From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Sun Nov 1 01:32:55 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:32:55 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?iso-8859-1?q?Beware_the_UN=92s_Copenhagen__plot_-_Wor?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> References: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> Message-ID: <20091101093256.A17FE1223A@fep02.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 20e44ab.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 217387 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 20e4576.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 192072 bytes Desc: not available URL: From netcfs at shaw.ca Sun Nov 1 16:27:47 2009 From: netcfs at shaw.ca (Yves Bajard) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:27:47 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?utf-8?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s_Copenhagen_plot_-_Wor?= =?utf-8?q?ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> References: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> Message-ID: <1257121667.7816.42.camel@localhost> Excuse me for interfering, but what do you expect the governments of any country on this planet to do at the conference in Copenhagen, or for all that matters, all ort ny institutions that are part of the current socio-economic, political and cultural system to do at any place and any time on climate change or any other syndrome of our growing non-sustainability to do, beyond smoke and mirrors, or other fluff? Have you asked yourself whether or not these organizations were at any degree or level at all compatible with the task that need to be undertaken to reconcile humankind with itself and with its external context on Earth? And who can do it and how? Yves Bajard Le dimanche 01 novembre 2009 ? 16:56 +1000, Doug Everingham a ?crit : > Relayed by Doug Everingham. > ==== > From: johnbursill at gmail.com > Subject: Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot - World Government? The > Australian > Date: 28 October 2009 5:11:02 PM > > > Hello all, > > > I've been watching this issue and I think this article is a good sign > that some "heat" may arrive for the MMGW summit that is really a power > grab for the elite, regardless of the science! > > > From the Australian: > > > Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot > > > > > Janet Albrechtsen Blog | October 28, 2009 | 170 Comments > > > SHAME on us all: on us in the media and on our politicians. Despite > thousands of news reports, interviews, analyses, critiques and > commentaries from journalists, what has the inquiring, intellectually > sceptical media told us about the potential details of a Copenhagen > treaty? And despite countless speeches, addresses, interviews, > doorstops, moralising sermons from government ministers, pleas from > Canberra for an outcome at Copenhagen, opposition criticism of > government policy, what have our elected representatives told us about > the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty? > > > With just over 40 days until more than 15,000 officials, advisers, > diplomats, activists and journalists from more than 190 countries > attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, we know > nothing. Nothing about a climate change treaty that the Rudd > government is keen to sign and one that will bind this country for > years to come. > > > Of course, there is no final treaty as yet. That is what they are > hoping to finalise in Copenhagen. But there are 181 pages that make up > the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change dated September 15, > 2009: a rough draft of what could be signed in Copenhagen. And yet, > not one member of the media or political class has bothered to inform > us about its contents as an important clue to what may happen in > Copenhagen. The shame of that state of affairs started to trickle in > last week. > > > Emails started arriving telling me about a speech given by Christopher > Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at Bethel University > in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14. Monckton talked about something > that no one has talked about in the lead-up to Copenhagen: the text of > the draft Copenhagen treaty. > > > Even after Monckton?s speech, most of the media has duly ignored the > substance of what he said. You don?t need me to find his St Paul > address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan Jones on > Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of the > Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational government on a > scale the world has never before seen. Listening to the interview, my > teenage daughters asked me whether this was true. > > > So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page 18. > Monckton says: ?This is the first time I?ve ever seen any > transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that > treaty as a government. But it?s the powers that are going to be given > to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening.? > > > Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this > new world government only when a friend of his found an obscure UN > website and hacked his way through several layers of complications > before coming across a document that isn?t even called the draft > treaty. It?s called a ?note by the secretariat?. The moment he saw it, > he went public and said: ?Look, this is an outrage ... they have kept > the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.? > > > Monckton says the aim of this new government is to have power to > directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental > affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty. > > > In a sense, countries that sign international treaties always cede > powers to a UN body responsible for implementing the treaty > obligations. But the difference is that we usually understand the > details of the obligations and the power ceded. > > > Now read the 181-page draft treaty. It is impossible to fully > understand the convoluted UN verbiage. Yet even those incomprehensible > clauses point to some nasty surprises that no politician has told us > about. For example, Monckton says the drafters want this new world > government to have control over once free markets: the financial and > trading markets of nation-states. ?The sheer ambition of this new > world government is enormous right from the start; that?s even before > it starts accreting powers to itself in the way that these entities > inevitably always do,? he says. > > > The reason for that power grab is clear enough from the draft treaty. > Clause after complicated clause sets out the requirement that > developed countries such as Australia pay their ?adaptation debt? to > developing countries. Clause 33 on page 39 says that by 2020 the scale > of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must > be at least $US67 billion ($73bn), or in the range of $US70bn to > $US140bn a year. > > > How developed countries will pay is far from clear. The draft text > sets out various alternatives, including Option 7 on page 135, which > provides for ?a (global) levy of 2 per cent on international financial > market (monetary) transactions to Annex I Parties?. This means > industrialised countries such as Australia, if we sign. > > > Monckton?s warning to Americans that ?in the next few weeks, unless > you stop it, your President will sign your freedom, your democracy and > your prosperity away forever? is colourful. But no more colourful than > the language used by those who preach about the perils of climate > change and the virtues of a hard-hitting Copenhagen treaty. > > > Put aside Monckton?s comments. Ask yourself this: why has our > government failed to explain the possible text of a treaty it wants > Australia to sign? There has been no address from any Rudd minister to > explain the draft treaty. No 3000-word essay from the thoughtful PM. > No speech in parliament. No interview. No press release. Nothing. > > > Presumably the hard-working Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has > read the 181-page draft text. Presumably our central control and > command PM has been briefed about the draft text. In Germany a few > months ago, Kevin Rudd complained about the lack of ?detailed > programmatic specificity? going into the Copenhagen talks. Yet the > draft text provides much detailed specificity about obligations on > developed nations to transfer millions of dollars to developing > countries under formulas to be set down by an unelected body. So why > the silence? Are they hiding the details of this deal from us because > most of the polls now suggest that action on climate change is > becoming politically unpalatable? > > > And what explains the media?s failure to report and analyse the only > source document that offers any idea of what may happen in Copenhagen? > Ignorance? Laziness? Stubborn adherence to the orthodox government > line that a deal in Copenhagen is critical? An obsession with the > politics of climate change rather than policy? > > > At least we have heard from Monckton. He told Jones there had already > been a million hits on the link to his St Paul address. ?So the > message in America is now out ... Now you know about it and you need > to spread the word.? > > > Perhaps now our PM and our Climate Change Minister can spare a few > moments to tell us about the details they know about but have so far > chosen not to tell us about. > > > Link > - http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/beware_the_uns_copenhagen_plot/ > > > Thanks to Bruce for the link! > > > -- > 9/11 24/7 until justice! > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mai-not mailing list > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thinker at xplornet.com Sun Nov 1 18:50:55 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:50:55 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?iso-8859-1?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s__Copenhagen_plot?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_-_Wor_ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: <1257121667.7816.42.camel@localhost> References: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> <1257121667.7816.42.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <20091102025026.4CAE63B6A55@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> Yves, There's absolutely no hope for any change for the better, either for the environment, or humanity, as long as the present criminal economic theory, at the intellectual level of the Rosenberg religion, is being taught in our universities, because all the damage and destruction is excuse, sanctified and legalized by this fraud. There's no point in going after, blaming and attacking politicians, as they're nothing more than the pimps for this crime wave. I never cease to be baffled, surprised and horrified that the professors can get away with this crap, without anybody daring to raise a single voice. Cheers, Ed. At 04:27 PM 01/11/2009, you wrote: >Excuse me for interfering, but what do you >expect the governments of any country on this >planet to do at the conference in Copenhagen, or >for all that matters, all ort ny institutions >that are part of the current socio-economic, >political and cultural system to do at any place >and any time on climate change or any other >syndrome of our growing non-sustainability to >do, beyond smoke and mirrors, or other fluff? > >Have you asked yourself whether or not these >organizations were at any degree or level at all >compatible with the task that need to be >undertaken to reconcile humankind with itself >and with its external context on Earth? And who can do it and how? > >Yves Bajard > > > > > > >Le dimanche 01 novembre 2009 ? 16:56 +1000, Doug Everingham a ?crit : >>Relayed by Doug Everingham. >>==== >>From: johnbursill at gmail.com >>Subject: Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot - World Government? The Australian >>Date: 28 October 2009 5:11:02 PM >> >> >>Hello all, >> >> >>I've been watching this issue and I think this >>article is a good sign that some "heat" may >>arrive for the MMGW summit that is really a >>power grab for the elite, regardless of the science! >> >> >> From the Australian: >> >> >>Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot >> >> >> >> >>Janet Albrechtsen Blog | October 28, 2009 | 170 Comments >> >> >>SHAME on us all: on us in the media and on our >>politicians. Despite thousands of news reports, >>interviews, analyses, critiques and >>commentaries from journalists, what has the >>inquiring, intellectually sceptical media told >>us about the potential details of a Copenhagen >>treaty? And despite countless speeches, >>addresses, interviews, doorstops, moralising >>sermons from government ministers, pleas from >>Canberra for an outcome at Copenhagen, >>opposition criticism of government policy, what >>have our elected representatives told us about >>the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty? >> >> >>With just over 40 days until more than 15,000 >>officials, advisers, diplomats, activists and >>journalists from more than 190 countries attend >>the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, >>we know nothing. Nothing about a climate change >>treaty that the Rudd government is keen to sign >>and one that will bind this country for years to come. >> >> >>Of course, there is no final treaty as yet. >>That is what they are hoping to finalise in >>Copenhagen. But there are 181 pages that make >>up the UN Framework Convention on Climate >>Change dated September 15, 2009: a rough draft >>of what could be signed in Copenhagen. And yet, >>not one member of the media or political class >>has bothered to inform us about its contents as >>an important clue to what may happen in >>Copenhagen. The shame of that state of affairs >>started to trickle in last week. >> >> >>Emails started arriving telling me about a >>speech given by Christopher Monckton, a former >>adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at Bethel >>University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October >>14. Monckton talked about something that no one >>has talked about in the lead-up to Copenhagen: >>the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty. >> >> >>Even after Monckton?s speech, most of the media >>has duly ignored the substance of what he said. >>You don?t need me to find his St Paul address >>on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by >>Alan Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, >>Monckton warned that the aim of the Copenhagen >>draft treaty was to set up a transnational >>government on a scale the world has never >>before seen. Listening to the interview, my >>teenage daughters asked me whether this was true. >> >> >>So I read the draft treaty. The word government >>appears on page 18. Monckton says: ?This is the >>first time I?ve ever seen any transnational >>treaty referring to a new body to be set up >>under that treaty as a government. But it?s the >>powers that are going to be given to this >>entirely unelected government that are so frightening.? >> >> >>Monckton became aware of the extraordinary >>powers to be vested in this new world >>government only when a friend of his found an >>obscure UN website and hacked his way through >>several layers of complications before coming >>across a document that isn?t even called the >>draft treaty. It?s called a ?note by the >>secretariat?. The moment he saw it, he went >>public and said: ?Look, this is an outrage ... >>they have kept the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.? >> >> >>Monckton says the aim of this new government is >>to have power to directly intervene in the >>financial, economic, tax and environmental >>affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty. >> >> >>In a sense, countries that sign international >>treaties always cede powers to a UN body >>responsible for implementing the treaty >>obligations. But the difference is that we >>usually understand the details of the obligations and the power ceded. >> >> >>Now read the 181-page draft treaty. It is >>impossible to fully understand the convoluted >>UN verbiage. Yet even those incomprehensible >>clauses point to some nasty surprises that no >>politician has told us about. For example, >>Monckton says the drafters want this new world >>government to have control over once free >>markets: the financial and trading markets of >>nation-states. ?The sheer ambition of this new >>world government is enormous right from the >>start; that?s even before it starts accreting >>powers to itself in the way that these entities >>inevitably always do,? he says. >> >> >>The reason for that power grab is clear enough >>from the draft treaty. Clause after complicated >>clause sets out the requirement that developed >>countries such as Australia pay their >>?adaptation debt? to developing countries. >>Clause 33 on page 39 says that by 2020 the >>scale of financial flows to support adaptation >>in developing countries must be at least $US67 >>billion ($73bn), or in the range of $US70bn to $US140bn a year. >> >> >>How developed countries will pay is far from >>clear. The draft text sets out various >>alternatives, including Option 7 on page 135, >>which provides for ?a (global) levy of 2 per >>cent on international financial market >>(monetary) transactions to Annex I Parties?. >>This means industrialised countries such as Australia, if we sign. >> >> >>Monckton?s warning to Americans that ?in the >>next few weeks, unless you stop it, your >>President will sign your freedom, your >>democracy and your prosperity away forever? is >>colourful. But no more colourful than the >>language used by those who preach about the >>perils of climate change and the virtues of a hard-hitting Copenhagen treaty. >> >> >>Put aside Monckton?s comments. Ask yourself >>this: why has our government failed to explain >>the possible text of a treaty it wants >>Australia to sign? There has been no address >>from any Rudd minister to explain the draft >>treaty. No 3000-word essay from the thoughtful >>PM. No speech in parliament. No interview. No press release. Nothing. >> >> >>Presumably the hard-working Climate Change >>Minister Penny Wong has read the 181-page draft >>text. Presumably our central control and >>command PM has been briefed about the draft >>text. In Germany a few months ago, Kevin Rudd >>complained about the lack of ?detailed >>programmatic specificity? going into the >>Copenhagen talks. Yet the draft text provides >>much detailed specificity about obligations on >>developed nations to transfer millions of >>dollars to developing countries under formulas >>to be set down by an unelected body. So why the >>silence? Are they hiding the details of this >>deal from us because most of the polls now >>suggest that action on climate change is becoming politically unpalatable? >> >> >>And what explains the media?s failure to report >>and analyse the only source document that >>offers any idea of what may happen in >>Copenhagen? Ignorance? Laziness? Stubborn >>adherence to the orthodox government line that >>a deal in Copenhagen is critical? An obsession >>with the politics of climate change rather than policy? >> >> >>At least we have heard from Monckton. He told >>Jones there had already been a million hits on >>the link to his St Paul address. ?So the >>message in America is now out ... Now you know >>about it and you need to spread the word.? >> >> >>Perhaps now our PM and our Climate Change >>Minister can spare a few moments to tell us >>about the details they know about but have so far chosen not to tell us about. >> >> >>Link - >>http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/beware_the_uns_copenhagen_plot/ >> >> >> >>Thanks to Bruce for the link! >> >> >>-- >>9/11 24/7 until justice! >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Mai-not mailing list >>Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >>http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.423 / Virus Database: >270.14.44/2475 - Release Date: 11/01/09 19:39:00 From dnevrghm at powerup.com.au Mon Nov 2 00:16:56 2009 From: dnevrghm at powerup.com.au (Doug Everingham) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 18:16:56 +1000 Subject: [Mai-not] Accountability in Action October 2009 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Relayed by Doug Everingham ==== From: accountability at oneworldtrust.org Subject: Accountability in Action October 2009 Date: 30 October 2009 11:58:07 PM To: dnevrghm at powerup.com.au Reply-To: accountability at oneworldtrust.org View online | Unsubscribe | Contact us: accountability at oneworldtrust.org ? Accountability in Action Updates and analysis on issues of global governance ? October 2009 In this issue: Beyond reach? Realising accountability in climate change governance Recent Publications Strengthening the independence and accountability of the ICC in a political world Responding to NGO development effectiveness initiatives Project news Accountability in practice: NGO certification in Paraguay Accountability news Visit our civil society self-regulation portal View all One World Trust publications View Accountability in Action newsletter archive Visit APRO survey and forum ? Beyond reach? Realising accountability in climate change governance Bangkok, New York, London, Brussels ? Half of participants leave these pre Copenhagen conferences despondent, the other half proclaim that some progress had been made. However, lacking significant information about the substance of the discussions, it is virtually impossible, for the ordinary citizen, to make informed choices about who to support, who and what to query, or who to ask for changes to their positions. With many people around the world, and first and foremost the poorest, beginning to feel the heat, or water rising in their house, the accountability gap between decision makers and people affected by climate change seems to widen to an unbridgeable gulf. The accountability challenges associated with global climate governance broadly appear to fall into three categories: complexity, transparency, and delivery. First, the existing global governance architecture appears overly complex and inefficient in addressing a challenge such as climate change. Despite some dedicated institutions such as the UNFCCC, a plethora of intergovernmental organisations with overlapping interests are joined by nation-states that still wield greatest decision making power on global affairs. Corporate actors, civil society and the media play a recognised and important role in the process but the outcome of negotiations continues to be primarily driven by the balance of power between states. Second, transparency is rare currency in the decision making about strategies, policy and the actual implementation of programmes that would transform the basis of economic development and growth from extraction, use and emission of carbon, to one built on more sustainable sources of energy and livelihoods. Despite frequently referencing the same body of scientific evidence, different interpreters arrive at hugely varying policy propositions, and it is often unclear how the transition from evidence to policy works within different organisations. Crucially, this is not a problem of one sector alone. Third, actual delivery on policy and programmes to reduce emissions and align economies with a paradigm of sustainability will require significant adaptation in all countries. Yet many states define their positions based on interest in national economic growth, and legislative processes frequently rely on narrow cost-benefit analyses. These are poor bases for achieving the visionary global policy solutions that the world needs now. Delivery on policies that effectively protect the climate as a global public good for the benefit of citizens worldwide is dependent on a joint direction of travel and agreement about common aims. Mending the current disjuncture between those involved in the policy formation, negotiating and decision making process, and the citizens who are most vulnerable to climate change is thus to a significant extent a matter of closing the accountability gap in global climate governance. Accountability on its own will not be sufficient to adequately address the climate change challenge. It is however a fundamental and necessary condition for building a socially and environmentally effective global climate governance system that delivers for people. James Peet, Miriam Vincken & Michael Hammer are involved in a research project on climate change governance at the One World Trust, for more information email jpeet at oneworldtrust.org ? ? Recent Publications Strengthening the independence and accountability of the ICC in a political world In the context of the African Union?s reaction to the indictment of the Sudanese President, and ahead of the first review conference of the Rome Statute that will take place early 2010 in Uganda where amendments to the Statute will be discussed, the One World Trust has published a new research briefing: Any good reasons to cry wolf? Understanding and strengthening independence and accountability of the International Criminal Court in a political world . The paper explores whether the ICC can strengthen its ability to demonstrate accountability and independence. It also identifies the limits to what it can do on its own to ensure its independence in a political world. The paper concludes that the ICC is subject to power and is part of a web of political accountabilities which affect the exercise of international criminal justice. Yet the ICC itself faces limitations on the choices it can make to safeguard its independence as is not solely in control of the accountability relationships to which it is tied. The paper closes with four propositions for how the ICC can strengthen its accountability and independence. Responding to NGO development effectiveness initiatives Next week, the One World Trust, in partnership with World Vision, will publish a briefing paper entitled ?Responding to NGO Development Effectiveness Initiatives?. The paper aims to give some insight into the use and usefulness of various NGO self-regulation initiatives, in the development and humanitarian sectors, for developing effectiveness and accountability. It provides a picture of existing self-regulation efforts at international and national level in the global North; their principles, content, and compliance mechanisms; and reflects on the way in which NGOs may wish to engage with initiatives or to improve effectiveness by using the best and most relevant parts for their organisation?s purpose. This briefing paper is part of a series produced by the One World Trust?s project on civil society self-regulation. The objective is to generate discussion on current debates aimed at strengthening the legitimacy and performance of civil society organisations. The briefing paper will be available on our website next week on: http:// www.oneworldtrust.org/csoproject/cso/resources. Back to top ? Project news Accountability Principles for Research Organisations (APRO) The One World Trust team has started the first of a series of seven workshops developing accountability tools for research organisations. These workshops form the core element of a research project and are intended to 'crash-test' the framework and principles already developed in the project's first phase. Workshops are being conducted in partnerships with organisations based in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and will continue until December. They will explore how accountability can make research more effective in their research and policy-work, as well as being more ethical, through investigating how research organisations can balance stakeholders better. To see more about the project and the partners, please visit the project webpage. Global Accountability Report (GAR) All of the Global Accountability Report methodology review workshops have now been completed. Events were held in Geneva, London and Washington with representation from across the nongovernmental, intergovernmental and corporate sectors, from the likes of Anglo American, IMF, ActionAid International, OECD, HSBC and Catholic Relief Services among many others. Thank you to all the participants for their valuable feedback and to the World Bank, EBRD and World Vision International for their generous support in providing meeting space and covering catering costs. The next steps in the methodology review will be an online survey sent out to all assessed organisations and a number of key stakeholders to gather further feedback on the Report and an online forum for a wider group of stakeholders to provide comments and reflections on our efforts in assessing accountability. Both will take place in November and December. Rob Lloyd, the Projects Manager, was in Berlin on 14 -17 October presenting at the Transparency International National Members Meeting on trends in NGO accountability and patterns in CSO self-regulation. Rob was also in Pisa on 29 -30 October presenting on the drivers of NGO accountability at a conference organised by Agenzia Italiana Responsa Emergencenze on partnership between the profit and non- profit sectors in the delivery of development aid. Self-regulatory Initiatives (SRI) ? The One World Trust?s Civil Society Self-regulation portal has forged new links with CIVICUS? Civil Society Index programme with the aim of pooling our resources and collaborating on future publications. Our shared goal is to increase the strength and effectiveness of civil society organisations by making information available to a wider range of stakeholders. The CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI) is a participatory needs assessment and action planning tool for civil society around the world, with the aim of creating a knowledge base and momentum for civil society strengthening initiatives. The CSI is initiated and implemented by, and for, civil society organizations at the country level, and actively involves, and disseminates its findings, to a broad range of stakeholders including: government, donors, academics and the public at large. There is also a CSI blog featuring updates and articles on the progress of the programme. One World Trust welcomed a new intern Miriam Vincken has recently completed an MSc programme in European Public Policy at University College London. She did her Abitur in Germany and spent an Erasmus year at Helsinki University as part as her BA degree course in Politics. She subsequently worked as an intern for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in their office in Jakarta, for the GTZ on Lombok on their project on the political and economic empowerment of women in Asia and for the German Embassy in London. At the One World Trust, Miriam will be contributing to our work on the accountability of climate change governance. Back to top ? Accountability in practice: NGO certification in Paraguay Following a 35-year dictatorship, Paraguay has seen a resurgence of civil society organisations since the early nineties. This was facilitated by a new civil code that allowed for non-profit organisations to have legal recognition without presidential authorization for the first time. However, in recent years, there have been concerns for the accountability and transparency of the sector. Thus, many organisations have felt the need to distance themselves from opportunistic NGOs who use their non profit status to gain financial advantage and from scandals concerning the mismanagement of public funds. One initiative designed to address these concerns is the Evaluation System of Organisational Development (SEDO) developed by the School of Organisations for Social Development , an umbrella group that represents 25 Paraguayan development NGOs. SEDO is a certification and assessment tool for development organisations which focuses on the analysis of four organisational areas: transparency, management, impact and legality. The assessment is made using in-depth interviews, observation and document revision. Assessed organisations get a final score which determines their level of compliance with these standards using the following categories: institutionalised, established, emerging, rising and without qualification. The system also aims to become a guide for institutional capacity building. So far ten organisations have been assessed and certified and the school is planning to develop a shorter version of the tool, so it can be applied by smaller organisations with less resources. The college also intends for self-regulation to help them with their relations with the Paraguayan government who have recently imposed new tax legislation declaring that NGOs now have to pay income tax if they profit from any activity. This has seen by many as a restriction to their self-sufficiency as it forces NGOs to depend on external funding. To find out about other civil society self-regulation initiatives please visit: www.oneworldtrust.org/csoproject/ Back to top ? Accountability news Debate for nuclear armament shows increasing dynamics The opening of a conference at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on peaceful use of nuclear energy technology in the 21st century on 28 October confirms the renewed dynamics in the debate about risks and options for the use of nuclear technology. In a key resolution (S/RES/1887 (2009) ) the UN Security Council reaffirmed in September its commitment to nuclear disarmament and the importance of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a prime tool to contain the spread of nuclear arms technology and combat the risk of nuclear terrorism while emphasizing the need to enable access to the civil use of nuclear technology for countries wishing to do so. The resolution follows a significant effort by the US President Obama to bring back dynamics into the debate about nuclear disarmament including with his key speech on the subject of global security and nuclear disarmament in Prague on 5 April 2009. Beginning of US senate cimate change Bill hearings The US Senate on 27th October launched three days of hearings on the US Climate Change Bill. Day One and Day Two of the hearings have shown concerns about the bill and make its successful implementation before Copenhagen doubtful. Day Three , the final day of the hearings, showed the possibility of a group of Republicans boycotting upcoming committee work sessions, which would delay approval of the US Climate Change Bill. Republicans are mainly concerned the Bill could result in higher unemployment rates and higher consumer prices as a result of industry being forced to use more expensive alternative energy sources. However, progress made by the US on legislation and commitments to cut its own carbon emissions are widely seen as an important element in the search for a global agreement on binding targets. New accreditation for Islamic organisations in the US A new accreditation scheme tailored for Muslim groups has been initiated by the charity wing of the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The BBB has partnered with Muslim Advocates, a legal organization based in San Francisco, to create the Muslim Charities Accreditation Program, which evaluates nonprofits and trains leaders on compliance with the government?s legal and financial rules. MCAP requires participants of the program to comply with 20 Standards for Charity Accountability that require a verifiable demonstration that they meet basic standards in: governance, financial stewardship, truthfulness and transparency. Those involved in the accreditation program hope it will help allow many Muslim groups to move past the mistrust that has come to define their post-9/11 relationship with the federal government. In its first month three American charities completed the program and received accreditation. Seventeen other charities have enrolled in the program and nearly 150 groups have attended free legal and financial seminars hosted by Muslim Advocates and its partners around the country. Back to top This email was sent to dnevrghm at powerup.com.au. You can unsubscribe here One World Trust - 3 Whitehall Court, London, SW1A 2EL, Tel 020 7766 3471 www.oneworldtrust.org | Charity no. 210180 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: header-logo.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4930 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spacer.gif Type: image/gif Size: 45 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: bg-horiz-spacer.gif Type: image/gif Size: 98 bytes Desc: not available URL: From creuss at bluewin.ch Mon Nov 2 04:50:42 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:50:42 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] =?utf-8?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s_Copenhagen_plot_-_Wor?= =?utf-8?q?ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= Message-ID: > to reconcile humankind with itself and with its external > context on Earth? And who can do it and how? Quinn's gorilla, perhaps? Cheers, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Mon Nov 2 09:09:58 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:09:58 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] Halifax Initiative: October Issue Update on the international Fianance system & its institutions Message-ID: <4AEEDA26.25510.671BC581@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:23:09 -0500 From: Fraser Reilly-King To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: FYI: October Issue Update on the international financial system and its institutions Volume IV, Number 10 - October 30, 2009 | Issue Updates on-line | Subscribe | DONATE Every month, the Halifax Initiative produces a brief monthly update on various issues related to the international financial system and its institutions (namely the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and export credit agencies). This month: 1. Experts address missing pieces of crisis response ahead of Canadian 2010 G8 / G2- meeting 2. Private Member's bill fills accountability gap 3. Increased lending leaves World Bank short by 2010 4. Notice Board, new publications and upcoming events JUST THE FACTS: Principles for a more democratic and inclusive G20? DONATE on-line today to help support the work of the Halifax Initiative. 1. Experts address missing pieces of crisis response ahead of Canadian 2010 G8/G20 meeting On October 19th and 20th the Halifax Initiative co-hosted a conference with The North-South Institute and the University of Ottawa on "What?s missing in the response to the global financial crisis?" The conference sought to engage the Canadian government in discussions with national and international academics, activists and policy-makers ahead of next year?s G8/G20. The conference touched upon a range of issues related to the causes of the crisis, policy and regulatory remedies, governance of the international financial institutions, tax havens and unfettered private capital flows, an emerging debt crisis, alternatives to the renewal of the Doha trade round, and the respective roles of the United Nations and G20. A policy brief with clear recommendations for the government is forthcoming. Debates around governance of the global economy and the sustainability of the new G20 came across as a central focus of many of the discussions. A week after the meeting, the Halifax Initiative was invited to appear before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, where it spoke to the principles that might guide a more democratic and representative G20 (See JUST THE FACTS). A representative of the G8/20 2010 CSO Coordinating Committee presented the civil society platform for 2010. What?s missing in the response to the global financial crisis? http://halifaxinitiative.info/content/conference-whats-missing- response-... Presentation to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on the G8-G20 http://halifaxinitiative.info/content/presentation-SCFAID-g8-g20-2010 The 2010 G8 Muskoka Summit - an Agenda for Global Development (CSO Platform) http://halifaxinitiative.info/content/2010-g8-muskoka-summit-agenda- global-development | Back to top | 2. Private member?s bill fills accountability gap This month, the Halifax Initiative?s Program Officer provided testimony on Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries (see IU February 2009), before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. The Bill requires that extractive companies meet social, environmental and human rights standards in order to become eligible for EDC support. The legislation also creates a complaints mechanism that allows for the investigation of alleged cases of corporate non-compliance. In 2008, Export Development Canada supported over $27 billion worth of exports and investments in the extractive sector. The overseas activities of Canadian mining, oil and gas operations are often associated with adverse social and environmental impacts. Yet EDC lacks an effective human rights policy. Moreover, while EDC relies on the IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles for its environmental and social due diligence, the Crown corporation is under no obligation to apply these standards or to sanction clients that fail to comply. HI presentation to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on Bill C-300 http://halifaxinitiative.info/content/presentation-SCFAID-bill-c-300 | Back to top | 3. Increased lending leaves World Bank short by 2010 Ahead of the Annual Meetings in Turkey, Bank President Zoellick made a desperate plea for additional resources for the World Bank Group, whose lending is up substantially this year in response to the global financial crisis. While the International Development Association (IDA) received a record replenishment of its resources in 2008, the financial crisis has meant that much of IDA?s resources have been frontloaded. IDA lending to low income countries is up by a quarter (to $14 bn), and Bank lending to middle-income countries has tripled (to $33 bn). This has left the agency with the prospect of running short of money by mid-2010. While the Development Committee has asked Zoellick to assess the Bank?s financing needs by Spring 2010 before it considers any capital increase for the institution, UK Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said the UK - IDA?s biggest contributor - won?t listen to the Bank?s pleas for more money until it increases its cash disbursements to Africa (which have declined by $500 mn in the last year), and cuts some of the conditions imposed on poor countries. The US, Canada and France have also called for further evidence of how the Bank will improve its management and use of resources before approving any capital increase. China and Brazil backed the increase. The next replenishment for IDA isn?t scheduled until 2011, although negotiations among governments begin early next year. | Back to top | 4. Notice Board This month: At the Bank and IMF?s meetings in Istanbul, Jim Flaherty was named Euromoney?s Finance Minister of the Year. http://www.fin.gc.ca/n08/09- 096-eng.asp The government appointed Dr. Marketa Evans, former Executive Director of the Munk Centre for International Studies, as the first Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Counselor for the Extractive Sector. The new position, announced in March as part of the government?s response to the National Roundtables on CSR (see IU 3, 2009), has been criticized by Canadian civil society. The announcement comes just prior to a joint civil society-industry conference on corporate accountability (see "Upcoming Events"), in which the government has declined to participate. Suzanne Hurtubise has been appointed as the new Executive Director for Canada and Morocco at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The World Bank has released its new draft disclosure policy. While the policy includes a positive shift towards a presumption in favour of disclosure, civil society groups continue to raise concerns regarding implementation, board transparency and the strength of the appeals function. The policy comes into effect in January 2010. Toward Greater Transparency through Access to Information, http://tinyurl.com/ylz3w2n Twenty-one months after signing the charter that established the Bank of the South, (see IU 11, 2007), on Monday, 28 September 2009, the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela signed the Bank?s Articles of Agreement. The articles establish provisions around capital investments ($7 billion), voting (one country, one vote up to $70 mn, then in proportion to country capital subscriptions), tax and legal considerations, and how the bank functions. Nine countries that make up the ALBA (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent, Antigua and Barbuda) agreed to create a Single System of Regional Compensation (SUCRE), a regional currency that would be used as of 2010 for commercial exchanges among ALBA countries. The currency is an attempt to gradually reduce these countries? dependence on the US dollar. ALBA promotes economic and trade cooperation and integration within Latin American and the Caribbean. | Back to top | New Publications "A General Financial Transaction Tax: A Short Cut of the Pros, the Cons and a Proposal", Stephan Schulmeister, WIFO Working Papers - no 344/2009, October 2009, http://www.wifo.ac.at/wwa/jsp/index.jsp?fid=23923&id=37001&typeid=8&di sp... "Banking it right - The "protect, respect and remedy" framework applied to bank operations", BankTrack, October, 2009, http://www.banktrack.org/download/banktrack_submission_to_the_ohchr_co ns... | Back to top | Upcoming Events Up to the Challenge: a Multi-Stakeholder Conference on Corporate Accountability in Canada?s Extractive Industries Operating Abroad, Ottawa, November 3, 2009. G20 Finance Ministers Meeting, St. Andrews, November 6-7, 2009. | Back to top | Principles for a more democratic and inclusive G20? This month, African leaders asked for a seat for poor countries at the G20 table, and the Association of South East Asian Nations proposed sending its chair and Secretary General to the G20 meetings. At next year?s G20, Canada could initiate a process to transform this new global governance structure into a forum that models democratic and transparent policy and decision-making. What might the principles be that guide this? Limited in size, but representative in composition - A "G20" isn?t a bad idea in principle. In past years, various entities have underscored the need for a global council to help govern the global economy. The 1995 Commission on Global Governance, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, French President Jacques Chirac, and even the recent UN Commission of Experts on the global financial and economic crisis have all flagged the need for such a mechanism. But a forum of world leaders handpicked by the powerful will have no global or public credibility. The initiative should include 20 to 29 countries, with representatives nominated by the members of regional multilateral bodies, whose spokespeople would rotate on a periodic basis. Inclusive of the poorest countries - Brazil, India, China and South Africa have emerged as important new players. But South Africa cannot be expected, nor entrusted, to speak effectively to Sub-Saharan Africa?s agenda. South Africa?s political and economic realities and needs are very different from those of economies with less diversified economies. These countries have high debt loss, a narrower range of exports, a weaker industrial base, larger rural populations, greater dependence on external resources such as aid, and weak governance and regulatory systems. By adopting the more representative forum outlined above, Canada would set the stage for addressing a more comprehensive agenda. Providing voices for civil society - Non-state actors are increasingly important players in multilateral organizations. Civil society analysis, critiques, proposals and protest have positively impacted governments? understanding of the issues, methods of work and the policy agenda. Engaging civil society is key to democratic process, and has become a central element of a range of discussions within different fora. Formalizing a process for engaging civil society within the G20 process would be an important step forward. This can take the form of expert working groups involving a range of stakeholders that could make formal submissions to the G20 for consideration. Transparency of process and accountability for decisions - Ironically, the financial crisis - a crisis whose origins can be linked to a lack of transparency in financial institutions - has given renewed vigour to a set of institutions which are neither transparent nor accountable. A leaders? G20 should publish agendas and background documents on public websites ahead of their meetings. A more representative G20 should also be a first step towards an effective and representative leaders? summit process within the framework of the United Nations - which would strengthen the broader multilateral system - contributing reports from G20 discussions to the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. Presentation to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on the G8-G20 http://halifaxinitiative.info/content/presentation-SCFAID-g8-g20-2010 | Back to top | Canadian NGOs formed the Halifax Initiative in December 1994 to ensure that demands for fundamental reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs), namely the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, were high on the agenda of the Group of 7's 1995 Summit in Halifax. We are a coalition of development, environment, faith-based, human rights and labour groups, and the Canadian presence for public interest work on the IFIs. Our core funders are the C.S. Mott Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, the International Development Research Centre, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and Coalition members. Sign-Up to automatically receive our Issue Update newsletter each month. ------- End of forwarded message ------- Attachments: C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$24E1.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$0852.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$2D8E.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$5B5A.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$41E2.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$215B.PM$ C:\DOCUME~1\JANETM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WPM$1A30.PM$ ------- End of forwarded message ------- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WPM$145F.PM$ Type: application/octet-stream Size: 13858 bytes Desc: Mail message body URL: From netcfs at shaw.ca Mon Nov 2 14:52:23 2009 From: netcfs at shaw.ca (Yves Bajard) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:52:23 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?utf-8?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s_Copenhagen_plot_-_Wor?= =?utf-8?q?ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1257202343.7361.23.camel@localhost> To some degree, I would hope that Chris Reuss, instead of two lines of sarcasm, might contribute constructively to the question I raised. Quinn's Gorilla is completely out of teh subject. Regards Yves ' sarcasm, which is (1) unfoudned on anything and (2) not conmtructive atg all. Le lundi 02 novembre 2009 ? 13:50 +0100, Christoph Reuss a ?crit : > > to reconcile humankind with itself and with its external > > context on Earth? And who can do it and how? > > Quinn's gorilla, perhaps? > > Cheers, > Chris > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword > "igve". > > > _______________________________________________ > Mai-not mailing list > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dnevrghm at powerup.com.au Mon Nov 2 23:10:49 2009 From: dnevrghm at powerup.com.au (Doug Everingham) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:10:49 +1000 Subject: [Mai-not] =?windows-1252?q?Beware_the_UN=92s_Copenhagen_plot_-_Wo?= =?windows-1252?q?rld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: <1257121667.7816.42.camel@localhost> References: <10C787EA-A9D7-4C20-BA76-CC6F46C1E889@powerup.com.au> <1257121667.7816.42.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <6B5D495B-2877-445E-AD25-254D89AC9327@powerup.com.au> Thanks for your query, Yves. I am ready to note and judge all positive proposals for a fairer, more sustainble world, and to discuss altenatives and caveats, including moves for multilateral simultaneous national laws arrived at by growing consensus of world citizens in groups such as www.simpol.org . ? Doug Everingham. ==== On 02/11/2009, at 10:27 AM, Yves Bajard wrote: > Excuse me for interfering, but what do you expect the governments > of any country on this planet to do at the conference in > Copenhagen, or for all that matters, all ort ny institutions that > are part of the current socio-economic, political and cultural > system to do at any place and any time on climate change or any > other syndrome of our growing non-sustainability to do, beyond > smoke and mirrors, or other fluff? > > Have you asked yourself whether or not these organizations were at > any degree or level at all compatible with the task that need to be > undertaken to reconcile humankind with itself and with its external > context on Earth? And who can do it and how? > > Yves Bajard > > > > > > > Le dimanche 01 novembre 2009 ? 16:56 +1000, Doug Everingham a ?crit : >> Relayed by Doug Everingham. >> ==== >> From: johnbursill at gmail.com >> Subject: Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot - World Government? The >> Australian >> Date: 28 October 2009 5:11:02 PM >> >> >> Hello all, >> >> >> I've been watching this issue and I think this article is a good >> sign that some "heat" may arrive for the MMGW summit that is >> really a power grab for the elite, regardless of the science! >> >> >> From the Australian: >> >> >> Beware the UN?s Copenhagen plot >> >> >> >> >> Janet Albrechtsen Blog | October 28, 2009 | 170 Comments >> >> >> SHAME on us all: on us in the media and on our politicians. >> Despite thousands of news reports, interviews, analyses, critiques >> and commentaries from journalists, what has the inquiring, >> intellectually sceptical media told us about the potential details >> of a Copenhagen treaty? And despite countless speeches, addresses, >> interviews, doorstops, moralising sermons from government >> ministers, pleas from Canberra for an outcome at Copenhagen, >> opposition criticism of government policy, what have our elected >> representatives told us about the potential details of a >> Copenhagen treaty? >> >> >> With just over 40 days until more than 15,000 officials, advisers, >> diplomats, activists and journalists from more than 190 countries >> attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, we know >> nothing. Nothing about a climate change treaty that the Rudd >> government is keen to sign and one that will bind this country for >> years to come. >> >> >> Of course, there is no final treaty as yet. That is what they are >> hoping to finalise in Copenhagen. But there are 181 pages that >> make up the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change dated >> September 15, 2009: a rough draft of what could be signed in >> Copenhagen. And yet, not one member of the media or political >> class has bothered to inform us about its contents as an important >> clue to what may happen in Copenhagen. The shame of that state of >> affairs started to trickle in last week. >> >> >> Emails started arriving telling me about a speech given by >> Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at >> Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14. Monckton >> talked about something that no one has talked about in the lead-up >> to Copenhagen: the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty. >> >> >> Even after Monckton?s speech, most of the media has duly ignored >> the substance of what he said. You don?t need me to find his St >> Paul address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan >> Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of >> the Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational >> government on a scale the world has never before seen. Listening >> to the interview, my teenage daughters asked me whether this was >> true. >> >> >> So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page >> 18. Monckton says: ?This is the first time I?ve ever seen any >> transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under >> that treaty as a government. But it?s the powers that are going to >> be given to this entirely unelected government that are so >> frightening.? >> >> >> Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in >> this new world government only when a friend of his found an >> obscure UN website and hacked his way through several layers of >> complications before coming across a document that isn?t even >> called the draft treaty. It?s called a ?note by the secretariat?. >> The moment he saw it, he went public and said: ?Look, this is an >> outrage ... they have kept the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.? >> >> >> Monckton says the aim of this new government is to have power to >> directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and >> environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen >> treaty. >> >> >> In a sense, countries that sign international treaties always cede >> powers to a UN body responsible for implementing the treaty >> obligations. But the difference is that we usually understand the >> details of the obligations and the power ceded. >> >> >> Now read the 181-page draft treaty. It is impossible to fully >> understand the convoluted UN verbiage. Yet even those >> incomprehensible clauses point to some nasty surprises that no >> politician has told us about. For example, Monckton says the >> drafters want this new world government to have control over once >> free markets: the financial and trading markets of nation-states. >> ?The sheer ambition of this new world government is enormous right >> from the start; that?s even before it starts accreting powers to >> itself in the way that these entities inevitably always do,? he says. >> >> >> The reason for that power grab is clear enough from the draft >> treaty. Clause after complicated clause sets out the requirement >> that developed countries such as Australia pay their ?adaptation >> debt? to developing countries. Clause 33 on page 39 says that by >> 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in >> developing countries must be at least $US67 billion ($73bn), or in >> the range of $US70bn to $US140bn a year. >> >> >> How developed countries will pay is far from clear. The draft text >> sets out various alternatives, including Option 7 on page 135, >> which provides for ?a (global) levy of 2 per cent on international >> financial market (monetary) transactions to Annex I Parties?. This >> means industrialised countries such as Australia, if we sign. >> >> >> Monckton?s warning to Americans that ?in the next few weeks, >> unless you stop it, your President will sign your freedom, your >> democracy and your prosperity away forever? is colourful. But no >> more colourful than the language used by those who preach about >> the perils of climate change and the virtues of a hard-hitting >> Copenhagen treaty. >> >> >> Put aside Monckton?s comments. Ask yourself this: why has our >> government failed to explain the possible text of a treaty it >> wants Australia to sign? There has been no address from any Rudd >> minister to explain the draft treaty. No 3000-word essay from the >> thoughtful PM. No speech in parliament. No interview. No press >> release. Nothing. >> >> >> Presumably the hard-working Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has >> read the 181-page draft text. Presumably our central control and >> command PM has been briefed about the draft text. In Germany a few >> months ago, Kevin Rudd complained about the lack of ?detailed >> programmatic specificity? going into the Copenhagen talks. Yet the >> draft text provides much detailed specificity about obligations on >> developed nations to transfer millions of dollars to developing >> countries under formulas to be set down by an unelected body. So >> why the silence? Are they hiding the details of this deal from us >> because most of the polls now suggest that action on climate >> change is becoming politically unpalatable? >> >> >> And what explains the media?s failure to report and analyse the >> only source document that offers any idea of what may happen in >> Copenhagen? Ignorance? Laziness? Stubborn adherence to the >> orthodox government line that a deal in Copenhagen is critical? An >> obsession with the politics of climate change rather than policy? >> >> >> At least we have heard from Monckton. He told Jones there had >> already been a million hits on the link to his St Paul address. >> ?So the message in America is now out ... Now you know about it >> and you need to spread the word.? >> >> >> Perhaps now our PM and our Climate Change Minister can spare a few >> moments to tell us about the details they know about but have so >> far chosen not to tell us about. >> >> >> Link - http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/ >> index.php/theaustralian/comments/beware_the_uns_copenhagen_plot/ >> >> >> Thanks to Bruce for the link! >> >> >> -- >> 9/11 24/7 until justice! >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Mai-not mailing list >> Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >> http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > _______________________________________________ > Mai-not mailing list > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From creuss at bluewin.ch Tue Nov 3 01:28:01 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:28:01 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] =?utf-8?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s_Copenhagen_plot_-_Wor?= =?utf-8?q?ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= Message-ID: > To some degree, I would hope that Chris Reuss, instead of two lines of > sarcasm, might contribute constructively to the question I raised. > Quinn's Gorilla is completely out of teh subject. You know my stance: As long as Predators are in power, discussing "measures" is as meaningless as re-arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. And the so-called "environmental" organizations are led by Predators, creating a situation of the fox guarding the hen-house. In my neck of the woods, these a--holes even greenwash deforestation on an EU scale (and of course they push for EU accession ASAP) while forking in donations "to save the planet"! Quinn's gorilla is pertinent because it's a typical example of Predator nonsense in the "environmental" debate. Predators turn everything into a fraud and rip-off -- even the debate about climate change, the emissions trade schemes, etc. Predators have hijacked society globally. If you want to get back to a sustainable course, you have to disempower the Predators first and put Producers to the cockpit. Regards, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From siamdave at yahoo.ca Tue Nov 3 02:27:07 2009 From: siamdave at yahoo.ca (Dave Patterson) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:27:07 +0700 Subject: [Mai-not] =?us-ascii?Q?Re:__Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s_?= Copenhagen plot - Wor ld Government? The Australian In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200911031727070515.003C65AB@smtp.totisp.net> - that's basically my position on things too - the only thing that people who understand the situation should be thinking about is how to get the predator class behind bars somewhere, and create some kind of effective 'we the people' democracy. All else is little more than rearranging the deck chairs, to use an old but quite true analogy, as the iceberg looms overhead. Sharing ideas and talking about things insofar as some people are learning from them is fine - but until we get rid of the 'real' rulers, all discussion is spinning the wheels whilst the real work remains undone. IMO. Actually, insofar as more intelligent trolls get involved with 'progresive' groups and keep the discussions carefully away from anything actually dangerous to the rulers, such discussions can be counter-productive. It's not something a lot of people appear to understand. (not pointing any fingers at MAI-not, which has served as a good vehicle for discussion, with no pretence at doing anything else, mostly.. there are many websites which call themselves 'progressive' however which seem to be determined to keep any discussions or stories well clear of anything that might actually endanger the rulers...) *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 09-11-03 at 10:28 AM creuss at bluewin.ch wrote: > To some degree, I would hope that Chris Reuss, instead of two lines of > sarcasm, might contribute constructively to the question I raised. > Quinn's Gorilla is completely out of teh subject. You know my stance: As long as Predators are in power, discussing "measures" is as meaningless as re-arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. And the so-called "environmental" organizations are led by Predators, creating a situation of the fox guarding the hen-house. In my neck of the woods, these a--holes even greenwash deforestation on an EU scale (and of course they push for EU accession ASAP) while forking in donations "to save the planet"! Quinn's gorilla is pertinent because it's a typical example of Predator nonsense in the "environmental" debate. Predators turn everything into a fraud and rip-off -- even the debate about climate change, the emissions trade schemes, etc. Predators have hijacked society globally. If you want to get back to a sustainable course, you have to disempower the Predators first and put Producers to the cockpit. Regards, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Mai-not mailing list Mai-not at globalproblematique.net http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.46/2477 - Release Date: 11/02/09 19:39:00 From thinker at xplornet.com Tue Nov 3 06:47:10 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:47:10 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?iso-8859-1?q?Beware_the_UN=E2=80=99s__Copenhagen_plot?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_-_Wor_ld_Government=3F_The_Australian?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091103144630.CFBEC22333E4@smtprelay01.hostedemail.com> History's predator classes have always been legalized by twisted around religious theories and their priesthoods. As we now have with so called "economists", planning, legalizing and executing the biggest crime waves against the environment and humanity, licenced by the Money God. Cheers, Ed. At 01:28 AM 03/11/2009, you wrote: > > To some degree, I would hope that Chris Reuss, instead of two lines of > > sarcasm, might contribute constructively to the question I raised. > > Quinn's Gorilla is completely out of teh subject. > >You know my stance: As long as Predators are in power, discussing "measures" >is as meaningless as re-arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. And the >so-called "environmental" organizations are led by Predators, creating a >situation of the fox guarding the hen-house. In my neck of the woods, these >a--holes even greenwash deforestation on an EU scale (and of course they >push for EU accession ASAP) while forking in donations "to save the planet"! > >Quinn's gorilla is pertinent because it's a typical example of Predator >nonsense in the "environmental" debate. Predators turn everything into a >fraud and rip-off -- even the debate about climate change, the emissions >trade schemes, etc. > >Predators have hijacked society globally. If you want to get back to a >sustainable course, you have to disempower the Predators first and put >Producers to the cockpit. > >Regards, >Chris > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword >"igve". > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.423 / Virus Database: 270.14.46/2477 - Release Date: >11/02/09 19:39:00 From siamdave at yahoo.ca Tue Nov 3 09:45:19 2009 From: siamdave at yahoo.ca (Dave Patterson) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:45:19 +0700 Subject: [Mai-not] memorable lines .... In-Reply-To: <200911031727070515.003C65AB@smtp.totisp.net> References: <200911031727070515.003C65AB@smtp.totisp.net> Message-ID: <200911040045190531.01CD94DB@smtp.totisp.net> - William Shatner, in Boston Legal - "I've had my head up corporate America's ass for so long the whole world looks like the inside of a colon ..." I'm pretty selective with what I spend my few minutes a day relaxing with a series or something on DVD while I consume my soup or whatever, but this one's ok .... From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Tue Nov 3 12:11:20 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:11:20 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fw: [S] Toxic Contaminants: The Other Scourge Message-ID: <006d01ca5cc1$cf670840$21ad57ca@jfos> ENVIRONMENT-AUSTRALIA: Toxic Contaminants: The Other Scourge By Neena Bhandari Jeanette Wright, 51, five months after she was diagnosed with mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos / Credit:Neena Bhandari/IPS http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49102 SYDNEY, Nov 2 (IPS) - As the world focuses on the impact of climate change, little attention is being paid to yet another environmental bane: increasing contamination of air, water and soil. The combined effects of this environmental scourge have contributed to global epidemics of cancers, lung and other degenerative diseases, and costing health systems across the world millions of dollars, experts say. Forty-two years after she was exposed to asbestos in the Pambula beach hamlet, 470 kilometres south of Sydney, Jeanette Hennessy Wright, 51, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in July 2008. "Asbestos was used in the construction of my neighbour's house while I helped my parents make additions to our own home with fibro sheets that contained asbestos too," explains Wright. Two years ago, she began to "feel breathlessness while walking uphill and couldn't keep up with friends," she says. After X-rays, a needle biopsy followed by a surgical biopsy, I was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer associated with breathing in asbestos dust and fibres. Being afflicted with the disease is seen as an immediate death sentence, as victims die within 12 to 24 months. "My tumour was too far advanced for surgery, but was growing, stifling my breathing and sapping energy levels. I underwent chemotherapy for nine months and one year on, I am in much better health. However, I have had to quit a regular public service job as pain comes with a vengeance anytime, and the side effects of chemotherapy have led to hearing loss and numbness in my feet," Wright further recounts. She reckons that, unknowingly, builders and many people like her have been exposed to asbestos, which was widely used in construction during the 1960s and 1970s. "Many holiday homes on Australia's beaches were built using Fibrous Asbestos Cement, and owners renovating them now could be exposed to deadly particles. It is a time-bomb ticking for young families as the disease can take 30 to 40 years to surface," she says. A research study by the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group at the University of Stirling in Scotland found mesothelioma accounted for 100 cases and directly cost Scottish National Health Service hospitals an estimated 942,038 pounds (1.540 million U.S. dollars) in 2000. The corresponding cost to Britain was at least 16 million pounds (26.174 million U.S. dollars), as official figures for diagnosed and recorded deaths from mesothelioma exceeded 1,700 a year. By 2003, around 50,000 people in Britain had died from diagnosed and recorded mesothelioma. Leading international environmental scientists that gathered during the Third International Contaminated Site Remediation conference held in the South Australian capital, Adelaide, in late September demanded urgent action to bridge the gap between research, industry and policy to tackle the mounting risk to environment and human health posed by a cocktail of toxic contaminants in the environment. "In contaminated sites we are almost always dealing with mixtures, which can be far more lethal than individual substances," says Prof Ravi Naidu, managing director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment in Adelaide. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.4 million people die each year from air pollution. Of these 1.5 million fatalities are attributed to indoor air pollution alone. Among the major contributors to such pollution are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), released by photocopiers, carpets, paint, cleaning products and office furnishings. These cause ?sick building syndrome? ? characterised by acute health and comfort effects with no identifiable illness or cause. It costs the Australian economy an estimated 12 billion Australian dollars (10.862 billion U.S. dollars) a year in healthcare and lost production. Australia is estimated to have between 80,000 and 160,000 potentially contaminated industrial sites, many of which lie close to the urban centres. The United States has around 450,000 such sites and Asia has three million. Yet many countries are still trying to solve the problem of contamination by digging up toxic waste and polluted soil and dumping it in landfill sites on the urban fringes. "When cities expand, these toxic dumps become part of the suburbs, and their contents again pose a risk to the health and safety of the community, so dig-and-dump is not the answer," Prof Naidu told IPS. Last year, Australians dumped 14.7 million electronic products in landfills, where the highly dangerous chemicals and heavy metals that they contain can leach into groundwater and cause major health hazard. For example, each TV tube could contain up to four kilograms of lead, plus toxic materials such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic. "In China, toxic metals have previously leached into groundwater, causing lead, mercury and cadmium poisoning, as well as central nervous system damage and cancer," said Dr Sunil Heart, Lecturer at the School of Engineering in Griffith University in Queensland (Australia). He has called for strict government regulations to deal with electronic waste. Experts say that with growing industrialisation, especially in heavily populated countries of Asia and the Pacific, only cleaning up contaminated sites and recycling waste and not "digging and dumping" can ensure a sustainable future. People living in both urban and rural environments around the world are likewise being exposed to toxic mixtures of heavy metals and organic chemicals such as pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), VOCs, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in their food, water, air and soil. For example, common symptoms observed in people exposed to PCBs include fatigue, headache, cough, unusual skin sores, irregular menstrual cycles and a lowered immune response. Higher levels of PCBs can damage the liver, experts say. WHO has classified PCBs as probable human carcinogens. In 2001 their production was banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty that seeks to eliminate or restrict the production and use of such pollutants. Another insidious toxic carbon-based organic compounds are POPs that can persist in the environment for long, move immense distances in air or water, can build up in human or animal fat, and can accumulate in food chains causing many forms of illness. "You cannot overcome pollution merely by moving it. You have to disable it by turning the toxic substances into forms which are completely safe, or locking them up so they become unavailable to harm anyone," said Prof Naidu. Yet another contaminant posing a grave challenge to scientists and to millions of innocent consumers around the world is the ultrafine nanoparticles, which are less than the width of a human hair and are being used in a range of industries and modern products such as toothpaste, cosmetics and sunscreens. A team of scientists led by Dr Tomas Vanek, head of Laboratory of Plant Biotechnologies, Joint Laboratory of Institute of Experimental Botany and Research Institute of Crop Production, Rozvojov? (Prague, Czech Republic), was among the first in the world to show that 'nanopollution' could harm plants. "The world needs to urgently begin preparing to regulate and, if necessary, restrict the widespread use of nanoparticles in order to safely and sustainably manage the technology," Dr Vanek said. People are also being unknowingly exposed to, and endangered by, toxic chemicals used in making of illicit drugs that find their way into soil, water and air. For example, over five kilos of toxic waste are generated for every kilo of methamphetamine produced. Environmental clean-up costs for clandestine drug laboratories range from 5,000 to 150,000 Australian dollars (4,529 to 135,897 U.S. dollars). "Clandestine manufacturers of methamphetamine typically wash toxic waste from the production of the drug down drains, or dump it untreated into the environment," said Prof Megh Mallavarapu from the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation at the University of South Australia. He explained that a drug laboratory "is often a temporary set-up, moving to different locations and abandoned without clean-up, causing contamination to escalate in the locality." Individuals exposed to methamphetamine lab contamination may experience dizziness, headaches and reactions, chemical burns, lung and nerve damage. "It is not just the concentration of heavy metals, but also the condition of the soil that determines whether or not dangerous contaminants can enter our food chain," Prof Steve McGrath of Rothamsted Research Institute in Britain told IPS. While science is helping detect, assess and clean up contamination safely and economically, perhaps it is time the world considered having a global forum on toxic contaminants similar to climate change. http://labs.daylife.com/journalist/neena_bhandari http://www.cleanupconference.com/index.htm http://www.aussmc.org/emergingpollutants.php The Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR) www.unisa.edu.au/cerar/ OCCUPATIONAL & ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/oeh/ Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants http://chm.pops.int/ Rothamsted Research Association http://www.rothra.org/ http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/Research/Centres/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thinker at xplornet.com Tue Nov 3 19:06:11 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:06:11 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 Message-ID: <20091104030533.B949D1F7F9D9@smtprelay01.hostedemail.com> Fiat lux # 243 Oct.30, 2009 Anybody who's ever tried to read history with an open mind, ignoring the usual jingoistic nonsense about "sacred countries" and conquering heroes, must know that apart from few and short term exceptions, the world has always been ruled by criminals and certifiable nutcases. Especially when it comes to the history of empires. And never has this been more valid and visible, than it is right now, with all the horror stories happening right before our eyes. . My favourite historical whipping boy is Alexander the Great. Great ? Great for what ? Why do historians bestowe fantastic titles on some of the biggest jerks and bloodthirsty criminals, when the only things they deserved would have been straightjackets, or ropes around their necks. After reaching Afghanistan and India, destroying cities and killing thousands in the quest to spread the borders of his short lived empire, Alexander croaked at the age of 33, saving endless numbers from misery and destruction, had he lived even a few years more. And what happened to his empire? Fell apart within about five minutes after his death, and I don't think too many have shed any tears. Attila the Hun, thankfully also departed from this world at a relatively early age, saving the lives of many thousands ,yet he is still celebrated as a national hero in my native Hungary, although he wasn't even a Magyar. The Huns terrorized the then known world from China to Europe for hundreds of years, today nobody really knows who, or what they were? Most European countries have at one time been empires, either enslaving their neighbours, or colonizing far away continents, now they're overpopulated disaster areas that can not even feed themselves without handouts, or thievery from others. Just as future generations will never understand how and why we now have American military bases in 170 odd countries? These examples, with hundreds more in the books, bring us back to the cold and brutal fact that wealth is the temporary control of energy that can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and the future, and that history is nothing more than the chronicle of glorified energy thefts. Where would Europe, with its fantastic palaces and art treasures, be now if there hadn't been the Americas and other continents to sack, murder and steal from? And where would our multinational mega corporations, with their multimillion dollar executives be now if some prophet hadn't invented the religion of the neoclassical market economic theory, with its priesthood licencing the sacking of the world under the guise of so called "free trade" and "globalization"? And this is where the now sacred creed of "competition" comes in, excusing the worst colonization and crimes against humanity, not with the power of the armies of past conquerors, but with imaginary capital, pulled out from the air, forcing the world to fall on their ignorant faces, sacrificing their children on the altar before its perceived power, interpreted by the priesthood of economists. It must be close to 20 years when I taped a show featuring the American mathematician/statistician/economist, W.Edwards Deming. Older people may remember the ridiculous, poor quality of the first Japanese imports. Dr.Deming who has already has made a name for himself with his work on quality production was invited by a group of Japanese industrialists to help them to improve the quality of their products and it didn't take many years before, and now, before they've jumped to the top and stayed there. Deming's advice has not been ruinous competition, but total cooperation between all segments of the economy to cut out waste and preserve human dignity. Defined in 14 points, any government with any brains should study them very carefully, before throwing more of their peoples and resources onto the sacrificial altar, honouring the insatiable demands and crimes against humanity by the multinational corporate mafia. * Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the company. * Adapt to the new philosophy of the day; industries and economics are always changing. * Build quality into a product throughout production. * End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone; instead, try a long-term relationship based on established loyalty and trust. * Work to constantly improve quality and productivity. * Institute on-the-job training. * Teach and institute leadership to improve all job functions. * Drive out fear; create trust. * Strive to reduce intradepartmental conflicts. * Eliminate exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale. * (a) Eliminate work standard quotas for production. Substitute leadership methods for improvement. * (b) Eliminate MBO. Avoid numerical goals. Alternatively, learn the capabilities of processes, and how to improve them. * Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship * Educate with self-improvement programs. * Include everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation. The funny thing is, that long before I've ever read economics, or heard of Dr. Deming, I've always paid my employees the best wages and gave them the best working conditions, because, based on my own experience as an employee in four countries, I've always maintained that happy workers are the best producers. Now tell this to today's addleheaded managers, who exploit minimum wage, part time workers on the silly advice of miseducated economists. "We can't afford to pay more, after all another .25 cents per hour would mean a whole $2. in an eight hour shift." ---------- From papadop at peak.org Tue Nov 3 20:33:56 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:33:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] The Berlin wall had to fall, but today's world is no fairer Message-ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/30/1989-capitalis Mikhail Gorbachev Guardian (London) Friday 30 October 2009 23.30 GMT Twenty years have passed since the fall of the Berlin wall, one of the shameful symbols of the cold war and the dangerous division of the world into opposing blocks and spheres of influence. Today we can revisit the events of those times and take stock of them in a less emotional and more rational way. The first optimistic observation to be made is that the announced "end of history" has not come about, though many claimed it had. But neither has the world that many politicians of my generation trusted and sincerely believed in: one in which, with the end of the cold war, humankind could finally forget the absurdity of the arms race, dangerous regional conflicts, and sterile ideological disputes, and enter a golden century of collective security, the rational use of material resources, the end of poverty and inequality, and restored harmony with nature. Another important consequence of the end of the cold war is the realisation of one of the central postulates of New Thinking: the interdependence of extremely important elements that go to the very heart of the existence and development of humankind. This involves not only processes and events occurring on different continents but also the organic linkage between changes in the economic, technological, social, demographic and cultural conditions that determine the daily existence of billions of people on our planet. In effect, humankind has started to transform itself into a single civilisation. At the same time, the disappearance of the iron curtain and barriers and borders, unexpected by many, made possible connections between countries that until recently had different political systems, as well as different civilisations, cultures and traditions. Naturally, we politicians from the last century can be proud of the fact that we avoided the danger of a thermonuclear war. However, for many millions of people around the globe, the world has not become a safer place. Quite to the contrary, innumerable local conflicts and ethnic and religious wars have appeared like a curse on the new map of world politics, creating large numbers of victims. Clear proof of the irrational behaviour and irresponsibility of the new generation of politicians is the fact that defence spending by numerous countries, large and small alike, is now greater than during the cold war, and strong-arm tactics are once again the standard way of dealing with conflicts and are a common feature of international relations. Alas, over the last few decades, the world has not become a fairer place: disparities between the rich and the poor either remained or increased, not only between the north and the developing south but also within developed countries themselves. The social problems in Russia, as in other post-communist countries, are proof that simply abandoning the flawed model of a centralised economy and bureaucratic planning is not enough, and guarantees neither a country's global competitiveness nor respect for the principles of social justice or a dignified standard of living for the population. New challenges can be added to those of the past. One of these is terrorism. In a context in which world war is no longer an instrument of deterrence between the most powerful nations, terrorism has become the "poor man's atomic bomb", not only figuratively but perhaps literally as well. The uncontrolled proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the competition between the erstwhile adversaries of the cold war to reach new technological levels in arms production, and the presence of the new pretenders to an influential role in a multipolar world all increase the sensation of chaos in global politics. The crisis of ideologies that is threatening to turn into a crisis of ideals, values and morals marks yet another loss of social reference points, and strengthens the atmosphere of political pessimism and nihilism. The real achievement we can celebrate is the fact that the 20th century marked the end of totalitarian ideologies, in particular those that were based on utopian beliefs. Yet new ideologies are quickly replacing the old ones, both in the east and the west. Many now forget that the fall of the Berlin wall was not the cause of global changes but to a great extent the consequence of deep, popular reform movements that started in the east, and the Soviet Union in particular. After decades of the Bolshevik experiment and the realisation that this had led Soviet society down a historical blind alley, a strong impulse for democratic reform evolved in the form of Soviet perestroika, which was also available to the countries of eastern Europe. But it was soon very clear that western capitalism, too, deprived of its old adversary and imagining itself the undisputed victor and incarnation of global progress, is at risk of leading western society and the rest of the world down another historical blind alley. Today's global economic crisis was needed to reveal the organic defects of the present model of western development that was imposed on the rest of the world as the only one possible; it also revealed that not only bureaucratic socialism but also ultra-liberal capitalism are in need of profound democratic reform -- their own kind of perestroika. Today, as we sit among the ruins of the old order, we can think of ourselves as active participants in the process of creating a new world. Many truths and postulates once considered indisputable, in both the east and the west, have ceased to be so, including the blind faith in the all-powerful market and, above all, its democratic nature. There was an ingrained belief that the western model of democracy could be spread mechanically to other societies with different historical experience and cultural traditions. In the present situation, even a concept like social progress, which seems to be shared by everyone, needs to be defined, and examined, more precisely. From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Tue Nov 3 19:17:06 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:17:06 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot - World Government? The Australian In-Reply-To: <200911031727070515.003C65AB@smtp.totisp.net> References: <200911031727070515.003C65AB@smtp.totisp.net> Message-ID: <20091104031706.A3920F652@fep08.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Tue Nov 3 20:59:51 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:59:51 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] The Berlin wall had to fall, but today's world is no fairer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091104045952.7F82212B03@fep06.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> Gorbachev could be called the Obama of the USSR - far too intelligent for the country he led and so circumscribed by moronic thugs that he wouldn't have had a hope in Hades of stemming its terminal decline. Dion Giles At 12:33 04/11/2009, you wrote: >http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/30/1989-capitalis > > Mikhail Gorbachev > >Guardian (London) Friday 30 October 2009 23.30 GMT > >Twenty years have passed since the fall of the Berlin wall, one of >the shameful symbols of the cold war and the dangerous division of >the world into opposing blocks and spheres of influence. Today we >can revisit the events of those times and take stock of them in a >less emotional and more rational way. > >The first optimistic observation to be made is that the announced >"end of history" has not come about, though many claimed it had. But >neither has the world that many politicians of my generation trusted >and sincerely believed in: one in which, with the end of the cold >war, humankind could finally forget the absurdity of the arms race, >dangerous regional conflicts, and sterile ideological disputes, and >enter a golden century of collective security, the rational use of >material resources, the end of poverty and inequality, and restored >harmony with nature. > >Another important consequence of the end of the cold war is the >realisation of one of the central postulates of New Thinking: the >interdependence of extremely important elements that go to the very >heart of the existence and development of humankind. This involves >not only processes and events occurring on different continents but >also the organic linkage between changes in the economic, >technological, social, demographic and cultural conditions that >determine the daily existence of billions of people on our planet. >In effect, humankind has started to transform itself into a single >civilisation. > >At the same time, the disappearance of the iron curtain and barriers >and borders, unexpected by many, made possible connections between >countries that until recently had different political systems, as >well as different civilisations, cultures and traditions. > >Naturally, we politicians from the last century can be proud of the >fact that we avoided the danger of a thermonuclear war. However, >for many millions of people around the globe, the world has not >become a safer place. Quite to the contrary, innumerable local >conflicts and ethnic and religious wars have appeared like a curse >on the new map of world politics, creating large numbers of victims. > >Clear proof of the irrational behaviour and irresponsibility of the >new generation of politicians is the fact that defence spending by >numerous countries, large and small alike, is now greater than >during the cold war, and strong-arm tactics are once again the >standard way of dealing with conflicts and are a common feature of >international relations. > >Alas, over the last few decades, the world has not become a fairer >place: disparities between the rich and the poor either remained or >increased, not only between the north and the developing south >but also within developed countries themselves. The social problems >in Russia, as in other post-communist countries, are proof that >simply abandoning the flawed model of a centralised economy and >bureaucratic planning is not enough, and guarantees neither a >country's global competitiveness nor respect for the principles of >social justice or a dignified standard of living for the population. > >New challenges can be added to those of the past. One of these is >terrorism. In a context in which world war is no longer an >instrument of deterrence between the most powerful nations, >terrorism has become the "poor man's atomic bomb", not only >figuratively but perhaps literally as well. The uncontrolled >proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the competition >between the erstwhile adversaries of the cold war to reach new >technological levels in arms production, and the presence of the new >pretenders to an influential role in a multipolar world all increase >the sensation of chaos in global politics. > >The crisis of ideologies that is threatening to turn into a crisis >of ideals, values and morals marks yet another loss of social >reference points, and strengthens the atmosphere of political >pessimism and nihilism. The real achievement we can celebrate is >the fact that the 20th century marked the end of totalitarian >ideologies, in particular those that were based on utopian beliefs. > >Yet new ideologies are quickly replacing the old ones, both in the >east and the west. Many now forget that the fall of the Berlin wall >was not the cause of global changes but to a great extent the >consequence of deep, popular reform movements that started in the >east, and the Soviet Union in particular. After decades of the >Bolshevik experiment and the realisation that this had led Soviet >society down a historical blind alley, a strong impulse for >democratic reform evolved in the form of Soviet perestroika, which >was also available to the countries of eastern Europe. > >But it was soon very clear that western capitalism, too, deprived of >its old adversary and imagining itself the undisputed victor and >incarnation of global progress, is at risk of leading western >society and the rest of the world down another historical blind alley. > >Today's global economic crisis was needed to reveal the organic >defects of the present model of western development that was imposed >on the rest of the world as the only one possible; it also revealed >that not only bureaucratic socialism but also ultra-liberal >capitalism are in need of profound democratic reform -- their own >kind of perestroika. > >Today, as we sit among the ruins of the old order, we can think of >ourselves as active participants in the process of creating a new >world. Many truths and postulates once considered indisputable, in >both the east and the west, have ceased to be so, including the >blind faith in the all-powerful market and, above all, its >democratic nature. There was an ingrained belief that the >western model of democracy could be spread mechanically to other >societies with different historical experience and cultural >traditions. In the present situation, even a concept like social >progress, which seems to be shared by everyone, needs to be defined, >and examined, more precisely. > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus >signature database 4571 (20091104) __________ > >The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. > >http://www.eset.com > > From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Tue Nov 3 21:03:48 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:03:48 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot - World Government? The Australian Message-ID: <20091104050348.A4BA712C2C@fep06.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From siamdave at yahoo.ca Tue Nov 3 21:16:52 2009 From: siamdave at yahoo.ca (Dave Patterson) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:16:52 +0700 Subject: [Mai-not] Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot - World Government? The Australian In-Reply-To: <20091104050348.A4BA712C2C@fep06.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> References: <20091104050348.A4BA712C2C@fep06.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> Message-ID: <200911041216520956.011A7A25@smtp.totisp.net> Dion, just FYI - the first one came through ok here.. dave *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 09-11-04 at 1:03 PM Dion Giles wrote: Sent a couple of hours ago. Re-sent as it hit a wall somewhere - maybe the one erected by those who have shut down NYCCAN's website. - DG I agree wholeheartedly about Dave's comment, and Chris's to which it refers. The tiny handful or people contributing to Mai-not are not a world government to institute social engineering programmes, nor would such a body be desirable especially if it merely took us all back to Brueghel's days. The best we can sensibly do is draw attention to measures that can help shift the power to make decisions to the people, and measures we can oppose which shift power away from the people. A talkfest among these few correspondents will not in itself have any social effect at all, but when mutual education is combined with the reach every one of exerts outside this little group then we can make a bit of a difference and this swapping of information and ideas helps us. Speaking of reaching out, I have just fired off the following comment (currently awaiting editors' approval) for publication in Truthout which reaches well over 2000 readers. It relates (peripherally) to an article about Honduras at http://www.truthout.org/1103093 The comments of 17:14 and 19:40 (Nov. 03 2009) address a critical issue of democracy. Referenda place power in the hands of the people. Placing decision-making power in the hands of the population to whom the decisions apply is ALWAYS more democratic than not doing so. Some American States are democratic in that citizen-initiated referenda are enshrined in their constitutions, but the only democratic national constitution in the world is that of Switzerland. Even within formally democratic US States enemies of democracy can use usurped power to thwart democracy - the vilest recent example being the blocking of the referendum called by 80,000 New Yorkers to set up a genuine inquiry into the 9/11 murders (Google NYCCAN - their own website is currently under cyberattack). The comment at 17:14 described Zelaya?s actions as ?manipulation?, and s/he wonders what would have happened if an American president had taken similar measures in 1809. Had such a measure been taken in 1809 shifting power from entrenched elites to the people through embedding decision by referendum, maybe America would now have a decent health scheme, and brasshats would be made to obey civil power or be sacked. Legalistic hocus-pocus is the second-last refuge of scoundrels seeking to override democracy. Coups are the last. Dion Giles ============================================== At 18:27 03/11/2009, Dave Patterson wrote: - that's basically my position on things too - the only thing that people who understand the situation should be thinking about is how to get the predator class behind bars somewhere, and create some kind of effective 'we the people' democracy. All else is little more than rearranging the deck chairs, to use an old but quite true analogy, as the iceberg looms overhead. Sharing ideas and talking about things insofar as some people are learning from them is fine - but until we get rid of the 'real' rulers, all discussion is spinning the wheels whilst the real work remains undone. IMO. Actually, insofar as more intelligent trolls get involved with 'progresive' groups and keep the discussions carefully away from anything actually dangerous to the rulers, such discussions can be counter-productive. It's not something a lot of people appear to understand. (not pointing any fingers at MAI-not, which has served as a good vehicle for discussion, with no pretence at doing anything else, mostly.. there are many websites which call themselves 'progressive' however which seem to be determined to keep any discussions or stories well clear of anything that might actually endanger the rulers...) *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 09-11-03 at 10:28 AM creuss at bluewin.ch wrote: > To some degree, I would hope that Chris Reuss, instead of two lines of > sarcasm, might contribute constructively to the question I raised. > Quinn's Gorilla is completely out of teh subject. You know my stance: As long as Predators are in power, discussing "measures" is as meaningless as re-arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. And the so-called "environmental" organizations are led by Predators, creating a situation of the fox guarding the hen-house. In my neck of the woods, these a--holes even greenwash deforestation on an EU scale (and of course they push for EU accession ASAP) while forking in donations "to save the planet"! Quinn's gorilla is pertinent because it's a typical example of Predator nonsense in the "environmental" debate. Predators turn everything into a fraud and rip-off -- even the debate about climate change, the emissions trade schemes, etc. Predators have hijacked society globally. If you want to get back to a sustainable course, you have to disempower the Predators first and put Producers to the cockpit. Regards, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Mai-not mailing list Mai-not at globalproblematique.net http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.46/2477 - Release Date: 11/02/09 19:39:00 _______________________________________________ Mai-not mailing list Mai-not at globalproblematique.net http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4568 (20091103) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Tue Nov 3 21:39:35 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:39:35 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot - World Government? The Australian In-Reply-To: <200911041216520956.011A7A25@smtp.totisp.net> References: <20091104050348.A4BA712C2C@fep06.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> <200911041216520956.011A7A25@smtp.totisp.net> Message-ID: <20091104053935.BDDFF14666@fep02.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Nov 3 22:51:24 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:51:24 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war march, NGO cretinism Message-ID: <4AF1246C.8020701@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war march, NGO cretinism * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya's return, but struggle continues By Stuart Munckton October 31, 2009 -- After more than 120 days of mass resistance by the poor majority of Honduras, against a coup regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya, the regime has finally signed an agreement for Zelaya's reinstatement. * Read more Cuba: UN for the 18th consecutive year demands end to US blockade Vote: 187 in favour to 3 against, with 2 abstentions * Read more Paul Le Blanc -- Why I'm joining the US International Socialist Organization: Intensifying the struggle for social change By Paul Le Blanc October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change. * Read more South Africa: Time for a new democratic left party? By Mazibuko K. Jara October 30, 2009 -- Our country is in crisis. There is deepening inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat. Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these crises. Together, none of these socioeconomic problems can be addressed by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation. * Read more China: Youth and the Cultural Revolution By Graham Milner The revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power in 1949 marked the second great breach, after the Russian Revolution of October 1917, in the 20th century imperialist world order, and initiated a process that was to remove from the capitalist orbit the most populous nation in the world, containing over a quarter of its population. The revolution of 1949 aroused vast expectations not only among China's popular masses, but also among the peoples of the Third World as a whole, and indeed among the socialist-minded everywhere.[2] However, by the end of the 20th century, communism had been overturned in Eastern Europe and the USSR, while in China a largely discredited, authoritarian, Stalinist regime had virtually abandoned anything more than a nominal adherence to socialist ideals. So what went wrong? * Read more Pakistan: What to do about religious fundamentalism? By Farooq Tariq October 28, 2009 -- Once again Pakistan has become the focus of world attention. Every day there is news of the latest suicide attack or military operation, with killings, injuries and the displacing of communities. Recently schools were ordered closed for more than a week. Even children talk about death and suicide attacks. With more than 125 police checkpoints in Islamabad, it has become a fortress city. Lahore and other large cities are suffering the same fate: there are police road blockades everywhere. After each terrorist attack authorities issue another security high alert and set up additional barriers. How ironic that, until recently, officials and the media described these "terrorists" as Mujahideen fighting for an Islamic world. * Read more South Africa: 'The African Communist': 50 years of mobilisation, analysis By Blade Nzimande October 26, 2009 -- A browse through the very first edition of the African Communist in 1959 not only gives an insight into the time and context during which it was launched but also the courageous and defiant character of those who breathed life into our historic journal: ``This magazine, the African Communist, has been started by a group of Marxist-Leninists in Africa, to defend and spread the inspiring and liberating ideas of Communism in our great Continent, and to apply the brilliant scientific method of Marxism to the solution of its problems. It is being produced in conditions of great difficulty and danger. Nevertheless we mean to go on publishing it, because we know that Africa needs Communist thought, as dry and thirsty soil needs rain.'' * Read more Australia: Red councillors during the Cold War: Communists on Sydney City Council, 1953-59 Recent electoral victories in Australia by socialists at the municipal council level -- the Socialist Party's Stephen Jolly in Victoria and Socialist Alliance's Sam Wainwright in Western Australia -- have sparked renewed interest in the experiences of other socialists who have been elected to such bodies. With permission of the Rough Reds Collective, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is publishing Beverley Symons' paper that examines the example of Communist Party of Australia members elected to the Sydney City Council in the 1950s. This article first appeared in the 2003 book A Few Rough Reds, published by the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch. * Read more Britain: Landmark demo against the war in Afghanistan + videos By Robin Beste October 25, 2009 -- Stop the War's demonstration on October 24 brought the centre of London to a standstill. It was a landmark demonstration, led by Lance Corporal Joe Glenton -- the first serving soldier in the British army to join an anti-war march. * Read more Asia: NGOs display `lobby cretinism' over ASEAN human rights commission By Giles Ji Ungpakorn October 25, 2009 -- The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is made up of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Brunei and Singapore, which are all authoritarian states. It also includes the semi-democratic Malaysia, along with the Philippines and Indonesia, which are more or less democratic. Would anyone expect a gathering of government leaders from these countries to set up a genuine human rights commission? Apparently, some NGOs from the region did think so. * Read more * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Wed Nov 4 01:14:13 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:14:13 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] 4350 pounds per UK family stolen in banker heist Message-ID: <20091104092549.E97F713EFE@fep02.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6497081/4350-per-family-to-bail-out-Britains-banks.html Of course that is only in taxes raised for aid to New Labour's banker mates. It says nothing about the amount ripped from welfare, and the flogging of more public assets to raise even more money to pour into the thieves' pockets. Or the foreclosures with government coercive forces used to enforce eviction of householders. Or the job losses. Just about the only expense not spared is the military cost of empire. What are the figures for the USA? Canada? Europe? Australia? The Daily Telegraph story tells what Brown is doing for those who own the British pollies - how about Obama? Harper? Merkel etc? Rudd/Swan? This is the elephant in the loungeroom which is too often delicately ignored in economists' commentaries on economic management and the way this manufactured "crisis" will affect citizens into future through governments conducting massive daylight robbery on behalf of their owners. Looks as if the EU is shaping up to appoint Bliar, who lied his country into war, to preside over the collection (without referenda of course) of wealth from the people of to feed to the privileged. Without a referendum of course. Dion Giles From creuss at bluewin.ch Wed Nov 4 05:20:44 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:20:44 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 Message-ID: > Dr.Deming who has already has made a name for > himself with his work on quality production was invited by a group of > Japanese industrialists to help them to improve the quality of their > products and it didn't take many years before, and now, before > they've jumped to the top and stayed there. > > > Deming's advice has not been ruinous competition, but total > cooperation between all segments of the economy to cut out waste and > preserve human dignity. Defined in 14 points, any government with any > brains should study them very carefully, before throwing more of > their peoples and resources onto the sacrificial altar, honouring the > insatiable demands and crimes against humanity by the multinational > corporate mafia. > > * Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims > and purposes of the company. ... > * Include everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation. > > The funny thing is, that long before I've ever read economics, or > heard of Dr. Deming, I've always paid my employees the best wages and > gave them the best working conditions, because, based on my own > experience as an employee in four countries, I've always maintained > that happy workers are the best producers. Ah, but didn't you realize the high suicide rate in Japan and the fact that the word/concept of "karoshi" (dying of too much work) was coined in Japan...? Cheers, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From duanebehrens at cox.net Wed Nov 4 06:38:44 2009 From: duanebehrens at cox.net (Duane Behrens) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 9:38:44 -0500 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20091104093844.8U06H.27257.imail@fed1rmwml34> First, to Ed - thanks. I enjoyed your "Fiat lux 243" a lot, and will print out and distribute Dr. Deming's points. Secondly, Christoph's apparent goal here seems singular - to chastise, belittle, and insult the rest of us. . . despite our general agreement on many issues. Perhaps I misunderstand his seemingly harsh, petty attacks on his colleagues here. Perhaps I've misunderstood the reason he seems to delve through posts for possible weaknesses, rather than discuss an issue on its merits. If so, I've misunderstood him about twice a week for 3 or 4 years now. I hope it's just a misunderstanding because to me, an attempt to make friends appear small . . . is the mark of a small man. Yves, if you're still monitoring this list: Largely due to a simple discomfort with Chris' posts, I've attempted to unsubscribe from this board, more than once, without success. Please assist. I'm not interested in discussing the pros and cons of anything, so please don't turn this into a discussion topic. Just help me leave. . . . with heartfelt thanks to Ed, Dion, Janet, and all the rest who have provided so much insight and information over the years. Cheers, Duane Behrens ---- Christoph Reuss wrote: Ah, but didn't you realize the high suicide rate in Japan and the fact that the word/concept of "karoshi" (dying of too much work) was coined in Japan...? Cheers, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Mai-not mailing list Mai-not at globalproblematique.net http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not From creuss at bluewin.ch Wed Nov 4 06:59:32 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 15:59:32 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 Message-ID: > Perhaps I misunderstand his seemingly harsh, petty attacks on his > colleagues here. Perhaps I've misunderstood the reason he seems to > delve through posts for possible weaknesses, rather than discuss an > issue on its merits. Now THAT's a harsh and petty attack... Actually, I was just asking a question about _issues_ in my reply to Fiat lux 243, not attacking a person. Chris > I hope it's just a misunderstanding because to me, an attempt to make > friends appear small . . . is the mark of a small man. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From thinker at xplornet.com Wed Nov 4 07:31:39 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:31:39 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091104153100.21C05241B113@smtprelay01.hostedemail.com> Chris, Japan's suicide rate has always been the world's highest. Even before WW2 and, at that time at least, the Hungarian was the second. In Japan there was, or may still be a hotel for suiciders, with some woods around it, where they could do it and the bodies picked up. In Hungary, the drinking of some kind of sodium, (zsirszoda) I can't find the English name, was very popular, where the candidates have been screaming for a couple of days before croaking. In Budapest the Franz Josef bridge was the popular jumping off point into the Danube, with a police motorboat circling below, sometimes for 24 hours a day. I don't know the rates now, but they should be on google. Of course, I have seen articles by Japanese executives, who have been transferred to the USA, saying how much they enjoyed the lower workload. But we can't blame Deming for that, only the locals. I have worked with Japanese engineers when I was captain of the Canadian Nissan rally team in the 60s and have to say, some were working maniacs. The minute the predators receive powers over life and death, they will misuse it. Cheers, Ed. At 05:20 AM 04/11/2009, you wrote: > > Dr.Deming who has already has made a name for > > himself with his work on quality production was invited by a group of > > Japanese industrialists to help them to improve the quality of their > > products and it didn't take many years before, and now, before > > they've jumped to the top and stayed there. > > > > > > Deming's advice has not been ruinous competition, but total > > cooperation between all segments of the economy to cut out waste and > > preserve human dignity. Defined in 14 points, any government with any > > brains should study them very carefully, before throwing more of > > their peoples and resources onto the sacrificial altar, honouring the > > insatiable demands and crimes against humanity by the multinational > > corporate mafia. > > > > * Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims > > and purposes of the company. >... > > * Include everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation. > > > > The funny thing is, that long before I've ever read economics, or > > heard of Dr. Deming, I've always paid my employees the best wages and > > gave them the best working conditions, because, based on my own > > experience as an employee in four countries, I've always maintained > > that happy workers are the best producers. > >Ah, but didn't you realize the high suicide rate in Japan and the fact that >the word/concept of "karoshi" (dying of too much work) was coined in Japan...? > >Cheers, >Chris > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword >"igve". > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.48/2479 - Release Date: >11/03/09 19:38:00 From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Wed Nov 4 13:22:34 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:22:34 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 and workplace suicide In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091104212235.2597716707@fep05.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> > >Ah, but didn't you realize the high suicide rate in Japan and the fact that >the word/concept of "karoshi" (dying of too much work) was coined in Japan...? > >Cheers, >Chris ================================ At http://www.truthout.org/101109E there is a very interesting case study on the causes of workplace suicide. Many of the appended comments are worth looking at too. Dion Giles From thinker at xplornet.com Wed Nov 4 15:13:53 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:13:53 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 and workplace suicide In-Reply-To: <20091104212235.2597716707@fep05.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> References: <20091104212235.2597716707@fep05.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> Message-ID: <20091104231616.46F0A1025FDE@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> As I've been saying for many years : "Wealth can not be created, only taken from other sectors, the environment and the future" I'm very happy that as a small employer, many times at lower income than my apprentices, my guys always remembered my shop as the best place they've even worked in. I had a crossing with some idiot on the Vive le Canada blog a few weeks ago, who was horrified to hear that all my tradesmen received the same wages, instead of "competing" against each other. But then, don't blame the politicians, or the companies, but the universities where the legalization of exploitation originates in the theories they brainwash their students with. Until that criminal theory and racket is stopped, there's no hope. Or as Deming keeps repeating on the tape I made of him before he died : "Don't compete, cooperate!!!" Cheers, Ed. At 01:22 PM 04/11/2009, you wrote: >>Ah, but didn't you realize the high suicide rate in Japan and the fact that >>the word/concept of "karoshi" (dying of too much work) was coined >>in Japan...? >> >>Cheers, >>Chris >================================ >At http://www.truthout.org/101109E there is a very interesting case >study on the causes of workplace suicide. Many of the appended >comments are worth looking at too. > >Dion Giles >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.49/2480 - Release Date: >11/04/09 07:37:00 From papadop at peak.org Thu Nov 5 08:29:15 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 08:29:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] Rep Kurt Schrader votes for Israel, against international law Message-ID: My cowardly democrat Representative here in Oregon needs to hear from his constituents and from others. Thos is what one of my correspondents wrote on Thursday, November 5, 2009 Today I sent the following message to Oregon District 1 Congressman Kurt Schrader. I hope you will also communicate to the congressman that his approval of impunity for Israel undermines America's credibility among the countries of the world which look to the United Nations for enforcement of international law. Mr. Schrader needs to learn his vote has cost him respect and political support. Carl Reynolds Sherwood, Oregon http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/05-0 Congressman Kurt Schrader: Your vote approving HR 867, slanders Judge Richard Goldstone, opposes international law and approves Israel's colonization of Palestine. Your vote is a despicable betrayal of the UN's effort to bring peace in the Middle East and justice for the Palestinian people. Though I am no longer a constituent, I lived in Lincoln county for 24 years until 2000 and I have dozens of friends in your district. I will be informing them all of your cowardice. From papadop at peak.org Thu Nov 5 18:43:33 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:43:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed Message-ID: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091106/twl-muslim-officer-guns-down-11-at-texas-2802f3e.html Muslim officer guns down 11 at Texas military base 17 mins ago Agence France Presse -- November 6 A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq went on a shooting rampage at a sprawling Texas military base, killing 11 people and wounding 31 others before being gunned down. Skip related content Obama denounced the attack as "an horrific outburst of violence." * Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital * Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from post-traumatic Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire with two handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. A second suspected shooter was taken into custody, while two further suspects thought to be involved were later released without charge, military officials said. "A shooter opened fire and essentially due to the quick response of the police forces was killed," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander at Fort Hood, the largest US military base in the world. President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack as a "horrific outburst of violence." "My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the families of the fallen," Obama said. "It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil."Related article: Obama reax The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber acknowledgement of the shooting rampage. Fort Hood, a massive base that is more like a small town housing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive. Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle Eastern ethnicity," his cousin said, dismissing speculation that the major was "afraid of deploying to go to war." "He was dealing with some harassment from his military colleagues," Nader Hasan told Fox News. "I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," he said. "It was the harassment." "He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying everything," Hasan said. Hasan's parents are believe to be from the Middle East but he grew up in the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech university. Cone said he had been stunned by the incident, adding "soldiers and family members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely devastated. "I want to express my condolences to the soldiers, the families, and the civilians in this great community in central Texas. This is a tragedy, but we will work through it." Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded poured into its emergency rooms. "Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types," read a statement from the hospital. Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, local congressman John Carter told MSNBC.Facts: Fort Hood The base in central Texas is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have seen extensive duty in Iraq. Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of the worst ever. In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 years. From duanebehrens at cox.net Thu Nov 5 19:05:31 2009 From: duanebehrens at cox.net (Duane Behrens) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 19:05:31 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20091105220531.8CMZ8.60626.imail@fed1rmwml40> Michael, thanks for that . . . ---- MichaelP wrote: ============= http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091106/twl-muslim-officer-guns-down-11-at-texas-2802f3e.html Muslim officer guns down 11 at Texas military base 17 mins ago Agence France Presse -- November 6 A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq went on a shooting rampage at a sprawling Texas military base, killing 11 people and wounding 31 others before being gunned down. Skip related content Obama denounced the attack as "an horrific outburst of violence." * Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital * Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from post-traumatic Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire with two handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. A second suspected shooter was taken into custody, while two further suspects thought to be involved were later released without charge, military officials said. "A shooter opened fire and essentially due to the quick response of the police forces was killed," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander at Fort Hood, the largest US military base in the world. President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack as a "horrific outburst of violence." "My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the families of the fallen," Obama said. "It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil."Related article: Obama reax The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber acknowledgement of the shooting rampage. Fort Hood, a massive base that is more like a small town housing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive. Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle Eastern ethnicity," his cousin said, dismissing speculation that the major was "afraid of deploying to go to war." "He was dealing with some harassment from his military colleagues," Nader Hasan told Fox News. "I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," he said. "It was the harassment." "He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying everything," Hasan said. Hasan's parents are believe to be from the Middle East but he grew up in the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech university. Cone said he had been stunned by the incident, adding "soldiers and family members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely devastated. "I want to express my condolences to the soldiers, the families, and the civilians in this great community in central Texas. This is a tragedy, but we will work through it." Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded poured into its emergency rooms. "Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types," read a statement from the hospital. Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, local congressman John Carter told MSNBC.Facts: Fort Hood The base in central Texas is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have seen extensive duty in Iraq. Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of the worst ever. In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 years. _______________________________________________ Mai-not mailing list Mai-not at globalproblematique.net http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not From thinker at xplornet.com Thu Nov 5 20:23:23 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:23:23 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed In-Reply-To: <20091105220531.8CMZ8.60626.imail@fed1rmwml40> References: <20091105220531.8CMZ8.60626.imail@fed1rmwml40> Message-ID: <20091106042241.EF69351A273@smtprelay01.hostedemail.com> Our TV news anchor was given the info, during the news, that the guy survived and in hospital custody. Cheers, Ed. At 07:05 PM 05/11/2009, you wrote: >Michael, thanks for that . . . > >---- MichaelP wrote: > >============= > >http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091106/twl-muslim-officer-guns-down-11-at-texas-2802f3e.html > > >Muslim officer guns down 11 at Texas military base > >17 mins ago Agence France Presse -- November 6 > >A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq went on a shooting >rampage at a sprawling Texas military base, killing 11 people and wounding >31 others before being gunned down. Skip related content > > >Obama denounced the attack as "an horrific outburst of violence." * Many >of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital > >* Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from >post-traumatic > > >Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire with two >handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on >missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. > >A second suspected shooter was taken into custody, while two further >suspects thought to be involved were later released without charge, >military officials said. > >"A shooter opened fire and essentially due to the quick response of the >police forces was killed," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander at >Fort Hood, the largest US military base in the world. > >President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the >drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack >as a "horrific outburst of violence." > >"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the >families of the fallen," Obama said. > >"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles >overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army >base on American soil."Related article: Obama reax > >The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber >acknowledgement of the shooting rampage. > >Fort Hood, a massive base that is more like a small town housing tens of >thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting >for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive. > >Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle >Eastern ethnicity," his cousin said, dismissing speculation that the major >was "afraid of deploying to go to war." > >"He was dealing with some harassment from his military colleagues," Nader >Hasan told Fox News. > >"I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," he said. > >"It was the harassment." > >"He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back >the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying >everything," Hasan said. > >Hasan's parents are believe to be from the Middle East but he grew up in >the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech >university. > >Cone said he had been stunned by the incident, adding "soldiers and family >members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely >devastated. > >"I want to express my condolences to the soldiers, the families, and the >civilians in this great community in central Texas. This is a tragedy, but >we will work through it." > >Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, >which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded >poured into its emergency rooms. > >"Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood >types," read a statement from the hospital. > >Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from >post-traumatic stress syndrome, local congressman John Carter told >MSNBC.Facts: Fort Hood > >The base in central Texas is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the >4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have >seen extensive duty in Iraq. > >Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of >the worst ever. > >In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested >by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. >Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 >years. > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.52/2483 - Release Date: >11/05/09 19:52:00 From creuss at bluewin.ch Fri Nov 6 01:37:57 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:37:57 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed Message-ID: Ironically, the shooter worked as an army psychiatrist treating the PTSD of the killers that came home from Iraq... Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Fri Nov 6 06:38:16 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:38:16 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Bio-attack hits Ukraine Message-ID: <20091106143817.136D8F794@fep01.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Fri Nov 6 14:54:28 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:54:28 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fw: [S] carbon trading 'the next Sub Prime' - new report Message-ID: <016a01ca5f37$b5df9810$16ad57ca@jfos> Friends of the Earth PRESS RELEASE Thursday 5 November 2009 http://www.foe.org.au/media-releases/2009-media-release/carbon-trading- the-next-sub-prime-new-report Contact: Henry Rummins or Rose Hall, Friends of the Earth press office - Tel: +44 20 7566 1649 CARBON TRADING 'THE NEXT SUB-PRIME' - NEW RESEARCH New report, 'A Dangerous Obsession', is available at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dangerous_obsession.pdf Online video clip of report's author, Sarah-Jayne Clifton, is available from the Friends of the Earth press office in London. Plans to expand carbon markets at UN climate talks this December could trigger a second 'sub-prime' style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from global warming catastrophe, a new report from Friends of the Earth warns today (Thursday 5 November 2009). 'A Dangerous Obsession' focuses on the buying and selling of a new artificial commodity - the right to emit carbon dioxide - which the UK and other developed country governments want to see expanded into a massive worldwide market and are pushing in the negotiations running up to the big Copenhagen climate talks in December. The trade in carbon permits and credits, mainly based in Europe, was worth $126 billion in 2008 and is predicted to balloon to $3.1 trillion by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off. But the majority of the trade is carried out not between polluting industries and factories covered by carbon trading schemes, but by banks and investors who profit from speculation on the carbon markets - packaging carbon credits into increasingly complex financial products similar to the 'shadow finance' around sub-prime mortgages which triggered the recent economic crash. This risks the development of sub-prime carbon and the possibility of an eventual collapse in confidence in the market, with catastrophic consequences for the global economy and also for our prospects of avoiding runaway climate change. Friends of the Earth's report warns that the UK Government's obsession with carbon trading as a solution to climate change is high risk, irresponsible and dangerous. Existing carbon trading schemes are not delivering the emissions cuts promised, and relying on this mechanism to reduce emissions globally is gambling with the health of the planet and the future of billions of people. Carbon trading is also being used as a smokescreen by rich countries to avoid their legal and moral commitment to provide money and technology to developing countries to grow cleanly and adapt to climate change. The green campaign group is calling on the UK Government to use simple, direct and proven policy tools like regulation, a carbon tax, and major public investment in greening the economy to reduce our emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020, without offsetting. Friends of the Earth's international climate campaigner and author of the report Sarah Jayne-Clifton said: "Pushing a world carbon market as part of a global agreement to tackle climate change risks a double whammy of financial and environmental disaster. "Carbon trading is failing dismally at reducing emissions, yet allows speculators to grow rich from the climate crisis and hands politicians and industry a get-out clause for polluting business as usual. "Science tells us rich countries must act first and fast to cut their emissions at home if we are to avert climate catastrophe - and support poorer countries with adequate public money to grow cleanly and adapt to the effects of climate change which they are already feeling. "The credit crunch has taught us that Governments, not markets are best placed to safeguard our future - at this critical point in the fight against climate change Ministers must step in and lead the way with a new, direct approach to tackling carbon emissions to create a safe and green future for us all." Friends of the Earth is demanding in the UK that the UK Government changes its approach to climate change and is asking everyone to sign its international petition to world leaders for a strong and fair climate deal at www.demandclimatechange.org . ENDS Notes to Editors: 1. A copy of the full report, 'A Dangerous Obsession', is available at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dangerous_obsession.pdf 2. The EU's proposed climate finance package - discussed by European Heads of State at the Council of Europe meeting on 30 October 2009 - envisages up to 80% of global finance for mitigation and adaptation coming from the carbon market. 3. To speak to Friends of the Earth executive director Andy Atkins; Sarah- Jayne Clifton, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner and the author of the report; or another Friends of the Earth spokesperson please contact the Friends of the Earth press office on +44-20 7566 1649. 4. Friends of the Earth's Demand Climate Change campaign in the UK is calling for: ? The Government to abandon its promotion of carbon offsetting - a con which means avoiding real action at home through dodgy accounting - and pledge to cut emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020 at home; ? Rich countries to acknowledge their legal and moral responsibility to provide new public money for developing countries, distributed through the UN, so that they can grow cleanly and adapt to the effects of climate change whichare already putting millions of lives at risk; ? Proposals to be scrapped which would allow rich countries to buy chunks of forest whilst continuing to pump out emissions - an approach which won't solve climate change or stop deforestation. 5. Friends of the Earth in the UK is part of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, the UK's largest group of people dedicated to action on climate change and limiting its impact on the world's poorest communities. The coalition's supporter base of more than 11 million people spans over 100 organisations, from environment and development charities to unions, faith, community and women's groups. Together we demand practical action by the UK to keep temperatures well below an average 2 degree rise. For further information visit www.stopclimatechaos.org From thinker at xplornet.com Sat Nov 7 07:42:21 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:42:21 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] H1N1 prvention Message-ID: <20091107154137.2C43D663081@smtprelay03.hostedemail.com> Here's an abbreviated version of the prevention list sent to me by my microbiologist friend, as it appeared in the WL Tribune on Thursday. Very simple and effective. Cheers, Ed. ========================================================================================== The Editor, Williams Lake Tribune Nov. 3, 2009. Mr Editor These simple precautions can save a lot of problems, considering that the flu bug can still infect people for up to 14 days after having received the shot, as it takes that long for the body to build up enough immunity. . The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is. While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection in order to prevent proliferation aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced 1. Frequent hand-washing 2. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face 3. Gargle twice a day with warm salt water. H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. 4. Similar to 3 above, clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water.Blowing the nosehard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped inwarm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population. 5. Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C . Vitamin C tablet should also have Zinc to boost absorption. 6. Drink as much of warm liquids as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm. because of it. From creuss at bluewin.ch Sat Nov 7 10:56:09 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:56:09 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] H1N1 prvention Message-ID: > Very simple and effective. How about finally prosecuting Rummy, before this racket will kill even more than 9/11? Cheers, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From thinker at xplornet.com Sat Nov 7 11:05:51 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:05:51 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] H1N1 prvention In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091107190505.528D3F065FD@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> Chris, That will never happen. Those jerks are so deeply embedded that nothing can shake them. This is why a few simple steps can go around their gimmicks. In any case, the #1 prosecution should be against the professors who teach the criminal theory to kill the family farm and collectivize the world's food supply into the hands of the agribiz mafia, where this whole racket started on some disaster area pig feedlot in Mexico. The EU is no better, now colonizing the Eastern EU countries. Cheers, Ed. At 10:56 AM 07/11/2009, you wrote: > > Very simple and effective. > >How about finally prosecuting Rummy, before this racket will kill even more >than 9/11? > >Cheers, >Chris > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword >"igve". > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.425 / Virus Database: 270.14.53/2486 - Release Date: >11/07/09 07:38:00 From creuss at bluewin.ch Sat Nov 7 12:43:56 2009 From: creuss at bluewin.ch (Christoph Reuss) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 21:43:56 +0100 Subject: [Mai-not] H1N1 prvention Message-ID: > this whole racket started on some disaster area pig feedlot in Mexico. That's a red herring... Actually, no pig ever had the "swine flu" which was created in a GMO lab, optimized for human-to-human contagion. Rummy does have a penchant for absurdity -- first a controlled demolition with cardboard cutters and now a "swine" flu that no pig ever had. How obvious can the BS get before people see thru it? Cheers, Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". From gdy52150 at spiritone.com Sat Nov 7 14:31:23 2009 From: gdy52150 at spiritone.com (gdy52150 at spiritone.com) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 14:31:23 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed Message-ID: <200911072231.nA7MVNF3020910@sapphire.spiritone.com> the media has found it convient to omitt the fact that there is 10 suicides a month there for the past year Ed Deak wrote: > > Our TV news anchor was given the info, during the news, that the guy > survived and in hospital custody. > > Cheers, Ed. > > > > At 07:05 PM 05/11/2009, you wrote: > >Michael, thanks for that . . . > > > >---- MichaelP wrote: > > > >============= > > > >http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091106/twl-muslim-officer-guns-down-11-at-texas-2802f3e.html > > > > > >Muslim officer guns down 11 at Texas military base > > > >17 mins ago Agence France Presse -- November 6 > > > >A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq went on a shooting > >rampage at a sprawling Texas military base, killing 11 people and wounding > >31 others before being gunned down. Skip related content > > > > > >Obama denounced the attack as "an horrific outburst of violence." * Many > >of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital > > > >* Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from > >post-traumatic > > > > > >Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire with two > >handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on > >missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. > > > >A second suspected shooter was taken into custody, while two further > >suspects thought to be involved were later released without charge, > >military officials said. > > > >"A shooter opened fire and essentially due to the quick response of the > >police forces was killed," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander at > >Fort Hood, the largest US military base in the world. > > > >President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the > >drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack > >as a "horrific outburst of violence." > > > >"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the > >families of the fallen," Obama said. > > > >"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles > >overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army > >base on American soil."Related article: Obama reax > > > >The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber > >acknowledgement of the shooting rampage. > > > >Fort Hood, a massive base that is more like a small town housing tens of > >thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting > >for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive. > > > >Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle > >Eastern ethnicity," his cousin said, dismissing speculation that the major > >was "afraid of deploying to go to war." > > > >"He was dealing with some harassment from his military colleagues," Nader > >Hasan told Fox News. > > > >"I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," he said. > > > >"It was the harassment." > > > >"He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back > >the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying > >everything," Hasan said. > > > >Hasan's parents are believe to be from the Middle East but he grew up in > >the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech > >university. > > > >Cone said he had been stunned by the incident, adding "soldiers and family > >members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely > >devastated. > > > >"I want to express my condolences to the soldiers, the families, and the > >civilians in this great community in central Texas. This is a tragedy, but > >we will work through it." > > > >Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, > >which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded > >poured into its emergency rooms. > > > >"Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood > >types," read a statement from the hospital. > > > >Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from > >post-traumatic stress syndrome, local congressman John Carter told > >MSNBC.Facts: Fort Hood > > > >The base in central Texas is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the > >4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have > >seen extensive duty in Iraq. > > > >Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of > >the worst ever. > > > >In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested > >by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. > >Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 > >years. > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Mai-not mailing list > >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Mai-not mailing list > >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > > >No virus found in this incoming message. > >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > >Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.52/2483 - Release Date: > >11/05/09 19:52:00 > > _______________________________________________ > Mai-not mailing list > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not From thinker at xplornet.com Sat Nov 7 15:06:19 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:06:19 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] H1N1 prvention In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091107230534.3CE86F065FD@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> Try to get the 1994 Dustin Hoffman movie "Outbreak", a very similar military scenario. Cheers, Ed. At 12:43 PM 07/11/2009, you wrote: > > this whole racket started on some disaster area pig feedlot in Mexico. > >That's a red herring... Actually, no pig ever had the "swine flu" which >was created in a GMO lab, optimized for human-to-human contagion. > >Rummy does have a penchant for absurdity -- first a controlled demolition >with cardboard cutters and now a "swine" flu that no pig ever had. How >obvious can the BS get before people see thru it? > >Cheers, >Chris > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword >"igve". > > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.425 / Virus Database: 270.14.53/2486 - Release Date: >11/07/09 07:38:00 From thinker at xplornet.com Sat Nov 7 15:12:01 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:12:01 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Texas Army Base Massacre: 12 Killed In-Reply-To: <200911072231.nA7MVNF3020910@sapphire.spiritone.com> References: <200911072231.nA7MVNF3020910@sapphire.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <20091107231120.BDEB4F065FA@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> I was in the custom furniture business in Vancouver from 1957 to 79, 22 years. The largest professional group of my customers have been doctors, including quite a few psychiatrists, some of who must have been crazier than their patients, so nothing surprises me. On top of it, apparently the guy also went religion crazy in the last few months , wearing the costume off duty and witnesses quoted that when he started shooting, he was screaming : "Allah akbar !". Cheers, Ed. At 02:31 PM 07/11/2009, you wrote: >the media has found it convient to omitt the fact that there is 10 >suicides a month there for the past year > > >Ed Deak wrote: > > > > > Our TV news anchor was given the info, during the news, that the guy > > survived and in hospital custody. > > > > Cheers, Ed. > > > > > > > > At 07:05 PM 05/11/2009, you wrote: > > >Michael, thanks for that . . . > > > > > >---- MichaelP wrote: > > > > > >============= > > > > > >http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091106/twl-muslim-officer-guns-down > -11-at-texas-2802f3e.html > > > > > > > > >Muslim officer guns down 11 at Texas military base > > > > > >17 mins ago Agence France Presse -- November 6 > > > > > >A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq went on a shooting > > >rampage at a sprawling Texas military base, killing 11 people and wounding > > >31 others before being gunned down. Skip related content > > > > > > > > >Obama denounced the attack as "an horrific outburst of violence." * Many > > >of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital > > > > > >* Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from > > >post-traumatic > > > > > > > > >Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire with two > > >handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on > > >missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. > > > > > >A second suspected shooter was taken into custody, while two further > > >suspects thought to be involved were later released without charge, > > >military officials said. > > > > > >"A shooter opened fire and essentially due to the quick response of the > > >police forces was killed," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander at > > >Fort Hood, the largest US military base in the world. > > > > > >President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the > > >drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack > > >as a "horrific outburst of violence." > > > > > >"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the > > >families of the fallen," Obama said. > > > > > >"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles > > >overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army > > >base on American soil."Related article: Obama reax > > > > > >The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber > > >acknowledgement of the shooting rampage. > > > > > >Fort Hood, a massive base that is more like a small town housing tens of > > >thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting > > >for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive. > > > > > >Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle > > >Eastern ethnicity," his cousin said, dismissing speculation that the major > > >was "afraid of deploying to go to war." > > > > > >"He was dealing with some harassment from his military colleagues," Nader > > >Hasan told Fox News. > > > > > >"I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," he said. > > > > > >"It was the harassment." > > > > > >"He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back > > >the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying > > >everything," Hasan said. > > > > > >Hasan's parents are believe to be from the Middle East but he grew up in > > >the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech > > >university. > > > > > >Cone said he had been stunned by the incident, adding "soldiers and family > > >members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely > > >devastated. > > > > > >"I want to express my condolences to the soldiers, the families, and the > > >civilians in this great community in central Texas. This is a tragedy, but > > >we will work through it." > > > > > >Many of the victims were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, > > >which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded > > >poured into its emergency rooms. > > > > > >"Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood > > >types," read a statement from the hospital. > > > > > >Fort Hood has been working to rehabilitate many soldiers suffering from > > >post-traumatic stress syndrome, local congressman John Carter told > > >MSNBC.Facts: Fort Hood > > > > > >The base in central Texas is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the > > >4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have > > >seen extensive duty in Iraq. > > > > > >Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of > > >the worst ever. > > > > > >In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested > > >by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. > > >Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 > > >years. > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > >Mai-not mailing list > > >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > > >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > >Mai-not mailing list > > >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > > >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > > > > > >No virus found in this incoming message. > > >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > > >Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.52/2483 - Release Date: > > >11/05/09 19:52:00 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Mai-not mailing list > > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >_______________________________________________ >Mai-not mailing list >Mai-not at globalproblematique.net >http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 8.5.425 / Virus Database: 270.14.53/2486 - Release Date: >11/07/09 07:38:00 From papadop at peak.org Sun Nov 8 18:02:55 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:02:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] US anti-transparency Message-ID: From: Richard Boltuck To: FOI-L at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU Another Obama administration atrocity against transparency is its continuing conduct of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations, the latest round of which just concluded in Seoul. This issue was last visited on this listserv through postings by James Love of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) in March. At the time, James reported to listserv members that KEI is very impressed with the USTR decision to undertake a review of USTR transparency efforts. They are taking this much further than simply reviewing policies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or recent controversies over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. The review offers the possibility of more transformative changes, including pro-active measures to enhance transparency, covering all aspects of USTR operations, including multilateral, plurilateral, regional, bilateral and unilateral trade policies and negotiations. We are also grateful that USTR is offering to have a continuing dialogue on this issues. Now, however, it appears that KEI's optimism may have been premature and unjustified. The Administration, through USTR, is pressing ACTA to adopt an Internet Chapter directed, not at counterfeiting, but at vastly expanding copyright protection. In pursuing this negotiation, which seemingly might result in changes to U.S. law (despite USTR's denials), USTR has not released the details of its proposal publicly, thereby engaging in very non-transparent tactics that seek to exclude the American public from any informed debate until the agreement is a /fait accompli/. A leaked EU summary of a U.S. oral presentation on its proposed Internet Chapter explained why USTR is pursuing secrecy: USTR indicated that these internal discussions were sensitive due to different points of view regarding the internet chapter both within the Administration, which Congress and among stakeholders (content providers on one side, supporters of internet "freedom" on the other). In other words, the motivation for secrecy is expressly to stifle inconvenient debate, and not national security or other valid concern. Even more outrageous, the Administration has selectively released its proposals to major players through execution of non-disclosure agreements, as KEI discovered through an FOIA request ( http://www.keionline.org/node/660 ). Hence, it really is just ordinary U.S. citizens, including those who are interested as subscribers to ISP internet-access services, who are excluded from the debate. What kind of democracy and government by-the-people, of-the-people, and for-the-people is this? President Obama? NGOs and others working for "internet 'freedom'" have sent USTR a couple of recent letters on this issue recently (see http: //www.publicknowledge.org/node/2753 and //keionline.org/acta-petition ). Based on the leaked EU summary, according to multiple accounts on the web (for instance, see http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/11/04/238414/acta-talks-focus-on-three-strikes-no-appeal-deal-for-software.htm ), it appears the United States is pressing to establish third-party liability for copyright violations, which means that ISPs may be held legally responsible for violations committed by their subscribers. To avoid such liability, ISPs would be permitted to seek safe harbor by adopting various specific proactive measures, including bouncing subscribers and their families from internet access for a year following receipt of a third unproven allegation of copyright violation. Those who love the lack of due process in civil forfeiture proceedings should find this mechanism highly appealing. The consistency of these new burdens on ISPs, which might require data-packet filtering, with the Administration's support for net neutrality is a question that deserves careful analysis. Unfortunately, without further details about what USTR has proposed -- details that remain secret -- that analysis is impossible to undertake. As ill-advised as such an approach might be, the Administration's fault in pushing for such a "reform" is compounded several fold by its efforts to delay public awareness and debate until after critical lock-in through international agreement has taken place. How can such a lack of transparency be reconciled with the Administration's professed commitment to run an open government? And where is the media outrage over how the American public is being treated? From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Sun Nov 8 20:02:54 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:02:54 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] US transparency and health care con tricks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091109040254.CB17C110A5@fep02.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Mon Nov 9 21:04:27 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:04:27 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: 6 Signs That the American Empire Is Coming to an Early End Message-ID: <011001ca61c3$50f34e40$43ad57ca@jfos> 6 Signs That the American Empire Is Coming to an Early End By Michael T. Klare, Tomdispatch.com. Posted October 27, 2009. The day of America's global pre-eminence is over. We must face the new global realities. Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway! Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodations may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get used to it. It's going to be your reality from now on. Okay, now for the serious version of the above: In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of the Central Intelligence Agency, issued the latest in a series of futuristic publications intended to guide the incoming Obama administration. Peering into its analytic crystal ball in a report entitled Global Trends 2025, it predicted that America's global preeminence would gradually disappear over the next 15 years -- in conjunction with the rise of new global powerhouses, especially China and India. The report examined many facets of the future strategic environment, but its most startling, and news-making, finding concerned the projected long-term erosion of American dominance and the emergence of new global competitors. "Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor [in 2025]," it stated definitively, the country's "relative strength -- even in the military realm -- will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained." That, of course, was then; this -- some 11 months into the future -- is now and how things have changed. Futuristic predictions will just have to catch up to the fast-shifting realities of the present moment. Although published after the onset of the global economic meltdown was underway, the report was written before the crisis reached its full proportions and so emphasized that the decline of American power would be gradual, extending over the assessment's 15-year time horizon. But the economic crisis and attendant events have radically upset that timetable. As a result of the mammoth economic losses suffered by the United States over the past year and China's stunning economic recovery, the global power shift the report predicted has accelerated. For all practical purposes, 2025 is here already. Many of the broad, down-the-road predictions made in Global Trends 2025 have, in fact, already come to pass. Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- collectively known as the BRIC countries -- are already playing far more assertive roles in global economic affairs, as the report predicted would happen in perhaps a decade or so. At the same time, the dominant global role once monopolized by the United States with a helping hand from the major Western industrial powers -- collectively known as the Group of 7 (G-7) -- has already faded away at a remarkable pace. Countries that once looked to the United States for guidance on major international issues are ignoring Washington's counsel and instead creating their own autonomous policy networks. The United States is becoming less inclined to deploy its military forces abroad as rival powers increase their own capabilities and non-state actors rely on "asymmetrical" means of attack to overcome the U.S. advantage in conventional firepower. No one seems to be saying this out loud -- yet -- but let's put it bluntly: less than a year into the 15-year span of Global Trends 2025, the days of America's unquestioned global dominance have come to an end. It may take a decade or two (or three) before historians will be able to look back and say with assurance, "That was the moment when the United States ceased to be the planet's preeminent power and was forced to behave like another major player in a world of many competing great powers." The indications of this great transition, however, are there for those who care to look. Six Way Stations on the Road to Ordinary Nationhood Here is my list of six recent developments that indicate we are entering "2025" today. All six were in the news in the last few weeks, even if never collected in a single place. They (and other events like them) represent a pattern: the shape, in fact, of a new age in formation. 1. At the global economic summit in Pittsburgh on September 24th and 25th, the leaders of the major industrial powers, the G-7 (G-8 if you include Russia) agreed to turn over responsibility for oversight of the world economy to a larger, more inclusive Group of 20 (G-20), adding in China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and other developing nations. Although doubts have been raised about the ability of this larger group to exercise effective global leadership, there is no doubt that the move itself signaled a shift in the locus of world economic power from the West to the global East and South -- and with this shift, a seismic decline in America's economic preeminence has been registered. "The G-20's true significance is not in the passing of a baton from the G-7/G-8 but from the G-1, the U.S.," Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University wrote in the Financial Times. "Even during the 33 years of the G-7 economic forum, the U.S. called the important economic shots." Declining American leadership over these last decades was obscured by the collapse of the Soviet Union and an early American lead in information technology, Sachs also noted, but there is now no mistaking the shifting of economic power from the United States to China and other rising economic dynamos. 2. According to news reports, America's economic rivals are conducting secret (and not-so-secret) meetings to explore a diminished role for the U.S. dollar -- fast losing its value -- in international trade. Until now, the use of the dollar as the international medium of exchange has given the United States a significant economic advantage: it can simply print dollars to meet its international obligations while other nations must convert their own currencies into dollars, often incurring significant added costs. Now, however, many major trading countries -- among them China, Russia, Japan, Brazil, and the Persian Gulf oil countries -- are considering the use of the Euro, or a "basket" of currencies, as a new medium of exchange. If adopted, such a plan would accelerate the dollar's precipitous fall in value and further erode American clout in international economic affairs. One such discussion reportedly took place this summer at a summit meeting of the BRIC countries. Just a concept a year ago, when the very idea of BRIC was concocted by the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, the BRIC consortium became a flesh-and-blood reality this June when the leaders of the four countries held an inaugural meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The very fact that Brazil, Russia, India, and China chose to meet as a group was considered significant, as they jointly possess about 43% of the world's population and are expected to account for 33% of the world's gross domestic product by 2030 -- about as much as the United States and Western Europe will claim at that time. Although the BRIC leaders decided not to form a permanent body like the G-7 at this stage, they did agree to coordinate efforts to develop alternatives to the dollar and to reform the International Monetary Fund in such a way as to give non-Western countries a greater voice. 3. On the diplomatic front, Washington has been rebuffed by both Russia and China in its drive to line up support for increased international pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program. One month after President Obama cancelled plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe in an apparent bid to secure Russian backing for a tougher stance toward Tehran, top Russian leaders are clearly indicating that they have no intention of endorsing strong new sanctions on Iran. "Threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive," declared the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, following a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Moscow on October 13th. The following day, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that the threat of sanctions was "premature." Given the political risks Obama took in canceling the missile program -- a step widely condemned by Republicans in Washington -- Moscow's quick dismissal of U.S. pleas for cooperation on the Iranian enrichment matter can only be interpreted as a further sign of waning American influence. 4. Exactly the same inference can be drawn from a high-level meeting in Beijing on October 15th between Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Iran's first vice president, Mohammed Reza Rahimi. "The Sino-Iran relationship has witnessed rapid development as the two countries' leaders have had frequent exchanges, and cooperation in trade and energy has widened and deepened," Wen said at the Great Hall of the People. Coming at a time when the United States is engaged in a vigorous diplomatic drive to persuade China and Russia, among others, to reduce their trade ties with Iran as a prelude to toughened sanctions, the Chinese statement can only be considered a pointed rebuff of Washington. 5. From Washington's point of view, efforts to secure international support for the allied war effort in Afghanistan have also met with a strikingly disappointing response. In what can only be considered a trivial and begrudging vote of support for the U.S.-led war effort, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on October 14th that Britain would add more troops to the British contingent in that country -- but only 500 more, and only if other European nations increase their own military involvement, something he undoubtedly knows is highly unlikely. So far, this tiny, provisional contingent represents the sum total of additional troops the Obama administration has been able to pry out of America's European allies, despite a sustained diplomatic drive to bolster the combined NATO force in Afghanistan. In other words, even America's most loyal and obsequious ally in Europe no longer appears willing to carry the burden for what is widely seen as yet another costly and debilitating American military adventure in the Greater Middle East. 6. Finally, in a move of striking symbolic significance, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) passed over Chicago (as well as Madrid and Tokyo) to pick Rio de Janeiro to be the host of the 2016 summer Olympics, the first time a South American nation was selected for the honor. Until the Olympic vote took place, Chicago was considered a strong contender, especially since former Chicago resident Barack Obama personally appeared in Copenhagen to lobby the IOC. Nonetheless, in a development that shocked the world, Chicago not only lost out, but was the city eliminated in the very first round of voting. "Brazil went from a second-class country to a first-class country, and today we began to receive the respect we deserve," said Brazilian President Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva at a victory celebration in Copenhagen after the vote. "I could die now and it already would have been worth it." Few said so, but in the course of the Olympic decision-making process the U.S. was summarily and pointedly demoted from sole superpower to instant also-ran, a symbolic moment on a planet entering a new age. On Being an Ordinary Country These are only a few examples of recent developments which indicate, to this author, that the day of America's global preeminence has already come to an end, years before the American intelligence community expected. It's increasingly clear that other powers -- even our closest allies -- are increasingly pursuing independent foreign policies, no matter what pressure Washington tries to bring to bear. Of course, none of this means that, for some time to come, the U.S. won't retain the world's largest economy and, in terms of sheer destructiveness, its most potent military force. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the strategic environment in which American leaders must make critical decisions, when it comes to the nation's vital national interests, has changed dramatically since the onset of the global economic crisis. Even more important, President Obama and his senior advisers are, it seems, reluctantly beginning to reshape U.S. foreign policy with the new global reality in mind. This appears evident, for example, in the administration's decision to revisit U.S. strategy on Afghanistan. It was only in March, after all, that the president embraced a new counterinsurgency-oriented strategy in that country, involving a buildup of U.S. boots on the ground and a commitment to protracted efforts to win hearts and minds in Afghan villages where the Taliban was resurgent. It was on this basis that he fired the incumbent Afghan War commander, General David D. McKiernan, replacing him with General Stanley A. McChrystal, considered a more vigorous proponent of counterinsurgency. When, however, McChrystal presented Obama with the price tag for the implementation of this strategy -- 40,000 to 80,000 additional troops (over and above the 20,000-odd extra troops only recently committed to the fight) -- many in the president's inner circle evidently blanched. Not only will such a large deployment cost the U.S. treasury hundreds of billions of dollars it can ill afford, but the strains it is likely to place on the Army and Marine Corps are likely to be little short of unbearable after years of multiple tours and stress in Iraq. This price would be more tolerable, of course, if America's allies would take up more of the burden, but they are ever less willing to do so. Undoubtedly, the leaders of Russia and China are not entirely unhappy to see the United States exhaust its financial and military resources in Afghanistan. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Vice President Joe Biden, among others, is calling for a new turn in U.S. policy, foregoing a counterinsurgency approach and opting instead for a less costly "counter-terrorism" strategy aimed, in part, at crushing Al Qaeda in Pakistan -- using drone aircraft and Special Forces, rather than large numbers of U.S. troops (while leaving troop levels in Afghanistan relatively unchanged). It is too early to predict how the president's review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan will play out, but the fact that he did not immediately embrace the McChrystal plan and has allowed Biden such free rein to argue his case suggests that he may be coming to recognize the folly of expanding America's military commitments abroad at a time when its global preeminence is waning. One senses Obama's caution in other recent moves. Although he continues to insist that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran is impermissible and that the use of force to prevent this remains an option, he has clearly moved to minimize the likelihood that this option -- which would also be plagued by recalcitrant "allies" -- will ever be employed. On the other side of the coin, he has given fresh life to American diplomacy, seeking improved ties with Moscow and approving renewed diplomatic contact with such previously pariah states as Burma, Sudan, and Syria. This, too, reflects a reality of our changing world: that the holier-than-thou, bullying stance adopted by the Bush administration toward these and other countries for almost eight years rarely achieved anything. Think of it as an implicit acknowledgement that the U.S. is now descending from its status as the globe's "sole superpower" to that of an ordinary country. This, after all, is what ordinary countries do; they engage other countries in diplomatic discourse, whether they like their current governments or not. So, welcome to the world of 2025. It doesn't look like the world of our recent past, when the United States stood head and shoulders above all other nations in stature, and it doesn't comport well with Washington's fantasies of global power since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But it is reality. For many Americans, the loss of that preeminence may be a source of discomfort, or even despair. On the other hand, don't forget the advantages to being an ordinary country like any other country: Nobody expects Canada, or France, or Italy to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 68,000 already there and the 120,000 still in Iraq. Nor does anyone expect those countries to spend $925 billion in taxpayer money to do so -- the current estimated cost of both wars, according to the National Priorities Project. The question remains: How much longer will Washington feel that Americans can afford to subsidize a global role that includes garrisoning much of the planet and fighting distant wars in the name of global security, when the American economy is losing so much ground to its competitors? This is the dilemma President Obama and his advisers must confront in the altered world of 2025. Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Owl Books). A documentary film version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation at Bloodandoilmovie.com ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 2963 bytes Desc: not available URL: From thinker at xplornet.com Tue Nov 10 09:29:29 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:29:29 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Waking up ? Message-ID: <20091110172837.B8DD124E4EF@smtprelay03.hostedemail.com> Funny thing is that I've been saying all this for 25 years............. Cheers, Ed. >https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/kickitover From papadop at peak.org Tue Nov 10 14:26:28 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:26:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] [ykboo] Oregon war protest gets international coverage (fwd) Message-ID: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/20091110191657129146.html If your computer is video-capable he above link leads you to a YOUTUBE video clip of the 8hyrlong daily antiwar vigil outside the courthouse in Corvallis, Oregon == the place I live. Michael Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Oregon war protest on English al Jazeera video. The Oregonian won't cover such an important local statement, but an international network will! Carl Reynolds Sherwood, Oregon Israel, not Hamas, broke the truce: http://www.quixote-quest.org/resources/israel_palestine/Gaza_rockets_during_truce.html --------begin forwarded material: UPDATED ON: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/20091110191657129146.html The future of American troops in Afghanistan is again in the headlines in the US amid reports that Barack Obama, the president, has made up his mind about future troop levels there. Despite speculation in US media, the White House is strongly denying that Obama has decided to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. As Washington considers its next move in Afghanistan, protesters in a small US town are continuing an anti-war vigil they began eight years ago. Sebastian Walker reports on the demonstration against the war in Afghanistan from the western US state of Oregon. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: P7552B006.png Type: image/png Size: 12107 bytes Desc: URL: From papadop at peak.org Thu Nov 12 11:17:44 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:17:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] Mark Danner interview Message-ID: Thaks LP: Look for this MARK DANNER aired in Puget Sound KWOW Should be archnived by now -- confluence of intelligent interviewer/callers/and guests http://www.kuow.org/program.php?current=WK1 From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Fri Nov 13 21:04:31 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:04:31 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: Welcome Home, War! How America's Wars Are Systematically Destroying Our Liberties Message-ID: <016901ca64e9$e30da400$1fad57ca@jfos> Excerpt: "For the past six years, confronting a bloody insurgency, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has served as a white-hot crucible of counterinsurgency, forging a new system of biometric surveillance and digital warfare with potentially disturbing domestic implications.(snip) In the first months of Barack Obama's presidency, CIA Predator drone strikes have escalated in the Pakistani tribal borderlands with a macabre efficiency, using a top-secret mix of electronic intercepts, satellite transmission, and digital imaging to kill half of the Agency's 20 top-priority al-Qaeda targets in the region. Just three days before Obama visited Canada last February, Homeland Security launched its first Predator-B drones to patrol the vast, empty North Dakota-Manitoba borderlands that one U.S. senator has called America's "weakest link.(snip) At the outset of the Global War on Terror in 2001, memories of early Cold War anti-communist witch-hunts blocked Bush administration plans to create a corps of civilian tipsters and potential vigilantes. However, far more sophisticated security methods, developed for counterinsurgency warfare overseas, are now coming home to far less public resistance. They promise, sooner or later, to further jeopardize the constitutional freedoms of Americans." -0o0o0o0o0- Tom Dispatch posted 2009-11-12 11:12:27 Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Surveillance State, U.S.A. Wars come home in strange, unnerving ways -- as Americans have just discovered at Fort Hood. Even before Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on his killing spree, that base, a major military embarkation point for our war zones, was already experiencing the after-effects of eight years of war and repeated tours of duty. The suicide rate at Fort Hood was soaring (with 10 on the base in 2009 alone). Divorce rates were on the rise, as were mental health problems, drug and alcohol use, domestic abuse (up 75% since 2001), and murders among war-zone returnees. Even violent crime in Killeen, the town that houses the base, was up 22% (though it was down, according to the New York Times, "in towns of similar size in other parts of the country"). In an era in which our last president urged Americans to support his Global War on Terror by shopping and visiting Disney World, it often seemed that, except for soldiers and their families, our wars abroad affected little in this country. And yet for an imperial power past its prime, foreign wars, even ones fought thousands of miles from home, have a way of coming back to haunt. Alfred W. McCoy tends to be ahead of the curve in his writing. In the Vietnam era, he had to fight the CIA to get his book, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, published; in the Bush years, he was perhaps the first person to recognize that the photos from Abu Ghraib represented no anomaly but the product of a long history of CIA torture research -- and published a powerful book, A Question of Torture, on the subject. His latest book, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, meets counterinsurgency, another topic direct from today's headlines, head on. It ends on these lines: "...a state, like the United States, that rules a foreign territory through political repression and pervasive policing soon finds many of those same coercive methods moving homeward to degrade its own democracy. Such are the costs of empire." In his latest TomDispatch post, McCoy lays out just how that impulse for repression and policing, so vividly and violently expressed abroad in these last years, is now quietly taking aim at us. Tom Welcome Home, War! How America's Wars Are Systematically Destroying Our Liberties By Alfred W. McCoy In his approach to National Security Agency surveillance, as well as CIA renditions, drone assassinations, and military detention, President Obama has to a surprising extent embraced the expanded executive powers championed by his conservative predecessor, George W. Bush. This bipartisan affirmation of the imperial executive could "reverberate for generations," warns Jack Balkin, a specialist on First Amendment freedoms at Yale Law School. And consider these but some of the early fruits from the hybrid seeds that the Global War on Terror has planted on American soil. Yet surprisingly few Americans seem aware of the toll that this already endless war has taken on our civil liberties. Don't be too surprised, then, when, in the midst of some future crisis, advanced surveillance methods and other techniques developed in our recent counterinsurgency wars migrate from Baghdad, Falluja, and Kandahar to your hometown or urban neighborhood. And don't ever claim that nobody told you this could happen -- at least not if you care to read on. Think of our counterinsurgency wars abroad as so many living laboratories for the undermining of a democratic society at home, a process historians of such American wars can tell you has been going on for a long, long time. Counterintelligence innovations like centralized data, covert penetration, and disinformation developed during the Army's first protracted pacification campaign in a foreign land -- the Philippines from 1898 to 1913 -- were repatriated to the United States during World War I, becoming the blueprint for an invasive internal security apparatus that persisted for the next half century. Almost 90 years later, George W. Bush's Global War on Terror plunged the U.S. military into four simultaneous counterinsurgency campaigns, large and small -- in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and (once again) the Philippines -- transforming a vast swath of the planet into an ad hoc "counterterrorism" laboratory. The result? Cutting-edge high-tech security and counterterror techniques that are now slowly migrating homeward. As the War on Terror enters its ninth year to become one of America's longest overseas conflicts, the time has come to ask an uncomfortable question: What impact have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- and the atmosphere they created domestically -- had on the quality of our democracy? Every American knows that we are supposedly fighting elsewhere to defend democracy here at home. Yet the crusade for democracy abroad, largely unsuccessful in its own right, has proven remarkably effective in building a technological template that could be just a few tweaks away from creating a domestic surveillance state -- with omnipresent cameras, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identification, and drone aircraft patrolling "the homeland." Even if its name is increasingly anathema in Washington, the ongoing Global War on Terror has helped bring about a massive expansion of domestic surveillance by the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) whose combined data-mining systems have already swept up several billion private documents from U.S. citizens into classified data banks. Abroad, after years of failing counterinsurgency efforts in the Middle East, the Pentagon began applying biometrics -- the science of identification via facial shape, fingerprints, and retinal or iris patterns -- to the pacification of Iraqi cities, as well as the use of electronic intercepts for instant intelligence and the split-second application of satellite imagery to aid an assassination campaign by drone aircraft that reaches from Africa to South Asia. In the panicky aftermath of some future terrorist attack, Washington could quickly fuse existing foreign and domestic surveillance techniques, as well as others now being developed on distant battlefields, to create an instant digital surveillance state. The Crucible of Counterinsurgency For the past six years, confronting a bloody insurgency, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has served as a white-hot crucible of counterinsurgency, forging a new system of biometric surveillance and digital warfare with potentially disturbing domestic implications. This new biometric identification system first appeared in the smoking aftermath of "Operation Phantom Fury," a brutal, nine-day battle that U.S. Marines fought in late 2004 to recapture the insurgent-controlled city of Falluja. Bombing, artillery, and mortars destroyed at least half of that city's buildings and sent most of its 250,000 residents fleeing into the surrounding countryside. Marines then forced returning residents to wait endless hours under a desert sun at checkpoints for fingerprints and iris scans. Once inside the city's blast-wall maze, residents had to wear identification tags for compulsory checks to catch infiltrating insurgents. The first hint that biometrics were helping to pacify Baghdad's far larger population of seven million came in April 2007 when the New York Times published an eerie image of American soldiers studiously photographing an Iraqi's eyeball. With only a terse caption to go by, we can still infer the technology behind this single record of a retinal scan in Baghdad: digital cameras for U.S. patrols, wireless data transfer to a mainframe computer, and a database to record as many adult Iraqi eyes as could be gathered. Indeed, eight months later, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had collected over a million Iraqi fingerprints and iris scans. By mid-2008, the U.S. Army had also confined Baghdad's population behind blast-wall cordons and was checking Iraqi identities by satellite link to a biometric database. Pushing ever closer to the boundaries of what present-day technology can do, by early 2008, U.S. forces were also collecting facial images accessible by portable data labs called Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facilities, linked by satellite to a biometric database in West Virginia. "A war fighter needs to know one of three things," explained the inventor of this lab-in-a-box. "Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?" A future is already imaginable in which a U.S. sniper could take a bead on the eyeball of a suspected terrorist, pause for a nanosecond to transmit the target's iris or retinal data via backpack-sized laboratory to a computer in West Virginia, and then, after instantaneous feedback, pull the trigger. Lest such developments seem fanciful, recall that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward claims the success of George W. Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq was due less to boots on the ground than to bullets in the head -- and these, in turn, were due to a top-secret fusion of electronic intercepts and satellite imagery. Starting in May 2006, American intelligence agencies launched a Special Action Program using "the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government" in a successful effort "to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias." Under General Stanley McChrystal, now U.S. Afghan War commander, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) deployed "every tool available simultaneously, from signals intercepts to human intelligence" for "lightning quick" strikes. One intelligence officer reportedly claimed that the program was so effective it gave him "orgasms." President Bush called it "awesome." Although refusing to divulge details, Woodward himself compared it to the Manhattan Project in World War II. This Iraq-based assassination program relied on the authority Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld granted JSOC in early 2004 to "kill or capture al-Qaeda terrorists" in 20 countries across the Middle East, producing dozens of lethal strikes by airborne Special Operations forces. Another crucial technological development in Washington's secret war of assassination has been the armed drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle, whose speedy development has been another by-product of Washington's global counterterrorism laboratory. Half a world away from Iraq in the southern Philippines, the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Forces conducted an early experiment in the use of aerial surveillance for assassination. In June 2002, with a specially-equipped CIA aircraft circling overhead offering real-time video surveillance in the pitch dark of a tropical night, Philippine Marines executed a deadly high-seas ambush of Muslim terrorist Aldam Tilao (a.k.a. "Abu Sabaya"). In July 2008, the Pentagon proposed an expenditure of $1.2 billion for a fleet of 50 light aircraft loaded with advanced electronics to loiter over battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing "full motion video and electronic eavesdropping to the troops." By late 2008, night flights over Afghanistan from the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt were using sensors to give American ground forces real-time images of Taliban targets -- some so focused that they could catch just a few warm bodies huddled in darkness behind a wall. In the first months of Barack Obama's presidency, CIA Predator drone strikes have escalated in the Pakistani tribal borderlands with a macabre efficiency, using a top-secret mix of electronic intercepts, satellite transmission, and digital imaging to kill half of the Agency's 20 top-priority al-Qaeda targets in the region. Just three days before Obama visited Canada last February, Homeland Security launched its first Predator-B drones to patrol the vast, empty North Dakota-Manitoba borderlands that one U.S. senator has called America's "weakest link." Homeland Security While those running U.S. combat operations overseas were experimenting with intercepts, satellites, drones, and biometrics, inside Washington the plodding civil servants of internal security at the FBI and the NSA initially began expanding domestic surveillance through thoroughly conventional data sweeps, legal and extra-legal, and -- with White House help -- several abortive attempts to revive a tradition that dates back to World War I of citizens spying on suspected subversives. "If people see anything suspicious, utility workers, you ought to report it," said President George Bush in his April 2002 call for nationwide citizen vigilance. Within weeks, his Justice Department had launched Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), with plans for "millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees and others" to aid the government by spying on their fellow Americans. Such citizen surveillance sparked strong protests, however, forcing the Justice Department to quietly bury the president's program. Simultaneously, inside the Pentagon, Admiral John Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's former national security advisor (swept up in the Iran-Contra scandal of that era), was developing a Total Information Awareness program which was to contain "detailed electronic dossiers" on millions of Americans. When news leaked about this secret Pentagon office with its eerie, all-seeing eye logo, Congress banned the program, and the admiral resigned in 2003. But the key data extraction technology, the Information Awareness Prototype System, migrated quietly to the NSA. Soon enough, however, the CIA, FBI, and NSA turned to monitoring citizens electronically without the need for human tipsters, rendering the administration's grudging retreats from conventional surveillance at best an ambiguous political victory for civil liberties advocates. Sometime in 2002, President Bush gave the NSA secret, illegal orders to monitor private communications through the nation's telephone companies and its private financial transactions through SWIFT, an international bank clearinghouse. After the New York Times exposed these wiretaps in 2005, Congress quickly capitulated, first legalizing this illegal executive program and then granting cooperating phone companies immunity from civil suits. Such intelligence excess was, however, intentional. Even after Congress widened the legal parameters for future intercepts in 2008, the NSA continued to push the boundaries of its activities, engaging in what the New York Times politely termed the systematic "overcollection" of electronic communications among American citizens. Now, for example, thanks to a top-secret NSA database called "Pinwale," analysts routinely scan countless "millions" of domestic electronic communications without much regard for whether they came from foreign or domestic sources. Starting in 2004, the FBI launched an Investigative Data Warehouse as a "centralized repository for... counterterrorism." Within two years, it contained 659 million individual records. This digital archive of intelligence, social security files, drivers' licenses, and records of private finances could be accessed by 13,000 Bureau agents and analysts making a million queries monthly. By 2009, when digital rights advocates sued for full disclosure, the database had already grown to over a billion documents. And did this sacrifice of civil liberties make the United States a safer place? In July 2009, after a careful review of the electronic surveillance in these years, the inspectors general of the Defense Department, the Justice Department, the CIA, the NSA, and the Office of National Intelligence issued a report sharply critical of these secret efforts. Despite George W. Bush's claims that massive electronic surveillance had "helped prevent attacks," these auditors could not find any "specific instances" of this, concluding such surveillance had "generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.'s overall counterterrorism efforts." Amid the pressures of a generational global war, Congress proved all too ready to offer up civil liberties as a bipartisan burnt offering on the altar of national security. In April 2007, for instance, in a bid to legalize the Bush administration's warrantless wiretaps, Congressional representative Jane Harman (Dem., California) offered a particularly extreme example of this urge. She introduced the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, proposing a powerful national commission, functionally a standing "star chamber," to "combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States." The bill passed the House by an overwhelming 404 to 6 vote before stalling, and then dying, in a Senate somewhat more mindful of civil liberties. Only weeks after Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, Harman's life itself became a cautionary tale about expanding electronic surveillance. According to information leaked to the Congressional Quarterly, in early 2005 an NSA wiretap caught Harman offering to press the Bush Justice Department for reduced charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists accused of espionage. In exchange, an Israeli agent offered to help Harman gain the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee by threatening House Democratic majority leader Nancy Pelosi with the loss of a major campaign donor. As Harman put down the phone, she said, "This conversation doesn't exist." How wrong she was. An NSA transcript of Harman's every word soon crossed the desk of CIA Director Porter Goss, prompting an FBI investigation that, in turn, was blocked by then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. As it happened, the White House knew that the New York Times was about to publish its sensational revelation of the NSA's warrantless wiretaps, and felt it desperately needed Harman for damage control among her fellow Democrats. In this commingling of intrigue and irony, an influential legislator's defense of the NSA's illegal wiretapping exempted her from prosecution for a security breach discovered by an NSA wiretap. Since the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House, the auto-pilot expansion of digital domestic surveillance has in no way been interfered with. As a result, for example, the FBI's "Terrorist Watchlist," with 400,000 names and a million entries, continues to grow at the rate of 1,600 new names daily. In fact, the Obama administration has even announced plans for a new military cybercommand staffed by 7,000 Air Force employees at Lackland Air Base in Texas. This command will be tasked with attacking enemy computers and repelling hostile cyber-attacks or counterattacks aimed at U.S. computer networks -- with scant respect for what the Pentagon calls "sovereignty in the cyberdomain." Despite the president's assurances that operations "will not -- I repeat -- will not include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic," the Pentagon's top cyberwarrior, General James E. Cartwright, has conceded such intrusions are inevitable. Sending the Future Home While U.S. combat forces prepare to draw-down in Iraq (and ramp up in Afghanistan), military intelligence units are coming home to apply their combat-tempered surveillance skills to our expanding homeland security state, while preparing to counter any future domestic civil disturbances here. Indeed, in September 2008, the Army's Northern Command announced that one of the Third Division's brigades in Iraq would be reassigned as a Consequence Management Response Force (CMRF) inside the U.S. Its new mission: planning for moments when civilian authorities may need help with "civil unrest and crowd control." According to Colonel Roger Cloutier, his unit's civil-control equipment featured "a new modular package of non-lethal capabilities" designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals -- including Taser guns, roadblocks, shields, batons, and beanbag bullets. That same month, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey flew to Fort Stewart, Georgia, for the first full CMRF mission readiness exercise. There, he strode across a giant urban battle map filling a gymnasium floor like a conquering Gulliver looming over Lilliputian Americans. With 250 officers from all services participating, the military war-gamed its future coordination with the FBI, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and local authorities in the event of a domestic terrorist attack or threat. Within weeks, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an expedited freedom of information request for details of these deployments, arguing: "[It] is imperative that the American people know the truth about this new and unprecedented intrusion of the military in domestic affairs." At the outset of the Global War on Terror in 2001, memories of early Cold War anti-communist witch-hunts blocked Bush administration plans to create a corps of civilian tipsters and potential vigilantes. However, far more sophisticated security methods, developed for counterinsurgency warfare overseas, are now coming home to far less public resistance. They promise, sooner or later, to further jeopardize the constitutional freedoms of Americans. In these same years, under the pressure of War on Terror rhetoric, presidential power has grown relentlessly, opening the way to unchecked electronic surveillance, the endless detention of terror suspects, and a variety of inhumane forms of interrogation. Somewhat more slowly, innovative techniques of biometric identification, aerial surveillance, and civil control are now being repatriated as well. In a future America, enhanced retinal recognition could be married to omnipresent security cameras as a part of the increasingly routine monitoring of public space. Military surveillance equipment, tempered to a technological cutting edge in counterinsurgency wars, might also one day be married to the swelling domestic databases of the NSA and FBI, sweeping the fiber-optic cables beneath our cities for any sign of subversion. And in the skies above, loitering aircraft and cruising drones could be checking our borders and peering down on American life. If that day comes, our cities will be Argus-eyed with countless thousands of digital cameras scanning the faces of passengers at airports, pedestrians on city streets, drivers on highways, ATM customers, mall shoppers, and visitors to any federal facility. One day, hyper-speed software will be able to match those millions upon millions of facial or retinal scans to photos of suspect subversives inside a biometric database akin to England's current National Public Order Intelligence Unit, sending anti-subversion SWAT teams scrambling for an arrest or an armed assault. By the time the Global War on Terror is declared over in 2020, if then, our American world may be unrecognizable -- or rather recognizable only as the stuff of dystopian science fiction. What we are proving today is that, however detached from the wars being fought in their name most Americans may seem, war itself never stays far from home for long. It's already returning in the form of new security technologies that could one day make a digital surveillance state a reality, changing fundamentally the character of American democracy. Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of A Question of Torture, among other works. His most recent book is Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (University of Wisconsin Press) which explores the influence of overseas counterinsurgency operations throughout the twentieth century in spreading ever more draconian internal security measures here at home. Copyright 2009 Alfred W. McCoy ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 22977 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 157620 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 393181 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 19093 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Fri Nov 13 21:11:46 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:11:46 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw Up: Optimism as a Public Health Problem Message-ID: <01ed01ca64f0$b0e7f280$1fad57ca@jfos> Tom Dispatch posted 2009-11-03 16:27:36 Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, Why Your Child May Not Get a Swine Flu Shot Soon This week, the Obama White House released a very partial record of those who had visited since January 20, 2009. This it hailed as "transparency like you've never seen it before" and as the beginning of a new White House visitor transparency policy. Unfortunately, the policy applies mainly to post-September 15th visitors and has a caveat that, in time, could prove large enough to drive a Humvee through. As the White House website puts it, all names of visitors will be released after a lag of 90-120 days, "aside from a small group of appointments that cannot be disclosed because of national security imperatives or their necessarily confidential nature (such as a visit by a possible Supreme Court nominee)." The version of the story that hit TV screens and most newspapers had to do with William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Moore, and Michael Jordan, who were on the list, but weren't actually William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Moore, and Michael Jordan. Not the ones who come to your mind, anyway. The secondary story was that Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Bill Gates were exactly the Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Bill Gates you'd imagine, and that in the last eight months a reasonable amount of star power had indeed passed through those well-guarded gates. Then there was labor leader Andrew Stern, fingered by the Wall Street Journal for his 22 visits. And, oh yes, there were the others, too, even if they didn't really cause much of a stir. On this already limited list of visitors, for instance, Wall Street was hardly missing-in-action, nor was big oil. Visiting "the people's house" were Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who met a mere two times with the President and once with economic advisor Lawrence Summers; James Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., who made it in but six times, as well as Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit; Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil Corp; David O'Reilly, CEO of Chevron; Maurice Greenberg, former head of AIG; and so on, including a striking crew of lobbyists. In other words, no big deal. Now, me, I wouldn't mind knowing whether on the unreleased visitors' lists for these last months lurked Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, or Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella (or their lobbyists), not to speak of other Big Pharma types. Did they make it to the White House, and if so, how many times? I'm curious because Barbara Ehrenreich identifies their companies as the ones screwing up the production of the swine flu vaccine, and somehow they did manage to get a modest infusion of $2 billion from the Obama administration to do a less than magnificent job of this. I wonder just what deals might have been broached with them in the people's name. In the spirit of Ehrenreich's remarkable new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America -- which I've recommended before -- I'd like to exhibit a little positive thinking and hope that some enterprising reporter digs up this info for the rest of us, and soon. In the meantime, do check out Ehrenreich's book (as well as the audio interview she did for TomDispatch to go with today's piece). It admittedly won't make you more optimistic, or even healthier, just a lot wiser and far more irritated. Tom The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up Optimism as a Public Health Problem By Barbara Ehrenreich If you can't find any swine flu vaccine for your kids, it won't be for a lack of positive thinking. In fact, the whole flu snafu is being blamed on "undue optimism" on the part of both the Obama administration and Big Pharma. Optimism is supposed to be good for our health. According to the academic "positive psychologists," as well as legions of unlicensed life coaches and inspirational speakers, optimism wards off common illnesses, contributes to recovery from cancer, and extends longevity. To its promoters, optimism is practically a miracle vaccine, so essential that we need to start inoculating Americans with it in the public schools -- in the form of "optimism training." But optimism turns out to be less than salubrious when it comes to public health. In July, the federal government promised to have 160 million doses of H1N1 vaccine ready for distribution by the end of October. Instead, only 28 million doses are now ready to go, and optimism is the obvious culprit. "Road to Flu Vaccine Shortfall, Paved With Undue Optimism," was the headline of a front page article in the October 26th New York Times. In the conventional spin, the vaccine shortage is now "threatening to undermine public confidence in government." If the federal government couldn't get this right, the pundits are already asking, how can we trust it with health reform? But let's stop a minute and also ask: Who really screwed up here -- the government or private pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and three others that had agreed to manufacture and deliver the vaccine by late fall? Last spring and summer, those companies gleefully gobbled up $2 billion worth of government contracts for vaccine production, promising to have every American, or at least every American child and pregnant woman, supplied with vaccine before trick-or-treating season began. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the government was misled by these companies, which failed to report manufacturing delays as they arose. Her department, she says, was "relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy." If, in fact, there's a political parable here, it's about Big Government's sweetly trusting reliance on Big Business to safeguard the public health: Let the private insurance companies manage health financing; let profit-making hospital chains deliver health care; let Big Pharma provide safe and affordable medications. As it happens, though, all these entities have a priority that regularly overrides the public's health, and that is, of course, profit -- which has led insurance companies to function as "death panels," excluding those who might ever need care, and for-profit hospitals to turn away the indigent, the pregnant, and the uninsured. As for Big Pharma, the truth is that they're just not all that into vaccines, traditionally preferring to manufacture drugs for such plagues as erectile dysfunction, social anxiety, and restless leg syndrome. Vaccines can be tricky and less than maximally profitable to manufacture. They go out of style with every microbial mutation, and usually it's the government, rather than cunning direct-to-consumer commercials, that determines who gets them. So it should have been no surprise that Big Pharma approached the H1N1 problem ploddingly, using a 50-year old technology involving the production of the virus in chicken eggs, a method long since abandoned by China and the European Union. Chicken eggs are fine for omelets, but they have quickly proved to be a poor growth medium for the viral "seed" strain used to make H1N1 vaccine. There are alternative "cell culture" methods that could produce the vaccine much faster, but in complete defiance of the conventional wisdom that private enterprise is always more innovative and resourceful than government, Big Pharma did not demand that they be made available for this year's swine flu epidemic. Just for the record, those alternative methods have been developed with government funding, which is also the source of almost all our basic knowledge of viruses. So, thanks to the drug companies, optimism has been about as effective in warding off H1N1 as amulets or fairy dust. Both the government and Big Pharma were indeed overly optimistic about the latter's ability to supply the vaccine, leaving those of us who are involved in the care of small children with little to rely on but hope -- hope that the epidemic will fade out on its own, hope that our loved ones have the luck to survive it. And contrary to the claims of the positive psychologists, optimism itself is neither an elixir, nor a life-saving vaccine. Recent studies show that optimism -- or positive feelings -- do not affect recovery from a variety of cancers, including those of the breast, lungs, neck, and throat. Furthermore, the evidence that optimism prolongs life has turned out to be shaky at best: one study of nuns frequently cited as proof positive of optimism's healthful effects turned out, in fact, only to show that nuns who wrote more eloquently about their vows in their early twenties tended to outlive those whose written statements were clunkier. Are we ready to abandon faith-based medicine of both the individual and public health variety? Faith in private enterprise and the market has now left us open to a swine flu epidemic; faith alone -- in the form of optimism or hope -- does not kill viruses or cancer cells. On the public health front, we need to socialize vaccine manufacture as well as its distribution. Then, if the supply falls short, we can always impeach the president. On the individual front, there's always soap and water. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 16 books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. A frequent contributor to Harper's and the Nation, she has also been a columnist at the New York Times and Time magazine. Her seventeenth book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (Metropolitan Books), has just been published. An examination of recent studies of the medical ineffectiveness of positive thinking, mentioned in this essay, can be found in the book. To listen to the TomDispatch audio interview with Ehrenreich that accompanies this piece, click here. Copyright 2009 Barbara Ehrenreich ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 18660 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Fri Nov 13 21:50:11 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:50:11 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives Message-ID: <021101ca64f1$63a9f8a0$1fad57ca@jfos> The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives By Nick Turse An eye-opening investigation of the all-pervasive, presence of the Pentagon in daily life -- a real-world Matrix come alive. Here is the new, hip, high-tech military-industrial complex -- an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives. Mapping out what should more properly be called the Military-Industrial-Technological-Entertainment-Scientific-Media-Intelligence-Corporate Complex, historian Nick Turse demonstrates just how extensively the Pentagon, through its little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with America's major corporations, has taken hold of the nation. >From iPods to Starbucks coffee to Oakley sunglasses, Turse investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon's collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers, its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom, its joint ventures with the World Wrestling Federation and NASCAR. He shows the inventive ways the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the "culture of cool" by making 'friends' on MySpace. A striking vision of a brave new world of remote-controlled rats and super-soldiers who need no sleep, The Complex will change our understanding of the militarization of America. We are a long way from Eisenhower's military-industrial complex: this is the essential book for understanding its twenty-first-century progeny. Comments on The Complex "Americans who still think they can free themselves from the clutches of the military-industrial complex need to read this book. The gimmicks the Pentagon uses to deceive, entrap, and enlist gullible 18 to 24 year-olds make signing up anything but voluntary. Nick Turse has produced a brilliant expos?? of the Pentagon's pervasive influence in our lives." -- Chalmers Johnson, author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic "This is a deeply disturbing audit of the Pentagon's influence on American life, especially its subtle conscription of popular imagination and entertainment technology. If Nick Turse is right, the Matrix may be just around the corner." -- Mike Davis, author of Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb "When President Eisenhower warned of the dangers to democracy posed by the military-industrial complex, he had no idea how far it would penetrate into every aspect of our everyday lives. In impressive detail, Nick Turse shows how the military is now tied to everything from your morning cup of Starbucks to the video games your kids play before turning in for the night. It's not just political anymore-it's personal. Turse has sounded the alarm about the militarization of everyday life. Now it's up to us to do something about it." -- Bill Hartung, author of How Much Are You Making on the War Daddy? "Nick Turse's searing, investigative journalism exposes how, with a growing contingent of corporate/entertainment/academic/media collaborators, the Pentagon has not only garrisoned the globe, but come home to dominate the United States. The Complex is indispensable reading." -- Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq "In his exhaustively researched first book concerning the extent to which the 'military industrial complex' has infiltrated the life of the average American, journalist Turse starts off by documenting how many times supposedly innocent consumer choices support major Pentagon contractors then covers similar ground in greater detail. Turse has up-to-date information on a previously well-covered subject and casts a wide net, including the movie industry, video gaming and military recruitment tactics in his analysis. Many of Turse's facts are purely economic, but some of them are astonishing. Who knew, for example, that in 2005, the Department of Defense spent $1.2 million on donuts in Kuwait?" -- Publisher's Weekly Click to watch the author interview. http://www.tomdispatch.com/p/turse ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Sun Nov 15 19:59:31 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:59:31 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: After the Billionaires Plundered Alabama Town ... Message-ID: <00f101ca6671$34161340$23ad57ca@jfos> The following is a disturbing analysis and explication of the 're-structuring' of just one small, backward section of American society. Think it can't/won't/isn't happening here in Australia? ... think again! Please pass this article on to others thanks, john #################### Excerpt: "For a lot of Americans, the sight of troops occupying their towns is their worst nightmare come true -- part of the reason that America came into existence was to create a country where this sort of thing would never happen, even if the Army's sole intent was to be a good neighbor and help old ladies cross the streets. Strangely enough, there was almost no media coverage of the occupation -- you had to rely on various right-wing outlets like CNSNews.com, whose article I blogged at the time, or the left-wing Democratic Underground. But what even the right-wing anti-government people won't report is the true reason why the Army was called out in the first place, something that goes right back to the cause of the shooting rampage: billionaire exploitation of the local Alabamans, not just by the chicken oligarch, but from higher up the predator food chain -- Wall Street banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase.(snip) In light of all of this, the Army's brief, illegal occupation of a string of towns in Alabama this past Spring no longer looks like a freak one-off, but rather a logical progression in the ongoing billionaire plunder of America. It gives new meaning to what MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan is calling "corporate communism." Not only are banking billionaires on permanent state wealthfare, but even worse, as the wealth available becomes increasingly scarce and there isn't enough left to satisfy the billionaires' grotesque appetites and regular citizens' needs to flush their toilets or heat their homes, we're heading to the point that all Third World countries come to -- calling out the troops to ensure that the peasants pay their tithes to their absentee masters in New York and Connecticut ... " -0o0o0o0o0o0- After the Billionaires Plundered Alabama Town, Troops Were Called in ... Illegally By Mark Ames Editor's Note: The shocking transfer of public wealth to Wall Street's pockets is illustrated vividly in Mark Ames' article below, which covers some very disturbing recent events in Alabama, where billionaires and banks are squeezing the locals so hard that they're literally going bankrupt just for flushing their toilets, where violence and the threat of violence are reaching a boiling point and where even the Posse Comitatus Act is under threat. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," said one Goldman Sachs vice-chairman recently. Well, here's a tale of the kind of inequality the finance industry expects citizens to tolerate. October 26, 2009 "Alternet" -- October 24, 2009 -- One of this year's more disturbing stories that were ignored was the illegal Army occupation of Samson, Alab., in March following a shooting spree that raged across two towns by a disgruntled worker, leaving 11 people dead. As I wrote at the time, Michael McLendon, 27, went on a killing rampage following years of relentless corporate exploitation and harassment against him, his mother (whom he mercy-killed), and the entire rural Alabama region, which suffered like so many parts of rural America at the hands of billionaire goons like chicken oligarch Bo Pilgrim of Pilgrim's Pride notoriety. One of the creepiest details to emerge in the shooting rampage were reports that troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets. This is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, every freedom-loving American's worst nightmare. And now, finally, the Army officially agrees that its occupation of the Alabama streets was illegal, according to an internal report the Associated Press got a hold of, following a Freedom of Information Act filing: An Army investigation found that soldiers should not have been sent to man traffic stops in a small Alabama town after 11 people were killed in March during a shooting spree. An Army report released to the Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request said the decision to dispatch military police to Samson from nearby Fort Rucker broke the law. But an Army spokesman said no charges have been filed following the Aug. 10 report. The report from the Department of Army Inspector General found the use of military personnel in Samson violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops from performing law-enforcement actions. The names of those involved were redacted from the report. According to the report, the officer's "intent was to be a good Army neighbor and help local civilian authorities facing a difficult, unique tragedy affecting the local community. There were no apparent adverse collateral effects to the support provided." Indeed. For a lot of Americans, the sight of troops occupying their towns is their worst nightmare come true -- part of the reason that America came into existence was to create a country where this sort of thing would never happen, even if the Army's sole intent was to be a good neighbor and help old ladies cross the streets. Strangely enough, there was almost no media coverage of the occupation -- you had to rely on various right-wing outlets like CNSNews.com, whose article I blogged at the time, or the left-wing Democratic Underground. But what even the right-wing anti-government people won't report is the true reason why the Army was called out in the first place, something that goes right back to the cause of the shooting rampage: billionaire exploitation of the local Alabamans, not just by the chicken oligarch, but from higher up the predator food chain -- Wall Street banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase. You see, thanks to a combination of corporate-tax holidays (which reduce local revenues), billionaire greed like the sort that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride, and Wall Street investment-banking scams on places like Alabama that result in corrupted local officials and bankrupted municipalities, counties and states -- now, there's no money left to fund local police forces, as the U.S. Army report reveals: The soldiers arrived in the hours after the shootings, which stretched the town's tiny police force and county officers to the limit with several different crime scenes. The report said troops were dispatched after the Geneva County Sheriff's Office and Samson Police requested assistance from Fort Rucker to relieve law enforcement at traffic checkpoints around the crime-scene area. As I wrote earlier this year, Pilgrim's Pride hooked up with Wall Street to leverage itself into bankruptcy while enriching the executives' family and a handful of insiders at the expense of tens of thousands of Americans workers: In 2006, Pilgrim's Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who's been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation's No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week. That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: it made the workforce pay for the executives' bonuses. That meant squeezing lower-middle-class workers for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim's case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride accusing it of grossly undercompensating its employees. That same year, 10,000 Pilgrim's Pride employees launched a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation for their work. The damage extended well beyond Pilgrim's Pride's plants. With bankruptcy came huge unpaid local tax bills, leading to further layoffs and reduced services for the already-beleaguered locals: Suwannee County could be out about $2 million if Pilgrim's Pride doesn't pay its property-tax bill, according to property appraiser Lamar Jenkins. The biggest taxpayer in the county filed for bankruptcy protection Dec. 1. Now it's not clear when -- or if -- the bill will be paid. "It's certainly going to put a hurt on the budget of the county," Jenkins told the [Suwanee] Democrat by phone Thursday. Jenkins said the unpaid bill represents 7.4 percent of the money local schools get from property taxes; 5.3 percent of county funds from that source; and 8 percent of the money the Suwannee River Water Management District receives from local property-tax revenues. A spokesman for Pilgrim's did not respond to a request for comment. Bo Pilgrim, the head of Pilgrim's Pride, once told his Texas church that he was worth over $1 billion before the market crash, and he's still worth hundreds of millions. His rapacity was boundless, and in the end it was the undoing of Pilgrim's Pride -- not the Pilgrim family, mind you, which is still filthy disgusting rich, but the company is through. Last month, 64 percent of Pilgrim's Pride was sold to JBS, a Brazilian beef giant, making it the largest meat company in the world, topping America's Tyson. The American cattle industry tried to block the deal, which it says could result in the destruction of the American beef industry, but the Justice Department already approved JBS' takeover. In the billionaires' Third World model for America, it makes awful sense that a Brazilian meat company would take control of a bankrupt, corrupt American chicken company. For Wall Street and the billionaires, the more they destroy in America, the richer they get, consequences be damned. And anyway, it's not like Pilgrim's Pride was a model of corporate responsibility while under American ownership; just read some of the comments on this recent Reuters article: Gilmer, Texas, Sep. 8, 2009 -- working as a supervisor in mt pleasant plant use to be injoyable, but lately they expect you to work 50/70 hours for no extra pay. pilgrims pride does not care about family life just their money. Everyone is afraid to say anything, because upper management may let you go with no warnning because you voiced your oppion robert, Carrollton, Ga. -- i work carrollton,ga former goldkist plant we were goldkist 1 plant now we fill like we in pure hell working for pilgrim pride these people want you to kiss there ass and work three times hard for same money no rasied in two years old chicken farmer Doddridge, Ark. -- While I was raising chickens for Pilgrim's Pride, I became friends with many lower management employees of the company. The manner in which they were terminated was just simply unmerciful. While the growers had the brunt of the financial devastion, many that were nearing retirement were left with no prospects of employment in the near future. I know some that have had to uproot their families and settle for a considerable more modest lifestyle with their retirement benefits in doubt after a number of years of employment. It is just a shame that Bo Pilgrim has pocketed the money of many hard working people. I still believe Bo needs to be in the jail cell next to Bernie Madoff. The comments section is where you'll find the real, unvarnished, ungrammatical rage among America's cheated majority, because for the most part, people are too desperate and afraid to complain in public. But here's the rub: Selling Pilgrim's Pride to a Brazilian meat monopoly doesn't mean things will get better for Alabamans. Just weeks after the buyout was announced, Pilgrim's Pride closed another plant, this one in northern Alabama. According to the AP: A chicken-processing plant owned by Pilgrim's Pride Corp. is shutting down this week after almost six decades, putting more than 600 people out of work and creating ripples that will be felt all over town. The city of almost 20,000 is preparing for the end of a relationship that began in 1952 when James Beasley founded Sweet Sue Poultry, which originally ran the plant. Owners included Beatrice Foods and ConAgra before Pilgrim's Pride purchased the business in 2003. Which looks a lot like an even more depressing Pilgrim's Pride story from a few months earlier, this from rural Arkansas. The town of Clinton filed a lawsuit in June against Pilgrim's Pride, accusing it of turning the town into a "ghost town": "With its largest and sole remaining employer, Pilgrim's, now evacuated, the city faces a crisis of revenue, bond payments and economic devastation, and as a result of the Pilgrim's evacuation is threatened with becoming a modern-day ghost town," the lawsuit filed by the city said. "This serious economic situation is, however, a direct consequence of Pilgrim's illegal purpose in shuttering the Clinton plant and operations." This story is repeated all over the rural South. So guess who put together the deal that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride? Lehman Bros., the king of bankruptcy. On the other side of the deal, serving Gold Kist, was Merrill Lynch, which also collapsed last year. But Merrill's banker in the Pilgrim's Pride acquisition is still doing well, thank you very much. In fact, he was recently hired by JPMorgan Chase as vice chairman of mergers and acquisitions. Which makes perfect sense, because JPMorgan Chase has been laying waste to Alabama on a level that makes Pilgrim's Pride's destruction look downright humanitarian. JP Morgan Chase has plundered so much wealth from one county in Alabama, using a complex derivatives scheme and old-fashioned bribery, that some locals are calling it "Armageddon." According to Bloomberg: In its 190-year history, Jefferson County, Ala., has endured a cholera epidemic, a pounding in the Civil War, gunslingers, labor riots and terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. Now this namesake of Thomas Jefferson, anchored by Birmingham, is staring at what one local politician calls financial "Armageddon." The spectacle -- a tax struck down, about 1,000 county employees furloughed, a politician indicted over $3 billion in sewer debt that may lead to the largest municipal bankruptcy in history -- has elbowed its way up the ladder of county lore. "People want to kill somebody, but they don't know who to shoot at," says Russell Cunningham, past president of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce. Jefferson County's debacle is a parable for billions of dollars lost by state and local governments from Florida to California in transactions done behind closed doors. Selling debt without requiring competition made public officials vulnerable to bankers' sales pitches, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for borrowing gone awry. [T]he county bet on interest-rate swaps, agreements that a representative of New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. told commissioners could reduce their interest costs. Instead, the swaps -- covering more than $5 billion in all -- blew up during the credit crisis after ratings for the county's bond insurers fell. JPMorgan, through spokeswoman Christine Holevas, declined to comment for this story. Yeah, why bother commenting to the public when you own the bastards? JPMorgan, which took $25 billion in direct bailout money and tens of billions more in backdoor subsidies and handouts, just posted a massive $3.6 billion quarterly profit, and has set aside at least $11.1 billion for management bonuses. Meanwhile, Alabamans can't afford to flush their toilets. This is what inequality looks like. From Wall Street, it must look extremely appealing; for the rest of America, it's a nightmare that's only getting worse. So far, it's clear that Birmingham and the entire Jefferson County are following the wretched script of a typical Third World scenario, where the Wall Street bankers corrupt the politicians and eventually bankrupt the place and then, while the corpse is still warm and the bankruptcy deals are cut, Wall Street makes sure it's first in line to profit off the chaos it created, while its corrupt local shill (in this case Birmingham's mayor) takes the fall for the crime of accepting the JP Morgan bribes . and the locals get screwed worst of all, paying off the bill for years or decades. Just this week, it emerged that Goldman Sachs, employer of Brian "Inequality Is Good" Griffiths, bilked the state of New Jersey using a similar scheme involving interest-rate swaps on bonds that don't even exist. According to Bloomberg, New Jersey is considering raising its gasoline tax to pay the $1 million a month they have to pay out to Goldman for the scam -- a regressive tax that once again takes from the struggling middle class and poor, and puts in thepockets of the billionaires. Meanwhile, over in Jefferson County, Ala., there's so little left to steal from the impoverished locals that Wall Street has been forced to come up with a new, grotesquely evil plan to line their pockets: taxing the local residents for taking a shit: In August, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., as trustee for owners of about $3 billion in sewer warrants, filed suit in Jefferson County Circuit Court seeking an appointed receiver for the sewer system. The receiver should have authority to raise rates enough to meet the debt service, the bank said in the complaint, which is pending. The sewer system is already charging customers about 300 percent more to drain bathtubs or flush toilets than a dozen years ago. By one county estimate, average annual bills are now about $750, compared with the national average of $331, according to a 2007 survey by the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a coalition of utilities. It's impossible to boost them enough without putting them beyond the means of many residents, County CommissionerJim Carns says. "We're like a guy making $50,000 a year with a $1 million mortgage." In Wall Street's eyes, Alabamans really do shit gold. The thing now will be to convince the locals to use their toilets rather than, say, gas to heat their homes. As I wrote a few months ago, Jefferson County residents have become so desperate that they're being forced to choose between water and heating, as this article shows: As nighttime temperatures plunged in Birmingham, Ala., last October, Dora Bonner had a choice: either pay the gas bill so she could heat the home she shares with four grandchildren, or send the Birmingham Water Works a $250 check for her water and sewer bill. Bonner, who is 73 and lives on Social Security, decided to keep the house from freezing. "I couldn't afford the water, so they shut it off," she says. Bonner's sewer bills have risen more than fourfold in the past decade. So have those of others in Jefferson County, which has 659,000 residents and includes Birmingham, the state's largest city. The logical outcome of the billionaires' plundering of Alabama is the same thing that happens all over the Third World: violence, fear and calling in the troops, the only way to secure the billionaires' dirty profits: In August and September . Jefferson County residents got a taste of what bankruptcy might look like. As the county began putting about 1,000 workers on leave without pay, one disgruntled employee allegedly e-mailed bomb threats to officials and was promptly arrested, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Lines soon formed outside the courthouse as such tasks as renewing driver's licenses slowed. A kind of legal civil war broke out when three county agencies -- the sheriff's department, an indigent-care hospital and the tax-assessor's office -- sued the county commission to stop the budget cuts on the grounds that they posed a danger to public safety. Bettye Fine Collins, the commission president, declared the situation, "our Armageddon." The state's response is right out of the Central America banana republic playbook: When there's no money left for the people, send in the troops. The cuts in the sheriff's department budget were so severe that he was planning to call in the National Guard to keep order: The sheriff in Alabama's most populous county may call for the National Guard to help maintain order, a spokesman said Tuesday, as a judge cleared the way for cuts in the sheriff's budget, and lawmakers reached a compromise they hope will end the budget crisis. In light of all of this, the Army's brief, illegal occupation of a string of towns in Alabama this past spring no longer looks like a freak one-off, but rather a logical progression in the ongoing billionaire plunder of America. It gives new meaning to what MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan is calling "corporate communism." Not only are banking billionaires on permanent state wealthfare, but even worse, as the wealth available becomes increasingly scarce and there isn't enough left to satisfy the billionaires' grotesque appetites and regular citizens' needs to flush their toilets or heat their homes, we're heading to the point that all Third World countries come to -- calling out the troops to ensure that the peasants pay their tithes to their absentee masters in New York and Connecticut and don't get all uppity like those Europeans. Now you can see why Alabamans are loading up on so many weapons. That makes sense. Now they need to understand who the real enemy is. Not the make-believe liberal bogeymen of their nightmares. Rather, Alabamans should focus their anger on the real-world billionaires who are making this country a living hell. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23812.htm From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Sun Nov 15 23:09:23 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:09:23 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: real-world economics review Message-ID: <017101ca668b$c2526ef0$23ad57ca@jfos> herein the link to the latest edition (no 50) of http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/ real-world economics review Formerly the post-autistic economics review ISSN 1755-9472 an email-delivered economics journal Subscribers: 11,156 from over 150 countries Click here to subscribe for free and receive the current issue In the current issue: What is Minsky all about, anyway? 3 Korkut Ert?rk and G?kcer ?zg?r The policy implications of the General Theory 16 Geoff Tily Ecological macroeconomics: Consumption, investment, and climate change 34 Jonathan M. Harris Peak oil - coming soon but when? 48 Lewis L. Smith The financial crisis - Part V America's exhausted paradigm: 52 Thomas I. Palley It's that "vision" thing 75 Jan Kregel Efficient market theory vs. Keynes's liquidity theory 85 Paul Davidson Crisis in the heartland: Consequences of the New Wall Street System 101 Peter Gowan How should the collapse of the world financial system affect economics? - Part III It is agreed that the current economic crisis has shown that the standard models of academic economics are seriously wanting. Should the main emphasis of reform be on developing new formal models or to an opening up of economics to methods other than traditional modelling? The Dahlem Group on Economic Modeling 118 Tony Lawson 122 Economists and economics: What does the crisis tell us? 132 Luigi Spaventa Mainstream economics and Iceland's economic collapse 143 Gunnar T?masson Goodbye, homo economicus 151 Anatole Kaletsky Plus an excellent array of archived back issues, each containing well researched and argued articles (in PDF format) challenging the abject failures of puerile neo-classical/neo-liberal economic theories that have brought the global system to its knees. recommended reading John Foster Victoria, Australia ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Nov 17 00:32:19 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:32:19 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] What's new at Links: US-Colombia, Venezuela, Berlin Wall, queerphobia, green jobs, Karen Silkwood, S. Africa, Honduras, Ireland, US health Message-ID: <4B025F93.7010706@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: US-Colombia, Venezuela, Berlin Wall, queerphobia, green jobs, Karen Silkwood, S. Africa, Honduras, Ireland, US health * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * US-Colombia military deal: Threat of imperialist-backed war on Venezuela By Kiraz Janicke November 9, 2009 -- The possibility of an imperialist-backed war in the Americas came a step closer on October 30, when Colombia and the United States finalised a 10-year accord allowing the US to massively expand its military presence in the Latin American country. The move comes as the US. seeks to regain its hegemony over Latin America - which has declined over the past decade in the context of a continent-wide rebellion against neoliberalism spearheaded by the revolution in Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chavez. * Read more `Freedoms won, freedoms lost' -- left views on the fall of the Berlin Wall November 15, 2009 -- For the past few weeks the international capitalist mass media has been awash with triumphalist hoopla about the so-called ``collapse of Communism'' as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Below Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal posts a number of commenatries from the left that deal with facts and fictions of those dramatic events, and how the people most effected are faring today. * Read more Capitalism, sexism and queerphobia's social basis By Jess Moore There are social expectations on everyone, men and women, to act in particular ways based on our sex. This is bad for everyone because it's stifling, but it's worse for women and queers. * Read more Britain: The Lucas Aerospace workers' plan -- A real Green New Deal By Hilary Wainwright and Andy Bowman October 9, 2009 -- Thirty-five years ago, workers at the Lucas Aerospace company formulated an ``alternative corporate plan'' to convert military production to socially useful and environmentally desirable purposes. We consider what lessons it holds for the greening of the world economy today. * Read more Convert the ailing car industry to socially necessary production! With the economic recession and environmental crisis alternative plans for socially useful, sustainable production have never been more relevant argues Lars Henriksson. * Read more Karen Silkwood: an inspiration to fighters for environmental justice and workers' rights By Sharyn Jenkins Thirty-five years ago, on November 13, 1974, US anti-nuclear activist and trade unionist Karen Silkwood was killed in a car crash many suspect was deliberately caused. Karen Silkwood will be remembered as someone who fought an uphill and often unpopular battle against the ruthless nuclear industry. She is an inspiration to all who believe in environmental justice and workers' rights. * Read more What is 'left' about 'the left' in South Africa? By Dale T. McKinley November 5, 2009 -- For several years now, but particularly since the ascendancy of Jacob Zuma and his South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) allies within both the African National Congress (ANC) and the state, ``the left'' in South Africa has come to be almost completely associated with (and presented as) the SACP, COSATU and, to a lesser extent, the ANC itself. Even though this state of affairs ignores a wide range of organisations and people that can stake a serious claim to being part of ``the left'', the fact is that contemporary politics in South Africa are dominated, in one way or another, by these three alliance partners. As such, it is a good time to pose a critically important question: What is ``left'' about ``the left'' in South Africa? * Read more Honduras: Why the resistance will boycott the November 29 election; Zelaya on accord November 10, 2009 -- Ricardo Salgado, an Honduran analyst of the ``crisis'' in Honduras, explains to Australian community radio's Warwick Fry the latest developments in Honduras and the postion of the resistance movement. In spite of pressure on the coup regime to recognise the legitimacy of Zelaya as president ten days ago, Zelaya is still trapped inside the Brazilian embassy. The ``agreement'' (designed more to save face for the US and the coup regime rather than the restoration of a democratic solution) has failed. The coup regime has failed to meet the one-week deadline to restore Zelaya to his post as president in a reasonable amount of time to allow a ``clean'' election process. * Read more Ireland: (slideshow) Political murals of West Belfast By Lauren Carrol Harris November 9, 2009 -- Belfast -- Though Northern Ireland has slipped from the nightly news, "the troubles", including ongoing deep sectarian divisions and low-level violence, are a daily reality for Irish republicans. Just one reminder of the struggle for a united Ireland, and example of the Irish people's creative resistance, is the multitude of political murals that smother the walls of West Belfast, a republican stronghold. Many commemorate the activists and civilians whose lives were taken in the struggle. But the murals don't just discuss Irish politics -- on these walls are messages of international solidarity for other peoples' movements for change and self-determination. Here are just a few. View at http://links.org.au/node/1344 United States: Where's the socialism? The good, the bad and the ugly of health-care reform By Billy Wharton November 9, 2009 -- Where is the socialism now? Frenetic right-wingers spent a good part of the US summer shouting about the "government takeover of health care" or the "stealth socialist health-care plan". Now that the Affordable Healthcare for America Act has been passed by a slim margin in the US House of Representatives, on November 8, there are few traces of anything even resembling socialism. Instead, Americans will find the good, the bad and the ugly of health-care reform all contained within the 1990-page bill. * Read more Michael Lebowitz on Venezuela: `Socialism requires a new state from below' Michael Lebowitz interviewed by Jos? Sant Roz , translated by Kiraz Janicke November 5, 2009 -- On the question of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, Michael Lebowitz is one of the thinkers who has penetrated deepest into our process. He plunges his scrutinising gaze into its most diverse and conflicting issues, in order to calmly and forcefully reveal its truth with knifelike clarity. He talks like a peasant or a worker who dips into the reality that they experience, that they suffer and feel. * Read more * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thinker at xplornet.com Wed Nov 18 08:54:54 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:54:54 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 244 Message-ID: <20091118165358.E2D7F5F8ED5@smtprelay03.hostedemail.com> To: record at cablerocket.com Subject: Fiat lux 244 Fiat lux # 244 Nov 13, 2009. Having lived in many neighbourhoods in four, my wife in five, countries, we can say without any doubt that our present neighbours are the best we've ever had in our long lives. Six families live on our relatively short, mostly privately owned, cul de sac road, each in complete privacy, with our houses spread over about two miles, but if any of us needs any kind of help, and I certainly have made the most use of it this year, all we have to do is ask and we have it, right there and then. Our wider, local community is not a tightly knit one, but if anybody is any kind of a trouble all they have to do is pick up the phone and shout for help and there'll be a line of trucks and cars one the road in minutes. A few years ago the community saved several houses from burning when a spark from a tractor caused a serious grass fire. Hundreds of people were running to help, helping the helicopters and fire crews, beating the flames out with shovels and anything they could get hold of. Of course, according to the present wealth creating economic theory ruling our world, this is completely wrong. We should be fighting, conspiring, and trying to ruin the lives of each other in the sacred name of competition, to remain economically correct, claiming that. self sufficiency and cooperation are inefficient activities, except when it is between the rulers of the multinational corporate mafia. Some of you may still remember the 1960 Kirk Douglas movie "Spartacus", still easily available in the rental stores. It was about the true story of a slave uprising in ancient Rome, victorious at first, then beaten down and the leaders crucified by the victorious general Marcus Licinus Crassus, played by Laurence Olivier. In real life Crassus was a very wealthy nobleman, with a strong appetite for young men, a glorious investor, who, among other things, owned a private fire brigade in Rome. The Roman houses used very little lumber, so when one of them caught fire, it took some time before they burned out. Crassus had an excellent racket going that should make our present privatizing governments drool with envy. His crew ran up to the burning house and offered to buy it from the owner. If the owner sold, they fought to put the fire out, then later repaired the damage and resold the house at a good profit. If the owner refused, they let the house burn. And this must be one of the best examples of where our present wealth creating economic theory originated, proving that there's nothing new under the sun. This takes me back a few years to 1956, when I was working in the custom furniture shop of Mr.Creswell Rickard, on Granville St. in Vancouver. This little true story should be a good example to follow by our privatizing, all public services for sale kind of governments and their supporters. . We used to have an hour lunchtime in those days and on a beautiful sunny day three of us went for a walk up to Broadway. There we saw a small group of people gathered around a body lying on the sidewalk in front of what was then an umbrella store. Turned out that a man was hit by a car as he was jaywalking across Broadway. With the General Hospital only a few blocks up the road , we could hear the siren of an ambulance already on its way. That was years before the time before private ambulance services were cruelly nationalized by our commie pinko socialist governments, and Vancouver had a contract with with the Metropolitan Ambulance Service, and their ugly, Cadillac station wagons. The car stopped at the scene, but the two attendants didn't even bother to open up the rear door and get a stretcher. They came over to look at the injured man, then one of them bent down and asked him: "Do you have $35.?" The man was out of it and could only groan, so the attendant started slapping his face "Hey Buddy ! You got 35 bucks ?". No reply, so he opened up the man's jacket, found his wallet, took out the money, pocketed it, in front of about a dozen people. And then they got the stretcher and took him away. Nobody said a word, it must have been quite natural happening in those days, but having been only about a year in the country, I never saw anything like it before, was shocked and never forgot the scene. $35. was lot of money in those days, just about a week's wages for me, apprenticing at .75 cents an hour. That was our monthly rent for a couple of rooms , with our weekly grocery bill under $20. and so, very few people used to carry that much in their pockets. I often wondered, what they would have done if the man hadn't had it? Left him lying there on the sidewalk ? Never heard of it happening, so there must have been other ways to make people pay. What our American friends tell us about their beautiful private health insurance system, hysterically defended by their betters, trying to avoid our commie pinko Medicare, is not much different. I can remember when Peter Gsowsky was still on CBC radio in the mornings. One day he was interviewing a Canadian doctor who was then taking some top line kidney program in a Baltimore hospital. Half of his time was spent on begging and arguing with insurance companies to permit the use of ambulances and treatments for patients. He was telling about a young woman who was then in their hospital, with some serious kidney condition, hooked up to all kinds of machines. Her family had $1.5 million worth of insurance and when it ran out the company called the hospital and demanded that they pull the plug on her. The medical staff had to have an emergency meeting to come up with a solution to save her life in some way to satisfy the "investors" of both the hospital and the insurance company. But then, this is what a healthy, competitive economy is supposed to be about. From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Wed Nov 18 22:34:42 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:34:42 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fw: [S] Yes Men Launch New "Coke" Brand Bottled Water - 'Deception' Message-ID: <01c501ca68e2$615d9120$55ad57ca@jfos> " Think Outside the Bottle " Yes Men Strike Again, Launch New Coke Brand Bottled Water Called 'Deception' Tara Lohan, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 3:07 PM. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144049/yes_men_strike_again%2C_launch_new_coke_brand_bottled_water_called_%27deception%27_%5Bwith_video%5D/ The notorious and hilarious pranksters, The Yes Men have done it again. This time their target was Coca-Cola. The company bottles Dasani water, which is basically just tap water that you pay a whole lot more for. The only difference really is that then you have a plastic bottle, which 80 percent of people toss in the garbage instead of a recycling bin. While Pepsi, which uses tap water for its Aquafina bottled water, has now caved to pressure and labeled their water as "public water source" -- Coke still refuses. So, the Yes Men teamed up with pressure group Corporate Accountability International and launched a faux Coke campaign for a new bottled water called Deception. My favorite part of the video is when they actually run into a real employee from Coke. This Earth Day, Coke used its annual shareholders' meeting to spin the corporation's image green. But the gathering at the Gwinnett Center served more to expose the gulf between Coke's rhetoric and its action. In the last year, Coke split its time -- opposing progress on sustainability, on the one hand, and advertising its social responsibility on the other. Well, that has left a lot of people asking, 'what is the real thing, really?' RELATED: http://www.babelgum.com/yesmen http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/water-campaign MORE: ?This is a classic case of deception,? said Mike Bonanno (a/k/a Igor Vamos), in town that day with main cohort Andy Bichlbaum (n? Jacques Servin) for the opening of The Yes Men Fix the World at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. ?They don?t want people to know that they?re drinking tap water because it?s pure profit. Basically, they?ve figured out such a great scam that they don?t want it to end.? http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/dasani_deception/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thinker at xplornet.com Thu Nov 19 14:41:12 2009 From: thinker at xplornet.com (Ed Deak) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:41:12 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Hunger summit failure Message-ID: <20091119224014.4D90B189F7C9@smtprelay02.hostedemail.com> Inter Press Service News Agency Thursday, November 19, 2009 22:37 GMT DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Summit?s Failure Exposes Grim Reality Paul Virgo ROME, Nov 17 (IPS) - There are two main ways the flop of this week?s United Nations World Food Security Summit in Rome - which has been snubbed by the world?s top leaders, has failed to deliver binding aid commitments, or to set a target date for the eradication of hunger - is being read. At best it reflects the limits of the U.N. and its flagship body in the fight against hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), activists say. At worst, they say it shows wealthy countries? leaders lack the political will to really to put their backs into solving a problem that - no matter how unjust and scandalous, in a world with more than enough to feed everyone - generally does not directly affect the voters who put them into office. Either way it is probably bad news for the 1.02 billion people, almost one sixth of the global population, who go to bed every night with empty stomachs. FAO Director General Jacques Diouf tried to make the best of it Monday after the approval of a toothless declaration. He pointed out consensus had been achieved on the need to end the long- running decline in agricultural investment, which is one of the major reasons many people in rural areas of developing countries struggle to feed themselves. But, Diouf admitted "regret" that countries had failed to commit themselves to wiping out hunger by 2025 and that developed nations had not agreed to allocate 44 billion dollars in aid to agriculture per year. That figure sounds like an awful lot of money, but it was not such an ambitious target if one considers other ways money is spent. "Eliminating hunger from the face of Earth requires 44 billion dollars of official development assistance (ODA) per year to be invested in infrastructure, technology and modern inputs," Diouf told a news conference. "It is a small amount if we consider the 365 billion dollars of agriculture producer support in OECD countries in 2007, and if we consider the 1,340 billion dollars of military expenditures by the world in the same year." Besides, Diouf was not suggesting rich countries shell out 44 billion in fresh cash - much of the money could simply come by diverting already-assigned resources to increase agriculture?s share of ODA from the current level of around five percent to about 18-19 percent. But the FAO does not have any battleships or financial sanctions to use to coerce nations into taking action. Before the summit Diouf said that the FAO budget does not permit it to do much alone about such a huge problem, pointing out that individual states, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the regional development banks are the ones with the serious money. Furthermore, a large portion of the hunger problem is related to unfair international trade conditions - caused in part by First World support of domestic agriculture - where the FAO has no role. It is up to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to engineer a deal to iron out these distortions. The FAO can seek to keep food security on the international agenda and the summit will have contributed. But beyond that, it is basically a forum that is only as good or bad as the member nations make it, which opens up questions about the political will of the rich countries. The summit was skipped by all but one of the leaders of countries in the Group of Eight leading world economic powers - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who only had to take a short drive from his office to reach the FAO?s headquarters. The G8 pledged to devote 20 million dollars to agricultural aid over the next three years at the L?Aquila summit in July. So some believe the no-shows here imply they want to implement their food security policies via G8 organs or other bodies, such as the World Bank, which has frequently been accused of infringing national sovereignty by trying to promote models of development imported from the West that are not appropriate in poorer countries. "The absence of the G8 leaders is a clear message that the rich countries are still trying to impose their policies on poor countries," said Sergio Marelli, head of the association of Italian non-governmental organisations (NGOs). "Agro-food policies and management of resources for their implementation can only be the competence of the specialised United Nations agencies, above all the FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and should not be handed to the World Bank," Marelli said. "We believe assigning the World Bank the role of policy-maker would mean giving it back to the institution that has the greatest responsibility for the current food crisis." Solomon Islands Agriculture Minister Selwyn Riumana was alarmed at not seeing the likes of U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Rome. "It?s normal when you get so many nations together that the result is a compromise. You have to be realistic. But it is a great concern that G8 countries did not attend because in this world we share the same environment, we breathe the same air, we are global family members and we should be supporting each other," Riumana told IPS. "We talk about democracy, institutional strengthening and good governance and this is an area to put that into practise. Everybody participates at this organisation, everyone feels part of it," Riumana said. "They must support the FAO in this drive. It?s part of the United Nations. It was formed by these big nations. This was their baby, where are they escaping to? They should give milk to their baby." But some see the missing leaders as an even more worrying sign - that the wealthy nations are barely committed to tackling the problem at all. "Obviously for those of us in developing countries the results of this summit are a great failure," Julia Marlene Cconojhuillca Quispe of the Confederacion Nacional Agraria del Peru told IPS. "The G8 leaders? absence shows definitively that they are not with the peoples who really suffer hunger and who are often the ones who produce food for the rich countries. They are clearly showing that they want to keep the poorest marginalised," she stressed. (END/2009) Contact Us | About Us | Subscription | News in RSS | Email News | Mobile | Text Only Copyright ? 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Thu Nov 19 15:36:13 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:36:13 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse? Message-ID: <00d101ca6971$6cfd21f0$1dad57ca@jfos> Excerpt: " ... Bernie Madoff and the other accused Ponzi schemers like Allen Stanford are mere pickpockets compared with Wall Street's institutional buccaneers, who, so far, have carted off up to $12.7 trillion-almost the size of the entire gross domestic product. They've multiplied their booty with billions in subsidies and a flood of derivatives-some of them merely old, soured wine in new bottles. Today's pirates are sailing away from the light regulatory scrutiny that apparently will continue in our benighted, weakened, financially top-heavy, and bubble-addicted economy. Black says that Obama's current efforts are doomed to fail-and, in a twist, it's for lack of trying. "There is not a single successful regulator giving him advice," says Black. Obama's is a fresh face, but those of his crew aren't. Black pointedly views Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and SEC Chair Mary Schapiro as flops in the prelude to the crisis, who flacked for the financial industry's "self-regulation." Some of Obama's appointees have a history as ardent advocates for financial crooks and active foes of regulation. Because neither the Obama team nor its proposed reforms pack the requisite punch, Black predicts, "There will be far more catastrophic losses." That would be on top of the trillions of dollars already lost.(snip) The previous chief of the DOJ's Criminal Division, Rita Glavin, seemed motivated: She testified to Congress last spring, before she was replaced, about the need to hire numerous FBI agents to fight white-collar crime. After 9/11, hundreds of FBI agents had been shifted from financial fraud to counterterrorism, so the agency was perilously thin when the tidal wave of financial fraud inundated the system.(snip) People who expect President Obama's Department of Justice to take the lead will be severely disappointed-not necessarily because the task is difficult, but because the Obama administration is showing that it lacks the will." ############################## We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse? By James Lieber Tuesday, October 27th 2009 Chris Whetzel a.. Details: Author James Lieber is a lawyer whose books on business and politics include Friendly Takeover (Penguin) and Rats in the Grain (Basic Books). His previous story on the Wall Street meltdown, "What Cooked the World's Economy?," appeared in the Voice this past January. Where did our wealth go? How do we claw it back? When are we going to punish the culprits? When Barack Obama donned the crusader's mantle during the 2008 presidential campaign, his Web-savvy campaign team created KeatingEconomics.com and pushed it on millions of voters. The main video showed the Ichabod Crane-like Charles Keating-the wealthy, politically connected poster child of the '80s savings-and-loan scandal-in handcuffs. The Obama video portrayed John McCain as Keating's stooge and likened the S&L crash to the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, except that the current crisis is global and its bad guys bigger and badder. Today's corporate villains were flashed on the screen, among them AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The opening narrator was Bill Black, a Ph.D. criminologist and lead lawyer at the Office of Thrift Supervision, who helped steer the brilliant federal effort that cleaned up the S&L industry and won more than 1,000 felony convictions of senior insiders while recovering millions of their ill-gotten dollars. Those watching the compelling attack ad (still online) had every reason to believe that Obama's approach would be just as hard-edged, and that felon-busting G-men would rout the crooks and recover our money. This was not to be. As it stands now, there is only one federal prosecution related to the credit crash and bailout cycle, and it was begun by the Bush administration's Justice Department in June 2008. Not that there aren't culprits. Bernie Madoff and the other accused Ponzi schemers like Allen Stanford are mere pickpockets compared with Wall Street's institutional buccaneers, who, so far, have carted off up to $12.7 trillion-almost the size of the entire gross domestic product. They've multiplied their booty with billions in subsidies and a flood of derivatives-some of them merely old, soured wine in new bottles. Today's pirates are sailing away from the light regulatory scrutiny that apparently will continue in our benighted, weakened, financially top-heavy, and bubble-addicted economy. Black says that Obama's current efforts are doomed to fail-and, in a twist, it's for lack of trying. "There is not a single successful regulator giving him advice," says Black. Obama's is a fresh face, but those of his crew aren't. Black pointedly views Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and SEC Chair Mary Schapiro as flops in the prelude to the crisis, who flacked for the financial industry's "self-regulation." Some of Obama's appointees have a history as ardent advocates for financial crooks and active foes of regulation. Because neither the Obama team nor its proposed reforms pack the requisite punch, Black predicts, "There will be far more catastrophic losses." That would be on top of the trillions of dollars already lost. Though the public has been cast away, all hope for justice is not lost. Scammed consumers could get their day in court, thanks to a Supreme Court decision this past June in Cuomo v. Clearing House Association. Justice Antonin Scalia broke ranks and joined the court's four most liberal judges in ruling that the federal government cannot stop states from conducting their own crackdowns on financial crooks-with more stringent laws than Washington's-against such evils as the predatory mortgage lending that sparked last fall's meltdown. In that case, the Obama administration shed its crusader's mantle and defended the dark side in vain. In 2008, American households lost 18 percent of their wealth-more than $11 trillion. But, like energy, wealth doesn't just vanish. Most of it is parked in unregulated hedge funds, in ex-hedge funds that are now just bulging foreign bank accounts, and in a variety of opaque financial institutions. The money almost certainly remains parked-otherwise, there would be massive inflation after the amount of bailout money that has spewed from the Fed, the U.S. Treasury, and foreign central banks. Conceivably, what money was taken away could be "clawed back," in the parlance of regulators. A precedent exists: a similar crisis a decade ago involving Long-Term Capital Management, a Connecticut hedge fund that included two Nobel Prize-winning economists and a few ace traders from Wall Street, and had bet on bond spreads in Russia, Italy, and Latin America. The outfit started well, but then crashed and dug a trillion-dollar hole that was considered dangerous to the entire system at the time. Instead of paying the fund's many investors at retail, the New York Fed forced Wall Street to settle the whole thing for about $3.5 billion-in other words, a couple of beans on the dollar. There was no bailout by taxpayers. It's clearly too late for that approach to the current crisis. The best way to retrieve at least a significant portion of our wealth is through prosecution, followed by forfeiture. This is what we do when we catch money launderers and drug lords. It's what we're trying to do to Ponzi schemers like Bernie Madoff. It's retributive justice. It fills a social need as well as an economic one. So, where is the justice in the current crisis? Why have there been so few prosecutions and only feeble attempts, at best, to claw the money back? One reason may be that, in such infamous cases as the Lehman Brothers collapse and Bank of America's absorption of Merrill Lynch, the Fed and the Treasury were intimately involved with the financial elite's deal making at the time. It's difficult to prosecute others for securities fraud if you condoned the deals to begin with. And there's another, more pertinent reason: The top federal law enforcement establishment is simply not in the mood. People who expect President Obama's Department of Justice to take the lead will be severely disappointed-not necessarily because the task is difficult, but because the Obama administration is showing that it lacks the will. Instead, the new administration is putting its energy into creating what it believes will be a meltdown-proof new system of elite "too-big-to-fail" banks, regulated by a beefed-up Federal Reserve. Even the business establishment's Wall Street Journal used the word "oligopoly" when it noted this summer that the Obama administration, "after saving the banks, is now planning regulatory changes that could establish an elite group of U.S. institutions with large investment-banking activities" that will be "hard to join and compete against." Bill Black calls that elite group of megabanks, like Citigroup and Bank of America, "zombies." And they're not done feeding. All of the devilish tools remain in place, says Black, including "the subprime loans, with securitization and the credit default swaps. And the Obama administration astonishingly wants to re-create a secondary market in subprime loans-even though it cost us more than a trillion dollars." It may seem that some sort of ?ber-regulator is needed. But Camden Fine, a small-town banker who now leads a trade group of 5,000 community banks, sees a pumped-up, unified regulatory agency as "a big, hairy cyclopean beast" that would protect the megabanks no matter how reckless they are, and continue to favor Wall Street over Main Street. Compared with the Obama administration, America's small-town bankers look like populists. An administration whose claws are far from sharpened shouldn't really surprise us: Obama was Wall Street's preferred candidate in terms of campaign contributions. His SEC chair, Mary Schapiro, ran FINRA, the Street's self-regulatory private agency. Gary Gensler, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, actually worked a decade ago to exempt credit default swaps and other derivatives from regulation. More importantly, the nation's new top prosecutor, Attorney General Eric Holder, has a history of preferring that deviant corporations be held to no more than a "voluntary cooperation" system in which they investigate themselves privately. Under the "Holder Memo," which he wrote in 1999 as deputy AG in the Clinton administration, bad-boy executives and their corporations who turn over evidence to the government qualify for lenient sentences and fines and, sometimes, for settlements without even indictments. The consequences of their crimes often amount to only the cost of doing business. After leaving government, Holder followed the mandates of his own memo and made a lucrative living by conducting internal probes for companies and negotiating outstanding results for white-collar clients. He was public about it: Holder's 2002 op-ed "Don't Indict WorldCom" in The Wall Street Journal argued on behalf of the corporate perpetrator of one of the sleaziest frauds of the past decade. Holder takes a hard line on social issues, but not on financial issues: He favors re-dedicating the DOJ to civil rights, and he has vowed to investigate Bush-era torture. But when asked if he plans to prosecute the financial mayhem that erupted under Bush, Holder has said that he isn't inclined to engage in what he calls "witch hunts." The previous chief of the DOJ's Criminal Division, Rita Glavin, seemed motivated: She testified to Congress last spring, before she was replaced, about the need to hire numerous FBI agents to fight white-collar crime. After 9/11, hundreds of FBI agents had been shifted from financial fraud to counterterrorism, so the agency was perilously thin when the tidal wave of financial fraud inundated the system. Glavin's successor couldn't be further from the right person to root out white-collar crime. Last spring, Holder tabbed Lanny Breuer, his former partner at the major D.C. firm Covington & Burling, to head the DOJ's Criminal Division. In 2008, Breuer represented Roger Clemens at Senate hearings when the big right-hander denied under oath using steroids or human growth hormones. If Clemens gets indicted for perjury, the next question would be whether Breuer suborned him. More to the point of high-level white-collar crime, in 2006, Breuer represented Mario Gabelli, a billionaire broker and money manager who, in some recent years, has been the highest-paid person on Wall Street, with compensation in former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain's class. When Gabelli got in hot water for setting up straw entities to bid at federal auctions of coveted cell phone licenses, Breuer savaged the person who blew the whistle on the scheme and kept his client out of criminal court. "Super Mario" eventually paid a $130 million settlement under the federal False Claims Act, but he made more than $200 million from the scam, so the litigation amounted to the cost of doing profitable business. As chief of Covington's white-collar department, Breuer was known for his "rogues' gallery" of corporations and individuals under investigation or indictment. His clients included Halliburton, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), Exxon Mobil, and big pharmaceutical companies. He also represented Canadian mogul Eugene Melnyk, who was charged with accounting fraud by the SEC, and the lieutenant governor of American Samoa, who was indicted for bribery and bid-rigging. Breuer represented so many companies that had problems with the federal government that the Department of Justice promised to erect "Chinese walls" around him to keep him from traipsing into his former clients' matters. Nevertheless, the napping Senate confirmed him by 88-0.(snip) About a billion dollars have been dedicated to putting and keeping "cops on the street." Remember the poignant vignette during the State of the Union address in which Obama talked about saving 57 police jobs in Minneapolis? Well done and warranted, yes, but keeping the public safe from financial criminals is another story: The administration and Congress have failed to bulk up white-collar fraud enforcement with either new FBI agents or new forensic specialists. lots more at http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-10-27/news/we-ve-bailed-out-the-banks-when-do-we-go-after-the-crooks-behind-our-financial-collapse/ ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 42649 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Fri Nov 20 22:12:50 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:12:50 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] US : The Ugly Truth about Jobs by Robert Parry Nov 17 Message-ID: <4B074CA2.2593.54D51DAA@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> Americans - from blue-collar manufacturing workers to white-collar office employees - won?t be needed as much in the future by companies that are squeezing more productivity out of the workers that remain and are shifting more jobs overseas. That means U.S. unemployment can be expected to stay high and wages low, Bernanke said. "Given this weakness in the labor market, a natural question is whether we might be in for a so-called jobless recovery, in which output is growing but employment fails to increase," the Fed chairman said, suggesting strongly that the answer would be yes. Over several decades of covering Washington?s neoconservatives, I have marveled at their cynical but not-entirely-false view of the American people as cattle to be herded, corralled, occasionally stampeded and ultimately led to the slaughterhouse. The neocons? propaganda successes are directly attributable to their dominance of the Washington echo chamber, where they craft cleverly framed arguments from their positions at influential think tanks and then watch as their messages are amplified across the country by right-wing radio hosts, Fox News, the Internet and an array of print publications, including mainstream outlets like the Washington Post. Only now - as the unemployment lines stretch, as medical insurance is denied, and as the sheriffs show up with foreclosure notices - are some Americans sensing the end of this strange journey, with the whiff of an unpleasant fate behind the doors of the slaughterhouse. -- Robert Parry, author Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press &'Project Truth fyi-janet ========================== http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/111709.html The Ugly Truth about Jobs By Robert Parry November 17, 2009 Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke has given Americans a glimpse of the ugly truth about their future job prospects. Simply put, companies have found that they can shed workers and rely on technological advances and overseas factories to operate with a lot fewer U.S. employees. Bernanke told the Economic Club of New York on Monday that some U.S. companies might begin to add workers to meet rising demand, but he added that "other firms, facing difficult financial conditions and intense pressure to cut costs, seem to have found longer-lasting, efficiency-enhancing changes that allowed them to reduce their workforces. ... "To the extent that firms are able to find further cost-cutting measures as output expands, they may delay hiring." In other words, Americans - from blue-collar manufacturing workers to white-collar office employees - won?t be needed as much in the future by companies that are squeezing more productivity out of the workers that remain and are shifting more jobs overseas. That means U.S. unemployment can be expected to stay high and wages low, Bernanke said. "Given this weakness in the labor market, a natural question is whether we might be in for a so-called jobless recovery, in which output is growing but employment fails to increase," the Fed chairman said, suggesting strongly that the answer would be yes. "Since December 2007, the U.S. economy has lost, on net, about 8 million private-sector jobs, and the unemployment rate has risen from less than 5 percent to more than 10 percent," Bernanke said. "Both the decline in jobs and the increase in the unemployment rate have been more severe than in any other recession since World War II. "Besides cutting jobs, many employers have reduced hours for the workers they have retained. ... These data suggest that the excess supply of labor is even greater than indicated by the unemployment rate alone. "With the job market so weak, businesses have been able to find or retain all the workers they need with minimal wage increases, or even with wage cuts. ... The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly." Yet, while American jobs were falling off a cliff, productivity - defined as output per hour of work - was soaring, rising at a 5.5 percent annual rate this year, Bernanke said. Put all this together and average Americans might want to rethink how they feel about their "free-market" economic system, now that many of them have been made surplus to it. High unemployment also may cause a double-dip recession - and even more layoffs - because jobless Americans won?t be able to pay their mortgages or buy new cars or other consumer goods. What to Do? So what can be done? The obvious answer is for the government to intervene in creating infrastructure jobs directly and encouraging the private sector to spread the available work around (and not ship so much work abroad). However, with the federal government deeply in debt (thanks to George W. Bush?s massive tax cuts tilted to the rich and because of his two open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), there isn?t much money to devote to any additional economic stimulus. Thus, the Obama administration is faced with the dilemma of either borrowing more money or raising taxes on the rich to help pay for programs to increase jobs. Neither prospect is politically attractive, since Democratic "deficit hawks" keep banding with Republicans to block any more borrowing and many politicians are terrified of raising taxes, even if only on millionaires. Ironically, the current crisis could have one silver lining, if Americans finally opted for an economic strategy that raised taxes on the rich, who have benefited most from the technological advances and the expansion of international commerce, and shared those productivity gains with more people. That might allow Americans to begin enjoying the future that seemed to be beckoning years back, when people thought that machines would make life easier for humans, not harder. But many Americans have been sold on the right-wing and neoconservative message that any government effort to address the nation?s domestic needs is dreaded "socialism" and that the government?s primary -- if not only -- role must be to lavish money on the military to "keep us safe." That widespread belief system is the result of three decades of having drummed into their heads Ronald Reagan?s catchy phrase that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," a theme repeated endlessly on right-wing talk radio, at Fox News and in a host of other conservative media outlets that dominate the American landscape. Simultaneously, the American Left has done little to counter the Right?s propaganda. During those same three decades, progressives invested relatively little in building a message machine that could compete with the Right?s giant megaphone. [See Consortiumnews.com?s "The Left?s Media Miscalculation."] This media asymmetry has had devastating consequences for the American political process. In the 1980s, Reagan had a relatively free hand to go after "big labor"; in the 1990s, working with the triangulating Clinton administration, Republicans pushed through "free-trade agreements" and bank deregulation; and in this decade, Bush slashed taxes for the richest Americans. The results are now apparent in home foreclosures, bankruptcies, crumbling infrastructure and neglected cities, as Michael Moore graphically demonstrated in his new documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story." Stalemated But today?s U.S. political/media process doesn?t allow these problems to be seriously addressed. The Washington conventional wisdom is still shaped by the powerful right-wing think tanks and defined by the vast right-wing news media. Mainstream journalists mostly go along to save their careers. Many laid-off "Joe the Plumbers" parrot the Right?s fury about the "class warfare" of imposing higher taxes on millionaires. Other rank-and-file Americans tie teabags to their hats and descend on Washington to participate in anti-government rallies, partly organized by corporate interests. Over several decades of covering Washington?s neoconservatives, I have marveled a t their cynical but not-entirely-false view of the American people as cattle to be herded, corralled, occasionally stampeded and ultimately led to the slaughterhouse. The hyped case for war with Iraq was a marvelous example of how the neocons could use lies and deceptions to get young men and women from small towns and big cities across America to go kill - and be killed by - troublesome Arabs in the Middle East, the neocons? favorite enemies. These neocons? propaganda successes are directly attributable to their dominance of the Washington echo chamber, where they craft cleverly framed arguments from their positions at influential think tanks and then watch as their messages are amplified across the country by right-wing radio hosts, Fox News, the Internet and an array of print publications, including mainstream outlets like the Washington Post. Only now - as the unemployment lines stretch, as medical insurance is denied, and as the sheriffs show up with foreclosure notices - are some Americans sensing the end of this strange journey, with the whiff of an unpleasant fate behind the doors of the slaughterhouse. [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com?s "To Save the Republic, Tax the Rich."] Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press &'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com. - From diongiles1 at aapt.net.au Sat Nov 21 01:17:06 2009 From: diongiles1 at aapt.net.au (Dion Giles) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:17:06 +0800 Subject: [Mai-not] How America looks after the sick Message-ID: <20091121091706.E854010EE2@fep02.mfe.bur.connect.com.au> What Ed described in Fiat Lux about early postwar Canada is still alive and not well, but very ill indeed, in today's America. See http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/21/2749512.htm?section=justin. But not to worry. In four or five years Obama's great new health scheme will start to kick in, if the sirs in Congress allow its badly damaged foetus to be born at all. Representative government at its finest. Dion Giles From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Mon Nov 23 13:44:27 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:44:27 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] =?utf-8?q?Colvin__testimony=3A__Harper_govt_using_smear?= =?utf-8?q?-your-opponent_tactics+_=E2=80=98Elements_of_a_war_crime?= =?utf-8?q?_seem_to_be_present=E2=80=99_+_Poll?= Message-ID: <4B0AC9FB.28228.6276BEE1@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> The Harper government is using smear-your-opponent tactics borrowed from the U.S. Republican Party that are "poisoning the well" of Canada's political culture, NDP and Liberal MPs say. [1 Hill times] Canadians should hang their heads in shame. Richard Colvin?s testimony about torture in Afghanistan is a searing indictment of government officials who either knew-or should have known-that Canada was transferring detainees to torture.... As Colvin himself explained: "If we disregard our core principles and values, we also lose our moral authority abroad. If we are complicit in the torture of Afghans in Kandahar, how can we credibly promote human rights in Tehran or Beijing?".. It?s time for Canadians to rally behind this brave and principled diplomat. It?s time to insist that any war criminals be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of who they are. [2 Michael Byers, MacLeans N 20 ] MacLean's Poll: 49% of Canadians believe the federal government-Ottawa didn?t do enough to prevent the alleged torture of suspects transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops and should shoulder the blame. [3 Hill times N23 ============================ INDEX [1] http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/smear_tactics-11-23-2009 The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly Tories using smear-your-opponent U.S. Republican-style tactics, say Grits and NDP PM Stephen Harper's government is using 'boiler-plate wedge politics' and 'poisoning the well' of Canada's political culture. By TIM NAUMETZ Published November 23, 2009 [2] http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem- to-be-present/ `Elements of a war crime seem to be present? by Michael Byers on Friday, November 20, 2009 1:41pm - 8 Comments [3] MacLean's Poll Who should shoulder the blame for the alleged torture of suspects transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops? http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem-to-be- present/ [CHECK IT OUT ! scroll down on right side ] ======================================== [1] http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/smear_tactics-11-23-2009 The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly Tories using smear-your-opponent U.S. Republican-style tactics, say Grits and NDP PM Stephen Harper's government is using 'boiler-plate wedge politics' and 'poisoning the well' of Canada's political culture. By TIM NAUMETZ Published November 23, 2009 (Note: Photos of Peter MacKay and Richard Colvin are from the Globe and Mail.) The Harper government is using smear-your-opponent tactics borrowed from the U.S. Republican Party that are "poisoning the well" of Canada's political culture, NDP and Liberal MPs say. They cite as one instance Defence Minister Peter MacKay's (Central Nova, N.S.) heated responses in the Commons to allegations last week the government tried to cover up knowledge that Canadian troops handed detainees over to Afghan forces during the early stages of the Kandahar mission knowing there was evidence the prisoners would be tortured. The allegations from Canadian intelligence officer Richard Colvin, made in testimony at the Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights, included charges that senior government officials up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) office were aware of the information but suppressed it and instructed him to keep it out of official internal memos. Although aspects of the Afghan prisoner controversy first became public in 2006, and the government later instituted a new prisoner transfer agreement with the Afghan government, Mr. Colvin's claim of a cover-up added a new and potentially damaging charge, one which Mr. MacKay was determined to defuse the minute it hit the Commons floor following Mr. Colvin's testimony. Mr. Colvin said he spoke to four of the detainees claiming abuse and admitted he was certain only one had been handed over to the Afghans by Canadians, but he referred also to information from other sources, including the Red Cross. Mr. Colvin told the committee many of the prisoners were farmers, truck drivers and peasants "in the wrong place at the wrong time" but others likely did carry arms for the Taliban, possibly for pay or under coercion. In fact, at the time, the Foreign Affairs Department referred to some detainees in the Kandahar prison where they were taken as "political prisoners" and Canadian Forces also referred to its detainees as suspected Taliban supporters. "According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," Mr. Colvin told the committee. When the opposition seized on his allegations of a cover-up and wider Afghan abuse of prisoners Mr. MacKay responded with an accusation that Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) was relying on testimony from "people who throw acid in the faces of schoolchildren and who blow up buses of civilians in their own country." Mr. MacKay said the opposition was relying on "second and third hand information and Taliban information." The claims prompted NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto Danforth, Ont.) to recall the government's attacks against the opposition during a 2007 controversy over detainees, when Harper accused then Liberal leader St?phane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) of sympathizing with the Taliban. Conservative MPs at the time also derided former NDP MP Dawn Black in similar fashion, heckling her as "Burqa Black" and "Taliban lover" during Question Period. "I can understand the leader of the opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners; I just wish they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers," said Mr. Harper to Mr. Dion. The claim shocked the opposition and Mr. Dion demanded an apology, saying Mr. Harper had "insulted the entire Parliament." The opposition response was similar after Mr. MacKay's latest charge that the opposition was relying on evidence from Taliban terrorists as they pressed the government about Mr. Colvin's cover-up allegations. "This is McCarthyism, this is absolute McCarthyism," Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South, B.C.) said in reference to the 1950s-era Republican Senator who was eventually censured for widespread and unbelievable allegations of Communist sympathy in the United States. "This is absolutely unthinkable, that a Canadian minister would accuse those who want to restore and protect the reputation of this great country of being Taliban sympathizers. I can't comprehend that." NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto Danforth, Ont.) cited the response as being among the reasons the opposition is demanding a public inquiry into Colvin's claims. "These are very, very serious allegations and the government is attempting to sweep them under the rug and divert attention by calling those who raise questions names," he said. The opposition says the governing Conservatives have mastered more- recent Republican-style wedge politics in attacks against their Commons opponents, including the use of flyers suggesting the Liberal party supports anti-Semitic groups and other flyers that targeted opposition MPs for allegedly supporting the federal gun registry. Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Que.), who is Jewish, claimed Conservative flyers distorting the Liberal position on anti-Semitism, terrorism, and Israel were circulated in his Montreal riding, which like others where similar flyers were circulated, includes a large Jewish population. Among other things, the flyer claimed Mr. Cotler and other Liberals participated in a conference in Durban, South Africa, that took on anti-Israel tones. Mr. Cotler, as he argued the flyers breached his Parliamentary privilege, pointed out Liberals and other Canadian MPs went to Durban to attend a world conference against racism, but it became a controversial conference dominated by anti-Semitic and anti- Israel sentiments. In the case of Conservative flyers targeting opposition MPs over the gun registry, Commons Speaker Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands, Ont.) ruled there was evidence, on the surface of a complaint from Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore, N.S.), that a Conservative flyer on the topic circulating in his riding may have breached his Parliamentary privilege. The circular under the name of Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, Sask.) claimed Mr. Stoffer had voted in favour of the registry-even though he has consistently opposed it- and also included false allegations about Mr. Stoffer's position on the registry. On a motion from Mr. Stoffer, the House agreed to send Mr. Vellacott's possible breach of Mr. Stoffer's Parliamentary privilege to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for an inquiry. "This is boiler-plate wedge politics," says NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.). "We've seen this used with the Republicans in the States; I'm sure they've been sharing how to take that kind of approach, during the (U.S.) health debates they've been using it. But this goes back further, that's how the Republicans gained a lot of ground. It poisons the well of our political culture." news at hilltimes.com The Hill Times ------------------------------------------ According to UBC?s laws of war expert, Canadian officials may be in breach of the Geneva Convention [2] http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem- to-be-present/ `Elements of a war crime seem to be present? by Michael Byers on Friday, November 20, 2009 1:41pm - 8 Comments Canadians should hang their heads in shame. Richard Colvin?s testimony about torture in Afghanistan is a searing indictment of government officials who either knew-or should have known-that Canada was transferring detainees to torture. Between 2006 and 2007, Colvin, the second-highest-ranking Canadian diplomat in Kabul, sent 17 reports about torture to Ottawa. The reports, which were circulated widely within the departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defence, confirmed public warnings from international officials and journalists. In March 2006, Louise Arbour, the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported that complaints of torture at the hands of Afghan officials were "common." In June 2006, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimated that "about one in three prisoners handed over by Canadians are beaten or even tortured in local jails." In March 2007, the U.S. State Department reported that unconfirmed reports of torture were "numerous" in Afghanistan. In April 2007, the Globe and Mail reported on "a litany of gruesome stories and a clear pattern of abuse by the Afghan authorities who work closely with Canadian troops." Yet the Canadian Government did next to nothing. In April 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that "Canadian military officials don?t send individuals off to be tortured." Colvin?s testimony directly contradicts the Prime Minister?s statement. He reports that all the transferred detainees were tortured and that this was widely know in Kandahar, including among Canadian soldiers and diplomats. Also in April 2007, then Defence Minister Gordon O?Connor told the House of Commons that the Red Cross would inform the Canadian government if it had any concern about the treatment of detainees. O?Connor later apologized, admitting the ICRC had always maintained its policy of reporting only to the Afghanistan government. Colvin reports that the Red Cross tried unsuccessfully for three months to convey its concerns to the Canadian military about problems in the way Canada was reporting to the Red Cross when it transferred detainees to the Afghan authorities. Colvin?s allegations have emerged because he was called to testify before the Military Police Complaints Commission, a body-established after the Somalia Inquiry-which has been investigating detainee transfers at the request of Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association. The government sought to block Colvin?s testimony before the MPCC, citing national security. The obstruction prompted the three opposition parties to call Colvin to testify before a Parliamentary committee, where his voice could finally be heard. Now, the Canadian Government is seeking to shoot the messenger by publicly besmirching one of Canada?s finest diplomats. Colvin currently serves as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., a post reserved for the very best in the foreign service. And he?s been put in an unenviable position, his career and reputation on the line, and has chosen to tell the truth rather than fall in contempt of Parliament. In addition to slurring Colvin, the Canadian Government is seeking to obfuscate the facts by claiming that it acted decisively to improve the detainee transfer arrangement put in place by the previous, Liberal government. Nothing could be farther from the truth: it took more than a year of complaints, news reports, litigation and political pressure before a new transfer arrangement was finally adopted in May 2007. The actual facts are still emerging, but all the elements of a war crime seem to be present. The prohibition of torture ranks with the prohibitions of genocide and slavery as one of the most fundamental rules of international law. Torture-and complicity in torture-is a "grave breach" of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. If Canadian officials allowed detainees to be transferred to Afghan custody despite an apparent risk of torture, and chose not to take reasonable steps to protect them, they are as guilty of a war crime as the torturers themselves. They could be prosecuted in Canada under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Or they could be hauled before the International Criminal Court. Canada has ratified the ICC?s statute, giving it jurisdiction over Canadians who commit war crimes anywhere. However, the International Criminal Court will not intervene if Canadian officials are willing and able to investigate and prosecute. We must hope that the will to investigate and prosecute is present. For imagine the damage to Canada?s reputation and influence if a general, ambassador or cabinet minister was prosecuted for war crimes in The Hague. As Colvin himself explained: "If we disregard our core principles and values, we also lose our moral authority abroad. If we are complicit in the torture of Afghans in Kandahar, how can we credibly promote human rights in Tehran or Beijing?" Even more seriously, the government?s indifference to torture may have created greater risks for Canadian soldiers. Insurgents who believe they will be tortured will fight to the death rather than surrender, placing Canadian soldiers at increased danger of harm. As a result, it is possible that one or more soldiers might have been killed as a result of the Canadian Government?s actions. Again, as Colvin cogently explained: "In my judgment, some of our actions in Kandahar, including complicity in torture, turned local people against us. Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada?s detainee practices alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency." It?s time for Canadians to rally behind this brave and principled diplomat. It?s time to insist that any war criminals be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of who they are. ----------------------------- [3] MacLean's Poll Who should shoulder the blame for the alleged torture of suspects transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops? The federal government-Ottawa didn?t do enough to prevent it 49% Afghanistan-they're the ones doing the torturing 28% No one-these things happen during war 8% There's no convincing proof the abuse even occurred 14% http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem-to-be- present/ [ for poll scroll down on the right ! ] From dale_young at telus.net Mon Nov 23 15:40:54 2009 From: dale_young at telus.net (Dale Young) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:40:54 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] =?windows-1252?q?Colvin__testimony=3A__Harper_govt_usin?= =?windows-1252?q?g_smear-your-opponent_tactics+_=91Elements_of_a_war_crim?= =?windows-1252?q?e_seem_to_be_present=92_+_Poll?= In-Reply-To: <4B0AC9FB.28228.6276BEE1@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> References: <4B0AC9FB.28228.6276BEE1@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <4B0B1D86.9070002@telus.net> Michele, Starla was saying that you were doing a writeup of the lunch yesterday, as well as taking photos, for the Saanich Peninsula newspaper. Any chance of giving us the story and some photos as well? Thanks, Dale Janet M Eaton wrote: > The Harper government is using smear-your-opponent tactics borrowed > from the U.S. Republican Party that are "poisoning the well" of > Canada's political culture, NDP and Liberal MPs say. [1 Hill times] > > Canadians should hang their heads in shame. Richard Colvin?s > testimony about torture in Afghanistan is a searing indictment of > government officials who either knew-or should have known-that Canada > was transferring detainees to torture.... > As Colvin himself explained: "If we disregard our core principles and > values, we also lose our moral authority abroad. If we are complicit > in the torture of Afghans in Kandahar, how can we credibly promote > human rights in Tehran or Beijing?".. > It?s time for Canadians to rally behind this brave and principled > diplomat. It?s time to insist that any war criminals be investigated > and prosecuted, regardless of who they are. [2 Michael Byers, > MacLeans N 20 ] > > MacLean's Poll: 49% of Canadians believe the federal > government-Ottawa didn?t do enough to prevent the alleged torture of > suspects transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops and > should shoulder the blame. [3 Hill times N23 > > ============================ > > INDEX > [1] http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/smear_tactics-11-23-2009 > The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly > Tories using smear-your-opponent U.S. Republican-style tactics, say > Grits and NDP > PM Stephen Harper's government is using 'boiler-plate wedge politics' > and 'poisoning the well' of Canada's political culture. > By TIM NAUMETZ Published November 23, 2009 > > [2] http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem- > to-be-present/ > `Elements of a war crime seem to be present? > by Michael Byers on Friday, November 20, 2009 1:41pm - 8 Comments > > [3] MacLean's Poll > Who should shoulder the blame for the alleged torture of suspects > transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops? > http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem-to-be- > present/ [CHECK IT OUT ! scroll down on right side ] > > ======================================== > > [1] http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/smear_tactics-11-23-2009 > The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly > > Tories using smear-your-opponent U.S. Republican-style tactics, say > Grits and NDP > PM Stephen Harper's government is using 'boiler-plate wedge politics' > and 'poisoning the well' of Canada's political culture. > By TIM NAUMETZ > Published November 23, 2009 > > (Note: Photos of Peter MacKay and Richard Colvin are from the Globe > and Mail.) > > The Harper government is using smear-your-opponent tactics borrowed > from the U.S. Republican Party that are "poisoning the well" of > Canada's political culture, NDP and Liberal MPs say. > > They cite as one instance Defence Minister Peter MacKay's (Central > Nova, N.S.) heated responses in the Commons to allegations last week > the government tried to cover up knowledge that Canadian troops > handed detainees over to Afghan forces during the early stages of the > Kandahar mission knowing there was evidence the prisoners would be > tortured. > > The allegations from Canadian intelligence officer Richard Colvin, > made in testimony at the Commons Committee on Justice and Human > Rights, included charges that senior government officials up to Prime > Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) office were > aware of the information but suppressed it and instructed him to keep > it out of official internal memos. > > Although aspects of the Afghan prisoner controversy first became > public in 2006, and the government later instituted a new prisoner > transfer agreement with the Afghan government, Mr. Colvin's claim of > a cover-up added a new and potentially damaging charge, one which Mr. > MacKay was determined to defuse the minute it hit the Commons floor > following Mr. Colvin's testimony. > > Mr. Colvin said he spoke to four of the detainees claiming abuse and > admitted he was certain only one had been handed over to the Afghans > by Canadians, but he referred also to information from other sources, > including the Red Cross. Mr. Colvin told the committee many of the > prisoners were farmers, truck drivers and peasants "in the wrong > place at the wrong time" but others likely did carry arms for the > Taliban, possibly for pay or under coercion. > > In fact, at the time, the Foreign Affairs Department referred to some > detainees in the Kandahar prison where they were taken as "political > prisoners" and Canadian Forces also referred to its detainees as > suspected Taliban supporters. > > "According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans > we handed over were tortured," Mr. Colvin told the committee. > > When the opposition seized on his allegations of a cover-up and wider > Afghan abuse of prisoners Mr. MacKay responded with an accusation > that Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) was relying on > testimony from "people who throw acid in the faces of schoolchildren > and who blow up buses of civilians in their own country." Mr. MacKay > said the opposition was relying on "second and third hand information > and Taliban information." > > The claims prompted NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto Danforth, Ont.) > to recall the government's attacks against the opposition during a > 2007 controversy over detainees, when Harper accused then Liberal > leader St?phane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) of > sympathizing with the Taliban. Conservative MPs at the time also > derided former NDP MP Dawn Black in similar fashion, heckling her as > "Burqa Black" and "Taliban lover" during Question Period. > > "I can understand the leader of the opposition and members of his > party feel for Taliban prisoners; I just wish they would show the > same passion for Canadian soldiers," said Mr. Harper to Mr. Dion. The > claim shocked the opposition and Mr. Dion demanded an apology, saying > Mr. Harper had "insulted the entire Parliament." > > The opposition response was similar after Mr. MacKay's latest charge > that the opposition was relying on evidence from Taliban terrorists > as they pressed the government about Mr. Colvin's cover-up > allegations. > > "This is McCarthyism, this is absolute McCarthyism," Liberal MP Ujjal > Dosanjh (Vancouver South, B.C.) said in reference to the 1950s-era > Republican Senator who was eventually censured for widespread and > unbelievable allegations of Communist sympathy in the United States. > "This is absolutely unthinkable, that a Canadian minister would > accuse those who want to restore and protect the reputation of this > great country of being Taliban sympathizers. I can't comprehend that." > > NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto Danforth, Ont.) cited the response as > being among the reasons the opposition is demanding a public inquiry > into Colvin's claims. "These are very, very serious allegations and > the government is attempting to sweep them under the rug and divert > attention by calling those who raise questions names," he said. > > The opposition says the governing Conservatives have mastered more- > recent Republican-style wedge politics in attacks against their > Commons opponents, including the use of flyers suggesting the Liberal > party supports anti-Semitic groups and other flyers that targeted > opposition MPs for allegedly supporting the federal gun registry. > > Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, > Que.), who is Jewish, claimed Conservative flyers distorting the > Liberal position on anti-Semitism, terrorism, and Israel were > circulated in his Montreal riding, which like others where similar > flyers were circulated, includes a large Jewish population. Among > other things, the flyer claimed Mr. Cotler and other Liberals > participated in a conference in Durban, South Africa, that took on > anti-Israel tones. Mr. Cotler, as he argued the flyers breached his > Parliamentary privilege, pointed out Liberals and other Canadian MPs > went to Durban to attend a world conference against racism, but it > became a controversial conference dominated by anti-Semitic and anti- > Israel sentiments. > > In the case of Conservative flyers targeting opposition MPs over the > gun registry, Commons Speaker Peter Milliken (Kingston and the > Islands, Ont.) ruled there was evidence, on the surface of a > complaint from Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern > Shore, N.S.), that a Conservative flyer on the topic circulating in > his riding may have breached his Parliamentary privilege. The > circular under the name of Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice > Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, Sask.) claimed Mr. Stoffer had voted > in favour of the registry-even though he has consistently opposed it- > and also included false allegations about Mr. Stoffer's position on > the registry. On a motion from Mr. Stoffer, the House agreed to send > Mr. Vellacott's possible breach of Mr. Stoffer's Parliamentary > privilege to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for an inquiry. > > "This is boiler-plate wedge politics," says NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa > Centre, Ont.). "We've seen this used with the Republicans in the > States; I'm sure they've been sharing how to take that kind of > approach, during the (U.S.) health debates they've been using it. But > this goes back further, that's how the Republicans gained a lot of > ground. It poisons the well of our political culture." > > news at hilltimes.com > > The Hill Times > > ------------------------------------------ > > According to UBC?s laws of war expert, Canadian officials may be in > breach of the Geneva Convention > > [2] http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem- > to-be-present/ > > `Elements of a war crime seem to be present? > > by Michael Byers on Friday, November 20, 2009 1:41pm - 8 Comments > > Canadians should hang their heads in shame. Richard Colvin?s > testimony about torture in Afghanistan is a searing indictment of > government officials who either knew-or should have known-that Canada > was transferring detainees to torture. > > Between 2006 and 2007, Colvin, the second-highest-ranking Canadian > diplomat in Kabul, sent 17 reports about torture to Ottawa. The > reports, which were circulated widely within the departments of > Foreign Affairs and National Defence, confirmed public warnings from > international officials and journalists. > > In March 2006, Louise Arbour, the then UN High Commissioner for Human > Rights, reported that complaints of torture at the hands of Afghan > officials were "common." > > In June 2006, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission > estimated that "about one in three prisoners handed over by Canadians > are beaten or even tortured in local jails." > > In March 2007, the U.S. State Department reported that unconfirmed > reports of torture were "numerous" in Afghanistan. > > In April 2007, the Globe and Mail reported on "a litany of gruesome > stories and a clear pattern of abuse by the Afghan authorities who > work closely with Canadian troops." > > Yet the Canadian Government did next to nothing. In April 2007, Prime > Minister Stephen Harper said that "Canadian military officials don?t > send individuals off to be tortured." > > Colvin?s testimony directly contradicts the Prime Minister?s > statement. He reports that all the transferred detainees were > tortured and that this was widely know in Kandahar, including among > Canadian soldiers and diplomats. > > Also in April 2007, then Defence Minister Gordon O?Connor told the > House of Commons that the Red Cross would inform the Canadian > government if it had any concern about the treatment of detainees. > O?Connor later apologized, admitting the ICRC had always maintained > its policy of reporting only to the Afghanistan government. > > Colvin reports that the Red Cross tried unsuccessfully for three > months to convey its concerns to the Canadian military about problems > in the way Canada was reporting to the Red Cross when it transferred > detainees to the Afghan authorities. > > Colvin?s allegations have emerged because he was called to testify > before the Military Police Complaints Commission, a body-established > after the Somalia Inquiry-which has been investigating detainee > transfers at the request of Amnesty International and the BC Civil > Liberties Association. The government sought to block Colvin?s > testimony before the MPCC, citing national security. The obstruction > prompted the three opposition parties to call Colvin to testify > before a Parliamentary committee, where his voice could finally be > heard. Now, the Canadian Government is seeking to shoot the messenger > by publicly besmirching one of Canada?s finest diplomats. > > Colvin currently serves as an intelligence officer at the Canadian > Embassy in Washington, D.C., a post reserved for the very best in the > foreign service. And he?s been put in an unenviable position, his > career and reputation on the line, and has chosen to tell the truth > rather than fall in contempt of Parliament. In addition to slurring > Colvin, the Canadian Government is seeking to obfuscate the facts by > claiming that it acted decisively to improve the detainee transfer > arrangement put in place by the previous, Liberal government. Nothing > could be farther from the truth: it took more than a year of > complaints, news reports, litigation and political pressure before a > new transfer arrangement was finally adopted in May 2007. > > The actual facts are still emerging, but all the elements of a war > crime seem to be present. The prohibition of torture ranks with the > prohibitions of genocide and slavery as one of the most fundamental > rules of international law. Torture-and complicity in torture-is a > "grave breach" of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. If Canadian officials > allowed detainees to be transferred to Afghan custody despite an > apparent risk of torture, and chose not to take reasonable steps to > protect them, they are as guilty of a war crime as the torturers > themselves. They could be prosecuted in Canada under the Crimes > Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Or they could be hauled before > the International Criminal Court. Canada has ratified the ICC?s > statute, giving it jurisdiction over Canadians who commit war crimes > anywhere. However, the International Criminal Court will not > intervene if Canadian officials are willing and able to investigate > and prosecute. We must hope that the will to investigate and > prosecute is present. For imagine the damage to Canada?s reputation > and influence if a general, ambassador or cabinet minister was > prosecuted for war crimes in The Hague. > > As Colvin himself explained: "If we disregard our core principles and > values, we also lose our moral authority abroad. If we are complicit > in the torture of Afghans in Kandahar, how can we credibly promote > human rights in Tehran or Beijing?" > > Even more seriously, the government?s indifference to torture may > have created greater risks for Canadian soldiers. Insurgents who > believe they will be tortured will fight to the death rather than > surrender, placing Canadian soldiers at increased danger of harm. As > a result, it is possible that one or more soldiers might have been > killed as a result of the Canadian Government?s actions. Again, as > Colvin cogently explained: "In my judgment, some of our actions in > Kandahar, including complicity in torture, turned local people > against us. Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis > to fear the foreigners. Canada?s detainee practices alienated us from > the population and strengthened the insurgency." > > It?s time for Canadians to rally behind this brave and principled > diplomat. It?s time to insist that any war criminals be investigated > and prosecuted, regardless of who they are. > > ----------------------------- > > [3] MacLean's Poll > > Who should shoulder the blame for the alleged torture of suspects > transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops? > > The federal government-Ottawa didn?t do enough to prevent it 49% > > Afghanistan-they're the ones doing the torturing 28% > > No one-these things happen during war 8% > > There's no convincing proof the abuse even occurred 14% > > http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/20/elements-of-a-war-crime-seem-to-be- > present/ [ for poll scroll down on the right ! ] > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mai-not mailing list > Mai-not at globalproblematique.net > http://www.globalproblematique.net/mailman/listinfo/mai-not > From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Nov 24 01:28:59 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:28:59 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] What's new at Links: Venezuela, Australia, China, UC students, Stalinism, Tamils, population, Mexico, Portugal, Canada, Quebec Message-ID: <4B0BA75B.1010000@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Venezuela, Australia, China, UCal students, Stalinism, Tamils, population, Mexico, Portugal, Canada, Quebec * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Venezuela: Socialists debate party's direction By Kiraz Janicke, Caracas November 16, 2009 ? The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held nation-wide delegate elections on November 15 for its First Extraordinary Congress which will be held over the next several weekends in Caracas. Up for discussion at the congress are the party?s program, principles, organisational structure and most likely the mechanism for selecting candidates for the national parliamentary elections of 2010. * Read more Australia: Elected socialist's goal of `campaigning' local council gained wide support Justine Kamprad is a co-convenor of the Fremantle branch of the Socialist Alliance, in Western Australia (WA), and was the party's campaign director for the October 17, 2009, Fremantle City Council election, which saw socialist Sam Wainwright top the poll and get elected with 33.44% of the vote. Wainwright is the first member of the Socialist Alliance to be elected to public office in Australia, and one of only two socialist party members currently in an elected local council position in the country. Jim McIlroy spoke to Kamprad about the successful campaign. * Read more China today: socialist or capitalist? By Chris Slee November 13, 2009 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published a number of articles on the Chinese Revolution and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in China. This article aims to give more detail on the current situation, including the Chinese government's efforts to ameliorate some of the harmful effects of capitalism. * Read more Join the 2010 `May Day? solidarity brigade to Venezuela! April 24 - May 2, 2010 Registrations close February 1, 2010 The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network?s brigades to Venezuela are a once-in-a-lifetime experience - the opportunity to see first-hand an unfolding revolution that is not only radically transforming the lives of Venezuelans, but is challenging the greed, exploitation and destructiveness of global capitalism by showing that a better world is possible. * Read more United States: Photo essay -- Students occupy Berkeley university building to protest fee hike Story and photos by David Bacon Berkeley, California -- November 20, 2009 -- Students occupied Wheeler Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, protesting against a decision by university regents to raise tuition fees by 32%, bringing them to US$10,302 per year for undergraduates. At the beginning of the occupation the students made several demands, including the reinstatement of 38 laid-off custodial workers, and amnesty for protesting students. * Read more Paul Le Blanc: Theories of Stalinism The Marxism of Leon Trotsky By Kunal Chattopadhyay Kolkata: Progress Publishers, 2006, 672 pages Western Marxism and the Soviet Union By Marcel van der Linden Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009, 379 pages Reviews by Paul Le Blanc * Read more Cuba and ALBA let down Sri Lanka?s Tamils By Ron Ridenour November 14, 2009 -- I think that the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua let down the entire Tamil population in Sri Lanka, as well as ?proletarian internationalism? and the ?exploited?, by extending unconditional support to Sri Lanka?s racist government. * Read more Population control?s dark past Review by Simon Butler November 16, 2009 -- A select group of billionaires met in semi-secrecy in May 2009 to find answers to a ?nightmarish? concern. Their worst nightmare wasn?t the imminent danger of runaway climate change, the burgeoning levels of hunger worldwide or the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The nightmare was other people ? lots of other people. * Read more A new united movement stops Mexico for a day By Tamara Pearson November 14, 2009 -- Mexico City -- In the many metro stations of this giant city, amidst the ugly smell of Pizza Hut and the newspapers vendors yelling out, ?Grafico! 3 pesos!?, every day young people crowd around the handwritten posters recruiting for the national police. At 12,000 pesos (US$1000) per month, and with increasing unemployment and harder prospects, the offer is very tempting. * Read more Portugal: What's behind the success of the Left Bloc? By Raphie de Santos Portugal?s Left Bloc has achieved a major breakthrough in the last five months. It polled nearly 11% and 10% respectively in the recent European and parliamentary legislative elections in June and September 2009. For a party that is firmly established outside of left social democracy this is a major achievement. How did it happen? * Read more Canada/Quebec: Qu?b?cois denounce Supreme Court attack on language rights By Richard Fidler November 9, 2009 -- The October 22 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada overturning yet another section of Quebec?s Charter of the French Language (CFL) has been met with angry protests by a broad range of opinion in the French-speaking province. * Read more Four goals for a new left party By Duncan Chapel November 14, 2009 -- The people on this platform share a lot of ideas. * We want a working-class party to the left of the Labour Party, with a socialist program that confronts the dual crises of the ecology and the economy, which the ruling class is struggling to contain * We want a party in which anti-capitalists are hegemonic, but not monolithic. We have to be open to everyone who?s for the class struggle, not just those with Marxist ideas * We want a party of struggle, based on the ground, that?s developing a movement of resistance as well as an electoral campaign. That?s a lot of agreement. It?s meaningful. It?s new. We like it. But what?s the next step? * Read more Canada: Vale Inco strike shows need for international action By Marc Bonhomme, translated by Richard Fidler A Qu?b?cois militant, member of Qu?bec solidaire, discusses the global implications of the strike by 3500 workers at Vale Inco, the world?s largest nickel mine, in Sudbury, Ontario. * Read more * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Tue Nov 24 05:51:32 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:51:32 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] US : Proposal to allow breakup of huge banks gains momentum [LA Times N24] Message-ID: <4B0BACA4.2646.65EC23C4@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> "In the U.S. and abroad, support grows for giving regulators the authority to preemptively dismantle giant financial institutions whose collapse could cripple the economy.... "Angered by bailouts that have kept corporate titans such as American International Group Inc. afloat, members of a key House committee last week voted to give the government vast new power to downsize private companies, something that happens now only in the most egregious antitrust cases. "Instead of helping cushion the fall of Wall Street powerhouses through government aid or variations on traditional bankruptcy, there is growing momentum in Congress to cut those firms down to size before they start teetering to limit the damage if they do collapse. " "The era of the big bank is over," said Simon Johnson, an MIT professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund." fyi-janet Sounds like another nail in the coffin of the global economic system already known to have failed dramatically. ======================= http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-breakup24- 2009nov24,0,755512,full.story Los Angeles Times FINANCIAL CRISIS Proposal to allow breakup of huge banks gains momentum In the U.S. and abroad, support grows for giving regulators the authority to preemptively dismantle giant financial institutions whose collapse could cripple the economy. PHOTO Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, recently said in an opinion piece that "capping the size of American banks won't eliminate the needs of big businesses," he said. "It will force them to turn to foreign banks that won't face the same restrictions." (Ramin Talaie / Bloomberg / October 27, 2009) November 24, 2009 Reporting from Washington - Momentum is growing in the U.S. and abroad to deal with the problem of gigantic financial institutions deemed too big to fail by breaking them up before they can threaten the economy. Angered by bailouts that have kept corporate titans such as American International Group Inc. afloat, members of a key House committee last week voted to give the government vast new power to downsize private companies, something that happens now only in the most egregious antitrust cases. Instead of helping cushion the fall of Wall Street powerhouses through government aid or variations on traditional bankruptcy, there is growing momentum in Congress to cut those firms down to size before they start teetering to limit the damage if they do collapse. "The era of the big bank is over," said Simon Johnson, an MIT professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. The dramatic idea -- unthinkable before the financial crisis -- carries important ramifications for the future of the economy and the ability of U.S. financial institutions to compete with giants abroad. Critics of the proposal point out that only a handful of the world's largest financial firms are based in the U.S. They say mega- corporations need mega-banks to meet their needs. Nevertheless, the call to limit the size of financial firms has come recently from former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, as well as some prominent economists. Europeans are considering a similar move, while the Fed's British counterpart, the Bank of England, this month said it would require three of its bailed- out behemoths -- Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock -- to downsize. Seizing on that momentum and the continued outrage over Wall Street's bailouts and bonuses, a House committee last week voted to give U.S. regulators the power to preemptively break up large financial institutions that pose a "grave threat to the financial stability or economy of the United States." The breakup plan, part of an overhaul of financial regulations moving through Congress, goes much further than the "resolution authority" the Obama administration has requested. Under the Obama proposal, the government would be able to take apart large firms only if they were are on the brink of bankruptcy and were so interconnected that their failure could cause economic chaos. That was the case with AIG last year before the Federal Reserve bailed it out. But many lawmakers say the government needs the authority to break up companies engaged in risky behavior well before they get to the point of collapse. "The American mind is asking . . . Are we going to allow institutions to put their lives, their children's lives, the entire country at risk? Or can we take preventive action to prevent this risk?" said Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.), who wrote the proposed breakup provision. He stressed that a breakup would be a last resort if other regulatory actions didn't eliminate the potential threat to the financial system. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has proposed similar power in his regulatory overhaul legislation. The concept is simple, supporters said: The bigger you are, the harder you fall. "When small guys screw up, we shut them down," said Johnson, the former IMF economist, noting that more than 120 U.S. banks have failed this year. "We're good at managing failure. What we can't do is deal with the failure of big guys." Johnson said there had been no societal gain from the dramatic growth of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other financial firms over the last decade, and there's no reason to believe that regulators will become more effective in reining in risky behavior. When a huge financial institution teeters near bankruptcy, officials have to weigh the implications of allowing it to fail or bailing it out. Breaking up the firm before that point avoids the dilemma, he said. "If you're a big, trillion-dollar bank, the chances are the [U.S.] president will not want you to go through bankruptcy resolution," Johnson said. "If it's an $80-billion or $100-billion bank, the consequences will be more manageable." Four U.S. bank holding companies have more than $1 trillion in total assets: Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. Kanjorski's proposal would require regulators to give special attention to the 50 largest financial institutions, those with more than $17 billion in assets. Under that proposal, a forced divestiture of assets worth more than $10 billion could not take place without the Treasury secretary's approval, and a divestiture of assets of more than $100 billion would require consultation with the president. But it oversimplifies the problem to say just being big is bad or risky, said Rob Nichols, president of the Financial Services Forum, a trade group of the chief executives of the 18 largest U.S. financial institutions. The group supports tighter regulation, such as requiring large firms to hold more capital as a cushion against losses. And it largely favors the administration's plan to allow the government to seize and dismantle firms near failure to avoid the potential chaos of bankruptcy. But unless the entire world cracked down on the size of their financial institutions, such a move by the U.S. would put the country at a disadvantage, Nichols said. Even if Britain and the European Union followed suit, huge Asian banks would step into the void, he said. "Boeing, Caterpillar, Coca-Cola, Microsoft . . . they can't have their financial needs met at the Bank of Burbank. They need these large global financial institutions." he said. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post this month that the scale of huge firms such as JPMorgan helps provide better products and services. Large businesses in particular need banks operating globally that can handle complicated transactions and provide billions of dollars in financing. "Capping the size of American banks won't eliminate the needs of big businesses," he said. "It will force them to turn to foreign banks that won't face the same restrictions." Most Republicans oppose giving the government breakup power, saying it would violate the Constitution and could lead to the dismantling of nonfinancial institutions, just as General Motors and Chrysler were bailed out. Decisions also could be made for political reasons, warned Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), such as breaking up Coca-Cola Co. because soda can be unhealthful, or Wal-Mart Stores Inc. because its workers aren't unionized. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner also has problems with the idea. He noted last week that the now-defunct Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. were relatively small, but their troubles still caused "a huge amount of damage." "It's more complicated than just focusing on size, although size sometimes means more risky," he told a congressional panel. "But the critical thing is, you need to make sure the system's strong enough that you can let these firms fail and you don't have the taxpayer exposed to their losses." If critics of gigantic financial firms are correct and there's no real advantage to their extra size, then simply requiring them to hold more capital in reserve and toughening other regulatory standards would lead them to downsize on their own, said Douglas Elliott, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution. But he believes those giant firms play an important role and should not be broken up preemptively. "I think Congress' view of it is very heavily covered by this populist anger, even hatred of the large banks," he said. "What we don't want to do is basically punish the economy as a way of having a satisfying chance to punch the bankers." But some lawmakers appear eager to deliver that punch as payback for the economic pain of the financial crisis. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said: "Too big to fail is the right size to regulate, eliminate and break into smaller parts." jim.puzzanghera@ latimes.com Copyright ? 2009, The Los Angeles Times E-mail Print Digg Twitter Facebook StumbleUpon Share From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Wed Nov 25 13:02:15 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:02:15 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] US Bankers making turkeys out of taxpayers [ WP N25 ] Message-ID: <4B0D6317.24914.6C9CD4FC@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> The nation's bankers have much to be thankful for as they sit down to their turkey dinners on Thursday. At this time last year, the American financial system was near collapse, rescued only by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Now the system has stabilized, and the industry is on the verge of a coup that many would have thought impossible a year ago: an escape from any major reform of financial regulations. On Tuesday, the American Financial Services Association even held a conference call with reporters to update them on its efforts -- successful so far -- to torpedo plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect people from the sort of lending abuses that led to last year's implosion. ......the argument most likely to prevail for the financial firms on Capitol Hill was offered by the chief of the American Financial Services Association. "Especially now, when we're in a very, very sensitive time, when the capital markets are just starting to recover," he said, "introducing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace could be very detrimental." Or, to put it another way: Don't regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren't regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof. --Dana Milbank, N25 fyi-janet ===================== Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/ 11/24/AR2009112403566.html Bankers making turkeys out of taxpayers By Dana Milbank Wednesday, November 25, 2009 The nation's bankers have much to be thankful for as they sit down to their turkey dinners on Thursday. At this time last year, the American financial system was near collapse, rescued only by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Now the system has stabilized, and the industry is on the verge of a coup that many would have thought impossible a year ago: an escape from any major reform of financial regulations. On Tuesday, the American Financial Services Association even held a conference call with reporters to update them on its efforts -- successful so far -- to torpedo plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect people from the sort of lending abuses that led to last year's implosion. The ASFA, a trade group of credit card issuers, auto-finance companies, mortgage lenders and others leading the fight against the CFPA, took the unusual approach on Tuesday of publicly celebrating the reform's fading prospects. "This was supposed to be a slam-dunk," crowed Bill Hempler, the group's top lobbyist. But instead, he said, "Democratic members are increasingly having heartburn over CFPA and maybe second thoughts." House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank's CFPA proposal? "He may have problems either bringing this whole package to the floor or even individual pieces." Senate banking Chairman Chris Dodd's CFPA proposal? "A number of [Senate] colleagues are hinting that there was overreaching going on. . . . Folks attribute this to a political ploy for reelection." Richard Shelby, the Senate banking committee's ranking Republican? "His leadership is keeping the pressure on him not to cut too sweet a deal." Hempler detailed how various other lawmakers -- Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and, in the House, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and the Congressional Black Caucus -- were causing various problems for the bill. "It looks more and more like Senate banking won't take it up until January or February, and with next year being an election year, that does raise the concern level," Hempler reported with satisfaction. "This could delay the overall effort." Or, with a bit of luck, kill it outright. The trade group's analysis was astute. But the presentation took a considerable amount of nerve. The AFSA's membership, according to its Web site, includes some of the best-known names of the financial crisis: CIT, CitiFinancial, Countrywide, EquiFirst, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Financial and GMAC. The trade group points out that its members did not directly receive bailouts from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (those went to banks, including some of the AFSA members' parent companies), but it's a safe bet that many of those firms would have failed if the government hadn't intervened to prop up the financial markets. Now these same companies, suffering from some combination of amnesia and ingratitude, are determined to fight off regulatory efforts to prevent a repeat of the same cycle of bubble, collapse and bailout. Big firms such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America -- direct or indirect beneficiaries of federal bailouts -- are all battling efforts to rein in derivatives. And credit card issuers, facing new regulations scheduled to take effect in February, have responded by increasing their rates and fees. In Tuesday's conference call, AFSA's executives offered the many familiar reasons why government regulations are bad: The states are doing a good enough job regulating financial services; new fees would be passed on to consumers; it would increase bureaucracy. Hempler even raised the threat of lawsuits as the group's members try to see just how unfair and deceptive they can be without running afoul of the new rules: "It adds a whole new layer of untested language to the unfair-and- deceptive-practice standard that will have to be newly regulated, and ultimately there will probably be litigation that comes out of that." But the argument most likely to prevail for the financial firms on Capitol Hill was offered by Chris Stinebert, the trade group's chief. "Especially now, when we're in a very, very sensitive time, when the capital markets are just starting to recover," he said, "introducing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace could be very detrimental." Or, to put it another way: Don't regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren't regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof. . From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Thu Nov 26 07:10:49 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:10:49 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] Put the Grit back in this party of pushovers by Lawrence Martin G&M N25 Message-ID: <4B0E6239.31340.70816FB9@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> "In a well-timed observation, Frank McKenna said last week that fellow Liberals "are dealing with thugs. They've got to fight back and fight hard." The former New Brunswick premier, speaking as the government was trying to discredit Richard Colvin over the Afghan detainee file, hit the nail on the head. Since the departure of Jean Chr?tien, who knew something about politics being a blood sport, the Liberals have become a party of pushovers, gritless Grits. Stephen Harper has taken over the Chr?tien tough-guy role. It shows in the standings. ... If these Liberal leaders [ Martin, Dion, Ignatieff] were trying to take a higher road and bring badly needed integrity to the process, they deserve credit for it. But the reality is that it didn't work. The Harper thugs, as Mr. McKenna calls them, made them into punching bags while they barely laid a glove on the PM in return. The only way for the Liberals to really batter the Conservatives is to give them a lethal dose of their own medicine. Nobleman Ignatieff has brought in new advisers, including some veteran Chr?tien warriors. The Afghan detainees file is their first big test. We'll soon get an idea whether they will follow Mr. McKenna's advice and change course or whether it will be more of the same: Liberal popguns, Conservative cruise missiles. " --Lawrence Martin, Nov. 25, G&M fyi-janet ================== Put the Grit back in this party of pushovers Jean Chr?tien knew something about politics being a blood sport. Stephen Harper has taken over the Chr?tien tough-guy role - it shows in the standings Lawrence Martin Published on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 5:33PM EST In a well-timed observation, Frank McKenna said last week that fellow Liberals "are dealing with thugs. They've got to fight back and fight hard." The former New Brunswick premier, speaking as the government was trying to discredit Richard Colvin over the Afghan detainee file, hit the nail on the head. Since the departure of Jean Chr?tien, who knew something about politics being a blood sport, the Liberals have become a party of pushovers, gritless Grits. Stephen Harper has taken over the Chr?tien tough-guy role. It shows in the standings. The downward spiral began when the well-meaning Paul Martin rolled over in the face of the sponsorship scandal. Instead of saying, "The police are looking into it, we're moving on," he did the honourable thing and appointed an inquiry. It did much to devour him and the party. His successor St?phane Dion, a man of integrity, was skewered as soon as he laced on his skates. The willowy academic was too soft for the big leagues. He brought to mind what Maple Leaf owner Harold Ballard once said of winger Inge Hammarstrom. "He could skate into a corner with a half-dozen eggs in his pocket - and not break any of them." Mr. Dion's teammates were of little help. Instead of fighting back against the Harper assault on the legitimacy of a coalition, they ran and hid. Following in the Dion soot-steps was the learned and upstanding Michael Ignatieff. Up against Mr. Harper, it's been nobleman vs. Doberman. The PM's calumny machine quickly turned Iggy into a blend of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Tory attack ads painted him as a just-visiting, power-hungry carpetbagger. While threatening elections, Mr. Ignatieff had little in the way of a response. It was as if he was saying, "Just give me a minute while I turn the other cheek." Finally the party ran commercials featuring him standing alongside a forest issuing Boy Scout bromides that struck back with all the force of a dandelion. " If you know you are going to get brutally shelled in return, you are less inclined to shoot." If these Liberal leaders were trying to take a higher road and bring badly needed integrity to the process, they deserve credit for it. But the reality is that it didn't work. The Harper thugs, as Mr. McKenna calls them, made them into punching bags while they barely laid a glove on the PM in return. What to do now? The only way for the Liberals to really batter the Conservatives is to give them a lethal dose of their own medicine. A strategy of total aggression, starting with personal attack ads aimed directly at the Prime Minister. Mimicking Tory tricks, use dated Harper quotations to pillory him. Drag out the old Harper lines that showed him smearing the country as second rate. Highlight his long list of flip-flops and displays of hypocrisy. You think that might get his attention? Mr. Harper and his Tories would holler how unfair it was but, given their own track record for dirty pool, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Such a blitz would put an end to the Harper free ride. And it might very well make the Prime Minister think twice about going the gutter route again. If you know you are going to get brutally shelled in return, you are less inclined to shoot. The Liberals don't need to go into a long, slow rebuild full of introspection and self-flagellation. If they are capable of losing 10 points in the polls in a few months - interestingly none of those lost 10 have gone to the Conservatives - they can gain 10 back in a few months. Leaders score on personality, on policy and on politics (tactics). Mr. Harper scores strongly on only one of the three. On personality, he'll never win a charisma prize. On issues, not many are impressed by the soaring deficit, the war, his non-record on the environment. It's tactics, a principal one being his shameless use of the sledgehammer. Nobleman Ignatieff has brought in new advisers, including some veteran Chr?tien warriors. The Afghan detainees file is their first big test. We'll soon get an idea whether they will follow Mr. McKenna's advice and change course or whether it will be more of the same: Liberal popguns, Conservative cruise missiles. From jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca Thu Nov 26 23:25:02 2009 From: jmeaton at ns.sympatico.ca (Janet M Eaton) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Mai-not] The Republicanization of Canadian political culture by Murray Dobbin N25 Message-ID: <4B0F468E.26621.73FD5B83@jmeaton.ns.sympatico.ca> Watching the sickening performances of the Harperites in the House of Commons this week - out right lying, bullying, slander, contempt for the public and parliament, and a stunning disregard for the public good - brings home a hard reality: we are witnessing the Republicanization of our political culture. Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:05:37 +0000 Subject: A new post from Murray Dobbin From: mdobbin at telus.net The Republicanization of Canadian political culture Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:17 PM PST Watching the sickening performances of the Harperites in the House of Commons this week - out right lying, bullying, slander, contempt for the public and parliament, and a stunning disregard for the public good - brings home a hard reality: we are witnessing the Republicanization of our political culture. And it?s not just the torture issue - it?s the Conservative labeling of Liberals as anti- Semitic - a kind of shit-house rat politics virtually unknown in Canadian political history. It wouldn?t surprise me to find that Karl Rove is on the PMO?s payroll; his disciples certainly are. This is storm trooper politics and the most alarming and depressing part of it is that it actually works. In a poll done by the CBC (though on Afghanistan the CBC and its polls can?t be entirely trusted) only 50% of Canadians believed the testimony of Richard Colvin. The rest, presumably, believed a politician, Peter Mackay, who has repeatedly demonstrated a total lack of character - most notably his self-serving lie to David Orchard about handing the Progressive Conservative Party to the barbarians of the Reform/Alliance. Colvin - a man of extraordinary courage, knowing that his testimony would effectively end his career - told the truth simply because it was the right thing to do But in the new Republican world of Canadian politics viciousness can win out - just as it did in the US with the Swift Boat attack ads going after decorated soldier/politician John Kerry. In a political universe where there are no rules of civilized behaviour, the most ruthless can win because the side that plays by the rules just isn?t mean enough. There is no obvious way to deal with overt and unapologetic political thuggery. Fighting back in the same manner actually plays into the thugs? hands because part of their broader objective is to poison the well of public discourse. The ferocious partisanship of the Harper Conservatives - who should really be called the Libertarian Party as there is nothing conservative about them - is designed to drive ordinary citizens away from politics. I can barely stand to watch and listen to the vitriol and lies and I have spent my whole life observing and analyzing politics. I try to imagine what people who have very limited for it must think when they see this performance. But there is no question that it partly explains the fact that 42% of Canadians didn?t vote in 2008 - a huge advantage for the Libertarians. Part of the explanation for the weakness of Obama?s administration is the simple fact that the Republicans, even though they are out of power, have so damaged the political culture, so scorched the political landscape, that rational discourse is simply no longer possible in the US. Eight years of George Bush (building on eight years of Ronald Reagan) lives on and will do so for many years to come. Compassion was simply beaten out of US democracy - day after day, week after week, year after year reason was degraded, community destroyed, truth and genuine discourse ridiculed and crushed. It is impossible to predict whether or not these things are actually dead in the US - or whether the hints of fascism will grow into the real thing before reason and compassion can be rebuilt. The election of Obama suggests that the fight isn?t over - there are millions of progressive Americans who share the best of civic values. But so far they are losing. We are not there yet in Canada but we are na?ve if we think the same destruction can?t happen here. After four years of sociopathic governance by a man full of hate and contempt, Canada is already becoming unrecognizable. We must stop this man before he literally destroys the country - that is, destroys the core of who and what we are and how we see ourselves. The first step is recognizing that we are in grave danger. From papadop at peak.org Fri Nov 27 08:10:01 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:10:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] Autistic hacker to be exradited for US trial Message-ID: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6663920/Gary-McKinnon-set-to-be-sent-to-America-after-Alan-Johnson-says-he-cannot-block-extradition.html Telegraph, London 6:45PM GMT 26 Nov 20 Mr McKinnon's family were notified of the Home Secretary's decision this afternoon. Janis Sharp, Mr McKinnon's mother, was distraught, telling The Daily Telegraph: I can't believe it. It is a complete nonsense. Keith Vaz MP, the chairman of the home affairs select committee which has pressed Mr Johnson directly not to extradite Mr McKinnon, said: I am very disappointed at this decision. This is the wrong decision for the wrong reasons." Last month Mr Johnson threw a lifeline to Mr McKinnon, who suffers from a form of autism, with a promise to examine new medical evidence very carefully before deciding on his extradition last month. However in an emailed letter to Mrs Sharp, Mr Johnson is understood to have said that a decision to block the extraditon of Mr McKinnon was not in his control. During an earlier legal battle in the summer, judges warned Mr McKinnon, who is accused of hacking into networks at the Pentagon and Nasa from his flat in north London, might kill himself if he was extradited. Mrs Sharp wept as she told how she broke the news to Mr McKinnon. She said: He was very, very bad. He was very quiet - and I am more worried when he is quiet. I have got concerns for Gary. Alan Johnson has made the wrong decision. It is just awful. The legal process, which had been paused while Mr Johnson considered the medical evidence, will now start again, with legal sources suggesting Mr McKinnon could be extradited by Christmas. One of his legal team said: It is a miserable decision that we fundamentally disagree with - he could be gone by Christmas. We are considering all our legal avenues. What does it take for someone not to be extradited? Mr McKinnon's lawyers can either seek a fresh emergency judicial review of Mr Johnson's decision at the High Court within the next seven days or appeal to the European Court of Human Rights within the next 14 days. Last night, David Burrowes, the Conservatives' shadow justice minister and Mr McKinnon's local MP, said: It is extremely disappointing that the repeated calls for compassion and justice for Gary have been ignored by the Home Secretary. "Despite substantial medical grounds gfiving Alan Johnson the opportunity to stop the extradition, he has washed his hands of Gary. "The decision flies in the face of the medical evidence, which showed the serious risks to his health and life if extradition was to be granted. Mr Vaz added: "The unanimous view of the Home Affairs Select Committee was that the Home Secretary has the power to intervene. "His [Alan Johnson's] decision has important constitutional implications if he is not prepared to use his discretion even though he is allowed to so no matter how narrow the scope. Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society which has been campaigning on behalf of Mr McKinnon, said: "We are bitterly disappointed by the Home Secretary s decision and feel hugely sympathetic towards Gary and his family who have now been living under extreme stress for a prolonged period of time. "People with Asperger syndrome are often much more vulnerable than appearances would suggest and can be highly susceptible to additional mental health problems. "On the strength of recently submitted medical evidence and the support of the Home Affairs committee, we had hoped that Mr Johnson would listen to these concerns. "The National Autistic Society will continue to support Gary and his family during this incredibly difficult time and as the case continues. Mr McKinnon, 43, from Wood Green, North London, has insisted that his hacking of Pentagon computers was nothing more than him searching for reports of UFO sightings. Mr McKinnon is being extradited under a treaty which has been criticised because, while British prosecutors must provide details of the evidence against an American citizen, US prosecutors need only explain the charges to take a Briton to America. Tonight, Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, said: "I have carefully considered the representations in the case of Gary McKinnon. "I am clear that the information is not materially different from that placed before the High Court earlier this year and does not demonstrate that sending Mr McKinnon to the United States would breach his human rights. "As the courts have affirmed, I have no general discretion. If Mr McKinnon's human rights would be breached, I must stop the extradition. If they would not be breached, the extradition must go ahead. "Earlier this year the High Court upheld the extradition request for Mr McKinnon. This was after all proceedings under the Extradition Act 2003 had been completed. "The High Court dismissed a further challenge by Mr McKinnon that extradition to the USA would be in breach of his human rights. "Throughout this process there have been a number of assurances. Firstly due to legitimate concerns over Mr McKinnon's health, we have sought and received assurances from the United States authorities that his needs will be met. These were before the High Court in July. "It is also clear from the proceedings to date that Mr McKinnon will not, if convicted, serve any of his sentence in a supermax prison. Finally, should Mr McKinnon be extradited, charged and convicted in the US and seek repatriation to the UK to serve a custodial sentence, the Government will of course progress his application at the very earliest opportunity. "I know there is a concern on all sides to see a conclusion to these proceedings. It is now open to Mr McKinnon's lawyer to consider their legal options. As a consequence I do not propose to comment any further." From thinker at thelakebc.ca Tue Nov 3 16:54:37 2009 From: thinker at thelakebc.ca (Ed Deak) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:54:37 -0000 Subject: [Mai-not] Fiat lux 243 Message-ID: <200911040054.nA40sRT8032329@renu.siraza.net> To: record at cablerocket.com Subject: Fiat lux # 243 Fiat lux # 243 Oct.30, 2009 Anybody who's ever tried to read history with an open mind, ignoring the usual jingoistic nonsense about "sacred countries" and conquering heroes, must know that apart from few and short term exceptions, the world has always been ruled by criminals and certifiable nutcases. Especially when it comes to the history of empires. And never has this been more valid and visible, than it is right now, with all the horror stories happening right before our eyes. . My favourite historical whipping boy is Alexander the Great. Great ? Great for what ? Why do historians bestove fantastic titles on some of the biggest jerks and bloodthirsty criminals, when the only things they deserved would have been straightjackets, or ropes around their necks. After reaching Afghanistan and India, destroying cities and killing thousands in the quest to spread the borders of his short lived empire, Alexander croaked at the age of 33, saving endless numbers from misery and destruction, had he lived even a few years more. And what happened to his empire? Fell apart within about five minutes after his death, and I don't think too many have shed any tears. Attila the Hun, thankfully also departed from this world at a relatively early age, saving the lives of many thousands ,yet he is still celebrated as a national hero in my native Hungary, although he wasn't even a Magyar. The Huns terrorized the then known world from China to Europe for hundreds of years, today nobody really knows who, or what they were? Most European countries have at one time been empires, either enslaving their neighbours, or colonizing far away continents, now they're overpopulated disaster areas that can not even feed themselves without handouts, or thievery from others. Just as future generations will never understand how and why we now have American military bases in 170 odd countries? These examples, with hundreds more in the books, bring us back to the cold and brutal fact that wealth is the temporary control of energy that can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and the future, and that history is nothing more than the chronicle of glorified energy thefts. Where would Europe, with its fantastic palaces and art treasures, be now if there hadn't been the Americas and other continents to sack, murder and steal from? And where would our multinational mega corporations, with their multimillion dollar executives be now if some prophet hadn't invented the religion of the neoclassical market economic theory, with its priesthood licencing the sacking of the world under the guise of so called "free trade" and "globalization"? And this is where the now sacred creed of "competition" comes in, excusing the worst colonization and crimes against humanity, not with the power of the armies of past conquerors, but with imaginary capital, pulled out from the air, forcing the world to fall on their ignorant faces, sacrificing their children on the altar before its perceived power, interpreted by the priesthood of economists. It must be close to 20 years when I taped a show featuring the American mathematician/statistician/economist, W.Edwards Deming. Older people may remember the ridiculous, poor quality of the first Japanese imports. Dr.Deming who has already has made a name for himself with his work on quality production was invited by a group of Japanese industrialists to help them to improve the quality of their products and it didn't take many years before, and now, before they've jumped to the top and stayed there. Deming's advice has not been ruinous competition, but total cooperation between all segments of the economy to cut out waste and preserve human dignity. Defined in 14 points, any government with any brains should study them very carefully, before throwing more of their peoples and resources onto the sacrificial altar, honouring the insatiable demands and crimes against humanity by the multinational corporate mafia. * Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the company. * Adapt to the new philosophy of the day; industries and economics are always changing. * Build quality into a product throughout production. * End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone; instead, try a long-term relationship based on established loyalty and trust. * Work to constantly improve quality and productivity. * Institute on-the-job training. * Teach and institute leadership to improve all job functions. * Drive out fear; create trust. * Strive to reduce intradepartmental conflicts. * Eliminate exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale. * (a) Eliminate work standard quotas for production. Substitute leadership methods for improvement. * (b) Eliminate MBO. Avoid numerical goals. Alternatively, learn the capabilities of processes, and how to improve them. * Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship * Educate with self-improvement programs. * Include everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation. The funny thing is, that long before I've ever read economics, or heard of Dr. Deming, I've always paid my employees the best wages and gave them the best working conditions, because, based on my own experience as an employee in four countries, I've always maintained that happy workers are the best producers. Now tell this to today's addleheaded managers, who exploit minimum wage, part time workers on the silly advice of miseducated economists. "We can't afford to pay more, after all another .25 cents per hour would mean a whole $2. in an eight hour shift." ---------- From thinker at thelakebc.ca Fri Nov 27 07:19:23 2009 From: thinker at thelakebc.ca (Ed Deak) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:19:23 -0800 Subject: [Mai-not] Australia: Bipartisan carbon trading Message-ID: <200911271518.nARFIMjE007025@renu.siraza.net> World Socialist Web Site Australia: Bipartisan carbon trading deal transfers $6 billion from households to corporate polluters By Patrick O'Connor 26 November 2009 An extraordinary deal finalised Tuesday between the Labor government and the opposition Liberal Party on legislation enacting an Australian carbon emissions trading scheme will strip low and middle income earners of nearly $6 billion previously allocated as compensation for higher fuel and energy costs. The money will now be used to cover the bulk of an additional $7 billion allocated to the major corporate polluters, bringing the grand total of public funds to be transferred to business through the emissions trading scheme to a staggering $A123.4 billion ($US114.1 billion). The final terms of the government's so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)-set to be approved by parliament this week and to commence operations in 2011-underscore that the mechanism has nothing to do with protecting the environment, but is driven by the interests of corporate Australia. The additional $7 billion subsidy will go to different sections of business-an extra $1.3 billion for industries classed as "energy intensive, trade exposed"; a doubling of assistance to the coal industry, making a total of $1.5 billion; about $3 billion more to electricity generators; compensation of $1.1 billion to large and medium businesses for energy price rises; and various other measures including $600 million for the liquid natural gas sector and $150 million for food processing companies. The decision to hand money over to the heavily polluting coal generated power stations came after their private operators raised the possibility of abruptly shutting down operations. In other circumstances, any group making a threat such as this to sabotage power supplies to major cities, unless payment of $3 billion was forthcoming, would be classified as a terrorist organisation. In this instance, however, the blackmail went unchallenged in the media; Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong simply referred to the need to uphold "security of energy supply". The government justified the $6 billion cut to household compensation on the basis that the stronger Australian dollar meant that the forecast carbon price would be lower, reducing the anticipated increase in fuel and energy costs. But this calculation is based on highly uncertain, long term predictions of the future market price of two volatile commodities-the Australian dollar and international carbon credits. The Australian's Paul Kelly described the government's move as a "magic accounting trick", while the Business Spectator's Alan Kohler noted that "the government's assumptions have been manipulated to achieve a political outcome". There is no question that the ETS will leave the working class significantly worse off-directly through higher energy costs, and indirectly in the form of higher prices across the board. According to a recent study commissioned by the Business Council of Australia, electricity prices could double over the next five years. The Australian Financial Review yesterday noted that a Citigroup analysis concluded that carbon costs "are unlikely to be material for many S&P/ASX 100 companies, and will often be passed on to customers", while Deutsche Securities said that the "combination of significant relief for many large emitters" plus the ability to simply raise prices will result in "relatively benign valuation impacts in general". What happens after five years, when the initial cap on the price of carbon credits in Australia is lifted, remains unclear. Beyond this point there is no limit to how high the price of carbon-and therefore of energy and fuel for ordinary people-may be pushed up by the activities of international hedge funds and speculators. None of this will have any significant beneficial environmental impact. The Rudd government's baseline target is to reduce carbon emissions by just 5 percent of their 2000 levels by 2020. The final target may be higher, with Labor tying action in Australia to an as yet un-finalised new international climate treaty. Rudd has paraded his offer of a potential 25 percent cut in Australian reductions by 2020 as proof of his environmental credentials, but the offer is completely bogus, since it has been tied to a series of conditions that the government knows will not be met. The 2007 United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report concluded that advanced economies would need to cut their emissions by between 25 and 40 percent by 2020. Evidence is already mounting that the IPCC's assessment was a significant under-estimation. Twenty-six climate scientists, including 14 IPCC members, this week released a report summarising hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers published in scientific journals since 2007. They concluded that arctic sea ice is melting 40 percent faster than the IPCC report estimated, while the annual sea level rise in the fifteen years up to 2008 is 80 percent greater than estimated. The scientists indicated that global emissions needed to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly, with a near-zero carbon emissions world economy achieved well before the end of the century. "Climate change is accelerating towards the tipping points for polar ice sheets," Professor Tim Lenton of Britain's University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences explained. "That's why we're now projecting future sea level rise in metres rather than centimetres." The "free market" carbon trading mechanism-proposed as a means of resolving the climate crisis within the framework of the profit system-is inherently incapable of delivering the vast reorganisation of the world economy that is required. For all of Rudd's rhetoric about climate change being the "greatest moral challenge of our generation", the reality is that Labor's approach has never been dictated by concern for the environment. Rather, for several years Australian big business has been adamant that it must be better positioned to take advantage of the billion dollar trade in carbon credits created by the Kyoto Protocol. Rudd's ratification of Kyoto upon entering office imposed no additional burdens on Australia to reduce emissions, but it did allow Australian corporations to gain open access, for the first time, to the European Emissions Trading Scheme and to the international Clean Development Mechanism (see: "Climate change, Kyoto, and carbon trading"). The Australian banks and financial institutions are among the most enthusiastic proponents of an ETS. Just as London is now the world centre for carbon trading, because the British government gained "first mover" advantage by establishing a national carbon trading scheme ahead of the European ETS, so Australian finance capital is looking to position Sydney as a key hub for a future Asian carbon market, potentially involving two of the three largest economies in the world-China and Japan. These considerations played a central role in the Labor government's determination to push through the ETS legislation before next month's international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark. The summit-for years anticipated as the climax of the process of establishing a post-Kyoto world climate change treaty-is a debacle before it has even begun, with intense rivalries between the major powers now universally expected to stymie any agreement. On behalf of big business and finance capital, Rudd is nevertheless planning to use the event to promote Australia's carbon trading credentials. According to the Financial Times, Rudd is going to serve as "friend of the chair" to the Danish prime minister during the summit. Little serious scrutiny of the ETS package worked out by prime minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has emerged in the media, in part due to its preoccupation with an explosive crisis within the opposition Liberal Party. Despite dissenters from the ETS dominating the opposition's parliamentary caucus proceedings on Tuesday, convened to vote on the new legislation, Turnbull emerged in the evening declaring he had "made the call" in favour of the CPRS. Yesterday Turnbull's opponents tried to force a leadership spill, with Turnbull narrowly avoiding a leadership challenge by 48 to 35 votes. Several of the Liberal dissenters are expected to cross the floor and join the Nationals in voting against the legislation. The bitter divisions within the opposition are directly related to the competing interests of different sections of business. The mining, coal, and fossil fuel industries are the only significant corporate sectors likely to incur any real costs as a result of the ETS. These corporations enjoyed the closest of ties with the former Howard government and exercised virtual veto power over climate policy; they have since retained the loyalties of a substantial number of Liberal parliamentarians. As for the Nationals, they fear the impact of higher energy costs on less efficient farming interests-though the National Farmers Federation, on behalf of larger agribusinesses, backed the amended ETS after agriculture was excluded from the scheme and more de facto subsidies added. These various vested interests have in turn fed into the absurd position advanced by elements within the Liberal Party's right wing-that climate change is a "left-wing" hoax and conspiracy. Turnbull is a former merchant banker and well understands the business interests at stake. He has pleaded for his colleagues to take heed of the demand within corporate Australia for an end to uncertainty on carbon trading; he has also pointed to the fact that former prime minister Howard's 2007 proposal to enact an ETS was little different to the Rudd government's final scheme. Events over the past two days make clear, however, that even if Howard had won the 2007 election, he may well have failed to implement his plan in the face of such trenchant opposition within his own ranks. Not for the first time in Australian history, at the point of a major economic shift, the conservatives are tearing themselves apart as they seek to defend the various rival sectional interests. The Labor Party, on the other hand, has once again proven itself as the sole political force capable of implementing a far reaching economic "reform", on behalf of the most powerful layers of the national bourgeoisie. The author recommends: Obama blocks climate change agreement [18 November 2009] Australian Labor government's 2020 carbon emissions target: a declaration of impotence on climate change [23 December 2008] Australia: Climate change, the Garnaut report, and the profit system [17 September 2008] Australian Labor government unveils carbon trading scheme that shields corporate polluters [28 July 2008] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/etss-n26.shtml From papadop at peak.org Sun Nov 29 20:42:40 2009 From: papadop at peak.org (MichaelP) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:42:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] U.S. Announces Continued Rejection of Land Mine Ban Message-ID: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/25/ahead_of_key_global_conference_us Ahead of Key Global Conference, U.S. Announces Continued Rejection of Land Mine Ban Amy Goodman interviews Stephen Goose Democracy Now! November 25, 2009 The Obama administration has announced it won't sign an international convention banning land mines. This is the first time the Obama administration has publicly disclosed its position on the Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of antipersonnel mines. We speak to Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch's arms division and a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Guest: Stephen Goose, director of Human Rights Watch's arms division and a longtime leader in the movement to ban landmines. The Obama administration decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines. In response to a question about an upcoming review conference on the mind ban treaty, said DeParle spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy. IAN KELLY: This administration undertook a policy review and we decided our landmine policy remains in effect. REPORTER: Why? IAN KELLY: Why? REPORTER: I think we're one of only two nations, and Somalia is about to sign it, right? So we are going to be the only nation in the whole world who doesn't believe in banning landmines. Why is that? IAN KELLY: I'm not sure about that. We made our policy review and we determined we would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this. REPORTER #2: So what are you planning to do at the conference then? IAN KELLY: We are there as. an observer. Clearly, we have.. as a global provider of security we have an interest in the discussions there, but we will be there as an observer, obviously, because we haven't signed the convention, nor do we plan to sign the convention. AMY GOODMAN: This is the first time the Obama administration has publicly disclosed his decision on the treaty which bans the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of antipersonnel mines. 156 countries have ratified the treaty, but 39 others including the U.S., Russia and China have not. The report this month of international campaign to ban landmines found that mines remain planted in more than 70 countries and killed over 1200 people and wounded nearly 4000 last year. For more on the U.S. position on landmines and what to expect from the summit in Colombia next month, I am joined in Washington, D.C. by Stephen Goose, director of the Human Rights Watch's Arms division and co-founder of the international campaign to ban landmines, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Stephen welcome to Democracy Now! Your reaction to the Obama administration's decision to follow the Bush administration and not sign onto this treaty? STEPHEN GOOSE: We really see this as just an appalling decision, an appalling decision that has been based on apparently very flawed decision making process. It is a decision completely lacking in vision, its lacking in compassion, and frankly lacking in common sense. It shows a lack of political leadership by President Obama on what many, most others see as a crucial global humanitarian issue. AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly how this happened, what was your expectation when President Obama took office? And this latest question raised, in asking the Obama ministration that even Somalia will be signing on, and the response of the Obama administration that this is their commitment to their friends and allies, presumably all of them have signed the treaty? STEPHEN GOOSE: Well, that was a very confused response and exchange the we just heard at the State Department. Clearly, the State Department spokesperson is not at all familiar with the issue. The questioner and his response were based on the Convention on the right to the child, where the U.S. in Somalia are the only two who have not signed that. But, indeed, most of the countries of the world have joined his mind ban Treaty and virtually all of the major U.S. allies have done so. Every other NATO country is part of the mine ban treaty. The process that led to this is just an enigma. In essence, this was a stealth-review done in secrecy. So much for the Obama administration emphasis on transparency. They had never even announced a review was under way of land mine policy, and we Human Rights Watch and other non- governmental organizations and some key legislators like Senator Patrick Leahy have been encouraging them, urging them and begging them to undertake a formal review, but they never announced such a process was underway. And then suddenly and a sort of off-the-cuff response to a question yesterday, they say a review has already been completed and they decided to align themselves with the Bush policy of never joining the convention. In fact, the U.S. is the only country that has said it will never join the convention. Even others like Russia and China said it will eventually join. AMY GOODMAN: So can you explain what you believe has happened, what you believe it is taking place here? STEHPHEN GOOSE: I think we just had a very hasty and cursory review of U.S. policy. Certainly, they did not consult with key legislators on Capitol Hill. They did not consult with the major military allies. They certainly did not consult with outside experts, those who have been involved in this issue for decades, literally, and instead it seems that have simply decided to allow the Pentagon to dictate terms. The Pentagon says, we reviewed this and the Bush administration and don't think anything has changed. Unfortunately, the Bush administration did change things. The previous administration, under President Clinton, did not sign the treaty in 1997, but did make a goal of joining in the year 2006. Bush abandoned that. The U.S. was an early leader on this issue. In fact, President Clinton was the first global leader to call for the eventual elimination of antipersonnel mines, he just wasn't ready to move fast as many of our allies. But, we set the target for joining in 2006 that was abandoned by Bush and now embraced by the Obama administration. It is really extremely disturbing the US can't see the light on this, because it has largely been in compliance with all the key components of the treaty. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Goose, talk about why this land mine ban is so important. What are the worst countries in the world? How much of a problem on landmines today? STEPHEN GOOSE: They are still a huge problem with landmines, although the progress on this issue over the course of the past 10 years has been rather astounding. Since the mine ban treaty came into effect. This year, the second five-year review conference of the mine ban treaty is being held in Cartagena, Colombia in just a few days' time. It will look back at what is an accomplished in the course of the past 10 years, and plan for the future. Land mines have been banned by some countries because they are a horrific weapon that has taken too strong a toll on civilian populations. They still kill and injure thousands of civilians each year and have a heavy socio-economic toll on many countries like Afghanistan, like Cambodia, like Colombia where this major diplomatic conference is being held. But what we a seen as a result of the mine ban treaty is a huge drop in the use of the weapon. The only government that has made significant use of the weapon is Myanmar, Burma, the outcast regime there. We have seen production falling off to only a handful of countries still being willing to produce the weapon, we've seen global trade has essentially ended altogether. Most importantly, we've seen huge tracts of land cleared of land mines with more than a dozen countries declaring themselves mine-free from those clearance efforts. And the number of new victims to the weapon has more than cut in half over the course of the past 10 years. This is a huge success story. Clearly, the most successful humanitarian and disarmament treaty of the past decade if not more. The U.S. is on the outside looking in. It makes no sense. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I think it is a very interesting point you raised. First of all, you did not even know this review was taking place, and that you think it indicates the military is really in charge of policy in the country right now come, in the U.S. when it comes to the landmines. We're talking of the same time President Obama will be announcing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. I'm wondering your thoughts on, from land mines to Afghanistan. STEPHEN GOOSE: I think there's a real sensitivity to not wanting to upset the apple cart on an issue that can be seen obviously as a military and a security issue, although above all it is a humanitarian issue. But here are the facts. The U.S. military has not used this weapon in 18 years. The last time they used anti- personnel mines was in the first Gulf War in 1991. It hasn't exported since 1992, it has not produced since 1997. It has no plans for further procurement of the weapon. We're basically in compliance with the treaty. The U.S. has not used antipersonnel mines in the wars in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan. Not when the invasions occurred, and not since. They're highly unlikely to do so in the future. Both of those countries, Iraq and Afghanistan have joined the mine ban treaty. That comprehensively banned the weapon. They've banned any possession of the weapon. The U.S. would be going against the treaty obligations of those countries if it were to use antipersonnel landmines in those countries. So, again, there's sort of an Alice-in-Wonderland aspect to this, where there is no viable reason to hold on to these weapons from a humanitarian or military point of view. Yet, the political and humanitarian efforts would be great. It should have been a no-brainer. They need to go back to the drawing board. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Goose, STEPHEN GOOSE: Do a serious review. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Goose, how are you at Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups around the world, of course when Princess Di was alive this was her main issue, to ban land mines around the world. How are you going to be organizing now? I assume there's a real scramble going on right now, since yesterday, since this just slipped out, this decision of the United States. STEPHEN GOOSE: Well, we have been doing just fine on this issue without the U.S. ban on board and the without Russia or China on board. We want these countries to come aboard, but the fact is this weapon has been stigmatized and has been stigmatized throughout the world. That is why only one country still sort of dare to use it. They fear the international condemnation that would come if it were to use it. We still have a number of countries who are clinging to their arsenals of these outmoded weapons, but in fact, the power of the convention, the power of the stigma against the weapon affects even those who are outside of it. So this is a disappointment, but it doesn't deal a death blow to the efforts to get rid of the weapon. It would help to have the U.S. on board, to bring additional countries on board as well, but it is mainly the disappointment from the domestic perspective, that the U.S. simply has no reason to stay away. AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Goose, Director of Human Rights Watch's arms division and a longtime leader in the movement to ban landmines. _____________________________________________ From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Sun Nov 29 23:24:09 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:24:09 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fwd: 52 Words That Shook Washington Message-ID: <039a01ca718e$1c042990$20ad57ca@jfos> November 27 - 29, 2009 Lebanon 'Accepts' Hezbollah's Weapons 52 Words That Shook Washington By FRANKLIN LAMB Beirut "It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the (Hezbollah led-ed.)Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy by all available and legal means." So reads the Policy Declaration of the new Government of the Republic of Lebanon, issued on November 26,2009, four days after the celebration of Lebanon's 66 years of independence from the French colonial power, achieved in 1943. Legally, constitutionally, and politically, Lebanon's new National Unity Government policy legitimizes, embraces, and incorporates by reference, the National Lebanese Resistance. For the US-Israel axis, the 52 words signal that Hezbollah - which since 2006 has enjoyed majority popular support - and the State of Lebanon are inseparable and indivisible with respect to defending this country from foreign interference and occupation. It affixes the governmental imprimatur for liberating Lebanese lands still occupied by Israeli forces. According to some international lawyers, it also fulfills UN Security Council Resolution 1559 regarding disarming militias because Lebanon has in effect declared that the arms of the Hezbollah led Resistance are part of the defense of Lebanon itself and not a particular movement or political party. This Policy statement satisfies UNSCR 1701 for the same reason. Apart from the Phalange (Kataeb) Party and the Lebanese forces, and their spokesmen Samir Geagea and Amin Gemayel, who will continue to condemn the policy declaration, the issue of Hezbollah's arms has been essentially settled. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri stressed that "Hezbollah's arms belong to all Lebanese and their existence is linked to Israel's withdrawal from all Lebanese territory." Tawhid (Unifying) Party and Druze leader Wiam Wahhab went further and, following the Policy Statement approval, advised the media this was the same wording as was reached at the 2008 Doha conference: "Hezbollah's arms will remain as long as there is conflict between the Arabs and Israel. When the world tells us how the naturalization of Palestinians issue will be resolved, then we will give details on how to deal with the arms of our national resistance. They now belong to all of Lebanon." The message from Lebanon's new government to the US administration is clear according to Lebanese Human Rights Ambassador Ali Khalil: "You can have very friendly relations with Lebanon but that means dealing with Lebanon and our new government as a whole, not cherry picking certain ministries or parties in Parliament. Aid, defensive arms and equipment, economy, trade, should be negotiated with equality- not the US Embassy's color coded push pin political affiliation map used previously. Hezbollah is Lebanon and Lebanon is Hezbollah. Try to understand and get used to it. You might be pleased if both the US and Lebanon work for our own interests but dialogue with mutual respect." Many people in Lebanon and the region who support Hezbollah do so not because they know all about or even very much care about the pillars of Shia Islam or the role of the Wali al Faque but because they have experienced six decades of Israeli aggression and six wars funded and armed by a US Congress that puts Israel before its own country and way before any Arab country including Lebanon. They realize that 18 years of a fake 'peace process' has brought nothing but misery to the Palestinians and Lebanon whereas 18 years of Resistance has freed most of Israel occupied Lebanese territory. And they realize that there is more yet to be done. UNIFIL sources reported this week that they expected Israel to withdraw from the Lebanese village of Ghajar before the 12-member Cabinet committee voted to legitimize Hezbollah's arms, in order to upstage the Lebanese government decision. The Israeli government, under US and EU pressure agreed, knowing that its army could not hold the village during its next attack on Lebanon and realizing that holding Ghajar meanwhile is not worth the political and military price. Actual Israeli troop withdrawal is expected at any moment against the backdrop of more "cry wolf" threats such as yesterdays from Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak that "all of Lebanon will pay the huge price for giving Hezbollah its Government." More than ever Lebanon's population believes that Israel will also pay a huge price if it launches a 7th war against Lebanon or attacks Iran or Syria. A conference call In Washington and Beirut the response to Lebanon's legitimization of Hezbollah's arms was publicly subdued. The US Embassy, for the second year in a row mistakenly sent Eid al Fitr greetings to Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman, whereas this week's holiday, which commemorates the annual Hajj Pilgrimage and the 1,400 year old Muslim tradition of giving of meat to the poor, is called Eid al Adha. Eid al Fitr actually follows Ramadan which ended this year on September 19th. Anyhow, for sure it's the thought that counts and the White House did promptly correct the Beirut's Embassy error and sent President Obama's and the American peoples Eid al Adha greetings yesterday at 2:15 p.m. Beirut time. Privately, the reaction to legitimizing Hezbollah's deterrence to Israeli aggressions is causing a strong reaction on Capitol Hill. AIPAC has another Congressional Resolution ready to condemn Lebanon for capitulating to 'terrorism'. Hard to believe as it is, some members of Congress are actually tiring of all the Israel Lobby's resolutions and the pressure tactics AIPAC uses to get them passed irrespective of what they say or whether they are read. Before the Thanksgiving break, AIPAC organized an urgent conference call among 11 Chairmen, of key US Congressional committees, including Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Appropriations, Banking, Homeland Security, Environment, and Aging, and Rules held a conference call arranged by AIPAC. Together, the group forms what AIPAC calls "Israel's Firewall" which it and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations conceived of and formalized in late September 2001 " to assure consultation and dialogue with respect to how best to launch Congressional initiatives that will preserve the special and unbreakable US-Israel relationship." In addition to the above members, others who have been approached to form the 'firewall' in the 111th Congress include all 13 Jewish members of the US Senate and the 28 Jewish House Members as well as a couple of dozen trusted evangelical Christian Zionist members. According to a Zionist Organizations of America (ZOA) source, the group has not been very active until recently. Decisions, if any that were taken the past eight years by what is referred to by some on Capitol Hill as the "Israel Synod" is not currently known. One recent decision that has been taken was revealed by ZOA. The 'fire wall' project is to 'fast track' a dramatic increase in US military aid to Israel to deal with supposed Hezbollah, Hamas, Syrian, and Iranian threats to Israel. "These people see an urgent need to clean house and restore Israel's military dominance and credibility", claimed the ZOA source. According to a staff member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, the ' fire wall' group plans to expedite US Congressional approval for more subsidies for all or part of the funds needed by Israel to purchase U.S. weapons. This will be in addition to Israel receiving over the past 24 months $ 2,070.1 billion from US taxpayers earmarked for this purpose. AIPAC's new 'fire wall' group will work for the 2010 deployment of the so called "Iron Dome" that can unleash a metallic cloud to bring down incoming rockets in the skies over Gaza or Lebanon as well as funding for a new generation of Israel's Arrow defense system designed to shoot down Iran's long-range missiles at high altitudes. In addition, Israel will receive US funding for more German-made Dolphin submarines that can be equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles for positioning off the coast of Iran. AIPAC's problem is to get Congress to overrule Pentagon skepticism of much of Israel's 'new weapons' projects which some view as more psychological warfare than reliable or usable effectively in future conflicts. AIPAC appears confident and with good reason. The Congressional Israel lobby has already achieved a commitment from the Obama administration to add Israeli systems and munitions to a new U.S.-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and deliver 25 to Israel by 2015 with another 50 delivered by 2018. The Obama administration will also integrate bombs that use an Israeli precision guidance kit called Spice along with Python 5 air-to-air missiles made by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The 'fire wall' group is to assure that Israel will also get a relatively inexpensive path for hardware and software upgrades to add future weapons. This season's 'mother of all bombs' Another major Congressional weapons project for Israel is the Boeing Corporations new 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb. The MOP carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and delivers more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109, according to the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which has funded and managed the seed program. It is also about one-third heavier than the 21,000-pound GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb - last season's "mother of all bombs" -- that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003. The 20-foot-long (6-metre) MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52 or the B-2 "stealth" bomber and is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding, according to the U.S. Air Force. The Pentagons Central Command, which is preparing for war with Iran- just in case- is backing a acceleration request according to Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. Israel wants them to attack Hezbollah's deep bunkers in South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. If AIPAC can get Congress to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N)'s radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010. This claim has been verified by Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman, who added, "There have been discussions with the four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. Officially no final decision has been made." In fact the decision has been made according to AIPAC and Congressional sources and its "all systems go". Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb at gmail.com http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb11272009.html ------------------------------------------------------ Provided by Australis http://www.australis.com.au/ From jfos at vic.australis.com.au Sun Nov 29 23:24:46 2009 From: jfos at vic.australis.com.au (john foster) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:24:46 +1100 Subject: [Mai-not] Fw: wage theft - interfaith worker justice - USA Message-ID: <03b801ca718e$32228be0$20ad57ca@jfos> what a tragedy to see the once great country of "Free Market U$A' being turned into a socialist State by greedy workers and do-gooders! John Foster Victoria, Australia www.wagetheft.org November 25, 2009 CONTACT: Interfaith Worker Justice [1] Danny Postel | Communications Coordinator | (773) 728-8400 x24 | dpostel at iwj.org [2] 40 Actions Taken across US to Stop Wage Theft from Grassroots to the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage Theft Campaign Moves Forward Workers, community organizers, public officials and religious leaders in communities from coast to coast stood together as part of the National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft [5] coordinated by the national network Interfaith Worker Justice [6]. * At the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, State Senator Sue Morano announced the Wage Protection Act [7], new legislation that would expand the Ohio state government?s enforcement capacity on wage violations; * Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natasha Seijas and members of the South Florida Wage Theft Task Force decried the pervasiveness of wage theft in the region and announced a pending local ordinance [8] to combat it; * In Memphis, the Workers Interfaith Network released the results of a survey [9] it conducted of local low-wage workers, 68 percent of whom reported not being paid for all the hours they?d worked; * In Chicago, four Polish workers each owed over $10,000 by a contractor, together with religious leaders and organizers with the Arise Chicago Worker Center, announced a lawsuit [10] for back wages at one of the contractor?s current work sites; * A rally and press [11] conference were held at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, workers and members of the clergy joined with the Workers? Rights Center to demand both state and federal government measures to combat wage theft; * At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Rep. Danny Davis [12] (D-IL) joined workers who have been cheated of their wages, religious leaders, and IWJ Executive Director Kim Bobo [13], whose 2008 book Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid?And What We Can Do About It [14] exposed the national crisis and has become a rallying cry for the campaign to end it; * Also in Washington, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced increased enforcement and outreach efforts [15] in the department?s Wage and Hour Division, including a national public awareness campaign titled to inform workers about their rights. ?We will not rest until the law is followed by every employer, and each worker is treated and compensated fairly,? Solis said in a statement. (For more actions around the country, see here [3].) ?A great deal of work remains to be done to stop wage theft, but Thursday?s National Day of Action was a watershed moment in this campaign,? says Bobo. Secretary Solis said she ?will not rest until the law is followed by every employer, and each worker is treated and compensated fairly ? and neither will we at Interfaith Worker Justice. ?As we pause this Thanksgiving to remember all that we are thankful for, we also remember the workers across the nation whose wages are stolen and struggle to put a meal on their holiday table. We must put an end to this national scandal of wage theft,? says Thomas Shellabarger [16] of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. For more information, visit www.iwj.org [6] and www.wagetheft.org [17]. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jomut at yahoo.com Mon Nov 30 09:56:21 2009 From: jomut at yahoo.com (John Mutambirwa) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:56:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] "conspiracy nutheads" Message-ID: <492615.45332.qm@web31102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> John Mutambirwa (Dreaming Awake) jomut at yahoo.com chakane at hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/jomut ? Hi, ? Thought you might be interested in this one guys.? CBC's "The Fifth Estate" had a special report on the 911 Truth Movement this last Friday.? First time?I have ever seen a major network giving vent to the concerns of the "conspiratorial cranks" -- more than a third of US citizens now fit into this category according to the latest?news reports.?Thought Duanne and Glen would be especially interested in this one. ? John ======= -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jomut at yahoo.com Mon Nov 30 10:01:18 2009 From: jomut at yahoo.com (John Mutambirwa) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:01:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] more on nutheads Message-ID: <377897.89512.qm@web31106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> John Mutambirwa (Dreaming Awake) jomut at yahoo.com chakane at hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/jomut ? Hi ? That was an old one that I just sent out. There is a newer one, and that's the one I watched this last Friday I think. ? John =============== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jomut at yahoo.com Mon Nov 30 10:05:22 2009 From: jomut at yahoo.com (John Mutambirwa) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:05:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Mai-not] oops again! Message-ID: <869916.9980.qm@web31105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> John Mutambirwa (Dreaming Awake) jomut at yahoo.com chakane at hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/jomut ? This is the real McCoy. ? 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