. There are two options for overcoming this accountancy blockage. They involve acknowledging that debt-cancellation is both desirable and possible, and adapting bank accountancy accordingly. The first option is to remove the obligation on banks to maintain parity between assets and liabilities, or, to be more precise, to allow banks to hold reduced levels of assets equivalent to the Third World debt bonds they cancel. Thus, if a commercial bank held $10 billion worth of developing country debt bonds, after cancellation it would be permitted in perpetuity to have a $10 billion dollar deficit in its assets. This is a simple matter of record-keeping. The second option, and in accountancy terms probably the more satisfactory (although it amounts to the same policy), is to cancel the debt bonds, yet permit banks to retain them for purposes of accountancy. The debts would be cancelled so far as the developing nations were concerned, but still valid for the purposes of a bank?s accounts. The bonds would then be held as permanent, non-negotiable assets, at face value [pages 135-136] ? The cancellation of international debts, or their conversion to national debts [see pages 140-143], is the sine qua non if Third World nations are to discover a path away from poverty and decline and towards more socially and culturally benign futures. The acknowledged need is for Third World countries to develop their agricultural and industrial infrastructure for their own domestic consumption and direct less effort towards export-led growth. To the extent that international debts remain, the export imperative remains. The Third World cannot be said to be in material debt to the industrialised nations. The developing nations are in financial debt to international banks. But whilst not actually in material debt to the industrialised nations, because these bank debts are denominated in dollars, they are forced to behave as if they were in debt to the West, seeking a perpetual export surplus [page 145]. Also see article here for how Third World debt is created: http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/moneymake.php _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/cantwd.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 6 17:39:22 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 08:39:22 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives on US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest governments pay on that debt. Bill Todd Boyle wrote: > Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... > >> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >> >> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for >> this or >> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? > > Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. > It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. > The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm > The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at > http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html > > Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements > in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings > in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member banks? > Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to the > Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? > > To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". > > Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they > do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! > But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government > create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). > > His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the > larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create > the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and > export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and > of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value > rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. > The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is > maintained at the point of a gun, really. > > The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be > effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization > and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... > For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 > http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf > > > The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of > the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The > Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) > 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are > whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. > Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member > banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell > does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant > or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This > is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic > liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire > world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, > they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks > on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control > whose profits and property values explode most, decide who > gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money > into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened > in 2000 and 2004. > > The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public > scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. > This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. > Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people > somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, > there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be > able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who > is payor and payee of every transaction. > > todd > > > > Todd From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 6 23:32:11 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 14:32:11 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Anti-Empire Report Message-ID: <4A02725B.2050600@ashisuto.co.jp> by William Blum www.killinghope.org (May 04 2009) Some thoughts about torture. And Mr Obama. Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W Bush said "The United States does not torture", everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said "The United States does not torture" {1}, it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians. When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has "banned torture", this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only "in any armed conflict" {2}. What about in a "counter-terrorism" environment? And the new administration has not categorically banned the outsourcing of torture, such as renditions, the sole purpose of which is to kidnap people and send them to a country to be tortured. Moreover, what do we know of all the CIA secret prisons, the gulag extending from Poland to the island of Diego Garcia? How many of them are still open and abusing and torturing prisoners, keeping them in total isolation and in indefinite detention? Total isolation by itself is torture; not knowing when, if ever, you will be released is torture. And the non-secret prisons? Has Guantanamo ended all its forms of torture? There's reason to doubt that. {3} And what do we know of what's happening now in Abu Ghraib and Bagram? And when Obama says "I don't believe that anybody is above the law", and then acts in precisely the opposite fashion, despite overwhelming evidence of criminal torture - such as the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Bush Justice Department "torture memos" - it's enough to break the heart of any of his fans who possess more than a minimum of intellect and conscience. It should be noted that a Gallup Poll of April 24/25 showed that 66% of Democrats favored an "investigation into harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects". If the word "torture" had been used in the question, the figure would undoubtedly have been higher. Following the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, President Bush went on TV to warn the people of Iraq: "War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, I was just following orders." {4} "Objectively, the American public is much more responsible for the crimes committed in its name than were the people of Germany for the horrors of the Third Reich. We have far more knowledge, and far greater freedom and opportunity to stop our government's criminal behavior," observed James Brooks in the Online Journal in 2007. On February 10, the Obama Justice Department used the Bush administration's much-reviled "state secrets" tactic in a move to have a lawsuit dismissed - filed by five detainees against a subsidiary of Boeing aircraft company for arranging rendition flights which led to their torture. "It was as if last month's inauguration had never occurred", observed the New York Times. {5} And when Obama says, as he does repeatedly, "We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards", why is it that no one in the media asks him what he thinks of the Nuremberg Tribunal looking backwards in 1946? Or the Church Committee of the US Senate doing the same in 1975 and producing numerous revelations about the criminality of the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies that shocked and opened the eyes of the American people and the world? We're now told that Obama and his advisers had recently been fiercely debating the question of what to do about the Bush war criminals, with Obama going one way and then another and then back again, both in private and in his public stands. One might say that he was "tortured". But civilized societies do not debate torture. Why didn't the president just do the obvious? The simplest? The right thing? Or at least do what he really believes. The problem, I'm increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn't really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly and firmly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners' heads filled with stirring cliches, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, as President of the United States, to induce him to change his style? The president and the Director of the CIA both insist that no one at the CIA who was relying on the Justice Department's written legal justification of methods of "enhanced interrogation" should be punished. But the first such approval was dated August 1 2002, while many young men were arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the previous nine months and subjected to "enhanced interrogation". Many were sent to Guantanamo as early as January 2002. And many others were kidnaped and sent to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and other secret prisons to be tortured beginning in late 2001. So, at least for some months, the torturers were not acting under any formal approval of their methods. But they still will not be punished. I love that expression "enhanced interrogation". How did our glorious leaders overlook calling the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki "enhanced explosive devices"? Lord High Dungeon Master Richard Cheney is upset about the recent release of torture memos. He keeps saying that the Obama administration is suppressing documents that show a more positive picture of the effectiveness of interrogation techniques, which he claims produced very valuable information, prevented certain acts of terrorism, and saved American lives. Hmmm, why am I skeptical of this? Oh, I know, because if this is what actually happened and there are documents which genuinely and unambiguously showed such results, the beleaguered Bush administration would have leaked them years ago with great fanfare, and the CIA would not have destroyed numerous videos of the torture sessions. But in any event, that still wouldn't justify torture. Humankind has aspired for centuries to tame its worst behaviors; ridding itself of the affliction of torture has been high on that list. There is more than one United States law now prohibiting torture, including a 1994 law making it a crime for US citizens to commit torture overseas. This was recently invoked to convict the son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. There is also the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, which states in Article 17: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." Thus it was that the United States has not called the prisoners of its War on Terror "prisoners of war". But in 1984, another historic step was taken, by the United Nations, with the drafting of the "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" (came into force in 1987, ratified by the United States in 1994). Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture". Such marvelously clear, unequivocal, and principled language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly difficult for one to feel proud of humanity. We cannot slide back. If today it's deemed acceptable to torture the person who supposedly has the vital "ticking-bomb" information needed to save lives, tomorrow it will be acceptable to torture him to learn the identities of his alleged co-conspirators. Would we allow slavery to resume for just a short while to serve some "national emergency" or some other "higher purpose"? If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room. "I would personally rather die than have anyone tortured to save my life". - Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who lost his job after he publicly condemned the Uzbek regime in 2003 for its systematic use of torture. {6] With all the reports concerning torture under the recent Bush administration, some people may be inclined to think that prior to Bush the United States had very little connection to this awful practice. However, in the period of the 1950s through the 1980s, while the CIA did not usually push the button, turn the switch, or pour the water, the Agency ... * encouraged its clients in the Third World to use torture; * provided the host country the names of the people who wound up as torture victims, in places as bad as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram; * supplied torture equipment; * conducted classes in torture; * distributed torture manuals - how-to books; * was present when torture was taking place, to observe and evaluate how well its students were doing. {7} I could really feel sorry for Barack Obama - for his administration is plagued and handicapped by a major recession not of his making - if he had a vision that was thus being thwarted. But he has no vision - not any kind of systemic remaking of the economy, producing a more equitable and more honest society; nor a world at peace, beginning with ending America's perennial wars; no vision of the fantastic things that could be done with the trillions of dollars that would be saved by putting an end to war without end; nor a vision of a world totally rid of torture; nor an America with national health insurance; nor an environment free of capitalist subversion; nor a campaign to control world population ... he just looks for what will offend the fewest people. He's a "whatever works" kind of guy. And he wants to be president. But what we need and crave is a leader of vision. Another jewel in the crown, Miss Hillary During the presidential campaign much was made of Obama's stated promises to engage in direct talks with Iran, as opposed to the Bush administration's refusal to speak to the Iranians and threatening to attack them and bomb their nuclear facilities. This was one more example of the much-vaunted "change" that Obama was going to bring. But, in actuality, it wouldn't be much of a change. Mid-level American officials did in fact occasionally meet with Iranian officials, most notably after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and in mid-2003 after the US invasion of Iraq. These meeting were always in secret. {8} There were also at least three publicly-announced meetings between the US and Iran in 2007, primarily dealing with the fighting in Iraq. And now that Obama is in power, what do we find? We find his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, testifying April 22 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and stating: "We actually believe that by following the diplomatic path we are on [speaking to Iran], we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and as crippling as we would want it to be". Would it be unfair to say that she's implying that a reason for talks with Iran is that the US could get more international support when it decides to cripple that country? Is crippling a country the United States is at peace with supposed to be part of the "change" in US foreign policy? Is Iran expected to be enthusiastic about such talks? If the talks collapse, will the United States use that as an excuse for bombing Iran? Or will Israel be given the honor? Later in the hearing, Clinton declared: "We are deploying new approaches to the threat posed by Iran". I would love to have been a member of the House committee so I could have had the following exchange with the Secretary of State: Congressman Blum: Do we plan to impose sanctions on France? Secretary Clinton: I don't understand, Congressman. Why would we impose sanctions on France? Congressman Blum: Well, if we impose sanctions on Iran on the mere suspicion of them planning to build nuclear weapons, it seems to me we'd want to impose even stricter sanctions on a country which already possesses such weapons. Secretary Clinton: But France is an ally. Congressman Blum: So let's make Iran an ally. We can start with ending our many sanctions against them and calling off our Israeli attack dogs. Secretary Clinton: But Congressman, Iran is a threat. Surely you don't see France as a threat? What reason would France have to use nuclear weapons against the United States? Congressman Blum: What reason would Iran have to use nuclear weapons against the United States? Other than an irresistible desire for mass national suicide. If Congressman Blum had pursued this line of questioning, it might well have culminated in some Orwellian remark by dear Hillary, such as the one she treated us to a few days later when speaking to reporters in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported it: "Clinton played down the latest burst of violence, telling reporters she saw 'no sign' it would reignite the sectarian warfare that ravaged the country in recent years. She said that the Iraqi government had 'come a long, long way' and that the bombings were 'a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction'." {9} So ... the eruption of violence is a sign of success. In October 2003, President George W Bush, speaking after many resistance attacks in Iraq had occurred, said: "The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react". {10} And here is General Richard B Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking in April 2004 about a rise in insurrection and fighting in Iraq over nearly a two-week period: "'I would characterize what we're seeing right now as a - as more a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq', he said ... explaining that the violence indicated there was something to fight against - American progress in building up Iraq". {11} War is Peace ... Freedom is Slavery ... Ignorance is Strength. I distinctly remember when I first read 1984 (1958) thinking that it was very well done but of course a great exaggeration, sort of like science fiction. Clinton was equally profound on May 1, speaking to an assemblage of State Department employees. Discussing Venezuela and Bolivia, she said that the Bush administration "tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn't work. We are going to see what other approaches might work." Oh ... uh ... how about NOT trying to isolate them, NOT supporting their opposition, NOT trying to turn them into international pariahs? How about the National Endowment for Democracy, the Agency for International Development, and the US Embassy NOT trying to subvert their revolutions? And when she says "It didn't work", one must ask: Work to what end? To return the two countries to their previous condition of client-states? Perhaps like with Nicaragua, about whom the Secretary of State said improving relations was important to counter Iran's growing influence. She noted that "the Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua. You can only imagine what it's for." {12} I can only imagine what Ms Clinton imagines it's for. What is the new American Embassy in Iraq - the biggest embassy in the entire history of the world, in the entire universe - What is that for? Another example of Obamachange that means no change. What is it with American officials? Why are they so insufferably arrogant and hypocritical? Notes 1. Washington Post, February 24 2009 2. See, for example, "Executive Order - Ensuring Lawful Interrogations", January 22 2009 3. See The Observer (London), February 8 2009 for an account of how conditions were still very awful at Guantanamo as of that date. 4. Video of Bush:- http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22511.htm 5. New York Times, February 10 2009, plus their editorial of the next day. In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the detainees' lawsuit could proceed. 6. Testimony before the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, session of January 21 2006, New York City 7. See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2002), chapter 5. 8. The Independent (London), May 27 2007 9. Washington Post, April 26 2009 10. Washington Post, October 28 2003 11. New York Times, April 16 2003 12. Associated Press, May 1 2009 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://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer69.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tboyle at rosehill.net Wed May 6 12:19:40 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 11:19:40 -0700 Subject: [A-List] The Worst Case Scenario (Someone Has to Say It) In-Reply-To: <4A0162C7.3000801@yahoo.es> References: <4A003C05.7050102@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A0162C7.3000801@yahoo.es> Message-ID: At 03:13 AM 5/6/2009, peripatetic wrote: >This is also the most likely scenario in my view. Excerpt: > >http://seekingalpha.com/article/134820-the-worst-case-scenario-someone-has-to-say-it The biggest error in the article is failing to establish why the printing presses of money creation would fail. You need to lay this Peripatetic essay on the table along with the scenarios of inflationary doom that were common in the early 1970s -- everybody with a brain could see that the world would explode into chaos just like 1920s Germany. In a panic I sold my Mustang, I couldnt' find anybody who would buy it for $200. But guess what happened? After a few more years of inflation and the orchestrated, 1979 shocks, we got Reaganomics and deflation. The good news is, the banksters have everything under control. Umm. that's the bad news too. They're still in the deflation-demolition-repossession stage. In due course, they'll create so many dollars it will set off the next big inflation, stampede, real estate bubble (including construction) as the ignorant population, caught in an artificial win-lose dungeon with no escape, competes for the dollars. Folks-- there is a REAL reason the U.S. deindustrialized: because we don't HAVE to work. It is irrational to work for $1/ hour when billions of people quite apparently need and want to work, to avoid physical starvation. When Americans need to work, they can reindustrialize fairly quickly. We're mobile, we have *abundant* tools, buildings, infrastructure of all kinds, more advanced knowledge, tools, material, and technology than in the past. Crucially, we have far better computing and communications, cellphones, internet, and all its tools for transactions and social networking. TRUE we will have to do it with less hydrocarbon energy. Not a problem. TRUE, we will have to confront the wealthy --and incumbent, protected monopolies. This includes energy, transportation, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, law and accounting and financial industries, and telecoms, even some of the public sector. We will get NOWHERE if we can't loosen up some of these industries. This is the real problem-- it's the only real problem. Regarding the departure of productive people and their money, whether Americans or foreigners, rich and poor, I have to say--So what? Let them go. Why is that any threat whatsoever? There will be an infinite supply of immigrants to replace them, good god, isn't that obvious? And the capitalists-- GREAT! The sooner they leave, with their money, the better the economy and society will function. They have corrupted our entire Congress, politics and culture, even our churches with their money. COME ON FOLKS, we have a job to do here... these apocalyptic stories-- and I love reading them --they are very entertaining --but they appeal to us because of unconscious archetypes in our unconscious. Peripatetic's article is the intellectual equivalent of watching professional wrestling, just because it's amusing and you're tired, and this is how you relax. There are of course, unconscious urges and tendencies in all of us--it's part of how the mind recognizes patterns and recognizes threats and opportunites. What's happening is the Christian apocalypse -- a metaphorical expression of the primitive ego, which is real, knowing its mortality, and gives rise to primal beliefs and conceptual ground of the unconscious. These in turn, create tendencies in belief and behavior in our own life that are irrational and which bring sub-optimal results for ourselves and people who rely on our messages. While we thrash around in our hallucinations, pickpockets walk easily among us stealing our economic output. Keep your eye on the money. --Todd. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 4275 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090506/16922f1f/attachment.txt From PeterHollings at comcast.net Thu May 7 06:51:00 2009 From: PeterHollings at comcast.net (Peter Hollings) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 08:51:00 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <1241700660.6298.45.camel@phollings-desktop> Todd -- This is a very involved topic which I will have to address selectively. First of all, the Fed's FAQ page is at best misleading. For example it states "The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects." This may be technically true, but the real action in terms of conducting monetary policy is conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Open Market Committee. The FRBNY is, as the FAQ states, one of "The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, [which] are organized much like private corporations--possibly leading to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year." For many years the banks did not rebate any of their earnings to the Treasury, but Wright Patman forced through legislation resulting in an 85% rebate -- this is after paying their fairly lavish expenses (think of grand marble buildings) and a statutory dividend to their commercial bank shareholders. But, I think focusing the discussion on rebates to Treasury is missing the bigger picture. For example, government debt is sold to a restricted group of Primary Dealers which operate much like a cartel and who make a markup on it's resale. Another cartel-like practice (of the commercial banks which own the Fed) is the establishment of a Prime Rate which is much like a fixed price that is used throughout the banking system in pricing loans. Corporations seeking loans from a bank are discouraged from "split banking relationships" which means that they have difficulties in getting competitive pricing. Another major aspect is that the potential to profit from foreknowledge of changes in interest rates is probably much greater than the interest earnings itself. The banks are dealers constantly buying and selling government debt. Small changes in interest rates cause large changes in the value of their inventory. The NY Fed is owned by the money center banks there and it is their Open Market Committee which controls interest rates. Finally, there is the issue of money creation. Estimates vary, but there is general agreement that over 90% of our money is created by accounting entries made when commercial banks make loans. When a loan is made they book the loan as an asset and deposit the proceeds in the borrower's checking account, a liability account. Checking accounts are considered part of M1 and, thus, the money supply is increased by simple accounting entries. The bank did not have the lent money prior to the loan. One consequence of this is that it puts the banks, and not society itself, in the role of determining for what purposes new money will be spent. Even our government depends on banks to create money. Peter Hollings On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 08:39 +0900, Bill Totten wrote: > Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives on > US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by foreign > governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and > corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where > you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. > > Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals > and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US > government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other > governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend > into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public > debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest > governments pay on that debt. Bill > > > Todd Boyle wrote: > > Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... > > > >> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) > >> > >> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for > >> this or > >> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? > > > > Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. > > It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. > > The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm > > The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at > > http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html > > > > Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements > > in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings > > in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member banks? > > Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to the > > Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? > > > > To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". > > > > Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they > > do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! > > But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government > > create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). > > > > His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the > > larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create > > the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and > > export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and > > of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value > > rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. > > The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is > > maintained at the point of a gun, really. > > > > The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be > > effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization > > and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... > > For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 > > http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf > > > > > > The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of > > the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The > > Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) > > 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are > > whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. > > Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member > > banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell > > does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant > > or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This > > is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic > > liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire > > world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, > > they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks > > on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control > > whose profits and property values explode most, decide who > > gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money > > into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened > > in 2000 and 2004. > > > > The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public > > scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. > > This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. > > Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people > > somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, > > there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be > > able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who > > is payor and payee of every transaction. > > > > todd > > > > > > > > Todd > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 9128 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090507/41cffb75/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu May 7 10:26:14 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 12:26:14 -0400 Subject: [A-List] CAIR's Humanitarian Mission to Iran for Saberi, Momeni, and Levinson Message-ID: CAIR's Humanitarian Mission to Iran for Saberi, Momeni, and Levinson by Mahmoud El-Yousseph The current relation between the U.S. and Iran is not pretty; in fact, it is like a roller-coaster ride. This is bad news for Muslims in America and abroad. Iran is bitter over its billions of dollars in frozen assets still in U.S. banks for the last three decades, following the takeover of our embassy in Tehran. Moreover, the U.S. government maintains a hostile attitude, insistent on quashing Iran's ambitions to build a peaceful nuclear program. There are nine other nations on this planet earth who have a nuclear program, but no one gives a hoot! Iran also has faults of its own. Its human rights records are not flattering, especially when it comes to U.S. citizens living in Iran. That does not help reduce tensions between the two nations either. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is not sitting on the sideline as spectator, but rather wants to do something to narrow the gap between the U.S. and Iran. CAIR, which is a leading Muslim-American civil liberties group, has assembled a delegation to fly to Iran on short notice to resolve some of the outstanding issues. The group as of this writing is awaiting visas and entry permits. Among the items the group will discuss with Iranian officials are the statuses of Roxana Saberi, Esha Momeni, and Robert Levinson. Roxana Saberi: a journalist who was sentenced recently to eight years in jail on espionage charges. The Fargo, North Dakota native was born to an Iranian father and Japanese mother. She was elected as Miss North Dakota in 1997. Iran claimed first that she purchased a bottle of wine and then that she was working without press credentials. She just celebrated her 33rd birthday in jail. Esha Momeni: a graduate student at California State University. Like Miss Saberi, she is also a U.S.-born citizen. Her parents are Iranians and she is a dual national. Miss Momeni was arrested in Iran in October 2008 after she allegedly passed another car illegally. She was released later, but her research materials were confiscated and she was banned from leaving Iran to continue her study. Robert Levinson: a former FBI agent who mysteriously disappeared two years ago on the Iranian island of Kish. The CAIR delegation is carrying a letter from Mr. Levinson's family to be delivered to Iranian officials, with the hope that the letter might crack the case. The Swiss government, which acts on behalf of U.S. interests in Iran, did not have much luck solving this case. CAIR's mission is an attempt to use its cultural and religious common ground with Iran in order to open a door that otherwise would remain closed. Contrary to its critics, CAIR does care about America and wants America to be a better and a safer place not only for Muslims but for all of us. Let's give credit where credit is due. Here are a few examples of CAIR's actions in the last nine years: * CAIR took out full-page ads in the Washington Post (16 September 2001) and the New York Times (9 March 2003) to condemn the 9/11 attacks, and it urged all American Muslims to contribute money, donate blood, and help with the medical relief operation. * CAIR came to the defense of a Jewish reporter who worked for a Kansas City newspaper and who was fired from her job one day after she married a Palestinian. * When four members of the Christian Peacemaker Team were taken hostage in Iraq in 2005, CAIR demanded their immediate and unconditional release, stating that harming them would not advance the cause of innocent Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. forces. * After American journalist Jill Carrol was taken hostage in Iraq in 2006, CAIR risked the life of its own members by sending a delegation to Iraq to plead for her release. Eventually she won her freedom. CAIR, which has a solid patriotic record, should be commended for its humanitarian mission. This was also done in compliance with the Islamic teaching which calls on Muslims to "forgive those who oppressed you, give to whomever deprived you, and reach out to the one who ignored you." Make no mistake, when CAIR was preparing for this "mission of mercy," the group was speaking for seven million American Muslims who want nothing more than normal and better relations between their country and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mahmoud El-Yousseph a retired USAF Veteran in Ohio. Contact: . From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Thu May 7 17:24:16 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 08:24:16 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Case for Monetary Reform Message-ID: <4A036DA0.4040104@ashisuto.co.jp> by Bill Clarke Prosperity (July 2001) Where Does Real Economic Power Lie? The development of the global market, particularly in the spheres of free trade, the instantaneous movement of capital and the trading of currencies, means that to a very great extent national governments have lost the power to control their economies. These developments have come about because most governments have accepted the theory that they should not interfere in the running of the economy but should leave it to business men and financiers. The handing over of control of interest rates to central banks is confirmation that politicians have surrendered the economic field to financiers. Further confirmation is in the almost wholesale deregulation of financial markets. Governments have the same attitude to the global markets. Around $2 trillion are traded daily on global currency markets purely for speculative reasons - to make profits, not to finance legitimate trade - and governments do nothing about it despite the damage caused to the value of their currencies and to their economies. Further proof that financiers are in the driving seat is that they can make profit by buying majority shareholdings in companies. Then, using borrowed money, they can strip the assets - that is, sell off anything of value - sack thousands of employees and destroy whole sections of industries in order to pay good returns to shareholders and those who lent money. The market value of shares and the dividends paid are all that matter to them. The pivotal role of bankers and other financial institutions confirms that money and the pursuit of profit are the determining factors of economic activity. The financiers and the multinationals are in power, not the politicians. We are at the mercy of profiteers who determine what shall be done and not done, and governments which stand aside and do nothing to protect the jobs or the well-being of the people. In effect, governments have surrendered the interests and welfare of the people to the not-so tender mercies of financiers and tycoons. This should be seen as a dereliction of duty on the part of politicians who are there to serve the people. Learning About Money An essential part of this financially-dominated economy is the way money is created. Despite, the central role that money plays in all our lives, there is an appalling ignorance about it. This ignorance is caused by the mystique which has been fostered by bankers and financiers that money matters are far too difficult for ordinary people to understand. They have spread the idea, aided and abetted by economists, that understanding and controlling money should, therefore, be left to the experts. The truth is that the essential facts about money are simple. When they are known by the general public they will start asking questions and demanding that the government should do something about reforming the injustices which bankers are allowed to perpetrate. There will be a demand for governments to right the wrongs which banker control of money is causing. Five Ways the Man in the Street is Bamboozled 1. He thinks that money is created by the government, through the Mint and the Bank of England, and it consists largely of notes and coins. Fact: Only three per cent of money is in the form of notes and coins created by the government. 2. He believes that when banks lend money then the money which is borrowed is that which other bank customers have deposited. Fact: The money one borrows from a bank is not depositors' money at all. It is new money created by the simple process of writing the amount of the loan on the credit side of the borrower's account. Ninety seven percent of all money in circulation originates in this way. If banks actually lent their depositors' money it would not be available when they wanted it. If someone wanted to draw out money and was told, "Sorry, we've lent it to Joe Blow", he would be justifiably annoyed. In other words, 97% of money is not "real" money at all but credit, just figures in a bank's ledger or computer. It is created out of nothing. Yet is used and accepted as real money. To all intents and purposes it is money. Borrowers buy houses with it, pay wages and buy raw materials with it, and spend it in many ways. Yet it is just figures in a ledger transferred from one account to another. It is called various things - credit, bank-money, number-money, cheque-money, debt-money, electronic money. Whatever it is called, it is used and trusted because people know they can obtain real money, notes and coins, if they want. 3. He believes that there is strict control and regulation by the government, of banks and building societies. Fact: The belief that there are strict controls over what banks and building societies can and cannot do is also false. There are no statutory deposits which banks at one time had to lodge with the Bank of England. There are no fractional reserves of currency to be held by a bank as security for loans. All that has gone in the deregulation so beloved by financiers and, now, politicians. The only stipulation now is that banks must deposit with the Bank of England, 0.35% of their assets, which consist mainly of the loans they have made. This paltry percentage shows that borrowers have no real security, no proper regulations to protect them. The banks, however, have the property of borrowers, pledged as collateral, as security. 4. He believes that the interest he pays for the loan is a legitimate charge because it is other people's money he is borrowing. Fact: Interest is considered to be a recompense for lenders giving up the use of their money, for the sacrifice they make by not spending it on satisfying immediate needs or pleasures. This may be so for depositors but it is not so for banks which create money out of thin air when they make a loan. They are charging a tribute - interest - for money which did not exist before the loan was made. So they are getting money, in the form of interest, for nothing. It would be legitimate for them to charge a fee for administering the loan but that would be far smaller than the interest they charge. 5. He is persuaded that if he cannot pay back his debt then it is right that the bank should take his property to reimburse itself. Fact: The borrower owes a debt which has to be paid, in regular installments, plus the interest, or legal penalties come into force. If the borrower defaults - cannot pay - then his property which he put up as security for the loan is legally confiscated and used to reimburse the bank, no matter what distress and hardship is suffered by the borrower, be it the loss of a home or a business. Whatever the reason, debts must be paid, and on time. Remember, though, this money was created out of thin air. It was debt-money. Remember 97% of All Money Starts as Debt Most people, however, are in debt. The total amount owed is greater than the total money supply. Sixty per cent of debt is for mortgages. Business debt is increasing as more is borrowed to keep enterprises afloat with the intensification of competition caused by the global market. There is a chronic shortage of ready money, which means there is not sufficient purchasing power to buy all the goods and services on offer. This endemic shortage of spending money is brought about because of the debt burden that most people have. If they want to keep their homes and businesses they must make regular payments to service their debts. This is the basic reason that governments are loath to raise direct taxes. It reduces still further people's spending money and the total demand for goods and services. As a result not enough government revenue is raised from taxation to meet essential services. The National Debt The amount of the taxation shortfall is called the budget deficit and is compensated for by government borrowing from the private sector, mainly from banks. The total of this debt is called the national debt. It has to be paid back, eventually, by the taxpayers. In practice, when the Treasury Bonds, which the government sells as a means of borrowing money from the private sector, are due to be paid, the government issues new bonds - borrows new money - to pay back the old ones plus interest. Let us consider the money which the government obtains from banks buying Treasury Bonds. Where does it come from? You've guessed it. It is created out of thin air, in the same way as the money for your mortgage was. It isn't real money. It's credit, debt-money. When financial enterprises such as pension funds or insurance companies buy Treasury Bonds, also called gilts, the money used is the savings of their customers so it is money already in existence being recycled, used again. The money banks use to buy gilts is not. It's created on the spot, out of nothing. So the government is in hock to the banks for money which did not exist until it was borrowed. At this point you are most likely asking the same question which many people are now asking. If the banks can create money out of nothing to lend to the government as debt, with all the burdens that places on the taxpayer, why on earth doesn't the government create money for itself, at least for public services, and remove the burden of having to borrow money? Government-Created Money If the government funded its budget deficits by creating money (instead of the banks doing if for them, at a high cost to the taxpayer) it would not be debt-money and no interest would be paid. It would be money for the essential public services to spend. It would not have to be paid back. The cry which we hear so often these days from the government, economists, bankers and other "experts" is, "There is not enough money. Government and council services have to be cut." So nurses are sacked, old people's homes closed, schoolteachers made redundant, the London underground allowed to fall into disrepair, and so on. All this is brought about because not enough is raised in taxes, for the reasons outlined above, and because the government is reluctant to increase the national debt. In fact, it is trying to cut it down. So there is a chronic shortage of money for public services. If the government created the money it needs, many of these problems would disappear. Why doesn't it do it? Excuses, Excuses, Excuses Again, the "experts" are brought in. Remember, these people are the bankers, financiers, economists, all with a vested interest in things financial staying as they are. They say, "Government can't just print money for what it needs. It would increase the amount of money in circulation, prices would rise and the value of money fall. In other words, it would cause inflation with all its subsequent woes, which we are desperately trying to offset. The Bank of England Monetary Committee is regulating the interest rate in order to stop inflation. We can't have the government creating money and adding to their problems." Are these "experts" right? The Way to Prevent Inflation They are only telling half the story. Remember how we pointed out that a mystique has been created around money to the effect that it must be left to the experts? Part of this mystique is based upon not revealing the facts about money, about who is really in control of it and who mainly benefits from the status quo. When they are forced to do some explaining, they muddy the water, and tell only part of the story. They say that government-created money would be inflationary but they don't say the same about bank-created money. They don't tell us that governments, if they want to, can regulate the amount of bank lending, as they used to do. The "experts" remain silent on these matters because they don't want a public discussion of them. They don't want ordinary people hearing the idea that we can have debt-free money, with all its benefits. This would lead to a popular demand for government debt-free money and for banks to be regulated. No wonder the bankers, and the media in which they have investments, don't want it discussed. The least said about it the better, for them. Monetary reformers want to spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag, reveal the true state of affairs. Bank lending can be controlled by several methods: statutory deposits can be re-introduced, whereby an effective proportion of a bank's assets must be lodged with the Bank of England. The fractional reserve can be brought back, whereby banks must keep in cash a fraction of the loans they make. Bank-created credits can also be reduced by regulating the terms and conditions under which they are made. The Real Reason for Government Not Creating Money So the "inflation" bogey is just an excuse especially if legislation to control bank lending were to be put into place. What then is the real reason for government failing to provide adequate essential services which the people need? The continuation of the system which puts government, and consequently, the nation, in hock to the banks and other private financial institutions gives the government more political power. It can push through policies which are unpopular by using the "No money, we must cut back" excuse. It can use the same excuse to stand by and see basic industries destroyed and workers put out of work. We are not told that money is a man-made device by which to finance the exchange of goods and service and should be used as man's servant instead of his master. We are kept in the dark about the fact that when something is socially desirable, such as a new hospital or a new school, and when the materials and unemployed builders are available, and when only the shortage of money is stopping the project, then debt-free money could be created by the government and the project could go ahead with the consequent benefits for all. There is a conspiracy of silence shrouding monetary reform. It is never raised in Parliament, never discussed in the media. The whole topic of government-created money is taboo. We are trapped in the hidebound thinking of those in favour of the status quo. It is understandable that bankers and those who profit from the present system want to keep quiet about it. However, it is inexcusable for politicians and the media to go along with it. Why do they do so? Largely, the media is in hock to the bankers and financial tycoons. The politicians have swallowed the bankers' theory that money matters are best left in the hands of financiers. We have to force them into debate and show that the theory is false. Mobilisng Opinion for Fair and Sensible Money So it is unlikely that our Parliamentary representatives, the people with the political power to change the present system of creating money, are going to do anything to put things right without pressure from the general public, from the electorate. People have to be informed as to the true state of affairs so that public opinion will change and monetary reform can be put on the political agenda. If they can see that they are going to lose votes then politicians will start to listen. We need much more public discussion of these vital matters. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: PROSPERITY: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to PROSPERITY at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/casefmr.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 7 20:42:11 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 22:42:11 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp><7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: Just thinking out loud here.... I'm not as familiar with the Fed (though I believe it operates roughly similarly) as with the Bank of Canada. The latter floats money into circulation by buying bonds from the Gov't of Canada, issuing a cheque drawn on itself and then printing new notes in the amount of the debt. It deposits these in a commercial bank account (or accounts). Now, the point is that it is with these new accounts that the commercial banks then lend out money limited only by their reserve requirements. Let's say the original amount deposited was $2 million, then by the time the original 2 million is lent out successively to other banks and institutions - each making loans limited only by a, say, 8% reserve requirement - the total multiplier effect results in $100,000,000 of new credit..new money. And it is on this money that the commercial banks extract interest, i.e. on money that they created from 'nothing', and received profit on for free. Now what's worse is when these same commercial banks loan money (!) to the gov't (which, because of the 'risk-based capital reserve' system instituted by the Basel Accords that Canada signed onto in an ammendment to the Bank Act - legislated in the dead of night - in the late '80's early 90's, induced the commerical banks to load up on Bank of Canada bonds in preference over the making of loans to business) 'we' the citizens of Canada end up paying the private commercial banks - and paying through the nose - for holding gov't debt which, of course, could just have easily been held by the Bank of Canada for virtually nothing (and, indeed, all minimal interest accruing to the gov't in any case). [It was precisely this process which, due to the excessive, usorious interest rates of the '80s led to the gov't of Canada acquiring roughly 90% of its present debt load.] So perhaps it is in this less literal sense (a process lately and eloquently ariculated by Ellen Brown) that Rowbotham is expostulating that, 'How dare the gov't claim...when they do not create any money?' And, of course, the 'democratization' theme is the crucial point. But really, can we even talk about economic (or its corollary, political) 'democratization' under capitalism? Well, I guess we can talk about it - but the two being entirely antithetical rather makes the discussion a tad moot. Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" To: "The A-List" Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:39 PM Subject: Re: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform > Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives on > US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by foreign > governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and corporations. > Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where you will find > http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. > > Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and > corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US > government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other > governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend into > circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public debt is > the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest governments pay on > that debt. Bill > > > Todd Boyle wrote: >> Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >> >>> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>> >>> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for this >>> or >>> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >> >> Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >> It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >> The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >> The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >> >> Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >> in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >> in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member >> banks? >> Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to >> the >> Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? >> >> To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >> >> Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >> do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >> But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >> create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >> >> His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >> larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create >> the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >> export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >> of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >> rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >> The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >> maintained at the point of a gun, really. >> >> The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >> effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >> and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >> For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >> The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >> the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >> Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >> 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >> whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >> Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >> banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >> does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >> or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >> is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >> liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >> world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >> they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >> on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >> whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >> gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >> into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >> in 2000 and 2004. >> >> The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >> scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >> This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >> Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >> somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >> there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >> able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >> is payor and payee of every transaction. >> >> todd >> >> >> >> Todd > > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 7 20:50:45 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 22:50:45 -0400 Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt In-Reply-To: <4A021CBE.3020203@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A021CBE.3020203@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <919AA17F6BD1421BAE5EEFA9E51D13BA@TonyPC> ..In fact, the countries of the First World should not only be cancelling Third World debts..but paying reparations, big-time reparations to those from whom they have taken so much. T. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" To: "a-list" Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:26 PM Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt > > by Michael Rowbotham > > Prosperity (September 2001) > >>From Goodbye America [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] > > > Whenever Third World debt cancellation is discussed, it is automatically > assumed that somebody, somewhere has to suffer a loss. Either banks must > cover the losses, taxes must be raised or Western governments must foot > the bill. > > In fact, Third World debts could be cancelled with little or no cost to > anyone. Indeed, cancellation would be not only the simplest process > imaginable, but to the general advantage of the world economy. All that > is involved is a bit of creative accountancy - something at which the > West has shown itself highly adept when this has suited its political > purpose. > > To appreciate this, it is essential to recall that the dominant form of > money in the modern economy, bank credit, is entirely numerical. It is > an abstract entity with no physical existence whatsoever, created in > parallel with debt. Debt cancellation is therefore largely a matter of > numerical accountancy. This is emphasised by the fact that only one > factor prevents the immediate cancellation of all Third World debts - > the accountancy rules of commercial banks. > > Third World debt bonds form part of the assets of commercial banks, and > all banks are obliged to maintain parity between their assets and > liabilities (deposits). > > If commercial banks cancel or write off Third World debt bonds, their > total assets fall. Under the rules of banking, the banks are then > obliged to restore their level of assets to the point where they equal > their liabilities, usually by transferring an equivalent sum from their > reserves. In other words, when debts are cancelled, normally banks > suffer the loss. > > There are two options for overcoming this accountancy blockage. They > involve acknowledging that debt-cancellation is both desirable and > possible, and adapting bank accountancy accordingly. > > The first option is to remove the obligation on banks to maintain parity > between assets and liabilities, or, to be more precise, to allow banks > to hold reduced levels of assets equivalent to the Third World debt > bonds they cancel. Thus, if a commercial bank held $10 billion worth of > developing country debt bonds, after cancellation it would be permitted > in perpetuity to have a $10 billion dollar deficit in its assets. This > is a simple matter of record-keeping. > > The second option, and in accountancy terms probably the more > satisfactory (although it amounts to the same policy), is to cancel the > debt bonds, yet permit banks to retain them for purposes of accountancy. > The debts would be cancelled so far as the developing nations were > concerned, but still valid for the purposes of a bank?s accounts. The > bonds would then be held as permanent, non-negotiable assets, at face > value [pages 135-136] ? The cancellation of international debts, or > their conversion to national debts [see pages 140-143], is the sine qua > non if Third World nations are to discover a path away from poverty and > decline and towards more socially and culturally benign futures. The > acknowledged need is for Third World countries to develop their > agricultural and industrial infrastructure for their own domestic > consumption and direct less effort towards export-led growth. To the > extent that international debts remain, the export imperative remains. > > The Third World cannot be said to be in material debt to the > industrialised nations. The developing nations are in financial debt to > international banks. But whilst not actually in material debt to the > industrialised nations, because these bank debts are denominated in > dollars, they are forced to behave as if they were in debt to the West, > seeking a perpetual export surplus [page 145]. > > Also see article here for how Third World debt is created: > http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/moneymake.php > > _____ > > Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and > paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the > essential contact information below. Thank you. > > Essential Further Reading: > > Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal > which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and > published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is > available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, > Scotland, UK, G2 4JR > Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 > admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com > Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: > http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php > > The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive > economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and > Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael > Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the > address above. > > http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/cantwd.php > > > http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com > http://www.ashisuto.co.jp > > > > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 7 20:53:17 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 22:53:17 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Saakashvili Staged Coup Message-ID: <34A0805543CF42A382FED63EF3643E0B@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: aslanyanus To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 9:28 AM Subject: [stopnato] Saakashvili Staged Coup http://www.presstv. ir/detail. aspx?id=93656& sectionid= 351020606 Press TV May 5, 2009 Georgian opposition: Saakashvili staged coup Georgia's opposition claims President Mikheil Saakashvili staged an alleged coup plot to deter public attention from domestic political turmoil. "I have the impression this is nothing but a theatrical show staged by Saakashvili to distract people from the ongoing protests against his rule," AFP quoted opposition leader David Gamkrelidze of the New Rights party as saying on Tuesday. The remarks came hours after the country's interior ministry announced the uncovering of a military coup plot and an assassination plan 'backed by Russia'. Gamkrelidze said the opposition would press on with planned rallies to block main highways after a temporary pause in light of the heightened security. The plans for the large-scale protests were announced on Monday after a month-long campaign of anti-government protests, when rival opposition groups temporarily put aside differences to join forces, calling for a general 'civil disobedience' . The mutiny of about 500 troops at a base outside Tbilisi ended without violence after the president visited the base and urged the rebels to surrender their arms. The unrest broke out on the eve of NATO war games in the ex-Soviet republic, which has been slammed by Russia as an unwise move in a country just out of war, referring to its August conflict with Georgia over Tbilisi's actions in South Ossetia. Georgian officials accused Russia of planning to 'disrupt' the NATO exercises, but Moscow's envoy to the alliance said the charges were 'provocative stupidity'. .... "Georgia's latest accusations against Russia demonstrate the sick imagination and irresponsible behavior of the Georgian leadership," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told Russia's Interfax news agency. "Instead of dialogue inside the country, the Georgian leadership tries to make absolutely delirious accusations against Russia," he added. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From seanfischer at earthlink.net Thu May 7 22:28:50 2009 From: seanfischer at earthlink.net (Sean Fischer) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 00:28:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt Message-ID: <21447599.1241756930336.JavaMail.root@elwamui-milano.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Aren't each of these suggestions often referred to as "cooking the books?" I am not an accountant, and unaware of the differences between the commercial banks below, state controlled banks, or international banks? This brings me to another question. "What is the percentage of Third World debts, bonds, and/or loans which historically has been back in full to the lending body(s), or paid down to zero?" Sean Fischer -----Original Message----- >From: "Tony B." >Sent: May 7, 2009 10:50 PM >To: The A-List >Subject: Re: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt > >..In fact, the countries of the First World should not only be cancelling >Third World debts..but paying reparations, big-time reparations to those >from whom they have taken so much. > >T. > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bill Totten" >To: "a-list" >Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:26 PM >Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt > > >> >> by Michael Rowbotham >> >> Prosperity (September 2001) >> >>>From Goodbye America [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] >> >> >> Whenever Third World debt cancellation is discussed, it is automatically >> assumed that somebody, somewhere has to suffer a loss. Either banks must >> cover the losses, taxes must be raised or Western governments must foot >> the bill. >> >> In fact, Third World debts could be cancelled with little or no cost to >> anyone. Indeed, cancellation would be not only the simplest process >> imaginable, but to the general advantage of the world economy. All that >> is involved is a bit of creative accountancy - something at which the >> West has shown itself highly adept when this has suited its political >> purpose. >> >> To appreciate this, it is essential to recall that the dominant form of >> money in the modern economy, bank credit, is entirely numerical. It is >> an abstract entity with no physical existence whatsoever, created in >> parallel with debt. Debt cancellation is therefore largely a matter of >> numerical accountancy. This is emphasised by the fact that only one >> factor prevents the immediate cancellation of all Third World debts - >> the accountancy rules of commercial banks. >> >> Third World debt bonds form part of the assets of commercial banks, and >> all banks are obliged to maintain parity between their assets and >> liabilities (deposits). >> >> If commercial banks cancel or write off Third World debt bonds, their >> total assets fall. Under the rules of banking, the banks are then >> obliged to restore their level of assets to the point where they equal >> their liabilities, usually by transferring an equivalent sum from their >> reserves. In other words, when debts are cancelled, normally banks >> suffer the loss. >> >> There are two options for overcoming this accountancy blockage. They >> involve acknowledging that debt-cancellation is both desirable and >> possible, and adapting bank accountancy accordingly. >> >> The first option is to remove the obligation on banks to maintain parity >> between assets and liabilities, or, to be more precise, to allow banks >> to hold reduced levels of assets equivalent to the Third World debt >> bonds they cancel. Thus, if a commercial bank held $10 billion worth of >> developing country debt bonds, after cancellation it would be permitted >> in perpetuity to have a $10 billion dollar deficit in its assets. This >> is a simple matter of record-keeping. >> >> The second option, and in accountancy terms probably the more >> satisfactory (although it amounts to the same policy), is to cancel the >> debt bonds, yet permit banks to retain them for purposes of accountancy. >> The debts would be cancelled so far as the developing nations were >> concerned, but still valid for the purposes of a bank?s accounts. The >> bonds would then be held as permanent, non-negotiable assets, at face >> value [pages 135-136] ? The cancellation of international debts, or >> their conversion to national debts [see pages 140-143], is the sine qua >> non if Third World nations are to discover a path away from poverty and >> decline and towards more socially and culturally benign futures. The >> acknowledged need is for Third World countries to develop their >> agricultural and industrial infrastructure for their own domestic >> consumption and direct less effort towards export-led growth. To the >> extent that international debts remain, the export imperative remains. >> >> The Third World cannot be said to be in material debt to the >> industrialised nations. The developing nations are in financial debt to >> international banks. But whilst not actually in material debt to the >> industrialised nations, because these bank debts are denominated in >> dollars, they are forced to behave as if they were in debt to the West, >> seeking a perpetual export surplus [page 145]. >> >> Also see article here for how Third World debt is created: >> http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/moneymake.php >> >> _____ >> >> Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and >> paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the >> essential contact information below. Thank you. >> >> Essential Further Reading: >> >> Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal >> which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and >> published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is >> available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, >> Scotland, UK, G2 4JR >> Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 >> admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com >> Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: >> http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php >> >> The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive >> economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and >> Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael >> Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the >> address above. >> >> http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/cantwd.php >> >> >> http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com >> http://www.ashisuto.co.jp >> >> >> >> > > > From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri May 8 00:58:59 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 02:58:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Ahmadi-Nejad Takes to the Streets Message-ID: Ahmadi-Nejad takes to the streets By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Karaj Published: May 8 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 8 2009 03:00 In his four years as president, Mahmoud AhmadiNejad has made his tours of provincial cities the centrepiece of attempt to portray himself as protector of the Iranian people. The thousands who gathered in the city of Karaj last weekend had the same demands as the millions who have attended previous events. They carried letters - to deliver to Mr AhmadiNejad in person - demanding cash or help with all sorts of other problems, from education to employment and housing. What made this event different was the timing. Tomorrow is the final day for candidates to register for the June 12 presidential elections and the visit to Karaj, 30kms west of Tehran, had the feel, according to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's critics, of an election rally. The president has yet to register officially but, along with the other leading candidates, is expected to so by the end of tomorrow. Rivals argue that such visits so close to the election mean that the state is essentially funding Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's campaign and his promises made at such gatherings are an effort to buy votes. In reaction, state television took the unusual step of not broadcasting live footage of the Karaj trip. That will have little impact on supporters such as Farideh, a 58-year-old woman who says she recently met the fundamentalist president andrecited a poem she had written in praise of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's humility. She also sought and received a loan to buy a new computer. Farideh says she is a member of the basij , the 10m- strong voluntary arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards, which had a crucial role in mobilising people to vote for Mr Ahmadi-Nejad in 2005. Reformists consider the involvement of the basij - described as the eyes and ears of the Islamic republic - in the election as illegal, because the constitution bans military groups from playing any role in politics. But Farideh insists she has decided to do so as an individual. "I am proud to say I have set up an election headquarters in Zone 17 [a poor neighbourhood in Tehran]," she says, adding that exp-enses are met from the donations of ordinary people. After meeting the president and securing a 10m-rial loan ($994, ?758, ?677) for the computer, she received a cheque in three days. She now uses that computer to copy CDs of the president's biography "to show people how simple his lifestyle is and that the dowry of his daughter was less than an orphan girl". She says she has also printed campaign banners and will talk to people to persuade them to re-elect the president. On a working day in Karaj, most of the thousands attending Mokhaberat football stadium had financial problems, from expensive housing and unemployment to such issues as unaffordable treatment for infertility, or for disabled -children. "I've heard some organisations in Karaj are not efficient enough to deal with your problems," Mr Ahmadi-Nejad told the crowd. "Are we allowed to keep them in the system?" he asked, like a showman. People shouted "No!" in reply. He promised to remove such officials and to act for people's welfare. Many at the gathering credited the president for a recent fall in housing costs, without linking him to the global financial crisis. He was also praised for increasing incomes, in particular for retired people. Retired government employees have in the past year seen their pensions increase by an average of 50 per cent, and there is the promise of a further rise next month. Government workers such as teachers have already benefited from a jump in salaries and have been told more is coming. But these wage rises, which are likely to feature prominently in the election campaign, come despite high unemployment and with inflation at 25.4 per cent, leading to fresh criticism of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's economic policy. Unofficial opinion polls carried out by different political groups still suggest Mr AhmadiNejad is ahead of his rivals, with about 35 per cent of the votes. But the same polls suggest that Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a leftist former prime minister, is closing in on the president. Backed by Mohammad Khatami, the former president, Mr Moussavi is considered the main reformist rival. That has led analysts to expect a second-round vote, as no one is likely to secure above 50 per cent of the vote, the amount needed to win via one round. "Mr Moussavi is good but we know Mr Ahmadi-Nejad more," says Parivash, 40, another Karaj resident. From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 8 05:10:40 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 20:10:40 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Bottom Message-ID: <4A041330.1090607@ashisuto.co.jp> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (2005) www.kunstler.com (May 04 2009) Euphoria managed to out-run swine flu last week as the epidemic-du-jour, with "consumer" confidence jumping and the big bank stocks nudging up. The H1N1 virus fizzled for now, at least in terms of kill ratio, though we're warned it might boomerang in the fall with a vengeance. No one was surprised to see Chrysler roll over like a possum on a county highway, but the memory of their muscle cars will linger on like a California surfing song. Here in the northeast, where Sundays are not spent at the Nascar oval, the spring foliage reached the tenderly explosive stage and it was hard to feel bad about anything. For now, the "bottom" is in - that is, the bottom of this society's ability to process reality. It may continue for a month of so, even after the "stress test" for banks is finally let out of the massage parlor with a "happy ending". But events are underway that are beyond the command of personalities. We're done "doing business" in all the ways that we've been used to, but we just can't get with the new program. Let's count the ways: 1. The revolving credit economy is over. It's over because we can't increase energy inputs to the system, which is one way of saying "peak oil". Of course hardly anybody believes this right now because the price of oil crashed nine months ago, along with global manufacturing and trade. But nothing has changed on the peak oil scene - except perhaps that ever more new oil projects have been cancelled for lack of financing, which will boomerang on us (even if swine flu doesn't) in the form of much lower future oil production. In any case, the credit fiesta is over, and the "consumer" economy with it, because industrial growth as we have known it is over. It's over globally, too, though all regions of the world will not experience its demise the same way at the same rate. The Asian nations may swap things around a while longer but China is basically screwed. They have less oil left than we have (which is saying, not much at all) and they won't corner the rest of the global oil market without starting World War Three. Meanwhile, they're running out of water and food. Good luck becoming the next global hegemon. Oh, and Japan imports ninety percent of its energy; India over eighty percent. Fuggeddabowdit. Credit will not vanish everywhere overnight - even in the USA - because it is not distributed equally everywhere. But it will vanish in layers, and here in the USA a very broad layer of the lower and middle classes are now losing their access to it in one way or another - personally, in small business - and they will never get it back. Anyone who intends to thrive in the years just ahead had better plan on doing it on the basis of accounts receivable - and what they receive might not even necessarily come in the form of US dollars. It may come in the form of gold or silver or in the promise of reciprocal services rendered. This has enormous implications for two of the items in which our credit-dispensing operations are most deeply vested: houses and cars. Unfortunately, these are exactly the things that economic life has been based on for decades in our nation, which leads to the next categories: 2. The suburban living arrangement is over, along with all its accessories and furnishings. Taken as "all of a piece", the suburban expansion was one sixty-year-long orgasm of hypertrophy. We did it because we could. We won a world war and threw a party. We had lots of cheap land and cheap oil. It made lots of people lots of money and all its usufructs have become embedded in our national identity to the dangerous degree that the loss of them will provoke a kind of national psychotic breakdown. In fact, it already has. The completely unrealistic expectation that we can resume this way of life is proof of it. The immediate problem is that we can't build anymore of it. The next problem will be the failure of the stuff that already exists. The first stage of that is now palpable in the mortgage foreclosure fiasco and, just beginning now, the tanking of malls, strip centers, office parks and other commercial property investments. The latter will accelerate and become visible very quickly as retail tenants bug out and weeds start growing where the Chryslers and Pontiacs once parked. The next stage, which involves large demographic shifts in how we inhabit the landscape, has not quite gotten underway. 3. The Happy Motoring fiesta is over. You'd think that with Chrysler crawling into the bankruptcy court, and GM just weeks away from the same terminal ceremony, the news media would begin to suspect that the foundation of everyday life in this country was cracking. Instead, all we hear is blather about "market share" shifting to Toyota. News flash: not only will we make fewer automobiles in the USA, but Americans will buy far fewer cars made anywhere. We'll keep the current fleet moving a while longer, but when it's too beat to repair, we won't be changing it out for a new fleet - despite all the fantasies about hybrids, plug-and-drive electrics, and so on. The masses will be too broke to buy these things. What's more, they will be very resentful of the shrinking economic "elite" who can afford them. And, anyway, our roads and highways are destined to fall apart very quickly because there is no way we can sustain the necessary rate of normal maintenance. Meanwhile, we remain completely un-serious about public transit - even about fixing the vestiges that still exist. The airline industry, of course, will be toast inside of five years. 4. Our food production system is approaching crisis. There's no way we can continue the petro-agriculture system of farming and the Cheez Doodle and Pepsi Cola diet that it services. The public is absolutely zombified in the face of this problem - perhaps a result of the diet itself. President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack have not given a hint that they understand the gravity of the situation. It is probably one of those unfortunate events of history that can only impress a society in the form of a crisis. It also happens to be one of the few problems we face that public policy could affect sharply and broadly - if we underwrote the reactivation of smaller, local farm operations instead of shoveling money to giant "agribusiness" (or Citibank, or Goldman Sachs, or AIG ... ). I maintain that this may be the year that the crisis gets our attention, because capital is suddenly harder to get than fossil-fuel-based fertilizer. All these epochal discontinuities present themselves, for the moment, as a season of muted "hope" and general apathy. The days are suddenly mild. We've resumed old and happy habits of grilling meat outdoors and motoring to those remaining places that were not blanketed with franchised food huts and discount malls. We have a new, charming president with an appealing family. Newly-minted dollars are flowing to the "shovel-ready". The new bad news is less bad than the old bad news (or seems to be). And the year just past has been such a bummer that our hard-wired human nature tells us that good things must be just around the corner. Personally, I think a lot of good things await us, but not the ones we're expecting - not a return to buying slurpees on credit cards. It will be very salutary to leave behind the junk empire we've accumulated and move into an epoch of quality and purpose. For the moment, though, our hopes reside elsewhere. _____ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/05/te-bottom.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From barmy_basket at yahoo.es Fri May 8 07:07:48 2009 From: barmy_basket at yahoo.es (peripatetic) Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 15:07:48 +0200 Subject: [A-List] The Worst Case Scenario (Someone Has to Say It) In-Reply-To: <7o4dbq$4d9bio@ipo3smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <4A003C05.7050102@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A0162C7.3000801@yahoo.es> <7o4dbq$4d9bio@ipo3smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: <4A042EA4.5050004@yahoo.es> Thanks for your provocative comments. On the why the printing presses should fail, I have seen a couple of arguments: the first says that monetary history shows a surprising regularity in the life span of fiat money regimes, which is 40 years, after which they regularly fail for monetary hyperinflation; who use this argument use to note that current US$ regime (completely de-linked from gold) is 38 years old already. A secund argument is related just to the magnitude of the stimulus and the parabolic growth of recent monetary creation, which is comparable only to major historical events like WW2. This amount of money "printing" should -soon or later- express itself in a monetary inflation Weimar or Zimbabwe-style when that money will materialize itself. What you write in the following paragraph recalls what seems to me the most interesting questions: "are they (the bankers etc.) still in control? And can they maintain it? The cycle inflation-deflation, or bubble-pop-new bubble is just their favorite game?". Judging from the results up to now (bailout and money creation addressed to save and favour the major responsible entities of the bubble just popped) I'd answer yes, they are still in control, but it seems to me that maybe they could lose it. Now the game is more complex even because there are new players becoming more rich, powerful and autonomous at each round (BRIC), and they are already starting to play their games. USans DIDN'T have to work proportionally to their cospicuous consumption thanks to their debt bubble grown for decades, which is now popped, and which the Gov't is trying to re-inflate by the Fed's money printing. Sorry, I don't think it will work: you can't get out from too much debt making new debts. Yes, maybe US could re-industrialize and re-create a "middle class" of blue collars, provided that can abolish what is called globalization (WTO, free international mobility of capital, etc.). I don't expect Obama to propose anything of this kind, but maybe much of the public opinion would favor it. I am not sure to understand your last paragraphs: you seem to believe in a free market (not self-destroying giving way to monopolies) *without capitalists*. Are you for "free-market socialism" or what? As an atheist, I should be immune to myths of apocalypse. I just know that historically political and economic regimes and empires use to end, often relatively abruptly, and I believe that some social and historical regularity exists (and is often interesting to note). http://webabuser.blogspot.com Todd Boyle wrote: > At 03:13 AM 5/6/2009, peripatetic wrote: >> This is also the most likely scenario in my view. Excerpt: >> >> http://seekingalpha.com/article/134820-the-worst-case-scenario-someone-has-to-say-it > > > The biggest error in the article is failing to establish why the > printing presses of money creation would fail. You need to lay this > Peripatetic essay on the table along with the scenarios of > inflationary doom that were common in the early 1970s -- everybody > with a brain could see that the world would explode into chaos just > like 1920s Germany. In a panic I sold my Mustang, I couldnt' find > anybody who would buy it for $200. > > But guess what happened? After a few more years of inflation and the > orchestrated, 1979 shocks, we got Reaganomics and deflation. > > The good news is, the banksters have everything under control. Umm. > that's the bad news too. They're still in the > deflation-demolition-repossession stage. In due course, they'll > create so many dollars it will set off the next big inflation, > stampede, real estate bubble (including construction) as the ignorant > population, caught in an artificial win-lose dungeon with no escape, > competes for the dollars. > > Folks-- there is a REAL reason the U.S. deindustrialized: because we > don't HAVE to work. It is irrational to work for $1/ hour when > billions of people quite apparently need and want to work, to avoid > physical starvation. When Americans need to work, they can > reindustrialize fairly quickly. We're mobile, we have *abundant* > tools, buildings, infrastructure of all kinds, more advanced > knowledge, tools, material, and technology than in the past. > Crucially, we have far better computing and communications, > cellphones, internet, and all its tools for transactions and social > networking. > > TRUE we will have to do it with less hydrocarbon energy. Not a > problem. TRUE, we will have to confront the wealthy --and incumbent, > protected monopolies. This includes energy, transportation, > pharmaceuticals, healthcare, law and accounting and financial > industries, and telecoms, even some of the public sector. We will > get NOWHERE if we can't loosen up some of these industries. This is > the real problem-- it's the only real problem. > > Regarding the departure of productive people and their money, whether > Americans or foreigners, rich and poor, I have to say--So what? Let > them go. Why is that any threat whatsoever? There will be an > infinite supply of immigrants to replace them, good god, isn't that > obvious? And the capitalists-- GREAT! The sooner they leave, with > their money, the better the economy and society will function. They > have corrupted our entire Congress, politics and culture, even our > churches with their money. > > > COME ON FOLKS, we have a job to do here... these apocalyptic stories-- > and I love reading them --they are very entertaining --but they appeal > to us because of unconscious archetypes in our unconscious. > Peripatetic's article is the intellectual equivalent of watching > professional wrestling, just because it's amusing and you're tired, > and this is how you relax. > > There are of course, unconscious urges and tendencies in all of > us--it's part of how the mind recognizes patterns and recognizes > threats and opportunites. What's happening is *the Christian > apocalypse -- a metaphorical expression of the primitive ego, which is > real, knowing its mortality,* and gives rise to primal beliefs and > conceptual ground of the unconscious. These in turn, create > tendencies in belief and behavior in our own life that are irrational > and which bring sub-optimal results for ourselves and people who rely > on our messages. While we thrash around in our hallucinations, > pickpockets walk easily among us stealing our economic output. Keep > your eye on the money. --Todd. > From suzannedk at gmail.com Thu May 7 09:36:28 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 17:36:28 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Journalists required to submit to biometric scan in Afghanistan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This scanning is being done precisely to intimidate and threaten "Write only what we allow or we will take care you never write again". Journalists have been shot dead in Iraq by their own men or by friendly allies, on purpose. No-one in a postion to know this would say so, but all the journalists in for a long haul, know. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anthony Fenton Date: May 6, 2009 9:36 PM Subject: [R-G] Journalists required to submit to biometric scan in Afghanistan To: Suzanne de Kuyper Journalists required to submit to biometric scan in Afghanistan 21 hours ago OTTAWA ? Journalists covering the war in Afghanistan are now required to submit to a biometrics scan before being accredited to travel with NATO units or visit military bases. The data, including fingerprints and a retina scan, are used to verify identity and apparently checked against an archive of known terrorists. The new policy, recently posted on the International Security Assistance Force website, has not been enforced on Canadian reporters, most of whom operate out of Kandahar Airfield. A legal expert described the new security crackdown as "strange and offensive" and said the Conservative government needs to be asking tough questions of its allies before any Canadian citizen submits to such a procedure. Michel Drapeau, a retired colonel and expert in access to information, said Ottawa should know where the data is being stored, who has access to it and how it will be used. "We are in Afghanistan to defend our values and one of our quasi- constitutional values is the right to privacy," Drapeau said Tuesday. "I would question why they're using that." Journalists are in Afghanistan to be the eyes and ears of their countries and should not be required to figuratively "strip down to your bare whatever unless there is a demonstrated need," he said. Drapeau said he would have fewer concerns if the database was being used in an administrative fashion, to catalogue identification in the event a journalist is killed. But experience of the last few years suggests it will have other uses, he said. NATO officials in Brussels and Kabul did not respond to requests for comment. A Pentagon publication in the fall of 2007 suggested that the U.S. military, which lent the first biometrics equipment to the alliance, holds on to the data. It does not guarantee that the information will not be shared. Submitting to the biometrics scan is voluntary, but the accreditation instructions noted that "media who do not submit all required information will not receive a badge" and that "media interested in visiting any ISAF locations (or requesting embed with any ISAF troops) in Afghanistan are required to be accredited." The policy applies to all NATO bases in Afghanistan and goes part of the way to explaining why the alliance stopped accrediting journalists and issuing them camp passes at Kandahar Airfield in early March. Reporters were given visitor's passes, which limit their movements and make it difficult to leave and return to the base after independently interviewing local Afghans. The orange tags also require the Canadian Forces to escort journalists at all times - a practice that is currently being ignored. In the first week of March, an Italian photographer embedded with the Canadians and at least two other journalists were subject to escorts. The Canadian military has loudly protested the policy to the airfield commander, with no affect. The Opposition Liberals and NDP, as well as the Canadian Association of Journalists, complained last week that the loss of accreditation opened the door to the intimidation of reporters who don't toe the line. They also considered the visitor's pass system a disincentive to independent reporting of the increasingly bloody conflict. If Canadian reporters want to avoid the restrictions of the visitor's pass, they'll have to travel to Kabul and submit to the biometrics accreditation. The high-tech system was initially fielded in Iraq by U.S. forces handling prisoners at detention centres, but was quickly expanded and used to create identification cards for residents of the embattled city of Fallujah. NATO first began experimenting with the technology in 2007, using equipment lent to the International Security Assistance Force by the U.S. The idea at the time was to screen local Afghans working at military bases. In fact the Biometrics Automated Toolset is credited with catching several suspected insurgents in the Kabul area. Military units throughout the country routinely tap into the database. While the U.S. has not forced the system on NATO, the Pentagon publication The Guardian noted American commanders were eager to see the technology put to use. "An informal expectation exists within some U.S. ranks that NATO and ISAF should adopt U.S. policies and processes based on the U.S. experience," said the winter 20078 edition. "NATO and ISAF welcome the U.S. experience with biometric systems." An expanded screening program that included journalists was ordered late last winter. Copyright ? 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 6415 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090507/2914bfe3/attachment.txt From noreply at coha.org Thu May 7 10:59:27 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 12:59:27 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Aid Effectiveness in Haiti; Forthcoming from COHA Message-ID: <20090507165716.D78A93E4725@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5736 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090507/b0c46a77/attachment.txt From suzannedk at gmail.com Thu May 7 10:46:23 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 18:46:23 +0200 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] Understanding the smearjob that was done on the Durban Review Conference In-Reply-To: <224765752.1340251241648754108.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> References: <224765752.1340251241648754108.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> Message-ID: Sid: Really good. The more criticsim the better. Everything they do shoots themselves in the foot. Criticism, calm and clear analytical, simply shows the bloody footsteps going backward. Silence not an option. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com On 5/7/09, Sid Shniad wrote: > > > > (A version of this article will be published in the May / June 2009 issue > of Canadian Jewish Outlook magazine .) > > > > > > > > Understanding the smearjob that was done on the Durban Review Conference > > > > > > > > By Sid Shniad > > > > > > > > In 2001, the United Nations convened the World Conference Against Racism > (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa, to deal with a range of issues related to > racism and its legacies, including the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the > appropriation of the land and resources of the world?s indigenous peoples, > and the human rights of the Palestinians. > > > > > > > > The government of Israel responded to the anti-semitic actions of a few > marginal NGOs which participated in Durban by branding the entire WCAR ? > widely seen as a high water mark in the international battle against racism > ? as an anti-semitic ?hatefest?. This became the pretext for Israel and its > allies to walk out of the conference in an attempt to prevent Israel?s > behaviour vis-?-vis the Palestinians as well as other vitally important > matters from being addressed. > > > > > > > > The U.S. government, which had been adamant in its refusal to address the > legacy of the slave trade and the attendant call for reparations long before > the Durban conference was convened, seized the opportunity and joined the > Israeli walkout. Although the WCAR had to proceed without Israel and the > U.S., it was able to produce a ground-breaking document known as the Durban > Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) that addressed a range of issues > rooted in racism and laid out a plan for dealing with them. Following > standard practice, the UN set up a review conference to assess the progress > made in addressing the Programme of Action contained in the DDPA. This > conference was convened in Geneva in late April. > > > > > > > > In 2007, Canada?s Harper government embraced the Israeli-Zionist contention > that the 2001 Durban conference had been an anti-semitic ?hatefest? and > became the first government in the world to announce that it would boycott > the DDPA Review. Exploiting the opportunity to undermine debate on the very > topics they were determined to avoid ? Palestine and reparations for the > slave trade ? Israel and the United States subsequently joined the > Canadian-led boycott. > > > > > > > > The Canadian, Israeli and American governments? efforts to undermine the > Durban Review were complemented by an extensive, elaborate campaign on the > part of Zionist and pro-Israeli organizations. As a reporter for the Jewish > Telegraphic Agency explained, > > > > > > > > For nearly a year before the anti-racism confab, Jewish and pro-Israel > groups lobbied hard to get Western countries to boycott the gathering... > > > > > > > > Indeed, during the months leading up to the conference, the U.N. high > commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, noted several times that an > orchestrated campaign was behind Western threats to boycott the conference, > dubbed Durban II. > > > > > > > > ?The conference process has been the subject of ferocious and often > distorted criticism by certain lobby groups focused on single issues,? she > said... [1] > > > > > > > > Despite these efforts to undermine the DDPA Review, an impressive array of > delegates from around the world gathered in Geneva from April 20 through 24 > to carry it out. Unfortunately, the opening day of the conference was > dominated by controversy generated by the appearance of Iranian President > Mahmoud Admadinejad, who has gained international notoriety for attempting > to cast doubt on the Nazi holocaust. In the event, Admadinejad?s speech > dealt with a range of issues, with the bulk of it criticizing Israel?s > expulsion of Palestinians from their land in 1948, its continuing occupation > of the West Bank and Gaza, and the unquestioning support that Israel > receives from the United States and other countries of the West. > > > > > > > > Traumatized by the abuse it received at the hands of the Israel Lobby > described above, the UN refused to allow side events focusing on Israel and > Palestine to take place inside the Palais des Nations. But members of many > Israel Lobby groups circumvented this rule by giving their Zionist-dominated > workshops titles which gave the appearance of offering presentations on > topics addressing subjects related to racism. But the speeches and > discussions in these sessions featured over-the-top rants from stars like > Bernard-Henri L?vy, Natan Sharansky, Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel and Jon > Voight about Iranian and Palestinian "anti-semitism," "nazism" and > allegations of racism against Israelis. > > > > > > > > These high profile apologists for everything Israeli were just part of an > extensive array of Zionist organizations that participated in the Durban > Review en masse. Rather than contributing to a substantive debate, these > groups disrupted the conference and made it difficult for other participants > to discuss their issues. In one workshop on Islamophobia, Palestinians were > described by a member of the World Jewish Congress as a people ?who educate > their men to rape their children.? (Imagine the banner headlines that would > have been generated in Canada?s Asper-dominated press if Arabs or Muslims > had made similar anti-Jewish remarks.) The disruptions became so extreme > that the United Nations ended up removing the credentials of hundreds of the > Zionist delegates at mid-week and expelling them from the remainder of the > conference. > > > > > > > > The aggressive, in-your-face approach of these Zionist forces generated a > significant backlash among conference participants. While a strong > commitment to combating anti-semitism was reiterated throughout, there was a > buzz within the conference about the destructive, abusive tactics deployed > by the various Zionist organizations. Despite these disruptive tactics, the > Review Conference managed to generate some excellent analysis and > participants were able to engage in spirited debate. In the end, the > recommendations generated by the 2001 conference at Durban were reaffirmed > by the participants in this Review. > > > > > > > > The Review Conference featured a number of outstanding speakers and > panellists. Michel Warschawski of the Alternate Information Center in Israel > provided a particularly powerful analysis of the significance of the > original Durban conference and the events that have transpired since. > According to Warschawski, the Durban conference marked a major success in > the struggle against colonialism ? so successful that it became a catalyst > for an alliance of Zionist and neoconservative elements determined to mount > a global counter-offensive and roll back the progress that the forces > opposed to colonialism made there. > > > > > > > > Warschawski traced how this counter-offensive focused initially on > terrorism, shifting later to Islamic terrorism, and finally ended up > indicting Islam itself as the enemy. All this was promoted under the rubric > of the Clash of Civilizations, with Judeo-Christianity portrayed as engaged > in a battle to the death with Islamic Barbarism in an open-ended war. [2] > Those who rejected this framework were accused of being anti-semitic. > > > > > > > > In an aside, Warschawski countered the hysterical Zionist insistence that > anti-semitism is growing by leaps and bounds, noting that while it continues > to exist, European anti-semitism is coming from right wing Christian sources > rather than those rooted in Islam. He concluded his comments on this subject > on a positive note, offering evidence that anti-semitism is in fact > declining over time. > > > > > > > > Warschawski argued that Palestine is the frontline in this war and that the > Israeli Wall constitutes the dividing line between Judeo-Christian > ?Civilization? and Islamic ?Barbarism?, with the underlying issue being the > attempt by the Zionists and neoconservatives to re-impose empire, which has > been badly shaken by 40 years of successful anti-colonial struggle. He noted > that in the context of the Durban Review and the attempts to weaken and > undermine it, progressive forces had been put on the defensive and forced > backwards, explaining that this is what the boycott campaign and the > attempts to disrupt the conference from within had been all about. > Warschawski concluded by imploring activists to dedicate themselves to > ensuring that they are fully prepared for the upcoming Durban Plus Ten > review so that the original, successful struggle can be resumed. > > > > > > Criticizing the Harper government?s boycott, a coalition of the groups from > Canadian civil society that participated in the Review Conference issued a > statement addressing our common concerns and met with the U.N. Deputy High > Commissioner for Human Rights to explain them. Our collective experience at > the Durban Review Conference shows that it is vitally important for civil > society to have its voice is heard and its issues addressed in world forums > like this to ensure that the Durban Programme of Action is followed . > Without the presence of civil society to counter them, highly organized > campaigns by groups like the Israel Lobby and its political allies will > bring this vitally important process to an end. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Sid Shniad is a co-chair of Independent Jewish Voices Canada. He was one of > the three-member IJV delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva. > > > > > > [1] The Jewish conspiracy against Durban II (No, seriously) , Jewish > Telegraphic Agency, April 29, 2009 > > > > > > > > > > > > > [2] This view of the world lies at the core of Zionism. Theodore Herzl, the > father of modern political Zionism, envisioned that the Jewish state he > advocated would play an essential role in the clash between the West and > barbarism. In his words, ?Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home.... > We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an > outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.? Der Judenstaat (The > Jewish State), 1896. Accessible online at > www.mideastweb.org/jewishstate.pdf , page 13. > > > > > > > > Former Israeli Prime Minister, current Defence Minister Ehud Barak gave > voice to the same perspective when he commented that ? We ... live in a > modern and prosperous villa in the middle of the jungle. ? Address by > Foreign Minister Ehud Barak To the Annual Plenary Session of the National > Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council , February 1996. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rad-Green mailing list > Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 11982 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090507/090c1f63/attachment.txt From noreply at coha.org Fri May 8 07:40:13 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 09:40:13 -0400 Subject: Ramón Villeda Morales: A Latin American Hero Message-ID: <20090508133755.1EF443E4759@mx-out2.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 3999 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090508/1305d32b/attachment.txt From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri May 8 10:26:47 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 13:26:47 -0300 Subject: [A-List] How to Cancel Third World Debt In-Reply-To: <919AA17F6BD1421BAE5EEFA9E51D13BA@TonyPC> References: <4A021CBE.3020203@ashisuto.co.jp> <919AA17F6BD1421BAE5EEFA9E51D13BA@TonyPC> Message-ID: <4A045D47.1060507@gmail.com> Tony B. escribio': > ..In fact, the countries of the First World should not only be > cancelling Third World debts..but paying reparations, big-time > reparations to those from whom they have taken so much. > > T. > How could I disagree, being an Argentinean? There is a small problem, however. Loot is at the roots of the development of the capitalist mode of production. How could the countries of the First World pay their debt with Latin America, when this debt begins with the extraction of the riches of the land since the 16th Century? If we were to do the maths, and if we applied a compound interest rate to the lowest estimate of the value not paid for by the European (and USAmerican) formations, we should be thinking of a debt to be computed by some figure taken to its 517th power. Whatever the final result, it would be unpayable -but through a socialist revolution... From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 8 15:20:51 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 06:20:51 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Negative Consequences of the Debt-Based Money System Message-ID: <4A04A233.1070301@ashisuto.co.jp> by Richard Greaves Prosperity (November 2001) 1) Goods and Services are Much More Expensive The cost of borrowing by producers, manufacturers, transporters, and retailers all has to be added to the price of the final product. 2) Consumers Have Much Less Money to Spend They are burdened by the cost of mortgages, overdrafts, credit cards, personal loans and as a result of 1 and 2 above ... 3) There is a Surplus of Goods and Services ... because the population can't afford to buy up all the goods and services being produced. This in turn creates ... 4) Cut Throat Competition Businesses try to cut prices and costs to grab a share of this limited purchasing power in the economy, as illustrated by: Wages being held down as much as possible. Shedding of jobs. Both of these reduce people's spending power even more. Retailers importing cheap products from abroad where wages are much lower. Production of cheaper goods that don't last as long. Protection of the environment a low priority. Mergers and take-overs - corporations get bigger and bigger, driven to search out new markets. Big companies shifting production to poorer countries which have cheap non-unionised labour and the least stringent safety and environmental laws or ... Demanding large government subsidies and tax free incentives as the price for setting up new production or not relocating abroad. 5) Inflation This is guaranteed because producers constantly have to borrow more, and must add the cost of that increased borrowing to the price of the goods produced. Why is it that when the bankers hike their prices (that is, put up interest rates) this is supposed to reduce inflation? It doesn't. It's just that there's a delay in industry putting up prices. Initially, industry is forced to hold or even reduce its prices with its profits down, or even sustain losses, in a desperate bid to sell its products in an economy where the money available for spending has been reduced, because of higher interest payments being made to the banks. Inflation may be held in check or even reduced temporarily, but eventually industry must put its prices up in order to recover these higher costs. This most readily happens when interest rates come down, more people borrow, and money supply and consumer spending increases. Inflation then races ahead. The fact that - in a debt based economy - levels of borrowing cum money creation have to keep on rising, and thereby adding to the overall burden of interest payments, guarantees that inflation will be present as long as we have an economy based on an increasing burden of debt. 6) Negative Effects on International Trade Surplus goods in the national economy have to be disposed of somehow. The obvious way to do this is to try to export them! The absurdity is that every nation is trying to do this, because of the same fundamental problem at home. This creates frenzied competition in world markets and masses of near identical goods madly criss-crossing the globe in search of an outlet. Instead of international trade being based on reciprocal mutually beneficial arrangements where nations supply each others' genuine needs and wants, the whole thing becomes a cut-throat competition to grab market share in order to stay solvent in a debt based economy. Big corporations demand unrestricted access to every nation's market - so called "free" trade. The European Union "single market", the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organisation are the best examples of the drive to open up all national markets. Exporting is good for a nation's economy because when exported goods are paid for, this brings money into the exporting nation?s economy free of debt. The money to pay for them was borrowed from banks in the importing nation. That money is lost to the importing nation's economy, but the debt that created that money still has to be repaid by the importer out of the remaining money in the importing nation's economy. If a nation can become a big net exporter, for a time its economy will boom with all the debt-free money coming in - a trade surplus will exist. Importing is not so good for a nation's economy because if some nations are building up trade surpluses in this way, others must be net importers and building up trade deficits. Ultimately, those with big deficits can no longer afford to import, since so much money is sucked out of their economies leaving a proportionally increasing burden of debt behind. 7) Third World Debt The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was set up to provide an international reserve of money supposedly to help nations with big deficits. In practice it makes matters worse. A nation with a big deficit has to seek a bail out from the IMF. But this comes in the form of a loan, repayable with interest. Like loans from a commercial bank, IMF loans are money created out of nothing, based on a cash reserve pool, which is provided by western nations who go into debt to provide it (see "National Debt" below). The nation with the deficit goes even more heavily into debt. It will however be able to carry on trading and importing goods from the wealthier nations. As a result, much of this borrowed IMF loan money flows into the economies of wealthier Western nations. However, the repayment obligation, including the interest payments, remains with the debtor nation. This is the horror of third world debt - the poorest nations borrow money to bolster the money supply of the richer nations. In order to secure income to pay the loan and interest, and redress the trade balance, these poorest nations must export whatever they can produce. Thus they exploit every possible resource - stripping forests for timber, mining, giving over their best agricultural land to providing luxury foodstuffs for the West, rather than providing for local needs. Today, for nations in Africa, Central and South America and elsewhere, the revenue from their exports does not even meet the interest payments on these IMF loans (and other loans from Western banks). The sums paid in interest over the years far exceed the amounts of the original loans themselves. The result is a desperate shortage of money in their economies - resulting in cutbacks in necessities such as basic health and education programmes. Grinding poverty exists in nations with a great wealth of natural resources. Structural Adjustment Programmes - these are now attached to IMF loans and include conditions that recipient countries will reduce or remove tariff barriers and "open up their markets to foreign competition" - in other words take surplus goods off another country that can't be sold at home. 8) War War means enormous increases in national debt and enormous profits for the banks Massive government borrowing and money creation by banks is required to fund a war effort. Financiers and bankers have covertly funded both sides in both World Wars and many other conflicts before and since. Having profited from war leaving nations with massive debts and more beholden than ever to them, the banks then fund reconstruction. 9) National Debt British national debt now stands around GBP 400 billion - the annual interest on that debt is around GBP 25-30 billion. The government can only pay it by taxing the population as a whole, so we pay! National debt is up from GBP 26 billion in 1960 and GBP 90 billion in 1980. Successive governments have borrowed this money into existence over the years. Instead of creating it themselves and spending it into the economy on public services and projects, boosting the economy and providing jobs, they get banks to create it for them and then borrow it at interest. And we pay it back in our taxes! It all started in 1694 when King William needed money to fight a war against France. He borrowed GBP 1.2 million from a group of London bankers and goldsmiths. In return for the loan, they were incorporated by royal charter as the "Bank of England" which became the government's banker. Interest at eight per cent was payable on the loan and taxes were imposed on a whole range of goods to pay the interest. This marked the birth of national debt. Ever since then, the world over, governments have borrowed money from banks and taxed the population to pay the interest. How the Government Borrows Money When governments borrow money, in return they issue to the lender, exchequer or treasury bonds - otherwise known as government stocks or securities. These are basically IOU's - promises by government to repay the loan by a particular date, and to pay interest. They are taken up by banks, but also by individuals with money to spare, including wealthy ones in the banking fraternity and, in more recent years, pension and other investment funds. When government securities are taken up by banks, this is money creation, out of nothing, at the stroke of a pen. Banks are creating money as loans, out of nothing, by lending it into existence to the government in very much the same way as they do to individuals and companies. The government now has new money in the form of loans to spend on its requirements, such as public services. If this money were not borrowed into existence in this way, there would be less economic activity as a result. Under this system national debt is money issued to the government and, as such, has become a vital part of the total money supply of any modern nation. The government constantly tells us that "there isn?t enough money", because it knows that the cost of borrowing money this way has to be passed on to the taxpayer. Instead, it sells off state assets and now gets the private sector to fund public services instead. The Constant Increase in National Debt In the same way that under the present system, industry and individuals must keep borrowing more and more to enable interest payments to be kept up on their existing loans, so government must constantly borrow more and more to keep up interest payments on its existing loans. Furthermore, when a particular government stock is due for repayment, the government simply borrows more by issuing new government stocks. And it's we who pay for it in our taxes! An Alternative - Phasing Out The National Debt "If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good." Thomas Edison, The New York Times (December 06 1921) Government could stop borrowing money at interest, and start creating it itself by spending it - debt free - into the economy on public projects and services, at the same time creating jobs and stimulating the economy. It already does this to a limited extent - the amount it receives from banks when it sells cash to them is added to the public purse and is available for spending on public services and projects. For a start we could, at least, fund the interest payments on the National Debt by government created debt-free money, instead of by taxation - as advocated by James Gibb Stuart in his book The Money Bomb (available for GBP 5 payable to Prosperity, at the address below). A Democratic Imperative Seeking to redistribute what money there is by taxing the rich to pay for services for the less well off does nothing to solve the problem of the overall shortage of money in the economy caused by the debt based money supply - a problem which most socialists have yet to recognise. The nation's economy is our economy. We create the real wealth through our ingenuity, enterprise and hard work. The current banking system operates as a massive drain on that public wealth as well as concentrating power and control in the hands of a tiny, private minority. Money is the means of facilitating the exchange of goods and services. There is nothing wrong with creating it out of nothing, because this is the only way to provide the means of exchange. What is wrong is that the right to do this has been allowed to pass to private interests who create it as loans for private profit. Can we not ultimately incorporate the humanitarian principles of a fair distribution of wealth that underlies socialism with the dynamic benefits of a free enterprise economy that lies at the heart of capitalism? For as long as the power to create money is in the hands of private interests who do it for profit and control, we can never say that we live in a democracy. On this, at least, the IMF had it right. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: PROSPERITY: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to PROSPERITY at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham, [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham, [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/negcon.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 8 15:42:16 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 06:42:16 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <1241700660.6298.45.camel@phollings-desktop> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> <1241700660.6298.45.camel@phollings-desktop> Message-ID: <4A04A738.4020002@ashisuto.co.jp> Well stated, Peter. You might have added that most of most nations' public debt comes from the cost of "servicing" that debt (repaying borrowed money and paying interest on the outstanding balance); very little of the national debt is used to build and maintain infrastructure and provide services to citizens. If the government created and spent into circulation most of the money banks now loan into circulation, most nations could greatly reduce (and within decades eliminate) their national debt while improving infrastructure and services for citizens while reducing taxes. Bill Peter Hollings wrote: > Todd -- > > This is a very involved topic which I will have to address selectively. > First of all, the Fed's FAQ page is at best misleading. For example it > states "The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a > private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity > within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects." > This may be technically true, but the real action in terms of conducting > monetary policy is conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's > Open Market Committee. The FRBNY is, as the FAQ states, one of "The > twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by > Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, > [which] are organized much like private corporations--possibly leading > to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks > issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank > stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The > Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain > amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The > stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; > dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year." > > For many years the banks did not rebate any of their earnings to the > Treasury, but Wright Patman forced through legislation resulting in an > 85% rebate -- this is after paying their fairly lavish expenses (think > of grand marble buildings) and a statutory dividend to their commercial > bank shareholders. But, I think focusing the discussion on rebates to > Treasury is missing the bigger picture. For example, government debt is > sold to a restricted group of Primary Dealers which operate much like a > cartel and who make a markup on it's resale. Another cartel-like > practice (of the commercial banks which own the Fed) is the > establishment of a Prime Rate which is much like a fixed price that is > used throughout the banking system in pricing loans. Corporations > seeking loans from a bank are discouraged from "split banking > relationships" which means that they have difficulties in getting > competitive pricing. > > Another major aspect is that the potential to profit from foreknowledge > of changes in interest rates is probably much greater than the interest > earnings itself. The banks are dealers constantly buying and selling > government debt. Small changes in interest rates cause large changes in > the value of their inventory. The NY Fed is owned by the money center > banks there and it is their Open Market Committee which controls > interest rates. > > Finally, there is the issue of money creation. Estimates vary, but there > is general agreement that over 90% of our money is created by accounting > entries made when commercial banks make loans. When a loan is made they > book the loan as an asset and deposit the proceeds in the borrower's > checking account, a liability account. Checking accounts are considered > part of M1 and, thus, the money supply is increased by simple accounting > entries. The bank did not have the lent money prior to the loan. One > consequence of this is that it puts the banks, and not society itself, > in the role of determining for what purposes new money will be spent. > Even our government depends on banks to create money. > > Peter Hollings > > > > On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 08:39 +0900, Bill Totten wrote: > >> Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives on >> US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by foreign >> governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and >> corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where >> you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. >> >> Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals >> and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US >> government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other >> governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend >> into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public >> debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest >> governments pay on that debt. Bill >> >> >> Todd Boyle wrote: >>> Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >>> >>>> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>>> >>>> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for >>>> this or >>>> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >>> Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >>> It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >>> The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >>> The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >>> >>> Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >>> in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >>> in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member banks? >>> Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to the >>> Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? >>> >>> To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >>> >>> Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >>> do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >>> But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >>> create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >>> >>> His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >>> larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create >>> the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >>> export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >>> of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >>> rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >>> The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >>> maintained at the point of a gun, really. >>> >>> The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >>> effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >>> and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >>> For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >>> >>> >>> The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >>> the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >>> Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >>> 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >>> whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >>> Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >>> banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >>> does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >>> or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >>> is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >>> liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >>> world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >>> they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >>> on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >>> whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >>> gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >>> into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >>> in 2000 and 2004. >>> >>> The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >>> scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >>> This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >>> Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >>> somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >>> there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >>> able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >>> is payor and payee of every transaction. >>> >>> todd >>> >>> >>> >>> Todd > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 8 17:02:27 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 08:02:27 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp><7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <4A04BA03.2050406@ashisuto.co.jp> Well said, Tony. Maybe it will easier to replace bank-created, debt money with government-created money free of debt than to replace capitalism with something else, and maybe that might be a giant step toward replacing capitalism with something else. Bill Tony B. wrote: > Just thinking out loud here.... > > I'm not as familiar with the Fed (though I believe it operates roughly > similarly) as with the Bank of Canada. The latter floats money into > circulation by buying bonds from the Gov't of Canada, issuing a cheque > drawn on itself and then printing new notes in the amount of the debt. > It deposits these in a commercial bank account (or accounts). > > Now, the point is that it is with these new accounts that the commercial > banks then lend out money limited only by their reserve requirements. > Let's say the original amount deposited was $2 million, then by the time > the original 2 million is lent out successively to other banks and > institutions - each making loans limited only by a, say, 8% reserve > requirement - the total multiplier effect results in $100,000,000 of new > credit..new money. And it is on this money that the commercial banks > extract interest, i.e. on money that they created from 'nothing', and > received profit on for free. > > Now what's worse is when these same commercial banks loan money (!) to > the gov't (which, because of the 'risk-based capital reserve' system > instituted by the Basel Accords that Canada signed onto in an ammendment > to the Bank Act - legislated in the dead of night - in the late '80's > early 90's, induced the commerical banks to load up on Bank of Canada > bonds in preference over the making of loans to business) 'we' the > citizens of Canada end up paying the private commercial banks - and > paying through the nose - for holding gov't debt which, of course, could > just have easily been held by the Bank of Canada for virtually nothing > (and, indeed, all minimal interest accruing to the gov't in any case). > > [It was precisely this process which, due to the excessive, usorious > interest rates of the '80s led to the gov't of Canada acquiring roughly > 90% of its present debt load.] > > So perhaps it is in this less literal sense (a process lately and > eloquently ariculated by Ellen Brown) that Rowbotham is expostulating > that, 'How dare the gov't claim...when they do not create any money?' > > And, of course, the 'democratization' theme is the crucial point. But > really, can we even talk about economic (or its corollary, political) > 'democratization' under capitalism? Well, I guess we can talk about it - > but the two being entirely antithetical rather makes the discussion a > tad moot. > > Tony > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" > To: "The A-List" > Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:39 PM > Subject: Re: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform > > >> Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives >> on US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by >> foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and >> corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where >> you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. >> >> Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals >> and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US >> government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other >> governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend >> into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public >> debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest >> governments pay on that debt. Bill >> >> >> Todd Boyle wrote: >>> Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >>> >>>> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>>> >>>> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for >>>> this or >>>> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >>> >>> Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >>> It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >>> The FAQ is here. >>> http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >>> The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >>> >>> Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >>> in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >>> in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member >>> banks? >>> Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it >>> to the >>> Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? >>> >>> To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >>> >>> Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >>> do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >>> But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >>> create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >>> >>> His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >>> larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to >>> create >>> the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >>> export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >>> of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >>> rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >>> The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >>> maintained at the point of a gun, really. >>> >>> The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >>> effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >>> and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >>> For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >>> The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >>> the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >>> Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >>> 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >>> whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >>> Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >>> banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >>> does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >>> or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >>> is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >>> liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >>> world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >>> they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >>> on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >>> whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >>> gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >>> into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >>> in 2000 and 2004. >>> >>> The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >>> scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >>> This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >>> Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >>> somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >>> there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >>> able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >>> is payor and payee of every transaction. >>> >>> todd >>> >>> >>> >>> Todd >> >> > > > > > From tal1 at cogeco.ca Fri May 8 18:56:31 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 20:56:31 -0400 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <4A04BA03.2050406@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp><7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A04BA03.2050406@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <3C1968093A894A34A69E2186EBBE1758@TonyPC> Bill, I hear ya. And I reckon that change by reform rather than revolution seems like the easiest, perhaps even the only, route. Still, this is a theme that, both historically and at present, is rife with contention. Certainly democratizing the banking system would count as a 'little revolution'...though I still have a hard time visualizing how it could come about given its central role within present-day capitalist social and economic relations. Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" To: "The A-List" Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 7:02 PM Subject: Re: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform > Well said, Tony. Maybe it will easier to replace bank-created, debt money > with government-created money free of debt than to replace capitalism with > something else, and maybe that might be a giant step toward replacing > capitalism with something else. Bill > > Tony B. wrote: >> Just thinking out loud here.... >> >> I'm not as familiar with the Fed (though I believe it operates roughly >> similarly) as with the Bank of Canada. The latter floats money into >> circulation by buying bonds from the Gov't of Canada, issuing a cheque >> drawn on itself and then printing new notes in the amount of the debt. It >> deposits these in a commercial bank account (or accounts). >> >> Now, the point is that it is with these new accounts that the commercial >> banks then lend out money limited only by their reserve requirements. >> Let's say the original amount deposited was $2 million, then by the time >> the original 2 million is lent out successively to other banks and >> institutions - each making loans limited only by a, say, 8% reserve >> requirement - the total multiplier effect results in $100,000,000 of new >> credit..new money. And it is on this money that the commercial banks >> extract interest, i.e. on money that they created from 'nothing', and >> received profit on for free. >> >> Now what's worse is when these same commercial banks loan money (!) to >> the gov't (which, because of the 'risk-based capital reserve' system >> instituted by the Basel Accords that Canada signed onto in an ammendment >> to the Bank Act - legislated in the dead of night - in the late '80's >> early 90's, induced the commerical banks to load up on Bank of Canada >> bonds in preference over the making of loans to business) 'we' the >> citizens of Canada end up paying the private commercial banks - and >> paying through the nose - for holding gov't debt which, of course, could >> just have easily been held by the Bank of Canada for virtually nothing >> (and, indeed, all minimal interest accruing to the gov't in any case). >> >> [It was precisely this process which, due to the excessive, usorious >> interest rates of the '80s led to the gov't of Canada acquiring roughly >> 90% of its present debt load.] >> >> So perhaps it is in this less literal sense (a process lately and >> eloquently ariculated by Ellen Brown) that Rowbotham is expostulating >> that, 'How dare the gov't claim...when they do not create any money?' >> >> And, of course, the 'democratization' theme is the crucial point. But >> really, can we even talk about economic (or its corollary, political) >> 'democratization' under capitalism? Well, I guess we can talk about it - >> but the two being entirely antithetical rather makes the discussion a tad >> moot. >> >> Tony >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" >> >> To: "The A-List" >> Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:39 PM >> Subject: Re: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform >> >> >>> Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives on >>> US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by foreign >>> governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and >>> corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where >>> you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good >>> informaton. >>> >>> Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals >>> and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US >>> government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other >>> governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend >>> into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public >>> debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest >>> governments pay on that debt. Bill >>> >>> >>> Todd Boyle wrote: >>>> Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >>>> >>>>> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>>>> >>>>> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for >>>>> this or >>>>> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >>>> >>>> Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >>>> It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >>>> The FAQ is here. >>>> http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >>>> The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >>>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >>>> >>>> Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >>>> in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >>>> in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member >>>> banks? >>>> Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to >>>> the >>>> Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the >>>> Treasury? >>>> >>>> To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >>>> >>>> Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >>>> do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >>>> But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >>>> create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >>>> >>>> His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >>>> larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to >>>> create >>>> the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >>>> export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >>>> of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >>>> rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >>>> The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >>>> maintained at the point of a gun, really. >>>> >>>> The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >>>> effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >>>> and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >>>> For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >>>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >>>> The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >>>> the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >>>> Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >>>> 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >>>> whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >>>> Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >>>> banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >>>> does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >>>> or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >>>> is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >>>> liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >>>> world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >>>> they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >>>> on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >>>> whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >>>> gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >>>> into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >>>> in 2000 and 2004. >>>> >>>> The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >>>> scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >>>> This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >>>> Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >>>> somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >>>> there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >>>> able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >>>> is payor and payee of every transaction. >>>> >>>> todd >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Todd >>> >>> >> >> >> >> >> > > From suzannedk at gmail.com Fri May 8 13:05:07 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 21:05:07 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Criminalizing Criticism of Israel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If this is forced through it will be the final nail in the coffin of international human rights law. Also one in the coffin of Jewish pride, safety and respect. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anthony Fenton Date: May 7, 2009 10:36 PM Subject: [R-G] Criminalizing Criticism of Israel To: Suzanne de Kuyper http://counterpunch.org/roberts05072009.html May 7, 2009 The End of Free Speech? Criminalizing Criticism of Israel By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby?s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide. To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews. Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn?t been mopping floors at the White House. As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel?s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands. It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament?s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus. It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity. It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust. It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy. In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned. Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel?s military assault on Gaza?s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of ?excessive? criticism of Israel? This is a serious question. A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is ?tendentious, patently biased,? which puts the UN report into the State Department?s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes. It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers? T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, ?One shot, two kills.? These T-shirts are an indication that Israel?s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination. It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel?s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel?s crimes are covered up and even praised. Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for ?spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act?? Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists. A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson?s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel?s invasion of Gaza. The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison. The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy? Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda. To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti- semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world. Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered. Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn?t need to be protected by thought control. Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts at yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 8383 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090508/70e3bf84/attachment.txt From suzannedk at gmail.com Fri May 8 13:07:24 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 21:07:24 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Criminalizing Criticism of Israel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anthony Fenton Date: May 7, 2009 10:36 PM Subject: [R-G] Criminalizing Criticism of Israel To: Suzanne de Kuyper http://counterpunch.org/roberts05072009.html May 7, 2009 The End of Free Speech? Criminalizing Criticism of Israel By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby?s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide. To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews. Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn?t been mopping floors at the White House. As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel?s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands. It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament?s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus. It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity. It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust. It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy. In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned. Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel?s military assault on Gaza?s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of ?excessive? criticism of Israel? This is a serious question. A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is ?tendentious, patently biased,? which puts the UN report into the State Department?s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes. It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers? T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, ?One shot, two kills.? These T-shirts are an indication that Israel?s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination. It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel?s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel?s crimes are covered up and even praised. Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for ?spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act?? Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists. A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson?s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel?s invasion of Gaza. The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison. The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy? Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda. To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti- semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world. Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered. Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn?t need to be protected by thought control. Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts at yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 8036 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090508/b6b8c86e/attachment.txt From suzannedk at gmail.com Fri May 8 13:51:44 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 21:51:44 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Israel: The Kingdom of Lies In-Reply-To: <1935598246.100511241808630803.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> References: <1334150011.98851241808418916.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> <1935598246.100511241808630803.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> Message-ID: This commentary would not today be allowed in a US University without the Israeli Lobby destroying that professor and threatening to destroy the University if it did not demoize it's best and brightest. The western world has come full circle since WW11. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sid Shniad Date: May 8, 2009 8:50 PM Subject: [R-G] Israel: The Kingdom of Lies To: Suzanne de Kuyper http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15062 The Kingdom of Lies 'Racism in Israel is not like racism in other states.' By Jeremy Salt - Ankara Racism is common to most and probably all societies. Laws never seem entirely to eliminate it. It was the essential tool in the creation of modern settler states. The United States could not have come into existence without the obliteration of North American Indian cultures and of large numbers of the people themselves. They had to die so the US could be born. In Australia the indigenous people of Tasmania were wiped out to the last man, woman and child, while on the mainland the tribes were massacred, confined, stripped of their ancestral land and eventually turned into fringe dwellers. Until recently Australia had a prime minister who could deny that aboriginal children of mixed ?blood? were taken from their parents up to the 1930s and refused to issue any expression of remorse for their mistreatment. More recent targets of racism have been Lebanese and Vietnamese immigrants, while the Howard federal government?s racist treatment of Iraqi and Afghan refugees and asylum seekers remains one of the most shameful chapters of Australia?s history. In the US the election of a colored president would have been inconceivable until very recently. It was so unbelievable that people wept when Barack Obama won the elections. Racism comes in many shades. Discrimination against people on the grounds of skin color, ethnicity or religion is a basic human rights issue, a first cousin to discrimination, harassment and denial of opportunity on the basis of gender. President Mahmud Ahmedinejad, in his recent speech at the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, drew attention to Israel as a racist state but Iran has serious issues of its own to deal with. Homosexuality in Iran is treated as a crime. Gays and prostitutes are executed in public. The Bahais have been the victims of discrimination and persecution throughout Iran?s modern history and this remains the case today. They have no legal identity in Iran. On all of these issues, Iran is itself vulnerable to criticism on the grounds of human rights, which does not, of course, detract in any way from his criticism of Israel. The outrage directed against Ahmedinajad obscured the real issue at the heart of what he was saying: is Israel a racist state? In settler societies such as the United States, Australia and Canada, the crude racism which drove invasion and colonization mostly belongs to the past, when there was an active concept of race, allied with the categories of civilization, barbarism and savagery. The North American Indian was regarded by the white settlers as a savage, perhaps noble, mean or cunning, but a savage ?redskin? nevertheless. In Australia the indigenous people were scarcely counted as human beings. It was not until the 1960s that they were even given the vote. The same relegation of ?Negroes? to a contingent category of humanity (at best) justified slavery and segregation in the southern states of the United States. The dehumanization of all of these groups was essential to the colonizing process (including the colonization of Algeria after the French invasion of 1830) and the enrichment of white settlers. All modern ?western? colonial settler states share the same characteristics, i.e. the obliteration of indigenous cultures and the displacement of people from their land. This was true of the North American settlers, the Australian colonists and the Boers who eliminated the Herero people of southwest Africa in the early 20th century. Treaties in which the indigenous people were compelled to consent to the invasion and settlement of their land were signed in North America and New Zealand but not in Australia, where the colonists regarded the indigenous people as less than human and could therefore assert that the land was ?empty?. There are numerous parallels here with Zionism not only on the basis of an ?empty? land being settled or of civilization being brought to a ?primitive? people but in the double nature of the colonialism. In North America and Palestine, settlement was fostered by a distant government against which the settlers eventually rebelled before declaring their ?independence?. Gradually, mostly only in the last half century, laws and attitudes changed. This rolling process met with resistance at every stage from those who justified discrimination on the basis of the Bible or racist genetic theories. Not until the 1960s and 1970s were racially discriminatory laws eliminated from the statute books in modern settler states such as the US and Australia, which does not mean that structural racism has been eliminated. It has not. It can be measured in education, health and welfare statistics, while episodes of racism involving police and the public at large show that attitudes are harder to change than laws. The difference between Israel and these other settler states is partly one of timing. Israel was founded not at the beginning or the middle of the historical cycle of the settler state phenomenon but right at the end. Israel is a paradox ? a settler state arising at the beginning of the post-colonial era. Across Africa, southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, national liberation movements challenged powers unwilling to voluntarily relinquish the territories they had seized in the 19th century. The right of native people to self-determination was expressed in the UN Charter. It was at this precise moment that Israel was established. At a time when universal values were being emphasized Israel headed in the opposite direction. The Holocaust generated enormous emotional support across the western world for the establishment of Israel. It might not have been the ?pretext? for its creation of Israel, as Mahmud Ahmedinejad is reported to have said in Geneva, but it was certainly exploited by the Zionists to make sure that Israel came into existence. Refugees from Europe might have gone elsewhere, but for ideological reasons the only place the Zionist movement wanted them to go was Palestine. The media joined the chorus calling for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine as a solution to the refugee problem and an antidote to anti-semitism. In fact removing the victims from the scene of the crime was no answer to the historical problem of European anti-semitism. Their ?solution? allowed European governments to evade responsibility for the consequences of actions in which all of them were in some way complicit. A people who were in no way responsible for the massive crimes which had been committed against Jews were being made to pay for them. Their rights and interests were treated with as much indifference or disdain as anti-semites had traditionally treated the rights and interests of Jews. The export of the ?Jewish problem? to Palestine was in its own way anti-semitic. Within the British government there were objections but only for financial reasons. Britain was broke and could not afford the extra cost of policing Palestine were 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe to be admitted as the Zionists and President Truman were demanding in 1946. Even within the US administrations there were reservations. How, for example, could the principle of self-determination be reconciled with the denial of the right of the majority of the people of Palestine to decide their own future? Would not a ?socialist? Jewish state in Palestine further the ambitions of the USSR in the Middle East? And what of America?s interests and its relations with the Arab world? They could only be seriously damaged by support for this project. Ultimately it was Truman and not the UN who decided that Israel would be created in Palestine. Without his direct intervention the partition vote would never have got across the finishing line at the UN General Assembly. It still has to remembered that the vote was only a recommendation, anyway, swept aside when Ben-Gurion, ignoring the provisions of the partition plan, made a unilateral declaration of ?independence? in the name of the state of Israel six months after the plan was passed. In essence it was no different from the declaration of UDI made in the 1960s by the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Smith. In the name of ?independence?, both Smith and David Ben-Gurion declared war on the right of an indigenous people to determine their own future on their own land. One got away with it and one did not. What kind of state Israel would become was predetermined. In Israel today there are individuals and organizations fighting for coexistence with the Palestinians but since the beginning of Zionist settlement such voices have always spoken from the margins. From Herzl?s time onward it was understand within the mainstream that the Palestinians would never give up their land voluntarily and somehow would have to be removed from it. Thus Israel deliberately set itself from the beginning not just against the Palestinians but against the entire population of the Middle East, for whom Palestine (with Jerusalem at its heart) was an inalienable part of the Arab-Islamic heritage. Zionist justification rested on the argument that the ?Jewish people? were the true indigenous people of Palestine and that Muslims and Christians were present only as ?caretakers? whose role in history had now come to an end. The secondary moral position was that the suffering of Jews throughout history added up to a stronger claim than the rights of the Palestinians, a line of reasoning supported by Arthur James Balfour in 1917. The end justified the means. If it took the deprivation of Palestinian rights for a Jewish state to come into existence, so be it. In a land in which the vast bulk of the population was not Jewish, a Jewish state could only be constructed by taking one inherently racist measure after another. If the state were to be Jewish so would land ownership and labor. The conditions written into the charter of the Jewish National Fund and other land-purchasing organizations stipulated that land once acquired could never be retained to non-Jewish hands. This ?extra-territorialisation? of land as it was described by a British commission of inquiry sent to Palestine fuelled the Palestinian rebellion of 1936-39. Exclusive Jewish access to the land was followed through after 1948 by the destruction of approximately 500 villages and the passage of ?absent property? and ?present absentee? laws which prevented even Palestinians remaining inside Israel from returning to the property they owned. Security laws were another means of separating the Palestinians from their land. Consolidation of the Jewish presence on the land has continued through the attempt to erase the Palestinian presence in Jaffa and other cities inside the ?green line?. On the other side of the green line the tactics are cruder and more obvious. Open demographic war is being waged against the Palestinians in East Jerusalem while in Hebron the centre of the city has been closed down and residents around the market moved out in the name of ?security?, i.e. the protection of racist and fanatical Jewish settlers living in the heights above. Across the occupied West Bank it is the armed interlopers who describe the Palestinians as interlopers and ?infiltrators? of their own occupied land. All of their vandalism, bullying, harassment of men, women and children, destruction of property and uprooting of olive trees and occasional killing is underwritten by the state, and yet the state is outraged when the charge of racism is raised in Geneva. The colonization of the territories is not incidental or accidental racism but the carefully thought out strategic and ideological racism of a racist state. The fact that it continues every single day is testimony to Israel?s contempt for universal values and international law. Just as the land would have to be the exclusive possession of the Jewish ?people? (as 93 per cent of it is now legally classified), so it could only be worked by Jewish labor. Jewish employers were explicitly prohibited from hiring ?Arab? workers in the 1920s and 1930s. Until the 1960s the central Israeli labor organization, the Histadrut, would only admit Jewish members. In practice, labor discrimination has never worked perfectly because of the low cost of ?Arab? labor compared to ?Jewish? labor and because of the Palestinian need to work, a situation which has led to Palestinian laborers building the settlements being constructed on their own occupied land. When the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir visited Gaza in the 1970s she expressed shock, not at the establishment of Jewish settlements on expropriated land, but at the use of ?Arab? labor to work the land for the settlers. As Israel was the state for Jews wherever they lived and not for all the people who lived within its borders (so to speak, seeing that Israel has never actually declared its borders), the laws would have to be framed accordingly. The Nationality Law automatically conferred Israeli citizenship only on Jews (i.e born of a Jewish mother). The Law of Return granted the ?right? of ?return? to Jews who had never lived in Palestine while denying the right of return to Palestinians who had lived there for generations. Some families could trace their origins in Palestine back to the Islamic conquest of the 7th century. The structural discrimination against the Palestinians can be measured in socio-economic statistics dealing with poverty, unemployment, access to government services and education, house construction and funding for municipalities. Taking their cue from the government, and the openly racist statements made by senior political, military and religious figures, describing the Palestinians as ?two legged animals?, ?drugged cockroaches?, ?insects?, ?snakes? and ?a cancer?, large numbers of Israelis polled have said they do not want to live in the same apartment blocks as ?Arabs? and in fact would like to see them out of the state altogether. The racism coming out of the mouths of rabbis and religious seminaries, couched in terms of an exclusive Jewish right to ?Eretz Israel?, with many of the students or graduates of these seminaries living in the most aggressive of the West Bank settlements, is amongst the worst. Having set out on this path Israel has followed it unswervingly. One flagrant violation of human rights must be followed by another. Without war and without racism in spirit, deed and law there can be no Zionism and no ?Jewish state?. The Palestinians have been pursued wherever they have gone because by their presence they constitute an existential threat to Israel. Over the years the attitudes of the Israeli mainstream towards the Palestinian ?enemy? have grown even harsher. Palestinian armed struggle, suicide bombings and the rocketing of settlements near Gaza are not connected with the policies pursued by Israel against the Palestinians for six decades but with some ex nihilio desire to kill Jews and destroy Israel. This state of mind is deliberately cultivated from the top with the aim of keeping Israel?s Jewish citizens in a state of permanent readiness for the next war. The recent ?war? in Gaza was approved by more than 80 per cent of Israel?s Jewish population. The misrepresentation of a massive military onslaught on a largely defenseless civilian population as a ?war? allowed the civilian mainstream to justify the crimes that were being committed. Israelis looked on with indifference and even with approval as ?our boys? killed hundreds of people in three weeks, most of them civilians and 400 of them children. The media turned into a kingdom of lies. Every specious argument of the political and military establishment was accepted without question and transformed into truth. The racist t-shirts printed by Israeli ?soldiers? engaged in the attack on Gaza were only the surface manifestation of a much deeper psychosis. The t-shirts captured the attention of the outside world in a way that slow, structural, incremental racism never does. Literally every day brings some new or continuing manifestation of Israeli state racism to the surface. After 50 years the beduin are still being driven off their traditional land in the Naqab. Palestinians married to Israelis are prevented from living inside Israel with their spouses and families. The recently declared Jerusalem Regional Master Plan is inherently racist but apparently too complex for the outside media to work out its implications. It embodies the next stage of programmed discrimination that has continued without letup since 1967. The Jerusalem municipality is itself an illegal and racist body whose ?master plan? is a template for the further ?Judaisation? of Jerusalem whatever the cost to the Palestinians. It must be remembered that until 1948 Palestinian Muslims and Christians owned about 70 per cent of the property in West Jerusalem and all but one or two per cent of the property in the east. They did not forfeit their rights to their houses and land. Their rights have simply been usurped. In normal legal parlance the appropriation of their property is known as theft. For the first time since the Crusaders massacred Jews and Christians in the 11th century Jerusalem is being transformed into a city for a people of only one religious denomination. Under Arab and Ottoman rule Jerusalem remained a polyglot city. What the Jerusalem municipality and the state of Israel both want is a city cleansed of its non-Jewish population except for tourists and a colorful ethnic remnant hanging around the old city. Is all of this racist? Of course it is. In fact, those who care to study the UN?s Convention on Genocide, passed in 1948 as Zionist militias were still driving Palestinians off their land and destroying their villages, will see that Israel?s behavior meets some of the criteria of article 2 of the convention which describes genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: (a) killing members of the group (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part Israelis involved in the struggle against racism and occupation are fighting an uphill battle. The structural discrimination of the state against its non-Jewish citizens and against the Palestinians living in the occupied territories (as well as the Syrians living on the occupied Golan Heights) is a motor driving Israel and its people from one extreme to another. Thirty years ago it was regarded as unthinkable that Menahim Begin could ever be Israel?s Prime Minister but Begin was followed by Yitzhak Shamir, Benyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. All of them come out of the same school of Revisionist Zionism. Now revisionism is the mainstream, the labor movement is marginalized and Israel has again elected Netanyahu as its Prime Minister. He in turn has chosen as Foreign Minister the crude, arrogant, provocative and openly racist West Bank settler Avigdor Liebermann. Racism in Israel is not like racism in other states, which is usually a matter of changing laws and slowly working on public opinion. In Israel racism is so deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and the structure of the state that without racism Israel cannot remain the state that it has become. Yet there are no signs that the Israeli people or the politicians they are electing as their leaders have any intention of changing direction. When they have a powerful military and when they are under no pressure from the outside world they see no reason to change. In its blockade of Gaza Israel has been supported from the beginning by the US, the EU and the Quartet. None of these venerable authorities could see any reason for Israel to be punished or restrained even after the killing of 1400 Palestinians in Gaza from late December 2008 to mid-January 2009. Their indulgence encourages a dangerous state of mind. The politicians, the generals, the rabbis, the media commentators and the academics know that they are in the right and that everyone else is in the wrong. The outrage at criticism, the arrogance, the self-righteousness, the self-justification, the endless claims of moral superiority and the contempt and hatred of the Palestinians are extremely disturbing. Israel is not a small, weak state in the middle of nowhere. It is a powerful state, armed with nuclear weapons, in the middle of the Middle East. The refusal of the ?international community? to restrain states which live outside the law has led to many disasters in the past. The species of animal life known as homo sapiens has a poor record when it comes to averting calamities ahead of time. In the Middle East the creation of Israel brought disaster down on the heads of the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab countries. The states which created Israel have not yet taken responsibility for the consequences of their actions, but have rather made themselves more complicit in the crimes still being committed. As long as the disaster is someone else?s (and not Israel?s) they do not seem to be concerned. How else can this be understood but as their own racism? Do they have to be pushed to the point where they are directly and unavoidably involved in Israel?s confrontation with the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab world to realize the consequences of what they have done these past six decades? - Jeremy Salt is associate professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 23604 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090508/cc93f5fd/attachment.txt From nscchicago at igc.org Fri May 8 23:13:00 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 00:13:00 -0500 Subject: [A-List] FIDEL REFLECTS ON MAY DAY NO PANAMA FTA WAR ON IMMIGRANTS Message-ID: <83DF12724A944173B4D1C877828A8B50@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here The circumstance of immigration, friends, is heavy. And it is wherever there are borders US Corporate Greed Wants to Ram Another One Down. The people of Panama know what is in store for them is what has befallen elsewhere - NAFTA CAFTA There are three of these FTAs in the channel, Panama, Korea and Colombia. Like all the others, they are ram throughs buy offs pay offs of Oligarchy, making money making money. STOP PANAMA FTA Fidel Reflects Upon May Day. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 1431 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090509/46b02ef9/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/20090509/46b02ef9/attachment.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Witness for Peace Subject: STOP THE PANAMA FTAA Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 16:54:08 -0400 (EDT) Size: 5216 Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090509/46b02ef9/attachment.eml From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 9 05:18:18 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 20:18:18 +0900 Subject: [A-List] A Trillion Dollars for the Banks Message-ID: <4A05667A.4070702@ashisuto.co.jp> How About a Second Opinion? by Dean Baker CommonDreams.org (April 06 2009) Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wants to have the government lend up to a trillion dollars to hedge funds, private equity, funds and the banks themselves to clear their books of toxic assets. The plan implies a substantial subsidy to the banks. It is likely to result in the disposal of these assets at far above market value, with the government picking up the losses. As much as we all want to help out the Wall Street bankers in their hour of need, taxpayers may reasonably ask whether this is the best use of our money. After all, the $1 trillion that is being set aside for this latest TARP variation is equal to 300 million SCHIP kid years {1}. Congress has had heated debates over sums that were a small fraction of this size. To give another useful measuring stick, the Geithner plan could fund one million of the Woodstock museums that were the main prop of Senator McCain's presidential campaign. The core problem is that many of our big banks are bankrupt. If they had to acknowledge the losses that they have incurred on their housing related loans (and increasing their loans in commercial real estate) Citigroup, Bank of America, and many other large banks would be insolvent. Thus far, they have avoided reality by keeping these loans on their books at inflated prices. The Geithner plan is an effort to rescue the banks by using government funding to prop up the price of these bad loans to levels that will allow the banks to stay solvent. It is not clear that the plan is big enough to accomplish this goal, but that is the basic intention. If it doesn't work, then presumably Geithner will come out with another TARP permutation that involves giving the banks even more money. There is an alternative. Rather than using government money to keep them alive, we could force the banks to go through a type of managed bankruptcy process like the one that is currently being proposed for General Motors and Chrysler. Geithner has supposedly ruled out the bankruptcy option because when he, along with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, tried letting Lehman Brothers go under last fall, it didn't turn out very well. Of course, it is not necessary to go the route of an uncontrolled bankruptcy that Geithner and Company pursued with Lehman. The government could set up an arranged bankruptcy under which creditors have accepted conditions in advance. While this may not be easy to negotiate, the government does have enormous bargaining power in pursuing such a deal. The creditors (other than insured deposits, which will be paid in full) of these banks may end up with nothing if the government just let the banks sink. The prospect of even an arranged bankruptcy of a major bank will undoubtedly shake up markets, but many safeguards have been put in place since the Lehman collapse. If the stock market goes down for a few weeks or months, who cares? Running the economy to serve the stock market is a sure recipe for disaster; if President Obama fixes the economy, the stock market will do just fine in the long run. Anyhow, the Geithner crew insists that there are no alternatives to his plan; we have to just keep giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks. Perhaps Geithner is right. But before we throw such huge sums away, further enriching the bankers who wrecked the economy, maybe we should get a second opinion. Suppose that Congress appropriated a modest chunk of money to have independent economists put together teams to construct alternative plans. Why not give MIT professor Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the IMF, $5 million to hire a crew to outline his preferred path? Congress could give Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner and one-time chief economist to President Clinton, who is also a harsh critic of the Geithner plan, a similar sum to put together his own team. These economists could develop their best plans and put them out for public consumption. Geithner's crew can then tell us why their plans are unworkable and we must instead hand over the money to banks. Given how much money Geithner wants to spend - putting it in the hands of the folks that brought on this economic crisis - it would seem appropriate to first examine all the alternatives. After all, we could find out what our options are in this case for the price of just a few AIG executive bonuses. That has to be a good deal in anyone's book. _____ Dean Baker {2} is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research {3} (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer {4, 5} and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy {6} He also has a blog, "Beat the Press", where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site. [7] Links: {1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Children%27s_Health_Insurance_Program {2} cepr at cepr.net {3} http://www.cepr.net/ {4} http://www.amazon.com/dp/1411693957?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1411693957&adid=1Q1525S4DMNAXAYFQ8EV& {5} http://www.conservativenannystate.org/ {6} https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981576990?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0981576990&adid=1RZEQ5WA6XE33K5W9Q5P& {7} http://www.prospect.org/deanbaker http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/06-14 http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Sat May 9 12:01:10 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 14:01:10 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN Let them eat cake, said Marie Antoinette: true believers & mass movements Message-ID: <0122d7a3$39942$0d235841384606@xnote> LET THEM EAT CAKE, SAID MARIE ANTOINETTE. TRUE BELIEVERS & MASS MOVEMENTS MNN. May 8, 2009. As African songwriter, Bob Marley, told us in effect: ?If you don?t know where you are coming from, how can you know where you are going to?? The early l950s and l960s writers explored mass consciousness, mass movements and fanaticism. Marshall McLuhan worried that the media and advertising would take advantage of mass consciousness. He thought the ?global village? would bring humanity?s tribal memory under the electronic control of a single consciousness. He thought that individuals could be manipulated, exploited and controlled in a group. [1964 www.leaderu.com]. How right he was. Eric Hoffer wrote in the ?True Believer?, 1951, that mass movements can be created to serve the evil purposes of a few. People could be recruited, particularly the fanatical, driven, unreasonable, those convinced of their rightness, infallibility and inevitability of their cause. To draw them in, the lives of the poor, misfits, outcasts, adolescents, selfish, bored and seekers of redemption have to be made miserable, insecure and hopeless. www.mekong.net/hoffer.htm] With the collapse of the economy and social programs, people are overcome with insecurity and uncertainty. They are seeking substitutes and made ripe for the picking. Along comes an opportunistic charismatic leader or figurehead who has all the answers. He promises refuge from their anxieties and meaningless lives. He will free them from their worthless selves to become the masters of the human race. Hitler told the Germans, ?If you follow me, you are going to control the world for a thousand years?. They are convinced that they are a mighty people. They know, when they are broken down, they are meek and frightened individuals. The charismatic tells them to look over the horizon to a glorious future, not at the present. In today?s pyramid sales schemes only the top guy makes all the money. Those below do all the work and make a pittance. Eventually they burn out. A mass movement needs men of words, the fanatics and the practical men of action. After a while the fanatic keeps groping for extremes which is provided by the leader[s]. He subconsciously or directly tells people their lives today are dire and they have no future. People don?t really want to be free because this means taking responsibility. They want to hand their fate over to some other ephemeral entity that has taken over their lives. A mass movement gives them an excuse to hate, bully, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. They accept a big brother who watches everything they do. It?s as though they are marching towards some mythical goal like Dorothy who was seeking to find the Wizard of Oz. She found out he was a deceiving imp mouthing great words through a loudspeaker. They will be freed from the created meaninglessness of their lives. Their short comings and self condemnation is transferred onto hatred of others by doing grave injustices against them. They have to infect themselves with hate toward an identifiable group of people by hurting them. The masses are brought together to direct their anger at one scapegoat. It?s like a school of sharks who smell blood, or a group of hyenas who surround their prey. Tormenting people satisfies their blood lust. They feel reassured when they see our downfall. An enemy is created as a scapegoat. Unifying agents are hatred, imitation, persuasion, coercion, action, suspicion and intolerance to dissent. It suppresses their inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings. Their self-contempt, helplessness and cowardice are taken out on others. They are driven by feelings of personal inadequacy, a desire to tear down others or to rise into higher levels of the totalitarian hierarchy. Presently there seems to be a campaign to attack the ?guardians of the eastern door? of Great Turtle Island, the Mohawks. There is an invasion by these forces of European-spawned fanatical movements. We, the flint people, are the first to meet this onslaught. Our way of dealing with these forces is by calm, reasonable and analytical weighing of all issues before arriving at a consensual democratic decision over the council fire of the Rotino?shonni:onwe, Iroquois. In the new world order, the people will become like little mice running on a treadmill to nowhere. The war lords are gaining control through consolidation of politics, commerce, military, police, media and colonial agents of change such as new age psychobabble movements. This mishmash of beliefs catches people who are insecure in their ideas and identity. When the French got fed up with the gluttony and brutality of their aristocracy and royalty, they killed them. Then a dictator came in, Napoleon. The people handed themselves over to him. Motivations for mass movements are interchangeable: religious, nationalist and class-based. They use the same tactics: sacrifice themselves and others for the future goals; devalue the past and present; and escape by creating an imaginary self and joining a movement. Cynical mass movements around the world are based on secret plans by a select group of elites based on lies and threats. By the time the people find out, it?s too late. They have been destroyed or taken over. They are dispossessed and made to feel they have no hope unless they follow the leader who is taking them to a destiny of destruction or enslavement. Hoffer says that after a fanatic destroys his enemies, he makes enemies of his cohorts. The problem with hatred is that the participants lose those values they at one time set out to defend. The true believer can be dangerous and deadly, especially when they have nothing to lose. The only way to defeat the true believer of a false cause is to tell the truth about how deceived they are. Kahentinetha, MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 Biggies in the new age movement: www.leepenn.org/LP-NewAgeIndex: Robert Muller, former Secretary General of the UN; James Parks Morton, Dean of Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine NYC; Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco; William Swing, Rudolph Steiner Foundation, World Goodwill; Lawrence S. Rockfeller, whose fund has financed new agers; Mathew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard; power brokers ArcherDanielsMidland; CNN; Hewlett Packard; Occidental Petroleum; Carnegie Corp.; Kellogg Foundation; Rockfeller Brothers Fund; Georges Berthain, president the Tri Lateral Commission; Desmond Tutu; Gorbachev, Ted Turner; Fredrico Mayer of UNESCO; Maurice Strong and his Manitou Foundation in Colorado, and many other biggies. Manitou Foundation spirit at manitou.org owned and run by Maurice Strong and his wife, Hanne. http://www.manitou.org/; Marshall McLuhan 1964 www.leaderu.com; Eric Hoffer ?True Believer? www.mekong.net/hoffer.htm; From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat May 9 14:56:18 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 16:56:18 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Changes in Composition of Global Reserves Message-ID: Central banks succumb again to bullion?s lure By Javier Blas in London and Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai. Published: May 6 2009 23:31 | Last updated: May 6 2009 23:31 Ten years ago on Wednesday the UK Treasury sent gold prices tumbling when it announced it would sell a chunk of its gold reserves. In a matter of weeks prices plunged to a 22-year low of $250 a troy ounce and, over the course of that year, central banks from Australia and Switzerland to the Netherlands announced plans to sell a large slice of their bullion. ?There was a feeling that countries were racing each other to sell their bullion,? says Jonathan Spall, director of commodities at Barclays Capital in London and an expert on central banks? gold activity. A decade later the picture looks different: sales in Europe have slowed to a crawl and fresh demand is emerging elsewhere. The clearest sign of the new trend is Beijing?s announcement that it has secretively almost doubled its gold reserves to become the world?s fifth-biggest holder of the metal. Central banks in countries including Russia, Venezuela, Mexico and the Philippines are also buying gold, albeit in small amounts. GoldMeanwhile, bullion prices have bounced back, to trade close to an all-time high of $900-$1,000 as concerns about the weakness of the US dollar and the financial crisis have sent investors rushing to the safety of the metal. The change is partly the result of a natural end to Europe?s large sales after years of strong disposals, says John Reade, a precious metal strategist at UBS in London. But it also reflects fresh interest from official sectors elsewhere. ?There is clear evidence among some emerging countries, notably Russia and China, that they want to build up their gold reserves,? he says. The shift is important for the gold market on two fronts: the interest provides psychological support and, more importantly, has reduced a source of supply. Last year central banks sold 246 tonnes, which, although the lowest amount in 10 years, was equal to 10 per cent of global mined gold. China is expected to keep buying the metal quietly to diversify its foreign reserves, gold industry sources in China believe. Beijing?s exact gold purchasing intentions are not known, but industry analysts are betting on more purchases, as it has made no secret of a wish to diversify foreign reserves away from the dollar. Although gold is quoted in dollars, its price usually rises when the US currency weakens. ?I?m absolutely sure that they will continue buying because China?s gold holdings are very small in terms of the size of its economy and the growing significance of its currency,? says Paul Atherley, managing director of Leyshon Resources in China. China?s current gold reserves represent only about 1.6 per cent of total foreign reserves, a vastly smaller percentage than the global average of 10.5 per cent. The financial crisis has also cast gold in a new light, even among the European central banks who sold bullion. The Austrian central bank says ?the surge in gold prices and the concomitant depreciation of the US dollar over the past few years have shown clearly how important gold is as an instrument for portfolio diversification for a central bank?. Fortis Bank forecast this year the gold market is ?on course for the smallest net annual central bank sale for over a decade?. Last year the eurozone central banks sold the lowest amount of gold since 1999 and bullion watchers forecast another low this year. The proposed sale of 400 tonnes from the International Monetary Fund could make up the shortfall, but central banks outside Europe were net buyers in 2008 and could add upward pressure on official demand. The last time the official sector was a net buyer of gold ? albeit a very small one ? was in 1988. Large official purchases of gold ? in the hundreds of tonnes ? have not been seen since 1965. Philip Klapwijk, chairman of GFMS, the precious metal consultancy, believes it is ?extremely unlikely? that central banks will return to the market on a large scale. He predicts that in coming years central banks may shift between small net sales and net purchases. A new era in the gold market has begun. Gold sales cost Europe?s central banks $40bn By Javier Blas in London Published: May 6 2009 23:31 | Last updated: May 7 2009 08:55 The proportion of European reserves held as gold remains extremely large even after years of sales, at an average of about 60 per cent, compared with the world average of 10.5 per cent. From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 9 18:26:04 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 09:26:04 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Money for the People and by the People Message-ID: <4A061F1C.4060305@ashisuto.co.jp> by Alistair McConnachie Prosperity (May 2002) Just as we need government for the people, and by the people, so we need money for the people, and by the people. Money Reformers advocate essentially two things - firstly, that we change from a debt-based to a debt-free economy. That is, to a society where money, or a great deal of it, is supplied into the economy debt-free, meaning it does not require to be paid back. And secondly, Money Reformers advocate that the creation of money should be a public service, under public control for the public good. The Money Trick The essence of a viable money system is confidence. Once confidence is established, a trick can be played. Historically, money lenders kept stocks of gold which they had acquired, or were keeping safe for others. However, they soon discovered that instead of actually lending out the physical gold and precious metals in their safes, they could give out promissory notes which "promised to pay" the equivalent amount in gold. They soon found that if, say, only one tenth of their clients would at any particular time insist on payment in actual coin or bullion, then the money lenders could safely make "promises to pay" totaling ten times the value of their actual reserves of coin and bullion. All that was necessary was that people believed in the convertibility of the promises to pay. Soon, people were trading the "promissory notes" instead of the actual coin and bullion. Thus was born the basic principles of the modern banking system. So, What is Money? Money is simply the medium we use to exchange goods and services. Without it, buying and selling would be impossible except, of course, by direct barter exchange. Notes and coins are virtually worthless in their own right. They take on value only because people accept them, in exchange for goods and services. All the money in the world is useless in the middle of a barren desert. To keep trade and economic activity functioning, there has to be enough of this medium of exchange called money in existence to allow economic activity to take place. Hence the importance of ensuring that there is sufficient money in the economy to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, and hence the crucial importance that the creators of this money are under the direct control of the very people who need it to survive. That's you and me. Where Does The Money Come From? Someone has to be responsible for making sure that there is enough money in existence. It's not you. It's not me. So who is it? Each nation has a Central Bank to do this - in Britain, it's the Bank of England. Central Banks act as banker for the commercial High Street banks, and the government - just as individuals and businesses keep accounts at commercial banks, so commercial banks and government keep accounts at the Central Bank - in our case, the Bank of England. If the government wants to spend money on some public project such as a school or hospital then it will collect the money from taxes, but every year the government fails to collect enough money in taxes to pay for all its spending requirements. There is always a shortfall. So what does it do? Where does it go for money? The government "borrows" the money this way: It prints and sells "gilt edged securities". These are simply pieces of paper which promise an additional return to the buyer, in the future. The securities are auctioned several times a year to meet the shortage of government revenue as it arises. They are bought by individuals, insurance companies, pension funds, trust funds, and banks. The government takes the money it has raised by these sales, and spends it on its public projects. The sum owed by the government is called "the National Debt". These securities are becoming due regularly. That is, the government has to pay back the amount, with interest. When the non-banking sector (individuals, insurance, pension and trust funds) buy securities, then saved money is being recycled back into the economy through government spending. However, when banks buy government securities, then entirely new money - which has been created out of nothing by the banks specifically for these purchases - is spent into the economy by the government. The government has to find the money to repay them in full, with interest, which it does by selling even more securities and raising taxes even further! Now that's just government debt that we're saddled with, and have to pay back in our taxes. Almost All Money Enters Society as a Debt Money enters in other ways. There is also the money which enters society via our private debts as individuals, which we owe to commercial private High Street banks. It is a myth that these banks lend money they already have. When was the last time you went to your bank and found there was money missing from your account because it had been lent to someone else! Like the ancient money lenders of old, banks can lend out more than they actually hold! The fact is that banks create money out of nothing and lend it to you at interest. There is also commercial company debts owed to High Street banks, and there is international, or what is called "Third World" debt. The crucial point to realise is that all of these debts - government, private, commercial and international - are debts owed to the banking system in one way or another. Almost the entire stock of money circulating in every country in the world today represents a debt owed to the banking system. Only the note and coin issue is debt-free. The entire financial system of all nations today is what we call debt-based; meaning that the process of going into debt is relied upon, almost exclusively, by governments, to create and supply money to their economies. The world runs on debt. We live in a debt-based society. We cannot get money into society without almost all of it entering, at source, as a debt. The Positive Versus The Negative Economy Money Reformers make two distinctions when we look at the economic world around us. On one hand we recognise and support the positive economy, which is characterised by mutual trade for mutual benefit, and productive, just, sustainable enterprise. On the other hand, we have the negative economy, characterised by poverty, cut-throat competition, oppression, exploitation, war, waste, inflation, and starvation. When we look around ourselves we are often forced to acknowledge that the economy we live in is often not a positive economy of mutual trade for mutual benefit, but rather a dog-eat-dog economy, a cannibal capitalism which has a tendency to eat itself and all those caught in it. Money Reformers are alone today in recognising that many of the ills of the world are due directly to the twin facts that the economy of the world is based on debt - rather than on debt-free principles - and the power to create the money in the first place, is vested in the hands of a tiny minority. We recognise that the debt-engine drives the world economy in many negative directions. Richard Greaves has laid out the negative consequences of the debt-based economy in his article which appeared in the November 2001 issue of Prosperity. Moreover, while some people highlight "the redistribution of wealth" as a possible solution, Money Reformers, highlight the fundamental monopoly power of money creation enjoyed by the few to the detriment of the many. We are highlighting the fundamental question of who has the power to create the money in the first place. We point to the fact that many of the economic and social ills which beset society and the world today are due to the power to create money being concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority, rather than democratically distributed in the hands of the People. This democratic imperative can be summed up in the slogans: It's the People's Money and Money for the People, and by the People. What Does This Mean For Democracy? What does this mean for government of the people, by the people? Banks are businesses out to make profits. Since they alone decide to whom they will lend, they effectively decide what is produced, where it is produced and who produces it, and all on the basis of profitability to the bank, rather than what is beneficial to the community. Our money, instead of being supplied debt-free as a means of exchange, now comes as a debt owed to bankers providing them with vast profits, power and control, as the rest of us struggle with an increasing burden of debt. By supplying money to those of whom they approve and denying it to those of whom they disapprove, financiers can create boom or bust, and support or undermine individuals, organisations, economies and governments. We, the people, don't have the power to create the money. The money we require just to survive is only available from the banks. To a large extent, we are at the mercy of the banking system and we are effectively enslaved by them. We cry Freedom from Debt Slavery! As Richard Greaves said in the November 2001 issue of Prosperity, until the power to create money is taken out of the hands of the banks, and the hands of the private interests who do it for profit and control, then we can never say that we live in a democracy. He continued: "The nation's economy is our economy. We create the real wealth through our ingenuity, enterprise and hard work. The current banking system operates as a massive drain on that public wealth as well as concentrating power and control in the hands of a tiny, private minority." So what do we need to do? Essentially, we need to move towards an economy based upon debt-free principles where much more money than at present comes into society debt-free, and we need to move towards democratic control over the money creation process. Principles of Debt-Free Finance And in this effort we can be guided by the principles on money creation laid out in the Bromsgrove Statement. We believe that money must be based on the real wealth of society - that is, on people, skills and materials. If you have the people, skills and materials, then that which is physically possible and socially desirable can be made financially possible. If the people have something they want to do in their community, and if they have the skills and the materials, then they should not be prevented for "lack of money". The overall purpose of an economic system is simply to provide goods and services - as, when and where required - in order to satisfy human needs. Money is simply the means of exchange for the goods and services produced by the people and their skills and resources. It is not a commodity in itself. In this regard, money should be our servant - not our master. And since money, at source, is created out of nothing, there is no need for it to be scarce. So Here's The Least We Should Be Demanding For a start, we can see that we're paying our taxes to enrich a banking system which never had the money in the first place! We can see that the government is raising money it doesn't have, by borrowing from banks which don't have the money either, but only the legal authority to create out of nothing. The government then expects us, through our taxes, to pay back the banks with the real money that we've worked for! The obvious question arises: Why doesn't the government just create the money itself? Instead of borrowing the money from the banking system, and forcing us to pay it back in our taxes, the government could simply create the money itself, spend it into society and not need to ask for it back. And, yes, the government - or a state appointed authority - could do exactly that. Instead it enslaves us all to the banking system ? and that's a scandal! _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/monftp.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sun May 10 02:59:29 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 17:59:29 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Rethinking the Rust Belt Message-ID: <4A069771.7000807@ashisuto.co.jp> by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (May 06 2009) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society One of the least useful habits of thought fostered by the modern mythology of progress, it seems to me, is the notion that historical change can only move in one direction - the direction in which it seems to be going at the present. Those of us who suggest that today's industrial societies are headed for a process of decline and fall, not that different from the ones that ended civilizations of the past, run up against this insistence constantly. The truism that time only goes one way gets distorted into the claim that since the last three hundred years have seen a great deal of expansion and technical development, the future must follow the same trajectory. A hundred years ago, exactly that same logic was applied by people who insisted that war between civilized nations was a thing of the past. Wars between the nations of Europe had, in fact, become steadily less frequent over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, and a great many Europeans managed to convince themselves that this process could only continue in the 20th, leading to universal peace. As you may have noticed, they were quite mistaken - a detail that has not prevented the same logic from being deployed with equal enthusiasm more recently. Consider the chorus of derision that rose up a couple of years ago when James Kunstler, in his book The Long Emergency (2005), warned that piracy would likely revive around the Pacific rim as the industrial age comes to its end. I don't recall a single reviewer of the book who took that prediction seriously, and a great many of Kunstler's critics leapt on it with gleeful cries - though one should note that these cries became curiously muted once the recent spate of pirate raids off the coast of Somalia hit the news. Of course Kunstler is quite correct; piracy was already a serious problem in several parts of the world when he wrote, it has become worse since then, and once fuel shortages begin to limit the reach of modern navies and economic crises add to the roster of failed states, it may become a serious factor affecting the future of maritime trade. Only the delusion that piracy belongs to the past, and therefore can't be part of the future, keeps this ugly reality from being recognized. It's impossible to make sense of the present, much less the future, from within the tunnel vision of a view of history that sees the world moving through some fixed sequence of development. When pundits say that contemporary hunter-gatherers are ?still in the Stone Age", or that members of some nonindustrial societies are "living in the Middle Ages", while only the world's industrial cultures have "entered the 21st century", they are talking nonsense. It's a very popular kind of nonsense; people in the industrial world love to think of themselves as the top rung of history's ladder, with every other culture as a now-outmoded stage in the ascent to ranch houses and SUVs; but it's still nonsense. Biologists studying the evolution of life forms have gradually been forced to discard the notion that evolution has a fixed agenda, and have realized instead that the interplay of genetic diversity and natural selection can move in any direction - simplifying here, adding complexity there, leading one species into a highly specialized niche while another becomes a generalist capable of moving between many ecological roles. Notions that the biosphere as a whole has moved toward greater complexity over Earth's long history - very nearly the last holdout of the old fantasy of linear evolution - have had to be discarded, because the evidence simply won't support them; the last fifteen million years, for example, have seen a steady loss of complexity across the Earth's biosphere as the planetary climate cooled in the run-up to the most recent round of ice ages, and the rich ecosystems of the Mesozoic, the age of dinosaurs, were far more complex than most of those that have succeeded them. It's long past time to apply the same thinking to history, and recognize that forcing human societies onto a linear model of progress serves the purposes of ideology rather than clear thinking. Human societies, like biological species, adapt to make the most of their environments with the inherited resources they have to hand. Sometimes those adaptations move in the direction of greater complexity and some form of technological development, while in other cases they move toward greater simplicity and shed technologies that are no longer useful. Those societies with a long cultural memory can even cycle back and forth between simpler and more complex levels of organization and technology - the long history of imperial China offers an excellent example of just this process at work. The rise and approaching fall of the industrial age, it may be worth suggesting, may turn into the same process on steroids. In ecological terms, the torrent of fossil fuel energy that created the modern world can be seen as a massive disruption to established patterns of human social ecology. Those patterns stretched like silly putty, or broke apart entirely and were replaced, as a new economy of abundance evolved and expanded. That economy, however, was ultimately a product of ever-expanding supplies of fossil fuels, and once production bumped against the hard ceiling of geological limits, it began to break apart. The economic convulsions of the last few decades mark the crest of the wave, and the beginning of its long retreat. As that retreat proceeds, the more complex and resource-intensive technologies and social habits of recent years will likely be among the early casualties, and some of the less complex and resource-intensive technologies and social habits of the recent past may well get fished out of the trash heap and pressed back into service, because they are better suited to the new environment of resource constraints than their more extravagant replacements. This will have sweeping impacts on the new economies that take shape in the wake of the current Great Recession, paralleling the impacts the original shifts had in their time - but in the other direction. Any number of examples could be named, but the ones I want to discuss now are geographical. The economic and human geography of North America during the 20th century went through sweeping changes with results that are still echoing around us today. Technology played some role in driving those changes, but another factor was at least as powerful: the transformation of the United States from a manufacturing economy, producing goods and services at home, to a tribute economy propped up by the labor and resources of client states overseas. (This is what actually underlies the recent rhetoric about "globalization"; there was similar talk during the heyday of the British Empire, too.) Since most of the real wealth circulating in the American economy of the late 20th century came from overseas, the seaports of the east and west coasts came to dominate the economy, while the old economic heartland of the Midwest turned into a "Rust Belt" of half-empty cities and crumbling smokestacks. The idea that these same cities might be on the brink of economic revival may seem about as likely as, say, a revival of piracy did to Kunstler's critics a few years ago. Those who believe in the continuation of business as usual are unlikely to be able to imagine Pittsburgh or Peoria at the crest of the future's wave; those who believe in the equally improbable scenario of overnight collapse into a dark age or worse can't imagine an economic revival at all. Still, all history is ultimately local; it's easy to say, for example, that "Rome's economy declined in the last two centuries of the Empire", and as a generalization this is true, but it masks a huge amount of temporal and regional variation, including periods and regions in which the economic climate improved noticeably. Thus the possibility of a Rust Belt renaissance in the coming decades should not be dismissed out of hand. America's overseas empire is already coming apart at the seams, as the costs of maintaining it overtake its economic benefits - the common fate of empires throughout history - and rival powers turn our imperial overreach to their advantage. In the foreseeable future, the United States will again have to produce most of the goods and services it uses at home - and as that happens, the regions most likely to profit by it are those inland areas whose central position gives them easier access to markets nationwide, and whose access to the old arteries of waterborne transport will make them much more viable as centers of production and distribution in future where energy will be in short supply. More generally, the best resource for thinking about the economic map of 2050, say, may just be an economic map of 1880. When railroads and waterways once again become the primary means of transport, the places that were major economic hubs will likely become major hubs again, because they will make the same economic sense in the future that they did when railroads and waterways were last in vogue. The economic map of 2100, in turn, may have more in common with that of 1830 or thereabouts, since continuing depletion of remaining fossil fuel supplies will likely have made railroads uneconomical for most uses, leaving waterborne transport the only cost-effective alternative to local production. Add in the impact of population contraction driven by economic decline and failing public health - essentially the same mix that's driving a similar contraction in the former Soviet Union - and the parallels may be even more exact. This way of looking at the future has any number of potential implications, not least for those who hope to weather the current round of economic contraction and social turmoil with some level of grace. My guess is that both these factors will be concentrated in the coastal regions, as the wealth flows generated by the declining import economy give way to economic stagnation and contraction, and in regions such as the Southwest where political borders are increasingly out of step with demographic reality. Isolated regions throughout the West, already marginal at best, are likely to slip into permanent poverty as the tourist economy breaks down and climate shifts already under way make crippling droughts more common. On the other hand, agricultural regions outside the drought belt will likely thrive as the price of food rises, and the old Rust Belt cities - many of which shed half or more of their population over the last fifty years, relieving the population pressure and many of the social problems that made headlines not too many decades ago - may weather the current wave of crises tolerably well. There will be other waves of crisis further down the road; history reminds us that the downside of a civilization's history is a very uneven process, and it's anyone's guess which areas will be favored by the patterns of change that take shape later in the course of the decline. Suggesting a renaissance in the Rust Belt and the agricultural Midwest also flies in the face of a great many contemporary assumptions, driven as they are by the intellectual fashions of a mostly coastal intelligentsia used to dismissing the inland reaches of this continent as "flyover states". Still, history seems to take a perverse delight in overturning such assumptions, and those who can get outside the delusion that historical change is a one-way street may find unexpected possibilities opening up before them. _____ ?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/2009/05/rethinking-rust-belt.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From nscchicago at igc.org Sun May 10 00:31:19 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 01:31:19 -0500 Subject: [A-List] WHY HAS NO ONE HEARD OF THIS Fw: [LASolidarity] Cuban Silvio Rodriguez: 'I continue to feelblockaded and discriminated against' Message-ID: <88A6EA3A87B34167AEFF7810A01AFEB3@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here. Pete Seeger is 90 and the Oligarchy Gangster Government Indian Killer USA considers Silvio Rodriguez a threat to national security. No, actually, it was a pure mess with. Delay process, more paper, more delay. Whoops, sorry about that. Who's Pete Seeger? Who is anybody. They are fooling nobody, friends, but so what. Visa problems, visa problems. Have you had yours? ----- Original Message ----- From: kathy hoyt Subject: [LASolidarity] Cuban Silvio Rodriguez: 'I continue to feelblockaded and discriminated against' Cuban Silvio Rodriguez: 'I continue to feel blockaded and discriminated against' Author: Pepe Lozano People's Weekly World Newspaper, 05/05/09 Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez said he was disheartened that he was unable to perform during a special tribute for U.S. legendary folk artist Pete Seeger, at his 90th birthday concert in New York, May 1. The U.S. State Department failed to issue a visa to Rodriguez to enter the country in time for the concert. Many feel the security clearance of Rodriguez to enter the U.S. would have been a breakthrough following years of wrong-headed U.S. policy towards Cuban artists and professionals. Rodriguez said in a recent public letter that he sought a visa from the U.S. consulate in Paris while traveling in France. He was told his request was still in progress on the day of the concert. Cuban musicians, actors and athletes who seek visas to enter the U.S. are often denied access, due to Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against the socialist country. Rodriguez is one of Cuba's premier singer-songwriters and co-founder of the country's New Song Movement. In his letter Rodriguez writes: "You can pass this message to Pete's grandson Tao, and to Bill the attorney, along with my gratitude for their efforts as well as my sorrow resulting from the lack of respect shown by the State Department to them for having invited me to celebrate the 90th birthday of our dear friend Pete Seeger, living legend of North American song." Rodriguez continues, "I believe that the attitude of the State Department is very contradictory, given the desire expressed by President Obama to bring the United States closer to Cuba. As a Cuban cultural worker, I continue to feel blockaded and discriminated against as much as by previous administrations. Hopefully this will truly change someday." Bill Martinez, a member of the U.S.-Cuba Cultural Exchange and attorney who assisted Rodriguez in the visa process, expressed his disappointment with the failed request. "While we appreciate that security clearances are a necessary part of the visa process, and that clearances were made at some levels, the bottom line is that the extraordinary processing of Cuban artists has once again resulted in a delay without any logical basis," said Martinez. He added, "Delay is tantamount to denial. The State Department has failed Silvio Rodriguez, and also thousands of North American fans that would have loved to see him perform at the benefit concert with Pete Seeger." "We continue to call on the Obama administration to open doors to Cuban artists, intellectuals and other professionals so that full cultural exchange between the United States and Cuba becomes a reality," Martinez concluded. Over 1,300 people in the arts and culture within the U.S. have signed a letter to Obama from the U.S.-Cuban Cultural Exchange calling on the administration to: 1. Open a respectful dialogue with the government and people of Cuba in accord with established protocols supported by the community of nations. 2. End the travel ban that prevents U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba, and allow for Cuban artists and scholars to visit the United States, thus eliminating the censorship of art and ideas, and; 3. Initiate, by working with the U.S. Congress, a process that can result in the development of normal, respectful bilateral relations between our countries. Seeger, born May 3, 1919 in New York, has been to Cuba five times and has been strongly critical of the U.S. blockade against the island. He is celebrated in Cuba for making the song "Guantanamera" famous around the world. Seeger took the traditional melody by Joseito Fernandez and recorded it with phrases from poetry by Cuban Revolutionary hero Jose Mart?. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ 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: 7798 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090510/0d55b1dd/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/20090510/0d55b1dd/attachment-0001.jpeg From cb31450 at gmail.com Sun May 10 08:30:18 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 07:30:18 -0700 Subject: [A-List] List history Message-ID: <5c2e4d230905100730i7fd960aet30da567e8569f41b@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 00:50:37 -0400 (EDT) "Macdonald Stainsby" wrote: > > > Thanks to Jon Flanders for this on Marxmail, it bears a repeat... > > Macdonald > > > > ".........What form will this catastrophe take and what kind of > working-class politics is appropriate to meet it? > > If the economists suffer from over-optimism, the geologists also are not > clear about the historical implications of the global Hubbert-peak. How > does capitalism react and adapt to energy shortage and growing entropy? > > This is first of all and above all, an accumulation crisis, not a > resource crisis. The oil will never run out, and most of even known, > easily-accessible conventional oil reserves will probably stay > underground forever and never be pumped. As for non-conventional > resources like tar-sands$BKM(Bet alone hydrogen$BKU(Bhey will remain mere > fantasy. In the wake of a severe slow-down, neither capital$BKO(Bor, > crucially, effective demand$BK(Bwill exist capable of bringing the > alternatives onstream. World capitalism can slip into a post-crash > equilibrium state which can endure for decades or longer, amid > unprecedented social stress and immiseration. To say this is > not (obviously) to seek it or to welcome it; but only by resolutely > analysing historical processes, and not by hiding from them, can we hope > to positively influence outcomes. > > It may seem odd to argue on the one hand that fossil fuels are running out > but on the other that even known, easily-accessible reserves may never be > used. But there are plenty of examples of this happening in history. The > age of coal and steam ended with most of the coal still underground. More > to the point, economies can collapse because of an energy-famine even > though there is still plenty of reserve left. That happened in the USSR. > > The USSR was a very energy-intensive economy. The main reason for its > collapse was not because it was bankrupted by Reagan$BCT(B Star Wars, or > because $BEQ(Blanning doesn$BCU(B work$BG(Bor even because of Gorbachev$BCT(B treason. > These were factors, but the main underlying reason was the failure of the > Soviet energy system. > > But there is still plenty of oil left in the former Soviet Union. In fact > fSU reserves-to-production ratios have consistently risen for the past 15 > years. Russian reserves are higher now than in Soviet times. Isn$BCU(B > availability of reserves all that matters? Economists constantly repeat > the mantra that $BAX(Borld reserves are rising$BC(Bwhen they seek to refute the > known facts that world oil production is at or near its Hubbert-peak. > > But this kind of information, which the panglossians depend on, is highly > misleading. What went wrong in the USSR is a paradigm example of just how > misleading the argument about reserves can be: and how crises can bite > with unexpected and devastating suddenness. > > Soviet oil production peaked in 1987 and swiftly (within 5 years) fell by > half. This brought about the complete collapse not only of the Soviet > energy industry, but the whole Soviet economy. 15 years later, there are > few real signs of economic revival. Without the kind of effective demand > which the Soviet economy provided, and without the kind of social and > technical infrastructure and political stability which the Soviet > economy also provided, there is no material basis to recreate such a > colossal oil industry in the fSU. Therefore, the fSU is unlikely to ever > be more than a raw materials and above all, energy-supply appendage of the > capitalist world-system. > > What happened to the Soviet oil industry exactly mirrors what is > happening in the West today: in the face of faltering supplies, the energy > supply system is being pressured to the maximum. Exactly as N Sea and > Mexican production is just now being forced to its technical limits, so > big Soviet resources such as Samotlor were intensively exploited until > production collapsed almost overnight. The result was an immediate > technical crisis of production from which the Soviet oil industry never > recovered. Worse, it brought down the whole economy in its wake. The > crisis in oil production triggered positive feedbacks in the wider economy > which produced an uncontrollable, runaway collapse. What had been a stable > economy running in equilibrium entered a period of chaotic turbulence > before flipping into a quite different steady-state. *The same thing is > happening now in the Western oil industry*. Exactly as in the West, oil > and gas was internally priced so low that it was > impossible to recapitalise the industry. North Sea oil (its huge > infrastructure having been financially and energetically > amortized many years ago) was producing at maximum capacity even when oil > prices fell to $10/bbl in the late 1990s. Now, a savage depletion in UK > North Sea production has set in. Prices are temporarily higher, but fear > of a new slump is a deterrent to new investment in what is anyway a > declining reserve..... > > > .......Since 1973, US imperialism has successfully externalised the > overheads of this chronic crisis, and the result has been the growth in > mass immiseration, both relatively and absolutely, of the working class > and its social allies in peripheral and semi-peripheral states. There is a > limit to how far this process can continue; whole regions have already > slid off the economic map, and the destabilising effects of the huge > deflationary wave which followed the energy shocks of the 1970s continue > to produce devastating aftershocks in Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe > and elsewhere. While the policy of making the poor pay (socialism for the > rich, neoliberal globalisation for the poor) will continue and even > intensify, the huge and fundamental imbalances in the social geography, > economy and class structure of the USA also continue to intensify > without limit. Capitalism defeated the working class, and was able > therefore to grow without any social limits. The political problem we have > is to try to make people understand, not what *might* happen, but what is > already actually happening: at the still largely > invisible, stealthy but irreversible processes of decay which make a > historical step-change inevitable. The question is, what kind of > step-change? Do we permit the imperialist ruling classes to drive us over > the abyss of war? It was never as materially true as today, that the > alternative is either socialism or barbarism. > > Mark Jones > " > > > -- > Macdonald Stainsby > http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > In the contradiction lies the hope > --Bertholt Brecht. > > > > From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Sun May 10 15:39:37 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 17:39:37 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN 41 Year Legacy of Akwesasne Mohawk Resistance @ border Message-ID: <012e7122$39943$05427349153472@xnote> FORTY-ONE YEAR LEGACY OF MOHAWK RESISTANCE AT AKWESASNE BORDER ? Next march on May 29, 2009. MNN. May 109, 2009. Over 250 Mohawks marched on May 8, 2009, against guns and violence at the U.S.-Canada border. [link at end] Canada is militarizing all borders across Canada. Guards will carry Beretta 8 mm guns for a start on June 1, 2009. The safety of Mohawks and all border crossings in Canada are being jeopardized. The Akwesasne checkpoint is on a large island in the St. Lawrence River, in the middle of a highly populated residential area. It is the border-crossing from NYS to Cornwall, Ontario. The day-to-day security provided by an unarmed Mohawk security has always been enough. We are the most policed people in the world. Almost 20 U.S. and Canadian enforcement agencies traverse our community. Canada has two alternatives: to peacefully operate on our land or to move the customs building and compound off the island. After construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the International Bridge in the 1950s the customs station was placed on the island. We tried but could not stop it. A commitment was made that armed guards would never be put in the middle of our neighborhood, which we saw as dangerous for both Customs and Mohawks. Mohawks have not fallen for this trap. Daily disagreements have been instigated against Mohawks who must pass through the checkpoint on a daily basis. There have been serious injuries, hospitalizations, charges and assaults. So far there have been no fatalities. There has been a steady increase in racial profiling and slurs direct at us sanctioned by Canada. Incidents are being provoked to justify armed guards. Hundreds of complaints have been filed with the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Canada Justice Department and the Canadian Human Rights Commission. No peaceful resolution has come forward. In an August 2002 report co-commissioned by Transport Canada and the Mohawks, 70% of border crossers are Akwesasne Mohawks. It is adjacent to a bus stop for children, recreational fields, play area, large number of homes, the only convenience store, several small businesses and other features of a well populated and highly trafficked area. We need to visit our family and friends, get to work or school, attend health, social, cultural, recreational gatherings and shop or conduct business. Next to the customs children slide during the winter on the hills. People ride horses and walk in the open spaces. Children play volleyball, basketball and lacrosse. Recently the border patrol perpetrated a high speed chase where 3 people were burnt to death at the cross roads. Violence and death is their business! Guns are for killing! They must be banned in this corridor. On Saturday, May 8th 2009, the Mohawks marched from the U.S. Port of Entry, across the Three Nations Bridge to the City of Cornwall. We called for a peaceful solution and a meeting with the Minister of Public Safety, Peter Van Loan, and the Mohawk representatives. Grandmothers who marched at the ?You are on Indian Land? demonstration in December 20, 1968, carried their grandchildren across the same bridge in 2009. They reminisced as they passed the checkpoint. One proudly looked in the face of the customs officers and said, ?You?re not going to intimidate me. I have never lost my spirit to resist. I will stand my legal ground no matter what you do to me.? Canada and U.S. are watching to see if we give up. We are one of the first groups to stand up to guns, brute force, harassment and attempts at totalitarianism. Friends from surrounding U.S. and Canadian communities honked their horns in support. U.S. policies are followed to turn Canada into an armed camp. We say, ?No, you will not terrorize us, Americans and Canadians into submission on Great Turtle Island?. Officers know we are a peaceful people. Customs officers need a reason to draw their guns and shoot us. We are being entrapped into defending ourselves. The result could be deadly. If we heard that, ?someone was just shot at the border?, our families would pour out of nearby homes in minutes. Canada is setting up a scenario to justify cross-Canada martial law. Mainstream corporate media did not cover this historic event. The real media are word of mouth, personal contacts of the people through phone calls, emails, communication between communities, friends and relatives around the world. By law Canada must fully consult us and a majority of us must agree on whether anyone can set up an armed camp in the middle of our community. This is the law. They know we would not agree to this. There are numerous similar crossings in highly populated areas. Canada cannot justify its actions in Akwesasne. There is no history of violence in Canada against its citizens. In the U.S. most agencies are armed. At the U.S. border crossing numerous incidents of intimidation with guns, shootings and some fatalities have occurred. In Canada enforcement agents are also being taught to shoot to kill, whether we are armed or not and even if there is no reason to pull us over. Previously there was less corruption among government agents. Today they are being given a free hand to kill and to have guns to protect their illegal businesses as border guards. They can and are stopping us at their own discretion for no reason at all. They take us to confined areas where no one can see their cruelty. No surveillance equipment is inside to record their savagery. They?re getting away with murder! A long time ago the Rotino?shonni:onwe Iroquois decided to stop conflict against our nations by burying our weapons of war. The colonists agreed to this. Their acts of aggression violate their agreement to live on our land in peace. In effect, they are being given a license to try to kill us with impunity. Contact: Chief Wesley Benedict 613-551-2573; Larry King 613-551-1930; Chief Joe Lazore 613-551-5292. Next unity march is May 29th. Meet at the cross roads on Cornwall Island at 10:30 am. March starts at noon. www.nationtalk.ca Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 Contact the following contagions: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, SQ1A UK; President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461; The Governor General of Canada, M. Michaelle Jean, 1 Rideau Drive, Ottawa info at gg.ca; Alain Jolicoeur, President, CBSA, Ottawa, ON K1A 0L8, 613-952-3200, 613-957-0612; General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Lance Markell, District Director, Northern Office ? Customs, St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa Ont. K1G 4K3, CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214, General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528, Operator Number: 202-282-8000, Comment Line: 202-282-8495, Jayson P. Ahern, A/Commissioner, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229 Chief Counsel (202) 344-2990; Marco A. Lopez, Jr., Chief of Staff, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; House of Commons, Ottawa, harper.s at parl.gc.ca; Hon. Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons, Ottawa; Hon. Robert Douglas Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, 284 Wellington St., Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8; Attorney General of Ontario, 720 Bay St., 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5G 2K1; Hon. Yvon Marcoux, Minister of Justice and A.G.O., Louis-Phillipe-Pigeon Bldg., 1200 Rue d l'Eglise, 9th Floor, St. Foy G1V 4M1; Hon. Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs, 10 Wellington St., Hull, Que. K1A 0H4 Strahl.c at parl.gc.ca; Premier Dalton McGuinty, Province of Ontario, Queens Park, Toronto ON; Premier Charest, Province of Quebec, Legislature, Quebec City; British High Commission, 80 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5K7; Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater St., 8th Floor Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1; United Nations, 405 E 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017; The Hague, Anna Paulownastraat, 103, 251 BBC, The Netherlands; Coalition for the International Criminal Court, c/o WFM, 708 3rd Ave., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10017 From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sun May 10 17:39:05 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 08:39:05 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Bromsgrove Group Message-ID: <4A076599.5000407@ashisuto.co.jp> Statement of Beliefs We recognise : 1. The supply of money into the economy is the big issue which governs all the issues. The present economic system is debt-based. This means that virtually all money is supplied to the economy as a debt to be repaid, with interest, to the banking system. Governments rely upon the majority of people going into debt to the banking system simply to create enough money to supply the economy. Governments, too, must borrow from the banking system to fund public expenditure. Taxpayers must then pay back the debt and interest repayments. 2. As a consequence of this debt-based economic system, we see the indebtedness of people, families, and countries growing daily. The present debt-based economic system perpetuates debt slavery, and this is ultimately destructive of society, the environment, and the planet. 3. The banking system creates money out of nothing. We are concerned at the claim that there is no money to fund vital public services, industries, and social and environmental projects, when this money at source is created out of nothing. Governments should be able to supply money, debt-free, without having to borrow from the banking system. "Debt-free" means that it does not have to be repaid. 4. The debt-based economic system must be challenged and alternatives constructed. The economy needs a supply of money debt-free. Therefore, we affirm : 1. Money must be based on the real wealth of society people, skills and materials not on debt. The supply of money must relate to these physical facts not to the requirements of the banking system. 2. Money is the means of exchange for the goods and services produced by this real wealth. It is not a commodity itself. 3. The purpose of an economic system is to provide goods and services as, when and where required in order to satisfy human needs. 4. Money must be our servant not our master. 5. Money, at source, is created out of nothing, so there is no need for it to be scarce. 6. Whatever is physically possible and socially desirable can be made financially possible. 7. The present economic system can, and will, be changed for the better. Consequently, we propose : 1. That the government via a democratically accountable authority undertakes the creation of a supply of money, debt-free, into the economy. 2. This authority should spend, not lend, a supply of money into circulation on the basis of proven need. This will reduce the overall burden of debt in society, break reliance upon the banking system for the supply of money, and open potential for limitless change. Association in the Bromsgrove Group is open to individuals and organisations which support this statement of belief. Respect is paid to the different options for change represented by different members within this statement of belief. The group meets once a year and regularly exchanges information, inspiration and support. Prosperity 268 Bath Street Glasgow, Scotland UK, G2 4JR Telephone : 0141 332 2214 Fax : 0141 353 6900 email: admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/bromsgrove/principles.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tboyle at rosehill.net Sun May 10 11:44:34 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 10:44:34 -0700 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: I concede that the USG has issued money as debt ...You're right, my bad. The national debt is $11.3 trillion while the treasury securities held by the Fed are $178 billion on their financial statements. http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html This seems to suggest, the Fed is returning to the Treasury only a tiny fraction of the interest on the national debt. However, the Fed can always buy back Treasury securities on the "open market" . This increases the money in circulation, and increases the interest income of the Fed which it might return to the Treasury. If that's what we want, then, how are we any different from everybody else who wants monetary easing? It's worth asking, would you have the Fed buy back the entire national debt, by issuing $11.3 trillion in transaction money? The graph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply seems to indicate the money stock (M0,M1 and M2) is already $7 Trillion -- so, the idea is not so far fetched. I still think the Fed is an agency of the US government and the US government (viewed as a whole) is not systemically designed to issue "money as debt" rather than "spend money into circulation". Rather, this is a policy issue, and a very old and familiar one. It is an historical fact that politicians in Congress delegated the power to issue money to the Fed. Considering the incompetence, the vanity and corruption of most of the Congress, I really don't know if we'd be better off if the monetary targets were set in the banking committees rather than the FRB. I think we need to focus on monetary policy itself, to win the argument for monetary easing. And I still don't think it would do a bit of good for most people. What we need, instead is much steeper progressive tax rates on high incomes (like 50% over $300K 75% over $1 million etc.) and even harder to achieve: a redirection of the spending priorities to serve human needs, The trouble with a lot of these blogs is their continual invention of new rhetoric for very old problems, --rhetoric that's less accurate and less complete than just using simple language -- it's called class struggle! Todd At 04:39 PM 5/6/2009, Bill Totten wrote: >Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it >receives on US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are >held by foreign governments and private foreign and domestic >individuals and corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US >treasuries" where you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and >other good informaton. > >Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic >individuals and corporations DON'T return to the US government the >interest the US government pays them on those bonds. Since the US >government and other governments borrow most of the money they could >just as easily spend into circulation, the dominant portion of US >and other nations' public debt is the cost of serving that debt, >primarily the interest governments pay on that debt. Bill > > >Todd Boyle wrote: >>Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >> >>>by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>> >>>...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for this or >>>that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >>Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >>It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >>The FAQ is here. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >>The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >>http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >>Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >>in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >>in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member banks? >>Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it to the >>Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? >>To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >>Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >>do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >>But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >>create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >>His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >>larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to create >>the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >>export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >>of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >>rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >>The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >>maintained at the point of a gun, really. >>The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >>effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >>and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >>For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >>http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >>The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >>the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >>Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >>300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >>whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >>Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >>banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >>does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >>or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >>is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >>liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >>world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >>they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >>on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >>whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >>gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >>into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >>in 2000 and 2004. >>The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >>scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >>This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >>Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >>somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >>there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >>able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >>is payor and payee of every transaction. >>todd >> >>Todd -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 8163 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090510/781e8970/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon May 11 05:42:49 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 07:42:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] U.S. Journalist to Be Freed Soon in Iran, Her Lawyer Says Message-ID: May 11, 2009 U.S. Journalist to Be Freed Soon in Iran, Her Lawyer Says By REUTERS Filed at 7:05 a.m. ET TEHRAN, May 11 (Reuters) - An Iranian appeals court has reduced the eight-year jail sentence for Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi to a suspended two-year term and she will soon be freed, her defence lawyer told Reuters on Monday. Lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi was speaking a day after the court heard the case of Saberi, who was jailed by a lower court on April 18 on charges of spying for the United States. "The appeals court ... has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence ... and she will soon be free," Khorramshahi told Reuters. He said Saberi will be banned from doing any reporting work in Iran for five years. Saberi's father Reza said he and his wife Akiko were on their way to Tehran's Evin jail, where their daughter has been held since late January, "to bring our daughter back home". Reza Saberi told Reuters his daughter would be allowed to leave Iran. From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 11 06:38:11 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 21:38:11 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Hopebroken and Hopesick Message-ID: <4A081C33.3030305@ashisuto.co.jp> Obama fans need a new start The penny has dropped: hope alone won't save the world. Time for a fresh lexicon. And to hope less, demand more by Naomi Klein The Guardian (April 17 2009) All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from the US treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from re-regulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza attack. Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard. This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programmes capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding. The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is a start. Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of lay-offs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious hopeover." Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very moment when it could become a reality. Sample sentence: "I was so psyched when Obama said he was closing Guantanamo. But now they are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster - I want to get off!" Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling - usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentence: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again". Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend, goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz. Sample sentence: "Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalise the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!" Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers on to Obama and is inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he's using twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I hear him say 'move forward', I'm hopebroken all over again." Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on hopelash." In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last (2003). I didn't have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up." That pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture towards the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it - in the factories, neighbourhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence. Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labour movement can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance, that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories, capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of speeches", he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers". Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon. Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots". _____ A version of this column was published in the Nation (www.thenation.com) www.naomiklein.org http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/17/barack-obama-supporters-naomi-klein/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 11 16:21:31 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 07:21:31 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Publicly-Created Money: Message-ID: <4A08A4EB.7020306@ashisuto.co.jp> The Democratic Imperactive by Alistair McConnachie Prosperity (June 2003) Prosperity was established to help publicise and clarify the Money Reform proposal. Our big issue is publicly-created debt-free money. Few people are aware that almost all the money we use comes into existence, not by governments creating it, but as a result of a bank making a loan at interest. Even the government must borrow this money from the private banking system! We say: If banks can create money out of nothing, and expect people to pay the money back, then governments could do the same, but not need to ask for it back. Our priority is to generate demand for the government, not the banking system, to create a supply of money debt-free, and to spend it, not lend it, into society on the basis of proven need. A regular debt-free supply of money into the economy which was spent, not lent, by the government on specific projects, would have the effect, over time, of supplying the economy with a stable means of exchange, rather than the unstable, debt-based means of exchange we have at present. There is a Massive Democratic Issue at Stake In our society today, the private banks have a virtual monopoly of credit creation. Money, the means of exchange of all the necessary goods and services which we need to stay alive - the lifeblood of society - is issued into circulation largely at the say-so of private institutions, and only as interest-bearing debt. Society must go into debt in order to obtain virtually all its means of exchange. That is an astonishing state of affairs. The only part of our money supply which is debt-free is the notes and coins minted by government and consequently bought by the banking system. The revenue from the sale of these notes and coins is credited to the Treasury and represents an effective debt-free input to the public purse. Our Money Supply Raises Fundamental Issues The nature by which our money - our means of exchange - comes into society, raises fundamental political issues. These are not just obscure economic questions. They go to the very heart of what we understand as "democracy". For example: Money is only available by going into debt. Why should we go into debt merely to create our medium of exchange? Why should a government - the one institution with the constitutional authority to create money - delegate this responsibility and power to the banking system? What does it mean for democracy - rule by the people, for the people, allegedly - when we are reliant upon the banking system for virtually all of our medium of exchange? Why do the politicians, professional economists and academics see no connection between the social problems associated with spiralling debt and the way money is created? Let's Talk About "The Distribution of Credit" As Rosamund Stock has written: "This is a case of sovereignty and of the distribution of resources: it is the banks who decide who gets what now that a large part of people's spending power comes from bank-created credit. We talk about the distribution of wealth but we have not even started on the distribution of credit". We Want Publicly-Created Money Our democratic argument is that it is wrong for virtually all our money supply to be created by private means. We need a publicly-created supply of money. We need to ensure that all the people have a stake in the creation of their means of exchange. We need to ensure that they reap the benefits of a publicly-created means of exchange. At the moment, those who reap the benefit from the present debt-based system, are the bankers who reap the interest, and the speculators who engage in currency manipulation and hostile takeovers. As Richard Greaves wrote in the November 2001 Prosperity, "For as long as the power to create money is in the hands of private interests who do it for profit and control, we can never say that we live in a democracy". We want money for the people, by the people. However, one of the main lines of objection we receive is usually a variation on the theme that the government of the day would abuse its power to create this debt-free public money - usually by "over-spending" or by "centralising its power". We examine some of these specific objections below. As we do so, let us distinguish the economic merits of any proposal as being a related, but separate, issue from its democratic merits. For example, the objection that Money Reform will "centralise power" is really a criticism of the democratic deficit in society, rather than a criticism of the economic correctness of the Money Reform proposal per se. If our proposal is correct economically, then let us ensure we can make it correct democratically. Frequently Heard Objections to Debt-Free Money Objection Number One: "The last thing we need is for our government to have access to an unlimited supply of money". Answer Number One: We are not suggesting that money should be created without limit. That would, of course, be inflationary and irresponsible. We are not suggesting that the government simply "prints money willy nilly ad lib". We are suggesting that a specific amount of debt-free money should be created for specific projects by a democratic and accountable state authority. The money is only created when a project is agreed, and it is only created for that particular project. It is spent, not lent, into society on that basis. Objection Number Two: "What is to stop any government simply spending as much debt-free money as it chooses, in order to butter-up the electorate in time for the next election? For example, it could simply use the debt-free money to lower taxes and hence boost its own popularity". Answer Number Two: If the government were given the power to create debt-free money then it would be necessary for its new money creation powers to be strictly controlled within a set of legal and constitutional parameters. Given that, however, it stands to reason that any government has a vested interest in carefully controlling the amount of debt-free money which can be created each year, in order to avoid inflation. If the government does not make this calculation then it will mismanage the economy and pay the price of electoral failure. There will, as usual, be no incentive for any government to over-spend and risk inflation. Objection Number Three: "But don't you know that 'government is the problem'. Why do you want to give it more power?" Answer Number Three: Some people are hostile to "the government" per se. Without getting into a debate on that particular political view, we point out the following: The priority is to bring the money supply under democratic control. Government involvement is a means to this end, not the end in itself. Money Reformers seek Economic Democracy - the democratisation of economic power. This requires the democratisation of the power to create the means of exchange - the money - which we all need to survive. That democratisation is obviously going to involve the government playing a major role - in a democratically accountable manner. There has never been any suggested solution to the world's economic woes which does not involve "the government", in some form, playing a major role. To imagine that Money Reform can occur without the involvement of government is sheer idle fantasy. Objection Number Four: "Look at the present democratic deficit between the government and the people. How can you trust the government to get it right?" Answer Number Four: That is not an argument against the rightness of the Money Reform proposal, rather it is an argument against a particular political situation. Those are two different issues - the Economic Issue, and the Democratic Issue. Don't confuse them. Objection Number Five: "Your idea of government-created debt-free money will simply centralise even more power in the hands of government. It is a license for tyranny." Answer Number Five: Again, we should distinguish between the economics of our proposal, and how, politically, it would be administered. Of course, Money Reformers are agreed that it will be necessary to ensure that the administration of our economic proposal does not centralise economic power. But even as the system stands at the moment, there is an extent of democratic accountability with the government - where there is none with the banks. Indeed the banks represent a form of "hidden government". It is the government, which the voters empower, which will make the decisions, not the un-elected bankers. It is the government which will pay the price if it gets it wrong. Governments can be voted out, bankers can't! Objection Number Six: "Don't you know that Karl Marx believed in 'Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly'. (Chapter 2, The Communist Manifesto, 1848) Your proposal will simply centralise all financial power, as Karl Marx wanted." Answer Number Six: Nobody is saying we "centralise all credit"! We are simply calling for a greater proportion of our money supply to be created debt-free by a democratically accountable public body, and spent, not lent, into society. Moreover, Money Reformers still see a role for the private banking system. Publicly-created money is not a "left-wing" idea, nor is it a "right-wing" idea. It is intended to help democratise - not centralise - economic power. Anyway, Marx did not challenge the debt-based money system, nor advocate debt-free money. His proposals were being made within the conventional economic system. Objection Number Seven: "The availability of debt-free money could open up the potential for socially desirable projects, but it could also make it easier for the government to spend on bad things!" Answer Number Seven: That's true. But that's the sort of political issue which will always be with us. For its part, the government will still be constrained in its spending decisions by normal political considerations - whether those be with regard to its ideology, or with regard to what it calculates it can get away with, or with regard to its continued electoral survival - just as it is at the moment. For our part, even under a reformed money system we will still have to hold our government to account. We will still have to ask of it some fundamental questions. For example, we will still need to ask: Under whose authority are decisions being taken? Are issues presented to us one choice at a time? Are decisions being taken after proper consultation? Do they reflect the will of the people, to the extent that it can be defined? Are decisions made on a proper basis of responsibility, and not just necessarily on a question of numbers ? and so on. So, nobody is saying that the Money Reform proposal is some kind of be-all-and-end-all, which will fix everything for all time. What we are saying is that the Money Reform proposal will help us move towards a more democratic dispensation. But even with Money Reform in place, it will still be for us to continue to work on the on-going process of making our political system more accountable and democratic. Objection Number Eight: "Such money creation powers in the hands of the government will lead to corruption". Answer Number Eight: Abuse may occur, regardless of whether money creation powers are vested publicly or privately. If government is vested with these powers, then, if corruption occurs, people will know the source, and there will be an ability to seek redress. To that extent, people will have been democratically empowered by the reform. If money creation powers are vested primarily in private institutions, however, then the abuse is hidden. It is anonymous, and the buck stops nowhere. It is difficult, or impossible to identify the culprits, and rectify the problem, even though the abuse impacts negatively upon all of society. Democratically speaking, the crucial power over the money supply should be vested in transparent and accountable public bodies. Publicly-created money is a democratic imperative. _____ Perhaps you have insights you'd like to add to the above, or questions you'd like answered. Prosperity is assembling a list of Frequently Asked Questions for future issues. If any of our readers would like to contribute, please get in touch Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/faq.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon May 11 18:56:21 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 10:56:21 +1000 Subject: [A-List] African lives -- silent casualty of the global economic crisis | Links Message-ID: <4A08C935.4030300@greenleft.org.au> "The broken promises and skewed priorities of governments and donors have reduced the right to health and access to treatment to unattainable rhetoric. In the last few months, we have seen trillions of dollars spent on financial ?bailouts? to stimulate economic recovery?, said Nonkosi Kumalo of the /Treatment Action Campaign/ . "A tiny portion of this sum could have bought quality, sustainable healthcare for millions of people." Dr Bactrin Killingo of the /HIV Collaborative Fund/ warned that ?if the current cost constraints faced by HIV treatment programs are not addressed, while the demand for expensive second-line treatment increases, we will find ourselves in a situation similar to the ?90s, where millions of lives were lost unnecessarily because people could not afford the treatment they needed to stay alive?. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1043 Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Mon May 11 17:15:45 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 19:15:45 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN Time for Great Turtle Island Tea Party Message-ID: <0205f773$39944$0cf38025982176@xnote> NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION ? TIME FOR GREAT TURTLE ISLAND TEA PARTY ? Ol? US Termination Policy Rears Ugly Head in Canada MNN. May 11, 2009. Ontario MPP Christine Elliott, the wife of federal Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, started a campaign on the risks of smoking cigarettes made by Indigenous. Health Canada said that Indigenous cigarettes are worse for human health than cigarettes made by Big Tobacco, and that?s absurd! Big Tobacco won?t tell anybody what they put into their cigarettes. In the U.S. Philip Morris put in ammonia so nicotine could go to the brain faster and make it more addictive. [yessmokes.com] The patent for fire safe cigarette paper made with more carcinogens is owned by Phillip Morris. Most Indigenous business people use basic tobacco. Poisons and toxins cost money. Why doesn?t Elliott scare smokers off all cigarettes? It?s a legal business for Big Tobacco and so it is for Indigenous. Maybe they?re backing her campaign to become leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Is Elliot going to go back to old sales pitches like warding off emphysema and TB, losing weight and coping with depression? In movies smoking represents rebelliousness, defiance, empowerment, low class, manhood, outdoor ruggedness, fun, partying, alcohol drinking, socializing and cheating authority and not getting caught. The Marlborough Man died of lung cancer from smoking. Virginia slims was marketed to little girls to be thin. Beautiful women dragging on a cig induces kids to smoke. It?s so cool! The main argument for cutting out competition and giving Big Tobacco a monopoly has to do with taxes and lawsuits. In 1773, Britain's Dutch East India Company had large stocks of tea that could not be sold. It was on the verge of bankruptcy. To save it, the government passed the 1773 Tea Act to give the company a monopoly to export tea directly to the colonies without paying taxes. The company could undersell American merchants and monopolize the trade. Americans started to smuggle and sell tea at cheaper prices. The East India Company granted franchises to co-operative American merchants. Britain planned to do this with other commodities. Those excluded got mad. They questioned whether Britain had a right to tax the colonies as they did not elect members to Parliament. It was ?taxation without representation?. The colonists boycotted Britain and drank smuggled tea. Britain tried unsuccessfully to undercut the smugglers. The colonists hatched a plan to stop the East India Company from landing its tea in colonial ports. East India company agents were forced to resign. Tea was either returned to England or warehoused. A huge surplus accumulated. Britain did not drop the tax or its purported right to govern the colonies. The taxes Britain collected were used to pay colonial governors and judges to keep them dependant on the British, like today?s band and tribal councils. In Boston, the agents wouldn?t resign. The royal governor and his men decided to land the tea anyway. Three ships made it into the harbor. On December 16, 1773, three companies of fifty men each, dressed as Mohawk Rotiskenrakete, boarded the ships and dumped 600,000 pounds of tea into the harbor. Other ports followed. The Coercive Act was passed to make Massachusetts pay damages. They refused. In 1774 the British closed down the port of Boston. This reduced the powers of self government. Traitorous British officers were tried. The guilty were quartered in the barns and empty houses of the colonists. This sparked the American Revolutionary War. The colonists passed themselves off as Mohawks to make a point. Either they saw us as Indigenous and free people who couldn?t be taxed by foreigners or colonists. Or they were trying blame us for the rebellion. We are presently being pushed into poverty and starvation to force us to relinquish our non taxable status. We are sovereign caretakers of Great Turtle Island. We never voted to become U.S. or Canadian citizens. The colonists bully us: ?Give us our cut or starve!? just like street gang enforcers. We can?t get jobs anywhere. We have a right to survive by our traditional trade and commerce free of harassment. In 2009 the British are trying to scapegoat us. Most Big Tobacco companies are headquartered in Great Britain. They still control the colonies of U.S. and Canada. We constantly resist these carpetbaggers. Big Tobacco sell toxic cigarettes all over the world. They are being sued by governments for billions for causing deaths from cancer and other sicknesses. The media campaign against us is that Mohawks make bad cigarettes that cause cancer. So sue them! Big Tobacco makes cigarettes that are good for you. This is how Big Tobacco will pay off their law suits. It?s the old U.S. 1953 Termination Act scheme concocted by American tycoons through the Conservatives of Canada. In the 1990s Big Tobacco set up the businesses on our land. The number of cigarettes produced by us is greatly inflated. Arbitrary sums of $40 to $50 million in fines for ?smuggling? are purportedly owed by us. The governments change the law so our land can be foreclosed and seized for fines owed to the government. An armed occupation force is brought into our communities to make it unlivable to scatter us. Our land is given to the federal or provincial governments who will hand it over to the politicians, their backers and real estate agencies for sale. Canada, Quebec and Ontario have put arbitrary fines against us to seize our properties. Then they will try to sell it off to help pay off the fines of Big Tobacco, give some to the government and the middle men can pocket some themselves. It?s not what they want us to see. It?s scapegoating. Put the pressure on us. The guns. The border. The cigarettes. No economy. Tear our families apart. While Big Tobacco in England keeps on rolling their smokes! Kahentinetha MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 1953 Termination Act House Resolution 108 www.historycentral.com/Indians/terminact.htm Boston Tea Party www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/teaparty/bostonxx.htm Story on Christine Elliott www.standard-freeholder.com GLUTTONOUS SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH: Reynolds America www.rjrt.com, Salem NC; Rothman UK Holding Ltd.; RJ. www.fundinguniverse.com 15 Hill St., London W1X 7FB 071-491-4366; Imperial Tobacco Group PLC www.imperial-tobacco.com P.O. Box 244, Upton Rd., Bristol BS99 7UJ +44-0-177-963-6636 Prime Min. Stephen Harper pm at pm.ca Contact the following contagions: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, SQ1A UK; President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461; The Governor General of Canada, M. Michaelle Jean, 1 Rideau Drive, Ottawa info at gg.ca; Alain Jolicoeur, President, CBSA, Ottawa, ON K1A 0L8, 613-952-3200, 613-957-0612; General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Lance Markell, District Director, Northern Office ? Customs, St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa Ont. K1G 4K3, CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214, General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528, Operator Number: 202-282-8000, Comment Line: 202-282-8495, Jayson P. Ahern, A/Commissioner, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229 Chief Counsel (202) 344-2990; Marco A. Lopez, Jr., Chief of Staff, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; House of Commons, Ottawa, harper.s at parl.gc.ca; Hon. Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons, Ottawa; Hon. Robert Douglas Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, 284 Wellington St., Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8; Attorney General of Ontario, 720 Bay St., 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5G 2K1; Hon. Yvon Marcoux, Minister of Justice and A.G.O., Louis-Phillipe-Pigeon Bldg., 1200 Rue d l'Eglise, 9th Floor, St. Foy G1V 4M1; Hon. Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs, 10 Wellington St., Hull, Que. K1A 0H4 Strahl.c at parl.gc.ca; Premier Dalton McGuinty, Province of Ontario, Queens Park, Toronto ON; Premier Charest, Province of Quebec, Legislature, Quebec City; British High Commission, 80 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5K7; Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater St., 8th Floor Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1; United Nations, 405 E 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017; The Hague, Anna Paulownastraat, 103, 251 BBC, The Netherlands; Coalition for the International Criminal Court, c/o WFM, 708 3rd Ave., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10017 From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 12 06:05:44 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 21:05:44 +0900 Subject: [A-List] We're Being Lied to About Pirates Message-ID: <4A096618.6020701@ashisuto.co.jp> by Johann Hari, Independent UK AlterNet (April 13 2009) Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell - and some justice on their side. Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations (2004), the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages. Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century". They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy". This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves. The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas. Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention." At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100 kilometres south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters". This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found seventy per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence". No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand. Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes - the only sane solution to this problem - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for twenty per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats. The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea". The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor". Once again, our great imperial fleets sail - but who is the robber? (c) 2009 Independent UK. All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/136288/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Tue May 12 13:36:51 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leighm) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 12:36:51 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Luxembourg : Steelworkers Try to Force Their Way Into ArcelorMittal Meeting Message-ID: <4A09CFD3.9000508@gmail.com> For those of you using RSS, the New York Times now has a feed: http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire/feeds/ The New York Times May 13, 2009 Steelworkers Try to Force Their Way Into ArcelorMittal Meeting By DAVID JOLLY PARIS ? Steelworkers angry about reduced hours and job insecurity attempted Tuesday to crash the ArcelorMittal shareholders meeting in Luxembourg, trying to break through the front door and throwing firecrackers until they were driven off by riot police officers. The police said about 2,000 Belgian and French steelworkers gathered at the headquarters of ArcelorMittal, the world?s largest steel maker, outside the company?s annual general meeting at in the Grand Duchy. Most of the workers, many of whom came from the Belgian cities of Charleroi and Liege, demonstrated peacefully, said Vic Reuter, a spokesman for the Luxembourg police. But a small group sought to break into the headquarters building, he said, where they were met by 200 police officers, including riot policemen who had been kept in reserve. ?They threw cobblestones and iron bars and fired at us with slingshots,? Mr. Reuter said. ?The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets fired from air rifles.? The bulk of the demonstrators remained calm, he said, and sought to ?cool down? the rioters. A videographer for RTL television in Luxembourg was injured, Mr. Reuter said, and one man was arrested. The damage included broken windows and structural damage to the ornate front door of the headquarters, but the meeting was not interrupted. It was the first violent demonstration in Luxembourg since Arcelor steelworkers rioted in 2003. ?They?re obviously angry because of the economic situation and the fact that we had to cut production throughout the world, and they?re on reduced hours,? Arne Langner, an ArcelorMittal spokesman, said by telephone. ArcelorMittal, which in November announced 9,000 ?voluntary separations? worldwide, has said it will cut production this year by as much as 50 percent as the economic crisis saps demand and customers run down stockpiles. Of the company?s 304,000 employees, about 120,000 are based in Europe, where it has ?temporarily? idled 14 of 25 blast furnaces and reduced the work hours ? and wages ? of its employees. The company on April 28 posted a first-quarter net loss of $1.1 billion, compared with profit of $2.4 billion a year earlier, as sales nearly halved to $15.1 billion. ?The reality of the current situation is that there is no point in making what we know we cannot sell,? Lakshmi Mittal told shareholders on Tuesday. Mr. Mittal is chief executive of the company he built through the 2006 combination of Arcelor and Mittal. ?If we could give more precise clarity on when the market is likely to improve and when we might increase production again, then we would do this,? he said. The company said it expects global steel demand to decline by as much as 20 percent this year. As confirmation of the continuing slack in the market, ThyssenKrupp, the largest German steel maker, on Tuesday offered a grim forecast for the business year through September, saying a ?loss before taxes and major nonrecurring items in the mid to high three-digit million euro range is expected.? Analysts told Reuters that they had expected the company to make a profit of around ?100 million, or $136 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13steel.html From suzannedk at gmail.com Tue May 12 13:26:44 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 21:26:44 +0200 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] It's time to end the Cold War In-Reply-To: <148219383.888751242153832396.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> References: <1A4811F73287485D9ADCE03067235956@twubby.com> <148219383.888751242153832396.JavaMail.root@jaguar8.sfu.ca> Message-ID: James Bisset's article on ending the Cold War is so good, and, so sad as the Cold War will never end until the U S is bankrupt and we all know the printing presses will never stop, Except for one small fact. Europe is tired of war, does not trust war, loves it's children, cherishes it's intact families and cultures, The US bankrupt and broken, needs to dominate the world as Hitler needed to dominate the world after WW1, to enrich his shattered not yet humiliated land. The NATO growth is part and parcel of U S War Empire. War empires need wars, soldiers. NATO now has over three million young enthusiastic soldiers in search of a war or more. U S corporations' tentacles, with more rights and privileges than U S citizens, are in all corners of the world . Why end something you can reconfigure and use for another gaol more effectively? A fine article though, that makes one wistful. Suzanne suzannedh at gmail.com On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Sid Shniad wrote: > > > > Globe and Mail May 12, 2009 > > > > DEFENSIVE OR OFFENSIVE? > > > > It's time to end the Cold War > > > > NATO's recent behaviour has made the Russians rightly anxious > > > > James Bissett > > Former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia > > > > NATO supporters frequently claim the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was > the greatest military alliance of all time since it won a major war without > firing a shot and without suffering any casualties. The war referred to was > the Cold War and, until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that claim > was valid. However, after the Warsaw Pact armies went home, NATO continued > to act as if the Cold War were still being fought - and it still does. > > > > In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, the issue of whether a united > Germany should become a member of NATO became an immediate issue. The > Russians, as might be expected, had serious misgivings, but these were > overcome with the assurances given to Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev by > George H. W. Bush that if the new Germany were allowed to join NATO, the > alliance would not expand eastward. > > > > The Russians also knew that Article 1 of the NATO treaty stipulated that > NATO would refrain from using or threatening to use force in the resolution > of international disputes and would always act in accordance with the UN > Charter. Article 1 acted as a security blanket for the Russians since they > could always use their veto power in the Security Council should NATO > threaten to use military force. > > > > All of this changed in March, 1999. In that fateful month, NATO decided to > ignore its first article and, without consulting the United Nations, began > the bombing of Serbia, allegedly to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing of > the Albanian population of Kosovo. This was a historic turning point. The > alliance was suddenly converted from a purely defensive organization, acting > in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter, into an aggressive > military machine that could use force whenever and wherever it might choose > to do so. > > > > In the same month, despite the promises previously given, NATO was joined > by three former Warsaw Pact members: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. > Since then the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia have been given > membership. Russia has been surrounded by NATO countries - some of them for > historical reasons - hostile to Russia. Adding to Russian anxieties is the > determination of the United States to have Ukraine and Georgia admitted to > the alliance. > > > > The U.S.'s unilateral withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in > 2002 and, more recently, its intention to place anti-missile shields in > Poland and the Czech Republic, have added to Russia's concerns about NATO's > true intentions. The decision of most NATO countries to recognize the > independence of Kosovo, in violation of the UN Charter and the Helsinki > Final Accords, was also seen as a signal to the Russians that NATO had > become a law unto itself. > > > > The violation of Serbia's territorial integrity was simply ignored despite > a UN resolution reaffirming Serbian sovereignty and then-Russian president > Vladimir Putin's warning that a unilateral declaration of independence would > set a dangerous precedent. He cautioned that Russia would follow by > recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. NATO dismissed > Mr. Putin's warning, apparently assuming Russian interests did not need to > be taken into account. > > > > This dangerous assumption was abruptly proven wrong in August of last year > when, on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Georgian > armed forces suddenly attacked South Ossetia. Moscow reacted with speed and > force. Within days, the Georgian armed forces were routed and Russian forces > had complete control of South Ossetia. > > > > NATO's reaction to this humiliating reversal was predictable. The United > States and other NATO countries, supported almost unanimously by the Western > media, condemned the Russian military action and expressed dismay and shock > that Georgia's territorial integrity had been violated. The U.S. immediately > promised $1-billion in aid to help Georgia rebuild. > > > > In the months that have followed, there is little evidence NATO has learned > anything. The U.S. is still pressing, despite German and French > reservations, to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. The decision by NATO > this month to hold military exercises in Georgia is a deliberate provocation > to antagonize Russia. And the silly Cold War diplomatic game of mutually > expelling diplomats is also back in fashion. > > > > In a world struggling with financial and economic recession, continued > bloodshed in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, a Pakistan on the verge of civil > war, ongoing strife in the Middle East, and a hostile and perhaps soon to be > nuclear-armed Iran - it is time for NATO to end the Cold War and make peace > with Russia, a Russia that could prove to be one of the West's most useful > and powerful allies in the years ahead. > _______________________________________________ > Rad-Green mailing list > Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 6978 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090512/ec9e4c1a/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 12 18:44:00 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 09:44:00 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Making a Case for Money Reform Message-ID: <4A0A17D0.1030101@ashisuto.co.jp> by James Gibb Stuart Prosperity (January 2003) The Problem That the economies of even the most developed countries, have failed to maximise upon the great advantages of modern technology for the benefit of their peoples. The Symptoms 1. Decaying social infrastructures; 2. An unsustainable exploitation of irreplaceable resources; 3. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The Cause A money system founded on debt, whereby democratic Government, which should be the nation's arbiter, and dispenser, of both social and economic justice, has traditionally financed itself through extensive and irredeemable borrowings from the private banking system, thereby: 1. Limiting its expenditures to what can be afforded in debt servicing; 2. Putting undue leverage and power in the hands of private financial institutions, inevitably to be used for their own selfish aims. The Solution To redress the balance by restoring to representative government - or one of its delegated instruments - the right and responsibility for creating sufficient money to carry out Government's essential functions without borrowing. solution ... Creating Money Without Borrowing Before the invention of the modern banking system, economies were based on "coin of the realm". Even when banknotes become the accepted form of legal tender, their creation and issuance remained a privilege of Government, a situation which persists to this present day. For instance, when the United Kingdom requires an increase in its stock of physical "cash money" - notes and coins - to cover the expanding needs of commerce and industry, HM Treasury raises a form of Treasury Credit authorising the Bank of England to mint the agreed amount of extra currency. These are sold at face value to the banks, and the revenue credited to the public purse. No borrowing! But with the increased sophistication of banking, involving credit cards and the drive towards a cashless society, notes and coin now make up a drastically reduced proportion of the total money stock, the ever-widening gap being filled by interest bearing private bank debt. For example, whereas in 1963 around 35% of the British money stock was debt-free notes and coin, by 1996 this proportion had fallen to less than five per cent, the remainder being bank-created money. This now represents such a severe loss of revenue to the Exchequer, and to the nation as a whole, that pressure is increasing upon both HM Treasury and the Bank of England to widen the scope of those Treasury Credits for the financing of government expenditures that do not involve physical cash money - what we can term "non-cash money". Objections to Treasury Credits Whenever they are challenged, Central Bank and Treasury officials and their political spokespeople have stoically maintained that any extension of government self-financing, beyond what is required for the creation of banknotes and coin, would result in immediate inflation. and so ... Thus far no open debate has been held on the subject, and officialdom has never been obliged to enlarge upon its alarming contentions. But Money Reformers, mindful of this, have been at pains to elaborate on the disciplines that would have to be imposed on Government Money Creation, so that runaway inflation did not indeed emerge as a consequence. It has been suggested, for instance, that the powers should be vested in some statutory body, and that, initially at least, the use of Government Money Creation could be limited to the funding of some unavoidable item of public expenditure. Servicing the National Debt Here a neat solution emerges. It was suggested in The Money Bomb, [available from Prosperity for GBP 5 at the address below], that if a Treasury Credit were issued to fund the annual ongoing interest on the National Debt, it would remove the main cause of Government borrowing, stabilise the Debt itself, and leave taxation to take care of all other legitimate outlays. When The Money Bomb was written, debt interest and public borrowing in the United Kingdom were tending to track each other very closely, so that to find a way of funding one would be virtually to eliminate the other. In the escalating figures for Debt interest, we have a debilitating factor which has bugged the chancelleries of democratic societies for the whole of this century, causing cutbacks in social spending and renewal of national infrastructures, mitigating all attempts at the elimination of poverty and inequality, and putting an undue emphasis upon the extraction of non-renewable resources It's been said that, "In a journey of a thousand miles, it is necessary to take the first step". Here is that first step. At this point let the debate begin. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214; Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/caseref.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 12 20:49:30 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 22:49:30 -0400 Subject: [A-List] We're Being Lied to About Pirates In-Reply-To: <4A096618.6020701@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A096618.6020701@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <95D25EF4C5344B35B6F8C489D113DE2D@TonyPC> ....conspicuously missing in this otherwise fine critique is the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somali (Dec. 2006) that destroyed the fledgling Islamic Courts Union gov't of Somalia which, for the first time in decades, had restored some semblance of order and peace to this long exploited land. Now millions of Sudanese are refugees and in danger of starvation. Not a breath of this in the Western media... Tony PS....the 'pirate of exquisite mind' himself, William Dampier, - inspiration for poets, naturalists (including Darwin), cartographers, writers (particularly Defoe) and assorted scientists - was of similar conviction as the author below regarding the buccaneering lads... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" To: "a-list" Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 8:05 AM Subject: [A-List] We're Being Lied to About Pirates > > by Johann Hari, Independent UK > > AlterNet (April 13 2009) > > > Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a > new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by > the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is > sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as > parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting > Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the > most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness > of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are > labeling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an > extraordinary story to tell - and some justice on their side. > > Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age > of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the > senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the > British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people > believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by > supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book > Villains Of All Nations (2004), the historian Marcus Rediker pores > through the evidence. > > If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of > London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden > Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you > slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' > Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at > the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages. > > Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied > - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a > ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions > collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what > Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of > resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century". > > They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. > The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did > not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant > service and the Royal Navy". This is why they were romantic heroes, > despite being unproductive thieves. > > The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called > William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he > was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to > keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In > 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have > been teetering on starvation ever since - and the ugliest forces in the > Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the > country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas. > > Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious > European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast > barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first > they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after > the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up > on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than > 300 died. > > Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is > dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such > as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to > European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the > Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah > what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: > "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention." > > At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas > of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish > stocks by overexploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More > than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen > every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. > Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100 kilometres south > of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be > much fish left in our coastal waters". > > This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian > fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, > or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer > Coastguard of Somalia - and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent > Somalian news site WardheerNews found seventy per cent "strongly > supported the piracy as a form of national defence". > > No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are > clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food > Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate > leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We > consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our > seas." William Scott would understand. > > Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, > paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in > restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes - > the only sane solution to this problem - but when some of the fishermen > responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for twenty per cent of the > world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats. > > The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another > pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and > brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by > keeping possession of the sea". The pirate smiled, and responded: "What > you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty > ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are > called emperor". Once again, our great imperial fleets sail - but who is > the robber? > > (c) 2009 Independent UK. All rights reserved. > > http://www.alternet.org/story/136288/ > > > http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com > http://www.ashisuto.co.jp > > > > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 12 22:35:24 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 13:35:24 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Single Most Important Reform In-Reply-To: <7o7ghn$4equim@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <49FF888C.4020504@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4dcjhm@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> <4A021FAA.5010003@ashisuto.co.jp> <7o7ghn$4equim@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: <4A0A4E0C.6080802@ashisuto.co.jp> Todd, the USG has not only issued money as debt, by borrowing from banks money it could have printed itself and spent into circulation, but also has allowed banks to loan out nine times their "reserves", which are their deposits plus their paid-in capital (ie, "loan" out nine times more money than they have, ie, create nine dollars of money out of thin air for every dollar they have). The USG should (1) raise reserve requirements of banks to 100% (meaning they can loan out only the amount of money they have in deposits and paid-in capital, and (2) stop paying any interest on the treasuries it already has issued. If the banks then wanted to sell these non-interest-earning bonds, they would have to reduce their outstanding loans by the amount of the bonds they sold to meet the 100% reserve requirement. Nations like Japan and China would get screwed by holding US Treasuries that will now pay no interest, but that screwing wouldn't be nearly as bad as the screwing they're getting from the devaluing of the US dollar (Japan and its citizens and corporations lost eleven trillion yen last year on the US Treasuries they held as they were worth 66 trillion yen at the end of 2007 when the dollar was worth 113 yen but were worth only 55 trillion yen at the end of 2008 when the dollar had fallen to 94 yen). If domestic or foreign holders of outstanding US Treasuries insisted on selling them, the US Treasury could then print enough money to buy them. This would be a wash since each new dollar printed reduces our national debt by one dollar. No, it would be better than a wash because the USG doesn't have to pay interest on the dollars it prints but does have to pay interest on the dollars it borrows (ie, US Treasuries). As to "the incompetence, the vanity and corruption of most of the Congress", if you don't trust democracy, what form of government would you prefer? I think Japan and the Japanese were better off when ruled by shogun during the Edo era and they have been under democracy. Bill Todd Boyle wrote: > I concede that the USG has issued money as debt ...You're right, my > bad. The national debt is $11.3 trillion while the treasury securities > held by the Fed are $178 billion on their financial statements. > http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ > http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html > > This seems to suggest, the Fed is returning to the Treasury only a tiny > fraction of the interest on the national debt. > > However, the Fed can always buy back Treasury securities on the "open > market" . This increases the money in circulation, and increases the > interest income of the Fed which it might return to the Treasury. > > If that's what we want, then, how are we any different from everybody > else who wants monetary easing? > > It's worth asking, would you have the Fed buy back the entire national > debt, by issuing $11.3 trillion in transaction money? > The graph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply seems to indicate > the money stock (M0,M1 and M2) is already $7 Trillion -- so, the idea is > not so far fetched. > > I still think the Fed is an agency of the US government and the US > government (viewed as a whole) is not systemically designed to issue > "money as debt" rather than "spend money into circulation". Rather, > this is a policy issue, and a very old and familiar one. It is an > historical fact that politicians in Congress delegated the power to > issue money to the Fed. > > Considering the incompetence, the vanity and corruption of most of the > Congress, I really don't know if we'd be better off if the monetary > targets were set in the banking committees rather than the FRB. I > think we need to focus on monetary policy itself, to win the argument > for monetary easing. And I still don't think it would do a bit of good > for most people. What we need, instead is much steeper progressive tax > rates on high incomes (like 50% over $300K 75% over $1 million etc.) and > even harder to achieve: a redirection of the spending priorities to > serve human needs, > > The trouble with a lot of these blogs is their continual invention of > new rhetoric for very old problems, --rhetoric that's less accurate and > less complete than just using simple language -- it's called class > struggle! > Todd > > At 04:39 PM 5/6/2009, Bill Totten wrote: >> Todd, the Federal Reserve may return most of the interest it receives >> on US Treasury Bonds it holds, but most of those bonds are held by >> foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals and >> corporations. Google, for example, on "holders of US treasuries" where >> you will find http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt and other good informaton. >> >> Those foreign governments and private foreign and domestic individuals >> and corporations DON'T return to the US government the interest the US >> government pays them on those bonds. Since the US government and other >> governments borrow most of the money they could just as easily spend >> into circulation, the dominant portion of US and other nations' public >> debt is the cost of serving that debt, primarily the interest >> governments pay on that debt. Bill >> >> >> Todd Boyle wrote: >>> Thanks, Bill, for forwarding this... >>> >>>> by Michael Rowbotham - Prosperity (January 2002) >>>> >>>> ...How dare a government claim it cannot find the money to pay for >>>> this or >>>> that essential service when they do not bother to create any money? >>> Just for the record- the Federal Reserve is a classic central bank. >>> It is a government agency and it prints money on a massive scale. >>> The FAQ is here. >>> http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm >>> The Financial Statements of just the NY Fed, are at >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annualreports.html >>> Does anybody on this list, first of all, dispute any of the statements >>> in the FAQ or Financial Statements? Do you accept that its earnings >>> in excess of its costs are returned to the Treasury --not its member >>> banks? >>> Do you then, agree, that it issues money out of nothing, "lends" it >>> to the >>> Treasury at "interest" --- then, returns the "interest" to the Treasury? >>> To me, that is called printing money. That is NOT "money as debt". >>> Myths die hard. The myths we cling to, say more about us than they >>> do about the Federal Reserve. There's much to be reformed! >>> But Rowbotham's proposal is laughably too simple-- that the government >>> create money by spending it into circulation (It already does! ). >>> His statement of the problem is also pathetic-- Doesn't see the >>> larger global picture? that Americans are either *privileged* to >>> create >>> the world's money, or complicit in a grand theft, in the creation and >>> export of dollars to the rest of the world, where they pile up and >>> of course will never be repaid. I think the imbalance in value >>> rendered from one region of the planet to another, is the problem. >>> The dollars are just a reflection of systemic injustice, which is >>> maintained at the point of a gun, really. >>> The people on the A-List need to be absolutely well informed, to be >>> effective. We are getting a dangerous excess of generalization >>> and opinion, and not enough hard research here on this list... >>> For example look at the Financial Statement of 2008 and 2007 >>> http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/annual/annual08/NewYorkfinstmt2009.pdf >>> >>> The numbers just JUMP OUT at you they are so huge! The size of >>> the Federal Reserve balance sheet tripled in just one year. The >>> Loans to depository institutions increased 7 times (2008) >>> 300,665,000,000 (2007) 39,845,000,000 and there are >>> whole new areas totaling $530 billion that didn't even exist 2007. >>> Look at the liability section. Money deposited at the Fed by member >>> banks jumbed from 9 billion to 500 billion in one year, what the hell >>> does that mean? Seems, they are hoarding funds. They either cant >>> or wont lend, so they leave it to rot in the central bank. This >>> is what it looks like when the global banksters do their periodic >>> liquidity destruction of the world, pulling liquidity out of the entire >>> world. In due course, after we are all bankrupt and foreclosed, >>> they will reflood the money---down thru the channels to the banks >>> on every corner, down to the county and city levels to control >>> whose profits and property values explode most, decide who >>> gets rich, and to engineer another vast flood of patronage money >>> into the Republican Party in 2012 just exactly as it happened >>> in 2000 and 2004. >>> The most important reforms surely include-- opening to public >>> scrutiny and *democratizing* the process of loan approvals. >>> This is part and parcel of making financial transactions public. >>> Until we break the hypnosis, the indoctrination, that people >>> somehow need secrecy in their income and expense information, >>> there's not going to be much progress, folks. we need be >>> able to login to any bank, and surf the accounts and see who >>> is payor and payee of every transaction. >>> todd >>> >>> Todd > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 13 04:32:52 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 19:32:52 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The New New Money Message-ID: <4A0AA1D4.4030601@ashisuto.co.jp> by Dmitri Orlov Club Orlov (May 10 2009) It's official: The government in Beijing has announced that the Yuan can now be used in international trade. Their mouthpiece for this occasion was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a private entity, which made the announcement on their behalf. By the end of this year, it is expected that fully fifty percent of all transactions with Hong Kong will be denominated in the Yuan. In turn, Hong Kong re-exports ninety percent of its Chinese imports. Importer #1 is the European Union; importer #2 is the United States. Some of these countries may soon find themselves hard-pressed to earn enough Yuan to continue importing Chinese-made products. This is only the next small step in Beijing's "policy of small steps". Already the Chinese government has ramped down its purchases of US Treasury paper, forcing the Federal Reserve to step in as the buyer of last resort. The IOU, with which the US has inundated the world, is now becoming the I-owe-me - which is not quite as impressive to those who are considering selling products to the US on credit. Instead of the funny paper, the Chinese government has started to buy up gold on the international market. The Yuan has long been in de facto use in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and other countries in the region, in preference to the US Dollar. In several countries it is already possible to have Yuan-denominated savings and checking accounts; in Hong Kong alone such accounts are set to exceed US$100 billion by the end of this year. The United States and Europe have recently demonstrated their unwillingness to grant other countries a greater say in the IMF and the other organizations that govern international finance. Now Beijing can turn this combination of weakness and recalcitrance to its advantage, by quickly creating a wide coalition of countries that wish to isolate themselves from the financially untrustworthy regions of Europe and America. This is but one of many developments that those who are predicting economic recovery in the US sometime next year have chosen to ignore, but it may turn out to be one of the more important ones. What do these major shifts in international finance portend for us mere private citizens? The implication is simple: if you think that you still have some money, let's hope that you don't mean that you have something or other denominated in the US Dollar. Or that you just wrote yourself an I-owe-me. Source: PRIME-TASS. http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-new-money.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue May 12 20:10:41 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 12:10:41 +1000 Subject: [A-List] What's new at Links: Nepal & solidarity, Malaysia, Rudd & climate, Tamils, Mexico, agriculture, European Left, feminism, new US union, Cuba Message-ID: <4A0A2C21.6050006@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Nepal & solidarity, Malaysia, Rudd & climate, Tamils, Mexico, agriculture, European Left, feminism, new US union, Cuba * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism 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/. * * * Nepal: The people resist elite coup By Stuart Munckton May 9, 2009 -- "This is not just a Maoist movement", said Green Left Weekly's correspondent in Kathmandu, Ben Peterson. "This is threatening to become a new people's movement, like the one that swept away the monarchy." Peterson was commenting on the large number of daily demonstrations across the country to demand respect for the people's will. They have come in the aftermath of the May 3 resignation of Prime Minister Prachanda and other members of the government belonging to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M). * Read more Malaysia: Dozens detained as cops block protests over BN takeover of state parliament By Peter Boyle May 8, 2009 -- Police detained dozens of opposition activists, lawyers and legislators on May 6-7 as protests erupted around Malaysia's ruling National Front's (Barisan Nasional -- BN) removal of the opposition People's Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat) state government of Perak, one of five states won by the opposition in the March 2008 general elections. Among those arrested was Dr D. Jeyakumar, the federal MP of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM). * Read more Australia: Has PM Kevin Rudd taken `a significant step forward on climate change'? By David Spratt May 5, 2009 -- Kevin Rudd's announced changes to the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) has again split the climate movement, and this time it's very serious, with three large, rusted-on-to-Labor [Party] groups running cover for an appalling policy that won't guarantee a reduction in Australian emissions for decades. * Read more Brian Senewiratne: Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka while Australia looks on Dr Brian Senewiratne May 7, 2009 -- I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka, not from the brutalised Tamil community. I have campaigned for some five decades for the right of the Tamils to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. I am releasing this media briefing as a concerned Australian (here for 32 years), and as a member of the Socialist Alliance, the only non-Tamil organisation [in Australia] to support the struggle of the Tamils for justice. * Read more Indonesian leftists: Support democracy in Nepal, support Nepalese people's struggle against neoliberal imperialism! From Berdikari, publication of Papernas (National Liberation Party of Unity), Indonesia Jakarta, May 6, 2009 -- Neoliberal imperialism has put the Indonesian people under siege. But that does not mean that the Indonesian people will be absent in giving support and solidarity to the global people's struggle against neoliberal imperialism. One of the country whose people are rising up courageously to fight neoliberal imperialism is Nepal. In that country, the oligarchy of landlords and local elites, supported by international capitalism, has been overthrown by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) supported by the people. * Read more Mexico's Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) statement on swine flu epidemic Statement by the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) April 30, 2009 -- The health emergency brought about by the swine flu epidemic has important political and social repercussions, in addition to consequences for public health, that need to be explained in the midst of the confusion and distrust that contradictory governmental versions generate. It is also necessary to open the way to scientific information, truth and political criticism. * Read more Australian agriculture -- a carbon-neutral future? By Renfrey Clarke May 8, 2009 -- With its belching cows and giant diesel-powered tractors, the farm sector is widely understood as an important contributor to Australia's impact on climate change. Just how important, however, is not often recognised. * Read more Anti-capitalist European Left: capitalists not workers must pay for the crisis May 6, 2009 -- British left groupings Socialist Resistance and the International Socialist Group have joined the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Scottish Socialist Party and others of the European anti-capitalist left in endorsing this statement for the European elections. The statement was agreed at a conference in Strasbourg on April 3, 2009. * Read more Socialist feminist revival spearheaded by Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions By Reihana Mohideen May 4, 2009 -- There is a revival of socialist feminism in Latin America, spearheaded by the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions. * Read more Support democracy in Nepal! Support the Nepalese people! Democratic Socialist Perspective May 5, 2009 -- All supporters of democracy and social justice have reason to be concerned by the recent events in the republic of Nepal. The military high command, backed by right-wing parties tied to the country's elite, has openly defied the authority of the elected civilian government, led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M). * Read more United States: New prescription for a healthy union movement By Carl Finamore May 1, 2009 -- It's not every day that a new national union is formed in the United States. But that's exactly what happened on April 25 in San Francisco. If the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) turns out as planned, it's a date for the history books. * Read more A US Green's view of Cuba: Reflections on the 50th anniversary of the revolution By Barbara Chicherio During January 2009 I visited Cuba over a long weekend. My stepdaughter started medical school there this past August and this was the first chance in several months for her Dad and me to see her. Visiting Rebecca was wonderful, but I was unprepared for what I encountered during the three short days spent in Cuba and how the experience would shift my perception of the global economy. * 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 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 13729 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090513/4a5cb3a5/attachment.txt From noreply at coha.org Wed May 13 08:56:20 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 10:56:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Colombia and Drug Legalization; Venezuelan Military Message-ID: <20090513145320.07D3A3E45D5@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 7324 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090513/3c7586e4/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 13 19:53:04 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:53:04 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Establish a State Bank Message-ID: <4A0B7980.2000506@ashisuto.co.jp> by Ron Morrison Prosperity (August 2002) The Nation's money comes from two primary sources, first the State which prints paper money and mints the coins (and also raises bonds) and second from the commercial banks which provide credit. Up until the early fifties the ratio of notes and coins to bank-created credit was roughly one to one. In 1948 for instance, the State had issued and spent debt-free into circulation GBP 1.3 billion notes and coins, and the banks had out on interest-bearing loans to their customers GBP 1.4 billion. The only cost of money created by government is that of minting - a small fraction of its face value. This physical cash is spent into circulation when it is sent to the clearing banks and the government account is credited with its full value. This is called "seigniorage". In the old days it was a perk of the Sovereign, hence the name, but in a modern democracy this value accrues to the People, as it is credited debt-free to the public purse. End the Monopoly of Private Banks This article proposes legislation to end the virtual monopoly of private commercial banks and to establish a Seigniorage (Seignior) Bank - you could call it a "State Bank" - which will provide a source of debt-free money to the State, enabling it to finance the creation of public assets. This bank will be 100% owned by the State, and chartered to act exclusively as the State's bank. It will participate in the commercial bank clearing system. It will be additional to the Bank of England, which will continue to function as at present. How a Seignior Bank Will Work Instead of the Treasury issuing government bonds (which are, in effect, government IOUs to the banking system) the Treasury will issue Treasury Credits to the Seignior Bank. These "Treasury Credits" will be denoted in sterling - and be equivalent to the National Currency. They will be legal tender in the hands of the commercial banks and have the same status as coin and paper of the Realm. The same security which renders government bonds 'as good as gold' endows the same credibility upon the government's issue of "Treasury Credits" to the Seignior Bank. As Thomas Edison said: "If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good ? It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency". [Quoted in The New York Times, 6 December 1921] The "Treasury Credits" will be equivalent to the notes and coins to which Edison refers. This money will only be available for government backed projects. It should be regarded as a supplement to taxation income. Just as seigniorage on newly issued cash is credited to the Public Account, so are "Treasury Credits" - both are money in the hands of the public and the banks. How This Money Will Enter Society Say, for example, the government says, "We need one billion GBP to pay the contractors to build new hospitals". The Treasury will create one billion GBP in "Treasury Credits" and lodge them with the Seignior Bank. The money will move from the Seignior Bank, into society in the following manner. The appropriate Government Department will write a cheque to pay a particular contractor. The cheque is drawn on the Seignior Bank. The contractor then takes it along to his own bank, and pays it into his private bank account. The cheque is then cleared through the Association for Payment Clearing (APAC) system, as usual. The private bank is paid in the "Treasury Credits" which are, in all respects, equal to cash, and the contractor's private bank account is credited with the appropriate amount in sterling. Administered responsibly, just as the State has issued debt certificates and debt-free cash responsibly for donkey's years, the ability of Government to create its own debt-free money could create real economic activity, employment and wealth. This would go a long way towards eliminating the present anomaly of the nation's unemployed human and material resources stagnating due to a lack of money. We could dispense with the eternal 'either or' debate and start work on the tasks and desirable projects currently awaiting public funding. If we ever did get back to the two or three per cent unemployment of the fifties and early sixties, that would be time enough to debate the 'either or' priorities again. The State would also have the ability, or "discretion", to intervene on those not infrequent occasions when the private financial sector overheats and needs to contract its lending to protect its shareholders from a perceived risk. How Much Should Be Created? The conservative view might be to argue that the volume of money to be created should relate to no more than the loss of past seigniorage, calculated back to an arbitrary date, say 1960, when the 'natural' rate of seigniorage started to decline. This could be released progressively and thereafter new money would be linked to the Bank of England's assessment of the annual increase in the total volume of commercial bank credit which would have been projected for the coming year. James Robertson and Joseph Huber calculated in their book Creating New Money (See Prosperity, August 2000) that the loss of seigniorage - that is, the loss of the value of the new money which would otherwise have been credited to the public purse - costs the UK government around GBP 49 billion per annum. This might be a good guide to the amount of new State money to be created initially. However, it's easy to be obsessed with numbers and the 'amount' of new money to be created. The right amount is sufficient to finance that which is socially desired but insufficient to devalue spending power and induce inflation. There is no formula for this, any more than there is a formula for the amount of bank credit which currently provides 97% of our money supply. Given adherence to its Charter and the over-riding stability imperative, the extent of the Seignior Bank's money creating powers would be reviewed, having regard to any surplus or shortfall in the Nation?s human and natural resources. Thus would government find the money to finance the public sector and, given responsible management, maybe even reduce taxation and give a boost to the real economy. Commercial Bank System Could Be Left As Is The commercial banks may not appreciate losing their monopoly on the annual round of increasing Bank Created Credit to the new Seignior Bank. However, there may not be any need to restrict the traditional credit creating power of the commercial banks. They create credit according to demand, and the amount of that credit is limited by the normal banking constraints of security and repayment. Moreover, there is likely to be additional economic activity created by increased public spending which will compensate them to an extent. No doubt the banks would prefer to lend new credit at interest to the Private Finance Initiatives and Partnerships virtually secured on government bonds - but there will now be no need for such schemes, and the banks will just have to accept the loss of that particular profit-making opportunity. Benefits of Breaking the Banking Monopoly Monetary reform of this nature is prompted by a desire to re-establish a reasonable public sector presence in a mixed economy. If the new debt-free income is not used for additional public investment then the social benefits will not accrue. If, for example, the new debt-free income is simply offset by an equivalent private sector tax cut then all will have been in vain and nothing new will have been created. There is a good argument that the nature of this investment should be precisely defined. It is easy to make the case for public buildings and infrastructure, perhaps less so for investment in 'social' capital, such as training more doctors, teachers and nurses or increasing certain social security benefits. This will require some basis in legislation and is perhaps also a constitutional matter for the judiciary. In the final analysis, it is the administration which the voters empower which will make the decisions, not the unelected bankers. A Bill to break the monopoly of the banks and establish a State Bank would spark a debate which would lay bare the stranglehold the banks hold over public investment. Perhaps the most important side effect would be to stymie the ambitions of huge financial and multi-national conglomerates to reduce democratic government to their own private puppet show. The discovery that there might indeed be another way to run an economy may be sufficient to bring back the apathetic, who absent themselves in increasing numbers from the voting process. Understanding the potential of Monetary Reform is only one factor in helping the honest politician resist the corruption of Money Power. There is bound to be resistance to such changes, but managing the monetary system must be effected in the interest of the Nation. Given the will, there is no shortage of money for public services. On this, at least, the IMF had it right. _____ Please print out, photocopy and distribute these articles. Also copy and paste them to emails, and circulate widely, and please include all the essential contact information below. Thank you. Essential Further Reading: Prosperity: Freedom from Debt Slavery - is a four-page quarterly journal which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money, edited and published by Alistair McConnachie. A four-issue subscription is available for GBP 10 payable to Prosperity at 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, G2 4JR Tel: 0141 332 2214 Fax: 0141 353 6900 admcc at admcc.freeserve.co.uk http://www.ProsperityUK.com Or you can follow this link to our subscribe page: http://www.prosperityuk.com/get_involved/subscribe/index.php The Grip of Death: A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1998] and Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire by Michael Rowbotham [Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2000] both available from the address above. http://www.prosperityuk.com/articles_and_reviews/articles/statebank.php http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed May 13 23:50:51 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 01:50:51 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Lawyer Says Reporter Had Iran Document Message-ID: May 14, 2009 Lawyer Says Reporter Had Iran Document By NAZILA FATHI TEHRAN ? The case against Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist who was convicted here on charges of spying and then released this week on appeal, was based on her possession of a classified document and on trips she made to Israel, one of her lawyers said in an interview on Wednesday. The document, a 2003 report on the planned United States invasion of Iraq, was prepared by a research organization affiliated with the office of the Iranian president at the time, Mohammad Khatami, the lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said. He said that Ms. Saberi found the article on a desk in the offices of the Expediency Council, a group of senior figures who advise the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. She worked there as a translator, putting English-language articles on its Web site. The Interior Ministry interrogators who questioned Ms. Saberi thought that the article was confidential or secret at the time she obtained it, Mr. Nikbakht said, but it was actually only classified, which is not as restricted. In the intervening years, he said, it was declassified. He said the interrogators? suspicions were also raised by Ms. Saberi?s possession of some internal papers from a conservative political party as well as by the trips to Israel. Ms. Saberi, 32, was arrested in January for buying wine, an act that is illegal in Iran, and was later charged with working without press credentials, which were revoked in 2006. In April she was convicted on charges of spying for Washington and sentenced to eight years in prison. She had been living and working in Iran since 2003, reporting on a variety of issues for news organizations, including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation. While she did travel to Iraq in the early years of the war, she does not seem to have reported on the American invasion for the BBC. An NPR spokeswoman, Dana Davis Rehm, said Ms. Saberi did not cover the American invasion of Iraq for the network, or do background work for it on that subject. ?We are completely confident that the documents Roxana possessed are not relevant to her work for NPR,? Ms. Rehm said. She said Ms. Saberi did not travel to Israel on behalf of NPR. Mr. Nikbakht said that Ms. Saberi made two trips to Israel in 2006, using her Iranian passport to get as far as Syria or Lebanon and then her American passport to go to Israel. Iranians are not permitted to travel to Israel. It was those trips that first caught the attention of the Intelligence Ministry, he said. ?You have to put yourself in the mind-set of the intelligence people,? Mr. Nikbakht said. ?When they put all this together they came up with the charges against her. She traveled to Israel and they became suspicious that she was taking confidential documents for the Americans.? Mr. Nikbakht said that he and another lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, secured her release by arguing that the documents were not classified or confidential, and that Iran and the United States were not at war. Therefore, he contended, the charges against her could not amount to spying. Ms. Saberi?s arrest followed President Obama?s overture to Iran, the first from an American president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the taking of American hostages at the United States Embassy. American officials, including Mr. Obama, had dismissed the charges against her as politically motivated and urged her release. Political commentators here said her release reflected a consensus among the Iranian authorities about sending a signal to the United States that a thaw in relations might be possible. ?The court played a role in her release,? said Alireza Rajaee, a political analyst in Tehran. ?But we cannot deny the hard-liners? willingness to let her go.? During her appeal, Ms. Saberi admitted copying the article on the Iraq invasion and said that an ?admirer? at the conservative political party had provided her with the party?s internal papers. No charges were brought against her for possessing those papers. ?We argued that none of the documents were secret or confidential because they did not bear the title,? Mr. Nikbakht said. ?Ms. Saberi also said she had never used any of them.? He said she had told the court that she was collecting the information for her book on ?the nature of power in Iran,? and that she had traveled to Israel to look for a job. Mr. Nikbakht said that Ms. Saberi had told the judges she was so terrified after her arrest that she made up a story, hoping it would help her get out of jail. ?She told them that a former U.S. official had proposed to her to work for the C.I.A. during one of her trips to Washington, but she said she did not take it seriously,? Mr. Nikbakht said. While the court dismissed the spying charges, it did give Ms. Saberi a suspended two-year sentence and barred her from practicing journalism in Iran for five years. She met briefly in Tehran with reporters on Tuesday and said she had no immediate plans. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington. From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Thu May 14 04:43:54 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 19:43:54 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Decoupling From Reality Message-ID: <4A0BF5EA.8010802@ashisuto.co.jp> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (2005) www.kunstler.com (May 11 2009) Back in the golden age of American Flyfishing - say around 1913 - when technical innovation in a prissy and recondite sport was joined by a new leisure class emanating from the white glove canyons of Wall Street, some new-minted guru of angling came up with method for whipping up action on a trout stream when no fish would rise to the fly. It was really lame. The idea was to artificially create the illusion of a mayfly hatch - that moment when the larva of, for instance, Ephemerella subvaria, the Hendrickson mayfly, swims to the surface, molts, and dries its newly unfurled adult wings in the brisk spring air. This is famously the moment that drives trout crazy, and when it occurs en masse, with zillions of mayflies "hatching" off the water, a trout feeding-frenzy can ensue. The idea with the artificial hatch was to pitch a fake Hendrickson fly made of feathers and fur in so many furious, rapid casts that the dumb trout lurking below would get suckered into a feeding frenzy - and, shortly, into the buttered frying pan, with a nice "tuxedo" of cornmeal and bacon. In the annals of flyfishing, this gambit has been all but discredited, except among the mentally sub-normal who sometimes venture over from the lumpen realm of crank-and-plug fishing in search of improved social standing. But the tactic naturally transferred into the precincts of finance, where it reappeared in such disparate practices as Ponzi schemes and Keynesian "pump-priming". Now it is being employed at a scale never seen before, on an economy that is the equivalent of a great dead river poisoned by the toxic effluents of the same society that inhabits its banks (no pun intended). The dark secret of this river is that the fish who once ran there are all dead. Much has been made in recent weeks of "animal spirits" and the "psychology of markets" in the hopes that mere attitudes might overcome the laws of thermodynamics. Math wizardry has now yielded to self-esteem building, an understandable sequence of events, since trafficking in the mutant spawn of Wall Street algorithms has ended up completely demoralizing the United States of America. Sadly, this is a little like subjecting a man who has just watched his house burn down to twelve segments of Oprah shows about the triumphal secrets of weight loss. The Great Wish across America is to resume the life of comfort-and-convenience that seemed so nirvana-like just a few short years ago, when the very constellations of the heavens might have been renamed after heroic Atlanta realtors and Connecticut hedge fund warriors, and the boomer portfolios groaned with earnings, and millions of graying corporate salary mules dreamed of their approaching retirement to a satori of golf and Viagra, and the interior decorators grew so rich installing granite countertops that they could buy their own houses in the East Hampton, and every microcephalic parking valet in Las Vegas qualified for a bucket full of Ninja mortgages, and Lloyd Blankfein could dream of divorcing his wife to marry his cappuccino machine. The choices now are stark and the kind of life on offer by the future is rather austere. The job of the current president, and the people who work with him, is to manage an epic contraction - let's say, to land a very large, loaded defect-ridden airplane that has both run out of fuel and suffered grievous mechanical breakdown ... and to bring down that vehicle in an unfamiliar country filled with angry savages. Sadly, the new president and his co-pilots just want to keep the plane up there, circling. The president's viziers are working round-the-clock to come up with some way, some toggle-switch, that might turn off the laws of gravity (which are not unrelated to the laws of thermodynamics). But all they seem to be able to come up with are mumbled prayers that are pale imitations of the algorithms once concocted by the Wall Street engineers who designed the aircraft they're riding in. Well, that's enough conceits and metaphors for today. We've digested the so-called "stress tests" for now with nary a burp and in a few weeks General Motors will step into the dark cave of bankruptcy. All the ancillary businesses linked to the US car-makers face contraction and annihilation. A couple of things occur to me which have not even entered the national debate on these matters: (1) the US will still need to manufacture engines and chassis for military vehicles. Do we intend to send out to Mitsubishi for those things in the years ahead? (2) the US will need rolling stock (that is, choo-choo cars and engines) for a revived passenger railroad system. Do we intend to buy all that from the quaint peoples of other lands? (While the US workforce instead focuses on updated releases of Grand Theft Auto.) At the moment, there is tremendous hoopla and jubilation over the start-up of so many "shovel-ready" highway projects around America - as if what we need most are additional circumferential freeways to enhance the Happy Motoring lifestyle. How insane are we? Is this the only thing we know how to do? I remain confident that the months ahead will introduce the American public and our leaders to a range of horrors that will begin to penetrate our addled collective imagination. We're far from done with the crisis of banking and money and the related fiasco in mortgages - which translates into the very real situation of many people become homeless. It remains to be seen what may happen on the food production scene, but the current severe shortage of capital and the intense droughts shaping up around the world will resolve into a much clearer picture by mid-summer. The price of oil has resumed marching up and has now re-entered a range ($50-plus) that spun the airline industry into bankruptcy last time around. Enough carnage has already occurred on the jobs scene that the next act among many chronically jobless may tilt toward desperation, anger, and violence. The sporting goods shops around the nation are already rationing ammunition. It's not just the stock markets that have decoupled from reality as we enjoy the fragrant vapors of spring - it's the entire conscious consensus of everybody holding the levers of power and opinion. To put it as simply as possible, we're still sleepwalking into the future. _____ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/05/decoupling-from-reality.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Thu May 14 19:16:30 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:30 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Power of Money Message-ID: <4A0CC26E.3030800@ashisuto.co.jp> by Peter T White, Assistant Editor National Geographic (January 1993) SAY I'M IN PARIS, it's late evening, and I need money, quickly. The bank I go to is closed, of course, but outside sits an ATM, an automated teller machine - and look what can be made to happen, thanks to computers and high-speed telecommunications. I insert my ATM card from my bank in Washington, DC, and punch in my identification number and the amount of 1,500 francs, roughly equivalent to $300. The French bank's computers detect that it's not their card, so my request goes to the CIRRUS system's inter-European switching center in Belgium, which detects that it's not a European card. The electronic message is then transmitted to the global switching center in Detroit, which recognizes that it's from my bank in Washington. The request goes there, and my bank verifies that there's more than $300 in my account and deducts $300 plus a fee of $1.50. Then it's back to Detroit, to Belgium, and to the Paris bank and its ATM - and out comes $300 in French francs. Total elapsed time: sixteen seconds. This intercontinental electronic wizardry is merely the latest chapter in the history of that infinitely influential creation of the human mind, money - meaning something that's accepted as a medium of exchange and a store of value because it exists only in limited quantities and, above all, because people have confidence in it. Ah, money! I'd long thought about it - what a story it would make, to journey around the globe and across centuries, tracing the beginnings of coinage in antiquity and of modern banking in the late Middle Ages, investigating how today money is created by your bank around the corner, discovering what determines the interest rates you must pay on loans for your house or car and how the Japanese got all those dollars to buy up so much of the United States lately. How money launderers do their dirty work. And with the proliferation of credit cards, are we really headed for a cashless society? My journey began in Philadelphia, at the United States Mint. In a hall the size of a zeppelin hangar I see high-speed presses strike pennies; yellow sodium-vapor lights and bluish mercury-vapor lights alternating overhead make the outpouring of coins look like a stream of gold. "Each machine strikes 200 times a minute", says a Mint official. "And we don't call them pennies; we call them cents". They're 97.5 percent zinc; the rest is copper. To make one in 1991 cost .92 cents. That's $9.20 per thousand, so the Mint makes a profit of eighty cents on every ten dollars' worth? "We don't call it profit. It's seigniorage." Very well, the 1991 seigniorage on all US coins, meaning the difference between their face value and the metal value plus the cost of making them, was 428 million dollars. In Washington, and of late also in Fort Worth, Texas, the US Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing turns out paper money - it's actually 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen. In 1991 it added up to 108 billion dollars' worth. Nearly half the notes are one-dollar bills; these last an average of eighteen months before they're worn out. Turned in by a bank, they will be destroyed by shredding. But should you have bills that have been carbonized and shrunk in a fire, gnawed by termites, or accidentally bleached in a washing machine, the bureau's Mutilated Currency Section in Washington, DC, may be able to help. Turn in at least 51 percent of a bill and you'll get a full refund. Bills and coins make up about eight percent of the US money supply - the rest is in bank accounts, including checkbook money; at this writing the sum total is 3.5 trillion dollars, says the Fed - the Federal Reserve System, which is the central bank of the government of the United States - and that is three billion more than a month ago. This is how that happens. Every business day, after a telephone conference call at 11:15 am, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acting on directives from the Federal Open Market Committee at Fed headquarters in Washington, buys US government securities from major banks and brokerage houses, or sells some - usually US Treasury bills, which in effect are government promissory notes. Say today the Fed buys a hundred million dollars in Treasury bills from those big securities dealers, who keep a stock of them to trade with the public. When the Fed pays the dealers, a hundred million dollars will thereby be added to the country's money supply, because the dealers will be credited that amount by their banks, which now have that much more on deposit. But where did the Fed get that hundred million dollars? "We created it", a Fed official tells me. He means that anytime the central bank writes a check, so to speak, it creates money. "It's money that didn't exist before", he says. Is there any limit on that? "No limit. Only the good judgment and the conscience of the responsible Federal Reserve people". And where did they get this vast authority? "It was delegated to them in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, based on the Constitution, Article One, Section Eight. 'Congress shall have the power... to coin money, regulate the value thereof ...'" Now watch how that Fed-created money lets our commercial banking system create even more. The Fed requires banks to put aside a portion of their depositors' funds as reserves. Say this reserve ratio is set at ten percent - then for every $1,000 in new deposits, a bank must keep at least $100 in reserve but can loan out the rest, namely $900. On the bank's books this loan remains as an asset, earning interest until it is paid off. The customer who got the loan is likely to spend it right away, say for a used car. The car dealer deposits the $900 check in his bank, which then has an additional $900 in reserves and can in turn loan out ninety percent of that - $810. And so on and on, until the original $1,000 put into one bank may enable dozens of banks to issue a total of $9,000 in new loans. Thus a hundred million dollars injected by the Fed into the commercial banking system could theoretically stimulate the appearance of 900 million dollars in new checkbook money - money that didn't exist before. And it's all built on the assumption that the system is sound. WE'LL RETURN TO THE FED LATER, but now I'm off to Yemen, where, so I've heard, quite a few people cling to old-fashioned views on what sort of money one can have confidence in, what can be considered sound. At Suq al Talh, the Saturday market not far from the Saudi Arabian border and close to the ancient city of Sadah, I see bearded money changers sitting on concrete steps, curved daggers strapped around their waists, automatic rifles across their laps or propped within reach. In front of them are bundles of bank notes - Yemeni rials - and stacks of coins the size of US silver dollars. These are silver too, but they're all dated 1780, and the large-chested lady portrayed on them is the Austrian empress Maria Theresa. A man just bought a thousand of them for 75,000 rials, and I ask him why. "It is the main currency", he says. Isn't that what the rial is? He says in this area these coins are omla saaba, meaning hard currency, and off he goes with sixty pounds of silver in a woven bag. "He bought them to make a profit", another man tells me - they've been going up in price; or, one might say, the rial has been going down. "The people you saw in Sadah may be illiterate, but they know economic affairs", says Mohamed Said Al-Attar, the minister of industry, who has long been active in the country's financial affairs. Back in the capital, Sanaa, he tells me that in the 18th century, when French traders came to the port of Mocha to buy coffee, the Yemenis didn't want French money, but they liked the Austrian coin, called a taler, because of its high silver content. (From "taler", incidentally, comes the word "dollar".) The reputation of the Austrian taler spread to much of the Arabian Peninsula and to Ethiopia, where the coin circulated until the 1950s. "We introduced the rial bank note", Dr Al-Attar adds, "after the 1962 revolution had ousted the monarchy. But for years we had difficulty getting people to trust paper money". Today the official Austrian mint in Vienna still turns out Maria Theresa talers, still dated 1780. So do imitators elsewhere, notably in Saudi Arabia, says a merchant in the Sanaa suq. "They have agents in Yemen buy talers, which are 83 percent silver", Dr Al-Attar tells me. "They melt them down, strike new ones, and send them back to Yemen - less than 80 percent silver". Alas, debasing coinage for a bit of profit is almost as old as coinage itself. Many of today's currencies, the Italian lira, the British pound, the peso and peseta of Spanish-speaking countries, are named for units of weight once used to measure amounts of metal - mostly silver, which along with gold and copper has functioned as money throughout most of recorded history. The earliest documented use of silver for payment appears around 2500 BC in Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets. SOME OF THE OLDEST known coins were struck, in Asia Minor, in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, in the seventh century BC - tiny to thumbnail-size lumps of electrum, a pale yellow alloy of gold and silver, washed down by streams from limestone mountains. Such Lydian coins, of specific weight, eventually bore the royal emblem of a lion's head. The late Oxford scholar Colin Kraay surmised that they were conceived as a convenience to the state, as a standard medium for payments to officials and for public expenditures, also for the collection of taxes and fines. But merchants, long accustomed to settling accounts in precious metals, must have found them useful too; by using coins, they didn't have to do as much weighing for each transaction. The idea of coinage spread from Asia Minor across the Mediterranean world. By the fourth century BC a weight unit called the shekel, used by ancient Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Israelites, had lent its name to silver coins in the Middle East; some weighed half an ounce, slightly heavier than the silver Kennedy half-dollar of 1964. As for gold, it was coined into the aureus of the Roman Empire and the solidus of Byzantium, also the dinar of Muslim lands, the florin of Florence, and the ducat of Venice. Coins may have begun as a convenience, but some of them have taken on fabulous value today. In southwestern Anatolia I found the Turkish countryside crawling with folks bent on finding an ancient bonanza. Coins of Greece and Persia, Rome and Byzantium are often turned up by rain or the plow, and people prowl with metal detectors, seeking a hoard like the one reportedly dug up in a field in 1984. Near the little town of Elmah, in the valley between the mountain ranges called Ak and Bey, I'm shown the spot where I'm told a detector discovered a terra-cotta jar holding 1,900 pieces of silver, possibly buried by a Greek commander getting ready to battle the Persians around 465 BC. Included were fourteen brilliant ten-drachma coins thought to have been struck by the Athenians to commemorate their victory over the Persians at Marathon. Most of those decadrachms are said to have wound up with a millionaire investor in Boston, with one piece going to a collector in Beverly Hills for $600,000. Illegally, according to the Turkish government. Turkish law says you must turn in such finds to the local museum; if they're valuable, you'll get a small reward. The earliest paper currency issued by a government appeared in China in the 11th century. In Persia the Mongol ruler Geikhatu decreed paper money in 1294, but merchants refused to accept it. They closed their shops and hid their goods. Trade stopped. Facing revolt, Geikhatu rescinded his edict; the official who had suggested it in the first place was torn to pieces in the bazaar. The first European bank notes were printed in Sweden in 1661, when coins were in short supply. But money hasn't always been metal or paper. One of the oldest forms may well be a shiny white or straw-colored mollusk shell, about an inch long, from the Indian Ocean - the cowrie; from it derives the Chinese character cai, standing for wealth, money. I remember a display of other forms brought to a coin collector's convention in Seattle by John Lenker, then head of the International Primitive Money Society. A bronze drum from Malaysia. A block of salt from Ethiopia. From Fiji a kava bowl with eleven legs. And wampum, once prized by North American Indians - tiny clamshell pieces laboriously drilled and strung together like beads. "All these tell stories just as coins do", said Mr Lenker. (See "Money From the Sea", pages 109-117.) THE HISTORIAN Fernand Braudel has pointed out that for most of recorded history the majority of people, living off the bounty of the land, hardly required money for day-to-day needs, and this was still true for many Americans early in this century when my father-in-law was young. He never forgot the exciting day, once a year after the harvest, when his grandfather hitched up the horses to drive a couple of miles to the little town of Greenfield, Illinois, with the wagon full of wheat. Fred Heck, the miller, would grind it into flour, keeping a bag for payment. Then to Samuel Wilhite's grocery, to leave flour for a year's supply of sugar and salt, canned goods and candy. Finally Fred Quast, the blacksmith, got flour for shoeing the horses and sharpening the plowshare. "Everybody knew the flour price", Dad told me, "it was in the paper every day". Payments could have been in those green dollar bills with yellow backs-gold certificates that could be redeemed anytime for gold coins. But it wasn't necessary. Historian Braudel also delineated how in the Middle Ages the role of money, and hence trade and the entire economy of Europe, got a boost from Italian ingenuity. A new way was found to get around the ban of the church on usury, the lending of money at interest. Merchants of Tuscany, especially from Siena and Florence, employed this new wrinkle at the fairs in the Champagne region of northeastern France in the 13th century. It was called the bill of exchange, and it opened the door to modern banking. Michele Cassandro, professor of modern economic history at the University of Siena, tells me how it worked: "It would say, for example, 'Signor A, having received so many Sienese scudi, will pay to Signor B so many Florentine florins at such and such a place on such and such a date'. That looks like a currency exchange transaction, but in fact it is a loan agreement, with the interest hidden in the amount of florins Signor A will be paying. But it doesn't say loan, it doesn't mention interest - so, no usury!" From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 14 22:26:09 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 00:26:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Arctic Circle: NATO-Russia Battleground Message-ID: <03E5A0B9C1014E60837DCA9A3742FDE5@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 11:04 AM Subject: [stopnato] Arctic Circle: NATO-Russia Battleground http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6283130.ece The Times (London) May 14, 2009 Russia warns of war within a decade over Arctic oil and gas riches Tony Halpin in Moscow -The strategy paper also condemned as unacceptable threats to Russian security American plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and the expansion of Nato into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Russia raised the prospect of war in the Arctic yesterday as nations struggle for control of the world?s dwindling energy reserves. The country?s new national security strategy identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military conflict within a decade. ?The presence and potential escalation of armed conflicts near Russia?s national borders, pending border agreements between Russia and several neighbouring nations, are the major threats to Russia?s interests and border security,? stated the document, which analysed security threats up to 2020. ?In a competition for resources it cannot be ruled out that military force could be used to resolve emerging problems that would destroy the balance of forces near the borders of Russia and her allies.? The Kremlin has insisted that it is not ?militarising the Arctic? but its warnings of armed conflict suggest that it is willing to defend its interests by force if necessary as global warming makes exploitation of the region?s energy riches more feasible. The United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are challenging Russia?s claim to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western Europe, which is believed to contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas. An earlier Kremlin document declared the Arctic a strategic resource for Russia and said that development of its energy reserves by 2020 was a vital national objective. It set out plans to establish army bases along the Arctic frontier to ?guarantee military security in different military-political situations?. The strategy published yesterday was approved by President Medvedev and drawn up by the Russian Security Council, which includes the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and heads of the military and intelligence agencies. Mr Putin accused the West last year of coveting Russian energy reserves, saying: ?Many conflicts, foreign policy actions and diplomatic moves smell of oil and gas. Behind all that there often is a desire to enforce an unfair competition and ensure access to our resources.? Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Security Council, once flew to the North Pole to plant a Russian flag. He was in charge of the FSB, the federal security service, when Mr Putin was President and created a special Arctic Directorate in 2004 to advance Moscow?s interests in the region. Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian Ambassador to Nato, warned the military alliance in March not to meddle in the Arctic, saying that there was ?nothing for them to do there?. The Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, also criticised Norway, a Nato member, over military exercises based on ?a conflict over access to resources?. Norway responded that Russia was expanding its military presence in the region. A team of explorers led by Artur Chilingarov, the Kremlin?s special representative to the region, used mini-submarines to plant a titanium flag on the Arctic seabed in 2007 to stake Russia?s claim to the massive Lomonosov Ridge. Russia argues that the ridge is an extension of its territory, which justifies its ownership of 1.2 million sq km (465,000 square miles) of the Arctic. It plans to stake its claim in a submission to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The strategy document predicted that the struggle over energy resources would increasingly dominate international relations. It identified the Barents Sea and Central Asia, where Russia and China are vying for influence, as further areas of friction. The Caspian Sea is critical to the European Union?s hopes of breaking its dependence on Russian gas by building export routes for alternative supplies from Central Asia. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran are locked in talks on dividing the seabed and its energy riches. The strategy paper also condemned as unacceptable threats to Russian security American plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and the expansion of Nato into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 14 22:34:24 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 00:34:24 -0400 Subject: [A-List] (Correct) Pentagon Preparing For War With The Enemy: Russia Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 9:27 AM Subject: [stopnato] (Correct) Pentagon Preparing For War With The Enemy: Russia [With name change] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/39425 Stop NATO May 14, 2009 Pentagon Preparing For War With The Enemy: Russia Rick Rozoff "Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008....[A] possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus. "The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia's soonest joining of the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War. "Under the new realities, Georgia's war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO's war against Russia. This would be a third world war." On May 12 James Mattis, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation [ACT] and commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, spoke at a three-day symposium called Joint Warfighting 09 in Norfolk, Virginia, where NATO's Allied Command Transformation is based, and stated: "I come with a sense of urgency. The enemy is meeting like this as well." [1] A local newspaper summarized his speech: "Mattis outlined a future in which wars will not have clearly defined beginnings and ends. What is needed, he said, is a grand strategy, a political framework that can guide military planning." [2] He failed, for what passes for diplomatic reasons no doubt, to identify who "the enemy" is, but a series of recent developments, or rather an intensification of ongoing ones, indicate which nation it is. Last week the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chilton, told reporters during a Defense Writers Group breakfast on May 7 "that the White House retains the option to respond with physical force - potentially even using nuclear weapons - if a foreign entity conducts a disabling cyber attack against U.S. computer networks...." An account of his talk added "the general insisted that all strike options, including nuclear, would remain available to the commander in chief in defending the nation from cyber strikes." Chilton "said he could not rule out the possibility of a military salvo against a nation like China, even though Beijing has nuclear arms," [3] though the likely first target of alleged retaliation against equally alleged cyber attacks would be another nation already identified by US military officials as such: Russia. In late April and early May of 2007 the government of Estonia, which was inducted into NATO in 2004 and whose president was and remains Toomas Hendrik Ilves, born in Sweden and raised in the United States (where he worked for Radio Free Europe), reported attacks on websites in the country which were blamed on Russia. Over two years later no evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim that Russian hackers, much less the government itself, were behind the attacks, though it remains an article of faith among US and other Western officials and media that they were. The response from American authorities in the first place was so sudden and severe, even before investigations were conducted, as to strongly suggest that if the attacks hadn't been staged they would need to be invented. Right afterward Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne stated, "Russia, our Cold War nemesis, seems to have been the first to engage in cyber warfare." The US Air Force news source from which the above is quoted added that the events in Estonia days earlier "did start a series of debates within NATO and the EU about the definition of clear military action and it may be the first test of the applicability of Article V of the NATO charter regarding collective self-defense in the non-kinetic realm." [4] NATO's Article 5 is a collective military defense provision, in fact a war clause, one which first and to date for the only time has been used to support the protracted and escalating war in Afghanistan. References to it, then, are not to be taken lightly. On a visit to Estonia last November Pentagon chief Robert Gates met with the country's prime minister, Andrus Ansip, and "discussed Russian behavior and new cooperation on cyber security...." It was reported that "Ansip said NATO will operate under the principle of Article 5 of the alliance?s treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all," and "We are convinced that Estonia, as a member of NATO, will be very well defended.? [5] That the repeated mention of NATO's Article 5 continued a year and a half after the alleged cyber attacks when none had occurred in the interim is revealing. At the beginning of this month the Pentagon announced that it was launching what it called a "digital warfare force for the future," at Fort Meade in Maryland under the control of the U.S. Strategic Command, whose chief, Gen. Kevin Chilton, was quoted earlier as threatening the use of force up to and including nuclear weapons. The initiative was characterized in a news report as follows: "Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, also the Pentagon's leading cyber warfare commander, said the U.S. is determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat enemies...." [6] The Pentagon is a synecdoche for the Department of Defense and everything related to its activities is cloaked in the same euphemism, so when pressed the US will insist its new cyber warfare project is intended for defensive purposes only. Any nation which and people who have been on the receiving end of US Defense Department actions know better. The new US cyber warfare command, its rationale based on a supposed Russian threat emanating from a non-military incident in the Baltics over two years ago, will be used to cripple the computer systems of any nation targeted for direct military assault, thus rendering them defenseless, and will be particularly effective for space-based and Star Wars (missile shield, interceptor missiles) first strike plans. On the same day the report of General Alexander's pledge to "defeat enemies" appeared another news item reported that "A quasi-classified satellite that will serve as an engineering trailblazer for ballistic missile tracking technologies flew into space Tuesday [May 12]." [7] It was a Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) satellite, which "is part of a space-based system for the Missile Defense Agency. "Sensors aboard the STSS-ATRR satellite and on the ground will communicate with other systems to defend against incoming ballistic missiles." [8] A few days earlier the California-based manufacturer Ducommun in a news report titled Ducommun Incorporated Announces Delivery of Nanosatellites to U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command announced that "its Miltec Corporation subsidiary delivered flight-ready nanosatellites to the U.S. Army pace and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) in Huntsville, Alabama on April 28, 2009." The delivery was "the completion of the first U.S. Army satellite development program since the Courier 1B communications satellite in 1960."[9] Military satellites used for neutralizing the potential of a rival nation not so much to launch a first strike but to respond to one blur the distinction between so-called Son of Star Wars missile shield projects and full-fledged militarization of space. A recent Russian commentary saw it in just that manner: "Withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty signified a switch to the testing and deployment of a global missile defense system, with a view to fully removing the deterrent potential of China, and partially that of Russia. "Washington [is] still trying to eliminate international legal restrictions on the formation of a system, which would theoretically make it invulnerable towards an act of retaliation, and even a launch-under-attack strike." [10] Added to which is another "quasi-classified" subterfuge related to a prospective resumption of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks between the US And Russia. American Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller stated this week "that the US is not prepared to cut warheads removed from delivery means and kept in storage." [11] So in addition to US plans to deploy ground-, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile systems primarily around and against Russia (Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Britain, Japan and Alaska to date), the Pentagon will hold in reserve nuclear warheads for activation without a monitoring mechanism provided to Russian inspectors and arms reduction negotiators. On May 6 Euronews conducted an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who warned, "The way it [the US anti-ballistic missile shield] is designed has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program. It is aimed at Russian strategic forces, deployed in the European part of the Russian Federation." [12] To add to the concerns of Russia and other nations, On April 30 the US established a Navy Air and Missile Defense Command (NAMDC) at the Naval Support Facility at Dahlgren, Virginia. "NAMDC is the lead organization for Navy, joint and combined Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD). NAMDC serves as the single warfare center of excellence to synchronize and integrate Navy efforts across the full spectrum of air and missile defense to include air defense, cruise missile defense and ballistic missile defense." [13] The past two weeks has been a fertile period for stories in this vein and, to bring attention nearer the Earth, the US-based Strategy Page reported from a Russian source that "The United States has bought two Su-27 fighter jets from Ukraine" to "be used to train American military pilots, who may face opponents in them" and that the "US military will use them to test its radar and electronic warfare equipment." [14] This was at the very moment that the US client in Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko, his national poll ratings plummeting to near 1%, signed a directive to prepare for full NATO membership and a few days after a US military delegation visited the country to inspect a tank unit and to plan "reforming the system of combat training...." [15] In terms of US training for warfare against the Russian Air Force, the Ukrainian development is only the latest in a number of such activities. Immediately following the nation becoming a full member of NATO, the US 81st Fighter Squadron flew to Constanta, Romania (in which nation the Pentagon has acquired four new bases since) to engage in combat training against Russian MiG-21s. According to one US pilot present, ?It was pretty neat - you?re sitting in a MiG-21 that will be airborne with a MiG-21 pilot within days. This was an arm of the Soviet Union. These pilots were flying before the Soviet Union fell. They have quite a bit of perspective.? [16] In July of the next year the US 492nd Fighter Squadron was deployed to the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in neighoring Bulgaria to insure the opportunity for "Air Forces from multiple nations to learn about each other?s aircraft tactics and capabilities. "The pilots of the F-15E Strike Eagles and the MIG-29s and MIG-21s are sharing knowledge of aircraft and tactics as the exercise wraps up its first week of training." A US Air Force colonel was quoted as saying, ?Only two of the 38 aircrew members have had a chance to fly against MIGs. By the time the exercise is over, everyone will have had a chance to either fly in a MIG or fly against one.? [17] A month afterward the US Air Force 22nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron arrived in Romania for the Viper Lance exercises which "marked the first time U.S. F-16 pilots have trained in Romania" and "where "MiG-21 and F-16 pilots [flew] integrated formations to conduct basic fighter maneuvers, dissimilar air combat training and air-to-ground strike missions...." [18] This time the quote is from an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot: "My flight in the backseat of a Lancer [MiG-21] is a good opportunity to look at different aircraft and it's a real privilege and an honor. I want to see what they see from their cockpit, and view a new angle of understanding against our adversaries." [19] Two weeks ago a US Air Force fighter squadron flew to the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria where an American airman said, "This is the first time a USAFE [United States Air Forces in Europe] fighter squadron has deployed to this location....The most rewarding part of this experience is knowing that I am helping the pilots train for war." [20] To prepare the US for air combat against the full range of Russian military aircraft, India was invited to the annual Red Flag air combat exercises in Alaska in 2007, war games "meant to train pilots from the US, NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations. "This includes the use of 'enemy' hardware and live ammunition for bombing exercises." [21] India provided six Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighters which were "particularly interesting to the exercise as [they are] Russian-made, thus traditionally considered 'hostile.'" [22] May 1st, on the occasion of the Czech Republic taking over the six-month NATO air patrol rotation in the Baltic skies over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - five minutes flight from Russia's second largest city of St. Petersburg - a Czech official boasted "The area we are protecting is about three times larger than that of the Czech Republic. This is a NATO outpost." Lithuanian Air Force Commander Arturas Leita announced that "the Baltic countries would probably ask for the prolongation of the air force mission within NATO until 2018." [23] From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 14 22:59:01 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 00:59:01 -0400 Subject: [A-List] New US Envoy To Dragoon Balkans States Into NATO, EU Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 5:27 PM Subject: [stopnato] New US Envoy To Dragoon Balkans States Into NATO, EU http://www.makfax.com.mk/en-Us/Details.aspx?itemID=4254 Makfax May 14, 2009 US may appoint new Balkan envoy Brussels/Belgrade - Washington is displeased with the development of events in the Balkans, particularly with the EU's policy on Balkans' integration into the bloc, and it is likely to appoint a new envoy for the region. U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Stuart Jones conveyed Washington's position at a meeting with journalists accredited to Brussels, the Makfax news agency said. It's not a secret that the US is deeply concerned by frequent messages by some EU members challenging the Balkans' accession into the EU and NATO, Jones said. He stressed that Washington wants to double efforts with the EU to speed up the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Balkans. "The EU and NATO membership perspective is an important encouragement for reforms and stabilization of the region. Any halt of the process could jeopardize the reform process and the stability of the entire region," the US diplomat said. He added that Vice President Jospeh Biden, who is due to visit Sarajevo, Belgrade and Pristina next week, will send a message that the new administration in Washington is very much interested in Balkan events. Although the decision on appointing a new US envoy on the Balkans is still under consideration, his task would be to speed up the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 14 23:00:29 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 01:00:29 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US Pacific Commander Strengthens Military Ties With India Message-ID: <2D5DE9A97B634011929ECB30DDE8F319@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 5:38 PM Subject: [stopnato] US Pacific Commander Strengthens Military Ties With India http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54344 U.S. Department of Defense American Forces Press Service May 14, 2009 Keating Visit Promotes Growing U.S.-India Military Relationship By Donna Miles -Throughout his visits, Keating said he emphasized the principal tenets of U.S. Pacific Command?s strategy: partnership, readiness and presence. He called India an important partner in carrying out that strategy. -Keating pointed to the Malabar 2009 naval exercise that wrapped up May 3 as an example of the growing combined exercise program. India led Malabar 2009, in which about 4,000 members of the Indian, U.S. and Japanese navies trained together in surface, subsurface and air operations....Keating said his talks today focused on continuing the increased scope and sophistication of these exercises and exchanges in ways that improve cooperation while sending a strategic message to friends and potential allies alike. -Today?s discussions also focused on defense cooperation and India?s efforts to modernize its military, in part through its military weapons systems program. This program has grown exponentially since 2006, when India purchased USS Trenton at a cost of $50 million....The latest military sales issue on the table involves India?s plans to purchase more than 100 multi-role combat aircraft for its air force. The U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon and F/A-18 Hornet are among the contenders in the $10 billion competition. NEW DELHI ? The senior U.S. commander in the Pacific today shared with Indian government and military leaders the importance of the U.S.-Indian military relationship in furthering peace and stability in a challenging neighborhood. Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told reporters after a whirlwind day of sessions here he hopes that relationship can grow in ways that promote the two countries? shared interests in maritime security, counterterrorism and defense trade. Keating met with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and National Security Advisor Mayankote Kelath Narayanan. He also called on Adm. Zurres Mehta, the naval staff chief and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee; Lt. Gen. Noble Bhawan, vice chief of the army staff; and Air Marshall Pradeep Vasant, slated to take India?s top air staff position later this month. Throughout his visits, Keating said he emphasized the principal tenets of U.S. Pacific Command?s strategy: partnership, readiness and presence. He called India an important partner in carrying out that strategy. ?We have a longstanding friendship on a military-to-military basis, we exercise frequently, we exchange personnel, [and] we have frequent visits,? he said. ?India is a strong partner and a good friend.? The relationship, he told reporters, enhances both militaries? high state of readiness as it enables them to operate together and share expertise and lessons learned. Keating pointed to the Malabar 2009 naval exercise that wrapped up May 3 as an example of the growing combined exercise program. India led Malabar 2009, in which about 4,000 members of the Indian, U.S. and Japanese navies trained together in surface, subsurface and air operations. They also conducted a visit, board, search and seize operation aboard USS Blue Ridge to simulate searching a merchant vessel. Keating said his talks today focused on continuing the increased scope and sophistication of these exercises and exchanges in ways that improve cooperation while sending a strategic message to friends and potential allies alike. .... Responding to reporters? questions, Keating addressed a few of the challenges facing the region: China?s military expansion, turmoil in Pakistan and the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, among them. .... ?And we want to emphasize our relentless commitment to help those countries who have similar perspectives as we [have], and want to curtail or eliminate the threat of violent extremism,? he said. He noted that ?almost every country in the world? shares this goal. Today?s discussions also focused on defense cooperation and India?s efforts to modernize its military, in part through its military weapons systems program. This program has grown exponentially since 2006, when India purchased USS Trenton at a cost of $50 million, Joel Ehrendreich, political-military officer at the U.S. Embassy here, told American Forces Press Service. Since then, India has bought six C-130J Hercules aircraft for its special forces and $2.1 billion in P-8-I maritime reconnaissance aircraft to add more capability to what Keating noted already is a world-class maritime force. The latest military sales issue on the table involves India?s plans to purchase more than 100 multi-role combat aircraft for its air force. The U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon and F/A-18 Hornet are among the contenders in the $10 billion competition. India also plans to buy more computer technology so its forces can better network battlefield information, Ehrendreich said. While boosting India?s capabilities, Ehrendreich said, these sales are ?completely transforming the way our militaries interact? and improving opportunities for them to work more closely together. .... =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Thu May 14 23:02:09 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 01:02:09 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Illinois Senate Calls For Withdrawal Of Troops From Afghanistan Message-ID: <49B7D9D9A8C8453EA0B04911D073C922@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:39 AM Subject: [stopnato] Illinois Senate Calls For Withdrawal Of Troops From Afghanistan http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-xgr-illinois-afgh,0,6439964.story Chicago Tribune Associated Press May 12, 2009 Ill. Senate takes stand against Afghanistan war By CHRISTOPHER WILLS SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Senate has jumped into the deep water of foreign policy by passing a resolution that criticizes President Barack Obama's plan to step up military efforts in Afghanistan. The resolution calls for the United States to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan rather than send more, as Obama plans to do. "The people of the United States have indicated that this war has gone on long enough," says the resolution, which passed last week. "The Senate believes that it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Afghanistan." This puts state senators at odds with Obama, who once served in the Illinois Senate, and with public opinion. .... The resolution is purely advisory. It passed by voice vote, meaning the positions of individual state senators were not recorded. Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, said he sponsored the resolution because he feels the war is eating up money that could be spent on domestic services while driving down the price of heroin. "What are we getting? We're getting cheap heroin. We're getting massive numbers of addictions," Hendon said Tuesday. The Senate approved a resolution in 2007 calling for an end to the war in Iraq. Hendon said he told his fellow Democrats that if they were willing to speak out on foreign policy then, they should speak out now, even though the new president is a friend and Democrat. "I love Barack just like all of us love Barack down here, but he's wrong. He's wrong," Hendon said. .... The resolution is SR129. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE I Got Fired But now make $350/day online!. I'm happy I lost my Job. Now I make $12,000/mo online! See how I do it: WealthResource.org. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Drive Traffic Sponsored Search can help increase your site traffic. Yahoo! Groups Cat Owners Group Connect and share with others who love their cats Support Group Lose lbs together Share your weight- loss successes.. __,_._,___ From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 15 02:39:21 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 17:39:21 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Consumption, Not Population Is Our Main Environmental Threat Message-ID: <4A0D2A39.7010802@ashisuto.co.jp> by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360 AlterNet (April 14 2009) It's the great taboo, I hear many environmentalists say. Population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, but we are afraid to discuss it. It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument - "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts? The world's population quadrupled to six billion people during the 20th century. It is still rising and may reach nine billion by 2050. Yet for at least the past century, rising per-capita incomes have outstripped the rising head count several times over. And while incomes don't translate precisely into increased resource use and pollution, the correlation is distressingly strong. Moreover, most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population. By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world's people take the majority of the world's resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Take carbon dioxide emissions - a measure of our impact on climate but also a surrogate for fossil fuel consumption. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world's richest half-billion people - that's about seven percent of the global population - are responsible for fifty percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest fifty percent are responsible for just seven percent of emissions. Although overconsumption has a profound effect on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of our high standard of living extend beyond turning up the temperature of the planet. For a wider perspective of humanity's effects on the planet's life support systems, the best available measure is the "ecological footprint", which estimates the area of land required to provide each of us with food, clothing, and other resources, as well as to soak up our pollution. This analysis has its methodological problems, but its comparisons between nations are firm enough to be useful. They show that sustaining the lifestyle of the average American takes 9.5 hectares, while Australians and Canadians require 7.8 and 7.1 hectares respectively; Britons, 5.3 hectares; Germans, 4.2; and the Japanese, 4.9. The world average is 2.7 hectares. China is still below that figure at 2.1, while India and most of Africa (where the majority of future world population growth will take place) are at or below 1.0. The United States always gets singled out. But for good reason: It is the world's largest consumer. Americans take the greatest share of most of the world's major commodities: corn, coffee, copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, rubber, oil seeds, oil, and natural gas. For many others, Americans are the largest per-capita consumers. In "super-size-me" land, Americans gobble up more than 120 kilograms of meat a year per person, compared to just six kilograms in India, for instance. I do not deny that fast-rising populations can create serious local environmental crises through overgrazing, destructive farming and fishing, and deforestation. My argument here is that viewed at the global scale, it is overconsumption that has been driving humanity's impacts on the planet's vital life-support systems during at least the past century. But what of the future? We cannot be sure how the global economic downturn will play out. But let us assume that Jeffrey Sachs, in his book Common Wealth (2008), is right to predict a 600 percent increase in global economic output by 2050. Most projections put world population then at no more than forty percent above today's level, so its contribution to future growth in economic activity will be small. Of course, economic activity is not the same as ecological impact. So let's go back to carbon dioxide emissions. Virtually all of the extra two billion or so people expected on this planet in the coming forty years will be in the poor half of the world. They will raise the population of the poor world from approaching 3.5 billion to about 5.5 billion, making them the poor two-thirds. Sounds nasty, but based on Pacala's calculations - and if we assume for the purposes of the argument that per-capita emissions in every country stay roughly the same as today - those extra two billion people would raise the share of emissions contributed by the poor world from seven percent to eleven percent. Look at it another way. Just five countries are likely to produce most of the world's population growth in the coming decades: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The carbon emissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, twenty Indians, thirty Pakistanis, forty Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians. Even if we could today achieve zero population growth, that would barely touch the climate problem - where we need to cut emissions by fifty to eighty percent by mid-century. Given existing income inequalities, it is inescapable that overconsumption by the rich few is the key problem, rather than overpopulation of the poor many. But, you ask, what about future generations? All those big families in Africa begetting yet-bigger families. They may not consume much today, but they soon will. Well, first let's be clear about the scale of the difference involved. A woman in rural Ethiopia can have ten children and her family will still do less damage, and consume fewer resources, than the family of the average soccer mom in Minnesota or Munich. In the unlikely event that her ten children live to adulthood and have ten children of their own, the entire clan of more than a hundred will still be emitting less carbon dioxide than you or I. And second, it won't happen. Wherever most kids survive to adulthood, women stop having so many. That is the main reason why the number of children born to an average woman around the world has been in decline for half a century now. After peaking at between five and six per woman, it is now down to 2.6. This is getting close to the "replacement fertility level" which, after allowing for a natural excess of boys born and women who don't reach adulthood, is about 2.3. The UN expects global fertility to fall to 1.85 children per woman by mid-century. While a demographic "bulge" of women of child-bearing age keeps the world's population rising for now, continuing declines in fertility will cause the world's population to stabilize by mid-century and then probably to begin falling. Far from ballooning, each generation will be smaller than the last. So the ecological footprint of future generations could diminish. That means we can have a shot at estimating the long-term impact of children from different countries down the generations. The best analysis of this phenomenon I have seen is by Paul Murtaugh, a statistician at Oregon State University. He recently calculated the climatic "intergenerational legacy" of today's children. He assumed current per-capita emissions and UN fertility projections. He found that an extra child in the United States today will, down the generations, produce an eventual carbon footprint seven times that of an extra Chinese child, 46 times that of a Pakistan child, 55 times that of an Indian child, and 86 times that of a Nigerian child. Of course those assumptions may not pan out. I have some confidence in the population projections, but per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide will likely rise in poor countries for some time yet, even in optimistic scenarios. But that is an issue of consumption, not population. In any event, it strikes me as the height of hubris to downgrade the culpability of the rich world's environmental footprint because generations of poor people not yet born might one day get to be as rich and destructive as us. Overpopulation is not driving environmental destruction at the global level; overconsumption is. Every time we talk about too many babies in Africa or India, we are denying that simple fact. At root this is an ethical issue. Back in 1974, the famous environmental scientist Garret Hardin proposed something he called "lifeboat ethics". In the modern, resource-constrained world, he said, "each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in." But there were, he said, not enough places to go around. If any were let on board, there would be chaos and all would drown. The people in the lifeboat had a duty to their species to be selfish - to keep the poor out. Hardin's metaphor had a certain ruthless logic. What he omitted to mention was that each of the people in the lifeboat was occupying ten places, whereas the people in the water only wanted one each. I think that changes the argument somewhat. _____ Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He is an environment consultant for New Scientist magazine and author of recent books When The Rivers Run Dry (Beacon Press, 2007) and With Speed and Violence (Beacon Press, 2008). (c) 2009 Yale Environment 360 All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/136449/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From nscchicago at igc.org Fri May 15 09:37:46 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 10:37:46 -0500 Subject: [A-List] Fw: [CLAS] Say no to international fascist terrorism in Bolivia Message-ID: <1E689E5911EA469187F690270BE43847@NSCCHICAGO> Tom Baker here forwarding bad news. We the People should acknowledge that it is in the interest of the Imperialist State to force division among people, and that goon squads these days are private, like pirates (heroes for whom?) The First Nation People of Bolivia will win and the New Way is here. ----- Original Message ----- From: Cort Greene Subject: [CLAS] Say no to international fascist terrorism in Bolivia By Amancay Colque Friday, 15 May 2009 Bolivia Solidarity Campaign urges all its supporters to say NO to international fascist terrorism whose intention is to split Bolivia apart! Please sign the petition. Right now, the democratic vocation and tenacity of the Bolivian people is being assaulted by an international network of fascist mercenaries. These hired guns have already shown their destructive capacity in the war to balkanize Yugoslavia. Now, they are using their violent methods to destroy and balkanize Bolivia, one of the poorest countries of the Western hemisphere (yet, incredible rich in natural resources) (En la parte de abajo peticion en castellano) The First Republic of Bolivia was founded in 1825 following the discussions of a tiny ?enlightened? minority, descendants from the Spaniard Conquistadores and the emerging local oligarchy. The state that was created thus followed norms and principles of feudal Spain and resulted in an Apartheid-like state, reflecting 333 years of Colonial rule. It is not surprising, then, that the state inherited by the current administration of Evo Morales finds excruciating opposition from those desperately trying to hold on to the three classical powers of liberal democracy. In spite of this ever-increasing violent resistance, the Bolivian people, organized in grassroots social organizations and movements has decided to re-found a democratic and plurinational state in which all citizens will fully enjoy their rights. Of late, the democratic vocation and tenacity of the Bolivian people is being assaulted by an international network of fascist mercenaries. These hired guns have already shown their destructive capacity in the sad war of the balkanization of Yugoslavia. Their violent means of destruction is now being used to destroy and balkanize one of the poorest countries of the Western hemisphere (yet, incredible rich in natural resources): Bolivia. This small country has shown over and over again to the world that it is not willing to go back to its odious past where a tiny minority plundered the state coffers and governed by the dictates of foreign interests. The recently approved new constitution of Bolivia is unique in the history of mankind by making war illegal. This should suffice to show to the world the peaceful nature of the majority of the Bolivian people. We make an appeal to all those that tune their spirits to justice, to honouring our Mother Earth, to respecting future generations, accompany and stand for our true democratic vocation in Bolivia. If these violent forces are alowd to continue, our democracy could be very fragile and brittle. Especially when we take into account the recurrent terrorist attacks in the Eastern part of our country. This past April 16th we were astonished to learn of the dismantling of a terrorist cell already operating in the country led by the Bolivian-Hungarian-Croatian Eduardo R?zsa Flores, the Irish Michael Dwyer Martin and the Hungarian-Rumanian Magyarosi Arpak, who where killed in a confrontation with police forces in a downtown hotel in Santa Cruz. Two others were captured alive from the intense exchange of fire: Bolivian-Croatian Mario Tadik and Hungarian Elot T?as?. At the same time we want to forcefully condemn the cover-up of this terrorist mission by the Hungarian journalist Andras Kepes who interviewed the leader of the terrorist cell R?zsa Flores a few days before he left for Bolivia, announcing his intentions of dividing Bolivia. You, the reader of this letter, are a key part of defending the process by which Bolivians are reclaiming their voices and are proudly marching towards their history. Share this letter with your friends, acquaintances and networks. You can also ask your local political representatives in your local community and in your home country. If you can think of any other institutions / organizations that could show their solidarity with the determination of the Bolivian people to live in democracy, let them know that this effort is against the reign of terrorism, cover-up and injustice. http://boliviasc.org.uk Consejo Pro Bolivia en la Union Europea ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- No al terrorismo fascista internacional y secesionista en Bolivia Bolivia un estado creado sobre estructuras de apartheid desde la invasi?n europea (hace 517 a?os) ha decidido encaminarse hacia la refundaci?n democr?tica de un estado plurinacional, en el que todos los ciudadanos tendr?n los mismos derechos. La ten?z valentia y esp?ritu pacifico del pueblo boliviano es hoy atacado por bandas internacionales de mercenarios fascistas. Estos asesinos a sueldo demostraron ya su poder destructor en la balcanizaci?n de Yugoslavia y lanzan hoy sus tentaculos aterradores en contra de un pa?s atacado por la pobreza y el cambio climat?co. Va nuestro pedido a todas las fuerzas del bi?n del planeta a acompa?ar y defender la tierna democracia en Bolivia. Nuestro llamado es a causa de los atentados terroristas recurrentes en el oriente de Bolivia. El pasado 16 de abril se pudo por primera v?z confirmar y desbaratar una celula de mercenarios de cinco personas: donde fueron abatidos el h?ngaro/rumano Mayarosi Ariad, el irland?s/croata Dwyer Michael Martin y el boliviano/hungaro, kroata R?zsa Flores. De la feroz balacera entre los mercenarios y las fuerzas p?blicas salieron indemnes Fardig boliviano/croata y T?as?/irlandes. Condenamos tambi?n el encubrimiento de la misi?n secesionista de los terroristas, confiada por Rosza Flores al periodista h?ngaro Andras Kepes durante una entrevista realizada poco antes de la partida del mercenario hacia Bolivia, en la cual da a conocer sus intenciones. T?, que te solidarizas con este llamado, hazlo conocer a tus amigos y conocidos; pero haz tambi?n un pedido a los pol?ticos de tu pa?s y otras entidades solidarias para que se unan a nosotros en contra del terrorismo, el encubrimiento y la injusticia. http://boliviasc.org.uk http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/say-no-to-international-fascist-terrorism.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ Share this article! __._,_.___ Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 21876 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090515/ccf2d96b/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 5392 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090515/ccf2d96b/attachment-0001.jpeg From nscchicago at igc.org Fri May 15 09:56:58 2009 From: nscchicago at igc.org (NSC WORKERS COOP) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 10:56:58 -0500 Subject: [A-List] NICARAGUA NETWORK HOTLINE MAY 12 2009 Message-ID: Nicaragua Network Hotline (May 12, 2009) 1. Nicaraguan pig farmers impacted by imports of U.S. pork 2. Nicaraguan government rejects State Department report 3. Opponents attack new Production Promotion Bank 4. Army and Church still differ on existence of armed bands 5. Biodiversity Center Funded; Vote for Ometepe! Topic 1: Nicaraguan pig farmers impacted by imports of U.S. pork In an outcome forewarned by opponents of US-sponsored "free trade" agreements, Nicaraguan pig farmers say that imports of pork from the United States are pushing them towards bankruptcy. Minister of Trade Orlando Solorzano said that nine importers, among them PriceSmart, Delicarne, and Delmor, have licenses to import pork into Nicaragua under the quotas established by the trade agreement with the United States known as the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). Solorzano said that for this year there is a quota of 1400 tons that can enter with no import tariff and that the quota will grow each year by 100 tons until 2020. US-corporate agriculture is heavily subsidized by US taxpayers enabling transnational corporations to dump agricultural products in Mexico and Central America at prices with which local farmers cannot compete. Solorzano said hog farmers should sit down with the Trade Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry, processors, and others to try to find a solution for the pork sector. But Jesus Bermudez, who is in charge of implementation of trade agreements at the Trade Ministry, was more pessimistic. He said that in order to resolve a problem related to quotas, there would have to be a renegotiation with the United States which would necessitate a concession on the part of Nicaragua. "The truth is that we have our hands tied as far as the legal route is concerned," he added. Milton Arcia, of the National Association of Hog Farmers, said, "We are supposing that this government protects small farmers so we are hoping that they won't abandon us at this moment of crisis. What we are asking for is that they stop the pork imports temporarily, while the drop in consumption caused by the swine flu dissipates as has been done in other countries. If not, we will be ruined." Topic 2: Nicaraguan government rejects State Department report The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry released a communiqu? on the night of May 4 rejecting an April 30 report by the US State Department which claimed that the Nicaraguan government maintains close relations with terrorists. The Foreign Ministry said "Nicaragua rejects any report that links us with terrorism. On the contrary, our political will to fight this evil is shown by our participation in all international legal covenants of the United Nations and of the inter-American community, including participating in the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism." The response continued: "Nicaragua has its own view about the conduct of the United States government on the international level; however, based on a desire to respect all nations' sovereignty, we will abstain from stating those views." The US report also criticized the Nicaraguan judicial system as "highly politicized, corrupt, and prone to manipulation." The Foreign Ministry responded that the performance of the Nicaraguan court system is a matter for Nicaraguan authorities alone as a matter of national sovereignty and self-determination. In answer to the State Department's criticism of Nicaragua's granting visa-free entry to citizens of Iran, the Foreign Ministry added that Nicaragua has "the right to have diplomatic relations with all of the countries of the world without exception." The bulk of the State Department's Country Report on Nicaragua for 2008, released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, concerned the Nicaraguan government's relationship with the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the asylum the government gave to severely wounded victims of Colombia's March 1, 2008, cross border attack in Ecuador on the FARC base that was negotiating prisoner exchanges. That attack was condemned by nearly every country in Latin America. To read the State Department report, go to: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122435.htm Topic 3: Opponents attack new Production Promotion Bank The Production Promotion Bank (Banco Produzcamos), set to provide credit for small and medium farms and businesses, was approved last week with the votes of the Sandinista Party (FSLN), the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) and several other deputies from other parties. Opponents were quick with criticism that an amendment providing for the bank directors to be approved by a simple majority of 47 rather than a super majority of 56 meant that the bank's lending would be politicized. The Constitutional Liberal Party even expelled two deputies (Ana Julia Balladares and Carlos Olivas) who voted for the bill. Former presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre, a member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Bench, alleged, "This indicates that it [the bank] is totally politicized; later they will say that if you don't join the Sandinista Party, you won't get credit." It is a common claim by opponents of the Ortega government that Sandinista supporters are the only beneficiaries of government poverty reduction programs. A January 2009 Nicaragua Network delegation found no evidence to confirm such a claim and one analyst pointed out that if the FSLN wants to improve on the 38% of the vote it received in the 2006 presidential election, is would be senseless to limit government programs to FSLN supporters. PLC Deputy Wilfredo Navarro complained that the candidates for the Bank's board whose names have been put forward by the executive branch (Danilo Chavarria Aviles, Jorge Martinez Lopez, and Roberto Blanco Lopez) have all worked for the government-affiliated Rural Credit Fund (CARUNA) and, he said, "have not even presented us with copies of their university degrees." PLC Deputy Freddy Torres said that the Bank should just be called "the FSLN Bank." Sandinista deputy Walmaro Gutierrez defended the amendment saying that approval of nominees by a simple majority would foil the boycotts of assembly sessions by opposition deputies that have held up previous confirmations. Douglas Aleman (FSLN) added that it is "not a sin" to have worked for the Rural Credit Fund, which gets some of its funding through the Bolivarian Alternative for Our Americas (ALBA). Jose Adan Aguerri, President of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), said that his organization hopes that the Bank will have a democratic policy in the extension of credit because, "In Nicaragua, producers are of all ideologies; the small and medium size businesses are of all ideologies." He added that the Union of Agricultural Producers of Nicaragua (UPANIC) hoped that one of its members would have a seat on the board of the Bank. UPANIC President Manuel Alvarez reiterated that hope and said that UPANIC had had a positive experience with the state run Rural Development Institute where one of the board members is from UPANIC and has helped members obtain fertilizer from Venezuela at favorable prices. He added that the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG) has also sent over to the National Assembly the name of the person it would like to see on the board. Topic 4: Army and Church still differ on existence of armed bands Julio Cesar Aviles, Nicaraguan Army Chief of Staff, said on May 8 that there are no armed bands in the Nicaraguan interior with political objectives, in spite of the declarations of some Catholic Church leaders that such bands exist. "We respect what they say but we can confirm based on the level of information that we have that there are no armed groups with political tendencies," Aviles said. Head of the Army Omar Halleslevens added that the Army and the National Police expect to carry out joint operations to confront groups of common delinquents in the Departments of Jinotega, Matagalpa, the Mining Triangle and other areas who rob small rural stores and stop vehicles to rob the passengers. Members of the First Regional Command of the Army accompanied a commission composed of members from the Police, the Nicaraguan Pro-Human Rights Association (ANPDH), [founded by the US government in the 1980s and is now funded by right-wing Catholic sources], and representatives of the Catholic Church hierarchy, on a mission into the mountains beginning on April 22. The commission visited Esteli, Madriz, Nueva Segovia, Matagalpa, Jinotega, and communities in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region. Brigade General Adolfo Zepeda said, "We saw no evidence that there were groups organized with political goals." However, the ANPDH representative said that, although they did not see armed bands, they gathered information from peasants in the region who said that they had seen and talked to uniformed armed men who supposedly were recruiting people for an armed movement against the Sandinista government. According to Bishop Abelardo Mata of Esteli, the peasant farmers avoided speaking in front of the members of the military who accompanied the commission. Topic 5: Biodiversity Center Funded; Vote for Ometepe! The Nicaraguan government, with the help of the Spanish government, will create a Center for the Study of Biodiversity in the Biosphere Reserve, composed of seven protected areas in Southeastern Nicaragua. At the request of President Daniel Ortega, the Center will be named after presidential advisor and noted geographer and environmentalist Jaime Incer Barquero. Environmental Minister Juanita Arge?al said the center will create a new model of studies "in which we are able to give primary, secondary, and university students the benefit of courses and internships so that they get to know our lands, animals and plants." The initial phase of the project is budgeted at US$5 million from Spain plus counterpart funds from the Nicaraguan government. Incer said, "This center will be a focus of attraction for world science in the areas of ecology and natural resources and very attractive from the point of view of ecotourism and development of the Rio San Jan and surrounding areas." Incer said, "We know there are thousands of plants in that reserve that have medicinal properties and that future investigation could find them to be a cure for AIDS or cancer." He added, "For the first time we are going to open nature's secrets to see how many of those secrets can be of use to the Nicaraguan people." In other environmental news, Minister of Tourism Mario Salinas has appealed to the population to vote on the internet for Ometepe Island to win in a competition for New Seven Wonders of Nature. "From 104th place we have risen to fourth in the Islands category behind Bora Bora (French Polynesia), Gal?pagos (Ecuador) and Cocos (Australia)," Salinas said in press conference. Ometepe Island is made up of two great volcanos in Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua), the second largest lake in Latin America and unique in the world for its fresh water sharks. You can cast your vote at http://www.new7wonders.com/nature/en/nominees/northamerica . (In order for your vote to register you have to vote for seven wonders so an examination of the web page first is helpful to see what the other candidates are.) Voting will continue until July 6 when the government of Nicaragua hopes Ometepe will continue among 11 contestants into the third phase of the selection process. This hotline is prepared from the Nicaragua News Service and other sources. To receive a more extensive weekly summary of the news from Nicaragua by e-mail or postal service, send a check for $60.00 to Nicaragua Network, 1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003. We can be reached by phone at 202-544-9355. Our web site is: www.nicanet.org. To subscribe to the Hotline, send an e-mail to nicanet at afgj.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 12940 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090515/6022f25b/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 4514 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090515/6022f25b/attachment.jpeg From noreply at coha.org Fri May 15 11:11:58 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 13:11:58 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Drug Legalization, Part II Message-ID: <20090515170840.4EF1D3E4913@mx-out2.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 5342 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090515/49eda2e3/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Fri May 15 20:05:04 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 11:05:04 +0900 Subject: [A-List] How the Nation's Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street Message-ID: <4A0E1F50.5090602@ashisuto.co.jp> by Josh Harkinson Mother Jones (March 27 2009) The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America - what Republicans might call an idiosyncratic bastion of socialism. It also earned a record profit last year even as its private-sector corollaries lost billions. To be sure, it owes some of its unusual success to North Dakota's well-insulated economy, which is heavy on agricultural staples and light on housing speculation. But that hasn't stopped out-of-state politicos from beating a path to chilly Bismarck in search of advice. Could opening state-owned banks across America get us out of the financial crisis? It certainly might help, says Ellen Brown, author of the book, Web of Debt (2007), who writes that the Bank of North Dakota, with its $4 billion under management, has avoided the credit freeze by "creating its own credit, leading the nation in establishing state economic sovereignty". Mother Jones spoke with the Bank of North Dakota's president, Eric Hardmeyer. Mother Jones: How was the bank formed? Eric Hardmeyer: It was created ninety years ago, in 1919, as a populist movement swept the northern plains. Basically it was a very angry movement by a large group of the agrarian sector that was upset by decisions that were being made in the eastern markets, the money markets maybe in Minneapolis, New York, deciding who got credit and how to market their goods. So it swept the northern plains. In North Dakota the movement was called the Nonpartisan League, and they actually took control of the legislature and created what was called an industrial program, which created both the Bank of North Dakota as a financing arm and a state-owned mill and elevator to market and buy the grain from the farmer. And we're both in existence today doing exactly what we were created for ninety years ago. Only we've morphed a little bit and found other niches and ways to promote the state of North Dakota. MJ: What makes your bank unique today? EH: Our funding model, our deposit model is really what is unique as the engine that drives that bank. And that is we are the depository for all state tax collections and fees. And so we have a captive deposit base, we pay a competitive rate to the state treasurer. And I would bet that that would be one of the most difficult things to wrestle away from the private sector - those opportunities to bid on public funds. But that's only one portion of it. We take those funds and then, really what separates us is that we plow those deposits back into the state of North Dakota in the form of loans. We invest back into the state in economic development type of activities. We grow our state through that mechanism. MJ: Clearly other banks also invest their deposits. Is the difference that you are investing a larger portion of that money into the state's own economy? EH: Yeah, absolutely. But we have specifically designed programs to spur certain elements of the economy. Whether it's agriculture or economic development programs that are deemed necessary in the state or energy, which now seems to be a huge play in the state. And education - we do a lot of student loan financing. So that's our model. We have a specific mission that was given to us when we were created ninety years ago and it guides us throughout our history. MJ: Are there areas that you invest in that other banks avoid? EH: We made the first federally-insured student loan in the country back in 1967. So that's been a big part of what we do. It's become almost a mission-critical thing. I don't know if you have been following the student loan industry lately, but it's been very, very interesting as many have decided to leave. We will not though. MJ: So you are able to invest in certain areas because they provide a public good. EH: Yeah, or a direction, whether it's energy or primary sector type of businesses. We have specific loan programs that are designed at very low interest rates to encourage activity along certain lines. Here's another thing: We're gearing up for a significant flood in one of the communities here in North Dakota called Fargo. We've experienced one of those in another community about twelve years ago which prior to Katrina was the largest single evacuation of any community in the United States. And so the Bank of North Dakota, once the flood had receded and there were business needs, we developed a disaster loan program to assist businesses. So we can move quite quickly to aid with different types of scenarios. Whether it's encouraging different economies to grow or dealing with a disaster. MJ: What do private banks think of you? EH: The interesting thing about the bank is we understand that we walk a fine line between competing and partnering with the private sector. We were designed and set up to partner with them and not compete with them. So most of the lending that we do is participatory in nature. It's originated by a local bank and we come in and participate in the loan and use some of our programs to share risk, buy down the interest rate. We even provide guarantees similar to SBA to encourage certain activity for entrepreneurial startups. Aside from that, we also act as a bankers' bank or a wholesale bank. So we provide services to banks, whether it's check clearing, liquidity, or bond accounting safekeeping. There's probably twenty other bankers' banks across the country. So we act in that capacity as kind of a little mini-fed actually. And so we service 104 banks and provide liquidity to them and clear their checks and also we buy loans from them when they have a need to overline, whether it's beyond their legal lending limit or they just want to share risk, we'll do that. We're a secondary market for residential loans, so we have a portfolio of $500 to $600 million of residential loans that we buy. MJ: So what's the advantage of a publicly owned "bankers' bank" instead of a privately owned one? EH: Our model is we use our deposit base to help [other banks] with funding their loans, even providing fed funds lines with our excess liquidity - we buy and sell fed funds and act as a clearinghouse for check clearing activity. That would be the benefit or different model. We're a depository bank and can bring that to bear. MJ: If other states had a bank like yours, do you think they would have been more insulated from the credit crisis? EH: It all gets down the management and management philosophy. We're a fairly conservative lot up here in the upper Midwest and we didn't do any subprime lending and we have the ability to get into the derivatives markets and put on swaps and callers and caps and credit default swaps and just chose not to do it, really chose a Warren Buffett mentality - if we don't understand it, we're not going to jump into it. And so we've avoided all those pitfalls. That's not to say that we're completely immune to everything, certainly we've bought some mortgage-backed securities and we're working through some of those issues, but nothing that would cause us to be concerned. MJ: Would states with your model have any new tools to get out of the credit crisis? EH: Let me put it to you another way and tell you another thing that we do. We also provide a dividend back to the state. Probably this year we'll make somewhere north of $60 million, and we will turn over about half of our profits back to the state general fund. And so over the last ten, twelve years, we've turned back a third of a billion dollars just to the general fund to offset taxes or to aid in funding public sector types of needs. MJ: Not bad for a state with a population of 600,000. EH: Right. And here's another thing: Back in 2001, 2002, when we went through the dot com bust, all the states suffered some sort of budget shortfall, including the state of North Dakota. At that time our budget shortfall was fairly insignificant - $40 some million. And so it was quite easy to overcome that. The governor just simply said alright, we're going to turn back one percent of all general fund agencies, and the Bank of North Dakota, you will declare another dividend to make up the balance. And so we did that. Our capital was in a fine position to go ahead and do that. So in some cases we've acted as a rainy day fund. MJ: And now the current downturn seems to have bypassed you. EH: The State of North Dakota does not have any funding issues at all. We in fact are dealing with the largest surplus we've ever had. So our concern is how do we spend it wisely and make sure we save it for the future. MJ: It's not a bad problem to have. EH: Yeah. We're a little bit of an island here, and so we look around and we say boy that is unbelievable to see what is going on in the rest of the country and here we are completely countercyclical. MJ: Are other states interested in your model? EH: In my stint here as president, which as been about nine years now, I've had a lot of inquiries from other states about how this works, could it work for them. And my predecessor, who is now the governor of the state of North Dakota, has in fact testified at a couple of other state legislatures in terms of setting up the same model. Up until a year or two ago I would have bet that it would never happen. MJ: It's funny, because North Dakota is traditionally a red state and yet you have these institutions - some people might say they're socialist. EH: Yeah, I've had that thrown at me many times. MJ: But is seems like they are very popular in the state. EH: Yeah, and of course the socialism theme has become in vogue lately, been thrown about a bit. MJ: Aside from political opposition from bank interests, do you think it could be viable for other states to implement your model? EH: So much of what is going on right now is a knee-jerk reaction to some things that have happened, where regulations and accounting practices weren't where they should be. So my advice is everybody take a deep breath and we're going to get through this and we are going to exit this as a stronger industry than when we went into it, with controls in places that are absolutely necessary, with banks understanding the risks they are taking. For all states to look at North Dakota's model and say this would be the panacea to all those things, I don't see that happening. MJ: It's clearly not the only solution, but I'm curious whether it could be part of it. EH: Possibly. It just depends on what they want to do with it. We're using this to spur economic growth for our state, to provide niches where others aren't comfortable, whether it's in-state financing of residential loans or making student loans. Every state has their own particular needs. We've carved out a pretty good niche here and I think are well-respected by our peers in the banking industry. They look at us as partners and not competitors. That would be the key if you were to do this in any other state is to replicate that part of our model. That's where you really open yourself up for criticism, is state-owned businesses competing with the private sector. MJ: Could a bank like yours be set up without sucking deposits out of private banks in the short term? EH: I imagine you could do some sort of bond issue where you would use that as your funding source. MJ: After seeing the credit crisis unfold, has it changed your opinion of what you do? EH: It just reinforced what we do, and that is you stick to what you understand, you do it well, you know your customers. We've never been a bank that tries to hit home runs. That's not what we're all about. We have a specific mission which is more important. Most corporations and banks, their top priority is to maximize shareholder return. And that is a nice byproduct for us because we do have a nice return - an NROA [return on net operating assets] of two a ROE [return on equity] of 25, 26 percent. But really where we take the most satisfaction is making sure we meet the needs of the state and finance those types of things that make our state go forward. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 16 02:02:42 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 17:02:42 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Have We Hit the Limits of Human Population? Message-ID: <4A0E7322.8040802@ashisuto.co.jp> The last 200 years of economic growth have been based on a monumental Ponzi scheme that has pushed us toward the ultimate tipping point. by Kelpie Wilson, AlterNet AlterNet (April 10 2009) Without growth, there would be no economy as we know it. But modern culture, by and large, doesn't see that it can exist only in the medium of ceaseless growth and expansion, because a fish doesn't see the water it swims in. Only today, in the recent, breathless moments of the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression, do we begin to perceive the waters around us. Slowly, we are coming to realize that the last 200 years of economic growth have been based on a monumental Ponzi scheme that has pushed the final reckoning ever forward in time, until the future is now. Slowly, we are coming to realize that Thomas Malthus was right. It was the warrior cry of the radical environmental movement in the 1980s: "Malthus Was Right!" But Malthus, a mumbling country parson with intellectual ambitions, had been transmogrified by capitalists and communists alike into a fearsome bogeyman possessed of "dangerous" ideas. Environmentalists who invoked his name were invariably corrected by their progressive friends, who told them that excess consumption by the rich was the problem, not the reproductive profligacy of the poor. Yet, as we drive deeper into the greenhouse world, with its crazy weather, water shortages and general degradation, more and more of us from across the political spectrum are wondering how on earth we will feed the three billion more people projected to arrive by 2050, or even the six billion or so we already have. It is worthwhile, therefore, to examine the Malthusian idea, to discover what truths it holds and to see if they can be of any help. Malthus' big idea, published in 1798 in "An Essay on the Principle of Population", was that human population would always grow exponentially, and that it would always push up against the limits of food production, thus creating a permanent class of poor whose numbers could only be checked by "misery" and "vice". His Law of Population is based on this simple observation: "Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them." Later, Charles Darwin would base his theory of natural selection on this observation. He saw that a super abundance of progeny allows natural selection to work so that only the fittest survive. Malthus wrote his essay in response to William Godwin, an outspoken liberal of the day. Godwin wanted to abolish the aristocracy and redistribute the wealth. He believed in the "perfectibility of man". As a member of the landed elite, Malthus felt a need to address the rabble-rouser Godwin and prove that even in a perfect society where the working man received according to his needs, all benefits would soon be wiped out by population growth. The poor man's "lack of moral restraint" would ensure that his family would continue to grow until they ate him out of house and home. Starvation and disease would then do the job of reducing the population to a supportable size. Malthus made a big impression on the British upper classes (who had access to concubines and prostitutes and hence no need for moral restraint to curtail family size). Since the poor were destined to continually breed themselves back into poverty anyway, there was no point in improving their condition. Politicians seized on Malthus' theory to end subsidies for the poor ("a shilling a week to every laborer for each child he has above three") and pass the Poor Law of 1834 that forced those seeking relief into workhouses designed to be as much like prisons as possible. It's no wonder then that Friedrich Engels declared Malthus' Law of Population to be the "most open declaration of war of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat". Karl Marx and Engels put their faith in technology and believed that progress would continually expand agricultural production, mooting the issue of population growth. While they thought Darwin's use of the Law of Population to explain evolution had some validity, they insisted that humans were exempt. Animals were only "collectors" of nature's bounty, but humans were "producers" and masters of their own destiny. Indeed, Malthus might have earned more respect for his Law of Population if he hadn't proposed it just at the moment when human production first tapped into the coal seams and oil streams that fueled the industrial expansion. It is only today, when those resources have peaked, that we are revealed to be much more like the other animals than we thought - "collectors" of ancient sunlight, our fossil fuel inheritance, and not the all powerful "producers" we thought we were. As a progressive, I want to believe that humanity can control our destiny. But as an ecologist, I have to accept the Law of Population. Is there no way out? Yes there is. But it requires us to embrace what Malthus called "vice". Malthus saw three ways to control population growth: abstinence, misery and vice. Abstinence was too challenging for most. Misery included starvation, disease and death. That left vice: a category that included prostitution, abortion and infanticide, but also "promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed and improper arts to conceal the consequence of irregular connexions". Blinders imposed by the church and centuries of violent repression of women healers and midwives had so deeply branded contraception as an "improper art" that even a revolutionary like Godwin could not advocate it. He could only insist that redistribution of wealth would result in more "moral restraint". Malthus found this laughable: "I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished ... the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress whatever has hitherto been made." When the radical Francis Place publicly advocated birth control in the 1820s, he was condemned for promoting vice by church, state and even his fellow working men in the labor unions he helped to found. Nearly a century later, Margaret Sanger finally opened her first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, NewYork, and contraception was only fully legalized in the United States in 1965. The definition of "vice" evolved very slowly. Malthus' list of vices included infanticide, which today stands well apart from birth control, abortion, prostitution and homosexuality. And yet, throughout history and prehistory, infanticide was probably the most widely used method of curtailing population growth, mostly because the contraception and abortion methods of the past were either ineffective or dangerous to women. Before the fossil fuel era, the need to prevent famine often dictated infanticide, especially female infanticide, which relieved population pressure by reducing the number of breeding females. It is good to know this bit of history, because it gives us the proper context for updating the definition of "vice". Still, there are conservatives who would prefer to see famine and misery rather than condone contraceptives, abortion, women's rights and homosexuality. Among them is Pope Benedict, leader of the world's largest religious organization, who has just condemned untold numbers of Africans to death by opposing condoms for prevention of AIDS, because it might lead to "vice". There are also still progressives who insist that population growth is not a problem. They should go back and read Engels, who hated Malthus and thought the idea of population outstripping resources was ludicrous, but still said this: "There is, of course, the abstract possibility that the number of people will become so great that limits will have to be set to their increase. But if at some stage communist society finds itself obliged to regulate the production of human beings, just as it has already come to regulate the production of things, it will be precisely this society, and this society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty ... it is for the people in the communist society themselves to decide whether, when and how this is to be done, and what means they wish to employ to the purpose." We are those people, and many of us now understand that the real vices are found in war, injustice and repression. Increasingly, we realize that we must work together for humane and liberating solutions to the problem of human overpopulation, as we build a new, non-growth, steady-state economy that provides for all. _____ Kelpie Wilson is a freelance writer covering energy and environmental issues. She is a contributing editor for Yoga Plus magazine and author of Primal Tears (2005), a novel. An archive of her past articles is on her Web site: http://www.kelpiewilson.com/ (c) 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/135518/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sat May 16 11:11:53 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 13:11:53 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Have We Hit the Limits of Human Population? In-Reply-To: <4A0E7322.8040802@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A0E7322.8040802@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <82986537AF6740A2A72E4C827D9FFC08@TonyPC> The author quotes Engels: "But if at some stage communist society finds itself obliged to regulate the production of human beings, just as it has already come to regulate the production of things, it will be precisely this society, and this society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty..." And then concludes: 'We are those people..' But, of course, we are not...for we do not live in a communist or socialist society. I always find it amusing (meaning chafing) to hear ecologists continually call for a 'different world' without ever spelling out the particular political pre-requisites for that world. Imbued with capitalist propaganda they can't seem to jettison their bourgeois sensibilities and baldly state their call to arms in practical, political terms, i.e. 'socialism or barbarism'. Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Totten" To: "a-list" Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:02 AM Subject: [A-List] Have We Hit the Limits of Human Population? > > The last 200 years of economic growth have been based on a monumental > Ponzi scheme that has pushed us toward the ultimate tipping point. > > by Kelpie Wilson, AlterNet > > AlterNet (April 10 2009) > > > Without growth, there would be no economy as we know it. But modern > culture, by and large, doesn't see that it can exist only in the medium > of ceaseless growth and expansion, because a fish doesn't see the water > it swims in. Only today, in the recent, breathless moments of the > greatest economic crash since the Great Depression, do we begin to > perceive the waters around us. > > Slowly, we are coming to realize that the last 200 years of economic > growth have been based on a monumental Ponzi scheme that has pushed the > final reckoning ever forward in time, until the future is now. Slowly, > we are coming to realize that Thomas Malthus was right. > > It was the warrior cry of the radical environmental movement in the > 1980s: "Malthus Was Right!" But Malthus, a mumbling country parson with > intellectual ambitions, had been transmogrified by capitalists and > communists alike into a fearsome bogeyman possessed of "dangerous" ideas. > > Environmentalists who invoked his name were invariably corrected by > their progressive friends, who told them that excess consumption by the > rich was the problem, not the reproductive profligacy of the poor. > > Yet, as we drive deeper into the greenhouse world, with its crazy > weather, water shortages and general degradation, more and more of us > from across the political spectrum are wondering how on earth we will > feed the three billion more people projected to arrive by 2050, or even > the six billion or so we already have. > > It is worthwhile, therefore, to examine the Malthusian idea, to discover > what truths it holds and to see if they can be of any help. > > Malthus' big idea, published in 1798 in "An Essay on the Principle of > Population", was that human population would always grow exponentially, > and that it would always push up against the limits of food production, > thus creating a permanent class of poor whose numbers could only be > checked by "misery" and "vice". > > His Law of Population is based on this simple observation: > > "Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the > seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has > been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to > rear them." > > Later, Charles Darwin would base his theory of natural selection on this > observation. He saw that a super abundance of progeny allows natural > selection to work so that only the fittest survive. > > Malthus wrote his essay in response to William Godwin, an outspoken > liberal of the day. Godwin wanted to abolish the aristocracy and > redistribute the wealth. He believed in the "perfectibility of man". As > a member of the landed elite, Malthus felt a need to address the > rabble-rouser Godwin and prove that even in a perfect society where the > working man received according to his needs, all benefits would soon be > wiped out by population growth. > > The poor man's "lack of moral restraint" would ensure that his family > would continue to grow until they ate him out of house and home. > Starvation and disease would then do the job of reducing the population > to a supportable size. > > Malthus made a big impression on the British upper classes (who had > access to concubines and prostitutes and hence no need for moral > restraint to curtail family size). Since the poor were destined to > continually breed themselves back into poverty anyway, there was no > point in improving their condition. > > Politicians seized on Malthus' theory to end subsidies for the poor ("a > shilling a week to every laborer for each child he has above three") and > pass the Poor Law of 1834 that forced those seeking relief into > workhouses designed to be as much like prisons as possible. It's no > wonder then that Friedrich Engels declared Malthus' Law of Population to > be the "most open declaration of war of the bourgeoisie upon the > proletariat". > > Karl Marx and Engels put their faith in technology and believed that > progress would continually expand agricultural production, mooting the > issue of population growth. While they thought Darwin's use of the Law > of Population to explain evolution had some validity, they insisted that > humans were exempt. Animals were only "collectors" of nature's bounty, > but humans were "producers" and masters of their own destiny. > > Indeed, Malthus might have earned more respect for his Law of Population > if he hadn't proposed it just at the moment when human production first > tapped into the coal seams and oil streams that fueled the industrial > expansion. It is only today, when those resources have peaked, that we > are revealed to be much more like the other animals than we thought - > "collectors" of ancient sunlight, our fossil fuel inheritance, and not > the all powerful "producers" we thought we were. > > As a progressive, I want to believe that humanity can control our > destiny. But as an ecologist, I have to accept the Law of Population. Is > there no way out? Yes there is. But it requires us to embrace what > Malthus called "vice". > > Malthus saw three ways to control population growth: abstinence, misery > and vice. Abstinence was too challenging for most. Misery included > starvation, disease and death. That left vice: a category that included > prostitution, abortion and infanticide, but also "promiscuous > intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed and > improper arts to conceal the consequence of irregular connexions". > > Blinders imposed by the church and centuries of violent repression of > women healers and midwives had so deeply branded contraception as an > "improper art" that even a revolutionary like Godwin could not advocate > it. He could only insist that redistribution of wealth would result in > more "moral restraint". Malthus found this laughable: > > "I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will > ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured > that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished ... the > best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a > contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the > savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But > towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress > whatever has hitherto been made." > > When the radical Francis Place publicly advocated birth control in the > 1820s, he was condemned for promoting vice by church, state and even his > fellow working men in the labor unions he helped to found. Nearly a > century later, Margaret Sanger finally opened her first birth-control > clinic in Brooklyn, NewYork, and contraception was only fully legalized > in the United States in 1965. The definition of "vice" evolved very > slowly. > > Malthus' list of vices included infanticide, which today stands well > apart from birth control, abortion, prostitution and homosexuality. And > yet, throughout history and prehistory, infanticide was probably the > most widely used method of curtailing population growth, mostly because > the contraception and abortion methods of the past were either > ineffective or dangerous to women. > > Before the fossil fuel era, the need to prevent famine often dictated > infanticide, especially female infanticide, which relieved population > pressure by reducing the number of breeding females. It is good to know > this bit of history, because it gives us the proper context for updating > the definition of "vice". > > Still, there are conservatives who would prefer to see famine and misery > rather than condone contraceptives, abortion, women's rights and > homosexuality. Among them is Pope Benedict, leader of the world's > largest religious organization, who has just condemned untold numbers of > Africans to death by opposing condoms for prevention of AIDS, because it > might lead to "vice". > > There are also still progressives who insist that population growth is > not a problem. They should go back and read Engels, who hated Malthus > and thought the idea of population outstripping resources was ludicrous, > but still said this: > > "There is, of course, the abstract possibility that the number of people > will become so great that limits will have to be set to their increase. > But if at some stage communist society finds itself obliged to regulate > the production of human beings, just as it has already come to regulate > the production of things, it will be precisely this society, and this > society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty ... it is for > the people in the communist society themselves to decide whether, when > and how this is to be done, and what means they wish to employ to the > purpose." > > We are those people, and many of us now understand that the real vices > are found in war, injustice and repression. Increasingly, we realize > that we must work together for humane and liberating solutions to the > problem of human overpopulation, as we build a new, non-growth, > steady-state economy that provides for all. > > _____ > > Kelpie Wilson is a freelance writer covering energy and environmental > issues. She is a contributing editor for Yoga Plus magazine and author > of Primal Tears (2005), a novel. An archive of her past articles is on > her Web site: http://www.kelpiewilson.com/ > > (c) 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. > > http://www.alternet.org/story/135518/ > > > http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com > http://www.ashisuto.co.jp > > > > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sat May 16 18:00:25 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 09:00:25 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Geithner-Summers Plan Message-ID: <4A0F5399.9030104@ashisuto.co.jp> Even Worse Than We Thought by Jeffrey Sachs, Huffington Post AlterNet (April 08 2009) Two weeks ago, I posted an article showing how the Geithner-Summers banking plan could potentially and unnecessarily transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from taxpayers to banks. The same basic arithmetic was later described by Joseph Stiglitz in the New York Times (April 1) and by Peyton Young in the Financial Times (April 1). In fact, the situation is even potentially more disastrous than we wrote. Insiders can easily game the system created by Geithner and Summers to cost up to a trillion dollars or more to the taxpayers. Here's how. Consider a toxic asset held by Citibank with a face value of $1 million, but with zero probability of any payout and therefore with a zero market value. An outside bidder would not pay anything for such an asset. All of the previous articles consider the case of true outside bidders. Suppose, however, that Citibank itself sets up a Citibank Public-Private Investment Fund (CPPIF) under the Geithner-Summers plan. The CPPIF will bid the full face value of $1 million for the worthless asset, because it can borrow $850,000 from the FDIC, and get $75,000 from the Treasury, to make the purchase! Citibank will only have to put in $75,000 of the total. Citibank thereby receives $1 million for the worthless asset, while the CPPIF ends up with an utterly worthless asset against $850.000 in debt to the FDIC. The CPPIF therefore quietly declares bankruptcy, while Citibank walks away with a cool $1 million. Citibank's net profit on the transaction is $925,000 (remember that the bank invested $75,000 in the CPPIF) and the taxpayers lose $925,000. Since the total of toxic assets in the banking system exceeds $1 trillion, and perhaps reaches two to three trillion dollars, the amount of potential rip-off in the Geithner-Summers plan is unconscionably large. The earlier criticisms of the Geithner-Summers plan showed that even outside bidders generally have the incentive to bid far too much for the toxic assets, since they too get a free ride from the government loans. But once we acknowledge the insider-bidding route, the potential to game the plan at the cost of the taxpayers becomes extraordinary. And the gaming of the system doesn't have to be as crude as Citibank setting up its own CPPIF. There are lots of ways that it can do this indirectly, for example, buying assets of other banks which in turn buy Citi's assets. Or other stakeholders in Citi, such as groups of bondholders and shareholders, could do the same. Several news stories suggest some grounding for these fears. Both Business Week and the Financial Times report that the banks themselves might be invited to bid for the toxic assets, which would seem to set up just the scam outline above. What is incredible is that lack of the most minimal transparency so far about the rules, risks, and procedures of this trillion-dollar plan. Also incredible is the apparent lack of any oversight by Congress, reinforcing the sense that the fix is in or that at best we are all sitting ducks. The sad part of all this is that there are now several much better ideas circulating among experts, but none of these seems to get the time of day from the Treasury. The best ideas are forms of corporate reorganization, in which a bank weighed down with toxic assets is divided into two banks - a "good bank" and a "bad bank" - with the bad bank left holding the toxic assets and the long-term debts, while owning the equity of the good bank. If the bad assets pay off better than is now feared, the bondholders get repaid and the current bank shares keep their value. If the bad assets in fact default heavily as is now expected, the bondholders and shareholders lose their investments. The key point of the good bank - bad bank plans is an orderly process to restore healthy banking functions (in the good bank) while divvying up the losses in a fair way among the banks' existing claimants. The taxpayer is not needed for that, except to cover the insured part of the banks' existing liabilities, specifically the banks' deposits and perhaps other short-term liabilities that are key to financial market liquidity. Cynics believe that the Geithner-Summers Plan is exactly what it seems: a naked grab of taxpayer money for Wall Street interests. Geithner and Summers argue that it's the least bad approach to a messy situation, in which we need to restore banking functions but don't have any perfect ways to do that. If they are serious about their justification, let them come forward to confront their critics and to explain to the American people why the other proposals are not being pursued. Let them explain the hidden and not-so-hidden risks to the American taxpayer of the plan that they have put forward. Let them explain why they are so intent on saving the banks' bondholders, even the long-term unsecured creditors who clearly knew they were taking market risks in buying Citibank bonds. Let them work with their critics to fashion a less risky and less costly plan. So far Geithner and Summers tell us that their plan is the only option, but without a word of further explanation as to why. (c) 2009 Huffington Post All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/135532/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Sat May 16 19:52:39 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 18:52:39 -0700 Subject: [A-List] 1/3 of all mortgaged US homes now worth less than the value of their loans Message-ID: US uptick doesn't mean crisis is over: top US economist FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil (AFP) - - A few recent glimmers of economic hope emerging in the United States do not mean the global crisis is over, a top economist who advises US President Barack Obama said Saturday. A few recent glimmers of economic hope emerging in the United States do not mean the global crisis is over ( AFP/File - Shawn Thew) The crisis "is certainly the worst that I have seen in my career," Martin Feldstein, a 69-year-old Harvard economist and member of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board told a world tourism conference in Brazil. "The evidence simply doesn't support" the conclusion that the United States is on its way to a sustained recovery, said the academic, who also served as an advisor under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He added that Europe's economy is "equally bad if not worse than in the US," and "Japan has been hit even harder." While some US observers and media in recent weeks have struck an optimistic tone on the back of a rebound in the stock market and positive results from big US banks, Feldstein said that was "temporary" because the bad news far outweighed the good. He stressed that a "one-time rise in GDP due to the stimulus package" implemented by Obama's administration was being extrapolated across the rest of the year. But he said that stimulus package, headlined as an 800-billion-dollar initiative spread over two or more years, in fact equated to just 300 billion dollars for this year. That, Feldstein said, was less than half the 750 billion he estimated had been sliced out of the US economy by dramatic stock market losses, home price declines and a drop in residential construction caused by the crisis. The package "is not strong enough, not targeted enough, to deal with these problems," he stated. Feldstein noted that one-third of all mortgaged US homes were now worth less than the value of their loans, suggesting more owners would simply walk away and the rate of foreclosures would rise, further depressing house prices and causing a spiral. "It is a very dangerous situation," Feldstein said. A recovery was possible in 2010, the professor advanced, but added: "Frankly, that is just a hope." He also warned of an impending slide in the value of the US dollar after the crisis because of the massive US trade deficit, a scenario that would drive up the trade-weighted value of the euro, making European exports more expensive. In the past three weeks, the bad news has piled up in the United States. Official data showed the economy shrank 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, with unemployment climbing towards what analysts predicted would be nearly 10 percent by year's end. Auto giants General Motors and Chrysler are in distress, and US airlines have reported a seven-percent drop in travel for the summer vacation period. US industrial production continued to fall in April, by 0.5 percent, after a 1.7 percent decline in March. US consumer prices dipped on an annual basis at the steepest pace in nearly 54 years. http://tinyurl.com/pzr8bf ___________________________________________________________ Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software. Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat May 16 21:15:49 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 23:15:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] India: Introspection Needed as Left Suffers Worst Setback in 20 Years Message-ID: Introspection needed as Left suffers worst setback in 20 years Handling of the Singur and Nandigram issues in West Bengal and internal squabbles in Kerala hurt the party Ruhi Tewari New Delhi: Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, had repeatedly said in the run-up to the 2009 polls that the outcome of these elections would be different from that of the one in 2004, indicating that the Left won?t back the Congress after the polls. The Left parties may stick to their stand, but Saturday?s results show that the Congress and allies don?t need their backing to form the next government. While the Congress-led coalition had won or was leading in 258 seats by 8pm on Saturday, the Left parties, led by the CPM?which won a record 61 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in 2004?suffered the worst electoral setback in over two decades. As of 8pm, the Left had won or was leading in only 24 seats, with the CPM being reduced to a fringe player in both its bastions?Kerala and West Bengal. In the elections held five years ago, the CPM alone had won 44 Lok Sabha seats and in Kerala, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front had won 18 of the state?s 20 Lok Sabha seats. The Left parties had won 35 of 42 seats from West Bengal. Back in 2004, some smart political strategizing by then CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet is widely believed to have brought the party and other Left allies to the national spotlight when it supported the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, from outside. The Left later withdrew support to the government in July over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Also See Redrawn Lines (Graphic) In West Bengal, where the CPM has ruled for at least three decades, its controversial handling of the Nandigram and Singur issues as well as a weak organizational base worked to the advantage of the rival Congress-Trinamool Congress combine, say analysts. In Kerala, the party, plagued by internal squabbles, failed to retain its hold over its traditional bastion. In 2007, violent local protests over acquiring land in Nandigram to build a chemical industries complex had led to at least 14 deaths. The government later shelved the plan. Tata Motors Ltd had to shift its proposed factory for the world?s cheapest car Nano to Gujarat from Singur in October following a campaign by Mamata Banerjee?s Trinamool Congress against land acquisition for the factory. ?The debacle in West Bengal is a reaction to the CPM?s land use policy in the state. Nandigram and Singur have been catalysts for this verdict and its traditional supporters have also voted against it. As far as Kerala is concerned, the party?s internal problems led to its defeat...,? said V. Krishna Ananth, Chennai-based political analyst and columnist. In West Bengal, the Left Front was taken by surprise. In Kolkata, its chairman Biman Bose said, ?We will discuss and investigate why this happened and take steps for correction. I think, there was a pro-Congress wave like in 1971. This time it worked in favour of the party. Also, the Congress might have been seen as the only party that could provide a stable government at the Centre.? CPM politburo member and Kerala?s home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the setback in Kerala was ?beyond what we had expected.? ?We had expected to win some eight seats. But the wave at the national level was in favour of the Congress-led government.? Meanwhile, a politburo statement read out by Karat said: ?The CPM and the Left parties have suffered a major setback in these elections. This necessitates a serious examination of the reasons for the party?s poor performance. The CPM will continue its cooperation with the non-Congress, non-BJP secular parties with whom we have been working.? Karat is likely to face a lot of flak for the party?s debacle in the polls. ?Karat knew the intensity of the crisis in the party but didn?t do much about it. He refused to address the party?s ideological issue in these states and failed to clearly lay down what the development model would be. Now, with the Congress getting a clear verdict, they won?t need the Left to form the government... Karat pushed the CPM into the parliamentary process and got busy with alliance making instead of solving its internal issues,? Ananth said. The CPM, on its part, denied that this verdict is a setback to Karat?s leadership. ?It is absolutely incorrect. There was a wave in favour of the Congress at the national level. There are other reasons at the state levels. We will examine the reasons for an introspection,? said S. Ramachandran Pillai, a senior politburo member of the party. The question that crops up now is where the CPM stands in terms of its political future. Some analysts say the CPM now has little option but to seriously review its party line. ?The Left got discredited due to their extraordinary efforts to form the Third Front,? said Sudha Pai, professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The CPM politburo is scheduled to meet on 18 May and the central committee a day later. An all-Left meet is expected to take place on Sunday morning. A meeting of the Third Front had also been called on 18 May but following poll reversal, its fate remains undecided. Meanwhile, other Left parties such as the Communist Party of India, or CPI, too, conceded poll defeat on Saturday, claiming they would all need to rethink their political strategy. ?All Left parties will sit together and discuss this verdict. we will review our tactics... Congress is now in a position to form the government so let them. We have sat in the opposition all our life and will continue to do so,? said A.B. Bardhan, general secretary, CPI. Graphics by Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint Liz Mathew, Ullekh N.P., Aveek Datta and Romita Datta contributed to this story. UPA won most seats from states of Third Front partners 16 May 2009, 2123 hrs IST, IANS NEW DELHI: The bulk of seats in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's stunning victory came mostly from the states where the Third Front partners had expected to do well and play kingmakers. The Congress gained mostly in the Left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala, Tamil Nadu where AIADMK-led grouping was hoping to do good, Andhra Pradesh where grand alliance of Telugu Desam Party's Chandrababu Naidu was expecting to cash in on an anti-incumbency factor and Uttar Pradesh where Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati was hoping to carry on her landslide victory in last assembly elections. The performance in Rajasthan, where the Congress bagged 19 out of the 25 seats, is in continuation of its victory in the November-December assembly elections. In West Bengal, the Congress in a strategic tie-up with Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee humbled the Left front picking 25 out of total 42 seats. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has been ruling the state for the last three decades. In Kerala, the home state of CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) took 16 out of 20 seats. Many attribute this victory to the rumblings among factions led by senior communist leaders, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Pinayari Vijayan supported by Karat. The incredible victory in Uttar Pradesh, where it was virtually non-existent with only nine MPs out of the total 80, the Congress won 21 seats and shocked the powerful regional satraps Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. "It was clearly the anti-incumbency against the Mayawati government and disillusionment with the Samajwadi Party of whose rule the state has no fond memories," says political analyst and Uttar Pradesh expert Sudha Pai. "Another reason is the focussed party building work that Rahul Gandhi did in the state; after long, the party was trying real hard and it paid off," she told reporters. In Tamil Nadu, all the parties sympathetic to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had to bite the dust as the UPA managed 28 out of 40 seats. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh it walked with 32 out of 42 seats. The party's performance in rural Andhra Pradesh areas is being attributed to its implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) where the Youth Congress members continuously monitored the scheme. The Congress also retained its rule in Andhra Pradesh. From pwright at prisonlegalnews.org Sat May 16 21:26:43 2009 From: pwright at prisonlegalnews.org (Paul Wright) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 23:26:43 -0400 Subject: [A-List] India: Introspection Needed as Left Suffers Worst Setbackin 20 Years In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d301c9d69f$4d7001a0$0900a8c0@PRISONLEGALNEWS.local> Interesting that this article ignores the armed left in India and the fact they called for a boycott of the elections and that they seem to be doing fairly well. 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 2400 NW 80th St. Suite 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: Saturday, May 16, 2009 11:16 PM To: A-List; Rad-Green Subject: [A-List] India: Introspection Needed as Left Suffers Worst Setbackin 20 Years Introspection needed as Left suffers worst setback in 20 years Handling of the Singur and Nandigram issues in West Bengal and internal squabbles in Kerala hurt the party Ruhi Tewari New Delhi: Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, had repeatedly said in the run-up to the 2009 polls that the outcome of these elections would be different from that of the one in 2004, indicating that the Left won't back the Congress after the polls. The Left parties may stick to their stand, but Saturday's results show that the Congress and allies don't need their backing to form the next government. While the Congress-led coalition had won or was leading in 258 seats by 8pm on Saturday, the Left parties, led by the CPM-which won a record 61 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in 2004-suffered the worst electoral setback in over two decades. As of 8pm, the Left had won or was leading in only 24 seats, with the CPM being reduced to a fringe player in both its bastions-Kerala and West Bengal. In the elections held five years ago, the CPM alone had won 44 Lok Sabha seats and in Kerala, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front had won 18 of the state's 20 Lok Sabha seats. The Left parties had won 35 of 42 seats from West Bengal. Back in 2004, some smart political strategizing by then CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet is widely believed to have brought the party and other Left allies to the national spotlight when it supported the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, from outside. The Left later withdrew support to the government in July over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Also See Redrawn Lines (Graphic) In West Bengal, where the CPM has ruled for at least three decades, its controversial handling of the Nandigram and Singur issues as well as a weak organizational base worked to the advantage of the rival Congress-Trinamool Congress combine, say analysts. In Kerala, the party, plagued by internal squabbles, failed to retain its hold over its traditional bastion. In 2007, violent local protests over acquiring land in Nandigram to build a chemical industries complex had led to at least 14 deaths. The government later shelved the plan. Tata Motors Ltd had to shift its proposed factory for the world's cheapest car Nano to Gujarat from Singur in October following a campaign by Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress against land acquisition for the factory. "The debacle in West Bengal is a reaction to the CPM's land use policy in the state. Nandigram and Singur have been catalysts for this verdict and its traditional supporters have also voted against it. As far as Kerala is concerned, the party's internal problems led to its defeat...," said V. Krishna Ananth, Chennai-based political analyst and columnist. In West Bengal, the Left Front was taken by surprise. In Kolkata, its chairman Biman Bose said, "We will discuss and investigate why this happened and take steps for correction. I think, there was a pro-Congress wave like in 1971. This time it worked in favour of the party. Also, the Congress might have been seen as the only party that could provide a stable government at the Centre." CPM politburo member and Kerala's home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the setback in Kerala was "beyond what we had expected." "We had expected to win some eight seats. But the wave at the national level was in favour of the Congress-led government." Meanwhile, a politburo statement read out by Karat said: "The CPM and the Left parties have suffered a major setback in these elections. This necessitates a serious examination of the reasons for the party's poor performance. The CPM will continue its cooperation with the non-Congress, non-BJP secular parties with whom we have been working." Karat is likely to face a lot of flak for the party's debacle in the polls. "Karat knew the intensity of the crisis in the party but didn't do much about it. He refused to address the party's ideological issue in these states and failed to clearly lay down what the development model would be. Now, with the Congress getting a clear verdict, they won't need the Left to form the government... Karat pushed the CPM into the parliamentary process and got busy with alliance making instead of solving its internal issues," Ananth said. The CPM, on its part, denied that this verdict is a setback to Karat's leadership. "It is absolutely incorrect. There was a wave in favour of the Congress at the national level. There are other reasons at the state levels. We will examine the reasons for an introspection," said S. Ramachandran Pillai, a senior politburo member of the party. The question that crops up now is where the CPM stands in terms of its political future. Some analysts say the CPM now has little option but to seriously review its party line. "The Left got discredited due to their extraordinary efforts to form the Third Front," said Sudha Pai, professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The CPM politburo is scheduled to meet on 18 May and the central committee a day later. An all-Left meet is expected to take place on Sunday morning. A meeting of the Third Front had also been called on 18 May but following poll reversal, its fate remains undecided. Meanwhile, other Left parties such as the Communist Party of India, or CPI, too, conceded poll defeat on Saturday, claiming they would all need to rethink their political strategy. "All Left parties will sit together and discuss this verdict. we will review our tactics... Congress is now in a position to form the government so let them. We have sat in the opposition all our life and will continue to do so," said A.B. Bardhan, general secretary, CPI. Graphics by Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint Liz Mathew, Ullekh N.P., Aveek Datta and Romita Datta contributed to this story. UPA won most seats from states of Third Front partners 16 May 2009, 2123 hrs IST, IANS NEW DELHI: The bulk of seats in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's stunning victory came mostly from the states where the Third Front partners had expected to do well and play kingmakers. The Congress gained mostly in the Left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala, Tamil Nadu where AIADMK-led grouping was hoping to do good, Andhra Pradesh where grand alliance of Telugu Desam Party's Chandrababu Naidu was expecting to cash in on an anti-incumbency factor and Uttar Pradesh where Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati was hoping to carry on her landslide victory in last assembly elections. The performance in Rajasthan, where the Congress bagged 19 out of the 25 seats, is in continuation of its victory in the November-December assembly elections. In West Bengal, the Congress in a strategic tie-up with Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee humbled the Left front picking 25 out of total 42 seats. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has been ruling the state for the last three decades. In Kerala, the home state of CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) took 16 out of 20 seats. Many attribute this victory to the rumblings among factions led by senior communist leaders, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Pinayari Vijayan supported by Karat. The incredible victory in Uttar Pradesh, where it was virtually non-existent with only nine MPs out of the total 80, the Congress won 21 seats and shocked the powerful regional satraps Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. "It was clearly the anti-incumbency against the Mayawati government and disillusionment with the Samajwadi Party of whose rule the state has no fond memories," says political analyst and Uttar Pradesh expert Sudha Pai. "Another reason is the focussed party building work that Rahul Gandhi did in the state; after long, the party was trying real hard and it paid off," she told reporters. In Tamil Nadu, all the parties sympathetic to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had to bite the dust as the UPA managed 28 out of 40 seats. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh it walked with 32 out of 42 seats. The party's performance in rural Andhra Pradesh areas is being attributed to its implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) where the Youth Congress members continuously monitored the scheme. The Congress also retained its rule in Andhra Pradesh. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat May 16 21:57:44 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 23:57:44 -0400 Subject: [A-List] India: Introspection Needed as Left Suffers Worst Setbackin 20 Years In-Reply-To: <00d301c9d69f$4d7001a0$0900a8c0@PRISONLEGALNEWS.local> References: <00d301c9d69f$4d7001a0$0900a8c0@PRISONLEGALNEWS.local> Message-ID: The average national turnout is said to be about 56-7%, about the same as the 2004 elections. Besides, the turnouts in West Bengal and Kerala are higher than the average: . The boycott apparently didn't make a dent. Yoshie On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Paul Wright wrote: > Interesting that this article ignores the armed left in India and the fact > they called for a boycott of the elections and that they seem to be doing > fairly well. > > 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 > 2400 NW 80th St. Suite 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: Saturday, May 16, 2009 11:16 PM > To: A-List; Rad-Green > Subject: [A-List] India: Introspection Needed as Left Suffers Worst > Setbackin 20 Years > > l> > Introspection needed as Left suffers worst setback in 20 years > Handling of the Singur and Nandigram issues in West Bengal and > internal squabbles in Kerala hurt the party > Ruhi Tewari > > New Delhi: Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of > India (Marxist), or CPM, had repeatedly said in the run-up to the 2009 > polls that the outcome of these elections would be different from that > of the one in 2004, indicating that the Left won't back the Congress > after the polls. > > The Left parties may stick to their stand, but Saturday's results show > that the Congress and allies don't need their backing to form the next > government. > > While the Congress-led coalition had won or was leading in 258 seats > by 8pm on Saturday, the Left parties, led by the CPM-which won a > record 61 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in 2004-suffered the worst > electoral setback in over two decades. > > As of 8pm, the Left had won or was leading in only 24 seats, with the > CPM being reduced to a fringe player in both its bastions-Kerala and > West Bengal. > > In the elections held five years ago, the CPM alone had won 44 Lok > Sabha seats and in Kerala, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front had won > 18 of the state's 20 Lok Sabha seats. The Left parties had won 35 of > 42 seats from West Bengal. > > Back in 2004, some smart political strategizing by then CPM general > secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet is widely believed to have brought > the party and other Left allies to the national spotlight when it > supported the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, from > outside. The Left later withdrew support to the government in July > over the Indo-US nuclear deal. > > Also See Redrawn Lines (Graphic) > DFArtVPF.pdf> > > In West Bengal, where the CPM has ruled for at least three decades, > its controversial handling of the Nandigram and Singur issues as well > as a weak organizational base worked to the advantage of the rival > Congress-Trinamool Congress combine, say analysts. In Kerala, the > party, plagued by internal squabbles, failed to retain its hold over > its traditional bastion. > > In 2007, violent local protests over acquiring land in Nandigram to > build a chemical industries complex had led to at least 14 deaths. The > government later shelved the plan. Tata Motors Ltd had to shift its > proposed factory for the world's cheapest car Nano to Gujarat from > Singur in October following a campaign by Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool > Congress against land acquisition for the factory. > > "The debacle in West Bengal is a reaction to the CPM's land use policy > in the state. Nandigram and Singur have been catalysts for this > verdict and its traditional supporters have also voted against it. As > far as Kerala is concerned, the party's internal problems led to its > defeat...," said V. Krishna Ananth, Chennai-based political analyst > and columnist. > In West Bengal, the Left Front was taken by surprise. In Kolkata, its > chairman Biman Bose said, "We will discuss and investigate why this > happened and take steps for correction. I think, there was a > pro-Congress wave like in 1971. This time it worked in favour of the > party. Also, the Congress might have been seen as the only party that > could provide a stable government at the Centre." > CPM politburo member and Kerala's home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan > said the setback in Kerala was "beyond what we had expected." "We had > expected to win some eight seats. But the wave at the national level > was in favour of the Congress-led government." > > Meanwhile, a politburo statement read out by Karat said: "The CPM and > the Left parties have suffered a major setback in these elections. > This necessitates a serious examination of the reasons for the party's > poor performance. The CPM will continue its cooperation with the > non-Congress, non-BJP secular parties with whom we have been working." > > Karat is likely to face a lot of flak for the party's debacle in the > polls. "Karat knew the intensity of the crisis in the party but didn't > do much about it. He refused to address the party's ideological issue > in these states and failed to clearly lay down what the development > model would be. Now, with the Congress getting a clear verdict, they > won't need the Left to form the government... Karat pushed the CPM > into the parliamentary process and got busy with alliance making > instead of solving its internal issues," Ananth said. > > The CPM, on its part, denied that this verdict is a setback to Karat's > leadership. "It is absolutely incorrect. There was a wave in favour of > the Congress at the national level. There are other reasons at the > state levels. We will examine the reasons for an introspection," said > S. Ramachandran Pillai, a senior politburo member of the party. > > The question that crops up now is where the CPM stands in terms of its > political future. Some analysts say the CPM now has little option but > to seriously review its party line. "The Left got discredited due to > their extraordinary efforts to form the Third Front," said Sudha Pai, > professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. > > The CPM politburo is scheduled to meet on 18 May and the central > committee a day later. An all-Left meet is expected to take place on > Sunday morning. A meeting of the Third Front had also been called on > 18 May but following poll reversal, its fate remains undecided. > > Meanwhile, other Left parties such as the Communist Party of India, or > CPI, too, conceded poll defeat on Saturday, claiming they would all > need to rethink their political strategy. "All Left parties will sit > together and discuss this verdict. we will review our tactics... > Congress is now in a position to form the government so let them. We > have sat in the opposition all our life and will continue to do so," > said A.B. Bardhan, general secretary, CPI. > > Graphics by Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint > Liz Mathew, Ullekh N.P., Aveek Datta and Romita Datta contributed to this > story. > > > UPA won most seats from states of Third Front partners > 16 May 2009, 2123 hrs IST, IANS > > NEW DELHI: The bulk of seats in the Congress-led United Progressive > Alliance's stunning victory came mostly from the states where the > Third Front partners had expected to do well and play kingmakers. > > The Congress gained mostly in the Left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala, > Tamil Nadu where AIADMK-led grouping was hoping to do good, Andhra > Pradesh where grand alliance of Telugu Desam Party's Chandrababu Naidu > was expecting to cash in on an anti-incumbency factor and Uttar > Pradesh where Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati was hoping to carry on > her landslide victory in last assembly elections. > > The performance in Rajasthan, where the Congress bagged 19 out of the > 25 seats, is in continuation of its victory in the November-December > assembly elections. > > In West Bengal, the Congress in a strategic tie-up with Trinamool > Congress' Mamata Banerjee humbled the Left front picking 25 out of > total 42 seats. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has been > ruling the state for the last three decades. > > In Kerala, the home state of CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat, > the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) took 16 out of 20 > seats. Many attribute this victory to the rumblings among factions led > by senior communist leaders, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and > Pinayari Vijayan supported by Karat. > > The incredible victory in Uttar Pradesh, where it was virtually > non-existent with only nine MPs out of the total 80, the Congress won > 21 seats and shocked the powerful regional satraps Mayawati and > Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. > > "It was clearly the anti-incumbency against the Mayawati government > and disillusionment with the Samajwadi Party of whose rule the state > has no fond memories," says political analyst and Uttar Pradesh expert > Sudha Pai. > > "Another reason is the focussed party building work that Rahul Gandhi > did in the state; after long, the party was trying real hard and it > paid off," she told reporters. > > In Tamil Nadu, all the parties sympathetic to the Liberation Tigers of > Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had to bite the dust as the UPA managed 28 out of > 40 seats. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh it walked with 32 out of 42 > seats. > > The party's performance in rural Andhra Pradesh areas is being > attributed to its implementation of the National Rural Employment > Guarantee Act (NREGA) where the Youth Congress members continuously > monitored the scheme. The Congress also retained its rule in Andhra > Pradesh. > > > > From suzannedk at gmail.com Sat May 16 23:22:09 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 07:22:09 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Dershowitz, Alan Message-ID: The imbalance of United States foreign policy is seldom plumbed by deep analytical discussion, I believe, because such examination would expose the fact that the Israeli Lobby is the foreign policy initiator of North America, Canada in lockstep with the United States. An interesting corrolary to that is that the E U foreign policy is in process of being forced to join the first two countries by overt and covert force. Webs of population control are being set up throughout Europe through the military and the economic reach of the United States and it's alter ego Israel. Only wide and deep discussions will illuminate that these are facts, not chimeras. Thefore the Israeli anti-criticism law being formulated in the U S and discussed in Brussels is natural next step in U S/Israel fascistic development world wide. There have been many diversionary events in the important EU countries that appose fascist actions. The agreement between Israel and the Netherlands days before the attack on Gaza is now being voided by Holland because of genocide until a two state solution is implimented. Next came the seeming 'attack' on the dutch queen's family on a national holiday celebrating her birth. Human Rights law looks in doubt. Now the US will step in magnanimously to help the Netherlands and the EU survive the fascistic Zionist Israelis attack on their laws. Another chess move in creating an even more dependant, weaker EU now that the U S generated fiscal depression is firmly established. The message is "You cannot do without us. Human Rights law, even the European Union itself will not survive without our power and might." This musing is titled "Dershowtiz,Alan" becuase he represents the metamorphosis of United States power, might and probity and leadership. The change is almost complete. The E U acceptance of the US as savior again will seal it. Suzanne suzannedek at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 2274 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090517/7d96166c/attachment.txt From ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com Sat May 16 20:48:20 2009 From: ioriwase at mail.mohawknationnews.com (Mohawk Nation News) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 22:48:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] MNN American Psychos Trying to Pervade the World Message-ID: <0123849d$39949$0d3d9502324769@xnote> AMERICAN PSYCHOS TRYING TO PERVADE THE WORLD MNN. May 16, 2009. A psychopath is chronically immoral and anti-social, covered by a mask of sanity and always searching for victims. U.S. movers and shakers who are trying to gain control of the world come from an elite background. Many go to the northeastern U.S. schools like Harvard, Princeton and Yale. They get jobs on Wall Street in Manhattan and Washington DC. By day they work in top jobs. They make their way up into behind-the-scenes positions where they carry out the will of those who are trying to set up the new world order system. This eventually includes forays into brutal violence and blood lust against defenseless unarmed people. Their bizarre initiations include killing innocent people at random. The end game is total control. Psychopaths have to look normal to cover up their vile nature and training. They have no morals or ethics which frees them to carry out genocide, starvation, spreading pandemics and desecrating the environment. When they are confronted with their crimes, they maintain a studied blandness. Psychopaths are possessive, greedy, have no deep feelings, no ties and are manipulators. They have no conscience. They start out with small simple crimes. This is not enough. They graduate to mass murder. It?s like a mad dog that has eaten human flesh. He stepped over the line and therefore has to be shot. Psychopaths like to talk about their activities, such as depopulating the world, creating one world government and one world religion, with them running it. There is no one world order without one world religion! Psychopaths want the world to know how vicious and sadistic they are to instill fear. Because they think the agenda is so advanced they now openly show their contempt for humanity. Henry Kissinger doesn?t mind being credited with the policy to rid the world of ?useless eaters?. Prince Philip boasts he wants to be reincarnated as a virus to kill off most of the people of the world. Maurice Strong of the Manitou Foundation, who is creating a one world religion, has close ties with both these men. It?s a cabal! It takes one to know one. To carry out these atrocities, recruiters carefully select psycho enforcers for their lack of empathy. What happened to the Hippocratic oath? Psychologists and medical personnel sat next to the Iraqi victims as they were being tortured by U.S. soldiers and specialists. In Abu Graib Prison the U.S. soldiers got a kick out of raping little boys, torturing and killing the prisoners. They even took pictures and films as souvenirs. [Did Cheney and Bush get their jollies looking at them?] The U.S. mistakenly thinks it still has a good reputation as humanitarians. At one time no one believed they could be such monsters. To most it is so heinous the mind cannot wrap itself around it. The attacks by the Canada Border Services Agency guards CBSA at Cornwall Ontario are getting progressively more vicious. These are a few of hundreds of recent assaults. Last June 2008 they grabbed two grandmothers and beat them. One had a heart attack. A mother of 7 was taken out to the parking lot and accosted by five CBSA guards. They tried to rape her. She fought them off. They charged her with assault. This case is still in court. One young pregnant mother was put under the x-ray machine for commercial tractor trailers. She lost the baby and had another that had some rare medical problems. Three young children were taken inside the customs building for hours and questioned. They were ages 18 months, 3 and 4. They would not let the parents communicate with them. The swarming technique being used by CBSA agents is when five or six surround a victim like a shark feeding frenzy. A superior on a cell phone stands nearby and instructs them. They have complete confidence that their superiors will support them, right up to the president and prime minister?s offices. Now these goons want guns in their hands! In the 1997 Somalia Inquiry Report, Canadian soldiers on a peacekeeping mission had made bets. The first one to kill a Somalian would get a bottle of wine. We see this same mentality at the border crossings, except that the Indigenous will be the targets. The border guards are the commandos who will try to hunt us down. MNN is publicizing CBSA routine brutality and racism because mainstream media won?t. The guards seem to be getting a kick out of the publicity in Indian country. It?s part of their psychopathology. Canada?s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, looks like the controlling maniac with an appetite for the jugular. He did not go to Harvard but has the U.S. cowboy mentality. These psychopaths want control no matter what. Their sadism trickles down from the top to the rank and file. Harper shows that ?studied? placid expression. He is surrounded by people who are more than willing to carry out ?the agenda?. Soon they will be marching around in military attire saluting him. American psychopaths are exporting their depravity from what was formerly called the School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia. Death squads were trained there to be adjuncts to the dictators that the U.S. had installed in South America. It is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation which still contravenes the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. is the new Babylon, a world super power that takes whatever it wants from anywhere. They don?t have the economic superiority, but do have the most lethal military. President Obama is following the Bush agenda. Some change, eh! Are we surprised? What is the public?s reaction? Denial and complacency! They pretend to misunderstand. When confronted these maniacs are trained to smile, just like any serial killer. Kahentinetha & Karakwine, MNN Mohawk Nation News, www.mohawknationnews.com kahentinetha2 at yahoo.com Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations by check or money order to ?MNN Mohawk Nation News?, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN ?BORDER? 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 Contact the following contagions: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, SQ1A UK; President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461; The Governor General of Canada, M. Michaelle Jean, 1 Rideau Drive, Ottawa info at gg.ca; Alain Jolicoeur, President, CBSA, Ottawa, ON K1A 0L8, 613-952-3200, 613-957-0612; General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Lance Markell, District Director, Northern Office ? Customs, St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa Ont. K1G 4K3, CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214, General inquiries CBSA-ASFC at canada.gc.ca; Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC 20528, Operator Number: 202-282-8000, Comment Line: 202-282-8495, Jayson P. Ahern, A/Commissioner, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229 Chief Counsel (202) 344-2990; Marco A. Lopez, Jr., Chief of Staff, U.S. Customs, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; House of Commons, Ottawa, harper.s at parl.gc.ca; Hon. Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons, Ottawa; Hon. Robert Douglas Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, 284 Wellington St., Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8; Attorney General of Ontario, 720 Bay St., 4th Floor, Toronto, ON M5G 2K1; Hon. Yvon Marcoux, Minister of Justice and A.G.O., Louis-Phillipe-Pigeon Bldg., 1200 Rue d l'Eglise, 9th Floor, St. Foy G1V 4M1; Hon. Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs, 10 Wellington St., Hull, Que. K1A 0H4 Strahl.c at parl.gc.ca; Premier Dalton McGuinty, Province of Ontario, Queens Park, Toronto ON; Premier Charest, Province of Quebec, Legislature, Quebec City; British High Commission, 80 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5K7; Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater St., 8th Floor Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1; United Nations, 405 E 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017; The Hague, Anna Paulownastraat, 103, 251 BBC, The Netherlands; Coalition for the International Criminal Court, c/o WFM, 708 3rd Ave., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10017 From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Sun May 17 07:17:37 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 22:17:37 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Big Food Is Copying Big Tobacco's Disinformation Tactics Message-ID: <4A100E71.2080601@ashisuto.co.jp> How Many Will Die This Time? by Fen Montaigne, Yale Environment 360 AlterNet (April 11 2009) Increasingly, the question of what we eat and how it affects our health is a subject that is important not just to those concerned about nutrition but to environmentalists. Kelly D Brownell, a psychologist who is director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, has been a leading researcher into America's obesity epidemic and its links to the practices of the food industry. Author of the 2004 book, Food Fight, Brownell has recently become interested in the connections between obesity, the environment, and hunger, believing that sustainably growing and producing more nutritious foods can help solve each of these challenges. Recently, Brownell and Kenneth E Warner - a prominent tobacco researcher who is Dean of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health - met at a conference and began discussing the similar legal, political, and business strategies traditionally employed by "Big Tobacco" and the tactics now being used by "Big Food". Struck by the common playbook that both industries have used and concerned about the public health impacts of industry actions, Brownell and Warner decided to explore the topic more deeply. The result was a paper published earlier this year in the health policy journal, the Milbank Quarterly: "The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?" As Brownell explained in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, many of the tactics currently being used by Big Food now mirror those used by US tobacco giants as they successfully fought off regulation for decades, thereby contributing to the deaths of millions of Americans. According to Brownell and Warner, the common strategies include dismissing as "junk science" peer-reviewed studies showing a link between their products and disease; paying scientists to produce pro-industry studies; sowing doubt in the public's mind about the harm caused by their products; intensive marketing to children and adolescents; frequently rolling out supposedly "safer" products and vowing to regulate their own industries; denying the addictive nature of their products; and lobbying with massive resources to thwart regulatory action. Fen Montaigne: Can you tell me about the genesis of the paper? Kelly Brownell: It came about as a result of a meeting I went to on cancer, where I met Ken Warner, an economist who's done a lot of interesting work on things like tobacco taxes. We talked about the similarities between food industry behavior now and tobacco industry behavior over the last four decades or so and it started to look as if there were a script or a playbook that industry was following. By any definition, the tobacco industry script had been deadly - and successful for them because they forestalled government action. They had convinced the public that tobacco wasn't as bad as it really was. They fought off lawsuits. They got government to delay many (actions). We simply didn't want the food industry to be able to get away with some of those same tactics. The public has become skeptical of food industry behavior and a great deal of concern has been raised about things like marketing to children, selling unhealthy foods in schools. That means the industry is at a crossroads. They can behave as tobacco did, which is lie about the science, distort the truth, and buy up the scientists. Or they can come face-to-face with the reality that some of their products are helping people and some are hurting, and we need to shift the balance. There are some differences in the industries. Tobacco was one product - cigarettes - and about half a dozen big companies that sold it. With food, there are hundreds of companies and many thousands of products. But the behavior of the industry shows some pretty striking similarities. FM: I'd like to have you take us through some of those. KB: Well, one is distorting the science and denying the health effects of their products. (Recently) a study was done showing that how close people lived to fast food restaurants predicted their likelihood of obesity. The study was really quite well done. So the National Restaurant Association then came out with their own statement that basically trashed the study and more or less called it junk science. Now, this is a perfect repeat of what tobacco did for many years. They said smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. There is not definitive evidence. There aren't good-enough studies. It's junk science. It's just the advocates out to get us. And then they denied that second-hand smoke was killing people. They denied that nicotine was addictive. You can go on and on and on. Well, so here comes a (food) study that's pretty persuasive. It certainly supports other studies showing a link between fast food consumption and obesity, and what did they do? They trashed the science. They deny it's the case. In all likelihood, they will pay scientists who they know to produce results favorable to them to disprove this finding. It's all part of the same script. FM: You gave another example in your paper of a study about obesity and consumption of sodas. How did the industry react to that? KB: The results couldn't have been more clear that the more sugared beverages you're consuming, the more likely you are to have weight problems, the higher your risk for diabetes, and the less likely you are to be eating a healthier diet. The day the study came out, the trade association for the beverage companies, the American Beverage Association, trashed the study, said it was biased, accused us of cherry-picking only the studies that were in support of our position. And this study was published in the American Journal of Public Health, a good peer-reviewed journal. So attacking it was the first strategy that they used. Then the next strategy they used is they went and they paid some scientists who have produced in the past studies that are favorable to industry positions. They go and they review the literature, and then they do a study that says, "Oh, what do you know? There's no link between soft drink intakes and these bad outcomes". Now, I think if I were them, I would say that's not how we're going to behave. When we hear studies that are contrary to our interests, we're going to say, "Well, we'll take this seriously and we'll do what we can to change our products and change our marketing, and we'll work with the scientists". But that's not what they're doing, for the most part. FM: You also pointed out the link between what big tobacco did and what big food is doing, trying to sow doubt and confusion in the public's mind. KB: What the tobacco industry and other industries have done, they realized that if you can instill just enough doubt or impugn the integrity of the people who produce the science or get people second-guessing, then people will say, "Well, we're not sure if this is the case, so we're not going to go through with a public policy. We're not going to sue the industry or come down hard on them for anything." And so it basically does enough to stall action. And I imagine that's what the food industry is seeking here. Again, the food industry has some players who are quite progressive and others who are less so. FM: Tell us about some of the other similar strategies between tobacco and food in terms of trying to keep selling their product. KB: One is the introduction of what the industry will call safer products. And the classic example in tobacco was the introduction of filtered cigarettes. Now, the food industry has done this a lot. They've introduced and reformulated products. In some cases, it's exactly what public health people have been calling for - take out some of the fat, take out some of the sugar, take out some of the salt. But sometimes, they take a little of these things out, but they make it sound as if they've taken a lot out. And so the health benefits that get promoted in the marketing aren't in concert with the actual benefits that have been achieved from reformulating their products. FM: You mention in your paper the example of a Kentucky Fried Chicken advertisement. KB: Right. Well, KFC is owned by a large parent company called Yum! Brands. And they own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and some other restaurants. They were very resistant early on to taking the trans fats out of their food and then they got sued by an advocacy organization, and it got to the point where competitors were starting to take out the trans fats and they looked pretty bad for not doing it. So then they did take out the trans fats reluctantly but started this campaign that inferred that you can now eat this chicken with impunity because the trans fats had been removed. There is one advertisement where the husband came in and the mother and children were sitting there in the counter. The husband looked at the chicken and the wife said, "Guess what?" in words to this effect, "KFC is now free of trans fats". And so, he lets out a yelp of glee and starts gorging on the chicken. And so, somebody could look at that advertisement and say, "Okay. Well now it doesn't have trans fats, it means it's okay to eat it". Well in fact, if you swap out trans fat for another kind of fat, there's no calorie advantage at all. It's better for your heart because it's a healthier fat, but there's no calorie advantage. I like the fact that they took out the trans fat and we need more of that kind of thing happening. But if they oversold the benefits, this could be an example of introducing what the industry could call a safer product but consumption patterns wouldn't lead it to actually be safer. FM: What about the similarities of Big Food hitting this theme of personal responsibility? KB: People believe that personal responsibility should be the way we address problems. I don't have any quarrel with that. It's probably not a bad place to start, but when this industry behaves in a way that undermines personal responsibility, then we've got problems and that's usually a place where people feel government intervention is warranted. So with tobacco, you had a clearly addictive substance. So, people would start when they were teenagers. Their ability to behave in a responsible way was being undermined by the marketing and of course the addictive nature of the product. So, that means government could step in and so what do we do? We pass clean air laws, we tax the heck out of cigarettes, we sue the tobacco industry. And society now accepts that as responsible behavior on the part of government because personal responsibility was being eroded. So the question is, in food, does that same set of conditions exist and does that warrant government response? Well, everybody comes down in a different place, but there certainly are similarities, including very heavy duty marketing of these products, especially to children. I don't want to say that personal responsibility is not important, because it certainly is. But in some cases we've decided that's not enough and then government gets involved. With tobacco, with drugs, with alcohol, with immunizations for children, with fluoride in the water, with mandatory airbags in cars, we've decided that if we're serious about these public health things, the government should be involved. In the food arena, a great example of this would be in New York City, where the health department has banned trans fats in restaurants. So if you go to New York now, you can't get trans fats in the restaurants. Now you could try to solve that problem of people eating trans fats, and having heart disease as a consequence of it, by personal responsibility. You could say, "Okay, well, let's educate people about trans fats". But it's a pretty hard concept to understand. Restaurants would have to label them. People would have to have options within restaurants, trans fat versus no trans fat. And you see you'd have this complex, burdensome system that would never work. And so, that would be an example where personal responsibility wouldn't get the job done but government intervention would. And so, in New York City, they've decided that we can't default to personal responsibility there, we need to take action. And that would be an example of a real success story from a public health point of view. FM: Of course, with tobacco very clearly there was an issue of addiction. But one interesting point you raised is the addiction triggers in substances like caffeine and sugar? KB: We don't know the answer yet to the question about whether food can trigger an addictive process in the brain. But it's a darn important question that we need to know. Some addiction researchers have started studying this, including a few animal researchers in the obesity field. And the studies are pretty amazing so far. There are animal studies in the labs and there are brain imaging studies in humans. And what's been studied the most is sugar, which looks like it has effects on the brain like classic substances of abuse. Now, the magnitude of the effect, the addictive effect isn't that strong, but it does seem to exist. Why do we need to know this? Well, people are eating in ways that would suggest that addiction might be a possibility. I mean, people know it's bad for them to overeat these kinds of foods. But people do this anyway at great peril to their health. And if these foods are behaving on the brain in an addictive way, if that happens, even to a small extent, it could have pretty important public health consequences. Caffeine becomes a real issue because caffeine is addictive. And some people drink a little of it through beverages, some people drink a lot of it, but so much of it is added to foods now, in things like energy drinks. And now people are putting it in candy bars and in potato chips and jelly beans and selling it as energy versions of things. There's a version of Butterfinger candy bar out now that's called Butterfinger Buzz. And it says on the back, "Not recommended for children". But I mean, who's buying these things? Caffeine, because it's so often coupled with calories, could become a real player here that if you're consuming calories in something that has caffeine in it and the caffeine keeps you coming back for more because of its mildly addictive nature then, again, you've got enough to create real issues of health. FM: You mentioned with big tobacco that there was a massive lobbying effort spending countless millions of dollars to stifle government action. Could you describe the parallels, the efforts to undermine state and local efforts to crack down on fast food and trans fats? KB: There's a remarkable history there. As you might imagine, the food industry is enormously powerful. And the industry speaks as individual players but also through their trade associations. They have their lobbyists in Washington. They have a lot of money to use for this purpose, and they're effective. But does this help public health? New York City was the first city to pass a regulation that restaurants had to post calories on their restaurant menus, or on menu boards in the case of fast food restaurants. How did the restaurant industry respond to this? Well, they responded by lobbying heavily against it, but that didn't work. Then sued New York City, and finally lost. And so, the regulation is now in effect. When it looked like legal action wasn't going to help them so much, then they tried to weaken the legislation. A lot of other places around the country are now passing menu labeling, so the industry has managed to get several legislators in Washington to introduce a national bill that would override anything that can be done at local levels by having a weak national standard. So, there's a script that tobacco followed that food is following. If there's no threat, you ignore it. But then when it becomes a reality, you sue. When that doesn't work, you preempt it nationally. FM: In order for the food industry not to go down the same deadly path that tobacco went down, could you go into what you might call a good playbook for the food industry? KB: One is to stop playing the personal responsibility card as much as they have. That doesn't mean that they have to ignore personal responsibility, but they can't act as if that's the only reason that people are eating and developing nutrition and weight problems. Lying about the science, distorting scientific findings, and trashing the messenger, which they very often do - I think that should stop. I believe they should also stop paying scientists to do studies that almost 100 percent of the time favor industry. Marketing unhealthy products to children should stop instantly. And we know what some of these products are that are hurting the health of children. FM: Can you list a few? KB: Well, sugared beverages would be at the top of the list. Fast foods would be second on that list. Sugared cereals, candy. There's just no reason at all to market those things to kids. It's not helping them, it's hurting them and it shouldn't be done. There are a number of other issues about responsible marketing practices: not overstating the health benefits, not implying that something is healthier than it really is, not marketing in ways that undermine the parental ability to moderate the health of their children. Most of all, they should reformulate their products and market the healthier versions as aggressively as possible, I think. FM: You say that it would be a trap to give the food industry the benefit of the doubt given their past behavior. Why? KB: Well, the tobacco history was so riddled with disaster and we gave them the benefit of the doubt and look at the millions of people that died as a consequence. Why are the motives of the food industry going to be any different? They want to sell as much as they can of their products. But on the other hand, the public is watching them now and government is watching them, plus some of them really may see that selling healthier products is in their best long-term interest. But it seems to me that defaulting to trusting the industry without any oversight is really a bad idea. And so, at the very least, we should have a set of conditions that we agree on that says, "If industry is to be proven trustworthy, if we're to grant them self-regulatory authority instead of government coming down on them, then they have to do these things". Like, for example, they have to work with the public health community to make business priorities. If they make self-regulatory promises like, "We're going to market less to kids", there has to be objective evaluation of that and there has to be some effect if they don't comply. (c) 2009 Yale Environment 360 All rights reserved. http://www.alternet.org/story/135965/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Sun May 17 14:10:49 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 13:10:49 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Pakistan president - 'Pakistanis had bin Laden, Americans lost him' Message-ID: In 1989, when UBL still worked for the US and NATO. The Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari brands the al-Qaeda leader-in-hiding, Osama bin Laden, a Washington operative who sought to topple Bhutto's government. "In fact, my wife [Benazir Bhutto] warned America about Osama bin Laden in 1989. She rung up George Bush senior and asked him: 'Are you trying to destabilize my government?' because he paid the then opposition USD 10 million to overthrow the first woman elected in the Islamic country. So we knew that he was your operator," Zardari stated in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press . Bhutto's widower claimed that Pakistani forces had arrested bin Laden around the same time and had handed him over to American forces who then lost him in Afghanistan mountains. In full: http://tinyurl.com/ok75wg ___________________________________________________________ Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software. Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com. From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:12:16 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:12:16 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Mozambiquans Question AFRICOM's True Purpose Message-ID: <88A08FB9895641B08422F059804123BE@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 10:19 AM Subject: [stopnato] Mozambiquans Question AFRICOM's True Purpose http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62734 Stars and Stripes May 17, 2009 General, on tour, says AFRICOM does not look to dominate By John Vandiver -For one audience member, the formation of AFRICOM was done to position the U.S. for controlling natural resources, particularly in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea in western Africa.... MAPUTO, Mozambique ? In an auditorium of academicians, diplomats and defense attaches, a bearded student took the microphone and went off on a monologue. Miguel Prista had a lot to get off his chest. During a question-and-answer session with Gen. William "Kip" Ward, the Portuguese-speaking Maputo resident let loose on his theories about the United States and its intentions with U.S. Africa Command. AFRICOM isn?t about building partnerships, but rather another means for U.S. to achieve global domination, Prista argued. Prista?s long speech and multipart question elicited a succinct response from Ward, the AFRICOM commander "That?s a quick one for me," Ward said. "We do not seek to dominate." At Politecnica University in Maputo, Ward was the guest speaker Thursday for a discussion on AFRICOM and what it means for Mozambique. But for some in the assembled crowd of roughly 175 people, AFRICOM and its military-to-military partnerships with Mozambique was of secondary interest. Rather, much of the focus from the audience centered on suspected hidden motives of the United States and its interest in Africa. During his visit in Maputo, Ward met with military and political leaders to discuss areas where the U.S. can support efforts of the military to build its security capacity. The general has been having similar discussions in the past week with leaders from other southeast African countries. .... For one audience member, the formation of AFRICOM was done to position the U.S. for controlling natural resources, particularly in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea in western Africa.... When there is security in places like the Gulf of Guinea, those resources also will be available on the global market, which in turn means more economic stability, Ward said. .... =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:13:17 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:13:17 -0400 Subject: [A-List] British Activists To Gather Million Signatures Against Afghan War Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: rwrozoff at yahoo.com To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 9:27 AM Subject: [stopnato] British Activists To Gather Million Signatures Against Afghan War http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=an&nid=328 The Frontier Post Agencies May 16, 2009 Protestors call for UK troops to leave Afghanistan Edinburgh - Anti-war protesters including actor David Hayman demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan but were moved on from demonstrating outside the US consulate in Edinburgh. The Scottish Afghan Society and Stop the War Coalition staged a protest but were blocked by police. Their campaign hopes to attract one million signatures so their petition can be passed on to Gordon Brown in the hope he will withdraw British troops. Mr Hayman, director of the charity Spirit Aid, is backing the campaign. He said: ?Afghanistan is a country that has not harmed us in any way. The longer the British troops are there the longer we are going to escalate the war.? =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE $9000/Month at Home. Learn how Part Time, online!. I made $5,827 last week.. Find out How. Part Time!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder. Yahoo! Groups Mom Power Kids, family & home Join the discussion Weight Management Group on Yahoo! Groups Join the challenge and lose weight.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:47:03 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:47:03 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Petras - US/Latin American relations Message-ID: US-Latin American Relations A Time of Rising Militarism, Protectionism and Pillage By James Petras Introduction May 14, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- One of the most striking aspect of contemporary US-Latin American relations is the profound divergence between the hopes, expectations and positive image of the Obama regime and the policies, strategies and practices which are being pursued. Many so-called progressive North American commentators and not a few Latin American writers have ignored the most elementary features of US foreign policy, and focused exclusively on the highly deceptive rhetoric of "change" and "new beginnings." A serious understanding of US foreign policy toward Latin America requires a discussion of the main objectives of the Obama regime, the global priorities of imperial policy in times of multiple wars and world depression. US tactics and strategy toward the region becomes relevant, only if we take account of the recent historical, economic and political changes in Latin America and the evolving political alignments. A realistic assessment of US policy by necessity must go beyond policy pronouncements and Washington's 'projection of power' to an analysis of its existing capabilities and the resources available to implement Obama's agenda for Latin America. In evaluating Washington's policy the key is to analyze its coherence and feasibility in light of its political diagnosis of Latin America. This provides a basis for determining the compatibility or conflict of interests between the two regions. A basic question arises: How do the Obama regime's policies, objectives, and available resources square with the development needs of different Latin American countries in a time of deepening world depression? To answer that question, requires we examine the recent policies and political alignments in Latin America. It would be utterly foolish to over or underestimate the degree of US "hegemony" or Latin American "autonomy," especially in light of major shifts in power relations over the past two decades, and continuing today. Latin America's relations with the US are decisively influenced by internal events, including class conflicts, which determine the correlation of political forces, as well as external events such as US intervention and outward expansion, and world market conditions. The shifts in Latin America's political-economic relations can be divided into distinct periods, which provide an overview of the relative degree of hegemony and autonomy with regard to the US empire. The Changing Contours of US-Latin American Relations: 1990-2009 Any "general overview" of US-Latin American relations is subject to exceptions and variations in particular country experiences, even as it highlight 'dominant trends' in the region. The first two decades from 1980-2000 establish certain parameters for recent policies particularly the conflicts and divergences of interests. The period from 1980-1999 was defined for Washington and Wall Street as the 'Golden Age' in US-Latin American relations. The regimes accepted and promoted US hegemony, following the precise terms of the IMF, the Washington Consensus and a US centered model of capital accumulation. This included the lifting of trade barriers, the privatization of public enterprises (including banks, oil wells, mines, factories and telecoms) and their subsequent denationalization or transfer to US and European multinational corporations (MNCs). The US and EU took over these public enterprises at exceptionally favorable prices and terms, which led to the massive transfer of profits, interest and 'rent' payments to the MNCs and provided them with extensive leverage over the entire financial/credit-system and access to local savings in the Latin American countries. On the political level, the incumbent regimes embraced and promoted the US sponsored free market ideology known as "neo-liberalism" and backed US diplomatic and political intervention in the region as well as overseas. The plunder of public treasuries and private savings by the MNCs and the resulting concentration of wealth and political power polarized society and precipitated major political economic crises. This led to popular upheavals throughout most of the region during the period from 2000-2004. Latin America witnessed the ousting of several US client regimes, serious widespread questioning of the free market ideology and a growing potential for radical structural changes. As a consequence of the new correlation of forces, US political power declined and its influence was largely confined to political and economic elites at the margins of governance and under political siege from mobilized movements and disaffected electorates. The 'third period' reflected 'hybrid regimes', which spoke to the populist demands and critiques of 'neo-liberalism' (empire-centered economic structures and policies) without actually reversing any of the unpopular structural/property legacies imposed by the earlier client regimes. The rise and consolidation of a wide range of highly differentiated 'center-left regimes' benefited from world economic conditions, especially high commodity prices, which facilitated social welfare programs and economic recovery as well as the relative 'decline' of US political power. This decline was intensified by the US involvement in a series of prolonged wars in the Middle East and South Asia and its 'global war on terror'. The 'third period' featured an increase in the relative autonomy of Latin America aided by huge windfall profits from exceptional prices and expanding markets in Asia, and from the regional political-economic initiatives of Venezuela's Chavez government. The end of the primary commodity boom and the emergence of a world-wide depression mark the beginning of the fourth period. Two contradictory phenomena impacted on US-Latin American relations. Because the US was the epicenter of the world economic crisis and its financial and investment institutions turned insolvent, finance and investment fled or were repatriated, weakening the US presence in Latin America and its economic leverage in a region with huge foreign reserves. Secondly, the over-extension of US military forces in other regions (Middle East/Asia/Eastern Europe) lessened its capacity for military intervention in Latin America. While developments in the world-economic and military situation opened opportunities to exercise greater Latin American autonomy, the decline of export markets, the drying up of credit markets and foreign capital inflows exposed the vulnerability of the 'center-left' regimes with their dependency on 'export strategies'. The contradictory features of the 'fourth period' shaped the framework for contemporary US-Latin American relations and define some of the key issues facing Latin American rulers and the Obama regime. Rising Militarism, Financial Protectionism and Declining Trade The policies of the Obama regime toward Latin America are negatively framed by its three top policy priorities. The Obama regime's foreign policy builds and expands the military-driven empire building of his predecessors. Contrary to the hopes and expectations of many of his progressive and leftist advocates of peace, Obama has staffed his regime with committed militarists, Zionists and Cold Warriors. The major difference between Obama and Bush's policy is the diplomatic language, which accompanies empire building and the scope and depth of military activity. Obama has adopted a rhetoric of 'reconciliation,' 'negotiation' and 'change' as opposed to Bush's overtly bellicose rhetoric of confrontation, even as Obama has accelerated and extended military activities beyond the Bush regime. A systematic analysis of the Obama regime's policies reveals the overriding emphasis on projecting military power as the main instrument for sustaining the empire throughout the world. South Asia The Obama regime has increased US military forces in Afghanistan by over 40% - by 21,000 troops added to the current 38,000 - and increased financing for doubling the size of the Afghan mercenary army and police to over 200,000. Washington has extended the field of warfare in Pakistan, escalated its bombing attacks in the Swat Valley on a daily basis and increased cross-border commando operations. The Obama regime has formally extended the US war-zone deeper into Pakistan territory and extended its reach into Pakistan intelligence institutions. Despite Obama's intense pressure on the European Union and its allies and clients around the world, few countries have pledged combat forces in support of Obama's military strategy. Just as during the Bush era, Obama unilaterally pronounces a major military escalation and then expects his allies to follow. The Obama military and intelligence apparatus has moved even more intrusively into Pakistani institutions with the clear intent to purge nationalist officers and select officials who will more aggressively repress the communities, organizations and leaders opposed to US intervention in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Iraq The contrast between Obama's diplomatic rhetoric of military withdrawal and military escalation is most blatant in the case of Iraq. The Obama regime has extended the time frame of US military occupation and increased funding for permanent military bases and related infrastructure. His military strategy envisions a massive mercenary Iraqi army and police force to control the population and repress any nationalist resistance. Obama will double the number of Iraqi mercenaries spread throughout the country under the Pentagon's command. Iran The most striking policy adopted by the Obama regime toward Iran is his adding new and even harsher sanctions to the existing economic embargo. Obama continues to threaten Iran with a pre-emptive military assault in line with the contingency war plans developed by top Pentagon officials held over from the Bush regime. In pursuit of this saber-rattling posture, Obama appointed two of the most bellicose Israeli-American ideologues, includng Dennis Ross, as chief emissary to Iran and Stuart Levey to the Treasury in charge of imposing economic sanctions. Washington is making a major diplomatic effort to isolate Iran, through negotiations with Syria, Russia and China. In the face of these 'facts on the ground' Obama's public rhetoric about offering Iran a 'new policy,' is blatant propaganda stunt. The massive US air and naval armada off the coast of Iran continues to threaten Teheran with a blockade or even massive air and naval strikes. The Obama regime continues to fund and train terrorist groups to infiltrate Iran from their bases in Iraq and Pakistan and to attack Iranian government facilities and officials. Israeli military threats to strike Iran are made more probable with the Obama regime's transfer of new military technology, including the most advanced anti-missile system and 'bunker-buster' bombs designed to destroy underground Iranian government facilities. Palestine/South Lebanon/Syria The Obama regime's military policy is clearly evidenced in its unconditional backing of Israel's murderous military assault on Gaza, its selective assassination of Palestinian activists in the West Bank and its threats against Hezbollah. The Obama regime, together with both houses of Congress, has backed every Israeli act of war- including its brutal economic blockade of Gaza and the systematic eviction of Palestinian residents in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Obama administration is deeply infested with prominent pro-Israel Zionists at all levels precluding any change in Washington's robust military ties even with the far right militarist Netanyahu-Lieberman regime. East Africa Obama's regime continues to pursue a confrontational policy toward Muslim Sudan by funding the armed separatists in South Darfur and by a recently reported air attack on a Sudanese military convoy. In the face of its failed military intervention in Somalia by its Ethiopian proxy, Washington has opted for a new Somali client coalition backed by African mercenaries from Uganda. Russia/Eastern Europe Under Obama, the provocative military encirclement of Russia continues via the recruitment of new client NATO 'members' among the former Soviet Republics and the building of bases on the very frontiers of Russia. Obama combines a double discourse of diplomatic conciliation while building new military bases, missile sites and advanced radar stations from Poland southward toward Ukraine and Georgia. Washington's 'diplomatic overtures' to Russia are driven by its logistical needs in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and especially its war preparations toward Iran. The Obama regime is demanding that Russia provide logistical support for the US/NATO Afghan-Pakistan war and occupation while demanding Russia cancel its sale of advanced missiles as well as its nuclear power plant contract agreement with Iran in exchange for US 'good will'... China Although the Obama regime is acutely aware of its dependence on China's continued financing of the US economic deficits, it has nevertheless engaged in a high risk naval confrontation in China's off shore economic zones. Recent Pentagon reports on Chinese military preparedness are laced with lurid Cold War rhetoric designed to inflate China's 'threat' to US dominance in Asia and its 'lack of transparency'. Once again, the Obama regime presents the double discourse of friendly diplomacy and aggressive militarist policies. China faces a US military encirclement along an arc of US bases from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Japan, to South Korea, as well as a new military doctrine labeling China a 'threat' to be 'contained' in Asia. Obama's Latin American Policy To decipher the real content of the Obama regime's policy to Latin America one needs to look at the foreign policy priorities, the allocations of financial resources and public policy commitments and ignore its inconsequential diplomatic rhetoric. The first major pronouncement, in line with its global military policies, was to militarize the US-Mexican frontier, allocating nearly one-half billion dollars in military and related aid to the right wing Calderon regime. The entire focus of White House policy toward the Mexican and Colombian regimes over the problem of narcotics and narco-violence is military -ignoring its socio-economic structural roots: Millions of young Mexican peasant and small farmers driven into bankruptcy, unemployment and poverty by the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA), created a large pool of recruits for the narco traffickers. The expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrant workers from the US and the new militarized borders has closed off a major escape for Mexican peasants fleeing destitution and crime. In contrast to the formation of the European Union, which provided tens or billions to the less competitive countries, like Spain, Greece, Portugal and Poland, entering the European Union, the US has provided Mexico with no compensatory funds to upgrade its productive competitiveness and provide needed employment for its people. The highly militarized Colombian regime, notorious for its violation of human rights, is currently the biggest recipient of US military aid in Latin America. Under Plan Colombia, the US financed counter-insurgency program, Bogota has received over 5 billion dollars, the most advanced military technology and thousands of American military advisers and sub-contracted mercenaries. The Obama's support for the right-wing Colombian regime is his response to the emergence of democratically elected populist and radical governments in Ecuador and Venezuela. Obama's policies toward Latin America are driven by his extension of the military defense/priorities of the Bush Administration, including the economic embargo of Cuba and its virulent hostility toward Venezuelan nationalism. There are no new economic initiatives. Beyond the rhetorical support for free trade, Obama upholds past quotas and tariffs on more competitive imports from Brazil, even adding new protectionist measures against Mexican trucks and truck drivers. Obama's relentless pursuit of military-driven empire building while in the midst of an ongoing and deepening domestic economic depression forms the basis for understanding Washington's contemporary relation with Latin America today. His regime's military approach to Latin America is reflected in his inability or unwillingness to allocate economic resources and underscores his concern to sustain two major US clients, Colombia and Mexico through military aid programs. Obama's limited interest and sparse commitment of economic resources to Latin America reflects the very low foreign policy priority it has in the current White House. Latin America is a fifth level priority after the US domestic economic depression, the Middle East and South Asian wars, coordinating economic policies with the European Union and formulating economic strategies and military relations with Russia and China. With these priorities, the Obama regime has little time, interest, or programmatic offerings to help Latin America cope with the onset of the economic recession. At the most basic level the Obama regime is following a three-fold strategy of (1) retaining support from rightist regimes (Colombia, Mexico and Peru); (2) increasing influence on 'centrist regimes' (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay); and (3) isolating and weakening leftists and populist governments (Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua). What is most striking about the supposedly "progressive" Obama regime's policy for Latin America are the continuities with the previous reactionary Bush administration in almost all strategic areas. These include: (1)Latin America's very low priority in US global policy; (2)The US emphasis on military ("security") drug enforcement collaboration over any long term socio-economic poverty alleviation and drug addiction treatment programs; (3)Its close collaboration with the most rightwing regimes in the region (Mexico and Colombia); (4)The continuation of the US economic embargo of Cuba, despite the loss of its last two Latin American backers; (5)Obama's double discourse of talking free markets while practicing protectionism; (6)The US financing and strengthening the role of the IMF as an instrument of imperial expansion; (7)The US policy of driving a wedge between 'centrist regimes' (Lula in Brazil, Fernandez in Argentina, Vasquez in Uruguay and Bachelet in Chile) and 'left and center-left nationalist regimes', (Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador and Ortega in Nicaragua) and (8)Its support for separatist regional elites' actions to destabilize center-left governments operating from their traditional far right-wing bases in Sta Cruz (Bolivia), Guayaqul (Ecuador) and Maracaibo (Venezuela). In other words the Obama regime has embraced overall the strategic agenda of the Bush Administration essentially intact, while making several secondary changes having to do with adaptations based on the decline of US power. In addition, Obama has facilitated a few major negative changes, which go further than the Bush administration in harming Latin America's financial and trading position. While reiterating the anachronistic demands for Cuba to convert to capitalism (dubbed a "democratic transition") as a condition for ending the US embargo, Obama has slightly eased travel restrictions for US-based Cuban families to visit relatives in Cuba and send them money. The State Department relies less on confrontational diplomatic language and has made overt gestures to centrist regimes, including White House meetings with Lula Da Silva (March 2009) and Vice President Biden's attendance at a meeting with centrist Presidents (March 27-28, 2009) in Chile. Obama's resort to "soft power", which is not backed by any new economic initiatives and which continues the basic policies of his predecessor has not gained him new allies. However, there is one set of 'changes' resulting directly and indirectly from the US depression and Obama's gigantic deficit financing, which has a very negative impact on Latin America's economic recovery. The Obama regime is absorbing most of the Hemisphere's credit to aid the financial bailout. This policy makes it difficult for Latin American exporters to finance their sales. Moreover, the Obama regime's demands on the financial sector to expand their capital reserves and to direct their lending to the American domestic market has led banks to repatriate capital from their Latin American subsidiaries at the expense of Latin American borrowers - extending and deepening the recession in Latin America. The Obama regime's diplomatic and linguistic changes and affirmation of free trade have little substance: the White House continues the double discourse of talking up "free trade" while introducing a new and more virulent financial protectionism. In addition to the twenty billion dollar subsidies to agricultural exporters, the Democrats have pushed the "Buy American" provisions in Federal procurement policy and multi billion dollar subsidies to the auto industry. Latin America faces a rising tide of US protectionism as the Obama regime reacts to the domestic economic depression by forcing Latin America to seek new trading partners, to protect their internal markets and to seek new sources for trade and credit. Latin America Faces the World Crisis Throughout Latin America, the economic depression is wrecking havoc on the economy, the labor market, trade, credit and investment. All the major countries in the region are headed toward negative growth, and experiencing double digit unemployment, rising levels of poverty and mass protests. In Brazil in late March and early April, a coalition of trade unions, urban social movements and the rural landless workers movement convoked large scale demonstrations - including participation from the union confederation, CUT, which is usually allied with Lula`s Workers Party. Unemployment rates in Brazil have risen sharply, exceeding 10%, as massive lay-offs hit the auto and other metallurgical industries. In Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, strikes and protests have begun to spread in protest over rising unemployment, the increase of bankruptcies among exporters facing world-wide decline in demand and unable to secure financing. The more industrialized Latin American countries, whose economies are more integrated into world markets and have followed an export growth strategy, are the ones most adversely affected by the world depression. This includes Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. In addition, countries dependent on overseas remittances and tourism, like Ecuador, the Central American and Caribbean countries and even Mexico, with their 'open' economies, are badly hit by world recession. While the US financial collapse did not have a major and immediate impact on Latin America- largely because the earlier financial crashes in Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador and Chile led their governments to impose limits on speculation - the indirect results of the US crash, especially with regard to the credit freeze and the decline of world trade, has brought down productive sectors across the board. By mid-2009, manufacturing, mining, services and agriculture, in the private and public sector were firmly in the grip of a recession. The vulnerability of Latin America to the world crises is a direct result of the structure of production and the development strategies adopted the region. Following the 'neo-liberal' or empire-centered 'restructuring' of the economies which took place between the mid-1970s through the 1990s, the economic profile of Latin America was characterized by a weak state sector due to privatization of all key productive sectors. The de-nationalization of strategic financial, credit, trading and mining sectors increased vulnerability as did the highly concentrated income and property ownership held mainly by small foreign and domestic elite. These characteristics were further exacerbated by the primary commodity boom between early 2003 until the middle of 2008. The regimes' further shift toward an export strategy relying on primary products set the stage for a crash. As a result of its economic structure Latin America was extremely vulnerable to the decision taken by US and EU policy makers in charge of key economic sectors. De-nationalization denied the state the necessary levers to meet the crisis by reversing the direction of the economy. Structural changes imposed by the IMF/World Bank and its domestic 'neo-liberal' ruling class partners 'opened' the countries to the full blast of the world depression while dismantling the very state institutions which could have protected the economy or at least avoided the worst effects of the crisis. Privatization led to the concentration of income, lessened local demand and heightened dependence on export markets while depriving the state of levers to control investment and savings, which could counteract the decline of overseas inflows of capital and the collapse of its overseas markets. Denationalization facilitated the outflow of capital especially in the financial sector, deepened the credit crises and adversely affected the balance of payments. Foreign ownership made Latin American countries subject to strategic economic decisions made by overseas economic elites looking at the costs and benefits to their economic empires. For example, in Brazil the closing of US-owned auto factories and the mass firings of workers are based on 'global market' cost calculations, totally divorced from the needs of the Brazilian labor market. The 'export strategy' was dependent on the state subsidizing the expansion of agro-business plantations producing staples for export markets. This came at the expense of small farmers, landless peasants and rural workers, weakening the domestic market as an alternative to a collapsing overseas markets, increasing dependence on food imports and undermining food security. Export strategies depend on holding down labor costs, wages and salaries, thus weakening domestic demand and making employment dependent on the fluctuations of overseas demand. Specialized production in a vast complex international division of labor is central to the multinational corporation. This has dramatically reduced the national diversification of industry and integral manufacturing where all components of a product are produced within a single geographic region. Under the current division of labor, a Brazilian manufacturer of car brakes is totally dependent on external demand determined by the MNC. The strategic disadvantages of this 'specialization' in a global capitalist chain of production have become strikingly evident in this depression. Despite these deep structural weaknesses, inherited from previous regimes, the current center-left regimes in Latin American have not moved toward any structural changes to decrease their economic vulnerabilities, with the partial exception of Chavez's Venezuela. The March 2009 summit of self-styled 'third way' regimes (plus the Obama-Biden and British Labor governments) met in Santiago, Chile where they studiously avoided even mentioning the flawed internal structures which have brought on the economic crises and promise to deepen it. The consensus proposals of the "third way" regimes repeated anachronistic appeals for greater capital flows divorced from reality of the current crises. They called on the US, EU and Japan to resurrect collapsing markets and to promote trade. Specifically the Santiago meeting called for increased funding for the Inter American Development Bank (IDB, BID in Spanish), and encouraged the G20 leaders to promote stimulus packages and to pledge against protectionism. They called on Latin American regimes to increase spending and liquidity, to lower interest rates and to prop up, financial institutions and promote exporters. The center-left regimes meeting in Santiago made no mention of plans to increase domestic demand through intervention in the labor market by preventing industrialists from firing workers. They did not mention increasing the minimum wage. They avoided any discussion on increasing demand in the rural areas through income generating agrarian reforms. They did not consider establishing publicly funded import substitution industrialization, which could generate employment for workers dismissed from export sectors. In the face of rising food prices, no provisions were proposed to subsidize low income families, the unemployed, children and pensioners on fixed income. The center-left regimes' proposals demonstrated high structural rigidity and their incapacity to break with failed strategies tied to the powerful agro-mineral export ruling class. Instead their proposals reaffirm their dependence on the 'expansionary' stimulus programs of the ruling classes in the US and Europe. Their repeated calls for 'free trade' and appeals to avoid 'protectionism' fell on deaf ears as all the imperial countries follow a dual policy of promoting free trade for their dynamic overseas multinationals and protectionism for their financial and troubled manufacturing sectors at home. While eschewing any structural domestic changes that would favor unemployed workers, peasants, public employees and small businesses, they persist in following policies favoring the bankers, export elites and multi-national corporations. The main economic focus of Latin America's center-left regimes is not internal reform; it is the pursuit of new overseas markets and investors. In early April, Latin American leaders and their business elite met with their Arab counterparts in Qatar to expand investments and trade through joint ventures. Similar missions to China, Russia and Japan have led to investments almost exclusively in capital intensive extractive industries (petroleum and minerals) and mechanized export agriculture. Inter-regional trade via MERCOSUR has been highly asymmetrical as evidenced by Argentina's $4 billion dollar trade deficit with Brazil. The center-left is structurally incapable of recognizing that the world depression has in large part undermined the 'export strategy'; that the elites cannot overcome their internal contradictions and class constraints by 'exporting' their way to economic recovery. The search for new markets and investors in Asia and Middle East may provide a limited boost to the export enclaves but they will have little or no impact on the industry, service and related sectors, which employ the mass of workers and employees. Moreover, the Middle East and Asian countries are in serious crises as trade (both imports and exports), manufacturing and employment decline. Moreover China has opted for a vast economic stimulus plan based on increasing domestic demand. Asia can provide Latin American regimes with little relief from the crises. The one country absent from the Santiago meeting of the center-left regimes was Venezuela, in part because President Chavez has pursued an alternative economic strategy to the world depression. Chavez strategy includes the nationalization of key economic sectors like and oil and gas, which increases state revenue; protection of strategic social sectors/food processing and distribution sectors; and the expansion of agrarian reform to increase local production of food. The government has a program of subsidized food prices, a 20% increase in the minimum wage to cushion the effects of inflation and public spending on labor intensive infrastructure projects which has resulted in a drop in unemployment with the creation of 280,000 new jobs in Jan-Feb 2009. Chavez is pursuing a radical Keynesian program, which depends on large scale public investments to expand the domestic market and social subsidies targeting a large swath of the lower classes. His state investment policy relies on the 'cooperation' of the still-dominant private sector, especially finance, construction, agro-mining and manufacturing, either via financial incentives and state contracts or through threats of intervention or nationalization. Chavez' domestic structural reforms are complemented by his promotion of regional political-economic pacts, like PETROCARIBE and ALBA, with Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and several Caribbean and Central American states. He is counting on the growing financial and investment agreements with China, Middle East, especially Iran, and Russia, particularly in joint ventures in the petroleum and mining sectors. While Chavez' strategy represents a clear break with and alternative to the center-left 'export-elite' centered approach, it still confronts a series of serious contradictions. Venezuela is over-dependent on a single export (petroleum) for 75% of its foreign exchange earnings and a single market (the US). Secondly it is rapidly depleting its foreign reserves. Thirdly, its efforts to promote regional integration have not prospered as the principle countries in Latin America look toward the G20 for salvation. State intervention and nationalization have increased national leverage over the economy but has not confronted the mal-distribution of income, property and power. As a result, a wave of worker/employee strikes in education, mining, smelting and manufacturing have hit the economy. Equally serious a 30% rate of inflation has eroded buying power for those with fixed incomes and salaries undermining recent increases in the minimum wage. Increases in the price of foodstuffs, over 90% of which are imported, adversely affects the balance of payments. The immediate future could pose a threat to the social stability of the Venezuela. Latin America and the Deepening Depression The participation of several major Latin American countries in the G20 meeting in London, April 2, 2009, and the subsequent agreements reveal the political bankruptcy of the current political leadership. The declaration of a major new "stimulus" package was belied by the fact that most of the funds cited ($1.1 trillion dollars) were already allocated before the meeting and would have no effect. The actual amount of 'new money' was only a "fraction" ($250 billion dollars) and mostly geared to rescuing the financial sector. The G20 solemn agreement to oppose protectionist legislation was belied by an OCED report that 17 of the 20 countries have recently adopted measures protecting local industries and restricting overseas financing. The biggest winner at the G20 was the IMF, which was promised an additional $500 billion dollars to provide credit lines and financing. Given the US-EU dominance of the IMF and given its past history of imposing restrictive conditions favoring the imperial countries, the strengthening of the IMF poses a major obstacle to any progressive Latin American recovery. The high expectations of Latin America's center/left and rightist regimes that G20 would provide a meaningful stimulus were dashed. On the left, Fidel Castro and like-minded allies in Latin America cite China as an alternative market and investment partner. Yet China's overseas investments are almost always directed to the extractive export sectors (minerals, petrol) and, to a lesser degree, agriculture. As a result, Chinese investment in Latin America has created few jobs while favoring sectors that pollute the environment. Latin America's export profile with China is reduced to a primary goods monoculture, highly vulnerable to the fluctuations of world prices. Moreover, China's trade agreements with Latin America include the import of Chinese manufactured good produced by non-union, super-exploited workers which undermines any recovery of Latin America's manufacturing sector. Latin American leaders, who look to China to pull them out of the depression, are committed to a neo-colonial style recovery based on a raw material export model. Likewise, the turn to Russia as a new market and stimulus is a highly dubious proposition, given Russia's petrol-gas dependent economy, its lack of competitive industries and above all its deepening depression with an economic decline of over 7% for 2009. The Latin American leaders' search for a new stimulus package from the US and EU or new trade alternatives with China and Russia are desperate efforts to save the failing elite export model. The idea promoted by Brazil that since the imperial countries caused the world depression, they should provide the solution, is a non-sequitor, especially in light of their incapacity to stimulate their own economies. The US promotion of the IMF is directed toward undermining any progressive Latin American policies and independent regimes, and not helping them recover from the crisis. Conclusion Because of the Obama regime's profound and costly commitment to military-driven empire building and the multi- trillion dollar refinancing of its banking sector (while backing credit-financing protectionism), Latin America's ruling classes cannot expect any "stimulus package" from US. The deep political divisions between the US and Latin America (and between the classes within Latin America), divergent national and class strategies preclude any 'regional strategy'. Even among the left nationalist regimes, apart from some limited complementary initiatives among the ALBA countries, no regional plan exists. In this regard it is a serious mistake to write or speak about a "Latin American" problem, or initiative. What we can observe today is a generalized breakdown of the export-driven model and divergent social responses, between income protecting policies of Venezuela and export subsidy policies of Brazil, Argentina and Chile, Peru and Colombia. Throughout the recession, these center-left regimes have demonstrated a high degree of structural rigidity, making no effort to deepen and expand the domestic market and public investment, let alone nationalize bankrupt enterprises. The crisis highlights the process of de-globalization and the increasing importance of the nation state. The deepening economic crisis adversely affects incumbent regimes, whether they are center-left or right, and strengthens their opposition. In Argentina the right and far-right have dominated the streets, with a growing power base in the 'interior' among the Argentine agrarian elite and the middle class in Buenos Aires. The progressive trade union, CTA, which has organized strikes and protests, is not connected with any new left alternative political organization. Brazil has witnessed similar protests by social movements and trade unions against rising unemployment of over 10% and the decline in export-oriented industries. But the principle political beneficiary of the declining popularity of Lula's self-styled "Worker's Party" is the Right. In contrast, the center-left will benefit where rightist regimes are currently in power - namely Mexico, Colombia and Peru. But as is the case elsewhere, the mass movements lack an organized political response to a collapsing capitalism. Moreover neither Cuba nor Venezuela offers a 'model' for the rest of Latin America. The former is highly dependent on a vulnerable tourist economy while the latter is a petrol economy. Given the systemic collapse of capitalism, these countries will need to move beyond 'piecemeal reforms'(such as Chavez food subsidies) and piecemeal nationalizations and toward the socialization of the financial, trade and manufacturing sectors. Mass protests, general strikes, and other forms of social unrest are beginning to manifest themselves throughout the continent. No doubt the US will intensify its support for rightist movements in opposition and its existing rightist clients in power. US 'hegemony' over the Latin American elite is still strong even as it is virtually non-existent among the mass organizations in civil society. Given the overall militarist-protectionist posture of the Obama regime, we can expect intervention in the form of covert operations as class struggle escalates and moves toward a socialist transformation. From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:49:34 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:49:34 -0400 Subject: [A-List] McChrystal Shift Signals Intensified Afghan Counterinsurgency War Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:49 PM Subject: [stopnato] McChrystal Shift Signals Intensified Afghan Counterinsurgency War http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/yazarDetay.do?haberno=175500 Zaman (Turkey) May 17, 2009 The significance of a military appointment Fikret Ertan -With the emphasis more on special operations, the war in Afghanistan may become a very significant theater of modern warfare, where special operations may decide the outcome. If that happens, a new chapter will certainly open in modern warfare for sure. That is why Lt. Gen. McChrystal's appointment is so significant. The US's war effort in Afghanistan is at a turning point. As more troops are on their way to bolster the war effort, the Pentagon is also on the verge of adopting new approaches, attitudes and tactics to the war. In a shocking move to invigorate the war effort in Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced this week the dismissal of the top US and NATO-ISAF commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan. He selected Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take over. ?With the new strategy, and with some changes and adjustments in our military approach, my hope would be that by the end of this year we will begin to see a change in momentum,? Gates told the House of Representatives when explaining the dismissal of Gen. McKiernan. What Gates meant by ?adjustments in our military? is, of course, to do with the method of conduct of the war in Afghanistan. The US Army has been fighting the insurgency in this country on a conventional basis with some degree of special operations. The emphasis, of course, has been on the conventional methods of capturing and holding territory and trying to reduce support for the insurgents from Pakistan. This has been the Pentagon policy in general terms. However, with the designation of a rather different kind of general there is no doubt that the emphasis will change toward unconventional warfare, meaning special operations campaigns along with the conventional ones. This fact is already evident from the designation of Lt. Gen. McChrystal, who is above all a special operations officer, to command the US as well as NATO forces in the very near future. Gen. McChrystal, who has spent most of his military career in various special operation forces, including the Army Rangers, commanded the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for five years, serving first as the commanding general of the JSOC from September 2003 to February 2006, and then as commander of the JSOC Command Forward, from February 2006 to August 2008. Nominally assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., he spent most of his time in Afghanistan, at the US Central Command's forward headquarters in Qatar and in Iraq. As the chief of what some call ?the most secretive force in the US military,? McChrystal maintained a pretty low profile until June 2006, when his forces eliminated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the infamous leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent leaders and operatives, thus paving the way for the demise of most militant insurgent groups, which in turn led to a significant decrease in violence. According to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, beginning in late spring 2007, the JSOC and the US intelligence agencies launched a new series of deadly covert operations that coincided with the troop surge of 2007. Woodward reported that McChrystal employed ?collaborative warfare? to integrate a range of tools from signal intercepts to human intelligence to find, target and kill insurgents. Woodward's sources claimed that it was the JSOC, not the much-praised troop surge that was responsible for the fall in violence in 2007-08. Asked for comment, President George W. Bush said simply, ?The JSOC is awesome.? Woodward's claim and Bush's characterization of the JSOC may well explain the drop in violence in Iraq better than the ?surge factor? by itself. Of course, we will not be able to corroborate this fully for some time to come and maybe never because most of the information in this regard will stay classified forever. Nevertheless, Gate's choice of Lt. Gen. McChrystal as the top future military man in Afghanistan, with his background in Iraq, tells us that special operations will play a much more robust and decisive role in Afghanistan in the coming months. With the emphasis more on special operations, the war in Afghanistan may become a very significant theater of modern warfare, where special operations may decide the outcome. If that happens, a new chapter will certainly open in modern warfare for sure. That is why Lt. Gen. McChrystal's appointment is so significant. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE I make $450 per Day. Find out How. Part Time!. I made $5,827 last week.. Find out How. Part Time!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder. Yahoo! Groups Auto Enthusiast Zone Passionate about cars? Check out the Auto Enthusiast Zone. Yahoo! Groups Mom Power Community just for Moms Join the discussion. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:51:59 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:51:59 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Australian Defence White Paper: Preparing For War Message-ID: <41B7F50D1AD14F37AC902466ECA4BDE1@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:14 AM Subject: [stopnato] Australian Defence White Paper: Preparing For War http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2009/1410/01-preparing-for-war.html The Guardian (Australia) May 13, 2009 Preparing for War - Defence White Paper Anna Pha The Defence White Paper released at the beginning of May outlines the Rudd Labor government?s plans for a huge and relatively rapid build-up in Australia?s military capability like nothing seen since the Second World War. The nature of this massive increase in combat power, military infrastructure and personnel suggests that the government is preparing for participation in a major war. Military spending has been insulated from the tough budgetary measures being imposed on health, education, other vital social services and genuine environmental measures. The military industry in Australia have welcomed the White Paper with open arms, trying to justify it with claims that it will act as a job-creating stimulus to the economy. The same billions spent on civilian projects would create many hundreds of thousands more jobs, would do less damage to the environment without the risk of the devastation that armed conflicts bring and be of huge benefit to the people. The new acquisitions include three Air Warfare Destroyers equipped with SM-6 long-range anti-aircraft missiles (range of 370 kilometres); eight new Future Frigates equipped to the teeth for long range submarine detection and operations; at least 24 new naval combat helicopters able to fire air-to-surface missiles; 46 new MRH90 helicopters equipped with infrared systems; 20 Offshore Combatant Vessels; a large strategic sealift ship to move stores, equipment and personnel; and six new heavy landing craft. The focus is on raising Australia?s marine capability for off-shore offensive action. There are numerous other provisions to increase personnel, intelligence gathering and surveillance, integration of forces, and rationalisation of operations. The defence budget is expected to increase from $20.3 billion last year to over $30 billion in nine years time. In addition the government expects the defence forces to make an additional $20 billion in internal efficiencies, which will also contribute to the cost of its build-up. It doesn?t take a degree in rocket science to identify the offensive nature of this build-up and what could be done instead with the same money in the social sphere and through foreign aid. Foreign policy statement The White Paper is much more than an outline of new major spending projects, it is in effect a foreign policy statement setting out Australia?s strategy up to 2030, with provision for regular five-yearly reviews. The old ?three pillar? policy that basically divides Australia?s areas of operations into national, regional and global is replaced by a set of four strategic interests and priority tasks. ?Strategic interests are those national security interests that concern the structure and features of the international order that ensure our security from armed attack ? and in relation to which Australia might contemplate the use of force. [emphasis added] ?Our most basic strategic interest remains the defence of Australia against direct armed attack? and ?the principal task is to deter and defeat armed attacks on Australia by conducting independent military operations without relying on support or combat forces of other countries.? [emphasis is in White Paper] The offensive nature of the build-up and its focus on the capability to wage war from some distance offshore suggests the priorities of the White Paper lie elsewhere. ?Our next most important strategic interest is the security, stability and cohesion of our immediate neighbourhood, which we share with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, New Zealand and the South Pacific Island states.? ?From a strategic point of view, what matters most is that no major military power that could challenge our control of the air and sea approaches to Australia has access to bases in our neighbourhood from which to project force against us.? [emphasis added] US bases in the neighbourhood, of course, are very welcome and supported. The third most important strategic interest and task relates to the Asia-Pacific region and Australia?s contribution to ?military contingencies? in the region. ?To this end, we would be concerned about the emergence of a security environment dominated by any regional power, or powers, not committed to the same shared goals. It would be in our strategic interests in the decades ahead that no power in the Asia-Pacific region would be able to coerce or intimidate others in the region through the employment of force, or through the implied threat of force, without being deterred, checked or, if necessary, defeated by the political, economic, or military responses of others in the region.? [emphasis added] The fourth strategic interest and tasks are global security and Australia?s preparedness to contribute to military contingencies in the rest of the world. The treatment of these strategic issues reveals the preparedness of Australia to go to war, to intervene internally in civilian life and governance, interdict marine vessels, impose sanctions, and take other actions around the globe. On the question of neighbourhood security, the paper specifically singles out Indonesia for special mention: ?It is in Australia?s vital strategic interests to see a stable and cohesive Indonesia.? This raises the question: would the government ?contemplate the use of force?, and take it upon itself to intervene if the situation there deteriorates? Are Australia?s interventions in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands pilots for future actions in the region? US alliance The US alliance remains central to Australia?s foreign policy and military strategy. Pine Gap and other US spy and military facilities remain as important as ever. ?Australia and the United States will continue to look for ways to deepen our defence cooperation. ?Both countries are also committed to fostering cooperation in other areas, such as: strategic planning and wargaming; the harmonisation of capability requirements and interoperability; technology access and acquisition; combined operational planning; regional engagement cooperation; missile defence and space situation awareness?? This increasing integration with the US military implies ongoing support for the political and military strategy and aims of the US administration. ?The United States will remain the most powerful and influential strategic actor over the period to 2030 ? politically, economically and militarily. Its strategic primacy will assist in the maintenance of a stable global strategic environment.? The likelihood of it retaining this position until 2030 is debatable; the US could emerge from the present global recession substantially weakened as an economic power and less influential by then. Offensive first strike stance The government makes the point that its strategy ?does not necessarily entail a purely defensive or reactive approach? we will need to be prepared to undertake proactive combat operations against an adversary?s military bases and staging areas,?.? Australia is presented as a sheriff in its own right, a world leader taking initiatives to promote nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and ready to assist with humanitarian and other assistance. Australia seeks to ?have greater strategic influence beyond our immediate neighbourhood ? to exert policy influence that is underpinned by military power?? We are ?a middle power which is active in promoting security. ? Ultimately, our defence relationships are designed to underpin the possible use of military force.? Changing world ?Australia?s strategic outlook over the coming decades will continue to be shaped by the changing global distribution of economic, political and military power, and by the future role and weight of the United States?. ?We will ? see changed strategic power relativities and an increasingly ?multipolar? global order, driven by changing patterns of underlying economic power and political influence.? References are made to China, India, Japan and Russia as strategic powers. China The Paper recognises that Australia is not under threat but says, ?We have to consider the possibility of potentially adverse changes in our strategic outlook, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.? It says, ?we have a deep stake in the maintenance of an Asia-Pacific regional security environment that is conducive to the peaceful resolution of problems between regional countries and can absorb the rise in strategic and military power of emerging major players.? [emphasis added] We need ?to consider the circumstances of a more dramatic and, in defence planning terms, sudden deterioration in our strategic outlook. While currently unlikely, a transformation of major power relations in the Asia-Pacific region would have a profound effect on our strategic circumstances. Of particular concern would be any diminution in the willingness or capacity of the United States to act as a stabilising force.? Those are some of indirect references to China. ?China is critical to stability in Northeast Asia and the wider region?. China will be central to the development of a cooperative security community in the Asia-Pacific region. Closer to home, we need to engage China as a responsible stakeholder in support or our common desire to see stable, prosperous and well-governed nations in our immediate region.? China?s military modernisation over the long term ?could affect the strategic reach and global postures of the major powers?. It emphasises the need for the US to remain strategically engaged in the Asia-Pacific region. ?Developing our defence relationship with China is therefore a priority.? The growth of China and Russia raises the question of how the US expects to maintain its superiority beyond 2030 or even in the years leading up to that date. The US, supported and assisted by Australia, has a multi-faceted approach. This includes fostering inter-ethnic conflicts, secessionary movements to break up the state, internal political interventions and war. The nature of Australia?s build-up of military capability, in particular the focus on offshore marine operations and the importance it attaches to China, suggest Australia is preparing for war, and the target could be, but is certainly not exclusively, China. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE I Get Paid $450/day. Find out How. Part Time!. $9000/Month at Home. Learn how Part Time, online!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 Sitebuilder Build a web site quickly & easily with Sitebuilder. Yahoo! Groups Stay healthy and discover other people who can help. Get in Shape on Yahoo! Groups Find a buddy and lose weight.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:54:05 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:54:05 -0400 Subject: [A-List] West Taps Iraq For Tricontinental Energy War With Russia Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 10:59 AM Subject: [stopnato] West Taps Iraq For Tricontinental Energy War With Russia http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8054191.stm BBC News May 17, 2009 Iraq deal to revive gas pipeline -[The] supplies will be sufficient to feed the long-planned Nabucco pipeline, which proposes pumping gas to Austria via Turkey. The pipeline would reduce Europe's dependency on gas from Russia. -Iraq has the world's tenth-largest gas reserves, and the world's third largest supply of crude oil. A consortium of oil companies plans to revive a project to supply Europe with gas from northern Iraq. Austria's OMV and Hungary's MOL have teamed up with two companies from the United Arab Emirates to extract the gas from fields in Iraq's Kurdish region. They anticipate that supplies will be sufficient to feed the long-planned Nabucco pipeline, which proposes pumping gas to Austria via Turkey. The pipeline would reduce Europe's dependency on gas from Russia. The UAE's Crescent Petroleum and affiliate Dana Gas believe there is enough gas in the Khor Mor and Chemchemal gas fields they operate to supply the Nabucco pipeline after meeting immediate demand in northern Iraq and Turkey. Competition But Russia's Gazprom on Friday said it had signed agreements with a number of Balkan and southern European countries on the construction of a gas pipeline, South Stream, that will deliver gas to Central Europe and Italy via the Balkans. The pipeline is in competition with Nabucco, backed by the European Union. The proposed Nabucco route goes via Erzurum in Turkey and on through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Austria. Discussions first began on the project in 2002. OMV said production could reach a level of 3bn cubic feet per day by 2015. "These volumes will initially satisfy the requirements of local industry with substantial quantities available for export to destinations primarily Turkey and Europe via the planned Nabucco pipeline," it said. Iraq has the world's tenth-largest gas reserves, and the world's third largest supply of crude oil. OMV said it will pay $350m for a 10% stake in the regional operating unit handling of the project. MOL will also take a 10% stake in the company. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 21:58:15 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 23:58:15 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Athens: Bilderberg 2009 Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 10:13 AM Subject: [stopnato] Athens: Euro-Atlantic Elites Hold Covert Conclave http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62737 Stars and Stripes May 17, 2009 Bilderberg meetings remain a mystery By Marcus Klockner Ever hear of Bilderberg? If not, that?s the idea -In 1988, one year before German re-unification, one of the topics was ?The German question revisited.? At the 2007 conference in Istanbul, Turkey, the power elites talked about ?The new world order: uni-polar or non-polar?? At last year?s conference in Virginia, ?Cyber-terrorism? and ?After Bush: The future of U.S.-EU relations? was on the agenda. -George McGhee, a former U.S. ambassador to West Germany, reportedly told Mike Peters, a sociologist from Leeds University, that the ?The Treaty of Rome ? which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings.? According to various Web sites, the Bilderberg is an ?unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of politics, business and banking.? The names of alleged past participants of this secretive group include former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and even former President Bill Clinton. The Bilderberg group is currently holding its 57th annual conference at a hotel outside Athens, Greece. And while the list of the some 120 influential people is highly protected, Internet bloggers contend this year?s attendees include Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who supposedly will be ?taking orders from the Global Elite,? according to one Web site. The circle got its name from the Bilderberg hotel in the Netherlands, where the first meeting took place in 1954. The group is a ?broad cross section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussions about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy,? according to a brochure the group provides to interested parties. The booklet also mentions the topics that the Bilderbergs have discussed in the past. In 1988, one year before German re-unification, one of the topics was ?The German question revisited.? At the 2007 conference in Istanbul, Turkey, the power elites talked about ?The new world order: uni-polar or non-polar?? At last year?s conference in Virginia, ?Cyber-terrorism? and ?After Bush: The future of U.S.-EU relations? was on the agenda. The agendas make it clear: The Bilderbergs do not come together for a vacation. It is big-world politics that are discussed at the meetings. But how can a group that sends out a booklet with its agenda be so secretive? For starters, the group does not have an official headquarters, and no telephone operator will be able to provide you a phone number for the group. However, some journalists who have dealt with the group for decades claim to have inside sources. These journalists publicized the phone number of the group on the Internet. The number is consistent with telephone numbers at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. If you dial the number, Maya Banks-Poldermann, the executive secretary of Bilderberg, will pick up the phone but she will not mention the group?s name. Only after asking if you have reached the Bilderberg office, will she confirm. The secretary will offer to send out the group?s booklet, but will not answer any questions. In addition, the members will not talk about the meetings. Does this group of power elites accomplish anything? It depends on whom you ask. According to the Bilderberg brochure, ?at the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements issued.? But George McGhee, a former U.S. ambassador to West Germany, reportedly told Mike Peters, a sociologist from Leeds University, that the ?The Treaty of Rome ? which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings.? What will come out of this year?s meeting, which ends Sunday? It will be hard to find out. Britain?s Guardian newspaper carried a story from a reporter who was arrested for taking photos of the meeting site, so it is clear the group takes its secrecy seriously. However, that will not stop the meeting from being a hot topic on the Internet or from fueling bloggers? speculation. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE I made $5,827 last week.. Find out How. Part Time!. $9000/Month at Home. Learn how Part Time, online!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 Sell Online Start selling with our award-winning e-commerce tools. Yahoo! Groups Mom Power Just for moms Join the discussion Y! Groups blog the best source for the latest scoop on Groups.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Sun May 17 22:00:20 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Pentagon Recruits Georgian Cadets For West Point, Annapolis Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:27 AM Subject: [stopnato] Pentagon Recruits Georgian Cadets For West Point, Annapolis http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&id=1321 Georgia Ministry of Defence May 14, 2009 Georgian Students will study at the US Military Institutions -All tuition fees will be covered by the United States. After the completion of education, the Georgian students will continue service in the Georgian Armed Forces. Four Georgian students will continue education in the United States. After passing the TOEFL and SAT language tests, Giorgi Janjalia entered the West Point Military Academy in the city of New York. Mikheil Machablishvili, Beka Metreveli and Davit Sidamonidze have joined the Naval Academy, Annapolis, the US. Minister of Defence of Georgia, Vasil Sikharulidze, has congratulated the students on this achievement personally. The meeting held in the MoD was attended by the students? parents and Major Lasha Beridze, Chief of Trainings and Military Education Command. All tuition fees will be covered by the United States. After the completion of education, the Georgian students will continue service in the Georgian Armed Forces. After a one-hour meeting, Defence Minister Vasil Sikharulidze made these comments: ?I?m very pleased that the four Georgian students have entered the very prestigious and famous military institutions worldwide. They have a desire to serve within the Georgian Armed Forces after compliting the education. It is very important for the Georgian Army and I would like to wish them every success!? stated the Defence Minister. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From pbond at mail.ngo.za Sun May 17 22:42:11 2009 From: pbond at mail.ngo.za (Patrick Bond) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 06:42:11 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Athens: Bilderberg 2009 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A10E723.4020903@mail.ngo.za> So was the Greek Communist Party protest substantive, or staged? From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 18 05:54:55 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 20:54:55 +0900 Subject: [A-List] A food system that kills Message-ID: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> Swine flu is meat industry's latest plague GRAIN (April 28 2009) Mexico is in the midst of a hellish repeat of Asia's bird flu experience, though on a more deadly scale. Once again, the official response from public authorities has come too late and bungled in cover-ups. And once again, the global meat industry is at the centre of the story, ramping up denials as the weight of evidence about its role grows. Just five years after the start of the H5N1 bird flu crisis, and after as many years of a global strategy against influenza pandemics coordinated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the world is now reeling from a swine flu disaster. The global strategy has failed and needs to be replaced with a public health system that the public can trust. What we know about the situation in Mexico is that, officially speaking, more than 150 people have died from a new strain of swine flu that is, in fact, a genetic cocktail of pig, bird and human influenza strains. It has evolved to a form that is easily spread from human to human and is capable of killing perfectly healthy people. We do not know where exactly this genetic recombination and evolution took place, but the obvious place to start looking is in the factory farms of Mexico and the US. {1} Experts have been warning for years that the rise of large-scale factory farms in North America has created the perfect breeding grounds for the emergence and spread of new highly-virulent strains of influenza. "Because concentrated animal feeding operations tend to concentrate large numbers of animals close together, they facilitate rapid transmission and mixing of viruses", said scientists from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2006. {2} Three years earlier, Science Magazine warned that swine flu was on a new evolutionary "fast track" due to the increasing size of factory farms and the widespread use of vaccines in these operations. {3} It's the same story with bird flu. The crowded and unsanitary conditions of the farms make it possible for the virus to recombine and take on new forms very easily. Once this happens, the centralised nature of the industry ensures that the disease gets carried far and wide, whether by feces, feed, water or even the boots of workers. {4} Yet, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "no formal national surveillance system exists to determine what viruses are prevalent in the US swine population". {5} The same is true of Mexico. Communities at the epicentre Another thing we know about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico is that the community of La Gloria in the state of Veracruz was trying to get authorities to respond to a vicious outbreak of a strange respiratory disease affecting them over the past months. The residents are adamant that the disease is linked to pollution from the big pig farm that was recently set up in the community by Granja Carroll, a subsidiary of the US company Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer. After countless efforts by the community to get the authorities to help - efforts which led to the arrest of several community leaders and death threats against people speaking out against the Smithfield operations - local health officials finally decided to investigate in late 2008. Tests revealed that more than sixty per cent of the community of 3,000 people were infected by a respiratory disease, but officials did not confirm what the disease was. Smithfield denied any connection with its operations. It was only on 27 April 2009, days after the federal government officially announced the swine flu epidemic, that information came out in the press revealing that the first case of swine flu diagnosed in the country was of a four-year old boy from the community of La Gloria on April 2 2009. Mexico's Minister of Health says a sample taken from the boy was the only sample taken from the community that Mexican officials retained and sent for laboratory testing, which later confirmed that it was swine flu. {6} This despite the fact that a private risk assessment firm in the US, Veratect, had notified regional officials from the WHO about the outbreaks of the powerful respiratory illness in La Gloria in early April 2009. {7} On 4 April 2009, the Mexican daily La Jornada published an article on the struggle of the community of La Gloria, with a photo in which a young boy is holding a placard at a demonstration with a picture of a pig crossed out and the words "Danger: Carrolls Farm" written on it in Spanish. {8} About influenza pandemics in general, we know that proximity of factory pig farms and factory poultry farms increases the risks of viral recombination and the emergence of new virulent flu strains. Pigs held near to chicken farms in Indonesia, for instance, are known to have high-levels of infection from H5N1, the deadly variant of bird flu. {9} Scientists from the NIH warn "that increasing the numbers of swine facilities adjacent to avian facilities could further promote the evolution of the next pandemic". {10} While it has not been widely reported, the region around the community of La Gloria is also home to many large poultry farms. Recently, in September 2008, there was an outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the region. At the time, veterinary authorities assured the public that it was only a local incidence of a low-pathogenic strain affecting backyard birds. But we now know, thanks to a disclosure made by Marco Antonio Nunez Lopez, the President of the Environmental Commission of the State of Veracruz, that there was also an avian flu outbreak on a factory farm about fifty kilometres from La Gloria owned by Mexico's largest poultry company, Granjas Bachoco, that was not revealed because of fears of what it might mean for Mexico's export markets. {11} It should be noted that a common ingredient in industrial animal feed is "poultry litter", which is a mixture of everything found on the floor of factory poultry farms: fecal matter, feathers, bedding, et cetera. Could there be a more ideal situation for the emergence of a pandemic influenza virus than a poor rural area, full of factory farms owned by transnational corporations who care nothing for the well-being of the local people? The residents of La Gloria have tried for years to resist the Smithfield farm. And they tried for months to get authorities to do something about the strange illness hitting their people. They were ignored. Their voices did not register a single blip on the radar of the WHO's global emerging disease surveillance system. Nor did the bird flu outbreaks in Veracruz trigger a response from the OIE's global disease alert system. News only broke out haphazardly from private sources. {12} This is what passes for global surveillance. Corporate bias It is not the first time and it will not be the last time that corporate farms conceal disease outbreaks and put people's lives at risk. It is the nature of their business. A couple of years ago in Romania, Smithfield refused to let local authorities enter its pig farms after residents complained of the stench coming from hundreds of dead corpses of pigs left rotting for days at the farms. "Our doctors have not had access to the American [company's] farms to effect routine inspections", said Csaba Daroczi, assistant director at the Timisoara Hygiene and Veterinary Authority. "Every time they tried, they were pushed away by the guards. Smithfield proposed that we sign an agreement that would oblige us to warn them three days before each inspection." {13} Eventually, it emerged that Smithfield had been concealing a major outbreak of classical swine fever on its Romanian farms. {14} In Indonesia, where people are still dying from bird flu and where many health experts believe the next pandemic virus will emerge, authorities can still not enter large corporate farms without the permission of the company. {15} In Mexico, authorities deflected calls to investigate La Granja Carroll and accused the residents of La Gloria of spreading infection because "they use home remedies instead of going to the health centres to cure their flu". {16} Factory farms are time-bombs for global disease epidemics. Yet, there are still no programmes in place to deal with them, not even programmes of independent disease surveillance. Nobody on high seems to care, and it's probably no coincidence that these farms tend to be located amongst the poorest communities, who suffer dearly to get the truth out. Worse still, so much of our food supply now comes from this bloated system that the main task of government food safety agencies now seems to be to calm fears and keep people eating. Smithfield is already on the financial brink and just last week was negotiating for China's largest agribusiness company, COFCO, to take it over. {17} In the meantime, the pharmaceutical industry is making a killing from the crisis. The US government has already opened an emergency window in its authorisation system to allow antivirals like Tamiflu and Relaxin to be used more widely on flu sufferers than allowed. This is great news for Roche, Gilead and Glaxo SmithKline, who hold monopolies on the drugs. But even more importantly, a swathe of smaller vaccine producers like Biocryst and Novavax are seeing their share prices shoot through the roof. {18} Novavax is trying to convince both CDC and the Mexican government that it can come up with a swine flu vaccine in as little as twelve weeks if the testing rules remain relaxed. Sea change needed Clearly, the global system for dealing with health problems brought on by the transnational food industry is completely upside down. Its surveillance system is a bust, frontline public health and veterinarian services are in a shambles and authority has been handed over to the private sector, which has every interest in maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, people are told to keep indoors and to keep their fingers crossed for Tamiflu or a new vaccine that they may or may not get access to. This is not a tolerable situation; action for a sea change is needed, now. See photos at this website, where you can get more information: http://enlace.vazquezchagoya.com/?p=812 In the specific case of the swine flu epidemic in Mexico, change can start with an immediate, transparent and thorough independent investigation of corporate pig and poultry farms in Veracruz, across the country and throughout North America. The people of Mexico need to know the source of the problem so that they can take adequate measures to cut the epidemic off at its roots and to ensure that it does not reoccur. At the international level, the expansion of factory farms has to stop and be put into reverse. They are the hotbeds for pandemics and will continue to be so as long as they exist. It is probably pointless to call for a complete shift in the WHO-led global strategy, since the experience with bird flu demonstrates that neither the WHO, nor the OIE, nor most governments are going to take a hard line on corporate farming. Once again, it is people who are going to have to take the lead and protect themselves. Across the world, there are thousands of communities fighting against factory farms. These communities are on the front lines of pandemic prevention. What we now need is to turn these local fights against factory farms into a global movement to abolish them. But the swine flu disaster in Mexico is also about a larger public health problem. The threats to consumer safety that are an inherent part of the industrial food system are compounded by a global trend to completely privatise health care, which has destroyed the capacities of public systems to properly respond to crises, and by policies to encourage migration to mega-cities where sanitation and public health policies are woefully inadequate. (The outbreak of swine flu hit Mexico City, a metropolis of more than twenty million people, just as the government cut off water supplies for much of the city's population, particularly the poorest sections.) The fact that surveillance of disease outbreaks has to come from private consultancy firms, that governments and UN agencies can sit quiet on that information and that we have to depend on a handful of drug companies to produce half-tested but fully-patented relief for our suffering should tell us that things have gone too far. We need not only food but public health systems that truly have some public agenda and public accountability to them. Going further Doreen Carvajal and Stephen Castle, A U.S. Hog Giant Transforms Eastern Europe, New York Times, 5 May 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/global/06smithfield.html Mike Mather, Newschannel 3 Investigates the Source of the Swine Flu, May 2009, http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-mather-mexico-smithfield-ceo,0,6628702.story (Includes an interview with the CEO of Smithfield) Luis Hernandez Navarro, Smithfield: un negocio muy marrano, La Jornada, 5 de mayo de 2009, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/05/05/?section=politica&article=031a1pol Enrique Mendez y Andres Morales, Por 14 anos La Gloria ha vivido con miedo por la contaminacion de Granjas Carroll, 2 mayo 2009, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/05/02/?section=politica&article=009n1pol BBC, Egypt presses ahead with pig cull, 2 May 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8030611.stm Debora MacKenzie, Pork industry is blurring the science of swine flu, 30 April 2009, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/04/why-the-pork-industry-hates-th.html Laura Carlsen, Mexico's Swine Flu and the Globalization of Disease, Americas MexicoBlog, 29 April 2009, http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/04/mexicos-swine-flu-and-globalization-of.html Ivan Restrepo, Granjas Carroll, protegida de las autoridades, La Jornada, 13 de Abril de 2009 http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/13/?section=politica&article=020a2pol Silvia Ribeiro, "Epidemia de lucro", La Jornada, 28 April 2009: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/28/?section=opinion&article=020a1pol Tom Philpott, Symptom: swine flu. Diagnosis: industrial agriculture? GRIST, 28 April 2009, http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-28-more-smithfield-swine/ Mike Davis, The swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power, The Guardian, 27 April 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-mexico-health R G Wallace, "The Agro-Industrial Roots of Swine Flu H1N1", 26 April 2009 http://farmingpathogens.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/the-agro-industrial-roots-of-swine-flu-h1n1/ Edward Hammond, Indonesia fights to change WHO rules on flu vaccines, Seedling, April 2009: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=593 Ivan Restrepo, Granjas Carroll, sin control ambiental, La Jornada, 24 de Abril de 2006 http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/04/24/?section=opinion&article=026a2pol See the GRAIN resources page on bird flu for the following articles (http://www.grain.org/birdflu/): GRAIN, "Bird flu in eastern India: another senseless slaughter", Against the grain, February 2008, http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=35 GRAIN, "Germ warfare - Livestock disease, public health and the military?industrial complex", Seedling, January 2008, http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=533 GRAIN, "Viral times - The politics of emerging global animal diseases", Seedling, January 2008, http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=532 GRAIN, "Bird flu: a bonanza for 'Big Chicken'", Against the grain, March 2007, http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=22 (also available in Bahasa Indonesia) GRAIN, "The top-down global response to bird flu", Against the grain, April 2006, http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=12 GRAIN, "Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisis", GRAIN Briefing, February 2006, http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194 References 1 The pig industry in Mexico, like its counterpart in the US, does not want the disease to be called "swine flu" on the grounds that it is being transmitted not from pigs but directly between people. (Their main concern, of course, is a pork market that is fast collapsing from the stigma.) And some Mexican officials, like the Governor of Veracruz, are telling the public that the virus came from China though there is no evidence to support this claim. 2 Mary J Gilchrist, Christina Greko, David B Wallinga, George W Beran, David G Riley and Peter S Thorne, "The Potential Role of CAFOs in Infectious Disease Epidemics and Antibiotic Resistance", Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, 14 November 2006. 3 Bernice Wuethrich, "Chasing the Fickle Swine Flu", Science, Vol. 299, 2003 4 Pro-poor Livestock Policy Initiative, "Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risks", FAO, 2007: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/ programmes/en/pplpi/docarc/pb_hpaiindustrialrisks.html 5 CDC, April 21, 2009 / 58 (Dispatch);1-3: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm58d0421a1.htm 6 Andres T Morales, "Cerco sanitario en Perote, tras muerte en marzo de bebe por gripe porcina", La Jornada, 28 April 2009: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/28/?section=politica&article=012n2pol; Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez, "Mexico tries to focus on source of infection", Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2009. 7 Dudley Althaus, "World's queries have no answers", Houston Chronicle, 27 April 2009. 8 Andres Timoteo, "Alerta epidemiologica en Perote por brote de males respiratorios", La Jornada, 4 April 2009. 9 David Cyranoski, "Bird flu spreads among Java's pigs", Nature 435, 26 May 2005. 10 Mary J Gilchrist, Christina Greko, David B Wallinga, George W Beran, David G Riley and Peter S Thorne, "The Potential Role of CAFOs in Infectious Disease Epidemics and Antibiotic Resistance", Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, 14 November 2006. 11 Piden cerco sanitario ante epidemia, SPI/ElGolfo.Info, 24 April 2009: http://www.elgolfo.info/web/lo-mas-nuevo/37017-piden-cerco-sanitario-ante-epidemia-.html 12 Tom Philpott first broadcast the possible connection between the swine flu outbreak and the Smithfield operation in Veracruz from his US-based blog on 25 April 2009: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/ 13 Mirel Bran: "Swine Plague: Romania Criticizes American Group's Attitude", Le Monde, 15 August 2007, translated by Leslie Thatcher (Truthout). 14 GRAIN, "Viral times - The politics of emerging global animal diseases", Seedling, January 2008 15 See "Box 2. Bird flu in Indonesia and Vietnam" (by GRAIN) in Edward Hammond, "Indonesia fights to change WHO rules on flu vaccines", Seedling, April 2009: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=593 16 "Afectados por extrana enfermedad, 60% de pobladores de La Gloria", La Jornada 27 April 2009: http://www.lajornadasanluis.com.mx/2009/04/27/pol15.php 17 "Is Smithfield on the market?", Farming UK, 26 April 2009. 18 "Smaller drug firms gaining from swine flu", Reuters, 27 April 2009: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressReleasesMolt/idUSTRE53Q5P620090427 _____ GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge. http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=48 http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Mon May 18 08:17:50 2009 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 06:17:50 -0800 Subject: [A-List] A food system that kills In-Reply-To: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <82b839ea0905180717g643f6358v4e2865b8ec22083c@mail.gmail.com> > Factory farms are time-bombs for global disease epidemics. Yet, there > are still no programmes in place to deal with them, not even programmes > of independent disease surveillance. Nobody on high seems to care, and > it's probably no coincidence that these farms tend to be located amongst > the poorest communities, who suffer dearly to get the truth out. Worse > still, so much of our food supply now comes from this bloated system > that the main task of government food safety agencies now seems to be to > calm fears and keep people eating. Smithfield is already on the > financial brink and just last week was negotiating for China's largest > agribusiness company, COFCO, to take it over. {17} > Great article. A couple of points. Recently, I saw a comparison of the price of several items in the 1940's and current. A quick example is that in 1942, cars cost about $125 and a house around $1200. Milk was in the area of 20-40 cents a gallon. My numbers are not exact, but close enough to determine that food as a percentage of a family budget has increased by about 10 times and cars and houses in the hundreds. Food is cheap. Secondly, if you've not seen it or read the book, I would recommend Fast Food Nation, a scathing indictment of meat 'production' and its costs to humans and animals and the environment. Warning: You will never look at that Big Mac the same. Finally, this article speaks to the myriad of problems that evolve when food is not produced locally. If people were to become aware of the circumstances that brought that burger to the table, they would think twice. M From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Mon May 18 16:25:41 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 07:25:41 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Bank of Canada Tutorial Message-ID: <4A11E065.8090307@ashisuto.co.jp> Welcome to our Bank of Canada Tutorial! One of the major problems facing Canadian policy makers and activists today is a misunderstanding of or refusal to consider the uses of The Bank of Canada (BoC). This problem is exacerbated by a media blackout on information about the Bank's uses - which will be discussed in the tutorial. This problem exists in all G-8 countries! Our tutorial details the nature of the problem in Canada, and how it may be resolved. The Formation of The Bank of Canada Until the BoC opened in 1935, The Treasury Board, which administered the Finance Act of 1923, had no responsibility to see that advances made to the banks answered the needs of the economy. The unsatisfactory nature of that arrangement was revealed during the Great Depression. In 1934 Parliament passed the Bank of Canada Act, and the bank itself was founded a year later. Since 1938 the bank has been owned entirely by a single shareholder- the federal government (that is, Canadian taxpayers). The Use of The Bank of Canada, 1938 - 1974 The 'nationalization' of 1938 perfected the mechanism that allows the central bank to create money to finance federal projects on a near interest-free basis. It may make loans to the Government of Canada or any province (BoC Act Article 18 (c), (i) (j) or guaranteed by Canada or any province). This is explained fully in "Article 18" (below). Initially, the bank fullfilled its mandate. It was of great assistance in getting Canada out of the Great Depression, financing the war, and building infrastructure and social systems in Canada into the 1970s. But then things began to change. Global Changes in Monetary Policy Until the late 1960s central banks held inflation in check by one or a combination of several tools: (1) by raising rates for overnight loans to the chartered banks to help them meet their net cheque-clearance or other obligations; (2) by raising the statutory reserve requirement - the percentage of deposits made with the banks by the public that the banks had to redeposit with the BoC to back their chequing and other short-term accounts - such redeposits had earned the banks no interest; (3) by "jaw-boning", that is, advising the banks of regions or industries where they did not want bank credit increased or even maintained at its present level. In the 1970s the monetary policy of Monetarism was adopted; further, central banks worldwide began attempting to control inflation by reigning in the money supply without regard for the inevitable effects on interest rates. (Monetarists hold that the money supply alone determines price - and just about everything else!) In mid-1991 a bill was slipped through parliament without debate or press release phasing out the statutory reserves over a two-year period (subsection 457 of Chapter 46 of the Statutes of Canada). That left higher interest rates the only means of "fighting inflation". Interest rates, however happen to be the revenue of money-lenders as the sole way of fighting price rise which conventional economists identify with "inflation". At the same time a campaign was launched to enshrine the independence of the central bank from the government, though the BoC Act sets forth that all shares are owned by the federal government; that in the event of a disagreement on broad policy between the governor of the BoC and the Minister of Finance, the latter shall have the right, after thirty days written notice to conform, to dismiss the Governor. If that does not add up to the good old capitalistic definition of ownership, that is, non-independence, what does?. A "zero inflation", a perfectly flat price level, was proclaimed essential. Most of Canada?s federal debt was run up in the attempt to enforce these provisions, which contradicted the BoC's charter. Such contradictions, however, did not deter Mr Crow, and subsequent BoC Governors, from pursuing like policies to this day! Two Unbelievable Facts! We now consider two unbelievable facts. They are so astonishing that most people simply won't believe them!! Indeed, they really do defy the imagination! Unbelievable Fact Number One: How Money is Created. Money is created out of nothing. Myth: it's based on Gold. Not so! The Gold Standard was abondoned years ago. Well ... it's not quite created 'out of nothing': it's created out of a faith based on the credit of a nation: otherwise, it would be worthless. If I give you a $20 bill, you believe (have faith) that you can use it as a medium of exchange to buy other goods or services. Moreover, there are two ways to create money (out of essentially nothing). GCM (Government Created Money), created by the federal government. People understand this method. Most people when asked would say, "well, the government creates money". That's true. But how MUCH of the money supply each year does the government create? About five per cent. That's all. So who creates the rest? BCM (Bank Created Money): the private banking system. How does the private banking system "create" money? Simple! But unbelievable! Bear in mind that MONEY IS CREATED OUT OF NOTHING. So, when you make that $30,000 loan at your bank for a new truck, that amount is typed into you bankbook. Seconds earlier it didn't exist! Now YOU owe that money TO the bank, plus interest! Myth: the money for your loan is somehow "backed" by deposits on-hand in the bank where the loan is made. Not so! You, as a citizen or a business, don't have a choice. Much though you might like to, you can't create money. You have to borrow your money from the private banks. Unbelievable Fact Number Two: The Government's Choice But governments have a choice! The federal government can EITHER create its own debt-free and interest-free money (GCM) OR borrow it AS debt, and AT interest, from the private banks (BCM). The provincial and municiple governments can choose to borrow, at low interest rates, from EITHER the Bank of Canada OR borrow from the private banking system at substantial interest rates. GUESS WHICH CHOICE OUR GOVERNMENTS MAKE? YOU GUESSED IT! Some 95% of our money is created as BCM. UNBELIEVABLE! You may say, "So what? Some abstract argument about 'how money is created' doesn't effect me, anyway ..." Oh yes it does! You'd better believe it! Believe It! It is important to realize that this is not some abstract, intellectual exercise. It's YOUR money! You are being flim-flammed!! Year after year after year... Your LARGEST expenditure - (The so-called "public debt interest", that is, "paying down the debt") is to the private banking system! _____________________________ Net Government Expenditures 26% Public debt interest 23% Transfers to persons 15% Transfers to governments 13% Other transfers 15% Operating and capital 06% Defence 02% Crown Corporations _____________________________ But it doesn't have to be that way! Your (our, Canada's) money could be going towards social programs, health care, education, and so on (through Transfers, Operating and Capital Expenses, et cetera) IF a larger portion of GCM existed. The question then is: why do governments borrow AS debt and AT interest moneys which they could create on behalf of Canadians debt and interest free? Ideology The concept of 'Dominant Revenue' (DR) put forward by Francois Perroux (1903-1987), a leading figure of the French school of economics during the sixties, is helpful. In every historic period the revenue of a particular group is taken to be the Dominant Revenue. Perroux: "During a specific period of development the dominant revenue is that one to which the others adapt themselves..It is presented as the revenue that, by the rate and mass which it achieves, determines whether the given economy functions properly. In the institutional framework corresponding to the given dominant revenue, that is in fact the case; but in another context, it would be otherwise." To put it another way: the Dominant Revenue could be seen to operate as a barometer of the well-being of the population as a whole. But one can see that this barometer may not necessarily be accurate! Perroux also maintained that a distinct economic theory was associated with each successive Dominant Revenue {1}: * Merchant Capitalists maintained that value lay primarily in the net flow of precious metals. This notion closely resembles Monetarism, referred to earlier in our tutorial. Monetarism was in vogue from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. * Early Industrial Capitalism abided by Laissez-faire economic theory, which stated that economic systems function best when there is NO (government) interference in the marketplace. This remains an integral part of Dominant Revenue rhetoric today. * Advanced Industrial Capitalism adhered to The Market Theory of Value (or marginal utility theory) as the Dominant Revenue theoretical framework. * Financial speculation (out-and-out gambling!), made possible by Deregulation and Globalization, has been the Dominant Revenue for much of the last decade! The point is, Dominant Revenue 'economic theories' are used to give voice to and to legitimate the claims made by the Dominant Revenue stakeholders. Today, these stakeholders are primarily national and international banks and related financial institutions, transnational corporations, and global organizations which regulate and police monetary (bank) and economic (political) policy. Policymakers must take Dominant Revenue claims into account when assessing any economic theory, no matter how wonderful it might be or sound! The crisis of modern-day economics springs from a quixotic attempt to understand a mixed economy in which profit is no longer the Dominant Revenue - in terms of a theory based on the assumption that it is. (For more information, we refer you to our Tutorial on Economics, or our video, "Towards a Mixed Economy".) But there's more. Media consolidation further legitimates the claims of Dominant Revenue interests by reducing information and debate about the issues raised in this tutorial. Historically, progress has always been founded on open discussion and debate, not closed meetings or silence. Today, social systems worldwide present an all but solid front: of press, television, Dominant Revenue "think tanks", et cetera, which, without much questioning, uphold Dominant Revenue perspectives. The point being: any effort to refute Dominant Revenue claims are dismissed as ill-informed, or frivolous. But is this so? Article 18 In spite of what Dominant Revenue spokespeople might say, the Law is the Law! In this section, we refer to Article 18 of The BoC Act {2}, listed under BUSINESS AND POWERS OF THE BANK. We mentioned earlier that since 1938 the BoC has been owned entirely by the federal government. It is essential to understand what this means, in order to understand the full significance of the powers of the BoC. In a word, the BoC may create the money to finance federal projects on a near interest-free basis. It may, if it wishes, lend money to the provinces and municipalities as well. It works this way: the coupons paid on government debt held by the Bank of Canada find their way back to the federal treasury with the rest of the bank's earnings. In recent years this important function of the bank has been left, in large part, to rust. Article 18 sets out the Bank's powers of lending to our governments. Article 18 (c), dealing with funded debt - bonds or treasury bills - authorizes the Bank to "buy and sell securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province". No restriction is set on such holdings; limits on these powers must then be sought in the real economy - whether or not further money supply created by such loans would add to the demand in an economy already employing all available resources. Were the Bank to go on increasing its lending to governments under such circumstances, it would indeed be inflationary. But such a state of affairs has not existed for decades. (i) make loans or advances for periods not exceeding six months to the Government of Canada or the government of any province on the pledge or hypothecation of readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province; (j) make loans to the Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not, in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of the Government of Canada for its fiscal year, and shall not, in the case of a provincial government, exceed one-fourth of that government's estimated revenue for its fiscal year, and such loans shall be repaid before the end of the first quarter after the end of the fiscal year of the government that has contracted the loan ... Article 18 (j) deals with unfunded loans to governments - that is, advances against their income not formalized in security issues. The passage "but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not ..." clearly implies that such unfunded debt may be rolled over when due. Example 1: Eliminating the General Services Tax As the diagram shows {3}, if the BoC were used intelligently, the first step towards eliminating the General Services Tax could be to reduce it to, say, four per cent, while at the same time using the capacity of the BoC to shift a calculated proportion of the federal debt from the private banking system to the BoC. Secondly, monitor the effect on the economy: less General Services Tax would doubtless perk up the economy, bringing more revenue into the treasury. Then eliminate the remaining three per cent General Services Tax. This example could serve as a federal prototype for any area needing tending to in our economy: Kyoto, Health Care, Education, Social Programs, Military or Infrastructure programs, and so on. Moreover, it could be used at the provincial or municipal level of government in the same way, the only difference being that these lower levels of government would have to determine, in conjunction with the federal government, the level of interest payments required (this being so because they are not shareholders of the BoC) - in return, say, for abiding by federal standards pertaining to the Project in question. Exactly what's next: Examples of the use of the BoC at the municipal level (Use of the BoC at the provincial level would be similar). We have working examples in this instance ... Example 2 (a) At a meeting of the national board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) held on September 8 2001, two resolutions (from Kingston, Ontario and Squamish, British Columbia) were passed concerning financing for municipalities through the Bank of Canada; The FCM forwarded these resolutions to the federal government. Referring to these resolutions, Richard Priestman (COMER, Kingston), writes to David Cohen of the FCM: "Some background information will help you to appreciate the importance of these resolutions. Since 1974 the government has not being using the Bank of Canada (BoC) to finance public capital expenditures as it did in the previous 35 years, using private banks and other private investors instead. As a result national and provincial debts have climbed to enormous heights. Interest paid by the three levels of government amounted to over $76 billion in 2000, $73 billion in 2001 and is expected to be over $70 billion in the current year in spite of lower interest rates. The share paid by local municipalities was $3.9 billion in 2000 and $3.2 billion in 2001. Funds borrowed from the BoC by the federal government cost less than one half of one per cent. "The government could and should allow municipalities the same privilege and reimburse them for the interest they pay to the BoC minus the cost of administration. The cost of borrowing privately can double the cost of a project (depending on the rate and the term) because interest compounds over time. More than that, the amount budgeted for capital projects can be many times higher than it would have to be if the projects were financed through the BoC and paid back over the expected useful life of the projects (for example, a sewer's life might be fifty years or more). "For example, Kingston's current debt stands at $50 million, financed through ten-year debentures at an average interest rate of seven per cent. Principal payments amount to $7 million per year and interest is $3 million for a total of $10 million per year. On the other hand, if the estimated life of the city's projects was fifty years and was financed at low interest through the BoC, the cost could be spread over the fifty years and would be reduced to $1 million per year plus the cost of administering the loan. (Whenever the principal is reduced significantly it is reborrowed for new capital projects.)" (In a letter to Kingston, January 17 2002, the FCM stated that it had not yet received a response from the government.) Example 2(b) Toronto attempted to secure financing through the BoC for the Sheppard Subway - without success. Ms Liczyk, Toronto's Chief Financial Officer, referred to Article 18 (j): "we have been informed by the BoC staff that the bank rate would be used and is currently set at 5.50% per annum". The idea was felt to be unfeasible ... "Given that loans from the BoC are not interest-free, not available directlly to municipalities and are short term". Mr Krehm, of COMER (Toronto) replied by noting that "18(c) ... provides a means of handling the long-term financing of such projects at less than market rates". Concerned citizens in several municipalities want to pursue this matter and would like to know if the FCM has received a response from the [federal] government ... We also would like to know if the FCM will be suggesting to all the municipalities which are members of the FCM that they should write to the government in support of the resolutions, recognizing that the government is more likely to act on letters from a thousand municipalities. A Vision for Canada Let us stretch our horizons a bit before concluding. 5 Health Care 2 Education 2 Affordable Housing 1 Kyoto Fund 2 Municipal Infrastructure 3 Armed Forces ___________________ 15 Total ($billion / year) Just suppose the money-creation function were split equally between the government of Canada (GCM), on behalf of the citizens of Canada; and the private banking system (BCM). This would release approximately$15 billion per year to be used for the needs of Canadians. More good news! This would: * Reduce unemployment * Increase the GDP * Increase tax revenues for all governments, so making funds available for other projects. It would create a win-win situation! The people of Canada would benefit immensely, and on an ongoing basis; and the private banking system would still be making considerable profits. Would it 'cause inflation'? Absolutely not! It is the total amount of money which determines prices, not who creates it. Conclusion None of what we have been saying is all that hard to understand; nor is our 'Vision' impossible, untenable, or out of reach. But ideological persuasion is strong, especially when supported with the full force of media. Even many activists and investigative journalists appear to be unaware of the importance of uses of national Central Banks. On the basis of the information given in this tutorial, you can see that what is desperately needed in Canada (and in all G-8 countries!) is for the federal Finance Minister to direct the Governor of the central bank (in Canada's case: The BoC) to create a larger percentage of what constitutes the money supply each year. If this were done, we would have a national (and global) social structure quite different from the one we have today! The tragedy is that this could be done - today - given the political will to do so. The hope is that, someday, it will be done. We hope that YOU will do what you can to make it come to be, through educating others about the powers and capacities of national central banks. If you have any questions or comments about our tutorial, please contact us! Links: {1} http://www.comer.org/boc/DRJPG.JPG {2} http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/B-2/ {3} http://www.comer.org/boc/ECONDR2.JPG http://www.comer.org/boc/BoCtut.htm http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Mon May 18 20:37:38 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 22:37:38 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Mordor stirs a hornet's nest in Pakistan Message-ID: U.S. Stirs a Hornet's Nest in Pakistan By ERIC MARGOLIS May 17, 2009 "Winnipeg Sun" -- PARIS -- Pakistan finally bowed to Washington's angry demands last week by unleashing its military against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) -- collectively mislabelled "Taliban" in the West. The Obama administration had threatened to stop $2 billion US annual cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan's political and military leadership and block $6.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into Pakistan's turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier. The result was a bloodbath: Some 1,000 "terrorists" killed (read: mostly civilians) and 1.2 million people -- most of Swat's population -- made refugees. Pakistan's U.S.-rented armed forces have scored a brilliant victory against their own people. Too bad they don't do as well in wars against India. Blasting civilians, however, is much safer and more profitable. Unable to pacify Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes (a.k.a. Taliban), a deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to Pakistan's media, the rest civilians. Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world's largest tribal people. Fifteen million live in Afghanistan, forming half its population. Twenty-six million live right across the border in Pakistan. Britain's imperialists divided Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line (today's Afghan-Pakistan border). Pashtun reject it. Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947, provided much of their homeland be autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat only joined Pakistan in 1969. As Pakistan's Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan, U.S. drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger. I have been to war with the Pashtun and have seen their legendary courage, strong sense of honour and determination. They are also hugely quarrelsome, feuding and prickly. One quickly learns never to threaten a Pashtun or give him ultimatums. These are the mountain warriors who defied the U.S. by refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden because he was a hero of the anti-Soviet war and their guest. The ancient code of "Pashtunwali" still guides them: Do not attack Pashtun, do not cheat them, do not cause them dishonour. To Pashtun, revenge is sacred. HAM-HANDED Now, Washington's ham-handed policies and last week's Swat atrocity threaten to ignite Pakistan's second worst nightmare after invasion by India: That its 26 million Pashtun will secede and join Afghanistan's Pashtun to form an independent Pashtun state, Pashtunistan. This would rend Pakistan asunder, probably provoke its restive Baluchi tribes to secede and tempt mighty India to intervene militarily, risking nuclear war with beleaguered Pakistan. The Pashtun of NWFP have no intention or capability of moving into Pakistan's other provinces, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. They just want to be left alone. Alarms of a "Taliban takeover of Pakistan" are pure propaganda. Lowland Pakistanis repeatedly have rejected militant Islamic parties. Many have little love for Pashtun, whom they regard as mountain wild men best avoided. Nor are Pakistan's well-guarded nukes a danger -- at least not yet. Alarms about Pakistan's nukes come from the same fabricators with hidden agendas who brought us Saddam Hussein's bogus weapons. THE REAL DANGER The real danger is in the U.S. acting like an enraged mastodon, trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad's military to make war on its own people. Pakistan could end up like U.S.-occupied Iraq, split into three parts and helpless. If this continues, at some point patriotic Pakistani soldiers may rebel and shoot the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington's payroll. Equally ominous, a poor people's uprising spreading across Pakistan -- also mislabelled "Taliban" -- threatens a radical national rebellion reminiscent of India's Naxalite rebels. As in Iraq, profound ignorance and gung ho military arrogance drive U.S. Afghan policy. Obama's people have no understanding what they are getting into in "AfPak." I can tell them: An unholy mess we will long regret. eric.margolis at sunmedia.ca From tal1 at cogeco.ca Mon May 18 20:45:49 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 22:45:49 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Abu Ghraib - the victims speak Message-ID: ...lest we forget of what moral fibre 'empire' is composed... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ0x5ZLbeqQ From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 19 00:37:41 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 15:37:41 +0900 Subject: [A-List] A food system that kills In-Reply-To: <82b839ea0905180717g643f6358v4e2865b8ec22083c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> <82b839ea0905180717g643f6358v4e2865b8ec22083c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A1253B5.6040701@ashisuto.co.jp> Thanks, Margaret. Those statistics were startled me. I have Fast Food Nation but haven't yet read it because my friends say it would make me sick. Bill MARGARET WYLES wrote: >> Factory farms are time-bombs for global disease epidemics. Yet, there >> are still no programmes in place to deal with them, not even programmes >> of independent disease surveillance. Nobody on high seems to care, and >> it's probably no coincidence that these farms tend to be located amongst >> the poorest communities, who suffer dearly to get the truth out. Worse >> still, so much of our food supply now comes from this bloated system >> that the main task of government food safety agencies now seems to be to >> calm fears and keep people eating. Smithfield is already on the >> financial brink and just last week was negotiating for China's largest >> agribusiness company, COFCO, to take it over. {17} >> > Great article. A couple of points. Recently, I saw a comparison of > the price of several items in the 1940's and current. A quick example > is that in 1942, cars cost about $125 and a house around $1200. Milk > was in the area of 20-40 cents a gallon. My numbers are not exact, > but close enough to determine that food as a percentage of a family > budget has increased by about 10 times and cars and houses in the > hundreds. Food is cheap. > > Secondly, if you've not seen it or read the book, I would recommend > Fast Food Nation, a scathing indictment of meat 'production' and its > costs to humans and animals and the environment. Warning: You will > never look at that Big Mac the same. > > Finally, this article speaks to the myriad of problems that evolve > when food is not produced locally. If people were to become aware of > the circumstances that brought that burger to the table, they would > think twice. > > M > > > From barmy_basket at yahoo.es Tue May 19 02:12:29 2009 From: barmy_basket at yahoo.es (peripatetic) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 10:12:29 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Seymour Hersh: "The US death unit killed Bhutto on Cheney orders" In-Reply-To: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> Message-ID: <4A1269ED.8090301@yahoo.es> ?Cheney was the chief of the Joint Special Operation Command and he cleared the way for the US by exterminating opponents through the unit and the CIA. General Stanley was the in-charge of the unit,? The Nation quoted US columnist Seymour Hersh, as saying. The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said. The US leadership did not want Osama to be declared dead. It would have raised questions about the US Army?s presence in Afghanistan, he claimed. According to Hersh, the former Lebanese PM Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief were murdered for not safeguarding US interests and for refusing to set up US military bases in Lebanon. Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in the plot, he said. (ANI) http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/us-journo-claims-bhutto-was-killed-on-cheneys-orders_100194038.html http://webabuser.blogspot.com/ > From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 19 04:02:50 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 19:02:50 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Bad Collateral Message-ID: <4A1283CA.1050506@ashisuto.co.jp> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (2005) www.kunstler.com (May 18 2009) The wishes of the "green shoots and mustard seed" crowd really hinge on whether the various organs of the suburban economy can be jump-started back to life - the production home-builders, the granite countertop outfitters, the mall and strip-mall gang, the national chain discount retailers, all the people who make Happy Motoring possible from the factory to the showroom, and, of course, the banks who shovel money into these enterprises. All these organs of our now-former economy are gravely impaired, and a realistic appraisal of them would have to conclude that they've entered the zone of congestive failure. The choice we face really comes down to this: do we put our dwindling resources and "hopes" into resuscitating those dying systems, or do we move forward to the next chapter of American life, cut our losses, and make new arrangements more consistent with the realities on offer from the universe? To take it a step further, can we remain one nation, a common culture, without such a conscious re-purposing of our collective spirit? The bizarre spectacle being played out right now by President Obama and his team only adds layers of mystery and mystification to this big question. On the one hand, you have Mr Obama giving a graceful, thoughtful speech on a very difficult issue (abortion) at a very tough venue (the country's leading Catholic university), and presenting an excellent case for common ground. It was a bold deed, unshirking, even brave considering what have come to be the standard modes of pander or evasion in presidential politics. I suspect that Mr Obama did it as much to demonstrate his willingness to face tough questions in general as to address abortion per se. All this is to say why it is so dispiriting to see Mr Obama's White House mount a campaign to sustain the unsustainable in the economic realm. Everything they've done for four months involving money management and enterprise policy - from backstopping hopeless banks, to gaming the bankruptcies of the big car companies, to the bungled efforts to prop up artificially-high house prices - amounts to a gigantic exercise in futility. Worse, it gives off odors of dishonesty or stupidity, since the ominous tendings of our system are so starkly self-evident. Not least of the problems entailed in all this are the scary political consequences. It's one thing for a business such as a bank to fail; its another thing for the public to lose confidence in banking, or their own currency, or the credibility of all the people who work in banking, or the authority of those charged to regulate these activities, or the courts and their officers who are supposed to adjudicate misconduct in them. When faith in all these things starts to go, all bets are off for even larger social constructs like democracy, justice, and the destiny of a federal republic. The Obama White House has very quickly painted itself into a corner on these things. The so-called bank "stress test" couldn't have backfired more completely. Rather than bolster confidence in our money system and the people who run it, it only made the system appear more obviously corrupt. It made the Treasury Department (and the White House by extension) look idiotic for concocting it. Worse, the game of allowing the banks to audit themselves, and cook their books under newly jiggered accounting rules, only made them look less sound and trustworthy, and their executives more venal and mendacious. The stress test scam also virtually guaranteed that the banks will not get another dime out of congress - even while it is common knowledge that they will desperately need quadrillions more dimes in the months ahead. Who knows what the point of this ludicrous exercise was? Observers in all corners of the media saw through it, and the public has only been made more cynical, and is now so furious over related stunts like AIG using taxpayer money to pay back swaps bets to Goldman Sachs that there is a whiff of revolution in the American air for the first time, really, since 1861. A lot of reasonable people see a good chance that our society will sink into disorder if these trends continue, and these fears could beat a path into radical politics, even the frightful prospect of coup d'etat - not something that I advocate, by the way. The president is playing with fire on all this. The old economy is not going to recover, and so far he has not used his rhetorical talents to articulate what the next economy is likely to be about. It is reasonable to wonder whether he even really has a clear sense of it - and, based on the fatuous utterances of his economic mandarins like Larry Summers and Austan Goolsby, this team is really behind the curve. There are plenty of things you can state about the economy past and future with some confidence right now: - Cheap energy is over and our wishes for alt.energy are currently inconsistent with reality, meaning we have to live differently. - We have to downscale and re-localize our major economic activities: food production, commerce and manufacturing, banking, schooling, et cetera. - We can't hope to have a stable money system unless we allow a workout of unpayable debt to proceed. - Even if we can do this, universal easy credit is a thing of the past. >From now on, we have to save for the things we want and run our businesses and households on accounts receivable. - Major demographic shifts are inevitable as it becomes necessary to let go of suburbia and reactivate our derelict towns and smaller cities (and allow our giant metroplexes to contract). - We have to face the truth that our major social contracts cannot be met, namely the continuation of social security as we know it and probably all pension arrangements. We'll probably have to change household arrangements to make up for these losses. - Health care will have to go through a revolution more comprehensive than just changing how we pay for it. Like everything else, it will have to downscale, re-localize, and become more rigorous. We're not going to rescue the banks. The collateral for their loans is no good and it will only lose more value. All those tract houses on the cul-de-sacs of America and scattered on the out-parcels of our tragically subdivided farming landscape will only lose value, one way or another, in the years ahead. Right now they're simply losing inflated cash value - and that has been bad enough to sink the banks. In the months and years ahead, they'll lose their sheer usefulness as the distances once mitigated by cheap gasoline loom larger again, and the jobs vanish and incomes with them, and the supermarket shelves cease to groan with eighty-seven different varieties of flavored coffee creamers, and one-by-one the national chain stores shutter, and the theme parks, and the Nascar ovals, and the malls, and the colossal superfluous cretin-cargo of consumer nonsense that we've been daydreaming in gets blown away in a hurricane of change that we were not ready to believe in. _____ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/05/bad-collateral.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon May 18 23:35:45 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 15:35:45 +1000 Subject: [A-List] What's new at Links: Solidarity with Tamil people, oppose coup in Nepal, Bolivian socialism, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, forgotten pandemics in Africa Message-ID: <4A124531.1040909@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Solidarity with Tamil people, oppose coup in Nepal, Bolivian socialism, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, forgotten pandemics in Africa * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism 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/. * * * Capitalism in Wonderland: Why mainstream economists can't deal with the ecological crisis By Richard York, Brett Clark and John Bellamy Foster (posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission) In a recent essay, "Economics Needs a Scientific Revolution", in one of the leading scientific journals, Nature, physicist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, a researcher for an investment management company, asked rhetorically, "What is the flagship achievement of economics?" Bouchaud's answer: "Only its recurrent inability to predict and avert crises". * Read more Who is endangering civil peace in Nepal? The Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of the United States-based Marxist journal Monthly Review . The May 2009 issue featured this editorial. * Read more Interview with Bolivia's foreign minister: `Communitarian socialism will refound Bolivia' Interview with Bolivia's foreign minister David Choquehuanca by Patricia Bravo and Cris Gonz?lez, translated from the original article in the March 20, 2009, edition of Punto Final (Chile) by David Montoute. Bolivia's new ``Political Constitution of the State'', approved by referendum on January 25, 2009, by 61.4% of the vote and announced on February 7, is clearly of transcendental importance for the refoundation of Bolivia. The recognition of individual and collective rights, popular participation, the principle of equality and the end of all types of exclusion and discrimination are all present in the new constitutional text. It establishes the creation of "a Unified Social State of Law whose character would be Plurinational Communitarian, free, independent, sovereign, democratic, intercultural, with decentralised autonomous departments, regions, municipalities and indigenous circumscriptions". * Read more Zimbabwe: The struggle enters a new stage By Munyaradzi Gwisai [Read or download the May 2009 issue of the ISOZ's newspaper, Socialist Worker, at the end of this article.] May 6, 2009 -- The formation of the government of national unity (GNU) in Zimbabwe between the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in February 2009 was the logical outcome of the agreement made between them in the middle of last year. The final negotiations had stalled as Mugabe tried to manipulate the details to exact maximum concessions from the MDC. * Read more Why Pakistan's military helped Talibanise Swat By Farooq Sulehria May 17, 2009 -- The mass exodus from Swat is making headlines globally. Over a million have been displaced. This is the worst humanitarian crisis since the Rwanda tragedy in 1990s. The explanation offered is that this is necessary to flush the Taliban out of Swat's lush, green valley in Pakistan's north. This military operation, launched in order to stabilise the US occupation of Afghanistan and its so-called "war on terror", is hardly mentioned in the corporate media. On the contrary, major US newspapers have been invoking the fear that Pakistan's nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of the Taliban. Is this a story planted by the CIA? * Read more Sri Lankan socialists call for self-determination for Tamils May 13, 2009 -- The statement below was presented at a press conference by Vickramabahu Karunarathne (``Bahu''), general secretary of the Nava Sama Samaaja Party (NSSP, New Socialist Party). Below the statement is a document that outlines the NSSP's position on Tamil national self-determination * Read more Indian communists: India must end support for genocide in Sri Lanka and the elite coup in Nepal By Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation May 11, 2009 -- A shameful spectacle of opportunism is being played out in Indian politics even as Sri Lanka is waging a chilling ``final solution'' to its Tamil national question. In the name of a war to eliminate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Mahinda Rajapakse's regime in Sri Lanka is waging war on the Tamil people. Independent observers, international rights groups and even journalists have been prohibited from covering the reality of the war. Conservative estimates, trickling through, put civilian deaths at a minimum of 5000, including at least 500 children, since January. At least 100,000 civilians are estimated wounded. The Sri Lankan army is using cluster bombs and chemical warfare in blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. Tens of thousands of innocent Tamils are caught up in the war zone, starved of food, water and medicine. Some 100,000 others, fleeing in desperation are being rounded up behind barbed wire fences in ``camps'', where by all accounts they will be kept under detention for three years. Sri Lankan journalists questioning their government's brutal policy have been silenced by assassination and arrest. International journalists reporting on the detention camps for Tamil civilians have been detained and deported. * Read more Solidarity from Timor Leste: `Support the people and legitimate government of Nepal!' Solidarity message for the people and legitimate government of Nepal, by Luta Hamutuk, Timor Leste Dili, Timor Leste, May 13, 2009 -- The legitimate government of Nepal was formed as a result of a very democratic process in Nepal.This government came about from the struggle of a people, full of the spirit of self-reliance, which was fighting against all forms of feudal, imperialist and neoliberal oppression. However, now the agents of the oppressors are beginning to engage in sabotage against this legitimate and democratic government, efforts which are especially driven by the military forces of the oppressors. Based on these facts, Luta Hamutuk -- an organisation in Timor Leste that is also fighting for economic justice and self-reliance, that is against all forms of imperialist oppression -- would like to state our full support for the people and democratic government of Nepal and demand as follows: * Read more Philippines socialists on Nepal: `We stand in solidarity with this mass movement fighting for the people's interests' May 14, 2009 -- The Partido Lakas ng Masa of the Philippines has attempted to follow the developments in Nepal over the recent period. We welcomed the ouster of the monarchy achieved by the people's struggle and the mass movement, the unity of the main left forces, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist), and the elections which gave the left control of the government. We welcomed as a victory for the left and progressive movement worldwide the election of a left government led by the UCPN (M), along with the CPN (UML). We therefore consider the forced resignation of this government as a result of the refusal of the pro-elite Nepalese military hierarchy and the president, backed by the country's elite, to follow the directives of a democratically elected government carrying out the platform that it was elected upon, as detrimental to the people's interest and only serving the interests of the Nepalese elite. * Read more Malaysian socialists: `In defence of the revolution and democracy in Nepal' Solidarity message to the revolutionary masses of Nepal Statement by the Socialist Party of Malaysia May 12, 2009. 1. The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) would like to express our greatest concern over the current political developments and intensifying social struggles in the newly born Republic of Nepal. 2. The political and military elites have once again revealed their true nature when the president, who is from the conservative Nepali Congress party, overrode the decision of Prime Minister Prachanda from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (UCPN-M) to sack Chief of Army Staff Katawal. Some opportunist sections of the coalition government, like the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) also turned to the right by opposing the UCPN (M) move. 3. The army high command has refused to obey instructions from the elected civilian government as well as refused to implement key parts of 2006 peace accords which included the integration of UCPN (M)-led People's Liberation Army (PLA) into the current army forces. Sections of the high command in the current Nepalese army committed serious human rights violations during the armed conflict with PLA and continue to enjoy impunity, and even planned to stage a military coup against the elected government. * Read more African lives -- silent casualty of the global economic crisis By the Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa, RAVANE+ PVVIH Network for the Indian Ocean Region (Mauritius) and the Grassroots Empowerment Trust (Kenya) HIV is not in recession! TB is not in recession! May 6, 2009 -- On the occasion of the Conference of African Ministers of Health in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a coalition of health advocates from sub-Saharan Africa warn that the lives of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa are in jeopardy because of the lack of political will and investment to realise the right of access to life-saving treatment. Only one third of HIV-positive people in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to survive have access to treatment in the African region. The coalition fears that national and donor governments are betraying their health commitments, particularly promises to support the universal roll-out of ART by 2010. * Read more CPI (ML) Liberation: Indian government must stop intervening in Nepal By the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation May 5, 2009 -- The fledgling republic of Nepal seems to be standing on the verge of a new phase of civil war. Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Rookmangud Katawal had been asked by the civilian government to explain why he had continued military recruitment despite the government's halt order and reinstated eight brigadier-generals who had been retired by the defence ministry. Backed by its foreign patrons and right-wing parties in the country, the military high command openly defied the authority of the elected government. The government responded by removing General Katawal, who refused to accept this and the government's decision was then illegally overturned by President Ram Baran Yadav, of Nepalese Congress party. With its coalition partners in government refusing to support the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN (M)], Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) announced that he had no choice but to resign. * 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 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 18828 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090519/d43e300d/attachment.txt From kaliyuga at wildblue.net Tue May 19 07:59:15 2009 From: kaliyuga at wildblue.net (MARGARET WYLES) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 05:59:15 -0800 Subject: [A-List] Seymour Hersh: "The US death unit killed Bhutto on Cheney orders" In-Reply-To: <4A1269ED.8090301@yahoo.es> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A1269ED.8090301@yahoo.es> Message-ID: <82b839ea0905190659q478e0efev98fee1dcc37df117@mail.gmail.com> > The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about > the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said. > I saw the interview with David Frost where she outed this information. What was stunning is that he had no reaction to this explosive revelation, leading me to conclude that he was already aware of it and under orders not to discuss the topic. If David Frost knew, Obama surely knew, yet he kept the boogie man alive throughout his campaign. Curious, though not surprising, that Hersh's remarks should not find their way into any mainstream publications. M From barmy_basket at yahoo.es Tue May 19 08:19:39 2009 From: barmy_basket at yahoo.es (peripatetic) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:19:39 +0200 Subject: [A-List] Seymour Hersh: "The US death unit killed Bhutto on Cheney orders" In-Reply-To: <82b839ea0905190659q478e0efev98fee1dcc37df117@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A1269ED.8090301@yahoo.es> <82b839ea0905190659q478e0efev98fee1dcc37df117@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A12BFFB.7090104@yahoo.es> Update: Hersh told RAW STORY Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna that he made no such statements Hersch or not, all of that story (included the Hariri assassination) sounds more than plausible to me. http://webabuser.blogspot.com/ MARGARET WYLES wrote: >> The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about >> the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said. >> >> > I saw the interview with David Frost where she outed this information. > What was stunning is that he had no reaction to this explosive > revelation, leading me to conclude that he was already aware of it and > under orders not to discuss the topic. If David Frost knew, Obama > surely knew, yet he kept the boogie man alive throughout his campaign. > > Curious, though not surprising, that Hersh's remarks should not find > their way into any mainstream publications. > > M > > > From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Tue May 19 12:36:02 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 11:36:02 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Seymour Hersh: "The US death unit killed Bhutto on Cheney orders" In-Reply-To: <4A12BFFB.7090104@yahoo.es> References: <4A114C8F.50006@ashisuto.co.jp> <4A1269ED.8090301@yahoo.es> <82b839ea0905190659q478e0efev98fee1dcc37df117@mail.gmail.com> <4A12BFFB.7090104@yahoo.es> Message-ID: Here's what I posted at Tom Ricks (ex-wapo, now FP blogger) site: http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/dawn_says_seymour_hersh_claims_cheney_had_bhutto_killed Hmmmn, dawn redacted that story under pressure. Must check the Wayback machine @ IA after a day or so ?Vice President Cheney does not have a death squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Ms Bhutto." REALLY! Raw Story Reposted a Newsweek article from June 2006: "Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, West Point '76, is not someone the Army likes to talk about. He isn't even listed in the directory at Fort Bragg, N.C., his home base. That's not because McChrystal has done anything wrong?quite the contrary, he's one of the Army's rising stars?but because he runs the most secretive force in the U.S. military. That is the Joint Special Operations Command, the snake-eating, slit-their-throats "black ops" guys who captured Saddam Hussein and targeted Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. JSOC is part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to "work the dark side" after 9/11. To many critics, the veep's remark back in 2001 fostered his rep as the Darth Vader of the war on terror and presaged bad things to come, like the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guant?namo Bay. But America also has its share of Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls "the shadows." And McChrystal, an affable but tough Army Ranger, and the Delta Force and other elite teams he commands are among them. ..." http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/did-newly-announced-top-afghan-general-run-cheneys-assassination-wing/ So Hersh lies, or should I say 'disinforms'. ... Cheney DID have a JSOC group directly attached to his office. Hersh is playing it fast and loose, and transparent as thin potato soup. So Seymour Hersh denies it, a man TOTALLY dependent on, and hoping that his pentagon/state department sources remain intact... Perhaps they will. Now. ...and for what it's worth, and to clarify Tom, you're a blogger, and DAWN IS a MAIN NEWS SOURCE FOR PAKISTAN. Methinks they're more reliable than the Pentagon's PR plant at the NYTimes, Judith Miller, ever was. Meanwhile most of YOUR sources have US connections, and perhaps SOME overseas sources that aren't related to American interests and American supported governments, but essentially you're as hamstrung by your sources skewed westward as Mr. Hersh. So do you think Dawn's also lying about what their president claims? Pakistan's president Zardari claimed Osama bin Laden was a "Washington operative"... he claims Pakistan turned UBL over around 1989 (UBL worked for US @ the time).... that Pakistani forces had arrested bin Laden and handed him over to US forces who then lost him. http://tinyurl.com/ok75wg On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 7:19 AM, peripatetic wrote: > Update: Hersh told RAW STORY Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna > that he made no such statements > > > Hersch or not, all of that story (included the Hariri assassination) sounds > more than plausible to me. > http://webabuser.blogspot.com/ > > > MARGARET WYLES wrote: >>> >>> The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about >>> the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said. >>> >>> >> >> I saw the interview with David Frost where she outed this information. >> ?What was stunning is that he had no reaction to this explosive >> revelation, leading me to conclude that he was already aware of it and >> under orders not to discuss the topic. ?If David Frost knew, Obama >> surely knew, yet he kept the boogie man alive throughout his campaign. >> >> Curious, though not surprising, that ?Hersh's remarks should not find >> their way into any mainstream publications. >> >> M >> >> >> > > From suzannedk at gmail.com Tue May 19 11:24:39 2009 From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 19:24:39 +0200 Subject: [A-List] [R-G] Seymour Hersh: "The US death unit killed Bhutto on Cheney orders" In-Reply-To: <4A126CB3.2020702@yahoo.es> References: <995.9531.qm@web111513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A126CB3.2020702@yahoo.es> Message-ID: The specificity of the Hersh book may obscure that the systems set up to make these murders efficient, secret and lega,l effects mass murders as well, at will and at whim. And obscures that they are improving, increasing and are working now, planned to work for the life of empire. That is why the book will be hyped , advertised, as so many will assume that the book proves that the end of such horror is over, exposed, crumbing in the light of transparentsy. Suzanne suzannedk at gmail.com On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 10:24 AM, peripatetic wrote: > ?Cheney was the chief of the Joint Special Operation Command and he > cleared the way for the US by exterminating opponents through the unit > and the CIA. General Stanley was the in-charge of the unit,? The Nation > quoted US columnist Seymour Hersh, as saying. > > The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about > the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said. > > The US leadership did not want Osama to be declared dead. It would have > raised questions about the US Army?s presence in Afghanistan, he claimed. > > According to Hersh, the former Lebanese PM Rafique Al Hariri and the > army chief were murdered for not safeguarding US interests and for > refusing to set up US military bases in Lebanon. > > Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in > the plot, he said. (ANI) > > > http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/us-journo-claims-bhutto-was-killed-on-cheneys-orders_100194038.html > > > http://webabuser.blogspot.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > Rad-Green mailing list > Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 2520 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090519/79427d7d/attachment.txt From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Tue May 19 17:49:10 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 08:49:10 +0900 Subject: [A-List] Financial Disaster Will Lead to Civil Disorder in 2009 or 2010 Message-ID: <4A134576.6020000@ashisuto.co.jp> Says Secret Citibank Memo by Mike Adams Natural News (November 28 2008) An internal memo from a top Citibank analyst reveals what the banks really think about the global financial situation, and the outlook is grim. "The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed through into an inflation shock", wrote Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank's chief technical strategist. He goes on to explain that the massive money creation efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks will end with one of two things: A resurgence of inflation, or a fall into "depression, civil disorder and possibly wars". Either outcome, he says, will cause the price of gold to skyrocket. Gold will push to well over $2,000 per ounce, he explains. The timing on all this? Sometime in either 2009 or 2010, said the analyst. This coincides with predictions I've made here on NaturalNews.com, where I've publicly predicted price inflation of twenty to forty percent in 2009, and the financial collapse of the United States government (sometime before 2025) due to an irreversible debt burden. I've also predicted that when the people wake up and realize their dollars have been looted by the Treasury and turned into worthless pieces of paper, there will be riots in the streets. These events have already been set into motion. It is now only a matter of time until they bubble to the surface. On the day the mainstream taxpayers actually figure all this out, don't be caught out in public. Stay home. >From Telegraph.co.: Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months - reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency ... __________________ Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world's monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup. by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph.co.uk (November 27 2008) The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before. This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold. "They are throwing the kitchen sink at this", said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist. "The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock. "Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don't think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes", he said. "This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised." "What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We're already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore", he said. Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. "If true, this is a very material change", he said. Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. "People have started to question the value of government debt", he said. Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months - reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency. Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses. (c) Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3526645/Citigroup-says-gold-could-rise-above-2000-next-year-as-world-unravels.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 19 19:12:20 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Interview: Secret History Of US Military Base On Diego Garcia Message-ID: <8D1C087D2D6648B2A8B1D143D8556682@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 5:19 PM Subject: [stopnato] Interview: Secret History Of US Military Base On Diego Garcia http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2575267.htm Australian Broadcasting Company May 19, 2009 The untold story of Deigo Garcia Reporter: Mark Colvin MARK COLVIN: It's one of the forgotten tragedies of the last half century - the story of the people of Diego Garcia, the island atoll in the Indian Ocean which nowadays serves as a base for the US military. The United States paid the British Government $14-million in 1966 for the use of Diego Garcia but along with the deal came an agreement that the people who actually lived there, known as the Chagossians, would be kicked out. So the Chagossians have been in exile ever since, despite a British High Court decision in 2000 giving them the right to return. Meanwhile sources including the UN rapporteur on torture have claimed that the US has used Diego Garcia not only as a military base but also as a so-called "black site" - a secret prison for holding suspected enemy combatants. The whole story is told in a new book, "Island of Shame", by American anthropologist David Vine. DAVID VINE: Diego Garcia was one of what looks like to be now more than two-dozen CIA black sites, secret prisons where the United States under the direction of Dick Cheney and President Bush had detained suspected terrorists. And more broadly, Diego Garcia has been a little known, especially in this country probably less in Australia I imagine, launch pad for the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. MARK COLVIN: I think not necessarily better known in Australia. Tell us more about the history. DAVID VINE: The history goes back to the late 1950s when officials in the US Pentagon and especially in the US Navy began looking for island bases around the world where they might acquire islands and build bases that would be strategically located so that the US could, their words, intervene militarily in future conflicts. And very quickly the island of Diego Garcia became the prime candidate for the acquisition by the United States with the help of the British Government and the creation of a base. MARK COLVIN: What's the geographical significance of Diego Garcia? DAVID VINE: Officials in the navy and elsewhere in the US national security bureaucracy saw that Diego Garcia, while far from any land mass, was ideally located in their eyes in its proximity to the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and then areas of the world from southern Africa all the way through South Asia and South-East Asia. They saw it is a prime location from which they could quickly insert US military power far more quickly than sending air force or army or marine power from the United States itsel f. MARK COLVIN: All of which would be one thing if the islands had been uninhabited but they weren't. DAVID VINE: That's right; that's right. And which US officials and British officials were well aware of. But from the beginning the plan was to simply get rid of the local population. US officials in particular and British officials hoped and thought that given the small size of the population, about 1,500 to 2,000 at the time, they could deport them and no-one would more or less object. MARK COLVIN: Where did they put them? DAVID VINE: They deported them in a process that lapsed or spanned 1968 to 1973 in the Western Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and the Seychelles. MARK COLVIN: And one justification for that was that allegedly they had probably come from there in the first place. They were migrant workers or descendents of migrant workers. DAVID VINE: Allegedly is the key word there. US and British officials crafted what was a public relations plan in the late 1960s and early 1970s to represent the Chagossians, as the Indigenous people are known, to the world as migrant labourers or transient workers, rather than the Indigenous people that they are, having lived in the islands for five generations or more, going back to the time of the American Revolution, so late 18th century. They simply decided that they would, in the words of British officials, "maintain the fiction" that the Chagossians were transients and had no real connection to the islands. MARK COLVIN: This is a very long story but many people think that it should have ended in the year 2000 when the British High Court ruled that the Chagossians could go back to Diego Garcia. Yet they're not back there yet, are they? DAVID VINE: They're not. They're not. That was certainly the hope of many Chagossians after their really historic victory in 2000, in which the British High Court ruled their expulsion unlawful. The hope was, and initial indications from the British Government were that they would be able to return. Plans were underway to allow for a return and a reconstruction of their society. Unfortunately a subsequent British Government appealed essentially and overturned the earlier ruling... MARK COLVIN: So what was going on there do you think? DAVID VINE: There are strong indications that there was pressure from the US Government to prevent any return, even to some of the outer islands in the Chagos Archipelago which are over 100 miles, 130 kilometres or so away from Diego Garcia; far, far away from any interference in military activity. MARK COLVIN: And why is it so important to the United States? DAVID VINE: It's important to US, at least some US Government officials because they see Diego Garcia along with Guam, a US colony or territory, as key overseas military installations through which they can exert US military power and maintain US dominance in the world, particularly in the case of Diego Garcia, over the Middle East and Persian Gulf and its oil supplies. MARK COLVIN: Is there any way the Chagossians could go back while there was still a United States base there at all? DAVID VINE: Absolutely. And the Chagossians are not calling for the removal of the base on the whole. Many of them want to work on the base where non-US and non-British citizens have been working on the base for about 20 years. Less than half of Diego Garcia has actually been used by the base. The entire eastern portion of the island is free of military activities and people could live there. And people could certainly live on these outer islands, the other islands in the archipelago that were formally inhabited by the Chagossians. But both the British and the US Governments have been very firm in their position that the Chagossians can't go back to any of the islands. .... MARK COLVIN: American anthropologist David Vine who worked with the Chagossians on their case and whose new book is called "Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia". =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 19 19:13:27 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:13:27 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Europe Without Neutrals: Swedish Defense Minister At NATO Headquarters Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: rwrozoff at yahoo.com To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 4:56 PM Subject: [stopnato] Europe Without Neutrals: Swedish Defense Minister At NATO Headquarters http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-0F409B81-BFD50AFE/natolive/news_55017.htm NATO International May 19, 2009 Visit to NATO by the Swedish Defence Minister They discussed a number of issues, most prominently Afghanistan, where Sweden plays an important role in the NATO-led ISAF mission. In that regard, they looked forward to the upcoming elections in Afghanistan, and the discussions on the mission that will take place among all the ISAF countries at the Defence Ministers meeting in June. Minister Tofors also briefed the Secretary General on the upcoming transformation of Sweden's defence capabilities, which should make Swedish forces more efficient, more deployable and more capable of conducting international operations. The Secretary General thanked the Minister for Sweden's partnership with NATO. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 19 19:19:28 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:19:28 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Russia To Step Up Army Exercises After NATO War Games Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: rwrozoff at yahoo.com To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:42 PM Subject: [stopnato] Russia To Step Up Army Exercises After NATO War Games http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200905190815dowjonesdjonline000293&title=russia-to-step-up-army-exercises-after-nato-war-games-min Agence France-Press May 19, 2009 Russia To Step Up Army Exercises After NATO War Games - Min MOSCOW - Russia will step up its military training exercises next month in response to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's war games in Georgia, Interfax news agency quoted the deputy defense minister as saying Tuesday. "Firstly, we are watching and evaluating everything that is happening over there (in Georgia during the NATO-led military exercises), said Alexander Kolmakov. "Naturally, adjustments will be made" to Russia's strategic and tactical maneuvers, entitled Caucasus 2009, which are scheduled to take place in the region in June, he added. The exercises will be "comparable to those held during the Soviet Union," said Kolmakov, adding that they would comprise nearly all the units based in the northern Caucasus region and elements from across Russia. NATO and Georgia began a month of military exercises in the ex-Soviet state on May 6, nine months after Russia and Georgia fought a short war that sparked a crisis in relations between Moscow and the West. The maneuvers, planned over the last year with preparations starting before Georgia's war with Russia in August, are aimed at improving the way the nations operate together in crisis situations under a U.N. mandate. Russia, which is irked by the prospect of Georgia becoming a NATO member, said the war games contradict the ceasefire deal signed after the August conflict and risk adding to instability in the region. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE I Get Paid $450/day. Find out How. Part Time!. I make $75/Hour. While I Sleep!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 4New Members Visit Your Group Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. Yahoo! Groups Dog Lovers Group Connect and share with dog owners like you Yahoo! Groups Auto Enthusiast Zone Auto Enthusiast Zone Discover auto groups. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 19 19:21:23 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:21:23 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US Pacific Command: Half The Planet, Half World's Population Message-ID: <98D4B996874A4FA3B7C3DC9DE9280E22@TonyPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: rwrozoff at yahoo.com To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 3:57 PM Subject: [stopnato] US Pacific Command: Half The Planet, Half World's Population http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54386 U.S. Department of Defense American Forces Press Service May 18, 2009 Pacific Command Strategy Centers on Partnership, Readiness, Presence By Donna Miles -Pacom?s vast area of responsibility [consists of] half the surface of the globe that includes half its population spread across 36 countries.... -"[W]e travel and talk and watch and work with the folks of Tonga through Mongolia to India and everybody in between...." -The most striking example of these growing military-to-military relationships comes in the form of military exercises, which have increased significantly in scope, sophistication and participation....Malabar 2009 naval exercise...wrapped up May 3 as an example of the growing combined exercise program. India led this year?s Malabar, in which about 4,000 members of the Indian, U.S. and Japanese navies trained together in surface, subsurface and air operations. -?These are full-scale amphibious landings with jets screeching overhead, ships operating offshore and thousands of soldiers participating in real field training exercises.? -Pacom is benefitting from the vast combat experience of its force, which Keating called ?unparalleled in our country?s history.? -"[N]othing replaces boots on the ground, jets in the air and ships in the harbor. You have to have forces ready, and then you have to have forces present.? HONOLULU ? The three major tenets of the U.S. Pacific Command strategy ? partnership, readiness and presence ? are having a powerful impact in bringing together the joint, interagency and international capabilities required to promote regional stability, the command?s top officer told American Forces Press Service. The strategy, revised last fall to better support the new U.S. national military strategy, establishes the three major keystones for engagements throughout Pacom?s area of responsibility, Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating said. The strategy recognizes the broad focus of the Pacom mission, he said, as well as the importance of galvanizing the broadest array of alliances, partnerships and working relationships possible to carry it out. .... As he travels Pacom?s vast area of responsibility ? half the surface of the globe that includes half its population spread across 36 countries ? Keating works to build on that spirit of partnership. .... Even the smallest countries in the region have a role to play, he said. ?There is no country so big that they can make all the strategic decisions and execute themselves, and there is no country so small that it can?t make a contribution,? Keating said, borrowing an observation from former Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace. ?We?ve got big countries and we?ve got small countries [within the AOR],? he said. ?And as we travel and talk and watch and work with the folks of Tonga through Mongolia to India and everybody in between, we are seeing firsthand that they are all interested? in working together toward common goals. The most striking example of these growing military-to-military relationships comes in the form of military exercises, which have increased significantly in scope, sophistication and participation. Keating pointed to the Malabar 2009 naval exercise that wrapped up May 3 as an example of the growing combined exercise program. India led this year?s Malabar, in which about 4,000 members of the Indian, U.S. and Japanese navies trained together in surface, subsurface and air operations. They also conducted a visit, board, search and seizure operation aboard USS Blue Ridge to simulate searching a merchant vessel. Similarly, this year?s Cobra Gold exercise in Thailand included five principal participants and 22 observers, including China. ?These are full-scale amphibious landings with jets screeching overhead, ships operating offshore and thousands of soldiers participating in real field training exercises,? Keating said. Cobra Gold also included a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise, as well as U.N. peacekeeping training. .... One striking example is taking place in the Straits of Malacca. The strategic waterway linking the Indian and Pacific oceans that was plagued by piracy until Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore formed a partnership focused on maritime security. Thailand and the Philippines are increasingly participating as well. .... As Pacom strives to increase capability among partner militaries, it?s also promoting another key tenet of its strategy ? readiness ? at home, Keating said. Like their counterparts elsewhere throughout the U.S. military, Pacom-based ground, air and naval elements have been taxed supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Keating conceded. But these demands have never jeopardized the command?s ability to execute its security plans, he said. ?We are a force ready. We are a force equipped. We are a force trained,? he said. In fact, Pacom is benefitting from the vast combat experience of its force, which Keating called ?unparalleled in our country?s history.? .... These forces provide the day-to-day presence Keating said sends an unmistakable message of the United States? continued commitment to the region. ?Virtual presence equals actual absence,? he said, borrowing a junior officer term. ?You can do all the [video teleconferences] you want, and you can have instantaneous global communications. But nothing replaces boots on the ground, jets in the air and ships in the harbor. You have to have forces ready, and then you have to have forces present.? .... =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls MARKETPLACE $9000/Month at Home. Learn how Part Time, online!. I made $5,827 last week.. Find out How. Part Time!. Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other 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 Sell Online Start selling with our award-winning e-commerce tools. Group Charity GiveWell.net Identifying the best non-profits Support Group Lose lbs together Share your weight- loss successes.. __,_._,___ From tal1 at cogeco.ca Tue May 19 19:21:50 2009 From: tal1 at cogeco.ca (Tony B.) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:21:50 -0400 Subject: [A-List] US Integrates Finnish Air Force Into Global NATO Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: rwrozoff at yahoo.com To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 3:57 PM Subject: [stopnato] US Integrates Finnish Air Force Into Global NATO http://www.usafe.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123148781 U.S. Air Forces in Europe May 18, 2009 U.S. pilots train Finns in aerial refueling operations by Staff Sgt. Austin M. May -[T]he training helps the squadron, and the service as a whole, meet a government requirement to be able to deploy outside Finland to support NATO forces. Although Finland is not a member of NATO, it is a part of the organization's Partnership of Peace program, which USAFE also supports. "This opens our eyes to a much wider operating area." -The 100th ARW is the sole refueling unit for the European theater, supporting NATO members and broadening the range of U.S. air assets flying around the globe. RAF MILDENHALL, England - The 100th Air Refueling Wing's latest training exercise was Finnish before it even began. A crew of about 10 Airmen traveled to Tampere, Finland, May 2 to participate in a week-long exercise in which U.S. Navy F-18 Hornet pilots taught their Finnish counterparts to refuel from a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker. It's the first time U.S. Air Forces in Europe has deployed a tanker team to Finland for an air-to-air refueling operation. The Finnish Air Force has been flying F-18s since about 1995, yet air-to-air refueling is something almost entirely new to the country's Hornet pilots. According to the Finnish Air Force's 21st Fighter Squadron's operations officer, a captain who asked to remain anonymous due to government policy, some of the unit's pilots have refueled other aircraft in air, but the majority of them are inexperienced with the procedure. "This provides an extension of our forces," he said. "This will allow us to be in the sky longer." The captain said the training helps the squadron, and the service as a whole, meet a government requirement to be able to deploy outside Finland to support NATO forces. Although Finland is not a member of NATO, it is a part of the organization's Partnership of Peace program, which USAFE also supports. "This opens our eyes to a much wider operating area," he added. One of the primary missions of the 100th ARW is providing air refueling support to the United States' European allies, said Capt. Aaron Torczynski, KC-135 aircraft commander. The 100th ARW is the sole refueling unit for the European theater, supporting NATO members and broadening the range of U.S. air assets flying around the globe. .... Captain Torczynski said the Finns have been supportive on all aspects of the mission, from airborne operations to assisting U.S. Air Force maintenance Airmen with pre- and post-flight duties. .... The U.S. Air Force crew arrived in Finland about a week after a pair of U.S. Navy F-18 instructor pilots began teaching the Finns the fundamentals of air-to-air refueling.... Each of the 16 Finnish pilots who were trained required a minimum of three flights to become qualified for air-to-air refueling: one flight in the two-seat F-18D model with an instructor and two in a single-seat F-18C. .... Once qualified, the pilots will assist in the instruction of the rest of Finland's F-18 pilots. .... There are no plans for the U.S. military to return to Finland for this type of mission soon because the training will be taken over by the qualified Finnish Air Force pilots. "This training not only allows Finland to reach out and assist other nations, but it helps build strong partnerships between the United States and our European allies," said Captain Torczynski. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff at yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages ============================== __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Database | Polls 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 Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others.. __,_._,___ From michael.hudson at earthlink.net Tue May 19 15:58:24 2009 From: michael.hudson at earthlink.net (Michael Hudson) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 17:58:24 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Credit fraud Message-ID: I've GOT to pass this on to you, from today's New York Times: DAVID STREITFELD < ?2 Firms Accused of Deceiving Consumers Seeking Debt Relief,? The New York Times, May 19, 2009. The New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, sued two large debt settlement firms Tuesday, saying they engaged in fraudulent and deceptive business practices and false advertising. The suits seek to enjoin the two firms, Nationwide Asset Services and Credit Solutions of America, from many of their business practices, including charging customers before any settlement work is done, and seeks restitution and damages for dissatisfied customers. ?These companies claim to be the light at the end of the tunnel, but time after time they have shown that they only add to the burdens of Americans dealing with debt,? Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. Credit Solutions enrolled 18,000 customers in New York State over the last five years, earning it $17 million in fees, but settled the debts of fewer than 2,000 of them, the attorney general said. Nationwide signed up 1,981 New York residents over three years, according to its suit, but only 64 completed the program. Twenty-seven of those ended up paying more than they originally owed, because of Nationwide?s fees. Mark Walling, a lawyer for Phoenix-based Nationwide, said he had not seen the suit yet. ?My client denies any wrongdoing,? he said. Credit Solutions, based in Richardson, Tex., said in a statement that it was ?committed to the highest standard of customer service,? and that it was cooperating with the investigation. The suits are part of a larger effort by Mr. Cuomo to rein in the settlement industry, which has mushroomed as the economy has worsened. Earlier this month he sent subpoenas to 15 major settlement firms, seeking details about their business practices. As unemployment rises, many people can no longer afford to pay the minimum on their credit cards. The Federal Reserve said this week that delinquencies rose in the first quarter to 6.5 percent, the highest level since it began tracking the data in 1991. The situation is continuing to deteriorate. Citigroup and Wells Fargo both said April defaults are over 10 percent. For consumers on the verge of default, debt settlement promises relief. In voluminous radio and late-night television ads, the companies say they can shrink those onerous balances by striking a deal with the creditors. Credit Solutions, which was founded in 2003, began by saying it could shrink a customer?s credit card debt by up to 75 percent. ?There?s more to life than paying bills,? it said on its Web site, noting that it was ?honest and sincere.? Such claims powered it to a leading position in the industry, with 200,000 customers who have a combined debt of $2.25 billion. But its policy of charging a fee in advance of 15 percent of the total debt drew the attention of state regulators. Credit Solutions had to refund $700,000 to customers in South Carolina in 2007 after violating the state?s credit counseling laws. It had to pay $588,000 to Idaho customers in 2008 for operating in the state without a license. In March, the company was sued by the Texas attorney general for fraud. Over time, the dissatisfaction with the company?s actual programs has mounted. The Better Business Bureau of Dallas gives the company a grade of ?F,? saying it has received 1,679 complaints against the company. A Credit Solutions spokeswoman, Genie Hayes, called that number relatively small, ?given the difficulty and length of the settlement process.? She said all the complaints had been resolved except for 6 cases where the consumers had disappeared. Debt settlement is always difficult and often impossible. Evelyn Mazzella, who lives in Westchester County, signed up with Credit Solutions after a friend recommended it. ?I ended up paying them a couple of thousand dollars, but they only settled one card,? with Best Buy electronics, Ms. Mazzella said. The more indebted someone is, the greater the appeal of debt settlement. But the more indebted someone is, the less likely he or she is able to set money aside for settlement while simultaneously paying the settlement company. ?In practice,? Mr. Cuomo?s lawsuit asserts, ?Credit Solutions frequently fails to obtain settlement offers at all.? Credit Solutions used to send its customers a 60-item checklist of ways to raise money. First is ?refinance home,? followed by ?get a second mortgage? ? the two things that got many people in over their heads in the first place. Among the other suggestions are: No. 14: ?Babysit.? No. 16: ?Sell plasma.? No. 20: ?Ask for raise.? No. 22: ?Mow lawns.? No. 32: ?Get off the station before your usual stop and walk.? No. 33: ?Cut down your drinking.? No. 43: ?Drink tap water.? No. 47: ?Buy frozen.? Nationwide Asset has a lower profile than Credit Solutions. Doreen and Barry Melton, a retired couple who live in Lewiston, N.Y., near Niagara Falls, became clients of the firm in 2007. They had many credit cards ? about 13, Mrs. Melton estimates. After Mr. Melton had back surgery, then eye surgery, then heart surgery, the bills got out of hand. ?I thought settlement was an answer to my prayers,? Mrs. Melton said. ?They were going to take care of all my debt in a year and a half.? Before she knew it, however, she had paid Nationwide $1,400, and then a regular $56.65 a month. The company told her not to answer the phone, which only redoubled the creditors? zeal. ?Our phone was ringing constantly from morning to 9 or 10 at night,? Mrs. Melton said. A few bills were settled, and each time Nationwide charged her another fee. Most were not settled. Now, she said, ?our credit is destroyed.? From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 20 03:33:11 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 18:33:11 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The End of the Information Age Message-ID: <4A13CE57.1070504@ashisuto.co.jp> The Archdruid Report (May 13 2009) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society One of the repeated lessons I've learned over the three years since The Archdruid Report began appearing is the extent to which many people nowadays have trouble grasping some of the most fundamental facts about the crisis of our times. I had yet another reminder of that a few days back, when the comments on last week's post started coming in. A point made in passing in that post was that railroads, while they are much more efficient than automobile or air transport, still require relatively large amounts of concentrated energy, and so may become uneconomical for many uses at a certain point well down the curve of fossil fuel depletion. One of my readers took rather heated exception to this comment. Only America's backwards railroads, he pointed out indignantly, relied on fossil fuel; since European and Japanese railways used electricity, they would be unaffected by fossil fuel depletion and could keep rolling along into the far future. This kind of logic is common enough these days that it's probably necessary to point out the flaws in it. Electricity isn't an energy source; it has to be generated, using some other energy source to do so. The electricity that powers the European and Japanese rail systems is mostly generated by plants that burn coal, with significant help from nuclear reactors and a rather smaller assist from hydroelectric plants. Of these, only the hydroelectric plants are a renewable energy source; the others are poised just as firmly on the downslope of depletion as the diesel oil that runs American locomotives. Coal is turning out to be much less abundant than the cozy estimates of a few decades ago made it sound, and of course there's the far from minor impact of coal burning on an already unstable global climate. Fissionable uranium is well down its own depletion curve, and it's worth noting that the enthusiastic claims sometimes made for breeder reactors, the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel, and other alternatives to conventional fission plants are very rarely to be heard from people who have professional training in the fields concerned. Thus my reader was quite simply wrong; the European and Japanese rail systems that so excited his admiration are just as dependent on nonrenewable fuels as the American system, and are also just as vulnerable to the economic implications of supply and demand as energy supplies dwindle. Now of course there are other reasons why railroads may be kept in service, at least for certain uses, long after they become economic liabilities. Many of the world's larger nations - the United States and Russia among them - grew to their present size only after rail transport made it possible to exert political and economic power on a continental scale, and future governments may well keep long-distance rail links going as a matter of national survival. That likelihood, though, does nothing to counter the point central to last week's post: that in a world with much less energy, older and more energy-efficient transport methods such as canal boats may turn out to be much more economically viable than their more recent and more extravagant replacements, and those cities and regions well positioned to take advantage of waterborne transport may therefore thrive in the 21st century as they did in the 19th. The same logic can be applied usefully to many other aspects of the future taking shape ahead of us right now. Probably the best example is the looming impact of a future of energy constraints on the ways that modern industrial cultures store, process, and distribute information. It's hard to think of a subject that has been loaded with anything like as much hype. Our time, the media never tires of repeating, is the Information Age, an epoch in which economic sectors dealing with mere material goods and services have been relegated to Third World sweatshops, while the economic cutting edge deals entirely in the manufacture, sales, and service of information in various forms. As usual - can you think of a short-term trend that hasn't been identified as a wave of the future destined to rise up an asymptotic curve to infinity, or at least absurdity? I can't - the standard assumption is that the future will be just like the present, but even more so, with more elaborate technologies providing more baroque information products and services as far as the eye (or, rather, the webcam) can see. This is hardly a new vision of the future. In his 1909 novella "The Machine Stops", which should be required reading for anyone who buys into the Information Age hullabaloo, E M Forster provided a remarkably exact dissection of contemporary cyberculture's idea of its destiny most of a century in advance. It's a great story on its own terms, but it also puts a finger on the central weakness of an information-centered society: information does not exist without a physical substrate, and if the physical substrate goes, so does the information. In Forster's story, that substrate was the Machine - an interconnected technostructure that spanned the globe and provided the necessities and luxuries of life to uncounted millions of people who spent their lives in hivelike cells, staring into screens and tapping on keyboards like so many of today's computer geeks. Adept at manipulating abstract ideas, the inhabitants of the Machine lost touch with the fact that their universe of information only existed because the physical structure of the Machine kept it there, and their attitude toward the Machine gradually evolved into a religious reverence devoid of any reference to the practical realities of the Machine's workings. The skills needed to apply physical tools to pipes and wires dropped out of use, and the consequences - minor malfunctions snowballing into major ones, and finally into total systems failure - followed from there. Now of course fiction is fiction, and the events that cause the Machine to stop are unlikely to be repeated in the real world. The central concept, though, demands attention, because our Machine - the internet - depends just as much on a physical substrate as the one in Forster's novella. In our case, that substrate is the global network of communications links and server farms, and the even vaster economic and technical infrastructure that keeps them funded, powered, and supplied with the trained personnel and spare parts that keep them running. Very few people realize just how extravagant the intake of resources to maintain the information economy actually is. The energy cost to run a home computer is modest enough that it's easy to forget, for example, that the two big server farms that keep Yahoo's family of web services online use more electricity between them than all the televisions on Earth put together. Multiply that out by the tens of thousands of server farms that keep today's online economy going, and the hundreds of other energy-intensive activities that go into the internet, and it may start to become clear how much energy goes into putting these words onto the screen where you're reading them. It's not an accident that the internet came into existence during the last hurrah of the age of cheap energy, the quarter century between 1980 and 2005 when the price of energy dropped to the lowest levels in human history. Only in a period where energy was quite literally too cheap to bother conserving could so energy-intensive an information network be constructed. The problem here, of course, is that the conditions that made the cheap abundant energy of that quarter century have already come to an end, and the economics of the internet take on a very different shape as energy becomes scarce and expensive again. Like the railroads of the future mentioned earlier in this post, the internet is subject to the laws of supply and demand. Once the cost of maintaining it in its current form outstrips the income that can be generated by it, it becomes a losing proposition, and cheaper modes of information storage and delivery will begin to replace it in its more marginal uses. Governments will have very good reasons to maintain some form of internet as long as they can, even when it becomes an economic sink - it's worth remembering that the internet we now have evolved out of a US government network meant to provide communication capacity in the event of nuclear war - but this does not mean that everyone in the industrial world will have the same access they do today. Instead, as energy costs move unsteadily upward and resource needs increasingly get met, or not, on the basis of urgency, expect access costs to rise, government regulation to increase, internet commerce to be subject to increasing taxation, and rural areas and poor neighborhoods to lose internet service altogether. There may well still be an internet a quarter century from now, but it will likely cost much more, reach far fewer people, and have only a limited resemblance to the free-for-all that exists today. Newspapers, radio, and television all moved from a growth phase of wild diversity and limited regulation to a mature phase of vast monopolies with tightly controlled content; even in the absence of energy limits, the internet would be likely to follow the same trajectory, and the rising costs imposed by the end of cheap energy bid fair to shift that process into overdrive. The waning of the internet will pose an additional challenge to the future, because - like other new technologies - it is in the process of displacing older technologies that provided the same services on a more sustainable basis. The collapse of the newspaper industry is one widely discussed example of this process at work, but another - the death spiral of American public libraries - is likely to have a much wider impact in the decades and centuries to come. Among the most troubling consequences of the current economic crisis are wholesale cuts in state and local government funding for libraries. The Florida legislature was with some difficulty convinced a few weeks ago not to cut every penny of state support for library systems - roughly a quarter of all the money that keeps libraries open in Florida - and county and city libraries from coast to coast are cutting hours, laying off staff, and closing branches. Some of the proponents of these budget cuts have been caught in public insisting that with the rise of the internet, nobody actually needs public libraries any more. (The fact that many of these people call themselves conservatives proves, if any additional proof is needed, just how empty of content today's political labels have become; what exactly do they think they're conserving?) Now of course public libraries provide many services the internet doesn't, and it also provides them to all those people who can't afford internet access. The point I'd like to make here, though, is that the public library will still be a viable information technology in a postpetroleum society. When Ben Franklin founded America's first public library, it may be worth noting, he did it without benefit of fossil fuels. If public libraries can be kept open during the waves of economic crisis that punctuate the decline of civilizations, then, everyone will likely be the better for it. I am sorry to say that this is probably not the most likely way things will fall out. The current wave of library downsizing is probably a harbinger of things to come; pressed between too many demands and too little funding to go around, library systems - like public health departments, for example, and a great many other institutions that make community life viable - are far too likely to draw the short straw. Exactly this sort of short-term thinking has driven the loss of vast amounts of information and cultural heritage in the collapse of past civilizations. As we move into the penumbra of the deindustrial age, then, it's crucial to start thinking about the options open to us - individually and collectively - with an eye toward their long-term viability and to the hard reality of a world of ecological limits. When today's data centers are crumbling ruins long since stripped of valuable salvage, and all the data once stored there has evaporated into whatever realm magnetic patterns go to when they die, the thinking that led politicians to gut viable library systems on the assumption that the internet will take up the slack will look remarkably stupid. Still, the habits of thought instilled by the age of cheap abundant energy are hard to shake off, and from within them, such mistakes are hard to avoid. _____ ?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/2009/05/end-of-information-age.html http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From tboyle at rosehill.net Wed May 20 10:59:22 2009 From: tboyle at rosehill.net (Todd Boyle) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 09:59:22 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [CAnet - news] Moving to IPv4 address market trading - critical role for R&E networks? Message-ID: Below is an interesting report that IPv6 appears on the back burner, and "the industry" is moving instead towards trading IP addresses in open markets-- basically monetizing, or privatizing, address space, making it a tax on the public to be transferred to a population of financial exploiters and speculators to whom it is just another rent-seeking opportunity. Design decisions on primary computing and communications technologies (including routing technology at the hardware level) determine outcomes of alternative currencies and money reforms. During the 1990s Lawrence Lessig (in his book "Code Rules") explained how fundamental choices in technology can determine social, political, and economic outcomes even more than do lawmakers, laws, or governments that attempt to enforce them. An easy example: SPAM hard to stop once you allow the source computer to assign the source address in IP packets rather than the Telco as with telephones. Many other examples are more subtle and far-reaching -- make decentralization of money hard to achieve. To economists the technical principle (that code rules) is as baffling as Coase's theorem would be to technologists if they bothered to read it. To voters, likewise, it must be frustrating. So, why do we allow obscure technology standards bodies to make such critically important decisions without oversight by governments? At least, we might insist on protections against monopoly control or economic exploitation. We might insist on more public disclosure of the concentration of political power that results from today's hierarchic technical architecture, and the price paid by the public for the license to SPAM, the license to spread viruses, to sell child pornography that is granted by todays' neglect of source packet authentication, neglect of IPv6, and so many other technologies. I once attended a 3 day convention of 80 different standards bodies in computing and communications standards, who documented the reasons they could not agree, or form coalitions among themselves, for outstanding incompatible standards. It was a microcosm of other corporate, concentrated segments of the economy- a consequence of capitalism itself, and testimony that corporate profits are antagonistic to free markets or the well-being of the industries themselves. Capitalism unregulated, does not serve the well-being of people. Todd >From: "Bill St. Arnaud" >To: >Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 09:13:09 -0400 >Subject: [CAnet - news] Moving to IPv4 address market trading - critical > role for R&E networks? > >For more information on this item please visit my blog at >http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ >or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com >------------------------------------------- > > > [There are several excellent articles in this > month?s issue of The Internet Protocol Journal. > Of particular note is the article by Niall > Murphy of Google and David Wilson of HEAnet > (Irish R&E network) on the issues and > challenges of moving to a white market for the > trading of IPv4 address space. There is growing > recognition that may not be enough time or > market momentum to move to IPv6. Some also > argue that the new common bearer service is > HTTP and that URI endpoints and > routing instead of IPv6 addresses provides a > lot more flexibility in terms of network > architecture. Companies like SolaceSystems > already build URI/XML routers. As such, at > least as an interim strategy, the RIRs may need > to institute some sort of market trading of > IPv4 addresses. This will have major > significance for university and research > institutes as they hold the largest number of > unallocated and unused address blocks in the > world. As the article points out without a > carefully planned market trading system, > fragmentation of the routing tables could grow > significantly. R&E networks could play a > critical role working with RIRs in ensuring > route aggregation without violating PI address > space. And as R&E networks expand into peering > and transit services they might be able to > offer aggregation of routes to a larger > community outside of academia. All this points > to a future where R&E networks may have to play > a critical national coordination role for both > academia and the global Internet community, > especially as we see demands for community > networks and the science community to deliver > citizen science services. For example R&E > networks could assign address sub blocks from a > local university to a local community that is > committed to building an open infrastructure > network or transit exchange. This would > maintain route aggregation and yet allow for > use of unallocated address space ?BSA] > >Other excellent must read articles in this >months issue are Resource Certification by Geoff >Huston and Host Identity Protocol: >Identifier/Locator Split by Andrei Gurtov and Miika Komu >--BSA] > > > >http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/about_cisco_the_internet_protocol_journal.html > > > > >------------------------------------- >To subscribe or unsubscribe send e-mail to >bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca > >These news items and comments are mine alone and >do not necessarily reflect those of the CANARIE board or management. > > > >------ >Bill.St.Arnaud at gmail.com >Bill at st-arnaud.org >http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/ > >_______________________________________________ >news mailing list >news at canarie.ca >http://lists.canarie.ca/mailman/listinfo/news -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 6437 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090520/f5fae00d/attachment.txt From noreply at coha.org Wed May 20 12:03:14 2009 From: noreply at coha.org (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 14:03:14 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Guadeloupe, US-Cuban Ties, COHA Research Fellow Wins Award Message-ID: <20090520180014.798A63E4745@mx-out.daemonmail.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/html Size: 7827 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20090520/98b0d8b6/attachment.txt From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Wed May 20 15:01:22 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 14:01:22 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Fwd: [CAnet - news] Moving to IPv4 address market trading - critical role for R&E networks? In-Reply-To: <7o7ghn$4i87ol@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> References: <7o7ghn$4i87ol@ipo4smtp.cc.utah.edu> Message-ID: uTtorrent utilizes IPv6 and will install it on an XP machine by request. It's enabled by default in the latest windoze releases from Vista on (and I am not recommending 'Vista on...") It allows for longer IP addresses than IPv4, and it may be on the 'backburner' for now, but eventually it will be necessary unless the techies develop some other way to extend IP addressing. Leigh (who remembers when the computer manufacturers thought the public would be not be interested in the internet and didn't build their computer to have inter-connectivity capabilities... I hacked the printer port on my early 90s COCO3 to be bi-directional and used a 1200 baud modem... users of other computers were often TSOL) On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Todd Boyle wrote: > Below is an interesting report that IPv6 appears on the back burner, and > "the industry" is moving instead towards trading IP addresses in open > markets-- basically monetizing, or privatizing, address space, making it a > tax on the public to be transferred to a population of financial exploiters > and speculators to whom it is just another rent-seeking opportunity. > > Design decisions on primary computing and communications technologies > (including routing technology at the hardware level) determine outcomes of > alternative currencies and money reforms.? During the 1990s Lawrence Lessig > (in his book "Code Rules") explained how fundamental choices in technology > can determine social, political, and economic outcomes even more than do > lawmakers, laws, or governments that attempt to enforce them.? An easy > example: SPAM hard to stop once you allow the source computer to assign the > source address in IP packets rather than the Telco as with telephones.? Many > other examples are more subtle and far-reaching -- make decentralization of > money hard to achieve. > > To economists the technical principle (that code rules) is as baffling as > Coase's theorem would be to technologists if they bothered to read it.?? To > voters, likewise, it must be frustrating.?? So, why do we allow obscure > technology standards bodies to make such critically important decisions > without oversight by governments???? At least, we might insist on > protections against monopoly control or economic exploitation.? We might > insist on more public disclosure of the concentration of political power > that results from today's hierarchic technical architecture, and the price > paid by the public for the license to SPAM, the license to spread viruses, > to sell child pornography that is granted by todays' neglect of source > packet authentication, neglect of IPv6, and so many other technologies. > > I once attended a 3 day convention of 80 different standards bodies in > computing and communications standards, who documented the reasons they > could not agree, or form coalitions among themselves, for outstanding > incompatible standards. > > It was a microcosm of other corporate, concentrated segments of the economy- > a consequence of capitalism itself, and testimony that corporate profits are > antagonistic to free markets or the well-being of the industries > themselves.? Capitalism unregulated, does not serve the well-being of > people. > > Todd > > > From: "Bill St. Arnaud" > To: > Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 09:13:09 -0400 > Subject: [CAnet - news] Moving to IPv4 address market trading - critical > ????????role for R&E networks? > > For more information on this item please visit my blog at > http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com > ------------------------------------------- > > > ?[There are several excellent articles in this month?s issue of The Internet > Protocol Journal. Of particular note is the article by Niall Murphy of > Google and David Wilson of HEAnet (Irish R&E network) on the issues and > challenges of moving to a white market for the trading of IPv4 address > space. There is growing recognition that may not be enough time or market > momentum to move to? IPv6. Some also argue that the new common bearer > service is HTTP and that URI endpoints and routing? instead of IPv6 > addresses provides a lot more flexibility in terms of network architecture. > Companies like SolaceSystems already build URI/XML routers.? As such, at > least as an interim strategy, the RIRs may need to institute some sort of > market trading of IPv4 addresses. This will have major significance for > university and research institutes as they hold the largest number of > unallocated and unused address blocks in the world.? As the article points > out without a carefully planned market trading system, fragmentation of the > routing tables could grow significantly. R&E networks could play a critical > role working with RIRs in ensuring route aggregation without violating PI > address space. And as R&E networks expand into peering and transit services > they might be able to offer aggregation of routes to a larger community > outside of academia.? All this points to a future where R&E networks may > have to play a critical national coordination role for both academia and the > global Internet community, especially as we see demands for community > networks and the science community to deliver citizen science services.? For > example R&E networks could assign address sub blocks from a local university > to a local community that is committed to building an open infrastructure > network or transit exchange. This would maintain route aggregation and yet > allow for use of unallocated address space ?BSA] > > Other excellent must read articles in this months issue are Resource > Certification by Geoff Huston and Host Identity Protocol: Identifier/Locator > Split by Andrei Gurtov and Miika Komu > --BSA] > > > > http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/about_cisco_the_internet_protocol_journal.html > > > > > ------------------------------------- > To subscribe or unsubscribe send e-mail to bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca > > These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect > those? of the CANARIE board or management. > > > > ------ > Bill.St.Arnaud at gmail.com > Bill at st-arnaud.org > http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > news mailing list > news at canarie.ca > http://lists.canarie.ca/mailman/listinfo/news From the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com Wed May 20 16:39:02 2009 From: the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com (Leigh Meyers) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 15:39:02 -0700 Subject: [A-List] Some News From "Jim Crow Country" Message-ID: One step forward down ina Babylon (Max Romeo): 5 Alabama officers have been fired for beating a perp who was unconcious after being thrown from his vehicle after a car chase and didn't know he'd been beaten due to injuries sustained in the accident. The police suppressed the incident which had been caught on a patrol car's video camera. The DA snitched to the defense when he saw it. (see below for an interesting detail... they hid it from the DA) They're going after the supervisors too. "District Attorney Brandon Falls said Wednesday the tape of the beating surfaced unexpectedly as prosecutors were preparing to try Warren. He said prosecutors had a video of the chase "but the beating was not on the copy we had." Falls said the prosecutor wanted to play the video for the jury but, for technical reasons, she needed another copy and asked for the original. "We got the original the week before the trial ... and that's where she saw the rest of the tape," he said." http://tinyurl.com/qhb4hd From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed May 20 20:25:13 2009 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 22:25:13 -0400 Subject: [A-List] Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan Message-ID: May 21, 2009 Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG WASHINGTON ? President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a ?preventive detention? system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said. The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guant?namo Bay, Cuba. Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama?s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions ? a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate. The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed. They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about ?the long game? ? how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders? accounts. ?He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can?t charge and detain,? one participant said. ?We?ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.? The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guant?namo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. ?The issue is,? the participant said, ?What are the options left open to a future president?? Mr. Obama did not specify how he intended to deal with Guant?namo detainees who posed a threat and could not be tried, nor did he share the contents of Thursday?s speech, the participants said. He will deliver the speech at a site laden with symbolism ? the National Archives, home to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Across town, his biggest Republican critic, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will deliver a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guant?namo prison. The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States. ?He needs to convince people that he?s got a game plan that will protect us as well as be fair to the detainees,? said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who agrees with Mr. Obama that the prison should be closed. ?If he can do that, then we?re back on track. But if he doesn?t make that case, then we?ve lost control of this debate.? But Mr. Obama will not use the speech to provide the details lawmakers want. ?What it?s not going to be is a prescriptive speech,? said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama?s senior adviser. ?The president wants to take some time and put this whole issue in perspective to identify what the challenges are and how he will approach dealing with them.? From shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp Wed May 20 20:26:36 2009 From: shimogamo at ashisuto.co.jp (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 11:26:36 +0900 Subject: [A-List] The Life and Death of a Fiscal Theory Message-ID: <4A14BBDC.7070404@ashisuto.co.jp> by Thomas Walkom TheStar.com (April 25 2009) Monetarism is finally dead. It's been ailing for a while, but this week Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney drove a stake through the heart of the economic theory that has dominated Canadian government thinking since 1980. Put simply, monetarism was a reaction to government activism. Purists, such as the late US economist Milton Friedman, argued that governments should focus on balancing their budgets and cutting taxes. Indeed, state efforts to regulate or stimulate the economy (which the Friedmanites usually called government interference) could only make matters worse. In the monetarist world, the only legitimate government actors were central banks. Their role was to be strictly limited to issuing just enough money to keep the economy rolling without causing inflation. By the late 1970s, as inflation wracked the Western world, monetarism held great appeal. Business liked its low-tax message as well as its resistance to anything, such as welfare or unemployment insurance, that might keep wages up. Governments, disillusioned by their often clumsy attempts to foster growth and worried about their own finances, were happy to leave the economy in the hands of inflation-fighting central bankers. Which is what they did. Before 1980, the Bank of Canada - while always conservative - had been more accommodating to activist government. Indeed, by literally printing money and giving it to the federal government in exchange for government bonds, it helped to finance these actions. In those days, this was called monetizing the debt and was considered quite respectable. In 1980, on the eve of the monetarist revolution, the Bank of Canada held about 25 per cent of the federal debt. But to the monetarists, this was anathema. The printing of money, they argued, should be strictly targeted to the needs of the private sector, and in particular, the need to fight inflation. If governments wanted to finance deficits they should borrow on the private market and bear the full cost. Through most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Bank of Canada was the real power in Ottawa. By drastically limiting the growth of the money supply, thereby forcing interest rates up to twenty per cent, it induced one punishing recession in the 1980s. Then, using the same techniques, it did the same thing a decade later. For those thrown out of work, both recessio