GOLDEN, Colo. – March 28 – Despite the unabated threat of a devastating fungal disease that has already killed nearly 7 million hibernating bats, U.S. Forest Service officials released a plan today to rescind their three-year-old precautionary cave closure policy in the Rocky Mountain Region, including in Colorado and much of Wyoming and South Dakota. The new policy, described in an environmental assessment posted to the Forest Service website, reopens all caves in the region to recreational activities, nullifying an aggressive approach to containing white-nose syndrome unique among western federal land agencies.

“This decision is a terrible blow to efforts to forestall the spread of this wildlife epidemic to the West,” said Mollie Matteson, a bat specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s extremely short-sighted, giving priority to the recreational interests of a small group of people over the survival of western bats, and it ignores all the benefits insect-eating bats provide to the rest of us, including farmers who depend on bats to save them millions of dollars in additional costs by containing crop pests.”

The bat malady has already spread to 22 states and five Canadian provinces since 2006, causing mortality rates of more than 95 percent in some eastern bat species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing three species under the federal Endangered Species Act because of the precipitous drop in their populations due to the disease. Seven bat species are affected by white-nose syndrome so far, and more species will be put at risk if the disease moves into the western half of the country. 

Biologists believe the fungal pathogen that causes white-nose syndrome was most likely introduced to the United States by a cave visitor from Europe. The fungus grows on cave bats in Europe but appears to have little effect on them. Bats themselves are the primary vector for the disease in North America, but their migratory ranges are limited. Human transport, on the other hand, could transmit fungal spores hundreds of miles beyond the leading edge of the disease zone and create a new epicenter for its spread.

“Scientists are working frantically to find a cure for this unprecedented wildlife die-off,” said Matteson. “It’s a race against time, because once the disease spreads into the vast reaches of the West, it may well be too late. Federal land managers need to do everything they can to reduce the risk of humans spreading this disease to western caves. Tragically the Forest Service has decided it cares more about increasing recreational opportunities for cavers than survival chances for bats.”

In 2010 the white-nose fungus was found on a bat in western Oklahoma. No disease has since been found there, but white-nose syndrome is now rapidly taking hold in Missouri. At the time of the Oklahoma discovery, the Rocky Mountain region followed the example set by the Eastern and Southern regions of the agency, as well as most National Park Service units, and implemented a blanket closure policy for its caves. However, most western federal land managers – including those overseeing all other western regions of Forest Service and nearly all Bureau of Land Management lands – did nothing, despite the urging of some biologists within the agencies to act quickly. With the Rocky Mountain region’s reversal of its cave policy, virtually no federal caves in the West – with the exception of most in national parks, and a couple dozen in New Mexico – are off-limits to the unchecked comings and goings of cave visitors and explorers.

Guantanamo inmates complain of not being given drinking water and having to cope with extremely low temperatures, their lawyers have said. As the Gitmo hunger strike enters its 51st day, the White House has made its first comment on the protest.

Guantanamo detainees who have been refusing food for weeks now complain of being denied drinking water, according to Yemeni prisoner Musaab al-Madhwani, who spoke with his attorney by phone on Monday. He also claimed that temperatures at the camp were being kept extremely low.

Follow RT’s in-depth timeline on the Guantanamo hunger strike

Following the call, a group of human rights lawyers filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Washington, describing the alleged mistreatment: “The reality is that these men are slowly withering away and we as a country need to take immediate action,” Denver-based human rights lawyer Mari Newman said, according to AP.

The allegations of mistreatment were denied by the prison’s spokesperson, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, who said the inmates were getting “the same water I make my coffee with and that they make lunch with.”

While this motion has not yet received a response from the U.S. government, the White House has finally broken its silence over the seven-week-long hunger strike at Gitmo. “I can tell you that the White House and the president’s team is closely monitoring the hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay,” President Obama’s spokesperson Joshua Earnest said, according to AFP. “I can tell you that the administration remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

President Obama vowed to close down Guantanamo at the beginning of his first term in office in 2009; he was blocked from fulfilling that promise by legislation passed by the US Congress.

Speaking to RT, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs under Barack Obama, P.J. Crowley, explained that Obama’s hands have been tied by lawmakers, who put a ban on transferring detainees to the mainland US. “It clearly is the United States Congress that’s basically frozen the situation in place,” Crowley said.

The legal deadlock Gitmo inmates find themselves victims of is seen as major reason behind their hunger strike. The official number of protesters has recently grown to 31, with at least 10 being force-fed and 3 hospitalized. Lawyers of the detainees keep on insisting officials are underreporting the scale of the hunger strike. They claim more than a hundred of Guantanamo prisoners have been refusing food since early February, with some putting their health at considerable risk.

One of protesters’ poor health conditions were recently witnessed by an attorney, US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Barry Wingard, who shared his impressions with RT.

“I’ve never seen him thinner in all of my five years of coming to Guantanamo Bay… I mean, he’s forgetful and he’s in a bad physical condition. He’s hard to focus, he complains of headaches, he’s weak. He went from 147 pounds down to 107 pounds,” Wingard said.

Fears for the health and safety of the prisoners on hunger strike have prompted the Red Cross to send a delegation to inspect the facility earlier than planned.

While the organization has a policy of not publicly commenting on such visits, in an interview with RT the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in North America, Simon Schorno, gave his opinion on the general situation at Gitmo.

“What I can tell you is that from our observations those tensions and this anguish that the detainees are experiencing are clearly related to the lack of a clear legal framework in Guantanamo. This has now been having a real impact for detainees for some time — on their mental health, on their emotional health,” he explained.

Guantanamo’s biggest-in-years hunger strike started on February 6, and was reportedly caused by mistreatment on the part of the guards, including searches, confiscation of personal items and the desecration of Korans.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has denounced the “improper” move by the Arab League to hand Syria’s seat to the Arab country’s foreign-backed opposition, warning the block against pursuing a “dangerous trend” regarding Syria.

Granting Syria’s seat in the Arab League to a group that doesn’t have the nation’s direct vote is an improper measure, Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with Chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) Ammar Hakim in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Thursday.

The Arab League has begun a dangerous trend that can also be used against certain members of the bloc in the future, he added.

On Tuesday, Syria’s foreign-backed opposition bloc, known as the National Coalition, took Syria’s seat during the Arab League annual summit held in the Qatari capital, Doha.

The League also authorized its members to send all the means of what it called self-defense, including weapons, to the militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Iranian envoy further reaffirmed the country’s stance on the importance of resolving the ongoing crisis in Syria through national dialogue within a Syria-Syria framework.

Many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence that broke out in Syria nearly two years ago.

Hakim, for his part, said that the support of certain sides for the extremist groups in Syria would not settle the two-year crisis in the Arab country. He added that the unrest in Syria should be resolved merely through political channels.

SF/HJL

Cyprus will reopen its banks after nearly two weeks of closure amid ongoing negotiations on a bailout proposed by the European Union and popular dissatisfaction over the deal.

The banks, which have been closed since March 16, are expected to reopen on Thursday amid tightened security measures.

Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris has imposed temporary limits on daily cash withdrawals, allowing an amount of 300 euros only. Sarris also ordered travelers not to take more than 1,000 euros out of the country. A ban has been imposed on cashing checks as well.

The banks in Cyprus were shut down nationwide to prevent cash withdrawals, prompting people to form long lines at cash machines, which only dispense a lowered daily amount of 260 euros for each individual account.

Nicosia secured a 10-billion-euro ($13-billion) bailout deal on March 25 from the EU, the ECB, and the IMF, which included a tax of up to 40 percent on deposits of over 100,000 euros in the country’s two biggest banks, namely the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank aka Cyprus Popular Bank.

People in Cyprus have taken to the streets to protest the bailout deal. The protesters gathered outside the parliament in the capital, Nicosia, on March 23.

Some economic experts say that the 10-billion-euro bailout package would save Cyprus from bankruptcy and possibly guarantee its future in the 17-nation eurozone.

SZH/HJL

Chinese scientists have said that a new coronavirus, which has already killed 11, appears to be deadlier than SARS. The new virus, originating in the Middle East, can affect many different organs and kill cells more rapidly than SARS.

The infectious disease strongly resembles Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed 800 people in 2002 and 2003 in a global epidemic that originated in China, infecting around 8,000 people.

“The SARS coronavirus infected very few animal cell lines. It was finally traced to bats and civets. But we may have a very hard time, as this new virus seems to be much more promiscuous,” Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist at University of Hong Kong researching the new virus told South China Morning Post.

The virus, which is believed to originate in bats, can also infect different species including monkeys, pigs, civet cats and even rabbits. This makes it hard to trace sources of human infection, the researcher said.

The new virus is also dangerous because it can infect different organs in the human body. It could penetrate the lower airway, liver, kidneys and intestines, as well as tissue macrophages. This could lead to multiple organ failures, with a mortality rate of more than 50 percent; the SARS mortality rate is 11 percent.

“The SARS coronavirus infects very few human cell lines. But this new virus can infect many types of human cell lines, and kill cells rapidly,” Yuen said. If the new virus mutates further, it could cause a deadly pandemic, the microbiologist warned.

So far the new virus did not appear to be highly infectious, the microbiologists said, but this may change as the virus mutates.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced that the disease had killed two more people — a 73-year-old from the United Arab Emirates and a Briton who had visited Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This brought the death toll to 11, out of the 17 confirmed cases of the new virus.

The virus infection emerged in Saudi Arabia and Qatar last year; the symptoms included acute breathing problems and kidney failure.

After the first casualty in the UK, the authorities admitted that the novel coronavirus can be passed from human to human. However, they insisted that the risk of infection is very low.

Although less infectious once penetrating the body, the new virus multiplies faster than SARS. A study published in mBio journal revealed that the virus multiplied in human bronchial cells more quickly than SARS.

British campaigners will demonstrate outside the parliament building in London on April 15 to call on the government to cut military budget on the Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

Britain’s annual military budget is a massive £39 billion, which is the fourth largest in the world and the country is planning to replace its Trident nuclear weapons system at a cost the Stop the War Coalition estimates to reach £100 billion.

The government is also providing subsidies to 55,000 arms trade jobs that amount to a dizzying £700 million a year while the NHS is facing 56,000 job cuts due to austerity measures.

This is while the government is cutting vital public services including the National Health Service “efficiency savings” by £20 billion in three years, social housing by £4 billion, sickness benefits by £2 billion and Mental health services and youth services by £150 million and £200 million, respectively.

“Demilitarize” campaigners now want convey the message to the parliament that the billions of pounds spent on the military can be better used on education, development and health services.

Their action is part of a global initiative calling for a shift of the international military spending, which stood at £1.15 trillion in 2011, to fund human needs.

The Global Day of Action on Military Spending is set in April to coincide with the release of the Stockholm international Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) annual figures on world military expenditures.

AMR/HE

South Africa says its anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela, has been admitted to hospital with a ‘lung infection.’

The South African presidential office said in a statement that the country’s 94-year-old former and the first Black president was hospitalized “due to the recurrence of his lung infection” just before midnight on Wednesday.

Mandela had also spent about three weeks in hospital for a similar infection and gallstones in December 2012.

Earlier this month, he spent a night in hospital for a scheduled medical checkup.

“Doctors are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort,” the statement added. “We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts.”

“We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery.”

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his clan name, or as tata, which means father. He is widely regarded as the father of the nation for leading the struggle against apartheid. Mandela served as South Africa’s first Black president from 1994 to 1999.

The former South African president has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. In recent years, Mandela’s health problems have worried his supporters.

MSH/HSN

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has inaugurated a major construction project to build the world’s tallest double-curved concrete arch dam in Iran’s western Lorestan Province.

In a Thursday ceremony in the city of Khorramabad, the president expressed gladness over launching the major project, which will be carried out entirely by Iranian experts and construction workers.

The 315-meter-tall (1,033 feet) dam has been designed to construct a hydroelectric power plant that will generate 1,500 megawatt electricity.

President Ahmadinejad described the Bakhtiari Dam project as a turning point in the path towards the development, progress and improvement of Lorestan Province.

The president added during the inauguration ceremony that the world’s tallest double-curved concrete dam is being built here by the “able hands and expertise of committed Iranian scientists and workforce.”

The dam will be built over Lorestan’s Bakhtiari River.

MFB/HJL

Drier Climate Will Spread Deadly Intestinal Illnesses

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Posted on Mar 28, 2013

jonrawlinson (CC BY 2.0)

Diarrhea kills 1.5 million children worldwide each year.

By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network

This article first appeared at Climate News Network.

LONDON–Diarrhea, which kills 1.5 million children annually, is likely to become more prevalent in many developing countries as the climate changes, a report says. But the authors found an unexpected twist in the way the climate is likely to affect the disease.

Kathleen Alexander, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, says climate drives a large part of diarrhea and related disease, increasing the threat which a changing climate poses to vulnerable communities.

The analysis of 30 years of data by her team found an unexpected peak of diarrhea during the hottest and driest part of the year, when there were most flies.

Her study, “Climate change Is likely to worsen the public health threat of diarrhea disease in Botswana”, is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It is based on three decades of historical data and has implications for arid countries worldwide.

Alexander, a veterinary specialist, conducts much of her research at the Center for African Resource: Animals, Communities, and Land Use (CARACAL), in Chobe, Botswana.

She and her colleagues analysed data on diarrheal disease from 1974, eight years after Botswana gained independence from British rule, to 2003. Finding accurate and comprehensive health data in Africa is difficult, she said, and this explained why long-term studies of the links between climate and health were rare.

The World Health Organisation says diarrheal disease, the second most common cause of death in children under five years old, is both preventable and treatable. It mainly affects children under two years old, and is a leading cause of malnutrition in under-fives.

Botswana, arid and landlocked, has a subtropical climate of distinct wet and dry seasons. Professor Alexander and her team looked at monthly reports of diarrheal disease among patients treated since 1974 and compared the data with climatic variables over the same period.

A surprise conclusion

They found the two were linked — but they also found something they hadn’t expected. Many experts say contaminated water is a principal cause of the spread of diarrheal disease. The WHO says it “mostly results from contaminated food and water sources. Worldwide, around one billion people lack access to improved water and 2.5 billion have no access to basic sanitation.”

Yet the researchers’ findings indicated that water was only one of several factors to consider. “Our analysis suggests that forecast climate change increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation for the region are likely to increase dry season diarrheal disease incidence, while incidence in the wet season is likely to decline,” Alexander said.

Diarrheal case incidence peaks in both seasons in Botswana, with cases 20% more frequent on average in the dry than the wet season.

“We were not expecting diarrheal disease to be worse in the dry season,” Alexander said. But she thinks there is an explanation: “These dry season peaks occur during the hottest and driest times of the year, conditions that can increase fly activity and density.”

“This is significant, as flies can be important in the transmission of diarrheal disease-causing micro-organisms.” She believes what the flies may be doing is providing a significant boost during the dry season to other factors which are already contributing to diarrheal disease.

“Our findings suggest that climate change will increase the occurrence of diarrhea and the burden of disease among vulnerable populations in Botswana and similarly affected regions”, Professor Alexander said.

But the impact of her team’s findings was likely to be significantly reduced if shortcomings in public health were identified and remedied.

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A Brazilian doctor may become famous for one of the world’s most sinister cases of serial killings, if prosecutors can show the evidence. She was arrested with three other doctors and a nurse – and charged with killing patients to free up hospital beds.

Prosecutors believe 56-year-old doctor Virginia Soares de Souza and her team routinely administered muscle relaxants and reduced patients’ oxygen supply while they were on life support, causing them to die of asphyxia.

The motive behind the chilling practice behind the seven counts of first-degree murder was evidently to free up beds in the intensive care unit at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. Opening such space would have required no more than a phone call by de Souza to her team.

Highlighting the severity and potential fallout from the case, President Dilma Rousseff’s administration is directly intervening in the matter, and plans to reorganize the hospital. Brazil’s Ministry of Health has warned that, beyond the 20 cases its investigation team has already looked into, there are 300 more within a total of 1,700 hospital records over the last seven years that may prove to be connected.

The head of the ministry’s investigation team, Dr. Mario Lobato, has made a disturbing concession to a local news network regarding the 300 pending records:

“They all have the same modus operandi, the same relationship between the drug and the death, and the timing,” The Guardian quotes him as saying.

Meanwhile, police are under fire for having failed to act sooner, waiting almost a year after launching an undercover investigation following anonymous tip-offs.

If more cases can be proved by evidence available to the investigation team, de Souza’s case could rival or even surpass that of Harold Shipman, currently the world’s worst known serial killer. Shipman was convicted in 2004 over the killing of 15 patients, and was suspected of up to 260 additional deaths carried out over a period of decades.

A Curitiba judge ordered de Souza and her alleged co-conspirators released last week, though prosecutors are currently seeking to have her returned to custody.

DOMA May Be Doomed, O’Reilly Slams Gay Marriage Opponents, and More

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Posted on Mar 27, 2013

DOMA Going Down? After 17 years of existence, the Defense of Marriage Act looks to be in trouble based on oral arguments Wednesday at the Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog estimates that the likelihood of the law being struck down is 80 percent. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin also says there’s a real possibility it will be overturned. “I think DOMA’s in trouble and I think it’s in trouble because Anthony Kennedy was repeatedly concerned that the Defense of Marriage Act violates states’ rights,” he said. “[Kennedy] was clearly very concerned that the Defense of Marriage Act was invading the province of the state to define marriage. … And that would certainly be suggesting that he was going to strike down the law. And certainly the other liberals, the four Democratic appointees, looked like they were going to vote to strike it down.” (Read more)

Coming Out in Support: Yet another Democratic senator has come out in support of gay marriage. Despite being up for re-election in 2014 in a state that only last year banned same-sex couples from getting married, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan endorsed the idea Wednesday. “Marriage equality is a complex issue with strong feelings on both sides, and I have a great deal of respect for varying opinions on the issue,” she wrote on Facebook. Hagan’s announcement means there are just nine Democrats left in the Senate who do not support legalizing same-sex marriage. (Read more)

Taking a Pass: Sen. Ashley Judd? Forget about it. After months of flirting with the notion of running for the Democratic nomination in Kentucky, the actress and activist says she will not mount a challenge against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Previous reports indicated Judd would have a decision in early May around the time of the Kentucky Derby. But the actress surprised her 171,000 followers by announcing her decision via a series of tweets Wednesday. “I realize that my responsibilities and energy at this time need to be focused on my family,” she wrote. “Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate.” (Read more)

Above the Law: When it comes to parking tickets, don’t mess with Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert. New reports say the Republican got into a verbal altercation with a U.S. Park Police officer this month over a parking ticket. Gohmert received the ticket the evening of March 13 when he parked his vehicle near the Lincoln Memorial in a spot reserved for National Park Service cars. Gohmert tried to weasel his way out of the ticket by pulling rank, telling one officer, “I was issued a ticket and I am a congressman and parked my vehicle in the NPS parking only because I have a Congress placard,” according to a report. One officer described the congressman’s behavior as “rude and irate.” The report concludes that the GOP lawmaker left his business card and told officers he wouldn’t be paying the ticket. Gohmert’s office, however, is telling a much different version of the story, giving an account that includes an officer taking back the ticket and apologizing. (Read more)

Video of the Day: Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made a proclamation on his program Tuesday that sounded an awful lot like he may support marriage equality. Discussing the hot-button issue with fellow Fox News host Megyn Kelly on his show, O’Reilly said he was unimpressed with the arguments presented by the anti-gay marriage faction. “The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals,” the conservative said. “That’s where the compelling argument is. ‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.” “The O’Reilly Factor” host also told Kelly that he had something coming up next week that she’s “really not going to like.” Does that mean a public endorsement of marriage equality isn’t far behind? 

Bonus Video of the Day: Edith Windsor, the 83-year-old plaintiff in the Defense of Marriage Act case, gave an emotional speech on the steps of the Supreme Court after the justices heard arguments on the matter. Saying that someone had written a long speech for her that she wasn’t going to read, Windsor instead talked about what marriage meant to her. Marriage “is a magic word, for anybody who doesn’t understand why we want it and why we need it–it is magic,” she said, later adding, “Today is like a spectacular event for me. I mean, it’s a lifetime kind of event, and I know that the spirit of my late spouse Thea Spyer is right here watching and listening, and would be very proud and happy of where we’ve come to.”

–Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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WASHINGTON – March 27 – ANGELA DALLARA [email]
Dallara is communications associate with Freedom to Marry. The group’s goal is “to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage once and for all. Drawing on the history of other social justice movements in the United States, we know that victory will ultimately come from persuading either Congress or the Supreme Court to end marriage discrimination. To achieve that victory, we must secure the freedom to marry in a critical mass of states and grow majority support across the country.” Resources, including live blogging of the Supreme Court proceedings are available at: freedomtomarry.org.

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE [email]
Author of The End of San Francisco, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore said today: “Here we go again – as the powers-that-be in the United States devise new ways to stifle dissent, destroy the environment, privatize public resources, and continue the path of never-ending war, another debate about gay marriage between straight homophobes who think that all queers deserve to burn in hell and self-hating gays who think that all gay people deserve marriage – really, what’s the difference? The mainstream gay movement is now obsessed with obtaining straight privilege at any cost – marriage and military inclusion instead of ending these fundamental institutions of oppression; hate crimes legislation instead of abolishing the prison industrial complex; and maybe even ordination into the priesthood, such lovely icing on the wedding cake. What a nightmare – we need to get back to fighting for gender, sexual, social, and political self-determination for everyone, as a start.”

She is also editor of That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. In 2008, she wrote the piece “Why One Queer Person Is Not Celebrating California’s Historic Gay Marriage Decision.”

BRAD REGA [email]
Rega has been camped out in front of the Supreme Court. He’s a grad student in anthropology at American University and an intern with the Institute for Public Accuracy. He said today: “Same-sex marriage is something new and for the most part has a relatively lesser sense of urgency compared to other gay rights and protections such as employment discrimination. For decades, it has been perfectly legal in many states to fire a person or deny promotion due to one’s sexuality. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been introduced in nearly every Congress for almost 20 years, includes protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. … As one person in line at the Supreme Court mentioned to me ‘is it the MRC (Marriage Rights Campaign) or the HRC (Human Rights Campaign)?’”

WASHINGTON – March 27 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will introduce legislation to break up banks that have grown so big that the Justice Department has not pursued prosecutions for fear an indictment would harm the financial system.

The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger now than before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis. At the time Congress, over Sanders’ objection, approved a $700 billion bank rescue because of concerns by some that the financial institutions were too big to fail. Another $16 trillion from the Federal Reserve propped up financial institutions.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. now says the Justice Department may not pursue criminal cases against big banks because filing charges could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

“In other words,” Sanders said, “we have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail. That is unacceptable and that has got to change because America is based on a system of law and justice.”

U.S. banks have become so big that the six largest financial institutions in this country (J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) today have assets of nearly $9.6 trillion, a figure equal to about two-thirds of the nation’s gross domestic product. These six financial institutions issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards, over half of all mortgages, control 95 percent of all derivatives held in financial institutions and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits in the United States.

Sanders’ legislation would give Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that he deems too big to fail. The affected financial institutions would include “any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial government assistance.”

Within one year after the legislation became law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions identified by the secretary.

“If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” Sanders said. “No single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of American jobs or to our nation’s economic wellbeing. No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis,” Sanders said. “We need to break up these institutions because they have done of the tremendous damage they have done to our economy.”

To watch Sanders’ Senate floor speech, click here.

March 27, 2013  |  

Being wronged by a corporation is painful enough, but just try getting your day in court. Most Americans don’t realize it, but our Seventh Amendment right to a fair jury trial against corporate wrongdoers has quietly been stripped from us. Instead, we are now shunted into a stacked-deck game called “Binding Mandatory Arbitration.” Proponents of the process hail it as superior to the courts – “faster, cheaper and more efficient!” they exclaim.

But does it deliver justice? It could, for the original concept of voluntary, face-to-face resolution of conflict by a neutral third party makes sense in many cases. But remember what Mae West said of her own virtue: “I used to be Snow White, then I drifted.” Today’s practice of arbitration has drifted far away from the purity of the concept.

All you really need to know about today’s process is that it’s the product of years of conceptual monkey-wrenching by corporate lobbyists, Congress, the Supreme Court and hired-gun lobbying firms looking to milk the system for steady profits. First and foremost, these fixers have turned a voluntary process into the exact opposite: mandatory. Let’s look at this mess.

– Unlike courts, arbitration is not a public system, but a private business.

– Far from being neutral, “the third-party” arbitration firms are – get this! – usually hand-picked by the corporation involved in the case, chosen specifically because they have proven records of favoring the corporation.

– The corporation also gets to choose the city or town where the case is heard, allowing it to make the case inconvenient, expensive and unfair to individuals bringing a complaint.

– Arbitrators are not required to know the law relevant to the cases they judge or follow legal precedents.

– Normal procedural rules for gathering and sharing evidence and safeguarding fairness to both parties do not apply in arbitration cases.

– Arbitration proceedings are closed to the media and the public.

– Arbitrators need not reveal the reasons for their decisions, so they are not legally accountable for errors, and the decisions set no legal precedents for guiding future corporate conduct.

– Even if an arbitrator’s decision is legally incorrect, it still is enforceable, carrying the full weight of the law.

– There is virtually no right to appeal an arbitrator’s ruling.

That adds up to a kangaroo court! Who would choose such a rigged system? No one. Which is why corporate America has resorted to brute force and skullduggery to drag you into their arbitration wringer.

By “force,” I mean practically every business relationship you have with a corporation (customer, employee, supplier, etc.) begins with you blindly signing away your right to go to court. Written in indecipherable legalese, these sneaky provisos are usually secluded in the tiny-type of pre-printed, take-it-or-leave-it, non-negotiable contracts.

By “you,” I mean everyone one of us who: takes a job, gets a credit card, subscribes to cable TV, buys an insurance policy, rents an apartment, purchases nearly any new product (from cellphone to house), has a home remodeled or car repaired, enters a nursing home, becomes a franchisee or corporate supplier or signs up with a landscaping service.

If you seek justice because you’ve been gouged by your bank, discriminated against, sexually harassed, unfairly fired, cheated on wages, sold a shoddy product, denied health care coverage or otherwise harmed by a corporation, you’ll most likely find that you’re barred from the courthouse door. That document you unwittingly signed has shackled you to the corporation’s own privatized court.

Since binding mandatory arbitration “agreements” are written by corporate lawyers, it’s no surprise that they stack the deck in favor of corporations. But – wow! – the percentage of rigged wins is disgusting.

The Peruvian government has declared an environmental state of emergency after finding elevated levels of lead, barium, and chromium in the Pastaza River in the Amazon jungle, reports the Associated Press. Indigenous peoples in the area have been complaining for decades of widespread contamination from oil drilling, but this is the first time the Peruvian government has acknowledged their concerns. Currently 84 percent of the Peruvian Amazon is covered by potential oil blocs, leading to conflict with indigenous people and environmental degradation.

The Peruvian Environment Minister, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, said that Pluspetrol, which has operated the oil bloc in question–1 AB–since 2001, would be liable for cleaning up the pollution. But the minister also noted that Occidental Petroleum, which operated the bloc from 1971-2001, had not been environmentally responsible in its operations either.

River in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
The news comes shortly after Peru set forth its first environmental standards for soil pollution, which the government claims is what led to the announcement of the state of emergency. For the first time Peruvian experts had standards by which to measure contamination in the Pastaza River bed.

Pluspetrol now has 90 days to clean up the Pastaza River and mitigate risk to the local Quichua and Ashuar peoples.

Peru has 659,937 square kilometers of its Amazon rainforest (84 percent) under actual and potential oil and gas development, an area larger than Afghanistan. Not surprisingly–given the scale–many of the oil blocs cover indigenous lands and protected areas. Such concessions not only imperil indigenous groups and the forest itself, but also many tribes that live in voluntary isolation who are especially susceptible to disease.

Meanwhile oil companies are complaining that Peru’s regulatory process is stifling the development of the country’s oil fields. Dow Jones Newswires reports that 16 oil companies have come together to lobby the Peruvian government on increasing oil production.

In 2009 conflict between oil development and indigenous rights erupted in violence. A clash between protestors and government police lead to the deaths of 23 police officers and at 10 indigenous protestors. Indigenous groups have since accused the government police of hiding protesters bodies in order to hide the scale of the violence.

The situation is getting desperate in Guantanamo with many of the hunger striking inmates prepared to die, federal public defender Carlos Warner told RT, stressing that his client is calling on the Obama administration to either ‘respect or kill’ them.

RT: When did you last speak to your client and how bad did he say the situation was there?

Carlos Warner: Actually, I have late breaking news from the island. It came in just a few minutes ago from Colonel Wingard. If you are interested I have a statement from Faiz al-Kandari.

RT: What did he say?

CW: Are you interested?

RT: Very much so.

CW: He said:

“I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us. It is your choice. The US must take off its mask and kill us.”

That was his statement as of today. I saw him last week. I have many clients there but I did see him last week and it was a shock to see what I saw. He was a man who was down more than 30 pounds less than a month ago. He refused all nourishment. His cheeks were sunk in. He was exhausted, weak, he could not stand. It was a scary, scary meeting for me.

RT: And his message is respect us or kill us. Will his wish come true or will he now be prepared to die?

CW: Well, I think many of the men, the ones that are indefinitely detained have zero hope. They have no hope because of the administration. I think many of them are ready die. The question is how and when will they die? They have no hope of being released from that place and unless a human being has some hope, it is very difficult to live. And many of them are prepared to die.

RT: Has this man been cleared for release years ago, and if so why hasn’t he been released?

CW: Faiz is not on the list of 86 innocent men who are cleared for release and those 86 men, it was unanimous decision by the US government, our government to release them. But Faiz is not on that list. But let’s be clear, everyone in Guantanamo is indefinitely detained. No one is being released — cleared for release or not.

Carlos Warner

RT:Why not? Clearly the US must have justified legal reason for keeping these people locked up?

CW:Yes. The reason is very simple and it is at the foot of President Obama. Now you’re talking to a federal defender. What that means, I come from the far left. I’m a liberal and I believe in President Obama and I’ve voted for him twice. But this is a broken promise, one he has chosen not to abide by. He looks at the republicans in congress and says it is their fault. Well, as of today, there isn’t one person in the administration I can contact to address these problems. There is nobody in the entire Obama administration I call and say, let’s stop the hunger strike. I’m forced to do that at the base with young officers.

RT:If people do start to die, do you think there will be more attention from the mainstream media?

CW:These are men. They are not animals. These are people that we have grown to know and respect and I do not want to see any of them die. I don’t want to see them die over this or any other protest. They should get processed. They are at the end of their rope. When people die, if the strike has not ended, then sure there is going to be more attention. But let me tell you, as a human being I do not want to see my clients die and the fact that they are in this condition is one of the most heart-wrenching things I have had to experience as a lawyer.

RT:Will their desperate actions achieve anything?

CW:It is up to the world. The military is telling them to look away from Guantanamo, everything is fine, nobody is striking, there is only 10-15-20, and now I heard it’s over 30 today. The only way this changes is if the world pressures United States, internally as well. We need the citizens of the United States to stand up and demand that the president Obama follow through with his promise. And his promise is to close the Guantanamo. He made that broken promise and as you can hear from the mouth of Faiz, it is killing people in Guantanamo now.

HOUSTON, TX – March 27 – An activist with Tar Sands Blockade climbed a 50 foot flagpole in front of LyondellBasell’s downtown Houston office this morning and hung a banner denouncing the corporation’s plans to nearly triple its tar sands processing capacity at its Houston Refining facility in the Hispanic neighborhood of Manchester. The banner reads, “LyondellBasell, Stay Out of Tar Sands. No KXL.”

Today’s protest from activist Perry Graham is in response to a recent announcement by LyondellBasell’s CEO Jim Gallogly that they were “just finishing up” a $50 million upgrade to increase the Houston Refining facility’s capacity to process tar sands. The planned upgrade to the largest refinery in the City of Houston would process 175,000 barrels of tar sands per day, or nearly one-quarter of the capacity of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. If built, the pipeline would carry toxic tar sands from Alberta, Canada to Houston and other Gulf Coast refineries before being primarily exported overseas.

“I’m taking action today to expose LyondellBasell’s unjust practices of environmental racism, from the poisoning of the Athabascan Chipewyan people due to tar sands extraction, to the ongoing refinery pollution affecting communities of color in Houston’s toxic East End,” said Graham. “After last week’s 55 actions across the continent to stop tar sands profiteers, corporations like LyondellBasell that process tar sands should expect active resistance.”

LyondellBasell has a history of dodging accountability for their pollution. In 2009, LyondellBasell filed for bankruptcy, allowing the corporation to avoid nearly $5 billion in environmental cleanup costs at 11 contaminated sites across the country. Last year, LyondellBasell was sued by Harris County for four incidents at their Channelview refinery that resulted in the release of 5 tons of pollutants, including benzene, octane, ethylene, propylene, and 1,3-butadiene.

To make matters worse, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) refused to allow a public hearing to review LyondellBasell’s benzene emissions in Houston in 2010. This lack of oversight leaves affected communities like Manchester, located less than two miles from the LyondellBasell refinery, to suffer toxic pollutants and cancer-related deaths without recourse.

“The fence-line community of Manchester already deals with the effects of the pollution from surrounding industry,” said Manchester resident and Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Yudith Nieto. “Now LyondellBasell wants to nearly triple dirty tar sands refining in our communities without regard for the safety and well being of the people. Where are the state environmental agencies who have a duty to protect us from this unjust and destructive industry?”

Live updates and photos: http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/19th-action/

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Within days of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing a challenge to an Arizona voting registration law that had been adopted as a “model” by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), two more states advanced bills that appear to track the ALEC/Arizona template.

On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (ITCA), which will decide whether Arizona’s refusal to register voters that do not provide proof of citizenship is in conflict with federal law.

As the Center for Media and Democracy reported, the 2004 Arizona law at issue in the case was subsequently adopted by ALEC lobbyists and legislators as a “model” for other states under the name the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act. The ALEC/Arizona law requires voters submit a copy of documents like passports or birth certificates to register, and is being challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it imposes additional restrictions beyond the National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to accept registrations submitted on a uniform federal mail application. Over 31,000 eligible Arizona voters have been rejected from the rolls because they did not have the additional documentation required under the state law.

The ALEC Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act has since been introduced in multiple states, most recently in South Carolina and Nevada.

ALEC Bill Introduced in Nevada, South Carolina

In Nevada on March 18, the same day the Supreme Court heard the ITCA case, a version of the ALEC bill was introduced by Sen. Don Gustavson, a member of the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force (which, before being disbanded last year, had adopted the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act as a “model”) and Sen. James Settelmeyer, a member of the ALEC Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force. See the side-by-side here. The Nevada proposal additionally reflects provisions from the ALEC Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act requiring proof of citizenship for public benefits (although the ITCA case only considers those provisions relating to voter registration).

In South Carolina, a bill that closely tracks the ALEC Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act was introduced by Sen. Chip Campsen, an ALEC member who is part of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force and who has received corporate-funded “scholarships” to attend ALEC meetings. See the side-by-side here. Campsen introduced the bill in January, and on March 15, it was referred to a Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Campsen himself. Campsen had previously introduced the same bill in early 2012, after the Department of Justice blocked the state’s ALEC-inspired voter ID bill under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Though ALEC has since posted some bills on its website and has claimed to disavow models like the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, (with its spokesperson alleging “if it is not on our website, it is not our policy”), ALEC member legislators continue to introduce the organization’s “model” legislation, without regard for whether ALEC has decided to make the bills public.

Hearing Shows Divided Court

The fate of those ALEC-inspired proposals may depend on the outcome of the Arizona v. ITCA case. The justices in oral argument appeared divided along familiar ideological lines.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan all noted that federal law tells states they must accept the federal registration form, and that states cannot create their own reasons for rejecting some applications. In response to Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne calling the proof of citizenship requirement a “minimal burden,” Justice Sotomayor replied that “many people don’t have the documents that Arizona requires,” and that over 31,000 Arizona voters were rejected from the rolls.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito appeared to side with Arizona. Scalia mocked the notion that any weight should be given to the federal form’s requirement that voters swear, under oath and threat of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens. “So it’s under oath,” Scalia said. “Big deal. If you’re willing to violate the voting laws, I suppose you’re willing to violate the perjury laws.” (Sworn statements under oath are considered proof beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal trial, replied Patricia Millett, attorney for several of the groups challenging the law.)

Justice Kennedy, who may cast the deciding swing vote, said that if states can ask for additional documentation beyond the NVRA, the “federal form is not worth very much.” But he also expressed sympathy for Arizona’s position, noting “the state has a very strong and vital interest in the integrity of its elections” that the Ninth Circuit had not adequately taken into account.

The case might have had broader implications for voting rights beyond just Arizona’s statute. When the Ninth Circuit struck down Arizona’s law, it issued its ruling under the Constitution’s Election Clause, which allows states to decide “the time, place and manner” of holding federal elections, but authorizes Congress to “make or alter such regulations.” In its appeal to the Supreme Court, Arizona argued for a narrow scope of federal power under the Election Clause, claiming it affords states the exclusive power to determine voter qualifications.

Some feared that the Supreme Court might side with Arizona and issue a decision that shifted the power between the states and federal government for regulating elections. But during oral argument the justices showed little interest in the broader constitutional questions, focusing more specifically on the NVRA’s statutory language.

WASHINGTON – March 27 – The U.S. Supreme Court today is hearing oral arguments in a case about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law that bars federal government recognition of the marriages of same-sex couples. Yesterday, the justices heard argument in a case dealing with Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment that removed the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, gave the following address today at the “United for Marriage” rally in front of the Supreme Court building.

Said Lynn:

“I am a minister in the United Church of Christ and a member of the Supreme Court bar. Long ago, I gave up thinking I had the gift of prophecy generally and I’ve also given up trying to predict specifically what the justices behind us will do.

“Two groups of Americans have been gathering here for the past two days. I know quite a few people in both camps. Those who are anti-marriage equality are not all haters and bigots. But — they are all wrong. Their time is past and they know it; polls demonstrate that they cannot even convince their own children they are right. Their ethical analyses and their purportedly moral viewpoints will soon be relegated to the dustbin of human history.

“I oppose the agenda of the Religious Right every day at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, because I know that the United States is not a theocracy; it is not a place where the law reflects some powerful group’s narrow and crabbed view of what any holy scripture allegedly says. It is why we have fought for a separation of church and state — and why we need to get that correct each day.

“We would not have DOMA or Proposition 8 if it were not for the wealthy and powerful sectarian forces that stand behind the rubric of marriage inequality and who treat some to a second-class citizenship our Constitution abhors.

“American history is an interesting thing. Taking the long view, it is crafted by ordinary people like us more than by presidents or senators or Supreme Court justices. And sometimes sooner, sometimes later, we the people tend to get it right. And we — the second camp — are getting it right today: we are standing up for something so fundamental, so real, so remarkably simple that these marble steps cry that we haven’t seen it sooner.

“I have been married to my spouse Joanne for 42 years; we have two great children — one girl, one boy; we are just what one anti-equality speaker on the radio yesterday said was the dream American family. I know how good that feels. Yesterday, I was in tears listening to the dreams of other families, dreams that cannot yet be fulfilled for them because of the very law being debated today inside that building. 

“You shouldn’t need a theological or a legal degree to recognize one simple equation. All people who are willing to accept the rights and responsibilities of a long-term commitment deserve equal treatment under our Constitution no matter what job they do, no matter what state they live in, no matter who they love. A simple equation of simple justice!

“As I said, I don’t know what this Supreme Court will do in June. I don’t know whether our side will win or lose or get a mixed message or perhaps get no definitive answers at all. This I do know. If decisions don’t go our way, we will find every other venue in which to make our arguments; and we will return to this court one day.

“Even if we prevail on the arguments of the past two days, our job will not be over. Decisions of this court are not self executing. We will need to be vigilant that every family is accorded whatever rights this Court grants them. Just like Brown v. Board of Education, we will need to be sure that every state, every community, puts the principle into practice and that no one is left behind.

“And we will do that because we have always done that. We do not stop litigating, we do not stop marching, we do not stop debating, we do not stop organizing until we win for everyone.”

In September 1955 an editorial column in Toward Freedom, titled “Consent of the Governed,” criticized “the tendency to make the communist issue so big that it obscured all others.” During the recent Bandung conference, which had launched the non-aligned movement, the editor noted that the US press had focused hard on public criticisms of Soviet subversion. But it had ignored other statements by world leaders that “urged the third way of emphasizing democracy and the consent of the governed.”

The following month Bill LLoyd took up the urgent need for timetables leading to self-government:

Six former colonial areas — Jordan, Ceylon, Nepal, Libya, Cambodia and Laos — joined the UN in 1955. Lloyd said it was a time “when national freedom again was recognized as a logical, acceptable goal for all peoples.” The call issued in Bandung had helped power the drive for UN membership. He also acknowledged that the US maintained an air base in Libya and that the removal of Algeria from the UN agenda represented a setback. However, for the first time a UN visiting mission had proposed a timetable for independence in Tanganyika (Tanzania) — although it was just “within 25 years.”

Other countries were edging toward freedom. Ghana was preparing for full independence, Sudan’s parliament had declared it independent, Malaysia was preparing to vote, and Morocco was making slow progress. But thousands of lives were being lost in Algeria, nationalists were defying the British military occupation of Cyprus, and violence persisted in Kenya.

In the midst of the 1956 elections Lloyd addressed the connection between politics and morality. European powers had “milked the colonial people for all they could get,” he charged in an editorial with the pointed title, “Wrongs Must Be Righted.” Too many people forgot “the simple moral fact that the wrongdoer must make restitution before his good intentions can be given full confidence.” That meant restitution for descendants of “grievously wronged” Native Americans and the African people:

If Europe’s governments claim that can’t afford it, Lloyd added, the US should handle a big part of the cost by shifting some money from military spending to a “huge and dramatic educational and development program through the United Nations.”

The Conference on Independent African States

When Ghana became a sovereign nation on March 6, 1957, Homer Jack represented the TF executive board at the independence celebrations and filed a report in the April issue. The British union jack had been replaced with Ghana’s flag of red, green and gold, he wrote, but economic colonialism lingered.

 Jack met with Prime Minister Nkrumah and saw promise in some of his bold ideas. For instance, he liked Nkrumah’s idea for a conference of independent African states — including the Union of South Africa — “to “achieve an African personality in international affairs.” A year later he covered that event, as well as the Sixth Pan-African Conference, both held in Accra.

Although a few participants at the Conference of Independent African States, notably Tunisia and Ethiopia, were cautiously pro-Western the majority leaned toward neutralism, Jack reported. But there were various types — the positive neutralism of the United Arab Republic, Ghana’s positive non-alignment, and Morocco’s non-dependence. The final resolutions talked about “non-entanglement with the big power blocs.”

Asserting that the African states had a distinctive personality which would speak to the cause of peace, the conference called on the great powers to stop producing nuclear weapons and suspend all testing. In particular, they condemned France’s provocative intentions to test nukes in the Sahara. They urged more African representation in disarmament talks and more consultation generally on global affairs.

There was no anti-Israel rhetoric, by the way, only a call for a “just solution of the Palestinian question.” Part of the reason was that Ghana, which hosted the event, was becoming one of Israel’s closest friends on the continent. The other friend was the Union of South Africa.

Regional Federalism and Atomic Colonialism

Bill Lloyd frequently focused on the challenges of independence and the tension between centralization vs. federal states rights. In an April 1955 commentary he said that, taken to an extreme, self-determination could lead to fragmentation. On the other hand, new countries had a perfect right to suspect the colonial powers of trying to use divide and conquer tactics.

 The ideal was sovereignty of the people. But based on his Swiss research Lloyd argued pragmatically for the potential of “regional federalism under democratic guarantees.” This involved authority for the central government in the areas of defense, foreign relations, and trade but also suggested flexibility; for example, states and regions should be able to negotiate trade agreements with foreign governments subject to federal approval.

William B. LLoyd, Jr.

In matters like smuggling and piracy, on the other hand, the help of the world community should be welcomed. He also proposed an novel trade off: In return for aid, Lloyd suggested that new nations ought to allow their dissatisfied minorities “to appeal to public opinion through the world organization for a peaceful settlement of their claims.”

The continued testing of hydrogen bombs by the US, USSR and UK led to another idea — expanding the definition of colonialism. It needed to go beyond denial of basic rights of self-determination, he said, “to include the forceful imposition of radioactive fallout upon the citizens of unwilling and protesting nations.”

Foreign planes were prevented from violating the recognized air sovereignty of nations. Invasion by radioactive fallout was an even greater violation, he charged. It was atomic colonialism, the ultimate form of environmental racism.

In a follow up editorial TF Board member Robert Pickus discussed the “engineering of consent,” particularly by the Atomic Energy Commission. “We cannot trust our government to give us adequate information because we have given it a prior command: Secure us, by preparing for war,” Pickus wrote.

He identified a profound conundrum; Americans wanted democracy, which meant access to information, but they also wanted to be prepared to wage atomic war — which meant secrecy and ultimately loss of control over the government.

On the Road Toward Freedom: A Cold War Story, part three of six.

Next: Continent in Crisis

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President Obama’s pick to become the nation’s next secretary of energy is drawing criticism for his deep ties to the fossil fuel, fracking and nuclear industries. MIT nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz has served on advisory boards for oil giant BP and General Electric, and was a trustee of the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center, a Saudi Aramco-backed nonprofit organization. In 2011, Moniz was the chief author of an influential study for MIT on the future of natural gas. According to a new report by the Public Accountability Initiative, Moniz failed to disclose that he had taken a lucrative position at a pro-drilling firm called ICF International just days before a key natural gas “fracking” study was released. Reaction to his nomination has split the environmental community. Advocacy groups such as Public Citizen and Food & Water Watch are campaigning against Moniz’s nomination, but the Natural Resources Defense Council has praised his work on advancing clean energy based on efficiency and renewable power. We speak to Kevin Connor of the Public Accountability Initiative and ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott, who have both authored investigations into Moniz’s ties to industry.

TRANSCRIPT:

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama’s pick to become the nation’s next energy secretary is drawing criticism for his deep ties to the fossil fuel, fracking and nuclear industry. Obama nominated MIT Professor Ernest Moniz last month to replace outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I could not be more grateful to Steve for the incredible contribution that he’s made to this country. And now that he’s decided to leave Washington for sunny California, I’m proud to nominate another brilliant scientist to take his place, Mr. Ernie Moniz. So, there’s Ernie right there.

Now, the good news is that Ernie already knows his way around the Department of Energy. He is a physicist by training, but he also served as undersecretary of energy under President Clinton. Since then, he has directed MIT’s Energy Initiative, which brings together prominent thinkers and energy companies to develop the technologies that can lead us to more energy independence and also to new jobs. Most importantly, Ernie knows that we can produce more energy and grow our economy while still taking care of our air, our water and our climate.

AMY GOODMAN: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Ernest Moniz’s nomination as energy secretary on April 9th. Reactions to his nomination has split the environmental community. Advocacy groups such as Public Citizen and Food & Water Watch are campaigning against his nomination, but the Natural Resources Defense Council has praised his work on advancing clean energy based on efficiency and renewable power.

Much of the criticism of Moniz centers on his extensive ties to industry. He has served on advisory boards for oil giant BP and General Electric and was a trustee of the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center, a Saudi Aramco-backed nonprofit organization. In 2011, Moniz was the chief author of an influential study for MIT on the future of natural gas. According to a new report by the Public Accountability Initiative, Moniz failed to disclose that he had taken a lucrative position at a pro-drilling firm called ICF International just days before the study was released.

We’re joined now by two guests. In New York, Justin Elliott, a reporter at ProPublica, he recently wrote a piece called “Drilling Deeper: The Wealth of Business Connections for Obama’s Energy Pick.” And in Los Angeles, we’re joined by Kevin Connor, director of the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit watchdog group which recently published a report called “Industry Partner or Industry Puppet? How MIT’s Influential Study of Fracking Was Authored, Funded, and Released by Oil and Gas Industry Insiders.” We invited MIT to join us on the show or send a comment to read on air, but we did not receive a response.

Kevin Connor, Justin Elliott, we welcome you to Democracy Now! Justin, let’s begin with you. Talk about Ernest Moniz’ record.

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right, well, I mean, and to some extent, this is kind of the classic revolving door situation. As President Obama mentioned when he nominated him to be energy secretary earlier this month, Moniz was an undersecretary in the department in President Clinton’s second term. After, he went back to MIT, but he also took a number of positions on boards of large energy companies or advisory councils, as you mentioned, that includes BP. It included a uranium enrichment company called USEC.

And I think there’s sort of two reasons why this is important. One is, some of these companies do business with the Energy Department and seek contracts and loan guarantees from the department. The other is, people in the environmental community think that this may inform how Ernest Moniz sets research priorities, so people are concerned that he’s–that he’s going to call for research on fossil fuels to the detriment of research on renewables, for example.

AMY GOODMAN: BP. Talk about his relationship with BP.

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Well, there’s kind of two prongs on that front. One is, personally, Moniz did a six-year stint–paid, although BP won’t tell me how much–on BP’s science advisory council. It’s not really clear what he did. They don’t–BP doesn’t have to reveal much about it in their public SEC filings. At the same time, BP is one of the main funders of the MIT Energy Initiative. I think they have given–given or pledged a total of $50 million over the past few years. So he’s clearly–he’s clearly close to that company.

AMY GOODMAN: And how typical is this for a university professor?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Well, I think, in the science–in sciences and, in particular, in sort of the energy secretary, it’s increasingly–it’s increasingly common. I mean, Steven Chu, the outgoing energy secretary, who’s also an academic, actually also had close ties to BP. BP had given a bunch of money to Steven Chu’s lab at the University of California, Berkeley, and Chu picked a BP executive to be one of his undersecretaries. And Chu was later involved in the government’s response to the Gulf oil spill. So, I mean, I think this is–this is certainly common if you’re going to be picking an academic who’s involved in energy, and particularly fossil fuel research.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to comments of the executive director the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC. Earlier this month, Peter Lehner posted on the NRDC blog a “To-Do List for the New Energy Secretary.” In it, he wrote, quote, “As a scientist, Moniz is obviously a firm believer in the power of clean energy technology. [MIT’s Energy Initiative] projects under his tenure included windows that generate electricity, batteries built by viruses, and a biofuel made from yeast. But he also believes that technology must be complemented by policy in order to effect real change. As he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2006, in order to address global warming, we must ‘have the will to take more than baby steps.'” NRDC is supporting Moniz’s nomination.

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right, Amy, and it’s completely true. Moniz has spoken in favor of renewable energy. I mean, I think the best way to sort of interpret his nomination is that he fits in with what Obama has called his “all-of-the-above” energy policy, which is to embrace things like fracking, continued use of oil, nuclear energy, but also develop wind and solar. And I think that that’s where Ernest Moniz is on energy policy.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to our guest in Los Angeles, Kevin Connor, and what you found in your report. Talk about the report that you did that looks at–well, the title of the report is “Industry Partner or Industry Puppet? How MIT’s Influential Study of Fracking Was Authored, Funded, and Released by Oil and Gas Industry Insiders.”

KEVIN CONNOR: Sure. Moniz’s nomination prompted us at the Public Accountability Initiative to take a closer look at an influential study that MIT did on “The Future of Natural Gas,” as it was called, in 2011. It was issued by the Energy Initiative, which Moniz was the director of. And it gave a very pro-gas–put a very pro-gas spin on fracking and shale gas extraction, said that natural gas was a bridge or will be a bridge to a low-carbon future, said that the environmental impacts related to fracking are challenging but manageable, and also endorsed natural gas exports, which is a very industry-friendly position to take.

It immediately, you know, prompted some criticism from people who pointed to the fact that the report was actually industry-funded, much like the initiative itself. But it was extremely influential. It was designed to influence policymakers. Moniz testified before Congress on the report. It had immediate impact, as well. And it came at a critical time for the industry, which was facing significant questions about the safety of fracking, the relative environmental impacts of fracking. And we took a closer look at the study and found that beyond just the industry funding of the study, there were significant conflicts of interest that went undisclosed in the report itself and in presentations of the report, and those involved Moniz and several other key authors of the study. So, as it turns out, it was not only just funded by industry, it was also authored by industry representatives.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Connor, I wanted to turn to a 2011 press conference at the MIT Energy Initiative, where Ernest Moniz introduced the study now under contention, “The Future of Natural Gas.” In his opening remarks, Professor Moniz emphasized the report’s independent of its sponsors and advisers.

ERNEST MONIZ: I do want to emphasize a disclaimer, if you like, that while their advice was absolutely critical, they are not responsible for the recommendations and the findings. We have not asked for endorsement. We asked for their advice; we received it. But the results, then, are our responsibility.

AMY GOODMAN: Later in the presentation, co-chair Anthony Meggs introduces the MIT report’s findings, saying environmental impacts associated with fracking are, quote, “challenging but manageable.” However, Meggs failed to disclose he had joined the gas company Talisman Energy prior to the release of the study.

ANTHONY MEGGS: … messages are very simple. First of all, there’s a lot of gas in the world, at very modest cost. As you will see, gas is still, globally speaking, a very young industry with a bright future ahead of it. Secondly, and perhaps obviously at this stage, although not so obvious when we started three years ago, shale gas is transformative for the economy of the United States, North America, for the gas industry, in particular, and potentially on a global scale. Thirdly, the environmental impacts of shale development, widely discussed and hotly debated, are–and we use these words carefully–challenging but manageable.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Connor, your response?

KEVIN CONNOR: It’s absolutely outrageous for the Energy Initiative, for Moniz and MIT to pretend this is independent of industry, well, first of all, given the fact that the sponsors of the report are all, you know, industry organizations and companies like Chesapeake Energy. Moniz was attempting to say that it was somehow insulated from the influence of these gas companies, when in fact authors of the study, such as Moniz and Meggs, were–had industry positions at the time.

Meggs’s quote there is particularly insidious, the fact that he is saying that fracking is safe for the environment, when he had actually joined Talisman Energy, a gas company, one of the most active frackers in the Marcellus Shale, a month before the study was released. So he is speaking to a roomful of journalists there, presenting a report designed to influence policy, and not disclosing that he is on the industry payroll. That is perhaps the last person in that room who should be presenting that finding or having anything to do with authoring that kind of report. And yet MIT and Moniz thought it was appropriate to put that spokesperson forward. So, it just goes to the fact that MIT was really sort of presenting an industry brochure here with a lot of pro-gas, industry advocacy talking points, and not revealing that there were significant conflicts of interest here.

AMY GOODMAN: Justin Elliott, would you like to weigh in?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, one thing to note is, Ernest Moniz is getting a confirmation hearing next month, and as part of that, he has to release a personal financial disclosure, and also, at some point later, he’ll have to–an ethics agreement will become public. So we should actually learn more about his current and recent involvement in these companies and possibly also stock holdings and that sort of thing, so it should be interesting. I think this story isn’t over yet.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and come back to this discussion. Our guests are Justin Elliott–he’s a reporter with ProPublica–and Kevin Connor, who has put out a report on–from the Public Accountability Project called “Industry Partner or Industry Puppet? How MIT’s Influential Study of Fracking Was Authored, Funded, and Released by Oil and Gas Industry Insiders.” This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: In October of 2009, Obama’s energy secretary nominee, Ernest Moniz, introduced Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, before he delivered a speech at the MIT Energy Initiative. This took place six months before the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

ERNEST MONIZ: Tony, I think it’s fair to say, without getting into great details, faced a significant number of challenges at that time of transition and is, these days, getting quite good press, I might say, in terms of having the company operating well, producing and maintaining, I think, its stance, taken quite early, in terms of recognizing the need and acting on the need to address climate risk mitigation, for example, with its diversified portfolio. We are very pleased to have BP here as a member of the Energy Initiative–in fact, the founding–founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative. And in fact, as President Hockfield said just a few minutes ago to Tony, that that confidence shown in where we were going here at MIT, in terms of our focus on energy and environment, was very, very important, and we really appreciate that early support and the continuing relationship. In fact, many of you may know that besides the Energy Initiative, BP has a major presence in terms of a Projects Academy and Operations Academy with the Sloan School of Engineering. And in fact, I just heard, again, in the discussion a few moments ago, that 300 of BP’s 500 senior executives have, one way or another, interacted with MIT, so it’s really quite a substantial relationship.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s energy secretary nominee Ernest Moniz speaking in October 2009, praising BP CEO Tony Hayward six months before the BP oil spill. Justin Elliott of ProPublica?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: I mean, one of the things that surprised me, actually, as I was researching this story, is the extent to which the MIT Energy Initiative is working with industry. I mean, it’s well known that they and other energy research projects get industry funding. But if you look at their annual reports and even their website, they say, if you give us money as a company, we will help you achieve specific business goals. So, I mean, in a lot of the coverage of Moniz, he has been presented as an academic, which he is, but in some ways I think the traditional categories are sort of failing us–sort of academic versus business executive. I mean, this really is a part of–I mean, it’s not formally part of BP, but they’re working as essentially a subcontractor for BP. So I think that’s really–and again, I mean, President Obama specifically praised Ernest Moniz’s ties with business when he introduced him. So, I mean, it’s up for interpretation whether or not these ties are a good thing, but I think that’s really the proper way to see his background and who he is.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Connor, I wanted to ask you about the broader issue of what some call
“frackademia,” gas-industry-funded academic research. In February of 2012, a year ago, University of Texas Professor Charles Groat published a study that suggested fracking did not lead to groundwater contamination. However, the study did not disclose Groat’s seat on the board of major Texas fracker Plains Exploration and Production Company, for which he was reportedly given $400,000 in 2011. That’s more than double his university salary. I want to go to a clip of Professor Groat explaining his study’s finding.

CHARLES GROAT: The immediate concern with shale gas development and hydraulic fracturing was that fracturing at several thousand feet below the surface would put chemicals into groundwater that people drank that would be very bad for your health, and so people were very much opposed to hydraulic fracturing from that point of view. So, an important part of our study was to determine whether or not there is any direct, verified evidence that hydraulic fracturing itself was producing contaminated waters that ended up in that process in groundwater. Our preliminary finding is we have found no demonstrated evidence that that–demonstration that that has happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Connor, your response?

KEVIN CONNOR: Well, as you noted, Groat, when he was saying this, had a serious stake in a gas company called PXP, $1.6 million stake, made several hundred thousand dollars a year, over $400,000 a year in 2011, and was going before the public and saying fracking is safe, without disclosing any of these related interests. I mean, there’s some question as to whether someone with that sort of stake in the industry should be working on this at all, but at the very least it should be disclosed to the public, to journalists.

And because Groat didn’t disclose it, it resulted in a lot of blowback in Texas. The journalists were very concerned that Groat had not highlighted this for them when the report was released, and it resulted in quite a bit of media coverage. The University of Texas ended up commissioning an external review of the study, which concluded that the study should actually be retracted and noted that Groat’s conflict of interest was quite serious and should have been disclosed. So, the sorts of transgressions that we see at MIT have actually resulted in real accountability at other universities. Groat actually retired as a result of this episode. And the director of the Energy Institute at Texas, which is sort of an analog to MIT’s Energy Initiative–the director actually resigned in the wake of this external review. So there have been real consequences. There has been real pushback against this trend at other universities. And there’s some question as to whether that will happen with MIT.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, going back to Moniz, because you’re talking about Groat here, not to be confused with the energy secretary nominee of President Obama, talk about what he makes at MIT, both as a university professor but also his outside funding.

KEVIN CONNOR: I’m actually not sure of his salary at MIT. I don’t believe it’s publicly disclosed there, though it will be released in his financial disclosures. But as a board member at ICF International, which is an oil and gas–well, it’s a consulting firm with a significant energy practice and significant oil and gas ties–he’s made over $300,000 in the past two years since joining the board. This is a position where he attends several meetings a year. It’s certainly not a full-time position, and yet he’s making over $150,000 a year in stock and cash compensation. So these are not insignificant financial ties he has.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Justin Elliott, Ernest Moniz is a nuclear physicist. Can you talk about the significance of that for energy policy, if he were to become the next energy secretary?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Sure. I mean, actually, the Department of Energy, the majority of its budget goes to maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and also they’re in charge of cleanup of old nuclear waste. He’s been a strong and public supporter of nuclear power. And that’s actually the area where some of these business ties get into areas of potential conflicts. As I mentioned earlier, he was previously on an advisory council of a uranium enrichment company called USEC, one of the–one of the largest, and they’ve been seeking a $2 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department to build a centrifuge plant in Ohio. That’s been on hold for a few years while they look into it further. So, it will be interesting to see whether Moniz has to recuse himself from that or whether it gets mentioned in any of the congressional hearings, but that’s certainly one of the big areas the Energy Department is active in.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Moniz wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2011, “It would be a mistake, however, to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits.” He wrote, “Electricity generation emits more carbon dioxide in the United States than does transportation or industry, and nuclear power is the largest source of carbon-free electricity in the country.”

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right. And again, I mean, I think this is in keeping with President Obama’s, quote, “all-of-the-above,” unquote, energy policy. I mean, this is–this is Obama nominating someone as energy secretary who is in keeping with the administration’s stated policy.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama has long been pro-nuclear power–in fact, is the one who is restarting nuclear power plants after, what, some 40 years of the last one being built.

JUSTIN ELLIOTT: Right. And I think the only reason that effort has stalled is the price of natural gas, because of fracking, going down so low that nuclear power plants have become less economically feasible than they were five years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Final comments, Kevin Connor, as you release your report, director of Public Accountability Initiative, the report that you did called “Industry Partner or Industry Puppet?” has MIT responded? And were you able to speak with Professor Moniz?

KEVIN CONNOR: I did call the Energy Initiative but was not able to speak with Dr. Moniz. And the Energy Initiative did actually respond, through a spokesperson, with a statement that didn’t really speak to questions I had raised about how the conflicts of interest surrounding the report were managed and disclosed. One critical conflict of interest I didn’t note earlier was that one of the study authors, John Deutch, was on the board of Cheniere Energy, a liquefied natural gas company, LNG export company. That wasn’t disclosed in the study. The study actually endorsed natural gas exports. He has a $1.6 million stake in that company. MIT Energy Initiative–

AMY GOODMAN: Central Intelligence Agency?

KEVIN CONNOR: –basically had no response, just said that the authors aren’t biased, which is hard to believe, given these connections.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin, John Deutch, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency?

KEVIN CONNOR: Exactly. Former director of the CIA was actually a study author here and is on the board of the only company in the U.S. to receive permits to export LNG from the lower 48 states. And again, this study endorsed LNG exports on fairly–a fairly thin basis of evidence and didn’t disclose this connection, which is really, again, quite outrageous.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to leave it there; of course, we’ll continue to follow the nominee. The confirmation hearings will take place on April 9th. Justin Elliott, ProPublica reporter, and Kevin Connor, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Justin wrote “Drilling Deeper,” looking at “The Wealth of Business Connections for Obama’s Energy Pick.” And Kevin Connor wrote the study, “Industry Partner or Industry Puppet? How MIT’s Influential Study of Fracking Was Authored, Funded, and Released by Oil and Gas Industry Insiders.” We will link to it at democracynow.org.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. And when we come back, we’ll be joined by a well-known anchor here in New York, Cheryl Wills, who in this month of Women’s History Month–and we’ve just come out of African-American History Month–we’ll talk about what she found about her family. She wrote the book, Die Free: A Heroic Family Tale. Stay with us.

Author’s Note

I receive numerous questions from readers about our economic situation and the condition of civil liberty.

There is no way I can answer so many inquiries, and no need. I have written two books that provide the answers, and they are inexpensive. I have done my job. It is up to you to inform yourself. Kindle Reader software is available as a free online download that permits you to read ebooks in your own web browser.

My latest, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution of the West , is available as an ebook in English as of March 2013 from Amazon.com and from Barnes&Noble.

My book is endorsed by Michael Hudson and Nomi Prims and has a 5 star rating from Amazon reviewers (as of March 23, 2013). Pam Martens’ review at Wall Street On Parade is available here

Libertarians who have not read the book have had an ideological knee-jerk reaction to the title. They demand to know how can I call the present system of crony capitalism laissez faire. I don’t. The current system of government supported crony capitalism is the end result of a 25-year process of deregulation.

Deregulation did not produce libertarian nirvana. It produced economic concentration and crony capitalism.

Amazon provides as a free read the introduction by Johannes Maruschzik to the German edition. Below is my Introduction to my book.

Paul Craig Roberts, March 27, 2012

Not only has your economy been stolen from you but also your civil liberties. My coauthor Lawrence Stratton and I provide the scary details of the entire story in The Tyranny of Good Intentions ^[5]. In the US law is no longer a shield of the people against arbitrary government. Instead, law has been transformed into a weapon in the hands of the government.

Josie Appleton documents that in England also law has been turned into a weapon against the people. http://www.spiked-online.com/site/printable/13420/ ^[6] Anglo-American law, the foundation of liberty and one of the greatest human achievements, lies in ruins.

Libertarians think that liberty is a natural right, and some Christians think that it is a God-given right. In fact, liberty is a human achievement, fought for by Englishmen over the centuries. In the late 17th century, the achievement of the Glorious Revolution was to hold the British government accountable to law. William Blackstone heralded the achievement in his famous Commentaries On The Laws Of England, a bestseller in pre-revolutionary America and the foundation of the US Constitution.

In the late 20th century and early 21st century, governments in the US and Great Britain chafed under the requirement that government, like the people, is ruled by law and took steps to free government from accountability to law.

Appleton says that the result is a “tectonic shift in the relationship between the state and the citizen.” Citizens of the US and UK are once again without the protection of law and subject to arbitrary arrests and indictments or to indefinite detention in the absence of indictments.

In the US, citizens can be detained indefinitely and even executed without due process of law. There is no basis in the US Constitution for these asserted powers. The unconstitutional powers exist only because Congress, the judiciary and the American people have accepted the lie that the loss of civil liberty is the price paid for protection against terrorists.

In a very short time the raw power of the state has been resurrected. Most Americans are oblivious to this outcome. As long as government is imprisoning and killing without trials demonized individuals whom Americans have been propagandized to fear, Americans approve. Americans do not understand that a point is reached when demonization becomes unnecessary and that precedents have been established that revoke the Bill of Rights.

If you are educated by these two books, you will be better able to understand what is happening and, thus, you will be in a better position to survive what is coming.

Introduction to The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic
Dissolution of the West: Towards a New Economics for a Full World

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the rise of the high speed Internet have proved to be the economic and political undoing of the West. “The End Of History” caused socialist India and communist China to join the winning side and to open their economies and underutilized labor forces to Western capital and technology. Pushed by Wall Street and large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, American corporations began offshoring the production of goods and services for their domestic markets. Americans ceased to be employed in the manufacture of goods that they consume as corporate executives maximized shareholder earnings and their performance bonuses by substituting cheaper foreign labor for American labor. Many American professional occupations, such as software engineering and Information Technology, also declined as corporations moved this work abroad and brought in foreigners at lower renumeration for many of the jobs that remained domestically. Design and research jobs followed manufacturing abroad, and employment in middle class professional occupations ceased to grow. By taking the lead in offshoring production for domestic markets, US corporations force the same practice on Europe. The demise of First World employment and of Third World agricultural communities, which are supplanted by large scale monoculture, is known as Globalism.

For most Americans income has stagnated and declined for the past two decades. Much of what Americans lost in wages and salaries as their jobs were moved offshore came back to shareholders and executives in the form of capital gains and performance bonuses from the higher profits that flowed from lower foreign labor costs. The distribution of income worsened dramatically with the mega-rich capturing the gains, while the middle class ladders of upward mobility were dismantled. University graduates unable to find employment returned to live with their parents.

The absence of growth in real consumer incomes resulted in the Federal Reserve expanding credit in order to keep consumer demand growing. The growth of consumer debt was substituted for the missing growth in consumer income. The Federal Reserve’s policy of extremely low interest rates fueled a real estate boom. Housing prices rose dramatically, permitting homeowners to monetize the rising equity in their homes by refinancing their mortgages.

Consumers kept the economy alive by assuming larger mortgages and spending the equity in their homes and by accumulating large credit card balances. The explosion of debt was securitized, given fraudulent investment grade ratings, and sold to unsuspecting investors at home and abroad.

Financial deregulation, which began in the Clinton years and leaped forward in the George W. Bush regime, unleashed greed and debt leverage. Brooksley Born, head of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was prevented from regulating over-the-counter derivatives by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The financial stability of the world was sacrificed to the ideology of these three stooges that “markets are self-regulating.” Insurance companies sold credit default swaps against junk financial instruments without establishing reserves, and financial institutions leveraged every dollar of equity with $30 dollars of debt.

When the bubble burst, the former bankers running the US Treasury provided massive bailouts at taxpayer expense for the irresponsible gambles made by banks that they formerly headed. The Federal Reserve joined the rescue operation. An audit of the Federal Reserve released in July, 2011, revealed that the Federal Reserve had provided $16 trillion—a sum larger than US GDP or the US public debt—in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks, while doing nothing to aid the millions of American families being foreclosed out of their homes. Political accountability disappeared as all public assistance was directed to the mega-rich, whose greed had produced the financial crisis.

The financial crisis and plight of the banksters took center stage and prevented recognition that the crisis sprang not only from the financial deregulation but also from the expansion of debt that was used to substitute for the lack of growth in consumer income. As more and more jobs were offshored, Americans were deprived of incomes from employment. To maintain their consumption, Americans went deeper into debt.

The fact that millions of jobs have been moved offshore is the reason why the most expansionary monetary and fiscal policies in US history have had no success in reducing the unemployment rate. In post-World War II 20th century recessions, laid-off workers were called back to work as expansionary monetary and fiscal policies stimulated consumer demand. However, 21st century unemployment is different. The jobs have been moved abroad and no longer exist. Therefore, workers cannot be called back to factories and to professional service jobs that have been moved abroad.

Economists have failed to recognize the threat that jobs offshoring poses to economies and to economic theory itself, because economists confuse offshoring with free trade, which they believe is mutually beneficial. I will show that offshoring is the antithesis of free trade and that the doctrine of free trade itself is found to be incorrect by the latest work in trade theory. Indeed, as we reach toward a new economics, cherished assumptions and comforting theoretical conclusions will be shown to be erroneous.

This book is organized into three sections. The first section explains successes and failures of economic theory and the erosion of the efficacy of economic policy by globalism. Globalism and financial concentration have destroyed the justifications of market capitalism. Corporations that have become “too big to fail” are sustained by public subsidies, thus destroying capitalism’s claim to be an efficient allocator of resources. Profits no longer are a measure of social welfare when they are obtained by creating unemployment and declining living standards in the home country.

The second section documents how jobs offshoring or globalism and financial deregulation wrecked the US economy, producing high rates of unemployment, poverty and a distribution of income and wealth extremely skewed toward a tiny minority at the top. These severe problems cannot be corrected within a system of globalism.

The third section addresses the European debt crisis and how it is being used both to subvert national sovereignty and to protect bankers from losses by imposing austerity and bailout costs on citizens of the member countries of the European Union.

I will suggest that it is in Germany’s interest to leave the EU, revive the mark, and enter into an economic partnership with Russia. German industry, technology, and economic and financial rectitude, combined with Russian energy and raw materials, would pull all of Eastern Europe into a new economic union, with each country retaining its own currency and budgetary and tax authority. This would break up NATO, which has become an instrument for world oppression and is forcing Europeans to assume burdens of the American Empire.

Sixty-seven years after the end of World War II, twenty-two years after the reunification of Germany, and twenty-one years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Germany is still occupied by US troops. Do Europeans desire a future as puppet states of a collapsing empire, or do they desire a more promising future of their own?

Truthout needs your support to produce grassroots journalism and disseminate conscientious visions for a brighter future. Contribute now by clicking here.

As Washington lawmakers pushes new austerity measures, economist Richard Wolff calls for a radical restructuring of the U.S. economic and financial systems. We talk about the $85 billion budget cuts as part of the sequester, banks too big to fail, Congress’ failure to learn the lessons of the 2008 economic collapse, and his new book, “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.” Wolff also gives Fox News host Bill O’Reilly a lesson in economics 101.

TRANSCRIPT:

AMY GOODMAN: “Anda,” music by the pianist, arranger and composer Bebo Valdés. He died Friday at the age of 94. The son of a cigar factory worker and grandson of a slave, he studied classical music at the Conservatorio Municipal in Havana and became a favorite collaborator with the great Cuban singers of his era, including Beny Moré and Pío Leyva and Orlando Cascarita Guerra, along with Americans such as Woody Herman and Nat King Cole, was considered a giant during the golden age of Cuban music. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

Our guest is Richard Wolff, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, now at New School University, author of a number of books, including Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.

I want to talk about austerity here at home. This is House Speaker John Boehner speaking last month defending the $85 billion budget sequester cuts that took effect on March 1st.

HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: The American people know, the president gets more money, they’re just going to spend it. And the fact is, is that he’s gotten his tax hikes. It’s time to focus on the real problem here in Washington, and that is spending.

AMY GOODMAN: House Speaker John Boehner. Professor Richard Wolff, your response? And also, that the Obama administration was warning catastrophe if sequestration took place. It took place.

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, it’s a stunning comment on our dysfunctional government built on top of a dysfunctional economy. Here we are in the middle of a crisis. We have millions of people without work, millions of people losing their homes, an economy that doesn’t work for the vast majority. The United States government is one of the major customers for goods and services in America. Sequestration is simply a cutback in government spending. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that if the government, as the largest single buyer of goods and services, cuts back on the goods and services it buys, that means companies across America will sell less, and they’ll have less need of workers, and they will lay off workers. So, this is an act that worsens an unemployment that is already severe.

If you put that together with the tax increase on January 1st–and let me say a word about that. We heard a lot of public debate about taxing rich people, not taxing rich people, Republicans and Democrats, but the tax on the wealthy is small compared to the tax on the middle and lower incomes that went up on January 1st. When we raised the payroll tax here in America from 4.2 to 6.2 percent, we raised over $125 billion–huge amount of money, much more than was raised by taxing the rich–and we savaged the middle- and lower-income groups in America, those that in the presidential election both candidates had sworn to save and support. We attacked them, thereby limiting their capacity to buy goods and services because we taxed them more.

You put together the taxing of the middle and lower incomes with the cutbacks of government spending, and you’re going to do what every European country that has imposed austerity has already discovered: You’re making the problem worse. So with all the homilies that Mr. Boehner can put out there about how spending is a problem, this abstract idea doesn’t change the fact you’re making the economic conditions of the mass of people worse by these austerity steps, not better. And that ought to be put as the fire burning at the feet of politicians, so they stop talking these abstractions and deal with the reality of what they’re doing.

AMY GOODMAN: So what do you think needs to be done?

RICHARD WOLFF: A radical change in the policies. And I think it has to go far beyond simply reversing this austerity program, which, again, just for a word about history, back in the 1930s, the last time we had a breakdown of our capitalist system like this, we didn’t have austerity, we didn’t have cutbacks. We had the opposite. Roosevelt, in the middle of the ’30s, created the Social Security system, went to everybody over 65 and said, “I’m going to give you a check for the rest of your life.” He created the unemployment compensation system, giving all the unemployed for the first time checks every week for a year or two. And he created a public employment program and hired millions of workers. It’s the opposite of austerity. So any politician who says, “We must do this, because there’s no option,” has forgotten even the American history of not that long ago.

So, the first thing I would do is go in that direction–not austerity, but its opposite. But I want to go further, because I think our problem is deeper. This crisis wasn’t supposed to happen. When it happened, it wasn’t supposed to last a long time. All of that has been proven false. The problems run deep. And I think what we have to do, and what that book tries to do, is to talk about reorganizing our economy so that for the first time we can say we’re not only going to get out of this crisis, we’re taking the kinds of steps that can prevent us from having them over and over again as our unstable business-cycle-ridden economy keeps imposing on us. So, for me, it’s the more profound change that we finally have to face, painful as it is. After 50 years of a country unwilling to face these questions, I think we need basic change. And that’s what I spend most of my time stressing.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we talk about the basic change, “democracy at work,” as you put it–

RICHARD WOLFF: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: –what could Obama do without congressional support right now?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think, in many ways, he could initiate a public employment program. I think it’s long overdue that he find all the ways available to him to say what Roosevelt said–and not that Roosevelt did everything correctly, and not that he’s a genius or any of that, but to take some lessons from those people in our country before who took steps that were successful.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Roosevelt didn’t plan on doing this when he first took office.

RICHARD WOLFF: Absolutely. He had pressure from below. The CIO, the biggest union-organizing drive in American history, never had anything that successful before.

AMY GOODMAN: As in AFL–CIO.

RICHARD WOLFF: That’s right. And with the socialist and communist parties, who were strong at that time, working with them, they organized millions of Americans into unions who had never joined a union before, and they pushed from below in a very powerful way. And they changed Mr. Roosevelt, showing that politicians, if subject to pressure from below, can change–same lesson that Cyprus has just taught us yet again. So, my response is: Learn from that. Roosevelt went on the radio to the American people and said, basically, “If the private sector either cannot or will not provide work for the millions of Americans that need and want to work, then it’s my job as president to do it.” And he did it.

And I think Mr. Obama could and should overcome whatever has made him hesitate. We in this country not only don’t have a federal employment program, the Republicans and Democrats haven’t even put it on the floor to debate it as an important issue, even though it comes out of our own history. So I would say, put us–put our people to work. They want to work. The Federal Reserve says 20 percent of our tools, equipment, factory and office space is sitting idle, unused. So we have the people who want to work; we have the tools, equipment and raw materials for them to work with. And lord knows we need the wealth they could produce. Put them to work, and make it a national issue that that happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does the money come from?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, Roosevelt went to the wealthy, and he went to the corporations, and he said to them, “You must give me the money to take care of the mass of people, because if you don’t, we’re going to have a catastrophe in this country. We’re going to have a social revolution.” My argument is, let’s go back to the same tax rates that Roosevelt imposed, or at least in that neighborhood, which is much higher on wealthy people and much higher on corporations than we have today. That’s what he did. That’s how he funded it.

And in case our politicians are worried, let’s remind them: Mr. Roosevelt, who took those daring steps, was re-elected to be president four consecutive times, the most popular president in American history. It’s not a dead-end political decision. It’s the best decision a president could make to leave his legacy in history, that, we are told, our presidents care so much about.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Richard Wolff, author of Democracy at Work. Again, before we talk about “democracy at work,” I wanted to go to a recent hearing in Washington. Executives with the banking giant JPMorgan Chase appeared before a Senate panel earlier this month to answer questions around so-called “London Whale trades” that cost the bank more than $6 billion and derailed financial markets worldwide. This is Arizona Republican Senator John McCain criticizing JPMorgan’s actions.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: JPMorgan completely disregarded risk limits and stonewalled federal regulators. It is unsettling that a group of traders made reckless decisions with federally insured money and that all of this was done with the full awareness of top officials at JPMorgan. This bank appears to have entertained–indeed, embraced–the idea that it was, quote, “too big to fail.”

AMY GOODMAN: Ashley Bacon, JPMorgan’s interim chief risk officer, testified at the same hearing.

ASHLEY BACON: I don’t think it is too big to fail. I think there’s further work that needs to be done to demonstrate and document that, and it’s in process. I’m not leading that process or deeply involved in it, but I think it is–it’s something that needs to be demonstrated to everybody’s satisfaction.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Ashley Bacon, JPMorgan’s interim chief risk officer. Can you explain what took place here and what is happening?

RICHARD WOLFF: Yes. On the question of “too big to fail,” there really isn’t much to say. In 2008, our banks failed–all of them–the way the Cyprus banks failed and for very similar reasons. They took in a lot of depositors’ money, and they made risky bets they shouldn’t have made, and they failed, and so they didn’t have the money to honor their obligations, and they turned to the government for a bailout. And when the government hesitated, because it’s public money to bail out a privately failed bank, they were told, in another kind of blackmail, “We’re too big to fail. If you don’t bail us out, we will collapse and take the entire economy with us.” And that was a persuasive argument. Particularly after they allowed Lehman Brothers to fail and that nearly did take the economy with it, that was a convincing argument.

You would have thought they had then learned the lesson about the problem of a too-big-to-fail financial institution. If you thought that, you would have been wrong, because the same banks that were too big to fail in 2008 are, all of them, bigger today. So we didn’t learn the lesson. We didn’t break up the banks. We didn’t limit, control their growth. They’re bigger now than they were then. And in a sense, maybe shame on them the first time, but having allowed this to happen, it’s shame on us.

Number two, we seem to need, as a nation, to believe that we have the power to control, limit or regulate, whether it’s the Glass-Steagall Act that came out of our disaster of the 1930s or the Dodd-Frank Act, which came out of the disaster that started in 2008. We seem to want to believe we can leave in place private banks, no matter how big they are, and hedge them about with regulations. The proof of the Whale trades in London, the proof of everything we know, is that these banks have the money, the staff, the resources to work their way around the regulations at least as fast as we impose them on them. That’s what these hearings fundamentally show. They can make trades that are too risky. They can lose wild amounts of money. They can turn to the government and demand to be helped and bailed out each time. And they get it. We are telling them, in a classic example, “Look, do whatever you want. You don’t have any risk of fundamental failure and punishment.” Regulation doesn’t work, because we believe in place an entity, a large corporation, with the money and the incentives to get around it.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, did not testify. He was brought before the Senate, what, about last June, where the senators were asking him for advice. And then, when you looked at the senators on the Senate committee and how much money JPMorgan Chase had given each of them, we’re talking about millions of dollars went to many of them.

RICHARD WOLFF: When I say that the big corporations, particularly the banks, have the resources and the incentives, I’m being polite. Yeah, part of the resources are going into literally making sure that the political regulator is a good friend and understands the complexities. In simple English, they are buying their way into the situation we watch, which is: “We will pretend to be regretful. You will pretend to be protecting the public. You will make regulations that we help you write so that we can get around them.” It is something that ought not to be allowed to continue, because we’re living the economic crisis that comes from that way of doing business.

AMY GOODMAN: What lessons have been learned since 2008? And today, could the U.S. see the same situation as Cyprus?

RICHARD WOLFF: Absolutely. We have banks that are literally telling us, because we know from our controls that they are trying, even, to regenerate it. They’re trying to get people to borrow more money again. We’re not changing the wage structure of America, which means that Americans are required to go into debt to supplement their wages. You know, the irony is, we are trying, in the language of some of these folks, to kickstart our economy, to get it going again. But the problem is, our economy was a train heading into a stone wall in the first years of this century, and if we get our economy going again, without fundamental changes, what we’re doing is putting that same train back on the track heading towards the same wall. Cyprus shows us what’s happening.

But we don’t have to take just small countries. Take Great Britain, our classic ally. Their economy is now in the second or, in some people’s minds, the third recession within the crisis since 2007. They are following an austerity problem–process exactly like that supported by Mr. Boehner, and the economic downturn in Great Britain is catastrophic for that society. And so, we have this image of a future for us, if we don’t make fundamental change, but everyone wants to put it away and pretend that we can let it go by itself or a few regulations will solve the problem. They haven’t. They’re not doing it now elsewhere. That’s not a strategy we should pursue in this country, either.

AMY GOODMAN: When we come back, we’ll talk to Professor Richard Wolff about the alternatives, about, well, what he’s put forward, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back with Professor Wolff in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We continue with Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at New School University here in New York, does a weekly program on WBAI in New York called Economic Update every Saturday at noon. His latest book is Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. So what exactly do you mean by this?

RICHARD WOLFF: What I mean is a change in the enterprises that produce the goods and services we all depend on and provide the jobs we all need and want. I think those have to be, in a fundamental way, democratized. So let me begin in that way.

We live in a country that says it goes to war around the world to bring democracy and that its central, most important political value is democracy. If you believe that–and I am a fervent supporter of democracy, and obviously you are–you’ve named your program that way–then we ought to have democracy in the place where we as adults spend most of our time. Five out of seven days we go to work. We walk into a place where we use our brains and our muscles eight or more hours, five out of seven days. If democracy is an important value, it ought to be right there, first and foremost. But we don’t. We basically have a situation where, for most of us, we go to work in a place where the decisions that are made are made by a tiny group of people. The major shareholders who own the block of shares in our system select a board of directors, 15 to 20 people, and they make the basic decisions: what to produce, how to produce it, where to produce it, and what to do with the profits. The rest of us must live with the results of that decision.

So if that tiny group of people make a decision to close the factory in Cincinnati or the office in Atlanta and move to Shanghai, the chips fall where they may. If they decide to use a toxic technology that’s not good for the air and water but is good for the profits, they do, we live with the results. And when they decide to take the profits of their business and to give enormous pay packages to a handful of top executives and big dividend payouts to their shareholders, which of course they do, since they’re in a position to do it, and the rest of us suddenly have to take out absurd debts to get our kids through college, then that’s the inequality of income and wealth that we have in America.

So, I look at this decision-making apparatus, I say, “Why are we surprised that they make the decisions the way we do–they do?” We all live with the results, and we have no say in how those decisions are made. It’s not democratic. That’s the first thing. But the second thing is, we’re now in five years of economic crisis that indicate that way of organizing the decisions doesn’t work for the mass of people. It works for them. The stock market’s back. The profits of big corporations are back–surprise, surprise–given who makes the decisions. But we are left.

And so, for me, the solution is, let’s face this. Let’s build an option, a real choice for Americans, between working in a non-democratic, top-down-organized capitalist enterprise or in what, for lack of a better term, we can call “cooperatives,” workplaces that are organized democratically. I think we’ll have less inequality of income, we will have less pollution of our environment, and we’ll have less loss of jobs out of the country, if those decisions were made by the people, as they should have been from the beginning, who will not make the kinds of decisions that got us into the mess of economic crisis that we’re in now.

AMY GOODMAN: In June, you wrote a piece, Richard Wolff, in The Guardian called “Yes, There is an Alternative to Capitalism: Mondragon Shows the Way.” Mondragon, Spain’s renowned co-op where all enterprise is owned and directed by co-op members. At the Green Party’s convention last year, the keynote speaker, Gar Alperovitz, said the Mondragon model is being replicated here in the United States. I want to just turn to a clip of what Gar Alperovitz said, the professor of political economy at the University of Maryland.

GAR ALPEROVITZ: So, in Ohio, the idea of worker ownership is a bigger idea. Lots of people understand it. And in Cleveland, building on the Mondragon model–some of you know about the Mondragon model–and other ideas, there are a series of worker-owned, integrated co-ops in Cleveland in a neighborhood where the average income is $18,000 per family. And they have got these co-ops, not just standing alone, but linked together with a nonprofit corporation and a revolving fund. The idea is to build the community and worker ownership, not just make a couple workers richer, to say the least, not rich, but to build a whole community, and to use the purchasing power of hospitals and universities–tax money in there–Medicare, Medicaid, education money, buy from these guys, and build the community. That model–and it’s the greenest for–one of the things is the greenest laundry in that part of the country, that uses about a third of the heat and about a third of the electricity and about a third of the water. They’re on track now to put in more solar capacity that exists–one of the other worker-owned companies–that exists in the entire state of Ohio. These are not little, dinky co-ops.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Gar Alperovitz talking about the Mondragon model here. And when we were in Spain, Democracy Now! went to Mondragon and interviewed one of the cooperative members, and we’ll link to that at democracynow.org [ Click here to watch the interview with Mikel Lezamiz, director of Cooperative Dissemination at the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain’s Basque Country. ] But, Richard Wolff, talk about that model and what’s happening here.

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, the model of Mondragon is so interesting, not only because it’s a real co-op, where the workers make the decisions–what to produce, how, where, what to do with the profits. And just to mention one of their achievements, they have a rule that the highest-paid worker cannot get more than a maximum of eight times the lowest. In our society, it’s typical in our large corporations that the CEO gets 300 to 400 times what the lowest worker. So, for those of us that are interested in a less unequal society than what we have here in America, the lesson is, if you cooperatize your enterprise, that’s a sure route to get there. And we haven’t found any other route that is just as effective.

So, the importance of Mondragon is, they start in the middle of the 1950s with a Catholic priest, Father Arizmendi–I always have to remember it–with six workers in the north of Spain, desperately trying to overcome the unemployment there. And here we are over a half a century later. Having to compete with countless capitalist enterprises, they won that competition. Trying to grow, they have a growth record that would be the envy of any capitalist corporation. They went from six workers in 1956 to 120,000 workers today in Spain.

AMY GOODMAN: And they are making?

RICHARD WOLFF: And they are making everything. They make dishwashers. They make clothes washers. They raise rabbits on farms. They do high-tech research, together with General Motors and Microsoft as some of their partners there. They do an immense array. They’re really a family of 200 to 300 co-ops that are united within the Mondragon cooperative corporation. So they’ve shown the ability to grow. They’ve shown the ability to adapt. They’ve shown their competitive power. They have–excuse me, they’ve shown all the different ways that a corporation can develop without a top-down hierarchical, undemocratic structure. So we don’t have to choose between effectiveness, growth, job, security, and a cooperative structure. The cooperative structure can be a way to get there.

Here in the United States, we have lots of such co-ops developing. There’s one even named after Father Arizmendi in California in the Bay Area. There are six Arizmendi bakeries and coffee shops that were set up on that model. They started with one; they’re now six. Hint: They’ve grown. And you can do this. And all over the United States, there are these efforts, often done by people who want a different kind of life. They want to be in charge of their own job. They want to have a sense of control and a sense that they’re not just a drone doing the work, but they’re part of the folks who design and direct. It brings out new capacities. It makes you more happier to go to work. It’s a more satisfying job life than you would otherwise have. So I think it recommends itself on all kinds of levels.

One other example, we can learn something from a country called Italy that we admire for its cuisine and its lovely countryside. They have a law there, passed in 1985, called the Marcora Law after the name of the legislator. Here’s what it does. It offers a choice to unemployed workers. You can take a dole every week, an unemployment check, the way we do in this country, or you have an option, an option B that we don’t have. If you get at least nine other workers to make the–unemployed workers, like yourself, to make the following choice, here’s what you can get. As a lump sum, you can get your entire unemployment program of two years of checks in your hands right at the beginning; you have to have nine other workers or more, and you have to use that money as the start-up capital for a cooperative enterprise. The idea of the Italian government was, if we give workers this to set up a job and an enterprise, they will be much more committed to it than they would if they didn’t have that role.

AMY GOODMAN: How do they know they’ll do it?

RICHARD WOLFF: They don’t. But they know those workers have an incentive, because if they don’t make that work, they can’t go back and collect unemployment. That’s what they got. The government doesn’t spend much more money than it would have anyway, but it creates jobs, and it creates workers committed, because it’s their enterprise, to make that work as their personal solution and as a way not only for them to survive, but for the whole of the Italian society for the first time to see what it’s like to have an enterprise where you run the affair.

You know, here in America, we want to believe in freedom of choice. Let’s give our people freedom of choice. They can have the choice to go work in a top-down, capitalist enterprise–what we’re used to–but if we develop the alternative, really a program of co-ops around the country, then American young people and older people could say, “What would it be like to work there? Let’s see what that’s like.” And then we would have the choice we do not have in this country now.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Wolff, before we end, I want to turn back to the crisis in Cyprus and relate it to what’s happening here. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News warned his audience last week that Cyprus and other European countries are facing economic hardships because they’re so-called “nanny states.”

BILL O’REILLY: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, now Cyprus, all broke. And other European nations are close. Why? Because they’re nanny states, and there are not enough workers to support all the entitlements these progressive paradises are handing out.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. Richard?

RICHARD WOLFF: You know, he gets away with saying things which no undergraduate in the United States with a responsible economic professor could ever get away with. If you want to refer to things as nanny states, then the place you go in Europe is not the southern tier–Portugal, Spain and Italy; the place you go are Germany and Scandinavia, because they provide more social services to their people than anybody else. And guess what: Not only are they not in trouble economically, they are the winners of the current situation. The unemployment rate in Germany is now below 5 percent. Ours is pushing between 7 and 8 percent. So, please, get your facts right, Mr. O’Reilly. The nanny state, you call it, the program of countries like Germany and Scandinavia, who tax their people heavily, by all means, but who provide them with social services that would be the envy of the United States–a national health program that takes care of you, whether you’re employed or not, and gives you proper healthcare. In France, for example, the law says when you go to work, you get five weeks’ paid vacation. That’s not an option; that’s the law. You get support when you’re a new parent for your child care and so forth. They provide services. And they are successful in Germany and Scandinavia, much more than we are in the United States and much more than those countries in the south.

So they’re not broken, the south, because they’re nanny states, since the nanny states, par excellence, are doing better than everyone. The actual truth of Mr. O’Reilly is the opposite of what he says. The more you do nanny state, the better off you are during a crisis and to minimize the cost of the crisis. That’s what the European economic situation actually teaches. He’s just making it up as he goes along to conform to an ideological position that is harder and harder for folks like him to sustain, so he has to reach further and further into fantasy.

AMY GOODMAN: In our last minute, other cures for capitalism, as you put it?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think that there’s a set of fundamental reorganizations. When you have a private banking system in the United States, the way we did up until, say, the 1970s and ’80s, you had it in a position relative to the economy that made a certain sense. But over the last 30 and 40 years, for a whole host of reasons, we have made debt a central part of the economy. Today it is not unusual for a person who goes into a grocery store to get a bottle of water to use a credit card, basically to make a loan in order to buy that bottle of water. Everything that consumers do is now mediated by debt. Everything corporations do, and as we look around the world, the governments are in debt. Debt is everywhere. It has become the water we swim in, the air we breathe. That puts the banks in an unbelievably powerful position, because they’re the repository of the means to borrow. If we’re going to make an economy dependent on debt, we can’t leave the power to control that–

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

RICHARD WOLFF: –in the private hands of banks. Either we don’t become a debt-ridden country, or we make borrowing and lending a social program. We can’t allow private banking. It doesn’t work. It needs to be changed.

AMY GOODMAN: Richard Wolff, I want to thank you for being with us. If you’d like a copy of today’s show, you can go to our website at democracynow.org. Richard Wolff is professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts, teaches at New School University.

Paul Krugman makes a point in this post about Cyprus that I’d like use to make a broader and more important point. His point is that Cyprus is already off the euro and has created its own currency, the Cyprus Euro, which at the moment is pegged to the other euro at 1:1. Why is a euro in a Cyprus bank different from other euros? Because you can’t move it freely, so it has less real value. (Read here to see why he thinks that; also here.)

My point, though, is a little different. My point is about unrestricted free trade and capital flow in general and why understanding both is crucial to understanding:

â–ª The neoliberal free-trade project, and
â–ª Wealth inequality in America

But don’t let your eyes glaze over; this is not hard to understand. It just has a few odd terms in it. Please stick with me.

There’s a straight line between “free-trade” – a prime tenet of both right-wing Milton Friedman thinking and left-wing Bill Clinton—Robert Rubin neoliberalism – and wealth inequality in America. In fact, if the billionaires didn’t have the one (a global free-trade regime) they couldn’t have the other (your money in their pocket). And the whole global “all your money are belong to us”  process has only three moving parts. Read on to see them. Once you “get it,” you’ll get it for a long time.

What does “free trade” mean?

In its simplest terms, “free trade” means one thing only – the ability of people with capital to move that capital freely, anywhere in the world, seeking the highest profit. It’s been said of Bush II, for example, that “when Bush talks of ‘freedom’, he doesn’t mean human freedom, he means freedom to move money.” (Sorry, can’t find a link.)

At its heart, free trade doesn’t mean the ability to trade freely per se; that’s just a byproduct. It means the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint. Free trade is why factories in China have American investors and partners – because you can’t bring down manufacturing wages in Michigan and Alabama if you can’t set up slave factories somewhere else and get your government to make that capital move cost-free, or even tax-incentivized, out of your supposed home country and into a place ripe for predation.

Can you see why both right-wing kings (Koch Bros, Walmart-heir dukes and earls, Reagan I, Bush I and II) and left-wing honchos (Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Barack Obama) make “free trade” the cornerstone of each of their economic policies? It’s the song of the rich, and they all sing it.

I’ve shown this video before, but it bears repeating. When you think about “free trade,” you probably think of the Walmart heirs (or Apple owners) wallowing in wealth from the world’s slave factories. But it’s a joint project by all of our owners (sorry, major left- and right-wing campaign contributors and job creators).

This is Barack Obama making his case for campaign funding to Robert (Hi “Bob”) Rubin and others in 2006:

Brand-New Senator Barack Obama, 2006
The opening of Robert Rubin’s Hamilton Project Thinktank

At 1:20: “The forces of globalization have changed the rules of the game,” and at 5:52: “Most of us are strong free-traders.” (His “yes-but” to Rubin in that second segment is an appeal to actually do the worthless retraining for non-existent jobs that Clinton earlier supported but never did. See? Pushback. Independence.)

Three things to note:

1. The “forces of globalization” he refers to are not acts of god, whether Yahweh, Juno or Joxer. They were created by the Clinton- and Rubin-crafted CAFTA and NAFTA treaties. If a god did it, that god also caused a certain blue dress to need a dry-cleaning it never got.

2. If Obama doesn’t say what he just said in that room, he doesn’t get a Rubinite dime for his next political campaign. Period. This is his application speech.

3. Never forget that if Oklahoma knuckle-dragger Sam Walton were in that room, or not-America-first Steve Jobs, Obama would say those same words. “Most of us are strong free-traders.” It’s the tie that binds the left and the right. Bind yourself to Obama economically, and you’re tied to the Waltons. Period.

Bonus points for noting that the push to roll back social insurance is part of the NeoLiberal agenda, for example at 1:30 and elsewhere. It’s why we have the Obama Grand Betrayal, the Catfood Snack That Won’t Go Away (do click; there’s a kitty inside).

Finally, listen again to his opening praise of “Bob” Rubin and the others in the first 30 seconds or so. When Obama says that the men he’s praising have “put us on a pathway of prosperity,” what he means is that they’ve put themselves on a path to prosperity. This is wealth inequality in action, wealth inequality on the hoof. Those slave-wage jobs in China (or Indonesia or the Philippines) replace the unionized, high-paying wages you don’t have and will never get back; the men in that room, including Obama, are the reason; and “free trade” is both the cover story and the tool (more on that duality below).

Never forget – “Free trade” is a bipartisan, hands-across-the-aisle screwage of American incomes and wealth. It’s the necessary cornerstone of both left-wing and right-wing economic policy. Period.

The three tools of wealth extraction

Free trade is a primary tool of wealth extraction. What are the others?

Recall that corporations aren’t actors per se, they are machines by which wealth is vacuumed from workers and consumers into the hands and pockets of the corps’ true owners, the CEO and capital class. As we’ve said before:

(1) Corporations are not people, and they don’t have ideas or will. They are empty vessels. If you took a neutron bomb to the home office of MegaCorp.com and let it rip, the building, filled to the brim with inventory and IP, would be empty of humans and a dead thing. You could wait for weeks for the offices to act; they wouldn’t.

(2) This is especially true today, since the corporation now serves a different function than it was designed for. At first, a corporation served to make its stockholders moderately wealthy – or at least wealthier.

Modern corporations serve one function only – to make the CEO class obscenely rich.

The looting of global wealth into the hands of the capital and CEO class is a simple two-step process: Corps use free trade to loot the world. CEOs then loot the corps and live higher and better than the kings and presidents they control.

Yes, “kings and presidents they control.” The only thing needed to make the looting worldwide is government protection. If the capital class doesn’t control government, they can’t institute … global free trade regimes. And there you have it. So what are the three tools needed by the capital-controlling class?

• CEO capture of corporations
• Wealth capture of government
• A global free-trade regime

And that’s all it takes. With those three tools in your pocket, you can loot and own the world, literally.

Hmm, we have all three now. “Mission accomplished,” as they say in private jet circles.

Free trade keeps the rest of the world in crisis

And now we come back to Krugman. A direct consequence of a world in which capital flow is completely unrestricted is constant economic crisis. The Professor explains that well in the context of the Cyprus problem (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

Whatever the final outcome in the Cyprus crisis … one thing seems certain: for the time being, and probably for years to come, the island nation will have to maintain fairly draconian controls on the movement of capital in and out of the country. …

That’s quite a remarkable development. It will mark the end of an era for Cyprus, which has in effect spent the past decade advertising itself as a place where wealthy individuals who want to avoid taxes and scrutiny can safely park their money, no questions asked. But it may also mark at least the beginning of the end for something much bigger: the era when unrestricted movement of capital was taken as a desirable norm around the world. …

Then he compares the era of capital control to the era of capital freedom:

It wasn’t always thus. In the first couple of decades after World War II, limits on cross-border money flows were widely considered good policy; they were more or less universal in poorer nations, and present in a majority of richer countries too. Britain, for example, limited overseas investments by its residents until 1979; other advanced countries maintained restrictions into the 1980s. Even the United States briefly limited capital outflows during the 1960s.

But like all good things, that changed:

Over time, however, these restrictions fell out of fashion. To some extent this reflected the fact that capital controls have potential costs: they impose extra burdens of paperwork, they make business operations more difficult, and conventional economic analysis says that they should have a negative impact on growth (although this effect is hard to find in the numbers). But it also reflected the rise of free-market ideology, the assumption that if financial markets want to move money across borders, there must be a good reason, and bureaucrats shouldn’t stand in their way.

What marks the difference between those two eras, the era of capital control and our current free-trade era? Near-constant economic crisis:

[U]unrestricted movement of capital is looking more and more like a failed experiment. It’s hard to imagine now, but for more than three decades after World War II financial crises of the kind we’ve lately become so familiar with hardly ever happened.

Since 1980, however, the roster has been impressive: Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile in 1982. Sweden and Finland in 1991. Mexico again in 1995. Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea in 1998. Argentina again in 2002. And, of course, the more recent run of disasters: Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus.

Notice the date of change? “Since 1980, however…” Him again. This is not just a coincidence. The Reagan era didn’t just initiate national looting, but international looting as well. Krugman ties these crises, here and elsewhere, to large and unrestricted inflows of capital, followed by large and unrestricted outflows that create economic bubbles, then leave them thoroughly deflated:

[T]he best predictor of crisis is large inflows of foreign money: in all but a couple of the cases I just mentioned, the foundation for crisis was laid by a rush of foreign investors into a country, followed by a sudden rush out.

The rest of the piece shows that this idea doesn’t originate just with The Professor; it’s widely held by many not paid by Money to represent it in the court of public opinion.

There’s an opportunity in Spain, let’s say, to take advantage of cheap labor and prices. Money flows in, builds huge capacity, then flows out as soon as it finds better opportunity elsewhere. What’s left behind? The Spanish in a crashed economy, and in a world in which the holders of their debt (German bankers et al) are using the EU (remember, capture of government) to make sure that creditors are made whole at the expense of whole populations.

Kind of like how Walmart comes into a town, builds a huge store, drives all the other retailers out of business, then leaves as soon as the low-wage-earners in that town can’t keep the store more profitable than other stores in the state.

What’s left? The wreck of an economy. Where’s the money? In the pockets of the Walton family, ‘natch. Win-win for someone (but not for you).

Your “economic crisis” is just their “cost of doing business”

Keep in mind, the purpose of unrestricted “free trade” is to advantage the holders of capital over everyone else on the planet. Great wealth insulates these men and women from crises, so even global economic crisis is just the externalized price (that we pay) for their wealth extraction enterprise – just like a burdened health care system is the externalized price (that we pay) for wealth extraction by billionaire owners of tobacco companies from the constant stream of lung cancer patients.

What’s “a world in constant crisis” to them? Just the cost of doing business. Nothing personal. It’s just business.

Is free trade an ideology or a tool?

One last point. Framing free trade as an ideology may be technically correct in a few cases – there are true believers in almost anything (I believe in kittehs) – but if “free trade” weren’t a money machine for the wealthy, you’d never hear of it. Crickets, as the kids say.

Put simply, the reason you heard Barack Obama tout “strong free trade” with Robert Rubin in the room, is that bankers like Robert Rubin grow obscenely wealthy by financing billionaire store-owner Billy-Bob Walton’s slave factories in Asia.

And non-millionaire Barack Obama wants millionaire Bill Clinton’s post-presidential money – $80 million and counting. (Click the link for a stunning connection between public policy – in this case, the repeal of Glass-Steagal – and a post-presidential payday.)

Obama may not say he wants “Clinton money.” He might even know it, in that self-blind sense of “know.” But I’ve met lots of drunks who’ve explained themselves so long, they really do “know” they’re just “prone to be ill in the morning.” Right. Occam’s Switchblade, Upton Sinclair edition:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

“I’m doing it for the kids,” Obama edition.

Bottom line

The bottom line is simple: A “free trade” system is a regime in which capital always wins, everywhere. It’s the tool by which global wealth is extracted. It’s supported by both parties. The Democratic Party version is called NeoLiberalism. “NeoLiberal” means not-FDR-liberal in the same way that Tony Blair’s “New Labour” means not-Clement Attlee-Labour. Because, framing counts on CNN, and it’s always opposite day there.

And Barack Obama, Bringer and Betrayer of Hope and Change, is the lead NeoLiberal warrior, the point of the spear until 2016, at which point he’ll pass the torch to another testosterone-branded neoliberal, retire into the sunset of global acclaim, create his Foundation for NeoLiberal Love and Global Kittens, and collect his checks. (Or not.)

My suggestion, given the above – don’t help him. You have enough on your conscience, if you’re at all like the rest of us. Unless, of course, you like your economic crises served always on tap. In which case, do sign up.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has suggested the creation of a peacekeeping force in Mali that would include West African troops already operating in the country. He also said that a “parallel force” must be built to confront Islamist threats.

“Given the anticipated level and nature of the residual threat, there would be a fundamental requirement for a parallel force to operate in Mali alongside the UN mission in order to conduct major combat and counter-terrorism operations,” Ban wrote in his report on Mali.

Such a force could be built on the French troops already active in Mali, some diplomats say.

Once the African nations’ soldiers become a UN peacekeeping force, most of their troops and police would operate in northern Mali, while there would be a “light presence” based in the country’s capital, Bamako, Ban suggested.

“The force would operate under robust rules of engagement, with a mandate to use all necessary means to address threats to the implementation of its mandate, which would include protection of civilians,” he said.

The parallel force proposed by Ban Ki-moon would specifically target Islamist extremists, and could be based in Mali or elsewhere in West Africa. Diplomats expressed hope that the UN Security Council will vote on the peacekeeping proposal in mid-April.

France launched its military intervention in Mali in January to combat Islamist groups that had taken over the north of the country a year ago. The French army succeeded in driving the Islamists out Mali’s main northern cities and into desert and mountain hideouts. Still, Ban’s report said Mali suffered from a “crisis of governance” marked by “endemic corruption,” and a lack of state authority.

The 11,200 African troops converted into peacekeepers could only cover the main towns “assessed to be at highest risk,” Ban explained. The bulk of the contingent would come from a West African force known as AFISMA (African-led International Support Mission to Mali), comprised of armed forces from many African nations and already operational in Mali.

France said it would start withdrawing 4,000 of its troops in late April as part of a handover to the UN-backed African force. French President Francois Hollande has repeatedly vowed that the troops will remain in the region only until a legitimate government can take over. 

The Mali intervention has cost France more than 100 million euros so far.

Jeff Connaughton found out Wall Street always wins in DC. (Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Connaughton)It’s not always readily apparent how Wall Street pulls the strings in DC. Although sometimes it is indeed blatant, most of the financial “too big to fail” control of the capital is a bit more subtle.

Jeff Connaughton started off on Wall Street at Smith Barney. He gravitated to assisting Joe Biden in his ill-fated 1988 quest for the White House, and then onto Biden’s senate staff. After clerking for DC Federal Appellate Judge Abner Mikva, he joined him when Mikva became Clinton’s White House counsel. After that, he remained on the inside of DC power manipulation when he opened a K-Street lobbying firm — another member of the revolving door government.

When Biden was elected vice-president, Ted Kaufman, Biden’s top aide, was appointed to replace him for two years in the Senate for the remainder of Biden’s term. Kaufman, in turn, asked Connaughton to be his chief of staff. Together, they vowed to take on Wall Street. Given that Kaufman was not going to run for a full term, they figured that they had no need to depend on campaign funding that might influence their crusade.

In the end, they stood proud but defeated. Wall Street had prevailed almost entirely across the board.

Eventually, disillusioned and repulsed by the crony capitalism he witnessed and later even facilitated as a lobbyist, he retired from the Wall Street money zone in our nation’s capital and moved to Savannah, Georgia.

Connaughton’s gradual epiphany is our gain, as he reveals detailed accounts of how the Wall Street chess board works at the expense of sound financial law. Although he was not at the epicenter of power, he was close enough to smell the malodorous scents of a city bought and paid for.

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In the following excerpt from “The Payoff,” Connaughton explains how former Democratic Senator, a Wall Street point man, undercut President Bill Clinton on even a minor amendment to hold corporations accountable for intentional deceptive securities fraud.

It’s revealing in both how a key Democratic at the time was carrying Wall Street waters — and his loyalties were greater to the financial world than to the president of his party. Furthermore, it reveals that if Wall Street can defeat an amendment that just required honesty to potential stockholders about future company performance, then they were in charge down to the smallest detail.

WALL STREET VETOES THE PRESIDENT

It was past nine o’clock in the evening when President Clinton strode into the room. He was dressed immaculately in a suit and tie, yet he strongly resembled an older version of the Arkansas kid he’d once been, perhaps because of the way his face lit up when he saw Bruce Lindsey, his long-time friend and deputy White House counsel. It was as though [White House Counsel Ab] Mikva and I weren’t even there.

The president asked Bruce whether he remembered an old visitor from northwest Arkansas. “Well he was here last night, and I offered to let him stay in the Lincoln Bedroom, and you know what he said to me?” Clinton affected an even deeper Arkansas accent: “Mr. President, I know you think Lincoln was a great president, but if he was so great, why’d we even have to fight that war?” We all laughed, and Clinton continued, “Can you believe that? Half the country wants to see the Lincoln Bedroom, and he didn’t want to stay in it.”

Clinton turned off the mirth like a faucet. He asked Bruce: “So what have we got?” What we had, as Bruce explained, was the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, now before the Senate. A corporate coalition–Wall Street banks and brokers, accountants, insurers, Silicon Valley–wanted the bill, which would make it more difficult to prove securities fraud, passed intact. The bill’s opponents felt it would shield securities fraud by these companies. Particularly troublesome to them were provisions regarding the statements companies make about future performance.

The bill’s opponents felt that its language threatened their ability to sue for securities fraud when a company’s executives talked up the price of its stock by issuing misleading forecasts while simultaneously selling their own shares. Those behind the bill, however, wanted to make it harder to prove wrongdoing in such cases. According to them, whenever a stock’s price dropped, securities class-action lawyers quickly filed suits against companies in the hope that they would settle out of court rather than risk losing at trial. Wall Street and others viewed these suits as extortion. They wanted increased protection in such cases, but the bill’s opponents felt that the proposed legislation gave Wall Street and the others too much leeway. Mikva, Bruce, and I believed some adjustment may have been needed, but the proposed bill set an almost impossibly high bar, giving Wall Street and the others too much protection. The White House was under tremendous pressure.

Just the day before, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, after getting an earful from a number of CEOs, had taken the West Wing stairs two at a time on his way to Mikva’s office. From my desk outside the office, I heard Bowles practically yell, “What the hell are y’all doing to make Silicon Valley so upset about this bill?” Wall Street, seeking to hide the blue stock-trader jackets of high finance behind the white lab coats of high tech, had wisely pushed Silicon Valley in the vanguard of lobbying the White House. What we’re doing is standing up for a fair outcome, I thought to myself, as Mikva closed the door behind Bowles.

Afterwards, I begged Mikva to ask to see the president again. I was determined that the White House not undercut Arthur Levitt, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who was standing up to the bill’s authors to force modifications. Levitt was trying his best to gain revisions to the bill so it wouldn’t eviscerate private securities-fraud actions, an important supplement to the SEC’s own enforcement efforts.

Mikva asked for time on Clinton’s schedule, and I quickly banged out a briefing memo for him. When Clinton’s scheduler finally called, much later that night, Mikva turned to me and said, “Come on.” This would be the only time I would personally brief the president on an issue.

The meeting, which Bruce Lindsey also attended, was in Clinton’s personal study in the White House mansion rather than in the Oval Office. That was a plus. Few staffers got to see the study, with its famous painting of Lincoln and his Union Generals with a rainbow in the background. The minus was at that late hour no official photographer would be on duty. So there would never be a picture of me seated on the couch, Leaning Forward to Educate the President on a Momentous Issue.

Bruce provided an overview of the standard in the Senate bill, and I filled in the specifics. The standard required a showing of three elements, connected by an “and.” This meant a plaintiff would have to prove all three of the elements to get past a defense motion to dismiss the suit. The president looked at Bruce and me and said “Did y’all say ‘and’? They have to show the first two and the third?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Well that’s just too high.” I recognized the “high” as pronounced by a fellow Southerner, with mouth wide open to give the I its full effect. “I’ve stood out there in Silicon Valley, and I’ve heard them go on and on about how bad some of these class action suits are, but I can’t be in a position where it looks like I’m protecting securities fraud.” Clinton even started to mimic the voice of an imaginary radio ad against him on the issue. I was urging him to take this position, so I didn’t point out that it was highly unlikely any Republican opponent would try to use it against him.

“I can call Chris if you need me to,” the president said, referring to Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the Senate bill’s author and then-current chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dodd was Corporate America’s point man in the Senate effort to curb class action securities action suits. Bruce said he’d call him and would keep the president informed.

As the meeting broke up, Clinton told Mikva and Bruce to go next door and say hello to Hillary, the First Lady, who was having dinner with Ann Landers, an old friend of Mikva’s from Chicago. We left the president in his study.

While Mikva and Bruce went into the dining area, I stayed in the hallway, amazed that I was standing alone in the White House living quarters. A couple minutes later, President Clinton exited the study and smiled as he approached me. “Go on in there. Don’t be shy,” he said, again prolonging the vowel in “shy” a whole note.

“Thank you, Mr. President. I don’t really need to meet Ann Landers,” I said.

Then, in a moment I’ll never forget, the President of the United States looked me in the eye and said, “You think I’m doing the right thing, don’t you?” My passion apparently had shown during the briefing. Like most who had trod those historic halls, I turned out to be a yes-man: “Absolutely, Mr. President. You can’t undercut the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on a question of securities fraud.”

President Clinton reflected, “Yeah, that’s right. And Levitt is an Establishment figure, right?” Clinton was trying to reassure himself that the heat he’d take from Corporate America was worth it because even Levitt, one of its own, thought the legislation went too far. If the President has to think very hard before taking on this kind of fight, I thought to myself, imagine how disproportionately unlikely it is for Washington’s lower castes to dare do the same.

“Yes, Mr. President. That’s right.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep. It was intoxicating to have talked to the President. I knew I’d be meeting the next day with a dozen staffers from various White House offices–National Economic Council, Domestic Policy, Legislative Affairs, the Vice President’s office and even the first lady’s staff–who had been weighing in on this issue. I’d been arguing with all of them. Most of them had wanted to appease Silicon Valley because its support had burnished the images of Clinton and Gore as forward-thinking, pro-business Democrats.

When the meeting began the next morning, I said: “We met with the president last night,” and I laid out his decision. For the first and only time in my life, I felt presidential power surge through my body. It was electric. Every staffer who just the day before had been an obstacle now lay down like a forest blown flat by a nuclear blast. There was no further discussion. Mikva, Bruce, and I had the president’s decision. It was time to implement.

I called a staffer in Senator Paul Sarbanes’s office. I briefed him that if Sarbanes would offer an amendment that would preserve the viability of a securities-fraud action against company executives who had “actual knowledge” that a forward-looking statement was fraudulent, the White House would support it. Sarbanes’s staffer didn’t believe me. Just watch, I said. I’ll get you a letter within an hour. Move forward with the amendment.

Sarbanes offered his amendment. As he spoke in the well of the Senate, he held aloft a letter from Mikva stating the White House strongly supported this amendment, which, to be honest, was hardly a radical notion. All it said was that company executives who knowingly lie about future performance won’t be protected from securities-fraud lawsuits.

The vote began, and it looked for a while like we were going to win. Then Dodd started working his fellow senators. It soon became apparent it was going to be a tie. Finally, Dodd voted against the amendment, which failed by one vote.

Bruce had called Dodd and told him that President Clinton had personally requested this change. Yet Dodd still opposed the amendment. He sided with Republicans against a vast majority of Democratic senators. Dodd, for years one of the biggest recipient’s of financial services industry campaign contributions, was too deeply in the pocket of Wall Street and the accountants to go against them. Admittedly, many of the Democratic senators who supported the amendment had long received campaign contributions from securities class-action lawyers.

Dodd’s excuse was that the issue could be worked out when the slightly different versions of the bill passed by the House and the Senate were reconciled in conference before being sent to the president. Bruce was deeply disappointed that Dodd had voted against the president. I was outraged. It was my first experience of how Wall Street, accountants, and insurance companies could combine to bend Washington to its will. I knew the accounting industry–because it had activated its professional members in virtually every state–had been a particularly effective fundraising machine. Partners at the big accounting firms had spoken about the bill with hundreds of members of Congress and dozens of senators at campaign donor events across the country. Accountants were often the deep pockets targeted by class-action lawyers after the fraudulent company those same accountants had audited each year had turned feet upwards.

My role at this stage became to negotiate a compromise provision while reporting to Bruce. I never met with a senator or representative or their staff; all of my negotiations were directly with the corporate coalition. Because I wasn’t an experienced attorney (I’d graduated from law school only a year earlier), I relied on input from two respected academics: John Coffee of Columbia Law School and Donald Langevoort, then at Vanderbilt Law School. I called them frequently for objective advice on how judges would apply the various drafts of the provision.

During the negotiations, I was invited to hold a video conference call with the general counsels of Apple, Hewlett Packard, and five other Silicon Valley firms. At one point, one of the general counsels said, “Jeff, where is all this fraud you’re so worried about?” I’m not claiming to have been clairvoyant. But Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, and other prominent cases of systematic fraud would soon prove that questioner’s confidence in corporate rectitude to be ill-founded.

After weeks of discussion, I offered a compromise. The White House would agree to a two-pronged approach. The standard would be “actual knowledge” that a forward-looking statement was false, or a higher “willfulness” standard if the statement had been accompanied by “bespeaks caution” language: in other words, if the statement was followed by a description of risk factors and a warning to investors not to rely on the prediction’s accuracy.

The coalition never accepted or rejected my proposal and the impasse dragged on for months. Mikva, who just a year before had hired me as one of his judicial clerks, even joked at one of the Counsel’s office staff meetings, “Who knew that Jeff would become a household name on Wall Street?”

By this point, Mikva, Bruce, and I had also established that the White House was opposed to the product liability reform bill–which targeted the standards governing private suits for negligence against manufacturers of faulty products–making its way through Congress. Mikva was fielding phone calls from a handful of Democratic senators, including Jay Rockefeller, who were furious that White House lawyers were placing roadblocks in front of that bill, too.

Meanwhile, Arthur Levitt at the SEC had been under siege to soften his position on the securities-fraud bill. During a visit to meet with Mikva, Levitt told me how personally offended he was by the insulting language and the threat of SEC budget cuts that Dodd and other senators had used when they berated him by telephone. These were important issues; the SEC should’ve played a leading role in crafting the standards in the bill. Instead, Congress was bullying the SEC chairman to support legislation slanted toward the interests of a corporate coalition that had raised millions of dollars for members of the House and Senate.

The bill emerged from conference. Now the question became would Clinton sign it? Mikva, Bruce, and I lobbied hard for a veto. We encouraged independent legal scholars–who didn’t have a dog in the fight–to write letters to Clinton. As it turned out, Clinton was very close to John Sexton, the president of New York University and a securities law expert. Sexton spoke to the President and urged him to veto, which Clinton did. Some have speculated that Clinton wanted to have it both ways: he vetoed the bill, but also signaled to Dodd that he wouldn’t be overly displeased if two-thirds of Congress voted to override it. I don’t know whether that’s true or false.

Regardless, that’s exactly what happened. Even Ted Kennedy, the great champion of civil rights and liberties, who had assured plaintiffs’ groups that he was with them, flipped and went along with the corporate coalition and voted to override Clinton’s veto. For Bruce, Mikva, and me, the defeat was devastating. The next morning, Dodd was quoted on the front page of the Washington Post as saying that Clinton’s veto had been the result of “poor staff work.” For unrelated reasons, Mikva left the White House a short time later. Because he’d brought me with him, I followed him out the door.

In his second term, President Clinton made mistakes–deregulating the financial services industry, supporting the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and leaving derivatives transactions unregulated–that would, within a decade, have devastating consequences. Once upon a time, though, in 1995, we had a president who–with the support of his advisors–was willing to do the right thing and stand up to Wall Street, which even then had already taken over most of Washington.

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Copyright by Jeff Connaughton. Not to be reproduced with permission of the author or Anderson Literary Management, LLC.

A Siberian man siphoned off 30 tons of oil from a local pipeline after spending three years digging a 60-meter tunnel. His luck did not last long, though, as he was soon caught by police; he now claims the act was born purely out of curiosity.

The detained man confessed to having spent three years, from 2010 to 2013, digging the tunnel to connect a plot of land he owned with a pipeline belonging to a subsidiary of the Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, according to the Novosibirsk regional police department. 

The man eventually made a tie-in and connected a hose to the pipeline, which carries oil between two Siberian cities, Omsk and Irkutsk. 

“Over a period of three months the man stole around 30 tons of oil. The damage done to the oil transporting company is 500,000 rubles ($16,200),” criminal investigator Yulia Khabibullina said.

Police have not identified the suspect, but said he is a 52-year-old businessman working in the freight traffic industry. In a video testimony posted on the police department’s website, the man said he was motivated by scientific curiosity rather than monetary gain.

“My goal was just to see if I can do it or not. I once came across one man’s thesis. I read it and that was my starting point,” he said.

He described his digging routine, which kept him busy for three years: He progressed further underground every night after work, bit by bit, and also during the daytime on weekends.

“The process was hard. The soil was really troublesome. It appeared to be hard to dig. Water was constantly leaking. There was a lot of fuss,” the man said, adding that his clothes were dirty all the time because of the digging.

The man also complained of having had to do the job alone, and that he had no one to advise him.

The suspect believes he was simply unlucky, as “it all took place too fast,” leaving him no time to steal enough crude to compensate for the expenses involved in his caper.   

The businessman’s bad luck has now been compounded by charges of large-scale theft leveled against him.

Starring Jeremy Renner as the late Gary Webb, the movie of Webb’s investigation of the CIA’s Contra-cocaine scandal — and of Webb’s destruction by mainstream news outlets — is set to begin filming this summer. If Hollywood gets the story right, it will be a dark and enlightening tale.

While there was the usual glitz and glamour at this year’s Oscars, the star not strolling down the red carpet was actually an intelligence arm of the U.S. government. By bestowing “Argo” with its top award, the Academy gave props to the CIA for the forgotten heroic mission to save six Americans trapped in Iran. “Zero Dark Thirty,” also up for best picture, portrayed CIA analysts as heroes ridding the planet of a psychopathic murderer.

But the CIA is not likely to be singing “Hurrah For Hollywood” for long. The glow from Hollywood’s bright lights the CIA has been basking in of late might fade to black as a new movie starts shooting this summer. “Killing The Messenger,” starring Jeremy Renner of “The Hurt Locker,” “The Avengers” and “The Bourne Legacy” as journalist Gary Webb, will focus on the CIA’s not so flattering side, casting another shadow on the dark, murky world of warcraft.

So, why is Hollywood so interested in an “ancient” story that has traversed through time over the past three decades? Because Gary Webb, with a Hunter S. Thompson-esque swagger, was the quintessential investigative reporter — a dogged inquisitor with innately crazy-good skills. Because Gary Webb was tough. And because, eight years after his series “Dark Alliance” which detailed tangential ties between crack kingpins and the CIA, Gary Webb fired two shots into his head killing himself. Two shots. Even in desperation Gary was determined.

Based on the book by Nick Schou, “Kill The Messenger” will focus on Gary Webb’s sad saga, forced to defend himself from withering criticism – not just from the government but from within the ranks of his own profession. Hollywood obviously cares about the tragic tale of Gary Webb because it has all the elements of an explosive drama: conflict, controversy, and political intrigue. It provides for worthy commentary fodder on a slew of our democratic institutions.

Beyond the immensely important aspects connecting the CIA to drug dealers, the rest of us should care because behind this little slice of history is a cautionary tale for all news gatherers and consumers of the New Media. Because, while on the surface, Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 was based on old-school gumshoe reporting techniques, it helped usher in the digital world of news dissemination.

Print media might be on its deathbed, but even in a twitterverse our quest – and thirst — for in-depth, explanatory journalism should never wane. As “computersumers,” we face a digital dilemma – one that sometimes pits expediency and quantity over content and quality.

To understand the importance of “Kill The Messenger” we have to spend some time with Gary’s story. To prepare, it’s necessary to travel back into history. We owe it to Gary Webb. More importantly, at a time when the way we are receiving our news is changing, we owe it to ourselves.

When I first read – back in the day – Webb’s 1996 account in the San Jose Mercury News linking the CIA to the funneling of cocaine into inner city Los Angeles, I thought, “Big Deal.” To me, this was old news. You see, I knew much of what Gary was reporting had been written before.

Soon, the firestorm erupted. My thinking changed: “Gary my boy, what the hell have you gotten into.” As a fellow journalist, I had both a personal and professional interest in Gary’s expose. But it was my reporter’s hat that I initially and instinctively put on my head. Thus, the cautionary tales begin.

My professional interest in Gary’s report dated back ten years prior, to the time of colorful Oliver North and the Reagan administration’s proxy war in Nicaragua. Better known as the Contra War, it culminated in humiliation for Reagan and the CIA when it was revealed they had been trading arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in Lebanon. The money Iran paid for American missiles was passed through covert back channels to the Contras fighting against the Nicaraguan socialist Sandinista government. Better known as the Iran-Contra scandal, all of this was, of course, against U.S. policy. At least that’s what Congress thought.

While Congress was going apoplectic, all of the reporters in Washington – myself included – were attempting to put flesh on the bones of the Reagan Administration’s skeleton officials were desperately trying to keep shoved in the proverbial closet.

(One of my stories prior to the Iran-Contra revelation found that CIA director William Casey, Defense Department officials and a prominent U.S. senator had dealings with a Greek arms broker who was doing his best to ship U.S. made Cobra attack helicopters to Iran. The story, preserved in the Almanac of American Politics, caused a minor uproar. But such intelligence matters are almost always conducted in secret under the guise of national security. Due to such nebulous conditions we will probably never know if this case had any direct or indirect Iran-Contra implications.)

Iran-Contra wasn’t the first big scandal, however, involving the CIA’s-sponsored war in the dark forests of Central America. At least it shouldn’t have been. A year before news of Iran-Contra made headlines, Associated Press reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger broke a story saying the Contras were exporting drugs to the U.S. to help pay for the war effort. Big Media all but ignored the story. There was no follow-up or flushing out by the major newspapers, but there was by our new Secretary of State – then Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Kerry and his band of merry staffers started digging. As part of the Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry confirmed the Contras were involved in the drug trade. The committee report stated unequivocally that U.S. government agencies knew about the drug trafficking. In fact, at least four companies paid $800,000 by the State Department to deliver aid to the Contras were known “fronts” owned by narcotics smugglers.

Thanks to Ollie North himself, other documentation was provided. North’s handwritten meeting notes suggest the Contras got $14 million in financing from drug profits to buy a cache of Honduran weapons. One noted a Contra commander surrounded himself with people who are in the war not only to fight but to “make money,” including some dealing drugs. Another memo said a Honduran airplane delivering supplies to the Contras from New Orleans was “probably” making return drug runs into the U.S. The list goes on.

Of course, the Reagan folks did their best to hush up the dirty details. Perhaps, given Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” to drugs pet project, they just didn’t want the embarrassment. President Reagan, who publicly had all but compared these “freedom fighters” to our Founding Fathers is said to have privately complained they were little more than thugs. Reports were rampant the Contras had engaged in rape and pillage in border villages.

And, even though the work done by Parry, Barger and Kerry linking major narcotics dealing to the U.S. by an Army-sanctioned, paid for and blessed, by our government was – through the hindsight of history – arguably a bigger scandal than Iran-Contra itself, again Big Media basically ignored it. Just as, at best, U.S. government agencies looked the other way as the Contras helped deliver drugs to our streets, the media looked the other way, at best not realizing the importance of the story staring right at us.

Authors Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall pretty much put an exclamation point on the government’s complicity in this sordid world of drug running in the 1991 book Cocaine Politics.

So, we fast-forward to Gary Webb and his “Dark Alliance” series. As I looked over the wire story, I immediately remembered the AP investigations and the Kerry Committee report. “This is old news,” I thought. Then I realized what Gary had accomplished.

As any good investigative reporter working on the local level, Gary had taken forgotten dispatches from far off places and out-of-focus facts from government reports and put a flesh and blood face on this sordid story. He provided needed context to a disturbing episode of out-of-control politics. Webb had done what other reporters probably should have done years before. Except now he was exposing the true damage wrought by the drug thugs – crack. In their twisted genius, pushers had transformed a mundane narcotic into this cheap hideously addictive monster.

Now working in television in Ohio, I witnessed the crack dens and the horribly harming impact crack was having, irreparably destroying lives – especially those lives of minorities in the urban corridors. But it was Gary who was providing some of the genesis for this scourge. His work should have been celebrated. But in Big Media circles it wasn’t.

Webb and the Mercury News soon faced the cudgel of Big Media. Papers like the L.A. Times, The New York Times and even The Washington Post published page one stories critical of Webb’s findings. Page one. Remember our history. These papers didn’t cover the original reports of government complicity in drug dealing on page one.

Why the prominent journalistic lambasting? The big complaint from Big Media seemed to be that Webb and his paper had overreached in its writing and conclusions. They said he had implied the CIA, acting as a coke-crazed puppet master, orchestrated the Contra drug operation as if Langley had dispatched agents to help them unload the coke from the planes, set up the crack labs and stood cloaked in trench coats on street corners displaying the rock for sale. Therefore, Gary’s entire supposition was tainted.

Except that’s not really what his story said. Webb’s piece said that the drug traffickers had ties to Contras backed by the CIA. It wasn’t a CIA operational plot, but rather it sanctioned the Contras and failed to stop the illegally gotten gains. In fact, in one case the CIA asked the Department of Justice to give back funds confiscated during a Contra drug bust in California.

The big three papers harped on “Dark Alliance” conclusions that millions of dollars from the California coke ring went back into Contra coffers. They said that figure was hugely inflated. They also said the series was wildly off the mark in linking crack’s insidious spread across the country to the L.A. Contra-connected pushers.

Perhaps the most disingenuous critique came from the L.A. Times which reported Webb had puffed up the importance of the local drug kingpin central to the story. “Even on the best day Ricky Ross had, there was way more crack cocaine out there than he could ever control,” they quoted a police source. There’s just one problem. Webb was echoing what the Times had said about this local dealer two years before.

“If there was a criminal mastermind behind crack’s decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick,” the Times’ earlier story said. Credibility? Okay.

We know there were a number of cocaine pipelines into the U.S. – even from the Contras, but Ricky Ross did peddle the drug into my hometown of Cincinnati. Reports state his coke empire reached into Pennsylvania and New York. According to my GPS, that qualifies as spreading the epidemic.

And how do we know how much money was funneled to the Contras from any one particular drug deal? There is conflicting evidence. But it’s not like the Contras, the CIA or Ollie North were using Price Waterhouse CPA’s to keep track. Simply, there are plenty of discrepancies between the statements of this band of thieves.

Some critics even got into the semantic quibble of what’s the difference between a CIA officer, an agent, an asset and an operative. If it quacks does it matter if it’s a Mallard or Daffy the Duck?

To be sure, the series did warrant a few criticisms for misplaced hyperbole, but not to be shish-kebob-ed on Big Media’s skewer. The biggest mistake Webb made was not placing the perfunctory call to the CIA for comment. Who knows, maybe, like a reformed addict, it would have come clean. But by relying on CIA denials, many of which turned out not to be true, and contradictory court testimony to debunk “Dark Alliance,” Big Media itself was guilty of overzealousness.

Steve Weinberg, one of the deans of investigative reporting wrote, “Even if Webb overreached in a few paragraphs – based on my careful reading, I would say his overreaching was limited, if it occurred at all – he still had a compelling, significant investigation to publish.”

The Washington’s Post own ombudsman said the paper should have concerned itself with advancing the story rather than tearing down a competitor. Interestingly, in another sign of the retrenching of print, the Post recently announced it is dissolving its reader’s advocate position.

Yes, Gary Webb did have some supporters. The press’ full-press attack took its toll, though. While at first editors at the Mercury News defended its series, it didn’t take them long to cave from the pressure.

“We did not have proof that top CIA officials knew of the relationship (between Contras and coke),” the paper’s editor wrote. Odd, since there was proof Langley knew. Odder still, other in-house criticism seemed to center on what a few well-placed qualifying adverbs, adjectives and attribution could have fixed. Fixes which editors are paid to make.

As a result, the Mercury News wouldn’t run Webb’s follow-up stories. True, they didn’t fire him but the damage was done. Gary eventually quit the paper, feeling crushed from failing to land another daily paper job.

But his story had legs – at least inside government circles. The firestorm over “Dark Alliance” sparked an in-depth reviews by both the CIA’s and Justice Department’s Inspectors General. Of course they both took swipes at Webb while at the same time unearthing a torrent of unsettling material regarding nefarious dealings by those under the Agency’s imprimatur.

The CIA IG reported that at least 50 Contras and Contra-related entities participated in the drug trade. These drug dealing Contras weren’t just low-level grunts, some were in high command. It was with one of these military commanders that the drug lords in Webb’s piece met in Nicaragua. Langley knew from Day One that Contras were using drug profits to fund operations.

In one bizarre case, a Honduran general tried to import $40 million worth of coke to the U.S. Incredibly, the money was to finance the assassination of the Honduran president. The general was caught but because he was a chief CIA liaison within the Contra network, he was given a reduced sentence at “Club Fed” in Florida.

In another remarkable example, the Agency put a known drug operative with the CIA pseudonym “Ivan Gomez” in charge of a contra commander. It was a family affair, with “Mr. Gomez’s” two brothers bringing in large amounts of coke. According to some sources, the Gomez family supplier might have aided the mighty Medellin coke cartel in its nascent days.

Sticking by the apocryphal story of duplicitous deniability, the former CIA chief in charge of the Contras said in reference to Ollie North that it was a “moral outrage” to imply a Reagan Administration official “would have countenanced” drug trafficking. Then again, given such “groupthink,” perhaps this cast of characters was in actual psychological denial.

A former CIA Central American Station Chief told the Agency IG they knew early on that some Contras were “scoundrels” dealing drugs but at the direction of Director Casey they were “going to play with these guys.”

While insisting he doesn’t believe the CIA targeted any specific community, then-Sen. John Kerry told PBS, “There’s no question in my mind that people affiliated with or on the payroll of the CIA were involved in drug trafficking while in support of the Contras.”

There’s now practically a cargo plane full of records replete with connections between the CIA and drug trafficking. Was the CIA complicit in the Contra drug trade? Check. Did the CIA and the U.S. pay the same Contra contractors who were also shipping drugs to the U.S.? Check. Did CIA Director William Casey obtain a special dispensation from the Attorney General to allow his Contra-support team to “look the other way” regarding the drug dealing? Check. Did the CIA deliberately deny to other agencies knowledge of Contra-connected dealers? Check.

For more on this staggering litany of connections I recommend two sites: Robert Parry’s Consortiumnews.com site (and its stories on Webb’s case such as “The Warning in Gary Webb’s Death”).and George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t just in Central America where the CIA ignored drug trafficking. It seems they used the same template with the poppy-peddling Afghan mujahedeen during their fight against the Soviets.

By operating in the subterranean world of arms and drug smuggling, the CIA took us down the rabbit hole where narco-mad hatters weren’t about to give us any straight dope, where the spooks had no clue and didn’t care where this unfettered trafficking would lead and where they were powerless to predict how many lives would be ruined in the country they were sworn to protect.

At the same time, Gary Webb was sucked into his own crevasse, spiraling down to his demise. To me, that is personal. It’s personal because I was a college classmate of Gary’s. It’s personal because when Gary faced this struggle I wasn’t in any position to offer assistance. I had just waged my own personal battle with a media corporation – left high and dry by the outside press.

It should be personal when it makes you mad – when it makes you hurt. And it’s easy to be mad over this media debacle. Yes, I’m mad at Gary, the gruff, salty-talking swashbuckler who might have been too stubborn to accept that sometimes the personal, as well as the professional, message needs massaging.

Mostly, I’m mad at the rest of us. All too often reporters, editors and media bosses forget what our job is – the responsibility we have been entrusted with. Our responsibility isn’t to our egos, to be first, to win awards or to any arbitrary agendas set by bosses. The media’s responsibility is to pursue truth-telling with intellectual honesty and fairness. To understand that no one story, no singular investigation will encompass the entirety of truth’s intricacies. If we follow that approach, debate and democracy will benefit.

As with all democracies, though, most of the responsibility lies with the content users, citizens who must decide if they play a passive or active role as information providers shift to the more interactive delivery of the New Media. To help them decide, I’ll provide a starting point – a few lessons we can all learn from Gary Webb’s sacrifice and his “Dark Alliance” cautionary tale:

Perhaps what really upset reporters and editors at the big papers was they had missed the thrust of “Dark Alliance,” that the government could have done more to bust the early coke rings. And now, to top it off, African-American leaders in urban communities and members of the Congressional Black Caucus were outraged. They rightly demanded some answers.

This was all happening in the back yards of our greatest and most prestigious news outlets. Instead of using the Not-In-My-Backyard effect to further the story, Big Media used it to adopt a defensive mode. Whenever readers come across important news information – like ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs study – they should contact their local media outlets to promote it and to put their own NIMBY imprint on it.

Green With Envy: Journalists are normally sincere, extremely talented and dedicated. But I’m going to say it: on occasion they can be a jumbled mess. Yes, fragile. Sure, stress is a factor, but I’m not referencing the physical or emotional aspects of getting the story. Reporters are trained to take the psychological heat that comes from editors and story subjects. It’s more about fear of failure.

Reporting – especially with the New Media’s never-ending news cycle – is as competitive as any sport or Wall Street wheeling-and-dealing. This competitiveness, inherent to the job, however, can produce great guilt – guilt of missing the big story, guilt for getting beat. Sometimes the symptom is jealousy. I know I was jealous of my old friend’s “big get.”

Sometimes the symptoms resulting from envy manifests in defensive postures. I believe it was this collective guilt that contributed to Big Media’s obsession with proving Webb’s piece wrong. Instead, we need to celebrate and participate in the reasoned risk-taking of colleagues. When journalists are fired or vilified, New Media consumers should use the Internet’s connective voice as a review board, showing support by demanding transparent accountability.

Watchdogging The Watchdogs: From their own infamous foot-in-mouth examples, The New York Times and Washington Post certainly know there will always be a place for journalistic critique.

Reality dictates that in this brave New Media World, with ubiquitous “pseudo” news sites proliferating the Web, we need more rather than fewer media watchdogs. When sites like Drudge and Breitbart can spread headlines based on bogus reports, we need watchdoggers to keep the
Web honest.

But Gary Webb wasn’t like those practitioners of the spurious. He was part of the team at the Mercury News that won a Pulitzer Prize. He was cocky and confident, with a perceived cowboy persona, but, like they say, this wasn’t his first rodeo. With “Dark Alliance,” Webb wasn’t picking fantasy facts out of thin air. He had volumes of documentation.

In a kind of twisted irony, the Mercury News became one of the first to put a major news investigation online. As a companion to the “Dark Alliance” series, it added source material such as court records and audio interviews to the cloud.

While that didn’t dissuade Webb’s detractors, it showed the true power of the New Media. Hits on the series skyrocketed and we got our first glimpse of how the cloud could unleash unlimited potential for research. Because cloud storage is infinite, New Media reporting should not suffer from the space limitations of the past.

In looking back at Gary’s career, it struck me that some of his best, award-winning investigations were conducted with the help or support of other journalists – either reporters or editors he respected. He might have lacked those close relationships at the Mercury News.

I urge reporters to always call on that mentor or colleague to peer review important pieces. Share a byline with someone in your shop, keep a wise editor up to speed on a regular basis or seek out an old college prof that can spend time going over your material. And access to a good First Amendment attorney is a must.

The public holds both journalists and attorneys in low regard, so it’s an irony that we need to support each other in protecting the public’s rights. Another irony is that while journalism is a defender of democracy it is not democratic. The competitive nature of journalists and the capitalistic companies they work for can place the reporter into a conflicting position. The support system can help diffuse such contention.

Former network anchor Tom Brokaw tells a story about a columnist at the New Republic complaining that the problem with journalists is they have glass jaws – they go down with the first punch of criticism.

In the “Dark Alliance” case, editors at the Mercury News caved when facing criticism from other news organizations. Gary Webb’s jaw wasn’t glass it was steel. It would have been better had it been made of rubber. Journalists not only need to absorb criticism but bend with it, finding a way to incorporate what are sometimes conflicting views and conclusions.

Twitter is, no doubt, a great resource. It can alert us to important events. But citizens need more content, not less. I’m talking about online journalists taking the time to tell a complete and thoroughly researched story. And I’m talking about citizens being responsible to take the time to digest fully realized pieces of reporting.

The New Media can provide this in-depth content to a mass market faster and in more forms than ever before. But it doesn’t matter how content is delivered. It’s no secret print publications are in peril, yet online users need to keep reading or viewing complex, long-form stories.

Be dedicated to democracy. Remember: Watergate wasn’t told in Tweets. The press – in whatever form – is known as the Fourth Estate for a reason. Don’t let that die. (Hint: You’ve made a start by reading this essay.) Save the Tweets for offering feedback to reporters and editors. Better yet, send a lengthy email – you remember those.

As for the CIA’s new starring role in Hollywood? I’m predicting “Killing The Messenger” won’t have the same Oscar buzz as “Argo.” Hollywood loved its feel-good part, producing a faux movie to flimflam the Iranian Mullahs.

This time around, the Agency will be playing the bad guy, willing to fool the American public in a Cold War super-sized paranoid pursuit of communists. The reversed roles are both accurate portrayals of our most complex and paradoxical agency. And so it is for our best and brightest in the media.

H. “Corky” Johnson is an award-winning investigative reporter/producer with more than 30 years of experience. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, on “60 Minutes” and in many other media outlets. [This story originally appeared at Op-Ed News and was reprinted with the author’s permission.]

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Jaisal Noor is a New York City and Baltimore-based independent journalist. His print, radio and TV reports have appeared on The Real News, Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now! He also teaches US history at schools and colleges across New York City

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Baris Karaagac is a lecturer in International Development Studies at Trent University, in Ontario. He is also the editor of the book Accumulations, Crises and Struggles: Capital and Labour in Contemporary Capitalism, which will be published in 2013.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay.In the Middle East, momentous developments in the political landscape, all focused on Turkey. On March 21, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish independence struggle who is still in a Turkish jail, wrote a letter that was read to over 1 million Kurds calling to an end to the three-decades-long armed struggle and the beginning of a peaceful struggle within what he hoped, I guess, will be a new constitution in Turkey and a new political struggle and process.The next day, March 22, with President Obama sitting next to him, Prime Minister Netanyahu phones Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, and apologized for the killing of Turkish citizens on the flotilla that was bound to try to break the siege of Gaza. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan accepted the apology with three conditions. And we’ll talk about those conditions in a few minutes.Now joining us to discuss the significance of these events is Baris Karaagac. He’s a lecturer in international development studies at Trent University in Ontario. He’s also the editor of the book Accumulations, Crisis and Struggles: Capital and Labour in Contemporary Capitalism. And he joins us now from Toronto. Thanks very much for joining us, Baris.BARIS KARAAGAC, LECTURER, INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, TRENT STUDIES: Hello, Paul. My pleasure.JAY: So we’re going to talk about both of these events. And I don’t know if the timing is coincidental or not, but one day after the other, this must have been big news in Turkey. But let’s start off chronologically with the letter from the leader of the Kurdish struggle essentially calling for an end to armed struggle.KARAAGAC: So on Thursday last week, which marks the beginning of the new year for millions of people around the Middle East, but also in different parts of the world, from the Balkans to some parts of Central Asia, about 1.5 million Kurds gathered in the largest predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey.And the importance of this day is that Ocalan had promised or declared that he was going to declare the beginning of a new era, not only for the Kurdish people and the Kurdish struggle, also for Turkey and the Middle East as a whole. So in this speech that was delivered by two members of the Kurdish party that is represented in the Turkish parliament, the BDP, Peace and Democracy Party, he declared the end of an era characterized by armed struggle–of course, not exclusively armed struggle–and the beginning of a new era in which the struggle will be taken to the political, peaceful arenas.And this importance is that this also represents an important change in the AKP governments, as well as the Turkish state’s stance, towards the Kurdish movement, because this did not take place without the consent, without the knowledge of the Turkish state in general and the AKP government in particular. The representatives of the Kurdish state had been in touch and negotiating with Ocalan for some time now. This dates back to the actually almost mid–the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. But it did not introduce any positive outcome.This time there seems to be some consensus. And given the recent history of the AKP’s stance towards–the AKP policies towards the Kurdish resistance and struggle, which had been quite repressive, this came maybe to some people, especially foreign observers, as a surprise, because now in Turkish jails we have tens of Kurdish journalists and we have thousands of Kurdish politicians who are incarcerated.So the question is that why did the Turkish state decide to change or make such a, you know, seemingly important shift in its policy towards the Kurds? So this is a very, very important question that we need to pose right now.In most analyses, commentators and scholars have focused on Erdogan’s bid for presidency in a new presidential system. So they have been arguing that Erdogan needs to make a constitutional change, actually introduce a quite different constitution, replacing the one that was drafted under military rule back in 1982, and he wants to change the regime within Turkey into a presidential one. But this won’t be the same as what we see in the U.S. And many people have been critical of this, you know, conception of a presidential system that was introduced by Erdogan, and they argued it actually will be quite undemocratic, with quite, you know, possibly, potentially authoritarian tendencies, with the president controlling both the presidency and the parliament.So, many people have focused on this issue, arguing that Erdogan doesn’t have the necessary numbers right now in parliament to take this new constitution to a referendum. He needs 330 members of the parliament. So he used this, you know, rapprochement or, you know, change in Kurdish policy in the negotiations as a negotiation tool.And last month, when the meetings started with Ocalan on the one side and members of the BDP, the Kurdish party, on the other, and also with the participation of a member of the Turkish intelligence, there was a leak of the minutes of one of those meetings. And in those meetings, in those minutes, Ocalan actually clearly says that the Kurdish movement should consider negotiating with Erdogan and maybe agreeing, consenting to his, you know, presidency in a new presidential system in return for a number of cultural and political rights, changing the status of millions of Kurds within Turkey. So this seems to be one important factor that has led to–.JAY: Has the Turkish state actually offering the Kurds anything to prompt any of this? I assume one of the reasons they had an armed struggle in the first place is ’cause the political process wasn’t working for them and they weren’t winning concessions. This little bit seems [incompr.] unilateral. You know, the Kurds are going to give up their struggle, but what’s the Turkish state giving in return? And two, how has this been received by the Kurds, given that their leader is in jail right now? Would he have made the same decision if he wasn’t? … First I asked you, did the Turkish state actually offer anything here in return for giving up the armed struggle? Is there a deal? And two, how’s this being received? I mean, there must be some suspicion that this was done while he was in jail, no?KARAAGAC: Well, one thing that characterizes the ongoing process is a number of–so many unknowns. We don’t know actually what the Erdogan government promised that it would do.But what is expected by the Kurds and by many people in Turkey is that there will be a number of legal as well as constitutional changes. So if these constitutional and legal changes are made, then the Kurdish movement is planning to retreat.The armed wing of the Kurdish movement, the PKK, is planning to withdraw its troops from–its guerrillas from within Turkish territory. And there are between 1,500 and 2,000 of them in different parts of, you know, central and eastern, particularly in eastern and southeastern Turkey.But as the head of the–you know, the acting leader of the PKK, Karayilan, made it very, very clearly: until these changes will be done, will be achieved, guerrillas will not withdraw. So he’s quite optimistic about the potential of establishing, you know, peace, a peaceful process to address the Kurdish issue. He’s making it very clear: until these steps are taken by the Turkish government and the state, there won’t be an end to armed struggle. At least, they will not stop it. But there is a ceasefire right now. [incompr.]JAY: The Kurds in Iraq, there’s bases there. In fact, the Turks have actually intervened in Iraq, attacking Kurdish bases there. Is there any suggestion anything will change about the bases that are in Iraq?KARAAGAC: You know, based on what they’ve said and based on what we’ve heard so far, there’s nothing. We cannot say anything about it. Maybe in the, you know, weeks and months to come we’ll hear something, but we don’t know yet.But what the Kurds want right now, you know, is first of all a new definition of citizenship, secondly the recognition of the diversity of the Turkish or the people or the peoples in Turkey, because we–you know, Turkey has historically been a very diverse, heterogeneous, you know, population. For example, in 1913, about 20–more than 20 percent of the population was Christian. Then the Christians were–you know, they had to migrate, left. We know what happened in 1915. This number dropped. But even within the Muslim population we see a huge diversity. We have people from the Caucasus, from the Balkans, from the Middle East, Arabs, Circassians, Kurds, Arabs–sorry, Turks, Laz, etc.JAY: Baris, let me just ask you quickly: so if this deal really goes ahead and there is a deal and there are concessions and all the rest, what’s the importance of that to Turkey? And what does that mean for the region?KARAAGAC: Well, the 30-year-old war will come to an end. So, you know, we don’t know what–we cannot–we can only speculate about the outcomes. But first of all, Erdogan will be hailed as the great leader who ended this war. And secondly, Turkey will be stopping or preventing the emergence of an independent Kurdistan, you know, new nation state within the region. And this has been a state policy since the beginning of the republic. So this is a huge–you know, this can be seen as an important victory for the Turkish state.JAY: How might it affect Turkey’s attitude to what’s going on in Syria?KARAAGAC: In Syria? Well, in Syria, in the northern part of Syria, Turks–the Kurds have been–to a great extent they’ve become autonomous, right? So if–and the party or the movement that controls that part of Syria, the Kurdish regions, is closely linked, organically linked to the PKK. So if Turkey starts, you know, a new process and has better, more cordial relations, amicable relations with the PKK and the overall Kurdish movement within Turkey, as well as in northern Iraq, this will of course increase its influence over northern Syria. That is clear.So, secondly, of course this will also increase its influence and make the relations even closer with the administration in northern Iraq. Turkey is–70 percent of Turkey’s trade relations, trade with Iraq, takes place within northern Iraq, right? So these are all the important gains for Turkey. I mean, overall, Turkey will be increasing its influence beyond its borders, right?But I would like to talk about another important reason as to why the Turkish state might have decided to make this move regarding its Kurdish policy, and that is the stalemate when it comes to the war between the Kurdish guerrillas and the Turkish state. So despite this, its 30-year history and 40,000 people dead, neither side is close to victory. The Turkish state knows that it will be impossible, almost impossible to defeat the, you know, Kurdish guerrillas. And the Kurdish guerrillas cannot defeat the Turkish state either.But at the same time, Turkey is a little bit worried now, because before, when it came to the Kurdish insurgency, Turks used to cooperate with different states. They used to cooperate with Iran, they used to cooperate with Syria, and to some extent they used to cooperate with Iraq. Now they cannot cooperate with either Syria or even Iraq or with Iran. So this is again a strategic move on the part of the Turkish state.JAY: Turkey is a member of NATO. So I guess anything that strengthens Turkey’s position in the region and essentially an American ally, I guess it gives them another card to play.KARAAGAC: Absolutely. Absolutely.JAY: In the next segment of the interview, we’re going to talk about the phone call. Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the prime minister of Turkey, and they make a deal of sorts. So join us for a continuation of our interview on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

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Jaisal Noor is a New York City and Baltimore-based independent journalist. His print, radio and TV reports have appeared on The Real News, Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now! He also teaches US history at schools and colleges across New York City

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Peter Kuznick, Professor of History; Director, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute; Co-writer (with Oliver Stone) “Untold History of the United States”

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore. And we’re continuing our discussion about the television series and the book The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. And now joining us in the studio once again is Peter Kuznick.Thanks for joining us again.PETER KUZNICK, PROF. HISTORY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Glad to be here.JAY: So one of the themes you take up in this series is the issue of was the nuclear attack on Japan necessary, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the thesis of the book essentially is that it wasn’t. And it seems to me it’s such a critical question, because if you can accept that using weapons of mass destruction is legitimate and was acceptable then, then why can’t you accept anything after that? So it’s perhaps one of or maybe the most critical thing to debate about American history. So what’s your take?KUZNICK: It really is in many ways the starting point of where things go badly wrong. We can look at 1898 and the invasion of the Philippines as an important turning point, but after that, it’s really the atomic bombing more than almost anything else. It gives the United States a sense of impunity. It gives the United States a sense of power. The United States can really throw its weight around now. We don’t have to be afraid of anybody.And Truman says that on the USS Augusta back. He says it to the sailors. He says that we’ve got this new weapon coming into the war.But right from the very first time he was briefed on it–. It’s very interesting that Truman was vice president for 82 days before Roosevelt died, and nobody even told him that we were building the atomic bomb. He was considered such a lightweight. There was so little respect for him. Nobody even brought him in on the fact that we’re building this extraordinary bomb.So he finds out after Roosevelt dies. The night after the emergency cabinet meeting, Stimson informs him. The next day, Jimmy Byrnes flies up from South Carolina, and then he gives him a fuller briefing. And Truman writes in his memoir that Byrnes says it’s a weapon great enough to destroy the whole world and may allow us to dictate our own terms at the end of the war, that a weapon great enough to destroy the whole world–Truman writes in his memoir.And then he’s briefed on that on April 25 by Stimson and Groves. They give a full briefing on this. And afterwards, Truman writes that Stimson says that this is so powerful and so dangerous that even if we have it, maybe we shouldn’t use it. And Truman says, I felt the same way after reading the report and hearing their briefing.Then, when he’s at Potsdam on July 25, he gets the full report on how powerful the Trinity test had been at Alamogordo, and he writes: we’ve discovered the most terrible weapon ever. He says, this may be the fire destruction prophecied in the Euphrates Valley era after Noah and his fabulous arc.Truman knows this is not just a bigger, more momentous weapon. He knows that he’s beginning a process that could end life on the planet. But he goes ahead and uses it in the most reckless possible way, the way that people had been warning was likely to trigger an arms race with the Soviet Union, ’cause the Soviets knew–well, the Soviets were in an interesting position….JAY: So the debate’s always been, I guess, twofold. One is: was the bomb really necessary to end the war, and meaning that were the Japanese ready to surrender anyway? And there’s also been, you could say, a debate that even if they weren’t ready to surrender, do you actually unleash such a weapon and begin an era of using weapons of mass destruction? And just to give a sense of the scale of what we’re talking about, here’s a quote from Truman’s chief of staff. Now, it needs to be pointed out he says this afterwards, and I asked you off-camera, and as far as we know, he never actually said this to Truman, but he gives a sense of the nature of what we’re talking about.So Truman’s chief of staff, Admiral Leahy, who chaired the meetings of the Joint Chiefs, was the most impassioned, classifying the bomb with chemical and bacteriological weapons as violations of, quote, every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all the known laws of war. He proclaimed that, quote, Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. In being the first to use it, we adopt an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the dark ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. Leahy angrily told the journalist Jonathan Daniels in 1949, quote, Truman told me it was agreed they would use it only to hit military objectives. Of course, then they went ahead and killed as many women and children as they could, which was just what they wanted all the time. I’m reading now from Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s book. And just as a quick aside, the way to do all this is you got to watch the series, but you’ve got to read the book afterwards, because there’s layers of richness to this history that clearly the series just doesn’t have time to take in.So let’s get back to the key debate. Leahy’s not the only one that says the bomb wasn’t necessary to win the war.KUZNICK: No. Six of America’s seven five-star admirals and generals who won their fifth star during the war are on record as saying the bomb was either morally reprehensible, militarily unnecessary, or both. So we’re talking about people we don’t think of as pacifists. We’re thinking about Dwight Eisenhauer, who said repeated–on several occasions that he spoke to Stimson at Potsdam and urged him not to use the bomb ’cause the Japanese were already defeated, he said, and I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.One of the most intriguing, though, is Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur, who actually advocated the use of atomic bombs during the Korean War, was appalled that we used atomic bombs in this war.JAY: Because in Korea he thought it was necessary, and in this one he didn’t.KUZNICK: In this one he said yes. In fact, there’s an interesting exchange that he has with Herbert Hoover, the former president. Hoover wrote a memo in May in which he warned about terrible casualties in an invasion and said, change the surrender terms. Tell the Japanese they can keep the emperor so we can get the war over with, ’cause that was the main stumbling block.JAY: Yeah. Explain that.KUZNICK: Let me first tell this MacArthur exchange. MacArthur wrote to Hoover on two occasions, and MacArthur said to Hoover that that was a wise and statesman like memo that you sent, and if we had adopted it, the war could have ended in May, he says. He says, and I’m sure the Japanese would have accepted it gladly.JAY: And this is a surrender that allows the emperor to stay in power, at least nominally.KUZNICK: Which we did anyway, right? And, in fact, Stimson argued that we had to keep the emperor in power, ’cause it’s our only way to maintain order in Japan. So we had to keep the emperor for our interests. It was actually some of the people on the left who wanted to get rid of the emperor, ’cause the emperor for all the obvious reasons was a war criminal and was complicit in all of this, was a negative force in Japanese life. But they knew they wanted to keep the emperor. And MacArthur says the war could have ended in May. I think that’s premature. I don’t think the Japanese were quite ready to surrender in May, but possibly in June and almost certainly in July from what we know.JAY: Okay. So Truman and his generals know this.KUZNICK: Yes.JAY: They’re hearing feedback from many of their generals on this count. And Truman says, yes, we’re going to use it. So why do they use it?KUZNICK: Well, they use it–it’s hard to reason with Truman. You know, it’s hard to get into his mind. But I think on some level he believed that the bomb would speed up the end of the war, which he wanted to do, and he wanted to do for obvious reasons, ’cause he had American men who were being killed, and that was a consideration for Truman.The other reason was because of the Soviet Union. At Yalta, Stalin had agreed to come into the Pacific War three months after the end of the war in Europe, which means around August 8.JAY: And the Americans were pleading with Stalin to do that.KUZNICK: Yes, for quite some time. And he finally agreed to do it, in return for which he was going to get certain concessions, basically what the Russians had lost in the 1904-1905 war with Japan. So they were going to get the railroads in Manchuria, they were going to get Outer Mongolia, Port Arthur, Port Dairen. They were going to get Sokal and they were going to get the Kuril Islands. A lot of things that were important to them economically they were going to get back for coming in.But after [incompr.] test the bomb, it’s very clear as Stimson, Byrnes, Churchill, and Truman all say, let’s get the war over with if we can before the Russians get in on a kill. So on the one hand, they wanted to speed up the end of the war for obvious reasons. They also wanted to speed it up for diplomatic reasons, and they wanted to make sure the Russians didn’t get it.But in May we’ve got several leading Americans–Leo Szilard, Walter–Harold Urey, and Walter Bartky, three leading scientists, went to the White House to see Truman and to talk to him about not using the bomb. Truman sends them to South Carolina to see Jimmy Byrnes. Byrnes was not yet Secretary of State, but he was Truman’s behind-the-scenes adviser, his principal adviser on all these things. And in the exchange between Szilard and Byrnes, Byrnes says to Szilard, he says, well, you’re Hungarian, aren’t you? Don’t you want to make sure that we get the Russians out of Hungary? And Szilard says, that’s not what we’re talking about; we’re talking about using a weapon that’s beginning to open the door to this era of mass destruction on an inconceivable scale. And all Byrnes was talking about was rolling back the Russians in Europe, the Soviet gains in Europe.So I think the bomb was in large measure a diplomatic weapon. As Leslie Groves says, Brigadier General Groves, was the head of the Manhattan Project for the army, and he says that from the beginning, as soon as I–two weeks after I took over this job, I knew that our enemy was Russia. A lot of people thought Russia was our heroic ally. I never felt that way. So in his mind it was always directed toward Russia. And we know that from other people, too.JAY: So you’re killing tens of thousands of women and children to send a message.KUZNICK: Yes. Hundreds of thousands of women and children were being killed.JAY: Now, one of the points you make in the book, that the evidence now examining the sort of logic of the Japanese about when or why surrender, that the bomb wasn’t the decisive issue. It actually was the Russians were entering the war.KUZNICK: Yes. And that’s what changed it. We knew that that was going to be the fact. If you look at our intelligence reports on April 11 or July 2, intelligence reports to the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the summary for the week of the Potsdam meeting, they say the same thing: Soviet entry into the war will convince Japanese that defeat is inevitable, or Soviet entry into the war will immediately force Japan’s surrender.Our intelligence was saying that. We knew that. And we knew it because we had broken the Japanese codes and we were intercepting their cables, and the cables going from Foreign Minister Togo in Tokyo to Ambassador Sato in Moscow were saying this over and over again: unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to ending the war. But–’cause the reason why the cables [incompr.] the Japanese had decided in May–actually, the end of April, but officially in May, that their only hope–that the best hope for ending the war is to get the Soviets to intervene diplomatically on their behalf to get the Japanese better surrender terms, which meant, essentially, keeping the emperor. So that was going back and forth. We knew that.Truman himself refers to the intercepted July 18 telegram as the telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace. Those are Truman’s words: the telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace. We knew that that was decisive. Truman says, I went to Potsdam primarily to make sure the Soviets were coming into the war. And he writes back, after he meets with Stalin on July 17, he writes in his diary, he says, Stalin’ll be in the Jap war by August 15; finis Japs when that happens. That’s Truman’s own words, finis Japs when the Russians come in. So he knew that the Soviet entry was going to be the main factor.JAY: Finis Japs meaning it’s over.KUZNICK: Yeah, the war’s over. Truman knew that. So why does he use the bomb? He’s not bloodthirsty. You know, he’s not a Hitler, he’s not an evil person, but he was using the bomb as the war–people’s morality is lowered in the war. We’ve got those great quotes there by Dwight Macdonald and Freeman Dyson.JAY: Well, you say he’s not a Hitler, but the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg said that he–I think you have a quote in the book which says, you know, maybe you can debate Hiroshima, maybe. And when you put this in context, which you have from the Japanese point of view, too, if you use one bomb to wipe out a city or 1,000 airplanes and firebomb and wipe out the city,–KUZNICK: It didn’t make any difference to them.JAY: –to some extent it’s not that different. But the guy who was the Nuremberg prosecutor says, you can’t explain Nagasaki. You sent the message with Hiroshima. You’ve shown everyone.KUZNICK: He said Nagasaki’s a war crime.JAY: He’s called it a war crime.KUZNICK: So there’s no difference.JAY: And, frankly, you know, how [do] you compare who was the war criminal, but it’s at the scale of Hitler.KUZNICK: And in one way it’s worse, because Hitler’s crime was finite. Millions of people were killed as a result of Hitler’s crimes. Truman was opening the door to the possible annihilation of the species, and he knew it. He knew that that’s what he was beginning, the process. This was the first time when mankind has the ability to end life on the planet. And Truman knew that. And the scientists knew that.In fact, Oppenheimer briefs the interim committee on May 31 and tells them within three years we’ll likely have weapons between ten and 100 megatons in destructive capability. A hundred megatons would be 7,000 times as big as the Hiroshima bomb. What he knew and what they knew and what Teller was talking about developing from the beginning was a superbomb, and this superbomb could be made as big as you wanted [incompr.] infinite destructive capability. That’s what we were opening up the door to.And the other point you were making, though, about from the Soviet standpoint, the Soviets–or from the Japanese standpoint, the Japanese knew that we were already wiping out cities. We began with the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 and 10, and we’d firebombed 100 Japanese cities by that point. Destruction reached 99.5 percent of the city of Toyama. We had run out of big targets. We were wiping out middle-sized cities that had no military significance at all.JAY: Yeah, clearly attacking civilians to break the back of Japanese will, but with civilians as the deliberate target,–KUZNICK: Yes, that was it. We called it terror bombing.JAY: –which is something–which is more or less something Hitler introduced to modern warfare.KUZNICK: Yes, and then the British paid him back for that. We called it terror bombing. That was the strategy, to burn down Japanese cities. But we already showed that we could do that. To the Japanese leaders, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not qualitatively different than the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities. And in terms of destruction, it really wasn’t even much more than the firebombing of Tokyo, the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. So to them, that didn’t make the difference. What made the difference to them was the Soviet invasion, ’cause we bombed Hiroshima August 6; at midnight on August 8, the Soviets come into the war. Stalin had actually sped up the Soviet entry when he found out that the U.S. was going to drop the bomb.JAY: I mean, and the point you’re making here is it wasn’t just the dropping of the bomb that’s the great crime; it’s that Truman knew he was opening the door to bigger and bigger bombs. And, I mean, I don’t know how–he didn’t believe the Soviets would ever have the bomb, apparently, but I don’t know how you can be that dumb.KUZNICK: No. And if you look at Stettinius’s diary, Stettinius records a conversation with Truman in which Stettinius says Truman knew that the Soviets were going to be developing a bomb soon. So even though he says that to Oppenheimer, that famous meeting he has with Oppenheimer after the war, the first time he’d actually met Oppenheimer, who was the head of Los Alamos, the scientist most responsible for the bomb project, and in that meeting, Truman says, when did he think the Russians are going to get the bomb. And Oppenheimer says, I don’t know. And Truman said, I know; they’re never going to get the bomb. And Oppenheimer was just floored by the ignorance of this man. And then Oppenheimer blurts out, he says, I think I have blood on my hands. And Truman says, ah, well, the blood’s on my hands. Let me worry about it. And then, afterwards, Truman calls him a crybaby scientist and he said, I never want to see that son of a bitch in this office again.JAY: Alright. In the next segment of our interview, we’re going to pick up this discussion, because the acceptance of this use of weapons of mass destruction as not just–as primarily a diplomatic threat, you could say, that we’re going to shape the world as we like it, and we’ve already shown you we’re willing to use this weapon to do it. That starts to shape U.S. foreign policy. So we’ll pick all this up in the next segment of our interview with Peter Kuznick on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

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Vijaya, 22, and her husband Avalu, 28, cultivated cotton Bt on their 5 acres of land. Due to unbearable debts and recent bad harvests, Avalu committed suicide by swallowing pesticide in 2005. Vijaya remains alone with her two daughters, Venalla, 5, and Navyer, 2. In order to provide for her family, she works in the fields where she earns 100 rupees a day in paddy fields (rice) or 25 rupees in cotton fields. She owes the bank 1 lackh rupees. She wants to keep her land for her daughters’ dowries. In the countryside, a widow with two children cannot remarry because the men refuse to support the children from a previous marriage. (Photo: Viviane Dalles*)

“Monsanto is an agricultural company. We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more.”

“Producing more, Conserving more, Improving farmers lives.”

These are the promises Monsanto India’s website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India from the company’s growing control over cotton seed supply – 95 per cent of India’s cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto.

Control over seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers.

Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers’ suicides in India to Monsanto vs Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.

Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India.

Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into a plant cell is not “creating” or “inventing” a plant. These are seeds of deception – the deception that Monsanto is the creator of seeds and life; the deception that while Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt, it pretends to be working for farmers’ welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world. GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.

The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed by the World Bank, requiring the Government of India to deregulate the seed sector. Five things changed with Monsanto’s entry: First, Indian companies were locked into joint-ventures and licensing arrangements, and concentration over the seed sector increased. Second, seed which had been the farmers’ common resource became the “intellectual property” of Monsanto, for which it started collecting royalties, thus raising the costs of seed. Third, open pollinated cotton seeds were displaced by hybrids, including GMO hybrids. A renewable resource became a non-renewable, patented commodity. Fourth, cotton which had earlier been grown as a mixture with food crops now had to be grown as a monoculture, with higher vulnerability to pests, disease, drought and crop failure. Fifth, Monsanto started to subvert India’s regulatory processes and, in fact, started to use public resources to push its non-renewable hybrids and GMOs through so-called public-private partnerships (PPP).

In 1995, Monsanto introduced its Bt technology in India through a joint-venture with the Indian company Mahyco. In 1997-98, Monsanto started open field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally and announced that it would be selling the seeds commercially the following year. India has rules for regulating GMOs since 1989, under the Environment Protection Act. It is mandatory to get approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee under the ministry of environment for GMO trials. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology sued Monsanto in the Supreme Court of India and Monsanto could not start the commercial sales of its Bt cotton seeds until 2002.

And, after the damning report of India’s parliamentary committee on Bt crops in August 2012, the panel of technical experts appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a 10-year moratorium on field trials of all GM food and termination of all ongoing trials of transgenic crops.

But it had changed Indian agriculture already.

Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India. This systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt.

An internal advisory by the agricultural ministry of India in January 2012 had this to say to the cotton-growing states in India – “Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.”

The highest acreage of Bt cotton is in Maharashtra and this is also where the highest farmer suicides are. Suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced – Monsanto’s royalty extraction, and the high costs of seed and chemicals have created a debt trap. According to Government of India data, nearly 75 per cent rural debt is due to purchase inputs. As Monsanto’s profits grow, farmers’ debt grows. It is in this systemic sense that Monsanto’s seeds are seeds of suicide. The ultimate seeds of suicide is Monsanto’s patented technology to create sterile seeds. (Called “Terminator technology” by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow – crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off.) The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed.

Monsanto’s talk of “technology” tries to hide its real objectives of ownership and control over seed where genetic engineering is just a means to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights.

A Monsanto representative admitted that they were “the patient’s diagnostician, and physician all in one” in writing the patents on life-forms, from micro-organisms to plants, in the TRIPS’ agreement of WTO. Stopping farmers from saving seeds and exercising their seed sovereignty was the main objective. Monsanto is now extending its patents to conventionally bred seed, as in the case of broccoli and capsicum, or the low gluten wheat it had pirated from India which we challenged as a biopiracy case in the European Patent office.

That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto’s Bt cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic. No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.

*In 2006, photographer Vivian Dalles created this photo essay of Indian cotton farmers who had begun planting Monsanta’s genetically modified hybrid seeds.

© 2013 Asian Age

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

It was master-crafted as an ingratiating speech by the world’s most important leader and the government that has most consistently championed Israel’s cause over the decades. Enthusiastically received by the audience of Israeli youth, and especially by liberal Jews around the world. Despite the venue, President Obama’s words in Jerusalem on March 21st seemed primarily intended to clear the air somewhat in Washington. Obama may now have a slightly better chance to succeed in his second legacy-building presidential term despite a deeply polarized U.S. Congress, and a struggling American economy if assessed from the perspective of workers’ distress rather than on the basis of robust corporate profits. President Barack Obama looks into the crowd and tries to hear a person yelling at him during his speech at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Thursday, March 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

As for the speech itself, it did possess several redeeming features. It did acknowledge that alongside Israeli security concerns “Palestinian people’s right of self-determination, their right to justice must also be recognized.” This affirmation was followed by the strongest assertion of all: “..put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes.” To consider the realities of the conflict through Palestinian eyes is to confront the ugly realities of prolonged occupation, annexationist settlement projects, an unlawful separation wall, generations confined to the misery of refugee camps and exile, second-class citizenship in Israel, ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, and a myriad of regulations that make the daily life of Palestinians a narrative of humiliation and frustration. Of course, Obama did not dare to do this. None of these realities were specified, being left to the imagination of his audience of Israeli youth, but at least the general injunction to see the conflict through the eyes of the other pointed the way toward empathy and reconciliation.

Obama also encouraged in a helpful way Israeli citizen activism on behalf of a just peace based on two states for two peoples. A bit strangely he urged that “for the moment, put aside the plans and process” by which this goal might be achieved, and “instead..build trust between people.” Is this not an odd bit of advice? It seems a stretch to stress trust when the structures and practice of occupation are for the Palestinians unremittingly cruel, exploitative, and whittle away day after day at the attainability of a viable Palestinian state. But this farfetched entreaty was coupled with a more plausible plea: “I can promise you this: Political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.” There is some genuine hope to be found in these inspirational words, but to what end given the present situation.

In my opinion the speech was deeply flawed in three fundamental respects:

• by speaking only to Israeli youth, and not arranging a parallel talk in Ramallah to Palestinian youth, the role of the United States as ‘dishonest broker’ was brazenly confirmed; it also signaled that the White House was more interested in appealing to the folks in Washington than to those Palestinians trapped in the West Bank and Gaza, an interpretation reinforced by laying a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl but refusing to do so at the tomb of Yasir Arafat. This disparity of concern was further exhibited when Obama spoke of the children of Sderot in southern Israel, “the same age as my own daughters, who went to bed at night fearful that a rocket would land in their bedroom simply because of who they are and where they live.” To make such an observation without even mentioning the trauma-laden life of children on the other side of the border in Gaza who have been living for years under conditions of blockade, violent incursions, and total vulnerability year after year is to subscribe fully to the one-sided Israeli narrative as to the insecurity being experienced by the two peoples.
   
• by speaking about the possibility of peace based on the two state consensus, the old ideas, without mentioning developments that have made more and more people skeptical about Israeli intentions is to lend credence to what seems more and more to be a delusionary approach to resolving the conflict. Coupling this with Obama’s perverse injunction to the leaders of the Middle East that seems willfully oblivious to the present set of circumstances makes the whole appeal seem out of touch: “Now’s the time for the Arab world to take steps towards normalizing relations with Israel.” How can now be the time, when just days earlier Benjamin Netanyahu announced the formation of the most right-wing, pro-settler government in the history of Israel, selecting a cabinet that is deeply dedicated to settlement expansion and resistant to the very idea of a genuine Palestinian state? It should never be forgotten that when the Palestinian Liberation Organization announced back in 1988 that it was prepared to make a sustained peace with Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders. By doing this, the Palestinians were making an extraordinary territorial concession that has never been reciprocated, and operationally repudiated by continuous settlement building. The move meant accepting a state limited to 22% of historic Palestine, or less than half of what the UN had proposed in its 1947 partition plan contained in GA Resolution 181, which at the time was seen as grossly unfair to the Palestinians and a plan put forward without taking account of the wishes of the resident population. To expect the Palestinians to be willing now to accept significantly less land than enclosed by these 1967 borders to reach a resolution of the conflict seems highly unreasonable, and probably not sustainable if it should be imprudently accepted by the Palestinian Authority.
   
• by endorsing the formula two states for two peoples was consigning the Palestinian minority in Israel to permanent second-class citizenship without even being worthy of mention as a human rights challenge facing the democratic Israel that Obama was celebrating. As David Bromwich has pointed out [“Tribalism in the Jerusalem speech,”] http://mondoweiss.net/2013/03/tribalism-jerusalem-speech.html Obama was also endorsing a tribalist view of statehood that seem inconsistent with a globalizing world, and with secularist assumptions that a legitimate state should never be exclusivist in either its religious or ethnic character. Obama went out of his to affirm the core Zionist idea of a statist homeland where all Jews can most fully embrace their Jewishness: “Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition, but also in a simple and profound idea: the idea that people deserve to be free in a land of their own.” And with embedded irony no mention was made of the absence of any Palestinian right of return even for those who were coerced into fleeing from homes and villages that had been family residences for countless generations.

Such a regressive approach to identity and statehood was also by implication attributed to the Palestinians, also affirmed as a a lesser entitlement. But this is highly misleading, a false symmetry. The Palestinians have no guiding ethno-religious ideology that is comparable to Zionism. Their quest has been to recover rights under international law in the lands of their habitual residence, above all, the exercise of their inalienable right of self-determination in such a manner as to roll back the wider claims of settler colonialism that have been so grandiosely integral to the Greater Israel vision and practice of the Netanyahu government. And what of the 20% of the current population of Israel that lives under a legal regime that discriminates against them and almost by definition is a permanent consignment to second-class citizenship. Indeed, Obama’s speech was also an affront to many Israeli post-Zionists and secularists who do not affirm the idea of living under in a hyper-nationalist state with pretensions of religious endowments.

In my view, there are two conclusions to be drawn. (1) Until the rhetoric of seeing the realities of the situation through Palestinian eyes is matched by a consideration of the specifics, there is created a misleading impression that both sides hold equally the keys to peace, and both being at fault to the same extent for being unwilling to use them. (2) It is a cruel distraction to urge a resumption of negotiations when Israel clearly lacks the political will to establish a viable and independent sovereign Palestinian state within 1967 borders and in circumstances in which the West Bank has been altered by continuous settlement expansion, settler only roads, the separation wall, and all the signs are suggesting that there is more of the same to come. Making matters even worse, Israel is taking many steps to ensure that Jerusalem never becomes the capital of whatever Palestinian entity eventually emerges, which is a severe affront not only to Palestinians and Arabs, but to the 1.4 billion Muslims the world over.

In retrospect, worse than speech was the visit itself. Obama should never have undertaken such the visit without an accompanying willingness to treat the Palestinian reality with at least equal dignity to that of the Israeli reality and without some indication of how to imagine a just peace based on two states for two peoples given the outrageous continuing Israeli encroachments on occupied Palestinian territory that give every indication of permanence, not to mention the non-representation and collective punishment of the Gazan population of 1.5 million. Obama made no mention of the wave of recent Palestinian hunger strikes or the degree to which Palestinians have shifted their tactics of resistance away from a reliance on armed struggle.  It is perverse to heap praise on the oppressive occupier, ignore nonviolent tactics of Palestinian resistance and the surge of global solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and then hypocritically call on both peoples to move forward toward peace by building relations of trust with one another. On what planet has Mr. Obama been living? 

© 2013 Richard Falk

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. An international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years, since 2002 Falk has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Read more articles by Richard Falk.

Less than two weeks after Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster of CIA Chief John Brennan’s confirmation in the US Senate, it seems that the controversy over the legality and transparency of drone attacks has finally provoked a response from the Obama Administration. On March 19, 2013, reports published in the Daily Beast and the Wall Street Journal indicated that the controversial drone program may be shifted from the CIA to the Department of Defense.“The drastic escalation in drone strikes in Pakistan during the Obama Administration has caused no decrease in the capacity of drone-targeted groups to carry out terrorist attacks in the region,” writes author. (Photo: Reuters)

The reports were based on statements by US officials and a yet unreleased draft document indicating that the Obama White House would like the program to be institutionalised and reformed, moving it into the command structure of the US military instead of within its spy agency. 

It may be true that moving the drone program to the Department of Defense would address some of the critiques regarding transparency and legality. Drone strikes carried out by the military, as they have been in Afghanistan, would be subject to the rules of engagement that govern the use of military force. They would also have a clearer chain of command that would disclose, at least generally, the parameters used to select targets and order strikes, both contentious points on which the CIA-run drone program has been criticised. 

Unlike the CIA, the Department of Defense would not be able to classify all drone operations as “covert” or “clandestine” and would be subject to oversight from other branches of the United States government. Furthermore, while the President did not have to sign off on every strike conducted by the CIA, under a military run program he would have, as Commander-in-chief, clear ultimate authority over the program.  

Under the new formulation, operations would move gradually from the CIA to the Department of Defense, with a lengthy period of transition in which the two agencies would work together. The move would allow the CIA to move out of counter-terrorism and focus again on the collection of human intelligence, a facet of its operation that is said to have suffered. On March 20,  the Washington Post reported that a panel of White House advisors had expressed grave concerns that the CIA was paying inadequate attention to collecting intelligence on China, the Middle East, and other national security flashpoints, because of its inordinate focus on military operations and drone strikes. A move away from drone strikes, then, would free up the Agency’s resources to do the sort of traditional intelligence gathering with which it is tasked. 

On their own side, White House officials are keen to change the impression that the President Obama is a champion of secret assassinations using armed drones on shaky legal grounds. A major counter terrorism speech is expected soon in which the President will define a new direction in counter-terrorism policy and deflect criticism that his Administration has been operating an illegal killing program. While details of timing are unknown, such a speech can be seen as provoked by the questions raised in Senator Paul’s filibuster regarding the possibility of the President ordering drone strikes on US citizens based on unknown determinations. Although Attorney General Eric Holder denied such a possibility in his response to Senator Paul, questions have continued as to the legal authority of CIA targets and the fact that United States citizens cannot demand any sort of accountability for them.

Not really a change

Moving the drone program from the CIA to the Department of Defense is thus being painted as a victory, even a capitulation, to those critics who have criticised the lack of transparency, accountability, and legal basis of the drone program. However, the details of the move do not suggest a reversal or even a rethinking of the strategic imperatives that the Obama Administration and the CIA have used to justify the drone program. 

First, the gradual process of the transition without any publicly disclosed details of how and when it will be completed are likely to create a situation in which, at least for a time, it would be difficult if not impossible to tell which agency, the Department of Defense or the CIA, would actually be responsible for a strike. Second, according to a government official who spoke to the Washington Post, the CIA program in Pakistan would be phased out even later “because of the complexities there” and because the program, unlike the ones in Yemen and Somalia, was actually begun by the CIA. Finally, even if the drone program is actually moved to the Department of Defense, it will be incorporated into its most secret portion, the Joint Special Operations Command, whose top-secret operations are also covert and never released to the public.

When these factors are considered, the effort to provide more transparency and an institutional framework for the drone program seem chimerical at best and deceptive at worst. All of them point to a continuation of a national security mindset, within the Obama Administration and the State Department, both believing that drones, cheaply bought and unmanned, are a perfect way to bombard other countries with minimal cost the United States. With the risk of dead American soldiers reduced to nothing, military officials are also gobbling up the idea of waging remote-control wars all over the world, wherever a possible or even supposed threat can be identified.  

Are Drones effective?

Starkly absent from the debate are any meaningful critiques of the actual effectiveness of drone strikes. Figures obtained from the South Asia Terrorism Portal indicate, for example, that the drastic escalation in drone strikes in Pakistan during the Obama Administration has caused no decrease in the capacity of drone-targeted groups to carry out terrorist attacks in the region. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, President Obama ordered 53 drones strikes in Pakistan in 2009. These strikes were reported to have killed, among others, Tehreek-e-Taliban Commander Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Gul Nazeer. In turn, there were approximately 500 bomb blasts in Pakistan that year, most of which were concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas of Pakistan. 

In 2010, President Obama ordered 128 drone strikes which were again reported to have killed various prominent Taliban figures and various Al-Qaeda commanders. The number of bomb blasts carried out by terrorist groups in Pakistan that year was 473, with most of them again concentrated in the tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In 2011, President Obama ordered 75 drone strikes which killed, among others, Al-Qaeda Chief financial officer Abu Zaid Al Iraqi and Taliban spokesperson Shakirullah Shakir. However, despite this being the third year of drone strikes, terror groups within Pakistan were still able to carry out 673 bomb blasts. They also expanded the geographic area of the blast operations to include not only the remote and sparsely populated tribal areas, but also the urban centers of Karachi in the south and Quetta in the southwest of Pakistan. Finally, in 2012, President Obama ordered 48 drone strikes which were alleged to have killed between 242 and 400 people. Among the dead was Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud, whose death was said to be a big blow to the operative capacities of the organization.

However, even despite this being the fourth year of drone strikes in Pakistan, with so many Al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban leaders allegedly killed in strikes in past years, terrorists were nevertheless able to still carry out 652 attacks killing 1,007 people and injuring 2,687. Not only were they able to kill more, they were also able to expand their ambit of operations into other parts of Pakistan, with terrorist attacks in Karachi and Quetta now almost equivalent in damage to the ones that occurred in the northwest, where the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban had once been isolated.  

The move of Tehreek-e-Taliban activity from the tribal areas of Pakistan, where drones operate more effectively, to urban areas like Karachi has also been documented in a recent report issued by the United States Institute for Peace, which stated that Karachi is now the “preferred hideout of the TTP, Afghan Taliban, other extremist, and sectarian outfits“ and that Karachi’s urban density and sprawl offer “the best militant hideout,” since U.S drone strikes cannot be enacted in Karachi, which unlike Federally Administered Tribal Area is the country’s economic and financial capital. The report further goes on to say that militants “are relocating to Karachi and are able to plan local and international operations in the city.”  

That those allegedly being targeted by drones do not seem at all weakened by them seems largely absent from the discussion on drones and the preoccupations of whether the program will be snuck from the secret corners of one US agency to another. The problem of an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, even after their leaders have been hammered for years by drones, can be ignored by American officials whose interest is ostensibly limited only to protecting Americans. However, if it is concerns of transparency and legality that are provoking the responses from the Obama Administration and the purported move to reassign the drone program to the Department of Defense, perhaps the issue of actual effectiveness can also be added to the mix.

© 2013 Al-Jazeera

Rafia Zakaria is on the board of directors of Amnesty International. She is a lawyer and a Political Science PhD candidate at Indiana University.

Two years ago this week, the 100^th anniversary of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the issue of workplace safety got a lot of attention. Two years later things haven’t changed much except now the dangers are world-wide. Last September nearly 300 workers died when trapped behind locked doors in a Pakistani textile factory fire.  Last November, 120 people died and about 100 others were injured in a fire at an eight-story textile factory Bangladesh. And in the two years since America memorialized the Triangle Fire victims with conferences, speeches, and an HBO special — Republicans in Congress have made sure nothing has been done to improve the situation in the United States, such as expanding the budget for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and giving OSHA stronger regulatory teeth.Relatives mourn the death of a garment worker after a fire swept through the Tazreen Fashion factory in Bangladesh’s capital last year killing more than 100 people. (Photo: Andrew Biraj/REUTERS )

A century ago, on March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, most of them Jewish and Italian immigrant girls in their teens and twenties, perished after a fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Even after the fire, the city’s businesses continued to insist they could regulate themselves, but the deaths clearly demonstrated that companies like Triangle, if left to their own devices, would not concern themselves with their workers’ safety. Despite this business opposition, the public’s response to the fire and to the 146 deaths led to landmark state regulations.

Businesses today, and their allies in Congress and the statehouses, are making the same arguments against government regulation that New York’s business leaders made a century ago. The current hue and cry about “burdensome government regulations” that stifle job growth shows that the lesson of the Triangle has been forgotten. Here, to refresh our fading memories, is what happened.

One hundred years ago, New York was a city of enormous wealth and wide disparities between rich and poor. New industries were booming–none more so than women’s and men’s clothing. The new age had created a demand for off-the-rack, mass-produced clothing that could be sold in department stores. The Triangle company made blouses, which were called shirtwaists.

Few of those who bought the new ready-to-wear clothing gave much thought to the people who made them. The blouses, skirts, and sweaters were sewn in miserable factories, often by girls as young as 15 who worked seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break, and often longer during the busy season. They were paid about $6 per week, and were often required to use their own needles, thread, irons, and even sewing machines. The factories were overcrowded (they often occupied a room in a tenement apartment) and lacked ventilation. Many were poorly lit fire traps without sprinklers or fire escapes.

In November 1909, over 20,000 shirtwaist makers from more than 500 factories, led by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), walked off their jobs. They demanded a 20 percent pay raise, a 52-hour workweek, and extra pay for overtime. They also called for adequate fire escapes and open doors from the factories to the street. Within 48 hours, more than 70 of the smaller factories agreed to the union’s demands, but many of the largest manufacturers refused to compromise. The New York City police soon began arresting strikers–labeling some of them “street walkers,” which was literally true, since they were carrying picket signs up and down the sidewalks. Judges fined them and sentenced some of the activists to labor camps.

But the strikers held out and by February 1910, most of the small and midsized factories, and some of the larger employers, had negotiated a settlement for higher pay and shorter hours. One of the companies that refused to settle was the Triangle Waist Company, one of New York’s largest garment makers.

That July, another group of garment workers–over 60,000 cloakmakers, mostly men this time–went on strike. As the tensions escalated, both union and business leaders invited prominent Boston attorney (and later Supreme Court Justice) Louis Brandeis to New York to help mediate the conflict. With Brandeis’s nudging, the two sides signed the “Protocol of Peace” agreement that set minimum industry standards on wages, hours, piece-rates, and workplace safety and health. But the Protocol’s weakness was that it was a voluntary agreement, not a government regulation, and not all manufacturers signed on. Once again, one of the holdouts was the Triangle Waist Company.

Owned by Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, who were known as the “the shirtwaist kings,” Triangle was one of the most rabidly anti-union firms. On March 25, 1911, on a Saturday at 4:45 p.m., close to quitting time, a fire broke out on the eighth and ninth floors of its ten-story building. Factory foremen had locked the exit doors to keep out union organizers and to keep workers from taking breaks and stealing scraps of fabric. Other doors only opened inward and were blocked by the stampede of workers struggling to escape. The ladders of the city’s fire engines could not reach high enough to save the employees. As a result, workers burned or they jumped to their deaths. Experts later concluded that the fire was likely caused by a cigarette dropped on a pile of “cut aways” or scraps of cloth that had been accumulating for almost three months.

News of the fire spread quickly, catalyzing public opinion, and energizing a broad coalition of unlikely allies. It included immigrants, muckraking journalists, clergy, unionists, socialites, and socialists. Rose Schneiderman, an immigrant worker, socialist, and fiery union organizer, found common cause with Anne Morgan, the daughter of Wall Street chieftain J.P. Morgan. Frances Perkins, a former settlement house worker who was at the time a researcher and lobbyist for the Consumers League (and who later became Franklin Roosevelt’s trailblazing secretary of labor) joined hands with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise to demand reform.

On April 6, 30,000 New Yorkers marched–and hundreds of thousands more lined the march’s route–behind empty hearses to memorialize the fire’s victims. Numerous rallies, broadsides and editorials called for legislative action–ranging from fire safety codes to restrictions on child labor. In response to the outcry, New York Governor John Alden Dix created the Factory Investigating Commission, a pioneering body with broad subpoena powers and teams of investigators, led by two savvy Democratic politicians, state Assemblyman Al Smith and state Senator Robert F. Wagner.

Smith, Wagner, and the Commission members traveled up and down the state holding hearings and visiting factories. Over two years, the commissioners interviewed almost 500 witnesses and visited over 3,000 factories in 20 industries. They found buildings without fire escapes, bakeries in poorly ventilated cellars with rat droppings. Only 21 percent of the bakeries even had bathrooms, and most of them were unsanitary. Children–some as young as five years old–were toiling in dangerous canning factories. Women and girls were working 18-hour days.

After the fire, many city officials acknowledged there was a problem. Edward F. Croker, New York City’s retired fire chief, told the Commission that employers “pay absolutely no attention to the fire hazard or to the protection of the employees in these buildings. That is their last consideration.” His department had cited the Triangle building for lack of fire escapes just one week before the fire.

But the garment manufacturers, the Real Estate Board, and the bakery and cannery industry groups sought to stymie the Commission. The real-estate interests opposed city fire codes. After the Fire Department ordered warehouses to install sprinklers, the Protective League of Property Owners held a meeting to denounce the mandate, angrily charging the city with forcing owners to use “cumbersome and costly” equipment.

As representative of the Associated Industries of New York insisted that regulations would mean “the wiping out of industry in this state.” Mabel Clark, vice president of the W.N. Clark Company, a canning corporation, opposed any restrictions on child labor. “I have seen children working in factories, and I have seen them working at home, and they were perfectly happy,” she declared.

Terence McGuire, president of the Real Estate Board, summed up the business argument against regulation. “To my mind this is all wrong,” he declared. “The experience of the past proves conclusively that the best government is the least possible government.” The board warned that new laws would drive “manufacturers out of the City and State of New York.”

Smith, Wagner, and the political leaders of the time, fortified by a vibrant progressive movement, ignored these opponents of business regulation. In the first year, the Commission proposed and the legislature quickly passed a package of laws requiring mandatory fire drills, automatic sprinklers, and unlocked doors during work hours that were required to swing outward. They also created rules on the storage and disposal of flammable waste, and they banned smoking from the shop floor.

In the second year, the legislature passed additional reforms. They set the maximum numbers of workers per floor. They established codes requiring new buildings to include fireproof stairways and fire escapes. They required employers to provide clean drinking water, washrooms and toilets for their employees. They gave labor commission inspectors the power to shut down unsanitary tenement sweatshops. And they ruled that women could work no more than 54 hours a week and that children under 18 could not work in dangerous situations.

These pathbreaking state regulations, provoked by the Triangle fire, proved that government could play a powerful role in the lives of ordinary people. Other states followed suit, and ultimately President Franklin Roosevelt, prodded by Perkins, Wagner, and other veterans of New York’s progressive movement, introduced New Deal reforms ending child labor, establishing a federal minimum wage and a 40-hour week, and creating a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would establish the right of workers to form a union that would bargain collectively with employers.

The Triangle company’s owners were indicted and went on trial for manslaughter, but they were found innocent when the judge told the jury that in order to return a guilty verdict, they had to find that the two defendants knew or should have known that the doors were locked. Harris and Blanck also continued to refuse to recognize the union. But the company never recovered from the fire and the controversy surrounding it, and in 1918, it closed its doors.

That didn’t happen to other city businesses. Contrary to the business leaders’ dire predictions, they did not suffer from the new regulations. The New York Times reported in July 1914, that, “[n]otwithstanding all the talk of a probable exodus of manufacturing interests, the commission has not found a single case of a manufacturer intending to leave the State because of the enforcement of the factory laws.” New York’s Seventh Avenue remained the headquarters of the nation’s garment industry for decades until production gradually moved south and overseas after World War II.

Ironically, 100 years after the Triangle fire, we still hear much of the same rhetoric whenever reformers seek to use government to businesses act more responsibly and protect consumers, workers, and the environment. For example, the disasters last year that killed 29 miners at Upper Big Branch and eleven oil rig workers in the Gulf could have been avoided had lawmakers resisted lobbying by mine owners and BP to weaken safety regulations.

Today, the leading foe of reform is the United States Chamber of Commerce, which is on a crusade against the Obama administration’s plans to set new rules on unsafe workplaces, industrial hazards and threats to public health. The Chamber labels every effort at reform a “job killer.” The Chamber’s most vocal proponent is Darrell Issa, the conservative California Republican who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. At the request of the Chamber and other industry lobbies, Issa recently launched a congressional assault on safeguards in workplaces and communities. 

In January, Issa sent letters to more than 170 companies and business lobby groups–including Duke Energy, FMC Corp., Toyota, Bayer, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Association of American Railroads, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, and lobbies representing health care, banking, and telecommunication providers–asking them to identify “burdensome government regulations” that they want eliminated.

The business groups responded with a long wish list, including rules to control “combustible dust” that has resulted in explosions killing workers; rules to track musculoskelal disorders, such as tendonitis, carpal tunnel, or back injuries, that impact millions of workers at keyboards, in construction, or in meat processing; and rules to address workplace noise that leads to hearing loss. And Republicans listened. They are proposing to cut OSHA’s budget by 20 percent, which, coming on top of decades of cuts, would cripple an agency that has been effective at significantly reducing workplace injuries and deaths.

The Republican leadership is trying to drive home the message, in Speaker John Boehner’s words, that “excessive regulation costs jobs” and that the “path to prosperity” is by “getting government out of the way.” Americans of earlier generations–who enjoyed the benefits of the Progressive Era and the New Deal reforms, and the political clout of a vibrant labor movement–understood this was nonsense, but it seems like the lessons of the past have to be relearned again. That’s why it is important to recall the sordid circumstances in which 146 young women lost their lives at the Triangle Waist Company a century ago.

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program, at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (2012, Nation Books). Other books include: Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century and The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. He writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and American Prospect. 

Donald Cohen is currently the Director of the Cry Wolf Project and the Chair of In the Public Interest, a resource center on privatization and responsible contracting. A co-founder and former president of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a San Diego-based research, and policy center, Cohen has over 25 years of experience in campaigns and organizations dedicated to economic justice, healthcare reform, education reform, environmental protection, and international human rights. He is also on the board of Green For All.

Being wronged by a corporation is painful enough, but just try getting your day in court. Most Americans don’t realize it, but our Seventh Amendment right to a fair jury trial against corporate wrongdoers has quietly been stripped from us. Instead, we are now shunted into a stacked-deck game called “Binding Mandatory Arbitration.” Proponents of the process hail it as superior to the courts – “faster, cheaper and more efficient!” they exclaim.

But does it deliver justice? It could, for the original concept of voluntary, face-to-face resolution of conflict by a neutral third party makes sense in many cases. But remember what Mae West said of her own virtue: “I used to be Snow White, then I drifted.” Today’s practice of arbitration has drifted far away from the purity of the concept.

All you really need to know about today’s process is that it’s the product of years of conceptual monkey-wrenching by corporate lobbyists, Congress, the Supreme Court and hired-gun lobbying firms looking to milk the system for steady profits. First and foremost, these fixers have turned a voluntary process into the exact opposite: mandatory. Let’s look at this mess.

– Unlike courts, arbitration is not a public system, but a private business.

– Far from being neutral, “the third-party” arbitration firms are – get this! – usually hand-picked by the corporation involved in the case, chosen specifically because they have proven records of favoring the corporation.

– The corporation also gets to choose the city or town where the case is heard, allowing it to make the case inconvenient, expensive and unfair to individuals bringing a complaint.

– Arbitrators are not required to know the law relevant to the cases they judge or follow legal precedents.

– Normal procedural rules for gathering and sharing evidence and safeguarding fairness to both parties do not apply in arbitration cases.

– Arbitration proceedings are closed to the media and the public.

– Arbitrators need not reveal the reasons for their decisions, so they are not legally accountable for errors, and the decisions set no legal precedents for guiding future corporate conduct.

– Even if an arbitrator’s decision is legally incorrect, it still is enforceable, carrying the full weight of the law.

– There is virtually no right to appeal an arbitrator’s ruling.

That adds up to a kangaroo court! Who would choose such a rigged system? No one. Which is why corporate America has resorted to brute force and skullduggery to drag you into their arbitration wringer.

By “force,” I mean practically every business relationship you have with a corporation (customer, employee, supplier, etc.) begins with you blindly signing away your right to go to court. Written in indecipherable legalese, these sneaky provisos are usually secluded in the tiny-type of pre-printed, take-it-or-leave-it, non-negotiable contracts.

By “you,” I mean everyone one of us who: takes a job, gets a credit card, subscribes to cable TV, buys an insurance policy, rents an apartment, purchases nearly any new product (from cellphone to house), has a home remodeled or car repaired, enters a nursing home, becomes a franchisee or corporate supplier or signs up with a landscaping service.

If you seek justice because you’ve been gouged by your bank, discriminated against, sexually harassed, unfairly fired, cheated on wages, sold a shoddy product, denied health care coverage or otherwise harmed by a corporation, you’ll most likely find that you’re barred from the courthouse door. That document you unwittingly signed has shackled you to the corporation’s own privatized court.

Since binding mandatory arbitration “agreements” are written by corporate lawyers, it’s no surprise that they stack the deck in favor of corporations. But – wow! – the percentage of rigged wins is disgusting.

For example, Public Citizen found that one giant firm, the National Arbitration Forum, heard over 34,000 consumer-versus-bank cases in California. It sided with financial giants 95 percent of the time. Even more astonishing, the city of San Francisco found that of the 18,045 cases brought by banks and other powers against overmatched California consumers, NAF’s private judges sided with the corporations 100 percent of the time.

To learn more about this rigged system, and to get involved with fighting against forced arbitration, check out Citizen Works at citizenworks.com

© 2013 Creators

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be – consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

On February 21st, 69 organizations submitted a letter to President Barack Obama in support of continued funding for Public Law 480 (also known as Food for Peace) and Food for Progress international food aid programs in the FY 2014 budget, and opposing rumored proposals to shift resources to local and regional commodity procurement.  The signatory organizations were comprised almost exclusively by the iron triangle of US food aid spending recipients (the US agribusiness, shipping, and international development industries).  Funding, which is attached to the Farm Bill, has been reauthorized by President Obama under Title VII of the fiscal cliff legislation through this September. However, these food aid programs depend on congressional appropriations, which have only been approved through March 27th.  Big changes, or more of the same, could be in store for food aid legislation in the near future.

Currently, US food aid is dominated by in-kind donations (direct gifts of food)–an infamously inefficient system–and monetization, a system in which US agricultural commodities are donated to development organizations so that they can sell them to fund projects. This approach to food aid has been widely criticized for decades, including by the Congress’ Government Accountability Office.  The NGO Oxfam, once a beneficiary of PL 480, has been calling for food aid reform for years, putting an emphasis on the need for local commodity procurement.  CARE, one of the three major NGO distributors of US food aid across the world, recently followed suit.  Canada and Europe have shifted nearly all food aid resources away from in-kind distribution in favor of local procurement.  The US, sticking to its M.O., is the loner; in 2007, 99.3% of US food aid was in-kind.

The letter to President Obama notes that “food aid programs have enjoyed strong bipartisan support for nearly 60 years because they work.”  The question is, for whom? By law, 75% of food aid from the US must be purchased, processed, transported, and distributed by US companies.  In 2002, just two US companies–ADM and Cargill–controlled 75% of the global grain trade, with US government contracts to manage and distribute 30% of food aid grains.  Only four companies control 84% of the transport and delivery of food aid worldwide.

The letter continues by stating: “Food for Progress expands business and income opportunities along the agricultural value chain.”  This has certainly been the case for the US food, maritime shipping, and international development industries.  For recipient countries, however, food aid has a long history of displacing local production.  According to a 2005 Oxfam report, “There is strong historical evidence that the use of food aid tends to correlate with long-term dependence on food imports.”  Due to foreign exchange difficulties during the 1990s, the Philippines was unable to sustain imports of soybean meal. PL 480 food aid was used to finance the purchase of US exports.  By the early 2000s, the Philippines was the largest market for US soybean meal worldwide and 90% of total imports came from the US.  This points to another use of food aid: the explicit expansion of markets abroad for US products.  USAID states, “Of the 50 largest customers for US agricultural goods, 43 – including Egypt, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand – formerly received food assistance. In short, aid leads to trade, from which Americans stand to benefit directly.”

The effects of food aid are not limited only to local food production, processing, and distribution.  It has also outcompeted national exporters, as in the case of Guyana and Jamaica.  When US food aid rice poured in to Jamaica, Guyanese producers were unable to maintain a hold in the Jamaican rice market.  This process shifts poverty from one country to another, effectively defeating the public premise of food aid.

Food aid is perhaps most infamous for the practice of dumping, or disposing of surplus food commodities in vulnerable national markets.  In this case, food aid functions as just another US agricultural subsidy. In 2007, despite growing hunger, food aid fell globally by 15%, the lowest level since 1961.  This reflects the tendency of food aid to respond to international grain prices–and not to the food needs of the poor.  When the price of cereals is low, Northern countries and transnational grain companies sell their commodities through food aid programs.  When prices are high, they sell their grains on the global market.  So, when people are less able to buy food, less food aid arrives.

In contrast, local and regional procurement of food aid, along with cash vouchers, could decrease US food aid costs by 50%, bolster the development of local food markets and long-term economies, and allow US food aid recipient countries to build their own assistance programs. Timi Gerson of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) told IPS that a switch to local procurement “would be able to reach 17 million more people — so we’re only getting to about two-thirds of the people we could be.” An anti-hunger coalition led by AJWS, Oxfam America, and Bread for the World Institute issued a joint statement saying: “Current regulations on the food aid program in the Farm Bill protect special interests,” aka the iron triangle of food aid, “at the expense of the hungry, and [that means] that more than a quarter of every dollar the U.S. spends on food aid goes to waste.”

The 2008 Farm Bill authorized a Local and Regional Food Aid Procurement pilot program, which funds cash food aid projects through grants and uses cooperative agreements for local procurement during food crises.  Detailed results of the 2009 to 2011 pilot projects were reported to the USDA by grantees.  A Cornell study of the results indicated that the pilot projects achieved greater efficiency and effectiveness of food aid delivery, while avoiding the negative impacts, such as displacement of local production and import dependencies that in-kind food aid has caused historically.  When sourced locally versus when sourced in the US and shipped across oceans, cereals cost on average 54% less and pulses 24% less.  Average delivery time was also reduced by 62% or about 14 weeks.  For victims of natural disasters, this time window could be the difference between life and death.

The letter in question makes several accurate statements yet omits the true impacts of food aid on recipient countries.  It does, however, contain one lie, stating that PL 480 facilitates “developmental programs to end the cycle of hunger,” when in fact it propagates it.  Hunger is big business.  Food for Peace ends up looking a lot more like Food for Profit.  The letter ends with one final truth, declaring that food aid programs are “some of our most effective, lowest-cost national security tools.”  By handicapping local food markets across the world, food aid keeps poor countries poor and compliant, and provides US-based companies with dependable markets for the dumping of surplus food commodities when global grain prices are low. Rice and wheat cost a lot less than bombs.

The UK is opening a cyber-crime center to fight the “astonishing” number of hack attacks on Britain. The initiative follows an EU plan that forces companies to disclose hacked data, potentially damaging reputations and share prices.

The new initiative will combine information from government communications headquarters GCHQ, MI5, the police and various businesses. The idea behind the body is to orchestrate quicker responses to cyber-attacks that hit UK companies.

The so-called Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership will share information between governments and businesses to gather a more complete picture of the attacks being carried out on computer systems in the UK.

Currently, 160 companies are involved in the initiative, from the fields of finance, defense, energy, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

UK companies have previously voiced concerns over releasing data on cyber-attacks, fearing that such information would damage their credibility and share prices if it were disseminated publically.  

“The government is understandably wary about divulging information to outsiders about cyber threats which has been derived from secret sources and agencies,” cyber-security expert Nigel Inkster told the Financial Times.

However, the UK government has insisted that the statistics paint a clear picture of the growing threat and the need to act. Last year, MI5 head Jonathan Evans called the cyber-threat to Britain “astonishing,” and said that one anonymous

UK company had lost over $1 billion in an act of intellectual property theft.

And the year previous, cyber-security specialist BAE Systems Detica estimated that British companies lost around $40 billion a year in revenues through hacking attacks.

At first glance, it appears the UK is following a recent EU draft bill that seeks to force companies to declare when they fall victim to a cyber-attack. However, the UK initiative differs by giving businesses the choice of whether to participate.

David Garfield, managing director of cyber security at BAE Systems Detica, told the Financial Times that the EU measure could end up being counterproductive: “The real effect of a system of compulsory disclosure might ultimately be to encourage companies to turn a blind eye to attacks, pretending they have not seen them.”

The European Commission’s ‘Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace’ plan would be a massive operation involving 42,000 companies dealing with banking, transport, energy, health, the Internet and public administrations. 

The companies would be required to immediately inform EU authorities in the event of a hack attack, “to share early warnings on risks and incidents through a secure infrastructure, cooperate and organize regular peer reviews.”

UK officials have voiced concerns over the bill, saying they would be uncomfortable with a law making it mandatory for companies to disclose data on attacks.

The US Military admitted that 31 Guantanamo inmates are refusing food, as the prison’s biggest-in-years hunger strike enters its 50th day. The Red Cross is urgently sending delegates to Gitmo as the detainees’ lawyers warn the strike may turn deadly.

Three more Guantanamo inmates are now officially recognized as being on hunger strike, bringing the overall number to 31.

Lawyers who recently met or spoke with their clients still languishing in the island prison said that more than 100 men are participating in a hunger strike, and many have lost between 30 and 40 pounds.

Those accounts are in addition to previous reports of hunger strikers coughing up blood and losing consciousness. Three protesters have been hospitalized so far; 10 of the hunger strikers are reportedly shackled to restraining chairs and being force-fed through tubes.

The deteriorating situation at the detention center has prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a doctor and another delegate to Guantanamo, a week earlier than its regular visit, scheduled for April 1.

“Because of the current tensions and hunger strike we decided to send a couple of delegates to the island starting this week. One is a medical doctor whose job is to follow more specifically the hunger strike,” Reuters quoted ICRC spokesperson Simon Schorno as saying.

‘Respect us or kill us’

One defense lawyer who had spoken to his client at Guantanamo told RT he was shocked by the state of his client’s health.

“He was a man who was down more than 30 pounds less than a month ago. He refused all nourishment. His cheeks were sunk in. He was exhausted, weak, he could not stand. It was a scary, scary meeting for me,” said federal public defender Carlos Warner.

He also presented a statement by his client Faiz al-Kandari, who called on the Obama administration to either “respect or kill” Guantanamo inmates.

“I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us. It is your choice. The US must take off its mask and kill us,” the statement reads.

There is little hope that the author of the statement will be released as his name is not on the list of the 86 detainees who have been cleared by a court to be transferred out of the facility. At the moment, all prisoners at Guantanamo are being indefinitely detained, as the facility continues functioning despite Barack Obama’s pledge at the beginning of his first term as president to shut the facility down.

Ultimate despair

Guantanamo inmates’ indefinite imprisonment has long been a source of despair and frustration for the prisoners. Human rights organizations have reported hundreds of suicide attempts, at least seven of which were successful. Last September, a Yemeni detainee took his life after spending more than a decade at Guantanamo. Adnan Latif had been cleared for transfer by both the Bush and Obama administrations, but was never released.

On Sunday, activists around the world launched a week-long fast to raise awareness of the hunger strike and protest the existence of the Guantanamo prison and America’s use of indefinite detention.

According to the Center for Constitutional rights, the hunger strike began on around February 6, when prisoners decided to protest the alleged confiscation of their personal items and the alleged sacrilegious handling of their Korans. Officials denied that the Korans of the inmates had been mishandled in any way.

Follow RT’s in-depth timeline on the Guantanamo hunger strike. 

Tributes have been paid to a 14-year-old girl who is thought to have been killed by a pack of “aggressive and out-of-control” dogs.

Jade Anderson’s body was discovered with wounds consistent with a dog attack at a house shortly after 2pm on Tuesday, following reports she was unconscious.

It is thought the teenager was visiting the property in Chaucer Grove, Atherton, near Wigan, and was alone with the four dogs – two bull mastiffs and two Staffordshire bull terriers.

The animals were later shot by police marksmen and a fifth was contained.

A post-mortem examination was due to take place on Tuesday night. The dogs’ remains will also be examined as part of the investigation, police said.

A Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesman said: “Officers attended and found the body of a 14-year-old girl.

“They were confronted by a number of dogs that were aggressive and out-of-control.”

Superintendent Mark Kenny said: “First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family of the girl who has tragically lost her life. Specialist officers are offering them every support.

“While our inquiries to find out what happened are ongoing, this girl’s injuries are consistent with her having been attacked by dogs.

“I understand this is an extremely distressing incident for all concerned, including the community, and we will work hard to establish the full circumstances that led to this tragedy.”

Friends paid tribute to the “quiet” and “timid” teenager, who is thought to have returned to the property from the shops with a meat pie when she was attacked.

Locals said Jade was visiting the property to see a friend, Kimberley Concannon, 16, who lives there with her twin Catrina and mother Beverley Concannon.

Youngsters who knew Jade said they had spoken to Kimberley’s twin sister, Catrina, who was not at the property when the dog attack happened.

One 15-year-old said of Jade: “She goes to my school in the year below.

“She’s shy, quite timid, if you didn’t know her you wouldn’t recognise her around and about. It’s horrible what’s happened.

“She picks her little sister up Sienna from school, every day and walks past my house.

“She had a pie in her hand and has gone to bite it, she moved the pie and the dog’s gone for her throat and then they have all gone for her.”

Another friend said the dogs at the house were large and aggressive animals.

“Every time you walk past the house they would be barking and barking and going mad,” she said.

“You would jump out of your skin.”

Jade was a pupil at Fred Longworth High School in Tyldesley, which closed for the Easter break last Friday.

A message on the school’s Twitter feed said: “This afternoon we sadly lost one of our students, Jade Anderson. Our thoughts are with her parents and family.”

More than 4,500 people joined a Facebook group created to pay tribute to Jade, including the aunt of a four-year-old boy who was killed by a banned breed of dog.

John-Paul Massey died at his grandmother’s house in Liverpool after suffering “massive injuries” inflicted by a pitbull.

Tricia Massey wrote on Jade’s page: “Such a tragic thing to happen. I know what your poor family must be going through and how they are feeling, I lost my four-year-old nephew three years ago.

“He was killed by a dangerous dog in Liverpool. Something needs to be done about these aggressive animals.

“Sleep tight Jade, I’m sure my John-Paul will look after you.”

Natasha Hunt posted: “RIP my beautiful baby girl! Don’t know what I’m going do without you!

“Love you loads, you will never be forgotten, you will always be in my heart.”

A strong earthquake killed one person and injured 19 others in Taiwan on Wednesday as violent shock waves damaged buildings and triggered a blaze, emergency officials said.

The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.0 and said it struck at 10:03 am (0203 GMT), 48 kilometres (30 miles) east of Nantou county in central Taiwan at a depth of 20.7 kilometres.

Taiwan’s central weather bureau put the magnitude at 6.1, saying it was the largest quake this year and was felt across the island. Five aftershocks measured from 3.7-4.3 in magnitude occurred in two hours after the main tremor, it said.

The national fire agency said a 72-year-old woman at a temple in Nantou was struck by a wall that crumbled during the quake and died on the spot.

Nineteen others were slightly injured in the same county and the nearby Changhua and Taichung counties.

The quake also triggered a fire in a house in Nantou that injured one person and had since been extinguished, it said.

The agency received five reports of people trapped in lifts during the quake but all found their way to safety.

Cable news channel SET TV showed footage of one woman in Nantou being carried to an ambulance after she was hit in the head by fragments of a ceiling that came loose during the quake.

“I was scared and nervous as the quake reminded me of the deadly September 21 earthquake in 1999, and luckily this one stopped quickly,” said Chen Shao-sheng, who works for private Show Chwan hospital in Nantou.

More than 80 people in the hospital’s lobby at the time of the quake all rushed out of the building as the contents of cabinets fell out, Chen told AFP.

Nantou county was the epicentre of a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 21, 1999 that killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s recent history.

Taiwan’s high speed rail company suspended all trains for more than four hours for safety checks after the quake while the metro system in the capital Taipei was also temporarily suspended.

Many buildings in Taipei swayed while television footage showed some school children in Nantou fleeing their classrooms during the quake as well as supermarket staff cleaned up contents fell from sales racks.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

A new report claims government policies helping to insulate homes and promoting the installation of more energy efficient boilers are reducing the rise in gas and electricity bills.

Savings generated from energy efficiency policies are already having an impact and will increase over the next decade, the report from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has said.

Household dual fuel bills are estimated to be on average 5%, or £64, lower now than they would be without these policies, it adds.

By 2020, average household energy bills will have risen by 6% in real terms but will be 11% or £166 lower than without the policies.

Nearly half of the average household dual fuel energy bill, £598, is made up of fossil fuel prices, with the second largest cost attributed to networks costs or transport or distribution of energy.

The report showed 85% of the rise in household bills between 2010 and 2012 was from wholesale energy costs and network costs.

Household energy consumption has been on a downward trend since 2005 partly because of the energy efficiency measures.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: “Global gas price hikes are squeezing households. They are beyond any Government’s control and, by all serious predictions, are likely to continue rising.

“We are doing all we can to offset these global energy price rises, and while we have more to do, this new study shows our policies are putting a cushion between global prices and the bills we all pay.”

Steve Radley, policy director at EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, said: “This is a wake-up call. Policies are already adding 30% to business electricity prices, and this will rise to 50% by 2020 and 70% by 2030.

“Measures to shield the most energy-intensive industries from a portion of the costs will make a difference but, unless we get a grip on spiralling policy costs, steeply rising electricity prices for the rest of the sector risk making the UK an increasingly unattractive location for industrial investment and undermining efforts to rebalance the economy.”

Caroline Flint, shadow energy and climate change secretary, said: “The Government’s underhand attempt to mask the real impact of its policies on families’ energy bills is shameful. At a time when hard-pressed families and pensioners are seeing their incomes squeezed, only this out-of-touch Government could expect people to fork out thousands of pounds on new TVs, fridge freezers and washing machines.

“Instead of cooking the books to trick people into thinking their energy bills will be lower, ministers should get behind Labour’s plans to overhaul the energy market and deliver fair prices for the public.”

Cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy was caught up in a strong earthquake that struck in central Taiwan early today.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake killed one person and left at least 19 others injured after they were hit by by falling objects on the east Asian island.

Sir Chris was staying in a hotel in Taichung, about 40 miles north of the earthquake’s epicentre in the mostly rural county of Nantou.

He said on Twitter: “In Taichung, just experienced my first proper earthquake! Building shaking and swaying, light fittings & pictures falling off the walls!”

He added: “Wow, it felt pretty scary here on the 15th floor of our hotel!”

His wife Sarra also tweeted: “The earthquake has stopped but I’m still shaking.”

The earthquake, which occurred at a relatively shallow depth of nine miles (15km), was felt throughout Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Buildings swayed in the capital Taipei, and sections of the high-speed rail were suspended from service to be inspected for damage.

Emergency officials said a 72-year-old woman became the first known fatality from the quake. They said she died when a temple wall she was standing next to collapsed and crushed her in Nantou.

On Tuesday Sir Chris was unveiled as a champion for Glasgow’s bid to host the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. Other Olympic stars backing the bid include rower Katherine Grainger, silver medal-winning swimmer Michael Jamieson and taekwondo gold medallist Jade Jones, Team GB said.

Some British expats in Cyprus are facing a “financial nightmare” after the country’s unprecedented EU bailout.

After nearly four decades of hard work in the UK Terry and Hazel Rose thought moving to Pyrgos in southern Cyprus would give them the perfect retirement.

They brought everything with them from Maidenhead in Berkshire and hold many assets including bank deposits over the 100,000 euros (£85,000) threshold.

They are likely to be subject to a levy between 30% and 40%.

Terry, who spent most of his career working for the British Army, told Sky News: “It’s disgusting, it is my money, fair enough if you want to tax money people have earned in Cyprus but this is mine.”

“It is a nightmare and yes I’m very angry.”

With every bank still closed they have emailed their bank manager but have heard nothing back so simply don’t know if a big chunk of their life savings will vanish.

Hazel added: “We love Cyprus, don’t get me wrong, but this is the final straw. Sometimes I wish we’d never moved out here.”

Their house is now in negative equity and moving back to the UK just isn’t financially viable.

At the ‘Taste of Britain’ cafe and deli in Limassol almost all expat customers are concerned about what may lie ahead.

Owner Ann Bruce who moved here from Lancashire nine years ago told Sky News: “A lot of people come in here with very sad stories.

“It is frightening that the banks, an official organisation, that for years we have trusted, now you can’t trust them any more.”

The bulk of the 60,000 British expats live in the resorts that stretch along the coastline of Cyprus but so too do many wealthy Russians.

Amongst the Brits there are deep suspicions that some Russians were tipped off about the crisis and moved large amounts of money out of Cyprus.

It is hard for people to prove but British business owners told Sky News they have consistently heard anecdotal evidence that Russians were withdrawing massive amounts of money in the days before the crisis began.

British expats though can only concentrate on their own affairs.

Chris Parry, originally from Lincolnshire, now works as a financial advisor for 3D Global around Limassol and has been busy organising forums where expats can turn up and ask questions about what the financial crisis may mean for them.

He told Sky News: “In the great words of Dad’s Army we’re saying ‘Don’t panic’ but most of my clients are naturally very worried.

“Most people who move out here are pensioners and the money they bring out here that’s it, they can’t add to it.”

Banks in Cyprus are now due to open on Thursday and extra security staff are being drafted in to help control the crowds of people that are likely to turn up demanding money and information.

An American judge who campaigned for the release of Amanda Knox has told Sky News she “may” return to Italy to face renewed proceedings – but that he would recommend she stay away.

Michael Heavey, a Superior Court judge in Knox’s home state of Washington, says he is disappointed but not surprised that the Italian Supreme Court has ordered a retrial for her and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

The couple were released by an appeals court 18 months ago after it found fault with their convictions for murdering the British exchange student Meredith Kercher at the home she and Knox shared in Perugia in 2007.

Judge Heavey, who attracted criticism for writing to the Italian authorities about the case while still a serving in his role in the US, says he remains convinced the couple are innocent and that the prosecution case is flawed.

When asked if Knox might return to Italy for any part of the new proceedings, he said: “She may. The intelligentsia of Italy knows she is absolutely innocent.

“But a good proportion of the population, because of what’s called confirmation bias, what they’ve been told so many times, they can’t tell you why, but they think she’s guilty and that is not a healthy climate for her to be in.”

He said he would not criticise the Italian judicial system – and that the US has its own examples of such mistakes being made – but added that he believed the case was set to drag on for years.

He said: “It is terribly disappointing. You just feel like you have been kicked in the stomach. My heart goes out to Amanda and Raffaele and their families for what they’re going to have to go through. The nightmare continues.”

No-one in the Knox camp has commented on whether she plans to return to Italy for the retrial. If she were to be convicted and that conviction upheld, Italy could seek her extradition from the United States.

One Knox lawyer in Italy has said he does not believe she will attend the trial, which is her right under Italian law.

Since the Supreme Court announcement, Amanda Knox has been keeping a low profile in her home city of Seattle. Members of her family politely told reporters outside of their home in the Arbor Heights suburb that they would be making no comment on the developments.

The 25-year-old has returned to complete her studies at the University of Washington and it is reported she plans to go ahead with a television interview next month to promote a book about the case.

Five thousand miles away from Seattle, a woman claiming to be the new girlfriend of Sollecito told reporters at his apartment that the couple planned to move to Switzerland. She confirmed that he and Knox had spoken to each other about the Supreme Court decision.

WASHINGTON – March 26 – JAMES S. HENRY, jhenry at sagharbor.com
Available for a limited number of interviews with major media, Henry is lead researcher for the report “The Price of Offshore Revisited” from the Tax Justice Network. Last year they estimated that total wealth in tax havens was between $21 trillion and $35 trillion dollars. He said today: “Cyprus is in crisis because its banks heavily invested in Greek bonds and Greek bondholders took a hair cut. It’s not because Cyprus is worse than other tax havens as many seem to be claiming. We found that it’s the 20th least transparent tax haven. So today is a good day for bankers in Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and the UK. Cyprus is in effect a victim of the ‘finance curse’ in that its economy was so dependent on the financial sector.

“There are several aspects to the Russian story that haven’t been fleshed out, including the Russian Gazprom eyeing energy reserves off of Cyprus. Another major aspect of the story that’s been largely overlooked is that whatever happens to the financial sector in Cyprus, it’s still a large corporate haven; they only have a 10 percent corporate tax rate. This tax haven model of ‘development’ needs to be seriously questioned. Tax havens are a major source of economic inequality and global poverty. They prevent local governments from effectively taxing wealthy individuals and corporations.

“In terms of the bigger picture, Cyprus is small; the issue is the state of the economy in Italy, Greece, etc.”

Henry is a regular contributor to The Real News, see his latest interview: “Cyprus Crisis Reveals Shadowy World of Tax and Money Laundering Haven.” He has also written for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and other publications.

Henry was also just featured in “The Tax Free Tour” – a new in-depth look at global tax havens from Dutch Public TV that, among other things, answers the question: How does Apple only pay 1.9 percent on its overseas profits when the U.S. corporate tax rate is 35 percent? Also, see taxodus.net – an online game about global tax dodging. Henry is former chief economist at the international consultancy firm McKinsey & Co.

WASHINGTON – March 26 – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an extensive survey reporting that more than half of our nation’s stream and river miles are severely polluted, or listed as “impaired” or in “poor condition.” This is the most dire in a string of water assessments over the last 20 years that have reported high percentages of water impairment and pollution in the United States.

The following are the numbers reported in the last several stream and river assessments:

• 1994: 36% of our streams and rivers were reported partially impaired or fully impaired.
• 1996: 36% of waters assessed did not meet water quality standards. Very few rivers were assessed (approximately 19%), so the reality could have been worse than reported.
• 1998: 40% of waters assessed did not meet water quality standards.
• 2000: 44% of waters assessed did not meet water quality standards.
• 2002: 45% of assessed rivers and streams were listed as impaired.

According to assessment released today:

• 55% of our river and stream miles are in poor condition.
• 27% of the nation’s rivers and streams have excessive levels of nitrogen, and 40% have high levels of phosphorus. These nutrient pollutants cause toxic green slime outbreaks that are harmful to public health.
• 24% of the rivers and streams monitored were rated poor due to the loss of healthy habitat surrounding them.
• 9% of assessed river and stream miles were found unsafe for swimming and recreation due to high bacteria levels.
• More than 13,000 miles of rivers have fish with mercury levels that may be unsafe for human consumption.

The following is a statement from Earthjustice attorney Jennifer Chavez:

“The EPA and our nation’s leaders have known for years that we have a very serious dirty water problem in the United States. The more we assess, the worse the picture gets for our nation’s waterways. If you look at this grim report against several other similarly grave reports over the last 20 years, you will see that we can’t afford inaction any longer. When more than half of our nation’s waters are listed in ‘poor condition’–and these are the same waters that our families rely on for drinking water and the same streams and rivers that we enjoy for recreation–it is time for serious action.

“Until our nation’s leaders commit to cleaning up our waters, our communities and families will pay the price with our health. And until we get a handle on actually regulating water pollution from the biggest industrial polluters, such as the agriculture and mining industries, every two years we will see this dreadful picture of 50 percent or more of our nation’s water grievously polluted.

“Right now, there are smart, common-sense policies that will clean up our waterways and keep us safe from harmful pollution just sitting at the White House waiting for final approval. We need the Obama administration to finalize its guidance to restore Clean Water Act protections to all waters the United States, because as this survey shows, we simply can’t afford to lose any more of our crucial waters to pollution and contamination.”

In today’s On the News segment: County District Judge in Wyoming ruled against environmental groups fighting to make public the list of toxic ingredients used in hydraulic fracking fluid public; Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann is under investigation; IRS spent 60,000 tax payer dollars to produce a “Star Trek” video parody under the guise of employee training; and more.

Thom Hartmann here — on the news…

You need to know this. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the landmark Proposition 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry. The case concerns California’s discriminatory law, which bars same-sex couples from being married in that state. Already, both the California District Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have concluded that Prop 8 violates the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. However, Dennis Hollingsworth — of the anti-gay-marriage group ProtectMarriage.com — is pressing on with the fight to uphold Prop 8. The law was passed in 2008 by a slim majority of California voters, and it has been tied up in the courts for years. During that time, a stay has been issued, blocking additional same-sex couples in California from marrying. The Supreme Court must consider two questions in today’s case — whether the law is unconstitutional, and whether the anti-gay group even has standing to argue the case. If the justices decide to uphold the lower courts’ rulings, it would represent a huge victory in the fight for full LGBT equality, but there’s no telling how this court will rule. Tomorrow, the justices will hear arguments in another landmark equality case, United States v. Windsor, which challenges the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and rulings on both are expected later this year. Hopefully, the conservative-leaning court will recognize that gay rights are civil rights, and that everyone in our nation should have the right to marry the person that they love.

In screwed news… You don’t have the right to know you’re being poisoned. At least, not in Wyoming. Yesterday, County District Judge Catherine Wilking ruled against environmental groups fighting to make public the list of toxic ingredients used in hydraulic fraking fluid. According to Judge Wilking, Wyoming’s state oil and gas supervisor was authorized to withhold the information, because the list of chemicals is considered a trade secret. Halliburton, one of the companies involved in the 2010 BP Gulf Disaster, argued that if they disclosed the makeup of their fracking fluids, competing companies would be able to reverse engineer the toxic sludge. So, not only does Halliburton get to control the controversial hydraulic fracturing industry in Wyoming, but this ruling allows them to socialize all external costs. Without knowing what chemicals are used in the process, people can’t blame Halliburton when they get sick, or when their groundwater becomes contaminated. And it will be John Q Taxpayer picking up the tab when people can’t cover healthcare or clean up related costs. Corporate power in our nation is out of control. It’s even worse that Judges like Caterine Wilking are making that power even stronger.

In the best of the rest of the news…

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe took a stand to protect voters. On Monday, the democratic governor vetoed a voter ID bill, which he said could disenfranchise voters. Beebe said, “I cannot approve such an unnecessary measure that would negatively impact one of our most precious rights as citizens.” The Republican-dominated state legislature plans to override the veto, as they have with two recent anti-abortion bills. If they again succeed in obtaining a veto-proof majority, the new law will require county clerks to provide photo ID’s to any registered voter that does not currently have one, and it will cost the sate an estimated $300,000. Similar laws are being challenged in other states, and legal battles are expected if Arkansas enacts the measure. Even if state Republicans press on with their efforts to disenfranchise voters, it’s great to see that Governor Beebe is fighting to protect the democratic process in his state.

Walmart is getting what they pay for. The mega-retailer’s bottom-of-the-barrel wages are leading to disorganized stores, long-lines, and empty shelves. And customers are choosing to shop at other retailers to avoid the chaos. Mr. Ton, an associate professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, studied the problem, and said “[customers] are mad about they way they were treated or how much time they wasted looking for items that aren’t there.” He explained that retailers think wages are an easy cost-cutting target, but that history shows the resulting deterioration of customer satisfaction often leads to a decline in sales-growth. In other words, people get frustrated by the lack of adequate staff and merchandise, and they go to other stores instead. So, it looks like Walmart’s low-wage strategy may be backfiring. We can only hope that as more customers flee from the low-cost retailer, that management will catch on, and start paying workers a living wage.

Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann is under investigation. The Office of Congressional Ethics is looking to allegations of misusing campaign funds during her 2012 presidential run. According to the Washington Post, Peter Waldron, who worked as Bachmann’s national field coordinator, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the lawmaker of using PAC funds to pay her campaign staff. Her attorney, William McGinley, says they “are confident at the end of their review, the OCE Board will conclude that Congresswoman Bachmann did not do anything inappropriate.” The review is expected to last 30 days, during which four board members will decide whether to refer the matter to the full Ethics Committee. After the Congresswoman’s numerous attempts to repeal Obamacare, and her anti-muslim witch-hunt of Hilary Clinton’s top staffer, it’s nice to see Michelle Bachmann spending some time in the hot seat.

And finally… The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t top the list as American’s favorite government agency. So, people are especially angry over the IRS spending 60,000 tax payer dollars to produce a “Star Trek” video parody under the guise of employee training. The public learned of the space parody after Charles Boustany, chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, demanded the IRS hand over information about it’s video production budget. The IRS released a statement saying, “the space parody video from 2010 is not reflective of overall IRS video efforts.” The agency did, however, defend a separate video parody of “Gilligan’s Island,” saying it provided valuable employee training. Seriously…they really did.

And that’s the way it is today — Tuesday, March 26, 2013. I’m Thom Hartmann — on the news.

James Henry: Bailout deal includes capital controls and punishing big Russian depositors to pay off European banks — leaves Cyprus looking for a “new way to make a living.”

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. And welcome to this week’s edition of The Henry Report with James Henry. He now joins us.

James is a economist, attorney, investigative journalist who’s written extensively about global issues. He used to be a chief economist at the international consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. And he’s written in Forbes, The Nation, New York Times. And he’s a regular here.

Thanks for joining us, James.

JAMES S. HENRY, ECONOMIST, LAWYER, AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Quite welcome.

Jay: So when I was a kid, I used to read these Superman Bizarro version of the comic books where there was this other planet and there was, like, Bizarro everything, Bizarro Superman. I mean, it’s like this whole Cyprus financial meltdown–and while it’s not a joke to the people of Cyprus, who I’m sure are going to get screwed by all of this, it’s a completely bizarre, weird situation.

Henry: Yeah. I mean, Cyprus is a country that is about half the size of Connecticut. It’s very close to Turkey, closer to Turkey than anywhere else. It has had a history of division between the Turkish minority and the Greek Cypriots, who’ve always had this idea of unifying with Greece. And that produced a terrible war back in 1974, ’76. The Greek military junta tried to take over the island, and the Turks intervened. And so they’ve been trying to solve that situation, you know, ever since. And they still have a divided country there. So that’s kind of one important backdrop.

The other interesting angle here is that Cyprus and Greece in general are, like Russia, largely Greek Orthodox, part of the Orthodox Church, and they have that common tradition. And as far back as the 1850s, you know, Russia and Greece and what was then Cyprus aligned in the Crimean war against Britain and Turkey.

So, you know, there’s a long history here of relationships that come to play, and it all comes out in this latest episode, which is, you know, basically due to the fact that in 2004, on the insistence of Greece, Cyprus, this tiny island with 860,000 Greek Cypriots, was admitted to the E.U., the European Union. This is a country that basically, except for banking, has only beaches and, you know, has become a kind of raging tax haven, has not only a banking haven but also very low tax rates, 10 percent corporate tax rates for nonresident companies. And it also has notoriously loose controls on money laundering. So it was really, like, you know, the place to be if you had dodgy business and you wanted to be in the E.U.

Jay: And they were reporting that maybe a third to half of the deposits in the Cypriot banks were Russian oligarchs’, Russian billionaire money.

Henry: Yeah. Well, German intelligence BND did a report that just kind of oddly enough turned up last year in December, about the time that Cyprus was asking for aid from the E.U., and that argued that there was about $26 billion of Russian deposits that were from dubious sources in Cypriot banks. You know, the Russians disputed that, and certainly anyone who had the ability to anticipate this crisis would have been taking money out since then.

But, you know, I think that colored this whole debate. It made it a kind of a bit of theater with Angela Merkel putting her hands on her hips and saying, we’re not going to tax European taxpayers to bail out Russian oligarchs.

Jay: Why is there any need for bailout? The Cypriot banks are sitting on all this cash. So why are they in trouble?

Henry: Well, they’re in trouble because they invested heavily–some of them, not all of them–invested heavily in Greek bonds–again, kind of the Greek relationship here. And last year, the Greek bonds were subject to a EUR 100 billion haircut in addition to the EUR 240 billion of additional borrowing that the Greeks got from the European Central Bank to bail them out. So Cypriot banks, especially the number two bank, Laiki–which no one really knows who owns, so some mention Qatar–anyway, they especially, for whatever reason, invested heavily in these Greek bonds, which became worthless. And that, you know, started the whole crisis in the banking industry.

This is really unlike the Greek crisis, which was what we call a sovereign debt crisis, you know, involving the state sector. Here we had private banks that basically made bad investment decisions, and suddenly their whole credibility to investors became dubious and their own liquidity became dubious because of these bad investments.

Jay: So on Monday they make a deal, they being the Cypriot government and the European Central Bank and the financial authorities in Europe, which includes capital controls, they say, which will be temporary. Tell us about this deal and who wins and who loses out of this.

Henry: Well, this is the second deal they tried. You know, the first one was to tax all of the depositors in these banks, and that one fell through.

The deal that they ended up this weekend finally adopting is actually worse for the large depositors. They’re going to lose at least 20 percent of their deposits that are still there. So that’s one clear burden.

The banks are being consolidated as we speak. One of them’s–Laiki is probably going to be put out of business and its depositors are going to go to the others. But I think–you know, so one impact of this you’ve mentioned, which is capital controls, this effectively makes Cypriot euros a different currency. So, you know, we were talking about maybe Cyprus leaving the euro. Well, they effectively already have, ’cause capital controls are not allowed anywhere else in Europe.

Another impact of this thing is going to be on the tax system in Cyprus.

Jay: James, just to make it clear for people, what that means is you may have your euros in Cyprus, but you can’t take them out of the country. So in other words the whole point of the euro is it’s supposed to be throughout Europe, and you can’t take it anywhere now. And this is obviously to stop a bank run, because what’s the point of taking your money out of the bank if you can’t take it anywhere I guess is the logic.

Henry: Yeah, they’re talking about reopening the–. I mean, they have this dilemma. They have a sizable tourist industry, especially with people from the U.K. and Russia, of course, and they all want to get euros at the ATM machine. So right now the euro restriction on withdrawals is EUR 100, which if you’ve been to these nightclubs in Cyprus you know doesn’t go very far. But, you know, they have a healthy underground economy, and there’s all kinds of currencies circulating there.

So the most important impact of the capital controls will be on bank-to-bank transfers. And then there’s a lot of loopholes there, say, for what they call systematically important payments. So under that guise about EUR 1 billion left just last week. You know. So this is a permeable system, like any capital controls situation, but it’s an important deviation from the E.U. hope to have a common currency.

Jay: Now, it seems like in the debate of who’s going to get screwed most here, initially it was going to be the small Cypriot depositors. And now, after they said no way, it looks like it’s going to be the big depositors. And what does that mean? That the Russian billionaires are going to pay off the European banks?

Henry: Well, I think to some extent that’s true, but the real losers here are going to be the people who are, first of all, working in the banking sector. I mean, you have an economy that had at least 20 percent of its entire economic activity based on banking, what we call the finance curse, which often occurs for these small haven countries–become heavily dependent on banking. And the kind of banking they do is very limited. It’s–doesn’t–you know, these are not sophisticated banking skills that are required to launder money and, you know, help tax dodging. So at the end of the day, they’re going to be losing thousands of employees in their banking sector, which now employs, you know, more than 20,000 people. I think they are the first ones who will feel the impact of this. And then Cyprus basically has to figure out, you know, what to do for a living going forward.

This is not going to be–.

Jay: [crosstalk] going to put money back in Cypriot banks if you want a tax haven or a launderer, it ain’t going to be a place that had to put temporary capital controls and made you take more than a haircut–it sounds like a scalping.

Henry: Yeah. I mean, you know, Time magazine declared that this had basically–today that this was the end of a tax haven. In fact, you know, there are several different dimensions to being tax havens, and they’ve only really attacked one of them directly, which is the banking haven role.

You still can benefit if you structure a Cyprus holding company. They only have a 10 percent maximum corporate income tax. So a lot of Russian inbound investment is channeled through Cypriot companies to avoid corporate taxes, and that’s going to maintain itself in place. There’s about 2,000 lawyers in Cyprus and more than 1,200 accountants, and, you know, they’re going to be continuing doing these kind of deals, these trusts and offshore companies, and that are still going to be in place even after the banking haven goes away.

And then they’ve also made it quite easy to get residency in Cyprus. You know, one headline story is that more than 80 Russian oligarchs were given citizenship in the E.U. by way of Cyprus. So there’s a residential haven business here. There’s about 50,000 Russian-speaking residents in Cyprus now.

And, you know, much of–I mean, and Russians have invested more than $10 billion in Cyprus real estate in the last decade. So there’s still a lot of activities going on there that are related to haven, the business. But I do think the banking haven aspect of it is over.

Jay: How is Putin and the Russians going to respond to the deal today?

Henry: Well, some stories said that he was upset, and that, you know, Medvedev, the prime minister, was denouncing the deal. Part of it was that they didn’t feel that they were appropriately consulted. But Russia had already lent $2.5 billion to Cyprus last year and sort of didn’t really feel disposed to put any more money in.

And Russia’s been talking about trying to attract a lot of this offshore money back into Russia, so the so-called de-offshore-ization of Russian money. They have by our calculations more than $800 billion of offshore flight wealth that belongs to Russian residents, much of it to the tiny elite, that’s flown the coop in the last–you know, since the collapse of communism in 1990. So, you know, there’s a kind of a complicated side to this Russian story as well.

Russia also has some very important gas companies, like Gazprom, which would love to get their hands on the 7 trillion cubic feet reservoir that has just been discovered in Cypriot territorial waters.

Jay: That was once talked about as could be part of this deal, that the Russians would help bail out the banks in exchange for energy rights. But that doesn’t–at least it’s certainly not public–that doesn’t seem to be part of the deal.

Henry: No. I think the Russian national game is chess, and Putin is looking here at kind of three or four moves down the road. You know, he’s in the driver’s seat. I mean, the Cypriots are going to at some point want to come to the table with some opportunities for Russian investors to come back to Cyprus. And that probably means that Gazprom will be looking at getting those drilling licences, which were, incidentally, exploited at first by a U.S. company called Noble, which found the gas [crosstalk]

Jay: Well, the Americans are not going to like Gazprom getting hold of the energy resources off Cyprus. We know from WikiLeaks they hated the idea that Gazprom and the Italian energy company had such a dominant position in Libya. In fact, a lot of people think that has a lot to do with why there was a war in Libya. And one of the WikiLeaks cables from an American ambassador said that Russia is tightening its noose around European energy supplies.

Henry: Yeah. I think that, you know, there’s–as natural gas supplies have increased in the last year or so, some of those concerns have been–and, you know, Russia is concerned about driving the Europeans to using alternative pipelines. But it is a concern, you know, that Russia would perhaps get their hands on this gas. It’s also certainly of concern to Turkey, which has disputed the rights to the gas. But, you know, we just have to see how that plays out.

I think another interesting fact about Gazprom, [incompr.] we hear it with respect to Cyprus, is that one of the key partner organizations was a company called Itera, which is a Cypriot-based company. And I’m told that all the trust documents are in Cyprus. You know, they became a major gas player. They have their headquarters in Geneva, but their holding company is in Cyprus. And, you know, there are all these stories about Yeltsin’s daughter being one of the original investors in that company.

So this has many ramifications, and not every one is going to be pleased with, you know, a fundamental change in the Cyprus role in the world.

Jay: Alright. Just quickly, is this–in terms of any further repercussions of the financial crisis in–is it contained? Or is this still contagion, possibly, for the rest of Europe?

Henry: I think that the fears of this really fundamentally affecting the euro were really overstated by some pundits in the investment community who were exaggerating the potential every time there is this kind of ripple, people talking about this escalating to Spain and Italy. And, you know, I just don’t see that as a problem.

I mean, what’s clear is that all of the private banking types in Europe are, you know, sort of circling the waters here. And, you know, we’ve had Swiss bankers and even Latvian bankers looking, you know, saying, you know, bring your deposits here; we’re still open for business. And on the other hand, some people have suggested that maybe the Cypriot model is a good one for Europe. They need a bad bank where they put all their bad assets and they begin to clean up all of the European havens, starting with Switzerland and the U.K. and Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, which–you know, Andorra. These are all still wide open for business. And several of them are members of the E.U.

Jay: Thanks for joining us, James.

Henry: Right. Quite welcome.

Jay: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to another edition of The Wilkerson Report with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson.

Larry is the former chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. He’s currently an adjunct professor of government at the College of William & Mary.

Thanks for joining us, Larry.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: Thanks for having me, Paul.

Jay: So President Obama visited Israel and he sat next to Prime Minister Netanyahu as he phones the prime minister of Turkey and apologizes for the killing of Turkish citizens on that flotilla that was bound to break the blockade of Gaza. What do you make of the visit and American President Obama’s objectives there?

Wilkerson: This is realpolitik par excellence, Paul. Israel is in a very untenable strategic situation right now. The Lebanese government just walked out. Lebanon is increasingly dominated by Hezbollah. The Syrian civil war is raging with apparently (unlike what the president said about Assad’s limited days) no end in sight, not any time soon, anyway. Iraq is a major Iran ally. The Sunnis interact–do not like that at all and are getting ready to remount the civil war and drive the Shia out. The Saudis, of course, are funding the Sunnis. The Saudis are funding the war in Syria, as are other members of the GCC. Iran is sitting in a strategic position of preeminence, mainly created by our having taken out their enemies Iraq and the Taliban. Israel is confronted on the other flank by an Egypt that no one knows where it’s going.

This is not good for Israel. They are probably in as dangerous a situation as they’ve been since 1948 and their founding. So opening up, apologizing to, and trying to reestablish a strategic link with one of the most, if not the most powerful countries in the region, Turkey, makes a lot of sense.

Jay: So when President Obama says, I’ve got your back, it’s not so much about the Palestinians he’s talking about. He’s talking about regional politics.

Wilkerson: Absolutely. And you’ve got to nurture and teach Netanyahu, because the man seems to be a strategic fool. And he’s great at rhetoric about defending his country, while at the same time he is taking actions that actually make his country’s defense more tenable [sic]. So I’m sure President Obama, having been instructed by his own military and security elite, has been lecturing Mr. Netanyahu and essentially telling him, hey, look, pal, you’d better look around and see what’s happening to you; your isolation is dangerous, and you’re backing away from, by these stupid acts, countries like Turkey, who otherwise have some vested interest in your survival and your stability, is just ridiculous; so let’s start fixing some of these problems. And hopefully, Mr. Netanyahu listened.

Jay: Now, from Turkey’s angle, the anti-Iranian rhetoric–and if that ever came to an actual Israeli attack on Iran, that could not play well in Turkey. It was only a short time ago the prime minister of Turkey was calling Israel a terrorist, and that was received with great popularity amongst the Turkish population. So this whole aggressive posture towards Iran cannot be helping Israel in places like Turkey.

Wilkerson: No, it can’t be helping Israel amongst 1.3, 1.4 billion Muslims in the world, period, whether they’re in Indonesia, India, or Turkey. So as I said, I hope Mr. Obama gave Mr. Netanyahu a little lecture in geostrategic realities. We need to start making friends if we’re in Tel Aviv, not continue being isolated and making enemies. And in that regard, I hope this tamps down Mr. Netanyahu’s desire to attack Iran. Nothing could be more catastrophic in regard to the situation I just described.

Jay: Now, I saw one or two news reports that Netanyahu was supposedly pushing President Obama that the United States should directly or militarily get involved in Syria. Is that true? And it’s hard to imagine the United States actually wants to do that. On the other hand, I can imagine perhaps the Americans might want at some point the Turks to do that.

Wilkerson: I think probably if Mr. Netanyahu was doing it–and I almost could say I could see him doing anything, I think he’s so strategically inept–it would be because he would hope that America would do it decisively and conclusively and take out yet another one of Israel’s enemies. Otherwise, I can’t see any way in the world that Israel is interested in a destabilized and a sustainably destabilized Syria, which is what we’re possibly looking at.

The Turks doing something in Syria is a good point. I think Iran and Turkey are absolutely essential to a resolution of the situation in Afghanistan that might be more or less positive, and ultimately a resolution in Syria. If you don’t have the Turks’ buy-in, if you don’t have them helping you locally to bring about this stability, prosperity that will be necessary in both countries, then you’re not going to have a solution. The Turks are essential. They’re critical to a solution in both Afghanistan, ultimately, and to a solution in Syria.

Jay: Now, the thing that doesn’t get talked about hardly at all in the American media is the role of Saudi Arabia in all of this. The Saudis are pouring oil on the fire in Syria. As you just mentioned, they’re funding Sunni militants in Iraq. They’ve been funding forever schools in Pakistan that are creating new Taliban fighters. Yet they’re treated like the great friend of America.

Wilkerson: I think you have to be somewhat prudent, cautious when you talk about, quote, the Saudis. Yes, there are some Saudis who are doing what you’re saying. I’m not sure it’s all blessed in the House of Saud, as it were, that is, by the king, by the crown prince. But, yes, they are funding things. And I remember something a very high level official once told me who knew the Saudis well. They will bet on at least five horses, maybe six. They’ll continue to put their money on all those horses until one or more pulls well out in front, and then they’ll consolidate their money and dump in on the one or ones they think will win. That’s the Saudis–ultimate realpolitikers.

That said, I do think they are doing things in that region, and for that matter in the world, with regard to funding madrasas and what I would call radical Islam or the education of radical Islamists, in a way that is detrimental to the interests of not just the United States, but ultimately the entire world. And someone sometime needs to take a little harder look at that and perhaps bring a little pressure to bear on those who might be able to curb that a bit, stop it, and understand just what it is doing when it does what it’s doing.

Jay: I mean, it seems like the Saudis play some of the same game as the Pakistanis do. You have, you know, sort of the official policy over here, which, you know, has its relations with the West and kind of plays within a conventional game, and then they have their relations over on this side, where they use various kind of terrorist organizations almost as a lever of foreign policy in some ways.

Wilkerson: Yes. I remember one time, Paul, when I was sitting at a dinner table with Turki Al Faisal, when he was at that time head of the intelligence service in Saudi Arabia. And as he was talking to me quite eloquently in English about various and sundry issues in his region and in the world, I couldn’t help but think: where is the truth, if there is any truth? And that pretty much sums up my appreciation of Saudi Arabia.

Jay: And again I go back to this issue of the American media [incompr.] in the 9/11 reports, particularly the Senate committee Bob Graham led, you know, they came out–essentially, they had in their report a whole list of names from Saudi royal family that they thought had been directly involved in 9/11 events, both in funding and other kinds of things, and the White House forced them to redact it. And Graham complained about it later. And, again, not a heck of a lot of media reports. You know, the odd investigative journalist picks up on it, but, I mean, it’s almost like the Saudis get a bigger pass than Israel does.

Wilkerson: Right. And I think, you know, part of that is understandable, at least from a realpolitik point of view, the oil and so forth and their influence within the oil circle, if you will, OPEC. We often call upon the Saudis or request that the Saudis do things within OPEC to stabilize oil prices or whatever. That’s becoming less of a power the Saudis have as oil and gas proliferate. But nonetheless it’s part of the relationship in the past.

And the other aspect of it, of course, is they buy an enormous amount of U.S. arms, which kind of all set some of the huge transfers in hard currency we’ve made in order to keep up with the oil and gas needs of this country. That’s one reason we sold so massively to the Shah of Iran, for example, was to try and offset some of those transfers of hard currency.

The Saudi complicity in 9/11 or this lack thereof or the proof thereof, what worries me about that particular issue is what wasn’t unclassified and probably will remain classified for some time in the 9/11 Commission’s report. I think one of the reasons, if not the premiere reason that that report was made classified–and it will be so for a long time–is because it had some information in there about the Saudis. I hope I’m wrong, or if their information is in there, I hope it’s not as bad as I think it could be.

Jay: Bob Graham’s report, you know, people that have seen that, the part that was redacted, they say it was explicit. There was an actual list of names of Saudi royalty that they say were involved.

Wilkerson: You know, I have to say I would not doubt it.

Jay: So let’s go back to President Obama in Israel. No real move, though, from President Obama to pressure Israel on the settlement issue. No real move to stop this completely one-sided support for Israel. It is all about I’ve got your back and you should like me.

Wilkerson: That’s true. I forgot one thing I’d like to go back to, Paul, and then I’ll comment on this.

Remember who one of the best friends of Saudi Arabia is in the United States of America, intimate, close, buddy-buddy: Richard Bruce Cheney, former vice president of the United States. So he was the vice president, and many would say the co-president, when this 9/11 Commission report was written. So don’t forget that.

To Israel, the situation, as I said before, is bad right now for Israel, as bad as it’s been since ’48. So I don’t blame the president for attempting to shore that up, both in terms of the bilateral relationship, telling Israelis that we’ve got their back, but also in terms of speaking to this tumultuous and dynamic situation around Israel, which one by one seems to be occurring, resulting in, manifesting itself as inimical to Israel’s long-term interest, not least of which is the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

Frankly, if Israel and the Palestinians cannot come together and form some sort of solution, whether it’s a two-state solution the way we typically think about it or some split-off therefrom, that Israel is doomed to being an apartheid state that 15 or 20 years from now, or perhaps even earlier, ceases being Jewish, ceases being democratic, becomes increasingly autocratic, and disappears then from the face of the earth. That’s the inevitable outcome of this attitude of settlements, settlements, settlements, Jerusalem is our capital, we have no one we can negotiate with, the Palestinians are not dependable, they’re a bunch of bums. If we don’t get a two-state solution basically in accord with what our policy has aimed for for several decades now, Israel has no future.

Jay: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

Wilkerson: Thanks for having me, Paul.

Jay: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

The eyes of the financial world are on the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus today. The government of Cyprus has brokered a last-ditch $13 billion bailout deal with European officials to stave off the collapse of its banking sector. Under the deal, all bank deposits above approximately $130,000 will be frozen and used to help pay off the banking sector’s debts. An earlier version of the deal collapsed last week when Cypriots took to the streets to protest paying a tax of up to 10 percent on their life savings. The plan led to mass demonstrations as well as panicked bank withdrawals as Cypriots rushed to protect their savings. “It’s a demonstration of people power in this little corner of the world that’s very impressive, and the basis, I think, for some optimism about opposition,” says Richard Wolff, economics professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and visiting professor at New School University. He is the author of several books including, most recently, “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.”

 TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

Amy Goodman: The eyes of the financial world are on the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus today. The government of Cyprus has brokered a last-ditch $13 billion bailout deal with European officials to stave off the collapse of its banking sector. Under the deal, all bank deposits above approximately $130,000 will be frozen and used to help pay off the banking sector’s debts. This will result in especially heavy losses for foreign depositors at the Mediterranean island’s banks, many of which are Russian. In addition, Cyprus’s second-largest bank will be shut down.

Protesters have described the deal as an economic World War III. Some economists say Cyprus is a harbinger of things to come in Europe and possibly even the United States. Cyprus’s president described the deal as a painful one, but Eurogroup chair Jeroen Dijsselbloem praised the deal.

JEROEN DIJSSELBLOEM: The program will be based on ambitious measures in areas of fiscal consolidation, structural reforms and privatization. The authorities will also take decisive action to safeguard the stability of the financial sector, including bank resolution and deep restructuring measures concerning the two largest banks. A levy on deposits across the whole banking sector can and will therefore be avoided.

Amy Goodman: An earlier version of the deal collapsed last week when Cypriots took to the streets to protest paying a tax of up to 10 percent on their life savings. The package called on Cyprus to impose a one-time tax on bank deposits as a condition for $13 billion in rescue money. The plan led to mass demonstrations as well as panicked bank withdrawals as Cypriots rushed to protect their savings. On Sunday, the island’s central bank imposed a 100-euros-per-day withdrawal limit on bank accounts, which led to a fresh round of protests.

PROTESTER: If we can take 100 euros today with what the Eurogroup has decided for the Cyprus nation, we will not have nothing in the coming months and years, and that will be the same for many years. The only solution is to find a solution outside from troika and the IMF and stand on our feet on our own, because it looks like our friends in Europe are not supporting us at all.

Amy Goodman: Well, for more, we’re joined right now by Richard Wolff. He’s professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at New School University here in New York, and hosts a weekly program on WBAI 99.5 in New York City called Economic Update every Saturday at noon. He’s the author of a number of books, including, most recently, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.

Richard Wolff, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why is Cyprus so significant?

Richard Wolff: Well, Cyprus is significant for several reasons. First, it marks an escalation in what we call austerity economics. It is an effort to pay for the cost of this now six-year-old global crisis in a new way. It is an effort to fund the bailouts of banks in a new way. And the new way was agreed last week by the European forces that control this–the central bank, the European Union and the IMF–and to impose on Cyprus this new step, which is literally to go into the bank accounts of the citizens of Cyprus, roughly a million people on a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean, and snatch money out of their accounts. See, unlike other austerity, where you levy a tax and you cut back social programs, like we’re doing here in the United States, that money dribbles in over a year or longer period. This way, the government can get the money to bail out the banks quickly and cleanly and neatly. Friday night, the people of Cyprus went to bed with a certain amount of money in their accounts–they thought–and Monday morning, last Monday, they were supposed to awake with X percent less money because the government had taken it. So, that’s an amazing new step of austerity. It suggests that this crisis is far from over and that the authorities are desperate to find the money, other than by taxing corporations, other than by taxing the wealthy, in order to solve their problems.

The second reason it’s important–and you stressed that–is that the people of Cyprus woke up, took one look at this, and said no–and did it dramatically. And in a matter of hours, they undid everything that the European governments and their own government had agreed to a few nights earlier. So it’s a demonstration of people power in this little corner of the world that’s very impressive, and the basis, I think, for some optimism about opposition.

Amy Goodman: How did they say no?

Richard Wolff: Basically, by saying, “We’re going to disrupt everything. We’re not going to go to work. We’re not going to consume. We’re just–we’re going to call on our fellow citizens across Europe to recognize that if they can come into our bank account and take our money, then what is exactly going happen in places like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Britain, where very similar situations are playing themselves out?” So this call for solidarity around this issue terrified all the other governments of Europe. And suddenly, the firmly committed deal unraveled in the face of popular resentment and opposition.

Amy Goodman: How did Cyprus get to this point?

Richard Wolff: Cyprus is a small country. Its economy is based on three things: tourism–it’s a very pleasant place for northern Europeans to go; shipping, as befits an island; but above all, what is euphemistically called “finance.” In the go-go years of the 1990s and early in this century, what the banks in Cyprus did is offer themselves around the world as a wonderful place to come and make a deposit. “We will convert whatever currency you have into euros,” which is a very good currency to have. “We will pay you an unusually high interest rate. We will ask no questions.” This is often called “good banking.” So they got a lot of deposits. To give you an idea, depending on the estimates you believe, the total deposits in the banks of Cyprus were five to eight times larger than the total GDP, the total output per year, of that economy, which is an absurd situation.

And those banks in Cyprus took all those deposits, and then they did what banks are supposed to do: find prudent, safe, non-risky investments. And like all big banks in the last 20 years, they failed. They found bad investments. They didn’t do it prudently. They misassessed the risk. And then the banks fell apart. Since that’s an outsized part of the Cyprus economy, the whole Cyprus economy, already impacted by this crisis with less tourism and less shipping, now saw its banks defunct–bankrupt, basically–and appealed to Europe to bail them out, which is the standard procedure now in Europe as these economies have such trouble.

Amy Goodman: Despite widespread opposition to the deal by the residents of Cyprus, Cyprus’s parliament will not need to approve today’s deal with international lenders. That’s because the parliament passed the necessary legislation to implement the bailout last week. On Friday, the governor of the Cyprus Central Bank warned political leaders that the country would face a disorderly bankruptcy unless they approved the bailout.

PANICOS DEMETRIADES: [translated] All of the elements that the Central Bank of Cyprus contributed must be voted for immediately and as they are, for two basic reasons: first, so that a very positive message is sent abroad, which will help in an agreement soon with the troika, and secondly, it is absolutely necessary that the Central Bank of Cyprus has the right legal tools to allow it to handle the crisis which the Cypriot economy is facing.

Amy Goodman: Richard Wolff, can you respond?

Richard Wolff: Yes. This is blackmail. This is basically the officials of the banks and the political leaders going to be mass of people and saying to them, “This awful deal that makes you, who have nothing to do with the crisis and didn’t get any bailout, pay the costs of the crisis and the bailout. You must do this, because if you don’t, we will do even more damage to you and your economy. So give us your deposits, give us your money, pay more taxes, suffer fewer social programs, because if you don’t, we will impose even worse on you.” It’s the basic idea of austerity across the board and in our country, too. And I think it’s the confrontation of a system that does not work with the mass of the people, saying, “We will go down and take you with us, unless you bail us out.”

Amy Goodman: Explain whose money it is.

Richard Wolff: It’s amazing, you know? The way this works, the plan, which is still on the board, is to go into the accounts of depositors. Remember, a depositor puts his or her money, whether they’re a business or an individual, in a bank under the notion that it’s guaranteed, it’s insured, and it’s safe. Otherwise, you wouldn’t put your money there. It takes these people’s money, thereby destroying all confidence and feelings of insurance or security, and the government will take that money, and the government will then, in the language of these politicians, “recapitalize our banks and restructure them.” Translated into simple English, they’re going to take the depositors’ money and bail out the banks. In other words, the money leaves the account of the depositor–you and me–and goes into the account of the bank itself. It is the banks, through the government, stealing from their own depositors. It is stunning, as an economist, to watch it. It’s the opposite of a bank guaranteeing your deposit. It’s a bank looting your deposit in their own bank. It’s an extraordinary study in how extreme this crisis is, that they would have to go to such an extent and risk the blowback that you already see in Cyprus and that is building in other countries as they confront similar measures.

Amy Goodman: And the significance of the second-largest bank being closed?

Richard Wolff: That’s simply an attempt to save private banking. What they’re going to do is move much of that closed bank into the other non-closed bank and have the government absorb the losses that are not transferred, so that you can save private banking by reducing three or four large banks to one fewer by taking the one in the worst condition and basically bailing it out for its mistakes and putting what’s valuable in it into the other private banks. It’s a refusal to confront that private banking, not just in Cyprus, not just in Greece, but across the world, has driven us into a catastrophe of global proportions, and we’re doing everything in our governments to fix this situation without imposing on them, without questioning their failed performance. It’s an amazing study in how to solve a problem by refusing to confront its cause.

Amy Goodman: We’re talking to Professor Richard Wolff, professor emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, now at New School University in New York, has written a number of books. His latest is Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. We’ll go from Cyprus to the economy in Europe and the economy right here in the United States. And what exactly does he mean, “a cure for capitalism”? stay with us.

What the heck is going on in Tennessee?

The Associated Press reported yesterday that several Tennessee state lawmakers were worried that a new floor-level sink in a men’s bathroom at the state capitol was there for Muslims to wash their feet in before prayer.

After talking to the state capitol’s facility administrator, the lawmakers were assured that the sink was in fact for janitors to use to rinse out their mops, and not for Muslims to wash their feet in.

This stunning display of ignorance and intolerance in the Tennessee legislature is just the beginning.

Consider this.

Like a scene straight out of “The Hunger Games,” Tennessee holds “health care lotteries” to ration Medicaid health insurance to the nearly 200,000 uninsured residents of Tennessee who can’t afford health coverage.

Twice a year, Tennessee holds their health care lottery, when Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Haslan and the rest of his Republican colleagues turn the idea of “dialing for dollars” into “dialing for your life”.

Tennesseans who meet various requirements — like falling below a specific income threshold, and being elderly, blind, disabled, or a caretaker of a child who qualifies for Medicaid — can call the lottery line to request an application for the state’s public health insurance program known as TennCare.

But getting the application doesn’t give you coverage — it just lets you play in the state’s healthcare lottery.

So if you live in Tennessee and are low income and want to get into this Medicare program, you can all a state phone line and request an application.

The catch is that the window for getting one of those applications is very tight — the phone lines shut down after just 2,500 calls come in — and with hundreds of thousands of people who may qualify, the demand is so high that it’s nearly impossible to get through in time.

Russell Overby, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in Nashville, speaking about the lottery, told The New York Times that, “we encourage people to use multiple phones and to dial and dial and dial.”

While those remarks sound an awful lot like instructions for winning a radio contest, they’re not.

Instead of calling in to win sports tickets, vacations, or a new car, hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans are frantically calling in to win one of the 2500 slots that will give them the right to survive. The right to life.

The “dial for your life” phone lines opened up last Thursday for the first time in six months, and as usual, the system was flooded with application requests.

Those who were lucky enough to get through now have an application, and, thus, the chance to get the healthcare they need to survive.

But those who got a busy signal or called after the few minutes the system was taking calls are screwed, forced to play a game of “beat the grim reaper,” and hope to be alive six months from now, the next time the lottery window opens up.

And what’s particularly outrageous about this is that it doesn’t have to be this way at all.

Tennesseans don’t have to be playing life or death games with their healthcare coverage, and don’t need to be dialing for their lives twice a year.

As The New York Times notes, if Gov. Bill Haslan was to just accept free Medicare money — something Republican governors don’t like to do because then their citizens discover that Obamacare has something in it for them, those 180,000 Tennesseans who are forced to compete in the healthcare lottery for 2500 slots would simply be added to the TennCare program.

Haslan has yet to say if he will take Obamacare’s Medicaid money, which the Supreme Court ruled states can turn down.

This is likely because he’s still on board with the “repeal Obamacare at all costs” notion that argues that Obamacare is the worst thing in the history of the world, and that our healthcare system is just fine the way it is now.

Crazed Republicans playing politics with healthcare, combined with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, have turned something as vital and basic as healthcare coverage into something being decided in Tennessee by something as insane and twisted as a lottery system. 

We fought the Revolutionary War for the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

It’s time for Republicans to stop denying people the right to life just because they can’t dial the phone fast enough.

Having access to healthcare shouldn’t be based on how fast you can dial the phone or compete with your neighbors.

If you live in Tennessee — or any other state with a Republican governor — tell him to stop playing politics with healthcare for poor and working class people.  

March 26, 2013  |  

Rand Paul’s marathon 13-hour filibuster was not the end of the conversation on drones. Suddenly, drones are everywhere, and so is the backlash. Efforts to counter drones at home and abroad are growing in the courts, at places of worship, outside air force bases, inside the UN, at state legislatures, inside Congress–and having an effect on policy.

1. April marks the national month of uprising against drone warfare. Activists in upstate New York are converging on the Hancock Air National Guard Base where Predator drones are operated. In San Diego, they will take on Predator-maker General Atomics at both its headquarters and the home of the CEO. In D.C., a coalition of national and local organizations are coming together to say no to drones at the White House. And all across the nation–including New York City, New Paltz, Chicago, Tucson and Dayton–activists are planning picket lines, workshops and sit-ins to protest the covert wars. The word has even spread to Islamabad, Pakistan, where activists are planning a vigil to honor victims.

2. There has been an unprecedented surge of activity in cities, counties and state legislatures across the country aimed at regulating domestic surveillance drones. After a raucous city council hearing in Seattle in February, the Mayor agreed to terminate its drones program and return the city’s two drones to the manufacturer. Also in February, the city of Charlottesville, VA passed a 2-year moratorium and other restrictions on drone use, and other local bills are pending in cities from Buffalo to Ft. Wayne. Simultaneously, bills have been proliferating on the state level. In Florida, a pending bill will require the police to get a warrant to use drones in an investigation; a Virginia statewide moratorium on drones passed both houses and awaits the governor’s signature, and similar legislation in pending in at least 13 other state legislatures.

3. Responding to the international outcry against drone warfare, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, is conducting an in-depth investigation of 25 drone attacks and will release his report in the Spring. Meanwhile, on March 15, having returned from a visit to Pakistan to meet drone victims and government officials, Emmerson condemned the U.S. drone program in Pakistan, as “it involves the use of force on the territory of another State without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.”

4. Leaders in the faith-based community broke their silence and began mobilizing against the nomination of John Brennan, with over 100 leaders urging the Senate to reject Brennan. And in an astounding development, The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, issued a scathing statement about Obama’s drone policy, calling it “evil”, “monstrous” and “immoral.” The group’s president, Rev. Anthony Evans, exhorted other black leaders to speak out, saying “If the church does not speak against this immoral policy we will lose our moral voice, our soul, and our right to represent and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

5. In the past four years the Congressional committees that are supposed to exercise oversight over the drones have been mum. Finally, in February and March, the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee held their first public hearings, and the Constitution Subcommittee will hold a hearing on April 16 on the “constitutional and statutory authority for targeted killings, the scope of the battlefield and who can be targeted as a combatant.” Too little, too late, but at least Congress is  feeling some pressure to exercise its authority.

A Strike Debt action regarding medical debt in Union Square, New York City, March 23, 2013. (Photo: The Eyes Of New York)A coalition of groups associated with Occupy Wall Street took to the streets of midtown Manhattan on Thursday evening calling for the abolition of the for-profit health care system in the United States and the creation of a government-run single-payer system. Around 70 protesters marched to four major health insurance companies to list their grievances with each corporation, often by comparing what they see as the wildly disproportionate salaries of CEOs with health costs for regular patients or the company’s average worker’s salary.

The march was part of a larger project that Strike Debt (which formed from the creative churn of Occupy) is implementing over the week to draw attention to medical debt, which the group sees as a national emergency. Strike Debt also announced that its latest round of a project known as the Rolling Jubilee has bought and abolished over $1 million in medical debt.

Activists handed out fliers on the march with statistics on just how damaging medical debt can be to households: “62% of bankruptcies are linked to medical bills” was featured prominently on the flier, as well as on a banner at the front of the march. Also on the handout was perhaps an even more surprising number: “78% of those who declared medical bankruptcy had insurance at the time they became sick.” 

Strike Debt’s mission is to politicize and organize around personal debt, often by arguing that debt is not a moral failing but rather a societal problem that needs to be addressed and resisted collectively. One of the tactics, called Rolling Jubilee, involves buying “debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolish[ing] it.” The group buys debt on the open market the same way a collection agency would, but cancels the debt instead of collecting it. Funding comes from donors who contribute to the group through its website.

The first Rolling Jubilee took place in November of last year and “abolished” more than $100,000 of medical debt. The People’s Bailout, as it was called on Twitter, culminated in a telethon at a New York City music venue and garnered unusually positive press for an Occupy-related action.

The second and latest Rolling Jubilee resulted in an even larger amount of debt abolished: over $1 million, according to a post on the group’s website, for patients in Kentucky and Indiana. “The average debtor owed around $900,” the group wrote, “and we will be abolishing the debt of over 1,000 people.” Strike Debt is in the process of sending out letters to patients whose debt has been bought and abolished, as it did following the first Rolling Jubilee.

One of the most common questions asked of Strike Debt is whether it can buy and cancel specific people’s debt. The answer is no. There are no strings attached for the person whose debt has been bought, though many activists hope that someone on the receiving end of the Rolling Jubilee might throw a few bucks back in the pot — a way of paying it forward, as it were.

Thursday’s action began at Bryant Park around 4 PM with activists opening a dozen shredded umbrellas bearing the insignias of insurance companies, such as Cigna and Aetna. The broken umbrellas represented the activists’ beliefs that even those who have private insurance are often not fully protected by it. 

In contrast, the marchers also opened a dozen intact umbrellas with the words “Medicare for all” — another phrase for single-payer — painted on them.

A physician named David, part of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), addressed the crowd before the march. He railed against the high costs of medical care, lambasting the idea that the solution to the problem is complicated or somehow unknowable. “The answer is single-payer,” he said.

The protesters then marched to the offices of United Healthcare Group, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Cigna, chanting “Health care for people, not for profit” and “Bankrupt and broke, insurance is a joke.” The flier that activists handed out on the march claims that “the combined annual compensation for the CEOs” of those four companies “could buy and abolish almost 2 billion dollars of medical debt using the rolling jubilee model.”

Katie Robbins, also with PNHP, said the “flimsy insurance [that] people get in case they get sick is a contract that gets broken all the time,” referring to the many people in the US who have insurance but nevertheless are forced to pay huge medical bills. She said that her deductible was so high that virtually any medical procedure would leave her thousands of dollars in debt. She also said that, by her calculations, having a baby could put her as much as $10,000 in debt, adding “that’s not a great place to be.”

March 26, 2013  |  

Is same-sex marriage poised to be reborn in California? That’s the impression left after the Supreme Court’s hearing Tuesday, where Justices split along predictable ideological lines and the usual swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, suggested that it was a mistake for the court to take up the California case–let alone produce a history-making ruling.

As a result, given the case’s convoluted history, some astute court watchers are saying the Justices may find a way to back off making any decision. That result would leave in place a lower court ruling that invalidated California’s Prop. 8, the anti-same-sex marriage law. Thus, following that tortuous legal path, in California, gay marriage would resume.

The “way out was directly suggested by Kennedy, and pursued by him in more than a fleeting way: dismiss this case as one that should not have been accepted,” wrote Lyle Denniston of SCOTUS blog, who has covered the Court for more than 50 years. “Should that be the outcome, it would be a huge let-down for political, legal and cultural warriors on both sides of the gay marriage issue, but would have the effect of leaving the issue to be worked out in state legislative halls and at the ballot box, one state at a time, at least for the time being.”

The Prop. 8 case is one of two same-sex marriage cases to come before the Court this week. The second, to be heard Wednesday, concerns whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because same-sex partners of federal employees aren’t treated equally under the law as heterosexual spouses. The California case is seen as raising more fundamental equality issues, because it involves marriage as a state-sanctioned institution, not just how a federal law works.

From the start of Tuesday’s Prop. 8 hearing, it was clear that the religious conservatives opposing same-sex marriage had little new to say. Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for Prop. 8’s backers–which was passed by voters in 2008 and banned gay marriage, only to be overturned by federal district and appeals courts–kept restating his side’s view that same-sex marriage was at odds with his definition of family. Genderless marriage would undermine child rearing, he said, which was an interest the state should protect.

To his credit, Justice Kennedy didn’t buy that predictable argument. He said that “40,000 children” were already being raised by same-sex couples and that they have an interest in their parents’ legal rights. But he also said that it was too soon in the history of same-sex marriage as an institution for the Court to weigh in and make a civil rights decision for the nation.

As Cooper floundered under questioning from the Court’s liberal block, Justice Antonin Scalia had to interrupt to rescue him. Scalia, as he often does, raised an issue that has nothing to do with the case, saying some states ban gay adoptions. Scalia was quickly rebuked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said that wasn’t in the case before the court.

The hearing continued with three liberal justices–Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Ginsburg–challenging Cooper’s contention that the goal of marriage was procreation. Kagan said people older than 55 get married and don’t plan to have children, to which Cooper replied that much older men become fathers. That ‘patriachal’ view prompted groans from the courtroom.

When the defenders of the federal court rulings that overturned Prop. 8 came before the Court, they stuck to the classic civil rights argument: same-sex marriages should not be treated under law as a second-class relationship. Indeed, as the California Supreme Court said in rulings on attacks on same-sex marriage, such subordinated status stigmatizes gays and encourages discrimination.

WASHINGTON – March 26 – On Sunday, March 24 human rights activists throughout the United States began a seven day fast and series of actions in solidarity with the men currently on hunger strike at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dozens of men, according to detainee lawyers, are entering their seventh week of a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention and a new wave of alleged abuses. The U.S. Navy now reports that three hunger strikers have been hospitalized and that ten are being force fed – a practice condemned by human rights organizations and used in efforts to “break” prior hunger strikes at Guantanamo. Attorneys also report that some hunger strikers have lost consciousness and are experiencing severe drops in body weight.

Already, Witness Against Torture (WAT) has demonstrated in locations large and small –from New York City, to Chicago, to Perrysburg, Ohio. At least 80 people nationwide are participating in the fast, with more joining each day. Activists are also writing letters to the detainees and reaching out to the White House, U.S. Southern Command and the Department of Defense with newly urgent calls that the notorious prison close.

In New York City on Sunday, Witness Against Torture created dramatic images in front of the Times Square military recruiting station, juxtaposing the iconic orange clad, black hooded figures with the advertisements for the Navy and Marines.

“It is tragic,” says New York City WAT organizer Jeremy Varon, “that the men at Guantanamo should have to risk death through hunger to protest the denial of their basic rights. The hunger strike signals the colossal failure of the Obama administration, which promised to close Guantanamo, and of Congress, which has placed enormous barriers to ever shuttering the prison. If the hunger strikers start dying, we know where the blame for their deaths lies.”

In Chicago, protestors gathered on Sunday in front of President Obama’s private home, reading the names of all 166 men still held at Guantanamo. Pat Bronte, an attorney for several detainees in Guantanamo, told the protesters how much it means to them to know that Americans are standing with them in their pursuit of justice.

Chicago’s Jerica Arents, a teacher at DePaul University, says, “Participating in the fast serves as a physical reminder to me that there are men languishing in Guantanamo, refusing food because it is the only means they have to protest their indefinite detention.”

“More than four years after President Obama promised to close Guantanamo,” says WAT organizer Frida Berrigan, “the U.S. government is investing tens of millions of new dollars in the prison facility. I can understand why the detained men feel so helpless about ever leaving Guantanamo and being reunited with their families. We have not forgotten them, and continue our struggle to close the prison.”

Actions in New York, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Ohio, and other locations will continue throughout the week and can be viewed at www.witnesstorture.org/events/

166 men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo. 86 have been cleared for release. All are subject to indefinite detention and held at a cost to U.S taxpayers of $800,000 per year per man.

WASHINGTON – March 26 – Citing a legal opinion by the Government Accountability Office, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today called on Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to withdraw his plan to stop Saturday mail delivery.

Sanders said the opinion by the non-partisan GAO unambiguously declared that the Postal Service has no legal authority to end Saturday mail without the approval of Congress. In fact, Congress just last week passed a bill that restated the requirement for the Postal Service to maintain Saturday mail delivery.

Sanders called on the postmaster general to formally withdraw his plan to eliminate Saturday mail beginning on Aug. 1. “I am urging you to make it clear to the American people that the USPS will continue Saturday mail delivery in adherence with the law,” Sanders said in a letter.

The major reason for the Postal Service’s financial woes, Sanders stressed, is a congressional mandate to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. “No other government agency, no other corporation in America is burdened with this mandate,” Sanders said. “This pre-funding mandate is responsible for about 80 percent of the Postal Service’s financial losses since 2007.”

Before this pre-funding mandate was signed into law by President George W. Bush, the Postal Service was making a profit. In fact, from 2003 through 2006, the Postal Service made a combined profit of more than $9 billion. “I look forward to working with you to end this onerous mandate once and for all which would keep the Postal Service healthy and thriving for years to come,” Sanders told the postmaster general.

Sanders also said he looks forward to working with Donahoe to lift legal restrictions that now keep the Postal Service from offering new and innovative products and services. “It is clear to me and to many others that there are significant opportunities for increased revenue for the USPS, if given the opportunity to aggressively compete in the marketplace,” Sanders said.

To read the letter, click here.

Last year, when the state of Illinois attempted to follow New Jersey by making it difficult and more expensive to acquire ammunition, we warned that new government initiatives would be used to try and circumvent the Second Amendment. Rather than targeting firearms directly, lawmakers and government security officials began looking to ammunition as a sure-fire way to disarm Americans.

While it may have been hard to believe then, given the current shortages of ammunition throughout the United States, one can’t ignore the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has been actively pursuing such a strategy.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s huge ammo purchases were an attempt to dry up supplies as part of an end run around the second amendment,” writes Paul Joseph Watson of the 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition purchased by the Department of Homeland Security.

A US-based weapons manufacturer and defense contractor recently confirmed that this is, in fact, part of a broader gun control plan when he shared his insider knowledge with well known talk radio show host Michael Savage:

What Homeland Security is doing here is they’re issuing a contract to buy up to that amount of ammo if they want it…

It’s a way to control the amount of market that’s available on the commercial market at any time.

If they go to the ammo manufacturers and say give me 50 million rounds, give me another 30 million rounds… if they periodically do this in increments, they’re going to control how much ammo is available on the commercial market.

As part of their contract it stipulates in there that when the government calls and says give us another quantity, that everything they make has to go to the government priority one before any of it goes to the commercial market.

So, if  they get nervous, all they have to do is use that contract that they have in place… and they just say ‘give us some more.’

…

In the contracting world it’s called an IDIQ contract… Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity… By issuing these contracts the government gets priority. All they have to do is call up…

Video: Michael Savage interviews weapons manufacturer (via Infowars):

High demand for firearms (and thus ammunition) resulting from threats of a nationwide Congressional gun grab, coupled with tens of millions of rounds ordered every month by non-military domestic security agencies has driven prices for some types of ammunition up over 100% in just the last six months.

But it doesn’t stop there, as the government is also reportedly trying to restrict access in other ways:

In fact, the ATF and the State Department, they’re kind of jerking around with the importation of it too, so they’re making it difficult for it to come in from overseas.

Right now, all the domestic manufacturers are running at full speed. They’re running three shifts, they’re cranking it out as fast as they can.

Supply cannot keep up with demand. 

For the time being, demand is making it difficult to acquire ammunition at a reasonable price, but it is still available if you’re willing to pay for it.

Should DHS and other Federal Agencies continue to pursue this strategy, however, they could very well monopolize all domestically produced ammunition.

With budgets in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the government can easily utilize taxpayer funds to continue purchasing ammunition in an effort to keep it out of the hands of the American people.

And if that doesn’t work, any domestic emergency, temporary or long-term, would give government agencies confiscatory powers over this industry altogether, as authorized by the Doomsday Executive Order recently signed by President Obama.

Perhaps it’s time ammunition manufacturers follow the lead of firearms producers and simply refuse to sell to government agencies.

The Anonymous hacking group has claimed that it hacked into the website of Israel‘s Mossad spy agency, gaining access to top-secret documents.

The Internet hacking group said on its twitter page that it gained access to the personal data of more than 30,000 Israeli officials, including military officials, politicians and Mossad agents, and that it will release the information gradually.

Hacking group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber attacks against Israeli websites since November 2012 in retaliation for Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Anonymous said it had launched the OpIsrael campaign following threats by Tel Aviv to cut all Gaza’s telecommunication links. OpIsrael campaign aims at wipping Israel off the cyber world by April 7.

Shortly after the pro-Palestinian campaign was launched, dozens of Israeli websites were defaced or attacked. Many of the sites had their homepages replaced with messages in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

HM/JR

Spain’s Central Bank says the country will sink deeper into recession with a high unemployment rate as its economy is set to contract again this year.

The Bank of Spain’s annual report published on Tuesday showed that the economy is set to contract again by 1.5 percent this year following a 1.4 percent contraction last year, before starting to recover in 2014.

The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The contraction is attributable to the looming effects of EU austerity measures, which have intensified domestic problems including a rampant unemployment crisis.

The bank predicted that the unemployment rate will hit new record highs of over 27 percent, standing at 26.02 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 – with 5.04 million jobless in February 2013.

The country’s GDP is also expected to shrink by 0.5 percent and weigh in on every aspect of economic activity.

“Private agents remained immersed in a process of deleveraging, families have seen a notable shrinking of income, public accounts continue on their path toward sustainability and residential investment has not yet hit bottom,” said the bank.

According to the report, Madrid will lower the country’s budget deficit to 6 percent of the GDP by the end of 2013, but will likely miss the 2014 target set by the European Commission.

Battered by the global financial downturn, the Spanish economy collapsed into recession in the second half of 2008, taking with it millions of jobs.

The Spanish government has been sharply criticized over its austerity measures that are particularly targeting the middle and working classes.

GMA/JR

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British home secretary Theresa May has announced plan to scrap the beleaguered UK Border Agency and bring it back within the Home Office.

Theresa May made the announcement in her talks to MPs at the House of Commons, adding that she will also split the “closed and secretive” agency into an immigration and visa service and a separate law enforcement command.

The new apparatus will be brought back under the direct control of ministers, she said.

The home secretary said that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) was “a troubled organisation … its performance was not good enough”.

May explained that UKBA had four main problems including its size, its lack of transparency, its IT systems and its policy and legal framework.

“UKBA was given agency status in order to keep its work at an arm’s length from ministers. That was wrong,” said May. “It created a closed, secretive and defensive culture. The new entities will not have agency status and will sit in the Home Office, reporting to ministers.”

She added that the immigration agency has been such a “troubled organisation” for so many years that it will take many more years to clear the backlogs, which now top more than 310,000 cases, and fix the system.

MOL/JR/HE

Iran has criticized the Arab League (AL) for giving Syria’s seat to the foreign-backed opposition, warning that the move will set a “dangerous” precedence in the Arab world.

This hasty decision can turn into a new procedure and be applied to other Arab League member states in the future, Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Tuesday.

“This measure taken by the Arab League will be taken to mean the end of the [Arab] League’s role in the region,” he noted.

The Iranian official also advised Arab leaders to end their silence toward Israel’s aggression and crimes and focus their efforts on supporting the Palestinian people.

In November 2011, the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership, though Damascus is a founding member of the organization.

It consequently called on the opposition National Coalition on March 6 “to form an executive body to take up Syria’s seat” at the AL summit scheduled for Tuesday in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Damascus has censured the decision and condemned the Arab League for giving the country’s “stolen seat to bandits and thugs,” Syrian government daily al-Thawra said in a report published on Monday.

Iraq and Algeria are the only countries that have expressed reservations about the decision, while Lebanon has opposed the move.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of militants are foreign nationals.

Damascus says the West and its regional allies including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are supporting the militants.

MRS/SS

Militants fighting against the Syrian government have fired several mortar rounds into the capital, Damascus, killing a child and injuring several people.

According to Syria’s official news agency SANA, a female student was killed and many others were injured after mortars fired by foreign-backed militants hit two schools in Damascus’ Baramkeh neighborhood on Tuesday.

Militants also fired mortars at a hospital in the area.

Several mortars also landed in Bab Touma, a Christian neighborhood on the east side of Damascus, causing no casualties.

Earlier on Tuesday, at least three people were killed and five others were injured in a mortar attack near the headquarters of SANA in Baramkeh.

Meanwhile, a Britain-based anti-government group has confirmed that the Syrian army has retaken control of Baba Amr neighborhood in the central city of Homs following two weeks of fierce fighting.

Syria has been experiencing unrest for two years and many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed in the turmoil.

Several international human rights organizations have accused the foreign-sponsored militant groups of committing war crimes.

HM/JR/SL

Death toll from Britain’s cold snap has soared by more than 2,500 this year as compared with past years as people struggle to keep their homes warm, according to fresh figures revealed by the British media.

The bitterly cold weather is killing more people in England as millions of pensioners and families lack the financial capability to heat their homes, media reports said.

According to reports, in the week ending March 15, 11,180 deaths were registered – 1,300 more than the average for the past five years – which included 9,500 pensioners. There were 11,245 deaths registered in the previous week, 1,265 more than usual.

The soaring death toll is set to spark fresh anger among the public over rising gas bills as energy companies make bumper profits. The figures also sparked calls for people to check on their elderly or vulnerable neighbours.

“It’s a time when all of us should have heightened awareness about our neighbours’ health and well-being”, said former health secretary Stephen Dorrell.

Michelle Mitchell, charity director general at Age UK, said: “This prolonged cold snap will be taking its toll on many older people, both physically and mentally. It’s crucial that people keep in touch with their older neighbours and relatives to make sure that they are keeping warm and healthy.”

The number of deaths registered in London has risen slightly in the two weeks ending March 15, compared with last year, but is down over the eight-week period.

Economists have warned that the enduring cold snap could push Britain into a triple dip recession.

MOL/JR/HE

Prisoners indefinitely detained at Guantanamo Bay have again been denied direct access to their lawyers. The US Navy has canceled commercial flights to the detention facility, where over 100 captives are reportedly continuing a 49-day-long hunger strike

Inmates’ defense lawyers may have no way to reach Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay prison after the Navy decided to discontinue commercial flights to the military base, allegedly because of an old regulation that had been ‘overlooked.’ The order came shortly after the lawyers sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging him to take action to end the mass protest at Guantanamo.

More prisoners have allegedly joined the hunger strike this week; three were reportedly hospitalized, and 10 are being force-fed.

The inmates’ lawyers have claimed that over 100 prisoners are taking part in the life-threatening hunger strike; according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, 130 inmates are taking part in the mass protest over their treatment and conditions at the prison. Many of them have reportedly lost a substantial amount of weight.

Pardiss Kebriaei an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights who represents a Yemeni Gitmo detainee, told RT there were “serious health repercussions” to the hunger strike, now in its eighth week, such as “loss of hearing, potential blindness.”

“There is potential for death as well if the hunger strike continues for weeks,” the lawyer warned. Her client has allegedly lost 20lbs (9kg) since the beginning of the strike.

The collective protest was reportedly triggered by the prison staff’s seizure of inmates’ personal belongings. The hunger strike began on February 6, with the prisoners protesting against the confiscation of their personal letters, photographs and mail, as well as the allegedly sacrilegious handling of their Korans during searches of their cells.

While US officials have downplayed the hunger strike, the case has drawn severe criticism from the international community. Although half of Guantanamo detainees have received papers from the US government clearing them to be transferred out of the prison, they are still being held at the camp.

“Indefinite detention without charge at Guantanamo and Bagram and unfair military commission trials are a damaging blight on the human rights record of the United States. We urge the US government to bring an end to these illegal practices by either prosecuting these detainees in civilian courts or releasing them,” the UN said in a statement.

Amnesty International has called Guantanamo an “American gulag.”

“Instead of justice for the 9/11 attacks, Guantanamo has brought us torture, indefinite detention, unfair trials and hunger strikes,” Amnesty International’s head of the Security with Human Rights Campaign said.

A few months ago, the US State Department shut down the legal office working to close the prison. The detention camp in eastern Cuba reportedly holds 166 men seized in counterterrorism operations, most of whom have been held without charge for a decade.

Human rights organizations have reported hundreds of suicide attempts, at least seven of which were successful. Last September, a Yemeni detainee took his life after spending more than a decade at Guantanamo. Adnan Latif had been cleared for transfer by both the Bush and Obama administrations, but was never released.

Although Barack Obama pledged to shut down the facility at the beginning of his first term as president, the facility remains open.

Last week, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) requested $49 million to build a new prison building at Guantanamo Bay to give shelter to “special detainees,” as well as to carry out other “necessary” renovations.

The proposed facility was conceived as replacement for Camp 7, which was constructed to hold 14 “high-value” detainees — including the self-described 9/11 attack architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — who had been in CIA custody, but were handed over to the military in 2006.

Sweden’s Language Council for the first time decided to remove a word from its 2012 annual list of new words following pressure from Google, as the US search engine giant feared falling into the trap of becoming a generic trademark.

Google asked for the definition of the new Swedish term ‘ogooglebar,’ — meaning something that you cannot find on the web with the use of a search engine — to be amended to refer only to searches performed using Google’s own service, according to the Council.

The Language Council failed to comply, and decided to remove the word altogether after a prolonged legal debate.

Google’s lawyers “tried to influence our way of defining the word,” Language Council head Ann Cederberg told Sveriges Radio. “It’s not just about our definition of the word; we also tried to describe how users define the word and Google had opinions about that.”

Cedenberg admitted that the debate with Google took “too much time and resources,” and that even though the word was removed from the list, it still exists in Swedish language and nothing can stop people from using it.

“It’s the users of the language who decide if it will remain,” she said. “So if the word exists, use it if you want. That’s something Google can’t decide.”

She also contradicted the claims that Google censored Sweden. Instead, Cedenberg argued that the idea behind the decision to remove the word was to trigger a debate. “We thought it would be useful to start talking about this; we have nothing to lose,” she told TT news agency.

Google has taken up the fight to protect its brand from becoming a generic trademark like Zipper, yo-yo, aspirin, Kleenex, Band-Aid and others, the Verge news website suggested. Companies can lose their brand if consumers start treating the name as an everyday word, and stop associating it with a specific brand.

Earlier in May 2012, Arizona man David Elliott sued to have ‘Google’ be declared a generic word that means “search on the Internet,” and to have Google’s trademark cancelled.

Elliot’s attempt came after a court ruling that forced him to give up more than 750 website names, such as ‘googlegaycruises.com’ and ‘googledonaldtrump.com.’

Scores of Cypriot students have flocked to the presidential palace, chanting slogans and waving banners, following the announcement that banks will not reopen until Thursday. The eurozone bailout has heightened frustration at the government.

“People wake up, they are sucking your blood,” said one sign. “Death to Merkel,” said another.

The country’s youth are also expressing concerns about their future: “‘Troika’ will bring us to the point that we have no future. We cannot find a job,” a Cypriot student told RIA Novosti.

Unrest has widened following the $13-billion bailout deal which has seen the freezing of deposits over €100,000. A withdrawal limit has been imposed on ATMs, and capital controls are in place to prevent the movement of funds.

The eurozone bailout did not alleviate the island nation’s worries. Residents who have not taken to the streets in anger are also feeling the pinch, especially with the central bank remaining closed. Cypriots feel that a line has been crossed, and are worried about cash flow, jobs and savings.

Even the manager of the Bank of Cyprus, Demetris Antoniou, fears for his employment prospects: “For the first time in my life — for 30 years — I worried. And the last week, and especially in the last two days. I worried a lot. It was like… I was going to wake up, and listen to the news that I don’t have a job anymore. And I’m 50. I’m not 20. To start my life and say ‘okay.’”

“It is like they want to push us — the Bank of Cyprus — after a few months, to collapse? I wonder — what is this? It’s not fair,” he added.

The bailout plan has been met with widespread anger, with few residents welcoming the deal.

“They’re very frustrated,” said RT correspondent Tesa Arcilla, who is in Cyprus. “This has really sent a very bad message to people. They’ve lost confidence, they’ve lost trust.”

All Cypriot banks will remain closed until Thursday, despite an announcement late on Monday that they would reopen on Tuesday morning. The move has prompted concern that the country’s financial institutions are even lower on cash than expected.

Laiki Bank will essentially be shut down, resulting in widespread job-losses, which also prompted hundreds to protest over the past few days. Demonstrators at previous rallies wielded signs declaring that they would rather die standing than live in debt: “We won’t [be] Germany’s slaves,” one read.

Capital controls are still in place in Cyprus, meaning that banks are able to impose restrictions on the amount of money citizens are able to take from the ATMs, or how much money they can move around.

“We have no cash. We are just… queueing behind the ATM machines, waiting to get some cash. For how long?” one resident said.

The restrictions are creating an intense atmosphere of uncertainty, and some mild hoarding of cash supplies. “Everybody is trying to hold onto those 5 or 10 euros that they have just in case there’re even lower limits, because right now they can only take about 100 euros,” Arcilla reported.

Some are even feeling nostalgic for the old Cypriot pound. “With the pounds — peace and quiet,” another resident said. “It’s better to go back to the pound.”

The recent events in Cyprus have prompted fears that similar moves could be enforced in other countries, and could be a template for how problems are dealt with in the future.

“If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalize yourself?’ If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalizing the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders,” Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told Reuters.

There is additional concern that Germany may have been trying to make an example of the country, and that a precedent has been set for potential future bailouts.

“If there’s unrest in Cyprus — it’s not Portugal. It’s not Spain, it’s not Greece — it’s not a massive country. So what Germany was actually able to do was to enforce its might on a small country in which any kind of unrest, violence or protest will be relatively contained,” said Financial Advisor Margaret Bogenrief, co-founder of ACM Partners.

“If you’ve been reading the press — they’ve been extremely upset about footing the bills for these other countries, and I think what they were saying was ‘look, just to let you guys know — we can do this,’” she concluded.

The massacre in Syria rages on and yet we stand idle. We must realise that, to millions of Syrians trapped in the country, the virtual absence of humanitarian relief is nearly as arbitrary and cruel as the war itself.Civilians flee from fighting after Syrian army tanks enter the northwestern city of Idlib, Syria. (Photograph: Anonymous/AP)

Bombs, even ballistic missiles, are tearing homes apart and more than 70,000 people have been killed. Weapons, not blankets, are pouring into the country. The BBC asks a child if he misses playing with his friends and he replies, “they are all dead.” God is weeping.

Where are the shelters and the food? More than a million Syrians are leaving the country and their lives behind. Half of them are children.

Across the border, the refugee camps, where help exists, are swelling in size and struggling to cope. Families are opening up their homes to those fleeing the conflict, in wonderful acts of kindness — but this is a huge burden to them. We cannot, and should not, rely on such generosity.

Help must be made available inside the country to all who need it. It is shameful that the few brave organisations who can provide relief must often do so in hiding, or, if not, are severely impeded anyway.

The stories they tell are heartbreaking: water tanks are riddled with bullet holes, neighbourhoods are starved, hospitals are deliberately shelled. These groups ask for nothing more than to aid Syrians on the right scale, in the open and in safety.

What on earth will it take for this to finally happen? For two years, our so-called international community has allowed complex power plays to take priority over the terrible suffering of Syrians. It is so uncaring and cynical. If your loved ones were trapped there, would you not be moved to act? Would you care for politics rather than safety in the face of such carnage?

In the absence of a political solution, there is simply no excuse for the lack of concerted, neutral humanitarian efforts to reach the millions who are suffering everywhere in the country. Surely it is in the interest of anyone who cares for the future of Syria to keep families safe and children unscathed?

As my fellow Elders, Martti Ahtisaari and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, wrote last week, no-one with the power to change the situation, no human being, can in good conscience refuse to heed this call. But we must be making this call a lot louder than we have done so far. It is a moral failure not to do so.

How many more harrowing scenes of exhausted families crossing the border into Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey must we bear witness to? For how long must we hear their tales of grief and devastation before the ambulances are allowed to enter?

Ultimately it falls to the Syrian authorities to give their blessing if the UN is to organise humanitarian access for medicine, food and blankets to reach all parts of Syria. But our efforts to achieve even this, and fulfil our deepest moral obligation to Syrians, have been half-hearted at best.

As Elders we wish our colleague Lakhdar Brahimi strength as he faces an unconscionable situation as the UN-Arab League peace envoy to Syria. We pray he can help reach a breakthrough in the crisis very soon.

But until then we must really knock some heads together. For each second that passes without care for the people trapped in the crossfire, we undermine our own moral standards. We act as if their lives have less value than ours, as if we have written them off already. We abandon our brothers and sisters in their greatest hour of need.

Can 147 people perpetuate economic injustice — and make it even worse? Can they subvert the workings of democracy, both abroad and here in the United States? Can 147 people hijack the global economy, plunder the environment, build a world for themselves that serves the few and deprives the many?

There must be some explanation for last week’s economic madness. Take a look:

Cyprus: The European Union acted destructively — and self-destructively — when it tried to seize a portion of the insured savings accounts of the citizens of Cyprus. They were telling anyone with a savings account in the financially troubled nations of the Eurozone: Forget your guaranteed deposits. If we need your money in order to bail out the big banks — banks which have already gambled recklessly with it — we’ll take it.

That didn’t just create a political firestorm in Cyprus. It threatened the European Union’s banking system, and perhaps the Union itself. The fact that the tax on deposits has been partially retracted doesn’t change the basic question: What were they thinking?

The Grand Bargain: The President and Congressional Republicans reportedly moved closer to a deal that would cut Social Security and Medicare while raising taxes — mostly on the middle class — without doing more to create jobs. A “Grand Bargain” like that would run counter to both public opinion and informed economic judgement.

Who would impose more economy-killing austerity when there’s so much evidence of the harm it does? Why would the White House want to become the face of a deal to cut Social Security, killing its own party’s political prospects for a generation?

There’s more:

Him again: Washington reporters once again sought the opinion of Ex-Wyoming senator Alan Simpson, a vitriolic blowhard with no discernible knowledge of either economics or social insurance, and then wrote up his opinions on those topics in flattering pieces like this one.

Derivatives, the Sequel: Four short years after too-big-to-fail banks nearly destroyed the world economy, as the nation continues to suffer the after-effects of the crisis they created, a Congressional committee moved to undo the already-insufficient safeguards in the Dodd/Frank law.

Within days of a Senate Report which outlined the mendacity, extreme risk, and potentiality criminality surrounding JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” fiasco, the House Agriculture Committee approved new bills that would legalize trades like the “London Whale.”

Above the Law: The Attorney General of the United States remained silent as the controversy continued over his recent admission that banks like Dimon’s were too big to face prosecution. And yet there were no moves to change either Holder’s policy or the size of these institutions. Politico, the Washington insiders’ tip sheet, ran a piece entitled “Why Washington won’t break up the big banks.”

Dimon Unbound: The Senate report also provided evidence that JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, failed to manage his bank’s risk and concealed information about its losses from regulators. We learned last week that regulators lowered their rating of Dimon’s bank after chastising the bank’s leadership for management failures that included inadequate safeguards against money-laundering, poor risk management, and failure to separate the banks’ own investments from those of its customers.

Illegalities during Dimon’s tenure as CEO have cost his shareholders billions in settlements and fines. Poor risk management (and additional potential illegalities) cost it another $6.2 billion in Whale-related losses. And yet last week Dimon’s own Board “strongly endorsed” his dual role as CEO and Board Chair, an unusual concentration of power at what is (by some measurements) the world’s largest bank, and commended itself in a proxy filing for the “strength and independence” of its oversight, adding: “The Firm has had strong performance through the cycle since Mr. Dimon became Chairman and CEO.”

All this, in just seven days. Has the world gone insane? What is everybody thinking?

That’s where the number “147″ comes in.

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar tried to find out how many people the typical person “really knows.” He compared primate brains to social groups and published his findings in papers with titles like “Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates.”

Dunbar concluded that the optimum number for a network of human acquaintances was 147.5, a figure which was then rounded up to 150 and became known as “Dunbar’s Number.” He found groups of 150-200 in all sorts of places: Hutterite settlements. Roman army units. Academic sub-specialties. Dunbar concluded that “there is a cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.”

Around 150 or 200 people form a human being’s social universe. They shape his or her world view, his or her world.

That means that 147 people can change the course of history. Not necessarily the same 147 people, of course. But the small social groups which surround our world’s leaders have extraordinary power.

Economist Simon Johnson mentioned Dunbar’s Number last week in a column about incoming Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and the new SEC chair, Mary Jo White. “The issue is not so much their track record,” Johnson wrote, “because neither has worked directly on financial-sector policy issues; it is much more about whom they know.”

“If most financial experts you know work at, for example, Citigroup,” added Johnson, “then you are more likely to see the financial world through their eyes.”

Lew is a former Citigroup executive. That mismanaged megabank is also the former corporate home of ex-Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and the current home of Peter Orszag, formerly President Obama’s OMB Director. For her part, White went from prosecuting criminals to defending Wall Street bankers. That was also Attorney General Eric Holder’s profession before he was appointed to his current position.

These are the people who surround our President, our Senators, our Representatives. They talk to them every day. They say, This is how the world works. They say, Everybody knows these things.

Their European counterparts saw the effects of austerity on the economies of their Union: Unemployment up. Gross domestic product down. Even the deficits, which austerity was meant to reduce, have been rising as the result of these unwise cuts.

But, they say, we know Angela Merkel. We know George Osborne and Christine Lagarde. We trust their judgement. How did the predictably disastrous plan to tax guaranteed savings accounts in Cyprus get approved? It’s not hard to imagine: “Everybody we know” thought it was a great idea.

That’s how it works here in the US, too. Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin were spectacularly wrong about everything: deregulation, the housing bubble, government spending, everything. But we know them.

Nobel Prize-winning economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz keep explaining why more stimulus spending is needed. But we don’t know them — not the way we know Larry, Alan, and Bob. Same for Simon Johnson, or William K. Black Jr., or Robert Johnson, or any of the other economists we don’t know very well.

And when we don’t know someone very well, their criticisms make us uncomfortable.

Bill Clinton’s “Third Way” triangulation led to welfare “reform” that’s proven disastrous. His Wall Street deregulation ruined the economy, and his brand of old-fashioned pseudo-centrism is out of touch with today’s political and economic realities. But we know him.

Bill Clinton doesn’t make us uncomfortable at all.

Investigate Jamie Dimon, or Lloyd Blankfein, or Robert Rubin? But they were our clients, and will be again once we leave government. Investigate them? We know them.

Dimon’s Board of Directors is a case study in Dunbar’s Number. It includes Honeywell CEO David Cote, who was a member of the Simpson Bowles Commission. There’s a retired senior executive with another big defense contractor, Boeing. Together with Dimon, that makes three CEOs who earn their money from government largesse.

The CEO of Comcast is on Dimon’s Board, too. (The media’s leaders are always among the 147.) One seat belongs to the head of one of the accounting groups that overlooked massive bank fraud when signing off on their annual statements. Another belongs to the former CEO of Exxon Mobil.

The “147″ run companies. They also hold fundraisers for politicians — in both parties.

When Senator Obama became President Obama, during the gravest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, one of his first acts was to create a “Deficit Commission” instead of a “Jobs Commission.” Why? Because “147 people” thought that was the right priority. Then he appointed the dyspeptic, unlikable, and uninformed Sen. Simpson to co-chair it.

You see, the “147 people” in Washington’s political and media circles like Alan Simpson. To them he’s not an embarrassment to his President, a paid pitchman for billionaire Pete Peterson’s anti-Social Security jihad. (We know Pete!) To them Simpson’s not an ill-informed and misogynistic bully who taunts women with comments about “310 million tits.” To them he’s Al. They know him. They say he’s a lot of fun when you get to know him.

They really say that.

Then there are the news anchors and journalists who say things like this: Everybody knows that we need to cut Social Security. Everybody knows the deficit is our most urgent problem.

Everybody knew that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, too.

Everybody understands that the right-wing, anti-government Simpson Bowles plan represents the “political center,” although it’s far to the right of public opinion — even of Republican or Tea Party voters’ opinion — on issues that range from job creation to increasing Social Security benefits.

You can’t fit millions of frustrated voters into a social group of 147 people.

When Teddy Roosevelt became President, J.P. Morgan (the person, not the bank) suggested he “send your man to my man and they can fix it up.” He was shocked that the new President chose instead to operate outside the Circle in order to create real change. And when Franklin D. Roosevelt became President he brought in new faces, new voices, new ideas. He broke the social circle that had paralyzed government and the economy.

But the circle of right-wing Republicans and corporatist Clintonite Democrats is still intact. That means Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders will keep on promoting the right-wing agenda known as Simpson Bowles until their party loses all its political power at the polls.

It also means that Republican extremism will still be reported with straight-faced gravity.Congressional committees will keep deregulating big banks, the Justice Department will avoid prosecuting them, and their Boards of Directors will keep rewarding their executives. They’ll all keep doing exactly what they’re doing — until the economy blows up again, perhaps with far worse consequences than the last time.

And when the next crisis comes, “147 people” will react to it exactly the same way they reacted to the last one. You can almost hear them now, can’t you? You can’t blame us, they’ll say. Nobody could’ve seen this coming. How do we know that?

Because we asked everybody we know.

© 2013 Campaign for America’s Future

Richard (RJ) Eskow is a well-known blogger and writer, a former Wall Street executive, an experienced consultant, and a former musician. He has experience in health insurance and economics, occupational health, benefits, risk management, finance, and information technology. Richard has consulting experience in the US and over 20 countries.

Thunderstorms may have been looming, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of what was reported to have been hundreds of Arkansas reproductive rights supporters who gathered at the state capitol in Little Rock on Saturday to oppose new unconstitutional abortion restrictions coming out of the state legislature this year. Speakers from the legislature and the local American Civil Liberties Union took to the capitol steps to address a crowd of determined activists angry that their state has become a testing ground for bills meant only to provoke court cases that could overturn Roe v. Wade.Arkansas may be on the verge of having some of the most restrictive reproductive health laws in the country, but the activists fighting those laws are just getting started. (Photo: kaybrockwell/photobucket)

“I asked if we might cancel because of weather,” Arkansas ACLU Executive Director Rita Sklar told RH Reality Check. “They told me people were buying umbrellas for people to write on in waterproof paint and they’d bring signs wrapped in saran wrap. This was an unstoppable crowd.”

Sklar was one of multiple speakers to address the crowd of eager activists, some oh whom came from several hours away, despite the bitter cold and impending rain. Brought together by a shared anger at the overreaching state legislature, the crowd was organized through social media, allowing them to keep up to date on the legislative processes as well as the eventual grassroots efforts to combat them. The group was eager to fight, the participants cheered so loudly when Sklar announced the ACLU’s intention to sue the state over its unconstitutional abortion bans that she had to wait for it to quiet down before she could continue her speech.

Many Arkansas media outlets continue to focus on individuals who support the extreme bills that have been passed this session, even in articles about pro-choice rallies. In one article, from ArkansasMatters.com, an abortion opponent concisely summed up what reproductive rights activists in the state are up against: a legislature in which women are seen as less important than their fetuses. “It’s really not about a woman’s choice to do what she wants with her body. We’re concerned about the baby in her body,” 40 Days for Life supporter Mary Pate told the outlet.

Those are the beliefs that Saturday’s rally attendees are fighting against. “Saturday is not just a flash in the pan, but rather the beginning of showing up in all our numbers to guard our civil liberties,” event organizer Claudia Reynolds-LeBlanc told RH Reality Check recently. “We are law-abiding people, and we intend to hold our legislators to that same standard. Right now our legislature is passing unconstitutional bills one after the other, with blatant disdain for the rights not only of women, but of all the people of Arkansas. People came from all over Arkansas, driving hours in thunderstorms and standing in chilling mist and rain to voice their disdain for these violations of human rights.”

The rally may be done, but for the activists it was a launching pad to winning back their rights. “Our numbers have grown since Saturday in our activism groups, and [our] plans are continuing to keep pressure on this legislature and to overthrow this tyranny with the power of the people,” said Reynolds-LeBlanc. “We are only the beginning of a massive movement seeking freedom. If I were one of those multitudes of legislators that participated in driving this vehicle against the women, children, poor, and seniors of this state, I would get off the road before the 2014 primary elections begin …. We will be fielding candidates that will legislate justice and equality for all Arkansans. This was only one day in the battle, in solidarity, and we will win the war.”

Sklar agreed. “The fact that we have a majority of legislators who support these bills has really woken these people up,” she said. “People have been woken from their complacency in thinking the battle for reproductive freedom was won. They have been galvanized by this backward legislation. There are a majority of Arkansans who believe women should decide these issues for themselves. It’s getting them together and getting them organized that needs to be our focus,” she said.

“People are not going to forget,” Sklar added. “They know how bad this makes the state look. They know what people are saying. They don’t agree with these extreme legislators, and they are not going to give up. They’ve been mobilized.”

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© 2013 RH Reality Check

Robin Marty is Senior Political Reporter for RH Reality Check

What is the purpose of the economy?

When you get down to it, this is the question of our time.

How we answer it determines whether we will be able to sustain civilization as we know it beyond the mid-century.

Yet most of economics concerns itself with what an economy does, not what its goal is or ought to be. For example, much of economic policy can be summed up in the words of Harvard economist, Dani Rodrick, who distilled economic development down to the a three word mantra, “stabilize, privatize and liberalize.”

To what end? That question isn’t even considered. The implicit assumptions, of course, are maximizing economic growth and creating more wealth. 

These two unexamined assumptions are the twin horsemen of the new apocalypse.

People generally have a sense of what is meant by growth, but the concept of what constitutes wealth is a bit more elusive. Most definitions offered by economists can be represented by a statement like this: those material things which are produced by labor, can satisfy human wants, and must have an exchange value. Note that money — or currency — is not wealth in this definition. But, the exchange value we use to measure wealth is money.

Whether that growth is distributed fairly and whether it exceeds the capacity of the environment to sustain, is either assumed away by the Invisible Hand, or dismissed disdainfully by economists as the province of philosophers and other soft academics in squishy social disciplines.

In fact, many economists–schooled by the most popular text in the discipline, Paul Samuelson’s Economics, or one of its many newer incarnations–take pride in saying that their discipline is non-normative–that is, amoral. Not immoral, but operating outside the context of values, ethics and morality. 

Moreover, because the discipline is intent on being a quantitative science, economics as a field discarded the essence of what an economy should be about in exchange for the ability to “hide in thickets of algebra” as Joan Robinson put it. A classic example of Whitehead’s Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, in which the abstract ideal is treated as the tangible reality.

For the last 50 years we’ve been steering our national economy, as well as international economic policy, by this amoral, future blind, compass. No other discipline dominates political theory and practice as much as economics. 

Which goes a long way toward explaining exactly why our economy is so unjust and our ecosystem is in imminent danger of collapsing.

Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz captured this failure when he said:

We always want to keep in mind what the function, the purpose, of the economy is. […] the purpose of an economy is not producing GDP. It is increasing the welfare of citizens, and it is increasing the welfare of most citizens. And the American economic system has failed, and failed very badly.  

Let’s examine the two assumptions: 1) the purpose of an economy is to create more wealth and 2) wealth is measured by currency.

As Robert Costanza pointed out, the annual value of just 17 ecosystem services  (PDF) exceeds the value of the entire human economy, yet that value is treated as an externality — that is, these services are not even priced in the market. So our definition of “wealth” leaves out debts that exceed the entire income stream from the human economy.

And Costanza’s work was done before we had a good understanding the extent of climate change and the enormous costs it imposes upon us.

So in essence, we are liquidating the real basis of wealth, natural capital, and counting it as wealth creation. So much for wealth.

Now, let’s look at currency. As Chris Martenson puts it, money is not wealth, it is merely a claim on wealth. But it can grow indefinitely while the world is finite. So we end up with a claim on wealth that far exceeds any available wealth. Which is debt. 

If the function of an economy is merely wealth creation, then we need to redefine wealth, or it is self-terminating. Oh, and it will take us along for the ride. 

We can see the bow wave of this destruction with climate change, ocean acidity, accumulated toxins, depleted resources. 

The real purpose of an economy has to be something much different that what we use to formulate policy. Joseph Stiglitz’ purpose–increasing the welfare of most citizens–had it half right. A billboard spotted in Johannesburg, South Africa during the World Summit on Sustainable Development probably made as good a statement on the appropriate goal of the economy as any: “Enough for everyone, forever.”

An economy designed around this goal would look completely different than today’s “Everything for a few, right now,” economy does.

It would steward ecosystem services and resources using taxes, subsidies, tariffs, and property rights. The idea of distributional equity would not be a blasphemy, but a pragmatic response to the natural tendency of capital to get concentrated in the hands of the few, and a recognition that a market economy can’t function without generalized prosperity.

Co-ops and employee-owned companies would be the most common ownership model; CEOs wouldn’t get 800 times the minimum wage. There’d be no Bill Gates making some $218,000 and hour. Fossil fuels would be heavily taxed, and the revenue they generated would help fund a low cost transition to a carbon-free economy.

The daily business report would feature an index based on environmental health and resource stocks, not the Dow Jones Index of paper stocks.

But we’re not likely to see such an economy. Both major parties are busy trying to maximize paper currency at the expense of natural capital–the source of real wealth.

John Atcheson is author of the novel, A Being Darkly Wise, an eco-thriller and Book One of a Trilogy centered on global warming. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Jose Mercury News and other major newspapers. Atcheson’s book reviews are featured on Climateprogess.org.

We’re still legislating and regulating private morality, while at the same time ignoring the much larger crisis of public morality in America.(Cartoon: RobertReich.org)

In recent weeks Republican state legislators have decided to thwart the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in “Roe v. Wade,” which gave women the right to have an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy.

Legislators in North Dakota passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks or after a fetal heart beat had been detected, and approved a fall referendum that would ban all abortions by defining human life as beginning with conception. Lawmakers in Arkansas have banned abortions within twelve weeks of conception.

The morality brigade worries about fetuses, but not what happens to children after they’re born. They and other conservatives have been cutting funding for child nutrition, healthcare for infants and their mothers, and schools.

The new House Republican budget gets a big chunk of its savings from programs designed to help poor kids. The budget sequester already in effect takes aim at programs like Head Start, designed to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children.   

Meanwhile, the morality brigade continues to battle same-sex marriage.

Despite the Supreme Court’s willingness to consider the constitutionality of California’s ban, no one should assume a majority of the justices will strike it down. The Court could just as easily decide the issue is up to the states, or strike down California’s law while allowing other states to continue their bans.

Conservative moralists don’t want women to have control over their bodies or same-sex couples to marry, but they don’t give a hoot about billionaires taking over our democracy for personal gain or big bankers taking over our economy.

Yet these violations of public morality are far more dangerous to our society because they undermine the public trust that’s essential to both our democracy and economy.

Three years ago, at the behest of a right-wing group called “Citizen’s United,” the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in politics by deciding corporations were “people” under the First Amendment.

A record $12 billion was spent on election campaigns in 2012, affecting all levels of government. Much of it came from billionaires like the Koch brothers and casino-magnate Sheldon Adelson –seeking fewer regulations, lower taxes, and weaker trade unions.

They didn’t entirely succeed but the billionaires established a beachhead for the midterm elections of 2014 and beyond.

Yet where is the morality brigade when it comes to these moves to take over our democracy?

Among the worst violators of public morality have been executives and traders on Wall Street.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, was found to have misled its shareholders and the public about its $6 billion “London Whale” losses in 2012.  

This is the same JPMorgan that’s lead the charge against the Dodd-Frank Act, designed to protect the public from another Wall Street meltdown and taxpayer-funded bailout.

Lobbyists for the giant banks have been systematically taking the teeth out of Dodd-Frank, leaving nothing but the gums.

The so-called “Volcker Rule,” intended to prevent the banks from making risky bets with federally-insured commercial deposits — itself a watered-down version of the old Glass-Steagall Act — still hasn’t seen the light of day.

Last week, Republicans and Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee passed bills to weaken Dodd-Frank — expanding exemptions and allowing banks that do their derivative trading in other countries (i.e., JPMorgan) to avoid the new rules altogether.

Meanwhile, House Republicans voted to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act in its entirety, as part of their budget plan.

And still no major Wall Street executives have been held accountable for the wild betting that led to the near meltdown in 2008. Attorney General Eric Holder says the big banks are too big to prosecute.

Why doesn’t the morality brigade complain about the rampant greed on the Street that’s already brought the economy to its knees, wiping out the savings of millions of Americans and subjecting countless others to joblessness and insecurity – and seems set on doing it again?

What people do in their bedrooms shouldn’t be the public’s business. Women should have rights over their own bodies. Same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

But what powerful people do in their boardrooms is the public’s business. Our democracy needs to be protected from the depredations of big money. Our economy needs to be guarded against the excesses of too-big-to-fail banks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.

Social media crazes in the Israeli military have seen a number of soldiers behaving in ways “unbecoming of the spirit of the IDF” — videos of soldiers dancing to Internet fads like the Harlem Shake could damage the IDF’s image, officials said.

It is believed that viral videos run against the government’s attempts to use social media as an effective propaganda tool. Although the IDF boasts its own official Facebook page and Twitter feed, there are fears that ‘unauthorized’ materials could harm the image of the military where most young Israeli men and women aged 18 to 21 are required to serve.

“Just as the government uses social media for explaining, for campaigning, for propaganda or for spinning, it also has to deal with private soldiers using new media. Every soldier is a broadcast station,” Israel’s Center for the Protection of Democracy Executive Director Yizhar Be’er told RT.

Israeli military commanders have been recently told to prevent soldiers from uploading material “not appropriate” to the IDF’s “spirit.”

“It’s the problem of free speech… I don’t see how you can control it,” said Dr. Yuval Dror, head of digital media studies at the Middle East college of management-academic studies.

The punishment for such behavior “unbecoming of the spirit of the IDF” can be strict. Earlier this year, two soldiers were sent to military prison for several weeks for posting a clip of their artillery battalion performing a version of the Harlem Shake.

“Under the military code of justice, there is an offense… I think it is sergeant and above… which says in effect any conduct which is unbecoming an IDF soldier would therefore potentially at least expose you to criminal liability. Could actually find yourself in jail if you made an offense under that,” former IDF legal advisor David Benjamin told RT.

IDF officials were also incensed when a group of soldiers turned their patrol in Hebron into a dance number: A video titled ‘Battalion 50 Rock the Hebron Casbah’ featured six armed soldiers in bulletproof vests who start a Macarena-like dance after a Muslim call to prayer is heard.

“You have to remember that soldiers are 18-year-old kids,” Gil Yogev, who was once an officer with the paratroopers’ unit, told RT. Yogev said he would brief his soldiers regularly about what they could and could not post online, but many were careless or childishly unaware of the impact such material could have.

“It is not misuse of power, for them it is just fun,” Yogev added.  

“I don’t think that the dancing is abusing power, I do think that putting your sniper aim on an innocent person is an abuse of power and I think that this is the distinction that the army should make,” Yuval Dror said.

“You have to remember that soldiers are 18-year-old kids,” Gil Yogev, who was once an officer with the paratroopers’ unit, told RT. Yogev said he would brief his soldiers regularly about what they could and could not post online, but many were careless or childishly unaware of the impact such material could have.

“It is not misuse of power, for them it is just fun,” Yogev added.  

“I don’t think that the dancing is abusing power, I do think that putting your sniper aim on an innocent person is an abuse of power and I think that this is the distinction that the army should make,” Yuval Dror said.

Sacha Dratwa, the head of the IDF’s social media unit, sparked controversy when he uploaded a Facebook photo with dark mud from the Dead Sea smeared on his face, and a caption reading “Obama style.” The picture provoked mixed reactions, with some accusing the 26-year-old of racism. Dratwa claimed he had been misinterpreted.

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Kill the Child, Spare the Lamb

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Posted on Mar 25, 2013

AP/Baz Ratner

Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather around a fire as they burn leavened items in a final preparation before the Passover holiday in Jerusalem.

By Robert Scheer

Sorry to be such a nudge, but as I write this before heading off to yet another in a long lifetime of Passover Seders, I still can’t get my head wrapped around this business of the plagues. Particularly that tenth plague, the one that gave the Passover holiday its name when: “On that night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn–both men and animals–and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.”

Talk about collective guilt. According to Exodus, as summarized on bible.org, “The weeping and the wailing was not like anything ever heard in the land before.” And that’s without throwing in the disease of livestock, hail and thunder, locusts, lice, frogs, flies, water that turned to blood killing all fish and that old standby: incurable boils. To be fair, according to the revealed truth of Wikipedia, everyone in Egypt, Israelites included, got the lice, frogs and bloody water treatment, and there is a question of just how far the locust exposure extended. Wikipedia also questions whether it was God who did the smiting or the “Angel of Death,” as some think. More research would help here, but I am already late for dinner, and no one there will be interested in my dreary take on the occasion of our freedom feast. They certainly don’t need to be bummed out by the tale of the battle between Moses and the Pharaoh’s sorcerers over who could most expeditiously make the Nile stink from the odor of dead fish.

I know this is a sensitive subject, but, since even the youngest among us are supposed to raise questions at the Seder, doesn’t that vengeance from on high seem excessive? After all, the non-Israelites didn’t get to vote for the Pharaoh or otherwise offer their consent for his choice of false gods to worship, so why are innocent children being treated as collateral damage to make a fanatical religious point? Of course this is not an awkward issue for Jews alone, because the passages in Exodus extolling the slaughter of non-combatant Egyptians represents sacred scripture to Christians and Muslims as well. Maybe we should drop the subject and just eat.

I wouldn’t be bringing it up–I know that any hint of barbarism in the Judeo-Christian heritage is considered heresy in even the most enlightened circles–but it was the article in the New York Times on the Vegan Seder that got me going. That and another one in the Wall Street Journal about spicing up the Passover feast “by throwing toy frogs at one another and having bugs, lice and other fake creatures on the Seder table.” One enthusiast for the ritual intends to use a live frog. Innocent enough, I suppose, except for the report that, “In one household, a son falls to the ground to mark the Death of the First born.”

One would think that this marking of the Death of the Firstborn would pose a particular problem to participants in the vegan Seder, since humans are presumably part of the animal family and therefore unfit candidates for ritualistic sacrifice. The Times treated this issue of vegan abhorrence to animal sacrifice as a culinary rather than a moral challenge to the observance of Passover. “Holidays are often a challenge for vegans, who eschew all animal foods,” the Times observed, “But the holidays present more obstacles to vegan eaters. In addition, some animal foods, like eggs and lamb, take center stage, forcing vegan Jews to chose between powerful religious traditions and their own values about the food they consume.”

The conflict between the powerful religious tradition of God’s wrath against animals, human and otherwise, and deeply felt personal food values was handled by Mayim Bialik, an actress in “The Big Bang Theory,” by, among other clever innovations, substituting a roasted red beet for the traditional lamb’s bone. “For her,” the Times noted, “the beet is a good stand-in, its ‘bloody’ appearance symbolizing the blood the Israelites used to mark their doors to ward off the last of the ten plagues, death of the first born, from their homes.”

The marking of the homes part is clear enough, for how else would an omniscient god know where the Israelites live? But if one is an observant vegan, isn’t it troubling that a first born animal, say the offspring of a pet cat, let alone a human child, is to be sacrificed while the life of the lamb is saved?

Hopefully some youngest child, at a Seder somewhere tonight, will have the chutzpah to ask such a question.

Click here to check out Robert Scheer’s new book, “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.” Keep up with Robert Scheer’s latest columns, interviews, tour dates and more at www.truthdig.com/robert_scheer.

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Level of Income Growth for Most Americans Over Last 4 Decades Is Shockingly Low

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Posted on Mar 25, 2013

Flickr/401(K) 2013

If this viral video on wealth inequality in the U.S. wasn’t enough to convince you that something is very wrong with our economic system, then perhaps a new analysis of data that shows the disparity between income gains of the top 10 percent of taxpayers versus those of everyone else will.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who got his figures from an analysis of the latest IRS data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, income grew a jaw-dropping $59 on average for the bottom 90 percent of Americans between 1966 and 2011 (adjusting the income for inflation, of course). Income for the top 10 percent, on the other hand, rose from an average of $116,071 to $254,864.

To put that in perspective, Johnston says that if you were to plot the numbers on a chart, with $59 representing 1 inch, the line for the top 10 percent would go up more than 163 feet. If you compared the vast majority’s income growth with that of the top 1 percent, the line on the chart would extend 884 feet. And if you measured it against the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, well … that would require a really, really big chart, as the line would be nearly 5 miles long.

David Cay Johnston at Tax Analysts:

Those at the top are pulling away from everyone else not because of hard work, but the shift of income from labor to capital and changes in federal income, gift, and estate tax rules.

The median wage has been stuck since 1999 at a bit more than $500 per week in real terms and job growth has lagged far beyond population growth. But capital gains and dividends have soared, a new Congressional Research Service study shows. And, of course, the rich get most of that income.

…The Saez-Piketty analysis shows the concentration of growth at the very top increasing. That is bad for tax revenue and bad for social stability. The drop in incomes among the vast majority holds back economic growth, because there is just not enough aggregate demand to support creating enough new jobs to keep up with population growth.

And who was hit hardest by the new federal taxes that took effect this year? The vast majority.

Read more

(h/t Think Progress)

–Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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Senators Slam ‘Offensive’ NRA Move, Marriage Equality Endorsements Pile Up, and More

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Posted on Mar 25, 2013

Hitting Back at the NRA: Two Democratic senators are demanding that the National Rifle Association “immediately stop” making robocalls promoting its agenda to residents of Newtown, Conn., the site of last year’s deadly elementary school shooting. In a letter to the NRA, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both from Connecticut, blasted the powerful gun lobby for its “inappropriate” and “incredibly insensitive” actions while accusing the organization of hitting a new low. The senators added that it was “just another example in a long line of offensive steps your organization has taken in the wake of this tragic shooting.” Blumenthal and Murphy also urged the organization’s CEO Wayne LaPierre to “put yourself in the shoes of a victim’s family member who gets a call at dinnertime asking them to support more assault weapons in our schools and on our streets.” (Read more)

McCaskill Backs Gay Marriage: As the Supreme Court is about to hear a pair of landmark cases on gay marriage, Missouri Sen. (and former Todd “legitimate rape” Akin opponent) Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, is finally endorsing marriage equality. “While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry,” she wrote on her Tumblr. McCaskill tweeted the link to the post with a Bible verse from I Corinthians 13: “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (Read more)

Warner Does Too: Another Democratic senator, Mark Warner of Virginia, also vocalized his support for same-sex marriage. Like McCaskill, Warner made the announcement via social media, but instead of Tumblr he chose Facebook. “I support marriage equality because it is the fair and right thing to do,” Warner, who is up for re-election in 2014, wrote. “Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone.” McCaskill’s and Warner’s announcements are the latest in a series of political endorsements encouraging the legalization of same-sex marriage. (Read more)

Clinton’s Endorsement: Former President Bill Clinton is weighing in on the upcoming Los Angeles mayoral election, endorsing City Controller Wendy Greuel over City Councilman Eric Garcetti. Greuel worked in the Clinton administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and was an active supporter of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “In her many years of public service in Los Angeles … Wendy has personified good, honest and effective government, improving the lives of countless Angelenos while saving millions of their tax dollars,” Bill Clinton wrote in a letter. (Read more)

Going for the Gold: Can left-leaning MSNBC supplant right-leaning Fox News as the top cable news channel by the end of next year? Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, tells New Republic writer Rebecca Dana that he’s optimistic about that prospect. As Dana noted, MSNBC is more successful now than it’s ever been, pulling in more than 1.5 million viewers in its weekday prime-time lineup around the election. “It’s a cockiness that has funneled down,” Dana wrote. “In a recent staff meeting, one of Griffin’s producers coined a new term for Fox News: ‘Loserville.’ ” (Read more)

Pro Pot: Two brothers from California want to legalize marijuana and they’re creating a super PAC–the first of its kind–to make it happen. Legalize Marijuana Super PAC.com was founded “to deal with legal troubles concerning probationary issues with medical and recreational marijuana use,” The Hill reports. The men also oppose law enforcement efforts in Oregon to crack down on Marinol, an FDA approved synthetic alternative to marijuana. “What we’re trying to do is not only [raise awareness], but take in contributions and donations to help vocalize our situation,” Mark Rogers, the organization’s president, said. (Read more)

–Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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Amazon Sells Sex Toys as Wellness Products

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Posted on Mar 25, 2013

Amazon and other companies have rebranded once taboo sex paraphernalia, thus starting another sexual revolution; public libraries aren’t free, per se, but they’re an absolutely important investment; meanwhile, is the fact that college athletic directors get paid more than $1 million a year justifiable? These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

Amazon Sells 60,000 Sex Toys and Related Products? Welcome to Sex 4.0
When was the last time you used a sex toy?

How We Got to the Supreme Court
Twenty years ago this July, Michelangelo Signorile went to Hawaii to cover the lawsuit that launched the first salvo in the current war over marriage equality, ultimately leading to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Proposition 8 and, this week, arguments before the Supreme Court: Several gay and lesbian couples took the then-extraordinary step of suing the state of Hawaii, claiming gender discrimination because they were denied marriage licenses.

Winning and Whining, or How to Get Your Just Desserts in America
The phrase “American Exceptionalism” has a long, convoluted, and too often tortured track record.

Obama Ignores the Ugly, Brutal Reality of Occupation and Colonization on His Israel Trip
Round after round of tear gas was shot by a group of Israeli soldiers on a hill overlooking a protest of about 100 Palestinians in support of a hunger striking prisoner.

There Are No Free Libraries
Over the past few months, an image has been making its way around social media to underscore the value of libraries.

Religion Without God
The familiar stark divide between people of religion and without religion is too crude.

Why is Science So Obsessed with Beauty?
Scientists have been musing about beauty, order and natural symmetry since Pythagoras.

Science-fiction Turns Real: Genetically Engineering Animals for War
Scientific advances have us on the verge of being able to control and manipulate animals. Should we use that power?

Mistakes, Excuses, and Painful Lessons from the Iraq War
Ezra Klein has admitted he made a mistake in supporting the Iraq War. And he’s sorry.

The ‘Canonical’ Image of a Drone Is a Rendering Dressed Up in Photoshop
The media of the drone war is not like the media of World War II or Vietnam.

Introducing Brics From Above, And Brics-From-Below
In Durban, South Africa, five heads of state meet on March 26-27 2013 at the International Convention Centre, to assure the rest of Africa that their countries’ corporations are better investors in infrastructure, mining, oil and agriculture than the traditional European and US multinationals.

College Athletic Directors–Why is the Pay So High?
We’ve just learned that nine athletic directors of major college-sports programs make more than $1 million annually, with an average salary of about $515,000.

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The Morality Brigade

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Posted on Mar 25, 2013

Flickr/Erix!

By Robert Reich

This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s Web page.

We’re still legislating and regulating private morality, while at the same time ignoring the much larger crisis of public morality in America.

In recent weeks Republican state legislators have decided to thwart the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in “Roe v. Wade,” which gave women the right to have an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy.

Legislators in North Dakota passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks or after a fetal heart beat had been detected, and approved a fall referendum that would ban all abortions by defining human life as beginning with conception. Lawmakers in Arkansas have banned abortions within twelve weeks of conception.

The morality brigade worries about fetuses, but not what happens to children after they’re born. They and other conservatives have been cutting funding for child nutrition, healthcare for infants and their mothers, and schools.

The new House Republican budget gets a big chunk of its savings from programs designed to help poor kids. The budget sequester already in effect takes aim at programs like Head Start, designed to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children. 

Meanwhile, the morality brigade continues to battle same-sex marriage.

Despite the Supreme Court’s willingness to consider the constitutionality of California’s ban, no one should assume a majority of the justices will strike it down. The Court could just as easily decide the issue is up to the states, or strike down California’s law while allowing other states to continue their bans.

Conservative moralists don’t want women to have control over their bodies or same-sex couples to marry, but they don’t give a hoot about billionaires taking over our democracy for personal gain or big bankers taking over our economy.

Yet these violations of public morality are far more dangerous to our society because they undermine the public trust that’s essential to both our democracy and economy.

Three years ago, at the behest of a right-wing group called “Citizen’s United,” the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in politics by deciding corporations were “people” under the First Amendment.

A record $12 billion was spent on election campaigns in 2012, affecting all levels of government. Much of it came from billionaires like the Koch brothers and casino-magnate Sheldon Adelson –seeking fewer regulations, lower taxes, and weaker trade unions.

They didn’t entirely succeed but the billionaires established a beachhead for the midterm elections of 2014 and beyond.

Yet where is the morality brigade when it comes to these moves to take over our democracy?

Among the worst violators of public morality have been executives and traders on Wall Street.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, was found to have misled its shareholders and the public about its $6 billion “London Whale” losses in 2012. 

This is the same JPMorgan that’s lead the charge against the Dodd-Frank Act, designed to protect the public from another Wall Street meltdown and taxpayer-funded bailout.

Lobbyists for the giant banks have been systematically taking the teeth out of Dodd-Frank, leaving nothing but the gums.

The so-called “Volcker Rule,” intended to prevent the banks from making risky bets with federally-insured commercial deposits — itself a watered-down version of the old Glass-Steagall Act — still hasn’t seen the light of day.

Last week, Republicans and Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee passed bills to weaken Dodd-Frank — expanding exemptions and allowing banks that do their derivative trading in other countries (i.e., JPMorgan) to avoid the new rules altogether.

Meanwhile, House Republicans voted to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act in its entirety, as part of their budget plan.

And still no major Wall Street executives have been held accountable for the wild betting that led to the near meltdown in 2008. Attorney General Eric Holder says the big banks are too big to prosecute.

Why doesn’t the morality brigade complain about the rampant greed on the Street that’s already brought the economy to its knees, wiping out the savings of millions of Americans and subjecting countless others to joblessness and insecurity – and seems set on doing it again?

What people do in their bedrooms shouldn’t be the public’s business. Women should have rights over their own bodies. Same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

But what powerful people do in their boardrooms is the public’s business. Our democracy needs to be protected from the depredations of big money. Our economy needs to be guarded against the excesses of too-big-to-fail banks.

Robert B. Reich, chancellor’s professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective Cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including the best-sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest, “Beyond Outrage,” is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

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March 25, 2013  |  

When Ted Olson, the conservative super-lawyer who got George W Bush into the White House, went to federal court in 2009 to overturn California‘s gay marriage ban, the mood among gay rights groups was one of universal dread. The country was not ready, they wailed, and a negative ruling could set back the cause of equality for decades. What did this schmuck know about gay rights anyway?

But oh, how the mood has changed.

On Tuesday, Olson will walk up the steps of the US supreme court with the support not only of the entire gay establishment, but with a solid majority of the country behind him, too. Ten years ago, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage (leading to death threats against the state’s judges), 55% of Americans told pollsters that two men or two women had no right to marry, while only 37% favored equality. Today, the figures are almost exactly reversed. A full 58% of Americans now believe gays should be allowed to wed — and the trend goes in only one direction.

That figure rises to a breathtaking 81% among adults aged 18 to 29. And quite unlike the case of abortion, this progress cuts across party lines and political identification — even among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, a majority of voters under 50 support marriage equality.

What’s led nearly one in five Americans to come around from homophobia to tolerance?

Part of the victory is down to us — to gay men and lesbians who have come out, lived openly, agitated for change, and shown our families and colleagues every day that we deserve the full respect of the law. As another recent poll shows, people are substantially more likely to support marriage equality if they personally know someone who’s gay or lesbian. Respondents cited other factors, from moral convictions to media representations, but the No 1 cause for rethinking opposition was a personal relationship with a gay person. Coming out works.

Another part of the massive shift in favor of gay equality derives from the piecemeal, state-by-state character of the marriage movement. It has been exhausting, at times farcical, to have to fight for a basic civil right in 50 different jurisdictions, with every brain-dead state legislator or local newscaster afforded his 15 digital minutes of bigotry. But the state-by-state legalization movement has had one major plus: it’s removed the fear of the unknown from gay marriage, and allowed Americans to see — for a decade now! — that affording gays civil equality has no deleterious effect on private or religious life. Quite the opposite.

With public opinion shifting so decisively, and with progress continuing steadily at the state level, it may be tempting to say that a supreme court decision risks short-circuiting this advancement — even though gay marriage turns out to be wholly unlike abortion rights in its support across demographic lines. So said Rob Portman, the Republican senator from Ohio, when he announced his somewhat soft support for gay equality this month. But as his much braver son, Will Portman, argued this week in the Yale Daily News, marriage is not a private privilege, to be extended or denied at will.

It’s much more than that: it’s one of the “full rights of citizenship”, and the right to wed “fits into a larger historical narrative” of public equality that stretches back to the 18th century. As Will Portman understands but his father does not, the fight for same-sex marriage is a fight for equality under the law — and that’s what we all have to listen for at oral arguments this week and keep fighting for in the months ahead.

WASHINGTON – March 25 – RABEEA EID, rabeea.eid at arabs48.com
Contrary to many media reports, the student who spoke up during Obama’s speech to students in Jerusalem was not protesting the imprisonment of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Rather, Eid, who is a student from the village of Eilaboun, which is inside Israel, spoke out to question U.S. policy toward the Palestinians. Specifically, Eid asked Obama in English: “President Obama, did you come to make peace or to support Israel and the Israeli occupation? How can you be democratic and support a Jewish country? Who killed Rachel Corrie? Did you see the apartheid wall when you came from Ramallah?” Reached today by the Institute for Public Accuracy, Eid said: “President Obama talked about the violence from settlers but he didn’t say anything against settlements – they are illegally built on occupied land. He didn’t talk about the apartheid wall that devastates life for many Palestinians. He talked about democracy and justice, but Israel is stopping democracy and justice. It’s an ethnic-religious state – such a state can’t be democratic.” Eid told the New York Times: “It is important for us that the American people know what is happening here, and to know that the money from their taxes is going for weapons for Israel.” Eid also spoke to the Electronic Intifada.

JEREMY VARON, jvaron at aol.com
CHRISTOPHER KNESTRICK, cknest11 at gmail.com
The Guardian reports: “Guantanamo hunger strike much bigger than reported, rights group claims.” Varon and Knestrick are with Witness Against Torture, which is organizing solidarity hunger strikes and protests around the U.S. this week. Today the group released this statement: “Prisoners at the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo are entering their seventh week of a hunger strike and may die soon. Many prisoners were falsely accused and sold for a bounty to the U.S. Around half of all the prisoners of Guantanamo have been cleared to be released but are still being held indefinitely. Most of the prisoners have been held for over 11 years without charge or trial. This is illegal and morally wrong. Because they are in an indefinite or apparently never-ending imprisonment without being convicted of any crime they have little options to help themselves and no hope left. So they stopped eating at the beginning of February.”

ALEXANDER MAIN, main at cepr.net and via Dan Beeton, beeton at cepr.net
The AP reported on Saturday in “U.S. Aids Honduran Police Despite Death Squad Fears” that: “The U.S. State Department, which spends millions of taxpayer dollars a year on the Honduran National Police, has assured Congress that money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that don’t operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and ‘social cleansing.’ But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the ‘Tiger,’ who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated.” The revelation comes a week after another AP investigative feature detailed current death squad activity within the Honduran police.

Alexander Main is senior associate for international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is author of the recent blog post, “Fifty-eight Members of Congress ask for investigation of Honduras killings and policy review —- will Kerry and Holder act?” He said today: “For several years the U.S. administration ignored pleas from dozens of members of Congress demanding that human rights in Honduras take priority over the U.S.’s militarized security policy there. Despite the increasing number of reports of extrajudicial killings and attacks perpetrated by state security forces, the U.S. has continued to pump millions of dollars into Honduras’ corrupt police and military, claiming that no units suspected of abuses receive U.S. support. Now key members of Congress are finally taking concrete steps to force the administration to reconsider its Honduras policy, itself a cornerstone of the regional ‘war on drugs,’ which has empowered security forces and undermined civilian institutions and human rights.”

WASHINGTON – March 25 – Today People For the American Way Foundation released a new report outlining the history and arguments surrounding the two marriage cases before the Supreme Court this term: Hollingsworth v. Perry, challenging California’s Proposition 8, and U.S. v. Windsor, challenging Section 3 of the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The report, Equal Protection or ‘Social Tradition:’ The Supreme Court’s Test in the Marriage Cases, details the legal histories of the current Supreme Court cases as well as past cases addressing the issue of marriage discrimination. PFAW Foundation Senior Fellow Jamie Raskin, the report’s author, takes apart conservative arguments against marriage equality, including those based on the goal of legislating social morality. Released just before the Supreme Court hears oral argument, the report provides timely, in-depth analysis and historical background on the central issues of the cases.

“The only real question is what role the Court will play in the historical process of vindicating the rights of the people,” the report notes. “Will it constitutionalize discriminatory ‘traditions,’ as it did in Bowers v. Harwick, or will it defend the rights and liberties of the people, as it did in Lawrence v. Texas?”

The full report is available at www.pfaw.org.

People For the American Way is dedicated to making the promise of America real for every American: Equality. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. The right to seek justice in a court of law. The right to cast a vote that counts. The American Way. Our vision is a vibrantly diverse democratic society in which everyone is treated equally under the law, given the freedom and opportunity to pursue their dreams, and encouraged to participate in our nation’s civic and political life. Our America respects diversity, nurtures creativity and combats hatred and bigotry.

March 25, 2013  |  

The beer-soaked blur of spring break is a rite of passage, and at least since the 1980s, when MTV dropped in on the party, it’s been corporate America’s bootylicious wet dream . With the potent mix of inebriated young people and cultural pressure to have the most off-the-chain experience, there’s big money to be made and beaucoup merchandise to be moved. And if the kids aren’t careful, a financial headache worse than the hangover will follow them home.

1. Scam season: There are as many scams engineered to rip off spring breakers and their families as there are beaches in sunny Florida . Popular frauds include the “grandparent scam,” where grandpa gets a call from someone saying that young Johnnie has landed in a Mexican jail and needs bail money wired immediately. Also ubiquitous are fly-by-night operations that offer the trip of a lifetime, and then split with the money. Various hidden cost hustles get students to pay a low rate for a hotel room but upon arrival they find that various fees like “season rate” charges and gratuities have been tacked on. Students who post their whereabouts on Twitter and Facebook may also wake to find that burglars have been assiduously following social media.

2. The big swipe: Credit card companies encourage students to rack up charges during spring break, advertising their wares with pictures of attractive tanned bodies lounging under palm trees. When they aren’t conjuring fantasy, they’re marketing products with “safety first” admonitions that cards are ever so much less dangerous than carrying cash. Until the bill comes, of course. Forbes magazine offers a handy list of the “ Best Credit Cards For Spring Break Road Trips,” which praises the Discover More Card for its APR teaser and a transfer fee of 3 percent. Chase is applauded for offering rebates for big spenders, while Bank of America lets students link the card to savings or checking account so they “can top off the tank and load up on snacks.” Not to mention debt. 

3. Predator’s paradise: Of all the shady characters who have enriched themselves at the expense of spring breakers, Joe Francis, the founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” empire, deserves top billing in the Slimeball Hall of Fame. Francis discovered that exploiting and humiliating young women in sleazy videos was the road to riches, and set about haunting spring break locales and luring barely legal (and sometimes not) women into baring their breasts and performing suggestive acts. Francis has battled the courts over consent issues, and recently filed for bankruptcy, noting in the disclosure that his company, like American Airlines and General Motors, just needed a little restructuring. Greed, apparently, conquers all.

4. Billion-dollar party: Hotels, cruises, jam-packed restaurants, spray-tanning sessions, all-inclusives and rivers of booze. Between Florida and Texas alone, college students blow an estimated $1 billion on spring break. The travel industry estimates that over than 1.5 million students take part in the annual bacchanalia. That’s a boatload lot of wallets, and plenty of ways to empty them.

5. Marketing mayhem: The marketing frenzy surrounding the spring break has achieved scientific precision, deftly adjusting to evolving trends. This year, savvy marketing departments are pushing computer-related items, video games, movies and TV shows, along with a mind-blowing cornucopia of other youth-oriented consumer products. The site Boozinggear.com purveys must-have accoutrements such as the “Double Down Beer Bong” and the “Bouncing Boobs Red Can Cooler Set.” The app industry intensifies the party experience with everything from Beach TV, which streams the party in Panama City Beach, to Happy Hour Finder, which guides you to the nearest tiki bar.

WASHINGTON – March 25 – The United Nations has demanded an immediate halt to the expansion of a major gas project in the Peruvian Amazon, over concerns that it poses a grave risk to the lives of uncontacted Indians living nearby.

In a letter to the Peruvian government, the UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) requested the ‘immediate suspension’ of plans to expand the existing Camisea gas project further into the Nahua-Nanti reserve, as it ‘threatens the physical and cultural survival of the indigenous peoples living there.’

The call follows an appeal to CERD by Peru’s indigenous organizations AIDESEP, ORAU and COMARU, who are also launching legal action against the government and companies involved in the $1.6 billion project.

Camisea is run by a consortium of companies including Argentina’s Pluspetrol, US’s Hunt Oil and Spain’s Repsol, and is one of the largest gas projects in the Amazon.

The gas project lies in the heart of the Nahua-Nanti Reserve that was created to protect the land and lives of uncontacted Indians.

Now the companies plan to carry out seismic tests in the forest — detonating thousands of explosives — and to drill more than twenty exploratory wells.

The work will have a devastating impact on the local inhabitants, who rely on the rainforest and its game for their survival. Any contact with the uncontacted Indians could prove fatal.

In 2003, a Supreme Decree was passed, as a condition of a loan by the Inter-American Development Bank, which prohibited any further expansion of the project. But in flagrant violation of the Decree, Peru’s Ministry of Energy approved part of the expansion of Camisea in April 2012. The Ministry is imminently set to approve the next phase of expansion, costing $480 million.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The Peruvian government promised the Inter-American Development Bank that it wouldn’t expand the Camisea project, and even passed a Supreme Decree to write the pledge into law. Now it’s doing exactly what it promised not to. Small wonder the UN has demanded this reckless project be stopped.’

A Bahraini rights group has expressed grave concern over the life of two prominent rights activists as they continue their week-long hunger strike.

Bahraini Center for Human Rights (BCHR) says Zainab al-Khawaja and her father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja are now on a dry hunger strike to demand visitation rights to their families.

The two are also protesting a new rule that requires political prisoners to wear a uniform designed for criminal convicts. Activists say Zainab is now in danger of organ failure and cardiac arrest.

Zainab and Abdulhadi are now serving prison terms for what Manama calls starting anti-regime protests.

Zainab was arrested by the Saudi-backed forces in a demonstration held in capital Manama on February 27.

Her father has been in prison since 2011. The rights activist, the co-founder and former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, is among eight Bahraini opposition figures sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the ongoing revolution.

The Bahraini uprising began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.

The Manama regime launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring states.

Dozens of people have been killed in the crackdown, and the security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured revolutionaries.

Bahrainis say they will continue holding demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically elected government is met.

MAM/JR/SS

Russia has strongly condemned a new bailout deal brokered between Cyprus and its international lenders, saying the agreement is tantamount to theft.

“The stealing of what has already been stolen continues,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday, referring to the bailout deal between Nicosia and the troika of lenders namely the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU).

Medvedev said the agreement will save Cyprus from bankruptcy at the cost of forcing heavy losses for uninsured depositors on many bank deposits.

The deal will include a tax of up to 40 percent on deposits of over 100,000 euros in Cyprus’ two biggest banks.

Russian citizens hold as much as 20 billion euros (USD 26 billion) in Cypriot banks.

Moscow announced plans to study the consequences of the bailout deal including restructuring a 2.5-billion-euro Russian loan previously issued to Nicosia.

The bailout deal also drew heavy criticism from Speaker of the Cypriot Parliament Yiannakis Omirou who said “…this decision is painful for Cypriot people – this decision is a defeat.”

People in Cyprus have taken to the streets to protest the bailout deal. The protesters gathered outside the parliament in the capital Nicosia.

Cypriot protesters denounced their government, the EU and the IMF for their austerity policies.

The bailout agreement was reached early on Monday in Brussels. The deal paves the way for the country to receive a 10-billion-euro (USD 13 billion) bailout.

GMA/JR/SS

An Iranian lawmaker has reaffirmed defensive nature of Iran’s military maneuvers, calling on regional states to take advantage of Iran’s defensive potential and capability.

”These maneuvers [are aimed to] convey the message of peace and friendship and the [need for the] establishment of [regional] security by the regional countries,” member of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Ahmad Shohani said on Monday.

The lawmaker added that in addition to showing its might to regional countries, Iran should also prove its readiness to protect the regional security.

He emphasized that if regional states took part in Iran’s military exercises, their results could be much better.

The legislator added that despite the West’s propaganda, Iran has never attacked any country and has always defended its own territory.

Shohani stated that the Western countries spread propaganda against Iran’s maneuvers to spread fear and concern among regional states.

Iran is not a threat to regional countries but will always stand by them, the Iranian lawmaker pointed out.

Over the past few years, Iran has held several military drills to enhance the defense capabilities of its armed forces and to test modern military tactics and equipment.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly assured other nations, especially its neighbors, that its military might poses no threat to other countries, since its defense doctrine is based on deterrence.

SF/SS

March 25, 2013  |  

When eight former DEA chiefs signed a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month, demanding that the feds crack down on Washington and Colorado, the states which voted last November to legalize marijuana, there was more than just drug-war ideology at stake. There was money.

Two of the elder drug warriors, Peter Bensinger (DEA chief, 1976—1981) and Robert DuPont (White House drug chief, 1973—1977), run a corporate drug-testing business. Their employee-assistance company, Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, the sixth largest in the nation, holds the pee stick for some 10 million employees around the US. Their clients have included the biggest players in industry and government: Kraft Foods, American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, the Federal Aviation Administration and even the Justice Department itself.

“These are not just old drug war architects pushing a drug war model they’ve pushed for 40 years,” says Brian Vicente, a Denver lawyer and co-author of Colorado’s Proposition 64, which legalized marijuana for recreational use. “These guys are asking Eric Holder to pursue prohibition policies that line their own pockets.”

Bensinger and DuPont both deny money is their motive. “It’s true we might benefit from keeping marijuana illegal,” says DuPont. But he argues it’s equally true that marijuana legalization could benefit his bottom line, putting forth the old drug-war line that legalization would create more users. “The more success legalization has, the better it is for our business because they are creating a problem for employers,” he says. “That would be smart for us.” DuPont also points out that only 15% of their business is made up of training employers to detect the warning signs of drug and alcohol abuse and supplying third-party testing. But both men are involved in industry-controlled lobbying groups like the Drug & Alcohol Industry Testing Association, which backed the Drug Testing Integrity Act of 2008, outlawing products that help people beat drug tests and keeping their business healthy.

By inserting themselves into the legal-pot debate, Bensinger, DuPont and other drug warriors benefit by promoting their own legacies and bolstering their own business, lobbying and consulting interests–even in the face of an increasingly skeptical public. A 2011 Gallup survey showed that half of Americans favor legalizing weed. “This letter that they signed is their attempt to once again become relevant within the public policy debate that has largely turned its back on such archaic viewpoints,” says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the pro-marijuana nonprofit, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML). 

The time-honored revolving door between government and business swings fast and often. It can be straightforward, like the appointment of banking behemoth Goldman Sachs’ alumni as economic policymakers by recent presidential administrations. But when it comes to the drug war, the family tree is more like a thicket of interests among law enforcement, federal and state prisons, pharmaceutical giants, drug testers and drug treatment programs–all with an economic stake in keeping pot illegal.

Bensinger and DuPont are longtime allies of the marijuana prohibition group that sent the letter to Holder, Save Our Society from Drugs ( SOS), which was founded by Mel Sembler, a Florida shopping-mall magnate, and his wife, Betty. The Semblers also founded Straight Inc.–a drug-treatment program that used sleep deprivation, beatings and psychological abuse to treat 10,000 teenage patients, in nine states, from 1976 to 1993, at $1,400 a month plus a $1,600 per patient evaluation fee, raking in millions. Straight was shut down after investigations in state after state corroborated the hundreds of complaints. But the Semblers, longtime major Republican Party fundraisers, retain their influence as behind-the-scenes bankrollers of the anti-drug faction.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, the Global Research News Hour interviews Richard Sanders of the Coalition Opposed to the Arms Trade (COAT) about the myth of Canada’s non-involvement in Iraq.

There is a follow-up interview with former UN Humanitarian Coordinator Hans Von Sponeck about the deterioration of the social conditions in Iraq from before the 1991 Gulf War to the present and the potential for redress against these and future war crimes.

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_____________________________________________________________________________

Transcript- Richard Sanders Interview, March 21, 2013

Intro

March 19th marks the tenth anniversary of the day the US military and its allies began the offensive against Iraq known as Operation Iraqi freedom.

The military campaign that ensued coming on top of more than ten years of sanctions devastated the country and is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians as well as thousands of coalition troops, including over 4000 US troops.

Jean Chretien, prime minister at the time of the Iraq war has received praise for keeping Canada out of the Iraq war. A closer examination, however, reveals that far from withdrawing from that conflict, Canada actively supported it.

Ottawa-based Richard Sanders, coordinator of the Coalition Opposed to the Arms Trade, an anti-war group, has outlined in detail the ways in which Canada supported the Iraq war. He joins us now to explain his analysis.

Michael Welch: Well, Canada did not become an official member of the coalition of the willing, but yet Canada did, according to your research do quite a lot to support the war in Iraq. Could you maybe list off some of the ways that Canada was involved in that war?

Richard Sanders: Yeah, for sure, because we were very involved in many different ways. Okay, well one of the ways which we were involved was through our navy. We often hear that we didn’t have that many boots on the ground, that we didn’t have much of an army participation, and that seems to be the one and only criteria by which many people in the mainstream media want to decide whether Canada was involved, how many army people did we have on the ground.
So but Canadian participation through the navy was quite significant, we had thousands of people aboard numerous multi-billion dollar frigates and a destroyer that were involved in leading and protecting and supplying the coalition navy in the initial invasion in 2003, as well as many times since over the years. We also did have army generals, Canadian army generals, there were three different Canadian generals who held command positions leading the entire war, they were deputy commanders, so number two in command of the Iraq war. There were three of them and they each spent a year to a year and a half in Iraq. There was another Canadian general who led a US base where they trained thousands of us soldiers and sent them off to war in Iraq. We provided war planners which helped to organize the strategy for the wars, once it started.

Michael Welch: —the logistics?

Richard Sanders: …we helped conduct the air war, so we had can pilots and crew aboard these kinds of aircraft that coordinated the air strikes. It’s like a traffic controller— air traffic controllers— except instead of being in a tower, they’re in an air craft, which is like especially designed to coordinate all the different fighters and bombers. We provided airspace and re-fuelling for the US, thousands of US planes that were going to and from Iraq over the years since the war started. So, we basically let the US fly over our airspace, land in our airports in Newfoundland–two of them, possibly three, and then refuel there and then take off for the rest of the trip. We provided some air transport for the war, so we had C130 aircraft, with Canadian pilots flying US troops and their weapons into and out of Iraq. By taking over in Afghanistan, which we did, from the US, we helped free up US troops. We did supply some ground troops; three, four, five dozen troops at least…

Michael Welch: –was that part of—?

Richard Sanders: …on the ground. So there are some of the ways, but there are quite a few other ways. One of the ways I’ll just quickly mention is through the Canadian arms trade. We sell, Canada sells, 5-7.5 billion dollars of military equipment per year, every year, and 75% of that goes to the United States. In my research I found that about forty, at least forty different major US weapons systems that were used in Iraq, all of the major war planes for example, used in Iraq, have very important Canadian components. So these war planes, fighters and bombers that conducted the air strikes against Iraq, they would not have been able to do their missions unless they had the Canadian components in them, and there are quite a few other ways as well that we helped support. By training Iraqi police, training Iraqi troops, providing RADARSAT data, so we have this billion dollar satellite system orbiting the earth and it provides data for US weapons system. We facilitate US weapons training, testing in Canada, so they test their weapons systems that they used in Iraq, they tested them in Canada. So those are some of the ways that Canada was involved, and I think that pretty much proves that Canada was involved. I mean it’s pretty hard to deny it, there were so many ways that we were involved, I think it’s incredible that they can say “Canada was not involved, or Canada sat out the war, isn’t it great”. We’re asked to celebrate how Canada didn’t get involved. Well, we did get involved, we were very involved, and I find it really incredibly mind-blowing that they can pretend, they can put up this phony official narrative that says that we weren’t involved— we were so deeply involved. Very few other countries were as involved in Canada I mean, obviously the United States and Britain were more involved than we were. Australia had quite a few troops there, but they didn’t provide all these other things which Canada provided.

Michael Welch: Well if you include all the various ways in which Canada did help, I mean, where would we rank among the so-called coalition of the willing, did we actually contribute more than some who were listed amongst the coalition of the willing?

Richard Sanders: Oh, absolutely. We provided more than almost everyone in the whole world, I mean other than the US, Britain, and Australia, I think that a very good case can be made that Canada provided more than any country except for those three. So, I’d say we were at least in the top five. Now, its interesting the whole issue of the Coalition of the Willing, because when that was announced on March 18 2003, Secretary David Colin Powell said “We now have a coalition of the willing who have publicly said they could be included in such a listing”. And then he said, quote: “there are fifteen other nations, who, for one reason or another, do not wish to be publicly named, but will be supporting the coalition”, unquote. So in other words, the coalition of the willing is just a list of the countries that were participating in one way or another and were willing to publicly say that they were involved. And then he says, very clearly, that there are fifteen other countries that do not want to be publicly named but they were supporting the coalition. So Canada was obviously part of that group, they did not want to be publicly named as part of the coalition of the willing, so they were unwilling to be named as part of the coalition of the willing, but they were very willing to be involved.

Michael Welch: Now, you mention a lot of various ways in which Canada was involved, you did mention a few dozen people–boots on the ground–were there were actually Canadian soldiers there in Iraq, in a combat capacity… how was that possible when the official line was “We aren’t sending soldiers to Iraq?”

Richard Sanders: Okay, that’s done through having these soldiers working under the command of British or American forces, so they’re kind of on–it’s called an exchange–so it’s the same way that we had pilots flying US warplanes during the war. Flying, for example these massive transport planes that drop tanks, that carry tanks in, they’re C17— they’re called GlobeMasters, and we had Canadian pilots flying during the Iraq war, part of the Iraq war flying vast amounts of war material, weapon systems including huge tanks, flying them right into battle zones. So there were Canadians flying US war planes. And they do that by being “on exchange”, they’re on exchange missions. The other things is that these Canadian generals that are leading international forces of ground troops–they were on the ground. A general is not the guy that is back kicking doors in and running in and kidnapping people and shooting people, but he is overseeing. And, we had three Canadian generals that took turns overseeing that, they had boots on the ground, they were in Iraq. So that’s another way that we had Canadian boots on the ground, army guys–they were actual generals

Michael Welch: And these generals, how many people would you say they had oversight over?

Richard Sanders: That’s a good question, I can’t remember now, its been a few years since I researched it. Many thousands–let me see if I can very quickly find that. And, these guys received medals for their, for what they did.

Michael Welch: I believe one of those generals became-

Richard Sanders:— the Chief of Defense Staff. Walt Natynczyk- he led thirty-five thousand US troops in Iraq in 2004. He was there for over a year–sorry, about a year. So, from January 2004 to January 2005. He was given a medal by the Canadian governor general, Michaelle Jean, saying–and I can quote to you on what it said, the text that is associated with the medal, it said: “Major General Natynczyk led the corps ten separate brigades consisting of more than thirty-five thousand soldiers stationed throughout the Iraq theatre of operations. He also oversaw the planning and execution of all corps level commanding support and combat service support operations. His pivotal role in the development of numerous plans and operations resulted in a tremendous contribution by the multinational corps to operation Iraqi freedom”–that’s what they called the Iraq war–“… and has brought great credit to the Canadian forces and to Canada.” So, this is a medal that he receives for his leading role, commanding more than thirty-five thousand troops in Iraq, and then they have the gall to say that Canada wasn’t involved in the war. I mean, it’s just, it’s ludicrous.

Michael Welch: If you saw the–

Richard Sanders: We’re supposed to celebrate that Canada wasn’t involved? All we’re doing is celebrating that we’ve been deceived. That they’ve done a PR job, that they’ve been incredibly successful in their propaganda, and that they’ve been able to pull the wool over our eyes and deceive us and trick us in a psychological operation. Are we supposed to celebrate that? That’s incredible.

Michael Welch: Richard Sanders, I notice that many of the ways in which Canada was, as you say, supporting the war, it was in terms of components and all this sort of connections that seem to go right to the guts of the military. I’m wondering if it’s even possible for Canada to stay out of any US conflict given the level of, the tentacles between the Canadian and United States military industrial complex?

Richard Sanders: One of the examples I mentioned was the Canadian military exports, with the, the five billion a year or whatever to the US… that would be really hard, I mean, obviously we are so thoroughly integrated into the US war machine that Canadian parts are right in there on all these major weapons systems so if they called a war tomorrow, all of our, all of that stuff that Canadians made stuff, and these companies have received billions of dollars from the Canadian government to support their export industries… I mean, yeah, what can we do? We can say “we don’t want you to fly these planes because they have all that equipment in it?”, no, we couldn’t withdraw our support from that, it’s too late for that. So in whatever war they happen to be fighting, Canada is playing its part. But there are other things, many of the other examples–training Iraq police, training Iraqi troops, we set up the phony elections, Elections Canada was a major part in setting up phony democratic elections in Iraq. Providing RADARSAT data, sending in these exchange troops, they could be withdrawn, sending in the generals- we didn’t have to do that. Sending in our ships in the Persian gulf, we didn’t have to do that. We even had a Canadian commodore that was leading the entire multinational fleet of warships escorting the US warships into place for the initial bombardment of Iraq. And we didn’t have to do that–we could have called, we could have stopped all those things. And yeah, once you’ve sold them the equipment, you can’t stop them from using it. But they could have stopped–let’s say we found out that Canadian companies were selling weapons to oh, Syria. You don’t think that they could stop it? Of course they could. But, you’re right. We’re so thoroughly integrated into the US war machine it is very difficult to pull out.

Michael Welch: So why is this meme so pervasive, this idea that Canada said no to the war in Iraq. Why is it that people continue to believe this in spite of all the documentation that you’ve put forwards?

Richard Sanders: Well, all the research that I do and that other people do doesn’t mean anything in comparison to the mainstream media. Right, I mean I’ve got very little help from the mainstream media. The corporate media and also the… it fits into a huge mythology that we’ve had for a few decades, the whole myth of Canada as a great force for peace in the world, so it fits so nicely into that mythology that it was easy to sell this particular spin on that mythology because it fits in so nicely, so people will just go ‘yeah, that’s right, of course, because Canada is not a war-fighter, we’re a peace loving country, all that, blahblah” so it’s easy for the media to lie to us. The NDP was not much help, they basically went along with the mythology. They did do some work to expose the ways in which Canada was involved, but basically when the government said “Okay, so we’ve decided not to be involved” even though they were, they basically said “okay, we’re not involved” then the NDP was bending over backwards to congratulate itself for having pressured the government to not being involved in the war. So, they got credit, they got support from their membership.

Michael Welch: But you know Richard, it seems to me that even so-called progressive forces who are even instinctively suspicious of the mainstream media, they seem to buy into that message as well, don’t you find?

Richard Sanders: Many do. Many people don’t have, just haven’t seen the evidence. When you see it, it’s really hard to ignore, it’s really hard to not realize that we were involved when you see the list of all the things that we did. But somehow, there are peace activists- — I think there is an overlap with people who are big supports of the international criminal court, big supporters of the so-called responsibility to protect, this new doctrine that the US and NATO countries use as a pretext for going to war, you know, that used to be called humanitarian intervention. So there is an overlap between these different mythologies, or these different doctrines that are used to put a nice façade on war and participation in war. So you have people in the peace movement that are willing to go along with these pretenses, you have to ask them how they managed to wrap their minds among these things, because it seems to me that the cognitive dissonance that these contradictions would create in your mind would be so strong that you wouldn’t be able to keep such complete opposite idea going in your mind at the same time. How can you believe that Canada wasn’t involved, and at the same time know that we did this and this and this and this and this to help the war. I mean, it so completely contradictory, that you think it would cause some discomfort in your mind hat you wouldn’t be able to continue to believe these things. But somehow, they manage to. Or–the whole responsibility to protect thing, how can they believe that the United States can lead a war to protect human rights? Don’t they know anything about the long history of US wars? So, you have to ask, it would be good for you to interview people and question them about that… how do they support these ideas like the responsibility to protect and the idea that Canada is a great and wonderful peace-keeping country when it is engaged in war to the extent that it is?

Michael Welch: Well, Richard Sanders I want to thank you very much for shedding some light there on why there, on the reality of Canada’s involvement in Iraq , and I guess if people want more information about your publication or your website, where would you direct them?

Richard Sanders: Well, if you do a search for the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade then you’ll find our website, and there is lots of detailed information there with references and footnotes and whatnot to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt to prove that Canada was very, very deeply involved in the Iraq war, not only during the initial invasion, but in the many years since.

Michael Welch: Richard Sanders has been involved with the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, and publishes Press for Conversion magazine. Thank you very much for joining us Richard.

Richard Sanders: Thank you very much for having me.

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Length (58:55)
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The Global Research News Hour, hosted by Michael Welch, airs on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg Thursdays at 10am CDT. The programme is now broadcast weekly by the Progressive Radio Network in the US, and is available for download on the Global Research website.

Around 1,000 dead ducks have been pulled from a river in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Residents found the rotten carcasses floating downstream in woven bags.

The ducks, which were found in the Nanhe River in Meishan city, have been disinfected with lime and buried 3 meters underground, deputy director of Pengshan County’s publicity office, Liang Weidong, told China National Radio.

According to Liang, the ducks are believed to have been washed downward from upstream and accumulated in the Pengshan section of the river due to lack of water in the dry season. Although the origin of the ducks remains unknown, Liang warned that farmers who discard their dead ducks in public places face heavy punishment.  

Officials were unable to determine a cause of death, as some of the ducks were already decomposed.

Despite worries from nearby residents, Liang insisted that the incident poses no threat to drinking water, nor does it endanger residents and livestock along the river banks.

Reports of the floating duck carcasses come just as the toll of dead pigs pulled from China’s Huangpu River surpassed 16,000.

The swine incident has sparked national health and safety concerns, largely due to the fact that 22 per cent of Shanghai’s drinking water comes from the Huangpu.

The origin of the pig carcasses remains a mystery, with Shanghai saying its farms have not reported an epidemic which would kill pigs in such large numbers.

Workers have been pulling dead pigs from the river for the past two weeks, with Shanghai pulling out 10,924 dead pigs as of Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday, the government released a statement that the work of fishing out the dead pigs was “basically finished.”

But the end of one sanitation incident has seemingly marked the beginning of another – and Chinese residents have taken to social networking sites to express their concern.

“The dead ducks in Pengshan River present us with a very practical problem, and show how society’s bottom line is getting lower and lower,” a member of weibo – China’s version of Twitter – said.

The scandals have highlighted China’s troubles with food safety, adding the country’s most popular meat to a growing list of food items rocked by controversy.

TV talk show host Phil Donahue. (Photo: Joe Newman / Public Citizen)Truthout needs your support to produce grassroots journalism and disseminate conscientious visions for a brighter future. Contribute now by clicking here.

I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual–a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.

Donahue and Bill Moyers, the last honest men on national television, were the only two major TV news personalities who presented the viewpoints of those of us who challenged the rush to war in Iraq. General Electric and Microsoft–MSNBC’s founders and defense contractors that went on to make tremendous profits from the war–were not about to tolerate a dissenting voice. Donahue was fired, and at PBS Moyers was subjected to tremendous pressure. An internal MSNBC memo leaked to the press stated that Donahue was hurting the image of the network. He would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” the memo read. Donahue never returned to the airwaves.

The celebrity trolls who currently reign on commercial television, who bill themselves as liberal or conservative, read from the same corporate script. They spin the same court gossip. They ignore what the corporate state wants ignored. They champion what the corporate state wants championed. They do not challenge or acknowledge the structures of corporate power. Their role is to funnel viewer energy back into our dead political system–to make us believe that Democrats or Republicans are not corporate pawns. The cable shows, whose hyperbolic hosts work to make us afraid self-identified liberals or self-identified conservatives, are part of a rigged political system, one in which it is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, General Electric or ExxonMobil. These corporations, in return for the fear-based propaganda, pay the lavish salaries of celebrity news people, usually in the millions of dollars. They make their shows profitable. And when there is war these news personalities assume their “patriotic” roles as cheerleaders, as Chris Matthews–who makes an estimated $5 million a year–did, along with the other MSNBC and Fox hosts.

It does not matter that these celebrities and their guests, usually retired generals or government officials, got the war terribly wrong. Just as it does not matter that Francis Fukuyama and Thomas Friedman were wrong on the wonders of unfettered corporate capitalism and globalization. What mattered then and what matters now is likability–known in television and advertising as the Q score–not honesty and truth. Television news celebrities are in the business of sales, not journalism. They peddle the ideology of the corporate state. And too many of us are buying.

The lie of omission is still a lie. It is what these news celebrities do not mention that exposes their complicity with corporate power. They do not speak about Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, a provision that allows the government to use the military to hold U.S. citizens and strip them of due process. They do not decry the trashing of our most basic civil liberties, allowing acts such as warrantless wiretapping and executive orders for the assassination of U.S. citizens. They do not devote significant time to climate scientists to explain the crisis that is enveloping our planet. They do not confront the reckless assault of the fossil fuel industry on the ecosystem. They very rarely produce long-form documentaries or news reports on our urban and rural poor, who have been rendered invisible, or on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or on corporate corruption on Wall Street. That is not why they are paid. They are paid to stymie meaningful debate. They are paid to discredit or ignore the nation’s most astute critics of corporatism, among them Cornel West, Medea Benjamin, Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky. They are paid to chatter mindlessly, hour after hour, filling our heads with the theater of the absurd. They play clips of their television rivals ridiculing them and ridicule their rivals in return. Television news looks as if it was lifted from Rudyard Kipling’s portrait of the Bandar-log monkeys in “The Jungle Book.” The Bandar-log, considered insane by the other animals in the jungle because of their complete self-absorption, lack of discipline and outsized vanity, chant in unison: “We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true.”

When I reached him by phone recently in New York, Donahue said of the pressure the network put on him near the end, “It evolved into an absurdity.” He continued: “We were told we had to have two conservatives for every liberal on the show. I was considered a liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone but not Dennis Kucinich. You felt the tremendous fear corporate media had for being on an unpopular side during the ramp-up for a war. And let’s not forget that General Electric’s biggest customer at the time was Donald Rumsfeld [then the secretary of defense]. Elite media features elite power. No other voices are heard.”

Donahue spent four years after leaving MSNBC making the movie documentary “Body of War” with fellow director/producer Ellen Spiro, about the paralyzed Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. The film, which Donahue funded himself, began when he accompanied Nader to visit Young in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“Here is this kid lying there whacked on morphine,” Donahue said. “His mother, as we are standing by the bed looking down, explained his injuries. ‘He is a T-4. The bullet came through the collarbone and exited between the shoulder blades. He is paralyzed from the nipples down.’ He was emaciated. His cheekbones were sticking out. He was as white as the sheets he was lying on. He was 24 years old. … I thought, ‘People should see this. This is awful.’ ”

Donahue noted that only a very small percentage of Americans have a close relative who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan and an even smaller number make the personal sacrifice of a Tomas Young. “Nobody sees the pain,” he said. “The war is sanitized.”

“I said, ‘Tomas, I want to make a movie that shows the pain, I want to make a movie that shows up close what war really means, but I can’t do it without your permission,’ ” Donahue remembered. “Tomas said, ‘I do too.’ ”

But once again Donahue ran into the corporate monolith: Commercial distributors proved reluctant to pick up the film. Donahue was told that the film, although it had received great critical acclaim, was too depressing and not uplifting. Distributors asked him who would go to see a film about someone in a wheelchair. Donahue managed to get openings in Chicago, Seattle, Palm Springs, New York, Washington and Boston, but the runs were painfully brief.

“I didn’t have the money to run full-page ads,” he said. “Hollywood often spends more on promotion than it does on the movie. And so we died. What happens now is that peace groups are showing it. We opened the Veterans for Peace convention in Miami. Failure is not unfamiliar to me. And yet, I am stunned at how many Americans stand mute.”

The US green light for direct negotiations with Iran is an attempt to deceive the world’s public opinion, an Iranian lawmaker says.

“The US behavior and action in the region is…aimed at diverting the public opinion. Therefore the US green light for talks with Iran must not be taken seriously,” said Seyyed Sharif Hosseini, a member of Iran Majlis Presiding Board on Monday.

On February 22, US State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said the US was willing “to meet bilaterally with the Iranian side,” repeating an offer Vice President Joe Biden had made earlier at the 49th annual Munich Security Conference in Germany on February 2.

Only four days after Biden’s offer of talks, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions to prevent Iran from gaining access to earnings garnered from its crude exports.

Hosseini pointed to the positive results of Iran’s comprehensive talks with the P5+1 (permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in late February, noting, “What happened in talks with the P5+1 cannot be considered a prelude to talks between Iran and the US, because the behavior and literature used by the US has proved that the White House officials’ words do not match their deeds.”

The Iranian lawmaker pointed out that to make talks with Iran possible, the West must remove anti-Iran sanctions, stop bullying policies, and withdraw its military forces from the region.

ASH/SS

Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erekat says that his government will not accept a “partial” Israeli settlement freeze as a conciliatory move to restart peace talks.

“Absolutely not. It is rejected,” Saeb Erekat said on Sunday when asked if PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas would accept a partial freeze on Israel’s settlement activity.

“First of all, 90 percent of the building in settlements is going on in the blocs,” he said. “If we accepted that, we would be committing two crimes. The first is legalizing what is illegal, which is settlement construction, and the second is accepting the Israeli policy (of) dictation,” he added.

Direct talks between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority were stalled around three weeks after they had resumed in the US in September 2010 due to Tel Aviv’s refusal to extend a partial freeze on its illegal settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.

On Thursday, Abbas told visiting US President Barack Obama that there could be no talks with Israel without a freeze on settlement construction.

He also described Israeli settlement activities as a major obstacle to peace between the two sides, saying that “we do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, and to be something that can advance the cause of peace”.

During his visit, Obama said the Tel Aviv regime’s occupation of the West Bank must end and that he is “deeply committed” to the creation of a state of Palestine.

The US president however, called on Palestinians to drop their demands for a freeze in Israeli settlement activities in occupied territories as a precondition for resumption of the talks.

The Israeli settlements are considered illegal by much of the international community. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the settlement construction is part of Tel Aviv’s policy and will not stop.

PG/JR

The US Senate passed its first budget in four years early Saturday morning. The Democratic-controlled chamber passed a $3.7 billion budget plan for fiscal year 2014, which includes close to a trillion dollars in spending cuts, as well a modest proposal to raise revenue, mostly by closing tax “loopholes.”

Senate Budget chairwoman Patty Murray commented, “I am proud of the work we did in the budget committee and on the Senate floor to write, debate, and pass a responsible budget plan that puts economic growth and the middle class first.” In reality, the proposal contains $975 billion in spending cuts, including $275 billion in new cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs that spell hardship for millions of working people.

Murray and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada) had to work to convince a number of Senate Democrats to support the budget, which passed by only a one-vote margin. Four Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2014 voted against the bill, fearing they would appear too pro-tax and soft on deficit reduction in their home constituencies.

The White House commented in a statement, “Like the president’s plan, the Senate budget cuts wasteful spending, makes tough choices to strengthen entitlements, and eliminates special tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthiest Americans to reduce the deficit.” Following a well-worn script, deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are described as a prescription to save them, and spending on social programs targeted for cuts is characterized as “wasteful.”

The Senate budget stands virtually no chance of being reconciled with the budget proposal passed last week by the Republican-controlled House. Majority Leader Reid said he saw little reason to bother with a conference committee, in which the House and Senate are supposed to iron out their differences and come up with a compromise proposal.

Democrats say the $975 billion in new tax revenue in their proposal generated by overhauling the tax code would go largely to turning off $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts triggered by the sequester over nine years. But the rescinding of these cuts appears to be nearly cancelled out by the $975 billion in new spending reductions contained in the budget.

The budget also reportedly includes $100 billion in upfront infrastructure spending. The proposal is estimated to leave the government with a $566 billion annual deficit over a decade and add $5.2 trillion to the national debt over this period.

Predictably, Republicans were quick to denounce the Democrats’ plan and demand even more right-wing measures. Senator Jeff Session of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, commented, “Honest people can disagree on policy, but there can be no honest disagreement in the need to change our nation’s debt course.”

Only the financial elite and its political front men (and women) are consumed by the drive to slash social spending to reduce the budget deficit. The great majority of the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. The budget debate in Washington leaves their concerns and interests completely out of the equation.

The House budget resolution passed in a 221-207 vote last Thursday. Authored by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (Republican of Wisconsin), it calls for changing the tax code to dramatically reduce taxes, repealing President Obama’s health care law, and deeper spending cuts than those recently triggered by the so-called sequester. It also revives Ryan’s proposal to privatize Medicare by turning it into a voucher program.

The differences between the Senate budget for 2014–which aims to cut the deficit by $1.8 trillion–and the House budget–which proposes to reduce it by $4.8 trillion–are described by the players involved and the media as illustrating a sharp ideological divide. In fact, both the Democrats and Republicans are committed to making deep cuts to social spending, particularly to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Armed with their respective budget proposals, lawmakers of both big business parties will hammer out the details of funding appropriations on Senate and House committees, with cuts to social spending–including to so-called entitlement programs–falling somewhere between those proposed in the two budgets.

Last week, both houses of Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government that makes permanent the vast majority of the $85 billion in sequester cuts for fiscal year 2013, through September 30. Passage cleared the way for the implementation of furloughs for about 1 million federal government employees as well as a pay freeze.

The Senate’s version of the CR went further than an earlier House version, finalizing cuts to the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Commerce, Agriculture and Homeland Security, as well as to the Food and Drug Administration, National Science Foundation and NASA. The House passed the legislation on Thursday, avoiding a potential government shutdown on March 28.

A Nevada politician has introduced a bill that would bar the city of Las Vegas from enacting tougher gun laws than the state as a whole, including language that would specifically protect “machine guns” from being barred on the Las Vegas strip if the state did not bar machine guns across the state. At the last known meeting of the “Public Safety and Elections Task Force” of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association proposed amendments to the ALEC “Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act” to add “machine guns” to ALEC’s model bill prohibiting local governments from adopting different rules for guns and ammo than a state has as a whole. On March 18, a Nevada state legislator introduced a bill in the statehouse that is almost a word-for-word copy from that ALEC bill, which ALEC has since attempted to distance itself from while doing nothing to stop or repeal such bills.

Nevada Assembly Bill 340 is nearly identical to a version of the ALEC Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act, which was most recently ratified by the ALEC gun task force in late 2011. Here is a sample:

A complete side-by-side can be viewed here.

Blocking Cities from Barring “Machine Guns” and Cop-Killer Bullets?

The Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act has been an ALEC “model bill” since at least 1995. It is a form of state pre-emption legislation prohibiting local units of government — cities, counties, or municipalities — from regulating or banning guns in their communities in any way that is tougher or different than the state as a whole. Such legislation would largely permit legislators from a state’s rural areas to trump city efforts to impose tougher gun rules. The bill also prohibits local governments from bringing lawsuits against gun and ammunition manufacturers. Local control has traditionally been regarded as a “conservative” principle, but ALEC has a number of state preemption bills to prohibit communities from protecting their own health and welfare — see, for example, ALEC-led efforts to prohibit locally-owned internet.

Versions of the ALEC/NRA Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act have passed in at least 38 states.

At ALEC’s December 2011 States & Nation Policy Summit in Arizona, the NRA brought to ALEC a new set of amendments to the model bill that would, according to the amendment language, specifically ban cities from prohibiting “machine guns” and “submachine guns,” as well as prohibit local governments from regulating the sale of ammunition (with no exception for armor piercing ammo or other particularly deadly ammunition), or accessories like high-capacity clips. The bill also gives private individuals the right to sue if they believe a local government rule, regulation, or ordinance violates the state law.

It is not clear why the NRA felt emboldened to add this broader language in 2011, when it had not included the language in the initial 1995 proposal, and did not add it when it was reaffirmed in 1999 (when Koch Industries chaired ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board).

The NRA’s proposed amendments were approved “unanimously” by the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force on December 2, 2011, according to the minutes of the meeting. Most of these amendments are echoed nearly word-for-word in Nevada’s proposed AB 340 — from the new statement of purpose, to the definitions of firearms and ammunition, to provisions for a private right of action.

Despite PR Stunts, ALEC Bills Continue to Spread

In the wake of controversy over its role in promoting NRA-sponsored “Stand Your Ground” laws similar to the one initially cited to protect Trayvon Martin’s killer from arrest, ALECannounced it was disbanding the Public Safety and Elections Task Force in April 2012.

Despite this PR maneuver, at ALEC’s annual meeting at Salt Lake City in summer 2012, the NRA had the biggest booth in ALEC’s convention hall and continued to host its annual shooting event for ALEC legislators and lobbyists, with guns, ammo, and barbecue provided. The July 2012 event was co-sponsored by Browning Arms Company, whose foreign parent company is one of the world’s largest sellers of machine guns, as noted by CMD in its coverage of ALEC’s convention.

Last week, ALEC pulled another PR stunt to try to repair its image. It is trying to disavow bills it has promoted for years — like the “Stand Your Ground” (also known as the Castle Doctrine bill or the Shoot First law) and the Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act — and for the first time in its forty year history, is posting some of its model bills on its website. ALEC’s new spokesperson Bill Meierling has claimed that “If it is not on our website, it is not our policy.”

Despite what ALEC says publicly, ALEC bills like the Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act continue to spread across the country, without regard for whether ALEC has chosen to post the legislation on its website. And the Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act and hundreds of other ALEC bills, such as Stand Your Ground and Voter ID, remain on the books in states across the country, and continue to adversely affect the lives of numerous Americans. Meanwhile, ALEC has taken no apparent steps to repeal ill-conceived laws that were adopted at its behest or to oppose bills like Nevada’s bill to thwart any future efforts to keep machine guns off the Las Vegas strip. ALEC zombie legislation it embraced for years, if not decades, continues to live on unchanged and unchallenged by ALEC’s effort to whitewash its record.

After US President Barack Obama’s trip to Israel last week the US and its allies are moving ahead with plans to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and install a pro-Western regime. CIA operations and calls to arm the Syrian opposition are escalating, amid a US diplomatic offensive in the Middle East to isolate Assad, and the collapse of a pro-Syrian government in Lebanon.

According to a Wall Street Journal report Saturday, the CIA is expanding its activities to support secular-leaning anti-Assad militias “with training in areas including weapons use, urban combat and countering spying by the regime.” Unnamed US officials said that CIA support to rebel units represents an intensification of US efforts to strengthen the Syrian opposition.

On Friday Obama warned at a joint press conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan of the rising influence of extreme Islamist forces in Syria and announced a shift in US support to more secular forces.

“I am very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism because extremists thrive in chaos,” Obama said. “They don’t have much to offer when it comes to actually building things, but they’re very good about exploiting situations that are no longer functioning. They fill that gap.”

He said the US supported efforts to “begin the process of moving it in a better direction, and having a cohesive opposition is critical to that.”

Last year, the Obama administration had turned down a CIA-backed proposal to arm more secular opposition units. So far most of the arms shipments have gone to Islamist militias, who are carrying out the bulk of the fighting against Assad. Washington, which operates a CIA station near the Syrian-Turkish border, has long been involved in arming and strengthening the Islamist forces in close collaboration with its regional allies in Turkey and the Persian Gulf.

The announcement of more support to secular elements in the pro-Western Syrian opposition reflects increased efforts by the US and its allies to bring down Assad and install a pro-Western proxy regime in Syria. While the imperialist powers and their Western allies rely on extremist Islamist militias to bring down the Assad regime, they fear that forces such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, might prove unreliable in a post-Assad government.

Israel, US imperialism’s main ally in the Middle East, is in particular pressing for the strengthening of more secular elements in the opposition, as it fears the rising influence of armed Islamist terrorists in a neighboring country. According to the Wall Street Journal, a senior Israeli official involved in negotiations on Syria during Obama’s visit stated that “Israel would welcome America’s influence in shaping the post-Assad Syria.”

American-Israeli plans for a more directed military intervention in Syria are accompanied by a diplomatic offensive by both countries to forge a regional pro-war alliance to topple Assad and prepare for war against Iran.

In a move welcomed by the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and announced the restoration of normal diplomatic relations with Turkey. He apologized for the death of Turkish activists during an Israeli raid on the so-called Gaza flotilla in 2010. With Israel, Turkey is one of Washington’s main regional allies; it has repeatedly called for direct military intervention in Syria to bring down Assad.

On Sunday US Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq to pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to block flights from Iran to Syria. The US claims that Iran is sending weapons and fighters across Iraq to Syria to support Assad. Maliki’s Shiite government has said that inspections have shown that Iranian flights over its territory carry only humanitarian supplies.

As part of its increasingly aggressive offensive to replace Assad with a pro-imperialist stooge regime, the US is restructuring the Islamist-dominated Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the main front of the pro-Western opposition cobbled together under the auspices of the US State Department last November. At a meeting last week the SNC nominated Ghassan Hitto, a US citizen and IT business executive, as the “prime minister” of a so-called “interim government.”

Over the weekend the previous leader of the SNC, Moaz al-Khatib, announced his resignation. A former Imam of the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, Khatib is an outspoken defender of Jabhat al-Nusra. When the US formally designated the group as a foreign terrorist organization, Khatib protested and urged Washington to reconsider the decision.

The promotion of more secular forces in the Syrian opposition goes hand in hand with continued collaboration with the Islamist militias, however. While Washington announces more cooperation directly with secular figures, it continues to tolerate and oversee huge arms shipments to Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist terrorist groups, which are largely supplied by Persian Gulf states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday a suicide bombing in a mosque in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killed at least 49 people, including Sunni cleric Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti. Syria’s minster for religious endowments, Mohammad Abdul-Satar al-Sayyed, blamed Western-backed terrorist forces for the attack.

The US-led offensive to bring down Assad is accompanied by renewed calls by France and Britain to directly arm the Syrian opposition. On Friday British Foreign Secretary William Hague and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, called for lifting the EU arms embargo against Syria ahead of a EU foreign ministers meeting in Dublin.

While concerns were raised about the Franco-British plans, the European states agree that the Syrian opposition has to be strengthened. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton described the situation in Syria and the region as “extraordinarily fragile,” announcing that the EU was continuing to discuss how to increase assistance to the “moderate Syrian opposition.” Some countries, such as Germany, Austria or Sweden, favor easing economic sanctions on areas held by the opposition instead of directly providing them with weapons.

The disagreements among the European powers about the scope of support for the Syrian opposition reflect increasing concerns about growing political instability in the entire region. On Friday, Najib Mikati announced his resignation as Lebanese Prime Minister. On Saturday the government stepped down, and Mikati called for a “national salvation” government to rule the deeply divided country.

The sectarian divisions ignited by the Western powers’ proxy war Syria are spilling over into Lebanon, a country which itself was engulfed in a fifteen-year civil war, from 1975 to 1990.

Mikati’s decision came amidst heavy fighting between the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods in Lebanon’s second city, Tripoli, in which at least 12 people were killed. The Sunni-majority Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood supports the Western-backed, largely Sunni opposition in Syria. Jabal Mohsen is dominated by Lebanese Alawites–the Shiite sect from which Syrian president Assad hails–who sympathize with Hezbollah, the Shia political movement and militia in Lebanon allied with the Assad government and Iran.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I – VT). (Photo: Public Citizen)Think the world needs an alternative to corporate media? Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout and keep independent journalism strong.

There are few areas where the corruption of the national media is more apparent than in its treatment of Social Security. Most of the elite media have made it clear in both their opinion and news pages that they want to see benefits cut. In keeping with this position they highlight the views of political figures who push cuts to the program, treating them as responsible, while those who oppose cuts are ignored or mocked.

This pattern of coverage was clearly on display last weekend. Both the New York Times and Washington Post decided to ignore the Senate’s passage by voice vote of the Sanders Amendment. This was an amendment to the budget put forward by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that puts the Senate on record as opposing the switch to the chained CPI as the basis for the annual Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA).

Switching the basis for the COLA to the chained CPI is one of the most beloved policies of the Washington elite. The idea is that it would reduce scheduled benefits for retirees by 0.3 percentage points annually. This amounts to a cut of 3 percent after ten years, 6 percent after 20 years, and 9 percent after 30 years.

If a typical retiree lives to collect benefits for twenty years the average cut in benefits over their retirement ends up being around 3 percent. This is a much bigger hit to the typical retiree, who relies on Social Security for more than two-thirds of their income, than the tax increases put into law this year were to the typical rich person.

But the magic of the chained CPI is that everyone gets to run around saying that they are not really cutting benefits, they are just “adjusting” the cost of living formula. And the media do their best to assist the politicians pushing these cuts. They almost always uses euphemisms like “changing” or “restructuring” Social Security, trying to conceal the simple reality that politicians are pushing cuts to the program.

It is also worth noting, in contrast to the claims of the pretentious elites, there is no, as in zero, nada, none, basis for the claim that the chained CPI would give a more accurate measure of the rate of inflation experienced by seniors. Research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the rate of inflation seen by seniors is actually higher than the CPI that provides the basis for the current COLA.

While this research is far from conclusive, the answer for those interested in accuracy would be to have the BLS construct a full CPI for seniors. But the Washington elites don’t give a damn about accuracy, which is why not one of them has called for a full elderly CPI. The elite want cuts to Social Security; accuracy is just something they talk about to children and reporters for major media outlets.

This is why the vote on the Sanders amendment should have been newsworthy. Here was an opportunity for all the senators who have explicitly or implicitly supported the adoption of the chained CPI to step up and say why the switch to the chained CPI was a good and necessary measure. However, not one senator was prepared to stand up and argue the case. Not one member of the senate wanted to go on record in support of this cut to Social Security.

With all the Republicans who pronounce endlessly on the need to cut entitlement spending, there was not a single Republican senator who was prepared to say that switching the Social Security COLA to a chained CPI was a good idea. And even though President Obama has repeatedly stated as clearly as he could that he supported the switch to a chain CPI, there was not one Democratic senator who was prepared to stand up and speak in solidarity with the president.

This is a clear case of the elite lining up together against the bases of both political parties. If the chained CPI were put to a vote of the people it would lose in a landslide. But the elites are prepared to use their control of the political process and the media to do everything they can to push this cut forward.

The battle over the chained CPI provides a great case study in the state of American democracy. We will get to see whether the rich and powerful are able to attack a program that is vital to the security of almost all working people, even when the vast majority in both parties stand against them.

This post first appeared on the Project On Government Oversight blog.

Thanks to our open records laws, you can find a treasure trove of information on the Web – everything from details about publically traded companies to where stimulus funds are going. You can even submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests online.

Take some time this week to educate yourself about the information and data available from government websites. Below are five great online tools that you can use to help hold government accountable.

FOIA Online

FOIA Online allows anyone to submit a Freedom of Information Act request online, track their request, and search past FOIA requests. Currently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Commerce, Federal Labor Regulations Authority, Merit System Protections Board, and the National Archives and Records Administration use FOIA Online.

One of the great things about FOIA Online is that you do not have to be registered to submit or search FOIA requests. This makes it incredibly easy for anyone to begin research into what is going on in different agencies and departments of the U.S. government.

Recovery.gov

Recovery.gov was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as the “Stimulus,” and is managed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. It shows the distribution of all Recovery funds and how each agency is spending the money. Agencies involved must submit weekly financial reports that describe how the funds allotted to them are being distributed, and those who received contracts, grants, and loan awards of Recovery funds must submit similar reports four times per year.

Recovery.gov not only allows the public to view, research, and review the information, but it offers the ability to report suspected fraud, waste or abuse that relates to the Stimulus.

The Consumer Complaint Database

The Consumer Complaint Database displays information from consumer credit card complaints that are reported to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The data allows people to gain insight on other users’ experiences with different credit card companies. The website has also been designed so web developers can pull data and other information to create other online tools.

SEC’s Electronic Data-Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (EDGAR)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires that all publically traded domestic companies file necessary forms on EDGAR. Its purpose is to increase efficiency and fairness of the securities market by speeding up the analysis of the required forms.

EDGAR also allows the public to view statements of income, cash flow, shareholder equity, and operations. This leads to safer, more reliable investments, as well as giving the public the ability to research earnings of specific companies.

Ethics.gov

Ethics.gov put records and data from throughout the federal government into one place. It contains Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) records, Lobbying Disclosure Reports, Federal Election Commission (FEC) candidates and contributions, Office of Government Ethics (OGE) travel reports, and White House visitors.

It allows people to review information on candidates and campaign financing. You can see who has been visiting the White House and review payments to lobbyists and see what issues they’ve worked on.

Confirming reports that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is aiding Syrian rebels in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad, new evidence has surfaced that several nations, including Turkey, have been working with the CIA over the past year to dramatically increase military aid to Syrian rebels, the New York Times reports Monday.

Free Syrian Army rebels fighting against Assad militias on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Maraat al-Numan, Idlib, Syria (FreedomHouse via Flickr / Creative Commons License) Referring to air traffic data, interviews with anonymous U.S. officials, and rebel commanders, the Times reports that the CIA has been helping coordinate massive arms shipments to groups within the Free Syrian Army, which have included more than than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at the Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

“A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,” Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told the Times.

Fast paced weapons transfers reportedly began over a year ago, in early 2012.

“The intensity and frequency of these flights,” were “suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation,” Griffiths added.

In a more overt show of support for Syrian rebels, over the weekend Secretary of State John Kerry pledged an additional 60 million dollars in direct aid to the rebels, marking the first time Washington will directly supply rebel forces, Inter Press Service reports.

“Who are those good rebels we want to arm?” asked Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The interventionists seem to take for granted that we know them well. The fact is, the interventionists themselves and the U.S. government don’t know squat about Syria and know even less squat about these rebels.”

Gelb continues:

There is one path to sensible strategy and to staying out of trouble. It is for America’s leaders in Congress, the media, and, above all, the administration to learn the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam and get themselves to satisfactorily ask and reasonably answer the tough questions before we selflessly, inadvertently, and foolishly find ourselves in another war.

_____________________

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

A bailout deal between Nicosia and the troika of lenders namely the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) has drawn criticism from the speaker of the Cypriot parliament.

“We had the decision from the Euro group, this decision is painful for Cypriot people. This decision was a defeat…,” Yiannakis Omirou said on Monday.

Omirou made the remarks after Cyprus and international lenders reportedly reached a bailout agreement to save the cash-strapped island nation from bankruptcy.

European Union sources said that the agreement was reached early on Monday in Brussels. The deal paves the way for the country to receive a 10-billion-euro (USD 13 billion) bailout.

Later in the day, in another meeting in the same building in Brussels, the eurozone’s finance ministers also approved the deal.

The sources said that the deal will include a tax of up to 40 percent on deposits of over 100,000 euros in Cyprus’ two biggest banks.

The country’s banks are shut nationwide until March 26 to prevent cash withdrawals, prompting people to form long lines at cash machines, which only dispense a lowered daily amount of 260 euros for each individual account.

The 10-billion-euro bailout would also save Cyprus from bankruptcy and possibly guarantee its future in the 17-nation eurozone, reports say.

People in Cyprus have taken to the streets to protest the bailout deal. The protesters gathered outside the parliament in the capital Nicosia.

Cypriot protesters denounced their government, the EU and the IMF for their austerity policies.

MAM/JR/SS

For the US, UK, France, and its regional partners including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, nothing would have suited their interests more than if the recent chemical attack reported in Aleppo Syria turned out to be (or could have been portrayed as being) the work of the Syrian government, or even “loose” weapons that had fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists the West both arms and condemns simultaneously.

However, a strange silence has fallen across the Western media regarding the chemical attack which Israel had even claimed to have “confirmed.” Now, a recent report published in the London Telegraph by Channel 4 journalist Alex Thomson has produced convincing evidence that implicates the West’s terrorist proxies as the perpetrators, and goes far in explaining the otherwise inexplicable silence exhibited by Wall Street and London’s propaganda machine. Titled, “Syria chemical weapons: finger pointed at jihadists,” Thomson reported that:

The military’s version of events is that the home-made rocket was fired at a military checkpoint situated at the entrance to the town. The immediate effects were to induce vomiting, fainting , suffocation and seizures among those in the immediate area.

A second source — a medic at the local civilian hospital — said that he personally witnessed Syrian army helping those wounded and dealing with fatalities at the scene. That Syrian soldiers were among the reported 26 deaths has not been disputed by either side.

The military source who spoke to Channel 4 News confirmed that artillery reports from the Syrian Army suggest a small rocket was fired from the vicinity of Al-Bab, a district close to Aleppo that is controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra — a jihadist group said to be linked with al-Qaeda and deemed a “terrorist organisation” by the US.

Thomson describes his contact in Syria as “a trusted and hitherto reliable source.” Thomson’s report, coupled with the silence across the West’s governments and media houses, implies that indeed this version of the story falls closest yet to the truth. The West’s silence in the face of an otherwise spectacular opportunity to advance its agenda may also indicate its faltering legitimacy and the loss of confidence that it can rewrite, at will, reality to suit its agenda — as it has done so many times in the past.

The West also faces a growing crisis if its terrorist proxies continue using chemical weapons, whatever their origin. CNN had reported in December of 2012, in a report titled, “Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons,” that:

The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.

The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.

This would implicate the West directly in giving terrorists using chemical weapons against Syria’s population the knowledge and training to handle just such weapons. While the West continues to insist there is a divide between the terrorists it is arming, funding, and training, and the terrorists openly fighting under the banner of sectarian extremism, it is clear that even the US’ hand-picked “interim government” is run entirely by the sectarian extremist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. Thomson’s report implicates the Al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra as possibly being behind the attack, and notes that it is listed by the US as a “terrorist organisation.” However, so-called Syrian opposition leader, Moaz al-Khatib, had personally defended al-Nusra, openly admitting it was fighting alongside his Western-backed front.

As the West’s credibility crumbles regarding Syria, and as its “success” in Libya continues to burn, its arming, training, aiding and abetting of terrorists carrying out increasingly horrific atrocities which now appear to include the use of chemical weapons, will haunt them not only in their pursuit of transforming the Levant, but in many years to come, in regards to all of their geopolitical ambitions.

Today’s unmanned aerial vehicles, most famously Predator and Reaper drones, have been celebrated as the culmination of the longtime dreams of airpower enthusiasts, offering the possibility of victory through quick, clean, and selective destruction. Those drones, so the (very old) story goes, assure the U.S. military of command of the high ground, and so provide the royal road to a speedy and decisive triumph over helpless enemies below.

Fantasies about the certain success of air power in transforming, even ending, war as we know it arose with the plane itself. But when it comes to killing people from the skies, again and again air power has proven neither cheap nor surgical nor decisive nor in itself triumphant. Seductive and tenacious as the dreams of air supremacy continue to be, much as they automatically attach themselves to the latest machine to take to the skies, air power has not fundamentally softened the brutal face of war, nor has it made war less dirty or chaotic.

Indeed, by emboldening politicians to seek seemingly low-cost, Olympian solutions to complex human problems — like Zeus hurling thunderbolts from the sky to skewer puny mortals — it has fostered fantasies of illimitable power emboldened by contempt for human life. However, just like Zeus’s obdurate and rebellious subjects, the mortals on the receiving end of death from on high have shown surprising strength in frustrating the designs of the air power gods, whether past or present. Yet the Olympian fantasy persists, a fact that requires explanation.

The Rise of Air Power

It did not take long after the Wright Brothers first put a machine in the air for a few exhilarating moments above the sandy beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December of 1903, for the militaries of industrialized countries to express interest in buying and testing airplanes. Previously balloons had been used for reconnaissance, as in the Napoleonic wars and the U.S. Civil War, and so initially fledgling air branches focused on surveillance and intelligence-gathering. As early as 1911, however, Italian aircraft began dropping small bombs from open-air cockpits on the enemy — we might today call them “insurgents” — in Libya.

World War I encouraged the development of specialized aircraft, most famously the dancing bi- and tri-winged fighter planes of the dashing “knights of the air,” as well as the more ponderous, but for the future far more important, bombers.  By the close of World War I in 1918, each side had developed multi-engine bombers like the German Gotha, which superseded the more vulnerable zeppelins. Their mission was to fly over the trenches where the opposing armies were stalemated and take the war to the enemy’s homeland, striking fear in his heart and compelling him to surrender. Fortunately for civilians a century ago, those bombers were too few in number, and their payloads too limited, to inflict widespread destruction, although German air attacks on England in 1917 did spread confusion and, in a few cases, panic.

Pondering the hecatombs of dead from trench warfare, air power enthusiasts of the 1920s and 1930s not surprisingly argued strongly, and sometimes insubordinately, for the decisive importance of bombing campaigns launched by independent air forces. A leading enthusiast was Italy’s Giulio Douhet. In his 1921 work Il dominio dell’aria (Command of the Air), he argued that in future wars strategic bombing attacks by heavily armed “battle-planes” (bombers) would produce rapid and decisive victories. Driven by a fascist-inspired logic of victory through preemptive attack, Douhet called for all-out air strikes to destroy the enemy’s air force and its bases, followed by hammer blows against industry and civilians using high-explosive, incendiary, and poison-gas bombs. Such blows, he predicted, would produce psychological uproar and social chaos (“shock and awe,” in modern parlance), fatally weakening the enemy’s will to resist.

As treacherous and immoral as his ideas may sound, Douhet’s intent was to shorten wars and lessen casualties — at least for his side. Better to subdue the enemy by pressing hard on select pressure points (even if the “pressing” was via high explosives and poison gas, and the “points” included concentrations of innocent civilians), rather than forcing your own army to bog down in bloody, protracted land wars.

That air power was inherently offensive and uniquely efficacious in winning cheap victories was a conclusion that found a receptive audience in Great Britain and the United States. In England, Hugh Trenchard, founding father of the Royal Air Force (RAF), embraced strategic bombing as the most direct way to degrade the enemy’s will; he boldly asserted that “the moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material effect in a proportion of twenty to one.”

Even bolder was his American counterpart, William “Billy” Mitchell, famously court-martialed and romanticized as a “martyr” to air power. (In his honor, cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy still eat in Mitchell Hall.) At the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1930s, U.S. airmen refined Mitchell’s tenets, developing a “vital centers” theory of bombing — the idea that one could compel an enemy to surrender by identifying and destroying his vulnerable economic nodes. It therefore came as no accident that the U.S. entered World War II with the world’s best heavy bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress, and a fervid belief that “precision bombing” would be the most direct path to victory.

World War II and After: Dehousing, Scorching, Boiling, and Baking the Enemy

In World War II, “strategic” air forces that focused on winning the war by heavy bombing reached young adulthood, with all the swagger associated with that stage of maturity. The moral outrage of Western democracies that accompanied the German bombing of civilian populations in Guernica, Spain, in 1937 or Rotterdam in 1940 was quickly forgotten once the Allies sought to open a “second front” against Hitler through the air. Four-engine strategic bombers like the B-17 and the British Lancaster flew for thousands of miles carrying bomb loads measured in tons. From 1942 to 1945 they rained two million tons of ordnance on Axis targets in Europe, but accuracy in bombing remained elusive.

While the U.S. attempted and failed at precision daylight bombing against Germany’s “vital centers,” Britain’s RAF Bomber Command began employing what was bloodlessly termed “area bombing” at night in a “dehousing” campaign led by Arthur “Bomber” Harris. What became an American/British combined bomber offensive killed 600,000 German civilians, including 120,000 children, reducing cities like Cologne (1942), Hamburg (1943), Berlin (1944-45), and Dresden (1945) to rubble.

Yet, contrary to the dreams of air power advocates, Germany’s will to resist remained unbroken. The vaunted second front of aerial battle became yet another bloody attritional brawl, with hundreds of thousands of civilians joining scores of thousands of aircrews in death.

Similarly mauled but unbroken by bombing was Japan, despite an air campaign of relentless intensity that killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. Planned and directed by Major General Curtis LeMay, new B-29 bombers loaded with incendiaries struck Tokyo, a city made largely of wood, in March 1945, creating a firestorm that in his words “scorched and boiled and baked [the Japanese] to death.” As many as 100,000 Japanese died in this attack.

Subsequently, 60 more cities were firebombed until the apotheosis of destruction came that August as atomic bombs incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing another 200,000 people. It quickly became an article of faith among American air power enthusiasts that these bombs had driven Japan to surrender; together with this, the “decisive” air campaign against Germany became reason enough to justify an independent U.S. Air Force, which was created by the National Security Act of 1947.

In the total war against Nazi and Japanese terror, moral concerns, when expressed, came privately.  General Ira Eaker worried that future generations might condemn the Allied bombing campaign against Germany for its targeting of “the man in the street.” Even LeMay, not known for introspective doubts, worried in 1945 that he and his team would likely be tried as war criminals if the U.S. failed to defeat Japan.  (So Robert McNamara, then an Army Air Force officer working for LeMay, recalled in the documentary The Fog of War.)

But moral qualms were put aside in the post-war glow of victory and as the fear rose of future battles with communism. The Korean War (1950-1953) may have ushered in the jet age, as symbolized by the dogfights of American Sabre Jets and Soviet MiGs over the Yalu River, but it also witnessed the devastation by bombing of North Korea, even as the enemy took cover underground and refused to do what air power strategists had always assumed they would: give up.

Still, for the U.S. Air Force, the real action of that era lay largely in the realm of dystopian fantasies as it created the Strategic Air Command (SAC), which coordinated two legs of the nuclear triad, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos and nuclear-armed long-range bombers. (The third was nuclear-missile-armed submarines.) SAC kept some of those bombers carrying thermonuclear weapons in the air 24/7 as a “deterrent” to a Soviet nuclear first strike (and as a constant first strike threat of our own). “Thinking about the unthinkable” — that is, nuclear Armageddon — became all the rage, with “massive retaliation” serving as the byword for air power enthusiasts. In this way, dreams of clean victories morphed into nightmares of global thermonuclear annihilation, leaving the 1930s air power ideal of “clean” and “surgical” strikes in the dust — for the time being.

Reaping What We Sow

Despite an unimaginably powerful nuclear deterrent that essentially couldn’t be used, the U.S. Air Force had to relearn the hard way that there remained limits to the efficacy of air power, especially when applied to low-intensity, counterinsurgency wars. As in Korea in the 1950s, air power in the 1960s and 1970s failed to provide the winning edge in the Vietnam War, even as it spread wanton destruction throughout the Vietnamese countryside. But it was the arrival of “smart” bombs near that war’s end that marked the revival of the fantasies of air power enthusiasts about “precision bombing” as the path to future victory.

By the 1990s, laser- and GPS-guided bombs (known collectively as PGMs, forprecision guided munitions) were relegating unguided, “dumb” bombs largely to the past. Yet like their predecessors, PGMs proved no panacea. In the opening stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, for example, 50 precision “decapitation strikes” targeting dictator Saddam Hussein’s top leadership failed to hit any of their intended targets, while causing “dozens” of civilian deaths. That same year, air power’s inability to produce decisive results on the ground after Iraq’s descent into chaos, insurrection, and civil war served as a reminder that the vaunted success of the U.S. air campaign in the First Gulf War (1991) was a fluke, not a flowering of air power’s maturity. (Saddam Hussein made his traditionally organized military, defenseless against air power, occupy static positions after his invasion of Kuwait.)

The recent marriage of PGMs to drones, hailed as the newest “perfect weapon” in the air arsenal, has once again led to the usual fantasies about the arrival — finally, almost 100 years late — of clean, precise, and decisive war. Using drones, a military need not risk even a pilot’s life in its attacks. Yet the nature of war — its horrors, its unpredictability, its tendency to outlive its original causes — remains fundamentally unaltered by “precision” drone strikes. War’s inherent fog and friction persist. In the case of drones, that fog is often generated by faulty intelligence, the friction by malfunctioning weaponry orinnocent civilians appearing just as the Hellfire missiles are unleashed. Rather than clean wars of decision, drone strikes decide nothing. Instead, they produce their share of “collateral damage” that only spawns new enemies seeking revenge.

The fantasy of air war as a realm of technical decision, as an exercise in decisively finding, fixing, and dispatching the enemy, appeals to a country like the United States that idolizes technology as a way to quick fixes. As a result, it’s hardly surprising that two administrations in Washington have ever more zealously pursued drone wars and aerial global assassination campaigns, already killing 4,700 “terrorists” and bystanders. And this has been just part of our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s campaign of 20,000 air strikes(only 10% of which were drone strikes) in his first term of office. Yet despite — or perhaps because of — these attacks, our global war against al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and other groups like the Taliban appears no closer to ending.

And that is, in part, because the dream of air power remains just that: a fantasy, a capricious and destructive will-o’-the-wisp.  It’s a fantasy because it denies agency to enemies (and others) who invariably find ways to react, adapt, and strike back. It’s a fantasy because, however much such attacks seem both alluringly low-risk and high-reward to the U.S. military, they become a rallying cause for those on the other end of the bombs and missiles.

A much-quoted line from the movie Apocalypse Now captured the insanity of the American air war in Vietnam. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,”says an Air Cav commander played by Robert Duvall. “Smelled like… victory.” Updated for drone warfare, this line might read: “I love the sound of drones in the morning. Sounds like… victory.” But will we say the same when armed drones are hovering, not only above our enemies’ heads but above ours, too, in fortress America, enforcing security and conformity while smiting citizens judged to be rebellious?

Something tells me this is not the dream that airpower enthusiasts had in mind.

The mass hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay has gathered momentum, entering Day 48 with reportedly over 100 inmates refusing food. While human rights groups worry about their failing health, the US mainstream media continues to turn a blind eye.

Prison officials have been downplaying the protest for weeks. The unpopular Gitmo topic has remained off the radar of mainstream news, hidden from the American public even after the Pentagon’s acknowledgement of the growing number of Gitmo detainees on hunger strike.

Reports first begin to emerge about a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay around February 23, about two weeks after it began.

Inmates’ lawyers said over a hundred people have been taking part in it, while according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, 130 inmates began their life-threatening hunger strike to protest treatment and conditions at the prison. Many of them had lost a substantial amount of weight. The desperate move was triggered by their frustration with the US government’s failure to shut down the controversial facility.

US officials initially denied that a strike was taking place at all.

“As you recall, they started off by saying, ‘no one is on hunger strike, just five or six people who have been on the hunger strike for many years’. Then that figure was revised up to 14 and now we are seeing the figure steadily increasing, but to nowhere near the extent that the prisoners’ lawyers are talking about,” investigative journalist and author of ‘The Guantanamo Files’ Andy Worthington told RT.

Currently the officially-acknowledged number of Gitmo detainees on hunger strike has reached 26 people, according to the US Defense Department. Eight of them are being force-fed, which means they are administered food in the form of a nutritional supplement through a hose snaked into their nose while they are restrained in a chair.

Attorneys representing the prisoners are saying that the situation there is far worse than military officials are ready to admit. 

“Hearing about how the lawyers are not being allowed to visit, plus this big gulf between what the lawyers are saying and the administration is saying is indicative of the administration still trying to clamp down on it. They don’t want this story out. And I think that that there’s a big story going on,” Worthington stated.

The nature of the mass protest at the Guantanamo Bay has been summed up with a statement sent to military officials by the Center for Constitutional Rights. They wrote that “since approximately February 6, 2013, camp authorities have been confiscating detainees’ personal items, including blankets, sheets, towels, mats, razors, toothbrushes, books, family photos, religious CDs, and letters, including legal mail; and restricting their exercise, seemingly without provocation or cause.” Moreover, “Arabic interpreters employed by the prison have been searching the men’s Korans in ways that constitute desecration according to their religious beliefs, and that guards have been disrespectful during prayer times.”

“Nobody else is talking about this subject. If this were happening in Russia, if people disappeared into an illegal black hole in Russia and were facing indefinite incarceration, without trial, without charge and without access of attorneys, we’d never hear the end of it. The Western media would be full of it. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, they’d be screaming from the rooftops of Westminster,” British MP George Galloway told RT.

“But because this is an American crime, they’re allowed to get away with it. Because the people that control the so-called mainstream media are fully on side with the agenda of the Obama administration,” he added.

RT asked people on the streets of New York whether they actually knew that more than half of the detainees at Guantanamo have been cleared for release. Nearly all replied that they had no idea, noting that because the Gitmo inmates are being kept in prison by the US, it’s only fair that they get their views expressed on local media. 

The detention camp in eastern Cuba reportedly holds 166 men seized in counterterrorism operations, most of whom have been held without charge for a decade. Although Barack Obama promised to shut down the facility at the beginning of his first term as president, the facility remains open.

Jobless immigrants will have UK government support payments ripped from their hands after six months. Further measures are to come into force preventing foreign entrants from even being put on a waiting list for social housing for two to five years.

Immigrants from EU states residing in Britain will lose their jobseekers’ allowance — a weekly government support payment- and other benefits, if they cannot prove that they’ve actively been looking for employment, David Cameron said in a speech on Monday.

He said that concerns that immigrants “take advantage of our generosity” were not just legitimate, “but right,” adding that in the past, the UK had been a soft-touch.

Non-nationals will have to devise a way of proving that they have a ‘genuine chance’ of finding work. However, exactly how this would be done in practice is unclear. The ‘habitual residence’ test, sat by migrants who want financial support from the government, will also be made increasingly difficult.

Extra tests will have to be taken by people applying for social housing. Once the measures come into force it could take anything up to five years for residents of an area to even be put on a waiting list for a home.

However, Cameron said that he was “putting the welfare of the child at the heart of the…process”

There will be a clampdown on access to healthcare, as well as in housing and benefits payment. Immigrants entering the country from outside the EU will be forced to demonstrate evidence of medical insurance, and the NHS — a traditionally free institution – will impose charges for doctor visits. Potential immigrants entering to gain access to healthcare have had the label ‘health tourists’ slapped on them.

Earlier this month, it was announced that immigrants entering Britain may be forced to pay a deposit fee upon entering the country, which would only be reimbursed when they leave the UK, and only if they haven’t used its health service.

Even harsher measures are to be imposed on illegal immigrants. Steps are being taken to prevent illegal immigrants from getting credit cards or driving licenses, and their employers and landlords could be fined. Cameron said they were “doubling the fines levied against employers who employ illegal workers.”

“Once we’ve found them we’re going to make it easier to remove them,” Cameron said. He added that he would ensure faster deportation, saying that “wherever possible” people would be deported first, and could appeal the decision second.

The new policies will come into force in 2014. The coalition’s reforms would give Britain the toughest controls in the world, according to Conservative Minister of State for Immigration Mark Harper, who spoke to Sky News on Sunday.  

Cameron said that immigration got ‘badly out of control’ under Labour.

“Immigration has to be properly controlled,” he argued. “Under the last government this simply wasn’t the case. Immigration was far too high.”

However, net migration into Britain has fallen by a third in recent years, from 247,000 in June 2011 to 163,000 in 2012, according the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Additionally, their valuable contribution to the UK economy has been pointed out.

“Nothing wrong with debating immigration. But lets [sic] not omit the fact that immigrants put 6% more in to UK GDP than they take out,” said Parmjit Dhanda , former Labour MP, on Twitter. 

Cameron said that he wanted to train young British people to fill the skills gap, while saying that he was “rolling out the red carpet” to bright foreign students and entrepreneurs.

Last week, Business Secretary Vince Cable warned that restricting immigration would damage the UK economy.

The increasingly hard stance is shared by the country’s main three political parties. In light of the Eastleigh by-election results in February in which UKIP —a party renowned for its hard stance on immigration — won. All three major UK political parties are now cracking down on social support from the government; Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg voiced support for the entry fee on Friday, suggesting it could be as much as 1,000 pounds.

“We need stronger action against illegal immigration and a more effective system for the migration we need,” tweeted Labour Press Team’s Chris Bryant. “The immigration system just isn’t working- fewer illegal immigrants are being stopped or sent back,” he said, going on to add that the test of the PM’s speech was whether he could stop the government’s expanding list of practical failings on immigration

“As we have said for some time, Britain does not need an arms race on immigration rhetoric, it needs practical measures to make sure the system works and immigration is properly managed and controlled,” said Yvette Cooper MP Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary on Monday.

Cameron’s spokesman spent around 50 minutes prior to the speech fielding considerably skeptical questions from the press regarding whether Cameron’s measures will have any impact whatsoever, according to the Guardian.

The UKIP is claiming credit for the outcry.

“Cameron will only create a whole pile of bureaucracy that will affect everyone in the UK, cost the taxpayer millions and will still be riddled with loopholes and therefore totally ineffective,” said UKIP’s Nigel Farage in a statement on Monday.

He went on to declare that the only way to prevent wide-scale immigration is for Britain to leave the EU.

The CIA reportedly has a hand in clandestine supply of arms to Syrian rebels by Gulf States. At least 3,500 tons of have been delivered – some ending up on the black market, with the Turkish government an active player, a media report says.

The flow of arms continues with the help of US agents as Washington criticizes Iran and Russia for delivering weapons to the Syrian regime, the New York Times says. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Iraq on Sunday to close its airspace to Iranian flights just as the latest arms delivery from Qatar for Syrian rebels was landing in Turkey, according to the daily’s report.

The newspaper cites air traffic data, US and foreign officials and rebel commanders in its investigation.

The airlift reportedly began in early 2012 with a Qatari Emir Air Force C-130 transport aircraft flight. Saudi Arabia and Jordan have joined in in November, when it became a major operation. More than 160 military flights have landed in Turkey over the time. Esenboga Airport near Ankara was the prime destination, but others were also involved, the newspaper claims.

“A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,” Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told the newspaper. He added that it appears as a “well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation.”

Indeed, CIA agents have a direct input on the deliveries, albeit mostly consultative, NYT says. The spy agency reportedly helps with procurement of weapons in Croatia and vets Syrian rebel groups, which would receive the weapons.

The involvement was supposedly motivated by the fact that the Arab states would supply arms to the Syrian militants anyway. The hopes CIA its can steer away the arms from Islamists’ hands and prevent weapons which can potentially be used by terrorist against civilian targets from being delivered, a former US official told the newspaper.

The operation was a limited success apparently, NYT says, citing two Islamist commanders.

“There are fake Free Syrian Army brigades claiming to be revolutionaries, and when they get the weapons they sell them in trade,” Hassan Aboud of Soquor al-Sham told the newspaper.

The former official described the program as “a cataract of weaponry.” He said: “People hear the amounts flowing in, and it is huge, but they burn through a million rounds of ammo in two weeks.”

Instrumental to setting up the operation was David H. Petraeus, the CIA director until November, the official said. He had prodded various countries to work together on it.

The scale of the operation increased considerably in November, after the Turkish government agreed to it, the report says. The tipping point may also have been the presidential election in the United States.

Ankara reportedly has oversight over much of the program, down to affixing transponders to trucks ferrying the arms through Turkish territory and across the border. Some in Turkey say Ankara is de facto at war with Damascus because of its involvement in the conflict.

“The use of Turkish airspace at such a critical time, with the conflict in Syria across our borders, and by foreign planes from countries that are known to be central to the conflict, defines Turkey as a party in the conflict,” said Attilla Kart, a member of the Turkish Parliament from the CHP opposition party, who confirmed details about several Saudi shipments. “The government has the responsibility to respond to these claims.”

Still, rebel commanders complain that they do not receive enough weapons and do not get heavier kinds of weapons like anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

“The outside countries give us weapons and bullets little by little,” said Abdel Rahman Ayachi, a commander in Soquor al-Sham, an Islamist fighting group in northern Syria.

They accuse Washington of blocking such deliveries.

“Arming or not arming, lethal or nonlethal – it all depends on what America says,” Mohammed Abu Ahmed, who leads a band of anti-Assad fighters in Idlib Province, told NYT.

The CIA and General Petraeus would not comment when contacted by the newspaper. Turkish and Saudi Arabian officials declined to discuss the arms flights. Croatia and Jordan both denied any role in supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels, NYT says. Jordanian aviation officials reportedly went so far as to insist that no cargo flights occurred, and cut communication after presented evidence to the contrary.

Bhagwat Singh Gohil frets for the future of his bountiful orchards in Mithi Virdi village in western Gujarat state’s coastal district Bhavnagar. “After contending with droughts, rough seas and earthquakes we are staring at the possibility of a man-made disaster in the shape of a nuclear power park.”

Women protesting against a proposed nuclear plant at Mithi Virdi in the Indian state Gujarat. Credit: Krishnakant/IPS. Speaking with IPS over telephone from Mithi Virdi, Gohil said he and other villagers are unconvinced by official declarations guaranteeing the safety of the Gujarat Nuclear Power Park (GNPP) which, when complete, is due to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity.

“They could not have chosen a worse site for a mega nuclear power plant — we have a history of earthquakes and fear a Fukushima type disaster in the Gulf of Khambat where the GNPP is coming up,” said Gohil. “Also, Gujarat borders Pakistan, a hostile neighbour. What if this nuclear facility is bombed in a future war?”

On Mar. 5 Gohil and some 5,000 villagers silently walked out of a public hearing  held by the local administration seeking approval for construction for the GNPP which is due to be equipped with six Westinghouse-Toshiba nuclear reactors, each with a 1,000 megawatt capacity.

“We did not want to be party to an illegal public hearing that was seeking endorsement for an environment impact assessment (EIA) report that was flawed and ignored many safety aspects which we are soon going to publish in a parallel document,” Rohit Prajpati, leader of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (Environment Protection Group), a voluntary agency active in Gujarat told IPS.

“To begin with, the EIA was drawn up by Engineers India Limited (EIL), a public sector consultancy that does not have the required accreditation — a fact which is apparent on the government’s own website,” Prajapti said. “An attempt was made to hoodwink the villagers, but they did not buy it.”

According to the terms of reference, EIL was supposed to carry out a detailed risk assessment and provide a disaster management plan, but the final document avoids that responsibility. “We have made written protests about this flawed EIA to the environment ministry,” Prajapati said.

According to V. T. Padmanabhan, independent researcher and member of the Brussels-based European Commission on Radiation Risk, basic safety aspects are being glossed over in the EIAs in the rush to set up a string of nuclear parks along India’s vast coastline.

“The EIA drawn up for the Mithi Virdi project, for instance, ignores the fact that there has been no study conducted on maximum flood levels — and that in an area that is seriously prone to tidal floods,” Padmanabhan told IPS.

On Mar. 6, answering questions in parliament concerning the new nuclear parks, V. Narayanswamy, minister in the prime minister’s office, said coastal nuclear power parks are designed with consideration given to possible earthquakes, tsunamis, storm surges and tidal flooding.

“Safety is a moving target in nuclear power plants and is continuously evolving based on the reviews by utilities and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB)  besides internationally evolving standards,” Narayanaswamy informed parliament.

But, it is not just the villagers and activists who are worried at the haste with which the public sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) is going about setting up coastal nuclear power projects — the courts have been lending a sympathetic ear to the protestors.

On Mar. 12, the high court of the southern Andhra Pradesh state halted plans for a 9,000 megawatt nuclear park at Kovvada in coastal Srikakulam district following a petition filed on behalf of local residents and fishermen by J. Rama Rao, a retired naval engineer.

The high court took notice of the petitoners’ plea that the government was going about attempting to acquire land for the 6,000 megawatt nuclear facility even though the project is yet to gain clearance from the AERB.

Kovvada villagers have been on a relay hunger strike since December 2012 against the proposed nuclear power plant. Their petition cited the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear meltdowns to say that in the event of an accident, future generations would be affected by radiation contamination.

But, in spite of the protests and intervention by the court the government appears determined to push ahead with plans to generate 40 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2020, most of it from nuclear parks in various stages of completion along India’s peninsular coastline.

Narayanasamy stated in parliament that electricity will begin to flow from the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) in southern Tamil Nadu by April. The KNPP, which is designed to generate 9,200 megawatts, has been in the making since 1988 when a deal was signed for its construction between India and Russia.

KNPP is yet to have valid Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances. Last November, NPCIL also admitted in the Supreme Court that it had constructed a desalination plant without mandatory environmental clearance, showing how existing rules are being bypassed.

“CRZ clearance is not a technical formality, but an important procedure designed to protect India’s sensitive coastal region,” said Padmanabhan, adding that the haste in setting up coastal nuclear plants contrasts with the bureaucratic red tape that India is known for.

“What we are seeing is a repeat of the Fukushima experience where investigations by a parliamentary committee have shown that although triggered by a tsunami, the meltdown of the rectors was man-made and a result of collusion between the government, the regulators and the utility Tokyo Electric Power Company,” Padmanabhan said.

Poor governance and lack of independent regulatory oversight in the construction of nuclear plants have already been pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor General, India’s powerful government watchdog.

© 2013 Inter Press Service

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Since all human occurrences take place in society, it is obviously a truism that all insanity must, in some sense, be social. On the other hand, if we assert that insanity is due to biological factors then it might seem that insanity can be due to causes that are not in any sense social. However, even the designations that we apply to human activity derive from various social institutions and their forms of mental interpretation, so once again the social penetrates our understanding of insanity.

However, I wish to argue here for a more robust account of social insanity. I wish to argue that not only can individuals be dysfunctional and pathological but that societies can be irrational, self-destructive and given to denial, self-deception and violent self-contamination. Freud knew as much when he asked at the conclusion of Civilization and its Discontents:

… would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization – or epochs of it – possibly even the whole of humanity – have become “neurotic” under the pressure of civilizing trends?

>Nevertheless, it is true that in our time the term “insanity” tends to refer to a private malady. We lack an appropriate term for disorders of the public mind for the fundamental reason that we lack any notion of the “public mind” itself. And the reason for this disappearance is not that the phenomenon itself has ceased to exist but that public consciousness has become so fragmented and atomic that this collective form of consciousness tends to lack self-awareness. But this dissolution is itself the very form of public consciousness that is so important for us to grasp.

To see more articles by Richard Lichtman and other scholars, visit Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project.

For fragmentation, like loneliness or isolation, is only possible in society. It is only when we compete with each other for power and domination, when each of us comes to regard others as impediments to our own realization, all of which are of, course, social forms of action, that we experience ourselves as simultaneously individual and social, encountering acutely the very opposition between our individuality and our social nature. Of course, the most terrible forms of individual pathology occur through the most terrible forms of social chaos and despair.

It was not always so. In the 19th century terms like “alienation,” “anomie,” “disenchantment” and “ideology” referred to pathologies of social life and public mind as well as to individual dysfunctions. For many of the great sociologists, men like Marx and Durkheim, society had a nature that was not reducible to the sum of its individual members. Nor, of course, did it exist independently of them. It is not an easy phenomenon to conceptualize, but we need finally to ask what we can possibly understand by this term.

The “public mind” is not the sum of individual minds, but their source and presupposition. It is not a universal archetype, for it is specific to each distinct social order. It is not a concrete, innate system of any kind, for it cannot exist independently of the various social relations that activate its potentiality.

The public mind is the pattern of meanings and the system of feelings, desires and aspirations established in the codes, rules and symbols embedded in the objective structures of social, economic, historical and political life. Subjectively, it is the set of assumptions, convictions, beliefs and values that ground the shared sense of social existence of the multitudinous groups that constitute a given social order.

We have difficulty grasping the sense of public mind because in our time the collectivity that exists is obscured by the illusion that the individual is the source rather than the consequence of the culture of capitalism. But all we need to convince ourselves of the existence of social reality is to pass through a significant economic crisis in which we cannot find work because the capitalist cannot locate consumers for his production while his plant lies idle and its machines useless; the commodities they might make available cannot find the workers to operate the machines that would produce them or the consumers to purchase them. This is an irrational system, one in which everything that is required depends on other characteristics that themselves cannot function without the contribution of those aspects of the potential structure that remain actually idle. So, one might say, nothing can be what it is unless everything else is what it was intended to be; and yet, the same can be said for every aspect of the idle system that therefore fails to function.

At the core of the failure of capitalism is a systematic contradiction between the two most fundamental organizing tendencies of our contemporary life. On the one hand we live within a system of capitalism while, on the other, we simultaneously conceptualize ourselves in accordance with the ideals of democracy. These two structures are, however, completely opposed to each other; they are in a fateful contradiction.

For capitalism is an economic system based on institutionalized greed, self-interest, accumulation, expansion, domination and disregard of the lives of others. It is a system of power in blatant opposition to democracy, which is an order of values that exalts simultaneously the individual’s uniqueness and capacity for cooperative relationships organized on behalf of justice, equality, dignity and universal freedom.

How has The United States been able to integrate two systems so fundamentally at odds with each other, so antagonistic to each other’s motive and meaning, so radically in opposition? When all the falsehood and terrible mystification is pierced and suspended, when the truth fights through the veil of manipulated pretense and self-serving hypocrisy, casting aside, if only briefly, the horrible facade of false consciousness and organized dishonesty, one overriding fact looms portentously above the manipulated mystification of the populace.

How has the United States been able to integrate the contradictory tendencies of capitalist exploitation and democratic idealism? The answer is simple, pathetic and unavoidable: The ostensible integration has never taken place. Since its earliest history and with growing force and increasing speed, the United States has embraced the elitist domination of capitalist power and cloaked itself in the illusion of democratic self-righteousness. “Democracy,” or its semblance, has been shaped to support the ravages of capitalist exploitation, while providing the illusion of its devotion to restraining and remaking the ills of economic malice.

Of course, this assertion needs to be supported by all the claims and counterclaims that are finally called upon to provide assurance. However, simply cast your gaze at the fraction of the populace that owns and controls the essential means of social domination, not even the 1% but the 1/10th of 1%, whose wealth and consequent power is more than equivalent to that of the struggling remainder of the citizenry. It is an exercise in despair to explore the whole range of actions that are fatefully skewed in the direction of this ghastly minority and its capacity to serve its interests at the expense of the lives of others whose daily existence is not constituted by a choice among irrelevant luxuries but the need to keep from falling into abject despair, anxiety, depression, illness and death.

Is there any wonder that there is disorder in the land; that lives are made hollow, meaningless and filled with an undying rage against one’s self for failing, against others for what seems their superior gratification, for life as a whole that has promised so much and delivered so little. One inhales failure with every painful breath, or in keeping with the splitting of life between the power and the purpose to which we previously alluded, one retrenches, contracts, lives more and more into one’s self, while the world beyond our private isolation grows ever more massive and monstrous until its slips in through the crevices of our passive surrender and threatens to take even more of us than we had ever realized was vulnerable.

Is it any wonder that terror and violence prowl about the wasteland of so many lives, or that the larger majority succumbs to apathy and paralysis? One could go on listing indefinitely the acts of dehumanized destruction, incomprehensible violence and deranged terror that transpire out of motives that neither its perpetrators, its victims nor observing savants can comprehend.

But stop for a moment and ask yourself: What is the meaning of this hatred and cold extermination? Ultimately, hatred and violence, murder and mayhem are modes of reconstruction in a world that has failed its most vulnerable, even more than its most comfortable.

Why do I link reconstruction with hatred and violence?  To destroy is to remake the universe, to eliminate from it something – not necessarily what confronts one – but what that fragile presence before us symbolizes to its enraged and often deranged adversary. Violence contracts what cannot be embraced or even expanded; it minimizes what cannot be enlarged or shared: one’s powers, one’s love, one’s creative affirmation of the humanity of life in a world that bears the possibility of transcendence in beauty.

In the passage I previously cited from Freud, he spoke of the destructive possibilities of “civilization.” That assertion is in keeping with his tendency to universalize the conditions of life in his time. Reification is his constant nemesis. He pays insufficient attention to the diversity of societies and the importance of their differences. It is more misleading than insightful to trace human failures back to civilization as such. For Freud, of course, the conflict between human existence and civilization is ubiquitous and permanent, as is the conflict within human beings between their tendency to love and draw together against their tendency to die and destroy.

Marx functions with a different paradigm:

The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual … appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole … Only in the eighteenth century, in “civil society,” do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means toward his private purposes, as external necessity.

So society confronts the individual and, rather than being a member of that social whole, Marx notes, the individual appears to himself or herself in “civil society” as an independent individual standing outside of society.

And Marx notes something that the advocates of capitalist society are most often blind to:

      … private interest is already a socially determined interest, which can be achieved only within the conditions laid down by society … the reciprocal and all-sided dependence of individuals who are indifferent to one another …

“Indifferent dependence” cannot be the foundation of communal concern nor the root of empathy toward others. It is much more likely to foment conflict and exploitation, rage and repulsion, self-hatred and unending envy.

From the beginning of American history, human relations were constructed through a series of antagonisms: the European settlers against native Americans and Mexican populations; human beings against nature and those same human beings divided again by privilege and power exercised against each other. Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States begins:

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, emerged from their villages into the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log.

They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawk’s bells … They do not bear arms, and do not know them. Their spears are made of cane … They would make fine servants …With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

Columbus wrote further:

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives   by force in order that they might learn and might give me information …

The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? Following that information, he set out to accumulate slaves. He later wrote: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

Zinn writes:

Among the Arawaks mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards.

The story of Columbus the heroic explorer is still the iconic legend told to the greatest majority of school children in the United States. But the myth of Columbus is not merely for the innocents of the country: Even such authorities as Samuel Eliot Morison, the “distinguished” Harvard historian, endorsed the legend of Columbus’ greatness. In his book Christopher Columbus, Mariner, Morison describes the enslavement and murder of the native populations and notes: “The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide.”

But Morrison had set out to ennoble Columbus and so he concludes:

He had his faults and his defects, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great – his indomitable will, his superb faith in God and in his own mission as the Christ-bearer to land beyond the seas, his stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty … and discouragement.  But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most astonishing and essential of all his qualities – his seamanship.

In other words, though he engaged in “complete genocide,” and missed his original mark by several thousand miles, he was an admirable sailor and that, in Morison’s eyes, counts for everything.

But why do I linger on Columbus since he was not an American but a Spaniard, raised in a foreign creed and of a different culture?

Morison, however, was an American and a distinguished one at that, who in his extravagant praise of Columbus reveals the deep and rotting soil from which he rose to his position of eminence among American historians, who simultaneously were called upon to establish his preeminence. In reading Morison, it is not Columbus that we primarily discover, but the long established American ideal of dominance and power. As Zinn reminds us:

What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortes did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English to the Powhatans and Pequots of America.

And it is what we have been doing for more than 500 years through the enslavements, invasions, murders, plunderings, dissolutions, eviscerations and wholesale slaughters of those whose lives and labors and territories and resources we coveted to the point of immolation. From the natives of early Virginia and Massachusetts to the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, transformed into shadows of their once living corporeal selves, to the more than 500,000 Iranian civilians and the still uncounted Afghanis and Pakistanis we are still in the process of saving from themselves, we have witnessed an unending baptism of freedom in blood and rotting flesh.

However, it is not the individual atrocities that are the essence of this history but the pattern of imperialist carnage; the underlying structure of dehumanized self-aggrandizement that is most to be explored, comprehended and expunged. It is the fundamental structure of the capitalist system that produces the atrocities, not the atrocities that produce the system. For the atrocities reveal as their cause a set of interrelationships that require and provide for each other – what is referred to as a dialectical system. No aspect of this system can exist independently of the others and so each reveals something of the remainder when it is explored.

The basic aspects of capitalism are: 1) exploitation, 2) expansion, 3) access to state power, 4) enhanced technology, and 5) control of the conscious and unconscious processes of the mentality of the populace.

“Exploitation” signifies that the labor of workers is owned and controlled by those who possess the means by which their wealth is produced. Given this power over wealth, the dominant class keeps a larger and larger portion for itself and returns to the workers only enough to keep them sufficiently vital and aware, so as to maintain the capacity to provide additional labor. At times, when the working class is politically vigorous, it may win concessions and at other times, such as our time now, its share of the total wealth will decline precipitously. In other words, the level of the workers’ wellbeing will fluctuate around a norm established by the underlying capacity of the capitalist to control capital and, through this control, the proportion of value accruing to the workers on the one hand and the capitalists on the other.

“Expansion” involves a structural and a geographical aspect. The capitalist system operates on the basis of continuing accumulation of profit. This follows from the fact that the system is competitive and, whether given capitalists embrace this condition or not, if they refuse to compete for a greater share of this wealth, they will find themselves driven from the marketplace and replaced by a new agent who is perfectly willing to take up the missing opportunity. It is not personal temperament or greed that produces capitalism, but capitalism that produces competitive greed. It must, of course, be the case that capitalism could not have originated absent a character structure that was attracted to personal advantage. But this characteristic was in some part the result of a desire for survival rather than enhancement and could not have persisted unless it was embodied in an expanding structure that encompassed more and more of social life.

Expansion and exploitation feed off each other: one as a dynamic process and the other as a structure that the process tends to establish. And everything that might be said about the domestic nature of a given capitalist country needs also to be repeated on the plane of international affairs. So, the world economic system is continually more subject to the voracious interests of various competing countries and the conflicts and outright warfare among them. All the while, individual capitalist firms give rise to oligopolies and monopolies that carry on the procedures of competitive exploitation on an ever more enormous and dangerous scale.

With continued growth, the economy comes more and more to depend on the resources, agencies and directives of the state, which becomes more and more essential as the economic system becomes more complex and requires a “center” that can coordinate the vast arrangement of activities that define modern capitalism: the defense and redefinition of property, the nature of taxation, the distribution of profit, the continuing support for innovation, the situating of labor, the form and content of immigration and numerous other activities that require a central agent to relate each of these activities to the others. And finally, and perhaps most to the point, the state can maintain an illusion of impartiality that defends the system against what would otherwise be the obvious charge of support of capital against the other dimensions of social life.

We should never forget that the tendencies and pressures that exist within the capitalist system have their counterpart in the forms of culture, human nature and psychological formations that pervade the social life of these societies. For example, the move to expansion has its replica in the lives of various segments of the population that sustain it. To maintain and enhance as much of one’s self with as little expenditure as possible is not merely the admonition prescribed by the commercial system but is, simultaneously, the purported insight carried throughout the emotional and motivational structure of personal, psychological and social life.

Take without giving is one of the doctrines defining male culture, in which one’s capacity to love or what passes for it is hoarded, and the accumulation of the love of others is an indication of a weakness in them that can be manipulated to one’s advantage. Need for the love of others must be disguised by aggrandizement and apparent indifference and, consequently, of success in the economic struggle for love. The prevailing prescription of male culture is self-enhancement and the minimization of the resources, powers and defenses of others: greater wealth, greater access to dominance, greater sexual potency, a greater range of powers used to control others and a greater system of defenses to keep these others who are engaged in reciprocal attack upon one’s self from succeeding. However, to accumulate without return soon becomes a wearisome task in which the value being sought and hoarded loses its significance as the other who is manipulated through this unequal exchange soon loses value and becomes, in fact, instrumentally useful but humanly worthless.

It is through the myriad forms of manipulation of others that the self loses its human potentiality. The contradiction between power and ideal with which I began these remarks has the dreadful consequence of placing one forever on the precipice of self-condemnation and social exclusion. The values that form one’s ideal self are incapable of realization, and the individual therefore comes to assume responsibility for the persistence of its failure. In his brief account of Western attitudes toward death Philippe Aires notes:

Today the adult experiences sooner or later – and increasingly it is sooner – the feeling that he has failed, that his adult life has failed to achieve any of the promises of adolescence.

Adolescence is, of course, the period of life when idealism prevails, as the difficulties that stand between the individual and his or her fulfillment are not understood to derive from the larger society within which individuals are formed and measured rather than from the unique characteristics of these burgeoning individuals themselves.

Nor is this the conclusion of one’s sense of failure; there is a further fact less often noted and commented upon: Individuals participate significantly in their own decline and ultimate demise. How does such self-destruction come about?

When we use terms like “masochism” we usually take for granted that we are speaking of individual pathology. However, consider that every social system is obviously inseparable from the channeled energies of its participants. In fact, each system is the embodiment of these energies, so organized as to form a larger and more persistent whole. So it is that the failure of our society, the harm it imposes on us, is in unavoidable measure the effort and product of our own lives. It is because we act out the forms of personhood required by our society that it is able to accumulate its power to force us into acting against ourselves. So masochism is not an individual occurrence but the basic imposition by which we construct the processes that deconstruct us. Constructing the powers of a destructive society, we deconstruct the ideal possibilities inherent in ourselves.

Of course, we are not self-consciously aware of this fact, but it occurs as it does regardless of our self-conscious ignorance. We make the social world that is our undoing. We produce the institutions and structures that maintain our very subordination. Our energies, which we define in terms of self-aggrandizement and rational self-interest, are beyond our understanding, the very opposite of what they initially claim. Our vaunted self-interest is self-denial, our cherished self-realization, the destruction of what we hold most dear.

It was not only Marx and his conservative counterparts who sensed the turning of liberalism into its opposite. It was in 1776 that Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued as a thoughtful economic historian:

Not only would free, competitive markets direct the employment of capital to those industries in which it would be more productive, but they would also result, again through the invisible hand directing selfish profit maximizing into socially beneficial channels …   

Or as Smith put the matter, speaking of the ordinary participant in the burgeoning capitalist market:

… he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain,  in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end that was no part of his intention.

Some 120 years later, Max Weber, a thinker of considerable brilliance and one more sympathetic to capitalism, having separated himself from his usual detached objectivity, noted with uncharacteristic passion and eloquence at the conclusion of The Protest Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism … with irresistible force. In [the Puritan] view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of “the saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.” But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage…

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance.  For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said: “Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that is has attained a level never before achieved.

So, at the dawn of the capitalist era, Adam Smith could see in the conjunction of individual self-interests the promise of a greater well-being than economic activity directed by a conscious intelligence could provide. But at the turn of the 20th century Smith’s optimism had been transformed into an iron cage, of which “it might be truly said: Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.”

So the ostensive rationality of capitalist triumph is transformed into the alienation of the human condition and the expectation of progressive achievement into a morass of violence directed at others and eventually even at one’s self. The murders at Newtown cannot be understood when separated from the long declining loss of rationality and its hope that marks the inversion of the liberal ideal. In short, they cannot be separated from our mass murders in Iraq, our droning of innocent families in Afghanistan, our unwillingness to hold the latest murderers of the dream of economic well-being responsible for their onslaught against the once vital fantasy of the bright rewards of diligent labor and financial probity.

As the dream dies, its debris spreads across the wasted land. To fight against the wounded apathy that blights so many more of us, what can be so exciting as the promising transcendence of this miserable world in a flash of apparent liberation delivered through the muzzle of a gun?

Note how many of these mass murders end in suicide, as though the promised moment of god-like power has been achieved, never to be reproduced again. In the life of such murderers this moment is intended to redeem their anguished trivialization. After the destruction of the other, it is vital to escape the mundane forces that have given rise to one’s original rage. The world has been remade and one must leave it as such. One has entered the life of the vanished through one’s own miraculous power to transform these others and one’s self from the living into the dead. In murder, one enters the land of the transformed, lies with them, their life now absent, now void, as is one’s own. This “nullity,” as Weber referred to our contemporary condition, has realized the fulfillment of his prophecy in the horror of obliteration. When terror becomes the all too common currency of state and family, culture and sport, it should not surprise us that it finally comes to rest in the blind horror of individual life and death.

Life size cut outs of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Boris Johnson advertised on Amazon are attracting the ire of voters in the reviews section of the site.

Some of the comments have clearly been made tongue-firmly in cheek, with one customer saying the Nick Clegg statuette is “entirely unreliable” and “unexpectedly came with a David Cameron Lifesize Cardboard Cutout Standee which has wreaked havoc in my home.”

The “buyer” added: “Also, I keep getting bills sent to me saying I owe money to cover the costs of Cameron, whom I never ordered. They are threatening to annex my closets as bedrooms and cut my wages if i don’t comply.”

The David Cameron Lifesize Cardboard Cutout fares even worse on the site, with the cutout associated with the tags bell end, liar, thief, hated, toff, tory.

Another wrote “I did not order this product. A few years ago I, along with thousands of like-minded people, ordered a Nick Clegg thinking it might make a nice change. But despite this, a David Cameron turned up instead. I tried to complain, but was told I must keep the Cameron for five years before I could consider changing it.”

Another wrote: “I was very upset as I thought I had ordered a new one but it came with absolutely hundreds of what seemed to be very unnecessary cuts.”

There were some reviews where it was difficult to ascertain whether the customer was joking or genuinely reviewing the product.

“This product (once you have worked out how to set it up with exceedingly complicated instructions) is hilarious.

The photograph is a bit dark and his skin is a very unhealthy colour and it breaks easily at the sides but it is a great novelty present.”

Take a flick through the rest of the funny reviews below (click the slideshow to expand before selecting full screen in the top right hand corner to read)

(Photo: Witness Against Torture)Activists across the country began a week-long fast on Sunday in solidarity with the hunger striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison in a mass action meant to remind the prisoners and their families that “we have not forgotten their suffering.”

Organized by the Guantanamo prisoner rights group Witness Against Torture (WAT), the protest is scheduled to last through Saturday, March 30. Throughout the week, vigils and rallies are scheduled in cities nationwide including New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Des Moise, Los Angeles, and Northampton, Mass.

“We will gather […] to denounce the barbaric practice of torture and indefinite detention and to demand justice for the men at Guantanamo,” the group writes in a call to action. “We will continue to organize, agitate and witness in defense of human rights and the U.S. Constitution.”

According to the group, some demonstrators will continue to fast every Friday “until President Barack Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo is fulfilled.”

Many hunger strikers at the prison have not eaten since February. Attorneys for the detainees estimate that over 100 prisoners are taking part in the protest–though prison officials have only acknowledged about twenty of the men. Representatives and supporters of the detainees at Guantanamo have become increasingly concerned over the health of the strikers and worsening conditions for those being held at the prison.

Speaking with RT on Sunday, Lt. Col Barry Wingard, a US military attorney who advocates for the detainees, describes the men living ‘in animal cages.’ The interview continues:

Wingard: The last time I saw my clients was between the February 25 and March 8. I visited with them multiple times. I was shocked at the condition they were in. In fact, we were the first people who broke the story that the hunger strike had begun around February 6 or 7 and had continued on. My client at that point had lost 26 pounds (12kg) and at this point it’s official that he’s lost almost 40 pounds (18kg) — one third of his body weight from 147 pounds (67kg).

RT: How long can they go on like that?

Wingard: I can imagine we’re getting near to the end when something serious is going to happen. The administration down in Guantanamo Bay initially denied the report that the hunger strike was occurring. They then said it was seven, then 14, then 21 people. They then said it wasn’t the largest hunger strike in history. Then they came out and said it’s 24, 25, and today 26 people. So the story is getting more accurate as we go, but we’re running out of time.

RT has also published a timeline cataloging the details of the ongoing prisoner hunger strike.

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It seems David Brooks wasn’t the only conservative op-ed writer on the airways fearmongering over those activist judges on the Supreme Court supposedly imposing their will on the American people. On ABC’s This Week, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan told host George Stephanopoulos that we should be leaving the matter of gay marriage to the states.

Conservative Pundit Says Country Shouldn’t Move Too Fast In Granting Equal Marriage Rights To Gays:

Noonan said on ABC’s This Week that Americans “don’t take it well” when the Supreme Court makes decisions that affect the entire country – such as declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional or repealing the Defense of Marriage Act – and said one of the “great sins” of Roe v. Wade was that it took power away from the states: […]

Noonan’s reference to Ruth Bader Ginsburg came from a speech the Supreme Court justice gave at Columbia Law school last year, in which she said Roe v. Wade went “too far, too fast.” But Noonan’s appeal to let the issue take time to “settle itself out” ignores the fact that activists have been fighting for marriage equality for nearly 40 years. And her insinuation that Americans won’t like it if the Court declares a ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional ignores that support for marriage equality is at an all time high: a Washington Post-ABC News poll found 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage rights, up from 37 percent in 2003. That 58 percent includes 81 percent of youth, which lends credibility to Noonan’s insight that opposition to marriage equality is dying out.

As I said in the post on Brooks, they all love these “blacked robed masters” when it comes to decisions like Citizens United, but not so much for civil rights. Full transcript below the fold.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, it’s interesting Peggy Noonan, Justice Kennedy in a speech in Sacramento this month said, a democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say.

NOONAN: Yeah, Americans don’t take it well and don’t accept it as a resolution when their black robed masters in Washington decide to put on them what they decide is the right thing. One of the great sins of Roe versus Wade, the abortion decision of 40 years ago, was that it decided everyone has to do it one way, instead of leaving it to the states.

It seems to me it is certainly in line with conservative political thinking, but I think it would be acceptable certainly to liberal thinking, that when there are these gnawing, disagreeing questions going on in America, if you can’t solve it here, you can say everybody can solve it down there. Let’s state by state make their decision. You will immediately have New York having some of the most liberal decisions on this issue.

You will perhaps have Utah or Arkansas, having less liberal decisions. Work questions out that way as much as possible.

[…]

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is this movement inevitable?

NOONAN: George Will said something here a few weeks ago, he said, look, opposition is literally dying out, it is the older Americans, not the younger Americans.

One of the things that I like, by the way, about a compromise in which state by state does it, it’s not only localities and keeping power local, it also takes a little time. Sometimes it’s good when everything takes a little time to settle itself.

May I note by the way, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a famous court liberal, her acknowledging very recently was in I think The Times today, that the Rove Versus Wade decision, the abortion decision, had gone too far and was an overreach. That is an epic statement from an American liberal left jurist.

March 25, 2013  |  

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion, written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren’t just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.  

Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls “Religious Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a “relatively niche topic.” One commenter said, “A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive.” 

Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.

March 25, 2013  |  

Caffeine is the most commonly used mood-altering drug in the world, and coffee is one of the most popular means of ingesting it. Over 50% of Americans drink coffee on a daily basis, and that figure is thought to be increasing every year.

But there’s more to coffee than its caffeine content, and scientists are perpetually trying to make sense of the various effects that this mysterious brew has on our bodies. Coffee’s most recent brush with media attention came just a few weeks ago, with the release of a study that showed women who drank four cups of coffee per day had a 20% lower risk of depression than those who drank a cup or less per week. But coffee isn’t always billed as a wonder beverage; caffeinated and decaffeinated versions alike have built up a pretty serious rap sheet over the years. Here are 10 reasons coffee is either an elixir of the gods, or an evil concoction we’ve all been duped into loving unconditionally.

10) Pro: Coffee + pain medication = extra pain relief
Cutting off your coffee intake may lead to headaches and other withdrawal symptoms, but even if you aren’t a regular coffee-drinker, caffeine can actually help speed pain relief. According to WebMD, caffeine can make pain relievers 40% more effective in treating headaches, and also speeds the body’s reaction to the medications. This is why many over the counter headache medications also contain caffeine.

9) Con: Just kidding – because coffee is also linked to headaches. Sort of. Probably.
As it turns out, investigations into the relationship between coffee consumption and headache relief go back a number of years, and are full of seemingly contradictory findings.

Take this study, for example, published in 2009 in the Journal of Headache and Pain. The authors found a relationship between high caffeine consumption (~500 mg/day) and headache prevalence, but they also showed that chronic headache symptoms (more than 14 days/month) were actually more common in low-to-moderate caffeine consumers (~125mg of caffeine/day). (As a point of reference, a tall brewed coffee from Starbucks averages around 270 mg of caffeine.) The authors write that “the results may indicate that high caffeine consumption changes chronic headache into infrequent headache.” In other words: Fry may very well have been onto something with the idea of a golden threshold of coffee consumption.

8) Con: Those who French-press need to watch their cholesterol
A study conducted in 2007 at Baylor college of medicine determined that ingesting the structurally similar molecules cafestol and kahweol (both of which are found exclusively in coffee beans) can lead to significant increases in LDL levels in humans.

Here’s the good news, though: paper coffee filters can actually bind cafestol and kahweol in the course of brewing, so the molecules never make it to your morning cup in any significant quantities. In other words, coffee really only ups your cholesterol if you prefer it prepared sans filter.

7) Pro: Cancer isn’t fond of coffee
I almost wrote that cancer hates coffee, but the word “hate” is probably a little too strong. Sure, plenty of studies have demonstrated correlations between coffee consumption and reduced risk of cancer; rates of oral/pharyngeal, esophageal, breast, liver and prostate cancers all tend to be lower among java drinkers. The thing is, none of these studies can speak to causation, and many of them fail to turn up particularly strong correlations. Having said that, the correlations are significant – and it’s definitely comforting that the balance tends to tip in favor of coffee having a beneficial impact on cancer incidence.

David Cameron has been accused of peddling “myths” about the number of immigrants who claim benefits in Britain, after he said he wanted to stop the UK being a “soft touch”.

In a major speech on Monday, the prime minister announced that from next year, arrivals from the European Union will be stripped of jobseekers benefits after six months unless they can prove they have been actively looking for a job and stand a “genuine chance” of finding one.

The government is pledging to beef up the “range and depth” of questions in the habitual residence test, which checks that people meet residence requirements for housing and income-related benefits.

However Cameron has been accused of offering empty anti-immigration rhetoric amid fears that Ukip poses a significant electoral threat in 2015.

His speech follows similar interventions on immigration by Labour leader Ed Miliband and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

Sarah Mulley from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank said that the UK was “not a soft touch” and that EU migrants are half as likely to claim out of work benefits as British nationals are.

“Migrants in general and European migrants pay more in to the system than they take out, that’s largely because they are young people who are working,” she told HuffPost UK.

Mulley said that while in theory the British welfare system and NHS was more open to EU migrants than other European systems were, this did not mean it was happening in practise. “The fact is it doesn’t happen, at least not in any significant scale,” she explained.

Official statistics show that migrants represent about 13% of all workers, but only 7% percent of out-of-work claimants and that migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) represent about 9-10% of all workers, but about 5% of out-of-work claimants.

Gillian Guy, chief executive at national charity Citizens Advice, said while it was important that the welfare system is fair, politicians “must be careful not to encourage myths or misconceptions about who benefits most from the welfare system”.

“EU migrants are more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than British residents. Overall, they are net contributors to the economy, putting in much more than they take out. These plain facts must not be obscured by political rhetoric,” she said.

And Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, also said immigrants were “significantly less likely” to claim benefits than people born in the UK – and that those coming from EU countries put more into the economy than they took out.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that arrivals were mostly younger people whereas the bulk of spending went on healthcare and pensions for older people.

“All the evidence suggests that people who come here from within the European Union make a substantial net contribution to the public finances – they pay in far more than they take out,” he said.

He also played down the impact of health tourism as a “minuscule” part of a wider funding issue.

“The problem with people coming from outside the UK in order to sponge off our health service – that may be a problem and we should certainly deal with abuse – but the figures tell us that they impose rather small costs on the health service and certainly, compared to the scale of the problem, it is minuscule,” he said.

Cameron said the government had already taken “concrete steps” to bring down immigration and wanted to put in place more restrictions.

“Right now the message through the benefit system is all wrong. It says if you can’t find a job or drop out of work early, the British taxpayer owes you a living for as long as you like no matter how little you have contributed to social security since you arrived,” he said.

“My view is simple. Ending the something for nothing culture needs to apply to immigration as well as welfare.”

According to the fact-checking website FullFact.org the overall relative generosity of the UK’s benefits system in comparison to other EU states can be measured in a number of different ways.

British welfare payments are no more generous than most of Europe when both public and private spending (including private pensions and healthcare) is taken into account.

However UK is at the top of Europe’s league table for benefits spending when counting the portion of spending administered by central government.

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Boris Johnson was utterly demolished on Sunday by a softly-spoken yet ruthless Eddie Mair.

Whilst the mayor of London will certainly still be reeling from the fallout from his appearance on BBC1’s Andrew Marr show, he is not the first, nor the last, politician to fall apart in the midst of a live, on-air interrogation.

Here are another ten, classic examples of ‘car crash’ political interviews…

Ben Zygier, who committed suicide while detained in Israel’s maximum-security Ayalon prison, had given away sensitive information to a Lebanese militant group in an effort to recruit them, a German magazine has reported.

Zygier, the Australian-Israeli Mossad agent who was found hanged in his prison cell in December 2010, had passed information to Hezbollah, Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.

In the course of his work, Zygier met with Hezbollah supporters and while trying to convince them to work for Mossad, “disastrously spilled highly sensitive information,” including the identities of Lebanese nationals secretly working for Israel, Der Spiegel reported.

Zygier seemed willing to divulge sensitive information on Israeli intelligence operations in an effort to not only attract new recruits, but to boost his reputation inside the renowned agency.

The Israeli agent’s brazen methods became apparent in the early hours of May 16, 2009 when Lebanese special forces raided the home of Ziad al-Homsi in the village of Saadnayel in the western Bekaa Valley, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported on Monday.

According to the arrest warrant, Homsi was accused of being an Israeli spy. The warrant even gave his Mossad codename: ‘The Indian.’

“The arrest came as a shock to many Lebanese, not just because Homsi had been the mayor of his town for years,” the SMH report revealed. “He was also treated as a war hero, because he had fought against Israel on the side of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Syrian army during the Lebanese Civil War.”

As the article revealed, Homsi had been recruited to work as a spy for Israel since 2006, earning around US$100,000 for his services.

There appears to have been good reason why Mossad sought Homsi’s support: according to leaked excerpts from Homsi’s interrogation, Homsi had assured his Israeli handlers that he could lead them to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Israel’s sworn enemy, Hezbollah, who has remained in hiding for years, the SMH reported.

Another of those arrested was Mustafa Ali Awadeh, known as ‘Zuzi’ by Israeli intelligence, who reportedly had close contacts with Hezbollah.

The men were subsequently sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

The leaked intelligence that led to the arrests of these two highly valuable Mossad assets has been described as one of the most serious security breaches in Israel’s 65-year history.

The story of Ben Zygier made international headlines only after an Australian news program identified Zygier as Israel’s mysterious ‘Prisoner X’, whose cell in Unit 15 was originally built to house Yigal Amir, the fanatic who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

”He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world,” a prison official was quoted as telling Israeli media in 2010, when news of the unknown inmate first broke.

When Zygier’s death was announced, Israel – calling the case a potential threat to national security – issued a gag order preventing media from discussing the case.

After pursuing its own ‘internal investigations’, the report found that Zygier had begun working for Israeli intelligence in 2003, tasked with investigating European companies doing business with Iran and Syria.

The report said Israeli security officials had told Zygier following his arrest that they wanted to make an example of him and demanded a prison sentence of at least 10 years.

Zygier was found dead in his cell, which has been described as ‘suicide-proof,’ in December 2010 at the age of 34.

Now, many Australians are contemplating whether their government could have done more for one of its citizens.

Boris Johnson’s father has leaped to his son’s defence, after BBC presenter Eddie Mair gave the mayor a rude awakening during a Sunday morning interview.

Stanley Johnson told LBC radio on Monday that the questions asked were “disgusting” and said Mair should have been more respectful of his son’s position.

“The more I think about it, more I think what a travesty that interview was, not of Boris, but of broadcasting standards,” he said.

“I thought Eddie Mair’s interview was one of the most disgusting piece of journalism I’ve listened to for a very long time. The BBC sank about as low as it could.

“His grilling people about their personal lives, accusing them of guilt by association, openly abusing them in a legitimate interview. Frankly, I don’t know where we are coming to.

“I have no idea who Eddie Mair is or what he does. But frankly, there is such a thing as respecting the office, even if you don’t respect the man and that did not come through.”

Boris usually manages to dodge awkward questions with a mixture of mumbling and good humour. However he appeared to get caught out by Mair’s aggressive line of questioning on the Marr Show yesterday.

Johnson was asked about a time he made up quotes while at The Times, and quizzed on why he allegedly “lied” about having an affair to the then Conservative leader Michael Howard.

He was also asked to talk about an infamous phone call between him and his former Eton friend Darius Guppy, recorded in 1990, where Guppy asks Johnson to find the address of a News of the World journalist who has upset him. Despite Guppy’s apparent plans, the journalist was never attacked.

“What does that say about you?” Mair asked. “Making up quotes, lying to your party leader, being part of someone being assaulted — you’re a nasty piece of work.”

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