Russian gas major Gazprom will soon announce another “fundamentally new” liquefied natural gas project, according to company CEO Aleksey Miller. Sources say it’s likely to be an LNG plant in the Baltic.

“Gazprom is known for
successfully creating projects, and decisions on which have been
made,” Miller said on Thursday at a meeting in the city of
Tomsk. “We will have another fundamentally new project that you
do not know of yet,” he said. Miller did not disclose any
details. 

According to the Interfax news agency, the project Miller was
referring to might be a new LNG plant, which will be receiving gas
from the unified gas supply system; or it could also be reviving
the Baltic LNG project in the St. Petersburg region. 

Reuters referring to unnamed sources suggests the new LNG plant
will either be situated in the Baltic or in the Barents Sea. The
news agency reports that Gazprom is currently deciding whether to
build the LNG plant in St. Petersburg region, or on the Kola
Peninsula. 

Gazprom intended to build an LNG plant with a capacity of 7
million tonnes in the Baltic region in 2004, however these plans
were stalled.  

Now Gazprom wants to return to the idea in order to boost
supplies to Europe.

Gazprom already has the Nord Stream gas pipeline aimed at
serving Europe by connecting Russia and Germany.

The gas major is also engaged in building a liquefaction plant
in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, to supply the Asia-Pacific
region. Companies from Japan, a large consumer of LNG, are in talks
on purchasing supplies from the facility.

This article originally appeared on: RT

An Iranian deputy foreign minister has rejected claims about Tehranâ„¢s military presence in Syria, dismissing the allegations as a Å“blame game” orchestrated by the Syrian opposition groups.

Å“Iranian forces have never been, and are not present in Syria, and I deny this claim,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia-Pacific Affairs Abbas Araqchi said in Ankara on Thursday.

Å“The real enemies of Syria make such claims to provoke that countryâ„¢s people [against Iran] and divert developments [in Syria] in the wrong direction,” said Araqchi, who is also Iranâ„¢s Foreign Ministry spokesman.

He emphasized that the crisis in Syria cannot be resolved through military means, adding that the unrest in the Arab country should be resolved politically.

Araqchi reiterated that Syria crisis will be definitely settled through comprehensive talks between the Syrian government and real opposition groups, not terrorists.

Unrest has gripped Syria for over two years now and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security personnel, have been killed in the turmoil.

On May 23, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed his resolve to continue fighting terrorism while embracing a political solution to end the crisis.

Å“Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis,” Assad said.

Iran has repeatedly voiced its opposition to any foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs, calling for inclusive dialog and national reconciliation as well as free elections as keys to the settlement of the crisis in the country.

SF/NN/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “renewable energy revolution” is killing the German economy, but Obama and Greens keep pointing to Germany’s debacle as the model we should follow.

“HIGH ENERGY COSTS DRIVE GERMAN FIRMS TO US.” That is the headline for an article that appeared May 22 in Duetsche Welle, or DW, Germany’s international broadcasting giant.

“Soaring German energy costs in the wake of the country’s transition to renewable energy have seen more and more firms thinking abut relocating their operations,” the DW story reported. “The US looks like a sound alternative, associations claim.”

The DW story continued:

German industry lobby associations on Wednesday sent a warning shot towards the government in Berlin, saying that rising energy costs in the country would drive away more and more German companies.

“If we don’t get on top of the country’s energy transition to renewables and are not able to rein in energy costs in the process, German industry’s competitiveness stands to suffer,” the chief of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), Ulrich Grillo, told the business newspaper “Handelsblatt.”

He said that while Germans are embroiled in a debate about the right energy mix, the US was getting more and more attractive as a business location for German firms, thanks not least to President Barack Obama’s support for the fracking technology resulting in much cheaper energy prices.

President Obama has pleasantly surprised many – and angered many of his allies in the Big Green lobby, i.e., the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, et al – by his recent common-sense actions to allow hydraulic fracturing on federal public lands and approval of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Freeport, Texas. However, based on the administration’s history of antipathy to all fossil fuels, its use of the EPA to quash energy production, and its commitment to vastly expanding our nation’s reliance on renewable energy, the recent natural gas concessions could prove to be a temporary political move. If that proves to be the case, the German companies that are moving to America to escape Merkel’s unsustainable “renewable revolution” could find themselves facing the same predicament down the road here.

$110 billion for solar may postpone global warming by 37 hours this century!

According to Danish professor and best-selling environmental author Bjorn Lomborg, the German and Danish experiments that are being so highly touted as successful showpieces are instead unmitigated disasters. Lomborg stated on John Stossel’s television show on March 29, 2012 that Germany’s colossal expenditure on solar energy, for instance, will have virtually zero impact on global warming, the ostensible reason for which the country is “investing” huge sums. “The Germans are spending about $110 billion on subsidies for these solar panels,” Lomborg noted. “The net effect of all those investments will be to postpone global warming by 37 hours by the end of the century.”

New Zealand climate blogger Jo Nova has provided extensive analysis of the German energy debacle in this posting: “The Chaos of German ‘Renewable’ Energy.”

Concerns over Germany’s radical energy policies have been building for months, as the costs have become more and more evident. In an article last July entitled, “Doubts Rising over German Switch to Renewables,” Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s largest publications, reported on the growing alarm:

Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined a grand vision for an energy revolution a year ago, shortly after her government had decided to shut down all nuclear reactors by 2022 in a spectacular about-face following the Fukushima accident. Germany was to put itself at the forefront of the fight against global warming by radically expanding the use of renewable energy to 35 percent of total power consumption by 2020, rising to 80 percent by 2050. Currently, it represents 20 percent of the country’s energy mix.

But now two ministers, Environment Minister Peter Altmaier and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, have cast doubt whether the targets are reachable and said their priority is to make sure that electricity prices don’t rise too much….

The similarity between the two ministers’ comments is noteworthy, as is the fact that two of Merkel’s top ministers are calling one of her government’s central projects into question a mere year after it was launched.

The business daily Handelsblatt wrote:

If one looks at the key points of the energy revolution decided a year ago, one quickly notices that very ambitious targets were set while the path to reaching them was only outlined sketchily. Many players in the affected industries don’t know what to do. They have been told to take action and invest billions, but the conditions remain unclear.

Germany may be leading the way to disaster, but it is not traveling alone. According to the International Energy Agency’s chief economist Fatih Birol, annual government subsidies designed to promote renewable energy currently amount to around $70 billion globally.

And if the Big Green lobby has its way, that subsidy will grow exponentially. Which is why, even as Germany staggers under the renewables burden, one of the designers of that fiasco was in the United States recently to promote the same policies here. On May 14, Rainer Baake, former deputy minister at the German Federal Environment Ministry and a key architect of Germany’s energy transition, was the honored guest for the interview program On Point of the Environment & Energy Television network (E&ETV).

Baake then received a much bigger boost from Bloomberg News on May 15, with the publication of his essay “U.S. Energy Policy Should Take a Lesson From Germany’s Energiewende,” co-authored with Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), one of the globalist mega-think tanks with mega-funding from governments and leftist foundations, as well as from politically connected corporations that benefit from subsidies and state-monopoly policies.

In their Bloomberg piece, Baake and Morgan lecture us on the failure of the United States to get in step with the renewables zeitgeist that is sweeping the world:

At least 118 countries have renewable energy targets, and 65 offer predictable feed-in tariffs. About half of new electric capacity worldwide in 2011 came from renewable sources.

The United States stands in sharp contrast with this picture. It’s true that 29 states currently have renewable energy policies, but the country lacks a national energy policy framework and corresponding targets.

For U.S. policymakers looking to expedite a clean energy transition, the Energiewende should be a welcome addition to the conversation. It’s economically and ecologically responsible, and it’s proven to be politically popular. It’s certainly worth taking a closer look.

Yes, we should be taking a much closer look – before our government goes any further in this direction. A good place to start is “The Renewable Energy Disaster” by Christopher Calder, which provides copious research on the horrendous economic, social, and environmental costs associated with the global push for government-mandated transition to renewable energy. (A caveat: While providing a devastating critique of renewable energy policies, Calder’s “solution,” the National Food Security Act, is a misguided remedy that would unconstitutionally inject federal controls into all areas of agriculture and food production.) The articles by The New American’s Ed Hiserodt and James Heiser listed below also provide critically important information on the problems and limits of renewable energy and the renewable energy policy proposals.

Related articles:

Blown Away: Wind Energy Analyzed

Danish Wind Power Overblown

Wind Power: An Ill Wind Blowing

A Review of “The Wind Farm Scam”

Solar Power Generation: Boon or Boondoggle

Obama’s Energy Plan

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Better, but not nearly good enough.

Demonstrators call attention to the ongoing hunger strike being staged by prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. “It’s time for the path not chosen over a decade ago,” says Amnesty International. “It’s time for human rights.” (File photo) That’s the message many were sending after President Obama’s speech at the National Defense Universityin Washington, DC on Thursday.

Human and civil rights groups generally responded to Obama’s foreign policy speech by saying that though they welcomed the president’s decision to directly address long-ignored issues–including extrajudicial killings, drone attacks, the permanent war footing of the US military, and the ongoing crisis at the Guantanamo Bay prison–there remained enormous problems with his many of his declarations and formulations surrounding these controversial policies.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR):

The president’s stated reengagement on Guantanamo is welcome, but long overdue. However, unless he takes immediate steps to resume transfers and ultimately close the prison, his administration will not escape the “harsh judgment” of history he anticipated in his speech. We welcome his decision to lift the ban on transfers to Yemen, which has trapped more than half of the men at the prison. However, we are disappointed by the president’s comment that cleared men will only be released “to the greatest extent possible.” While more than 100 men continue to starve themselves in a principled protest for their freedom, the president’s equivocation is troubling. After eleven years of detention without charge or trial, all of the men President Obama does not intend to give fair trials should be released and reunited with their families. Anything short of that threatens to worsen a potentially deadly crisis unfolding a Guantanamo.

Regarding the U.S.’s use of lethal force against suspects of terrorism, though President Obama suggested a return to normal at some point in the future, the essence of his speech was to reassert the legally-flawed and dangerous premise of the targeted killing program –namely, that the United States continues to be engaged in a global war with Al Qaeda and undefined “associated forces.” Whether or not the United States can use lethal force under the laws of war is not a matter of policy preference–it is a matter of law and facts. The policy standard he outlined for the targeting of individuals, requiring imminence and feasibility of capture, while narrower than prior asserted standards, also raised questions about how those standards would be interpreted. Prior Justice Department interpretations, for example, that imminence does not require clear evidence of a specific act in the immediate future, do not engender confidence. The president was certainly correct when he stated that we need to think about the world we are creating and leaving behind. But codifying this program, despite its “refinements,” sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations and other countries.

ACLU president Anthony D. Romero released the following statement:

President Obama is right to say that we cannot be on a war footing forever, but the time to take our country off the global warpath and fully restore the rule of law is now, not at some indeterminate future point. Four years into his presidency, President Obama has finally taken the first steps to jumpstart his administration’s effort to make good on early campaign promises to close Guantánamo and recognized the human cost of failing to act. These are encouraging and noteworthy actions.

To the extent the speech signals an end to signature strikes, recognizes the need for congressional oversight, and restricts the use of drones to threats against the American people, the developments on targeted killings are promising. Yet the president still claims broad authority to carry out targeted killings far from any battlefield, and there is still insufficient transparency. We continue to disagree fundamentally with the idea that due process requirements can be satisfied without any form of judicial oversight by regular federal courts.

We are particularly gratified that President Obama embraced our recommendations to use his authority to allow prompt transfer and release of Guantánamo detainees who pose no national security threat and that have been cleared by the military and intelligence agencies. We also applaud his appointment of a high level official to supervise the process for closing Guantánamo once and for all.

But there are other problems that must still be addressed. The unconstitutional military commissions must be shuttered, not brought to the United States. While the president expressed appropriate concern about indefinite detention, he offered no clear plan for ending this unconstitutional policy for those who have not been tried or cleared for release.

President Obama’s efforts to repair his legacy in the eyes of future historians will require that he continue to double down if he is to fully restore this nation’s standing at home and abroad. The ACLU realizes that Congress has thrown significant barriers in closing Guantánamo. But in some areas Congress has been more progressive, having recently demanded legal memoranda that claim to authorize the illegal killing program. The ACLU stands ready to work with, and if necessary do battle with, those elements of government that impede our nation’s obligations to honor the rule of law and to protect our values while safeguarding our security.

And Amnesty International responded with this:

President Obama was right to reaffirm the need to close Guantanamo, address the need for greater transparency, and acknowledge the troubling issues surrounding his killer drone program. Now it’s time for him to take immediate and further action and get the job done.

Transfers can and must resume today, and all detainees must either be fairly tried in federal court or released. President Obama was right not to endorse the concept of indefinite detention, but his proposal to restart unfair military commissions in the mainland U.S. should be rejected as both unlawful and unnecessary.

What’s needed on drones is not a “kill court,” but critically, much more transparency regarding the legal basis for the drones program, including the release of the newly approved presidential guidance as well as independent investigations of alleged extrajudicial executions and remedy for victims.

There’s no need to wait to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. The Obama administration should immediately end reliance on the flawed “global war” legal theory at the heart of indefinite detention, military commissions and the killing of terror suspects and civilians alike.

Congress must stop hindering reform. Elected officials should repeal the remaining legislative obstacles to closing the detention facility and make the Senate report on CIA torture public.

President Obama is right that the country is at a crossroads. It’s time for the path not chosen over a decade ago. It’s time for human rights.

_____________________________________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Rosneft, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, is expanding its influence in Venezuela, via a subsidiary of the national oil company PDVSA. The two companies signed a joint venture agreement to develop a river basin in Venezuela.

The agreement was signed between Rosneft President Igor Sechin
and Venezuelan Oil Minister and President of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez.
Newly elected President Nicolas Madura was also present.

The joint venture will operate through a subsidiary company,
Venezuela’s Corporacion Venezolana del Petroleo (CVP) and will
explore oil reserves in the ‘Carabobo-2’ bloc of the Orinoco river
basin.

Rosneft’s share will be 40 percent and the remaining 60 percent
will be owned by CVP.

Rosneft has agreed to a joining bonus of $1.5 billion ,
which will be delivered in two separate installments. Additionally,
it will provide CVP with a $1.1 billion bond.

Reserves are measured at 40 billion barrels (6.5 billion tonnes)
and it is projected that maximum commercial output will reach 400
million bbl, or about 25 million tonnes a year.

The total exploitation area is 342 square kilometers and is
located in the heavy oil belt of the Orinoco River.

The Orinico river delta in Venezuela.Rosneft territory is in the
‘Carabobo’ sector, near the bottom of the river basin. Rosneft’s
242 square kilometers includes blocs ‘Carabobo 2’ and ‘Carabobo-4
West’.

‘Heavy oil’

The oil is ‘heavy’ because it isn’t pure, it is mainly tar sands
(also known as oil sands) which is highly asphaltic, dense, and
viscous oil that must be converted into a lighter crude for
sale.

The new joint venture plans to build a special processing plant
which will improve the quantity and the quality of crude oil
extracted.

Sechin said the two companies are also working collaboratively
on a number of other projects in Venezuela, including offshore.

Venezuela is sharing confidential geological data with Rosneft,
so the company can analyze and propose future ventures with
PDVSA.

After taking over TNK- BP in March, the new mega oil company is
projected to raise its output to 4 million barrels a day, about 40%
of Russia’s total production.

This article originally appeared on: RT

<!–Pepe Escobar–>

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

Forget it; the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is not becoming more “democratic” — or even transparent.

US President Barack Obama now pledges to transfer the
responsibility of the shadow ‘Drone Wars’ from the CIA to
the Pentagon — so the US Congress is able to monitor
it. 

Until virtually yesterday the Obama administration did not even
recognize in public the existence of the shadow ‘Drone
Wars’.

The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the Pentagon —
which would then be in charge of the ‘Drone Wars’ – is bound
to remain secret.

And the Pentagon is not exactly yearning to retouch its
definition of a “militant”, a prime candidate to be
‘target-assassinated’; “any military-aged male in a
strike zone”. “Muslim” male, it goes without
saying. 

Obama’s rhetoric is one thing. His administration’s ‘Drone
Wars’ are another thing entirely.

The President now insists GWOT is no longer a “boundless
global war”.

That’s rhetoric. For the Pentagon, the “entire globe is a
battlefield”. 

That is the operative concept since the beginning of GWOT, and
inbuilt in the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.

And if the entire globe is a battlefield, all its causes and
consequences are interconnected.

The rules of the game

What’s the difference between a British soldier (the UK is
attached to GWOT via the “special relationship”), stationed
at an army barracks, gruesomely hacked to death with a meat cleaver
in a London street and a Syrian soldier
beheaded/disemboweled/cannibalized in “rebel”-held territory
by a mercenary Sunni jihadi? 

The difference is that the Nigerian-British killer in London is
a terrorist, and the jihadi in Syria is a freedom fighter.

What’s the difference between an alleged — never conclusively –
proven Chechen-American principally responsible for the Boston
bombing and a little Pashtun girl killed by a US drone in
Waziristan?

The difference is that the Chechen-American is a terrorist, and
the Pashtun girl is not even acknowledged by the Pentagon (and even
if she was, she’d go down as “collateral damage”.)

And what if the “collateral damage” is a US citizen, as
in Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Muslim cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki, ‘target-assassinated‘ by a US drone in
Yemen in October 2011? 

It will take 19 months for the administration to admit he was
“terminated” — but still with no justification
attached. 

GWOT’s rules of the game won’t change — no matter how soaring
Obama’s rhetoric.

When the US — or “the West” — kills or
‘target-assassinates’ Muslim civilians, that’s never
terrorism.

When Muslims supported by “the West” kill other Muslim
civilians — as in Syria — they are not terrorists; they are
Reaganesque “freedom fighters”. 

When Muslims kill Western soldiers — as in London — they’re
terrorists.

When Muslims happen to come from regime-changeable Iran and
Syria’s government, not to mention Hezbollah, they are by
definition terrorists.

And when Muslims are lingering in Guantanamo just because they
were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the US invaded a
Muslim country, they remain terrorists — the umpteenth Obama
promise to close Guantanamo notwithstanding.

Pick your favorite blowback

Take a look at the trailer of Dirty Warsfeaturing
Jeremy Scahill’s investigation of Washington’s shadow war. Pay
attention to what a Pashtun peasant says: “If the Americans do
this again, we are ready to shed our blood fighting
them”.

That’s blowback. And not only Pashtuns are ready — but pan-Arabs
and Muslims born and bred in “the West”.
The new “lone wolf” catchphrase/hysteria barely identifies the
future proliferation of Muslim individuals whose anger finally
explodes.

They may not be affiliated with any al-Qaeda-style franchise or
copycat. What they do embody is the notion that if “the West” can
get away with killing Muslim civilians, there will be a price to
pay.

That’s 1, 2, 3, one thousand blowbacks. 

And reasons for a thousand blowbacks are piling up.

The Bush administration’s ‘Shock and Awe’ over Baghdad 10 years
ago was Western terrorism inflicted on Iraq’s civilian
population.

The ‘Drone Wars’ are Western terrorism inflicted on civilian
populations from Yemen to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The sanctions packages imposed for years on Iraq and later on Iran
are slow-motion Western terrorism inflicted on civilian populations
to “prepare” them for regime change.  

Meanwhile “the West” simply won’t quit its ability to fabricate
more blowbacks.

NATO’s war “liberated” Libya and turned it into a failed state.
The result is Sahelistan; northern and western Africa on
fire.  

Suicide bombers in Niger have just attacked a military camp and
a uranium mine operated by French company Areva.  

Responsibility was claimed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former
leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) who late last year
formed the splinter group Signatories in Blood, then led the attack
on a natural gas plant in Ain Amenas in Algeria last January, and
later may — or rather may not — have been killed. 

The bottom line is that the entire globe will remain a
battlefield — a self-fulfilling Pentagon prophecy.  

So many Belmokhtars to fight, so many Syrian jihadis to support,
so many “al-Qaeda” to target-assassinate, so many Muslim lone
wolves to track. 

Obama’s rhetoric is just a show. GWOT is bound to remain a
serpent biting its own tail, eagerly feeding itself till the end of
time.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This article originally appeared on: RT

A magnitude-5.7 earthquake has struck the US western state of California and felt in two other states, but reportedly leaving no injuries or major damage.

The Friday night tremor was centered near Greenville, about 25 miles southwest of Susanville in the extreme northeastern part of the state, and only broke dishes and shook mirrors, according to the US Geological Surveyâ„¢s (USGS) National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colorado.

Several aftershocks were reported in the state, including one measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale that struck early Friday morning.

According to the nationâ„¢s National Weather Service, only slight damage has been reported, namely falling object from shelves and rattling or broken dishes.

Moreover, thousands of people reported feeling the quake, as far away as the San Francisco Bay area and across the borders into the States of Oregon and Nevada, according to the USGS website.

A local TV broadcast further reported that the temblor was felt in downtown Sacramento, about 145 miles south of the epicenter.

Susan Shephard and her husband Alan Shephard, who live very close to the epicenter near Greenville, said they were watching a TV show when their entire building started shaking.

Å“All of a sudden things started falling off the shelves, mirrors fell off the wall, vases fell down to the floor, everything started crashing,” Shephard told the Redding Record-Searchlight. Å“It felt like the end of our world.”

The stateâ„¢s Susanville Fire Department said it had received no reports of damage, and a Plumas County Sheriffâ„¢s Office dispatcher added that calls were flooding into its office but no damage was reported.

MFB/MFB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The US Treasury has put 20 more companies and individuals on its blacklist of sanctions for allegedly contributing to Tehranâ„¢s nuclear energy program and helping the country bypass illegal sanctions.

Among those targeted by the sanctions are transport and freight companies Aban Air, DFS Worldwide and Everex, and the officials of the three entities as well as the Malaysia-based Petro Green.

The sanctions list bans US entities and individuals from doing business with the newly-banned firms and individuals.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. Over the false allegation, Washington and the European Union have imposed a series of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

On Wednesday, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs adopted a new measure to tighten the countryâ„¢s illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program.

The panel passed an anti-Iran act that targets the countryâ„¢s auto and mining industries as well as its foreign currency reserves. The act, which focuses on Iran’s finance and energy sectors, in particular its oil exports, also allows the US president to subject other Iranian industries, such as engineering, to similar restrictions.

Iran refutes the allegation over its nuclear energy program and argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

AR/NN/HMV

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Independent presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei says if elected president he will continue the talks with the P5+1 group of world powers mainly focusing on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Å“The issue of nuclear talks is very important for the country,” said Rezaei in a stump speech to a crowd of supporters in the city of Eslamshahr, on the outskirts of the capital, Tehran, on Thursday.

”We will continue negotiations in the next administration, but in a constructive way. In fact, talks should be based on national interests and values of the [Islamic] Revolution,” he pointed out.

Å“So far, the negotiations have been accompanied by the intensification of sanctions and in this regard we must change the course of the negotiations,” Rezaei said.

Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers – Russia, China, France, Britain, and the US plus Germany – have so far held several rounds of talks.

Rezaei said the US and its allies have threatened Iran and imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic out of frustration over the countryâ„¢s technological achievements.

He stated that the US and other enemies of the Islamic establishment are killing time, adding that it is vital that Iran proceeds with engagement in diplomacy due to the ongoing tensions.

The presidential candidate further emphasized that sanctions and the current stalemate over Iranâ„¢s nuclear energy program should be brought to an end through dialog.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Using the unfounded allegation as pretext, the US and the EU have imposed illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran rejects the allegation over its nuclear energy activities, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

SF/NN/HMV

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A portion of the Interstate 5 bridge in the US State of Washington was submerged in water after it collapsed into the Skagit River north of Seattle on Thursday, May 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Activists around the world are gearing up for a weekend of rallies to protest Monsanto, the biotechnology company that has been accused of genetically engineering agriculture and food while turning a blind eye to potentially deadly health ramifications.

Organized by March Against Monsanto movement, the massive
campaign will include an estimated 200,000 activists, spanning six
continents and more than 40 countries, and at least 48 US
states.

Angered at the lack of action from governments, activists in
hundreds of cities – including New York, Chicago, Montreal, Berlin,
Paris, Brussels, Moscow and Melbourne – will unite to protest
against Monsanto and demand a ban on Genetically Engineered and
Genetically Modified Organisms (GE/GMOs).

Initially a grassroots event, the March has turned into large
organized movement thanks to efforts of local activists and
environmentalists. The protest is being organized via Facebook
social networking service and an open Google Document, where users
can find events close to their locations and join the
protest. 

Nick Bernabe, a director from March Against Monsanto, told
Natural Society that the genetically-engineered food could affect
everyone, even the apathetic. 

“What we’re trying to do is bring awareness to GMOs and the
health effects that they’re causing and bring about some solutions
about what people can do to take back their food supply,” he
said. “They’re expecting more than 15,000 people in San
Francisco alone…We want to get people working together in their
communities.”

Calling results of numerous researches on the effects of GMO
crops “inconclusive,” Monsanto has lobbied hard in
Washington and around the globe to be able to continue
manufacturing lab-made foods without the oversight that many have
demanded.

In March, Congress passed a biotech rider dubbed the “Monsanto
Protection Act,” which essentially allows that company and others
that use GMOs to plant and sell genetically-altered products even
if legal action is taken against them.

Up until it was signed, “the USDA [US Department of
Agriculture] oversaw and approved (or denied) the testing of
genetically modified seeds, while the federal courts retained the
authority to halt the testing or sale of these plants if it felt
that public health was being jeopardized. With HR 933 now a law,
however, the court system no longer has the right to step in and
protect the consumer,” explained James Brumley, a reporter for
Investor Place.

“They own the largest share of the agribusiness, pesticides
and seeds,” Joanne Montana, who organized a protest in Florida,
told the Gainesville Sun. “They’re transnational, in food behind
the scenes and a big conglomerate.”

The so-called Monsanto Protection Act was co-authored by a
senator that has received thousands of dollars in campaign
contributions from the company – a revelation that did not surprise
many given that another important figure in Washington, Justice
Clarence Thomas, served as an attorney for the corporation before
he was nominated to the high court only to eventually preside over
a case involving his former employer. 

But, according to Food & Water Watch, the relationship
between Monsanto and the government extends beyond Congress and the
Supreme Court. In a statement published accompanying a health
report, Food & Water Watch wrote that communication uncovered
by WikiLeaks details “how the US State Department lobbies
foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology
policies and laws, operates a rigorous public relations campaign to
improve the image of biotechnology and challenges commonsense
biotechnology safeguards and rules – including opposing genetically
engineered (GE) food labeling laws.”

Now, as the protest approaches, the organizers have accused the
company of going on the offensive and took to their event’s
Facebook page to explain the event had not been cancelled,
debunking a false rumor that they suspect comes from Monsanto
sympathizers. 

“Events are disappearing, posts are being put on city event
pages that say events are being cancelled,” said Tom Canal, an
administrator for March Against Monsanto’s Facebook page, as quoted
by The Organic Prepper blog. “In no way, shape or form, has any
event been cancelled. I believe Monsanto is behind this. Some of
the people on the page that are commenting have newly made profiles
and seemingly those profiles were made strictly to cause problems
and get a rise out of our participants on the page.” 

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, during an interview with Bloomberg
earlier this month, tried to portray those who do not agree with
his business tactics as snobs. 

“There is this strange kind of reverse elitism: If I’m going
to do this, then everything else shouldn’t exist,” he said.
“In the US, we’ve got a system that works.” 

Desperately struggling to reach wide audience through the
mainstream media, anti-GMO activists have outlined a number of
solutions they advocate and goals they march for.

Among the listed demands were “labeling of GE/GMOs so that
consumers can make those informed decisions easier,”
“calling for further scientific research on the health effects
of GE/GMOs,” and — perhaps most importantly — “taking to the
streets to show the world and Monsanto that we won’t take these
injustices quietly.” 

Check back with RT through the weekend for the most extensive,
up-to-the-minute coverage on the global demonstrations. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

UK security services will be investigated after it was found that MI5 knew of both suspects in the Woolwich murder for eight years. Accusations of blame have been rife following the killing, with many blaming UK foreign policy as the root of the tragedy.

Security services have been put to questioning after it was
found that the two suspected Woolwich murderers had been flagged by
MI5 for eight years. In response to the discovery, a House of
Commons inquiry will be launched into the British security
services’ handling of the murder.

However, security officials maintain that despite having a
record of the two suspects, the attack would have been near
impossible to prevent. Intelligence expert Glenn
Montravor said that the suspects — Mr. Adebolajo, 28,
and Mr Adebowale, 22 — likely had no intention to commit such a
crime, and that their time and target was chosen at
random.

“Even though our security services were aware of these
perpetrators, it is almost impossible to predict when people
suddenly, almost by happenstance, choose the time and place, and
this poor unfortunate soldier was the target,” Montravor told
RT.

The two suspects were shot by police after hacking to death Army
Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, in broad daylight on Wednesday in the
Woolwich area of East London. They are currently in separate
hospitals under police surveillance and awaiting questioning.

“These sort of individualistic, lone-wolf style attacks, that
don’t require great planning, don’t require some sort of specialist
equipment, will become one of the main ways that people make a
protest,” said Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence
officer.

It was found that one of the aggressors in the attack was a
Muslim convert. Michael Adebolajo came to Islam later in life upon
leaving university when he joined a now-banned Islamist
organization al-Muhajiroun. He also took the new name Mujaahid —
meaning the one who engages in Jihad. Adebolajo was an active
member of the group and attended regular meetings and
demonstrations.

Speculation has been rampant as to what drove the suspects to
commit the murder — what the two men called an
“eye-for-an-eye” act to avenge Muslims killed abroad by UK
troops. Many have suggested that the attack was blowback against
British participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

“If you listen to the words of the attackers themselves, it’s
clear they wished to bring the war they saw on the streets of
Baghdad and Kabul onto the streets of London,” Jamie Bartlett,
a security expert from UK think tank Demos told RT.

London Mayor Boris Johnson was quick to quash claims that the
attacks were driven by extreme Islam or UK foreign policy. However,
former Mayor Ken Livingstone accused Johnson of barefaced lying:
“They are lying. They are completely complicit with the US
policy just like Tony Blair was with George Bush. They aren’t
prepared to stand up and say, well we think this strategy has been
a disaster,” he told RT.

The UK’s military presence abroad is inspiring extremist attacks
in Great Britain, an anonymous British solider told RT’s Sara
Firth.

“But also the argument’s to be made because we’re out there,
we’re inspiring them or motivating them,” he told RT. “Our
presence out there is sort of motivating the cells that are back in
the UK to operate more and carry out more attacks.”

UK Muslim groups have decried the attack as an abomination, and
condemned extremism. Thousands of Ahmadiyya Muslims are expected to
gather in London on Friday to offer prayers to Drummer Rigby.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Google are among a number of companies circling Israeli mapping software company Waze after Facebook put in a $1bln takeover bid.

Bloomberg reports that none of the bidders are close to
clinching a deal, and the start-up might remain independent.

Founded 4 years ago, Waze makes a navigation application for
iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. Its mapping
service is powered by the people who use it. The app also connects
to Facebook and provides social-networking functions so drivers can
see their friends’ whereabouts, share their location, and send
private messages.

Google’s possible purchase of Waze could add social features to
Google Maps, making the service even more robust and popular
product. Should Facebook buy Waze, the navigation app would give
the social network a way to insert itself into the lucrative mobile
search business owned by Google.

The search giant netted 93.3 percent of all US mobile search ad
dollars last year, according to estimates from eMarketer. The firm
anticipates that US mobile internet search ad revenue will total
$7.85 billion in 2015; it pegs Google’s share at around $7.1
billion, or 90 percent of the market.

Waze, a free service, generates revenue via location-based
advertising. Its tools are also available over the Web.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Official figures show that the number of Italians who are in a grave economic condition has increased to an alarming point, Press TV reports.

Italyâ„¢s National Statistics Institute, ISTAT, said in a newly released report that at the end of 2012, around 15 million people were dealing with some form of economic hardship.

The report added that over 8.5 million of those people were living in a seriously tough economic situation. The figure has doubled compared to 2010.

Recession in Italy has taken a heavy toll on ordinary Italians who are increasingly digging into their savings.

The latest figures also showed that in 2012 more than 16 percent of Italians were unable to afford an adequate protein-rich meal every two days.

Meanwhile, Italyâ„¢s consumers association Federconsumatori has warned that about nine million Italians have given up their health care due to economic hardships.

An Italian resident in Rome told Press TV, Å“Because Italians always put a brave face on things, on the surface everything is fine, everybodyâ„¢s brave and they like to present a nice face to the world. But inside… things are very difficult.”

Italy started to experience recession after its economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2011, and by 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of the same year.

Over the past decade, Italy has been the slowest growing economy in the eurozone.

MR/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Lebanon has reportedly deployed security forces across Tripoli since the beginning of recent clashes between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government in the Lebanese city. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Is there a Left in America today?

There is, of course, a Left ideology, a Left of the mind, a Left of theory and critique. But is there a Left movement?

Does the Left exist as an oppositional political, cultural or economic force? Is anyone intimidated or restrained by the Left? Is there a counterforce to the grinding machinery neoliberal capitalism and its political managers?

We can and do at CounterPunch and in similar publications, such as Monthly Review and the New Left Review, publish analyses of capitalism and its inherent vulnerabilities, catalogue its predations and wars of military conquest and imperial exploitation. But where is our capacity to confront the daily horrors of drone strikes, kill lists, mass layoffs, pension raids and the looming nightmare of climate change?

It is a bitter reality, brought into vivid focus by five years of Obama, that the Left is an immobilized and politically impotent force at the very moment when the economic inequalities engineered by our overlords at Goldman Sachs who manage the global economy, should have recharged a long-moribund resistance movement back to life.

Instead the Left seems powerless to coalesce, to translate critique into practice, to mobilize against wars, to resist incursions against basic civil liberties, powerless to confront rule by the bondholders and hedgefunders, unable to meaningfully obstruct the cutting edge of a parasitical economic system that glorifies greed while preying on the weakest and most destitute, and incapable of confronting the true legacy of the man they put their trust in.

This is the politics of exhaustion. We have become a generation of leftovers. We have reached a moment of historical failure that would make even Nietzsche shudder.

We stand on the margins, political exiles in our own country, in a kind of mute darkness, a political occlusion, increasingly obsessed, as the radical art historian Tim Clark put it a few years ago in a disturbing essay in New Left Review, with the tragedy of our own defeat.

Consider this. Two-thirds of the American electorate oppose the ongoing war in Afghanistan. An
equal amount objected to intervention in Libya. Even more recoil at the grim prospect of entering the Syrian theater.

Yet there is no antiwar movement to translate that seething disillusionment into action. There are no mass demonstrations. No systematic efforts to obstruct military recruiting. No nationwide strikes. No campus walkouts. No serious divestment campaigns against companies involved in drone technology.

Similar popular disgust is evident regarding the imposition of stern austerity measures during a prolonged and enervating recession. But once again this smoldering outrage has no political outlet in the current political climate, where both parties have fully embraced the savage bottom line math of neoliberalism.

Homelessness, rampant across America, is a verboten topic, unmentioned in the press, absent from political discourse. Hunger, a deepening crisis in rural and urban America, is a taboo subject, something left to religious pray-to-eat charities or the fickle whims of corporate write-offs.

What do they offer us, instead? Pious homilies about the work ethic, the sanctity of the family unit, the self-correcting laxative of market forces.

The economic immiseration of black America, brutal and unrelenting, is simply elided, erased from the political dialogue, even at jam sessions of the Congressional Black Caucus. Instead, whenever
Obama mentions the plight of black Americans (about once every two years by my count), as he did in his patronizing commencement addresses this spring, it is to chide blacks about cleaning up their acts, admonishing them to stop complaining about their circumstances and work harder at adopting the flight plan of white corporate culture.

The self-evident need for large-scale public works projects to green the economy and put people to work goes unmentioned, while the press and the politicians engage in a faux debate over the minutia of sequestration and sharpen each others knives to begin slashing Social Security and Medicare. Where’s the collective outrage? Where are the marches on the Capitol? The sit-ins in congressional offices?

A few weeks ago I wrote an essay on the Obama administration’s infamous memo justifying drone strikes inside countries like Pakistan and Yemen that the US is not officially at war against. In one revealing paragraph, a Justice Department lawyer cited Richard Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War as a precedent for Obama’s killer drone strikes. Let’s recall that the bombing of Cambodia prompted several high-ranking officials in the Nixon cabinet to resign, including CounterPunch writer Roger Morris. It also sparked the student uprising at Kent State, which lead the Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes to declare a state of emergency, ordering the National Guard to rush the campus. The Guard troops promptly began firing at the protesters, killing four and wounding nine. The war had come home.

Where are those protests today?

The environment is unraveling, thread by thread, right before our eyes. Each day brings more dire news. Amphibians are in stark decline across North America. Storms of unimaginable ferocity are strafing the Great Plains week after week. The Arctic will soon be ice-free. The water table is plummeting in the world’s greatest aquifer. The air is carcinogenic in dozens of California cities. The spotted owl is still going extinct. Wolves are beginning gunned down by the hundreds across the Rocky Mountains. Hurricane season now lasts from June to December. And about all the environmental movement can offer in resistance are a few designer protests against a pipeline which is already a fait accompli.

Our politics has gone sociopathic and liberals in America have been pliant to every abuse, marinated in the toxic silt of Obama’s mordant rhetoric. They eagerly swallow every placebo policy Obama serves them, dutifully defending every incursion against fundamental rights. And each betrayal only serves to make his adoring retinue crave his smile; his occasional glance and nod all the more urgently. Still others on the dogmatic Left circle endlessly, like characters consigned to their eternal roles by Dante, in the ideological cul-de-sac of identity politics.

How much will we stomach before rising up? A fabricated war, a looted economy, a scalded atmosphere, a despoiled gulf, the loss of habeas corpus, the assassination of American citizens…

One looks in vain across this vast landscape of despair for even the dimmest flickers of real rebellion and popular mutiny, as if surveying a nation of somnambulists.

We remain strangely impassive in the face of our own extinction.

Jeffrey St. Clair is the editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book (with Joshua Frank) is Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

This is a condensed version of a talk delivered at the University of Oregon.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Tunisiaâ„¢s Prime Minister Ali Larayedh says the country has made progress in dismantling terrorist cells.

Å“There is progress in dismantling the terrorist networks. We are confronted by small groups who practice terrorism and have links to terrorist parties,” Larayedh said on Thursday.

Å“Members from the Tunis Salafist movement have connections with local and foreign terrorist groups. They are encouraging armed rebellion against the state through violence and terrorism,” the Tunisian premier stated.

Tunisian authorities arrested over 200 people including the supporters of the Ansar al-Sharia group on May 19, during clashes that erupted when the group called on its followers to assemble in the capitalâ„¢s suburb of Ettadhamen.

The Tunisian government recently banned Ansar al-Sharia from holding its annual congress in Kairouan, the capital of Kairouan Governorate, saying the group posed a Å“threat to public order.”

Larayedh also warned, Å“We will continue to pursue them and all people who practice violence or have links with the terrorists.”

GMA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

We are supposed to take seriously the outrage coming from members of the corporate press in response to the revelation that the Obama administration’s ever expanding use of executive powers to intimidate and crush dissent had turned its focus on the U.S. press.

But those of us who have consistently struggled to defend the human rights of the victims of the repressive national security state over the last few years have a few very simple questions for the press — where was the outrage or even concern when the target of the State was the “usual suspects” of Black, Brown and poor folks and their ‘radical” sympathizers? Why was there so little concern expressed by the Press when Obama’s national security apparatus conducted raids on oppositional organizations, expanded the infiltration of lawful organizations and increased domestic electronic and communication surveillance? And when this administration shamelessly claimed the power to be the judge, jury and executioner of anyone that ended up on one of its kill lists, including U.S. citizens, why didn’t this incredible abuse of State power garner at least some serious concern from the press, let alone outrage?

Of course only the most unprincipled sycophants of the Obama administration would disagree that focusing the repressive state apparatus on working journalists and the outlets they work for is a dramatic abuse of Executive power. Yet in the run-up to this moment of outrage the press seemed reluctant to seriously consider what was so obvious to many of us. That the Obama Presidency, from the beginning, was clearly committed to maintaining and even building on the trajectory of expanding Executive power which began during the Bush administration that narrowed the range of constitutional and human rights of individuals and groups in the U.S.

The liberal press was so caught-up in this cult of personality that was so much a part of the Obama phenomenon, it did not see or choose to ignore that the Obama administration’s approach to civil liberties turned his administration into act three of the Bush administration. So While the Obama administration used the espionage act to clamp down on whistle-blowers, its’ Department of Homeland Security coordinated the national repression of Occupy Wall street and its’ lawyers defended the Bush administration’s position that opposed allowing individual suites against the government agencies and telecom companies accused of engaging in warrantless electronic surveillance, the only voices of concern came from the marginalized radical press.

And even though the press was warned that the legal theories advanced by the Obama administration in the criminal investigation of WikiLeaks could be easily applied to criminalize the acts of mainstream journalists, the press choose instead not to defend Julius Assange and Wikileaks. For the bourgeois press, it appears that they believed that since they gleefully parroted the government line on issues from Libya to the need for deficit reduction, the government would never turn its repressive attention on it.

But now with the attack on Associated Press and the designation of James Rosen as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the government’s persecution of Stephen Kim, some mainstream journalists are finally giving a little more attention to the dangerously expanding power of the national security state. When many of us were attempting to educate the people on the threat posed to civil liberties and human rights by the National Defense Authorization Act, the corporate press never made the connection that under the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans that one day it could apply to members of their profession.

Even today with the new outrage from the press on the abusive use of power by this administration, the press still does not seem to understand the dangers inherit in the unchecked power of the State. It gave scant attention to the recent declaration by the administration that it has the right under the morally dubious “Authorization for use of military force” legislation passed by the U.S. congress, to wage global war for a period into infinity. And the press still dutifully presents anonymous government sources in a one-sided, pro-war perspective on the situation in Syria.

It has only been those of us from the margins who have been trying to signal the alarm to the American people that the country is perilously close to normalizing police state practices. We raise the alarm primarily because we understand and have experienced first-hand the awesome power of the State’s repressive apparatus. And while we know that we are the first to be targeted — the message communicated with the designation of Assata Shakur as a “most wanted terrorist” was clear for us in the radical Black movement- we also know that we are not going to be the only targets this time around.

So even with all of the limitations, we welcome the questions that are finally being raised by some elements of the corporate press. We certainly don’t have illusions that the corporate media will help the people to understand the economic and political stakes in play during this period but the increased attention by the press with the imperial Presidency of Barack Obama might reveal to some members of the public the extent to which their democratic and human rights have been undermined over the last decade under President Bush and now President Obama.

Paulo Freire, the radical Brazilian educator, reminded us that taking action against oppression is only possible when the people have developed critical consciousness. In this strange and surreal period that characterizes U.S. politics where right-wing libertarians seem to be aligned with left-wing radicals to defend bourgeois rights against the encroachments of an oppressive state supported by liberals and traditional conservatives, the more debate that takes place and information disseminated the more possible that people will be shaken out of the Obama induced fog and recognize that they are living through one of the most repressive periods in the history of this country. Those of us on the frontline of the fight to defend democracy and human rights hope that with this new critical consciousness more people will be prepared to act to defend themselves and their fundamental human rights.

Ajamu Baraka is a long-time human rights activist and veteran of the Black Liberation, anti-war, anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity Movements in the United States. He is currently a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Baraka is currently living in Cali, Colombia. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Perhaps there should be a statue to the anticommunist US senator Joseph McCarthy in Beijing, since he’s the inadvertent father of China’s nuclear programme. Just after the second world war, a young engineer from Hangzhou, Qian Xuesen, was working for the Pentagon at Caltech’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California. The US air force was delighted with his pioneering space and ballistics research, and had such faith in him that he was sent to Germany to interrogate Wernher von Braun, the mastermind of Germany’s ballistics programme. But McCarthyism altered the course of Qian’s brilliant career: in 1950 he was accused of being a communist, placed under virtual house arrest, then expelled to Mao’s China in 1955. Former navy secretary Daniel Kimball said that Qian, a “genius” with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was “worth five divisions” and that he would “rather shoot him than let him leave the country” (1), but at the peak of the anti-communist witch hunt, such protests made no impression. Mao welcomed Qian, who pledged allegiance to the regime and established China’s first ballistic missile programme from scratch.

In 1966 Qian supervised China’s first nuclear missile test in the Xinjiang desert. The launch of the first Chinese satellite, the Dong Fang Hong (DFH-1), on 24 April 1970, was his project, too. Qian retired in 1991, garlanded with honours, and died in 2009. He embodied the close links between the PRC’s nuclear and space programmes from their inception. From the first nuclear test in October 1964 to the triumph of 15 October 2003 when Lieutenant-Colonel Yang Liwei, aboard the Shenzhou 5, made China the third nation to launch a manned spacecraft, Beijing has strengthened those links, seeking to optimise its technological, budgetary and strategic resources. Despite the creation in the 1990s of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and plans to commercialise space missions, the People’s Liberation Army has a stronger role than ever in the space programme.

Seeking to maximise the leverage of the nuclear-space-ballistic triangle is not uniquely Chinese: it’s also familiar to specialist engineers in the US and France. But China is noteworthy for having espoused early on the nuclear doctrine of no first use (NFU), plus a solemn assurance – implicit in NFU – that it would never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation. It also opposed any militarisation of space. It has relatively few means of defence and the viability of its delivery options (bombers carrying missiles and submarines capable of launching nuclear warheads) is questionable: this has made it the most discreet member of the international club of states with both space programmes and nuclear arms: France, the US, the UK, Russia, China and now India.

Discreet thus far, that is: with its economic development bringing growing political and military power, Beijing’s desire to keep a low profile may not be sustainable much longer, as indicated by its latest defence white paper, published on 16 April. The terms of its nuclear equation, long fixed, are changing, and the US has been first to register alarm.

Size of China’s arsenal

“Do we really know how many missiles the Chinese have today?” asked Richard Fisher – a keen, even obsessive China-watcher at the US International Strategy and Assessment Centre – in 2011: he knew that the Pentagon and Congress would take note (2). Uncertainty surrounds the size of China’s arsenal; it’s currently the only country in the P5 group (3) not to declare how many nuclear weapons it possesses. In 2009 SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) put the number of China’s deployed operational nuclear warheads at 186. The International Panel of Fissile Material (IPFM) (4) reckons 240. If you compare these estimates with the thousands of warheads held by Washington and Moscow, US reactions seem oversensitive. In May 2010 the US officially announced that it had 5,000 nuclear warheads (tactical, strategic or non-deployed). Of these, 1,700 are operational, on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) or strategic bombers (5).

A 2011 report from Georgetown University stirred up the small world of western experts on China’s nuclear programme (6). Over three years, under the direction of Professor Philip Karber, a former Pentagon employee, a group of students collated new data in the public domain. Their conclusions shocked the experts: the Chinese apparently had 3,000 nuclear warheads. The study also “revealed” a 5,000-km network of tunnels thought to be for the transport and stationing of nuclear weapons and specialist units. This “underground Great Wall” fired journalists’ imaginations and became the symbolic nuclear centrepiece of China’s naval bases in Asian waters (7).

American advocates of nuclear disarmament, such as Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, accused the Pentagon of fixing the study by involving Karber who, along with Richard Fischer and the gossip columnist William Gertz, is a prominent and insistent critic of “the Chinese threat”. The military rejected the high estimates (8). The question found its way into the political arena and on 14 October 2011 Republican Michael Turner presented the existence of this “unknown” underground labyrinth to Congress: “As we strive to make our nuclear forces more transparent, China is building this underground tunnel system to make its nuclear forces even more opaque”. The European press presented this “staggering network of tunnels” as a surprise, as did the Indian newspapers. This January, Barack Obama yielded to pressure from all sides and commissioned a Pentagon investigation, due to be published in August.

Not a secret after all

But the “underground Great Wall” wasn’t such a secret. In December 2009 the Hong Kong daily Ta Kung Pao published details of this vast construction project, which is thought to have employed tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers for a decade. The Asian public learned that the second division of the People’s Liberation Army – in charge of strategic nuclear forces – decided in 1995 to bury nuclear ballistic missiles more deeply so as to make them less vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike. A network of modernised tunnels is now said to run under the foothills of the mountains of Hebei Province in northeast China, several hundred metres below ground in a landscape of steep cliffs and canyons well suited to housing a geosecured nuclear response system.

It’s especially noteworthy that this revelation originated in a Chinese state TV documentary, in March 2008, which commented on the completion of the tunnel-building programme. Given the strict state control of the media, this announcement – which did not escape the attention of the Indian, American and European militaries – is tantamount to an official declaration. The tunnel programme is not an end in itself for the PLA, but a means of protecting its retaliatory strike capacity.

China is also moving from large, fixed, liquid-propelled missiles, vulnerable to being taken out in a preemptive strike, to lighter missiles with solid-fuel propulsion, which can be quickly relocated on mobile launchers, such as the DF-31A, which has an 11,000-km range. Whether mobile or buried underground, surface-to-surface missiles are the only part of China’s “nuclear triad” (the others being bombers and submarines) with genuine credibility.

China knows it cannot limit itself to protecting its nuclear response capability if it wants to retain credibility as a nuclear power that the US will respect, however reluctantly. It also needs to combat proactively the progress of the US’s antimissile defence, which is capable of neutralising China’s response capability. To escape, the PLA has long had its eyes on an alternative battlefield: space.

During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards (hostile to intellectuals, scientists and engineers) chanted “The higher the satellite, the lower the red flag!” Those days are gone. According to the former air force chief of staff and current vice-president of the powerful Central Military Committee, General Xu Qiliang, “China’s national interests are expanding and the country has entered the age of space” (9). Beijing is showing clear signs of wishing to challenge the US’s hegemony there – including in case of conflict, since, given the increasing dependence of modern armies on space, preventing the enemy having access to it is a priority.

Convinced that negotiations only take place between equals, China, along with Russia, believes that only significant independent progress will allow them to check the Pentagon’s ambitions for space superiority. China and Russia could then force the US to sign an undertaking to make space a militarily neutral zone, which would plug the gaps in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. In 2001 recommendations in a report from the Space (or Rumsfeld) Commission exploited this treaty’s shortcomings and concluded that there was nothing preventing the US “placing or using weapons in space, applying force from space to earth or conducting military operations in and through space” (10).

China’s space aims

Kept out of the international space station by NASA, the Chinese are building their own – Tiangong – which will be completed by 2020 and open to scientists of all nations. They are developing a heavy-thrust space rocket and have announced a moon mission for 2025. They dream of outstripping the US and sending a manned craft to Mars after 2030. The second generation of their Beidou Navigation Satellite System will soon have 35 satellites, and offers the same geolocation services as GPS, including military functions.

But the collateral effects of this strategy may have gone beyond its original aims. China destroyed an old FY-1C weather satellite in January 2007 with an SC-19 interceptor to demonstrate its ability to strike in space. The US, with wide international support, immediately condemned China’s action as “space delinquency” and criticised the risk of space debris falling to Earth as well as the departure from its declared policy. In January 2011, in the most recent version of its National Security Space Strategy, the US warned: “We will retain the right and capabilities to respond in self-defense [in space], should deterrence fail” (11).

The American Everett Dolman asserts that “the coming war with China will be fought for control of outer space” (12). In the background there is the nuclear question: US early-warning satellites, which are used to detect ballistic missiles, are now a potential target for China. Without these satellites, US strategic nuclear command and the organisation of forces would be globally handicapped.

The US also has a painful premonition that it risks being outclassed technologically. It has all but forgotten that “Long March” rockets launched 20 or so commercial satellites before the US imposed an embargo on sales of satellite components to China in the 1990s. NASA didn’t get involved, as it still looked down on China. But the atomic clock has moved on. Even if the disparity in capability with the US remains vast, an exponential race to catch up is under way. Although the “major focuses” mentioned in the 2011 Chinese white paper on space are all civil – scientific and peaceful development, innovation, autonomy and opening up internationally – 18 out of 19 Chinese satellite launches that year were defence-related.

In 2012 around 30 Chinese satellites were put into orbit: telecommunication (Zhongxing 10), navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance and data transmission (Tianlian 1). A warning satellite programme is under way and a new satellite launch centre will soon open at Wenchang on Hainan Island. Meanwhile, the US moon programme, Constellation, was cancelled by Obama in 2010. Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists believes “we [the US] need to get past the idea that the Chinese need us more than we need them” (13). An MIT engineer in 2008 modelled the conditions of a space war and was reassured by his conclusion that the Chinese would undoubtedly lose (14).

Questions over China’s progress

The atavistic reactions of some American journalists to the possible rise of an “equal competitor” at global level should not obscure the fact that Chinese progress in the nuclear and space fields does raise questions. All observers agree that China is the only member of P5 which is currently increasing its warhead stockpile. But how quickly? In the war of statistics, some experts suggest China has 1,800 operational nuclear warheads. But as arms control activists acknowledge, the crucial issue is not whether China is updating its arsenal – it is – but misinformation about the rate of that modernisation.

Nevertheless, given Chinese nuclear ambitions, the strategic balance within the P5 will shift. The UK says it now has fewer than 160 operational warheads. France, which has cut its stockpile by 50% since the end of the cold war, has also reduced its budget for nuclear deterrence by half and currently has around 100 operational warheads. In scarcely 10 years, as a result of what could be called a “space-nuclear symbiosis”, China has overtaken Europe’s two nuclear powers, which may have been its medium-term objective, and has put itself in the same league as the US, though still far from its equal. The US and China may eventually find themselves caught in a repeat of the absurd cold war dialectic and engage in the kind of irrational arms race that led the US and the USSR to stockpile warheads in silos to maintain the “balance of terror”. In the 1960s, the US had up to 31,000 operational warheads.

This maximalist vision of nuclear deterrence contrasts with the French principle of strict sufficiency (in a nuclear-armed world, “you only die once”), a dogma of “rational irrationality” which the French had convinced themselves that the Chinese had espoused since 1964. President Hu Jintao declared in 2009 at the UN that China “reiterated solemnly its firm engagement to a defensive nuclear strategy”.

This February Obama announced a further reduction in the US nuclear arsenal, which may shrink from 1,700 warheads to fewer than 1,000 by 2020. But will this minimal strategic life insurance hold if Chinese advances are confirmed? Will we see the return of the visions of strategist Hermann Kahn, who founded the Hudson Institute in 1961 and declared that the stockpiling of warheads was not so stupid, since a nuclear war could have a “winner” (15)?

The worried reactions of China’s neighbours will also be influential. In theory, the Japanese could relatively easily turn their new solid-fuel Epsilon rocket, which is due to make its maiden flight this year, into a long-range ballistic missile. Vietnam has ambitions in space. India is making progress with anti-satellite technology.

The solution can only be political. Re-establishing the safeguard of the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, unilaterally condemned by the Bush administration in 2002, would have some merit if negotiations included China. Such negotiations would be difficult, but the Chinese would have to examine any such offer, to judge by their official pronouncements on the essential conditions for global nuclear disarmament (16). In the meantime, a new logic of simultaneous modernisation of nuclear and space arsenals seems to be permanently altering the strategic balance in East Asia.

Olivier Zajec is a senior researcher at the Compagnie Européenne d’Intelligence Stratégique and author of La Nouvelle impuissance américaine(America’s New Impotence), L’Å’uvre, Paris, 2011.

Notes.

(1) Evan Osnos, “The Two Lives of Qian Xuesen”,The New Yorker, 3 November 2009.

(2) “US worries over China’s underground network”, Agence France-Presse, Paris, 14 October 2011.

(3) The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are the only states with nuclear weapons recognised by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

(4) The IPFM was set up in 2006 by civil experts in non-proliferation from 17 countries. It is headed by Professor R Rajaraman of the University of New Delhi.

(5) “Nuclear Weapons: Who has what at a glance”, Arms Control Association, Washington, DC, November 2012.

(6) “Strategic implications of China’s underground
Great Wall”, Asia Arms Control Project, Georgetown University, 2009.

(7) See “China’s naval ambitions”, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, September 2008.

(8) Hans M Kristensen, “Stratcom Commander rejects high estimates for Chinese nuclear arsenal”, Strategic Security Blog, Federation of American Scientists, 22 August 2012.

(9) “China ‘to put weapons in space’”, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 3 November 2009.

(10) “Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization”, 11 January 2001. Its conclusions were later judged too aggressive by subsequent Defence Department reports.

(11) National Security Space Strategy, January 2011.

(12) Everett C Dolman, “New Frontiers, Old Realities”, Strategic Studies Quarterly, vol 6, no 1, Washington
DC, 2012.

(13) Jeff Foust, “Space Challenges for 2011”, The Space Review, 3 January 2011.

(14) Noah Shachtman, “How China Loses the Coming Space War”, Wired, San Francisco, 1 October 2008.

(15) Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War,Princeton University Press, 1960.

(16) “Statement by the Chinese delegation on nuclear disarmament at the thematic debate at the first committee of the 67th Session of UNGA”, 19 October 2012.

This article appears in the excellent Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com. This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch features two or three articles from LMD every month.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Politicians know better than most that words function politically. More than offering some definitive truth to a situation, the use of language conditions what is further possible. The decision therefore to label the horrifying spectacle of violence witnessed on the streets of Woolwich in South London yesterday as a “terror attack” will have consequences. But what is actually to be gained from labelling it in such a way instead of a criminal act, politically motivated violence or just pathological derangement?

Let’s be clear from the outset, the murder of the British soldier was appalling and should be condemned. Whatever the political grievance, there is no justification whatsoever for the attempt to severe the head of a person in broad daylight. Such violence is undoubtedly beyond comprehension to many of us in the Western World. Unfortunately that cannot be said for some places where our military continues to have a lasting presence.

Before all the facts were established, politicians and media alike were quick to declare that the violence “looked like terror”. This justification was made on two counts. Firstly, it was presumed that the target for the violence was a military personal. The second, more compelling at the time, was the footage of an assailant who stated without remorse for the action: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We must fight them”.

Further adding as if to claim that the burden of history left him with no option: “I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”

The British Home Secretary, Theresa May, immediately responded by declaring that the vicious assault on the soldier was more than an individual crime but an “attack against all of us”. This justification however raises a number of serious questions. Assuming that the violence was politically motivated does that necessarily imply that the attack was on the entire fabric of our society? And what does it mean to collapse the military with the civic so that no distinction can be established?

Not only has the role and function of our militaries been radically transformed beyond “defence” as they have been given the oxymoronic task of fighting for peace, under the auspices of the War on Terror many have been deeply uncomfortable with their interventions and the violence this created. Violence, it must be added, many even in the policy world believe to be the source of the today’s fundamentalism. Moreover, if we are to use the words of the assailant as justification for political motive, should we not take these more seriously and open them up to rigorous scrutiny?

Like the violence witnessed at the Boston Marathon last month, it is evident that this spectacle of violence was markedly different from the horrors of 9/11 and 7/7. No longer purposefully aiming for “mass casualty” shock appeal, the numbers of victims are much less in number. That does not demean the nature of the tragedy. It does however raise the question as to why these localised acts of violence can still be presented as part of a continuum of threat that endangers global security?

Michael Clarke, the director of United Kingdom’s less than impartial think tank the Royal United Services Institute, speaking on the BBC called the perpetrators of the attack “Homicidal exhibitionists”. They represent a handful of individuals — possible lone — who crave the media spot-light and shock through the celebratory nature of violence as a public spectacle. This may well be true, but the question remains why do these particular acts shock us while the comparable events in other parts of the world are barely considered? Indeed, why are we so fixated in the contemporary period on these types of “media-events” instead of the continual violence many suffer on a daily basis which just so happens to occur outside of the spotlight?

Such events continue to be presented to us as random. This is not incidental. Random events strike without warning. They offer in other words no credible foresight. Some even reason that we need to accept their inevitability. Surely, however, if we accept that the violence is political then there is nothing random whatsoever about it occurrence? Political violence is always a process. It always has a history. Its spectacle as such cannot be divorced from the violence which precedes it. Neither can a solution be found unless it faces up to the altogether more difficult political task.

Perhaps one of the more disturbing aspects of the violence was the manner in which the video of the assailant went viral. This should not escape our attentions. Our culture is fascinated by spectacles of violence. From Hollywood movies, video games, to nightly dramas, violence seems to grab our attention more than any other performance. Maybe this alone demands more in depth scrutiny and more ethical consideration?

We must remember that “Terror” by definition is morally and politically loaded. Far from offering to us an objective assessment, it immediately invokes ideas of barbarity and evil, even though the act of violence is deemed to be pre-mediated, rationally calculated, and politically motivated. What is more, neatly setting apart bad guys from good guy, it rightly de-legitimates some forms of violence, yet morally authors others as necessary for the protection of the core values of societies.

Its peculiarity however is that while terror is a political term, once applied it consciously prevents serious politically discussion. Terror offers no compromise. There is nothing to be negotiated. There is no credible politics to be spoken of. More than failing to even entertain that the term may be brought into critical doubt, what remains is a framing of the violence in such a way that militarism reigns supreme. Terror in other-words sanctions the need to meet violence with a violent response.

It is no doubt disturbing to see this type of violence come to our cities streets. It is also deeply unsettling to witness the assailants remaining at the scene and continuing to calmly walk about and justify their actions to a filming public as if the violence was normal. For violence to have any shock value it must appear somehow exceptional. And yet to understand it fully we need to take seriously the claim that its exceptional qualities are wholly dependent upon highly contingent factors. Not least which side of the political divide we just so happen to have simply been born into.

We may remain shocked, angry and outraged by the violence witnessed on our screens. This is an understandable human response. Too often we forget that emotions matter. There is nothing however to be gained by labelling it a “terror attack” other than to perpetuate a climate of fear that fuels hatred and extremist positions on all sides. Dealing instead with it as either a localised form of criminality that should not be dignified with a political response or a politically motivated attack outside of the Terror frame may just allow us to break this tragic cycle of violence.

Brad Evans is director of Histories of Violence, Global Insecurities Centre, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at University of Bristol.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Obama’s speech yesterday was totally predictable.

He played the usual word games, defining the situation in self-serving terms like Counter-Terrorism.

You know that song by heart: Counter-Terrorism in general, and drone warfare and facilities like Guantanamo in particular, are moral, legal, and necessary to defend America.

Obama can never say that Counter-Terorism is an aggressive form of political warfare that is necessary to expand and police the American Empire, coerce and weaken strategic enemies (Russia and China), and control the American people by expanding government surveillance, reducing civil liberties, and through the type of propaganda he spewed yesterday, shaping the political attitudes of the American people.

By political attitudes, I do not mean Republican and Democratic Party politics. I mean the politics of the State imposing its will on the people, and how much authority the people grant the State in the name of security.

Obama can never explain that the State has been waging political warfare for 65 years, expanding the empire and warping American minds, as the executive branch incrementally increases its extra-legal powers through the member agencies of the National Security Council, primarily the super secret CIA.

Most importantly, Obama will never say that Counter-Terrorism = Terrorism. That it is pure political violence.

His speeches — indeed, all of stated National Security policy regarding Counter-Terrorism — is designed to deflect attention from the fact that America engages in terrorism and imperial aggression on a massive scale.

I’ll give you an example. A few weeks ago I went to the FBI office in Springfield, Massachusetts, about ten minutes from where I live. I asked a Special Agent what constitutes terrorism and support for terrorism. He referred me to Washington, DC. The PR person in DC sent me excerpts from a law book defining terrorism and support for terrorism.

As a follow up question I noted that the Syrian rebels, including associates of Al Qaeda, are engaged in documented acts of terrorism against the Syrian government. I asked the FBI if the CIA, which supports the Syria rebels, is not by definition engaged in support for terrorism?

The FBI said it has no authority over the CIA. It did not dispute that the CIA engages in terrorism.

The only thing that means anything to the FBI is that the United States government claims that the Syrian government terrorizes Syrians. Thus, CIA aid to the rebels constitutes Counter-Terrorism.

And that’s how Counter-Terrorism = Terrorism. Always has, always will.

Drone warfare is the ultimate form of terrorism. It is political warfare designed to terrify foreign enemies and American citizens alike. It demonstrates to foreign enemies that the President can kill them and their supporters like a god hurling a lightning bolt from the sky. He knows each and everyone one of them by name and address, and he knows what they’re thinking. He knows what you’re thinking too. Drone warfare lets Americans know that Obama is omnipotent, remorseless, and above the law.

Despite what Obama says, you know this to be true.

Drone warfare is no longer experimental, either. It’s here to stay, and you have been conditioned to accept it.

Kidnapping people, rendering them, and holding them without due process in torture centers like Guantanamo is also terrorism, designed for all the same psychological reasons as drone warfare. Like drone warfare, administrative detention is not going away.

You know that too, and you know that you are powerless to do anything about it..

Doesn’t matter that you are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than a terrorist attack.

Doesn’t matter that 30,000 Americans die every year in automobile accidents. You will climb into your car and hurtle down the highway at 80 MPH, heedless of the danger. Fearlessly.

But you will fear Obama.

DOUGLAS VALENTINE is the author of five books, including The Phoenix Program and The Strength of the Wolf, which are available at his websites http://www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/ and http://www.douglasvalentine.com/index.html . Valentine co-authored a detailed essay on US death squads in the Iraq War for the March issue of CounterPunch magazine. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

<![CDATA[]]>

Nairobi

They tell you ‘peace’, but you know you are living in a warzone. You know it from the start; you’ve sensed it ever since you were a very little boy or a girl. You wake up every morning, not certain whether you will witness another dusk, whether you will experience another sunrise.

A bullet can hit you at any moment while you are walking down the road. If you are a woman, you can be ambushed and dragged into a dark back alley or filthy shack along the way, then raped.

The police are very hard to find, and are hopelessly corrupt. You prefer not to seek their ‘assistance’. You are really on your own: you own no gun, you don’t belong to a gang, and you are extremely poor.

You are exposed.

Around where you live, there are bullets flying and fires burning. Once in a while a gasoline truck explodes, or an entire gangway of some miserable hovels bursts into flames. Loud salvos of sub-machine guns often penetrate the night.

Dreaming in front of burning garbage.

But they tell you ‘peace’. Europeans and North Americans, all those people that are making great incomes running their countless workshops in your dilapidated villages and towns… They are talking about ‘teaching you’ and your fellow slum-dwellers. They are talking about educating you, so that you can continue ‘living in peace’.

The companies and Governments of these ‘noble men and women’, those that are teaching you about peace, are all over your bleeding country. They even use it as a base to invade neighboring lands. They are actually doing many things, while you are eating shit. Well, maybe not literally, but stuff that you aliment yourself on is not really much better.

Gangway in Kariobangi slum in Nairobi.

You have no access to clean water. You stink. If you are a man, you stink. If you are a woman, you are dying from shame, but there is no escape: you stink as well. Chances are you are functionally illiterate. Maybe you can read a few separate words, but the meaning mostly escapes you.

You vote for those who are offering you more ‘bob’, and then you feel proud when you are told, again and again, that you live in a flourishing democracy.

You scream at night. Not every night, of course, but most nights you scream. You are considering ending it all, you often wish you could die, to depart from this world, but you do not dare to kill yourself.

Jitne Watere, former prostitute and victim of sexual abuse.

The more desperate you get, the more you are being told that you live in a ‘peaceful’ country. While everyone actually knows that you live in one of the biggest slums on earth.

You don’t resist. Foreign governments and companies hail you. You are their favorite subject. You are patient and submissive, as almost all people around you are. They kill each other instead of those who drag them into misery: foreign colonialists as well as local elites.

You are constantly publicized as a good example to others, all over the world, especially to those who are opting to fight for justice, dignity and a better society.

***

Kariobangi is a shantytown, near an enormous slum called Mathare, in the middle of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Life is upside down in the slums.

Through the narrow gangways and filthy roads with open sewage, I am being led to a meeting with “Fire”, a fearless gang member who has spent ten out of his thirty years, in various notorious Kenyan jails.

“Fire” is robust, pensive and humble. He left the high-security prison just recently. He wants to start from the scratch, once again, as he did so many times before.

We sit down on a concrete block. Soon there is a crowd of onlookers, mainly children.

“Do you think people here live in peace?” I ask.

“No”, answers “Fire”. “Here people die every day. All my friends are already dead. Men here die before they turn seventeen; most of them die when they are sixteen.”

“How does it feel?” I ask him. “How does it feel to be alive; to be the only one who managed to survive?”

“I am scared!” He looks at me. I know what he means. I have heard similar stories in Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Uganda, in so many other places. He knows that I know and that is why he speaks. He is not afraid of bullets hitting him, of daggers cutting him to pieces, of police torturing him; he is not afraid of dying. But he is scared of staying alive. Alone.

He is not a coward; he is brave. He is bright. He may be a gangster, but he has plenty of dignity. His fear is not animalistic; it is existential.

“How does it all begin here, in Mathare?”

Intoxicated smile from a local drunk.

“Here we start very young; slowly. We start by stealing at home, little by little. Then it gets big. Snatching phones and necklaces, buying guns. Eventually we get caught because we are young and have no experience. We go to prison and prison is both the hell and the university of crime. You enter, you know nothing about crime; you leave and you know everything. You encounter people of all races and trades: bank robbers and serial killers. They tell you: it is better to die robbing a bank than snatching a wrist watch.”

“How bad is the prison, Fire?”

“They rape you. There are no women, so if you are a young boy, you have no chance. Young kids get sodomized. To survive, they have to prostitute themselves. In prison, men rape men. Some marry each other. You get beaten and humiliated; by inmates and by police who are extremely brutal and sadistic. You learn how to get tough. If you survive, you are ready…”

I see a knife, sharp like a razor, shining in the sunlight.

I point at it: “Tell me about this.”

My gangster friend.

“Bila”, he says. “It comes from Somalia. They are made for killing. The way they are shaped, look; you lose so much blood and you die. Here we call them wambe, which in Swahili means razorblade. But no matter how sharp it is; it is still a knife.

“What about guns?” I ask.

“All over the place. They are very cheap. Guns come with the refugees, and the refugees arrive from Somalia and Ethiopia.”

“How do women survive here?”

Ready to kill in Matare slum in Nairobi.

“It is tough for them. Some are forced into prostitution; many join criminal gangs. Their boyfriends force them. Many women are submissive to ‘their men’. They do what they are told. They are told to have sex and they succumb; they get into prostitution, and they even join the gangs. Whatever ‘their men’ order them to do. Women here are scared of losing their men.”
At some point, “Fire” gets quiet. His eyes are fixed at some point in the distance.

“Talk to me” I say. “What is it?”

He looks somewhere else, but eventually he continues speaking. “My generation… I told you… All my friends are dead. All of them… All died… I feel a chill. But I can’t leave the slum… It needs me… I need it… I can’t run away from it, as I can’t run from myself. The slum is the microcosm… it is…”

“Your Kenya?” I suggest.

“Yes”, he nods. “I tell stories… I tell how I survived until this advanced age of thirty. I always tell stories, even to the government people. I tell them how lucky I am to be here… to be alive… I want to be good, but sometimes you can’t sleep three nights on an empty stomach.”

“We both tell stories”, I say.

He does not hear me, anymore. “I wasted so many years… so many years”, he repeats.

***

Those men of the slums, those boys! They play with guns, and they kill and rob. Like in the battlefields, their faces are resolute, serious. Even as they are doing the most insane things, even as they are ravishing and plundering, they look purposeful, as if their actions would have some deep meaning. Here and in wars, the acts of pillage have an almost religious connotation.
Living in slums is like living in a war zone: day after day, year after year, until one is hit, stabbed, burned; until one falls.

But what about the women of the slums, what happens to them? They become mothers at thirteen, prostitutes at fourteen; they get raped before their first period. Some go through an abortion at fifteen; others are dying of AIDS at the age of sixteen. Some throw their unwanted babies into the gutters, out of sheer thorough desperation.

Are the women of Mathare, are the women of Kibera, really living in peace? Are the women in the slums of Jakarta and Mumbai living in peace? Are the women in Haitian slums living in peace?
Ms. Jitne Watere has her ‘boutique’, in the middle of Kariobangi. It is just a small tent, next to a busy road, with some neat white clothes exhibited inside. I don’t ask about her age; such questions are rude. I don’t want to know any details; the most painful ones.

All I want to know: “Is this a war for you? Or is it peace?”

Somali knife ‘bila’ — the deadliest.

She avoids a direct answer. She looks at me straight in the eyes.

“If you are forced to become a prostitute at the age of twelve… If you get infected with HIV… if you are forced to… Can you call it peace?”

She is younger than I, but she looks at me as if I were a child. I have seen a lot in this life and she was told that I had. But I sense that she has seen much more, and I lower my eyes instinctively, as she speaks.

“By the standards of the slum, I became a prostitute at quite a late age — I was sixteen. I lost many friends. One girl after another was falling, dying from AIDS, from ‘bush abortions’, from being beaten to death, even from poisoning. Others had fallen because of overdose.”

We are standing inside her ‘boutique’. This is one of those moments when a writer sometimes cracks and just drops the notepad into the bag, waves his arm in desperation and says: “Let’s go and get some beer… Let’s get drunk… It is all damn screwed up!” But I get hold of myself; I don’t want to hear her stories through some unnatural filter.
And so we keep standing, facing each other.

“Rape”, she says. “It is often not even called rape here… And do you know what a bush abortion is?”

I nod. I know perfectly well what it is. But I don’t want to hear the details. I know I would not be able to put them into the pages of this brave publication. I stop her. I stop her.

“Fine”, she says. “But one thing you have to know about the bush abortion… It’s that sometimes… very often… mostly… it don’t succeed… If it fails, a woman dies. Or she doesn’t die, but she wishes she did. Because if she doesn’t, what comes is…”

Two of my acquaintances, one a local gangster and one a local ambulance worker, both very strong men, are beginning to look away, in shock. My driver is waiting outside.

“The babies are thrown into the garbage”, she says. “Some alive, some dead. They don’t tell you this in the newspapers… You are not supposed to talk about it… It is common here…”
‘In Indonesia, too’, I think. ‘And in Central America.’ I say nothing.

I ask no further questions. There is no point in asking anything else. She said all there is to say, intuitively, and in summary.

But I was wrong: she had not finished, yet. She drills me with her eyes. I came here, I risked my life to come here, and I did more than what she expected: I listened to her. Now she was going to give me her conclusion, her bottom line:

“Do you know why all this? Do you really… really… want to know?”

I know. She knows. I wrote it thousands of times. It is now her turn to say it:

“Because we are all poor! Because we have nothing! We do not matter. That’s why we die young. That’s why our children die…”

***

Then, in the car, Douglas who now works for St. John’s Ambulance Service, begins telling me his story:

“There is nothing local people can count on… They are unprotected, totally on their own. Women suffer the most. 90% of women here are single mothers; there is nothing like marriage or loyalty in the slums. The family system was broken. You go from door to door, you ask; you would be shocked.”

Our car is passing by Mathare. Almost all the children here suffer from malnutrition. Many have been working since an early age; pushing heavy carts, carrying loads, selling things by the curb.

“What is the typical story here?” I ask Douglas.

“Fourteen year old girl gets abused… or forced into prostitution… Mostly they become prostitutes for food. They go for about one dollar, out of desperation. She gets pregnant at the age of thirteen or fourteen, at most fifteen. Then her man leaves her. She is left with nothing; no education and no skills. These are girls who leave their children on the street… Others get abortion…

You were just told… many of them die.”

“Very few men get married”, chips in the driver, Gilbert. “Very few take care of their children and their women. Everything collapsed here. The entire structure is gone.”

“I will tell you a story and then you tell me whether this place is a peace area or a war zone”, continues Douglas. “One night I was forced to help my neighbor to give birth… It happened not far from where we are passing now. I was washing a car… My friend ran to me at 1AM, screaming that a woman who was living on our plot had entered labor. We managed to get her to the car. It was three of us in the vehicle — two boys and one woman with labor pains. The child began coming out. I opened the window and began screaming: “Help!” I was begging for some woman to open a door and come out, to help us, because my friend and I had no idea what to do. Nobody came out; they were all scared. My friend ran away. In the end I dashed into the local store and bought a razor blade… I cut her umbilical cord. Then I drove her home. Her son was born. They both survived, miraculously. Like in a war.”

“Like in a war”, I said, recalling a very similar situation, when an indigenous woman entered labor and gave birth in my car, in the Peruvian Andes, in 1992.

***

In Mathare 4A, the garbage is burning and child-scavengers are performing acrobatic somersaults. The ground is soft, swampy. The entire area consists of metal-sheet shacks, filthy stalls and a fast-moving polluted river. It is not as dirty and hopeless as those slums in Port-Au-Prince or in Jakarta, but it is still filthy to a great extent.

“I grew up here”, says Douglas.“I used to be like those kids. I used to play in the garbage; I used to swim in this river.”

He waves at the kids. They wave back.

“Fortunately, I got some education. Now I do first aid and fire fighting.”

“Douglas, so what are you facing here?” I ask. “What casualties do they bring to the medical posts at night?”

“Victims of all sort of violence”, he replies. “Machete wounds, gunshots… You know, police shoots gangsters and innocent by-standards, while gangsters shoot victims, sometimes police.

Everyday something terrible happens: people are shot, stabbed, and raped.”

I am taking all of this in, then taking notes and photographing somersaulting children.

Tiny and scared in Matare slum.

“We have to go”, says Douglas, abruptly. “They will soon begin closing on us”.

“Wait”, I say. He speaks better here than in the car. It is all flowing well, coming out effortlessly.

“Ok”, he says. “I know what you are trying to prove. And I agree with you a hundred percent. It is a war zone, ok? It is a battleground. But now please listen to me: To me, to us here, it is normal. Totally normal, get it? Violence is normal… I know, I sense it is not good, but it is normal… I buried many friends here. Every day, several people get assaulted, killed, shot. Nothing surprises me, anymore! It is normal! Many of my friends have died… many of “Fire’s” friends died. My cousin was recently killed… He was shot dead, at sixteen! Women… they get raped, brutalized, molested, insulted… At night… almost all of them here experienced some violence, even at home… And at night, only those ‘hardcore’ ones dare to open the door… Men die because they fight back… You know, those gangsters who are assaulting people, they are not as brave as they try to look…Deep inside they are human, scared little kids, boys… They know they can die while stealing, and so they kill, because they are frightened… Despite everything, they want to live… They want to live desperately… and so they kill.”

He said enough. He breathes heavily.

“Normal! All this is normal…” He repeats.

“So why are you crying?” I ask.

He does not reply. He looks around.

“We go!” He shouts at me. “Fast! They are watching us; they are coming. Here they can do anything they want to you… They can take anything…”

“Let’s go”, I agree. “We have photos inside this camera. No matter what, they can’t take this one.”

“We fight?” He asks. “If they come, we fight or we let it go?”

Gilbert, the driver, evaluates the situation. He steps on it, and drives the car towards us through the grass. Our feet are caught in unstable, swampy ground. There are strange movements all around us, several people closing on us. The river is on the left. I am considering my options. The river seems to be one possibility.

“We will fight”, I say at the end.

“Good.”

The car is faster than the gang members. We dive in. Gilbert drives towards the road.

When we are inside, Douglas grunts: “You are tough”.

That’s all that matters here. My color of skin becomes irrelevant and so is my work. The only thing that has value in the slum is whether one has guts.

***

Constable Bobby Ogola is based at Buruburu Police Station. Buruburu is one tough place and Constable is a tough guy who does not seem to like anybody, especially not the gangsters and Somali refugees. Anywhere else his attitude would be questionable, called racist. But it is again normal here, in the war zone called the slum:

“There are too many firearms in the hands of young people aged between sixteen and thirty. Most of the firearms come from Somalia. We have constant cases of car-jacking here, of violent robberies, of rapes and murder. There are also abductions in Eastlands.”

The doctor at the dispensary in the middle of Kiriobangi, calculates that on average, around ten people die a violent death during a weekend, in this slum alone.

The majority of the people in Nairobi live in slums.

As we leave, Gilbert the driver concludes: “You write about these places for years… It is absolutely clear that the people here live in a combat zone. You see their children go hungry everyday. There is no running water, no jobs, and no toilets. But there are bullets and knifes.And there is fear and violent death everywhere.”

“You die if you get sick here”, says “Fire”. “Life is so cheap. Of course people die from cancer and other ‘complicated’ illnesses, because there is no way they would be treated for free. But they also die of easily preventable diseases like malaria. All we can get here are pain killers, sometimes.”

***

Is the system to blame? Everybody thinks so, but there is also that dogged belief that ‘nothing can be done” and “nothing can be changed”.

The elites are too powerful, and they are backed by several Western powers. Corruption is endemic, but corruption is not homegrown; it came from outside, it was imported, and like elsewhere, it entered the ‘culture’ as local elites were encouraged to collaborate with colonial powers.

While the local MPs are enjoying some of the highest government salaries anywhere in the world, almost no funds are allocated for the improvement of life in the slums.

“We have a program here, we formed an organization”, says Ms. Jitne Watere. “We are trying to help abused women. But very few funds from above are allocated. And that little that there is, disappears in corruption. Women meet, they talk and then they ask: ‘What next?’ But there is nothing we can do.”

***

While Venezuela, Bolivia, China, Vietnam and other socialist countries have managed to lift hundreds of millions of people from poverty, those close allies or virtual colonies of the West, including Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia, the Philippines and India, to name just a few, developed and then perfected total spite for most of their own people.

In Kenya, they hold elections, but no major political party represents the interests of the impoverished majority. Extreme capitalism serves only a very small minority of the immoral rulers. Statistics are manipulated and twisted, while the media is subservient to local and foreign regimes.

Nairobi, Kampala, Jakarta, Manila, Mumbai, Guatemala City — the same pattern of urban violence. Shopping malls and five star hotels surrounded by barbed wires and war zones.
Now there are organized tours, to the slums. Some Europeans like to see, to feel the thrill. One week in the national parks of Kenya and Tanzania, then few hours in Kibera, watching people starving and dying. It is a complete experience, something to show neighbors at home or spread through social media. I saw this while writing about the Yugoslav War. I saw this recently on several Syrian borders. War tourism…

***

Some time ago, I was filming Kibera from the railway tracks; those that pass through this biggest slum on earth. I put my professional camera on a tripod and began working.
An old man approached me. He was drunk, or he was high on miraa.

“I want your camera”, he said. “I can kill you now, and I don’t give a damn what will happen to me after. I am HIV positive; I have nothing, I am dying.”

But he could not kill me. He was weak, and he could hardly stand on his feet. My friends rushed to my rescue, but I didn’t need any help. The man disappeared under the hill. He was destroyed, shaking, and alone.

After that, it was all totally peaceful. It was peaceful for me, for the Kenyan elites and for the global regime.

But soon, as the sun began setting down, below there, in the middle of the slum, the first fires started burning and the first gunshots began resonating. Another battle was beginning, the battle between the victims and the other victims.

The poor have been obediently dying, as the Global regime has been consolidating its control over the planet.

All photos by Andre Vltchek.

Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His critically acclaimed political revolutionary novel Point of No Return is now re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia — The Archipelago of Fear” (Pluto). He just completed feature documentary “Rwanda Gambit” about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Russia says the Syrian government has agreed Ëœin principleâ„¢ to attend an upcoming international conference in Geneva to discuss the crisis in Syria.

Å“We note with satisfaction that we have received an agreement in principle from Damascus to attend the international conference, in the interest of Syrians themselves finding a political path to resolve the conflict, which is ruinous for the nation and region,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Friday.

On May 7, Russia and the United States agreed in Moscow to convene an international conference on Syria, which will serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012.

Some reports say the meeting will be held on June 10, but the Russian diplomat said such reports Å“cannot be taken seriously” since the ranks of the Syrian opposition groups remain so divided.

Å“Demands to immediately name a specific date for the conference without having clarity about who – and with what authority – will speak in the name of the opposition, cannot be taken seriously,” Lukashevich stated.

Syriaâ„¢s foreign-backed opposition group, known as the National Coalition, is holding the second day of negotiations on whether to attend the ËœGeneva 2â„¢ meeting. The group is also scrambling to choose a leadership in an effort to save its credibility ahead of the conference.

On the first day of the talks, coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh said he would not attend the conference without indications that Syriaâ„¢s President Bashar al-Assad is stepping down.

On the same day, the top commander of foreign-backed militants in Syria, Brigadier General Salim Idris, also said he would not attend Geneva 2 unless the United States and its allies provided the militants in Syria with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Unrest has gripped Syria for over two years and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security personnel, have been killed in the turmoil.

President Assad said on Thursday, Å“Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis.”

MKA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Most of the many television cookery programmes in the past decade, such as the UK’s MasterChef, the US’s Top Chef and Australia’s The Chopping Block have used the talent show (X Factor,Fame Academy or The Apprentice) format in which contestants are eliminated, while the winner gets into the business, with start-up money or training at a prestigious restaurant, and some (short-lived) publicity. But there is a different format, first seen in the UK in 2004, and thereafter worldwide: Ramsay’s KitchenNightmares, in which Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay spends a week in a failing restaurant “coaching” the staff. Ramsay made a US version (2008-2010), and there has been a French version (2011-12) with chef Philippe Etchebest.

Coaching programmes are a popular sub-genre of reality television, and usually they are about life coaching – how to lose weight, dress better, bring up your children, clean, decorate, buy or sell your house. Ramsay is not coaching talented amateurs as in MasterChef, or young beginners as in Top Chef, but working professionals.

More than any other work environment, the restaurant is the perfect theatre for what Everett C Hughes called “the social drama of work” (1). In the theatrical metaphor favoured by interactionist sociologists, the dining room is a stage where professionals and customers perform a well-rehearsed script, while the camera explores backstage in the kitchen. We are presented with a spectacle: every service is a test of technical skill, speed and efficiency. The characters know each other – they use first names, shout, swear – and may be family members, so the coach has a chance to administer a kind of cruel, tear-inducing psychotherapy. The programmes meet the demands of reality television because eating and cooking are universal experiences, with a deep connection to our bodies, likes and dislikes.

A ‘democratic’ assessment

Members of the Writers Guild of America describe on their website how stories are created for reality television, and why a docile public, eager to take part for free, is so useful to the industry (2). In Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, the customers/viewers/actors participate by talking to the camera, providing a “democratic” assessment that cannot be argued with.

Each episode has a precise narrative structure, with a linear edit from day to day. In the first sequence, Ramsay/Etchebest sits in the dining room, tastes dishes and identifies the restaurant’s main problems. In the second sequence he has a stormy exchange with the cook or owner. He then follows the preparations, and witnesses the problems – the poor quality of the ingredients and their preparation, inept cooks and waiters, unhappy customers. The fourth sequence is crisis and confrontation: shouting, insults, threats of violence, even tears. Stages three and four are repeated until the restaurateur is broken down, before being rebuilt, or even reborn, and acts on the coach’s advice – showing authority over the staff or being kinder, simplifying the menu, providing service with a smile. The customers/viewers/actors confirm the immediate improvements. The French and US shows complete the transformation by renovating the restaurant. This ending of the cycle is the physical manifestation of the internal metamorphosis of the main players, and repays them for their (often caricatured) performances: the US version features lazy and irresponsible African-Americans, hypocritical Asians and pretentious, cowardly French. In the end, they all hug and thank the coach.

The show is structured as a redemption, a violent exorcism with a happy ending that is a classic of American storytelling (3). It uses both religious and military style indoctrination to serve an ideology of rebirth, and relies on violent techniques, especially humiliation, pushing the protagonists to admit their failings.

Display of virility

Every version of the series depends on a display of virility – Ramsay uses verbal violence, swearing, insults and threats, and changes his shirt at least twice per UK episode to display his torso. In the French version, Etchebest uses his colossal stature, physically intimidating or jostling the protagonists. The moral fibre of the restaurant staff is put to the test through physical games such as boxing, rugby or paintball.

The programmes don’t show much of the chef’s culinary expertise, and what they do show has decreased over the years. Food preparation is shown in short dramatic montages, like in an action film, with ultra-fast chopping and flaming frying pans. We seldom see the drudgery, the menial tasks delegated whenever possible to junior kitchen staff, although their management is decisive to any team (4); if we do see them, it’s because they have become a means of redemption, as when all the staff are set to clean a filthy kitchen.

Professional ability tends only to be referred to over hygiene – a catering-size jar of mayonnaise kept at room temperature, cockroaches behind the fridge, rotting food in the cold store, grease oozing from the oven. The programme appeals to the viewer’s common sense, without ever putting the work in its social context. Fresh ingredients are obviously better than frozen, but their cost or preparation time are not mentioned except euphemistically – “it’s not that expensive or complicated, is it?” – suggesting all that is needed is willingness.

It’s all about attitude

The participants have very different levels of skill, and the series visits a wide range of establishments, from pizza joints and sushi bars to high class restaurants, but the advice is always the same: it’s all about attitude, will, commitment and standards – all down to the individual.

So the restaurant chef/owner is the model of the contemporary worker, trying to meet paradoxical demands: to be both independent and a team player (knowing how to give or take orders), totally committed to work, taking on a huge amount of responsibility, cool under pressure, ready to work long hours for a miserable income in the hope of better times ahead, and able to cope with the coach’s demands for change, while remaining true to him or her self. All this plus technical skills in the kitchen and social skills with customers, plus creativity in the design of the dishes and the venue. The programme’s passionate advocacy of the talented independent promotes the “risk-taker”, the small entrepreneur: wage earners are outdated.

After the first few UK episodes, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares never directly touches on money – debt, wages, the cost of ingredients, the price of dishes – and never asks about the social background of the protagonists, their training or connections. In this enchanted world, open discussion of money or strategy would end the belief system of this game and reveal the real tricks of the restaurant trade. If the industry were shown as it really is, the programme could no longer confine it to a celestial sphere of vocation and individual morality. Instead, everything comes down to the psychology and personality of the participants.

We are presented with an enchanted version of society. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares show work as a series of tests that are alsoepiphanies: work should involve a constant rethinking, and the restaurateur should ceaselessly reaffirm his commitment, integrity and indefatigable desire to dowell. The work is by nature insecure: the programme turns that insecurity into a vocation.

Marc Perrenoud is a sociologist at the University of Lausanne.

NOTES.

(1) Everett C Hughes, The Sociological Eye: Selected Papers, Transaction Publishers, New Jersey, 1971.

(2) J Ryan Stradal, “Unscripted Doesn’t Mean Unwritten”; Charles B Slocum, “The Real History of Reality TV”, Writers Guild of America.

(3) Christian Salmon, Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind, Verso, 2010.

This article appears in the excellent Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com. This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch features two or three articles from LMD every month.

(4) Everett C Hughes, op cit.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

A strong earthquake deep under the sea has been reported near the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russiaâ„¢s Far East, with no immediate reports of casualties.

The epicenter of the earthquake on Friday was located in the Sea of Okhotsk to the west of Kamchatka, around 600 kilometers (380 miles) under the sea.

Anatoly Tsygankov of the state Roshydromet environmental monitoring service told Russian media, Å“There were repercussions of the quake in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow and Europe, in particular Romania. Practically the whole continent shook.”

A tsunami warning was issued in the Sakhalin region after the quake, but the alert was lifted several minutes later.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake was of a magnitude of 8.2, but Russian authorities put the size of the earthquake at 6.7 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake was also felt in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which is the main city on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Sakhalin Island, where Russiaâ„¢s largest liquefied natural gas project is located.

On April 21, an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck the eastern coast of Russia, about 98 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the city of Severo-Kurilsk city, near the sparsely populated Russian-administered Kuril Islands,.

MR/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The NDP’s stunning loss (going from a 17% lead to a 5% deficit) in B.C. is being deconstructed, dissected, analyzed and mourned over not only here but across the country. Every pundit and political junkie, including me, thought the NDP would win, even after their lead suddenly dropped. But unfortunately, most of the analysis won’t be very helpful for those individuals and organizations hoping and fighting for a better country.

Just as we are trapped in an arcane excuse for democracy (it was never meant to be democratic, it is designed to manage capitalism), we are also trapped in the same paradigm when it comes to figuring out why elections are won or lost. We sit down, list off a half dozen reasons, we agree and disagree, refine the answers and gradually move on to some other disconnected political element of the universe.

It’s not that the reasons aren’t important. So long as politics is done this way the players (98 per cent of citizens are just observers) have to learn how they screwed up the game. For those not already immersed in the tortuous autopsy of the NDP loss here are a few factors.

Vote split. In B.C., if the left vote is split at all, the NDP loses. This time around the Greens were competing vigorously (it is B.C. after all) with the NDP in many progressive ridings and in 13 seats the combined Green and NDP votes would have defeated the Liberal candidate. (The final tally: Libs 50, NDP 33, Greens 1.) But it’s never that simple – not all Green voters have the NDP as their second choice and some wouldn’t vote at all if there was no Green candidate.

Reversal on pipeline process. Another issue related to the Green/NDP contest was possibly the single most damaging to the party. In the final two weeks of the campaign Dix reversed himself on the Kinder Morgan pipeline which would bring more tar sands goop to the port of Vancouver. He came out against it after saying he would wait for a review to be completed. It was meant to take the wind out of the sails of the Greens but instead it put wind in the Liberals’. It played perfectly into Liberal leader Christy Clark’s singular focus: the economy and who would manage it best. It seemed to confirm that Dix could not be trusted and wasn’t concerned about jobs or the economy.

Outcampaigned. But in general, the NDP just ran a lack-lustre campaign with no real vision – just a shopping list of things they would do (some of them very good). “Change for the better” was a deliberately cautious slogan but seemed designed for insomniacs. In this case the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

The Liberals, despite being saddled with an unpopular premier, ran a brilliant campaign – if winning at any cost was the name of the game, which it is. Relentlessly negative messaging and fear mongering ground people down – those who didn’t buy into the fear were equally likely to be disgusted with the process and simply tune out and stay away from the polls. Turnout was a record low. Dix, who I think would have made an excellent premier, was vulnerable on the trust and character issue for the memo back-dating and failure to pay a Skytrain fare. Small stuff in the larger scheme of things, but turned into defining charcteristics by tens of thousands of repetitions on radio and TV.

Combining the trust issue with the decades old right-wing attack on the NDP’s economic “credibility” was enough to make some people doubt that change would be for the better after all. The economy is always the NDP’s Achilles heel. The party tends to stay away from the broad issue out of fear the media will eviscerate it. But ignoring the economy just makes the Liberal attacks a self-fulfilling prophecy: it takes the NDP out of the game and makes people wonder why they don’t talk about it. The facts, of course, suggest the Liberals were criminally irresponsible on the economy – from the BC Rail scandal to the obscene giveaway of hydro resources, to the gutting of government revenue with tax cuts to their friends.

Positively ill-advised. But the NDP barely mentioned those facts and chose instead to turn the other cheek – and become a punching bag for Liberal assaults. The party decided to run a positive campaign and this is really the lesson of the election loss. A friend wrote to me saying running a positive campaign is like “bringing flowers to a gun fight.”

Don’t get me wrong. You can design a campaign that projects a positive vision of the future but two things about the NDP’s approach doomed it failure. First, you can’t run a positive campaign in a month. It takes time to engage people in a vision of the future, even one they agree with. Secondly, the NDP tied one hand behind its back by failing to hold the Liberals to account for the horrible, destructive policies they implemented over twelve long years.

Presumably, the election brain trust, led by Brian Topp the quintessential back-room boy, (now teamed up in a consulting firm with the repugnant Ken Boessenkool, a former Harper confidante) decided that this would be “negative.” Nonsense. It was in fact grossly irresponsible not to put the Liberal record front and centre. If you want to contrast yourself with your opponent how do you do that without talking about what their record is? The Liberals’ vicious attacks on Dix cannot be likened to exposing the Liberals for what they actually did to the province. People have notoriously short memories – and the Liberals rode them to victory.

Party system. Perhaps the real dilemma facing the left is the nature of party politics itself. A tiny percentage of people belong to the NDP and Green parties and even within these parties there is little in the way of continuous engagement, political education, and social activity that is so critical to building community. This is where the failure of the month long, list-of-promises, positive campaign is rooted.

In Saskatchewan where I come from, Tommy Douglas and the left-wing CCF (the precursor of the NDP) won power in 1944 in a province totally dominated for decades by a Liberal, pro-business party machine. It won a landslide victory in a media atmosphere of absolute hysteria (headline: “CCF will seize farms”), fear-mongering and blatant lies. The CCF held power for 20 uninterrupted years. How? It started out as a movement and retained that character for many years afterward. It was deeply rooted in community. People felt ownership of it and its policies and out of that came government programs that met the expressed needs of the people. And that, in turn, brought enormous trust in government.

People’s distrust of government now runs so deep that it will take years of trust-building to regain some democratic equilibrium. That means a totally different kind of politics and a totally different kind of political party. Progressive parties run by brain trusts, engaging in politics as a game, will ultimately lose. For them progressive policies are simply pieces on a chess board, not part of a larger vision. And the longer this style of politics goes on, the more institutionalized and inward looking such parties, including the NDP, become.

When Preston Manning founded the Reform Party in 1989 he said that if it hadn’t achieved power in 20 years he would dissolve it and make room for something else. It actually happened sooner than that, of course. Manning wasn’t married to any political party, even his own. He was committed to changing the world.

Just a thought.

MURRAY DOBBIN, now living in Powell River, BC has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over forty years. He now writes a bi-weekly column for the on-line journals the Tyee and rabble.ca. He can be reached at murraydobbin@shaw.ca

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Change cannot be achieved by forcing others to accept the world that you have conceptualized as per your will, desire and imagination, but it happens through the attitudes that you improved throughout the work which you engaged in and created a space where others can observe your work without hesitation or burden. The legacy of the late Robert F. Kennedy is before us to understand the shift of paradigm of personal liberty and anxiety of society where violence is playing a major role in decision making. His logic on freedom is inspiring not only in the United States but throughout the world. His understanding of the reality of human being is informative and prophetically enthusiastic.

I felt like screaming when I was returning to the place where I was staying, after spending hours watching a documentary on homophobia in Uganda. Uganda is one of the countries in the world, which continuously contributes to nightmares of human in the pages of world’s history. The movie was screened by the Robert F. Kennedy, Centre for Justice and Human Rights, Europe, (RFK Centre) based in Florence. My aim in this article is not to talk about the homophobia in Uganda or reviewing the documentary but to try to understand the common realities that most violence based societies are facing Idi Amin Dada had to run away after he cleaved the human flesh by his tiger teeth; Joshep Koni , the man who destroyed thousands of children’s future has gone hiding somewhere in the hideout in a neighboring country after contributing the worst of bloody sins to history. Do these make real change? No.

Decrease in the number of killings doesn’t make any difference if the society has to sleep with the ghosts of the old devil. It is an illusion if someone thinks that society will be changed when the enemy has lost his ground. The devil is non-other than the production of the slippery slope which has taken by the current-generation. It is a smokescreen if someone believes that they can make change without identifying root causes which influence social disorder. Like in many countries from Latin America to Asia, Africa and Central Europe, Idi Amin as well as Koni were products of the system.

It was last weekend that media reported that former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla died in prison. Videla was the man responsible for 30,000 killings in the country after he grabbed power in a military coup in which he overthrew Isabel Martinez De Peron. Over five years of his rule, his ambition was none other than an elimination of the authentic political critiques and those who opposed the dictatorship. What we are seeing today is how the same scenarios are repeating albeit in different forms.

Blood has flown on and on and on, respect and loyalty of humanity has constantly gone down; personal liberty has been on decline. Killing of an enemy has become common habit of man. Difference between Animal and Human is vanishing. The social disorder which cost us our loved ones lives while gifting us trauma has not changed and perhaps political egoism has risen over everything.

What we can see in most of societies is the gravity of suffering, tears of sorrow, nightmares of hopelessness. When man lost touch with his humanity, he had no reason to walk along the higher path. Thus he turns into the status of loopy in the middle and looks around to see where his fellow citizens are. When man lost his meaning of life he can do nothing but scream till his last breath. Victor Frank’s Man Search for Meaning was addressed as follows. “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible,” Frankl noted.

What we are seeing in many countries categorized as “developing nations”, is the common reality of suffering! Institutional collapse! Loss of hope of life while accepting that “social change” is impossible. This is the most common tragedy that we can observer in our motherlands. In our society, desire to fight against absolute power has been opposed by the culture of silence.

In the few hours before I departed the RFK centre I had quick but rational discussions with my colleagues from Zimbabwe, Burma (Myanmar) and our trainer who from Iran, who lives in Germany. For security reasons I doubt that I can disclose their identities but their thoughts and ground experiences gave me a clearer picture about those countries. “Problem is not only the regime or the particular party that rules the country, but also the fake dissents who are always sitting in front of the computer and distorting public will, and creating false assumptions of the crisis,” said one participant. “During the referendum in Zimbabwe, there was a man who was an appointed journalist by the BBC. He wanted to tell the world that there is election violence going on; what he did was, to take a few posters from oppositions and burnt them, and filmed it. So couple of minutes later he reported that there is election violence going on in the particular area”, went on to add. We see similar pattern with  most of the non-governmental organizations.

It is very sad to say, “most of the NGOs, are neither based on freedom nor justice, but contributing to the mafia,” one of my friends from Cuba who is currently based in Serbia said. We must understand that we need proper discussion on the present trends of NGOs; therefore it’s time to change bad reputation that they have earned in the last decades. It is pretty clear that the person who is engaged in NGO activities is an easy target in most developing countries. “No one called or enquire about me when the police arrested me and kept me in custody for many hours. But if the police arrested top level NGO person it will become a lead story in the country. I do not expect anything but at least there must be a common understanding and respect between those who are engaging in grass root activities”, a colleague from Zimbabwe said.

Enemies within enemies, crisis within crisis, chaos within chaos has been emerging in many countries. We are trying to understand strength of personalities, strength of adversaries and our allies among communities while caged in our own world. Do we really desire to solve the problem? I doubt. It seems that most “activists” want to keep these chaotic problems alive, therefore they fear that they will lose something if the problems were solved. It is very hard to think about future unless we engage in clinical exercises and deep discussions in the field and its future.

In my interview with Martini Gabriele, a courageous journalist who works for the Lastampa, one of bestselling national dailies in Florence, I touched briefly, about social disorder in Sri Lanka. It was late 80s when the Government of Sri Lanka brutally eliminated the Sinhalese youth rebellion (also known as the JVP second uprising) in which more than 30,000 people disappeared. It was my childhood experience to see half burnt dead bodies lying down on the roadside while scattering the bad smell of carrions into the air. Later, during the conflict between the State and the Tamil Tigers surfaced the same bitterness of inhuman — uncivilized habits of mankind. Neither the government nor the Tigers can justify their violence through the cause of restoring the country’s peace or achieving dream of homeland respectively.

On May 19 the Rajapaksa government celebrated the fourth year anniversary of the victory against the Tamil Tigers. During the last four years nothing we earned but few roads and wetland parks from China, and at the same time the president has managed to destroy sovereignty of all the institutions of the state while dragging all forms of power into the folds of his family. Putting in jail former Army general, just because of he was contesting the election from the opposition party, and sacking a first lady Chief Justice from her office just because the lady exercised her judicial powers against injustice are prime examples of that looter’s desire for power.

When the worm has mud of slum to crawl and hide from enemies, it will be safe as long as it lives. But at certain time hungry kingfisher will understand where worm is. The hungry worm can eat everything around it but will be trapped when the kingfisher sees it. In a same way, the tyrant has power to play as long as he is the master in his surroundings. He will be the tyrant as long as people around him are blindfolded. As they say in Chinese traditional wisdom, “the water can stabilize or destabilize the ship”.

The days I share with colleagues who honestly reveal themselves and their activities, allow me to think twice about the work that we are engaged in. The RFK centre, a newly born knowledge hub, makes it possible for us to think beyond the boundaries. It has given an opportunity to think, and expand our network globally. The RFK is well respected institution in the country, and it has powerful network to spread their vision globally.

I could do no better than quote serge words of Fredrick Douglas; “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” The RFK has fulfilled the dream of people who desire to earn knowledge. Those who have knowledge will strengthen the desire that community has for freedom. That is how personal liberty originates while giving red alarm to the “unjust” to find its way out.

Who are we? What are we up to? As late Robert F. Kennady said:  “our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.”

Let us unite, as Gloria Reuben, a well-known Hollywood actress pointed out; to make the world for the people who have no space to raise their voice, whose rights have been buried in the slum of absolute power and injustice. Let us sing our song of rights among the communities where people can come up with fresh ideas to change the society currently controlled by the tyrant. It will wipe out our sorrows, and tears of sadness while generating a hope in hapless souls.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa is journalist and editor of the Sri Lanka Guardian, an online daily news paper based in Colombo Sri Lanka. He can be reached atilangamuwa@gmail.com or editor@srilankaguardian.org

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Stockholm.

Stockholm has been the scene of riots this week, to much of the world’s surprise, with the unrest flaring up in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods on the city’s periphery. The Stockholm media reports cars burning in at least fifteen suburbs, stone-throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel, injured police and protesters, and dozens of people arrested.

The capital city of Sweden had been basking in the still-warm glow of the nation’s World Hockey Championship win over Switzerland and the well-staged Eurovision music contest in the southern city of Malmö, which was until now perhaps best known abroad for its immigrant unrest. Most citizens were preoccupied with plans for upcoming Midsommar celebrations and summer vacations. The ABBA museum next door to Gröna Lund amusement park had just opened. Riots and unrest are not items usually found on the tranquil Swedish smörgÃ¥sbord.

The fire was sparked literally and figuratively on Sunday night, May 19, in the northwestern suburb of Husby, about 12 kilometers from the city center. A 69-year-old man was seen waving a knife and machete and threatening other people, then went into an apartment after police arrived. One woman, identified as the man’s wife, was known to be in the apartment. After two hours of negotiations, a police SWAT team stormed the residence and shot and killed the man after a distraction grenade failed to do its job. Determined people, these immigrants.

The situation exploded after that, with groups of mostly young men in Husby burning cars and confronting police, who moved into the neighborhood in force. Shades of Paris in the autumn of 2005—a similarity that did not go unnoticed in some media accounts of the current Stockholm troubles. The anger spread to other immigrant-dominated suburbs that ring the city, and soon reports flared up of burning cars, stone-throwing and police-’gang’ confrontations. This morning, the main headline in the online daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) blared, “Yet another night with fires and stones”, including a police station set afire and stones thrown at ambulance personnel. This did not likely go down well with the breakfast of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.

Hard-cooked eggs to swallow

Reinfeldt likes nothing better than to blend termite-like into the knotty-pine camouflage image of a Sweden that takes care of its people while still enabling capitalists and entrepreneurs to thrive. His tenure has been distinguished by a Coolidge-like silence behind the humming machinery of Sweden’s prosperity compared to the dire economic news from other parts of Europe and the world. Now the fires are forcing him out of the woodwork.

At a press conference at the Swedish Parliament after a visit to Husby, Reinfeldt (whose five-o-clock shadow and tv demeanor tend toward the Nixonesque) said, “Sweden as a democracy believes in law that applies equally for all, over all of Sweden.” He went on: “This strides against those who believe in violence as a method. They have the idea that you can do what you want.” And, “If we give in there, then we’re on the way to changing the social model.” He also used the occasion to plug the entrepreneur-driven educational policies of the ruling center-right Alliance, which has championed private for-profit schools over traditional public schools—to the detriment of the latter. “We want to make more efforts to achieve better school results, especially when aimed at schools and the sort of outsider-environment we are now discussing,” said the Prime Minister.

Ethnic slurs aren’t just for Finns any more

The outsiders in Stockholm and Sweden are immigrant and immigrant-descent families who have come to Sweden for economic and political (asylum) reasons. The world’s image of a Sweden filled with blond, blue-eyed, Nordic folk is a stale dish: as many as two million Swedes (out of a population of 9.2 million) have immigrant backgrounds. Immigrants have been part of Sweden for nearly as long as the thousand-year history of the nation: Germans, Walloons and Finns came here in significant numbers from medieval times into the modern age, while the mid-late 1900s saw immigrants from Italy, Greece and other (mostly) European regions coming to fill the worker ranks in Sweden’s highly developed industries. The story changes after that, marked by tens of thousands from former Yugoslavia, notably Bosnia, in the 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, successive waves of immigrants and refugees have come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Poland and other countries.

Rami Al-Khamsi is a leader of Megaphone, an organization that bills itself as working to end social injustice and has an influential presence in the suburbs. In a DN interview on Tuesday, he put a different spin on the Stockholm fires than Prime Minister Reinfeldt’s. Instead of “law” and “societal model”, the words that resonate from Al-Khamsi are “racism” and societal “structural problems” that politicians have not addressed. Racism and ethnic slurs are part of the everyday Swedish menu, even if they are not advertised as daily specials.

Al-Khamsi zeroed in on this subject in his interview when he was asked if the police at Husby used insulting language: “Yes, we were surprised how the police acted toward people, using dogs and batons against children and parents and expressing themselves with words such as ‘nigger’, ‘blackheads’ and ‘monkeys’”. (The ethnic slur “svartskallar” or “blackheads” is directed often at dark-haired people who are perceived as having Middle Eastern backgrounds).

Al-Khamsi said, “The government chooses to solve social problems by increasing the police presence and militarizing the suburbs. As long as this continues people will rise up and choose something else. It doesn’t create change, but for many people the only way to meet power is with violence.”

Right-wing groups such as the Sweden Democrats political party are accusing Megaphone of inciting violent uprisings. Al-Khamsi demurs: “It doesn’t help to either defend or take a position on what is happening, we can only understand it. Megaphone works for social reparation and has a constructive and peaceful role. It’s the not first time unrest has happened in Husby. …As the (social) gaps become greater, there will unfortunately be people who take out their frustration in this way.”

Flames attract more than moths

The Sweden Democrats (SD), like other political parties, have been quick to seize the unrest as a channel to further their own agenda. The party has its roots in a neo-Nazi movement that did a not-so-extreme makeover into a recognized political entity in the 1990s. SD now gathers almost 9% support in the latest national opinion polls (higher in southern Sweden) and has 20 members seated in the 349-seat Riksdag (Parliament). There, SD can be a deciding bloc playing off the almost evenly-matched Alliance and its opponets from the Social Democrat, Green and Left parties.

An SD leader has now called for martial law, rubber bullets, teargas, and water cannon to deal with unruly elements, along with deportation hearings for immigrants who have not yet obtained citizenship, and police are to be granted the right to “use the tougher measures that are required”. In the long run, SD wants an end to the mass immigration and multi-culturalism policies that have transformed Sweden during the past decades. In the short run, the spokesman added, SD’s proposals for police to take hard-line measures will “make the rioters realize quickly who it is that decides things in this country”.

A sinister tinkle of Kristallnacht 1938 in Germany is easy to discern here, but in this land of Orrefors-KostaBoda art glass and crystal such outright persecution might be difficult to mobilize. Nevertheless, oppression in Sweden exists, whether real (according to many immigrants) or exaggerated (SD and others). One of its forms can be expressed in high unemployment rates for young people as a whole and young immigrant-background men in particular. Unemployment among all Swedes under the age of 25 is over 24% (UN figures, 2013). Among young Swedes who have immigrant backgrounds, estimates range as high as 40% or more.

The paper ceiling

Many of the jobs that people with immigrant backgrounds do have would be classified as “menial” by some. Swedish employment has a “paper ceiling” instead of a glass one: in general, someone born in Sweden, with a Swedish last name, stands a much better chance of landing a job than someone who is darker and whose name is not Svensson. If you live in Sweden, the odds are high that the people cleaning your home or office, baking your pizza, dry-cleaning and pressing your clothes, driving your taxi, or running your kebab-and-hot dog stand have immigrated to Sweden or have recent roots in other lands. It’s not unknown for people with non-Swedish names, especially from non-western regions, to change their last names via marriage or legal process: this, they hope and believe, will help them to get a foot in the employment door.

A broader picture of employment and society in general would show that many immigrants and their descendants have succeeded in building good lives for themselves in Sweden, and it would be unfair to exclude this image.

Real integration of immigrants and their descendants into Swedish society is still out on the horizon. Sweden is a country that prides itself, and rightfully so, on its willingness to take in refugees. It is also justly proud of its past efforts to instill equality regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race and other qualities—the multi-culturalism that SD so earnestly opposes.

But legislation cannot force minds and hearts to comply, and many Swedes are reluctant to exchange the enduring values of their traditions for a newer version of Sweden that accommodates non-western elements. Kebabs, pizza and Thai food have become highly appreciated additions to Swedish cuisine, but underneath this acceptance runs a deeper reluctance to embrace more than superficial values from non-Swedish societies. For their part, many immigrants show the same reluctance to embrace Swedish culture and live in ersatz versions of Baghdads or Mogadishu set in the housing projects of outer Stockholm. Both sides exhibit what the other side interprets as indifference, or intolerance, or worse. A synthesis arising from mutual acceptance and tolerance is likely to evolve, but this will likely take several generations or longer.

In the meantime, many young people in this country, particularly those with immigrant backgrounds, live with hopelessness as the staple item of their existential diets. As long as that is the case, there will be smoke and probably fire.

S. C. Hahn lives and writes in Stockholm and can be reached at stevencrhahn@gmail.com 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

It’s all over the news. As carbon dioxide levels surpass the milestone of four hundred parts per million, people continue to lament humanity’s seeming inability to reduce emissions. Others continue to deny that climate change exists, or that, if it does exist, it is not caused by humans. Of course, as the overwhelming minority of climatologists will tell you, this is dangerously untrue. A new narrative is taking shape though, and one that we should all be watchful of. More and more people are coming out in support of climate engineering.

Climate engineering, the deliberate altering of the Earth’s climate, with the purpose of preventing the catastrophic effects of climate change, does not function as a solution to high levels of greenhouse gasses. Erecting an enormous space mirror may cool Earth by diverting solar radiation, but it doesn’t solve the problems that caused warming. Equally problematic is how little we know about the effects of altering the Earth’s climate.

Local ecosystems are fragile, and the planet is the most fragile ecosystem of all. Sulfur entered into the atmosphere may offset the warming effects of carbon, but it also causes ozone depletion. Furthermore, with global implications of engineering, who will be implementing and regulating these climate modifications? Any government, corporation, or individual can potentially alter the climate.

American entrepreneur Russ George received widespread attention with a series of unauthorized experiments. Last year he deposited one hundred tons of Iron Sulfate off the coast of British Columbia, causing a ten thousand square kilometer plankton boom. The plankton then sucks carbon out of the atmosphere. The problem is that this type of climate engineering is unregulated, and the effects on the local ecosystem are unknown. On a global scale, the effects could be disastrous.

Several conservative think tanks and research institutions have come out in favor of climate engineering as more effective that emissions reduction. The CATO Institute, the Heartland Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute have all celebrated the benefits of geo engineering. This is a complete reversal of the standing line that climate change is a fallacy. As climate change becomes harder and harder to deny, those with interests in unregulated emission generation are beginning to shift their tactics. And these shifts begin with the think tanks.

In the 1970s, many conservative think tanks were founded and backed by wealthy donors with the explicit purpose of advocating conservative policies. Right wing foundations, institutes, and publications conducted research and created publications to be marked directly to the public and policy makers. An alliance of corporate leaders, conservative politicians, and academics used these institutions to popularize many Reagan era policies that assisted these corporate leaders-regressive taxation, monetarism, and hostility to trade unions.

Pay attention to the think tanks! Ideology moves from the top to the bottom. Soon, conservative media will abandon climate change denial and move to geo engineering. This is not a solution to the problem of greenhouse emissions, and serves to protect the current political and economic system. If it finds widespread acceptance, the results could be catastrophic.

Ryan Eustace is a graduate student and an activist. He is optimistic, but he is not sure for how long. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Local fighters have killed three Indian soldiers in a village near the city of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, police officials say.

Indian police sources said the soldiers were killed while on patrol in the village of Hardu Buchoo on Friday.

Another Indian soldier was wounded during the subsequent gunfight.

On Thursday, Indian forces killed a leader of Lashkar-e Taiba group in Srinagar.

Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 65 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in full but each only has control over a section of the territory.

Over the past two decades, the conflict in Kashmir has left over 47,000 people dead by the official count, although other sources say the death toll could be as high as 100,000.

On May 6, Sajjad Haider Karim, a member of the European Parliament, called for an investigation into the conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir in the wake of the discovery of more than 7,000 unmarked graves in Srinagar and Budgam District.

GMA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref addresses a conference at the University of Tehran on Thursday May 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

On May 21^st the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded debate on the “Gang of 8” immigration reform proposal, passing the amended proposal onto the full Senate for consideration. A significant component of the bill is a set of “border security triggers” that Homeland Security would have to accomplish before the pathway to legalization and citizenship would become available for most immigrants. These “triggers” include “persistent surveillance” along the entire expanse of the Mexico / United States border and a Border Patrol “effectiveness rate” of 90% — signifying that the agency is able to successfully apprehend at least 90% of unauthorized migrants in each of its nine southwest enforcement sectors.

In popular discussion of the Senate bill surprisingly little attention has been devoted to scrutinizing these so-called “triggers” — despite their significance to the overall reform effort. Perhaps this is because many in the immigrant rights movement have come to support the triggers as a “common sense” tradeoff for the more progressive reforms that the bill may include (for example, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told the LA times on April 29^th: “Opponents of immigration have used border security as an excuse. This [the triggers] will put pressure on them”). Yet given that so much would ride on accomplishing these measures, it’s important to scrutinize DHS’s past and present failures in pursuit of precisely these objectives, alongside an independent metric for evaluating its operational “success.” This is especially the case given that over the past ten years the size and operating budget of the Border Patrol have more than doubled, with devastating effects on human rights, the environment, and the well being of border communities. In pursuit of the quixotic task of “border security” the Senate proposal would exacerbate these trends, while maintaining a punitive, “enforcement first” approach to immigration policy.

The long, costly saga of border surveillance

To begin to unpack the Senate’s proposed “border security” triggers, let’s consider the concept of “persistent surveillance,” an objective that has long been a vexing challenge for the Border Patrol.

Back in 1994, with the launch of “Operation Gatekeeper,” the Border Patrol began to push unauthorized migration routes away from cities like El Paso and San Diego and into remote desert areas, where the journey has become ever more difficult, dangerous and deadly. According to the logic behind Gatekeeper those who continued to cross would be isolated, and the Border Patrol would enjoy a “tactical advantage” in identifying and apprehending them. Yet the very terrain that was to be used to impede unauthorized migration has also proven a significant challenge to the Border Patrol’s own enforcement effort. For example, in Arizona’s Altar Valley, which since the early 2000s has remained one of the busiest unauthorized migration corridors in the United States, there exist only two paved roads and roughly 900 square miles of mountainous, rugged terrain between the border and common pick-up sites near Tucson. As former Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Robert Gilbert stated:

“People challenge us and say, ‘Why aren’t you on the border?’ We are. But you have to realize… the border’s very rugged, it’s very remote, accessibility is difficult. So if there’s [sic] no roads, we can’t get into the border. We build roads. We’re working with the National Guard constantly and improving our road network on the border. That’s a slow process.”

To overcome these challenges the Border Patrol has spent billions of dollars on infrastructure, personnel, and a series of high-tech surveillance initiatives commonly referred to as the “virtual fence.” For example, from 1998-2005 the agency spent $239 million on the “ISIS” system, an assemblage of integrated ground sensors and high-resolution video cameras that would allow agents to gain “situational awareness” of remote, mountainous areas. Yet by 2006 the DHS Office of Inspector General reported that “more than 90 percent of the responses to sensor alerts resulted in false alarms, something other than illegal alien activity, such as local traffic, outbound traffic, a train, or animals. On the southwest border, only two percent of sensor alerts resulted in apprehensions.” This was in fact a lower success rate for the ISIS sensors than obtained under the “legacy” system that ISIS was designed to replace.

In 2006 DHS substituted ISIS with the highly publicized “SBInet” program, designed to integrate ground sensors with 98 foot-high fixed camera towers containing motion-detecting ground radar, infrared and high-resolution imaging capacities. DHS’s stated objective for SBInet was to detect “70 to 85% of incursions” in real-time. With a budgeted price tag of $8 billion (only $1 billion was ever spent), the towers would provide DHS with “a Common Operating Picture, which allows Border Patrol complete situational awareness and increased mission effectiveness.”

Yet despite lofty rhetoric about its technological sophistication, SBInet, in the end, proved an unmitigated failure. Software interface problems slowed communication between various components. Animals and rainstorms triggered radar and ground sensors. And cameras were blocked at various angles and degrees of proximity by southern Arizona’s mountainous, canyon-filled terrain.

After visiting an SBInet demonstration site, U.S. Rep. Chris Carney described one of the system’s shortcomings: “[a]s two immigrants tried to cross in front of a project camera, a technician tried to electronically reposition the camera to track their whereabouts. The picture was out of focus, the camera moved too slowly, and the immigrants got away.” Despite these problems, the Obama administration renewed the program with considerable fanfare, stating in May 2009: “This is the initiation of the no-kidding, real, SBInet system… We understand this a lot better. We’re a lot more sophisticated.” By February 2011, with mounting costs and continuing setbacks, the program was quietly cancelled.

DHS is now invested in mobile surveillance systems and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to accomplish their border security fix. Between 2005 and 2012 the department spent $240.6 million building a fleet of Predator drones for surveillance missions. Yet this program too has been met with considerable challenges and shortcomings. To begin with, each hour of flight costs the agency $3,000, about twice the cost of a “manned” aerial mission. Yet to refer to the system as “unmanned” is really a misnomer, given that a typical DHS drone mission requires between 20 and 50 support staff — including pilots, technicians, launch and recovery crews, and video analysts, among others. A May 2012 report from the DHS Office of Inspector General criticized Customs and Border Protection for diverting millions of dollars from its other programs to maintain and troubleshoot problems with its drone fleet, concluding: “[DHS] has not achieved its scheduled nor desired levels of flight hours of its unmanned aircraft… resource shortfalls of qualified staff and equipment coupled with restrictions imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, weather, host airfields, and others have… limited actual flight hours to 37 percent of the unmanned aircraft’s mission availability threshold and 29 percent of its mission availability objective.”

Since 2005, DHS claims that its drone program has contributed to the arrest of 7,500 immigrants and 46,600 pounds of marijuana. Yet as Tom Barry of International Policy Report points out, this amounts to less that .01% of Border Patrol arrests during this period, and a similarly miniscule percentage of marijuana seizures. Meanwhile, if one divides the total cost of the drone program by these enforcement actions, they amount to $32,080 per apprehended migrant and $5,163 per pound of marijuana, if one both a) accepts DHS’s numbers and b) ignores the ground agents and other support personnel needed to actually enact an arrest or seizure (something that the UAVs obviously cannot accomplish on their own). Brian Bennett of the LA Times offers an understated summary of the UAV program as follows: “[the drones] have yet to prove very useful in stopping contraband or illegal immigrants.”

Regardless of the problems with its drone fleet, Homeland Security is fully invested in the technology, with plans to expand its fleet to 24 “Guardian” and “Predator” drones by 2016, at a total cost of $443.1 million, and to incorporate new capabilities like “signal interception receivers” that tap into and monitor cell phone and radio signals. The Senate bill would fund this expansion, with Arizona Senator John McCain, arguing “I am confident that the technology and surveillance capability as well as the drones will allow us to have effective control of the border.” But the Senator is shooting in the dark. As will be shown below, neither DHS nor congress possesses any objective framework for evaluating its technology that could lend support to such a claim.

Measuring “security,” and other quagmires

Over the last decade the U.S. government has spent more than $100 billion on border security, and with an annual budget of $18 billion for immigration and border enforcement the U.S. is spending more on these efforts than all other federal law enforcement combined. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 would infuse an additional $6.5 billion to expand the technology, manpower and infrastructure available to the Border Patrol. This would include: 3,500 new agents; a “Southern Border Fencing Strategy” to include double-layer fencing, infrastructure, and technology; and sufficient drones to operate “24 hours per day and for 7 days per week” along the southwest border (though precisely where these drones would be deployed or prioritized along the 1,933-mile-long border remains unspecified).

Yet there is little reason to believe that this mix of agents, walls and UAVs will somehow achieve the capabilities that congress would mandate. Indeed, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in February 2013, “without documentation of the analysis justifying the specific types, quantities, and deployment locations of border surveillance technologies,” DHS itself has no idea how effective any of these technological components or enforcement practices are.

Since 2010, the department has refused to implement a metric that could evaluate its efforts and guide future procurement, decision-making or accountability. Yet this is not for lack of trying. Over the years the Border Patrol has tested or implemented — and subsequently abandoned — various measurement and evaluation schemes. In 2004 the agency issued its second-ever national strategy, which divided the border into five categories of “operational control” — ranging from the highest level, “controlled,” involving “continuous detection and interdiction resources at the immediate border with high probability of apprehension upon entry,” to “remote/low activity,” signifying that “information is lacking to develop a meaningful border control strategy because of inaccessibility or lack of resources.”

When, in 2010, the Border Patrol last reported on its progress using this metric, it stated that only 12% of the southwest border (and less than 2% of the northern border) met its criteria for the highest level of “operational control.” In response, border security hawks pounced, claiming that this figure showed that the Obama administration was unserious about its Homeland Security mission. The Border Patrol countered that those areas not under its full “control” were remote, difficult to access and far from population centers. Nonetheless, due to congressional pushback, the agency abandoned the “operational control” framework, in 2011 proposing instead a “Border Conditions Index” that would incorporate quality of life metrics such as levels of crime and property values in the border region. Within a year, this too was abandoned, replaced in the agency’s 2012-2016 National Strategic Plan with a “risk” and “threat” based approach to border security. Yet, as Tom Barry points out, the agency “gives no indication how it will rank or prioritize risks and threats. Instead, it merely describes the new bureaucratic apparatus that will make these risk assessments.”

The inability to develop or stick with an objective metric to evaluate its practices has been the cause of considerable consternation and criticism from congress, most significantly from Republican border security hawks like Michigan’s Candace Miller, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. Indeed, the invention of border security “triggers” is likely a response to these concerns, forcing a metric on the agency to which congress could then hold them accountable. Yet there is little reason to believe that such a metric would be anything other than arbitrary.

At present, the de facto framework guiding the agency’s strategic reporting and decision-making is structured around what the agency calls its “effectiveness rate.” By counting the number of apprehensions in a given sector and dividing this by the total of “turn backs” (individuals who entered the United States without authorization, but who crossed back to Mexico on their own) and “got aways” (unauthorized entrants who were detected by the Border Patrol but successfully entered the U.S. interior without apprehension), the agency makes a calculation of the percentage of unauthorized entrants they are able to apprehend. Yet, as discussed above, without having accomplished “persistent surveillance” of the border the agency can only, at best, speculate about how many individuals are actually crossing the border at any given time. As the February 2013 GAO report stated, the “effectiveness rate” metric merely “reports on program activity levels and not program results.”

In the Tucson Sector, the Border Patrol’s supposed accomplishment of an “87% effectiveness rate” has lent steam to proponents of the Senate plan, claiming that DHS is on the brink of achieving the 90% effectiveness rate that the bill would mandate (a mandate that, under a May 9^th amendment to the bill, would be extended to all southwest Border Patrol sectors). Yet, as the GAO stated in its February 2013 report, inconsistencies of classification, methodology, data collection and measurement capabilities between sectors render figures such as that reported by the Tucson Sector essentially meaningless. 

The Great Fiction of the Senate’s Immigration Proposal

The Border Patrol claim that the recent border-wide decline in apprehensions is an indication of the success of their enforcement strategy. There is reason to be skeptical of this claim. Research has consistently shown that the volume of unauthorized migration corresponds to the fluctuation of sending and receiving economies, and not at all to the intensity of enforcement efforts. Although the Border Patrol have conducted an unprecedented build-up of personnel, technology and infrastructure over the past ten years, one doesn’t see a dramatic decline in Border Patrol apprehensions until around 2007-2008, the exact same period as the economic downturn. With a gradual recovery has come a gradual increase in the number of undocumented crossings; apprehensions in 2012 went up about 10% (a trajectory that has since continued), and it is likely that the historically low numbers in 2011 will be seen as a nadir rather than the indicator of a broader trend.

Even more important, however, are the percentage of crossers who have strong ties to the United States. Many of these individuals are essentially forced migrants, on the border as a direct outcome the Obama administration’s unprecedented deportation effort (averaging around 400,000 individuals a year). A University of Arizona-Ford Foundation study released in April 2013 reported that 28% of those apprehended by the Border Patrol now consider the U.S. to be their permanent home. As such, DHS is literally producing much of the population of migrants they then claim are a threat to be guarded against. Because these individuals are presently absent from the United States, most will not qualify for relief under the current immigration proposal. And such individuals, separated from homes and loved ones, are likely to cross again no matter what the consequences or technologies deployed against them.

The desperation of people on the border is a direct consequence of an antiquated and punitive immigration system that is unable to accommodate peoples’ increasingly trans-national lives; that refuses to acknowledge the basic economic drivers of migration (including policies like NAFTA); and that then penalizes those whom this very system has uprooted. The Senate immigration proposal includes some positive measures that would address these shortcomings. Yet on the whole it not only entrenches a punitive immigration framework, but even eliminates multiple visa categories that facilitate family reunification, ensuring that even broader categories of individuals will, in the future, be classified as “undocumented.”

The Senate architects are merely asserting — without any objective analysis or basis for their claim — that DHS can accomplish the border security “triggers” that their immigration proposal would establish. By hinging legalization and a pathway to citizenship on accomplishing these arbitrary objectives, such reforms could be postponed indefinitely. This is the great fiction that has thus far largely been ignored in debates about the merits of the Senate bill. And advocates on the left ought to think more carefully and cautiously about what they are being promised.

Geoffrey Boyce is a PhD Candidate in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. He is also a long-time affiliate of the Tucson-based No More Deaths, and he writes and blogs on homeland security and immigration-related issues. He can be reached at gboyce@email.arizona.edu. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Local fighters have killed three Indian soldiers in a village near the city of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, police officials say.

Indian police sources said the soldiers were killed while on patrol in the village of Hardu Buchoo on Friday.

Another Indian soldier was wounded during the subsequent gunfight.

On Thursday, Indian forces killed a leader of Lashkar-e Taiba group in Srinagar.

Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 65 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in full but each only has control over a section of the territory.

Over the past two decades, the conflict in Kashmir has left over 47,000 people dead by the official count, although other sources say the death toll could be as high as 100,000.

On May 6, Sajjad Haider Karim, a member of the European Parliament, called for an investigation into the conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir in the wake of the discovery of more than 7,000 unmarked graves in Srinagar and Budgam District.

GMA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref addresses a conference at the University of Tehran on Thursday May 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

On May 21^st the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded debate on the “Gang of 8” immigration reform proposal, passing the amended proposal onto the full Senate for consideration. A significant component of the bill is a set of “border security triggers” that Homeland Security would have to accomplish before the pathway to legalization and citizenship would become available for most immigrants. These “triggers” include “persistent surveillance” along the entire expanse of the Mexico / United States border and a Border Patrol “effectiveness rate” of 90% — signifying that the agency is able to successfully apprehend at least 90% of unauthorized migrants in each of its nine southwest enforcement sectors.

In popular discussion of the Senate bill surprisingly little attention has been devoted to scrutinizing these so-called “triggers” — despite their significance to the overall reform effort. Perhaps this is because many in the immigrant rights movement have come to support the triggers as a “common sense” tradeoff for the more progressive reforms that the bill may include (for example, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told the LA times on April 29^th: “Opponents of immigration have used border security as an excuse. This [the triggers] will put pressure on them”). Yet given that so much would ride on accomplishing these measures, it’s important to scrutinize DHS’s past and present failures in pursuit of precisely these objectives, alongside an independent metric for evaluating its operational “success.” This is especially the case given that over the past ten years the size and operating budget of the Border Patrol have more than doubled, with devastating effects on human rights, the environment, and the well being of border communities. In pursuit of the quixotic task of “border security” the Senate proposal would exacerbate these trends, while maintaining a punitive, “enforcement first” approach to immigration policy.

The long, costly saga of border surveillance

To begin to unpack the Senate’s proposed “border security” triggers, let’s consider the concept of “persistent surveillance,” an objective that has long been a vexing challenge for the Border Patrol.

Back in 1994, with the launch of “Operation Gatekeeper,” the Border Patrol began to push unauthorized migration routes away from cities like El Paso and San Diego and into remote desert areas, where the journey has become ever more difficult, dangerous and deadly. According to the logic behind Gatekeeper those who continued to cross would be isolated, and the Border Patrol would enjoy a “tactical advantage” in identifying and apprehending them. Yet the very terrain that was to be used to impede unauthorized migration has also proven a significant challenge to the Border Patrol’s own enforcement effort. For example, in Arizona’s Altar Valley, which since the early 2000s has remained one of the busiest unauthorized migration corridors in the United States, there exist only two paved roads and roughly 900 square miles of mountainous, rugged terrain between the border and common pick-up sites near Tucson. As former Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Robert Gilbert stated:

“People challenge us and say, ‘Why aren’t you on the border?’ We are. But you have to realize… the border’s very rugged, it’s very remote, accessibility is difficult. So if there’s [sic] no roads, we can’t get into the border. We build roads. We’re working with the National Guard constantly and improving our road network on the border. That’s a slow process.”

To overcome these challenges the Border Patrol has spent billions of dollars on infrastructure, personnel, and a series of high-tech surveillance initiatives commonly referred to as the “virtual fence.” For example, from 1998-2005 the agency spent $239 million on the “ISIS” system, an assemblage of integrated ground sensors and high-resolution video cameras that would allow agents to gain “situational awareness” of remote, mountainous areas. Yet by 2006 the DHS Office of Inspector General reported that “more than 90 percent of the responses to sensor alerts resulted in false alarms, something other than illegal alien activity, such as local traffic, outbound traffic, a train, or animals. On the southwest border, only two percent of sensor alerts resulted in apprehensions.” This was in fact a lower success rate for the ISIS sensors than obtained under the “legacy” system that ISIS was designed to replace.

In 2006 DHS substituted ISIS with the highly publicized “SBInet” program, designed to integrate ground sensors with 98 foot-high fixed camera towers containing motion-detecting ground radar, infrared and high-resolution imaging capacities. DHS’s stated objective for SBInet was to detect “70 to 85% of incursions” in real-time. With a budgeted price tag of $8 billion (only $1 billion was ever spent), the towers would provide DHS with “a Common Operating Picture, which allows Border Patrol complete situational awareness and increased mission effectiveness.”

Yet despite lofty rhetoric about its technological sophistication, SBInet, in the end, proved an unmitigated failure. Software interface problems slowed communication between various components. Animals and rainstorms triggered radar and ground sensors. And cameras were blocked at various angles and degrees of proximity by southern Arizona’s mountainous, canyon-filled terrain.

After visiting an SBInet demonstration site, U.S. Rep. Chris Carney described one of the system’s shortcomings: “[a]s two immigrants tried to cross in front of a project camera, a technician tried to electronically reposition the camera to track their whereabouts. The picture was out of focus, the camera moved too slowly, and the immigrants got away.” Despite these problems, the Obama administration renewed the program with considerable fanfare, stating in May 2009: “This is the initiation of the no-kidding, real, SBInet system… We understand this a lot better. We’re a lot more sophisticated.” By February 2011, with mounting costs and continuing setbacks, the program was quietly cancelled.

DHS is now invested in mobile surveillance systems and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to accomplish their border security fix. Between 2005 and 2012 the department spent $240.6 million building a fleet of Predator drones for surveillance missions. Yet this program too has been met with considerable challenges and shortcomings. To begin with, each hour of flight costs the agency $3,000, about twice the cost of a “manned” aerial mission. Yet to refer to the system as “unmanned” is really a misnomer, given that a typical DHS drone mission requires between 20 and 50 support staff — including pilots, technicians, launch and recovery crews, and video analysts, among others. A May 2012 report from the DHS Office of Inspector General criticized Customs and Border Protection for diverting millions of dollars from its other programs to maintain and troubleshoot problems with its drone fleet, concluding: “[DHS] has not achieved its scheduled nor desired levels of flight hours of its unmanned aircraft… resource shortfalls of qualified staff and equipment coupled with restrictions imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, weather, host airfields, and others have… limited actual flight hours to 37 percent of the unmanned aircraft’s mission availability threshold and 29 percent of its mission availability objective.”

Since 2005, DHS claims that its drone program has contributed to the arrest of 7,500 immigrants and 46,600 pounds of marijuana. Yet as Tom Barry of International Policy Report points out, this amounts to less that .01% of Border Patrol arrests during this period, and a similarly miniscule percentage of marijuana seizures. Meanwhile, if one divides the total cost of the drone program by these enforcement actions, they amount to $32,080 per apprehended migrant and $5,163 per pound of marijuana, if one both a) accepts DHS’s numbers and b) ignores the ground agents and other support personnel needed to actually enact an arrest or seizure (something that the UAVs obviously cannot accomplish on their own). Brian Bennett of the LA Times offers an understated summary of the UAV program as follows: “[the drones] have yet to prove very useful in stopping contraband or illegal immigrants.”

Regardless of the problems with its drone fleet, Homeland Security is fully invested in the technology, with plans to expand its fleet to 24 “Guardian” and “Predator” drones by 2016, at a total cost of $443.1 million, and to incorporate new capabilities like “signal interception receivers” that tap into and monitor cell phone and radio signals. The Senate bill would fund this expansion, with Arizona Senator John McCain, arguing “I am confident that the technology and surveillance capability as well as the drones will allow us to have effective control of the border.” But the Senator is shooting in the dark. As will be shown below, neither DHS nor congress possesses any objective framework for evaluating its technology that could lend support to such a claim.

Measuring “security,” and other quagmires

Over the last decade the U.S. government has spent more than $100 billion on border security, and with an annual budget of $18 billion for immigration and border enforcement the U.S. is spending more on these efforts than all other federal law enforcement combined. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 would infuse an additional $6.5 billion to expand the technology, manpower and infrastructure available to the Border Patrol. This would include: 3,500 new agents; a “Southern Border Fencing Strategy” to include double-layer fencing, infrastructure, and technology; and sufficient drones to operate “24 hours per day and for 7 days per week” along the southwest border (though precisely where these drones would be deployed or prioritized along the 1,933-mile-long border remains unspecified).

Yet there is little reason to believe that this mix of agents, walls and UAVs will somehow achieve the capabilities that congress would mandate. Indeed, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in February 2013, “without documentation of the analysis justifying the specific types, quantities, and deployment locations of border surveillance technologies,” DHS itself has no idea how effective any of these technological components or enforcement practices are.

Since 2010, the department has refused to implement a metric that could evaluate its efforts and guide future procurement, decision-making or accountability. Yet this is not for lack of trying. Over the years the Border Patrol has tested or implemented — and subsequently abandoned — various measurement and evaluation schemes. In 2004 the agency issued its second-ever national strategy, which divided the border into five categories of “operational control” — ranging from the highest level, “controlled,” involving “continuous detection and interdiction resources at the immediate border with high probability of apprehension upon entry,” to “remote/low activity,” signifying that “information is lacking to develop a meaningful border control strategy because of inaccessibility or lack of resources.”

When, in 2010, the Border Patrol last reported on its progress using this metric, it stated that only 12% of the southwest border (and less than 2% of the northern border) met its criteria for the highest level of “operational control.” In response, border security hawks pounced, claiming that this figure showed that the Obama administration was unserious about its Homeland Security mission. The Border Patrol countered that those areas not under its full “control” were remote, difficult to access and far from population centers. Nonetheless, due to congressional pushback, the agency abandoned the “operational control” framework, in 2011 proposing instead a “Border Conditions Index” that would incorporate quality of life metrics such as levels of crime and property values in the border region. Within a year, this too was abandoned, replaced in the agency’s 2012-2016 National Strategic Plan with a “risk” and “threat” based approach to border security. Yet, as Tom Barry points out, the agency “gives no indication how it will rank or prioritize risks and threats. Instead, it merely describes the new bureaucratic apparatus that will make these risk assessments.”

The inability to develop or stick with an objective metric to evaluate its practices has been the cause of considerable consternation and criticism from congress, most significantly from Republican border security hawks like Michigan’s Candace Miller, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. Indeed, the invention of border security “triggers” is likely a response to these concerns, forcing a metric on the agency to which congress could then hold them accountable. Yet there is little reason to believe that such a metric would be anything other than arbitrary.

At present, the de facto framework guiding the agency’s strategic reporting and decision-making is structured around what the agency calls its “effectiveness rate.” By counting the number of apprehensions in a given sector and dividing this by the total of “turn backs” (individuals who entered the United States without authorization, but who crossed back to Mexico on their own) and “got aways” (unauthorized entrants who were detected by the Border Patrol but successfully entered the U.S. interior without apprehension), the agency makes a calculation of the percentage of unauthorized entrants they are able to apprehend. Yet, as discussed above, without having accomplished “persistent surveillance” of the border the agency can only, at best, speculate about how many individuals are actually crossing the border at any given time. As the February 2013 GAO report stated, the “effectiveness rate” metric merely “reports on program activity levels and not program results.”

In the Tucson Sector, the Border Patrol’s supposed accomplishment of an “87% effectiveness rate” has lent steam to proponents of the Senate plan, claiming that DHS is on the brink of achieving the 90% effectiveness rate that the bill would mandate (a mandate that, under a May 9^th amendment to the bill, would be extended to all southwest Border Patrol sectors). Yet, as the GAO stated in its February 2013 report, inconsistencies of classification, methodology, data collection and measurement capabilities between sectors render figures such as that reported by the Tucson Sector essentially meaningless. 

The Great Fiction of the Senate’s Immigration Proposal

The Border Patrol claim that the recent border-wide decline in apprehensions is an indication of the success of their enforcement strategy. There is reason to be skeptical of this claim. Research has consistently shown that the volume of unauthorized migration corresponds to the fluctuation of sending and receiving economies, and not at all to the intensity of enforcement efforts. Although the Border Patrol have conducted an unprecedented build-up of personnel, technology and infrastructure over the past ten years, one doesn’t see a dramatic decline in Border Patrol apprehensions until around 2007-2008, the exact same period as the economic downturn. With a gradual recovery has come a gradual increase in the number of undocumented crossings; apprehensions in 2012 went up about 10% (a trajectory that has since continued), and it is likely that the historically low numbers in 2011 will be seen as a nadir rather than the indicator of a broader trend.

Even more important, however, are the percentage of crossers who have strong ties to the United States. Many of these individuals are essentially forced migrants, on the border as a direct outcome the Obama administration’s unprecedented deportation effort (averaging around 400,000 individuals a year). A University of Arizona-Ford Foundation study released in April 2013 reported that 28% of those apprehended by the Border Patrol now consider the U.S. to be their permanent home. As such, DHS is literally producing much of the population of migrants they then claim are a threat to be guarded against. Because these individuals are presently absent from the United States, most will not qualify for relief under the current immigration proposal. And such individuals, separated from homes and loved ones, are likely to cross again no matter what the consequences or technologies deployed against them.

The desperation of people on the border is a direct consequence of an antiquated and punitive immigration system that is unable to accommodate peoples’ increasingly trans-national lives; that refuses to acknowledge the basic economic drivers of migration (including policies like NAFTA); and that then penalizes those whom this very system has uprooted. The Senate immigration proposal includes some positive measures that would address these shortcomings. Yet on the whole it not only entrenches a punitive immigration framework, but even eliminates multiple visa categories that facilitate family reunification, ensuring that even broader categories of individuals will, in the future, be classified as “undocumented.”

The Senate architects are merely asserting — without any objective analysis or basis for their claim — that DHS can accomplish the border security “triggers” that their immigration proposal would establish. By hinging legalization and a pathway to citizenship on accomplishing these arbitrary objectives, such reforms could be postponed indefinitely. This is the great fiction that has thus far largely been ignored in debates about the merits of the Senate bill. And advocates on the left ought to think more carefully and cautiously about what they are being promised.

Geoffrey Boyce is a PhD Candidate in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. He is also a long-time affiliate of the Tucson-based No More Deaths, and he writes and blogs on homeland security and immigration-related issues. He can be reached at gboyce@email.arizona.edu. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

I am not naïve. Embassies have been centers of intrigue, propaganda disseminators, bases for political intervention in a nation’s internal affairs, intermediaries for the promotion of markets and investments, etc., practices not confined to those representing the US, and hardly confined to recent times. That said, Benghazi (technically, a consulate), signifies, as so much else under the Obama Administration, a qualitative departure from the customary. Lines are becoming blurred in the table of organization–the State Department, CIA, Pentagon, White House–all, with some rubbing of elbows, have been pressed in the service of imperialism, less cohesive than POTUS would like, but sufficiently unified as to make US embassies active weapons, stalking horses, outposts (whichever you prefer) in establishing, solidifying, and focusing the power of America’s presence in a global geopolitical strategy of military-economic-ideological dominance, loathe, on Obama’s watch, to be relinquished as the world structure itself is in process of decentralizing. The US is engaged in a Sisyphean struggle as it slides from the post-World War II state of unilateral hegemonic, into a multipolar context of China’s ascendence, Third World emerging industrialization, and  postcolonial mass aspirations.

So much the need for Benghazis everywhere (along with the vast network of military bases) if America is to remain top dog, or at least think of itself that way–until its fantasies are overtaken by reality, at which time even the militarization of diplomacy can be expected to give way to naked displays of power as such. We’re almost there. There is something psychopathological about the current political debate on Benghazi, in which both major parties are squaring off against each other, as meanwhile neither one questions the desirability, profitability, and wisdom of imperialism, that which embassies are intended to serve. And designed to serve: the more unwanted the American presence in a country, the greater the concrete (as though giant bunkers), the greater the military protection, the hulk announcing and embodying US influence, right down to exempting private contractors (think Blackwater under its new corporate name) for crimes committed against the laws of the penetrated–in some cases, occupied–country. In the last three days, an article in the Washington Post (May 21) by Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung and the New York Times editorial (May 23) make clear that Benghazi is but a pawn not only in US domestic politics, but also in spreading America’s emphasis on paramilitary operations worldwide, beyond what other presidents contemplated, and at one with the program of armed drones for targeted assassination. Embassies are beachheads for more forward maneuvers, both political and military.

Benghazi was primarily a CIA installation, its “annex” given the cloak of diplomatic immunity. The Post article details the way David Petraeus, then DCIA, did everything possible to protect the Agency, such as drafting the so-called talking points used by Susan Rice (the present tempest-in-a-teapot fueling inter-party rage) while obfuscating its interventionist mission, while the Times editorial rightly pointed to CIA’s primacy within the consulate, in both cases, although the larger question is not addressed, nailing down that these facilities are often fronts for a range of covert activities. Politely put–given the role of operatives and mercenaries running loose, itself reason enough for the anger expressed by the crowds, which then turned to violence. That larger question, still an untouchable (just as drone assassination is untouchable), involves, not cost-benefit analysis, or what others may think of us, or even, the danger of setting precedents which might come home to haunt us, but the intrinsic morality of domination, in its manifold forms, military, economic, political, cultural, ideological, all of which are aided by the Benghazis numbering in the tens if not hundreds.

My Comment on the New York Times editorial, which deserves commendation for its implicit criticisms of the CIA, its presence there, its role in managing the news, follows:

“Reforms are under way,” states the editorial, except the one reform which merits frank discussion: Why these embassies in the first place, because, far from representing traditional diplomatic functions and concerns, they have proven to be the forward edge of US hegemonic intent, such as the massive hulk in Baghdad, or in this case, a CIA outpost? The locals know the score and deeply resent the armed fortresses spread globally, the claims of diplomatic immunity when personnel or the protectors (often private contractors, aka, mercenaries) violate the laws of the country when committing crimes, such as the clearing of intersections when passing through.

Embassies have become instruments of war and/or social control, and, not surprisingly, elicit hostile feelings and attacks. Renounce imperialistic policies, demonstrate good will, keep CIA and related forces out, and I doubt there would be attacks. Nothing is any longer normal, given the total politicization of the American presence in foreign lands.

Norman Pollack is the author of “The Populist Response to Industrial America” (Harvard) and “The Just Polity” (Illinois), Guggenheim Fellow, and professor of history emeritus, Michigan State University.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

It was humanity at its best. Showing compassion for the quick and the dead. The quick made news in Tbilisi, Georgia. The dead made news in Worcester, Massachusetts.

May 17, 2013, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, a mob of more than 10,000 people led by men of the cloth from the Georgian Orthodox Church, attacked 50 gay rights demonstrators marching in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia.  The rally had been moved to a public garden on Tbilisi’s Freedom Square after the crowd of 10,000 made it impossible for the rally to take place at the location that had originally been selected. The mob was inspired by Patriarch Illya II, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church who said the demonstration by the gay-rights activists should not take place.  In a statement issued May 15, 2013, two days before the demonstrations, he said that homosexuality is an “anomaly and disease”, the gay-pride rally would be “an insult” to Georgian tradition” and was a “violation of the rights of the majority” of Georgians. Inspired by the beloved prelate’s words, ultraconservative Orthodox believers, said they would disrupt the rally. They did.

The mob of more than 10,000 met the 50 activists bearing signs saying “no to mental genocide,” “Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia,” “Not in our city” and “No to gays.” Notwithstanding a heavy security presence the mob broke through police cordons and threw rocks and eggs at the 50 gay-rights activists forcing them to get into minibuses furnished by the police and flee the scene. Not wanting them to leave the scene unharmed, the mob tried to break the windows of the buses using rocks and trashcans. Eight or nine of the gay-rights activists were injured. One of the protestors who had travelled from a distant city to protest the gay-rights demonstration explained that the purpose of the mob’s actions was to “treat their [homosexual’s] illness.”  A well-thrown stone can, of course, completely cure an homosexual’s illness as well as any other inflictions from which the victim was suffering prior to being struck.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the question was not how to deal with an unpopular minority but how to deal with a corpse. The corpse belonged to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two infamous Boston marathon bombers. Few, if any, mourned his death. Nonetheless, once dead one would have thought the question of his burial would not consume much time or attention. That was the wrong thing to think. Although not matching the Georgians in intensity, those who belonged to the “no burial in my backyard” crowd gathered in front of the funeral home in Worcester, Massachusetts, to protest the presence of the corpse in their fair city and to make sure it did not find final repose there lest the city’s reputation be permanently stained. Protesters said the body should be cremated or thrown in the ocean,  presumably after the fashion of the tea that had been thrown in the ocean some years earlier. Even two cemeteries in Boston that specialize in Muslim burials were unwilling to permit this particular corpse use it as a final place of repose.

The funeral home where the corpse rested while awaiting final disposition is in Worcester and one of the protestors demonstrating in front of the funeral home explained why he opposed burying the corpse in Worcester. “It’s going to give this neighborhood a bad name. This guy doesn’t belong here.” It did not occur to him that he and other protestors were also giving the neighborhood a bad name. Another protester who objected to the fact that Peter Stefan, the director of the funeral home where the corpse lay, was trying to find a local cemetery to accept the corpse, had driven an hour to get to the protest. She carried a somewhat respectful sign saying “Shame on you Mr. Stefan.” Robert Healy, the Cambridge city manager said: “It is not in the best interest of ‘peace within the city’ to execute a cemetery deed.” Cambridge was Tamerlan’s home as well as the home of such esteemed institutions of higher education as Harvard and MIT. Its congressman, Edward Markey, now a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate said: “If the people of Massachusetts do not want that terrorist to be buried on our soil, then it should not be.” Such heroic statements do not mean the United States is like Georgia. It was not reported that any church leaders participated in the demonstrations in front of the funeral home or that they publicly came out objecting to Tamerlan’s burial nor was it reported that any church leaders objected to the protests.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald writes for Religion News Service. He devoted a column to the fact that Christian leaders in Boston had by and large been silent in the face of the controversy. Joel Anderle, the president of the Massachusetts Council of Churches said: “This is one of those curious areas where Christianity, and in particular Protestant Christianity, has come to believe that it doesn’t have a voice.” James Keenan, a moral theologian at Boston College observed that: “To say ‘we won’t bury him’ makes us barbaric. It takes away mercy, the trademark of Christians. … . . I’m talking about this because someone should.” He got that right. At least the clergy were not inciting the demonstrators. That is some, albeit small, consolation.

Christopher Brauchli can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

When I wrote that first opinion piece after my nephew Chase was killed in Iraq, I naively believed my words could make a difference, would prevent others from hearing the sentence of death, “We regret to inform you.”

Jeez, I’ve written more than 600 articles. And I’ve received many reader comments, both supportive and critical. Then there’s the OTHER category, hate mail. One among the venomous provided a friendly subject line greeting, “HELLO.” I opened this to read, “Fuck you, cunt.” There’s also Mark, mjsontag@yahoo.com, who wrote, “Thanks CUNT” (popular term of offense) with boasts that he’s “The 1 Percent,” I’m a “pathetic loser,” and that he drinks Dom Pérignon. In March, he wrote, “I hear Bradley Manning has AIDS!”

Another reader responded to one of my widow articles. His paragraph of stunningly executed hillbilly dialect was sexual and disturbing–really a visual of what he could do for me. I was visiting son H at the time. Showed him. With a little Google search of the man’s email, H discovered a website, photograph, and a bio. Wow, a watershed conservationist. H asked if he should handle this for me. I told him no. We ignored.

This week, while sorting through papers, I found feedback I’d printed, from Stephen, with the subject line: “Missy, look what you have done.” This was followed by:

You have robbed us of the benefit of dealing with the lesser of two evils. Your actions and the actions of all those like you have placed us in the hands of the greatest of two evils. The Democratic win has emboldened the Islamofascist terrorists.

Missy, that is the threat we face. The Islamofascists can destroy our economy. That is our threat, and you have put into power the party that will remove every obstacle between us and the terrorist’s ambitions to detonate a nuclear bomb in some strategic area that is certain to destroy our economy.

I lived in NYC then, and he referenced this in his reproach:

Think of that, Missy, You live in NY. Think Manhattan. Imagine one square mile of downtown New York vaporized. Missy, guess what?

That will destroy our economy. That will end freedom for all. That will negate our ‘liberties.’ That will render null and void our constitutional protections. I suggest that you rent a storage unit and fill it with rice, beans, cornmeal, and gasoline. Thanks to all your essays and the people you have affected by them, you just might need it.

This was cyber’d in late 2006, after the election and just before Democrats took control of the House in 2007–when there was a smidge of hope that Iraq war critic Nancy Pelosi, soon to be Madam Speaker, would use her influence to end war. Many thought she might possibly hold George Bush accountable even though she’d told The Washington Post that Democrats wouldn’t impeach Bush. But she’d teased a bit with “you never know where” investigations might lead.

Obviously, Stephen was unaware that the Democrats and Republicans are on the same blood sport team owned by multinational corporations. That they conspire to fund actions inspiring acts of hatred. And that it is now passé to speak of the lesser or greater of two evils, when it’s the system itself that’s depraved, has ruined the economy for the majority, has destroyed our rights with the establishment of a surveillance state. And that the crimes committed by Christo-fascists and Zionists against human beings in Muslim-majority countries have produced a cycle of violence and fear.

But Stephen also gave me credit that’s undeserved. My words have influenced few. Here’s recent proof from Tony, responding to my last article:

You don’t get it. No one is reading you. You’re [sic] words aren’t… look, I love you. Give your money away. Live as I do. Be broke.

You’ll love murder and rape and theft. You’re a rich white woman.

No one cares what you say. Stop being the problem.

I may have defended myself to Stephen. Don’t remember. I didn’t reply to Tony, and not because I am apart from the problem. There’s just something creepy about his message. I could have told him I admit my complicity. That I think about this, look for answers that include withholding taxes that fund war and donating that portion to peace and justice organizations (something I’m exploring as an act of conscience). BIG GREED however will continue to mortgage imperial carnage.

I also could tell Tony that since he sent his repudiation and advice from an Android, he’s part of the problem, too.

Missy Beattie can be reached at: missybeat@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

It seems that passing ineffectual resolutions isn’t the United Nation’s only forte. The recent suggestion by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to harvest and consume insects like bees, grasshoppers, ants and beetles, completely omits an undeniable human propensity for exploitation of the environment.

So what’s the problem? People are hungry, and they’re only insects, right? As strange as it may sound, insects play an important role in keeping the forest alive. They are predators and prey, pollinate plants, eat dead trees and creatures, maintain soil fertility and regulate the biodiversity of the forest.

In order for insects to serve as a mainstream food source, they’ll have to be harvested from natural forests.

But if there’s a noticeable dip in the number of insects in a particular forest, then the biodiversity will also take a hit.

Fast-forward to the Distant Future

Harvesting insects has burgeoned into a multibillion dollar industry. But cracks in the perfect scheme have surfaced. A few multinational corporations were accused of illegally harvesting billions of beetles. They’ve denied it all, and have walked away unscathed.

Meanwhile, the UN and other purported proponents have added some unheard of insect group to the endangered list. Fundraisers to raise money for this unheard of endangered insect group are being organized across the globe. But people would much rather tune into a new show on Animal Planet. It’s called Insect Wars. Of course, it’s closely modeled on the lines of the now defunct Whale Wars. Even the lead character in Insect Wars, calls himself as the modern Paul Watson of the jungle. Let’s stay tuned to Animal Planet and cross our fingers for the outcome of the unheard of insect group.

My tree-hugging, overactive imagination has run amuck. Or has it?

The timber logging companies have amply demonstrated their propensity to leave no trade agreement intact and no specie unharmed when it comes to self-enrichment. From the Peruvian Amazon rainforest to the tropical forests in the republic of Congo irreparable damage has been taking place through illegal logging.

Then there are the oily disasters of history to think about. BP’s Gulf oil spill dumped an estimated 2.5 million gallons of oil that poisoned 572 miles of shoreline, and terminated the lives of hundreds of birds and aquatic animals. The damage to the ecosystem is still ongoing, and the oil lords haven’t learned a thing.

Surely, it all began with the innocuous idea of a little drilling here, and a little extra harvesting the cedar there. Voila! The endangered list of species and forests keeps getting longer.

A Way Out

The UN is absolutely right in asserting that food security is a growing concern. Therefore tabling solutions makes sense. But the UN should think twice, maybe thrice before suggesting invasions into endangered lands, which may end up in the hands of dubious corporate giants.

There is always an alternative. The insect industry doesn’t have to thrive. Instead, the UN could advise people to focus on utilizing indigenous plants. Moreover, a comprehensive list should be compiled of edible plants in impoverished regions of the world. Then the research should determine whether those plants can safely serve human needs, while maintaining a harmonious balance in the ecosystem.

Adity Sharma is a writer living in New York.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.” Guess who said these memorable words?

In November 2007, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama uttered this now all-but-forgotten campaign promise. Since his first election and more-so in the wake of his second victory, President Obama has extended a welcoming hand to corporate lobbyists and influence peddlers to oversee and run the federal “regulatory” agencies that ostensibly protect the public interest.

The President recently nominated Tom Wheeler, a true industry insider, to head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Wheeler is a career water carrier for corporate interests, having previously served as head of the cable and the wireless associations and is now a venture capitalist. Along the way, he has been a longtime Obama fundraiser. He knows how to play the inside-the-Beltway game.

The fix is in. Wheeler is expected to continue the pro big-telecom policies of the current chairman, Julius Genachowski. He will likely move to end net neutrality, further industry consolidation, limit meaningful competition and increase user fees, among other policies. He can be expected to maintain the U.S.’s second-tier communications status. With his appointment, the big losers will be the over-charged and poorly served American public (especially in rural and smaller markets) and U.S. companies facing intensifying international competition.

* * *

Wheeler served as head of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) from 1979 and 1984, and ran the Cellular Telecom and Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 through 2004. He currently is a managing director at Core Capital Partners.

He has reported investment interests in some 78 companies, including Apple, AT&T, Cablevision, CBS, Clearwire, Comcast, Disney (which owns ABC), Google, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Wheeler promises to sell his stocks if confirmed.

As expected, AT&T, Comcast and the other giant telecom companies championed Wheeler’s nomination. He was their guy; he knows how to play the game. More troubling, Gigi Sohn, head of the “liberal” policy group, Public Knowledge, joined the chorus applauding Wheeler, rationalizing his past lobbying roles: “But his past positions should be seen in light of the times and in the context of his other important experiences and engagement with policy.” Those embracing an inside-the-Beltway mentality share a common perception that their respective “bread” is best buttered by a “liberal” corporatist regime.

Writing on his blog in 2009, Wheeler warned about the future of net neutrality. This is the governing policy that ensures that all data traveling over the Internet is equal, moving at the same speed. He raised doubt about data equality:

Rules that recognize the unique characteristics of a spectrum-based service and allow for reasonable network management would seem to be more important than the philosophical debate over whether there should be rules at all. …

The wireless industry’s initial reaction to net neutrality was to question its need and warn of “unintended consequences.” Accepting the inevitability of the concept, however, and working to maximize its positive effects — from appropriate network management, to flexible pricing and even new spectrum — could be the opportunity for a big win.

Say good-by to net neutrality and the equality of not only Internet data but, in a world of increasingly digitally-mediated communications, all Americans. Corporate interests demand a pay-to-play market and “regulators” do what they are told.

An interesting showdown over the confirmation may take place when Wheeler appears before Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WVA) Commerce Committee. He will surely be grilled over net neutrality, industry consolidation, the “f” word and limited nudity on ever-shrinking broadcast television. Likely unsaid, Rockefeller, along with 36 other senators, backed his former staffer and FCC commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, for the chairman’s position. Wheeler will likely be confirmed.

The revolving door at the core of regulatory capture is a two-way street. First, corporate lobbyists and influence peddlers ensure the private interests of specific industrial sectors through contributions of one or the other dominant political parties and by cozying up to agency employees with promises help grease the path to their future employment. Second, agencies craft rules that favor a specific sector.

Over the last few decades, there’s been an increasingly close relationship between the FCC and its corporate clients — to the detriment of the public. This was most graphically displayed in 2011 when Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, shortly following her approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal, took a well-paying position with the cable giant.

This phenomenon is evident in the career paths of the three most recent FCC chairmen. Kevin Martin, a Bush-II appointee, is now with Patton Boggs, a leading Washington, DC, law firm and lobbyist. Michael Powell, Gen. Powell’s son and appointed by Clinton, now heads the cable industry trade association, NCTA; this is Wheeler’s former position. And William Kennard, also appointed by Clinton, had previously been an executive with the banking firm, Carlyle Group, where he specialized telecommunications and media in investments; he now serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. One can only wonder where the departing chairman, Genachowski, will end up.

The revolving-door syndrome of corporate-FCC collusion is evident with still other agency functionaries. In 2002, Dorothy Attwood, former head of the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, took a position at SBC Communications as — don’t laugh – “senior vice president for federal regulatory strategy.” In 2008, Catherine Bohigian, a close associate of former-FCC chief Martin, signed on with Cablevision. Earlier this year, Edward Lazarus quit his post as the FCC Chairman’s Chief-of-Staff to become the Tribune’s executive vice president and general counsel. Open Secrets details the revolving door experiences of 158 former FCC employees. (It should be noted that former-Com. Michael Kopps is with Common Cause.) Regulatory capture is business as usual.

* * *

Concern over regulatory capture, in one form or another, is as old as the nation. Traditionally, capture was understood in starker, less whitewashed terms, as corruption or influence peddling. Scholars trace concern about it back to the Founding Fathers and James Madison’s famous 10th Federalist Papers.

In it, Madison warns about the influence of factions in “public councils” who pursed the interests of “a majority or a minority of the whole” can adversely affected “the public good,” “the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Madison and others warned that the people’s government could easily be taken over for private gain. Some scholars find capture at the root of Pres. Andrew Jackson’s battle over the 2nd Bank of America. Capture became a distinguishing feature of federal government policy and operations with the rise of the Progressives in the late 19th century.

Half-a-century ago leading government scholars, most notably Samuel Huntington and George Stigler, identified modern state-private corruption as regulatory capture, influence peddling within a system of crony capitalism. They and others point to the disastrous experience of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in the 1880s and how it was taken over by the powerful railroad interests, setting the stage for the birth of modern state-subsidized corporate capitalism.

Under postmodern capitalism, Americans — as citizens and consumers – are required to subsidize corporate gain as well as the private gluttony of the ruling class. As citizens, our taxes subsidize private capital in an increasing number of ways, including the rigged tax structure, government payments, right-offs and tax abatements. As consumers, we are over-charged at the cash register, are hit with exorbitant banking charges for loans and credit cards, and pay all-too-much for inferior telecom services.

The presidency, the Congress and the regulatory agencies — let alone state and local governments – are political marketplaces in which influence is bought and sold. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower identified one post-World War II manifestation of this phenomenon, the military-industrial-political complex. Most Americans know the game is rigged and they have almost no chance of influencing public policy or regulation.

Regulatory capture is most glaringly evident within the financial sector. Much influence peddling surrounded the 2010 Dodd-Frank law designed to police banks “too big to fail.” Similar cozy relations between a regulatory agency and the sector it oversees is business-as-usual at the SEC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, influence peddling operates within much more mundane aspects of state-corporate life. Randall Holcombe points out that in 2010 the sugar industry made about $5 million in political contributions and spent $7 million in lobbying. And the pay back? The Agriculture Department is expected to pay $862 million to cover government loans to sugar farmers who will likely default on some 400,000 tons of sugar.

The fix is in and little can be expected from Congress to contain – if not outlaw – influence peddling and the revolving-door syndrome. Efforts by progressive Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse should be supported. And for those wishing to raise their voices in opposition to Tom Wheeler’s likely appointment to head the FCC, check out the grassroots opposition within the public interest community and sign the petition opposing his nomination.

David Rosen writes the “Media Current” column for Filmmaker and regularly contributes to AlterNet, Huffington Post and the Brooklyn Rail. Check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com; he can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Iranâ„¢s Principlist presidential candidate Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf addresses people in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr, May 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The novel is generally acknowledged to be a bourgeois form of literature. It wasn’t until there were enough literate people with time for leisurely reading that this entertainment came along. The crime novel reflects the bourgeois obsession with order and usually represents the concerns of that class. There is a crime against an individual that shakes up bourgeois society. A detective from the police force or a private investigator hunts down the perpetrator through a series of clues, makes the arrest and all is well again. Agatha Christie’s novels are perfect examples of this. Then there are the tough guy novels featuring men like Mike Hammer. In this type of story, the protagonist easily forsakes the niceties of bourgeois society in his crime solving. Naturally, this alienates the police and the bourgeoisie, but he still gets the job done, captures (or kills) the criminal, and allows the middle class to get on with their lives. This representation is occasionally turned around and the protectors of order – the police and courts – are the criminals and by association so is the system they work for. This is noir. Noir does not pretend that the society their protagonists operate in is worth saving. It’s just the only one we have. This is where the novels of a few current writers exist, and where mine are intentionally placed.

Writing about Italian noir for World Literature Today critic Madison J. Davis noted :

The traditional mystery, deriving from Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and evolving through Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to contemporary practitioners like Carolyn G. Hart and Simon Brett, requires a certain faith in the legal system–or at least in a measure of justice parceled out to those who commit crimes. We live, however, in a skeptical world, in which even those who enjoy the puzzles and deductions of the traditional whodunit cannot see them as realistic. The events of the twentieth century have cracked, often splintered, our faith in the legal system and the triumph of justice, even in the good ole U. S. of A.

I would argue that the twenty-first century has brought us beyond even the skepticism Davis acknowledges. Indeed, skepticism seems almost quaint, when we read about hundreds of men being released from prison because they were jailed they for crimes they did not commit. Their incarceration was not due to a mistake, but a conscious decision by authorities to match a crime to the victim they chose. Every time news like this comes out, the credibility of the police as protectors of society diminishes. When working people see their friends and children going to prison for drug offenses while the wealthy usually avoid doing time, their perception of the legal system being rigged in favor of the wealthy and powerful is reinforced. Since the police are the most obvious representatives of that system (and the individuals most citizens encounter) they are no longer perceived as much more than enforcers of the rights of the wealthy and powerful. This perception, long held by those considered The Other in society, is now part of the common parlance. Indeed, television crime shows assume this in their portrayals of police departments and individual cops. Certain series, most notably David Simon’s depressingly exquisite take on the corruption rampant in an entire city’s political and legal system called The Wire, create a world where the incorruptible individual has no place.

This does not mean that the police don’t enjoy at least tacit support by a majority of the population; it does mean that the number of people who believe the police are not above criminality is much diminished from just a few decades ago. The abuse of power by police during the protests of the 1960s and onwards; the revelations of individual cops like New York’s Serpico regarding corruption and illegal arrests (among other things); the militarization of most police forces in cities and towns large and small; and the continued abrogation of civil liberties in the name of the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. All of these make the line between the police and the criminals they supposedly oppose very thin. Despite the multitude of cop shows on television attempting to present police as protectors of order and the innocent and even the presence of movies like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry series (which serve as propaganda for authoritarianism), many residents of modern society are convinced the police are not there for their sake.

Nor is the legal system. Occasionally a clever lawyer is able to keep an innocent person out of prison – in real life and in fiction. Indeed, certain authors have made a good living writing legal thrillers that feature these kinds of stories. More often than not, however, the police and the courts conspire to convict the person in the docket no matter what. It’s not that the conspiracy is intentional; it’s just how the system works. Police arrest a person for a crime and the courts do the rest. Without a good attorney – something very few can afford – the suspect’s options are very limited. If one adds a cop with a grudge, a judge with an agenda, or a politician with a law and order platform to the equation, that person in the docket does not stand a chance.

A few decades ago I was charged with “possession with the intent to sell” because I was sitting in an automobile when an acquaintance sold a small amount of marijuana to an undercover cop. This all went down not long after the state I was living in had passed a law that rendered the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure null and void. Anyone who was in the vicinity of anything having to do with illegal drugs was as culpable as the person actually involved with the drugs. So, since I was in the car when the drug deal occurred, I was also involved in the sale. When I showed up at court on the charge, I asked my public defender if I should challenge the charge and plead not guilty. His response was simple. If I challenged the charge I would not win. He advised me to take a plea deal and do community service. I took his advice. The law was not interested in justice, just in throwing people in jail.

Much anti-capitalist and antiwar activity is already labeled criminal in an imperial society. This in itself means that characters participating in activities that fall into this category are already suspect. Meanwhile, the forces of law and order trying to stifle such characters have a leeway not provided the citizen, no matter what he or she is involved in. The often violent reaction of the authorities to the Occupy Wall Street protests in Fall 2011 provides a recent example of this fact. A greater contradiction occurs when the forces of authority engage in criminal behavior in the pursuit of the forces aligned against the rulers the police are hired to protect. A further complication comes into play when criminal actions by the police are ignored or sanctioned while criminal acts by the targets of the authorities are not. In a line quite familiar to most rock and roll fans (especially those who listen to the Rolling Stones) that calls every cop a criminal, this contradiction is even clearer.

Back to that incorruptible individual. Most noir features a private investigator. Like the accused, he or she is an individual who lives on the edges of the law. In a world where the law itself can be unjust, only those not in debt to the system designed to bring justice can find that justice. Most often the investigator is one who works for hire with a set of morals that are immutable. In certain cases, like two of the novels in my 1970s trilogy, the investigators are regular folks determined to help a friend. Still, they are not without faults. Alcohol is often a vice these characters deal with. Most recently, in Thomas Pynchon’s foray into the genre with a book titled Inherent Vice, his private eye smokes a lot of marijuana. Early on, many of the so-called tough guys like Mike Hammer were sexist and racist. As the genre has evolved, so have the investigators. Like the society they operate in, today’s investigators include Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and women.

Today’s noir fiction is the story of a system and society in decline. Marxist Ernest Mandel published a book on crime fiction in 1986 titled Delightful Murder. In this book, Mandel looks at the genesis and development of crime fiction. We see the development of the criminal from a lone individual whose exploits shock and dismay, but whom heroic police agents can capture. As capitalism moves into its monopoly phase, the lone criminal remains a problem, yet the real problem developing is an entire class of criminals. These are what Marx labeled the lumpenproletariat: that part of society whose sole task is surviving no matter what it takes. Usually extremely poor, only occasionally employed in conventional jobs, and existing literally outside of society, the lumpen are the truly dangerous ones in the bourgeoisie’s midst. They provide respectable society with their entertainments such as illegal drugs and sex, but must be controlled at all cost. The investigator’s position in society is closer to that of the lumpen than to any other stratum. He or she understands the justice of the streets is often not the justice of the courtroom. Of course, this position outside of society means there is nothing to lose in fighting the wealthy and powerful.

Mandel published his book before capitalism’s latest phase was truly underway. That is, neoliberalism. This stage of monopoly capitalism is the nightmare that Rosa Luxembourg warned us about. Financiers who produce no product run the world. Instead of creating work, their actions profit from the destruction of jobs and the impoverishment of millions. They launder the millions made by international drug lords while financing politicians who want to build more prisons and lock up those who use the drugs. As far as the financiers are concerned, the working class itself is now a criminal class. Yet, we know better. It is the financiers and their class that are the true criminals. Still, they go free while workers go to jail for the crime of being poor. The conspiracy of the super rich is not an accident. They built the world that way.

Writers can choose to point this out or they can go along with the status quo. Good crime fiction on a neoliberal planet chooses the former. The task of those who write these tales is to point the finger at the true criminals. The police are only heroes when they bust the big guys. The system can only be just when it turns on its own. At this juncture in time, this only seems to happen in stories. Unfortunately.

This essay appears as a foreword to all three novels in Jacobs’ “Seventies Series.”(Fomite Press) It first appeared in the March 2013 CounterPunch magazine.

Ron Jacobs is the author of the just released novel All the Sinners, Saints. He is also the author of The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and Short Order Frame Up and The Co-Conspirator’s Tale. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His third novel All the Sinners Saints is a companion to the previous two and is due out in April 2013.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Activists in Moscow carry the portrait of a Russian child (shown) who died in the US due to the negligence of his adoptive American father in 2008. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Investors expect Russian stocks to bounce back slightly on Friday, with floors opening the day in the black.

Negative Flash PMI data from
China along with uncertainty about the US Federal Reserve’s
bond-buying program saw Russian stocks slump on Thursday: The MICEX
closed 3.56 percent lower at 1396.90 and the RTS fell 4.18 percent
to close at 1400.84.

Markets worldwide reacted sharply to negative news in China and
the US. Weak manufacturing data from China indicated that its
manufacturing sector may be contracting, meaning the world’s
second-largest economy may not be growing at as fast a pace as
predicted.

Japanese stocks suffered major losses on Tuesday: The Nikkei 225
saw its biggest one-day drop — 7.3 percent — since Japan was hit by
a devastating tsunami more than two years ago. Other major indices
in Asia fell as well, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shedding 2.5
percent and South Korea’s Kospi dropping 1.2 percent. Markets in
Australia, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore also fell.

European markets also posted sharp losses on Thursday. The Stoxx
Europe 600 index slumped 2.1 percent to 303.99, the FTSE 100
dropped 2.1 percent, Germany’s benchmark DAX 30 — which has been
posting all-time highs recently — lost 2.5 percent, and the French
CAC-40 slid 2.7 percent.

On Friday, the Ifo Institute will publish a report on the
business climate in Germany. Revised data will also be released on
Germany’s first-quarter economic growth and the Gfk consumer
climate index. Also, the UK will release industry data on mortgage
approvals, an important indicator of demand in the housing
market.

Major US indices rebounded during the day Thursday, but still
closed slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.08
percent to close at 15294.50, the S&P 500 slipped 0.29 percent
to close at 1650.52, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.11 percent
to close at 3459.42.

Concerns are mounting about whether the US Fed intends to pull
out of its $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program, which has been
largely responsible for the multi-year highs witnessed in global
markets in recent weeks.

Data released Thursday showed that the number of American who
filed for jobless claims last week dropped by 23,000 to 340,000,
slightly beating expectations. The US flash PMI index fell to 51.9
in May from 52.1 in April, its lowest reading since last October.
On Friday, the US will wrap up the week with an update on durable
goods orders, a key production indicator.

Asian stocks are seeing further losses on Friday after being
struck by unexpectedly weak Chinese manufacturing data and news
from the US Fed. Japan’s Nikkei is still vulnerable: After a
massive gain in the wake of yesterday’s session, it reversed later
in the day, falling 0.7 percent to 14,391.74. South Korea’s Kospi
rose 0.1 percent to 1,971.23, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.5
percent to 22,553.60 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.7
percent to 4,976. Benchmarks in the Philippines, Taiwan and New
Zealand also fell.

Oil is currently trading lower, with Brent down 0.09 percent to
$102.30 and WTI down 0.3 percent t0 $93.90.

This article originally appeared on: RT

File photo shows a border crossing between Turkey and Syria.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

May 22, 2013
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In an article published on May 15, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, “Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and Western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria.”

Those limitations are palpable in both language and action. A political and military vacuum created by past US failures and forced retreats after the Iraq war made it possible for countries like Russia to reemerge on the scene as an effective player.

It is most telling that over two years after the Syrian uprising-turned bloody civil war, the US continues to curb its involvementby indirectly assisting anti-Bashar al-Assad regime opposition forces, through its Arab allies and Turkey. Even its political discourse is indecisive and often times inconsistent.

Concurrently, Russia’s position remains unswerving and constantly advancing while the US is pushed into a corner, demonstrating an incapacity to react except for condemnations and mere statements. Much to the displeasure of its Arab allies.

Russia’s recent delivery of sophisticated anti-ship missiles and its own buildup of warships in the eastern Mediterranean is a case in point. The move was condemned by the Obama administration as one that is “ill-timed and very unfortunate”.

But this American attitude in the region is fairly new. Behind it stands a history bloody and filled with imprudent foreign policy. Regardless of how the US decides to move on Syria, the chances are that a return to its old dominant approach is no longer an option.

The current American political impotence in the Middle East is unprecedented, at least since the rapid disintegration of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union had ushered in the rise of a unipolar world, wholly managed by the United States. The rise of the uncontested American hegemony represented a shift in historical dialectics, where great powers found their match and the rest of the world, more or less, accommodated the ensuing competition.

Then, the US acted quickly to assert its dominance starting with hasty military adventures such as the invasion of Panama in 1989. A much more calculated move followed with a devastating war against Iraq in 1990-91. In Panama the objective was to remind the US’s southern neighbors that the region’s cop was still on duty and was capable of intervening at a moment’s notice to rearrange the entire political paradigm in any way that Washington deemed necessary – as this has been the case since the CIA-orchestrated coup and war in Guatemala in 1954 and even earlier.

The US’s massive military involvement in Iraq, however, was that of a conqueror who arrived with an entourage of many countries – regional and Western allies – to claim the spoils resulting from the end of the protracted Cold War. It was an arrogant show of force since the target was a single Arab country with humble military and economic means vs. major military powers from near and far.

The war devastated Iraq – its initial aerial bombing campaign alone involving the dropping of 88,500 tons of bombs. Many new weapons were used and tested, while the US media and public celebrated the prowess of their military. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died or were wounded as a result of one of the most asymmetrical wars in history.

Trying to capitalize on its military triumph, Washington quickly pushed for a political settlement between its closest ally, Israel, and Arab countries. The logic behind the Madrid Conference in 1991 was achieving pseudo peace that catered to Israel’s interests, while opening up the gate of normalization between Israel and its neighbors. Moreover, the US hoped to achieve some sort of “stability” that would allow it to manage the Middle East region and its ample resources in a less hostile environment.

Eventually, Israel managed to negotiate its own political deal with the Palestinians, thus dividing Arab ranks and ensuring that the “peace talks'” outcome was entirely consistent with Israel’s colonial ambitions.

As years passed, the US and Israeli political visions moved even closer, but with Washington eventually becoming a mere conduit to Israeli colonial objectives. This fact was underscored repeatedly under the George W Bush administration, which compounded US failure in the region with even more disastrous and dangerous wars.

A major fault in US foreign policy is that it is almost entirely reliant on military power – as in the ability to blow things up. The US war on Iraq which, in various forms, extended from 1990 to 2011, included a devastating blockade and ended with a brutal invasion.

This long war was as unscrupulous as it was violent. Aside from its overwhelming human toll, it was placed within a horrid political strategy aimed at exploiting the country’s existing sectarian and other fault lines, therefore triggering a civil war and sectarian hatred from which Iraq is unlikely to cover for many years.

But the limitations of US military power became quite obvious in later years. The empire was no longer able to bridge the divide between translating its dominance on the ground – itself increasingly challenged by local resistance groups – into a level of political progress required to achieve the minimum amount of “stability”.

Moreover, an economic recession, coupled with the Iraqi retreat and an equally costly debacle in Afghanistan – forced the new administration in Washington, under the leadership of President Barack Obama to rethink Bush’s earlier quest for global hegemony. Massive military cuts were soon to follow. Concurrently, the imbalance of global power was slowly, quietly but surely being equalized with the rise of China as a new possible contender.

In the midst of the US transition and policy rethink, an upheaval struck the Middle East. Its manifestations – revolutions, civil wars, regional mayhem and conflicts of all sorts – reverberated beyond the Middle East.

Shrinking and rising empires alike took notice. Fault lines were quickly determined and exploited. Players changed positions or jockeyed for advanced ones, as a new Great Game was about to begin. The so-called “Arab Spring” was rapidly becoming a game-changer in a region that seemed resistant to transformations of any kind.

The transformation of the Middle East – promising at times, very gory and bloody at others – arrived at a time when the US was making forced adjustments in its military priorities. Putting greater focus on the Pacific region and the South China Sea are such examples. Without much notice, it was forced to reengage with the Middle East, as a whole – not a country at a time. Only then, its weaknesses were seriously exposed and its lack of influence became palpable.

Bankrupt is maybe an appropriate term to use in describing the current US policy in the Middle East. Imprudent military adventures devastated the region but achieved no long-term objectives. Reckless policies that are predicated on trying to exploit, as opposed to understand the Middle East and its complex political and historical formation and the insistence on keeping Israel a main priority in its approach to the vastly shifting political lines, will unlikely to bode well for US interests.

However, unlike the early 1990s, when the US moved to reshape the entire region and established permanent military presence, new dynamics are forcing it to change tactics. In this new reality, the US is incapable of reshaping reality but merely trying to offset or control its unfavorable outcomes.

“What the United States (and western Europe) want to do is ‘control’ the situation,” Immanuel Wallerstein argued. “They will not be able to do it. Hence the screams of the ‘interventionists’ and the foot-dragging of the ‘prudent.’ It is a lose-lose for the west, while not being at the same time a ‘win’ for people in the Middle East.”

This “lose-lose” scenario might not necessarily translate to a complete American foreign policy meltdown in the near future, but will certainly open the possibility for new/old players to main serious gains, Russia being a lead example. This will likely compel the US to change tactics, despite the incessant objections of neoconservative forces and the Israeli lobby.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 22, 2013
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Fed up with the fact that she has to spend “a small fortune” in order to feed her family things she says “aren’t poisonous,” Tami Canal of Utah has organized a global movement against the giant chemical and seed corporation Monsanto. Monsanto is the conglomerate mastermind behind many of the pesticides and genetically engineered seeds that pervade farm fields around the world. Monsanto produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year; and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites.

Canal, who has a 17-month-old baby and a six-year-old girl, cites concerns over public health, adverse affects on the environment, and political corruption as her motivation to organize against the biotech giant. And her concern has resonated. Protesters around the world have responded to Canal’s call to action, and will amplify their dissatisfaction with the corporation in a “March Against Monsanto” on May 25.

“Not only are they threatening our children and ourselves as well, but also the environment,” Canal says. “The declining bee population has been linked to the pesticides that they use, and that’s just the start. I’ve been reading studies recently that butterflies are starting to disappear, and birds. It’s only a matter of time, it’s pretty much a domino effect.”

What started as one mother’s call to action on a Facebook page has become a movement with more than 400 demonstrations scheduled in 50 countries and 250 cities around the globe. The events are organized online via an open Google Document, where people can find the protest nearest them. The March Against Monsanto Facebook page has received more than 105,000 “likes.” It has reached more than 10,000,000 people in the last week according to its website, which averages over 40,000 visitors per day.

One of the short-term goals of the march, Canal says, is to spread immediate awareness about the offenses Monsanto commits. Another is to inspire people to vote with their dollars by boycotting Monsanto-owned companies that put unsafe products–like genetically modified organisms (GMO) and pesticide-ridden foods–on the market. The effort also advocates for labeling of genetically modified products so consumers can make informed decisions, and demands further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs.

Canal is particularly interested in drawing attention to what she calls dangerous products that are marketed to children. “Like Kellogg’s,” she says. “For example, Froot Loops is 100-percent genetically engineered, and that’s a children’s cereal. That’s irresponsible and unacceptable on so many levels.”

The ultimate goal of the march is a complete ban on Monsanto within the US. At least 60 countries worldwide, including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, South Australia, Russia, France, and Switzerland, have implemented outright bans of Monsanto and its genetic modification of food products.

“I don’t understand why the US isn’t on the forefront of that thinking,” says Canal. “[Monsanto] has a long history of crimes against humanity.”

Here are the five most disturbing reasons you should join the March Against Monsanto:

1. Profiteering poisonous chemical company posing as agribusiness.

Remember the horrors of Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, when the US military designed a chemical warfare program and used the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange to kill and maim 400,000 people (estimated by the Vietnam government), and ultimately cause birth defects for 500,000 children? Monsanto made that possible.

Monsanto began as a chemical company in 1901 and was responsible for some of the most damaging toxins in US history, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s), and dioxin. Consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW) released a report on APril 3 detailing Monsanto’s role in chemical disasters, Agent Orange, and the first genetically modified plant cell. The report shows that the “feed-the-world” agricultural and life sciences company Monsanto markets itself as today is only a recent development. The majority of Monsanto’s history is involved with heavy industrial chemical production, including the supply of Agent Orange to the US for Vietnam operations from 1962-’71.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
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Modern conservative Christianity is obsessed with marriage, relationships, and sexuality to the point where these concerns crowd pretty much everything else out. Much of their obsession is directed towards trying to get the government to force you to live by their rules, but they also spend a great deal of time offering advice on these issues to each other. Unfortunately, most of their advice is utter garbage that puts prudery, unfair expectations, and strict gender policing over actual advice that can make your life better. Here are ten examples of evangelical advice that show how far adrift the Christian right advice industry is from the real world:

1) Be a better housekeeper to prevent cheating. Recently, Pat Robertson addressed a question that haunts many a woman who has a husband with a wandering eye: How to get past his cheating? Robertson all but told women not to worry their pretty little heads about their husband’s infidelities, suggesting that male infidelity in nigh-inevitable. He did, however, make some suggestions on how to minimize the straying: “What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander.” On top of implying that clean floors and the smell of baking bread can prevent men from looking for strange women, Robertson asked women to sympathize with how hard it is for men, saying that they are “captured” by their sexual desires and it’s up to women to “get him free”. In general, Robertson takes the line that all problems in marriage are the fault of wives and never husbands. While most Christian advice-givers rarely go that far, most do adhere generally to the belief that keeping a marriage together is mostly a wife’s job.

2) Women need to submit to their husbands. Throughout fundamentalist Christianity, one piece of advice rings out above all others, which is that marriage only works if wives submit to their husbands. When speaking to outsiders, they often play it off like “submission” is just a bit of Biblical-language goofiness isn’t to be meant in the secular sense, but in practice “submit to your husbands” means exactly what it sounds like. Richard Strauss from Bible.org made it clear that women are to obey their husbands at all times, even when he’s being cruel. “Obedience is not to be practiced only when you feel like it, or when you wholeheartedly agree with your husband, or when he is treating you with Christ-like love, but in everything!” Michelle Duggar, right wing Christian icon and reality TV star, summarized some of the points of practicing wifely submission. She specifically singled out financial independence as something women should never have, saying, “Love is killed by self-sufficiency.” Sheryl Sandberg’s loving husband would be surprised to hear that!

3) How to make sex interesting in a Christian marriage. Conservative Christians are expected to abstain from sex until marriage, but for evangelicals, at least, as soon as you get married, you’re supposed to immediately drop years of prudish sexual avoidance and throw yourself completely into your intimate relationship. (Indeed, many proponents of wifely submission come down hard on women who are reluctant to have sex as often as their husbands want to.) In an attempt to overcome the obvious problems with these expectations, some Christians have created sex advice websites like Christian Nymphos, to get their readers in touch with those sexual desires they spent years repressing. Sadly, despite their best intentions, their advice is often the opposite of erotic. “Wake up each day, look in the mirror and ask Jesus to tell you what is beautiful about you,” they advise. Despite the winking permission to let yourself have some fun now that you’re married, Christian Nymphos can’t quite let go of the constant sex policing, either, particularly coming down hard on sexual fantasy, because it’s rarely “about a married couple enjoying each other exclusively, in a loving manner”.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
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If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t. Especially if it involves math, the Treasury Department, and two disparate political camps championing two different economic doctrines that came of age decades ago.

So went the telling of the deficit story last week. Most of the media bought the notion that somehow the deficit had magically halved to $682 billion from around $1.1 trillion last year, based on not even examining the Treasury Department’s own reports before promoting that gleeful and surreal conclusion.

When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that the deficit underwent some kind of Fastest Loser diet, Keynesian types were thrilled that their philosophy was validated. The magic number proved that government fiscal stimulus will ultimately boost the economy. (Leave aside that John Maynard Keynes was actually an asset manager and successful speculator.) Thus, budgetary cuts are not necessary.

Where there is truth to this (austerity never helped anyone but those not affected by it), ignoring the fact that certain federal fiscal stimulus plans were used as reasons to increase overall debt in the form of treasury securities that banks use as reserve to buoy the banking system–and thus the stock market–and not the general economy, does economics and more importantly, the country, a disservice.

On the other hand, the free-market types also considered this a triumph of their philosophy. By not overly regulating the market (score another one for watering down the already tepid Frank-Dodd Act), the economy is marching back to normal.

Again, this does their notion a disservice because a true free-marketer would be against the Federal Reserve propping up the treasury (and thus debt) market by buying lots of treasuries, and allowing banks to park more treasuries on their books to the tune of $1.5 trillion worth) and toxic assets (in the form of buying $85 billion of them from banks who had them rotting on their books allowing banks to free up space to speculate in other ways).

Those debates, in all their generalities, will continue on. Meanwhile, there’s the matter of what sparked the latest phase of debates over big vs. small (rather than Wall Street-coddling vs. population-stimulating). -the deficit figure, that number that measures what the government takes in vs. what it spends, and what it shows, is that neither bank stimulus nor populace stimulus has changed very much in the past three years.

First, a hat tip to Karl Denninger at Market Ticker for boldly going where much of the media seemed too complacent or clueless to go. According to Denninger, since September 28, 2012, “there has been a net $762.6 billion of new debt added to the federal balance sheet, not the $488 billion the Treasury Department claims.” In addition, Social Security and Medicare are almost $90 billion in the hole this year already.

He writes that Treasury’s own cash statement indicates that, “At the current run rate  over the four calendar months … the deficit on a cash basis this year is $1.188 trillion” compared to $1.210 trillion last year, which is about the same. If you include figures through the end of April, that same run rate produced a deficit of about $1.307 trillion.

I was truly puzzled by the new figure and more so by how much of the media and various Krugmanites tend to lump all fiscal stimulus into a population helping category, without noting that certain forms help the banking system more than the population. To be sure, stimuli like extended unemployment programs help families make ends meet while seeking better opportunities, but programs like HAMP barely make a dent in peoples’ foreclosure-related problems, while enabling banks to benefit from more aggregate support.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
 |

When 20-year-old Sarah Smith got into an accident with a motorcyclist in 2008, it was nothing but bad news–she was driving with a suspended license. It got worse. When police showed up, officer Adam Skweres took Smith aside and implied that he could either make it look like the accident was her fault or give the other party a ticket. It depended on whether she’d agree to perform unspecified sexual favors. Skweres also threatened that if she told anyone, he’d “make sure you never walk, talk, or speak again,” and looked at his gun. That scared her enough that she immediately reported what he’d done to the police, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Another four years passed before the department arrested Skweres and suspended him without pay, and then only because he tried to rape a woman while on duty. By that time, Smith had moved out of the city for fear of running into him again. Three other women told stories similar to Smith’s, and on March 11 Skewers pleaded guilty to bribery, indecent assault, and other charges.

Stories of cops propositioning, harassing, and sexually assaulting women turn up every week around the country. February 18 saw the arrest of Houston officer Victor Chris for allegedly telling two women he would tear up their traffic tickets in exchange for sexual favors, according to the Houston Chronicle. Police chargedSergio Alvarez, an officer from West Sacramento, California, on February 25 with allegedly kidnapping and raping six women while on duty. On March 1, Denver cop Hector Paez got eight years in prison for driving a woman he’d arrested to a secluded spot and forcing her to perform oral sex.

“Police sexual misconduct is common, and anyone who maintains it isn’t doesn’t get it,” says retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper, author of the book Breaking Rank.

Since no one is investing resources in learning how many victims are out there, we’re left with estimates and news accounts. As part of a 2008 study, former police officer Tim Maher, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, asked 20 police chiefs whether police sexual misconduct was a problem; 18 responded in the affirmative. The 13 chiefs willing to offer estimates thought an average of 19 percent of cops were involved–if correct, that translates to more than 150,000 police officers nationwide. An informal effort by the Cato Institute in 2010 to track the number of police sexual-misconduct cases just in news stories counted 618 complaints nationwide that year, 354 of which involved forcible nonconsensual sexual activity like sexual assault or sexual battery.

The news steadily filtering in from around the country has forced police leaders nationally to take notice. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women funded the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to develop a guide for police chiefs, issued in 2011, that encourages them to adopt specific policies in their departments to prevent police sexual misconduct. The DOJ funded the report after noting “recurring accusations of sexual offenses implicating law enforcement officers.”

Two years later, the IACP can’t tell whether its recommendations are making any difference.

No one keeps data on the number of victims of police sexual abuse, and the IACP says it can’t track the number of police departments that have adopted its recommendations. “We think there’s a good-faith effort by police departments out there to be more accountable,” says the IACP’s John Firman. But how would the IACP know, given that there’s no data on the number of victims or departments with such policies? Replies Firman, “Well, we could say the opposite–we don’t see a groundswell from people who are protesting their police departments for this kind of activity.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

Crossposted on Tikkun Daily

By David Harris-Gershon (@David_EHG)

From 1999-2010, the total U.S. prison population rose 18 percent, an increase largely reflected by the “drug war” and stringent sentencing guidelines, such as three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentences.

However, total private prison populations exploded fivefold during this same time period, with federal private prison populations rising by 784 percent (as seen in the chart below complied by The Sentencing Project):

This stark rise in private prison populations is partially due to increased contracts granted at the state and federal levels to behemoth prison companies such as Correction Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group. These companies claim – against available data – that they can run corrections facilities at lower costs.

However, whether such companies can save governments money is not the central issue. What’s at issue here is the corrupt, immoral dynamic that fuels such contracts: the concept of treating inmates as commodities that must be grown for profit.

Take, for example, the offer CCA made in 2012 to 48 states:

We’ll purchase and manage your jails, and in return you [the state] must promise to keep the jails at least 90 percent full.

Such contracts provide incentives for local law enforcement to increase incarceration rates, rather than decrease them. In some instances, private prisons are grown not because crime increases, but because police harvest criminals as though they are a crop that must be stocked on the local shelves.

Additionally, for-profit prison companies engage in intense lobbying efforts that have been tied to many of our nation’s most stringent sentencing guidelines, and lobby hard against the decriminalization of things such as marijuana.

The financial motive to engage in such lobbying was clearly detailed in CCA’s 2010 Annual Report (as prepared by The Sentencing Project):

Such financial incentives to stock corrections facilities naturally leads to widespread corruption. Evidence of such corruption surfaced when two Pennsylvania judges were found guilty of selling juveniles to private detention facilities for millions of dollars. The “kids for cash” scandal, in which innocent children who should not have been locked up were sold for set amounts to the detention facilities, is shocking and harrowing.

However, even more shocking and harrowing is the fact that we have allowed free market pursuits to infiltrate our system of justice, making such scandals possible. When prisoners become products, we no longer have a justice system. We have an illicit marketplace. We have a corral.

America has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. And the private prison industry is a central driving force behind this. Add to this the staggering number of African-Americans locked up, and the private prison industry has essentially created a modern-day slave trade.

A trade that should never have been allowed to enter our criminal justice system in the first place.

Follow David Harris-Gershon on Twitter @David_EHG

To read more pieces like this, sign up for Tikkun Daily’s free newsletter , sign up for Tikkun Magazine emails or visit us online. You can also like Tikkun on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
 |

Whenever one of our cities gets a star turn as host of some super-sparkly event, such as a national political gathering or the Super Bowl, its first move is to tidy up – by having the police sweep homeless people into jail, out of town, or under some rug.

But Houston’s tidy-uppers aren’t waiting for a world-class event to rationalize going after homeless down-and-outers. They’ve preemptively outlawed the “crime” of dumpster diving in the Texan city.

“I was just basically looking for something to eat,” he told the Houston Chronicle. But, unbeknownst to both this indigent tourist and the great majority of Houston’s generally generous citizens, an ordinance dating way back to 1942 says that “molesting garbage containers” is illegal. In March, James Kelly, a 44-year-old Navy veteran, was passing through Houston on his way to connect with family in California. Homeless, destitute, and hungry, he chose to check out the dining delicacies in a trash bin near City Hall. Spotted by police, Kelly was promptly charged with “disturbing the contents of a garbage can in the [central] business district.” Seriously.

Also, in 2012, city officials made it a crime for any group to hand out food to the needy in the downtown area without first getting a permit. It’s a cold use of legal authority to chase the homeless away to…well, anywhere else.

Such laws are part of an effort throughout the country to criminalize what some call “homeless behavior.” And, sure enough, when hungry, the behavioral tendency of a homeless human is to seek a bite of nourishment, often in such dining spots as dumpsters. The homeless behavior that Houston has outlawed, then, is eating.

The good news is that when Houstonians learned of Kelly’s situation, many reached out to help him get through his hard times. Now they need to reach out to local politicos and get the city to stop cracking down on this abuse of homeless people.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Russia issues a tsunami warning after a powerful earthquake measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale struck the Far East Sakhalin region.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Human rights activists seek to file a lawsuit against the use of dangerous weapons and hazardous gases by troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Press TV reports.

On May 21, Indian authorities critically injured 20-year-old Suhail Ahmed Khan after he was shot with pellet bullets. He is now fighting for his life at a Kashmir hospital.

Å“He was turning home when he was targeted by forces with the pellets. He is not out of danger yet. His spinal cord has severe damages,” said Parveena Khan, Suhailâ„¢s mother.

Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 65 years of hostility between India and Pakistan.

Å“We have seen injuries of too many people which resulted in their deaths also. So, weâ„¢ve decided to move the court of law against the use of these chemicals,” said Mirwaiz Umar Faroow, the chairman of the pro-independence Hurriyat Conference.

Å“We hope the honorable court of law will advise the government, will tell the government to stop using these chemicals which are hazardous and which are killing innocent people,” the activist added.

The Hurriyat Conference accused the Indian government of violating international law with the use of pellet guns and pepper spray in order to suppress anti-government protests in Kashmir.

Å“In the initial days it used to be only teargas guns but now… we have seen the use of chili pepper gas, the use of chili grenades and the use of pellet guns,” Faroow stated.

GMA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows tanker trucks waiting to be loaded at Taq Taq oil field in the Iraqi city of Erbil.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Principlist presidential candidate Ali Akbar Velayati addresses a conference at the University of Tehran, May 23, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This article originally appeared on: RT

A Venezuelan police helicopter has crashed outside the capital, Caracas. The file photo shows a Venezuelan military helicopter flying over Caracas.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari (L) meets with Uzbekistanâ„¢s President Islam Karimov. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

Part of a road bridge has collapsed into the Skagit River in the state of Washington, sending some cars into the water. No fatalities were reported, and it was not immediately clear why the bridge collapsed.

Three people were rescued from the water hospitalized, the
Seattle Times reported.

Rescue crews are searching for survivors in the water, the
Skagit Valley Herald reported. A driver who was on the bridge at
the moment of the collapse told the newspaper that he felt a
vibration, looked in his rear-view mirror, and saw that a section
of the bridge was no longer there.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Skagit County Sheriff’s
Office asked residents to avoid the area to make room for emergency
responders.

“Please try to stay off land and cell phones as the volume of
calls has overloaded the system and first responders are not able
to make needed calls due to line overload,” the statement
said.

Witnesses posted on Twitter images of the section of the bridge
that collapsed, including one of a person sitting on top of a
car.

The four-lane bridge is located on a rural stretch of Interstate
5, about halfway between Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver,
British Columbia. The bridge was built in 1955, according to the
website for the privately run National Bridge Inventory
Database.

Some US infrastructure is aging faster than its planned
maintenance, exposing serious technical problems. This is not the
first time in recent years that a road bridge in the US suddenly
collapsed, sending vehicles into rivers and causing
casualties.

In 2007, an eight-lane steel bridge on I-35 crossing the
Mississippi River near Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed during the
evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others.

This article originally appeared on: RT

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/after_oklahoma_disaster_give_thanks_to_government_20130523/

Posted on May 23, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

Germanyâ„¢s foreign intelligence agency says the Syrian army is capable of conducting successful operations against the foreign-backed militants Ëœat will,â„¢ a report says.

Gerhard Schindler, the head of Germanyâ„¢s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), told security officials that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is now more stable than it has been in a long time, German news website Spiegel Online reported on Wednesday.

The new assessment is a fundamental reversal from last summer, when the BND predicted that the Syrian government would collapse by early 2013.

According to the report, the German agency currently believes that the foreign-sponsored militant groups in Syria, which include several al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, are facing extreme difficulties in the battle.

Over the past few days, Syrian security forces have inflicted major losses on the militants in the strategic western city of Qusayr, which has been the scene of fierce clashes between the two sides.

On May 21, the senior commander of the terrorist group al-Nusra Front, Abu Omar, along with scores of other militants were killed in clashes with Syrian soldiers.

Schindler also told German security officials that different armed groups in Syria were fighting with each other to gain supremacy in certain regions.

There is no functional chain of command between the leaders of the foreign-backed Syrian opposition and its armed elements inside the country, the BND head stated, adding that each new battle weakens the militants further.

Schindler said the Syrian army could regain control of the entire south of the country by the end of 2013 if the conflict continues as it has over the past weeks.

According to the BND chief, the Syrian army has managed to cut supply lines for weapons and evacuation routes for wounded militants to neighboring countries.

Unrest has gripped Syria for over two years and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security personnel, have been killed in the turmoil.

President Assad said on Thursday, Å“Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis.”

MKA/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Firefighters in Sweden extinguish burning cars in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby after protests around the capital, May 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Although Obama has indicated that he is set to resume prisoner transfers from Guantanamo Bay, former detainee Moazzam Begg believes innocent people striking for their freedom will not stop unless they see some real action.

Begg, a British Pakistani citizen who was held at the prison at
Guantanamo Bay for almost three years following his arrest in
Pakistan in 2002. Though the Pentagon believed he was an enemy
combatant and a member of al-Qaeda, he was eventually released by
President Bush in 2005 without charge, and reached an undisclosed
financial settlement with the British government in November of
2010 along with several other former British inmates.

Obama’s Thursday speech included statements that the administration
is prepared to push forward the transfer of cleared detainees from
Guantanamo to their home countries. Though, as Begg tells RT, this
latest announcement is unlikely to dissuade the ongoing hunger
strikers at the prison, now comprising the majority of the inmate
population. Most importantly, the announcement will seem to ring
hollow considering the president’s initial campaign pledge to shut
down the detention center, which continues to operate into his
second term.

RT: So, based on Obama’s words today, does that mean that
the hunger strikers [in Guantanamo] were finally heard?

Moazzam Begg: They may have been heard, but I don’t think
he’s going to be doing anything anytime soon about it. What was
very interesting is that the heckler, Madea Benjamin from Code
Pink, I picked up some very important words that she said. The
first thing that she said was in relation to Shaker Aamer, the
British resident who is still being held there, she mentioned him
by name. And of course he’s been cleared for release, and is still
part of a hunger strike. He has British children, four of whom are
here in the UK, the youngest of whom he’s never seen.

The other thing that she said that was very noteworthy was she
mentioned Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, he’s the son of Anwar al-Awlaki
who was killed a month after in a drone strike in Yemen, and he was
at the age of 16 years old. Now Obama said that these drone strikes
are justified, it’s a just war, it’s legal, he said, all of these
things. But he never answered, never made any mention of this 16
year-old child who was ordered killed by a US drone strike, and I
don’t think he ever will. He seems to be very open to addressing
very tough issues, but this is one that I know he won’t be
answering any time soon.

But in relation to the Guantanamo prisoners, I don’t think
anybody is going to be singing the praises of Obama any time soon,
because he’s already made a promise four years ago that he would
close the place. One of the things the heckler, Madea Benjamin, was
saying was that if they had been cleared for release then why don’t
you release them now. Why not start the process that could well
take a year or more.

RT: But he did say he would be starting a process for
closure, also he said there’s no justification for Congress to
prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been
opened. And that received a round of applause, surely this is
something to be more positive about than you were, what, just a
week ago?

MB: Well, you know, in the words of Malcolm X you don’t
take a knife, stick it in his back 9 inches deep, pull it back five
inches and say “we’re making progress.” That’s precisely why they
were applauding him for something that he should have closed a long
time ago. Even Bush said that he was going to close down Guantanamo
Bay, and he wanted to close it. Obama said that he would do it, and
he broke that promise. At least Bush never made that promise.

RT: So will the hunger strikers carry on then?

MB: I’m fairly certain that they will, because they’re
not just – of course they’re primarily striking for their freedom,
for being held for so long without charge or trial – but they’re
also striking for being given these invasive cavity searches every
time their lawyer visits, and every time he leaves, for the
desecration of the Koran, for the strip searches, for the food and
all of these things that they’ve had to bear over the past eleven
years. And until they actually get to see the plane that is going
to be taking them home, and even then they’ll be skeptical, I don’t
think they’ll be stopping their protest any time soon.

RT: When you’re talking about the conditions and the
treatment they’re receiving, Obama clearly condemned the issue of
force-feeding those hunger strikers. So, do you not think that this
will influence their conditions now, and they will improve?

MB: I’d like to think so, but it’s as though was Obama
not aware of what was taking place in the world’s most notorious
prison, which he spoke about in the first two days of his
presidency? Saying that he was going to close it down? I mean he
knows, he’s stated very clearly that he doesn’t want America to be
remembered for Guantanamo, but it will be remembered for
Guantanamo, people will never forget Guantanamo the way they will
never forget Vietnam or the internment of the Japanese [in World
War II] or anything else in relation to this. But the hunger
strikes, if he really wanted to stop them he could do so clearly,
he can’t pretend that all of a sudden he just knows about it now,
and now he’s going to act. It’s something that should have happened
a long time ago.

RT: So if the prison is closed down, and the detainees
released, many are saying they’re still a threat to society. How do
you view that argument?

MB: Well it’s just a misnomer completely, that’s a
nonstarter. There are 613 former prisoners, I am one of them, who
were released. Now 613 that’s the overwhelming majority, because at
the highest point there were 779 prisoners, leaving behind 166.
Now, if he returns them, they will do what we did, which is try to
get on with their lives that they had destroyed.

RT: Just briefly then, well then why were you a
prisoner? The same question from many others, surely you must have
done something wrong?

MB: Well, no, that’s not true, we didn’t do anything
wrong and that’s now been proven true. Even the British government
has made huge payouts to former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who have
challenged them in court. We weren’t the criminals, they were
the criminals. The criminality was done against us, torture is
criminality, kidnapping is criminality, rendition is criminality.
All of these things were done to us, we didn’t do it to
anybody.

We were interrogated by the world’s most powerful intelligence
agencies, and after years of all of this they still had no charges
against us, and after years of all this the prisoners, the
overwhelming majority of them, have no charges against them. So
it’s not even worth discussing anymore.

This article originally appeared on: RT

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This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

To residents of Sharpsburg, North Carolina, Chief Wayne Hathaway was more than just a law enforcement officer. To the people of this small town 50 miles east of Raleigh, he was a friend who will not be forgotten, a man who served his community for 25 years, more than half of his life. On July 17, 1997, Chief Hathaway, age 47, was shot and killed while responding to a domestic dispute call, a “routine” call police officers know is one of their most dangerous regular encounters.

Hathaway had gone to the home of Abner and Gloria Nicholson to investigate and mediate the reported spousal altercation. As he walked inside the couple’s home to talk to the Nicholsons, Mr. Nicholson spun around, put a gun to the chief’s head, and pulled the trigger. Nicholson then shot and killed his wife, Gloria.

Death came just as violently and unexpectedly for 24-year-old rookie police officer Jeremy Charron in Epsom, New Hampshire. The young, spit-and-polish ex-Marine was just days away from buying his fiance’s engagement ring. But at about 5:00 a.m. on August 24, 1997, Officer Charron stopped for a routine check of a vehicle parked near a swimming hole. Two young men, Kevin Paul and Gordon Perry, were sleeping inside. According to Kevin Paul’s later testimony, Officer Charron tapped on Perry’s driver-side window. Paul said his “partner’’ handed over his license and registration, but then got out of the car, pulled a gun from behind his back and yelled, ‘’You picked on the wrong [expletive]’’ as he shot Charron several times. The duo then sped away, and a short time later were involved in a shootout with police after robbing a convenience store in Campton, 50 miles north of Epsom. The crime spree stunned New Hampshire, following by just six days another shooting rampage by a disgruntled property owner in Colebrook that left two state troopers, a judge, and a newspaper editor dead.

In Higginson, Arkansas, Officer Daniel Longstreet was sitting in his patrol car watching traffic when he was shot and killed on March 14, 1997. Officer Longstreet, age 39, who had served on the Searcy, Arkansas, Police Department before joining the Higginson Police Department in 1996, left behind a wife and three children. Longstreet’s murder came only 56 hours after the slaying of Officer Myron Kelly in Osceola, Arkansas. Kelly and his younger brother Eugene, also a police officer, were attempting to serve an arrest warrant on a suspect in a carjacking case, who turned out to be a paroled felon.

Hathaway, Charron, Longstreet, and Kelly were four of the 158 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 1997. As we write, 39 peace officers have thus far given their lives in 1998 “to protect and serve” their fellow citizens. The most recent casualty, Michael Marshall, was a member of the Omak Police Department in Omak, Washington. He was shot on March 25 by Duarte Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was wanted for failing to report to a corrections officer and failing to pay fines stemming from a 1995 conviction of child rape.

Of course, police casualties should not be counted only by the number of those who pay the supreme sacrifice. Also shot by Duarte Gonzalez was Marshall’s fellow Omak police officer, Don Eddy Jr., who survived but ended up with a bullet lodged next to his hip, which doctors say is too deep to remove. Every year, many officers are wounded, maimed, and injured in the line of duty. And as the above stories illustrate, one does not have to serve on a major metropolitan force to come under deadly fire. Criminals are highly mobile, and the social factors that favor violence – drugs, family breakdown, declining morality, popular culture, juvenile gangs – have penetrated rural and small-town America. Not that flying bullets are the only – or even the primary – threat to life and limb faced by the members of our thin blue line. Vehicular deaths and injuries take a similar toll. High-speed chases, assisting at auto accidents, and routine traffic work on busy thoroughfares expose police officers to danger from deadly collisions and reckless motorists.

Then there is the psychological toll: dealing with the loss of partners and fellow officers who are felled in the line of duty; the numbing daily exposure to death and mayhem on the streets; the unforgettable, tragic faces of victims and their surviving loved ones; continuously confronting a hopeless, revolving-door justice system that releases violent predators again and again; the fears, pressures, and work schedules that tear apart marriages and family life; the second-guessing by superiors, politicians, and reporters; the unrelenting attacks by anti-police activists; and the lack of appreciation and understanding by the public.

As the Gilbert and Sullivan character remarked in The Pirates of Penzance, “When constabulary duty’s to be done, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” Indeed, the policeman seems destined always to be caught betwixt and between opposing political and social forces and to bear the brunt of our society’s tortured ambivalence about law, order, justice, and authority. When it’s my safety, my life, my family, my property, or my business that is endangered, I want the police, and I want them here NOW! Not only that, but I expect them to be superhumanly patient, professional, efficient, competent, courteous, and cordial in their conduct with me, and preternaturally capable and ferociously swift, relentless, and retributive in their pursuit of, and conduct towards, the criminal. I want them to catch the bad guys immediately and make sure the miscreants never threaten or bother me again. BUT – if everything is going swimmingly with me and mine, the police are just another nuisance. That attitude, unfortunately, is all too common.

But, hey, cheer up, be happy. After all, things are getting better, aren’t they? Well, yes, relatively speaking, things do seem to be improving on many fronts that affect, and reflect on, law enforcement and criminal justice. Relative, that is, to the strained-to-the-breaking-point racial tension and the in-your-face confrontational anger that characterized police-community relations in many cities following the 1991 Rodney King trial and the Los Angeles riots. Relative also to the concomitant crack cocaine epidemic and incendiary gangsta rap-revolution of Ice-T (whose 1992 song “Cop Killer” set off boycotts against Time Warner) and Sister Souljah (whose 1992 inflammatory video “The Final Solution” was too hot even for MTV). And relative to the seemingly ever-upward crime spiral of the past few decades.

Tougher sentencing laws have been passed in many states. More jails and prisons are being built. Police forces are expanding, with more minorities being recruited. “Community policing,” “hot spot targeting,” and other policing strategies and reforms are being widely implemented. The economy is bustling and many indices have been showing drops in crime. Even New York City, once almost universally thought to be irretrievably headed into the abyss, has made an astonishing turnabout, posting huge drops in crime.

These and many other positive factors can be cited to paint a rosy – but false – picture of the true state of our disunion and to paper over a host of fundamental social ills and deadly trends that can be ignored only at a terrible cost. For if we fail to confront these ills and trends, we will not be able to expand our police forces fast enough or build jails and prisons large enough to prevent our society from descending into complete anarchy. But an equally grave concern is that if we confront these ills and trends wrongly, in our rush to avoid anarchy, we may find that we have transformed our once-free republic into a totalitarian police state.

Anarchy or totalitarianism. Are those our only options? So it would seem, listening to the raging policy debates between liberals and conservatives on crime, justice, the law, and police. The “conservative” position (admittedly oversimplified) usually is to hire more cops, build more jails, lock up more malefactors, and execute more criminals. The “liberal” position (again, oversimplified – but not much), on the other hand, usually casts the criminal as a victim of an unjust society and advocates solutions that attack the “root causes” of crime. The more-cops-and-jails position is obviously more popular, as shown by the plentitude of liberal politicians (President Clinton being most conspicuous) who have adopted it. And it is popular because it makes sense – in the short run. Society must be protected from criminal predators, but, as previously mentioned, not at the expense of degeneration into a police state. Liberals are right about the need to address “root causes.” Unfortunately, they always seem to misidentify them. Liberals see racism, sexism, police oppression and brutality, poverty, unemployment, and the inequitable distribution of wealth as the root of our crime and social decay dilemmas.

In reality, crime is the reflection of a spiritual-moral problem, a problem that is both individual and social. It involves conscious, voluntary decisions to do what is wrong instead of what is right. In dealing with this problem, the police have an indispensable but limited role and capability. They cannot address the true “root causes,” the social ills and trends responsible for the crime and social pathologies that threaten our continued existence as a free, self-governing society.

While the following list is far from exhaustive, it offers a more reasonable index of the root causes of our current crime woes, which are:

– The de-Christianization of society and the collapse of morality.

– The destruction of the family.

– The welfare state.

– Unchallenged usurpations of power by the federal government.

– The drug revolution and the equally dangerous “War on Drugs” response.

– The professional, anti-police lobby.

– The pernicious influence of the mass media and popular culture.

– The subversion of public education.

– Out-of-control illegal immigration.

Obviously, many of these social ills and dangerous trends are closely interrelated and intertwined, and greatly affect and play off each other.

Juan Donoso-Cortés, the Spanish philosopher, statesman, and writer, wisely observed: “There are only two possible forms of control: one internal and the other external; religious control and political control. They are of such a nature that when the religious barometer rises, the barometer of [external] control falls and likewise, when the religious barometer falls, the political barometer, that is political control and tyranny, rises. That is a law of humanity, a law of history.” If civilized man falls into disbelief and immorality, Cortés went on to remark, then “the way is prepared for some gigantic and colossal tyrant, universal and immense.”

The Founding Fathers understood well this indissoluble link between religion, morality, and liberty. George Washington said shortly after leaving the presidency, “Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.” John Adams commented in 1789: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

And in 1799, the Reverend Jedidiah Morse presciently observed: “To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of true freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism…. It follows, that all efforts made to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.”

The truth of these observations is self-evident: A moral people have strong internal controls and, thus, require less external control – i.e. less government. The more moral a people, the less they will lie, cheat, steal, kill, covet, etc., and the less they will come into conflict with one another. Subsequently, the less will be the need for laws, jails, and police. Yet, the militant “liberal” secularists are intent upon expunging every vestige of Christian influence from the public sphere. Prayer, the Holy Bible, the Ten Commandments, Christmas carols, Nativity displays, the Cross, and any mention of morality based upon Judeo-Christian belief have been evicted from the government schools, meeting halls, and almost entirely from “proper” public discourse. And we are paying for this anti-religious bigotry with phenomenally higher crime. (See sidebar.)

Unfortunately, conservatives have, to varying degrees, accepted – if not embraced – many of the underlying false premises of the liberal, welfare state, secularization programs. Most of their challenges to these destructive policies amount to ineffective tinkering around the margins. Much of the time their “solutions” are indistinguishable from those of the liberals.

Consider, for example, the federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. With forceful prodding from President Clinton, a massive media boost, and support from supposed conservatives in Congress and the law enforcement community, the 103rd Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The centerpiece of this new federal effort was Clinton’s much-hyped COPS program, with its promise of hiring 100,000 additional police officers to take back America’s streets from violent criminals. To this end, the law provides grants to help fund local police personnel for three years. Initially, the federal contribution covers 75 percent of the salary and benefit expenses of the new officers, with the local communities gradually paying more and more of the burden.

The Republican opposition to the program that has surfaced has centered on issues that have nothing to do with the most important, fundamental issues involved in the legislation. They have criticized the fact that the funding has not gone to the most needy high-crime cities, that the federal grants have been entangled in excessive regulations, that too few cities have participated, that local communities have been saddled with heavy taxes as a result of the matching funds schedule, etc. Yet, virtually none have challenged this legislation on its most vulnerable point – that it is a dangerous, unconstitutional usurpation of power. The federal government’s powers are delegated powers, those specifically granted by the states and the people in the Constitution. Nowhere is the federal government given any authority to involve itself in local law enforcement.

This is exactly the kind of thing President George Washington was warning against in his Farewell Address on September 17, 1796:

It is important … that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them.

“If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong,” President Washington continued, “let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”

Likewise, James Madison explained that “the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” In The Federalist, No. 45, Madison again wrote:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce…. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

In The Federalist, No. 47, Madison argued: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Were Washington, Madison, and the other Founders – many of whom were even more vociferous in their warnings against encroachments by the central government – “anti-government” extremists? Fortunately, no. Rather, they were hard-nosed realists and fervent partisans of liberty. And they made it abundantly clear, in their written and spoken words, that usurpation and encroachment were to be vigilantly guarded against. This is no less true in matters concerning education, agriculture, and medicine than in those regarding unemployment, housing, and child care. But especially would they have been aghast at the prospect of centralized police powers. In other words, even if the president, members of Congress, and the people decided it would be a good idea to have the federal government undertake some new program, it would be unconstitutional (i.e., illegal) for them to initiate that program if the powers to do so were not provided for in the Constitution. Moreover, every federal official who supported such a program would be guilty of violating his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. If the proposed federal program – and the powers that go with it – is truly wanted and needed, it only may be added through the legal, honest (and more laborious) process of constitutional amendment.

Tragically, we have been suffering from a non-stop chain of unchallenged usurpations by the federal executive, legislative, and judicial branches for decades. Federal judges have issued countless rulings that have unconstitutionally thrown out state laws, ordered jails and prisons emptied, crippled police work, mandated police hiring practices and standards, and in countless ways made society less safe and law enforcement more difficult and dangerous.

Study after study confirms what police officers on the beat have long known: Most violent crime is the handiwork of a relatively small class of habitual criminals who are released again and again to victimize society. It is the chronic offenders, the six percent of the criminal population, who are responsible for half of all arrests. According to The State of Violent Crime in America, a 1996 report of the Council on Crime in America, between 1988 and 1992, 20 percent of all criminals arrested for killing law enforcement officers were on parole or probation at the time of the offense. Benjamin J. Wattenberg notes in his 1995 book Values Matter Most that in 1993, 90 percent of the 200,000 felony convictions in the United States were plea-bargained.

Lawrence W. Sherman cites statistical evidence indicating that only one out of 56 persons arrested by law enforcement officers actually spends time in prison, and that most of those arrested are released within 12 hours.

After the decades of encroachments, usurpations, and social engineering experiments that have produced so much of our current societal disintegration and generated our ongoing crime wave, the federal planners are pushing for ever more control of law enforcement. In the past five years federal legislation has vastly expanded federal criminal law and federal law enforcement agencies. It was just such a course of action that led to the formation of the Gestapo, the infamous police apparatus of Nazi Germany.

In Germany, writes certified liberal historian William L. Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the

diets and governments of the separate states … were … abolished in the first year of the Nazi regime when the country was unified, and governors for the states, which were reduced to provinces, were appointed by Hitler. Local self-government, the only field in which the Germans had seemed to be making genuine progress toward democracy, was also wiped out. A series of laws decreed between 1933 and 1935 deprived the municipalities of their local autonomy, and brought them under the direct control of the Reich Minister of the Interior.

The next key step was to centralize the police. According to Shirer:

On June 16, 1936, for the first time in German history, a unified police was established for the whole of the Reich – previously the police had been organized separately by each of the states – and [Heinrich] Himmler was put in charge as Chief of the German Police. This was tantamount to putting the police in the hands of the S.S. [Schutzstaffel, or Blackshirts], which since its suppression of the Roehm ‘revolt’ in 1934 had been rapidly increasing its power. It had become not only the praetorian guard, not only the single armed branch of the party, not only the elite from whose ranks the future leaders of the new Germany were being chosen, but it now possessed the police power. The Third Reich, as is inevitable in the development of all totalitarian dictatorships, had become a police state.

The terrifying police power of Nazi Germany, or of the murderous Communist regimes of China, Russia, and Cuba, may seem far removed from America today. But if we ignore the warnings of our forebears and the lessons of history and continue on the path we are taking, the totalitarian nightmare will not be that far off.

Washington Post reporter Jim McGee, writing in August 1997 of the FBI’s vast new expansions of power, noted: “The bureau’s budget has soared, increasing 47 percent from $2.1 billion when [Louis] Freeh took over to $3 billion in the current fiscal year. Jurisdiction over new areas of federal law enforcement has been assigned to the FBI. The CIA has been integrated into the FBI’s operating system, the FBI is opening new foreign offices [and the] FBI has negotiated a de facto merger with the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

“Piece by piece,” McGee wrote, “the Clinton Administration and Congress are completing the full federalization of the nation’s criminal justice system. They are building something America has never had before: a robust national police system. The FBI stands at the center.”

“For many years,” McGee continued, “federal law enforcement police power was spread among several competing agencies. Now, important assets of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are being combined with those of the intelligence community and parts of the military – creating an integrated system whose powers of investigation, intelligence collection, and electronic surveillance will be unprecedented.” McGee quoted Army Colonel John J. Ellis, who serves as deputy section chief of the FBI’s huge new counterterrorism center, as saying, “The one federal agency I guarantee has one person in every community is, in almost every case, the bureau.” But is an omnipresent, national military-police-spy agency compatible with limited, constitutional government?

Still more foreboding is the fact that this vast, rapid expansion has been accompanied by a perilous politicization of the FBI and the Justice Department, making these powerful instruments the personal tools of the president. In an unprecedented, naked power grab that should have elicited thunderous opposition from Congress, the media, and the people, president Clinton, soon after taking office, fired every U.S. attorney in the country and FBI Director William Sessions. This has allowed him to get away with such scandals as FBI Filegate and IRSgate, in which his administration engaged in extraordinary and illegal attacks on political adversaries. “There’s a very dangerous, almost cavalier attitude toward civil liberties and personal freedom and privacy rights by this administration,” charges Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.). “I think it’s systemic,” says Barr, a former federal prosecutor, “unlike Watergate, which was personal.”

This is especially worrisome in light of the Clinton administration’s breathtakingly audacious agenda for convergence of the “new” FBI with the secret police apparatuses of so-called “former” communist countries. On July 4, 1994, FBI Director Freeh was in Moscow to sign a protocol for a “police-to-police bridge” between the FBI and the “former” KGB. Sergei Stepashin, chief of Russia’s Federal Counterintelligence Service (the successor organization to the KGB), declared jubilantly: “Together, we’re invincible.” Since then, Freeh has opened FBI offices in, and entered into “partnerships” with, dozens of other foreign countries. His FBI is now cooperating with the former communist police-state commissars in China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, (Soviet) Georgia, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, it appears that the FBI and the Clinton Justice Department are adopting more of the characteristics of these regimes, rather than the other way around. The Clinton administration has pushed for immense new federal wiretapping authority, warrantless searches, federal encryption keys to private computer communications, computer profiling of airline passengers, and many other surveillance and intrusion measures.

The kind of government a country has can be determined by the attitude the citizens have toward their police. In a free society the police are viewed as friends, while in a totalitarian society they are greatly feared. In the one case, the police are hired by their fellow citizens to help protect their rights from criminals; in the other, police are agents of the central government, and their purpose is to keep the dictators (official criminals) in power.

“The police officer in America has been the target of a huge pincer attack for many years,” says John F. McManus, president of the John Birch Society. “Local law enforcement has been caught between the twin forces of anarchy and despotism, between the street revolutionaries and common thugs on the one hand with their radical lawyer contingents, and the federal bureaucrats and politicians on the other who want to force or entice all of the local police departments into one centralized apparatus. That is why we launched our Support Your Local Police movement in the early 1960s. Back at that time, the police were coming under incredible attacks – physical attacks, charges of police brutality, being labeled as ‘pigs.’ The ‘thin blue line’ desperately needed the organized, vocal support of the vast majority of law-abiding citizens. And that’s what we tried to provide.” Through films, speakers, media resources, billboards, bumper stickers, and literature, the Society’s Support Your Local Police slogan became as well known as its “Get US out of the United Nations” rallying cry. “But the other half of our well-known police slogan was at least as important then, and is even more so now,” says McManus. “It states, ‘And Keep them Independent.’ Back at that time, we were warning our fellow citizens about the very real danger to local law enforcement from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), a federal agency that was rapidly federalizing local police departments nationwide. Thanks in large measure to the efforts of our Support Your Local Police program, the LEAA was eventually abolished. And Americans can be very happy about that. Unfortunately, there are a host of federal programs today that are aimed at accomplishing the same dangerous and unconstitutional objectives.”

Ironically, organizations like the John Birch Society which have a long history of strongly supporting the Constitution and legitimate law enforcement – be it local, state, or federal – are now being targeted as “anti-police” and “anti-government” by elements of the Clinton/Reno Justice Department. In publications, seminars, conferences, and other programs on “hate crimes” and “domestic terrorism” funded by and/or sponsored by federal agencies, the John Birch Society and other groups who espouse a principled, constitutionalist viewpoint, are being unfairly and maliciously linked to racist, fascist, and neo-Nazi and other extremist groups. “I think it’s interesting,” notes McManus, “that the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance publication entitled A Policymaker’s Guide to Hate Crimes is filled with acknowledgements to outfits like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and other groups and individuals with long histories of opposing local law enforcement and favoring big, socialist government. These groups and individuals have definite political agendas that involve poisoning local law enforcement against patriotic organizations that support the Constitution and the rule of law, while at the same time promoting the idea that a benevolent Big Brother in Washington should become more deeply involved in ‘helping’ them in their law enforcement duties. This is typical of more and more of the materials and programming we are seeing come out of Washington.”

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Unfortunately, the American people appear to be completely oblivious to these insidious, concerted attacks on the “thin blue line” that is an essential guarantor of their liberty. Now, more than ever, it is time to “Support Your Local Police and Keep Them Independent.”

Sidebar: A Change That Starts With the Heart

“Scientific studies show that religious practice reduces crime, curbs drug abuse, and lowers recidivism for prison inmates,” notes Robert L. Maginnis of the Family Research Council, in an important survey entitled Religion and Crime: Age-old Enemies. Writes Maginnis:

The liberal establishment attributes the upsurge in deviant behavior to unemployment, racism, poor housing, too little schooling, and a lack of self esteem. Proponents of this ‘victim’ philosophy have tried to reverse the crime wave by changing people from the ‘outside’ rather than from the ‘inside.’ After 30 years of social experiments there is still no data showing that less racism, better housing, or greater education makes a difference. Religion, however, changes people from the inside out. It goes below the surface to influence people’s beliefs and behavior.

But the liberal secularist jihad against religion continues. Making matters worse, the same liberal secularists have carried out a devastating campaign against the family, the bedrock of society and the source of training in religion and morals. A 1994 Justice Department study entitled Family Life, Delinquency, and Crime reported that the best hope for crime prevention is to be found (surprise!) in strong families and sound moral development. “Delinquency is more likely,” says the study, “when normative development is incomplete, and when children are unable to distinguish right from wrong, feel little or no obligation toward standards of behavior, and have little respect for the rights and welfare of others. Parents play a critical role in moral development.”

UCLA Professor James Q. Wilson, one of the most trenchant writers on crime and public policy, concurs. “Almost every account we have from psychologists of the moral development of the child emphasizes reinforcements and imitation,” says Wilson. “Children acquire rules of conduct by having compliance with those rules rewarded and violations punished and by observing and imitating the behavior of their parents and friends.”

But the liberalization of divorce laws over the past several decades is exacting a terrible price in moral decline, crime, and social disruption. “Since the passage of no-fault divorce,” says Phyllis Witcher, founder and president of Protecting Marriage, Inc., “every social pathology has predictably risen to a frightening level: crime, illegitimacy, female poverty, suicide, academic failure, economic decline, mental hospital admissions, foreclosures, etc. All have been established to have a strong causal link to something called Family Breakdown or what can be called the coded term for Divorce.”

Witcher is not the only expert to come to this conclusion. Over the past several years, study after study has shown the same alarming results. As John J. DiIulio, a professor of politics at Princeton University, wrote last year: “The research shows that children of divorce have an increased likelihood of dropping out of school; suffering depression and other mental and emotional problems; engaging in precocious sexuality; getting hooked on alcohol or drugs; procreating out of wedlock; slipping economically below the poverty line; committing suicide; and, last but not least, getting divorced.”

Equally sobering are the statistics on illegitimacy in America, where approximately 33 percent of all live births now take place outside of wedlock. In 1960, by comparison, illegitimate births totaled five percent. For blacks, the figure is now 70 percent nationally, and in excess of 80 percent in some inner cities. For whites, it is 25 percent. The research shows that problems for illegitimate children are even more severe than for children of divorce.

Professor Charles Murray states that present-day trends with regard to illegitimacy portend the emergence of a new, vast underclass, made up not only of members of various minority groups, but of whites as well. According to his research, a severe disruption of the societal structure becomes more evident when a population’s illegitimacy rate passes the 25 percent mark. That does not augur well for our future; it virtually guarantees an increasing population of fatherless youth, imbued with values imparted by television, government schools, gangs, and the purveyors of popular, pagan, nihilistic culture. But the liberal welfare programs which have produced, subsidized, and promoted this deadly trend continue unabated.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has found himself at the center of unwanted media attention after allegedly unleashing a profanity-laced tirade against the CEO of a large taxi fleet company over his opposition to the city’s “Taxi of Tomorrow” plan.

The altercation, which is said to have occurred last Thursday
during a basketball game at Madison Square Garden’s private 1879
Club, was ignited when Gene Freidman, the CEO of Taxi Club
Management, approached Bloomberg.

The encounter was only a day after a State Supreme Court judge
ruled that the mayor’s plan to replace New York City’s taxi fleet
with a Nissan-built Taxi of Tomorrow vehicle violated city code,
which requires a hybrid option. Nissan’s NV200, the vehicle that
won a competitive bid to become the so-called taxi of tomorrow, is
not a hybrid.

Freidman alleges that after he approached Bloomberg at the club,
the mayor, set to end his third and final term at the end of this
year, became visibly agitated, the New York Post reports.

“I saw Bloomberg and his security
there in the club, so I went over and said, ‘Tell me what is going
on with the Taxi of Tomorrow?’ He turns to me, and said, ‘Come
January 1st, when I am out of office, I am going to destroy your
fucking industry,’” said Freidman.

“I said, ‘Whoa, Mr. Mayor, calm
down! Why can’t I sit down with you and figure out something that
works?’ He got back in my face and said, ‘After January, I am going
to destroy all you fucking guys’,” added Freidman.

Bloomberg’s alleged comments appeared to be aimed at efforts by
Freidman’s company, as well as those by the Greater New York Taxi
Association and Committee for Taxi Safety, to thwart the
implementation of the uniform taxi cab scheme, which would require
their fleets to convert to Nissan’s bulbous, mini-van like vehicle,
which is specifically designed for easy handicapped access and
features a ‘lower-annoyance’ horn.

The project has been in the works for years at the mayor’s office.
Nissan’s design beat out both Ford’s entry and a more unusual
design by Turkish carmaker Karsan in May of 2011. The new cars were
set to roll out by the end of the year, and despite the recent
court ruling the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC)
remained convinced the program would go ahead as scheduled.

“This ruling will not delay the
ToT’s implementation,” said TLC Chairman David Yassky,
referring to the program.

In response to last week’s altercation with the mayor, Freidman,
whose company operates a fleet of 925 yellow cabs in New York City,
has filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg.

The suit, which was filed in a Manhattan federal court on
Wednesday, charges the mayor with threatening Freidman, and of
punishing his company by instructing TLC inspectors to hit it with
retaliatory fines totaling some $3.5 million.

According to the suit, TLC chairman Yassky had offered to expunge
the fines in exchange for the CEO’s cooperation with the Taxi of
Tomorrow plan.

“In other words, Yassky was
offering to exercise his discretion in a manner favorable to
Freidman in exchange for a benefit in the form of political support
for Taxi of Tomorrow,” the suit alleges.

In response to the suit, Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood
downplayed the claims.

“It’s not uncommon for disturbed
and angry people to file lawsuits against the Mayor and the City of
New York. This is another effort by Mr. Friedman to avoid hundreds
of thousands in fines for constantly cheating taxi drivers,”
said Wood.

On Wednesday, Mayor Bloomberg had sidestepped questions regarding
the Madison Square Garden altercation with Friedman.

“The only thing I remember from
that night was the [basketball] court. It was the court in the
middle of Madison Square Garden and the Knicks won,” said
Bloomberg.

“It was a great game … that’s all
I remember from that night,” he added.

This article originally appeared on: RT

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_mission_on_climate_change_20130523/

Posted on May 23, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

Through support for Israeli occupations and participation in American invasions of Muslim countries, Britain has ended up spawning tens or even hundreds of millions of “radicalized Muslims” across the world, British MP George Galloway told RT.

RT: You compared the Woolwich attackers to
UK-sponsored Syrian rebels – what do you mean?

George Galloway: This was a grotesque and sickening act
of murder involving either an attempt of successful beheading of
someone by fanatic extremists. This is the sort of thing that
happens in Syria every day, except sometimes they even cut out the
heart and the liver of the deceased and eat it on video for the
entertainment of their brothers in the barracks afterwards. And
Britain is helping to pay for that sickening barbarism in Syria.
But when it comes close to home, happens on our own streets by the
same kind of people, these people influenced by the al-Qaeda
mindset are exactly the same kind of people that we are paying for,
arming, giving all kinds of war material and agitating to give them
more in Syria.

So I simply ask David Cameron as I asked him before in
Parliament if he would adumbrate the key differences between the
hand-chopping throat-cutting fanatics that we saw in Woolwich
yesterday and the hand-chopping throat-cutting fanatics we are
giving money and weapons to in Syria.

RT: Do you honestly believe pulling British troops out
of Afghanistan would stop these attacks?

GG: Britain has been helping to radicalize these
extremist fanatics for a very long time with its support for Israel
and its crimes against the Palestinian people, with its
participation in US invasions and occupations of Muslim countries.
We have spawned across the world maybe tens, maybe hundreds of
millions of radicalized Muslims, fanaticized by the injustice and
the double-standards of Western policy towards the Muslim world.
And all I see is that in a kind of grotesque double whammy we’ve
now added to that by reprising our policy in the 1980s of actually
helping to build a Frankenstein monster in Syria. And the very same
raw material of radicalized fanaticized extremists is being used.
And It came back to hunt the United State, Spain and Britain and
many places after the Afghan experience, when we built the first
Frankenstein monster. And now we are doing it all over again in
Syria as we did a year or so ago in Libya.

RT: Couldn’t it be said that there’s something about
Islam that pushes people to do such extremist acts?

GG: No, I don’t accept that at all anymore than the
butchery of Franco the Spanish Fascist dictator had anything to do
with Jesus Christ even if the people doing the torturing and the
butchering were wearing the cross on their sleeves. George W. Bush
was a fanatic, born again Christian he said. But again that had
nothing to do with Jesus. So I don’t accept that at all.

What is the case, is that in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan
over this last decade and more, much more in the case of Palestine,
Western complicity, and murder and mayhem and misery in the Muslim
world have generated extremism and fanaticism.

RT: This appears to have been carried out by people
born, bought up and educated in the UK. That’s not coming from
abroad, is it?

GG: Well, they told you, didn’t they? They told you why
they committed that grotesque and sickening act yesterday. They
told you from their own mouths that they were doing it because of
the situation facing Muslims abroad. I see no reason to disbelieve
them.

The crime, the sin is that the young man who paid with his
blood, just like on 07/07, when more than 50 British people paid
with their lives and hundreds with their blood, maimed and wounded,
ruined forever, was that innocent people were being punished for
the crimes of guilty people. And that’s a crime in any language.
It’s a sin in any religion.

This article originally appeared on: RT

The magistrate who had requested a six-year prison sentence and a lifetime ban on holding public office for former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has received a series of anonymous threatening letters.

Milan’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday that Ilda Boccassini received the letters in recent weeks, including one with two bullets.

“In the last few weeks there has been a crescendo of anonymous letters containing serious threats against Boccassini, including one yesterday containing two bullets,” Bruti Liberati said in a statement.

On May 13, Boccassini requested the jail sentence and the public office ban on Berlusconi for allegedly paying for sex with a 17-year-old dancer and abusing his power to have the minor released from police custody.

Berlusconi has denied the charges. The verdict is expected to be announced on June 24.

The 76-year-old already faces a four-year prison sentence and five-year ban from public office for a tax fraud conviction. He is expected to appeal against the ruling to the nation’s highest Court of Cassation.

MN/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Canadians vent anger at govt. on Twitter

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

With a statistical three-way tie in the presidential popularity polls as we began to research this article, the drums have been beating once more for change in the electoral college system of selecting the U.S. chief executive, with even direct popular elections being touted. Ominous scenarios have been raised to show the imminence of a constitutional crisis. This constitutional crisis, incredibly, would supposedly occur were we to continue following the Constitution which, in the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, has for more than two centuries provided quite proficient means to handle elections.

Much of the dilemma has been caused by a general ignorance of history, as well as through willful deception by generations of demagogues who have misled the American people into thinking this is a “democracy,” which is exactly what the founders opposed. While modernists may consider them semantic tosses of a coin, the differences between a republic and a democracy were vital in the embryonic days of the Constitution – which was established as a system of restraints against what government could do – and should be even more compelling today. Indeed, it is because the United States was founded as a republic that an electoral college was created.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

James Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, described the decisions of representative, or republican, government – as opposed to democracy – as the required filtration before government action should take place. In The Federalist Papers, Madison ventured that “it may well be that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.” Elsewhere in those remarkable essays advocating ratification of the Constitution, Madison observed that pure “democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” It was because of the tendency for majorities to become tyrannical that Madison argued for separation of powers.

Thus it is, as has been noted by Clarence Manion, former dean of law at Notre Dame University, that the term “democracy” is not found in the text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, nor in any of the state constitutions. On the other hand, Article IV of the Constitution guarantees “to every state in this Union a republican form of government.” Harvard Professor Drew McCoy, in his 1989 biography of Madison entitled The Last of the Fathers, said that Madison “wanted to protect republican government as much as possible from the disruptive and unsettling effects of immediate popular influence – precisely because in America, as elsewhere, the large body of the people were not always or even ordinarily guided by enlightened reason.”

When William Paterson of New Jersey, at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, said that “the democratic spirit beats high,” that was intended to be derisive. So it was when Edmund Randolph of Virginia said he wanted “to restrain the fury of democracy.” The people were assuredly not the “voice of God” to Alexander Hamilton, who called them “that great beast.” Conservative Gouverneur Morris described them as a “reptile”; Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts asserted that “the evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy,” urging his colleagues to be “taught by experience the danger of the leveling spirit.” And George Washington urged the avoidance of “leveling principles.” In his retirement, the early and determined conservative John Adams reflected in writing: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

The rationale for electors was explained by Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, when he perceived that “the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choices. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation.”

It was because of distrust of the mobs that the founders established the electoral college and the election of senators by the state legislatures, the latter being banefully overturned by the 17th Amendment in 1913. (That was also the year that the income tax was introduced, as well as the Federal Reserve System, all of which greatly undermined the Republic.) It was because of fears of such evils as incipient democracy that, at the close of the convention, when Benjamin Franklin was asked what the delegates had produced, he answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

How to elect the president was a greatly vexing matter, and the electoral college was assuredly a compromise. That of course makes it no less consequential. It was virtually on a par with what became known as the “Great Compromise,” balancing the rights of states in the Senate and the rights of people in the House of Representatives in a federal system. Balance was critical. As Madison put it in The Federalist Papers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Equality wasn’t in the works. As former Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story explained in his classic 1859 work, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, the small states gave up equality of representation in the House of Representatives while the large states conceded to equality in the Senate. This principle was to hold in the selection of president as well.

The delegates needed to make sure that their states’ interests were represented in the proceedings. Yet the states were of widely divergent sizes, with Delaware having 37,000 people compared to 420,000 in Virginia. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia represented some 1,140,000 compared to 1,641,000 in the other ten states combined.

Choosing the Executive

Among the methods debated for selecting a chief executive were election by the national legislature, by the state legislatures, by the freedmen at large, by the people in districts, and by electors. A multiple executive was considered, as were tenure for life and one seven-year term. Eventually decided upon was the concept of a strong executive, but one who could be impeached by Congress.

Sixty ballots were needed just to decide the method for selecting a president. Finally, a committee was chosen with one representative of each state, and from this committee, with Pierce Butler of South Carolina authoring the basic design, the method of selecting the president was finalized. Distinguished historian Forrest McDonald, in Novus Ordo Seclorum, has ably described the features of the complex resolution:

It provided for both a president and a vice president; this feature satisfied those who had been concerned about the succession in the event of death or disability of the president. It provided that electors be appointed in such manner as the several legislatures should direct; that took care of the objections of those who feared popular election, for it meant that the legislatures could elect the electors if they chose to do so. Each state was allotted the number of electors equal to the combined number of senators and members of the House of Representatives to which it was entitled; this effected a compromise between proportional and equal allocation. The proposal provided that the electors meet in their respective states, which overcame the problem of distance of travel and also reduced the possibility of intrigue, and provided that they vote for two candidates, one of whom must be the resident of another state. The person receiving the most votes, if a majority, would become president, and the one with the second most votes would become vice-president.

Those provisions held in 1800, when the election resulted in an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr and required the House of Representatives to decide the outcome – and was indicative of the strengthening of political parties. The two were considered to be running on a ticket together; the deadlock resulted because one elector did not withhold a vote from Burr so he would finish second. It necessitated the 12th Amendment, which, among other changes, stipulated the separate voting by electors for president and vice president.

For a time during debate in 1787, the decision in the event of a lack of a majority was going to be settled by the Senate, but it was thought that such a provision put too much power with the Senate (it already passed on treaties, for example), so that possibility finally was placed in the House, closer to the people. (The Senate retains the authority to choose the vice president from the top two candidates, if the electors fail to produce a majority.)

When it looked as though the Senate would be the body for resolving the presidency, George Mason thought that after Washington served, the next 19 of 20 elections would be decided in the Senate. Mason was not alone in concluding that no man, save Washington, would be able to get a majority of the electoral college. The Convention believed that Congress, with each state voting as an equal, would normally decide who would be president. That eventuality (which only proved true twice – in 1801 and 1825) is what many commentators have been decrying as a possible constitutional crisis for the next election. What would happen, they moan, if a man who doesn’t get the most popular (or even electoral) votes were elected as president by the House? That is exactly the choice the Constitution intended. Otherwise, why would there be a specific provision to select the president from among the top three finishers?

Role of Electors Erodes

What the founders didn’t foresee was the growth of political parties that would take away voting discretion from electors. But just because political parties perverted part of the way the system was supposed to be run should not lead to the junking of the electors altogether. Moreover, the undemocratic nature of the Constitution still needs to be stressed, along with the founders’ warranted distaste for majoritarian rule.

Important matters, such as constitutional amendments, presidential vetoes, impeachments, treaties, and the limiting of debate in the legislatures were all established with super-majorities being required. The young were undemocratically excluded from voting (the age has since changed), as were foreigners, not to mention women and slaves, whose status has since been changed by amendment. As Lord Acton observed, “the views of pure democracy … were almost entirely unrepresented in that convention.” Professor M.E. Bradford is on target in commenting that, in one sense, the “fear of democracy and of the despotism that was likely to come after it is the ‘given’ of the Great Convention.”

After Washington was twice elected, however, partisan splits developed. Whereas the founders expected independent judgment from the electors, by 1796 the election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams effectively ended that. That year, as Roger Lea McBride has pointed out, in six states the electors were chosen by the people, and in ten states by the legislatures, but in every case the electors “were picked as men pledged to one candidate or the other.” Thus, as McBride shows in his valuable study, The American Electoral College, the electoral college died before it was mature, and after Washington’s election “the decision was made for them, and eventually no man was chosen for the job unless he were certain to conform to the dictates of the party.”

Also becoming prevalent was another means for the state parties to exert even more power: adoption of the unit rule, as opposed to splitting electors by districts. If all of a state’s electoral votes went to a general ticket, that state would be more powerful than one that divided its electors, so states began to drop the latter system. Gradually, also, the states began to choose their electors as a result of popular voting, not through state legislatures. For the 1824 election, which was won by John Quincy Adams after a vote of the House of Representatives, all but six of the states chose electors by popular vote; the next election, only South Carolina was a holdout (its state legislature continued to choose electors until the Civil War).

Also, by the 1824 election, over which Andrew Jackson’s supporters were to complain exceedingly, the states were rapidly adopting the general-ticket plan for their electors. By 1836, that system was in use in all states but South Carolina, with exceptions in Florida in 1868 and Colorado in 1876 (legislatures chose), and in Michigan in 1892, when there was a district system plus two electors at large. Currently, Maine and Nebraska have changed their allocation of electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in the district (plus at-large votes), not winner-take-all, with Florida on the verge of so doing, and bills having been introduced to that end in another seven states.

In actuality, these changes to district voting are moving back toward the direction from which the system was distorted, which is to the good. It is hard, however, to conceive of the people ever giving up what they see as their personal “right” to vote for president. Though the modes of recording the electors’ votes have changed several times, those votes are rarely independent. As long ago as 1859, Justice Story, in his Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, expressed dismay that their judgment was not utilized, saying the electors were “almost all universally pledged to support a particular candidate, before they receive their appointment; and they do little more than register the previous decrees, made by public and private meetings of the citizens of their own State.” Despite deviations, however, a faulty electoral system is far better than direct popular voting.

Today the proponents of a direct popular vote would have you believe that a crisis would occur should a president be chosen without the mandate of a majority of the voters. Disregarding the fact that more voters than not usually stay home, there have been minority presidents elected several times without catastrophe, sometimes because of multiple candidates, and sometimes not. In the early days of the Republic, the popular vote was impossible to measure, but minority presidents have included John Quincy Adams, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon. In addition, in the elections of 1824, 1876, and 1888, the winners of the popular voting (Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, and Grover Cleveland, respectively) did not win a majority of the electoral votes.

In the 1824 elections, in a four-way race, Andrew Jackson won the plurality of popular votes (153,544 to 108,740) over John Quincy Adams, who was next. Jackson also had 99 electoral votes to 84 for Adams, but not enough to win since an electoral majority is required. William Crawford had 41 votes and Henry Clay 37. Crawford, however, suffered a relapse from a stroke. Clay gave his support to Adams and the Massachusetts man was elected, with Clay becoming Secretary of State.

Cheating Democracy

One heard similar scenarios – until he dropped from the race – of Ross Perot being placed in the role of Clay (George Wallace was supposed to do the same in 1968). How, the timid asked, could justice be done if the peoples’ wishes were frustrated by having, say, Bush not elected because of a Perot deal with Clinton? Similarly, if Clinton were not to be elected? What if Perot were to get the most votes and did not become president?

The charges undoubtedly would be made that democracy had not been honored. So it was in 1824, when the events unfolded just as they had been prescribed in the Constitution. Historian James Truslow Adams, in The March of Democracy, states:

The Jacksonites’ claim that because their candidate had received the greatest number of Electoral votes the House should therefore have elected him so as not to thwart the will of the people was obviously absurd, and like the Clay-Adams story was merely used to stir up popular resentment and feeling. Had it been the intention of those who framed the Constitution that the House, in a contested election when no candidate received the majority of the votes in the Electoral College vote, was merely to vote for the one who had received the highest number, there would have been no sense in providing the machinery of an election by the House at all. The Constitution should have provided that the candidate receiving the highest number of Electoral votes would, without further proceedings, have become President.

One wonders: Had Perot stayed in the race, and had Clinton subsequently failed to get an electoral majority, would Clinton (as an heir to Jacksonian Democracy) simply have dropped out? Of course, should a presidential race fail to provide an electoral majority, the undemocratic Constitution allows for House selection from the top three finishers.

Fearing the Constitution

An unnatural veneration of democracy has made some fear the Constitution. Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who has offered what is by no means the most radical way around the Constitution (not elimination of the electoral college, but a popular runoff if necessary), says that in 1824 “the people’s will was flouted.” Can you imagine, he asks, “the consequences of such an outcome today? I tremble for the future of our country and its system of government when I consider the reaction of the American people if Congress, under the current 12th Amendment, chose someone for President who had not received the most votes.” But one need only recall the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, who did not even have electors favorable to him on ballots in nine of 33 states and whose opposition polled 66 percent of the popular vote. Presumably the people’s will was flouted then, also.

In 1876 another unusual election took place in an extremely close race between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Tilden was one short of a majority with 184 electoral votes, to 163 for Hayes, with a total of 22 votes contested in four states. Charges of fraud were leveled on all sides, and the four states submitted two sets of electoral votes, unable to choose which party had won. A congressional commission, which had a one-man Republican edge, determined along strictly party-line voting that all disputed electoral votes should go to Hayes, giving the Republican an electoral victory, 185 to 184. “The significance of the 1876 election,” observed historian Roger McBride, “concerns not so much the Electoral College as the extent to which the votes submitted to Congress as valid electoral votes may be counted or not counted at its discretion. Clearly, if Congress or any agency it designates (such as the electoral commission of 1876) has an absolute right to reject electoral votes, the power to elect really lies with it. On the other hand, if it has no such power, there can be no protection against fraudulent electoral votes from that score.”

Other opponents of the electoral-college system have pointed to the election of 1888, in which Grover Cleveland narrowly (by seven-tenths of one percent) won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote to Benjamin Harrison, 233 to 168. Professor Judith Best was quoted in a 1979 Senate report on direct popular elections as saying: “The republic’s only undisputed runner-up President, Benjamin Harrison, won because his opponent, Grover Cleveland, ran a sectional campaign. The electoral count system discriminates against candidates who rely too heavily on a sectional base. Consequently, it is the electoral count system that provides the presidential parties with the incentive ‘to widen and flatten out’ their vote.”

Having Congress name the president, especially in this year of congressional scandals, is considered proof of why our electoral system should be scrapped. A potential scenario was described in the New York Times earlier this year, where, say, Senator Bill Bradley (as a vice-presidential candidate) might be named acting president or even president, a role that presumably now might be filled by Al Gore. Or how Bush could wind up with a Democratic vice president. Or how Speaker of the House Foley or Secretary of State Baker might get the top job. Of course, such events would be unusual. But eventualities are provided for in the Constitution for the extraordinary. In fact, in addition to the Jefferson-Burr election, the Congress also selected a vice president in 1837, when Martin Van Buren’s running mate, Richard Johnson, failed to receive an electoral majority. Virginia’s electors withheld their votes, apparently because of Johnson’s relationship with a slave woman who bore him two children; Johnson was nonetheless chosen by the Senate 33 to 16.

As we researched this article, we were predicting that Ross Perot’s presumptive candidacy, viewed by some as the strongest since Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose effort, might well wither away. Certainly third-party efforts – even those with general broad support usually don’t have deep backing – are always at a disadvantage in a winner-take-all electoral system. But Perot’s effort has nonetheless changed the strategies of the Democrats and Republicans and could be cited as a reason to change the electoral-college system itself.

Woodrow Wilson, one recalls, was the beneficiary of Teddy Roosevelt’s efforts, and Wilson helped change the way Americans saw their country – to the detriment of constitutional government. George Stimpson, former president of the National Press Club, has noted: “It was Woodrow Wilson more than any other one person who popularized democracy in the sense of the republican form of government in the United States.” It was Wilson, well before he became president, who tipped his hand to how he saw the head of the executive branch: “A nation is led by a man … in whose ears the voice of the nation … sounds … like the united voices of a chorus, whose many meanings, spoken by melodious tongues, unite in his understanding in a single meaning and reveal to him a single vision, so that he can speak what no man else knows, the common wisdom of the common voice.”

A Plebiscitary Presidency

Was this the precursor for Perot’s seeming desire to run the country by an electronic town meeting? Columnist George Will makes this case:

The core principle of our republicanism is representation: The people do not decide things, they decide who will decide. Representatives are supposed to deliberate about the national interest, not just broker demands registered from various factions. But Perot’s idea of the plebiscitary presidency reflects Woodrow Wilson’s revolution against the Founders’ idea of deliberative democracy. [Sic – even Will, the ersatz Tory, misuses the terms.] The Perot phenomenon is a consequence of Wilson’s mystification of the presidency. Wilson’s theory of presidential government makes the president the indispensable catalyst of mass opinion. He defined the primary business of government as the massing of opinion by a strong leader.

Perot notwithstanding, we have already become a government of pollsters – who advise politicians on the wisdom of the masses, those very masses who flip over the wisdom of Geraldo. Alexander Hamilton would have made a lousy talk-show host with his belief: “The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however general this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.”

The major parties have become used to planning two-way races – where a vote taken from the opposition usually falls into your column – all of which changes in a three-way race. Sectional politics become more important. For instance, with Perot involved in the 1992 race the traditional Democratic black vote would have become even more important, since the white vote would most likely have been split three ways. One imagines this had a hand in the selection of Southerner Gore to go with Southerner Clinton. Things can change quickly in three-way races, with a late surge by one candidate and a rapid tailspin by another. Yet, there were certainly plausible scenarios whereby a strong showing by Perot (in, say, his home state of Texas or in California) could have denied either Clinton or Bush the needed 270-vote electoral majority, thus putting the election into the House. When Perot bowed out, he claimed that since his effort “would obviously put it in the House of Representatives and be disruptive to the country,” he preferred to quit.

Here is the scenario candidate Perot would have faced: Democrats currently hold the majorities in 31 state delegations in the House of Representatives; Republicans are the majority in 10; eight are split; and an avowed socialist represents Vermont. Considering that 24 states have a margin of but one or two votes, those numbers will undoubtedly change in the new Congress. Most authorities as well as Speaker Foley agree that the new body would be the one to cast ballots, one per state, were the election to go to the House. Deadlocked states would get no vote. Would there be wheeling and dealing? Of course. Recall, the founders created the electoral college, which had one job only and then would disband, to avoid undue influences and local corruption. Thank the parties for a potential turnaround.

Balloting in previous House elections for president (1801 and 1825) was secret, but that is being called unthinkable by many today. For instance, on national television, Speaker Tom Foley claimed: “It would be impossible for the American people to be shut out from the actual undertaking and balloting of the House of Representatives. It’d be outrageous.” The fact that members of Congress might escape party discipline in secret balloting might have something to do with it too, one would think. Ron Brown, chairman of the Democratic Party, said that he would have expected Democratic members of the House to support Clinton even had Perot won a plurality. According to Ed Rollins, late of the Perot camp, members of the latter’s campaign had planned to go “district by district” to congressional candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, seeking their pledge to vote for Perot had that district cast more ballots for him than for Bush or Clinton.

Speaker Thomas Foley, in response to questioning at the National Press Club, said serious consideration should be given to abolishing the 12th Amendment and going to the direct election of the president. Political consultant Mark Siegel, a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee, contends: “If the popular vote winner of the presidential election was denied the presidency, the world’s greatest democracy would be held up to mockery all over the world.” Siegel opts for no voting by conscience in the House of Representatives, should it come to that, with votes cast only on the basis of party or constituents.

Similarly, Senator David Pryor (D-Ark.) wants a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college and institute direct voting for president. He said in an article in the June 28 Washington Times that voters in, for example, California, who voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 were disenfranchised because their votes “didn’t count.” And he claims that in a direct election candidates would have to campaign everywhere because each popular vote would count equally. Does he mean that your vote is lost if your candidate loses? In that sense, all Dukakis voters were “disenfranchised” in 1988. The direct system of voting would merely transfer the “lost” vote of the supposedly disenfranchised voter from the state to the national level.

As for the “equal” votes in a national system, since there is a finite amount of time for campaigning, there can be little doubt that urban centers would become even more important for efficient vote-gathering and that sparsely populated states would likewise suffer – arguments dealt with in the compromises of the original Constitution tipping the balance in favor of the small.

Splintered System

With direct popular voting leading to presidents with pluralities, splinter parties would be easier to form, some with merely sectional or one-issue appeal, resulting in a multiparty system such as in Israel or Italy. Without runoffs, in a multiparty race won by a plurality, would not there be claims that the winner did not represent the country at large? With runoffs, the process could be tedious, and transfer of power disorderly. Worst of all: Federalism as a principle would be lost.

None of which stops demagogues from demagoguery. On ABC’s Good Morning America on June 19, political commentator Chris Matthews expressed anguish that we don’t have a democracy in this country, but instead something called a republic with an electoral college. He saw devious plotters laughing at the voters and chuckling at them, “We have pulled the wool over your eyes.” In a syndicated column the same week, Matthews tried scare tactics: “The Rodney King rioting would be a day at the beach compared to the uprising that would follow a verdict by ‘the system’ to veto the popular judgement of Nov. 3.” Matthews also asks: “What candidate not wearing a ski mask could take the oath of office after being rejected by the people?” You mean such as Harry Truman? Or Woodrow Wilson? Or Abraham Lincoln?

“Now! While we’ve got it on our mind,” foments Matthews, “when we can see the dangers of the current system, let’s amend the Constitution, dispel the Electoral College and give power to the people.” Matthews offers potential mob action as the reason we need more mobocracy, otherwise called pure democracy.

Less, Not More, Democracy

There can be no doubt the electoral college is not what it was supposed to be, with neither popular choosing of electors or a winner-take-all system in the Constitution in the first place. Moving from republican principles to democratic ones has put us in a bind, but more democracy would tie us in even more inextricable knots. Direct elections for president, which would hurt the relative power of small states, among other faults, is no answer. There can be a case made for district selection of electors, but that can be handled best at the state level, requiring no amendment to the Constitution – especially in these days when even having a form of republican government is not appreciated.

Our Constitution has been weakened, but it still provides a disciplined framework for us that has lasted through crisis after crisis during our history. When, in the midst of the latest spasm of frustration, haranguers grieve that the federal government doesn’t work fast enough and needs streamlining, that is the time to beware, for it was never intended to make the trains run on time. One thing is sure: The further we get from republican notions, the worse it will be for the United States.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

US President Barack Obama reiterated the same “empty promises” to close Guantanamo Bay prison camp during his speech Thursday, according to attorney David Remes. Remes, who represents 17 Gitmo detainees, told RT the speech gave Americans little insight.

Obama’s comments were the first of his second term regarding the
controversial counter-terrorism measures employed by the US,
primarily drone warfare and the indefinite detention of perceived
enemies at Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. While Remes hoped
Obama would outline a plan to close the detention center, the
experts later said any hopes of transparency from the president
were met with disappointment. 

RT: Is Obama’s speech and the news attention
surrounding it a result of the prisoners’ hunger strike at
Guantanamo Bay?

David Remes: I fear to say that it is. I also have
to say that the speech was a deep disappointment. We had been led
to expect, at least in the media, that President Obama would do
something constructive. All he offered, however, was the same empty
promises we’ve heard before. He continues to defend indefinite
detention, he is going to appoint an envoy who has no power to do
anything beyond what Obama allows him to do, and he keeps blaming
Congress for the problem when he has the authority to transfer men.
My fear is that people will conclude, from listening to this
speech, that there is forward motion, that the problem is solved,
Guantanamo is closed, and everybody can go on to other things.
That’s exactly what happened in 2009 and I’m very sorry there was
no forward movement here. 

RT: Are you convinced the prison camp’s closure
is imminent? 

DR: Not while President Obama takes this stance. The
news will say ‘Well, he lifted the ban on the transfer of Yemenis.’
That’s a nice gesture. I have to say it’s a gesture, though,
because as long as he blames Congress for not letting him transfer
anyone it doesn’t matter. He was the one who imposed the obstacle
in the first place. I just think this is an unfortunate speech
because it was give an illusion of progress where there is no
progress at all. 

RT: Isn’t the news that he’ll allow judicial
review a victory for the lawyers, though?

DR: Well, actually the detainees that I represent
and all of the other detainees have had the opportunity for
judicial review through habeas corpus actions. I think that he may
have been referring to the high value detainees that he’s been
putting on trial for direct attacks against the United States. He
wanted to try them in federal court but there was an uproar so he
moved them to military commissions. So what’s new about saying that
he wants to use the courts to try them? He’s already made that
effort and it failed, I just don’t see what’s new.

RT: One concern is that inmates will join terror
cells once they’re released. Are your clients really
harmless?

DR: It’s a fake argument. I was in Yemen just three
months ago, I met three of my clients who have been released. Two
of them work at a honey shop in downtown Taiz. They’ve married
since they came back, they’re building families and trying to out
their lives back together. The third client returned to his job as
an engineer as the state energy monopoly in Yemen. I think that’s
the typical story and I don’t think that the overwhelming majority
of detainees should continue to be held because of a fear of a few
who might go awry. You can’t take a zero risk approach to this,
even the Bush people said so.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Police in the Czech Republic are searching for a California man suspected of killing four members of a family in the southern city of Brno.

Police officials said on Thursday that the suspect, named as Kevin Dahlgren, may be armed and dangerous, Reuters reported.

“(The suspect) goes by the name Kevin Dahlgren on social networks, lives in California and speaks only English,” the police said in an online statement.

The bodies of the four victims, identified by neighbors as a married couple and their two sons, were discovered overnight after a blaze broke out in their home.

Police spokeswoman Petra Vedrova said the victims were a family but declined to give any further details.

The 20-year-old suspect is thought to have set the house on fire after killing the family.

Czech media report that Dahlgren was an English teacher who had only recently moved to Brno, 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital Prague.

MN/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Niklas Pollard and Philip O’Connor
Reuters
May 23, 2013

The scene of Sweden’s worst riots in years, Husby is on the surface at least a typically neat suburb of colorful playgrounds, manicured parks and low rise apartment buildings.

Conversations with residents of this immigrant neighborhood soon bring tales of fruitless job hunts, police harassment, racial taunts and a feeling of living at the margins that are at odds with Sweden’s reputation for openness and tolerance.

Riots that began in Husby have spread across Stockholm over the last four nights in scenes reminiscent of London in 2011 and Paris in 2005 — outbursts with their roots in segregation, neglect and poverty. The Swedish model of welfare — such as its 480 days of parental leave for each child — hides another side.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 5:06 pm

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

AFP
May 23, 2013

The first manned aircraft that can fly day and night powered only by solar energy set a new distance record Thursday when it landed after the second leg of a cross-country US tour.

The Solar Impulse project, founded and led by two Swiss pilots, aims to showcase what can be accomplished without fossil fuels, and has set its “ultimate goal” as an around-the-world flight in 2015.

Solar Impulse landed in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas at 1:08 am (0608 GMT) after an 18 hour and 21 minute flight from Phoenix, Arizona, a distance of 1,541 kilometers (950 miles), organizers said in a statement.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 5:15 pm

Tags: energy, science, technology

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

L.A. Times
Andrew Tangel
May 23, 2013

[…] Wall Street saw volatile trading on Wednesday following congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the release of minutes from the central bank’s recent meeting.

Both raised questions about how soon the Fed might begin slowing its stimulus programs, which have fueled this year’s stock rally. Even with Thursday’s sharp sell-off, the Dow is still up 16% for the year.

The Japanese stock plunge overshadowed upbeat U.S. economic data showing moderate job growth.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 5:12 pm

Tags: economics

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Michael Isikoff
NBC
May 23, 2013

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

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Jon Rappoport
Infowars.com
May 22, 2013

Just a coincidence. Nothing to see. Move along.

Remember the Benghazi attacks? Remember how the White House rewrote their talking points to scrub out mention of a terrorist attack?

Well, here are some new talking points.

Point one: Star CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Atkisson, has been discussing leaving CBS since April. She can’t get some of her Benghazi stories on the air. Atkisson was hot on the trail of figuring out who, at the White House, rewrote the Benghazi talking points.

Point two: One sure candidate at the White House? Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser and “mind-melding” speechwriter.

Point three: Who is Ben Rhodes’ brother? He is David Rhodes, who happens to be Sharyl Atkisson’s boss, the president of CBS News.

Point four: Read point three again.

Point five: Those White House Benghazi rewrites scrubbed prior mention of “terror attacks.”

Point six: Again, reporter Atkisson was hot on the trail of the White House fiction writers–which could have led to her boss’s brother.

Point seven: Again, Atkisson got into hot water at CBS for her Benghazi coverage.

Point eight: Again, the president of CBS News, her boss, is the brother of the man who helped organize the White House fiction writing on Benghazi.

The Daily Caller broke this story.

Point nine: Somebody has been fiddling with reporter Atkisson’s computers. Atkisson has been assembling evidence on the what and the who for several months.

You’re welcome, CBS. I just wanted to arrange all this information so you could release it in coherent form.

My question is: who at your network will do the rewrites on my talking points? I’d like to be in the room.

The September 2012 Benghazi attacks killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, embassy information officer Sean Smith, and embassy security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

The White House, in their talking-points rewrites, wanted to avoid calling this a planned terrorist attack. Why? Because investigating the terrorists opens the door to the matter of their funding and support.

That investigation, unimpeded, could lead to the fact that the US government has been recruiting, arming, and using thugs/terrorists/mercenaries from Libya to destabilize parts of Africa and the Middle East.

And then we would come to the possibility that some of those US recruits attacked the Benghazi embassy in 2012.

These talking points, of course, aren’t in the CBS or White House portfolio. They’re buried deep under the White House, under CIA buildings in Langley, and under CBS News headquarters at Black Rock in New York.

Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 4:58 pm

Tags: mainstream media

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Daisy Wyatt
The Independent
May 23, 2013

Nearly 5,000 ancient cave paintings have been discovered in Burgos, Mexico.

The red, white, black and yellow images depict humans hunting, fishing and gathering, as well as animals such as deer, lizards and centipedes.

The 4,926 paintings were discovered in 11 different sites and are thought to have been created by at least three groups of hunter gatherers.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 5:02 pm

Tags: science

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

May 23, 2013
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Four years ago, President Obama gave a seminal counterterrorism speech in front of the Constitution arguing we “uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe.” Today, amid controversies over his Administration’s killing of American citizens in drone strikes, efforts to break hunger strikes by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have long been cleared for transfer, and seizures of the call records of national security journalists, Obama tried to reclaim those cherished values in his fight against terror.

In a speech at the National Defense University, Obama tried to redefine that fight and at least rhetorically end the war. “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’”

In the speech, Obama proposed a number of policies that would return us closer to the values. He directed his aides to consider proposals–like a drone court or an additional Executive Branch review–to add oversight to targeted killing. He instructed Eric Holder to review Department of Justice guidelines “governing investigations that involve reporters” by July 12 (the only deadline in the speech). He even argued for the use of more foreign assistance rather than just military force in combating terrorism, though suggested people in both parties opposed such assistance.

Obama also promised to “engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing“ and threatened to veto any proposal that expanded this war. Obama has failed to make good on such veto threats in the past, and he made no mention of the Iraq AUMF, which remains in force two and a half years after the last troops were withdrawn from Iraq. So it remains to be seen whether his stated commitment to rework the AUMF will survive the political difficulties it has not in the past.

Obama’s most substantive proposals recommitted to closing Guantanamo Bay, a commitment that seemed to arise out of a focus on his own legacy. “[H]istory will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it,” he reflected. The President laid out the following plan:

I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system.

All of these proposals have been possible for the last four years (indeed, the State Department only got rid of its existing envoy to close Gitmo in January). Yet the constant concerns of the 102 Gitmo detainees hunger striking and a concern about legacy appears to have given Obama renewed urgency.

With this plan, Obama received applause from the audience.

The speech was weakest in its promise to reform the use of drones and other targeted killing. Obama announced he was sending new guidelines to Congress to govern “our use of force against terrorists” (while he was speaking about drones, he didn’t limit these guidelines to drones). His speech and the White House guidelines on it insists on a standard of “near-certainty” that the terrorist is present and that that no civilians will be killed” in the strike. That is an improvement off past practice, and those more rigorous standards may explain why there have been vastly fewer drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen this year (even while some of the strikes seem to violate Obama’s recommitment to capture targets whenever possible, rather than kill them).

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

President Barack Obama reacts as his speech is interrupted by CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme.

In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new — and secret — rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear guidelines, oversight and accountability’ for covert drone strikes.

Obama insisted that civilian deaths were sometimes a necessary risk.

Journalists briefed on the contents of the Presidential Policy Guidance reported that much-criticised attacks on groups of men based on their patterns of behaviour — so-called ‘signature strikes’ — may come to an end. And counter-terrorism officials indicated that control of covert drone strikes will progressively pass from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon.

According to the New York Times, the rules will also ’impose the same standard for strikes on foreign enemies now used only for American citizens deemed to be terrorists’.

Impassioned defence

Speaking for an hour in front of an invited audience at the National Defense University in Washington DC, Obama made an impassioned defence of the US targeted killing programme, insisting that it was both effective and legal.

He addressed head-on controversies surrounding civilian casualties. Acknowledging that there was a ‘wide gap’ between US and non-governmental assessments, he bluntly conceded that civilians have died in US strikes. Obama said that for himself and ‘those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live’.

He declared: ‘before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.’

But he also insisted that civilian deaths were sometimes a necessary risk. ‘As Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties — not just in our cities at home and facilities abroad, but also in the very places —like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu — where terrorists seek a foothold.’

Bureau estimates indicate that since 2002, at least 2,800 people have died in 420 covert drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Of those killed, more than 400 are likely to have been civilians.

Obama has so far carried out seven times more covert drone strikes than his predecessor, George W Bush. However, the number of reported strikes has declined steeply over the past year, along with reported civilian casualties.

‘Boots on the ground’

Insisting that his administration had ‘a strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists’, Obama said there were occasions when only lethal drone strikes would suffice.

At times ‘putting US boots on the ground may trigger a major international crisis’ and inflame local civilian populations, he said. Suspects may also ‘hide in caves and walled compounds’ in areas where there was little or no governance.

But he acknowledged that the use of drones was not without constitutional risk: ‘The very precision of drones strikes, and the necessary secrecy involved in such actions can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.’

President Obama announced that he would work with Congress towards greater oversight of the targeted killing campaign. And he said he would be seeking to ‘refine, and ultimately repeal’ the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001, which the US asserts is the legal bedrock for its covert drone campaign.

Unlocking Guantanamo

The president also used the speech to challenge Congress to aid him in closing the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, calling on members to end the ban on detainee transfers to prisons on the US mainland. ‘I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it,’ he said, adding that nobody had ever escaped a US supermax jail.

Obama announced the end of a moratorium on transferring detainees to Yemen: instead, transfers will be examined on a case-by-case basis. At least 84 current Guantanamo inmates are Yemeni.

The speech was repeatedly interrupted at one point by Code Pink protester Medea Benjamin. Obama was forced to pause and wait three times for Benjamin to finish comments including references to the death of Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son in a drone strike in Yemen. As Benjamin was escorted out, he recovered his poise — joking that he was being forced to depart from his script, but saying she raised ‘tough issues’.

Read Obama’s full prepared remarks here.

© 2013 Bureau of Investigative Journalism

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Monsanto is a company feared and reviled by the public in equal measure. But whatever cases Monsanto has lost in the court of public opinion it has made up for in the courts of justice thanks to its revolving door with the upper reaches of Washington. Now, a new movement is seeking to galvanize grassroots resistance to the corporation, and derail its agenda. This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Workers in protective suits and masks wait to enter the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Presidential candidate Mohammad Gharazi says that the normalization of relations with the United States is against Iranâ„¢s interests.

In response to a question on his plans for relations with other countries, Gharazi on Thursday ruled out the possibility of direct talks with Washington, but stressed that communication channel should be open.

He referred to former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeghâ„¢s talk with the US and said, Å“Sixty years ago Mosaddegh negotiated with Washington, but the US orchestrated a coup d™état against him and overthrew his government.”

Gharazi said also stated that with the exception of the US and the Israeli regime, Iran does not have hostile relations with the world, adding that the European countries have followed Washingtonâ„¢s stance towards Iran since 1980.

He also referred to his economic plans and reiterated that tackling inflation will be a top priority in his cabinet if he wins the June 14 election.

The presidential candidate went on to say that his administration will not spend more than its allocated annual budget, because higher liquidity will increase the inflation rate, and blamed the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the countryâ„¢s current economic conditions.

Late on Tuesday night, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry issued the list of hopefuls approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election.

The Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

IA/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A new ruling may finally push forward long-languishing civil lawsuits against a pair of former judges in Pennsylvania, who plaintiffs allege made millions by sending children to profit-making detention centers on minor charges.

On Tuesday, a federal judge combined several lawsuits filed
against the former judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T.
Conahan, into a unified class-action case in what has come to be
known as the “kids for cash” scandal.

The extensive list of plaintiffs – over 4,000 – were found to
involve a common enough set of facts and legal questions to combine
them into one suit, which means that after four years with little
progress plaintiffs may finally see their day in court.

The cases have been brought forward by hundreds of parents and
children who claim that they were victimized by the two former
judges as part of a kickback scheme. Ciavarella and Conahan pleaded
guilty in court to making $2.6 million in exchange for sending
juveniles to privately run detention centers, PA Child Care and
Western PA Child Care, between 2003 and 2008.

Ciavarella sentenced children to extended stays in private
juvenile detention for offenses as minimal as mocking a principal
via a social media website, trespassing into a vacant building and
shoplifting DVDs from Wal-mart.

According to Courthouse News, lead plaintiff Florence Wallace
alleges that her 14-year-old daughter was taken directly from
Ciavarella’s courtroom in shackles during a case involving threats
on MySpace, and sent to the PA Child Care camp.

Plaintiffs have also gone after attorney Robert Powell, former
co-owner of PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care, and Robert
Mericle, owner of a construction firm which built the children’s
prisons as part of another class action lawsuit. 

Parents involved in the suit claim that, on top of the wrongful
imprisonment of their children, their wages and Social Security
benefits were seized in order to pay for the privately run centers.
In one case, Edward Kenzakoski committed suicide following a jail
sentence handed out by Ciavarella, despite his first-time offender
status.

Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years behind bars following his
conviction on 12 counts, including racketeering, and is currently
being held at a minimum-medium security facility in Illinois.

Conahan was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years, a reduced sentence
resulting from his pleading guilty to one count of racketeering
conspiracy. He is being held at a facility in Florida and is
scheduled for release in 2026.

Amidst the unfolding number of cases, the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court authorized a rarely appointed “special master” to review, and
possibly expunge the detained children’s records.

Illustrating the number of juveniles involved in the vast
kickback scheme, some 2,421 children had adjudications dismissed by
the state Supreme Court by 2010.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Presidential candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref says the impact of illegal sanctions against Iran can be cut by interacting with other countries within the guidelines set by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

In a speech at Tehran University on Thursday, the reformist candidate said Iran can minimize the impact of sanctions by expanding brotherly ties with Islamic countries and by having Å“positive and constructive interaction with the world… though a strong diplomatic system and within the framework of general policies approved by the Leader.”

Aref also stated that the Westâ„¢s dispute with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program is politically motivated and that the West is well aware that Iran has had no diversion in its peaceful nuclear activities.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program and have used the unfounded accusation as a pretext to impose illegal sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Late on Tuesday night, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry issued the list of hopefuls approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

The Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

MKA/IA/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Presidential candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref says the impact of illegal sanctions against Iran can be cut by interacting with other countries within the guidelines set by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

In a speech at Tehran University on Thursday, the reformist candidate said Iran can minimize the impact of sanctions by expanding brotherly ties with Islamic countries and by having Å“positive and constructive interaction with the world… though a strong diplomatic system and within the framework of general policies approved by the Leader.”

Aref also stated that the Westâ„¢s dispute with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program is politically motivated and that the West is well aware that Iran has had no diversion in its peaceful nuclear activities.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program and have used the unfounded accusation as a pretext to impose illegal sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Late on Tuesday night, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry issued the list of hopefuls approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

The Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

MKA/IA/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

New Yorkers who use an accommodation business to rent apartment space to tourists are in violation of a city law protecting expensive hotels and, according to a recent court ruling, will be hit with major fines if they continue the practice.

Earlier this month Administrative Law Judge Clive Morrick ruled
that resident Nigel Warren was operating an improvised hotel out of
his apartment in the East Village section of Lower Manhattan.
Warren advertised his room as an alternative to the major hotel
chains that dominate Manhattan and the surrounding areas. Lawyers
for Airbnb, a fast-growing social network that acts as a listing
service for hosts like Warren and renters, became involved in the
trial on Warren’s behalf, to no avail. 

For his entrepreneurship New York City rewarded Warren with a
$7,000 fine, although the fee was eventually cut down to $2,400. A
2010 law makes it illegal for New York residents to rent out their
property for fewer than 29 days. 

The city has also levied crackdowns on similar start-ups hoping
to take advantage of the burgeoning sharing economy, among them
being Roomorama and RelayRides — essentially an Airbnb for car
sharing.  

Airbnb has argued that Warren and those like him are caught in
the crossfire of confusion stemming from the flawed law.

“This decision makes it even more critical that New York law
be clarified to make sure regular New Yorkers can occasionally rent
out their own rooms,” the company said in a statement this
week. “There is universal agreement that occasional hosts like
Nigel Warren were not the target of the 2010 law, but that
agreement provides little comfort to the handful of people, like
Nigel, who find themselves targeted by overzealous
officials.” 

Lawmakers have asserted that the services, which have seen their
growth stall since the new scrutiny, do not offer a clear plan of
action in the event of a problematic tenant and are not strict
enough on corrupted hosts.

“The real problem here is the devil-may-care attitude
companies like Airbnb take toward the legal consequences for their
users,” said New York state senator Liz Krueger, who sponsored
the 2010 legislation. “Whether it’s the laws like New York’s or
it’s the basic terms of use of a potential user’s co-op or condo,
Airbnb is recruiting private citizens into their business model
without sufficiently warning them that it may not be legal and
could even lose them their homes. That’s pathologically
irresponsible.” 

This news comes only weeks after New York City placed a
temporary restraining order on Uber, a popular app that alerts taxi
and limo services when a customer needs a ride. Even New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg praised the service, which swelled in popularity
among Silicon Valley workers commuting in California’s Bay Area.
The problem, unfortunately, is just the most recent in a city known
for its stifling bureaucracy. 

“Despite Bloomberg’s best efforts to redefine the city’s
image as a tech hub in tune with Silicon Valley-style innovation
culture,” wrote Wired’s Marcus Wohlsen, “it’s New York’s
fabled history of machine politics and protection rackets that come
to mind whenever the city’s latest sharing economy shutdown makes
the news.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

New Yorkers who use an accommodation business to rent apartment space to tourists are in violation of a city law protecting expensive hotels and, according to a recent court ruling, will be hit with major fines if they continue the practice.

Earlier this month Administrative Law Judge Clive Morrick ruled
that resident Nigel Warren was operating an improvised hotel out of
his apartment in the East Village section of Lower Manhattan.
Warren advertised his room as an alternative to the major hotel
chains that dominate Manhattan and the surrounding areas. Lawyers
for Airbnb, a fast-growing social network that acts as a listing
service for hosts like Warren and renters, became involved in the
trial on Warren’s behalf, to no avail. 

For his entrepreneurship New York City rewarded Warren with a
$7,000 fine, although the fee was eventually cut down to $2,400. A
2010 law makes it illegal for New York residents to rent out their
property for fewer than 29 days. 

The city has also levied crackdowns on similar start-ups hoping
to take advantage of the burgeoning sharing economy, among them
being Roomorama and RelayRides — essentially an Airbnb for car
sharing.  

Airbnb has argued that Warren and those like him are caught in
the crossfire of confusion stemming from the flawed law.

“This decision makes it even more critical that New York law
be clarified to make sure regular New Yorkers can occasionally rent
out their own rooms,” the company said in a statement this
week. “There is universal agreement that occasional hosts like
Nigel Warren were not the target of the 2010 law, but that
agreement provides little comfort to the handful of people, like
Nigel, who find themselves targeted by overzealous
officials.” 

Lawmakers have asserted that the services, which have seen their
growth stall since the new scrutiny, do not offer a clear plan of
action in the event of a problematic tenant and are not strict
enough on corrupted hosts.

“The real problem here is the devil-may-care attitude
companies like Airbnb take toward the legal consequences for their
users,” said New York state senator Liz Krueger, who sponsored
the 2010 legislation. “Whether it’s the laws like New York’s or
it’s the basic terms of use of a potential user’s co-op or condo,
Airbnb is recruiting private citizens into their business model
without sufficiently warning them that it may not be legal and
could even lose them their homes. That’s pathologically
irresponsible.” 

This news comes only weeks after New York City placed a
temporary restraining order on Uber, a popular app that alerts taxi
and limo services when a customer needs a ride. Even New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg praised the service, which swelled in popularity
among Silicon Valley workers commuting in California’s Bay Area.
The problem, unfortunately, is just the most recent in a city known
for its stifling bureaucracy. 

“Despite Bloomberg’s best efforts to redefine the city’s
image as a tech hub in tune with Silicon Valley-style innovation
culture,” wrote Wired’s Marcus Wohlsen, “it’s New York’s
fabled history of machine politics and protection rackets that come
to mind whenever the city’s latest sharing economy shutdown makes
the news.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

Presidential candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref says the impact of illegal sanctions against Iran can be cut by interacting with other countries within the guidelines set by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

In a speech at Tehran University on Thursday, the reformist candidate said Iran can minimize the impact of sanctions by expanding brotherly ties with Islamic countries and by having Å“positive and constructive interaction with the world… though a strong diplomatic system and within the framework of general policies approved by the Leader.”

Aref also stated that the Westâ„¢s dispute with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program is politically motivated and that the West is well aware that Iran has had no diversion in its peaceful nuclear activities.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program and have used the unfounded accusation as a pretext to impose illegal sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Late on Tuesday night, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry issued the list of hopefuls approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

The Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

MKA/IA/MHB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A little over a year after the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) ban on homosexuals in the military was officially dropped, the Department of Defense has admitted that it has a problem with sexual assault by male soldiers on other men. The Washington Times noted that, according to an anonymous survey conducted by the Defense Department among military personnel, more men than women are sexually abused in the military each year, with assaults overwhelmingly perpetrated by other men.

Results of the survey show that of the estimated 26,000 service members who were victims of sexual assault in 2012, roughly 14,000 of the victims were men, while some 12,000 were women, according to a scientific survey sample released by the Pentagon.

A 129 percent increase in sexual assaults among military personnel since 2004 has prompted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to launch a campaign to deal with “unwanted sexual contact,” among the troops. But the project has become more complicated by the fact that an inordinate number of the assaults are apparently being perpetrated by male homosexuals – close on the heels of their high-profile welcome into the ranks.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, noted that the number of formal reports of sexual assault in the military annually skyrocketed from 1,275 to 2,949 in just eight years, and the numbers of same-sex assaults appear to be one of the factors. Donnelly said that women are identified as the assailants in just two percent of all assaults, which means that almost all of the 14,000 or so men who have been assaulted sexually were targeted by other men. “It appears that the DoD has serious problems with male-on-male sexual assaults that men are not reporting and the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about,” Donnelly charged.

Donnelly, whose group took a lead role in the fight to keep DADT in place, charged that the DoD’s Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Office “continues to focus its attention on women who experience abuse but don’t report it, overlooking the far greater numbers of men who, according to the survey, are experiencing abuse but not reporting it. If the Pentagon considers the survey results a credible reflection of hidden reality, they must also concede that there are more men than women who are being sexually assaulted.”

Aaron Belkin of the Palm Center, which promotes homosexuality in the military, insisted to the Washington Times that “very few” of the perpetrators of male-on-male sexual assault are homosexual, claiming that the attacks are “somewhat similar to prison rape.” Donnelly called such a notion “outrageous,” telling World Net Daily that the increasing numbers of same-sex assaults has the military officials flummoxed. “The Department of Defense doesn’t quite know what to do with these figures,” she said, “and so they just sort of put them in there and hope nobody notices.”

Donnelly said it is crucial to monitor the numbers of sexual assaults to document how two significant changes in the military – welcoming homosexuals and allowing an increasing role of women in combat arenas – are negatively impacting military readiness. She said DoD officials appear to be in denial over the connection between these two issues and the increase in sexual assaults among military personnel.

As for addressing the increasing problem of sexual assaults against females, she told World Net Daily that “I think we have to start with the basics, and that means basic training. Back in 1998, unanimously, the Kassebaum-Baker Commission came out with recommendations to separate basic training for Army, Air Force, and Navy trainers, [to] do it like the Marines do. The Marines train basic training separately, male and female at Parris Island. That’s a good thing to do. It’s a good first start.”

More fundamentally, she added, the DoD must “stop pretending that sexuality does not matter. You cannot solve a problem by extending it into the combat arms. The big push is for women in combat – this argument that we have to have women in the infantry so they’ll be respected more and they won’t be assaulted.”

Donnelly pointed out that while respect for women in the military is at an all-time high, so are the sexual assaults against them. She said that the Pentagon and policymakers in Congress “need to assess where we are, what has happened in the last two decades, and they need to stop pretending that a lot of sensitivity training or highly paid consultants [are] going to make a difference in the sex problems we’re seeing right now.”

In a statement released by the Center for Military Readiness, Donnelly said that both male and female military personnel deserve “reality-based policies that combine recent lessons learned with classic principles that should be strengthened, not weakened. Congress must intervene before the administration’s incremental plans irreversibly extend unresolved social problems into fighting battalions that are key to mission accomplishment in the all-volunteer force.”

This article originally appeared on: The New American

US President Barack Obama has defended his administration’s use of drones as legal, effective, and just.

Å“We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war,” Obama said in a major policy speech at Washington’s National Defense University on Thursday.

Å“Our nation is still threatened by terrorists,” he pointed out, noting that “We must recognize however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11,” he said.

The US president claimed the strikes have been effective in targeting militants and have made the United States a safer country.

Obama outlined the legal guidelines surrounding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to wage war in distant lands.

Å“I donâ„¢t not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen…Nor should any president deploy armed drones over US soil. But when a US citizen goes abroad to wage war against American and is actively plotting to kill US citizens…his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team,” he said.

On Wednesday, US Attorney General Eric Holder admitted for the first time that four US citizens were murdered in assassination drone attacks conducted by the CIA in Pakistan and Yemen since 2011.

In a letter to Congressional leaders, Holder said that the US government had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

Å“The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was lawful, it was considered, and it was just,” Holder wrote, claiming that Anwar al-Awlaki was the inspiration for several plots against the United States.

The letter also said that the US had killed three other US citizens: Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike; Awlakiâ„¢s son Abdulrahman, who was also killed in Yemen in October 2011; and Jude Kenan Mohammad, who was reportedly killed in November of the same year in a strike in Pakistan.

In February 2013, a number of US lawmakers expressed concern about Obama’s use of assassination drones to kill US citizens overseas and the secrecy in legal justifications for the targeted killings.

“The same president who opposes the detention of foreign terrorists, who opposes the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on foreign terrorists, and who attempted to bring foreign terrorists to trial in New York City is now personally approving the killing of Americans,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte said.

The lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee also criticized Obama’s secrecy in laying out legal justifications for the attacks.

“To date, the administration has not even acknowledged that this program exists, let alone provided this committee with the information it requires to examine the legality of the program,” said Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan.

Washington uses assassination drones in several countries, claiming that they target Å“terrorists”. According to witnesses, however, the attacks have mostly led to massive civilian casualties.

Obama also touched on the issue of the US-run Guantanamo prison in Cuba.

He called the prison “a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law.”

During the speech, Obama was heckled over his failure to close the prison.

The Guantanamo detention facility was initially established on January 11, 2002 by former US President George W. Bush to hold suspects captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Obama famously promised in early 2009 to close the military’s detention facility within 12 months, but four years on, the controversial prison remains open. He has put the blame on Congress for his failure to make good on his promise.

MN/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

May 23, 2013
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During Obama’s speech on Thursday, CODEPINK’s co-founder Medea Benjamin stood up to the president, demanding the closure of the prison at Guantanamo and the end of his killer drone program.

Benjamin shouted, as she was escorted out of the news conference:

“Can you tell the Muslim people that their lives are as precious as our lives?Can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA? Can you stop the signature strikes that are killing people on the basis of suspicious activities? Will you apologize to the thousands of Muslims that you have killed? Will you compensate the innocent family victims? That will make us safer.”

After Benjamin was removed from the room, Obama said that he would go “off script,” and address Benjamin, saying,  “I’m willing to cut that young lady interrupting me some slack, because it’s worth being passionate about … The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.”

National CODEPINK coordinator Alli McCracken said, “We’re glad he acknowledged [CODEPINK], but we want him to walk the walk. He’s been talking the talk … saying he appreciates nuances of these issues and that they’re complex.” But in the end, she said, CODEPINK wants the president to take action.

McCracken said the organization had about 50 people protesting outside of the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., where Obama was speaking. Asked about the secret of getting Benjamin into these events, she said, “It’s CODEPINK magic.”

Below is a video clip from Huffngton Post‘s political reporter Ryan J. Reilly of Benjamin being escorted out of the room.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
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Four years ago, President Obama gave a seminal counterterrorism speech in front of the Constitution arguing we “uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe.” Today, amid controversies over his Administration’s killing of American citizens in drone strikes, efforts to break hunger strikes by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have long been cleared for transfer, and seizures of the call records of national security journalists, Obama tried to reclaim those cherished values in his fight against terror.

In a speech at the National Defense University, Obama tried to redefine that fight and at least rhetorically end the war. “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’”

In the speech, Obama proposed a number of policies that would return us closer to the values. He directed his aides to consider proposals–like a drone court or an additional Executive Branch review–to add oversight to targeted killing. He instructed Eric Holder to review Department of Justice guidelines “governing investigations that involve reporters” by July 12 (the only deadline in the speech). He even argued for the use of more foreign assistance rather than just military force in combating terrorism, though suggested people in both parties opposed such assistance.

Obama also promised to “engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing“ and threatened to veto any proposal that expanded this war. Obama has failed to make good on such veto threats in the past, and he made no mention of the Iraq AUMF, which remains in force two and a half years after the last troops were withdrawn from Iraq. So it remains to be seen whether his stated commitment to rework the AUMF will survive the political difficulties it has not in the past.

Obama’s most substantive proposals recommitted to closing Guantanamo Bay, a commitment that seemed to arise out of a focus on his own legacy. “[H]istory will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it,” he reflected. The President laid out the following plan:

I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system.

All of these proposals have been possible for the last four years (indeed, the State Department only got rid of its existing envoy to close Gitmo in January). Yet the constant concerns of the 102 Gitmo detainees hunger striking and a concern about legacy appears to have given Obama renewed urgency.

With this plan, Obama received applause from the audience.

The speech was weakest in its promise to reform the use of drones and other targeted killing. Obama announced he was sending new guidelines to Congress to govern “our use of force against terrorists” (while he was speaking about drones, he didn’t limit these guidelines to drones). His speech and the White House guidelines on it insists on a standard of “near-certainty” that the terrorist is present and that that no civilians will be killed” in the strike. That is an improvement off past practice, and those more rigorous standards may explain why there have been vastly fewer drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen this year (even while some of the strikes seem to violate Obama’s recommitment to capture targets whenever possible, rather than kill them).

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

Obama will discuss US foreign policy on Thursday, but critics of targeted killing, the ‘war on terror’ mindset, and other issues do not yet see the contours of significant enough change. (Photo: AP)In a highly anticipated speech today at the National Defense University, President Obama is expected to address the concept of the “perpetual war” on terrorism that has engaged the US military since 2001 when the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) was first passed by Congress.

In addition, Obama will lay out new policy guidelines for the CIA’s program of targeted killing, the US military’s use of unmanned drones, and the president’s new strategy surrounding efforts to close the offshore prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

As the New York Times reports Thursday:

Mr. Obama is expected to reject the notion of a perpetual war with terrorists, envisioning a day when Al Qaeda has been so incapacitated that wartime authority will end. However, because he is also institutionalizing procedures for drone strikes, it does not appear that he thinks that day has come. A Pentagon official suggested last week that the current conflict could continue for 10 to 20 years.

Yet even as he moves the counterterrorism effort to a next stage, Mr. Obama plans to offer a robust defense of a continued role for targeted killings, a policy he has generally addressed only in passing or in interviews rather than in a comprehensive speech. A White House official said he “will discuss why the use of drone strikes is necessary, legal and just, while addressing the various issues raised by our use of targeted action.”

Acknowledging the limits of the AUMF will come as relief to critics who say the last decade of US foreign policy failures have rested on the back of the law that has allowed the US to treat the “whole world as a battlefield.” That relief, however, will likely be short-lived given recent testimony by Pentagon officials at a Senate hearing which defended the president’s military authority under the AUMF in ways that made Sen. Angus King (I-ME) exclaim: “This is the most astounding and astoundingly disturbing hearing I have been to since I have been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today.”

On Wednesday and as part of a lead up to Thursday’s speech and policy announcement, the Obama administration admitted publicly the killing of four US citizens by US drone strikes abroad. That admission came in the form of a letter sent to Congress by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Laura W. Murphy, director of the Washington Legislative Office for the ACLU–which has sued the Obama administration in an attempt to obtain documents related to the drone killing programs–responded to the letter by saying it was “evidence that Congress has a crucial oversight role, and that the executive branch is accountable to Congress and the American people. We applaud Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy for his insistence that the veil of secrecy be lifted on the government’s killing program.”

But Hani Shamsi, director of ACLU’s National Security Project, called Holder’s letter only a “small step” towards full transparency and that the administration must do much more to “publicly explain its actions when it decides to kill an American citizen.”

“The government must disclose its still-secret targeted killing memos so the public can determine if they contain criteria as vague and elastic as its definitions of ‘imminence’ and ‘feasibility of capture,’” Shamsi continued. “The letter also underscores how little the public still knows about this unlawful program and its consequences, including the previously unknown killing of a fourth American citizen more than a year ago. It does nothing to shed light on the government’s legal criteria and factual basis for the killings of thousands of non-citizens — including reportedly hundreds of civilians — in a program that is unlawful, dangerous, and unwise.”

Other human rights defenders also expressed concern that Obama will not go nearly far enough to reject the controversial policies that many clearly define as “war crimes” and “affronts to international law.” Part of the goal of the speech, critics say, is to simply codify a system of extrajudicial execution with new euphemisms and illusions of transparency.

“The Obama administration continues to claim authority to kill virtually anyone anywhere in the world under the ‘global battlefield’ legal theory and a radical redefinition of the concept of imminence,” said Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International. “President Obama should reject these concepts in his speech [Thursday] and commit to upholding human rights, not just in word but in deed.”

“We are anxious to hear what President Obama has to say, and hope he will announce measures to close Guantanamo and stop the drones wars,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin. “But if President Obama continues to rely on killing by remote control and locking people up indefinitely, we will be constantly creating new enemies and jeopardizing our national security. Respecting human rights, international law and the guarantees provided in our Constitution is the best way to keep our nation secure.”

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

A new U.S. Geological Survey study reveals an “alarming” finding that “amphibian declines may be more widespread and severe than previously realized.”

This black-bellied salamander was found in the Citico Creek Wilderness, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee. (Credit: U.S. Geological Survey/photo by Alan Cressler) In their study, Trends in Amphibian Occupancy in the United States in the journal PLOS ONE, the team of scientists looked at 34 sites and 48 species to see how fast clusters of amphibians disappeared from ponds, lakes and other amphibian habitats from 2002 – 2011.

What they found, said Brian Gratwicke, an amphibian conservation biologist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, “is very bad news for amphibians.”

Over the 9-year period, the researchers discovered that overall occupancy by amphibians declined 3.7% annually. Occupancy by species “red-listed” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declined 11.6% annually over the same period. Species designated by IUCN as under “Least Concern” also dropped. The researchers write:

An average loss of 2.7% of occupied sites each year for the species of Least Concern monitored by ARMI [the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative] is alarming given that these species are thought to be relatively unaffected by global amphibian declines. This finding suggests that the IUCN threat status has been underestimated for some of these species.

Declines were observed even in protected areas like wildlife refuges and national parks, and this is “particularly worrisome because they suggest that some stressors — such as diseases, contaminants and drought — transcend landscapes,” stated lead author and USGS ecologist Michael Adams. “The fact that amphibian declines are occurring in our most protected areas adds weight to the hypothesis that this is a global phenomenon with implications for managers of all kinds of landscapes, even protected ones.”

The authors conclude:

Our trend estimates are consistent with other analyses showing that amphibians are declining, and go further by suggesting that species for which there has been little conservation concern or assessment focus (e.g., common species) may also be declining. While there was some variation across the U.S., the trend was consistently negative. Furthermore, declines are occurring on lands managed by federal agencies with the greatest observed rate of decline on National Park Service lands where management policy prescribes protection of natural ecosystem processes. Overall, the trends we documented suggest that amphibian declines may be more widespread and severe than previously thought.

“Amphibians have been a constant presence in our planet’s ponds, streams, lakes and rivers for 350 million years or so, surviving countless changes that caused many other groups of animals to go extinct,” said USGS Director Suzette Kimball. “This is why the findings of this study are so noteworthy; they demonstrate that the pressures amphibians now face exceed the ability of many of these survivors to cope.”

“It’s a loss of biodiversity. You lose them and you can’t get them back. That seems like a problem,” Adams told the Washington Post.

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Hormones and antibiotics in food won’t harm you and MSG enhances the taste of food.

To oppose NYC’s proposed soda ban, the soda industry created the front group New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, which ran ads such as this. (Photo: New Yorkers for Beverage Choices) These are some of the confusing and misleading messages that consumers are inundated with every day under the guise of ‘factual evidence’ peddled by alleged consumer and food safety groups.

A recent report titled Best Public Relations Money Can Buy: A Guide to Food Industry Front Groups (IRS) published by the Center for Food Safety last week describes how Big Food and Big Ag “hide behind friendly-sounding organizations” in order to fool the media, policymakers and general public into trusting their companies and products.

As consumers become increasingly aware of the myriad problems associated with the “highly industrialized and overly-processed food system”–including the presence of antibiotics and hormones in animal products, the impact of pesticide use on both the environment and consumers, and the exploitation of animals and food system employees–the corporate food industry has had to result to alternative ways of countering the narrative.

“Instead of cleaning up its act, corporate lobbyists are trying to control the public discourse,” writes public health attorney and report author, Michele Simon. “As a result, industry spin is becoming more prevalent and aggressive.”

“Junk food companies, the biotech industry, and big agribusiness are all on the defense because the nation is waking up to the myriad problems our industrialized food system has created.” -Report Author Michele Simon

Under names such as the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and the Alliance to Feed the Future, major corporations are able to spread their message through massive media campaigns which include advertisements, published research, op-ed articles, and TV appearances.

These campaigns often employ such tactics as “astroturfing” (or posing to represent a grassroots group), discrediting their critics, paying for research, and scaremongering in order to counter the debate.

For example, Simon gives the example of the International Food Information Council (IFIC) which is funded by major food, pesticide, and biotech companies including Kraft, McDonald’s, Nestle, PepsiCo, Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer CropScience, and Dupont:

In 2011, IFIC moderated a panel at this event called, “How Risky is Our Food? Clarifying the Controversies of Chemical Risks” in which the take-away message was not to worry about pesticides, and anybody who tells you otherwise is scaremongering and non-scientifically valid. At the 2012 conference last fall, IFIC was back again, with representatives on four separate panels, including dispelling any concerns about food additives.

Simon also cites the New York City soda controversy during which Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to place a ban on “super-sized” containers for sugary beverages.

The ban was successfully fought off by industry groups working under the guise of protecting the rights of citizens, including the Center for Consumer Freedom–which was founded in the 1990s with funding from Philip Morris– and New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, a front for The American Beverage Association.

“New front groups are forming so quickly that it can be hard to keep up. And with deliberately confusing names […] it can be challenging to tell the good guys from the bad,” the report states. “Front groups position themselves cleverly to try and confuse media outlets, which too often just assume the information is coming from a reliable source.”

Included in the report is a directory of a number of the current front groups, with their mission and funding information.

“Why does this matter so much?” writes Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet. “Because questions of diet and health are of utmost importance to all of us. Diet-related illnesses are afflicting millions of Americans, including many of the nation’s children. One in three children born today will get Type II diabetes. For African-American and Hispanic children, it’s one in two. And it’s not just diabetes. It’s heart disease, certain cancers, and asthma.”

“Junk food companies, the biotech industry, and big agribusiness are all on the defense because the nation is waking up to the myriad problems our industrialized food system has created,” writes Simon. “It’s a testament to the food movement’s success that industry is responding with such sophisticated and well-funded public relations efforts.”

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

The axe has come down in Chicago in the largest mass school closing in US history, an act opponents have called an attempt to further privatize the school system and “neoliberal savagery masquerading as school reform.”

Months of protests and public furor preceded the Chicago Board of Education vote on Wednesday to close 49 elementary schools and one high school program. In addition to the closings, five elementary schools will have a “turnaround,” in which the entire staff is replaced, and 11 elementary schools will be sharing locations.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis slammed the decision, saying the education of the children of Chicago

has been hijacked by an unrepresentative, unelected corporate school board, acting at the behest of a mayor who has no vision for improving the education of our children. Closing schools is not an education plan. It is a scorched earth policy. Evidence shows that the underutilization crisis has been manufactured. Their own evidence also shows the school district will not garner any significant savings from closing these schools.

Further, say opponents, the cost-savings rationale hides what the real plan it.

As Ben Joravsky reports in The Reader, “Rahm’s latest plan: Close the schools, build an arena,” Mayor Emanuel can find money in the city budget, not for public schools but for a hotel and basketball arena. He writes:

Of course, as broke as we are, there’s still $55 million lying around to buy up some land and hand it over to private entities that don’t need it.

Because there’s the kind of broke that means we don’t have any money for schools, and there’s the kind that means we don’t have money to subsidize the rich and powerful. We haven’t come close to reaching that second kind of broke–and probably never will, so long as this mayor’s in charge.

Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford adds:

The mayor claims that the closings are necessary cost-cutting measures. But a report by the Chicago Tribune, which is no friend of the teachers, shows that Emanuel’s minions have fudged the numbers. For example, a school was marked for closing because it lacked adequate air conditioning, but students were then slated to be transferred to another school that also lacks sufficient air conditioning. Another school was put on the shut-down list because it would cost almost $10 million to fix. But the students’ new school requires nearly as much money for repairs. The report concludes that it would cost millions more to renovate the schools where the displaced students would be assigned, than to fix the old schools.

So, this is not about costs; that’s just a cover story. It’s about further privatizing the public schools, destroying the union, and destabilizing neighborhoods full of people that the mayor and his big business cronies would, ultimately, like to expel from the city, entirely. The teachers know it, and so does a growing portion of the community, who have joined in common cause.

There’s also money to open charter schools, as WBEZ reports:

Buried in the school shake-ups voted on today were plans to open 13 new schools and a handful of alternative programs. Many of those have already been approved by the board.

Some of the aldermen whose wards are affected by the closings are on to this as well, brought their voices to the Board meeting on Wednesday, ABC7 reports, and referenced the new charter schools:

The political heat on [the mayor] from the City Council appears to be weak, confined mostly to aldermen whose wards were affected by the closings. Nine of 50 council members appeared at the Board of Education meeting to criticize some or all of the mayor’s plan before the vote. Only Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) criticized Emanuel directly.

Fioretti and two of his council colleagues drew some of the day’s loudest applause when they blasted the board for allowing more privately run charter schools while the Chicago Public Schools system shrinks.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said it was “somewhat disingenuous” for new charters to open near public schools that are closing because CPS says they are under-used.

Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), said the city is “incentivizing charter school proliferation at the expense of neighborhood schools.” Charters need approval from the board and get much of their funding from CPS.

Those schools, Pawar said, are supported by “wealthy people, connected people who are telling us that government is bad… when at the end, they’re going to be wholly reliant on government funding.”

The closings sparked a pair of federal civil rights lawsuits filed last week charging that the closings have a discriminatory impact on African-American students and students with disabilities. A judge has set a date of July 16 to begin hearings.

But the fight isn’t over, says CTU’s Lewis:

Our fight for education justice has now moved to the courts, but it must eventually move to the ballot box. The parents are amazing leaders in their school communities and because of this administration’s actions we have all become closer and more united. We must resist this neoliberal savagery masquerading as school reform. We must resist racism in all of its forms as well as the escalating attacks on the working class and the poor. Our movement will continue.

Chicago’s ABC-7 has video:

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

In the furious fallout from the revelation that the IRS flagged applications from conservative nonprofits for extra review because of their political activity, some points about the big picture — and big donors — have fallen through the cracks.  

(isak55/Shutterstock) Consider this our Top 6 list of need-to-know facts on social welfare nonprofits, also known as dark money groups because they don’t have to disclose their donors. The groups poured more than $256 million into the 2012 federal elections.

1. Social welfare nonprofits are supposed to have social welfare, and not politics, as their “primary” purpose.

A century ago, Congress created a tax exemption for social welfare nonprofits. The statute defining the groups says they are supposed to be “operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” But in 1959, the regulators interpreted the “exclusively” part of the statute to mean groups had to be “primarily” engaged in enhancing social welfare. This later opened the door to political spending.

So what does “primarily” mean?  It’s not clear. The IRS has said it uses a “facts and circumstances” test to say whether a group mostly works to benefit the community or not. In short: If a group walks and talks like a social welfare nonprofit, then it’s a social welfare nonprofit.

This deliberate vagueness has led some groups to say that “primarily” simply means they must spend 51 percent of their money on a social welfare idea — say, on something as vague as “education,” which could also include issue ads criticizing certain politicians. And then, the reasoning goes, a group can spend as much as 49 percent of its expenditures on ads directly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for office.

Nowhere in tax regulations or rulings does it mention 49 percent, though. Some nonprofit lawyers have argued that the IRS should set hard limits for social welfare nonprofits — setting out, for instance, that they cannot spend more than 20 percent of their money on election ads or even limiting spending to a fixed amount, like no more than $250,000.

So far, the IRS has avoided clarifying any limits.

2. Donors to social welfare nonprofits are anonymous for a reason.

Unlike donors who give directly to politicians or even to super PACs, donors who give to social welfare nonprofits can stay secret. In large part, this is because of an attempt by Alabama to force the NAACP, then a social welfare nonprofit, to disclose its donors in the 1950s. In 1958, the Supreme Court sided with the NAACP, saying that public identification of its members made them at risk of reprisal and threats.

The ACLU, which is itself a social welfare nonprofit, has long made similar arguments. So has Karl Rove, the GOP strategist and brains behind Crossroads GPS, which has spent more money on elections than any other social welfare nonprofit. In early April 2012, Rove invoked the NAACP in defending his organization against attempts to reveal donors.

The Federal Election Commission could in theory push for some disclosure from social welfare nonprofits — for their election ads, at least. But the FEC has been paralyzed by a 3-3 partisan split, and its interpretations of older court decisions have given nonprofits wiggle room to avoid saying who donated money, as long as a donation wasn’t specifically made for a political ad.

New rulings indicate that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, favor disclosure for political ads, and states are also stepping into the fray. During the 2012 elections, courts in two states — Montana and Idaho — ruled that two nonprofits engaged in state campaigns needed to disclose donors.  

But sometimes, when nonprofits funnel donations, the answers raise more questions. It’s the Russian nesting doll phenomenon. Last election, for instance, California’s election agency pushed for an Arizona social welfare nonprofit to disclose donors for $11 million spent on two California ballot initiatives. The answer? Another social welfare nonprofit, which in turn got the money from a trade association, which also doesn’t have to reveal its donors.

3. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision meant that corporations could pay for political ads, anonymously, using social welfare nonprofits.

In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions could spend money directly on election ads. A later court decision made possible super PACs, the political committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from donors, as long as they don’t coordinate with candidates and as long as they report their donors and spending.

Initially, campaign finance watchdogs believed corporations would give directly to super PACs. And in some cases, that happened. But not as much as anyone thought, and maybe for a reason: Disclosure isn’t necessarily good for business. Target famously faced a consumer and shareholder backlash after it gave money in 2010 to a group backing a Minnesota candidate who opposed gay rights.

Many watchdogs now believe that large public corporations are giving money to support candidates through social welfare nonprofits and trade associations, partly to avoid disclosure. Although the tax-exempt groups were allowed to spend money on election ads before Citizens United, their spending skyrocketed in 2010 and again in 2012.

A New York Times article based on rare cases in which donors have been disclosed, sometimes accidentally, explored the issue of corporations giving to these groups last year. Insurance giant Aetna, for example, accidentally revealed it gave $3 million in 2011 to the American Action Network, a social welfare group founded by former Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, that runs election ads.

Groups that favor more disclosure have so far failed to force action by the FEC, the IRS, or Congress, although some corporations have voluntarily reported their political spending. Advocates have now turned to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is studying a proposal to require public companies to disclose political contributions.

The idea is already facing strong opposition from House Republicans.

4. Social welfare nonprofits do not actually have to apply to the IRS for recognition as tax-exempt organizations.

With all the furor over applications being flagged from conservative groups — particularly groups with “Tea Party,” “Patriot” or “9/12” in their names — it’s worth remembering that a social welfare nonprofit doesn’t even have to apply to the IRS in the first place.

Unlike charities, which are supposed to apply for recognition, social welfare nonprofits can simply incorporate and start raising and spending money, without ever applying to the IRS.

The agency’s nonprofit wing is mainly concerned about ferreting out bad charities, which are the biggest chunk of nonprofits and the biggest source of potential revenue. After all, the IRS’s main job is to collect revenue. Charities allow donors to deduct donations, while social welfare nonprofits don’t.

Most major social welfare nonprofits do apply, because being recognized is seen as insurance against later determination by the IRS that the group should have registered as a political committee and may face back taxes and disclosure of donors. A recognition letter is also essential to raise money from certain donors — like, say, corporations.

But some of the new groups haven’t applied.

The first time the IRS hears about these social welfare nonprofits is often when they file their first annual tax return, not due until sometimes more than a year after they’ve formed.

In many cases, the first time the IRS hears about these groups is a full year after an election.   

5. Most of the money spent on elections by social welfare nonprofits supports Republicans.

Of the more than $256 million spent by social welfare nonprofits on ads in the 2012 elections, at least 80 percent came from conservative groups, according to FEC figures tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

None came from the Tea Party groups with applications flagged by the IRS. Instead, a few big conservative groups were largely responsible.

Crossroads GPS, which this week said it believes it is among the conservative groups “targeted” by the IRS, spent more than $70 million in federal races in 2012. Americans for Prosperity, the social welfare nonprofit launched by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, spent more than $36 million. American Future Fund spent more than $25 million. Americans for Tax Reform spent almost $16 million. American Action Network spent almost $12 million.

Besides Crossroads GPS, each of those groups has applied to the IRS and been recognized as tax-exempt. (You can look at their applications here.)

All of those groups spent more than the largest liberal social welfare nonprofit, the League of Conservation Voters, which spent about $11 million on 2012 federal races. The next biggest group, Patriot Majority USA, spent more than $7 million. Planned Parenthood spent $6.5 million. VoteVets.org spent more than $3 million.

None of those figures include the tens of millions of dollars spent by groups on certain ads that run months before an election that are not reported to the FEC.

6. Some social welfare groups promised in their applications, under penalty of perjury, that they wouldn’t get involved in elections. Then they did just that.

Much of the attention when it comes to Tea Party nonprofits has focused on their applications and how the IRS determines whether a group qualifies for social welfare status.

As part of our reporting on dark money in 2012, ProPublica looked at more than 100 applications for IRS recognition. One thing we noted again and again: Groups sometimes tell the IRS that they are not going to spend money on elections, receive IRS recognition, and then turn around and spend money on elections

The application to be recognized as a social welfare nonprofit, known as a 1024 Form, explicitly asks a group whether it has spent or plans to spend “any money attempting to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of any person to any Federal, state, or local public office or to an office in a political organization.”

The American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit that would go on to spend millions of dollars on campaign ads, checked “No”in answer to that question in 2008. The very same day the group submitted its application, it uploaded this ad to its YouTube account:

Even before mailing its application to the IRS saying it would not spend money on elections in 2010, the Alliance for America’s Future was running TV ads supporting Republican candidates for governor in Nevada and Florida. It also had given $133,000 to two political committees directed by Mary Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president. 

Another example of this is the Government Integrity Fund, a conservative nonprofit that ran ads in last year’s U.S. Senate race in Ohio. Its application was approved after it told the IRS that it would not spend money on politics. The group went on to do just that.

For more on the IRS and nonprofits active in politics, read our story on how the IRS’s nonprofit division got so dysfunctional, Kim Barker’s investigation, “How nonprofits spend millions on elections and call it public welfare” and our Q&A on dark money.    

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© 2013 ProPublica

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Some of the world’s wealthiest corporations–utilizing secretive tax havens backed by powerful governments–are siphoning billions of dollars of potential revenue from the very same poor countries that foreign investment is so often said to be helping.

According to a new report by ActionAid International, titled How Tax Havens Plunder the Poor, almost half of all money invested in developing countries is channeled through tax havens, stripping developing nations of the chance to benefit from the wealth generated by multi-national firms inside their borders.

“These havens facilitate tax evasion, money laundering, bribery, and lack of accountability for environmental and social calamities.” -Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute

“Tax havens are one of the main obstacles in the fight against global poverty,” said Michael Lewis, an expert on international tax law and lead author of the study. “Their secrecy and harmful tax regimes leach money out of developing countries that could be used to end hunger and provide hospitals, schools and clean water.”

As the OECD has pointed out, the world’s developing countries are losing three times more money to tax havens than they currently receive in aid each year.

“As we have seen with recent cases like Google and Amazon, tax avoidance is a huge issue in developed countries,” Lewis said. “But evidence shows that poor countries are losing even more from tax avoidance, and are least equipped to protect fragile public revenues.”

As an example, ActionAid says a single foreign mining firm–one that generates 84 percent of its revenues from Africa–has only four of its 81 corporate subsidiaries registered in African countries. In contrast, 47 of the company’s subsidiaries are registered in off-shore tax havens.

According to the report’s executive summary, the analysis shows “the primary role of the UK’s and the G8’s own tax havens in a global merry-go-round that helps keep 1.3 billion people in poverty and hunger, while denying developing countries the ability to benefit from their own wealth, and raise the public funds needed to fight poverty.”

Released ahead of the upcoming round of G8 talks in Northern Ireland next month, the report puts special focus on how the world’s wealthiest nations have created a global financial structure that makes much of the exploitation of poor, vulnerable countries part of an accepted and legal framework.

“When G8 leaders meet this June,” writes Jeffrey Sachs, president of the Earth Institute, in the forward of the report, “they have a responsibility to end one of the biggest and most dangerous scams in the world economy: the global web of tax and secrecy havens that they so lovingly have nurtured over the years. These havens facilitate tax evasion, money laundering, bribery, and lack of accountability for environmental and social calamities.”

Sachs continued:

The politicians continue to protect their exorbitant privileges, or listen to their billionaires and continue to wink at mega-tax evasion, or listen to their major companies and continue to tolerate unpardonable games of transfer pricing into the havens, are playing with fire. The days of high living are over. We are now all sharing austerity. The havens represent unacceptable privilege and abuse, not fair sharing.

This new study provides powerful evidence that four years after world leaders promised an “end to tax havens” in the wake of the financial crisis, the scale of tax havens’ hold over developing economies, and the systematic exploitation of their facilities by wealthy investors and businesses in those economies, has only increased. Put simply, the revenue lost as a result could enable developing countries to finance their own futures free from poverty.

Stating that the world’s most powerful countries, all represented in the G8, have a unique responsibility when it comes to corporate exploitation, Sachs concluded, “They created this system. It’s their job to end it.”

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

A group of prominent journalists has called on the military judge presiding over the upcoming trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning to do away with the extreme secrecy that has so-far shrouded the prosecution of the US Army whistleblower.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., on May 21, 2013, before a pretrial military hearing (Patrick Semansky/AP) In a complaint filed in a federal district court Wednesday by the Center of Constitutional Rights–along with journalists Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Kevin Gosztola, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, and Chase Madar–the group of plaintiffs motioned for a preliminary injunction that would compel the judge to “grant the public and press access to the government’s filings, the court’s own orders, and transcripts of the proceedings.” To date, none of these have been made available to the public.

“Secret trials are commonplace in dictatorships, but have no place in this country.” said co-plaintiff Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!. “The Obama administration conducts unconstitutional dragnet surveillance of journalists to uncover protected sources, and targets whistleblowers with unprecedented use of the espionage act.”

“Access to court documents and proceedings in the court martial of Bradley Manning is vital to the public’s right to know to what lengths their government will go to keep secret their conduct of wars and occupations abroad,” she added.

As it stands now a military judge can close a courtroom to the press and public for “security” reasons–citing sensitive classified information.

“When viewed in the context of the recent Justice Department actions against journalists and media outlets, the secrecy surrounding the trial of Bradley Manning sends an ominous message about how far the state is willing to go to prevent oversight of its actions.” – Jeremey Scahill

The lawsuit, as CCR stated Wednesday, is also a challenge to “the fact that substantive legal matters in the court martial — including a pretrial publicity order — have been argued and decided in secret” and that a military judge “can close the courtroom itself and the press and public would have no recourse to the military courts.”

An example of the persistent secrecy charged by the plaintiffs was evidenced at Manning’s final pretrial hearing on Tuesday, in which military Judge Denise Lind ruled it was “not possible to elicit coherently nuanced” testimony on classified information in open court. Lind decided that the court would completely close entire portions of the trial to the public and press during Manning’s trial.

“The over-riding interest in protecting national security over-rides the risk of miscarriage of justice,” said Lind.

However, as co-plaintiff and journalist Jeremy Scahill warned, “By unnecessarily cloaking these proceedings from public view or scrutiny, the government is undermining the most basic principles of transparency and freedom of the press, both of which are vital components of the democratic and judicial process.”

“When viewed in the context of the recent Justice Department actions against journalists and media outlets,” Scahill added, “the secrecy surrounding the trial of Bradley Manning sends an ominous message about how far the state is willing to go to prevent oversight of its actions.”

CCR has attempted to loosen the restrictive nature of Manning’s trial before. The last suit was brought to the military court of appeals last May but it ultimately failed after a year-long battle, said Senior CCR Attorney Shayana Kadidal.

“The filing with the federal civilian courts is now our last option,” Kadidal said, “If this lawsuit fails, Manning’s trial will take place under conditions where journalists and the public will be unable as a practical matter to follow what is going on in the courtroom.”

Such lack of transparency, she concluded, “ensures that any verdict will be fundamentally unfair.”

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the political activist group Code Pink, is removed by security after speaking out against President Barack Obama during his counterterrorism speech Thursday. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch /UPI)In a dramatic exchange during the final moments of a much anticipated foreign policy speech by President Obama on Thursday, CodePink activist Medea Benjamin rose from the audience and directly confronted the US commander-in-chief by challenging him on several of the government’s most controversial policies.

Calling for the president to both recognize the ongoing hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay and close the offshore prison facility, Benjamin also demanded answers to questions regarding the killing of a 16-year-old American citizen, Abdulrahman Awlaki, by a 2011 US drone bombing in Yemen.

Watch the first part of the exchange:

Despite the interruption, Benjamin was not immediately removed from the audience. However, after allowing Obama to continue with his remarks for several more moments, Benjamin once again interjected, this time regarding the death of the 16-year-old Abdulrahman. As her voice rose–and Obama paused to listen–security then intervened:

“The voice of that women is worth paying attention to,” Obama said of Benjamin after she was hauled out of the room. “Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said. And obviously she wasn’t listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.”

Observers on Twitter were expressing their surprise about the interaction in real time:

And CodePink’s Twitter page, of course, was in full swing:

Though some on social media were berating CodePink and Benjamin’s tactics as self-promotional or counter-productive, journalist Jeremy Scahill interjected:

And took derisive comments by mainstream journalists and pundits to task by tweeting:

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Satellite image from Oct. 29, 2012, shows Hurricane Sandy off of Maryland and Virginia. (Photo: NOAA’s National Ocean Service)East coast residents still reeling from Hurricane Sandy may shudder at the predictions for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season.

A warmer Atlantic Ocean is expected to bring a far more active hurricane season than average this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated on Thursday.

In the possibly “extremely active” season, the NOAA says there is a 70 percent likelihood of 13 to 20 named storms, well above the average of 12 named storms in a hurricane season.

7 to 11 of those storms could become hurricanes, they predict, including 3 to 6 major hurricanes. The seasonal average is 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes.

“This year, oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic basin are expected to produce more and stronger hurricanes,” Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in a statement. “These conditions include weaker wind shear, warmer Atlantic waters and conducive wind patterns coming from Africa.”

The 6-month hurricane season for the Atlantic begins June 1.

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Connecticut’s seven-week-old gun law, passed in response to the massacre at Sandy Hook School in Newtown in December, has been challenged in federal court. A coalition of individuals, gun retailers, sports shooters, and gun rights activists entered a suit in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport Wednesday, asking for a declaration that the law is unconstitutional and both a preliminary and a permanent injunction against its enforcement.

The suit lists six individuals by name as plaintiffs, along with Hiller Sports, LLC, MD Shooting Sports LLC, the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, and the Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the state attorneys for Connecticut’s 11 judicial districts are named as defendants. A press release issued by Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, and Brian Stapleton, the Hartford attorney who filed the suit, said the plaintiffs include “an elderly widow who lives alone in a rural area where the emergency response time of a lone resident trooper serving the area is 45 minutes, a rabbi whose synagogue in the Bridgeport area has been broken into by intruders, [and] a young professional woman whose efforts to defend herself are made more difficult by the loss of an arm due to cancer, among other individuals.” The complaint also claims the law has created financial harm to the business owners represented in the suit, along with violations of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights.  

The law, generally regarded as one of the strictest in the nation, was passed by the legislature and signed into law on April 4 of this year. Entitled “An Act Concerning Gun Violence and Children’s Safety,” the bill had broad support in the weeks and months following the Sandy Hook shootings, in which a single gunman entered the school and killed 20 first-graders and six adults on December 14.

“The Act was rushed through the legislature without thorough debate or meaningful public examination,” the suit claims. Though billed as a ban on “assault weapons” and large-capacity magazines, the law “irrationally bans pistols, rifles, shotguns and magazines that are commonly used for lawful purposes and throughout the United States,” says the complaint, adding: “The law violates plaintiffs’ fundamental rights under the Second Amendment and is unconstitutional.”

Weapons banned under the new law include the Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle used by the gunman in the Sandy Hook killings. Criminal background checks on the purchaser are required in all gun sales, and magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds are banned. Owners of semi-automatic rifles defined as “assault weapons” under the new law will be required to submit to new registration procedures. Purchase, sale, transfer, or distribution of large-capacity magazines is a Class D felony. Beginning January 1, 2014, possession of a large-capacity magazine will be an infraction, subject to a fine, for a first offense, provided the magazine had been obtained before that date. Each subsequent offense, however, will be a Class D felony.

“Criminals are unlikely to concern themselves with whether the magazines they use to commit crimes are lawful,” the plaintiffs contend, adding that even if they would, the shooter in a criminal attack could use multiple magazines or multiple weapons, an option usually not available to a citizen using a firearm to defend against a home invasion. The plaintiffs argue that categories of firearms banned as “assault weapons” are semi-automatic, meaning they fire a single round with each squeeze of the trigger. The “assault” designation is based on external features like a pistol grip or a mount for a rifle telescope, they contend.

“The legislature thinks the ban is going to solve the problem of crimes committed with guns,” Stapleton told the Hartford Courant. “It makes citizens less safe by denying them the ability to effectively defend themselves in their homes.” A spokesman for Gov. Malloy said the legal challenge came as no surprise. 

“We’ve known for some time that groups opposed to the new gun violence prevention law would be filing suit against it,” Andrew Doba told the Courant. “We believe the bill improves public safety, and we will work with the Attorney General’s office to defend it.”

“Let’s not forget,” Doba added, “that this has happened before. In prior instances where Connecticut has passed common sense restrictions on firearms, there have been challenges. They have all been unsuccessful.” The state’s lawyers had not yet received and reviewed the complaint, said Jaclyn Falkowski, speaking for Attorney General George Jepsen.

“However, it is our belief that this legislation is lawful, and the office of the attorney general is prepared to vigorously defend the law against this and any other potential court challenge,” Falkowski said. There will likely be no shortage of challenges in Connecticut or in other states that have passed similar legislation. Stapleton, who has law office in both Hartford and in White Plains, New York, is the lead attorney in a constitutional challenge to New York’s new gun law, the Courant noted.

“It impacts the core Second Amendment right to protect yourself in your home, and it does so by outlawing magazines and firearms that are commonly used and widely possessed,” he said of the Connecticut law. Chances are attorneys willing to make the constitutional challenge won’t have to look far for plaintiffs as new restrictions are enacted. Membership in the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, said Wilson, has grown from 2,500 to 7,600 in just a few months.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Infowars.com
May 23, 2013

Photo: Wikimedia.org.

In a speech aired on Thursday, Obama called for the Guantanamo Bay detention and torture facility to be moved from Cuba to the United States.

“As President, I have tried to close GTMO [Joint Task Force Guantanamo]. I transferred 67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries, or imprisoning them in the United States,” Obama said during the National Defense University speech. “Today, I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions.”

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the president does not have the sole authority to create and operate military tribunals and is required to get authorization from Congress under the separation of powers.

The Senate and House of Representatives passed the Military Commissions Act and Bush signed it into law on October 17, 2006. It authorizes the president to declare individuals as “unlawful enemy combatants” and subject them to military commissions and strip them of habeas corpus rights enumerated under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.

Obama now wants to import this process into the United States in violation of the Constitution.

The move to domesticate Gitmo compliments H.R. 5122, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007, allowing the president to declare martial law, and the 2012 NDAA, codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

NATASHA LONGO
preventdisease.com
May 23, 2013

The world’s most popular grain is also the deadliest for the human metabolism. Modern wheat isn’t really wheat at all and is a “perfect, chronic poison,” according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, author and leading expert on wheat.

Approximately 700 million tons of wheat are now cultivated worldwide making it the second most-produced grain after maize. It is grown on more land area than any other commerical crop and is considered a staple food for humans.

At some point in our history, this ancient grain was nutritious in some respects, however modern wheat really isn’t wheat at all. Once agribusiness took over to develop a higher-yielding crop, wheat became hybridized to such an extent that it has been completely transformed from it’s prehistorical genetic configuration. All nutrient content of modern wheat depreciated more than 30% in its natural unrefined state compared to its ancestral genetic line. The balance and ratio that mother nature created for wheat was also modified and human digestion and physiology could simply could not adapt quick enough to the changes.

Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”

Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat — and dropping substantial weight.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

“If three people lost eight pounds, big deal,” he said. “But we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day.”

To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating “real food,” such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. “(It’s) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness,” he said. “Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it’s not barley… or flax. It’s going to be wheat.

The Nutrional Value of Wheat is Practically Non-Existent
In Its Current Form

So-called health experts in nutrition who continue to promote the health benefits of wheat are extremely uninformed about the nature of modern wheat and its evolution from growth to consumption. It is shocking how many professionals in public health still recommend wheat products without an assessment of their individual requirements, especially considering the amount of evidence regarding its lack of nutrition and health risks for proportionally large segments of the population.

The majority of wheat is processed into 60% extraction, bleached white flour. 60% extraction—the standard for most wheat products means that 40% of the original wheat grain is removed. So not only do we have an unhealthier, modified, and hybridized strain of wheat, we also remove and further degrade its nutritional value by processing it. Unfortunately, the 40% that gets removed includes the bran and the germ of the wheat grain—its most nutrient-rich parts. In the process of making 60% extraction flour, over half of the vitamin B1, B2, B3, E, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron, and fiber are lost. Any processed foods with wheat are akin to poison for the body since they cause more health risks than benefits. The body does not recognize processed wheat as food. Nutrient absorption from processed wheat products is thus consequential with almost no nutritional value.

Some experts claim if you select 100% whole wheat products, the bran and the germ of the wheat will remain in your meals, and the health benefits will be impressive. This is again a falsity promoted by the wheat industry since even 100% whole wheat products are based on modern wheat strains created by irradiation of wheat seeds and embryos with chemicals, gamma rays, and high-dose X-rays to induce mutations. Whether you consume 10% or 100% of wheat is irrelevant since you’re still consuming a health damaging grain that will not benefit, advance or even maintain your health in any way.

Dr. Marcia Alvarez who specializes in nutritional programs for obese patients says that when it comes to nutrition, wheat may be considered as an evil grain. “Modern wheat grains could certainly be considered as the root of all evil in the world of nutrition since they cause so many documented health problems across so many populations in the world.” Dr. Alvarez asserted that wheat is now responsible for more intolerances than almost any other food in the world. “In my practice of over two decades, we have documented that for every ten people with digestive problems, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, arthritis and even heart disease, eight out of ten have a problem with wheat. Once we remove wheat from their diets, most of their symptoms disappear within three to six months,” she added. Dr. Alvarez estimates that between the coming influx of genetically modified (GM) strains of wheat and the current tendency of wheat elimination in societies, that a trend is emerging in the next 20 years that will likely see 80% of people cease their consumption of wheat from any form.

It’s Really A Wheat Issue

Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on “CTM” they’re just offering a poor alternative.

“All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there’s an apparent health benefit — ‘Let’s eat a whole bunch of less bad things.’ So I take…unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That’s the logic of nutrition, it’s a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, ‘Let’s eliminate all grains,’ what happens then?

“That’s when you see, not improvements in health, that’s when you see transformations in health.”

Health Effects

A powerful little chemical in wheat known as ‘wheat germ agglutinin’ (WGA) which is largely responsible for many of wheat’s pervasive, and difficult to diagnose, ill effects. Researchers are now discovering that WGA in modern wheat is very different from ancient strains. Not only does WGA throw a monkey wrench into our assumptions about the primary causes of wheat intolerance, but due to the fact that WGA is found in highest concentrations in “whole wheat,” including its supposedly superior sprouted form, it also pulls the rug out from under one of the health food industry’s favorite poster children.

Each grain of wheat contains about one microgram of Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA). Even in small quantities, WGA can have profoundly adverse effects. It may be pro-inflammatory, immunotoxic, cardiotoxic … and neurotoxic.

Below the radar of conventional serological testing for antibodies against the various gluten proteins and genetic testing for disease susceptibility, the WGA “lectin problem” remains almost entirely obscured. Lectins, though found in all grains, seeds, legumes, dairy and our beloved nightshades: the tomato and potato, are rarely discussed in connection with health or illness, even when their presence in our diet may greatly reduce both the quality and length of our lives. Yet health experts dismiss the links between disease and wheat despite all the evidence.

Dr William Davis has documented several hundred clinical studies on the adverse effects of wheat. These are studies that document the neurologic impairments unique to wheat, including cerebellar ataxia and dementia; heart disease; visceral fat accumulation and all its attendant health consequences; the process of glycation via amylopectin A of wheat that leads to cataracts, diabetes, and arthritis; among others. There are, in fact, a wealth of studies documenting the adverse, often crippling, effects of wheat consumption in humans.

The other claim is that wheat elimination ‘means missing out on a wealth of essential nutrients. Another falsity. Dr. Davis states that if you replace wheat with healthy foods like vegetables, nuts, healthy oils, meats, eggs, cheese, avocados, and olives, then there is no nutrient deficiency that develops with elimination of wheat. Dr Davis also states that people with celiac disease may require long-term supplementation due to extensive gastrointenstinal damage caused by wheat.

People with celiac disease do indeed experience deficiencies of multiple vitamins and minerals after they eliminate all wheat and gluten from the diet. But this is not due to a diet lacking valuable nutrients, but from the incomplete healing of the gastrointestinal tract (such as the lining of the duodenum and proximal jejunum). In these people, the destructive effects of wheat are so overpowering that, unfortunately, some people never heal completely. These people do indeed require vitamin and mineral supplementation, as well as probiotics and pancreatic enzyme supplementation.

Due to the unique properties of amylopectin A, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar higher than many candy bars. High blood glucose leads to the process of glycation that, in turn, causes arthritis (cartilage glycation), cataracts (lens protein glycation), diabetes (glycotoxicity of pancreatic beta cells), hepatic de novo lipogenesis that increases triglycerides and, thereby, increases expression of atherogenic (heart disease-causing) small LDL particles, leading to heart attacks. Repetitive high blood sugars that develop from a grain-rich diet are, in my view, very destructive and lead to weight gain (specifically visceral fat), insulin resistance, leptin resistance (leading to obesity), and many of the health struggles that many now experience.

Wheat gliadin has been associated with cerebellar ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, gluten encephalopathy (dementia), behavioral outbursts in children with ADHD and autism, and paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia, severe and incapacitating effects for people suffering from these conditions.

Changes in genetic code and, thereby, antigenic profile, of the high-yield semi-dwarf wheat cultivars now on the market account for the marked increase in celiac potential nationwide. “Hybridization” techniques, including chemical mutagenesis to induce selective mutations, leads to development of unique strains that are not subject to animal or human safety testing—they are just brought to market and sold.

Wheat-Free Options

* Note that many of the wheat-free options still contain gluten and many people sensitive to wheat may still experience digestive problems and bloating. Experiment in see what works best for you. Caution is advised with cereal grains if you have diagnosed with gluen intolerance.

1. Cereal Grains: Barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, tef and wild rice are all in the same cereal grain family as is wheat. All flours ground from cereal grains may be used as a wheat substitute. Commonly available are barley, buckwheat, rice and rye flour. The less utilized flours may be purchased online or from natural food stores. Note: people with a gluten allergy must also avoid barley, oats and rye.

2. Non-Cereal Grains: Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are three grain-like seeds unrelated to cereal grains. (Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat-relative.) It is rare for anyone to develop a sensitivity to these non-cereal grains. Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are gluten-free and therefore not suitable for making leavened bread; however, they make excellent quick breads and cookies.

3. Nut Meal: Ground nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts make the richest flour substitute for cookies and cakes. Because their fragile fatty acid content gives them a brief shelf life, it’s preferable to grind your own nuts in a food processor just prior to use. Nut meal requires a binding agent such as eggs. Because chestnuts are lower in fat than other nuts, chestnut flour has a longer shelf life. It is available online.

4. Bean Flour: Dried beans, such as navy, pinto and chickpeas may be milled and used, in combination with other flours, as a wheat alternative. Bean flour is, however, not always recommended. It tastes like beans and makes baked goods dense and hard to digest.

5. Other Flour Substitutes: Potato starch, arrowroot powder, and tapioca are thickening agents that substitute for wheat in sauces and gravy. In baked goods these starchy ingredients serve as a binding agent.

Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany.

Sources:
greenmedinfo.com
cbsnews.com
wheatbellyblog.com
mercola.com
whfoods.com
rsc.org