From suzannedk at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 04:37:00 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 12:37:00 +0200
Subject: [R-G] Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the
	"Homeland"?
In-Reply-To: <5DBA52DF-B53F-4B92-9847-9FB49846646F@shaw.ca>
References: <5DBA52DF-B53F-4B92-9847-9FB49846646F@shaw.ca>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810010337o7cd6e7c4tbc458f0bb2e1ecd2@mail.gmail.com>

Why?  Because the United States is a military dictatorship in all but name.
 This is another step in a perepetual Middle Eastern War that will so
completely destroy Middle Eastern infrastructures and economies, unless they
enrich the US, that the stationing of soldiers at home is preparing to
respond to revenge attacks!  Simple.   Now, diplomacy, structures to enrich
Middle Eastern countries so the rage in the form of 'insurgents' subsides
takes the equivalent of brain surgery. The leaders that have been chosen to
represent the US do not have such skills nor the intellectual capabilities,
nor would they respect those in any around them.  They woould be fired or
would resign as happened in Bush/Cheny first term.  The one difference would
be the books they would write, intelligence services would rewrite them to
say little.  No  more powerful departing inditements!   Empire stmbles
forward under the carefully roiled international markets.
All the Dutch lawyers know about this U S soldier law being changed.


Suzanne de Kuyper
Amsterdam










On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 9:47 PM, Anthony Fenton <fentona at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Wednesday Sept. 24, 2008 12:26 EDT
> Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the "Homeland"?
> http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/24/army/
> (updated below - Update II)
>
> Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing
> article from Army Times (
> http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
> ) , which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st
> Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the
> day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active
> unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint
> command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal
> homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil
> authorities." The article details:
>
>     They'll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in
> the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any
> of it.
>
>     They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd
> control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive
> poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological,
> radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. . . .
>
>     The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever
> nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col.
> Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment
> and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous
> individuals without killing them.
>
>     "It's a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that
> they're fielding. They've been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is
> the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package
> fielded, and because of this mission we're undertaking we were the
> first to get it."
>
>     The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block;
> spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and
> batons; and, beanbag bullets.
>
>     "I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered," said
> Cloutier, describing the experience as "your worst muscle cramp ever
> -- times 10 throughout your whole body". . . .
>
>     The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known
> for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or
> CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf").
>
> For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War --
> deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited
> under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the
> National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military
> on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after
> Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this
> prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow
> the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the
> "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a
> standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less
> honored -- until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this
> particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations
> are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over
> and that the mission will be a permanent one."
>
> After Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration began openly
> agitating for what would be, in essence, a complete elimination of the
> key prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act in order to allow the
> President to deploy U.S. military forces inside the U.S. basically at
> will -- and, as usual, they were successful as a result of rapid
> bipartisan compliance with the Leader's demand (the same kind of
> compliance that is about to foist a bailout package on the nation).
> This April, 2007 article by James Bovard in The American Conservative
> detailed the now-familiar mechanics that led to the destruction of
> this particular long-standing democratic safeguard:
>
>     The Defense Authorization Act of 2006, passed on Sept. 30,
> empowers President George W. Bush to impose martial law in the event
> of a terrorist "incident," if he or other federal officials perceive a
> shortfall of "public order," or even in response to antiwar protests
> that get unruly as a result of government provocations. . . .
>
>     It only took a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to
> raze one of the most important limits on federal power. Congress
> passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the
> president's ability to deploy the military within the United States.
> The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 tightened these restrictions, imposing
> a two-year prison sentence on anyone who used the military within the
> U.S. without the express permission of Congress. But there is a
> loophole: Posse Comitatus is waived if the president invokes the
> Insurrection Act.
>
>     Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization
> Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the
> statute book from "Insurrection Act" to "Enforcement of the Laws to
> Restore Public Order Act." The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that
> the president could deploy troops within the United States only "to
> suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful
> combination, or conspiracy." The new law expands the list to include
> "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
> terrorist attack or incident, or other condition" -- and such
> "condition" is not defined or limited. . . .
>
>     The story of how Section 1076 became law vivifies how expanding
> government power is almost always the correct answer in Washington.
> Some people have claimed the provision was slipped into the bill in
> the middle of the night. In reality, the administration clearly
> signaled its intent and almost no one in the media or Congress tried
> to stop it . . . .
>
>     Section 1076 was supported by both conservatives and liberals.
> Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate
> Armed Services Committee, co-wrote the provision along with committee
> chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. Ted Kennedy openly endorsed
> it, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House
> Armed Services Committee, was an avid proponent. . . .
>
>     Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate
> Judiciary Committee, warned on Sept. 19 that "we certainly do not need
> to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law," but his
> alarm got no response. Ten days later, he commented in the
> Congressional Record: "Using the military for law enforcement goes
> against one of the founding tenets of our democracy." Leahy further
> condemned the process, declaring that it "was just slipped in the
> defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional
> committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to
> comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."
>
> As is typical, very few members of the media even mentioned any of
> this, let alone discussed it (and I failed to give this the attention
> it deserved at the time), but Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein
> wrote an excellent article at the time detailing the process and noted
> that "despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little
> dissent, or even attention, on the Hill." Stein also noted that while
> "the blogosphere, of course, was all over it . . . a search of The
> Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms
> 'Insurrection Act,' 'martial law' and 'Congress,' came up empty."
>
> Bovard and Stein both noted that every Governor -- including
> Republicans -- joined in Leahy's objections, as they perceived it as a
> threat from the Federal Government to what has long been the role of
> the National Guard. But those concerns were easily brushed aside by
> the bipartisan majorities in Congress, eager -- as always -- to grant
> the President this radical new power.
>
> The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade
> inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the
> fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing
> prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs
> that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly
> decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It
> shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of
> the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's
> police force, is so disturbing. Bovard:
>
>     "Martial law" is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When
> foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial
> law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has
> occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation?
> something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally
> empowering the president to rule by decree.
>
> The historic importance of the Posse Comitatus prohibition was also
> well-analyzed here.
>
> As the recent militarization of St. Paul during the GOP Convention
> made abundantly clear, our actual police forces are already quite
> militarized. Still, what possible rationale is there for permanently
> deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command
> of the President -- for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd
> control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly
> unlimited array of other uses at the President's sole discretion? And
> where are all of the stalwart right-wing "small government
> conservatives" who spent the 1990s so vocally opposing every aspect of
> the growing federal police force? And would it be possible to get some
> explanation from the Government about what the rationale is for this
> unprecedented domestic military deployment (at least unprecedented
> since the Civil War), and why it is being undertaken now?
>
> UPDATE: As this commenter notes, the 2008 National Defense
> Authorization Act somewhat limited the scope of the powers granted by
> the 2007 Act detailed above (mostly to address constitutional concerns
> by limiting the President's powers to deploy the military to suppress
> disorder that threatens constitutional rights), but President Bush,
> when signing that 2008 Act into law, issued a signing statement which,
> though vague, seems to declare that he does not recognize those new
> limitations.
>
> UPDATE II: There's no need to start manufacturing all sorts of scare
> scenarios about Bush canceling elections or the imminent declaration
> of martial law or anything of that sort. None of that is going to
> happen with a single brigade and it's unlikely in the extreme that
> they'd be announcing these deployments if they had activated any such
> plans. The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent,
> quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important
> democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the
> danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.
>
> -- Glenn Greenwald
>
>     * Buzz up!
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>
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>
>
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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 12:27:19 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:27:19 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Why Israeli settlers are lashing out
Message-ID: <200810011827.m91IRJJB009042@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 12:24:41 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:24:41 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Robert Meeropol Responds to New Rosenberg Testimony
Message-ID: <200810011824.m91IOf3k002987@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 12:26:52 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:26:52 -0700
Subject: [R-G] (Iraq) The Myth of the Surge
Message-ID: <200810011826.m91IQq4D008043@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 12:28:49 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:28:49 -0700
Subject: [R-G] In Defense of Ahmadinejad
Message-ID: <200810011828.m91ISnfQ012403@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 12:29:58 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:29:58 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Hezbollah: running on a New Deal platform
Message-ID: <200810011829.m91ITwCY014819@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From suzannedk at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 13:19:07 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 21:19:07 +0200
Subject: [R-G] In Defense of Ahmadinejad
In-Reply-To: <200810011828.m91ISnfQ012403@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>
References: <200810011828.m91ISnfQ012403@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810011219g42b1f059g35dc644361714ae2@mail.gmail.com>

A vital tenant of Islam is to speak truth to power.  If one knows it one
must speak!  Along with that is the order to educate oneself, pray and
learn, give to those who have not, pray again and at least one time in your
life, make the pilgrimage to Mecca.  Most Islamic leaders are all highly
educated men, very pious.  Knowing these things, one would assume the
President of Iran knows of what he speaks.
S. de Kuyper


On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Sid Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca> wrote:

>
>   28 September 2008
>   In Defense of Ahmadinejad
>   I am not a great fan of Ahmadinejad. I often find his pronouncements
>   unscrupulous, undiplomatic and occasionally repugnant. However, I
>   must admit that I agree with most, if not all, of what he said in his
>   speech
>   to the United Nations regarding Israel and its manifestly criminal
>   treatment
>   of the Palestinian people.
>   By Khalid Amayreh
>   Following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads speech at the UN last
>   week, Zionist and pro-Zionist circles lashed out at the Iranian
>   leader, calling his speech anti-Semitic.
>   Israeli President, Shimon Peres, a notorious liar and war criminal,
>   went as far as asking UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moonto bar the
>   Iranian leader from talking at the UN again as if the world body were
>   an annex establishment answerable to the World Zionist Congress.
>   Moreover, Peres had the audacity to claim that Iranian support for
>   terrorist groups, was the main reason for the deadlocked peace
>   process. Peres utterly ignored the all-conspicuous fact that the
>   intensive building of Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank,
>   especially in East Jerusalem, is the main obstacle impeding peace in
>   the Middle East. In fact, even some Israeli politicians and Knesset
>   members as well as numerous journalists dont deny this fact. But a
>   liar is a lair.
>   Eager to pursue their genocidal ethnic cleansing against their
>   Palestinian victims, the shipyard dogs of Zionism couldnt resist the
>   temptation of using the holocaust to besmirch the Iranian leader.
>   Fortunately, however, the erstwhile potent weapon of throwing the
>   canard of anti-Semitism in the face of Israel critics has become
>   increasingly stale and lost much of its previous potency.
>   Obviously, this is causing a lot of frustration among Zionist hasbara
>   doctors who are struggling desperately to keep the old weapon relevant
>   in a world where the once-undisputed Zionist propaganda is being
>   increasingly countered with accurate and veracious reports from
>   Palestine.
>   German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier , whose country has
>   been trying rather feverishly to atone for the holocaust by keeping
>   silent in the face of Israels slow-motion genocide in Palestine, has
>   also joined the shipyard dogs of Zionism in denouncing the Iranian
>   leader.
>   The blatant anti-Semitism of his speech this year was intolerable and
>   demands our mutual condemnation, said Steinmeier who wouldnt utter a
>   word against the unmitigated expansion of Jewish settlements in
>   occupied Palestine.
>   And Condoleezza Rice, the failed American Secretary of State, also
>   joined the chorus, suggesting that opposing Israeli policies was an
>   ultimate red line that shouldnt be crossed.
>   The two American presidential candidates and their running mates have
>   also attacked Ahmadinejad, with some of them equating opposition to
>   Israeli apartheid and racism to the Nazi holocaust. Well, this is
>   Americas whoring political season, after all.
>   I am not a great fan of Ahmadinejad, and I am not really infatuated
>   with many of his pronouncements which I often find unscrupulous,
>   undiplomatic and occasionally repugnant.
>   However, for the sake of intellectual honesty, I must admit that I do
>   agree with most, if not all, of what he said in his speech regarding
>   Israel and its manifestly criminal treatment of the Palestinian
>   people.
>   Let us consider the following paragraph of Ahmadinejads speech:
>   In Palestine, 60 years of carnage and invasion is still ongoing at the
>   hands of some criminal and occupying Zionists. They have forged a
>   regime through collecting people from various parts of the world and
>   bringing them to other people's land by displacing, detaining, and
>   killing the true owners of that land. With advance notice, they
>   invade, assassinate, and maintain food and medicine blockades, while
>   some hegemonic and bullying powers support them. The Security Council
>   cannot do anything and sometimes, under pressure from a few bullying
>   powers, even paves the way for supporting these Zionist murderers. It
>   is natural that some UN resolutions that have addressed the plight of
>   the Palestinian people have been relegated to the archives unnoticed.
>   Well, after reading the above paragraph word by word, I dont see any
>   wrong with it. In fact, this is what numerous non-Palestinian,
>   non-Arab and non-Muslim intellectuals are saying. Let us be honest, we
>   all know that Israel wouldnt have seen daylight had it not been for
>   the systematic and murderous ethnic cleansing of the native
>   Palestinian inhabitants at the hands of Ashkenazi Jews coming from
>   Eastern Europe. So where is the anti-Semitism here?
>   Ahmadinejad did say that the Zionists, though a tiny minority, were
>   dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers
>   as well as the political decision-making centers in many western
>   states.
>   It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere
>   nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part
>   in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their
>   interests in order to attain financial or media support.
>   Again, his remarks are certainly politically incorrect and might sound
>   a kind of taboo to western ears. However, upon meticulous examination,
>   one will eventually conclude that the Iranian President didnt really
>   deviate from truth.
>   For it is a fact that the Zionists do control to a large extent the
>   policies and politics of the United States. One former American
>   senator once referred to US Congress as Israeli occupied territory.
>   In his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, former President Jimmy
>   Carter made several references to the sweeping power of the Israeli
>   lobby in American politics.
>   In an interview with Forward Carter reiterated his views in this
>   regard: I think the Israel Lobby, so-called to use your phrase, thats
>   not my phrase is much stronger now and much more effective now than it
>   was when I was in office. I felt, for instance, that we should sell
>   F-16 airplanes to Saudi Arabia so Saudis could defend themselves
>   against threats from Iran, and AIPAC and others were adamantly against
>   it, but we finally prevailed. And I called within three months of when
>   I went into office for a Palestinian homeland. And I worked for the
>   Camp David accords, which called for Israels political and military
>   withdrawal from the occupied territories, and so forth and I think
>   that that kind of independence was also exhibited by George Bush, Sr.,
>   who condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and even withheld
>   funds from Israel, which I never did, by the way. Thats almost
>   impossibility now in the present political environment of America.
>   Carter, who was subjected to a virulent smear campaign by the
>   organized Jewish lobby and by the Jewish-controlled or
>   Jewish-influenced media in North America, defended his book, accusing
>   his Jewish-Zionist accusers of seeking to stifle any debate in America
>   over the Israeli apartheid regime.
>   It is almost a universal silence concerning anything that might be
>   critical of current Israeli policies of the Israeli government.
>   There is a tremendous intimidation in this country that has silenced
>   our people. And its not just individuals; it is not just folks who are
>   running for office. Its the news media as well.
>   Of course, this issue of exposing Zionist domination over American
>   politics didnt start with Carter. In 1978, the renowned American
>   Jewish author Alfred Lilienthal wrote a very informative book entitled
>   The Zionist Connection which exposed and meticulously documented the
>   Zionist domination of American politics and media. In my view, The
>   Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? was one of the best books ever
>   written in the 20th century.
>   A few years later, a former American senator, Paul Findley wrote a
>   book detailing how Jewish pressure groups were blackmailing American
>   politicians and institutions into supporting Israel and her
>   colonialist policies in Palestine.
>   And now we have Professors Mearsheimers and Walts book The Israeli
>   Lobby and US Foreign Policy which explains in meticulous details how
>   this Zionist snake is controlling American Foreign Policy by
>   controlling domestic American politics.
>   In short, Ahmadinejad is not inventing anything. What he said with
>   regard to Israel and Zionism at the UN last week could have been said
>   by Carter or Paul Findley or any other honest observer of the American
>   political scene for the past few decades.
>   Yes, the tone of his speech may have been sharp and a little
>   provocative, but there is no doubt as to the veracity of he said.
> _______________________________________________
> 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 shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 13:52:07 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:52:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The latest from the land of the free...
Message-ID: <200810011952.m91Jq7sQ007333@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  1 16:46:05 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 15:46:05 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Bush Plan Down but Not Out
Message-ID: <77EC0955-B34E-4DC7-B814-668C4330B827@shaw.ca>

ECONOMY-US:  Bush Plan Down but Not Out
By Adrianne Appel
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44082

BOSTON, Sep 30 (IPS) - Leading U.S. lawmakers and the cabinet of Pres.  
George W. Bush met behind closed doors Tuesday to strategise a way to  
win more votes for their 700-billion-dollar plan to bail out Wall  
Street, a plan that met with stunning defeat in the U.S. House on  
Monday.

The leaders announced late Tuesday that they had arranged a vote on  
Wednesday in the Senate, even though Congress is officially on break.  
The Senate is considered more likely to approve the plan, and if it  
does, this will add pressure on the House to get on board.

"I am disappointed by the outcome, but I assure our citizens and  
citizens around the world that this is not the end of the legislative  
process," Bush said Tuesday morning.

Only 12 additional House votes are needed to pass the bill.

"The 12 people who switch will be the most powerful people in America  
over the next few days. They will shape the compromise bill," Darrell  
West, vice president and director of government studies at the  
Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, told IPS.

Grassroots protests are planned throughout cities in the U.S. on  
Wednesday, calling for no bailout of Wall Street.

Meanwhile, economists continued to warn against the Bush plan, saying  
an entirely new approach is needed to truly free up the credit  
markets, the loans between big banks that are key to a fully  
functioning global economy.

"At this point I cannot identify a single good reason to do the [Bush]  
bailout," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Centre for Economic and  
Policy Research.

"Much of the country's political and economic leadership has been  
running around raising the prospect of the Great Depression and a  
breakdown in the banking system," Baker said. "These stories are  
absolutely not true," he added.

In the days before the vote, 400 economists signed onto a letter to  
lawmakers, urging them not to approve the Bush plan, said Rep. Peter  
DeFazio, who received the letter and voted against Bush's bill.

"If we don't get this right were going to be back looking for more  
money and our credit will be exhausted," DeFazio said.

"They warned that it's a risky bet. It's a bet that shouldn't be  
placed by taxpayers," DeFazio said.

Bush's multi-billion dollar plan went down in flames Monday in a  
narrow defeat of 205 to 228 against, made possible by the defection of  
a majority of members of his own party, the Republicans, along with  
one-third of the Democrats.

"The problem was this legislation was very poor. The idea of bailing  
out rich Wall Street institutions wins no friends," West said.

The Bush plan, crafted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson with input  
from Republican and Democratic leaders, would give Paulson wide  
latitude in spending700 billion dollars with little oversight. The  
bill does not curb excessive CEO compensation or assist the million  
people dealing with foreclosure of their homes.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama called on their  
colleagues to pass the bill. Many lawmakers, however, stood firm.

"Why is it that we can find a way to bail out Wall Street, but we  
cannot help the people struggling on Main Street? People are losing  
their jobs, their homes, and struggling without health care. No one  
has come to their rescue, but yet overnight we are pressed to come to  
the aid of Wall Street," Rep. John Lewis said before voting against  
the bill.

U.S. citizens from coast to coast cried foul and flooded Congress with  
phone calls and emails telling them to vote against the bailout.  
Hundreds of lawmakers heard them.

"When I tell my constituents that a fellow named Paulson came and  
asked for 700 billion dollars for the financial industry, they say,  
'What about me? We understand the urgency of the moment, we also want  
fairness," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, who voted against  
the bill.

Adding to Monday's drama, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 777  
points, the largest single-day drop in history, and governments around  
the world moved to stabilise their financial sectors. Regulators in  
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg came to the aid of Fortis, a  
Banking and insurance enterprise. Brazil's stock market dropped 9  
percent after the U.S. House vote.

The U.S. Federal Reserve made hundreds of billions more available to  
the world's central banks, the large banks that loan currency to each  
other, trying to ease the credit crunch. U.S. markets rebounded Tuesday.

The prospect of a hasty Senate vote on Wednesday did not go over well  
with Rep. Peter DeFazio, who is opposed to Bush's plan.

"We have to make sure the Senate doesn't ram this through," DeFazio  
told reporters. He and other progressive Democrats will introduce  
their own bill to aid the economy, they said.

DeFazio and a group of progressive Democrats want no part of the Bush  
plan, and Tuesday announced that they had drafted their own bill aimed  
at assisting stalled credit markets, boosting the troubled U.S.  
housing market and helping homeowners.

"It shouldn't bee too hard to come to an agreement to deal with the  
problem of lending between banks," DeFazio said.

"We need to start with a clean slate. I come from a district facing  
the highest rates of foreclosure in [Maryland]. People are losing  
their homes. We need to have a mechanism in this legislation for  
helping those homeowners," said Rep. Donna Edwards.

(END/2008) 


From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  1 17:26:34 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:26:34 -0700
Subject: [R-G] 10 Reasons Why Save Darfur is a PR Scam
Message-ID: <200810012326.m91NQY9R025705@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/20081001/3708cd35/attachment.txt 

From critical.montages at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 17:50:05 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 19:50:05 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Dean Baker on the "Credit Squeeze Scare"
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810011650u399162c0t4e7fc8c5d980bc46@mail.gmail.com>

Comment? -- Yoshie
________________________________

When Wall Street Needs Money, Rules of Journalism No Longer Apply

By Dean Baker

Washington DC's Fox affiliate appears to have been taken over by Wall
Street lobbyists. It has been reporting all sorts of unsubstantiated
assertions that a credit squeeze is destroying the economy. You'd
never know that typical 30-year mortgage is going for around 6.0
percent these days. Back when I last bought a home I had to pay 7.15
percent. But in Fox's sell the bailout campaign, there is no place for
arithmetic.

Of course few people expect much journalistic integrity from Fox. On
the other hand, the NYT enjoys a somewhat better reputation. However,
with some of its reporting on the bailout, it's not clear this better
reputation is deserved Today it told readers that "early on Tuesday,
banks were charging one another the highest overnight borrowing costs
ever recorded, as measured by an important rate known as Libor."

That sounds really bad -- the highest overnight borrowing cost in
history. Maybe it would have been helpful to tell readers that this
data has only been compiled since 2001, a period of unusually low
interest rates.

If we want a longer time frame, we can look at the history for the
three month interbank rate. Bloomberg reports that the three month
London Interbank rate (LIBOR) closed at 4.05 percent on Tuesday. In
the same chart, we can find that it was 5.23 percent a year ago.

Those interested in a little more history can find that the LIBOR rate
was over 8.0 percent for most of 1990 and actually topped 9.0 percent
on some days in September of 1989.

So how scared should we be that yesterday's interest rate was almost
half as large as the three month LIBOR back in 1989? It would be hard
for a serious person to explain how a 4.05 percent LIBOR can shut down
the economy, when the interest rate has been more than twice as high
in the not too distant past. But, that won't fit the NYT credit crisis
story, so you won't see the historical data mentioned.

-- This article was published on September 30, 2008 on Dean Baker's
Beat the Press blog.

________________________________

The Credit Squeeze Scare

By Dean Baker

The Federal Reserve Board chairman described the credit squeeze as
being "as severe as any supply-induced constraint ever, other than
from policy actions." That statement should help to prompt Congress
into quick passage of the bank bailout bill, except this quote is from
February of 1991, and the chairman at the time was Alan Greenspan.

The economy is in a recession and banks always tighten up on credit in
a recession. When the economy's growth prospects are in question, it
puts the health of any particular business into question. Therefore,
banks will be far more hesitant to make loans during a period of
economic weakness. There were literally hundreds of news stories about
the credit squeeze in the 1990-1991 recession.

While the story of the big Wall Street banks teetering and/or crashing
may be unique to the current downturn, the stories we are hearing of
the main street credit squeeze could be cut and pasted from the news
coverage of the 1990-1991 recession.

There is little reason to believe that the current tightness is
substantially worse than what we have seen in prior recessions.

The most obvious measure of credit tightness is interest rates. We
expect that banks will raise interest rates if the demand for credit
substantially exceeds the supply. Yet, the interest rates on most
categories of loans are far below their averages over recent decades.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the average interest
rate on 30-year fixed rate mortgages was 6.07 percent last week (down
from 6.08 percent the prior week). Back in the early 90s, the average
interest rate on 30-year mortgages was over 9.0 percent.

State and local governments are complaining about having to pay
interest rates of 5.0 percent, but back in the early 90s they were
paying more than 6.0 percent. The same applies to loans for large and
small businesses. The interest rates are somewhat higher now than they
were in prior months, but they are still relatively low by historic
standards. (Real interest rates are even lower by historic standards,
since the inflation rate is higher today than it was in the early
90s.)

Of course this past history doesn't mitigate the pain being suffered
by families and businesses trying to make ends meet. But it is
important to put the problem in context. No one threatened us with the
Great Depression if we didn't cough up $700 billion for the Wall
Street banks in the 1990-1991 recession.

The bottom line is that we have badly over-leveraged banks who are on
the edge of collapse and we have a credit tightening due to an
economic downturn. These problems are related, but even if we could
snap our fingers and make the banks healthy again tomorrow, we would
still have a serious credit problem due to the recession. In other
words, many of the businesses and people who have been appearing on
news shows because they could not get credit would still not be able
to get credit. (Although they probably will not be appearing on the
news shows once the bailout passes.)

Just to remind everyone the cause is the loss of more than $4 trillion
in housing equity due to the collapse of the housing bubble. The
collapse of this bubble has not only devastated the construction and
real estate market, it also has forced consumers to cut back. Tens of
millions of homeowners no longer have any equity against which to
borrow. Even those who still have equity realize that they will have
to increase their savings to support themselves in retirement.

And all this came about because the experts who are now insisting that
we need a bailout had previously insisted that there was no housing
bubble and that everything was just fine. It is always important to
keep things in context.

-- This article was published on October 1, 2008 by TPM Caf? (Talking
Points Memo).

________________________________

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How
the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He also
has a blog on the American Prospect, "Beat the Press", where he
discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

________________________________

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent,
nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic
debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect
people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel
Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman,
Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum,
Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers
University.

________________________________

Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW,
Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 18:07:28 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 20:07:28 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Doug Henwood: If the Rejection Survives, Perilous Times Ahead
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810011707x69a41514r54882ce32f17a21c@mail.gmail.com>

Normally crisis-skeptic Doug sounds more panicky than centrists like
Kenneth Rogoff and center-leftists like Dean Baker and James K.
Galbraith:
<http://therealnews.com/id/2441/September 30,
2008/Bailout+must+be+combined+with+structural+reform>.  Comment?

Yoshie


From mstainsby at resist.ca  Wed Oct  1 18:12:00 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:12:00 -0600
Subject: [R-G] Photos from: Confronting the Olympic "Spirit Train" in
	Edmonton
Message-ID: <48E411D0.6080708@resist.ca>

Please post/link to/etc these photos on anti-2010/anti-tar sands 
websites, blogs, etc.

Photos from the successful disruption of the CP "Spirit Train", 
protesters confronted the Alberta tar sands and 2010 Olympic Winter 
Games in Vancouver's plans for corporate domination and continued 
indigenous land displacement, increased homelessness as a result of both 
massive projects and environmental devastation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31005179 at N04/sets/72157607645179866/


From realiteee1 at yahoo.com  Wed Oct  1 18:35:24 2008
From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 17:35:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] CODEPINK: Friend, WE DID IT!!! We can't stop now!
In-Reply-To: <E1BXTWr-0006aZ-00@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <315695.61029.qm@web50812.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Friend, WE DID IT!!! We can't stop now! 
September 30, 2008
Dear Friend,

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/6967/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1413

WE DID IT!!! Let us repeat: WE DID IT!

We joined together, in a wonderful, resolute outpouring of democracy. We stood toe-to-toe with Wall Street and their lackeys in Congress, and defeated them. Amazing what can happen when the people stand up! 

In Washington DC, as CODEPINK staged a "die-in" on the steps of the Capitol to say "Bailout? Over my dead body," Cong. Carolyn Kilpatrick gave us a big hug and said, "It's thanks to you that the bill is better than it was, and it's thanks to you that the next bill will be better than this one. Keep it up." 

That's just what we intend to do-demand that Congress go back to the drawing board and come up with bottom-up solutions that will provide direct relief for struggling homeowners, invest in a productive economy and force Wall Street to pay for its mistakes. Now is the time to mobilize our "people power."

 This Wednesday, October 1st, we are taking to the streets again to say "Bail out Main Street, not Wall Street!" If your Congressperson voted for this bill, take your event to their office. Show your outrage with a picket line, a sit-in or-better yet-organize a 24-hour encampment outside their office or their home. Find or create an event in your area. Remember, call the media!

 Flood the offices of your rep and Senator with calls (202-224-3121). Tell them to only vote Yes on future bailout bills that will directly benefit the American people. Add that we can save $12 billion a month by bringing our troops home!

 Tell Senators Obama and McCain to provide leadership by standing up for the people, not Wall Street. Sign the petition and we will hand-deliver your signatures and comments to their DC offices on Wednesday, October 1.

We've breathed some life back into our democracy, but we can't stop now! Email your friends, your families, your coworkers, your sports team, your religious group, you civic organization and tell them the moment is now to stand up against giving away our tax dollars to the rich. 

Let's join together this Wednesday and make them feel our power!
Dana, Deidra, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jean, Jodie, Liz, Lori, Medea, Nancy, and Rae

p.s. To educate yourself about the current crisis and alternative solutions, read:

Time for a Taxpayers Revolt 
Joseph Stiglitz article on the Huffington Post 
Subprime Mess Explained in a PowerPoint Presentation

Dollars and Cents blog 
http://bailoutmainstreet.com (our coalition partner) 
Great YouTube of Rep. Marcy Kaptur


      


From realiteee1 at yahoo.com  Wed Oct  1 18:39:49 2008
From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 17:39:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] Friends Digest Vol. 2, No. 10
In-Reply-To: <E1BXTWr-0006aZ-00@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <246199.10237.qm@web50808.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*
                       How can the life of such a man
                       Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
                       To see him obviously framed
                       Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed
                       To live in a land where justice is a game.
                       -- Bob Dylan, "Hurricane"
                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*

* Election 2008 *

If you're not registered at your current home address you won't
be able to vote in the general election. Are you registered to
vote? You sure? Click on the VotePoke icon on our home page at
<http://www.FreePeltierNow.org> to find out.

"Perhaps more than anyone else, the Native American community
faces huge challenges that have been ignored by Washington for too
long. It is time to empower Native Americans in the development of
the national policy genda."  -- Barack Obama

To review Senator Obama's principles for stronger tribal communities,
see <http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/firstamissues>.

The 2008 Democratic National Platform for America:

-- 2008 Democratic Platform
<http://www.nativevote.org/documents/2008%20Democratic%20Platform%20(final).pdf>

-- 2008 Democratic Platform Appendices A, B, and C
<http://www.nativevote.org/documents/2008%20Democratic%20Platform%20Appendices%20A,%20B,%20and%20C%20(final).pdf>

Also review the 2008 platform of the
National Congress of American Indians:
<http://www.nativevote.org/documents/PresidentialTransition/NCAIPoliticalPlatform2008.pdf>.

* Events *

We don't maintain a calendar of events per se but
event announcements are regularly posted to our blog.
For Peltier network and other event announcements, see
<http://freepeltiernow.blogspot.com/search/label/Events>.

Of special note, a series of radio interviews
on Peltier and his fight for freedom; see
<http://freepeltiernow.blogspot.com/2008/09/lp-doc-update-upcoming-radio-interviews.html>.

* Happy Birthday *

Every day is a beautiful day, but we've heard a rumor that tomorrow
is a particularly special day.  Many blessings to Harvey Arden who
will turn 73 tomorrow.  Please send birthday greetings to Harvey
at <harveyarden at starpower.net>.

* March for Political Prisoners *

On October 10, 2008, there will be a national mobilization in New
York City calling for amnesty and freedom for all US-held political
prisoners and prisoners of war. The aim of 10/10 is not just to
get people out to the march, but to gather folks together to build
a lasting relationship and strategize on how to get our political
prisoners and prisoners of war free, and to continue their and
our struggle for justice and freedom. For more information, visit
<http://www.thejerichomovement.com/>.

                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*
"Never cease in the fight for peace, justice, and equality for all
people. Be persistent in all that you do and don't allow anyone to
sway you from your conscience." -- Leonard Peltier
                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*

-----
Please circulate to family and friends and otherwise widely
post our listserv announcements. Also frequently visit our
Blog at <http://FreePeltierNow.blogspot.com> or receive our
blog postings by Web feed (download a free newsfeed reader at
<http://www.feedreader.com>):

Atom: <http://FreePeltierNow.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default>

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Or register to receive e-mail announcements. It's easy. Go to our
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down the page until you see "Join Us" on the left sidebar. Enter
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<FreePeltierNow-on at mail-list.com>.

You also can Bookmark our home page and/or blog. Click on the
Bookmark button provided at each of these sites to use any program
you wish by which to save the sites to your list of browser
favorites. Visit us often to learn more about efforts to win
Leonard's freedom and find out what you can do to help.

We encourage other sites to link to our Web site and blog. No prior
permission is required. Feel free to use one of our banner ads at
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Visit us on MySpace (<http://www.myspace.com/FreePeltierNow>) and
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-----  

Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
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From critical.montages at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 19:26:31 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 21:26:31 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Julio Huato Hoping for a Democrat Victory and Bank
	Nationalization
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810011826u2fe5fb94wc7986f2a7d6e23e0@mail.gmail.com>

Meanwhile, Julio Huato is hoping that if we could hold off till the
Democrats get to rule both the White House and Congress, we might get
a better deal, perhaps bank nationalization.  I doubt that Obama is
any better, since he is backing the bailout plan anyhow, but is there
any reason we have to rush to approve the bailout _now_ without
haggling more? -- Yoshie

<http://juliohuato.wordpress.com/>

So, here's the thing: In principle, yes, it's better to face now these
risks and try to preempt a deeper and longer recession by passing the
TARP deal as is, or almost as is.  However, in the long run, this
"better" may turn out to be only "marginally better."  Why?  Because
it's likely that, in November, Obama and the Democrats running for
Congress will prevail, which will drastically alter the political
landscape.

Come January (or even November) the Democrats will be in a completely
different position, thus having more clout to shape up expectations in
the economy and, more importantly, to shape the actual bank rescue
deal.  It seems to me that the Democrats in power would be more
willing, especially under active popular pressure, to undertake the
(partial) nationalization of troubled banks, a much better approach
than buying off toxic assets at some above-market arbitrary price in
the hope that 1) the banks are thus re-capitalized and 2) the Treasury
is at some point able to dump them in the market at a decent premium.

Krugman, DeLong, Galbraith, et alia have aptly argued in favor of the
Sweedish approach to rescuing the banks and there's no reason to
belabor that point here.  I could add (a bit vaguely, I admit) that
Mexico's own experience is consistent with their argument.  In 1982,
Mexico nationalized the banking system.  Then, during the Salinas
administration, the banks were sold back to private capitalists.  Even
though the process was corrupt to the core, it seems that Mexico's
treasury didn't do too bad on the deal.  (I'll sound like Palin vis
Couric, but I should get back to ya on this.  Need to look for
references to this, as I'm sure there are studies that show it.  My 3
readers: please help.)

Then, in 1995, as a result of the Tequila crisis, Mexico's private
banks got again in deep trouble.  This time, the government of Ernesto
Zedillo used the National Fund for Savings' Protection (FOBAPROA), an
institution created by Carlos Salinos in the spirit of the FDIC, to
assume the banks' liabilities that resulted from the insolvencies and
bankruptcies following the peso plunge.  Altogether, the FOBAPROA
assumed about 50 billion USD of banks' bad debt, and that debt was
later (in 1998) formalized as part of Mexico's public debt.  Aside
from the outright fraud and corruption involved in FOBAPROA's
operations, duly documented by the political opposition in Mexico, the
deal was not nearly as good from the viewpoint of Mexico's treasury as
the 1982 nationalization.

I wish I could be more specific about the reasons why one approach
worked and the other didn't, but at some point one has to be humble
and admit that ignorance is no valid argument.

Anyway, the main point I wanted to make today is this: Sometimes it's
better to have a good fight than a bad settlement.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Wed Oct  1 22:47:56 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 00:47:56 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Poverty of Crisis Debate
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810012147s2b2218d9xef6ee69864d9805a@mail.gmail.com>

Leftists, especially Marxists, are fond of debates on crises.  But our
debates have often revolved around questions that are not exactly
helpful to people in crisis.  We tend to debate such questions as:

What are the underlying causes of crisis -- overaccumulation,
overproduction, underconsumption, or what?

But the question that we should have been really debating, learning
from historical examples, is: in case of a crisis, _how_ do we counter
a financial blackmail of capital (e.g., if you don't give us $700
billion, we'll commit suicide bombing and take you all down)?  As long
as we cave to this blackmail and seek a solution on capital's terms,
we'll remain social democrats.

Thoughts?

Yoshie


From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Thu Oct  2 00:45:07 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:45:07 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Black Monday?
Message-ID: <48E46DF3.3070706@attglobal.net>


House and Global Investors Vote "No" on Paulson Bailout

by Mike Whitney

Counterpunch (September 29 2008)

Today the US House rejected Treasury Secretary Paulson's $700 billion
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Paulson said he has the
votes, but Paulson was wrong. The House bucked the Paulson's claim that
buying up the illiquid mortgage-backed assets from the nation's banks
would be enough to save the financial system from an impending meltdown.
The jury remains out on that question, too. Professor Nouriel Roubini,
chairman of Roubini Global Economics, summed it up like this, "You're
not resolving the two fundamental issues: You still have to recapitalize
the banking system, and household debt is going to stay high". A large
number of economists believe Roubini is right. The bill would not solve
the underlying problems.

There is a crisis. The banking system is undercapitalized, the credit
markets are frozen, and foreign creditors are beginning to slow their
purchases of US debt. It's all bad. At the same time the number of
casualties among the financial giants - Bear Stearns, Indymac, AIG,
Lehman, Washington Mutual - continues to grow. Three more struggling
European banks were added to the list of financial institutions that
needed emergency government assistance this past weekend. It's no wonder
Congress feels like they have to do something to stop the bleeding.

Before the stock market opened on Monday, the futures markets had
slumped heavily into negative territory, while the TED spread, an
indicator of stress in interbank lending, had widened to 3.19, a level
that suggests another rocky week of trading ahead. Could this be another
Black Monday?

Paulson's bill was designed to avert a system-wide crash by clearing the
banks' balance sheets so they could resume extending credit to consumers
and businesses. The hope was that massive infusion of capital would
"turn back the clock" to the happy days of low interest speculation and
bubble economics. Paulson is a "one trick pony" who firmly adheres to
the belief that wealth creation depends on maximum leverage and an
ever-weakening currency. But that world view is no longer applicable
after reaching Peak Credit, where consumers are no longer able to make
the interest payments on their loans and businesses and financial
institutions are forced to curb their spending and dump their toxic
assets at firesale prices. The system is deleveraging and nothing can
stop it. Paulson has yet to accept the new reality.

Besides, there was no guarantee that the banks would use the money in
the way that Paulson imagines. As one Wall Street veteran explained to
me, "I don't see one penny of that $700 billion ending up helping the
broader economy. I see it being used to prop up share prices so the
insiders can salvage as much as possible when dumping their shares."

Indeed, the $700 billion is just part of a massive "pump and dump"
scheme engineered with the tacit approval of the US Treasury and the
Federal Reserve. Once the banksters have offloaded their fraudulent
securities and crappy paper on Uncle Sam, they will do whatever they
need to do pad the bottom line and drive their stocks up. That means
they will shovel capital into hard assets, foreign currencies, gold,
interest rate swaps, carry trade swindles, and Swiss bank accounts. The
notion that they will recapitalize so they can provide loans to US
consumers and businesses in a slumping economy is a pipedream.

The US is headed into its worst recession in sixty years. The housing
market is crashing, securitzation is kaput, and the broader economy is
drifting towards the reef. The banks are not going to waste their time
trying to revive a moribund US market where consumers and businesses are
already tapped out. No way; it's on to greener pastures. They'll move
their capital wherever they think they can maximize their profits. In
fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in
commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic
speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into
the stratosphere. Ironically, the taxpayers' largesse will be used
against them, making a bad situation even worse.

Then again, if a rehabbed bill isn't passed, no one can predict with
certainty what will happen. Here's how Tim Shipman summed it up in
"Bailout Failure Will Cause US Crash", in the UK Telegraph:

"Officials close to Paulson are privately painting a far bleaker
portrait of the fragility of the global economy than that advanced by
President George W Bush in his televised address last week.

"One Republican said that the message from government officials is that
'the economy is dropping into the john'. He added: 'We could see falls
of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently
trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days'.

"'What's being put around behind the scenes is that we're looking at
1930s stuff. We're looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe.
Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It's going to be really, really
nasty.'"


The fear on Capital Hill is palpable, especially among the Democrats who
have led the effort to pass Paulson's boondoggle ASAP. Speaker of the
House, Nancy Pelosi, and fellow Democratic Party leaders, Chris Dodd,
Harry Reid and the blabbering blowhard from Massachusetts, Barney Frank,
did everything in their power to sandbag dissenters, quash resistance,
and rush the bill to a vote without the usual deliberation and debate.
Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) was one of many angry members of
congress who lashed out at Pelosi's highhandedness. It's all caught on a
one minute video:

Representative Marcy Kaptur: "The normal legislative process that should
accompany a monumental proposal to bail out Wall Street has been
shelved. Yes, shelved! Only a few insiders are doing the dealing. These
criminals have so much power they can shut down the normal legislative
process of the highest lawmaking body in this land. All the committees
that should be scanning every word that is being negotiated have been
benched. And that means the American people have been benched. We are
constitutionally sworn to protect this country against all enemies
foreign and domestic, and yes, my friends, there are enemies ... The
people who are pushing this bill are the very same one's who are
responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then;
and they are fraudulent now. We should say No to this deal." {1}


Republicans were equally furious at the way the Pelosi Politburo kept
the rank and file out of loop as much as possible. Representative
Michael Burgess (R-Texas) summarized the feelings of a great many
congressmen who felt they were being railroaded by Pelosi and Company:
"We have seen no bill. We have been here debating talking points ...
House Republicans have been cut out of the process and derided by the
leaders of the House Democrats as "unpatriotic" for not participating in
supporting the bill. Mr Speaker, I have been thrown out of more meetings
in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible as an elected official
of 800,000 citizens of North Texas ... Since we didn't have hearings,
since we didn't have markup, let's at least put this legislation up on
the Internet for 24 hours and let the American people see what we have
done in the dark of night. After all, I have never gotten more mail on a
single issue than on this bill that is before us tonight."

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) gave the best speech of the day
railing against the financial industry and defending the interests of
working class Americans.

Representative Dennis Kucinich: "The $700 bailout bill is being driven
by fear not fact. This is too much money, in too short of time, going to
too few people, while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't
we having hearings ... Why aren't we considering any other alternatives
other than giving $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we passing new
laws to stop the speculation which triggered this? Why aren't we putting
up new regulatory structures to protect the investors? Why aren't we
directly helping homeowners with their debt burdens? Why aren't we
helping American families faced with bankruptcy? Isn't time for
fundamental change to our debt-based monetary system so we can free
ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is
this the US Congress or the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs?"

There was greater opposition to the Paulson bill than any legislation in
the last half century. The groundswell of public outrage has been
unprecedented, and yet, Congress, completely insulated from the demands
of their constituents, continues to blunder ahead following the same
pro-industry script as their ideological twins in the White House.
There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. Not
surprisingly, neither Pelosi nor any of the Democratic leadership has
even met with any of the more than 200 leading economists who have
stated unequivocally that the bailout will not address the central
problems that are wreaking havoc on the financial system. Instead, they
have caved in to Bush's demagoguery and the spurious claims of
Goldman-Sax bagman Henry Paulson, a man who has misled the public on
every issue related to the subprime/financial fiasco so far.

There are parts of Paulson's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
2008 that every US taxpayer should understand, even though the media is
keeping those facts obscured. In sections 128 and 132; the proposed bill
would have suspend "mark to market" accounting. This means that the
banks would no longer be required to assess the worth of their assets
according to what similar assets fetched on the open market. For
example, Merrill Lynch just sold $31 billion of mortgage-backed
securities for $6 billion, which means that similar bonds should be
similarly priced. Simple; right? The banks need to adjust the value of
those assets on their balance sheet accordingly. This gives investors
and depositors the ability to know whether their bank is in bad shape or
not. But Paulson's bill lifted this requirement and allowed the banks to
assign their own arbitrary value to these assets, which is the same old
Enron-style accounting scam.

Paulson's bill also proposed the "Elimination of FASB 157 and 0%
reserves". This is just as sketchy as it sounds. FASB or Financial
Services Regulatory Relief Act reads:

"Federal Reserve Banks are authorized to pay banks interest on reserves
under Section 201 of the Act. In addition, Section 202 permits the FRB
to change the ratio of reserves a bank must maintain relative to its
transaction accounts, allowing a zero reserve ratio if appropriate. Due
to federal budgetary requirements, Section 203 provides that these
legislative changes will not take effect until October 1 2011."

It's all legal mumbo jumbo to conceal the fact that the banks can
continue to operate with insufficient capital, which is why the system
is currently blowing up. It all get's down to this: The reason the
system is exploding is because the various financial institutions have
been allowed - via deregulation - to act as banks and create as much
credit as they choose without a sufficient capital base. When one reads
about massive deleveraging, this relates directly to the fact that
under-capitalized businesses were operating with too much debt in
relationship to their capital. That's it in a nutshell; forget about the
CDOs, the MBSs, the CDS and the whole alphabet soup of derivatives
garbage. They were all inserted into the system so Wall Street
landsharks could expand credit without supervision and balance trillions
of dollars of debt on the back of a one dollar bill. This is why Paulson
wants to suspend the rules which would bring credibility and trust back
to the system. After all, that might impinge on Wall Street's ability to
enrich itself at the public's expense.

Nouriel Roubini sites a study by Barry Eichengreen, "And Now the Great
Depression", which points out why Paulson's $700 billion plan is likely
to fail:

"Whenever there is a systemic banking crisis there is a need to
recapitalize the banking/financial system to avoid an excessive and
destructive credit contraction. But purchasing toxic/illiquid assets of
the financial system is NOT the most effective and efficient way to
recapitalize the banking system ...

"A recent IMF study of 42 systemic banking crises across the world
provides evidence of how different crises were resolved.

"First of all only in 32 of the 42 cases there was government financial
intervention of any sort; in ten cases systemic banking crises were
resolved without any government financial intervention. Of the 32 cases
where the government recapitalized the banking system only seven
included a program of purchase of bad assets/loans (like the one
proposed by the US Treasury). In 25 other cases there was no government
purchase of such toxic assets. In six cases the government purchased
preferred shares; in four cases the government purchased common shares;
in eleven cases the government purchased subordinated debt; in twelve
cases the government injected cash in the banks; in two cases credit was
extended to the banks; and in three cases the government assumed bank
liabilities. Even in cases where bad assets were purchased - as in Chile
- dividends were suspended and all profits and recoveries had to be used
to repurchase the bad assets. Of course in most cases multiple forms of
government recapitalization of banks were used." (Nouriel Roubini's
Global EonoMonitor.)

In short, it wouldn't work. Nor was it designed to work. The bill was
just Paulson's way of carving a silver canoe for he and his
brandy-drooling investor buddies so they can paddle away to some
offshore haven while the rest of us drown in a bottomless ocean of debt.

_____

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at
fergiewghitney at msn.com

Note {1}  Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) on floor of the House on
the subject of the Wall Street bailout: "Wall Street's Greed Game" by
Jeffrey St Clair (September 25th, 2008)
http://redstaterebels.org/2008/09/wall-streets-greed-game/

http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney09292008.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 suzannedk at gmail.com  Thu Oct  2 05:41:55 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:41:55 +0200
Subject: [R-G] Dean Baker on the "Credit Squeeze Scare"
In-Reply-To: <cd351fdc0810011650u399162c0t4e7fc8c5d980bc46@mail.gmail.com>
References: <cd351fdc0810011650u399162c0t4e7fc8c5d980bc46@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810020441w6a3a1fc1u7a453535ca46b4da@mail.gmail.com>

The German finance minister agrees with D. Baker, as do most of the Chinese
finance ministers.  I offer that all the hulabalu that the NYT is helpfully
spreading is to help our governemnt find a good reason never to repay the
Asian markets for 'loaning' war money unlimited ... to agree that those
funds repaid would bankrupt the world monetary systems....and to loan more
nevertheless!

Suzanne de Kuyper

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 1:50 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi <
critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:

> Comment? -- Yoshie
> ________________________________
>
> When Wall Street Needs Money, Rules of Journalism No Longer Apply
>
> By Dean Baker
>
> Washington DC's Fox affiliate appears to have been taken over by Wall
> Street lobbyists. It has been reporting all sorts of unsubstantiated
> assertions that a credit squeeze is destroying the economy. You'd
> never know that typical 30-year mortgage is going for around 6.0
> percent these days. Back when I last bought a home I had to pay 7.15
> percent. But in Fox's sell the bailout campaign, there is no place for
> arithmetic.
>
> Of course few people expect much journalistic integrity from Fox. On
> the other hand, the NYT enjoys a somewhat better reputation. However,
> with some of its reporting on the bailout, it's not clear this better
> reputation is deserved Today it told readers that "early on Tuesday,
> banks were charging one another the highest overnight borrowing costs
> ever recorded, as measured by an important rate known as Libor."
>
> That sounds really bad -- the highest overnight borrowing cost in
> history. Maybe it would have been helpful to tell readers that this
> data has only been compiled since 2001, a period of unusually low
> interest rates.
>
> If we want a longer time frame, we can look at the history for the
> three month interbank rate. Bloomberg reports that the three month
> London Interbank rate (LIBOR) closed at 4.05 percent on Tuesday. In
> the same chart, we can find that it was 5.23 percent a year ago.
>
> Those interested in a little more history can find that the LIBOR rate
> was over 8.0 percent for most of 1990 and actually topped 9.0 percent
> on some days in September of 1989.
>
> So how scared should we be that yesterday's interest rate was almost
> half as large as the three month LIBOR back in 1989? It would be hard
> for a serious person to explain how a 4.05 percent LIBOR can shut down
> the economy, when the interest rate has been more than twice as high
> in the not too distant past. But, that won't fit the NYT credit crisis
> story, so you won't see the historical data mentioned.
>
> -- This article was published on September 30, 2008 on Dean Baker's
> Beat the Press blog.
>
> ________________________________
>
> The Credit Squeeze Scare
>
> By Dean Baker
>
> The Federal Reserve Board chairman described the credit squeeze as
> being "as severe as any supply-induced constraint ever, other than
> from policy actions." That statement should help to prompt Congress
> into quick passage of the bank bailout bill, except this quote is from
> February of 1991, and the chairman at the time was Alan Greenspan.
>
> The economy is in a recession and banks always tighten up on credit in
> a recession. When the economy's growth prospects are in question, it
> puts the health of any particular business into question. Therefore,
> banks will be far more hesitant to make loans during a period of
> economic weakness. There were literally hundreds of news stories about
> the credit squeeze in the 1990-1991 recession.
>
> While the story of the big Wall Street banks teetering and/or crashing
> may be unique to the current downturn, the stories we are hearing of
> the main street credit squeeze could be cut and pasted from the news
> coverage of the 1990-1991 recession.
>
> There is little reason to believe that the current tightness is
> substantially worse than what we have seen in prior recessions.
>
> The most obvious measure of credit tightness is interest rates. We
> expect that banks will raise interest rates if the demand for credit
> substantially exceeds the supply. Yet, the interest rates on most
> categories of loans are far below their averages over recent decades.
> According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the average interest
> rate on 30-year fixed rate mortgages was 6.07 percent last week (down
> from 6.08 percent the prior week). Back in the early 90s, the average
> interest rate on 30-year mortgages was over 9.0 percent.
>
> State and local governments are complaining about having to pay
> interest rates of 5.0 percent, but back in the early 90s they were
> paying more than 6.0 percent. The same applies to loans for large and
> small businesses. The interest rates are somewhat higher now than they
> were in prior months, but they are still relatively low by historic
> standards. (Real interest rates are even lower by historic standards,
> since the inflation rate is higher today than it was in the early
> 90s.)
>
> Of course this past history doesn't mitigate the pain being suffered
> by families and businesses trying to make ends meet. But it is
> important to put the problem in context. No one threatened us with the
> Great Depression if we didn't cough up $700 billion for the Wall
> Street banks in the 1990-1991 recession.
>
> The bottom line is that we have badly over-leveraged banks who are on
> the edge of collapse and we have a credit tightening due to an
> economic downturn. These problems are related, but even if we could
> snap our fingers and make the banks healthy again tomorrow, we would
> still have a serious credit problem due to the recession. In other
> words, many of the businesses and people who have been appearing on
> news shows because they could not get credit would still not be able
> to get credit. (Although they probably will not be appearing on the
> news shows once the bailout passes.)
>
> Just to remind everyone the cause is the loss of more than $4 trillion
> in housing equity due to the collapse of the housing bubble. The
> collapse of this bubble has not only devastated the construction and
> real estate market, it also has forced consumers to cut back. Tens of
> millions of homeowners no longer have any equity against which to
> borrow. Even those who still have equity realize that they will have
> to increase their savings to support themselves in retirement.
>
> And all this came about because the experts who are now insisting that
> we need a bailout had previously insisted that there was no housing
> bubble and that everything was just fine. It is always important to
> keep things in context.
>
> -- This article was published on October 1, 2008 by TPM Caf? (Talking
> Points Memo).
>
> ________________________________
>
> Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
> Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How
> the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He also
> has a blog on the American Prospect, "Beat the Press", where he
> discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
>
> ________________________________
>
> The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent,
> nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic
> debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect
> people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel
> Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman,
> Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum,
> Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers
> University.
>
> ________________________________
>
> Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW,
> Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
> Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Oct  2 07:02:06 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:02:06 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Congress Confronts Its Contradictions
Message-ID: <48E4C64E.2080105@attglobal.net>


by George Monbiot

The Guardian (September 30 2008)


According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700 billion
of dodgy debt by the US government "is financial socialism, it is
un-American" {1}. The economics professor Nouriel Roubini calls George
Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned
the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America" {2}. Bill
Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an advertisement in the New
York Times attacking the deal, calls it "trickle-down communism" {3}.

They are wrong. The banking subsidies Congress rejected last night are
as American as apple pie and obesity. The sums demanded by Bush and
Paulson might be unprecedented, but there is nothing new about the
principle: corporate welfare is a consistent feature of advanced
capitalism. Only one thing has changed: Congress has been forced to
confront its contradictions.

One of the best studies of corporate welfare in the United States is
published by my old enemies at the Cato Institute. Its report, by
Stephen Slivinski, estimates that in 2006 the federal government spent
$92 billion subsidising business {4}. Much of it went to major
corporations like Boeing, IBM and General Electric.

The biggest money crop - $21 billion - is harvested by Big Farmer.
Slivinski shows that the richest ten per cent of subsidised farmers took
66% of the pay-outs. Every few years Congress or the administration
promises to stop this swindle, then hands even more state money to
agribusiness. The Farm Bill passed by Congress in May guarantees farmers
a minimum of ninety per cent of the income they've received over the
past two years, which happen to be among the most profitable they've
ever had {5}. The middlemen do even better, especially the companies
spreading starvation by turning maize into ethanol, which are guzzling
billions of dollars' worth of tax credits.

Slivinski shows how the federal government's Advanced Technology
Program, which was supposed to support the development of technologies
that are "pre-competitive" or "high risk" has instead been captured by
big businesses flogging proven products. Since 1991, companies like IBM,
General Electric, Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, Ford, DuPont, General
Motors, Chevron and Monsanto have extracted hundreds of millions from
this programme. Big business is also underwritten by the Export-Import
Bank: in 2006, for example, Boeing alone received four and half billion
in loan guarantees {6}.

The government runs something called the "Foreign Military Financing
Program" which gives money to other countries to purchase weaponry from
US corporations. It doles out grants to airports for building new
runways and to fishing companies to help them wipe out endangered stocks.

But the Cato Institute's report has exposed only part of the corporate
welfare scandal. A new paper by the US Institute for Policy Studies
shows that, through a series of cunning tax and accounting loopholes,
the US spends $20 billion a year subsidising executive pay {7}. By
disguising their professional fees as capital gains rather than income,
for example, the managers of hedge funds and private equity companies
pay lower rates of tax than the people who clean their offices. A year
ago, the House of Representatives tried to close this loophole, but the
bill was blocked in the Senate after a lobbying campaign by some of the
richest men in America.

Another report, by a group called Good Jobs First, reveals that Wal-Mart
has received at least $1 billion of public money {8}. Over ninety per
cent of its distribution centres and many of its retail outlets have
been subsidised by county and local governments. They give the chain
free land, they pay for the roads, water and sewerage required to make
that land usable, and they grant it property tax breaks and subsidies
(called tax increment financing) originally intended to regenerate
depressed communities. Sometimes state governments give the firm
straight cash as well: in Virginia, for example, Wal-Mart's distribution
centres receive handouts from the Governor's Opportunity Fund.

Corporate welfare is arguably the core business of some government
departments. Many of the Pentagon's programmes deliver benefits only to
its contractors. Ballistic missile defence, for example, which has no
obvious strategic purpose and which is unlikely ever to work, has
already cost the US between $120 billiion and $150 billion. The
Department of Defense wants another $62 billion for the next five years
{9}. The US is unique among major donors in insisting that the food it
offers in aid is produced on its own soil, rather than in the regions it
is meant to be helping. USAID used to boast on its website that "the
principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has
always been the United States. Close to eighty percent of the US Agency
for International Development's contracts and grants go directly to
American firms" {10}. There is not and has never been a free market in
the United States.

Why not? Because the Congressmen and women now railing against financial
socialism depend for their re-election on the companies they subsidise.
The legal bribes paid by these businesses deliver two short-term
benefits. The first is that they prevent proper regulation, which allows
them to make spectacular profits and to generate disasters of the kind
that Congress is now confronting. The second is that public money which
should be used to help the poorest and weakest is instead diverted into
the pockets of the rich.

A report published last week by the advocacy group Common Cause shows
how bankers and brokers stopped legislators from banning unsustainable
lending {11}. Over the past financial year, the big banks spent $49
million on lobbying and $7 million in direct campaign contributions.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have spent $180 million in lobbying and
campaign finance over the past eight years. Much of this money was
thrown at members of the House Financial Services Committee and the
Senate Banking Committee.

Whenever congressmen tried to rein in the banks and mortgage lenders
they were blocked by the banks' money. Dick Durbin's 2005 amendment
seeking to stop predatory mortgage lending, for example, was defeated in
the Senate by 58 to forty. The former representative Jim Leach proposed
re-regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their lobbyists, he recalls,
managed in "less than 48 hours to orchestrate both parties' leadership"
to crush his amendments {12}.

The money these firms spend buys the socialisation of financial risk.
The $700 billion the government was looking for is just one of the
public costs of its repeated failure to regulate. Even now the lobbying
power of the banks is making itself felt: on Saturday the Democrats
watered down their demand that the money earned by executives of the
companies the government is rescuing be capped {13}. Campaign finance is
the best investment a corporation can make. You give a million dollars
to the right man and reap a billion dollars' worth of state protection,
tax breaks and subsidies. When the same thing happens in Africa we call
it corruption.

European governments are no better. The free market economics they
proclaim are a con: they intervene repeatedly on behalf of the rich,
while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Just as in the
United States, the bosses of farm companies, oil drillers, supermarkets
and banks capture the funds extracted by government from the pockets of
people much poorer than themselves. Taxpayers everywhere should be
asking the same question: why the hell should we be supporting them?

www.monbiot.com

References:

{1} Jim Bunning, quoted by James Politi and Daniel Dombey, 24th
September 2008. Republican anger at ?financial socialism'. Financial Times.

{2} Nouriel Roubini, 18th September 2008. Public losses for private
gain. The Guardian.

{3} Andrew Clark, 24th September 2008. US trader attacks ?trickle-down
communism' of markets bail-out. The Guardian.

{4} Stephen Slivinski, 14th May 2007. The Corporate Welfare State: How
the Federal Government Subsidizes US Businesses. Policy Analysis number 592.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa592.pdf

{5} Subsidy Watch, June 2008. Ignoring WTO implications and a
presidential veto, US Congress passes the new Farm Bill. Global
Subsidies Initiative.
http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/subsidy-watch/news/ignoring-wto-implications-and-a-presidential-veto-us-congress-passes-new-farm-

{6} Stephen Slivinski, ibid.

{7} Sarah Anderson et al, 25th August 2008. Executive Excess 2008
How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay. Institute for Policy
Studies. http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/#623

{8} Philip Mattera et al, May 2004. Shopping for Subsidies:
How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth.
Good Jobs First. http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf

{9} I explain why it won't work and costs so much at
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/19/the-magic-pudding/

{10} USAID. Creating Opportunities for U.S. Small Business, viewed 5th
January 2004.
http://www.usaid.gov/procurement_bus_opp/osdbu/book-information.htm

{11} Common Cause, 24th September 2008. Ask Yourself Why ... They Didn't
See This Coming.
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4542875

{12} James A Leach, 16th July 2008. Fixing Fannie and Freddie. Institute
of Politics, John F Kennedy School Of Government, Harvard University.
http://www.iop.harvard.edu/var/ezp_site/storage/fckeditor/file/Fannie%20and%20Freddie.pdf

{13} James Politi and Daniel Dombey, 28th September 2008. Long and
exhausting road to compromise. Financial Times.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/09/30/congress-confronts-its-contradictions/


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 Oct  2 09:58:17 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 08:58:17 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Project Censored The top 10 stories the U.S. news media
	missed in the past year
Message-ID: <76A8118B-2BE8-48C3-B649-2E88979BDF00@shaw.ca>

  OCTOBER 1, 2008
Project Censored
The top 10 stories the U.S. news media missed in the past year
http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A317777
BY AMANDA WITHERELL


The daily dispatches and nightly newscasts of the mainstream media  
regularly cover terrorism, but rarely how fear of attacks is used to  
manipulate the public and to set policy. That's the common thread of  
many of the unreported stories last year, according to an analysis by  
Project Censored.

Since 1976, Sonoma State University has released an annual survey of  
the top 25 stories the mainstream media failed to report or reported  
poorly. Culled from worldwide alternative news sources, vetted by  
students and faculty and ranked by judges, the stories may not have  
been overtly censored. But their controversial subjects, challenges to  
the status quo or general under-the-radar subject matter kept them  
from the front pages.

Project Censored recounts them, accompanied by media analysis, in a  
book published annually by Seven Stories Press.

"This year, war and civil liberties stood out," Peter Phillips,  
director of the project since 1996, said of the top stories. "They're  
closely related and part of the war on terror that has been the  
dominant theme of Project Censored for seven years, since 9/11."

Whether it's preventing what one piece of legislation calls "homegrown  
terrorism" by federally funding the study of radicalism, using vague  
concerns about security to quietly expand the North American Free  
Trade Agreement, or refusing to count the number of Iraqi civilians  
killed in the war, the threat of terrorism is being used to silence  
people and expand power.

"The war on terror is a sort of mind terror," said Nancy Snow, one of  
the project's 24 judges and an associate professor of public diplomacy  
at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.

"You can't declare war on terror. It's a tactic that's used by groups  
to gain publicity and it will remain with us. But it's unlikely that  
[the number of terrorist acts] will spike. It spikes in the minds of  
people," said Snow, who has taught classes on war.

She pointed out that terrorist attacks have declined worldwide since  
2003. Some use the absence of fresh attacks as evidence that the so- 
called war on terror is working, but a RAND Corporation study for the  
Defense Department that was released in August said the war on terror  
hasn't effectively undermined al-Qaida. It suggested the phrase be  
replaced with the less-loaded term "counterterrorism."

Both Phillips and Snow agreed that comprehensive, contextual reporting  
is missing from most of the coverage. "That's one of my criticisms of  
the media," Snow said. "They spotlight issues and don't look at the  
entire landscape."

This year, the landscape of Project Censored itself is expanding.  
After talking with educators who bemoan the ongoing decline of news  
quality and have offered to help, Phillips has launched the Truth  
Emergency Project in which Sonoma State partners with 23 other  
universities. All will host classes for students to search out untold  
stories, vet them for accuracy and submit them for consideration to  
Project Censored.

"There's a renaissance of independent media," Phillips said. He thinks  
bloggers and citizen journalists are filling crucial roles left vacant  
by staff cutbacks throughout the mainstream media. And, he said, it's  
time for universities, educators and media experts to step in and  
help. "It's not just reforming the media but supporting them in as  
many ways as they need, like validating stories by fact-checking."

The Truth Emergency Project will also host a news service that  
aggregates the top 12 independent media sources and posts them on one  
page. "So you can get an RSS feed from all the major independent news  
sources we trust," he said.

Discerning newshounds can find headlines from the BBC, Democracy Now!  
and Inter Press Service News Agency in one spot. "The whole criteria,"  
he said, "is no corporate media."

Carl Jensen, who started the project in 1976, said the expansion is a  
new and necessary phase.

"It answers the question I was always challenged with: How do you know  
this is the truth? Having 24 campuses reviewing all the stories and  
raising questions really provides a good answer. These stories will be  
vetted more than Sarah Palin."

Phillips said he hopes to expand to 100 schools within the year, and  
would like the project to bring more attention to the dire need for  
public support for quality news reporting.

"I think it's going to require government subsidies and nonprofit  
organizations doing community media projects," he said. "It's more  
than just reforming at the FCC level. It's building independent media  
from the ground up."

Phillips likened it to the boom in microbrewed beer and the spread of  
independently owned pubs: "If we can have a renaissance in beer  
making, following established purity standards, then we can do it with  
our media, too."

1. HOW MANY IRAQIS HAVE DIED?

Nobody knows exactly how many lives the Iraq war has claimed. But even  
more astounding is that few journalists have mentioned the issue or  
cited the top estimate: 1.2 million.

During August and September 2007, Opinion Research Business, a British  
polling group, surveyed 2,414 adults in 15 of 18 Iraqi provinces and  
found that more than 20 percent had experienced at least one war- 
related death since March 2003. Using common sociological study  
methods, they determined that as many as 1.2 million people had been  
killed since the war began.

The U.S. military, claiming it keeps no count, still employs civilian  
death data as a marker of progress. For example, in a Sept. 10, 2007,  
report to Congress, Gen. David Petraeus said, "Civilian deaths of all  
categories, less natural causes, have also declined considerably, by  
over 45 percent Iraq-wide since the height of the sectarian violence  
in December."

Whose number was he using? Estimates have ranged wildly and are based  
on a variety of sources, including hospital, morgue and media reports,  
as well as in-person surveys.

In October 2006, the British medical journal Lancet published a Johns  
Hopkins University study vetted by four independent sources that  
counted 655,000 dead, based on interviews with 1,849 households. It  
updated a similar study from 2004 that counted 100,000 dead. The  
Associated Press called it "controversial."

The AP began its own count in 2005 and by 2006 said that at least  
37,547 Iraqis have lost their lives due to war-related violence, but  
called it a minimum estimate at best, and didn't include insurgent  
deaths.

Iraq Body Count, a group of U.S. and United Kingdom citizens who  
aggregate numbers from media reports on civilian deaths, puts the  
figure between 87,000 and 95,000. More recently, in January 2008, the  
World Health Organization and the Iraqi government did door-to-door  
surveys of nearly 10,000 households and put the number of dead at  
151,000.

And the 1.2 million figure is out there, too, which is higher than the  
Rwandan genocide death toll and closing in on the 1.7 million who  
perished in Cambodia's killing fields. It raises questions about the  
real number of deaths from U.S. aerial bombings and house raids, and  
challenges the common assumption that this is a war in which Iraqis  
are killing Iraqis.

Justifying the higher number, Michael Schwartz, writing on the blog  
afterdowningstreet.org, pointed to a fact reported by the Brookings  
Institute that U.S. troops have, over the last four years, conducted  
about 100 house raids a day?a number that has increased recently with  
assistance from Iraqi soldiers.

Brutality during these house searches has been documented by returning  
soldiers, Iraqi civilians and independent journalists (See Story No.  
9.) Schwartz suggests the aggressive "element of surprise" tactic  
employed by soldiers is likely resulting in several thousands of  
deaths a day that are going unreported or categorized as insurgents  
being killed.

The spin is having its intended effect: a February 2007 AP poll showed  
Americans gave a median estimate of 9,890 Iraqi deaths as a result of  
the war, a number far below that cited in any credible study.

Sources: "Is the United States killing 10,000 Iraqis every month? Or  
is it more?" Michael Schwartz, afterdowningstreet.org, July 6, 2007;  
"Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda Genocide, Cambodian killing fields,"  
Joshua Holland, Alternet, Sept. 17, 2007; "Iraq conflict has killed a  
million: survey," Luke Baker, Reuters, Jan. 30, 2008; "Iraq: Not our  
country to return to," Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail, Inter Press  
Service, March 3, 2008

2. NAFTA ON STEROIDS

Coupling the perennial issue of security with Wall Street's measures  
of prosperity, the leaders of the three North American nations have  
convened the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The White House-led  
initiative?launched at a March 23, 2005, meeting of President Bush,  
Mexico's then-president Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul  
Martin?joins beefed-up commerce with coordinated military operations  
to promote what it calls "borderless unity."

Critics call it "NAFTA on steroids." However, unlike NAFTA, the SPP  
has been formed in secret, without public input.

"The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a signed agreement," Laura  
Carlsen wrote in a report for the Center for International Policy.  
"All these would require public debate and participation of Congress,  
both of which the SPP has scrupulously avoided."

Instead, the SPP has its own work group: the North American  
Competitiveness Council. It's a coalition of private companies that  
are, according to the SPP Web site, "adding high-level business input  
[that] will assist governments in enhancing North America's  
competitive position and engage the private sector as partners in  
finding solutions."

They include Chevron, Ford, General Electric, Lockheed Martin  
Corporation, Merck, New York Life, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart.

"Where are the environmental council, the labor council and the  
citizen's council in this process?" Carlsen asked.

A look at NAFTA's popularity among citizens in all three nations is  
evidence why its expansion would be disguised.

"It's a scheme to create a borderless North American Union under U.S.  
control without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate  
giants, mainly U.S. ones," wrote Steven Lendman in Global Research.  
"It's also to ensure America gets free and unlimited access to  
Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, and in the case of Canada,  
water as well."

Sources: "Deep Integration," Laura Carlsen, Center for International  
Policy, May 30, 2007; "The Militarization and Annexation of North  
America," Stephen Lendman, Global Research, July 19, 2007; "The North  
American Union," Constance Fogal, Global Research, Aug. 2, 2007

3. INFRAGARD GUARDS ITSELF

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have effectively deputized  
23,000 members of the business community, asking them to tip off the  
feds in exchange for preferential treatment in the event of a crisis.

"The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive  
secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does?and, at  
least on one occasion, before elected officials," Matthew Rothschild  
wrote in the March 2008 issue of The Progressive.

InfraGard was created in 1996 in Cleveland as part of an FBI probe  
into cyberthreats. Yet after 9/11, membership jumped from 1,700 to  
more than 23,000 and now includes 350 of the nation's Fortune 500  
companies. Members typically have a stake in one of several crucial  
infrastructure industries, including agriculture, banking, defense,  
energy, food, telecommunications, law enforcement and transportation.  
Eighty-six chapters coordinate with 56 FBI field offices nationwide.

While FBI Director Robert Mueller has said he considers this segment  
of the private sector "the first line of defense," the American Civil  
Liberties Union issued a grave warning about the potential for abuse.  
"There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS  
program, turning private-sector corporations?some of which may be in a  
position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers? 
into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI," it cautioned in an August  
2004 report.

"The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who  
get special treatment," Jay Stanley, public education director of the  
ACLU's technology and liberty program, told Rothschild.

And they are privileged: A DHS spokesperson told Rothschild that  
InfraGuard members receive special trainings and readiness exercises.  
They're also privy to protected information that is usually shielded  
from disclosure under the trade secrets provision of the Freedom of  
Information Act.

The information they have may be of critical importance to the general  
public, but first it goes to the privileged membership?sometimes  
before it's released to elected officials. As Rothschild related in  
his story, on Nov. 1, 2001, the FBI sent an alert to InfraGard members  
about a potential threat to bridges in California. Barry Davis, who  
worked for Morgan Stanley, received the information and relayed it to  
his brother Gray, the governor of California, who released it to the  
public.

Steve Maviglio, Davis' press secretary at the time, told Rothschild,  
"The governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his  
defense, he said, 'I was on the phone with my brother, who is an  
investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn't the public know?'"

Source: "The FBI deputizes business," Matthew Rothschild, The  
Progressive, Feb. 7, 2008

4. ILEA: TRAINING GROUND FOR ILLEGAL WARS?

The School of the Americas earned an unsavory reputation in Latin  
America after many graduates of the Fort Benning, Ga., facility turned  
into counterinsurgency death squad leaders. So the International Law  
Enforcement Academy recently installed by the United States in El  
Salvador?which looks, acts, and smells like the SOA?is also drawing  
scorn.

The school, which opened in June 2005 before the Salvadoran National  
Assembly had even approved it, has a satellite operation in Peru and  
is funded with $3.6 million from the U.S. Treasury and staffed with  
instructors from the DEA, ICE and the FBI and tasked with training  
1,500 police officers, judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement  
agents a year in counterterrorism techniques. Its stated purpose is to  
make Latin America "safe for foreign investment" by "providing  
regional security and economic stability and combating crime."

ILEAs aren't new, and past schools located in Budapest, Hungary;  
Bangkok, Thailand; Gaborone, Botswana; and Roswell, N.M., haven't been  
terribly controversial. Yet Salvadoran human rights organizers take  
issue with the fact that, in true SOA fashion, the ILEA releases  
neither information about its curriculum nor a list of students and  
graduates. Additionally, the way the school slipped into existence  
without public oversight has raised ire.

As Wes Enzinna noted in a North American Congress on Latin America  
report, when the United States decided it wanted a training ground in  
Latin America, El Salvador was not the first choice of locations. In  
2002, U.S. officials selected Costa Rica as host?a country that  
doesn't even have an army. The local government signed on and the plan  
made headlines, but when citizens learned about it, they revolted and  
demanded the government change the agreement. The United States bailed  
for a more discreet second attempt in El Salvador.

"Members of the U.S. Congress were not briefed about the academy, nor  
was the main opposition party in El Salvador, the Farabundo Marti- 
National Liberation Front," Enzinna wrote. "But once the news media  
reported that the two countries had signed an official agreement in  
September, activists in El Salvador demanded to see the text of the  
document." Though they tried to garner enough opposition, the National  
Assembly narrowly ratified it.

Now, after more than three years in operation, critics point out that  
Salvadoran police, who account for 25 percent of the graduates, have  
become more violent. A May 2007 report by Tutela Legal implicated  
Salvadoran National Police officers in eight death-squad-style  
assassinations in 2006.

El Salvador's ILEA recently received another $2 million in U.S.  
funding through the congressionally approved Merida Initiative?but  
still refuses to adopt a more transparent curriculum and  
administration, despite partnering with a well-known human rights  
leader. Enzinna's FOIA requests for course materials were rejected by  
the government, so no one knows exactly what the school is teaching or  
to whom.

Sources: "Exporting U.S. 'Criminal Justice' to Latin America,"  
Community in Solidarity with the people of El Salvador," Upside Down  
World, June 14, 2007; "Another SOA?" Wes Enzinna, NACLA Report on the  
Americas, March/April 2008; "ILEA funding approved by Salvadoran right  
wing legislators," CISPES, March 15, 2007; "Is George Bush restarting  
Latin America's 'dirty wars?'" Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet, Aug. 31, 2007

5. SEIZING PROTEST

Protesting war could get you into big trouble, according to a critical  
read of two executive orders recently signed by President Bush. The  
first, issued July 17, 2007, and titled, "Blocking property of certain  
persons who threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq," allows the feds  
to seize assets from anyone who "directly or indirectly" poses a risk  
to the U.S. war in Iraq. And, citing the modern technological ease of  
transferring funds and assets, the order states that no prior notice  
is necessary before the raid.

On Aug. 1, Bush signed a similar order directed toward anyone  
undermining the "sovereignty of Lebanon or its democratic processes  
and institutions." In this case, the secretary of Treasury can seize  
the assets of anyone perceived as posing a risk of violence, as well  
as the assets of their spouses and dependents, and bans them all from  
receiving any humanitarian aid.

Critics say the orders bypass the right to due process and the vague  
language makes manipulation and abuse possible. Protesting the war  
could be perceived as undermining or threatening U.S. efforts in Iraq.  
"This is so sweeping, it's staggering," said Bruce Fein, a former  
Reagan administration Justice Department official, who editorialized  
against it in the Washington Times. "It expands beyond terrorism,  
beyond seeking to use violence or the threat of violence to cower or  
intimidate a population."

Sources: "Bush executive order: Criminalizing the antiwar movement,"  
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 2007; "Bush's executive  
order even worse than the one on Iraq," Matthew Rothschild, The  
Progressive, Aug. 2007

6. RADICALS = TERRORISTS

On Oct. 23, 2007, the House overwhelmingly passed, by a vote of 404-6,  
the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,"  
designed to root out the causes of radicalization in Americans.

With an estimated four-year cost of $22 million, the act establishes a  
10-member National Commission on the Prevention of Violent  
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, as well as a university-based  
Center of Excellence "to examine the social, criminal, political,  
psychological and economic roots of domestic terrorism," according to  
a press release from the bill's author, Rep. Jane Harman, a California  
Democrat.

During debate on the bill, Harman said, "Free speech, espousing even  
very radical beliefs, is protected by our Constitution?but violent  
behavior is not."

Jessica Lee, writing in the Indypendent, pointed out that in a later  
press release, Harman stated: "The National Commission [will] propose  
to both Congress and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary  
Michael] Chertoff initiatives to intercede before radicalized  
individuals turn violent."

Which could be when they're speaking, writing or organizing in ways  
protected by the First Amendment. This redefines civil disobedience as  
terrorism, say civil rights experts. For example, the definition of  
"violent radicalization" is "the process of adopting or promoting an  
extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically  
based violence to advance political, religious or social change."

"What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this? These are broad  
definitions that encompass so much ... It is criminalizing thought and  
ideology," said Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest  
Constitutional Rights Center.

Though the ACLU recommended some changes that were adopted, it  
continued to criticize the bill. Harman, in a response letter, said  
free speech is still free and stood by the need to curb ideologically  
based violence.

The story didn't make it onto the CNN ticker, but enough independent  
sources reported on it that the equivalent Senate Bill 1959 has since  
stalled. After introducing the bill, Republican Sen. Susan Collins,  
Maine, later joined forces with Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on a  
report criticizing the Internet as a tool for violent Islamic extremism.

Despite outcry from a number of civil liberties groups, days after the  
report was released, Lieberman demanded YouTube remove a number of  
Islamist propaganda videos. YouTube canned some that broke their rules  
regarding violence and hate speech, but resisted censoring others. The  
ensuing battle caught the attention of the New York Times and on May  
25, they editorialized against Lieberman and Senate Bill 1959.

Sources: "Bringing the war on terrorism home," Jessica Lee,  
Indypendent, Nov. 16, 2007; "Examining the Homegrown Terrorism  
Prevention Act," Lindsay Beyerstein, In These Times, Nov. 2007; "The  
Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,"  
Matt Renner, Truthout, Nov. 20, 2007

7. SLAVERY'S RUNNER-UP

About 121,000 people legally enter the United States to work every  
year with H-2 visas, a program legislators are modeling as part of  
future immigration reform. But Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York  
Democrat, called this guest worker program "the closest thing I've  
ever seen to slavery."

The Southern Poverty Law Center likened it to "modern day indentured  
servitude." They interviewed thousands of guest workers and reviewed  
legal cases for a report released in March 2007, in which authors Mary  
Bauer and Sarah Reynolds wrote, "Unlike U.S. citizens, guest workers  
do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor  
market?the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead,  
they are bound to the employers who 'import' them. If guest workers  
complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other  
retaliation."

When visas expire, workers must leave the country, hardly making this  
the path to permanent citizenship that legislators are looking for.  
The H-2 program mimics the controversial old bracero program,  
established through a joint agreement between Mexico and the U.S. in  
1942, which brought 4.5 million workers over the border during its 22  
years in existence.

Many legal protections were written into the program, but in most  
cases they only existed on paper, in a language unreadable to  
employees. In 1964, the program was shuttered amid scores of human  
rights abuses and complaints that it undermined petitions for higher  
wages from U.S. workers. Soon after, United Farm Workers organized,  
which Cesar Chavez said would have been impossible if the bracero  
program still existed.

Years later, it essentially still does. The H-2A program, which  
accounted for 32,000 agricultural workers in 2005, has many of the  
same protections?and many of the same abuses. Even worse is the H-2B  
program, used by 89,000 non-agricultural workers annually. Created by  
the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, none of the same  
safeguards are legally required for H-2B workers.

Still, Mexicans are literally lining up to join, the stark details of  
which were reported by Felicia Mello in The Nation. Furthermore,  
thousands of illegal immigrants are employed throughout the country,  
providing cheap, unprotected labor and further undermining the scant  
provisions of the laws. Labor contractors who connect immigrants with  
employers are lining their pockets with cash, while people return home  
with very little.

The Southern Poverty Law Center outlined a list of comprehensive  
changes needed in the program and concluded: "For too long, our  
country has benefited from the labor provided by guest workers but has  
failed to provide a fair system that respects their human rights and  
upholds the most basic values of our democracy. The time has come for  
Congress to overhaul our shamefully abusive guest worker system."

Sources: "Close to Slavery," Mary Bauer and Sarah Reynolds, Southern  
Poverty Law Center, March 2007; "Coming to America," Felicia Mello,  
The Nation, June 25, 2007; "Trafficking racket," Chidanand Rajghatta,  
Times of India, March 10, 2008

8. BUSH CHANGES THE RULES

The Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of  
Justice has been issuing classified legal opinions about surveillance  
for several years. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,  
Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had access to the DOJ  
opinions regarding presidential power, and he had three of them  
declassified in order to show how the judicial branch has, in a  
bizarre and chilling way, assisted President Bush in circumventing its  
own power.

According to the three memos:

1. "There is no constitutional requirement for a president to issue a  
new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a  
previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the  
President has instead modified or waived it;"

2. "The President, exercising his constitutional authority under  
Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of  
the President's authority under Article II," and

3. "The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal  
determinations."

Or, as Whitehouse rephrased them in a Dec. 7, 2007, Senate speech: "I  
don't have to follow my own rules, and I don't have to tell you when  
I'm breaking them. I get to determine what my own powers are. The  
Department of Justice doesn't tell me what the law is. I tell the  
Department of Justice what the law is." The issue arose within the  
context of the Protect America Act, which expands government  
surveillance powers and gives telecom companies legal immunity for  
helping. Whitehouse called it, "a second-rate piece of legislation  
passed in a stampede in August at the behest of the Bush  
administration." He pointed out that the act does not prohibit spying  
on Americans overseas?with the exception of an executive order that  
permits surveillance only of Americans who the attorney general  
determines to be "agents of a foreign power."

"In other words, the only thing standing between Americans traveling  
overseas and government wiretap is an executive order," Whitehouse  
said in an April 12 speech. "An order this president, under the first  
legal theory I cited, claims he has no legal obligation to obey."

Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island's  
governor, and Rhode Island attorney general who took Senate office in  
2006, went on to point out that Marbury v. Madison, written by Chief  
Justice John Marshall in 1803, established that it is "emphatically  
the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law  
is."

Sources: "In FISA Speech, Whitehouse sharply criticizes Bush  
Administration's assertion of executive power," Sheldon Whitehouse,  
Dec. 7, 2007; "Down the Rabbit Hole," Marcy Wheeler, The Guardian, UK,  
Dec. 26, 2007

9. SOLDIERS SPEAK OUT

Hearing soldiers recount their war experiences is the closest many  
people come to understanding the real horror, pain and confusion of  
combat. One would think that might make compelling copy or powerful  
footage for a news outlet, but in March, when more than 300 veterans  
from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan convened for four days of public  
testimony on the war, they were largely ignored by the media.

Winter Soldier was designed to give soldiers a forum to air some of  
the atrocities they witnessed. It was first convened by Vietnam Vets  
Against the War in January 1971 when more than 100 veterans and 16  
civilians described their war experiences, including rapes, torture,  
brutalities and killing of non-combatants. The testimony was entered  
into the Congressional Record and filmed and shown at the Cannes Film  
Festival.

Iraq Veterans Against the War hosted the 2008 reprise of the 1971  
hearings. Aaron Glantz, writing in One World, recalled testimony from  
former Marine Cpl. Jason Washburn, who said, "his commanders  
encouraged lawless behavior. 'We were encouraged to bring 'drop  
weapons,' or shovels. In case we accidentally shot a civilian, we  
could drop the weapon on the body and pretend they were an insurgent.'"

An investigation by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian in The Nation that  
included interviews with 50 Iraq war veterans also revealed an  
overwhelming lack of training and resources and a general lawlessness  
with regard to the traditional rules of war. Though most major news  
outlets managed to send staff to cover New York's Fashion Week, few  
made it down to Silver Spring, Md., for the Winter Soldier hearings.  
Fortunately, KPFA and Pacifica Radio broadcast the testimonies live  
and, in an update to the story, said they were "deluged with phone  
calls, e-mails, and blog posts from service members, veterans and  
military families thanking us for breaking a cultural norm of silence  
about the reality of war." Testimonies can still be heard at ivaw.org.

Sources: "Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan eyewitness accounts of  
the occupation," Iraq Veterans Against the War, March 13-16, 2008;  
"War comes home," Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison, and Esther Manilla,  
Pacifica Radio, March 14-16, 2008; "U.S. Soldiers testify about war  
crimes," Aaron Glantz, One World, March 19, 2008; "The Other War,"  
Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, The Nation, July 30, 2007

10. APA HELPS CIA TORTURE

Psychologists have been assisting the CIA and the U.S. military with  
interrogation and torture of Guantanamo detainees?which the American  
Psychological Association has said is fine, in spite of objections  
from many in its 148,000 members. A 10-member APA task force convened  
on the divisive issue in July 2005 and found that help from  
psychologists was making the interrogations safe, and deferred to U.S.  
standards on torture over international human-rights definitions.

The group was criticized by APA members for deliberating in secret,  
and later it was revealed that six of the 10 had ties to the armed  
services. Not only that, but as Katherine Eban reported in Vanity  
Fair, "Psychologists, working in secrecy, had actually designed the  
tactics and trained interrogators in them while on contract to the CIA."

In particular, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, neither  
of whom are APA members, honed a classified military training program  
known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), which teaches  
soldiers how to tough out torture if captured by enemies. "Mitchell  
and Jessen reverse-engineered the tactics inflicted on SERE trainees  
for use on detainees in the global war on terror," wrote Eban. And, as  
Mark Benjamin noted in a Salon.com article, employing SERE training? 
which is designed to replicate torture tactics that don't abide by  
Geneva Convention standards?refutes past administration assertions  
that current CIA torture techniques are safe and legal. "Soldiers  
undergoing SERE training are subject to forced nudity, stress  
positions, lengthy isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation,  
exhaustion from exercise, and the use of water to create a sensation  
of suffocation," Benjamin wrote.

Eban's story outlined how SERE tactics were spun as "science," despite  
a void of data and many criticisms that building rapport works better  
than blows to the head. Specifically, it's been misreported that CIA  
torture techniques got al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah to talk, when  
it was actually FBI rapport-building. In spite of this, the SERE  
techniques became standards in interrogation manuals that eventually  
made their way to U.S. officers guarding Abu Ghraib.

Ongoing uproar within APA resulted in a petition to make an official  
policy limiting psychologists involvement in interrogations. On Sept.  
17, a majority of 15,000 voting members approved a resolution stating  
psychologists may not work in settings where "persons are held outside  
of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the U.N.  
Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S.  
Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for  
the persons being detained or for an independent third party working  
to protect human rights."

Sources: "The CIA's torture teachers," Mark Benjamin, Salon.com, June  
21, 2007; "Rorschach and awe," Katherine Eban, Vanity Fair, July 17,  
2007 

From critical.montages at gmail.com  Thu Oct  2 09:58:55 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:58:55 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Bird and Fortune on the Financial Crisis
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810020858t6f9a3531wb7932bc795dc8e9@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBcmqwTV9s>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_5davdT2oM>

Yoshie


From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  2 10:18:18 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 09:18:18 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Neo-con abdication and the U.S. crisis
Message-ID: <3472C6C1-6160-4B37-B413-7B84C5777AEF@shaw.ca>

Neo-con abdication and the U.S. crisis
October 01, 2008
Anthony Cuschieri
The Hamilton Spectator
(Oct 1, 2008)
http://www.thespec.com/Opinions/article/443242

The financial turmoil taking place in the U.S. should teach Stephen  
Harper and all neo-cons, including some Liberals, a lesson on the  
dangers of deregulation, out-sourcing and privatization, the sacred  
cows of the economic blue-print of the "new" Conservative Party of  
Canada. It is a danger that arises when governments abdicate their  
responsibility to protect their citizens.

It is part of the political/economic agenda of conservative  
governments across the world, and of the Republican party of the U.S.,  
to substantially reduce the role of government in the economic, social  
and financial activities of the nation. This economic/political dogma  
betrays a mind-set rooted in the 19th-century political/economic  
paradigm, expressed in the infamous slogan, "laissez-faire."

The believers of this dogma, that purports to guarantee prosperity and  
stability if government "interference" is eliminated, still exist  
today among Conservative economists, the Canadian Council of Chief  
Executives and others. These people use their persuasive skills, their  
financial and political power and lobbying clout to pressure  
governments to abdicate their social responsibilities and leave  
everything to the "self regulating" market forces. These forces  
presumably operate like a benign power, eventually bringing harmony  
and settlement, following times of economic turmoil, through the  
balancing of demand and supply.

But therein lies the myth.

The economic skinheads who pontificate about the inviolability of  
market forces refuse, or fail, to realize that these same forces are  
not "natural," independent or neutral but, on the contrary, are in  
reality manipulated and influenced by the greed of real men and women.  
They are speculators, irresponsible investors and financiers, ruthless  
CEOs and shareholders who, legally, enforce their right to  
maximization of profit regardless of concerns and consequences.

The concept of independent and free-market forces is a myth, but a  
lucrative one to those who peddle it like a dogma, the neo-cons. We  
can see the fallacy of this myth in the current price of gas at the  
pump. Since market forces are governed, manipulated and determined by  
the whims of a sector of society, government "interference" in  
economic activity would mean regulating, supervising, checking and  
controlling the unscrupulous influence of that sector.

In a genuine democracy, regardless of the political colouring of the  
electorate, a government is elected to protect and enhance the common  
good and to protect society from violence and other harmful threats. A  
government has a sacred trust to, among other things, protect the  
people and the country from terrorism and from other lethal threats.

But equally sacred is a government's obligation to protect its  
citizens against the violence and lethal threats from the economic and  
financial sectors and from those who provide essential services. This  
sacred responsibility and duty demand that a government exercise a  
strong supervisory and regulatory role in the provision of essential  
services and over those services that remain in the private domain but  
impact on the well-being of society.

It is precisely the lack of credible and accountable supervisory and  
regulatory powers and the abdication of the government's sacred  
obligations that have brought the near catastrophe to the United  
States under the Bush administration. The irony of all this is that  
the Bush administration had to interfere in economic and financial  
activities in a manner that is difficult to justify: bailing out the  
rich following grave mismanagement and corruption.

Stephen Harper and his neo-cons should learn the truth -- that  
deregulation, out-sourcing and privatization of essential services  
undermine a government's fundamental and sacred responsibility to  
oversee, supervise and regulate the activity of those agencies,  
institutions and corporations that impact seriously on the welfare of  
the society.

It is often said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat  
its mistakes. People of Ontario should have learned this lesson with  
the tragedy at Walkerton when the supervisory role of government  
inspectors was reduced as part of the Conservative agenda to free  
government of its sacred obligations toward society; it was then  
called "Common Sense."

Almost 60 years ago, Albert Einstein wrote prophetic words:

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in  
my opinion, the real source of the evil.

"We see before us a huge community of producers, the members of which  
are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their  
collective labour -- not by force, but on the whole in faithful  
compliance with legally established rules."

Anthony Cuschieri lives in Stoney Creek.


From christopherswebb at yahoo.ca  Thu Oct  2 11:12:31 2008
From: christopherswebb at yahoo.ca (Christopher Webb)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 10:12:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] In Defence of Lesley Hughes
Message-ID: <904190.69725.qm@web33308.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

In Defence of Lesley Hughes
by Chris Webb
http://www.canadiandimension.com/blog/2008/10/in-defence-of-lesley-hughes/

?I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.? Evelyn Beatrice Hall


Liberal politicians and journalists would have done well to remember
these weighty words of enlightenment philosophy when they dismissed and
attacked Lesley Hughes. Instead, political pillars of free speech and
debate have been replaced by narrow electioneering and name-calling.

Lesley Hughes is a brave and honest woman. She is a thoughtful and
respected journalist and someone who has spent the better part of her
life writing and standing up for the rights of the downtrodden. Here we
have a journalist and activist who has vehemently defended freedom of
speech for others and now finds it is lacking to defend herself.

If we have any hope that our country and society are to become more
participatory, more democratic and more inclusive, then we need to be
unafraid to practice something that seems to be sorely
lacking?particularly during this election period?critical thought. But
in order for this thought to be meaningful and constructive in changing
our society we need to foster it, not be afraid of it. Indeed, some of
the most controversial political decisions made during our lifetimes
have been made behind closed doors with almost no public debate. In
these cases the onus lies with both politicians and journalists to be
courageous, confront issues and bring them to the public. Whether it is
the imprisonment of Omar Khadr, Canada?s role in Afghanistan and Haiti,
or our domestic policies related to immigration and indigenous rights,
debate and action on these issues is part and parcel with democracy. 


This is why we should all defend Lesley Hughes. Not because we agree
with her opinions or politics, but because we shouldn?t be afraid to
speak to the issues that matter and holding those in power to account.
?The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting,? said Milan Kundera, and I?m certain Lesley would agree. No
one should feel afraid to hold those accountable who make decisions
affecting the lives of millions.

I?d like to be clear that I don?t want to waste a line discussing
9/11 because I believe that many of these theories are damaging to
popular mobilization around issues that matter?not unsubstantiated
claims?and actually detract from an empirical understanding of how
governments enter and benefit from war and imperialism.

I will touch on the charges of anti-Semitism that have been leveled
against her because I believe these are very worrying. B?Nai Brith
Canada called on the Liberal party to dismiss Hughes because of ?her
antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy theories,? which they said ?are not
reflective of the Liberal Party?s tradition of tolerance and respect.?
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum anti-Semitism
means ?prejudice against or hatred of Jews.? Hughes does not mention
Jewish people in her column. She never claimed that Israeli companies
had knowledge of the attacks. She merely reported information that had
already been published in three mainstream newspapers, including the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.
Whether these companies acted or not does not constitute anti-Semitism.
For a woman with a long history of anti-racist involvement this was
surely not her intent. 


Unfortunately we now live in a world so polarized by war-on-terror
rhetoric and an ideology that demands patriotic obedience that we have
been afraid to ask questions and demand answers. This is also true of
journalism. If the New York Times had taken the time and ink to show
that the attack on Iraq was based on entirely false pretenses and that
there were no WMDs millions of lives could have been saved. But under
the auspices of neutrality and objectivity these questions apparently
could not be asked. The same is true of Canada?s involvement in
Afghanistan. 


This fear has translated in the way debate about Israel is framed
both in civil society and the media. Any criticisms of Israel?s
policies are seen as anti-Semitic. A greater absurdity is without
precedent, except perhaps the charges of anti-Americanism laid against
those who question US policy. The arrests of hundreds of demonstrators
at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last month shows
that voices of dissent are no longer welcomed even in the street, let
alone on the printed page. 


This excommunication of Lesley Hughes from the Liberal party and her
condemnation in many editorial pages is about more than her ill-fated
blog. It is about demonstrating that there is no room for dissenting
opinions within mainstream political parties. Why? Because if freedom
of speech means lost votes then debate can be put on hold. 


Canadians face increasing economic uncertainty, the fact that we are
still at war in Afghanistan and have taken little action to prevent
climate change. Stifling debate, especially within political parties,
cannot help in developing solutions to these problems. 
I agree that there is no place for ?conspiracy theories? in this
time because we face challenges that are far more real and urgent. We
should be unafraid to discuss these issues, particularly those of race,
religion and ethnicity in a country of such diversity as ours. 


Indeed it is because we accepted the choices of our leaders after
September 11th that we now live in a world that is more unstable, more
unsafe and more unequal than before. Secret torture sites, illegal
prisons, war crimes, private mercenary armies, suspending habeas
corpus, destroying civil liberties, war-lord governments. These are the
true conspiracies of our time. 


I wish that we had more politicians like Lesley Hughes, and in
defending not only freedom of speech but critical and dissenting voices
I will defend her.




      __________________________________________________________________
Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com

From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 12:58:30 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:58:30 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Attack focuses new attention on division among Israelis
Message-ID: <200810021858.m92IwUrD019208@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  2 14:46:23 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:46:23 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Indian blockades slow work on crude pipeline
Message-ID: <96595F32-8FD3-468F-B80F-3DD662A9517E@shaw.ca>

Indian blockades slow work on crude pipeline  TheStar.com - Business -  
Indian blockades slow work on crude pipeline
October 02, 2008
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/509984

Enbridge Inc. says Indian blockades in Saskatchewan have forced the  
company to halt most construction on its $3 billion Alberta Clipper  
pipeline project.

The pipeline will carry 450,000 barrels of oil-sands crude from  
Hardisty, Alta, to Superior, Wis., in two locations: just outside the  
provincial capital of Regina and near Kerrobert, in western  
Saskatchewan.

"These demonstrations have restricted access to our heavy equipment  
coming and going from staging sites," said Glenn Herchak, a  
spokesperson for Enbridge.

The blockade near Regina has been in place since Sunday, while  
Kerrobert was blocked a day later.

Herchak said the First Nations groups are looking for greater access  
to contracts to provide goods and services for the line's  
construction. Construction on the Alberta Clipper line began in August  
and it is slated to be in service by the middle of 2010.




From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 15:59:06 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:59:06 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Look to the Nordic bubble not the Great Depression
Message-ID: <200810022159.m92Lx63C015466@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 15:58:30 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:58:30 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Equity, commodity markets may be next bubble
Message-ID: <200810022158.m92LwUi4014447@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 17:13:48 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:13:48 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The wreckage of Harper-Bush policies
Message-ID: <200810022313.m92NDmpU020460@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 17:42:25 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:42:25 -0700
Subject: [R-G] British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed -- memo
Message-ID: <200810022342.m92NgPqE010133@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  2 17:48:03 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:48:03 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Financial Stress Likely to Hit Real Economy Hard - IMF
Message-ID: <200810022348.m92Nm3X0019015@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From critical.montages at gmail.com  Thu Oct  2 18:36:43 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 20:36:43 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Nouriel Roubini and Barry Ritholtz
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810021736l15142014mcca8ca7b8276039b@mail.gmail.com>

If there is anyone more pessimistic on capitalism than MR, that will
have to be Nouriel Roubini. -- Yoshie

<http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/10/02/live-blogging-the-roubiniritholtz-conference-call/>
October 2, 2008, 5:11 pm
Live-Blogging the Roubini/Ritholtz Conference Call
Posted by Mark Gongloff

Nouriel Roubini is the NYU economics professor known lovingly around
Wall Street as "Dr. Doom" for his foresight in predicting the end of
the financial system as we know it. Blogger/strategist Barry Ritholtz
of The Big Picture and Fusion IQ, who hasn't been much more
optimistic, is joining him this afternoon for a conference call to
discuss the credit crunch. Should be fun! And by "fun," we mean "a
reminder to stuff our money in our mattress."

5:08: Roubini starts out saying there are six things to think about.
The first question has about 10 parts. Could be a long call.

5:11: The U.S. economy risks a negative feedback loop: Economic woes
hurt creditworthiness, hurting banks, hurting credit, hurting the
economy. Wash, rinse, repeat, lose your house.

5:14: The Fed's next move is likely a rate cut.

5:14: Everything that's going on in markets now? You know, stocks and
credit being lousy? Expect more of that.

5:16: "The events of the last few weeks say we're one accident away
from a systemic financial meltdown," says Roubini. He points to
previous accidents that nearly caused a universe-eating financial
black hole: Bear Stearns in March, Fannie and Freddie in July and
Lehman and AIG a couple of weeks ago. "We're seeing the beginning of a
silent run on the shadow and traditional banking system," he says.
"There's a generalized panic" in the financial markets.

5:20: And that's not the scariest part, he says! The scariest part is
that, every time the government steps up its response, the market
reaction gets weaker and weaker.

5:22: "We are literally one step away from collapse of entire
financial system and even the corporate system."

5:24: This bailout package isn't going to do the trick. That's why the
market isn't cheering it any more: Nobody trusts anybody any more.
"We've reached the point where $700 billion doesn't make any
difference given reaction of market."

5:26: The economy was already in "freefall" before September. We're in
for a severe recession, according to a litany of data.

5:28: Treasury should have done more ? you can't just buy and park bad
assets. You have to triage, shutting down weak banks and deciding who
to save. You have to recapitalize the banking system so they'll extend
credit. You have to reduce debt. Earlier, he said you have to
guarantee all deposits, regardless of amount. "This plan in Congress
is just a sham."

5:29: Roubini ends with the words "Great Depression." Ritholtz asks,
"That's how you're introducing me?" He says he's relieved to be the
less-bearish guy on the call.

5:30: Ritholtz says we won't have a "Great Depression," but a "Fair
Depression ? not nearly as bad as 1930!" What a relief.

5:31: He takes time to poke the permabulls. Everybody take a drink.

5:33: We won't see a one-day loss like in 1987, but all told, the
market is already doing worse than it did in 1987. "You would have
been better off investing in 1982 and investing for six years than
investing in 2002 and investing for six years."

5:35: There's a smallish chance of another 20% stock-market downside from here.

5:37: Given his forecast for earnings next year, the S&P should be
about 975 (it's at 1114 now) assuming a P/E multiple of 15. If you use
a much lower multiple, then, well, you get the picture. "Crazy
numbers."

5:39: Oil could fall to $50.

5:39: The bailout plan doesn't really go to the problem, which is that
banks have a shortfall of capital. "This solves issues on the balance
sheet, not the higher issue of capital."

5:40: On the bright side, we're seeing some signs of market panic. But
there's still buying on dips ? people haven't been "punished enough"
to stop having that reaction.

5:42: This is shaping up to be a "generational bear market," not a
typical bear market. We have a severe recession, with a credit crunch.
We're just starting to see the effects of credit on the real economy.

5:44: The thing to remember about every bailout is they all have
unintended consequences ? every bailout has begotten the next bailout.
Look at LTCM, considered a good bailout: No tax money, no Fed money.
LTCM was an undercapitalized hedge fund that used a lot of leverage to
trade hard-to-value thinly traded paper. We bailed them out, and, lo
and behold, nobody got hurt from it. So it's no surprise that a few
years later, here we are with the same situation. "My concern is what
disaster are we gonna be dealing with 3, 4, 5 years from now that will
be the consequences of giving Wall Street's most reckless players a
pass?"

5:45: Zach Gast at RiskMetrics is speaking now, offering the
"bottom-up perspective" on the banking sector. He starts off with that
baseball metaphor, asking what inning it is. On the teevee, it's the
9th inning in Tampa Bay, and the Rays are up 6-4 with one out.

5:48: The Tampa game is now over (the Rays won), but Gast is
suggesting that we are still in the mid-to-early innings for the
banking sector. We're starting to see problems in commercial loans and
other previously healthy credit areas.

5:52: There are loans still sitting, overpriced, on bank books. When
you move away from fair-value accounting, people lose confidence in
your numbers and it gets harder to get capital. Moving away from
mark-to-market accounting, as the banking sector seems anxious to do,
will be a net negative for banks.

5:54: "Many institutions would be insolvent if we fully fair-valued
their assets," says Gast.

5:56: Deposit insurance up to $250,000 won't make much of a difference
? the deposits we're worried about are much larger.

5:57: Removing the bad assets from a bank and adding an equity warrant
is an improvement over the original plan ? it will build the equity
base. But it's not enough; there needs to be more.

5:58: This bailout is probably best for the money center banks.
They're the ones holding trading securities. They've already taken the
hits to earnings. This hurts the regional banks and others still
holding assets at cost basis. Setting a lower market price will hurt
their capital adequacy in "a big way."
breadline_art_257_20081002183142.jpg
The Not-So-Fair Depression

6:00: We will probably need to explore injecting capital into the
banks. There will be significant resistance to creating winners and
losers this way. But there are ways to have the market do this, using
private-equity investors and matching their offers with government
money.

6:02: Now it's Q&A time. The first question is why this bailout plan
is so awful. Roubini suggests it was a rush job by Messrs. Paulson and
Bernanke and that Congress is just in a hurry to get on the campaign
trail.

6:05: Ritholtz suggests Paulson is running Treasury the way he ran
Goldman, "with an iron fist," without a lot of consultation. The Bush
administration has operated in a similar fashion, he says. "It's a
mediocre plan, poorly sold and poorly managed. I don't think this is a
slam-dunk tomorrow. I expect it to pass, but it wouldn't surprise me
if it loses by a vote or two."

6:06: The big, scary question: What if we pass the bill and it doesn't
help? What might happen, says Ritholtz, is that either one or both of
the presidential candidates calls for emergency panel to figure out a
better solution. They'll probably end up deciding to recapitalize the
banks after all.

6:09: Roubini says recession is marching around the globe. It doesn't
help that the world's biggest consumer, the USA, is in bad shape, and
the world's biggest producer, China, is slowing down, too.

6:11: Ritholtz suggests being in cash. Roubini makes fun of him for
being "only 55%" in cash. "Cash is safe today as long as it's not in a
bank or a money-market fund," says Roubini, getting another laugh.
Financial apocalypse humor is somehow less funny than other kinds of
humor.

6:13: "Gold is not a bad place to hide," says Ritholtz, maybe 5% or
10% of your portfolio.

6:15: Gast says the short-selling ban hasn't saved any financial
firms, but has increased the cost of trading, which hurts mutual
funds. Ritholtz says it's counterproductive because there aren't any
shorts to cover ? the "natural floor in a crash." Now there's no
parachute. Roubini says would-be shorts are now in the CDS market,
pushing spreads really wide, which creates a mess for financials
anyway. In short, nobody likes what the SEC has done.

6:19: The dollar will be in a narrow range for the next 6-12 months,
but things get scarier later because of rising fiscal deficits, says
Roubini.

6:23: They're talking about their favorite sectors. "I would buy stock
in antidepressant firms," says Roubini, getting another laugh.

6:27: Roubini points out that this is the end of the deregulation era
? we've gone from an extreme of laissez-faire to the greatest
government intervention since the Great Depression. We need more
pragmatism, less ideology. Ritholtz points out that even Russia allows
short-selling. "But they closed the stock market," says Roubini.

On that happy note, the call ends. Vice Presidential debate, anyone?


From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Thu Oct  2 19:18:15 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:18:15 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Public losses for private gain
Message-ID: <48E572D7.4080209@attglobal.net>


The effective nationalisation of huge sectors of the economy means US
taxpayers are picking up the tab for failing banks

by Nouriel Roubini

guardian.co.uk (September 18 2008)


With the nationalisation of Fannie and Freddie, comrades Bush, Paulson
and Bernanke started transforming the US into the USSRA (United
Socialist State Republic of America).

This transformation of the US into a country where there is socialism
for the rich, the well-connected and Wall Street (that is, where profits
are privatised and losses are socialised) continues today with the
nationalisation of AIG.

This latest action on AIG follows a variety of many other policy actions
that imply a massive - and often flawed - government intervention in the
financial markets and the economy: the bail-out of the Bear Stearns
creditors; the bail-out of Fannie and Freddie; the use of the Fed
balance sheet (hundreds of billions of safe US Treasuries swapped for
junk, toxic, illiquid private securities); the use of the other GSEs
(the Federal Home Loan Bank system) to provide hundreds of billions of
dollars of "liquidity" to distressed, illiquid and insolvent mortgage
lenders; the use of the SEC to manipulate the stock market (through
restrictions on short sales).

Then there's the use of the US Treasury to manipulate the mortgage
market, the creation of a whole host of new bail-out facilities to prop
and rescue banks and, for the first time since the Great Depression, to
bail out non-bank financial institutions.

This is the biggest and most socialist government intervention in
economic affairs since the formation of the Soviet Union and Communist
China. So foreign investors are now welcome to the USSRA (the United
Socialist State Republic of America) where they can earn fat spreads
relative to Treasuries on agency debt and never face any credit risks
(not even the subordinated debt-holders who made a fortune yesterday as
those claims were also made whole).

Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and
praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then
regularly caught cheating or found to be perverts, these Bush hypocrites
who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire
jungle capitalism allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without
any control, and have caused the biggest financial crisis since the
Great Depression.

They are are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention
and nationalisations in the recent history of humanity, all for the
benefit of the rich and the well connected. So Comrades Bush and Paulson
and Bernanke will rightly pass to the history books as a troika of
Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the USSRA.

Zealots of any religion are always pests that cause havoc with their
inflexible fanaticism - but they usually don't run the biggest economy
in the world. These laissez faire voodoo-economics zealots in charge of
the USA have now caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great
Depression and the nastiest economic crisis in decades.

_____

This article first appeared on Nouriel Roubini's blog and is edited and
cross-posted here with the permission of the author. Nicknamed "Dr
Doom", Professor Roubini is now widely acknowledged as having accurately
predicted the present crises in financial markets.

This blog was amended at 17.00 on Thursday 18 September, to include more
of Nouriel Roubini's original post.

guardian.co.uk (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/18/marketturmoil.creditcrunch


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 Oct  2 23:14:02 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:14:02 -0700
Subject: [R-G] 'Top Ten Reasons Harper is the Best Leader...
Message-ID: <FE2FAFCC-54F1-4E44-B3D8-E3A1447A27FD@shaw.ca>

...For Citizens who Don't Like Themselves nor their Country...'

http://web.me.com/dman5/Harper_is_Your_Man/Top_Ten_Reasons.html


	?
1.connect-the-financial-meltdown-dots: the ideological architects of  
the current US (and subsequent world-wide) financial crisis are some  
of Harper?s most revered thinkers. Alan Greenspan, Paul Wolfowitz, and  
Donald Rumsfeld are all disciples of the ?Chicago School? of  
economics, with Milton Friedman as their guru. Thinkers like Friedman  
and Friedrich Hayek gave birth to the notion that any government  
oversight in the ?free-market? is a perversion of ?pure? market  
forces. The university professors that nurtured Harpers brain, Barry  
Cooper and Tom Flanagan, are considered the Canadian torch holders of  
the Chicago School.  ?The predecessor of the Reform party, the Social  
Credit party, was very much like this. Believing in funny money and  
control of banking, and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative  
economic things.?  - Harper at a speech to the Council for National  
Policy, a conservative American lobby group, June 1997
	?
2.why should canada own canada, it?s better off in foreign hands: The  
Harperites think they only chance we have of maintaining a strong  
economy is by selling it of and opening it up to foreign ownership,  
and there have been some 16,000 sell-offs in the past two years. They  
extend this idea to include our financial institutions. ?The panel,  
which was commissioned by the Harper government, also says the  
existing prohibition against bank mergers should be lifted, which  
could open the way to consolidation among banks and other financial  
institutions?  - The Star, Jun 26, 2008
	?
3.he has disdain and contempt for canada:  ?Canada appears content to  
become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly  
about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status?.  
National Post, Dec. 8 2000 p. A18   ?There is a Canadian culture that  
is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture  
coincides neatly with borders.?  Report Newsmagazine January 7, 2002
	?
4.?experiment? and ?dismantle? are not conservative words: Harper  
solution for Canada?s health care system is to allow the provinces to  
?experiment? with various schemes of private sector hospitals. We  
shouldn?t forget that his former chariot, the National Citizens  
Coalition, tried to bring down the Canada Health Act in order to pave  
way for the private insurance sector. ?Libertarian conservatives work  
to dismantle the remaining elements of the interventionist state and  
move towards ?a market society for the 21st century.? - Harper,  
Toronto Star, April 6, 1997
	?
5.he doesn?t like conservatives: "...the term Progressive Conservative  
will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds. It should.  
It's obviously kind of an  
oxymoron 
."                                                                                                                            ?In 
  fact, before the Reform Party really became a force in the late  
'80s, early '90s, the leadership of the Conservative party was running  
the largest deficits in Canadian history.?      - Stephen Harper's  
Speech to the US Council for National Policy
	?
6.he loves lobbyists: Being a former lobbyist himself it was hard to  
digest his platform of ending the revolving door of lobbyists in and  
out of of government. Nearly all of his current top advisers are  
lobbyists or industry think-tank hired guns, currently two of his top  
advisers are placed directly from Oil-sector lobby organizations  
(Bruce Carson, Kory Teneycke). Within months of forming government  
almost 50 former Conservative staffers registered as lobbyists.
	?
7.he finds himself to be irresponsible and incapable of following his  
own rules: "The government is clear that it will not be seeking an  
early election. At any time Parliament can defeat the government and  
provoke an early election, if that is what the opposition  
irresponsibly chooses to do?. - Hansard       ?Fixed election dates  
prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term  
political advantage?. -CBC News
	?
8.he has no experience serving the public, and no interest the public  
good: Is Mr. Harper the former Mayor of some city, former Premier of a  
province, former Cabinet Minister, former president of the Rotary  
Club? No, No, No. He has only ever been a private sector lobbyist and  
campaign strategist. Only once did he serve as an MP under Preston  
Manning. He enjoyed serving the public so much that he left the public  
forum in favor of doing more productive projects like trying to smash  
the Canadian Wheat Board with the National Citizens Coalition (not  
actually a citizen?s group or a coalition).
	?
9.he is a fraud by his own account: When campaigning in Newfoundland  
during the 2006 federal election Mr. Harper promised to remove  
nonrenewable resource revenues from the calculation of equalization  
payments. His brochures made the promise and quoted a famous Gaelic  
proverb "There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept".  Of  
course he broke that promise almost immediately after getting into  
power.
	?
10. stephen harper is a muppet not a man: he acts like a sock poppet  
for leaders of other (G8) countries. In the Khadr case, even the US  
military lawyer said Harper should ?...stop taking his orders from the  
Bush administration...?.  In the middle of the US banking melt down he  
said Canada?s ?economic fundamental?s are still strong?, repeating  
nearly verbatim Sen. McCain?s statement several hours earlier. More  
recently we find out his grandstanding speech as opposition leader  
about the Iraq war in 2003 was a xerox copy of Australian PM?s John  
Howard.
Top Ten Reasons Stephen Harper is Your Man:





From suzannedk at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 05:45:04 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:45:04 +0200
Subject: [R-G] Poverty of Crisis Debate
In-Reply-To: <cd351fdc0810012147s2b2218d9xef6ee69864d9805a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <cd351fdc0810012147s2b2218d9xef6ee69864d9805a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810030445t29013700l69e027d37f7b1960@mail.gmail.com>

Thoughts in response to Yoshie
Right on.  Am neither a leftist or Marxist and have been watchig this roll
downhill like an enlarging snow ball since the late 70s when Merrill Lynch
became a real estate company and also a bank, also a loan company.  My
grandfather started the National Bank of Detroit with Roosevelt in 1933.
 Roosevelt chose him for the specific city of Detroit, the most important
city in the country at the time, just as Roosevelt chose other men to head
national banks in other key cities.  I have had an understanding of the
thrust of the Roosevelt regulations and checks and balances that stabilized
the markets for about 50 years, so, as they have dropped to the wayside,
have noticed with quiet alarm.
I also know that Ronald Reagan, that terrible actor with mellifluous voice
and smile, was supported by the West Coast Chandler family who owned the L.A
Times papers as well as the oil companies, really representing the millions
who were organizing the rolling back all of Roosevelts regulations and
balances since almost the 1930s or 40s.  Roosevelt was considered a traitor
to his kind and to his party for the stabalization he achieved...I guess
because of the way he achieved.

The summit of the multi generation effort to do away with rules and laws is,
now!  We have no Habeous Corpus!  The law against stationing US soldiers in
the US to coerce whatever the government sees it needs people to do, is
gutted...Mr. Bush did another 'signing'.  We are spending 180 billion
dollars a year on destroying two middle eastern countries because we insist
they must be democracies as our bridges crumble, our schools close, our
sytems break down for lack of enough funds to bring them into the 21st
century.  Less than a year ago we had 50 milion people without enough food,
50 million people without enough funds to afford health care, numbers that
are probably doubled now.  Will be trebled soon.  And the war funding was
just refreshed last week...The one trillion asked for to throw at the
financial melt down will double US debt overnight..  where will that money
come from?  China may close the spigots...are rather fools if they do not!

Follow this national international conversation with great interest as
almost no one mentions the simple fact that the answers to the crisis would
be in the Roosevelt files!  No-ne has suggested they be combed through.  I
suggested a column in one of the two main Detroit newspapers about my grand
dad as a way of bringing another subject to highlight coming problems too
long ignored, with an immediate solution!  No interest.  I find that
fasinating comment on all of the US.

I even suspect that this meltdown was planned to cover a reach to empire
behind the smoke and fears of depression...Too many powerful brilliant
economists watched this as well ..I recommend the book "Spies for Hire" By
Shorrock to show how the removal of the laws against disseminating
propaganda world wide has opened up opportunities of financial theft that
are breathless, for one.

Suzanne de Kuyper
Amsterdam


On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 6:47 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi <
critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Leftists, especially Marxists, are fond of debates on crises.  But our
> debates have often revolved around questions that are not exactly
> helpful to people in crisis.  We tend to debate such questions as:
>
> What are the underlying causes of crisis -- overaccumulation,
> overproduction, underconsumption, or what?
>
> But the question that we should have been really debating, learning
> from historical examples, is: in case of a crisis, _how_ do we counter
> a financial blackmail of capital (e.g., if you don't give us $700
> billion, we'll commit suicide bombing and take you all down)?  As long
> as we cave to this blackmail and seek a solution on capital's terms,
> we'll remain social democrats.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Yoshie
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 08:40:59 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 10:40:59 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Fewer People Entering U.S. Illegally, Report Says
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810030740v3310ddd4j747bc1a8c5786794@mail.gmail.com>

Some foreign proletarians are beginning to lose confidence in the
subprime states of America.  Will the foreign bourgeoisie? -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/us/03immig.html>
October 3, 2008
Fewer People Entering U.S. Illegally, Report Says
By GINGER THOMPSON

A report released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center indicates that
fewer people are trying to enter the United States illegally and that
there has been no growth over the last year in the number of illegal
immigrants living here.

The Pew center report, which is based on census data, showed that for
the first time in nearly a decade, the number of people entering the
country illegally was lower than the number arriving through legal
channels.

Experts said the loss of low-wage jobs in the American economy,
combined with intensified enforcement at the border and at workplaces
across the country, had caused those who might be considering an
illegal border crossing to think twice before risking what has become
an increasingly dangerous journey. The result has been a significant
reversal after a decade of rapid growth in illegal immigration.

Central banks from Mexico to Brazil have projected the biggest
declines in remittances from the United States in more than 10 years.

The Pew report found that illegal immigration to the United States had
dropped to about 500,000 annually since 2005 from an average yearly
rate of 800,000 from 2000 to 2004. Since 2000, the average number of
legal immigrants entering the United States each year has remained
steady at about 600,000 to 700,000.

At a news conference on Thursday, the report's authors said some 58
percent of the illegal immigrants living in the United States are from
Mexico, more than any other country by far.

Migrant flows from Mexico have been erratic over much of the past
decade, said Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew center, peaking in 2000,
dropping in 2002, and surging strongly since 2004.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 09:34:37 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 08:34:37 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Pentagon Hands Iraq Oil Deal to Shell
Message-ID: <D8EF0D1B-68F0-44D8-A2DF-9E8D408737A4@shaw.ca>

Pentagon Hands Iraq Oil Deal to Shell

By Nick Turse, AlterNet. Posted October 2, 2008.

The U.S. government secretly facilitated dealings between Shell and  
the Iraqi Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/101012/pentagon_hands_iraq_oil_deal_to_shell/

In June of this year, Andrew Kramer, writing in the New York Times  
broke the story that the world's oil giants, "Exxon Mobil, Shell,  
Total and BP ... along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil  
companies" were "in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid  
contracts to service Iraq's largest fields." Subsequently, the Times  
went on to report 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 ...  
" The Times asserted that the "disclosure" was "the first confirmation  
of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open  
Iraq's oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism."

In reality, there had long been ample evidence of deep involvement  
between the Bush administration, foreign firms and Iraq's Oil  
Ministry. The Times and other major media outlets also failed to  
expose the major financial ties between the military occupation in  
Iraq and the same oil giants. In fact, each of the oil giants named in  
the original New York Times piece -- Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP,  
and Chevron -- regularly shows up on the Pentagon's payroll. In fact,  
last year, the five firms took home more than $4.1 billion from the  
Pentagon -- with Shell leading the way with $2.1 billion.

In September, the "criticism" the Times predicted apparently finally  
scuttled the no-bid deals. In a piece by Kramer and Campbell  
Robertson, it was reported that the "plan to award six no-bid  
contracts to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism  
from several United States senators this summer, ha[d] been  
withdrawn." The companies would, however, be eligible to bid for  
contracts and, just days later, it was announced that the Pentagon's  
favorite of the oil majors, Shell, would become the first oil giant to  
sign an energy deal with the Iraqi government in 35 years.

On September 22nd, the government of Iraq and Royal Dutch Shell  
officially signed a $4 billion deal "to establish a joint venture with  
[Iraq's] South Gas Company in the Basra district of southern Iraq to  
process and market natural gas." A day later, the Times reported that  
Shell had "established an office in Baghdad." From a "news conference  
in Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone," the Times quoted Linda Cook,  
the executive director of the Shell's gas and power unit, as saying,  
"We are ready to establish a presence."

While the Times didn't report it, Cook went on to say, "I am delighted  
that the Iraqi Government including the Ministry of Oil have supported  
Shell as the partner for joint venture with the South Gas Company. We  
look forward to moving jointly to implement the JV and begin investing  
in the energy infrastructure in Iraq." What the Times (and other major  
media outlets) also failed to mention was that guarantor of that  
"Green Zone" from which Cook spoke, just days before, had the inked  
its own huge energy deal with Shell. On September 17th, Shell was  
awarded a $338 million contract for aviation fuel by the Pentagon. In  
fact, even before this contract, Shell had already awarded over $1  
billion from the Pentagon during this fiscal year. If history is any  
guide, it will receive billions more before fiscal 2009 starts.

The Pentagon's Shell deal came during one DoD's periodic petroleum  
benders -- massive multi-day spending sprees where hundreds of  
millions or billions of taxpayer dollars are paid out to oil  
companies. This one, on September 17th and 18th, netted Shell,  
Chevron, ConocoPhillips and seven other oil companies a grand total of  
over $1.5 billion.

The fact that the U.S. government secretly facilitated dealings  
between Shell and the Iraqi Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts; that  
the U.S. military -- the primary occupation force in Iraq -- regularly  
pays Shell billions of dollars each year; that on the heals of a  
contract worth hundred of millions of dollars with the U.S. military,  
Shell just inked a deal with the with occupied Iraq and set up an  
office in the U.S. military's secure "Green Zone" should raise myriad  
questions about the tangled relationship between the major players in  
Iraq. These complex issues go ignored because they are viewed as so  
routine as not to be worth mentioning, but in any other context the  
confluence of guns, oil and billions of dollars would certainly raise  
eyebrows.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 10:10:18 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 12:10:18 -0400
Subject: [R-G] No Debt Service Problems Likely in Argentina, Paper Finds
In-Reply-To: <752492331.214253641@org.orgDB.mail.democracyinaction.org>
References: <752492331.214253641@org.orgDB.mail.democracyinaction.org>
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810030910s4c6bb326p74d55a9e1840f409@mail.gmail.com>

Press Release

No Debt Service Problems Likely in Argentina, Paper Finds

Analysis Shows That Crisis Scenarios Are Unfounded

For Immediate Release: October 3, 2008
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460

Washington, D.C. -- A new paper from the Center for Economic and
Policy Research examines Argentina's current debt, fiscal, and overall
economic situation and finds that, contrary to a number of recent
press reports and analyses, there is little or no reason to believe
that Argentina is facing serious economic problems that could lead to
a default on its sovereign debt.

"These unwarranted crisis scenarios are nothing new," according to
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research and author of the paper, "Argentina: The Crisis That Isn't."
[LINK: <http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/argentina:-the-crisis-that-isn-t/>]
"Most economists, the IMF, and the business press were wrong about the
Argentine economy throughout most of last six years of Argentina's
economic expansion. The latest 'Chicken Little' scenarios about
Argentina fit a familiar pattern that makes the Argentine economy out
to be in much worse shape than it actually is."

The Argentine economy today has grown more than 60 percent since its
recovery began six years ago, has trade and current account surpluses,
and has declining levels of debt relative to GDP and other indicators.

The paper notes that even under relatively pessimistic assumptions,
Argentina would have only $2.1 billion in debt service that it would
have to finance from savings or reserves, or through borrowing.

"Contrary to scare stories, Argentina's situation today has almost
nothing in common with the situation of 2001," Weisbrot said,
referring to Argentina's economic crisis of end 2001-2002.

The paper also suggests that as Argentina's debt burden declines after
2009, it will become clearer to "holdout" bondholders (who rejected
the settlement that Argentina negotiated with about 75 percent of its
creditors in 2005) that their continued efforts to block Argentina's
access to credit are not likely to have much impact on Argentina's
economy, and they have had no apparent impact so far.  It is therefore
likely that this problem will also be resolved, and Argentina will
regain normal access to international credit markets. But in any case,
the current discussion of default possibilities does not appear to be
justified by the economic reality, current or projected.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent,
nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic
debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect
people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel
Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman,
Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum,
Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers
University.

________________________________

Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW,
Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net


From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 10:32:27 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 09:32:27 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Firms Awarded $300M for Pro-US Propaganda in Iraq
Message-ID: <9EEB3FCB-3EBF-48BF-89C0-18437B49CE98@shaw.ca>

U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media

By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 3, 2008; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/02/AR2008100204223_pf.html

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to  
$300 million over the next three years to produce news stories,  
entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi  
media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to  
support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.

The new contracts -- awarded last week to four companies -- will  
expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls "information/ 
psychological operations" in Iraq far into the future, even as  
violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.

The military's role in the war of ideas has been fundamentally  
transformed in recent years, the result of both the Pentagon's  
outsized resources and a counterinsurgency doctrine in which  
information control is considered key to success. Uniformed  
communications specialists and contractors are now an integral part of  
U.S. military operations from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and beyond.

Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on such  
contracts, has been the proving ground for the transformation. "The  
tools they're using, the means, the robustness of this activity has  
just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was just  
some guy's dreams," said a senior U.S. military official, one of  
several who discussed the sensitive defense program on the condition  
of anonymity.

The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a  
propaganda market dominated by al-Qaeda, whose media operations  
include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and  
audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. "We're being out- 
communicated by a guy in a cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often  
remarks.

But Defense Department officials think their own products have become  
increasingly imaginative and competitive. Military and contractor- 
produced media campaigns, spotlighting killings by insurgents, "helped  
in developing attitudes" that led Iraqis to reject al-Qaeda in Iraq  
over the past two years, an official said. Now that the insurgency is  
in disarray, he said, the same tools "could potentially be helpful" in  
diminishing the influence of neighboring Iran.

U.S.-produced public service broadcasts and billboards have touted  
improvements in government services, promoted political  
reconciliation, praised the Iraqi military and encouraged Iraqi  
citizens to report criminal activity. When national euphoria broke out  
last year after an Iraqi singer won a talent contest in Lebanon, the  
U.S. military considered producing an Iraqi version of "American Idol"  
to help build nonsectarian nationalism. The idea was shelved as too  
expensive, an official said, but "we're trying to think out of the box  
on" reconciliation.

One official described how part of the program works: "There's a video  
piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family being attacked  
by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The  
message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy." The  
professionally produced vignette, he said, "is offered for airing on  
various [television] stations in Iraq. . . . They don't know that the  
originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they  
would never run anything."

"If you asked most Iraqis," he said, "they would say, 'It came from  
the government, our own government.' "

The Pentagon's solicitation for bids on the contracts noted that media  
items produced "may or may not be non-attributable to coalition  
forces." "If they thought we were doing it, it would not be as  
effective," another official said of the Iraqis. "In the Middle East,  
they are so afraid they're going to be Westernized . . . that you have  
to be careful when you're trying to provide information to the  
population."

The Army's counterinsurgency manual, which Gen. David H. Petraeus co- 
wrote in 2006, describes information operations in detail, citing them  
among the "critical" military activities "that do not involve killing  
insurgents." Petraeus, who became the top U.S. commander in Iraq early  
last year, led a "surge" in combat troops and information warfare.

Some of the new doctrine emerged from Petraeus's own early experience  
in Iraq. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in northern  
Nineveh province in 2003, he ensured that war-ravaged radio and  
television stations were brought rapidly back on line. At his urging,  
the first TV programs included "Nineveh Talent Search" and a radio  
call-in show hosted by his Arabic interpreter, Sadi Othman, a  
Palestinian American.

Othman, a former New York cabdriver employed by Reston-based SOS  
International, remained at Petraeus's side during the general's  
subsequent Iraq deployments; the company refers to him as a senior  
adviser to Petraeus.

SOSi has been one of the most prominent communications contractors  
working in Iraq, winning a two-year $200 million contract in 2006 to  
"assist in gathering information, conducting analysis and providing  
timely solutions and advice regarding cultural, religious, political,  
economic and public perceptions."

"We definitely believe this is a growth area in the DOD," said Julian  
Setian, SOSi's chief operating officer. "We are seeing more and more  
requests for professional assistance in media-related strategic  
communications efforts, specifically in gauging of perceptions in  
foreign media with regard to U.S. operations."

The four companies that will share in the new contract are SOSi, the  
Washington-based Lincoln Group, Alexandria-based MPRI and Leonie  
Industries, a Los Angeles contractor. All specialize in strategic  
communications and have done previous defense work.

Defense officials maintained that strict rules are enforced against  
disseminating false information. "Our enemies have the luxury of not  
having to tell the truth," Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman told  
a congressional hearing last month. "We pay an extremely high price if  
we ever even make a slight error in putting out the facts."

Contractors require security clearances, and proof that their teams  
possess sufficient linguistic abilities and knowledge of Iraqi  
culture. The Iraqi government has little input on U.S. operations,  
although U.S. officials say they have encouraged Iraqis to be more  
aggressive in molding public support.

The Pentagon is sensitive to criticism that it has sometimes blurred  
the lines between public-affairs activities and unattributed  
propaganda. As information operations in Iraq expanded, some senior  
officers warned that they risked a return to psychological and  
deception operations discredited during the Vietnam War.

In 2006, the Pentagon's inspector general found that media work that  
the Lincoln Group did in Iraq was improperly supervised but legal. The  
contractor had prepared news items considered favorable to the U.S.  
military and paid to place them in the Iraqi media without  
attribution. Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters  
that his initial reaction to the anonymous pay-to-publish program was  
"Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing."

On Aug. 21, the day before bids on the new contract were closed, the  
solicitation was reissued to replace repeated references to  
information and psychological operations with the term "media services."

Senior military officials said that current media placement is done  
through Iraqi middlemen and that broadcast time is usually paid. But  
they said they knew of no recent instance of payment to place  
unattributed newspaper articles. The officials maintained that news  
items are now a minor part of the operation, which they said is  
focused on public service promotions and media monitoring.

But a lengthy list of "deliverables" under the new contract proposal  
includes "print columns, press statements, press releases, response-to- 
query, speeches and . . . opinion editorials"; radio broadcasts "in  
excess of 300 news stories" monthly and 150 each on sports and  
economic themes; and 30- and 60-minute broadcast documentary and  
entertainment series.

Contractors will also develop and maintain Web sites; assess news  
articles in the Iraqi, U.S. and international media; and determine  
ways to counter coverage deemed negative, according to the contract  
solicitation the government posted in May. Polls and focus groups will  
be used to monitor Iraqi attitudes under a separate three-year  
contract totaling up to $45 million.

While U.S. law prohibits the use of government money to direct  
propaganda at U.S. audiences, the "statement of work" included in the  
proposal, written by the U.S. Joint Contracting Command in Iraq, notes  
the need to "communicate effectively with our strategic audiences  
(i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic, International, and U.S. audiences) to gain  
widespread acceptance of [U.S. and Iraqi government] core themes and  
messages."

Lawmakers have often challenged the propriety of the military's  
information operations, even when they take place outside the United  
States. The Pentagon itself has frequently lamented the need to  
undertake duties beyond combat and peacekeeping, and Gates has  
publicly questioned the "creeping militarization" of tasks civilians  
traditionally perform.

In 2006, President Bush put the State Department in charge of the  
administration's worldwide "strategic communications," but the size of  
the military's efforts dwarf those of the diplomats. State estimates  
it will spend $5.6 million on public diplomacy in Iraq in fiscal 2008.  
A provision in the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization Bill has called  
for a "close examination" of the State and defense communications  
programs "to better formulate a comprehensive strategy."

Some inside the military itself have questioned the effectiveness of  
the defense program. "I'm not a huge fan" of information operations,  
one military official said, adding that Iraqi opinions -- as for most  
people -- are formed more by what they experience than by what they  
read in a newspaper, hear on the radio or see on billboards.

"A lot of money is being thrown around," he said, "and I'm not sure  
it's all paying off as much as we think it is."

Post a Comment



From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 11:01:12 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 10:01:12 -0700
Subject: [R-G] McCain's Kremlin Ties
Message-ID: <3CED16AD-1EE4-4C02-9C55-4B19EF9CD873@shaw.ca>

McCain's Kremlin Ties
By Mark Ames & Ari Berman

This article appeared in the October 20, 2008 edition of The Nation.
October 1, 2008
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081020/ames_berman/print

Research support was provided by the Puffin Foundation Investigative  
Fund at The Nation Institute.

DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin and metals oligarch Oleg Deripaska,  
2006

Over the course of the presidential campaign, John McCain has  
repeatedly emphasized his willingness to stand up to Russian Prime  
Minister Vladimir Putin as proof that only he possesses the fortitude  
and judgment to become the next leader of the free world. In his  
acceptance speech at the Republican convention, McCain lashed out at  
Putin and the Russian oligarchs, who, "rich with oil wealth and  
corrupt with power...[are] reassembling the old Russian Empire."  
McCain rushed to publicly support the Georgian republic during its  
recent conflict with Russia and amplified his threat to expel Moscow  
from the G-8 club of major powers. His running mate, Sarah Palin,  
suggested in her first major interview that the United States might  
have to go to war with Russia one day in order to protect Georgia--the  
kind of apocalyptic scenario the United States avoided during the cold  
war.

Yet despite McCain's tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers  
have cultivated deep ties with Russia's oligarchy--indeed, they have  
promoted the Kremlin's geopolitical and economic interests, as well as  
some of its most unsavory business figures, through greedy cynicism  
and geopolitical stupor. The most notable example is the tale of how  
McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, advanced what became a  
key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but  
strategically important country of Montenegro.

According to two former senior US diplomats who served in the Balkans,  
Davis and his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, received several million  
dollars to help run Montenegro's independence referendum campaign of  
2006. The terms of the agreement were never disclosed to the public,  
but top Montenegrin officials told the US diplomats that Davis's work  
was underwritten by powerful Russian business interests connected to  
the Kremlin and operating in Montenegro. Neither Davis nor the McCain  
campaign responded to repeated requests for comment. (Davis's  
extensive lobbying work, especially on behalf of collapsed mortgage  
giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has already attracted critical  
media scrutiny.)

At the time, Putin wanted to establish a Russian outpost in the  
Mediterranean, and Montenegro--a coastal republic across the Adriatic  
from Italy--was seen as his best hope. McCain also lobbied for  
Montenegro's independence from Serbia, calling it "the greatest  
European democracy project since the end of the cold war." For McCain,  
the simplistic notion of "independence" from a country America had  
gone to war with in the late 1990s was all that mattered. What  
Montenegro looked like after independence seemed not to interest him.  
This suited Putin just fine. Russia had generally sided with Serbia  
against the West during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but for the  
Kremlin, cutting Montenegro free from Serbia meant dealing with a  
Montenegro that could be more easily controlled. Indeed, today, after  
its "independence," Montenegro is nicknamed "Moscow by the  
Mediterranean." Russian oligarchs control huge chunks of the country's  
industry and prized coastline--and Russians exert a powerful influence  
over the country's political culture. "Montenegro is almost a new  
Russian colony, as rubles flow in to buy property and business in the  
tiny state," Denis MacShane, Tony Blair's former Europe minister,  
wrote in Newsweek in June. The takeover of Montenegro has been a  
Russian geostrategic victory--quietly accomplished, paradoxically  
enough, with the help of McCain and his top aides.

In mid-September The Nation's website published a photo of McCain  
celebrating his seventieth birthday in Montenegro in August 2006 at a  
yacht party hosted by convicted Italian felon Raffaello Follieri and  
his movie-star girlfriend Anne Hathaway. On the same day one of the  
largest mega-yachts in the world, the Queen K, was moored in the same  
bay of Kotor. This was where the real party was. The owner of the  
Queen K was known as "Putin's oligarch": Oleg Deripaska, controlling  
shareholder of the Russian aluminum giant RusAl, currently listed as  
the ninth-richest man in the world, with a rap sheet as abundant as  
his wealth. By mid-2005 Deripaska had already virtually taken control  
of Montenegro's economy by snapping up its aluminum plant, KAP--which  
accounts for up to 40 percent of the country's GDP and some 80 percent  
of its export earnings--in a nontransparent privatization tender  
strongly criticized by NGO watchdogs, Montenegrin politicians and  
journalists. The Nation has learned that Deripaska told one of his  
closest associates that he bought the plant "because Putin encouraged  
him to do it." The reason: "the Kremlin wanted an area of influence in  
the Mediterranean."

In mid-2005 Ambassador Richard Sklar, the former lead US official in  
the Balkans, ceased advising the Montenegrin government (he'd worked  
as a pro bono adviser after leaving the US diplomatic service) when it  
became clear the plant was being handed to Deripaska under heavy  
Russian pressure. "I quit because it was a bad deal, not for any  
political reasons. The Russians scared all the other buyers off. They  
offered far too little money and got themselves a sweetheart deal."

Russia's virtual takeover of Montenegro was well under way by January  
2006, when Rick Davis introduced Deripaska to McCain at a villa in  
Davos, Switzerland. They met again seven months later, at a reception  
in Montenegro celebrating McCain's birthday, as reported in the  
Washington Post.

The story of how Oleg Deripaska, 40, rose from a Cossack village to  
become a Putin-blessed aluminum tycoon with an estimated $40 billion  
fortune does not begin with a lemonade stand and old-fashioned elbow  
grease. Like most post-Soviet success stories, Deripaska's rise began  
abruptly and violently, during the chaotic reign of Boris Yeltsin.  
Among all the battles for control of valuable state assets in the  
1990s, none were as bloody as the "aluminum wars," in which organized- 
crime gangs hired by competing interests assassinated dozens of  
executives, shareholders and bankers. During a visit to the United  
States in 1995, Deripaska threatened the lives of two aluminum rivals,  
Yuri and Mikhail Zhivilo, according to a RICO lawsuit filed against  
Deripaska in New York district court in 2000. The RICO case is just  
one of many lawsuits, including one filed in Israel by a former  
business partner claiming that Deripaska illegally wiretapped an  
Israeli cabinet minister. In addition, German prosecutors have begun a  
criminal money-laundering investigation in Stuttgart. (Deripaska did  
not respond to requests for comment.)

Deripaska understands that success in Russia today comes from a  
mixture of brute force, political influence and personal connections.  
In 2001, about a year after Putin signed a decree granting legal  
immunity to Yeltsin's family, Deripaska married Yeltsin's  
granddaughter, thereby cementing his own immunity and power.  
Throughout Putin's reign, Deripaska has adhered to an unwritten  
understanding between Putin and the oligarchs: as long as they support  
the Kremlin, they can operate with impunity. Deripaska has thus taken  
on numerous projects dear to Putin, such as building a new airport in  
Sochi for the 2014 Olympics and buying out Tajikistan's aluminum plant  
to help Putin reassert control over that key ex-Soviet republic.  
Deripaska openly admits that his RusAl holdings are subservient to the  
Kremlin's wishes, telling the Financial Times last year, "If the state  
says we need to give it up, we'll give it up."

Yet Deripaska faced a serious obstacle to his business ambitions,  
hampering his duties as a Putin surrogate. Because of numerous  
accusations of involvement in death threats, extortion, racketeering  
and money laundering, he had been barred from entering America since  
1998. Putin has lobbied for Deripaska's US visa. In an interview with  
Le Monde earlier this year, Putin complained, "I have asked my  
American colleagues why. If you have reasons for not delivering him a  
visa, if you have documents on illegal activities, give us them....  
They give us nothing, explain to us nothing, and forbid him from entry."

The visa ban was costing Deripaska billions: for years he and fellow  
RusAl shareholders had sought to cash in their wealth by launching an  
IPO in London, which could have netted up to $10 billion for RusAl's  
owners. However, finding institutional buyers would be difficult if  
not impossible as long as RusAl's primary owner was barred from  
entering the United States.

Despite rampant Russophobia among Republicans, Deripaska turned to  
powerful GOP figures to solve his problem--especially to Republicans  
connected with McCain. In 2003 Deripaska hired former presidential  
candidate Bob Dole, who had nearly picked McCain as his running mate,  
and Dole's lobbying partner Bruce Jackson (also a McCain aide) to  
lobby the State Department to overturn the visa ban, according to  
Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby of the Wall Street Journal. Over the  
next few years Dole's firm, Alston & Bird, was paid more than $500,000  
to push for Deripaska's visa.

Deripaska also reached out to a Washington-based intelligence firm,  
Diligence, chaired by GOP foreign policy hand Richard Burt, McCain's  
top foreign policy adviser in 2000 and an adviser in '08 (Burt left  
Diligence in 2007 to join Henry Kissinger's consulting firm).  
Deripaska's business partner in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, an heir  
to the English Rothschild fortune, bought a stake in Diligence,  
according to the New York Times and confirmed by a Rothschild  
spokesman. The firm offered Deripaska many useful services: corporate  
intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through considerable GOP  
connections and, crucially, help in obtaining a $150 million World  
Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for a  
Deripaska subsidiary, the Komi Aluminum Project. Getting the loan was  
useful in providing a layer of comfort to Western investors skittish  
about RusAl. So Diligence, now partly owned by Rothschild, provided a  
"due diligence" report to the World Bank, which the Bank then used to  
approve its loan to Deripaska.

Not surprisingly, the lobbying worked: in December 2005 Deripaska was  
issued a multientry US visa, according to the State Department. During  
his brief stay he signed his World Bank loan, spoke at a Carnegie  
Endowment meeting and attended a dinner for Harvard University's  
Belfer Center, where, thanks to a generous donation, he became a  
member of its international council.

However, Deripaska's trip did not end well. Under the visa's terms, he  
was forced to endure lengthy FBI questioning. According to the mining- 
industry newsletter Mineweb, the list of his enemies had grown from  
jilted former business partners to the heads of powerful US metals  
companies and government officials unhappy with RusAl's control of key  
Third World bauxite mines, which threatened beleaguered US aluminum  
giants. The interview went badly--according to people who know him,  
Deripaska had little patience for prying bureaucrats. When he left the  
country, the visa ban was reinstated. Once again Deripaska turned to  
powerful Republicans--this time, to McCain and campaign manager Davis,  
who arranged the January 2006 Davos introduction. The McCain campaign  
later claimed that "any contact between Mr. Deripaska and the senator  
was social and incidental," but afterward Deripaska thanked Davis for  
arranging "such an intimate setting." The Washington Post reported  
that Davis was "seeking to do business with the billionaire." Indeed,  
Deripaska's subsequent thank-you letter mentioned his possible  
investment in a metals company Davis represented through a hedge-fund  
client.

If you're wondering how Deripaska came to know Davis & Co., the answer  
lies in Russia's next-door neighbor Ukraine.

In December 2004 Ukrainians poured into the streets of Kiev and other  
cities in the peaceful "Orange Revolution," which overthrew a Putin- 
backed corrupt leader, Viktor Yanukovich, who had tried to steal the  
country's presidential election that year (during which the pro- 
Western opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was poisoned and  
almost died). It was a serious blow to Russia's geopolitical standing.

Putin's Ukrainian proxies were also in trouble. Shortly after the  
Orange Revolution, a murder investigation was launched against the  
country's richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, Yanukovich's main backer.  
Akhmetov fled the country. In exile in Monaco, he turned to Davis's  
business partner, Paul Manafort--the second name in the lobbying firm  
Davis Manafort. An old GOP hand, Manafort, like Davis, had played a  
key role in Dole's failed 1996 presidential run and had worked for  
dictators like Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Mobutu Sese  
Seko of Zaire. Akhmetov initially hired Manafort to improve the image  
of his beleaguered conglomerate, SCM, but soon Manafort's role shifted  
to helping Yanukovich.

Manafort assembled a skilled team of political operatives in Ukraine  
and set about raising the popularity of Yanukovich's pro-Russian Party  
of Regions, which Akhmetov financed. It was a very lucrative deal for  
Davis Manafort--and successful (according to Ukrainian investigative  
journalist Mustafa Nayem, Akhmetov paid Manafort upward of $3  
million). Yanukovich's disgraced party won a resounding victory in the  
March 2006 elections--and Akhmetov returned as the top Ukrainian  
oligarch. Thanks in part to the work of Davis Manafort, the Orange  
Revolution was essentially undone, putting Putin back in the chess  
match over Ukraine's future.

Publicly McCain and his campaign chief's lobbying firm were on  
opposite sides. In 2005 McCain had nominated Orange Revolution hero  
Yushchenko for the Nobel Prize, and that spring he'd honored  
Yushchenko in the headquarters of the International Republican  
Institute, whose board McCain has chaired since 1993. But behind the  
scenes the former head of IRI's Moscow office, Philip Griffin, was  
recruited by Manafort to work on Yanukovich's campaign against  
Yushchenko. Davis Manafort's work was considered so detrimental to US  
interests that a National Security Council official called McCain's  
office to complain, according to the New York Times. The McCain  
campaign denies receiving the NSC complaint.

But the firm's work was only just beginning. The same month Davis  
Manafort helped deliver this victory to Putin's proxies, it started  
work on another key Kremlin success story: an independent and Russia- 
dominated Montenegro.

First, a little history. Montenegro was the smallest of the former  
Yugoslavia's six republics. When Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown in  
October 2000, Montenegro's longtime strongman, Milo Djukanovic,  
figured the West would reward him by supporting his push for  
independence. But the European Union and the United States opposed  
Montenegro's secession, which they feared would undermine the new, pro- 
Western leaders in Serbia and bring more war. So under heavy pressure  
from the EU, an agreement was struck in 2002 putting off an  
independence referendum for at least three years.

Djukanovic then looked beyond the West for support. That same year his  
closest ally and mentor, Milan Rocen, was dispatched to Moscow as  
ambassador of the Serbia-Montenegro confederation. Rocen nurtured ties  
to Putin's Russia, and by 2005 the biggest Montenegrin industrial  
asset, the KAP aluminum plant, was snatched up by Deripaska at Putin's  
request. After that, Russia surprised everyone by dropping its  
objections to Montenegrin independence, which Russia's historic ally  
Serbia vigorously opposed. "There seemed to be a belief that Deripaska  
and the Russians wanted to gain control of the aluminum plant as part  
of a Russian move for greater influence throughout Montenegro," says  
former ambassador Sklar.

Meanwhile, Rick Davis was also eager for a piece of Montenegro's  
independence, lobbying hard for Davis Manafort to run the referendum  
campaign. Bob Dole, who has been paid $1.38 million by the Montenegrin  
government since 2001 to lobby for it in Washington, urged his  
Montenegrin friends to hire Davis. Whether it was because of Dole or,  
as some speculate, the Russians, Davis got his deal.

Though Davis has claimed no connection to his partner Manafort's  
controversial activities in Ukraine, he nevertheless hired at least  
three specialists recommended by Manafort, from the same team Manafort  
used for Yanukovich's victory, to work on Montenegro's independence  
referendum. They included Russian political operative Andrei Ryabchuk,  
an elections specialist who had previously worked on pro-Putin  
campaigns in Russia. Ryabchuk told The Nation that he was "recruited  
by Manafort's people" out of Moscow to the Ukraine operation and then  
on to Montenegro.

Davis's team was vetted by Montenegro's Russian ambassador Rocen, who  
was returning from Moscow to oversee the independence campaign. Why  
was Davis hired? The top McCain aide was as much a political symbol as  
a campaign consultant. "I think the Montenegrins hired Rick to have  
political cover--it was important to show they had support from the  
United States," said an American democracy expert who's worked in  
Montenegro. Though disclosure is required by Montenegrin law, Davis  
Manafort's contract with the ruling Montenegrin party was never  
publicly released. In addition, Djukanovic's party never listed  
payments to Davis Manafort on its election filings, lending credence  
to private claims by top Montenegrin officials that Russian business  
interests paid for Davis's work through hired third parties, an oft- 
used though illegal tactic in Eastern Europe to disguise money trails.

At key points in the campaign, Davis reached out to Deripaska's allies  
for help. With the referendum too close to call, the Serbs tried to  
sway public opinion by threatening to revoke scholarships and other  
education privileges of Montenegrin students if the country should  
secede. This caused a panic--so to counter the Serbs, Davis turned to  
Deripaska emissary Nathaniel Rothschild (Rothschild has reportedly  
become the richest of all the Rothschilds, thanks to his privileged  
role as a Deripaska adviser).

Three weeks before the independence referendum, Davis asked Rothschild  
to come to Montenegro. After arriving in his private Gulfstream jet,  
Rothschild was trotted out before the cameras with the Montenegrin  
prime minister, where he pledged $1 million to support students who  
might be hurt by Serbia's scholarship threat. Another Deripaska ally  
brought in to secure the student vote was Canadian billionaire Peter  
Munk, CEO of Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold-mining corporation  
(it was Munk who had hosted the Davos meeting between McCain and  
Deripaska a few months earlier). Munk, who serves on the advisory  
board of RusAl, delivered pledges of support from Canadian universities.

At the same time Deripaska's allies were employed by Davis, Dole was  
lobbying McCain to promote Montenegro's independence. Dole's aides  
held a teleconference with McCain's Senate office when Montenegro's  
foreign minister visited Washington; shortly thereafter, the  
referendum passed by a razor-thin 0.5 percent. In April 2006 McCain  
announced that Montenegro's independence was the "greatest European  
democracy project since the end of the cold war." Despite opposition  
cries of vote rigging, the United States and other major powers  
accepted the results--and Putin's Russia recognized newly independent  
Montenegro before the EU did.

A few months after the vote, McCain and a contingent of GOP senators  
visited Montenegro. The day before they arrived, Djukanovic had flown  
to Putin's dacha on the Black Sea. "Your government made it possible  
for large-scale Russian investments," Putin told the Montenegrin  
leader. Djukanovic then returned to Montenegro and warmly received  
McCain, who also met with the Montenegrin president, speaker of  
Parliament and opposition leader Predrag Bulatovic. Bulatovic told  
McCain about how Russian capital was taking over the country and of  
his concern that "this investment can have a negative impact on the  
democratic process." McCain listened but kept criticism of Russia to  
himself. Meanwhile, Davis was still in the country, helping  
Djukanovic's Russia-allied party win the upcoming parliamentary  
elections. (At the time, Djukanovic was under investigation by Italian  
prosecutors for cigarette smuggling and "Mafia-type activities.")

Soon after the referendum, the powerful figures behind Montenegro's  
independence were carving up the country. That summer Rothschild  
started discussions with top Montenegrin officials about gaining  
control of the valuable shoreline, including the half-billion-dollar  
Porto Montenegro project, which aims to become the world's top mega- 
yacht marina, complete with luxury hotels, shopping and the country's  
first eighteen-hole golf course. The property was handed to the Munk- 
Rothschild-fronted offshore consortium for a pittance, according to  
MANS, the local NGO partner of Transparency International, in yet  
another backroom deal. Eventually, Deripaska's role in Porto  
Montenegro, which was initially secret, was formally acknowledged,  
although the full list of owners is still a mystery. Deripaska is also  
developing an 8 billion-euro resort in southern Montenegro and seeking  
control of a coal mine and a thermal power plant.

Roughly two years later, in March of this year, Rothschild hosted a  
high-dollar fundraiser for McCain at London's posh eighteenth-century  
Spencer House, which Rothschild donated for the occasion. Given the  
close relationship between Rothschild and Deripaska, some speculated  
that Deripaska was the hidden hand behind the event. The conservative  
watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a complaint with the Federal  
Election Commission, alleging that the fundraiser amounted to an  
illegal contribution by foreign nationals to McCain's campaign.

Aside from a little campaign dough, what has McCain gotten out of all  
this? It's hard to tell--either he was utterly clueless while his top  
advisers and political allies ran around the former Soviet domain  
promoting the Kremlin's interests for cash, or he was aware of it and  
didn't care. McCain was reportedly so angry about Davis Manafort's  
role in stifling Ukraine's Orange Revolution that he almost removed  
Davis as campaign manager. But in the case of Montenegro, he should  
have known what Davis & Co. were up to. After all, McCain lent a  
helping hand. And by the time he visited the country, the Russian  
takeover was plain to see.

The story of how McCain's closest aides and employees have been  
undermining his vociferously expressed opposition to Putin and  
Russia's oligarchs offers a highly disturbing preview of what a McCain  
administration might look like. When McCain's campaign proclaims  
"country first," one has to wonder, Which country? The one with the  
highest bidder?

     * Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
     * If you like this article, consider making a donation to The  
Nation.

About Mark Ames
Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion  
 From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (Soft  
Skull) and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove).  
He is a regular contributor to eXiled Online. more...
About Ari Berman
Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation, covering national  
politics and the 2008 election, and an Investigative Journalism Fellow  
at The Nation Institute. more... 


From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 11:04:39 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 10:04:39 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Will the Pentagon Be the Next U.S. Institution to Crash?
Message-ID: <658D142E-A149-44D7-B75F-EC255C496EA2@shaw.ca>

Will the Pentagon Be the Next U.S. Institution to Crash?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081002_will_the_pentagon_be_the_next_us_institution_to_crash/

Posted on Oct 2, 2008

By William Pfaff

The nuclear physicist Leo Szilard once remarked that the fall of the  
Soviet system would eventually lead to the fall of the American  
system. He said that in a two-element structure, the interrelationship  
and interdependence are such that the one cannot survive without the  
other.

This comment has been relayed by a friend, and as Szilard has passed  
to his reward I am in no position to explain his reasoning, but it is  
possible to restate it in political terms, and we are seeing the  
result in finance and in war. I think that Szilard was implying what a  
very intelligent opponent of the United States also said when the Cold  
War ended. Georgi Arbatov, former head of the U.S.A. and Canada  
Institute of the Soviet Union, said to an American interlocutor: We  
are about to do something truly terrible to you. We are going to  
deprive you of your enemy.

Without the enemy, the machinery of power begins to race, with nothing  
to resist it; megalomania sets in. The end of the Cold War coincided  
with the beginning in the United States of globalized finance,  
launched under the Clinton administration. It operated with ever more  
dazzling and daring gambles in which the constraints and tension of  
the Cold War were replaced by the psychology of greed and excess.

The economic crisis that has now overtaken the United States can be  
interpreted as the logical result of a financial system that reached  
the point where there was no limit to what you could take out of it  
even when you were incapable of understanding the transactions taking  
place.

Less apparent to most people, but just as real, are the signs of an  
impending crash of an American military system in which, since the end  
of the Cold War, Pentagon dysfunction has metastasized so  
uncontrollably as to scandalize both the man who was defense secretary  
when the so-called war on terror began and the current secretary,  
Robert M. Gates, the man in charge as that war mutates into the ?Long  
War.?

The war has been renamed the ?Long War? because no one has a better  
name for it, and nearly everyone fears that it may go on forever,  
since it seems to be a war against disorder, failed nations, rogue  
states and the collective miseries of all the world beyond the  
frontiers of the United States and Europe.

On Sept. 10, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered  
a speech in which he declared that the greatest threat to the security  
of the United States was the organization over which he presided, the  
Pentagon and its bureaucracy. He said that its waste and disorder had  
to be brought under effective control?an undertaking which he was not  
sure could succeed, but to which he was dedicating himself.

The next day brought the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center  
and the Pentagon. Rumsfeld?s planned reforms mostly had to be  
abandoned. He had a vision of postmodern war in which a limited number  
of special troops on the ground would control electronic intelligence  
systems, high-technology air forces and unmanned drones to destroy  
primitive enemies. Old-fashioned infantry would be obsolete. Rumsfeld  
kept a news photo in his office of a special forces horseman galloping  
across the Afghan plain while directing an assault from the air  
against the Taliban.

More conventional officers opposed Rumsfeld?s ideas, and the luckless  
Taliban, which had prepared entrenchments against ground assault,  
found itself decimated (or worse) by high-level B-52 raids coming from  
bases in the United States, Britain and the Indian Ocean, under whose  
bombardments peasant soldiers and tribal levees were helpless.

Afghanistan was then turned over to ethnic warlords who previously had  
been defeated by the Taliban, and Rumsfeld went on to a new shock-and- 
awe victory in Iraq, which rapidly turned into a fiasco, because there  
wasn?t enough old-fashioned infantry.

There still isn?t, because the use and abuse of occupation forces have  
discouraged recruitment in the all-volunteer army. There is a new/old  
war in Afghanistan, spilling into Pakistan, and commanders are  
demanding more ground troops. Secretary Gates doesn?t have them in  
sufficient numbers, unless he takes them from Iraq (and declares  
victory there, a rash move).

The speech he gave last Monday to the National Defense University in  
Washington accused the Pentagon bureaucracy of obsession with high- 
technology weaponry to defeat enemies the United States does not (yet)  
have, using hypermodern weapons yet to be invented. He accused it of  
?idealized, triumphalist or ethnocentric notions of future conflict  
that aspire to upend the immutable principles of war.?

He said that during four decades, the trend line of Pentagon  
procurement has been toward lower numbers and higher technology,  
toward weapons systems ?that have been ever more baroque, ever more  
costly, taking longer to build, and fielded in ever dwindling  
quantities.? There could not be a better description of a bureaucracy  
in decadence, just as the same phrase must be applied to a financial  
system for multiplying the apparent value of fundamentally worthless  
securities. (It was Alan Greenspan who said that American finance had  
symbolically passed through the sound barrier of the known financial  
system and now was in an entirely new dimension. So it had, as we see  
now.)

I think that what Leo Szilard was saying is that a system cut free  
from the opposition that kept it honest passes into hubris, otherwise  
known as irrational exuberance, and after hubris comes the fall.

Visit William Pfaff?s Web site at www.williampfaff.com. 

From critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 11:29:51 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:29:51 -0400
Subject: [R-G] New Dollar Bill
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810031029x2cc9519bh4ec5999f9efdaba5@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.tni.org/images/newdollarbill.jpg>


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 12:22:21 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 14:22:21 -0400
Subject: [R-G] House Approves Bailout on Second Try + Markets Unexcited
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810031122h2800241qce809c21ddcc86c8@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/business/economy/04bailout.html>
October 4, 2008
House Approves Bailout on Second Try
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON ? The House of Representatives gave final approval on
Friday to the $700 billion bailout for the financial system, reversing
course to authorize what may be the most expensive government
intervention in history.

The crucial vote was 263-171, passing by a comfortable bipartisan
margin. Most Democrats voted in favor (172 yeas to 63 nays), while a
slighter majority of Republicans voted against (91 yeas to 108 nays).
Every member of the House voted. (There is one vacancy, created by
recent death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.)

At 1:21 p.m., applause and cheers echoed through the House chamber as
the number of "aye" votes crossed the threshold needed for passage
with just seconds remaining in the official 15-minute voting period.

The Senate approved the plan on Wednesday night by a vote of 74 to 25,
after adding a portfolio of popular tax provisions. The bill now heads
to President Bush who is eager to sign it.

Financial markets, already weighed down by another round of bleak
economic data, including a report showing 159,000 jobs were lost in
September, had a positive but hardly exuberant response to the House
action. Ahead of the vote, the Dow Jones industrial average was up
about 290 points but the market gave up almost all of those gains
within 30 minutes after the final vote.

How They Voted:
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/ROLLCALL.html?currentChamber=house&currentSession=2&currentCongress=110&currentRoll=681>

<http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gXJkHBkXwQWtPp4EaKg_ly_7cM_AD93J5PE81>
Credit markets still tight after bailout approval

By MADLEN READ ? 24 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) ? The stranglehold on the credit markets remained tight
Friday after the House approved a revised $700 billion financial
bailout, with investors still dubious about the plan's ability to
boost the faltering U.S. economy.

Treasury bill demand was high, keeping the yield on the 3-month bill
at around half a percent.

Market participants have been regarding the rescue plan as a strong
medicine for what's ailing the financial system, but not a cure-all.

When the Treasury buys banks' risky assets, it should help alleviate
investors' worries about the institutions' solvency and free them up
to do more lending. But that process will be far from instantaneous,
and borrowing could remain very expensive for some time. With the
economy in such a weak state, lending to consumers and businesses will
still appear risky until certain factors ? particularly employment and
the housing market ? improve.

The Labor Department said employers cut payrolls by 159,000 in
September, the largest loss in more than five years, while
unemployment remained at 6.1 percent.

Layoffs are likely to keep piling up if it remains tough to find
credit. Spectrum Yarns Inc., a North Carolina textile company, said it
closed two plants and laid off 200 workers this week because it got
turned down by a North Carolina bank, a New York finance company, and
several private lenders.

And it's going to get even harder for individuals to get home loans.
Banks have gotten more stringent in their mortgage underwriting, and
Wisconsin's affordable-housing agency recently suspended making loans
for single-family homes because it was unable to sell tax-exempt
mortgage revenue bonds and raise capital.

On Friday, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, for 3-month
dollar loans rose to 4.33 percent from 4.21 percent Thursday. That
bank-to-bank lending rate has been rising all week, showing that banks
are growing less and less willing to lend out their cash for longer
than overnight.

LIBOR is tied to many consumer rates like adjustable-rate mortgages.

In one promising sign, overnight lending has gotten significantly
cheaper ? LIBOR for overnight dollar loans plunged to a hair below 2
percent on Friday, the lowest rate in nearly four years, from 2.67
percent on Thursday.

That overnight rate is now below the Fed's key bank-to-bank overnight
lending rate, known as the target fed funds rate, of 2 percent. It
appears that central banks' decision to ramp up their lending to
financial institutions over the past couple weeks is having a positive
effect.

But that's little solace to borrowers who need a loan for longer than overnight.

Over the past week, the amount of short-term corporate debt known as
commercial paper on the market has plunged. And banks and investment
firms have borrowed in record amounts from the Federal Reserve's
emergency lending facility.

Money market mutual funds, usually the biggest buyers of commercial
paper, have run for safety lately after a money market fund "broke the
buck" two weeks ago due to its exposure to Lehman. When a fund breaks
the buck, it does not have enough assets to cover every dollar
invested in it. Instead of commercial paper, they've been investing in
Treasury bills.

"There's really no theme except the theme of survival," said John
Spinello, bond strategist at Jefferies & Co., referring to the
constricted trading in the credit markets Friday.

On Friday, the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill fell to 0.58
percent, down from 0.70 percent late Thursday. There has been no
let-up in demand for T-bills, seen as the safest assets around, even
though they are offering extremely weak returns.

An upswing in the stock market drew some investors out of longer-term
Treasurys Friday, however.

The 2-year note fell 11/32 to 100 13/32, with a yield of 1.80 percent,
up from 1.62 percent late Thursday.

The 10-year note fell 1 to 102 2/32, and yielded 3.75 percent, up from
3.64 percent.

The 30-year bond fell 1 6/32 to 104 22/32, and yielded 4.22 percent,
up from 4.16 percent.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects 4th graf to say Treasury buys assets,
sted Fed. Stands for BC-Bonds.)


From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 13:31:39 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 12:31:39 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Afghans back Taliban, says abducted senator
Message-ID: <00168535-CEC0-4B06-922B-8B6FF9E01CCC@shaw.ca>

Afghans back Taliban, says abducted senator

Chris Sands, Foreign Correspondent

     * Last Updated: October 02. 2008 11:36PM UAE / GMT

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081002/FOREIGN/285390611/1011

Abdul Wali Ahmadzai was kidnapped by the Taliban in July. Chris  
Sands / The National

KABUL // It was early one morning this summer when Abdul Wali Ahmadzai  
began to understand the true strength of the Taliban in his province.

As the senator for Logar travelled to a meeting, eight men armed with  
weapons including Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers  
stopped his convoy on a dirt road.

He was held hostage for more than two months and would come away  
having witnessed a reality some insist does not exist.

?The important point is that the people support the Taliban. This is  
the main problem: now the people do not like the government and they  
support the Taliban,? he said in an interview.

Logar province lies on Kabul?s southern border and after years of  
being portrayed as relatively safe, it has been thrust into the  
limelight by a number of brazen insurgent attacks.

Mr Ahmadzai?s kidnapping came in July, but the warning signs were  
around for a while. By the time he joined the senate as part of  
Afghanistan?s 2005 parliamentary elections, he was already noticing an  
alarming trend.

?When Hamid Karzai became president he made good relationships with  
commanders in the north and gave them lots of money and positions. But  
he did nothing for the south and east,? he said.

?I told [the government] please be careful because if the Taliban come  
back to Logar just once, it will be very difficult to stop them. But  
they didn?t care, they didn?t listen.
Now you can see everyone is upset with the government and they have  
stopped talking and started fighting.?

Mr Ahmadzai, 40, had been an aid worker and a pharmacist before opting  
? reluctantly, he says ? for a career in politics. Despite the dangers  
involved in his new job, he travelled twice a week from Kabul to his  
home province until that fateful day in July.

He stayed in Logar on the eve of his kidnapping. Then, accompanied by  
three bodyguards and two cars full of elders, he set out the next  
morning for a meeting with local officials. At 8am the gunmen were  
waiting for him, their faces covered. He refused to put up a fight.

?The Taliban have good intelligence. They know who is going out from  
the upper and lower houses of parliament, where they are going and  
when they are going,? he said.

He was soon handed over to a second group of insurgents. Over the two  
months he would be held at five or six different locations, always  
moving under the shelter of darkness. He stayed in empty homes and on  
one occasion was detained for 15 days near the office of a district  
governor.

?The government?s control was just on the main road and the places  
surrounded by walls and wire,? he said.

With him throughout was his driver, who had also been abducted. In the  
second half of their ordeal they were transferred to an area bordering  
the provinces of Ghazni, Paktia and Logar. Mr Ahmadzai claims hundreds  
of Taliban were living openly there, holding public meetings, mingling  
with the population and using police vehicles.

When both men were eventually released, the insurgents said it was  
part of an exchange deal in which three militants were freed from  
prison. The senator denies this, but feels no animosity towards the  
men who took him hostage.

For Mr Ahmadzai the experience has simply confirmed what he had  
suspected two years ago, when he first noticed the Taliban re-emerging.

Now with his seven children in Kabul, he is afraid to return to Logar  
and doubtful that he will stand in the next parliamentary elections  
scheduled for 2010.

?We represent the people, they chose us, and we can solve their  
problems. But when we talk to the president he doesn?t listen. One  
Talib even came and said he voted for me, so I represent their side as  
well,? he said.

?If the situation continues like this, I don?t want to stand again.  
There are two reasons: one is security, the other is that I can?t work  
for my people. And the elections will not be fair because there is no  
one who can [safely] vote in the south and east.?

Mr Ahmadzai said he was angry with the government, not the insurgents.

?I have a good from memory from those Taliban because from the  
beginning until the end they treated me like a guest,? he said.

csands at thenational.ae

From mstainsby at resist.ca  Fri Oct  3 13:36:19 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:36:19 -0600
Subject: [R-G] John Graham is Free!!!
Message-ID: <48E67433.9020604@resist.ca>

U.S. indictment against man charged in 1975 slaying of Canadian woman 
dismissed

1 hour ago

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. ? A judge in South Dakota has dismissed the indictment 
against a Canadian man in the decades-old slaying of Annie Mae Aquash, a 
fellow Canadian aboriginal activist.

John Graham was charged with the shooting death of Aquash on the Pine 
Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Both Graham and 
Aquash,, a Mi'kmaq from Pictou, N.S., were affiliated with the American 
Indian Movement.

Graham's lawyer asked federal Judge Lawrence Piersol to dismiss the 
indictment against his client on technical grounds.

The lawyer argued that the U.S. government didn't have jurisdiction 
because the accused and victim were both members of Canadian tribes.

Prosecutors argued that the indictment was sound because the other man 
indicted and already convicted, Arlo Looking Cloud, fits the U.S. 
definition of Indian.

Although Monday's scheduled trial in Rapid City, S.D., is now off, 
officials say prosecutors can seek another indictment against Graham.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 13:36:54 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:36:54 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Food safety first | Securite alimentaire
Message-ID: <200810031936.m93Jas0Q015845@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 14:08:35 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:08:35 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Israels Breeding Ground for Jewish Terrorism
Message-ID: <200810032008.m93K8Zrf013567@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 14:12:02 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:12:02 -0700
Subject: [R-G] (USA) A Legislative Agenda for the First 100 Days
Message-ID: <200810032012.m93KC2wu020311@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct  3 14:23:04 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:23:04 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Harper's Plan to Make You Fear Minority Governments
Message-ID: <FA38A8CC-132A-46A9-B320-A47E296129D6@shaw.ca>

http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/

Harper's Plan to Make You Fear Minority Governments
Scripting the carnival.
He gummed up Parliament for a reason.
By David Sachs
Published: September 26, 2008
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/09/26/MinorityFear/

In the last election, the Paul Martin liberals used the tried and true  
"hidden agenda" attack on the Stephen Harper Conservatives and were  
gobsmacked to find the smear didn't stick. How could it?

Harper had been in the public eye too long. After years in Parliament,  
how hidden could anyone's agenda be? If Harper really had kept an  
agenda under wraps all those years, he probably would have forgotten  
it. Most of us can't even remember where we keep our car keys if we  
don't drive every day.

The media tarred Martin for running on yesterday's game plan, just as  
sports columnists blamed Leafs coach Pat Quinn for failing to adjust  
to the New NHL. But that hindsight insight hasn't stopped our  
favourite pundits from recycling slightly used storylines from the  
last two elections this time around.

So it is that the newspapers' collected wisdom once again is that  
winning polls are Harper's enemy, and that Harper himself will do all  
he can to downplay the Conservatives chances of forming a majority.

Which is strange, because if we look at another favourite media  
narrative, we might understand why this first one no longer holds true.

Minority mayhem?

Pundits have long parroted the idea that Harper plays politics as a  
chess match, several moves ahead, yet they seem almost impotent in  
applying that wisdom to actual events. In fact, while the opposition  
parties and media seem anxious to replay history, Harper has learned  
from it. In the previous two elections, when polls showed Harper  
flirting with majority territory, his support vanished. So, Harper  
understood he must make minority government itself unpalatable.

While the Harper communications cabal has shown itself tone-deaf in  
many instances, they have demonstrated one impressive ability: the  
understanding of how much the Canadian voters will retain from non- 
election political news. They have taken advantage of this by  
stonewalling accusations from the in-and-out affair, Cadman, Julie  
Couillard, and other instances, knowing headlines will read:  
"Opposition attacks, Government denies." And they know that, without  
bending or admitting anything, that is all that Canadians will remember.

The example that is relevant here is the Harper efforts to turn  
minority Parliament into the dysfunctional House of Ill Repute. With  
much of Harper's famous priorities carried through Parliament early in  
their tenure, Canadians could easily have been convinced that minority  
parliaments can work. We have the history to back that up, with much  
of the beloved Pearson's headline accomplishments coming from a  
minority government: universal health care, the maple leaf flag, and  
the Canada Pension Plan.

Taking Parliament apart

Harper was getting things done in his minority, and, many Canadians  
thought, was forced to hold his party's more radical influences in  
check. Many Canadians liked the idea of forced restraint. Minority  
government, Canadians might believe, was safe and efficient.

And so, Harper went about changing those psychological associations.  
After covering the more straightforward side of his legislative slate,  
Harper went to the task of taking Parliament apart. The Liberals were  
happy to play into his hands, and with the two sides equally up for  
the task, Parliament descended into the chaos and obnoxiousness of a  
schoolyard.

Committees devolved into circuses -- and Harper's central office  
provided the carnival program, newly written How-To guides for  
disrupting committees. All sides put their worst faces forward; venom,  
mud and spit flew.

But voters, the Conservatives reasoned, would blame no party more or  
less than any other for the mess. What they would remember was the mess.

Cynical, but effective

That is the association most Canadians have with minority government  
now. Outside Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, Canadians are no longer  
scared of a Harper majority. Many are desperate for it to rescue  
Parliament from its embarrassing descent into the gutter.

It's cynical, to be sure, but if we don't see the near 40 per cent  
support for the Conservatives drop any time soon, it will indicate  
that the prime minister has been successful in destroying the bogeyman  
of Conservative majority by displacing it with instinctive repulsion  
for minority rule.


From mstainsby at resist.ca  Fri Oct  3 14:26:22 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:26:22 -0600
Subject: [R-G] John recharged, Re:  John Graham charges dropped...
In-Reply-To: <48E67433.9020604@resist.ca>
References: <48E67433.9020604@resist.ca>
Message-ID: <48E67FEE.3000202@resist.ca>

Word from his family is that they have already recharged him, even 
before he saw the sun again. I hate bad news. Send your strongest wishes 
for strength to the family and John, of course.

in sadness and strength,

Macdonald


Macdonald Stainsby wrote:
> U.S. indictment against man charged in 1975 slaying of Canadian woman 
> dismissed
> 
> 1 hour ago
> 
> SIOUX FALLS, S.D. ? A judge in South Dakota has dismissed the indictment 
> against a Canadian man in the decades-old slaying of Annie Mae Aquash, a 
> fellow Canadian aboriginal activist.
> 
> John Graham was charged with the shooting death of Aquash on the Pine 
> Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Both Graham and 
> Aquash,, a Mi'kmaq from Pictou, N.S., were affiliated with the American 
> Indian Movement.
> 
> Graham's lawyer asked federal Judge Lawrence Piersol to dismiss the 
> indictment against his client on technical grounds.
> 
> The lawyer argued that the U.S. government didn't have jurisdiction 
> because the accused and victim were both members of Canadian tribes.
> 
> Prosecutors argued that the indictment was sound because the other man 
> indicted and already convicted, Arlo Looking Cloud, fits the U.S. 
> definition of Indian.
> 
> Although Monday's scheduled trial in Rapid City, S.D., is now off, 
> officials say prosecutors can seek another indictment against Graham.
> 
> ------------------------------------
> 
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 14:19:26 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:19:26 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Heeding the lessons of another war
Message-ID: <200810032019.m93KJQKl004567@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct  3 14:45:45 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 16:45:45 -0400
Subject: [R-G] The Market Value of Islam Going Up?
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810031345h20b43c97xb6d2a82282facbd1@mail.gmail.com>

At any other time at least since 11 September 2001 (if not 4 November
1979), well-financed propaganda like Obsession ("a documentary about
'radical Islam's war against the West'"*), combined with general
hatred of immigrants, would have become big news and a not
insignificant factor in not just elections but politics in general in
the USA.  But I take comfort in the thought that even the dimmest
bulbs in the middle of Middle America must be too appalled by the
financial crisis to obsess over Muslims.  As a matter of fact, the
market value of Islam might even be going up just now among the
financially insecure: "Islamic Banking Restrains Bankruptcy"
<http://www.rgemonitor.com/us-monitor/253790/islamic_banking_restrains_bankruptcy>;
"Islamic Banks Unaffected by Global Financial Crisis"
<http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=6&id=14245>; "Non-Muslims
Turn to Islamic Bank as a Safe Option"
<http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/other-uk-business/2008/10/03/non-muslims-turn-to-islamic-bank-as-a-safe-option-65233-21962049/>.
-- Yoshie

* <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n19/shtz01_.html>
Short Cuts
Adam Shatz

If you live in an American swing state you may have received a copy of
'Obsession' in your Sunday paper. 'Obsession' isn't a perfume: it's a
documentary about 'radical Islam's war against the West'. In the last
two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as
an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York
Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. 'The threat of Radical
Islam is the most important issue facing us today,' the sleeve
announces. 'It's our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed
vote in November.' The Clarion Fund, the supplement's sponsor, doesn't
explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt
status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just
happened to coincide with Obama's leap in the polls.

The Clarion Fund is a front for neoconservative and Israeli pressure
groups. It has an office, or at least an address, in Manhattan at
Grace Corporate Park Executive Suites, which rents out 'virtual office
identity packages' for $75 a month. Its website, clarionfund.org,
provides neither a list of staff nor a board of directors, and the
group still hasn't disclosed where it gets its money, as required by
the IRS. Who paid to make 'Obsession' isn't clear ? it cost $400,000.
According to Rabbi Raphael Shore, the film's Canadian-Israeli
producer, 80 per cent of the money came from the executive producer
'Peter Mier', but that's just an alias, as is the name of the film's
production manager, 'Brett Halperin'. Shore claims 'Mier' and
'Halperin', whoever they are, are simply taking precautions, though it
isn't clear against what. The danger (whatever it is) hasn't stopped
Shore ? or the director, Wayne Kopping, a South African neocon ? from
going on television to promote their work.

The 60-minute film was first released in 2006 and shown during the
mid-term elections on Fox News. Since then it has received top billing
at 'Islamo-Fascism Awareness' week on American campuses, at
Christian-Zionist conferences and at events organised by Republican
politicians in Florida. It has found a powerful backer in the real
estate magnate Sheldon Adelson, who describes himself as 'the world's
richest Jew'. The Endowment for Middle East Truth, a neoconservative
think tank in Washington DC which recently hosted a series of seminars
named after Adelson and his wife, arranged distribution of
'Obsession', at a cost in the tens of millions.

The makers of the film, like their subjects, are soldiers of God.
Almost everyone associated with it or with Clarion has worked for Aish
HaTorah, an 'education' group with offices in East Jerusalem and
strong links to the settler movement. Clarion was incorporated in
Delaware to the New York offices of Aish HaTorah and Rabbi Shore was
the director, as well as the founder of its media organisation, Honest
Reporting, which campaigns against a two-state solution in
Israel/Palestine. It's illegal in the US for nonprofit organisations,
or for foreign nationals, to try to influence the outcome of an
election.

The film's chief claim is that 2008 is like 1938, only worse, since
there are more Muslims than Germans and they're more spread out
geographically: 'They're not outside our borders, they are here.'
Violent raptures and spectacular carnage unfold in slick montages set
to throbbing Middle Eastern music: Pakistanis deliriously burning the
American flag, Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks, Hizbullah
chanting 'death to America', clerics praising the 'magnificent 19' and
the murder of unbelievers, children training to become suicide
bombers, the planes crashing into the towers. These images are
interspersed with footage of Nazi rallies and Hitler's speeches. A
chapter ? narrated by Martin Gilbert, Churchill's biographer ? is
devoted to the Mufti's collaboration with Hitler.

Scary Muslims are everywhere, and the umma stands more united than
ever, driven by hatred of infidels and Jews and determined to conquer
the West, a civilisation gone soft, weakened by self-doubt, political
correctness bordering on treason, and, worst of all, a 'culture of
denial'. Gilbert spells it out:

In the 1930s, the danger of Nazism was there . . . but people thought,
well, this is a German problem, it's a limited problem . . . And I
think the same is true today . . . They don't see that Islamic
fundamentalism is a global network and a global problem . . .because
if you come to that conclusion ? and I'm sure it's the true conclusion
? then you have to do something about it.

'Obsession' doesn't say what we should do ? except steer well clear of
dialogue and negotiation.

Although there are interviews with the usual 'terrorism experts' ?
Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz et al ? the film's portrayal of the
region is mostly left to native informants like Nonie Darwish (a
leader of Arabs for Israel and the daughter of a slain fighter from
Gaza), Brigitte Gabriel (the Lebanese-Christian author of They Must Be
Stopped) and Walid Shoebat, a 'former PLO terrorist' who operates
under a pseudonym ? for security reasons, of course. Shoebat runs the
Walid Shoebat Foundation, described on its website as an 'organisation
that cries out for the Justice of Israel and the Jewish people'. He's
made a career of recounting his journey from Islamic terror to
Christian Zionism before audiences at Evangelical gatherings and the
US Air Force Academy. It's not clear, though, that he ever laid a hand
on anyone. According to a relative, 'the biggest act of terror he ever
committed was to glue Palestinian flags on street posts.' What is very
clear is that, for the makers of 'Obsession', having once hated Jews
gives you privileged access to the Muslim mind, and not only if you're
an ex-Muslim. Among the film's authorities on radical Islam is a
former leader of the Hitler Youth, Alfons Heck, who says that 'what
the Muslims do to their own children is even worse' than the things
the Nazis did to young Germans ? as only a Nazi could know.

If you didn't receive 'Obsession' with your paper, you can watch it on
YouTube. It's been posted by a former Muslim whose screen identity is
'fuckmohammad'.

Adam Shatz is an editor at the London Review.


From internacional at pcdob.org.br  Fri Oct  3 16:57:21 2008
From: internacional at pcdob.org.br (=?Windows-1252?Q?PCdoB_-_Secretaria_de_Rela=E7=F5es_Internacionais?=)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 19:57:21 -0300
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?_PCdoB_-_2=BA_Encontro_Hemisf=E9rico_contr?=
	=?windows-1252?q?a_Militariza=E7=E3o_=28Pocrt=2E_e_Ingl=29?=
Message-ID: <047101c925ab$84a5e630$0e05a8c0@mh>

Estimados (as) Camaradas, 

Recebam em anexo, em portugu?s e ingl?s, a mat?ria  "Para enfrentar as armas chamamos os povos" publicada no site do Cebrapaz (www.cebrapaz.org.br) sobre a participa??o de Socorro Gomes , presidenta do Cebrapaz- Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade aos Povos e Luta pela Paz e do Conselho Mundial da Paz, no 2? Encontro Hemisf?rico contra a Militariza??o, de 3 a 5 de outubro em Honduras.

Sauda??es Fraternas, 

Maria Helena D' Eugenio
p/ Secretaria de Rela??es Internacionais
do CC do PCdoB 
(11) 30541822 ou 00
=====================

Dear Comrades,

 

Please find attached in Portuguese and English languages the article "Call the peoples to face the weapons" published in Cebrapaz website (www.cebrapaz.org.br) about the participation of Socorro Gomes, the president of Cebrapaz and WPC - World Peace Council at 2nd Hemispheric  Meeting against Militarization, October 3-5, 2008 in Honduras.

 

Fraternal greetings,

 

Maria Helena D' Eugenio
by the International Relations Secretary 
CC - PCdoB
(55 11 ) 30541822 or 00


From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 17:07:22 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:07:22 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Why Paulson's bail-out plan is a fraud
Message-ID: <200810032307.m93N7Mj2005177@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct  3 17:17:40 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:17:40 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Soulmates in Deregulation - Ralph Nader
Message-ID: <200810032317.m93NHeJu022734@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Fri Oct  3 19:45:44 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:45:44 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] We Have The Money
Message-ID: <48E6CAC8.5080705@attglobal.net>


If Only We Didn't Waste It on The Defense Budget

by Chalmers Johnson

TomDispatch via Countercurrents (September 29 2008)


There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700
billion that the US government is thinking of throwing away on rich New
York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and
then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In
fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of
payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and
powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over
billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House
of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for
2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment
at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs
buried in a story about another appropriations measure.)

The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of
these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary
bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5
billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration
or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon's request
for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to
infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba
once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will
fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved.
And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the
discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.

This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security"  -
meaning the defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the
budgets for the departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans
Affairs, the CIA, and numerous other places in the executive branch  -
already exceeds a trillion dollars, an amount larger than that of all
other national defense budgets combined. Not only was there no
significant media coverage of this latest appropriation, there have been
no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the relationship
between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our
extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial
catastrophe on Wall Street.

The only Congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay
was the usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense
authorization bill would betray our troops. The aged Senator John Warner
(R-Va), former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored
his Republican colleagues to vote for the bill "out of respect for
military personnel". He seems to be unaware that these troops are
actually volunteers, not draftees, and that they joined the armed forces
as a matter of career choice, rather than because the nation demanded
such a sacrifice from them.

We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and
misbegotten wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of
peace and order has returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's
belated reinforcement of our expeditionary army there (the so-called
surge), but thanks to shifting internal dynamics within Iraq and in the
Middle East region generally. Such shifts include a growing awareness
among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to restore law and order, a
growing confidence among Iraqi Shiites of their nearly unassailable
position of political influence in the country, and a growing awareness
among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression the Bush
administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of
Shiism and Iran in the region.

The continued presence of American troops and their heavily reinforced
bases in Iraq threaten this return to relative stability. The refusal of
the Shia government of Iraq to agree to an American Status of Forces
Agreement  -  much desired by the Bush administration  -  that would
exempt off-duty American troops from Iraqi law is actually a good sign
for the future of Iraq.

In Afghanistan, our historically deaf generals and civilian strategists
do not seem to understand that our defeat by the Afghan insurgents is
inevitable. Since the time of Alexander the Great, no foreign intruder
has ever prevailed over Afghan guerrillas defending their home turf. The
first Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) marked a particularly humiliating
defeat of British imperialism at the very height of English military
power in the Victorian era. The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) resulted
in a Russian defeat so demoralizing that it contributed significantly to
the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. We are now on
track to repeat virtually all the errors committed by previous invaders
of Afghanistan over the centuries.

In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan
war into Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power
that has long cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling
brutality along the Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the
Pashtuns in both countries and advance the interests of radical Islam
throughout the region. The United States is now identified in each
country mainly with Hellfire missiles, unmanned drones, special
operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing of innocent
bystanders.

The brutal bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital,
Islamabad, on September 20 2008, was a powerful indicator of the
spreading strength of virulent anti-American sentiment in the area. The
hotel was a well-known watering hole for American Marines, Special
Forces troops, and CIA agents. Our military activities in Pakistan have
been as misguided as the Nixon-Kissinger invasion of Cambodia in 1970.
The end result will almost surely be the same.

We should begin our disengagement from Afghanistan at once. We dislike
the Taliban's fundamentalist religious values, but the Afghan public,
with its desperate desire for a return of law and order and the curbing
of corruption, knows that the Taliban is the only political force in the
country that has ever brought the opium trade under control. The
Pakistanis and their effective army can defend their country from
Taliban domination so long as we abandon the activities that are causing
both Afghans and Pakistanis to see the Taliban as a lesser evil.

One of America's greatest authorities on the defense budget, Winslow
Wheeler, worked for 31 years for Republican members of the Senate and
for the General Accounting Office on military expenditures. His
conclusion, when it comes to the fiscal sanity of our military spending,
is devastating:

"America's defense budget is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars
than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has
fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period; our Navy has
fewer combat ships; and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our
major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average
than any point since 1946  -  or in some cases, in our entire history."

This in itself is a national disgrace. Spending hundreds of billions of
dollars on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our
national security is simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted
by the military-industrial complex into believing that, by voting for
more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs" for the economy. In
fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desperately
needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure and other crucial
spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions. If we cannot cut
back our longstanding, ever increasing military spending in a major way,
then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. As the current
Wall Street meltdown has demonstrated, that is no longer an abstract
possibility but a growing likelihood. We do not have much time left.

_____

Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of
American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The
Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American
Republic (2006). All are available in paperback from Metropolitan Books.

http://www.countercurrents.org/johnson290908.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  Sat Oct  4 01:53:53 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 03:53:53 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Six Weeks
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810040053q6157c984qb3ad64ef7fd266e2@mail.gmail.com>

After having threatened Americans with a great depression if their
representatives don't vote for the $700 billion bailout NOW, it turns
out that the Treasury won't be able to BEGIN to put it into action for
SIX WEEKS.  In normal course, the market reacts more negatively to a
left-wing program than a right-wing one, but this financial crisis is
probably an exception. -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/business/economy/04plan.html>
October 4, 2008
For Treasury Dept., Now Comes Hard Part of Bailout
By MARK LANDLER and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON ? It will be one of the world's largest asset management
firms with an impressive $700 billion war chest. Nothing short of the
global economy depends on its success. And the Treasury Department has
barely a month to get it up and running.

The bailout bill that President Bush quickly signed into law on Friday
must do what financial experts have been unable to do for the last
year ? put a dollar value on mortgage-related assets that no one
wants, move them off the books of ailing banks and unlock the frozen
credit markets.

In signing the measure, Mr. Bush warned Americans not to expect
instant results. "This will be done as expeditiously as possible, but
it cannot be accomplished overnight. We'll take the time necessary to
design an effective program that achieves its objectives ? and does
not waste taxpayer dollars."

Even after working feverishly over the last two weeks, the Treasury
will not buy its first distressed asset from a bank for roughly six
weeks, and almost certainly not until after the Nov. 4 elections.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 11:39:25 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:39:25 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Bill Maher: Ebony and Irony
Message-ID: <200810041739.m94HdP6I021267@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 11:43:07 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:43:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The world is on the edge of the abyss because of an
 irresponsible system
Message-ID: <200810041743.m94Hh7Rq025693@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 11:44:13 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:44:13 -0700
Subject: [R-G] It is now clear that the U.S. financial system is in cardiac
	arrest
Message-ID: <200810041744.m94HiDWD026884@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 12:01:33 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:01:33 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Afghanistan: the neo-Taliban campaign
Message-ID: <200810041801.m94I1XKU017856@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From aaron.doncaster at gmail.com  Sat Oct  4 13:16:37 2008
From: aaron.doncaster at gmail.com (aaron doncaster)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 13:16:37 -0600
Subject: [R-G] 90 Year Old Shoots Self Inside Foreclosed Home
Message-ID: <164236a30810041216k5b99ebe3na49f55ec0bace1@mail.gmail.com>

90 Year Old Shoots Self Inside Foreclosed Home Friday, October 03 2008 @
01:07 PM CDT
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 137
[image: Economy Crumbles] <http://news.infoshop.org/index.php?topic=71>A
90-year-old Akron, Ohio, woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried
to evict her from her foreclosed home became a symbol of the nation's home
mortgage crisis Friday. Addie Polk is being treated at Akron General Medical
Center after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday
afternoon, her city councilman said. U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio,
mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest
economic rescue proposal.

(CNN) -- A 90-year-old Akron, Ohio, woman who shot herself as sheriff's
deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home became a symbol of the
nation's home mortgage crisis Friday.

Addie Polk is being treated at Akron General Medical Center after shooting
herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon, her city
councilman said.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday
during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.

"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said
after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions
of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home.
This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few
days, but democracy is going downhill."

Neighbor Robert Dillon used a ladder to enter a second-story window of
Polk's home after he and the deputies heard bangs inside, Dillon told CNN
affiliate WEWS-TV in Cleveland, Ohio.

"I just thought she may have fell or couldn't get up or something," he told
WEWS. "I didn't know [she had shot herself] until I got in there. And even
when I got there, she was breathing, but she wasn't saying anything to me. I
knew she needed help then."

Dillon said he saw blood when he put his hand on Polk's shoulder.

"There's a lot of people like Miss Polk right now. That's the sad thing
about it," said Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville, who had met
Polk before and rushed to the scene when contacted by police. "They might
not be as old as her, some could be as old as her. This is just a major
problem."

In 2004, Polk took out a 30-year, 6.375 percent mortgage for $45,620 with a
Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The same day, she also
took out an $11,380 line of credit.

Over the next couple of years Polk missed payments on the 101-year-old home
and in 2007 Fannie Mae assumed the mortgage and later filed for foreclosure.

Deputies had tried to serve Polk's eviction notice more than 30 times before
Wednesday's incident, Sommerville said. She never came to the door, but the
notes the deputies left would always disappear, so they knew she was inside
and ambulatory, he said.

A recent Akron City Council study identified a number of lenders whose
practices it deemed predatory.

"I get a lot of calls about this predatory lending where people are elderly
and they're probably living on a fixed income and they get somebody to give
them some money," Sommerville said. "Then they get in a situation where if
they miss a payment they lose their house. I don't think people quite
understand what happens."

The city is creating programs to help people keep their homes, he said.

"But what do you do when there's just so many people out there and the
economy is in the shape that it's in?"

Many businesses and individuals have called since Wednesday offering to help
Polk, Sommerville said.

"We're going to do an evaluation to see what's best for her," he said. "If
she's strong enough and can go home, I think we should work with her to
where she goes back home. If not, we need to find another place for her to
live where she won't have to worry about this ever again."

He said that by the time people call for help with an impending foreclosure,
it's usually too late.

"I'm glad it's not too late for Miss Polk, because she could have taken her
life," Sommerville said. "Miss Polk will probably end up on her feet. But
I'm not sure if anybody else will."

From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sat Oct  4 13:57:21 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 14:57:21 -0500
Subject: [R-G] Poverty of Crisis Debate
References: <cd351fdc0810012147s2b2218d9xef6ee69864d9805a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E8754993B15044418DE56C17870E2784@agingCHS072729>

On Wednesday, October 01, 2008 at 11:47 PM Yoshie wrote:
> What are the underlying causes of crisis -- overaccumulation,
> overproduction, underconsumption, or what?

> Thoughts?

"We're seeing the intensification of one of the central crises or 
contradictions of global capitalism: the crisis of overproduction, also 
known as overaccumulation or overcapacity.
"In other words, capitalism has a tendency to build up tremendous productive 
capacity that outruns the population's capacity to consume owing to social 
inequalities that limit popular purchasing power, thus eroding 
profitability."

- Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus.

Full article at: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5560




From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sat Oct  4 14:51:17 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 15:51:17 -0500
Subject: [R-G] Bill Maher: Ebony and Irony
References: <200810041739.m94HdP6I021267@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>
Message-ID: <73A8EAB60F15417183141932258EC674@agingCHS072729>

Priceless!
Thanks Sid...

Richard

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sid Shniad" <shniad at sfu.ca>
To: "Richard Menec" <menecraj at shaw.ca>
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 12:39 PM
Subject: [R-G] Bill Maher: Ebony and Irony


> http://blog.fymmie.de/28/09/2008/ebony-and-irony/
>
> Bill Maher: Ebony and Irony
>
> YouTube removed this video almost immediately, but not before someone in
> Germany grabbed and transcribed it.
>
> Watch the video while it is still available:
>
> http://blog.fymmie.de/28/09/2008/ebony-and-irony/
>
> Transcript
>
>    And finally, New Rule: A candidate for president should not be judged 
> by
> the color of his skin. And to - and to anyone who thinks differently, I 
> say,
> please do not reject John McCain just because he's white. I think the 
> recent
> news from Wall Street has made us all less tolerant, and only reinforced 
> the
> stereotype that white people are shiftless, thieving welfare queens.
>
>    Now, take a look at these pictures. Here are the CEO's of Fannie Mae,
> Freddie Mac, AIG and the Lehman Brothers. I know the first thing that 
> jumps
> out about these faces is they all happen to be white, and they all happen 
> to
> be responsible for stealing. But, what you have to understand is that 
> these
> whites are a product of a society that made them that way.
>
>    It was the neighborhoods and the schools they went to: Harvard, Yale,
> the Wharton School of Business.
>
>    They never learned the value of doing real, actual work. And the first
> step to fixing that is better role models so kids growing up white today
> don't think the only way out of Westchester is corporate crime.
>
>    Or a government handout. Or sailing.
>
>    So, I get it. The temptation is to look at McCain and vote against him
> because you don't see an individual; you just see another typical welfare
> "whitey."
>
>    And it's true. He spent his entire life shuffling from one low-paying
> government job to another. Well, except those years he spent in prison.
> Typical. And, between you and me, he's not very articulate.
>
>    Oh, he may have some street smarts, but he's not what you'd call an
> "educated" man. He freely admits he's ignorant about the economy. And
> apparently the only thing his white running mate knows how to do is crank
> out one baby after another.
>
>    And now, of course, her teenage is pregnant out of wedlock, because she
> learns it at home!
>
>    But, that doesn't mean we should assume all white people are like that
> just because so many of them are. I believe there is hope. I believe even
> the stupidest, greediest, laziest whites can break the cycle of 
> dependence,
> like this November when we finally move George Bush out of public housing.
>
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


> _______________________________________________
> 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 suzannedk at gmail.com  Sat Oct  4 14:55:05 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 22:55:05 +0200
Subject: [R-G] Heeding the lessons of another war
In-Reply-To: <200810032019.m93KJQKl004567@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>
References: <200810032019.m93KJQKl004567@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810041355r751950d1pb4744dd7305c381c@mail.gmail.com>

Ah! the experts, filled with intgrety and purpose, state truths and give
advise of profound wisdom that the Military Industrial. Military
Intelligence worlds of the United States do not even bother to acknowledge.
 Heeding lessons, any lesson other than imperial might and longeveity of
power, are of absolutely no interest...  If the experts, weighty , wise and
of indubitable correctness would address their adversaries with the same
serious commitment they show to historical realities, a war of reality
versus propaganda would ensue shifting the possibilities of future to more
real results.
Do read "Spies for Hire" by Tim Shorrock!  The commitment to absolute world
power by the US military is total....as well as totally secret.  In time the
State Department or the Pentagon or the Intelligence Sevices, now completely
commercial, will rewrite the book for translation so it says little real.
 Until then, it is explosive, unbeleivable.

Suzanne de Kuyper
Amsterdam

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:19 PM, Sid Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca> wrote:

>
>   International Herald
>   Tribune                                             October 1, 2008
>
>
>   Heeding the lessons of another war
>
>
>
>   By Maleeha Lodhi and Anatol Lieven
>
>
>   Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia
>   and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut
>   Vietcong supply lines.
>
>
>   As a result, America's war with Vietnamese Communism spread into
>   Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian
>   genocide. But these horrors occurred after the U.S. itself had quit
>   Vietnam and after the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam had
>   collapsed. Washington's widening of the war benefited neither America
>   nor its local allies.
>
>
>   The U.S. is now making the same mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
>   If continued, ground incursions by U.S. troops across the border into
>   Pakistan in search of the Taliban and Al Qaeda risk drastically
>   undermining the Pakistani state, society and army.
>
>
>   Many Pakistanis are berating their new civilian government and the
>   military for being too supine in their response to the American
>   actions. There have also been public calls for NATO supply lines
>   through Pakistan to be cut, which could cripple the Western military
>   effort in Afghanistan. The latest dreadful terrorist attack in
>   Islamabad illustrates the danger of a wider conflagration and the
>   price Pakistan is paying for its role as a U.S. ally.
>
>
>   The dangers involved in Pakistan are greater even than in Cambodia,
>   where the disasters were contained in one country. The current war has
>   already been driven into the Pakistani heartland. If turmoil increases
>   in Pakistan then the forces of extremism will be strengthened, in the
>   region and the world. Thus the long term implications of "losing"
>   Afghanistan pale into insignificance when set against the risk of
>   "losing" Pakistan.
>
>
>   Nor would undermining Pakistan, whether intentionally or not, in any
>   way help the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan. Pakistan has six
>   times Afghanistan's population and is a nuclear state. The Pashtun
>   population of Pakistan is greater than that of Afghanistan, and
>   provides a large number of Pakistani soldiers. Far from saving
>   Afghanistan, present U.S. strategy toward Pakistan will only risk
>   sinking Afghanistan itself in a whirlpool of regional anarchy.
>
>
>   Instead of this approach, the U.S. and NATO should adopt a radically
>   new strategy for Afghanistan that relies more on soft power. The
>   approach should be based on the recognition that Afghanistan cannot be
>   transformed along Western lines and that the U.S. cannot maintain an
>   open-ended presence in that country without destabilizing the entire
>   region.
>
>
>   Afghanistan must sooner or later be left to the Afghans themselves to
>   run. Local actors should take the lead in carrying out
>   counter-insurgency, as Western forces and an overwhelming reliance on
>   military force are liable only to multiply enemies.
>
>
>   The terrible effects of bombardment on the civilian population have
>   become a potent factor behind the will of many Afghans to resist what
>   they see as an alien military occupation.
>
>
>   The next U.S. administration therefore should announce a return to
>   America's original objective, that of hunting international terrorist
>   networks and preventing them from creating safe havens in Afghanistan.
>   This should in fact be America's only core objective. The attempt of
>   the West to "transform" Afghanistan is already meeting the same fate
>   as the Soviet attempt to do so. It is strengthening the insurgency, by
>   creating the impression of a threat to the Islamic way of life and
>   local tradition.
>
>
>   Instead of continuing with what is in effect a purely Western
>   approach, Washington should initiate serious regional talks on
>   Afghanistan's future.
>
>
>   The United States and the West need to remember that however long
>   their forces stay in Afghanistan, sooner or later they will leave,
>   while Afghanistan's neighbors will always remain. Tragically, their
>   policies have in the past generally been directed against each other,
>   with disastrous results for the people of Afghanistan.
>
>
>   The United States should instead seek to shape a regional concert that
>   will stand some chance of at least containing Afghanistan's problems
>   in the long term. None of this will be easy; but a continuation of
>   present U.S. strategy promises only widening turmoil in the region, or
>   at best war without end.
>
>
>   Maleeha Lodhi is a fellow at Harvard and former Pakistani ambassador
>   to Washington and London. Anatol Lieven is a professor at King's
>   College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation.
> _______________________________________________
> 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 shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 15:44:05 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:44:05 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Communist Manifesto Turns 160
Message-ID: <200810042144.m94Li595022802@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 15:47:42 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:47:42 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Canada's PM: 'Fixed election dates prevent governments from
 calling snap elections for short-term political advantage.'
Message-ID: <200810042147.m94LlgpW026909@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct  4 17:26:02 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:26:02 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Rank order of the countries of the world - Current Account
	Balance
Message-ID: <200810042326.m94NQ2vt013954@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Sat Oct  4 17:36:07 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:36:07 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] A Primer on the Wall Street meltdown
Message-ID: <48E7FDE7.7040408@attglobal.net>

	
The Wall Street meltdown is not only due to greed and to the lack of
government regulation of a hyperactive sector. It stems from the crisis
of overproduction that has plagued global capitalism since the
mid-seventies.

by Walden Bello

Focus on the Global South (September 25 2008)


Many on Wall Street are still digesting the momentous events of the last
ten days:

* One to three trillion dollars worth of financial assets wiped out.

* Wall Street effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve and the
Treasury Department making all the major strategic decisions in the
financial sector and, with the rescue of the American International
Group (AIG), the US government now runs the world's biggest insurance
company.

* The biggest bailout since the Great Depression, with $700 billion,
being desperately put together to save the global financial system.

The usual explanations no longer suffice. Extraordinary events demand
extraordinary explanations. But first ...

Is the worst over?

No, if anything is clear from the contradictory moves of the last week -
allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse while taking over AIG, and
engineering Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch -there is no
strategy to deal with the crisis, just tactical responses, like the fire
department's response to a conflagration.

The $700 billion buyout of banks' bad mortgaged-backed securities is not
a strategy but mainly a desperate effort to shore up confidence in the
system, to prevent the erosion of trust in the banks and other financial
institutions and preventing a massive bank run such as the one that
triggered the Great Depression of 1929.

What caused the collapse of global capitalism's nerve center? Was it greed?

Good old fashioned greed played a part. This is what Klaus Schwab, the
organizer of the World Economic Forum, the yearly global elite jamboree
in the Swiss Alps, meant when he told his clientele in Davos earlier
this year: "We have to pay for the sins of the past".

Was this a case of Wall Street outsmarting itself?

Definitely. Financial speculators outsmarted themselves by creating more
and more complex financial contracts like derivatives that would
securitize and make money from all forms of risk - including exotic
futures instruments as "credit default swaps" that enable investors to
bet on the odds that the banks' own corporate borrowers would not be
able to pay their debts! This is the unregulated multitrillion dollar
trade that brought down AIG.

On December 17 2005, when International Financing Review (IFR) announced
its 2005 Annual Awards  -  one of the securities industry's most
prestigious awards programs - it had this to say: "[Lehman Brothers] not
only maintained its overall market presence, but also led the charge
into the preferred space by ... developing new products and tailoring
transactions to fit borrowers' needs ... Lehman Brothers is the most
innovative in the preferred space, just doing things you won't see
elsewhere".

No comment.

Was it lack of regulation?

Yes - everyone acknowledges by now that Wall Street's capacity to
innovate and turn out more and more sophisticated financial instruments
had run far ahead of government's regulatory capability, not because
government was not capable of regulating but because the dominant
neoliberal, laissez-faire attitude prevented government from devising
effective mechanisms with which to regulate.

But isn't there something more that is happening? Something systemic?

Well, George Soros, who saw this coming, says what we are going through
is the crisis of the financial system is the crisis of the "gigantic
circulatory system" of a "global capitalist system that is ... coming
apart at the seams".

To elaborate on the arch-speculator's insight, what we are seeing is the
intensification of one of the central crises or contradictions of global
capitalism which is the crisis of overproduction, also known as
overaccumulation or overcapacity.

This is the tendency for capitalism to build up tremendous productive
capacity that outruns the population's capacity to consume owing to
social inequalities that limit popular purchasing power, thus eroding
profitability.

But what does the crisis of overproduction have to do with recent events?

Plenty. But to understand the connections, we must go back in time to
the so-called Golden Age of Contemporary Capitalism, the period from
1945 to 1975.

This was a period of rapid growth both in the center economies and in
the underdeveloped economies - one that was partly triggered by the
massive reconstruction of Europe and East Asia after the devastation of
the Second World War, and partly by the new socio-economic arrangements
that were institutionalized under the new Keynesian state. Key among the
latter were strong state controls over market activity, aggressive use
of fiscal and monetary policy to minimize inflation and recession, and a
regime of relatively high wages to stimulate and maintain demand.

So what went wrong?

Well, this period of high growth came to an end in the mid-seventies,
when the center economies were seized by stagflation, meaning the
coexistence of low growth with high inflation, which was not supposed to
happen under neoclassical economics.

Stagflation, however, was but a symptom of a deeper cause: the
reconstruction of Germany and Japan and the rapid growth of
industrializing economies like Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea added
tremendous new productive capacity and increased global competition,
while social within countries and between countries globally limited the
growth of purchasing power and demand, thus eroding profitability. This
was aggravated by the massive oil price rises of the seventies.

How did capitalism try to solve the crisis of overproduction?

Capital tried three escape routes from the conundrum of overproduction:
neoliberal restructuring, globalization, and financialization.

What was neoliberal restructuring all about?

Neoliberal restructuring took the form of Reaganism and Thatcherism in
the North and Structural Adjustment in the South. The aim was to
invigorate capital accumulation, and this was to be done by 1) removing
state constraints on the growth, use, and flow of capital and wealth;
and 2) redistribute income from the poor and middle classes to the rich
on the theory that the rich would then be motivated to invest and
reignite economic growth.

The problem with this formula was that in redistributing income to the
rich, you were gutting the incomes of the poor and middle classes, thus
restricting demand, while not necessarily inducing the rich to invest
more in production.

In fact, neoliberal restructuring, which was generalized in the North
and south during the eighties and nineties, had a poor record in terms
of growth: global growth averaged 1.1 per cent in the nineties and 1.4
in the eighties, whereas it averaged 3.5 per cent in the 1960s and 2.4
per cent in the seventies, when state interventionist policies were
dominant. Neoliberal restructuring could not shake off stagnation.

How was globalization a response to the crisis?

The second escape route global capital took to counter stagnation was
"extensive accumulation" or globalization, or the rapid integration of
semi-capitalist, non-capitalist, or precapitalist areas into the global
market economy. Rosa Luxemburg, the famous German revolutionary
economist, saw this long ago as necessary to shore up the rate of profit
in the metropolitan economies. How? By gaining access to cheap labor, by
gaining new, albeit limited, markets, by gaining new sources of cheap
agricultural and raw material products, and by bringing into being new
areas for investment in infrastructure. Integration is accomplished via
trade liberalization, removing barriers to the mobility of global
capital, and abolishing barriers to foreign investment.

China is, of course, the most prominent case of a non-capitalist area to
be integrated into the global capitalist economy over the last 25 years.

To counter their declining profits, a sizable number of the Fortune 500
corporations have moved a significant part of their operations to China
to take advantage of the so-called "China Price" - the cost advantage
deriving from China's seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor. By the middle
of the first decade of the 21st century, roughly forty to fifty per cent
of the profits of US corporations were derived from their operations and
sales abroad, especially China.

Why didn't globalization surmount the crisis?

The problem with this escape route from stagnation is that it
exacerbates the problem of overproduction because it adds to productive
capacity. A tremendous amount of manufacturing capacity has been added
in China over the last 25 years, and this has had a depressing effect on
prices and profits. Not surprisingly, by around 1997, the profits of US
corporations stopped growing. According to one index, the profit rate of
the Fortune 500 went from 7.15 in 1960-69 to 5.30 in 1980-90 to 2.29 in
1990-99 to 1.32 in 2000-2002.

What about financialization?

Given the limited gains in countering the depressive impact of
overproduction via neoliberal restructuring and globalization, the third
escape route became very critical for maintaining and raising
profitability: financialization.

In the ideal world of neoclassical economics, the financial system is
the mechanism by which the savers or those with surplus funds are joined
with the entrepreneurs who have need of their funds to invest in
production. In the real world of late capitalism, with investment in
industry and agriculture yielding low profits owing to overcapacity,
large amounts of surplus funds are circulating and being invested and
reinvested in the financial sector - that is the financial sector is
turning in on itself.

The result is an increased bifurcation between a hyperactive financial
economy and a stagnant real economy. As one financial executive notes,
"there has been an increasing disconnect between the real and financial
economies in the last few years. The real economy has grown ... but
nothing like that of the financial economy - until it imploded".

What this observer does not tell us is that the disconnect between the
real and the financial economy is not accidental - that the financial
economy exploded precisely to make up for the stagnation owing to
overproduction of the real economy.

What were the problems with financialization as an escape route?

The problem with investing in financial sector operations is that it is
tantamount to squeezing value out of already created value. It may
create profit, yes, but it does not create new value - only industry,
agricultural, trade, and services create new value. Because profit is
not based on value that is created, investment operations become very
volatile and prices of stocks, bonds, and other forms of investment can
depart very radically from their real value - for instance, the stock of
Internet startups that keep on rising, driven mainly by upwardly
spiraling financial valuations, that then crash. Profits then depend on
taking advantage of upward price departures from the value of
commodities, then selling before reality enforces a "correction", that
is a crash back to real values. The radical rise of prices of an asset
far beyond real values is what is called the formation of a bubble.

Why is financialization so volatile?

Profitability being dependent on speculative coups, it is not surprising
that the finance sector lurches from one bubble to another, or from one
speculative mania to another.

Because it is driven by speculative mania, finance driven capitalism has
experienced scores of financial crises since capital markets were
deregulated and liberalized in the 1980s.

Prior to the current Wall Street meltdown, the most explosive of these
were the Mexican Financial Crisis of 1994-95, the Asian Financial Crisis
of 1997-1998, the Russian Financial Crisis of 1996, the Wall Street
Stock Market Collapse of 2001, and the Argentine Financial Collapse of 2002.

Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Wall Streeter Robert Rubin, predicted
five years ago that "future financial crises are almost surely
inevitable and could be even more severe".

How do bubbles form, grow, and burst?

Let's first use the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, as an example.

* First, capital account and financial liberalization at the urging of
the IMF and the US Treasury Department;

* Then, entry of foreign funds seeking quick and high returns, meaning
they went to real estate and the stock market;

* Overinvestment, leading to fall in stock and real estate prices,
leading to panicky withdrawal of funds - in 1997, $100 billion left the
East Asian economies in a few weeks;

* Bailout of foreign speculators by the IMF;

* Collapse of the real economy - recession throughout East Asia in 1998;

* Despite massive destabilization, efforts to impose both national and
global regulation of financial system were opposed on ideological grounds.


Let's go to the current bubble. How did it form?

The current Wall Street collapse has its roots in the Technology Bubble
of the late 1990's, when the price of the stocks of Internet startups
skyrocketed, then collapsed, resulting in the loss of $7 trillion worth
of assets and the recession of 2001-2002.

The loose money policies of the Fed under Alan Greenspan had encouraged
the Technology Bubble, and when it collapsed into a recession,
Greenspan, to try to counter a long recession, cut the prime rate to a
45-year-low of one per cent in June 2003 and kept it there for over a
year. This had the effect of encouraging another bubble - the real
estate bubble.

As early as 2002, progressive economists such as Dean Baker of the
Center for Economic Policy Research were warning about the real estate
bubble. However, as late as 2005, then Council of Economic Adviser
Chairman and now Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke attributed
the rise in US housing prices to "strong economic fundamentals" instead
of speculative activity. Is it any wonder that he was caught completely
off guard when the Subprime Crisis broke in the summer of 2007?

And how did it grow?

Let's hear it from one key market player himself, George Soros:
"Mortgage institutions encouraged mortgage holders to refinance their
mortgages and withdraw their excess equity. They lowered their lending
standards and introduced new products, such as adjustable mortgages
(ARMs), 'interest only' mortgages, and promotional 'teaser' rates. All
this encouraged speculation in residential housing units. House prices
started to rise in double digit rates. This served to reinforce
speculation, and the rise in house prices made the owners feel rich; the
result was a consumption boom that has sustained the economy in recent
years".

Looking at the process more closely, the subprime mortgage crisis was
not a case of supply outrunning real demand. The "demand" was largely
fabricated by speculative mania on the part of developers and financiers
that wanted to make great profits from their access to foreign money
that flooded the US in the last decade. Big ticket mortgages were
aggressively sold to millions who could not normally afford them by
offering low "teaser" interest rates that would later be readjusted to
jack up payments from the new homeowners.

But how could subprime mortgages going sour turn into such a big problem?

Because these assets were then "securitized" with other assets into
complex derivative products called "collateralized debt obligations"
(CDO's) by the mortgage originators working with different layers of
middlemen who understated risk so as to offload them as quickly as
possible to other banks and institutional investors. These institutions
in turn offloaded these securities onto other banks and foreign
financial institutions.

When the interest rates were raised on the subprime loans, adjustable
mortgage and other housing loans, the game was up. There are about six
million subprime mortgages outstanding, forty percent of which will
likely go into default in the next two years, Soros estimates.

And five million more defaults from adjustable rate mortgages and other
"flexible loans" will occur over the next several years. But securities,
the value of which run into trillions of dollars, have already been
injected like a virus, into the global financial system. Global
capitalism's gigantic circulatory system was fatally infected.

But how could Wall Street titans collapse like a house of cards?

For Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear
Stearns, the losses represented by these toxic securities simply
overwhelmed their reserves and brought them down. And more are likely to
fall once their books - since lots of these holdings are recorded "off
the balance sheet" - are corrected to reflect their actual holdings of
these assets.

And many others will join them as other speculative operations such as
credit cards and different varieties of risk insurance seize up. The
American International Group (AIG) was felled by its massive exposure in
the unregulated area of credit default swaps, derivatives that make it
possible for investors to bet on the possibility that companies will
default on repaying loans. Such bets on credit defaults now make up a
$45 trillion market that is entirely unregulated. It amounts to more
than five times the total of the US government bond market. The
mega-size of the assets that could go bad should AIG collapse was what
made Washington change its mind and salvage it after it let Lehman
Brothers collapse.

What's going to happen now?

We can safely say then that there will be more bankruptcies and
government takeovers, with foreign banks and institutions joining their
US counterparts, that Wall Street's collapse will deepen and prolong the
US recession, and that in Asia and elsewhere, a US recession will
translate into a recession, if not worse. The reason for the last point
is that China's main foreign market is the US and China in turn imports
raw materials and intermediate goods that it uses for its exports to the
US from Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Globalization has made
"decoupling" impossible. The US, China, and East Asia are like three
prisoners bound together in a chain-gang.

In a nutshell ... ?

The Wall Street meltdown is not only due to greed and to the lack of
government regulation of a hyperactive sector. The Wall Street collapse
stems ultimately from the crisis of overproduction that has plagued
global capitalism since the mid-seventies.

Financialization of investment activity has been one of the escape
routes from stagnation, the other two being neoliberal restructuring and
globalization. With neoliberal restructuring and globalization providing
limited relief, financialization became attractive as a mechanism to
shore up profitability. But financialization has proven to be a
dangerous road, leading to speculative bubbles that lead to the
temporary prosperity of a few but which ultimately end up in corporate
collapse and in recession in the real economy.

The key questions now are: How deep and long will this recession be?
Does the US economy need another speculative bubble to drag itself out
of this recession. And if it does, where will the next bubble form? Some
people say the military-industrial complex or the "disaster capitalism
complex" that Naomi Klein writes about is the next one, but that's
another story.

_____

Walden Bello, a fellow of the Transnational Institute, is professor of
sociology at the University of the Philippines, president of the Freedom
from Debt Coalition and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South.

http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18716

_____

Comment from Tony B:

Bello is mostly on here, though his accounting of the 1997 Asian
financial crisis may need some revision, i.e. There is substantial
evidence that the 'crisis' was a purely US state-manufactured one: The
Clinton Administration was demanding that Thailand and Indonesia fully
open their financial markets to US finance and capital sectors. When
they objected, Clinton's Commerce Secretary, Robert Rubin, instructed
America's giant hedge funds to launch a speculative attack on the Thai
baht. The devastation then spread to Indonesia and then South Korea.
Lesson learned.

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 Oct  4 21:43:14 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 20:43:14 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The War to Promote Terror
Message-ID: <EF92B7F5-D601-4F6C-8E8F-444AB8045E79@shaw.ca>

Published on Friday, October 3, 2008 by Common Wonders
The War to Promote Terror
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/03-2
by Robert C. Koehler

The "necessary war" in Afghanistan, which both presidential candidates  
support - the one, you know, that's really about terrorists and Osama  
and all - raises as many troubling questions about who we are as the  
other war we're fighting and losing.

Consider the details of this war. The aggregate civilian death toll,  
at the hands of the U.S. and NATO - between 6,800 and more than 8,000,  
according to economics professor Marc Herold of the University of New  
Hampshire - is a start. But Herold's about-to-be-released report on  
the bombing campaign in Afghanistan, "The Matrix of Death," is a  
disturbing analysis not only of the collateral damage churned up by  
our terrorist-hunt in this broken nation, but of the attitude and  
rationality that are driving it. The report is subtitled: "The  
(Under)Valuation of an Afghan Life."

This is a report on the flawed premise from which ultimate failure  
flows - the flawed premise that keeps hell active and guarantees an  
endless supply of enemies. And the more of these "enemies," and their  
children, that we kill, the less safe we are, and we know this, so we  
lie about the numbers of dead. Most of all we lie about what we are,  
in fact, doing, which is fighting an irrational war, most accurately  
called the war to promote terror. We will not win it unless we revert  
to the morality of Ancient Rome: "create a wasteland and call it  
peace." But that's not winning, either.

What it is, indeed, is racism, especially the use of what is called  
close air support: In order to protect the lives of American and NATO  
(mostly white) troops, we do much of our fighting from the air, with  
500- and 2,000-pound bombs, lacerating a (non-white) Afghan population  
we don't even have to face.

Herold quotes John MacLachlen Gray in the U.K. Globe and Mail: ". . .  
the slaughter of innocent people, as a statistical eventuality is not  
an accident but a priority - in which Afghan civilian casualties are  
substituted for American military casualties." Herold adds: "What I am  
saying is that when the 'other' is non-white, the scale of violence  
used by the U.S. government to achieve its stated objectives at  
minimum cost knows no limits."

This is a description of U.S. policy stripped of the pretense in which  
it is usually cloaked. Not only are the numbers of dead downplayed  
significantly in official military statements and the sympathetic  
(mainstream) media, but those civilian dead who are acknowledged are  
instantly rendered "regrettable, but not our fault" by the circular,  
all-purpose justification that they were not deliberately targeted.

When you bomb a village, the dead are random and anonymous - and  
therefore, thanks to some legalistic moral loophole, no one's fault.  
And this is one of the military advantages of air war, as far as I can  
tell. However horrific the results it produces on the ground - "I saw  
pieces of bodies scattered around . . . I couldn't even make out which  
part was which . . . it was just flesh everywhere" - the perpetrators  
maintain an easy moral purity that forestalls self-doubt and revulsion.

Aerial bombardment, therefore, because of the psychological insulation  
of distance that it provides - especially when added to the  
psychological insulation of racism, which makes non-white deaths  
matter little or not at all - is a particularly insidious form of  
warfare, and its perfection is in and of itself a dire threat to  
humanity's future.

And, as Herold writes: "The recent increasing reliance upon unmanned  
drones to dispense death and destruction in the border regions is in a  
sense the penultimate disconnect between killing them and saving ours."

To put this all another way, the simple math of conventional national  
security - the zero-sum game of kill or be killed, our lives matter  
and theirs don't - is terrifyingly counterproductive in the 21st  
century. It always has been, of course, but we used to be protected  
from its consequences by distance and ignorance. Humanity is connected  
now like never before, and possesses the technology of self- 
annihilation. Such technology cannot be contained, and thus true  
security has nothing to do with national borders. We cannot afford to  
devalue any portion of the human race.

For that reason, the most disturbing part of Herold's report may have  
been his discussion of the "condolence" money paid, occasionally, to  
the survivors of Afghan civilians killed by our actions. These payouts  
have ranged from as low as $400 per dead civilian to several thousand  
dollars.

Herold puts this into perspective: "Approximately $80,000 was spent on  
the rehabilitation of every sea otter affected by the Exxon Valdez oil  
spill, that is, ten times the condolence amount offered by the U.S.  
military to the family of an Afghan killed."

This does not make me feel safe. I can't even fathom the values that  
are operating here, even though they are stamped: "U.S.A." We are  
already reaping what the Bush legacy has sown, but there's a lot more  
that awaits us, and we have no right to be surprised when it comes.


(c) 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an  
editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You  
can respond to this column at bkoehler at tribune.com or visit his Web  
site at commonwonders.com.



From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 10:06:05 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 09:06:05 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Haiti: In Solidarity with its Five Freedoms
Message-ID: <C1C5279C-72AD-477F-99D3-DCB5BAD12524@shaw.ca>

Haiti: In Solidarity with its Five Freedoms
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/haiti-in-solidarity-with-its-five-freedoms/
by James Petras / October 4th, 2008

Today, the acid test for all democrats in North and South America is  
the issue of the military occupation of Haiti ,the economic pillage  
and denial of elementary political and human rights of the Haitian  
people.

In 2004, a US-led invasion force overthrew the democratically elected  
government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and subsequently promoted and  
organized an occupation army. This colonial military force has  
repeatedly violently repressed popular demonstrations, violently  
raided the neighborhoods of the poor and killed, wounded and arrested  
Haitians who were affirming their rights of self-determination and an  
end to foreign occupation.

Since the United States bears major responsibility for the invasion,  
occupation and subsequent pillage and privatization of essential  
public services, we have a special responsibility to speak out clearly  
and forcefully to the United Nations (UN) in support of Haiti?s Five  
Freedoms:

1. The UN must end its military presence of Haiti through its  
occupation army (MINUSTAH), action contrary to the very founding  
principles of the organization. Haiti must recover the right of self- 
determination and the freedom to govern itself.

2. The Haitian people demand the end of the pillage of its national  
treasury by official and private banks extracting payments of $1  
million USD a week for illegitimate debts contracted by past corrupt  
dictatorial regimes. Haitians demand freedom from illegitimate elite  
debts in order to finance basic life-sustaining programs for the 80%  
of the population living in extreme poverty.

3. Every country, which has suffered massive natural disasters, as the  
hurricanes that recently devastated Haiti, is entitled to large-scale,  
long-term humanitarian aid with no strings attached. Haitians demand  
the immediate fulfilling of aid pledged and its allocation according  
to needs without MINUSTAH manipulation to perpetuate its occupation.

4. The collapse of the free market model today highlights the  
disastrous consequences of the IMF-World Bank policies of  
privatization of public services in Haiti, where ?private health and  
education? effectively excludes the vast majority of Haitians.  
Haitians must regain the right to re-nationalize public services and  
all other strategic economic sectors necessary for their well-being.

5. Free elections means the return of deposed, exiled and persecuted  
political leaders and the end of foreign military occupation and  
repression of anti-colonial movements. Elections with occupation guns  
pointed at the heads of the electors and candidates have no  
legitimacy. We, the American people in North, South and Central  
America, have a responsibility to demand the end of MINUSTAH and the  
return national sovereignty to the Haitian people. No government no  
matter what its political claims and rhetoric can justify its  
democratic credentials when it acts as a colonial gendarme.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton  
University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle,  
is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and  
is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras?  
forthcoming book, Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, is  
due from Clarity Press, Atlanta, in August 2008. He can be reached at: jpetras at binghamton.edu 
. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.




From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 11:25:34 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 10:25:34 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The gloom spreads north
Message-ID: <0E674231-A756-406A-9511-E5C02EDFAF24@shaw.ca>

The gloom spreads north
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081004.weconomy04/BNStory/Business
By KONRAD YAKABUSKI , VIRGINIA GALT and GREG KEENAN AND NORVAL SCOTT

 From Saturday's Globe and Mail

October 4, 2008 at 1:37 AM EDT

MONTREAL, TORONTO AND CALGARY ? Rick Lafleur is walking away from his  
home in Windsor, Ont., unable to renew his mortgage. Customers won't  
even talk to Newfoundland manufacturer Lorne Janes as their lenders  
tighten the screws. New Brunswick Finance Minister Victor Boudreau  
fears a budget deficit may be inevitable as a collapsing stock market  
whacks government pension funds and the province's export-driven  
economy falters further.

Across the country, even in the seemingly unsinkable resource towns of  
the Prairies, the grim prospect of a U.S.-led global recession and  
credit crunch has exited the abstract realm of the financial markets  
and landed with a thud on the kitchen tables of average Canadians.

In most parts of the country, house prices are flat or falling ? they  
were down 6 per cent in the city of Toronto in September over the  
previous year ? and down with them is the net worth of millions of  
debt-loaded consumers. They are in poor financial shape to weather an  
economic downturn that is already forcing some financial institutions  
to review the creditworthiness of existing borrowers.

Central Canada's manufacturing sector, already reeling from about  
400,000 job losses since 2003, is bracing for an even bloodier  
downturn than was expected only a few weeks ago. But it is hardly  
alone in its misery, as evidence mounted this week that the commodity  
price boom that has fuelled some provincial economies and filled  
government coffers is out of gas.

How bad it all gets depends largely on whether the $700-billion (U.S.)  
bailout package passed Friday by the U.S. Congress ? which aims to  
take bad mortgage-related loans off bank balance sheets ? meets its  
goal of getting financial institutions to start lending again. The  
deep integration of global financial markets ? and particularly of  
Canadian and U.S. ones ? means that it's not just the fate of the  
American economy, which lost 159,000 jobs last month, that hangs in  
the balance.

?Canadian banks are borrowing and lending in the same credit markets  
as U.S. banks, so if the credit markets seize up in the U.S., they're  
going to seize up in Canada, too,? McGill University economics  
professor Christopher Ragan explained.

Lender skittishness is a major worry for the Bank of Canada, which  
Friday massively boosted the amount of cash it plans to make available  
to the financial system to $20-billion from $8-billion, in a bid to  
unclog frozen money markets.

Still, there are no guarantees that its actions, along with similar  
moves by central banks around the world, will be enough to avert a  
protracted credit crunch. That would exacerbate the economic slowdown  
that had already been threatening Canadian jobs, Prof. Ragan added.  
?It will mean that the recession will be deeper. And any extension of  
a U.S. downturn is just an extension of the amount of time they're not  
buying Canadian wood and Canadian car parts.?

It's already too late for Mr. Lafleur, in Windsor, where auto-sector  
job losses pushed the unemployment rate to the highest of any Canadian  
city at 9.6 per cent in August. Although he and his wife have both  
found new jobs after losing their last ones at a Chrysler car  
dealership and General Motors plant, respectively, their house is now  
worth less than the mortgage on it.

Mr. Lafleur's lender, Xceed Mortgage Corp., has tightened its credit  
conditions and recently told Mr. Lafleur it would not renew the  
$155,000 mortgage on his modest 50-year-old bungalow because the  
property is now worth about 25 per cent less than that amount.

?I'm being told, no, they're not going to renew, because they are  
pulling out of Ontario and, secondly, because the loan-to-value was  
out of sync ? because of the economy and Windsor is pretty bad,? Mr.  
Lafleur said.

It's a big switch from a few years ago when lenders were falling over  
themselves to offer a mortgage to almost any homeowner or buyer who  
asked for one. Indeed, Mr. Lafleur was not required to retain any  
equity in his property when he remortgaged it five years ago.

?I was getting married and I needed 100-per-cent financing. They said  
fine, no problem. Got the mortgage,? Mr. Lafleur said.

Xceed, meantime, has problems of its own and has tightened its credit  
after being caught up in the subprime mortgage crisis that has  
convulsed the United States housing market. Xceed and a handful of  
subprime mortgage lenders in Canada had used asset-backed commercial  
paper to fund their mortgage portfolios. Then the bottom fell out of  
the ABCP market, which is now being restructured.

?Xceed had to change its business model to where it no longer  
underwrites mortgages that do not qualify for the Canada Mortgage and  
Housing Corp. [insurance],? Xceed spokesman Richard Wertheim said.

In June, Finance Minster Jim Flaherty tightened the criteria for  
mortgage insurance provided by government-owned CMHC, requiring buyers  
to provide a down payment of at least 5 per cent. He also made the  
CMHC stop insuring mortgages amortized over a period of more than 35  
years, in effect killing the budding 40-year mortgage market that had  
been popular with first-time buyers seeking to keep their monthly  
payments to a minimum. Both moves were aimed at preventing the kind of  
housing bubble that has now burst south of the border, but they may  
have come too late to prevent a similar rash of mortgage defaults in  
Canada.

Many homeowners who got mortgages under the laxer rules that existed a  
few years ago could find themselves in trouble at renewal time. If  
they have not improved their financial situations to the point where  
they would qualify for a more traditional mortgage, Xceed for one is  
turning them down, Mr. Wertheim said.

Times aren't just getting tougher for homeowners. Home builders face  
bleaker prospects, too. Across Canada, jobs in the construction sector  
have accounted for virtually all ? 99.4 per cent ? of total employment  
growth so far this year, according to Statistics Canada data. One in  
12 Canadians is now directly employed in the sector, the largest share  
on record.

Residential activity, which constitutes about half of the total  
construction market, is already cooling after a decade of growth. Now,  
limited access to credit is threatening to curb the start of big new  
infrastructure and commercial projects.

Financing ?at this point in time will be very tough, so they will  
definitely be impacted,? said Michael Clifford, Canadian tax leader  
for engineering and construction at PricewaterhouseCoopers. ?The banks  
are being cautious, so the whole scenario leads to people waiting and  
seeing.?

For Canadian manufacturers, the credit crisis is the third stage of a  
triple whammy. They have already been battered by the surge in the  
value of the Canadian dollar and the spike in prices of such key  
commodities as steel and plastic.

Companies are hunkering down, scrapping expansion projects and cutting  
employees. The decline in the prices of some of Canada's key  
commodities, such as oil and fertilizer, could help ease their pain,  
since it has sent the Canadian dollar lower. But that might not matter  
much as a U.S. recession erodes demand for Canadian manufactured goods.

Mr. Janes, president of Newfoundland-based Continental Marble of  
Canada, is already getting the cold shoulder from his customers in  
Florida, Maryland and California. ?The reply I'm getting now is,  
?Lorne, save the phone call, don't call any more until this sorts  
out,'? said Mr. Janes, whose 12-employee company manufactures  
equipment to produce moulded stone countertops.

Across the country in Annaheim, Sask., Gurcan Kocdag has been feeling  
the pinch for more than a year. The U.S. downturn ? new housing starts  
have fizzled ? means fewer lumber trucks heading south, slowing demand  
for the trailers Mr. Kocdag's Doepker Industries makes. The 60-year- 
old company has already cut the work force at its three Saskatchewan  
plants by about 200 people to 325 in the past year.

?It's not just manufacturers,? Mr. Kocdag said. ?Everybody who  
supplies services to the transportation industry ? our customers, our  
customers' customers, their customers. Everybody in the value chain is  
significantly affected.?

Falling commodity prices ? which have helped knock about 25 per cent  
off the Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark index from its summer peak  
? have not yet eroded the confidence of Saskatchewan Premier Brad  
Wall. After all, despite dropping 50 per cent from its summer peak of  
$147, oil is still trading higher than it was a year ago.

?We are not going to be immune to what's happening around the world,?  
Mr. Wall said. ?But even with the drop in oil, it brings it down to  
$94. Our government was only elected less than a year ago and it  
wasn't over $90.?

Across the border in Alberta, however, there are concerns that the  
U.S. downturn will be so severe that oil prices will fall further  
still. Together with spiralling costs for oil sands projects, it could  
make any new developments economically questionable, capping the  
province's boom.

The consortium behind the giant Fort Hills oil sands project revealed  
last month that its development costs had grown by more than 50 per  
cent in little more than a year. With the credit crunch, investors  
have assumed it will be hard for UTS Energy Corp., a junior partner in  
the consortium, to raise the cash to fund its 20-per-cent stake. The  
company's stock has dive-bombed to just over $1 from $6 a share in June.

But while some oil sands projects may be delayed or pulled, that would  
only slow the breakneck pace of Alberta's oil boom, rather than stop  
it. Companies plan their multibillion-dollar investments on long-term  
price projections that still support development.

The short-term picture looks bleaker for Alberta's natural gas sector.  
While larger companies ? flush with cash from 2008's previously sky- 
high prices ? say they'll be unaffected by any downturn, junior firms,  
which rely on raising funds through debt and equity, won't be able to  
easily find the cash they need to grow.

?Junior companies will not be able to get the cash to do drilling this  
year,? said Roger Soucy, president of the Petroleum Services  
Association of Canada. ?At best, the forecast [for drilling next year]  
is flat, and it could drop.?

With neighbours losing homes or jobs, even consumers not directly  
affected by a downturn are likely to be rattled by what's happening  
around them.

?It's more likely than not that consumers are going to be more  
anxious, more concerned and less likely to spend going into the  
Christmas season,? said Kyle Murray, director of the school of  
retailing at the University of Alberta. ?And if consumers, en masse,  
just hold off on buying those things like cars and houses, that also  
has a real negative impact on the economy in the short term. So none  
of that really bodes well.?

It all means finance ministers across the country will likely be  
facing lower revenues from income and sales taxes, while expenditures  
on unemployment and welfare benefits could balloon. That could push  
many governments ? including Ottawa, which had a relatively slim $2.9- 
billion surplus in the first four months of the fiscal year ? into the  
red.

?A deficit is something that's certainly in the cards right now [for  
New Brunswick],? Mr. Boudreau said in an interview Friday.

In its March budget, the government projected a tiny $19-million  
surplus, on spending of $7.2-billion, ?so there's not a whole lot of  
cushion? if the economy slips into recession, he added. On top of  
that, government pension funds have been sideswiped by sliding stock  
prices, forcing the province to top up shortfalls with its own cash.

Each of the federal party leaders has insisted that he or she would  
not run a deficit if elected on Oct. 14, despite pledges of billions  
in new spending. But Prof. Ragan thinks their ?no-deficit religion? is  
wrong-headed.

?The last thing you would want when the economy slows down is to  
intentionally raise taxes or cut spending just to stay out of a  
deficit,? he said. ?It's bad economics and I suspect [the party  
leaders] know it.?

Ottawa's budget deficit exploded to $41-billion in 1992-93, in the  
wake of the last big recession, up from $28-billion in 1989-90. But  
subsequent moves to eliminate the deficit and pay down the federal  
debt ? which now represents about 30 per cent of gross domestic  
product, down from a peak of 70 per cent ? means Ottawa has room to  
prime the pump.

?One of the reasons it was so important to bring down the deficit and  
debt was so that in bad times you would have a little bit of fiscal  
room to manoeuvre,? Prof. Ragan said. ?Well, the rainy day has arrived.?

With a report from Tavia Grant in Toronto



From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 14:02:31 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:02:31 -0700
Subject: [R-G] (Re-send) Rank order of the countries of the world - Current
 Account Balance
Message-ID: <200810052002.m95K2Vd0006042@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Sun Oct  5 16:13:37 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:13:37 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] A Bailout We Don't Need
Message-ID: <48E93C11.7000908@attglobal.net>


by James K Galbraith

Washington Post (September 25 2008)


Now that all five big investment banks - Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch,
Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - have disappeared or
morphed into regular banks, a question arises.

Is this bailout still necessary?

The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not
worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They're
called "loans".

With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear the
loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not
eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and go
take inventory? If a bank is solvent, money market funds would flow in,
eliminating the need to insure those separately. If it isn't, the FDIC
has the bridge bank facility to take care of that.

Next, put half a trillion dollars into the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation fund - a cosmetic gesture - and as much money into that
agency and the FBI as is needed for examiners, auditors and
investigators. Keep $200 billion or more in reserve, so the Treasury can
recapitalize banks by buying preferred shares if necessary - as Warren
Buffett did this week with Goldman Sachs. Review the situation in three
months, when Congress comes back. Hedge funds should be left on their
own. You can't save everyone, and those investors aren't poor.

With this solution, the systemic financial threat should go away. Does
that mean the economy would quickly recover? No. Sadly, it does not. Two
vast economic problems will confront the next president immediately.
First, the underlying housing crisis: There are too many houses out
there, too many vacant or unsold, too many homeowners underwater. Credit
will not start to flow, as some suggest, simply because the crisis is
contained. There have to be borrowers, and there has to be collateral.
There won't be enough.

In Texas, recovery from the 1980s oil bust took seven years and the pull
of strong national economic growth. The present slump is national, and
it can't be cured that way. But it could be resolved in three years,
rather than ten, by a new Home Owners Loan Corporation, which would
rewrite mortgages, manage rental conversions and decide when vacant,
degraded properties should be demolished. Set it up like a draft board
in each community, under federal guidelines, and get to work.

The second great crisis is in state and local government. Just Tuesday,
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced $1.5 billion in public
spending cuts. The scenario is playing out everywhere: Schools, fire
departments, police stations, parks, libraries and water projects are
getting the ax, while essential maintenance gets deferred and important
capital projects don't get built. This is pernicious when unemployment
is rising and when we have all the real resources we need to preserve
services and expand public investment. It's also unnecessary.

What to do? Reenact Richard Nixon's great idea: federal revenue sharing.
States and localities should get the funds to plug their revenue gaps
and maintain real public spending, per capita, for the next three to
five years. Also, enact the National Infrastructure Bank, making bond
revenue available in a revolving fund for capital improvements. There is
work to do. There are people to do it. Bring them together. What could
be easier or more sensible?

Here's another problem: the wealth loss to near-retirees and the elderly
from a declining stock market as things shake out. How about taking care
of this, with rough justice, through a supplement to Social Security? If
you need a revenue source, impose a turnover tax on stocks.

Next, let's think about what the next upswing should try to achieve and
how it should be powered. If the 1960s were about raising baby boomers
and the 1990s about technology, what should the 2010s and 2020s be
about? It's obvious: energy and climate change. That's where the present
great unmet needs are.

So, let's use the next few years to plan, mapping out a program of
energy conservation, reconstruction and renewable power. Let's get the
public sector and the universities working on it. And let's prepare the
private sector so that when the credit crunch finally ends, we'll have
the firms, the labs, the standards and the talent in place, ready to go.

Some will ask if we can afford it. To see the answer, don't look at
budget projections. Just look at interest rates. Last week, in the
panic, the federal government could fund itself, short term, for free.
It could have raised money for thirty years and paid less than four
percent. That's far less than it cost back in 2000.

No country in this situation is broke, or insolvent, or even in much
trouble. For once, Wall Street's own markets speak the truth. The
financially challenged customer isn't Uncle Sam. He's up on Wall Street,
where deregulation, greed and fraud ran wild.

_____

James K Galbraith is the author of The Predator State: How Conservatives
Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too (2008).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403033.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 hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org  Sun Oct  5 16:49:02 2008
From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 16:49:02 -0600
Subject: [R-G] Slow Day -- but a political thought or two
Message-ID: <003601c9273c$92f3ebf0$0400a8c0@computer>

Slow day on our Idaho hill.  Colder now, snow higher up, wind and rain have just cleared, leaves beginning to fall.  Slow day, too, on most discussion lists -- with my only exceptions being Hybrid Cats and Bobcat/Lynx. On that note, Sky Gray has emerged as the most active Kitty I've known -- and, especially toward me, fully as attached and affectionate as Cloudy; Cloudy being very likely, judging from virtually every facet of Sky's behavior, Sky's former incarnation or at least her faithful spirit guide.

It's day that I could have used a good Western flick.  My standard with those is that, preferably, the Indians win -- or at least don't lose; no John Wayne and maybe no Clint Eastwood; and no psychiatric twists. Not too much love stuff -- and lots of guns with filming in the geographical Real West.  Couldn't find anything that fit my bill, so I watched CNN.

And there I saw Sarah Palin's attempted attack on Obama, focusing on the contrived Ayers "terrorist connection."  That factor, non-existent re Obama, and extremely remote for the now long-standing respectable Ayers, struck me as far more desperately pathetic than sinister and a good indication of how thoroughly bankrupt the Republican party has become. [Not that I'm  always a fervent admirer of the Democrats.]

The last time I saw  eyes like Palin's were those of a coiled rattler a couple of years ago on the sagebrush slopes just above us here.  Its tongue flickered back and forth and its eyes glittered with excitement.  But there were a couple of differences:  the rattler just wanted to be left alone [and we, of course, honored that.]  And the rattler was smart, sharp -- shifting its position with defensive finesse.

Palin isn't smart nor sharp -- nor is McCain.  But she is quick-cunning so, like our friend in the sage, she bears some watching. But never to the point of slowing one's momentum.

We remember the Weatherman "outbreak", such as it was, in Chicago in the fall of '69.  A cloudy and rainy day and our family was driving far down on the south-east end of the city, passing by a large open gravel pit.  We heard the spectacle on the Near Northside being breathlessly narrated on one of the radio stations but, frankly, we were not all that interested.  I, with a growing and fine staff, was digging in for what became more than four years of hard, grassroots organizing on the city's South/Southwest Side -- and the Weatherman thing seemed as remote as a falling star.

At that point, Baby Mack, riding in a baby seat, was about one month old.  Now he's a top-flight editor for the Lee newspaper chain with three kids -- two of whom are in what's now calculated as "young adulthood."

That was a long time ago and I really don't see many Americans -- especially in our wracked nation of today -- giving a damn about any of that.

But I do always like to see a rattler or two.  Fellow Ishmaelites.

Yours, Hunter


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 our Community Organizing Course [With new material]
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm

And see http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm


From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 18:35:04 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:35:04 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Democracy Watch Files Court Challenge of Prime Minister's
 Federal Election Call
Message-ID: <200810060035.m960Z4AP013807@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 18:42:24 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:42:24 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Who You Callin a Maverick?
Message-ID: <200810060042.m960gO3o019952@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 18:49:49 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:49:49 -0700
Subject: [R-G] A global downturn in the power of the west
Message-ID: <200810060049.m960nnRF026495@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 19:04:29 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:04:29 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Against Islam,
	Even Jews and Nazis can be Friends (sarcastic title)
Message-ID: <200810060104.m9614TC6010204@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct  5 19:14:08 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:14:08 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Scottish activist films Israeli navy shooting at Gaza
	fishermen
Message-ID: <200810060114.m961E8wN020300@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 21:14:39 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:14:39 -0500
Subject: [R-G] Margaret Atwood blasts PM Harper for comments on arts
Message-ID: <B197AC66F6B84293B3735E7830B45BFE@agingCHS072729>

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080924.wcoarts25/BNStory/politics/home>

Globe and Mail                September 24, 2008

To be creative is, in fact, Canadian

Mr. Harper is wrong: There's more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at
galas whining about their grants

MARGARET ATWOOD


From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 21:15:58 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:15:58 -0500
Subject: [R-G] `1979 Moment' for Casino Capitalism
Message-ID: <37D35028AB404E089F908BDA8711353D@agingCHS072729>

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/255b23b2-909e-11dd-8abb-0000779fd18c.html>

Financial Times                     October 2, 2008

`1979 Moment' for Casino Capitalism

By John Monks

At its congress in Seville in 2007, the European Trade Union Confederation
resolved to expose 'casino capitalism' and short-termism and press for them
to be fought by taxation, regulation and worker involvement. Now, as the
subprime crisis unravels around the world, casino capitalism has exposed
itself. Everyone is learning that a powerful financial sector has crowded
out other industries and made the economy dependent on short-term, fast
buck-making deals that are rarely in the interest of sustainable business or
improved long- term growth.

Today's dark economic reality has exposed the financial world's claims to
have increased world liquidity and reduced investment risk. Decision-making
has centred on personal enrichment and even now, with honourable exceptions,
most of those responsible have ensured that they will not be the ones to
suffer the consequences.

There is absolutely no evidence that these huge fortunes have been linked to
record levels of company or business performance. Top business leaders have
grabbed a larger share of the cake themselves. The 'trickle down' effect
peters out very quickly as you descend the income ladder. The share of wages
and salaries in national income in many countries has fallen sharply in the
past 30 years while the already affluent are taking larger shares of the
slice that goes to wages and salaries.

This is not a story of trade union success. We have not been able to prevent
this transfer of money from the ordinary to the very affluent. We have, in
Europe at least (but not in the US), generally improved average living
standards. But we are losing the equality battle. Now is the time to expose
the titans of the world based in New York, London and other major financial
centres, who have patronised us with the message that there is no
alternative to a world run by Goldman Sachs and the others.

To express even mild doubts about the way the system was developing was to
invite, from City of London financiers and leading UK ministers alike, the
accusation of being incorrigibly Old Labour. To question executive pay in
Wall Street and the City invited the accusation of stirring the politics of
envy. An excellent Trades Union Congress paper answers these points and
exposes the Bourbon-style carelessness about others that was on display in
City boardrooms and trading floors.

But make no mistake, just as 1979 was a turning point for British trade
unions when the accusations of over- mighty unions stuck in the public mind
to devastating political effect, so will 2008 be seen as a turning point for
those in the banking system who have contributed to the present mess.

In the London declaration on the crisis, issued by European trade union
leaders last weekend, we are urging that publicly funded bail-outs should
carry with them public influence and, if necessary, control. We want banks
to have higher capital requirements and we must end the 'off balance sheet
practices' that developed to avoid regulation and tax. How was that allowed
to happen by the authorities? We are calling, too, for a European-level
response to be developed urgently before national rescue plans such as the
one announced in Ireland become 'beggar thy neighbour' schemes.


From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 21:20:05 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:20:05 -0500
Subject: [R-G] Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008?
Message-ID: <E409CC24CB6848EFBD06975F42C77892@agingCHS072729>

(thanks to Ron Bourgeault for this...)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20946.htm

Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008?

"Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism"

By V. I. Lenin LCW vol.22,

Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of
imperialism:

The epoch of imperialism opens when the expansion of colonialism has covered
the globe and no new colonies can be acquired by the great powers except by
taking them from each other, and the concentration of capital has grown to a
point where finance capital becomes dominant over industrial capital. Lenin
enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of
imperialism:

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high
stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic
life;
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on
the basis of this "finance capital", of a financial oligarchy;
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities
acquires exceptional importance;
(4) the formation of international monopoly capitalist associations which
share the world among themselves, and
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist
powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development
at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in
which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the
division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the
division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers
has been completed. [Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, LCW
Volume 22, p. 266-7.]

"[Imperialism] is something quite different from the old free competition
between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and
producing for an unknown market. Concentration [of production] has reached
the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all
sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits)...
[throughout] the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these
sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations [now called
multi-national conglomerates]. An approximate estimate of the capacity of
markets is also made, and the associations "divide" them up amongst
themselves by agreement. Skilled labor is monopolized, the best engineers
are engaged; the means of transport are captured * railways in America,
shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist
stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production;
it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and
consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from
complete free competition to complete socialization.

"Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social
means of production remain the private property of a few. The general
framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a
few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times
heavier, more burdensome and intolerable." (p. 205)

"The development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although
commodity production still "reigns" and continues to be regarded as the
basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of
the profits go to the "geniuses" of financial manipulation. At the basis of
these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense
progress of mankind, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit...
the speculators." (p. 206-207)

Monopoly, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the
exploitation of an increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful
of the richest or most powerful nations * all these have given rise to those
distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as
parasitic or decaying capitalism. * It would be a mistake to believe that
this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does
not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain
strata of bourgeoisie and certain countries betray* now one and now another
of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly
than before." Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, VI Lenin,
Selected Works in one volume, p 260

(ch.7) Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism...parasitism is characteristic
of imperialism... the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is
monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of
capitalism and which exists in the general environment of capitalism,
commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble
contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly,
it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay....Certainly, the
possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by
introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But
the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly,
continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries,
for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand.... imperialism is an
immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we
have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the
extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e.,
people who live by "clipping coupons", who take no part in any enterprise
whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the
most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates
the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole
country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries
and colonies....

Imperialism....CH. 10... the bourgeoisie to an ever-increasing degree lives
on the proceeds of capital exports and by "clipping coupons". It would be a
mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of
capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of
industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to
a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On
the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this
growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness
also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which
are richest in capital....

...the tendency of imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen
opportunism among them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class
movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and
the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing
features of imperialism were already observed in Great Britain in the middle
of the nineteenth century*vast colonial possessions and a monopolist
position in the world market. Marx and Engels traced this connection between
opportunism in the working-class movement and the imperialist features of
British capitalism systematically, during the course of several decades. For
example, on October 7, 1858, Engels wrote to Marx: "The English proletariat
is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of
all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois
aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a
nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent
justifiable."[15] Almost a quarter of a century later, in a letter dated
August 11, 1881, Engels speaks of the "worst English trade unions which
allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the middle
class". In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: "You
ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly
the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers' party
here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers
gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the
colonies."  [13] (Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface
to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England,
which appeared in 1892.)...

The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such
economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the
irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of
the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the
predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics
and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on the other
hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great Britain, we see a few
imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and
this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth
century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the
working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in
the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it
has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with
bourgeois policy in the form of "social-chauvinism". [14]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch10.htm

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 21:20:25 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:20:25 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Imperial Media Manipulators: The Center for International
 Media Assistance
Message-ID: <26FD2B73-7E99-4DB0-822D-25607EEACA39@shaw.ca>

Michael Barker, "Imperial Media Manipulators: The Center for  
International Media Assistance", Swans, October 6, 2008.

Supported by Democrats, Republicans, big business, and big labor  
(i.e., the AFL-CIO), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an  
influential government funded "nongovernmental" group that actively  
promotes imperialism. In summary, the NED's operations allow the US  
government to export low-intensity democracy through the provision of  
selective support to ostensibly independent civil society groups all  
over the world. The cooptive repertoire of strategies presently  
employed by the NED build upon those same manipulative techniques that  
were fine-tuned by so-called liberal foundations, big labor, and the  
CIA during the twentieth century to ensure that the grassroots of  
democracy could be utilized in the service of imperialism, instead of  
against it. As discussed elsewhere, the manipulation of global media  
systems played a key role in these groups' activities, thus it is  
little surprise that since its founding (in 1983), the NED has funded  
all manner of global media projects. Indeed, as the NED's president,  
Carl Gershman, has observed...

[...]

http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker05.html




From menecraj at shaw.ca  Sun Oct  5 21:33:46 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:33:46 -0500
Subject: [R-G] The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More
Message-ID: <1DA6CA0309A5479EB8208A5907BB3F74@agingCHS072729>

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html>

Washington Post             Sunday, March 9, 2008; B01

The Reckoning

The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More

By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a free 
war. The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes 
now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can't spend $3 trillion --  
yes, $3 trillion -- on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.

Some people will scoff at that number, but we've done the math. Senior Bush 
administration aides certainly pooh-poohed worrisome estimates in the run-up 
to the war. Former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey reckoned 
that the conflict would cost $100 billion to $200 billion; Defense Secretary 
Donald H. Rumsfeld later called his estimate "baloney." Administration 
officials insisted that the costs would be more like $50 billion to $60 
billion. In April 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, the thoughtful head of the U.S. 
Agency for International Development, said on "Nightline" that 
reconstructing Iraq would cost the American taxpayer just $1.7 billion. Ted 
Koppel, in disbelief, pressed Natsios on the question, but Natsios stuck to 
his guns. Others in the administration, such as Deputy Defense Secretary 
Paul D. Wolfowitz, hoped that U.S. partners would chip in, as they had in 
the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or that Iraq's oil would pay for the damages.

The end result of all this wishful thinking? As we approach the fifth 
anniversary of the invasion, Iraq is not only the second longest war in U.S. 
history (after Vietnam), it is also the second most costly -- surpassed only 
by World War II.

Why doesn't the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? 
In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which 
are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently 
still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our 
calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month -- $16 billion if you 
include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense 
budget, the money we'll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to 
refurbish a military whose equipment and materiel have been greatly 
depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed 
$1.5 trillion.

But the costs to our society and economy are far greater. When a young 
soldier is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, his or her family will receive a 
U.S. government check for just $500,000 (combining life insurance with a 
"death gratuity") -- far less than the typical amount paid by insurance 
companies for the death of a young person in a car accident. The stark 
"budgetary cost" of $500,000 is clearly only a fraction of the total cost 
society pays for the loss of life -- and no one can ever really compensate 
the families. Moreover, disability pay seldom provides adequate compensation 
for wounded troops or their families. Indeed, in one out of five cases of 
seriously injured soldiers, someone in their family has to give up a job to 
take care of them.

But beyond this is the cost to the already sputtering U.S. economy. All 
told, the bill for the Iraq war is likely to top $3 trillion. And that's a 
conservative estimate.

President Bush tried to sell the American people on the idea that we could 
have a war with little or no economic sacrifice. Even after the United 
States went to war, Bush and Congress cut taxes, especially on the rich --  
even though the United States already had a massive deficit. So the war had 
to be funded by more borrowing. By the end of the Bush administration, the 
cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the cumulative interest on 
the increased borrowing used to fund them, will have added about $1 trillion 
to the national debt.

The long-term burden of paying for the conflicts will curtail the country's 
ability to tackle other urgent problems, no matter who wins the presidency 
in November. Our vast and growing indebtedness inevitably makes it harder to 
afford new health-care plans, make large-scale repairs to crumbling roads 
and bridges, or build better-equipped schools. Already, the escalating cost 
of the wars has crowded out spending on virtually all other discretionary 
federal programs, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and 
Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and federal aid to 
states and cities, all of which have been scaled back significantly since 
the invasion of Iraq.

To make matters worse, the U.S. economy is facing a recession. But our 
ability to implement a truly effective economic-stimulus package is crimped 
by expenditures of close to $200 billion on the two wars this year alone and 
by a skyrocketing national debt.

The United States is a rich and strong country, but even rich and strong 
countries squander trillions of dollars at their peril. Think what a 
difference $3 trillion could make for so many of the United States' -- or 
the world's -- problems. We could have had a Marshall Plan to help 
desperately poor countries, winning the hearts and maybe the minds of Muslim 
nations now gripped by anti-Americanism. In a world with millions of 
illiterate children, we could have achieved literacy for all -- for less 
than the price of a month's combat in Iraq. We worry about China's growing 
influence in Africa, but the upfront cost of a month of fighting in Iraq 
would pay for more than doubling our annual current aid spending on Africa.

Closer to home, we could have funded countless schools to give children 
locked in the underclass a shot at decent lives. Or we could have tackled 
the massive problem of Social Security, which Bush began his second term 
hoping to address; for far, far less than the cost of the war, we could have 
ensured the solvency of Social Security for the next half a century or more.

Economists used to think that wars were good for the economy, a notion born 
out of memories of how the massive spending of World War II helped bring the 
United States and the world out of the Great Depression. But we now know far 
better ways to stimulate an economy -- ways that quickly improve citizens' 
well-being and lay the foundations for future growth. But money spent paying 
Nepalese workers in Iraq (or even Iraqi ones) doesn't stimulate the U.S. 
economy the way that money spent at home would -- and it certainly doesn't 
provide the basis for long-term growth the way investments in research, 
education or infrastructure would.

Another worry: This war has been particularly hard on the economy because it 
led to a spike in oil prices. Before the 2003 invasion, oil cost less than 
$25 a barrel, and futures markets expected it to remain around there. (Yes, 
China and India were growing by leaps and bounds, but cheap supplies from 
the Middle East were expected to meet their demands.) The war changed that 
equation, and oil prices recently topped $100 per barrel.

While Washington has been spending well beyond its means, others have been 
saving -- including the oil- rich countries that, like the oil companies, 
have been among the few winners of this war. No wonder, then, that China, 
Singapore and many Persian Gulf emirates have become lenders of last resort 
for troubled Wall Street banks, plowing in billions of dollars to shore up 
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and other firms that burned their fingers on 
subprime mortgages. How long will it be before the huge sovereign wealth 
funds controlled by these countries begin buying up large shares of other 
U.S. assets?

The Bush team, then, is not merely handing over the war to the next 
administration; it is also bequeathing deep economic problems that have been 
seriously exacerbated by reckless war financing. We face an economic 
downturn that's likely to be the worst in more than a quarter- century.

Until recently, many marveled at the way the United States could spend 
hundreds of billions of dollars on oil and blow through hundreds of billions 
more in Iraq with what seemed to be strikingly little short-run impact on 
the economy. But there's no great mystery here. The economy's weaknesses 
were concealed by the Federal Reserve, which pumped in liquidity, and by 
regulators that looked away as loans were handed out well beyond borrowers' 
ability to repay them. Meanwhile, banks and credit-rating agencies pretended 
that financial alchemy could convert bad mortgages into AAA assets, and the 
Fed looked the other way as the U.S. household-savings rate plummeted to 
zero.

It's a bleak picture. The total loss from this economic downturn -- measured 
by the disparity between the economy's actual output and its potential 
output -- is likely to be the greatest since the Great Depression. That 
total, itself well in excess of $1 trillion, is not included in our 
estimated $3 trillion cost of the war.

Others will have to work out the geopolitics, but the economics here are 
clear. Ending the war, or at least moving rapidly to wind it down, would 
yield major economic dividends.

As we head toward November, opinion polls say that voters' main worry is now 
the economy, not the war. But there's no way to disentangle the two. The 
United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come. The 
price tag will be all the greater because we tried to ignore the laws of 
economics -- and the cost will grow the longer we remain.

linda_bilmes at harvard.edu

jes322 at columbia.edu

Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer at the Commerce 
Department, teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. 
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, served as chairman 
of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. They are 
co-authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq 
Conflict."

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From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 01:19:43 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 03:19:43 -0400
Subject: [R-G] A Strengthening Dollar
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810060019p60b028feyc24c8bd758442c6e@mail.gmail.com>

A Strengthening Dollar (The Value of One Dollar, in Euros):
<http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/06/business/1006-biz-DOLLAR-web.gif>
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/business/06dollar.html>
October 6, 2008
In a Weak Climate, the Dollar Has Surprising Muscle
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON ? Stock markets are swooning, credit markets remain frozen,
and some foreign officials are predicting that the United States will
lose its status as a financial superpower. And yet the dollar ? the
most visible symbol of America's financial might ? is surging.

Last week, the dollar rose to its highest level in more than a year
against the euro, the Canadian dollar and several other currencies. It
rose even after the Bush administration's rescue plan for banks had
initially foundered in Congress and even in the wake of a dismal
employment report on Friday.

The dollar's surge seems counterintuitive. Previous financial panics ?
in Asia, Russia and Mexico ? devastated the local currencies, as
foreign investors stampeded for the door. The Thai baht, the Russian
ruble and the Mexican peso were reliable barometers of confidence of
foreigners in those emerging markets. As confidence crumbled, their
exchange rates did, too.

But the dollar is not like any other tender. As the de facto reserve
currency of the world, it benefits from global upheaval, even those
that originate in the United States.

"It's ironic, given that we just messed up big time, the response of
foreigners is to pour more money into us," said Kenneth S. Rogoff, an
economics professor at Harvard. "They're not sure where else to go."

On Sept. 17, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent stock markets
around the world reeling, foreign investors rushed to buy Treasury
bills, driving down the yield to nearly zero. That reflected the fact
that investors were flocking to the safety of the United States
government, even if it meant their investments would lose money when
adjusted for inflation.

Indeed, the appeal of the United States reflects a lack of better
options. Much has been made over the last few years about the rise of
the euro as a rival to the dollar. But Europe hardly looks like a safe
bet now, with its own crisis metastasizing.

And unlike Americans, Europeans have not fashioned a coordinated
response to the financial problems, despite a meeting of leaders over
the weekend convened by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Japan's banks are far more stable than those in the United States or
Europe, which has made the yen the only major currency to rise in
value against the dollar in recent weeks. But Japan, and Asia as a
whole, is weakening, along with the global economy.

"It's like the world is full of sick people," said Ashraf Laidi, the
chief currency analyst at CMC Markets, a trading firm. "The U.S. was
the first to check into the hospital, and went into intensive care.
But then other countries started to feel the chill, and now they're
checking into the hospital."

Currency traders, Mr. Laidi said, are betting that because the United
States was the first to falter, it will be the first to recover. That
perception has gained ground with the mounting problems in Europe,
where more banks are failing by the day, and Germany and Ireland have
guaranteed all deposits in an effort to stave off bank runs.

The dollar has also been propped up the Federal Reserve, which has set
up a network of currency swaps with the European Central Bank, the
Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and other central banks to supply
dollars to foreign banks. Acting on an unprecedented scale, the Fed
expanded these swap lines by $330 billion, to $620 billion.

The resilience of the dollar amid such turmoil is more than an
economic novelty. As long as it retains its value, the dollar's
strength makes it easier for the United States to finance the $700
billion bailout, because the cash will come from bonds sold largely to
foreign investors.

A rising currency also stems inflation ? a major preoccupation of the
Fed before the latest crisis. Less inflation would make it easier for
the Fed to lower interest rates, something the bank is now
considering.

But a stronger dollar has a downside: it makes American exports more
expensive in foreign markets, which could damp one of the few parts of
the American economic engine that is still humming.

The dollar's greatest value, experts said, is as a symbol of the
long-term creditworthiness of the United States. Its stability
suggests that the United States is still viewed as a safer risk.

"In talking to investors, policy makers and academics around the
world, they have this confidence, not just in our economic system, but
in our political system," Mr. Rogoff said. "They seem to have more
confidence in our ability to solve our problems than we do."

That confidence is not boundless, of course. If foreigners were
finally to lose faith, experts said, they would seek to sell their
American debt, the dollar would tumble and the cost of the bailout
would increase.

"We are in charge of the global currency, and if we make a hash out of
that, there will be near- and long-term consequences," said Edwin M.
Truman, a former Treasury department official.

Mr. Truman just completed an overseas tour, during which he said
foreign officials expressed bafflement to him about the political
chaos in Washington. But he said that when he stopped at the Reserve
Bank of Australia, he found no sense of panic about the dollar.

Before this crisis entered its latest phase, with the bailout of Bear
Stearns in March, the dollar had been on a long slide against the euro
and other currencies. That reflected foreign concerns about the
deteriorating American economy and the huge trade deficit.

When the crisis ebbs, investors will focus on those issues again, and
the dollar will resume its downward course, Mr. Laidi predicted. Even
if the bailout succeeds in calming the market, it will greatly expand
the debt of the United States ? a perennial cause of weakness in the
dollar.

For now, though, the global crisis remains a tonic for the currency of
the country where it began.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 01:28:07 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 03:28:07 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Israelis Wary of a US Radar Base in the Negev
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810060028x221db499o8a4e0e7805cb8ba2@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1846749,00.html>
Thursday, Oct. 02, 2008
Israelis Wary of a US Radar Base in the Negev
By Tim McGirk and Aaron J. Klein / Jerusalem

When a contingent of U.S. soldiers opens a radar facility on a
mountaintop in the Negev desert next month, Israel will for the first
time in its 60-year history have a permanent foreign military base on
its soil. And despite the early warning that the American radar would
provide if Iran launches a missile attack on Israel, some senior
Israeli officials are nonetheless wary about its presence. Complained
one top official, "It's a like a pair of golden handcuffs on Israel."


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 01:47:09 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 03:47:09 -0400
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Afghan_=91Dictator=92_Proposed_in_Leaked_C?=
	=?windows-1252?q?able?=
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810060047o7adb0905s4f58fab4c301ae84@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/world/asia/04afghan.html>
October 4, 2008
Afghan 'Dictator' Proposed in Leaked Cable
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS ? A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper
quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the
NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not
all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be
installing an "acceptable dictator," according to the newspaper.

"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting
worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust," the
British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the
author of the cable, Fran?ois Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to
Kabul.

The two-page cable ? which was sent to the ?lys?e Palace and the
French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the
investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Encha?n?, which printed
excerpts in its Wednesday issue ? said that the NATO-led military
presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.

"The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence,
is part of the problem, not part of its solution," Sir Sherard was
quoted as saying. "Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that
would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and
complicate a possible emergence from the crisis."

Within 5 to 10 years, the only "realistic" way to unite Afghanistan
would be for it to be "governed by an acceptable dictator," the cable
said, adding, "We should think of preparing our public opinion" for
such an outcome.

Sir Sherard, as quoted, was critical of both American presidential
candidates, who have vowed, if elected, to substantially increase
American military support for Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

In the short run, "It is the American presidential candidates who must
be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan," he is
quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, General David D. McKiernan, the senior American military
commander in Afghanistan, called on NATO to send more troops and other
support as soon as possible to counter the insurgency.

British officials said that the comments attributed to Sir Sherard
were distorted and did not reflect official British policy.

"It's not for us to comment on something that is presented as extracts
from a French diplomatic telegram, but the views it quotes are not in
any way an accurate representation of the government's approach," said
a spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office, who, like other French
and British officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity under
normal diplomatic rules.

The spokeswoman confirmed, however, that the two men did have a
meeting, but said that the British ambassador's comments were taken
out of context. But Sir Sherard, a British career Foreign Service
officer who has served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Israel, is
known for his frank talk, and other British officials who know him say
that his words ring true.

Mr. Fitou, meanwhile, is considered a responsible and precise diplomat
who would be unlikely to misreport a conversation, a senior French
official said. The cable did not say whether the two men spoke in
English or French.

French officials, who said they were deeply embarrassed about what
they called a serious leak, criticized the broad dissemination of the
cable and have started a leak investigation.

The senior French official described it as a "diplomatic disaster"
that could put French soldiers at more risk.

Reached by telephone, Seyamak Herawy, a spokesman for President Hamid
Karzai, attributed Afghanistan's problems, in part, to the
"multiplicity in the viewpoints of the international community about
Afghanistan."

Claude Angeli, one of the executive editors of Le Canard Encha?n? and
the author of the article, defended its publication.

"This is not the first time we have been the target of a leak
investigation," he said in a telephone interview. "The cable is
authentic, and we reported its contents accurately."

The pessimistic British analysis comes as France has increased its
troops in Afghanistan amid concern over a further erosion of popular
support for French troops present there.

At the last NATO summit meeting in April, President Nicolas Sarkozy
announced that he would send an additional 700 French soldiers to
fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing the total to about 3,000.
He was criticized by the Socialist opposition, criticisms that grew
louder after the deaths of 10 French soldiers in a Taliban ambush in
August.

The deaths represented the highest death toll suffered by France in a
military attack since the bombing of a French barracks in Beirut in
1983 that killed 58 French paratroopers.

In his cable to Paris, Mr. Fitou quoted the British ambassador as
saying that the reinforcement of military troops "would have perverse
effects: it would identify us even more strongly as an occupation
force and would multiply the targets" for the insurgents.

The cable also quoted the British envoy as saying that despite public
statements to the contrary, "the insurgency, although still incapable
of a military victory, has the capacity to make life more and more
difficult, including in the capital."

Acknowledging that there is no option other than supporting the
Americans in Afghanistan, the ambassador reportedly added, "but we
must tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a
losing one." The American strategy, he is quoted as saying, "is
destined to fail."

Sarah Lyall contributed reporting from London, and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 01:52:36 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 03:52:36 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Saudi Hosts Talks between Taliban and Karzai Govenment
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810060052o3eb5821bu541a7651753682a@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/05/afghan.saudi.talks/index.html>
Source: Saudi hosts Afghan peace talks with Taliban reps

    * Story Highlights
    * King Abdullah hosted talks in city of Mecca at end of September,
source says
    * Saudi Arabia has generally dealt with Afghanistan through Pakistan
    * Talks are the first aimed at bringing a negotiated settlement to
the Afghan conflict
    * All parties agreed only solution to Afghan conflict is dialogue,
not fighting

By Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent

LONDON, England (CNN) -- In a groundbreaking meeting, King Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia recently hosted talks between the Afghan government and
the Taliban militant group, according to a source familiar with the
talks.

The historic four-day meeting took place during the last week of
September in the Saudi city of Mecca, according to the source, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the
negotiations.

King Abdullah broke fast during the Eid al-Fitr holiday with the
17-member Afghan delegation -- an act intended to show his commitment
to ending the conflict.

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of
fasting. Learn more about Ramadan ?

Taliban leader Mullah Omar was not present, the source said.

It marks a significant departure by the Saudi leadership to take a
direct role in Afghanistan, hosting some delegates who have until
recently been their enemies.

In the past, Saudi Arabia has generally dealt with Afghanistan through
Pakistan.

The desert kingdom's current foray marks a significant shift and
appears to recognize the political weakness of Pakistan and the need
to stem the growth of al Qaeda.

The current round of talks is anticipated to be a first step in a long
process. According to the source close to the talks, it has taken two
years of behind-the-scenes meetings to get to this point.

The talks took place between September 24 and 27 and involved 11
Taliban delegates, two Afghan government officials, a representative
of former mujahadeen commander and U.S. foe Gulbadin Hekmatyar, and
three others.

It was the first such meeting aimed at bringing a negotiated
settlement to the Afghan conflict and for the first time, all parties
were able to discuss their positions and objectives openly and
transparently, the source said.

Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries that recognized the
Taliban leadership during its rule over Afghanistan in the 1990s, but
that relationship was severed over Mullah Omar's refusal to hand over
al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

While Mullah Omar was not present at the talks in Mecca, the source
said the Taliban leader has made it clear he is no longer allied with
al Qaeda -- a position that has never been publicly stated but emerged
at the talks.

It confirms what another source with an intimate knowledge of the
Taliban and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past.

During the talks, all parties agreed that the only solution to
Afghanistan's conflict is through dialogue, not fighting. The source
described the Mecca talks as an ice-breaking meeting where
expectations were kept necessarily low.

Further talks are expected in Saudi Arabia involving this core group and others.

The reasons for Saudi Arabia's involvement are numerous, including
having the trust of the United States and Europe to play a positive
role at a time when the conflict appears to be worsening and the
coalition's casualty toll is climbing.

Also, Saudi Arabia may fear that Iran could take advantage of U.S.
failings in Afghanistan, as it is seen to be doing in Iraq.

Several Afghan sources familiar with Iranian activities in Afghanistan
have said Iranian officials and diplomats who are investing in
business and building education facilities are lobbying politicians in
Kabul.

The Afghan sources wish to remain anonymous due to their political roles.

Coalition commanders regularly accuse Iran of arming the Taliban, and
Western diplomats privately suggest that Iran is working against U.S.
interests in Afghanistan, making it harder to bring peace.

Saudi sources say perceived Iranian expansionism is one of Saudi
Arabia's biggest concerns.


From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Mon Oct  6 05:32:15 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:32:15 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Awards and Recognition
Message-ID: <48E9F73F.8080908@attglobal.net>


International Financing Review

On December 17 2005, International Financing Review (IFR) announced its
2005 Annual Awards - one of the securities industry's most
prestigiousawards programs. We are pleased to announce that Lehman
Brothers was honored with several awards. The following are excerpts
from IFR's 2005
Annual Awards edition:

US Equity House of the Year

"From the integration of debt and equity capital markets, to the
inclusion of derivatives, tax and accounting specialists, Lehman
Brothers has been a trailblazer in shaping the modern form of capital
markets in the US."

Lehman Brothers' 2005 U.S. league table improvement "reflects the
contributions of a dedicated global finance solutions group that
utilises tax, accounting, and derivatives expertise into capital-markets
transactions".

US Structured Equity House of the Year

"From research to sales and trading, and ultimately to capital markets
solutions, [Lehman Brothers'] measured approach was a valuable resource
in 2005 in a convertible bond market that is dominated by technical
hedge fund investors".

"By sticking to its knitting of fundamental analysis across the capital
structure, Lehman Brothers was a trusted advisor in a difficult market
in 2005".

European Leveraged Loan House of the Year

"Far from playing safe, [Lehman Brothers] consistently strived to
redefine the market, both in terms of pricing and innovation".

"Lehman Brothers' impressive list of mandates demonstrates a franchise
one would normally associate with the largest commercial banks ... The
year's performance was far from anomalous. Lehman Brothers has led the
largest or second largest sponsor-driven LBO in the market every year
since 2002."

North American Securitization House of the Year

"As US interest rates have slowly risen, leaving little room for further
growth in mortgage lending, [Lehman Brothers'] innovation in other
structured finance sectors allowed it to grow".

Lehman Brothers "managed to leverage off its intellectual capital and
engage in fledgling and new securitised asset classes".

US Dollar Bond House of the Year

"[Lehman Brothers] not only maintained its overall market presence, but
also led the charge into the preferred space by ... developing new
products and tailoring transactions to fit borrowers' needs".

"The crowning achievement of [Lehman Brothers'] efforts ... was the
creation of its Enhanced Capital Advantaged Preferred Securities (ECAPS)".

"Lehman Brothers is the most innovative in the preferred space, just
doing things you won't see elsewhere".

Lehman Brothers Associated With Eight Additional International Financing
Review Awards
The Firm was recognized in association with the following deal-related
awards:

-  Financial Bond of the Year (Subordinated Debt)
Lehman Brothers - 60-year ECAPS ($300 million)

- Financial Bond of the Year (Senior Debt)
Santander - $4 billion floating rate notes (joint lead manager)

- European High Yield Bond of the Year
TIM-Hellas - 1.3 billion Euro two-tranche bond (joint lead manager)

-  European IPO of the Year
TomTom - 539 million Euro IPO (joint bookrunner)

- European Securitization of the Year
Whinstone Capital Management - GBP 423 million funded synthetic
securitization of first loss risk (sole structurer and joint bookrunner)

- North American Securitization of the Year
Crown Castle - $1.9 billion securitization (joint bookrunner)

- Corporate Borrower/North American Borrower of the Year
Wal-Mart - $2.5 billion 30-year bond (joint lead manager)

- Sovereign Borrower of the Year
Turkey - 2 billion 20-year bond (joint bookrunner)

International Securitisation Report

Residential Mortgage Backed Securities Arranger of the Year

Deal of the Year
3.7 billion Euro securitization of senior loan and real estate fund for
the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (joint arranger and
placement agent)

Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Deal of the Year
Whinstone Capital Management - Northern Rock's GBP 423 million
funded synthetic securitization of First Loss Risk Management (sole
structurer and joint bookrunner)

Latin Finance
Best Cross-Border M&A Deal of the Year
Bavaria's $7.1 billion merger with SABMiller (financial advisor)

Posse Foundation
Lehman Brothers Honored for its Contribution to Diversity
On May 25 2005, Lehman Brothers received the Posse Foundation's first
ever corporate "Posse Star" award, recognizing the Firm's contributions
to developing young leaders of diverse backgrounds. Ted Janulis, Lehman
Brothers' global head of Investment Management, accepted the award on
behalf of the Firm. Lehman Brothers has a long and successful
partnership with the Posse Foundation, and this summer, over forty Posse
Scholars will intern at the Firm. The Posse Foundation is a leadership
scholarship program which awards college scholarships to exceptional
young leaders from public schools in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los
Angeles, and Washington DC.

Project Finance
North American Single Asset Power Deal of the Year
La Paloma Generating Co.'s $580 million sale of the project to
Complete Energy Holdings, LLC (financial advisor to La Paloma Creditor
Group)

Best Oil and Gas Deal of the Year
Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited II/3's $2.25 billion
senior secured notes offering (joint bookrunner)

Project Finance International
Bond House of the Year

Race for Opportunity
Lehman Brothers Awarded a ?Gold Standard? for Commitment to Diversity
Race for Opportunity, a UK-based organization focused on promoting the
business case for racial diversity, awarded Lehman Brothers a "Gold
Standard" in its annual evaluation of the progress in racial diversity
at 180 private and public sector organizations in the UK. Overall,
Lehman Brothers? racial diversity initiatives received a score of 83%,
up from 56% in 2004. Race for Opportunity charts progress by evaluating
a number of areas including leadership, policy and planning, and
communication.

Securities Industry Association
Award for Innovative Leadership in Diversity
Lehman Brothers' Partnership Solutions Group (PSG) was honored with the
Securities Industry Association's (SIA) 2005 Innovative Leadership
diversity award for employing a creative approach to diversity. The Firm
won for PSG's commitment to develop strategic business opportunities
with minority- and women-owned financial services firms. PSG exemplifies
how diversity activities can be mutually beneficial by creating and
cultivating relationships within potentially lucrative and growing markets.

"The markets we serve are less homogeneous than ever" said James Gorman,
SIA Incoming Chairman. "To stay on top, we need to make sure our
industry looks like the world around us, which means getting our fair
share of clients and employees who are diverse in terms of race,
ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. We honor Lehman
Brothers for its effort in striving to meet these goals."

At the core of Lehman Brothers' diversity strategy is a commitment to
maintaining a diverse and inclusive workplace that reaches beyond
internal practices and policies. The Partnership Solutions Group,
established in May 2004, is an example of the Firm's diversity
commitment applied to commercial activities.

The transactions mentioned herein appear as a matter of record only.

http://www.lehmanbrothers.com/who/awards/2005_detail.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  Mon Oct  6 11:07:47 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 10:07:47 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Haiti's new PM and the power of NGOs
Message-ID: <8875D3AC-C773-42E7-A1C1-2035D711B7CA@shaw.ca>

Haiti's new PM and the power of NGOs

by Nikolas Barry-Shaw

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/9_30_8/9_30_8.html

Haiti Information Project (HIP) - Coming to office in the midst of a
hurricane-provoked humanitarian crisis, Haiti's new Prime Minister
Michele Pierre-Louis clearly has her work cut out for her.
Paradoxically, one of the biggest obstacles her administration will
face is the blight of foreign-funded NGOs eagerly trying to "help"
Haiti. The new Prime Minister acknowledged as much recently, stating
that "the channelling of hundreds of millions of dollars of
international aid through NGOs poses serious problems for the
country," according to the Agence Haitienne de Presse.

Over the past decade, a tidal wave of NGOs have come to blanket Haiti.
According to the World Bank, there are today over 10,000 NGOs working
in Haiti, the highest per-capita concentration in the world. These
organizations occupy every possible sector of activity, their budgets
sometimes dwarfing those of their governmental counterparts.

Agriculture provides a telling example, as Nazaire St. Fort reports:
"[M]ore than 800 NGOs work parallel with the agriculture ministry, but
most define their own priorities." The Association National des
Agro-professionnels Ha?tiens (ANDAH) explains that of the "3.4 billion
gourdes (91 million dollars) budgeted for public investment in
2006-2007, 3.2 billion (85 million dollars) are managed by NGOs."

Ironically, Michele Pierre-Louis made her career participating in the
long ascendance to power of the NGOs in Haiti. Prior to becoming Prime
Minister, Pierre-Louis headed FOKAL, the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Lib?te
in Creole, the Fondation Connaissance & Libert? in French, a
foundation created in 1995 by billionaire George Soros' Open Society
Institute (OSI). In a report on FOKAL, OSI President Aryeh Neier
points out: "The Open Society Institute founded FOKAL that year to
take advantage of the transition to strengthen democracy and open
society values and practices." With an annual budget of over $4
million (US), FOKAL was widely know as one of the most influential
NGOs in Haiti.

All would not go according to OSI's plan; "[T]he second coming of
Aristide proved a disaster. He was more concerned with retaining power
than enacting reforms." That is to say that Aristide was concerned
with recovering the 3 years of his mandate lost to the 1991-1994
Cedras dictatorship and resisting the neoliberal demands made by the
Americans and the rest of the "donor" countries. In the following
years, foreign funded NGOs such as FOKAL would be mobilized against
such outrageous violations of democratic norms.

FOKAL's primary focus is a library program, along with educational and
cultural activities, serving Port-au-Prince's upper and middle-class
students. "Some of them go on to attend university in Haiti, to study
law, medicine, education, agriculture, and computer science. Many
leave the country for the United States and Canada. In 2002, Canadian
computer companies recruited some 20,000 Haitian young people with the
lure of permanent visas."

FOKAL also operates a program in Martissant, a peripheral slum of
Port-au-Prince, as well as giving "general support to peasants'
associations, community radio stations, human rights organizations,
women's groups, and other non-governmental organizations."

The founding of FOKAL was but one instance in the creation of the NGO
nexus by the "international community" (read: the imperialist
countries) in Haiti. The NGO nexus aims to succeed where repressive
force has failed, "killing with kindness" in an attempt to suffocate
the vibrant grassroots activity that overthrew the Duvalier
dictatorship and brought the Lavalas movement to power. As one Haitian
peasant told anthropologist Jennie M. Smith, "They call it
development, but it is more like envelopment!"

This is hardly an overstatement. The tremendous resources disposed of
by these organization cannot but have a massive impact on the
political scene, operating as they are amidst such extreme
deprivation. If you want to get your daily bread, why bother building
a powerful socio-political movement to press your demands on an
impotent state? Why become involved in a democratic process
increasingly hollowed-out by neoliberal reforms?

This approach has met with some success. As Stan Goff notes, "a number
of the formerly militant popular organizations, like Tet Kole and the
MPP (Papay Peasant's Movement) have been slowly co-opted by the steady
trickle of project dollars flowing through the almost interminable
list of NGOs infesting every corner of Haiti." However, the continuing
strength of the Lavalas movement has demonstrated that Haiti's popular
classes are not so easily coopted.

Yet the same cannot be said of those recruited by the NGOs to act as
their local administrators. Who are the administrators? They are
people like Pierre-Louis who, "as a member of the affluent, educated
elite, could have left Haiti, but . . . stayed to work for the
improvement of [their] country." Pierre-Louis's trajectory is
emblematic of the journey taken by large segments of Haiti's educated
classes across the political spectrum.

Like virtually all of Aristide's elite "left" critics, Pierre-Louis
was at one time a close ally of the popular movement, radicalized in
the course of the struggle against the Duvalier regime. And like many
such critics, her split with Lavalas came when the expected spoils of
power did not come her way. As Kim Ives notes, "Pierre-Louis was
previously considered for the post of Prime Minister by President
Aristide in 1993, although he chose instead publisher Robert Malval."

The disappointment of the middle classes' exaggerated revolutionary
expectations by Aristide and the Lavalas project - whose reformist
goals nonetheless threatened the established order - likely also
played a role. Illuminating in this regard is Corey Robin's discussion
of "the inevitable deceleration and disillusionment that consume
failed movements of reform" noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in "one of
his lesser-known writings on the French Revolution":

"After every great defeat comes a great despair. Comrade accuses
comrade of treachery or cowardice, soldiers denounce generals for
marching them toward folly and everyone is soon seized by what
Tocqueville described as the 'contempt' that broken revolutionaries
'acquire for the very convictions and passions' that moved them in the
first place. Forced to abandon the cause for which they gave up so
much, failed rebels 'turn against themselves and consider their hopes
as having been childish - their enthusiasm and, above all, their
devotion absurd.' "

At the same time, the waning desire for transformative social change
competed with other, more particularistic interests for the heart of
the middle class. As Robert Fatton Jr. explains: "In a country where
destitution is the norm and private avenues to wealth are rare,
politics becomes an entrepreneurial vocation, virtually the sole means
of material and social advancement for those not born into wealth and
prestige." Ironically, the political representatives of the middle
class ultimately did the most to advance the neoliberal compromises
forced on Aristide.

These sectors subsequently turned to Soros and other generous funders
of "civil society" from the North, who were busy creating a
multiplicity of parallel state-like structures and looking for
competent - and politically reliable - bureaucrats. By offering better
pay and conditions than Haiti's governement ever could to give to its
civil servants, the building up of these "states-within-a-state"
simultaneously led to the degrading of Haiti's state apparatus.

Perversely, this process played no small part in the ascent to power
of Pierre-Louis. A glowing article on Alterpresse (a CIDA-funded news
website), for instance, cites her experience managing NGO projects
across the country as qualifying her for the post of Prime Minister.

The dovetailing of class interests and political rivalries is typical
of how "democracy promotion" interventions exert their power: "It is
important to emphasize that many individuals brought into US
'democracy promotion' programs are not simple puppets of US policy and
their organizations are not necessarily 'fronts' (or in CIA jargon,
'cut-outs'). Very often they involve genuine local leaders seeking to
further their own interests and projects in the context of internal
political competition and conflict and of heavy US influence over the
local scene." (William I. Robinson)

Administrators such as Pierre-Louis fulfilled the function of
gatekeepers in choosing which popular organizations to support and are
quite aware of the role they played for the donors. "FOKAL vouches for
the organizations it works with. 'If the money is channeled through
us, we will monitor and account for the funds, and issue reports on
the progress being made,' [said Pierre-Louis.]" There is more than
proper accounting at play here.

The OSI report gives us an idea of what "progress" means for FOKAL and
its carefully selected partners. As early as 2000, a peasant group
supported by FOKAL was organizing "a community meeting at which people
vowed not to vote as a protest against the earlier fraudulent
parliamentary elections." The OAS declared the elections "free and
fair" and noted that Haitians "voted in large numbers in an atmosphere
of relative calm and absence of intimidation." Yet since the
hands-down winner of the election, Aristide's Famni Lavalas party, was
seeking to undo some of the damage years of neoliberalism had done to
Haiti, for the OSI and other donors wishing to uphold "open society
values", the results were clearly "fraudulent".

Creating the justifications for the February 29, 2004 coup d'?tat was
an essential role of groups like FOKAL. As Kim Ives writes:
"Pierre-Louis became alienated from Aristide and his Lavalas Family
party in recent years. In league with the bourgeoisie's 'civil'
opposition front Group of 184, FOKAL played a small but visible role
in late 2003 and early 2004 in characterizing the Constitutional
government as repressive and intimidating." Pierre-Louis would
denounce the Aristide "government's hostility to higher education and
to basic human rights, including the right to demonstrate peacefully"
following a Dec. 5, 2003 skirmish between college students and
pro-government popular organizations at the State University.
Pierre-Louis was also one of the signatories of a petition in 2004
decrying the bicentenial celebrations as a "search for an impossible
legitimacy" by the Lavalas government.

It is also worth noting how tightly-knit the NGO nexus is, even across
nominal "right-left" divisions. Hence, we find on the board of
directors of FOKAL none other than Dani?le Magloire, formerly of the
women's coalition CONAP and now director of Rights and Democracy's
Haiti office. The board of FOKAL's fund-raising branch in the US
features a certain Alice G. Blanchet, listed as Director of
Development for Advocacy with the Boulos family-funded Haiti Democracy
Project. Pierre-Louis was also director of the Institut Culturel Karl
Levesque (ICKL), a member organization of PAPDA.

The growth of NGOs and the atrophying of the Haitian state are in
reality two sides of the same coin; the role of government is reduced
to implementing neoliberal policies favorable to foreign capital while
managing the haze of NGOs that effectively run the country, with the
UN occupation in the background, ready to dish out the necessary
repression. Michele Pierre-Louis, well-attuned to "open society
value$", makes a perfect candidate for the job.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct  6 12:06:45 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 11:06:45 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Fwd: US Congresspeople Told Martial Law Would Be Imposed if
	Bailout Bill Didn't Pass
References: <8351930523434EEC98ED834CFB3C1056@ncs.local>
Message-ID: <6878EDE4-8B06-4177-83D1-AF5C0E04B06F@shaw.ca>


>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
> US Congresspeople Told Martial Law Would Be Imposed if Bailout
>
In this YouTube clip, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) says some  
congresspeople were told in private briefings that if they did not  
pass the bailout bill, circumstances would soon force the federal  
government to "impose martial law."

(Thanks, Martha Clayton

>
> Boing Boing / Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:41:11 GMT
>
>
>


From suzannedk at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 14:13:43 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:13:43 +0200
Subject: [R-G] Propaganda
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810061313j3c4d13b7h23a816510207bf12@mail.gmail.com>

Propaganda is just that, a way to convince people, against all common sense,
that the reality you write, show, broadcast, is more vital than the one the
audience is experiencing day by day.  Kellog Cereals, Johnson
Pharmaceuticals, Ford Automotive do not represent reality.  They repreaent
what they have to sell, period.
As empire building occupiers, the U.S.A. is becoming very sophisticated in
justifying illegal occupation.  It is not becoming more respected
or democratically effective in helping the world become safely peaceful and
tolerant, quite the opposite.  It's efforts are polarizing religions, ethnic
groups, countries, political parties to the point of intercine warfare
everywhere.   The rapacious financial practices of choice the United States
has made into law, as it has made wars of choice into law, are destoying all
respect and trust the U,S, ever generated in the past.  Witness the
financial meltdown .... trust is gone, not funds.

S.M.de Kuyper
Amsterdam

From mstainsby at resist.ca  Mon Oct  6 14:55:52 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:55:52 -0600
Subject: [R-G] Canada heading for recession, say economists
Message-ID: <48EA7B58.8000408@resist.ca>

Canada heading for recession, say economists
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/10/06/recession.html?ref=rss
Canada is headed into a worse recession than anyone expected, one that 
could last until almost 2010, said the country's top economists on Monday.

Staid financial watchers, who usually speak in measured tones, almost 
screamed the r-word in two separate events Monday.

"At this point, if this kind of volatility keeps up, I think we're 
looking at a much more serious downturn than a mild recession that most 
of us are talking about," said Doug Porter, with BMO Capital Markets at 
a meeting of senior economists in Toronto.


From news at ckut.ca  Mon Oct  6 15:03:32 2008
From: news at ckut.ca (CKUT Community News Collective)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:03:32 -0400
Subject: [R-G] GroundWire October Edition Available for Download!
Message-ID: <48EA7D24.2090404@ckut.ca>

GroundWire (OCT 2008)

WWW: http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=76168

Headlines:
Shawn Brant, and the court dropping most of the charges against him, 
Aaorn Lakoff (CKUT);
Adam Gould from Membertou Radio and David Parker from CKDU on the 
recently held Mikmaw Gathering on Moose;
Day of Action to Stop the Attack on Abortion, David Koch and Gretchen 
King (CKUT);

Features:
Naomi Klein focusing on the economic crisis in the US and its 
implications for Canadian voters, by Sharmeen Khan (CHRY);
Derailing the Olympic Spirit Train by Aaron Chubb (CJSR);
Unclear future for Uranium mining in Nova Scotia by David Parker (CKDU);
Courtney Kirkby on the Ontario Mining Act consultation process (CKUT);
Review of historical strike in Sudbury in 78-79 and exploring the 
significance of the strike for todays labour policies in the extractive 
industries in Canada, by Amy Miller;
Queen's Pow Wow, by Christopher Currie (CFRC).

Recording Location: CKUT 90.3fm (Montreal, Qc)

RUNS: 30m41s

MP3:
http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/OCTgw2008.mp3




From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 15:16:15 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:16:15 -0700
Subject: [R-G] EUROPEAN FALLOUT FROM U.S. FINANCIAL CRISIS
Message-ID: <200810062116.m96LGFIJ019129@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 15:56:54 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:56:54 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Reports link Karzais brother to Afghanistan heroin trade
Message-ID: <200810062156.m96LusRY008026@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 16:00:47 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:00:47 -0700
Subject: [R-G] We can't defeat Taleban - departing British commander
Message-ID: <200810062200.m96M0lWH015528@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 16:06:03 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:06:03 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Europe races to shore up faltering banks
Message-ID: <200810062206.m96M64vu029032@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 16:05:31 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:05:31 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Investment bankings lethal flaw
Message-ID: <200810062205.m96M5VQM027831@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From tchilds at resist.ca  Mon Oct  6 16:31:28 2008
From: tchilds at resist.ca (tchilds at resist.ca)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 15:31:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] Highway Blockade set up by Barriere Lake Algonquins
Message-ID: <64275.64.85.36.244.1223332288.squirrel@mail.resist.ca>

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/lia_tarachansky/2154

Highway Blockade set up by Barriere Lake Algonquins

Barriere Lake Algonquins peacefully blockade highway 117:
Community loses patience with broken agreements and coup d'etat on
Algonquin territory

Brief description: After exhausting all political avenues, the Algonquins
of Barriere Lake and many non-native supporters have just blockaded
highway 117. They will maintain the peaceful blockade until both the
Canadian and Quebec governments honour their signed agreements that would
allow co-management of their traditional territory and resource revenue
sharing, and until Canada respects their leadership customs by appointing
an observer to witness a leadership selection in accordance with their
Customary Governance, and in good faith recognize the outcome.

Click here for the Algonquins' full list of demands

Quotes from Barriere Lake Algonquin Spokespeople:

Michel Thusky, community spokesperson: "To avoid their obligations, the
federal government has deliberately violated our leadership customs by
ousting our Customary Chief and Council. In what amounts to a coup d'etat,
they are recognizing a Chief and Council rejected by a community majority.
The Quebec government is cooperating with the federal government too
because they are using the leadership issue as an excuse to bury the 1991
and 1998 Agreements they signed with our First Nation."

Norman Matchewan, community youth spokesperson: "The Conservative
government, like the Liberal government before it, has treated us with
contempt, refusing to respect the agreements they've signed with us. We've
exhausted all our political options, but they've ignored or dismissed our
community, leaving us with no choice but to peacefully blockade the
highway to force the government to deal fairly with us."

Marylynn Poucachiche, community spokesperson: "The federal government
pretends this is simply an internal issue. But we can only resolve the
situation if the federal government appoints an observer to witness a new
leadership selection that is truly in accordance with our Customary
Governance Code, promises to respect the outcome, and then stops
interfering in our internal affairs."

Media Contacts:

Norman Matchewan, a community teacher and part-time police officer who was
racially slurred two weeks ago by the assistant of Conservative Minister
Lawrence Cannon, the representative in Barriere Lake's riding of Pontiac:
647 - 227 - 6699

Marylynn Poucaciche, community educator and youth representative for
Barriere Lake on the Algonquin Tribal Council: 438 - 868 - 3957

Michel Thusky, residential school survivor and elder: 819 - 435-2171

For More Information Please See the Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective.

Lia Tarachansky's blog



From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Mon Oct  6 18:32:04 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:32:04 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] All Fall Down
Message-ID: <48EAAE04.1050301@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 (October 06 2008)


God knows what manner of deals went down this past weekend in the
Hamptons wine cellars and below-decks among the Chesapeake Bay sailboat
fleet. All these hidey-holes must have been dank and fetid with the
sweat of mortal fear. Will the US Government declare itself a subsidiary
of General Electric? Will Vlad Putin be roped in to save Goldman Sachs?
Meanwhile, the whole noisome rat maze of international counter-party
deals was taking on sewer water and rodents of every nationality were
seen leaping for daylight all over the fusty old motherlands of Europe.
A cascading collapse of international finance is underway. While many
fixers may jump heroically into the tumbling wreckage hoping to rescue
this-and-that, the outcome by Friday is liable to be an unrecognizable
smoldering landscape of the G-7's hopes and dreams.

Some big questions for the week: will the Euro survive as a currency?
Will the rush into the US dollar continue even as the US financial
system dematerializes in a Fibonacci fever of accelerating de-leveraged
infinitude? Will the remaining Big Boyz, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan
succumb to the counter-party hemorrhagic fever? Will great rows of
lesser banking dominoes now start clacking onto their faces? Will all
fifty states follow the leads of California and Massachusetts and line
up at the US Treasury's hand-out window. Will the entity that calls
itself the civilized world be left at week's end with anything
resembling money?

Your guess is as good as mine. We've entered the realm of phase change,
where everything is slipping and nothing has settled. The final result,
when the dust settles - and that may not be for weeks to come - will
certainly be a poorer western world. Will it be so poor that it can no
longer afford to import anything? Including oil from the land of the
date palm? If so, we are really in for a rough ride, poised as we are at
the edge of the heating season here in the temperate regions. Notice, by
the way, that the $700 billion just approved by congress to bail out
Wall Street is exactly the same sum of money that we send to the oil
exporting nations this year.

Will millions stop receiving paychecks due to the turmoil in banking?
It's certainly possible, starting with the poor drones in Mr
Schwarzenegger's motor vehicle bureau and eventually ranging to every
payroll office in the land. Will Sarah Palin's fellow Six-packers line
up around the parking lagoons of the suburban banks trying desperately
to withdraw the last seventy bucks in their checking accounts? (And will
their thoughts in the event be: this economy is fundamentally sound ...)
Will the supermarket shelves of chipoltle-flavored crunchy snacks and
power drinks go empty as truckers refuse to deliver their loads without
up-front payment? And how long does it take a hungry public to turn mean?

We could see a parallel problem in the motor fuel supply sector. So far,
gasoline shortages have only appeared in parts of the Southeast USA, due
to interruptions caused by two hurricanes. If the oil tankers quit
offloading now for lack of credible payment, then the whole nation will
get an interesting lesson in the shortcomings of the suburban
development pattern.

The candidates' debate Tuesday night should be interesting. I don't
expect too much give-and-take on the subject of East Ossetia this time
around.

Even at this point, the current crack-up in world finance makes the 1929
crash and the events of the 1930s look in comparison like an orderly
small town auction of somebody's grandmother's effects. Back in that
sepia day, America had plenty of everything except ready cash. We had,
especially, plenty of our own oil, and - you're not going to believe
this but it's true - the stuff was selling for as little as ten cents a
barrel, it was so abundant. And yet still, America in the 1930s plunged
into a dark depression of inactivity, loss of confidence, and
impoverishment.

This time around, things could get more disorderly. Personally, I think
we may be beyond the reach even of fascist authoritarianism, because
unlike the programmed industrial masses of the 1930s, we are unused to
regimentation, to lining up at the factory gates and the movie theaters.
Back then, society was so regimented that everybody wore uniforms
in-and-out of the military. Look at movies from the 1930s. Every
man-jack wore either a necktie and hat or overalls. The industrial
masses behaved like termites. Once unemployment hit, they were waiting
to be told what to do, to line up for something. It worked fabulously
for Hitler, who took every advantage of this mentality. Luckily, the US
went for Roosevelt (both FDR and Hitler entered office the same winter
of 1933, by the way). FDR was more like everybody's kindly Uncle Frank,
and his reassuring persona enabled Americans to suck up their bad luck
and altered circumstances. Many of them retreated to the family farm
(which still existed then) and waited things out - and, anyway, the
melodrama of the Great Depression soon resolved in the Second World War
when Hitler's love of regimentation led him into military misadventure.
He shouldn't have picked a fight with someone who had so much petroleum
- end-of-story.

Okay, what happens here and now? To this point (9 am Monday October 6
2008) events have been proceeding under a veneer of
still-just-barely-credible authority. We (as represented by congress)
have allowed Mr Paulson to advance and activate his remedies. As things
unspool further, he will be out of credibility, perhaps in a few days,
and it's unlikely that his successor will have any either. Mr Bernanke
has simply gone AWOL. Notice, he has vanished from the media landscape.
We may soon be hearing the declaration of various "emergency" measures
involving the allocation of food and the rationing of oil products. The
Big Bailout of last week may be partially rescinded as it becomes
obvious that it has had no effect - I believe about half the $700
billion has already been allocated, which is to say: lost. I realize
these things sound pretty extreme. But forces have been set in motion
and momentum rules. One thing for sure: the American public is about to
undergo a severe mood adjustment. There will be fewer American Idol fans
and worshippers of Donald Trump by the close of business on Friday.

_____

My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at
all booksellers.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/10/all-fall-down.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  Mon Oct  6 22:58:58 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:58:58 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Goodbye to Grosvenor Square
Message-ID: <D396B832-7B73-4C86-A8A1-30DC56F569BF@shaw.ca>

October 6, 2008
Goodbye to Grosvenor Square

By TARIQ ALI
http://www.counterpunch.org/ali10062008.html

The US embassy is withdrawing from its central London fortress. If  
only America would quit other parts of the world it occupies.

Grosvenor Square is about to be liberated. Tidings that the US embassy  
is moving to an unspecified five-acre location in south London may be  
good news for local residents (some of whom were renting rooms for a  
proper view of the rioting in 1968), but bad news for the unhealthier  
sections of the north London left. Till now, we could all meet happily  
in central London. A long march to south London is far less enticing,  
unless the San Francisco model of demonstrating on bikes becomes  
fashionable here as well.

Of course, we could be spared all this if the United States simply  
decided to stop bombing and occupying different parts of the world.  
Apart from anything else, they can't afford it any more, which also  
appears to be the reason for the move from Grosvenor Square. The city  
is owed ?4m in rates ? which might be the sale price of the building  
in these troubled times.

When it finally happens, Grosvenor Square veterans, particularly of  
the great demonstrations of 1968 calling for Victory to the NLF,   
should make sure there is a properly organized wake with proper music,  
etc. They should be sent off in style. Old memories must not be  
obliterated. This could happen if the fortress in the Square is sold  
off as apartments. Much better if the Imperial War Museum borrowed a  
few million from one of the Gulf states and purchased it as an adjunct  
devoted exclusively to US wars. The loan could be written off as a bad  
debt and Peter Mandelson, back in the cabinet, might help out here.

A worry remains. Why south London? Surely, it would make much more  
sense to ask the British to dissolve the Foreign Office, abolish the  
post of foreign secretary (each new incumbent worse than the one  
before) and offer the King Charles Street building to the United  
States as their Embassy. The advantages to both sides are obvious. It  
could be on a 50-year basis since, by that time, a party might have  
emerged in England that  needed a Foreign Office.

It would certainly make it easier for some of us to have  both the US  
ambassador and the prime minister within striking distance of  
protesting  crowds that assemble in Trafalgar Square.

Tariq Ali has given many fiery speeches down  the years in front of  
the soon-to-be abandoned US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. His latest  
book is The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct  6 23:01:17 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:01:17 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Wolfowitz up to more mischief?
Message-ID: <073088C5-D70F-4E1B-A0C2-30DEDE276B07@shaw.ca>

Oct 3, 2008
	
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JJ03Ad01.html

Wolfowitz up to more mischief?
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Just 15 months after being forced to resign as president  
of the World Bank over a conflict of interest regarding his  
professional and personal relationship with his girlfriend, former  
deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz may be involved in another,  
far more geostrategic conflict of interest.

It involves his dual roles as chairman of the State Department's  
International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) and chairman of the US- 
Taiwan Business Council. Among the latter's US members are military  
contractors who have been dying to get the George W Bush  
administration's approval to sell about US$11 billion worth of arms to  
the island to protect it against the threat of an attack by the  
mainland.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed Wolfowitz as



chairman of the arms-control advisory panel - apparently as part of  
the campaign to secure the appointment of Eliot Cohen to become to her  
counselor at the State Department, to co-opt neo-conservatives - in  
January this year.

Like the Defense Policy Board, the ISAB became a stronghold for all  
manner of national security hawks under Bush, with former under  
secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Robert  
Joseph, James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence  
Agency, and former defense secretary James Schlesinger among its  
members.

It also is joined by missile-defense devotees associated with the  
Center for Security Policy, the National Institute for Public Policy  
and Southwest Missouri State University as well as executives from the  
arms industry - Lockheed, Boeing, and Science Applications  
International Corp (SAIC), to name a few.

Wolfowitz's appointment, coming after his disgrace at the bank - not  
to mention his performance as deputy to former defense secretary  
Donald Rumsfeld and superior of then-under secretary of defense  
Douglas Feith from 2001 to 2005 - was seen as a kind of token public  
redemption that would presumably have little consequence in actual  
policy terms.

That assessment may have been premature, because, judging by an  
article appearing in Wednesday's Washington Times by Bill Gertz,  
Wolfowitz's ISAB may be trying to gin up tensions with China, acting  
as a new "Team B" in persuading policymakers and the public at large  
that Beijing's military modernization, especially its missile program,  
is more threatening to the US than, in Gertz's words, "many current  
government and private-sector analyses" have depicted it.

At least, that is the message of the article, which is purportedly  
based on a draft of an ISAB report that Gertz says is due out in a few  
weeks.

According to Gertz's account, the report, which is the product of a  
task force headed by Joseph, recommends the US "undertake the  
development of new weapons, sensors, communications and other programs  
and tactics to convince China that it will not be able to overcome the  
US militarily".

It also specifically recommends that the US obtain, in Gertz's words,  
"New offensive space and cyber warfare capabilities and missile  
defenses as well as more robust sea- and space-based capabilities to  
deter any crisis over Taiwan."

As Gertz points out, Washington has until now repeatedly reassured  
Beijing that its missile defense efforts were directed solely against  
"rogue states" like North Korea and Iran.

The report also predicts that China will have more than 100 nuclear  
missiles, some with multiple warheads, capable of reaching the US by  
2015, compared to only 20 missiles at the present time. "To avoid an  
'emerging creep' by China toward strategic nuclear coercion, 'the  
United States will need to pursue new missile defense capabilities,  
including taking full advantage of space'," Gertz quotes the report as  
asserting.

The report, according to Gertz, also stresses - and this is where  
Wolfowitz's stewardship of the US-Taiwan Business Council raises  
questions - the pivotal importance of Taiwan in all this. Again  
quoting from the draft, Gertz writes:

     In China's view, Taiwan is the key to breakout: If China is to  
become a global power, the first step must include control of this  
island. Taking over the island would allow China to control the seas  
near its coasts and to project power eastward ...

     China views Taiwan ... as central to "the legitimacy of the  
regime and key to power projection", the report said. Taiwan is seen  
by China as a way to deny the United States a key ally in "a highly  
strategic location" of the western Pacific, it adds ... The advisory  
panel report also recommended that the US increase sales of advanced  
conventional forces to allies in Asia ...

Now, one has to be careful about anything that Gertz reports,  
particularly about China, as he is a charter member of the "Blue Team"  
- a group of hawkish policy specialists, congressional staff, and  
journalists which includes neo-con luminaries such as William Kristol  
and Robert Kagan and their Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The Blue team insisted from the end of the Cold War until the  
September 11, 2001, attacks that Beijing represented the single  
greatest threat to US hegemony and global peace and security, while  
Gertz has been obsessed with ChiComs (Chinese communists) for years  
and has certainly been known to exaggerate and take things out of  
context in his zeal to alert the world to the looming peril that  
confronts it.

It is also important to stress that this report remains a draft, which  
could be substantially toned down before it reaches final form. It may  
not yet have even been seen by Wolfowitz, whose chapter on China  
policy in Present Dangers - the book published by PNAC before the 2000  
elections, was almost certainly considered insufficiently alarmist by  
Blue Team stalwarts like Gertz.

That said, it is clear that someone associated with ISAB wanted to  
leak what - to China anyway - will be seen as a highly provocative  
document that will tend to confirm the worst fears of its military,  
which according to the draft, already suffers from "clear paranoia"  
about US intentions, particularly with respect to missile defense and  
the military use of space.

It is also clear that the leaker is also very concerned about the  
pivotal role Taiwan could play in thwarting what the task force sees  
as China's military ambitions and hence the importance not only of  
enhancing US capabilities, but, presumably, of selling advanced  
weapons to the island, as well.

Moreover, the leak comes at a critical moment in the administration's  
deliberations about the long-pending arms package for Taiwan, whose  
approval Wolfowitz and other advocates had hoped would have been  
forthcoming last week.

Taiwan is hoping to acquire seven weapons systems from the US as part  
of the package - anti-tank missiles, Apache helicopters, Patriot PAC-3  
missile batteries, diesel-electric submarines, P3C Orion anti- 
submarine aircraft, sea-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Black  
Eagle helicopters.

Wolfowitz in July virtually assured his friends at the Business  
Council in Taipei that Bush would go ahead with the package some time  
after the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in August. But according to  
Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report, a recent study by a Naval War  
College expert - which has gained considerable attention from  
administration policymakers - argues that much in the pending package  
will do very little, if anything, to improve Taiwan's ability to  
resist an attack by Beijing.

The study proposed an alternative "porcupine" strategy for defending  
the island which, it noted, would likely be strongly opposed by "the  
arms manufacturers who stand to benefit form the sale of aircraft,  
ships, and supporting systems to Taiwan" that are included in the  
current package.

Needless to say, some of those same arms manufacturers were behind  
Wolfowitz's selection as the (well-paid) chairman of the Business  
Council, and they would be sorely disappointed if his influence and  
connections with the administration did not yield the anticipated  
dividends (see Paul Wolfowitz: A man to keep a close eye on, March 21,  
2001).

Nelson reported on Wednesday that the arms manufacturers have indeed  
won the day and that most, if not all of the package will be approved  
by the White House.

But the episode still raises important questions, particularly in  
light of the current election debate over the influence of lobbyists  
in Washington policy-making, about conflicts of interests.

Once again, Wolfowitz's actions suggest that his grasp of the concept  
is pretty shaky. On the other hand, the presence of senior executives  
from Lockheed (a huge beneficiary of the current package) and Boeing,  
among other arms contractors heavily invested in missile defense and  
space weapons, on the State Department's board indicate that Wolfowitz  
is not exactly alone in that respect. (Gertz reports that Allison  
Fortier, a Lockheed vice president, served on the task force that  
produced the draft.) "It's basically functioning like a lobbyist  
group," Nelson told me.

This article is taken from Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and  
particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush  
administration. Lobe is the Washington Bureau Chief of the  
international news agency Inter Press Service.

(Copyright 2008 Jim Lobe.) 


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct  6 23:38:16 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 01:38:16 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Oil Prices Fall Below $90 a Barrel
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810062238l324127eat18b4fb17f5cdbb3e@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07oil.html>
October 7, 2008
Oil Prices Fall Below $90 a Barrel
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

HOUSTON ? Oil prices fell below $90 a barrel on Monday for the first
time since February because of the economic slowdown, even though
production in the Gulf of Mexico had not fully recovered from
hurricane destruction three weeks ago.

The price decline of recent weeks, from a record high for crude oil of
$147.27 a barrel during the trading day on July 11, has been
breathtaking for energy analysts and traders, some of whom had
predicted during the summer that the price would cross the $200
threshold by 2010 or sooner.

Now, amid weakening global demand, prognosticators are talking about
prices going down to $70 or even lower.

"The buying frenzy that engulfed the oil market in the beginning of
the year is about to go into reverse," declared Phil Flynn, an analyst
at Alaron Trading, in a note to investors on Monday, "and the myths
that oil bulls tried to feed us are coming apart at the seams."

Economic worries are overshadowing any relief consumers might feel at
the gasoline pump, where the average national price for a gallon of
regular unleaded dropped 2 cents from Sunday, to $3.50, according to
AAA, the automobile club. That is still a high price by historical
standards, but it is down 15 cents from a month ago, and well below
the record peak of $4.11 a gallon on July 17.

Gasoline prices are bound to go lower, experts say, as oil prices
fall. West Texas intermediate crude for November delivery fell 6
percent to close at $87.81 in New York trading on Monday.

What makes the sudden drop in oil and gasoline prices all the more
surprising is that it comes at a time when oil company executives are
realizing that damage to oil platforms and underwater pipelines in the
Gulf of Mexico from Hurricane Ike is more serious than originally
thought.

The federal Minerals Management Service reported on Monday that 46.2
percent of oil production and 40.6 percent of natural gas production
were still shut down. Most platforms were shut down for safety reasons
before Hurricane Gustav entered the gulf in late August and then
remained shut as the more powerful Ike struck last month.

Fifty-two of 3,800 production platforms were destroyed, and 73
additional platforms had moderate to considerable damage.

Eight pipeline systems that transport oil and gas output onshore and
five onshore natural gas processing plants suffered damage, and
several more oil pipeline systems are still undergoing damage
assessments. Nearly all of the 15 gulf refineries that were shut down
by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike are operating normally again, although a
few are still struggling to repair damage from flooding.

The gulf accounts for about 25 percent of the nation's domestic oil
production and 15 percent of natural gas output. Government and
industry officials say as much as a quarter of the gulf's oil
production could still be out in a month.

"If this had happened during a brisk economy, it might have been
haunting, but we are far from a brisk economy," said Tom Kloza, senior
oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. "As long as demand
remains flat," he added, normal gulf output at this time of year "is
not needed."

The disruption caused shortages at gasoline stations around the
Southeast for several weeks, and gasoline prices in Atlanta remain
about a half-dollar higher than the national average. But shortages
have eased, as gasoline flowing through the Colonial pipeline
connecting the gulf to the Southeast is returning to normal levels.

The reason that prices are going down despite falling gulf production
is the steady drop in gasoline demand. A recent report by the Energy
Department showed that consumption in July was the lowest in 11 years
for the month, traditionally one of the heaviest for driving. Demand
is also declining rapidly in Europe and other industrial regions
because of high fuel prices and the global economic slowdown.

"The financial contagion that is spreading to Europe is raising
concerns about a slowdown in oil demand on the Continent that could
perhaps eclipse what has already happened in the U.S.," wrote Addison
Armstrong, an energy analyst at Tradition Energy, on Monday. "Oil
traders are on watch of any signs that Chinese demand could follow
suit."


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Tue Oct  7 10:01:22 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:01:22 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Fed to Start Buying Commercial Paper
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810070901u73919fado352332964972cbe2@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20081007c.htm>
Release Date: October 7, 2008
For release at 9:00 a.m. EDT

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced the creation of the
Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), a facility that will
complement the Federal Reserve's existing credit facilities to help
provide liquidity to term funding markets. The CPFF will provide a
liquidity backstop to U.S. issuers of commercial paper through a
special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will purchase three-month unsecured
and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible issuers. The
Federal Reserve will provide financing to the SPV under the CPFF and
will be secured by all of the assets of the SPV and, in the case of
commercial paper that is not asset-backed commercial paper, by the
retention of up-front fees paid by the issuers or by other forms of
security acceptable to the Federal Reserve in consultation with market
participants. The Treasury believes this facility is necessary to
prevent substantial disruptions to the financial markets and the
economy and will make a special deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York in support of this facility.

The commercial paper market has been under considerable strain in
recent weeks as money market mutual funds and other investors,
themselves often facing liquidity pressures, have become increasingly
reluctant to purchase commercial paper, especially at longer-dated
maturities. As a result, the volume of outstanding commercial paper
has shrunk, interest rates on longer-term commercial paper have
increased significantly, and an increasingly high percentage of
outstanding paper must now be refinanced each day. A large share of
outstanding commercial paper is issued or sponsored by financial
intermediaries, and their difficulties placing commercial paper have
made it more difficult for those intermediaries to play their vital
role in meeting the credit needs of businesses and households.

By eliminating much of the risk that eligible issuers will not be able
to repay investors by rolling over their maturing commercial paper
obligations, this facility should encourage investors to once again
engage in term lending in the commercial paper market. Added investor
demand should lower commercial paper rates from their current elevated
levels and foster issuance of longer-term commercial paper. An
improved commercial paper market will enhance the ability of financial
intermediaries to accommodate the credit needs of businesses and
households.

Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) Terms and Conditions (57 KB PDF)
<http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/monetary20081007c1.pdf>


From fentona at shaw.ca  Tue Oct  7 10:08:16 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 09:08:16 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Bulking up Pentagon North
Message-ID: <5456E6D5-AAE3-4E8B-B8A6-07EDACB531B9@shaw.ca>

  OPINION
TheStar.com | Federal Election | Bulking up Pentagon North
Bulking up Pentagon North
http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/512832
Oct 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Linda McQuaig

With the prospect of a Harper majority hanging menacingly over the  
country, the mind inevitably turns to the question: Just what is the  
"secret agenda" lurking behind the friendly sweater?

Actually, I don't believe there is one. The truth is that Stephen  
Harper has already laid out an agenda that would fundamentally change  
this country ? in ways most Canadians would oppose.

While this agenda is not "secret," my guess is few Canadians know  
about it. That's because Harper, realizing it would be unpopular,  
unveiled it when Canadians weren't paying attention ? in fact, we were  
sleeping. Sometime in the dark of night last June 20, the Harper  
government posted a plan on the Department of National Defence's  
website ? called Canada First Defence Strategy ? to spend an eye- 
popping $490 billion over the next 20 years on the military.

Given all the recent buzz about the size of the $700 billion Wall  
Street bailout in the United States, it's striking to note that Ottawa  
quietly announced a plan to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on  
the military, almost in passing.

Steven Staples, a defence analyst with the Ottawa-based Rideau  
Institute, says that Canada's military spending is already 27 per cent  
higher than in 2001.

"The focus of the defence lobby now is on getting contracts signed as  
quickly a possible," Staples said in an interview. "They want to make  
it impossible for future governments to get out of these spending  
commitments."

It's hard to imagine an agenda with more profound consequences for  
Canadians, beginning with a dramatic reordering of national  
priorities. Public health care? Child poverty? Fighting global  
warming? Fine causes, to be sure, but sadly the cupboard will be bare.

The Conservatives won't even have to look mean-spirited as they say  
no. There just won't be any money left. It will all be sucked into  
bulking up Pentagon North.

Harper knows Canadians would balk at this shift in priorities, if they  
got wind of it. In a 2008 pre-budget survey conducted for the finance  
department, Canadians were asked which of 18 different issues they  
considered a high priority. "Increasing spending on defence" ranked  
last.

There's a rich irony in this ramped-up military spending. In the  
election campaign, Harper has accused Liberal Leader St?phane Dion of  
"reckless spending" for his plan to invest $70 billion in  
infrastructure over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Harper claims to be a thrifty economic manager, even as he  
quietly plans a massive spending spree on military hardware.

Clearly governments can rack up deficits just as quickly acquiring  
tanks and killing insurgents in Afghanistan, as they can building  
public transit or a clean energy grid here in Canada.

While the election campaign has focused on economic issues, the  
military and its combat role in Afghanistan have actually been the  
centrepieces of the Harper administration.

Harper has tried to reshape the way Canadians think about Canada,  
weaning us off our fondness for peacekeeping (and medicare, for that  
matter), and getting us excited about being a war-making nation, able  
to swagger on the world stage in the footsteps of the Americans.

In fact, the U.S. has shown where big military spending leads. As the  
"defence" sector expands, jobs and economic prosperity become linked  
to war preparation. A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in  
constituency for war.

Forget trying to figure out Harper's "secret agenda." The really  
frightening, far-reaching agenda Harper has in mind for us is already  
posted on the Internet.

Linda McQuaig's column appears every other week. lmcquaig at sympatico.ca

From aaron.doncaster at gmail.com  Tue Oct  7 11:58:12 2008
From: aaron.doncaster at gmail.com (aaron doncaster)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:58:12 -0600
Subject: [R-G] HALIFAX POLITICAL FORM - Please distribute widly
Message-ID: <164236a30810071058hccc4b40u449c34d50b708b4c@mail.gmail.com>

*


Halifax Political Forum*
*First of the Fall Series*
*
*
*Elections 2008*
*
*
*No to A War Government!*
*No Harbour for War*!

*Wednesday, October 24 -- 6:30 pm-8:30 pm*
*Halifax North Memorial Public Library*
*2285 Gottingen Street*.

Halifax MLPC candidate Tony Seed* together with Prof Isaac Saney** will
discuss Canada's foreign and military policy with a special focus on
ensuring the democratic renewal of Canada. This public discussion on such a
central issue facing a nation at war is convened at a time when any
discussion on such a central issue is being stifled and marginalized.

All the "major parties" agree to Canada's government being a war government
that occupies other countries and interferes in the affairs of sovereign
peoples, so long as more credibility is given to the so-called "balance
between war and development," as with the "mission" in Afghanistan. This is
the "choice" being given Canadians.

Yet the ruling circles have far-reaching plans to develop Canada as a
belligerent nation on the world scale, especially in Latin America and the
Caribbean, with Cuba and Venezuela a target of the preparations by the US
for subversion and terrorist attack. Thus Canadians are kept in the dark.

The deployment of the Canadian warship* HMCS Regina* along with personnel
from Spain, France, and 17 other countries to participate in "the largest
pan-hemispheric exercise in the world" in Panama, Honduras and El Salvador
is evidence of this: "PANAMAX's ability to reach a large global audience is
worth noting," said Lieutenant-Commander Bryan Payne of Director Maritime
Policy, Operations and Readiness in Ottawa. "It also provides a venue which
allows Canada to* implement important aspects of its strategy for the
Americas.*" The parallel attempts to damage Canadian-Cuban relations and
adapt Washington's policy of open hostility under Harper's mask of
"independence" from the USA and his "Partnership of the Americas" must be
opposed.

A foreign policy which bases itself on the norms of

*  Support for all peoples fighting for their rights;

*  Relations of equality and mutual benefit amongst sovereign nations based
on peaceful coexistence;* and*

*  Non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

is more urgent than ever. Canadians are part of an entire humanity which is
struggling to affirm itself and to uphold the high road of civilization. We
do not accept the negation of our sovereign and national rights, just as we
do not accept the negation of the rights of all those who are under
occupation or who are facing threats from the Empire no matter what the
justification.

We warmly invite all members of the community to participate and bring
others you think are interested.

The program will include the 1991 film* No Harbour for War*

To RSVP or for further information: halifax at mlpc.ca or 902-477-0470.
Please contact us if you require transportation or other assistance.


*Editor & publisher of Shunpiking Discovery Magazine and Shunpiking Online (
www.shunpiking.com)
**on faculty at Dalhousie University (for purposes of identification)

From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 12:34:29 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:34:29 -0700
Subject: [R-G] News Release 07OCT08: MP Ken Dryden's endorsement of
 collective punishment
Message-ID: <200810071834.m97IYTDg008165@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 13:31:09 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:31:09 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Response from Ken Dryden  (fwd)
Message-ID: <200810071931.m97JV9wT015745@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 13:45:47 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:45:47 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Democrats Bailout Betrayal
Message-ID: <200810071945.m97JjlEO015213@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 13:54:31 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:54:31 -0700
Subject: [R-G] CLC statement on the economic crisis
Message-ID: <200810071954.m97JsV3n002546@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 14:09:01 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:09:01 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Bear makes me feel like yelling 'uncle'
Message-ID: <200810072009.m97K91r6005697@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 14:08:07 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:08:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Why this slump will be 'long and deep'
Message-ID: <200810072008.m97K87xk003057@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct  7 14:14:06 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:14:06 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Calling the Problem Early
Message-ID: <200810072014.m97KE6B1021109@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 10:30:43 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:30:43 -0700
Subject: [R-G] New Merlin Press books - VIOLENCE TODAY - Socialist Register
 2009 now available...
Message-ID: <200810061630.m96GUhLV018061@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct  6 12:57:16 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:57:16 -0700
Subject: [R-G] A time to speak out -- the book
Message-ID: <200810061857.m96IvGWJ007853@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Tue Oct  7 17:07:00 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 16:07:00 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Seven Years in Afghanistan: From "War on Terror" to "War of
	Terror"
Message-ID: <20B77C83-4AF7-4B95-801E-187C969800A7@shaw.ca>

October 7, 2008
Seven Years in Afghanistan: From "War on Terror" to "War of Terror"
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp10072008.html

By GARY LEUPP

October 7, 2008. Seven years ago today the U.S. began the assault on  
Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime and produced the present  
mess. Abetted by U.S. bombing and commando operations, the Northern  
Alliance took Kabul on November 13, 2001. This was the initial U.S.  
response to 9-11, an assault on the U.S. by Saudi Islamist fanatics  
based in Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda attacks killed 3000 people. By  
March 2002 the U.S. bombing had produced that many Afghan civilian  
fatalities. This was just the beginning.

The invasion produced little change in the daily life of the average  
Afghan. Fanatical Sunni leaders who?d had a genuine social base and  
had been able to control 95 per cent of the country with minimal  
outside help were driven back to their villages. They were replaced by  
other fanatical Sunni leaders---those who had toppled the ?leftist?
government in 1993, then been overthrown themselves by the Taliban in  
1996. These Northern Alliance forces had been nurtured in the duration  
by India, Russia and Iran as their idea of the better bet among  
competing Islamist fundamentalists.

But in the seven years since, this collection of tribal-based warlords  
has been unable to stabilize Afghanistan---even though they?re propped  
up by tens of thousands of foreign troops who?re told that they?re  
there to fight terrorism and help create ?democracy.?  Indeed, its  
hold on power becomes more tenuous every year, while a resurgent  
Taliban with no foreign government?s support exacts an ever heavier  
price
from the foreigners and their local allies.

According to the United Nations, 1,445 civilians were killed in the  
war from January through August this year---a rise of 39 per cent over  
2007. At least 577 of these deaths were due to the actions of pro- 
government forces. Deaths from air strikes have tripled since 2006.  
?Mistakes by the US and Nato have dramatically decreased public  
support for the Afghan government and the presence of international  
forces providing security to Afghans,? declares Brad Adams, Asia  
director at Human Rights Watch. Francesc Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat  
with eight years? experience in Afghanistan, recently noted that  
civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces have created ?a great  
deal of antipathy? and the situation in the country is the worst it?s  
been since 2001. Members of the Afghan Parliament have staged a one- 
day walkout to protest the civilian casualties.

Puppet president Hamid Karzai has also protested the strikes and    
their ?collateral damage? in the last two years in fairly strong  
language. But hand-picked for his post by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad  
in the Loya Jirga of June 2002, he is commonly known as the mere  
?mayor of Kabul.? Why should the U.S. pay any attention to his  
protests? His authority hardly extends beyond the city limits, and  
even Kabul has become insecure. Elsewhere warlords hold sway in  
virtually independent ethnic baronies, issuing their own laws and  
printing their own currency, filling their coffers with the proceeds  
of opium and human trafficking---activities the Taliban had  
effectively banned.
Opium poppy production had been effectively wiped out by 2001. Today  
Afghanistan supplies about 90 per cent of the world?s illegal opium.  
And then there are the sad continuities. The burqa, vilified before  
the attack as the symbol of Taliban misogyny, remains the normative  
female costume and leading political figures insist upon its use.  
Women are still imprisoned for refusing arranged marriages. The  
Supreme Court upholds death sentences for Christian converts. The  
Taliban stoned women to death for adultery and blasted away the  
buddhas of Bamiyan. It was undeniably awful. But it?s not at all clear  
that the current regime has made life better for most Afghans.\
72 per cent (58 per cent of males, 87 per cent of females) were  
illiterate in 2000 and it?s doubtful the number has risen greatly as a  
result of the Taliban?s ouster. A 2005 report stated 50 per cent of  
males and 82 per cent of females remained illiterate, and the figures  
are higher in the rural areas. 80 per cent of the population are  
impoverished farmers, growing in order of  importance opium, wheat,  
fruits and nuts and grazing sheep. According to the online CIA   
Factbook: ?Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is  
extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid,  
agriculture, and trade with  neighboring countries. Much of the  
population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water,  
electricity, medical care, and jobs. Criminality, insecurity, and the  
Afghan Government?s inability to extend rule of law to all parts of  
the country pose challenges to future economic growth. It will  
probably take the remainder of the decade and continuing donor aid and  
attention to significantly raise Afghanistan?s living standards from  
its current level, among the lowest in the world.? This does not sound  
like a liberated country.

The entire political class in the U.S., l Deocratic candidate Obama in  
the vanguard, , unites in proclaiming the war in Afghanistan the  
?good? war, the reasonable and appropriate response to 9-11. It?s seen  
as the foil to  the ?strategic error? of Iraq. But how, at this point,  
is it connected to 9-11? The Taliban didn?t attack the United States.  
They sent envoys to talk to former State Department official, then  
UNOCAL executive Khalilzad about oil pipeline construction in the late  
1990s. (Afghan-American neocon Khalilzad had actually editorialized in  
the Washington Post in favor of the Taliban!) While not recognized by  
the U.S. government, it received U.S. funds from Colin Powell?s State  
Department in 2001 to eradicate opium poppy production. The U.S. drove  
the Taliban from power to affirm the principle that it would not  
distinguish between terrorists and the regimes that harbor them. Maybe  
that sounded good at the time, macho and simple, but that mentality  
and policy has produced an expanding disaster.

The Taliban is Not the Same Thing as al-Qaeda
To review some history: the Taliban did not create al-Qaeda or invite  
it into Afghanistan. The U.S.-led effort to drive the Soviets out of  
Afghanistan in the 1980s boosted young Osama bin Laden into  
prominence, as an anticommunist CIA ally. The U.S. establishment of  
bases in Saudi Arabia in 1990 turned him against the U.S. and Saudi  
regime, and ultimately resulted in his return to Afghanistan before  
the Taliban even took power. The Taliban allowed his presence, and the  
operation of his training camps, although it apparently sought to  
restrain his activities after 1998. It?s not at all clear that Mullah  
Omar and other Taliban leaders were in on al-Qaeda?s 9-11 plans.  
(Wasn?t their principal international backer, aside from Pakistan,  
Saudi Arabia? And haven?t Riyadh and al-Qaeda been mortal enemies  
since 1990?) But they paid the price for not capitulating to  
Washington?s demand immediately after 9-11 that they turn over bin  
Laden to U.S. authorities. That would have meant turning their backs  
on the Pashtunwali honor code (requiring hospitality and protection of  
guests), the same honor code operative in North and South Waziristan  
(in Pakistan) which the U.S. administration either does not understand  
or provocatively exploits to create pretexts for widening war.


So in late 2001 the U.S. and allies overthrew the Taliban, a secondary  
goal, while botching the primary goal which was to annihilate al- 
Qaeda. The multinational, primarily Arab al-Qaeda forces were bombed  
and driven over the border into Pakistan. No one seems to have any  
idea about how many al-Qaeda members were in Afghanistan in late 2001.  
Bush administration references to ?tens of thousands? have been  
questioned by intelligence specialists. We may be talking, in fact,  
about hundreds, some of whom, including bin Laden and Ayman al- 
Zawahiri, clearly got away and continue to lead a very flexible and  
loosely structured movement of militants inspired by, but only  
tenuously connected to, bin Laden?s isolated circle. That movement has  
bourgeoned globally as a result of U.S. actions that seem virtually  
calculated to incite Muslim outrage.

The War Spreads to Pakistan
Nowhere is this the case more than in Pakistan. The flight of al-Qaeda  
and Taliban members into Pakistan, and Washington?s blithe expectation  
that Pakistan could or would force the local people to fight them and  
cooperate in their suppression, has produced the predictable blowback.  
There is now a substantial Pakistani chapter of the
Taliban, while those in Pakistan most disposed to cooperate with  
Washington meet with the contempt of their own people who see the U.S.  
as a vicious anti-Muslim bully.

Pakistanis have long perceived the U.S. as Israel?s enabler, as the  
backer of dictators in power in Muslim countries, as the heartless  
force behind the decade of sanctions on Iraq. But now they see the  
U.S. as an aggressor on their own soil. Because it is!  According to  
the New York Times, the CIA ?has for several years fired missiles at
militants inside Pakistan from remotely piloted Predator aircraft.?  
There were three such strikes in 2007, over a dozen so far this year.  
One in June killed 12 Pakistani soldiers. Recent orders from President  
Bush now also allow the military?s Special Operations forces to  
conduct ?raids on the soil of an important ally without its  
permission.? So in addition to drone attacks the Pakistani border  
faces commando raids supported by gunships. Highlights of last month?s  
provocations of Pakistan:

Sept. 3: 40 U.S. Special Operations Forces including Navy SEALs swoop  
down on the village of Musa Nika in Angoor Ada in South Waziristan,  
killing 15-20. First known ground assault of U.S. troops in Pakistan.
Sept. 8: U.S. drones attack a madrassa in North Waziristan, killing at  
least 23. (The next day George W. Bush announces that Pakistan, Iraq  
and Afghanistan are ?all theatres in the same overall struggle.?)
Sept. 12:  U.S. drone strikes a home and a former government school  
near North Waziristan town of Miramshah, killing at least 14 and  
injuring 12. (Waziristan tribal leaders meet the next day and declare  
if attacks continue ?we will prepare an army to attack U.S. forces in  
Afghanistan? in cooperation with Afghan tribal leaders. Ahsan Iqbal, a  
leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, declares, ?If [this]  
continues, then Pakistan can consider pulling out completely from this  
war on terror.?)
Sept. 15: U.S. helicopters land near village in Angoor Ada, returned  
toward Afghanistan after troops or tribesmen fired warning shots.

Sept.17: U.S. drone attack kills 7, injures 3 in South Waziristan.  
This occurs just hours after Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint  
Chiefs of Staff, visits Pakistan to assure military leaders the U.S.  
would respect Pakistan?s sovereignty.

Sept. 21: Pakistani troops and tribesmen open fire on two U.S.  
helicopters flying into Pakistani airspace from Pakistan, force them  
to retreat.

Sept. 24: Wreckage of U.S. spy drone found in South Waziristan;  
anonymous Pakistani military officials say it was shot down by  
tribesmen.

Sept. 25: Pakistani forces fire on U.S. helicopters along Afghan- 
Pakistan border; U.S./NATO claims choppers were within Afghan airspace.

Sept. 27: Two U.S. jetfighters enter airspace over Angoor Adda, Baghar  
and Momin Tangi area of South Waziristan for about 25 minutes.

Sept. 30: Tribesmen fire on four drones over North Waziristan; missile  
fired from drone strikes house, killing four and wounding nine.

Add to these the Oct. 1 U.S. drone attacks house in North Waziristan,  
killing at least 6. And the Oct 4 drone missile attack on a house in  
Mohammad Khel, North Waziristan, killing 20, reputedly including ?Arab  
militants,? women and children.

Pakistani civilian and military authorities have repeatedly expressed  
their indignation of these violations of Pakistan?s sovereignty. On  
Sept. 20, in his first speech to Parliament since becoming president,  
Asif Ali Zardari warned, ?We will not tolerate the violation of our  
sovereignty and territorial integrity by any power in the name of  
combating terrorism.? Earlier, Army  chief  Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani  
had declared the attacks would not be tolerated, and soon after the  
commando raid of Sept. 3 Islamabad cut supply lines to NATO troops in  
Afghanistan. Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar explained, ?we  
have stopped the supply of oil and this will tell how serious we are.?  
Although the suspension was temporary, it indicates a mounting sense  
of impatience.

?Reckless actions,? observed Kayani, ?only help the militants and  
further fuel the militancy in the area.? Rand Corporation analysts are  
saying the same thing: the counter-insurgency efforts are in fact  
stoking the insurgencies. U.S. officials claim the attacks are all  
part of a legitimate ?War on Terror.? But former Pakistani Prime  
Minister Nawaz Sharif no doubt speaks for most Pakistanis in averring  
that ?it is unacceptable that while [supposedly] giving peace to the  
world we make our own country into a killing
field.?

?The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country,? says  
Kayani, ?will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed  
to conduct operations inside Pakistan.? National Security Advisor  
Mahmud Ali Durrani said on Sept. 21, ?The bottom line is that the  
message is loud and clear and the Americans know it.? On October 2  
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani went so far as to declare, ?These  
[drone] attacks are a form of terrorism.?

Yet ?senior U.S. officials? have told the New York Times that  
(unnamed) Pakistani officials have approved ground raids. Is this not  
the arrogance of the rapist who insists he had his victim?s permission?

On the other hand, one unnamed government official quoted by National  
Public Radio isn?t bothering to suggest the U.S. has permission.  
?Definitely, the gloves have come off,? he declared, ?This [Sept. 3  
attack] was only Phase 1 of three phases.? While Mullen assures  
Pakistan the U.S. respects Pakistan?s sovereignty, U.S. Defense  
Secretary Robert Gates tells BBC the U.S. will take whatever action  
necessary to ?protect our troops? and  a Senate panel hearing Sept. 29  
that international laws allow the U.S. to take unilateral actions  
inside Pakistan. What are the Pakistani people to make of these mixed  
signals?

Army spokesmen General Athar Abbas told the Associated Press Sept. 16  
that field commanders have been ordered to fire on any forces crossing  
the border with Afghanistan. That plainly includes U.S. forces. A  
council of 3000 tribesman in South Waziristan enraged by the recent  
attacks then vowed to join the Pakistan Army to ?take up arms against  
the US.? ?We will take the war to Afghanistan to confront the  
Americans,? they vowed.

Meanwhile some forces angered at the U.S. aggression targeted the  
Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, possibly because CIA agents and Marines  
were known to stay there. The blast on Sept. 20 produced the highest  
death toll (at least 54 including two U.S. military personnel) of a  
terrorist attack in Pakistan since 2001.  Some analysts attribute it  
to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, although a hitherto unknown  
organization, Fedayeen Islam, claimed responsibility.


?We?re Not Going to Win This War?

In Afghanistan, on the other hand, al-Qaeda is largely defeated. Syed  
Saleem Shahzad, writing in the Asia Times, estimates there were only  
about 75 Arab fighters in Afghanistan as of April (many more Uzbek  
jihadis, however), and recent U.S. intelligence reports allude to al- 
Qaeda in Afghanistan only in passing. They depict Iraq as the most  
active al-Qaeda theater, and even there, the so-called ?al-Qaeda in  
Iraq? is a homegrown copy-cat operation likely lacking operational  
ties to any international headquarters. It is a creation of the U.S.  
invasion, and in any case, on the decline for months.

The Taliban has regained control of much of the Pashtun south, and  
gets ever more sophisticated in its guerrilla tactics against the U.S.  
and NATO forces. ISAF and U.S. deaths have risen from 130 in 2005 to  
191 in 2006 to 232 last year. This year?s toll, already at 236, sets a  
new record. (More U.S. troops---134---have died than in any prior year  
in Afghanistan.)

This year Taliban fighters bombed Kabul?s only five-star hotel,  
killing six; opened fire on an Independence Day observance in  
Kandahar, killing three; attacked a prison in Kandahar, freeing 400  
inmates; unsuccessfully attacked Camp Salerno, one of the largest U.S.  
bases in Afghanistan; and killed or wounded 31 French special forces  
near Kabul. According to RAND analyst Seth Jones, ?It is generally  
accepted now across all [U.S.] government agencies that the situation  
in Afghanistan has significantly worsened and has become quite dire.?  
Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told Congress recently,  
?I?m not convinced we?re winning it in Afghanistan.? That?s despite an  
increase in U.S. troop strength from 21,000 in 2006 to 31,000 today.

In a recent New York Times interview, newly appointed CENTCOM  
commander Gen. David H. Petraeus stated, ?Obviously the trends in  
Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction, and I think everyone is  
rightly concerned about them?Certainly in Afghanistan, wresting  
control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult? In  
both [Afghanistan and Pakistan], in certain areas, the going may be  
tougher before it gets easier.?

British officials present an even bleaker picture. Sir Sherard Cowper- 
Coles, British ambassador to Afghanistan, reportedly told the duputy  
French ambassador to Kabul Fran?ois Fitou last month, ?The foreign  
forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse  
without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual  
exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic? In the short  
term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from  
getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is  
doomed to fail.? These are observations by a top diplomat of the  
nation most deeply invested alongside the U.S. in the Afghan War. He  
proposes replacing Karzai with ?an acceptable dictator.? The top  
British military commander in Afghanistan agrees; Brig. Mark Carleton- 
Smith stated last week, ?We?re not going to win this war.?
A recently completed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on  
Afghanistan is apparently so grim its contents won?t be made public.

Hard to believe that on May 1, 2003 Defense Secretary Donald H.  
Rumsfeld confidently declared that ?major combat activity? had ended  
in Afghanistan. Mission accomplished, the Bush administration  
frenziedly prepared to invade and occupy Iraq.

?The People Support the Taliban?

The dirty little secret suppressed by the mainstream press is that the  
Taliban, like it or not, has considerable popular support. Afghan  
senatorAbdul Wali Ahmadzai, who was captured and held by the Taliban  
two months, now says, ?The important point is that the people support  
the Taliban. This is the main problem: now the people do not like the  
government and they support the Taliban.? Support for Karzai has  
plummeted due to corruption (including accusations credited by the  
State Department that Karzai?s brother is involved in heroin  
smuggling) and his association with the foreigners who continue to  
bomb the country. Aware of resurgent Taliban support, Karzai has urged  
Mullah Omar to return to the country (from his presumed sojourn in  
Pakistan); invited the Taliban to join the government; and sought the  
aid of the Saudis, the Talibs? former ally, aid in arranging  
negotiations.
Meanwhile public opinion in the nations contributing to the occupation  
of Afghanistan is now overwhelmingly against continued deployment.  
Majorities or pluralities in the U.K., Canada, Italy, France, the  
Netherlands, Australia, Poland, and Spain all want out. Maybe they  
don?t see fighting Afghan resistance fighters as a ?war on terror? but  
something more prosaic and depressing: an unwinnable counterinsurgency  
effort like the Algerian or Vietnam wars. Washington?s reported bid to  
take over sole command of the Afghan war, cutting NATO out of the  
command structure, will likely fuel European and Canadian opposition.

This war in Afghanistan?s not about avenging the 9-11 attacks or  
preventing new ones. It?s about killing local fighters, who fight not  
to create some ?Emirate? from Indonesia to Spain or establish a base  
of operations against America as George W. Bush (shamelessly fear- 
mongering and exploiting Islamophobia) would have you believe. They  
fight to rid Afghanistan of unwelcome foreigners from Christian- 
majority countries that always seem to be attacking faithful Muslims  
for no good reason. Countries where, they?re told by their mullahs,  
cartoonists mock the Prophet and the Holy Qur?an. They fight to avenge  
the civilian victims---the wedding party celebrants, the madrassa  
students---of bombing attacks. In August a U.S. air strike in Herat  
killed 90, mostly women and children.

The guerrillas? numbers seem to grow even as the U.S. and NATO  
announce more and more impressive Taliban casualty figures. They are  
not all veterans of the Mujahadeen struggle against the pro-Soviet  
regime of the 1980s. Some are too young to recall it; the median age  
in Afghanistan is 18. The new Taliban is largely the creation of 2001  
invasion and the bombing campaign ever since. But President Bush sees  
them as terrorists enraged by the blessings of occupation, such as  
improved health care, education and transportation (the same things  
the Soviets said they were bringing in the 1980s). ?Killers,? Bush  
declares, ?can?t stand this progress.?

Today as this war enters its seventh year, there are 53,000 foreign  
troops including 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, backing up what is  
supposed to be a democratically-elected regime and training its  
military forces. The Afghan National Army is 76,000-strong and well- 
equipped with billions of dollars? worth of M-16s, Humvees, jeeps and  
mortars. It has NATO behind it. Why can it not defeat a guerrilla army  
dependent on the drug trade and international black market in weapons?  
Why are there plans to vastly expand the Army in the next few years?  
Why must U.S. officials predict a presence of the ?International  
Security Assistance Force? (ISAF) until at least 2014?

Maybe the effort?s not succeeding because the foreign forces do not  
understand the first thing about the society they?ve invaded,  
including the natural inclination of the people to want them out of  
their country. Maybe it?s not succeeding because the Taliban, however  
unpopular their religious fanaticism, in key areas commands greater  
respect from the masses than those who?ve signed on to the U.S.  
payroll. Maybe it?s not succeeding because in Afghanistan (like Iraq)  
scared soldier-kids shoot up civilians in a country they see as enemy,  
alien territory, inhabited by people whose languages and culture they  
don?t understand. A people whose lives don?t seem as precious as  
western ones, in a country the foreign soldiers don?t want to and  
shouldn?t be. Maybe it?s not succeeding because the Afghan Army it?s  
trying to create consists of people with conflicting loyalties who  
meet with the contempt of family and friends because they work with  
the invaders.

What began as a ?War on Terror? with waves of bombing attacks on  
Kandahar and Kabul October 7, 2001 has long since become a War of  
Terror, inflicted on the peoples of Southwest Asia, generating and  
strengthening resistance movements (?insurgencies?), enraging local  
allies and even alienating regimes of Washington?s own creation. The  
Canadians and Europeans have long since tired of it. So have the  
American people, despite the failure of the corporate media to expose  
the Big Lies that Cheney and Bush continue to promote in order to  
justify their Terror War.

Despite the popular war-weariness, both presidential candidates while  
praising the surge in Iraq unquestionably support the expanding war in  
Afghanistan. The attack on Afghanistan, used by the neocons as the  
bridge to an occupied Iraq, has committed the entire political class  
to an impossible project. Barack Obama talks tough about strikes in  
Pakistan to shore up the Afghan effort. Once the hope of a wing of the  
anti-war movement, the senator from Illinois has shown himself as much  
a spokesman for imperialism as McCain or any other mainstream  
politician.  Seven years down the road, there?s no end in sight. No  
hope except for the ?fool?s hope? that public opinion in the  
imperialist countries, plus the inevitable resistance of the Afghans  
to foreign control, plus the military judgment that the war is not  
winnable will bring this ?good war? to an end.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct  
Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and  
Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The  
Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial  
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is  
also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars  
on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp at granite.tufts.edu

From fentona at shaw.ca  Tue Oct  7 17:10:43 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 16:10:43 -0700
Subject: [R-G] US, Saudi Arabia revive Taliban's comeback
Message-ID: <D11EE785-10AD-4706-8570-A4256BBABAA2@shaw.ca>

US, Saudi Arabia revive Taliban's comeback
M K Bhadrakumar
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/07guest.htm

October 07, 2008

CNN broke the story in a London [Images] datelined report on Monday  
quoting authoritative sources that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia  
hosted high-level talks in Mecca between the Afghan government and the  
Taliban [Images].

The reported intra-Afghan talks under the mediation of Saudi Arabia in  
Mecca on September 24-27 focuses attention to the hidden aspects of  
the "war on terror" in Afghanistan -- the geopolitics of the region.

Saudi mediation in the intra-Afghan talks will prove controversial,  
which is why protagonists have difficulty even acknowledging it. There  
is disquiet in Kabul that media reports may undercut the credibility  
of the political edifice housing Hamid Karzai [Images], which could  
prove lethal as Afghanistan lurches toward presidential election in  
2009.

According to the colourful former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a  
Guantanamo Bay detainee, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who actually sat in on the  
iftar in Mecca, it was a mere "guest celebration". But, then, Saudi  
Arabia is a leader of the Sunni Muslim world. It was one of the  
handful of countries to have recognised the Taliban regime.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hosted the iftar which was attended by  
Taliban representatives, Afghan government officials and a  
representative of the powerful Mujahideen [Images] leader Gulbuddin  
Hekmatyar.

As CNN put it, quoting sources, the meal in Mecca took two years of  
"intense behind-the scenes negotiations" to come to fruition and the  
"US-and Europe-friendly Saudi Arabia's involvement has been propelled  
by a mounting death toll among coalition troops amid a worsening  
violence that has also claimed many civilian casualties".

There has been a spate of statements in recent days underscoring the  
futility of the war. Karzai himself has invited Taliban leader Mullah  
Omar to step forward as a presidential hopeful in the election next  
year. Britain's military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier-General  
Mark Carleton-Smith told the Sunday Times newspaper that the war  
cannot be won. The British ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper- 
Coles, has been quoted as saying the war strategy was "doomed to  
fail". To say the least, the timing of these statements is significant.

Clearly, inter-Afghan peace talks have finally begun. Several factors  
have contributed. One, the seven-year war is in a stalemate and time  
favours the Taliban. Two, the US is increasingly focused on the  
bailout of its economy, which leaves little scope both in terms of  
time and resources for Washington to indulge in the extravaganza of  
open-ended wars in faraway badlands.

Three, the US is having a hard time persuading its allies to provide  
troops for the war effort and even faithful allies appear uneasy about  
the US's war strategy. Four, Karzai's popular support is fast  
declining. Five, the Taliban has gained habitation and name on the  
Afghan landscape.

Six, the regional climate -- growing instability in Pakistan, tensions  
in US-Russia relations, NATO's role, Iran's new assertiveness  
including possible future support of the Afghan resistance, etc -- is  
steadily worsening.

All in all, a need arises for the US to calibrate the geopolitical  
alignments and shore up its political and strategic assets created  
during 2001-2008.

Against such a complex backdrop, Washington turned to its old ally in  
the Hindu Kush -- Saudi Arabia. The US and Saudi Arabia go a long way  
in nurturing the al Qaeda and the Taliban in their infancy in the late  
1980s up to the mid-1990s.

Washington has no real choice. The Saudis undoubtedly know how to  
engage the Taliban. They can almost do what Pakistan, which had  
similar skills, was capable of doing until it began losing its grip  
and its self-confidence.

Of course, Washington is also unsure to what degree Islamabad [Images]  
can be trusted with the central role. While President Asif Zardari is  
a predictable figure, far too many imponderables remain in the post- 
Pervez Musharraf power structure.

Arguably, the Saudis too would have their own sub-plots in the Hindu  
Kush but, on balance, Washington has to pitch for a mediator whom the  
Taliban leadership and the Mujahideen leaders would respect. Also, the  
Saudis can easily bankroll a peace process.

Afghanistan has always been in the cockpit of great power rivalry. The  
backdrop of the US-Russia [Images] tensions is of great significance.  
Washington will be relieved if the Russia-NATO cooperation over  
Afghanistan altogether cases. There is simply no other way that NATO  
can cast Russia as an adversary. But Russia is not obliging.

The main challenge for NATO is that its dependence on Moscow [Images]  
for logistical support in the Afghan war cannot be terminated so long  
as there is uncertainty about the supply routes via Pakistan. Here the  
Saudis can be of help. Their involvement in the Afghan peace process  
will discourage the Taliban from seriously disrupting the Pakistani  
supply routes.

 From the US perspective, the immediate political advantage of the  
Saudi involvement will be two-fold: its impact on Pakistani public  
opinion and, secondly, in countering the expanding Iranian influence  
within Afghanistan.

The Saudi role would hopefully temper the stridency of 'anti- 
Americanism' in Pakistan, given their influence on the Islamic parties  
in Pakistan, especially the Jamaat-i-Islami.

Interestingly, CNN has quoted Saudi sources to the effect that  
"perceived Iranian expansionism is one of Saudi Arabia's biggest  
concerns" in Afghanistan, which motivates them to mediate a peace  
process involving the Taliban currently.

Indeed, one of the attractions underlying the US-Saudi sponsorship of  
the Taliban in the early and mid-1990s was the movement's manifestly  
anti-Shia stance and its infinite potential to be pitted against Iran  
on the geopolitical chessboard.

Given the ebb and flow of the US-Saudi-Pakistani role in promoting the  
Taliban in the 'nineties, Teheran and Moscow are bound to sit up and  
take note of the current trends.

Prima facie, Teheran or Moscow cannot take exception to the Saudi role  
as that will run against the grain of their relations with relations  
with Riyadh at the bilateral level. Teheran, in particular, will be  
careful not to play into the hands of the US to turn Afghanistan into  
yet another turf of Sunni-Shia (Iran-Saudi) antipathy like Lebanon or  
Iraq.

But Iran and Russia will be deeply concerned about the US's strategic  
designs. What will perturb the two countries most will be that the US  
strategy, as it is unfolding, is only to make the war "cost-effective"  
so that NATO's permanent presence in Afghanistan is not jeopardised.

Apart from the cost-effective methods that ensure the war doesn't tax  
the US financially, the new head of the US Central Command, General  
David Petraeus, also seeks to make the war more "efficient".

The strategy demands co-opting the Taliban and setting Pashtun  
mercenaries to fight the "war on terrorism" so that Western casualties  
are minimal and Western public opinion doesn't inflame.

Actually, the Saudi involvement is a gamble by the Bush  
administration. In immediate terms, the Taliban violence against the  
Western troops may seem to diminish, which would give an impression  
that Afghanistan is finally coming right for the US. But it will not  
remain so for long.

The Saudis with all their petrodollars cannot bridge the hopelessly  
ruptured Afghan divides. At the very least, much time is needed.  
Meanwhile, Saudi involvement will almost certainly be resented by  
several Afghan groups, which viscerally oppose the Taliban.

Things could come to a boil in 2009, which is an election year in  
Afghanistan. But, then, that is not the problem of the present US  
administration.

Political events are seldom what they seem. A peace process predicated  
on return of the Taliban to power in one form or another may suit well  
the US at this juncture. But it is bound to be seriously challenged by  
Iran, Russia and the Central Asian states.

The debris could only be in the nature of more bloodshed and a  
radicalisation of the Afghan scene. That cannot be conducive to  
regional stability.

M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian ambassador


From fentona at shaw.ca  Tue Oct  7 17:12:26 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 16:12:26 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Obama and McCain's Goofy Afghan Bluster
Message-ID: <41674482-1545-4041-BE76-B9DD1A622F6F@shaw.ca>

October 7, 2008
Obama and McCain's Goofy Afghan Bluster

By PATRICK COCKBURN

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick10072008.html

The first serious talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban  
took place ten days ago in Mecca under the auspices of King Abdullah  
of Saudi Arabia. During the discussions all sides agreed that the war  
in Afghanistan is going to be solved by dialogue and not by fighting.  
The Taliban leader Mullah Omar was not present but his representatives  
said he was no longer allied to al Qa?ida.

The admission by a senior British General Mark Carleton-Smith over the  
weekend that absolute military victory in Afghanistan is impossible  
has been overtaken by the talks in Mecca. ?If the Taliban were  
prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a  
political settlement, then that?s precisely the sort of progress that  
concludes insurgencies like this,?  said Gen Carleton-Smith. ?That  
shouldn?t make people uncomfortable.?

This sounds as if Britain?s latest military venture in Afghanistan is  
going to end in a retreat with none of its ill-defined objectives  
achieved. In the US an understanding of the real situation on the  
ground has been slower in coming. John McCain and Barack Obama still  
speak as if a  few more brigades of American soldiers sent to chase  
the Taliban around the mountains of southern Afghanistan would change  
the outcome of the war.

US policy in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been  
constantly denigrated as a recipe for self-inflicted disaster. But  
President Bush?s policy in Afghanistan on the wake of the fall of the  
Taliban was just as catastrophically misconceived. In both countries  
the administration?s agenda was primarily geared to using military  
victory to make sure that  the Republicans won elections at home.

The Taliban has always been notoriously dependent on Pakistan and on  
the Pakistani military?s intelligence service (ISI). It was the ISI  
which propelled the Taliban into power in the 1990s and covertly gave  
its militants a safe haven after their retreat from Afghanistan in  
2001, enabling them to regroup and counter-attack.

But at the very moment this was happening Mr Bush was lauding the  
Pakistani government of General Pervez Musharaf, which had fostered  
the Taliban, as America?s great ally in its war on terror. The self- 
defeating absurdity of this policy has not struck home in the US as  
did the debacle in Iraq though it is obvious that so long as the  
Taliban have a vast mountainous hinterland in which to base  
themselves, they will never be defeated. The presence of foreign  
troops was always more popular in Afghanistan than in Iraq. The  
Afghans have a deep loathing for their warlords. But no foreign  
occupation force, particularly if reliant on ill-directed air attacks  
and engaged in combat, stays popular for long. This is particularly  
true if the foreign troops do not, in fact, deliver security.  
Meanwhile their presence means that Taliban fighters can portray  
themselves as patriots battling for their country and their faith.

The overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 was never quite what it looked   
like. Soon after they had given up the fight I drove from Kabul to  
Kandahar  along one of the world?s worst built roads. The Taliban were  
adroitly changing sides or going home as local deals were hammered  
out. Casualties on both sides were mercifully low. In the ancient town  
of Ghazni an accord on the end to Taliban power was only delayed  
because  of a disagreement on how many government cars could they  
retain. In a village outside Kandahar I asked a local leader if he  
could gather some  former Taliban for me to meet and in half an hour  
the village guest house  was full of confident and dangerous looking  
fighters. I thought it would not  take much for them to make a come  
back.

Yet they would not have been able to do so without the blunders of the  
White House and the Pentagon. By invading Iraq they convinced General  
Musharaf that it was safe to give support to the Taliban once again.  
There were enough foreign troops in Afghanistan to de-legitimize the  
Afghan government but not enough to defeat its enemies. Chasing  
Taliban fighters around the hinterland year after year only led to the  
insurgency expanding.

The talks in Saudi Arabia are a long way from negotiations but they  
are a sign that the present political logjam might be beginning to  
break. General Carleton-Smith?s forthright admission that there can be  
no  outright military victory also shows realism. The best route for  
Britain and the US in Afghanistan is to have modest and attainable  
objectives combined with a recognition that in its struggle for  
survival the Afghan government must fight and win its own battles.

Patrick Cockburn is the the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the  
Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. 

From tchilds at resist.ca  Tue Oct  7 17:12:37 2008
From: tchilds at resist.ca (tchilds at resist.ca)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 16:12:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] Tar Sands in Burnaby's Backyard? A public forum - video
	resouce
Message-ID: <49411.24.87.34.192.1223421157.squirrel@mail.resist.ca>

Rad-Green's own Macdonald and others discussing how existing and proposed
Burnaby infrastructure is supporting current and future tar-sands
production.  Video resource at:

http://pasifik.ca/?q=taxonomy/term/10





From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Tue Oct  7 22:42:47 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:42:47 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Cassandra's View
Message-ID: <48EC3A47.5070203@attglobal.net>


by John Michael Greer

The Archdruid Report (October 01 2008)

Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society


?As I mentioned in last week's post, I took the opportunity this year to
travel to Sacramento to attend the annual conference hosted by ASPO-USA
- the acronym-impaired may want to know that this is the US branch of
the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, the largest and most
respected organization in the peak oil field. It was, as the Grateful
Dead might have put it, a long strange trip, and ever since my return I
have been wondering just how to talk about the experience on The
Archdruid Report.

That the conference needed to be discussed here I had no doubt. Some of
the presentations at the conference were profoundly insightful. Others
were profoundly obtuse - and this very fact is worth noting, as a marker
of the extent to which intelligent people with the best intentions in
the world can still miss the most crucial implications of the systemic
crisis facing the industrial world just now. Still, inspiration chooses
its own path; it wasn't until I unpacked a book I'd found in a very
different place the day before the conference, and flipped idly through
its pages, that I knew how to say what needed to be said.

Perhaps the most surprising personal discovery I made at the conference
was that while many people there had encountered these essays, most of
them apparently thought that the word "archdruid" in the title was a
cute internet handle rather than a job description. I am in fact the
elected head of a Druid order {1}, and in that capacity I travel now and
then to events hosted by other Druid organizations around the country.
It so happened that the ASPO conference took place just after one such
event, a harvest festival for Sacramento's Pagan community, celebrating
the autumn equinox.

That's where I was on the two days prior to the conference, celebrating
the coming of autumn with Sacramento's Druids and Pagans in a sunny,
pleasant park east of town. That's where I wandered into a bookstall in
the row of vendors, and bought a copy of an old favorite, Bulfinch's
Mythology (1855); and it was as I paged through the volume, thinking
mostly of the challenges involved in finding a place for it on my
already overcrowded bookshelves, that I found a reference to the old
story of Cassandra.

Most people nowadays have heard the name, but those of my readers who
had what passes for an education in the American public schools may not
be familiar with the story. Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the last
king of Troy; Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy in an attempt to
seduce her but, when she refused him, put a curse on her so that nobody
would believe her predictions. She thus had to watch helplessly as all
her warnings were ignored and her father's city plunged headlong into
the catastrophe of the Trojan War.

When Troy fell to the Greeks, the Greek commander Agamemnon took her
home with him as a captive. In a scene portrayed with stunning force in
Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, she foresaw his murder - and her own - at the
hands of Agamemnon's estranged wife; no one believed her then, either,
and captor and captive died together. The crowning irony is that
Apollo's curse has lost none of its power today; more often than not,
when someone is described as "a Cassandra" these days, the phrase
implies that the dire events that person predicts will not happen.

In terms of the original tale, though, the whole cast of Cassandra's
story was present and accounted for at the ASPO conference last week.
The event took place in an expensive hotel across the street from the
California state capitol, with skyscrapers filling in for the fabled
towers of Troy, and King Priam played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did
not attend the conference but prefers a penthouse suite in the same
hotel to the less private comforts of the governor's mansion up the
street. Lunches, finger food for breaks, and hors d'oeuvres for the
evening receptions all tended toward the overly precious, and the
uniformed hotel staff bustled about like servants at a Bronze Age royal
court.

In this setting, the presentations and talk at the conference took on a
surreal quality, as though the global civilization we were discussing -
the one running out of cheap and easily available fossil fuels - was on
some other planet. I'm not at all sure how many of the attendees took
the time to connect the energy that provided climate-controlled air,
fluorescent lighting, PowerPoint slideshows and overabundant snacks for
the conference with the sinking lines on graphs that tracked our world's
rapidly depleting oil, coal, and natural gas reserves. I'm even less
sure how many of them traced out those graphs to their logical
conclusions and thought through the likely impacts on their own lives;
even in peak oil circles, this is surprisingly uncommon.

Some of the presentations, certainly, showed no trace of such
reflections. To my mind, at least, the most pathetic of them - and I use
this word with its full meaning of "evoking pathos", not in its current
sense as a general-purpose insult - was offered by Christer Lindstrom, a
pleasant Swedish businessman who wants to solve peak oil by building
countless millions of little four-seat computer-guided monorail cars to
replace today's urban automobiles. No hint of the fantastic capital
expenditures needed to build a new transportation grid in cities
sprawled across three continents, no reference to the immense burden on
the electric grid such a project would impose, darkened his presentation.

Instead, we watched pretty computer graphics and video footage of
prototypes circling a little test track in Uppsala. In a world blessed
with cheap abundant energy, some such thing might be worth considering.
Still, one of the core implications of peak oil is precisely that the
huge projects of the recent past - the interstate highways and the
Apollo programs - are slipping out of reach as the surplus energy that
made them possible depletes out from under us. Ignore this essential
point, and it's easy to come up with technological fixes that will solve
the peak oil problem; applying them to the real world is another matter.

None of the other presentations were quite so detached from the
realities of our predicament, but some came close, clinging to a model
of business as usual that has already been outstripped by events. Other
presenters showed a clearer grasp of the situation. Among them were
geologist Ken Verosub, who provided a crisp summary of the fundamentals
of petroleum science and the steep and ongoing decline in American oil
reserves; David Hughes, another geologist, who put coal into the energy
picture and showed the dubious figures behind claims that coal -
currently being used at the same rate per capita as in 1910, and itself
subject to drastic depletion - can replace our declining oil supplies;
and engineer Robert Rapier, familiar to readers of The Oil Drum {2}, who
sorted out sales hype from reality in the biofuels industry.

What set these presentations and others apart from the more facile ones,
at least from my viewpoint, is that the former recognized that we are
long past the point of ready answers. The cry for solutions is a common
one, and understandably popular. Still, thinking of peak oil as a
problem we can solve by some grand project, or combination of projects,
misses some of the most crucial features that define the crisis of the
contemporary industrial world.

The essence of that crisis is that we no longer have the resources or
the time to bring about changes in our infrastructure or technology
large enough to make a significant difference on a national or
international scale. We threw away that opportunity when the industrial
world abandoned the steps toward sustainability taken in the 1970s. The
quarter century from 1980 to 2005, when energy was cheaper and more
abundant than ever before in human history, could have been used to
launch the transition to sustainability, but that opportunity was wasted
- along with all those billions of barrels of oil - and all the wishful
thinking in the world will not bring either one of them back.

The Limits to Growth (1972), the most insightful (and thus the most
vilified) of the warnings issued during the Seventies, outlines the
resulting predicament in detail. One of the central themes of that study
was that constructive change had to happen while there was still a
surplus of energy and other resources to fuel it. By the time
significant shortfalls begin, all available resources are already
committed to current needs, and any attempt to free up resources for
some new project comes into conflict with the demands of existing
economic sectors. The US government may be in a position to loan Wall
Street $700 billion it doesn't have - in today's economic world, money
is so close to a mass hallucination that it's not surprising to see it
wished into being so casually - but actual resources such as fossil
fuels, trained labor forces, and time are not so flexible.

The recent troubles set in motion by attempts to promote ethanol
production show how the resulting limits work. Diverting corn to ethanol
production boosted US gasoline supplies over the short term, but sent
food prices soaring, sparking inflation across a wide range of products
and causing a cascade of problems elsewhere in the economy. This was a
relatively modest example, because ethanol production for motor fuel
used existing pipelines, gas stations, and other infrastructure;
something on the scale of an attempt to replace gasoline with hydrogen -
which would require a completely new infrastructure from top to bottom -
could draw down remaining resource stocks so drastically that, pursued
with enough misplaced enthusiasm, it could drive an economic collapse
all by itself.

Thus a focus on grand solutions is self-defeating, even when those
solutions are not as obviously beside the point as Lindstrom's dream of
a mini-monorail in every garage. We need to start with a close look at
the resources that are actually available for change in the real world,
with all its political, economic, and cultural complexities. We need to
recognize that the apportioning of resources to any economic sector,
however absurd it seems, has a constituency that backs it and can be
counted on to fight against attempts to divert it. We need to accept
that no one is likely to agree cheerfully to cuts in their standard of
living unless they themselves see a very good reason for the change -
and after so many decades of predictions of imminent doom by purveyors
of apocalyptic fantasies, another round of warnings just isn't cutting it.

These hard limits sketch out the range of action available to today's
industrial societies in the first years of the age of peak oil. They do
not make a cheerful picture; Cassandra's view never does, and this is
why clear assessments of unpleasant realities so often get pushed aside
in favor of grand, elegant, and optimistic visions flawed only by the
minor fact that they are unworkable in the real world. I don't claim to
know whether this habit will one day bring down Sacramento's towers in
flames, as it did the towers of Troy; still, as those towers shrank in
the rear window a week ago, the possibility was hard to dismiss out of
hand.

Links:

{1} http://www.aoda.org/

{2} http://www.theoildrum.com/
_____

?John Michael Greer has been active in the alternative spirituality
movement for more than 25 years, and is the author of a dozen books,
including The Druidry Handbook (2006) and The Long Descent (2008). He
lives in Ashland, Oregon.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/cassandras-view.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 Oct  8 10:51:55 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 09:51:55 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Dehumanising Metaphors in 'War on Terror'
Message-ID: <4AFB3F81-90D7-4F56-9A46-F35D9C05166E@shaw.ca>

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14238

Dehumanising Metaphors in 'War on Terror'

By Iqbal Jassat

In the light of fresh debates centered on Iraq, Afghanistan and  
Pakistan, particularly within the United States whose armed forces are  
deeply entrenched in the military conquest of the region under the  
guise of the ?war on terror?, many fraudulent theories are advanced to  
justify hostilities against largely unarmed and defenseless populations.

The same can be said about the Horn of Africa and the US-sponsored war  
of aggression against Somalia.

One of the concepts used to perpetrate these military adventures is  
that of  ?failed states?. The argument used is that the all-knowing  
West has to ?remake the world? in order to pave the way for democracy  
to flourish.

Millions of people have been displaced as a consequence of these  
military adventures while the American presidential candidates bicker  
over their potential moves in this game of chess, which is what the  
terrible results of the Bush administration?s war games have seemingly  
reduced these tragedies to.

This cesspool of greed by captains of multinational corporations  
alongside the insatiable hunger of the West?s military industrial  
complex is ignored or at best glossed over by their media  
institutions. This explains the phenomena of ?embedded journalism?,  
increasingly contributing to securing public approval for illegitimate  
conduct by America and many of its allies.

Metaphorically speaking then, ?failed states? invite invasions and  
occupations. And those resisting such aggression in defense of their  
precious lives and properties can be eliminated through bombing  
campaigns ? after all, the prevalent wisdom propagated by their spin  
doctors who have sprung up all over the world as ?terror experts?, is  
that resistance is terrorism.

The war of metaphors has become an indispensable tool in the armoury  
of perpetrators, for it allows perverted language to conceal the human  
faces of victims.

Only the equally repugnant process of curtailing civil liberties  
matches the process of dehumanisation. Hand-in-hand these methodical  
operations have resulted in a breed of lexicons, which are used to  
hide gross human rights violations:

? Renditions;

? Guantanamo;

? Secret evidence;

? Targeted killings;

? Collateral damage;

? Precision bombings;

? Remaking the world.

As the Bush term nears its end, it remains clear that the ?war on  
terror? ? though discredited and acknowledged as illegitimate ? will  
be pursued under the watch of either Obama or McCain. Neither of them  
has given any clue that they are aware of the nightmare of Bush?s  
legacy from which people are struggling to awake.

Indeed the latest account of the devastation caused in Somalia by  
Ethiopian forces under American orders reveals the extent of mindless  
destruction characterizing the dehumanization of the so-called ?war on  
terror?. A report by Human Rights Watch records the terrible ordeal  
suffered by Somalis as a direct result of misguided policies emanating  
from the Pentagon.

No matter how the architects of this ill-conceived warfare package  
their propaganda, it is clear that in the court of public opinion  
their efforts to strip the human dimension will not succeed.

- Iqbal Jassat is the Chairman of the Media Review Network, South  
Africa. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 11:16:10 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 10:16:10 -0700
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Canada=92s_Greens=3A_an_aspirant_establish?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ment_party?=
Message-ID: <0476FCD1-F2DE-41A0-BB42-6B6182ED187F@shaw.ca>

Canada?s Greens: an aspirant establishment party
By John Mackay and Graham Beverley
8 October 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/grns-o08.shtml

As many as one in every ten Canadians who participate in the October  
14 federal election will cast their vote for the Green Party, or at  
least so claim the opinion polls.

Whether the Greens do in fact more than double the 4.5 percent share  
of the popular vote they captured in the 2006 federal election remains  
to be seen. But taking advantage of increased popular interest,  
heightened media attention, and new party-financing legislation that  
provides them with a financial subsidy for every vote they won in  
2006, the Greens have been far more active in this federal election  
than any previous one.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May secured a seat at the table in last  
week?s two nationally televised leaders? debates, over the initial  
opposition of the Conservatives and the social-democratic New  
Democratic Party (NDP).

May has proclaimed the Greens ?an anti-establishment party? and a  
?movement for change,? while likening her party and its program to  
?successful? Green Parties in other countries, particularly the German  
Greens.

The Greens are benefiting from popular disaffection with the  
traditional parties, all of which have participated in the dismantling  
of public and social services, and from increasing concern with  
environmental issues, particularly global warming or climate change.

But far from offering any genuine alternative for working people, the  
Green Party is an unabashed defender of capitalism and an aspirant  
establishment party. They are contesting the current election in a  
quasi-electoral alliance with the Liberals, the Canadian ruling class?  
traditional party of government. The Liberal governments of Jean  
Chr?tien and Paul Martin, which held office from 1993 to early 2006,  
were the instrument through which Canadian big business imposed  
massive social spending and tax cuts, gutted unemployment insurance  
benefits, and launched the expansion and rearmament of the Canadian  
Armed Forces.

The May-Dion Pact

In April 2007, May and newly elected Liberal Party leader St?phane  
Dion announced a pact under which the Liberals agreed not to stand a  
candidate against May, who is challenging Tory Defence Minister Peter  
MacKay in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova. In return the Greens  
promised not to oppose Dion?s re-election. But the real purpose of the  
pact, from the Liberal perspective, was that it constituted an  
endorsement by May and the Greens of Dion?s environmentalist  
credentials and signaled their support for the election of a Liberal  
government. The joint statement issued by Dion and May to announce  
their pact declared that ?a government in which St?phane Dion serves  
as Prime Minister? would ?work well with a Green Caucus? to promote  
?action on climate.?

May has claimed there is no truth to a La presse report that there is  
a secret understanding between the Liberals and the Greens that calls  
for her to issue an appeal in the final days of the election campaign  
for voters to cast a ?strategic vote? for Liberal candidates, at least  
in some ridings, so as to prevent the re-election of the Conservatives.

But during the campaign she has given several interviews in which she  
effectively supported the election of a Liberal government, even if  
the rallying of electors behind the Liberals in a bid ?to stop Harper?  
resulted in the Greens failing to elect a single MP.

May told the weekly newsmagazine Maclean?s ?she prefers no Greens be  
elected if it meant the end? of Stephen Harper?s Conservative regime.

Maclean?s quotes May as saying, ?It?s not a partisan calculation. It?s  
just that what offends me the most is Mr. Harper continuing in the  
direction he?s taking us. ... I?m making it very clear we have to  
elect Green MPs and that Green MPs facing a Harper bench would be far  
worse than no Green MPs facing a Liberal minority bench. ... I don?t  
understand how anyone who understands the climate crisis wouldn?t feel  
that a Harper victory was more damaging than any other set of  
outcomes. I don?t understand why [Bloc Qu?b?cois leader Gilles]  
Duceppe and [NDP leader Jack] Layton wouldn?t also stand by that.??

Both the Liberals and Greens advocate the imposition of a consumption  
tax on carbon emissions that would be offset by cuts to corporate and  
personal income taxes. The two parties only disagree on the size of  
the requisite ?green shift,? with the Liberals proposing a carbon tax  
that would ultimately raise $15 billion annually and the Greens one  
that would produce $50 billion per year in tax revenue.

Dion has promoted the Liberals? ?green shift? as a program to boost  
corporate Canada in the struggle for markets and profits, by promoting  
energy efficiency, providing business with lower tax rates, and  
positioning Canadian business to take a leading role in the developing  
of ?green technology.?

Elizabeth May and the Greens share Dion?s perspective. May frequently  
quotes her ?good friend? former US President Bill Clinton as saying  
that the environmental crisis ?presents this generation with the  
single largest economic opportunity in the history of human enterprise.?

Courting Liberal and Tory MPs

While allying with the Liberals, the Greens have also sought to win  
over dissident Liberal and Conservative MPs. In late August,  
independent MP and former Liberal politician Blair Wilson announced he  
had joined the Greens, becoming the first ever Green member in a  
Canadian legislature. In jumping to the Greens, Wilson, who had been  
suspended from the Liberal parliamentary caucus for violating the  
Federal Election Act, was seeking to salvage his own career by  
appealing to the concerns around climate change in his British  
Columbia riding.

Previously May had courted avid tax-cutter Garth Turner. Turner, who  
was kicked out of the Tory caucus after criticizing Harper?s  
appointment of a Liberal defector to the cabinet, weighed May?s offer  
of joining the Greens for several weeks, before opting for the safer  
choice of becoming a Liberal.

May has also wooed longtime Nova Scotia Conservative Bill Casey, who  
was kicked out of the Conservative caucus after he voted against the  
last federal budget on the grounds it broke a government commitment to  
his province. May has proclaimed Casey an ?honorary Green? and her  
party is not standing a candidate against him as he attempts to win re- 
election next Tuesday as an independent.

May?s attempt to casting herself as a ?non-politician? and ?outsider?  
notwithstanding, she has spent years working the corridors of Ottawa  
and Canada?s provincial capitals. She was executive director of the  
Sierra Club of Canada from 1989 to 2006. Prior to that, she was a  
policy adviser to Tom McMillan when he was the Environment Minister in  
Brian Mulroney?s Progressive Conservative government. Two years ago,  
May publicly lauded Mulroney, whose government sought to introduce to  
Canada the aggressive anti-working class agenda of Britain?s Margaret  
Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan, as Canada?s ?greenest? prime  
minister.

May has promoted the Greens as something of a successor to the  
Progressive Conservative Party. [The current Conservative Party is the  
product of a merger of the right-wing populist Canadian Alliance and  
the Progressive Conservatives, the Canadian elite?s traditional  
alternate party of government, although a tiny fraction of ?Red  
Tories? balked at joining the new party.] May told Toronto?s City TV  
that the Greens are akin to the Progressive Conservatives in that they  
are fiscally ?small c? conservative, while attentive to social justice  
issues.

Further, in keeping with her protestations that the Greens are ?not a  
left wing party,? May has professed her personal opposition to  
abortion and argued in favor of ?income splitting,? a hobby horse of  
social and fiscal conservatives because it would provide a huge  
financial incentive for one member of a high-income couple (most  
likely the wife) to be a full-time parent.

The German example

The Canadian Greens touting of the European Green parties is both  
revealing and apt. The German Greens began as a middle-class protest  
party, espousing pacifism and social reform. But since they entered  
Germany?s government in a coalition with the Social-Democrats in 1998,  
the Greens have moved sharply to the right, abandoning their pacifist  
views to become enthusiastic promoters of German international  
military deployments. In the face of massive popular opposition the  
Greens have, for example, championed Germany?s involvement in the US  
war in Afghanistan.

In 2003-4, the Green-SPD coalition implemented its so-called Agenda  
2010, the most far-reaching assault on social and welfare benefits in  
the history of modern Germany.

The Canadian Greens? platform for the 2006 federal election made no  
mention of the leading role the Canadian Armed Forces were, and are,  
playing in the Afghan War.

Soon after May replaced the ex-Progressive Conservative party  
functionary Jim Harris as Green Party leader, the Greens issued a call  
for Canada to end its counter-insurgency role in Afghanistan. But the  
Greens are in no way opposed to the US-imposed government in Kabul.  
They propose Canada maintain ?a continued small Canadian military  
presence in Kabul? as well as ?provide police training through the  
RCMP for the Afghan police force.? The Greens call for NATO to cede  
its place in Afghanistan to a UN peace-keeping mission, ignoring the  
fact that the current NATO occupation of Afghanistan has the UN?s  
blessing.

The Greens? platform promotes the idea that Canadian capitalism can be  
a progressive force in the world??the planet needs Canada.? It  
advocates Ottawa ?decrease,? not end, ?our contributions to NATO war  
efforts.?

Paving the way for future Canadian military missions, if only they are  
under the banner of the UN , the Greens say that Canada should be a  
leader in ?peace-making,? the euphemism used to justify Canada?s  
participation in the 1991 Iraq War and the subsequent decade-long  
embargo against Iraq.

To be sure, much of the Greens? appeal is bound up with its claim to  
be the environmental party and the party advocating the most urgent  
action on climate change.

The centerpiece of the Green election platform is its carbon tax  
scheme. The burden of this plan would fall on working people, since  
consumption taxes favor those with incomes large enough to save and  
the tax on carbon emissions would ultimately ripple through the  
economy, raising the cost of virtually every commodity,

The Greens tout the fact that a host of big business representatives  
including the Conference Board of Canada have endorsed the principal  
of a carbon tax. They could also add that big business economists have  
long advocated increasing consumption taxes, which are by their very  
nature regressive, and reducing corporate and personal income taxes,  
so as to further shift the burden of taxation from ?investment and  
savings? (i.e., big business and the rich) and onto working people.

The Greens cynically pledge to use some of the windfall revenue from  
their carbon tax for social spending and the alleviation of poverty.  
At the same time, however, they claim that a carbon tax will combat  
the effects of climate change by fiscally discouraging the emission of  
greenhouse gases. This presents a contradiction: how might the Greens  
institute their paltry reforms from tax revenue that is designed to  
shrink? One is left to simply assume that, once the environmental  
crisis is miraculously solved by the market, the cuts to income and  
payroll taxes will remain and social spending will atrophy.

The idea that introducing a price mechanism can solve the mounting  
environmental crisis is absurd. Humanity?s productive capacity, the  
vast expanses of infrastructure, natural resources, technology, and  
labour power that make up the economy, are controlled by a tiny  
bourgeois elite and directly subordinated to the interests of capital.  
The current environmental crisis is the direct result of the  
subordination of these immense forces to the interests of private  
profit and the division of the world into rival national-blocs of  
capitalists who compete for markets, resources, and pools of labour to  
exploit.

The Green Party in no way challenges these social relations; indeed,  
its solution to the environmental crisis is to work through the  
market, maximizing ?efficiency? and lauding Canada?s ?highly  
innovative corporate culture.? Under a thin coat of ?progressive?  
paint, the Green Party?s carbon tax is much more focused on the  
environment for Canadian big business than on the massive crisis which  
today confronts humanity internationally.

The Green Party should not be seen as some sort of ?alternative? to  
the established parties; it is simply another shade in the spectrum of  
bourgeois politics. The only plausible way to effect the technological  
revolution necessary to avert environmental disaster is the  
appropriation of humanity?s productive forces by the international  
working class. Production must be organized through a scientific,  
rational, and democratic plan in the interests of society as a whole,  
rather than in the interests of capital. This is the program fought  
for by the Socialist Equality Party.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 11:18:06 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 10:18:06 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Another U.S. [resistor] to be deported
Message-ID: <B08CE38E-5AC4-4592-B3F5-72A5E7973306@shaw.ca>

Another U.S. deserter to be deported
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/514012

Oct 08, 2008 11:45 AM
Paola Loriggio
Staff Reporter

Another American deserter has been ordered to leave Canada.

Former Sgt. Patrick Hart was told this morning he and his family will  
be deported to the U.S. on Oct. 30, Michelle Robidoux of the War  
Resisters Support Campaign said this morning. The group is lobbying  
federal officials to grant deserters safe haven in Canada.

Hart is asking officials to defer his deportation until Jan. 1,  
Robidoux said in a phone interview from the border, where she  
accompanied the sergeant for his ruling.

"He's got a son in Grade 1 who just started school," she said. "He  
wants him to finish the term."

Hart served nine years in the U.S. military and took part in Operation  
Iraqi Freedom. On the verge of a second deployment in Iraq, the  
sergeant decided he couldn't continue to take part in "an illegal and  
unwarranted military occupation," according to a statement by the war  
resisters group.

He and his wife, Jill, and son, Rian, moved to Toronto in 2005.

War resisters Corey Glass and Jeremy Hinzman also lost their bids to  
stay in the country earlier this year, though federal court stayed  
their deportation orders until it decides whether to grant them an  
appeal. The court already decided to allow Glass to contest the  
decision; it is expected to rule on Hinzman's case soon.

The War Resisters Support Campaign will hold a rally tomorrow at 4:30  
p.m. at Queen St. and University Ave. to show support for the Hart  
family and other Iraq war resisters.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 11:36:59 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:36:59 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Economists' Open Letter Calls For Active Response to Economic
	Crisis
Message-ID: <200810081736.m98HaxDF010718@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 13:22:09 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:22:09 -0700
Subject: [R-G] About the attack on Professor Sternhell
Message-ID: <200810081922.m98JM9IA004033@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 13:25:22 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:25:22 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Shin Bet bars Jews in Physicians for Human Rights from
	entering Gaza
Message-ID: <200810081925.m98JPMX2010234@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 13:31:34 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:31:34 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Jewish modesty patrols sow fear in Israel
Message-ID: <200810081931.m98JVYmM023333@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 13:40:24 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:40:24 -0700
Subject: [R-G] How Harper Gov't Pushed Financial Deregulation Here and Abroad
Message-ID: <200810081940.m98JeOiM010345@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 14:59:50 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 13:59:50 -0700
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?What_McCain_and_Obama_Just_Don=92t_Get_Abo?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ut_Central_Asia?=
Message-ID: <56A5CD80-882E-4F1D-B8C4-E6838143690C@shaw.ca>

What McCain and Obama Just Don?t Get About Central Asia
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081007_what_mccain_and_obama_just_dont_get_about_central_asia/

Posted on Oct 7, 2008

By William Pfaff

There are only two real issues left in the foreign policy debate  
between John McCain and Barack Obama. One is how soon to withdraw from  
Iraq; and the other, what to do about what Obama thinks is the ?real?  
war America should be fighting, in Afghanistan. Yet neither the Iraq  
nor the Afghanistan issue is within the power of any American  
president to resolve. He only thinks he can, and his advisers tell him  
he can and should. But the critical variables are outside his control,  
and certainly outside the control of American and NATO military forces.

What happens in Iraq will be determined by the decisions of Prime  
Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, and by his government?s relations with  
the members of the Sunni Awakening Movement, many of them former  
insurgents, who until now have been paid by the U.S. government to  
defend their own neighborhoods but are being transferred to government  
authority?whose Shiite leadership distrusts them. It will be decided  
by the Shiite religious leadership, and by the government of  
neighboring Iran.

Washington says the surge has won the Iraq war. For whom?

The new American president must decide whether to demand (or fight  
for?) permanent American bases in Iraq, as McCain wants, and the  
Maliki government, and Iran, and presumably the Shiite religious  
leadership, don?t want. Obama says he will close permanent bases  
within the 16-month withdrawal period he has announced. But then the  
Pentagon will ask, what was this war all about? What is the answer, to  
them, and to the allied dead, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi  
dead and bereaved?

The second basic decision for a new president concerns Afghanistan,  
the Taliban, al-Qaida and Pakistan. Stated in those terms, it sounds  
simple. It actually refers to the following separate conflicts:

The first is the U.S.-NATO war against a politico-religious movement  
composed of native Afghans?members of the main Afghan ethnic group,  
the Pathans?who want to take back control of their country from the  
unfortunately corrupt government to which the United States has  
awarded it.

Two American specialists, Nathaniel Fick and Vikram J. Singh of the  
Center for a New American Security, claim that the average Afghan pays  
out one-fifth of his income on the bribes necessary to make a living  
and get along, and that the Hamid Karzai government is widely  
perceived as having forfeited its legitimacy. Perhaps life would be  
worse yet under the Taliban. But surely that is for them to decide.

Next is an American effort to capture Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida  
leaders, thought to be in Pakistan. But as bin Laden?if he is still  
alive, as some doubt?and his associates can at any moment pack their  
suitcases and move to anywhere they like, why is it necessary to fight  
a war over him at the cost of Afghan, Pakistani, American and allied  
lives in Afghanistan? This is madness.

The next conflict is between the new Pakistani government and a rising  
Islamist movement inside Pakistan itself, strong in the frontier  
Tribal Areas and increasingly influential in cities in the north of  
the country, sustained by its belief that Pakistan?s government has  
sold itself to the infidel Americans.

It has been reinforced by the increasing tension between American and  
Pakistani armies on the frontier, and by civilian casualties resulting  
from American attacks inside Pakistan. The Islamists are inspired by  
hatred for a Pakistan government now ?fighting America?s war,? and  
allowing Americans to attack Pakistan.

The Pakistani army, the force until now holding the country together  
(with its nuclear weapons), has ties with the native Islamists and the  
Afghan Taliban; it is at the same time a vital instrument of central  
government authority; and it possesses its own professional and  
national loyalty to Pakistan?s integrity and autonomy.

It resists U.S. demands that it sweep up the Taliban and al-Qaida and  
hand them over, whatever the cost to Pakistani interests. (This tally  
of conflicts has not taken account of the small-scale war already  
developing between U.S. and Pakistani armies, and the intensifying  
civil struggle inside Pakistan against the religious traditionalists.)

Last week, a leaked diplomatic dispatch from the British ambassador in  
Kabul predicted that NATO will lose the war against the Taliban. A  
London Sunday newspaper reported that the British military commander  
in Afghanistan holds exactly the same opinion. Many Americans in  
Afghanistan express the same view.

Why is this so? The logic of this kind of war is that the more foreign  
troops that are sent to a country like Afghanistan, the more Afghan  
and Pakistani nationalist outrage and fury is generated, and the more  
support there is for the Taliban against the foreigners.

The new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, has  
already called for reinforcements for ?a long and arduous  
counterinsurgency campaign that could last many more years??and which,  
he says, ultimately can only have a political settlement.

Could someone, somehow, explain to Barack Obama and his people?the  
only ones in the presidential race who conceivably might listen?that  
this terrible entanglement of conflicts has nothing seriously to do  
with the basic national interests of the United States, which has  
never been harmed by the Taliban, and whose fundamental interests have  
nothing to do with who rules traditionally unconquerable mountain  
territories in Central Asia?

To persist in this war is simply, and appallingly, a blind  
continuation of the policy George W. Bush announced in 2001, as quoted  
by Bob Woodward in his book ?Bush at War?: ?to create chaos, to create  
a vacuum? in Afghanistan and to ?export death and violence to the four  
corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.?

Must we continue under our next president?

Visit William Pfaff?s Web site at www.williampfaff.com. 

From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 15:04:00 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:04:00 -0700
Subject: [R-G] U.S. 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team training
 for a new mission
Message-ID: <200810082104.m98L4017027335@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 15:10:57 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:10:57 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Canada Ruling Conservatives Fall to Lowest Support of Campaign
Message-ID: <200810082110.m98LAvJ8011007@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 17:05:27 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 16:05:27 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Former Taliban minister denies Afghan peace talks
Message-ID: <39BB96FD-B885-49EE-A8AD-8E25B2326C54@shaw.ca>

Former Taliban minister denies Afghan peace talks
Wed Oct 8, 2008 2:59pm BST

By Jon Hemming

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4973A320081008

KABUL (Reuters) - Former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed  
Muttawakil Wednesday denied a meeting he attended with Afghan  
government officials in Saudi Arabia last month constituted peace  
talks aimed at ending the seven-year conflict.

The meeting however, hosted by Saudi King Abdullah, could still help  
open the way to dialogue between the Western-backed Afghan government  
and the Taliban to end fighting that has killed more than 3,800 people  
this year, a third of them civilians.

"It's totally wrong news. The were no talks and no Taliban  
representative was there. It was an ordinary and normal meeting and  
dinner," Muttawakil told the Pakistan-based AIP news agency.

"During our meetings with delegations from different countries,  
everybody talked about the problems of Afghanistan and expressed  
concerns and similarly, we came to know Saudi Arabia is also  
concerned," he said.

"But neither were there formal negotiations, nor did Taliban  
representatives attend those discussions."

Muttawakil's comments follow similar denials from the Afghan  
government and other former Taliban present at the meeting.

But while the former foreign minister, always regarded as a moderate  
in the austere Islamist movement, insists he is no longer a member of  
the Taliban, he and others present in Saudi are believed to have  
regular contacts with the insurgents.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a direct appeal for peace to  
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar last week and asked Saudi Arabia  
to help mediate talks, but the Afghan government also denies any talks  
have yet taken place.

Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told reporters on Wednesday  
that ending the war required negotiations but only with those who  
acted within the law.

"The Afghan government believes all doors for peace and negotiation  
must be kept open for those who comply with the Afghan constitution,  
and we have to work hard in this regard."

With more than 60,000 troops in Afghanistan, NATO-led and U.S. forces  
have already suffered more casualties this year than in any entire  
year since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 for refusing to give up al  
Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks.

BREAK WITH AL QAEDA?

While Western officials, including U.S. Defence Secretary Robert  
Gates, recognise reconciliation is part of the solution in  
Afghanistan, it would be hard for them to make any accommodation with  
the Taliban while the movement still has ties with al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia, one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban  
government in the late 1990s, would also insist the insurgents break  
with al Qaeda and Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.

But the Taliban is by no means a fully unified group and has allies,  
such as the Haqqani network operating in eastern Afghanistan, that  
analysts say are reliant on al Qaeda support.

In a possible sign of conflict de-escalation though, the Taliban said  
they would not attack aid convoys if they were for Afghan civilians  
and the insurgents were informed in advance.

The statement comes two days after the U.N. special envoy to  
Afghanistan, Kai Eide, appealed to the Taliban for safe access for  
aid, including food distribution and polio vaccination.

"If we are sure that all food in the convoy is meant for the common  
people, we will never attack it," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad  
Yousuf told AIP.

"The United Nations should contact the mujahideen before sending food  
supplies to areas controlled by the Taliban and not bring police and  
other forces along with them and then the Taliban will not attack  
them," he said.

The United Nations in Kabul said it had not been contacted directly by  
the Taliban but welcomed the statement.

If the Taliban statement is correct, said U.N. spokesman Dan McNorton,  
"this is clearly a step forward and welcome.

"There is a real humanitarian need that must be addressed now across  
Afghanistan. We all need to share this humanitarian agenda to ensure  
that food reaches the most vulnerable," he said.

Attacks on aid workers and convoys have increased with more than 120  
incidents this year and 30 aid workers have been killed and a further  
92 abducted, the U.N. says.

(Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)


From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org  Wed Oct  8 17:11:05 2008
From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 17:11:05 -0600
Subject: [R-G] Thinking about Hussein
Message-ID: <005001c9299b$2fcb92b0$0400a8c0@computer>

[I've given the essence of this little story before, but not these details.]

As the demagogic McCain/Palin "revival" travels about -- desperately trying to recoup their failing political fortunes -- we are hearing more the  ostensible Scare Word, "Hussein."

I've always felt that the late King Hussein of Jordan was widely considered a pretty decent guy.  And the name, of course, is frequently found throughout the Muslim world -- [and in other settings]. That, of course -- in addition to the late Personage of Iraq -- is the precise connection that  McCain/Palin are trying to plant in a pejorative sense in American minds -- apparently quite unsuccessfully given Obama's steady rise in the polls.

When, because of my increasing premonitions about the dangers posed by the Red River of the North, I moved our family well to the west of Grand Forks, North Dakota in May of '91, I bought our home -- in and around a very small cluster of others -- from the very nice Hussein family.  They, of Asian Indian background, were headed by a colleague, Dr Hussein of the Pharmacology Department at UND, who had just accepted a position at a larger eastern university.  With our thoughtful move, we escaped the massively destructive flood of '97 which, with a fire, wrecked most of Grand Forks and forced well over 50,000 people into surrounding states and Canadian provinces.

Time passed and, one day when Eldri was away shopping and Josie was at high school, there was a knock on the door.  There stood a man and boy of obvious Middleastern background.  The father asked, "Are the Husseins home?"

Indicating the Husseins had moved, I invited the pair inside to explain.  They appeared to note nothing too unusual about me but, upon seeing the interior of our living room, the father stopped -- obviously puzzled.  He saw the large and ancient Toltec stone head on our red dresser, flanked by another Meso-American stone figure, also very old, that we call "The Traveling Deity."  Then he saw paintings by my father of Native people -- and also Dad's large and semi-abstract, Los Locos, done via Guanajuato.  

He also noted, hanging on our wall, the rather long and quite old indeed shell-beaded belt depicting the  structure and nature of the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois Confederacy].

While his son stood silently, the man looked long and hard, several times.

Then he smiled -- hugely and most pleasantly.  He understood.

He explained that, for some years, the Hussein living room -- now ours -- was the mosque setting for the local and quite small Muslin community.  He and his own family had moved on some years before -- and he and his boy were passing through on their way to Winnipeg.

I directed him to the home of a neighbor, also an Asian Indian and a UND colleague, in whose home I had heard the local Muslim group regularly met.  But before they left, we visited cordially and I explained the significance of all of those whom and which he'd been studying intently.  He and his son were genuinely interested. More than that, they were quite empathetic.  

I hadn't known ours had been a mosque.  But, as I say, we are ecumenical in spirit -- and I knew all of those Entities of our living room would join me in wishing  the Husseins and all of their fellow-worshipers -- everywhere -- very well indeed.

It's a great big Creation -- truly full of all sorts of Wonders.

And lots of room.

Even for McCain and Palin.

Yours, Hunter

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 our Community Organizing Course [With new material]
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm

And see http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm


From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct  8 17:27:22 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:27:22 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Naomi Wolf Interview - Give Me Liberty
Message-ID: <200810082327.m98NRMrc014666@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From mstainsby at resist.ca  Wed Oct  8 18:35:20 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:35:20 -0600
Subject: [R-G] [Fwd: VIDEO: police attack Algonquin families at highway 117
 blockade in northern Quebec]
Message-ID: <48ED51C8.5060000@resist.ca>




New video of police attack on Algonquin blockade online:

VIEW: http://vimeo.com/1916165

--

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, October, 7, 2008

Canada and Quebec use riot police, tear gas, and "pain compliance" on
peaceful Algonquin families to avoid negotiations: 'pain compliance' perfect
description of Conservative's aboriginal policy, say community spokespeople

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - Yesterday afternoon, the
Conservative government and Quebec used riot police, tear gas, and "pain
compliance" techniques to end a peaceful blockade erected by Algonquin
families from Barriere Lake, rather than negotiate, as requested by the
community. The blockade on Highway 117 in Northern Quebec began at 6:00am
Monday, with nearly a hundred community members of all ages and their
supporters promising to remain until Canada's Conservative government and
Quebec honoured signed agreements and Barriere Lake's leadership customs.
Around 4pm, nearly sixty Quebec officers and riot police encircled families
after a meal and without warning launched tear gas canisters, one of which
hit a child in the chest.

"Our demands are reasonable," said Norman Matchewan, a spokesperson who was
racially slurred by Minister Lawrence Cannon's assistant earlier in the
election. "We're only asking for the government to uphold the agreements
they've signed and to stop illegally interfering in our customary
governance. The message we've received today is that Stephen Harper and Jean
Charest are unwilling to even play by their rules."

"We will not tolerate these brutal violations of our rights," added
Matchewan. "Forestry operations will not be allowed on our Trilateral
agreement territory, and we will be doing more non-violent direct action."

Nine people, including an elderly women, a pregnant woman, and two minors,
were roughly arrested. While a line of police obscured the view of human
rights observers from Christian Peacemaker Teams, officers used severe "pain
compliance" techniques on protestors who had secured themselves to
concrete-filled barrels, twisting arms, dislocating jaws, leaving them with
bruised faces and trouble swallowing.

"In this election alone, the Conservatives have labelled us alcoholics and
vilified our community's majority as "dissidents," said Michel Thusky,
another community spokesperson, referring to an op-ed published by Minister
Lawrence Cannon in regional newspapers. "Now they and Quebec have chosen
violence over meeting their most basic obligations to our community. 'Pain
compliance' is the perfect description of the Conservative government's
aboriginal policies."

Barriere Lake community members had promised to maintain the blockade until
the Government of Canada honoured the 1991 Trilateral agreement, a landmark
sustainable development and resource co-management agreement praised by the
United Nations and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. To end
federal interference in their leadership customs, they wanted the Government
of Canada to appoint observers to witness a leadership reselection according
to their codified customary selection code, respect its outcome, and then
cease interfering in their internal governance.

- 30 -


Collectif de Solidarit? Lac Barri?re
*******************************************
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity at gmail.com
514.398.7432



From menecraj at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 19:52:32 2008
From: menecraj at shaw.ca (Richard Menec)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 20:52:32 -0500
Subject: [R-G] Exposing "Torture Canada" ::: No One Is Illegal Radio(October
	2008; special show)
Message-ID: <6BDA45C2AB8E49EDB2026EDD5D496E85@agingCHS072729>

[please post and forward widely]

EXPOSING TORTURE CANADA

[Show description linked at:

http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-one-is-illegal-radio-october-2008.html]

No One Is Illegal Radio reports about the frontline struggles for justice,
dignity and self-determination by migrants, refugees and indigenous peoples.

The October 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio is a collaboration with
the People's Commission into Immigration "Security" Measures and the
"Torture Canada" series. We hear directly from the people resisting and
exposing torture, indignity and injustice, whether at Guantanamo in Cuba, at
Guantanamo North at Kingston or at a local prison here in Montreal, as well
the continued efforts to seek clear answers, transparently and openly, about
Canada's direct role in rendition to torture.


On the October show, we hear about (and from):

- ABOUSFIAN ABDELRAZIK: A former Montreal resident and Sudanese-Canadian
citizen who was detained and tortured in Sudan, and currently unable to
return to Canada where he has remained in limbo for 5 years;
- IVAN APAOLAZA SANCHO: Basque prisoner at Montreal's RDP Prison for more
than one year, facing imminent deportation to possible torture in the
Spanish state;
- HASSAN ALMREI: Currently detained at the Kingston Immigration Holding
Center (Guantanamo North); held without charge or trial for seven years
under a security certificate;
- ABDULLAH ALMALKI: Canadian citizen, imprisoned in Syria for two years
where he was brutally tortured and "opportunistically renditioned" by
Canadian authorities;
- MUAYYED NURREDIN: Also renditioned to torture in Syria, currently fighting
for an open and transparent public inquiry into his case;
- AHMAD EL-MAATI: Imprisoned and tortured in Syria and Egypt, who along with
Almalki and Nurredin is demanding clear answers from CSIS and government
authorities; - OMAR KHADR: Canadian citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay
Prison since 2002; he has been detained since the age of 15 after a
firefight in Afghanistan, and tortured by American soldiers at both Bagram
and Guantanamo.


As well, for context, we hear from YAVAR HAMEED, lawyer for Abousfian
Abdelrazik, and KHALED MOUAMMAR of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) about
the case of Omar Khadr.

In-studio guests: MARY FOSTER and TATIANA GOMEZ of the People's Commission
into Immigration Security Measures; host and producer: JAGGI SINGH of No One
Is Illegal-Montreal.

-> LISTEN to the OCTOBER 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio at:

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/29566


Thanks to: the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture/Homes Not
Bombs (Ontario); Darren Ell; CKUT's Community News Collective.

Background information:
www.peoplescommission.org * www.abdullahalmalki.com * www.bringomarhome.ca *
www.adilinfo.org
-----

THE SHOW: No One Is Illegal Radio Special on "Torture Canada

-> LISTEN to the OCTOBER 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio here:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/29566

SEGMENT 1 (10:46)
Introduction to show; background to the Torture Canada series and the
People's Commission into Immigration "Security" Measures by Tatiana
Gomez; background to the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik; clip of
interview with Yavar Hameed (lawyer for Abousfian Abdelrazik).

On the upload: Full Interview with Yavar Hameed, recorded on September
28, 2008 (18:18)

SEGMENT 2 (7:06)
Background to the case of Ivan Apaolaza Sancho by Mary Foster; an
audio clip of Ivan recorded from Rivi?res-des-Prairies (RDP) prison in
Montreal.

On the upload: Full Interview with Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, recorded from
RDP prison on September 30, 2008 (7:24)

SEGMENT 3 (9:50)
Excerpt of an interview with Hassan Almrei from 2003; context by Mary
Foster of the People's Commission.

SEGMENT 4 (17:42)
"The other Arars", context about the cases of Abdullah Almalki,
Muayyed Nurredin, and Ahmad El-Maati by Mary Foster; clips from
interviews and speeches by all three men.

On the upload: Interview with Abdullah Almalki recorded on September
30, 2008 (17:15)

SEGMENT 5 (13:27)
The interrogation of Omar Khadr by CSIS at Guantanamo Bay (February
2003): a breakdown by Jaggi Singh of No One Is Illegal; end of show
and announcements.

On the upload: Interview with Khaled Mouammar of the Canadian Arab
Federation (26:05)


No One Is Illegal Radio broadcasts live on the first Thursday of every
month, from 5-6pm (EST), as part of "Off the Hour", produced in
collaboration with the community news collective at CKUT. We're at
90.3 FM in Montreal, and www.ckut.ca on the web.

--> If you are interested in re-broadcasting our programs or
interviews, please get in touch at nooneisillegal at gmail.com

--> No One Is Illegal Radio's shows are archived at:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/search/label/No%20One%20Is%20Illegal%20Radio
 ----------

Some previous No One Is Illegal-Montreal Radio shows focusing on
topics related to "Torture Canada" and the People's Commission
into Immigration "Security" Measures:


- June 2008: IVAN APAOLAZA SANCHO, a Basque political prisoner who has
been detained at Montreal's Riviere-des-Prairies prison for almost
one-year, facing removal to the Spanish state. -> To listen:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2008/06/no-one-is-illegal-radio-june-2008.html

- Mars 2008 :LATIFA CHARKAOUI nous parle de la conf?rence qui s'est
tenue ? Montr?al lors de la Journ?e internationale de la femme. -> ?coutez
:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2008/03/radio-personne-nest-illegal-mars-2008.html

- Mars 2008 : ADIL CHARKAOUI, l'une des cinq personnes soumises ? un ?
certificat de s?curit? ? explique en profondeur de la ? nouvelle ? loi
sur ces certificats. -> ?coutez :
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2008/03/radio-personne-nest-illegal-mars-2008.html

- September 2007 :BENAMAR BENATTA, Canada's first 9/11 rendition to
torture: Benatta, a refugee from Algeria, was detained close to five
years without charge in the United States after being illegally
removed from Canada. In the US, Benatta was subject to abusive
treatment and torture. He is now back in Canada, pursuing his asylum
claim, and demanding answers from Canadian authorities. -> To listen:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-one-is-illegal-radio-september-2007.html

- May 2007: SOPHIE HARKAT, live from Ottawa. Sophie is an activist
against secret trials and security certificates, and the partner of
Mohamed Harkat, one of Canada's "Secret Trial Five". Sophie speaks
about the current fight against deportation by Mohamed, as well as the
severe bail conditions faced by her and her husband. -> To listen:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2007/05/may-2007-no-one-is-illegal-radio.html

- June 2006: HASSAN ALMREI: Hassan has been detained without charge
since October 2001, one of the Secret Trial Five. For almost four
years he was held in solidarity confinement, and he has undertaken
several long-term hunger strikes to obtain basic rights while in
prison. (9:17) -> To listen:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/21173

 -June 2006: KAREN COQ: Karen is an organizer with No One Is
Illegal-Kingston, and is active in mobilizing against the "Guantanamo
North" prison at Millhaven, near Kingston, Ontario. (8:48) -> To listen:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/21173

- May 2006: LATIFA CHARKAOUI: Latifa is the mother of Adil Charkaoui,
who was arrested and detained without trial on a security certificate
in 2003. This excerpt is her testimony at the People's Commission into
Immigration "Security" Measures in Montreal. (3:13)-> To listen:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/21172

- March 2007: No One Is Illegal Radio Special on the launch of the
People's Commission Report

This special uploaded edition of No One Is Illegal Radio is a
compilation of audio from the launch of the final report of the
"People's Commission into Immigration "Security" Measures." The public
launch of the report took place on February 1, 2007 at the Centre
Communautaire Musulman de Montreal.

FETYA AHMED, SARWAT VIQUAR & JARED WILL, commissioners: presenting the
findings of the People's Commission

SARITA AHOOJA, member of No One Is Illegal-Montreal and a
commissioner: speaking on the Land Reclamation at Six Nations

KHADIJA BENNIS, spokesperson of the Justice for Anas Campaign:
speaking about the killing of her brother by Montreal police

MARY FOSTER, member of the Justice Coalition for Adil Charkaoui and an
organizer of the People's Commission: speaking about the Kingston
Immigration Holding Center ("Guantanamo North") and the Secret Trial
Five

TATIANA GOMEZ, member of Solidarity Across Borders and an organizer of
the People's Commission: speaking about the case of Amparo Torres, a
Colombia refugee facing deportation based on secret evidence

HICHAM HALLAL, member of the Al Hidaya Association: speaking about
Islamophobia and the racial and religious profiling of Arab and Muslim
communities

MARIE-EVE LAMY, member of the Justice Coalition for Adil Charkaoui and
an organizer of the People's Commission: speaking about the case of
Suleyman Goven, a Kurdish refugee to Canada who was denied status for
15 years due to CSIS harassment and intimidation

LEILA POURTAVAF, member of No One Is Illegal-Montreal and a researcher
for the People's Commission: speaking on the current immigration
regime in Canada

LAURA SCHEVCHENKO, organizer with the Sogi Bachan Singh Support
Committee: providing an update about the deportation to possible
torture of Sogi Singh, based on secret evidence

-> To listen:
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2007/04/march-2007-no-one-is-illegal-radio.html



No One Is Illegal-Montreal is part of a worldwide movement of resistance,
fighting for justice and dignity, and the right to self-determination for
migrants, refugees and indigenous people. Our campaign is in public
confrontation with the Canadian state, denouncing and taking action to
combat racial profiling, police brutality, detentions and deportations, as
well as opposing the displacement and genocide of indigenous peoples on
Turtle Island.

INFO: 514-848-7583 -- nooneisillegal at gmail.com
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com
_______________________________________________
canada-activist mailing list
http://list.wayground.ca/mailman/listinfo/canada-activist
http://activist.ca/



From critical.montages at gmail.com  Wed Oct  8 21:04:05 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 23:04:05 -0400
Subject: [R-G] U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810082004k33483748kc554c270324f3c2e@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09econ.html>
October 9, 2008
U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON ? Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit
markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership
stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the
financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives
them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it.
Such a move would quickly strengthen banks' balance sheets and,
officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law
gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks,
including healthy ones.

The Treasury plan, still preliminary, resembles one announced on
Wednesday in Britain. Under that plan, the British government would
offer banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC
Holdings up to $87 billion to shore up their capital in exchange for
preference shares. It also would provide a guarantee of about $430
billion to help banks refinance debt.

The American recapitalization plan, officials say, has emerged as one
of the most favored new options being discussed in Washington and on
Wall Street. The appeal is that it would directly address the worries
that banks have about lending to one another and to other customers.

This new interest in direct investment in banks comes after yet
another tumultuous day in which the Federal Reserve and five other
central banks marshaled their combined firepower to cut interest rates
but failed to stanch the global financial panic.

In a coordinated action, the central banks reduced their benchmark
interest rates by one-half percentage point. On top of that, the Bank
of England announced its plan to nationalize part of the British
banking system and devote almost $500 billion to guarantee financial
transactions between banks.

The coordinated rate cut was unprecedented and surprising. Never
before has the Fed issued an announcement on interest rates jointly
with another central bank, let alone five other central banks,
including the People's Bank of China.

Yet the world's markets hardly seemed comforted. Credit markets on
Wednesday remained almost as stalled as the day before. Stock prices,
which had plunged in Europe and Asia before the announcement,
continued to plummet afterward. And stock prices in the United States
went on a roller-coaster ride, at the end of which the Dow Jones
industrial average was down 189 points, or 2 percent.

The gloomy market response sent policy makers and outside experts on a
scramble for additional remedies to stabilize the banks and reassure
investors.

There is no shortage of ideas, ranging from the partial
nationalization proposal to a guarantee by the Fed of all lending
between banks.

Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, on
Wednesday refined his proposal ? revealed in a debate with the
Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, the night before ? to allow
millions of Americans to refinance their mortgages with government
assistance.

As Washington casts about for Plan B, investors are clamoring for the
Fed to lower interest rates to nearly zero. Some are also calling for
governments worldwide to provide another round of economic stimulus
through expensive public works projects.

Yet behind the scramble for solutions lies a hard reality: the
financial crisis has mutated into a global downturn that economists
warn will be painful and protracted, and for which there is no quick
cure.

"Everyone is conditioned to getting instant relief from the medicine,
and that is unrealistic," said Allen Sinai, president of Decision
Economics, a forecasting firm in Lexington, Mass. "As hard as it is
for investors and jobholders and politicians in an election year, this
crisis will not end without a lot more pain."

One concern about the Treasury's bailout plan is that it calls for
limits on executive pay when capital is directly injected into a bank.
The law directs Treasury officials to write compensation standards
that would discourage executives from taking "unnecessary and
excessive risks" and that would allow the government to recover any
bonus pay that is based on stated earnings that turn out to be
inaccurate. In addition, any bank in which the Treasury holds a stake
would be barred from paying its chief executive a "golden parachute"
package.

Treasury officials worry that aggressive government purchases, if not
done properly, could alarm bank shareholders by appearing to be
punitive or could be interpreted by the market as a sign that target
banks were failing.

At a news conference on Wednesday, the Treasury secretary, Henry M.
Paulson Jr., pointedly named the Treasury's new authority to inject
capital into institutions as the first in a list of new powers
included in the bailout law.

"We will use all the tools we've been given to maximum effectiveness,"
Mr. Paulson said, "including strengthening the capitalization of
financial institutions of every size."

The idea is gaining support even among longtime Republican policy
makers who have spent most of their careers defending laissez-faire
economic policies.

"The problem is the uncertainty that people have about doing business
with banks, and banks have about doing business with each other," said
William Poole, a staunchly free-market Republican who stepped down as
president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on Aug. 31. "We
need to eliminate that uncertainty as fast as we can, and one way to
do that is by injecting capital directly into banks. I think it could
be done very quickly."

Mr. Paulson acknowledged that the flurry of emergency steps had done
little to break the cycle of fear and mistrust, and he pleaded for
patience.

"The turmoil will not end quickly," Mr. Paulson told reporters on
Wednesday. "Neither the passage of this law nor the implementation of
these initiatives will bring an immediate end to the current
difficulties."

Mr. Paulson will play host to finance ministers and central bankers
from the Group of 7 countries this Friday. But he cautioned against
expecting a grand plan to emerge from the gathering.

More likely, the participants will compare notes about the measures
they are adopting in their own countries. David H. McCormick,
Treasury's under secretary for international affairs, said there was
no "one size fits all" remedy for the crisis, though countries were
cooperating through the coordinated cuts in interest rates, with
guarantees on bank deposits and in regulations.

At the Federal Reserve in Washington, officials insisted they had not
run out of options and made it clear they were willing to do whatever
it took to shore up the economy.

Fed officials increasingly talk about the challenge they face with a
phrase that President Bush used in another context: "regime change."

This regime change refers to a change in the economic environment so
radical that, at least for a while, economic policy makers will need
to suspend what are usually sacred principles: minimal interference in
free markets, gradualism and predictability.

In the last month, both the Treasury and the Fed took extraordinary
steps toward nationalizing three of the biggest financial companies in
the country. Last month, the Treasury took over Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, the giant government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies that
were on the brink of collapse. A week later, the Fed took control of
the American International Group, the failing insurance conglomerate,
in exchange for agreeing to lend it $85 billion.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced that it would lend A.I.G.
an additional $37.8 billion.

But neither the individual corporate bailouts nor the Fed's enormous
emergency lending programs ? including up to $900 billion through its
Term Auction Facility for banks ? have succeeded in jump-starting the
credit markets.

"The core problem is that the smart people are realizing that the
banking system is broken," said Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at
High Frequency Economics. "Nobody knows who is holding the tainted
assets, how much they have and how it affects their balance sheets. So
nobody is willing to believe that anybody else isn't insolvent, until
it's proven otherwise."


From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 21:15:59 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 20:15:59 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Market Meltdown: Capitalism and the Crisis of Neoliberalism
References: <1fe86df835683e37e396a9b391a461f5@socialistproject.ca>
Message-ID: <09E01211-5DA0-40B7-AC5F-F80A81044367@shaw.ca>

Socialist Project forum series:

Market Meltdown:
Capitalism and the Crisis of Neoliberalism

The current credit crisis rocking Wall Street may well be the largest  
market failure within the history of capitalism. The crisis is  
destabilizing the American economy, and also causing financial crises  
across the capitalist world. It is now dragging the Canadian economy  
into recession. The immediate trigger of the instability was problems  
in housing markets. It spread from there into the massive speculative  
derivative markets, and finally into a series of bankruptcies of  
leading financial institutions. Washington is now proposing the  
largest bailout of capitalist enterprises in history. Financialization  
and the power of Wall Street have been two of the hallmarks of  
neoliberal globalization. This crisis of neoliberalism raises pressing  
political issues for the Left.

Speakers:

Greg Albo, Professor of Political Economy, York University.
Jim Stanford, Economist, Canadian Auto Workers.
David McNally, Professor of Political Science, York University.

www.socialistproject.ca/inthenews/financialcrisis.html#fc12



From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Wed Oct  8 21:55:34 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:55:34 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Other Bail-Out
Message-ID: <48ED80B6.70105@attglobal.net>


Another set of corporations is pressing for public money. Governments
should let them die.

by George Monbiot

The Guardian (October 07 2008)


While all eyes were fixed on the banking bail-out, a bucketload of
public money was quietly sloshed into the pockets of another undeserving
cause. Last week, George Bush agreed to lend $25 billion to US car
manufacturers. It's a soft loan, which will cost the government $7.5
billion {1}. Few people noticed; fewer fought it. The House of
Representatives approved the measure by 370 votes to 58. The great
corporate bail-out is spreading like the plague.

It has already crossed the Atlantic. Yesterday European car makers
demanded that the EU hand them forty billion Euros ($54bn) in cheap
loans to match the US subsidy {2}. Where will the public spending spree
end?

The motor companies in both Europe and the US claim they need these
loans to help them go green. They will invest the money in a new
generation of environmental technologies, which will allow them to meet
the efficiency standards their governments are setting. There is more
joy in heaven over one sinner who repents ... but how strange this green
enthusiasm seems, now that there's the smell of public money in the air.
For the past ten years the car manufacturers have driven every useful
green initiative into the wall.

In 1998 European car makers promised to show that they could cut their
greenhouse gases voluntarily. By the end of 2008, they pledged, they
would reduce the average emissions produced by their cars from 190 grams
of carbon dioxide per kilometre to 140. How well have they done? By the
end of last year they had cut average pollution to 158g/km across Europe
{3} and 165g/km in the UK {4}: they will miss their target by some forty
per cent.

Discerning, only ten years too late, that lobby groups' promises are
worth as much as a share in Lehman Brothers, in 2006 the European
Commission announced that it would set compulsory standards: by 2012 all
manufacturers would have to reduce their average carbon dioxide
emissions to 120g/km. It looked like progress, until you remembered that
120g was the target proposed by the EU in 1994, to be met by 2005 {5}.
It was repeatedly delayed by industry lobbying.

Last year the 2012 target fell to the same forces. Angela Merkel,
lobbying on behalf of companies like DaimlerChrysler and BMW, demanded
that the European Commission put the brakes on {6,7}. (Ironically it was
Merkel, as the idealistic young German environment minister, who first
proposed the target of 120g by 2005 {8}.) The commission agreed to
revise the figure to 130g, and to cover the gap by raising the
contribution from biofuels. Since then we've seen hard evidence that
most biofuels, as well as spreading starvation, produce more greenhouse
gases than petrol {9, 10, 11}, but the policy remains unchanged.

Now the pollutocrats are whinging that they can't meet the 130g target
either. A month ago they persuaded the European Parliament's industry
committee to take up their case: it proposed postponing the target until
2015, reducing the fines if they don't comply and allowing manufacturers
to offset eco-innovations against the target even if these don't
actually reduce emissions {12}. These invertebrates, in other words,
proposed to grant official approval to industry greenwash. Fortunately
this scam was rejected two weeks ago by the parliament's environment
committee {13}.

In the US, manufacturers have still not reached the standard (an average
of 27.5 miles per gallon) that they were supposed to have met, under the
Energy Policy Conservation Act, by 1985 {14}. The average car sold in
the States today is less efficient than the 1908 Model T Ford {15, 16}.

What makes this dithering so frustrating is that to be talking, in 2008,
about targets of 130 or 120 grams per kilometre is a bit like discussing
whether modern computers should have ten rows of sliding beads or 100.
In 1974 a stripped-down 1959 Opel T-1 managed 377 miles to the US gallon
(160 kilometres per liter) {17}, which equates to fifteen grams of
carbon dioxide per kilometre {18}. There is no technical reason why the
maximum limit for mass-produced cars shouldn't be 50g/km.

Nor is there a good commercial reason. A poll by the Newspaper Marketing
Agency shows that eighty per cent of car buyers say economy is now more
important to them than performance {19}. The car industry's
technological failure results entirely from lobbying by the companies
now demanding public money to go green. They want to squeeze every last
drop from existing technologies before switching to better models.

Their sabotage of green technology has been both subtle and
comprehensive. The film Who Killed The Electric Car? shows how the
manufacturers, working with oil companies and corrupt officials, sank
California's attempt to change vehicle technologies {20}. Having bumped
off battery power, they persuaded the federal government to pour money
instead into hydrogen vehicles, aware that the technological hurdles are
so high that a cheap, mass-produced model might never be possible.
Electric cars, by contrast, have been ready for the mass market for
almost a century. The $1.2 billion that the US government is spending on
research and development for hydrogen cars {21} - like the two billion
Euros pledged to the same quest by the European Union {22, 23} - is a
subsidy for avoiding technological change.

Now, after so much procrastination, the car makers have the flaming
cheek to demand public money to pursue the policies they have spent
fifty years and millions of dollars crushing. Of course, the "green
loans" they are soliciting are nothing of the kind. Funding better
environmental performance is simply an excuse for bailing out another
failing industry. As a result of the credit crunch and high oil prices,
new car registrations in the UK fell by 21% last month {24}. In the US,
sales by the major manufacturers have declined this year by between
twenty 20 and 35 per cent {25}.

There is no need to spend a penny of public money on greening the motor
industry. As a recent report by the House of Commons environmental audit
committee shows, you could achieve the same outcome by creating a bigger
differential between vehicle tax bands: it proposes that people buying
the least efficient cars should pay around GBP 2000 more per year than
those buying the most efficient {26}. This would kill the market for gas
guzzlers and force the industry to make the changes it has long resisted.

But the government has taken all the flak a good tax policy would have
generated for very little gain. Its controversial new vehicle tax
banding will save a mere 0.16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year
{27}: a drop in the acidifying ocean. At scarcely greater political cost
it could have hammered emissions and generated much of the money it
needs to revolutionise public transport. Again there has been a
historical slide: between 1920 and 1948 cars were taxed at one GBP per
horsepower {28}: in real terms (and in some cases in nominal terms {29})
a far higher rate for gas guzzlers than today's.

But subsidies are what governments pay when regulation doesn't happen.
If you don't have the guts to force companies to do something, you must
bribe them instead. It's a fair guess that European car makers will
still fail to meet their environmental targets, even if they get the
money they're demanding. The greenest thing governments could do is to
allow these foot-dragging, planet-eating spongers to go under.

www.monbiot.com

References:

{1} Bernard Simon, 25th September 2008. House clears $25bn for
carmakers. Financial Times.

{2} ACEA (the European Automobile Manufacturers Association), 6th
October 2008. European auto industry calls on EU to help sustain
changeover to low-emission car fleet.
http://www.acea.be/index.php/news/news_detail/european_auto_industry_calls_on_eu_to_help_sustain_changeover_to_low_emissi

{3} European Federation for Transport and Environment, August 2008.
Reducing CO2 Emissions from New Cars: A Study of Major Car
Manufacturers' Progress in 2007.

{4} Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, 18th March 2008. Average UK new car
CO2 emissions fell 1.4% in 2007. http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/news/866/bulletin/

{5} European Federation for Transport and Environment, 26th August 2008.
BMW leaps ahead on new car CO2 emissions, others still stalling.
http://www.transportenvironment.org/News/2008/8/BMW-leaps-ahead-on-new-car-CO2-emissions-others-still-stalling/

{6} George Parker and Andrew Bounds, 31st January 2007. Brussels
climbdown on car emissions. Financial Times.

{7} European Commission, 7th February 2007. Commission plans legislative
framework to ensure the EU meets its target for cutting CO2 emissions
from cars. Press release.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/155&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

{8} European Federation for Transport and Environment, 26th August 2008,
ibid.

{9} Joseph Fargione, Jason Hill, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, Peter
Hawthorne, 7th February 2008. Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt.
Science. Doi 10.1126/science.1152747.

{10} Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong,
Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang
Yu, 7th February 2008. Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases
Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change . Science. Doi
10.1126/science.1151861.

{11} PJ Crutzen, AR Mosier, KA Smith and W Winiwarter, 1 August 2007.
N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming
reduction by replacing fossil fuels. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Discussions 7, pp11191?11205.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11191/2007/acpd-7-11191-2007.pdf

{12} European Federation for Transport and Environment, 16th September
2008. MEPs' call for ?phased' CO2 limits amounts to a postponement, IEEP
study shows.
http://www.transportenvironment.org/News/2008/9/MEPs-call-for-phased-CO2-limits-amounts-to-a-postponement-IEEP-study-shows/

{13} European Federation for Transport and Environment, 25th September
2008. MEPs stand up for fuel-efficient cars.
http://www.transportenvironment.org/News/2008/9/MEPs-stand-up-for-fuel-efficient-cars/

{14} Kathy Gill, 28th April 2006. CAFE (Fuel Efficiency) Standards for
Passenger Cars and Light Trucks.
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/energy/i/cafe_standards.htm

{15} The estimated average fuel efficiency for cars, including SUVs and
pickups, in the US in 2008 is 20.8 mpg.
http://epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s08003.pdf

{16} In 1908 the Ford Model T ran at 25mpg. Detroit News, 4th June 2003,
cited by Want to Know, 11th July 2005.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050711carmileageaveragempg

{17} See http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/souped_down_old.php

{18} According to Audi, 100km/l equates to 23.8gCO2/km.
http://www.audi.com/etc/medialib/cms4imp/audi2/company/financial_information/pdf_0803.Par.0103.File.pdf

{19} Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, 27th September 2008. Survey shows
more buyers want low emission cars.
http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/news/1013/survey-shows-more-buyers-want-low-emission-cars/

{20} http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/

{21} Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the
President, no date given.
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. Research and Development Funding in the
President's 2007 Budget.
http://www.ostp.gov/pdf/1pger_hydrogenfueliniative.pdf

{22} No author, 16th August 2003. The clean green energy dream. New
Scientist: Energy Special ? Hydrogen.

{23} The allocation for the current Framework Programme is E470m.
European Union, 10th October 2007. The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint
Technology
Initiative. Press release.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/404&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

{24} BBC Online, 6th October 2008. New car registrations fall by 21%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7654648.stm

{25} Suzy Jagger, 2nd October 2008. US carmakers forced to wait for
$25bn ?green' loan. The Times.

{26} House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 4th August 2008.
Vehicle Excise Duty as an environmental tax.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmenvaud/907/907.pdf

{27} ibid.

{28} ibid.

{29} The top standard rate of vehicle excise duty from 2010 will be GBP
455. The Mercedes-Benz SL is 604hp; the Lamborghini Murcielago is 640.
http://www.autobytel.com/content/research/top10/index.cfm/action/highhorsepower/vehicleclass/sprt/listtype/9

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/10/07/the-other-bail-out/


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 Oct  8 22:03:12 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 21:03:12 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Big Canadian banks snub BoC interest rate cuts
Message-ID: <FE448E5D-0D6D-44D1-8619-22899AF3EFA7@shaw.ca>

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081008/world_economy_081008/20081008?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Big Canadian banks snub BoC interest rate cuts

Updated Wed. Oct. 8 2008 9:49 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Major Canadian banks are not passing along the Bank of Canada's half- 
point cut to the lending rate and instead are cutting their prime  
rates by just a quarter of a percentage point.

The move comes as a surprise, as the big banks normally always follow  
the central bank's cuts, even if they say they can't afford it.

The Bank of Canada slashed its key lending rate to 2.5 per cent  
Wednesday, one of many central banks making the move around the world.

Toronto-Dominion Bank was the first institution in Canada to make a  
cut Wednesday, cutting their prime rate to 4.5 per cent. The other  
major Canadian banks followed throughout the day.

The snub of the federal government has not gone unnoticed.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has called for a news conference early  
Thursday morning, where it is believed he will take questions to  
address concerns about the economy.

Sherry Cooper, BMO Capital Markets chief economist, said that the big  
banks simply couldn't afford the cut.

"We're all hording cash and as soon as that happens there is very  
little that the central bank or government can do directly," Cooper  
told CTV News.

She added it would take a year to 18 months before the effects of the  
rate cuts could be seen.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Switzerland, Sweden,  
China and Hong Kong also cut their lending rates Wednesday trying to  
bolster the wheezing global economy.

The unprecedented move came as markets around the world struggled to  
navigate the turbulent global economy, with many offering bailouts to  
try and keep their economies going.

Oliver Bernard, the International Monetary Fund's Chief Economist,  
said that with the global moves to cut rates the "risk of a Great  
Depression is nearly nil."

Markets close up

The Toronto stock market managed to close up 225.84 points Wednesday  
in its first positive showing in five days.

Canada's S&P/TSX finished the day at 10,055.39 points. On Tuesday, the  
TSX had lost more than 400 points and on Monday, it lost 573 points,  
slipping below 10,000 for the first time in three years.

Despite gains made by the TSX on Wednesday, New York's Dow Jones  
industrial index finished down 189.01 points to 9,258.1. The Nasdaq  
composite index lost 14.55 points to 1,740.33, and the S&P 500 index  
dropped 11.29 points to 984.94.

BNN's Michael Kane said the rate cut move fits with efforts by many  
nations to shore up their banking institutions.

England, for example, partly nationalized its banks on Wednesday to  
help provide stability. The British government's efforts cost $87.5  
billion.

"The event that occurred here today with the co-ordinated interest  
rate cut should support what the Bank of England did by buying into  
its banks to stabilize that situation, and other governments are  
making similar moves as well," Kane said.

However, he pointed out that inter-bank lending is still at a virtual  
standstill, and the interest rate for those loans has not yet been  
adjusted.

Adam Taylor of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said Wednesday's  
interest cut shows nations are now recognizing they need to combine  
forces to solve the problem.

"I think it's recognition that the global economy needs all the  
countries in the global economy to come together, to work together  
when they need to, and this is a good move and one that should allay  
some of the fears that are out there," he told CTV's Canada AM.

Earlier Wednesday, Flaherty said the Bank of Canada has already taken  
steps to protect the economy, such as boosting the availability of  
funding to banks and widening the range of collateral it will accept  
-- as well as the co-ordinated interest rate cut announced on Wednesday.

"This significant action will provide timely support for the Canadian  
economy," Flaherty said.

"I welcome the strong international co-ordination that central banks  
have displayed throughout the financial crisis, most clearly expressed  
in the co-ordinated rate cut today. This same commitment to co- 
operation needs to be reflected by finance ministers."

Early Wednesday, markets in Europe tumbled amid ongoing fears over  
credit markets.

And in Asia, the Japanese Nikkei had its worse day since the stock  
market crashed in 1987.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 22:14:17 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 21:14:17 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Soldier says it's time to end Afghanistan war
Message-ID: <54F566F8-4192-4431-A685-7EC485C2F892@shaw.ca>

  LETTER TO THE EDITOR
TheStar.com | Opinion | Soldier says it's time to end Afghanistan war
Soldier says it's time to end Afghanistan war
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/513548


Oct 08, 2008 04:30 AM

I love my country just like anybody else. But when I hear of things  
our troops have done in Afghanistan, I have to ask, "What kind of  
legacy do we wish to leave behind?" Some examples: we respond to  
hostile fire by indiscriminate bombing and shelling of villages,  
killing innocent men, women and children; we fire white phosphorus  
shells (a chemical weapon outlawed by the Geneva Conventions due to  
the horrific way it burns human beings) into vineyards where it was  
known Afghan insurgents were deployed; we hand over prisoners of war  
to Afghan authorities, who torture them; and we shoot and kill a 2- 
year-old Afghan boy and his 4-year-old sister. Do we want to be  
remembered for hating, killing and destroying, or caring, healing and  
helping with reconstruction?

The war in Afghanistan is a lie. How can we inspire the Afghan people  
to respect liberty, democracy, equality for women, education for  
children, human rights and respect for life when we are maiming and  
murdering them and destroying their homes, communities, the economy  
and their country? If mothers and fathers keep on sending our youth to  
Afghanistan, then our sons and daughters will keep on fighting and  
dying and will keep on killing and injuring the sons and daughters of  
the Afghan people. And mothers and fathers of Canada and Afghanistan  
will keep on crying. Soldiers are trained to operate military  
equipment and vehicles. A weapon is put in one hand and ammunition in  
the other, and we are taught the fine art of killing our fellow human  
beings. If we wish to end this cycle of death, injury, destruction,  
hate, sorrow and despair, then we must stop war. So, when in future,  
our maimed soldiers walk down the street and our children ask, "Why?"  
we will say "Afghanistan" and mean a place where Canada turned against  
war and for peace, and not an obscene memory.

My fellow citizens, help me and soldiers like me end the war. Let's  
hear your voices. Let's do something we can all be proud of. If we  
achieve peace in Afghanistan, then the deaths of 97 of my "comrades in  
arms" and of unreported thousands of innocent Afghans will not have  
been in vain. Support the troops. Support peace. Bring our troops home  
now.

Corporal Paul Demetrick, Canadian Army (Reserve), Penticton, B.C.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct  8 23:12:07 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 22:12:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Alberta oilsands refineries could cause irreversible damage:
	Report
Message-ID: <AFCC9151-3896-43AC-B2C0-49224350FA7B@shaw.ca>

Alberta oilsands refineries could cause irreversible damage: Report
  http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=929f281f-f3d4-458c-aff0-cff3c9f48da2
Jorge Barrera
Canwest News Service

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

There are currently 17 refinery projects either being 'considered,  
planned, applied for, approved or developed' around the Great Lakes,  
according to the report, How the Oil Sands Got to the Great Lakes,  
released Wednesday.
CREDIT:
There are currently 17 refinery projects either being 'considered,  
planned, applied for, approved or developed' around the Great Lakes,  
according to the report, How the Oil Sands Got to the Great Lakes,  
released Wednesday.

The development of a pipeline network and refineries around the Great  
Lakes to process Alberta bitumen "could cause irreversible"  
environmental damage to the region, says a new report that traces the  
tendrils of Alberta's oilsands developments across the continent.

There are currently 17 refinery projects either being "considered,  
planned, applied for, approved or developed" around the Great Lakes,  
according to the report, How the Oil Sands Got to the Great Lakes,  
released Wednesday.

The report, commissioned by the University of Toronto's Munk Centre  
program on water issues, warns that little is known about the  
environmental impact on the Great Lakes given the level of greenhouse  
gas emissions and water consumption that comes with the refining  
process.

"We are paying more attention at the oilsands end, but not where the  
oil gets to and what happens there," said David Israelson, the  
report's author. "The other big issue is climate change and this means  
exponential increase in greenhouse gas emissions before you put a drop  
in your car."

Dubbing it a "pollution delivery system," the report said the  
thousands-kilometres-long pipeline complex used to ferry Athabasca  
bitumen from source to refinery could bring "2.3 million tonnes" of  
greenhouse gas emissions to the centre of North America every year.

"It will also bring new, large-scale sulphur dioxide and nitrogen  
oxide emissions - the building blocks of acid rain - as well as fine  
particulate matter, which is responsible for premature deaths," said  
the report. "Pipeline and refinery expansion applications are being  
made and approved right now with little general awareness of the  
potential long-term damage to the Great Lakes environment."

Bitumen is a tar-like heavy hydrocarbon that is removed from Alberta's  
oilsands and upgraded into synthetic crude oil.

Environmental groups were quick to back the report's findings. Justin  
Duncan, a lawyer with Ecojustice, said the federal government needs to  
revise its entire approach to oilsands development.

"We are not looking at national policies or other opportunities to  
reduce demand so we don't need (the oilsands)," said Duncan.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said they wanted to  
study the report before presenting a detailed response.

"It is a complex issue that deals with economic, cross-border supply  
and environmental issues," said Travis Davies, spokesman for the  
association.

Israelson said the election had nothing to do with the report's  
release, which had been planned in advance. However, he said  
politicians could do a lot to avert environmental catastrophe on the  
lakes. With the majority of the proposed refinery expansions slated  
for the U.S. side of the Great Lakes - a planned expansion in Sarnia,  
Ont., has been put on hold - Israelson said Canada should put  
environmental conditions on exported Alberta bitumen.

"We are selling something that they want to buy, so we can put  
conditions on it," said Israelson, a vice-president for a Toronto- 
based public relations firm. "The prime minister has already talked  
about not selling bitumen to China."

Harper in late September promised to halt the flow of bitumen to  
countries with weaker greenhouse gas emission reduction standards than  
Canada.
? Canwest News Service 2008

From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  9 00:32:39 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 23:32:39 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Central Banks Coordinate Global Cut in Interest Rates
Message-ID: <22B8E1D8-AB75-40F7-87B0-BB9AF19D1790@shaw.ca>

October 9, 2008
Central Banks Coordinate Global Cut in Interest Rates
By CARTER DOUGHERTY and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/09fed.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&bl&ei=5087&en=6c2c0d7539595be6&ex=1223611200

In a move of unprecedented scope, the world?s major central banks  
lowered their benchmark interest rates Wednesday, a coordinated effort  
to halt a collapse of share prices and a freeze in credit markets that  
threatens to set off the first global recession since the early 1970s.

The action failed to calm gyrating markets, however, amid the growing  
realization that a serious and prolonged recession may be difficult to  
avoid.

The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England  
and the central banks of Canada and Sweden all reduced primary lending  
rates by a half percentage point. Switzerland also cut its benchmark  
rate, while the Bank of Japan endorsed the moves without changing its  
rates.

In another monetary first, the Chinese central bank joined the effort  
? without explicitly saying it was doing so ? by reducing its key  
interest rate and lowering bank reserve requirements to free up cash  
for lending.

The Fed?s benchmark short-term rate now stands at 1.5 percent. The  
European Central Bank?s is 3.75 percent.

Taken together with other moves in the United States, Britain and  
Continental Europe in the last few days, the rate cuts look like part  
of a broader, global strategy that embraces aggressive use of monetary  
policy and taxpayer recapitalization of ailing banks, generating  
cautious optimism among crisis-weary analysts.

?The gravity of the times requires out-of-the box responses,? said Jim  
O?Neill, the chief global economist at Goldman Sachs. ?Atop of all the  
other things we have seen this week, it gives me great confidence.?

The efforts led to a brief rally on European stock markets, but it  
quickly fizzled. Benchmark indexes were off by 5 percent to 6 percent  
in Germany, Britain and France. Markets in New York were trading in a  
400-point range, swinging between positive and negative.

Credit market conditions remained extremely tight, with the gap  
between yields on safe, three-month government securities and the rate  
that banks charge one another for loans of the same duration rising to  
more than 4 percentage points not long after the central banks acted ?  
showing financial institutions remained deeply concerned about lending  
to one another.

Federal Reserve officials said Wednesday?s action was the first time  
ever that the Fed had coordinated a reduction in interest rates with  
other central banks, though the United States has periodically joined  
with other countries to intervene in currency markets to stabilize  
foreign exchange rates.

The closest thing to a precedent came in November 2001, when the Fed  
and the European Central Bank announced a rate reduction on the same  
day. But those actions were nominally independent, and they did not  
involve any additional foreign central banks.

The cut came despite what had been a divergence of views between the  
United States and Europe ever since the financial crisis erupted in  
August 2007. The European Central Bank had been much more reluctant to  
lower interest rates, because policy makers there tended to see the  
mortgage meltdown primarily as an American problem with secondary  
ripple effects in Europe.

But any lingering comfort outside the United States evaporated in the  
last week, as money markets froze up around the world and major  
corporations and banks across Europe began suffocating from their  
inability to do even routine financial transactions.

Making matters worse, none of the epic emergency measures taken in the  
United States ? the passage of a $700 billion bailout plan to buy up  
distressed securities; a doubling and redoubling of emergency loan  
facilities at the Fed to $900 billion on Monday; and the Fed?s  
unprecedented decision on Tuesday to start buying up short-term  
commercial debt for businesses of all types ? had prevented the stock  
markets from plunging at vertigo-inducing amounts day after day.

Some analysts responded positively to the news.

?At last, a coordinated show of force,? Ian Shepherdson, chief United  
States economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note. ?The  
move is to be applauded but there is more to come. The playbook to  
avoid depressions says rates need to be as close to zero as possible.?

Other economists were cautious about whether the various measures  
would be successful, after previous plans like the United States?  
economic bailout have not halted steep declines in share prices.

?There?s no silver bullet for these problems,? said Derek Halpenny, a  
currency strategist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in London. ?But  
the actions by the Fed on Tuesday, the U.K. government?s bailout plan  
today and the bit-by-bit approach European governments are taking show  
the authorities are getting more proactive.?

The central feature of the acute credit crunch, which began in the  
United States and is now spreading rapidly in Europe, is the  
reluctance of banks to lend at any rate because they have taken such  
heavy losses already and are hoarding cash.

Not only does that interrupt the normal flow of credit for activities  
as basic as modernizing production lines or meeting payrolls, it gums  
up the normal mechanisms central banks use to ease credit and  
stimulate economic activity.

?The key lesson is when you face a confidence issue where the market  
participants no longer trust each other, the conventional  
macroeconomic tools are not as effective,? Olaf Unteroberdoerster, the  
International Monetary Fund?s representative in Hong Kong, said  
Wednesday.

The Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers and subsequent near- 
failures of European banks drained financial market confidence  
globally. And whatever the shortcomings, rate cuts do help confidence,  
even if they have lost their power to spur stock market rallies,  
analysts said.

In some respects the rate cut was should not have been unexpected. On  
Tuesday, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, had  
telegraphed such a move. In a speech, he said that the financial  
turmoil had forced the Fed to downgrade its already gloomy economic  
outlook and investors had all but assumed that it would lower the  
benchmark Federal funds rate no later than its next scheduled policy  
meeting on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29.

Until a few weeks ago, Fed officials had tried to separate its rescue  
efforts in the financial markets from problems of the underlying  
economy.

After a rushed series of rate reductions last fall and early this  
year, bringing the overnight Fed funds rate down to 2 percent in  
April, the central bank had concentrated its efforts on injecting  
hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial system to keep  
banks lending to one another and to their customers. But policy makers  
held back from further reducing interest rates, which reduce the  
overall cost of money, because they were worried about rising  
inflationary pressures.

Consumer prices have climbed sharply, largely because of huge  
increases in energy and commodity prices. As recently as the Fed?s  
policy meeting three weeks ago, the central bank?s official position  
was that its concerns about slowing economic growth were roughly equal  
to its concerns about rising prices. In reality, many policy makers  
were more worried about the onset of a recession ? which many private  
economists say has already arrived. But there were still disagreements  
among members of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets  
interest rates.

Contributing reporting were Keith Bradsher, David Jolly, Martin  
Fackler, Bettina Wasserman, Michael M. Grynbaum, Hilda Wang and Peter  
Gelling.

From mstainsby at resist.ca  Thu Oct  9 10:25:13 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:25:13 -0600
Subject: [R-G] George Monbiot: "Shut down the tar sands,
	as quickly as possible"
Message-ID: <48EE3069.5030801@resist.ca>

George Monbiot stirs debate over fate of tar sands
By Matthew Burrows

George Monbiot wants the Alberta tar-sands industry shut down ?as 
quickly as possible?.

The best-selling author, Guardian columnist, and environmentalist told 
the Georgia Straight he would like to see ?large-scale direct actions? 
to make that happen.

When Monbiot granted the Straight an interview in late August, in a 
small restaurant in the Welsh town of Maccynleth, where he resides, an 
election had not yet been called. Canadians are now officially headed to 
the polls on October 14, and Monbiot?who penned the 2006 book Heat, to 
high acclaim?said Canada must step up on the environmental front.

?There is a huge gulf, it seems, in Canada between people?s awareness 
and their determination to do something to protect the environment and 
the actual results of Canadian policy,? Monbiot said on August 21. ?That 
gap has to be closed, and it has to be closed very quickly. One of the 
first actions that needs to be taken is to shut down the tar sands. I 
would like to see large-scale direct actions aimed at the tar sands, 
with the objective of ending that industry as quickly as possible.?

Read a complete transcript of the Georgia Straight's interview with 
Guardian columnist Georgia Monbiot here.

Michael Byers, NDP candidate in Vancouver Centre, told the Straight that 
climate change is the ?principal reason? he entered politics. He said 
his wife gave him the go-ahead to run after she read Heat, and he noted 
that he is a ?big fan? of Monbiot. On September 25, a CBC news clip 
played up Byers?s statement that the tar sands should be shut down. 
However, Byers said the clip took his comments out of context.

?What I should have said, had I known I was going to be clipped, was 
that the tar sands should be wound down,? Byers explained by phone.

Byers noted that NDP leader Jack Layton successfully steered the Climate 
Change Accountability Act through the House of Commons on June 4, and in 
doing so secured agreement from the Liberals and the Bloc Qu?b?cois that 
any future Canadian government is bound to an 80-percent reduction in 
Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.

?That is an 80-percent reduction over 1990 levels,? Byers said. ?If you 
do the mathematics on that, it entails the shutting-down of the tar 
sands or the sequestering of the CO2 produced by them. When you add that 
to the NDP climate-change policy, which is to withdraw all of the 
massive tax cuts to the tar sands as well as [placing] firm caps on all 
of the large emitters?which will be ratcheted down fairly quickly?and a 
massive investment in alternative-energy technologies, you are going to 
see a winding-down of the tar sands. It is rapidly becoming the single 
largest point source for carbon dioxide on the planet.?

However, Byers added that he ?would not? support the direct action 
advocated by Monbiot.

?I believe in the rule of law, and I believe in using peaceful 
mechanisms of political change, which is why I am running for political 
office,? he said. ?I would put my decision to run for office as an 
example of how I believe that existing political structures need to be 
engaged by those who are fully aware of the climate-change crisis and 
committed to doing something serious about it.?

Vancouver Centre Conservative candidate and former two-term MLA Lorne 
Mayencourt disagreed with Monbiot?s analysis.

?I think that the economic devastation that would follow a shutdown of 
the tar sands would rival the Great Depression,? Mayencourt told the 
Straight in a phone interview. ?The reality of it is that the tar sands 
employ in the neighbourhood of 65,000 employees, and having them all of 
a sudden not be able to work would be a huge problem. Canadians know 
that they need to buy gasoline to drive their cars, to get to work, to 
get their kids to school or sporting events or what have you. So we are 
going to be using fuel as we go forward in the next little while. 
Shutting down the tar sands would be a pretty bad thing to happen in the 
Canadian economy.?

Monbiot said he was involved in recent direct action to oppose open-pit 
coal mining in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.

?I?d never come across it, but it was a huge, huge mine,? Monbiot said 
of the Ffos-y-Fran mine. ?I mean, not huge by Albertan standards, but by 
British standards this is a very big mine for a very small country.?So 
these people said, ?Look, we?ve tried everything. We need some direct 
action here.? So I came back here and spoke to some friends, and they 
assembled the best group of activists ever assembled. It was fantastic. 
There were only about 25 of us, but we shut down the mine completely on 
two days and managed to give it much more profile than it had before. 
Suddenly, now open-cast [pit] mining is back on the agenda.?

Within Wales, the protest has helped to create pressure for much 
stricter conditions for mining, including a 500-metre buffer zone 
between a mine and the nearest home, Monbiot added.

?What we didn?t know?and we have since found out, thanks to a lobby 
group called the Coal Forum?[is] that would sterilize all the remaining 
useful coal reserves in Wales,? he said. ?Of course, the mining 
communities were built right on the coal. That would effectively wipe 
out open-cast mining in Wales. And then, the Coal Forum points out, if 
this spreads to England, there would be none there either. So we have 
found a way of stopping them.?

In a 2006 foreword to the Canadian edition of Heat, Monbiot called Prime 
Minister Stephen Harper an ?irresolute wimp? for claiming Canada could 
no longer meet its Kyoto targets.

?It strikes me that Harper is now greatly improving his rhetoric but 
doing as little as he can get away with,? Monbiot said in the 
restaurant. ?That?s my impression. It?s a question of creating enough of 
an impression of action to prevent this from becoming a major political 
liability. Of course, Canada?s projected emissions are catastrophic, 
thanks largely to the tar-sands operations in Alberta.?

http://www.straight.com/article-165166/george-monbiot-stirs-debate-over-...


From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  9 10:33:50 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 09:33:50 -0700
Subject: [R-G] George Monbiot: "Shut down the tar sands,
	as quickly as possible"
In-Reply-To: <48EE3069.5030801@resist.ca>
References: <48EE3069.5030801@resist.ca>
Message-ID: <3B30FDED-0758-4A32-8E96-C6B779882EA3@shaw.ca>

Truncated link; this one works:

http://www.straight.com/article-165166/george-monbiot-stirs-debate-over-fate-tar-sands

On 9-Oct-08, at 9:25 AM, Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

> George Monbiot stirs debate over fate of tar sands
> By Matthew Burrows
>
> George Monbiot wants the Alberta tar-sands industry shut down ?as
> quickly as possible?.
>
> The best-selling author, Guardian columnist, and environmentalist told
> the Georgia Straight he would like to see ?large-scale direct actions?
> to make that happen.
>
> When Monbiot granted the Straight an interview in late August, in a
> small restaurant in the Welsh town of Maccynleth, where he resides, an
> election had not yet been called. Canadians are now officially  
> headed to
> the polls on October 14, and Monbiot?who penned the 2006 book Heat, to
> high acclaim?said Canada must step up on the environmental front.
>
> ?There is a huge gulf, it seems, in Canada between people?s awareness
> and their determination to do something to protect the environment and
> the actual results of Canadian policy,? Monbiot said on August 21.  
> ?That
> gap has to be closed, and it has to be closed very quickly. One of the
> first actions that needs to be taken is to shut down the tar sands. I
> would like to see large-scale direct actions aimed at the tar sands,
> with the objective of ending that industry as quickly as possible.?
>
> Read a complete transcript of the Georgia Straight's interview with
> Guardian columnist Georgia Monbiot here.
>
> Michael Byers, NDP candidate in Vancouver Centre, told the Straight  
> that
> climate change is the ?principal reason? he entered politics. He said
> his wife gave him the go-ahead to run after she read Heat, and he  
> noted
> that he is a ?big fan? of Monbiot. On September 25, a CBC news clip
> played up Byers?s statement that the tar sands should be shut down.
> However, Byers said the clip took his comments out of context.
>
> ?What I should have said, had I known I was going to be clipped, was
> that the tar sands should be wound down,? Byers explained by phone.
>
> Byers noted that NDP leader Jack Layton successfully steered the  
> Climate
> Change Accountability Act through the House of Commons on June 4,  
> and in
> doing so secured agreement from the Liberals and the Bloc Qu?b?cois  
> that
> any future Canadian government is bound to an 80-percent reduction in
> Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.
>
> ?That is an 80-percent reduction over 1990 levels,? Byers said. ?If  
> you
> do the mathematics on that, it entails the shutting-down of the tar
> sands or the sequestering of the CO2 produced by them. When you add  
> that
> to the NDP climate-change policy, which is to withdraw all of the
> massive tax cuts to the tar sands as well as [placing] firm caps on  
> all
> of the large emitters?which will be ratcheted down fairly quickly? 
> and a
> massive investment in alternative-energy technologies, you are going  
> to
> see a winding-down of the tar sands. It is rapidly becoming the single
> largest point source for carbon dioxide on the planet.?
>
> However, Byers added that he ?would not? support the direct action
> advocated by Monbiot.
>
> ?I believe in the rule of law, and I believe in using peaceful
> mechanisms of political change, which is why I am running for  
> political
> office,? he said. ?I would put my decision to run for office as an
> example of how I believe that existing political structures need to be
> engaged by those who are fully aware of the climate-change crisis and
> committed to doing something serious about it.?
>
> Vancouver Centre Conservative candidate and former two-term MLA Lorne
> Mayencourt disagreed with Monbiot?s analysis.
>
> ?I think that the economic devastation that would follow a shutdown of
> the tar sands would rival the Great Depression,? Mayencourt told the
> Straight in a phone interview. ?The reality of it is that the tar  
> sands
> employ in the neighbourhood of 65,000 employees, and having them all  
> of
> a sudden not be able to work would be a huge problem. Canadians know
> that they need to buy gasoline to drive their cars, to get to work, to
> get their kids to school or sporting events or what have you. So we  
> are
> going to be using fuel as we go forward in the next little while.
> Shutting down the tar sands would be a pretty bad thing to happen in  
> the
> Canadian economy.?
>
> Monbiot said he was involved in recent direct action to oppose open- 
> pit
> coal mining in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.
>
> ?I?d never come across it, but it was a huge, huge mine,? Monbiot said
> of the Ffos-y-Fran mine. ?I mean, not huge by Albertan standards,  
> but by
> British standards this is a very big mine for a very small country.?So
> these people said, ?Look, we?ve tried everything. We need some direct
> action here.? So I came back here and spoke to some friends, and they
> assembled the best group of activists ever assembled. It was  
> fantastic.
> There were only about 25 of us, but we shut down the mine completely  
> on
> two days and managed to give it much more profile than it had before.
> Suddenly, now open-cast [pit] mining is back on the agenda.?
>
> Within Wales, the protest has helped to create pressure for much
> stricter conditions for mining, including a 500-metre buffer zone
> between a mine and the nearest home, Monbiot added.
>
> ?What we didn?t know?and we have since found out, thanks to a lobby
> group called the Coal Forum?[is] that would sterilize all the  
> remaining
> useful coal reserves in Wales,? he said. ?Of course, the mining
> communities were built right on the coal. That would effectively wipe
> out open-cast mining in Wales. And then, the Coal Forum points out, if
> this spreads to England, there would be none there either. So we have
> found a way of stopping them.?
>
> In a 2006 foreword to the Canadian edition of Heat, Monbiot called  
> Prime
> Minister Stephen Harper an ?irresolute wimp? for claiming Canada could
> no longer meet its Kyoto targets.
>
> ?It strikes me that Harper is now greatly improving his rhetoric but
> doing as little as he can get away with,? Monbiot said in the
> restaurant. ?That?s my impression. It?s a question of creating  
> enough of
> an impression of action to prevent this from becoming a major  
> political
> liability. Of course, Canada?s projected emissions are catastrophic,
> thanks largely to the tar-sands operations in Alberta.?
>
> http://www.straight.com/article-165166/george-monbiot-stirs-debate-over- 
> ...
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  9 11:39:48 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:39:48 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Israeli Best-seller Breaks National Taboo
Message-ID: <200810091739.m99HdmKM011310@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  9 12:11:24 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:11:24 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Huffing and puffing to silence criticism of Israel
Message-ID: <200810091811.m99IBO3D021555@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  9 12:48:18 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 11:48:18 -0700
Subject: [R-G] U.S. report warns of crisis in Afghanistan
Message-ID: <FDEEECBA-2928-4C8A-84C4-2E1B5710854D@shaw.ca>

U.S. report warns of crisis in Afghanistan
By Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt
Thursday, October 9, 2008
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=16813892

WASHINGTON: A draft report by American intelligence agencies concludes  
that Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral" and casts serious doubt on  
the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's  
influence there, according to American officials familiar with the  
document.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in  
Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the  
government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence  
from militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks  
from havens in Pakistan.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence  
Estimate, is set to be finished after the November elections and will  
be the most comprehensive American assessment in years on the  
situation in Afghanistan. Its conclusions represent a harsh verdict on  
decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the months after  
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States made Afghanistan the  
central focus of a global campaign against terrorism.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring  
Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's  
most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials  
said.

The report cites gains in the building of Afghanistan's national army,  
the officials said. But they said it also laid out in stark terms what  
it described as the destabilizing impact of the booming heroin trade,  
which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's  
economy.

The Bush administration has initiated a major review of its  
Afghanistan policy and has decided to send additional troops to the  
country. The downward slide in the security situation in Afghanistan  
has also become an issue in the presidential campaign, along with  
questions about whether the White House emphasis in recent years on  
the war in Iraq has been misplaced.

Inside the government, reports issued by the Central Intelligence  
Agency for more than two years have chronicled the worsening violence  
and rampant corruption inside Afghanistan, and some in the agency say  
they believe that it has taken the White House too long to respond to  
the warnings.

Henry Crumpton, a career CIA officer who last year stepped down as the  
State Department's top counterterrorism official, attributed some of  
Afghanistan's problems to a "lack of leadership" both at the White  
House and in European capitals where commitments to rebuild  
Afghanistan after 2001 have never been met.

Crumpton, who was in charge of the CIA teams that entered Afghanistan  
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but who said he had not seen the  
draft report, said that Afghanistan was "bad and getting worse" and  
that officials in Washington were just beginning to wake up to the  
problem.

"It's taken them a long time to realize it, but now they know it's  
pretty grim," he said.

A National Intelligence Estimate is a formal document that reflects  
the consensus judgments of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. Although  
the Bush administration has made public the crucial findings from some  
recent intelligence estimates on Iraq and terrorism, most remain  
classified. The assessment on Afghanistan is the first since the  
Taliban regained strength there beginning in 2006 and launched an  
offensive that has allowed them to seize large swaths of territory.

The draft intelligence report was described by more than a half dozen  
current government officials who have read its conclusions. They spoke  
on the condition of anonymity because the report remains classified  
and has not yet been completed.

Richard Willing, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of  
National Intelligence, which produces the national intelligence  
assessments, declined to comment for this article. A White House  
spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, also declined to comment on the report's  
conclusions but said: "Everyone understands that the current situation  
in Afghanistan is a tough one. That's why the president ordered  
additional troops there. That's why we're increasing the size of the  
Afghanistan Army."

Both major presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John  
McCain, have called for U.S. troop increases in Afghanistan even  
beyond those the White House has ordered. Obama has accused the White  
House of paying too little attention to Afghanistan as it poured the  
vast bulk of American resources into the war in Iraq, while McCain has  
defended the administration's decision, saying that Iraq remains the  
more important front in the battle against terrorism.

In the presidential debate on Tuesday, Obama said he told Karzai  
during a visit to Afghanistan in July that the Afghan leader had "to  
do better by your people in order for us to gain the popular support  
that's necessary."

"We have to have a government that is responsive to the Afghan  
people," Obama said, "and frankly it's just not responsive right now."

American officials said that intelligence agencies were also working  
to produce an assessment on Pakistan, and that both were to be  
completed after the elections next month. They said the draft findings  
had already begun to influence the recommendations of the White House- 
led review of Afghanistan policy, which was scheduled to be completed  
this month but has now been postponed several weeks.

The administration is considering whether the United States should  
devote more effort to working directly with tribal leaders in far- 
flung provinces, and possibly arming tribal militias, to fight the  
Taliban in places where Afghanistan's army and police forces have been  
ineffective.

The Bush administration had long resisted making tribal elders a  
centerpiece of American strategy in Afghani- stan. American officials  
had hoped instead that strong national institutions like the Afghan  
Army could protect the Afghan population, but the escalating violence  
this year has forced a reassessment of the value of the tribal system  
for counterinsurgency operations.

"In order to have an effective counterinsurgency strategy, you need to  
have strong local governance in the districts and the provinces," said  
a senior State Department official who has been briefed on the  
report's broad conclusions, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In a sign of the seriousness of the administration's policy review,  
the White House's top coordinator for Afghanistan policy, Lieutenant  
General Douglas Lute of the army, will lead a delegation of  
specialists who will travel there to assess the current situation, a  
senior administration official said Wednesday.

Administration officials say the review is examining how and where the  
nearly $6 billion in annual American assistance to Afghanistan is  
being spent; how to improve the effectiveness of small teams of  
American and European civilians and troops seeded throughout the  
Afghan provinces to spur economic growth; and how to strike the right  
balance between taking military action against the Taliban and Al  
Qaeda in Pakistan and providing more development aid to that country.  
Senior American commanders have recently been blunt in their  
assessment of the security trends in the country. "In large parts of  
Afghanistan, we don't see progress," General David McKiernan, the top  
American officer in Afghanistan, told reporters last week. "We're into  
a very tough counterinsurgency fight and will be for some time."

It is not just American officials who offer a grim prognosis. A French  
diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper last week quoted the  
British ambassador to Afghanistan as forecasting that the NATO-led  
mission there would fail.

"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting  
worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust," the  
British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as telling the French  
deputy ambassador to Kabul, who wrote the cable.



From critical.montages at gmail.com  Thu Oct  9 13:14:20 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 15:14:20 -0400
Subject: [R-G] The Great Repudiation?
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810091214i4b36db57ofdd87b2d184da13c@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_41/b4103032192140.htm>
Mandel on Economics October 2, 2008, 5:00PM EST
Shared Sacrifice Will Ease the Credit Crunch
Foreign lenders will have to take a haircut while American consumers
spend less and taxpayers take a hit

by Michael Mandel

Is the U.S. heading for another Great Depression? Probably not?but we
are about to go through a period future generations may call the Great
Repudiation.

The root cause of today's crisis lies not in the housing market but in
America's foreign debt. Over the past four years the U.S. private
sector has borrowed an astonishing $3 trillion from the rest of the
world. The money, directly and indirectly, came from countries such as
China, Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, which ran huge trade
surpluses with America. Foreign investors trusted their funds to U.S.
financial institutions, which used much of the money for mortgage
loans.

But American families took on a lot more debt than they could
comfortably afford. Now no one is sure how much of that towering sum
the U.S. is going to pay back?and all the uncertainty is roiling the
financial markets.

The Washington bailout debate boils down to this question: Who is
going to bear the burden of the $3 trillion mistake? Will low- and
middle-income borrowers have to cut back on spending to pay their
mortgage bills? Will taxpayers have to chip in big bucks to pay for
defaults on those debts? Or will Washington act in a way that imposes
large losses on foreign investors?in effect, repudiating some of the
debt? The best outcome is shared sacrifice among borrowers, taxpayers,
and foreign investors?but that result may be politically difficult to
achieve.

FINDING A FAIR PLAN

Since mid-2004, American households have taken on a bit more than $3
trillion in mortgage debt. The official statistics are very fuzzy, but
it looks like at least one-third of the debt, and perhaps half, was
financed with foreign money. As a result, foreign investors are
sitting on an enormous mountain of mortgage-related securities.

The value of those securities, though, depends on both economic and
political factors. Real wages have dropped for most U.S. workers since
2004. To make good on their mortgages, many low- and middle-income
families would have to sharply cut their spending, hurting both the
domestic economy and countries that export to the U.S.

A better solution is for borrowers, U.S. taxpayers, and foreign
investors to share the burden of the excess debt. The question,
though, is finding the fair division of pain. So far the U.S.
government has taken over Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), a
move that provides a taxpayer guarantee to investors, many of them
foreign, who own securities issued or backed by those companies. The
Paulson bailout plan, too, would devote up to $700 billion of taxpayer
money to buying up bad securities, with non-U.S. investors some of the
major beneficiaries.

Given the hostility to the Paulson plan, however, it's unlikely we
will see more money to prop up the prices of securities. The next step
in Washington could be legislation to benefit homeowners?say, by
allowing bankruptcy courts to reduce mortgage debt, which they cannot
do now. Alternately, the government could let more homeowners default
and more financial institutions go under. In either case, the value of
mortgage-related securities would drop, with foreign investors taking
much of the hit.

The global response to such a move depends a lot on how it's presented
by the leaders in Washington. It's unseemly for the world's richest
country to refuse to pay some of its debts. That's especially true
since much of the money came from poorer countries such as China. In
the worst case, the losses by foreign investors would lead to an
unwillingness to invest in the U.S. while fueling anti-American
sentiment around the world.

U.S. politicians are accustomed to playing to a domestic audience. But
in the end, making the case for shared global sacrifice may be the
biggest task facing the next President.

Mandel is chief economist for BusinessWeek.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Thu Oct  9 13:21:34 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 12:21:34 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Turkey re-authorizes strikes in Iraq
Message-ID: <D748BC30-5B5E-4558-B879-2974CA811686@shaw.ca>

  Turkey re-authorizes strikes in Iraq
By Sabrina Tavernise
Thursday, October 9, 2008
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=16801289

ISTANBUL: Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to  
extend by one year its authorization of military operations against  
Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, keeping the door open to future  
strikes in the region.

The approval, by a vote of 497 to 18, had been largely expected, and  
occurred amid a flurry of attacks in Turkey's largely Kurdish  
southeast. Seventeen Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on a  
border post late last week, and Turkey responded with several days of  
air strikes in Iraqi territory. A fresh attack on Wednesday killed  
five police officers and wounded 19 others on the outskirts of  
Diyarbakir in the southeast.

Turkey, a NATO member, has been fighting Kurdish separatists in its  
southeast since the 1980s, though the conflict has died down  
substantially in recent years. An attack on a border post last year  
set off a political confrontation between Turkey and Iraq, with Turkey  
conducting air strikes and a brief ground operation into Iraq.

A government mandate permitting the military to conduct operations  
outside Turkey was due to expire Oct. 17.

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said Turkey had conducted 29 air  
operations, several artillery strikes as well as land operations under  
the previous mandate.

Turkey contends that Iraq does not do enough to curb the rebels, known  
as the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who hide in the mountains  
along its northern border. Iraq says far more reside in Turkey.

The tension is a delicate matter for the United States, which counts  
Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds among its closest allies in a troubled  
region. When Turkey made a brief ground incursion early this year, the  
Bush administration pressed for a withdrawal. The Turkish strikes,  
however, have not ruined relations with Iraq, and even opened fresh  
lines of diplomacy between the countries.

The Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, in a visit to Finland on  
Wednesday, said the extension of the mandate would be "used solely  
against the pinpointed targets of the terror organization," the state- 
run Anatolian News Agency reported.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the vote that  
operations against the separatists would continue, but added that  
solving the problem was "also about diplomacy, politics, sociology and  
psychology."

Local elections are planned for March and Erdogan's party is working  
to win votes in the southeast, a region that has chosen Kurdish  
parties in the past.

The attack in Diyarbakir occurred on a bus carrying police officers in  
training on a highway into the city. The assailants used long-range  
rifles, Anatolian reported, and a grenade was thrown, but did not  
explode.

Turkey's interior minister, Besir Atalay, said in a live television  
broadcast that the authorities had not yet identified the assailants.  
"Our pain is grave," he said.

The Reuters news agency, quoting a PKK spokesman, said the group took  
responsibility for the attack, but contended that it had been fired on  
first.

The attack is likely to increase the public pressure on Erdogan to act  
against the rebels.



From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  9 13:24:21 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:24:21 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Afghanistan in a downward spiral -- US intelligence report
Message-ID: <200810091924.m99JOLPc006830@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  9 13:29:54 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:29:54 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Time To Face The Facts On Afghanistan
Message-ID: <200810091929.m99JTs0J018568@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Thu Oct  9 13:55:16 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:55:16 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The financial crisis -- what happened? What next?
Message-ID: <200810091955.m99JtGXA011077@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Thu Oct  9 18:04:38 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:04:38 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats' Bailout
	Betrayal
Message-ID: <48EE9C16.8010301@attglobal.net>


by Chris Hedges

Truthdig (October 05 2008)


The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal.
The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up
blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.

We are on our own. And don't expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe
Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and voted for it. Ignore their
rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they cast against us. We, as
citizens, have only a handful of representatives left in Washington,
most of whom were left sputtering in rage and frustration on the House
floor. The sad irony is that some of them were Republican.

"This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history
of this country", Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, who
led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by phone from
Cleveland. "It is a direct attack on the American people's ability to be
able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods. This single vote
will define the careers of everyone. We are back to taxation without
representation, to markets that are openly rigged."

"We buried the New Deal", he said of the vote. "Instead of Democrats
going back to classic New Deal economics where we prime the pump of the
economy and start money circulating among the population through saving
homes, creating jobs and building a new infrastructure, our leaders
chose to accelerate the wealth of the nation upwards. They did so in a
way that was destructive of free-market principles. They ripped away all
the familiar moorings. We are in an uncharted sea where the traditional
roles of the political parties are being switched. The Democrats have
unfortunately become so enamored and beholden to Wall Street that we are
not functioning to defend the economic interest of the broad base of the
American people. It was up to the Republicans to protect not just a
so-called free market but the American taxpayer and attempt to block
this. This is an outrage. This was democracy's Black Friday."

Obama arrived on the Senate floor Brutus-like to thrust a knife into the
back of the working and middle class. He lobbied hard for the bill. He
did so, according to some who met with him on Capitol Hill, because he
feared that if he opposed the bailout and it triggered a market collapse
it could cost him the election. Better to placate the thieves on Wall
Street than stand up for the masses of enraged and swindled citizens.

Obama's betrayal is the betrayal of the Democratic Party. The Democrats
gave us the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which ripped
down the firewalls that were put in place by the 1933 Glass-Steagall
Act. The 1933 act, designed to prevent the kind of meltdown we are now
experiencing, established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC). It set in place banking reforms to stop speculators from
hijacking the financial system. With Glass-Steagall demolished, and the
passage of NAFTA, the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, tumbled gleefully
into bed with corporations and Wall Street speculators. They achieved
fundraising parity with the Republicans. They used institutions like
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a welfare gravy train. The Democrats,
including Obama, are as compromised as the Republicans.

Obama's voting record in the Senate is in line with the corrupt
Democratic mainstream, including Biden, who works on behalf of
corporations and especially the credit card industry. Obama knows where
power lies in the United States. It is not with the citizens, who with
ratios of 100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washington not
to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investment firms.
Power lies with the corporations. These corporations, not us, pick who
runs for president. You cannot be a candidate without their blessing and
money. These corporations, including the Commission on Presidential
Debates, a private corporation, determine who gets to speak and what
issues candidates can or cannot challenge, from universal,
not-for-profit, single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to
NAFTA. If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal
and invisible as Ralph Nader or Bob Barr or Cynthia McKinney.

Obama has always served his corporate masters. He opposed Representative
John Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and supported
continued funding for the war. He voted in July 2005 to reauthorize the
Patriot Act. He did not support an amendment that was part of a
bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at
thirty percent. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious
Mining Law of 1872, which allows mineral companies to rape federal land
for profit. He did not back the single-payer health care bill HR 676,
sponsored by Kucinich and John Conyers. He advocates the death penalty
and nuclear power. He backed the class-action "reform" bill - the Class
Action Fairness Act (CAFA) - that was part of a large lobbying effort by
financial firms, which make up Obama's second-biggest single bloc of
donors. CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear
most class-action lawsuits. Workers, under CAFA, would no longer have
redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying
powerful corporations. CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly
federal courts dominated by Republican judges.

Obama's support for the bailout, however, is his most egregious
betrayal. He had a brief, shining moment to prove he could lead, to
capitalize on a popular revolt that cut across the political spectrum.
He never attempted to address or mobilize the aspirations and passions
of the vast majority of Americans. He was as craven, servile and
cowardly as the party he represents. He returned to the campaign trail
after Friday's vote as a slick and polished sales representative for our
corporate state, telling us to calm down and accept the inevitable.

"Some of the most powerful speeches against this were given by members
of the Republican Party who are on the political right", Kucinich said.
"They did a superb job in poking holes in the underlying assumptions of
the bailout. They say what they believe. Give me somebody who says what
they believe and I can figure out how to get them to a new place. When
people say one thing and do another it is very hard to be able to move a
debate."

So let us honor, in our moment of defeat, the handful of elected
officials who valiantly defied their party leaderships in the House to
stage a remarkable revolt that at first succeeded. Kucinich is one.
There were others - Brad Sherman, Marcy Kaptur, Peter DeFazio, Lloyd
Doggett and Robert C "Bobby" Scott. They are about all that is left of
the old Democratic Party, the party that once looked out for the poor
and the working class. Send them a note of thanks. They deserve it. And
if you live in their districts make sure you get to the polls in
November. They did not sell you out.

"We had two take-it-or-leave-it propositions and the second one was
worse than the first", Kucinich said, referring to the plan that came
loaded with pages of tax cuts. "Tax cuts are antithetical to a bailout.
We never solved the problem. There were never any hearings on the bill.
This premise, that we could prop up the stock market with a $700-billion
investment and create some liquidity, was flawed. The problem is that
banks do not want to loan to each other. It is not a liquidity problem.
Banks are afraid they are going to collapse in short selling. There is a
war going on between security firms and banks. Banks are under assault.
They are not loaning. The dynamic is driven by the Accounting Standards
Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed."

The root of the financial crisis, as critics of the bailout plan point
out, is that millions of homeowners cannot pay their mortgages. The
bailout, as the market decline on Friday following the vote illustrated,
does not address the crisis. It solves nothing for the ten million
Americans who face foreclosure. It solves nothing for the growing
numbers of unemployed and underemployed. It may well be the equivalent
of tossing $850 billion of taxpayer money (including $150 billion in tax
cuts) into a furnace and watching passively as our economy continues its
plunge.

"We face a perfect financial storm", Kucinich warned. "The elements are
the deficit spending for the war of three to four trillion dollars, the
trillion and more tax cuts, the war itself and the lack of serious
investment in the country. We are being hollowed out.  We are going to
see more unemployment and more people losing their homes. With $700
billion we could have made a real investment in the country, in jobs, in
infrastructure and in homes. Instead, we got robbed."

_____

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/20081006_dennis_kucinich_on_the_democrats_bailout_betrayal/


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 Oct  9 19:11:51 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 21:11:51 -0400
Subject: [R-G] NYT: Nuclear Aid By Russian To Iranians Suspected
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810091811q110e8cccnaae2617c1702e79b@mail.gmail.com>

What with the global financial crisis and other problems that should
be consuming all attention of world leaders, I thought that they
wouldn't have time for Iran, but. . . .  -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/world/10nuke.html>
October 10, 2008
Nuclear Aid By Russian To Iranians Suspected
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS ? International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a
Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments on how to
detonate a nuclear weapon, according to European and American
officials. As part of the investigation, inspectors at the
International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the
scientist, who they believe acted on his own as an adviser on
experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency,
the officials said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the
investigation is under way, said that the document appeared authentic,
without explaining why, but they made it clear that they did not think
the scientist was working on behalf of the Russian government.

Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has suggested that
Iran may have received help from a foreign weapons scientist in
developing nuclear arms.

The American and European officials said the new document, written in
Farsi, was part of an accumulation of evidence that Iran had worked
toward developing a nuclear weapon, despite Iran's claims that its
atomic work over the past two decades has been aimed solely at
producing electrical power.

In February, in a closed-door briefing at the agency's headquarters in
Vienna, its chief nuclear inspector presented diplomats from dozens of
countries with newly declassified evidence ? documents, sketches and
even a video ? that he said raised questions about whether Iran had
tried to design a weapon.

Among the data presented by Olli Heinonen, the chief inspector, were
indications that the Iranians had worked on exploding detonators that
are critical for the firing of most nuclear weapons.

When the Iranian envoy at the briefing called the charges "groundless"
and protested that the tests were for conventional arms, Mr. Heinonen
replied that the experiments were "not consistent with any application
other than the development of a nuclear weapon," two participants
said. He called the shape and timing involved in the firing systems
and detonators "key components of nuclear weapons."

At the same time, Mr. Heinonen acknowledged that the agency "did not
have sufficient information at this stage to conclude whether the
allegations are groundless or the data fabricated."

The new document under investigation offers further evidence of such
experiments, the Western officials said.

Iranian officials have said repeatedly that the documents the agency
is using in its investigation of Iran's past nuclear activities are
fabrications or forgeries, and that any experiments were not related
to nuclear weapons.

Iran has said the same about the new evidence, although the agency has
not shown the full document to government officials in Tehran.
Instead, Iran has been given only five pages of excerpts that have
been translated from Farsi into English.

The Western officials said that the conditions under which the
inspectors obtained the document prohibited them from revealing it in
full to the Iranians, out of fear that doing so could expose the
source of the document.

These restrictions present a problem for Mohamed ElBaradei, the
agency's director general, who is pressing Iran to reveal its past
nuclear activity. "I cannot accuse a person without providing him or
her with the evidence," he said last year.

Although officials would not say how they had obtained the new
document, it was first publicly mentioned in an agency report in May
as one of 18 documents presented to Iran in connection with suspected
nuclear weapons studies. At the time it was described as a "five-page
document in English" about experiments with a complex initiation
system to detonate a large amount of high explosives and to monitor
the detonation with probes. There was no indication that the document
was a translation of a much longer, more comprehensive document in
Farsi.

The original, Farsi document is described by officials familiar with
it as a detailed narrative of experiments aimed at creating a
perfectly timed implosion of nuclear material.

According to experts, the most difficult challenges in developing
nuclear weapons are creating the bomb fuel and figuring out how to
compress and detonate it.

That was followed by an agency report last month that revealed that
Iran might have received "foreign expertise" in its detonator
experiments.

A senior official with links to the agency said then that a foreign
government was not involved. He ruled out the involvement of Libya and
the remnants of the network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani
metallurgist who built the world's largest black-market sales
operation for nuclear technology. But he would not comment further.

European and American officials now say that the "foreign expertise"
was a reference to the Russian scientist, but they offered only scant
details. They said that the scientist was believed to have helped
guide Iranians in the experiments, but that he did not write the
document.

Nor is he thought to have been affiliated with the civilian electric
power plant that is being rebuilt by Russia at the Iranian port of
Bushehr, and which Russia has agreed to fuel with nuclear material,
the officials said.

Russia says it opposes any effort by Iran to obtain a weapon, but
cooperation by Russian companies and individuals with some aspects of
Iran's nuclear program dates back years.

In the late 1990s, Russia's scientific and technical elite, reeling
from the collapse of the Soviet Union, forged ties to Iran, which paid
hard currency for aid in weapons and technical programs. Western
experts say the help extended to Tehran's atomic efforts, but there
was never any proof in those years of a Russian link to nuclear
weapons development.

"The Iranians were very active in recruiting and paying Russian
scientists to provide them with assistance in their nuclear program,"
said Gary S. Samore, a National Security Council official during the
Clinton administration who now directs studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations.

He said he had no recollection of Russian aid in the design of Iranian
nuclear arms but added that it could have happened. "It's plausible to
me that they at some point paid a Russian nuclear expert to provide
assistance," he said in an interview.

Asked about the potential contribution of the Russian scientist in
detonator experimentation, a senior Russian official who has long
followed Iran's nuclear program said, "It is difficult for me to add
anything."

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York, and David E.
Sanger from Washington.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Fri Oct 10 04:32:45 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:32:45 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Iran Uses Price Power in $2 Billion Gas Deal + Oil's Drop
	Squeezes Producers
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810100332s5bfe8e5agb1d43a94c017d319@mail.gmail.com>

The Iranians have so far lucked out* in the global financial crisis,
though the crisis will eventually affect their economy, too, through
diminished oil demand.**  Now they can concentrate on their always
exciting domestic struggle without undue foreign interference:
e.g., "Iran Fires Central Banker,"
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54c007b6-8825-11dd-b114-0000779fd18c,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html>;
"'Looting' of Iran's Central Bank Assets Hit,"
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d80bfdc2-93f7-11dd-b277-0000779fd18c,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html>;
"Iran's Bazaar Traders in Revolt against New Tax,"
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35234982-9611-11dd-9dce-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html>;
"Iran Shopkeepers Strike over VAT Introduction,"
<http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hwqT3fvXZy4znUzUNghKBKEd5cGg>;
"Ahmadinejad's Economic Conundrum,"
<http://www.metimes.com/Opinion/2008/09/26/ahmadinejads_economic_conundrum/3885/>;
"Ahmadi-Nejad Opens Coffers to Shield Poor,"
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e89c3ae-8b25-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html>;
"Ahmadinejad Details Stipend Measure,"
<http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081008/FOREIGN/148671764/1135>;
"Larijani: No to Inflationary Measures,"
<http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71741&sectionid=351020102>).

Yoshie

* <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122358605030520363.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>
OCTOBER 10, 2008
Iran Uses Price Power in $2 Billion Gas Deal
By ROSHANAK TAGHAVI

TEHRAN, Iran -- Oil prices may be softening, but the price of natural
gas is climbing sharply in the Persian Gulf, thanks to the booming
economies of the Arab petro-states.

Iran looks set to squeeze the region's highest wholesale gas prices
from the United Arab Emirates as part of a 25-year, $2 billion
natural-gas export deal between the two countries. Crescent Petroleum,
based in the emirate of Sharjah, has offered to pay about $5 per
million British thermal units for Iranian gas, according to a person
familiar with the matter.

Unlike oil prices, gas prices vary widely from region to region. The
price offered by Crescent is almost four times what the U.A.E. pays
for gas from Qatar. And it is more than five times the average
weighted regional gas price for the Middle East and North Africa.

Iran's new pricing power comes as its regime tries to kick-start
stalled gas-development plans. It also comes amid a growing energy gap
in the booming economies of the Arab petro-states.

A shortage of clean-burning natural gas to fuel economic expansion in
the U.A.E. has the country scrambling for new sources.

Gulf countries experienced sharp economic growth as oil prices
climbed. The U.A.E. in particular has developed into a real-estate and
industrial powerhouse. The U.A.E. is the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries' fourth-largest oil producer. But it has become
increasingly dependent on natural gas to fuel new power plants and
desalination plants, and to provide feedstock for new industries. The
country is struggling to secure new supplies, both domestic and
overseas.

"Natural gas is a fuel of choice for clean and efficient power
generation" in the U.A.E., said Majid Jafar, Crescent's executive
director.

The U.A.E. isn't the only Gulf country looking for more gas. In a
report released Tuesday, Moody's Investors Service said "fuel supply
and resulting power shortages" were the biggest risks to long-term
growth in the Persian Gulf region.

The price agreement would be a small victory for Iran's struggling oil
and gas industry, hobbled for years by international sanctions. Iran
has spent around $1.5 billion on the project, building a 174-mile
undersea pipeline linking Iran's Salman offshore gas field to
Crescent's gas-processing facilities in Sharjah. As part of the deal,
another Sharjah-based company, Dana Gas PJSC, will transport and
process the Iranian gas. A joint venture between the two Sharjah
companies will market the gas. Iran sits atop the world's
second-largest gas reserves, but ambitious plans for
liquefied-natural-gas export facilities have faltered. Only a few big
oil companies have the know-how to build such facilities.

Sanctions have halted any technology transfer.

At the same time, Iran hasn't developed its reserves efficiently
enough to meet its own consumption. The country imports roughly 5% of
its gas needs from Turkmenistan. Crescent, Dana and National Iranian
Oil Co. signed the deal in April 2001. Original export plans were
delayed because construction of offshore processing platforms for the
deal weren't completed by Iranian contractors until earlier this year,
Mr. Jafar said.

First exports could begin within months. But fresh corruption
allegations from Iran's government threaten more delays.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested in September that the
deal was tainted by behind-the-scenes dealing, but he wasn't specific.
Nevertheless, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he would endorse the deal as long
as it was based on regional market prices. Crescent said it
"categorically denies any wrongdoings or corruption."

Write to Roshanak Taghavi at Roshanak.Taghavi at dowjones.com

** <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122357560511419739.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>
Oil's Drop Squeezes Producers
Economies of Iran, Venezuela Vulnerable as Crude Price Falls but
Demand Stays Low
By NEIL KING JR. and SPENCER SWARTZ

Big oil-producing countries are showing signs of distress as the
global credit crunch and falling crude prices begin to squeeze
government budgets and delay projects.

Fears that the boom days are fading appear strongest in Iran and
Venezuela, whose governments have come to rely on oil prices to prop
up otherwise shaky economies. Both countries this week led a chorus
within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries calling for
an emergency meeting of the cartel, now set for Nov. 18, to weigh a
production cut.

Crude-oil Futures:
<http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/AI-AR455_OIL_NS_20081009134427.gif>

The global economic crisis is eating into oil demand, particularly in
the U.S. and Europe, and helping drive down crude prices. Some
forecasters said that despite a strong thirst for oil in Asia and the
Middle East, global oil consumption could flatten out next year,
potentially ending nearly a decade of steady demand growth.

In early afternoon trading, benchmark crude for November delivery fell
$1.59, or 1.8%, to $87.36, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude
has plunged around $60 a barrel from its July high, and analysts said
signs of a deep recession among industrialized countries could move
prices down further.

Oil exporters have racked up cash surpluses as prices soared to
historic highs. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter, is
expected to record $138 billion this year, up from $95 billion last
year.

But government spending also has soared within OPEC and among other
big producers such as Russia, based in part on the expectation that
oil prices would remain high.

Standard & Poor's said last week that Venezuela's budget balance
"could deteriorate quickly" if crude prices fall sharply. The
nationalization of a number of industrial companies is expected to
cost the government around $6 billion, or about 2% of gross domestic
product, in 2008, according to Standard & Poor's.

PFC Energy, a Washington consultancy, estimates that Venezuela needs
an oil price of nearly $95 a barrel to assure macroeconomic stability,
three times what they needed in 2000. By contrast, Saudi Arabia
requires an oil price of $55 a barrel, more than double from eight
years ago, according to PFC estimates.

PFC believes Iran's price threshold to be similar to Saudi Arabia's.
But the International Monetary Fund warned recently that Iran will
have to cut state subsidies and shave government spending if oil
prices stay below $90 a barrel.

Russia also could face cutbacks, as its budget for 2009 counts on a
price of $82 a barrel for Russian Urals crude, which sells at a
discount to the U.S. benchmark.

For much of this year, the oil-driven economies of the Persian Gulf
have been largely buffered from the financial turmoil in the U.S. and
Europe. But that appears to be changing.

Investors in the six Gulf states, which include OPEC members Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, have taken a
pounding this year, amassing almost $350 billion in stock-market
losses since January, according to Zawya Dow Jones estimates.

Those losses go some way in explaining why credit in some areas is drying up.

Consultants at Medley Global Advisors said big Middle East power and
water projects, vital to meeting the region's electricity demand, are
facing financing delays and rising capital costs. Some petrochemical
projects, which provide raw materials to make plastics and
fertilizers, also are under pressure.

"The global credit crunch has seen the number of international banks
lending to the power and water sector decline," said Medley energy
director Bill Farren-Price.

The financial turmoil doesn't appear to have affected big state-run
oil-exploration projects in the Gulf, largely because national
companies such as Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, typically finance
these projects with cash.

But signs are emerging in other OPEC countries that energy projects
could get caught in the financial fallout. The industry's efforts to
pump more oil and natural gas already are suffering from high costs,
technical challenges and political barriers.

A senior Nigerian oil official said the financial environment has
weakened the West African government's ability to tap local and
foreign banks to help bankroll its share of oil and natural-gas
projects with energy companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
Nigeria's joint-venture projects with foreign companies are important
to the government's goal of boosting production to four million
barrels a day over the next decade or so.

Libya's National Oil Co. also may have to delay or scupper some
projects if financing problems worsen, said company chief Shokri
Ghanem, who is also the North African nation's top representative to
OPEC. Mr. Ghanem declined to say what type of projects were at risk,
but said, "we aren't sure if all the finance is going to be there."

OPEC is likely to reduce production to defend prices from falling
below $80 a barrel. But some analysts said that heightened costs
elsewhere in the oil patch may keep prices from falling much further
anyway.

A study released by Bernstein Research of New York this week argues
that oil prices will remain linked to the cost of producing supplies
from difficult but crucial fields deep offshore and elsewhere, a cost
the research firm puts at between $75 and $80 a barrel. By 2012, the
firm said, that cost likely will have jumped to $105 a barrel.

Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king at wsj.com and Spencer Swartz at
spencer.swartz at dowjones.com

<http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hSsyJGcDwFvqme0PyNxTaRcr8syA>
Security Council adopts Iran resolution with no new sanctions
Sep 27, 2008

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) ? The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously
adopted a resolution again urging Iran to suspend its sensitive
nuclear fuel work but offering no new sanctions and merely reaffirming
existing ones.

Resolution 1835 calls on Iran "to fully comply and without delay with
its obligations (under relevant UN resolutions) and to meet the
requirement of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) board of
governors."

<http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE4940JC20081005>
U.S. sanctions: financial firewall for Iran, Syria?
Sun Oct 5, 2008 4:08am EDT
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent - Analysis

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria and Iran, both targeted by U.S. sanctions,
proclaim that their "independent" economies will suffer less than
others from global financial turmoil.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct 10 11:05:07 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:05:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Stephen Harper's Economics
Message-ID: <A65D627E-2634-41DB-BC34-9A3A7F59068F@shaw.ca>

Marie-Antoinette on the Campaign Trail
Harper to Canadian Workers: "Let them eat economic fundamentals!"

October 10, 2008 By Nikolas Barry-Shaw

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19084

As the waves of the U.S. financial tsunami start to lap up against  
Canadian shores, voters are beginning to ask themselves who the  
candidates will sympathize with come crunch time: bankers or ordinary  
workers?  Stephen Harper would have you believe that he, like Bill  
Clinton, feels your pain.  While empathizing with working people  
generally lies outside the formal training of right-wing economists  
such as Harper, the Prime Minister assured a crowd in London, Ont.  
that he feels for people who have lost their jobs:

     We know that some Canadian workers are transitioning between  
jobs, that's never easy and I     don't want to minimize it, but we  
should never lose sight of how solid our fundamentals are and     more  
importantly how fortunate we are to live in this country.

While those fortunate enough to own stock in the banks and the oil  
companies have certainly enjoyed the fruits of "solid" economic  
fundamentals, ordinary Canadians have most certainly not, according to  
a recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.  It  
wasn't always so. "Between the Second World War and 1980, the economic  
pie was growing at all points in the distribution, even if income  
shares in Canada didn't change much" observes Lars Osberg, author of  
"A Quarter Century of Economic Inequality in Canada: 1981-2006".

With the exhaustion of the post-war boom, however, class warfare was  
reborn under the moniker of neoliberalism.  Employers' hardened stance  
and an open assault on trade union freedoms - pursued by Tory and  
Liberal governments alike - would usher in a "new norm" of lowered  
expectations and "stagnant or declining real wages, despite  
unprecedented improvements in education and skills," for Canadian  
workers. The "fear of falling" for workers was also enhanced, with the  
poor facing "a much nastier reality now than twenty years ago, since  
cuts to social assistance have substantially increased the poverty gap  
- even in Canada's richest provinces."

(Stephane Dion's claim to represent both social justice and the  
economic legacy of the Chretien/Martin years is unproblematic only to  
those with a serious case of historical amnesia.  It was precisely the  
deep cuts to social spending made by the Liberals during those years -  
after beating the Tories in 1993 on the promise of "Jobs, jobs, jobs"  
- that helped established this "new norm".)

While Harper sang the praises of Canada's economic fundamentals,  
ordinary Canadians were clear that the matter is not simply of  
"transitioning" from one job to another.  "All the well paid jobs are  
turning into low-paid jobs with no benefits," Roy Jollymore, a retired  
General Motors worker, told the Canadian Press. "The life we've built  
up is not going to be available for young people," he said as his wife  
Joan stood by him outside the London Convention Centre.

To Canadian workers suffering the brunt of economic restructuring,  
Harper's callous message must sound a lot like Marie-Antoinette's  
advice to the sans-culottes of the French Revolution.  Declaring "Let  
them eat economic fundamentals!" is cold comfort to those who are  
working harder and sinking deeper into debt just to stay in place, as  
so many Canadians are.

Yet for economists like Harper who fetishize economic figures like GDP  
growth, or for those who actually profit by them, the economy of the  
past quarter century has worked marvellously.  The incomes of the  
richest 1% of Canadians have been growing very strongly, especially  
since the 1990s - with even greater gains going to the richest 0.1%  
and 0.01%. "They are literally pulling away from the rest of  
Canadians," according to the CCPA.

Harper was not urging Canadians to feel fortunate with respect to  
their recent past, however.  As he continued his speech, Harper  
explained that what workers "should never lose sight of" is how  
fortunate they are not to be Haitians:

     He then talked about how he travelled to a desperately  
impoverished slum in Haiti and how the     people there looked  
hopeless, in stark contrast to Canada, which he described as "a land  
of     above all else, boundless hope."

The demagogy is breathtaking.  After all, it was Canada, in concert  
with the U.S. and France, who put Haitians in such a hopeless  
situation.  Canada helped plan and execute the overthrow Jean-Bertrand  
Aristide's democratically-elected reformist government, in whom  
Haiti's poor had invested so much hope.  After the coup d'?tat, Naomi  
Klein writes, there was "a wave of Falluja-like collective punishment  
inflicted on neighborhoods known for supporting Aristide," unleashed  
by the Canada-backed interim government and the UN "peacekeeping"  
mission.

The repression imposed a "peace of the graveyards" on these restive  
neighborhoods, so that Harper and other foreign dignitaries could  
visit like conquering heroes.  During his July 20, 2007, visit to Cit?  
Soleil, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods of Haiti's capital,  
Harper stated that Canada's presence in Haiti was "giving [Haitians]  
some hope and some opportunity," and that "Canadians should be very  
proud that they are offering to help, that our help is making a  
difference in terms in safety of people's lives."  The sullen looks on  
the faces of the mothers present for Harper's awkward photo-op,  
however, told another story.

The savage violence of the occupation was necessary to impose a  
tremedously unpopular neoliberal economic plan on Haiti.  The  
opposition was so great that Haitians began referring to IMF and World  
Bank strictures as the "plan lanmo", literally "the death plan".   
Today the "death plan" continues its march under the name of the  
Interim Cooperation Framework.  Written largely by experts from the  
World Bank and the Canadian and American governments, the text of the  
ICF is explicit about the anti-democratic nature of the deal:

     The transition period and the Transitional Government provide a  
window of opportunity for     implementing economic governance reforms  
with the involvement of civil society stakeholders     that may be  
hard for a future government to undo.

As part of a Latin American tour, Harper's visit to Haiti was a  
bellwether of the changed economic times.  Canadian capital in the  
neoliberal age has aggressively expanded abroad, with foreign direct  
investment reaching $445 billion in 2004, representing nearly 40% of  
GDP (up from 5% of GDP in 1970).  Latin America has been a favourite  
destination for Canadian investors, whose assets total $96 billion,  
making Canada the region's second-largest investor.  This regional  
dominance isn't about to change either, with the growth rate of  
Canadian investments there far exceeding that of Asia or the EU.

Canada's corporate elites have urged a foreign policy centred on  
prying open markets and investment outlets, while forcibly integrating  
recalcitrant and "dysfunctional" or "failed" states like Haiti into  
the world economy.  As the tour began, Scotiabank President Rick Waugh  
called on Harper to "place a particular focus on trade and investment  
opportunities in the Americas because of our historic cultural and  
political ties, our existing corporate links, and the tremendous  
growth potential and proximity of these markets."

While the situation of Haitians and Canadians are in many ways worlds  
apart, there are more similarities than Harper's crass "hopelessness"  
vs. "boundless hope" comparison acknowledges.  Just days before food  
riots exploded across Haiti, the UN released a glowing report on  
Haiti's economy: "Macroeconomic indicators have continued to improve,  
and the country has experienced economic growth at a level that had  
not been possible for decades."  Once the crisis broke, however, UN  
officials were forced to admit that while "economic growth has  
returned to a 1991 level of 3.2% a year and inflation declined to 8%  
in 2007 from 30%-40% a few years earlier, . . . there has not been any  
improvement in difficult living conditions of the vast majority of  
Haitians."  Neoliberalism, in Haiti like in Canada, has created an  
economy whose economic fundamentals no longer correspond in any  
meaningful way to the well-being of ordinary people.

Economics are not the only area of convergence.  Stephen Baranyi uses  
these broad strokes to describe Haiti's social order: "Haitian  
politics have historically been controlled by elites who have used  
their power to enhance their and their allies' privileges. It rests on  
an awareness of the continued influence of those elites, and the  
contemporary twist to this cruel tale by which some of these elites  
are now junior partners in transnational organized criminal networks  
that link kingpins in Colombia to their counterparts in countries like  
Canada and the USA."

Yet are Canadian politics that different?  Or have they not also  
"historically been controlled by elites who have used their power to  
enhance their and their allies' privileges" with a similar  
"contemporary twist . . . by which some of these elites are now junior  
partners in transnational organized criminal networks" in Washington,  
in Paris, etc.?


Nikolas Barry-Shaw is a member of Haiti Action Montreal and Masse  
Critique, an anti-capitalist collective of Qu?bec Solidaire.



From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 10:58:25 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:58:25 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Risk of global financial meltdown and severe depression
Message-ID: <200810101658.m9AGwPP7005260@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 12:03:34 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:03:34 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The German Question
Message-ID: <200810101803.m9AI3Y7V010584@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 12:04:48 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:04:48 -0700
Subject: [R-G] A tale of two parliaments
Message-ID: <200810101804.m9AI4ma3013893@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct 10 12:57:00 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:57:00 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The End of the Economy: Some Thoughts on How to Economize
Message-ID: <AF47961E-88CF-4FBF-98D7-AF61F8DC6953@shaw.ca>

Weekend Edition
October 10 / 12, 2008
Some Thoughts on How to Economize
The End of the Economy
http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham10122008.html
By CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM

The good news for economy ? I use the word in its old, perhaps  
archaic, sense ? keeps on coming, but we are told the current  
?economic? crisis is a tragedy for the nation?s living standards.  Far  
from it.  First of all, let?s define economy.  What we are hopefully  
entering is a period of real economy, which means conserving, scaling  
down, simplifying, saving, spending prudently and wisely and only for  
the things that one needs.  A decent meal of greens and simple protein  
(I suggest beans and rice and spinach), good drink (Budweiser works  
wonders), clothes and shoes that last and can be mended for the long  
haul (try old military surplus and paratrooper boots), shelter that is  
modest and affordable but functional and not a credit scam.  Having a  
beautiful wife or girlfriend who doesn?t like to wear clothing also  
helps.

But everywhere the consensus trance holds that a slow-down of  
consumption signals the End Time, the shuttering of hope, chance,  
freedom.  Look no further than how the New York Times spins it from  
the usual gibberishing oracles: ?The last few days have devastated the  
American consumer,? says retail consultant Walter Loeb.  Americans,  
avers Loeb, ?all feel poor.?  Really?  So too we are meant to believe  
that ?when consumers get concerned about?their country, they need  
entertainment,? per the wisdom of the Entertainment Merchants  
Association.   So too is it ?amazing how much even these 10-year-old  
girls are aware that something is going on,? the chairman and chief  
executive of Tween Brands tells us, who has been traveling the country  
to ?listen to moms and little girls.?  And what does the CEO hear?   
?Mom is saying, ?I can?t afford that.??

Tragic, darkness at noon, a nightmare I tell you.  The reporters in  
the mainstream press, as dimly discerning as dreamers who know nothing  
but the dream from which they can?t awake, escort us through the  
envisaged circles of hell of this ?unaffordable? world.  The benefits  
of the descent are manifold but tacitly unrecognized: the malls no  
longer trap rats with credit cards, the casinos no longer suck blood  
from the arms of degenerates, the lousy restaurants no longer make you  
nauseous for $100 a plate (gasp ? the Times reports that the  
ungrateful citizens are eating at home!), the retailers no longer ask  
you to throw away perfectly good shoes, the jewelers no longer sell to  
serious adults the silly shiny trinkets meant for the pleasure of  
cretins, the auto dealerships no longer peddle cars half as efficient  
as last year?s model, the cellphone hawkers no longer sell the  
I3869Zed Super-Iphone to burn out the brains and tire the ears, the  
home builders no longer slap-dab junk homes in exurban fields meant  
for farms that can sustain something we once called the future.

Nor, according to the New York Times, will the new blah-blah Super- 
Blah be available, because of the contracting ?economy,? and the other  
new blahs from Blah Inc., and many other new blahs that Blah  
Investments recommends ? because the consumer just won?t make the  
penny scream, won?t play the game.  The game, of course, is predicated  
on being an infantilized weirdo, a grasping entitled half-fetus on two  
legs with a college degree crying ?awn it awn it? from inside the womb  
of cash, cycling through the drooled suggestions of the marketeers as  
if our ?freedom? depends on how much money we can waste rather than  
how much we need to survive.

Like I said, recession is all good news, and not just for our brains  
and souls, but for the planet and the real chance for Americans to  
survive in some kind of non-debased, non-infantilized, non-crap- 
inundated form ? a race of fully matured and, dare I say, noble  
creatures.  Every time I hear the New York Times lamenting that the  
average American refuses to open his billfold for bullshit, I envision  
less metal in the junkyard, less garbage in the scow, less forest  
turned into the Times, less pollution in the skies and water, less  
stupidity in the shape of owning more.  I also envision a resurgence  
of cobblers mending the soles of shoes ? cobblers who I can?t seem to  
find anymore in these fair United States to fix up my boots.

If it?s true that consumer spending now accounts for two-thirds of the  
American ?economy? ? god help us ? then there?s nothing economic about  
it, as defined above.   In other words, if it doesn?t economize, then  
the ?economy? is not worth maintaining.

Christopher Ketcham writes for GQ, Harper?s, and many other  
magazines.  Contact him at cketcham99 at mindspring.com 

From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 13:13:09 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:13:09 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Loonie takes steepest one-day dive ever
Message-ID: <200810101913.m9AJD9oZ004707@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 13:40:28 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:40:28 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Pension plans take biggest hit in decade
Message-ID: <200810101940.m9AJeSJC025909@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 14:06:26 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:06:26 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Islamophobia and politics in North America: The Movie
	Obsession
Message-ID: <200810102006.m9AK6QpW012568@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Fri Oct 10 14:25:03 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:25:03 -0700
Subject: [R-G] FAIR's Islamophobia report;
	David Cay Johnston on meltdown/bailout
Message-ID: <4566CC88-FCF7-4930-9C50-53C0929264C6@shaw.ca>

http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin101008.mp3

David Cay Johnston on meltdown/bailout, Isabel MacDonald & Steve  
Rendall on 'Smearcasting,' FAIR's Islamophobia report

Counterspin (10/10/08-10/16/08)

This week on CounterSpin: The bailout story turns again as Congress  
passes the White House's bailout bill. Will reporters give up  
questioning the plan entirely now that it has that holy grail of  
"bipartisan support"? We'll hear from one journalist who's been  
calling for skepticism from the beginning--author and reporter David  
Cay Johnston, recently retired from the New York Times.

Also on the show: "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry  
and Misinformation," is the name of a just-released report by FAIR  
that looks at how America's leading Islamophobes--who the report dubs  
"The Dirty Dozen"--are able to spread their bigotry through mainstream  
media with little resistance. The report also looks at several other  
aspects of Islamophobia, including how it has played out in the  
current presidential campaign. We'll be talking with FAIR's  
communications director Isabel MacDonald, and CounterSpin's own Steve  
Rendall, two of the report's co-authors.

Links:

? Ask Tough Questions About the Bailout, by David Cay Johnston  
(Poynter Institute, 9/23/08)

? Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and  
Misinformation, by Steve Rendall, Isabel MacDonald, Veronica Cassidy  
and Dina Marguerite Jacir (FAIR, 10/08) 	Listen: [mp3]
[RealAudio]
http://www.smearcasting.com/

http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin101008.mp3

From shniad at sfu.ca  Fri Oct 10 14:21:19 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:21:19 -0700
Subject: [R-G] If Pakistan goes bust, the Taliban could rule there as well
Message-ID: <200810102021.m9AKLJxN010620@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Fri Oct 10 16:55:40 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:55:40 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Anti-Empire Report
Message-ID: <48EFDD6C.3090205@attglobal.net>


Read this or George W Bush will be president the rest of your life

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org (October 01 2008)


101 ways to get rich without doing anything socially useful

Why do we have this thing called a "financial crisis"? Why have we had
such a crisis periodically ever since the United States was created?
What changes occur or what happens each time to bring on the crisis? Do
we forget how to make things that people need? Do the factories burn
down? Are our tools lost? Do the blueprints disappear? Do we run out of
people to work in the factories and offices? Are all the services that
people need for a happy life so well taken care of that there's hardly
any more need for the services? In other words: What changes take place
in the real world to cause the crisis? Nothing, necessarily. The crisis
is usually caused by changes in the make-believe world of financial
capitalism.

All these grown men playing their boys' games. They create an assortment
of financial entities, documents, and packages that go by names like
hedge funds, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, index funds,
credit default swaps, structured investment vehicles, subprime
mortgages, and dozens of other exotic monetary vehicles. They create all
manner of commercial pieces of paper, of no known real or inherent
value, backed up by few if any standards. Then they sell these various
pieces of paper to the public and to each other. They slice and dice
mortgages into arcane and risky instruments, then bundle them together,
and sell the packages to those higher up in the pyramid scheme. And some
of those engaged in this Wild West buying and selling become
millionaires. Some become billionaires. They get Christmas bonuses
greater than what most Americans earn the entire year. Is all this not
remarkable?

And much of the buying is not done with the buyer's own money, but with
borrowed funds; "leveraged", they call it. The pieces of paper sometimes
represent commodities, but the actual commodities are not seen, may not
even exist; if the seller demanded the buyer's own funds, or the buyer
wanted to see the goods, the whole transaction would freeze. They sell
"long", expecting the price to rise; they sell "short", expecting the
price to fall; they sell "naked short", which means they neither possess
nor own what they're selling; a name for each gimmick. They take
ever-greater risks buying and selling increasingly-esoteric pieces of
paper. It's a glorified Las Vegas, casino capitalism.

These pieces of paper can be so complex that many of those buying and
selling them do not fully understand them; no problem, they just resell
the pieces of paper to someone else at a higher price, even when one or
both parties know that the paper, while pretending to be payable debt,
is virtually worthless. The government, even when it tries to moderately
regulate this Monopoly board, can at times also be confused by the
complexities of the pieces of paper, compounded by the
less-than-transparent practices that envelop the transactions; a
potpourri including speculation, manipulation, fraud. Billionaire
financier Warren Buffett has called the pieces of paper "weapons of mass
financial destruction".

The boys of finance have been playing their games for years, and so at
each stage of the process there are insurance policies allowing the
players to hedge their bets; they insure, and they re-insure; hopefully
covering themselves against the many risks of the game, often knowing
that they're trading in questionable debts; the giant corporation AIG, a
major player in the insurance game, has just been taken over by the
federal government. And with each transaction, at each level, someone
earns a commission or a fee. There are also other firms whose purpose in
life is to go around rating various players and their pieces of paper
and their credit worthiness and giving seals of approval which are
relied upon by investors. Some of these rating firms, we're now
learning, have been surprisingly incompetent, when not simply dishonest

President Roosevelt, confronted in the 1930s with similar players,
called them "banksters".

It's all built on faith, as fragile as the religious kind, the belief
that something is worth something because it comes with a piece of paper
with reassuring words and numbers written on it, because it's traded,
rated, and insured, because someone will sell it and someone will buy
it. The same market psychology, the same herd mentality, that went into
constructing this house of cards built on pillars of greed can cause the
house to collapse in a heap. But the Monopoly players keep their
bonuses, and bow out with multimillion-dollar golden parachutes; while
tent cities are springing up all over America.

Is this any way to run a society of human beings?

And the government is in the process of trying to bail out these
reckless traders, these parasites, rescuing them and their system from
their own nonsense. With our money; without a major restructuring of the
Alice-in-Wonderland rules of the financial games, without instituting
the toughest of regulations, oversight, and transparency, and with no
guarantee that the spoiled-little-brat Masters of the Universe will act
in any way other than their own narrow self interest, the rest of us be
damned.

Capitalism is the theory that the worst people, acting from their worst
motives, will somehow produce the most good.

There is perhaps some consolation. The libertarian and neo-conservative
true believers will have a harder time selling their snake oil of
privatization of Social Security or any other social program. Government
regulation of matters vital to the public's welfare may be taken more
seriously. We may hear less of that old bromide that markets are
inherently self-correcting. It may even give a boost to the idea of
national health insurance.

And the libertarians and neo-conservatives are hurting and defensive,
albeit not yet admitting to any new-found wisdom. A Washington Post
interview with some true believers at the Cato Institute, where Ayn
Rand's picture prominently hangs, produced these quotations: "Too much
regulation got us where we are" ... "The biggest emotion we're feeling
right now is frustration that the media narrative is that this is a
crisis of the free market, a crisis of capitalism, a crisis of
under-regulation. In fact it's a crisis of subsidization and
intervention" ... "Capitalism without losses is like religion without
hell."{1}

And just think: Cuba has been tormented without mercy for fifty years
because it refuses to live under such a financial system.


Why I never watch presidential debates

During their September 26 debate, John McCain criticized Barack Obama
for saying that, as president, he'd be willing to meet President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad of Iran. McCain stated: "Now here is Ahmadinejad, who is now
in New York talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of
wiping Israel off the map ... and we're going to sit down without
precondition across the table to legitimize and give a propaganda
platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the State of
Israel ... "

First it must be noted that Ahmadinejad, speaking at the UN earlier in
the week, used no threatening language at all against Israel. What he
said was that Iran was submitting to the UN "its humane solution based
on a free referendum in Palestine for determining and establishing the
type of state in the entire Palestinian lands". So John McCain just made
up a story and Barack Obama said not a word in contradiction to anything
McCain said or implied about Ahmadinejad.

And that's it, America. That's all you get. You've heard a Republican
saying some awful things about an ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) and
you've heard a Democrat who has no problems with a word of that. That
equals truth, doesn't it?

This matter of Ahmadinejad and "wiping Israel off the map" has been a
heated issue for three years now. However, according to people who know
Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything of the kind. In his
October 29 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the
word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan
Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History,
Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from
the page of time". His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military
action or killing anyone at all". It's the distortion of this to imply
some sort of extreme violence on the part of Iran that has made the
remark sound threatening.

Cole added that the quote comes from an old speech of Ayatollah
Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and "is just an inexact
translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. [Ahmadinejad] quoted
Khomeini that 'the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from
the page of time'. It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in
a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks." {2}

At a December 2006 conference in Teheran, the Iranian president said:
"The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet
Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom". {3} Obviously, the man is
not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the
dissolution of the Soviet Union took place peacefully.

For a word-by-word breakdown of Ahmadinejad's remark, in Farsi and
English, see {4}.

Moreover, in June 2006, subsequent to Ahmadinejad's controversial
speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: "We have
no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world,
and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention
of going to war with any state." {5}


Palintology

What's the proper term to use to categorize a person who is ... blindly
patriotic, jingoist, an evangelical Christian creationist, gun and
hunting enthusiast, National Rifle Association supporter; denies the
science behind global warming, with a philosophy of "dig, dig, dig", and
in foreign policy: "bomb", "bomb", "bomb"; untraveled, uneducated,
ignorant, a devoted book-banner, racist, opposed to equal rights for
gays, fanatically anti-abortion, anti-feminist, and has a
seventeen-year-old daughter pregnant and unmarried?

The proper American term is "white trash". Or, as the honorable governor
of Alaska apparently prefers, "redneck" - "Rouge cou" is what she called
a business she registered.

And what do you call the person if on top of all that she declares in
the year 2008 that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11 and that
"a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has
proven to have done in Iraq"? The proper term is "scary", or perhaps
"scary moron".

And what do you think of this person when you learn that she believes
that the war in Iraq is a "task that is from God"? I think this is
actually a form of insanity. There are people in institutions all over
the world charged with killing others, who insist that they were acting
under God's command.

And if the above is not enough to make you fall in love with the woman,
consider that she believes that humans coexisted with dinosaurs 6,000
years ago; and have a look at a video of the
vice-president/president-to-be undergoing an exorcism performed by a
minister to free her body from "witches" {6}. When we consider the flak
that Barack Obama received because his minister is not in love with US
foreign policy, imagine what Palin will get for having a minister who
performs witch exorcism. Nothing.

So, have we forgotten anything about her charming belief system? Santa
Claus? The Easter Bunny? Oh, she must have been kidnaped by a space
alien. I hope some day to meet her and have her read my palms, my tea
leaves, my aura, my horoscope, and my tarot.


When is a holocaust not a holocaust?
When the perpetrators call it a victory.

Although the "surge" has failed as policy, it appears to be succeeding
as propaganda. It seems to be the only thing that supporters of the war
have to point to, and so they point, and they point, and they point.
Allow me to point out that while there has been a reduction in violence
in Iraq - now down to a level that virtually any other society in the
world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society
before the US invasion and occupation - we must keep in mind that thanks
to this lovely little war more than half the population of Iraq is
either dead, crippled, traumatized, confined in overflowing American and
Iraqi prisons, internally displaced, or in foreign exile. Thus, the
number of people available for being killers or victims is markedly
reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place in the
country (another good indication of progress, n'est-ce pas? nicht wahr?)
- Sunnis and Shiites are now living more in their own special enclaves
than before, none of those stinking mixed communities with their unholy
mixed marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has also gone down;
and the powerful movement of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has had a
cease-fire in effect for many months, unconnected to the surge. On top
of all this, US soldiers, in the face of numerous "improvised explosive
devices" on the roads, have been venturing out a lot less (for fear of
things like ... well, dying), so the violence against our noble lads is
also down. Remember that insurgent attacks on American forces is how the
Iraqi violence all began in the first place.

Just imagine - If the entire Iraqi population over the age of ten is
killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will probably be
no violence at all. Now that would really be victory.

No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been
destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything - their
homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs,
their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal
system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security,
their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have
their surge.


Politicizing and militarizing sports

A few years ago I wrote in this report:

A TV ad for Anheuser-Busch shown during the recent Super Bowl: An
airport, a contingent of US soldiers in uniform is passing through,
presumably on the way to or just returning from Iraq; the people in the
terminal one by one look up, and slowly realize who's walking by - It's
(choke) ... Can it (gasp) be? ... Yes! HEROES!! Real honest-to-God
heroes!! The faces of the onlookers are filled with deep gratitude and
pride. The soldiers begin to realize what's happening as the waves of
adulation sweep over them, their faces are bursting with matching
gratitude and matching pride, their faces say "Thanks". The screen says
"Thanks". Not a dry eye in the whole damn terminal. In the Soviet Union
they might have been a group of Stakhanovite hero workers on the way to
the factory.

Last month at the United States Tennis Open women's final in New York, a
woman comes out to sing "America the Beautiful". Pretty common of course
at sporting events in beautiful America. If it's not that, it's another
well-known hymn to athleticism like "God Bless America" or "The Star
Spangled Banner". But this time, as she finishes singing, dozens of
marines in full uniform march out and unfurl an American flag a mile
long. The crowd eats it up. Two days later, at the men's final, same
thing plus four jet planes roar past above the stadium.

I wish I had been there. So I could have yelled out: "What the fuck does
this have to do with tennis?" Hardly anyone would have heard me above
the din of the patriotic orgy, but if anyone did, I would not be
surprised if they reported me to the nearest authorities (and in
present-day America one is never too far from authorities), and I'd be
asked to accompany the authorities to the security office (and in
present-day America one is never too far from a security office).

Norman Mailer wrote in 2003, a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq:
"My guess is that, like it or not, or want it or not, we are going to go
to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see.
The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to
become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more
importance in our lives ... And before it is all over, democracy, noble
and delicate as it is, may give way. ... Indeed, democracy is the
special condition ... we will be called upon to defend in the coming
years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the
corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with
mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America
already" {7}


F?r meine deutschen Leser

My book Rogue State has a new German edition. This is an updated version
of the previous German edition, with a much better translation. You can
read about it at:{8}


Website help needed

AOL is closing down the website service for its members.  I have to
relocate my website with its numerous separate files and pages to a new
host and convert the AOL HTML language, AOLPRESS, to the language of the
new host.  This is completely beyond my knowledge and skill.  Is there
an expert out there who can advise me?  Some payment can be arranged.


NOTES

{1} Washington Post. September 25 2008

{2} "Informed Comment", Cole's blog, May 03 2006;
www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html

{3} Associated Press, December 12 2006

{4} Global Research, January 20 2007,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527)

{5} Letter to Washington Post from M A Mohammadi, Press Officer, Iranian
Mission to the United Nations, June 12 2006

{6} http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNvemHKXZFs. Also see Associated
Press, September 25 2008

{7} International Herald Tribune, February 25 2003

{8}
www.amazon.de/Schurkenstaat-William-Blum/dp/3897065304/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221896103&sr=8-2


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/aer62.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  Sat Oct 11 06:50:32 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:50:32 -0400
Subject: [R-G] 'A Deathblow to Privatization': Planned IPO of Deutsche Bahn
	Put on Hold
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810110550s7c8dab59gfa90e93ea39d70ea@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,583423,00.html>
'A Deathblow to Privatization'

One of the German government's most ambitious and arduously negotiated
projects fell victim to the financial crisis on Thursday. The planned
IPO of Deutsche Bahn have been put on hold. German commentators have
their doubts if it will ever get back on track.

With the global financial crisis showing no sign of abating, German
crisis managers find themselves both adjusting future budgetary
expectations and reconsidering earlier economic decisions. Among the
objects of second-guessing are plans to privatize Deutsche Bahn,
Germany's national railway company. The initial public offering
process had been scheduled to begin on Monday and the company,
expecting to take in upwards of ?4 billion, had already been courting
international investors for months.

Thursday, government officials announced that the privatization would
be delayed until further notice. "We are not going to put the assets
on the capital markets at the wrong time," Finance Minister Peer
Steinbr?ck said.

The postponement is a bitter pill to swallow for Germany's ruling
"Grand Coalition" between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.
The privatization plans -- which called for the company's passenger,
freight and logistic divisions to be spun off into a holding company,
24.9 percent of which was to be privatized -- were the product of
months of arduous negotiations between the coalition partners. It was
also among the government's few headlining achievements during its
three years in power.

Politicians insist that they reckon only with a delay, not a
cancellation of Deutsche Bahn's privatization. As Angela Merkel told
reporters Thursday, "I assume that there will eventually be a business
environment in which the privatization can take place." But, with
politicians openly discussing greater intervention in the economy and
murmuring of further bank takeovers, Germany's newspaper commentators
are skeptical that the Deutsche Bahn plan will ever get back on track.

The center-left S?ddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The worst case scenario for Deutsche Bahn is that nothing changes.
Rail remains a state-owned company and it remains a giant with
monoplistic control over trains and track networks. How likely the
worst case is, though, is about as easy to predict as the health of
the stock market at the end of November. The fact is that the
privitization of German rail has lost all momentum...."

"Meanwhile, difficulties are mounting. German rail may be able to
credibly promise that rail doesn't need to be overly concerned about
the economic problems. After all, travellers will continue to travel
and goods will still have to be transported through the country. But
one business segment, carefully built up by the head of Deutsche Bahn
Hartmut Mehdorn, is in trouble: global freight. If the global economy
slows down, there won't be as much to transport. When the numbers will
be as auspicious for a German rail IPO as they were this year is a
question nobody can answer."

The business daily Handelsblatt writes:

The fact is, the already botched, partial privatization of the
Deutsche Bahn received on Thursday ... it's death blow. And that's a
good thing."

"The calculation behind the political pressure for partial
privatization is clear: the IPO is a prestige project for Germany's
governing coalition. But that coalition reaches the end of its road in
the elections next fall. The coalition can see that there will likely
be a larger opposition from the left, which is hardly supports rail
privatization. The IPO, then, would have to take place before next
autumn's elections."

"That, though, isn't likely and, seen politically, the chances that
the light will ever again be green are sinking. At the moment, one
bank after another across the globe is being partially nationalized. A
partial privatization of German rail hardly fits."

"Finally, there are the economic forecasts, that predict anything but
rosy economic times in the coming months. It is hard to imagine stock
markets making a quick recovery. The value of the company on the stock
market will continue to sink. Every day that the stock market drops is
another argument for not selling the German rail system cheaply -- and
with that, the light will remain red."

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"Among the people, the entry to the market has few friends, and
skepticism of the market will only increase. It won't be long until
the representatives of the governing parties succumb to the temptation
to question the privatization plans. Then we'll be facing a bizarre
alliance of panicking markets and moralizing admonishers. That would
be a big mistake."

"If the government initiates another fundamental debate about the
privatization of Deutsche Bahn, many of the interested investors would
be permanently turned off. It would be too clear a signal that the
company is a plaything of political interests."

"If Berlin doesn't manage [to realize the privatization plans] years
of preparation will have gone to waste. And that won't have helped
anyone -- neither the head of Deutsch Bahn, nor the passengers of the
railway."

The left-of-center Beliner Zeitung writes:

"It's understandable if the latest rejection causes stomach problems
for the head of Deutsche Bahn. Because nobody knows whether the
markets will have calmed down enough in the next few weeks to make
another go at privatization. There's much to suggest that that won't
be the case."

"A large majority of the population has always rejected the idea of
going public. Many of Deutsche Bahn's employees have also always
preferred to remain under control of the state. Their desire is
understandable. They fear that unserious investors will have a say at
the company. And in the past few days, these fears have likely
deepened and spread even further. The recent turbulence has caused
enormous damage to the public's trust of the free market. Certainly it
calls into question the point of railway privatization. It is indeed a
paradox that, at a time when banks around the world are getting
nationalized, Deutsche Bahn wants to enter the stock market."

-- Cameron Abadi; 3:15 p.m. CET


From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 08:52:39 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:52:39 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Venezuela goes to natural gas cars
Message-ID: <99263B2A-A5FE-4394-A538-F2DB66E82EA4@shaw.ca>

Venezuela goes to natural gas cars

Compiled from Herald News Services

Saturday, October 11, 2008

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=8bdd0f75-e5ad-4b64-8515-a4188a4a0c4c

Venezuela, the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, will trade gas- 
guzzlers for new vehicles that run on natural gas and provide drivers  
with natural gas for their cars for a year in a bid to boost gasoline  
exports.

The old cars will be recycled and the country will profit from  
increased fuel exports, President Hugo Chavez said Friday.

"We're going to exchange these mobile squanderers with a beautiful  
modern family vehicle that uses gas that doesn't cost anything,"  
Chavez said. "The gasoline we save we're going to export. We won't be  
giving away anything, it's a national savings and environmental plan."

Venezuelan drivers often use old cars with poor fuel economy because  
new cars are costly and fuel is cheap. The country has the world's  
second-cheapest fuel after Turkmenistan, according to German aid  
agency GTZ.
? The Calgary Herald 2008

From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 09:53:14 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:53:14 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Afghan talks widen US-UK rift
Message-ID: <DEAA3898-5A8B-4ABD-98B0-57F0A5406D6B@shaw.ca>

Oct 11, 2008
	
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JJ11Ag03.html

Afghan talks widen US-UK rift
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - The beginning of political talks between the Afghan  
government and the Taliban, revealed by press accounts this week, is  
likely to deepen the rift that has just erupted in public between the  
United States and Britain over the US commitment to an escalation of  
the war in Afghanistan.

According to a French diplomatic cable leaked to a French magazine  
last week, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is looking for  
an exit strategy from Afghanistan rather than an endless war, and it  
sees a US escalation of the war as an alternative to a political  
settlement rather than as supporting such an outcome.

The first meetings between the two sides were held in Saudi Arabia in  
the presence of Saudi King Abdullah from September 24 to 27, as  
reported by CNN's Nic Robertson from London on Tuesday. Eleven Taliban  
delegates, two Afghan government officials and a representative of  
independent former mujahideen commander Gulfadin Hekmatyar  
participated in the meetings, according to Robertson.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith of the British command in Afghanistan  
enthusiastically welcomed such talks. He was quoted by The Sunday  
Times of London as saying, "We want to change the nature of the debate  
from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to  
one where it is done through negotiations."

If the Taliban were prepared to talk about a political settlement,  
said Carleton-Smith, "that's precisely the sort of the progress that  
concludes insurgencies like this."

The George W Bush administration, however, was evidently taken by  
surprise by news of the Afghan peace talks and decidedly cool toward  
them. One US official told The Washington Times that it was unclear  
that the meetings in Saudi Arabia presage government peace talks with  
the Taliban. The implication was that the administration would not  
welcome such talks.

A US defense official in Afghanistan told the paper the Bush  
administration was "surprised" it had not been informed about the  
meeting in advance by the Afghan government.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on his way to discuss Afghanistan with  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers in Budapest, made  
it clear that the Bush administration supports talks only for the  
purposes of attracting individual leaders to leave the Taliban and  
join the government. "What is important is detaching those who are  
reconcilable and who are willing to be part of the future of the  
country from those who are irreconcilable,"he said.

Gates said he drew line at talks with the head of the Taliban, Mullah  
Mohammad Omar.

However, representatives of the Taliban leader are apparently involved  
in the talks, and President Hamid Karzai is committed to going well  
beyond the tactic of appealing to individual Taliban figures.

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in a news conference  
on October 4 that resolution of the conflict required a "political  
settlement with the Taliban". He added that such a settlement would  
come only "after Taliban's acceptance of the Afghan constitution and  
the peaceful rotation of power by democratic means."

The Afghan talks come against the backdrop of a Bush administration  
decision to send 8,000 more US troops to Afghanistan next year, and  
the expressed desire of the US commander, General David D McKiernan,  
for yet another 15,000 combat and support troops. Both Democratic  
candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain have said  
they would increase US troop strength in Afghanistan.

Obama has said he would send troops now scheduled to remain in Iraq  
until next summer to Afghanistan as an urgent priority, whereas McCain  
has not said when or how he would increase the troop level.

Such a US troop increase is exactly what the British fear, however.  
The British ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was  
quoted in a diplomatic cable leaked to the French investigative  
magazine Le Canard Enchaine last week as telling the French deputy  
ambassador that the US presidential candidates "must be dissuaded from  
getting further bogged down in Afghanistan".

In the French diplomatic report of the September 2 conversation,  
Cowper-Coles is reported as saying that an increase in foreign troop  
strength in Afghanistan would only exacerbate the overall political  
problem in Afghanistan.

The report has the ambassador saying that such an increase "would  
identify us even more strongly as an occupation force and would  
multiply the targets" for the insurgents.

Cowper-Coles is quoted as saying foreign forces are the "lifeline"of  
the Afghan regime and that additional forces would "slow down and  
complicate a possible emergence from the crisis".

In an obvious reference to the intention to rely on higher levels of  
military force, Cowper-Coles said US strategy in Afghanistan "is  
destined to fail".

Cowper-Coles is reported to have put much of the blame for the  
deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan on the Karzai  
government. "The security situation is getting worse,"the report  
quoted him as saying. "So is corruption, and the government had lost  
all trust."

The report makes it clear that the British want to withdraw all their  
troops from Afghanistan within five to 10 years. Cowper-Coles is said  
to have suggested that the only way to do so is through the emergence  
of what he called an "acceptable dictator".

The British foreign office has denied that the report reflected the  
policy of the government itself. Nevertheless, statements by Brigadier  
Carleton-Smith, the senior British commander in Afghanistan, last  
week, underlined the gulf between US and British views on Afghanistan.

"We're not going to win this war," said Carleton-Smith, according to  
The Sunday Times of London on September 28. Carleton-Smith, commander  
of an air assault brigade, has completed two tours in Afghanistan. He  
suggested that foreign troops would and should leave Afghanistan  
without having defeated the insurgency. "We may leave with there still  
being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency," he said.

Like Cowper-Coles, Carleton-Smith suggested that the real problem for  
the coalition was not military but political. "This struggle is more  
down to the credibility of the Afghan government than the threat from  
the Taliban," he said.

When Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as British prime minister in  
June 2007, British officials concluded that the Taliban were too  
deeply rooted to be defeated militarily, according to a report in The  
Guardian last October. The Brown government decided to pursue a  
strategy of courting "moderate" Taliban leaders and fighters who were  
believed to be motivated more by tribal obligation than jihadi ideology.

That idea was in line with US strategy. Now, however, both Karzai and  
the British have moved beyond that to a policy of negotiating directly  
and officially with the Taliban. For the British it appears to be part  
of an exit strategy that is not shared by Washington.

Defense Secretary Gates responded to Carleton-Smith's remarks Tuesday  
by reiterating the official US view that additional forces are needed  
in Afghanistan and implying that the British's officer's views are  
"defeatist". Gates said there "certainly is no reason to be defeatist  
or to underestimate the opportunity to be successful in the long run".

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist  
specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of  
his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road  
to War in Vietnam,was published in 2006.

Inter Press Service 


From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 10:02:09 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:02:09 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Surge That Failed: Afghanistan under the Bombs
Message-ID: <24D7A2BA-6DCE-49FE-815E-22363F59CF1B@shaw.ca>

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174986/anand_gopal_who_rules_afghanistan_

     The Surge That Failed
     Afghanistan under the Bombs
     By Anand Gopal

     A bit past midnight on a balmy night in late August, Hedayatullah  
awoke to a deafening blast. He stumbled out of bed and heard angry  
voices drawing closer. Suddenly, his bedroom doors banged open and  
dozens of silhouetted figures burst in, some shouting in a strange  
language.

     The intruders blindfolded Hedayatullah and, screaming with fury,  
forced him to the ground. An Afghan voice told him not to move or  
speak, or he would be killed. He listened for sounds from the next  
room, where his brother Noorullah slept with his family. He could hear  
his nephew, eight months old, crying hysterically. Then came the sound  
of an automatic rifle, after which his nephew fell silent.

     The rest of the family -- 18 people in all, including aunts,  
uncles, and cousins -- was herded outside into the darkness. The  
Afghan voice explained to Hedayatullah's terrified mother, "We are the  
Afghan National Army, here to accompany the American military. The  
Americans have killed one of your sons and his two children. They also  
shot his wife and they're taking her to the hospital."

     "Why?" Hedayatullah's mother stammered.

     "There is no why," the soldier replied. When she heard this, she  
started screaming, slamming her fists into her chest in anguish. The  
Afghan soldiers left her and loaded Hedayatullah and his cousin into  
the back of a military van, after which they drove off with an  
American convoy into the black of night.

     The next day, the Afghan forces released Hedayatullah and his  
cousin, calling the whole raid a mistake. However, Noorullah's wife,  
months pregnant, never came home: She died on the way to the hospital.

     Surging in Afghanistan

     When, decades from now, historians compile the record of this  
Afghan war, they will date the Afghan version of the surge -- the now  
trendy injection of large numbers of troops to resuscitate a flagging  
war effort -- to sometime in early 2007. Then, a growing insurgency  
was causing visible problems for U.S. and NATO forces in certain  
pockets in the southern parts of the country, long a Taliban  
stronghold. In response, military planners dramatically beefed up the  
international presence, raising the number of troops over the  
following 18 months by 20,000, a 45% jump.

     During this period, however, the violence also jumped -- by 50%.  
This shouldn't be surprising. More troops meant more targets for  
Taliban fighters and suicide bombers. In response, the international  
forces retaliated with massive aerial bombing campaigns and large- 
scale house raids. The number of civilians killed in the process  
skyrocketed. In the fifteen months of this surge, more civilians have  
been killed than in the previous four years combined.

     During the same period, the country descended into a state of  
utter dereliction -- no jobs, very little reconstruction, and ever  
less security. In turn, the rising civilian death toll and the  
decaying economy proved a profitable recipe for the Taliban, who  
recruited significant numbers of new fighters. They also won the  
sympathy of Afghans who saw them as the lesser of two evils. Once  
confined to the deep Afghan south, today the insurgents operate openly  
right at the doorstep of Kabul, the capital.

     This last surge, little noted by the media, failed miserably, but  
Washington is now planning another one, even as Afghanistan slips  
away. More boots on the ground, though, will do little to address the  
real causes of this country's unfolding tragedy.

     Revenge and the Taliban

     One day, as Zubair was walking home, he noticed that the carpet  
factory near his house in the southern province of Ghazni was silent.  
That's strange, he thought, because he could usually hear the din of  
spinning looms as he approached. As he rounded the corner, he saw a  
crowd of people, villagers and factory workers, gathered around his  
destroyed house. An American bomb had flattened it into a pancake of  
cement blocks and pulverized bricks. He ran toward the scene. It was  
only when he shoved his way through the crowd and up to the wreckage  
that he actually saw it -- his mother's severed head lying amid  
mangled furniture.

     He didn't scream. Instead, the sight induced a sort of catatonia;  
he picked up the head, cradled it in his arms, and started walking  
aimlessly. He carried on like this for days, until tribal elders pried  
the head from his hands and convinced him to deal with his loss more  
constructively. He decided he would get revenge by becoming a suicide  
bomber and inflicting a loss on some American family as painful as the  
one he had just suffered.

     When one decides to become a suicide bomber, it is pretty easy to  
find the Taliban. In Zubair's case he just asked a relative to direct  
him to the nearest Talib; every village in the country's south and  
east has at least a few. He found them and he trained -- yes, suicide  
bombing requires training -- for some time and then he was fitted with  
the latest model suicide vest. One morning, he made his way, as  
directed, towards an office building where Americans advisors were  
training their Afghan counterparts, but before he could detonate his  
vest, a pair of sharp-eyed intelligence officers spotted him and  
wrestled him to the ground. Zubair now spends his days in an Afghan  
prison.

     A poll of 42 Taliban fighters by the Canadian Globe and Mail  
newspaper earlier this year revealed that 12 had seen family members  
killed in air strikes, and six joined the insurgency after such  
attacks. Far more who don't join offer their support.

     Under the Bombs

     In the muddied outskirts of Kabul, an impromptu neighborhood has  
been sprouting, full of civilians fleeing the regular Allied aerial  
bombardments in the Afghan countryside. Sherafadeen Sadozay, a poor  
farmer from the south, spoke for many there when he told me that he  
had once had no opinion of the United States. Then, one day, a payload  
from an American sortie split his house in two, eviscerating his wife  
and three children. Now, he says, he'd rather have the Taliban back in  
power than nervously eye the skies every day.

     Even when the bombs don't fall, it's quite dangerous to be an  
Afghan. Journalist Jawed Ahmad was on assignment for Canadian  
Television in the southern city of Kandahar when American troops  
stopped him. In his possession, they found contact numbers to the cell  
phones of various Taliban fighters -- something every good journalist  
in the country has -- and threw him into prison, not to be heard from  
for almost a year. During interrogation, Ahmad says that American  
jailors kicked him, smashed his head into a table, and at one point  
prevented him from sleeping for nine days. They kept him standing on a  
snowy runway for six hours without shoes. Twice he fainted and twice  
the soldiers forced him to stand up again. After 11 months of  
detention, military authorities gave him a letter stating that he was  
not a threat to the U.S. and released him.

     Starving in Kabul

     If you're walking his street, there isn't a single day when you  
won't see Zayainullah. For as long as he can remember, the 11 year-old  
has perched on the sidewalk at one of Kabul's busiest intersections.  
Zayainullah has only one arm; the Taliban blew the other one away when  
he was a child. He uses this arm to beg for handouts, quietly in the  
mornings, more desperately as the day goes on. Both his parents are  
dead so he lives with his aunt, a widow. Given the mores of modern-day  
Afghanistan, she can't work because a woman needs a man's sanction to  
leave the house. So she puts young Zayainullah on the street as her  
sole breadwinner. If he comes home empty-handed she beats him,  
sometimes until he can no longer move.

     He sits there, shirtless, with a heaving, rounded belly --  
distended from severe malnutrition -- as scores of other beggars and  
pedestrians stream by him. No one really notices him though, because  
poverty has become endemic in this country.

     Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries on the planet. It  
takes its place among desperate, destitute nations like Burkina Faso  
and Somalia whenever any international organization bothers to  
measure. The official unemployment rate, last calculated in 2005, was  
40% percent. According to recent estimates, it may today reach as high  
as 80% in some parts of the country.

     Approximately 45% of the population is now unable to purchase  
enough food to guarantee bare minimum health levels, according to the  
Brookings Institution. This winter, Afghan officials claim that hunger  
may kill up to 80% of the population in some northern provinces caught  
in a vicious drought. Reports are emerging of parents selling their  
children simply to make ends meet. In one district of the southern  
province of Ghazni last spring things got so bad that villagers  
started eating grass. Locals say that after a harsh winter and almost  
no food, they had no choice.

     Kabul itself lies in tatters. Roads have gone unpaved since 2001.  
Massive craters from decades of war blot the capital city. Poor  
Afghans live in crumbling warrens with no electricity and often  
without safe drinking water. Kabul, a city designed for about 800,000  
people, now holds more than four million, mostly squeezed into  
informal settlements and squatters' shacks.

     Washington spends about $100 million a day on this war -- close  
to $36 billion a year -- but only five cents of every dollar actually  
goes towards aid. From this paltry sum, the Agency Coordinating Body  
for Afghan Relief found that "a staggering 40 percent has returned to  
donor countries in corporate profits and salaries." The economy is so  
underdeveloped that opium production accounts for more than half of  
the country's gross domestic product.

     What little money does go for reconstruction is handed over to  
U.S. multinationals who then subcontract out to Afghan partners and  
cut corners every step of the way. As a result, the U.N. ranks the  
country as the fifth least-developed in the world -- a one-position  
drop from 2004.

     The government and coalition forces may not bring jobs to  
Afghanistan, but the Taliban does. The insurgents pay for fighters --  
in some cases, up to $200 a month, a windfall in a country where 42%  
of the population earns less than $14 a month. When a textile factory  
in Kandahar laid off 2,000 workers in September, most of them joined  
the Taliban. And that district in Ghazni where locals were reduced to  
eating grass? It is now a Taliban stronghold.

     Biking in Kabul

     A spate of suicide bombings and high-profile attacks in recent  
years have turned Kabul into a sort of garrison state, with roadblocks  
and checkpoints clogging many of the city's main arteries. The traffic  
is, at times, unbearable, so I bought a new motorbike, an Iranian  
import that can adroitly weave through traffic. I was puttering along  
one day recently when a police commander stopped me.

     "That's a nice bike," he said.

     "Thank you," I replied.

     "Is it new?"

     "Yes."

     "I'd like to have it. Get off."

     I stared at him in disbelief, not quite grasping at first that he  
was deadly serious. Then I began threatening him, saying I'd call a  
certain influential friend if he laid a finger on the bike. That  
finally hit home and he stepped back, waving me on.

     Journalists may have influential friends, but ordinary Afghans  
are usually not so lucky. Locals tend to fear the neighborhood police  
as much as the many criminals who prowl Kabul's streets. The  
notoriously corrupt police force is just one face of a government that  
much of the population has come to loathe.

     Police are known to rob passengers at checkpoints. Many of the  
country's leading members of parliament and cabinet officials sport  
long, bloody records of human rights abuses. Rapists and serious  
criminals regularly bribe their way out of prison. Warlords and  
militia commanders run wild in the north, regularly raping young girls  
and snatching the land of villagers with impunity. Earlier this year  
newspapers revealed that President Hamid Karzai pardoned a pair of  
such militiamen accused of bayonet-raping a young woman.

     What Karzai does hardly matters, though. After all, his  
government barely functions. Most of the country is carved up into  
fiefdoms run by small-time commanders. A U.S. intelligence report in  
the spring of 2008 estimated that the central government then  
controlled just 30% of the country, and many say even that is now an  
optimistic assessment.

     Drive a few miles outside Kabul and the roads are controlled by  
bandits, off-duty cops, or anyone else with a gun and an eye for a  
quick buck. The Karzai government's popularity has plummeted to such  
levels that, believe it or not, many Afghans in Kabul wax nostalgic  
for the days of Dr. Mohammad Najibullah, the country's last Communist  
dictator. "That government was cruel and indifferent, but at least  
they gave us something," an Afghan friend typically told me. The  
Karzai government provides almost no social services, expending all  
its efforts just trying to keep itself together.

     Shadow Government

     Power abhors a vacuum, and so, in those areas where central  
government rule has crumbled, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan --  
the Taliban government -- is rising in its place. In Wardak, a  
province bordering Kabul Province, the Taliban has a stable foothold,  
complete with a shadow government of mayors and police chiefs. In  
Logar, another of Kabul's neighboring provinces, some "government- 
controlled" areas consist of the home of the district head, the NATO  
installation down the road -- and nothing else.

     With the rise of the Taliban in these areas comes their notorious  
brand of justice. Shadow courts now dispense Taliban-style draconian  
judgments and punishments in many districts and ever more locals are  
turning to them to settle disputes, either out of fear or because they  
are far more efficient than the corrupt government courts. The Taliban  
recently chopped off the ears of a schoolteacher in Zabul province for  
working for the government. They gunned down a popular drummer in  
Ghazni simply for playing music in public. Even the infamous public  
executions are back. The Taliban recently invited journalists to watch  
the execution of a pair of women on prostitution charges.

     The Taliban are as uninterested in social services and human  
rights as the Karzai government or the international forces, but they  
know how to turn a world of poverty, insecurity, and death from laser- 
guided missiles to their advantage. This is how the Islamic Emirate  
spreads, like so many weeds at first, poking out of areas where the  
government has failed. As the central government spins towards  
irrelevancy, the whole south and east of Afghanistan is becoming a  
thicket of Taliban before our very eyes.

     A War to be Lost

     One night the Taliban raided a police check post near my Kabul  
home, killing three policemen. The following morning, when a police  
contingent arrived on the scene to investigate, a bomb that the rebels  
had cleverly hidden at the site exploded and killed two more of them.  
I arrived shortly afterwards to find pieces of charred flesh littering  
the ground and a mangled, burnt out police van sitting overturned on a  
pile of rubble.

     The raid didn't make much news at the time, but it was actually  
the deepest the insurgents had penetrated the capital since they were  
overthrown seven years ago. They have dispatched many individual  
suicide bombers into the capital and rocketed it as well from time to  
time, but never had they marched in as an attacking force on foot.  
When I told an Afghan colleague that I couldn't believe the Taliban  
were coming into Kabul this way, he responded: "Coming? They've been  
here. They were just waiting for the government and the U.S. to fail."

     Failure is a notion now preoccupying the Western leadership of  
this war, which is why they are scrambling for yet another "surge"  
solution.

     Of course, the Taliban won't be capturing Kabul anytime soon; the  
international forces are much too powerful to topple militarily. But  
the Americans can't defeat the Taliban either; the guerrillas are too  
deeply rooted in a country scarred by no jobs, no security, and no  
hope. The result is a war of attrition, with the Americans planning to  
pour yet more fuel on the flames by throwing in more soldiers next year.

     This is a war to be won by constructing roads, creating jobs,  
cleaning up the government, and giving Afghans something they've had  
preciously little of in the last 30 years: hope. However, hope is  
fading fast here, and that's a fact Washington can ill afford to  
ignore; for once the Afghans lose all hope, the Americans will have  
lost this war.

     Anand Gopal writes frequently about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and  
the "War on Terror." He is a correspondent for the Christian Science  
Monitor, based in Afghanistan. For more of his information and  
dispatches from the region, visit anandgopal.com.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Sat Oct 11 10:04:03 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:04:03 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Am I crazy or is the Vancouver Sun trying to reelect Stephen
	Harper?
Message-ID: <200810111604.m9BG431a028719@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 19:09:15 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:09:15 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Plunge raises fears over oilsands viability
Message-ID: <2CF5FF6C-601A-4255-81DB-B6C8F166FDBB@shaw.ca>

Plunge raises fears over oilsands viability
Low prices challenge new projects

Shaun Polczer
Calgary Herald
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=cd79bccc-3fd5-4939-8846-d9b87675cdb2

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Demonstrators "greenwash" oil barrels in Washington on Friday to  
protest World Bank proposals for climate financing.
CREDIT: Tim Sloan, Getty Images
Demonstrators "greenwash" oil barrels in Washington on Friday to  
protest World Bank proposals for climate financing.

Falling commodity prices are starting to threaten the viability of new  
oilsands projects and could confound the long term plans of industry  
heavyweights like EnCana Corp., which announced in May it would split  
itself into two corporations starting in 2009.

Benchmark crude prices fell about 10 per cent in New York on Friday,  
losing more than $8.89 US to close below $80 at $77.70. It was the  
lowest point for oil prices this year and the biggest weekly drop  
since 2003.

As prices continued to fall, demonstrators protested what they see as  
dirty oil outside the World Bank headquarters in Washington, even  
while U.S. President George W. Bush tried to break a cycle of  
"uncertainty and fear" he blamed for worsening the global financial  
meltdown, insisting authorities can and will end the crisis.

Back home, oil prices are reaching the point where they could threaten  
new oilsands projects in northeastern Alberta, experts said.

Justin Bouchard, an oilsands analyst with Raymond James in Calgary,  
said new projects such as Petro-Canada's $21-billion Fort Hills mine  
could be threatened by a combination of skyrocketing costs and lower  
oil prices. "You'd never go ahead with it at $80," Bouchard said. "It  
would be very difficult to imagine sanctioning it today."

Last month Petro-Canada upped its cost estimates for the sprawling  
mining operation by 50 per cent, setting a new benchmark for capital  
intensity at $180,000 per flowing barrel.

The inflated figure prompted UBS analyst Andrew Potter to suggest new  
megaprojects like Fort Hills are out of the money if they need $100  
oil to break even.

"In light of this recent cost increase, we expect that many oil sands  
projects currently being considered may see their capital costs  
revised upward," he noted.

"Furthermore, some projects may be deferred or cancelled while the  
scope of other projects may need to change."

Bob Dunbar, an oilsands expert with Strategy West consultants in  
Calgary, agreed prices have taken a back seat to costs for the past  
few years as developers have struggled with rising prices for labour  
and materials like steel.

He reckoned that Fort Hills would need a sustained price of about $90  
to be considered economic.

Older projects like Suncor's Millennium expansion still continue to  
generate healthy returns at $80 and even newer projects such as  
Canadian Natural Resources' Horizon mine and the OPTI/Nexen Long Lake  
thermal operation are probably resilient to the latest price crunch.

But companies that rely on significant outside funding sources without  
internally generated revenue are in trouble.

Big multinationals such as Total and StatoilHydro have already  
announced delays to the upgrading portions of their respective  
integrated operations, while smaller homegrown outfits like Northwest  
Upgrading and BA Energy have put plans on the back burner.

"We've already seen some individual projects being delayed," Dunbar  
said. "I think we will see some additional delays if lower prices  
persist."

Suncor lost $1.67 on Friday, to close at $26.09. Canadian Natural fell  
$4.81 to $48 while Nexen lost $2.20 to close at $14.01. OPTI Canada  
was one of the TSX's biggest losers Friday, shedding close to 20 per  
cent, to finish at $5.60. The company has lost about three-quarters of  
its value since hitting a 52-week high of $25.40 in June.

Falling commodity prices combined with falling share prices may prompt  
other companies such as EnCana to reconsider restructuring plans after  
2009. In May, the company said it would spin off its heavy oil unit  
into a separate company called Cenovus Energy Inc. while carrying on  
its natural gas business under the name EnCana.

With both oil and gas prices tanking, some analysts said Cenovus would  
quickly become a takeover target once it formally begins operating in  
January.

Natural gas followed oil lower on Friday, losing 66 cents to close at  
$6.86. That sent EnCana's share price to a new year-low of $43.50,  
down about 13 per cent, or $6.39, on the day.

Given the continuing market volatility, the company may have to  
revisit plans if the credit crunch makes raising capital more  
expensive for the smaller companies that will result from the split,  
Phil Skolnick, an analyst with Genuity Capital, told Reuters.

"I'm hearing now that they're talking about it possibly not happening  
because the fear is that the cost of capital of both the companies is  
rising, or it would be higher than the company as a whole," Skolnick  
said.

"As of today, with the way that the credit market is, there's higher  
cost of capital, so why do it? I don't think investors would probably  
vote for it right now if they knew that."

EnCana spokesman Alan Boras was quick to dismiss the speculation. He  
said North America's largest natural gas producer remains  
fundamentally and financially sound and is moving ahead with the split  
as originally envisioned. The company's management is open to all  
options to maximize long-term value, he added.

"We are continuing with plans to create Cenovus," he said. "We  
recognize there's a great deal of volatility and that market  
conditions are markedly different now than they were in May."

According to Raymond James' Bouchard, the falling Canadian dollar is  
helping to offset some of the impact of falling oil prices.

The loonie had its biggest single day drop since 1971 on Friday, the  
sharpest in almost four decades. Costs tend to lag commodity prices, a  
fact that could still favour capital intensive oilsands projects such  
as Fort Hills.

"Capital costs might take six months to a year to come back to an $80  
world," he said. "If that happens, then it changes everything."

Bouchard also said it's not the prevailing price today that matters,  
but where oil prices will be in 2012 and beyond.

"Unlike conventional oil and gas, oilsands is really about your long- 
term view. And we're still really bullish on crude over the long term."

Other big losers in Toronto included Talisman Energy, which lost 79  
cents to finish at $9.89.

spolczer at theherald.canwest.com
? The Calgary Herald 2008

From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 19:17:40 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:17:40 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Minister Calls on Venezuelans to Repatriate Their Investments
	in the U.S.
Message-ID: <A52A51F3-D47E-4E05-B372-268DEFC09D18@shaw.ca>

Minister Calls on Venezuelans to Repatriate Their Investments in the  
U.S.
October 11th 2008, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3869

M?rida, October 10, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- As world stock  
markets tumble, a range of economic experts met in Caracas to discuss  
alternative solutions to the crisis. Venezuela's Minister for Planning  
and Development, Haiman El Troudi, highlighted the relative strength  
of the Venezuelan economy and called for Venezuelan resources invested  
in the United States to be repatriated.

At the International Conference of Political Economy being held in  
Caracas, Venezuela, from Wednesday until this Saturday, 40 specialists  
from around the world are analysing the current financial crisis and  
proposing south-based and alternative model solutions.

In his presentation, El Troudi outlined how "the Venezuelan state has  
been strengthening under the Bolivarian socialist project" and that  
due to its on-target economic policies, those Venezuelans who have  
capital in the United States and who still have time to rescue it,  
should repatriate it because it will be safer in Venezuela than in the  
speculative banks of the U.S.

"Bring your capital [here], together we're going to construct a great  
country," said El Troudi.

He felt it important that it be recognized that the Venezuelan  
government had understood on time that the world economic situation is  
a structural issue and so it developed an economic policy that  
resulted in international reserves of $40 billion, which represent a  
cushion to enable Venezuela to confront the crisis better than other  
countries.

He elaborated that one of the measures taken by the executive of the  
government, was the creation of an obligatory portfolio of industrial  
credit in order to boost the productive apparatus of the nation. While  
mortgage interest rates were rising globally, the Venezuelan  
government regulated the real estate quota and obliged banks to lend  
to savers who were interested in housing.

He also highlighted that a reserve of food is being set up, which will  
serve to ease the effects of the financial crisis.

The IMF should kill itself

Further, El Troudi argued that the South should demand the immediate  
cancellation of its external debt. He said this statement is more  
valid than ever in face of the current crisis, and that Latin America  
demands control of the movement of its capital. He proposed creating  
mechanisms of fair trade and getting rid of banking secrets and fiscal  
parasites, and also demanded the creation of social security funds for  
all peoples of the world and the implementation of a fixed social  
income.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez commented at the forum yesterday,  
"The people of the south, we demand the dissolution of the  
International Monetary Fund," and El Troudi echoed those comments,  
saying the IMF (International Monetary Fund) should "dissolve, should  
kill itself."

El Troudi criticised the World Bank and the IMF for not offering  
tangible alternatives to the economic crisis, and said, "For them the  
poor pay for the plates that the rich break."

"Where are the prescriptions of [the IMF and World Bank] who  
supposedly have solutions to all the problems of capitalism? This is  
what they tried to impose on Latin America, with the disastrous  
application of neoliberal politics."

Chavez reminded listeners that the IMF was one of the first  
organizations to announce its support of the new government during the  
coup of April 2002.

"They try to wash their hands now and, furthermore, they dare to come  
out and present themselves as the life-saving doctors, [but] they are  
the ones to blame, they should resign."

A need for regional unity

El Troudi argued that the cosmetic actions that have so far been  
implemented won't stop the financial crisis, and the solution is in  
the "deepening of the socialist path."

He said that what we are seeing is the end of neoliberal hegemony.

"If the Bolivarian revolution hadn't arrived it wouldn't have been  
possible to prepare the subjective and objective conditions to  
withstand the burden, the onslaught of capitalism" he added.

At the conference, Gladys Hernandez, from the Centre for Research on  
the World Economy in Havana, Cuba, expressed the need for regional  
unity in face of the crisis. "It is necessary to foster the  
reindustrialization of the Latin American region with our resources  
and to try to establish a fair balance with foreign investments that  
would be capable of achieving certain earnings...as until now what  
they have done is rob our countries of their generated resources."

Julio Gambina, an Argentinean economist said, "It is necessary to  
reorganize the world system and this proposal has to come from the  
South, but it shouldn't come out of this meeting of intellectuals,  
rather it has to do with the construction of a political force that  
defines our course."

Another Argentinean economist, Jorge Marchini, highlighted the  
necessity of alternative mechanisms like ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative  
for America) and the Bank of the South.

The economic minister of Ecuador, Pedro Paez, proposed the creation of  
a single currency for Latin America, with the aim of strengthening  
production and confronting the financial crisis, and agreed with  
Marchina about the importance of the Bank of the South.

"The Bank of the South is at the heart of the development of banking  
of the new time. This entity will enable the transformation of the  
productive apparatus and generate mechanisms of coherence, between the  
countries which make up the initiative."

The economic policy conference was entitled, "The South's Answers to  
the World Economic Crisis," took place in the Venezuelan School of  
Planning, and was jointly organised by the Miranda International  
Centre and the Venezuelan Ministry of Planning.

Economic experts at the conference came from over 20 countries.

Some of the themes they are debating include; crisis or deterioration  
of the model, crisis and economic models, the dismantling of the  
neoliberal model, and the Washington consensus, axes and challenges  
for the economic development of the people, and globalization  
questioned.



From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 19:33:12 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:33:12 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Anti-Muslim Smear Machine Strikes Again?
Message-ID: <B318A011-D5D6-4C45-B6A0-3E078297353D@shaw.ca>

  Posted October 10, 2008 | 05:55 PM (EST)
The Anti-Muslim Smear Machine Strikes Again?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-macdonald/the-anti-muslim-smear-mac_b_133695.html

In the midst of remarkably cynical election-time mud-slinging, the  
Obsession campaign is truly in a class of its own.

Over the past weeks, 28 million copies of the anti-Muslim propaganda  
film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West have been  
delivered to the doors of newspaper subscribers in swing states. The  
2006 documentary, which has been a mainstay of David Horowitz's  
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," describes "radical Islam" as a menace  
comparable to Adolf Hitler that, according to the film's website, "is  
threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western  
civilization under the yoke of its values."

For the groups behind the film's distribution, the goal seems pretty  
clear: Scare the holy hell out of millions of voters in swing states  
about a possible Muslim takeover of the U.S. It's hard to see the  
targeting of electoral battlegrounds as anything other than an attempt  
to help John McCain get elected -- perhaps by capitalizing on the  
widespread whispering campaign that Obama is a "secret Muslim."

And one has to admit that the Obsession campaign's marketing plan has  
been quite slick. After all, what better way to disseminate hate  
propaganda than under the unassuming guise of a documentary film  
delivered in Americans' daily newspapers? A plan that, sadly, many  
newspapers were all too happy to go along with for the sake of  
corporate profits. While a handful of newspapers -- the Greensboro,  
N.C., News & Record, the Detroit Free Press, the Cleveland Plain  
Dealer and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- have taken the ethical  
stance of refusing to carry the DVD (the News & Record called it "fear- 
mongering and divisive"), some 70 papers, including the New York  
Times, have delivered it to their subscribers as a paid advertising  
supplement.

There has really just been one small glitch in the plan: The public  
doesn't seem to be buying it. Newspapers that carried the DVD have  
faced floods of complaints from readers, and the past week has seen  
protests and press conferences denouncing the film.

The problem, it would appear, is that many readers simply do not  
accept the notion their newspaper should provide a cover for hate  
propaganda. As one Durham, N.C., News & Observer reader put it, "I  
cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering  
video disk Obsession in my newspaper! What will you enclose next? KKK  
robes?"

The public, it turns out, is a much a tougher sell than the corporate  
media. Major corporate media outlets have for years been citing the  
anti-Muslim pundits featured in Obsession as "experts."

For example: Steve Emerson has been invited regularly on NBC and  
described as an "anti-terror expert," despite the fact his research  
has been repudiated many times over. This is an "expert" who initially  
blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Middle Eastern terrorists, and who  
is now going around claiming that the Bush State Department is  
collaborating with extremists.

And then there's Daniel Pipes. While he's repeatedly been cited by the  
media as an "expert" on Islam and the Middle East, he has warned that  
"the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and  
enfranchisement of American Muslims" entail "true dangers" for  
American Jews, and led a witch hunt against a public school official  
who was slated to run an Arabic-language charter school in New York  
City.

Just a month before a critical election, there are no signs that the  
anti-Muslim mud-slinging campaign is going away. In fact, the  
secretive nonprofit called the Clarion Fund behind the Obsession  
campaign just came out with a brand new DVD, The Third Jihad,  
featuring Mark Steyn -- who, as FAIR's new report documents, has  
warned of the "demographic decline" posed by Europe's emerging Muslim  
population, and suggests there are lessons for Europeans in the Balkan  
example of ethnic cleansing.

You can read all about Emerson, Pipes and Steyn in a new report that's  
just been released called "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear,  
Bigotry and Misinformation" . The report profiles 12 top anti-Muslim  
pundits, including prominent talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly, Sean  
Hannity and Glenn Beck.

The media's long record of failing to challenge (and often enabling)  
anti-Muslim smears should leave us quite worried about how this final  
leg of election '08 will play out: Will the media continue to provide  
a platform to the anti-Muslim smear machine, or will they uphold  
standards of responsible journalism?



From realiteee1 at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 11 19:38:20 2008
From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:38:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] Nader Team Actions: We Need Gas Money; etc..
In-Reply-To: <E1HAsmU-0006sg-Ei@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <626613.89579.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

We Need Gas Money
October 11, 2008 
www.votenader.org 
www.officialnaderstore.com 

 Drop $3 on Nader/Gonzalez now. 

http://www.officialnaderstore.com/

As you read this, Ralph Nader and the Nader Road Team are barnstorming across the Midwest.

Sweeping through Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas.

Driving more than 1,000 miles in two days.

Leading the only true opposition left in this country.

The only true opposition to corporate control and domination.

So, help us pay the gas bill now.


We're in the last days of our $250,000 fundraising drive.

Already today, you've given $15,000.

We need another $15,000 tonight to make it to $200,000.

So, we need 5,000 of you, our loyal supporters, to donate $3 each. 


And we'll have a shot to meet our goal tomorrow.

(We raised close to $40,000 in one day last month. No reason we can't do it again tomorrow.)

But we need a chance.

So, pay our gas bill now. 


And get us to 200,000 by midnight tonight.

As you know, we have yet to miss a fundraising deadline.

And we don't plan to now.

After buying us a gallon of gas, listen to Ralph from this morning on NPR. Click here to listen.

Then read the Associated Press story that ran earlier today. 

 By the way, the video featuring Jason Kafoury, our National Campaign Coordinator, is zooming up the Youtube charts. It's holding steady at number one in YouTube's activism category.

In case you missed it, here it is.

Okay, let's bump it up to $200,000.

Donate whatever you can afford to the only true political opposition left in these United States.

Let's meet this deadline. 

Onward to November 

The Nader Team 

PS: If you donate $100 or more now, we will send you an autographed copy of Ralph's classic -- The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). The 150-page hardcover book details the seventeen traditions that Ralph grew up with and is the closest thing so far to a Ralph Nader autobiography. So, don't miss out on this limited edition offer. (This offer ends October 12 at 11:59 p.m.) 




Radio Ads: Now or Never
October 10, 2008 
www.votenader.org 
www.officialnaderstore.com 

 This morning, as markets around the world are crashing, Nader/Gonzalez is on the rise.

http://www.votenader.org/ 

And we need your help right now.

Here's why:

We have the chance over the next month to run inexpensive radio ads in battleground states all across this country.

To expose The Bailout Boys -- Obama and McCain.

And to let the American people know that on November 4, they have a choice.

The people's candidate -- Independent Ralph Nader.

The man who stood against the bailout of Wall Street crooks.

And for regulation that would have prevented the current crisis.

Here's the problem:

We want to run the radio ads from October 21 to Election Day -- November 4.

In thirty markets all across this country.

Our radio guy tells us he needs the money by Monday to be able to reserve air time for the last two weeks before the election.

Throughout this year, when we have asked, you have delivered.

Thanks to you, we have not missed one fundraising deadline this year.

Now, we are in a corner.

Over the past week, you have donated $130,000 to our October Surprise Fund.

On our way to our goal of $250,000 by Sunday midnight.

Now, to reach our goal, we need 12,000 of you -- our loyal supporters -- to kick in $10 each. 


 We know that many of you have dug deep for the past seven months.

So, after you hit that contribute button, pick up the phone and get your friends, relatives, neighbors -- who are angry about the bailout and looking for an independent outlet -- to support the one candidate who has stood with the American people against the corporate criminal elite on Wall street.

To give you a sneak preview, we have cut a demo tape.

Listen here

If we reach our goal by Sunday night, we will be professionally producing a version of this demo ad and getting it out to our radio guy in Los Angeles.

As the Dow collapses, the Nader/Gonzalez shift the power platform is on the rise.

So, donate now -- whatever you can afford -- $10, $100, $1000 -- up to the legal limit of $2,300.

Help us fund our nationwide radio ad buy.

Inform the American public.

There is a choice on November 4.

Vote Independent.

Vote Ralph Nader for President.

Onward to November. 

The Nader Team 

PS: If you donate $100 or more now, we will send you an autographed copy of Ralph's classic -- The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). The 150-page hardcover book details the seventeen traditions that Ralph grew up with and is the closest thing so far to a Ralph Nader autobiography. So, don't miss out on this limited edition offer. (This offer ends October 12 at 11:59 p.m.) 





On the Road with Ralph: Latest Videos and Photos
October 9, 2008 
www.votenader.org 
www.officialnaderstore.com 
 
Media Team member Karen Kilroy and her son Brock with Ralph Nader  
They're charging through airports, eating up highways, setting up, taking down, rushing ahead, and framing the shot. They capture video of real people asking questions at events, not just the candidates. 

And, of course, they get Ralph Nader's and Matt Gonzalez's responses out to you and to the world. The media team you helped to build with your donations is hitting its stride. 

Check out recent photos at http://flickr.com/photos/votenader. 

The Nader Media Team has some new videos up on YouTube that we'd like you to watch and send around to your friends. 

Remember, you made these possible! 

First, check out the Vice-Presidential Debate video that will give you an entertaining way of showing your friends and family how Matt Gonzalez would've handled Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. 

  
On the road with Nader Media Team members Nick Bygon and John Harrison  
Then, watch videos from Ralph's recent swing through New England: 

Nader on becoming civically active, before a great crowd in Burlington, Vermont.

and 

On the passage of the Bailout Bill.

It's very important, as November draws near, that we all try and expand our social circles. Many people have never seen Ralph or Matt speak and video is the next best thing to a live event. 

Please choose the videos you like, and send them to your e-mail list. Post links to them on blogs that you read, or on your own blog. Your contributions continue to make our video production possible and we are still ramping up to our best stuff. Stay tuned by subscribing to our YouTube channel. 

Onward to November. 

The Nader Team 

PS: If you donate $100 or more now, we will send you an autographed copy of Ralph's classic -- The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). The 150-page hardcover book details the seventeen traditions that Ralph grew up with and is the closest thing so far to a Ralph Nader autobiography. So, don't miss out on this limited edition offer. (This offer ends October 12 at 11:59 p.m.) 

http://www.officialnaderstore.com/





Protest Gallup's Exclusion of Nader
October 7, 2008 
www.votenader.org 
www.officialnaderstore.com 

 Donate $5 to Nader/Gonzalez now. 

Why?

To protest the sheer arrogance of the Gallup Organization.

In a recent WSJ/NBC national poll, Ralph Nader pulls 5 percent.

Contrast that to the most recent Gallup national poll, where Nader polls a fraction of one percent.

Why the big difference?

Answer: Gallup, the 800-pound gorilla of the polling world, doesn't list Ralph Nader as one of the Presidential candidates in the primary polling question.

Are you kidding me?

No.

We are not kidding you.

And guess who the Commission on Presidential Debates depends on to do its polling to see which Presidential candidates get to debate before tens of millions of Americans tonight in Nashville?

You guessed it: Gallup.

I called Frank Newport. (pictured above)

Newport is the editor-in-chief at Gallup.

I asked Newport:

Is there an objective standard you use to keep Ralph off your primary polling question?

"No," Newport said.

"We use our internal judgment to decide."

Whoa!

Gallup's "internal judgment" keeps Ralph Nader out of their polling.

So, I tried again.

Any ballpark levels of support Gallup looks to as a threshold?

"No," Newport said.

Again, it was just subject to unidentified "internal judgment criteria."

What a total crock of you know what.

There are some polling agencies -- such as Ipsos/McClatchey and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. -- that include all the major third party candidates.

Not Gallup.

So, we propose two ways to protest Gallup's arrogance in keeping Ralph Nader out of the Gallup polls, thereby denying him the chance of having a chance to debate McCain and Obama.

 Protest method number one:

Donate $5, $10, $100 -- whatever you can afford -- up to the legal limit of $2,300 -- to Nader/Gonzalez now. 


The stronger we become in October, the more difficult it will be for even Gallup's "internal judgment" to ignore us.

We're in the middle of our October Surprise fundraising drive.

And we need to reach $250,000 by the end of the week.

So, if you haven't donated yet, hit that there contribute button now. 


Protest method number two:

Call up Gallup's Frank Newport.

Give him a piece of your mind.

Nader/Gonzalez is on more state ballots (45) than any other independent or third party candidate.

And we're polling five percent and higher in other polls nationwide.

Why is Gallup keeping Ralph Nader out of their polls?

What standards does Gallup use to determine who is included in their Presidential polls?

You can call Newport at: 609-924-9600

Or you can e-mail him directly at: frank_newport at gallup.com 

Thank you for your ongoing activism and support. 

Onward to November.

Toby Heaps

National Media Coordinator

PS: If you donate $100 or more now, we will send you an autographed copy of Ralph's classic -- The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). The 150-page hardcover book details the seventeen traditions that Ralph grew up with and is the closest thing so far to a Ralph Nader autobiography. So, don't miss out on this limited edition offer. (This offer ends October 12 at 11:59 p.m.)

http://www.votenader.org  /

Forward to a friend  |  Comment on our blog  
   
Paid for by Nader for President 2008 

Privacy policy 

Nader for President 2008 P.O. Box 34103 Washington, D.C. 20043 (202) 471 5833 


      


From realiteee1 at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 11 19:43:48 2008
From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:43:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] MSN Actions: News from Mexico Solidarity Network; etc..
In-Reply-To: <E1HAsmU-0006sg-Ei@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <266459.83941.qm@web50811.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

News from Mexico Solidarity Network
Mexico Solidarity Network

http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/   

Red de Solidaridad con Mexico
MEXICO SOLIDARITY NETWORK
WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS
SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2008

1. ECONOMIC CRISIS AFFECTS FAMILY REMITTANCES
2. NEGOTIATORS FAIL TO REACH AGREEMENT IN TEACHER STRIKE
3. NEW CHARGES EXPECTED IN BRAD WILL CASE
4. PFP RAIDS AFI
5. MSN PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS (Contact MSN at MexicoSolidarity.org) 

1. ECONOMIC CRISIS AFFECTS FAMILY REMITTANCES
Family remittances from migrant workers in the US are expected to decrease by at least US$2.5 billion during the coming year, a decline of almost 10% over 2008, according to Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens.  ?We are entering a much more complicated period than we expected,? said the normally upbeat Carstens during testimony before the Senate.  Family remittances are the main source of financial support for more than 10% of Mexican families.

2. NEGOTIATORS FAIL TO REACH AGREEMENT IN TEACHER STRIKE
Negotiators failed to reach an agreement in the six week teachers strike in Morelos that has kept most of the state?s public schools from opening.  More than 20,000 of the state?s 25,000 teachers are on strike, demanding an end to the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE) signed in May by President Felipe Calderon and Elba Esther Gordillo, ?permanent president? of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE).  Teachers object to provisions in the ACE that violate their labor rights, including mandatory periodic evaluations.   Many current teachers either bought their positions from previous teachers or inherited them from family members, and the ACE would prohibit these kinds of hereditary transactions.  Given the high levels of unemployment in Mexico and the highly politicized nature of evaluations, teachers are concerned about the stability of their positions, especially those who oppose the virtual dictatorship exercised by Gordillo over the
 1.3 million member union.  Gordillo is closely allied with Calderon and was probably responsible for a good deal of the electoral fraud that brought the current president to power.  The ACE would increase her already powerful control over Latin America?s largest union.  Teachers in Morelos have taken the lead in challenging the ACE, but many teachers around the country are opposed to the plan and to Gordillo?s increasingly corrupt and problematic control of the union.  On Tuesday, thousands of teachers from six states participated in marches, meetings and building occupations in opposition to Gordillo, the ACE and last year?s privatization of much of the Social Security Institute for State Workers (ISSSTE).  On Saturday, the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), a dissident faction of the teacher?s union, called for a national conference to overturn the ACE.

3. NEW CHARGES EXPECTED IN BRAD WILL CASE
The Federal Attorney General signaled this week that members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) will be charged in the murder of US journalist Brad Will.  Will died in October 2006 during confrontations between the APPO and paramilitary forces aligned with Governor Ulises Ruiz.  Will was videotaping at the time of his death and recorded paramilitaries firing weapons in his direction.  But the Attorney General claims Will was short at close range, less than two feet, by members of the APPO.  Photos taken of a shirtless Will immediately after he was shot show only one bullet wound in the stomach area, yet the Attorney General claims a bullet wound discovered later on his right side was the cause of death.  

4. PFP RAIDS AFI
In a surreal action that likely left Mexico?s organized crime bosses chuckling, 300 heavily armed Federal Preventative Police (PFP) raided the Mexico City offices of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI, the rough equivalent of the FBI) on Thursday.  AFI agents engaged in a series of increasing public protests this week claiming labor rights violations and objecting to their imminent transfer to the PFP.  Since the beginning of his sexenio, President Calderon has called for the integration of all federal policing agencies into a single unit called the Federal Police.  Legislation is pending but has not yet been considered by Congress, yet for months the administration has been consolidating the PFP and the AFI under one coordinator to facilitate the eventual formation of a single force.  In this context, AFI agents have been forced to sign new labor contracts that don?t recognize accumulated seniority rights.  On Wednesday, disgruntled AFI agents
 organized an unprecedented public march from their offices to the Federal Attorney General (PGR) demanding respect for their labor rights.  The PGR cuts paychecks for the 5,000 AFI agents, and a commander from the Secretary for Public Security (SSP), part of Calderon?s cabinet, oversees AFI operations.  On Thursday, AFI agents visited Congress and invited four Deputies to visit the their offices and document the virtual dismantling of what was Mexico?s premier national police force under the Fox administration.  The rationale for Thursday?s raid was not immediately clear, and no AFI agents were arrested.

5. MSN PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS (Contact MSN at MexicoSolidarity.org) 

STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM:
All Mexico Solidarity Network study abroad programs are accredited at the undergraduate and masters level by the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, one of Mexico?s most prestigious public universities.  Hampshire College is the US school of record and provides official transcripts.

Fall 2008, September 7 ? December 13: Study in Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Mexico City and Ciudad Juarez, focusing on the theory and practice of Mexican social movements, including indigenous movements, campesino organizations, and urban movements.  The 14-week, 16-credit program includes intensive Spanish language courses and alternative study options for native Spanish speakers.

Spring 2009, January 25 ? May 2: Study in Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Mexico City and Ciudad Juarez, focusing on the theory and practice of Mexican social movements, including indigenous movements, campesino organizations, and urban movements.  The 14-week, 16-credit program includes intensive Spanish language courses and alternative study options for native Spanish speakers.

Summer 2009, June 7 ? August 1: Study Mexico?s most important social movements in Chiapas, Mexico City and Tlaxcala.  The eight-week, 11-credit program includes intensive Spanish classes and alternative study options for native Spanish speakers.

Summer 2009, June 14 ? July 25: The Border Dynamics program focuses on US-Mexico border dynamics viewed through a third world feminist lens.  The six-week, 8-credit program is Spanish immersion.

Fall 2009, September 6 ? December 12: Study in Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Mexico City and Ciudad Juarez, focusing on the theory and practice of Mexican social movements, including indigenous movements, campesino organizations, and urban movements.  The 14-week, 16-credit program includes intensive Spanish language courses and alternative study options for native Spanish speakers.

CHICAGO AUTONOMOUS CENTER (3460 W. LAWRENCE AVE.) 
ESL and Spanish Literacy classes: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings, and Saturday mornings.  Classes utilize popular education strategies to increase conversational English capacity and basic reading and writing skills in Spanish.

Cultural events and political workshops:
For a full schedule of cultural events and political workshops, contact the Mexico Solidarity Network at 773-583-7728 or visit http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/communityforum

SPEAKING TOURS:
Contact MSN at MexicoSolidarity.org to schedule an event in your city.

October 19-31, 2008 (Northwest): Plan Mexico.  Carlos Euceda will discuss Plan Mexico (aka the Merida Initiative), a bilateral security initiative that will provide $1.5 billion in US military financing for Mexico?s army and intelligence forces.

October 12-24, 2008 (New England): Border dynamics.  Veronica Leyva, a native of Ciudad Juarez, will speak about maquiladoras, immigration and struggles for land along the border, with particular emphasis on the Lomas de Poleo struggle.  Veronia is the MSN staff person in Ciudad Juarez.  She worked for seven years in maquiladoras and six years as a labor/community organizer before joining the MSN staff in 2004.

November 9-21, 2008 (Midwest): Immigration dynamics and Braceros.  A representative of the National Assembly of ex-Braceros from Tlaxcala will discuss current struggles by Braceros and the lessons of the Bracero program for the debate on immigration reform.  Braceros were Mexican guest workers who came to the US under a post-World War II treaty.

November 9-21, 2008 (California): Immigration dynamics and Braceros.  A representative of the National Assembly of ex-Braceros from Tlaxcala will discuss current struggles by Braceros and the lessons of the Bracero program for the debate on immigration reform.  Braceros were Mexican guest workers who came to the US under a post-World War II treaty.  Macrina Cardenas, President of the MSN board of directors, will accompany the tour.

February 8-21, 2009 (Southeast): Border dynamics.  Veronica Leyva, a native of Ciudad Juarez, will speak about maquiladoras, immigration and struggles for land along the border, with particular emphasis on the Lomas de Poleo struggle.  Veronia is the MSN staff person in Ciudad Juarez.  She worked for seven years in maquiladoras and six years as a labor/community organizer before joining the MSN staff in 2004.

February 15-28, 2009 (Mid Atlantic): Immigration dynamics and Braceros.  A representative of the National Assembly of ex-Braceros from Tlaxcala will discuss current struggles by Braceros and the lessons of the Bracero program for the debate on immigration reform.  Braceros were Mexican guest workers who came to the US under a post-World War II treaty.

March 15-28, 2009 (New York state): Free trade, fair trade and the dynamics of alternative economies.  

March 22 ? April 4, 2009 (Midwest): Immigration dynamics, featuring migrant workers from the Midwest.

March 29 ? April 11, 2009 (New England): Urban housing struggles and the war against popular organizations in Mexico.

April 5-18, 2009 (West Coast): The Other Campaign and campesino organizing, featuring an organizer from the Concejo Nacional Urbano Campesino.

ALTERNATIVE ECONOMY INTERNSHIPS:
Develop markets for artisanry produced by women's cooperatives in Chiapas and make public presentations on the struggle for justice and dignity in Zapatista communities. 

Interns are currently active in:  New York City; El Paso, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; Rochester, NY; Albuquerque, NM; Washington, DC; Chico, CA; Stonington, ME; Minneapolis, MN; Berkeley, CA; Grand Rapids, MI; Salem, OR; Santa Cruz, CA; Chatham, NJ; Rutland, MA; Chicago, IL; Corpus Christi, TX; and Houston, TX.

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Unique study opportunity in Mexico
Mexico Solidarity Network
Red de Solidaridad con Mexico
2009 Study Abroad Opportunities in Mexico

Study with some of Mexico?s most important active social movements, including:

- Indigenous movements in Chiapas

- The Frente Popular Francisco Villa Independiente, Mexico?s largest urban housing movement

- The Concejo Nacional Urbano Campesino, one of Mexico?s most important rural movements (and located in Tlaxcala, the heart of the best food in Mexico!)

- Families of femicide victims in Ciudad Juarez  

These unique programs feature home stays with members of social movements, which encourages unprecedented learning opportunities with organizers on the front line in struggles against neoliberalism.  The program combines experiential learning with theoretical work in a seminar and workshop based environment focused on student participation.

The programs are accredited by the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, one of Mexico?s most important public universities.  Hampshire College is the US school of record and provides official transcripts.  The program is also formally recognized by the University of Texas-Austin, New Mexico State University, the State University of New York (SUNY) via SUNY at Albany, Appalachian State University, and many others.

Fall and Spring semesters are 14 week, 16-credit programs that travel the length and breadth of Mexico, including Chiapas, Mexico City, Tlaxcala and Ciudad Juarez:

Spring 2009: January 25 ? May 2


Fall 2009: September 6 ? December 12

Two summer 2009 programs focus on:

Border dynamics, with an emphasis on third world feminism.  This six week course offers 8 credits and is based in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.  The course is Spanish immersion with classes and most readings in Spanish.
June 14 ? July 25 Mexican social movements.  This eight week course offers 10 credits and is based in Chiapas, Mexico City and Tlaxcala.
June 7 ? August 1  

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.  Programs have a tendency to fill quickly, so apply early to assure your spot.

For more information, see our web site at www.mexicosolidarity.org or contact MSN at MexicoSolidarity.org.


      


From fentona at shaw.ca  Sat Oct 11 21:11:56 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:11:56 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Battling Harper: The Left and the Canadian Election
Message-ID: <A61AA3B7-3F8D-4CCD-BE23-6D15A1FEE24B@shaw.ca>

A 10 Minute Production

Battling Harper:
The Left and the Canadian Election
As the Canadian federal election moves into its final days, the  
Canadian electorate is again demonstrating its historical volatility  
in voting.

Yet, this is again occurring within the context of a very stable  
political system with extremely cramped ideological parameters. These  
parameters are noteworthy mainly for how successfully the political  
right has moved the centre of Canada's politics and policy regime to  
the right and made neoliberalism an all-embracing political framework  
for all the poltical parties in ideology and certainly in practice.

Bryan Evans and Greg Albo here discuss some of the ways that the  
election, in the midst of financial crisis, has opened up space for  
critiques of neoliberalism, how the election has unfolded, and the  
openings for the Left after the election.

www.socialistproject.ca/video/#ls5


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Sat Oct 11 22:00:51 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:00:51 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Martin Wolf: "Asia's Revenge"
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810112100p78cf14b9ofa0dd237bfb404fe@mail.gmail.com>

Very useful, except the conclusion (still in favor of "liberalized
finance," which is the primary reason many governments began to pile
up foreign currency reserves so much).   But why is this article
titled "Asia's Revenge"?  Joseph Stiglitz said that "they [banks]
finally had found a sucker who would take them [toxic mortgages] off
their hands -- called the American taxpayer."  But the real suckers
are, above all, East Asians, especially Chinese workers and peasants,
and to a lesser extent Russians, Arabs, and Germans.  Unfortunately,
the top ten generators of surpluses, as well as the top deficit
spenders, are the very countries where a major political change is the
least likely!  -- Yoshie

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fba32c1e-9565-11dd-aedd-000077b07658.html>
Asia's revenge
By Martin Wolf
Published: October 8 2008 19:54 | Last updated: October 8 2008 23:48

"Things that can't go on forever, don't." ? Herbert Stein, former
chairman of the US presidential Council of Economic Advisers

What confronts the world can be seen as the latest in a succession of
financial crises that have struck periodically over the last 30 years.
The current financial turmoil in the US and Europe affects economies
that account for at least half of world output, making this upheaval
more significant than all the others. Yet it is also depressingly
similar, both in its origins and its results, to earlier shocks.

To trace the parallels ? and help in understanding how the present
pressing problems can be addressed ? one needs to look back to the
late 1970s. Petrodollars, the foreign exchange earned by oil exporting
countries amid sharp jumps in the crude price, were recycled via
western banks to less wealthy emerging economies, principally in Latin
America.

This resulted in the first of the big crises of modern times, when
Mexico's 1982 announcement of its inability to service its debt
brought the money-centre banks of New York and London to their knees.

Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of
Harvard University identify the similarities in a paper published
earlier this year.* They focus on previous crises in high-income
countries. But they also note characteristics that are shared with
financial crises that have occurred in emerging economies.

This time, most emerging economies have been running huge current
account surpluses. So a "large chunk of money has effectively been
recycled to a developing economy that exists within the United States'
own borders", they point out. "Over a trillion dollars was channelled
into the subprime mortgage market, which is comprised of the poorest
and least creditworthy borrowers within the US. The final claimaint is
different, but in many ways the mechanism is the same."

The links between the financial fragility in the US and previous
emerging market crises mean that the current banking and economic
traumas should not be seen as just the product of risky monetary
policy, lax regulation and irresponsible finance, important though
these were. They have roots in the way the global economy has worked
in the era of financial deregulation. Any country that receives a huge
and sustained inflow of foreign lending runs the risk of a subsequent
financial crisis, because external and domestic financial fragility
will grow. Precisely such a crisis is now happening to the US and a
number of other high-income countries including the UK.

These latest crises are also related to those that preceded them ?
particularly the Asian crisis of 1997-98. Only after this shock did
emerging economies become massive capital exporters. This pattern was
reinforced by China's choice of an export-oriented development path,
partly influenced by fear of what had happened to its neighbours
during the Asian crisis. It was further entrenched by the recent jumps
in the oil price and the consequent explosion in the current account
surpluses of oil exporting countries.

The big global macroeconomic story of this decade was, then, the
offsetting emergence of the US and a number of other high-income
countries as spenders and borrowers of last resort. Debt-fuelled US
households went on an unparalleled spending binge ? by dipping into
their housing "piggy banks".

In explaining what had happened, Ben Bernanke, when still a governor
of the Federal Reserve rather than chairman, referred to the emergence
of a "savings glut". The description was accurate. After the turn of
the millennium, one of the striking features became the low level of
long-term nominal and real interest rates at a time of rapid global
economic growth. Cheap money encouraged an orgy of financial
innovation, borrowing and spending.

That was also one of the initial causes of the surge in house prices
across a large part of the high-income world, particularly in the US,
the UK and Spain.

What lay behind the savings glut? The first development was the shift
of emerging economies into a large surplus of savings over investment.
Within the emerging economies, the big shifts were in Asia and in the
oil exporting countries (see chart). By 2007, according to the
International Monetary Fund, the aggregate savings surpluses of these
two groups of countries had reached around 2 per cent of world output.

Government spending offsets private cutbacks (US financial balances as
% of GDP); Households move to repair their finances (US private
financial balances as % of GDP); Emerging imbalances (current account
balances as % of global GDP); The costly fruit of foreign exchange
intervention (foreign exchange reserves $'000bn):
<http://media.ft.com/cms/018f3c22-9565-11dd-aedd-000077b07658.gif>

Despite being a huge oil importer, China emerged as the world's
biggest surplus country: its current account surplus was $372bn
(?215bn, ?272bn) in 2007, which was not only more than 11 per cent of
its gross domestic product, but almost as big as the combined
surpluses of Japan ($213bn) and Germany ($185bn), the two largest
high-income capital exporters.

Last year, the aggregate surpluses of the world's surplus countries
reached $1,680bn, according to the IMF. The top 10 (China, Japan,
Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Switzerland, Norway, Kuwait, the
Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates) generated more than 70 per
cent of this total. The surpluses of the top 10 countries represented
at least 8 per cent of their aggregate GDP and about one-quarter of
their aggregate gross savings.

Meanwhile, the huge US deficit absorbed 44 per cent of this total. The
US, UK, Spain and Australia ? four countries with housing bubbles ?
absorbed 63 per cent of the world's current account surpluses.

That represented a vast shift of capital ? but unlike in the 1970s and
early 1980s, it went to some of the world's richest countries.
Moreover, the emergence of the surpluses was the result of deliberate
policies ? shown in the accumulation of official foreign currency
reserves and the expansion of the sovereign wealth funds over this
period.

Quite reasonably, the energy exporters were transforming one asset ?
oil ? into another ? claims on foreigners. Others were recycling
current account surpluses and private capital inflows into official
capital outflows, keeping exchange rates down and competitiveness up.
Some described this new system, of which China was the most important
proponent, as "Bretton Woods II", after the pegged adjustable exchange
rates set-up that collapsed in the early 1970s. Others called it
"export-led growth" or depicted it as a system of self-insurance.

Yet the justification is less important than the consequences. Between
January 2000 and April 2007, the stock of global foreign currency
reserves rose by $5,200bn. Thus three-quarters of all the foreign
currency reserves accumulated since the beginning of time have been
piled up in this decade. Inevitably, a high proportion ? probably
close to two-thirds ? of these sums were placed in dollars, thereby
supporting the US currency and financing US external deficits.

The savings glut had another dimension, related to a second financial
shock ? the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000. One consequence was
the move of the corporate sectors of most high-income countries into
financial surplus. In other words, their retained earnings came to
exceed their investments. Instead of borrowing from banks and other
suppliers of capital, non-financial corporations became providers of
finance.

In this world of massive savings surpluses in a range of important
countries and weak demand for capital from non-financial corporations,
central banks ran easy monetary policies. They did so because they
feared the possibility of a shift into deflation. The Fed, in
particular, found itself having to offset the contractionary effects
of the vast flow of private and, above all, public capital into the
US.

A simple way of thinking about what has happened to the global economy
in the 2000s is that high-income countries with elastic credit systems
and households willing to take on rising debt levels offset the
massive surplus savings in the rest of the world. The lax monetary
policies facilitated this excess spending, while the housing bubble
was the vehicle through which it worked.

The charts show what happened, as a result, to "financial balances" ?
the difference between expenditure and income ? inside the US economy.
If one looks at three sectors ? foreign, government and private ? it
is evident that the first has had a huge surplus this decade ? offset,
as it has to be, by deficits in the other two.

In the early 2000s, the US fiscal deficit was the main offset. In the
middle years of the decade, the private sector ran a large deficit
while the government's shrank. Now that the recession-hit private
sector is moving back into balance at enormous speed, the government
deficit is exploding once again.

Looking at what happened inside the private sector, a striking
contrast can be seen between the corporate and household realms.
Households moved into a huge financial deficit, which peaked at just
under 4 per cent of GDP in the second quarter of 2005. Then, as the
housing bubble burst, housebuilding collapsed and households started
saving more. With remarkable speed, the household financial deficit
disappeared. Today's explosion in the fiscal deficit is the offset.

Inevitably, huge household financial deficits also mean huge
accumulations of household debt. This was strikingly true in the US
and UK. In the process, the financial sector accumulated an ever
greater stock of claims not just on other sectors but on itself. This
frightening complexity, which lies at the root of many of the current
difficulties, was facilitated by the environment of easy borrowing and
search for high returns in an environment of low real rates of
interest.

A protest against the US banking rescue

These linked dangers between external and internal imbalances,
domestic debt accumulations and financial fragility were foretold by a
number of analysts. Foremost among them was Wynne Godley of Cambridge
university in his prescient work for the Levy Economics Institute of
Bard College, which has laid particular stress on the work of the late
Hyman Minsky.**

So what might ? and should ? happen now? The big danger, evidently, is
of a financial collapse. The principal offset, in the short run, to
the inevitable cuts in spending in the private sector of the
crisis-afflicted economies will also be vastly bigger fiscal deficits.

Fortunately, the US and the other afflicted high-income countries have
one advantage over the emerging economies: they borrow in their own
currencies and have creditworthy governments. Unlike emerging
economies, they can therefore slash interest rates and increase fiscal
deficits.

Yet the huge fiscal boosts and associated government recapitalisation
of shattered financial systems are only a temporary solution. There
can be no return to business as usual. It is, above all, neither
desirable nor sustainable for global macroeconomic balance to be
achieved by recycling huge savings surpluses into the excess
consumption of the world's richest consumers. The former point is
self-evident, while the latter has been demonstrated by the recent
financial collapse.

So among the most important tasks ahead is to create a system of
global finance that allows a more balanced world economy, with excess
savings being turned into either high-return investment or consumption
by the world's poor, including in capital- exporting countries such as
China. A part of the answer will be the development of local-currency
finance in emerging economies, which would make it easier for them to
run current account deficits than proved to be the case in the past
three decades.

It is essential in any case for countries in a position to do so to
expand domestic demand vigorously. Only in this way can the
recessionary impulse coming from the corrections in the debt-laden
countries be offset.

Yet there is a still bigger challenge ahead. The crisis demonstrates
that the world has been unable to combine liberalised capital markets
with a reasonable degree of financial stability. A particular problem
has been the tendency for large net capital flows and associated
current account and domestic financial balances to generate huge
crises. This is the biggest of them all.

Lessons must be learnt. But those should not just be about the
regulation of the financial sector. Nor should they be only about
monetary policy. They must be about how liberalised finance can be
made to support the global economy rather than destabilise it.

This is no little local difficulty. It raises the deepest questions
about the way forward for our integrated world economy. The learning
must start now.

*Is the 2007 US subprime financial crisis so different? An
international historical comparison. Working paper 13761, www.nber.org

**The US economy: Is there a way out of the woods? November 2007, www.levy.org

The writer is the FT's chief economics commentator and author of
Fixing Global Finance, published in the US this month by Johns Hopkins
University Press and forthcoming in the UK through Yale University
Press.


From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org  Sun Oct 12 06:05:09 2008
From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:05:09 -0600
Subject: [R-G] American Racism/Ethnocentrism
Message-ID: <008a01c92c62$cb06afc0$0400a8c0@computer>

Like all back and forth discussions, this on RBB regarding race and racism can -- probably unavoidably -- become a little diffuse.  One of the problems involved is obviously the interesting mix of cynicism with various political perspectives, some of which are obviously sharply critical of Barack Obama on ideological grounds [to say nothing of the Democratic Party in general,]

As I've indicated, I support Obama -- in the sense of critical support.  I can appreciate all of the other perspectives.  But let's not overlook the tremendous importance of this historical moment.  If the United States [and Canada as well] have a still all-too-pervasive sickness, it is dehumanizing racism and that related and intertwined ill, cultural ethnocentrism -- the many varieties of alleged "cultural superiority/inferiority".  Long after the initial and explicit [and, again I say explicit] economic foundations of these have eroded,  the quack theological justifications ["primitive children of the Devil"] and the equally quack biological rationales ["inherent, genetic inferiority of non-whites"] -- all of this to justify genocide against the Indian nations in order to secure lands and resources, and the enslavement of Blacks, and the seizure of Mexican territory, and all the rest --, racism and ethnocentrism have continued with consistency, taking on and carrying their own ill-life forward: profound infections in our national minds and our national bodies.  Often all of this still retains, however veiled these days, an economic foundation -- but these durable poisons can certainly survive purely "on their own" and do so in a vast number of cases.  [See http://hunterbear.org/AMERICAN%20RACISM.htm ]

True, in the past few decades, we've come a very long way in a very short time toward digging much of this out, exposing it all to healing forces, "overcoming" -- albeit far too slowly.  But, as everyone of us on these discussion lists knows, there is one hell of a long way to go.

When Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic Primary, I commented on a number of lists:  "It wasn't so long ago that we had to fight to survive at a Woolworth lunch counter."

But this Good War is far from over.

In Solidarity,

Yours, H.

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 our Community Organizing Course [With new material]
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm

And see http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm


From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Sun Oct 12 05:59:02 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:59:02 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Power of the Nonrational
Message-ID: <48F1E686.1040308@attglobal.net>


by John Michael Greer

The Archdruid Report (October 08 2008)


For the release of a book on the end of industrial civilization, it was
certainly good timing. Over the last week or so, as my book The Long
Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age {1} hit the
bookstores, the wheels came off the global economy. As stock markets
crashed worldwide and governments panicked, I found myself wondering if
the marketing people at my publisher, New Society, had managed to pull
off the great-grandmother of all publicity stunts.

Now of course the crisis now under way has been building since the early
1980s, when politicians who had forgotten the lessons of the Great
Depression threw out the prudent regulatory firewalls that kept banks
from speculating with other people's money. Deregulation was the word du
jour, driven by a blind faith in markets that did its level best to
ignore the lessons of history, and each of the crises that followed -
the 1987 stock market crash, the currency implosions of the 1990s, the
dotcom bubble and bust at the turn of the millennium, and the orgy of
delusional finance that drove the global real estate bubble thereafter -
simply brought cries for more of the same deregulation that caused the
trouble in the first place.

For a quarter century, those who recalled Charles Mackay's Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1995) and its many
successors, and pointed out that uncontrolled speculation always ends
the same dismal way, were told that they ought to shut up until they
learned something about economics. Sober warnings from distinguished
scholars were drowned out by a chorus of cheerleading, while less
prestigious voices were pushed out to the fringes of the blogosphere.
What is now painfully clear is that those marginalized voices were right
all along, and their warnings could have spared us a massive economic
disaster if the pundits and politicians who dismissed them had listened
instead.

All this raises a question that deserves more attention than it usually
receives: what makes a society accept or reject any given set of
warnings about the future? At the ASPO-USA peak oil conference last
month, a slightly more focused version of this question was much in the
air. Several of the speakers expressed their frustration at the way
warnings of global climate change have been picked up by the media and
turned into an international cause celebre, while warnings of the
imminence of peak oil are still being dismissed as a nonissue by most
people straight across the political and cultural spectrum.

It's a fascinating question, not least because there are at least two
serious problems with the case for global extinction via climate change
currently being splashed across the media. The first of these was
pointed up by several of the presenters at the ASPO conference: the
scenarios of drastic climate change being offered by the IPCC, the
government-supported panel of scientists responsible for the most widely
accepted predictions, assume that the world's production of petroleum,
coal, and natural gas can increase steadily through the year 2100.

That's a problematic assumption, to say the least. The world's peak
production of conventional petroleum happened in 2005; massive infusions
of tar sand products and biofuels have kept the numbers from falling
significantly since then, but with production at most of the world's oil
fields dropping steadily, the IPCC's assumptions of steady increase are
hard to support. Natural gas worldwide is expected to hit peak
production around 2030. Coal is more complex, because all coal is not
created equal; the most energy-intensive coal, anthracite, is all but
exhausted already, and most of what remains is low-quality "brown coal",
much of which will cost more energy to extract than it yields; by 2040
at the latest, the energy yield from coal production will have reached
its limit and begun an irrevocable decline. By 2100, our total
consumption of all fossil fuels put together will have fallen to a very
modest fraction of today's levels, simply because there won't be enough
left to produce.

Yet there's another difficulty with the scenarios of global ecological
collapse being offered by activists and the media just now: even if the
IPCC figures for production made sense, a six degrees Celsius increase
in the Earth's temperature over a century is well within the normal
range of variation for our planet. The latest Greenland ice cores show,
for example, that at the end of the last ice age, the Earth's average
temperature spiked up twelve degrees Celsius in fifty years or less
{12}; similar jolts up and down, some of them even more extreme, have
happened many other times in Earth's long history, and for most of the
last billion years, this planet has been much, much warmer than it is
now. Not that many millions of years ago, it bears remembering,
alligators lived on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and tropical and
subtropical forests covered most of the planet.

This doesn't mean, mind you, that we can simply dump carbon dioxide into
the atmospere and ignore the consequences. What counts as normal
variation for the Earth is far more than a fragile industrial
civilization can cope with, and the prospect of drastic food shortages
driven by wild climatic swings, plus a fifty-foot rise in sea levels
drowning every coastal city on Earth, should be reason enough for second
thoughts. The point I hope to make, rather, is that extreme scenarios of
planetary extinction have been widely accepted in popular culture,
despite some very significant weaknesses, while the predictions of the
peak oil community - which have a much more solid basis in fact - have
been dismissed out of hand. Why?

That question cannot be answered without straying out of simple matters
of fact into the murky territory of beliefs and cultural narratives.
Many of the critics of these essays, and indeed some of the people who
have praised them, have dismissed this side of the conversation I've
tried to start as irrelevant to our predicament. The problem with this
sort of thinking is that it's only in the delusions of raving economists
that human beings make decisions on the basis of a purely rational
assessment of objectively known facts. In the real world, facts are
never objectively known, and reasoning is the willing slave of its
preconceptions; we project our beliefs onto the inkblot patterns of
experience, and so understanding those beliefs is essential if we're to
understand the forces driving today's choices - and thus making
tomorrow's hard facts.

Look at the beliefs underlying the idea of catastrophic global climate
change and you'll find, at their core, a story about human power. We
have become so powerful through our technological progress, according to
the narrative, that we are able to threaten our own survival and that of
the Earth itself. The only limits most climate change advocates seem to
be able to imagine are those they think we must place on ourselves; even
if climate change leads to our extinction, we will at least have the
glory of doing the deed ourselves. It's almost a parody of the old
atheist gibe: to prove our own omnipotence, we made a crisis so big not
even we can lift it out of our way.

Underlying the idea of peak oil, though, lies a different and far more
sobering view of things, because peak oil is not a story about human
power; it's a story about human limits. If the peak oil narrative is
correct, the power we claimed as our own was never really ours; we got
it by breaking into the earth's treasure of stored carbon and burning it
up in a few short centuries. Despite the cliches, we never conquered
nature; instead, we borrowed her assets and blew them in a
three-hundred-year orgy of lavish consumption. Now the bills are coming
due, the balance left in the account won't meet them, and the remaining
question is how much of what we bought with all that carbon will still
be ours when nature's foreclosure proceedings finish with us.

These differences matter, because the basic assumption of the climate
change narrative - the belief in human omnipotence - is a core article
of faith in contemporary industrial societies. It's so pervasive that
its effects are rarely noticed, but it undergirds an astonishing range
of popular attitudes and ideas. It's axiomatic in the industrial world
that anything unsatisfactory is a problem in need of a solution, and
equally axiomatic that a solution can be found for it. The suggestion
that some deeply unsatisfactory conditions may not be problems that can
be solved but, rather, are predicaments that must be lived with, is at
once unthinkable and offensive to a great many people these days.

Yet this is exactly what the peak oil narrative suggests. If the world's
conventional petroleum production peaked in 2005 and faces imminent
declines, as all the evidence suggests; if none of the proposed
replacements for petroleum can take up the slack, and many of them,
especially the other fossil fuels, are themselves closing in on their
own peaks and declines; if the technological revolutions and economic
boom of the last three centuries were a product of extravagant use of
these nonrenewable resources, not of such impressive intangibles as "the
human spirit", and will not outlast their material basis; if, in other
words, human life is subject to hard ecological limits - if these things
are true, the narrative of human omnipotence falls, and a popular and
passionately held conception of humanity's nature and destiny falls with it.

Now I have to confess that I find the narrative of human omnipotence,
and the secular mythology that has grown up around it, utterly
unconvincing. From the perspective of my own Druid faith, all that
rhetoric about humanity's conquest of nature is absurd; it's as though a
leaf were to daydream about conquering the tree that brought it into
being, presently sustains it, and will let it fall in due time; the
attitudes that lead us to picture ourselves as creation's overlords
strike me as nothing more than an extraordinary case of egomania. Still,
the fact remains that, in an age that has abandoned the traditional
forms of religion without uprooting the emotional needs that religions
meet, many people rely on these beliefs as a source of meaning and hope.

In turn, the peak oil movement's problems finding a hearing in the wider
discourse of our time has nothing to do with a shortage of solid facts
or compelling reasoning; it has both of these in abundance. Rather, I
have come to think, those difficulties are rooted in the movement's
failure, at least so far, to address these deeper, nonrational issues.
If the peak oil message is correct, then the Great God Progress is dead;
however misguided the faith of his votaries may turn out to be in
hindsight, it's a deeply held faith, and those who rely on it to give
their lives meaning and hope can be counted on to cling to it until and
unless some convincing alternative comes their way. That their clinging
may keep our civilization from finding useful responses to a crisis even
more challenging than today's financial debacle is simply one of the
ironies of our present situation.

Links:

{1} http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/4014

{2} http://www.physorg.com/news133107932.htm


http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/power-of-nonrational.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 Oct 12 09:11:15 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:11:15 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Unanswered Phone Calls in Venezuela: Human Rights Watch
	Exposes Hugo Chavez Yet Again
Message-ID: <ABB1AE57-F6F5-40FE-B2F4-B952088B95B6@shaw.ca>


October 10th, 2008
Unanswered Phone Calls in Venezuela: Human Rights Watch Exposes Hugo  
Chavez Yet Again.

By: Joe Emersberger - HaitiAnalysis.com

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published a 230 page report on  
Venezuela entitled "?A Decade Under Ch?vez: Political Intolerance and  
Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela,?

In a press release about the report, HRW's Americas director, Jose  
Miguel Vivanco stated that "rather than advancing rights protections"  
the Chavez government has "moved in the opposite direction,  
sacrificing basic guarantees in pursuit of its own political agenda. "

One of the report's findings is so explosive that it deserves to be  
quoted at length:

?Government officials routinely deny or fail to respond to requests  
for information by journalists. According to an investigation by  
?ltimas Noticias, a generally progovernment newspaper, journalists  
have encountered obstacles in obtaining information from the police on  
crime statistics, judges and court officials, hospitals, state  
enterprises such as PDVSA, the comptroller general?s office, and  
various ministries?

According to a log publicized by the newspaper El Mundo, only 37.5  
percent of the officials responded to requests for official  
information made by its investigative reporters in 2007. The average  
wait for a reply was 38 days, almost twice the legal maximum. For  
example, a reporter approached the Ministry of Planning and  
Development to get information about the salaries of public employees.  
It took seven months, three letters, and a change of vice-minister  
before a reply was received. ? [1]

My heart goes out to those journalists who have not received replies ?  
or have had to endure waits of up to seven months before receiving  
one. Apologists for Chavez may point out that HRW was not talking  
about inquiries into horrific atrocities like the ones carried out by  
the US backed government in Colombia, and that nothing like that is  
mentioned in the report, but such people don?t understand the agony of  
being ignored. I know because I have been writing and telephoning HRW  
for years and have never received a reply. I have a zero percent  
success rate ? much worse than El Mundo?s ? so I can feel their pain.  
[2]

HRW also found that ?Venezuela still enjoys a vibrant public debate in  
which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in  
their criticism and defense of Ch?vez?. It said that the Chavez  
government has greatly expanded funding for community broadcasters and  
that a ?...large majority of community radio stations are supportive  
of the Ch?vez government. However, they are not politically  
homogeneous, and by no means uncritical?. None of that, of course,  
should distract us from the suffering of those journalists waiting for  
replies about government salaries.

Now that HRW has blown the lid off the grave human rights abuse of  
unanswered questions, perhaps they can finally respond to these  
questions:

1) When a coup deposed Chavez for 2 days in 2002, why did HRW?s public  
statements fail to do obvious things like denounce the coup, call on  
other countries not to recognize the regime, invoke the OAS charter,  
and (especially since HRW is based in Washington) call for an  
investigation of US involvement?

2) Very similarly, when a coup deposed Haiti?s democratically elected  
government in 2004, why didn't HRW condemn the coup, call on other  
countries not to recognize the regime, invoke the OAS charter, and  
call for an investigation of the US role? Many of these things were  
done by the community of Caribbean nations (CARICOM). A third of the  
UN General Assembly called for an investigation into the overthrow of  
Aristide. Why didn?t HRW back them up?

3) Since 2004, why has HRW written about 20 times more about Venezuela  
than about Haiti despite the fact that the coup in Haiti created a  
human rights catastrophe in which thousands of political murders were  
perpetrated and the jails filled with political prisoners? Haiti?s  
judiciary remains stacked with holdovers from the coup installed  
regime. The lingering impact of the coup is revealed by a recent  
ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in favor of  
Yvon Neptune. Haiti has ignored the IACHR order that it dismiss the  
case against Neptune and pay damages for his illegal two year  
imprisonment. [3] HRW has not publicly urged the Haitian government to  
obey the ruling, nor has it applied any public pressure on the  
government to investigate the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre  
Antoine, a leading human rights activist.[4]

4) Why did HRW never write a word in support of Father Gerard Jean- 
Juste, Haiti?s most prominent political prisoner after the coup? Even  
after Amnesty International named him a ?prisoner of conscience? and  
participated in an international campaign to have him released to  
receive treatment for cancer, HRW said absolutely nothing. Instead HRW  
has repeatedly objected to law suits brought against Venezuelan ?civil  
society? leaders like Maria Corina Machado, who has never been jailed  
despite signing the infamous Carmon decree which briefly abolished  
Venezuelan democracy.[5]

5) Why hasn?t HRW called for a full disclosure of US funding of the  
opposition in Bolivia given the murders recently perpetrated in Pando  
by anti-government groups? HRW has called on the OAS to investigate  
the Colombian government?s allegations that the Chavez assists the  
FARC. In contrast, HRW has not urged the US government to cooperate  
with the Freedom of Information Act requests made by Jeremy Bigwood  
regarding US activity Bolivia.[6]

HRW has routinely ignored critics who have shown that it has  
increasingly become a tool of US imperialism. Ed Herman, David  
Peterson and George Szamuely wrote an very extensive and damning  
assessment of HRW's role as a "campaigner for the NATO Wars in the  
Balkans". Michael Barker has produced detailed criticism. Jonathan  
Cook, Norman Finkelstein and Sara Founders have highlighted flagrant  
imperial bias in HRW statements involving Israel. HRW did repy to one  
article by Joanthan Cook but only after distorting what he had  
written. Cook pointed out in response

"If this is how one of the directors of HRW distorts my arguments and  
evidence when I carefully set out my case in black and white on the  
page, one has to wonder how faithfully she and her organisation sift  
the evidence in the far trickier cases relating to human rights, where  
things are rarely so black and white."

Cook did not hear from HRW again.[7]

In a press release of 2006, HRW stooped to denying Palestinians the  
right to non-violent self defence. The outcry against the absurdity of  
it was so overwhelming that HRW published a retraction. [8] Much more  
typically, as in the case of Kevin Pina's open letter to Jose Miguel  
Vivanco, HRW has simply stayed silent.[9]

With the exception of Jonathan Cook, nowhere on HRW's website does one  
find any mention of the critics cited above. However, one can easily  
find a lengthy reply to Michael Spagat whose attempt to depict HRW as  
soft on the Colombian FARC rebels was comically inept.[10]

Now I admit I've exaggerated the sympathy I feel for Venezuelan  
journalists sitting by their phones or refreshing their inboxes  
awaiting replies from the Chavez government. A certain callousness  
sets in when one recalls what the US and its allies have achieved in  
Haiti - and hope to achieve in Venezuela. And though I disagree with  
HRW being expelled from Venezuela I find it difficult to see why it  
should bother anyone more than unanswered phone calls to reporters  
(which I also disagree with). HRW has, at the very least, a close  
relationship with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a barely  
disguised branch of the US government devoted to undermining  
democracy. [11] Needless to say, if the Venezuelan government had  
funded groups who had briefly overthrown the US government, and then  
sabotaged the US economy, a Caracas based group would not be attending  
press conferences in Washington criticizing the US government.  
Venezuela would be lucky to exist as a country at all.

I've long ago ceased to expect much from Human RIghts Watch. I put  
questions to them, and urge others to do so, knowing that replies from  
them are unlikely - and unnecessary. The important thing is to spread  
awareness of the role they have increasingly come to play as a group  
that marshals support among liberals for very nasty imperial projects.  
No one should be fooled, at this point, by the fact that it publishes  
some criticism of the US and its clients.

Joe Emersberger can be reached at jemersberger at aol.com

NOTES

[1]See page 107 of report available at http://hrw.org/reports/2008/venezuela0908/

[2] Many letters to HRW (and Amnesty International) are archived on  
the Medialens website http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=842&sid=ffba5225b31cbaafa2ca8d1d62ccea74

[3] See "Haiti and Human Rights Watch" http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4131 
  for comparison of quatity and quality of what HRW has written about  
Haiti and Venezuela. The disparity in quantity is now much worse than  
stated in the article above which is from 2006

About Neptune case see http://www.haitianalysis.com/2008/7/23/four-years-of-political-persecution-for-yvon-neptune-and-counting

[4] Kevin Pina "Fears of a Cover up Grow in the Case of Missing Human  
Rights Activist in Haiti" http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/8_20_8/8_20_8.html

[5] Jonah Gindin "Democracy vs Bush-o-cracy in Venezuela" http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1160

[6] U.S. Ties to Bolivian Opposition 'Shrouded in Secrecy' http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18869

[7] Ed Herman, David Peterson, George Szamuely; "Human Rights Watch:  
In Service to the War Party" http://www.electricpolitics.com/2007/02/human_rights_watch_in_service.html

Michael Barker "Hijacking Human Rights" http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/14804

Sara Flounders, 'Massacre in Jenin, Human Rights Watch and the Stage- 
Management of Imperialism', CovertAction Quarterly, Fall 2002. http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0003220.html

Jonathan Cook, 'The Israel Lobby Works its Magic, Again: How Human  
Rights Watch Lost its Way in Lebanon', Counterpunch, September 7,  
2006. http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09072006.html

Sarah Leah Whitson;(Middle East and North Africa director)"Hezbollah's  
Rockets and Civilian Casualties: A Response to Jonathan Cook" http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/22/lebano14262_txt.htm

Jonathan Cook, 'Human Rights Watch: Still Missing the Point: Should We  
Deny Lebanon the Right to Defend Itself?', Counterpunch, September 25,  
2006. http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09252006.html

[8] Jonathan Cook, 'Palestinians are Being Denied the Right of Non- 
Violent Resistance?: Would HRW Have Attacked Martin Luther King,  
Too?', Counterpunch, November 30, 2006. http://www.counterpunch.org/cook11302006.html

Norman G. Finkelstein, 'Human Rights Watch Must Retract its Shameful  
Press Release: Rush to Judgment', Counterpunch, November 29, 2006;  
HRW, 'Human Rights Watch Statement on our November 22 Press Release',  
Human Rights Watch, December 16, 2006. http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein11292006.html

HRW "Human Rights Watch Statement on our November 22 Press  
Release" (i.e. the retraction) http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/11/22/isrlpa14652.htm

[9] Kevin Pina Open Letter to Human Rights Watch http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/6254

[10] HRW Response to CERAC Charges about our Colombia Work Human  
Rights Watch responds to the serious yet groundless charges made about  
our work in Colombia by University of London Professor Michael Spagat http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&document_limit=140,20

[11]According to NED "China?s Olympic promises were also the topic of  
a June 19 event cosponsored by NED and Human Rights Watch highlighting  
the publication of China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympic  
Human Rights Challenge, edited by Minky Worden." http://www.ned.org/publications/newsletters/080508.html




From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct 12 11:08:01 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:08:01 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Canadian Election and the War in Afghanistan
Message-ID: <43EF89A5-5D9A-4AE4-98D9-FFAFD8A8D976@shaw.ca>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 145 ... October 12, 2008
_________________________________________________

The Canadian Election and the War in Afghanistan
Michael Skinner

Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, attempted to remove  
questions about Canada's role in Afghanistan from debate during the  
election campaign by announcing the combat role of the Canadian Forces  
will end, in 2011, if he is re-elected as Prime Minister.

But let's be clear about what the current combat role entails. Many  
Canadian political and military leaders claim the current  
counterinsurgency war will help bring stability, development,  
democracy, and the liberation of women to Afghanis, which will in turn  
make Canadians and the people of the world safer. However, Canada is  
participating in a counterinsurgency war using tactics prohibited by  
international law. Canada is also participating in a global American- 
led war with obscured geopolitical and economic objectives. Canadian  
political leaders have put us in this position to curry favour with  
the United States and benefit a small minority of Canadians ?  
primarily investors in Canada's military industrial complex, the  
extractive industries, construction, transportation, communications,  
and other industries that can profit from war.

None of the Canadian political parties has produced a clearly focused  
foreign policy that most people ? and not just people on the left ? in  
Canada and Quebec can support in good conscience.

During the current election campaign, the leaders of all the political  
parties have avoided discussing the issues of the war in Afghanistan  
and its broad implications for Canadian foreign policy in any depth.  
The NDP, Green, and Bloc Qu?b?cois parties have at least produced  
platforms advocating withdrawal of Canadian combat troops from  
Afghanistan. The Conservatives and Liberals advocate holding the  
present destructive course until 2011.

All parties have avoided discussing Canada's combat role in  
Afghanistan in any depth for fear of alienating the small but powerful  
minority of war supporters. Most grassroots support for the war is  
generally well-intentioned, but, unfortunately, misinformed by the  
claims of altruistic intent made by the Government of Canada and  
Canadian Forces. Some grassroots support for the war, however,  
displays a disturbing trend towards an emerging North American jingoism.

Big business support for the war is profit-driven. The war is  
transferring billions of tax dollars to manufacturers and service  
providers in the military/security industries and many other related  
industries. The war is also opening Afghanistan to foreign investment  
and could potentially make all of Central Asia far more accessible for  
North American businesses.

Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have manoeuvred Canada  
into a subordinated position deeply integrated within America's global  
war-making organisation. Canada's imperial interests have become  
aligned with American ones. Yet, no leader of a major Canadian  
political party has asked why Canada is in this subordinated position  
as a key support of American imperialism, or laid out clear strategies  
to break from it.

The Financial Costs of
Canadian Militarism in Afghanistan
Neither the recent Conservative government nor the earlier Liberal  
government have been forthright about the priorities for the war in  
Afghanistan. Even Canada's Auditor-General, Kevin Page, has had a  
difficult time getting clear answers from state agencies regarding the  
costs of the war. Page estimates the cost could reach $14 to18 billion  
by 2011. The Rideau Institute estimates the costs could balloon to as  
much as $28 billion.

Canada pledged only $1 billion for development aid for the period  
2001-11, little of which, to date, appears to have been spent on  
substantive human development projects. Independent assessments of  
Canada's development role are difficult because the Canadian  
International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Department of Foreign  
Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) appear as secretive as the  
Department of National Defence about how they spend their budgets in  
Afghanistan.

The gross difference between the Canadian war and development budgets  
is reflected in the gross difference in scale between actual  
destruction and reconstruction on the ground in Afghanistan.

It is important to keep in mind that the financial costs of the war  
borne by most taxpayers are a boom to the corporations profiting from  
war. Politicians consciously decide to prioritise this economic  
transfer to war-profiteering corporations over other potential  
spending in social welfare, environmental protection, and sustainable  
economic development.

Continue reading:
www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet145.html#continue

Michael Skinner is at the Department of Political Science at York  
University and is a member of CUPW and CUPE.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct 12 11:13:37 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:13:37 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Canada: Media giant sues pro-Palestinian activists
Message-ID: <F81F1915-7486-4052-9560-DFECA1360645@shaw.ca>

Canada: Media giant sues pro-Palestinian activists
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/770/39706
Stu Harrison
10 October 2008


Canada?s largest media group is suing Palestinian solidarity activists  
who created a parody version of the Vancouver Sun newspaper.

The parody newspaper, produced by the Vancouver-based Palestine Media  
Collective (PMC) in June 2007, aimed to expose the pro-Israeli and  
anti-Palestinian bias of Canwest, which owns the Vancouver Sun.

In Australia, Canwest is, through a wholly owned subsidiary, the  
majority and controlling shareholder of the TEN Television Network.

In 2003, Canwest founder Izzy Asper boasted of the bias, telling the  
Jerusalem Post, ?In all of our newspapers, including the National  
Post, we have a very pro-Israel position ? we are the strongest  
supporter of Israel in Canada?.

Canwest are suing two activists associated with the PMC, Carel  
Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray, and one other person accused of being  
a distributor, Mordecai Briemberg.

Some 12,000 of the parody newspaper were produced and included article  
headlines such as ?Study Shows Truth Biased against Israel? and  
?Celebrating 40 years of liberating the West Bank?.

Launched in December 2007, the case accuses the three of ?conspiring?  
to create and distribute the parody.

Due to the anonymous nature of the parody, the original writ aimed to  
incriminate the printer, a lone distributor and several other  
unidentified people. The creators since revealed themselves in July,  
opening themselves up for legal action.

Canwest argues that the publication is a commercial violation of  
trademark and have proposed a list of remedies, which includes a  
restraint that could prevent defendants ?publishing injurious  
falsehoods by way of newspapers or other publications, on the internet  
or otherwise?.

The Seriously Free Speech Committee has been set up to defend the  
accused and raise awareness of the threat to free speech by media  
consolidation. On its website, SFSC explains: ?Imagine the  
implications for the Charter (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms)  
right to free speech if Canwest can shut down debate on any  
contentious issue with such a lawsuit.?

In solidarity, Canadian satirical gossip magazine Frank printed the  
parody front cover on its May 6 print edition. Frank editor Michael  
Bate has challenged Canwest to sue him too.

Honorary members of the SFSC include prominent journalists and authors  
such as John Pilger, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali.

The campaign has received trade union support through the Canadian  
Labour Congress. Even the union covering Vancouver Sun workers, the  
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 2000, has offered  
support.

The SFSC argues that the case is a classic example of a Strategic  
Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or a SLAPP case.

The Canadian province of British Colombia had previously instituted an  
anti-SLAPP law in 2001, but this has since been repealed. The use of  
SLAPP cases has become widespread by companies trying to avoid  
embarrassment created by public exposure.

In Australia, Gunns Ltd aimed to target activists campaigning against  
the pulp mill proposed for Tasmania?s Tamar Valley, with the  
defendants infamously dubbed the ?Gunns 20?. The activists argued that  
Gunns were trying to silence dissent, in a classic example of a SLAPP  
case.

Other high profile examples include the McLibel case, where two  
British activists tried to expose the unethical practices of  
McDonald?s through a leaflet, and even Oprah Winfrey has been accused  
of causing damage to the United States? cattle industry.

The French Canadian province of Quebec instituted anti-SLAPP  
legislation after an outcry over a destructive SLAPP case taken  
against the provinces oldest and most influential environmental groups  
by a scrap metal company, American Iron and Metal.

Around 25 US states have anti-SLAPP legislation on the books.

To find out more about the case and to find out how to offer support,  
visit http://seriouslyfreespeech.wordpress.com.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #770 15 October 2008. 

From suzannedk at gmail.com  Sun Oct 12 14:29:52 2008
From: suzannedk at gmail.com (Suzanne de Kuyper)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:29:52 +0200
Subject: [R-G] The Great Repudiation?
In-Reply-To: <cd351fdc0810091214i4b36db57ofdd87b2d184da13c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <cd351fdc0810091214i4b36db57ofdd87b2d184da13c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <dce6f8b40810121329gb9573camc8fea25608d439cc@mail.gmail.com>

The war loans to the US were never to be repaid at all!  At the same time
that the European banks seize up in panic, Homeland Security commercially
based US intelligence firms, sure of seventy billion dollars a year in
funding, are tracking all that ecomonmic private infromation in order to use
it later in order to control the Eurozone, erase Habeous Corpus and keep
Imperial power.   At the same time it deploys US troops in US cities and
regions in case the starving,  hundreds of thousands of newly homelees, are
'contained'.
Suzanne de Kuyper




On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi <
critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:

> <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_41/b4103032192140.htm>
> Mandel on Economics October 2, 2008, 5:00PM EST
> Shared Sacrifice Will Ease the Credit Crunch
> Foreign lenders will have to take a haircut while American consumers
> spend less and taxpayers take a hit
>
> by Michael Mandel
>
> Is the U.S. heading for another Great Depression? Probably not?but we
> are about to go through a period future generations may call the Great
> Repudiation.
>
> The root cause of today's crisis lies not in the housing market but in
> America's foreign debt. Over the past four years the U.S. private
> sector has borrowed an astonishing $3 trillion from the rest of the
> world. The money, directly and indirectly, came from countries such as
> China, Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, which ran huge trade
> surpluses with America. Foreign investors trusted their funds to U.S.
> financial institutions, which used much of the money for mortgage
> loans.
>
> But American families took on a lot more debt than they could
> comfortably afford. Now no one is sure how much of that towering sum
> the U.S. is going to pay back?and all the uncertainty is roiling the
> financial markets.
>
> The Washington bailout debate boils down to this question: Who is
> going to bear the burden of the $3 trillion mistake? Will low- and
> middle-income borrowers have to cut back on spending to pay their
> mortgage bills? Will taxpayers have to chip in big bucks to pay for
> defaults on those debts? Or will Washington act in a way that imposes
> large losses on foreign investors?in effect, repudiating some of the
> debt? The best outcome is shared sacrifice among borrowers, taxpayers,
> and foreign investors?but that result may be politically difficult to
> achieve.
>
> FINDING A FAIR PLAN
>
> Since mid-2004, American households have taken on a bit more than $3
> trillion in mortgage debt. The official statistics are very fuzzy, but
> it looks like at least one-third of the debt, and perhaps half, was
> financed with foreign money. As a result, foreign investors are
> sitting on an enormous mountain of mortgage-related securities.
>
> The value of those securities, though, depends on both economic and
> political factors. Real wages have dropped for most U.S. workers since
> 2004. To make good on their mortgages, many low- and middle-income
> families would have to sharply cut their spending, hurting both the
> domestic economy and countries that export to the U.S.
>
> A better solution is for borrowers, U.S. taxpayers, and foreign
> investors to share the burden of the excess debt. The question,
> though, is finding the fair division of pain. So far the U.S.
> government has taken over Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), a
> move that provides a taxpayer guarantee to investors, many of them
> foreign, who own securities issued or backed by those companies. The
> Paulson bailout plan, too, would devote up to $700 billion of taxpayer
> money to buying up bad securities, with non-U.S. investors some of the
> major beneficiaries.
>
> Given the hostility to the Paulson plan, however, it's unlikely we
> will see more money to prop up the prices of securities. The next step
> in Washington could be legislation to benefit homeowners?say, by
> allowing bankruptcy courts to reduce mortgage debt, which they cannot
> do now. Alternately, the government could let more homeowners default
> and more financial institutions go under. In either case, the value of
> mortgage-related securities would drop, with foreign investors taking
> much of the hit.
>
> The global response to such a move depends a lot on how it's presented
> by the leaders in Washington. It's unseemly for the world's richest
> country to refuse to pay some of its debts. That's especially true
> since much of the money came from poorer countries such as China. In
> the worst case, the losses by foreign investors would lead to an
> unwillingness to invest in the U.S. while fueling anti-American
> sentiment around the world.
>
> U.S. politicians are accustomed to playing to a domestic audience. But
> in the end, making the case for shared global sacrifice may be the
> biggest task facing the next President.
>
> Mandel is chief economist for BusinessWeek.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rad-Green mailing list
> Rad-Green at lists.econ.utah.edu
> To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
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>

From gmeyerson at triad.rr.com  Sun Oct 12 14:45:32 2008
From: gmeyerson at triad.rr.com (gregory meyerson)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:45:32 -0400
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Power of the Nonrational
In-Reply-To: <48F1E686.1040308@attglobal.net>
References: <48F1E686.1040308@attglobal.net>
Message-ID: <fe6f59b600cd10bb5052bd80bff420db@triad.rr.com>

members of this list should read tom blees' book "Prescription for the  
Planet."



Bill Totten made me aware of this book when he publicized the furor  
around Mark Lynas' conversion to nuclear power.  This conversion was  
based on reading Blees' book.


James Hansen has also been convinced by Blees' arguments and he was not  
so predisposed.




I read the book and found it persuasive enough to turn my assumptions  
about nuclear power and growth economies inside/out if not totally  
upside/down (I don't really know what this means and never had much  
sense of direction).


bottom line:  red greeners must read this book.



g
On Oct 12, 2008, at 7:59 AM, Bill Totten wrote:

>
> by John Michael Greer
>
> The Archdruid Report (October 08 2008)
>
>
> For the release of a book on the end of industrial civilization, it was
> certainly good timing. Over the last week or so, as my book The Long
> Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age {1} hit the
> bookstores, the wheels came off the global economy. As stock markets
> crashed worldwide and governments panicked, I found myself wondering if
> the marketing people at my publisher, New Society, had managed to pull
> off the great-grandmother of all publicity stunts.
>
> Now of course the crisis now under way has been building since the  
> early
> 1980s, when politicians who had forgotten the lessons of the Great
> Depression threw out the prudent regulatory firewalls that kept banks
> from speculating with other people's money. Deregulation was the word  
> du
> jour, driven by a blind faith in markets that did its level best to
> ignore the lessons of history, and each of the crises that followed -
> the 1987 stock market crash, the currency implosions of the 1990s, the
> dotcom bubble and bust at the turn of the millennium, and the orgy of
> delusional finance that drove the global real estate bubble thereafter  
> -
> simply brought cries for more of the same deregulation that caused the
> trouble in the first place.
>
> For a quarter century, those who recalled Charles Mackay's  
> Extraordinary
> Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1995) and its many
> successors, and pointed out that uncontrolled speculation always ends
> the same dismal way, were told that they ought to shut up until they
> learned something about economics. Sober warnings from distinguished
> scholars were drowned out by a chorus of cheerleading, while less
> prestigious voices were pushed out to the fringes of the blogosphere.
> What is now painfully clear is that those marginalized voices were  
> right
> all along, and their warnings could have spared us a massive economic
> disaster if the pundits and politicians who dismissed them had listened
> instead.
>
> All this raises a question that deserves more attention than it usually
> receives: what makes a society accept or reject any given set of
> warnings about the future? At the ASPO-USA peak oil conference last
> month, a slightly more focused version of this question was much in the
> air. Several of the speakers expressed their frustration at the way
> warnings of global climate change have been picked up by the media and
> turned into an international cause celebre, while warnings of the
> imminence of peak oil are still being dismissed as a nonissue by most
> people straight across the political and cultural spectrum.
>
> It's a fascinating question, not least because there are at least two
> serious problems with the case for global extinction via climate change
> currently being splashed across the media. The first of these was
> pointed up by several of the presenters at the ASPO conference: the
> scenarios of drastic climate change being offered by the IPCC, the
> government-supported panel of scientists responsible for the most  
> widely
> accepted predictions, assume that the world's production of petroleum,
> coal, and natural gas can increase steadily through the year 2100.
>
> That's a problematic assumption, to say the least. The world's peak
> production of conventional petroleum happened in 2005; massive  
> infusions
> of tar sand products and biofuels have kept the numbers from falling
> significantly since then, but with production at most of the world's  
> oil
> fields dropping steadily, the IPCC's assumptions of steady increase are
> hard to support. Natural gas worldwide is expected to hit peak
> production around 2030. Coal is more complex, because all coal is not
> created equal; the most energy-intensive coal, anthracite, is all but
> exhausted already, and most of what remains is low-quality "brown  
> coal",
> much of which will cost more energy to extract than it yields; by 2040
> at the latest, the energy yield from coal production will have reached
> its limit and begun an irrevocable decline. By 2100, our total
> consumption of all fossil fuels put together will have fallen to a very
> modest fraction of today's levels, simply because there won't be enough
> left to produce.
>
> Yet there's another difficulty with the scenarios of global ecological
> collapse being offered by activists and the media just now: even if the
> IPCC figures for production made sense, a six degrees Celsius increase
> in the Earth's temperature over a century is well within the normal
> range of variation for our planet. The latest Greenland ice cores show,
> for example, that at the end of the last ice age, the Earth's average
> temperature spiked up twelve degrees Celsius in fifty years or less
> {12}; similar jolts up and down, some of them even more extreme, have
> happened many other times in Earth's long history, and for most of the
> last billion years, this planet has been much, much warmer than it is
> now. Not that many millions of years ago, it bears remembering,
> alligators lived on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and tropical and
> subtropical forests covered most of the planet.
>
> This doesn't mean, mind you, that we can simply dump carbon dioxide  
> into
> the atmospere and ignore the consequences. What counts as normal
> variation for the Earth is far more than a fragile industrial
> civilization can cope with, and the prospect of drastic food shortages
> driven by wild climatic swings, plus a fifty-foot rise in sea levels
> drowning every coastal city on Earth, should be reason enough for  
> second
> thoughts. The point I hope to make, rather, is that extreme scenarios  
> of
> planetary extinction have been widely accepted in popular culture,
> despite some very significant weaknesses, while the predictions of the
> peak oil community - which have a much more solid basis in fact - have
> been dismissed out of hand. Why?
>
> That question cannot be answered without straying out of simple matters
> of fact into the murky territory of beliefs and cultural narratives.
> Many of the critics of these essays, and indeed some of the people who
> have praised them, have dismissed this side of the conversation I've
> tried to start as irrelevant to our predicament. The problem with this
> sort of thinking is that it's only in the delusions of raving  
> economists
> that human beings make decisions on the basis of a purely rational
> assessment of objectively known facts. In the real world, facts are
> never objectively known, and reasoning is the willing slave of its
> preconceptions; we project our beliefs onto the inkblot patterns of
> experience, and so understanding those beliefs is essential if we're to
> understand the forces driving today's choices - and thus making
> tomorrow's hard facts.
>
> Look at the beliefs underlying the idea of catastrophic global climate
> change and you'll find, at their core, a story about human power. We
> have become so powerful through our technological progress, according  
> to
> the narrative, that we are able to threaten our own survival and that  
> of
> the Earth itself. The only limits most climate change advocates seem to
> be able to imagine are those they think we must place on ourselves;  
> even
> if climate change leads to our extinction, we will at least have the
> glory of doing the deed ourselves. It's almost a parody of the old
> atheist gibe: to prove our own omnipotence, we made a crisis so big not
> even we can lift it out of our way.
>
> Underlying the idea of peak oil, though, lies a different and far more
> sobering view of things, because peak oil is not a story about human
> power; it's a story about human limits. If the peak oil narrative is
> correct, the power we claimed as our own was never really ours; we got
> it by breaking into the earth's treasure of stored carbon and burning  
> it
> up in a few short centuries. Despite the cliches, we never conquered
> nature; instead, we borrowed her assets and blew them in a
> three-hundred-year orgy of lavish consumption. Now the bills are coming
> due, the balance left in the account won't meet them, and the remaining
> question is how much of what we bought with all that carbon will still
> be ours when nature's foreclosure proceedings finish with us.
>
> These differences matter, because the basic assumption of the climate
> change narrative - the belief in human omnipotence - is a core article
> of faith in contemporary industrial societies. It's so pervasive that
> its effects are rarely noticed, but it undergirds an astonishing range
> of popular attitudes and ideas. It's axiomatic in the industrial world
> that anything unsatisfactory is a problem in need of a solution, and
> equally axiomatic that a solution can be found for it. The suggestion
> that some deeply unsatisfactory conditions may not be problems that can
> be solved but, rather, are predicaments that must be lived with, is at
> once unthinkable and offensive to a great many people these days.
>
> Yet this is exactly what the peak oil narrative suggests. If the  
> world's
> conventional petroleum production peaked in 2005 and faces imminent
> declines, as all the evidence suggests; if none of the proposed
> replacements for petroleum can take up the slack, and many of them,
> especially the other fossil fuels, are themselves closing in on their
> own peaks and declines; if the technological revolutions and economic
> boom of the last three centuries were a product of extravagant use of
> these nonrenewable resources, not of such impressive intangibles as  
> "the
> human spirit", and will not outlast their material basis; if, in other
> words, human life is subject to hard ecological limits - if these  
> things
> are true, the narrative of human omnipotence falls, and a popular and
> passionately held conception of humanity's nature and destiny falls  
> with it.
>
> Now I have to confess that I find the narrative of human omnipotence,
> and the secular mythology that has grown up around it, utterly
> unconvincing. From the perspective of my own Druid faith, all that
> rhetoric about humanity's conquest of nature is absurd; it's as though  
> a
> leaf were to daydream about conquering the tree that brought it into
> being, presently sustains it, and will let it fall in due time; the
> attitudes that lead us to picture ourselves as creation's overlords
> strike me as nothing more than an extraordinary case of egomania.  
> Still,
> the fact remains that, in an age that has abandoned the traditional
> forms of religion without uprooting the emotional needs that religions
> meet, many people rely on these beliefs as a source of meaning and  
> hope.
>
> In turn, the peak oil movement's problems finding a hearing in the  
> wider
> discourse of our time has nothing to do with a shortage of solid facts
> or compelling reasoning; it has both of these in abundance. Rather, I
> have come to think, those difficulties are rooted in the movement's
> failure, at least so far, to address these deeper, nonrational issues.
> If the peak oil message is correct, then the Great God Progress is  
> dead;
> however misguided the faith of his votaries may turn out to be in
> hindsight, it's a deeply held faith, and those who rely on it to give
> their lives meaning and hope can be counted on to cling to it until and
> unless some convincing alternative comes their way. That their clinging
> may keep our civilization from finding useful responses to a crisis  
> even
> more challenging than today's financial debacle is simply one of the
> ironies of our present situation.
>
> Links:
>
> {1} http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/4014
>
> {2} http://www.physorg.com/news133107932.htm
>
>
> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/power-of- 
> nonrational.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/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 critical.montages at gmail.com  Sun Oct 12 15:58:01 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:58:01 -0400
Subject: [R-G] European Leaders Agree to Inject Cash Into Banks
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810121458s4e2edaadwad4fecbef5e0519b@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/business/13europe.html>
October 13, 2008
European Leaders Agree to Inject Cash Into Banks
By DAVID JOLLY and KATRIN BENNHOLD

PARIS ? European financial and political leaders agreed late Sunday to
a plan that would inject billions of euros into their banks in a bid
to restore confidence to the teetering financial system.

Taking their cue from a rescue plan announced last week by Britain,
the European countries led by Germany and France pledged to take
equity stakes in distressed banks and vowed to guarantee bank lending
for periods up to five years.

Both France and Germany were planning to unveil national rescue
packages on Monday worth hundreds of billions of euros, officials
said.

"The meeting that we had was exceptional," President Nicolas Sarkozy
of France, said at a news conference. "We need concrete measures, we
need unity. That's what we achieved. The plan on which we agreed today
will be applied in all our respective states."

The plan "treats all the dimensions of the financial crisis," Mr. Sarkozy said.

The Belgian finance minister, Didier Reynders, said, "We are committed
in all European states to recapitalize banks if we establish a threat
to solvency and a risk to the economy."

"The goal is to kick-start the interbank lending market," he said.

Mr. Reynders said the European Central Bank had also committed to
helping to unfreeze the commercial paper market, which companies use
to finance day-to-day operations.

Leaders of the 15 countries that use the euro did not put a price tag
on any of their promises ? contrary to Britain, where Prime Minister
Gordon Brown announced ?150 billion, or $255 billion, in government
funds and other measures, and the United States, where a $700 billion
bailout plan will now partly be used to recapitalize banks.

European officials said actions would be taken at the national level,
within the framework of the agreed "toolbox." The idea, they said, was
that governments face different challenges and needed to act quickly
but that a common front would avoid the possibility that one country
might undercut another.

Each country, Mr. Reynders said, will announce concrete figures for
the measures they expect to take individually.

"There is no question of setting up a European fund," he said.

Announcements last week by Britain and the United States that they
would move to take ownership shares in ailing banks, the 15 leaders of
the countries that use the euro found themselves looking for a
collective response to avoid tit-for-tat actions by individual
countries that might harm their neighbors.

Mr. Brown said earlier after meeting at the Elys?e Palace with Mr.
Sarkozy, that he believed Europe would "work together with America."
Mr. Brown, whose country has maintained its own currency, the pound,
also warned that the decisions made Sunday would have economic
consequences for years to come.

In contrast to the meeting last weekend, European leaders on Sunday
seemed to be reading from the same script.

"Our goal is to have coordinated action for the euro zone," Angela
Merkel, the German chancellor, said, and the meeting "is a very
important signal for the strength of the euro zone."

Germany is considering a plan to inject 50 billion to 100 billion
euros into its banks, with a price tag for all of the new measures
reaching as much as 400 billion euros, or $536 billion, according to a
person briefed on the government's work. A German official cautioned
that the numbers remained speculative.

Current plans are to have the package approved by the cabinet on
Monday and through the German Parliament this week.

France is expected to announce a two-pronged plan aimed at
safeguarding the solvency of French banks and jump-start lending
between financial institution, according to a senior official who has
worked on the plan.

Paris is expected to buy stakes in banks threatened by failure, though
the magnitude of any rescue fund will be smaller than the 50 billion
to 100 billion euro plan expected in Germany, the official said. "Our
need for recapitalization is certainly weaker than that in Germany,"
he said.

The French government will also pledge more than 100 billion euros to
address liquidity concerns in banks and insurers. A new instrument
guaranteeing bank debt in exchange for collateral will be announced,
the official said. A draft law will be passed Monday in an
extraordinary cabinet meeting and will be submitted Tuesday to
Parliament.

The freezing of credit markets has made it difficult for most
companies to borrow money on more than an overnight basis. Stocks have
plummeted, meanwhile, making it more difficult for banks to shore up
their balance sheets by raising capital from investors.

In Oslo, which is outside the euro zone, the Norwegian central bank
moved to provide banks with $58 billion in additional liquidity.

"The Norwegian money market isn't working," Reuters quoted the central
bank governor, Svein Gjedrem, as saying. "Today, Norges Bank is for
all practical purposes functioning as a clearing house for all
activity in the Norwegian money market," he added.

Michel Fleuriet, director of the investment banking program at
Universit? Paris-Dauphine and the former head of Merrill Lynch in
France, "These measures should add some life to the short-term
financing of the economy," Mr. Fleuriet said after news of the deal.
"But it's going to take some time for the market to digest this
information. If investors are convinced that that the banks are going
back to doing their jobs ? financing the real economy ? the stock
market could stabilize. Right now the stock market believes the
economy is dead."

Earlier Sunday, the authorities in Australia and New Zealand announced
a guarantee of bank deposits. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd,
called the financial meltdown "the economic equivalent of a national
security crisis" because of the danger that money would flee Sydney
banks for countries where governments had guaranteed deposits.

In Washington, President Bush held a Saturday morning meeting at the
White House with G-7 finance ministers, who were in the city for the
annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

"All of us recognize that this is a serious global crisis, and
therefore requires a serious global response, for the good of our
people," Mr. Bush said afterward.

The president said the countries had agreed to general principles to
respond to the crisis, including working to prevent the collapse of
important financial institutions and protecting deposits. But the G-7
communiqu? issued Friday did not clearly detail what measures would be
taken, suggesting that countries remained unable to agree on a common
approach to shoring up their respective financial systems.

The Group of 20, which includes the world's 20 richest nations, issued
a statement in support of that communiqu? late Saturday after Mr.
Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Federal Reserve
chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, met with leaders of the group.

The turbulence of the past week moved Germany from advocating action
on a case-by-case basis to support for a systemic solution for the
country's banks. So far Germany has rescued several banks and
guaranteed deposits.

Germany's major banks accept that partial nationalizations ? even if
they are not called that ? are necessary under the circumstances,
Klaus-Peter M?ller, chairman of the German Banking Association, said.
"This measure will be like a bridge since for some firms there is no
capital out there on reasonable terms," Mr. M?ller said.

The shift in Berlin does not extend to contributing to a common fund
that would support all European banks, largely because the government
fears that German taxpayers would end up financing other countries'
banks.

With the bond market in the United States and all Japanese markets
closed on Monday for holidays, British policy makers appeared to be
speeding plans to inject capital into their troubled banks. At the top
of the list is Royal Bank of Scotland, whose market value has fallen
to below ?12 billion pounds, or about $20 billion ? less than the
amount of capital it raised from private investors in June.

Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to need about that amount, giving
the Exchequer a majority stake. As much as ?35 billion of the ?50
billion that the government set aside for sick banks could be
disbursed.

Other British banks that are likely to receive tax payer funds include
HBOS, Lloyds TSB and Barclays. That these banks, which for weeks have
been saying they did not need new funds from taxpayers, will welcome
the British government as a large shareholder is a reflection of how
little confidence remains in banks

Late last week, Barclays had signaled that it might go to capital
markets for the ?3 billion it needs to bolster its tier-one ratio, a
measure of financial strength. Such an initiative would take as much
as 10 days, an eternity in today's fear-stoked climate. And now
Barclays, along with its peers, is preparing to take the direct, if
not more humiliating, path by accepting public funds.

Faced with the growing intensity of the crisis, the Bush
administration has embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy. Two
weeks after persuading the Congress to let it spend $700 billion to
buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the administration put
that idea aside in favor of an approach that would have the government
inject capital directly into the nation's banks ? in effect, partially
nationalizing the industry.


Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting from Paris; Landon Thomas Jr.
from London; Carter Dougherty from Frankfurt; and Edmund L. Andrews
and Mark Landler from Washington.


From mstainsby at resist.ca  Sun Oct 12 16:18:53 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:18:53 -0600
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?=5BFwd=3A_BREAKING_NEWS=3A_Rail_Blockade_D?=
 =?windows-1252?q?isrupts_CP_Rail=92s_Olympic_Spirit_Train_=5D?=
Message-ID: <48F277CD.7020503@resist.ca>

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bring it!


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: BREAKING NEWS: Rail Blockade Disrupts CP Rail?s Olympic Spirit 
Train
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:15:26 -0400

BREAKING NEWS                        For Immediate Release
October 12, 2008

Rail Blockade Disrupts CP Rail?s Olympic Spirit Train
?Six Nations and solidarity activists resist Olympic theft of Indigenous
land, ecological destruction, and attacks on the poor?

Toronto, Ontario ? Moments ago, a group of activists occupied Canadian
Pacific (CP) Railway?s train tracks by locking themselves down to the
tracks and hanging banners off of the rail overpass on highway 27 near
Elder Mills. The protest was organized in solidarity with the Olympics
Resistance Network (ORN) and their call to disrupt CP?s ?Spirit Train?
that is traveling across Canada.  Directions to the blockade site can be
found at the bottom of this release.

?We are here today to show the world what the Olympics really stands
for; capitalist greed and colonialist theft of Indigenous lands? said
Winnie Small.  They continued, ?In stark contrast to Canada?s cherished
reputation as a human rights advocate, our First Nations live in abject
poverty; casualties of Canada?s apartheid policy refusal to respect
Indigenous rights to their own land.?

The ?Spirit Train? was launched Sunday Sept. 21, 2008, in Port Moody,
B.C. where activists from the ORN, Anti-Poverty Committee, and the
Native Youth Movement successfully disrupted it.  To the embarrassment
of its corporate sponsors, the Spirit Train, still rolling across the
country, has been disrupted at several locations with
protesters often outnumbering supporters.

?The 2010 Winter Olympics are occurring on unceded First Nations land in
British Columbia where they are causing widespread environmental damage,
and are resulting in a massive uprooting of homeless and poor people in
Vancouver? said Dan Kellar, a spokesperson from AW at L, one of the
activist groups involved in the rail blockade. ?The Canadian Pacific
Railway's (CP) "Spirit Train" is an Olympic propaganda machine spreading
the ideals of capitalist colonialism across Turtle Island.?


What: Blockade lock down on train tracks to stop Olympic ?Spirit Train.?
Where: CP rail overpass on highway 27, just south of highway 73
(Rutherford Rd.).
Visuals:  Activists locked down to CP rail tracks, two large banners
over highway 27 reading ?No Olympics on Stolen Native Land,? and
?Resistance 2010 Stop the Corporate Circus,? and Native Unity flags
flying high.

Driving Directions: Take 401 to highway 400 North.  Take exit 33 off
highway 400 onto highway 73 West (Rutherford Rd.).  After approximately
6 km, turn South on highway 27.  The blockade is on the CP rail overpass
on highway 27 approximately 500m South of highway 73.


For more information contact:
Dan Kellar 519 616 4462
Chris Buck 416 708 0834

For more information about Olympic Resistance
No2010.com
Peaceculture.org

-###-




From critical.montages at gmail.com  Sun Oct 12 16:47:11 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:47:11 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley Renegotiating
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810121547s7761dc60l1792c76d9196b4d4@mail.gmail.com>

A local friend of mine jokes: if worst comes to worst, the US can
annex Saudi Arabia.  But why stop there on the way to the highest
stage of ultra-imperialism: America, China, Japan, Germany, and Saudi
Arabia together legally conglomerated into a new United States,
bringing Americans -- thank Allah and Confucius -- once again back in
the black?  Granted, a fitting acronym for this new ultra-imperialist
conglomerate is hard to come up with. --  Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/business/13morgan.html>
October 13, 2008
Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley Renegotiating
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

Morgan Stanley was racing to salvage a crucial investment from a big
Japanese bank on Sunday in an effort to allay growing fears about its
future ? negotiations so critical to the financial markets that they
have drawn in both the Treasury Department and the Japanese
government.

Morgan Stanley, one of the most storied names on Wall Street, was
locked in talks on Sunday to renegotiate its planned $9 billion
investment from the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan, according
to people involved in the talks.

The completion of a deal might help calm markets worldwide, which sank
last week because of escalating concerns about the fate of financial
institutions like Morgan Stanley. Investors might read the investment
as a sign of confidence in the bank's future.

Mitsubishi was pressing for more favorable terms after Morgan Stanley
lost nearly half its market value during last week's stock market
plunge.

Treasury, however, is not planning to have the United States
government take a direct stake in Morgan Stanley as part of a broader
effort to stabilize the financial industry and the markets, these
people said. Wall Street had buzzed Friday that such a move might be
unavoidable.

Morgan Stanley is in the midst of the gravest crisis in its 74-year
history, even though analysts estimate that the bank has more than
$100 billion in capital. Morgan Stanley's shares price has plunged
nearly 82 percent this year, closing at $9.68 on Friday.

Last month, Mitsubishi agreed buy about 21 percent of Morgan Stanley.
The investment was to be made in the form of $3 billion in common
stock, at $25.35 a share, as well as $6 billion in convertible
preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend and a conversion price of
$31.25 a share.

Under the proposed new terms being discussed on Sunday, Mitsubishi
would still buy roughly 21 percent of Morgan Stanley, these people
said. But all of the investment would be through preferred shares,
with a 10 percent annual dividend. Many of those shares would be
convertible into common stock, but the Japanese bank was trying to set
a conversion price far lower than originally proposed.

Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi have been in constant contact with
government officials this weekend, these people said.

Mitsubishi and the Japanese government have sought assurances from the
Treasury Department that if the United States were to decide to inject
money into Morgan Stanley at a later time ? a possibility some
analysts do not rule out ? that such a move would not wipe out
preferred shareholders. The Treasurey has indicated that it might use
some of the $700 billion bailout package to take direct stakes in
banks, but it has not spelled out how it would do so.

Investors suffered deep losses when the government effectively
nationalized the nation's largest mortgage finance companies, Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac. It is unclear how far those discussion have gone
or whether any such assurances would be forthcoming.

Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury Secretary, has pushed both
companies to come up with a private-market solution and has indicated
that he does not believe that Morgan Stanley needs capital from the
United States government. However, he privately hinted to members of
both companies that the government would back Morgan Stanley if it
came to that, these people said, suggesting that he does not want to
repeat the troubles that resulted from allowing Lehman Brothers to go
bankrupt.

George Soros, the billionaire investor, wrote in a column in The
Financial Times that Morgan Stanley needs to be rescued by the U.S.
government.

"The Treasury should offer to match Mitsubishi's investment with
preferred shares whose conversion price is higher than Mitsubishi's
purchase price," Mr. Soros wrote. "This will save the Mitsubishi deal
and buy time for successfully implementing the recapitalization and
mortgage reform programs."

While the negotiations remained fluid, people close to both sides
expressed confidence that a deal would be struck. The companies are
hoping to announce the terms of the transaction and Mitsubishi's
commitment to complete the deal by Monday morning, before the stock
market open in the United States.

Over the past week, Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley have issued
statements insisting that they planned to complete the deal on the
original terms. Spokespeople for Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley
declined to comment on Sunday.

Morgan Stanley converted itself into a bank holding company one week
after Lehman Brothers collapsed last month. That business model makes
it easier for Morgan Stanley to borrow from the Federal Reserve. The
firm has also lowered its gross leverage levels to under 20 times.

Mitsubishi has large ambitions for expansion into the United States.
It recently purchased the remaining shares of UnionBanCal, a bank in
California, for a premium over its share price. Mitsubishi had owned
the majority of UnionBanCal since 1996.

Edmund L. Andrews and Eric Dash contributed reporting.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct 12 16:42:20 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:42:20 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Renouncing Zionism, Reclaiming Humanity
Message-ID: <200810122242.m9CMgKAG011571@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct 12 16:49:08 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:49:08 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Jewish voices challenge the crude polarities of the
 Israel/Palestine debate
Message-ID: <200810122249.m9CMn8lR016901@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Sun Oct 12 16:58:49 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:58:49 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Chalmers Johnson: The Ultimate Election
Message-ID: <200810122258.m9CMwnMf024706@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct 12 19:32:54 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:32:54 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Peru's president names leftist as new prime minister
Message-ID: <69A8EB70-960F-45AC-8E2E-0FFF471F7ABA@shaw.ca>

Peru's president names leftist as new prime minister

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hF9qbfQk_J7H31wYYoBa-1vdIr3Q

LIMA (AFP) ? Peruvian President Alan Garcia on Saturday named Yehude  
Simon, a leftist governor once jailed for alleged links to outlawed  
Tupac Amaru rebels, as the country's next prime minister.

Simon, 61, will replace outgoing prime minister Jorge del Castillo,  
who resigned Friday along with Garcia's entire 13-member cabinet in a  
bid to avert an opposition censure resolution in Congress over an oil- 
industry kickback scandal.

An independent leftist politician of Palestinian descent, Simon is  
currently governor of the northern Lambayeque region.

Garcia said Simon accepted the post, and that he would ask Simon "to  
establish a broad-base government... and incorporate regional  
personalities."

The president said that one of Simon's main tasks will be to  
"absolutely eradicate corruption."

Simon, who could take office as early as Monday, was imprisoned for  
eight years during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori for allegedly  
condoning the activities of the leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary  
Movement (MRTA) guerrillas.

He was pardoned in 2000 soon after Fujimori fled to Japan and resigned  
the presidency, and had a successful career in politics starting in  
2002.

The kickback scandal that resulted in Del Castillo's resignation was  
sparked October 5 when nine audio tapes of closed-door negotiations  
between government officials, a former congressman and a top oil baron  
aired on television.

The political crisis coincides with Garcia's very low, 20 percent  
approval rating in opinion polls. Garcia is mid-way through his second  
five-year term in office, which ends in 2011, after serving as  
president in 1985-1990.



From fentona at shaw.ca  Sun Oct 12 21:49:30 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:49:30 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Fear McCain
Message-ID: <57902D76-BB1F-4E25-A1BD-FF2DE4BA4F69@shaw.ca>

Fear McCain
Oct 12, 2008 By Paul Street

The thought of [John McCain] being president sends a cold chill down  
my spine.

---United States Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)


According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, some voters in  
the critical political battleground state of Pennsylvania are leaning  
towards Barack Obama because economic matters are trumping candidate  
"character" in determining their choices in the presidential election.

If "the economy" hadn't become the overwhelming issue, the Tribune  
reports, these voters would be going with John McCain because of his  
supposed superior personal qualities.

The voters are worried about Obama's moral fiber because of his past  
connections to such supposed moral monsters as the black pastor  
Jeremiah Wright and the former SDS Weatherman-turned education  
professor and charter school advocate Bill Ayers.

The Tribune story is titled "Character Counts; Economy Counts  
More" (J. Tankersley and C. Parsons, Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2008,  
sec.1, p. 13).

While I am no particular fan of Obama's personality and neoliberal  
politics, I find the Tribune article's angle and title distressing.  I  
do not expect mainstream voters or reporters to follow me (a left  
Marxist since age 18) in feeling little shock at the crimes of Ayers  
(decades ago) and in having little problem with the rhetoric of  
Wright. I get it that most Americans are in no position --- morally,  
ideologically, or in terms of information received --- to share my  
understandings of why Ayers briefly became a (rather hapless) ultra- 
left "terrorist" and why Rev. Wright is angry at U.S. policies (and  
crimes) past and present.

What is more difficult for me to swallow is that anybody could  
identify John McCain with anything remotely connected to positive  
moral character.  The candidate atop the current malicious Republican  
presidential campaign --- increasingly reduced to the preposterous  
claim that Obama is some sort of "far left" enemy of "American" values  
and institutions (my recently released book "Barack Obama and the  
Future of American Politics" is an antidote to that charge) --- is a  
characterological catastrophe.

As Tim Dickinson notes in a recent Rolling Stone profile of McCain,  
the Republican presidential contender has demonstrated a shocking lack  
of principle with his recent policy contortions.  McCain's campaign  
positions have shifted drastically to the hard right on the Bush tax  
cuts (for the rich), court appointments, oil drilling, the religious  
right, and torture.  Having once found it politically useful to oppose  
all of these things, McCain now embraces them.

The supposed centrist "maverick's" swing to the far right has found  
grotesque expression in his running-mate selection --- a viciously  
stupid evangelical hit lady whose only qualification for office is her  
ability to energize the GOP's white-nationalist messianic-militarist  
and  pseudo-Christian base.

"Straight Talk" McCain has recently undertaken politically calculated  
rightward leaps on immigration/border policy, gay marriage, lobbyist  
power, and "talking to our enemies."  He has shifted positions on  
financial regulation and the AIG nationalization in response to  
financial capitalism's deepening crisis.

In detailing McCain's recent wild and rightward policy swings,  
Dickinson quotes numerous Republicans who told him that the  
candidate's only real concern is personal advancement.  Former  
Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chaffee and McCain were once the only  
two Republicans to vote against Bush's tax cuts.  He joined with a  
differently calculating McCain in opposition to oil drilling in the  
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to George W. Bush's most  
reactionary court appointments. Now Chaffee says that "John has made a  
pact with the devil."

Besides being monumentally inconsistent and unprincipled, McCain is a  
loose cannon who would pose grave risks on the global stage if he were  
to reach the White House.  By Dickinson's account:

"At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say  
that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in  
chief.  Bob Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said  
that McCain's 'temperament would place this country at risk in  
international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger.  In my mind,  
it should disqualify him.' Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he  
doesn't 'want this guy anywhere near a trigger.' And Sen. Thad Cochran  
of Mississippi weighed in that 'the thought of his being president  
sends a cold chill down my spine.  He is erratic.  He is  
hotheaded'" (T. Dickinson, "Make-Believe Maverick," Rolling Stone,  
October 16, 2008, p. 70).

Along with being perceived as dangerously selfish and reckless by a  
number of leading Republicans, McCain appears to be something of a  
vicious bastard.  He cussed his wife out in the vilest terms  
imaginable in front of three reporters in 1992.

He joked at a 1998 GOP fundraiser about the "ugliness" of Chelsea  
Clinton, attributing her physical appearance to the fact that the  
lesbian Attorney General Janet Reno was "her father."

  In April of 2007, McCain responded to a voter's foreign policy  
question by singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" to the tune of  
the old Beach Boy's tune "Barbara Anne."

It's all very consistent, Dickinson shows, with McCain's pampered  
youth as the legendarily irresponsible, boorish, and stupid son and  
grandson of four star admirals in the U.S. Navy. After graduating  
894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy, McCain became a  
notorious party-boy who repeatedly crashed Navy planes.  Any flier  
without McCain's would have lost his wings.

McCain was able to achieve notoriety and build a political career  
around the claim to be a "war hero" because he managed to get shot  
down while bombing the civilian infrastructure of North Vietnam.   
Contrary to his carefully cultivated myth of special and holy  
"sacrifice for country," McCain received favorable treatment by  
informing his Vietnamese captors the he was the son of a top U.S.  
military official (Admiral McCain head of the U.S. assault on Vietnam  
by the early 1970s). He divulged military information (the name of his  
ship of origin and the target of his assault) other American POW's  
refused to release under torture.

McCain's subsequent career and highlights include:

* The vicious abandonment and divorce of his first wife after she  
suffered a crippling car accident and the 42-year-old McCain became  
smitten with his future wife - the 24-year-old former USC cheerleader  
Cindy Hensley, a wealthy Budweiser heiress.

* Using his position as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate to  
secretly negotiate (against the wishes of the Secretary of the Navy)  
an egregious pork project - the replacement of the aging aircraft  
carrier "The Midway."

* Voting in the U.S. Senate against the Martin Luther King holiday.

* Voting to confirm the arch-rightist Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme  
Court.

* Calling for the abolition of the U.S. Departments of Energy and  
Education.

* Championing a bill that eliminated catastrophic health insurance for  
senior citizens.

* Intervening along with four other senators in 1987 to prevent  
federal regulators from investigating Lincoln Savings and Loan, a  
corrupt institution owned by McCain's leading contributor and friend  
Charlie Keating.  The S&L collapsed two years later under the weight  
of Keating's corrupt real estate dealings, costing U.S. taxpayers $3.4  
billion and defrauding 20,000 holders of Keating's junk bonds.

In the late 1990s, Dickinson shows, McCain dropped his initial post- 
Vietnam reluctance to support aggressive U.S. wars and underwent a  
dramatic "neocon makeover."  McCain's arch-militaristic conversion was  
consistent with his initial claims that "the liberal media" had  
undermined the "national will" and therefore cost noble America a "war  
it should have won" in Vietnam.

McCain turned into such a "bellicose hawk" that he went beyond Dick  
Cheney in "spreading bogus intelligence" in advance support of George  
W. Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq.

McCain's hyper-militarism combines with the sense that he is a loose  
cannon to prevent top Republican generals like Brent Scowcroft and  
Colin Powell from endorsing his candidacy.

For whatever reason, Dickinson does not mention McCain's likely strong  
connection to recent reckless U.S.-imperial provocations of resurgent  
and nuclear-armed Russia.  Dickinson might also have mentioned the  
Arizona senator's inflammatory call for the formation of a U.S-led  
"League of Democracies" to (presumably) replace the United Nations - a  
body from which McCain would ban Russia and China.

It is common among left commentators - the present writer included -  
to criticize dominant U.S. political culture's tendency to privilege  
candidate character and "qualities" over substantive matters of policy  
and ideology. America's quadrennial candidate-centered corporate- 
crafted  "electoral extravaganzas" (Noam Chomsky's term) tend to cloak  
the fundamental corporate and imperial consensus between reigning  
parties and politicians, focusing voters on superficial differences of  
candidate style instead of the fact that both of the nation's dominant  
political parties are well to the right of the populace on numerous  
key issues.  The current election year is no exception.

Still, "character counts" when it comes to who is going to hold what  
is still the most powerful single office on Earth - the U.S.  
presidency.  The vicious, stupid, unprincipled, and reckless John  
McCain is morally, mentally, and physically ill-suited for that job in  
ways that must be made abundantly clear to as many voters as possible  
over the next three weeks.  It should be emphasized that the 72-year- 
old cancer (Melanoma)-patient McCain - the infamously "hotheaded" son  
of a father and grandfather who both died from sudden heart attacks  
(at ages 62 and 71 respectively) - could very well keel over dead the  
day of his possible inauguration, bringing us to the unthinkable brink  
of a Palin administration.

If you live in a contested state, I suggest that you smell with  
supreme fear what McCain and Palin are cooking and vote accordingly.  
This ain't just Democratic Coke versus Republican Pepsi, comrade: it's  
Coke versus Crack.


Paul Street (paulstreet99 at yahoo.com), a writer and speaker based in  
Iowa City, IA, His latest book is Barack Obama and the Future of  
American Politics, order atwww.paradigmpublishers.com/Books/ 
BookDetail.aspx?productID=186987


From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Mon Oct 13 00:15:24 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:15:24 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The world is at severe risk ...
Message-ID: <48F2E77C.7090305@attglobal.net>


... of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression

by Nouriel Roubini

RGE Monitor (October 09 2008)


The US and advanced economies' financial system is now headed towards a
near-term systemic financial meltdown as day after day stock markets are
in free fall, money markets have shut down while their spreads are
skyrocketing, and credit spreads are surging through the roof. There is
now the beginning of a generalized run on the banking system of these
economies; a collapse of the shadow banking system, that is, those
non-banks (broker dealers, non-bank mortgage lenders, SIV and conduits,
hedge funds, money market funds, private equity firms) that, like banks,
borrow short and liquid, are highly leveraged and lend and invest long
and illiquid and are thus at risk of a run on their short-term
liabilities; and now a roll-off of the short term liabilities of the
corporate sectors that may lead to widespread bankruptcies of solvent
but illiquid financial and non-financial firms.

On the real economic side all the advanced economies representing 55% of
global GDP (US, Eurozone, UK, other smaller European countries, Canada,
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Japan) entered a recession even before
the massive financial shocks that started in the late summer made the
liquidity and credit crunch even more virulent and will thus cause an
even more severe recession than the one that started in the spring. So
we have a severe recession, a severe financial crisis and a severe
banking crisis in advanced economies.

There was no decoupling among advanced economies and there is no
decoupling but rather recoupling of the emerging market economies with
the severe crisis of the advanced economies. By the third quarter of
this year global economic growth will be in negative territory signaling
a global recession. The recoupling of emerging markets was initially
limited to stock markets that fell even more than those of advanced
economies as foreign investors pulled out of these markets; but then it
spread to credit markets and money markets and currency markets bringing
to the surface the vulnerabilities of many financial systems and
corporate sectors that had experienced credit booms fand that had
borrowed short and in foreign currencies.

Countries with large current account deficit and/or large fiscal
deficits and with large short term foreign currency liabilities and
borrowings have been the most fragile. But even the better performing
ones - like the BRICs club of Brazil, Russia, India and China - are now
at risk of a hard landing. Trade and financial and currency and
confidence channels are now leading to a massive slowdown of growth in
emerging markets with many of them now at risk not only of a recession
but also of a severe financial crisis.

The crisis was caused by the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit
bubble in the history of humanity where excessive leveraging and bubbles
were not limited to housing in the US but also to housing in many other
countries and excessive borrowing by financial institutions and some
segments of the corporate sector and of the public sector in many and
different economies: an housing bubble, a mortgage bubble, an equity
bubble, a bond bubble, a credit bubble, a commodity bubble, a private
equity bubble, a hedge funds bubble are all now bursting at once in the
biggest real sector and financial sector deleveraging since the Great
Depression.

At this point the recession train has left the station; the financial
and banking crisis train has left the station. The delusion that the US
and advanced economies contraction would be short and shallow - a
V-shaped six month recession - has been replaced by the certainty that
this will be a long and protracted U-shaped recession that may last at
least two years in the US and close to two years in most of the rest of
the world. And given the rising risk of a global systemic financial
meltdown the probability that the outcome could become a decade long
L-shaped recession - like the one experienced by Japan after the
bursting of its real estate and equity bubble - cannot be ruled out.

And in a world where there is a glut and excess capacity of goods while
aggregate demand is falling soon enough we will start to worry about
deflation, debt deflation, liquidity traps and what monetary policy
makers should do to fight deflation when policy rates get dangerously
close to zero.

At this point the risk of an imminent stock market crash - like the
one-day collapse of twenty percent plus in US stock prices in 1987 -
cannot be ruled out as the financial system is breaking down, panic and
lack of confidence in any counterparty is sharply rising and the
investors have totally lost faith in the ability of policy authorities
to control this meltdown.

This disconnect between more and more aggressive policy actions and
easings and greater and greater strains in financial market is scary.
When Bear Stearns' creditors were bailed out to the tune of $30 billion
in March the rally in equity, money and credit markets lasted eight
weeks; when in July the US Treasury announced legislation to bail out
the mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie the rally lasted four weeks; when
the actual $200 billion rescue of these firms was undertaken and their
$6 trillion liabilities taken over by the US government the rally lasted
one day and by the next day the panic has moved to Lehman's collapse;
when AIG was bailed out to the tune of $85 billion the market did not
even rally for a day and instead fell five percent.

Next when the $700 billion US rescue package was passed by the US Senate
and House markets fell another seven percent in two days as there was no
confidence in this flawed plan and the authorities. Next as authorities
in the US and abroad took even more radical policy actions between
October 6th and October 9th (payment of interest on reserves, doubling
of the liquidity support of banks, extension of credit to the seized
corporate sector, guarantees of bank deposits, plans to recapitalize
banks, coordinated monetary policy easing, et cetera) the stock markets
and the credit markets and the money markets fell further and further
and at an accelerated rates day after day all week including another
seven percent fall in US equities today.

When in markets that are clearly way oversold even the most radical
policy actions don't provide rallies or relief to market participants
you know that you are one step away from a market crack and a systemic
financial sector and corporate sector collapse. A vicious circle of
deleveraging, asset collapses, margin calls, cascading falls in asset
prices well below falling fundamentals and panic is now underway.

At this point severe damage is done and one cannot rule out a systemic
collapse and a global depression. It will take a significant change in
leadership of economic policy and very radical, coordinated policy
actions among all advanced and emerging market economies to avoid this
economic and financial disaster. Urgent and immediate necessary actions
that need to be done globally (with some variants across countries
depending on the severity of the problem and the overall resources
available to the sovereigns) include:

* another rapid round of policy rate cuts of the order of at least 150
basis points on average globally;

* a temporary blanket guarantee of all deposits while a triage between
insolvent financial institutions that need to be shut down and
distressed but solvent institutions that need to be partially
nationalized with injections of public capital is made;

* a rapid reduction of the debt burden of insolvent households preceded
by a temporary freeze on all foreclosures;

* massive and unlimited provision of liquidity to solvent financial
institutions;

* public provision of credit to the solvent parts of the corporate
sector to avoid a short-term debt refinancing crisis for solvent but
illiquid corporations and small businesses;

* a massive direct government fiscal stimulus packages that includes
public works, infrastructure spending, unemployment benefits, tax
rebates to lower income households and provision of grants to strapped
and crunched state and local government;

* a rapid resolution of the banking problems via triage, public
recapitalization of financial institutions and reduction of the debt
burden of distressed households and borrowers;

* an agreement between lender and creditor countries running current
account surpluses and borrowing and debtor countries running current
account deficits to maintain an orderly financing of deficits and a
recycling of the surpluses of creditors to avoid a disorderly adjustment
of such imbalances.

At this point anything short of these radical and coordinated actions
may lead to a market crash, a global systemic financial meltdown and to
a global depression. At this stage central banks that are usually
supposed to be the "lenders of last resort" need to become the "lenders
of first and only resort" as, under conditions of panic and total loss
of confidence, no one in the private sector is lending to anyone else
since counterparty risk is extreme. And fiscal authorities that usually
are spenders and insurers of last resort need to temporarily become the
spenders and insurers of first resort. The fiscal costs of these actions
will be large but the economic and fiscal costs of inaction would be of
a much larger and severe magnitude. Thus, the time to act is now as all
the policy officials of the world are meeting this weekend in Washington
at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.

Thursday midnite update: A few hours after I had written this note the
market crash that I warned about is underway in Asia: the Nikkei index
in Japan is down eleven percent and all other Asian markets are sharply
down. This reinforces the urgency of credible and rapid policy actions
by the G7 financial officials who are meeting in a few hours in
Washington and the need to also involve in such global policy
coordination the systemically important emergent market economies.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253973/the_world_is_at_severe_risk_of_a_global_systemic_financial_meltdown_and_a_severe_global_depression


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 Oct 13 02:32:01 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:32:01 -0600
Subject: [R-G] [Fwd: No arrests Made at Spirit Train blockade]
Message-ID: <48F30781.8020404@resist.ca>



BREAKING NEWS                        For Immediate Release
October 12, 2008

Activists Blockade of CP Rail Tracks Successfully Disrupted Olympic
Spirit Train
Rail blockade backs up trains across the country in an escalation of
resistance to the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Olympic games

Toronto, Ontario ? Moments ago a group of activists from Toronto,
Waterloo, London, Kitchener, Guelph, and 6 Nations ended a blockade on
Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway?s train tracks in opposition to the Spirit
Train.

Activist locked themselves down to the tracks at 5:00pm and hung banners
off of the rail overpass on highway 27 near Elder Mills. The protest was
organized in solidarity with the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN) and
their call to disrupt CP?s ?Spirit Train? that is traveling across Canada.

?Today we shed light on what the Olympics really stands for; capitalist
greed and colonialist theft of Indigenous lands? said Winnie Small.  She
continued, ?In stark contrast to Canada?s cherished reputation as a
human rights advocate, our First Nations live in abject poverty;
casualties of Canada?s apartheid policies, and its refusal to respect
Indigenous rights to their own land.?

The activists successfully negotiated a peaceful dispersal after more
than three hours.  No arrests were made and the activists were able to
leave the area without incident. CP Police Officer told the activists?
liaison that trains had been backed up ?across the country? and that the
delay cost the company ?millions of dollars.?

The ?Spirit Train? was launched Sunday Sept. 21, 2008, in Port Moody,
B.C. where activists from the ORN, Anti-Poverty Committee, and the
Native Youth Movement successfully disrupted it.  To the embarrassment
of its corporate sponsors, the Spirit Train, still rolling across the
country, has been disrupted at several locations with protesters often
outnumbering supporters.

For interviews, photo images and B-roll please contact:
Dan Kellar 519 616 4462
Chris Buck 416 708 0834

For more information about Olympic Resistance
No2010.com
Peaceculture.org






From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct 13 08:33:36 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:33:36 -0400
Subject: [R-G] The Mad Activist's Declaration of Codependence
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810130733p748f4ba4tc0b7e87fdf73473b@mail.gmail.com>

<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/day131008.html>
The Mad Activist's Declaration of Codependence
by Susie Day

The sages of History say, Know Thyself -- and I do.  I used to be a
peace activist, but thanks to the sages of pop-psychology, I see now
that I am a codependent.

Yet I refuse to be your ordinary, run-of-the-mill codependent, who's
stuck in a crappy relationship with just one needy, abusive
individual.  I say, Nyet to that.  I'm not the
"oh-my-man-I-love-him-so" wifey whose husband beats her senseless,
steals her credit cards to pay off his gambling debts, kicks her cat
through a window, then goes out on a drunken binge and murders nine
people.  I'm not the girl who quits her job, forgets her dreams of
becoming an award-winning cha-cha dancer, and spends the rest of her
life setting up legal defense teams, praying that one day her precious
dickwad will walk out of prison -- because, really, wasn't the whole
thing her fault?

If I give up the best years of my life, it's not going to be to
"enable" the destructive behavior of one measly alcoholic; it's going
to be for an entire government, see?  As an
activist-turned-codependent, my purpose in life is to enable the
destructive behavior of the United States of America.

So even though America steals my money to pay off gambling debts,
beats me senseless, kicks my cat through a window, then goes out on
power-drunken binges, bombing people, poisoning the planet, and
annihilating whole civilizations -- I know that, deep down, America
really loves me.

Oh sure, I stay at home a lot, weeping into my pillow.  But then I
remember that America hurts, too.  America may seem needy and
demanding, but, secretly, America is afraid I will go over to some
other power.  That's why America searches my bag and taps my phone.
America is jealous.  It's kind of cute. America: Love him or leave
him.

Actually, I see America as a sort of megalomaniacal, paranoid
schizophrenic rage-aholic -- but in a good way, like for global
dominance?  Sometimes, I talk to America; I try to tell America how my
day was, what I'm feeling.  I have this shameful hope that America
will someday see me for the fragile, iridescent, unrepeatable person
that I am.  But America remains distant, distracted -- even when I
agonize about losing my job; even when I say my health plan's running
out.  It's my fault, I guess; I tend to pick emotionally unavailable
governments.


From critical.montages at gmail.com  Mon Oct 13 10:37:34 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:37:34 -0400
Subject: [R-G] European Banks Offer Unlimited Dollar Funding,
	Markets Cheer Bank Bail-outs
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810130937x369e6cf6k9a94a8a9277f6541@mail.gmail.com>

Multinational investors' vote of confidence in ultra-imperialism. . .
.  -- Yoshie

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a7eba3fc-992b-11dd-9d48-000077b07658.html>
Markets cheer bank bail-outs

By John Willman, Business Editor

Published: October 13 2008 15:18 | Last updated: October 13 2008 15:18

Germany, France and other European countries have unveiled bail-out
plans to recapitalise their banks and reopen credit markets, following
the British announcement of measures to nationalise the UK banking
system.

The world's stock markets soared as details emerged of the
co-ordinated European campaign to spend more than ?1,100bn on bailing
out the continent's troubled banks.

London's FTSE 100 rose more than 5 per cent after the British
government announced its plans to inject ?37bn into three of the
country's biggest banks.

Other European stock markets followed suit as Germany and France
announced their plans, Italy's cabinet passed a new decree offering
more support to the financial sector, and the Spanish government
approved a guarantee for issues of new bank debt.

Europe's central banks promised unlimited dollar funding in
co-ordinated action with the US Federal Reserve. The European Central
Bank, Bank of England and Swiss National Bank said they were ready to
inject as much as needed into the markets for dollar funding covering
periods of seven days, a month and 84 days.

Confidence in the money markets showed signs of returning as the
interbank cost of borrowing in sterling, euros and dollars fell.
Three-month euro Libor posted its biggest decline this year and
three-month dollar Libor had its steepest fall since March.

US stocks rallied when Wall Street opened, as details began to emerge
of the plan to recapitalise US banks and other financial institutions.
Neel Kashkari, the Treasury assistant secretary appointed by Hank
Paulson, Treasury secretary, to run the US government's $700bn
bail-out fund, said the scheme would be "voluntary" in his first
public statements since his appointment.

"The equity purchase programme will be voluntary and designed with
attractive terms to encourage participation from healthy
institutions."

Mr Kashkari said Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, would lead
the oversight board for the troubled asset relief programme. That
panel, which met for the first time last week, also includes Mr
Paulson and the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the
Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development.

In other moves, Australia and New Zealand announced guarantees for all
bank deposits, as did the United Arab Emirates, while Saudi Arabia cut
its interest rates.

The Swedish government said on Monday it would unveil steps to
safeguard their financial sector in the next few days, but did not
plan to inject capital into the Nordic country's banks. Norway
announced at the weekend it would offer its commercial banks up to
$55.4bn in government bonds in exchange for mortgage debt and Portugal
said it would make as much as ?20bn available in guarantees for its
banks' financing.

Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, defended his government's
"unprecedented but essential" ?37bn injection that could leave it
owning a majority stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the world's
biggest banks, and more than 40 per cent of the combined Lloyds TSB
and HBOS, which is set to be the country's largest mortgage lender.

The German government endorsed measures closely modelled on the
British rescue plan unveiled last week, will initially empower the
finance ministry provide as much as ?500bn in loan guarantees and
capital to bolster the banking system.

The French government pledged ?360bn to the country's banks, including
?320bn of loan guarantees and ?40bn to buy stakes in French banks. The
guarantees will run through to the end of 2009.

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6fcc5ed0-9903-11dd-9d48-000077b07658.html>
European banks offer unlimited dollar funding
By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt
Published: October 13 2008 10:03 | Last updated: October 13 2008 13:31

European central banks have opened the floodgates with promises of
unlimited dollar funding in a coordinated action with the US Federal
Reserve.

The European Central Bank, Bank of England and Swiss National Bank
said they were ready to inject as much as needed into the markets for
dollars funding covering periods of seven days, a month and 84 days.

Banks would "be able to borrow any amount they wish against the
appropriate collateral in each jurisdiction," the central banks said
in a statement. In Tokyo, the Bank of Japan said it was considering a
similar step.

The joint move marks a further dramatic escalation of the weaponry
being used by the world's monetary authorities to unblock paralysed
financial markets, and follows the ECB decision last week to offer
unlimited euro liquidity in its regular weekly actions.

As in that move, the unlimited dollar funding announced on Monday will
be made available at a fixed interest rate ? rather than banks bidding
according to how desperate their need is for cash.

Swap lines agreed with the US Fed would be expanded to whatever size
deemed necessary by demand, the central banks said.

The announcement was met with a fall in Libor rates, the lending rate
banks charge each other to lend, which have been at historically high
levels. According to the British Bankers' Association the three-month
dollar libor dropped to 4.7525 per cent from 4.81875 per cent on
Friday. The one-month rate fell to 4.56 per cent from 4.5875 per cent
as signs of the co-ordinated efforts in Europe, Asia and the US to
tackle the global financial crisis were beginning to have an effect.

After attending weekend meetings of global policy makers in Washington
and eurozone leaders in Paris, Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president had
signalled late on Sunday that the ECB was urgently considering further
steps it could take to avert a financial markets catastrophe. "We can
imagine new measures to enlarge access to our system of guarantees,"
he said.

The Frankfurt-based institution could broaden the range of assets it
accepts as collateral in money market operations, Mr Trichet hinted.
But he argued that the ECB did not have the legal power to follow the
example set by the US Fed and buy commercial paper.

Highlighting the role the world's central banks are playing in the
absence of functioning markets, the ECB said a record ?154.6bn had
been parked with at the weekend at a penalty low interest rate ? a
measure of the mutual distrust between private-sector banks.

The European central banks said the first seven-day auctions of
unlimited dollar liquidity would be held on Wednesday. The interest
rate will be announced in advance by the ECB, the Bank of England and
the Swiss central bank. The ECB said that from Thursday, the emergency
injections of overnight dollar liquidity would be conducted "only if
necessary".

In their statement, the central banks said they would "continue to
work together and are prepared to take whatever measures are necessary
to provide sufficient liquidity in short-term funding markets."

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53d40cf2-9924-11dd-9d48-000077b07658.html>
Full text: US Treasury Tarp plans
Published: October 13 2008 13:44 | Last updated: October 13 2008 13:44

Neel Kashkari, Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability,
gave more details of the Tarp plan to the Institute of International
Bankers on Monday morning

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122389467262628273.html>
CTOBER 13, 2008, 12:09 P.M. ET
Stock Market Rebounds

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/business/14markets.html>
Stocks Rise Sharply After Vows of New Bank Capital
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: October 13, 2008


From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct 13 10:44:09 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:44:09 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The blowback from Afghanistan
Message-ID: <04395EB9-A4F0-4A43-99F0-C6A1AFFA8C59@shaw.ca>

Recent two-part interview with Salutin:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=241


The blowback from Afghanistan
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081009.wcosalutin10/BNStory/politics/home

RICK SALUTIN
 From Friday's Globe and Mail


October 9, 2008 at 11:29 PM EDT

In the U.S. "debates," it was the bleakest moment for me so far when  
Barack Obama said he lamented the war in Iraq because it "weakened our  
capacity to project power around the world." Not because it was wrong  
to invade and occupy a distant country, or even because it was a  
failed war. But because it hampered U.S. ability to invade and occupy  
other places. In this, he agrees with John McCain, who says the United  
States has a "sacred duty to suffer hardship and risk danger to  
protect the values of our civilization and impart them to humanity" by  
military might. It is a core component of U.S. political culture. You  
don't get to run for president without it.

What is the problem with projecting power - aside from the slaughter,  
pillage and backlash it routinely generates? Well, the effects on the  
projectors themselves are often overlooked. Israel, for instance, has  
occupied Palestinian land for 41 years. An Israeli I knew, long ago,  
described serving in the West Bank and kicking a Palestinian kid,  
hard, with his army boot, because the kid held a prohibited  
Palestinian flag.

To his amazement, the kid stood there, so he kicked again. The shame  
of it never left him. He dreamed of returning to the village, finding  
the kid and apologizing.

Canada has been ambivalent about its role in military projections by  
great powers. We're never sure whether we belong with the empire or  
the natives. Our view of our soldiers as peacekeepers was an effort to  
straddle that dilemma. But in the Afghan occupation, we seem to have  
tilted: We now identify with the big guys, against the little scumbags.

It hasn't worked well. Insecurity there has increased. Sixty per cent  
want foreign troops out. Social progress has been minimal. The Taliban  
are resurgent. But what I really want to talk about are the "blowback"  
effects on us, at home, from our big military adventure. Let me take  
one example.

Stephen Harper's view for years has been that Canada's social programs  
are overblown and humiliatingly socialist. (You can Google it.) Yet  
they're awfully popular. How do you combat that as a minority prime  
minister? Try this: We can't afford it. Except we seem able to. Hmm,  
okay. Then lower the GST a couple of points, making less money  
available for the programs. Not bad. But what next?

Enter the Afghan mission. The parliamentary budget office reported  
yesterday on its total cost: $14-billion to $18-billion, maybe more:  
two to three times what the government claimed.

When asked about it, Stephen Harper held his palms up and said it was  
all "budgeted." As in: Sorry kids, but there's no money left at the  
end of the month for a trip to the zoo. He'd just announced a meagre  
$10-million for pulmonary diseases, much like yesterday's $5-million  
to lure Canadian doctors home. He calls these outlays modest. How  
about piddling? They are pathetic compared to what's required for  
national child care, pharmacare, the cities or aboriginals. Then add  
his plan to spend $490-billion on the military in the next 20 years,  
anticipating future Afghanistans.

It may not be why we went in. But military (over)spending is a superb  
way to tilt an economy away from social goals. It's the only big  
public spending neo-cons like Stephen Harper are comfy with. It's the  
U.S. model. They spend $700-billion a year on "defence," more than the  
rest of the world combined and the very amount of the big bailout -  
which itself is related to those projections into Iraq and Afghanistan  
and will severely hamper a President Obama from doing much  
domestically ? but that's another several stories.

So there you have it: Canadian blowback from Afghanistan. A solution  
to Stephen Harper's dilemma: how to place beloved social programs out  
of reach. And all this even before the shrivelling effects of a global  
economic crunch. Imagine what the guy could do with a majority.



From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct 13 11:24:48 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:24:48 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Where's Palestine in the Canadian Election?
Message-ID: <67AB48F7-F6D7-4234-954B-167A35FDF421@shaw.ca>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 146 ... October 13, 2008
_________________________________________________

Where's Palestine in the Canadian Election?
Kole Kilibarda

Many will certainly remember that incredibly friendly moment, during  
the otherwise acrimonious recent U.S. Vice-Presidential debate, when  
Republican candidate Sarah Palin reached out to her Democratic rival  
Joseph Biden, saying she was: "encouraged to know we both love Israel  
and I think that is a good thing to agree on." Arguably, observing the  
Canadian election process, one gets the impression that this warm  
sentiment would be shared by party leaders north of the border ? from  
Stephen Harper all the way through to St?phane Dion, Jack Layton,  
Elizabeth May and even Gilles Duceppe ? most of whom appear ready to  
join Palin (though with varying degrees of enthusiasm) in endorsing  
Israeli apartheid in one variety or another.

Injustice's Shinning Allure?
In Canada, we are witnessing another election cycle in which foreign  
policy questions have been largely relegated to the proverbial  
'backburner.' To the extent that the oppression of the Palestinians  
has been an issue, cross-party affirmations of support for Israel have  
been widespread. Thus, even Green Party leader Elizabeth May felt  
compelled to argue that: "We need to recognize that Israel is the  
bulwark of democracy and a healthy society" in the Middle East during  
a recent interview. May didn't bother to offer reasons why voters  
'need to recognize' this contentious assertion, instead treating  
Israeli apartheid as so self-evidently virtuous that she felt no  
compulsion to offer evidence to back her claims.

While many small 'l' Canadian liberals might justifiably laugh-off  
Palin's Reaganite na?ve view of the USA as 'that shinning city on a  
hill,' many will nonetheless insist on maintaining a similarly  
idealized picture of that other 'city on a hill' ? Israel's gleaming  
colonial project in the Middle East. For many middle-class liberals,  
Israel has served as a symbolic beacon of 'shared democratic values'  
in a region of the world that many seem afraid of. For others, the  
topic has been 'too controversial,' or 'too complicated' or 'hopeless'  
and the preference has been to simply stay quiet. Such (heavily  
racialized) predispositions are something that Israel's consul general  
in Toronto, Amir Gissin, is trying to play-up in order to convince  
residents of the city ? by means of a $1-million 'Brand Israel' re- 
branding campaign ? that Israel is worth another chance.

Of course, one does not need to look far to understand the ability of  
Canadian party leaders to ignore Palestine's ghettoes and Bantustans  
during this election season. One just needs to consider their  
deafening silence on the situation of indigenous peoples here on  
Turtle Island and it becomes clear how what Ryerson sociology  
professor Alan Sears has identified as 'settler solidarity' functions.  
This type of 'solidarity' is something that Israeli brand experts have  
apparently picked up on, by promoting North American tourism to Israel  
in what are apparently meant to be enticing images speaking directly  
to very masculinist (and often pubescent) settler sensibilities.

The campaign has thus included images of everything from 'real Israeli  
cowboys,' to the redemptive/Biblical marketing of 'Holy Land' sites,  
to the 'hotness' of Israeli women (witness last year's MAXIM feature  
on 'The Women of the IDF'). Recent Canadian variations on this  
campaign have tried to play-up Israel's alleged 'multicultural  
democracy', its 'environmentalism' and its health-care system by  
simply omitting the racial differentiation characterizing access to  
these.

Meanwhile in Palestine...
The mythmaking quality of Israel's rebranding campaign aside, it's not  
like opportunities have been lacking for Canadian party leaders to  
condemn Israel's legislated racism and militarized control over  
Palestinian life. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights  
(PCHR), in the month since the Canadian elections' were called the  
Israeli military has:

	? carried out at least 170 incursions into Palestinian villages,  
towns and cities;
	? arrested 155 Palestinian civilians (including 30 children);
	? injured at least 68 Palestinian civilians (including 16 children),  
and transformed three houses into military bases.
Settler militias have also started attacking Palestinian farmers and  
burning down olive trees in what has become a yearly occurrence  
coinciding with the seasonal olive harvest. There were also the  
intense race-riots triggered this past week in the city of Akka  
(Acre), after Taufik Jamal and his daughter were nearly stoned to  
death by Jewish extremists for having 'provocatively' smoked  
'cigarettes' and 'played music' in his car ('violating' Israeli  
religious proscriptions on such behavior during Yom Kippur even though  
the father and daughter aren't of the same faith and deny behaving in  
these 'offensive' ways).

Finally, during this period, PCHR reports that 6 Palestinian civilians  
were killed at the hands of Israeli forces, including:

	? Naheel 'Awni 'Abdul Rahim, 21, from Qasra village southeast of  
Nablus, who gave birth to a dead baby at Hawara checkpoint due to the  
restrictions on Palestinian movement imposed by the Israeli military  
(September 5);
	? Waleed Fareed Waleed Fraitakh, 22, a plumber from Nablus shot by  
the Israeli military while returning home after work (September 10);
	? an unnamed Palestinian boy shot by the Israeli army in Taqqou'  
village near Bethlehem (September 13);
	? Suhaib Yasser Ahmed Saleh, 14, from Southern 'Assira village near  
Nablus shot through the chest and right leg (September 20);
	? Miriam Ahmed 'Ali 'Ayad, 56, killed in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem,  
when she was pushed down the stairs of her family home by an Israeli  
soldier, splitting her head open as a result (September 20);
	? and Yahia 'Atiya Fahmi Bani Monya, 18, from 'Aqraba village  
southeast of Nablus, kidnapped by settlers while grazing his sheep,  
only for his bullet riddled body to be found later dumped 1km from the  
Jetit settlement in an area prohibited to Palestinians (September 27).
In the Gaza Strip, as the PCHR explains, the conditions of siege  
continue to take their toll, with health services

"severely affected by the siege...Critically ill patients are still  
being denied permits to access vital health services in the West Bank,  
Israel and abroad.  Water facilities, including access to clean  
drinking water, and the treatment of raw sewage continue to be  
severely disrupted by fuel shortages. 50-60 million liters of  
untreated and partially treated sewage are being dumped into the Gaza  
Strip Mediterranean Sea daily, posing a public health risk.  Hundreds  
of Gazan students are currently unable to resume their university  
studies...The Gaza Strip had been suffering from chronic shortages of  
fuel supplies, especially cooking gas, and electricity is still being  
cut-off for long periods of time."

This is in addition to poverty rates of some 80%, massive  
unemployment, and increasing malnutrition that are all attributable to  
the blockade. As the PCHR notes:

"despite the Egyptian brokered 'Tahdiya' or truce between Palestinian  
resistance groups and Israel that began on 19 June; there have been no  
major changes regarding the movements of civilians and goods through  
the six Gaza Strip border crossings."

Grabbing Some Votes by Increasing Civilian Pain?
In fact, the only candidate to actually refer to Palestinian civilians  
with anything resembling a clear policy preference, was Liberal  
candidate Ken Dryden, who during an all-candidates debate in Toronto  
chillingly stated that Canada must: "Stop all aid that flows into  
Gaza. While that may seem a harsh measure that will hurt Palestinian  
civilians... it is the right thing to do at this time." While Dryden  
has since 'clarified' that he only meant cutting government-to- 
government assistance ? on which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians  
depend! ? his initial comments highlight an almost reflexive  
callousness towards Palestinians that is shared by many politicians  
currently running for office in Canada.

In fact, Dryden's comments endorsing collective punishment, faithfully  
echo the main justification for Israel's blockade of Gaza. The siege  
is thus explicitly calculated to impose massive civilian suffering for  
the audacity of Palestinians to choose a government through...  
ballots!! Dov Weisglass, one of Ariel Sharon's top advisors, clarified  
shortly after the 2006 Palestinian elections that the blockade was  
intended to be:  "like a meeting with a dietician. We have to make  
them much thinner, but not enough to die."  Last spring Israel's  
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai went further, arguing that  
Palestinians were risking a 'shoa' (catastrophe / holocaust) in Gaza  
if they continued their resistance.

Moving Forward After Election Day?
Of course, this is not to say that the position of every party in  
Canada reflects such racist (even g?nocidaire?) positions. There are  
grassroots currents within the Green Party, the NDP and the Bloc that  
consistently push for principled positions on international issues.  
However, in cases where parties have taken an official stand ? the NDP  
and Green Party electoral platforms are the only ones that contain  
explicit policy statements on 'Israel and Palestine' ? they simply  
fail to unequivocally condemn Israeli apartheid, preferring instead to  
equate the oppressed and the oppressors. This is often done in a  
usually unsuccessful attempt to avoid neo-conservative, rightwing and  
racist 'pro-Israel' flak, while simultaneously attempting to placate  
social-justice seeking constituencies within their own party. A 'safe'  
position thus becomes supporting a 'two state solution' while  
remaining silent on the fate of 5-million Palestinian refugees denied  
the fundamental right of return or the 1.5-million Palestinian  
citizens of Israel living legislated racism everyday.

These silences are especially problematic given that in recent years a  
consensus has developed within Palestinian civil society on the best  
non-violent method of moving forward with the struggle for justice in  
the Middle East ? i.e. support for a comprehensive grassroots boycott,  
sanctions and divestment (BDS) campaign that seeks an end to Israel's  
occupation of all Arab lands (40+ years), the return of refugees (60  
years) and the recognition of equal civil and political rights for  
Palestinians living in Israel (60+ years).

Concretely, what support for this campaign would mean if translated  
into the context of the Canadian political scene, would be to call on  
the next government to immediately suspend cooperation agreements with  
Israel, including the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) and  
the Canada Israel Industrial Research and Development Fund (CIIRDF).  
These agreements contribute to the over $1-billion dollars in  
bilateral trade and over $2-billlion worth of foreign direct  
investments linking Israel and Canada (including dozens of security  
related joint projects).

However, support for such measures will mean bringing the carefully  
constructed, semi-biblical image of Israel fostered within the North  
American political imaginary into question. Endorsing Palestinian  
perspectives on their dispossession during an election campaign might  
also mean that settler politicians in Canada might have to confront  
the uncomfortable truth that Canada itself was built on and continues  
to depend on the exploitation of lands stolen from the indigenous  
peoples of Turtle Island. I guess this is something progressives will  
be thinking about long after Election Day, which this year falls right  
after the 'Thanksgiving Weekend.'

To learn more about the global BDS visit www.bdsmovement.net or log on  
to www.caiaweb.org. ?

Kole Kilibarda is an organizer with the Coalition Against Israeli  
Apartheid (CAIA). He can be reached at kole at riseup.net.

From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct 13 14:18:57 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:18:57 -0700
Subject: [R-G] White House retooling rescue package
Message-ID: <200810132018.m9DKIv4m004748@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct 13 14:19:46 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:19:46 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The fox has been in the financial henhouse all along
Message-ID: <200810132019.m9DKJk1k005794@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct 13 14:23:28 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:23:28 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Going through hell to reach heaven
Message-ID: <200810132023.m9DKNSaW009428@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct 13 14:26:21 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:26:21 -0700
Subject: [R-G] McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred
Message-ID: <200810132026.m9DKQL5F012702@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Mon Oct 13 14:33:46 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:33:46 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Father, forgive me, I will not fight for your Israel
Message-ID: <200810132033.m9DKXkio020658@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct 13 15:36:16 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:36:16 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Canada's Arab immigrant vote
Message-ID: <20D928A8-9DBE-4A0A-A9E4-563E51D79360@shaw.ca>

Canada's Arab immigrant vote
  By Ahmed Habib in Toronto
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2008/10/20081013112940123612.html

The immigrant vote is likely to become a central issue as Canadians  
head to the polls.

On October 14, Stephen Harper, the incumbent prime minister from the  
Conservative Party, will be seeking to gain more seats in parliament  
from among the 300 ridings, or administrative districts, which are up  
for grabs.

But this year, the immigrant vote is likely to play a crucial role, as  
some one million newcomers have entered Canada over the past five years.

Historically, ethnic communities in Canada have supported the Liberal  
party which many see as pro-immigration and favouring a multicultural  
society.

However, issues such as gay marriage and abortion have driven a wedge  
between immigrant communities, which largely hold traditional values,  
and the popular Liberals.

The immigrant vote

The left-leaning New Democratic (NDP) and Green parties are also  
gaining greater support from immigrants, particularly young people,  
who are becoming more disenchanted with mainstream political parties.

Faria Kamal, a campaign coordinator with No One Is Illegal, a national  
organisation that advocates for immigrant and refugee rights, warns of  
the tokenism that parties employ during every election season.

Experts warn of even a greater threat to immigrant communities  
subjected to ethnic-based campaigning.

Sabah Al Nasseri, a political science professor at York University in  
Toronto, said institutional fragmenting and fracturing of society  
according to different communities strengthens the position of the  
white ruling class in Canada.

A recent immigrant himself, he said: "By splitting our communities, we  
are weakened in the sense that we cannot create a general political  
project with other immigrants."

In the case of the Arab community in Canada, there are also internal  
political schisms that run along the lines of what part of the Arab  
world one comes from.

Al Nasseri, who is of Iraqi origin, sees these divisions as  
jeopardising community efforts to confront Canada's problematic role  
in the Middle East.

He urges Arab Canadian voters to remember that, "the same forces that  
are determining domestic policies here are engineering foreign policy  
in the Arab world".

Community organisations such as the Canadian Arab Federation (Caf) are  
advising Arab Canadians to take their interests into account before  
blindly following party allegiances.

Caf recently released a questionnaire to all the political parties as  
a means of gauging their stance on issues affecting the Arab  
community; they asked questions on issues like security measures  
introduced as part of anti-terrorist legislation.

"These laws were passed hastily without consultation, and have led to  
an increase in anti-Arab racism and Islamophobic sentiments in this  
country," notes Khaled Mouammar, the president of Caf.

A retired Canadian immigration judge originally from Palestine,  
Mouammar sees racism as the main deterrent to Arab involvement in the  
elections.

"We cannot lead normal lives. We are attacked by policies of the  
government here and at the same time we are bombarded by worries of  
what's happening in the Arab world."

Caf has recently come under attack in the media for its stance against  
Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, a common reoccurrence in  
Canadian political discourse.

"Many are wary of hiring Arab Canadians, the treatment of Arab and  
Muslim Canadians as suspects by security agencies is increasing, and  
many are forced to deal with a legal system that sees them  
differently," Muammar told Al Jazeera.

Grassroots mobilisation

Nadia Daar, a 26-year-old graduate student who moved to Canada from  
Oman in 2000, will be casting her ballot for the first time on October  
14.

"In order to strive for a community that promotes just and equitable  
values, then we need to vote in the elections to compliment the  
grassroots mobilisations around these issues," she says.

Daar, who lives in Toronto, Canada's largest city, will support a  
party that will take a "clear stance against the apartheid-like  
practices of the Israeli state, the American occupation of Iraq, and  
that will withdraw all of Canada's troops from Afghanistan".

She also wants to vote for a party that will seek a just and equitable  
solution to indigenous land claims. "We are all immigrants here aside  
from the First Nations community, and as such we need to vote for a  
party that gives them the rights they deserve."

Dr Qais Ghanem, a candidate for the Green Party in Ottawa, agrees with  
many of Daar?s beliefs.

A former human rights activist and doctor, Ghanem says he is leaving a  
successful medical practice to pursue a career as Member of Parliament.

He says he chose the Green Party because they shared many of the  
principles regarding "social and economic justice, concern around the  
extreme gaps between the wealthy and the destitute, and fighting  
racism".

He believes merely becoming a candidate can help break stereotypes of  
Arabs in Canada.

"An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard yet," he said.

Ghanem, who is also a professor at the University of Ottawa, believes  
his candidacy is a natural extension to his role as an educator.

"You have to educate or else you won't get what you want. For example,  
people have to know the real story about Afghanistan."

However, Ghanem quickly ran into a media storm when he successfully  
convinced the Green Party to revise their foreign policy and recognise  
the rights of the Palestinians.

Some in the media demanded his immediate expulsion from the party for  
what they described as Israel-bashing and Anti-Semitic statements.

Elizabeth May, the leader of the Greens in Canada, however, stood by  
her candidate, and showed, "tremendous courage," he says.

The Canadian dream

Ghanem's experiences appear to provide evidence to support Caf?s  
claims that there exists racism against Arabs in the elections.

However, Omar Al Ghabra, a Liberal Member of Parliament originally  
from Syria who is seeking re-election in the immigrant-concentrated  
suburbs of Toronto, disagrees.

He says Canada is an accessible and equitable country and points to  
his ability to run for Parliament as a reflection of "the values and  
opportunities that Canada provides."

"I never expected starting off as a student working the graveyard  
shift in a doughnut shop that one day I would be a Member of  
Parliament," Al Ghabra, who is a former president of Caf, told Al  
Jazeera.

"People do not vote because of their ethnicity or religious  
affiliation ? they are more sophisticated and intelligent than that."

He insists that people vote for him because of his "values, stances  
and work."

Despite Al Ghabra's beliefs, political parties use their stance on  
immigration and social values as a means of gaining more community  
block votes.

Campaign ads, sometimes in different languages, can be seen and heard  
across ethnic-based media outlets.

Even the Conservative Party has put forward a list of candidates from  
Arab backgrounds; nevertheless, many Arab-Canadians criticise Harper  
for his unwavering support of Israel and the American occupation of  
Iraq.

Elie Salibi, a candidate with the Conservative party in Ottawa would  
not respond to any requests for an interview.

Attempts to find other Arab-Canadian candidates with Stephen Harper's  
party were thwarted by the Conservative party media team that insisted  
they, "don't racially profile their candidates".

First veiled candidate

For Samira Laouni, a candidate with the NDP in Bourassa, Quebec, her  
story seems to expose the many problems facing immigrants as they try  
to break through debilitating stereotypes.

As a Muslim-Canadian, originally from Morocco, Laouni wears the hijab;  
as a result, she has been the focus of many debates on radio stations  
in the French-speaking province Quebec.

On a Montreal talk show, Laouni, termed "Quebec's first veiled federal  
candidate" by the mainstream media was recently told by the radio that  
if she was raped during the interview, under Islamic Shar'ia law, she  
would need two witnesses to prove the assault.

In turn, this incident has triggered a campaign, spearheaded by  
organisations like Caf to hold the radio station responsible for these  
comments under Canadian radio regulations.

Despite these events, Laouni insists that such voices are a "minority"  
in Canada and that "no-one in the world should be allowed to attack a  
woman because of her hijab".

Zahia Al Masri, also a candidate with the NDP in Quebec, agrees with  
her fellow party member in that these elections must be used as an  
opportunity to fight harmful stereotypes.

Al Masri, a single mother of Palestinian origin, says that efforts  
must be made to fight obstacles within the Arab community itself.

"For me, most of the resistance I've faced has come internally around  
my involvement in politics as a woman."

She says these elections test Canada's claims of tolerance and equity;  
she insists that: "We can't say we have a multicultural system, and  
then leave it on its own to work."

Canada's social fabric

Regardless of who wins in the 40th Canadian elections, and what  
minorities end up being represented, systemic issues of racism against  
immigrants and indigenous communities will continue to test the social  
fabric of Canada.

Recently, Canada was criticised by the UN for its treatment of First  
Nations communities, and many community organisers have warned of an  
increasingly undemocratic atmosphere under Harper and the Conservatives.

Elections in Canada are also in a struggle to gain more relevance  
amongst its own citizens.

According to Elections Canada statistics, voter turnout in Canada has  
been decreasing steadily since 1988; this is especially true amongst  
immigrant communities.

Mina Mahdi, an Arab Canadian, who has lived in Toronto for several  
years, will be looking more closely at how the American elections  
unfold.

"As an Iraqi, what happens in the American elections will have more of  
an impact on what I'm most concerned about, the occupation," she says.

However, Mahdi will be voting for the first time in the upcoming  
Canadian elections.

She said: "I will be voting to make sure Stephen Harper is out."

From fentona at shaw.ca  Mon Oct 13 22:54:13 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:54:13 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The 2008 Canadian Federal Election: a Quebec Perspective
Message-ID: <3305F213-097E-4761-95DF-630F5F233868@shaw.ca>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 147 ... October 14, 2008
_________________________________________________

The 2008 Canadian Federal Election: a Quebec Perspective
Christian Rouillard

Traditionally, federal elections in Quebec have always been a  
privileged time to reflect and debate on Quebec?s constitutional  
status within Canada. Is Quebec getting more autonomous? Is Canadian  
federalism becoming more flexible? Are we heading towards  
decentralisation or centralisation? What about the sovereignty  
project? Are we getting closer or further away from the ?winning  
conditions,? to use Lucien Bouchard?s now dated expression? But this  
time, things are different. The Parti Qu?b?cois (PQ), under Pauline  
Marois? leadership, has put the sovereignty question on hold for an  
indefinite period of time. Or, to put it in her own words, until  
?Qu?b?coises and Qu?b?cois are ready to talk about it?. Until then,  
the PQ is not interested in talking about the ?how? and ?when? of the  
sovereignty project. So, obviously, for once, the Bloc Qu?b?cois (BQ)  
has to find something else to justify its 18 year presence on the  
federal scene.  Predictably, the other parties, especially the  
Conservative Party, are repeatedly questioning the relevance of the  
Bloc Qu?b?cois in federal politics, arguing that the BQ?s members of  
Parliament (MP) have been a cost without any return for Quebecers.

Unsurprisingly, the BQ electoral slogan, ?Pr?sent! pour le Qu?bec?,  
aims to emphasize that the BQ is here (in Ottawa) to defend Qu?bec?s  
essential interests. But what do these interests amount to in 2008?  
According to the BQ?s electoral platform, they can be announced as  
follows:

	? the future of the Quebec nation;
	? Quebec?s culture;
	? Quebec?s economy;
	? the environment and the reduction of dependency to petroleum;
	? support for families, seniors, women, and youth;
	? justice.
The future of the Quebec nation, even though it is the first element  
of the platform, has been, to all intent and purpose, completely  
absent from the campaign. The second element, Quebec?s culture, has  
temporarily become a prominent issue, due to the Conservative  
government?s $45 million spending cut in the cultural sector. Since a  
$45 million cut can hardly be considered significant when total  
expenses exceed $220 billion, rigorous financial management has  
obviously nothing to do with this political decision. Quebec?s  
cultural sector has spontaneously mobilized itself to denounce this  
ideological stance of the Conservative government, putting to good use  
its artistic creativity, as illustrated in a much seen, and talked  
about, humorous video put on YouTube by its creators, on what might  
constitute a new Conservative program to support the arts. But, the  
American financial crisis having worldwide repercussion, economic  
issues have once again been put the forefront of the federal campaign  
in Quebec.

During the leaders? debates (both French and in English), the  
Conservative government chose a laissez-faire attitude to deal with  
the financial crisis, and its expected consequences for the Canadian  
economy. If that may appear sufficient to some Quebecers, most of them  
considered that (lack of) strategy as unacceptable, especially in  
light of the Republican American federal government?s $700 billion  
tentative solution. How can there be such a discrepancy between the  
responses of an (American) republican federal government and a  
(Canadian) federal conservative government? Could Harper be even more  
conservative than Bush? Could the Canadian Conservative party be even  
more State averse than the American Republican party? Pressured by the  
last opinion polls suggesting a rise in the support towards the  
Liberal party in Ontario, and towards the BQ in Quebec, the  
Conservative government finally made public, through the Minister of  
Finance Jim Flaherty, its own plan to help Canadians cope with the  
financial crisis, which is for the most part based on a $25 billion  
government buy-out of mortgages from Canadian banks. But being  
announced just 5 days before the general election, and 2 days before a  
long weekend, the Conservative plan appears to be aimed more at  
stopping electoral losses, than helping Canadians and Quebecers to  
deal with significant loses in their savings, and in many cases, their  
retirement funds, as well as additional difficulties to access capital  
at a reasonable cost.

Unsurprisingly, the latest opinion polls in Quebec suggest a strong  
lead for the BQ, which should elect something in the range of 50 of  
its candidates out of the 75 federal ridings in Quebec. According to a  
Segma-La Presse opinion poll published on October 10, support for the  
BQ is at 42%, whereas it fell to 20% for the Conservatives, 18% for  
the Liberals, 13% for the New Democratic Party (NDP), and 6% for the  
Green Party. In other words, Stephen Harper and the conservatives  
appear to have lost their pari qu?b?cois (Qu?b?cois gamble). Near the  
end of the campaign, reasonable expectations for the Conservative  
would mean that they could barely keep the 10 seats they won the last  
time in Quebec, mostly in the Qu?bec city and Beauce regions. As was  
the case during the last federal election, the Liberal Party of  
Canada, the NDP, and the Green Party are essentially non-players. Both  
the BQ and the Conservative campaigns, which for the most part totally  
ignore these three parties, are concerned primarily with attacking  
each other.

Paradoxically, the Conservatives? strategy in Quebec to not only  
question the relevance of the BQ in Ottawa, but to straightforwardly  
suggest that a vote for the BQ is a wasted vote (a cost without any  
return), appears to have backfired. The BQ has risen to the challenge  
and explained, better than ever before, that in a democracy, a vote is  
never wasted. Gilles Duceppe, very effectively, has emphasized that in  
our system of government, the contribution of Parliamentarians can not  
be reduced to the executive branch, i.e. the members of government,  
but that it has to do first and foremost with their work in  
Parliamentary committees. Duceppe mentioned time and again the  
decisive influence of the BQ in the legislative process, most notably  
in the field of social policy. Interestingly, even though this line of  
argument is just as valid for the NDP and the Green Party, since  
neither of them can expect to form the next federal government,  
neither of them has succeeded in becoming a serious contender in  
Quebec politics, even on a regional basis. This shouldn?t come as a  
surprise in the case of the Green party, but it has come to be a  
disappointment for the NDP. To date, the NDP has but one Quebec MP who  
is in fact a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister.

For the time being, it appears that left-of-center Qu?b?cois remain  
critical of the NDP?s centralist vision of Canada and are consequently  
hesitant to support it in large numbers. As long as this remains the  
case, the BQ will have a significant advantage when it comes to  
leftist federal politics in Quebec. Even though it was far from their  
intentions, the group of former BQ members of Parliament and  
candidates that publicly accused the BQ of being a mere lobby group of  
Quebec unions , may very well have helped the BQ to secure the vote of  
left-of center Qu?b?cois, much to the chagrin of the NDP, whose leader  
Jack Layton, himself originally from Montr?al, spent much campaign  
time and effort in Quebec. Even though constitutional politics has  
been put on the back burner this time around, it becomes evident that  
the nature of Canadian federalism will remain, for the time being, at  
least a ?creeping? issue in Quebec, and that this ?creeping? issue  
will impact the election results next Tuesday, October 14. For better  
of for worse, it seems that federal politics in Quebec will never rid  
themselves of constitutional issues, preferences, and indeed, paradoxes.

Christian Rouillard, University of Ottawa, Canada Research Chair in  
Governance and Public Management

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bullet is produced by the Socialist Project. Readers are
encouraged to distribute widely. Comments, criticisms and
suggestions are welcome. Write to info at socialistproject.ca

If you wish to subscribe: www.socialistproject.ca/lists/?p=subscribe

The Bullet archive is available at www.socialistproject.ca/bullet

For more analysis of contemporary politics check out
'Relay: A Socialist Project Review' at www.socialistproject.ca/relay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From mstainsby at resist.ca  Mon Oct 13 23:00:56 2008
From: mstainsby at resist.ca (Macdonald Stainsby)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:00:56 -0600
Subject: [R-G] [Fwd: Fwd: Fw: confrontation pending between Lubicon and
	TransCanada]
Message-ID: <48F42788.9010503@resist.ca>

Another act by a major supplier to the 2010 Games to destroy a nation 
for the tar sands...

TransCanada Pipelines (TCPL) is am official supplier to the Olympics.
This is only one of the major pipelines they are building, and only one 
nation who is being pushed to the wall by tar sands development.

More reasons that these genocidal issues are one and the same.

There is a full pdf, write me privately if you want it.

Macdonald


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Fw: confrontation pending between Lubicon and TransCanada


fyi

---------- Forwarded message ----------


makes me want to go put up another road block

--
Today the Alberta Utilities Commission released it's decision approving
construction of TransCanada's huge new gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon
land over Lubicon objections. The timing of the decision fits perfectly with
the construction schedule officials of TransCanada have been talking about
since before making application to the AUC.

Officials of TransCanada have been saying all along that they intended to
commence construction by mid-October effectively making a mockery of the
mock Alberta regulatory process. Mid-October is of course next week.

A copy of the AUC decision is attached. It says "the Commission will issue a
permit and licence to construct and operate two pipelines...and associated
compression facilities...in due course". "Due course" in this context almost
certainly means in the next few days.

Construction of the new pipeline by a TransCanada work force of 600 will
likely commence shortly if not immediately after issuance of the related
permit and licence. Pipeline construction is expected to face unspecified
Lubicon opposition. The Lubicons have made clear all along that they will
not allow construction of the pipeline across Lubicon land over their
objections.

The AUC "order" approving the TransCanada pipeline is found on page 46 of
the decision. Pages 44 and 45 of the decision make brief self-serving
reference to the Lubicon objection.

The AUC decision says  the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation failed to provide
"detailed information in support of its allegation of aboriginal rights or
to indicate the area within which its members exercised the asserted
rights". It says the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation was "given a further
opportunity to provide the Commission with additional information on how
they might be directly and adversely affected by the Commission's decision
on the Application".

The AUC decision says the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation "responded in a letter
that reiterated its assertions about unceded aboriginal territory and the
Commission's lack of jurisdiction to determine the rights held by the
Lubicon Lake Nation", but did not "provide any information about specific
aboriginal rights its members exercised in the vicinity of the proposed gas
utility pipeline, or otherwise where those rights might be exercised, or the
manner in which those rights may be directly and adversely affected by the
Commission's decision on the Application". Needless to say the Lubicons did
not question the Commission's lack of jurisdiction to determine Lubicon
rights but lack of Commission jurisdiction to approve construction of
TransCanada's pipeline across unceded Lubicon land.

"As a result", the AUC decision says, "the Commission confirmed in a letter
dated May 8, 2008, that Lubicon Lake Indian Nation...has not demonstrated
that it had standing for purposes of the Application". That's a euphemistic
way of saying that the AUC denied the Lubicons standing in the AUC hearing
of TransCanada's application to build a major new gas pipeline across
unceded Lubicon land.

The careful choice of language used in the AUC decision makes it sound as
though the Commission bent over backwards in an effort to accommodate
Lubicon concerns but the Lubicons refused to meet perfectly reasonable AUC
requirements. The brutal truth is quite different.

It is the position of the provincial regulatory agencies that they have no
jurisdiction to decide their own jurisdiction. They are therefore flatly
unprepared to consider the implications of their  approving resource
projects on land not properly under provincial jurisdiction.

When they talk about "detailed information in support of (the Lubicon)
allegation of...specific aboriginal rights its members exercised in the
vicinity of the proposed gas utility  pipeline", the AUC is not talking
about unceded Lubicon aboriginal land rights but aboriginal rights
recognized under Canadian law to hunt, trap and fish on land not needed by
the Canadian government for something else subject to Canadian law and
regulation by Canadian government. The way it's put in Treaty 8 -- which
purports to cede the aboriginal land rights of the aboriginal people in the
surrounding area but to which the Lubicons are not a party -- is  "said
Indians (not including the Lubicons) shall have the right to pursue their
usual vocations of hunting, trapping and fishing throughout the tract
surrendered as heretofore described, subject to such regulations as may from
time to time be made by the Government of the country, acting under the
authority of Her Majesty, and saving and excepting such tracts as may be
required or taken up from time to time for settlement, mining, lumbering,
trading or other purposes".

When the AUC talks about rights that might be "directly and adversely
affected" by a proposed resource project they are not talking about unceded
Lubicon aboriginal land rights but the rights the AUC has to consider under
their provincial enabling legislation which the province re-defined last
December -- expressly to facilitate the rapid-fire rubber-stamping of
resource project applications -- as consisting only of private property
rights recognized under provincial law.

And the third thing they're talking about are some shameful recent Canadian
court decisions that say that the government has the legal duty to consult
with aboriginal people before proceeding with things that infringe upon such
surface aboriginal rights as hunting, trapping and fishing -- and to make a
so-called good faith effort to reach accommodation with regard to
infringement of those rights as evidenced by meeting with the aboriginal
people a sufficient number of times and involving people with sufficiently
important sounding titles -- but not necessarily to reach accommodation with
the aboriginal people before proceeding.  (One wag has suggested that the
legal duty to consult aboriginal people under Canadian law is tantamount to
saying that it's legally permissible to rape someone just as long as you
tell them in advance that you're going to do and how you're going to do it.)

What all of this comes down to in the context of the AUC decision is that
the AUC was not prepared to take unceded Lubicon aboriginal land rights into
account in making their decision on approval of TransCanada's major new gas
pipeline across unceded Lubicon land but only such things as whether a
Lubicon trapping cabin might be destroyed by pipeline construction -- which
might give rise to limited financial compensation or even possibly a slight
adjustment in the proposed pipeline route -- and also to require TransCanada
to feign a good faith effort to reach accommodation with the Lubicons -- but
not for a moment to allow infringement of even recognized surface aboriginal
rights to significantly impact proposed project plans.

That's what all this "specific aboriginal rights" talk in the AUC decision
is all about. It has nothing to do with attempting to take unceded Lubicon
land rights into account.

TransCanada, under this dubious if not outright fraudulent provincial
authorization, will now undoubtedly attempt to undertake construction of
this major new gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon land. .





From realiteee1 at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 13 23:40:34 2008
From: realiteee1 at yahoo.com (james m nordlund)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:40:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] Friends Digest Vol. 2, No. 11
In-Reply-To: <E1HAsmU-0006sg-Ei@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <480873.40960.qm@web50810.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*
                       How can the life of such a man
                       Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
                       To see him obviously framed
                       Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed
                       To live in a land where justice is a game.
                       -- Bob Dylan, "Hurricane"
                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*

* A Message from Leonard Peltier *

See
<http://freepeltiernow.blogspot.com/2008/10/leonard-will-be-transferred-soon.html>.

* Parole Actions *

A call to action specific to Leonard Peltier's petition for parole:
<http://freedomcampaignforleonardpeltier.blogspot.com/2008/10/leonards-parole.html>.

To keep up to date on actions you can take to help win
Leonard's freedom, visit our Campaign for Freedom blog at
<http://freedomcampaignforleonardpeltier.blogspot.com/>.

* Reminder: Gift Drive *

Mail all holiday gifts for the children on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation to: Rosyln Jumping Bull, Box 207, Oglala, SD 57764.

The Gift Drive will serve ages newborn to 18 years.

Ideas for Christmas Gifts per Age

Infant/Toddler
Puzzles, Board Books, Building Blocks, Stuffed Animals, Blankets, Trucks,
Musical Instruments for Toddler, Riding Toys, Push Toys, Baby Dolls
(All Ethnicities) or Stuffed Animals, Clothes.

Ages 3-6
Baby Dolls, Dolls or Barbies (All Ethnicities), Puzzles, Books,
Developmental Board Games (Counting Games), Arts and Crafts Sets, Race
Tracks, Legos, Dress Up Clothes, Children's Videos, Bikes, Clothes.

Ages 7-12
Board Games, Books, Purses and Wallets, Art Sets, Boom Boxes, Sports
Equipment, Barbie Dolls (All Ethnicities) , Arts and Crafts Sets, Journals,
Model Car Kits, Clothes, Bikes, Jewelry, Clothes.

Ages 13-18
Books, Journals, Bath and Body Gifts, Make Up Sets, Sports Equipment, Purses
and Wallets, Jewelry and Watches, Art Supply Kits, Gift Certificates to
Wal-Mart or Target, DVDs or Videos, Clothes.

* Site Additions *

Of special note, a series of radio interviews with
David Hill on Peltier and his fight for freedom; see
<http://www.freepeltiernow.org/audio.htm>.

New Resources:

-- Bebo Page: http://www.bebo.com/FreePeltierNow .

-- Blog: Freedom Campaign for Leonard Peltier (Highlights) at
<http://freedomcampaignforleonardpeltier.blogspot.com/>.

-- Wall of Shame: The FBI (Under Construction):
<http://fbiwallofshame.blogspot.com/>.

                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*
"Never cease in the fight for peace, justice, and equality for all
people. Be persistent in all that you do and don't allow anyone to
sway you from your conscience." -- Leonard Peltier
                   *'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*

-----
Please circulate to family and friends and otherwise widely
post our listserv announcements. Also frequently visit our
Blog at <http://FreePeltierNow.blogspot.com> or receive our
blog postings by Web feed (download a free newsfeed reader at
<http://www.feedreader.com>):

Atom: <http://FreePeltierNow.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default>

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Or register to receive e-mail announcements. It's easy. Go to our
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You also can Bookmark our home page and/or blog. Click on the
Bookmark button provided at each of these sites to use any program
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We encourage other sites to link to our Web site and blog. No prior
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-----

Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org 
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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Tue Oct 14 00:17:13 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:17:13 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Reversal of Fortune
Message-ID: <48F43969.40508@attglobal.net>


Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics,
and sheer incompetence have left the US economy on life support, the
author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era
follies and regain America's economic sanity.

by Joseph E Stiglitz

Vanity Fair (November 2008)


When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts
debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or
U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be
entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very
low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an
annual rate of nearly six percent, its highest level in seventeen years.
Unemployment stands at six percent; there has been no net job growth in
the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster
than at any time in memory - in Florida and California, by thirty
percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after
their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward.
President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill
Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest
budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush
administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent,
to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office).
Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for
the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

This tangled knot of problems will be difficult to unravel. Standard
prescriptions call for raising interest rates when confronted with
inflation, just as standard prescriptions call for lowering interest
rates when confronted with an economic downturn. How do you do both at
the same time? Not in the way that some politicians have proposed. With
gasoline prices at all-time highs, John McCain has called for a rollback
of gas taxes. But that would lead to more gas consumption, raise the
price of gas further, increase our dependence on foreign oil, and expand
our already massive trade deficit. The expanding deficit would in turn
force the US to continue borrowing gargantuan sums from abroad, making
us even more indebted. At the same time, the higher imports of oil and
petroleum-based products would lead to a weaker dollar, fueling
inflationary pressures.

Millions of Americans are losing their homes. (Already, some 3.6 million
have done so since the subprime-mortgage crisis began.) This social
catastrophe has severe economic effects. The banks and other financial
institutions that own these mortgages face stunning reverses; a few,
such as Bear Stearns, have already gone belly-up. To prevent America's
$5.2 trillion home financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from
following suit, Congress authorized a blank check to cover their losses,
but even that generosity failed to do the trick. Now the administration
has taken over the two entities completely, a stunning feat for a
supposedly market-oriented regime. These bailouts contribute to growing
deficits in the short run, and to perverse incentives in the long run.
Market economies work only when there is a system of accountability, but
CEO's, investors, and creditors are walking away with billions, while
American taxpayers are being asked to pick up the tab. (Freddie Mac's
chairman, Richard Syron, earned $14.5 million in 2007. Fannie Mae's CEO,
Daniel Mudd, earned $14.2 million that same year.) We're looking at a
new form of public-private partnership, one in which the public
shoulders all the risk, and the private sector gets all the profit.
While the Bush administration preaches responsibility, the words are
addressed only to the less well-off. The administration talks about the
impact of "moral hazard" on the poor "speculator" who borrowed money and
bought a house beyond his ability to pay. But moral hazard somehow isn't
an issue when it comes to the high-stakes speculators in corporate
boardrooms.


How Did We Get into This Mess?

A unique combination of ideology, special-interest pressure, populist
politics, bad economics, and sheer incompetence has brought us to our
present condition.

Ideology proclaimed that markets were always good and government always
bad. While George W Bush has done as much as he can to ensure that
government lives up to that reputation - it is the one area where he has
overperformed - the fact is that key problems facing our society cannot
be addressed without an effective government, whether it's maintaining
national security or protecting the environment. Our economy rests on
public investments in technology, such as the Internet. While Bush's
ideology led him to underestimate the importance of government, it also
led him to underestimate the limitations of markets. We learned from the
Depression that markets are not self-adjusting - at least, not in a time
frame that matters to living people. Today everyone - even the president
- accepts the need for macro-economic policy, for government to try to
maintain the economy at near-full employment. But in a sleight of hand,
free-market economists promoted the idea that, once the economy was
restored to full employment, markets would always allocate resources
efficiently. The best regulation, in their view, was no regulation at
all, and if that didn't sell, then "self-regulation" was almost as good.

The underlying idea was, on the face of it, absurd: that market failures
come only in macro doses, in the form of the recessions and depressions
that have periodically plagued capitalist economies for the past several
hundred years. Isn't it more reasonable to assume that these failures
are just the tip of the iceberg? That beneath the surface lie a myriad
of smaller but harder-to-assess inefficiencies? Let me venture an
analogy from biology: A patient arrives at a hospital in serious
condition. Now, it may be that the patient has simply fallen victim to
one of those debilitating ailments that go around from time to time and
can be cured by a massive dose of antibiotics. In this case we have a
macro problem with a macro solution. But it could instead be that the
patient is suffering from a decade of serious abuse - smoking, drinking,
overeating, lack of exercise, a fondness for crystal meth - and that it
has not only taken a catastrophic toll but also left him open to
opportunistic infections of every kind. In other words, a buildup of
micro problems has led to a macro problem, and no cure is possible
without addressing the underlying issues. The American economy today is
a patient of the second kind.

We are in the midst of micro-economic failure on a grand scale.
Financial markets receive generous compensation - in the form of more
than thirty percent of all corporate profits - presumably for performing
two critical tasks: allocating savings and managing risk. But the
financial markets have failed laughably at both. Hundreds of billions of
dollars were allocated to home loans beyond Americans' ability to pay.
And rather than managing risk, the financial markets created more risk.
The failure of our financial system to do what it is supposed to do
matches in destructive grandeur the macro-economic failures of the Great
Depression.

Economic theory - and historical experience - long ago proved the need
for regulation of financial markets. But ever since the Reagan
presidency, deregulation has been the prevailing religion. Never mind
that the few times "free banking" has been tried - most recently in
Pinochet's Chile, under the influence of the doctrinaire free-market
theorist Milton Friedman - the experiment has ended in disaster. Chile
is still paying back the debts from its misadventure. With massive
problems in 1987 (remember Black Friday, when stock markets plunged
almost 25 percent), 1989 (the savings-and-loan debacle), 1997 (the East
Asia financial crisis), 1998 (the bailout of Long Term Capital
Management), and 2001-02 (the collapses of Enron and WorldCom), one
might think there would be more skepticism about the wisdom of leaving
markets to themselves.

The new populist rhetoric of the right - persuading taxpayers that
ordinary people always know how to spend money better than the
government does, and promising a new world without budget constraints,
where every tax cut generates more revenue - hasn't helped matters.
Special interests took advantage of this seductive mixture of populism
and free-market ideology. They also bent the rules to suit themselves.
Corporations and the wealthy argued that lowering their tax rates would
lead to more savings; they got the tax breaks, but America's household
savings rate not only didn't rise, it dropped to levels not seen in 75
years. The Bush administration extolled the power of the free market,
but it was more than willing to provide generous subsidies to farmers
and erect tariffs to protect steelmakers. Lately, as we have seen, it
seems willing to write blank checks to bail out its friends on Wall
Street. In each of these cases there are clear winners. And in each
there are clear losers - including the country as a whole.


What Is to Be Done?

As America attempts to work its way out of the present crisis, the
danger is that we will listen to the same people on Wall Street and in
the economic establishment who got us into it. For them, our current
predicament is another opportunity: if they can shape the government
response appropriately, they stand to gain, or at least stand to lose
less, and they may be willing to sacrifice the well-being of the economy
for their own benefit - just as they did in the past.

There are a number of economic tools at the country's disposal. As
noted, they can yield contradictory results. The sad truth is that we
have reached the limits of monetary policy. Lowering interest rates will
not stimulate the economy much - banks are not going to be willing to
lend to strapped consumers, and consumers are not going to be willing to
borrow as they see housing prices continue to fall. And raising interest
rates, to combat inflation, won't have the desired impact either,
because the prices that are the main sources of our inflation - for food
and energy - are determined in international markets; the chief
consequence will be distress for ordinary people. The quandaries that we
face mean that careful balancing is required. There is no quick and easy
fix. But if we take decisive action today, we can shorten the length of
the downturn and reduce its magnitude. If at the same time we think
about what would be good for the economy in the long run, we can build a
durable foundation for economic health.

To go back to that patient in the emergency room: we need to address the
underlying causes. Most of the treatment options entail painful choices,
but there are a few easy ones. On energy: conservation and research into
new technologies will make us less dependent on foreign oil, reduce our
trade imbalance, and help the environment. Expanding drilling into
environmentally fragile areas, as some propose, would have a negligible
effect on the price we pay for oil. Moreover, a policy of "drain America
first" will make us more dependent on foreigners in the future. It is
shortsighted in every dimension.

Our ethanol policy is also bad for the taxpayer, bad for the
environment, bad for the world and our relations with other countries,
and bad in terms of inflation. It is good only for the ethanol producers
and American corn farmers. It should be scrapped. We currently subsidize
corn-based ethanol by almost $1 a gallon, while imposing a
54-cent-a-gallon tariff on Brazilian sugar-based ethanol. It would be
hard to invent a worse policy. The ethanol industry tries to sell itself
as an infant, needing help to get on its feet, but it has been an infant
for more than two decades, refusing to grow up. Our misguided biofuel
policy is taking land used for food production and diverting it to
energy production for cars; it is the single most important factor
contributing to higher grain prices.

Our tax policies need to be changed. There is something deeply peculiar
about having rich individuals who make their money speculating on real
estate or stocks paying lower taxes than middle-class Americans, whose
income is derived from wages and salaries; something peculiar and indeed
offensive about having those whose income is derived from inherited
stocks paying lower taxes than those who put in a fifty-hour workweek.
Skewing the tax rates in the other direction would provide better
incentives where they count and would more effectively stimulate the
economy, with more revenues and lower deficits.

We can have a financial system that is more stable - and even more
dynamic - with stronger regulation. Self-regulation is an oxymoron.
Financial markets produced loans and other products that were so complex
and insidious that even their creators did not fully understand them;
these products were so irresponsible that analysts called them "toxic".
Yet financial markets failed to create products that would enable
ordinary households to face the risks they confront and stay in their
homes. We need a financial-products safety commission and a
financial-systems stability commission. And they can't be run by Wall
Street. The Federal Reserve Board shares too much of the mind-set of
those it is supposed to regulate. It could and should have known that
something was wrong. It had instruments at its disposal to let the air
out of the bubble - or at least ensure that the bubble didn't
over-expand. But it chose to do nothing.

Throwing the poor out of their homes because they can't pay their
mortgages is not only tragic - it is pointless. All that happens is that
the property deteriorates and the evicted people move somewhere else.
The most coldhearted banker ought to understand the basic economics:
banks lose money when they foreclose - the vacant homes typically sell
for far less than they would if they were lived in and cared for. If
banks won't renegotiate, we should have an expedited special bankruptcy
procedure, akin to what we do for corporations in Chapter 11, allowing
people to keep their homes and re-structure their finances.

If this sounds too much like coddling the irresponsible, remember that
there are two sides to every mortgage - the lender and the borrower.
Both enter freely into the deal. One might say that both are,
accordingly, equally responsible. But one side - the lender - is
supposed to be financially sophisticated. In contrast, the borrowers in
the subprime market consist mainly of people who are financially
unsophisticated. For many, their home is their only asset, and when they
lose it, they lose their life savings. Remember, too, that we already
give big homeowner subsidies, through the tax system, to affluent
families. With tax deductions, the government is paying in some states
almost half of all mortgage interest and real-estate taxes. But many
lower-income people, whose deductions are meaningless because their tax
bill is too small, get no help. It makes much more sense to convert
these tax deductions into cashable tax credits, so that the fraction of
housing costs borne by the government for the poor and the rich is the
same.

About these matters there should be no debate - but there will be.
Already, those on Wall Street are arguing that we have to be careful not
to "over-react". Over-reaction, we are told, might stifle "innovation".
Well, some innovations ought to be stifled. Those toxic mortgages were
certainly innovative. Other innovations were simply devices to
circumvent regulations - regulations intended to prevent the kinds of
problems from which our economy now suffers. Some of the innovations
were designed to tart up the bottom line, moving liabilities off the
balance sheet - charades designed to blur the information available to
investors and regulators. They succeeded: the full extent of the
exposure was not clear, and still isn't. But there is a reason we need
reliable accounting. Without good information it is hard to make good
economic decisions. In short, some innovations come with very high price
tags. Some can actually cause instability.

The free-market fundamentalists - who believe in the miracles of markets
- have not been averse to accepting government bailouts. Indeed, they
have demanded them, warning that unless they get what they want the
whole system may crash. What politician wants to be blamed for the next
Great Depression, simply because he stood on principle? I have been
critical of weak anti-trust policies that allowed certain institutions
to become so dominant that they are "too big to fail". The harsh reality
is that, given how far we've come, we will see more bailouts in the days
ahead. Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in federal receivership,
we must insist: not a dime of taxpayer money should be put at risk while
shareholders and creditors, who failed to oversee management, are
permitted to walk away with anything they please. To do otherwise would
invite a recurrence. Moreover, while these institutions may be too big
to fail, they're not too big to be reorganized. And we need to remember
why we're bailing them out: in order to maintain a flow of money into
mortgage markets. It's outrageous that these institutions are responding
to their near-monopoly position by raising fees and increasing the costs
of mortgages, which will only worsen the housing crisis. They, and the
financial markets, have shown little interest in measures that could
help millions of existing and potential homeowners out of the bind
they're in.

The hardest puzzles will be in monetary policy (balancing the risks of
inflation and the risk of a deeper downturn) and fiscal policy
(balancing the risk of a deeper downturn and the risk of an exploding
deficit). The standard analysis coming from financial markets these days
is that inflation is the greatest threat, and therefore we need to raise
interest rates and cut deficits, which will restore confidence and
thereby restore the economy. This is the same bad economics that didn't
work in East Asia in 1997 and didn't work in Russia and Brazil in 1998.
Indeed, it is the same recipe prescribed by Herbert Hoover in 1929.

It is a recipe, moreover, that would be particularly hard on working
people and the poor. Higher interest rates dampen inflation by cutting
back so sharply on aggregate demand that the unemployment rate grows and
wages fall. Eventually, prices fall, too. As noted, the cause of our
inflation today is largely imported - it comes from global food and
energy prices, which are hard to control. To curb inflation therefore
means that the price of everything else needs to fall drastically to
compensate, which means that unemployment would also have to rise
drastically.

In addition, this is not the time to turn to the old-time fiscal
religion. Confidence in the economy won't be restored as long as growth
is low, and growth will be low if investment is anemic, consumption
weak, and public spending on the wane. Under these circumstances, to
mindlessly cut taxes or reduce government expenditures would be folly.

But there are ways of thoughtfully shaping policy that can walk a fine
line and help us get out of our current predicament. Spending money on
needed investments - infrastructure, education, technology - will yield
double dividends. It will increase incomes today while laying the
foundations for future employment and economic growth. Investments in
energy efficiency will pay triple dividends - yielding environmental
benefits in addition to the short- and long-run economic benefits.

The federal government needs to give a hand to states and localities -
their tax revenues are plummeting, and without help they will face
costly cutbacks in investment and in basic human services. The poor will
suffer today, and growth will suffer tomorrow. The big advantage of a
program to make up for the shortfall in the revenues of states and
localities is that it would provide money in the amounts needed: if the
economy recovers quickly, the shortfall will be small; if the downturn
is long, as I fear will be the case, the shortfall will be large.

These measures are the opposite of what the administration - along with
the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain - has been urging. It
has always believed that tax cuts, especially for the rich, are the
solution to the economy's ills. In fact, the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003
set the stage for the current crisis. They did virtually nothing to
stimulate the economy, and they left the burden of keeping the economy
on life support to monetary policy alone. America's problem today is not
that households consume too little; on the contrary, with a savings rate
barely above zero, it is clear we consume too much. But the
administration hopes to encourage our spendthrift ways.

What has happened to the American economy was avoidable. It was not just
that those who were entrusted to maintain the economy's safety and
soundness failed to do their job. There were also many who benefited
handsomely by ensuring that what needed to be done did not get done. Now
we face a choice: whether to let our response to the nation's woes be
shaped by those who got us here, or to seize the opportunity for
fundamental reforms, striking a new balance between the market and
government.

_____

Joseph E Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, is a professor at
Columbia University.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/stiglitz200811


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 Oct 14 05:58:07 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:58:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Fwd: Harper's last campaign announcement
References: <6B594CCD-4E19-4CA1-BA81-8D07564D4D82@shaw.ca>
Message-ID: <7C23C675-9E4F-437F-836F-6B25D78490DF@shaw.ca>

The last few (un-heard) words of wisdom from PM Harper on the campaign  
trail as we enter the big day...

Dear fellow Canadians, on this Thanksgiving weekend we have much to be  
thankful for as the world leaders attempt to stave off a global  
financial meltdown caused by the de-regulation of the financial sector  
in the US under President Bush.
Given my fondness for deregulation in any and all sectors, we  
Canadians should be thankful that I wasn't running the show for the  
past six years.
We should be thankful that I wasn't allowed to run amok with all my  
plans to open up our financial institutions and get some mergers going.
We should be thankful that the previous government didn't approach  
these things with near religious zeal,  with blind faith in those ever- 
so-dreamy 'free markets', free of big-brother government rules.
But lastly, we should be thankful that by the end of the day I'll once  
again be elected as your trusty Prime Minister.




From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 12:01:12 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:01:12 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Last Bastion Of Acceptable Prejudice...
Message-ID: <200810141801.m9EI1Cor013435@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 12:02:23 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:02:23 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Pardon me but...
Message-ID: <200810141802.m9EI2NYg016151@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 12:03:53 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:03:53 -0700
Subject: [R-G] The Jewish National Fund and other forms of institutionalized
 racism in Israel
Message-ID: <200810141803.m9EI3rHO019392@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From critical.montages at gmail.com  Tue Oct 14 12:24:25 2008
From: critical.montages at gmail.com (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:24:25 -0400
Subject: [R-G] Youthful Voice Stirs Challenge to Secular Turks
Message-ID: <cd351fdc0810141124o17781b42ie186f67b6ffd05e1@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/world/europe/14turkey.html>
October 14, 2008
Generation Faithful
Youthful Voice Stirs Challenge to Secular Turks
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

ISTANBUL ? High school hurt for Havva Yilmaz. She tried out several
selves. She ran away. Nothing felt right.

"There was no sincerity," she said. "It was shallow."

So at 16, she did something none of her friends had done: She put on
an Islamic head scarf.

In most Muslim countries, that would be a nonevent. In Turkey, it was
a rebellion. Turkey has built its modern identity on secularism. Women
on billboards do not wear scarves. The scarves are banned in schools
and universities. So Ms. Yilmaz dropped out of school. Her parents
were angry. Her classmates stopped calling her.

Like many young people at a time of religious revival across the
Muslim world, Ms. Yilmaz, now 21, is more observant than her parents.
Her mother wears a scarf, but cannot read the Koran in Arabic. They do
not pray five times a day. The habits were typical for their
generation ? Turks who moved from the countryside during
industrialization.

"Before I decided to cover, I knew who I was not," Ms. Yilmaz said,
sitting in a leafy Ottoman-era courtyard. "After I covered, I finally
knew who I was."

While her decision was in some ways a recognizable act of youthful
rebellion, in Turkey her personal choices are part of a paradox at the
heart of the country's modern identity.

Turkey is now run by a party of observant Muslims, but its reigning
ideology and law are strictly secular, dating from the authoritarian
rule in the 1920s of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a former army general who
pushed Turkey toward the West and cut its roots with the Ottoman East.
For some young people today, freedom means the right to practice
Islam, and self-expression means covering their hair.

They are redrawing lines between freedom and devotion, modernization
and tradition, and blurring some prevailing distinctions between East
and West.

Ms. Yilmaz's embrace of her religious identity has thrust her into
politics. She campaigned to allow women to wear scarves on college
campuses, a movement that prompted emotional, often agonized, debates
across Turkey about where Islam fit into an open society. That
question has paralyzed politics twice in the past year and a half, and
has drawn hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest what they
call a growing religiosity in society and in government.

By dropping out of the education system, she found her way into
Turkey's growing, lively culture of young activists.

She attended a political philosophy reading group, studying Hegel, St.
Augustine and Machiavelli. She took sociology classes from a free
learning center. She met other activists, many of them students trying
to redefine words like "modern," which has meant secular and
Western-looking for decades. She made new friends, like Hilal Kaplan,
whose scarf sometimes had a map of the world on it.

Their fight is not solely about Islam. Turkey is in ferment, and Ms.
Yilmaz and her young peers are demanding equal rights for all groups
in Turkey. They are far less bothered by the religious and ethnic
differences that divide older generations. "Turkey is not just secular
people versus religious people," Ms. Kaplan said. "We were a very
segregated society, but that segregation is breaking up."

In a slushy week in the middle of January, the head scarf became the
focus of a heated national outpouring, and Ms. Yilmaz one of its most
eloquent defenders.

The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to pass
a law letting women who wear them into college. Staunchly secular
Turks opposed broader freedoms for Islam, in part because they did not
trust Mr. Erdogan, a popular politician who began his career
championing a greater role for Islam in politics and who has since
moderated his stance.

Turkey remains a democratic experiment unique in the Muslim world. The
Ottomans dabbled in democracy as early as 1876, creating a
Constitution and a Parliament. The country was never colonized by
Western powers, as Arabs were. It gradually developed into a vibrant
democracy. The fact that young people like Ms. Yilmaz are protesting
at all is one of its distinguishing features.

In many ways, Ms. Yilmaz's scarf freed her, but for many other women,
it is the opposite. In poor, religiously conservative areas in rural
Turkey, girls wear scarves from young ages, and many Turks feel
strongly that without state regulation, young women would come under
more pressure to cover up.

The head scarf bill, in that respect, could lead to less freedom for
women, they argued. But for Ms. Yilmaz, the anger against the bill was
hard to understand.

So one day, armed with a microphone and a strong sense of justice, Ms.
Yilmaz marched into a hotel in central Istanbul and, with two friends,
both in scarves, made her best case.

"The pain that we've been through as university doors were harshly
shut in our faces taught us one thing," she said, speaking to
reporters. "Our real problem is with the mentality of prohibition that
thinks it has the right to interfere with people's lives."

Ms. Yilmaz's heartfelt speech, written with her friends, drew national
attention. They were invited on television talk shows. They gave radio
and newspaper interviews. Part of their appeal came from their attempt
to go beyond religion to include all groups in Turkish society, like
ethnic and sectarian minorities.

After Ms. Yilmaz left high school, she joined a group called the Young
Civilians, a diverse band of young people who used dark humor and
occasional references to the philosopher Michel Foucault to criticize
everything from the state's repression of Kurds, the biggest ethnic
minority, to its day of "Youth and Sport," a series of Soviet-style
rallies of students in stadiums every spring.

Their symbol was a Converse sneaker. Their members were funny and
irreverent. One once joked that if you mentioned the name Marx, young
women without head scarves assumed you were talking about the British
department store Marks & Spencer, while ones in scarves understood the
reference to the philosopher.

In a tongue-in-cheek effort to change perceptions of Kurds, the group
ran a discussion program called "Let's Get a Little Kurdish," which
featured sessions on Kurdish music, history and ? in a particularly
rebellious twist ? even language.

By March, the month after Parliament passed the final version of the
head scarf proposal, the debate had reached a frenzied pitch. Ms.
Yilmaz and some friends ? some in scarves, some not ? agreed to go on
a popular television talk show. The audience's questions were angry.

One young woman stood up and, looking directly at another in a scarf,
said that she did not want her on campus, said Neslihan Akbulut, a
friend of Ms. Yilmaz, who had helped to compose the head scarf
statement. Another said she felt sorry for them because they were
oppressed by men. A third fretted that allowing them into universities
would lead to further demands about jobs, resulting in an "invasion."

Ms. Yilmaz said later: "I thought, are we living in the same country?
No, it's impossible."

They did not give up. They spent the day in a drafty cafe in central
Istanbul, wearing boots and coats and going over their position with
journalists, one by one.

"If women are ever forced to wear head scarves, we should be equally
sensitive and stand against it," Ms. Akbulut said.

One of the journalists said, "You don't support gays."

Ms. Kaplan countered: "Islam tells us to fight this urge," but she
said that did not affect a homosexual's rights as a citizen. "I am
against police oppression of homosexuals. I am against a worldview
that diminishes us to our scarves and homosexuals to the bedroom."

Ms. Yilmaz agreed. "When you wear a scarf," she said, "you are
expected to act and think in a certain way, and support a certain
political party. You're stripped of your personality."

The young women say that the scarf, contrary to popular belief, was
not forced on them by their families. Some women wear it because their
mothers did. For others, like Ms. Yilmaz, it was a carefully
considered choice.

Though it is not among the five pillars of Islam ? the duties required
for every Muslim, including daily prayer ? Ms. Yilmaz sees it as a
command in the Koran.

"Physical contact is something special, something private," she said,
describing the thinking behind her covering. "Constant contact takes
away from the specialness, the privacy of the thing you share."

Still, in Turkey, traditional rules are often bent to accommodate
modern life. Handshaking, for example, is a widespread Turkish custom,
and most women follow it. Turkey is culturally very different from
Arab societies, and for that reason interprets Islam differently.
Islam here is heavily influenced by Sufism, an introspective strain
that tends to be more flexible.

"You can't reject an extended hand," Ms. Kaplan said. "You don't want
to break a person's heart."

Young activists like Ms. Yilmaz are driving change in Turkish society
against a backdrop of growing materialism and consumerism. Most young
Turks care little for politics and are instead occupied with the daily
task of paying the bills.

That is an easier task in Turkey than in a number of Middle Eastern
countries, because Turkey is relatively affluent. After three decades
of intense development, its economy is five times bigger than Egypt's
? a country with roughly the same population.

The wealth has profoundly shaped young lives. In cities, young people
no longer have to live with their parents after marriage. They take
mortgages. They buy furniture on credit. They compete for jobs in new
fields like marketing, finance and public relations.

In past generations, women lived with their husband's families,
doubling their work.

"When you don't have time to do anything for yourself, you don't have
time to question anything, even religion," Ms. Kaplan said.

The economic changes that have swept Turkish society, bringing
cellphones, iPods and the Internet, are transforming the younger
generation. Young people are more connected to the Western world than
ever before. A quick visit to a bookstore or a movie theater offers
proof.

Observant Turks are grappling with questions like: Where does praying
fit in a busy life of e-mail messages and 60-hour weeks? How do you
hold on to Eastern tradition in a rising tide of Western culture?

The head scarf debate ended abruptly in June, when Turkey's
Constitutional Court ruled that the new law allowing women attending
universities to wear scarves was unconstitutional, because it violated
the nation's principles of secularism.

Ms. Yilmaz got the news in a text message from her friend. In her
bitter disappointment, she realized how much hope she had held out.
"How can I be a part of a country that does not accept me?" she said.

Still, she has no regrets and is not giving up. "What we did was worth
something," she said. "People heard our voices. One day the
prohibition is imposed on us. The next day, it could be someone else.
If we work together, we can fight it."

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.


From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 13:36:59 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:36:59 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Red Alert: What went wrong in the capitalist casino?
Message-ID: <200810141936.m9EJax6E001748@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 13:53:52 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:53:52 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Straightforward explanation of the current financial crisis
Message-ID: <200810141953.m9EJrqf2009634@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Tue Oct 14 14:05:30 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:05:30 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Latin Leftists Gloating Over 'Comrade' Bush's Bailout
Message-ID: <200810142005.m9EK5UFT000845@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shimogamo at attglobal.net  Tue Oct 14 18:39:58 2008
From: shimogamo at attglobal.net (Bill Totten)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:39:58 +0900
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Nausea Express
Message-ID: <48F53BDE.3090902@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 (October 13 2008)


The G-7 world, the club of "developed" western nations plus Japan, has
commenced an ordeal of suddenly waking up much poorer. All the desperate
work-arounds being engineered by governments and central banks on an al
fresco basis are intended to overcome this stunning basic fact, and none
of them will. The benchmarks of everything are in flux - stocks, bond
values and yields, commodity prices, most especially currencies - but
these tend to disguise the basic fact of growing and spreading
impoverishment. Is oil priced at $80 a barrel this morning? That's nice.
Except if the company that employs you is about to fold up and you face
a holiday season of driving frantically around Atlanta in search of
another job, which the odds are against you find finding. Or if you're
living on a retirement fund that's just lost 37 percent of its value and
it's time to fill the heating oil tank.

Iceland is the poster-child du jour for this. The little island nation
of about 320,000 souls (roughly half of Vermont's population) lately
grew a banking sector that thrived on something-for-nothing finance. In
little more than a month, its banks have imploded like mini death stars,
leaving Iceland with a pariah currency. Since it has to import just
about everything, and it suddenly finds itself unable to pay for
imports, the people are stripping the grocery markets of whatever
remains there now. You wonder what they will do in two weeks. Ten years
from now there may be 32,000 of them left, subsisting on blubber sandwiches.

I exaggerate perhaps a little, but who really knows where all this
leads? Here in the USA, the Treasury, enjoying new and seemingly
limitless powers of discretionary spending, has begun shoveling dollars
into every truck that backs up to the loading dock. The numbers are
staggering. In ten days it's reached into the trillions in loans and
handouts. Most of this money is getting sucked directly into the black
hole of debt and margin calls of one kind or another. This is
previously-presumed wealth that is now un-presumed. It's leaving the
system, never to be seen again. One useful way of thinking about it is
to regard it as our society's previous borrowings against our own
future. Thus, we are seeing our future vanish into a black hole - our
future comfort, health, and basic nourishment.

This is the kind of fiasco that brings down governments, propels
societies into revolutions, and starts wars. In a few months, America
will be full of angry economic losers. We're not the same nation that
crowded around the old radio consoles for Franklin Roosevelt's fireside
chats. Back then, we were mostly a highly-disciplined, regimented,
industrial society full of citizens who mostly did what they were told
to do, and mostly trusted in authority. Today we're a nation of tattooed
barbarian "consumers" with no impulse control, a swollen sense of
entitlement, ruled by a set of authorities ranging from one G W Bush to
the grifter-billionaire pantheon of Wall Street CEOs - now heading into
secret bunkers with their stashes of krugerrands, freeze-dried veal
Milanese, and private security squads armed with XM-8 carbines.

I go along with Nassim Nicholas Taleb's idea - read The Black Swan
(2007) - that nobody really knows anything. We construct our narratives
to try and explain circumstances that are unraveling non-linearly before
us, and some narratives are more plausible than others, depending on
your vantage point. There are infinite narratives. This is nothing more
than my narrative. The circumstances we're entering appear, for the
moment, to take the shape of a compressive deflationary depression with
the cherry-on-top add-on of a hyper-inflation further down the road -
meaning initially that jobs, incomes, and pensions are lost, but that
later on even the little money that people manage to get - perhaps
mostly from government hand-outs of one kind or another - steadily loses
its value. Every way you jigger things, it just ends up meaning the same
thing: a much poorer society. It certainly won't be a society of
recreational shoppers plying the Target store aisles for scented candles
and home accents. Hyper-inflation could make old debts meaningless, but
it would also make credit meaningless and spending absurd.

Given the way our society has evolved to operate - as an endless upward
spiral of borrowings - you can see an awful lot of things not working
anymore, and an awful lot of people not working in them or at them.
Maybe the governments of the G-7 will get lending unstuck at the upper
levels, but who, exactly, is able to borrow now besides companies on the
verge of bankruptcy - and why continue to lend to them? (Except to
maintain the pretense that "something is being done".) Besides, there's
much too much previously borrowed money that won't ever paid back, and
the "work-out" of all that debt only implies the continued distress sale
of any-and-all assets - so that the USA in effect becomes yard-sale nation.

Personally, I think all the rejiggering in the world of numbers and
indexes will not solve anything, and really only represents a kind
obsessive-compulsive neurosis related to numerology that will do nothing
to readjust our daily activities toward the production of things that
have real and enduring value. In my narrative, the fate of industrial
nations really depends on energy resources. The price of oil may be
going down for the moment - perhaps due to the deleveraging of hedge
funds, banks, and invested individuals, perhaps combined with a
perception of "demand destruction" - but the geology and geopolitics of
oil have not changed since June of this year when oil was at $147. Let's
say US oil consumption is down one million barrels of oil a day. Within
the next two years, we're liable to lose more than that in import
declines from Mexico and Venezuela alone. The International Energy
Agency's latest estimate is for only slightly less of an increase in
worldwide oil demand than was previously posted. It's still a net demand
increase. World oil consumption still exceeds world production now,
perhaps permanently so. Finally, the current plunge of oil prices has
suddenly halted the very capital ventures in exploration and development
that were hoped to increase the worldwide supply of oil. All this
portends an aggravation of oil supply and allocation problems in the
five years ahead, and ultimately much more expensive, harder-to-get oil.

What we can't face is the prospect that we might become something other
than an industrial "consumer" society. My narrative includes the
conviction that we will have trouble producing food for ourselves as
petro-agriculture fails, and since society can't go on without food
production, I see this activity coming back much closer to the center of
our daily lives. We're not ready to think about that. The downside of
our unreadiness may be that a lot of Americans will go hungry in the
decade ahead.

None of this is an argument for despair, by the way, but it certainly
invokes the need for steeply revised expectations and serious attention
to a national "to-do" list. We're on our way to becoming another nation,
whether we like it or not. No amount of numerological augury or even
hand-wringing will change that. The big question for, say, the 24 months
ahead is: how disorderly will we allow this transition to be?

_____

My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at
all booksellers.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/10/the-nausea-express.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 Oct 15 10:29:56 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:29:56 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Journalist Recounts His Experiences With Taliban in
	Afghanistan
Message-ID: <027C6ABF-28C1-49EE-8066-2AF30030156B@shaw.ca>

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/asia/afghanistan/july-dec08/rosen_10-14.html

Journalist Recounts His Experiences With Taliban in Afghanistan

Taliban fighters. Photo Credit: Nir RosenWhen journalist Nir Rosen  
traveled to Afghanistan last summer, his plan was to travel with a  
group of Taliban fighters for 10 days and report on their activity.  
Instead, he was detained by a rival Taliban commander and accused of  
being a spy. Rosen describes his experiences to Robert Zeliger of the  
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

ROBERT ZELIGER, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Nir Rosen is an author and  
journalist and a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security. He  
recently returned from Afghanistan where he wrote about the Taliban  
for Rolling Stone Magazine. Nir, thanks for joining us.

Taliban fighters. Photo Credit: Nir RosenNIR ROSEN, a fellow at the  
NYU Center on Law and Security as well as the New America Foundation:  
Thanks for having me.

ROBERT ZELIGER: After spending time with these guys, what did you  
learn? What are they like?

NIR ROSEN: Well the whole trip was very revealing. Just getting there  
itself was a shock. We drove down the famous Kabul to Kandahar Highway  
which continues all around the country. It's called the Ring Road. It  
was a hallmark of the American reconstruction effort. And it's  
completely and utterly destroyed. It no longer exists. It's a series  
of potholes going all the way down -- I'm sorry, they're actually  
craters from, immense craters, not potholes -- and as a result of  
roadside bombs which were so successful in Iraq. And these roadside  
bombs are generally attacking convoys, logistical convoys that go to  
supply coalition NATO bases. And the entire road is littered on both  
sides with the charred smoldering carcasses of all these trucks and  
within like half an hour of leaving Kabul we were actually in the  
middle of a war.

The Taliban were fighting with the Americans a few hundred meters away  
from us. And the road was closed and we had to wait for the fighting  
to end. I had been picked up by two Taliban commanders. They drove up  
to Kabul, picked me up and drove me down to Ghazni province which is  
about 120 miles south.

ROBERT ZELIGER: And who are these Taliban commanders? Can you describe  
who your guides were?

NIR ROSEN: One of them was an experienced Mujahid, he fought the  
Soviets in the ?80s and then had grown disenchanted with the  
Mujahideen who had began to fight each other following Soviet  
withdrawal. And eventually joined the Taliban out of frustration with  
the war lords who were terrorizing the Afghans and now continues to  
fight on behalf of the Taliban against the Americans.

And the other guy was a little more senior and he was also a liaison  
with the Taliban Minister of Defense. The Taliban actually has  
ministers and governors for each province. They have on paper at least  
a well established structure. Although I was to learn that in reality  
of course it falls victim to Afghanistan which is much more vociferous  
and bitter rivalries divide different groups just as they did the  
various Mujahideen parties in the ?80s.

Inside the car. Photo Credit: Nir RosenBoth these commanders drove me  
down to Ghazni to the Andar District which is one of the hottest  
districts in terms of action these days. And there we entered various  
villages which were entirely under the control of the Taliban. In fact  
most of Ghazni Province is basically under their control even in,  
during the day they have checkpoints with the Taliban where they stop  
vehicles, take people out of them, kill them if they feel they have a  
good reason to, attack police and army checkpoints regularly.

  And we went on various patrols with the Taliban during the day. They  
go around with RPGs, rocket grenade launchers, machine guns, really  
not a care in the world as if there's no Americans in the country at  
all. They feel very confident. They adjudicate disputes between  
farmers, they hold trials and execute alleged spies, conduct  
operations against so-called collaborators with the occupation,  
whether they're police or army or government workers.

ROBERT ZELIGER: How did you arrange to . . .

NIR ROSEN: I was lucky. I have a friend who's, who I trust, who has a  
very good reputation throughout Afghanistan, due in part to his fight  
against the Soviets in the ?80s. He explained to this one Taliban  
commander what I wanted to do. That guy requested permission from the  
Taliban Minister of Defense called Mullah Boradar. Mullah Boradar  
approved and that was it. We went down and they were going to show me  
around, take me on operations and give me about a 10 day view of their  
life.

ROBERT ZELIGER: And it didn't last long because you got into some  
trouble at one point right with, you were detained by a Taliban  
leader. Who was he and what did he want?

NIR ROSEN: It turned out that my commander that was sort of protecting  
me, taking me around had clashed with this rival commander called Dr.  
Khalil. My commander had killed 11 Pakistanis and two Arabs under the  
command of the other guy and because they had wanted to close down a  
girl's school which already is indicative of some pragmatism.

So there was a contest of authority as well between these two guys and  
as bad blood resulting from killing of the foreign fighters and upon  
hearing that there was a foreign journalist in the area, this  
commander was slightly more senior in the district, basically ordered  
me detained and put on trial for being a spy. It was never clear if he  
actually believed I was a spy or just wanted to hold onto me for the  
ransom.

But it took about 24 hours for my various contacts to be able to reach  
just about every Taliban commander they could think of and finally the  
Taliban Minister of Defense and only he was able to secure my release.  
The Taliban governor for the province actually tried and failed. So it  
was one look into the various rivalries that divide the movement. And  
what I also got to see was just some of the daily life, what these  
guys do when they come home. The commander I was with sat down and  
watched Indian soap opera.

ROBERT ZELIGER: And also Iranian, you said Iranian pop music.

Living quarters. Photo Credit: Nir RosenNIR ROSEN: Yeah. Iranian pop  
music both of which the Taliban would have severely punished in the  
?90s certainly. This guy was a commander so he obviously knew that but  
he didn't seem to care at all. And there was very little separating  
him from your average Pashtun from the region. I think he could have  
almost just as likely joined the police or the army. In fact very  
little often separates tribes or villages who join the police or those  
who join the Taliban could be just an insult over a contract. It could  
result from the governor favoring one tribe over another, but I also  
found that these guys, many of them could, seemed like they could be  
brought into the system, into the process. They seemed willing to  
negotiate with the army and the police once the foreigners left, that  
was one of their requirements. When the foreigners leave they said  
they wouldn't have a reason to fight anymore.

ROBERT ZELIGER: What can you say about in terms of how much the  
Taliban has evolved since they were driven from power in 2001? I mean  
at one point you mentioned their attitude towards women seems to have  
changed a bit. Several commanders have told you that they thought  
women could have jobs and go to school. Now is that a major shift on  
their part?

NIR ROSEN: Acknowledging that women can work even be, even serve in  
the government and go to school is definitely a step forward. Because  
throughout Afghanistan the plight of women is just absolutely horrible  
and it's not like it's unique to the Taliban. They were also more, I  
would say the Taliban are becoming more of a Pashtun nationalist  
movement in the sense of Pashtun alienation. The Taliban are seizing  
upon that and in some way becoming less of purely Afghan or Islamist  
movement. And perhaps that's also a good thing in a sense that they're  
appealing to local grievances.

There is a danger, of course, that they're becoming more linked to, to  
global jihadist movements. They definitely resent foreigners which  
includes foreign fighters, it includes Pakistan, and the Arabs who  
join them, Pakistanis who join them. It was clear that the guys I was  
with disapproved of suicide bombings which are common tactic of the  
Taliban. And one of them actually complained that the Taliban are  
killing too many civilians. So these aren't exactly huge steps forward  
but they are a sign of an increased pragmatism.

So there are signs that perhaps could be taken advantage of. However,  
I doubt that the Americans have the elegance and the subtlety to be  
able to that. Moreover, I think the Taliban are so confident because  
they really are at this point becoming more and more victorious. They  
might see little reason to negotiate. Once you leave Kabul, you're  
entering Taliban territory. They're taking more and more land  
approaching Kabul in attacks in and around Kabul Province are more and  
more brazen. They've shut down the main roads leaving Kabul. And it  
really seems irreversible.

ROBERT ZELIGER: I know you've written a lot about insurgents in Iraq  
and also militants in Lebanon as well. Taliban you wrote about in this  
article seem to be very in certain instances disorganized and there's  
a lot of internal fighting. Are there similarities to these other  
groups that you've written about?

Taliban fighter. Photo Credit: Nir RosenNIR ROSEN: Certainly in Iraq I  
think we saw much more internal fighting and eventually of course that  
resulted in the Sunni militias expelling al Qaeda, but I think we see  
throughout the history of various insurgent movements and anti- 
colonist movements that they often kill more of their own than they do  
of the purported enemy. So I think that this is not unusual. In fact,  
we could expect that the more successful the Taliban become the more  
divisions we'll see. The more small groups will emerge and the less  
control Mullah Omar and Pakistan will actually have over the Taliban.

ROBERT ZELIGER: And finally just explain what happened in your case,  
how you actually were able to eventually get away or how you . . .

NIR ROSEN: Well it's a, I've been in trouble before but usually I can  
understand what's going on. I can speak Arabic. In this case it was a  
little more difficult and it was very remote. The Taliban also shut  
down the cell phone towers at night. So it was, there was no way for  
me to communicate with the two contacts I had in Kabul to try to help  
me. But they managed to make enough phone calls to Taliban leaders in  
Pakistan and Kandahar and United Arab Emirates really anybody they  
could think of to put pressure on this one commander to let me go. And  
indeed in the end it took the Taliban Minister of Defense to call him  
up and threaten him until he changed his attitude and became much more  
friendly.

In fact, he himself drove me to the border of the district. He showed  
me, "This is where my control ends, and the government control  
begins." Pointed to the nearby American base. Really felt very  
confident this is his territory and the Americans conduct divisional  
operations and air strikes, but didn't seem to affect them at all.

ROBERT ZELIGER: The article is called, "How We Lost the War We Won"  
and is in the current issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. Nir Rosen,  
thank you very much.

NIR ROSEN: Thank you.

From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 10:35:45 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:35:45 -0700
Subject: [R-G] New Discoveries Reveal US Intervention in Bolivia
Message-ID: <86752439-5958-42D7-B1A4-746B0D72BE7C@shaw.ca>

New Discoveries Reveal US Intervention in Bolivia
Written by Jeremy Bigwood
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1522/1/

Photo: ABI
J. Bigwood (ABI)
As a photo and investigative journalist for more than two decades, I  
often come across revealing government documents and information  
through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Mandatory  
Declassification Review (MDR) requests. These requests declassify and  
allow me access to documents from various entities of the US government.

I made my first request of US government documents about Bolivia in  
1997 and since then have made subsequent requests for information,  
ranging from American embassy communiques in La Paz to USAID grant  
requests. The information below reveals a clear policy of US  
intervention and meddling in Bolivia?s internal affairs. Almost all  
the time, this has been done without the knowledge and at the expense  
of the American taxpayer.

    1. The first document, from 2001 is written before a visit by then  
President Quiroga, to the US, in which the US Embassy states that they  
didn?t believe he had acted strongly enough against the MAS party, led  
by Evo Morales. In talking points prepared by the US embassy in La Paz  
to be used by US Secretary Beers during his meeting with the  
President, the US government suggests he say, ?We were quite concerned  
by the agreement in November to halt eradication?. We believe that a  
continued strong response could have weakened the political base of  
Evo Morales even further.? View the full document here.

    2. In 2002, the American embassy qualifies Evo Morales as an  
?illegal coca agitator? and admits that cocaine production in Bolivia  
is insignificant for the US. More importantly though, the embassy  
details a USAID ?Political Party Reform Project? that should  
specifically ?serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its  
successors.? View the full document here.

    3. In 2004, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds the  
Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce organization, CAINCO, through CIPE  
(Center for International Private Enterprise) to alter an existing  
Bolivian law and ?gain popular support for their policy  
recommendations?. This clearly shows that US funding was spent to  
alter internal legislation and in this case, it also shows a historic  
relationship between US funding institutions and the Santa Cruz  
opposition. View the full document here.

    4. Many organizations funded by NED show a clear political bias.  
One, the IIPS or Institute of Pedagogical & Social Investigation,  
refers to Evo Morales and the MAS in their grant request and project  
summary as an ?anti-democratic, radical opposition? that doesn?t  
represent the majority. Of the three program objectives listed, the  
last is telling. The NED grant awarded to them will help, ?efficient  
and effective social monitoring.? View the full document here.

    5. By 2006, it is evident that the National Democratic Institute  
(NDI) and USAID are openly working to promote events centered around  
regional autonomy and decentralization. ??NDl adapted the community  
forum model piloted in this program to conduct a Santa Cruz dialogue  
event through its USAID funded political party program to facilitate  
an open discussion about regional autonomy and decentralization.? View  
the full document here.

    6. The most telling documents from my point of view, are a series  
of e-mails from within USAID-Bolivia last year. They detail the  
forming relationship between the U.S. government (specifically  
Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the US embassy in La Paz) and  
indigenous groups in the Chapare and Media Luna departments to create  
a common USAID-guided front against Evo Morales and the MAS. In  
discussing who to invite to a lunch between indigenous leaders and US  
Ambassador Philip Goldberg in 2007, USAID staff write that the litmus  
test for being invited is, ?a su situacion real frente el gobierno del  
MAS, etc. ademas son aliados nuestros.? The staff members goes on to  
discuss the indigenous organizations that USAID programs fund and how  
their principal demand is to ?fortalecer sus organizaciones de base  
para hacerle frente al MAS:? In order to facilitate communications,  
one of the USAID officers recommends ?immediate assistance? by sending  
them radios. Shades of Vietnam and the US assistance to the Hmong  
tribesmen, which only guaranteed the destruction of their way of life.  
View the full document here.

    7. Among my many Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on  
Bolivia, I have made five such requests to USAID since 2005 to  
determine exactly what they are doing there. So far, USAID has not  
responded to my requests, I can only conclude, because they wish to  
keep their activities there clandestine. USAID denied any response to  
my latest request about their activities in Bolivia during the last  
year (2008) by stating that ?the few people who are still there will  
not be able to conduct a search of the documents you request? because  
of the ?political crisis? in the country. This is simply not the case:  
as anyone who drives by the USAID building knows, for the parking lot  
is still full and there are hundreds of employees still working there.  
View October 2008 photos of USAID-Bolivia's full parking lot taken by  
me and the full document requests and responses here from September  
14, 2008, September 19, and September 28.

To summarize, I believe that these documents provide clear proof that  
the US government, through its various entities - especially USAID -  
have been, and continue to conspire against the legal and  
democratically elected government of Bolivia. In coming weeks, I will  
reveal more of the documents that I have uncovered in my ongoing  
investigation and research on website: Bolivia Matters.


Jeremy Bigwood is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist  
and photographer. For more, please visit his personal website: http://www.bigwood.biz/ 
.
  
  

From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct 15 11:05:07 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:05:07 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Ninety Years After: The War to End All Wars
Message-ID: <200810151705.m9FH57GK020425@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct 15 11:08:40 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:08:40 -0700
Subject: [R-G] We are all 'mixed'
Message-ID: <200810151708.m9FH8e3V001305@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 12:59:49 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:59:49 -0700
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Harper=92s_Victory_is_Bad_News_for_the_Env?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ironment?=
Message-ID: <B0F50E78-204C-42CC-AFF6-C391B878005C@shaw.ca>


Harper?s Victory is Bad News for the Environment
Published by Andy Rowell October 15th, 2008 in Canada, Politics, oil  
sands, tar sands
http://priceofoil.org/2008/10/15/harper%E2%80%99s-victory-is-bad-news-for-the-environment/#more-3199

The breaking news from Canada is that the Conservative Prime Minister,  
Stephen Harper has been re-elected with an increased majority,  
although he has fallen some 10 to 12 votes short of an overall  
majority, something he desperately craved.

Despite this, Harper?s political gamble to call a snap election has  
paid off, although he will still have to reply on the support of at  
least one of the three opposition parties to govern.

Not surprisingly the financial crisis dominated the later parts of the  
election. The 49-year-old told a victory celebration in his home town  
of Calgary it was time to ?put aside political differences. We stretch  
out a hand to all members of all parties asking them to join together  
to protect our economy and to weather this world financial crisis,? he  
said.

But oil sands and carbon taxes also played a large part in the  
election. Harper?s victory is a bitter blow to the opposition Liberals  
as well as minority parties such as the Greens who had campaigned on  
climate change and what was seen as a ?highly unpopular? carbon tax  
proposal. The only Green MP lost his seat.

As a commentator in today?s Globe and Mail noted: ?It may be some time  
before we again see a political leader in Canada brave enough to build  
a campaign platform around saving the environment ?. The environment  
was not a winning issue on this campaign trail?.

The oil industry will be pleased with the vote. Mineweb noted that  
Harper?s reelection might ?prove a positive political development for  
the Canadian mining sector?, including the oil industry.

Another blogger notes that ?under Harper, the brakes are unlikely to  
be applied to Harper?s plan to quintuple Tar Sands production over the  
next five years. Even as boycott campaigns gear up against the Tar  
Sands and Canada, Harper will here too buck world trends, doggedly  
adhering to the policies of another age.

Once the worst of the financial crisis is over, it will be back to  
business as usual for Harper and that is exploiting oil sands to the  
full. The problem for his is that, with a fast falling oil price, this  
may not happen..

From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct 15 13:29:24 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:29:24 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Yes, Chicken Little, the sky really is falling
Message-ID: <200810151929.m9FJTODS010344@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct 15 13:33:41 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:33:41 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Press Release re Durban Review Conference
Message-ID: <200810151933.m9FJXfuk017885@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 13:55:19 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:55:19 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Conservatives Win Minority Govt Amid Larger Battle
Message-ID: <2F6859F5-2F9B-400F-BE1E-BD3105C0E239@shaw.ca>

CANADA:  Conservatives Win Minority Govt Amid Larger Battle
Analysis by Chris Arsenault
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44271

VANCOUVER, Oct 15 (IPS) - While Prime Minister Stephen Harper's  
Conservatives will continue ruling Canada as a minority government,  
they are several steps closer to a coveted parliamentary majority  
after Tuesday's general election.

The Conservatives increased their parliamentary seat count by 16 to  
143. The opposition Liberals led by St?phane Dion lost 17 seats to  
finish with 76. Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party (NDP) won 37  
seats, an increase of 7. The Bloc Quebecois, which only runs  
candidates in Quebec, won 50 seats up from 44 in the last election.

Despite optimistic polling numbers and inclusion in the televised  
leaders' debate, the Green Party did not win any seats in Canada's  
first past the post voting system.

The Conservatives won about 37 percent of the popular vote, up one  
percentage point from the 2006 election. The Liberals' popular vote  
dropped to 27 percent, one of the lowest levels in the party's history.

The one area where the Conservatives lost ground was Quebec, where  
their cuts to funding for artists and promises of mandatory sentences  
for offenders as young as 14 alienated voters.

"Without the Bloc Qu?b?cois, Stephen Harper would be forming a  
majority government," said Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, who supports  
the idea of Quebec province separating from Canada. The Bloc won two- 
thirds of Quebec's ridings, even though most Quebeckers are opposed to  
separation from Canada.

Prior to Tuesday's election, some observers were discussing the  
possibility of a coalition government between the three opposition  
parties, who share some key policy goals.

"The NDP, the Bloc Qu?b?cois and the Liberals (in their leftist  
Dionista variant, at least) are all pro-Kyoto [Protocol], down-the- 
line socially liberal, anti-American, weak on crime, culturally  
nationalistic, and fiscally redistributionist," opined Jonathan Kay in  
a post-election blog entry for the conservative National Post.

"Scary stuff," wrote Kay. "And here's the scariest part: About two- 
thirds of Canadians voted for this vision on Tuesday."

Because of Canada's election laws, a coalition government of the three  
allegedly leftist parties seems unlikely and thus the views of the  
majority of Canadians won't be realised.

Fundamentally, Canada's 40th Parliament will look very similar to the  
one which preceded it. "What a waste of money, a 300-million-dollar  
election which told us what we already knew," one voter in northern  
British Columbia told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as  
election results came in. Prior to the election, most polls had  
forecast another minority government.

In calling the election just three years into a four-year term, Harper  
violated his promise to institute fixed election dates so politicians  
couldn't call voters to the polls whenever it seemed to their partisan  
advantage.

The question then, according to some voters, is why did Prime Minister  
Harper dissolve Parliament and call an election? The answer may lie at  
Harper's alma mater, the University of Calgary.

Tom Flanagan, one of Harper's closest advisors and a political science  
professor from the far right "Calgary school" at the university,  
outlined the Conservatives' long-term strategy during a series of pre- 
election interviews.

"Strategically, this is sort of a prolonged war of attrition," Dr.  
Flanagan told CTV news when the election was called on Sep. 7. "You  
can fight a war with some objective less than total victory," he said,  
predicting that poor outcomes for the Liberals would lead the party to  
dump St?phane Dion as its leader.

Dion will likely be turfed by the Liberal party executive in the  
coming weeks and months.

High-profile Liberals and potential party leaders including former  
Ontario Premier Bob Rae and former Harvard professor and Iraq war  
supporter Michael Ignatieff have yet to pay off their debts from the  
last Liberal leadership race.

Another race for the Liberal leadership would invariably leave the  
party in a weaker financial position while creating rifts within party  
ranks. During the most recent campaign, the Conservatives  
significantly outspent their opponents, buying prime television air  
time. More debt for Liberals could make the party even weaker in  
future elections.

In the wake of Tuesday's results, everything seems to be going  
according to Dr. Flanagan's pre-election plan.

The Conservative minority, strengthened by Tuesday's election, coupled  
with St?phane Dion's lacklusture performance will "throw the Liberals  
into turmoil and give Harper... a virtually free hand in Parliament  
for quite a while and really handicap his main opponent," according to  
Flanagan.

There is nothing unique or troubling about conservative intellectuals  
providing guidance to political parties. However, Dr. Flanagan, a  
purported admirer of the neo-conservative philosopher Leo Strauss, has  
raised the ire of other academics and native groups.

In his book "First Nations? Second Thoughts" Flanagan writes that,  
"the European colonisation of North America was inevitable, and, if we  
accept the philosophical analysis of John Locke and Emer de Vattel,  
justifiable."

"The reality is that if Flanagan was making these kinds of statements  
about any other group in Canada -- Jewish, Italians, French -- he  
would not be given a senior role in a major national party and would  
more likely be exiled into the political wilderness," wrote Chief Phil  
Fontaine from the Assembly of First Nations.

Besides a series of interviews at the beginning of the campaign  
outlining the Conservatives' long-term strategies, Flanagan stayed  
quiet for most of the election. Instead of his hard-line rhetoric, the  
Conservatives opted for television ads focusing on Prime Minister  
Harper talking gently in a simple down home blue-collared sweater.

But, with the Harper Conservatives in a stronger position than ever  
before and the Liberals severely weakened, it seems like everything is  
going according to plan for Dr. Tom Flanagan and his colleagues at the  
neo-conservative Calgary school.

(END/2008) 

From shniad at sfu.ca  Wed Oct 15 13:57:22 2008
From: shniad at sfu.ca (Sid Shniad)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:57:22 -0700
Subject: [R-G] A time to break ranks
Message-ID: <200810151957.m9FJvMWX001582@rm-rstar.sfu.ca>

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From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 14:10:58 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:10:58 -0700
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?America=92s_Political_Cannibalism?=
Message-ID: <13430313-5FFA-452B-8B24-75536296B205@shaw.ca>

Published on Monday, October 13, 2008 by TruthDig.com
America?s Political Cannibalism
http://www.commondreams.org/print/33357
by Chris Hedges

It is no longer our economy but our democracy that is in peril. It was  
the economic meltdown of Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic.  
It was the collapse of the Weimar Republic that vomited up Adolf  
Hitler. And it was the breakdown in czarist Russia that opened the  
door for Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Financial collapses lead  
to political extremism. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and  
disenfranchised working class, glimpsed at John McCain rallies,  
presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash.

As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by  
our ruling class, as the Democratic and Republican parties are exposed  
as craven tools of our corporate state, as savings accounts, college  
funds and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment  
skyrockets and as home values go up in smoke we must prepare for the  
political resurgence of a reinvigorated radical Christian right. The  
engine of this mass movement-as is true for all radical movements-is  
personal and economic despair. And despair, in an age of increasing  
shortages, poverty and hopelessness, will be one of our few surplus  
commodities.

Karl Polanyi [1] in his book "The Great Transformation," written in  
1944, laid out the devastating consequences-the depressions, wars and  
totalitarianism-that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free  
market. He grasped that "fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a  
market society that refused to function." He warned that a financial  
system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia  
capitalism-and a Mafia political system-which is a good description of  
the American government under George W. Bush. Polanyi wrote that a  
self-regulating market, the kind bequeathed to us since Ronald Reagan,  
turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a  
situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural  
environment. He decried the free market's belief that nature and human  
beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He  
reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and  
human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary  
value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies  
cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and  
growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a  
continued prosperity.

We face an environmental meltdown as well as an economic meltdown.  
This would not have surprised Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933  
and eventually taught at Columbia University. Russia's northern  
coastline has begun producing huge qualities of toxic methane [2] gas.  
Scientists with the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008 describe  
what they saw along the coastline recently as "methane chimneys"  
reaching from the sea floor to the ocean's surface. Methane, locked in  
the permafrost of Arctic landmasses, is being released at an alarming  
rate as average Arctic temperatures rise. Methane is a greenhouse gas  
25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The release of millions of  
tons of it will dramatically accelerate the rate of global warming.

Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation  
as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are  
responsible, as Polanyi predicted, for our personal impoverishment and  
the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted, courtesy of  
the oil, gas and automobile industries and a corporate- controlled  
government, to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. Fish stocks are  
depleted. The great human migration from coastlines and deserts has  
begun. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe  
will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities  
of methane, some scientists have warned, could actually asphyxiate the  
human species.

The corporate con artists and criminals who have hijacked our state  
and rigged our financial system still speak to us in the obscure and  
incomprehensible language coined by specialists at elite business  
schools. They use terms like securitization, deleveraging, structured  
investment vehicles and credit default swaps. The reality, once you  
throw out their obnoxious jargon, is not hard to grasp. Banks lent too  
much money to people and financial institutions that could not pay it  
back.  These banks are now going broke. The government is frantically  
giving taxpayer dollars to banks so they can be solvent and again lend  
money. It is not working. Bank lending remains frozen. There are  
ominous signs that the government may not be able to hand over enough  
of our money because the losses incurred by these speculators are too  
massive. If credit markets remain in a deep freeze, corporations such  
as AT&T, Ford and General Motors might go bankrupt. The downward  
spiral could spread like a tidal wave across the country, especially  
since our corporate elite, including Barack Obama, seem to have no  
real intention of bailing out families who can no longer pay their  
mortgages or credit card debts.

Lenin said that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to  
debauch its currency. If our financial disaster continues there will  
be a widespread loss of faith in the mechanisms that regulate society.  
If our money becomes worthless, so does our government. All  
traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic  
crisis. The moral order is turned upside down. The honest and  
industrious are wiped out while the gangsters, profiteers and  
speculators amass millions. Look at Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld  
[3]. He walks away from his bankrupt investment house after pocketing  
$485 million. His investors are wiped out. An economic collapse does  
not only mean the degradation of trade and commerce, food shortages,  
bankruptcies and unemployment; it means the systematic dynamiting of  
the foundations of a society. I watched this happen in Yugoslavia. I  
fear I am watching it happen here in the United States.

The Patriot Act, the FISA Reform Act, the suspension of habeas corpus,  
the open use of torture in our offshore penal colonies, the stationing  
[4] of a combat brigade on American soil, the seas of surveillance  
cameras, the brutal assaults against activists in Denver and St. Paul  
are converging to determine our future. Those dark forces arrayed  
against American democracy are waiting for a moment to strike, a  
national crisis that will allow them in the name of national security  
and moral renewal to shred the Constitution. They have the tools. They  
will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites and the specter  
of left-wing dissent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to  
extinguish our democracy. And while they do it they will be waving the  
American flag, singing patriotic slogans and clutching the Christian  
cross. Fuld, I expect, will be one of many corporatists happy to  
contribute to the cause.

This is a defining moment in American history. The next few weeks and  
months will see us stabilize and weather this crisis or descend into a  
terrifying dystopia. I place no hope in Obama or the Democratic Party.  
The Democratic Party is a pathetic example of liberal, bourgeois  
impotence, hypocrisy and complacency. It has been bought off. I will  
vote, if only as a form of protest against our corporate state and an  
homage to Polanyi's brilliance, for Ralph Nader. I would like to offer  
hope, but it is more important to be a realist. No ethic or act of  
resistance is worth anything if it is not based on the real. And the  
real, I am afraid, does not look good.
Copyright ? 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize winner and a former foreign  
correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of "American  
Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America [5]." His column  
appears Mondays on Truthdig [6].



From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 14:19:42 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:19:42 -0700
Subject: [R-G] =?windows-1252?q?Fisk=3A_=91Collateral_Damage=92_Not_Much_D?=
 =?windows-1252?q?ifferent_From_Targeted_Killing?=
Message-ID: <C726799A-CE61-46E9-993C-732D139A9525@shaw.ca>

?Collateral Damage? Not Much Different From Targeted Killing
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081011_collateral_damage_not_much_different_from_targeted_killing/
Posted on Oct 11, 2008
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20081011_collateral_damage_not_much_different_from_targeted_killing/

By Robert Fisk

Editor?s note: This article was originally posted at The Independent.

All kinds of horrors flop on to my Beirut doormat. There?s The  
Independent?s mobile phone bill, a slew of blood-soaked local Lebanese  
newspapers??Saleh Aridi?s blood consolidates [Druze] reconciliation?,  
was among the goriest of the past few days?and then there are files  
from the dark memory lane through which all Middle East history has to  
pass.

The repulsive Baath party archives of Saddam Hussein are the latest to  
find a place on my coffee table, all marked ?Secret?, unpublished? 
though they formed the basis for the old man?s trial and for his  
depraved hanging by the Iraqi government more than two years ago. I  
reprint them now without excuse, for they have a bitter taste in the  
?new? Iraq and in the ?new? Afghanistan about which we still fantasise  
as we send more Nato troops into Asia?s greatest military graveyard.

The documentary evidence of Saddam?s brutal inquiry into the killings  
at the Shia Muslim village of Dujail in 1982 provides frightening,  
fearful testament to the earnestness and cruelty of totalitarianism,  
the original files of Saddam?s mukhabarat security services in their  
hunt for the men who tried to assassinate the Iraqi dictator more than  
a quarter of a century ago. Saddam was then the all-powerful leader of  
a nation at war with Iran?an eight-year conflict that would cost the  
lives of more than a million Muslims on both sides?and whose most  
ruthless enemies were members of the Iranian-supported Al-Dawa Party  
(including a certain Nouri al-Maliki). Saddam?s closest allies at this  
time were the Gulf oil sheikhdoms?and the United States, which was  
sending military supplies, chemical precursors and satellite  
reconnaissance photographs to Baghdad to assist Saddam in his war  
against Iran, a nation he had invaded two years earlier.

On his passage through Dujail, Saddam?s heavily armed convoy was  
attacked by 10 villagers armed with Kalashnikov rifles. All were  
killed at the time or hunted down and murdered later. In their  
subsequent investigations, however, the mukhabarat?in this case  
operating under the ominous title of the ?Regime Crimes Liaison  
office??were able to use the system of tribe and sub-tribe in Dujail  
to tease out the names of everyone associated with the attackers.

The patriarchal lineage?wherein all males carry their father?s,  
grandfather?s, and great-grandfather?s names, sometimes back eight  
generations?enabled the secret police to trace the male line of entire  
families and thus to liquidate them all. Their womenfolk were  
tortured, many of them raped. The men were butchered. One grandfather  
lost all his sons and grandsons. His ?treacherous? family line came to  
an end. The ruthlessness of Saddam?s ?Crimes Liaison Office? comes  
across in their surviving reports.

We were assigned by the party to submit the names of the opposing and  
malignant members of the treacherous Al-Dawa Party ...

A comrade?s greeting. Dun Shakir to the Comrade Member of the State  
Command. Subject/Security report: Through the fact that the criminals  
from Al-Dawa Party have attacked our Great Commander the Secretariat  
of the State, the Striving Comrade Saddam Hussein, we raise the names  
of the hostile families that are against the party and revolution,  
knowing that we already raised several reports and surveys on these  
criminals whose names are below.?

And there follows a sheaf of files listing the accused families and  
their menfolk. Of the Al-Tayyar sub-tribe of the Abu Haideri tribe of  
Dujail, for example, there is a great grandfather called Abdullah with  
three children?Asad, Mohammed and Suheil?who themselves have nine  
children?Sabri, Ali, Nayif, Jasim, Hassan, Qadir, Kabsun, Yasin and  
Hani. Saddam?s secret police fell upon their sons: Ammar, Abdel Salam,  
Qasim, Sahib, Sa?ad, another Qasim (son of Qadir), Hashim, Ali, a  
second Ali (son of Yassin) and Thamir.

All of the latter were executed on Saddam?s orders. So was another of  
Jasim?s other sons?Nabil?and four more of Hassan?s sons?Hussein (who  
was indeed involved in the assassination attempt on Saddam) and Fatih  
and Salim and Mohammed and Mahmoud. Five more of their first cousins? 
Ahmed, Abdullah, Mohammed, Mahmoud and Abbas?were also done to death.  
Thus only one male issue of great-grandfather Abdullah?s entire family  
escaped Saddam?s execution squads. But these were just the male  
children of one family. Saddam?s murderers were after many more. The  
investigators at Saddam?s trial noticed one telling trait among his  
secret police officers. If they were reporting an execution, they  
would scribble their signature. If they were sending intelligence  
information, they would sign their names in full. After the fall of  
Saddam, of course, it was not difficult to match up the full names  
with the scribbled signatures.

But now I ask a question. When US troops massacre Iraqi civilians in  
Haditha because their buddy has been murdered, what is the difference  
between their revenge and that of Saddam? When a Taliban attack on  
Nato forces in Afghanistan provokes a US air strike on a village and  
leaves women and children torn to pieces in the ruins?this now seems  
the inevitable result?what is the difference between those innocent  
deaths and the destruction of the families of Abdullah?s grandchildren  
in Dujail?

Yes, I know that Saddam?s thugs selected the relatives of his enemies  
and we merely kill anyone in the area of our enemies. And yes, I grant  
you the outcome is not the same. The Iraqi dictator was hanged in  
Baghdad in 2006, cursed by his hooded Shia ?Al-Dawa? executioners as  
he stood on the scaffold. For us, there will be no hangings. 

From tchilds at resist.ca  Wed Oct 15 19:08:56 2008
From: tchilds at resist.ca (tchilds at resist.ca)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:08:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [R-G] B.C. pipeline explosion likely terrorism: ex-CSIS official
Message-ID: <49601.24.87.34.192.1224119336.squirrel@mail.resist.ca>

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/10/15/bc-explosion-pipeline-terrorism.html

B.C. pipeline explosion likely terrorism: ex-CSIS official
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 | 5:27 PM ET
CBC News
Former CSIS strategist David Harris says a weekend explosion near the town
of Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. fits the description of terrorism,
despite police statements to the contrary.

Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to
the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border.

The blast did not rupture the pipeline, but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the
ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday.

The previous week, suspicious handwritten letters arrived at newspapers
and a TV station in Dawson Creek calling EnCana Corp. and other energy
companies "terrorists" for expanding "deadly" gas wells and giving the
firms a deadline to shut down operations, including the gas plant served
by the pipeline.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields called the blast a serious criminal matter
but he stopped short of calling the explosion terrorism.

"It was set there 
 with the intent to blow up that pipeline. That's a
threat to the infrastructure of this province," said Shields. "We're not
categorizing this as terrorism."

Police view disputed

But Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service and now a private security expert, thinks that's
exactly what the explosion was.

"How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early
stage is beyond me. Terrorism is associated with an attempt by threat or
actual violence 
 to change policy," Harris said.

Police would not comment on whether the blast had any connection to the
recent theft of a huge cache of dynamite from a work site in nearby
Chetwynd in July.

The pipeline is owned by EnCana and carries sour gas to the Steep Rock gas
plant, police said. Sour gas is a form of natural gas that contains
hydrogen sulphide, a toxic substance that is removed through a treatment
process at the plant.

The RCMP investigation is being conducted by members from the force's
explosives disposal unit, the forensic identification section and the
integrated national security enforcement team.


From fentona at shaw.ca  Wed Oct 15 21:45:53 2008
From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:45:53 -0700
Subject: [R-G] Canadian military visits BC mosque
Message-ID: <A1DCF503-6511-4F38-AAAF-F5644090D0C8@shaw.ca>

Canadian military visits BC mosque
Wed, October 15 2008
http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/c1ee8c441cfdb50b011d028536d300e2_Canadian_military_visits_BC_mosque.do.html

Imaad Ali and Tarikm Kadri copy A controversial visit by the Canadian  
military to a mosque in Metro Vancouver drew dozens of curious  
spectators - and a number of people who questioned the Armed Forces  
strategy of courting the Muslim community while Canada?s war in  
Afghanistan continues on into its seventh year.
?The problem we all have is potentially being sent to Afghanistan,?  
noted one young observer at Burnaby?s Al-Salaam Mosque and Education  
Centre last week.
?The problem we all see is the blood of our brothers and sisters on  
our hands.?
Master Corporal Tarik Kadri, a Canadian Forces diversity recruiter who  
is also Muslim, was keen to emphasize to the small crowd that the  
military visit was not intended to recruit people.
?It?s a Town Hall event, and our objective here is to maximize  
exposure to Canadian Forces within the Arab and Muslim community,? he  
said, at the top of a PowerPoint presentation last Wednesday that  
listed the career and education opportunities offered by the military.
As of March 2008, according to its own figures, 2.7 per cent of the  
Canadian Forces is composed of visible minorities ? a figure far short  
of its 9.1 per cent goal.
Crowd shot copy?If we want to change the Canadian Forces to be more  
diverse, then it?s your option to join,? Kadri continued.
But the meeting was marked by a polite if slightly combative  
atmosphere which came to brief but vivid life when the doors swung  
open early during Kadri?s presentation, and three young Muslim men  
entered bearing flyers that read: ?End Canada?s War in Afghanistan ?  
Bring the Troops Home!?
Kadri thanked the protesters for stopping by as a murmur of unease  
swept through the room.
Kadri was followed by Lt. Wafa Dabbagh, an Egyptian-born Palestinian  
and a 12-year veteran Navy reservist who recently returned from a  
stint as personal assistant to Canada?s Task Force Commander in  
Jerusalem.
Dabbagh wore a Navy-designed hijab, or Muslim head covering for women,  
during a talk that focused on religious sensitivity issues inside the  
Forces.
?Ninety-five per cent of my experience in the Forces is positive, and  
the other five per cent that isn?t positive is personal,? said  
Dabbagh. ?I don?t think in any job you?ll find that everybody likes  
you.?
With the evening?s question-and-answer period underway, discussion  
turned almost immediately to the spectre of racism in the military.
One attendee ? 47 year-old Saleem Bhamji ? described to the crowd his  
own experiences in the Canadian Army.
?The main reason I left was because of the racism in my unit,? he  
said. ?The talking about Muslims, the Palestinian issue, what ?dogs?  
they are? I?m happy to hear that things are changing, but I hope they  
really are.?
Bosnian ?migr? Adnan Krupic, 25, gave voice to the dominant issue of  
the evening ? namely the recruitment of Muslims to fight Muslims in a  
faraway war which is projected will cost Canada $18.1 billion or more  
by mission?s end in 2011.
?Your method of recruitment is to try to put young Muslims at ease,?  
he noted. ?But the problem we all have is potentially being sent to  
Afghanistan. The problem we all see is the blood of our brothers and  
sisters on our hands.?
Master Corporal Takri responded: ?The Canadian Forces doesn?t decide  
where we go, it?s the Government of Canada.
?I know that doesn?t make things any better, but I just want to  
clarify that to you.?
Added Major David C. Blake-Knox: ?There are certain missions where  
they won?t take people from certain ethnic backgrounds because of the  
possible conflict.?
The event was organized by Imaad Ali, Youth Director at the Mosque,  
who told the South Asian Post: ?Basically a lot of people, when they  
think about the military, they think about Afghanistan. In fact, there  
are 63,000 soldiers in the Canadian Forces and only 2,500 are deployed  
in Afghanistan.
?There are over 10,000 missions they?ve gone on for search and rescue,  
for example. So I think that misconception is that the Force is all  
about fighting. They don?t see the other side of it.?
Ali said this is the first event of its kind involving the Canadian  
military reaching out to Muslims at their mosques.
He said he is not aware of the Canadian Armed Forces going in to any  
other temples, or churches in pursuit of fighting men and women.
Ali added that the primary thrust of inviting the military to the  
mosque was ?career opportunities,? but he conceded that some community  
members were ?suspicious.?
?There was a little opposition,? he said. ?But the vast majority did  
support it.?
Those who attended were divided by the end. Twenty-one year-old Fatima  
Yasin and her sister both left clutching some of the Armed Forces  
proffered paraphernalia.
Fatima commented that it was ?curiosity, mostly,? that brought them to  
the mosque.
?I think there?s been a lot of controversy surrounding this whole get  
together so I wanted to know what it?s about,? she said. ?And I think  
a lot of m