From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Jul 1 04:52:28 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:52:28 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Faustian Economics Message-ID: <486A0C6C.6040408@attglobal.net> Hell hath no limits by Wendell Berry Harper's Magazine Essay (May 2008) The general reaction to the apparent end of the era of cheap fossil fuel, as to other readily foreseeable curtailments, has been to delay any sort of reckoning. The strategies of delay, so far, have been a sort of willed oblivion, or visions of large profits to the manufacturers of such "biofuels" as ethanol from corn or switchgrass, or the familiar unscientific faith that "science will find an answer". The dominant response, in short, is a dogged belief that what we call the American Way of Life will prove somehow indestructible. We will keep on consuming, spending, wasting, and driving, as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves. This belief was always indefensible - the real names of global warming are Waste and Greed - and by now it is manifestly foolish. But foolishness on this scale looks disturbingly like a sort of national insanity. We seem to have come to a collective delusion of grandeur, insisting that all of us are "free" to be as conspicuously greedy and wasteful as the most corrupt of kings and queens. (Perhaps by devoting more and more of our already abused cropland to fuel production we will at last cure ourselves of obesity and become fashionably skeletal, hungry but - thank God! - still driving.) The problem with us is not only prodigal extravagance but also an assumed limitlessness. We have obscured the issue by refusing to see that limitlessness is a godly trait. We have insistently, and with relief, defined ourselves as animals or as "higher animals". But to define ourselves as animals, given our specifically human powers and desires, is to define ourselves as limitless animals - which of course is a contradiction in terms. Any definition is a limit, which is why the God of Exodus refuses to define Himself: "I am that I am". Even so, that we have founded our present society upon delusional assumptions of limitlessness is easy enough to demonstrate. A. recent "summit" in Louisville, Kentucky, was entitled "Unbridled Energy: The Industrialization of Kentucky's Energy Resources". Its subjects were "clean-coal generation, biofuels, and other cutting-edge applications", the conversion of coal to "liquid fuels", and the likelihood that all this will be "environmentally friendly". These hopes, which "can create jobs and boost the nation's security", are to be supported by government "loan guarantees ... investment tax credits and other tax breaks". Such talk we recognize as completely conventional. It is, in fact, a tissue of cliches that is now the common tongue of promoters, politicians, and journalists. This language does not allow for any computation or speculation as to the net good of anything proposed. The entire contraption of "Unbridled Energy" is supported only by a rote optimism: "The United States has 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves - enough to last 100 years even at double the current rate of consumption". We humans have inhabited the earth for many thousands of years, and now we can look forward to surviving for another hundred by doubling our consumption of coal? This is national security? The world-ending fire of industrial fundamentalism may already be burning in our furnaces and engines, but if it will burn for a hundred more years, that will be fine. Surely it would be better to intend straightforwardly to contain the fire and eventually put it out! But once greed has been made an honorable motive, then you have an economy without limits. It has no place for temperance or thrift or the ecological law of return. It will do anything. It is monstrous by definition. In keeping with our unrestrained consumptiveness, the commonly accepted basis of our economy is the supposed possibility of limitless growth, limitless wants, limitless wealth, limitless natural resources, limitless energy, and limitless debt. The idea of a limitless economy implies and requires a doctrine of general human limitlessness: all are entitled to pursue without limit whatever they conceive as desirable - a license that classifies the most exalted Christian capitalist with the lowliest pornographer. This fantasy of limitlessness perhaps arose from the coincidence of the Industrial Revolution with the suddenly exploitable resources of the New World - though how the supposed limitlessness of resources can be reconciled with their exhaustion is not clear. Or perhaps it comes from the contrary apprehension of the world's "smallness", made possible by modern astronomy and high-speed transportation. Fear of the smallness of our world and its life may lead to a kind of claustrophobia and thence, with apparent reasonableness, to a desire for the "freedom" of limitlessness. But this desire, paradoxically, reduces everything. The life of this world is small to those who think it is, and the desire to enlarge it makes it smaller, and can reduce it finally to nothing. However it came about, this credo of limitlessness clearly implies a principled wish not only for limitless possessions but also for limitless knowledge, limitless science, limitless technology, and limitless progress. And , necessarily, it must lead to limitless violence, waste, war, and destruction. That it should finally produce a crowning cult of political limitlessness is only a matter of mad logic. The normalization of the doctrine of limitlessness has produced a sort of moral minimalism: the desire to be efficient at any cost, to be unencumbered by complexity. The minimization of neighborliness, respect, reverence, responsibility, accountability, and self-subordination - this is the culture of which our present leaders and heroes are the spoiled children. Our national faith so far has been: "There's always more". Our true religion is a sort of autistic industrialism. People of intelligence and ability seem now to be genuinely embarrassed by any solution to any problem that does not involve high technology, a great expenditure of energy, or a big machine. Thus an X marked on a paper ballot no longer fulfills our idea of voting. One problem with this state of affairs is that the work now most needing to be done - that of neighborliness and caretaking - cannot be done by remote control with the greatest power on the largest scale. A second problem is that the economic fantasy of limitlessness in a limited world calls fearfully into question the value of our monetary wealth, which does not reliably stand for the real wealth of land, resources, and workmanship but instead wastes and depletes it. That human limitlessness is a fantasy means, obviously, that its life expectancy is limited. There is now a growing perception, and not just among a few experts, that we are entering a time of inescapable limits. We are not likely to be granted another world to plunder in compensation for our pillage of this one. Nor are we likely to believe much longer in our ability to outsmart, by means of science and technology, our economic stupidity. The hope that we can cure the ills of industrialism by the homeopathy of more technology seems at last to he losing status. We are, in short, coming under pressure to understand ourselves as limited creatures in a limited world. This constraint, however, is not the condemnation it may seem. On the contrary, it returns us to our real condition and to our human heritage, from which our self-definition as limitless animals has for too long cut us off. Every cultural and religious tradition that I know about, while fully acknowledging our animal nature, defines us specifically as humans - that is, as animals (if the word still applies) capable of living not only within natural limits but also within cultural limits, self-imposed. As earthly creatures, we live, because we must, within natural limits, which we may describe by such names as "earth" or "ecosystem" or "watershed" or "place". But as humans, we may elect to respond to this necessary placement by the self-restraints implied in neighborliness, stewardship, thrift, temperance, generosity, care, kindness, friendship, loyalty, and love. In our limitless selfishness, we have tried to define "freedom", for example, as an escape from all restraint. But, as my friend Bert Hornback has explained in his book The Wisdom in Words (2004), "free" is etymologically related to "friend". These words come from the same Indo-European root, which carries the sense of "dear" or "beloved". We set our friends free by our love for them, with the implied restraints of faithfulness or loyalty. And this suggests that our "identity" is located not in the impulse of selfhood but in deliberately maintained connections. Thinking of our predicament has sent me back again to Christopher Marlowe's Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. This is a play of the Renaissance; Faustus, a man of learning, longs to possess "all Nature's treasury", to "Ransack the ocean ... / And search all corners of the newfound world ..." To assuage his thirst for knowledge and power, he deeds his soul to Lucifer, receiving in compensation for twenty-four years the services of the sub-devil Mephistophilis, nominally Faustus's slave but in fact his master. Having the subject of limitlessness in mind, I was astonished on this reading to come upon Mephistophilis's description of hell. When Faustus asks, "How comes it then that thou art out of hell?" Mephistophilis replies, "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it". And a few pages later he explains: Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place, but where we [the damned] are is hell, And where hell is must we ever be. For those who reject heaven, hell is everywhere, and thus is limitless. For them, even the thought of heaven is hell. It is only appropriate, then, that Mephistophilis rejects any conventional limit: "Tut, Faustus, marriage is but a ceremonial toy. If thou lovest me, think no more of it." Continuing this theme, for Faustus's pleasure the devils present a sort of pageant of the seven deadly sins, three of which - Pride, Wrath, and Gluttony - describe themselves as orphans, disdaining the restraints of parental or filial love. Seventy or so years later, and with the issue of the human definition more than ever in doubt, John Milton in Book VII of Paradise Lost returns again to a consideration of our urge to know. To Adam's request to be told the story of creation, the "affable Archangel" Raphael agrees "to answer thy desire / Of knowledge within bounds [my emphasis] ...", explaining that Knowledge is as food, and needs no less Her temperance over appetite, to know In measure what the mind may well contain; Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind. Raphael is saying, with angelic circumlocution, that knowledge without wisdom, limitless knowledge, is not worth a fart; he is not a humorless archangel. But he also is saying that knowledge without measure, knowledge that the human mind cannot appropriately use, is mortally dangerous. I am well aware of what I risk in bringing this language of religion into what is normally a scientific discussion. I do so because I doubt that we can define our present problems adequately, let alone solve them, without some recourse to our cultural heritage. We are, after all, trying now to deal with the failure of scientists, technicians, and politicians to "think up" a version of human continuance that is economically probable and ecologically responsible, or perhaps even imaginable. If we go back into our tradition, we are going to find a concern with religion, which at a minimum shatters the selfish context of the individual life, and thus forces a consideration of what human beings are and ought to be. This concern persists at least as late as our Declaration of Independence, which holds as "self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ..." Thus among our political roots we have still our old preoccupation with our definition as humans, which in the Declaration is wisely assigned to our Creator; our rights and the rights of all humans are not granted by any human government but are innate, belonging to us by birth. This insistence comes not from the fear of death or even extinction but from the ancient fear that in order to survive we might become inhuman or monstrous. And so our cultural tradition is in large part the record of our continuing effort to understand ourselves as beings specifically human: to say that, as humans, we must do certain things and we must not do certain things. We must have limits or we will cease to exist as humans; perhaps we will cease to exist, period. At times, for example, some of us humans have thought that human beings, properly so called, did not make war against civilian populations, or hold prisoners without a fair trial, or use torture for any reason. Some of us would-be humans have thought too that we should not be free at anybody else's expense. And yet in the phrase "free market", the word "free" has come to mean unlimited economic power for some, with the necessary consequence of economic powerlessness for others. Several years ago, after I had spoken at a meeting, two earnest and obviously troubled young veterinarians approached me with a question: How could they practice veterinary medicine without serious economic damage to the farmers who were their clients? Underlying their question was the fact that for a long time veterinary help for a sheep or a pig has been likely to cost more than the animal is worth. I had to answer that, in my opinion, so long as their practice relied heavily on selling patented drugs, they had no choice, since the market for medicinal drugs was entirely controlled by the drug companies, whereas most farmers had no control at all over the market for agricultural products. My questioners were asking in effect if a predatory economy can have a beneficent result. The answer too often is No. And that is because there is an absolute discontinuity between the economy of the seller of medicines and the economy of the buyer, as there is in the health industry as a whole. The drug industry is interested in the survival of patients, we have to suppose, because surviving patients will continue to consume drugs. Now let us consider a contrary example. Recently, at another meeting, I talked for some time with an elderly, and some would say an old-fashioned, farmer from Nebraska. Unable to farm any longer himself, he had rented his land to a younger farmer on the basis of what he called "crop share" instead of a price paid or owed in advance. Thus, as the old farmer said of his renter, "If he has a good year, I have a good year. If he has a bad year, I have a bad one". This is what I would call community economics. It is a sharing of fate. It assures an economic continuity and a common interest between the two partners to the trade. This is as far as possible from the economy in which the young veterinarians were caught, in which the powerful are limitlessly "free" to trade, to the disadvantage, and ultimately the ruin, of the powerless. It is this economy of community destruction that, wittingly or unwittingly, most scientists and technicians have served for the past two hundred years. These scientists and technicians have justified themselves by the proposition that they are the vanguard of progress, enlarging human knowledge and power, and thus they have romanticized both themselves and the predatory enterprises that they have served. As a consequence, our great need now is for sciences and technologies of limits, of domesticity, of what Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, has called "homecoming". These would be specifically human sciences and technologies, working, as the best humans always have worked, within self-imposed limits. The limits would be the accepted contexts of places, communities, and neighborhoods, both natural and human. I know that the idea of such limitations will horrify some people, maybe most people, for we have long encouraged ourselves to feel at home on "the cutting edges" of knowledge and power or on some "frontier" of human experience. But I know too that we are talking now in the presence of much evidence that improvement by outward expansion may no longer be a good idea, if it ever was. It was not a good idea for the farmers who "leveraged" secure acreage to buy more during the 1970s. It has proved tragically to be a bad idea in a number of recent wars. If it is a good idea in the form of corporate gigantism, then we must ask, For whom? Faustus, who wants all knowledge and all the world for himself, is a man supremely lonely and finally doomed. I don't think Marlowe was kidding. I don't think Satan is kidding when he says in Paradise Lost, "Myself am Hell". If the idea of appropriate limitation seems unacceptable to us, that may be because, like Marlowe's Faustus and Milton's Satan, we confuse limits with confinement. But that, as I think Marlowe and Milton and others were trying to tell us, is a great and potentially a fatal mistake. Satan's fault, as Milton understood it and perhaps with some sympathy, was precisely that he could not tolerate his proper limitation; he could not subordinate himself to anything whatever. Faustus's error was his unwillingness to remain "Faustus, and a man". In our age of the world it is not rare to find writers, critics, and teachers of literature, as well as scientists and technicians, who regard Satan's and Faustus's defiance as salutary and heroic. On the contrary, our human and earthly limits, properly understood, are not confinements but rather inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning. Perhaps our most serious cultural loss in recent centuries is the knowledge that some things, though limited, are inexhaustible. For example, an ecosystem, even that of a working forest or farm, so long as it remains ecologically intact, is inexhaustible. A small place, as I know from my own experience, can provide opportunities of work and learning, and a fund of beauty, solace, and pleasure - in addition to its difficulties - that cannot be exhausted in a lifetime or in generations. To recover from our disease of limitlessness, we will have to give up the idea that we have a right to be godlike animals, that we are potentially omniscient and omnipotent, ready to discover "the secret of the universe". We will have to start over, with a different and much older premise: the naturalness and, for creatures of limited intelligence, the necessity, of limits. We must learn again to ask how we can make the most of what we are, what we have, what we have been given. If we always have a theoretically better substitute available from somebody or someplace else, we will never make the most of anything. It is hard to make the most of one life. If we each had two lives, we would not make much of either. Or as one of my best teachers said of people in general: "They'll never be worth a damn as long as they've got two choices". To deal with the problems, which after all are inescapable, of living with limited intelligence in a limited world, I suggest that we may have to remove some of the emphasis we have lately placed on science and technology and have a new look at the arts. For an art does not propose to enlarge itself by limitless extension but rather to enrich itself within bounds that are accepted prior to the work. It is the artists, not the scientists, who have dealt unremittingly with the problem of limits. A painting, however large, must finally be bounded by a frame or a wall. A composer or playwright must reckon, at a minimum, with the capacity of an audience to sit still and pay attention. A story, once begun, must end somewhere within the limits of the writer's and the reader's memory. And of course the arts characteristically impose limits that are artificial: the five acts of a play, or the fourteen lines of a sonnet. Within these limits artists achieve elaborations of pattern, of sustaining relationships of parts with one another and with the whole, that may be astonishingly complex. And probably most of us can name a painting, a piece of music, a poem or play or story that still grows in meaning and remains fresh after many years of familiarity. We know by now that a natural ecosystem survives by the same sort of formal intricacy, ever-changing, inexhaustible, and no doubt finally unknowable. We know further that if we want to make our economic landscapes sustainably and abundantly productive, we must do so by maintaining in them a living formal complexity something like that of natural ecosystems. We can do this only by raising to the highest level our mastery of the arts of agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, and, ultimately, the art of living. It is true that insofar as scientific experiments must be conducted within carefully observed limits, scientists also are artists. But in science one experiment, whether it succeeds or fails, is logically followed by another in a theoretically infinite progression. According to the underlying myth of modern science, this progression is always replacing the smaller knowledge of the past with the larger knowledge of the present, which will be replaced by the yet larger knowledge of the future. In the arts, by contrast, no limitless sequence of works is ever implied or looked for. No work of art is necessarily followed by a second work that is necessarily better. Given the methodologies of science, the law of gravity and the genome were bound to be discovered by somebody; the identity of the discoverer is incidental to the fact. But it appears that in the arts there are no second chances. We must assume that we had one chance each for The Divine Comedy and King Lear. If Dante and Shakespeare had died before they wrote those poems, nobody ever would have written them. The same is true of our arts of land use, our economic arts, which are our arts of living. With these it is once-for-all. We will have no chance to redo our experiments with bad agriculture leading to soil loss. The Appalachian mountains and forests we have destroyed for coal are gone forever. It is now and forevermore too late to use thriftily the first half of the world's supply of petroleum. In the art of living we can only start again with what remains. And so, in confronting the phenomenon of "peak oil", we are really confronting the end of our customary delusion of "more". Whichever way we turn, from now on, we are going to find a limit beyond which there will be no more. To hit these limits at top speed is not a rational choice. To start slowing down, with the idea of avoiding catastrophe, is a rational choice, and a viable one if we can recover the necessary political sanity. Of course it makes sense to consider alternative energy sources, provided they make sense. But also we will have to re-examine the economic structures of our lives, and conform them to the tolerances and limits of our earthly places. Where there is no more, our one choice is to make the most and the best of what we have. _____ Wendell Berry's most recent novel is Andy Catlett (2006), published by Counterpoint. His story "The Requirement" appeared in the March 2007 issue of Harper's Magazine. TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Tue Jul 1 12:02:42 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:02:42 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Harper's Free Trade Mantra: Hush, Rush, and Sign Message-ID: <917F4BEC-0483-43C1-9F68-F6ACC8A9E0A8@shaw.ca> http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1356/1/ Harper's Free Trade Mantra: Hush, Rush, and Sign Written by Dawn Paley Tuesday, 01 July 2008 This January, after little more than 6 months of negotiations, the Canadian Government announced the completion of negotiations of the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Six months later, on June 7, 2008, Canada announced that negotiations for a controversial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia were finalized. The negotiations with Colombia were controversial from the get go: the country has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, and the government of Alvaro Uribe is riddled by ongoing scandals that have revealed proven links between Uribe's allies in Congress and paramilitary death squads. In a corruption scandal that would most certainly bring down a Canadian Prime Minister, Uribe himself is the subject of a recent Sentence by the Colombian Supreme Court. The justices condemned him for buying the key vote of Congresswoman Yidis Medina in exchange for political favours, a crime necessary for the constitutional changes that opened the door to Uribe's re-election in 2006. On June 26th, Medina was sentenced to 3 ? years of house arrest for accepting bribes from the president. The president promptly responded that the justices were doing the bidding of terrorists and (illegally) called for a referendum for the repeat of the 2006 elections. Compared to the deal with Colombia, which has begun to generate concern among Colombians and Canadians, Canada's agreement with Peru slid in under the radar. It was ratified on May 29th, making it the country's fourth with a Latin American country: first came the Canada-US FTA in 1988, which integrated Mexico with the implementation of NAFTA 1994, then an agreement with Chile signed in 1997, and another with Costa Rica ratified in 2002. Signed, Sealed and Delivered? On July 7, 2007, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper announced the beginning of FTA negotiations with Peru and Colombia, having identified the two countries as prime targets for the signing of Free Trade Agreements in accordance with the economic plan Advantage Canada. Both of the agreements were negotiated rapidly and in behind closed doors. According to Mario Valencia from the Colombian Network in Response to Free Trade (RECALCA), "almost no one here knew that Colombia was negotiating with Canada." The negotiations "were extraordinarily fast, and unlike the negotiations with the United States, which lasted 16 rounds, they were wrapped up in the fifth round of negotiations, out of the six rounds planned at the outset in July of 2007," according to a press release put out by RECALCA. So fast, in fact, that the end of Canadian negotiations with Colombia was announced before the Standing Committee on International Trade had finished the report they were preparing to advise the government during negotiations. "By making this announcement only days before the Standing Committee on International Trade report would have been completed, the government is clearly saying that it does not respect the work of Parliament," stated Liberal International Trade Critic Navdeep Bains. [1] The report, meant to "guide negotiations," was released more than 2 weeks after they were concluded. It contains eight recommendations, of which the second "recommends that the Government of Canada maintain close ties with Colombia without signing a free trade agreement..." [2] The Conservatives have not made a statement with respect to the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement since Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade David Emerson announced the finalization of negotiations. In Canada, there is no need for a vote in parliament to ratify the agreement, unlike in the United States, where the Democrat led congress has thus far 'frozen' the ratification of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement partly due to concerns about human rights in Colombia. According to Colombian activist and physician Manuel Rozental, "The Harper Government knows what it is doing and that even Parliament would not approve the process, content and impacts of the agreement, hence the 'rush and hush' strategy." When asked what message he would like to send to the Conservatives, Rozental responded bluntly: "No deal with a criminal regime." Canada's Business Sector: Precious Interests The mining sector, along with the financial and oil and gas sectors, is among the major Canadian business interests in Latin America. "Mining is the single activity in which Latin America and the Caribbean is the most prominent region for Canadian Outward Foreign Direct Investment," reads a recent report from the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America. [3] Chile, the world's largest producer of copper, was the first Latin American country to sign a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with Canada. In a presentation to the International Trade Committee, Trade Minister David Emerson explained that after the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement was signed, "Canadian mining companies in particular invested massively in Chile, [and] brought the resource or semi-processed resource product out of Chile into Canada... creating a stronger mining sector and opportunities for value added in the Canadian economy." [4] In Colombia and Peru, the majority of Canadian investment is in the extractive industries. Peru is an extreme case. In 2006, the top five exports from Peru to Canada break down as follows: gold made up 57.5%, raw copper accounted for 10.8%, refined copper for 8.7%, zinc for 8.1%, and unleaded gasoline for 6.0%. [5] A large part of the production of these raw materials exported from Peru to Canada is in the hands of Canadian companies, including Barrick Gold, Yamana Gold, Teck Cominco and Iberian Minerals Corporation. More than two thirds of the estimated $3 billion invested by Canadian companies in Colombia is in the extractives sector. The Canadian companies with the largest estimated investments in Colombia in 2007 include Nexen Inc and Petrobank Energy and Resources, both based in Calgary, and Toronto's Pacific Rubiales Energy. The on-going armed conflict in Colombia, combined with a history of small-scale mining activity, has thus far prevented the country from being transformed into a metallic metal producer on par with Peru, but that trend is changing, and fast. South African gold giant Anglo Gold Ashanti and their partners have secured more than 10 million hectares in mineral concessions in Colombia since 2004. Colombia is already a major producer of coal, and new changes in the Mining Law as well as President Uribe's policy of 'Democratic Security' and guarantees to trans-national companies, are being made to facilitate the start up of large-scale, metallic mining projects in Colombia. Canadian junior mining companies are present in scores. Of note are B2Gold Corp, Bandera Gold Ltd., Blue Sky Uranium Corp, Colombia Goldfields, Greystar Resources, Latin American Minerals, and Mega Uranium Ltd, all of which are carrying out exploration for gold or uranium. Mining Industry Pushes for Protection The push for Free Trade Agreements has been strong from businesses and business lobbies representing the extractive industries. At a presentation on Canadian mining investment on March 6, 2005, Christian C?t? from International Trade Canada pointed out to his audience that there exists "pressure from natural resource community for government to improve investment climate for target countries." [6] Canadian companies stand to benefit from Free Trade Agreements because they remove the possibility that host governments will raise taxes, change their laws, or expropriate properties. By way of example, the FTA with Peru eliminates the possibility that Peru would enact such a thing as the recent "Mining Mandate" passed in Ecuador by the Constituent Assembly, which suspends all large scale mining activity (exploration) in Ecuador for 180 days while a new Mining Law is written. According to Foreign Affairs Canada "An investment chapter in the Canada-Peru FTA locks in market access for Canadian investors in Peru and provides greater stability, transparency and protection for their investments." [7] These elements have little to do with popular conceptions of "Free Trade" as the lowering of tariffs and taxes. In the words of Colombian economist H?ctor Mondragon, "these agreements should be known as 'Agreements on the Rights of Trans-national Corporations' instead of as 'Free Trade Agreements.'" The day that the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement with Peru concluded, the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) sent out a press release stating "MAC strongly supported the commencement of these negotiations and is very pleased to see them concluded in such a timely manner." [8] Lobbying by industry in favour of an agreement with Colombia continues. In mid-May, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Lee Richardson, the Chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade, to "strongly encourage [the] committee to endorse these negotiations and the benefits that they will bring to Canadian companies and to Canadians." Eight companies signed on in support of the letter, including Barrick Gold Inc, Teck Cominco, Nexen Inc. and Talisman Energy. [9] Where do Canadians Stand? In Canada, the Harper government and the mainstream media bombard the population with the idea that Free Trade Agreements are about prosperity, economic growth, security, equitability, and democracy. A cursory look at the facts shows us that these agreements negotiated and signed in complete secrecy, actually best represent the wishes of large corporations, and lack even a token amount of democratic participation. Will Canadians stand by and allow the Harper government to ratify a Free Trade agreement with Colombia, where 24 unionists were killed and four disappeared in the first 4 months of 2008, so that Canadian mining and oil companies can make more money? Or will Canadians stand up in defence of life and speak out against these agreements, negotiated with one of the most repressive regimes in the hemisphere and in their names but without their consent? Together, perhaps, these are the key questions in determining the moral compass of Canadians as Parliament resumes again in September. Notes: [1]Liberal Party of Canada. (June 9. 2008). Colombian Deal Shows No Respect for Parliament. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from www.liberal.ca/story_14058_e.aspx [2] Standing Committee on International Trade. (June, 2008). HUMAN RIGHTS, THE ENVIRONMENT AND FREE TRADE WITH COLOMBIA Report of the Standing Committee on International Trade Retrieved June 28, 2008 from http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=245001 [3] Economic Commission for Latin America (May, 2008). Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2007, Chapter IV- Canadian FDI in Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from this link. [4] Standing Committee on International Trade. (December 4, 2007). EVIDENCE Tuesday, December 4, 2007. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://tinyurl.com/5dqe42 [5] Ministerio de Comercio Exterior y Turismo. (May, 2007). Reporte de Comercio Bilateral: Per?-Canada. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://www.mincetur.gob.pe/newweb/Portals/0/comercio/tlc_canada/estudios.html [6] C?t?, Christian. (March 9. 2005.) Canadian Mining Investment in Russia and Central Asia. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mms/invest/2005/rus/pdf/cote.pdf [7] Foreign Affairs Canada. (May, 2008). Fact Sheet: Investment. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/peru-perou/fs-investment-investissement.aspx [8] Mining Association of Canada. (January 26, 2008). MAC Applauds Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://www.mining.ca/www/media_lib/Press_Release/2008/01_29_08.pdf [9] Beatty, Pearrin. (May 16, 2008). Re: Study of Status of the Free Trade Agreements and ongoing Negotiation between Canada and Colombia. Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved June 29, 2008 from http://www.chamber.ca/cmslib/general/RichardsonColombiaFTAsupportletter.pdf Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver, BC. She is currently in Colombia. From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 12:48:49 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 14:48:49 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Dean Baker: "We're Probably a Bit More than Halfway to the Bottom of the Bubble" Message-ID: The Meltdown Lowdown (No. 11) Airline CEOs have some odd ideas about customer service, Exxon gets a break from the Supreme Court, and many middle aged families have very little savings. Dean Baker | June 27, 2008 | web only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And the Bubble Keeps on Bursting The new Case-Shiller housing data showed that prices kept plummeting in April. Real house prices in the 20-city index were falling at close to a 26 percent annual rate over the months from January to April. Since their peak in the summer of 2006, real house prices have dropped by more than 23 percent. This means that we're probably a bit more than halfway to the bottom of the bubble. Prices in the most rapidly deflating markets are dropping much faster. In the last three months, real house prices in Phoenix, San Francisco and Miami have all fallen at close to a 40 percent annual rate. The implications of this rate of price decline are incredible. Imagine you had paid off 20 percent of a mid-priced home in the San Francisco area as of January. This would have given you approximately $136,000 in equity on a $680,000 home. Three months later, that home is $597,000 and your equity stake is down to $53,000. In three more months at this rate, you will be underwater. Such are the joys of home ownership in a collapsing bubble. Of course, it is not gloomy for everyone. Imagine that you are a wise renter who was thinking of buying a mid-priced home in the SF area. You are now $83,000 richer as a result of your decision to wait. That's not bad -- you get almost $28,000 a month for not buying. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Jul 1 19:29:18 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:29:18 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Not Your Grandma's Depression Message-ID: <486AD9EE.4080708@attglobal.net> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) www.kunstler.com (June 30 2008) This isn't so funny anymore. Intimations of a July banking collapse rumbled though the Internet this weekend while mainstream news orgs like The New York Times and CNN pulled their puds over swift boats and Amy Winehouse's performance technique. Something is happening, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones ...? to quote the master. What's happening is that American society is sliding into a greater depression than the one Grandma lived through. On the technical side, there has been unending controversy as to whether we're gripped by inflation or deflation. It's certainly deceptive. Food and gasoline prices are rising faster than the rivers of Iowa. But the prices of assets, like houses, stocks, jet-skis, GMC Yukons and pre-owned Hummel figurines are cratering as America turns into Yard Sale Nation. We're a very different country than we were in 1932. In that earlier crisis of capital, few people had any money but our society still possessed fantastic resources. We had plenty of everything that our land could provide: a treasure trove of mineral ores and the equipment to refine it all, a wealth of oil and gas still in the ground, and all the rigs needed to get at it, manpower galore (and of a highly disciplined, regimented kind), with fine-tuned factories waiting for orders. We had a railroad system that was the envy of the world and millions of family farms (even despite the dust bowl) owned by people who retained age-old skills not yet degraded by agribusiness. We had fully-functional cities with operating waterfronts and ten thousand small towns with local economies, local newspapers, and local culture. We had a crisis of capital in the 1930s for reasons that are still debated today. My own guess is a combination of a bad debt workout that sucked "money" into a black hole (since money is loaned into existence, but vanishes if the loans are not systematically paid back) plus a gross saturation of markets, meaning that every American who had wanted to buy a car or an electric toaster had done so and there was no one left to sell to. (The first round of globalism - 1870 to 1914 - had shut down after the fiasco of World War One.) Our debt problems today are of a magnitude so extreme that astronomers would be hard pressed to calculate them. By any rational measure our society is comprehensively bankrupt. From the federal treasury down to the suburban cul-de-sacs so much loaned money is either not being paid back, or is at risk of never being paid back, that the suckage of presumed wealth has passed through an event horizon out of the known universe into some other realm of space-time, never to be seen again in this realm. This would seem to be the very essence of monetary deflation - money defaulted out-of-existence. This condition is partly disguised by both the loss of credibility of US currency and real-world scarcities of oil and food, but the upshot will be something at least twice as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s: people with no money in a land with no resources (with manpower that has no discipline), hardly any family farms left, cities that are basket-cases of bottomless need, comatose small towns stripped of their assets and social capital, an aviation industry on the verge of death, and a railroad system that is the laughingstock of the world. Not to mention the mind-boggling liabilities of suburbia and the motoring infrastructure that services it. The banks have been doing their death dance for an entire year now, pretending that their problems are those of mere "liquidity" (that is, cash-on-hand) rather than insolvency (no cash either on hand or in the vault and nothing else to sell to raise cash except worthless "creative" securities that nobody would ever buy). But the destruction of money (resulting from loans not paid back) is now so intense that the game of pretend has reached its terminal point. The question for the moment is exactly who and what will be crushed as these institutions roll over and die. Complicating matters is a global oil predicament that is really not hard to understand, but which the organs of news and opinion have obdurately failed to explicate for an anxious public. Call it Peak Oil. There are only a few elements of it you need to know. (1) that demand has now permanently outstripped supply; (2) that new discoveries are too meager to offset consumption; (3) That under under the circumstances, the systems we rely on for daily life are crumbling. I've called this situation The Long Emergency. Our chances of mitigating this, and of continuing our current way of life is about zero. I've tried to promote the idea that rather than waste remaining resources in the futile attempt to sustain the unsustainable (that is, come up with "solutions" to keep suburbia running), that we should begin immediately making other arrangements for daily life - mainly by downscaling and re-scaling everything from farming to commerce to the way we inhabit the landscape - but my suggestions have proven unpopular even among the "environmental" elites, who are too busy being entranced by new and groovy ways to keep all the cars running. So where we are at now is the equivalent of standing in the slop by the ocean shore under a gathering hundred-foot-high wave that is about to come crashing down on our heads. Since I sure don't know everything, I can't say how this will all play out in the months ahead, especially with the presidential election coming at the exact moment that voters will be turning on their furnaces for the cold and dark winter beyond. I would venture to say that so far our society as a whole has done a piss-poor job of comprehending the situation. But there is still the possibility, with four months of politicking left, that the nature of our predicament can be articulated in a way that few can fail to understand, the way Mr Lincoln articulated the terms of the Civil War on the eve of its fateful outbreak. _____ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/06/not-your-grandmas-depression.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From mstainsby at resist.ca Wed Jul 2 16:48:25 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:48:25 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Oil Sands Truth Call for Submissions-- articles/writers wanted Message-ID: <486C05B9.5080304@resist.ca> Call for submissions In Western Canada-- Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan-- mega projects, massive developments and international events are bringing vast changes across the entire region. From nuclear power plants to Ski Hills and the world's largest ever industrial project, there are many components of similarity throughout Western Canada that can be and must be connected. From the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) through to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) the provinces are streamlining the vast changes and degradations in human rights, living conditions and environmental health. In the Fall 2008, OilSandsTruth.org (OST) will be releasing a one time magazine on many of the issues being faced by the populations living within both provinces. OST is looking for articles on the following: How the SPP facilitates the tar sands; How the SPP facilitates the 2010 Games; Tar sands and the impact of the boom on indigenous self-determination; 2010 and the impact of the Games on indigenous self-determination; Tar sands and the impact of the boom on housing; 2010 and the impact of the Games on housing; Tar sands and how the impacts of the boom are gendered; 2010 and how the impacts of the Games are gendered; Tar sands and the effects on migrant rights and temporary foreign workers; 2010 and the effects of the Games on migrant rights and temporary foreign workers; Tar sands and trade union rights; 2010 and the effects on labour rights; Tar sands development and what it means for land and the forests; 2010 and the impacts on lands and the forests; Tar sands development and the impact on water quality; Olympic development and the impact on water quality; Olympics and their associations to war; Tar sands and their association to currently waged wars. Politics of ?environmental sustainability? (greenwashing) in the tar sands; Politics of ?environmental sustainability? (greenwashing) for the 2010 Games; Eastern Canadian responses to the 2010 Games; Eastern Canadian responses to the tar sands; Resistance taking place to the tar sands; Resistance taking place to the 2010 Games; other article ideas along these lines greatly encouraged. Priority will be given to community organizers writing from first hand perspectives. Article ideas should be submitted to macdonald at oilsandstruth.org ; the final articles should be 700-1000 words in length. Authors of articles that are commissioned for this one time publication will receive $100 honorariums for their work. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Jul 2 18:47:31 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:47:31 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Don't Drink the (Bottled) Water Message-ID: <486C21A3.3050902@attglobal.net> by Stephen McKean http://culturechange.org (June 23 2008) At long last, it looks like our two-decade affair with the disposable water bottle may finally be coming to an end. With increasing media attention being paid to the environmental impact of all those plastic bottles, as well as increased scrutiny of the perceived superiority of bottled water, it is now becoming the hip, eco-friendly thing to tote your own reusable bottle filled with good old-fashioned tap water. Jenny Powers, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that the disposable plastic bottle has become a sort of poster a child of environmental degradation. "Roughly seventy percent of water bottles - probably more - wind up in landfills or incinerators", Jenny says, noting that recycling rates for plastic bottles are far lower than for other beverage containers (due to the on-the-go nature of the product, and also because of deposit-return laws that were enacted before the advent of the plastic bottle). That appallingly high figure takes on an even more frightening aspect when you consider that we Americans consume fifty billion plastic bottles per year. "That's 170 bottles per year for every man, woman and child in America", Jenny says. Factor in the energy needed to make all those bottles, as well as the energy required to ship them from point A to point B, and you hold in your hand a not-so-refreshing bottle of environmental disaster. But it isn't eco-concerns alone that are driving this trend away from the plastic bottle. As it turns out, your tap water is perfectly clean. In study after study, bottled water has been proven to be no cleaner than tap water, and has the added disadvantage that it isn't nearly as well regulated as your tap water. Also, if you estimate that a bottle of water costs about a dollar, your tap water is thousands of dollars cheaper. And then of course there is bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical compound found in the disposable bottles that could be disruptive to the body's hormone levels. Though not as alarming as some media reports, an April 2008 study by the National Institutes of Health concluded that "the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed". So what's the health-conscious, eco-friendly boy or girl to do? The answer: go to your local outfitter or other retailer and check out the ever-growing selection of reusable beverage containers. From stainless steel to BPA-free plastic, there are hundreds of choices for whatever situation requires rehydration. For backpackers and outdoor athletes who have been filtering water and reusing water bottles all along, it's never been easier. The Vario filter by Katadyn, for instance, pumps two liters of water per minute and has a replaceable carbon core. Chris Glaser, a manager at Benchmark Outfitters in Cincinnati says that sales for the new containers - stainless steel and BPA free - have been brisk. "A lot of our water bottle sales have been influenced by all the reports of BPH on the news", he says. "We can't keep the products in stock". Jenny of the NRDC is glad people are beginning to take a new look at the plastic bottle. "I don't think people really considered the environmental impact of bottled water", she says. "It just wasn't on their radar - and now it is, which is great". _____ This article comes to Culture Change readers courtesy Get Out Zine: getoutzine.com The good ship Junk - made of 15,000 plastic trash water bottles - is on her way from Long Beach to Hawaii, to highlight the important findings of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation: junkraft.blogspot.com Further Reading: Culture Change reports on plastics, plus links to other groups such as Algalita, producers of the award-winning documumentary "Our Synthetic Sea": culturechange.org. Ceramic filter (to avoid more plastics): gaiam.com Additional reports at culturechange.org : "Encountering plastics in the Caribbean" by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter #182: "Plastic disaster breaks through to mainstream: scandal over bisphenol-A" by Jan Lundberg Culture Change Letter #180, March 22, 2008: "US Presidential candidates' staffs briefed on peak oil and the plastic plague" by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter #178 "Overpopulation, vegans eating plastic, and the housing bubble" by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter #117: http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=181&Itemid=1#cont TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From suzannedk at yahoo.com Thu Jul 3 02:00:05 2008 From: suzannedk at yahoo.com (Suzanne de Kuyper) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 01:00:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [R-G] Oil Sands Truth Call for Submissions-- articles/writers wanted In-Reply-To: <486C05B9.5080304@resist.ca> Message-ID: <672682.10695.qm@web30901.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement should be printed out in it's entirety before a paper on any of the article suggestions can be seriously constructed ...that agreement as well as the attending legislation that has been enacted or is pending to strengthen the Partnership. suzannedk at gmail.com --- On Wed, 7/2/08, Macdonald Stainsby wrote: > From: Macdonald Stainsby > Subject: [R-G] Oil Sands Truth Call for Submissions-- articles/writers wanted > To: "suzanne de Kuyper" > Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 6:48 PM > Call for submissions > > In Western Canada-- Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan-- mega > projects, > massive developments and international events are bringing > vast changes > across the entire region. From nuclear power plants to Ski > Hills and the > world's largest ever industrial project, there are many > components of > similarity throughout Western Canada that can be and must > be connected. > > From the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement > (TILMA) > through to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) > the provinces > are streamlining the vast changes and degradations in human > rights, > living conditions and environmental health. > > In the Fall 2008, OilSandsTruth.org (OST) will be releasing > a one time > magazine on many of the issues being faced by the > populations living > within both provinces. > > OST is looking for articles on the following: > > How the SPP facilitates the tar sands; > How the SPP facilitates the 2010 Games; > > Tar sands and the impact of the boom on indigenous > self-determination; > 2010 and the impact of the Games on indigenous > self-determination; > > Tar sands and the impact of the boom on housing; > 2010 and the impact of the Games on housing; > > Tar sands and how the impacts of the boom are gendered; > 2010 and how the impacts of the Games are gendered; > > Tar sands and the effects on migrant rights and temporary > foreign workers; > 2010 and the effects of the Games on migrant rights and > temporary > foreign workers; > > Tar sands and trade union rights; > 2010 and the effects on labour rights; > > Tar sands development and what it means for land and the > forests; > 2010 and the impacts on lands and the forests; > > Tar sands development and the impact on water quality; > Olympic development and the impact on water quality; > > Olympics and their associations to war; > Tar sands and their association to currently waged wars. > > Politics of ?environmental sustainability? > (greenwashing) in the tar sands; > Politics of ?environmental sustainability? > (greenwashing) for the 2010 > Games; > > Eastern Canadian responses to the 2010 Games; > Eastern Canadian responses to the tar sands; > > Resistance taking place to the tar sands; > Resistance taking place to the 2010 Games; > > other article ideas along these lines greatly encouraged. > Priority will > be given to community organizers writing from first hand > perspectives. > > Article ideas should be submitted to > macdonald at oilsandstruth.org ; the > final articles should be 700-1000 words in length. Authors > of articles > that are commissioned for this one time publication will > receive $100 > honorariums for their work. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Jul 3 05:21:59 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:21:59 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Water Craze Message-ID: <486CB657.6000703@attglobal.net> Lown RCTs (Random Clinical Thoughts) Dr Bernard Lown, Founder and Chair, ProCor www.procor.org (June 17 2008) _____ Note: The true nexus of cardiovascular prevention lies at the intersection of clinical medicine, basic science, social structure, global economics, and public policy. No one I know can better navigate that space than Dr Bernard Lown, ProCor s Founder and Chairman, who consistently and powerfully has argued for a moral stance as the key which unleashes action. The following essay is the first of a series by Dr Lown titled "Lown RCTs: Random Clinical Thoughts". It is Dr Lown s hope that these pieces will call attention to some of the deep challenges encountered in medicine and will be relevant to health in developing countries. We invite your responses and further discussion of this thought-provoking article, which focuses on the essential and elemental: water". _____ I was taken aback when an elderly patient confessed dejectedly that she didn t drink the eight glasses of water her physician had prescribed. I was astounded to learn that water loading for all comers pervades medical practice. But how robust is the scientific evidence and how did this come about? Innovations in clinical practice are usually based on accumulations of scientific breakthroughs. These are first published in medical journals and then trumpeted 24/7 in the media. Yet I could not recall a single scientific study on the benefits of increased water consumption. A systematic search of the medical literature turned up a blank. Recently I came across comments of Dr Heinz Valtin, which stimulated me to address this issue. Dr Valtin is an emeritus professor of physiology at Dartmouth Medical School, an authority on kidney function and water balance, on which subjects he has authored several textbooks. After an exhaustive ten-month search of the literature, Dr Valtin likewise could not identify a single published paper relating to daily water requirements {1}. Apparently, in the 1940s the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine offered recommendations on food and water needs. As a rough rule of thumb, it suggested drinking one milliliter of water for every calorie eaten. This equals roughly two quarts or eight eight-ounce glasses daily. An important proviso followed: "Much of this (water) can be gathered from the food that we eat". So in fact, if one eats a healthy diet, no additional water may be required. The minimum daily requirement of liquid has been defined. Those residing in moderate climates lose about 500 milliliters or sixteen ounces of water daily. This is referred to as the obligatory fluid loss, and includes water mandatorily excreted by kidneys, insensible water loss from skin through evaporation, a well as water shed in tears, eliminated in menstrual fluid, semen, and feces. Such losses are readily replaced by the high content of water in solid food and by the fact that most people consume beverages such as coffee, tea, fruit juices, wine, and alcohol. Is there any benefit though from additional fluid intake? A prevailing notion is that drinking more water may help with constipation. But the water one drinks is excreted by the kidneys, not by the intestines. Another popular myth is that more water helps with weight loss. No scientific evidence supports the greater efficacy of dieting when water intake is increased. Nor does water dousing help combat kidney stones, urinary tract infection, or bladder cancer. Could eight glasses of water daily inflict harm? As a physician, I have been concerned with disruption of sleep by nocturia. Excess water accentuates the physiological tendency to excrete more fluid when one is recumbent during the night. Elderly males are especially predisposed to nocturia. They invariably suffer from benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), which sensitizes the bladder neck to spasm even when the bladder stores modest amounts of urine. Being roused multiple times during the night diminishes the restorative qualities afforded by sleep and may play a role in the ubiquity of depression among the aged. Another, but far less frequent, adverse consequence of excess water intake is hyponatremia or water intoxication. It is rarely encountered among elderly who are taking powerful diuretics, such as lasix. A diuretic is commonly prescribed for largely innocuous, gravity-dependent ankle swelling. When coupled with an eight-glasses-of-water regimen, substantial dilution of body sodium may lead to adverse neuropsychological effects. So far I have evaded discussing how binging on water came about. In fact, I do not know. However, the innocent statement from the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, some sixty years ago, is an unlikely source. Nor do I think the medical profession was a significant actor in launching the practice. It took far more powerful voices. Aggressive beverage marketers like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are more likely suspects. In the short span of a few years their water brands, Aquafina and Dasani, became blockbuster successes. The current market for bottled water is huge and growing. Revenues from global soft drinks and bottled water sales this year are anticipated to exceed US$146 billion. The US is the largest consumer in the world {2}. This has led the Wall Street Journal to gush that bottled water is the next best thing to oil and gold. A variety of factors are driving demand. Topmost in my view is the medicalization of every aspect of life and the erroneous view that we are prone to dehydration unless constantly replenished. Additional factors are the perception that bottled water is safer and tastier than municipal water. In most industrialized countries, however, and especially in the United States, tap water is far more stringently regulated and more frequently monitored than bottled water. For example, New York City has tested its water supply 430,000 times in a single year {3}. Municipalities provide high-quality potable water. The sobering fact is that 25% of bottled water, including popular brands such as Aquafina and Dasani, are merely filtered tap water processed close to their distribution point. If bottled water is without health or safety advantage, wherein is its popularity? When tap and bottled water are compared in blind tests, the source is unidentifiable. The choice is therefore not driven by taste. Perhaps the appeal relates to enhancing self-image. Carrying a small bottle was pioneered by super-models to suggest elegance, high fashion, and affluence. Marketing is particularly focused on women, who drink more bottled water than men. Possibly, as with other articles of consumption, the appeal is not related to the intrinsic utility of the product but in the message it conveys. Being able to afford a product, far costlier than tap water, proclaims wealth and success. Indeed bottle water is very costly. Dasani and Aquafina sell for about five US cents an ounce, while municipal water sells for less than one US cent a gallon. Even gasoline, at current exorbitant prices, is forty percent. Indeed bottled water puts Big Oil to shame. I am persuaded that for those living in developed countries, drinking bottled water should shame the user. Today a billion people lack reliable access to safe drinking water. Dirty water spews disease. According to the World Health Organization, unclean water accounts for eighty percent of global disease and kills about five million people annually. It is worth pondering that merely a quarter of the spending on bottled water could provide safe sanitation and clean water for the wretched of the earth. Even for those who cannot muster a sense of charity for the afflicted, self-interest should cause them to hesitate when resorting to bottled water. Producing and transporting plastic bottles consumes prodigious quantities of oil and other fossil fuels. Non-biodegradable plastic adds to litter and solid waste, which crowds landfills. It has been estimated that to produce the bottles that Americans consumed in 2006 required in excess of seventeen million barrels of oil and increased global warming by adding 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. That is why I embrace the view of Tom Standage, author of the history of water and other drinks: "Tap water is not so abundant in the developing world. And that is ultimately why I find the illogical enthusiasm for illogical water not simply peculiar, but distasteful." The practicing physician ultimately needs to deal with the mundane question of an individual patient, "How much water should I drink a day?" Unfortunately this important question cannot be readily answered. To respond concretely one must have a wealth of information. For example, how does water requirement vary with age, with gender, with level of activity, with composition of diet, with daily calorie intake, with body mass index, with psychological stress, with type of occupation, in pre- and post-menopausal women, with presence and type of chronic ailments, on and on. A doctor does not treat humankind but a specific unique person. To do so responsibly, one needs prodigious amounts of sound evidence-based information. The physician, dealing with problems of the here and now, cannot wait for the definitive data. Uncertainty is the province of the professional. Herein a complex synthesis is required of a sound education in the basics, guided by a wealth of well assimilated experience, restrained by knowledge that all actions have unintended consequences, and chaperoned by solid common sense. So what is my response to the simple water question? First, a sense of thirst, though weakened by age, is a good litmus for fluid intake. Eight ounces of liquid with a meal should suffice for those not running a marathon or living in the tropics. If the urine is scanty and concentrated, an extra eight ounces is advisable. While diffident about the broad question of how much, I would not hesitate being judgmental when it relates to bottled water and carting it as though an indispensable amulet of healthy living. Bottled water is not a medical but a moral issue. As Voltaire cautioned, "Those who make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities". Resorting to bottled water as a routine practice is indeed an atrocity against the environment and against common sense. References: 1. In the drink: Do we really need eight glasses of water a day? Interview Professor Heinz Valtin. Nutrition Action Health Letter (June 2008) 2. http://www1.ibisworld.com/pressrelease/pressrelease.aspx?prid=124 3. Standage T. Bad to the last drop. Op Ed. New York Times (August 01 2005) 4. Standage T. A History of the World in Six Glasses (2006) Copyright (c) 2002 ProCOR.org. Privacy Policy http://www.procor.org/discussion/displaymsg.asp?ref=3690&cate=ProCOR+Dialogue TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 3 09:15:47 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:15:47 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: [killingtrain] colombia interlude - ingrid betancourt freed References: <27840.99125.qm@web31911.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > Ingrid Betancourt Freed > Celebrations, but dangerous days ahead > > > Justin Podur > July 3/08 > > Colombia's most high-profile hostage of the FARC guerrilla group, > French-Colombian former Presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt was > just freed (July 2/08) in a military operation by the Colombian armed > forces. > > This is a major event in Colombian politics and a cause for > celebration. > Many were worried Ingrid was already dead, but after being freed she > is > seen smiling and has already spoken out in ways that suggest the > despondent videos that were released of her were actually forms of > resisting her captors. 14 others were freed, including the 3 American > security contractors that were captured and Colombian military and > police personnel. > > For years, Colombian activists and people wanting change in Colombia > have argued that FARC's practice of kidnapping was morally bankrupt > and > politically destructive. One hopes that FARC will release its > remaining > hostages rather than continuing this ugly practice any longer. > > FARC's leaders have been killed (Raul Reyes, Ivan Rios) or died > (Manuel > Marulanda). They should have long since handed over all hostages, and > one hopes that they do so now. Though the grievances that created the > guerrilla, including the violent seizing of peasant lands, remain, the > strategic and military balance has changed. No doubt much of FARC's > infrastructure and organization remains, but the universal celebration > of Ingrid's release only reveals the unpopularity of FARC. > > While this is definitely a time for celebration, it is also a > dangerous > time for Colombia, for several reasons. > > Over the past few days, a conflict has been playing out between > Colombia's constitutional court and the President, Alvaro Uribe Velez. > > The Supreme Criminal Court condemned a Colombian Congress Member, > Yidis > Medina, for accepting a bribe. She took money to vote in favor of a > law > permitting the re-election of Uribe. The Supreme Court passed the > verdict on to the Constitutional Court, because the matter treats > whether Uribe's current term in office is legitimate. The legal change > allowing him to run again was now exposed as corrupt. Uribe's response > was to discredit the court and to say, if the first election was > illegitimate, let the people decide and have another election. Uribe > was > confident in his own popularity and happy to let the court try to > argue > that his government would be illegitimate even if it won > overwhelmingly > in new elections. > > Uribe's confidence was boosted in part at least by the Free Trade > Agreement with Canada, which will likely lead to an FTA with the US > before too long, which was the logic of the Canadian FTA in any case. > The regional isolation that came from the Raul Reyes assassination > in Ecuador has not > translated into unpopularity in Colombia. This popularity has left the > Colombian government a free hand to repress peasant movements, as they > are doing in Northern Cauca, attacking indigenous people attempting to > reclaim territories in the "Liberation for Mother Earth" campaign of > the > Nasa people . > > Uribe was completely confident in his own popularity before Ingrid > Betancourt was freed in an operation by his army - an operation that > went off flawlessly, with all hostages brought to safety. Now, whether > FARC continues on its path of mistakes and moral failures or whether > it > releases its hostages and comes to the negotiating table, Uribe will > benefit politically. The idea that his regime is based on purchased > votes, paramilitary violence, selling the country's assets to > multinationals, will be lost in tales of the heroism of an operation > that bloodlessly saved an innocent and long-suffering hostage. This > danger, of what Polo Democratico activists have called a "populist > dictatorship", is more acute now than ever. > > One hope is that Ingrid herself, like some of the hostages that were > freed in rounds of negotiation through Chavez, might provide some > perspective in the days to come. Colombian and other leaders, > including > the Polo Democratico, the indigenous movement, and outsiders like > Chavez, have long repudiated kidnapping and have made a lot of sense > all > along on Colombia's conflict. Their voices shouldn't be drowned out in > the dangerous days ahead. > > Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer (currently on the road in > Pakistan). He can be reached at justin at killingtrain.com. From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 3 09:23:52 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:23:52 -0700 Subject: [R-G] POLITICS-US: Afghanistan Moves Back into the Limelight Message-ID: <3E5A0BA8-0A88-4648-8997-9B88D268E71F@shaw.ca> POLITICS-US: Afghanistan Moves Back into the Limelight By Jim Lobe http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43051 WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) - Six and a half years since the ouster of the Taliban, U.S. media attention is returning to Afghanistan, where more U.S. and NATO troops were killed in June than in any previous month. Indeed, as noted by both the New York Times and the Washington Post Wednesday, June was the second month in a row in which U.S. deaths in Afghanistan approached the toll in Iraq, where the addition of some 30,000 troops last year and more aggressive counter-insurgency tactics have helped to reduce sectarian violence and attacks against U.S. and allied forces. Twenty-eight U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan last month, just one fewer than the 29 in Iraq, while another 18 soldiers from Washington's allies also lost their lives to Taliban forces. The British military, which has the second-largest contingent in Afghanistan, lost 13 soldiers, including the first servicewoman killed in the war. Even President George W. Bush admitted Wednesday it had been a "tough month" in Afghanistan, insisting, however that the increase in the death toll showed that the coalition forces were taking the offensive. "You know, one reason why there have been more deaths is because our troops are taking the fight to a tough enemy, an enemy who doesn't like our presence there because they don't like the idea of America denying safe haven," Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden. And while most analysts agreed that the increase in the number of coalition deaths was indeed a result of U.S., British, Canadian, and Dutch forces, in particular, moving into areas in the eastern part of Afghanistan where their presence had previously been sporadic, they also credited a sharp rise in Taliban activity and its adoption of more unconventional tactics, including the use of explosive devices imported from the Iraq war. "What it points to is that the opposition is becoming more effective," Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, told the Post. "It is having a presence in more areas, being better organised, better financed, and having a sustainable strategy. In all, their strategic situation has improved." Indeed, the record of the last two months has suggested that the Taliban is at least as much on the offensive as U.S.-led forces, which together have reached an all-time high of well some 60,000 troops, of which about half are from U.S. allies operating under NATO command. In addition to the growing death toll, the Taliban mounted a particularly bold assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in Kabul in late April, and in mid-June staged a spectacular jailbreak in Kandahar that freed hundreds of suspected collaborators and subsequently seized and briefly held seven villages around Afghanistan's second-largest city. Just last week, a new Pentagon report -- the first review of the situation in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2000 -- concluded that the Taliban has effectively "coalesced into a resilient insurgency" that was spreading into previously relatively peaceful parts of the country. The report also predicted that violence -- already at unprecedented levels since the Taliban's ouster -- will likely increase through the rest of the year. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, told reporters that attacks in his sector increased by 40 percent in the first five months this year compared to the same period in 2007. While no one believes that the Taliban is powerful enough to oust the Karzai government or defeat -- or even directly challenge -- U.S. and NATO forces there, the Pentagon has been arguing for several months that it needs at least 10,000 more troops deployed to Afghanistan to adequately cope with resurgent insurgency. But where those troops will come from remains a major question. In late March, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Germany last week announced that it would send some 1,000 troops later this fall to bring its total force there to some 4,500, but the conditions attached by Berlin to their deployment forbid their involvement in combat. The Pentagon, which added 3,000 marines to its Afghan force earlier this year, has been unable to come up with more of its own troops because of Bush's insistence that nothing be done to put at risk the relative stability that his "surge" strategy in Iraq has helped achieve. As a result, the current drawdown from Iraq from 170,000 troops earlier this year to some 140,000 troops by August will be suspended at the end of this month. Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon brass had hoped withdrawals would continue at roughly 5,000 troops a month beyond July, thus freeing up many more troops for deployment to Afghanistan. But those hopes have now been put on hold indefinitely to the clear frustration of Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Public support for more troops in countries that are expected to supply them is also growing increasingly doubtful. Indeed, a recent multi-national Pew Global Attitudes Project poll conducted in April -- that is, before the bloody months of May and June -- found bare pluralities of respondents in the U.S. and Britain in favour of "keep(ing) troops in Afghanistan until the situation is stabilised" as opposed to removing them. In NATO members France, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Turkey, on the other hand, majorities ranging from 54 percent to 72 percent said they believed the U.S. and NATO should withdraw. Only in Australia, a non- NATO country that has contributed combat troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq, did a strong majority (60 percent) say they preferred to stay. Some experts, however, believe that even adding troops -- at least in the quantities the Pentagon believes is necessary -- will not appreciably redress the deteriorating dynamics in Afghanistan if other key factors, including the growing perception that the Karzai government is ineffective and corrupt, the lack of development, and the continuing increase in the opium and heroin trade which help finance the Taliban are not, are not addressed. At least, if not more, important is the safe haven enjoyed by Taliban forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North- West Frontier Province in Pakistan, much of which has come under the control of the Pakistan's own Taliban and allied forces. Relations between Washington and the Pakistani military have reportedly deteriorated badly in recent weeks over U.S. pressure on Islamabad to prevent the infiltration of Taliban forces from the Pakistani side of the border, and the new civilian-led government, which is still working out internal divisions on key issues, appears unprepared to deal with the problem. "No matter how many more troops you add into Afghanistan, you won't really be able to get at the root of the problem" of safe havens in Pakistan, Rubin told a public-television interviewer last week. (END/2008) From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 3 09:25:29 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:25:29 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The Wikipedia thought police Message-ID: http://www.alterinfos.org/spip.php?article2449 http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/the-wikipedia-thought-police/ Ariel Z??iga seems to Machetera to be a little bit cranky. And if he doesn?t care for having his work posted at Rebeli?n without being consulted first, he probably won?t like being translated without asking either. But this is an excellent analysis that shouldn?t wait, so Machetera will translate first and ask forgiveness later. ?Gusgus,? aka Mercedes, is one of the iron-fisted hierarchy over at Spanish Wikipedia, whose word is apparently law. Wikipedia?s Censorship of Rebeli?n Under the Lord of the Flies Syndrome Ariel Z??iga - Alterinfos When the Wikipedia project was born, I immediately felt seduced and summoned to support it with the knowledge available to me. It was assumed that no-one would go around making selections based on the fame of the authors, but rather that the community itself would decide which knowledge was valid by contesting previous affirmations. Whoever wished to disagree should present their arguments rather than imposing academic credentials, and not only the topic, but the reader and the community would be enriched through involvement in the entire process. Being treated to different points of view would allow users to select that which they considered valid in the material found throughout the discussion. That?s how it works in the social sciences. No-one has the last word in them and what is said, in the humanities. Very shortly in the project, two tribes emerged that through their actions laid the groundwork so that today, the free encyclopedia has transformed itself into a complex control system for knowledge and at the same time, the crude Inquisitor that we thought we?d banished. The first tribe is that of the extremely sensitive, that for the sake of political correctness, efficiency and utility, claimed that some users were abusing the freedom given them to transform certain articles into the equivalent of public bathroom walls; others, the megalomaniacs, aspired for Wikipedia to compete with other encyclopedias, therefore claiming that the contents should be controlled so that any ignorant user might find it useful. Both tribes converged over the risks implied by the divulging of false information, forgetting that this was exactly the characteristic that made Wikipedia unique. It was supposed that this needed to stop now that the Internet was going to reach the masses and the Wiki would be the teacher of billions of people. And so we went from being an elitist but democratic Wikipedia to an ordinary encyclopedia, as overabundant and anti-democratic as all the rest. Now the knowledge police scan each article in search of ?deficiencies,? ?inconsistencies,? ?errors,? and since the Internet went on without reaching the masses, the only ones harmed were the same initial users, since the others, if they wanted to know what 2+2 was, would always have a pirated copy of Encarta on hand. We?ve created new conscience police to protect the freedom of access to knowledge, forgetting that in doing so, we sacrifice the freedom to produce it. We?ve gone from being idealist communicative Habermasians to picayune Foucaultians. Now the dead bodies are surfacing and it?s not possible to hide the odor coming from the usual hypocrites with their banners for freedom of expression. Rebeli?n isn?t a democratic site; it doesn?t publish comment nor criticism of its articles. They?ve published articles from my blog without citing it, and have re-titled others to make them follow their editorial line, all within the law since I tolerate and allow it. It?s not necessary to grab me by the throat to make me say what I think of Rebeli?n: it?s a website for the dissemination of leftist ideas, but also of propaganda, mainly Castrista and Chavista, where many defenders of the indefensible converge, as in respect to the FARC; and where articles are re-posted by noted specialists on the failure of the left, with very few exceptions. However, as has been endlessly said in the Wikipedia forums, exposed to the obscene ?editing? of the on-site police (who avoid calling it censorship), the reprehensible action against Rebeli?n can also be verified in Alterinfos for example (a site that publishes my articles under my express authorization) as in so many others where not only do they not publish my letters to the editor, but have had the audacity to pressure me academically for sending them (in 1998 El Mercurio demanded that I be expelled from the Universidad Diego Portales for having used the debate society fax to send criticism). We all know that ?official? media lie, make mistakes, create opinion, disseminate rumors, pressure, extort, veto and hound journalists, conspire against governments, excuse criminals, etc. The sins of the alternative media, those that they possess, are infinitesimal in comparison to those of the ?official? media; the censorship of Rebeli?n is indefensible but it?s an expression of something even more serious: we should not forget that this censorship comes from the ?free encyclopedia.? What?s happening in Wikipedia is a glaring demonstration that the freedom of movement of ideas only matters in respect to those who collaborate with the accrual of power for some. Every time that knowledge is used to free minds for its own sake once in awhile, the custodians of order and hierarchy appear. In defense of Rebeli?n, for example, it is reiterated to the point of annoyance that the authors of its texts are known specialists, celebrated authors, who occupy senior positions in a principally western academic system. Nobody bothers with the garbage that is put out daily by the ?official? media, signed by known personalities of worldwide renown; or with the weak pillars on which the sand castle of the social sciences and academia have been built. Wikipedia is dead just as the Internet free press is a dead fetus. Here the arguments don?t matter, but rather the hierarchical position held by an official, paid or not, within a hierarchy, which empowers them to say brutish things and censor whoever expresses a contrary view. Hundreds of solid arguments, expressed with elegance and eloquence are worth three cherries and a pear in front of the bureaucrat called Gusgus who demands that Rebeli?n exhibit credentials that not even Harvard University is capable of offering (that everything it publishes is neutral, verifiable and authenticated) in order to reconsider his unilateral and preventive holy war. Along with occupying ourselves with the censorship toward Rebeli?n, we should be coherent with our own words and say as clearly as possible that Wikipedia does much censoring, cutting, misrepresenting and controlling of knowledge. That its entire bureaucracy and police force reveal that the label of ?free encyclopedia? is not just one more lie beyond the many it contains, but the most serious and the only intolerable one. Let?s not bother with arguing over whether the censorship is done well or badly, if it?s opportune or inopportune, consensual or unilateral; let?s concentrate only on reversing this situation and in proscribing all censorship, without names or euphemisms, neither with clauses nor exceptional cases. See the (Spanish) discussion on the topic by the wikipedists, ?edited? by those who executed and maintain the censorship. Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited. From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 3 09:29:14 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:29:14 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The FARC had Already Expressed to European Delegations Their Willingness to Liberate the Hostages References: Message-ID: <45A29916-0012-4D9D-A1C8-B9A92423B5AD@shaw.ca> http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/someone-get-this-woman-a-newspaper/ Ingrid Betancourt?s impromptu airport press conference, flanked by the bloody Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and other military officers with undeniably gringo features was one of the strangest spectacles Machetera has ever seen. Even considering the joy she must have felt at being liberated after so much time in captivity, her effusiveness toward her liberators suggests that the time she spent in the jungle with the FARC left her with no greater understanding of the Colombian conflict than when she was seized on her presidential campaign tour seven years ago. Her extravagant praise of Colombian President Uribe and the Colombian army (who, she implied, had one-upped Israel with its commando tactics) sounded more like a campaign speech than anything else - minus a recent visit to the dentist and blonde highlights in her hair. Betancourt mentioned how shortly after the helicopter lifted off, suddenly, somehow, the lead guerrilla was on the floor, blindfolded, and the soldiers, oh-so-cleverly disguised in Che Guevara t-shirts (the most cynical appropriation of this great man?s image ever, but also a confirmation of his everlasting symbolic power), announced that they were actually from the Colombian army, and the hostages were now free. In respect to the capture of the guerrilla, she said, ?Don?t think that I felt happy; I pitied him a lot, but I gave thanks to God that he was with people who respect the lives of others, even when they are enemies.? Someone should suggest that she tell that to the family of the Ecuadoran who was killed with a blow from a rifle butt to his neck after surviving Colombia?s bombing of the FARC camp on Ecuadoran soil. The FARC is an easy target these days, with dwindling support from all quarters for its armed struggle, so Machetera has little desire to pile on. Yet there is something strange about the fact that seven years on, a captive should emerge with so little respect for the struggle being waged and should refer to her captors as ?humiliators? and ?despots.? The only hint at sympathy came near the end of what El Tiempo chose to broadcast of Betancourt?s statement - if there was more, perhaps it wasn?t convenient to the storyline - where she pointed a convoluted message at Alfonso Cano, insisting that the guerrillas were not to blame, that they?d left the hostages alive, but it was simply a ?perfect operation.? As usual, though, there?s more to the story. Pascual Serrano explains: The FARC had Already Expressed to European Delegations Their Willingness to Liberate the Hostages Doubts over whether the Colombian army intercepted the liberation in order to present it as a government success. Pascual Serrano - Rebeli?n Translation: Machetera Despite the fact that the Colombian Defense Minister, Juan Manuel Santos, has presented the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt and fourteen other FARC hostages as a brilliant military operation, the reality is that it happened exactly when European delegates, the French Noel Sa?z and the Swiss Jean Pierre Gontard, had managed to make contact with the guerrilla leadership to begin their liberation. The FARC had already expressed its intentions in this regard, and the government had authorized the contact, which was closely monitored. On July 1, a communique from the Colombian army, read by C?sar Mauricio Vel?squez, the Press Secretary at the presidential palace, signaled that the two European delegates: ?came to Colombia in recent days and asked for government authorization to go and meet directly with the FARC leadership; authorization that was granted by the government.? The Spanish daily, El Pa?s, also reported this matter, the same day: Bogot? has authorized the meeting of two European negotiators to discuss the conditions for future meetings to discuss the future of the FARC hostages, according to reports from the Colombian media. The former French consul in Bogot?, No?l S?enz and the Swiss diplomat, Jean-Pierre Gontard, left at the beginning of last weekend for a meeting in the mountains not facilitated by the government, and may have already met with members of the guerrilla secretariat, the principal governing body, and even with the new FARC leader, Alfonso Cano. According to this daily: The FARC have declared themselves disposed to exchange 40 hostages, Betancourt among them (also with French citizenship), three U.S. citizens, as well as other politicians, police, and members of the Colombian army, for around 500 imprisoned guerrillas. Among the prisoners that the FARC would like to exchange, are three who?ve been extradited to the United States. One of them, Ricardo Ovidio Palmera, Sim?n Trinidad. According to the French daily, Le Figaro, the French emissaries, Noel Sa?z, and the Swiss, Jean-Pierre Gontard, met last Sunday or Monday in the Colombian jungle with a person close to the new head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Alfonso Cano. Already, two weeks prior, sources close to the French government, indicated that France had managed to make contact with the new FARC secretariat, even though the French ambassador in Colombia denied it at the time. In Colombia, the daily El Tiempo, close to the government, acknowledged that the international delegates may have met with Alfonso Cano: Those charged with the task are the French No?l Saez and the Swiss Jean Pierre Gontard, authorized by the government to work with the subversive group in order to find a way to frree the hostages. A source from the Colombian government confirmed that ?the two Europeans began their journey to firm up the meeting three days ago,? in an unidentified area. The same source did not rule out that the meeting had been with the guerrilla leader who replaced Manuel Marulanda V?lez ?Tirofijo,? who died in March. This would mean that communication channels with the FARC, which had been practically closed since the death of ?Ra?l Reyes? on March 1, had begun to open again. Government Guarantees ?The government is guaranteeing the two facilitators passage to make these contacts. They have been given the facilities so that the meeting may be successful,? indicated an official. The Colombian government also reported that the two diplomats were going to ask the FARC to accept a proposal for a meeting area in order to begin dialogue over an eventual humanitarian exchange. The Colombian government?s version of the liberation is that soldiers infiltrated the guerrilla [camp] having tricked the FARC commander C?sar, in order to gather the hostages and put them in a helicopter which turned out to be an army camouflage; giving the guerrilla leader the impression that they were being moved to a meeting with Alfonso Cano, the head of the FARC. The question that hangs over this version is whether the guerrillas in charge of the hostages already had guidelines for an imminent release, and were therefore easily and naively disposed to collaborate with such a suspicious transfer. Or to what extent the liberation was already agreed upon between the FARC leadership and the mediators sent by France and, at the last minute, the Colombian army intercepted the liberation in order to present it as a successful military operation. In fact, it would be a similar operation to that which took place when Ra?l Reyes? camp was bombed in Ecuador. On that occasion, the Colombian government knew that liberation was brewing and preferred to militarily eliminate the guerrilla spokesmen even if it would abort the liberation, while in this case the release flight was intercepted in order to present it as a success exclusively belonging to the military and government. Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited. From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 3 13:19:23 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:19:23 -0700 Subject: [R-G] An Apology Message-ID: <200807031919.m63JJOli013687@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080703/2453948f/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 3 13:18:32 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:18:32 -0700 Subject: [R-G] After Bobby Kennedy Message-ID: <200807031918.m63JIWiA011868@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080703/a6d2bbed/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 3 13:25:09 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:25:09 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Canada's quagmire Message-ID: <200807031925.m63JP9Fn001177@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080703/4642209b/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 3 13:27:55 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:27:55 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Lisbon Is Dead Message-ID: <200807031927.m63JRtS6007252@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080703/fd98e6c4/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 3 14:07:25 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:07:25 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Iran Fights Scourge of Addiction in Plain View, Stressing Treatment Message-ID: June 27, 2008 Iran Fights Scourge of Addiction in Plain View, Stressing Treatment By NAZILA FATHI TEHRAN ? Ali blew out a candle on a small round cake. More than 200 people cheered, celebrating the first anniversary of his becoming drug-free. "I was in an awful condition," said Ali, describing 12 years of addiction to opium and alcohol. "I reached a state that I smashed our furniture and threw our television out of the window." Ali, 31, who has a wife and child and identified himself by only his first name to avoid possible embarrassment to his family, is among more than 800 addicts struggling to overcome their habits at a free treatment center in central Tehran. More than a million Iranians are addicted to some form of opium, heroin or other opium derivative, according to the government, and some estimates run as high as 10 million. In a country where the discussion of some social and cultural issues, like homosexuality, can be all but taboo, drug addiction has been widely acknowledged as a serious problem. It is talked about openly in schools and on television. Posters have encouraged people to think of addiction as a disease and to seek treatment. Iran's theocratic government has encouraged and financed a vast expansion in the number of drug treatment centers to help users confront their addictions and to combat the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, through shared needles. The center in central Tehran, which is called Congress 60 and is run by a private nonprofit agency, is one of 600 centers that provide drug treatment across the country with help from government money. An additional 1,250 centers offer methadone, free needles and other services for addicts who are not ready to quit, including food and treatment for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections. Iran's government, trying to curb addiction's huge social costs, has been more supportive of drug treatment than any other government in the Islamic world, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It was not always this way. After the 1979 revolution, the government tried a more traditional approach: arresting drug users and putting them in jail. But two decades later, it recognized that this approach had failed. A sharp increase in the crime rate and the number of people infected with H.I.V., both directly linked to a surge in narcotics use, persuaded the government to shift strategies. "We have realized that an addict is a social reality," said Muhammad-Reza Jahani, the vice president for the Committee Combating Drugs, which coordinates the government's efforts to fight drug addiction and trafficking. "We don't want to fight addicts; we want to fight addiction. We need to manage addiction." No one knows for certain just how widespread addiction is. The official estimate is 1.1 million people, according to Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, the leader of the security forces. Mr. Moghadam has banned the use of any other statistics on addiction, according to the state-run news agency IRNA. But some experts put the number much higher. At a conference on addiction in 2005, Ahmad Kavand, an official in the Interior Ministry, put the number of addicts at 10 million, or about one in every seven people in Iran, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. Southern Tehran has neighborhoods where homeless addicts can readily be found sleeping in parks or openly injecting drugs. The smell of opium in residential neighborhoods, even in affluent areas, is common. Opium has deep cultural roots in Iran. It has long been considered an effective painkiller, and its use is socially acceptable. Many addicts start by smoking opium occasionally, and move on to heroin and other opium-based narcotics after becoming dependent. In many cities, a bride brings the equipment for smoking opium as part of her dowry. Before the 1979 revolution, the government gave opium to addicts to enable them to avoid drug dealers. "Opium in our culture is like Champagne in France," said Dr. Ali Alavi, with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "Many use it for entertainment." Drug abuse is even more common outside Tehran and other large cities, particularly in the provinces along the drug-trafficking routes that run from Iran's long eastern border with Afghanistan, where opium poppies are grown, to the northwest, where it is transported to Turkey and Europe. More than 93 percent of the opium produced for the world's illicit narcotics markets comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Iran is the main trafficking route for nearly 60 percent of the opium grown in Afghanistan. With opium production skyrocketing in Afghanistan, some Iranian officials accuse the American military of ignoring poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, even though it is a major source of revenue for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. "We think the Americans want to keep this source of infection near us," said Mr. Jahani, the Iranian antidrug official. "Because of the animosity between Iran and the U.S., this is the best way to keep our resources and forces occupied." The government grew so concerned about drug trafficking that it spent $6 billion in 2006 to build a wall 13 feet high, with barbed wire, and a trench 13 feet deep and 16 feet wide along a third of Iran's border with Afghanistan. Iran seizes more illicit opiates than any other country, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said, and it burns tons of confiscated drugs in a ceremony every year. Still, plenty gets through, and drug abuse remains widespread. The drugs have been getting stronger, too. Four years ago, dealers introduced a further refinement of heroin known here as crack. Unrelated to crack cocaine, the drug is mostly smoked, is vastly more powerful than raw opium and has caught on rapidly. Four years ago, 54 percent of addicts in Iran used opium, according to a survey by the Committee Combating Drugs. Only 30 percent of addicts now use opium, the survey found, with many having switched to crack. Some people who become addicted to crack are unaware that it is made from heroin. Samira, 21, who said she had been smoking crack for four years, dragged herself to the House of Sun, a drug treatment center for women in Tehran, trying for the seventh time, she said, to find a way to quit. She said she started smoking opium when she was 15 to relieve the pain of a broken leg. "My sister is married to a drug dealer, and he told me that crack was not addictive," she said, struggling to keep her eyes open. "I have to smoke at least every two hours now." In dealing with opiate addiction, the government has also had to begin addressing AIDS, which had long been considered a Western problem. The front line has been prisons, where heroin addiction and needle-sharing are rampant. After a 25 percent surge in H.I.V. cases, the government began distributing free needles in prisons in 2000. The government insists that there are only about 17,000 people with H.I.V. in Iran, but it has also ordered drug treatment centers not to disclose how many of their clients have AIDS. At one Tehran center, Ali Yaghoubi, 47, with hollow cheeks and eyes, said he became infected with H.I.V. while serving a 25-year prison sentence for robbery and selling drugs. "We had to share something called a pump for injecting heroin," he said. "It was a thick needle hooked up to a pump." The number of addicts taking methadone has increased to 100,000 from 5,000 in two years, Kamran Bagheri Lankarani, the minister of health, said in May, according to Iran-e-Pak, a magazine about addiction. Almost all of the alternative treatment centers are subsidized by the government, but still have a relatively free hand in choosing their methods. "There are so many options that no addict can claim that there is nowhere to go for help," said Dr. Mohammad-Reza Haddadi, a physician and researcher at the National Center for Addiction Studies. "It is much cheaper and healthier for them to go to these centers for methadone than to drug dealers." From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 3 14:50:42 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:50:42 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Here we go again: House Resolution 362 Message-ID: <200807032050.m63KogIR029200@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080703/097f7745/attachment.txt From aaron.doncaster at gmail.com Thu Jul 3 17:04:57 2008 From: aaron.doncaster at gmail.com (aaron doncaster) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 17:04:57 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: [NDenvirocaucus] Alberta Oil Sands gets it's own Facebook fan page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <164236a30807031604u180c08a0pd9c025fab56a341f@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: morallyskewed Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:55 AM Subject: [NDenvirocaucus] Alberta Oil Sands gets it's own Facebook fan page To: NDenvirocaucus at yahoogroups.com Facebook is a great way to reach out to people, and a lot of good groups pop up to represent good opinions. Amidst all the groups protesting the oilsands that have popped up on Facebook, a fan page to counteract their message has been started. The page, whose supporters are relatively few at the momment (less than 100), goes on to describe it's overview as such: "The Alberta Oil Sands provide a safe, stable, and secure source of energy for the global market. Produced commercially since the 1960's, Alberta's Oil Sands have recently been a hotbed of activity both in terms of production and as part of the global discussion on energy and the environment. Fans of the Alberta Oil Sands understand that, while not a be-all end- all solution to global energy demand, the oilsands are an important part of the energy mix. Moreover, we understand that the technological innovations being developed will drastically reduce the environmental footprint of these projects while enhancing energy and economic security for Alberta and the rest of Canada." The site goes on to describe it's mission: "Tell your friends to visit websites that tell the REAL story..." Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers http://www.canadasoilsands.ca Government of Alberta http://oilsands.alberta.ca/ Oilsands Discovery Centre http://www.oilsandsdiscovery.com/ Oilsands Review Magazine http://www.oilsandsreview.com/ Athabasca Regional Issues Working Group http://www.oilsands.cc/ Canadian Oilsands Network for Research and Development http://www.conrad.ab.ca/ Centre for Energy http://www.centreforenergy.com/generator.asp? xml=/silos/ong/oilsands/oilsandsAndHeavyOilOverview01XML.asp&template= 1,1,1 Oilsands Sustainable Development Secretariat http://www.treasuryboard.alberta.ca/OilSandsSecretariat.cfm Centre for Oilsands Innovation @ U of A http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca/COSI.cfm Obviously this is part of an effort to counteract pages like travelingalberta.com. Although these forementioned pages have little or nothing in common with the NDP enviromental agenda, members would be wise to know their opponents talking points. Understanding your adversary is a fundamental of victory, something not just the NDP, but our enviroment could certainly use. We need to win more people over to thinking about the state of stability on this planet right now, and that will only happen with earnest discussion across the table. TTFN, Jonathan Grant __._,_.___ Messages in this topic ( 1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages| Files| Photos| Links| Database| Polls| Members| Calendar MARKETPLACE ------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups users, check out this limited time offer from Blockbuster!Rent DVDs free for a month! [image: Yahoo! Groups] 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 Visit Your Group Yahoo! News Odd News You won't believe it, but it's true Yahoo! Groups Dog Zone Connect w/others who love dogs. Special K Group on Yahoo! Groups Join the challenge and lose weight. . __,_._,___ From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Jul 3 19:00:29 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:00:29 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Rogue Nation Message-ID: <486D762D.8050409@attglobal.net> by Charley Reese lewrockwell.com (June 30 2008) One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the US can bomb Iran's nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete. It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, "You naughty boys, you". Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified. Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about seventy million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the US ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers). More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal. Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and ten amphibious ships. It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy. So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot. Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied down in both countries. China has a tremendous investment and interest in Iran and would likely see an attack as a threat to its national interests. China could strike a large blow against the US just by dumping the financial paper we have foolishly allowed the Chinese to pile up, thanks to the trade deficit. For some years now, I've worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England ? arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw. The British never dreamed that the "little yellow people" could come ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink the pride of the British fleet, but they did both. I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How'd you like to be the president who has to tell the American people that we've lost a carrier for the first time since World War II? Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don't know, but they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe? http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese471.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 3 22:59:22 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:59:22 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Solomon Islands: RAMSI forces mobilised against Solomons workers Message-ID: <22DB85B9-423F-47B0-8AB1-697E5DB2611E@shaw.ca> Solomon Islands: RAMSI forces mobilised against Solomons workers By Patrick O?Connor 3 July 2008 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/solo-j03.shtml Soldiers and police in the Australian-dominated Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) took to the streets of the capital, Honiara, last week in response to a strike by telecommunications workers and the threat of industrial action by public service employees. RAMSI?s provocative intervention comes amid heightened social tensions driven by rising food and fuel inflation, and coincides with an ongoing dispute over the status of the occupying forces? immunity from Solomons? law. ?We want to ensure our presence is felt throughout Honiara City,? a spokesman from the Solomon Islands? Police Media Unit told the Solomon Star on June 26. The spokesman described the operation as a precautionary measure to counter any possible disturbances caused by the telecommunications strike. The Star reported that RAMSI soldiers were also patrolling the streets while a military helicopter flew above. About 140 Australian soldiers and 450 mostly Australian RAMSI police are stationed in the Solomons. That the latest mobilisation was triggered by an entirely peaceful industrial dispute reflects the true character of the RAMSI intervention force. Initially dispatched in July 2003, the Australian- led operation accompanied the takeover of much of the Solomons? state apparatus, including the police, legal system, prison service, finance department, and other arms of the public service. While the Australian- led intervention into the allegedly ?failing? state was justified on humanitarian grounds, the police-military response to the recent labour disputes again demonstrates the reality: RAMSI?s central purpose is to advance the interests of Australian imperialism and to counter any acts by the local population that might threaten those interests. More than 300 employees of the majority state-owned telecommunications carrier, Our Telekom, went on strike on June 17. The workers demanded that the company?s chief executive officer, Martyn Robinson, be sacked for allegedly discriminatory practices. Other demands presented by the workers related to retirement packages, leave pay, housing, and work conditions. Also of concern was the threatened privatisation of Telekom and takeover by the Irish telecommunications company, Digicel. ?It is related to the planned sale of Telekom to Digicel, which these people including Robinson, are heavily involved in, but we don?t want to talk about their dirty deals,? an unnamed workers? spokesman told the Solomon Star. The strike caused significant disruptions to the Solomons? phone network. Most lines from Honiara to the provinces went down, many mobile phone and internet services were interrupted, and automatic teller machine facilities were also affected. Workers ended their strike last Friday, June 27, after Robinson announced his resignation. This followed the intervention of Solomon Islands? Finance Minister Snyder Rini, who directed the Our Telekom board to terminate Robinson?s contract. According to a Solomon Star report, however, the telecommunication workers met last Monday and denounced the decision to allow Robinson to remain CEO for another three months. They voted to resume strike action unless the executive was immediately removed. Once they returned to work, the Australian police and military mobilisation ended. Shortly before this, the Public Employees Union called off a strike action and public protest that had been planned for June 27. The union?s general secretary, Paul Belande, met with the minister for public services, Milner Tozaka, and reportedly negotiated a memorandum of understanding that dealt with some of the public service workers? demands. The terms of the deal were not announced, but the union had earlier demanded a 49 percent wage rise to help cope with inflation. Rising world petrol and food prices have further impoverished many Solomon Islanders. Standard bus fares in Honiara more than doubled last month, while student fares tripled. The price of rice, a staple for many families, has also rapidly escalated. A 20-kilogram bag of rice cost about SI$115 (A$17) in Honiara in early April, but now sells for a reported SI$195. The country?s minimum wage is just SI$3.20 an hour for forestry and fishery workers, and SI$4 for others (A$0.48 and A$0.60). ?We have to face all these [rising] prices at once and it is just too much,? Joy Buru, a mother of two, told the Solomon Times. ?Even noodles in shops has gone up from $1.60 to $2.30 ... this is getting very difficult. The higher prices have caused life to be very bitter each day.? RAMSI under fire Deepening social tensions are exacerbating the crisis confronting the RAMSI occupying forces. The Australian-led force has made no attempt to alleviate poverty and unemployment in the Solomons, and five years after the supposedly humanitarian intervention, many people find themselves significantly worse off. This state of affairs is feeding into the steadily mounting opposition to RAMSI?s ongoing presence. Former parliamentarian Alfred Sasako last month warned that ?public disorder? may erupt unless the government was able to control prices. Opposition leader Manasseh Sogavare last week declared that he would move a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Derek Sikua?s government in the next sitting of parliament, due this month, on the grounds that nothing had been done to control inflation. It remains to be seen whether Sogavare has the numbers to unseat Sikua; one opposition MP claimed that several ministers were prepared to defect. Sogavare?s return to power is the last thing the Australian government wants. The former Howard government, with the complete support of the Labor Party, mounted a vicious and protracted regime change campaign against the Sogavare government, which culminated in its ousting through a no confidence vote in December last year. The former prime minister had attempted to reduce RAMSI?s control over the finance department and other sectors, and also launched an official investigation into the April 2006 riots, which destroyed much of Honiara. Canberra attempted to derail the Commission of Inquiry, mounting a witch-hunt against the leading legal figures involved in establishing it?Julian Moti and Marcus Einfeld. Despite the sabotage attempts, the commission completed its work and submitted a final report to the Sikua government in late April. But ten weeks later, the report has still not been publicly released. The World Socialist Web Site has already raised the question as to whether the document is being suppressed on the orders of the Rudd government. An examination of the Commission of Inquiry?s final submissions indicates that one of the final report?s likely findings is that RAMSI?s legal immunity from Solomons? laws be rescinded. Immunity was included in the 2003 Facilitation Act, which Canberra insisted be enacted by the Solomons? parliament when RAMSI was first deployed. The measure is still regarded as a critical aspect of the ongoing intervention, allowing RAMSI personnel to intervene into any development in the Solomons without fear of the legal consequences. The removal of immunity would throw into question RAMSI?s viability, potentially inflicting a major blow to the Australian ruling elite?s entire strategy in the South Pacific. The Facilitation Act includes a provision for the Solomons? parliament to conduct an annual review of the terms of the legislation. Prior to its ousting, the Sogavare government had intended to oversee, for the first time, a parliamentary debate into various aspects of the Act, including immunity. The annual review is due to go through within the next fortnight, but it is unclear whether Sikua, or any member of the government, will move to hold a genuine debate, or whether the Facilitation Act will be left unamended and simply rubber-stamped for another year. There can be little doubt that Australian officials are engaged in furious behind the scenes efforts to prevent a debate. Immunity has already emerged as a central political issue, particularly following the June 13 death of a 26-year-old trainee nurse in a car accident caused by an allegedly drunk RAMSI police officer. The driver, a Samoan national, cannot be prosecuted in the Solomons unless the Samoan government waives immunity. Further inflaming tensions, a RAMSI police officer who was a passenger in the vehicle and badly injured in the crash has refused to provide a statement to Solomons? police. A number of angry responses from ordinary Solomon Islanders have been published in the local media and posted on internet discussion forums. The Solomon Times published a letter from Adrian Alamu: ?This is really disappointing, considering the time, resources and effort our detectives wasted on this greedy, arrogant and irresponsible police officer. It shows its true colour and he may think that he has no obligation or [is] protected under this FA [Facilitation Act], but at least he should say something.? Another Solomon Islander wrote on an internet forum: ?This Samoan idiot who was involved in the fatal accident few wks ago refuse to cooperate with our local police detectives. Is there any way our laws could bring him to cooperate under the RAMSI immunity? This is humiliating not only for the relatives of the deceased female but for all other Solomon Islanders... I guess this uncooperating Samoan officer knows well that he is under no obligation to respond to our local detectives because he is protected under the RAMSI immunity. I am still of the view that whatever circumstances surrounding the fatal incident is highly connected to the immunity enjoyed by RAMSI... Time to review the immunity or kick some responsible butts out. Stop pretending that Solomons is still a war zone.? From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Jul 4 03:57:28 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:57:28 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Why the US is a helluva country Message-ID: <486DF408.6080108@attglobal.net> by Lorna Salzman http://culturechange.org (July 01 2008) Some people are giving a lot of thought to how to build a movement around global warming. This is a tough challenge but given American know-how, can-do, ingenuity, cojones, knee-jerk patriotic hubris, suspicion of foreigners, a staggeringly high fifty percent literacy rate, reliance on conspiracy theories, faith in one god or another, and unflagging belief in progress in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I am sure it can be done. This is a helluva country. Here's why. 1. A commitment to representative democracy conditioned only on the necessity of belonging to one of two parties, Republican or Democrat. Republicans have the upper hand given that their 24th pair of chromosomes codes for Greed. Democrats' 24th chromosome codes for Deceit. It's Win-Win for either of them. 2. An abiding love for gambling, monster theme parks, shopping in giant malls, riding in huge vans, and family values that use churches and TV sets to bring everyone together. These shared values give a remarkable cohesion to American society even in the face of ecological collapse. No one wants to be a nattering nabob of negativity as the world crumbles around us. Stiff upper lips are enough for the British but not for Americans, who need overstuffed credit cards to reassure themselves that they are the salvation of the world and if you don't like it you can go back where you came from. 3. A fervent belief in the right to cheap gas. After decades of paying under a dollar per gallon for gasoline - 35 cents in the 1960s - Americans are now getting really pissed off at the chutzpah of royal monarchs, royal leftist pains-in-the-ass and Royal Dutch Shell executives who think they have as much a right to make money as Americans do. What gives foreigners these privileges? Don't they know we can send in the troops anytime we want for any reason? 4. An indissoluble adhesion to religion in one form or another. It is undeniable that the existence of dissent, protest and freedom of expression causes discomfort to many Americans, sending them into the arms and shelter of various religious cults and institutions, who will, on their behalf, fight against these basic freedoms and rights so as to make them feel better. Generally speaking, they are cheaper than psychoanalysts depending on how much of your meagre salary you turn over to these delightful snake oil salesmen. (Nothing wrong with snake oil; lots of it, under different names, is sold in "Health food" stores to the conspiracy theorists on the left and right who think all doctors and medicine are poisoning them). 5. There is nothing like conspiracy theories, except maybe some stand-up comedians, to keep people amused and connected. We can thank the internet for making this political networking possible, since it ties up people who might be making serious mischief elsewhere. 6. An unprecedented web of multiculturalism, ranging from extreme Political Correctness which bans words like "beggars" and "midget", to Rambo Limbaughs, to posturing paleoliberals like Eric Alterman and The Nation, to New Age gurus like Deepak Chopra, to street-theater rabblerousers like Al Sharpton, not to mention the mammalian diversity in the halls of Congress, where the promise of equal opportunity is fulfilled in the election of liars, louts and lechers every two years. This country can be rightly proud of its tolerance for dissent, where blacks think all whites are racists and whites think all blacks are Arabs. 7. Only in America could the conundrum of disdain for government and politicians be so perfectly illustrated by the election-year digestion of the whole cloth of candidates' promises. 8. An adherence to the time-tested practice of misogyny, whether in the corporate glass ceiling, skewed pay scales, domestic violence, or the female slavery in Mormon religious brothels that condemns generations of girls and women to illiteracy, inequality and isolation. Let no one accuse Americans of forsaking the prejudices and practices of their pioneer ancestors. 9. A obeisant compliant media industry that, unlike its brethren in congress, is willing and eager to feed the demands, biases and fears of its readers and listeners. It cannot be accused of elitism or pandering to the select few; on the contrary, it faithfully brings, every hour of the day and night, the promise of prosperity and material success to tens of millions of people even as the country's political and economic leaders strive to deprive them of these things. Truly, it is a balm for troubled Americans who are tired of being bombarded with the bad news about global warming, epidemics, food shortages and the prospect of parking their RV in their backyard indefinitely. Given these conditions, who should be leading our country? The only people qualified to lead our country fall into at least one of these categories: atheists/secularists; women; libertarians; homeless. Atheists and secularists are independent rational thinkers and resistant to cult thinking and behavior. Women are obviously the more compassionate, stable and social justice-oriented gender. Libertarians, though they have some peculiar ideas about guns, taxes and the environment, are highly tolerant of dissent and defenders of civil liberties. And the homeless need to replace the corporate lobbyists and executives and be allowed to pursue their own self interest: getting a roof over their heads and a hot meal. (Note: I have left out gays and lesbians because basically they are really no different from the rest of society). Here is my proposed list for the top positions in Washington: President: Dennis Kucinich. A little guy with a big brain and heart. Vice president: Weird Al Yankovich. Because we need another VP named Al. Secretary of State: Christopher Hitchens. A gutsy smartass atheist with no ax to grind, who is hated by the left and the religious community ... testimony to his value. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare: Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A reward for her moral witness and courage in facing down islamist extremism and PC. Secretary of Commerce: Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Secretary for the Environment: James Gustave Speth. For being a non-leftist fingering capitalism as the root of the world's problems. (If he declines, I nominate Dave Foreman). Secretary of Labor: Ralph Nader. _____ Lorna Salzman started her forty-year career as environmental activist saving wetlands on eastern Long Island and got her big boost and inspiration when Dave Brower hired her as regional representative of Friends of the Earth in New York. After serving over ten years with FOE, mostly fighting nuclear power and fending off the Army Corps of Engineers, she had brief stints at National Audubon Society's American Birds magazine, at Food & Water fighting food irradiation, and in the 1990s served three years as natural resource specialist at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. In between she founded the New York Green Party, ran as a green for congress in 2002, and sought the party's presidential nomination in 2004. Her collected writings are at lornasalzman.com . Her previous article in Culture Change was "Neo-liberals in green clothing: Nordhaus, Shellenberger and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors" at culturechange.org . http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=1#cont TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org Fri Jul 4 09:58:10 2008 From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 09:58:10 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Jesse Helms [of contemporary North Carolina -- and the 19th century] Message-ID: <002301c8ddee$ee3e14a0$0400a8c0@computer> NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR: [July 4 2008] Jesse Helms has now passed into The Fog and on to The Beyond -- where he'll have much of a personal nature to think about. [My theology includes the Afterlife, but not Hell.] His departure leaves me with mixed emotions but, in all honesty, somewhat less poignant regret than I've ever felt recently when a leaf has fallen from the tree. This is a well received post I sent out a few years ago -- dealing with my own experiences and reflections concerning the Museum Piece from North Carolina. Among all of his many nefarious deeds, was his unremitting racist opposition to Federal recognition -- and the important accompanying Federal Indian services -- for the Lumbee Indian Nation. The Lumbees are the largest Native nation in North Carolina and one of the largest in the United States. Their extremely important struggle continues -- Federal recognition is closer than ever for them -- but not yet in hand. See our webpage for the Lumbees and their long campaign for a full measure of social justice: http://www.hunterbear.org/lumbee_indians_of_north_carolina.htm Personal Reminiscence: North Carolina and Jesse Helms [Hunter Gray, 8/22/01] PUBLISHED IN THE SOCIALIST [JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003] The departure of Jesse Helms [hopefully forever] from the national political scene is a vastly pleasant and encouraging development -- much, much more than, say, even the fading of an especially cruel winter in the Northern Plains or rain in Death Valley. I met him directly only once -- a long, long time ago. More on that in a few moments. Helms comes from Monroe -- Union County -- North Carolina. Even into historically recent times, the racism of this place was among the worst in the South [today, it's becoming a suburb of Charlotte -- but I suspect even a thin scratch would produce the heavy and oppressive odor of contemporary, essentially unyielding racism.] This was the setting where, in the late '50s and just into the '60s, Black leader Rob Williams, a World War II vet and then president of the local NAACP, and with other very courageous souls, conducted a series of hard-fought desegregation campaigns at Monroe. The Black community in that hate-filled town was violently attacked at different points by increasingly heavy Klan forces -- and Williams, with an NRA charter, organized an armed self-defense group. Condemned increasingly by the North Carolina state government, he also wound up on the "hate-list" of the FBI because of his strong support of the Cuban Revolution. In 1961, a massive, armed Klan attack was directed against the Black community of Monroe which climaxed at night. Rob Williams called the office of North Carolina governor, Terry Sanford, to demand state protection -- but was told pleasantly by Sanford's assistant, "I would have thought you'd be swinging from that big tree in the Monroe courthouse yard by this time, Rob." In the chaos of that final terrible late afternoon and night, Williams and his people took into protective custody a white couple that, either with malice or accidentally, had gone "behind the lines" in the Black community. Although the white couple was released quite unharmed a few hours later, Williams and others were charged with kidnapping -- and, though he was able to make his getaway to Cuba, others were caught. They came to trial in February, 1964 at Monroe. In those rich and turbulent days, I was Field Organizer for the radical Southern Conference Educational Fund [SCEF], and based at Raleigh, NC, working across the Deep South in grassroots civil rights organizing and anti-Klan work. I was also a very publicly listed and active supporter of the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants [CAMD] -- headed by the excellent Berta Green [a Trotskyist] and George Weissman and others. The principal lawyer for my group, SCEF, was Bill Kunstler who was also one of the attorneys for the Monroe victims. I got into Monroe for the trial in the early evening before, noting the huge lighted [Christian?] cross on the hill above, and stopped for gas at what we rather callously used to refer to in those days as a "cracker nest." A young white man handled the gas and, when that was completed, I asked him directions to a particular address -- which was that of the home of the embattled Dr Albert Perry, a civil rights stalwart where Berta and the others were staying. He looked at me with great distaste. "Why that's Coon Town," and he spit it out. "Just tell me where it is, " I said. He gestured vaguely and backed away. At Dr Perry's home, the CAMD leaders were gathered -- enmeshed in an extremely difficult crisis. The "other" defense committee, the Monroe Defense Committee [MDC] [ Workers World], was also of course, at that moment, in Monroe. Relationships between the two groups and their followers were extremely hostile. There had been altercations. The prospect of going into a major legal defense trial in such a divisive context -- a trial that was drawing considerable national and international attention -- was clearly very bad business for everyone on our general side. Since I was very much of the ecumenical Left, I immediately offered to go to the local headquarters of the Monroe Defense Committee to see if a pragmatic armistice could be arranged. I did and, ushered in by heavily armed guards, met the very charming Mrs Clarence Senior, who with her husband, spearheaded the MDC. I had no sooner introduced myself when she warmed very visibly, with a huge smile. "Professor Salter of Tougaloo College," she said, "I know all about you!" Very soon, and congenially, we had agreement on treaty basics -- and, with only a few more back and forth middle-of-the-night trips [Berta et al. and CAMD were as agreeable as Mrs Senior and MDC], we had full agreement on joint cooperation in all key areas -- including media presentations and statements. The trial, as massive a perversion of justice as I've ever seen anywhere, took place in this absolutely hate-filled town of Monroe [the Helms' home-town], saturated with obvious [if ungarbed] Ku Kluxers, a raft of Federal and state finks, and newspersons from the four corners of the globe. A blatantly stacked-deck -- a completely unabashed one from the outset -- the "trial" ran its obviously racist course -- presided over by an openly " hanging judge" type flanked by a gaggle of heavily armed deputies. The Monroe victim defendants were, of course, convicted -- and appealed -- and eventually were finally freed. One of the most conspicuous regional media outfits in Monroe for this nefarious affair was the racist television station from Raleigh in which Jesse Helms was the major fixture -- WRAL-TV. It also always played a conspicuously prolonged rendition of "Dixie" each night before its merciful shut-down. About a year later, I was -- as I had been for some many, many months -- directing a major, intensive and increasingly successful civil rights, voter registration, and anti-Klan campaign in the extremely racist, rigidly-segregated, poverty-stricken, Klan-infested multi-county Northeastern North Carolina Blackbelt. This region, although predominately Black , also had a substantial and equally victimized Native American population which was deeply involved in our Movement. Our campaign was, in the face of virulently racist opposition -- e.g., antagonistic and viciously resistant voter registrars, widespread economic reprisals, open violence from police and Klan-types [and with hostile state agents from the NC State Bureau of Investigation and equally hostile FBI finks hovering in the shadows] organizing the grassroots, county by county, and generating extremely capable local leadership. Excellent lawyers [Bill Kunstler, Morty Stavis, Phil Hirschkop] were major and critical assets. As all of this burgeoned along, WRAL-TV and Jesse Helms at Raleigh were among our shrillest and most hostile media critics. And then, at one point, in that Spring of '65, Jesse Helms, in a news cast, levied an especially venomous Red-baiting blast against me and our Blackbelt project: 2 minutes and 18 seconds of it. But, in his fervor, he'd overstepped -- and the upshot was that I got "equal time." Seeing no point in responding to his Red charges, I put together, instead, a necessarily trenchant statement which discussed the hideous nature of the North Carolina Blackbelt setting and its power structure, also attacked the United Klans of America, and called for a strong Federal voting rights act [then in the Congressional hopper.] My statement, which I refined and honed and read to my patient, watch-holding wife at least 15 times, fell neatly into the 2 minutes, 18 seconds context. When the day came, I went to WRAL, on the outskirts of Raleigh. Entering the station, I noted the delegation of several somber-faced white men approaching me -- led by a black-suited entity which I realized was Jesse Helms. We faced each other, staring, for a very long moment indeed. He saw whatever he saw in me -- and I saw a pudgy, rather heavy-faced man, wearing glasses behind which his quite conspicuous eyes blinked rapidly. He was sweating. Then he stuck out his hand, with the coldest formality I've ever encountered, and I took it -- and we, very perfunctorily, shook hands. "Are you ready?" he asked me. "I am," said I. "Quite ready indeed." As though we were en route to the ultimate manifestation of The Code Duello under the Southern pines, we walked, he and I together, and followed by his colleagues, up a stairway, to a broadcasting room. There, with Jesse Helms sweating even more profusely, I took out my written statement. Still staring, he told me, "You have two minutes and eighteen seconds, son." Ignoring that, I nodded. The lights were fixed hard and heatedly upon me and I could sense Jesse Helms' cold and distasteful stare from behind. I read my statement, briskly and clearly, and I got it all in: the awful nature of the Blackbelt and its power structure, the intimidation and violence, the Klan -- and the need for a very strong Federal voting rights act. When it was over, after 2 minutes and 18 seconds, we walked back downstairs -- followed by his colleagues. Obviously angry and with his face still sweating profusely and his eyes big and cold, Jesse Helms looked at me and I at him. Without saying a word, he stuck out his hand again and I took it and we shook -- this time, very very perfunctorily. He and his group turned and stalked away. The next day, back up in the Blackbelt, I was asked by my very good friends and civil rights colleagues, Reed and Willa [Cofield] Johnson of Enfield -- another hate-filled little bastion -- just what it was like to shake hands with Jesse Helms. I thought for a long moment. "It was like shaking hands with a toad's belly," said I. And I still hold, to this very day, to that very accurate descriptive analysis of that absolutely weird and surrealistic experience. Our Northeastern Blackbelt project rolled on to many, many successes. In time, I went on to many other organizing campaigns. And Jesse Helms went to the U.S. Senate where his Never Never Potions and Malevolent Witch-Craft have poured rank poison into our national culture and the long-suffering world scene for a very, very long and tragic time. In the Spring of 1996, I was chairing, as a recently retired University of North Dakota professor, a panel on Native American challenges in education and related dimensions at Indian Time Out Week, held by the Native students at UND. One panel participant, a well-known Native educator and old friend from a bit further west, had just returned to the Northern Plains from a trip to Washington to which he'd gone seeking funds for his Native community college. When he finished his presentation, he said, "Have kind of an interesting story." It developed that our friend and colleague, somewhere along the puddle-jumping plane trip to the Twin Cities, had found himself sitting next to -- Jesse Helms! As he briefly described Helms, black suit and sweat, I remembered my long-ago meeting with the Entity from Monroe. With our naturally uneasy friend, Helms had tried to say how much he admired Indian people but it fell 'way short, tumbling out of sight into a Grand Canyon of obvious,syrupy hypocrisy. They left that plane, Helms following our colleague. "Did he stick out his hand when you parted?" I asked. "He did," said our friend. "And we shook hands, though it seemed strange." "Well," said I, "he does know the amenities." And then, of course, I told the tale that I've just told you-all, the readers. In Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear] HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na?shdo?i?ba?i? and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm And see Forest Fires in the West http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west.htm In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 4 10:47:56 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:47:56 -0700 Subject: [R-G] UK Union votes for boycott and divestment Message-ID: <200807041647.m64GluUc022006@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080704/f51b6768/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 4 11:18:29 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:18:29 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Big Oil pumps up the ugly Afghan and Iraqi mix Message-ID: <200807041718.m64HITmc001673@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080704/29883c1d/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 4 11:17:39 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:17:39 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The Afghan Unraveling Message-ID: <200807041717.m64HHdtY029930@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080704/8775cf29/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 4 11:18:04 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:18:04 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Inside the Taliban jailbreak Message-ID: <200807041718.m64HI4jd000812@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080704/fcc1b988/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 4 11:19:15 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:19:15 -0700 Subject: [R-G] (Iran) Preparing the battlefield Message-ID: <200807041719.m64HJFbl003897@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080704/75e73951/attachment.txt From news at ckut.ca Fri Jul 4 11:33:52 2008 From: news at ckut.ca (CKUT Community News Collective) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:33:52 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Dr. Roland Chrisjohn: a Critical Review of Stephen Harper's Residential School Apology Message-ID: <486E5F00.5080703@ckut.ca> *AUDIO INTERVIEW http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=72612 MP3 audio: Pt 1 (19mins) http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/roland_chrisjohn_apology_pt.1(19min).mp3 Pt 2 (27mins): http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/roland_chrisjohn_apology_pt.2_(27min).mp3 Program Title:* Dr. Roland Chrisjohn: a Critical Review of Stephen Harper's Residential School Apology *Description:* Dr. Roland Chrisjohn contextual view of Canada's colonial policies surrounding government sponsored, church run residential schools. He offers a critical view of Stephen Harper's apology concerning the residential school policy made in the House of Commons on June 11th, 2008. Dr. Roland Chrisjohn is currently the Director of Native Studies at St. Thomas University and amongst other works is co-author of The Circle Game: Shadow and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada. An Oneida of the Iroquois Confederacy, he has spoken and written extensively about social issues which affect Indigenous people of North America. <>*More resources available: http://www.nativestudies.org/works.html http://www.marxmail.org/ApologyNotAccepted.htm* co-authored by Roland Chrisjohn, Andrea Bear Nicholas, Karen Stote, James Craven (Omahkohkiaayo i?poyi), Tanya Wasacase, Pierre Loiselle, and Andrea O. Smith This was broadcast orignally as part of CKUT's Anti-Colonial Canada Day programming. << Archived Links Below >> July 1st -- is it really a day to celebrate? What does it mean to be Canadian? What does Canada mean to those who originally inhabited this land? What does Canadian foreign intervention mean to those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti? Join CKUT's Community News Collective to hear perspectives on Indigenous-settler relations, what it is to be Canadian, and critical views on Canadian foreign policy to break open the truth on Canada's colonial past, and present, here on Turtle Island. For archived audio of this broadcast, click: 7-8am: http://secure.ckut.ca/64/20080701.07.00-08.00.mp3 8-9am: http://secure.ckut.ca/64/20080701.08.00-09.00.mp3 5-6pm: http://secure.ckut.ca/64/20080701.17.00-18.00.mp3 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Jul 5 02:53:44 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:53:44 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Why I'm Not Patriotic Message-ID: <4FC8DE7CA16DB6shimogamo@attglobal.net> by Matthew Rothschild In memory of George Carlin The Progressive (July 04 2008) It's July 4th again, a day of near-compulsory flag-waving and nation-worshipping. Count me out. Spare me the puerile parades. Don't play that martial music, white boy. And don't befoul nature's sky with your F-16s. You see, I don't believe in patriotism. It's not that I'm anti-American, but I am anti-patriotic. Love of country isn't natural. It's not something you're born with. It's an inculcated kind of love, something that is foisted upon you in the home, in the school, on TV, at church, during the football game. Yet most people accept it without inspection. Why? For when you stop to think about it, patriotism (especially in its malignant morph, nationalism) has done more to stack the corpses millions high in the last 300 years than any other factor, including the prodigious slayer, religion. The victims of colonialism, from the Congo to the Philippines, fell at nationalism's bayonet point. World War I filled the graves with the most foolish nationalism. And Hitler and Mussolini and Imperial Japan brought nationalism to new nadirs. The flags next to the tombstones are but signed confessions-notes left by the killer after the fact. The millions of victims of Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot have on their death certificates a dual diagnosis: yes communism, but also that other ism, nationalism. The whole world almost got destroyed because of nationalism during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The bloody battles in Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s fed off the injured pride of competing patriotisms and all their nourished grievances. In the last five years in Iraq, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died because the United States, the patriarch of patriotism, saw fit to impose itself, without just cause, on another country. But the excuse was patriotism, wrapped in Bush's brand of messianic militarism: that we, the great Americans, have a duty to deliver "God's gift of freedom" to every corner of the world. And the Congress swallowed it, and much of the American public swallowed it, because they've been fed a steady diet of this swill. What is patriotism but "the narcissism of petty differences"? That's Freud's term, describing the disorder that compels one group to feel superior to another. Then there's a little multiplication problem: Can every country be the greatest country in the world? This belief system magically transforms an accident of birth into some kind of blue ribbon. "It's a great country", said the old Quaker essayist Milton Mayer. "They're all great countries". At times, the appeal to patriotism may be necessary, as when harnessing the group to protect against a larger threat (Hitler) or to overthrow an oppressor (as in the anti-colonial struggles in the Third World). But it is always a dangerous toxin to play with, and it ought to be shelved with cross and bones on the label except in these most extreme circumstances. In an article called "Patriot Games" in the current issue of Time magazine (July 7), Peter Beinart, late of The New Republic, inspects his navel for seven pages and then throws the lint all around. "Conservatives are right", he says. "To some degree, patriotism must mean loving your country for the same reason you love your family: simply because it is yours". And then he criticizes, incoherently, the conservative love-it-or-leave-it types. The moral folly of his argument he himself exposes: "If liberals love America purely because it embodies ideals like liberty, justice, and equality, why shouldn't they love Canada - which from a liberal perspective often goes further toward realizing those principles - even more? And what do liberals do", he asks, "when those universal ideals collide with America's self-interest? Giving away the federal budget to Africa would probably increase the net sum of justice and equality on the planet, after all. But it would harm Americans and thus be unpatriotic." This is a straw man if I ever I saw one, but if the United States gave a lot more of its budget to eradicating poverty and disease in Africa and other parts of the developing world, it might actually make us all safer. At bottom, note how readily Beinart disposes of "liberty, justice, and equality". He has stripped patriotism to its vacuous essence: Love your country because it's yours. If we stopped that arm from reflexively saluting and concerned ourselves more with "universal ideals" than with parochial ones, we'd be a lot better off. We wouldn't be in Iraq, we wouldn't have besmirched ourselves at Guantanamo, we wouldn't be acting like some Argentinean junta that wages illegal wars and tortures people and disappears them into secret dungeons. Love of country is a form of idolatry. Listen, if you would, to the wisdom of Milton Mayer, writing back in 1962 a rebuke to JFK for his much-celebrated line: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Mayer would have none of it. "When Mr Kennedy spoke those words at his inaugural, I knew that I was at odds with a society which did not immediately rebel against them", he wrote. "They are the words of totalitarianism pure; no Jefferson could have spoken them, and no Khrushchev could have spoken them better. Could a man say what Mr Kennedy said and also say that the difference between us and them is that they believe that man exists for the State and we believe that the State exists for man? He couldn't, but he did. And in doing so, he read me out of society." When Americans retort that this is still the greatest country in the world, I have to ask why. Are we the greatest country because we have 10,000 nuclear weapons? No, that just makes us enormously powerful, with the capacity to destroy the Earth itself. Are we the greatest country because we have soldiers stationed in more than 120 countries? No, that just makes us an empire, like the empires of old, only more so. Are we the greatest country because we are one-twentieth of the world's population but we consume one-quarter of its resources? No, that just must makes us a greedy and wasteful nation. Are we the greatest country because the top one percent of Americans hoards 34 percent of the nation's wealth, more than everyone in the bottom ninety percent combined? No, that just makes us a vastly unequal nation. Are we the greatest country because corporations are treated as real, live human beings with rights? No, that just enshrines a plutocracy in this country. Are we the greatest country because we take the best care of our people's basic needs? No, actually we don't. We're far down the list on health care and infant mortality and parental leave and sick leave and quality of life. So what exactly are we talking about here? To the extent that we're a great (not the greatest, mind you: that's a fool's game) country, we're less of a great country today. Because those things that truly made us great - the system of checks and balances, the enshrinement of our individual rights and liberties - have all been systematically assaulted by Bush and Cheney. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Jul 5 05:40:17 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:40:17 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Anti-Empire Report Message-ID: <486F5DA1.6090008@attglobal.net> Read this or George W Bush will be president the rest of your life by William Blum www.killinghope.org (July 04 2008) Some thoughts on "patriotism" written on July 4 Most important thought: I'm sick and tired of this thing called "patriotism". The Japanese pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were being patriotic. The German people who supported Hitler and his conquests were being patriotic, fighting for the Fatherland. All the Latin American military dictators who overthrew democratically-elected governments and routinely tortured people were being patriotic - saving their beloved country from "communism". General Augusto Pinochet of Chile: "I would like to be remembered as a man who served his country". {1} P W Botha, former president of apartheid South Africa: "I am not going to repent. I am not going to ask for favours. What I did, I did for my country." {2} Pol Pot, mass murderer of Cambodia: "I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country". {3} Tony Blair, former British prime minister, defending his role in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis: "I did what I thought was right for our country". {4} I won't bore you with what George W has said. At the end of World War II, the United States gave moral lectures to their German prisoners and to the German people on the inadmissibility of pleading that their participation in the holocaust was in obedience to their legitimate government. To prove to them how legally inadmissable this defense was, the World War II allies hanged the leading examples of such patriotic loyalty. I was once asked after a talk: "Do you love America?" I answered: "No". After pausing for a few seconds to let that sink in amidst several nervous giggles in the audience, I continued with: "I don't love any country. I'm a citizen of the world. I love certain principles, like human rights, civil liberties, democracy, an economy which puts people before profits." I don't make much of a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Some writers equate patriotism with allegiance to one's country and government, while defining nationalism as sentiments of ethno-national superiority. However defined, in practice the psychological and behavioral manifestations of nationalism and patriotism - and the impact of such sentiments on actual policies - are not easily distinguishable. Howard Zinn has called nationalism "a set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration and becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other Motherlands or Fatherlands". {5} ... "Patriotism is used to create the illusion of a common interest that everybody in the country has". {6} Strong feelings of patriotism lie near the surface in the great majority of Americans. They're buried deeper in the more "liberal" and "sophisticated", but are almost always reachable, and ignitable. Alexis de Tocqueville, the mid-19th century French historian, commented about his long stay in the United States: "It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it". {7} George Bush Sr, pardoning former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in connection with the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal: "First, the common denominator of their motivation - whether their actions were right or wrong - was patriotism". {8} What a primitive underbelly there is to this rational society. The US is the most patriotic, as well as the most religious, country of the so-called developed world. The entire American patriotism thing may be best understood as the biggest case of mass hysteria in history, whereby the crowd adores its own power as troopers of the world's only superpower, a substitute for the lack of power in the rest of their lives. Patriotism, like religion, meets people's need for something greater to which their individual lives can be anchored. So this July 4, my dear fellow Americans, some of you will raise your fists and yell: "U! S! A! U! S! A!". And you'll parade with your flags and your images of the Statue of Liberty. But do you know that the sculptor copied his mother's face for the statue, a domineering and intolerant woman who had forbidden another child to marry a Jew? "Patriotism", Dr Samuel Johnson famously said, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel". Ambrose Bierce begged to differ - It is, he said, the first. "Patriotism is the conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it". -- George Bernard Shaw "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage - torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians - which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them". -- George Orwell {9} "Pledges of allegiance are marks of totalitarian states, not democracies", says David Kertzer, a Brown University anthropologist who specializes in political rituals. "I can't think of a single democracy except the United States that has a pledge of allegiance". {10} Or, he might have added, that insists that its politicians display their patriotism by wearing a flag pin. Hitler criticized German Jews and Communists for their internationalism and lack of national patriotism. Along with Mussolini in Italy, the F?hrer demanded that "true patriots" publicly vow and display their allegiance to their respective fatherlands. Postwar democratic governments of the two countries made a conscious effort to minimize such shows of national pride. (Oddly enough, the American Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, a founding member, in 1889, of the Society of Christian Socialists, a group of Protestant ministers who asserted that "the teachings of Jesus Christ lead directly to some form or forms of socialism".) Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, we could read that there's "now a high degree of patriotism in the Soviet Union because Moscow acted with impunity in Afghanistan and thus underscored who the real power in that part of the world is". {11} "Throughout the nineteenth century, and particularly throughout its latter half, there had been a great working up of this nationalism in the world ... Nationalism was taught in schools, emphasized by newspapers, preached and mocked and sung into men. It became a monstrous cant which darkened all human affairs. Men were brought to feel that they were as improper without a nationality as without their clothes in a crowded assembly. Oriental peoples, who had never heard of nationality before, took to it as they took to the cigarettes and bowler hats of the West." -- H G Wells, English writer {12} "The very existence of the state demands that there be some privileged class vitally interested in maintaining that existence. And it is precisely the group interests of that class that are called patriotism." -- Mikhail Bakunin, Russian anarchist {13} "To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography". -- George Santayana, American educator and philosopher Dr Strangelove There have been numerous books published on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. I have not read one of them. There's another one just out: "One Minute to Midnight", by Washington Post writer Michael Dobbs. I will not be reading it. The reason authors keep writing these books and publishers keep publishing them is obvious: How close the world came to a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union! Arthur Schlesinger Jr, historian and adviser to President Kennedy, termed it "the most dangerous moment in human history". {14} But I've never believed that. Such a fear is based on the belief that either or both of the countries was ready and willing to unleash their nuclear weapons against the other. However, this was never in the cards because of MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. By 1962, the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union had grown so large and sophisticated that neither superpower could entirely destroy the other's retaliatory force by launching a missile first, even with a surprise attack. Retaliation was certain, or certain enough. Starting a nuclear war was committing suicide. If the Japanese had had nuclear bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been destroyed. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was only looking for equality. The United States had missiles and bomber bases already in place in Turkey and other missiles in Western Europe pointed toward the Soviet Union. Khrushchev later wrote: "The Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine ... After all, the United States had no moral or legal quarrel with us. We hadn't given the Cubans anything more than the Americans were giving to their allies. We had the same rights and opportunities as the Americans. Our conduct in the international arena was governed by the same rules and limits as the Americans." {15} Virtually every president from Truman on has been exhorted by one Dr Strangelove or another, military or civilian, to use The Bomb when things were going badly, such as in Korea or Vietnam or Cuba, or to use it against the Soviets directly, unprovoked, to once and for all get rid of those commie bastards that were causing so much trouble in so many countries. And not one president gave in to this pressure. They would have been MAD to do so. Which is why all the scary talk of recent years about Saddam Hussein and Iran and all their alleged and potential weapons of mass destruction was just that - scary talk. Hussein was not, and the Iranians are not, MAD. The only modern-day leaders I would not make this assumption about are Osama bin Laden and Dick Cheney. The latter is a genuine Dr Strangelove. In a few weeks we'll once again be marking the anniversary of the two nuclear bombings of Japan. Remarkably, the bombings are still highly controversial. I believe that the evidence clearly shows that the Japanese were already defeated and trying to surrender, thus obviating the need for the bombings. My essay on this can be found at http://members.aol.com/essays6/abomb.htm The Cold War was a marvelous era for Armageddon humor. Here is US General Thomas Power speaking in December 1960 about things like nuclear war and a first strike by the United States: "The whole idea is to kill the bastards! At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" The response from one of those present was: "Well, you'd better make sure that they're a man and a woman". {16} Economics 101 remedial The economists who defend the perpetual crises of the capitalist system - the sundry speculative bubbles followed by bursting bubbles followed by a trail of tears - most often turn to "supply and demand" as the ultimate explanation and justification for the system. This provides an impersonal, neutral-sounding, and respectable, almost scientific, cover for the vagaries of free enterprise. They would have us believe that we shouldn't blame the crises on greed or speculation or manipulation or criminal activity because such flawed human behavior is overridden by "supply and demand". It's a law, remember, "the law of supply and demand" is its full name. And where does this "law" come from? Congress? Our ancestral British Parliament? No, nothing so commonplace, so man-made. No, they would have us believe that it must come from nature. It works virtually like a natural law, does it not? And we violate it or ignore it at our peril. Thus have we all been raised. But great cracks in the levee have been appearing in recent years, in unlikely places, such as the Senate of the United States, which issued a lengthy report in 2006 (when a gallon of gasoline had already passed the three dollar mark) entitled: "The role of market speculation in rising oil and gas prices". Here are some excerpts: "The traditional forces of supply and demand cannot fully account for these increases [in crude oil, gasoline, et cetera]. While global demand for oil has been increasing ... global oil supplies have increased by an even greater amount. As a result, global inventories have increased as well. Today, US oil inventories are at an eight-year high, and OECD [mainly European] oil inventories are at a twenty-year high. Accordingly, factors other than basic supply and demand must be examined." "Over the past few years, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investment funds have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets ... to try to take advantage of price changes or to hedge against them. Because much of this additional investment has come from financial institutions and investment funds that do not use the commodity as part of their business, it is defined as 'speculation' by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). According to the CFTC, a speculator 'does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes'. [Futures contracts gamble on the price goods will fetch on a particular date in the future; the contracts are traded like stocks.] The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil to be delivered in the future in the same manner that additional demand for the immediate delivery of a physical barrel of oil drives up the price on the spot market ... Although it is difficult to quantify the effect of speculation on prices, there is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices." The prices arrived at daily on the commodity exchanges (primarily the New York Mercantile Exchange - NYMEX), for the various kinds of oil are used as principal international pricing benchmarks, and play an important role in setting the price of gasoline at the pump. A good part of the Senate report deals with how the CFTC is no longer able to properly regulate commodity trading to prevent speculation, manipulation, or fraud because much of the trading takes place on commodity exchanges, in the US and abroad, that are not within the CFTC's purview. "Persons within the United States seeking to trade key US energy commodities - U.S. crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures - now can avoid all US market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York ... To the extent that energy prices are the result of market manipulation or excessive speculation, only a cop on the beat with both oversight and enforcement authority will be effective ... The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC [over-the-counter] electronic exchanges, was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000." {17} A tale told many times. While you and I go about our daily lives trying to be good citizens, the Big Boys, the Enron Boys, are busy lobbying the Congress Boys. They call it "modernization", or some other eye-rolling euphemism, and we get screwed. The Washington Post recently had this to report on the Enron and Congress Boys: "Wall Street banks and other large financial institutions have begun putting intense pressure on Congress to hold off on legislation that would curtail their highly profitable trading in oil contracts - an activity increasingly blamed by lawmakers for driving up prices to record levels ... But the executives were met with skepticism and occasional hostility. 'Spare us your lecture about supply and demand', one of the Democratic aides said, abruptly cutting off one of the executives ... A growing number of members of Congress have reacted to public outrage over skyrocketing gasoline prices by introducing at least eight bills that restrict the ability of financial companies to buy futures contracts, [require companies to] disclose more about those investments or stiffen federal oversight of energy trades." {18} Some further testimony from the 2006 Senate hearing: "There has been no shortage, and inventories of crude oil and products have continued to rise. The increase in prices has not been driven by supply and demand." -- Lord Browne, Group Chief Executive of BP (formerly British Petroleum) "Senator ... I think I have been very clear in saying that I don't think that the fundamentals of supply and demand - at least as we have traditionally looked at it - have supported the price structure that's there". -- Lee Raymond, Chairman and CEO, ExxonMobil "What's been happening since 2004 is very high prices without record-low stocks. The relationship between US [oil] inventory levels and prices has been shredded, has become irrelevant." -- Jan Stuart, Global Oil Economist, UBS Securities (which calls itself "the leading global wealth manager") In 2008, when a gallon of gasoline had passed the four dollar mark, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri stated: "There is clearly no shortage of oil in the market". El-Badri "blamed high oil prices on investors seeking 'better returns' in commodities after a drop in equity prices and the value of the dollar". {19} Finally, defenders of the way the system works insist that the oil companies have been experiencing great increases in their costs, due particularly to oil running out, so-called "peak oil". It costs much more to find and extricate the remaining oil and the companies have to pass these costs to the consumer. Well, class, if that is so, then the companies should be making about the same net profit as before peak oil - X-dollars more in expenses, X-dollars added to the price, same amount of profit, albeit a lower percentage of profit to sales, something of interest primarily to Wall Street, not to ordinary human beings. But the oil companies have not done that. Their increases in price and profit defy gravity and are not on the same planet as any increases in costs. Moreover, as economist Robert Weissman of the Multinational Monitor has observed: "While the price of oil is going up, these companies' drilling expenses are not. Oil can trade at $40 a barrel, $90 a barrel, or $130 a barrel. It still costs ExxonMobil and the rest of Big Oil only about $20 to get a barrel of oil out of the ground." {20} The above is not meant to be the last word on the subject of why our gasoline is so expensive. Too much information is hidden, by speculators, oil companies, refiners, and others; too much activity is unregulated; too much is moved by psychology more than economics. The best solution would be to get rid of all the speculative markets - unless they can demonstrate that they serve a human purpose - and nationalize the oil companies. (Oh my god, he used the "N" word!) Notes {1} Sunday Telegraph, London (July 18 1999) {2} The Independent, London (November 22 1995) {3} Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (October 30 1997), article by Nate Thayer, pages 15 and 20 {4} Washington Post (May 11 2007), page 14 {5} Passionate Declarations (2003), page 40 {6} ZNet Magazine (May 2006), interview by David Barsamian {7} Democracy in America (1840), chapter 16 {8} New York Times (December 25 1992) {9} "Notes on Nationalism", pages 83, 84 in Such, Such Were the Joys (1945) {10} Alan Colmes, Red, White and Liberal (2003), page 30 {11} San Francisco Examiner (January 20 1980), quoting a "top Soviet diplomat" {12} The Outline of History (1920), volume II, chapter XXXVII, page 782 {13} Letters on Patriotism (1869) {14} Washington Post Book World (June 24 2008), review of "One Minute to Midnight" {15} Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971) pages 494, 496 {16} Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (1983), page 246. For many other examples of Cold War absurdity, see William Blum, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (2004), chapter 12: "Before there were terrorists, there were communists and the Wonderful World of Anti-Communism" {17} "The role of market speculation in rising oil and gas prices", published by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate (June 27 2006) {18} Washington Post (June 19 2008), page D1, "Wall Street Lobbies to Protect Speculative Oil Trades" {19} Washington Post (May 10 2008), page D3 {20} "What To Do About the Price of Oil", Multinational Monitor (May 28 2008) http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog William Blum is the author of:- Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War Two (Common Courage Press, 1995) Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (Zed Books, 2002) West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2002) Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (Common Courage Press, 2004) Portions of the books can be read, and copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org and previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website. To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 at aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area. Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite. Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned. http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer59.htm TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 5 11:32:22 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:32:22 -0700 Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Swiss_Radio_Says_Colombian_Hostages_Freed_?= =?windows-1252?q?by_=2420_Million_Payment_and_a_=93Show=94_Rather_than_a_?= =?windows-1252?q?Rescue?= Message-ID: http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/and-now-a-word-from-the-israeli-extras/ It seems that there is more to the story of the Colombian hostage rescue than you were originally told. And it has to do with ransom. Now, Machetera finds this completely normal because she happens to know someone who was taken hostage in Colombia in the ?80?s, and his employer (evidently more generous than DynCorp) paid to get him out, and in only six months as opposed to five years. And that in turn, means of course that as far as the U.S. contractors were concerned, and quite frankly Ingrid Betancourt and the other 11 hostages, the people who were really keeping them in the jungle all that time were not the FARC. But what she finds interesting about this story is not so much the ransom, or even the ?media show? which was heavyhanded anyway, but the fact that Israelis wereinvolved and can?t keep their mouths shut about it. Swiss Radio Says Colombian Hostages Freed by $20 Million Payment and a ?Show? Rather than a Rescue Aporrea/Asdr?bal Guerra Translation: Machetera July 4, 2008 - According to various European media reports today, RSR, Radio Suisse Romande, the state broadcaster, revealed yesterday that the operation through which Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages were freed, was obtained through payment and not by skill or intelligence of the Colombian and U.S. authorities. According to an RSR report, ?the 15 hostages were actually freed after the payment of a large sum, and the operation which followed was theatre.? The RSR journalist Frederich Blassel confirmed that the guerrilla known as ?C?sar,? one of the two who were captured, received $20 million dollars in exchange for delivering the hostages. ?It wasn?t a direct negotiation with the FARC, but with a very important person from that organization, who is Commandante ?C?sar,? he explained. Radio Suisse Romande is a state broadcaster which transmits in four different languages in Europe. Blassel added that according to the source, the United States approved the payment to the guerrilla. Citing a source close to the events who had proven trustworthy on several occasions in recent years, the radio also said that the United States government was behind the agreement and put the price at $20 million dollars. ?The three North American contractors worked for the FBI and were transferred to the DEA to carry out a job and therefore that country was highly interested in recovering these citizens. The contact with Commandante C?sar was made through his girlfriend who was captured some four months ago by the Army.? With the two guerrillas captured in the operation facing extradition, the journalist said that ?it sounds strange? but according to his information, Switzerland, France and Spain would be disposed to receiving the two guerrillas and giving them a new identity in order to avoid their extradition to the United States. The French film director Gil P?rez and an analyst specializing in the subject of Colombia also spoke about this in a similar sense, the journalist added. The representative of the national Swiss radio station believes that all of this follows the hard line that President Uribe wants to maintain facing negotiations with the FARC and for that reason, believes that everything was a show. ?If the people knew that this operation was a show behind a negotiation, it wouldn?t matter, because Uribe comes out triumphant and no matter what, remains the strong man,? he concluded. The Colombian Foreign Minister denied the version and called the news ?false.? According to the Colombian General Fredy Padilla de Le?n, the stories about payment for rescue are ?kicks of a drowning man.? For its part, the French government denied having been involved in the operation. Support of United States and Israel The White House has not responded to allegations of payment for liberation, but through its spokesperson, confirmed that the military operation was ?conceived and executed by Colombians with our full support.? For its part, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli agents were involved in the operation which resulted in the liberation of the hostages but ?they believe that the credit should be given to Colombia.? According to the newspaper, the Israeli activities were carried out by dozens of security experts and were coordinated by Global CST, the private firm belonging to ex-Brigadier General Israel Ziv, and ex- Brigadier Yossi Kuperwasser. ?We helped them plan all the operations and strategies, and develop intelligence sources,? said Ziv upon his return from Bogot?. Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited. From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 5 11:38:55 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:38:55 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Michael Lebowitz: The spectre of socialism for the 21st century Message-ID: <761A39E5-9937-44C1-ACBB-DDBF536CE3D0@shaw.ca> Michael Lebowitz: The spectre of socialism for the 21st century The following is the keynote address to the annual meeting of the Society for Socialist Studies, Vancouver, June 5, 2008. It was originally titled ``Building socialism for the 21st century''. To hear an audio recording of the speech, click HERE. By Michael A. Lebowitz A spectre is haunting capitalism. It is the spectre of socialism for the 21st century. Increasingly, the characteristics of this spectre are becoming clear, and we are able to see enough to understand what it is not. The only thing that is not clear at this point is whether the spectre is real ? i.e., whether it is actually an earthly presence. Consider what this spectre is not. It is not the belief that by struggling within capitalism for reforms that it is possible to change the nature of capitalism -- i.e., that a better capitalism, a third way, can suspend the logic of capital (except momentarily). Nor is it a focus upon electing friendly governments to preside over exploitation, oppression and exclusion -- i.e., to support barbarism with a human face. Indeed, this spectre does not accept the premise that you can challenge the logic of capital without understanding it. Very simply, the spectre of socialism for the 21st century is not yesterday?s liberal package -- social democracy. Further, this spectre is not a focus upon the industrial working class as the revolutionary subjects of socialism, a privileging whereby all other workers (including those in the growing informal sector) are seen as lesser workers, unproductive workers, indeed lumpenproletariat. Nor does it suggest that those industrial workers by virtue of the difference between their productivity with advanced means of production and their incomes (i.e., the extent of their exploitation) have a greater entitlement to the wealth of society than the poor and excluded. In the conception of socialism for the 21st century, socialism is not confused with the ownership of the means of production by the state such that (a) it is thought that all that is necessary for socialism is to nationalise and (b) that everything not nationalised is an affront. Indeed, this spectre does not emphasise the development of productive forces without regard for the nature of productive relations (such that gulags, dictatorship and indeed capitalism can all be justified because they develop the productive forces and thereby move you closer to socialism and communism). Nor, for that matter, does it think of two post-capitalist states, socialism and communism, separated by a Chinese wall; in the concept of socialism for the 21st century, there is no separate socialist principle of ``to each according to his contribution?? which must be honoured. Rather, there is simply the recognition that the development of the new society is a process and that this process necessarily begins on a defective basis -- in other words, with defects such as self orientation. Precisely for this reason, this recognition of existing defects, the battle of ideas -- an ideological battle against the old world -- is central to the concept of socialism for the 21st century. Finally, socialism for the 21st century is not based upon democracy in the classic sense. By that, I mean that it is not based upon the concept of representative democracy -- that institutional form in which rule by the people is transformed into voting periodically for those who will misrule them. All these fall into what I call yesterday's socialist package. [...] http://links.org.au/node/503 From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 5 12:33:34 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:33:34 -0700 Subject: [R-G] SoundClick: What really happened at Durban? Message-ID: <200807051833.m65IXYJ3019789@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080705/b7647fc6/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 5 12:32:41 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:32:41 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Canadian court sides with Iraq War deserter Message-ID: <200807051832.m65IWfb6019190@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080705/8a9ab029/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 5 12:33:55 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:33:55 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week Message-ID: <200807051833.m65IXtAI020285@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080705/5ba76011/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 5 12:34:15 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:34:15 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Two caliphates in Baghdad Message-ID: <200807051834.m65IYFVw020701@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080705/fc6fef5a/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 5 12:34:31 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:34:31 -0700 Subject: [R-G] No, I Can't! Message-ID: <200807051834.m65IYVnX020928@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080705/0af210ab/attachment.txt From aaron.doncaster at gmail.com Sat Jul 5 13:06:48 2008 From: aaron.doncaster at gmail.com (aaron doncaster) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 13:06:48 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: MEDIA ADVISORY: Six peaceful protesters arrested with unnecessary force at Chebucto Road In-Reply-To: <135e30d60807041258h404f0e52w32b696069557c0f9@mail.gmail.com> References: <135e30d60807041245y7d060e4aydb50c9b4eaa226d8@mail.gmail.com> <135e30d60807041258h404f0e52w32b696069557c0f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <164236a30807051206n446e3ff0gf91644e1aa031b2d@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: CKDU news collective Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:58 PM Subject: MEDIA ADVISORY: Six peaceful protesters arrested with unnecessary force at Chebucto Road To: news at ckdu.ca *MEDIA ADVISORY* For Immediate Release July 4, 2008 Six peaceful demonstrators arrested with unnecessary force at Chebucto Road HALIFAX ? Six Halifax-area citizens were arrested today as construction to widen Chebucto Road at Mumford Road began. Citizens peacefully demonstrated the construction by moblizing on the street and sitting in trees slated for removal. Unnecessary force was used by police against protesters, who were taken to the Halifax police station where they currently remain detained. Police have stated that all six protesters will be released today, and face court dates next week. One of the arrests was Brennan Vogel, journalist at CKDU radio, who has been providing coverage of the citizen opposition to the Chebucto Road widening project since Monday. Community events have been happening all week in opposition to the Road widening project. Tune in to CKDU as it provides on-going coverage of the event, including Vogel's show, wednesday at 3:30 PM. The City of Halifax voted last week to approve the widening of Chebucto Road, a $2.6 million project that intends to increase car traffic by removing trees and front lawns to create more car lanes, while zero dollars have been allocated for bicycle transportation and infrastructure. *What: 6 arrests of peaceful protesters* *Where: Chebucto Road* *When: July 4, 2008, 12:30pm* - 30 - For more information, please contact: Chebucto Neighbourhood Association Joe McDonnell, President 902-877-9482 CKDU Community News Collective David Parker, Coordinator 902-494-2585 David Parker Spoken Word Coordinator CKDU 88.1 FM 6136 University Ave. 4th Floor Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J2 Tel: (902) 494-2585 www.ckdu.ca From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 5 14:31:49 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:31:49 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Make Way for Field Marshall Obama: Hunkering Down in Afghanistan Message-ID: <64241B78-4D53-4DD4-A1C1-F9EE172019A4@shaw.ca> Weekend Edition July 5 / 6, 2008 http://counterpunch.org/whitney07062008.html Make Way for Field Marshall Obama: Hunkering Down in Afghanistan By MIKE WHITNEY Afghanistan was supposed to be the "good war"; a "just response" to the attacks of September 11. It was supposed to bring Bin Laden to justice "dead or alive" and quash terrorism wherever it originated. 95 per cent of the American people supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Now less than half think the U.S. will prevail. The war was promoted as a way to replace a repressive fundamentalist regime with a democratic government based on western values. The Bush administration promised to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, transform its feudal system into a free market economy, and liberate its women from the oppression of Islamic extremism. It was all hogwash. None of the promises have been kept and none of the goals have been achieved. Besides, war isn't an instrument for positive social change; it's about killing people and blowing up things. Dolling-up military aggression as "preemption" can work for a while, but eventually the truth comes out. Democracy and modernity don't come from the barrel of a gun. Far from being the "good war", Afghanistan has turned out to be a brutal war of revenge. Three decades of fighting has left the country in ruins and the violence is only getting worse. As victory becomes more elusive, the US has stepped up its bombing campaign making 2008 the most deadly year on record. Civilian casualties have skyrocketed and millions of Afghans have become refugees. At the same time, the Taliban have regrouped and taken over strategically vital areas in the south disrupting US supply lines from Pakistan. Khost has fallen into the hands of the Afghan resistance just as it did before the Soviet Army was defeated in the 1980s. The Taliban are moving inexorably towards Kabul and a battle for the capital now seems unavoidable. For the second month in a row, the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan has exceeded Iraq. The fighting has intensified while security has steadily deteriorated. The Taliban's numbers are growing, but the total allied commitment is still under 60,000 troops for a country of 32 million. This makes it impossible to capture and hold territory. The military is limited to "hit and run" operations. The ground belongs to the Taliban. Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station, made this statement at a recent conference at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC: "Afghanistan is lost for the United States and its allies. To use Kipling's term, 'We are watching NATO bleed to death on the Afghan plains.' But what are we going to do. There are 20 million Pashtuns; are we going to invade? We don't have enough troops to even form a constabulary that would control the country. The disaster occurred at the beginning. The fools that run our country thought that a few hundreds CIA officers and a few hundred special forces officers could take a country the size of Texas and hold it, were quite literally fools. And now we are paying the price." Scheuer added, "We are closer to defeat in Afghanistan than Iraq at the moment." Scheuer's pessimism is widely shared among military and political elites. The situation on the ground is hopeless; there is no light in the tunnel. Author Anatol Lieven put it like this in an article in the Financial Times, "The Dream of Afghan Democracy is Dead": "The first step in rethinking Afghan strategy is to think seriously about the lessons of a recent opinion survey of ordinary Taliban fighters commissioned by the Toronto Globe and Mail. Two results are striking: the widespread lack of any strong expression of allegiance to Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership; and the reasons given by most for joining the Taliban -- namely, the presence of western troops in Afghanistan. The deaths of relatives or neighbors at the hands of those forces was also stated by many as a motive. This raises the question of whether Afghanistan is not becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the US and Nato breed the very ?terrorists? they then track down. " Lieven is right. The occupation and the careless killing of civilians has only strengthened the Taliban and swollen their ranks. The US has lost the struggle for hearts and minds and they don't have the troops to establish security. The mission has failed; the Afghan people have grown tired of foreign occupation and support on the homefront is rapidly eroding. The US is just digging a deeper hole by staying. By every objective standard, conditions are worse now than they were before the invasion in 2001. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is soaring, reconstruction is minimal, security is non-existent and malnutrition is at levels that rival sub-Saharan Africa. Afghanistan not safer, more prosperous, or freer. The vast majority of Afghans are still living in grinding poverty exacerbated by the constant threat of violence. The Karzai government has no popular mandate nor any power beyond the capital. The regime is a sham maintained by a small army of foreign mercenaries and a collaborative media which promotes it as a sign of budding democracy. But there is no democracy or sovereignty. Afghanistan is occupied by foreign troops. Occupation and sovereignty are mutually exclusive. According to The Senlis Council's report, "Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink": "The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions. The Taliban's ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; 54 per cent of Afghanistan?s landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply. The insurgency also exercises a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change." Journalist Eric Walberg further clarifies the role played by the Taliban in his article "The Princess and the Taliban": "Western readers have become numbed into accepting the code words 'enemy' and 'insurgents', ignoring the underlying fact that the Taliban are still the legitimate government, that these so-called insurgents are in fact widely seen as freedom fighters battling the non-Muslim foreign occupiers ? the real 'enemy' ? who invaded the country illegally and have killed hundreds of thousands of resistance fighters and innocent civilians illegally. Rather than 'killed', the word 'murdered' might be more appropriate. For locals, the dead are 'martyred', as in Iraq and Palestine..... The country?s declining socioeconomic situation point to the Taliban as the only feasible force to control the situation." It is not even clear that women are better off now than they were under Taliban rule. According to Afghan Parliament member, Malalai Joya: "Every month dozens of women commit self-immolation to end their desolation....The American war on terror is a mockery and so is the US support of the present government in Afghanistan which is dominated by Northern Alliance terrorists....Far more civilians have been killed by the US military in Afghanistan than were killed in the US in the tragedy of September 11. More Afghan civilians have been killed by the US than were ever killed by the Taliban.....The US should withdrawal as soon as possible. We need liberation not occupation." ("The War on Terror is a Mockery", Elsa Rassbach, Z Magazine Nov 2007) The Taliban had effectively eradicated poppy cultivation before the invasion in 2001. Now, after six years of war, the opium trade is back with a vengeance and Afghanistan accounts for 93% of world's heroin production. 2007 was a particularly good year yielding 20% more opium than a year before. Heroin is now Afghanistan's number one export; the nation has become a US narco-colony. Bush could care less about drug trafficking. What matters to him is stabilizing Afghanistan so that the myriad US bases that are built along pipeline corridors can provide a safe channel for oil and natural gas heading to markets in the Far East. That's what really counts. The administration has staked America's future on a risky strategy to establish a foothold in Central Asia to control the flow of energy from the Caspian to China and India. But US policymakers are no longer confident of victory in Afghanistan. In fact, according to a Pentagon report: "Taliban militants have regrouped after their initial fall from power and 'coalesced into a resilient insurgency.' The report paints a grim picture of the conflict, concluding that Afghanistan's security conditions have deteriorated sharply while the fledgling national government in Kabul remains incapable of extending its reach throughout the country or taking effective counternarcotics measures." The situation is dire and it's forcing Bush to decide whether to shift more troops from Iraq or face growing resistance in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the violence is spreading and combat deaths are on the rise. Pentagon chieftains now believe they can only defeat the Taliban by striking at bases in Pakistan, a reckless plan that could inflame passions in Pakistan and trigger a regional conflict. Gradually, the US is being lured into a bigger quagmire. ONWARD FIELD-MARSHALL OBAMA Presidential candidate Barak Obama, "The Peace Candidate", supports a stronger commitment to the war in Afghanistan and has proposed "sending at least two additional combat brigades -- or 7,000 to 10,000 troops -- to Afghanistan, while deploying more Special Operations forces to the Afghan-Pakistan border. He has also proposed increasing non-military aid to Afghanistan by at least $1 billion per year." (Wall Street Journal) Obama, backed by Brzezinski and other Clinton foreign policy advisers, has focussed his attention on the "war on terror", that dismal public relations coup which conceals America's desire to become a major player in the Great Game, the battle for supremacy on the Asian continent. Obama appears to be even more eager to repeat history than his opponent, John McCain. In November, voters will be asked to pick one of the two pro-war candidates. McCain has made his position clear; his focus is on Iraq. Now it is up to Obama to point out why it's more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. If he can't answer that question, then he deserves to lose. Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney at msn.com From mstainsby at resist.ca Sat Jul 5 15:23:05 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:23:05 -0600 Subject: [R-G] How an Indigenous Community Defeated a Logging Giant Message-ID: <486FE639.9010700@resist.ca> http://www.alternet.org/story/89138/ How an Indigenous Community Defeated a Logging Giant By Jessica Bell, AlterNet Posted on June 23, 2008, Printed on June 26, 2008 It was below zero degrees Fahrenheit on the night of Dec. 2, 2002, when sisters and young indigenous mothers Chrissy and Bonnie Swain from the Grassy Narrows First Nation drove from their reserve, located in the southern fringe of the vast Boreal Forest in northern Ontario, to the logging road just a few miles from their home. The sisters felled trees over the road to protest unwanted logging on their land by Abitibi Consolidated. They then headed home, afraid their father would be mad at them. Instead, he was proud. Their protest was the spark that ignited their small community of 1,000 to launch a sustained direct-action campaign to stop logging. Located about 250 miles north of the Minnesota border, Grassy Narrows First Nation's traditional lands span approximately 2,500 square miles. Throughout the 20th century the Ontario government has granted logging companies rights to log on Grassy Narrows' land, even though the permit violates the Canadian government's 1873 treaty agreement with the community and has been actively opposed by First Nation members. In recent years the logging -- currently being done by Abitibi Consolidated -- has intensified, often being conducted around the clock. By 2002, approximately 50 percent of the marketable wood on Grassy Narrows land had been logged. Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows blockader, grandmother and trapper, described the severity of logging in an interview with Rainforest Action Network campaigner David Sone in 2005: The clear-cutting of the land and the destruction of the forest is an attack on our people. The land is the basis of who we are. Our culture is a land-based culture, and the destruction of the land is the destruction of our culture. And we know that is in the plans. The logging companies don't want us on the land; they want us out of the way so they can take the resources. We can't allow them to carry on with this cultural genocide. From Dec. 2, 2002, onward, members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation established a permanent encampment on the road and turned back all Abitibi logging trucks. The reserve's only school moved to the blockade site and conducted classes there for a summer, and the community began pulling in outside supporters, including national and international environmental and human rights groups, to campaign with them. In response, Abitibi transferred its logging operations to a more remote section of Grassy Narrows territory. This year, Grassy Narrows secured another win. On June 3, AbitibiBowater, the largest newsprint company in the world and the only one still logging on Grassy Narrows land, announced it would leave Grassy Narrows effective immediately. The company had the license to log on most of Grassy Narrows' territory until 2024. The victory sends a message that sustained, peaceful direct-action campaigns are capable of yielding powerful results. Of course, this campaign took a lot of work. Prior to the blockade, Grassy Narrows advocated for decades using more traditional means of dissent, such as meetings with the government, letter writing and protests, before escalating to direct action. In Ontario, some Grassy Narrows members maintained their blockade and worked internally to ensure that the community remained united and strong in its opposition to corporate logging. They also undertook the crucial tasks of empowering the community's youth to take action and of reviving their cultural heritage. Amnesty International produced rigorous research reports and lobbied the Ontario government and the United Nations to respect the right of indigenous communities to say no to resource extraction. Local solidarity groups provided direct support, and Christian Peacemaker Teams maintained a monitoring presence to reduce the risk of racist violence. Environmental groups led by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) launched a sustained direct-action campaign against corporate buyers of wood and paper products from the region. Logging company Boise Inc. agreed to stop purchasing from the region in February 2008 after RAN linked wood sourced from Grassy Narrows to paper being sold in Boise-owned office supply chains Office Max and Grand & Toy, and organized dozens of actions outside the stores. Boise had been Abitibi's top purchaser of Grassy Narrows soft wood. In fact, peaceful direct action was a defining trademark of the Grassy Narrows campaign, which included the longest-running blockade in North American history. A turning point in the campaign was a daylong direct-action blockade of the TransCanada Highway on July 13, 2006, along the route used by logging trucks as they carried wood logged in Grassy Narrows to the Weyerhaeuser mill in the nearby town of Kenora. As part of the action, one woman locked herself to a Weyerhaeuser logging truck carrying Grassy Narrows wood. Another suspended herself from a metal tripod in the middle of the highway. The action put Grassy Narrows back in the headlines and back into the consciousness of a public whose attention to the issue had begun to wane. Staff working for the premier of Ontario cited the TransCanada Highway action as having as much influence on the government's response to indigenous rights and environmental protection as any other activity organized in Ontario that year. Not only will this victory result in the protection of two and a half million acres of forest, an area more than three times as large as Yosemite National Park, it represents a powerful step forward in the movement for indigenous self-determination and the right of First Nations to control industrial activities on their lands and say "no" to colonialism. Canada's resource-rich Boreal Forest is the second-largest unlogged forest on Earth. For Grassy Narrows, the arrival of Abitibi was just the latest in a series of incursions by the Ontario government and corporations whose impact has constituted a full-out attempt to annihilate the Grassy Narrows culture and strip the community of its land and resources. Like most indigenous communities in Canada, Grassy Narrows has been through many traumas over the past century, including forced relocation of children away from their families into white-governed residential schools, which stripped many of their language, family and culture. This was followed by long-term mercury poisoning of community members through the contamination of fishing areas by the Reed Pulp Mill company; flooding of wild rice harvesting sites, sacred grounds and burial sites for hydroelectric damming operations; and clear-cut logging of their forests. These traumas have caused many social, health and economic problems, as well as the near devastation of the culture. Grassy Narrows exhibits the signs of distress that have become typical of First Nation communities across Canada. Indigenous people, as compared to any other racial or cultural group in Canada, have the lowest life expectancies, highest infant mortality rates, substandard and overcrowded housing, lower education and employment levels, and the highest incarceration rates. But the people of Grassy Narrows and First Nations across Canada are fighting back and winning against the external assaults on their people. They are actively reclaiming the land from which the strength of their communities flows. Understandably, the resurgence in First Nations' advocacy to regain control over their land and community has been closely intertwined with a cultural revival, where communities are also reclaiming their identity, their culture, their ceremonies and their native language. Keesick said in an interview with CBC radio on June 5 that the victory gives Grassy Narrows new hope to claim its future: "It gives us hope that we're being listened to. It gives our young people a purpose in life. With our persistence, we've been able to accomplish this, and it definitely encourages us to keep on fighting and standing up and speaking and reaching out." The success in Grassy Narrows also provides inspiration and hope to the dozens of other communities across Canada -- from the Haida in British Columbia to the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation in northern Ontario -- who are fighting for the right to regain control over their territories from the government. Indeed, the snowballing movement for self-determination is forcing Canada's provincial and federal governments to acknowledge that piecemeal change is not enough and that systemic change to address indigenous rights needs to happen now. Their collective impact has forced Canada's Supreme Court to set a rapid succession of new legal precedents requiring governments to accommodate First Nations' interests when determining what activities can take place on their lands. The groundswell has also forced politicians to begin rewriting laws, including Ontario's draconian Mining Act, which allows companies to stake mining claims anywhere in the province without any prior notice. The resurgence of indigenous people power is global. On Sept. 13, 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly. The declaration affirms indigenous land rights and the right of self-determination. The only four dissenting countries were the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. The Grassy Narrows campaign is a powerful example of how First Nations and we, civil society, can take matters into our own hands and implement human rights for all when governments fail to do so. Meanwhile, Grassy Narrows leaders are currently engaged in negotiations with the Ontario government to ensure the government does not grant logging rights to another company but instead issues a moratorium on all logging until control over the land is restored to the community. Until that time, they continue to maintain and expand the blockade, now in its sixth year, and the site has turned into a cultural hub and a symbol of their continued resistance. As former organizer for Rainforest Action Network's Old Growth Campaign, Jessica Bell worked to support Grassy Narrows. Now she works for the California Food and Justice Coalition and volunteers for Direct Action to Stop the War. ? 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Jul 5 18:30:05 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:30:05 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet Message-ID: <4870120D.1040606@attglobal.net> by Pepe Escobar Asia Times Roving Eye (July 04 2008) It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas. Those were the days - up to a few days ago, actually - when the fateful words "war" and "oil" would never have been aligned in the same sentence anywhere in US corporate media; the days when former defense secretary and Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld insisted Iraq had "literally nothing to do with oil". But now the US and European Big Oil majors that controlled the Iraqi oil industry up to the 1972 nationalization - today represented by Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron - seem to be back with a vengeance. Thus the New York Times, for instance, can redeem itself from printing 'Ahmad Chalabi fed weapons of mass destruction' nonsense on its front page for months and actually engage in news that's fit to print. This past Monday, the paper reported that "a group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq". The bland language may be misleading. This is no less than the first step in the de facto de-nationalization of the Iraqi oil industry - Vice President Dick Cheney's wet dream. As James Paul, director of the Global Policy Forum, has summarized it, this is all about: "... a new round of immensely profitable oil deals ... announced by Iraqi Oil Minister Sharistani, in which giants like Exxon Mobil can nail down long-term contracts and take away a large share of the oil from several key operating fields, like the massive Rumaila and West Qurna, some of the world's largest. "Oil can be produced in these fields for about one dollar a barrel, while its value on world markets is now around US$140. With hundreds of millions of dollars of profits at stake - and while the US occupation remains in full force - the oil giants are making their move, seeking to bypass opposition in the Iraqi parliament and ignoring suspicion and anger among the Iraqi public. With world oil supplies visibly running short and oil prices skyrocketing, this is a desperate gamble to control some of the world's largest and most lucrative fields, at huge human and environmental cost." Meanwhile in Washington, no collective breath is being held, as it's extremely unlikely the supine US Congress will be looking closer at whether the Bush administration is bypassing the Biden amendment, which prohibits the use of US funds to "exercise United States control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq". There's too much money to be made. Big Oil hardball Hussein al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, has always been a huge cheerleader of Big Oil taking over the Iraq oil industry. He dreams of Iraq as the world's second - or at least third-biggest - oil producer, competing with Saudi Arabia and Russia. To get there he is frantically selling out, trying to get voracious, predatory production sharing agreements (PSAs) over the heads of the Iraqi parliament and even harassing Iraqi oil unions. At this early stage it's still about TSAs (technical support agreements); these are simple consultancy contracts to help Iraq raise its oil production by 500,000 barrels a day, not long-term contracts to develop juicy oil and gas fields. But oops! Iraqis have not been fooled by the smoke and mirrors - nor by Big Oil hardball. At a press conference in Baghdad on Monday, Shahristani had to admit, "We did not finalize any agreement ... because they refused to offer consultancy based on fees, as they wanted a share of the oil". Big Oil, of course, wants the "Big Prize" (copyright Cheney). What Cheney and Big Oil really want is to wallow in the extra-profitable thirty-year PSAs once the new, International Monetary Fund-redacted Iraqi oil law is forced through the gorges of the Iraqi parliament, sealing a major US-European takeover - the whole thing, of course, protected by a Status of Forces Agreement with its 58 US military bases, total control of Iraqi airspace, total legal immunity for US soldiers and the right for the Pentagon to turn Iraq upside down without even asking the hosts. And make no mistake, that's what the US power elite always wanted. Greg Muttit, co-director of the London-based oil industry research group Platform, explains that what's at stake at the current stage are "nine-year risk service contracts for six oilfields"; these are "halfway between TSAs and PSAs". Bids are due by March 2009, with signing in June 2009. As for the technical service contracts for five of the same oilfields, these are "no-bid contracts whose terms were dictated by the oil companies themselves". In other words: Big Oil is telling the Iraqi government what it wants. And here's the catch. Muttit says, "The tendering of these fields is a big policy change, as producing fields were supposed to be developed by the Iraq National Oil Company [INOC], with only new fields allocated to foreign oil companies". Big Oil, though, wants the whole cake. INOC gets only a shabby 25% stake. Muttit makes an enlightening comparison with Libya, "where the national oil company gets around eighty percent, which is much more normal for fields of this size". Meanwhile, in Central Asia ... Bush/Cheney, unfazed by their own regime's death throes - and following what was already official policy under former present Bill Clinton - now are also poised to have one more crack at the New Great Game in Central Asia, trying to thwart regional energy supremacy by both Russia and Iran. Last April, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement, deciding - not for the first time - to build the $7.6 billion TAP (now TAPI) pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and probably India, cutting right through the heart of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, where the neo-Taliban are merrily running rings around the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Construction should start in 2010, with gas being supplied by 2015. The project is backed by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank. The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which cannot even provide security for a few streets in central Kabul, has engaged in Hollywood-style suspension of disbelief by assuring unsuspecting customers it will not only get rid of millions of land mines blocking TAPI's route, it will get rid of the Taliban themselves. Inevitably, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher weighed in, saying the US has a "fundamental strategic interest" in Afghanistan, without making a single reference to the words "oil" or "gas". In real life, with this move Bush/Cheney believe they can block the $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, also known as the "peace" pipeline. Fat chance. The three countries are all on board and the pipeline, delivering Iranian gas to South Asia, is a go. This new US adventure has also sent a frantic red alert right to the core of the Canadian government, which is now contemplating the geopolitical nightmare of having its troops, alongside NATO's, protecting a fragile pipeline in a war zone. The conservatives in power in Canada have committed to keep troops in Afghanistan at least until 2011. The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives released a report, A Pipeline Through a Troubled Land: Afghanistan, Canada and the New Great Energy Game, written by John Foster, energy economist and former lead economist of PetroCanada, depicting TAPI as turning Afghanistan into "an energy bridge" between Central and South Asia. But Foster is very worried "the quest for 'energy security' risks drawing Canada unwittingly into a new Great Energy Game". Were investors, perhaps nursed by Afghan opium, to be delirious enough to build such a pipeline - and that's a monumental if - Afghanistan would collect a mere $160 million a year in transit fees. Well, that's maybe not so grim considering it's the equivalent of fifty percent of Karzai's current annual revenue. The Taliban would love to get a piece of the action. Forget about all that old 2001 "bringing freedom to Afghan women" rhetoric. TAP's roller-coaster history goes back to the mid-1990s Clinton era, when the Taliban were wined and dined by California-based Unocal - and the Clinton machine. Unocal beat the competition, led by Argentina's Bridas. The negotiations broke down because of money - those pesky transit fees. At the Group of Eight summit in Naples in July 2001 it was decided the US would take out the Taliban by October; September 11 2001, accelerated the schedule by a fraction. One of the first actual fruits of the US bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 was that in December, Karzai, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Turkmenistan's wacky Nyazov (now dead) signed an agreement committing themselves to build TAP (by then known as the Trans-Afghan Pipeline). The Russians decided to wait for their counterpunch, and delivered it in style in September 2006. Gazprom accepted a forty percent price increase demanded by Nyazov for his gas. In return, the Russians got priceless gifts: control of all of Turkmenistan's gas surplus up to 2009; a preference for Russia to tap the new Yolotan gas fields; and Turkmenistan bowing out of any Trans-Caspian pipeline project. Nyazov pledged to supply all his country's gas to Russia. Thus, dead on arrival, lay TAP, the (invisible) star of the "good" Afghan war, as Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama now sees it. Washington's plan has always been to seduce Nyazov to provide Turkmenistan gas to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, and then to TAP. This was part of a US grand strategy of a "Greater Central Asia" centered on Afghanistan and India. Bush/Cheney will never give up. But India will go ahead with the Iranian pipeline. And Turkmenistan is selling all its surplus gas to Russia. Who needs a $7.6 billion, 1,600-kilometer steel serpent in a war zone? It ain't over till the fat (oil) lady sings. But if the Bush administration "vision" of a perpetual Iraqi puppet regime, with its oil wealth confiscated and under the imperial boot, takes hold, alongside the Taliban having a long pipeline to play with in Afghanistan, the least one can expect is a lot more blood on the tracks. _____ Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007). He may be reached at pepeasia at yahoo.com. Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG04Ak03.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 5 20:03:31 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:03:31 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Immortal Technique Interview, Part 1 Message-ID: http://evolvingmusic.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/immortal-technique-interview-part-1/ Immortal Technique Interview, Part 1 Published June 16, 2008 by Actual , genres , interview , music , music business Immortal Technique has been on the scene, steadily gaining in influence and word of mouth for several years now. His first two albums, Revolutionary Vol. 1 and Revolutionary Vol. 2 redefined what rap music could be by not just mentioning public and political issues, but by intelligently, eloquently and powerfully incorporating them into a coherent message meant to spur action in the listener. On this blog, we?ve previously reviewed an Immortal Technique show, as well as given many readers a first glimpse of Tech?s highly anticipated new album with DJ Green Lantern, The 3rd World. Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Immortal Technique and ask him a few questions. Due to the length of the conversation, and in preparation for the June 24th release of The 3rd World, I?ll be posting this interview in 3 parts, because how else can you tackle posting an interview where you talk about everything from writing rap lyrics to local politics in over 9 pages? Check back later this week for parts 2 and 3 of the interview with Immortal Technique. AC: I want to start first by talking about your music in general, then I want to talk about The 3rd World release and the recording industry specifically, and then I?m going to ask you a few questions about your ideologies, political philosophies and views on some of the current global issues. One of the strongest things about your music is that you remain independent, and you?re honest and unfiltered. On your first two albums, you incorporated a wide variety of styles from songs like ?Caught in the Hustle,? which has a very South American sound to ?Freedom of Speech? that borrows from Pinocchio. You also routinely include lyrics in Spanish. On The 3rd World track that I?ve heard, ?Golpe de Estado,? has Spanish lyrics over a Godfather song. What?s your process in terms of writing your lyrics, and finding the music for them when it comes to your Peruvian birth, Harlem upbringing, and subsequent global experiences? IT: I think that all of these things bring themselves together in a crux of cultural diversity. I?m from New York City, which is very different from the rest of America I must say. Anyone who is reading this who is in New York, or anyone who is reading this from a place in San Francisco or a place in LA, they have to realize that these large cities are very different than what the rest of America looks like. Due to the fact that we have so much influence from other places that even Hip-Hop itself comes from the fact that Kool Herc brought all these records back from Jamaica and started spinning different things, and the African drum influence comes from so many different cultures and we have so many different people to thank for the advancement of this type of music. And I think that that being the case, it?s just another example of diversity for me about the music that I make. AC: In your online postings and your blogs and song lyrics, you have a vast knowledge of social, economic and political issues and you cover a lot of topics almost all at once. Then at other times, the battle aspect of your rapping background comes out more. When you?re writing your lyrics, how do you approach dissecting a topic that you want to talk about and forming the structure of the message that you?re trying to get out? IT: It really depends. There are some songs that have taken me, for example, two or three years to write. Something like ?Dance with the Devil.? Then there?s a song like ?Bin Laden? that took me one night to write. I wrote ?Point of No Return? in a week, I wrote ?Caught in the Hustle? in an afternoon. So I think that it just depends on how inspired I am. And not just how inspired I am by a track or if one takes longer to write, it doesn?t mean I?m less inspired by the subject matter or by the effect it?s had on my life, but more in how I?m inspired about conveying that message. Because something may be a little more delicate in terms of the way I want to analyze it in my mind, say, listen, this is surgical precision that I need in order to get this subject across because it deals with something so serious. Not that stuff that I write very quickly doesn?t deal with something serious, but maybe it?s a more natural flow and it?s more like, alright, I just feel this right now, so worse comes to worse, I come and edit the lyrics later. Sometimes I edit them, sometimes I don?t. So it depends a lot on the conceptuality of the record, that?s usually what it starts with. In the past, when I was in prison, I just wrote lyrics that were based on what I felt and what I was seeing around me and what I was seeing going on in the world even though I wasn?t there, and how I felt about that. And how I felt about being a slave. The reality about me being released and saying to myself, ?Hey, I?m actually free,? and all the different levels of freedom I felt. Because when I was incarcerated, I felt like I was trapped. Then, when the CO?s threw me in the hole and 23/1 where I?m in a restricted housing unit and I only get to leave my cell for half an hour a day, you know then I think I?m even more trapped. I get out of that and think I?m free, then I get out of prison and I think I?m free but I?m still on parole, then I get off parole and think I?m free, but I still can?t get a regular paying job because of my criminal record, and I can?t get into Canada because they won?t let me in there because of my criminal record. So there are lots of degrees to the way I perceive things, and I guess the change in my life and the way that I conduct myself, and my maturing process, not just my voice getting a little deeper and raspier because of the 100-150 shows I do a year, but all these factors coupled with the evolution of my flow and how I decided to make music has definitely changed the way I do songs now. Whereas in the past, I might have wrote verses first and then found a beat, now it?s more about constructing a concept, then maybe getting a hook together, and then structuring lyrics that really cement the subject matter into one perfect unison. AC: It?s one thing to be on an independent label, and then it?s another thing, like you, to have complete control over your lyrics, your music and your message. Could you talk a bit about the beginning to end process that you have to personally go through to create an album where everything on it is yours? IT: (long sigh) Ya, that?s the process. That?s the process right there. Work, work, work. Like you just said, you summed it up, I have to do pretty much everything myself. I?m learning to delegate responsibility a lot more, but most of it still falls on my shoulders. And while I have people that help me out like the people at Viper Records, and people that help with the visuals, and then I have people who are constantly trying to come in and contribute whatever they can, I appreciate all of that. I don?t ever look down on anybody just based upon what their particular position is, because I started out not being very well known, just selling my records around the hood, and then when I was finally able to expand my fan base, I never ignored the people that originally bought my records. I never changed my style up to suit other people and make them feel better about themselves. I still wanted us to be able to talk about the problems that we have, but not just in a complaining manner, but also how to fix them, how to take personal responsibility for some of our issues, or I should say for all of our issues, because we?re the only ones who are going to fix them, not somebody else. It?s definitely an incredibly huge process from the conceptualizing of all the records like I just said, to writing all the lyrics, cause don?t nobody else write music for me. Sometimes I bring samples to people because I want to use these specific samples, or I?ll come into the studio with a melody in my head and be like, ?Can we play this out,? and people will say alright. When I have to meet up with other MCs, or I have to get to someone else?s studio, I?m driving up there myself. A lot of do it yourself stuff, of course, that?s why I get the lion?s share of the paper. AC: That provides a perfect segway, as the next couple questions I wanted to ask are dealing specifically with The 3rd World. This album has been highly anticipated and the collaboration with DJ Green Lantern is kind of a new direction for you. How did the idea for this collaboration come about? IT: Well, it?s a new direction in the fact that I?m doing an album with him, but I?ve done plenty of songs with him in the past. I did the ?Bin Laden? remix and the original ?Bin Laden? back in 2004, and I did the ?Impeach the President? in 2006, and I just recently was featured on the Grand Theft Auto 4 soundtrack that he was on. So I?ve always worked with Green Lantern, it?s just that I had originally come to him telling him I wanted to do a mixtape, and he had come to me telling me, ?I don?t want to do a mixtape, I want to do an album, I want to have an album in stores,? and I was like, ?Alright, we?ll make that happen.? And he was telling me, ?Whatever I need to do to help you with that, let me get you some instrumentals,? so he gave me some instrumentals, and we basically started out doing stuff for The Middle Passage and Revolutionary Vol. 3, but eventually, it became such an overwhelming display of music. Not that it didn?t match the conceptuality of The Middle Passage, although some of the songs didn?t, it was more of the fact that it was its own project as soon as I stepped back from it. I was like, ?Wow, I have like 19 songs here. What the fuck? I?m sitting here with 20 songs, I?m sitting here with 25 songs.? Some of these are definitely for The Middle Passage, some of these, like the song ?The 3rd World? talks about the correlation between poverty here in America and police corruption here in America, and those same issues being mirrored in the Third world. To me, it was incredibly important to make those subjects known, especially now since we?re going into a different political climate. It?s important not to lose sight of that, because I feel like certain demographics of people in this country benefit from their relationship with the places they come from, and why shouldn?t Black and Latino people have the same? Why shouldn?t we be able to express ourselves on a national platform? I think the fact that Latino people have allowed immigrants to be demonized so much, that?s not all on the White media, that?s on us, because we?re living with that, it shows us how weak and pathetic our community leaders are in the face of all this stuff, because they put up the most minimal struggle. I really think that there has been a complete under representation of the struggle against this. One march on May Day is the culmination of all this? It?s an ongoing fight that?s never going to end, and yet we?re not unified about this, and that?s why they?re capable of demonizing us and vilifying us, and I believe it?s a disgrace to our people to allow something like that. So it?s a personal responsibility of our people to get it together. On Monday I posted part 1 of my interview from last week with Immortal Technique. In it, he touched on his method of writing music and creating albums, his inspiration, his time in prison and his previous work with DJ Green Lantern. In part 2 of this interview, Tech talks more about his upcoming release The 3rd World (due out June 24th), capitalism, the foreign policies of the US and perception of Third World countries. Check back Friday for the third and final installment of this interview. AC: It?s my understanding that the title of this album, The 3rd World, is also a metaphor that looks at the recording industry as being almost US Imperialistic-like, and the underground scene being more of a 3rd world country, is that correct? IT: Absolutely. And even in the way we?re presented, they present the underground as some little backwards ass place where nothing really gets done, the same way they say, ?the only way that some of these 3rd world countries can be efficient, the only way you dark people can have any sort of success is to privatize everything. Privatize your water, your communications, your transportation industries, sell us your diamonds, sell us the rights to your oil.? And that?s what the industry does when it comes in to deal with another artist. ?In order for you to get on, what you have to do is change your image, take the political content out of your music, change the way we market you, sell us your masters, sell us your publishing, sign a 360 deal where we get a huge percentage of your merch and your fucking shows.? And I?ve always looked at that as utter ridiculousness, and I can?t accept stuff like that. In the same way that that?s done to our people overseas, that?s done to us here. And we?re not any more efficient than anyone else. We think that because of the technological advances of our society that that makes us morally superior and more civilized than anybody else? America still has election fraud just like West Africa; we just had that in 2000. We still assassinate our own presidents; we just did that what, 35, 40 years ago? And after that, Bobby Kennedy? And we?ve had political assassinations after that. We have a high murder rate, we?re a gun culture, we?re no better than anybody else. We?ve definitely funded horribly authoritarian regimes, and then we sort of step away from that. I look at the example of El Salvador, where we put 1.8 billion dollars a year into a Civil War to fund paramilitary death squads. And because we?re not physically on the ground doing it, we step away from that as if we had nothing to do with the repercussions of it and the horrible human rights abuses, the torture, rape and murder that even ended up claiming the life of an Archbishop of the Catholic church simply because he was telling the troops that were funded by American money and the CIA that it was un-Christian to oppress their own people. And it was un-Christian to commit political genocide against people who thought differently from them. And that it was the will of God and Jesus Christ to show mercy to the poor and to realize how corporations were exploiting people. That?s not Christian Socialism, fucking idiot, that?s Christianity, that?s the spirit of Jesus Christ. If I come into a room and you?re having a debate with somebody, and I give you a set of kitchen knives, or I give you a gun, and I leave the room and I say, ?Handle your business,? and lock the door behind me, just because I?m not in the same room as you when you do what you need to do, or when you do what I put you up to do so I can gain the benefit of you controlling that room economically, that doesn?t alleviate me from the moral responsibility of what has happened there. And I think that that?s something that the American empire will have to admit or it will destroy it in the long run, because truth crushed will always come to light. I?m afraid that Leo Strauss, father of Neoconservatism, was deathly wrong. It wasn?t that Liberalism failed. It was that America became schizophrenic, because on the one hand it claimed to be the bastion of freedom and democracy, and on the other hand, it was a racist police state for Black people and it was spreading its own brand of Imperialism to the rest of the world, just like Russia was. What Russia did to Eastern Europe and Asia was the same thing that America was doing to West African and all of Latin America and the Caribbean. So where?s our moral high ground? Didn?t we do deals with the Taliban before? You want to find excuses for all of this, that?s fine, but you?re just lying to yourself. These aren?t conspiracy theories, these are real life issues. We created the Saddam Husseins, we created Manuel Noriega, because we needed people like that. AC: Now tying that back into the labels of the underground, what do you think the underground labels need to do, both separately and together, need to do in order to create the kind of backlash needed to change the current industry structure? IT: Really just make music that has soul. Make music that you want to. I know that there is a trend to just make music that?s radio friendly, this one?s for the radio, this one?s for the bitches, quote unquote. I just make music and then after the album is done, I say to myself, ?ok, what can I see playing on the radio? What is more for the streets?? Whereas other people tailor their music for this or that, or they?re like, ?Oh, yo, this isn?t a really dope song, these aren?t really great lyrics, but this would probably make a really hot ringtone.? Like, at that point, what the fuck are you really doing? AC: That leads me to an interesting question. Lately, I don?t know if you?ve been reading about it, but there?s been a few really well publicized stabs at independently releasing albums for free on the internet by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Do you think those releases were an important step in the way the industry is changing, or does the fact that both of these groups were already well established and wealthy enough to release an album for free make it more of a publicity stunt than anything else? IT: That?s an interesting argument. I mean, can you have Capitalism without capital? That?s essentially what the argument is. Could America have had an Industrial Revolution without the capital it built up from slavery? Probably not. The reason that we abolished slavery was not because we had some sort of guilty conscience. Even in the beginning of the 1900s, they kept African people in the Bronx Zoo as proof that they were the link between man and monkey. They used to keep Pygmy Africans there. I mean, this is reality. Racism was backed up by Eugenicists, by racial science, by the church even, in order to justify continuing the profit margins of slave traders and one subsection of the country. Whereas the other side realized, ?You know what? It?s much more efficient for us to be able to have free men do their labor. They work much more efficiently than slaves, and we don?t have to pay for anything. They have to pay for their own things.? The money that they get is regenerated and recycled into the economy itself, it creates a stronger economy. In the same respect, I have to say that that?s a beautiful concept, and if someone blew up just doing that and giving away their music for free, then obviously they had some other job, but I guess these cats have the benefit of already having a multi-million dollar success. But I wouldn?t necessarily categorize it as publicity stunt or something that was done with some sort of two-faced attempt at garnering even more of a fan base. I mean, it seems like they were just honestly putting their reputation to the test with their fans. They could have miserably failed, and it could have done nothing, and it could have been broke, but they gambled the right way. Obviously they have a very loyal fan base. It?s something that I guess, you?re right, can only be done with a fan base that?s committed to the artist. AC: Now going off on fan bases, you tour and you make a point of spreading your music outside of the US. What have you seen as the state of record industries in other countries, and how has going abroad helped you spread your message and build your base? IT: Well I can spit in English and Spanish, so definitely anytime I?m in front of a Latin American audience, or a Spanish speaking audience in Spain, we?ve been able to look at that and think to ourselves, or I think to myself, how far this hip-hop culture has actually come. In other ways though, I look at it and think that in Africa and Latin America, when I?ve been there, people don?t buy anything but bootleg albums. No one goes to the store to pay the equivalent of 10 dollars for a CD because that?s literally like a week?s wage. AC: The word of mouth surrounding you obviously has been increasing greatly in the last few years, and you?ve done this all without the major labels? help. For someone like you who was told that the marketing of your music would be difficult, and your content would be difficult to sell, how have you attacked self-marketing, and what has the growing success meant in terms of changing your strategy now? IT: Lots of people, not just the record labels, told me that this wasn?t going to be lucrative or that no one was going to care, but I was fortunate enough to believe in myself and say, listen, I?m going to do whatever I want, with or without the express permission of other people. There?s no gatekeeper for me. I don?t need somebody to co-sign me to put me on. Anyone who has supported me has never been because I twisted their arm, it?s been out of the goodness of their own heart because they felt the truth in the music. So I think in terms of marketing myself, I don?t need to create a rap persona, or a different personality in order to sell records. For me, it?s just as simple as getting the word out and getting the music to people. The music sells itself, and the message sells itself. It creates an even stronger support base because we?re drawing in from lots of people who don?t get their struggle talked about, lots of people who never really had the benefit of Hip- Hop addressing some of the issues that they?re dealing with. For example, I have a song called ?Harlem Renaissance? on The 3rd World, wherein we take the struggles like what goes on in Bosnia or Kurdistan, where people are being ethnically cleansed, and struggles in Palestine where people are losing their land to a foreign government?s occupation, and we relate that directly to what goes on in the inner city communities where we?re being ethnically cleansed economically. Where gentrification is changing the face of the neighborhood, but not for us, because the only reason they?re making the neighborhood better is so we can get the fuck out so they can raise the rent or create condominiums that go for 1.5 million dollars, and in the hood, you know people don?t have that type of money. So essentially what you?re saying is ?Get the fuck out.? Like one of those rich country clubs, where it?s like, ?You know what, it?s not that we don?t want Black and Latino people here, it?s just that it costs $150,000 to be here, so we know who?s going to be here, we know who?s not going to be here.? In the same way that in the future, there will be a racism based on the reality that there will be different races. There will be a race of people who can afford to be genetically modified and say, ?I don?t get AIDS like the rest of you fucking people. I don?t get cancer like you. I was fixed from the point that I was conceived and had different genes added to me to where I?m not as susceptible to levels of cold and heat the way you are, my skin doesn?t develop cancer the way yours does when exposed to this climate.? There will be people who are specifically tailored that way, and that?s going to be based on money as well. All of these things, whether or not we know it, are creating even more divisions in our society, so we know who?s going to be able to afford that sort of modification, and it damn sure ain?t gonna be the majority of the people in Africa or Latin America or Southeast Asia. It?s going to be rich people living in the 1st world. And those of us that look like our people, that will be able to afford that, are only that because they?ve been working for people who have been exploiting our land, and those traditionally are the people who control this country. (Editor?s Note: For an interesting fictional representation of the type of expensive genetic modifications Tech envisions here, check out Gattaca.) Check back here on Friday for the third and final installment of the interview where Tech talks about the current music industry, remix work, internet piracy and the upcoming Presidential election. Part 2: http://evolvingmusic.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/immortal-technique-interview-part-2/ From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 5 20:10:45 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:10:45 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Colombia seizes 'Farc' explosives Message-ID: <9D2F3DCE-0990-4CA7-ACD9-128AB89BE4A0@shaw.ca> News Americas Colombia seizes 'Farc' explosives About a ton of explosives were found just outside Bogota [REUTERS] http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/07/200875233241617582.html The Colombian army has seized about a tonne of explosives hat officials say were intended to be used in attacks across the capital. Officials said they suspected the explosives, found on a farm outside Bogota, were to be used by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) as a reprisal for the army's rescue of 15 hostages held by the Farc. But Monica Villamizar, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Bogota, warned the army's claims should be treated with some scepticism. "The military says it was a ton of explosives that would have allegedly been used in several attacks ... we haven't been able to confirm that," she said. "In the past the army has given press conferences and come to conclusions ... and then its turned out not to be the Farc," she said. Hostage rescue The hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician, were rescued on Wednesday when Colombian troops posing as Farc fighters fooled the rebels into releasing the captives into their custody. The bloodless rescue of the hostages, including the high-profile Betancourt, was a severe blow to Farc, who have also lost their leader and many members this year. The 15 hostages have been undergoing health check-ups over the past two days and Betancourt received a clean bill of health on Saturday. After undergoing a series of medial tests at the Val-de-Grace military hospital in Paris she said: "The doctors showered me with good news." "I have had a number of concerns all these years. Now I'm totally happy. Betancourt, who had been campaigning for the Colombian presidency when she was captured by the Farc, spent more than six years in captivity. Trauma Al Jazeera's Monica Villamizar said some of the rescued Colombian hostages have been allowed to return to their families after medical treatment while some others are still in hospital. "There are still four soldiers in a military hospital. Rumour has it that they are not in very good health, that they are highly traumatised. Some of them were kept hostage in the jungle for up to nine years," she said. The Farc have been waging an insurgency against the government for four decades. While they were once considered to be close to overrunning the government, analysts now say that they are almost defeated. From tchilds at resist.ca Sat Jul 5 20:30:07 2008 From: tchilds at resist.ca (tchilds at resist.ca) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 19:30:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [R-G] Naomi Klein's recent talk in Vancouver now online - video resource Message-ID: <49472.24.87.34.192.1215311407.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> ...On the planetary survival issues.. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3562677433379655116&hl=en Best regards, Tom pasifik.ca nowpolling.ca From realiteee1 at yahoo.com Sun Jul 6 06:10:22 2008 From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 05:10:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [R-G] WSDP, Arden, IEN Actions: Fwd: Medical Alert: Update; etc.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <193220.72255.qm@web50807.mail.re2.yahoo.com> [Fwd: FW: Medical Alert: Update] Hi--Hope you can act on this NOW. Blessings & strength--we'll be needing plenty of both. /Harvey PS: Please CC me your emails to Warden Bledsoe etc at harveyarden at starpower.net -----Original Message----- From: messagebot at harry.flamingtext.com [mailto:messagebot at harry.flamingtext.com] On Behalf Of contact at whoisleonardpeltier.info Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 2:11 PM To: harveyarden at starpower.net Subject: Medical Alert: Update This is being sent on behalf of contact at whoisleonardpeltier.info as part of the mailing list that you joined. List: NDLPSG URL: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info ------------------------------------------------------------ - Please Post Widely - Dear Friends and Supporters, First, Leonard and I want to thank you for the outpouring of support. With your help, we're hopeful that Leonard will receive proper medical care from prison authorities. Within the last several days, Leonard has finally been able to see a doctor. Together, they discussed Leonard's care and reviewed his medications and such. However, the issue of the diabetes testing kit remains. Citing security reasons, U.S. Penitentiary-Lewisburg will not allow Leonard to have a diabetes testing kit in his cell. But Leonard is not asking that he be allowed to have a kit in his cell. Often, when he goes to the infirmary, there is no one there to help him and he has to keep returning to the infirmary until he's able to speak with medical personnel. The infirmary has a "general" kit, too. It's used by other prisoners and due to the embedded memory in the monitor, Leonard could be getting false readings. We're asking that Leonard be allowed to have his own kit at the pharmacy for accurate readings, as well as easy and regular access. In this way, he'll be able to test himself three or four times a day and hopefully achieve a balanced blood glucose level. Please continue to urge prison authorities to provide Leonard with a diabetes test kit so that he can control his diabetes. We also want to see to it that Leonard receives diabetic shoes that will help him with his diabetes-related foot problems. If the prison cannot provide such things, the family will work with an approved medical supply company to see to it that Leonard gets what he needs. All supporters are requested to continue to contact: Warden Bledsoe USP Lewisburg US Penitentiary 2400 Robert F. Miller Drive Lewisburg, PA 17837 Phone: 570-523-1251 Fax: 570-522-7745 E-mail: lew/execassistant at bop.gov Also contact: D. Scott Dodrill, Regional Director Northeast Regional Office US Custom House 2nd & Chesnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 Phone: 215-521-7301 E-mail: nero/execassistant at bop.gov Harley G. Lappin, Director Federal Bureau of Prisons 320 First Street., NW Washington, DC 20534 Phone: 202-307-3198 Thank you for your concern. Betty Ann Peltier Solano Coordinator Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106 Phone: 701/235-2206 E-mail: contact at whoisleonardpeltier.info Web: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info --- Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier a "political prisoner" who should be "immediately and unconditionally released." Leonard Peltier, now a great-grandfather, is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations and a tireless advocate for Indigenous Rights. A participant in the American Indian Movement, he went to assist the Oglala Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the mid-1970s where, on June 26, 1975, a tragic shoot out occurred. He was wrongfully convicted in the deaths of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has been illegally incarcerated since 1976. Federal prosecutors have twice admitted before the Courts of Appeal that they don't know who fired the fatal shots. The government also has admitted that it isn't known what role Leonard Peltier "may have played" in the incident. Since his politically motivated prosecution and conviction, proof of fabricated and suppressed evidence, as well as coerced testimony, has been uncovered. The Courts of Appeal have repeatedly acknowledged investigative and prosecutorial misconduct in this case, but have failed to take corrective action. A model prisoner, Leonard continues to maintain his innocence and has consequently been denied fair consideration for parole. Join with numerous internationally recognized human rights organizations, civil rights leaders, celebrities and other luminaries who have called for the immediate release of Leonard Peltier. Visit www.whoisleonardpeltier.info. 15th Protecting Mother Earth Conference - Western Shoshone territory If you are planning on attending the Protecting Mother Earth conference this summer and plan on flying out ? please book your tickets now ? flight prices are supposed to increase substantially in the next week or so. Thank you and hope to see you soon! 15th Protecting Mother Earth Conference July 17-20, 2008 "Enough is enough. This earth is our mother. If we keep on contaminating her and abusing her where are we going to go? Everything should come to a standstill and we should take a look at ourselves and what we are doing to the earth. Carrie Dann Western Shoshone Grandmother As Western Shoshone, we are honored to welcome our brothers and sisters from around the world to our beautiful homeland, share with you our struggle, and learn about your struggles and strong works in your own homelands. This conference will be an important opportunity for Indigenous peoples and our allies to come together in a good way to strengthen our solidarity and find ways to work together to protect our Mother Earth for all life. We look forward to seeing you soon! Thank you, Larson Bill Western Shoshone Defense Project "ANSWERING MOTHER EARTHS CALL FOR HEALING REAFFIRMING OUR ROOTS" July 17-20th, 2008 Newe Sogobe (Western Shoshone) Territories Located at the (So Ho Bee) South Fork Pow-Wow Grounds in Lee, Nevada (approximately 22 miles South of Elko, Nevada) Traditional Gathering ? Sacred Fire, Sweats, Camping Style, Circle Talks - Meals provided, bring your own reusable eating utensils. Donations welcomed at the entrance, but not required, please leave dogs and pets home. Click Here to Signup for the conference online. V?ase abajo para Versi?n espa?ola For more information, contact: Simone Senogles, IEN, (218) 751-4967, Email: simone at ienearth.org Larson Bill, WSDP, (775) 744-2595, Email: wsdp at igc.org For printable flyer and Agenda please check out our website: www.ienearth.org Topics To Include: Traditional L.A.W.S. (Land, Air, Water, Sun); Mineral Extraction, Energy, Climate Change, Water; Rescinding the Doctrine of Discovery; Food Sovereignty; Un-Doing Colonialism; Youth Activities; Organizing and Action Trainings; Indigenous-Based Environmental Protection & Ecological Knowledge. Hosted by: Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) Sponsored by: Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) For assistance in travel or hotel arrangements, contact: JUST TRAVEL (775-738-9847) There is an AMTRAK Station in Elko, NV - for schedules click here. We are able to help coordinate rides for those who wish to rideshare Free shuttles are available for those taking the train or flying into Elko, NV No Alcohol, No Smoking of Marijuana and Illegal Drug Use Daycare Available Camping available~ Camping is free at the site. Some local host homes will also be available (Elders and international guests will be given priority) Note: Nearest hotel (at your own cost) is 30 miles away from conference site. Craft/art booths are available for a small fee on a first come first serve basis. Donations needed: The Indigenous Environmental Network and the Western Shoshone Defense Project would like to thank those who have donated funding and or volunteer time to the conference. If you have not already given and would like to help support the conference we are still in need of donated funds to help us bring people in on travel scholarships, particularly youth who need travel assistance. Donations of frequent flyer tickets are also very welcome! Volunteers make the Protecting Mother Earth Conference possible: We still need many volunteers! Weather~ Gathering place is hot during the day (80's Fahrenheit), and chilly (40's Fahrenheit) in the evenings. Be prepared for hiking, walking in the water, and being near the mountains. This Conference may be photographed or video taped. By submitting your registration for the Conference you are consenting to being photographed and video taped while attending and for the potential use of your image for education and informational purposes. For Craft Booths, Rideshare postings, Elko Shuttle, Donations and Volunteering, as well as general questions, please contact Simone at 218-751-4967 or simone at ienearth.org 15th Conferencia "Protejiendo a la Tierra Madre" Respondiendo a la Llamada de Recuperacion de La Tierra Madre - Reafirmado Nuestras Raices. Los temas a tratarse incluyen: Leyes Tradicionales (relacionadas con la tierra, el aire, el agua y el sol); Calentamiento Global, Cambio Clim?tico y Energia atrav?z de las Ense?anzas Ind?genas; Junta de la Juventud y los Ancianos (personas mayores) de la Tribu; Anulando la Doctrina del Descubrimiento. ~ Chasquido Aqu? a Signup para la conferencia en l?nea. Imagen de Chasquido para Ver Escenas de la Conferencia del A?o Pasado Western Shoshone Defense Project Presentado por el Projecto de Defensa Shoshone del Oeste (PDSO) Reunion Tradicional: Estilo Acampar Territorio Newe Gogobe Pour plus de renseignements, contactez : Julie Fishel, IEN, 775-744-2595, Larson Bill, WSDP, (775) 744-2595, Courrier ?lectronique: wsdp at igc.org Para asistencia en arreglos de viaje u hospedaje, pongase en contacto con JUST TRAVEL (775-738-9847) Pron?stico del Tiempo~El lugar de reuni?n es muy caluroso durante el d?a (80? F/ 27?C) y fr?o al anochecer (40?F/4.5?C). Est? preparado para excursiones a pie (senderismo), caminatas por lugares con agua y cerca de monta?as. Correo electr?nico para m?s informaci?n o llamada Lugar Disponible para Acampar ~ Usted puede acampar sin costo alguno en el terreno donde la conferencia se lleva a cabo. Tambi?n habra algunas casas particulares dispuestas a tomar huespedes (estas dar?n prioridad a las personas ancianas y a los hu?spedes internacionales) El hotel mas cercano (estos gastos corren por su propia cuenta) est? a 30 millas (48 Kil?metros) del lugar de la Conferencia. Comidas ser?n proporcionadas. Por favor Traiga Sus Propios Utensilios de Comida Reutilizables Los alimentos ser?n proveidos durante la reunion sin cargo adicional (gratis) Correo electr?nico para m?s informaci?n o llamada The Indigenous Environmental Network ? PO Box 485 ? Bemidji ? MN ? 56619 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sun Jul 6 09:07:09 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:07:09 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Why Won't Corporations Take on Big Oil? Message-ID: <4870DF9D.6060506@attglobal.net> Hanging Together by Ralph Nader www.counterpunch.com (June 19 2008) Here is a counter-intuitive story for you. Why don't organized corporate interests challenge damage or risks to their clear economic interests? Think about oil prices for big consumers, not just your pocketbook. Airlines are groaning, limiting flights, and laying off employees because of the skyrocketing price for aviation fuel. Executives in that industry say that fuel costs are close to forty percent of the cost of flying you to your destination. The powerful chemical industry is under pressure from the prices they're paying for petroleum - probably their main raw material. The powerful trucking industry is beside itself with diesel fuel going to $5 per gallon. You can add your own examples - cab companies, tourist industry, auto companies, et cetera. Why aren't these very influential lobbies throwing their weight around Washington to get something done about the speculators on Wall Street determining what is paid for gasoline and related petroleum products? It is in their own economic interests. To do what? Well, for starters, push Congress to legislate higher margin requirements for the speculators at the New York Mercantile Exchange - the same fellows who, based on rumors, took the price of a barrel of oil up another $10 in one day. Higher margin requirements (and wider disclosure rules) result in dampening speculation by reducing the amount of borrowed money these traders can use in their gigantic commodities casino. Long-time member of the New York Stock Exchange, Michael Robbins - an astute and fair analyst - says margin rules have historically been used to dampen speculation on stock exchanges. He mentioned a time years ago when the Federal Reserve raised the margin requirement to ninety percent - meaning the traders had to put up ninety percent of their own money on trades. There are other moves that can be made by Washington to ease the oil price crisis that is fueling inflation throughout the economy and shocking consumers. Suffice it to say that ExxonMobil testified earlier this month in Congress that absent the speculators, the price of a barrel of crude oil would be half what it is today. That would mean about $65 a barrel instead of $130 a barrel. What else do these big corporate buyers of oil need? Another area of major business firms not acting in their own interests involves the proposal in Congress (HR 676) to establish a single-payer health insurance system. That would mean government health insurance, private delivery of health care, free choice of doctor and hospital and saving about half a trillion dollars in insurance company administrative expenses and computerized billing overcharges a year. Presently, tens of millions of workers have employer-based health insurance. For years, CEOs have complained that this cost puts them at a competitive disadvantage with their corporate competitors abroad and in Canada where there is universal government health insurance. Former General Motors CEO, Jack Smith, publicly approved of the Canadian medicare system, which he had experienced when he was head of GM Canada. Under full medicare, these companies will pay less even with an assessment. So, what's up here? We don't see these weighty corporate lobbies on Capitol Hill supporting the 91 House members who have endorsed HR 676. Then there is the small business lobby ostensibly represented by the large National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Small business is regularly subject to government policies and market discriminations that put them at a disadvantage with their large competitors. Presently, for example, a Small Business Administration report concludes the following: "Small businesses in their commercial sector faced a thirty percent price differential for electricity and a twenty percent price differential for natural gas. In the manufacturing sector, small businesses faced a 28 percent price differential for distillate fuel oil, a 27 percent price differential for natural gas, and a fourteen percent price differential for coal." Are these volume discounts all fair for the Big Boys? Doubtful. Don't count on the NFIB to protest. More often than not, the NFIB talks small business but walks the walk of the National Chamber of Commerce, which primarily lobbies for the interests of large companies. So, why the overall reticence to fight for their own economic interests? First, corporations do not like to fight each other because they may need each other on other matters. Second, they also have exposable skeletons in their own closets. Third, they do not have to initiate a business war of retaliation. Fourth, they do not want to give their traditional labor, environmental and consumer adversaries cause to strengthen their own power by, in effect, siding with these groups' traditional causes. If investors in this country had any power over the companies they own - as individuals, or through mutual funds and pension trusts - an inquiring process could open up on this fascinating question. But as Robert Monks - a leading shareholder activist and writer - has said many times, those same CEOs have their own economic interests - think CEO compensation - in keeping investors powerless. _____ Ralph Nader is running for president as an independent. http://www.counterpunch.com/nader06192008.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 09:50:12 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:50:12 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Canada (And Colombia FTA): A 'Third Way' or More of the Same? Message-ID: Canada: A 'Third Way' or More of the Same? By Augusto Boh?rque http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18109 On June 7th, 2008, on the official webpage of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, a press release with the following title appeared: "Canada Concludes Negotiations of Free Trade and Labour and Environmental Cooperation Agreement with Colombia." [1] Curiously, said negotiation occurred without the knowledge of the vast majority of Canadians and Colombians. Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, David Emerson, said that this agreement "will help to solidify the efforts of the Colombian government to create a more secure, prosperous and equitable democracy." [2] This leads one to ask what kind of democracy Emerson is referring to, since these agreements are negotiated in complete secrecy and behind the backs of the citizens of both countries? With this kind of democracy, Canada is showing the world that it supports one of the most illegitimate regimes on the face of the planet. This has been a well known fact since the first election of Colombian President ?lvaro Uribe V?lez, which was obtained thanks to the territorial control of paramilitary groups, a widely acknowledged and documented scandal known as 'parapol?tica,' or paramilitary politics. Moreover, the Colombian Constitution was modified in 2006 in order to reelect Uribe to a second term, a process that depended on the decisive vote of Colombian House Representative Yidis Medina, who changed her vote at the last minute in favour of the government (according to her own confession given to the parliament through her testimony before the Colombian Supreme Court). Colombian media has dubbed this latest political scandal the 'Yidis-pol?tica.' [Update: On the evening of Thursday, June 26, President Uribe called a rushed press conference in reaction to the decision by Colombia's Supreme Court on the case of Yidis Medina: a guilty verdict. The court found that Medina did in fact cast her vote in exchange for political favours. She will spend 3 ? years under house arrest for accepting bribes from the president. The Court's statement on the case called into question the very legitimacy of the process that led to Uribe's re-election. The president responded, on national television, that the justices who questioned the re-election process are doing the bidding of terrorists and called on the Colombian Congress to schedule a national referendum to repeat the 2006 elections.] State Paramilitarism "Paramilitarism is a strategy of the state," confessed former paramilitary boss Salvatore Mancuso in an interview, a policy of which, according to his testimony, he is living proof. [3] Up to the time of his confession there appeared to be no problem. The real problem arose, rather, when Mancuso began to talk about paramilitarism as a strategy of the state for the benefit of transnational capital: a strategy that would, on the one hand, guarantee land and cheap labor for the implementation of megaprojects through forced displacement; and on the other hand, provide the security apparatus necessary for the protection of such an excellent comparative advantage. It was at that point that Mancuso needed to be silenced and was subsequently extradited to the United States - not to pay for his crimes, which included massacres directed against the Colombian people from which multinational corporations directly benefited. The extradition of Mancuso halted any hope for the families of the victims in receiving their rights to truth and reparations, as US justice will only judge him on charges related to narcotrafficking. Canada also negotiated with a country with one of the world's worst human rights record; violence has been perpetrated against human rights defenders, members of opposition political parties and social movements, trade unionists, students, rural peasants and indigenous peoples who are opposed to an illegitimate regime and its policies. Today, Uribe is at war with everyone opposed to him, who he has conveniently labeled as 'terrorists.' Colombia: A country without rule of law Only a few weeks before the closing of negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, said to be for the benefit of 'democracy' in Colombia, Uribe, during a speech at one of the so- called 'community consultations,' called from the executive for the elimination of the rule of law. In doing so, Uribe showed the national and international community the autocratic character of his government (which is being reinforced through the push for Uribe's second re-election, a storm cloud that threatens the political atmosphere in Colombia, monopolizing and interrupting the balance of powers that is a fundamental aspect of the rule of law that constitutes a democracy) and ignores many types of autonomies and constitutional rights, including indigenous autonomy, the right to due process, the autonomy of universities, and many processes in defense of life. When indigenous peoples demanded that the government comply with the agreements and rights which they have been guaranteed, the government, through its Minister of Agriculture, labels them as "destabilizing elements" and reiterates the president's offer of rewards for the heads of indigenous leaders who are fighting pacifically for their rights. [4] In another 'community consultation,' Colombia's 'democratic' president, endorsed and supported by Prime Minister Harper, referred to opposition Senators as "promoters of terrorists", and ordered the General G?me M?ndez to "prosecute them and put them in jail." [5] All of the President's positions are supported by his anti-terrorist discourse and a voluntary ignorance of the Colombian Constitution. The autonomy of universities was also assaulted by the authoritarianism of the Executive branch when, on May 29th, President Uribe announced that: "The police may enter any university precinct." The President has once again 'forgotten' that the autonomy of the universities is guaranteed by law. [6] Canada: A third way or more of the same? Today, Canada presents itself in Latin America as a 'third way', differing from the models offered by the United States and Venezuela. Is this true? A look at the Free Trade Agreements being drawn up for Latin America may bring one to the conclusion that each new trade agreement is progressively more damaging for these countries. The FTA between Colombia and Canada has been negotiated in secret; but one can assume that it is a carbon copy of the FTA signed by Colombia and the US, rejected by the US congress for the innumerable violations of human rights perpetrated in Colombia by the state. These agreements function within the discourses of 'development' and 'win-win situations'. Analyzing this fallacy of development and democracy, perhaps through the experience of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is revealed that the Mexico that exists outside the bubble of Canc?n 'develops' only greater levels of poverty and misery. Similarly, Mexican democracy itself has become something of a joke, given the inauguration of 'president' Calderon, who was brought to power through stolen elections. With the Canada-Colombia FTA, what is at play is the Canadian government's decision to define its foreign policy and what kind of development and democracy it is in favour of. By ratifying this FTA, Canadians would become complicit in the crimes perpetrated by the illegitimate regime of Uribe, Harper's close 'ally'. The decision to sign the FTA with Colombia for the benefit of private interests above the interests of the general public will aggravate the dismal situation of hunger, healthcare and education in Colombia, exacerbating the known social problems that stem from it. The logic of accumulation promoted by these agreements is one that benefits transnational capital to the detriment of peoples. If this is Canada's foreign policy, its people and the world should be made aware. By presenting itself as a 'third way', as something better than the model offered by the US or Europe, Canada is hiding the true meaning of the FTA, as they are all equally damaging and ill-fated for the people. Moreover, the supposed 'good name' of Canada on the world stage is being manipulated to push particular readings of development and democracy. What do they look like? Well, they are no different than those exported by the United States. Canada, in approving the FTA with Colombia, will have to decide which model of 'development' it will promote: development for people, or for transnational corporations? Now more than ever, experience has taught us that this system is unsustainable in terms of the environment, the economy, food and human security, and political inclusion. It is our right and obligation to construct a new model that will guarantee the survival of the planet, of all species, and of humanity. This will only be possible if it is done in an inclusive manner, if we form one united chorus, with all our voices and experiences and find the strength necessary to produce the results we want and need. Finally, we must remember that the closing of the Colombia-Canada FTA negotiations does not represent ratification of this bilateral agreement. We invite the people of Colombia and Canada and the different social, political, student, union, rural, indigenous and women's organizations to mobilize immediately to reject this agreement, an agreement that works against people and for the benefit transnational corporate interests. We - as people who believe in the possibility and need to create a more just world and work for solidarity, inclusion, social justice and the protection of life - have the democratic right to demand that this dangerous agreement is NOT signed by our governments. A call for action: First, to send letters not only to our governments (Canadians to their Members of Parliament and Colombians to their President) but also Canadians to the Colombian government and vice versa. Second, to plan popular actions in front of the embassies and/or consulates of both countries, demonstrating the power of the people and our disapproval of the illegitimacy of the secret ratification of this agreement by our governments, who are supposed to represent us. In this way we will remind our governments that legitimacy is won only by representing the interests of the people. This agreement DOES NOT represent the interests of the people but those of the transnationals. Notes: [1] Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. (Junio 7, 2008). Trade negotiations and agreements, news releases and backgrounder. Versi?n electr?nica. encontrado el 21 de junio de 2008 en http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/andean-andin/can-colombia-colombie.aspx?lang=en [2] Ibid [3] BBC Mundo. (16 de mayo 2007). Uribe defiende. BBC Mundo. Versi?n electr?nica. Encontrado el 21 de junio de 2008 en http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_6660000/6660281.stm [4] Audio del sabado 24 de mayo 2008 durante el consejo comunitario de Florida Valle. Versi?n electr?nica. encontrado el 21 de junio de 2008 en http://nasaacin.org/audios/uribeenflorida.mp3 [5] Ibid [6] El tiempo (29 de Mayo 2008). Entrar a universidades en las que se presenten acciones violentas ordena presidente ?lvaro Uribe. El tiempo. Versi?n electr?nica. Encontrado el 21 de junio del 2008 en http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/ CMS-4216875 From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 11:33:01 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:33:01 -0700 Subject: [R-G] New war brewing (Iran, Margolis) Message-ID: <61D5D0E2-C8F3-4545-A62D-A70546FDB238@shaw.ca> Sun, July 6, 2008 New war brewing U.S., Israel take dangerous steps By ERIC MARGOLIS http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/07/05/6077376-sun.php GENEVA -- The U.S., Israel and Iran are playing a very dangerous game of chicken that soon could result in a new Mideast war. U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration and Israel, recently joined by France, are issuing increasingly loud threats of military action to frighten Iran into halting its nuclear enrichment program. Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely for civilian use. Tehran is alternating between conciliatory statements and threats to retaliate against any attack by inflicting economic chaos on the global economy. Europe fears the economic damage a war against Iran would bring far more than Iran's nuclear program. Senior Israeli officials are openly threatening to attack Iran's nuclear installations before President George W. Bush's term expires. Early, this month Israel staged a large, U.S.-approved exercise using F-15s and F-16s to rehearse an attack over 900 miles - precisely the distance to Iran's nuclear facilities. The highly regarded American journalist Seymour Hersh just confirmed that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran's government and incite ethnic unrest. This column reported a year ago that U.S. and British special forces were operating in Iran, preparing for a massive air campaign. Israel's destruction of an alleged Syrian reactor last fall was a warning to Iran. This week a Pentagon official claimed an Israeli attack on Iran was coming before year end. Other Pentagon and CIA sources say a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent, with or without Israel. The Bush administration is even considering using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian targets. Senior American officers Admiral William Fallon and Air Force Chief Michael Mosley recently were fired for opposing war against Iran. According to Israel's media, President Bush even told Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he could not trust America's intelligence community and preferred to rely on Israeli intelligence. AIR BLITZ Intensifying activity is evident at U.S. bases in Europe and the Gulf, aimed at preparing a massive air blitz that may include repeated attacks on 3,100 targets in Iran. Other sources say Iranian Revolutionary Guard installations will be barraged by cruise missiles. In Washington, Congress, under intense pressure from the Israel lobby, is about to adopt a resolution calling for a naval blockade of Iran, an overt act of war. Pro-Israel groups have been airing TV commercials claiming Iran is attacking American troops in Iraq and threatens the U.S. The Bush administration's last desperate act, its Gotterdammerung, could be war with Iran. UN weapons inspectors concur with U.S. intelligence that there is no proof Iran is working on nuclear arms, but the neocon war party in Washington is determined to loosen a final Parthian shaft by striking Iran. Israel asserts the right to maintain its Mideast nuclear monopoly by destroying all fissile-producing reactors in the region. Iran vows to retaliate against Israel with its inaccurate Shahab missiles, shut the Strait of Hormuz and mine the Gulf, producing worldwide financial panic, severe fuel shortages, and $400-$500 per barrel oil. Iran likely will attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, and strike Saudi and Kuwaiti oil facilities. Canadians in Afghanistan could also become targets. GRAVE DAMAGE The embattled Bush administration's bunker mentality is leading to war that will gravely damage long-term U.S. Mideast interests. A single Iranian missile hit on Israel's reactor would do more damage to the Jewish state than all its previous wars. Besides, Israel cannot destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. A U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran will guarantee Tehran decides to build nuclear weapons. Israel and Iran have turned their regional rivalry into a confrontation that threatens all. Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, not its bombastic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, controls that nation's military and insists Iran will not produce nuclear weapons. Israel claims it faces a second holocaust. Iran says Israel's nuclear forces threaten its existence. The dogs of war are being unleashed. From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 11:34:09 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:34:09 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: The Dominion Issue #52 now online References: <2ad0cf040807060833r4c08e791qcbf345224456b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: Dear readers, Our latest issue is now in the mail for subscribers and online for everyone to read: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/print/issue_52 Number 52 features coverage of Stephen Harper's apology, migrant farm workers, new immigration legislation, Canadian-Israeli relations, and more... Outside of our regular publishing, we've been hard at work putting the pieces into place to build our radical new expansion into a Canada- wide (for now) Media Cooperative. To learn more, or become a member, visit: http://www.mediacoop.ca/ thanks for reading, --The Editors From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 13:12:00 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:12:00 -0700 Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?NED_and_=27Independent=92_Journalism_Organ?= =?windows-1252?q?izations?= Message-ID: Instrumentalizing Press Freedom July 5, 2008 Todays guest feature is an important article on ?Independent? Journalism Organizations and the National Endowment for Democracy from Michael Barker. http://fanonite.org/2008/07/05/instrumentalizing-press-freedom/ From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 16:13:37 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:13:37 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Inside USA: The politics of rice Message-ID: <2D622862-A148-4FA9-9AC1-100F2A0C606E@shaw.ca> The politics of rice http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insideusa/2008/07/2008767111386154.html Seventy-five per cent of the rice eaten in Haiti is shipped from the US This week Inside USA travels to Haiti to look at how the stories of politics, rice, and the United States are deeply interwoven. Twenty years ago, Haiti produced enough rice to feed its population. Importing rice from other countries like the US was unheard of. Today, the country of less than 10 million people is the third largest importer of US rice in the world ? 75 per cent of the rice eaten in Haiti is shipped in from the US. Great for farmers in places like Arkansas and Missouri but devastating for farmers in the Artibonite valley, which used to be Haiti's rice bowl. And now that Haiti is utterly dependent on imported food, the entire country is vulnerable to the mood swings of the global market. So when the price of rice doubled in the last year, the majority of Haitians, who live in bitter poverty, got slammed. In an election year, Americans are also facing skyrocketing food prices, while Congress just passed a farm bill that includes almost a billion dollars a year for rice farmers in the US. On this week's Inside USA, we look at the politics of rice and the policies forged in Washington, felt in Haiti. Watch part one of this episode of Inside USA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbPgqgmGbQ Watch part two of this episode of Inside USA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnQSTlptUZ8 This episode of Inside USA aired from Friday, July 04, 2008 From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 6 17:53:05 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:53:05 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fidel Castro in Farc hostage plea Message-ID: Fidel Castro in Farc hostage plea Fidel Castro (June 08) Castro criticised the Farc for using "cruel methods of kidnapping" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7492506.stm Cuba's former President Fidel Castro has called on the Colombian Farc rebel movement to release all of its remaining hostages. His comments follow the rescue of Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 others on Wednesday. He said he had energetically criticised the "cruel methods of kidnapping and holding prisoners in the jungle". But at the same time, Mr Castro added the rebel movement should not lay down its weapons. He said that, during the past 50 years, those rebel groups that had yielded "did not survive to see the peace". "I have openly and energetically criticised the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and holding prisoners in the jungle," he wrote in an internet article posted on Sunday. "If I may dare to suggest something to the Farc guerrillas, it is that they simply, by whatever means at their disposal, declare that they have unconditionally freed all the hostages and prisoners still under their control." Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba served as an inspiration to the Farc when it formed in the 1960s. BBC Americas analyst Warren Bull says that with their movement in disarray the rebels may decide that the advice of a master strategist like Fidel Castro is not to be ignored if they want to ensure their long-term survival. In June, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on them to end their four-decade struggle and release all their hostages. Tricked Earlier, Ms Betancourt said she was planning to write a play about her experience of being held hostage by the Colombian rebels for six years. Ingrid Betancourt in Paris Ms Betancourt wants to write a play about her captivity She also said she had been given a clean bill of health after undergoing medical tests following her release from the Colombian jungle on Wednesday. The former Colombian presidential candidate, who has dual French- Colombian nationality, was freed along with 14 other hostages after their captors were apparently tricked into handing them over to army personnel disguised as independent agency staff. On Friday Ms Betancourt - who grew up, studied and raised her family in France - was flown from Colombia to Paris on a French presidential plane. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sun Jul 6 19:56:46 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:56:46 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Lessons from Amateur Radio Message-ID: <487177DE.1060800@attglobal.net> by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (July 02 2008) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society ? Of the many recent signals that peak oil has come of age as a social reality, the one I find most interesting is the efforts being made, on nearly all sides of the cultural spectrum, to find reasons not to talk about it. The ongoing superspike in the price of oil, for example, has been blamed on almost everything under the sun except the simple, easily verifiable fact that worldwide petroleum production has been stuck on a plateau since late in 2004, and shows no sign of going anywhere but down in the foreseeable future. Now of course it's true that speculation has played a role in driving up the price of oil, though as many speculators have bet on a decline in oil prices as on a continued rise - check the short interest on oil futures on any of the exchanges in recent months if you doubt that. It's also true that Russia, for example, has been using its newfound energy wealth as a political weapon, though there's rich irony to be savored in watching pundits in the United States, which built an empire on its own now-depleted petroleum reserves, criticizing Russia for doing the same thing. If oil production was still increasing at two percent per year, none of that would matter. Look at the situation in the light of the relationship between supply and demand and the nature of the current crisis is hard to miss. Over the last year, the price of oil has approximately doubled. According to conventional economics, a price increase on this scale ought to stimulate new production, since oil reserves that were economically marginal when oil was $70 a barrel are much less so when oil is $140 a barrel. During the same period, despite frantic drilling on the part of oil companies, production has remained stuck in a narrow band. This only makes sense if production is constrained by non-economic factors. That, in a nutshell, is the peak oil concept: at a certain point, geology trumps economics, because you can't pump oil that's not there any more. This may seem obvious enough. To most of the people in the world's industrial nations right now, though, this sort of logic is unthinkable, for intensely personal reasons. Accept the reality of peak oil, and the future most people have planned for themselves and their children stands revealed as one of history's all-time bad jokes. Worse still, the reality of peak oil means that all those who turned their backs on the lessons of the 1970s energy crises, and wallowed in the quarter century of excess that followed, have personally contributed to making the world their children will inhabit a poorer place. That's a hard pill to swallow at the best of times, and this goes a long way to explain the passion for finding someone else - anyone else - to blame for the unfolding crisis. They'll get over it eventually, when it becomes clear that what I have called the age of scarcity industrialism is the new reality, and no amount of scapegoat-hunting is going to change that fact. In the meantime, it seems to me, it's crucial that the peak oil movement keep going forward. Ten years ago, when the idea of oil priced above $100 a barrel was considered laughable by serious people, we correctly predicted the shape of the future. Now it's time to move on, and propose constructive responses to that future as it takes shape around us. And that, dear readers, is what landed me in a converted World War Two barracks building the Saturday before last, with a multiple choice test on the table in front of me and a group of elderly men from the American Radio Relay League to grade it. A few words of explanation are probably in order at this point. One of the major achievements of the last two hundred years, it seems to me, is the emergence of communications networks that allow news and information to move from one side of the planet to another at a faster pace than messengers on horseback or sailing ships can travel. Though there had been plenty of earlier attempts, using semaphore and other visual systems, the telegraph revolutionized communication across the industrial world, and launched a series of more complex media - telephone, radio, television, and finally the internet. Not all these were an unmixed blessing, it has to be said; every technology has its downsides, but on the whole, widespread access to long-distance communication has been much more a blessing than the opposite. There are also few dimensions of modern industrial society more vulnerable to breakdown in the age of scarcity now beginning. The internet, the crown jewel of modern communications, depends on a huge and energy-intensive infrastructure that may well prove unsustainable in the future. A single server farm can use as much electricity as a small city, and the technology that makes the internet possible in the first place requires plenty of energy, exotic raw materials, and a very high level of technology - none of which can necessarily be guaranteed in the decades to come. On a broader level, most of today's telecommunications, including the internet, support themselves through advertising sales, and the economic model that makes this work will have a hard time surviving the collapse of the consumer economy. At the same time, electronic communications media need not be as dependent on today's industrial systems as they are. It's quite possible to build a vacuum tube - the backbone of radio communications in the days before transistors - from commonly available materials using hand tools; Peter Friedrichs' excellent book Instruments of Amplification {1}, which details how to do this, has become popular reading on the more outr? end of the do-it-yourself crowd. Fifty years ago, widely available books for the teen market such as Alfred P. Morgan's The Boy's First (and so on up through Sixth) Book of Radio and Electronics {2} taught aspiring young electricians how to build remarkably sophisticated gear out of oatmeal boxes, spare parts and salvaged scrap. The possibility of viable electronics in a post-peak oil era deserves exploration. What would a viable long-distance communications network in the age of peak oil look like? To begin with, it would use the airwaves rather than land lines, to minimize infrastructure, and its energy needs would be modest enough to be met by local renewable sources. It would take the form of a decentralized network of self-supporting and self-managing stations sharing common standards and operating procedures. It would use a diverse mix of communications modalities, so that operators could climb down the technological ladder as needed, from computerized data transfer all the way to equipment that could be built locally with hand tools. It would have its own subculture, of course, in which technical knowledge and practical expertise would be rewarded, encouraged, and fostered in newcomers. Finally, it would take a particular interest in energency communications, so that operators could respond to disruptions and disasters with effective workarounds at times when having even the most basic communications net in place could save many lives. The interesting thing, of course, is that a network that fills exactly these specifications already exists, in the form of amateur radio. During a long and complex history, the original loose network of radio experimenters who pioneered the airwaves in the first three decades of the 20th century morphed into a worldwide community of radio hobbyists, who are assigned their own segments of the radio spectrum. Licensed and occasionally encouraged by governments, "ham radio" - the origins of the nickname are a subject of some debate - flies almost completely under the radar of the wider culture these days, surfacing only when someone in the media notices that in the wake of some natural disaster, a group of local radio amateurs stepped up and kept emergency communications going when all other channels shut down. All this was in my mind when I sat down two Saturdays ago and prepared to take the first of a series of FCC exams that would qualify me for an amateur radio license. Like a fair number of my generation, I'd been involved in amateur radio in my teen years - my Boy Scout troop had a ham radio club - but it got lost somewhere in the tangles of a difficult adolescence. Six months of study had, I hoped, prepared me for the most challenging test of all, the Element Four exam required to get an Amateur Extra class license, which authorizes operations on all amateur bands and all modes. Longtime readers of this blog will have already guessed that I had my Pickett slide rule with me, to crunch numbers as needed. As it happened, that six months of study paid off, and the Pickett performed splendidly. I passed all three required exams, and a week later got an envelope from the FCC containing my Amateur Extra "ticket", call sign AD7VI. The next task is to assemble a station; given the limits on my budget, that will involve a good deal of scrounging and probably some homebuilt gear as well, but that's hardly a disadvantage; a Druid interested in appropriate technology has much to gain by practicing technological salvage and getting some facility with a soldering iron. All this has several lessons that may be worth considering as we move deeper into the age of peak oil. First, of course, members of the peak oil community interested in practical responses to the future ahead of us could do worse than look into amateur radio. The internet has been the crucial framework for peak oil organization and information sharing since the dawn of the peak oil scene in the late 1990s. If the net becomes unstable, or outlying areas begin to lose access - both real possibilities as energy prices rise and infrastructure falters - having something else in place as a backup has much to recommend it. The Druid order I head has similar concerns, and similar plans in process. Second, many other technologies vulnerable to the impacts of peak oil, climate change, and the other impacts of the predicament of industrial society have potential backups and replacements in the large and little-known world of hobby subcultures. An astonishing number of what we might as well call "trailing edge technologies", from black powder firearms through handloom weaving to long-distance sailing on windpowered boats, have survived intact to the present in the form of hobbies pursued by their own community of aficionados. Those communities, and the knowledge they preserve, are potentially an immense resource as we look for more sustainable ways to do things in the aftermath of the age of oil. A third lesson, though, may be the most relevant of all. I've suggested elsewhere that our civilization is the first, and thus the most clumsy and tentative, of a new class of human societies - technic societies - as distinct from earlier forms as the first urban agricultural societies were from the tribal cultures that preceded them. One of the inevitable blind spots our historical position imposes on us is a tendency to confuse the particular cultural forms evolved by our technic society with the requirements of technic societies in general. Amateur radio is a reminder that there are ways to handle long-distance electronic communications that do not involve, say, mass broadcasting supported by huge energy inputs and the financial payback of a consumer economy. This is worth keeping in mind as we begin the long transition toward the ecotechnic societies of a sustainable future. Links: {1} http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks7/finstr/index.html {2} http://home.att.net/~jacksonharbor/apm.htm _____ ?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 (Weiser, 2006). He lives in Ashland, Oregon. http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/07/lessons-from-amateur-radio.html#links TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From realiteee1 at yahoo.com Mon Jul 7 00:47:44 2008 From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 23:47:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [R-G] HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Acts: Reforming Juvenile Injustice; etc.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <530315.44363.qm@web50802.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Reforming Juvenile Injustice HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH http://hrw.org/children/juvenile_justice.htm Reforming Juvenile Injustice By Carol Chodroff, advocacy director, US Program, published in The Huffington Post WASHINGTON, DC ? I was Anthony's teacher and I couldn't help him. Anthony, a 15-year-old boy who suffered from depression, was beaten up and slashed with a razor in a California juvenile detention center. He was incarcerated as a "status offender" for running away from his group home. (A status offense is not a crime if committed by an adult.) I tried to bring Anthony his books so he could do his homework. But Anthony was not allowed to have books in his cell. So he turned to the older kids, with more criminal experience, for lessons. Upon release, Anthony was addicted to meth. Our nation's juvenile justice policies are replete with contradictions between practices proven to prevent crime, and punitive laws politicians promote to get elected. Juvenile and criminal justice principles, scientific research on prevention, intervention, and adolescent brain development, and US treaty obligations argue against the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" policies that harm children, increase recidivism and exacerbate crime. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act (JJDPA), first enacted in 1974 and overdue for reauthorization, is pending in Congress. Next week, the Senate will consider this legislation and amendments to improve juvenile justice in this country. And improvement is long overdue. Current juvenile justice practices ignore children's age and amenability to rehabilitation. On any given night in the United States, almost 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons, where they are particularly vulnerable to victimization because of their size and youth. The Centers for Disease Control recently reported that after release, children who are incarcerated in adult prisons commit more crimes, and more serious crimes, than children with similar histories held in juvenile facilities. But sentencing children to die in prison is not the solution. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which only the United States and Somalia have failed to ratify, prohibits sentencing youth to life without parole. In the United States, 2,484 people are currently sentenced to die in prison for an offense they committed when they were under 18. In contrast, not a single youth is serving this sentence anywhere else in the world. Nearly 100,000 children, some as young as 10, are confined in juvenile detention and residential facilities, which are often plagued by harsh and abusive conditions. Representative George Miller (D-CA) recently lamented the thousands of documented child abuse and neglect cases in youth residential programs, including examples of children being forced to remain for hours in "stress" positions that make the facility "look more like Guantanamo Bay than a care facility for American children." Study after study shows that over-reliance on institutionalization neither protects the public nor rehabilitates youth. And correctional confinement is not cheap: up to $300 per youth per day, far more than even the most intensive home- and community-based treatment model. The good news is that effective prevention and intervention programs, mental health and drug treatment services can foster resiliency and help children move out of the criminal justice system, return to school, and become responsible, hard-working members of our communities. And voters appreciate sound policy. MacArthur Foundation polling reveals that taxpayers overwhelmingly favor paying for rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration of youthful offenders. Reauthorization of the act will provide federal support to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system, increase mental health and drug treatment services for youth, and eliminate disproportionate sanctions for minor and predictable adolescent misbehavior. Reducing unnecessary and inappropriate incarceration of youth will increase opportunities for positive youth development and community safety. There is no question that youth who commit crimes must be held accountable. The government has an obligation to keep the public safe and protect the rights of victims. But no juvenile court disposition, regardless of the offense, should ever include abuse, mental health deterioration, or death in prison. Nor should it increase crime. Children are different from adults, and the punishment imposed for their offenses should reflect their age, level of development, and greater potential for rehabilitation. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a former prosecutor and co-sponsor of the act, put it best: "I know well the importance of holding criminals accountable for their crimes with strong sentences. But when we are talking about children, we must also think about how best to help them become responsible, contributing members of society as adults. That keeps us all safer." Congress should act now to improve juvenile justice. Winston Churchill said you can judge a civilization by how it treats its prisoners. If so, we're in trouble ? especially when our prisoners are children. Carol Chodroff is the US Program advocacy director at Human Rights Watch and a former teacher for high school students in the juvenile justice system. Related Material More on juvenile justice Thematic Page More on children's rights in the United States France: Guilty-by-Association Prosecutions Violate Rights HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=europe&c=france France: Guilty-by-Association Prosecutions Violate Rights Improve Criminal Justice Safeguards, Provide Legal Counsel for Terror Suspects (Paris, July 2, 2008) ? In its effort to fight terrorism, France routinely arrests and prosecutes people for being associated with possible terror suspects, undermining international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. ?Using the criminal justice system is the right way to fight terrorism,? said Judith Sunderland, Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. ?But prosecuting people because of who they know and what they think sacrifices basic rights, and that is wrong in principle and dangerous in practice.? The 84-page report, ?Preempting Justice: Counterterrorism Laws and Procedures in France,? looks at how France uses a vaguely defined ?terrorism association offense? to arrest large numbers of people based on minimal evidence. Human Rights Watch documented credible allegations that terrorism suspects are subjected to oppressive questioning in police custody, linked to a policy that delays a suspect?s access to a lawyer. Many suspects go on to spend long periods in pre-trial detention. Human Rights Watch talked to two dozen people caught up in terrorism investigations and trials, and conducted interviews with counterterrorism officials and judicial authorities. The lack of appropriate safeguards within the criminal justice system puts France on the wrong side of human rights law. France is renowned for its preemptive criminal justice approach to countering terrorism. Specialized prosecutors and investigating judges work closely with police and intelligence services to break up alleged networks before they commit a terrorist attack. But reliance on the broad offense of ?criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking? means that large numbers of people are arrested on the basis of minimal evidence and detained for extended periods. Prosecutions are often based on intelligence material, including from countries with poor records on torture, which defendants cannot effectively challenge. ?France is too eager to set aside rights for the sake of efficiency,? said Sunderland. ?To be a real leader, France should uphold rights while confronting terrorism.? Human Rights Watch will discuss its findings and recommendations during a round-table on human rights and the fight against terrorism in Europe at the Third World Forum on Human Rights in Nantes, France, on July 2. Safeguards in police custody are a particular concern. Terrorism suspects can be held for up to six days in police custody. Suspects can only see a lawyer after three days of police questioning, undermining the right to an effective defense and putting detainees at risk of ill-treatment. When they do finally see a lawyer, the visit is limited to 30 minutes and the lawyer usually knows almost nothing about the reason for the arrest. By law, police do not have to tell suspects that they have the right to remain silent, and anything they say can be used against them if charges are filed. Rachida Alam, 34, was arrested along with her husband in May 2004. She was subjected to 25 hours of interrogation during her three days in police custody without once seeing a lawyer. A diabetic, Alam had to be taken to the detention facility?s hospital three times. Human Rights Watch interviewed suspects who said that sleep deprivation, disorientation, constant, repetitive questioning, and psychological pressure are common in police custody. Human Rights Watch also documented credible allegations of physical abuse. Emmanuel Nieto, 33, was arrested in October 2005 largely on the basis of statements made by a man detained arbitrarily in Algeria. Nieto claims he was subjected to physical abuse at the hands of the police during his four days in custody, including being punched, forced to kneel for long periods of time, and grabbed by the throat. He was questioned for a total of 45 hours in 13 different sessions. Suspects charged with terrorism offenses are usually remanded to long periods of pre-trial detention. A reform from 2001 allowing decisions on custody to be made by a separate ?liberty and custody? judge has made little difference in limiting pre-trial detention in such cases. The breadth of the terrorism association offense can lead to a conviction based on a low standard of proof and weak evidence such as that suspects know each other, are in regular contact, or share particular religious and political beliefs. Interviews with French counterterrorism officials, terrorism suspects and their families, and defense lawyers suggest that France?s approach risks alienating Muslims, potentially radicalizing individuals, and eroding trust in law enforcement and security forces. Neighbors are less likely to tip off the police about suspicious behavior if they don?t believe the accused will be treated fairly. ?Sarkozy has called the fight against terrorism a ?battle of ideas,?? Sunderland said. ?The way to win that battle is to ensure that countering terrorism doesn?t come at the expense of the human rights of suspects.? The report contains concrete recommendations to the French government to strengthen safeguards in the criminal justice system, including: Making the offense of criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking more precise and requiring proof of intent to participate in a plan to commit terrorist acts; Improving safeguards in police custody, in particular access to a lawyer from the outset of detention and during all interrogations; Reinforcing the role and independence of the ?liberty and custody judges;? and Ensuring that evidence obtained under torture and ill-treatment, including from third countries, is inadmissible in any criminal proceedings. Related Material Preempting Justice: Counterterrorism Laws and Procedures in France Report, July 2, 2008 In the Name of Prevention Report, June 6, 2007 Universal Periodic Review of France Written Statement, May 5, 2008 More of Human Rights Watch's work on France From dn.rath at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 05:14:47 2008 From: dn.rath at gmail.com (dn.rath) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 16:44:47 +0530 Subject: [R-G] Diamond workers movement Private Security kills Diamond workers in Bhavnagar Message-ID: <002501c8e022$b1243870$00fcfea9@dnrx98d0mxid36> ToMEMORANDUM Sub- Diamond workers movement Private Security kills Diamond workers in Bhavnagar To Shri Naval Kishore Sharma The Governor of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. Sir, The Socialist Unity Centre of India (S.U.C.I.) Gujarat State Organising Committee would like to draw your attention that two diamond workers were killed in private firing by the security personnel in Bhavnagar. The diamond workers all over the state are agitating & demanding the hike of their wages due to steep price rise of all essential commodities .The rising unchecked inflation and price rise has made the lives of the poor and common people very miserable. Their wage has remained static for last ten years. The diamond workers are demanding the wage hike for long time. Instead of dealing the whole matter on humanitarian angle, the diamond merchants dealt the matter in iron hand. Not only that, they have taken the law in their hand to teach the lesson to diamond workers. As a result, the diamond workers' agitation has spread all over the state. The Govt. & its administration instead of promoting a fruitful negotiation and pay attention to the legitimate demands of the workers, it is in league with the diamond merchants and suppressing the workers, arresting them, and beating them with lathis and filing false cases against them. The anti-worker attitude of the Govt. has virtually encouraged the diamond merchants to use private security against the workers which resorted to firing and killing of two workers in Bhavnagar. This is a matter of grave concern. The firing by the Private Security has raised very serious question about the power of Private security in the state which needs a high level enquiry and the responsible persons for killing of the workers to be punished as per Indian Penal Code. We also request you to look into the matter of the poor diamond workers and urge upon you expedite to hike their wages as early as possible and give proper compensation to the family of the deceased. The injured workers be treated properly and the false cases be withdrawn and the wage hike be implemented immediately. Yours truly, Dwarika Nath Rath Secretary, S.U.C.I. Gujarat State organising Committee Date- 7-7-08 From dn.rath at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 05:16:06 2008 From: dn.rath at gmail.com (dn.rath) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 16:46:06 +0530 Subject: [R-G] Diamond workers movement Private Security kills Diamond workers in Bhavnagar Message-ID: <002d01c8e022$dea00cc0$00fcfea9@dnrx98d0mxid36> ToMEMORANDUM Sub- Diamond workers movement Private Security kills Diamond workers in Bhavnagar To Shri Naval Kishore Sharma The Governor of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. Sir, The Socialist Unity Centre of India (S.U.C.I.) Gujarat State Organising Committee would like to draw your attention that two diamond workers were killed in private firing by the security personnel in Bhavnagar. The diamond workers all over the state are agitating & demanding the hike of their wages due to steep price rise of all essential commodities .The rising unchecked inflation and price rise has made the lives of the poor and common people very miserable. Their wage has remained static for last ten years. The diamond workers are demanding the wage hike for long time. Instead of dealing the whole matter on humanitarian angle, the diamond merchants dealt the matter in iron hand. Not only that, they have taken the law in their hand to teach the lesson to diamond workers. As a result, the diamond workers' agitation has spread all over the state. The Govt. & its administration instead of promoting a fruitful negotiation and pay attention to the legitimate demands of the workers, it is in league with the diamond merchants and suppressing the workers, arresting them, and beating them with lathis and filing false cases against them. The anti-worker attitude of the Govt. has virtually encouraged the diamond merchants to use private security against the workers which resorted to firing and killing of two workers in Bhavnagar. This is a matter of grave concern. The firing by the Private Security has raised very serious question about the power of Private security in the state which needs a high level enquiry and the responsible persons for killing of the workers to be punished as per Indian Penal Code. We also request you to look into the matter of the poor diamond workers and urge upon you expedite to hike their wages as early as possible and give proper compensation to the family of the deceased. The injured workers be treated properly and the false cases be withdrawn and the wage hike be implemented immediately. Yours truly, Dwarika Nath Rath Secretary, S.U.C.I. Gujarat State organising Committee Date- 7-7-08 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Mon Jul 7 05:50:45 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:50:45 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Dependence Day Message-ID: <48720315.7000706@attglobal.net> Our Fifth of July annual holiday - a proposal by Jan Lundberg Culture Change Letter #190 (July 05 2008) Our Fourth of July holiday ought to be critically evaluated for the word "Independence" - what we are celebrating. Since the concept of US's birth was based on just a document, so it seems sometimes, one might emulate the Declaration of Independence by issuing a Declaration of Dependence. What better day than every July 5th, when we can easily recall our previous day's independence-revelry? It would be too easy to just harp, "We are not independent of oil!" As a nation we are addicted to oil, as the current president said. Dare we go deeper with reflection on reasons for the addiction and the materialism it originates with? First we can take a couple of instances of lack of true independence that may amount to a mockery of the principle. One instance is the massive pollution of the air and the sound waves by July 4th festivities. Fireworks and firecrackers aren't all bad, but we are nevertheless putting poisonous heavy metals and soot into our breathing environment. Annual tonnage of fireworks sold legally is in the millions, and some say this is dwarfed by the illegal variety. The pervasive practice of the noxious but colorful shows adds up to an unsustainable use of toxic substances. We are simply too many to just do anything we want for kicks; we have a huge impact due to our numbers. It shouldn't be just an afterthought that animals run scared and are even destructive because of the violent noise. Such transgressions against nature reveal the central issue about independence and dependence as a moral one. At first it does not seem so, as people today can apparently choose to veer toward sustainable living and self-reliance, or they can feel comfortable doing no recycling, learning no new skills, buying their food from another continent, and participating in their community to a minimal extent. In the latter case, money and petroleum furnish everything, and life appears to go on with no threat of sudden upheaval or interaction with unknown neighbors. The above is a most relevant contrast in independence and dependence. The moral issue comes into the equation when we delve into what the energy cost really is to maintain a high-consumption life-style. Because the US uses about a quarter of the world's energy, and has only about five percent of the population, the inequity is easily seen. We can go further and trace one's dollars: they and their origin can always be traced to some instance of exploitation or imperialism. Or, if we don't want to "go there", we can remind ourselves that being the top greenhouse gas producer (barely surpassed recently by China) is a consequence of our energy dependence. Some might say our only problem is fossil fuel dependence, and that other forms of energy can allow us to keep on keepin' on. However, this stance fails to stand up to scrutiny when one considers energy-return ratios compared to the cheap petroleum that's gone, and when we consider petroleum's flexibility and versatility for materials as well as fuels. Solar panels and other technologies will not feed us in any way approaching the way petroleum has. Lurching toward the technofix is a waste of energy in itself, and does not address our deeper issues of dependence and independence. Because of these realities, and a series of unpopular wars when our country was not about to be invaded, waving the red-white-and-blue flag is not a sure indication of real independence. Could it be our flag has for now ceased to reflect the vigorous, independent spirit of our forefathers and their affirmation of our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness and freedom? The Declaration of Dependence would be a conscious acknowledgment of our global behavior as well as a self-warning that we must get back to real independence soon - voluntarily or not, when petrocollapse and climate change take over completely. It can be argued that a true patriot decries today's dishonorable, unsightly dependence, and instead longs for mutual interdependence to aid the common good. (There has probably already been a Declaration of INTERdependence created and circulated, and I would probably sign it.) Unlike Thomas Jefferson's Declaration, let's try a first-person kind of pledge, as a public draft subject to modification: - I am dependent on using too much energy in a world of limited resources and high population size. - I have depended on long-distance freight for my food and other essentials, as well as for nonessentials that were supposed to make for wealth. - I live in a nation oblivious to its unpopular world role as the number one waster of energy and top generator of pollution. - I depend on the isolation of my high-consuming household to avoid working with my neighbors to manage our own local political affairs. - I have depended on corporate media and a public school system that does not tell the whole story. They have been influenced by powerful capitalists as well as religion, conditioning us to believe our lifestyle can go on forever with our know-how and "still vast" resources to exploit. - As a dependent American, looking to the good sentiments of the Declaration of Independence of July 4 1776, I strive to become truly independent of unsustainable energy use, of wasting resources, and of tolerating oppression whether against me or my neighbor or fellow world citizen. When a human being is exemplary for conduct benefiting others, the person is celebrated as all too unique; actually, the paragon is a reflection of all of us. Conversely, when one of us is unethical or a menace to society, this is a group failure of the entire population of the culture. A truly independent person is granted - thanks to a culture of mutual aid - freedom of movement and of expression. Such independence and freedom are not present in sedentary, non-nomadic societies of large population sizes. Wild nature should be at hand to roam in, and essentials of life obtained without others' control. Civilization has had slave societies and the working hell of capitalism's production. We are not really past that. For in modern sedentary society it is the literally sedentary person, whether dependent on sitting in the car or in front of a desk or a television, thus cut off from natural living, who is automatically non-independent. Reference: "Fireworks Leave Tons of Pollutants For Months" by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times (July 04 2008): ktla.trb.com _____ Support Culture Change by making a donation: Culture Change mailing address: Post Office Box 4347, Arcata , California 95518 USA, Telephone (and fax) 1-215-243-3144. Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization. http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184&Itemid=1#cont TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Mon Jul 7 09:21:48 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:21:48 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Disaster capitalism: State of extortion Message-ID: <3C3403E1-22DF-4D04-A5F9-9478813FF2C9@shaw.ca> Disaster capitalism: State of extortion >by Naomi Klein July 7, 2008 http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=73203 Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well ? until it doesn't. For instance, "independent conservative" radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: "I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down," Doyle announced. "We've invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin' Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government.... Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years." There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: "We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so. It's been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied. And the disaster capitalists have been busy ? from private firefighters already on the scene in Northern California's wildfires, to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, to the housing bill making its way through Congress. The bill contains little in the way of affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and makes sure that the banks that made bad loans get some payouts. No wonder it is known in the hallways of Congress as "The Credit Suisse Plan," after one of the banks that generously proposed it. Iraq Disaster: We broke it, we (just) bought it But these cases of disaster capitalism are amateurish compared with what is unfolding at Iraq's oil ministry. It started with no-bid service contracts announced for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies ? not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. As London-based oil expert Greg Muttitt points out, the contracts make sense only in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq's oil fields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win. One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of back-room arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oil fields, accounting for around half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 per cent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 per cent for their Iraqi partners. That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anticolonial struggles. According to Muttitt, the assumption until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop brand-new fields in Iraq ? not to take over ones that are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support. "The policy was always to allocate these fields to the Iraq National Oil Company," he told me. This is a total reversal of that policy, giving INOC a mere 25 per cent instead of the planned 100 per cent. So what makes such lousy deals possible in Iraq, which has already suffered so much? Ironically, it is Iraq's suffering ? its never- ending crisis ? that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain its treasury of its main source of revenue. The logic goes like this: Iraq's oil industry needs foreign expertise because years of punishing sanctions starved it of new technology and the invasion and continuing violence degraded it further. And Iraq urgently needs to start producing more oil. Why? Again because of the war. The country is shattered, and the billions handed out in no-bid contracts to Western firms have failed to rebuild the country. And that's where the new no-bid contracts come in: they will raise more money, but Iraq has become such a treacherous place that the oil majors must be induced to take the risk of investing. Thus the invasion of Iraq neatly creates the argument for its subsequent pillage. Several of the architects of the Iraq War no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator. On National Public Radio's To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush Administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as "a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the U.K. to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future." Chalabi, who served as Iraq's oil under secretary and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as "a primary objective." Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. That means that the huge task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure ? including its oil infrastructure ? is the financial responsibility of Iraq's invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations. (Recall that Saddam Hussein's regime paid $9 billion to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion.) Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75 per cent of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation. Oil price shock: Give us the arctic or never drive again Iraq isn't the only country in the midst of an oil-related stickup. The Bush Administration is busily using a related crisis ? the soaring price of fuel ? to revive its dream of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And of drilling offshore. And in the rock- solid shale of the Green River Basin. "Congress must face a hard reality," said George W. Bush on June 18. "Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today's painful levels ? or even higher ? our nation must produce more oil." This is the President as Extortionist in Chief, with gas nozzle pointed to the head of his hostage ? which happens to be the entire country. Give me ANWR, or everyone has to spend their summer vacations in the backyard. A final stickup from the cowboy President. Despite the Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less bumper stickers, drilling in ANWR would have little discernible impact on actual global oil supplies, as its advocates well know. The argument that it could nonetheless bring down oil prices is based not on hard economics but on market psychoanalysis: drilling would "send a message" to the oil traders that more oil is on the way, which would cause them to start betting down the price. Two points follow from this approach. First, trying to psych out hyperactive commodity traders is what passes for governing in the Bush era, even in the midst of a national emergency. Second, it will never work. If there is one thing we can predict from the oil market's recent behavior, it is that the price is going to keep going up regardless of what new supplies are announced. Take the massive oil boom under way in Alberta's notorious tar sands. The tar sands (sometimes called the oil sands) have the same things going for them as Bush's proposed drill sites: they are nearby and perfectly secure, since the North American Free Trade Agreement contains a provision barring Canada from cutting off supply to the United States. And with little fanfare, oil from this largely untapped source has been pouring into the market, so much so that Canada is now the largest supplier of oil to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Between 2005 and 2007, Canada increased its exports to the States by almost 100 million barrels. Yet despite this significant increase in secure supplies, oil prices have been going up the entire time. What is driving the ANWR push is not facts but pure shock doctrine strategy ? the oil crisis has created the conditions in which it is possible to sell a previously unsellable (but highly profitable) policy. Food price shock: Genetic modification or starvation Intimately connected to the price of oil is the global food crisis. Not only do high gas prices drive up food costs but the boom in agrofuels has blurred the line between food and fuel, pushing food growers off their land and encouraging rampant speculation. Several Latin American countries have been pushing to re-examine the push for agrofuels and to have food recognized as a human right, not a mere commodity. United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has other ideas. In the same speech touting the US commitment to emergency food aid, he called on countries to lower their "export restrictions and high tariffs" and eliminate "barriers to use of innovative plant and animal production technologies, including biotechnology." This was an admittedly more subtle stickup, but the message was clear: impoverished countries had better crack open their agricultural markets to American products and genetically modified seeds, or they could risk having their aid cut off. Genetically modified crops have emerged as the cureall for the food crisis, at least according to the World Bank, the European Commission president (time to "bite the bullet") and Prime Minister of Britain Gordon Brown. And, of course, the agribusiness companies. "You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms," Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestl?, told the Financial Times recently. The problem with this argument, at least for now, is that there is no evidence that GMOs increase crop yields, and they often decrease them. But even if there was a simple key to solving the global food crisis, would we really want it in the hands of the Nestl?s and Monsantos? What would it cost us to use it? In recent months Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF have been frenetically buying up patents on so-called "climate ready" seeds ? plants that can grow in earth parched from drought and salinated from flooding. In other words, plants built to survive a future of climate chaos. We already know the lengths Monsanto will go to protect its intellectual property, spying on and suing farmers who dare to save their seeds from one year to the next. We have seen patented AIDS medications fail to treat millions in sub-Saharan Africa. Why would patented "climate ready" crops be any different? Meanwhile, amid all the talk of exciting new genetic and drilling technologies, the Bush Administration announced a moratorium of up to two years on new solar energy projects on federal lands ? due, apparently, to environmental concerns. This is the final frontier for disaster capitalism. Our leaders are failing to invest in technology that will actually prevent a future of climate chaos, choosing instead to work hand in hand with those plotting innovative schemes to profit from the mayhem. Privatizing Iraq's oil, ensuring global dominance for genetically modified crops, lowering the last of the trade barriers and opening the last of the wildlife refuges... Not so long ago, those goals were pursued through polite trade agreements, under the benign pseudonym "globalization." Now this discredited agenda is forced to ride on the backs of serial crises, selling itself as lifesaving medicine for a world in pain. Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This column has appeared in The Nation. From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 10:58:15 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 12:58:15 -0400 Subject: [R-G] US Military Planned Nerve Gas Test on Aust Troops Message-ID: US military planned nerve gas test on Aust troops Posted Sun Jul 6, 2008 9:05am AEST Updated Sun Jul 6, 2008 11:23am AEST Defence files have revealed the United States military was planning to test deadly nerve gas on Australian troops in a far north Queensland rainforest in the 1960s. Australian Defence Department files obtained by Channel Nine show the US was planning to test Sarin and VX nerve gas on up to 200 Australian combat troops by aerial bombing areas around Lockhart River. The plan never went ahead, but American survey teams inspected the proposed testing site. The prime minister at the time, Harold Holt, vetoed the plan. His former staffer, Peter Bailey, says the Australian government was concerned that its Cold War alliance with the US would be damaged if it did not acquiesce. "If they weren't pretty good and pretty faithful to the Americans we would be dumped, so I think ministers were very aware that this was probably our one main support," he said. Former Democrats Senator Lyn Allison has told Channel Nine the current Government should make the documents public. "There's apparently a whole unit which the minister says didn't conduct testing but I think we need to know what they were doing and it is time for these documents to be released," she said. "Let us have a look at what was being contemplated just 40 odd years ago - it's not the deepest, darkest history of Australia we're talking about." US wanted to test sarin on Australian troops: report Sun Jul 6, 3:40 AM ET The United States military wanted to test deadly nerve gases on Australian troops in a remote area of far north Queensland in the 1960s but Canberra refused, a report said Sunday. Washington wanted to bomb a rainforest area lying more than 600 kilometres (400 miles) north of Cairns, Channel Nine's 'Sunday' programme reported, citing newly declassified documents from the Australian Defence Department. In 1962, then US defence secretary Robert McNamara wrote to Australian officials asking that the US and Australian military conduct secret joint testing of several nerve agents, including sarin, the report said. "The United States proposes to use the agents GB (sarin), a non-persistent nerve gas, and VX, a persistent nerve gas -- both to be disseminated by aircraft delivered by bombs and tanks," it quoted one document as reading. Some 200 Australian soldiers would have been involved in the testing to "determine persistency of chemical agents on jungle foliage and pick-up of such agents by personnel traversing area under simulated military operation." The testing was vetoed by then prime minister Harold Holt in 1966. Holt's former staffer Peter Bailey told Channel Nine the nerve gas plan had been considered by the Australian government and ministers were concerned that scuttling it could damage Canberra's relationship with the US. He said the ministers felt "if they weren't pretty good and pretty faithful to the Americans we would be dumped," he said. "Forty years on I'm a bit surprised that it actually happened but it did," he said. From news at ckut.ca Mon Jul 7 12:06:02 2008 From: news at ckut.ca (CKUT Community News Collective) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:06:02 -0400 Subject: [R-G] July 2008 GroundWire - ready to air! Message-ID: <48725B0A.90103@ckut.ca> The July 2008 GroundWire, mixed by CFRC in Kingston Ontario, is now available online at: http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=72764 or http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/535/GroundWire_July_2008.mp3 This month, GroundWire reports on the grassroots opposition to the expansion of Chebucto Road in Nova Scotia, alternative perspectives on the 400th anniversary of the province of Quebec, proposed changes to digital copyright law under Bill C-61, an update on the volunteer lockout at CKLN Radio, and reactions to a shareholder meeting of Metallica Resources. A great big thank you to all who lent their audio and voices for this piece: Tara Michelle Ziniuk, Christopher Currie, Laura Greenwood, Kristin Schwartz, David Teasdale, Omme Rahemtullah, Charlotte Bourne, Brennan Vogel, David Parker, Susy Alvarez, Aaron Lakoff, anyone we missed and everyone that continues to make the news through grassroots resistance and community building! Enjoy, CFRC News Department ------------------------ Stations that confirmed airing GroundWire include: CJSR, Edmonton CKUT, Montreal CFRC, Kingston CJSF, Burnaby CKLN, Toronto CKDU, Halifax CHMA, New Brunswick Let's keep this list growing by letting GroundWire know if your station aired the program. If you air this program, please confirm at groundwire at ncra.ca From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 7 15:05:32 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:05:32 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Afghan parliament condemns US air strikes Message-ID: <200807072105.m67L5WDo011505@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080707/2061fca3/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 7 15:06:15 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:06:15 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Killing of Parliamentarian heighten sense of alarm in Kandahar Message-ID: <200807072106.m67L6FZN012947@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080707/ed9158bc/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 7 15:09:25 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:09:25 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Army 'vacuum' missile hits Taliban Message-ID: <200807072109.m67L9P46019731@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080707/ab33fa3b/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 7 15:14:38 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:14:38 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Big Oil poised to make triumphant return to Iraq Message-ID: <200807072114.m67LEcvW029220@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080707/7ac1c673/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 7 15:17:57 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:17:57 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Irish Public Sector Union Passes Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel Motion Message-ID: <200807072117.m67LHvH5005203@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080707/86df3b1b/attachment.txt From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org Mon Jul 7 16:27:53 2008 From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:27:53 +0000 Subject: [R-G] Jim Dan who? [A Horror Story from the Groves of Academe] Message-ID: NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR: Eldri and I were married at Superior, Wisconsin, on June 25 1961 -- and a few weeks later arrived in Mississippi for six years of activism in various parts of the hard-core South. This interesting article, "Jim Dan who?" was published on June 25 2008 -- out of Duluth, Minnesota, right across the river from Superior. But that's not the only connection we have. We met in the context of Superior State College in what can only be described as an academic nightmare for students, most faculty and staff, and many townspeople indeed. The college president was General Jim Dan Hill, something out of the Dinosaur Age. [Too many schools today exhibit -- at all levels --and in however veiled a fashion, some of these same sorry characteristics -- in addition to using multitudes of poorly paid, non-tenured, adjunct faculty in higher ed levels.] The article covers the man and the purely horrendeous situation he created -- and over which he presided -- quite well. And, although it misses a few of the courageous community activists who challenged him, it includes most of them. We knew and worked with those people in common cause. Something of the flavor as it relates to me is conveyed by this little section. It's an accurate one, save for the fact that it was 1960-61 that I was at Superior and Not 1961-62. As I've indicated, we arrived at Tougaloo College in the latter summer of '61-- after Superior. "Hunter Gray Bear (John Salter), a Native American activist who taught at the Superior campus in 1961-62, recruited faculty into the American Federation of Teachers and helped organize students when Hill suspended student government. Bear writes on his Web site, ?An increasingly incoherent General Hill got control of his voice long enough to denounce me repeatedly as a ?Communist, an atheist, and an advocate of free love.? Exactly what he meant, especially on the final point, was never clear.? Hill never met me before I was hired as a sociology instructor. Short on faculty and with time running out before the onset of the 1960-61 school year, he found me via a teacher agency and sent a lackey to Denver who briefly interviewed me. [I drove from Flagstaff.] I suspect he was reassured by the fact that I was an Arizonian and an honorably discharged Army vet [still in the inactive reserves.] Eldri, an Augsburg College sociology grad, was employed as Lutheran student counselor by Minnesota Lutheran Student Foundation -- at and within Superior State . She helped our activist cause immensely. See the story as the saga winds its way: http://www.businessnorth.com/exclusives.asp?RID=2489 The painting of Hill is a highly idealized one, I should add. I saw him last when I walking in a driving rain along Superior Street and he drove by in his huge black Chrysler, obviously laughing at me as he gestured wildly in my direction. He then drove around the block and went through his thing yet again. I was tempted to "flip the bird" but that really isn't my style. I simply looked coldly at the old S.O.B. I add, as a kind of personal conclusion re Superior, this excerpt from our Hunterbear website: FEAR, SEX AND BABIES GALORE -- AND SUPERIOR WISCONSIN EXPERIENCES [HUNTER GRAY] Note by Hunter Bear: This post of mine stems from a recent newspaper article indicating that many Americans are responding to the post 9/11 pressures by producing babies. Here is my comment [I've herewith omitted the article for space reasons.] Personally, I find this very encouraging. As a rule, babies are nice. I do recommend a good diaper service -- and, when they yell, just feed'em. Keep feeding. Later, when they're older, do the bribe thing. Negotiate with zeal, of course, but buy'em off all the way through at every point. And stay away from glorified crack-pots like Dr Laura. My first semester of my first year of college sociology teaching [AY 1960-61 at Wisconsin State, Superior] involved five three semester hour courses -- one of which was Marriage and the Family. An earnest young bachelor, I certainly did my best with that one, quickly upsetting most of the town's clergy [Protestant and Catholic] when I indicated my strong conviction that, given the high divorce rate in US society, the Swedish system of trial marriage had a lot going for it. "Free love" was a charge hurled at me by some of the less inhibited clergy. [On my initiative, I met directly with them as a group and they were generally reassured.] That was a turbulent year for me and my many activist students -- with a number of significant social justice and academic freedom victories. We showed Salt of the Earth [three 16 mm reels shipped up from Bayard, NM by Juan Chacon] many times indeed and did many related things. We also had the welcome arrival of my friend, Catholic Anarchist Ammon Hennacy [Catholic Worker], who spoke all night to students and workers and radicals and other community folk from my large apartment. [The local Monsignor had forbidden all priests to give Ammon a parish hall in which to speak and the adult Protestants were really bigoted on the Catholic thing at that point with JFK running and winning.] I used C.Wright Mills' excellent pro-Cuban Revolution work -- Listen Yankee! -- as a text in several of my classes. With the very large student Student Action group we organized -- really excellent kids, Indian and Anglo [ many Finnish] -- and with very little backing from a frightened faculty, we were able to put the tyrannical college president, General Jim Dan Hill, a Texas Bircher-type, on the skids [retired a few years later.] In that, we were assisted by then-Gov Gaylord Nelson [later, of course, Senator] with whom we met. We were also helped by Glenn Parrish of Superior, a national Vice-President of AFT, who was an uncle of one my strongest student supporters -- and a good friend of my old Arizona AFT buddy, Bill Karnes of Phoenix, himself a national VP of AFT. Among my several union affiliations was my at-large membership in Phoenix AFT Local 1010. Anyway, when Eldri and I were married at Superior that June 1961, it was, of course, a proper Church wedding -- with a number of clergy and many students and all kinds of labor unionists and radicals present to wish us very well. We were then Off-To-Mississippi. I never taught Marriage and the Family again -- was never asked to do so, fortunately -- but I certainly did have a number of baby experiences as the River of Time flowed onward. One was born at Jackson, another at Raleigh, still another on Chicago's Southside, and the latest at Gallup N.M. And then, in addition, there are, of course, the many offspring of the first three. And, many years later, when I stumbled upon my notes from that long ago Marriage class at Superior -- the notes formulated by a well-meaning young instructor who took himself and his subject so very seriously -- I read no more than three or four pages of bachelor wisdom before grinning and tossing the whole sheaf into our pine-burning fireplace. Eldri and I had a quiet 47th Wedding Anniversary here in the Gem State. Hunter [Hunter Bear] HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na?shdo?i?ba?i? and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm And see Wobbly Mentor http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Mon Jul 7 19:38:13 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:38:13 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Fireworks Leave Tons of Pollutants For Months Message-ID: <4872C505.9060008@attglobal.net> by Marla Cone Los Angeles Times (July 04 2008) When the rockets and the bombs burst in the air tonight, spectators will experience more than a spectacular show celebrating America's birthday. When their blends of black powder, metals, oxidizers, fuels and other toxic ingredients are ignited, traces wind up in the environment, often spreading long distances and lasting for days, even months. Although pyrotechnic experts are developing environmentally friendly fireworks, Fourth of July revelers this year will be watching essentially the same high-polluting technology that their grandparents experienced decades ago. Throughout the Los Angeles region, concentrations of fine particles, or carbon soot, skyrocket for up to 24 hours after the Independence Day shows, reaching levels as high as those from wildfires. Public health officials warn that people with heart problems or respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should avoid the smoky celebrations, staying upwind or indoors. "I enjoy a fireworks display as much as anyone else, but we do have concerns about exposure to high levels of smoke and particles", said Jean Ospital, health effects officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Also, traces of poisonous metals, which give fireworks their bright colors, and perchlorate, a hormone-altering substance used as an oxidizer, trickle to the ground, contaminating waterways. One Environmental Protection Agency study found that perchlorate levels in an Oklahoma lake rose 1,000-fold after a fireworks display, and they stayed high in some areas for up to eighty days. European chemists Georg Steinhauser and Thomas Klapotke wrote in a recent scientific journal that "several poisonous substances are known to be released in the course of a pyrotechnic application" and that they are dispersed over a large area. "It is clear from a vast array of studies that traditional pyrotechnics are a severe source of pollution", they wrote. The black powder, or gunpowder, used in most fireworks has an extremely high carbon content; when ignited, it fills the air with fine particles capable of inflaming airways and lodging in lungs. Every July 4 and 5, the Los Angeles region suffers "generally poor air quality for particulates", said Philip Fine, the AQMD's atmospheric measurements manager. Particulates can cause coughing, sore throats and burning eyes. For people with asthma or other respiratory or cardiovascular conditions, the effects are much worse. Hospital admissions and deaths from asthma, heart attacks and respiratory disease increase whenever particulate levels rise. In the areas around fireworks displays, particulate levels increase about 100-fold and don't return to normal until around midday on July 5, according to AQMD data. During a fireworks show in Indio in 2004, particulate measurements peaked at 847 micrograms per cubic meter of air, nearly six times the federal health standard. Particulate readings are averaged over a 24-hour period, so that was not technically a federal violation. Metals in the air also surge, although they do not exceed state health guidelines. Nonetheless, they build up in waterways and soil. Ironically, green-colored fireworks are the least "green" because the metal that produces the color, barium, is highly poisonous. Scientists in India found that airborne barium increased by a factor of 1,000 after a huge fireworks display there. Strontium, which creates red, and copper, which forms a blue hue, can also be toxic. "The use of heavy metals like barium or strontium should be reduced or, if possible, avoided", said Karina Tarantik, a chemist at the University of Munich in Germany whose lab is working on cleaner pyrotechnics. Much of the new research has been propelled by concern over perchlorate, which has been used since the 1930s to provide oxygen for pyrotechnic explosions. Perchlorate, which has contaminated many drinking water supplies from military and aerospace operations, can impair the function of the thyroid gland by blocking the intake of iodide. Fetuses are most at risk, because thyroid hormones regulate their growth. Scientists have made significant advances in low-smoke and perchlorate-free technologies, prompted by the military, which uses flares and other pyrotechnics, and by Walt Disney Company, which stages about 2,000 fireworks displays a year. In the late 1990s, Disney approached the Los Alamos National Laboratory with a request to develop cleaner fireworks to reduce smoke at Disneyland, which was prompting complaints to the AQMD from neighbors in Anaheim. Instead of carbon-based materials, scientists there experimented with nitrogen atoms, which produced far less soot and smoke. "In addition, because the high-nitrogen materials burn more cleanly, you could use less coloring agents. We were able to get much nicer colors with ... less metals", said David Chavez, a materials chemist at Los Alamos. Based on those experiments, Los Alamos chemists Michael Hiskey and Darren Naud took an entrepreneurial leave and founded DMD Systems. Their fireworks use nitrocellulose, which is inexpensive and plentiful, and they emit water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide instead of smoke and perchlorate, Hiskey said. The metal content has been reduced by about ninety percent, he said. The cost is about the same as for other U.S.-manufactured fireworks. Disney World in Florida has used his company's comets for about six months. Disneyland developed aerial launchers that replaced black powder with compressed air in 2004. The resort puts on more than 200 fireworks shows each year, burning about 60,000 pounds of fireworks, far more than all the other theme parks and stadiums in the region combined. "Now we're on a path toward creating the next generation of fireworks", said Disney Imagineering spokeswoman Marilyn Waters. She said that other ultra-low-smoke and perchlorate-free technologies are already used in some Disney shows in Anaheim, Florida and Hong Kong and that an international team of vendors and scientists is testing more innovations. But municipalities and civic groups, which buy inexpensive fireworks from China, can't afford the cleaner ones for their Independence Day celebration. So far, they cost about ten times more than the Chinese-made ones. "Everything they get is from China", Hiskey said. "It's going to be very difficult to break the China habit". But John Conkling, an adjunct professor of chemistry at Washington College in Maryland and former executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Assocation, is confident that environmental concerns are driving the industry. "Certainly if we can replace perchlorates, the world will be a better place", he said. "I'm optimistic that we will have fireworks shows down the road with much less perchlorate, if any, and we'll still have the spectacular shows we've always had", Conkling said. "I expect even by next season there will be less perchlorate in fireworks. Within a five- to ten-year period, we'll see major, major changes." In the meantime, Hiskey has some Fourth of July advice: Where there's smoke, there are toxic substances. "If I'm having trouble seeing things because it's so smoky, if the smoke is headed toward the crowd, that really stinks", he said. Copyright (c) 2008, KTLA http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/ktla-fireworks-pollution,0,7367976.story TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 23:45:05 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 01:45:05 -0400 Subject: [R-G] FT on Venezuela Message-ID: Uribe ascendant: Defeats for the Farc mark a shift of power in Latin America By Richard Lapper Published: July 6 2008 19:42 | Last updated: July 6 2008 19:42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Caracas is forced to press pause on the revolution Nothing has been quite the same for Hugo Ch?vez since he suffered a stinging defeat in a referendum late last year, his first electoral setback in almost a decade as Venezuela's president. Stripped of his aura of invincibility, Mr Ch?vez has been forced into a number of policy reversals, of which his change of heart over the Farc is just one, writes Benedict Mander. On the economy, Mr Ch?vez is now grappling with inflation of more than 30 per cent and shortages of basic goods. In an attempt to boost investment, he has recently resorted to wooing a private sector that has grown increasingly alarmed this year at a series of nationalisations in the steel, cement and food sectors. After loosening price controls and attempting to damp demand by raising interest rates and cutting spending, the president summoned business leaders last month to announce that an unpopular financial transactions tax would be scrapped, while currency controls for importers would also be eased. Mr Ch?vez was also forced to shelve a controversial education law that had middle-class families up in arms, fearing that their children would be indoctrinated as socialists. Another retreat came on an espionage law that generated vigorous protests among human rights groups and the political opposition, which worried that it would clear the way for an increasingly authoritarian government. Mr Chavez himself recently appeared to address the question of whether such changes signal a lasting change in strategy or represent merely a temporary tactical retreat. "This is a government that rectifies," he said during a televised address last month. "Some say Ch?vez is backtracking. Well, whoever wants to see it that way can see it that way. No, I move on." Ra?l Baduel, a retired general who was Mr Ch?vez's defence minister until a year ago but has since turned against him, thinks the shift is temporary. "Everything Ch?vez does is oriented towards creating the conditions both internally and internationally to achieve his sole aim: to perpetuate himself in power," he says. "He's just trying to divert attention, to buy time." Others see a government in crisis that is increasingly making policy blunders. Roc?o San Miguel, an analyst in Caracas who runs Citizen Control, a non-governmental organisation that monitors Venezuela's armed forces, says chaotic and centralised decision-making often results in poor and contradictory laws that cannot stand up to criticism. "After 10 years, Ch?vez's public management is showing signs of deterioration. The method of decision-making and strategy formulation is looking burnt out, and this is having repercussions in both national and international policy," she says. The result, she adds, is a paralysis of the system. Luis Vicente Le?n, a local pollster, argues that Mr Ch?vez's more moderate stance dates back to his narrow but hugely significant referendum defeat last year. Mr Ch?vez had attempted to make sweeping changes to the constitution that would have centralised power ? including an amendment allowing the president's indefinite re-election ? and paved the way for the creation of a socialist economy. The president cannot afford another such reversal if he is to make good on his promises to bring "21st century socialism" to Venezuela. "It's not that he wants to be popular, he has to be popular," says Mr Le?n, adding that Mr Ch?vez's high approval ratings are impressive after a decade in power ? only Colombia's President Uribe is more popular in the region. Elections in November for state governorships and municipalities represent Mr Ch?vez's most considerable obstacle in the short term. Many analysts see his moderation as part of a strategy to win back support lost since his re-election by a wide margin in December 2006. "He misinterpreted the results and overplayed his hand," says Daniel Hellinger, an academic specialising in Venezuela at Webster University in the US. "Ch?vez is now presenting a more moderate position to [the] middle classes in urban areas, where he is surely going to lose some governorships and mayoralties no matter how well he does ? the question is how many." Mr Ch?vez also faces growing criticism that his "Bolivarian revolution" has failed to tackle such basic problems as crime, corruption and inflation ? in spite of his achievements in reducing poverty by about half. Barring a big turnround in the coming months, the president is likely to lose further ground in November. Mr Hellinger expects the result to be a "stalemate", leaving little room for Mr Ch?vez to radicalise his socialist project. Additional reporting from Naomi Mapstone in Lima and Anastasia Moloney in Bogot? Venezuelans enjoy costly petrol subsidy By Benedict Mander in Caracas Published: June 30 2008 17:03 | Last updated: June 30 2008 17:03 Sipping a cool midday beer on the banks of the mighty Orinoco river, Antonio frowns with distaste as he reminisces about the days when he used to work hard for a living. With international oil prices soaring and domestic petrol among the most heavily subsidised in the world, he ditched his job at a remote jungle gold mine in southern Venezuela to sell petrol illegally across the river in Colombia. "Being a miner was tough," explains Antonio, as he takes another slug of beer, adding that most of his fellow workers reached the same conclusion. The gold mine is now abandoned. "Why bother when you can earn more and work far less by buying petrol for next to nothing here and selling it for good money just on the other side of this river? Of course, it helps that the national guard turn a blind eye for a cut." Such incentives to smuggle petrol mean the practice is rife in most border areas ? locals even say that Farc, the Colombian Marxist guerilla group, is profiting handsomely from petrol contraband in the area. Venezuelans pay just 3 to 4 cents for a litre of petrol. A tank can be filled for as little as $1.50. "It is so cheap as to be practically free. As a result, consumption is disproportionately high ? people use their cars just to go to the street corner," says Domingo Maza Zavala, an economist and former director at the central bank. Together with a booming domestic economy thanks to high oil prices, this has caused Venezuela's petrol consumption to double in the last five years. Elsewhere in the world, particularly in south-east Asia, petrol subsidies are being trimmed because of increasing costs and the distortions that they bring as the price of oil rises. But in Venezuela shorter-term imperatives mean that the subsidy is unlikely to be eliminated soon. On Saturday Hugo Ch?vez, the president, said he had "no immediate plans" for a petrol price rise. Economists say the petrol subsidy is costing the government at least $10bn to $12bn (?7.6bn, ?6bn) a year in lost export revenues. However, Mr Ch?vez is already struggling to contain the highest inflation rate in the western hemisphere ? it is over 30 per cent. Raising petrol prices would only push this higher. Another formidable barrier is that such a move would be hugely unpopular ? subsidised petrol has existed in Venezuela for decades and is now practically considered a birthright. Analysts say Mr Ch?vez is not willing to risk a backlash with regional elections approaching in November. Memories of the 1989 riots triggered by a rise in petrol prices, which ultimately precipitated the downfall of the government, remain fresh. The president publicly branded the subsidy as "disgusting" early last year and Gregory Wilpert, an academic sympathetic with Mr Ch?vez, says the government remains in search of a way to increase petrol prices without affecting the poor, its core constituency. "So far they haven't come up with a good plan," he says. It certainly will not be easy ? with prices so low for so long, any meaningful adjustment would inevitably have a significant impact. "Although a small increase in petrol prices may not be too politically costly, a rise big enough to really get rid of the distortions that the subsidy currently produces could certainly be damaging," says Tamara Herrera, an economist at Caracas-based S?ntesis Financiera. To make matters worse, Venezuela's economic boom, triggered by high oil prices, has stimulated consumption across the board. Car sales in particular have soared, not least because cars have become a form of investment in an environment of negative real interest rates. Chronic traffic jams have become a part of daily life. With estimates of domestic consumption ranging from 550,000 and 780,000 barrels a day, Venezuelans consume anything from a fifth to a third of total oil production. The subsidy also creates problems by in effect diverting money away from investment in projects that would diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil, as well as from social programmes, which are the keystone of Mr Ch?vez's popular support. From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 23:59:59 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 01:59:59 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Iran: Direct, Untargeted Subsidies vs. Cash Transfers to the Poor Message-ID: Ahmadi-Nejad aims to focus subsidies on poor By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Published: June 25 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 25 2008 03:00 Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad has announced plans to revise Iran's costly subsidies scheme and redirect it to the poorest segments of society. The attempt to curb the spending on subsidies, which account for a third of gross domestic product, is, in theory, a move that should be welcomed by economists but it represents a significant political gamble for Iran's president. Given the government's record in implementing new decisions, analysts in Tehran said Mr AhmadiNejad's decision could prove deeply unpopular and affect his chances of re-election next year. In a televised address on Monday, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad lamented that the state forgoes as much as $97bn (?62bn, ?49bn) a year because of its energy subsidies and vowed a new targeted plan would start in October. Under the current system, 70 per cent of the subsidies go to people who have a level of income that should mean they can afford to pay for energy. The government also heavily subsidises electricity, water, public transport and basic commodities. "This change has been one of the dreams of our economists and this government is determined to do it even if we in the government get hurt," Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said. "It is worth it." Development economists and donor agencies including the World Bank have long argued that direct, untargeted subsidies for food and fuel are wasteful, encouraging overconsumption and often disproportionately benefiting the wealthier in society. Most economists recommended cushioning the impact of higher food and energy costs by cash transfers to poorer households rather than artificially suppressing the price of agricultural and fuel products. But Iranians expect their oil-rich state to spend generously on their daily needs and they sometimes revolt against any revision of subsidies which they suspect might be a first step to eliminating the scheme. About a dozen petrol stations were set on fire last June when the government rationed petrol to curb over-consumption. But the rationing has continued and the government recently stopped providing subsidised petrol for luxury cars, priced at 11 cents a litre, making the rich pay four times more. "Changing the subsidies system is the most risky step the government is taking because it is a too complicated procedure which may have social consequences," said Mohsen Safayi-Farahani, a deputy minister of economy under the former reformist government. Details of the plan are still sketchy. The government has only revealed that Iranians who would like to receive subsidies in cash must apply next month and they will receive the subsidy into their bank accounts. Many analysts say the government has no other option but to try to reduce the cost of subsidies. Excessive consumption of energy has led to uncontrollable increases in the annual cost. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad acknow-ledged that unbalanced -economic development, in-efficient taxation, two-digit inflation and unemployment were long-standing problems for the country. In a departure from his usual language, which often blames economic problems on "mafias" backed by his reformist and conservative opponents, the president called for help from all political groups. "This plan belongs to all of us and I ask you not to drag this into [political] confrontations. Help [the government] to cure this acute disease," he said. Ahmadinejad to focus subsidies on Iran's poor Wed Jun 25, 2008 1:34pm BST By Edmund Blair TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president plans to adjust an unwieldy subsidy system so that it helps the poor more directly despite initial inflation risks, in a reform opponents said was an overdue response to criticism of his policies. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the past opposed reforms requiring liberalising prices of goods like gasoline and some foodstuffs for fear of driving rampant price rises still higher, the analysts say. Change may also risk social unrest. But reforms announced in a TV interview and carried by newspapers on Wednesday indicate the president, facing growing grumbles from opponents and the public, may want to rebuff at least some of his critics before the 2009 presidential election. "Mr Ahmadinejad is not able to continue the current situation. He has to do something because the fourth year of Mr Ahmadinejad's presidential term is starting and actually he did nothing for the economy," said Saeed Laylaz, a business consultant and frequent critic of the president's policies. He said he welcomed the reforms Ahmadinejad announced. Ahmadinejad has not said if he will run again but is widely expected to. Analysts say much will depend on keeping the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's top authority who has gently urged the government to deal with economic problems while still voicing backing for the president. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 pledging to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly. Despite presiding over record crude earnings, economists say the wealth gap has widened due to profligate spending that has stoked inflation, mostly harming the poor, and via subsidies that often mainly benefit the rich. The president, whose government has in the past sought to tackle inflation by telling businesses to lower prices, accepted subsidies needed changing. "Currently, subsidies are not useful and have the reverse effect (of what was intended)," he said in comments carried by the official newspaper Iran, adding that 70 percent of subsidy spending ended up with the country's richest 30 percent. "With such subsidies, industry cannot compete with the world as it should," the president said, adding that energy subsidies cost Iran 900 trillion rials (about 50 billion pounds) a year. POLITICAL HOT POTATO Gasoline subsidies are an example where the rich benefit most because they tend to have bigger, gas-guzzling vehicles, while the poor may not even be able to afford a small car. Changes are already being made via rationing introduced last year that restricts how much subsidised fuel drivers can buy, with any extra being sold at a higher price. The government originally opposed selling any fuel more expensively. When rationing was introduced, however, several fuel stations were torched, showing how sensitive reforms can be. Ahmadinejad indicated changes in subsidies would involve means testing with Iranians filling a form to establish their position but did not say precisely how payments would be made. The economic daily Donya-ye Eqtesad, citing the president, said the first payments would be made in the second half of the Iranian year. Iran's calendar begins in March. Economists have long argued for a shake up of Iran's system of broad subsidies but say it is a political hot potato because it will initially add to inflation, currently running at more than 25 percent, even if it comes with longer term benefits. "Taking away subsidies is not an easy matter. The government seems to be doing it, but already we are seeing short-term inflationary effects," said one economist, speaking before the president's more sweeping reform was announced. In the longer term, cutting subsidies would reduce budget spending and therefore ease inflationary pressure, the economist said. In his interview, the president also said his economic plan would involve changes to the tax system to improve collection and reform of customs. He did not give a timetable. Economists say one of the main problems fuelling inflation has been the government's spending of bonanza revenues from sky-high oil prices. Although designed to help the poor by boosting spending in villages and provinces in particular, economists say the government has not used interest rates and other tools to soak up the extra liquidity. The president, for example, has been criticised for pushing to keep interest rates below inflation. (Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Dominic Evans) In the rice basket and bazaars of Iran, they feel the pain By Zahra Hosseinian Reuters Wednesday, June 25, 2008 CHALUS, Iran: From the lush paddies of northern Iran to the dusty grain bazaars of Tehran, the pain and paradoxes of rising food and fuel prices are starkly on display. Rice prices have more than doubled in Iran since March, but farmers working from sunrise to sunset in the rice-growing northern region around Chalus, a city on the Caspian Sea, say little of that money goes into their pockets. "Traders bought our rice very cheap. They have put it in storage and now capital investors are selling it for a high price," Baqer Kefayati said at his farm in Dasht-e Nesha. "We did not make a profit, but traders did." Capital investors are wealthy traders who buy rice wholesale from farmers. Dealers buy rice in small amounts from capital investors and sell it to shops. They act as brokers and tend not to make large sums of money. Some brokers blame the government, saying its tardiness this year in importing rice, a staple in Iran, helped fuel the price increase by creating a vacuum that could be exploited. Iran, one of the world's biggest producers of oil, is at once a beneficiary of the oil boom, in which prices have risen to nearly $140 a barrel, and a victim. High oil prices are one factor behind rising inflation that is punishing the country's poor. Economists blame profligate spending of windfall oil revenues by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for stoking inflation, which rose to 25.3 percent in the year to May. Higher food prices have also contributed. Iranian newspapers in May said the popular smoked rice had jumped to 50,000 rials, or about $5.40, a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, from 19,000 rials. The price of another variety of rice rose to 45,000 from 18,000 rials. Some other types have tripled in price, shopkeepers say. The prices remained at almost the same levels in June. The price pain has political consequences, even in tightly controlled Iran. In southern Tehran and some other cities, lower-income Iranians protested inflation and higher prices, newspapers reported. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 promising to spread Iran's oil wealth to the people. He faces re-election in 2009. "Ahmadinejad promised to bring the oil money to our tables, but instead he is taking away the rice from our table," said Masoumeh Nayyeri, a mother of five and a cleaner in Tehran. "Rice and bread were the only things we could afford. How will I feed my children now? Life becomes harder every day." Asian rice prices almost trebled to their highest level ever this year as export restrictions fueled insecurity about food supplies. Prices have since come off those highs amid signs of larger harvests and of export curbs being lifted. As a rice importer, Iran has been hit hard, especially as very cold winter weather followed by drought affected harvests of domestic rice, further raising prices for consumers. This month, the commerce minister was quoted in the English language Iran News as saying that Iran needed to import 1.7 million tons of rice in the year that ends in March 2009 to supplement forecast domestic production of 1.5 million tons. Consumption is estimated at 3.2 million tons. For the past few years, Iran has been trying to become self-sufficient, but because of various issues, including the drought, the state has not been able to achieve its goal. Iran has delayed buying rice on world markets - for example, from the traditional supplier Thailand - because of high prices, but to ease public concern about shortages, Iranian state TV announced in May that at least 100,000 tons had been bought from Pakistan. Prices eased, but they still remain high. Just as speculators on world markets have been blamed for inflating the oil rally and adding to volatility, so the capital investors in Iran have been accused of manipulating the retail market. Iranian officials have said some traders tried to capitalize on the drought and the reduced availability of imported rice to make a profit. Local media reports said several traders in different cities had been arrested for stockpiling rice. "Traders hid their rice as soon as they heard there was less rain this year and that global prices were rising. There was plenty of rice in the market, but traders used the opportunity," said Ali Asghar Tezval, 66, a dealer in a grain bazaar in southern Tehran. Tezval, a dealer for more than 50 years, buys rice from capital investors in the north and sells it to shop owners in other cities. "For us, high prices make no difference. We buy rice at higher prices from major traders and we sell it to shops at a higher price too," Tezval said. The traders' role angers farmers and their workers in the northern provinces of Gilan, Golestan and Mazandaran, where most of the rice farming takes place. "The price of rice has really gone up, but who benefits from it? Certainly not us, working for more than 12 hours a day," said Banafsheh Yousefi, laboring in a field near the Caspian Sea, her sleeves rolled up and her black plastic boots deep in water. "We had less rain this year, but it is traders who have pushed prices up," the 33-year-old mother of two said. Siavosh Shirinvash, a rice dealer who works near Rasht in the north, says the lack of imported grain pushed up prices by allowing traders to exploit supply fears. "Some investors bought the rice a few months ago," he said. "They store the rice and wait until there are circumstances like now, including the lack of rain and the rise in global prices, to raise the price." Tezval agrees that the government's delay in importing rice contributed to the price increases. "The government did what it could, but it would have helped if they imported the grain sooner," he said. "The government should have the pulse of the market in its hands." Date : Monday, July 7, 2008 Ahmadinejad confers with experts on economic reform plan Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN - President Mahmud Ahmadinejad held talks with over 100 senior Iranian economists on the government's economic reform plan on Saturday evening. Last month Ahmadinejad revealed the long-awaited proposal on economic reform which calls for eliminating energy and bread subsidies, delivering funds directly to low-income families, and reforming the customs, tax, and insurance systems. The president said the process of making fundamental reforms to the economy requires nationwide cooperation and urged the economists to stand in solidarity with the administration in the implementation of the reform plan. The Ahmadinejad administration's economic policy has pushed inflation close to 26 percent by injecting large sums of cash into the economy to fund local infrastructure projects. The economists advised the administration to "spend subsidies in a proper way, slow down the implementation of infrastructure projects, employ highly efficient economic advisors, merge parallel organizations, amend contradictory regulations, tackle financial corruption, and strengthen the private sector" to revitalize the country's ailing economy. The president said economics professors and academics will certainly play a leading role in putting the reform plan into operation. He denied allegations that his economic policy is "unscientific and impractical", saying, "I am committed to the key concepts of economics." "The government is not taking a short-term view on the reform plan" and is seeking to formulate a comprehensive economic reform plan, the president said in response to a suggestion that the administration should implement only a part of the large project. Ahmadinejad, who is expected to seek reelection next year, also asserted that the plan does not serve any political purpose and is only meant to reform the country's ailing economy. Economic talks positive in principle Economics professor Farshad Momeni said on Sunday that the meeting between the president and senior economists was positive in principle. However, "the information which was given to the economists was undeveloped and had just gone a bit beyond the usual generalizations," he told the Mehr News Agency. "The meeting was arranged to inform the economists about the government's reform plan. After the president's address, the economists raised some points in the short time that was given to them," Momeni stated. In response to the economists' warnings that granting cash subsidies would seriously harm the economy, Ahmadinejad vowed not to make hasty decisions on the matter, he added. Although the proposal has serious deficiencies, it also has the potential to prevent a national economic disaster, he noted. Momeni said the economists criticized "the government's imprudent actions under the privatization plan and in the distribution of justice shares." Justice shares are shares in state-run companies that are being privatized that are reserved especially for low-income and underprivileged citizens. The president acknowledged the fact that privatization before the private sector is strengthened can never promote economic competition but he did not give any assurances that he would revise the current wrong strategies, he stated. "The economists also said that the government's economic policy must be based on theoretical principles in order to avoid controversy and contradiction? They also expressed serious concerns over the current non-technical approach to the banking system, which could create serious problems for Iran's economy," Momeni added. Iran: Energy price reforms central to economic plan Posted: 2008/07/07 From: MNN The most important pivot of the economic reforms plan is to amend the price of energy sources in the country, an economic expert told IRNA Saturday. Expressing this, Jamshid Pajouyan added that based on a wrong decision, the price of energy has been kept stable for a decade. During the period, economic experts have always warned about the issue so as to prevent huge losses incurred by country's economy. Fortunately, the ninth government has reached the conclusion that previous strategy is no longer effective and therefore they offered a plan to lift subsidies on energy, which will surely benefit national economy. However, he said, declaring a proper policy does not imply its success; rather the way of implementation is also significant. Pajouyan also maintained that energy saving should also be considered in industries. Referring to the implementation of Article 44 of Constitution, he also said that privatization should not be limited to distributing justice shares; rather management of economic entrepreneurs should be ceded to the private sector. Labor and social security laws should also undergo amendments in tandem with fulfillment of Article 44, he noted. "It's essential to create economic and social conditions for making energy subsidies target-oriented," he said. Identifying low-income strata of the society will help determine welfare needs in the future, he said. --IRNA Iran to launch "international" fuel pricing in 2011 Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:20pm BST TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran, which has some of the cheapest fuel in the world, will begin selling gasoline at "international" prices in 2011, state radio said Friday. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer but lacks enough refining capacity to meet domestic gasoline needs, forcing it to import large quantities which it then sells at heavily subsidised prices, burdening the budget. In order to curb consumption it introduced rationing in June last year, allowing motorists to buy a maximum 100 litres per month at the price of 1,000 rials (around 11 U.S. cents) per litre. The scheme was later amended to increase the subsidised quota to 120 litres per month and also to allow the sale of higher-priced gasoline for motorists who needed more, at four times the subsidised price. The radio report cited Acting Interior Minister Mehdi Hashemi as saying the move to start selling gasoline at international rates in three years' time was based on a parliament decision, without giving details. Energy officials have previously said "international" prices meant selling unsubsidised gasoline, not that the cost would reach the same levels as in the West. "The consumption of gasoline in the country is not as yet moderate and it is hoped it will attain moderation through the implementation of plans that go into effect stage by stage," Hashemi told state radio. The government spends more than $100 billion (500 million pounds) per year on energy subsidies, covering also electricity and natural gas, officials say. But Hashemi also said more public transport was needed to help curb gasoline consumption. (Reporting by Hashem Kalantari; Editing by William Hardy) From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Jul 8 08:19:30 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:19:30 +0900 Subject: [R-G] =?iso-2022-jp?b?W0JpbGxUb3R0ZW5XZWJsb2ddIFdpbGwgdGhlIFdv?= =?iso-2022-jp?b?cmxkIFN1cnZpdmUgGyRCISMhIyEjGyhC?= Message-ID: <48737772.8010402@attglobal.net> ???GM Cultures and the Damage to the Earth's Eco-Systems? by Siv O'Neall axisoflogic.com (June 13 2008) Monsanto and the other major biotech companies - Syngenta, Bunge, Cargill, et al - are all set on owning the world's food supply. Monsanto is by far the leader in this nightmare of destroying organic agriculture and millennia-old biodiversity. They have no respect whatsoever for the lives and the livelihood of farmers or, for that matter, any concern for the people who are exposed to severe health hazards from eating genetically modified foods. Corporate profit is all that counts. The greatest long-lasting danger from GMOs is the destruction of the earth's eco-systems - the degradation of the soil, the depletion of water resources and the proliferation of pests that were until now barely known, since they were kept under control by the natural balance of predatory insects keeping those that are harmful to the crops from having their potentially damaging effect. More later about this natural equilibrium. The bio-tech industries have taken a big and dangerous step towards destroying the earth as it has been known for thousands of years. Organic agriculture, biodiversity and natural pest control have made the earth a place for sustainable farming for millennia. However, at this point of delicate balance for the earth's survival, bio-tech corporations want to put an end to everything that is natural in order to make short-term profit from huge monocultures of the genetically modified products that they are falsely marketing as our saviors from world hunger and poverty. {1} India is one country that has been severely hit by the bio-tech industry with accompanying disasters. What follows after the farmers change over to GMO seeds after millennia of planting and making a livelihood in organic farming is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers (in spite of the companies' promises of lower costs), and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala - among the Indian states that are hit the worst. This has been going on for decades and if it were not for a lot of activism being focused on this problem, there is no chance that anything would change, since the corporations are tied in firmly with the governments in the heavy-handed corporatism that rules the world today. The farmers are lured into buying the GM seeds because of low-interest loans and obscene propaganda about giant harvests, less work and lower costs. Bio-tech PR claims there is no need for pesticides and less need for fertilizers, all of which has proved to be inaccurate. Added to this, these seeds are not adjusted to the eco-systems where they are being planted. They frequently need more water than is available and the results are disastrous. One woman is in the forefront of the fight against the bio-tech industry. Her name is Vandana Shiva and she is based in Delhi. Dr Vandana Shiva, a former particle physicist, has for the past three decades done more than anyone else as an activist to attract the attention of the world to the deadly corporate horror story of genetically modified products. She attacks the problem from all angles, educating and organizing protest demonstrations through her organization Navdanya {2}. Navdanya means "nine seeds", and is a movement promoting diversity - fighting against the privatization of water, campaigning against Basmati biopiracy and generally leading a fight for the rights of rural farmers to a decent livelihood, uncompromised through biopiracy such as is taking place in India and all over the world. Biodiversity, the way farmers have been cultivating the land for millennia is her central argument and monocultures at the giant industrial farms are her principal enemy. She talks about food fascism and the bio-tech industry see her as their most prominent enemy in their vicious attempt of controlling the world's food supply. Vandana Shiva says on her Navdanya website {2}: "When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests of [the] powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory, public interest research organisation. "When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers' rights and promote organic farming. "Navdanya/RFSTE's journey over the past two decades has taken us into creating markets for farmers and promoting tasty, healthy, high quality food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen, biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food." SIU {3} magazine writes about Vandana Shiva: "In fact, listening to her may make you rethink many of the world's established social and political paradigms. "For example, the generally acknowledged argument that the Green Revolution, at the very least, led to an increase in food production is one of them. 'No, it did not increase production. Wheat and rice production increased, not the overall food production', argues Shiva, and launches into a lecture that concludes that whatever increase there was had nothing whatsoever to do with the Green Revolution, and that overall it has been a disaster for agriculture and food security in India." The Mealy Bug, the deadly gift from Monsanto The latest horror news on GMOs is the Mealy Bug that has been said to be "the deadly gift from Monsanto to Vidarbha, set to destroy all crops and plants". Vidarbha is the eastern part of Maharashtra state, in western India. It is India's most developed and urbanized state. In a press note Kishor Tiwari, President of 'Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti' - a farmers advocacy group - writes that the Mealy Bug is a virus that is imported with the Bt Cotton sold by multinational corporation Monsanto. In the coming summer season it will have an effect on a larger area covering almost all crops and next year it will be set to destroy not only cotton crops but all other food crops as well. Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) {4} has urged the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to ban Monsanto Bt. Cotton seeds in the agrarian crisis that has hit West Vidarbha. This is of the most urgent importance in order to save more than three million distressed and debt-trapped Vidarbha cotton farmers. The London based Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) {5} posts the following from Ram Kalaspurkar, organic farmer, Vidarbha Organic Farmers Association, Yavatmal, Maharashtra, India: "I am an organic farmer residing at Yavatmal in the state of Maharashtra. Our organisation, Vidarbha Organic Farmers Association, has been propagating organic farming since 1994. We have been helped a lot by Dr Vandana Shiva. She was the first person to tell us about terminators. Right now, we are working for her organisation Navdanya." ISIS {6} on their web site has published a letter from Ram Kalaspurkar who refers to a study where they have found that 'Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India'. They firmly recommend a return to organic cotton, saying that Bt cotton is a trap that has to be avoided. In the article published by ISIS there are photos of plants infested by mealy bugs. All the infested plots had the Bollgard label, which is supposed to control pests. It is made clear that the mealy bugs have never been found in the region before BT cotton seeds were introduced. (The mealy bug had, however, been found in China two years earlier.) After the death of the cotton plants, the bug goes over to nearby plants and it has already shifted to Congress weed and many other weeds and plants in fields close by. The Monsanto website claims {7}: "Bollgard II technology offers cotton growers efficient, effective pest control with fewer pesticide applications than in conventional cotton crops". This is just one example of what has proved to be the totally false propaganda pumped out from Monsanto. Rhea Gala reports from Andhra Pradesh - from VIDARBHA JAN ANDOLAN SAMITI {8} (the following quoted passages are excerpted from the same VJAS source) "In the fertile regions of Andhra Pradesh 'white gold' monocultures of the high-yielding hybrids of 'Green Revolution' cotton had turned the state into the pesticide capital of the world even before the advent of genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton. Now, however, the revolution is turning full circle as more and more farmers are opting for low input organic methods that are healthier and economically far more rewarding." The message is now: "Return to Organic Cotton and Avoid the Bt Cotton Trap. No more debt, pesticides and suicides for Indian cotton farmers who avoid Bt-cotton and regain livelihood, health, independence and peace of mind with organic methods." Several Non-Governmental Organizations are working in many villages promoting non-pesticide management (NPM). The government has until now supported high-chemical-input cotton production at national and state level and this has sent the wrong messages to farmers. GM cotton is falsely promoted as the answer to reducing pesticide use, and it is one of many reasons why farmers are giving in to the pressure to grow GM cotton. "Farmers initially saw the system of industrial production as timesaving and requiring far less knowledge of soils and pests; however it soon proved to be a relentless treadmill. It degraded the soil, depleted scarce water resources and proliferated cotton pests beyond the farmers' worst nightmares, as both yield and profit progressively diminished". Research backs up the case for NPM and organic cotton. A report entitled "Bt cotton vs Non Pesticidal Management of cotton: Findings of a study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture 2004-05 compares Bt and NPM cotton in Andhra Pradesh". The findings are unequivocally in favor of organic cotton. There are vast numbers of beneficial insects that get killed off from GM Bt cotton. Those insects are predators that attack and kill off most of the harmful insects and pests. "It reports conclusively that Bt cotton is more prone to pests and diseases and that beneficial insects are more prevalent on NPM cotton. It also reports that the cost of pest management of Bt cotton is 690 percent higher than in NPM farming systems and that seed cost of Bt cotton is 355 percent higher than conventional varieties ('Organic cotton beats Bt Cotton in India' SiS 27)". Recreating the natural balance of predators and pests "The skill of managing pests without recourse to synthetic pesticide requires knowledge of life cycle and behaviour, vigilance, an armoury of pest specific deterrents, and a healthy community of natural predators of pests. To control pests such as the spotted bollworm, American bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, aphids, jassids, thrips, white fly and mites, each of which is capable of causing between thirty and fifty percent damage to a crop, natural predators are the most effective year after year." Conclusion Vandana Shiva {9} by no means limits her activism to Bt cotton. She sets as her goal to recreate natural biodiversity in rice and all the other crops that the bio-tech companies are trying to take over with their GM seeds and products. There exist 100,000 varieties of rice evolved by Indian farmers and the diversity and the 'perenniality' have to be kept alive if we want to save our environment. Genetically modified seeds will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals and will thus increase environmental problems as well as human health problems. Vandana Shiva addresses principally the dangers of GM farming in India, but the danger to the environment and to the livelihood of millions of people is obviously world-wide. Biodiversity represents the sustenance and livelihood base of small farmers all over the world and a sane environment is naturally the key to the continuation of healthy lives for the billions of people in the world. Notes & Links: 1. The problem is global, but strong resistance to GMO seeds and foods contaminated by GMOs is taking place in Corporate-friendly governments are trying to follow in the steps of pro-GM policies. The European Commission is ambivalent on the issue, but the people of Europe represented by numerous NGOs are leading the fight against this scourge of industrial GM farming in order to save the world from the dangers to people's health and from the destruction of the earth's eco-systems. See report from ISIS {10} - "Dr Mae-Wan Ho warns that further indulgence in GMOs will severely damage our chances of surviving the food crisis and global warming; organic agriculture and localised food systems are the way forward" 2. http://www.navdanya.org/about/founder-message.htm 3. The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU) is a Norwegian agency that promotes international cooperation in education and research 4. http://vidarbhacrisis.blogspot.com/2008/06/mealy-bug-deadly-gift-from-monsanto-to.html 5. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Deadly_Gift_from_Monsanto.php 6. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OCBBCI.php 7. http://www.monsanto.com.au/layout/cotton/bollgard_ii_cotton/default.asp 8. http://vidarbhacrisis.blogspot.com/2008/06/mealy-bug-deadly-gift-from-monsanto-to.html 9. For more information on Vandana Shiva and her activism, see ' Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture' http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM24/Masculinisation.html 10. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php _____ Siv O'Neall was born and raised in Sweden where she graduated from Lund University. She has lived in Paris, France and New Rochelle, New York and traveled extensively throughout the US, Europe, and other continents, including several trips to India. Siv retired after many years of teaching French in Westchester, New York and English in the Grandes Ecoles (Institutes of Technology) in France. In addition to her own writing, Siv has also provided Axis of Logic with translation services. She has been living in France for thirty years, first in Paris and now Lyon. In addition to her political activism and writing, her life is filled with family, music, animals, reading, traveling and she also feels that 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever'. Siv can be reached via e-mail at siv at axisoflogic.com Copyright (c) 2008 by AxisofLogic.com. This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you! http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_27083.shtml TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Tue Jul 8 09:42:10 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:42:10 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: [killingtrain] insurgency and the absence of the state References: <487339CE.7060805@killingtrain.com> Message-ID: The writ of the state Is Pakistan's insurgency fueled by too little state, too much, or the wrong kind? killingtrain.com Justin Podur ISLAMABAD JULY 8/08 - Another couple of days of bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan, each with its own message and each by a different group. A couple of days ago the Americans hit a wedding party and killed over 20 people in Afghanistan. In Kabul yesterday the Indian embassy was struck by a suicide bomber killing over 40 people. The next day a series of bombings in Karachi - six blasts in an hour, wounding dozens. These bombs were low intensity, and not suicide blasts. After the bombing of the Indian embassy, an Afghan official said something like: "we believe an intelligence agency from the region was involved" - a clear allusion to Pakistan's ISI. A friend speculated that the bombings in Karachi were India's response - a warning in this world where governments send messages to each other by bombing people. The American bombing of Pakistani troops weeks ago is widely thought of as sending a message to the Pakistani army. It raises a question of who the sides are in this war. The Pakistani army has engaged in some bloody fighting against the Taliban on the border in the past, although the current method involves negotiation and conceding control of areas to the Taliban. When the government fights the insurgents, they are seen as doing the bidding of the US. On the other hand, according to Ahmed Rashid's analysis, the government uses and manipulates the insurgents and historically has used them to try to have their way in Afghanistan. This is why the responses to the insurgency are so contradictory. The US mission is expensive and its interests there are unclear - the US supposedly wants to find and destroy al Qaeda, but there are also ways that a constant terrorist threat is useful to governments that try to use fear to control the population. The US also probably wants troops and bases in the region to watch South and Central Asia. In his new book "Descent into Chaos", the incomparable Ahmed Rashid offers an analysis that is at its core a statement to the US: if you really want to get rid of al Qaeda, you have to do something about the Taliban; if you want to stop the Taliban, you have to rebuild Afghanistan and allow Pakistan to democratize (ie., stop supporting the military exclusively). For the US, though, the questions are - there are costs and benefits to al Qaeda's existence as a low-level insurgency capable of doing occasional terror attacks on US civilians, there are benefits to having US troops in the region, but the costs of what it would take to really stop them really worth it? Would paying those costs bring the US increased control over the region or the world? Probably not. The Taliban would wither away if Afghanistan and Pakistan had the type of sovereignty where the direction of government and economy were determined by their people (and if there were sensible global agricultural policies and no drug prohibition - but more on that in a future column), the dream of third world nationalism. Under such conditions the Taliban would have no legitimate claim to be fighting foreign occupation and all they would have to offer was social conservatism and violence. Other political and social forces would emerge they would not be able to compete with. Unfortunately, a dream of a world of sovereign countries is a nightmare for the US. In that sense, I disagree with Rashid: I don't think the US will act in ways that would bring its citizens safety from terrorism, because the rewards of domination of the region, for those in charge, outweigh the risks of terrorism against US citizens. On the other hand, not everything is under US control. The Taliban (and probably part of Pakistan's establishment) figures NATO will get tired of the costs and go, and that they can be waited out. If the US choice is between building a sovereign Afghanistan and allowing a sovereign and democratic Pakistan on the one hand and cutting some kind of deal and leaving on the other, they are more likely to just leave. If it is too much to suggest the US can suddenly act benevolent, what about Pakistan? The Taliban, some argue, have flourished not just because of the NATO occupation of Afghanistan but also because of the absence of the state in the border areas. A story by Anwarullah Khan in yesterday's Dawn reports the Taliban setting up Sharia courts in Bajuar agency, "and a large number of people are using them to get disputes resolved, instead of waiting for action by the tribal administration." The Taliban said this was because people were tired of the current system. That's one response to a vacuum created by the state's absence from an area. Another lynching, as happened in Karachi in May. Four men had robbed a house, were caught by a mob and three of them killed. Police were stopped from helping the victims. Another attempted lynching happened a few days later in Lahore but police were able to save the robbers. Anees Jillani in the June edition of the (excellent) monthly magazine "Newsline" argues that the police are underresourced and untrustworthy, the judges corrupt or afraid. But it might be too simplistic to talk of the "absence of the state". The June edition of "Herald", another fine magazine, had a special feature on "The Great Land Robbery": in which elites, entrepreneurs, the military and bureaucrats took a great deal of land for the Gwadar port in Balochistan (a resource-rich province with poor people) and distributed it for personal enrichment, with callous disregard for local people's rights. There are stories of local fishing and picnic spots being seized to make way for tourist hotels, of people being roughed up for trying to get their rights to their own land recognized, and worse. The cover story concludes: "Though the focus so far has remained on the violent conflict taking place elsewhere in the province, Gwadar too is seething quietly." Here the state isn't absent so much as present in ways that are negative, which generates rebellion as a consequence. That the state then deals with the rebellion by force doesn't help address the deeper problem of the nature of the state and its relationship to the people. Without addressing that though, it is hard to see how the current problems could be solved. A hard-nosed analyst might say "yes, but we live in the world we live in, and neither NATO nor Pakistan's government are perfect but they are the only tools to deal with the Taliban." That would be true if they were tools that were capable of fixing, rather than further breaking, the situation. It might actually be less realistic to expect the US or Pakistan's establishment to solve these problems. Ahmed Rashid argues in his book that the Taliban were not of Afghanistan or Pakistan but a kind of transnational phenomenon. The flip side of that is that they don't have, and I don't think will get, deep roots in Punjab or Sindh or even Balochistan, where there are other class structures and huge concentrations of economic, political, and military power and a 150-or-so-million other people. The maximal scenario, it seems to me, is that when NATO leaves, if NATO leaves irresponsibly as they are likely to, the Taliban could take over Afghanistan and Pakistan's NWFP. That would be a terrible outcome, but I believe the counterinsurgency underway makes that outcome more likely as time goes on. A similar suggestion has been made more than once in the media here in recent days: that Pakistan just withdraw to the borders of NWFP and allow the Americans to occupy the region. It is offered tongue-in-cheek, of course, because that would just precipitate the Taliban takeover and also discredit Pakistan's government massively domestically and internationally - governments don't, and can't, willingly hand over parts of their country for foreign occupation. Where does that leave the writ of the state? The writ of the US should not be over Afghanistan or Pakistan, and it is creating more problems than it is solving. Withdrawal is necessary, and the sooner the better. One can recognize that there are more and less responsible ways to withdraw without supporting an imperial power's claim that it needs to be there to prevent things from getting worse. As for the writ of Pakistan's state and its transformation, that's a project for the people, but one that would also be made easier without destructive US interference. Justin Podur is currently visiting Islamabad. He can be reached at justin at killingtrain.com . From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 8 12:44:58 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 14:44:58 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Florida Unilaterally Restricts Travel to Iran, "State Sponsors of Terror" Message-ID: Florida Unilaterally Restricts Travel to Iran, "State Sponsors of Terror" Farid Zareie and Patrick Disney Jul 07, 2008 Washington, DC -- A law has been passed by the Florida legislature making it significantly more difficult for Iranian Americans to travel to Iran to visit family and friends. On June 23rd the Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, signed into law SB 1310, which imposes heavy restrictions on Florida travel agencies that arrange trips to any state sponsors of terrorism. Among these restrictions, travel agents must pay a $1000 registration fee and secure at least a $100,000 security bond to provide services to anyone seeking to visit countries recognized by the State Department as a supporter of terrorism, including Iran. How does this affect the Iranian American community in Florida, the sixth largest population in the US? This law will make it much more expensive for Iranian Americans and anybody else in Florida to travel to Iran. Higher costs for travel agencies will be passed on to consumers, compounding the effects of record oil prices and making it much more expensive for Americans to travel. In addition, it is likely this strict regulation will discourage agencies from offering services to Iran, making it harder for people to visit relatives in their country of origin. The law, proposed by Sen. Carey Baker. of Lake County, first passed the Committee on Criminal Justice by a six to one vote, then on April 30 the bill passed the full Senate 26-2. The Florida House passed it 109-6 the same day. Sen. Paula Dockery, who was the only vote against this bill in the Criminal Justice Committee, criticized the law, saying "This is a vindictive act against travel agents that hurts people who need assistance." Currently, a group of concerned travel agencies in Florida are suing to obtain an injunction blocking enforcement of the law, which also restricts travel to Cuba. Attorney Ira Kurzban filed a law suit on June 30 on behalf of 16 Cuban-American travel agencies, recommending the law be struck down as an unconstitutional restriction on federally permissible travel. A Florida judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking the law's implementation until August 29th. The American Society for Travel Agents (ASTA) has opposed this law, calling it an unfair restraint on citizens' freedom to travel. According to ASTA, the law violates a total of four provisions of the U.S. Constitution and is in direct conflict with federal law. The Florida law contradicts the expressed interest of the Bush Administration's to increase people-to-people contacts between the US and Iran. Last month, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said "The United States has been, for some time, trying to reach out to the Iranian people in various ways...We want more Iranians visiting the United States." NIAC continues to investigate this issue to identify avenues in which the Iranian-American community's interest can be represented. From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 8 12:51:12 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 14:51:12 -0400 Subject: [R-G] National Call-in Day on Iran Blockade Resolutions Message-ID: National Iranian American Council July 8, 2008 www.niacouncil.org National Call-in Day on Iran Blockade Resolutions Wednesday, July 9 is a national call-in day for H.Con.Res 362, the naval blockade resolution. H.Con.Res.362 has over 220 cosponsors; is yours one? Call your member of Congress and ask him or her not to support this act of war! Congress is considering this bill at this very moment; now is the time to act to oppose this plan for war. Groups from all over the country are joining together for a national call-in day on H.Con.Res. 362. This resolution demands that the president initiate an international effort to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to stop shipments of gasoline, and to subject all cargo entering or leaving Iran to stringent inspection requirements. Call your representative and ask him or her to oppose the blockade resolution! Imposing a blockade without United Nations authorization (which the resolution does not call for) would be considered an act of war. Though a vote on this bill has been successfully delayed so far, some Congressional sources say the House could vote on it as early as next week. They need to hear from you before the vote. Adoption of this resolution would pave the way for war and bypass diplomacy. The immediate effect would be a further increase in oil prices - with gas prices in the US inching closer to $7/gallon and beyond. Tell your member of Congress to oppose H CON RES 362 and join thousands of Americans in the rising chorus of concern over this dangerous legislation. If your Representative is a co-sponsor: ask them to withdraw their sponsorship. If your Representative is not a co-sponsor: thank them for not signing on and ask them to work to stop this dangerous legislation from going forward. Call your representative today! National Iranian American Council 1411 K Street NW, Suite 600 Washington DC, 20005 Support NIAC! Become a Member Today! From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 13:01:53 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:01:53 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Kabul blast deepens tension between uneasy neighbours Message-ID: <200807081901.m68J1rdt006312@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/aaace251/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 13:01:16 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:01:16 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Karachi reeling after series of bomb blasts Message-ID: <200807081901.m68J1GP1004748@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/489793d4/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 13:00:28 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:00:28 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Israel bars UN rights panel from Palestinian areas Message-ID: <200807081900.m68J0SQP003097@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/02bd4021/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 13:10:28 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:10:28 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Robert Newman's History of Oil (video) Message-ID: <200807081910.m68JASXB025376@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/4615dfc1/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 8 13:23:33 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 15:23:33 -0400 Subject: [R-G] U.S. States Continue to Divest from Businesses Tied to Iran Message-ID: U.S. States Continue to Divest from Businesses Tied to Iran Brian Radzinsky | 02 Jul 2008 World Politics Review Exclusive WASHINGTON -- Eleven U.S. states have adopted legislation to divest public pension funds from companies with financial ties to Iran's petroleum, defense, and nuclear sectors in an attempt to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program and alleged sponsorship of terrorism. Almost 20 more states are considering similar legislation to supplement existing federal and international sanctions. This is the first time that state investments have been leveraged for nonproliferation goals. During the 1980s, anti-apartheid activists urged state and local authorities and some universities to divest holdings from companies invested in or doing business with South Africa. During the 1990s, humanitarian activists persuaded Massachusetts to divest from companies "doing business with" Myanmar. More recently, almost 30 states passed legislation to divest from companies with investments in or engaged in trade with Sudan. The Iran case is unique, however, because divestment legislation explicitly references Iran's alleged sponsorship of terrorists and its uranium enrichment program. Since the 2003 discovery of Iran's clandestine uranium enrichment program, the U.N. Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions freezing the finances and limiting the travel of prominent members of the nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Enriched uranium can fuel nuclear reactors and provide the explosive core for a nuclear weapon. The effort by U.S. states to divest from Iran mirrors a larger change in the Bush administration's approach to Iran. For its part, the United States government has maintained various sanctions on Iran since 1979. Recently, however, Washington has moved away from advocating sanctions against individuals and organizations and toward a strategy of financial isolation. The Treasury Department in 2007 barred Iran's Bank Saderat, Bank Sepah, and Bank Melli from the U.S. financial system and cut off their ability to conduct transactions with U.S. banks through a third-party. In March, the U.N. Security Council urged member states to "exercise vigilance" about the activities of these banks. Treasury officials have recently discussed sanctioning Iran's central bank, which is said to have picked up some of the business that used to flow to sanctioned institutions. Legal Challenges State divestment efforts also face legal challenges. The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a business advocacy group, in 2000 successfully sued Massachusetts over legislation to divest from Myanmar. In that case, NFTC vs. Crosby, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Massachusetts' decision hindered the president's ability to conduct foreign policy effectively. The NFTC won another legal battle in a U.S. district court over an Illinois law mandating divestment from Sudan. Lawmakers have taken steps to circumvent subsequent court challenges. Several bills pending at the federal level encourage and authorize state divestments. In both houses of Congress, the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), would publish in the Federal register the names of companies with $20 million or more invested in Iran's energy sector and authorize individual states to adopt divestment legislation. The bill also provides legal safe harbor for fund administrators who might oppose divestment on grounds that doing so would cause their funds to depreciate. To this end, the bill protects mutual fund managers from lawsuits and pension fund managers from charges of fiduciary responsibility. According to Missouri's treasurer, the Missouri post-divestment portfolio suffered minimal disruption, and in some years outperformed the original fund. Divesting from Terror Most divestment legislation adopts the criteria laid out in the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act to identify significant investment in Iran. Formerly the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, it requires the president to sanction those foreign companies with investments of $20 million or more in Iran's energy sector. In that vein, legislation signed in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and Michigan directs state pension administrators to divest from companies that meet this standard, as well as companies with financial ties to Iranian "terrorist organizations" identified by the U.S government. Also anathema are companies that facilitate Iran's acquisition of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons technology or military equipment. Missouri and New Jersey have adopted explicitly "terror-free" investment policies. Terror-free investing, part of a larger initiative endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Center for Security Policy, and a number of other groups, encourages U.S. states to divest from companies "reasonably known to be operating directly with the government or a government-controlled agency in U.S.-sanctioned nations, or that are engaged in the sponsorship of terrorism." Known as the "Divest Terror" movement, proponents argue that investing in such blacklisted countries as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria poses not just a threat to national security, but to the health of the investments themselves. Of these countries, Iran stands the most to lose from widespread divestment from its economy. Iran's GDP is greater than that of Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria combined -- around $600 billion according to most sources. The movement has also gained several prominent adherents, including presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). In a June 2 speech at AIPAC's national convention McCain called for a "worldwide divestment campaign" in order to pressure Iran's "radical elite." The aim of state divestments, both in practice and as a part of a broader strategy to pressure Iran financially, is to cleave at companies with significant ties to Iran's energy sector. Companies potentially affected by divestments include such European giants as Spain's Repsol, France's Alcatel and Total, and Royal Dutch Shell. Some states' pension funds are too small to conceivably have an impact. On the other hand, California's Public Employees' and State Teachers' Retirement Systems invest a combined $400 billion in U.S. and international companies. An estimated $2 billion of those funds are tied up in Iran's oil sector. Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department official in the office of terrorism and financial intelligence and director of the Stein Counterterrorism Center at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, concedes that divestment alone will probably not force Iran to adhere to international demands. "The real issue is not divestment [by itself]," he says, "but the totality of the various [coercive] measures. Together they have a very good chance of forcing Iran to rethink its policies." Brian Radzinsky is a research intern at the Arms Control Association, specializing in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 13:49:53 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:49:53 -0700 Subject: [R-G] West sees glittering prizes ahead in giant oilfields Message-ID: <200807081949.m68Jnrd7012176@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/f5683bb1/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 14:41:51 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:41:51 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Duh Message-ID: <200807082041.m68Kfp62028745@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/a76011b6/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Tue Jul 8 14:53:47 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:53:47 -0700 Subject: [R-G] All Quiet on the Gaza Front Message-ID: <200807082053.m68KrlDq020448@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080708/5cc47ff5/attachment.txt From internacional at pcdob.org.br Tue Jul 8 16:38:52 2008 From: internacional at pcdob.org.br (=?Windows-1252?Q?PCdoB_-_Secretaria_de_Rela=E7=F5es_Internacionais?=) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 19:38:52 -0300 Subject: [R-G] In repudiation of the reestablishment of the US Navy Fourth Fleet Message-ID: <0a5701c8e14b$81917710$0e05a8c0@mh> In repudiation of the reestablishment of the US Navy Fourth Fleet - Resolution approved by the 10th Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) The government of the United States declared that the first operation of the restored US Fourth Fleet will take place in July. Created in 1943 in the occasion of World War II and dissolved in 1950, the now resurrected Fourth Fleet is aimed at ?fighting terrorism?, ?illicit activities? and ?defending the interests of the United States? in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a communiqu? issued by the Pentagon. The Communist Party of Brazil repudiates the restoration of the US Fourth Fleet as another aggressive action towards the independent peoples and countries of South America, Central America and the Caribbean, a severe threat to peace, security, freedom and sovereignty of those peoples and nations. It is a decision marked by the belligerent standards of the American imperialism, based on the neo-fascist concepts of permanent and preventive wars. The reestablishment of the Fourth Fleet stimulates the militarization of the Latin American continent, the arms race and the nuclear threat, since it will be equipped with aircraft carriers loaded with nuclear weapons. That measure is destined to intimidate the progressive governments in the region. Latin America is now in a moment of increasing democracy with governments that resist the neo-liberal and imperialist rule. In a broad sense, the new political circumstances are clearly anti-imperialist. The announcement made by President George W. Bush, now approaching the end of his mandate, is a reaction to the United South American Nations? desire to create a Security Council and take place in a moment when huge oil reserves are being discovered in the Brazilian coastal special economic zone. The Communist Party of Brazil supports the position taken by Brazilian and Venezuelan Presidents Lu?s In?cio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chavez of demanding explanations by the United States? government regarding the creation of the Fourth Fleet. Moreover, in consonance with the deep patriotic feelings of the Brazilian Peoples and our Latin-American and Caribbean brothers, PCdoB calls the democratic and progressive forces, the organizations of international solidarity and peace movements and social movements to start a campaign against the reestablishment of the Fourth Fleet by means of communiqu?s and demonstrations. S?o Paulo, July 5, 2008 The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil Comit? Central ? Secretaria de Rela??es Internacionais Rua Rego Freitas, 192, - Rep?blica - cep: 01220-907 - S?o Paulo ? SP ? Fone: 55 11 3054-1822/1821/1800 Fax: 55 11 3051-7738? Internet: http://www.pcdob.org.br ? Correio Eletr?nico: internacional at pcdob.org.br From fentona at shaw.ca Tue Jul 8 16:44:26 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:44:26 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Chomsky: It's the Oil, stupid! Message-ID: <252B32BB-4C26-45C6-8DDF-E23309F12241@shaw.ca> It's the Oil, stupid! BY NOAM CHOMSKY http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2008/July/opinion_July32.xml 8 July 2008 The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq ? questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of their country. Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP ? the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies ? to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia. "There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E. Kramer wrote in The New York Times. Kramer's reference to "suspicion" is an understatement. Furthermore, it is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to "dine off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal." Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge. The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major energy reserves. That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a result of the invasion. Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a "Declaration of Principles," ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the populations of the two countries. The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge air bases now being built around the country, and the "embassy" in Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These are not being constructed to be abandoned. The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, "especially American investments." That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so that we can control your country and have privileged access to your resources. The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when President Bush issued a "signing statement" declaring that he would reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq." Extensive resort to "signing statements" to expand executive power is yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers." To no avail. Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq, among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves. In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran. U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: "foreign forces" and "foreign arms" should be withdrawn from Iraq ? Iran's, not ours. The confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme heightens the tensions. The Bush administration's "regime change" policy toward Iran comes with ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within Iran ? again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the American people favours diplomacy and oppose the use of force. But public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in this case. An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran. The so-called Iraqi army ? just another militia ? is largely based on the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war. Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He's independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous. Iran "clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as 'illegal armed groups' (of Moktada's Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra," Rosen writes, "which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer." "There is no proxy war in Iraq," Rosen concludes, "because the U.S. and Iran share the same proxy." Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and sustain a government in Iraq that's receptive to their influence. For the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster, very likely with worse to come. In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism." The outcome might be "a strong, centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble" Saddam's regime. If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified. Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore entirely different. In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of regarding the world, if you're achieving your goals, the war and occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory. In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime ? indeed the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg judgment. This is among the topics that can't be discussed, in the presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter? Noam Chomsky's writings on linguistics and politics have just been collected in "The Essential Noam Chomsky," edited by Anthony Arnove, from the New Press. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Tue Jul 8 18:27:59 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:27:59 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths ... Message-ID: <4874060F.5050305@attglobal.net> ... and the Masculinisation of Agriculture A new seed has been genetically engineered so that it will not germinate at harvest. This will ensure that farmers must buy new seed each year. The patriarchal minds behind these innovations would stunt nature so that they themselves profit economically while biodiversity, long-term sustainability and, indeed, small farmers' lives are destroyed. by Dr Vandana Shiva "In There can be no partnership between the terminator logic which destroys nature's renewability and regeneration and the commitment to continuity of life held by woman farmers of the Third World". I am writing this statement from beautiful Doon Valley in the Himalayas where the monsoons have arrived, and our Navdanya (Nine Seeds Our National Movement on Conservation of Biodiversity) team is busy with the transplanting of over 300 rice varieties which we are conserving along with the rich diversity of other agricultural crops. Our farm does not use any chemicals or external inputs. It is a self-regenerative system which preserves biodiversity while meeting human needs and needs of farm animals. Our two bullocks are the alternative to chemical fertilisers which pollute soil and water as well as to tractors and fossil fuels which pollute the atmosphere and destabilise the climate. One of the rice varieties we conserve and grow is basmati, the aromatic rice for which Dehra Dun is famous.The basmati rice which farmers in my valley have been growing for centuries is today being claimed as "an instant invention of a novel rice line" by a US Corporation called RiceTec (Patent number 5663454). The "neem" which our mothers and grandmothers have used for centuries as a pesticide and fungicide has been patented for these uses by W R Grace, another US Corporation. We have challenged Grace's patent with the Greens in the European Parliament in the European Patent Office. This phenomenon of biopiracy through which western corporations are stealing centuries of collective knowledge and innovation carried out by Third World women is now reaching epidemic proportions. Such "biopiracy" is now being justified as a new "partnership" between agribusiness and Third World women. For us, theft cannot be the basis of partnership. Partnership implies equality and mutual respect. This would imply that there is no room for biopiracy and that those who have engaged in such piracy apologise to those they have stolen from and whose intellectual and natural creativity they want to undermine through IPR monopolies. Partnership with Third World women necessitates changes in the WTO/TRIPs agreement which protects the pirates and punishes the original innovators as in the case of the US/India TRIPs dispute. It also requires changes in the US Patent Act which allows rampant piracy of our biodiversity related knowledge. These changes are essential to ensure that our collective knowledge and innovation is protected and women are recognised and respected as knowers and biodiversity experts. Women farmers have been the seed keepers and seed breeders over millenia. The basmati is just one among 100,000 varieties of rice evolved by Indian farmers. Diversity and perenniality is our culture of the seed. In Central India, which is the Vavilov Centre of rice diversity, at the beginning of the agricultural season, farmers gather at the village deity, offer their rice varieties and then share the seeds. This annual festival of "Akti" rejuvenates the duty of saving and sharing seed among farming communities. It establishes partnership among farmers and with the earth. IPRs on seeds are however criminalising this duty to the earth and to each other by making seed saving and seed exchange illegal. The attempt to prevent farmers from saving seed is not just being made through new IPR laws, it is also being made through the new genetic engineering technologies. Delta and Pine Land (now owned by Monsanto) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have established a new partnership through a jointly held patent (No 5723785) to seed which has been genetically engineered to ensure that it does not germinate on harvest thus forcing farmers to buy seed at each planting season. Termination of germination is a means for capital accumulation and market expansion. However, abundance in nature and for farmers shrinks as markets grow for Monsanto. When we sow seed, we pray, "May this seed be exhaustless". Monsanto and the USDA on the other hand are stating, "Let this seed be terminated so that our profits and monopoly is exhaustless". There can be no partnership between the terminator logic which destroys nature's renewability and regeneration and the commitment to continuity of life held by women farmers of the Third World. The two worldviews do not merely clash they are mutually exclusive. There can be no partnership between a logic of death on which Monsanto bases its expanding empire and the logic of life on which women farmers in the Third World base their partnership with the earth to provide food security to their families and communities. There are other dimensions of the mutually exclusive interests and perspectives of women farmers of the Third World and biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto. The most widespread application of genetic engineering in agriculture is herbicide resistance, that is, the breeding of crops to be resistant to herbicides. Monsanto's Round Up Ready Soya and Cotton are examples of this application. When introduced to Third World farming systems, this will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals thus increasing environmental problems. It will also destroy the biodiversity that is the sustenance and livelihood base of rural women. What are weeds for Monsanto are food, are fodder and medicine for Third World Women. In Indian agriculture women use 150 different species of plants for vegetables, fodder and health care. In West Bengal 124 "weed" species collected from rice fields have economic importance for farmers. In the Expana region of Veracruz, Mexico, peasants utilise about 435 wild plant and animal species of which 229 are eaten. The spread of Round Up Ready crops would destroy this diversity and the value it provides to farmers. It would also undermine the soil conservation functions of cover crops and crop mixtures, thus leading to accelerated soil erosion. Contrary to Monsanto myths, Round Up Ready crops are a recipe for soil erosion, not a method for soil conservation. Instead of falsely labelling the patriarchal projects of intellectual property rights on seed and genetic engineering in agriculture which are destroying biodiversity and the small farmers of the Third World as "partnership" with Third World women, it would be more fruitful to redirect agricultural policy towards women centred systems which promote biodiversity based small farm agriculture. A common myth used by Monsanto and the Biotechnology industry is that without genetic engineering, the world cannot be fed. However, while biotechnology is projected as increasing food production four times, small ecological farms have productivity hundreds of times higher than large industrial farms based on conventional farms. "This Phenomenon of biopiracy through which western corporations are stealing centuries of collective knowledge and innovation carried out by Third World women is now reaching epidemic propotions". Women farmers in the Third World are predominantly small farmers. They provide the basis of food security, and they provide food security in partnership with other species. The partnership between women and biodiversity has kept the world fed through history, at present, and will feed the world in the future. It is this partnership that needs to be preserved and promoted to ensure food security. Agriculture based on diversity, decentralisation and improving small farm productivity through ecological methods is a women-centred, nature-friendly agriculture. In this women-centred agriculture, knowledge is shared, other species and plants are kin, not "property", and sustainability is based on renewal of the earth's fertility and renewal and regeneration of biodiversity and species richness on farms to provide internal inputs. In our paradigms, there is no place for monocultures of genetically engineered crops and IPR monopolies on seeds. Monocultures and monopolies symbolise a masculinisation of agriculture. The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names given to herbicides which destroy the economic basis of the survival of the poorest women in the rural areas of the Third World. Monsanto's herbicides are called "Round Up", "Machete", "Lasso". American Home Products which has merged with Monsanto calls its herbicides "Pentagon", "Prowl", "Scepter", "Squadron", "Cadre", "Lightening", "Assert", "Avenge". This is the language of war, not sustainability. Sustainability is based on peace with the earth. The violence intrinsic to methods and metaphors used by the global agribusiness and biotechnology corporations is a violence against nature's biodiversity and women's expertise and productivity. The violence intrinsic to destruction of diversity through monocultures and the destruction of the freedom to save and exchange seeds through IPR monopolies is inconsistent with women's diverse non-violent ways of knowing nature and providing food security. This diversity of knowledge systems and production systems is the way forward for ensuring that Third World women continue to play a central role as knowers, producers and providers of food. Genetic Engineering and IPRs will rob Third World women and their creativity, innovation and decision making power in agriculture. In place of women deciding what is grown in fields and served in kitchens, agriculture based on globalisation, genetic engineering and corporate monopolies on seeds will establish a food system and worldview in which men controlling global corporations control what is grown in our fields and what we eat. Corporate men investing financial capital in theft and biopiracy will present themselves as creators and owners of life. We do not want a partnership in this violent usurpation of the creativity of creation and Third World women by global biotechnology corporations who call themselves the "Life Sciences Industry" even while they push millions of species and millions of small farmers to extinction. _____ Dr Vandana Shiva is one of the world's most dynamic and provocative thinkers on the environment, women's rights and international affairs. A physicist, ecologist and activist, she won the alternative Nobel Prize in 1993. Her recent publication Biopiracy, The Plunder of knowledge and Nature (1997) is published by Green Books. Secretariat of Diverse Women for Diversity Research Foundation for Science, technology and Ecology A-60, Haux khas New Delhi - 110016, India Telephone 91-11-6856795 Email: vshiva at giasdel01.vsnl.net.in vandana at twn.unv.ernet.in http://www.indiaserver.com/betas/vshiva http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM24/Masculinisation.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 8 19:07:00 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 21:07:00 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Israelis Sue Lebanese Banks Claiming They Helped Hezbollah Message-ID: Lebanon's Central Bank governor criticizes New York lawsuit claiming banks helped Hezbollah The Associated Press Tuesday, July 8, 2008 BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon's Central Bank governor on Tuesday criticized a lawsuit filed in New York in which several Israeli victims of Hezbollah rocket attacks blame some Lebanese banks for helping fund the militant group. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Thursday seeks at least $100 million in damages on behalf of 57 victims. It notes that the Lebanese banks maintained relationships with various U.S. banks through which, the lawsuit says, the Lebanese banks were able to provide Hezbollah with "regular, systemic and unfettered access to U.S. currency," enabling it to buy missiles and other weapons. The banks were identified as Fransabank Sal, Banque Libanese Pour Le Commerce, Bank of Beirut Sal, Banque Libano-Francaise Sal and the Middle East Africa Bank. The banks did not immediately reply to the lawsuit in court, and it was not clear who might represent them there. An e-mail sent to Banque Libano-Francaise Sal on Monday was not immediately returned. But Governor Riyad Salemeh said in a terse statement commenting on the lawsuit Tuesday that the Lebanese banking sector "is committed to international standards" and operates within international laws. He did not elaborate. The lawsuit says the plaintiffs were all victims of missile attacks launched by Hezbollah against civilian targets in Israel during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah. More than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed in that war. Israel lost about 160 people in the 34-day conflict, most of them soldiers. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah on the lawsuit. The lawsuit based its conclusions on an analysis of publicly available U.S., Israeli and United Nations reports, news articles, academic journals, public policy center publications and police and medical reports. The lawsuit said the banks violated international law by providing financial services to Hezbollah, including its military fundraising arm, the Islamic Resistance Support Organization. The lawsuit said a fundraising form of the organization asks donors whether they wish to fund specific items such as missiles or small arms. From critical.montages at gmail.com Tue Jul 8 20:55:11 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:55:11 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Nuclear Disarmament Will Usher in Era of Tranquility: Ahmadinejad Message-ID: FWIW: Date : Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Nuclear disarmament will usher in era of tranquility: Ahmadinejad Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN -- In a letter to a Japanese newspaper, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has called for the formation of a committee tasked with disarming those nuclear powers that have an evil record as part of the efforts to establish trust and calm in the world. "It seems that if certain powers obey the law and if an independent committee for disarming those nuclear-armed powers which have a record of evil is formed? we can re-establish tranquility and confidence in the world." In a reference to the U.S. atomic attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Ahmadinejad said those who killed hundreds of thousands of people in Japan and "today have even filled their depots with third and fourth generation nuclear weapons cannot and should not be plaintiffs." In the letter to Yomiuri Shimbun, entitled "Spirituality, Justice and Kindness", which was published on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad stated that the era of the major powers' unilateral domination of the world has come to an end. The letter coincided with the annual G8 summit, which began Monday on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, drawing leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. "They (the G8 leaders) may imagine that they can maintain the orderly establishment and get rid of their own problems without paying attention to others' benefit or dignity," AFP quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in the letter. "But such an attitude has ended in failure again and again and it's as if they were walking faster on the road to an abrupt cliff," Ahmadinejad added. All countries know the end of the single superpower world, dominated by the United States, is drawing near, the Iranian president stated. "If they are worried about (the future) of human beings, they have to accept the change and correct themselves," he added. In the letter, he rejected the calls for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks with the world powers. "We are not going to accept any illegitimate demand," he wrote From fentona at shaw.ca Tue Jul 8 21:57:48 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:57:48 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Domestic spying quietly goes on Message-ID: Domestic spying quietly goes on NSA faces new limits, but surveillance thrives http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.fisa07jul07,0,2783557.story By Bradley Olson | Sun reporter July 7, 2008 With Congress on the verge of outlining new parameters for National Security Agency eavesdropping between suspicious foreigners and Americans, lawmakers are leaving largely untouched a host of government programs that critics say involves far more domestic surveillance than the wiretaps they sought to remedy. These programs - most of them highly classified - are run by an alphabet soup of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. They sift, store and analyze the communications, spending habits and travel patterns of U.S. citizens, searching for suspicious activity. The surveillance includes data-mining programs that allow the NSA and the FBI to sift through large databanks of e-mails, phone calls and other communications, not for selective information, but in search of suspicious patterns. Other information, like routine bank transactions, is kept in databases similarly monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency. Related links * Sun coverage: National Security Agency Sun coverage: National Security Agency * More recent NSA coverage * Today's Sun photos Today's Sun photos Photos "There's virtually no branch of the U.S. government that isn't in some way involved in monitoring or surveillance," said Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian and fellow at the National Security Archives at The George Washington University. "We're operating in a brave new world." Federal rules limit the ways some of the information can be used and shared among government agencies. Pending changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act contain numerous provisions set up to safeguard the privacy of Americans. But there are few similar protections with other types of surveillance. Under the FISA proposal, for example, a CIA transcript or NSA summary of an innocent social conversation between a foreign terrorist and his relative in the United States would not be shared with other intelligence analysts. Even if the conversation was later found to have investigative merit, the U.S. relative's name and other identifying information would either be redacted or revealed only under limited circumstances to select agencies. The Bush administration argues that the privacy and civil liberties protections in place for surveillance not covered by the FISA rules are "unprecedented." In addition to the data-mining, use of financial transaction databases and satellite imagery, the surveillance includes monitoring the travel patterns of airline passengers. Use of satellites by local law enforcement agencies, for instance, is supposed to go through a stringent approval protocol at the Department of Homeland Security's newly formed National Applications Office. But critics say the safeguards don't always work. Some blunders in the use of such protections have become public. NewYorker writer Lawrence Wright wrote in January about one such experience. In 2002, while he was researching The Looming Tower, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaida, two members of an FBI terrorism task force arrived at his home. Why, they asked, had his daughter been speaking with someone in the United Kingdom who was in touch with suspected al-Qaida operatives? It wasn't his daughter, he told them flatly. Wright himself had made the calls. And the person he contacted was a British civil rights lawyer who had asked him not to speak with her clients, some of whom are relatives of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant. "My daughter is no terrorist - she went to high school with the Bush twins," Wright said. "I was taken aback. They were apparently monitoring my phones." Wright said he was particularly surprised because he was aware of protections supposedly in place to conceal his name and other identifying information that would have been gathered during the creation of transcripts of the call. Wright said he doubted the government would have been able to get a warrant for the information, and he said he didn't know how the FBI obtained his daughter's name, let alone got the impression that she was communicating with the British lawyer. Critics say such stories recall 1960s and 1970s-era abuses - the CIA's involvement in political activities, and the FBI monitoring of peace groups and civil rights activists - that prompted Congress to pass far- reaching laws bringing foreign-intelligence gathering and any domestic surveillance under strict controls and judicial oversight. Although the latest FISA proposal includes numerous provisions for a secret court to monitor and authorize surveillance, and for inspectors general to keep tabs on who's being monitored by various agencies, little oversight exists for surveillance programs that fall outside FISA scrutiny. Congress has requested, and in many cases received, briefings on some of the programs. But its dissatisfaction with the amount of information provided by the administration has frequently resulted in holding back funding for programs. The House Appropriations Committee took such a step this week, holding back funding for the National Applications Office's effort to use U.S. satellites for domestic purposes until August, when the Government Accountability Office will release a report about how the program will handle civil liberties and privacy concerns. Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the department had repeatedly met with lawmakers and would comply with any review process. He called efforts to stall the funding "misguided" and a potential threat to public safety and security missions. Even when Congress has received information, lawmakers say their questions or concerns are often addressed within the agency that is responsible for the surveillance, amounting to a practice of self- policing. "You don't have to look far into history to know that when the government, any government, is given secret authorities, that those authorities are ultimately abused," said Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "You don't even have to attribute bad motives to anyone. In an intelligence officer's zeal to protect the country, they often will overstep their bounds." In part to assuage privacy concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has established a privacy czar to ensure that the technologies and programs initiated by the federal agency do not erode privacy laws or violate civil liberties. While many have lauded the creation of such a position, some believe it should be expanded to a Cabinet-level post in the executive branch, a step that some advocates say would send a powerful message in an age when digitized communications have ballooned and made safeguarding private information vastly more complicated. "We should have what Canada has, which is a minister of privacy, someone looking out for the privacy issues of Americans," said James Bamford, an intelligence expert and author on two books about the history of the NSA. "We have armies of people out there trying to pick into everyone's private life, but we have nobody out there who's an advocate." bradley.olson at baltsun.com From listsubs at aarons.f-m.fm Wed Jul 9 06:23:10 2008 From: listsubs at aarons.f-m.fm (Aaron Aarons) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 05:23:10 -0700 Subject: [R-G] James Petras on Fidel Castro and the FARC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080709122319.AA6DD2450D@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Fidel Castro and the FARC: Eight Mistaken Thesis of Fidel Castro by James Petras I have been a supporter of the Cuban Revolution for exactly fifty years and recognize Fidel Castro as one of the great revolutionary leaders of our time. But I have never been an uncritical apologist: On several crucial occasions I have expressed my disagreements in print, in public and in discussions with Cuban leaders, writers and militants. . - 07.07.2008 Introduction Fidel Castro's articles and commentaries on the recent events in Colombia, namely his discussion of the Colombian regime's freeing of several FARC prisoners (including three CIA operatives and Ingrid Betancourt) and his critical comments on the politics, structure, practices, tactics and strategy of the FARC and its world-renowned leader, Manuel Marulanda, merit serious consideration. Castro's remarks demand analysis and refutation, not only because his opinions are widely read and influence millions of militants and admirers in the world, especially in Cuba and Latin America, but because he purports to provide a 'moral' basis for opposition to imperialism today. Equally important Castro's unfortunate diatribe and critique against the FARC, Marulanda and the entire peasant-based guerrilla movement, has been welcomed, published and broadcast by the entire pro-imperialist mass media on five continents. Fidel Castro, with few caveats, has uncritically joined the chorus condemning the FARC and, as I will demonstrate, without reason or logic. Eight Erroneous Theses of Fidel Castro 1. Castro claims that the 'liberation' of the FARC political prisoners "opens a chapter for peace in Colombia, a process which Cuba has been supporting for 20 years as the most appropriate for the unity and liberation of the peoples of our America, utilizing new approaches in the complex and special present day circumstances after the collapse of the USSR?" (Reflections of Fidel Castro, July 4, 2008). What is astonishing about this thesis (and the entire essay) is Castro's total omission of any discussion of the mass terror unleashed by Colombia's President Uribe against trade unionists, political critics, peasant communities and documented by every human rights group in and out of Colombia in both of his recent essays. In fact, Castro exculpates the current Uribe regime, the most murderous regime, and puts the entire blame on 'US Imperialism'. Since the "collapse of the Soviet Union", and under the US-led military offensive, a multitude of armed revolutionary movements have emerged in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and other pre-existing armed groups in Colombia and the Philippines, have continued to engage in struggle. In Latin America, the "new approaches" to revolution were anything but peaceful - massive popular uprisings overthrowing corrupt electoral politicians in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela?costing many hundreds of lives. The "liberation" of Betancourt has strengthened the iron fist of the Uribe regime, increased the militarization of the countryside, and covered up the on-going death squad murders of trade unionists and peasants. Contrary to Fidel Castro, the US and Colombia's death squad president have used their 'success' to buttress their arguments in favor of joint US-Colombian military action. Fidel's celebration of the Colombian regime's action as an "opening for peace" serves to deflect attention from the Colombian Supreme Court decision claiming that the re-election of Uribe was illegal because of the tyrant's bribing Congress people to amend the constitutional provision allowing the president a second term. 2. Fidel Castro denigrates the recently deceased leader of the FARC, Manuel Marulanda, as a "peasant, communist militant, principle leader of the guerrilla" (Reflections). In his text of July 5, 2008 (Reflections II), Castro condescendingly refers to "Marulanda of notable natural intelligence and leadership qualities, on the other hand never had opportunities to study when he was an adolescent. It is said he only finished the fifth grade. He conceived (of the revolution) as a long and prolonged struggle, a point of view which I never shared." Castro was the son of a plantation owner and educated in private Jesuit colleges and trained as a lawyer. He implies that education credentials and higher status prepares the revolutionary leadership to lead the peasants lacking formal education, but with 'natural leadership qualities' apparently sufficient to allow them to follow the intellectuals and professionals better suited to lead the revolution. The test of history however refutes Castro's claims. Marulanda built, over a period of 40 years, a bigger guerrilla army with a wider mass base than any Castro-inspired guerrilla force from the 1960's to 2000. Castro promoted a theory of 'guerrilla focos' between 1963-1980, in which small groups of intellectuals would organize an armed nucleus in the countryside, engage in combat and attract mass peasant support. Every Castro-ite guerrilla foco was quickly defeated - wiped out - in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay (urban focos), Bolivia and Argentina. In contrast, Marulanda's prolonged guerrilla war strategy relied on mass grass roots organizing based on close peasant ties with guerrillas, based on community, family and class solidarity, building slowly and methodically a national political-military people's army. In fact, a serious re-examination of the Cuban revolution reveals that Castro's guerrillas were recruited from the mass of urban mass organizations, methodically organized prior to and during the formation of the guerrilla foco in 1956-1958. Although reliable figures on the FARC are available, Castro underestimated by half the number of FARC guerrillas, relying on the propaganda of Uribe's publicists. 3. Castro condemns the 'cruelty' of the FACR tactics "of capturing and holding prisoners in the jungle." With this logic, Castro should condemn every revolutionary movement in the 20th century beginning with the Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions. Revolutions are cruel but Fidel forgets that counter-revolutions are even crueler. Uribe established local spy networks involving local officials, as was done in Vietnam during that war. And the Vietnamese revolutionaries eliminated the collaborators because they were responsible for the execution of tens of thousands of village militants. Castro fails to comment on the fact that Ms. Betancourt, upon her celebrated 'liberation' embraced and thanked General Mario Montoya. According to a declassified US embassy document, Montoya organized a clandestine terrorist unit ('American Anti-Communist Alliance'), which murdered thousands of Colombian dissidents, almost all of them ferociously tortured beforehand. The 'cruelty' of FACR captivity did not show up in Betancourt's medical exam: She was in good health! 4. Fidel claims "Cuba is for peace in Colombia but not US military intervention". It is the Colombian oligarchy and Uribe regime, which has invited and collaborated with the US military intervention in Colombia. Castro implies that US military intervention is imposed from the outside, rather than seeing it as part of the class struggle within Colombia, in which Colombia's rulers, landowners and narco-traffickers play a major role in financing and training the death squads. In the first 6 months of 2008, 24 trade union leaders have been murdered by the Uribe regime, over 2,562 killed over the past twenty years since what Castro describes as the "new roads of complex and special circumstances." Fidel totally ignores the continuities of death squad murders of unarmed social movement activists, the lack of solidarity from Cuba toward all the Colombian movements since Havana developed diplomatic and commercial ties with the Uribe regime. Is balancing between Cuba's state interest in diplomatic and economic ties with Colombia and claiming revolutionary credentials part of the "complexities" of Cuban foreign policy? 5. Castro calls for the immediate release of all FARC-held prisoners, without the minimum consideration of the 500 guerrillas tortured and dehumanized in Uribe's and Bush's horrendous high security 'special prisons'. Castro boasts that Cuba released its prisoners captured during the anti-Batista struggle and calls for the FARC to follow Cuba's example, rather than the Vietnamese and Chinese revolutionary approach. Castro's attempt to impose and universalize his tactics, based on Cuban experience, on Colombia lacks the minimum effort to understand, let alone analyze, the specificities of Colombia, its military, the political context of the class struggle and the social and political context of humanitarian negotiations in Colombia. 6. Castro claims the FARC should end the guerrilla struggle but not give up their arms because in the past guerrillas who disarmed were slaughtered by the regime. Instead, he suggests they should accept France's offer to abandon their country or accept Chavez' (Uribe's 'brother' and 'friend') proposal to negotiate and secure a commission made up Latin American notables to oversee their integration into Colombian politics. What are 'armed' guerillas going to do when thousands of Uribe's soldiers and death squads ravage the countryside? Flee to the mountains and shoot wild pigs? Going to France means abandoning millions of starving vulnerable peasant supporters and the class struggle. 7. Fidel Castro totally omits from his discussion the manner in which every political leader involved in the 'humanitarian mission' used the celebration of Betancourt's 'liberation' to cover up and distract from their serious political difficulties. First and foremost, Uribe's re-election was ruled illegal by the Colombian Supreme Court because he was accused and convicted of bribing members of Congress to vote for the constitutional amendment allowing his running for a second term. Uribe's presidency is de facto illegal. Betancourt's release and delirious embrace of Uribe undermines the judicial verdict and eliminates the court injunction for a new Congressional vote or national election. Sarkozy's popularity in France was in a vertical free fall, his highly publicized intervention in the negotiations with the FARC were a total failure, his militarist policies in the Middle East and virulent anti-immigrant policies alienated substantial sectors of the French public (as did r ising prices and economic stagnation). The release of Betancourt and her effusive praise and embrace of Sarkozy revived his tarnished image and gave him a temporary respite from the burgeoning political and economic discontent with his domestic and foreign policies. Chavez used the release of Betancourt to embrace his 'enemy', Uribe, and to put further distance from the FARC, in particular, and the popular movements in Colombia, as well as to build bridges with a post-Bush US President. Chavez also returned to the good graces of the entire pro-imperialist mass media and favorable comments from the right-wing US Presidential candidate, John McCain, who "hoped the FARC would follow Chavez demands to disarm." Cuba, or at least Fidel Castro, used the 'liberation' of Betancourt to display his long-term hostility to the FARC (dating at least from 1990) for embarrassing his policy of reconciliation with the Colombian regime. 8. Striking a humanitarian and quasi-electoral posture in celebrating Betancourt's release, Castro lambasted the FARC for its 'cruelty' and armed resistance to the terrorist Uribe regime. Castro attacked the FARC's"authoritarian structure and dogmatic leadership", ignoring FARC's endorsement of electoral politics between 1984-90 (when over 5,000 disarmed activists and political candidates were slaughtered), and the free and open debate over policy alternative in the demilitarized zone (1999-2002) with all sectors of Colombian society. In contrast, Castro never permitted free and open debate and elections, even among communist candidates in any legislative process - at least until he was replaced by Raul Castro. The abovementioned political leaders were serving their own personal political interests by bashing the FARC and celebrating Betancourt at the expense of the people of Colombia. Conclusion Has Castro clearly thought through the disastrous consequences for millions of impoverished Colombians or is he thinking only of Cuba's possible improvement of relations with Colombia once the FARC is liquidated? The effect of Castro's anti-FARC articles has been to provide ammunition for the imperial mass media to discredit the FARC and armed resistance to tyranny and to bolster the image of death squad President Uribe. When the world's premier revolutionary leader denies the revolutionary history and practice of an ongoing popular movement and its brilliant leader who built that movement, he is denying the movements of the future a rich heritage of successful resistance and construction. History will not absolve him. July 2008 The James Petras Website From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Jul 9 02:42:25 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:42:25 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Where We're At Message-ID: <487479F1.4030308@attglobal.net> Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) www.kunstler.com (July 07 2008) Every time I saw a car towing a motorboat this holiday weekend, I wondered what was going through the head of the towee. Did they have a sense that darkness was falling on their careers in motor sports? Did they have an inkling that an oil-and-gas crisis is upon us and just not give a shit? Or were they just going through the motions, following some implacable rote programming induced by, say, forty-odd years of TV addiction and a diet based on corn-syrup byproducts? The holiday to me was a creepy hiatus from an ever more desperate reality overtaking the nation like a miasma. Meanwhile, the mainstream media's ongoing narrative has gotten stuck in the moronic groove of "drill drill drill". The belief of people like Larry Kudlow of CNBC and uber-mega-idiot John Stossel of ABC-News is that we could go back to $1.50 gasoline if only congress would open the offshore exploration areas and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This view is just plain erroneous. Nothing we get out of these regions will come close to offsetting the ongoing depletion of worldwide oil resources, or even arresting our own losses. Larry King had a particularly dreary debate Sunday night between Robert F Kennedy, Jr, and a grab bag of "drill drill drill" advocates. Kennedy took the position that the US could achieve a sort of energy independence by massive deployments of wind and solar equipment. It's an understandable wish, I suppose, but not something I view as consistent with reality. The unfortunate part of the Larry King presentation is that it gives the public an idea that these two fantasies are the only possible responses to our predicament. No one is interested in changing our current behavior. In the background of these energy conundrums is the sickening spectacle of the nation's fatal insolvency, which remains partially disguised by the machinations of the Federal Reserve, using the various new loan "windows" to maintain the illusion that the major banks have not swindled themselves out of existence - and in doing so, caused at least $3 trillion (so far) in capital to vanish in a black hole. This three-card-monte game has gone on for a whole year now, and the consequences are hitting home. No more money can be lent into existence now. One consequence is that other nations sitting on our exported dollars (from our massive trade deficit) have apparently decided to spend off those dollars rather than wait for the fullblown financial collapse of the nation issuing them. My guess is that they are spending those dollars on oil, the primary resource of industrial economies, and that they are prepared to outbid other contestants (including the USA) no matter what - because they know the dollar is losing value, and that those losses are apt to accelerate over time, and what else would they spend them on? I suspect this is behind the rising price of oil more than anything else - certainly more than the phantom "speculators" the right wing is yelling about - and that behind the spending off of those exported dollars are the geological facts of oil being a finite resource inequitably distributed around the world. But to get back to my prior point, things are hitting home anyway, and with force. The US economy is crumbling because the way we conduct the activities of daily life is insane relative to our circumstances. We've spent sixty years ramping up a suburban living arrangement that has suddenly entered a state of failure, and all its accessories and furnishings are failing in concert. The far-flung McHouse tracts are becoming both useless and worthless in the face of gasoline prices that will never be cheap again. The strip malls and office "parks" are following the residential real estate off a cliff. The retail tenants of all those places are hemorrhaging customers who have maxed out every last credit card. The lack of business is now leading to substantial layoffs. The airline industry is dying and will probably cease to exist in its familiar form in 24 months. The trucking industry is dying, threatening the entire just-in-time distribution system of things that even people with little money to spend still need, like food. These conditions will now get a lot worse, no matter whether the banks continue to conceal their problems. All of it leads to an inflection point that coincides with the November election. By then, I expect that quite a few banks will be toast, job layoffs will rise spectacularly, foreclosures and bankruptcies will be raging across the land, and homeowners north of the magnolia belt will be shattered by the cost of staying warm this winter. All this hardship and woe will be blamed on the Republican party. It may actually kill off the party. Political parties do go out of business in American history, and this one deserves to die - with its aggressive no-nothingism, its avaricious, punitive religious extremism (the religious part often being fake), its stunning inattention to financial malfeasance in areas under its direct supervision, and its gross incompetent mismanagement of the nation's strategic interests. That said, I will feel a little sorry for Mr Obama if he gets to the White House. He'll have to find a gentle way to tell the truth to the people who elected him, people who will be suffering mightily, and who will be very sore about their losses. He'll have to tell them that the previous "release" of the American Dream software is obsolete, and the new version will require a whole lot more of them in the way of earnest effort, delayed gratification, and revised expectations. There's a whole lot we can do to greet the new circumstances awaiting us, but the one thing we can't afford to do is put all our efforts into keeping the current system running as is. Reality simply won't permit it. We would squander our dwindling remaining resources trying to keep it all going. The next president is going to have to lead us through the awful process of cutting our losses. So far, the debate has been about how to avoid that. ____________________________________ My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/07/where-were-at.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Wed Jul 9 10:21:15 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:21:15 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: 26 July: The National Security Cup - soccer game References: <051701c8e1d6$93870710$6401a8c0@Yoodle> Message-ID: <1EA04E87-3126-4528-ADD7-0EB28DD5C0EE@shaw.ca> The Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui invites you to an historic soccer game: the National Security Cup, The Indeportables vs the Inquisitors! When: Saturday, 26 July at 5pm Where: mini soccer field in Jeanne Mance Park (east side of Parc Avenue, between Mont Royal and Duluth) - to be confirmed With: * The Indeportables: Adil Charkaoui (as himself), Mohamed Harkat, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, Ivan Apaloaza Sancho and Sogi Bachan Singh. * The Inquisitors: Stockwell Day, Diane Finley, RCMP agent, CSIS agent, Denis Coderre, Stephen Harper, Ren? Daoust. Refereed by: Federal Court Chief Justice Allan Lutfy, assisted by Judge Simon No?l. Come support and applaud The Indeportables, title holders in the struggle against immigration security measures; for freedom, justice and dignity! Come ridicule and boo The Inquisitors, champions of deportation to torture, arbitrary detention, secret trials, racial profiling and two-tiered justice! Also come to heckle and hiss the penalties and arbitrary decisions of the referees! A real soccer game, dressed up as a play against security certificates and the parody of justice represented by secret trials. Refreshments will be available. Bring your friends, family and neighbours! Let's have a good crowd!! ---------------------------------------- Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui www.adilinfo.org justiceforadil at riseup.net tel. : 514-848-7583 From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Jul 9 10:44:29 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:44:29 -0400 Subject: [R-G] The Impact of the Housing Crash on Family Wealth Message-ID: The Impact of the Housing Crash on Family Wealth July 2008, Dean Baker and David Rosnick This paper extrapolates from data from the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finance to project household wealth, by wealth quintile, in 2009 under three alternative scenarios. The first scenario assumes that real house prices fall no further than their level as of March 2008. The second scenario assumes that real house prices fall an additional 10 percent as a 2009 average. The third scenario assumes that real house prices fall an additional 20 percent for a 2009 average. The projections show that the vast majority of families will see a substantial reduction in wealth by 2009 in any of these scenarios and that the cohorts just approaching retirement will have very little to support themselves in retirement other than their Social Security. The projections also show that a large number of families will have little or no equity in their homes in 2009. From critical.montages at gmail.com Wed Jul 9 10:46:31 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:46:31 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Rencontre avec Bachar Al-Assad Message-ID: Rencontre avec Bachar Al-Assad ? L'ABSENCE DE PAIX POUSSE LA R?GION AU CONSERVATISME ET ? L'EXTR?MISME ? http://blog.mondediplo.net/2008-07-09-Rencontre-avec-Bachar-Al-Assad ____________________________________________________ Il nous re?oit sur le pas de la porte, ? l'entr?e d'une maison d'un ?tage situ?e sur les hauteurs de Damas. Aucun protocole, aucune mesure de s?curit? ; nous ne sommes pas fouill?s ni nos appareils d'enregistrement contr?l?s. ? Ici, c'est la maison o? je lis, o? je travaille. Il y a seulement ce salon, une salle de conf?rence et une cuisine. Et, bien s?r, Internet et la t?l?vision. Ma femme Bassma y vient souvent aussi. Ici je suis productif ; au palais pr?sidentiel, ce n'est pas le cas. ? Pendant pr?s de deux heures, il aborde tous les sujets, n'?lude aucune question. Il prend un plaisir ?vident ? la discussion et utilise ses mains pour appuyer ses arguments. A la veille de sa visite en France, le pr?sident Bachar Al-Assad est confiant, d?contract?, volubile. L'isolement impos? ? la Syrie par Washington et l'Union europ?enne depuis environ quatre ans se fracture. L'entente entre le gouvernement et l'opposition libanaise au mois de mai 2008 a clos une page. ? On a mal compris la position de la Syrie, on a d?form? nos points de vue. Mais l'accord sur le Liban a ramen? les gens ? la r?alit?. Il faut accepter que nous soyons une partie de la solution au Liban, mais aussi en Irak et en Palestine. On a besoin de nous pour combattre le terrorisme comme pour atteindre la paix. On ne peut nous isoler, ni r?soudre les probl?mes de la r?gion en manipulant les mots comme le "bien" et le "mal," le "noir" et le "blanc". Il faut n?gocier, m?me si on n'est pas d'accord sur tout... ? Lire la suite de cet article in?dit d'Alain GRESH : http://blog.mondediplo.net/2008-07-09-Rencontre-avec-Bachar-Al-Assad From fentona at shaw.ca Wed Jul 9 11:54:33 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:54:33 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Patriarchy makes men crazy and stupid Message-ID: <579A26F6-8D42-4A04-BC13-884CAEA1CD8F@shaw.ca> Patriarchy makes men crazy and stupid Islamabad, Pakistan Robert Jensen http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23776&Itemid=1 Some lessons learned while spending time in a different culture come from paying attention to the wide diversity in how we humans arrange ourselves socially. Equally crucial lessons come from seeing patterns in how people behave similarly in similar situations, even in very different cultural contexts. This week in Pakistan, as I have been learning more about a very different culture than my own, I was reminded of one of those patterns: Patriarchy makes men crazy. The setting for this lesson is the International Islamic University in Islamabad, where I am teaching a three-week course on media law and ethics as a visiting fellow of the university?s Iqbal International Institute for Research and Dialogue. Institute Director Mumtaz Ahmad brought in me and my Canadian colleague Justin Podur, who is teaching a course on critical thinking, to bring new perspectives to the students at what is a fairly orthodox university, and the dialogue has indeed been rewarding. As is the case in my courses at the University of Texas at Austin, no matter what the specific subject of the course -- freedom of expression, democracy, and mass media, in this case -- I often raise questions about how our identities -- race, gender, class, nation -- structure our position in a society and understanding of the world. Given the gender segregation at IIU -- I have male and female students in my class, but they are housed on different campuses and much of the regular instruction is in single-sex settings -- it?s difficult not to circle back frequently to gender. One day while I was talking about race, I pointed out that while white people in a white-supremacist have distinct advantages, there is one downside: It makes white people crazy. The students? expressions suggested they weren?t sure how to take that, so I explained: White supremacy leads white people to believe they are superior based on their skin color. That idea is ? crazy. Therefore, lots of white people -- those who explicitly support white supremacy or unconsciously accept such a notion -- are crazy. My students are mostly Pakistani, with a few from other Islamic countries in Asia and Africa; all are brown or black. They tried to be polite but couldn?t help laughing at the obvious truth in the statement, as well as the odd fact that a white guy was saying it. I then moved to an obvious comparison: We men know about this problem, I said, because of the same problem in patriarchy. In male-supremacist societies, men have distinct advantages, but we often believe that we are superior based on our sex. That idea is ?. This time the women laughed, but the men were silent. They weren?t so sure they agreed with the analysis in this case. The next week a power outage at the university helped me drive home my point. When we arrived that morning and found our classroom dark, we looked for a space with natural light that could accommodate the entire class. The most easily accessible place was the carpeted prayer area off the building lobby, and one of the female faculty members helping me with the class led us there. I sat down with the women, and one of the most inquisitive students raised a critical question about one of my assertions from our previous class. We launched into a lively discussion for several minutes, until we were informed that the male students had a problem with the class meeting there. I looked around and, sure enough, the men had yet to join us. They were standing off to the side, refusing to come into the prayer space, which they thought should not be used for a classroom with men and women. Our host Junaid Ahmad, who puts his considerable organizing skills to good use in the United States and Pakistan, was starting to sort out the issue when the power came back on, and we all headed back to our regular classroom. I put my scheduled lecture on hold to allow for discussion about what had just happened. Could a prayer space be used for other purposes, such as a class? If so, given such that space is used exclusively by men here, is it appropriate to use it for a coeducational classroom? It?s hardly surprising that students held a variety of opinions about how to resolve those questions consistent with their interpretation of Islamic principles, and a gendered pattern emerged immediately. The women overwhelmingly asserted that there was nothing wrong with us all being in the prayer space, and the men overwhelmingly rejected that conclusion. I made it clear that as an outsider I wasn?t going to weigh in on the theological question, but that I wanted to use our experience to examine how a society could create a system of freedom of expression to explore such issues democratically. The lesson for me came in how the discussion went forward. The women were not shy in expressing themselves, eager to engage in debate with the men, who were considerably more reserved. After a contentious half hour of discussion, we moved forward to my lecture. During the break, the men huddled to discuss the question of the prayer space. When we reconvened, one of them asked if a representative of the men could speak again on issue. He began by saying that he had hesitated to speak in the previous discussion because he felt it was obvious that the women were wrong and he had not wanted to hurt their feelings or impede their willingness to speak up by pointing out their error immediately. I suggested we resolve that question first. I turned to the women and asked, ?Will your feelings be hurt or will you be you afraid to speak if he is critical of your arguments?? Their response was a resounding no. I turned back to the man and made the obvious point: We now have clear evidence that that your assumption was wrong. The women are telling you directly that they are not shy about debating, and so you can make your points. When he did -- and when the women disagreed -- they let him know without hesitation. From what I could tell, his argument did not persuade many, if any, of the women that their judgments had been wrong. What struck me about the exchange was how ill-prepared the men were to defend their position in the face of a challenge from the women. It was clear that the men were not used to facing such challenges, and as they scrambled to formulate rebuttals they did little more than restate claims with which they were comfortable and familiar. That strategy (or lack of a strategy) is hardly unique to Pakistani men. To modify my previous statement about the negative effects of privilege on the privileged: Patriarchy makes us men not just crazy but stupid. The more our intellectual activity takes place in male- dominant spaces, and the more intensely male-dominant those spaces are, the less likely we are to develop our ability to think critically about gender and power. Sometimes when faced with an incisive challenge, men become aggressive, even violent; sometimes men retreat with an illusory sense of victory; sometimes men sulk until women give up the debate. Individual men will react differently in different times and places; it?s the patterns that are important. Cultural diversity exists alongside universal patterns. The United States and Pakistan are very different societies, but they are both patriarchal. Patriarchy takes different forms in each society, and the harms to women can be quite different, but my observation holds in both. It doesn?t mean patriarchy doesn?t sometimes also constrain women?s thinking, nor does it mean women are always right in debates with men. To identify patterns is not to make ridiculous totalizing claims. There?s one more valuable lesson I took away from this episode: I have to be vigilant in challenging my stereotypes about women in Islamic societies. I can be quick to assume that Islamic women always capitulate to the patriarchal ideas and norms that dominate their societies. While I can?t know what each woman in the room was thinking, there was a consensus that they would not accept the conclusion of the men without challenge. In front of me were women with their heads covered (the hijab) and some with the full face veil (the niqab). Others had scarves draped around their shoulders, their heads uncovered. One of the two most forceful women in the debate wore the hijab and the other was uncovered; I couldn?t predict the content or tone of a woman?s response from her dress. No matter how much I know that intellectually, I still catch myself making assumptions about these women based on their choice of head covering. The class discussion reminds me to remember to challenge my own assumptions. These conclusions are hardly original or revolutionary, but they bear regular restatement: It is crucial that we remember the reality of cultural diversity and encourage respect of that diversity, while not shying away from critical engagement. That?s especially important for those of us from privileged classes in affluent imperial nations, who often are quick to assume we are superior. It?s just as crucial to look for patterns across cultures, to help us understand how systems of power shape us in ways that are remarkably consistent and to help us develop better strategies to resist illegitimate authority and transform our diverse societies. That is important for us all who care about justice. Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org . His latest book is Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). http://www.southendpress.or/2007/items/87767&Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at: rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu From shniad at sfu.ca Wed Jul 9 13:08:20 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:08:20 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Can Qatar do it again? Message-ID: <200807091908.m69J8K8p001033@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080709/c15f2b85/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Wed Jul 9 13:07:50 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:07:50 -0700 Subject: [R-G] How the most powerful nation disabled itself Message-ID: <200807091907.m69J7obh000103@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080709/39360f2e/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Wed Jul 9 13:07:08 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:07:08 -0700 Subject: [R-G] U.S. analyst: Mullen made clear Israel has no 'green light' to attack Iran Message-ID: <200807091907.m69J78tq028868@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080709/6965ad5c/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Wed Jul 9 13:10:09 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:10:09 -0700 Subject: [R-G] AT&T Whistleblower: Spy Bill Creates 'Infrastructure for a Police State' Message-ID: <200807091910.m69JA9gT005084@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080709/78a0b4b5/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Wed Jul 9 13:30:43 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:30:43 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Iraq Wants Timetable For U.S. Withdrawal Message-ID: <200807091930.m69JUhOc018389@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080709/dbccfcc6/attachment.txt From shimogamo at attglobal.net Wed Jul 9 18:23:19 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:23:19 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Peak Oil Crisis: Assessing $200 Oil Message-ID: <48755677.2000708@attglobal.net> by Tom Whipple Falls Church News-Press (July 03 2008) Three months ago anyone talking about $200 oil was considered a fear monger, or worse, but things happen fast these days. In the intervening period, oil prices have risen by nearly $40 a barrel and show no signs of stopping. All of a sudden it has become fashionable to start talking about much higher prices and to start thinking about the implications of multi-hundred dollar oil. Among the many debates going on over oil is one holding that crude will never get much beyond $200 a barrel because at such an extreme price, demand for oil products will drop so much that prices will fall back to more affordable levels. Countering this argument are those who point out that nearly half the world's population can buy oil products subsidized by their governments or national oil companies, will never be subjected to the high world prices and will go merrily along increasing their consumption for a while longer. While demand for oil products in the US, Europe and other OECD countries is starting to slip, this drop in consumption is more than being made up in the subsidized societies of Russia, the Middle East, India and China. If oil prices move from $140 to $200 the impact is going to be felt more harshly than during the climb from $20 to $140 that has taken place in the last few years. To the surprise of many, oil consumption in the US did not begin to drop noticeably until the price moved beyond $100 a barrel and even then it is only in the last few months as gasoline approached $4 a gallon that a significant drop in consumption was noted. As oil approaches $200 a barrel, the impact will be distributed unevenly, depending on one's circumstances, job, lifestyle, geographical location and a host of other factors. It may be easy to say that consumers will simply cut back on discretionary spending, but in the US's "service economy", a large share of the jobs currently depend on discretionary spending. As a larger share of disposable income goes for the essentials of life - food, shelter, clothing, medical services and of course transportation to places of employment - discretionary spending on vacations, recreation, entertainment, eating out and "stuff" is bound to fall sharply. It is easy to conclude that the mix of essential/discretionary spending will shift, but to quantify just how bad things will get is far more difficult. The situation of course is muddled by the current financial crisis that shows every sign of becoming much worse with each passing day. Last week the Los Angeles Times ran a story entitled "Envisioning a World of $200-a-Barrel Oil" {1} which was sort of a tour d'horizone of all the bad things that are going to happen when oil reaches $200 a barrel. The story was replete with quotes such as "You'd have massive changes going on throughout the economy", and "Some activities are just plain going to be shut down". Other quotes were apocalyptic "The American people would be kicked in the teeth so darned hard by $200-a-barrel oil that they won't have the ability to buy much of anything". The authors recognize that nearly every aspect of our current lifestyles will be affected from simply having a job to getting to work. Naturally, costs of nearly everything made from oil will increase and even shipping stuff from China will increase its costs by fifteen percent. Major declines in the stock market will create havoc with pensions and personal wealth. There will, however, be a few upsides to $200 oil such as less traffic and more opportunity for local manufacturing and agriculture. It is well enough to point out that a myriad of problems will come with $200 oil, but so far few have attempted to quantify just what might happen in the next few years. One recent effort to assess $200 oil was undertaken by Canada's CIBC bank. Starting with the well publicized decline in auto sales, the bank concludes that US light vehicle (cars, trucks, SUV, and vans) sales will be down to eleven million by 2012 from seventeen million a few years ago. The share of SUVs and light trucks is expected to be less that half that of their banner years. Increased scrapping of light vehicles combined with lower sales leads the bank to conclude that there will be roughly ten million fewer registered vehicles on US roads by 2012. While this may sound like an impressive number, Americans are currently driving around 230 million light vehicles so ten million less is not too significant. The more important question is how much the remaining vehicles are going to be used. Here the bank foresees a fifteen percent drop in the average miles driven by 2012. Presumably an increasing share of these miles will be driven in newer, more efficient vehicles so that that the drop in US gasoline consumption would be greater than fifteen percent. The CIBC study, which deals primarily with transportation, certainly anticipates a relatively benign world in which we scrap our old cars, don't buy SUVs and those households earning less than $25,000 a year and have access to public transportation, take the bus. The people interviewed by the Los Angeles Times seem to have a much darker view of the immediate future. There are simply too many unknowns out there to form a conclusion as to just how bad it may get. The Bank's $200 oil in 2010 could easily prove to be optimistic for some are talking about $200 before the year is out even without a major supply disruption. Then we have the hurricane season. And many are convinced that the Bush administration will not leave office with an Iranian nuclear program still in place. While some sort of quantitative evaluation of our future would be nice, $200 oil easily could be here before anyone can crunch the numbers. Link {1} "Envisioning a World of $200-a-Barrel Oil" by Martin Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times (June 28 2008) http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil28-2008jun28,0,5485259.story http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3249:the-peak-oil-crisis-assesing-200-oil&catid=17:national-commentary&Itemid=79 TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Jul 10 03:26:57 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:26:57 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Envisioning a World of $200-a-Barrel Oil Message-ID: <4875D5E1.1050504@attglobal.net> by Martin Zimmerman Los Angeles Times (June 28 2008) The more expensive oil gets, the more Katherine Carver's life shrinks. She's given up RV trips. She stays home most weekends. She's scrapped her twice-a-month volunteer stint at a Malibu wildlife refuge - the trek from her home in Palmdale just got too expensive. How much higher would fuel prices have to go before she quit her job? Already, the 170-mile round-trip commute to her job with Los Angeles County Child Support Services in Commerce is costing her close to $1,000 a month - a fifth of her salary. It's got the 55-year-old thinking about retirement. "It's definitely pushing me to that point", Carver said. The point could be closer than anyone thinks. Three months ago, when oil was around $108 a barrel, a few Wall Street analysts began predicting that it could rise to $200. Many observers scoffed at the forecasts as sensational, or motivated by a desire among energy companies and investors to drive prices higher. But with oil closing above $140 a barrel Friday, more experts are taking those predictions seriously - and shuddering at the inflation-fueled chaos that $200-a-barrel crude could bring. They foresee fundamental shifts in the way we work, where we live and how we spend our free time. "You'd have massive changes going on throughout the economy", said Robert Wescott, president of Keybridge Research, a Washington economic analysis firm. "Some activities are just plain going to be shut down". Besides the obvious effect $7-a-gallon gasoline would have on commuters, automakers, airlines, truckers and shipping firms, $200 oil would drive up the price of a broad spectrum of products: Insecticides and hand lotions, cosmetics and food preservatives, shaving cream and rubber cement, plastic bottles and crayons - all have ingredients derived from oil. The pain would probably be particularly intense in Southern California, which is known for its long commutes and high cost of living. "Throughout our history, we have grown on the assumption that energy costs would be low", said Michael Woo, a former Los Angeles city councilman and a current member of the city Planning Commission. "Now that those assumptions are shifting, it changes assumptions about housing, cars and how cities grow". Push prices up fast enough, he said, and "it would be the urban-planning equivalent of an earthquake". Consumers With every penny hike in the price of gas costing American consumers about $1 billion a year, sharply higher pump prices would lead to "significant bankruptcies and store closings", said Scott Hoyt, director of consumer economics at Moody's Economy.com. Consumer spending has held up surprisingly well in the face of skyrocketing pump prices - bolstered in part, perhaps, by federal tax rebates. But the same day the government reported a 0.8% rise in May consumer spending, a research firm said consumer confidence had plunged to its lowest level since 1980 - hinting at the catastrophic effect another big gas price surge could have on retailers and customers. "The purchasing power of the American people would be kicked in the teeth so darned hard by $200-a-barrel oil that they won't have the ability to buy much of anything", said S David Freeman, president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners and author of the 2007 book Winning Our Energy Independence. BIGresearch of Worthington, Ohio, said more than half of Californians in a recent survey said they were driving less because of high gas prices. Almost 42% said they had reduced vacation travel and forty percent said they were dining out less. If any retailers would benefit, it would be those on the Internet. In a recent survey by Harris Interactive, one-third of adults said high gas prices had made them more likely to shop online to avoid driving. Restaurant operators such as Brinker International, which owns the Chili's and Romano's Macaroni Grill chains, are suffering and are likely to struggle even more as consumers look for ways to reduce spending. Fast-food chains wouldn't be immune, experts say, although they might fare better as families downscale their dining choices. Vehicle sales, too, would probably continue to tank. Sales of new cars, sport utility vehicles and light trucks fell more than eighteen percent in California in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. Although some consumers have been shopping for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, many dealers are demanding premiums for gas-sipping hybrids, wiping out much of the financial advantage of buying one. Nationwide, $200 oil and $7 gasoline would force Americans to take ten million vehicles off the roads over the next four years, Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, wrote in a recent report. As for the state's beleaguered housing market, prices are falling faster in areas requiring long commutes - such as Lancaster and Palmdale - than in neighborhoods closer to job centers. Sky-high gas prices "would basically reorient society to where proximity would be more valuable", said Tom Gilligan, finance professor at USC. Americans may also feel the effects of a rise in energy-related crime. Ads for locking gas caps are becoming more prevalent. Restaurant owners are complaining that thieves are helping themselves to used barrels of cooking oil, which can be home-brewed into biodiesel fuel. Transportation Workers stuck with long commutes and gas-guzzling cars would look increasingly to public transit, experts say. Already Californians' mobility is being curbed. Traffic on the state's freeways fell almost four percent in April compared with a year earlier, and ridership on many subway and bus lines operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has risen in recent months. But a huge influx of riders would strain aspects of the system, MTA says, noting that many buses are overcrowded at rush hour now. Quickly adding capacity to meet demand from new riders wouldn't be easy, because new buses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take up to two years to deliver. Transit advocate Kymberleigh Richards said new riders on popular routes such as Wilshire Boulevard, Vermont Avenue or Sherman Way in the San Fernando Valley "are going to have a bit of a culture shock. It's a different world to be using public transit when you're used to being in your own vehicle by yourself." Just how many drivers would become public-transit riders if oil surges to $200 a barrel is hard to predict, but there's a big pool of potential customers. About 87% of Southern Californians commute by car, according to 2005 data from transportation expert Alan Pisarski. That compares with 63% in New York and its environs. Travelers can also expect much fuller airplanes and much more expensive flights - when they're available at all. Delta Air Lines Inc, for example, recently said it was cutting about thirteen percent of its flights from Los Angeles International Airport to save fuel. It also could mean shifting flights from outlying airports such as Ontario to LAX to cut overhead costs, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. Carriers probably would also trim flights in highly competitive air corridors such as Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area. Even the cost of getting away from it all on Santa Catalina Island would go up. Greg Bombard, president of the Catalina Express ferry service, has trimmed schedules, raised fares and reduced hiring to make up for fuel costs that have risen sevenfold since 2002. Another big increase and he says he'll have to ask state regulators, who control his rates, to OK another fare hike. Trade The fee increases on the ferry would be nothing compared with the added cost of transoceanic shipping if oil goes to $200. Some experts say high energy costs are altering global trade and slowing the pace of globalization. It takes about 7,000 tons of bunker-fuel to fill the tanks of a 5,000-container cargo ship for a trip from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Over the last year and half, the cost of that fuel has jumped 87% to $552 a ton, according to the World Shipping Council, boosting the cost of a fill-up to more than $3.8 million. "To put things in perspective, today's extra shipping cost from East Asia is the equivalent of imposing a nine percent tariff on East Asian goods entering North America", said Rubin of CIBC World Markets. "At $200 per barrel, the tariff equivalent rate will rise to fifteen percent". If oil continues to rise from current levels, officials at the Port of Los Angeles believe West Coast ports would gain business because they are ten to twelve days' sailing time from Asia, versus the eighteen- to twenty- day route from Asia to the East Coast through the Panama Canal. But local ports could lose business if shipping costs get so out of hand that companies begin shifting production back to North America from Asia - something that's happening in the steel industry, Rubin said. Local distribution patterns could change too. Stephen Gaddis, chief executive of Pacific Cheese Company, a Hayward, California, cheese processing and packaging firm, thinks high fuel prices will push restaurants, retailers and food manufacturers to look for suppliers closer to their operations. "Local sourcing is ideal. You won't pay as much for freight, and when you use less fuel it's better for the environment", Gaddis said. Soaring diesel prices will make companies rethink whether they should have large, centralized plants or build smaller ones around the country. That's what Pacific Cheese is doing. It's building a packaging plant in Texas to be closer to one of its larger suppliers and expects to serve its Southwestern clients from there. In the near future, however, consumers can expect to pay for the higher cost of producing food and moving it around the country, say food executives, farmers and economists. Even having a deep-dish pizza with extra cheese brought to your door costs more now that chains such as Pizza Hut are charging for delivery. The workplace Dramatically higher transportation costs would usher in an era of virtual mobility, or zero mobility, for many workers. "We're seeing companies go to four-day workweeks, place increased emphasis on working at home, show bigger interest in setting up satellite offices - anything that gets commute times down and gets people off the road", said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in San Jose. Videoconferencing, touted as "the next big thing" for years, would finally have its day, thanks to improved technology and a desperation to cut corporate travel budgets. Telecommuting, or working from home, is easier than ever because of the spread of high-speed Internet access, said Jonathan Spira, chief analyst at Basex Inc, a business research firm in New York. In particular, workers in "knowledge" jobs that can be performed with computers and phones would benefit. But Gilligan of USC noted that lower-income workers tend to be in jobs that don't favor telecommuting, such as retail and food service. "These are the same people who are already being creamed by the mortgage crisis", he said. "The impacts of energy price increases are highly disparate". Although white-collar workers may be able to telecommute, they could also take a serious financial hit because soaring energy prices tend to wreak havoc on the stock market. The explosion of 401(k) plans and similar retirement accounts in the last few decades - and the decline of traditional pensions with guaranteed payouts - have tied workers' financial futures more closely to stocks than they were during the 1970s oil shocks. A prolonged Wall Street downturn could mean a no-frills retirement, or none at all. Upsides It wouldn't all be bad, of course. Some industries could boom, providing jobs and tax dollars. California has seen a jump in drilling activity as oil companies try to extract more crude from the state's fields. Regulators expect a record 4,000 wells to be drilled in the state this year. "Every rig and every crew that's available is working right now", said Hal Bopp, the state's oil and gas supervisor. And as rising oil prices make alternative-fuel vehicles more cost-effective, California companies such as Tesla Motors Inc, which recently began production of a $100,000 all-electric sports car, could become important leaders in an emerging industry. Tourist attractions may also see an upswing in local business as families look for less-expensive vacation alternatives close to home. A recent survey by travel insurer Access America found that 26% of Americans would cut back on recreational travel as a first response to higher gas prices. In Southern California, with its many natural wonders, theme parks and other attractions, the prospect of a "staycation" may be less disappointing than for a resident of, say, Nebraska. And movies, a staple of the local economy, may prosper as Americans seek escapism and a (relatively) cheap night out. And spending less time stuck in traffic on the 405? Priceless. "More carpooling, fewer people on the freeways, more telecommuting - in many ways, what would happen is what people have been trying to make happen for a long time", USC's Gilligan said. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil28-2008jun28,0,5485259.story TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 11:01:16 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:01:16 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Total Steps Back from Investing in Iran Message-ID: Total steps back from investing in Iran By Carola Hoyos in London and Daniel Dombey in Washington Published: July 9 2008 23:34 | Last updated: July 9 2008 23:34 Iran has lost the last major western energy group that had been considering making a significant investment to develop the country's huge gas reserves in a victory for Washington's efforts to isolate Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. Total, the French energy group, told the FT it was now too risky to invest in Iran, making it highly unlikely that the group will invest in a liquefied natural gas project linked to Iran's South Pars gas field in the near future. The comments from Christophe de Margerie, chief executive, follow weeks of increasing tensions between Iran and Israel. On Wednesday, Tehran test-fired nine missiles and warned that it would provide massive retaliation to any military strike. The US has also stepped up its push to impose tougher sanctions on Tehran in the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. Mr de Margerie said: "Today we would be taking too much political risk to invest in Iran because people will say: 'Total will do anything for money'." Together with Malaysia's Petronas, Total was due to develop phase 11 of the South Pars field and had until Wednesday maintained it had not decided to drop its interest in the project. After May's announcement that Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol YPF of Spain would pull out of Phase 13, Total was left exposed. Total's move is a big blow for Iran, which is now unlikely to be able to significantly raise its gas exports until late in the next decade at the soonest. Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at Global Insight, called Total's decision "a death blow" for Iran's LNG ambitions, because the country would now be unable to gain the knowhow it needed for such complex projects, even if it teamed up with Russia or China. None of the western oil companies including Total is willing definitively to close the door on Iran's massive hydrocarbon reserves. Shell and Repsol said they could still join later stages of the development of the field. In a further sign of the increased scrutiny over investments in Iran's energy sector, William Burns, the US state department's top official on Iran, told a US congressional committee on Wednesday that Washington would conduct a "serious review" to see whether the Norwegian group StatoilHydro had violated US law by carrying out a large investment in Iran. Washington had been particularly worried about Total, and US officials concede measures affecting the transfer of western investment and knowhow to Iran's energy sector have a much greater impact than do financial sanctions. But Mr de Margerie voiced his anger at the policy, saying: "You take two major countries [Iran and Iraq] out of the system and then you say: 'There is not enough oil and gas.' Oh no, surprise, surprise." Wednesday's test firing left the oil market unfazed, with oil prices failing to make up recent losses and trading at $136.20 a barrel. From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 11:07:50 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:07:50 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Gazprom Offers to Buy All Libya's Gas Message-ID: Gazprom offers to buy all Libya's gas By Ed Crooks and Catherine Belton Published: July 9 2008 22:54 | Last updated: July 9 2008 22:54 Gazprom, Russia's state-?controlled gas company, said on Wednesday it was in talks to buy all of Libya's oil and gas exports, in its latest effort to strengthen its influence over world energy markets. Alexei Miller, Gazprom's chief executive, made the offer in talks with Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, in Tripoli. In a statement after the meeting, Gazprom said: "Libya positively evaluated Gazprom's proposition to buy all future volumes of gas, oil and [liquefied natural gas] designed for export at a market price." The offer fits Gazprom's strategy of seeking to secure sources of supply outside its Russian base and, in particular, to tie up future gas imports into western Europe. It will raise concerns in the European Union that Gazprom is seeking to increase its dominance of Europe's gas market, already set to grow as production in countries such as the UK and the Netherlands falls. Libya is a member of Opec, the oil cartel, and produces 1.7m barrels of oil per day. However, it has been attracting more interest recently for its potential as a gas exporter to the EU. It held its first gas-only licensing round last year, in which Gazprom was one of the successful bidders. BP and ExxonMobil have also signed deals to look for gas in the country. Mr Miller has been dismissive of the idea of a possible "gas Opec", a cartel of gas producers that would co-operate to support prices. But Gazprom's interest in securing Libya's future gas exports will fuel fears that it is attempting to create just such a cartel. Gazprom, which has a monopoly on Russia's gas exports, has also recently opened an office in Algeria, one of the three leading gas suppliers to the EU, along with Russia and Norway. Alexander Medvedev, its deputy chief executive,said last month: "Co-operation between our companies in Russia and Algeria is a priority." Gazprom has also been in talks with Nigeria about becoming involved in the planned gas pipeline from that country to Algeria, and future projects for LNG exports. However, these initiatives are generally embryonic. A Gazprom official said the company was seeking to "strengthen its position on world markets", adding: "We need to diversify our markets and sources." He said the offer to Libya was a "non-binding proposal" and that talks could go on for some time. Gazprom said the two sides had also discussed creating a joint venture for the exploration and development of oil and gas fields, and for building energy infrastructure in Libya, as well as gas pipelines to the EU. In one of his last foreign trips as president, Vladimir Putin in April became the first Russian leader since 1985 to visit Libya. Huge reserves Libya had total proven oil reserves of 41.5bn barrels in 2007 ? the largest in Africa. About 80 per cent is located in the Sirte basin but analysts believe only about 25 per cent of the country's reserves are covered by exploration agreements with oil companies. Most of the country's oil exports, which in 2006 stood at 1.5m barrels a day, are sold to European countries including Italy, Germany, Spain and France. Libya's proven natural gas reserves at the beginning of 2007 were estimated at 52,700bn cubic feet, the fourth largest in Africa. Since United Nations and US sanctions were lifted in 2003 and 2004, oil groups have stepped up exploration efforts for oil and natural gas and tried enhanced oil recovery techniques to increase production at maturing fields. From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 10 12:00:24 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:00:24 -0700 Subject: [R-G] State Department's Iran Democracy Fund Shrouded in Secrecy Message-ID: http://www.pubrecord.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=191 State Department's Iran Democracy Fund Shrouded in Secrecy By Jason Leopold The Public Record Thursday, July 10, 2008 Favoured : 3 Published in : Nation/World Since 2006, Congress has poured tens of millions of dollars into a State Department program aimed at promoting regime change in Iran. The ?Democracy Program? initiative has been shrouded in secrecy since its inception and many critics of the initiative (who are also outspoken critics of the Iranian government) believe that it is directly linked to a spate of arrests of dozens of Iranian dissidents suspected of working secretly with the Bush administration to topple the Iranian government. Up until last November, the program was operated by the State Department?s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and overseen by David Denehy, the bureau?s senior adviser. The program was reportedly moved last November to the State Department's Bureau of Iranian Affairs. Denehy did not return calls for comment. One of the influential figures who helped launch the democracy program was Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, who as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, headed the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group and, with the financial help of a prominent Republican foundation, the International Republican Institute, financed efforts of dozens of Iranian and Syrian exiles to promote a campaign to overthrow their government leaders. Elizabeth Cheney left the State Department last year to work on Fred Thompson's presidential campaign. An aggressive effort by the State Department to fund regime change in Iran is ongoing, but the State Department has refused to provide lawmakers with specific details of the program other than to say that the core mission of the initiative is to assist ?those inside Iran who desire basic civil liberties such as freedom of expression, greater rights for women, more open political process, and broader freedom of the press.? Congress has appropriated more than $120 million to fund the project. The State Department has spent most of the money on the U.S.-backed Radio Farda, Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe, and to broadcast Persian programs into Iran via VOA satellite television. Some funds, according to State Department sources familiar with the how the program is run, have also been secretly funneled to exile Iranian organizations, and politically connected individuals in order to help the U.S. establish contacts with Iranian opposition groups. In June of 2007, the State Department said it would spend $16 million on democracy promotion projects that extends beyond broadcasting. However, to date the State Department has not released details on how it intends to obligate or expend those funds. A State Department spokesman declined to comment for this story. Carah Ong, an Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in an interview that because the State Department operates the program under a veil of secrecy ?we don?t know where the money is going.? ?There is no reporting requirement to Congress,? Ong said. ?There?s absolutely no accountability at all with this money.? Next Wednesday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations will consider the fiscal year 2009 budget that calls for setting aside $65 million http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100014.pdf for additional regime change and democracy promotion efforts inside Iran. The State Department has said it intends to spend $1.2 million of those funds to launch Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Azerbaijani in an effort to address the lack of objective and comprehensive news and information for Azerbaijanis, the largest ethnic minority group in Iran. The $65 million requested by the State Department ?is more than three times the amount appropriated for FY 2008, which is estimated to be $21.623 million,? Ong said of the $65 million in democracy promotion funds for Iran. ?This tripling in Economic Support Funds is the result of several developments. First, some restructuring recently occurred in the State Department and its Iran desk. ?Second, the FY 2008 Foreign Operations bill appropriated $60 million (under Section 693) for so-called "Programs to Promote Democracy, Rule of Law and Governance in Iran." It has been unclear since Section 693 was originally added as an amendment introduced by Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) to the House Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for exactly which programs this funding was meant. Was it meant to increase funding for the Economic Support Fund or the Human Rights and Democracy Fund? Or was it meant to serve as an overall guideline for total spending on so-called "democracy promotion" programs? This is still a question that needs to be answered.? The State Department has refused to provide specific details on the nuances of the democracy promotion project. The agency told lawmakers that the classified nature of the democracy promotion project serves to protect the identity of Iranian individuals and organizations that have received funding to promote a U.S. policy of regime change in Iran from being harassed or threatened by the Iranian government. Yet that is exactly what has happened to some Iranian dissidents?even those who have publicly denounced the program. A letter sent to lawmakers last October by Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, and more than a dozen other Middle East scholars all of whom are critics of the Iranian government, stated that the ?secret State Department ?democracy promotion? funding has enabled Iranian authorities to label those supporting reforms or engagement with the West as foreign agents and traitors. Recent detentions of Iranian-American scholars, journalists, union leaders, student activists, and others are widely viewed as responses to threats posed by U.S.-funded efforts.? ?We believe this program, intended to aid the cause of democracy in Iran, has failed and has instead invigorated a campaign by conservative regime elements to harass and intimidate those seeking reform and greater openness in Iran,? the Oct. 11, 2007 letter says. ?The intended beneficiaries of the funding, - human rights advocates, civil society activists and others - uniformly denounce the program,? ?Rather than promoting democracy, the U.S. funding has narrowed the space for the pro-democracy movement to operate,? Parsi said. ?Today, the conditions for civil society have significantly deteriorated. Executions are at an all-time high. Many human rights workers have been imprisoned.? Ong said most of the State Department funds have been doled out to organizations outside of Iran, such as Freedom House and Eurasia Foundation because ?no one in Iran will take the money.? But just the possibility that some Iranians may be linked to American led efforts to overthrow the Iranian government, or have accepted money from the Bush administration, has led to numerous arrests last year. Emaddeddin Baghi, a human rights activist based in Tehran who was sent back to prison in September said ?it is neither wise nor morally justifiable for the U.S. to continue its path? of promoting regime change by trying to give money to dissidents. Last year, Haleh Esfandiari, was arrested and sent to a prison in Tehran on charges of spying for the U.S. He was incarcerated for eight months, four of which were spent in solitary confinement. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton told CNN last year that Esfandiari was likely captured because Iranians believed she was linked to the State Department?s campaign to promote regime change in Iran. Hamilton said Esfandiari did not receive any funds but he said the secrecy surrounding the State Department?s democracy program was causing more harm than good. ?If the policy of the United States government is to overthrow the government, then the Democracy Fund obviously would be viewed with a great deal of suspicion and hostility by the target government," Hamilton said in May 2007, shortly after Esfandiari?s arrest. In an October column published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Esfandiari, the director of Woodrow Wilson Center?s Middle East program said ?the fact that the identity of Iranian recipients of U.S. aid is regarded as classified information by the U.S. government feeds the regime's paranoia and casts suspicion on all Iranian? non- government organizations. Last September, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn.), introduced an amendment to the Senate Foreign Operations Bill, adopted by unanimous consent, that restored the democracy promotion funds to the $75 million requested by the State Department. An earlier version of the bill reduced the funding by less than half. "This amendment would provide $75 million in funds, the amount requested by the administration; in fact, announced by Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice,? Lieberman said in a floor statement last September. ?That announcement, I know from sources I have, was broadly heard and appreciated within the Iranian civil society dissident movement. The committee has recommended one-third of that amount of money. This $75 million would go to labor activists, women's groups, journalists, human rights advocates, and other members of Iranian civil society. It provides Congress an opportunity to demonstrate that even as we condemn the behavior of the Iranian regime, we stand with the Iranian people, a people with a proud history who truly are, in my opinion, yearning to be free. That freedom is suppressed by the fanatical regime that dominates their lives today.? But Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2003, explained that ?no truly nationalist and democratic group will accept? State Department funds to promote a policy of regime change because ?Iranian reformists believe that democracy can't be imported. It must be indigenous.? ?They believe that the best Washington can do for democracy in Iran is to leave them alone,? Ebadi wrote in a May 30, 2007 column published in The International Herald Tribune. Ebadi?s column was published as Congress approved emergency supplemental legislation to fund the Iraq war, which contained a $75 million earmark for the State Department?s Iran Democracy project. ?The secret dimension of the distribution of the $75 million has also created immense problems for Iranian reformists, democratic groups and human rights activists. Aware of their own deep unpopularity, the hard- liners in Iran are terrified by the prospects of a "velvet revolution" and have become obsessed with preventing contacts between Iranian scholars, artists, journalists and political activists and their American counterparts,? Ebadi added. ?Thus, Washington's policy of "helping" the cause of democracy in Iran has backfired. It has made it more difficult for the more moderate factions within Iran's power hierarchy to argue for an accommodation with the West.? The final appropriation for 2008 was set at $60 million to be made available for "programs to promote democracy, the rule of law and governance in Iran." But a statement that was included with the bill cited only two numbers related to Iran: $21.8 million for Economic Support Funds (ESF) and $8 million for the Democracy Fund. It is unknown how the State Department intends to spend the remainder of the $60 million. Ong and Parsi have called on the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation to examine the effectiveness of the program, which the GAO said it has initiated but could not say when the report would be complete. Additionally, Ong said she has been trying to educate lawmakers for more than a year on how the program has backfired. ?It?s difficult to bring the voices of Iranian dissidents to the Hill to explain how the program is hurting their cause because if they speak out publicly they will be arrested when they return to Iran and accused of being spies,? Ong said in an interview. ?I?ve tried to raise this issue with some members [of Congress] and some listen and some don?t.? From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 13:00:42 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:00:42 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Is the tide turning against the War Party? Message-ID: <200807101900.m6AJ0g9F009488@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/d13b3022/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 13:01:33 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:01:33 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Why the U.S. Won't Attack Iran Message-ID: <200807101901.m6AJ1XAl011375@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/dc399260/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 12:59:24 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:59:24 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Where the Pentagon stands on Iran Message-ID: <200807101859.m6AIxOqT006859@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/ea113a96/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 13:02:32 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:02:32 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Chastizing NATO's reluctant leaders Message-ID: <200807101902.m6AJ2WnZ014175@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/367607a3/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 13:02:58 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:02:58 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Doonesbury on the progress that has been made in Iraq Message-ID: <200807101902.m6AJ2wKi015045@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/05ed4849/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Thu Jul 10 13:03:22 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:03:22 -0700 Subject: [R-G] US Iraq war hero dies of apparent drugs overdose Message-ID: <200807101903.m6AJ3MrR015796@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080710/0fbe0489/attachment.txt From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 10 14:48:37 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:48:37 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Victory for the Raytheon 9 Message-ID: <84E4D6AA-03BB-4F90-866A-5BAE920714A2@shaw.ca> Victory for the Raytheon 9 David Morrison, 8 July 2008 http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/5100/8/ ImageOn 11 June 2008, 6 people, who had occupied the offices of Raytheon in Derry and destroyed computers, were acquitted of criminal damage by a Belfast jury. Raytheon is a huge US arms manufacturer, with sales of $20 billion in 2006 and over 70,000 employees worldwide. It makes Patriot, Tomahawk, Cruise and Sidewinder missiles, and much more besides. The action which gave rise to the criminal charges took place on 9 August 2006 during Israel?s war on Lebanon, in which well over 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli bombing and shelling. On 30 July 2006, an Israeli aircraft targeted a residential building in Qana in southern Lebanon with a Raytheon-supplied ?bunker buster? bomb. As a result, 28 civilians, from two extended families, the Hashems and the Shaloubs, were killed. The dead included 14 children. This event led to 9 members of the Derry Anti War Coalition occupying Raytheon?s offices in Derry ten days later. They remained there until forcibly removed by police in riot gear about 8 hours later. Substantial damage was done to Raytheon property: ?Documents found on the premises were thrown from the windows to supporters outside. After our supporters were moved away by the police, computers, already damaged, were hurled out. Our main target was the mainframe: we knew that putting this out of action would disrupt Raytheon?s ordering system and thus hamper production, including production of missiles. The mainframe was decommissioned with a fire-extinguisher.? This account is taken from The Raytheon 9: Resisting war crimes is not a crime, an excellent pamphlet about the affair by Eamonn McCann, who took part in the occupation. The action eventually led to 6 of the participants appearing before a judge and jury in Belfast in May 2008, charged with criminal damage and affray. On 4 June 2008, after the prosecution had put its case, the judge expressed the opinion that there was no case to answer on either charge. However, the prosecution appealed to a higher court and won with respect to the criminal damage charge, which then had to be put the jury. A few days later, the jury found all the accused not guilty on the criminal damage charge. The charge of affray was dismissed by the judge without it being put to the jury. The trial went largely unreported in the local Northern Ireland media, and in the Dublin and London media. The same is true of the verdict, even though it has sensational implications. The defence argued that the accused had undertaken their action in order to prevent war crimes being perpetrated in Lebanon by Israel using Raytheon-supplied weapons. In the words of Eamonn McCann in a statement afterwards, by finding the accused not guilty: ?The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.? [1] In other words, in the opinion of the jury, having heard the evidence, it was reasonable of the defendants to believe that Raytheon was engaged in criminal activity by supplying Israel with armaments and that they were justified in perpetrating criminal damage on Raytheon property in order to hamper this criminal activity. In his statement, Eamonn McCann called ?on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.? Gagging order The Raytheon trial would normally have taken place in Derry, where the offences alleged were committed. However, on 14 September 2007, the prosecution requested a change of venue, on the grounds that protests outside the court might intimidate jurors, and coverage in the local media might prejudice them. At this time, the presiding judge, the Derry recorder, Corinne Philpott, banned publicity about the case, but in such general terms that journalists present didn?t know what they were allowed to report and what was banned. There was no reporting of the application for a change of venue. On 10 December 2007, Judge Philpott imposed a blanket ban on reporting in Northern Ireland of any matter relating to the trial, including anything at all relating to Raytheon. The objective seems to have been to prevent publicity in Northern Ireland about Raytheon?s arms business, which might make a jury incline to the view that damaging its computers was a good idea. There was no attempt by mainstream media organisations in Northern Ireland or elsewhere to have this extraordinary gagging order lifted or modified, despite the fact that their work was being hampered by the ban. For example, the Village magazine reported on 29 February 2008: ?Suzanne Breen (formerly of Village, now writing for the Sunday Tribune) has been referred to the Attorney General for possible contempt in an article published on 18 November in the Sunday Tribune. She had mentioned possible witnesses from the USA and Lebanon, and that, if convicted, defendants could face lengthy jail sentences. ?Also RTE has ordered Belfast independent production company Below the Radar to delete sections on Raytheon from a film about Ireland and the arms trade transmitted on 14 January. The effect of the ban is that all discussion of Raytheon?s presence in Derry has been shut down.? [2] However, a legal challenge to the order was launched by Shane O?Curry of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign. As a result, the Belfast recorder, Judge Burgess, modified the order in late February 2008 to limit the ban to the usual one on pre-trial reporting of material directly relevant to the trial. It could then be reported for the first time that the Derry recorder had acceded to the prosecution?s request to move the trial from Derry to Belfast. Notes [1] www.ukwatch.net/article/raytheon9_acquitted [2] www.village.ie/Ireland/Northern_Ireland/Media_gag_over_Derry_arms_factory_occupation/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 15:13:45 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:13:45 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Call to Action July 19-21: No War With Iran Message-ID: FYI: Call to Action July 19-21: No War With Iran July 7th, 2008 Responding to the renewed threats of a U.S./Israeli attack on Iran before President Bush leaves office, United for Peace and Justice calls for coordinated Days of Action across the United States on July 19-21. Now is the time to speak out against any U.S./Israeli military attack on Iran. U.S. officials say Israel is mounting a "full court press" to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex, CBS News reports. In The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that congressional leaders agreed last year to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. New York Newsday and the Seattle-Post Intelligencer warn that Congress is considering a resolution promoted by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that would effectively endorse a naval blockade of Iran, an act of war. Voices in the U.S. calling for real diplomacy and negotiations with Iran are being silenced. Few people in this country know Iran has an offer on the table for comprehensive negotiations with the United States that could resolve the nuclear stand-off and other issues. Nor do they know that talks with Iran without preconditions are supported by independent experts like Thomas Pickering, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN during the first Bush administration. To counter the renewed threats of military action, we are calling for National Days of Coordinated Action against war with Iran on July 19-21, including: * call-ins and letter-writing to Washington and local congressional offices; * lobbying in Washington and at local congressional offices; * demonstrations at congressional offices, federal buildings, Israeli consulates or other sites chosen by local organizers (check our calendar in the coming days for details about events near you). Click here to list your organization's national or local event as part of these National Days of Action (please be sure to choose "No War on Iran" as your event type). Averting a War with Iran: Research and Resources UFPJ: The Time to Stop a War on Iran Is NOW! o Various actions people/groups can take to prevent a war with Iran http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?list=type&type=98 NIAC: o Update: Is a New Congressional Resolution Declaring War with Iran? http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1141&Itemid=2 o Gallup poll confirms majority of Americans favor diplomacy with Iran http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1133&Itemid=2 CASMII: o Iranians Float an Offer the West Should Not Refuse: Will Anti-War Forces Seize this Opportunity? http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/5456 o U.S. Mayors Mobilizing Against a War with Iran http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/5449 PSR: o Medical Consequences of a Nuclear Attack on Iran-Fact Sheet http://psr.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=security_main_iranfactsheet o War Is Not the Answer with Iran http://psr.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=NoWarOnIran Iran Nuclear Watch o Links, blogs, and informative articles http://irannuclearwatch.blogspot.com/ The Center for Arms Control and Nuclear Non-Proliferation o Background on Iran-US nuclear relationship o Iran's nuclear timeline o Their policy statement on Iran's nuclear issue o Center for a New American Security, "Diplomatic Strategies for Dealing with Iran: Where Are We? How Did We Get to This Point? And What Should We Do Now?" released March 2008 http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/iran/ Peace Action o National campaign to prevent a war with Iran http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/campaigns/current.htm?petition_KEY=358 o Fact Sheet on Iran http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/campaigns/Iran_Fact_New.pdf o History of US interactions with Iran http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/campaigns/current.htm?petition_KEY=358 o Media http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/media/media.htm Iran Coverage o Tehran's reaction to Military Threats http://irancoverage.com/2008/06/29/tehran-reaction-to-military-threats/ Scott Ritter o Iraq Will Have to Wait: Get Ready for the War Against Iran http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=RIT20070930&articleId=6937 William Polk o Moves toward War with Iran: How to Prevent War ... Part 4 http://hnn.us/articles/31522.html From shimogamo at attglobal.net Thu Jul 10 21:00:39 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:39 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Surviving the Fourth of July Message-ID: <4876CCD7.2010503@attglobal.net> by Chris Hedges www.truthdig.com (July 07 2008) I survive the degradation that has become America - a land that exalts itself as a bastion of freedom and liberty while it tortures human beings, stripped of their rights, in offshore penal colonies, a land that wages wars defined under international law as criminal wars of aggression, a land that turns its back on its poor, its weak, its mentally ill, in a relentless drive to embrace totalitarian capitalism - because I read books. I have 5,000 of them. They line every wall of my house. And I do not own a television. I survive the gradual, and I now fear inevitable, disintegration of our democracy because great literature and poetry, great philosophy and theology, the great works of history, remind me that there were other ages of collapse and despotism. They remind me that through it all men and women of conscience endured and communicated, at least with each other, and that it is possible to refuse to participate in the process of self-annihilation, even if this means we are pushed to the margins of society. They remind me, as the poet W H Auden wrote, that "ironic points of light flash out wherever the Just exchange their messages". And if you tire, as all who can think critically must, of the empty cant and hypocrisy of John McCain and Barack Obama, of the simplistic and intellectually deadening epistemology of television and the consumer age, you can retreat to your library. Books were my salvation during the wars and conflicts I covered for two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. They are my salvation now. The fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our existence are laid bare when we sink to the lowest depths. And it is those depths that Homer, Euripides, William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust, Vasily Grossman, George Orwell, Albert Camus and Flannery O'Connor understood. "The practice of art isn't to make a living", Kurt Vonnegut said. "It's to make your soul grow". The historian Will Durant calculated that there have been only 29 years in all of human history during which a war was not under way somewhere. Rather than being aberrations, war and tyranny expose a side of human nature that is masked by the often unacknowledged constraints that glue society together. Our cultivated conventions and little lies of civility lull us into a refined and idealistic view of ourselves. But look at our last two decades - two million dead in the war in Afghanistan, 1.5 million dead in the fighting in Sudan, some 800,000 butchered in the ninety-day slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by soldiers and militias directed by the Hutu government in Rwanda, a half-million dead in Angola, a quarter of a million dead in Bosnia, 200,000 dead in Guatemala, 150,000 dead in Liberia, a quarter of a million dead in Burundi, 75,000 dead in Algeria, at least 600,000 dead in Iraq and untold tens of thousands lost in the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the fighting in Colombia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, southeastern Turkey, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Kosovo. Civil war, brutality, ideological intolerance, conspiracy and murderous repression are the daily fare for all but the privileged few in the industrialized world. "The gallows", the gravediggers in "Hamlet" aptly remind us, "is built stronger than the church". I have little connection, however, with academics. Most professors of literature, who read the same books I read, who study the same authors, are to literature what forensic medicine is to the human body. These academics seem to spend more time sucking the life out of books than absorbing the profound truths the authors struggle to communicate. Perhaps it is because academics, sheltered in their gardens of privilege, often have hyper-developed intellects and the emotional maturity of twelve-year-olds. Perhaps it is because they fear the awful revelations in front of them, truths that, deeply understood, would demand they fight back. It is easier to eviscerate the form, the style and the structure with textual analysis and ignore the passionate call for our common humanity. "As long as reading is for us the instigator whose magic keys have opened the door to those dwelling-places deep within us that we would not have known how to enter, its role in our lives is salutary", Proust wrote. "It becomes dangerous, on the other hand, when, instead of awakening us to the personal life of the mind, reading tends to take its place ..." Although Shakespeare's Jack Falstaff is a coward, a liar and a cheat, although he embodies all the scourges of human frailty Henry V rejects, I delight more in Falstaff's address to himself in the Boar's Head Tavern, where he at least admits to serving to his own hedonism, than I do in Henry's heroic call to arms before Agincourt. Falstaff personifies a lust for life and the mockery of heaven and hell, of the crown and all other instruments of authority. He disdains history, honor and glory. Falstaff is a much more accurate picture of the common soldier who wants to save his own hide and finds little in the rhetoric of officers who urge him into danger. Prince Hal is a hero and defeats Percy while Falstaff pretends to be a corpse. But Falstaff embodies the basic desires we all have. He is baser than most. He lacks the essential comradeship necessary among soldiers, but he clings to life in a way a soldier under fire can sympathize with. It is to the ale houses and the taverns, not the court, that these soldiers return when the war is done. Jack Falstaff's selfish lust for pleasure hurts few, while Henry's selfish lust for power leaves corpses strewn across muddy battlefields. And while we have been saturated with the rhetoric of Henry V this past July 4 holiday we would be better off listening to the truth spoken by Falstaff. There is a moment in "Henry IV, Part I", when Falstaff leads his motley band of followers to the place where the army has assembled. Lined up behind him are cripples and beggars, all in rags, because those with influence and money, like George W Bush, evade military service. Prince Hal looks askance at the pathetic collection before him, but Falstaff says, "Tut, tut, good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men." I have seen the pits in the torpid heat in El Salvador, the arid valleys in northern Iraq and the forested slopes in Bosnia. Falstaff is right. Despite the promises never to forget the sacrifices of the dead, of those crippled and maimed by war, the loss and suffering eventually become superfluous. The pain is relegated to the pages of dusty books, the corridors of poorly funded VA hospitals, and sustained by grieving families who still visit the headstone of a man or woman who died too young. This will be the fate of our dead and wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the fate of all those who go to war. We honor them only in the abstract. The causes that drove the nation to war, and for which they gave their lives, are soon forgotten, replaced by new ones that are equally absurd. Stratis Myrivilis in his novel Life in the Tomb (2004) makes this point: "A few years from now, I told him", Myrvilis wrote nearly a century ago, "perhaps others would be killing each other for anti-nationalist ideals. Then they would laugh at our own killings just as we had laughed at those of the Byzantines. These others would indulge in mutual slaughter with the same enthusiasm, though their ideals were new. Warfare under the entirely fresh banners would be just as disgraceful as always. They might even rip out each other's guts then with religious zeal, claiming that they were ?fighting to end all fighting'. But they too would be followed by still others who would laugh at them with the same gusto." Patriotic duty and the disease of nationalism lure us to deny our common humanity. Yet to pursue, in the broadest sense, what is human, what is moral, in the midst of conflict or under the heel of the totalitarian state is often a form of self-destruction. And while Shakespeare, Proust and Conrad meditate on success, they honor the nobility of failure, knowing that there is more to how a life is lived than what it achieves. Lear and Richard II gain knowledge only as they are pushed down the ladder, as they are stripped of power and the illusions which power makes possible. Late one night, unable to sleep during the war in El Salvador, I picked up "Macbeth". It was not a calculated decision. I had come that day from a village where about a dozen people had been murdered by the death squads, their thumbs tied behind their backs with wire and their throats slit. I had read the play before as a student. Now it took on a new, electric force. A thirst for power at the cost of human life was no longer an abstraction. It had become part of my own experience. I came upon Lady Macduff's speech, made when the murderers, sent by Macbeth, arrive to kill her and her small children. "Whither should I fly?" she asks. I have done no harm. But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable, to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly. Those words seized me like Furies and cried out for the dead I had seen lined up that day in a dusty market square, and the dead I would see later: the 3,000 children killed in Sarajevo, the dead in unmarked mass graves in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, El Salvador, the dead who are my own, who carried notebooks, cameras and a vanquished idealism into war and never returned. Of course resistance is usually folly, of course power exercised with ruthlessness will win, of course force easily snuffs out gentleness, compassion and decency. In the end, all we can cling to is each other. Thucydides, knowing that Athens was doomed in the war with Sparta, consoled himself with the belief that his city's artistic and intellectual achievements would in the coming centuries overshadow raw Spartan militarism. Beauty and knowledge could, ultimately, triumph over power. But we may not live to see such a triumph. And on this weekend of collective exaltation I did not attend fireworks or hang a flag outside my house. I did not participate in rituals designed to hide from ourselves who we have become. I read the "Eclogues" by Virgil. These poems were written during Rome's brutal civil war. They consoled me in their wisdom and despair. Virgil understood that the words of a poet were no match for war. He understood that the chant of the crowd urges nearly all to collective madness, and yet he wrote with the hope that there were some among his readers who might continue, even when faced with defeat, to sing his hymns of compassion. ... sed carmina tantum nostra valent, Lycida, tela inter Martia, quantum Chaonias dicunt aquila veniente columbas. ... but songs of ours Avail among the War-God's weapons, Lycidas, As much as Chaonian doves, they say, when the eagle comes. _____ A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. Copyright (c) 2008 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080707_surviving_the_fourth_of_july/ TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Thu Jul 10 21:41:22 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:41:22 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fidel: Pax romana References: <9E0D9E35-FB0F-428D-AED1-79FC901B358A@vf.shawcable.net> Message-ID: <85164252-0256-474C-B69F-12CB113DBBA4@shaw.ca> http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/pax-romana/ As usual, Fidel is right on the money with his observations about recent and not so recent events in Colombia. First of all, as he points out, the Colombians and the United Statesians (not to mention their Mossad friends) can?t get their stories straight. But of course, Defense Minister Santos contradicted himself in his very own press conference where he explained that the United States was contacted before the hostage liberation show, ?because President Uribe promised President Bush that he would inform him whenever Americans were involved.? (It can be assumed that he was not using ?American? in the correct sense of the word, but as a good subordinate should, meaning that U.S. Americans are the only Americans who matter.) Also, Santos mentioned the AWACS plane flying overhead during the operation - well, it would have to be an AWACS plane, wouldn?t it? U-2?s are so passe. Machetera has slightly revised a couple of awkward word constructions by Fidel?s translator (revising is a piece of cake compared to translating) and highlighted two other points of interest. * * * Pax Romana - Fidel Castro Ruz I basically drew these data from statements made by William Brownfield, US ambassador to Colombia, from that country?s press and television, from the international press, and other sources. The show of technology and economic resources at play is impressive. While in Colombia, the senior military officers went to great pains to explain that Ingrid Betancourt?s rescue had been an entirely Colombian operation, the US authorities were saying that ?it was the result of years of intense military cooperation of the Colombian and United States? armies.? ??The truth is that we have been able to get along as we seldom have in the United States, except with our oldest allies, mostly in NATO,? said Brownfield, referring to his country?s relationships with the Colombian security forces, which have received over $4 billion US dollars in military assistance since the year 2000.? ??on various occasions it became necessary for the US Administration to make decisions at the top levels concerning this operation. ?The US spy satellites helped in locating the hostages during a month period starting on May 31st until the rescue action on Wednesday.? ?The Colombians installed video surveillance equipment, supplied by the United States. Operated by remote control, these can take close- ups and pan along the rivers which are the only transportation routes through thick forests, said the Colombian and US authorities.? ?US surveillance aircraft intercepted the rebels? radio and satellite phone talks and used imaging equipment that can break through the forest foliage.? ??The defector will receive a considerable sum of the close to one- hundred-million-dollars reward offered by the government,? stated the Commander General of the Colombian Army.? On Wednesday, July 1st, the London BBC reported that Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, press secretary at Casa de Nari?o (Colombian Government House) had said that delegates from France and Switzerland had met with Alfonso Cano, chief of the FARC. According to the BBC, that would be the first contact with international delegates accepted by the new chief after the death of Manuel Marulanda. The false information of the meeting of two European envoys with Cano had been released in Bogota. The deceased leader of the FARC was born on May 12, 1932, according to his father?s recollection. Marulanda, a poor peasant with a liberal thinking and a follower of Gaitan, had started his armed resistance 60 years ago. He was a guerrilla before us; he had reacted to the carnage of peasants carried out by the oligarchy. The Communist Party he later joined, the same as every other in Latin America, was under the influence of the Communist Party of the USSR and not of Cuba. They were in solidarity with our Revolution but they were not subordinate to it. It was the drug-traffickers and not the FARC that unleashed terror in that sister nation as part of their feuds over the United States market. They caused powerful bomb blasts and even blew up trucks loaded with plastic explosives, destroying facilities and injuring or killing countless people. The Colombian Communist Party never contemplated the idea of conquering power through armed struggle. The guerrilla was a resistance front and not a basic instrument for taking revolutionary power, as had been the case in Cuba. In 1993, at the 8th FARC Conference, they decided to break ranks with the Communist Party. Its leader, Manuel Marulanda, took over the leadership of that Party?s guerrillas who had always excelled in their narrow sectarianism when admitting combatants as well as in their strong and compartmentalized methods of command. Marulanda, a man with remarkable natural talent and a leader?s gift, did not have the opportunity to study when he was young. It is said that he had only completed the 5th grade of grammar school. He conceived a long and extended struggle; I disagreed with this point of view. But, I never had the chance to talk with him. The FARC became quite strong, with over 10 thousand combatants. Many had been born during the war and had known nothing else. Other leftist organizations rivaled the FARC in the struggle. By then the Colombian territory had become the largest source of cocaine production in the world. Then, extreme violence, kidnappings, taxes and demands from the drug producers became widespread. The paramilitary forces, armed by the oligarchy, basically drew from the great amount of men enlisted in the country?s armed forces who were discharged from duty every year without a secure job. This created a very complex situation in Colombia, with only one way out: real peace, albeit remote and difficult as many other goals humanity has set itself. This is the option that, for three decades, Cuba has advocated for that nation. While our journalists meeting in their 8th Congress debated on the new information technologies, the principles and ethics of social communicators, I meditated on the above-mentioned developments. I have expressed, very clearly, our position in favor of peace in Colombia; but, we are neither in favor of foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force that the United States intends to impose at all costs on that long-suffering and industrious people. I have honestly and strongly criticized the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not suggesting that anyone lay down their arms, when everyone who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see peace. If I dared suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas that would simply be that they declare, by any means possible to the International Red Cross, their willingness to release the hostages and prisoners they are still holding, without any precondition. I do not intend to be heard; it is simply my duty to say what I think. Anything else would only serve to reward disloyalty and treason. I will never support the pax romana that the empire tries to impose on Latin America. Fidel Castro Ruz July 5, 2008 8:12 p.m. From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 22:48:40 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:48:40 -0400 Subject: [R-G] =?iso-8859-1?q?Venezuelans_to_Support_Colombians_+_Presiden?= =?iso-8859-1?q?te_Ch=E1vez_en_desacuerdo_con_PCV_y_PPT_por_candida?= =?iso-8859-1?q?turas_y_marcha_del_viernes?= Message-ID: FYI: Venezuelans to Support Colombians Caracas, Jul 10 (Prensa Latina) Venezuelan political and social organizations are organizing a mass rally for Friday to support the Colombian people and condemn President Alvaro Uribe's policy. A meeting between the Colombian president and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, is scheduled for July 11 in the state of Falcon, where the two heads of State will talk about the normalization of bilateral relations, which were damaged on March 1, when Colombian military forces attacked Ecuador. Venezuela described that action, in which Raul Reyes, one of the main leaders of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), was killed, as a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty. Uribe accused Venezuela of supporting the guerrilla group, an accusation that Chavez rejected. In a press conference, Yul Jabour, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Venezuela, called on the people to condemn Uribe's policy, which he described as warmongering and servile to US interests. The call, which has been supported by students, workers and women organizations, the International Solidarity Committee, the Anti-imperialist Front and the Communist Youth of Venezuela, condemns all actions of the Colombia Plan and its extrapolation to bordering countries. The text condemns the attempts against Venezuela's revolutionary process and against the changes being made in Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries. It also rejects the Colombian Army's recent assassinations of members of Indigenous Communities in the department of Cauca, as well as of trade union and students leaders this year. The call questions the presence of the 4th US Fleet off maritime borders of Latin American and Caribbean countries. hr/jg/dsa PL-10 (VIDEO) Presidente Ch?vez en desacuerdo con PCV y PPT por candidaturas y marcha del viernes Por: YVKE Mundial (Luigino Bracci Roa) Fecha de publicaci?n: 10/07/08 08 de julio 2008. - El Presidente Hugo Ch?vez acudi? este mi?rcoles a una reuni?n del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (Psuv) en el estado Aragua, donde hizo severas cr?ticas a los partidos revolucionarios miembros de la Alianza Patri?tica, que no han aceptado plegarse a algunas candidaturas del Psuv en determinados estados y municipios del pa?s. A pesar de sus cr?ticas, Ch?vez sin embargo recomend? a la directiva del Psuv actuar con mucha paciencia y tacto, con el objetivo de no quebrar la alianza. Fue particularmente duro con Eduardo Manuitt, actual gobernador del estado Gu?rico, y su hija, Lenny Manuitt, quien se lanz? a las elecciones primarias del Psuv para ese estado. Manuitt, al llegar de segunda, decidi? abandonar el Psuv y lanzarse como candidata del partido Patria Para Todos (PPT). Ch?vez igualmente, indic? que convers? telef?nicamente con los secretarios generales de PPT y del Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV), "para oirlos y hacer algunas reflexiones". En el caso del PCV, denunci? su molestia debido a que ese partido lanz? a un candidato a gobernador en Trujillo, quien era del Psuv pero, al no obtener la candidatura, se lanz? por su cuenta con el apoyo del Partido Comunista. "?Ustedes creen que eso es posible? Est?n jugando a la divisi?n del pueblo y est?n actuando como contrarrevolucionario", dijo Ch?vez. El PCV manifiesta en Trujillo su apoyo a Octaviano Mej?as, quien lleg? de primer lugar en las elecciones internas del Psuv el pasado 1 de junio, con 27,77 por ciento de los votos. Mej?as, sin embargo, obtuvo s?lo 3 por ciento de ventaja por encima de Hugo Cabezas, quien lleg? en segundo lugar. La directiva del Psuv decidi? darle la candidatura a Cabezas, lo que caus? que Mej?as se lanzara por su cuenta. En torno a la marcha contra la visita de Uribe Tambi?n critic? con dureza que el Partido Comunista est? planificando una marcha este viernes 11 de julio frente al consulado de Colombia en Chaca?to, en rechazo a la visita del Presidente ?lvaro Uribe. La marcha, en realidad, es convocada por numerosos movimientos sociales a los cuales el Partido Comunista se uni? el pasado lunes. "El PCV ha convocado a una marcha para oponerse a la visita del presidente de Colombia. Yo invit? al Presidente de Colombia", dijo Ch?vez, recordando que su prop?sito es hacer las paces con Colombia y evitar a toda costa que se vaya a una guerra. "Ustedes pueden hacer su marcha, pero yo no recuerdo que el PCV haya convocado a una marcha cuando el presidente de Estados Unidos, Bill Clinton, vino aqu?" a Venezuela, record? Ch?vez. "?Porque estaban apoyando a Caldera! Son verdades que hay que recordarlas para que reflexionen y se ubiquen", dijo el Presidente venezolano, pidi?ndoles que no sean "m?s papistas que el Papa". "Nosotros no vamos a hacer guerra con Colombia. Yo invito al Presidente de Colombia para darle la mano, para conversar y buscar la integraci?n, respetando las particularidades, ?porque Colombia es una Patria Hermana! Y estamos obligados a entendernos con el gobierno que haya en Colombia. Yo soy un Jefe de Estado, y como tal tengo que actuar". La marcha del viernes En un comunicado emitido este mi?rcoles, diferentes organizaciones adem?s del PCV hicieron el llamado a la marcha: el Polo Democr?tico Alternativo, el Frente Antiimperialista, el Comit? de Solidaridad Internacional (COSI), el Movimiento de Mujeres "Clara Zetkin, Corriente Clasista de Trabajadores "Cruz Villegas", el Movimiento Estudiantil Revolucionario de la Unefa, el Movimiento Estudiantil Jos? F?lix Ribas "Lanceros de Apure de la UNEXPO", el Frente Estudiantil Livia Gouverneur, el Colectivo Frente de Estudiantes Universitarios "Mariscal Sucre" y la Juventud Comunista de Venezuela. El comunicado, que est? publicado en Tribuna Popular (peri?dico del PCV) y el sitio revolucionario Aporrea, manifiesta "nuestra firme convicci?n en el proceso revolucionario bolivariano y el liderazgo indiscutible del Presidente Hugo Ch?vez Fr?as. en la lucha por la soberan?a, la independencia, la democracia, la paz y el socialismo", pero tambi?n indica: "aprovechamos la presencia de ?lvaro Uribe V?lez en la cuna de Sim?n Bol?var, para manifestarle que no est? siendo consecuente con los postulados de nuestro Libertador y que fue elegido mediante procedimientos fraudulentos y amenazas a la poblaci?n por cuenta de sus secuaces paramilitares. Es un presidente ileg?timo, ligado adem?s a las mafias del narcotr?fico." Igualmente, el manifiesto condena "los recientes asesinatos de integrantes de Cabildos Ind?genas en el Departamento del Cauca, a manos del ej?rcito colombiano, as? como el asesinato de 28 dirigentes sindicales y populares en lo que va del a?o, y de 17 j?venes estudiantes en los ?ltimos tres a?os, a manos de paramilitares al servicio del gobierno de Uribe V?lez." El PCV y Caldera El Partido Comunista y otros partidos de izquierda apoyaron a Rafael Caldera en las elecciones de 1993, luego de que el pol?tico socialcristiano, proveniente de la derecha tradicional, fuera uno de los pocos que ofrecieran un discurso distinto al de los pol?ticos tradicionales tras la insurrecci?n militar de Hugo Ch?vez el 4 de febrero de 1992. Caldera afirm? ese d?a que "es dif?cil pedirle al pueblo que se inmole por la libertad y por la democracia, cuando piensa que la libertad y la democracia no son capaces de darle de comer". La frase pr?cticamente lo lanz? directo a la presidencia, a?n cuando Caldera debi? separarse del derechista partido Copei y agruparse en torno a un amasijo de partidos de izquierda y derecha que fueron conocidos como "el chiripero". El PCV estuvo entre esos partidos. Caldera asumi? la presidencia en 1994, y a pesar de sus promesas presidenciales, su gobierno acudi? al Fondo Monetario Internacional y aplic? la cl?sica receta de ese ente neoliberal: devaluaci?n del bol?var, eliminaci?n del control de cambios, privatizaci?n de diferentes industrias del Estado, inicio de la "apertura" petrolera en v?as a una privatizaci?n de Pdvsa, aumento del precio del combustible y liberaci?n de los tipos de inter?s. Numerosas instituciones bancarias, encabezadas por el Banco Latino, se iban a la quiebra dejando a decenas de miles de personas sin acceso a sus ahorros. A los pocos meses de instalado este nuevo gobierno, el PCV anunci? su ruptura con el Presidente Caldera por diferencias irreconciliables con la orientaci?n econ?mica y la direcci?n pol?tica general de ?ste. El presidente estadounidense, Bill Clinton, visit? Venezuela a?os despu?s, en octubre de 1997. Quince meses despu?s, en enero de 1999, Hugo Ch?vez ya era presidente electo y visit? a Clinton en Washington DC , luego de que el gobierno estadounidense finalmente aceptara darle una visa, que le hab?a negado en el pasado alegando que particip? en la insurrecci?n militar de 1992. Ch?vez: Desacuerdos y "paciencia" con el PPT Este mi?rcoles, durante su alocuci?n, el Presidente venezolano tambi?n hizo p?blicos sus desacuerdos con Jos? Albornoz, secretario general del PPT, debido a que ?l renunci? a su precandidatura en Gu?rico para cederle la oportunidad a Lenny Manuitt. "Eso es extra?o, y es una actitud divisionista y contrarrevolucionaria. Absolutamente contrarrevolucionaria, se?or, porque est?n jugando a la divisi?n". "El PPT est? apoyando en Gu?rico a la contrarrevoluci?n", dijo Ch?vez "para llamarlos a la reflexi?n. Ahora, si ellos no reflexionan, ?que mantengan su apoyo a la contrarrevoluci?n! Pero ellos deben entender que as? es muy dif?cil hacer una alianza, porque ellos est?n pasando al campo contrarrevolucionario." "Sin embargo -dijo sin pausar- estamos con las puertas abiertas. Hay que tener mucha paciencia con ellos, llamarlos, volverlos a llamar". Acot? despu?s que, en palabras del propio Albornoz, el PPT apoya la gran mayor?a de las candidaturas del Psuv. Ch?vez indic? que, de haber permanecido Albornoz como candidato del PPT para Gu?rico, hubieran podido esperar algunas semanas para luego decidir de forma conjunta si el PSUV declinaba su candidatura, o si la declinaba el PPT, dependiendo de las circunstancias. El Presidente record? nuevamente que ?l convers? mucho con el gobernador Manuitt, de quien -reiter?- hab?a apoyado a mafias latufundistas de su estado, incluyendo a su hermano, Pablo Manuitt, propietario en aquel entonces del hato El Roblecito. "Manuitt lleg? a amenazar, arma en mano, al presidente del Instituto Nacional de Tierras (Inti), y resulta que uno de los latifundios era propiedad del hermano del gobernador". Ch?vez acot? que en esas y en otras ocasiones debi? enviar al Ej?rcito al estado Gu?rico para poner orden. Tambi?n denunci? que Manuitt apoyaba mafias que se hab?an apoderado de los silos propiedad del Estado, usando la polic?a guarique?a. Por ello, Ch?vez debi? usar de nuevo las fuerzas militares en contra del gobernador guarique?o. "Yo voy a recorrer los pueblos del Gu?rico, para contarle la verdad a los pueblos del Gu?rico", dijo Ch?vez. "El actual gobernador del Gu?rico, Eduardo Manuitt, es verdaderamente un contrarrevolucionario (...) ?Hay que sacarlo, a ?l y a su hija, y que gane Willian Lara!" Dijo que son falsas las palabras de Lenny Manuitt, quien dijo que es revolucionaria y que apoya a Ch?vez. "Es parte del plan de continuismo contrarrevolucionario. ?Es contra Ch?vez!" From critical.montages at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 23:44:46 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:44:46 -0400 Subject: [R-G] OPEC Leader Issues Warning about Iran and Oil Supply Message-ID: July 11, 2008 OPEC Leader Issues Warning About Iran and Oil Supply By JAMES KANTER VIENNA ? The head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned on Thursday that oil prices would experience an "unlimited" increase in the event of a military conflict involving Iran because the group's members would be unable to make up the lost production. "We really cannot replace Iran's production ? it's not feasible to replace it," Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, said in an interview. Iran, the second-largest producing country in OPEC after Saudi Arabia, produces about four million barrels of oil a day out of the daily worldwide production of close to 87 million barrels. The country has been locked in a long dispute with Western nations over its nuclear ambitions. In recent weeks, the price of oil has risen higher on speculation that Israel could be preparing an attack on the country's nuclear facilities. The saber rattling intensified this week with missile tests by Iran. That has further unnerved oil markets because of concerns that any conflict with Iran could disrupt oil shipments from the gulf. In New York, crude oil climbed $5.60, to $141.65 a barrel. "The prices would go unlimited," Mr. Badri said during the interview, referring to the effect of a military conflict. "I can't give you a number." Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes. Mr. Badri, a former oil executive who has headed the oil industry in Libya and served as deputy prime minister of that country, called for a peaceful solution, and he hinted that an additional conflict in the Middle East besides the continuing conflict in Iraq would be severe and long-lasting. "If something happened there, nobody would be able to solve it," he said, referring to a war involving Iran. He said that current geopolitical tensions were among the main reasons for the high price of oil. He said that a shortfall in refining capacity and a weak dollar were other factors, but he reiterated OPEC's position that speculation on oil markets probably was the most important one. He insisted that reserves of oil were plentiful and that worries about scarcity were misplaced. Supplies from Russia and Norway and other nations outside the 13-member OPEC will keep growing, helped by technologies like turning gas and coal into liquid fuel and extracting oil from tar sands and shale, he said. Even so, he also sought to assuage concerns about a supply shock, saying that OPEC members, which contribute about 40 percent of daily worldwide production, were already investing $160 billion in new production capacity up to 2012. But he said investment in future capacity could be frozen, potentially sharpening a dispute with customers over whether sufficient steps were being taken to meet demand. Steps by the European Union and in the United States to cut dependence on fossil fuels meant that OPEC had no alternative but to take a cautious approach before going ahead with plans to invest up to $540 billion in oil production up to 2020. "If we don't see the demand, we are not going to invest," Mr. Badri said, adding there was doubt over how much money members would invest after 2012. OPEC members "don't want to spend their money on something they cannot use," he said. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Jul 11 03:42:54 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:42:54 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Green Lifeline Message-ID: <48772B1E.3050006@attglobal.net> A radical new idea could save the world's ecosystems. But what will it do to the economy? by George Monbiot Published in the Guardian (July 01 2008) Almost everyone seems to agree: governments now face a choice between saving the planet and saving the economy. As recession looms, the political pressure to abandon green policies intensifies. A report published yesterday by Ernst and Young suggests that the EU's puny carbon target will raise energy bills by twenty per cent over the next twelve years {1}. Last week the prime minister's advisers admitted to the Guardian that his renewable energy plans were "on the margins" of what people will tolerate {2}. But these fears are based on a false assumption: that there is a cheap alternative to a green economy. Last week New Scientist reported a survey of oil industry experts, which found that most of them believe global oil supplies will peak by 2010 {3}. If they are right, the game is up. A report published by the US Department of Energy in 2005 argued that unless the world begins a crash programme of replacements ten or twenty years before oil peaks, a crisis "unlike any yet faced by modern industrial society" is unavoidable {4}. If the world is sliding into recession, it's partly because governments believed that they could choose between economy and ecology. The price of oil is so high and it hurts so much because there has been no serious effort to reduce our dependency. Yesterday in the Guardian, Rajendra Pachauri suggested that an impending recession could force us to confront the flaws in the global economy {5}. Sadly it seems so far to have had the opposite effect: a recent Ipsos Mori poll suggests that people are losing interest in climate change {6}. Opportunities for energy populism abound: it cannot be long before one of the major parties abandons the pale green consensus and starts invoking an oil cornucopia it cannot possibly deliver. The British government maintains both positions at once. In his speech last week, Gordon Brown said he wanted "to facilitate a reduction in short term global oil prices" while seeking "to reduce progressively our dependence on oil" {7}. He knows that the first objective makes the second one harder to achieve. The government's policy is to build more of everything - more coal plants, more nuclear power, more oil rigs, more renewables, more roads, more airports - and hope no one spots the contradictions. Is there a way out? Could we abandon the fossil fuel economy without provoking a blistering backlash? Two things are obvious. We need a global system, and the current one, the Kyoto Protocol, is bust. It sets no cap on global carbon pollution, its targets bear no relation to current science and are unenforceable anyway, it contains loopholes and get-out clauses wide enough to sail an oil tanker through. Until recently I supported an alternative system called contraction and convergence. Every country, this system proposes, should end up with the same quota of carbon dioxide per person. The richest countries must produce much less than they do today; the poorest ones could pollute more. Another proposal flows logically from this one: carbon rationing. Having been assigned its carbon quota, each nation would divide up part of it equally among its citizens, who could use it to buy energy or trade it among themselves. These proposals have the merit of capping global pollution, of being fair, progressive and easy to understand and of encouraging us to think about our use of energy. But, after reading the proofs of a book by the independent thinker Oliver Tickell, to be published this month, I have changed my view. In Kyoto2: how to manage the global greenhouse, Tickell slaughters my favourite ideas {8}. He shows that there is no logical basis for dividing up the right to pollute among nation states. It gives them too much power over this commodity, and there is no guarantee that they would pass the pollution rights on to their citizens, or use the money they raised to green the economy. Carbon rationing, he argues, requires a level of economic literacy that's far from universal in the most advanced economies, let alone in countries where most people don't have bank accounts. Instead Tickell proposes setting a global limit for carbon pollution then selling permits to pollute to companies extracting or refining fossil fuels. This has the advantage of regulating a few thousand corporations - running oil refineries, coal washeries, gas pipelines and cement and fertiliser works for example - rather than a few billion citizens. These firms would buy their permits in a global auction, run by a coalition of the world's central banks. There's a reserve price, to ensure that the cost of carbon doesn't fall too low, and a ceiling price, at which the banks promise to sell permits, to ensure that the cost doesn't cripple the global economy. In this case companies would be borrowing permits from the future. But because the money raised would be invested in renewables, the demand for fossil fuels would fall, so fewer permits would need to be issued in later years. Tickell calculates that if the cap were set low enough to ensure that the world became carbon neutral by 2050, the total cost of permits would be about $1 trillion a year, or roughly 1.5% of the global economy. The money would be spent on helping the poor to adapt to climate change, paying countries to protect forests and other ecosystems, developing low-carbon farming, promoting energy efficiency and building renewable power plants. But his figure seems too low. Like many of the world's climate scientists, Oliver Tickell proposes that the concentration of greenhouse gases should eventually be stabilised at 350 parts per million (carbon dioxide equivalent) in the atmosphere, and his calculations are based on this target. Last week Lord Stern suggested that meeting a less stringent target (500 parts per million) would cost two per cent of world gross domestic product {9}. If the price of the carbon permits sold at auction were much higher than Tickell suggests, the extra money could be used for massive tax rebates and social spending, aimed especially at the poor. But could the world afford it? This money doesn't disappear, it gets spent. Tickell's proposal could represent a classic Keynesian solution to economic crisis. The $1, $2 or even $5 trillion the system would cost is used to kick-start a green industrial revolution, a new New Deal not that different from the original one (whose most successful component was Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, which protected forests and farmland) {10}. This would not be the first time that business was rescued by the measures it most stoutly resists: there's a long history of corporate lobbying against the kind of government spending that eventually saves the corporate economy. Do we want to save it, even if we can? It is hard to see how the current global growth rate of 3.7% a year (which means the global economy doubles every nineteen years) could be sustained{11}, even if the whole thing were powered by the wind and the sun. But that is a question for another column and perhaps another time, when the current economic panic has abated. For now we have to find a means of saving us from ourselves. _____ George Monbiot has received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews. www.monbiot.com References: 1. BBC Online, 30th June 2008. Green target 'to hike fuel bills'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7480204.stm 2. Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour, 26th June 2008. Cost of tackling global climate change has doubled, warns Stern. The Guardian. 3. Ian Sample, 25th June 2008. Oil: The final warning. New Scientist. 4. Robert L Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling, February 2005. Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management. US Department of Energy. This was originally leaked and found its way onto this site: http://www.hilltoplancers.org/stories/hirsch0502.pdf 5. Rajendra Pachauri, 30th June 2008. The world's will to tackle climate change is irresistible. The Guardian. 6. Juliette Jowit, 22nd June 2008. Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change. The Observer. 7. Gordon Brown, 26th June 2008. Creating a low carbon economy. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15846.asp 8. Oliver Tickell, forthcoming. Kyoto2: how to manage the global greenhouse. Zed Books, London. 9. Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour, ibid. 10. Neil M Maher, 2008. Nature's New Deal. Oxford University Press. 11. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2008/res040908a.htm Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/07/01/green-lifeline/ TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From fentona at shaw.ca Fri Jul 11 08:16:00 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:16:00 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Canada's "Right Arm": FOCAL's Role in the Privatization of Haiti Message-ID: <63740BFE-12D2-4131-BEF6-E56D74774FB1@shaw.ca> Canada?s ?Right Arm?: FOCAL?s Role in the Privatization of Haiti By Kabir Joshi-Vijayan, activist with the Toronto Haiti Action Committee On behalf of the Canadian government, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL) is playing a central role in facilitating certain key aspects of a major neocolonial ?reconstruction? program in Haiti. This program involves the dismantling and subsequent restructuring of Haiti?s entire political, economic and social structure by the ?international community.? What we are witnessing in Haiti is the complete destruction of a nation, to serve the interests of capital. Every aspect of Haitian society is being colonized and opened up to the ?free? market flood of foreign products. Much of the country is being handed over to a supposedly ?progressive? ?civil society? of extremely wealthy Haitians, or simply seized by transnational corporations. The role of Haiti?s elected government is being reduced to simply watching over this colonial arrangement as the Haitian state becomes increasingly powerless. http://mostlywater.org/canada%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%98right_arm%E2%80%99_focal%E2%80%99s_role_privatization_haiti From fentona at shaw.ca Fri Jul 11 09:02:10 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:02:10 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Canada Throws Ecuador into Reverse Message-ID: <8CED6E7E-4DB9-445D-B1E1-B67C9196DFE2@shaw.ca> Canada Throws Ecuador into Reverse When a little nation reined in big miners, our ambassador got very political. http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/07/11/CanMining/. By Jennifer Moore Published: July 11, 2008 TheTyee.ca Canada is "re-engaging with the Americas." That's what Minister of International Trade David Emerson told the Canada Council for the Americas in Vancouver this past February, elaborating that Canada wants to play "a positive role" to "help citizens throughout the region thrive in the world." "You can count on Canada and Canadians," Emerson assured. But in Ecuador, a small Andean nation a quarter the size of British Columbia, Canada's government has aligned itself with powerful Canadian mining interests to undo a recently passed decree crafted to strengthen protection for human rights and the environment. The government decree, hailed as a momentous victory by a grassroots movement fighting big mining projects in Ecuador, would halt what critics call a pell-mell method of granting mining concessions heedless of communities' wishes or damage to nature. Canada is a top investor in Ecuador and Canada's ambassador to Ecuador is Christian Lapointe. Lately, he has been very busy helping to put Canadian mining companies in good stead with the Ecuadorian government. Two companies have projects suspended and have been involved in violent confrontations with protesters. These and more than 20 others have had the constitutionality and, in some cases, legality of their mineral rights challenged. The ambassador would seem to be simply carrying out his mandate. On the embassy website it is written: "to promote Canada's economic interests in Ecuador to support the efforts of Canadian companies who have selected Ecuador as a target market." Salvador Quishpe, a former Ecuadorian congressman from the national indigenous movement, has a different view of how Lapointe should be spending his energies. "The ambassador should not act in service of the economic interests of his multinational companies, but in service of people's lives," proposes Quishpe. "The ambassador needs to take responsibility. Not to just come and see where the gold and copper are, but to see what life is about here, in order to respect the lives of Ecuadorians." Quishpe is also a spokesperson for a nationwide movement opposed to large scale mining in which Canadians -- with the aid of their ambassador -- are by far the most dominant players. Ecuador's buried riches Vancouver-based Dynasty Metals & Mining says that Ecuador's gold, copper and other ore deposits hold "tremendous potential." Dynasty boasts on its website of being the "largest concession holder in southern Ecuador." It holds about 1,300 square kilometres in mineral rights, nearly the size of Glacier National Park. One of the biggest recent gold discoveries was made by Toronto's Aurelian Resources. Its Fruta del Norte project in Salvador Quishpe's home province could become the second biggest gold mine on the continent. It has also attracted a handful of Canadian companies to buy nearby concessions. Beyond healthy deposits, Dynasty also points out that "Ecuador has done much to foster and encourage foreign investment in its mining industry." Dynasty's website highlights Ecuador's adoption of the U.S. dollar in 2000 and neo-liberal mining law reforms around the same time. Until this spring, Canadian firms were pleased to be operating in a country whose government had abolished a 3 per cent royalty on mineral production payable to the national treasury. By law, the government was prohibited from being able to take away mineral rights for reasons such as negative environmental or social impacts. Bold new mining decree But then, in late April, Ecuador's legislative body, the National Constituent Assembly, passed a sweeping new mining decree that seemed to spell doom for the industry and mining companies were shaken as stock prices tumbled. Former assembly president Alberto Acosta, also past minister of Energy and Mines for President Rafael Correa, is an economist and environmentalist. Acosta has provided important support to the grassroots movement opposed to large scale mining. During final debate over the decree, Acosta called the decision "historic," saying that it would bring an end to the "free for all" over mineral rights in the country. By this time over 5,000 mineral concessions had been granted or were in the process of application. Covering more than one fifth of Ecuador's national territory, 60 per cent were in the hands of only twelve concession holders. Quishpe points out that "concessions don't pertain to any natural resource management plan," saying "they were granted without even verifying first what was there: a mountain, a valley, even an entire town." The decree responded to such concerns. It suspends all large-scale mining activity and orders vast numbers of mineral concessions cancelled for reasons such as failure to consult with communities, proximity to headwaters and overlap with protected areas. As the assembly broke into applause, Acosta said that whereas "companies have specialized in how to divide communities" leading to "near civil war" in parts of the country that "it is our responsibility to help recuperate the peace." Quishpe was one of a number of protesters captured and treated cruelly during a confrontation with armed military and private security forces in the southern Amazon at the end of 2006. Concurrent with the election of President Correa's government, such conflicts flagged how important mining would be for this administration. But there was a trap in the decree, says Jose Cueva, an environmentalist from the northwestern Valley of Intag: "One hundred and eighty days to rewrite the new mining law." Getting in before the new constitution Industry's timeline has taken over. Now only about 80 days following the mining decree, the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has already handed a new mining law to the president. While also paying minimal attention to criteria for concession cancellations, such as community consultation or proximity to water supplies, the rush to write the law could override changes being made to the political constitution. The constitution is due to be completed by the assembly on July 26th. Calling for a "national mining dialogue," Minister of Mines and Petroleum Galo Chiriboga kicked off discussions about the new mining law in a special meeting with industry leaders on April 28th. However, in January Chiriboga had already announced talks requested by companies such as Corriente and Aurelian that included such plans. Not enough, Canadian companies received a personal invite to the launch from President Correa. Ambassador Lapointe helped set up the meeting. Eight companies were represented together with the embassy, President Correa and his advisors, as well as the Minister Chiriboga and his advisors. Lapointe is reported to have "presented concerns of the Canadian government for a fair, stable and long-term investment environment in Ecuador." Darryl Lindsay, president of the Mining Committee for the Ecuador-Canada Chamber of Commerce, says that companies followed up by forming a "Council of Responsible Mining Companies." It includes the eight companies with "a single representative that groups together a lot of the smaller companies." "Via the council," Lindsay says, "we have participation" at each of more than half a dozen meetings around the country with a representative at each of the working groups. Invited, but hardly feeling welcome, grassroots groups that have been in ongoing conflicts with companies didn't find much room to participate. Lawyer and water activist Carlos Perez called the process "a mining monologue." The Federation of Campesino Organizations from the south-central province of Azuay, of which he is part, chose to present feedback about the new law after the dialogue was over. Other groups simply refused to participate. "It's an anachronous process without any legitimacy," says Jose Cueva. "Once the new constitution is in place, then we can begin seriously working toward a new mining law." In Cueva's mind, putting the law before the constitution means "that the advances achieved within the new constitution won't be binding. Like the right to water, the rights of nature, and [other changes] that aren't defined yet." Other changes could pertain to indigenous territorial rights and community right to consent. Based upon a draft mining law, industry is already breathing a sigh of relief. Prosperity and security The new draft law promises to reinstate royalties competitive to the region and redistribute revenue to local authorities. That will be if companies can get a drill in the ground. People might still stand in the way. "We didn't think that we could have a worse law. But now we see that we were wrong," says Carlos Perez. He is not referring to the absence of strong environmental protections. Nor is this a comment about how community consultation regulations have regressed, although he says these are issues too. "When they included the public forces in order to control the communities, they managed to make a law worse than the last," states Perez. "Far from protecting the population, those that demand the right to live, the right to health, the right to life, far from protecting them, this protects the multinationals." A draft of the new mining law "guarantees the continuity of mining activities through the intervention of the public forces at the petition of the mining contractor." "If they approve this law as is," says human rights lawyer Wilton Guaranda, "it will mean that later on they will see much greater problems than those that exist." He notes how militarization in oil producing areas has deepened local conflicts, which occasionally become deadly. The solution, he suggests, is greater respect for democracy. "It is a sensitive theme" Guaranda says, "that should be analyzed later with the utmost caution," indicating that the new law should wait. "The constitution should be the reference point for both communities and companies." Last July, Prime Minister Harper traveled to Santiago, Chile and boasted of "Canada's foundational values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law" as he vowed to help expand "opportunities to all citizens" while spearheading Canada's "re-engagement in the Americas." In Ecuador, those trying to rein in the ambitions of Canadian mining firms may wish Harper and his powerful friends could be less engaged with their small country. At least long enough to let citizens there democratically decide the fate of their mineral resources. Jennifer Moore is a freelance journalist in Ecuador. From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Jul 11 09:21:39 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:21:39 -0400 Subject: [R-G] The FBI's Plan to "Profile" Muslims Message-ID: The FBI's plan to "profile" Muslims It's unconstitutional, un-American -- and it might hurt, rather than help, the FBI's effort to stop real acts of terror. By Juan Cole Jul. 10, 2008 | The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask "open-ended questions" concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person's travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation. The rumored changes have provoked protests from Muslim American and Arab-American groups. The Council on American Islamic Relations, among the more effective lobbies for Muslim Americans' civil liberties, immediately denounced the plan, as did James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. Said Zogby, "There are millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling." Zogby, who noted that the Bush administration's history with profiling is not reassuring, warned that all Americans would suffer from a weakening of civil liberties. In fact, Zogby's statement only begins to touch on the many problems with these proposed rules. The new guidelines would lead to many bogus prosecutions, but they would also prove counterproductive in the effort to disrupt real terror plots. And then there's Attorney General Michael Mukasey's rationale for revising the rules in the first place. "It's necessary," he explained in a June news conference, "to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself as it is transforming itself into an intelligence-gathering organization." When did Congress, or we as a nation, have a debate about whether we want to authorize the establishment of a domestic intelligence agency? Indeed, late last month Congress signaled its discomfort with the concept by denying the FBI's $11 million funding request for its data-mining center. Establishing a profile that would aid in identifying suspects is not in and of itself illegal, though the practice generally makes civil libertarians nervous. When looking for drug couriers, Drug Enforcement Agency agents were permitted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Sokolow (1989) to use indicators such as the use of an alias, nervous or evasive behavior, cash payments for tickets, brief trips to major drug-trafficking cities, type of clothing, and the lack of checked luggage. This technique, however, specifically excluded the use of skin color or other racial features in building the profile. In contrast, using race and ethnicity as the -- or even a -- primary factor in deciding whom to stop and search, despite being widespread among police forces, is illegal. Just this spring, the Maryland State Police settled out of court with the ACLU and an African-American man after having been sued for the practice of stopping black and Latino men and searching them for drugs. New Jersey police also got into trouble over stopping people on the grounds of race. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last year in State v. Calvin Lee that a defendant's plausible allegation that the arrest was initiated primarily because of race would be grounds for discovery: The defense attorney could then request relevant documents from the prosecution that might show discriminatory attitudes and actions on the part of the police. Because racial profiling is most often felt by juries to be inappropriate, its use could backfire on the FBI. Suspects charged on the basis of an investigation primarily triggered by their race could end up being acquitted as victims of government discrimination. If the aim is to identify al-Qaida operatives or close sympathizers in the United States, racial profiling is counterproductive. Such tiny, cultlike terror organizations are multinational. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is a Briton whose father hailed from Jamaica, and no racial profile of him would have predicted his al-Qaida ties. Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman, is from a mixed Jewish and Christian heritage and hails from suburban Orange County, Calif. When I broached the topic of FBI profiling to some Muslim American friends on Facebook, a scientist in San Francisco replied, "Profiling Muslims or Arabs will just make al-Qaida look outside Islam for its bombers. There are many other disgruntled groups aside from those that worship Allah." It is a mystery why the Department of Justice has not learned the lesson that terrorists are best tracked down through good police work brought to bear on specific illegal acts, rather than by vast fishing expeditions. After Sept. 11, the DOJ called thousands of Muslim men in the United States for what it termed voluntary interviews. Not a single terrorist was identified in this manner, though a handful of the interviewees ended up being deported for minor visa offenses. Once it became clear that the interviews might eventuate in arbitrary actions against them, the willingness of American Muslims to cooperate declined rapidly, and so the whole operation badly backfired. The fiasco of the prosecution of the Detroit Four should also have been instructive. These four Arab men apparently had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, having moved into an apartment in southwest Detroit recently vacated by a man suspected of al-Qaida ties. The prosecution alleged that innocent vacation videotapes of places such as Disneyland found in the apartment were part of a terror plot, and that vague doodles in a notebook depicted targets abroad such as a Jordanian hospital and Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey. The prosecution relied heavily on an Arab-American informer who might reduce his own prison sentence for various acts of criminal fraud if a conviction were obtained, and whose testimony against the four suspects evolved dramatically over time. The initial conviction of two of the men, Karim Koubriti and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi on charges of giving material support to terrorism, which was hailed as an achievement by the Bush administration, was overturned when the prosecution was discovered to have withheld key exculpatory evidence. In a startling reversal, two members of the prosecuting team were tried for criminal misconduct, and although they were acquitted, their misconduct was not in question. A Detroit judge even apologized to a third man, who was held for three and a half years on a minor fraud charge and then deported. The entire affair raised questions about whether Muslim-Americans could hope for justice if for any reason they got accidentally caught up in the Justice Department's frantic search for Muslim terror cells on American soil (very few have been found). The flimsy case against the four men would have had no plausibility at all had they been white upper-middle-class residents of Connecticut. Not only has the Justice Department engaged in prosecutorial misconduct with regard to Muslims, but at least one FBI operation also appears to have involved actual entrapment. Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Rothschild Augustine, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera and Lyglenson Lemorin were arrested in June 2006, and accused of being an al-Qaida cell plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Batiste, aka Brother Naz or Prince Manna, led a small cult in a poor neighborhood of Miami called Seas of David, which was apparently an offshoot of the Moorish Temple Science, an African-American folk religion. The cult mixed themes from Judaism, Christianity and Islam but was not identifiably Muslim. The group met in a warehouse and talked big. The FBI put an informant among them who repeatedly offered them money and equipment for their activities, some of which he appears to have suggested. Batiste maintained in the trial that he was just stringing along the informant in hopes of extracting a promised $50,000, and that he was insincere in pledging allegiance to al-Qaida. When the Justice Department announced the arrest in 2006, the indictment went on about the belief of the group in jihad, or Muslim holy war, but it is a little unlikely that these individuals knew anything about Islam at all. Both attempts to prosecute them ended in mistrials, primarily because the FBI could produce no evidence that when they were arrested they had any weapons or explosives in their possession. They were full of crazy talk, but even some of that was suggested to them by the Department of Justice. Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans, along with members of some other ethnic groups, are therefore understandably alarmed that the Department of Justice may soon have the tools to bring them under investigation without any proof of wrongdoing. As CAIR national legislative director Corey Saylor noted in a statement, "Any new Justice Department guidelines must preserve the presumption of innocence that is the basis of our entire legal system ... Initiating criminal investigations based on racial or religious profiling is both unconstitutional and un-American." Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans have already suffered from being profiled in a de facto sense. Unsurprisingly, to have that injustice become policy concerns them. The protests would be even louder if so many in the community were not afraid to speak up and draw attention to themselves, as one of my Muslim American Facebook correspondents pointed out to me. Another remarked sadly that not only had George W. Bush not brought democracy to the Muslim Middle East, but he had also damaged its prospects in America itself. -- By Juan Cole From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Jul 11 09:57:29 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:57:29 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Los escenarios pos FARC In-Reply-To: <4877755F.6060307@alai.info> References: <4877755F.6060307@alai.info> Message-ID: FYI: Los escenarios pos FARC Ra?l Zibechi ALAI AMLATINA, 11/07/2008, Montevideo.- En el primer semestre de 2008 se ha producido un fuerte viraje pol?tico, que le permite a las derechas, locales y globales, y a las multinacionales, recuperar posiciones y retomar la ofensiva. El viraje no se circunscribe a Colombia, aunque tiene all? su epicentro mayor, sino que se extiende a pa?ses como Argentina, Bolivia y Per?, pero en lo esencial afecta a toda la regi?n. En Colombia, si alguna vez hubo alg?n equilibrio estrat?gico entre las FARC y las fuerzas armadas, en los ?ltimos meses se ha quebrado a favor del Estado. La guerrilla perdi? toda posibilidad de negociar un acuerdo humanitario en condiciones favorables, no puede mantener ofensivas militares ni pol?ticas, sufre un agudo descr?dito entre la poblaci?n y ya no cuenta con aliados significativos en la regi?n ni en el mundo. A?n as?, lo m?s probable es que las FARC sigan adelante, con menguada capacidad de iniciativa y con la probable fragmentaci?n entre sus mandos y frentes, como lo sugiere el desenlace de la liberaci?n de los 15 secuestrados. La estrategia delineada por el Comando Sur y el Pent?gono, y plasmada en el Plan Colombia II, no contempla ni la derrota definitiva ni la negociaci?n con la guerrilla. Eliminar a las FARC del escenario ser?a un p?simo negocio para la estrategia imperial de desestabilizaci?n y recolonizaci?n de la regi?n andina, a la que Fidel Castro defini? como "paz romana". Ese proyecto no puede llevarse a cabo sin guerra, directa o indirecta, o sea sin la desestabilizaci?n permanente como forma de reconfiguraci?n territorial y pol?tica de la estrat?gica regi?n que incluye el arco que va de Venezuela a Bolivia y Paraguay, pasando por Colombia, Ecuador y Per?. Por un lado, se trata de despejar la regi?n andina para facilitar el negocio multinacional actual (miner?a a cielo abierto, hidrocarburos, biodiversidad, monocultivos para agrocombustibles) que supone tanto la apropiaci?n de los bienes comunes como el desplazamiento de las poblaciones que a?n sobreviven en esos espacios. No estamos ante un capitalismo, digamos, "normal", el que fue capaz en su momento de establecer alianzas y pactos que dieron vida al Estado benefactor, en base a la triple alianza entre Estado, empresarios nacionales y sindicatos. Se trata de un modelo financiero-especulativo y de acumulaci?n por desposesi?n, que sustituye las negoaciones por las guerras y la extracci?n de plusvalor por la apropiaci?n de la naturaleza. O sea, un capitalismo de guerra para tiempos de decadencia imperial. Este sistema asume la forma de capitalismo criminal o mafioso en pa?ses como Colombia, porque no s?lo es funcional a la guerra y al robo, sino que ellas forman su n?cleo central, su principal modo de acumulaci?n. Eso explica la alianza estrecha entre empresas privadas de guerra, que cuentan en ese pa?s con 2 a 3 mil mercenarios apodados ahora "contratistas", con un Estado paramilitar como el que encabeza Alvaro Uribe, asentado en la alianza con paramilitares y narcotraficantes. En Colombia, a ese orden de cosas le han hecho frente tres fuerzas: la guerrilla, la izquierda del Polo Democr?tico y los movimientos sociales. La primera cree que puede vencer con las armas o negociar con ese nuevo poder. El Polo desestima el papel de Washington y de las multinacionales, como dise?adores y usufructuarios del Estado paramilitar mafioso, y sobreestima por lo tanto los m?rgenes democr?ticos. Los movimientos, por su parte, tienen grandes dificultades para superar la escala local y sectorial y no est?n en condiciones, por ahora, de erigirse en actores alternativos. El Plan Colombia II fue el encargado de dise?ar ese Estado militarista y en este momento busca afianzarlo. Ahora que las FARC no representan riesgo mayor para ese proyecto, aparece con claridad el objetivo de largo plazo trazado. Lejos de abrir espacios para la negociaci?n, como desea la izquierda, el mensaje de los ?ltimos meses indica un solo camino: ni la paz ni la rendici?n les garantiza la vida a los guerrilleros. O combaten y resisten o les espera el exterminio, como sucedi? a fines de la d?cada de 1980. Se trata de golpear sus n?cleos territoriales para desplazarlos hacia las zonas fronterizas con Venezuela y Ecuador, donde el Plan Colombia II aspira a convertirlos en instrumento de la desestabilizaci?n regional. Por eso Venezuela y Hugo Ch?vez adoptaron la estrategia de reducir la tensi?n con el gobierno de Uribe. No se trata de una cuesti?n ideol?gica, como pretenden algunos analistas. Ese debate vale para las mesas de caf? o los despachos acad?micos, pero tiene escasa utilidad cuando se trata de la sobrevivencia de proyectos de cambio social. Si se consolida el proyecto imperial, toda la regi?n sufrir? con la polarizaci?n, de ah? la urgencia por desmontar los conflictos, tanto en Colombia como en Argentina y Bolivia. Un eventual triunfo de Barack Obama tampoco modificar? las cosas. Puede atemperar los rasgos m?s autoritarios del uribismo, lo que explica el nerviosismo del gobierno de Bogot? y su sol?cita alianza con el candidato republicano. Lo cierto es que los planes del Comando Sur no dependen del inquilino de la Casa Blanca, y que estos apuntan a promover una acci?n integral en la regi?n que la convierta en una zona estable y un baluarte inexpugnable para mantener la hegemon?a estadounidense a escala global. En suma, las elites imperiales aspiran usar la fuerza de las armas para revertir su decadencia, que pasa por la recolonizaci?n de Am?rica Latina. En un per?odo como el actual, s?lo la movilizaci?n popular y las v?as pol?ticas pueden contribuir a debilitar la ofensiva que viene del Norte. - Ra?l Zibechi, periodista uruguayo, es docente e investigador en la Multiversidad Franciscana de Am?rica Latina, y asesor de varios grupos sociales. From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 11 13:12:51 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:12:51 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The New Geopolitics of Energy Message-ID: <200807111912.m6BJCpqf001150@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080711/ac28a4bd/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 11 13:13:54 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:13:54 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Afghanistan, Canada and the new great energy game Message-ID: <200807111913.m6BJDsoN002941@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080711/633da6c6/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 11 13:35:37 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:35:37 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Pipeline opens new front in Afghan war Message-ID: <200807111935.m6BJZbAA009684@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080711/a025014b/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 11 13:36:00 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:36:00 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Resisting the Nakba Message-ID: <200807111936.m6BJa0cB010219@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080711/4d527362/attachment.txt From fentona at shaw.ca Fri Jul 11 13:40:41 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:40:41 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Palestinians sue Canadian firms for war crimes Message-ID: <0B5785A0-B073-488A-B78C-6ACC8D31B738@shaw.ca> Palestinians sue Canadian firms for war crimes http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1067001.html Fri. Jul 11 - 4:32 AM MONTREAL (CP) ? Two Canadian construction firms are being sued for war crimes by a Palestinian village that claims its land is being swallowed by settlements the companies are helping to build. The West Bank town of Bilin filed a lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court this week seeking $2 million in punitive damages from Montreal-based companies Green Mount International Inc. and Green Park International Inc. Bilin wants the Quebec court to halt the companies? construction projects and prevent them from marketing their homes to Israeli citizens. "In so doing, the defendants are aiding, abetting, assisting and conspiring with the state of Israel in carrying out an illegal purpose, the claim reads. The lawsuit appeals to international and Canadian laws which prohibit foreign powers from settling civilians in territory acquired through war. Israel has maintained a sizable military presence in the West Bank since the end of the 1967 war and has since been accused of being an occupying power. In the lawsuit, Green Mount and Green Park ? both registered to the same Montreal-area woman ? are labelled as "agents for Israel. Mark Arnold, the Canadian lawyer for the town, said there is evidence suggesting the companies had entered into a contractual relationship with the Israeli government. The companies could not be reached for comment on Thursday. None of Bilin?s claims have been proven in court. From fentona at shaw.ca Fri Jul 11 13:52:07 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:52:07 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Hedges: Stop the new FISA Message-ID: <446A3A9C-1B75-45AD-AF45-0095CADC2809@shaw.ca> Stop the new FISA Allowing the new surveillance law to stand would seriously cripple our free press. By Chris Hedges July 11, 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-hedges11-2008jul11,0,1553314.story If the sweeping surveillance law signed by President Bush on Thursday -- giving the U.S. government nearly unchecked authority to eavesdrop on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans -- is allowed to stand, we will have eroded one of the most important bulwarks to a free press and an open society. The new FISA Amendments Act nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance. It allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The court will not be told specifics about who will be wiretapped, which means the law provides woefully inadequate safeguards to protect innocent people whose communications are caught up in the government's dragnet surveillance program. The law, passed under the guise of national security, ostensibly targets people outside the country. There is no question, however, that it will ensnare many communications between Americans and those overseas. Those communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments. This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours. It will hang like the sword of Damocles over all who dare to defy the official versions of events. It leaves open the possibility of retribution and invites the potential for abuse by those whose concern is not with national security but with the consolidation of their own power. I have joined an ACLU lawsuit challenging the new law along with other journalists, human rights organizations and defense attorneys who also rely on confidentiality to do their work. I have joined not only because this law takes aim at my work but because I believe it signals a serious erosion of safeguards that make possible our democratic state. Laws and their just application are the only protection we have as citizens. Once the law is changed to permit the impermissible, we have no recourse with which to fight back. I spent nearly 20 years as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, as well as other news organizations. I covered the conflict in the Middle East for seven years. I have friends and colleagues in Jerusalem, Gaza, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Baghdad and Beirut. I could easily be one of those innocent Americans who are spied on under the government's new surveillance authority. The reach of such surveillance has already hampered my work. I was once told about a showdown between a U.S. warship and the Iranian navy that had the potential to escalate into a military conflict. I contacted someone who was on the ship at the time of the alleged incident and who reportedly had photos. His first question was whether my phone and e-mails were being monitored. What could I say? How could I know? I offered to travel to see him but, frightened of retribution, he refused. I do not know if the man's story is true. I only know that the fear of surveillance made it impossible for me to determine its veracity. Under this law, all those who hold information that could embarrass and expose the lies of those in power will have similar fears. Confidentiality, and the understanding that as a reporter I will honor this confidentiality, permits a free press to function. Take it away and a free press withers and dies. I know the cost of terrorism and the consequences of war. I have investigated Al Qaeda's operation in Europe and have covered numerous conflicts. The monitoring of suspected terrorists, with proper oversight, is a crucial part of our national security. But this law is not about keeping us safe, which can -- and should -- be done in a constitutional manner and with judicial oversight. It is about using terrorism as a pretext to permit wholesale spying and to silence voices that will allow us to maintain an open society. Chris Hedges was part of the team of New York Times reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for reporting on global terrorism. He is the author of many books, including "War Is the Force that Gives Us Meaning." From shniad at sfu.ca Fri Jul 11 17:53:13 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:53:13 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Stand up for Khadrs rights, lawyer urges Harper Message-ID: <200807112353.m6BNrDHU024796@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080711/ff81baff/attachment.txt From shimogamo at attglobal.net Fri Jul 11 18:12:32 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:12:32 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Final warning Message-ID: <4877F6F0.9030507@attglobal.net> New Scientist via Acquire Media NewsEdge by Ian Sample www.tmcnet.com (June 27 2008) HOWLS of protest have been echoing round the globe as the price of oil punches through record highs with every passing week. In the UK, last month, hundreds of truckers descended on London to demand that planned fuel tax rises be scrapped. In continental Europe, where police clashed violently with truckers, two people died during the protests. Fishermen and farmers blockaded ports and depots in protest against the rocketing cost of diesel. Similar scenes played out across South America and Asia. In the US, the world's thirstiest oil consumer, gasoline reached an all-time high of $4 per gallon, forcing the administration to lean on domestic producers and consider suing foreign oil exporters for allegedly rigging the market. When President Bush implored Saudi Arabia, which controls the lion's share of the world's proven reserves, to pump more from its wells, the Saudis came up with only a token increase. The situation is not about to improve. Bankers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have both suggested that the crude oil price could rise from the high of $139 a barrel (as New Scientist went to press) to $200 or more, while the financial speculator George Soros predicts that rising oil prices could send the US economy into recession. Expensive fuel at the pumps is just the start. These battles over the price of oil could be the harbinger of something even scarier. There is a growing realisation that we are teetering on the edge of an economic catastrophe which could be triggered next time there is a glitch in the world's oil supply. A number of converging forces are making such an event more likely than ever before. First, there is the spectacular rise in global oil consumption, which, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) now stands at 87 million barrels of crude (about ten billion litres) a day. Most geologists now accept we have reached, or will imminently reach, peak oil. Some fields in the US and the North Sea have been pumped dry and production is becoming increasingly concentrated within fewer countries. Add a boost from speculators betting that things will get even worse, chicanery by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel which over the past two years has added Angola and Ecuador to its ranks to mask the decline in production of its existing members, and it's not hard to see why prices have been forced ever upwards. But price conceals the much more complex mess we're in. In the past, it has usually been possible to ride out any disruption to world oil flows - whether from accidents or hostile acts - by pumping more oil from the ground. That spare capacity has now all but vanished, as oil producers cash in on soaring prices by extracting as much of the stuff as they can. "There is absolutely no slack in the system any more", says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington DC-based think tank specialising in energy security {1}. It is this lack of wriggle-room that has brought us to the brink. In the days when oil producers had more leeway, they could make up for a disruption somewhere in the system by quickly raising production by around three million barrels a day, says Nick Butler, head of the Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies, part of the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School. That crucial reserve capacity has now fallen below the daily output of some producers - meaning that if the taps were turned off in any one of a number of unstable oil-supplying nations, such as Nigeria, Iraq, Iran or Angola, the impact would be felt almost immediately. This has left the oil market so fragile that a few well-placed explosives, an energy-sapping cold winter or an unusually intense hurricane season could send shock waves across the globe. The potential consequences are so serious that governments are drawing up emergency plans to cope should the worst happen. According to one analyst who took part in a simulation of just such a crisis, the situation most experts fear is what they call a "psychological avalanche". Here's what happens. A small, distant country one day finds it can no longer import enough oil because of a spike in prices or problems with local supply. The news media whip this up into a story suggesting an oil shock is on the way, and the resulting panic buying by the public degenerates into a global grab for oil. Most industrialised countries keep an emergency reserve as a first line of defence, but in the face of worldwide panic buying this may not be enough. Countries in which the oil runs out face transport meltdown, wreaking havoc with international trade and domestic necessities such as food distribution, emergency services and daily commerce. Without oil everything stops. The roots of our oil addiction can be traced back to the end of the 19th century, when petroleum began to be pumped from wells across America. It wasn't long before it become obvious what a great transport fuel it could provide. Oil-based fuels paved the way for intensive farming and extensive road networks; they drove the influx of populations into cities, drove growth in shipping and eventually made mass air travel possible. "Oil has shaped our civilisation. Without crude oil you'd have no cars, no shipping, no planes", says Gideon Samid, head of the Innovation Appraisal Group (IAG) at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio {2}. And it's not just about fuels. A giant chemical industry relies on oil as its feedstock, and without it many of the products we now take for granted would vanish. "You'd see no plastics, no bags, no toys, no cases on TVs, computers or radios. It's absolutely everywhere", says Samid. "Much of the economic expansion and growth of the human population in the 20th century is directly tied to the availability of large amounts of cheap oil", says Cutler Cleveland {3}, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. "There isn't a single good or service consumed on the planet, except in rural economies, that doesn't have oil embedded in it. Oil is the lifeblood of the global economy." The secret of oil's success is its portability and extraordinarily high energy density. One barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 46 US gallons of gasoline; burn it and it will release more than six billion joules of heat energy, equivalent to the amount of energy expended by five agricultural labourers working twelve-hour days non-stop for a year. The vast majority of oil is consumed by transport. In the US, that sector accounts for nearly seventy per cent of the 20.7 million barrels the country gets through each day. . More than half of the world's oil comes from seven countries, the leading supplier being Saudi Arabia, which produces more than ten million barrels a day. Then come Russia, the US, Iran, China, Mexico and Canada. Twenty years ago, there were fifteen oilfields able to supply one million barrels a day. Now, there are only four. The largest is the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia. The IEA, which advises 27 countries on oil emergencies, requires its members to hold at least ninety days' worth of fuel, which can be pooled and released onto the market if a crisis looms. The system last swung into action in 2005 when hurricane Katrina caused the shutdown of more than 23 per cent of the US's oil production capacity. A few days after Katrina struck, the IEA ordered the release of two million barrels a day from reserve stocks for a month, the first time reserves had been released since the Gulf war in 1991. About half the world's oil is distributed by tankers mainly plying a handful of key routes across the oceans. The rest goes through an extensive network of pipelines that can carry different grades of crude and synthetic compounds, such as lubricants. The bewildering complex of pipelines - extending 90,000 kilometres in the US alone - crosses continents and dips under oceans. The pipelines are often above ground and vulnerable to accidental damage or attacks by saboteurs. When working, however, they provide an extremely efficient way of transporting oil. A pipeline that pumps a relatively modest 150,000 barrels per day delivers the equivalent of 750 oil tanker truck loads or one delivery every two minutes, day and night. Even if a pipeline is damaged, it can usually be quickly repaired. Valves at intervals along the pipe can isolate the leak while the damaged section is replaced. Disruption can still be costly. A report in 2005 by a US House of Representatives subcommittee on terrorism reported that sabotage to oil pipelines in Iraq had cost the country more than $10 billion in lost revenues, even though protection had been a high priority for the coalition troops since they invaded two years before. The report suggested that groups hostile to the US and its allies were becoming increasingly expert at mounting these attacks. Choke points Even outside a conflict zone, accidents can cause serious disruption. Last year, the IEA was on standby to release reserves after an explosion in Minnesota shut down part of the 5000-kilometre Enbridge pipeline, which pumps 1.9 million barrels of crude a day from Canada to the US Midwest. This single incident halted one-fifth of US oil imports for days. Oil deliveries by sea are vulnerable too. A fleet of 4000 tankers plying six main routes delivers more than 43 million barrels of oil every day. Many of these routes pass through narrow "choke points", and if any of these were to become impassable, even temporarily, the effect on oil supplies could be dramatic. For instance, more than sixteen million barrels of oil a day are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, taking oil from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the US, western Europe and Asia. At its narrowest point, the strait is only 33 kilometres wide. If necessary, some of Saudi Arabia's exports could be diverted through the 1200-kilometre East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, but its maximum capacity is only five million barrels a day, half of which is already taken up. Between 1984 and 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war, both countries attacked tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, causing shipping to drop by 25 per cent. In 2003, the Bush administration claimed it had prevented further attacks on shipping in the strait. Another pinch point occurs in the Strait of Malacca, which narrows to just 2.7 kilometres between Sumatra and Singapore. Tankers from the Persian Gulf and west Africa transport some fifteen million barrels a day through the strait en route to Japan, China and other Pacific destinations. A report by Luft claims that some tankers have been hijacked here by would-be terrorists whose initial aim has been simply to learn how to operate them. In 2003 a small chemical tanker called Dewi Madrim was taken over by ten armed men, who sailed it through the strait before leaving with equipment and technical documents. One scenario being suggested is that hijackers might commandeer a liquid natural gas tanker plying one of these shipping routes, load it with explosives and use it to ram an oil tanker. If this floating bomb produced a burning oil slick, it could render the passage impassable for months, tipping the global economy into crisis as alternative routes would fail to make up the lost supplies. Another key element in the global oil infrastructure is Abqaiq, an enormous processing facility in Saudi Arabia, which removes sulphur from two-thirds of the country's crude. The CIA estimates that seven months after a large-scale attack, output would still be only forty per cent of its full capacity. More than half the oil from Abqaiq is pumped to the largest offshore oil terminal in the world, Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf, which handles one-tenth of the world's oil. This makes it a prime target for attack, and the site is as heavily defended as a military base. "If you have a facility like this and a plane crashed into it, or terrorists get in and somehow succeed in blowing it up, then you have a very, very significant disruption on your hands. That is what analysts see as a doomsday scenario", Luft says. Reuters reported that one planned attack on the terminal was thwarted in 2006. Saudi oil production is particularly vulnerable because it is concentrated in a few massive production and distribution sites. "If one or two of these facilities goes down, then the entire system goes down", says Luft. So what would the impact be if oil supplies choked? In 2005, a group of current and former US government and national security officials were asked to address this in a live role-play exercise. Playing the part of the national security adviser was Robert Gates, who the following year became Secretary of Defense. The scenarios that unfolded were developed with officials from the Shell oil company in the Netherlands, a former US presidential counter-terrorism adviser and industry analysts. The simulation kicked off with an upsurge of political violence in Nigeria, the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the US. In the ensuing turmoil 600,000 barrels of oil production a day were lost from the Niger delta. The violence coincided with the start of a cold winter in the northern hemisphere, which increased demand by 700,000 barrels a day. Together, these events boosted the price of a barrel of oil from $58 to $82; a proportional rise today would push the price beyond $195. Events began to gather pace when, a month later, the simulation threw in an attack on the Haradh natural-gas processing plant in Saudi Arabia, which forced the country to cut 250,000 barrels per day from its exports - equivalent to the oil consumed every day in Switzerland - to meet domestic needs. Next, news arrived of an attempt to ram a hijacked supertanker into another vessel moored at a jetty at Ras Tanura. This was closely followed by a similar attack at the oil port of Valdez in Alaska, as well as a ground attack which set fuel depots alight. With the world oil shortfall now at 3.4 million barrels per day, the price per barrel had shot up to $123. Against the recent peak price of $139, that rise would take the cost per barrel to $295. The turmoil leads to an aggressive crackdown on anti-western groups and their sympathisers, which temporarily quells further attacks. Then, six months into the simulation, a terrorist campaign is launched against foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, killing 200 and wounding 250 within 48 hours. Evacuation of foreign workers follows. Though oil production continues unchecked, this loss of expertise leaves Saudi Arabia unable to meet future demand and with no spare capacity. Fears that this could lead to shortages in the future bring speculators into the market, and the price per barrel rises to $161. At the end of the simulation, global production has fallen by 3.5 million barrels a day, or four per cent of world oil supplies. One of the participants, Jim Woolsey, a former head of the CIA, described the scenarios as "relatively mild compared to what is possible", yet this proved enough to almost triple the price of a barrel of crude. The key conclusion being drawn from this scenario is how reliant the global oil market is on Saudi Arabia's ability to ramp up production on demand. If this extra oil is not available, the price rockets. Saudi Arabia's recent reluctance to increase production and the ensuing price rises in today's real-life oil market amply bear out this prediction. So where does this leave us at a time when global oil production is approaching the point when it stops growing and starts to decline? Most industry experts, including geoscientists and economists, who were polled by Samid in 2007 said that peak production will occur by 2010. This contrasted with a similar survey conducted two years earlier, in which respondents were split, with many of the economists opting for a later date. "Now, a real consensus is emerging", says Samid. This tells us that we will have to start making serious attempts to wean ourselves off oil, and fast. It will be no easy task. "It's hardly conceivable that the world could function without oil", says Didier Houssin, director of oil markets and emergency preparedness at the IEA. Finding a replacement fuel for transport is the biggest challenge. So far all the alternatives have hit the skids. For example, hydrogen, which could potentially replace oil as a green fuel if made using renewable sources of energy, has storage and distribution problems. While biofuels, which could be an easier replacement for fossil fuels, require feedstocks that compete with food crops for water and agricultural land. "To get these alternatives close to what oil can do, you have to invest a lot of money", says Cleveland, something most governments and energy companies have done reluctantly, and at pathetically low levels. "These aren't insurmountable problems, but they suggest the transition has some formidable challenges", he adds. One way or another oil will become more scarce, even more costly and will always have the disadvantage of generating carbon dioxide when it's burned. However hard it may be, the sooner we make the break, the better. Links: {1} http://www.iags.org/galluft.htm {2} http://www.peakoilwhen.org/ {3} http://www.bu.edu/cees/people/faculty/cutler/index.html _____ Ian Sample is science correspondent for The Guardian newspaper in London Copyright (c) 2008 Reed Business Information - UK. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2008 Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) - All rights reserved http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/06/27/3521248.htm TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Fri Jul 11 18:32:35 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:32:35 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Russia and China Veto U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe Message-ID: I wish they had vetoed the Iran sanctions, too. July 11, 2008 Russia and China Veto U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:42 p.m. ET UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Russia and China vetoed proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's leaders Friday, rejecting U.S. efforts to step up punitive measures against the authoritarian regime after a widely discredited presidential election. Western powers mustered nine votes, the minimum needed to gain approval in the 15-nation council. But the resolution pushed by the Bush administration failed because of the action by two of the five veto-wielding permanent members. The other three states with veto power -- the U.S., Britain and France -- argued that sanctions were needed to respond to the state-sanctioned violence and intimidation against opponents of President Robert Mugabe before and after Zimbabwe's recent presidential election. The proposal would have imposed an international travel ban and freeze on personal assets of Mugabe and 13 key officials. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said sanctions would have taken the U.N. beyond its mandate in trying to punish political disputes by ''artificially elevating them to the level of a threat'' to international peace and security. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose nation is one of Zimbabwe's major trading partners, also expressed fears of nation-tinkering and said Zimbabwe was should be left to conduct its own talks on how to resolve its political crisis. ''The development of the situation in Zimbabwe until now has not exceeded the context of domestic affairs,'' Wang said. ''It will unavoidably interfere with the negotiation process.'' South Africa, a Zimbabwe neighbor that holds one of the council's non-permanent seats, led the opposition to the sanctions, arguing that Zimbabwe is not a threat to international peace. Supporters of the resolution had counted Burkina Faso's Ambassador Michel Kafando as the crucial swing vote. ''As a means of exerting pressure, it could help,'' he said of the sanctions resolution before the vote. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad expressed disappointment and said he found it ''disturbing'' that China joined with Russia. In London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband criticized the veto, saying that ''it will appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe.'' The action put an end for now to efforts to apply more international pressure on Mugabe's regime and force it to share power with the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Both sides say they are willing to share power, if only during a transition to new elections, but differ on who should lead it. The long-ruling ZANU-PF party wants Mugabe at the head, something the opposition and Mugabe's critics in the West have rejected. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 04:20:46 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:20:46 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Czechs See Oil Flow Fall and Suspect Russian Ire on Missile System Message-ID: July 12, 2008 Czechs See Oil Flow Fall and Suspect Russian Ire on Missile System By ANDREW E. KRAMER MOSCOW ? Three days after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the United States to host a tracking radar for an antiballistic missile system that Russia vehemently opposes, the authorities in Prague said the flow of Russian oil to their country was beginning to dwindle. In a statement on Friday, Czech officials declined to link the reduced supply to the deal signed Tuesday in Prague. Still, though the flow of oil can vary for technical reasons, it was clear that the Czechs suspected a connection and intended to ask the Russians to explain the decline. Russia maintains that the missiles meant to shoot down other missiles pose a threat to its own nuclear deterrence. The Bush administration says they are intended instead to counter a threat from Iran, which launched nine missiles on Wednesday. In the deal, the Czech Republic agreed to have the United States place a tracking radar on Czech territory. That radar would be linked to interceptor missiles elsewhere; the United States is in talks with Poland and Lithuania to host those. In one of his first foreign policy tests since becoming Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev said this week that Russia intended to retaliate. "We are extremely upset by this situation," Mr. Medvedev said at a news conference in Japan, where he was attending a Group of 8 summit meeting. "We will not be hysterical about this, but we will think of retaliatory steps," he said. Shipments to Czech oil refineries through the Druzhba pipeline, which ties Siberian fields to the Czech Republic, are declining, the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade said. It did not say by how much. It said in a statement that it was "trying to find out what is the cause via the Czech Embassy in Moscow." The Czech Republic has oil reserves to cover 95 days of demand, it said. A Czech Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Zuzana Opletalova, declined in a telephone interview to link the reduced oil supply to accepting the antimissile radar. "We don't want to say if this is related," Ms. Opletalova said, adding that the ministry hoped for clarification on Monday. Written questions sent to Russia's pipeline operator, Transneft, were not answered after working hours on Friday. In any case, the Czech Republic is far less vulnerable than Ukraine, which was severely hurt two years ago by a cut in Russian natural gas. In the 1990s the Czechs built, at great expense, a transnational oil pipeline from the West to open an alternative to Russian oil and reduce their vulnerability. This pipeline from Germany taps Western European networks supplied from the Middle East and the North Sea. The Ministry of Industry and Trade said this supply route could fully compensate for even a total Russian shutoff. The Russian leadership, emboldened by new wealth, is seen by critics as intent on restoring lost spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. Russia is the world's largest energy exporting nation, if oil and natural gas are counted together. Many Eastern European nations are wholly dependent on Russia for fuel. This dependence has stirred some fears of a spreading politicization of energy, at a time of soaring prices, akin to the 1973 Arab oil embargo of the United States. Russian officials have consistently denied exploiting energy as an instrument of foreign policy. The Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, said Friday that Russia would "comply with all our commitments to our foreign partners now, in the midterm and in the long term," the Interfax news agency reported. "We will behave responsibly, as usual," he said. In January 2006, Gazprom, Russia's gas company, cut gas supplies to Ukraine for three days, about a year after the protests known as the Orange Revolution ushered in a pro-Western government. The cutoff was ostensibly over a pricing dispute. Later in 2006, after Lithuanian authorities sold an important oil refinery to a non-Russian company, the Russian pipeline operator closed the pipe to that refinery, blaming technical problems. Judy Dempsey contributed reporting from Berlin. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 04:42:38 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:42:38 -0400 Subject: [R-G] 2 Vetoes Quash U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe Message-ID: July 12, 2008 2 Vetoes Quash U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe By NEIL MacFARQUHAR UNITED NATIONS ? An American-led effort to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe failed in the Security Council on Friday, with Russia and China exercising a rare double veto to quash a resolution that they said represented excessive interference in the country's domestic matters. The United States, having earlier in the week mustered the nine votes needed to pass the sanctions, stalled on bringing the resolution to a vote until it became absolutely clear that Russia was determined to stop it. Once the Russians announced on Friday that they would exercise their veto, the Chinese, often leery of taking a lone stand on delicate human rights issues, followed suit. "The key thing is that the Russians decided to vote against it," said John Sawers, the British ambassador to the United Nations. "The assessment here is that China would not have vetoed it on its own because they have a range of conflicting interests at stake." Among other issues, China's reluctance to criticize the human rights records of African governments it trades with has come under international criticism as the Olympics in Beijing draw near. The United States and its allies supported sanctions as a way of getting President Robert Mugabe to take seriously mediation efforts to bring the opposition into the government. Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was particularly scathing in his remarks about Russia, saying that Moscow had supported a joint statement criticizing the situation in Zimbabwe by the leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations meeting in Japan this week. But he also singled out President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa as a target for barbed remarks. "The U-turn in the Russian position is particularly surprising and disturbing," Mr. Khalilzad said in remarks to the Security Council, saying it raised questions about Russia's reliability as a partner. The United States proposed an arms embargo, the appointment of a United Nations mediator, and travel and financial restrictions against Mr. Mugabe and 13 top military and government officials. The Council has moved away from broad trade sanctions in recent years because they were considered too harmful to the civilian population. The move for sanctions came after a June 23 agreement by all 15 Security Council members on a statement criticizing pre-election violence and saying that it was impossible to hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. In the first round of elections, on March 29, the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won more votes than Mr. Mugabe, nearly 48 percent compared with about 42 percent for the president, according to the official tally. But Mr. Tsvangirai withdrew from the second round after a campaign of killing and intimidation directed at his supporters. Thomas Pickering, the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992, said that convincing the Russians was usually the key to avoiding a veto on issues involving human rights. "If you can get the Russians, you can move the Chinese to an abstention," he said, noting that China usually only exercises its veto on issues involving Taiwan or the use of force. "They don't want to be the odd man out on a veto." Russia and China do not often exercise their veto together, the last time being in January 2007 when they blocked a Council effort to criticize human rights violations in Myanmar. Russia worked to bring the Chinese along on the veto on Friday, one senior diplomat said. The United States and its European allies have been trying to push more issues of good governance and democracy onto the Security Council's agenda in recent years, said Mr. Sawers, the British ambassador. They find themselves opposed by "those with an old-fashioned and literal view that the affairs of a country are a matter for itself, and the Security Council should not intervene," he said. "The Russians and Chinese have not been comfortable with that and the vote today reflects that." The Security Council's mandate specifies that it should only deal with matters that are a threat to international peace and security, and the differing sides on the resolution vote took opposite views of whether Zimbabwe constituted such a threat. Russia had indicated all week, without committing itself, that it was willing to show some flexibility on the issue, Mr. Khalilzad said, but at noon on Friday announced that it would exercise its veto power as a permanent Council member. "They decided to make a point on this issue, to say 'nyet,' " Mr. Khalilzad said. "Something happened in Moscow." Even though the United States knew at that point that it would lose, it decided to proceed with the vote anyway, to force the Russians and eventually the Chinese to publicly take a stand in support of Mr. Mugabe and the violence promulgated by his supporters to steal the election. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, argued that the sanctions exceeded the Security Council's mandate. "We believe such practices to be illegitimate and dangerous," he said, calling the resolution one more obvious "attempt to take the Council beyond its charter prerogatives." China echoed that argument but also expressed concern about whether the sanctions would impede mediation efforts by South Africa. "We feel that the important thing is for the political parties to get together to discuss this issue seriously to sort out their differences," the Chinese ambassador, Wang Guangya, said before rejecting the resolution. "It will interfere with the negotiating process and lead to the further deterioration of the situation." In the end, nine Council members voted to support the measure: the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Panama, Costa Rica, Croatia and Burkina Faso. The United States had initially been confident in getting the resolution passed because it had the support of Burkina Faso as well as other African states not on the Council, like Liberia and Sierra Leone. Burkina Faso's support was considered crucial. Besides the two vetoes, the other votes against the sanctions were cast by Libya, Vietnam and South Africa. Indonesia abstained. Throughout the debate on the Zimbabwe elections, South Africa had led much of the opposition, with its ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, saying that the Security Council should let Africa try to solve its own problems. Mr. Kumalo said the resolution went too far in criticizing only the ruling party in Zimbabwe, the ZANU-PF, while wholly supporting Mr. Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change. That made it an unbalanced basis for mediation, Mr. Kumalo said, and on Friday he noted in his Security Council remarks that the talks between the two sides, which had started in Pretoria, South Africa, needed to be given some space without sanctions to succeed. Critics have suggested Mr. Mbeki, the South African president, has been overly indulgent toward Mr. Mugabe because both of them came from liberation organizations and face increasingly vocal trade union movements that want to replace them. Mr. Khalilzad accused South Africa of protecting the "horrible regime in Zimbabwe," calling it particularly disturbing given that sanctions eventually undermined the apartheid government that had oppressed South Africa. The American ambassador disparaged the mediation effort and Mr. Mbeki's position. "There isn't anything serious going on in terms of negotiations ," Mr. Khalilzad said. "The South African effort, President Mbeki's effort, so far has been a failure. President Mbeki's actions appear to be protecting Mr. Mugabe, and to be working hand in glove with him at times, while he, Mugabe, uses violent means to fragment and weaken the opposition." Mr. Kumalo said that while some pressure was necessary, the leap to sanctions was too fast and they should be threatened before being applied. Mr. Khalilzad said the United States had been willing to consider various options, including a longer timetable to apply sanctions, but ultimately Security Council members opposed to the resolution decided to reject it outright rather than negotiate. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Jul 12 08:32:51 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:32:51 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill Message-ID: <4878C093.1030006@attglobal.net> by Greg Palast {1} Chicago Tribune (June 26 2008) www.gregpalast.com (June 25 2008) Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by ninety percent to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill. Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty. But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone. In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives. His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it - and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die. And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late. In today's ruling, Supreme Court Justice David Souter wrote that Exxon's recklessness was ''profitless'' - so the company shouldn't have to pay punitive damages. Profitless, Mr Souter? Exxon and its oil shipping partners saved billions - BILLIONS - by operating for sixteen years without the oil spill safety equipment they promised, in writing, under oath and by contract. The official story is, "Drunken Skipper Hits Reef". But don't believe it, Mr Souter. Alaska's Native lands and coastline were destroyed by a systematic fraud motivated by profit-crazed penny-pinching. Here's the unreported story, the one you won't get tonight on the Petroleum Broadcast System: It begins in 1969 when big shots from Humble Oil and ARCO (now known as Exxon and British Petroleum) met with the Chugach Natives, owners of the most valuable parcel of land on the planet: Valdez Port, the only conceivable terminus for a pipeline that would handle a trillion dollars in crude oil. These Alaskan natives ultimately agreed to sell the Exxon consortium this astronomically valuable patch of land - for a single dollar. The Natives refused cash. Rather, in 1969, they asked only that the oil companies promise to protect their Prince William Sound fishing and seal hunting grounds from oil. In 1971, Exxon and partners agreed to place the Natives' specific list of safeguards into federal law. These commitments to safety reassured enough Congressmen for the oil group to win, by one vote, the right to ship oil from Valdez. {2} The oil companies repeated their promises under oath to the US Congress. The spill disaster was the result of Exxon and partners breaking every one of those promises - cynically, systematically, disastrously, in the fifteen years leading up to the spill. Forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate. For the Chugach, this discovery was poignantly ironic. On their list of safety demands in return for Valdez was "state-of-the-art" on-ship radar. We discovered more, but because of the labyrinthine ways of litigation, little became public, especially about the reckless acts of the industry consortium, Alyeska, which controls the Alaska Pipeline. * Several smaller oil spills before the Exxon Valdez could have warned of a system breakdown. But a former Senior Lab Technician with Alyeska, Erlene Blake, told our investigators that management routinely ordered her to toss out test samples of water evidencing spilled oil. She was ordered to refill the test tubes with a bucket of clean sea water called, "The Miracle Barrel". * In a secret meeting in April 1988, Alyeska Vice-President T L Polasek confidentially warned the oil group executives that, because Alyeska had never purchased promised safety equipment, it was simply "not possible" to contain an oil spill past the Valdez Narrows - exactly where the Exxon Valdez ran aground ten months later. * The Natives demanded (and law requires) that the shippers maintain round- the- clock oil spill response teams. Alyeska hired the Natives, especiallly qualified by their generations-old knowledge of the Sound, for this emergency work. They trained to drop from helicopters into the water with special equipment to contain an oil slick at a moments notice. But in 1979, quietly, Alyeska fired them all. To deflect inquisitive state inspectors, the oil consortium created sham teams, listing names of oil terminal workers who had not the foggiest idea how to use spill equipment which, in any event, was missing, broken or existed only on paper. In 1989, when the oil poured from the tanker, there was no Native response team, only chaos. {3} Today, twenty years after the oil washed over the Chugach beaches, you can kick over a rock and it will smell like an old gas station. The cover story of the Drunken Captain serves the oil industry well. It falsely presents America's greatest environmental disaster as a tale of human frailty, a one-time accident. But broken radar, missing equipment, phantom spill teams, faked tests - the profit-driven disregard of the law - made the spill an inevitability, not an accident. Yet Big Oil tells us, as they plead to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, as Senator John McCain calls for drilling off the shores of the Lower 48, it can't happen again. They promise. Links: {1} http://www.gregpalast.com/wp-content/uploads/1henrymakarkatatitleknative.jpg {2} http://www.gregpalast.com/wp-content/uploads/oilcleanupcheneganatives.jpg {3} http://www.gregpalast.com/wp-content/uploads/contaminatedsoil.jpg _____ Greg Palast is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for Investigative Reporting at the Nation Institute, New York. Read and view his investigations for BBC Television at www.GregPalast.com. An earlier version of this report originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune. http://www3.gregpalast.com/court-rewards-exxon-for-valdez-oil-spill/ TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 12 13:41:33 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:41:33 -0700 Subject: [R-G] A Clockwork Orange Message-ID: <200807121941.m6CJfXMh020279@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080712/4b1c1eca/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 12 13:52:45 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:52:45 -0700 Subject: [R-G] 'It's impossible to conquer the Afghans' Message-ID: <200807121952.m6CJqjMT028380@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080712/0466d03e/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Sat Jul 12 13:53:32 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:53:32 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The Palestinian Return and Right of ReturnNo Deal! Message-ID: <200807121953.m6CJrWaJ028862@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080712/a08baee3/attachment.txt From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 12 15:40:29 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:40:29 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Obama's Evolving Foreign Polic Message-ID: Obama's Evolving Foreign Policy By Robert Dreyfuss This article appeared in the July 21, 2008 edition of The Nation. July 1, 2008 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/dreyfuss "It's helpful to point out that Barack Obama is not the messiah," says Richard Danzig, a national security adviser to the Illinois senator, tongue only slightly in cheek. "There's a tendency to see him in messianic terms. He cannot multiply loaves and fishes." Perhaps nowhere else are expectations as high for what an Obama presidency will mean as in foreign policy, where many Americans--and most of the world--are holding their breath awaiting the end of George W. Bush's wrecking-ball approach to world affairs. In some important areas, Obama would alter or reverse course: he'd draw down forces in Iraq; open talks with adversaries such as Iran, Syria and Cuba; end torture and close Guant?namo; renounce unilateralism and preventive wars; rebuild ties with allies; and re-engage with the Kyoto climate change initiative. He's also pledged to halt the development of and to seek a "world without nuclear weapons." In sharp contrast to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, Obama would start to put the threat of terrorism in its proper perspective, elevating the importance of other threats to security, from poverty to pandemic disease to global warming. "He recognizes that there are a lot of problems in the world that merit attention besides the war on terrorism," says Danzig. But in many respects, Obama seems likely to preside over a restoration of the bipartisan consensus that governed foreign policy during the cold war and the 1990s, updated for a post-9/11 world. That conclusion arises from an in-depth examination of the Illinois senator's views as well as dozens of interviews with foreign policy experts, including lengthy exchanges with the core group of Obama's foreign policy team and other participants in his task forces on the military, Iraq and the Middle East. It's also based on a careful review of speeches and position papers, Obama's 2007 article in Foreign Affairs and a key chapter, "The World Beyond Our Borders," in his book The Audacity of Hope. All this suggests there is a gap between Obama's inspirational speeches and the actual policies he supports. "So far, what you're seeing is rhetoric that we can make bold changes in our foreign policy," says John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. "But when he lays out specifics, it's not as transformational as the rhetoric." Will Marshall, director of the right-leaning Progressive Policy Institute of the Democratic Leadership Council, agrees. "On most of the details, he's aligned with the general Democratic consensus," Marshall says. Says Tom Hayden, the veteran activist and former California state senator, "At best, he will be a gradualist." Even as he pledges to end the war in Iraq, Obama promises to increase Pentagon spending, boost the size of the Army and Marines, bolster the Special Forces, expand intelligence agencies and maintain the hundreds of US military bases that dot the globe. He supports a muscular multilateralism that includes NATO expansion, and according to the Times of London, his advisers are pushing him to ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in an Obama administration. Though he is against the idea of the United States imposing democracy abroad, Obama does propose a sweeping nation-building and democracy-promotion program, including strengthening the controversial National Endowment for Democracy and constructing a civil-military apparatus that would deploy to rescue and rebuild failed and failing states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Because Obama has little foreign policy track record, however (he will be leaving soon on a tour of Europe, the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan to burnish his r?sum?), it's not easy to decipher his views, beyond his rhetoric and the people he's chosen to advise him. Two questions arise. First, is it possible to extricate Obama's views from those of his advisers? Many of the people surrounding him can be categorized as liberal interventionists, Clinton Administration-era veterans who believe that US military power is central to world security and who don't shy away from the use of soft and hard power, including military force, to deal with less than immediate threats to the United States. More recently, Obama's team has seen the addition of Democratic Party stalwarts, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, the promilitary conservative from Georgia. Progressives who are most hopeful about Obama's foreign policy put their faith in the senator's character and innate instincts and, as Cavanagh says, the likelihood that he "will actually listen to foreign leaders he sees." But a team of advisers has a way of calcifying around a candidate once in office. "You find yourself surrounded by brilliant advisers who go all aflutter if you try to change things," says Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information (CDI). Second, how much of what Obama is saying is simply what he believes he has to say to get elected? It's possible that Obama's positions on, say, the Israeli-Palestinian question are shaped by his goal of winning the votes of hard-line, pro-Israel Jews, or that his support for expanded military spending is designed to counter expected accusations by McCain that he is an appeasement-minded dilettante who hasn't served in the armed forces. But many of Obama's positions are meticulously detailed and go far beyond what might be needed for political expediency. And even if he is adopting these positions to avoid attacks from the right, it raises questions about his willingness to sacrifice principle for expediency. A great deal of Obama's appeal derives from his optimistic, even idealistic approach to policy-making. Yet his idealism is a two-edged sword. He envisions a world in which the United States helps conquer poverty and disease, and he recognizes that restoring dignity and hope to people in troubled parts of the world will make America safer and more secure. At the same time, some of his more idealistic rhetorical flights echo the sentiments of many neoconservatives and neoliberals, including their tendency to see the world in Manichaean terms. "I dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another [in which] we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," Obama proclaimed in an April 2007 address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "We must lead the world." Obama's advisers stress that he believes in the inextricable interdependence of the post-cold war world. In a campaign paper, Obama says, "Leadership in this new era begins with the recognition...[that] the security and well-being of each and every American is tied to the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders.... It must be about recognizing the inherent equality, dignity, and worth of all people." To fight global poverty, he pledges to double foreign aid to $50 billion a year by 2012, and to make "investments in agriculture, infrastructure, and economic growth" in developing countries. He wants to help establish a "global health infrastructure" by 2020 to combat infectious diseases, a "civilian assistance corps" and a streamlined development agency staffed with a "new cadre of development experts," along with a $2 billion global education fund. With his Kenyan and Indonesian roots, Obama can credibly claim that he has an inherent understanding of the crushing burden that poverty, disease and lack of clean water and education place on Third World populations. And he has said that such abysmal conditions can make angry, oppressed populations susceptible to the appeal of violent extremists. But Obama may not realize how US involvement abroad, even when well- intentioned, is perceived on the receiving end as heavy-handed meddling. He and his key advisers have embraced a sweeping plan to promote democracy overseas, rebuild failed and failing states and provide aid to dissidents and democrats from Africa and the Middle East to Russia and China. He pledges to "integrate civilian and military capabilities to promote global democracy and development," including the creation of "Mobile Development Teams (MDTs) that bring together personnel from the military, the Pentagon, the State Department and USAID, fully integrating U.S. government efforts in counter-terror, state-building, and post-conflict operations." He would also "establish an expeditionary capability" for non-Pentagon agencies, including the departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury. Asked which failing states might need attention from Obama, Susan Rice, a former Clinton Administration State Department official who advises the candidate, says, "The list is long. You can start in South Asia and Afghanistan, but there is also Somalia, Yemen, Kenya and the Sahelian countries in Africa." Then, she says, there are countries that, while not yet failing, have weak or poorly formed civil societies. "In countries like Nigeria, where in contrast to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, you are facing a regime that is not strongly averse to political reform, the United States can help to build democratic institutions, a more accountable parliament, a free press and institutions of civil justice." Even in more resistant countries, such as Egypt and Russia, the United States can still support dissidents and take other pro-democracy steps, says Rice. Asked whether Russia, for instance, would react favorably to such efforts, she says, "No, they would not like it. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing it. And we were doing it, until a little while ago. During the Clinton Administration, there was a much more active democracy promotion effort." Questions also arise about Obama's attitude toward humanitarian intervention. Several of his advisers, including Rice and Tony Lake, President Clinton's National Security Adviser, are strong advocates of using US military force to intervene in cases of severe violations of human rights, including genocide. In 2006 Rice and Lake wrote a Washington Post op-ed demanding a unilateral US "bombing campaign or naval blockade" and even the deployment of ground forces in Sudan to halt the killing in Darfur, and Obama has called for "enforcing a no- fly zone" there. What does that say about Zimbabwe? Burma? Congo? "There is," says Rice, "no cookie-cutter answer to the question of when a situation reaches the level of outrage that justifies intervention." Of course, the United Nations and other international bodies may not endorse multilateral interventions in regional crises, and although Obama has not gone as far as McCain in calling for the creation of a League of Democracies to bypass the UN in such cases, his campaign is debating the idea, according to insiders. Last year Lake co-chaired the Princeton Project on National Security, whose principal recommendation was to create a Concert of Democracies not unlike McCain's league. The strategists most closely identified with the idea are Robert Kagan, a well-known neoconservative, and Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution strategist and Obama adviser, who have co-written such a plan. Indeed, on the issue of the Defense Department and military spending, Obama cedes no ground to McCain. According to CDI's Wheeler, during his years in the Senate Obama never challenged military spending bills in a significant way. In the Senate and in his presidential campaign, Obama has supported the addition of 65,000 troops to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines. He backed the latest round of NATO enlargement into Eastern Europe, and according to Denis McDonough, his top adviser on foreign policy, he supports granting Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia; the latter, especially, is considered deeply threatening by the Russian leadership and could undermine negotiations with a resurgent and increasingly self-confident Moscow on a number of critical issues, including Iran and nuclear disarmament. Obama is open to talks that would establish formal ties between NATO, Australia and New Zealand. His call for the expansion of the Special Forces would empower the most aggressively interventionist of the Pentagon's units, and he wants to spend more money on reserve units and the National Guard. In his Chicago speech last year Obama called for the creation of "a twenty-first-century military to stay on the offensive, from Djibouti to Kandahar." In several areas, Obama has made it clear that he looks forward to bolstering America's capabilities to intervene worldwide. He has called for spending significant new money to add unmanned aerial vehicles to the Air Force, boost electronic warfare capabilities and build more C-17 cargo planes and KC-X refueling aircraft to enhance America's "future ability to extend its global power." Obama also plans to "recapitalize our naval forces" so America can patrol ocean "choke points" to protect oil supplies, and he wants to fund new ships that can "patrol and protect the 'brown' waters of river systems [overseas] and the 'green' waters close to our shores." Along with his determination to pull combat units out of Iraq, Obama has pledged to beef up the US presence in Afghanistan, promising to add at least two combat brigades to the US-NATO force there. "And that's a floor, not a ceiling," says Rice. He's also said that he'd attack Pakistan unilaterally to take out Al Qaeda-linked forces if there was "actionable intelligence" about their location. It's become part of the Democratic Party catechism to accuse President Bush of letting Al Qaeda off the hook in Afghanistan and Pakistan by sending so many troops to Iraq, as if tens of thousands of soldiers were needed to hunt down bin Laden--and Obama is no exception. Yet escalating America's role in Afghanistan, especially in light of growing tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, could well inflame the violence and undercut Pakistan's ability to deal with the growing Taliban and Al Qaeda presence. Obama's foreign policy team uniformly dismisses the idea that the Pentagon's bloated budget can be cut, even though, not counting spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, it has nearly doubled since 2000 and is roughly equal to the military spending of all other countries combined. "Are we or are we not relying on the Pentagon for an increased role? Of course we are," says McDonough. "I don't see how, given the challenges we have on the horizon, we can talk about reducing Pentagon spending." Though Pentagon critics point to the overwhelming supremacy of America's military might, McDonough suggests that, as President, Obama would spend more to prepare for future threats. "What is the long-term horizon? Will there be new [military] peers? What does China look like in twenty-five years?" he asks. Ivo Daalder, who emphasizes that he is not speaking on behalf of the campaign, adds that the United States cannot withdraw forces from Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in Asia because it would unnerve allies by giving the impression that America plans to accommodate China. "We have to reassure our allies that the United States is committed to remaining an Asian power," he says. Obama's ambitious democracy-promotion schemes and humanitarian intervention posture, not to mention his support for a continued arms buildup, raise the question of whether he understands the political and economic constraints the United States will face in future years. Which raises the question of Iraq: by withdrawing a significant number of troops, the United States can create at least some additional space for action elsewhere. "If we liquidate our presence in Iraq, we free up an enormous amount of our defense expenditures," says Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you don't liquidate the presence in Iraq, at least by twelve to fifteen brigades, your freedom to maneuver is nil." Obama has declared his intention to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month, starting immediately after his inauguration. But he has deliberately left vague the question of how many might remain as a "residual force," what their missions might be and how long they might stay. Some of his Iraq advisers, such as Colin Kahl of the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank, are on record suggesting that a force of 60,000 to 80,000 might remain for at least several years. Others, including Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis of the liberal Center for American Progress, have proposed withdrawing virtually all US forces as quickly as possible. Inside the campaign there is tension between advisers who want to draw a stark contrast with McCain on Iraq and those who'd prefer that Obama tack to the center and blur the differences. "What that residual force will do and how large it should be is something that he is studiously ambiguous about," says one senior military adviser to Obama. "It might be possible, or it might not be possible, to go through this campaign without resolving that ambiguity." At times, Obama has talked about keeping a "limited number of troops...in Iraq" to battle Al Qaeda-style terrorism, and he's also spoken of an "over-the-horizon force," to be stationed outside Iraq to intervene when needed. According to Kahl, who emphasizes that he is not speaking for Obama, other missions for residual troops would include force protection, such as defending the gigantic new US Embassy in Baghdad, and advising, training and equipping the Iraqi army and police. Obama's celebrated 2002 speech, in which he called Iraq a "dumb war" and warned that it would destabilize the Middle East and fan the flames of terrorism, was a key reason antiwar Democrats rallied to his side during the primary season. But in the Senate Obama avoided engaging on behalf of the Out of Iraq Caucus in Congress, and he deliberately avoided taking a leadership role. "Obama and his staff weren't very responsive, and on Iraq and Iran they weren't leaders," says Paul Kawika Martin of Peace Action. "He didn't introduce legislation, and they weren't the ones on the floor pushing senators, pushing [majority leader Harry] Reid." When antiwar members of the House reached out to the Senate, Obama demurred. "In that very critical period from January to mid-April 2007, when we were trying to reduce funding for the war, he was very hard to pin down," says a veteran House staffer. During much of that period, Obama's key staffer was Mark Lippert, a former aide to Senator Patrick Leahy. A Wall Street Journal profile of Lippert last fall portrayed the two men as intimate friends and quoted Obama calling Lippert "one of my favorite people in the world." According to those who've worked closely with Lippert, he is a conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate for increased military spending. "Even before Obama announced for the presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran," says a lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill. "He's clearly more hawkish than the senator." A reserve lieutenant and intelligence officer in the Navy SEALs, Lippert took leave from Obama's staff last fall to serve a tour in Iraq, returning in June and rejoining the Obama team. Obama's declaration that he'd meet with Iran's leaders sets him apart from both Bush and McCain. Obama has been widely praised for insisting on a central role for diplomacy and negotiations, and for supporting the normally less than shocking idea that diplomats sometimes talk to adversaries and enemies. But Obama has refused to rule out going to war against Iran, in the event that Tehran moves forward with its nuclear program in defiance of international opposition. Even if it was a grudging nod to political expediency, his June 4 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) impressed hawkish Jewish leaders. "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power... everything," he said, adding, "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table." He qualified his willingness to meet with Iran's leaders, saying he'd talk to "the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing if--and only if--it can advance the interests of the United States." Ratcheting up his earlier rhetoric, Obama said that he supported "banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran," which would have a devastating effect on Iran's economy and could lead to a US-enforced naval blockade of Iran. Obama also sided with the White House and the many neoconservatives, including Senator Joseph Lieberman, by saying that the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps "has rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." Obama's strikingly pro-Israel address to AIPAC included a pledge to provide a $30 billion, ten-year aid package "that will not be tied to any other nation" and that will "ensure Israel's qualitative military advantage." Says a disappointed Palestinian activist who has spoken with Obama in the past, "They apparently have made a stupid political calculation that they have to say these things to be politically competitive in Florida." Among Obama's Middle East advisers, there's not a single boat-rocker. One who did rock the boat was Robert Malley, a member of Bill Clinton's National Security Council who took part in numerous high-level Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Oslo period and is now an official with the firmly centrist International Crisis Group. After meeting with Hamas officials, Malley was compelled to remove himself from Obama's campaign. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of an organization of liberal American Jews called the J Street Project, established earlier this year to compete with AIPAC, is resigned to hearing hawkish rhetoric from Obama during the campaign. "At the moment, the political space doesn't exist for something else," says Ben-Ami. But he says that many of Obama's Middle East advisers "are in line with the J Street view." Asked how Obama's policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict would differ from McCain's and Bush's, one of Obama's senior advisers on the Middle East says that "Senator Obama is committed to a much more engaged form of helping Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement," and that he would involve himself "at a presidential level." In addition, the adviser says, Obama would talk to Syria, and he would support the ongoing Israel-Syria negotiations currently sponsored by Turkey's foreign minister. But the Middle East expert wouldn't comment on the wisdom of Bush's stubborn refusal to talk to the late Yasir Arafat, wouldn't criticize the White House's endorsement of Israel's invasion of the West Bank in 2002 and reiterated Obama's support for the overwhelmingly disproportionate Israeli response to Hezbollah's cross- border raid in the summer of 2006, when Israeli bombing of Lebanon killed up to 1,000 civilians. For many, the most hopeful aspect of an Obama presidency is simply the fresh face of America that he would present to the world. "It could be a game-changer," says Derek Chollet, who advised John Edwards on foreign policy. "Obama will have a lot in the bank, and perhaps the biggest challenge will be managing the expectations that his election would bring about." Joseph Nye, former head of the National Intelligence Council under Clinton, says, "In Europe, there is something close to Obamamania. They're very excited about the idea of Obama in the White House. And that's even more true in Africa and the Middle East." Nye, who has written extensively about what he calls "smart power"--a mix of hard (military) and soft (diplomatic and political) power, adds, "I think Barack Obama would do wonders for America's soft power." In the so-called "war on terrorism," Obama makes it clear that he intends to capitalize on that good will. "In the first 100 days of my administration, I will travel to a major Islamic forum to deliver an address to redefine our struggle," he said. "I will make it clear that we are not at war with Islam." It's hard to imagine a President McCain taking such a step. Good will is likely to play an important role in how America re- engages with the world after eight years of Bush's reckless unilateralism. Yet more is required. It remains to be seen whether an Obama administration can articulate a coherent progressive purpose for American foreign policy in the post-Bush era. So far, at least, his team appears to be falling back on the liberal interventionist notions of the 1990s that led us into Iraq and that took life while Washington was under unipolar illusions. Young and without much experience but remarkably astute and empathetic, Obama is a work in progress on national security policy. In the crucible of a tough national election campaign, political calculations will loom large. It is thus all the more important that progressives drive their ideas into the campaign's debates. About Robert Dreyfuss Robert Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an investigative journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in politics and national security. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam and is a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones. more... From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 12 19:10:45 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:10:45 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Fwd: Recent Venezuela/Latin America articles at Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal References: Message-ID: Dear friends and comrades, /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ continues to carry regular in-depth articles on the unfolding revolution in Venezuela, as well as developments in Latin America and the world. Here are some of its more recent Latin America and Venezuela-related content. Don't miss out! Please subscribe free to the regular weekly ``what's new at /Links/'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Visit /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal /at http://www.links.org.au Terry Townsend, Editor. ***** Colombia: Behind the freeing of Ingrid Betancourt By *Stuart Munckton* July 5, 2008 -- On July 2, an operation by the Colombian military succeeded in freeing French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who had held her prisoner since 2002. Betancourt was the highest-profile FARC-held prisoner and the action, which also liberated 14 other prisoners, captured world headlines. *More on the struggle in Colombia HERE .* * Read more Michael Lebowitz: The spectre of socialism for the 21st century The following is the keynote address to the annual meeting of the Society for Socialist Studies, Vancouver, June 5, 2008. It was originally titled ``Building socialism for the 21st century''. By *Michael A. Lebowitz* A spectre is haunting capitalism. It is the spectre of socialism for the 21st century. Increasingly, the characteristics of this spectre are becoming clear, and we are able to see enough to understand what it is not. The only thing that is not clear at this point is whether the spectre is real -- i.e., whether it is actually an earthly presence. * Read more Fidel on Colombia, FARC and opposition to US intervention: `Pax Romana' By *Fidel Castro Ruz* July 5, 2008 -- ... While in Colombia the senior military officers went to great pains to explain that Ingrid Betancourt's rescue had been an entirely Colombian operation, the US authorities were saying that "it was the result of years of intense military cooperation of the Colombian and United States' armies". * Read more Fidel on Trujillo; honesty in journalism; and the release of Ingrid Betancourt /Excerpt:/ ``Out of a basically humanist sentiment, we rejoiced at the news that Ingrid Betancourt, three US citizens and other captives had been released. The civilians should have never been kidnapped, nor should they have been kept prisoners in the conditions of the jungle. These were objectively cruel actions. No revolutionary purpose could justify it. The time will come when the subjective factors should be analysed in depth.'' * Read more `Is Cuba done with equality?' NOT! By *Fred Feldman * June 28, 2008 -- I am responding to ``Of Pay and Productivity: Is Cuba Done With Equality ?'', an article by Moshe Adler, director of Public Interest Economics, which appeared in the June 20 /Counterpunch/ (a radical monthly print and daily webzine based in the US.) The article deals with the latest modifications of the country's wage structure made public June 11. * Read more Characteristics of the experiences underway in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia By *Eric Toussaint* June 27, 2008 -- In Latin America, if we exclude Cuba, we can point to three general categories of governments. First, the governments of the right, the allies of Washington, that play an active role in the region and occupy a strategic position: these are the governments of ?lvaro Uribe in Colombia, Alan Garc?a in Peru and Felipe Calder?n in M?xico. Second, we find supposed "left" governments that implement a neoliberal policy and support the national or regional bourgeoisies in their projects: Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua and the government of Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, from Argentina's Peronists. They are governments that implement a neoliberal policy that favour grand capital, covered up with some social assistance measures. In effect, they make it a bit easier to swallow the neoliberal pill by applying social programs. For example, in Brazil poor families receive a bit of help from the government, which assures them popular support in the poorest region of the country. * Read more Taking stock of the Bolivarian Revolution: Changing Venezuela by Taking Power Review by *Derrick O'Keefe* - Rabble.ca /Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, by Gregory Wilpert (Verso, 2007)/ June 26, 2008 -- Gregory Wilpert has pulled off a triumph on two fronts with his new book on the Bolivarian Revolution, /Changing Venezuela by Taking Power/. Most obviously, Wilpert's book --- in both its scope and (sometimes almost maddening) objectivity --- is the most detailed and credible analysis yet published of the Venezuelan revolution, which itself represents, arguably, the single most significant challenge today to the hegemony of global capitalism. * Read more XIV Sao Paulo Forum: Left parties debate the current historic conjuncture By *In?s Hayes*, with reports from Montevideo by *Cristina Camusso* and *Julio Louis*. *Dilemma:*/ /From May 22 to 25, the XIV Sao Paulo Forum was held in Montevideo, Uruguay. Under the banner `The Latin American and Caribbean left in the new time, richness in diversity', 844 delegates from 35 countries in Latin America, Asia and Europe participated in this historic meeting. The first encounter was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1990. The debates over the crucial issues of the 21st century are embodied today in the governments which have emerged through the electoral road. The historic dilemma of reform or revolution once again returns to centre stage. * 1 comment Peru: Miners, Moqueguanos win victory following violent government attacks By *Carlos Quiroz , *peruanista.blogspot.com* * June 19, 2008 (updated June 26) -- The videos you are about to see are a bit shocking. For 18 months the people of the Moquegua region (southeastern Peru) and the mining workers from that region have been seeking for peaceful negotiations with the Peruvian government in Lima. * Read more Photo essay: Mexican indigenous front agitates for rights of migrants in the US Text and photos by *David Bacon* SANTIAGO DE JUXTLAHUACA, OAXACA, MEXICO MAY 31, 2008 -- The assembly of the Indigenous Front of Binational Organisations in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, one of the poorest areas in Mexico. A large percentage of the indigenous population of Oaxaca and other states has left to work in northern Mexico and in the United States. The FIOB is a political organisation of indigenous communities and migrants, with chapters in Mexico and the US. It advocates for the rights of migrants, and for the right not to migrate -- for economic development which would enable people to stay home Read more Cuito Cuanavale: How Cuba fought for Africa's freedom By *Barry Healy* June 14, 2008 -- This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a heroic struggle in which, between October 1987 and June 1988, in some of the fiercest fighting in Africa since the Second World War, the South African Defence Force (SADF) were humiliatingly defeated by liberation forces in Angola. * Read more Nicaragua: Anti-FSLN opposition seeks unity to topple Ortega government By *Felipe Stuart Cournoyer* Managua -- On June 11, 2008, the axe of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) came down on the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS[i]) and the old historic Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN), now a tiny shell of its former self. The CSE unanimously decided to deregister both parties on the grounds that they had failed to fulfill the requirements of the national electoral law. * Read more From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sat Jul 12 20:38:28 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:38:28 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Numbers Racket Message-ID: <48796AA4.7010601@attglobal.net> Why the economy is worse than we know by Kevin Phillips Harper's Magazine Report (May 2008) Almost four decades have passed since the United States scrapped its last currency ties to precious metals. Our copper and nickel coinage still retains some metallic value, but not nearly enough for the purpose of currency tampering - the historic temptation of inflation-plagued or otherwise wayward governments, including, at times, our own. Instead, since the 1960s, Washington has been forced to gull its citizens and creditors by debasing official statistics: the vital instruments with which the vigor and muscle of the American economy are measured. The effect, over the past twenty-five years, has been to create a false sense of economic achievement and rectitude, allowing us to maintain artificially low interest rates, massive government borrowing, and a dangerous reliance on mortgage and financial debt even as real economic growth has been slower than claimed. If Washington's harping on weapons of mass destruction was essential to buoy public support for the invasion of Iraq, the use of deceptive statistics has played its own vital role in convincing many Americans that the US economy is stronger, fairer, more productive, more dominant, and richer with opportunity than it actually is. The corruption has tainted the very measures that most shape public perception of the economy - the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI), which serves as the chief bellwether of inflation; the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which tracks the US economy's overall growth; and the monthly unemployment figure, which for the general public is perhaps the most vivid indicator of economic health or infirmity. Not only do governments, businesses, and individuals use these yardsticks in their decision-making but minor revisions in the data can mean major changes in household circumstances - inflation measurements help determine interest rates, federal interest payments on the national debt, and cost-of-living increases for wages, pensions, and Social Security benefits. And, of course, our statistics have political consequences too. An administration is helped when it can mouth banalities about price levels being "anchored" as food and energy costs begin to soar. The truth, though it would not exactly set Americans free, would at least open a window to wider economic and political understanding. Readers should ask themselves how much angrier the electorate might be if the media, over the past five years, had been citing eight percent unemployment (instead of five percent), five percent inflation (instead of two percent), and average annual growth in the one percent range (instead of the three to four percent range). We might ponder as well who profits from a low-growth US economy hidden under statistical camouflage. Might it be Washington politicos and affluent elites, anxious to mislead voters, coddle the financial markets, and tamp down expensive cost-of-living increases for wages and pensions? Let me stipulate: the deception arose gradually, at no stage stemming from any concerted or cynical scheme. There was no grand conspiracy, just accumulating opportunisms. As we will see, the political blame for the slow, piecemeal distortion is bipartisan - both Democratic and Republican administrations had a hand in the abetting of political dishonesty, reckless debt, and a casino-like financial sector. To see how, we must revisit forty years of economic and statistical dissembling. A Short History of "Pollyanna Creep" This apt phrase originated with John Williams, a California-based economic analyst and statistician who "shadows", as he puts it, the official Washington numbers. In a 2006 interview, Williams noted that although few Americans ever see the fine print, the government "always footnotes the changes and provides all the fine detail. Nonetheless, some of the changes are nothing short of remarkable, and the pattern over time is what I call Pollyanna Creep." Williams is one of the small group of economists and analysts who have paid any attention to the phenomenon. A few have pointed out the understatement of the Consumer Price Index - the billionaire bond manager Bill Gross has described it as an "haute con job", and Bloomberg columnist John Wasik has dismissed it as "a testament to the art of spin". In 2003, a University of Chicago economist named Austan Goolsbee (now a senior economic adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign) published an op-ed in the New York Times pointing out how the government had minimized the depth of the 2001-2002 US recession, having "cooked the books" to misstate and minimize the unemployment numbers. Unfortunately, the critics have tended to train their axes on a single abuse, missing the broad forest of statistical misinformation that has grown up over the past four decades. The story starts after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, when high jobless numbers marred the image of Camelot-on-the-Potomac and the new administration appointed a committee to weigh changes. The result, implemented a few years later, was that out-of-work Americans who had stopped looking for jobs - even if this was because none could be found - were labeled "discouraged workers" and excluded from the ranks of the unemployed, where many, if not most, of them had been previously classified. Lyndon Johnson, for his part, was widely rumored to have personally scrutinized and sometimes tweaked Gross National Product numbers before their release; and by the 1969 fiscal year, Johnson had orchestrated a "unified budget" that combined Social Security with the rest of the federal outlays. This innovation allowed the surplus receipts in the former to mask the emerging deficit in the latter. Richard Nixon, besides continuing the unified budget, developed his own taste for statistical improvement. He proposed - albeit unsuccessfully - that the Labor Department, which prepared both seasonally adjusted and non-adjusted unemployment numbers, should just publish whichever number was lower. In a more consequential move, he asked his second Federal Reserve chairman, Arthur Burns, to develop what became an ultimately famous division between "core" inflation and headline inflation. If the Consumer Price Index was calculated by tracking a bundle of prices, so-called core inflation would simply exclude, because of "volatility", categories that happened to be troublesome: at that time, food and energy. Core inflation could be spotlighted when the headline number was embarrassing, as it was in 1973 and 1974. (The economic commentator Barry Ritholtz has joked that core inflation is better called "inflation ex-inflation" - that is, inflation after the inflation has been excluded.) In 1983, under the Reagan Administration, inflation was further finagled when the Bureau of Labor Statistics decided that housing, too, was overstating the Consumer Price Index; the BLS substituted an entirely different "Owner Equivalent Rent" measurement, based on what a homeowner might get for renting his or her house. This methodology, controversial at the time but still in place today, simply sidestepped what was happening in the real world of homeowner costs. Because low inflation encourages low interest rates, which in turn make it much easier to borrow money, the BLS's decision no doubt encouraged, during the late 1980s, the large and often speculative expansion in private debt - much of which involved real estate, and some of which went spectacularly bad between 1989 and 1992 in the savings-and-loan, real estate, and junk-bond scandals. Also, on the unemployment front, as Austan Goolsbee pointed out in his New York Times op-ed, the Reagan Administration further trimmed the number by reclassifying members of the military as "employed" instead of outside the labor force. The distortional inclinations of the next president, George H W Bush, came into focus in 1990, when Michael Boskin, the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, proposed to reorient US economic statistics principally to reduce the measured rate of inflation. His stated grand ambition was to move the calculus away from old industrial-era methodologies toward the emerging services economy and the expanding retail and financial sectors. Skeptics, however, countered that the underlying goal, driven by worry over federal budget deficits, was to reduce the inflation rate in order to reduce federal payments - from interest on the national debt to cost-of-living outlays for government employees, retirees, and Social Security recipients. It was left to the Clinton Administration to implement these convoluted CPI measurements, which were reiterated in 1996 through a commission headed by Boskin and promoted by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The Clintonites also extended the Pollyanna Creep of the nation's employment figures. Although expunged from the ranks of the unemployed, discouraged workers had nevertheless been counted in the larger workforce. But in 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics redefined the workforce to include only that small percentage of the discouraged who had been seeking work for less than a year. The longer-term discouraged - some four million US adults - fell out of the main monthly tally. Some now call them the "hidden unemployed". For its last four years, the Clinton Administration also thinned the monthly household economic sampling by one sixth, from 60,000 to 50,000, and a disproportionate number of the dropped households were in the inner cities; the reduced sample (and a new adjustment formula) is believed to have reduced black unemployment estimates and eased worsening poverty figures. Despite the present Bush Administration's overall penchant for manipulating data (for example, Iraq, climate change), it has yet to match its predecessor in economic revisions. In 2002, the administration did, however, for two months fail to publish the Mass Layoff Statistics report, because of its embarrassing nature after the 2001 recession had supposedly ended; it introduced, that same year, an "experimental" new CPI calculation (the C-CPI-U), which shaved another 0.3 percent off the official CPI; and since 2006 it has stopped publishing the M-3 money supply numbers, which captured rising inflationary impetus from bank credit activity. In 2005, Bush proposed, but Congress shunned, a new, narrower historical wage basis for calculating future retiree Social Security benefits. By late last year, the Gallup Poll reported that public faith in the federal government had sunk below even post-Watergate levels. Whether statistical deceit played any direct role is unclear, but it does seem that citizens have got the right general idea. After forty years of manipulation, more than a few measurements of the US economy have been distorted beyond recognition. America's "Opacity" Crisis Last year, the word "opacity", hitherto reserved for Scrabble games, became a mainstay of the financial press. A credit market panic had been triggered by something called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which in some cases were too complicated to be fathomed even by experts. The packagers and marketers of CDOs were forced to acknowledge that their hypertechnical securities were fraught with "opacity" - a convenient, ethically and legally judgment-free word for lack of honest labeling. And far from being rare, opacity is commonplace in contemporary finance. Intricacy has become a conduit for deception. Exotic derivative instruments with alphabet-soup initials command notional values in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, but nobody knows what they are really worth. Some days, half of the trades on major stock exchanges come from so-called black boxes programmed with everything from binomial trees to algorithms; most federal securities regulators couldn't explain them, much less monitor them. Transparency is the hallmark of democracy, but we now find ourselves with economic statistics every bit as opaque - and as vulnerable to double-dealing - as a subprime CDO. Of the "big three" statistics, let us start with unemployment. Most of the people tired of looking for work, as mentioned above, are no longer counted in the workforce, though they do still show up in one of the auxiliary unemployment numbers. The BLS has six different regular jobless measurements - U-l, U-2, U-3 (the one routinely cited), U-4, U-5, and U-6. In January 2008, the U-4 to U-6 series produced unemployment numbers ranging from 5.2 percent to 9.0 percent, all above the "official" number. The series nearest to real-world conditions is, not surprisingly, the highest: U-6, which includes part-timers looking for full-time employment as well as other members of the "marginally attached", a new catchall meaning those not looking for a job but who say they want one. Yet this does not even include the Americans who (as Austan Goolsbee puts it) have been "bought off the unemployment rolls" by government programs such as Social Security disability, whose recipients are classified as outside the labor force. Second is the Gross Domestic Product, which in itself represents something of a fudge: federal economists used the Gross National Product until 1991, when rising US international debt costs made the narrower GDP assessment more palatable. The GDP has been subject to many further fiddles, the most manipulatable of which are the adjustments made for the presumed starting up and ending of businesses (the "birth/death of businesses" equation) and the amounts that the Bureau of Economic Analysis "imputes" to nationwide personal income data (known as phantom income boosters, or imputations; for example, the imputed income from living in one's own home, or the benefit one receives from a free checking account, or the value of employer-paid health- and life- insurance premiums). During 2007, believe it or not, imputed income accounted for some fifteen percent of GDP. John Williams, the economic statistician, is briskly contemptuous of GDP numbers over the past quarter century. "Upward growth biases built into GDP modeling since the early 1980s have rendered this important series nearly worthless", he wrote in 2004. "[T]he recessions of 1990/1991 and 2001 were much longer and deeper than currently reported [and] lesser downturns in 1986 and 1995 were missed completely". Nothing, however, can match the tortured evolution of the third key number, the somewhat misnamed Consumer Price Index. Government economists themselves admit that the revisions during the Clinton years worked to reduce the current inflation figures by more than a percentage point, but the overall distortion has been considerably more severe. Just the 1983 manipulation, which substituted "owner equivalent rent" for home-ownership costs, served to understate or reduce inflation during the recent housing boom by three to four percentage points. Moreover, since the 1990s, the CPI has been subjected to three other adjustments, all downward and all dubious: product substitution (if flank steak gets too expensive, people are assumed to shift to hamburger, but nobody is assumed to move up to filet mignon) , geometric weighting (goods and services in which costs are rising most rapidly get a lower weighting for a presumed reduction in consumption), and, most bizarrely, hedonic adjustment, an unusual computation by which additional quality is attributed to a product or service. The hedonic adjustment, in particular, is as hard to estimate as it is to take seriously. (That it was launched during the tenure of the Oval Office's preeminent hedonist, William Jefferson Clinton, only adds to the absurdity.) No small part of the condemnation must lie in the timing. If quality improvements are to be counted, that count should have begun in the 1950s and 1960s, when such products and services as air-conditioning, air travel, and automatic transmissions - and these are just the A's! - improved consumer satisfaction to a comparable or greater degree than have more recent innovations. That the change was made only in the late Nineties shrieks of politics and opportunism, not integrity of measurement. Most of the time, hedonic adjustment is used to reduce the effective cost of goods, which in turn reduces the stated rate of inflation. Reversing the theory, however, the declining quality of goods or services should adjust effective prices and thereby add to inflation, but that side of the equation generally goes missing. "All in all", Williams points out, "if you were to peel back changes that were made in the CPI going back to the Carter years, you'd see that the CPI would now be 3.5 percent to 4 percent higher" - meaning that, because of lost CPI increases, Social Security checks would be seventy percent greater than they currently are. Furthermore, when discussing price pressure, government officials invariably bring up "core" inflation, which excludes precisely the two categories - food and energy - now verging on another 1970s-style price surge. This year we have already seen major US food and grocery companies, among them Kellogg and Kraft, report sharp declines in earnings caused by rising grain and dairy prices. Central banks from Europe to Japan worry that the biggest inflation jumps in ten to fifteen years could get in the way of reducing interest rates to cope with weakening economies. Even the US Labor Department acknowledged that in January, the price of imported goods had increased 13.7 percent compared with a year earlier, the biggest surge since record-keeping began in 1982. From Maine to Australia, from Alaska to the Middle East, a hydra-headed inflation is on the loose, unleashed by the many years of rapid growth in the supply of money from the world's central banks (not least the US Federal Reserve), as well as by massive public and private debt creation. The US Economy Ex-Distortion The real numbers, to most economically minded Americans, would be a face full of cold water. Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today's US unemployment rate is somewhere between nine percent and twelve percent; the inflation rate is as high as seven or even ten percent; economic growth since the recession of 2001 has been mediocre, despite a huge surge in the wealth and incomes of the superrich, and we are falling back into recession. If what we have been sold in recent years has been delusional "Pollyanna Creep", what we really need today is a picture of our economy ex-distortion. For what it would reveal is a nation in deep difficulty not just domestically but globally. Undermeasurement of inflation, in particular, hangs over our heads like a guillotine. To acknowledge it would send interest rates climbing, and thereby would endanger the viability of the massive buildup of public and private debt (from less than $11 trillion in 1987 to $49 trillion last year) that props up the American economy. Moreover, the rising cost of pensions, benefits, borrowing, and interest payments - all indexed or related to inflation - could join with the cost of financial bailouts to overwhelm the federal budget. As inflation and interest rates have been kept artificially suppressed, the United States has been indentured to its volatile financial sector, with its predilection for leverage and risky buccaneering. Arguably, the unraveling has already begun. As Robert Hardaway, a professor at the University of Denver, pointed out last September, the subprime lending crisis "can be directly traced back to the [1983] BLS decision to exclude the price of housing from the CPI ... With the illusion of low inflation inducing lenders to offer six percent loans, not only has speculation run rampant on the expectations of ever-rising home prices, but home buyers by the millions have been tricked into buying homes even though they only qualified for the teaser rates". Were mainstream interest rates to jump into the seven to nine percent range - which could happen if inflation were to spur new concern - both Washington and Wall Street would be walking in quicksand. The make-believe economy of the past two decades, with its asset bubbles, massive borrowing, and rampant data distortion, would be in serious jeopardy. The US dollar, off more than forty percent against the euro since 2002, could slip down an even rockier slope. The credit markets are fearful, and the financial markets are nervous. If gloom continues, our humbugged nation may truly regret losing sight of history, risk, and common sense. _____ Kevin Phillips's new book, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published last month by Viking. TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 21:38:26 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:38:26 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Haaretz: "Arab State Tells Israel It Won't Oppose Iran Strike" Message-ID: I can find this article only in the Google cache. -- Yoshie Last update - 09:00 11/07/2008 Arab state tells Israel it won't oppose Iran strike By Yoav Stern, Mazal Mualem and Barak Ravid :Tags Iran, Israel, Arab state Official representatives of an Arab country have hinted in meetings with Israeli officials that they would not oppose an Israeli military operation against Iran, sources in Jerusalem said this week. According to the sources, the representatives of the Arab country said they are worried by Iran's growing influence in the region, primarily among Shi'ite communities in Arab states. "Defense Minister Ehud Barak hinted Thursday that Israel would be willing to attack Iran when he said that "Israel is the strongest country in the region and has proved in the past that it is not deterred from activity when there is concern that its vital interests could be harmed. The representatives told the Israeli officials that other Arab countries are also troubled by Iran's policy. Some Arab states are afraid that Iran's growing power will create a rift between Sunnis and Shi'ites. That concern is especially rife in Arab countries with a Shi'ite minority. Political sources in Israel told Haaretz that Iran's increasingly belligerent statements have worried the Gulf states, which want American protection against Tehran. "If this is how Iran threatens when it doesn't have nuclear weapons, what will it do when its nuclear program ripens?" one Israeli source said. "Addressing the Iranian issue during a Labor Party meeting in Tel Aviv on Thursday, Barak said that "at the moment the focus is on international sanctions and intensive diplomatic activity, and these channels have to be exhausted. From fentona at shaw.ca Sat Jul 12 22:04:34 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:04:34 -0700 Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?The_FARC_speaks_about_Uribe=92s_media_show?= References: Message-ID: http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/the-farc-speaks-about-uribes-media-show/ If you go back and look at the Colombian arm\\y?s video, the most striking thing is how happy C?sar seems, almost giddy, in fact, as though he?s laughing at the fact that the Colombians showed up with a fake Telesur crew - like, come on, this is going a bit too far. He even says at one point, ?Can?t we do this [the interview] on the helicopter?? There are also reports that before boarding the helicopter, C?sar put down his gun, something completely out of character, unless of course, you were leaving the FARC. Countering the Lies Concerning the Escape of the 15 Prisoners of War Translation: Machetera Communique 1. The escape of the 15 prisoners of war last Wednesday, July 2, was a direct consequence of the despicable conduct of Cesar and Enrique, who betrayed their revolutionary commitment and the confidence that was given them. 2. Independent of the episode as it took place, inherent in any political and military confrontation which brings victories and setbacks, we shall maintain our policy of establishing humanitarian accords which achieve exchanges and furthermore, aim to protect the civil population from the effects of the conflict. In its persistence on rescues as its only path, the government should assume all the consequences of its extremely dangerous and risky decision. 3. The struggle to free our fighters and others who are political prisoners will always be the first priority together with the revolutionary armed forces units, particularly in their direction. We carry all of them in our hearts and minds. 4. The path to achieve revolutionary transformations has never been easy at any time in history, in any part of the world; on the contrary, and therefore our commitment grows against any threat or difficulty. 5. The peace that Colombia requires should be a result of accords that benefit the majority; it?s not going to be the peace of tombs sustained by corruption, state terror, crime and betrayal. The causes for which the FARC-EP struggle continue; the present is one of struggle and the future is ours. Secretariat of the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP Mountains of Colombia, July 5, 2008 From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 22:16:07 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:16:07 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Africa Faces Another Rising Expense: Fuel Message-ID: July 12, 2008 Africa Faces Another Rising Expense: Fuel By LYDIA POLGREEN DAKAR, Senegal ? In the United States, where the median household income is about $48,000, $4-a-gallon gas is painful. In Nigeria, most of whose 140 million citizens live on less than $2 a day despite their country's status as the world's eighth largest oil exporter, $5.50-a-gallon diesel is excruciating. Daniel Idoko runs a small business center in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, and because the country's electricity supply is so balky, he relies on a diesel generator to run his computers, fax machines and copiers. The price of diesel has increased by 110 percent in the past few months, transforming his once prosperous small business from an asset to a liability. "I employ six people and pay rent for this shop, salaries, and I maintain equipment," Mr. Idoko said Friday, with a mix of frustration and resignation. "How much do I have to make to break even?" Rising global food prices have sent discontent rippling across Africa in recent months, prompting riots and demonstrations from Zambia to Senegal, Tanzania to Niger. Now fuel prices are causing rumblings as well. On Friday, fuel tanker drivers in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, went on strike over rising prices of diesel fuel and poor road conditions, a move that could cripple the economy. In Africa, fuel prices are a much less emotional issue than food prices. Food takes up 50 percent or more of a household's budget, but since most people do not have cars, the price of gas is meaningful only as it relates to bus and taxi fares. But now those are rising rapidly, too. In Namibia this week, bus and taxi drivers increased fares by 10 percent after the country's sixth fuel price increase this year. In Senegal, a ride in a private minibus that once cost 50 cents can now cost double that. Fuel prices are also eroding the profits of businesses across Africa ? where a single breadwinner sometimes supports a dozen people or more ? hurting some of the neediest people in the world. Prices have risen so fast that they threaten to undermine the continent's nascent economic boom, which has been driven in large part by high prices for the natural resources that many countries export. Benedicte Christensen, acting director of the International Monetary Fund's Africa department, told reporters earlier this month that price shocks had raised import costs across Africa, undermining growth. In Senegal, where power generation is largely dependent on diesel, the state-run electrical company has struggled to provide continuous power to large swaths of the country. Oumar Ba, a tailor who shares a large workshop with dozens of others here in Dakar, said the electricity was usually off half the day, cutting deeply into his income. "It is very hard to work like this," Mr. Ba said. "But I have people in the village depending on me, so I try to keep going." Countries that set national fuel prices, facing huge import expenses, have had to raise prices. Burundi, a tiny, impoverished nation that has suffered through civil war and mass killings, just raised its prices by 8 percent. Ivory Coast, a onetime regional economic powerhouse also struggling to recover from civil war, raised its fuel prices this week to more than $7 a gallon. In Nigeria, where corruption and misrule have squandered, by some estimates, as much as $400 billion in oil profits over the past 40 years, cheap gas is nothing less than a birthright. But Nigeria's dilapidated refineries cannot produce enough gasoline to supply the country. The government imports about $4 billion a year of petroleum products. Government subsidies have kept regular gasoline selling for about $2 a gallon, but the price of diesel, crucial for businesses and heavy transport, has rapidly risen. "The cost of diesel is too much so we can't even use the generators any more," said Dennis Mbang, 35, a pharmacist in a military hospital in Lagos. "The common man doesn't feel fine. The wealth is here, oil is here, but the masses are suffering." High fuel costs are a particularly bitter pill for Nigeria because its own troubles have helped raise prices. Attacks on oil installations by militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta region have helped briefly to knock Nigeria out of its spot as Africa's top oil producer, in favor of Angola. The International Monetary Fund's recent analysis of the effects of rising oil and food prices warned that at least 18 countries in Africa would be pushed to the tipping point by high fuel prices. "It is a potential source of instability, particularly when you combine the galloping price of petrol with food prices," said Philippe de Pontet, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, a political risk analysis consulting firm. In Liberia, one of the world's poorest countries after 14 years of civil war, price increases for oil and food would consume almost all of the country's foreign reserves. Higher oil prices will cost Ghana, which has one of West Africa's most promising economies, 8.1 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the monetary fund. Will Connors contributed reporting from Lagos, Nigeria, and John Alechenu contributed reporting from Abuja, Nigeria. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 23:07:05 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:07:05 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Oil Prices and the Economy: Adhip Chaudhuri vs. Paul Krugman Message-ID: Q&A: Oil prices and the economy With oil prices having more than doubled over the last 12 months, various reasons are being cited for the price increases. Adhip Chaudhuri, a visiting professor of economics at Georgetown University's campus in Doha, Qatar, explains the cause and effect of high oil prices. [Q] Is the increase in oil prices plunging the global economy into stagflation? [A] The United States is, for all practical purposes, in a recession. The European Union's growth rates are being revised downwards below 2 per cent. The shine is coming off even China, India and Korea. The recessions and the low growth rates represent stagnation and hence connote the 'stag' part of "stagflation", and high oil prices have a lot do with it. Oil prices, together with simultaneous, huge increases in food prices, have increased worldwide inflation rates. Both China and India now have high inflation rates with China at almost 8 per cent and India at 11 per cent. The rising inflation is the "flation" part of "stagflation". The worse thing about stagflation is that the central banks find themselves in a dilemma. If they lowered interest rates to spur growth, they would raise inflationary expectations. On the other hand, if they fought inflation by raising interest rates, the reduction in money supply will have contractionary effects on the GDPs of their countries. For policymakers stagflation is a "lose - lose" situation. [Q] Is the growth in world demand for oil the main reason? Demand is one part of what the money market calls "fundamentals". The other is, of course, supply. In the opinion of the Bush administration, and the majority of the Wall Street establishment in the US, demand is the principal reason why oil prices are going up astronomically. However, this point of view does not correspond to facts. Consider first the oft-mentioned demand from "China and India" which is frequently put forward as the principal reason why oil prices are going up. According to official statistics published by the United States government, China consumed an additional 377,000 barrels of oil per day during 2007. However, during the same time period Germany and Japan together decreased their consumption by 380,000, and hence, the net effect of China's increased consumption is zero. Even if China doubled its consumption in the first half of 2008, say to stockpile for the Olympics, the increment would be a drop in the bucket of total world consumption of 86 million barrels per day. The same is true of India. It increased consumption by only 150,000 barrels per day during 2007, which is virtually indiscernible in the total world demand. Notice also that the sum of additional consumption from "China and India" barely exceeds 500,000 barrels, an amount that Saudi Arabia has promised to increase production by. Finally, the US has projected that the net increase in oil consumption during 2008 will increase by one million barrels per day, which is about 1.1 per cent. How can such a small increase in demand increase oil prices by 100 per cent between July 2007 and July 2008? [Q] What is happening with the supply of oil? [A] The supply of crude oil has been remarkably stagnant over the last three years. According to official US statistics, the production of crude worldwide was 84.63 million barrels per day in 2005, and it was 84.55 million barrels per day in 2007. Thus, even small increases in demand over the last three years have put upward pressures on prices. The near-term supply situation, according to the International Energy Agency, is not all that bad. Saudi Arabia will be adding to their capacity, deepwater Nigerian production will start in 2008, and Iraqi production will see an increase. If one added up the growth in all forms of energy, namely crude oil, natural gas, and biofuels, according to IEA there should be an increase in supply capacity of 1.5 million barrels during 2008. Notice that amount of increase in supply is greater than the projected increase in demand for 2008 amounting to 1 million barrels per day. The supply projection for 2009 is even better. The supply capacity is expected to increase by 2.5 million barrels, which will outstrip the growth in demand comfortably. It is the very short-term supply disruptions which seem to be more important for an increase in oil prices. Real disruptions may come from labour strikes in Venezuela, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and rebel attacks in Nigeria. Given that the demand and supply situation is so tight, even the slightest of bad news can increase the price of oil in the futures and spot markets noticeably. [Q] Can the weak dollar be blamed for high oil prices? [A] Asserting that the "weak dollar" is a significant reason behind the rise in oil prices has become as ritualistic as asserting that "China and India" are the cause. And yet, the forces which determine the foreign exchange value of the dollar against the euro, the yen, or the pound are distinctively different from those that determine the price of oil. There is, however, one logical argument which can sometimes provide a sufficient explanation as to why a depreciating dollar and increasing oil prices are inversely related - If the dollar weakens against the euro, the ability of the oil-exporting countries to buy European goods will decline because their oil exports are denominated in dollars. The Europeans, at the same time, will be able to pay the higher dollar prices of oil because the euro has appreciated. Clearly, to keep their purchasing power over European goods constant, the oil-exporting countries need an increase in oil price approximately equal to the depreciation of the dollar. However, for the first six months of 2008 the dollar has depreciated against the euro by only 7.5 per cent, while oil prices have gone up by about 50 per cent. Surely, both Americans and Europeans are paying much higher prices for oil than can be explained by a "weak dollar". [Q] Is speculation, then, a major factor? [A] The energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar asserted for the first time in public at the recent Jeddah meeting of major oil producing and consuming nations, that speculation in the oil futures markets was the most important reason why current oil prices are going up. The United States Senate has been holding hearings in front of several committees since 2006 on the lack of regulation and oversight by the official Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) one of the two locations for oil futures. In a recent testimony to the Senate, a hedge fund trader presented data to show that outstanding speculative positions in all commodities futures has reached $250 billion by March 2008, as compared to only $13 billion at the end of 2003. As far as speculation specifically in oil futures is concerned, representative Bart Stupak (Democrat-Michigan), the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced recently that 71 per cent of all oil futures were owned by institutional investors. The institutional investors, which consist of but is not confined to state pension funds and university endowments from the United States, have been pouring funds into indexed commodity funds as part of a strategy of portfolio diversification. The traditional assets, in which they would have otherwise invested in, namely stocks and bonds, have been yielding negative returns after inflation. These investors can buy futures contracts with only a 5 per cent margin down payment. In addition the regulatory environment is very slack, filled with loopholes which bypass whatever few regulations that are on the books. While there are dollar limits to positions that the institutional investors might take in the NYMEX, they are allowed to conduct "swaps" with the investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and thereby manage to roll over their "buy" positions. This way they never have to take physical possession of the oil that they put in "buy" orders for. If speculation is what is driving oil prices up, then it stands to reason that such high prices should lead to an excess supply of crude in the world. There are signs that such an excess supply is indeed building up, albeit slowly, much like the way the excess supply of housing emerged in the United States. Fuel consumption has declined in the US sharply. We have already noted that oil consumption in Japan and Germany are actually decreasing. Consumers in China and India have been insulated from the high world prices of oil until very recently with domestic subsidies. However, China has raised the prices of various petroleum products amounting to an average increase of 18 per cent, and so has India, by 13 per cent. The decrease in the demand for oil will start strengthening soon. The biggest argument for speculation to be the single-most important cause for oil price increases in 2008 is: What else could have doubled the price of oil in one year? The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera. May 12, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist The Oil Nonbubble By PAUL KRUGMAN "The Oil Bubble: Set to Burst?" That was the headline of an October 2004 article in National Review, which argued that oil prices, then $50 a barrel, would soon collapse. Ten months later, oil was selling for $70 a barrel. "It's a huge bubble," declared Steve Forbes, the publisher, who warned that the coming crash in oil prices would make the popping of the technology bubble "look like a picnic." All through oil's five-year price surge, which has taken it from $25 a barrel to last week's close above $125, there have been many voices declaring that it's all a bubble, unsupported by the fundamentals of supply and demand. So here are two questions: Are speculators mainly, or even largely, responsible for high oil prices? And if they aren't, why have so many commentators insisted, year after year, that there's an oil bubble? Now, speculators do sometimes push commodity prices far above the level justified by fundamentals. But when that happens, there are telltale signs that just aren't there in today's oil market. Imagine what would happen if the oil market were humming along, with supply and demand balanced at a price of $25 a barrel, and a bunch of speculators came in and drove the price up to $100. Even if this were purely a financial play on the part of the speculators, it would have major consequences in the material world. Faced with higher prices, drivers would cut back on their driving; homeowners would turn down their thermostats; owners of marginal oil wells would put them back into production. As a result, the initial balance between supply and demand would be broken, replaced with a situation in which supply exceeded demand. This excess supply would, in turn, drive prices back down again ? unless someone were willing to buy up the excess and take it off the market. The only way speculation can have a persistent effect on oil prices, then, is if it leads to physical hoarding ? an increase in private inventories of black gunk. This actually happened in the late 1970s, when the effects of disrupted Iranian supply were amplified by widespread panic stockpiling. But it hasn't happened this time: all through the period of the alleged bubble, inventories have remained at more or less normal levels. This tells us that the rise in oil prices isn't the result of runaway speculation; it's the result of fundamental factors, mainly the growing difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. The rise in oil prices these past few years had to happen to keep demand growth from exceeding supply growth. Saying that high-priced oil isn't a bubble doesn't mean that oil prices will never decline. I wouldn't be shocked if a pullback in demand, driven by delayed effects of high prices, sends the price of crude back below $100 for a while. But it does mean that speculators aren't at the heart of the story. Why, then, do we keep hearing assertions that they are? Part of the answer may be the undoubted fact that many people are now investing in oil futures ? which feeds suspicion that speculators are running the show, even though there's no good evidence that prices have gotten out of line. But there's also a political component. Traditionally, denunciations of speculators come from the left of the political spectrum. In the case of oil prices, however, the most vociferous proponents of the view that it's all the speculators' fault have been conservatives ? people whom you wouldn't normally expect to see warning about the nefarious activities of investment banks and hedge funds. The explanation of this seeming paradox is that wishful thinking has trumped pro-market ideology. After all, a realistic view of what's happened over the past few years suggests that we're heading into an era of increasingly scarce, costly oil. The consequences of that scarcity probably won't be apocalyptic: France consumes only half as much oil per capita as America, yet the last time I looked, Paris wasn't a howling wasteland. But the odds are that we're looking at a future in which energy conservation becomes increasingly important, in which many people may even ? gasp ? take public transit to work. I don't find that vision particularly abhorrent, but a lot of people, especially on the right, do. And so they want to believe that if only Goldman Sachs would stop having such a negative attitude, we'd quickly return to the good old days of abundant oil. Again, I wouldn't be shocked if oil prices dip in the near future ? although I also take seriously Goldman's recent warning that the price could go to $200. But let's drop all the talk about an oil bubble. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 23:57:48 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:57:48 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Global Refinery Shortages Message-ID: From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 00:39:29 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:39:29 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Oil Shale, ANWR, and Offshore Drilling in the USA vs. Investment in the MENA Message-ID: What is the most environmentally destructive idea? That the USA must achieve "energy independence" in a world of "peak oil." That's the idea used to sell biofuels, oil shale, drilling offshore and in the ANWR, despite their high social, economic, and environmental costs. It would be much better environmentally to invest where conventional crude oil and gas reserves exist, such as the MENA region. But the US power elite want to pollute their own country, aggravating climate change, while curbing investment in important oil and gas producers in the South, such as Iraq, Iran (whose thoughtful power elite wish to turn their country into the France of the Middle East, meeting domestic electricity demand through nuclear power and exporting more oil and gas to the rest of what ought to be a grateful, energy-hungry world), Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. through war, sanctions, coup d'etats, etc. -- Yoshie July 13, 2008, 12:10AM Despite 800 billion barrel potential, oil shale a hard sell Can industry overcome hurdles to tap rich fuel veins in West? By DAVID IVANOVICH Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle RIFLE, Colo. ? Along the western slope of the Rocky Mountains lies a possible path toward energy independence. The world's largest deposit of oil shale is hidden here, beneath a landscape dotted by pinyon pines and twisted junipers. If the oil industry can learn how to extract oil and gas from the oil shale in a cost-effective manner, the United States could lay claim to oil reserves totaling, perhaps, 800 billion barrels ? three times Saudi Arabia's. With oil prices riding high and conventional crude reserves ever more difficult to find and produce, companies including Shell Oil Co., Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Schlumberger are conducting research on a resource that could forever alter the geopolitics of energy. But the history of oil shale has been a story of grand plans and locked gates. And its future is anything but certain. At best production is years away, while upredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. "We're working on the tough stuff," concedes Rick Mykitta, operations manager for Shell Oil Co.'s Mahogany oil shale research project. President Bush last month linked oil shale with his oft-repeated calls to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and more areas offshore to oil and gas drilling, hailing the "extraordinary potential of oil shale." But Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land forcommercial-scale oil shale projects. And whether a nation now focused on boosting use of renewables and lowering dependence on fossil fuels will give oil shale another look remains an open question. The Utes who populated this part of the West long before there were oil companies described oil shale to settlers as "rock that burns." Oil shale is not a shale at all, geologists say, but a type of rock called marlstone containing kerogen, an organic material left over from ancient lakes. The trick is to convert the kerogen into usable oil and gas. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. But oil shale's allure is understandable. The Green River Formation that sprawls across portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming is estimated to hold 500 billion to 1.1 trillion barrels of recoverable shale oil resources, a 2005 Rand Corp. study found. Experiment collapsed The Piceance Creek Basin alone here in western Colorado could contain as much oil as all the proven reserves in the world, the Rand study said. The energy crisis of the 1970s, with the twin oil price shocks sparked by the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution, prompted a great oil shale boom. Encouraged by incentives from a government-funded entity called the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp., oil companies rushed in. Expectations reached the fantastical. Exxon hoped to produce 8 million barrels of oil a day from the oil shale by 2010, according to Andrew Gulliford, author of Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale. The technology of that time called for mining the oil shale, crushing the material and then cooking it in kilns known as "retorts" to convert the kerogen into oil and gas. Chevron Corp.'s old Red Point Mine north of De Beque, Colo., is a reminder of those heady days when trucks loaded with oil shale snaked down the cliff side. The rock face around the mine entrance is blackened, evidence of lightning strikes on the exposed oil shale. The great oil shale experiment came to a crashing halt in the early 1980s with a collapse of world oil prices. Exxon, after spending more than $1 billion according to a Bureau of Land Management report, shut its oil shale operation. And within a few years, the federal synthetic fuels program had been abolished. Today, natural gas is the game, as producers employ new drilling techniques that enable them to get at gas trapped in tight sand formations. But policymakers in Washington never fully abandoned hope of developing the oil shale. A 2004 Energy Department report argued that America's oil shale, together with Canada's Alberta oil sands, could serve as "North America's energy bridge to the future." In 2005, the Bureau of Land Management launched a program to spur interest in the oil shale, handing out six leases for research and development projects on federal lands, where most of the oil shale is located. Shell, by nearly all accounts the industry leader in oil shale research, landed three of the leases. The subsequent ban on commercial shale leases doesn't prohibit research activities. Rather than return to the mining techniques, Shell is experimenting with a plan to heat the oil shale in situ, Latin for in place. Shell officials believe that by slowly heating up the oil shale underground, the company can derive high quality oil suitable for products like jet fuel, as well as natural gas, while also being more environmentally friendly. On lands near where coyotes scamper across the road, a golden eagle roosts on an electric transmission tower and wild horses graze in the distance, Shell has been tinkering with heating elements contained in metal casing that would be inserted around an oil shale formation. Udall calls it an "underground toaster oven." Project would need water Shell also has been experimenting with a process to create a "freeze wall," a technique used in mining and skyscraper construction, to keep groundwater from migrating in and cooling the heating oil shale. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. Mining oil shale requires water to control dust and cool retorts, while an in situ process would need water for cooling, power production and refining, the Rand report noted. Shell officials say the old retort systems used seven to eight barrels of water per barrel of oil produced, while they expect their method would use about half that. The Rand report pointed to assumptions that oil shale would use about three barrels of water per barrel of shale oil produced. Shell acknowledges it has long been acquiring water rights in the area. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. And it would need power Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. Shell, according to the 2005 Rand study, had anticipated its process would be competitive with oil prices in the mid-$20-a-barrel range. Oil has been trading recently at more than five times that level. Oilfield service costs have risen sharply since 2005. Today, Shell spokesman Tracy Boyd would say only that the project would be economical with oil prices at half the current levels. Shell won't decide whether to go commercial until the middle of the next decade, with production unlikely before 2020. Competitors are pursuing different approaches. Chevron, working with experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Utah, hopes to avoid the need for so much power by extracting oil and gas through a chemical process. Exxon Mobil is investigating using an electric current to heat the shale, and Schlumberger ? with technology developed by Raytheon Co. ? is examining using radio waves to heat the rock. Oil Shale Exploration Co. could beat all these players to the punch. It's considering returning to the mining and retorting method to develop oil shale. The privately held, Utah-based firm announced last month that Brazil's oil company, Petrobras, and Japan's Mitsui & Co. had purchased minority stakes in the venture. "Whoever cracks the nut is going to be sitting high," said Carroll Campbell, a retired Shell operations supervisor. Fight over leases Whatever its technical prospects, oil shale also is caught in the tug of war that long has characterized the energy policy debate on Capitol Hill. When Republicans were in control of Congress in late 2005, GOP leaders inserted language into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 laying out a timetable for the Bureau of Land Management to craft regulations and begin large-scale commercial leasing of oil shale property. Last year, with Democrats commanding Capitol Hill, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Randy Udall's brother, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., inserted language in a large spending bill that barred the Bureau of Land Management from moving beyond the research leases to commercial leasing. That moratorium likely will continue at least into the next Congress. Salazar, in an interview, said he supports looking at oil shale as a possible energy source for the nation. "I just want to do it in the right way." But he contends issues like water needs and other environmental impacts must be understood before leasing acreage for full-scale commercial operations. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to look beyond oil and gas. "Do we really want to add that much more fossil burning to the planet?" asks Steve Smith of The Wilderness Society. About 25 years ago, the nation turned away from oil shale. The question is whether America will do so again. david.ivanovich at chron.com From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 01:05:08 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:05:08 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Weather Risks Cloud Promise of Biofuel Message-ID: July 1, 2008 Weather Risks Cloud Promise of Biofuel By JAD MOUAWAD The record storms and floods that swept through the Midwest last month struck at the heart of America's corn region, drowning fields and dashing hopes of a bumper crop. They also brought into sharp relief a new economic hazard. As America grows more reliant on corn for its fuel supply, it is becoming vulnerable to the many hazards that can damage crops, ranging from droughts to plagues to storms. The floods have helped send the price of ethanol up 19 percent in a month. They appear to have had little effect on the price of gasoline at the pump, as ethanol represents only about 6 percent of the nation's transport fuel today. But that share is expected to rise to at least 20 percent in coming decades. Experts fear that a future crop failure could take so much fuel out of the market that it would send prices soaring at the pump. Eventually, the cost of filling Americans' gas tanks could be influenced as much by hail in Iowa as by the bombing of an oil pipeline in Nigeria. "We are holding ourselves hostage to the weather," said John M. Reilly, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an ethanol expert. "Agricultural markets are subject to wide variability and big price spikes, just like oil markets." Three years ago, Americans discovered that the vicissitudes of the weather could have a powerful effect on energy prices when two hurricanes struck the Gulf Coast. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita interrupted a quarter of the nation's oil production and closed dozens of refineries for weeks. Lines formed for the first time since the 1970s as gasoline spiked above $3 a gallon, a record at the time. The nation's increasing dependence on crops for motor fuel adds another level of vulnerability from the weather. It is still too early to estimate damage to corn crops from the recent floods, or their impact on ethanol output. Iowa, the biggest corn state, may have lost as much as 10 percent of its harvest, according to preliminary estimates. But concerns that the floods could tighten corn supplies this year have pushed up both corn and ethanol prices. Ethanol, which was already rising before the floods, has nearly doubled from its low of $1.50 a gallon in September. Unexpected interruptions in oil supplies have been a factor driving oil prices above $140 a barrel lately. Given the tight oil market, there is little untapped capacity that can be brought online to make up for sudden supply interruptions, whether of oil itself or of the biofuels that are increasingly substituting for oil. In the 1980s, the oil capacity cushion peaked at around 20 percent of global consumption. Today, it represents only about 2 percent ? less than Iran's petroleum exports. Analysts have warned that such record-low levels of spare capacity pose unprecedented risks to the stability of oil markets and introduce a significant premium in the price of oil. "There is now a vulnerability to perfect storms, not just in a metaphorical sense, but increasingly in a literal sense," said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. "In addition to geopolitical risks, you must now add weather risks." While storms, torrential rains and hurricanes have always been a part of energy production, the areas where most of the nation's new oil and ethanol supplies are coming from ? the corn belt and the Gulf of Mexico ? are especially vulnerable to hazardous weather. "Our energy policy is like playing Russian roulette with every chamber loaded," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a group backed by the oil industry. "We've doubled up on the weather risk." Both the government and the ethanol industry recognize the risks of tying fuels to crops. The secretaries of energy and agriculture, in a joint letter to the Senate, recently said: "If we assumed a supply disruption of ethanol, we would expect a fairly large increase in the price of gasoline until ethanol supply were re-established or new market equilibriums were achieved." Backers of biofuels contend that growing ethanol supply is keeping gasoline prices from rising even higher than they have, by anywhere from 35 cents to 50 cents a gallon, in their estimation. They also point out that the government's ethanol mandate, which requires oil companies to blend ethanol into motor fuel, can be suspended in an emergency. Finally, they say that future ethanol supplies will be derived from materials like switchgrass or wood chips that are resistant to bad weather. Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, the industry's main trade group, said only two out of 160 ethanol refineries nationwide shut down because of the storms. Both will reopen soon, he said. "There is a lot of overblown concern that is not really justified by the facts on the ground," Mr. Dinneen said. "Certainly the weather is going to have an impact on all sorts of industries. It had an impact when Katrina wreaked havoc on the refining industry. It has an impact on ethanol production, but it has been minimal." In recent years, corn ethanol has been one of the few sources of supply growth in transport fuels. Indeed, biofuels have become the single biggest source of new fuels produced outside of countries belonging to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Production worldwide is expected to grow by 330,000 barrels a day this year, to 1.4 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. In the United States, bipartisan public policies have driven the rise of the ethanol industry. Congress has set rising requirements for oil companies to blend ethanol with gasoline, backed with generous subsidies that should total $12 billion this year, according to estimates by Barclays Capital. The ethanol mandate is set at nine billion gallons for 2008 and is scheduled to rise to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. By various estimates, that would represent 20 to 25 percent of the nation's gasoline consumption by then. Corn ethanol is capped at 15 billion gallons from 2015 onward. The rest is supposed to come from advanced biofuels. They would not require food crops, but bringing them to market depends on perfecting techniques that are still experimental. Farmers who support the government's ethanol policy argue that truly disastrous weather in the corn belt does not happen often. "The last time we had real weather problems in the corn belt was 1988," said Tom Buis, the president of the National Farmers Union. "That's pretty rare." Emerson D. Nafziger, a professor of agronomy at the University of Illinois, said farmers still had time to recover this year, to some degree. But he said this year's storms were the first real test for the nascent ethanol industry. "We may end up feeling we dodged a bullet this year," he said. "We've had a run of fairly favorable weather in recent years. But there is no guarantee it will stay that way." From gmeyerson at triad.rr.com Sun Jul 13 07:46:42 2008 From: gmeyerson at triad.rr.com (gregory meyerson) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:46:42 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Oil Shale, ANWR, and Offshore Drilling in the USA vs. Investment in the MENA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: T. Boone Pickens wants to invest in wind power and natural gas. Connecting peak oil theorists tightly to oil shale crap is just guilt by association. Blatant. And the peak oil versus investment in refineries false dichotomy you pose is just a howler, especially given that in that article there are two paragraphs about the Paris based IEA's estimates about falling reserves in the largest oil lakes. but keep posting the great articles, even with the less than thoughtful commentary. On Jul 13, 2008, at 2:39 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > What is the most environmentally destructive idea? That the USA must > achieve "energy independence" in a world of "peak oil." That's the > idea used to sell biofuels, oil shale, drilling offshore and in the > ANWR, despite their high social, economic, and environmental costs. > It would be much better environmentally to invest where conventional > crude oil and gas reserves exist, such as the MENA region. But the US > power elite want to pollute their own country, aggravating climate > change, while curbing investment in important oil and gas producers in > the South, such as Iraq, Iran (whose thoughtful power elite wish to > turn their country into the France of the Middle East, meeting > domestic electricity demand through nuclear power and exporting more > oil and gas to the rest of what ought to be a grateful, energy-hungry > world), Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. through war, sanctions, coup > d'etats, etc. -- Yoshie > > > July 13, 2008, 12:10AM > Despite 800 billion barrel potential, oil shale a hard sell > Can industry overcome hurdles to tap rich fuel veins in West? > > By DAVID IVANOVICH > Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle > > RIFLE, Colo. ? Along the western slope of the Rocky Mountains lies a > possible path toward energy independence. > > The world's largest deposit of oil shale is hidden here, beneath a > landscape dotted by pinyon pines and twisted junipers. > > If the oil industry can learn how to extract oil and gas from the oil > shale in a cost-effective manner, the United States could lay claim to > oil reserves totaling, perhaps, 800 billion barrels ? three times > Saudi Arabia's. > > With oil prices riding high and conventional crude reserves ever more > difficult to find and produce, companies including Shell Oil Co., > Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Schlumberger are conducting > research on a resource that could forever alter the geopolitics of > energy. > > But the history of oil shale has been a story of grand plans and > locked gates. > > And its future is anything but certain. At best production is years > away, while upredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable > electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge > hurdles. > > "We're working on the tough stuff," concedes Rick Mykitta, operations > manager for Shell Oil Co.'s Mahogany oil shale research project. > > President Bush last month linked oil shale with his oft-repeated calls > to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and more areas > offshore to oil and gas drilling, hailing the "extraordinary potential > of oil shale." > > But Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing > any federal land forcommercial-scale oil shale projects. > > And whether a nation now focused on boosting use of renewables and > lowering dependence on fossil fuels will give oil shale another look > remains an open question. > > The Utes who populated this part of the West long before there were > oil companies described oil shale to settlers as "rock that burns." > > Oil shale is not a shale at all, geologists say, but a type of rock > called marlstone containing kerogen, an organic material left over > from ancient lakes. The trick is to convert the kerogen into usable > oil and gas. > > Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale > is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per > ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better > than the potato. > > But oil shale's allure is understandable. The Green River Formation > that sprawls across portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming is > estimated to hold 500 billion to 1.1 trillion barrels of recoverable > shale oil resources, a 2005 Rand Corp. study found. > > Experiment collapsed > The Piceance Creek Basin alone here in western Colorado could contain > as much oil as all the proven reserves in the world, the Rand study > said. > > The energy crisis of the 1970s, with the twin oil price shocks sparked > by the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian Revolution, prompted a great > oil shale boom. Encouraged by incentives from a government-funded > entity called the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp., oil companies rushed in. > > Expectations reached the fantastical. > > Exxon hoped to produce 8 million barrels of oil a day from the oil > shale by 2010, according to Andrew Gulliford, author of Boomtown > Blues: Colorado Oil Shale. > > The technology of that time called for mining the oil shale, crushing > the material and then cooking it in kilns known as "retorts" to > convert the kerogen into oil and gas. > > Chevron Corp.'s old Red Point Mine north of De Beque, Colo., is a > reminder of those heady days when trucks loaded with oil shale snaked > down the cliff side. The rock face around the mine entrance is > blackened, evidence of lightning strikes on the exposed oil shale. > > The great oil shale experiment came to a crashing halt in the early > 1980s with a collapse of world oil prices. > > Exxon, after spending more than $1 billion according to a Bureau of > Land Management report, shut its oil shale operation. And within a few > years, the federal synthetic fuels program had been abolished. > > Today, natural gas is the game, as producers employ new drilling > techniques that enable them to get at gas trapped in tight sand > formations. > > But policymakers in Washington never fully abandoned hope of > developing the oil shale. A 2004 Energy Department report argued that > America's oil shale, together with Canada's Alberta oil sands, could > serve as "North America's energy bridge to the future." > > In 2005, the Bureau of Land Management launched a program to spur > interest in the oil shale, handing out six leases for research and > development projects on federal lands, where most of the oil shale is > located. > > Shell, by nearly all accounts the industry leader in oil shale > research, landed three of the leases. The subsequent ban on commercial > shale leases doesn't prohibit research activities. > > Rather than return to the mining techniques, Shell is experimenting > with a plan to heat the oil shale in situ, Latin for in place. Shell > officials believe that by slowly heating up the oil shale underground, > the company can derive high quality oil suitable for products like jet > fuel, as well as natural gas, while also being more environmentally > friendly. > > On lands near where coyotes scamper across the road, a golden eagle > roosts on an electric transmission tower and wild horses graze in the > distance, Shell has been tinkering with heating elements contained in > metal casing that would be inserted around an oil shale formation. > > Udall calls it an "underground toaster oven." > > Project would need water > Shell also has been experimenting with a process to create a "freeze > wall," a technique used in mining and skyscraper construction, to keep > groundwater from migrating in and cooling the heating oil shale. > > Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on > the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of > the western U.S. and northern Mexico. > > Mining oil shale requires water to control dust and cool retorts, > while an in situ process would need water for cooling, power > production and refining, the Rand report noted. > > Shell officials say the old retort systems used seven to eight barrels > of water per barrel of oil produced, while they expect their method > would use about half that. The Rand report pointed to assumptions that > oil shale would use about three barrels of water per barrel of shale > oil produced. > > Shell acknowledges it has long been acquiring water rights in the area. > > That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby > Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears > will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith > said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water > storage project. > > "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. > > And it would need power > Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more > electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely > means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, > the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. > > But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to > limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of > carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. > > Shell, according to the 2005 Rand study, had anticipated its process > would be competitive with oil prices in the mid-$20-a-barrel range. > Oil has been trading recently at more than five times that level. > > Oilfield service costs have risen sharply since 2005. Today, Shell > spokesman Tracy Boyd would say only that the project would be > economical with oil prices at half the current levels. > > Shell won't decide whether to go commercial until the middle of the > next decade, with production unlikely before 2020. > > Competitors are pursuing different approaches. Chevron, working with > experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of > Utah, hopes to avoid the need for so much power by extracting oil and > gas through a chemical process. Exxon Mobil is investigating using an > electric current to heat the shale, and Schlumberger ? with technology > developed by Raytheon Co. ? is examining using radio waves to heat the > rock. > > Oil Shale Exploration Co. could beat all these players to the punch. > It's considering returning to the mining and retorting method to > develop oil shale. The privately held, Utah-based firm announced last > month that Brazil's oil company, Petrobras, and Japan's Mitsui & Co. > had purchased minority stakes in the venture. > > "Whoever cracks the nut is going to be sitting high," said Carroll > Campbell, a retired Shell operations supervisor. > > Fight over leases > Whatever its technical prospects, oil shale also is caught in the tug > of war that long has characterized the energy policy debate on Capitol > Hill. > > When Republicans were in control of Congress in late 2005, GOP leaders > inserted language into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 laying out a > timetable for the Bureau of Land Management to craft regulations and > begin large-scale commercial leasing of oil shale property. > > Last year, with Democrats commanding Capitol Hill, Sen. Ken Salazar, > D-Colo., and Randy Udall's brother, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., inserted > language in a large spending bill that barred the Bureau of Land > Management from moving beyond the research leases to commercial > leasing. That moratorium likely will continue at least into the next > Congress. > > Salazar, in an interview, said he supports looking at oil shale as a > possible energy source for the nation. "I just want to do it in the > right way." But he contends issues like water needs and other > environmental impacts must be understood before leasing acreage for > full-scale commercial operations. > > Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to look beyond oil and gas. "Do we > really want to add that much more fossil burning to the planet?" asks > Steve Smith of The Wilderness Society. > > About 25 years ago, the nation turned away from oil shale. The > question is whether America will do so again. > > david.ivanovich at chron.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 > From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sun Jul 13 08:51:01 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:51:01 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Internet Purchases Shouldn't Be Subsidized Message-ID: <487A1655.5040504@attglobal.net> by Mark Weisbrot The Huffington Post (June 16 2008) Can our state and local governments afford to subsidize businesses that conduct their sales only on the internet, rather than through physical retail stores? And if we could, is there a good reason to do so? These are the two most obvious questions when addressing the issue of whether internet businesses, such as the e-commerce pioneer Amazon.com, should have to collect and pay the same sales taxes as your neighborhood brick-and-mortar music store (if you have one) has to do. Currently they do not. On the affordability question, the answer appears to be no and getting more no. Fiscal year 2009 begins in a few weeks, and at least 29 states plus the District of Columbia are facing budget shortfalls. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, these states have faced a combined shortfall of $48 billion, or more than nine percent of their general fund budgets. Although many of these states have been taking measures to close their budget gaps, the current projections are likely to wind up being over-optimistic. The recession in this country has barely begun, and most governments are very likely under-estimating their revenue declines for the coming fiscal year. The housing bubble that accumulated between 1996 and 2006 gave homeowners an extra $8 trillion of paper wealth. But what a bubble giveth, it taketh away too, and only about half of this bubble has deflated. As the rest of the bubble collapses, there will be a lot less property tax revenue to fund schools, police, and other government services. As the recession deepens, unemployment rises, and consumers cut back on spending, state and local government revenue from income tax, sales tax, and other sources will decline more than anticipated. Unlike the federal government, most states cannot borrow to cover an operational budget deficit. This means that they will cut spending, including such items as health insurance for children and low-income families, child care, and elementary education. In fact, at least eighteen states are already making these kinds of cuts, and the recession has barely started. In the last recession, which lasted only eight months and was mild compared to what can be expected this time, more than a million people lost health coverage because of state spending cuts. So we cannot afford to lose tens of billions of dollars in state and local tax revenues by exempting internet sales. But even if it were affordable, there is no good economic reason to do so. Why should our governments favor far-away internet distribution centers over local businesses? This is not good for local or regional economic development. The problem will worsen as internet sales increase each year. It has been argued that the burden of following the sales tax regulations for fifty states and thousands of local taxing jurisdictions is too much for internet businesses. But the availability of software and service companies has taken the wind out of this argument. Others complain that sales taxes are in general regressive - that is, such taxes take proportionately more from lower-income groups. This is true, but exempting internet sales makes the tax system even more regressive, since internet buyers as a group have higher-than-average income. So if your local sporting goods store can collect and pay a sales tax on the running shoes that it sells, the big internet retailers can do the same. No need to give e-commerce a four to nine percent advantage to ship from across the country and use more packaging and delivery services. They can compete on the same terms as everyone else, and stop draining badly needed revenue from our state and local governments. _____ This column was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on June 10 2008 and published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/internet-purchases-should_b_107407.html TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 09:10:43 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:10:43 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Martin Feldstein: "We Can Lower Oil Prices Now" Message-ID: July 1, 2008 We Can Lower Oil Prices Now By MARTIN FELDSTEIN July 1, 2008; Page A17 Although most experts agree that financial speculation was not responsible for the surge in the global prices of food and energy, many people remain puzzled about the source of these remarkable price rises. Economics offers a simple supply-and-demand explanation and reason for optimism about the future of commodity prices. In the case of oil, economics also suggests how policy changes today that affect the future could quickly lower the current price of oil. We all know that rising incomes in China, India and the Gulf states have increased the demand for oil and many other commodities. But how could the modest, one-year rise of these demands lead to 100% increases in the prices of oil and other commodities? Let's take a look first at perishable agricultural commodities. In the short run, there is little scope for increasing the supply of corn in response to a global increase in demand. For demand and supply to balance ? for the market to clear ? the price of corn must rise. If the demand for corn were very price-sensitive, a relatively small increase in price would reduce global demand by enough to offset the initial rise in demand. However, since demand is actually quite insensitive to price in the short run, it takes a very large price rise to bring global demand into line with supply. Here is a simplified picture of what happened in the past year. The quantity of corn demanded by high-growth countries rose gradually, increasing eventually by an amount equal to, say, 10% of the previous total global level of corn consumption. Since the supply of corn did not increase, the price had to increase enough to reduce corn consumption in other countries by 10%. If it takes a 10% increase in the price to reduce the quantity of corn demanded in the first year by just 1%, it would take a 100% increase in the price of corn to offset the initial 10% rise in the quantity of corn demanded. In reality, the picture is complicated by the substitution in both supply and demand among different agricultural commodities, and by the role of the corn ethanol program. But the basic explanation holds: With a very low short-run price sensitivity of demand and little scope to raise supply in the short run, even a relatively small increase in corn demand by the high-growth economies can lead to a very large short-run rise in the price of corn. Fortunately, the price sensitivity of both demand and supply will increase with time. This implies that the rising demand from China and other countries may eventually be accommodated with a price lower than today's level. The situation for oil is more complex, but the outcome for prices is potentially more favorable. Unlike perishable agricultural products, oil can be stored in the ground. So when will an owner of oil reduce production or increase inventories instead of selling his oil and converting the proceeds into investible cash? A simplified answer is that he will keep the oil in the ground if its price is _expected_ to rise faster than the interest rate that could be earned on the money obtained from selling the oil. The _actual_ price of oil may rise faster or slower than is expected, but the decision to sell (or hold) the oil depends on the expected price rise. There are of course considerations of risk, and of the impact of price changes on long-term consumer behavior, that complicate the oil owner's decision ? and therefore the behavior of prices. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (the OPEC cartel), with its strong pricing power, still plays a role. But the fundamental insight is that owners of oil will adjust their production and inventories until the price of oil is expected to rise at the rate of interest, appropriately adjusted for risk. If the price of oil is expected to rise faster, they'll keep the oil in the ground. In contrast, if the price of oil is not expected to rise as fast as the rate of interest, the owners will extract more and invest the proceeds. The relationship between future and current oil prices implies that an expected change in the future price of oil will have an immediate impact on the current price of oil. Thus, when oil producers concluded that the demand for oil in China and some other countries will grow more rapidly in future years than they had previously expected, they inferred that the future price of oil would be higher than they had previously believed. They responded by reducing supply and raising the spot price enough to bring the expected price rise back to its initial rate. Hence, with no change in the current demand for oil, the expectation of a greater future demand and a higher future price caused the current price to rise. Similarly, credible reports about the future decline of oil production in Russia and in Mexico implied a higher future global price of oil ? and that also required an increase in the current oil price to maintain the initial expected rate of increase in the price of oil. Once this relation is understood, it is easy to see how news stories, rumors and industry reports can cause substantial fluctuations in current prices ? all without anything happening to current demand or supply. Of course, a rise in the spot price of oil triggered by a change in expectations about future prices will cause a decline in the current quantity of oil that consumers demand. If current supply and demand were initially in balance, the OPEC countries and other oil producers would respond by reducing sales to bring supply into line with the temporary reduction in demand. A rise in the expected future demand for oil thus causes a current decline in the amount of oil being supplied. This is what happened as the Saudis and others cut supply in 2007. Now here is the good news. Any policy that causes the expected future oil price to fall can cause the current price to fall, or to rise less than it would otherwise do. In other words, it is possible to bring down today's price of oil with policies that will have their physical impact on oil demand or supply only in the future. For example, increases in government subsidies to develop technology that will make future cars more efficient, or tighter standards that gradually improve the gas mileage of the stock of cars, would lower the future demand for oil and therefore the price of oil today. Similarly, increasing the expected future supply of oil would also reduce today's price. That fall in the current price would induce an immediate rise in oil consumption that would be matched by an increase in supply from the OPEC producers and others with some current excess capacity or available inventories. Any steps that can be taken now to increase the future supply of oil, or reduce the future demand for oil in the U.S. or elsewhere, can therefore lead both to lower prices and increased consumption today. Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 09:50:27 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:50:27 -0400 Subject: [R-G] OPEC and US Fuel Figures at Odds + OPEC Sees Future Fall in Demand for Its Oil Message-ID: The history of great oil price volatility helps create self-fulfilling expectations of long-term price volatility, which in turn worsens short-term price volatility today, leading to far higher prices than actual demand and supply today justify (supply still outpacing demand even in the context of relatively low spare production capacity -- see the charts on the right at and listen to Adhip Chaudhuri at ). That, in addition to direct impacts of conversion to biofuels, indirectly helps escalate food prices, triggering social unrests in many nations -- including oil producers -- and diminishing political stability, which in turn feeds back into self-fulfilling expectations of price volatility. (Imperialists are in part motivated by all this and foolishly take actions that make it all worse, since they are, contrary to their self-image, destabilizers rather than stabilizers.) Oil illustrates the problem of market anarchy -- lack of planned coordination between producers and consumers -- like nothing else. But instead of analyzing this problem, a number of otherwise outstanding leftists turn to "peak oil" theory, which, like hedgers and speculators, adds to self-fulfilling expectations of price volatility. What is ironic is that "peak oil" theorists on the Left, many of whom are Marxists or Keynesians or Marxian-Keynesians and friends of planning and counter-cyclical policy-making, are in essence spreading an unfounded idea that intensifies market anarchy and miseries it causes. -- Yoshie Opec and US fuel figures at odds By Carola Hoyos in London Published: June 26 2008 02:47 | Last updated: June 26 2008 02:47 Opec believes it will need to produce far less oil over the next 12 years than does the US, creating uncertainty over whether the oil cartel's members will invest enough to boost production capacity to stop oil prices rising. The US Energy Information Agency on Wednesday predicted the world would need more than 37m barrels of oil a day from Opec by 2010 and 44.4m b/d in 2020. But in a concurrent report, Opec said new supply from other regions and biofuels would reduce the need for its oil from 32m b/d today, to 31m b/d in 2012 before it rose again, but only to 35.5m b/d in 2020 ? more than 9m b/d less than the EIA expects. The differing views matter because the long-term forecasts will be one of the main determinants of how much resource-holders invest in future production capacity. "The oil industry faces great uncertainties over how much to invest," Opec said in a background paper. The oil cartel has long argued that consuming countries' policies to boost car efficiencies and support alternative fuels make it difficult to know how much oil it will have to produce to meet global demand in the longer term. This thinking is already having an impact. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, recently postponed plans to expand its production capacity past the 12.5m b/d it is expected to reach next year, arguing the demand it anticipated did not warrant the investment. Other Opec countries ? most notably Qatar in terms of natural gas ? have also put expansion plans on hold as record oil prices have dampened the urgency to boost production. But these countries are also worried that biofuels will make their oil redundant ? in what could be a misplaced fear, as a barrel of ethanol is still far more expensive to produce than a barrel of Middle Eastern oil. The EIA sees the use of biofuels doubling from 2010 to 2030, to reach 2.7m b/d, rather than the group's previous estimate of 1.7m b/d. US ethanol production will account for more than half of that increase, the EIA said on Wednesday. Renewable fuels are expected to make up about 8.5 per cent of global energy use by 2030, up from about 7.7 per cent in 2005, the EIA said. Because of its higher price forecast, the EIA, cut its oil demand figures, with needs reaching 89.2m b/d by 2010, rather than the previous estimated 90.7m. Most of that cut came from outside Opec. Non-Opec oil production estimates in 2010 were reduced to 51.8m b/d, down 1.1m b/d, while Opec's estimated supply dropped only 400,000 b/d. to 37.4m b/d. "We do think that over the next five to 10 years the high [oil] prices will bring on new supplies that will put downward pressure on price. But we're not going back to the historic prices we saw in the 1980s and 1990s," said Guy Caruso, head of the EIA. Opec sees future fall in demand for its oil By Carola Hoyos in London Published: July 11 2008 03:15 | Last updated: July 11 2008 03:15 The Opec oil cartel on Thursday warned it might need to slow investment in its oilfields as consuming countries reduce their oil demand through conservation and by increasingly turning to alternatives, such as biofuels. Abdalla Salem El-Badri, the group's secretary-general, said: "Why should we invest in spare capacity that will not be used? We see plenty of spare capacity until 2020." Opec said new projects from outside the group could reduce the need for the ?cartel's oil to 31m b/d by 2012. In its most recent annual report, the group also cut its demand forecasts for 2030, estimating that the world would need 113m b/d, 4m fewer barrels than it had previously predicted. The report cites the efficiency gains and demand erosion that come with high prices as their reason. Opec doubled its price assumption to $70-$90 a barrel in its latest report. Some of the biggest recent changes in demand have come in the US where petrol has remained at more than $4 a gallon for a month, according to a survey by the American Automobile Association. In July, petrol use in the US fell to its lowest level since 2003, dropping 3.3 per cent from levels at the same time last year, the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the US department of energy, said this week. But in other parts of the world, particularly Asia and the Middle East, analysts still expect rapid growth. Many say Opec is being too optimistic about the ability of countries outside its club to add new barrels. Some, such as Matthew Simmons, a Texas-based energy investment banker, have even speculated that Opec, and particularly Saudi Arabia, its biggest member, are hiding behind lower demand forecasts to obscure the fact that they will be unable to squeeze as much oil out of their ageing fields as they have claimed. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 10:24:01 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:24:01 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Russia to Allocate $1.5 Million for Support of Islam + Moscow Conference: "Islam Will Beat Terrorism" Message-ID: What a splendid idea. Make books, not war. -- Yoshie 26 June 2008, 16:18 Russia to allocate $1.5 million for support of Islam Moscow, June 26, Interfax - A project of joint efforts has been signed by Russia's Fund for the Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), the fund told Interfax-Religion. The agreement provides for grants and stipends to students of Russian Islamic institutes for research, the translation and publication of books on Islam in Russian, and for material support to Islamic institutes. In addition, the agreement provides for international seminars on "The Role of Russia and the Islamic World in Strengthening the Alliance of Civilizations." 04 July 2008, 11:37 Moscow hosts Islamic anti-terrorist conference Moscow, July 4, Interfax - Islam is essentially a peaceful religion and today's international terrorism should not be treated as a merely Islamic phenomenon, said the participants of an international conference entitled "Islam will beat terrorism," which opened in Moscow on Thursday. The conference, organized by the Fund for the Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education, was opened with the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's address read out to the conference participants. Chairman of the Fund's board of trustees and President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Yevgeny Primakov said that fighting international terrorism is one of today's challenges and very often "some extremist groups dress themselves in Islamic clothing, which contradicts the spirit of Islam." Some Western politicians "in a bid to find a new enemy, are trying to force on the world a new division based on cultural and religious differences," he said. Without Muslims themselves, international terrorism cannot not be beaten today, Primakov said. Arab League Ambassador to Russia Giuma Ibrahim al Ferjani said in his speech that after the September 11 attacks in New York the international community reached a certain consensus in seeing terrorism as "the enemy of all nations and the enemy of progress." However, this consensus was soon broken after "one country decided that it was entitled to decide other nations' fates and ignore their opinions," the ambassador said. The consolidated positions of a number of extremist forces in the world "matched with the interests of U.S. politicians," he said. The latter started using the rising extremism as a pretext for starting local wars in a number of world's regions. The Arab League official urged the conference participants to adopt an address to the United Nations, condemning terrorism and criminalizing any encroachment on the religion. Jordan's Minister of Islamic Affairs Abdul Fattah Salah has also warned of the danger of "linking terrorism with a group of persons of a certain religion or culture." Today, the fight against the terrorist threat is "the task and responsibility of not only Muslims, it is a joint international task," he said. Ignoring this threat will lead to "everyone becoming a victim of terrorism, regardless of their nationality," the minister said. Kuwait's Minister of Islamic Affairs Adel Al-Falah has said that his country wants to assume a moderate approach on Islam, which rules out any extremist manifestations. "We in Kuwait believe that being moderate is the best way of fighting extremism. We should stick to this approach because it urges Muslims to do the good things to everyone, regardless of skin color," the Kuwait's minister said. The Secretary General at the Office of the Grand Mufti of the Sultanate, Ahmed bin Saud Al-Siyabi, has said that his country's authorities highly appreciate Russia's role in the dialogue between various cultures and religions and has agreed with other conference participants that, "terrorism does not belong to any religion." Chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis Ravil Gainutdin also said that Islam "will not tolerate extremism" and added that today's Muslims from across the globe are trying to promote a moderate Islam. The Council of Muftis earlier repeatedly condemned terrorism and extremism, emphasizing the unacceptability of the attempts to justify their acts by the principles of the Qur'an. From mstainsby at resist.ca Sun Jul 13 10:43:25 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:43:25 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Oil Shale, ANWR, and Offshore Drilling in the USA vs. Investment in the MENA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <487A30AD.3060000@resist.ca> People do not need to fear nor establish a campaign around oil shale for the simple reason that the technology that exists currently leaves approximately only two percent of that entire "reserve" on top of (mostly) Colorado. The bigger concern is the vast areas of Utah that are tar sands based, with the possibility that the area could actually get strip mined. Or, perhaps better put, the oil shale deposits as a "solution" are akin to carbon sequestration as a solution to climate change. It doesn't exist, and talking about it has no more weight than discussion of things like cold fusion. Just because the concept gets repeated over and over again, doesn't take it out of the realm of science fiction. The "idea" is what we get-- the discussions inside their boardrooms are very different things. They all realize how long even the simplest oil field takes to get online, when you factor in the needs for the construction of all the infrastructure from one end of the line to the other. And all of the simple, high return oil has either been discovered or consumed. It also doesn't really matter all that much if Iran has to sell their oil in different directions; that reduces outside demand and then frees up separate locations of supply. But getting all of the various projects on line-- and when the last couple of years have seen the first lack of growth in global capacity or known reserves, while Cantarell in the Gulf has gone into major decline (etc) means that people will have to make a decision to either get off of the oil grid globally or go after the technology to dig shale, the tar sands gigaproject ground zeroed in Alberta alongside the other deposits, and so on. When offshore reserves are what is left, clearly we are in what is known as stage one of a decline in any area of extraction; you no longer find many new discoveries. Afterwards we have to see how soon or not-- of course the international variables are important-- the terminal decline in production happens (we are already way past the decline in new finds, currently using over 10 barrels for each found, never mind energy input-output ratios). It is also one thing to defend and never vary from defense of countries like Iran having the right to do whatever they bloody well please in terms of uranium enrichment. It is quite another to be a cheerleader for such, especially in a country like Iran that is known to have some of the most active fault lines in the world. Simple science knows that a major nuclear accident is not an if, but a when. When we realize that the uranium of the world, if all used in one shot, would account for little over 5% and that the world's reserves-- like almost all others of these types-- are both past their best in what people can mine, and unless we manage to get rational energy planning to be undertaken globally uranium will also be in major decline soon, with only millions of years of radioactive fall out for the effort. Energy independence is never going to happen. Yet there is not in existence the ability to use all of the energy needed to get the bad energy sources out. If we cannot force a change not in supply source, but energy systems reliance on a non-self replicating source, the form of collapse we will see continue to escalate is a major mad house-- without a response that comes from those who want to get off the grid and try to survive in the long term, then we will have the same people in power with desperate, dangerous attempts to maintain the impossible. Knowing that there last few adventures come from this basic understanding, I can't even fathom let alone shudder at what the cabal in DC will unleash. But of course, that fear in me also comes from realizing there is not an American democracy functioning, either. Macdonald Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > What is the most environmentally destructive idea? That the USA must > achieve "energy independence" in a world of "peak oil." That's the > idea used to sell biofuels, oil shale, drilling offshore and in the > ANWR, despite their high social, economic, and environmental costs. > It would be much better environmentally to invest where conventional > crude oil and gas reserves exist, such as the MENA region. But the US > power elite want to pollute their own country, aggravating climate > change, while curbing investment in important oil and gas producers in > the South, such as Iraq, Iran (whose thoughtful power elite wish to > turn their country into the France of the Middle East, meeting > domestic electricity demand through nuclear power and exporting more > oil and gas to the rest of what ought to be a grateful, energy-hungry > world), Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. through war, sanctions, coup > d'etats, etc. -- Yoshie > From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 13 11:04:43 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:04:43 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Pilger: How Britain Wages War References: <200807130947.cf0ca0@zcommunications.org> Message-ID: How Britain Wages War Jul 13, 2008 By John Pilger Five photographs together break a silence. The first is of a former Gurkha regimental sergeant major, Tul Bahadur Pun, aged 87. He sits in a wheelchair outside 10 Downing Street. He holds a board full of medals, including the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery, which he won serving in the British army. He has been refused entry to Britain and treatment for a serious heart ailment by the National Health Service: outrages rescinded only after a public campaign. On 25 June, he came to Down ing Street to hand his Victoria Cross back to the Prime Minister, but Gordon Brown refused to see him. The second photograph is of a 12-year-old boy, one of three children. They are Kuchis, nomads of Afghanistan. They have been hit by Nato bombs, American or British, and nurses are trying to peel away their roasted skin with tweezers. On the night of 10 June, Nato planes struck again, killing at least 30 civilians in a single village: children, women, schoolteachers, students. On 4 July, another 22 civilians died like this. All, including the roasted children, are described as "militants" or "suspected Taliban". The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, says the invasion of Afghan istan is "the noble cause of the 21st century". The third photograph is of a computer-generated aircraft carrier not yet built, one of two of the biggest ships ever ordered for the Royal Navy. The ?4bn contract is shared by BAE Systems, whose sale of 72 fighter jets to the corrupt tyranny in Saudi Arabia has made Britain the biggest arms merchant on earth, selling mostly to oppressive regimes in poor countries. At a time of economic crisis, Browne describes the carriers as "an affordable expenditure". The fourth photograph is of a young British soldier, Gavin Williams, who was "beasted" to death by three non-commissioned officers. This "informal summary punishment", which sent his body temperature to more than 41 degrees, was intended to "humiliate, push to the limit and hurt". The torture was described in court as a fact of army life. The final photograph is of an Iraqi man, Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death by British soldiers. Taken during his post-mortem, it shows some of the 93 horrific injuries he suffered at the hands of men of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who beat and abused him for 36 hours, including double-hooding him with hessian sacks in stifling heat. He was a hotel receptionist. Although his murder took place almost five years ago, it was only in May this year that the Ministry of Defence responded to the courts and agreed to an independent inquiry. A judge has described this as a "wall of silence". A court martial convicted just one soldier of Mousa's "inhumane treatment", and he has since been quietly released. Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, representing the families of Iraqis who have died in British custody, says the evidence is clear - abuse and torture by the British army is systemic. Shiner and his colleagues have witness statements and corroborations of prima facie crimes of an especially atrocious kind usually associated with the Americans. "The more cases I am dealing with, the worse it gets," he says. These include an "incident" near the town of Majar al-Kabir in 2004, when British soldiers executed as many as 20 Iraqi prisoners after mutilating them. The latest is that of a 14-year-old boy who was forced to simulate anal and oral sex over a prolonged period. "At the heart of the US and UK project," says Shiner, "is a desire to avoid accountability for what they want to do. Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary renditions are part of the same struggle to avoid accountability through jurisdiction." British soldiers, he says, use the same torture techniques as the Americans and deny that the European Convention on Human Rights, the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on Torture apply to them. And British torture is "commonplace": so much so, that "the routine nature of this ill- treatment helps to explain why, despite the abuse of the soldiers and cries of the detainees being clearly audible, nobody, particularly in authority, took any notice". Unbelievably, says Shiner, the Ministry of Defence under Tony Blair decided that the 1972 Heath government's ban on certain torture techniques applied only in the UK and Northern Ireland. Consequently, "many Iraqis were killed and tortured in UK detention facilities". Shiner is working on 46 horrific cases. A wall of silence has always surrounded the British military, its arcane rituals, rites and practices and, above all, its contempt for the law and natural justice in its various imperial pursuits. For 80 years, the Ministry of Defence and compliant ministers refused to countenance posthumous pardons for terrified boys shot at dawn during the slaughter of the First World War. British soldiers used as guinea pigs during the testing of nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean were abandoned, as were many others who suffered the toxic effects of the 1991 Gulf War. The treatment of Gurkha Tul Bahadur Pun is typical. Having been sent back to Nepal, many of these "soldiers of the Queen" have no pension, are deeply impoverished and are refused residence or medical help in the country for which they fought and for which 43,000 of them have died or been injured. The Gurkhas have won no fewer than 26 Victoria Crosses, yet Browne's "affordable expenditure" excludes them. An even more imposing wall of silence ensures that the British public remains largely unaware of the industrial killing of civilians in Britain's modern colonial wars. In his landmark work Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses, the historian Mark Curtis uses three main categories: direct responsibility, indirect responsibility and active inaction. "The overall figure [since 1945] is between 8.6 and 13.5 million," Curtis writes. "Of these, Britain bears direct responsibility for between four million and six million deaths. This figure is, if anything, likely to be an underestimate. Not all British interventions have been included, because of lack of data." Since his study was published, the Iraq death toll has reached, by reliable measure, a million men, women and children. The spiralling rise of militarism within Britain is rarely acknowledged, even by those alerting the public to legislation attacking basic civil liberties, such as the recently drafted Data Com muni cations Bill, which will give the government powers to keep records of all electronic communication. Like the plans for identity cards, this is in keeping what the Americans call "the national security state", which seeks the control of domestic dissent while pursuing military aggression abroad. The ?4bn aircraft carriers are to have a "global role". For global read colonial. The Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office follow Washington's line almost to the letter, as in Browne's preposterous description of Afghanistan as a noble cause. In reality, the US-inspired Nato invasion has had two effects: the killing and dispossession of large numbers of Afghans, and the return of the opium trade, which the Taliban had banned. According to Hamid Karzai, the west's puppet leader, Britain's role in Helmand Province has led directly to the return of the Taliban. The militarising of how the British state perceives and treats other societies is vividly demonstrated in Africa, where ten out of 14 of the most impoverished and conflict-ridden countries are seduced into buying British arms and military equipment with "soft loans". Like the British royal family, the British Prime Minister simply follows the money. Having ritually condemned a despot in Zimbabwe for "human rights abuses" - in truth, for no longer serving as the west's business agent - and having obeyed the latest US dictum on Iran and Iraq, Brown set off recently for Saudi Arabia, exporter of Wahhabi fundamentalism and wheeler of fabulous arms deals. To complement this, the Brown government is spending ?11bn of taxpayers' money on a huge, pri vatised military academy in Wales, which will train foreign soldiers and mercenaries recruited to the bogus "war on terror". With arms companies such as Raytheon profiting, this will become Britain's "School of the Americas", a centre for counter-insurgency (terrorist) training and the design of future colonial adventures.It has had almost no publicity. Of course, the image of militarist Britain clashes with a benign national regard formed, wrote Tolstoy, "from infancy, by every possible means - class books, church services, sermons, speeches, books, papers, songs, poetry, monuments [leading to] people stupefied in the one direction". Much has changed since he wrote that. Or has it? The shabby, destructive colonial war in Afghanistan is now reported almost entirely through the British army, with squaddies always doing their Kipling best, and with the Afghan resistance routinely dismissed as "outsiders" and "invaders". Pictures of nomadic boys with Nato-roasted skin almost never appear in the press or on television, nor the after-effects of British thermobaric weapons, or "vacuum bombs", designed to suck the air out of human lungs. Instead, whole pages mourn a British military intelligence agent in Afghanis tan, because she happens to have been a 26-year-old woman, the first to die in active service since the 2001 invasion. Baha Mousa, tortured to death by British soldiers, was also 26 years old. But he was different. His father, Daoud, says that the way the Ministry of Defence has behaved over his son's death convinces him that the British government regards the lives of others as "cheap". And he is right. From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3552 From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 12:24:05 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:24:05 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Gazprom to Step Deeper into Iran after Total Pulls Back from South Pars Message-ID: Iran, Russia's Gazprom sign energy cooperation deal 2 hours ago TEHRAN (AFP) ? Iran and Gazprom Sunday signed an agreement for the Russian energy giant to help Tehran develop its oil and gas fields, days after Total dropped out of a multi-billion-dollar gas deal. "The Iranian National Oil Company and Gazprom signed an agreement in which the two sides will cooperate in the development of Iran's oil and gas fields," the oil ministry's Shana news agency said. No financial details were given but the agreement signals Iran's determination to secure Russian help for exploiting its energy resources as Western countries pull out due to political pressure. The head of French energy giant Total last week said it was dropping out of a multi-billion-dollar gas investment to develop phase 11 of the South Pars gas field, saying it was currently too risky politically to invest in Iran. Western governments have pressured firms to cut their ties with Iran over the country's controversial nuclear programme, which world powers fear could be aimed at seeking atomic weapons -- a charge vehemently denied by Tehran. The United States, Iran's arch enemy, has also been urging global energy giants to cut their ties with Tehran, saying that doing business sends the wrong message at a time of growing tensions in the nuclear crisis. "Gazprom will be a cooperative partner for the Islamic Republic of Iran," Iranian state television quoted Alexei Miller, CEO of the Russian state-controlled firm, as telling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting. Other issues covered in the cooperation agreement include possible participation of Gazprom in the planned peace pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to India and Pakistan, Shana said. Improving recovery rates in Iran's ageing oil fields and Russian help in transferring Caspian Sea crude oil to the Gulf of Oman are also mentioned. Cooperation in the development of Iran's North Azadegan oil field, part of the vast Azadegan filed in southwestern Iran, was also mooted in the agreement, Shana said. It said that working groups would be formed to implement the cooperation and a joint company would be set up between the two countries for cooperation in oil and gas. State television said Miller expressed willingness for Gazprom to participate "in big oil and gas projects; in South and North Pars, Azadegan and the Caspian Sea fields." Ahmadinejad, for his part, said that Iran was "interested in expanding ties with Russia in oil and gas as far as possible," state television said. The South Pars field in the Gulf has around 500 trillion cubic feet (14 trillion cubic metres) of gas, which represents about eight percent of world reserves. But the lack of foreign investment has so far delayed the development of the giant offshore field and dented Iran's hopes of becoming a major gas exporter. Azadegan is Iran's biggest onshore oil field with an estimated 42 billion barrels of crude oil in place and production started in February using only Iranian firms after the Japanese partner Inpex quit the project. Iran sits on the world's second largest proven oil reserves worldwide and is the number four crude producer worldwide and the second in the oil cartel OPEC. It also has the second biggest proven global gas reserves after Russia but so far has played only a minor role on the gas export market. Russia, while approving three sets of UN sanctions against Tehran, has repeatedly argued the nuclear standoff should be solved through diplomacy and still has significant economic interests in Iran. Iran, Gazprom set to sign cooperation memorandum 12:42 | 13/ 07/ 2008 TEHRAN, July 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] and Iran's Ministry of Petroleum will sign on Sunday a memorandum of cooperation in the oil and gas sphere, an Iranian deputy oil minister said. "Interaction between Iran and Russia in all spheres and especially in the energy sphere is very wide. We expect to further broaden this cooperation in the future," Hossein Noghrehkar Shirazi said. Shirazi said a series of discussions would precede the signing of the cooperation memorandum. Iran ranks fourth in terms of crude reserves after Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait, as well as fourth in terms of oil production after Saudi Arabia, the United States and Russia. Iran's proven gas reserves total more than 28 trillion cubic meters. Iran vows to press on after Total pull-out By Carola Hoyos and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Published: July 10 2008 19:08 | Last updated: July 10 2008 19:08 Iran on Thursday played down the loss of Total of France, which this week became the final large western energy company to pull back from investing in the country's huge South Pars gas field. Gholamhossein Nozari, energy minister, said: "This is our message: we will proceed with development with or without them." He was speaking less than 24 hours after Total said international political tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme made it too risky to make fresh investments. Akbar Torkan, deputy oil minister for planning, said Iran could shift some longer-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in South Pars ? the world's biggest gas field ? to ones that instead export gas through pipelines. This is a popular option within Iran's oil and gas industry. He said: "We can construct the pipeline in our land with our investments to reach the border, while Europeans, like Austria and Switzerland, can do the same from their lands to reach Iran's borders without facing investment obstacles." But analysts said Iran faced significant hurdles. They doubted it would be able to proceed with LNG ? an expensive, complex and highly technical undertaking ? especially as much of the know-how is restricted to a few big companies and some of the most important propriety technology is American and thus barred by US sanctions. This meant Iran was unlikely to be able to significantly raise gas exports until late in the next decade at the soonest, they said. Total's project was key to the Iranians, who hoped to learn enough from it to eventually embark alone on LNG. That was one reason Washington had been so intent on stopping the project, though the likelihood of it going ahead was always a long shot. The decision by Total creates a problem for the wider world and not just Iran. The demise of Tehran's LNG projects represent a loss of about 80bcm a year of potential gas supply, roughly equivalent to Germany's needs, said analysts. That creates a huge hole in potential supply at a time when demand from Asia and the Middle East threatens to outpace the substantial capacity being built world wide. Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at Global Insight, argued that national energy groups, such as Russia's Gazprom, and companies from China would fail to fill the vacuum left by Total. "It is almost impossible. Without the technology and experience they don't have the resources to do it," he said. The western energy companies know this and are quick to stress they are not pulling out of Iran or ending negotiations over projects far in the future. Indeed, Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Eni and StatoilHydro among others already have a presence in Iran and intend to honour their contracts despite US pressure. But all of them have also said they have, for now, put new investments on hold. In private, executives say their decisions were prompted by the combination of the adverse political climate and the sub-par financial terms offered by the Iranians. That leaves Iran with two large export possibilities and both face significant hurdles: the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline and a possible link to Europe's Nabucco pipeline. The first is bogged down by security concerns along the route, a pricing dispute between India and Pakistan, and pressure from the US, while the second is far from a done deal because European politicians have yet to agree to snub Washington by accepting Iranian gas in the Nabucco pipe, despite the substantial benefit it would offer in terms of reducing the region's dependence on Russia. Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of Total, has been one of the few international oil company executives willing to address the issue of reduced supply as a consequence of Iran's isolation. He said the international standoff made for an "extremely delicate political environment". He also said politicians who launched military campaigns in Iraq and enacted economic sanctions against Iran needed to be aware that such actions seriously constrained international oil and gas supplies and drove up prices. Mr Ciszuk agreed with Mr de Margerie that politicians calling on the Opec cartel of oil-producing nations ? of which Iraq and Iran are members ? to boost production were also making decisions that rendered that almost impossible. Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, the consulting firm, said: "Over time, supplying gas markets may become as big a challenge as supplying oil markets. Removing Iran from export markets will accelerate this problem." From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 12:37:15 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:37:15 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Turkey Seeks Negotiated End to Iran's N. Issue Message-ID: Maybe this is unlikely to come to pass, given that the AKP and Erdogan are facing the party closure and and bans (brought about by Turkey's Kemalist judiciary), but it's not completely impossible for Turkey to emerge as the Great Mediator, mediating between Syria and Israel, mediating between Iran and Israel and the West, and mediating between Iran and Russia (regarding pipelines to Europe), helping everyone make peace and money. Islam, in its centrist varieties, is a religion of peace and business, or so I have been told. Turkey Seeks Negotiated End to Iran's N. Issue TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkey may soon mediate talks on Iran's nuclear program, following indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Erdogan told a conference on "Leadership" that Turkey has now become a country to set the agenda in its region. "Turkey mediates peace talks between Israel and Syria. Maybe, the mediator role regarding Iran's nuclear issue will soon be given to Turkey, because the idea of 'settling the issue with Turkey in this geography' has been prevailing recently. "This is the result of confidence provided (by Turkey)," Erdogan said. The United States and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's illegitimate calls to give up its right of enrichment. Tehran has dismisses West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. The US is mainly at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants. Washington's push for additional UN penalties contradicted the report by 16 US intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran's programs. Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seems to be completely irrational. The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran's cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran's nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions. Following the said reports by the US and international bodies, many world states have called the UN Security Council pressure against Tehran unjustified, demanding that Iran's case must be normalized and returned from the UNSC to the IAEA. US President George W. Bush finished a tour of the Middle East in winter to gain the consensus of his Arab allies to unite against Iran. But hosting officials of the regional nations dismissed Bush's allegations, describing Tehran as a good friend of their countries. Bush's attempt to rally international pressure against Iran has lost steam due to the growing international vigilance, specially following the latest IAEA and US intelligence reports. From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 13 13:34:34 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:34:34 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Oil prices hit military budgets hard Message-ID: <3B6865C5-5199-4BD6-9092-2D4746DD303B@shaw.ca> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-militaryoil13-2008jul13,0,4522206.story Oil prices hit military budgets hard Soaring fuel prices have the armed services scrambling for ways to economize. So far, the added costs are surpassing savings from conservation efforts. By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 13, 2008 WASHINGTON -- Across the oil-thirsty U.S. military, commanders are scrambling for ways to offset the ever-rising cost of fuel. But their best efforts so far have fallen short. The military services have found ways to save millions of dollars through conservation, but the price of oil has outpaced the cost- cutting efforts. The Navy, for example, estimates that it is saving $300 million a year through conservation. That sounds impressive until the oil price jump is taken into consideration. "From July through Sept. 30, we will see a $400-million increase in our fuel bill," said Navy Capt. Arthur Cotton, head of the Fleet Training and Readiness reporting branch. "So all of those energy savings we have done are wiped out, and then some, just over the period of 90 days." Overall, the Pentagon will spend $16.4 billion on fuel this year, up from $5.2 billion in 2003. The increase has made the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more expensive, adding $140 million to the cost of operations in Afghanistan and $565 million in Iraq. The wars combined are costing $12.1 billion a month. Military officials emphasize that the increases have not affected how combat operations are being conducted. The Defense Department's biggest fuel users are the Air Force, which accounts for 52% of the fuel bill, and the Navy, which uses 32%. Within those branches, conservation efforts are wide-ranging. A decades-old initiative to scrub the hulls of Navy ships, reducing drag and making them faster and more efficient, is gaining new importance. The Navy also is stepping up efforts to replace live exercises with virtual maneuvers that allow sailors to train while keeping the ships in port. This year the Navy will conduct 124 "synthetic exercises," up from 84 last year. A study last year showed that the initiative saved $160 million. The Air Force and the Navy also are considering increases in flight simulator training, although a large-scale shift is likely to wait until after a Defense Department study is completed by late next year. For its part, the Air Force is attempting to reduce planes' taxiing and idling time. It is working to reduce aircraft weight, lower the amount of excess fuel some planes carry, and make flight paths more efficient. And on Air Force bases, the service is beginning to replace pickup trucks with souped-up golf carts. William C. Anderson, an assistant Air Force secretary who oversees energy issues, said commanders were trying to encourage a culture change, giving fuel efficiency higher priority. "We are getting our teams to think about saving energy while still doing the mission," he said. The skyrocketing fuel cost has been particularly difficult for the Air Force. In recent years the Air Force, the largest user of fuel in the federal government, had intended to pay for new planes by reducing the number of airmen. But the increase in fuel prices ate up those savings. Soon, other services may face the same squeeze and suffer the cancellation or delay of significant equipment programs as a result of fuel price increases. Each military branch must present a draft of its next budget to the secretary of Defense by early August. And the comptroller's office has warned the services that they must accommodate fuel price increases in their budgets. Top military officials are mum on what spending programs might be in line for cutbacks. For now, the officials are predicting that fuel prices will decline 4.8% next year. But the Pentagon has not been especially accurate with its projections. The Defense Department originally estimated that oil this year would cost $91 a barrel; military services are currently paying nearly $171 a barrel. Much of the price hike this year was covered by Congress in the recently enacted emergency war funding measure. Because of its heavy use of jet fuel, the Air Force has taken perhaps the most aggressive steps toward conservation and alternatives to petroleum fuel. Air Force officials hope that liquid coal becomes a viable alternative to petroleum, and they are working to ensure that all their aircraft can use synthetic fuels. Over the long term, the Air Force is trying to develop more efficient engines and airframe designs. "We are trying to look all the way down the road," Anderson said. "We are trying to run the gamut in terms of looking for alternatives and new ideas." For the military, this represents a marked change from years past, when fuel efficiency was scarcely considered in the development of new weapons systems. "We fully expect that in the future it will become a bigger part of that decision process," Anderson said. julian.barnes at latimes.com From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 13 13:36:28 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:36:28 -0700 Subject: [R-G] U.S. soldiers lose guaranteed haven in Canada Message-ID: U.S. soldiers lose guaranteed haven in Canada By Ian Austen Sunday, July 13, 2008 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/america/canada.php TORONTO: James Corey Glass, an apprentice mortician and U.S. Army deserter, was keeping an unusually close eye on the text messages coming into his cellphone. He was hoping to hear that a court had blocked the Canadian government's attempt to send him back to the United States. On Wednesday afternoon, the message came: Glass, 25, could remain in Canada while he appealed his removal order by the Canadian Immigration Department. It was a welcome reprieve, he said, but well short of a guarantee that he and other deserters could make Canada their new home. The Canadian government's effort to remove Glass contrasts with the warm reception given to deserters and draft avoiders from the United States during the war in Vietnam. And although the war in Iraq has very little support among Canadians, the situation of Glass and others who abandoned their military positions provokes a wide range of responses. For U.S. soldiers seeking an escape, Canada is no longer a guaranteed haven. "It's quite clear that the current Canadian government does not want to annoy the U.S. government on this issue and will not give any ground," said Michael Byers, a professor of politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. During the Vietnam War, the Liberal prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, welcomed American deserters and draft dodgers, declaring that Canada "should be a refuge from militarism." Americans who arrived were generally able to obtain legal immigrant status simply by applying at the border, or even after they entered Canada. But while the current Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not backed the Iraq war, it has shown little sympathy for American deserters. During a recent parliamentary debate, Laurie Hawn, a Conservative from Alberta, asked, "Why do they not fight it within their own legal system instead of being faux refugees in Canada?" No American deserter of the Iraq war has been deported by the Canadian government, but that is not for lack of effort. The immigration authorities have ordered about nine deserters to leave Canada, leading to public battles in the courts. Changes to immigration laws have made it far more difficult for deserters to remain in Canada. Deserters wanting at least temporary legal status must be declared refugees. But refugees in Canada must show that they have, as the government puts it, a "well-founded fear of being persecuted" for religious, racial or political reasons. Alternately, refugees may demonstrate that for them to be returned to their home country would put their lives at risk, or would subject them to torture or "cruel and unusual treatment or punishment." As for Glass, he said he was between low-paying factory jobs in Indiana when he joined the U.S. National Guard six years ago. But he said he had one crucial question for the recruiters before he signed. "They told me I'm not going to fight a war on foreign shores," Glass said. Major Nathan Banks, a spokesman for the U.S. Army, said, "recruiters would never have made a comment of that sort." Not long after Glass joined, it became clear that he would not be exempt from overseas duty, he said. But he stayed with the Guard and was deployed to Iraq in 2005. Six months into his 18-month tour, Glass, a sergeant, said he was sent home on a temporary stress leave. Immediately after returning to the United States, he went on the run, living in a tent in various states, he said. Like many of his counterparts in Canada, Glass eventually contacted Lee Zaslofsky, who deserted the U.S. Army for Toronto in 1970 and is now a national coordinator for the War Resisters Support Campaign, which houses and advocates for deserters. As he says he does with all callers, Zaslofsky, a naturalized Canadian citizen, told Glass that while he would be beyond the reach of the United States military in Canada, there were no guarantees he could stay in the country. Glass moved anyway. A big difference between the current round of deserters and those during the Vietnam War appears to be scale. No precise data exist, but Victor Levant, who wrote "Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War," estimated that about 20,000 Americans came to Canada to escape the Vietnam-era draft and 12,000 others in the armed forces deserted and entered Canada. Zaslofsky said he believed that no more than 200 American deserters from the Iraq war were now in Canada. While the government does not publish figures, it appears that only about 50 deserters have made refugee applications, with the rest living illegally in Canada. Exactly what Glass and others face if they return to the United States is unclear. Banks, the U.S. Army spokesman, said that Glass had been given "an other-than-honorable discharge" from the California National Guard but remained a member of the Army Reserve. He declined to say what, if anything, would happen to Glass if he returned to the United States. Glass, however, said he had been advised by a lawyer in the army's legal unit, and by a U.S. military law specialist he had hired, that the discharge did not mean that he would avoid desertion charges, which could bring the equivalent of a felony conviction and a prison sentence. "They said it doesn't change anything," Glass said, referring to his lawyers. His Canadian lawyer agreed. The deserters have support among opposition members of Parliament, who have passed a motion asking the Canadian government to give deserters and their families legal immigrant status. The measure, however, is not binding, and the Conservatives have ignored it. Bob Rae, a Liberal member of Parliament, acknowledged that the response of the Canadian public to the deserters' cause was muted compared with its reaction during the Vietnam War, partly because the current newcomers are volunteers, not conscripts. But, he argued, the public favors giving U.S. deserters special consideration. "As a country which concluded that the Iraq conflict was not justified under international law, we have to take a position," Rae said. Karen Shadd, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Immigration Department, said that no special deals were planned. "Creating a special and unique channel would undermine the fairness of the system," she said. The results under the current system have generally been discouraging for people like Glass, including a refusal by the Supreme Court of Canada to hear appeals from two deserters. But deserters have won judgments as well. On July 4, a judge ordered a refugee board to reconsider the application of Joshua Key, a U.S. Army private who said he had witnessed many abuses by U.S. forces in Iraq. As for Glass, he said he would return if ultimately ordered. "I'm going to obey Canadian laws," Glass said. "I'm not going to break any laws here." But what he would do in the United States is unclear. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know what I'm going to do." From fentona at shaw.ca Sun Jul 13 17:29:34 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:29:34 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The Soros Media "Empire" - The Power of Philanthropy to Engineer Consent Message-ID: <2AC7D422-2FC1-46A7-AC3C-58768069720E@shaw.ca> The Soros Media "Empire" The Power of Philanthropy to Engineer Consent by Michael Barker Introduction (Swans - July 14, 2008) In the past few decades critical scholars have worked hard to draw attention to the antidemocratic influence of conservative philanthropists on the 'development' of global media systems, and more generally on democracy itself. This is commendable work that deserves greater recognition within mass communications research, yet of arguably more importance is the fact that only a handful of media researchers have focused on the similarly antidemocratic trends that have resulted from the influence of Left- leaning capitalist funders on media trends. Moreover, while many people may think that the pro-free market doctrine of the Right- leaning philanthropoids may receive more funding than liberal ('progressive') foundations this is not necessarily the case: instead, the Right has simply acted with more cohesion, and consciously worked at influencing policy makers and politicians at an ideological level, while the Left has adopted a more haphazard reactive approach to tempering the excesses of our capitalist society. So it is problematic to suggest, as some commentators have, that progressives should attempt to emulate the Right's antidemocratic strategizing to democratise the public sphere. To date, in most cases researchers have tended to assume that liberal funders only have noble (progressive) intentions to strengthen democracy, and while this may be true to a point, this article will demonstrate that this charity is ultimately given to sustain capitalism -- albeit a less brutal variant of capitalism than that promoted by Right-wing philanthropists. Using the example of George Soros's philanthropic foundations, which at their peak were distributing some $500 million a year to ostensibly progressive causes, this article will highlight his involvement in creating 'independent' media outlets worldwide. Initially, the article will review the critical literature regarding the work of liberal philanthropists, then owing to the scarcity of studies examining their influence on media organizations and researchers it will briefly summarize this media-related work. Next, the article will introduce George Soros and his network of foundations, providing a number of examples of significant media projects that Soros and his foundations support. Finally, the article will conclude by suggesting how media scholars might counter the arguably antidemocratic nature of Soros's media interventions. [...] http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker02.html#024 From shimogamo at attglobal.net Sun Jul 13 20:02:26 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:02:26 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Cure for High Gas and Food Prices Message-ID: <487AB3B2.60400@attglobal.net> Vital Businesses Need Nationalization by Ted Rall www.rall.com (June 26 2008) The gas station attendant came outside. Wow, I thought, full serve! Ignoring me, she flung a magnetic price decal on top of the price per gallon. Regular unleaded had gone up twenty cents in the time it took me to drive from the curb to the pump. "You're kidding me", I moaned. "It's three o'clock", she shrugged. "Just got the new price". There has to be a better way, I thought. And there is. It isn't drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. It sure isn't John McCain's plan to offer $300 million to the first person to come up with a longer-lasting car battery Gas prices could hit $7 a gallon before long, Wall Street analysts say, but Americans - always optimists! - take a little comfort in the fact that Europeans have paid more than that for years. But a lot of foreigners are laughing at us even harder than we're laughing at the Euros. Did you know that Venezuelans pay a mere nineteen cents per gallon? It's 38 cents in Nigeria. Turkmenistanis might not have electoral democracy, but they only shell out $4.50 to fill a fifteen-gallon tank. Before we replaced Saddam Hussein with ... with whatever they have in Iraq now, Iraqis paid less than a dime for a gallon of gas. One of the things that these countries have in common, of course, is that they're oil-producing states. Countries that export oil and gas have trouble explaining to their citizens why they should pay for their own natural resources - and most are smart enough not to try. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Burma, Malaysia, Kuwait, China and South Korea are just a few of the countries that keep fuel prices low in order to stimulate economic growth. But they also share something else: common sense. Strange it might sound to Americans used to reading about big oil windfalls, they consider cheap gas more of an economic necessity than lining the pockets of energy company CEOs. So they don't consider energy a profit center. To the contrary; government subsidies (Venezuela spends $2 billion a year on fuel subsidies) and nationalized oil companies keep gas prices low. Unlike corporations, governments don't care about turning a profit. They care about remaining in power. Their reliance on political support (or, if you're cynical, pandering) allows them to do things our much-vaunted free market system can't, such as make sure that people can afford to eat and buy enough gas to get to work. Like the rest of the world, Venezuelan consumers have been squeezed by rising prices, and even shortages, of groceries. In 2007 Venezuela's socialist-leaning government decided to do something about it. First they imposed price controls on staple items. When suppliers began to hoard supplies to drive up prices, President Hugo Chavez threatened to nationalize them. "If they remain committed to violating the interests of the people, the constitution, the laws, I'm going to take the food storage units, corner stores, supermarkets and nationalize them", he said. Food profiteers grumbled. Then they straightened up. Not even international corporations are immune from Chavez's determination to put the needs of ordinary Venezuelans ahead of the for-profit food industry. Faced with severe shortages of milk earlier this year, Chavez threatened Nestle and Parmalat's Venezuelan operations with nationalization unless they opened the spigot. "This government needs to tighten the screws", he said in February 2008, promising to "intervene and nationalize the plants" belonging to the two transnational corporations. Miraculously, milk is turning up on the shelves. When it works, nothing is better at creating an endless variety of reality TV shows than free market capitalism. But when it doesn't, it isn't just that extra brand of clear dishwashing liquid that goes away. Businesses fold. Banks foreclose. People starve. And no one can stop it. The G8 nations met in Osaka last week to try to address soaring food and energy prices - a double threat that could plunge the global economy into a ruinous depression. But the summit ended in failure. "Any hope that the G8 meeting would result in coordinated monetary action - or concerted intervention in foreign exchange markets - to counter rises, principally in commodity prices, was dispelled by their failure to agree on the phenomenon's underlying causes", reported Forbes. So the G8 ministers punted. "Due to the lack of consensus, they have stated the need for further study", wrote the magazine. The problem isn't the weak dollar or the non-existent housing market. It's capitalism. A sane government doesn't leave essential goods and services - food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation, education - to the vicissitudes of "magic" markets. Non-discretionary economic sectors should be strictly controlled by - indeed, owned by - the government. Consider, on the one hand, snail mail and public education. The Postal Service and public schools both have their flaws. But what if they were privatized? It would cost a lot more than 42 cents to mail a letter from Tampa to Maui. And poor children wouldn't get an education. Privatization, particularly of essential services, has always proven disastrous. From California's Enron-driven rotating blackouts to for-profit healthcare that has left 47 million Americans uninsured to predatory lenders pimping the housing bubble to Blackwater's atrocities in Iraq, market-based corporations' fiduciary obligation to maximize profits that is inherently incompatible with a stable economy whose goal is to provide people with a decent quality of life. Postscriipt: If you're reading this in Caracas, please mail me some gas. Ted Rall is the author of the book Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? (2006), an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.) Copyright 2008 Ted Rall http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/?uc_full_date=20080626 TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 22:40:27 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:40:27 -0400 Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Nepal=92s_Prachanda_for_Muslim_Rights?= Message-ID: Nepal's Prachanda for Muslim rights PTI Thursday, July 10, 2008 03:34 IST Maoist leader's support is being seen as an attempt to garner sympathy of the minority community KATHMANDU: The Nepal Maoists, who played a key role in abolishing the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy and turning the country into a secular state, have vowed to ensure special rights to the minority Muslim community in the Himalayan nation. "It is not enough to provide equal rights to the Muslims but they should be given special rights as compensation for having been suppressed", CPN-Maoist chairman Prachanda said at a gathering of the Muslim Mukti Morcha (MMM), an organisation affiliated to the party of the former rebels. Prachanda's support for special rights for the Muslims is seen as an attempt to garner the sympathy of the minority community, which mainly resides in the Terai-plains bordering India where the Maoists suffered setbacks in the April Constituent Assembly polls. Declaring Nepal a secular nation was one of the 40-point demands put forth by the Maoists in 1996 when they started their insurgency in the country. Prachanda, who is poised to lead the new government in Nepal, promised to form a 'Muslim Commission' for the welfare of the minority community and develop historically important pilgrimage sites of the community as tourist destinations. In the past, the Maoist cadres were known to slaughter cows in remote villages and even punish people for celebrating Hindu festivals like Dussera and Diwali. Despite being a Hindu nation, the government provided equal opportunity to the Muslim and Christian minorities. MMM leader Mohammad Kasim Miya asked the Terai-based Madhesi leaders not to categorise Muslims as Madhesis, alleging that the regional parties of the plains were trying to deny Muslims their rights. Meanwhile, seven Muslim members of Constituent Assembly belonging to the seven major parties, including CPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, appealed for enlisting the minority community in the constitution through an amendment bill so as to protect their identity and preserve their cultural and religious rights. The lawmakers from the community also warned they would take to the street if their demands are not fulfilled. For the first time, 17 members from the Muslim community are represented in the special assembly tasked to frame a new constitution for Nepal. From critical.montages at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 23:22:16 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:22:16 -0400 Subject: [R-G] James P. Rubin: Rice Seeking Bush Approval to Establish a US Interests Section in Tehran Message-ID: James P. Rubin's op-ed, as well as other signs like it, suggests that, despite the bellicose rhetoric and escalation of sanctions, the center of gravity in Washington, even under the Bush administration, may very well lie in a search for a face-saving deal like the one that the US just made with North Korea. July 14, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Our Man in Iran? By JAMES P. RUBIN IRAN'S latest missile tests occurred just as there have been glimmers of progress in nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the Western powers. Whether or not those talks succeed, it's time for Washington to open a diplomatic post in Tehran. A high-level official has told me that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is seeking President Bush's approval to establish a United States Interests Section in the Iranian capital. This is a smart idea that Democrats and Republicans should support. Iran is an anomaly in the Middle East. In Iran, unlike in the Arab world, America is seen as an adversary primarily by the government while most of the Iranian people see it as a country of freedom and moderation. American policy should build on this phenomenon. The more Iranians see the real America, rather than the propaganda version portrayed in their reactionary media, the more they will push for democratic rights at home and moderate behavior abroad. This is where our diplomats come in. The main purpose of sending them to Iran would be to simplify travel for Iranians to the United States. America has not sent diplomats to Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis. Washington's interests are managed by the Swiss government in Tehran. But as in other hostile countries, like Cuba, Washington could set up an interests section in Tehran even while formal diplomatic relations are suspended. Housed in the Swiss Embassy, this post would process visa requests and handle other consular matters. Such an outpost should not be seen as or used for an intelligence operation. Rather, it would give American diplomats an opportunity to observe the country's complex politics firsthand. There are no current American foreign service officers who have ever been posted there. Setting up an interests section should help ensure that American policy is not born of ignorance. For those who insist on comparing Washington's poor relations with Iran to the cold war, establishing a diplomatic presence should be a no-brainer. Didn't we strive to make it easier for Soviet and Chinese citizens to visit the United States during the ideological struggle with Communism? The Bush administration's record of diplomacy has been poor. Paradoxically, however, it is in the cases of North Korea and Iran, which President Bush branded as part of an axis of evil, where Secretary Rice has been trying to eke out some progress in the administration's final months. Her department has made some gains in the nuclear talks with North Korea. A diplomatic post in Iran, although not a simple logistical matter, would also be a limited but significant step forward. After seven years of refusing to engage in direct, unconditional talks with Iran, the White House has achieved almost nothing. There has been little or no cooperation from Iran to stabilize Iraq. And despite recent maneuverings, it is unlikely that a solution to the impasse over Iran's enrichment of uranium will be found in the next few months. To be fair, the Bush administration has been more skillful in its second term. The United Nations Security Council has imposed modest sanctions on Iran. But even this new unity among major powers has failed to stop Iran from moving steadily toward being able to produce nuclear weapons. Nor has it slowed the advance of medium-range missile technology, as this week's test of the Shahab 3 missile demonstrated. It is possible, of course, that Tehran will refuse this diplomatic presence. In that case, Washington will win points for openness with the international community and Iran's government will face anger from its own people, who clearly want to travel to the United States. Alternatively, Tehran may agree but also up the ante by asking for direct flights between America and Iran. However, the same logic of promoting people-to-people exchanges should apply to direct air links. Major progress on Iran will have to await a new administration that will move beyond the diplomatic equivalent of the silent treatment and create a more powerful mix of incentives and disincentives. In the meantime, the idea of opening a diplomatic post is wise policy and should be judged on its own merits. James P. Rubin, who teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, was an assistant secretary of state for public affairs during the Clinton administration. From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 07:51:01 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:51:01 -0400 Subject: [R-G] "A Pan-European Security System That Would Include Russia" Message-ID: Medvedev proposed "a pan-European security system that would include Russia," but such a proposal can't become viable unless and until the Europeans, under the French leadership (France being the only nuclear weapons state in Western Europe), unite politically and culturally and define and assert their collective regional interests independent of the purely US interests that aren't even good for Americans but that Washington passes off as Atlantic or even global interests. "Europe" is still just a common currency zone, however, the European project lagging far behind the Latin American project. When will "Europe" become Europe? -- Yoshie At last, a true moderniser in Moscow. Why punish him? Despite western howls of suspicion, Medvedev is Russia's first post-Soviet leader. It would be lunacy to kick him into the cold o Jonathan Steele o The Guardian, o Monday July 14, 2008 Suppose you were the president of Russia. At your first G8 summit you meet a seemingly friendly George Bush, and the American leader tells the media afterwards what a "sharp guy" you are. But, while this flattery is going on, Condoleezza Rice is in Prague signing a deal to install a US missile radar system in the Czech Republic. Of course, the Americans insist the new weaponry is not directed against Russia, but are you fooled? If the missile system was really aimed at rogue third parties such as Iran or North Korea, then why not position it closer to those countries to allow more time to detect and react to a hostile launch? Rice then goes on to Bulgaria - a one-time Russian ally that has become a base for 2,500 American troops - and to Georgia, to discuss the Caucasian republic's plans for joining Nato. Of course, these plans are not directed against Russia either. No wonder Dmitry Medvedev, who became the Kremlin's master little more than two months ago, describes himself as "deeply distressed". To Russia's new president, as well as to millions outside the country, the creeping expansion of the American military empire through central Europe to the Caucasus and central Asia is unnecessary and short-sighted. At the G8 summit Medvedev proposed a pan-European security system that would include Russia. Western leaders gave him short shrift, and will no doubt be equally dismissive when he goes into more detail, as he has promised to do in the autumn. They describe Russia as a strategic partner, but anything that brings Russia into the security tent is ruled out. July 8, 2008 Wrong Time for New Thinking Comment by Vladimir Frolov Special to Russia Profile Medvedev Should Avoid Grand Foreign Policy Initiatives That Lack Substance President Dmitry Medvedev's call for a new all-European treaty and an all-European summit is reminiscent of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt to launch a brand new foreign policy course ? say something glamorous first, and worry about implementation later. Medvedev's ideas are not only virtually impossible to implement, they are also likely to fall on deaf ears. I have a suspicion that nothing will come out of President Dmitry Medvedev's sweeping proposal last month in Berlin for a new all-European treaty and an all-European summit to create a new security architecture in Europe. On the surface, it seems like a good idea ? creating a modern security system in Europe that would not be based on ancient cold war divisions and would indeed cover the entire transatlantic space from Vancouver to Vladivostok, a vision first advanced by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s. The idea is about making Europe really whole and free and moving beyond the cold war security structures like NATO that no longer have a mission in Europe and are wasting time and money reinventing themselves in far away places like Afghanistan, Iraq (to a smaller extent) and even Darfur. It is really difficult not to notice that the European security architecture has basically frozen in time since the late 1980s. With NATO's continued eastward enlargement and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sliding toward irrelevance, European security has become "divisible." There are two distinct security zones in Europe today ? the NATO-EU zone (non-NATO EU members like Sweden, Austria and Finland are in reality likely to be covered by NATO security guarantees) and the Russia-CIS Collective Security Treaty zone that is shrinking as some of its members aspire to NATO membership. The two do not match and are perpetuating a competitive relationship that is one step away from hostility. Add to this mix the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which Russia and China are dominant players, and you get a picture of geopolitical competition and diverging security agendas. Medvedev proposes to abandon this futile quest by signing a legally binding security treaty that will regulate the role of military force in the entire transatlantic space. He sees the new treaty making European security indivisible and incorporating serious elements of the arms control infrastructure already in place. And he cites the Brian-Kellog Pact of 1928 as a potential model for the new treaty. And this is where it gets murky. When you take a hard look at the sketchy details of Medvedev's proposal, you get a sense that major parts are missing, and even the ones that are on the table do not really match. Take the issue of membership in the new treaty, for example. Medvedev says that the parties to the new treaty could be "all organizations that currently operate in the European space." What that means, in theory, is that organizations as diverse as NATO, the EU, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the CIS and its Collective Security Treaty Organization all need to come together as parties in a pan-European security pact. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov even suggests that the SCO (i.e. China) should be thrown into the mix. Is it a realistic approach? Not really. I find it hard to imagine a magician-diplomat who could cobble together a security agreement from this motley crew. Even Henry Kissinger would balk at taking this up. Why, then, propose something that you know well beforehand would never work? Why is Medvedev suggesting an all-European summit to discuss the treaty in which European states should participate only on an individual, not alliance, basis? Why would you need a summit of individual states if you want the treaty to be signed between "organizations"? Why invite China to European politics, if only through its membership in the SCO? What does Russia gain with this? If the intention is to strengthen China's global role, why then is it in Russia's interest to see this happen? Then there is the issue of the treaty's substance, rather than format. What kind of European security will it provide? It cannot, by definition, provide binding security guarantees and commitments, since it is not intended as an all-European security alliance. NATO would never agree to this and no other organization in Europe is capable of providing such protection. Perhaps, as the citation of the Brian-Kellog Pact suggests, the interest is in legally excluding the use of force in Europe. If so, then the substance of the agreement should be a simple non-aggression pact. But then the question is: a non-aggression pact between whom? There is no need for a non-aggression pact between Russia and the Council of Europe, or the CIS and the EU, or the SCO and OSCE. There are no security issues between them. There are, however, serious security issues between Russia and NATO, resulting from lingering mutual suspicions that perpetuate adversarial military postures between them. Both maintain military capabilities suited to attack each other, but do very little else. The CFE Treaty, a true relic of the cold war, is a good example of how outdated agreements negotiated "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" perpetuate adversarial relationships. Why should NATO be concerned about the way Russia stations its conventional forces on its own territory? It knows it has an overwhelming superiority over Russia in a conventional conflict. Why should Russia be concerned about bean-counts of NATO tanks or artillery pieces (combat aircraft are another matter)? We know full well that, in case of a NATO attack, our only chance is to go nuclear as quickly as possible. As long as Moscow maintains a robust capability to put a nuclear bomb on every NATO capital in a nick of time, it should not be concerned with NATO tanks. Logically, the new treaty should deal with the security issue between Russia and NATO, since both continue to contemplate scenarios of a military conflict between them. Thus, in practical terms, it should be a non-aggression pact between Russia and NATO. Indeed, a senior Russian official with responsibility for NATO policy told me recently that the idea is to eliminate the applicability of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Russia. This is where a Russia-NATO non-aggression comes in handy. But why not say so directly? Medvedev's proposal should not be viewed simply as Russia's attempt to weaken NATO. Rather, it is an invitation to identify a new agenda for transatlantic cooperation and reflects the Russian leadership's frustration with and tiredness from the old agenda of NATO expansion, Kosovo and orange revolutions. Nor is it an attempt to "decouple" Europe from the United States, despite assertions that "atlanticism has outlived it usefulness." Both Medvedev and Lavrov made it clear that Russia's new big ideas on transatlantic security recognize the U.S. role as an essential partner for Russia and the EU. However, both clearly stated the Russian insistence on an equal role for Russia, the EU and the U.S. in dealing with European security challenges and forming the new institutional architecture in the transatlantic space. The problem, however, is in implementing this grand vision. Medvedev wrongly chose a "Gorbachevian format" of launching foreign policy proposals ? say something glamorous to the West first and worry about implementation later. Making grand sounding proposals that lack both substance and a receptive audience is not the way to make sure you would be taken seriously at the world politics tables. From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 08:43:01 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:43:01 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Mediterranean Union Message-ID: Sarkozy's triumph of realism By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's Senior Political Analyst, in Paris The dream of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, to establish a union between Europe and its southern neighbours has finally seen the light, albeit in a somewhat deflated project. The July 13 summit of 40 leaders from the Mediterranean region in Paris was a major symbolic and diplomatic victory for French foreign policy which had long been thought to suffer from stagnation and paralysis. France managed to create a process of dialogue and cooperation during the summit despite the past European failure of adopting a single constitution and the breakdown of the Barcelona process, which by 2005 was meant to have created a north-south Mediterranean rapprochment, but was instead considered all but dead. Moreover, the failure of America's New Middle East project to produce any tangible results beyond chaos and war, prompted even Washington's closest allies to come together under French auspices and embrace a union that demanded little of their governments. Egypt, a key player in the Middle East peace process, was chosen as co-president of the Union. Victory for realism Unlike its predecessors, the Union for the Mediterranean promised much and asked little of its partners. There are no preconditions to join and certainly no demands to improve human rights or establish democratic systems of governance. Also missing were demands for apologies for past colonial crimes in Northern Africa. Even Sarkozy's pledge to construct a European African Union during his presidential campaign last year was soon reduced to "Mediterranean Union" after he took office. And Sarkozy found challenges from his European neighbours. The Spanish and the Italians demanded that the new union be a continuation of the Barcelona process and not its alternative. The Germans, as well as the British, demanded that Europe have more say in future decisions making process. German scorn eventually forced the name of the union to be changed to "Union for the Mediterranean". In his meeting with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last March, Sarkozy was given an ultimatum to either accept European oversight or forget about their support. As a result and contrary to French wishes, the European Commission for the Mediterranean now oversees all EU involvement - in particular funding -in any future plans and projects. Nevertheless, the EU realises that it is better to open up to their southern neighbours through such arrangements rather than build high walls and barbed wires around a Fortress EU. Not so equal President Sarkozy has emphasised once and again that unlike the Barcelona process, the Union for the Mediterranean would be a union among equals. But it was clear from its inception that the parameters that governed the structure and scope of the Union have been determined as a result of a compromise not among its members, but rather among Europe's own partners. Such a system left little room for any real consultations with the Arab or Turkish partners. This has led many in the South to doubt the sincerity of their French and European partners. In Ankara, the Turkish capital, this was seen as no more than a French tactic to keep Turkey out of the European Union. In the North African countries, the Union would come to be viewed as a European framework to stem illegal immigration and to collaborate in intelligence and security cooperation to "combat terrorism". Only the beginning But others in the region are more optimistic and see the Union not as a zero-sum process, but rather one that will pave the way towards implementing substantial progress and cementing partnerships that would ultimately benefit all the countries of the Mediterranean. It is this sense of optimism that the organisation's foreign ministers will use when they meet in November, to decide on a permanent home for the secretariat of the Union and a number of other specific projects that were suggested during the summit. Either way, France has taken the lead - and the risk - and succeeded in bringing everyone on board, with the exception of Libya. Break with the past? But more importantly, the Paris summit also stands in stark contrast to the US position, as voiced by George Bush, the US president, (from the Israeli Knesset in June) that Europe and the Middle East not speak to radicals and "terrorists". The attendance of the likes of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, who the Bush administration considers a "radical," along side Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian leaders was considered a victory for diplomacy over warmongering. Sarkozy, who went beyond the call of duty in courting and singing Israeli and American praise over the last several months, has publically recognised the importance of Syria's regional role and welcomed al-Assad as an equal partner in future initiatives. During his joint press conference along with the Emir of Qatar and the Lebanese president, the Syrian leader happily extended an open invitation for France to get involved in peace-making in the region. France understands that it can play an important role in the region and particularly influence events in Lebanon and Syria. And Damascus realises that France is an indispensable gateway to Europe and the West. In the absence of a unified Arab initiative and in light of the US failure to sponsor serious regional diplomatic and political initiatives, many have enthusiastically welcomed France's involvement and project. It remains to be seen whether the Union for the Mediterranean will evolve independently of European or Western dictates and manipulation. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera. This Project is Frightening, It is Dangerous Tripoli-- Speaking at a press conference in Tripoli on Wednesday, the Leader of the Revolution Muammar Al-Qathafi said the "Union for the Mediterranean" will be "a complete Failure." He said this "union" was imposed on us and it would not represent the interests of the Arab or African peoples. "We shall have another Roman empire and imperialist design? There are imperialist maps and designs that we have already rolled up. We should not have them again." This union, Al-Qathafi said, cannot survive because it carries within it contradicting forces which would lead to its downfall. Al-Qathafi said he told the French President Sarkozy that the union should exclude states that have complicated problems so that the project would not fail. These are the Middle East states, the Asian states. "I told him if this project is to be extended it needs to include - in addition to 5 + 5 - [Five southern Mediterranean states: Mauritania, Morocco, Algerian, Tunisia and Libya, and five southern European states: Malta, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal] 6 + 6 by adding Greece and Egypt. Others have problems and would not benefit this union. They will bring with them their problems and then this region will become a scene of conflict and waste of time," Al-Qathafi added. "The Palestinian problem has not been solved and there is a conflict over land. Some call it Palestine and others call it Israel. They have not even agreed to settle the issue of land. Some say this is our land and others say that is ours. These are people who are now speaking to each other through missiles, bullets and massacres. This is the ongoing dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Therefore, these are not qualified to be associated with us on cooperation, peace and stability and they are not qualified to join this project [Mediterranean union]. They must be excluded until the issue of the Middle East is solved," Al-Qathafi said. The Union for the Mediterranean is suspicious. I would not get my people involved in such a murky affair of this kind. After all we are on good bilateral relations with France, Italy and the EU and we do not need a "union". "We cannot be a part of a union when we are different. Culturally we are different. In Scandinavia they walk naked and we do not do that in Libya, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. If we do so, we would be put in the hospital of the mentally retarded people. Religiously we differ, while we believe in Jesus, they do not believe in Mohammad and make mockery of him and publish insulting cartoons about him. Politically we also differ." "I believe this project would increase illegal migration and terrorism and give a justification to Islamist extremists to step up Jihad attacks. These extremists would explain it as crusade against Islam and European colonisation," he said. "They will talk about jihad in Europe. This project is frightening. This project is dangerous. "They will interpret it as a new crusade to contain Muslim forces. They will see it as a new colonialism and they will accuse the Arabs that they are traitors, who have abandoned principles and sold out their countries." Al-Qadhafi said Germany had opposed President Sarkozy's initial Mediterranean project by refusing to "allow the division of Europe". He quoted German official as saying that they would not allow southern Europe to join a Mediterranean union while it was part of the EU: "In return, we will not accept North Africa to join a Mediterranean union while it is part of the African Union. This is clear. This is logical. I cannot join a body which divides Africa into Sub-Saharan Africa, White Africa, Black Africa, Arab and non- Arab Africa. This is a racist partition and we do not wish go back to it again. This project [Mediterranean union] revives this idea and this is a racist division." Al-Qadhafi said African states which are members of the African Union were not allowed to join other union outside Africa. He said Libya adheres to and respects the African Union resolutions: "The states which join the Mediterranean union will be questioned by the African Union over their actions". He said "Germany had opposed the division of the EU and in return we oppose the division of the African Union. The European states have forced my friend Sarkozy to abandon his initial project and to adopt a new project called a union for the Mediterranean. What is the meaning of the union for the Mediterranean? Perhaps it means that Europe will unite in order to own the Mediterranean. It is not a Mediterranean union". The Union for the Mediterranean will be full of unaccountable problems and landmines. Europe has so many contradictions within it and between it and the rest of the world such as Russia, Iran and the Palestinian Hamas. Why should we get involved through the Union of the Mediterranean in these problems and landmines. Al-Qathafi said "some of my Arab brethren said they would determine their position regarding these issues and which we like and which we don't like of these issues, but I say why we would enter a union full of traps and landmines in the first place." "I want friendly relations with Europe but I do not enter through the Barcelona gate or the Union for the Mediterranean gate. They enforce us, we who do not recognize 'Israel' to set down with the Israelis, to debate the Israeli and possibly be chaired by the Israeli, or you may be even invited to attend the meeting in Tel Aviv or in occupied Al-Quds? why such an insult." "Why do not we also put conditions in return? Will it be acceptable to tell Europe that we do not cooperate with you on immigration, terrorism, or give oil and gas unless you deal with Ben Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah and to stop pressuring Iran on its nuclear project? Will this be acceptable?" "But they made it acceptable to us and said if you wanted to cooperate with us, you must accept what is called Israel which must be part in it." "Well, we also say we won't cooperate with you immigration, terrorism and supply you with oil and gas unless you, Europe, accepted Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda who are Muslims?" Then, Al-Qathafi said, "they would say these were impossible conditions. However, they put forward to us these kind of conditions. Therefore, do not enforce me to recognize Israel." Al-Qathafi said Israel a problem of international law and that why we should not recognize it. It is same as when Turkey declared northern Cyprus independent. The Europeans still do not recognize North Cyprus because they said they declared a state by one side. Israel also was declared a state by one-side and was not a result of agreement between them and the Palestinians. When Israel returns the occupied territories to the Palestinians, allow the exiled millions to go back to their homes and dismantle its nuclear weapons then we can look into recognizing it, Al-Qathafi insisted. Hamas Praises Libya's Negative Position on Mediterranean Summit Text of report by London-based independent Quds Press web news agency ["Muhammad Nazzal Tells Quds Press: Union for the Mediterranean Is a Project To Let Israel Into the Region Through the Window" - Quds Press headline] Damascus, Quds Press Service - The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has praised the position of the Libyan leader, Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, that refused to attend the Paris summit to declare the Union for the Mediterranean, saying that this is an advanced position that understands the core message of this gathering as an attempt to incorporate Israel into the fabric of the region and from the window after all attempts to let it go through the doors had failed. In exclusive statements to Quds Press, Muhammad Nazzal, member of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, valued the stance of the Libyan leader that refuses to attend the summit of the Union for the Mediterranean, saying: "We value any position against normalization with Israel. We consider the position of the Libyan leader, Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, to be a correct position because he refused to get involved in the Union for the Mediterranean, based on the refusal to let Israel enter the region." Nazzal said that the Union for the Mediterranean is an attempt by the Israelis to gain access to the region. He said: "The summit of the Union for the Mediterranean is an attempt by the Israelis to enter the region through the window, having failed to enter through the door. We know that since the signing of the Camp David accords, the attempts of the Israelis to be a part of the fabric of the region have not yielded field results, and the Israeli body continued to be rejected. Therefore, what is happening today is an attempt under the heading of the Union for the Mediterranean to let Israel into the region. This agrees with a French desire to have influence in the region, taking advantage of the decline in the US role and the extreme hatred of US policies in the region. The Union for the Mediterranean has two goals: one related to the interests of France and its ambition to return to the region, and an Israeli one to enter the region through the window." On another level, Nazzal strongly criticized the statements by some Arab writers and media people that say that Hamas is nothing but a part of Syrian policy in the region and that its acceptance of calm with the Israelis is an expression of a Syrian position. He said: "These opinions reflect lack of knowledge or understanding of the Palestinian political arena. Hamas does not take orders or directions from anyone. The calm is a Palestinian national interest. The fact that the Hamas leadership is in Damascus does not mean that Hamas is in anybody's pocket. It is regrettable that this applies to some writers. They try to apply their reality to others. Those people are used to being in the pocket of regional and international forces." On whether the calls for national dialogue between Fatah and Hamas had gone down the drain after all efforts to bring Mish'al and Abbas together in Damascus recently had failed, Nazzal said: "National dialogue is in the recovery room. No one can predict when Palestinian dialogue will take off in light of the continuing US veto on this dialogue. The problem with dialogue is with President Mahmud Abbas and his entourage, who are committed to US dictates. President Abbas disavowed his own call for dialogue in response to a decision by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This is the main reason for the faltering of the plan of national reconciliation. Therefore, many Arab countries do not want to embarrass themselves." Nazzal said that the visit of Khalid Mish'al, head of the Political Bureau, to Yemen, which begins officially today, is within the context of the moves by the Hamas Movement to brief Arab countries on the Palestinian situation. He denied that the stopover of Mish'al in Egypt had anything to do with an official visit to Egypt. He said: "The visit of a Hamas Movement delegation, led by the chief of its Political Bureau, Khalid Mish'al, to Yemen, will begin today by a meeting with President Ali Abdallah Salih and Yemeni officials and party leaders. This is part of a tour by Hamas to a number of Arab and Islamic countries, including Egypt, the UAE, Iran, Syria, and Yemen to brief them on the calm, dialogues on the prisoners' deal, and national dialogue issues. As for the stopover by Mish'al in Egypt, it was for travel necessities, and not an official visit." Originally published by Quds Press news agency, London, in Arabic 13 Jul 08. (c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Middle East. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.tracking Story Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East Mediterranean union wants to rid Mideast of WMD By ANGELA CHARLTON ? 6 hours ago PARIS (AP) ? The leaders of 43 nations from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa have launched a Union for the Mediterranean, a brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy that aims to improve cooperation in the region with practical projects that parallel efforts toward Mideast peace. Sarkozy's ambitious plan overlaps with European Union projects already in progress, and it was melded into EU efforts and expanded to include 27 members of the EU, not just those on the Mediterranean coast. Nearly all of the 43 nations sent a president or prime minister to the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi objected to the idea and refused to come. Sarkozy reveled at having brought so many leaders to the same table for the first time. "We dreamed about a Union for the Mediterranean, and now it is a reality," Sarkozy said in closing the summit in a palace abutting the River Seine. He called it an "extremely moving, very important moment." Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, co-presiding at the summit with Sarkozy, called on the new union to tackle reducing the wealth "gap" between north and south, and cited other southern Mediterranean "challenges" as education, food safety, health and social welfare. He said the union has better chances of success than a previous cooperation process launched in Barcelona in 1995 because the new body focuses on practical projects. While trying to unify the region, the summit laid bare the deep divisions that still slice through it and highlighted how hard it will be to parlay the meeting's goodwill and words into real progress. Syria's president refused to shake the Israeli prime minister's hand, and Morocco's king snubbed the meeting attended by the president of rival Algeria. In a final declaration, Israel, Syria and the Palestinians along with countries across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa agreed to "pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction." The summit declaration also condemned "terrorism in all its forms" and announced six major projects, from a common university and easier travel visas for students to depolluting the Mediterranean sea and promoting solar power. It also spoke of democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms ? values Western critics have accused such union members as Syria of violating. The countries committed to "consider practical steps to prevent the proliferation" of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems. It was unclear, however, how the signatories ? who included Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad ? would enforce the pledge. Israel is widely believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons but neither confirms nor denies it has them ? an ambiguity meant to scare potential enemies from considering an annihilating attack while denying them the rationale for developing their own nuclear deterrent. Recently, tensions between Israel and arch enemy Iran have risen over Tehran's nuclear program. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often spoken of wiping Israel off the map. And Israel and ally the United States believe Tehran's nuclear program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, despite Iran's insistence it is for producing nuclear energy. Syria, another Israeli foe, may also have nuclear ambitions. Last year, Israeli jets destroyed what U.S. intelligence officials said was believed to be a partially built nuclear reactor in Syria, though Syrian officials said it was part of a non-nuclear military program. Assad sat out Olmert's speech at the summit in an apparent rebuff just hours after Ehud Olmert urged Damascus to open direct peace talks, Israeli officials said. Assad also declined to shake hands with Olmert. "We are not seeking symbols," Assad said on French television, adding he avoided a handshake with Olmert because the two nations are still only in indirect peace talks. There was no official Israeli reaction to the apparent snub. Associated Press writers Barbara Schaeder, Alfred de Montesquiou, Elaine Ganley and Amy Teibel contributed to this report. Mediterranean union launched with Mideast peace hopes 1 day ago PARIS (AFP) ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy and more than 40 leaders on Sunday launched a new Union for the Mediterranean, hoping to inject momentum in Middle East peace efforts. The new forum brings together the 27 countries of the European Union with states from north Africa, the Balkans and Arab nations with Israel to foster cooperation in one of the world's most volatile regions. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad scored a comeback on the international stage after years of isolation, taking his seat alongside Arab leaders at the same table with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Sarkozy said Arab states had made a "gesture of peace" by attending the inaugural summit of the new union and proclaimed that a "great initiative has been born." Capping the summit held at the grandiose glass-domed Grand Palais near the Seine River, leaders issued a founding declaration of the 43-member union, home to 756 million people from the shores of Greenland to the deserts of Jordan. The heads of state and government agreed on a batch of modest projects such as cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, improving shipping routes and developing solar energy. But the Middle East peace process loomed large over the gathering, with a flurry of meetings on the sidelines underscoring the need for progress. "We are certain that a new page will open in this cooperation that will lead us toward more peace," said the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who co-chaired the summit with Sarkozy. With a corruption scandal at home threatening to bring him down, Olmert met with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. "We have never been as close to an accord as we are today," he said. The Israeli prime minister also met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then met Assad, the latest in a string of indirect talks since May -- but according to an Israeli diplomatic source the first at a high level. After meeting with Assad, Erdogan said he had high hopes that face-to-face peace negotiations between Syria and Israel would happen. Assad however has poured cold water on a quick resumption of direct talks, saying this would probably not happen before next year, after the election of a new US president. Israel and Syria have technically remained at war since the 1948 creation of the Jewish state. On the sidelines of the summit, France stepped up its Middle East diplomacy, with Sarkozy hosting talks with all the major players including a landmark meeting between Assad and Lebanon's new president Michel Sleiman on Saturday. Later that same day, Syria and Lebanon announced they would establish diplomatic relations, opening embassies in each country's capitals for the first time since independence. Through his energetic lobbying, Sarkozy persuaded almost all of the leaders to attend, although the Elysee bowed to objections and dropped plans for an official group photograph. And although Assad and Abbas stepped out of the hall when Olmert spoke at the summit, diplomats denied it was a boycott of the Israeli prime minister. "No one caused any kind of incident," Sarkozy said at the news conference. "Mr Assad was very present throughout the whole afternoon." Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was the only Arab head of state to boycott the meeting, while Jordan's King Abdullah II and King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent senior representatives. The French president, who championed the idea of the new grouping during his election campaign last year, said leaders had to "learn to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war." The union aims to build on the EU's 13-year-old Barcelona process set up for the Mediterranean countries, which was plagued by disputes between Israel and its Arab neighbours. France and Egypt are to set up a joint presidency of the new union and summits will be held every two years. A secretariat will also be created to supervise the projects, but its composition and location are to be decided in November, Sarkozy said. July 14, 2008 Sarkozy Helps to Bring Syria Out of Isolation By STEVEN ERLANGER and KATRIN BENNHOLD PARIS ? Leaders of 43 nations with nearly 800 million inhabitants inaugurated a "Union for the Mediterranean" on Sunday, meant to bring the northern and southern countries that ring the sea closer together through practical projects dealing with the environment, climate, transportation, immigration and policing. But the meeting was also an opportunity for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to exercise some highly public Middle East diplomacy by bringing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria out of isolation for an ?lys?e Palace meeting and by playing host to a session between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. The Union for the Mediterranean is the brainchild of Mr. Sarkozy, but his original concept was watered down to include all members of the European Union, not just those along the Mediterranean coast. The enlargement of the group to the north made it easier for Mr. Sarkozy to include some southern countries, like Syria and Israel, that remain in a formal state of war with one another, and others, like Jordan, that are only notionally Mediterranean. The union has northern and southern co-presidents ? to start, Mr. Sarkozy and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. But leaders still disagree about where the headquarters will be and the nationality of the union's secretary general, and some of its financing remains vague. Still, Mr. Sarkozy said Sunday night, praising the participants: "Today the way is open, and no one can take that away from us." The large gathering was a significant accomplishment for French diplomacy, with only Libya refusing to attend and the kings of Morocco and Jordan pleading other engagements. But other than Libya, the countries were represented by prime ministers and other high-level officials. While initial accomplishments are likely to be vague, the meeting represented an end to the diplomatic isolation of Mr. Assad, who has been ostracized for his alliance with Iran, for his support for Palestinian groups classified by the United States and the European Union as terrorist, and because of allegations of his country's involvement in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. Mr. Hariri was a close friend of the previous French president, Jacques Chirac, who bitterly condemned Mr. Sarkozy's welcome for Mr. Assad and refused to attend the ceremonies. Mr. Assad's invitation to watch the Bastille Day parade on Monday has also angered some in the French military, who have been deployed at times in Lebanon, France's former colony and a traditional ally, which is dominated by Syria. Some French soldiers currently serve as United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon. Syria also attended the American-led Middle East summit meeting at Annapolis, Md., last November, but its delegation was led by its deputy foreign minister. Since then, Israel and Syria have opened serious but indirect peace talks with Turkish mediation, and Mr. Assad is eager to rejoin the world, especially with a new American president to be elected this year. Mr. Sarkozy offered him a private meeting and full honors, arguing, "How can you make peace if you don't talk to people with different opinions?" Mr. Assad told Le Figaro, the French daily newspaper, "This visit is, for me, a historic visit, an opening toward France and Europe." On Saturday, Mr. Sarkozy claimed a success when Mr. Assad and the new Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, agreed to open embassies in each other's capitals for the first time. Mr. Sarkozy said Mr. Assad's agreement "to open diplomatic representation in Lebanon is historic progress." But Mr. Assad was vague about recognizing Lebanon, a country that Syria has dominated for decades and regards as a Syrian province. Syria has so far refused to demarcate a border with Lebanon, and Mr. Assad said that before mutual recognition, both countries must "define the steps to take to arrive at this stage." The invitation to Mr. Assad, like an earlier one to Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, has reignited domestic criticism of Mr. Sarkozy, apparently for his departure from his avowed "moral foreign policy." When elected, he chose a noted rights advocate, Bernard Kouchner, as his foreign minister and created a secretary of state for human rights. The leader of the opposition Socialists, Fran?ois Hollande, said that Mr. Assad's participation in the union was fine, "but his presence at the 14th of July is inappropriate ? to have a dictator at a celebration of human rights hurts a number of sensibilities," including those of the French military. The French military is none too happy with Mr. Sarkozy in any case, because of his announced cuts in military personnel and his denunciation of commanders as "amateurs" after an accidental shooting of civilians at a barracks last month. On Sunday, just before the Union for the Mediterranean meeting began, Mr. Sarkozy was host to Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert for another of their regular meetings to try to negotiate the principles for a peace deal. The last meeting was in early June in Jerusalem, so the meeting here did not represent a breakthrough. Still, both sides sounded optimistic tones for Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Olmert, under pressure at home to resign after additional allegations of personal corruption, said that Israel and the Palestinians "have never been as close to the possibility of an accord as we are today." Mr. Abbas praised Mr. Sarkozy as "a great and enduring friend of Palestine and Israel, making you the right man for this role of furthering the peace process." Senior Israeli officials said that progress was being made, but that hard political decisions remained for Mr. Abbas and the Palestinians. The Israeli officials also said that peace was possible with Syria, but that Mr. Assad would have to decide to finish the negotiations in direct talks. Waiting for a new American president would be a mistake, the Israeli officials warned ? because that would probably mean a new Israeli prime minister, too, even if Mr. Olmert survives for the moment. On Sunday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey met separately with Mr. Olmert and Mr. Assad. The union meeting itself was a talkathon, held around a huge oval table in the majestic, glass-roofed Grand Palais. Inside, Mr. Olmert made the rounds, but as he approached Mr. Assad, the Syrian president turned away to talk to his interpreter, according to a photographer who was present. The Israeli representatives sat next to those of Italy and Greece; Syria sat between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Later, just before Mr. Olmert was due to speak, Mr. Assad left the hall. Addressing the leaders, Mr. Mubarak said, "We are linked by a common destiny," and he urged others to reduce the gap in wealth between north and south. Mr. Sarkozy spoke of partnership and peace, saying that "the European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable." He said that "everyone is going to have to make an effort, as the Europeans did, to put an end to the deadly spiral of war and violence." The group spoke about limited topics, and a union declaration proposed projects like solar energy, reducing pollution of the sea and student exchanges. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who insisted that the Sarkozy project include all European Union members, called the session "a very, very good start for a new phase in the cooperation" between Europe and the south. "The summit is a nice event, but will the union find an independent life?" a senior diplomat from a southern country said. "Sarkozy's original idea was bold, but there's not much of it left." Club Med in Paris Immigration, terrorism, oil, trade, the environment, economic development, and so much more. The list of truly Mediterranean-wide issues encompasses much of what's on any global agenda, which isn't that surprising when you consider that politically fraught economic integration of countries along the perimeter of the Mediterranean Sea presaged the globalization that came centuries later. France, perpetually seeking to enlarge its role on the world stage, has been pushing for creation of a Mediterranean Union for more than 15 years. But early attempts at such a project couldn't reconcile North Africans' wish to be treated as equals in such an entity and Europeans' de facto unwillingness to do so. Yesterday, to the glory of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the first summit of the Union for the Mediterranean actually took place in Paris, and just getting nearly everyone in the same room was a diplomatic accomplishment. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi was absent, and Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme had to stay home to mediate between his country's French and Flemmish speakers, while Moroccan King Mohammed VI -- a key player for any North-South maritime relations -- stayed away as well, as Le Figaro notes. And the inclusion of Israel, among the Levantine countries, combined with other potential stress points to keep the summit from taking a group photo. But 43 leaders were indeed there, including, at the insistence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union members that lie far from the Mediterranean shores. And an agenda of uncontroversial projects -- with roots in the Mediterranean Union plans of the 1990s -- was produced, dealing with shipping lanes, solar power, education, water pollution and North-South investment, Le Monde reports. But there was no concrete sign the group would eventually be able to tack immigration or other sea-wide issues that are high on the various governments' agendas back home. The biggest accomplishment was, as the New York Times notes, an apparent end to the diplomatic isolation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But it wasn't clear if Mr. Sarkozy achieved his ambition of getting Mr. Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert together. The Times says that as Mr. Olmert was making the rounds and neared the Syrian leader, Mr. Assad turned away. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Mon Jul 14 09:01:49 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:01:49 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] How Britain wages war Message-ID: <487B6A5D.5080100@attglobal.net> The military has created a wall of silence around its frequent resort to barbaric practices, including torture, and goes out of its way to avoid legal scrutiny by John Pilger New Statesman (July 10 2008) Five photographs together break a silence. The first is of a former Gurkha regimental sergeant major, Tul Bahadur Pun, aged 87. He sits in a wheelchair outside 10 Downing Street. He holds a board full of medals, including the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery, which he won serving in the British army. He has been refused entry to Britain and treatment for a serious heart ailment by the National Health Service: outrages rescinded only after a public campaign. On 25 June, he came to Downing Street to hand his Victoria Cross back to the Prime Minister, but Gordon Brown refused to see him. The second photograph is of a twelve-year-old boy, one of three children. They are Kuchis, nomads of Afghanistan. They have been hit by Nato bombs, American or British, and nurses are trying to peel away their roasted skin with tweezers. On the night of 10 June, Nato planes struck again, killing at least thirty civilians in a single village: children, women, schoolteachers, students. On 4 July, another 22 civilians died like this. All, including the roasted children, are described as "militants" or "suspected Taliban". The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, says the invasion of Afghanistan is "the noble cause of the 21st century". The third photograph is of a computer-generated aircraft carrier not yet built, one of two of the biggest ships ever ordered for the Royal Navy. The GBP 4 billion contract is shared by BAE Systems, whose sale of 72 fighter jets to the corrupt tyranny in Saudi Arabia has made Britain the biggest arms merchant on earth, selling mostly to oppressive regimes in poor countries. At a time of economic crisis, Browne describes the carriers as "an affordable expenditure". The fourth photograph is of a young British soldier, Gavin Williams, who was "beasted" to death by three non-commissioned officers. This "informal summary punishment", which sent his body temperature to more than 41 degrees, was intended to "humiliate, push to the limit and hurt". The torture was described in court as a fact of army life. The final photograph is of an Iraqi man, Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death by British soldiers. Taken during his post-mortem, it shows some of the 93 horrific injuries he suffered at the hands of men of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who beat and abused him for 36 hours, including double-hooding him with hessian sacks in stifling heat. He was a hotel receptionist. Although his murder took place almost five years ago, it was only in May this year that the Ministry of Defence responded to the courts and agreed to an independent inquiry. A judge has described this as a "wall of silence". A court martial convicted just one soldier of Mousa's "inhumane treatment", and he has since been quietly released. Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, representing the families of Iraqis who have died in British custody, says the evidence is clear - abuse and torture by the British army is systemic. Shiner and his colleagues have witness statements and corroborations of prima facie crimes of an especially atrocious kind usually associated with the Americans. "The more cases I am dealing with, the worse it gets", he says. These include an "incident" near the town of Majar al-Kabir in 2004, when British soldiers executed as many as twenty Iraqi prisoners after mutilating them. The latest is that of a fourteen-year-old boy who was forced to simulate anal and oral sex over a prolonged period. "At the heart of the US and UK project", says Shiner, "is a desire to avoid accountability for what they want to do. Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary renditions are part of the same struggle to avoid accountability through jurisdiction." British soldiers, he says, use the same torture techniques as the Americans and deny that the European Convention on Human Rights, the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on Torture apply to them. And British torture is "commonplace": so much so, that "the routine nature of this ill-treatment helps to explain why, despite the abuse of the soldiers and cries of the detainees being clearly audible, nobody, particularly in authority, took any notice". Arcane rituals Unbelievably, says Shiner, the Ministry of Defence under Tony Blair decided that the 1972 Heath government's ban on certain torture techniques applied only in the UK and Northern Ireland. Consequently, "many Iraqis were killed and tortured in UK detention facilities". Shiner is working on 46 horrific cases. A wall of silence has always surrounded the British military, its arcane rituals, rites and practices and, above all, its contempt for the law and natural justice in its various imperial pursuits. For eighty years, the Ministry of Defence and compliant ministers refused to countenance posthumous pardons for terrified boys shot at dawn during the slaughter of the First World War. British soldiers used as guinea pigs during the testing of nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean were abandoned, as were many others who suffered the toxic effects of the 1991 Gulf War. The treatment of Gurkha Tul Bahadur Pun is typical. Having been sent back to Nepal, many of these "soldiers of the Queen" have no pension, are deeply impoverished and are refused residence or medical help in the country for which they fought and for which 43,000 of them have died or been injured. The Gurkhas have won no fewer than 26 Victoria Crosses, yet Browne's "affordable expenditure" excludes them. An even more imposing wall of silence ensures that the British public remains largely unaware of the industrial killing of civilians in Britain's modern colonial wars. In his landmark work Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses (2004), the historian Mark Curtis uses three main categories: direct responsibility, indirect responsibility and active inaction. "The overall figure [since 1945] is between 8.6 and 13.5 million", Curtis writes. "Of these, Britain bears direct responsibility for between four million and six million deaths. This figure is, if anything, likely to be an underestimate. Not all British interventions have been included, because of lack of data." Since his study was published, the Iraq death toll has reached, by reliable measure, a million men, women and children. The spiralling rise of militarism within Britain is rarely acknowledged, even by those alerting the public to legislation attacking basic civil liberties, such as the recently drafted Data Communications Bill, which will give the government powers to keep records of all electronic communication. Like the plans for identity cards, this is in keeping what the Americans call "the national security state", which seeks the control of domestic dissent while pursuing military aggression abroad. The GBP 4 billion aircraft carriers are to have a "global role". For global read colonial. The Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office follow Washington's line almost to the letter, as in Browne's preposterous description of Afghanistan as a noble cause. In reality, the US-inspired Nato invasion has had two effects: the killing and dispossession of large numbers of Afghans, and the return of the opium trade, which the Taliban had banned. According to Hamid Karzai, the west's puppet leader, Britain's role in Helmand Province has led directly to the return of the Taliban. Loans for arms The militarising of how the British state perceives and treats other societies is vividly demonstrated in Africa, where ten out of fourteen of the most impoverished and conflict-ridden countries are seduced into buying British arms and military equipment with "soft loans". Like the British royal family, the British Prime Minister simply follows the money. Having ritually condemned a despot in Zimbabwe for "human rights abuses" - in truth, for no longer serving as the west's business agent - and having obeyed the latest US dictum on Iran and Iraq, Brown set off recently for Saudi Arabia, exporter of Wahhabi fundamentalism and wheeler of fabulous arms deals. To complement this, the Brown government is spending GBP 11 billion of taxpayers' money on a huge, privatised military academy in Wales, which will train foreign soldiers and mercenaries recruited to the bogus "war on terror". With arms companies such as Raytheon profiting, this will become Britain's "School of the Americas", a centre for counter-insurgency (terrorist) training and the design of future colonial adventures. It has had almost no publicity. Of course, the image of militarist Britain clashes with a benign national regard formed, wrote Tolstoy, "from infancy, by every possible means - class books, church services, sermons, speeches, books, papers, songs, poetry, monuments [leading to] people stupefied in the one direction". Much has changed since he wrote that. Or has it? The shabby, destructive colonial war in Afghanistan is now reported almost entirely through the British army, with squaddies always doing their Kipling best, and with the Afghan resistance routinely dismissed as "outsiders" and "invaders". Pictures of nomadic boys with Nato-roasted skin almost never appear in the press or on television, nor the after-effects of British thermobaric weapons, or "vacuum bombs", designed to suck the air out of human lungs. Instead, whole pages mourn a British military intelligence agent in Afghanistan, because she happens to have been a 26-year-old woman, the first to die in active service since the 2001 invasion. Baha Mousa, tortured to death by British soldiers, was also 26 years old. But he was different. His father, Daoud, says that the way the Ministry of Defence has behaved over his son's death convinces him that the British government regards the lives of others as "cheap". And he is right. www.johnpilger.com http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/07/british-pilger-britain-torture TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 09:16:44 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:16:44 -0400 Subject: [R-G] ICC Charges Sudan President with Genocide Message-ID: Court accuses Sudan president of genocide By Megan Murphy, Law Courts Correspondent Published: July 14 2008 12:21 | Last updated: July 14 2008 13:14 Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has been charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court over atrocities committed in Darfur. The widely-trailed development threatens to spark further unrest in the region. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's prosecutor, on Monday asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Mr Bashir, accusing him of masterminding a campaign to wipe out Darfur's ethnic tribes through a campaign of murder, forced displacement and rape. "His motives were largely political. His alibi was a 'counterinsurgency.' His intent was genocide,'' Mr Moreno-Ocampo told a news conference in the Hague, where the ICC is based. The indictment marks the first time that a prosecutor at the world's first permanent war crimes court has issued charges against a sitting head of state. The United Nations has already tightened security and ordered evacuation drills for its staff in Sudan owing to its concern that the indictment of Mr Bashir could trigger violent reprisals against the estimated 2.5m people currently living in Darfur refugee camps. Mr Moreno-Ocampo on Monday filed a total of 10 charges against the Sudanese president ? three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The prosecutor said that the evidence he has collected shows that Mr Bashir has mobilised the "entire state apparatus," including the armed forces, the intelligence services and the justice system, to subject the refugees to "conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction." Mr Bashir "organised the destitution, insecurity and harassment of the survivors. He did not need bullets. He used other weapons: rapes, hunger, and fear. As efficient, but silent." ICC judges are now expected to take several weeks to study the evidence before deciding whether to order Mr Bashir's arrest. Sudan has already said that it refuses to recognise the court's jurisdiction and will ignore any arrest warrants issued. From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 11:27:59 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:27:59 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Nine U.S. soldiers killed by Afghan militants Message-ID: <200807141727.m6EHRxRv000486@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/59d105df/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 11:27:19 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:27:19 -0700 Subject: [R-G] (Afghanistan) Top soldier denies significant increase in violence Message-ID: <200807141727.m6EHRJGk029762@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/86a2f4c4/attachment.txt From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org Mon Jul 14 12:22:32 2008 From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:22:32 -0600 Subject: [R-G] GETTING THE WORD OUT [BRIEF THOUGHTS] Message-ID: <002f01c8e5de$97a1e890$0400a8c0@computer> Note by Hunter Bear: July 14 2008 Interesting discussion on RBB about getting the word out via conventional print and otherwise. I'm attaching an older and nostalgic post herewith that discusses the traditional centrality -- for radicals and organizers generally -- of the Mimeograph Machine. These days, there are usually several Fast Copy places -- e.g., Kinko Copy -- that are easy to find and reasonable [but sometimes, as is the case here in Pocatello, involving staff who report surreptitiously to the cops.] So be careful to find a reasonably "secure" outfit. Special leaflets for really special occasions, of course, can be done by a good print-shop. Some of all of the foregoing are unionized but some are not. The buy-union principle and union "bug" are important to some of us at least. In some settings, I've been part of good efforts to launch a "real" newspaper -- e.g., the Chicago-based and every couple of weeks Native American Publication in the early '70s. But these efforts, back then and certainly now, take money. In Chicago, we were fortunate in receiving grants for our paper from the National Indian Lutheran Board -- this had no religious strings. In other situations, we had to go out and hustle hard. Direct and personal talks to individuals, and to groups of whatever size, are obviously extremely crucial -- and should involve, on the talker/speaker's part, the art of listening.. If you're an activist, and making waves, you can usually, sooner or later, get pr from the local mainline newspapers, radio and tv. But you gotta watch some -- some -- of those folks in charge. Always do your press releases with care. [If you're advertising a meeting through any medium, make damn certain that you have the purpose, date, time, and location down -- explicitly.] The Net generally and websites especially are obviously quite helpful -- though never a substitute for direct and personal grassroots organizing. A novice about computers, "I" launched our initial one, Red Wobbly, in the late summer of 1999. It had a long URL handle which included the word "revolution." I was a total novice re computer tech and the credit for that initial website goes to all of my children and our grandson-son, Thomas. That was a Microsoft freebee with all sorts of general limitations but a major one became obvious at the beginning of December 1999 when it was suspiciously immobilized by Microsoft. It remained immobilized for several weeks and in seeking help from Microsoft, I got almost one hundred "canned" messages of ostensible sympathy from a variety of obviously phony first names. It was clear that we were one of many such sites indeed which were being summarily blocked. In late January, 2000, operating in remote fashion from far away Lincoln, Nebraska, my youngest son, Mack, a newspaper editor, was able to get Red Wobbly going again. [When I brought his Magic to the attention of Microsoft, it didn't secure any compliments from them.] So, on my birthday in 2000, we all launched Lair of Hunterbear, now into its ninth year and very well visited. There were, of course, Microsoft Front Pages costs with which to get started [now about $200 - we now use the 2003 version] -- and our web hosting server charges us about $340.00 annually. It's always a challenge to get one's Site established but a moderately priced [around $140.00 a year] Submission Service is most useful in assisting in getting to the search engine summits. And then, of course, as you go along, things proliferate very nicely -- but you still want to keep the submission service. I could write a book about all of this -- getting the word out -- but, before I embark on that, I may try my hand at doing a Poem commemorating Mimeograph Machines. Of course, I am a lousy poet [unlike the genuinely gifted Sam Friedman] -- but, still, I've learned a lot about computers. So maybe there's hope for me. In any case, here is this: MIMEOGRAPHED REBELLION [HUNTER GRAY 4/17/03] Jim's interesting SSOC comments about mimeographed publications prompts this from me. In August, 1962, our growing Jackson NAACP Youth Council was planning what a few months later became the highly effective economic boycott of Jackson -- out of which grew the large-scale Jackson Movement which climaxed in May and June, '63. I began that August to put together a frequent [every three weeks or so] mimeographed journal, North Jackson Action.[I'd had some journalism courses in college and had once even taught the subject.] Anyway, I typed it out carefully on blue stencils -- on my ancient Underwood -- and Tougaloo College mimeographed it for us. It grew rapidly in size -- to several pages on each side -- and the circulation moved out into the general Jackson area and then nationally. At one point, we had a basic mail circ of about 250 -- not counting those many distributed directly on the local scene. When I mailed them in Jackson -- via first class in sealed envelopes-- we used no return addresses and I carried them always to a number of outside mail boxes -- putting in a batch here and a batch there. Well received, it drew financial contributions for our work -- and boycott support actions from around the United States. And even in Canada: Kimberley [B.C.] Mine and Mill Workers sent us a check for one hundred bucks! By the same token, when Juan Chacon, president of Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [Local 890] in Southwestern New Mexico mailed us the three 16 mm reels of Salt of the Earth -- in which he's the leading male role [we used Salt very effectively several times in Jackson with Eldri running the film projector] -- it always came to me very inconspicuously which is how we always sent it back to Local 890. North Jackson Action played an important role in developing the Jackson Boycott and helping lay the foundation for the Jackson Movement. All told, we put out about 15 issues or so -- into May, '63, at which point all sorts of Movement things and attendant publicity were surging up in the Jackson setting. I gave my file of North Jackson Action to Mississippi Dept of Archives and History and it's among my collected papers. [And a copy of the file is also in my comparable collection at State Historical Society of Wisconsin.] Later, when I was SCEF Field Organizer, Jim Dombrowski gave us our own SCEF mimeograph machine -- an eccentric creature which occasionally, in the fashion of a Gatling Gun, sometimes threw huge globs of sticky ink on the wall of my little office. I miss those days when every Radical Movement had, first and foremost, its mimeograph machine. Kinko Copy and comparable outfits just don't begin to have the same bated breath drama. HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na?shdo?i?ba?i? and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm And see Wobbly Mentor http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 13:10:13 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:10:13 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In Message-ID: <200807141910.m6EJADqJ016710@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/2acf906c/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 13:21:01 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:21:01 -0700 Subject: [R-G] The general of onions and garlic Message-ID: <200807141921.m6EJL1kb006842@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/0b000aa2/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 13:39:36 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:39:36 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Why Not? Message-ID: <200807141939.m6EJdaZp019305@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/749f6a10/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 14:02:29 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:02:29 -0700 Subject: Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky Message-ID: <200807142002.m6EK2Tcf000347@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/b5c331ca/attachment.txt From shniad at sfu.ca Mon Jul 14 15:22:06 2008 From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:22:06 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state Message-ID: <200807142122.m6ELM6R4019745@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/attachments/20080714/8d372598/attachment.txt From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 16:19:21 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:19:21 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling Message-ID: Bush lifts presidential ban on offshore drilling By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 12:57 PM PDT, July 14, 2008 WASHINGTON -- President Bush today lifted a long-standing presidential ban on new oil and gas drilling off the nation's coastlines and urged Congress to remove its own restrictions on offshore energy exploration, stoking the battle over how Washington should respond to high gasoline prices. But the wall of opposition on Capitol Hill to relaxing the drilling ban, though softening, appeared to be holding. A congressional moratorium remains in place, but expires Oct. 1 unless Congress acts. Lawmakers are growing increasingly nervous in the election year about high gasoline prices, and polls show increasing support for expanded domestic energy production. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential candidate, recently changed his position on the offshore drilling ban, coming out in favor of letting states decide whether to allow energy exploration off their coasts. In his announcement at the White House, Bush shifted pressure on the issue directly onto Congress. "The executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away," he said. "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress." Environmentalists decried the move to lift a ban that has been in place since President Bush's father. "One of the two safety nets that protect our most treasured coastal areas, as of today, is gone," said Richard Charter, who has been working with Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund to preserve the moratorium. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) quickly rejected Bush's call to lift the drilling ban and instead called on him to release some of the 700 million barrels of oil stored in Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called Bush's action a "false promise that simply won't deliver." The federal moratorium was inspired by the images from 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara of oil-soaked birds and sludge-covered beaches and ocean waters. Congressional Republicans have sought to increase pressure on Democrats to support expanded domestic production, but so far have been blocked in their attempts to force a House vote on whether to allow drilling more than 50 miles off the coast. Jack N. Gerard, the president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, cheered Bush's action. "Clearly, the ground is shifting on energy policy," he said. Industry officials believe lawmakers will be judged by many constituents according to how they vote on the question. "This action places the pressure on Congress to act before the elections," said Jeff Eshelman of the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America. "It could be one of the most monumental votes faced by candidates running for office." In a sign of the changing mood, Rep. John Campbell (R-Newport Beach), who voted in 2006 against relaxing the moratorium, said in a recent interview, "I am becoming more flexible on the issue, which is clearly a function of the crisis in which we find ourselves." On a recent trip home, he said, gas prices were "all anybody wants to talk about." "What I hear all the time is . . . I'm tired of sending all this money over to those people who hate us, " Campbell said. "And now, it's a ridiculous amount of money we're sending to those people who hate us, and we need to stop that." Lisa Speer, director of the water and oceans program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Bush's action removes "one layer of protection" for the coasts. "It's going to be up to the coastal states and their representatives in Congress to fight this off," she said in an interview. She said that any oil that could be developed from new offshore leases won't hit the market for years, and she asserted it would have negligible effect on prices. "This is not a solution to the gas price problem," she said, calling Bush's action a "cynical ploy" to undo the moratorium. But she said that the battle to preserve the drilling ban has become tougher. "It's a reflection of the pressure that politicians are feeling on gas prices," she said. "Everybody has to be very vigilant over the next few months until Congress goes out." Supporters of relaxing the moratorium by letting states decide whether to permit offshore exploration say that technological advances have made drilling safer. richard.simon at latimes.com, james.gerstenzang at latimes.com From mstainsby at resist.ca Mon Jul 14 16:26:39 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:26:39 -0600 Subject: [R-G] Re-Send & Clarification: Oil SandsTruth Call out for Submissions (Fall publication) Message-ID: <487BD29F.20403@resist.ca> (Many of these articles already have proposed writers, subjects etc... the entire list is being re-sent for clarification purposes) Re-Send: there may have been minor confusion for the listed (and to be proposed) articles below. Each separate article being requested is listed numerically. The deadline is tentatively set for September 12 (Friday). Article list below introduction. -- Call for submissions In Western Canada-- Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan-- mega projects, massive developments and international events are bringing vast changes across the entire region. From nuclear power plants to Ski Hills and the world's largest ever industrial project, there are many components of similarity throughout Western Canada that can be and must be connected. From the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) through to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) the provinces are streamlining the vast changes and degradations in human rights, living conditions and environmental health. In the Fall 2008, OilSandsTruth.org (OST) will be releasing a one time magazine on many of the issues being faced by the populations living within both provinces. OST is looking for articles on the following: 1) How the SPP facilitates the tar sands; 2) How the SPP facilitates the 2010 Games; 3) Tar sands and the impact of the boom on indigenous self-determination; 4) 2010 and the impact of the Games on indigenous self-determination; 5) Tar sands and the impact of the boom on housing; 6) 2010 and the impact of the Games on housing; 7) Tar sands and how the impacts of the boom are gendered; 8) 2010 and how the impacts of the Games are gendered; 9) Tar sands and the effects on migrant rights and temporary foreign workers; 10) 2010 and the effects of the Games on migrant rights and temporary foreign workers; 11) Tar sands and trade union rights; 12) 2010 and the effects on labour rights; 13) Tar sands development and what it means for land and the forests; 14) 2010 and the impacts on lands and the forests; 15) Tar sands development and the impact on water quality; 16) Olympic development and the impact on water quality; 17) Olympics and their associations to war; 18) Tar sands and heir association to currently waged wars. 19) Politics of ?environmental sustainability? (greenwashing) in the tar sands; 20) Politics of ?environmental sustainability? (greenwashing) for the 2010 Games; 21) Eastern Canadian responses to the 2010 Games; 22) Eastern Canadian responses to the tar sands; 23) Resistance taking place to the tar sands; 24) Resistance taking place to the 2010 Games; other article ideas along these lines greatly encouraged. Priority will be given to community organizers writing from first hand perspectives. Articles & ideas should be submitted to macdonald at oilsandstruth.org ; the final articles should be 700-1000 words in length (unless otherwise negotiated). Authors of articles that are commissioned for this one time publication will receive $100 honorariums for their work. From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org Mon Jul 14 16:47:17 2008 From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:47:17 -0600 Subject: [R-G] GETTING THE WORD OUT [BRIEF THOUGHTS] Message-ID: <000d01c8e603$924fe8e0$0400a8c0@computer> Note by Hunter Bear: July 14 2008 Interesting discussion on RBB about getting the word out via conventional print and otherwise. I'm attaching an older and nostalgic post herewith that discusses the traditional centrality -- for radicals and organizers generally -- of the Mimeograph Machine. These days, there are usually several Fast Copy places -- e.g., Kinko Copy -- that are easy to find and reasonable [but sometimes, as is the case here in Pocatello, involving staff who report surreptitiously to the cops.] So be careful to find a reasonably "secure" outfit. Special leaflets for really special occasions, of course, can be done by a good print-shop. Some of all of the foregoing are unionized but some are not. The buy-union principle and union "bug" are important to some of us at least. In some settings, I've been part of good efforts to launch a "real" newspaper -- e.g., the Chicago-based and every couple of weeks Native American Publication in the early '70s. But these efforts, back then and certainly now, take money. In Chicago, we were fortunate in receiving grants for our paper from the National Indian Lutheran Board -- this had no religious strings. In other situations, we had to go out and hustle hard. Direct and personal talks to individuals, and to groups of whatever size, are obviously extremely crucial -- and should involve, on the talker/speaker's part, the art of listening.. If you're an activist, and making waves, you can usually, sooner or later, get pr from the local mainline newspapers, radio and tv. But you gotta watch some -- some -- of those folks in charge. Always do your press releases with care. [If you're advertising a meeting through any medium, make damn certain that you have the purpose, date, time, and location down -- explicitly.] The Net generally and websites especially are obviously quite helpful -- though never a substitute for direct and personal grassroots organizing. A novice about computers, "I" launched our initial one, Red Wobbly, in the late summer of 1999. It had a long URL handle which included the word "revolution." I was a total novice re computer tech and the credit for that initial website goes to all of my children and our grandson-son, Thomas. That was a Microsoft freebee with all sorts of general limitations but a major one became obvious at the beginning of December 1999 when it was suspiciously immobilized by Microsoft. It remained immobilized for several weeks and in seeking help from Microsoft, I got almost one hundred "canned" messages of ostensible sympathy from a variety of obviously phony first names. It was clear that we were one of many such sites indeed which were being summarily blocked. In late January, 2000, operating in remote fashion from far away Lincoln, Nebraska, my youngest son, Mack, a newspaper editor, was able to get Red Wobbly going again. [When I brought his Magic to the attention of Microsoft, it didn't secure any compliments from them.] So, on my birthday in 2000, we all launched Lair of Hunterbear, now into its ninth year and very well visited. There were, of course, Microsoft Front Pages costs with which to get started [now about $200 - we now use the 2003 version] -- and our web hosting server charges us about $340.00 annually. It's always a challenge to get one's Site established but a moderately priced [around $140.00 a year] Submission Service is most useful in assisting in getting to the search engine summits. And then, of course, as you go along, things proliferate very nicely -- but you still want to keep the submission service. I could write a book about all of this -- getting the word out -- but, before I embark on that, I may try my hand at doing a Poem commemorating Mimeograph Machines. Of course, I am a lousy poet [unlike the genuinely gifted Sam Friedman] -- but, still, I've learned a lot about computers. So maybe there's hope for me. In any case, here is this: MIMEOGRAPHED REBELLION [HUNTER GRAY 4/17/03] Jim's interesting SSOC comments about mimeographed publications prompts this from me. In August, 1962, our growing Jackson NAACP Youth Council was planning what a few months later became the highly effective economic boycott of Jackson -- out of which grew the large-scale Jackson Movement which climaxed in May and June, '63. I began that August to put together a frequent [every three weeks or so] mimeographed journal, North Jackson Action.[I'd had some journalism courses in college and had once even taught the subject.] Anyway, I typed it out carefully on blue stencils -- on my ancient Underwood -- and Tougaloo College mimeographed it for us. It grew rapidly in size -- to several pages on each side -- and the circulation moved out into the general Jackson area and then nationally. At one point, we had a basic mail circ of about 250 -- not counting those many distributed directly on the local scene. When I mailed them in Jackson -- via first class in sealed envelopes-- we used no return addresses and I carried them always to a number of outside mail boxes -- putting in a batch here and a batch there. Well received, it drew financial contributions for our work -- and boycott support actions from around the United States. And even in Canada: Kimberley [B.C.] Mine and Mill Workers sent us a check for one hundred bucks! By the same token, when Juan Chacon, president of Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [Local 890] in Southwestern New Mexico mailed us the three 16 mm reels of Salt of the Earth -- in which he's the leading male role [we used Salt very effectively several times in Jackson with Eldri running the film projector] -- it always came to me very inconspicuously which is how we always sent it back to Local 890. North Jackson Action played an important role in developing the Jackson Boycott and helping lay the foundation for the Jackson Movement. All told, we put out about 15 issues or so -- into May, '63, at which point all sorts of Movement things and attendant publicity were surging up in the Jackson setting. I gave my file of North Jackson Action to Mississippi Dept of Archives and History and it's among my collected papers. [And a copy of the file is also in my comparable collection at State Historical Society of Wisconsin.] Later, when I was SCEF Field Organizer, Jim Dombrowski gave us our own SCEF mimeograph machine -- an eccentric creature which occasionally, in the fashion of a Gatling Gun, sometimes threw huge globs of sticky ink on the wall of my little office. I miss those days when every Radical Movement had, first and foremost, its mimeograph machine. Kinko Copy and comparable outfits just don't begin to have the same bated breath drama. HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na?shdo?i?ba?i? and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm And see Wobbly Mentor http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. From shimogamo at attglobal.net Mon Jul 14 18:05:31 2008 From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:05:31 +0900 Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Airbus and Boeing Face a Dark and Painful Future Message-ID: <487BE9CB.1010109@attglobal.net> by Kristen Lagadec Global Public Media (July 01 2008) When you google 'Airbus Boeing Peak Oil', the top result is this article that I wrote in the summer of 2006. Being a Cassandra proved right gives one all sorts of uneasy feelings, but I will carry on in that direction and offer a revised version of my prophecy, adorned with new details. In a nutshell: people are talking a lot about the difficulties for airlines with $150-a-barrel oil. But we also have to understand that it is going to be much worse for aircraft manufacturers. They probably know it; but they cannot believe what they know, and they cannot say it either. This is not just another crisis for air transportation and aerospace construction: this is the last crisis until the end of the fossil fuel era. Hard times for airlines First an important premise: there are no serious alternatives to jet fuel for airliners. And even if there were, they could never be cheap in a world of expensive energy. The problem is not that oil is scarce: the production has never been this high - that's why we call it Peak Oil. The problem is that energy supply is not meeting global demand: until demand abates, any type of energy will end up costing the same, be it classical kerosene, gas-to-liquid synthetic jet fuel, or biodiesel. Regardless of the environmental footprint. Just know that if it was technologically feasible, filling an A380 tank with biofuel would use up 150 hectares of yearly yield, considering an optimistic figure of 2000 litres per hectare for Jatropha biodiesel. You'd need 150x2x365x150 = 16 million hectares - the arable land in France - to power the currently ordered A380 fleet. Meanwhile the fuel efficiency improvements do not come anywhere close to compensating the price surge. Boeing claim that their new 787 will burn twenty percent less fuel than current jets of the same category (namely the 767 or A330). Twenty percent is how much oil prices rose between the beginning of April and mid-May 2008: thirty years of technological improvement in aircraft and engine design will offset six weeks of price increase, and no technological Deus ex Machina will change that deal. The obvious consequence is that cheap flights are gone for good. We are currently witnessing a fast concentration of the market, because the fierce competition prevents airlines from transferring the whole fuel bill to their passengers. As the weaker players exit the arena, ticket prices will rise until the few remaining airlines can break even financially. We will see a trend of de-democratization of air travel, and people will gradually change their travel habits, starting with the poorer and newer travelers. There is a second key element that will drive air traffic down: as planemakers' market forecasts point out, air traffic growth is consistently correlated to world GDP growth. No need to be a psychic to imagine that GDP growth will seriously suffer from expensive energy. When people's purchasing power shrinks because of the energy bill, they will think twice before flying. Note that a major economic downturn could very well stop the rise in oil prices or even reduce them for a while. But it will not help air traffic - unemployed people do not fly all that much. Meanwhile, environmental awareness is growing worldwide: the global warming theme is increasingly popular with the sort of middle class travelers who used to fill economy seats for exotic vacations. There will be less scuba-diving in the Maldives; less horseback-trekking in Mongolia; less leopard-spotting in Tanzania. Flying is losing political correctness points by the day. This is even beginning to reach the corporate world, although sometimes only for mere greenwashing concerns: more firms are asking their employees to fly less, to favor teleconferencing or to merge meetings. Business travel, the spine of airline profitability, is probably weaker than most hope. I also see a final, more tricky contributor to airline misfortunes: many airlines have based their financial model upon the resell value of their aircraft. Planes are a huge investment, with a long lifetime - a bit like homes. Maybe you see what I am hinting at. Just as the housing crisis brought many people to bankruptcy, many airlines will lose their financial footing when the industry's obvious overcapacity and gloomy outlook pulls the market value of second-hand aircraft down. All this will contribute to reduce air traffic over the next decades, to the levels of the 1990s, then the 1980s, then the 1970s ... Harder still for aircraft manufacturers The average natural decay of a fleet because of ageing is around six percent a year. When yearly traffic is constant from one year to the next, six planes for every 100 go into retirement, and are replaced by newer planes. This means that if airlines cut the world's capacity by a mere six percent each year, old retiring planes will not need to be replaced, and no new aircraft will be sold at all. A six percent capacity reduction is equivalent to just changing the Tuesday flight of the daily San Francisco to Tokyo service from a 747-400 to a 777-300ER. A reduction the economic press or the general public would hardly notice can make Airbus and Boeing assembly lines grind to a halt. US carriers will reduce capacity by ten percent to fifteen percent this third quarter of 2008 alone. "All told, the industry will cut capacity by nine percent in 2008, according to James Higgins, analyst for Soleil-Solebury Research". (quote from CNNmoney.com) In short: airlines make money in proportion to air traffic; aircraft manufacturers make money in proportion to air traffic growth. In a world with negative air traffic growth, the former float, the latter drown. Therefore, although we will probably not see the end of air traffic any time soon, this extremely nasty leverage effect will make aircraft manufacturers suffer considerably. One might argue that in a world of expensive oil, airlines should scrap all old, gas-guzzling planes and buy new, soberer ones instead. That would be easy if they were making a lot of profit or could promise a bright future. But when the industry is consistently in the red zone, and getting redder, bankers do not follow. Few airlines have sufficient cash to sign billion-dollar contracts without external investment. Therefore airlines will be like people in poor countries: they will be running old vehicles which use up tons of gas because they cannot afford the newer models which make twice the miles per gallon. Admittedly, a handful of airlines will be a position to buy the new planes. When all the world's money ends up in oil exporters' hands, they have to buy things from us to avoid drowning under the heap of green bills. Aircraft are a great choice, as they are both hard-currency-intensive and fossil-fuel intensive, which oil producers have a lot of, as per design. Consequently, aircraft sales may in fact undergo an increase because of high oil prices. This I call the "Aboulafia effect". I conjecture that such an increase is inherently short-lived. Middle-East carriers will probably become prominent players, and gradually snatch the bulk of the market from the traditional airlines. But air traffic will shrink nonetheless, and all they will need to do is buy back the recent new planes from their victims, scrap the old ones, and make the most of a declining market - something they are becoming good at. As if matters could be any worse, there will finally be a mean backlash effect: thanks to cheap liquidity seeking asylum, the years 2003 to 2007 were absolutely euphoric in terms of aircraft orders. Manufacturers had to invest massively in infrastructures and people in order to ramp up production and honor those orders. But these planes will not materialize into deliveries before a couple of years. There is plenty of time for many airlines to go bankrupt or otherwise hit financial turbulence. This will mean massive delivery deferrals, then cancellations, so that assembly lines cannot even hold onto their current backlog. Who knows, we may witness the very curious artefact of a negative net yearly order-book. In the real world, that's called jumping off a cliff with a lot of momentum. "The combined value of the orders for Airbus and Boeing planes exceeds $500 billion at list prices, so large-scale cancellations and deferrals could easily amount to tens of billions of dollars and affect suppliers of engines and other parts in addition to the jet makers". (from the Wall Street Journal) What next? When that happens, it will be catastrophic for all the people, organisations, or communities, which now contribute to the aircraft manufacturing adventure. This could send Seattle or Toulouse the way British textile, or French foundries went not so long ago. And do not get influenced by prejudice. Aerospace does not have an intrinsically higher value than those industries we have come to regard as lowly. Today's ghost slums were full of very busy and extremely proud people at the peak of their flourishing trade. I do not know what the smartest move for aircraft manufacturers is, and I am glad I am not in Tom Enders' or Scott Carson's shoes. Publicly acknowledging that the air travel industry is on the brink of inevitable decline would discourage investors and hasten the fall. And yet, the earlier they can start downshifting, the smoother the forced landing. They should be cancelling the B787 (a little too late for that one) or A350 developments, and simply offer to fit new generation engines on good old 767s and A330s. That would already be at least half the fuel economy, for a much smaller cost, while not forcing new capacity on the market place. Or silently work on a totally new kind of bird, absolutely optimized for fuel efficiency, even if it changes the rules of the game: a Mach 0.62, 20,000 foot, turboprop, middle-range, high-capacity, DC-4-comfort machine that would be the soberest flying camel to get people where trains can't go for the next half century. Or maybe steer away from this dwindling trade altogether and find a new frontier. How about giant wind turbines? If those do not sell, nothing will anyway, so that may be worth a try. http://globalpublicmedia.com/airbus_and_boeing_a_gloomy_market_outlook TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/ From mstainsby at resist.ca Mon Jul 14 16:52:41 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:52:41 -0600 Subject: [R-G] 2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and helping the Olympics. Message-ID: <487BD8B9.20308@resist.ca> 2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and helping the Olympics. July 14, 2008 By Macdonald Stainsby http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18182 For much of the last year, many of the anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian forces across Canada have started to work towards converging many of the bigger issues to take place in 2010 into a larger whole. Some of the issues included are: The 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, the next round of Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP] negotiations to be held within Canada-- and the G8 Summit to be held in Ontario all during that same year. On many different levels these issues interlink and have an inherent connection with one another. Some of them, more than others. Here I wish to make the case that what belongs as a major thread through all of these discussions is often absent among those of us trying to make these larger connections coherent in our organizing. Here I will specifically focus on making a connection for the 2010 Games resistance, the SPP and the Albertan Tar Sands as another central organizing point. When people try and establish a comprehensive vision of what the critique around the 2010 Games is from a social point, the list involves the decimation of whole working-class neighbourhoods, housing, increased security measures, trade and migration changes in a regressive direction, the further removal and/or denial of sovereignty at the local level for many first nations and the further attack on the environment in the name of ecology. In all the cases listed above, and others not listed, there are shared results with the hyper-growth of the largest industrial project in human history. The tar sands-- under their "rebranded" name of oil sands, received an entire separate round of talks and agreements within the SPP negotiations-- "The Oil Sands Experts group". Their opening, "executive summary" makes it plain: President Bush, Prime Minister Martin and President Fox officially announced the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (SPP) agreement in March 2005. The energy activities of the SPP encompass a trilateral effort among Mexico, the United States and Canada, to create a sustainable energy economy for North America. The Canadian oil sands are one of the world's largest hydrocarbon resources and will be a significant contributor to energy supply and security for the continent. As such, the three countries agreed to collaborate through the SPP on the sustainable development of the oil sands resources and an ad hoc Oil Sands Experts Group was formed that includes the U.S., Canadian and Alberta Government representatives.1 The kind of strange new world that is being enunciated in these SPP negotiations even before we know what the plans include already has the Albertan government given near-state status, sitting along side the Canadian Government (then headed by Paul Martin and with current Liberal Leader Stephane Dion as Environment Minister) and that of the United States. Before the actual documents began the various explicit thank yous to certain participants in this forum of the SPP included four members of Natural Resources Canada, six named members of the US Department of Energy, two from the Energy Department of Alberta as well as the speakers of the "working groups"-- from Jacobs Engineering in Canada along with the commercial director for British Petroleum. Mexico had an observer from their energy department present. The entire session was facilitated by a consultant from Calgary. The discussions involve the problems of delivery and energy supplies needed to create the level of production "necessary" to reach their goal set of quintupling production (to a level that would outstrip the productive capacity of both Iraq and Iran): The geography of North America requires integrated long distance pipelines that transport crudes and finished products. New pipelines and pipeline expansion plans are already in place to meet the certain doubling of oil sands production to two million barrels per day by 2010 to 2012 timeframe. This includes extensions of the market va a west coast port, and more deeply into the U.S. However, pursuing new markets beyond then will necessitate an expansion in delivery systems. The fivefold expansion anticipated for oil sands products in a relatively short time span will represent many challenges for the pipeline industry. New and expanded pipelines will move more volume into existing and expanding interior U.S. markets, and offer shipments to California via the Canadian West Coast.2 Further explaining what these kinds of developments will mean, they explicate it with: "Regulatory and permitting issues were cited as a concern on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, as they impact the overall risk and timing of pipeline investments. In the United States, pipeline companies face an often complicated and "patchwork" collection of local, state, or federal regulations as well as potential obligations to Native American groups." [....] "Governments are encouraged to streamline the regulatory approval process and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects. Canadian governments have already gone a long way to coordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done."3 In other words, for a project that crosses the entire continent, the legal challenges that could be posed by local communities and indigenous nations are to be negotiated away ahead of time. Canada is already touted as having done a great deal of work eliminating these "barriers". The extent to which labour has already been stretched beyond capacity is earmarked for discussion as well: The rapid pace of development in Alberta and in other parts of North America has contributed to escalating demands for in skilled trades people and professional engineers that have placed pressure on their availability as well as the cost of their services. These pressures could affect development plans and time lines for oil sands projects, pipelines, upgraders and refineries. Construction materials also face similar pressures. Several of the groups also discussed the infrastructure limitations in the fast growing region of Fort McMurray.4 The promise of actually looking into a social impact of the proposed plans was negated only a short way into the "experts report" however: "While important to Canada, issues related to bitumen production, internal infrastructure, societal challenges from rapid growth, and the environmental footprint were not a focus of this workshop."5 So now that any discussion of what the social or environmental impacts are has been ruled out, we can get back to the "important stuff" of the "experts" discussions. Such as how problematic it is to ship all of the produced bitumen, "synthetic" light crude and various blends of these, given pipeline infrastructure problems. These issues-- discussed after mandating Canada in the documents with dealing with "societal challenges" and "the environmental footprint" on their own-- need resolution due to a serious need for more pipelines and refineries. The logic here is "we make the plans at this level, the Canadian government is tasked with coming up with a 'legal' sounding way to implement these plans". Not truly encouraging. However, there is one "societal challenge" area that the SPP talks have no qualms about recommending changes towards: Labour, or more specifically (im)migration regulations. "While not directly related to market availability issues, strained availability of trained construction personnel in Alberta, coupled with the relatively remote locations of many of the projects, have led to significant capital cost overruns in recent major projects. Low initial estimates likely also contributed to this situation. The combination of these factors was responsible for the scaling down of plans for another major project. Canadian governments are already aware of the need to review immigration rules to allow a faster influx of skilled trades and professionals from outside of Canada."6 (emphasis added) Other analysts have written of many of the machinations by which the SPP plans to create a new, highly exploitable and disposable labour force through programs like the "Temporary Foreign Worker" program. The key to note here is the sheer volume and magnitude of these construction programs for the "Gigaproject" of the tar sands. Shortly after the above description of labour needs, the "proposed action" laid out was: "Industry and construction associations in Alberta need to pursue this issue of availability of skilled labour at both the federal and provincial levels of the Canadian government."7 To keep clear to people of what is and is not part of the SPP's "Experts" scope, three paragraphs and a little bit later we are reminded: "The upgrading and refining working groups also discussed a number of environmental issues in bitumen recovery and upgrading, and infrastructure limitations in the fast growing region of Fort McMurray. While these challenges are important in the overall development of the resource, they are considered outside the scope of this workshop's focus on market expansion and related initiatives."8 (emphasis added) In terms of how to construct the needed infrastructure, yet more "streamlining" is proposed by the "Experts". The highlights of pipeline discussions include: Ultimately, the market will determine the appropriate investment decisions. Continued communication among governments, associations, and pipeline companies and their clients is necessary. Governments can help to ensure that issues are raised and discussed, such as at the Oil Sands Experts Working Group Workshop. Regulatory issues were cited as a major concern on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border. This applies not only to new construction but also to expansion or reversal of existing pipelines. [....] In November 2005, as part of the SPP, the NEB and the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration signed an MOU that set the stage for increased compliance data sharing as well as staff exchanges and joint training opportunities. Canadian governments have already gone a long way to coordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done. [....] Governments need to streamline regulatory approval and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects. Providing process mapping and a one-stop-shop for proponents would help to ease the complexity, facilitate coordination and reduce the time required for regulatory approval and permitting. Expanding the planning horizon and including all stakeholders such as government, producers, NGO's, First Nations, and private landowners, could help to identify and resolve the environmental and accommodation concerns in a more timely manner. [....] Governments can help to ensure that information about projects is collected and disseminated, and that issues are raised and discussed, such as at the workshop. With respect to infrastructure and workforce issues, government needs to take the lead with policy issues dealing with immigration and infrastructure while greater industry transparency would aid with long-term planning. [emphasis added] To help understand this perspective, a single long distance pipeline can take upwards of five-figures worth of workers. In order to meet the goals being set by the SPP's "experts", the continuation of the trend begun in 2006-- with more "temporary foreign workers" coming into Alberta than landed immigrants-- must not only continue, but be ramped up by astronomical numbers. Such is by far the greatest need that the North American energy grid has, if it is to construct many dozens of pipelines, refineries, upgraders, open pit mines and in-situ operations themselves. The complete wholesale creation of a super exploitable underclass of worker across all of Canada must be established, akin to the TFW employees building the "Canada" line in Vancouver timed for the beginning of the Olympics-- but on a scale of many multiple times larger. In our organizing and understanding we correctly identify the wholesale changes being planned for the continent through the changes to many different regulations, from labour, to "citizenship" through to environmental. These analyses are all correct, but they are not holistic. There are specific plans underway for these negotiations, and the impacts and outgrowths of all of them are staking out the heart of the social changes for human beings under the continuation of the SPP. Twinned with agreements like the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, or TILMA, the local levers of resistance are being quietly negotiated away. This is happening at a time when, for a multiplicity of reasons, there is seemingly no turning back from $120-plus a barrel of oil. As a means to secure the price of oil stays high enough for the second largest reserves of oil on the planet, the same people who have brought us a war on Iraq will manipulate the costs of oil high enough to make a major play for construction of access to the second largest deposit of oil on the planet. Soon enough, geology takes over as old oil wells run dry the world over, and these high-energy cost reserves remain the only way left to "preserve the [North] American way of life." When we organize to confront the Security and Prosperity Partnership continually up until and through the SPP negotiations in 2010, when we speak against the wholesale wiping out of neighbourhoods in Vancouver and multiple unceded nations in the west, we are speaking against many of the same issues-- except on a larger scale-- being brought about by the latest play of a dying global petroleum based economy. In the year 2010,as a part of the mass convergences on the Olympics and on the SPP (and the G8 among many), we need to educate our own ranks and speak forcefully to understand the central role that high oil has in all of these plans. A fight against the kinds of mass exploitation of people and nations being visited upon us all by the tar sands is being negotiated through the SPP and is being given full-flight through the militarization of the Down Town East Side of Vancouver. For us to have a chance to defeat the monoliths being proposed through agreements like the SPP, we need to look where often we do not-- the disappearing forests and expanding moonscapes in northern Alberta: Ground Zero for the largest industrial project in human history, and the progenitor of the vast de-regulation of how human and ecological resources are weighed against corporate power and militarized states that seek energy and profit. The 2010 convergences, to have a lasting impact, need to make an analysis of the tar sands an integral part of the work to be done over the next less-than-two years. Maybe we haven't got the answers-- if so, we must become skilled at learning. -- Macdonald Stainsby is a writer, social justice activist and professional hitchhiker who is looking for a ride to the better world. He is also the co-ordinator of http://oilsandstruth.org Macdonald Stainsby's ZSpace page: http://www.zmag.org/zspace/macdonaldstainsby He can be reached at macdonald at oilsandstruth.org From mstainsby at resist.ca Mon Jul 14 17:07:31 2008 From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:07:31 -0600 Subject: [R-G] 2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and helping the Olympics. In-Reply-To: <487BD8B9.20308@resist.ca> References: <487BD8B9.20308@resist.ca> Message-ID: <487BDC33.3070905@resist.ca> 2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and helping the Olympics. July 14, 2008 By Macdonald Stainsby http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18182 For much of the last year, many of the anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian forces across Canada have started to work towards converging many of the bigger issues to take place in 2010 into a larger whole. Some of the issues included are: The 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, the next round of Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP] negotiations to be held within Canada-- and the G8 Summit to be held in Ontario all during that same year. On many different levels these issues interlink and have an inherent connection with one another. Some of them, more than others. Here I wish to make the case that what belongs as a major thread through all of these discussions is often absent among those of us trying to make these larger connections coherent in our organizing. Here I will specifically focus on making a connection for the 2010 Games resistance, the SPP and the Albertan Tar Sands as another central organizing point. When people try and establish a comprehensive vision of what the critique around the 2010 Games is from a social point, the list involves the decimation of whole working-class neighbourhoods, housing, increased security measures, trade and migration changes in a regressive direction, the further removal and/or denial of sovereignty at the local level for many first nations and the further attack on the environment in the name of ecology. In all the cases listed above, and others not listed, there are shared results with the hyper-growth of the largest industrial project in human history. The tar sands-- under their "rebranded" name of oil sands, received an entire separate round of talks and agreements within the SPP negotiations-- "The Oil Sands Experts group". Their opening, "executive summary" makes it plain: President Bush, Prime Minister Martin and President Fox officially announced the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (SPP) agreement in March 2005. The energy activities of the SPP encompass a trilateral effort among Mexico, the United States and Canada, to create a sustainable energy economy for North America. The Canadian oil sands are one of the world's largest hydrocarbon resources and will be a significant contributor to energy supply and security for the continent. As such, the three countries agreed to collaborate through the SPP on the sustainable development of the oil sands resources and an ad hoc Oil Sands Experts Group was formed that includes the U.S., Canadian and Alberta Government representatives.1 The kind of strange new world that is being enunciated in these SPP negotiations even before we know what the plans include already has the Albertan government given near-state status, sitting along side the Canadian Government (then headed by Paul Martin and with current Liberal Leader Stephane Dion as Environment Minister) and that of the United States. Before the actual documents began the various explicit thank yous to certain participants in this forum of the SPP included four members of Natural Resources Canada, six named members of the US Department of Energy, two from the Energy Department of Alberta as well as the speakers of the "working groups"-- from Jacobs Engineering in Canada along with the commercial director for British Petroleum. Mexico had an observer from their energy department present. The entire session was facilitated by a consultant from Calgary. The discussions involve the problems of delivery and energy supplies needed to create the level of production "necessary" to reach their goal set of quintupling production (to a level that would outstrip the productive capacity of both Iraq and Iran): The geography of North America requires integrated long distance pipelines that transport crudes and finished products. New pipelines and pipeline expansion plans are already in place to meet the certain doubling of oil sands production to two million barrels per day by 2010 to 2012 timeframe. This includes extensions of the market va a west coast port, and more deeply into the U.S. However, pursuing new markets beyond then will necessitate an expansion in delivery systems. The fivefold expansion anticipated for oil sands products in a relatively short time span will represent many challenges for the pipeline industry. New and expanded pipelines will move more volume into existing and expanding interior U.S. markets, and offer shipments to California via the Canadian West Coast.2 Further explaining what these kinds of developments will mean, they explicate it with: "Regulatory and permitting issues were cited as a concern on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, as they impact the overall risk and timing of pipeline investments. In the United States, pipeline companies face an often complicated and "patchwork" collection of local, state, or federal regulations as well as potential obligations to Native American groups." [....] "Governments are encouraged to streamline the regulatory approval process and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects. Canadian governments have already gone a long way to coordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done."3 In other words, for a project that crosses the entire continent, the legal challenges that could be posed by local communities and indigenous nations are to be negotiated away ahead of time. Canada is already touted as having done a great deal of work eliminating these "barriers". The extent to which labour has already been stretched beyond capacity is earmarked for discussion as well: The rapid pace of development in Alberta and in other parts of North America has contributed to escalating demands for in skilled trades people and professional engineers that have placed pressure on their availability as well as the cost of their services. These pressures could affect development plans and time lines for oil sands projects, pipelines, upgraders and refineries. Construction materials also face similar pressures. Several of the groups also discussed the infrastructure limitations in the fast growing region of Fort McMurray.4 The promise of actually looking into a social impact of the proposed plans was negated only a short way into the "experts report" however: "While important to Canada, issues related to bitumen production, internal infrastructure, societal challenges from rapid growth, and the environmental footprint were not a focus of this workshop."5 So now that any discussion of what the social or environmental impacts are has been ruled out, we can get back to the "important stuff" of the "experts" discussions. Such as how problematic it is to ship all of the produced bitumen, "synthetic" light crude and various blends of these, given pipeline infrastructure problems. These issues-- discussed after mandating Canada in the documents with dealing with "societal challenges" and "the environmental footprint" on their own-- need resolution due to a serious need for more pipelines and refineries. The logic here is "we make the plans at this level, the Canadian government is tasked with coming up with a 'legal' sounding way to implement these plans". Not truly encouraging. However, there is one "societal challenge" area that the SPP talks have no qualms about recommending changes towards: Labour, or more specifically (im)migration regulations. "While not directly related to market availability issues, strained availability of trained construction personnel in Alberta, coupled with the relatively remote locations of many of the projects, have led to significant capital cost overruns in recent major projects. Low initial estimates likely also contributed to this situation. The combination of these factors was responsible for the scaling down of plans for another major project. Canadian governments are already aware of the need to review immigration rules to allow a faster influx of skilled trades and professionals from outside of Canada."6 (emphasis added) Other analysts have written of many of the machinations by which the SPP plans to create a new, highly exploitable and disposable labour force through programs like the "Temporary Foreign Worker" program. The key to note here is the sheer volume and magnitude of these construction programs for the "Gigaproject" of the tar sands. Shortly after the above description of labour needs, the "proposed action" laid out was: "Industry and construction associations in Alberta need to pursue this issue of availability of skilled labour at both the federal and provincial levels of the Canadian government."7 To keep clear to people of what is and is not part of the SPP's "Experts" scope, three paragraphs and a little bit later we are reminded: "The upgrading and refining working groups also discussed a number of environmental issues in bitumen recovery and upgrading, and infrastructure limitations in the fast growing region of Fort McMurray. While these challenges are important in the overall development of the resource, they are considered outside the scope of this workshop's focus on market expansion and related initiatives."8 (emphasis added) In terms of how to construct the needed infrastructure, yet more "streamlining" is proposed by the "Experts". The highlights of pipeline discussions include: Ultimately, the market will determine the appropriate investment decisions. Continued communication among governments, associations, and pipeline companies and their clients is necessary. Governments can help to ensure that issues are raised and discussed, such as at the Oil Sands Experts Working Group Workshop. Regulatory issues were cited as a major concern on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border. This applies not only to new construction but also to expansion or reversal of existing pipelines. [....] In November 2005, as part of the SPP, the NEB and the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration signed an MOU that set the stage for increased compliance data sharing as well as staff exchanges and joint training opportunities. Canadian governments have already gone a long way to coordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done. [....] Governments need to streamline regulatory approval and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects. Providing process mapping and a one-stop-shop for proponents would help to ease the complexity, facilitate coordination and reduce the time required for regulatory approval and permitting. Expanding the planning horizon and including all stakeholders such as government, producers, NGO's, First Nations, and private landowners, could help to identify and resolve the environmental and accommodation concerns in a more timely manner. [....] Governments can help to ensure that information about projects is collected and disseminated, and that issues are raised and discussed, such as at the workshop. With respect to infrastructure and workforce issues, government needs to take the lead with policy issues dealing with immigration and infrastructure while greater industry transparency would aid with long-term planning. [emphasis added] To help understand this perspective, a single long distance pipeline can take upwards of five-figures worth of workers. In order to meet the goals being set by the SPP's "experts", the continuation of the trend begun in 2006-- with more "temporary foreign workers" coming into Alberta than landed immigrants-- must not only continue, but be ramped up by astronomical numbers. Such is by far the greatest need that the North American energy grid has, if it is to construct many dozens of pipelines, refineries, upgraders, open pit mines and in-situ operations themselves. The complete wholesale creation of a super exploitable underclass of worker across all of Canada must be established, akin to the TFW employees building the "Canada" line in Vancouver timed for the beginning of the Olympics-- but on a scale of many multiple times larger. In our organizing and understanding we correctly identify the wholesale changes being planned for the continent through the changes to many different regulations, from labour, to "citizenship" through to environmental. These analyses are all correct, but they are not holistic. There are specific plans underway for these negotiations, and the impacts and outgrowths of all of them are staking out the heart of the social changes for human beings under the continuation of the SPP. Twinned with agreements like the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, or TILMA, the local levers of resistance are being quietly negotiated away. This is happening at a time when, for a multiplicity of reasons, there is seemingly no turning back from $120-plus a barrel of oil. As a means to secure the price of oil stays high enough for the second largest reserves of oil on the planet, the same people who have brought us a war on Iraq will manipulate the costs of oil high enough to make a major play for construction of access to the second largest deposit of oil on the planet. Soon enough, geology takes over as old oil wells run dry the world over, and these high-energy cost reserves remain the only way left to "preserve the [North] American way of life." When we organize to confront the Security and Prosperity Partnership continually up until and through the SPP negotiations in 2010, when we speak against the wholesale wiping out of neighbourhoods in Vancouver and multiple unceded nations in the west, we are speaking against many of the same issues-- except on a larger scale-- being brought about by the latest play of a dying global petroleum based economy. In the year 2010,as a part of the mass convergences on the Olympics and on the SPP (and the G8 among many), we need to educate our own ranks and speak forcefully to understand the central role that high oil has in all of these plans. A fight against the kinds of mass exploitation of people and nations being visited upon us all by the tar sands is being negotiated through the SPP and is being given full-flight through the militarization of the Down Town East Side of Vancouver. For us to have a chance to defeat the monoliths being proposed through agreements like the SPP, we need to look where often we do not-- the disappearing forests and expanding moonscapes in northern Alberta: Ground Zero for the largest industrial project in human history, and the progenitor of the vast de-regulation of how human and ecological resources are weighed against corporate power and militarized states that seek energy and profit. The 2010 convergences, to have a lasting impact, need to make an analysis of the tar sands an integral part of the work to be done over the next less-than-two years. Maybe we haven't got the answers-- if so, we must become skilled at learning. -- Macdonald Stainsby is a writer, social justice activist and professional hitchhiker who is looking for a ride to the better world. He is also the co-ordinator of http://oilsandstruth.org Macdonald Stainsby's ZSpace page: http://www.zmag.org/zspace/macdonaldstainsby He can be reached at macdonald at oilsandstruth.org From fentona at shaw.ca Mon Jul 14 21:07:42 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:07:42 -0700 Subject: [R-G] US/AFGHANISTAN: Deadly Assault Could Alter Campaign Dynamics Message-ID: <78AC4CA1-B581-4A6F-94A3-F00352A81F2A@shaw.ca> US/AFGHANISTAN: Deadly Assault Could Alter Campaign Dynamics Analysis by Jim Lobe* http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43183 WASHINGTON, Jul 14 (IPS) - If nothing else, the deaths Sunday of nine U.S. soldiers at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan close to the Pakistan border are likely to bring home to the U.S. electorate what top national security officials have been saying for much of the past year -- that the central front in Washington's "global war on terrorism" has moved eastwards about 1,800 kms from Iraq. That realisation could have a major impact on the U.S. presidential elections, despite the fact that the economy has replaced the Iraq War as the issue that voters are most concerned about. While Republican Sen. John McCain, like the White House itself, has insisted that victory in Iraq must be priority number one for U.S. foreign policy, his presumptive Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, and his top advisers have repeatedly warned that the situation in Afghanistan and the frontier regions of Pakistan required much more attention and resources than President George W. Bush has been willing to give it. Indeed, in a column coincidentally published by the New York Times Monday, Obama called for a "new strategy" in Afghanistan, including the deployment there of "at least two additional combat brigades ...and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there." At a campaign appearance Sunday, he called Afghanistan and the border areas "the real centre for terrorist activity that we have to deal with and deal with aggressively." The nine U.S. soldiers died when some 200 Taliban insurgents, reportedly from Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, penetrated a recently built outpost in Kunar province in a coordinated assault. Fifteen other U.S. troops and four Afghan Army soldiers were also wounded in the raid, which was eventually repelled after air support was called in. As many as 40 of the attackers were killed, according to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul. The U.S. death toll was the largest since 16 troops were killed when a military helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in Kunar three years ago and, as noted by the Los Angeles Times, "accelerated what had already been a rapidly rising fatality count among coalition troops in Afghanistan." In May and June alone, some 69 U.S. and NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, exceeding the death toll of U.S.-led coalition troops killed in Iraq during the same period. Sunday's attack coincided with the visit by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, to Pakistan -- his fourth so far this year -- to underline growing U.S. unhappiness, and even exasperation, with Islamabad's alleged failure to prevent Taliban forces, both Afghan and Pakistani, from infiltrating into Afghanistan. That failure is due primarily to the effective takeover during the past several years of much of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and parts of the North-West Frontier Province by Pakistan's own Taliban. It and its allies have, in turn, provided a safe haven for both Afghanistan's Taliban and al Qaeda, which, according to the U.S. intelligence community, has reconstituted much of its training and planning capabilities, including its capacity to mount a direct attack on the U.S. "homeland". Indeed, it was Mullen who warned in March that, "If I were going to pick the next attack to hit the United States, it would come out of the FATA," a warning that was echoed the following month by a devastating critique by Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), of what it said was the Bush administration's failure to develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the growing threat developing in the region. Both Mullen and his boss, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, have made little secret of their impatience to send some 10,000 more U.S. troops -- the same number urged by Obama -- to add to the some 34,000 already deployed there. But, with the White House unwilling to risk the progress it has made in curbing the violence in Iraq and U.S. ground forces already over-stretched, they say Afghanistan will have to wait until more troops are withdrawn from Iraq. Ironically, their hopes appear to rest primarily with the current Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who was just confirmed by the Senate last week as the new head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), giving him responsibility for Southwest Asia, as well as Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Petraeus, who has enjoyed extraordinary access to the White House and Bush himself, will take over Centcom at the beginning of September, after he completes a review of the situation in Iraq to determine whether he thinks it will be possible to reduce troop levels below the 140,000 that is to be reached by the end of this month. Until recently, Petraeus had reportedly advised against any further withdrawals through the end of the year. But, with his broader Centcom responsibilities looming, and the continuing deterioration in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some insiders have suggested that he has become more flexible. If so, McCain, whose chief advantage over Obama is the perception that he is stronger on national security and the "war on terror", may look as if he had underestimated the threat to the east. Indeed, in a press release issued Monday, the McCain campaign, citing statements by Petraeus in April and, ironically, by Osama bin Laden in 2004, reiterated that Iraq remains "the central front in the war on terrorism". Neither the release nor a teleconference by his foreign policy spokesmen mentioned Sunday's attack or the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan other than asserting that it was "an important front in the war on terror". Obama, whose scheduled trip next week to both Iraq and Afghanistan will almost certainly dominate news coverage back home and thus provide him with a golden opportunity to expound his views, may look prescient by September when Petraeus completes his assessment. *Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo- conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/ . (END/2008) From fentona at shaw.ca Mon Jul 14 17:40:35 2008 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:40:35 -0700 Subject: [R-G] Harper Sahib at the G8 Message-ID: Harper Sahib at the G8 >by Rick Salutin July 11, 2008 http://rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=73354 Stephen Harper's performance at the G8 this week in Japan emitted a bracing whiff of Canadian imperialism. Did you know there once was such a thing back in the days of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII? It doesn't mean that Canada had its own empire but that it identified with the British Empire and its rulers, along with other "white dominions" such as Australia and New Zealand, rather than with the rebellious colonials in places such as India. This led us into the Boer War to expand the Empire in Africa. In the century since, Canada gradually adopted another posture: honest broker between the old rulers and ruled, known today as the developed and developing nations. This rested on a sense that Canada could identify with both sides, because it had been a colony, too. Stephen Harper shows no such sensibility. He's the Gunga Din of post-9/11, carrying water (and oil) to his masters, along with the white man's burden. How so? He overidentified with the big guys there, like a yelpy pup among Great Danes. He took it on himself to explain that the G8 excluded nations such as India and China since its job is "to bring together the major countries, advanced countries of shared values." It's insulting, grandiose, delusional and ignores all the similarities "we" share with "them." Does he even know that Canada was once a colony? He joined in piling onto Zimbabwe ("We've added the G8's powerful voice") for its "fraudulent election" and "illegitimacy." He showed no sense of perspective: that the U.S. held a fraudulent election in 2000, or illegitimately tortures in Guantanamo, and that his own government continues to permit the Americans to practise on Canadian Omar Khadr. He was at his most smug and patronizing as he lectured those "less developed" than us about climate change ? a term he and others have managed to substitute for global warming. "The developing world is up against some simple mathematics, and we've simply got to make that point to them," he said. Did he want to add, as he likes to, that he's an economist and knows about this tricky stuff? "I could show you the graphs," he told the press. Did he expect the developing countries to squeal, Oh look, he has graphs. Do show us your graphs. And "this is not a philosophical position. This is a mathematical certainty." It's way more glorious than philosophy, folks; this is math! Bow down before it. The plan they were supposed to gratefully accept wasn't even a plan. It's a wish stated in wishful terms of vision or goal. It has no start line for reductions, which could be measured from 1990, or any other year. It has no interim targets and exerts no pressure. It aims only to avoid "the most serious consequences of climate change" ? omitting to say which effects are less serious. And even this non-plan won't happen unless they sign on first, and admit by the Harper logic that they have no choice. The over-obvious irony is that China and India are developed. They've built postmodern, industrial, innovative economies. Their big flaws are social and moral, not economic. Canada, meanwhile, is deindustrializing, with full acquiescence by the Harper government, and declining into reliance on raw materials. We're back to hewers and carriers. It's rapid underdevelopment. Those nations must snicker faster than they can bristle as they watch our PM strut among the G8 as he condescends to them. He's George Bush's poodle now that Tony Blair's moved on, and there's nothing to be gained by it. Maybe it's Canada's role, or that of today's white dominions, to be more imperial than the Empire long after the Empire has relinquished its crasser forms and learned a few lessons. I mean, who still celebrates Victoria's birthday? Trust me, it's not the Brits. Originally published in The Globe and Mail, Rick Salutin's column appears every Friday. From critical.montages at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 23:31:02 2008 From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:31:02 -0400 Subject: [R-G] Taliban Breached NATO Base in Deadly Clash + Pakistan Marble Helps Taliban Stay in Business Message-ID: Russian Westernizers are aggrieved that they are not included in "Europe." But other Russians ought to be glad that they are excluded. If Russia were allowed to join the NATO, its troops could get boondoggled into going back into Afghanistan, this time not as forces of enlightened despotism but as foot soldiers of a bankrupt empire, against a formidable foe. Say what you will, the Taliban men know how to fight a guerrilla war, and they are getting better at it every day. Born in India or Nepal and given proper political education, these men probably would have made very good Maoists. -- Yoshie July 15, 2008 Taliban Breached NATO Base in Deadly Clash By CARLOTTA GALL and ERIC SCHMITT KABUL, Afghanistan ? The Taliban insurgents who attacked a remote American-run outpost near the Pakistan border on Sunday numbered nearly 200 fighters, almost three times the size of the allied force, and some breached the NATO compound in a coordinated assault that took the defenders by surprise, Western officials said Monday. The attackers were driven back in a pitched four-hour battle, and they appeared to suffer scores of dead and wounded of their own, but the toll they inflicted was sobering. The base and a nearby observation post were held by just 45 American troops and 25 Afghan soldiers, two senior allied officials said, asking for anonymity while an investigation was under way. With nine Americans dead and at least 15 injured, that means that one in five of the American defenders was killed and nearly half the remainder were wounded. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded. American and Afghan forces started building the makeshift base just last week, and its defenses were not fully in place, one of the senior allied officials said. In some places, troops were using their vehicles as barriers against insurgents. The militants apparently detected the vulnerability and moved quickly to exploit it in a predawn assault in which they attacked from two directions, American officials said. It was the first time insurgents had partly breached any of the three dozen outposts that American and Afghan forces operate jointly across the country, according to a Western official who insisted on anonymity in providing details of the operation. The surprise attack underscored the vulnerability of American forces in Afghanistan, which are increasingly stretched thin as they are dispatched to far-flung and often isolated mountainous outposts with their Afghan allies. The United States now has about 32,000 troops in Afghanistan, about one-fifth the number in Iraq, even though Afghanistan is half-again as large as Iraq. American commanders and NATO military officials said the assault had also reflected boldness among insurgents who had benefited from new bases in neighboring Pakistan. It underscored the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where the number of war casualties has jumped this year and where American commanders have said repeatedly that their force is too small. The fact that the base, on the western side of Kunar Province, was staffed by just 70 soldiers was first reported Monday by The Los Angeles Times. The death toll amounted to the worst single loss for the American military in Afghanistan since June 2005 and was one of the worst since the Taliban and their Qaeda associates were routed in late 2001. American and Afghan soldiers inside the base were hit by flying fragments from bullets, grenades and mortar shells that insurgents fired from houses, shops and a mosque in a village within a few hundred yards of the base, several officials said. At the lightly fortified observation post nearby, American soldiers came under heavy fire from militants streaming through farmland under cover of darkness. Most of the American casualties took place there, a senior American military official said. American warplanes, attack helicopters and long-range artillery were urgently summoned to help repel the militants. But the insurgents made it so far that a few of their corpses were found inside the base's earthen barriers, and others were lying around it, Tamim Nuristani, a former governor in the region, said after talking to officials in the district. The attack was unusually bold. Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan rarely attack better-armed allied forces head on, preferring suicide bombs and hit-and-run ambushes against foot patrols and convoys. But they have made occasional attempts to overrun lightly staffed or otherwise vulnerable outposts. "Quite clearly they wanted to overrun the outpost," the Western official said of the insurgents. "It was a well-planned surprise attack." The United States and Afghanistan have been establishing dozens of military outposts, often in remote areas controlled by the Taliban or their allies. "We're looking at places to stop the flow of insurgents and establish relations with the local tribes," a senior American military official said. Allied and American officials said the attack began at 4:30 a.m. Sunday. Fighters who had infiltrated the hamlet of Wanat overnight and ordered the villagers to leave opened fire on the outpost from the west and southwest. At roughly the same time, American officials said, another group began the second prong of attack, firing on the observation post from the east. Some fought through to the main outpost a few hundred yards farther. American ground commanders immediately called in artillery and airstrikes from a B-1 bomber, as well as A-10 and F-15E attack planes. Apache helicopter gunships and a remotely piloted Predator aircraft fired Hellfire missiles at the insurgents, military officials said. Many of the village houses were damaged in the strikes, but there were no civilian casualties because the villa