Israel’s Latest Murder of Humanitarian Activists

Cynthia McKinney at Dissidence Voice, 5/31/10:



I am outraged at Israel’s latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel’s needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists. But I’m even more outraged that once again, Israel’s actions have been aided and abetted by a U.S. political class that has become corrupted beyond belief due to its reliance on Zionist finance and penetration by Zionist zealots for whom no U.S. weapons system is too much for the Israeli war machine, and the silence of the world’s onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference.

[...]




.

Naomi Klein on oil spill

.

.

Detonating nuclear bomb at BP oil spill site could end all life on planet

Technofacism blog, 5/30/10:



Lately, I’ve heard many talking heads in the news media suggesting that the only way to stop the BP oil leak might be to detonate a nuclear bomb under the leak site.

Before they consider that option, they might want to watch this video of Dr. Gregory Ryskin, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University. In the video, Dr. Ryskin explains how a prehistoric methane gas explosion could explain the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, a mysterious period in Earth history where 95% of all species went extinct.

Given that the amount of methane gas that is leaking from the BP spill site is at least equal to the amount of oil, it would lead one to believe that there is a huge underground pocket of methane gas buried there. Now, if Dr. Ryskin’s theory is correct, not only would detonating a nuclear bomb near that underground methane pocket end the oil spill, it might end all life on Earth as well.

.

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

Aljazeera, 5/31/10:



Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

At least 15 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, the Israeli military said.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

Israeli Military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."

Footage from the flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showed armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship and helicopters flying overhead.

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, on board the Mavi Marmara, said Israeli troops had used live ammunition during the operation.

[...]

.

Top Killing

As published on Dissident Voice, Counterpunch and Online Journal, 5/31/10:




In 1951, the entire village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in France went mad. Wracked by physical and psychological convulsions, people stripped themselves or leapt from windows, became violent, thought snakes were knotted inside their bellies or flowers sprouting from their flesh. Seven died, including three suicides. Fifty were placed inside an insane asylum. Baffled by this horror straight out of the Middle Ages, as it was dubbed by a French newspaper at the time, the police thought something was in the flour. It arrested the miller and baker for two months, accused a supplier in Vienna. Only in 2009 did American historian H. P. Albarelli Jr. reveal that this episode of collective madness was the work of our C.I.A., who wanted to test the effects of L.S.D. It did this, I should add, without any complicity from the French government, but when do we ever care about any country’s sovereignty?

That a U.S. agency would unleash a dangerous drug on an unwitting population should not surprise you, there have been many instances of this, that it would poison foreigners is not at all unusual, the only twist here, apparently, is that this was inflicted on a friendly nation.

In the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 399 black men, poor, mostly illiterate sharecroppers, became guinea pigs. While misleading them into thinking they were being cared for by all these nice white doctors, our government withheld treatment just to see how messed up they would become. We even provided free transportation, fed them. This grim joke lasted 40 years. So what if 128 would die from syphilis or related complications, and that some infected their wives or had babies born deformed.

In 1963, cancer cells were injected into 22 patients at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital, in a study commissioned by the United States Public Health Service and the American Cancer Society. These geezers were dying anyway, the reasoning went, so no consent was necessary. In any case, their bodies rejected the alien cells, so no harm, no foul, I guess.

When fighting a war, we really flaunt our chemicals, and not just on an enemy population but our own soldiers. Take Agent Orange. During the Vietnam War, 12 million gallons of this stuff were sprayed. Most American soldiers served just a year there, yet many would become gravely ill from exposure to a defoliant that could cause numerous cancers, diabetes, ischemic heart disease or multiple myeloma. Veterans started to sue DOW, Monsanto and other companies in 1978, but only in 1984 did they manage to wrest a settlement. Many vets had already died. When a group of Vietnamese victims tried to sue in the same court, with the same judge, he dismissed their case. Millions of Vietnamese have suffered or died from Agent Orange. Half a million babies have been born with horrific birth defects.

Scientific researches had proven that TCDD, a component in Agent Orange, was toxic, yet the Pentagon went ahead and used it in Vietnam. To test its effectiveness, it sprayed some over Panama, even near a lake that provided water for the capital. In 1999, the Panamians finally sued our government for damages. The truth of the matter is, our government will use whatever that is expedient and cost effective, Agent Orange to clear jungles, Depleted Uranium to puncture armor, irrespective of the decades or even centuries long damages caused to whom or whatever gets in the way. Eyeing huge profits, the companies that make these killers are always happy to oblige, since the Pentagon is a very generous spender. It’s easy to be one when it’s using your and my money to stuff into its daddy’s pocket or mistress’ G-string. Sorry, but I always get confused when trying to figure out who’s licking most energetically in this 69 marathon.

Depleted Uranium is radioactive waste. Dr. Rosalie Bertell explains, “DU bursts into flame on impact. It reaches very high temperatures, and becomes a ceramic aerosol […] Ceramic (glass) is highly insoluble in the normal lung fluid, and when inhaled, this ceramic particulate will remain for a long time in the lungs and body tissue before being excreted in urine […] The presence of DU eight years after the Gulf War exposure, means that the internal organs: lung, lymph glands, bone marrow, liver, kidney, and immune system have experienced significant localized radiation damage.”

The First Gulf War lasted just six months, yet a quarter of the 697,000 American troops who participated soon reported symptoms of what became known as “Gulf War Syndrome.” Compared to 114 killed by enemy fire, thousands would perish from Depleted Uranium. As expected, the Pentagon denied everything, and only a handful of congressmen, like Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich, made a fuss. Ignoring the swelling body of evidences against Depleted Uranium, the Pentagon went on to use it in Kossovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2002, and Iraq from 2003 until today.

To punish Fallujah, whose inhabitants had the audacity to kill, burn, then string up four of our Black Water mercenaries, the United States flattened that city while illegally using chemical weapons. Faced with deformed babies, some born with two heads, the Iraqis have sued the British, since American troops are off limit to litigation. Ah, the irony of invading a country accused of possessing chemical weapons, when it’s us who are unleashing them indiscriminately. Kill ‘em all, let God google through alternative blogs to sniff out the hushed ups!

As with Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium is causing a huge spike in cancers among Iraqis and Afghans, with thousands of babies being born grotesquely deformed. The Uranium Medical Research Center quotes Sayed Gharib of Tora Bora, "What else do the Americans want? They killed us, they turned our new borns into horrific deformations, and they turned our farm lands into grave yards and destroyed our homes. On top of all this their planes fly over and spray us with bullets... we have nothing to lose... we will fight them the same way we fought the previous invaders.”

The words irony and hypocrisy may not exist in the Pentagon’s thin dictionary, but you can’t accuse it of having no sense of timing. The attack against Iraq in 2003 started on the same day as March Madness. (For non-Americans reading this, that’s our collegiate basketball tournament.) It’s shock and awesome, ya’al. This year, it began Operation Moshtarak, designed to secure the poppy fields of Helmand, uh, I mean, to chase out evil Talibans, just moments after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. I know, I know, the Olympics Truce is just a cutesy myth, but it can’t hurt to have distractions on ice and snow, with frills, triple axels, and an occasional, oh so nice uplifted leg, while we take care of some nasty business in the dessert. The Canadians also participated. Joining “the largest ever helicopter assault involving the Canadian air force,” Captain Mathieu Bergeron of Edmonton gushed, "There are helicopters everywhere. It's awesome.” It’s too bad the Afghans didn’t send a delegation. A lone athlete could march in carrying a white flag, to a rousing ovation, too, no doubt.

With the current catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it appears that the chicken has come home to roost. Our government does not police but has always enabled and abetted these out of control corporations. Now it twiddles its thumbs as British Petroleum dumps nearly a million gallons of Corexit into the ocean. Diluting the evidence, this solution was designed only for public relations, even as it made the situation much worse. Imagine Agent Orange in the water. Thousands of people are already sick, with millions more to come. Also, there is no discussion of how this will affect our neighbors like Mexico, Cuba and the Bahamas, not that the people in charge ever gave a damn about foreigners, or our soldiers, or our poor. They can declare you a hero even as they kill you. Look at what happened with the first responders at Ground Zero. Look at what happened to Pat Tillman.

As the government takes over the clean up effort, look for familiar contractors to show up ready to fatten their pockets. We pay to get sick, then pay to feel slightly better. Maybe they’ll even market the contaminated seafood. Coming to a store near you, well oiled and seasoned, Corexit Fish Sticks©. Up yours.








.

Contemplating Hell

Responding to my newest piece in Common Dreams, Gui Rochart sent me this poem by Bertolt Brecht:




Contemplating Hell, as I once heard it,
My brother Shelley found it to be a place
Much like the city of London. I,
Who do not live in London, but in Los Angeles,
Find, contemplating Hell, that it
Must be even more like Los Angeles.

Also in Hell,
I do not doubt it, there exist these opulent gardens
With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,
Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water. And fruit markets
With great leaps of fruit, which nonetheless

Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,
Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than
Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which
Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.
And houses, designed for happiness, standing empty,
Even when inhabited.

Even the houses in Hell are not all ugly.
But concern about being thrown into the street
Consumes the inhabitants of the villas no less
Than the inhabitants of the barracks.

.

“New Life” (Formerly Known as “Tent City) UPDATE!

What a difference you have made!



Dear Tent City Supporter,

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been three weeks since we undertook this endeavor to rescue the residents of Tent City, Camden. The changes that have been made are amazing...right down to their name. No longer wanting to be called by their old location, “Tent City” has adopted the new name “New Life”, and it truly is. Everything is becoming new for the New Life residents as their exciting journey con­tinues. None of this would be possible if it were not for your prayers, support and giving to this important cause. To say “Thank You” is an understatement because what you have done has accomplished so much in so short a time. We want to keep you connected with the journey New Life is taking and make you aware of just how far your prayers, support and giving is going. Here are the updates:



· 11 people have been employed! It’s nothing short of a miracle in this economy. Many of them were hired “on the spot” after their skills came to light.

· 16 people have been registered to college! That’s right...college! Camden County College has accepted applications for 16 New Life members and all have applied for financial aid. God willing, they will all start classes in 2-3 weeks!

· Legal help pouring in! A local law firm has contacted us to provide “pro–bono” services to anyone who needs them and most of them do. In addition, all of the area judges have been so suppor­tive of this program! Every one has listened to the heart of the New Life residents and found ways to rescind jail sentences and allow probation!

· Food costs reduced! It was costing approximately $400 per day to feed the residents of New Life. Well, thanks to the Cathedral Kitchen in Camden’s generous support, our meal costs have been reduced to $1 per day per person! This is just another way that we are looking to use the money donated to New Life as wisely as pos­sible.

· Wrap Around Services! Our plan from the beginning was not only to provide housing and some stability to New Life, but to assist in the transition from homelessness to wholeness in every way possi­ble. One can’t simply provide housing, but must supply a holistic approach to healing and transition. Because of this, we organize courses, three times a day, to address the issues of spirit, soul and body. Classes like Job Readiness, preparing for college, how to deal with anger and encouraging your spirit are examples of our efforts to heal the whole person. In addition, we need to give special thanks to the VOA (Volunteers of America) who have been a tremendous supporter of this initiative. They have coordinated all the day sessions and provided many wrap around services to the New Life residents. Also, our thanks goes out to the churches that have stepped in to provide spiritual enrichment classes in the evenings.

· Housing applications being processed! Council Woman Crystal Evans from Gloucester Town­ship, the woman responsible for bringing Gov. Christie to Tent City prior to his election, is also respon­sible for expediting housing for New Life residents. One resident in particular, Bro. Bill, a 69 year old veteran, gave up on finding housing because of the 5-6 year waiting list! Not wanting Bill to give up, Council Woman Evans processed Bill’s application right away for brand new housing in Gloucester Township! Needless to say that Bill’s faith in the system has been restored as he looks forward to per­manent housing very soon.

· 7 residents kicked heroin cold turkey! Moving from Tent City into the Inn at Cherry Hill was just the motivation that many New Life members needed to kick their heroin habits cold turkey! After a weekend away at a detox center, 7 residents are clean from heroin! In addition, 8 others admitted themselves into methadone clinics where they are receiving step-down treatments to be free from her­oin as well!



When Deerfield Township city officials vowed to block us from using the facility at Crusaders for Christ, little did we know that this was just what we needed. Our three week plan at the Crusaders for Christ facil­ity (which we have used as needed for over 20 years) would not have been enough time for the New Life residents to acclimate to life off of the streets and could have been disastrous. But God! If you walk WITH God, he directs your paths and he did just that...to the Inn at Cherry Hill. Their hospitality has been inspir­ing and the hotel could not be a more perfect place for New Life. There are no needs for furniture or utilities that would have been if we provided immediate housing as planned. Instead, they have maid service, use of the pool and Jacuzzi, and a fully equipped gym to work out in! What a blessing!

We also want to let you know that this feel good story is receiving national attention as far away as Seattle Washington! In fact, we have been approached by several companies to journal their journey for a docu­mentary film! Let’s continue to spread the word of the great things God has done in the lives of these pre­cious people.

We can’t thank you enough for all that you have done for the former residents of Tent City. Their lives are forever being transformed because of your love and support. They are so grateful for this opportunity and constantly express to us their determination to “make it this time”. Nothing you provide is wasted. Every­thing is accounted for and put to the best use possible. Please continue to look for other New Life update emails in the future. In addition, you can follow their journey on Facebook. Just search for “Tent City Movement” and “like” the page or you can go to www.nehemiahgroup.org for updates as well. As always, your continued support is needed as this is not a short time program but a long term mission. We are going to stick with them for at least a year and we need your continued support to do it. For monetary dona­tions, you can visit www.nehemiahgroup.org for our PayPal account. You can also donate at ANY TD Bank branch in America or mail your check (made out to “Tent City Relief Fund”) to TD Bank. C/O Tent City Relief Fund, 55 S. White Horse Pike, Stratford, NJ 08084.

If you haven’t already, please take a moment to click HERE and watch a brief video update. Your gift DOES make a difference!


For more information, please call our office at 856-309-9002 or email at mkhan@nehemiahgroup.org

.

Quantifying Culture

As published in Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice and Online Journal, 5/25/10:




Living up to its name, Yahoo News is more jive than jazz. Recently, it featured a “human interest” story of an American who had traveled to every country on earth but three. At each, he tended to stay no more than three days, eating strictly American food at the hotel or McDonald’s. This lawyer from Minnesota is not the most well traveled on earth, however. Not by far. That honor belongs to another American, Charles Veley, who has been to 821 countries, states, regions and territories, including nearly impossible to reach atolls and reefs with no human population.

Veley also maintains a website, Most Traveled People. Among the top ten, only three are not American. What we have here is not just wanderlust but the need to tick off one’s conquests, a trait that is most pronounced in the American character. In sports, we are the most obsessive of statisticians. No one else even comes close. Compare the bare bone box scores of soccer, for example, to the labyrinthine tallies and measurements that accompany our baseball, basketball and football. Foreigners only care who scored. We keep track of anything that could be counted. When it comes to trivia, we know all the numbers. Your average American has memorized the height, weight and years played of many sport stars. Concerning issues that truly matter, like the corporate looting of our treasury, real unemployment rate or federal deficit, projected to surpass 1.6 trillion this year, we don’t give a puck. What’s a trillion, anyway? The Flyers came back from a 3-0 deficit. Now, that’s impressive. Drowned in inconsequential digits, we are oblivious to figures that could illuminate how up the septic creek we really are. Our deceivers do have a sick sense of humor, though. For their core inflation index, food and fuel costs don’t factor in, but what are those if not “core” expenditures?

In football, the one American sport to which the rest of the world except Canada is completely indifferent, many players are given credit for “yards gained.” This is only too appropriate for a highly mobile people inhabiting a near continent size, still sparsely populated country that was frontier not that long ago. Many of us, if not our fairly recent forebears, have also traversed great distances to get here, so yards gained indeed. For Native Americans, it’s yards lost, however, as it is for Hawaiians, Samoans and other miscellaneous beneficiaries of big box shopping, Jerry Springer and SPAM musubis. But stop moping already. Better luck next century. Think Cubs!

The open road is a metaphor for endless possibilities. In the American context, this elation was first and best articulated through Walt Whitman: “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, / Healthy, free, the world before me.” Whitman’s entire oeuvre is one sustained song of the open road. Life is defined and renewed through intercourse with the multitude, just out there. Born in Brooklyn, Whitman got as far as New Orleans, then as now the most exotic of American cities, but for his last two decades, he was confined to Camden, New Jersey. For amusement, he rode the ferry back and forth between it and Philadelphia, enjoying the crowd and not getting off. It was sort of a bargain cruise for our aging bard. Unlike more affluent contemporaries, Whitman never made it to Europe. The poet may have sung of India and China, but he never left this country except for one brief trip to Toronto.

Eighty percent of Americans don’t own passports, so most of us haven’t gotten very far either. For many, the easiest way to escape Quiet Desperation Township or the inner city is to join an Army of One, or the Few, the Proud! Este e mi Pais! With 737 military bases in 130 countries, that’s a lot of exciting destinations. Adventure galore! While the rich gargle chianti in Florence, you can immerse in the richness of Helmand or Fallujah. There’s nothing like depleted uranium in your coffee, Ma, Cynthia McKinney be damned!

When Whitman did travel, at least he didn’t do so in a private steel box hurling past the same corporate signs from sea to shining sea, with their huge letters, designed for speeding motorists, blighting the landscape. To encourage recreational driving, car companies made films promoting the Sunday drive. To sex up their products, they sponsored races. The open road became circular and led nowhere, yet millions continue to pay to stare at vehicles going round and round, wasting fuel and befouling the atmosphere, for hours.

Acceleration has become its own religion. Faster! Faster! Leaving Whitman, I present to you the Black Eyed Peas: “We are the now generation / We are the generation now / This is the now generation / This is the generation now / I want money // I want it, want it, want it / Fast internet, / Stay connected hit eject / Wi-fi, Podcast / Blastin' out a SMS / Text me and I text you back.” Enough, shoot me already.

As the oil age winds down, the road movie fantasy, starring each one of us, no longer has much traction. There will be no economic recovery, no more growth, because that cheap and most versatile fuel for it, oil, has reached peak supply. As the oil pump looses pressure, money itself sputters. There are also peak water, peak minerals, peak fish, peak top soil and just about anything else you can think of. On a finite planet, there can’t be infinite economic or population growth. At some point, resources will start to run out, and that moment happens to be now.

There are those who still think that technology will save the day, but technology is only the means to use what you already have, not replenish what’s being depleted. Again, we don’t need to run out of oil, only to have demand outstrip supply to trigger a chaotic and violent global plunge. For many, this has been a thrilling roller coaster ride. For others, only degradation and death. For a century now, oil has been the unspoken subtext behind too many wars to list.

Since 51% of Americans don’t believe in evolution, they apparently cannot comprehend that we are squandering millions of years of carbohydrate in one bloody speed orgy. Having a telescoped notion of the past, they also cannot project into the distant future. Hankering for the world to end, obsessed with end time, they are counting the days and don’t care that this earth is being destroyed. Drill, baby, drill and climate change is merely a hoax. We’re leaving soon, anyway. In the 1940’s, the Turkish poet, Nazim Hikmet, wrote:

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet—
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space ...
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say "I lived"


[translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk]

.

25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real

Economic Collapse Blog, 5/25/10:


[...]

#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?

#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?

#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?

#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?

#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?

#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that "terrible cuts" are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?

#7) But it just isn't California that is in trouble. Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades. What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?

#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008. Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate. So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?

#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April. So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?

#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015. So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?

#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster. In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?

#13) The FDIC's list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high. Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?

#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming. So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales?

#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money. So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two "pillars" of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?

#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin. With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?

#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent. So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America's biggest cities?

#19) Gallup's measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?

#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession. So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?

#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. So is Barack Obama's mantra that "what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street" actually true?

#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming. Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?

#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier. Does that look like a good trend to you?

#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?

#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn't we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words "economic recovery"?

.

Washington y los comunistas de poca monta

Que coman golosinas

La clase obrera y los campesinos de Tailandia protestaban contra un sistema que los ha privado repetidamente de derechos, sobre todo con la destitución del populista primer ministro Thaksin Shinawatra. Provenientes de las provincias, esos hombres, mujeres y niños se establecieron en el centro comercial de Bangkok. Haciendo estragos en la actividad acostumbrada, presentaron reivindicaciones específicas. Después de dos meses, fueron finalmente derrotados por soldados y vehículos blindados, pero no antes de que pudieran incendiar Central World, uno de los mayores centros comerciales del mundo, y la Bolsa de Valores de Tailandia. Durante todo ese descontento popular y la siguiente violencia, no se escuchó el menor chistido de Washington, lo que no causa sorpresa, realmente. Sea cual sea su retórica, EE.UU. siempre ha respaldado los intereses empresariales por sobre los derechos humanos o de los trabajadores. Nuestra historia laboral es prueba suficiente.

Cada vez que Washington se pone nervioso por una protesta en el exterior, se puede suponer que tiene planes ocultos, como en un cambio de régimen, por ejemplo. Se puede sospechar también que haya trampas de la CIA. Después de la elección iraní de 2009, Washington hervía de indignación, pero después de la votación mexicana en 2006, hizo la vista gorda, aunque se trataba de su vecino inmediato. Millones de mexicanos apoyaron a López Obrador, incluyendo a 100.000 que repletaron el Zócalo [plaza mayor de Ciudad de México] para su ceremonia no oficial de juramento. Los medios de EE.UU., previsiblemente, casi no prestaron atención. ¿López qué? Basta con saber, estúpido, que se oponía al NAFTA, lo que quería decir que López Obrador se oponía al gran capital, al pastel de manzanas, al béisbol y probablemente a tu abuela. Un cerdo comunista, en resumen.

A Washington no le gustan los comunistas de poca monta. Se codea con rojos que cuentan. Por eso China es nuestro mayor socio comercial. Al gran capital le gusta un régimen de la línea dura, sea de izquierda o de derecha, porque prescinde de sindicatos, y asegura mano de obra barata. Sin preocupaciones por la seguridad y por estándares medioambientales, los beneficios aumentan. Un gobierno no democrático tampoco puede ser cambiado mediante elecciones, lo que significa “estabilidad” en la lingüística del imperio.

¿Qué tiene de tan malo el NAFTA en todo caso? ¿No se trata de “libre comercio”? Significó que logramos inundar el mercado mexicano con nuestro maíz subvencionado, llevando a la bancarrota a sus agricultores, obligando a muchos a trabajar por salarios miserables en maquiladoras de propiedad estadounidense a lo largo de la frontera, hasta que esas se cerraron llevando a muchos a cruzar hacia EE.UU., donde se convirtieron en la mayor fuerza laboral de nuestra burbuja inmobiliaria. Su llegada afectó a los trabajadores estadounidenses, incluyendo a un tipo como yo quien pintó casas durante nueve años, pero fue fantástico para los negocios, y eso es todo lo que importaba desde la perspectiva de Washington y de Wall Street.

¿Y por qué subvencionamos el maíz? Porque beneficia a Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell y Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. Nuestro ganado es atiborrado de maíz y el jarabe de maíz es omnipresente en este país con un 30% de obesidad, el mayor en el universo conocido y probablemente desconocido. El bienestar del maíz también engorda a Monsanto, el fabricante de Agente Naranja, de PCB y de hormonas de crecimiento rBGH, entre otras delicias tóxicas.

Una noticia actual: Agricultores haitianos amenazan con quemar 60.000 sacos de semillas donados por Monsanto. Hay que recordar que Haití es el país más pobre del Hemisferio Occidental, en el cual los más desamparados a veces recurren a comer galletas hechas de barro. En 2008, México devolvió un embarque de carne de vacuno de EE.UU. después de descubrir demasiado cobre en la carne, pero esa carne fortificada con cobre fue rápidamente vendida a los consumidores estadounidenses. ¿No es México un país cada vez más ingobernable donde proliferan las bandas de la droga? Todavía tienen suficiente tino, sin embargo, para respetar lo que ingieren, como los haitianos, que prefieren comer barro que productos de Monsanto, al parecer. ¿Quién puede culparlos?

No es un secreto que los alimentos en sociedades muy pobres son a menudo excepcionales, por lo menos para los estadounidenses, ya que estamos tan lejos de lo que es natural o incluso sano. Incluso alimentamos a nuestro ganado con caca de pollo, por el bien de Gaia. La próxima vez que estés en un país del Tercer Mundo, hierve un huevo sólo para maravillarte ante esa yema de un naranja brillante. ¿Su secreto? No recurren a la agricultura industrial.

Algunas veces me pregunto si la relativa complacencia de nuestra clase trabajadora viene del hecho de que la mayoría de nosotros tiene acceso a comida barata. Quiero decir: sólo dos horas de trabajo por el salario mínimo me permiten un paquete de pollo Frankenstein, algo de verdura y un galón de gaseosa. Después de una golosina como postre, o dos, o tal vez diez, simplemente no me dan ganas de escribir un poema de protesta o de unirme a la milicia local.

A diferencia de la resistencia en Tailandia, las recientes protestas estadounidenses tienen más que ver con exteriorizaciones intelectualoides excéntricas que con lucha por el poder. Nuestras manifestaciones son desfiles que no logran nada. Cansados de eso, abucheamos. En la última elección tailandesa para su Cámara de Representantes, siete partidos diferentes obtuvieron escaños. No es nada extraordinario para cualquier otro país que EE.UU. Con dos partidos que sirven al mismo complejo militar-industrial, nuestras elecciones tienen más que ver con estilo que con sustancia pero, claro está, eso ya lo sabéis. Como señalara Jesse Ventura, nuestro establishment político no difiere de la lucha profesional.

Ya que no logran conectar los puntos, numerosos estadounidenses de clase trabajadora descargan su cólera contra inmigrantes ilegales, siendo que ambos grupos son víctimas de las mismas élites del poder. Nuestras fronteras no han sido porosas por caridad o ineptitud, sino que a propósito. Todos los jefes, sean directores ejecutivos o proxenetas, quieren la mano de obra más barata. Si no la pueden encontrar por la calle, irán hasta el fin del mundo, o dejarán que el mundo venga a ellos. La lógica implacable del capital se ha hecho global gracias a la disponibilidad de petróleo barato, pero ese oleoducto finalmente se está agotando, y también lo hace en un horrible lío, por lo visto. Minimiza los costes, maximiza los beneficios, presiona, engaña, destruye sociedades enteras a tu voluntad o mediante negligencia, y si las cosas se ponen mal, los muchachos y muchachas de Washington te rescatarán. ¡El gabinete está reunido!





[Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens.]




.

The Coca-Cola Case

.

.

CIA wanted to depict Saddam as gay

The CIA making fake videos is not news to those of us who pay attention. Washington Post, 5/25/10:



During planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA's Iraq Operations Group kicked around a number of ideas for discrediting Saddam Hussein in the eyes of his people.

One was to create a video purporting to show the Iraqi dictator having sex with a teenage boy, according to two former CIA officials familiar with the project.

“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one of the former officials. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”

The idea was to then “flood Iraq with the videos,” the former official said.

Another idea was to interrupt Iraqi television programming with a fake special news bulletin. An actor playing Hussein would announce that he was stepping down in favor of his (much-reviled) son Uday.

“I’m sure you will throw your support behind His Excellency Uday,” the fake Hussein would intone.

The spy agency’s Office of Technical Services collaborated on the ideas, which also included inserting fake “crawls” -- messages at the bottom of the screen -- into Iraqi newscasts.

The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.

[...]




.

We're essentially a war fighting state

Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 5/24/10:


[...] During the Bush presidency, war debates raged because those wars -- especially the Iraq war -- were a GOP liability and a Democratic Party asset. Anger over the Iraq War drove the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Obama's election in 2008 (though it did not drive the end of the war). But now, America's wars are no longer Republican wars; they're Democratic wars as well. Both parties are thus vested in their defense, which guts any real debate or opposition. Very few Republicans are going to speak ill of wars which their party started and continued for years, and very few Democrats are going to malign wars which their President is now prosecuting.

Here we find, once again, one of the most consequential aspects of the Obama presidency thus far: the conversion of numerous Bush/Cheney policies from what they once were (controversial, divisive, right-wing extremism) into what they have become (uncontroversial bipartisan consensus). One sees this dynamic most clearly in the Terrorism/civil-liberties realm, but it is quite glaring in the realm of war as well.

[...]




.

Louisiana Fishermen Contemplating Suicide, Need Mental Health Services

WGNO ABC26 News | Friday, 21 May 2010:


The situation in the gulf is getting so dire for some in the seafood industry, they've thought about committing suicide. Steps to intervene are underway.

Desperation is setting in in Southeast Louisiana. "I spoke to a group of fishermen, mainly Vietnamese Americans and a group of them came up to me and said, they told me that they contemplated suicide because they're in such despair," says Congressman Joseph Cao. He says fishermen are feeling compounded stress on top of post-Katrina troubles. "For some people, this is almost a boiling point where they can no longer handle it and they're going to crack."

"These are grown men that broke down and cried this morning because they don't know what to do and we don't know how long it's going to be," says Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

[...]



.

Let Them Eat Twinkies

As published in Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Online Journal and Counterpunch, 5/22/10:





The working class and peasants of Thailand were protesting a system that had repeatedly disenfranchised them, most notably in the ouster of populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Streaming in from the provinces, these men, women and children set up camp in the heart of commercial Bangkok. Disrupting business as usual, they had specific demands. After two months, they were finally routed by troops and armored cars, but not before they could torch Central World, one of the biggest shopping malls on earth, and the Thai Stock Exchange. Through all this popular discontent then bloody crackdown, there was not a peep from Washington, but there’s no surprise, really. Whatever its rhetoric, the U.S. has always backed business interests over human or worker’s rights. Our labor history is proof enough of this.

When Washington does get into a tizzy over a protest overseas, one can assume that it has a hidden agenda, as in regime change, for example. One may also surmise shenanigans from our C.I.A. After the Iranian election of 2009, Washington was frothy with indignation, yet after the Mexican vote in 2006, it looked the other way, though that was right next door. Millions of Mexicans supported Lopez Obrador, including 100,000 who filled Zocalo Square for his unofficial swearing in. Our media, predictably, paid almost no attention. Lopez who? All you need to know about this dude is that he was anti-NAFTA, which meant that Obrador was against big business, apple pie, baseball and probably your grandma. A Commie scumbag, in short.

Washington doesn’t dig small time Commies. It hangs with real Reds. That’s why China is our biggest trading partner. Big business prefers a hard line regime, whether left or right, because it foregoes unions, ensuring cheap labor. Without worries about safety and environmental standards, profits will swell. A non-democratic government also can’t be voted out, which translates into “stability” in empire linguistics.

What’s so bad about NAFTA anyway? Isn’t that “free trade”? It meant we got to dump our subsidized corn onto the Mexican market, bankrupting their farmers, forcing many to sweat inside American owned maquilladoras along the border, until these shut down, leading a bunch to cross into the U.S., where they became the main workforce of our housing bubble. This influx hurt working Americans, of course, including a schmuck like me who house painted for nine years, but it was great for business, and that’s all that mattered from the perspective of Washington and Wall Street.

And why do we subsidize corn? Because it benefits Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. Our livestock are stuffed with almost nothing but corn and corn syrup has become ubiquitous in this land of 30% obesity, highest in the known and probably unknown universe. Maize welfare also fattens Monsanto, maker of Agent Orange, PCBs and rBGH growth hormones, among other toxic goodies.

Current news item: Haitian farmers are threatening to burn 60,000 seed sacks donated by Monsanto. Haiti, one must remember, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where the most destitute sometimes resort to consuming mud pies. In 2008, Mexico returned a shipment of U.S. beef after too much copper was discovered in the meat, but this copper fortified beef was promptly sold to American shoppers. Isn’t Mexico an increasingly lawless land where drug gangs run rampant? They still have enough sense, however, to respect what goes into their bodies, just like Haitians, who would rather eat mud than Monsanto. Who could blame them?

It’s no secret that food in very poor societies is often exceptional, at least to Americans, since we’re so far removed from what’s natural or even sane. We even feed our cattle chicken poop, for Gaia’s sake. The next time you’re in a Third World country, boil an egg just to marvel at that bright orange yolk. Their secret? They don’t resort to factory farming.

Sometimes I wonder if the relative complacency of our working class comes from the fact that most of us have ready access to cheap grub? I mean, just two hours of minimum wage grunting will earn me a tub of Frankenstein chicken, some green stuff and a gallon of fizz. After a dessert Twinkie or two, or ten, I just don’t feel like penning a protest poem or joining the local militia.

Unlike the Thai resistance, recent American protests are more about goofy display than power struggle. Our marches are parades that accomplish nothing. Tired of that, we heckle. In the last Thai election for their House of Representatives, seven different parties won seats. This is not at all unusual for any country other than America. With two parties that serve the same military industrial complex, our elections are more about style than substance, but of course you know that already. As Jesse Ventura observed, our political establishment is no different than professional wrestling.

Failing to connect the dots, many working class Americans are venting their anger at illegal immigrants, when both groups are victims of the same power elites. Our borders have not been porous because of charity or ineptitude, but by design. All bosses, whether CEO or pimp, want the cheapest labor, wouldn’t you? If they can’t get it from down the street, they’ll go to the end of the world, or let the world come in. This ruthless logic of capital has gone global thanks to the availability of cheap oil, but this pipeline is finally wheezing out, and in a horrific mess, too, as is clear. Minimize cost, maximize profit, squeeze, deceive, wreck entire societies at will or through negligence, and should things get too dicey, the cabana boys and girls inside the Beltway will bail you out. Cabinet is in session!










.

Crackdown in Bangkok

.

[This is class warfare, as explained by Andrew Lam.]






.

Seducidos para alimentar un fantasma

noticiasdeabajo / 15 de mayo 2010:



La semana pasada, el presidente Obama advirtió a una clase que se graduaba de los peligros de las consolas y otras juguetes, iPods, iPads, Xboxes y PlayStations, donde “la información se convierte en una distracción, una distracción, una forma de entretenimiento, en lugar de un instrumento de autonomía, en lugar de búsqueda de la emancipación “, pero esto podría fácilmente describir casi todos nuestros medios de comunicación, incluido el propio Obama, al igual que el resto de nuestra clase dirigente, una de los principales beneficiarios. A medida que nuestra sociedad pierde sus nexos de unión y el Golfo de México se convierte en un mar muerto, ¿qué encontramos en la televisión? Concursos de cante y el baile, gente que dice ha perdido peso, embarazadas, deportistas y más deporte, deporte sin fin. Es lo de siempre, mucho ruido pero pocas nueces.

La edad de los medios de comunicación coincide, aproximadamente, con la era del petróleo. Antes del siglo 20, no había radios, televisores, películas o música grabada, periódicos solamente. El petróleo es el combustible perfecto para el motor de combustión. Con él, los automóviles y los aviones se hicieron posibles, acortando distancias y haciendo las distancias menos relevantes o reales, algo parecido a los efectos logrados por los medios de comunicación.

Cuando me fui de Filadelfia a Hanoi en 1995, sólo podía estar allí y no aquí, porque no había cibercafés que me permitieran estar en ambos sitios al mismo tiempo. No tenía correo electrónico, ni podía saber lo que estaba haciendo mi equipo de béisbol. Cuando me fui a Islandia, cada segundo que pasaba conectado a Internet era tiempo que perdía para conocer la magnificencia de este país. Es cierto que todos los medios de comunicación nos trasladan, incluso con un libro, pero al menos con la lectura la imaginación se activa y se tiene control sobre el ritmo, es decir, uno puede ralentizar, pausar y reflexionar. Esto no sucede con la televisión.

Microsoft preguntó:

“¿A dónde quiere ir hoy?” – ¿Qué tal a ninguna parte? Sólo quiero estar aquí. Ahora. – ¿Sabe dónde está? – Cenando.

El matrimonio se sienta en un sofá, mientras la pantalla continúa con su habitual verborrea. Sólo hablan en los momentos de la publicidad, gracias al botón de silenciar.

* ¿Qué tal te ha ido hoy, cariño?

En habitaciones separadas lo niños están paralizados ante sus propias pantallas.

No hay medios de comunicación tan generalizados e intrusivos como los norteamericanos. Ahora que hemos dejado de hacer cosas, más o menos, todavía somos muy prolíficos en intentar vender nuestra propia imagen. ( Es un arma de destrucción masiva que tiene un valor de 155 mil millones de dólares, el 41% de las ventas globales en todo el mundo). Cuando estuve en Vietnam desde 1999 hasta 2001, tuve dificultades en convencer a mis amigos de que los americanos no se pasan la mayor parte de día en la piscina, bailando, rapeando y tirando el dinero. En palabras de Harold Pinter, “Como vendedor de [América] por cuenta propia, su producto más vendible es el amor propio. Es un ganador “.

Esta hipnosis funciona incluso entre los estadounidenses, que deberían saber más. Pero no vivimos aquí tanto como muestran las televisiones u otros medios de comunicación. Los estadounidense pasan un promedio de cuatro horas de televisión al día, escuchando música de forma constante, y también están en internet con su Facebook, enviando mensajes de texto, twitter, correos electrónicos, etc, para así distraerlo . Dos o más de estas actividades se realizan a menudo al mismo tiempo. En un tercio de los hogares estadounidenses, la televisión nunca se apaga.

Para muchos de nosotros, nuestro primer impulso al entrar en un nuevo espacio, ya sea un país, una ciudad o una habitación, es salir. Tengo que estar en línea. Hay que mirar fijamente una computadora, consultar la marcha de los play offs de la NBA, o ver como duerme Katherine Heigl, o entrar en las páginas de pornografía, con Gisele Bundchen o Elena Kagan. ¿Un derrame en el Golfo de México? ¿De qué me habla usted?

El problema con los medios de comunicación no es que no haya carne en ella, sino que el relleno es manteca de cerdo, sangre, cartílagos, comedores de pollo, bellota, jarabe de maíz, serrín, la carne y cualquier otra cosa en una salchicha sin fin, nada puede estar aislado un tiempo suficiente del resto, ni siquiera durante la muerte tortuosa de una nación o de un planeta. Todo se ha convertido en un chorro de entretenimiento tedioso, incluso lo de Abu Ghraib o los ultrajes de Goldman Sachs. Por supuesto, en este sistema enfermo, la pelusa pesa más, ya que beneficia a los criminales de Washington y Wall Street que nos han obsesionado con Simon Cowell, Rihanna o algún loro que baile.

Nuestras necesidades sociales básicas, el mezclarse, el vernos cara a cara y charlar, han sido suplantado por lo virtual, con salas de chat y foros que sustituiyen a las tabernas y las plazas. En su típico barde hoy en día, los clientes están un breve tiempo, ya que la música está demasiado alta para mantener una conversación. Los ojos la mayor parte de las veces están pegados a la pegajosa pantalla. Así que el trato social se deja para contadas ocasiones, alguna que otra celebración.

En pocas palabras, nuestra cultura es hostil a pensar y hablar. El único ambiente norteamericano donde las discusiones se animan, donde son posibles, es en la universidad, pero éstas se llevan a cabo en su mayoría por personas sin suciedad bajo las uñas, de ahí la desconexión manifiesta entre lo académico y el resto de nosotros.

En Italia, hay una costumbre pintoresca conocida como la passegiatta. Por un par de horas antes de la cena, la gente pasa el rato caminando alrededor de la plaza local (Esto también se hace en España, sobre todo en los pueblos, si siguen siendo pueblos) Esta práctica relajante abarca incluso a los extranjeros. Esto no es posible aquí porque no tenemos los espacios adecuados. Nuestras plazas no están ajardinadas, con el tráfico dictando el camino, a diferencia de una plaza abierta que alienta a congregarse y a la vagancia, que permite la libre circulación y las amplias vistas. En la mayoría de localidades de Norteamérica, no hay plazas en absoluto, sólo en los lugares para comer de los centros comerciales.

Nuestro Centro comercial típico está rodeado por un inmenso derrame de petróleo. Una vez que usted haya encontrado por fin un aparcamiento, después de ir y volver, dando vueltas durante un largo tiempo, podrá descansar en el interior, con su aire acondicionado, degustando un par de hamburguesas. Está diseñado para eso. En una plaza de verdad usted no puede comprar nada y no siente, sin embargo, que haya perdido el tiempo. De la compra degradada que es la del centro comercial se puede prescindir por completo.

Arropado en un universo virtual, muchos de nosotros ya no pueden ver o darse cuenta que nuestro mundo real está siendo destruido. En marzo de 2010, un pareja de Corea fue acusada de dejar morir de hambre a su bebé de 3 meses de edad, ya que pasaban doce horas al día en un cibercafé, elevando el mundo virtual, Ánimo. Al igual que ellos, hemos sido seducidos para alimentar un fantasma, mientras que nuestras almas se mueren.








[Translated from this. The translator mistook my "Ben Franklin," meaning a hundred dollar bill, for una hamburguesa. Oh well. Ben was sort of a ham burgher.]

BP and the ‘Little Eichmanns’

Chris Hedges, 5/17/10:


[...]

Our ruling class of technocrats, as John Ralston Saul points out, is effectively illiterate. "One of the reasons that he is unable to recognize the necessary relationship between power and morality is that moral traditions are the product of civilization and he has little knowledge of his own civilization," Saul writes of the technocrat. Saul calls these technocrats "hedonists of power," and warns that their "obsession with structures and their inability or unwillingness to link these to the public good make this power an abstract force--a force that works, more often than not, at cross-purposes to the real needs of a painfully real world."

BP, which made $6.1 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year, never obtained permits from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The protection of the ecosystem did not matter. But BP is hardly alone. Drilling with utter disregard to the ecosystem is common practice among oil companies, according to a report in The New York Times. Our corporate state has gutted environmental regulation as tenaciously as it has gutted financial regulation and habeas corpus. Corporations make no distinction between our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of the ecosystem that sustains the human species. And the abuse, of us and the natural world, is as rampant under Barack Obama as it was under George W. Bush. The branded figure who sits in the White House is a puppet, a face used to mask an insidious system under which we as citizens have been disempowered and under which we become, along with the natural world, collateral damage. As Karl Marx understood, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force. And this force is consuming us.

[...]





.

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Bev Bell in Daily Kos, 5/17/10:



“A new earthquake” is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto’s seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation’s presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent of May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds…, and on what is left of our environment in Haiti.”[1] Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto’s offer of Roundup Ready GMO seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMO.

Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto’s Director of Development Initiatives, called the news that the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation “a fabulous Easter gift” in an April email.[2] Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, especially GMO seeds, in both the global North and South, including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing. According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, they then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year, under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.

The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram.[3] Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). Results of tests of EBDCs on mice and rats caused concern to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which then ordered a special review. The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. Pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label, the EPA ruled. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, because it assumes that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing.[4] Monsanto’s passing mention of thiram to Ministry of Agriculture officials in an email contained no explanation of the dangers, nor any offer of special clothing or training for those who will be farming with the toxic seeds.

Haitian social movements’ concern is not just about the dangers of the chemicals and the possibility of future GMO imports. They claim that the future of Haiti depends on local production with local food for local consumption, in what is called food sovereignty. Monsanto’s arrival in Haiti, they say, is a further threat to this.

“People in the U.S. need to help us produce, not give us food and seeds. They’re ruining our chance to support ourselves,” said farmer Jonas Deronzil of a peasant cooperative in the rural region of Verrettes.[5]

Monsanto’s history has long drawn ire from environmentalists, health advocates, and small farmers, going back to its production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Exposure to Agent Orange has caused cancer in an untold number of U.S. Veterans, and the Vietnamese government claims that 400,000 Vietnamese people were killed or disabled by Agent Orange, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects as a result of their exposure.[6]

[...]




.

Something Happened

James Howard Kunstler, 5/17/10:



[...]

What has gone on in Europe the past few weeks is nothing more complicated than a waking-up to how broke they are. We're not quite there yet on this side of the Atlantic. They fired one last bazooka of wishfulness at the enveloping monster of debt and the monster laughed at them, and now they are standing in the windows of palatial edifice of the Euro Union waiting to see who will jump first. Here in the USA, we're still dazed and confused. What for a long time had looked like a game of musical chairs is morphing into something more like a national Chinese fire drill, a pointless running around in circles in the hope that sheer motion will be an adequate substitute for conscious action. In any case, both Europe and the USA are out of bazooka ammo now. Nobody can bail out so much as another lemonade stand. From here on governments really start to crumble.

[...]




.

.

.

Virtual Living

As published on Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Energy Bulletin and Online Journal, 5/14/10:




Last week, the president warned a graduating class against a few gadgets and toys, iPods, iPads, Xboxes and PlayStations, where “information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” but this could easily describe nearly all of our media, with Obama, like the rest of our ruling class, a prime beneficiary. As our entire society unravels and the Gulf of Mexico becomes a dead sea, what do you find on television but singing and dancing contests, huge people losing weight, pregnant teens and endless sports? That is, the usual stuff, all noise and no consequences.

The age of mass media coincides, roughly, with the oil era. Before the 20th century, there were no radios, televisions, movies or recorded music, only newspapers. Oil provided the perfect fuel for the combustion engine. With it, cars and airplanes became possible, shortening distance and making the local less relevant or even real, the same effects achieved by the mass media.

When I went from Philadelphia to Hanoi in 1995, I was definitely there and not here, since there were no internet cafés to keep me in both places. I could not email or check how the Phillies were doing. When I went to Iceland in 2007, each second I spent online distracted me from the magnificence of that country. It’s true that all media displace us, even a book, but at least with reading, the imagination is activated and one has control over the pacing, that is, one can slow down, pause and reflect. Not so with television.

Microsoft asked, “Where do you want to go today?” How about nowhere. I just want to be here. Now. Do you know where you are? Eating dinner, the married couple slouch on a couch, their eyes fixated on the garrulous screen. They chat only during commercials, thanks to the mute button. “How was your day, hon?” In separate rooms, the kids are transfixed by their own screens.

No mass media is as pervasive or intrusive as the American one. Now that we’ve stopped making stuff, more or less, we’re still super prolific at selling our own image. (That and 155 billion dollars’ worth of weapons of mass destruction annually, 41% of global sales worldwide.) When I was in Vietnam from 1999 to 2001, I had the hardest time convincing friends that, no, Americans don’t spend the bulk of their time lounging by the pool, dancing, rapping and tossing money into the air. To quote Harold Pinter, “As a salesman [America] is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner.”

This hypnosis works even on Americans, who should know better. But we don’t live here so much as inside media. The average American watches four hours of television a day, listens to constant music, and there's also the internet with its Facebook, texting, twitter and email, etc, to distract him. Two or more of these activities are often indulged in simultaneously. In a third of American households, the television is never turned off.

For many of us, our first impulse upon entering a new space, be it country, city or room, is to escape it. I must get online. Staring at a computer, a person can flit from NBA playoffs to Katherine Heigl, to a napping and slumping Ken Griffey Jr., to porn, to the boxscore of a game he doesn’t give a damn about, to Gisele Bundchen, to Elena Kagan. Gulf oil spill? What Gulf oil spill?

The problem with the media is not that there’s no meat in it, but by stuffing lard, blood, scrapple, gristle, chicken mess, acorn, corn syrup, sawdust, meat and whatever else into an unending sausage, nothing could be isolated long enough for anything to matter, not even the tortured death of a nation or a planet. Everything has become a blip in a gush of tedious entertainment, even Abu Ghraib and Goldman Sachs outrages. Of course, in this diseased system, fluff weighs more, since it benefits the Washington and Wall Street criminals to have us fixated on Simon Cowell, Rihanna or some dancing parrot.

Our basic social needs, to mingle, see each other face to face and chatter, have been supplanted by the virtual, with chatrooms and forums replacing taverns and squares. In your typical bar nowadays, the patrons must shout in brief spurts, since the music is too loud for a sustained conversation. Eyes are most often glued to a bright TV. So much for the drinking hole as a social space, and music as occasional and celebratory.

Simply put, our culture is hostile to thinking and talking. About the only American environment where discussions are encouraged, or just made possible, is the university, but these are conducted mostly by people without dirt under their fingernails, hence the gross disconnect between the academy and the rest of us.

In Italy, there’s a quaint custom known as the passeggiata. For a couple hours before dinner, people actually hang out or walk around their local square. This bonding and soothing practice embraces even foreigners. This is not possible here because we don’t have the proper spaces. Our few squares are landscaped, with paths dictating traffic, unlike an open piazza that encourages congregrating and loitering, that allows free movement and wide vistas. In most American localities, there are no squares at all, only shopping mall food courts.

Our typical mall is surrounded by an oil spill. Here and there, a half-assed berm. Once you’ve gone through the hassle of driving there, then looping back and forth to seize a parking space, you might as well spend a few hours inside the air conditioning and fork over a Ben Franklin or two. It’s designed for that. At a square, however, you can buy nada and not feel like you’ve wasted your time. With home shopping, even this degraded mingling inside mall can be dispended with altogether.

Cocooned in a virtual universe, many of us can no longer see or care that our real world is being destroyed. In March of 2010, a Korean couple was charged with starving their 3-month-old baby to death, even as they spent twelve hours a day at an internet café, raising a virtual one, Anima. Like them, we’ve been seduced into nurturing a ghost while our souls die.




.

Lost on the Fearless Plain

Joe Bageant, 5/11/10. Do read entire. When Bageant's on, he's more poet than most poets I know:


[...]

The system has just begun its crash, and already we are seeing an armed infantilized nation wail, hurl blame and do horrific things, the worst of which we do to one another (excluding sending predator drones after Middle Eastern school kids). Surveillance, witch hunts, destruction of civil liberties, and the government inching toward star chamber trials for those who do not display correct traits. Citizens embracing totalitarianism as stability in the face of the ultimate instability -- the death of the planet.

The political regime or philosophy does not exist which can turn this scenario around. Slow it down, maybe, but put things in reverse, nope. Not when six billion mouths are munching at one end of the last noodle, and at the other end a fraction of a billion well armed technological people want the entire noodle. Not when life is already so damned cheap you can buy a girl slave in Haiti for twelve bucks, or 50 child slaves for your Asian sweatshop for less than the cost of a new car. Or an American working man for half of what it takes to support a family, then throw his ass over the company fence when he's no longer needed. Or bury him in mines as he cries out in Jesus' name, blow him up in Iraq, and Stelazine his kids minds and souls under the hot lights of the hologram, readying them for "the labor market." Schenectady or Soweto, life is dirt-cheap and getting cheaper everywhere on the planet.

[...]






.

Oil Volcano Update

.

.

Oil Volcano Update

Frank at LATOC forum, 5/9/10:




[...] the gas is the problem. As the gas takes a pressure drop, it takes a corresponding temperature drop. It is know as the JT effect. Even if they could get the gas to flow out of the box, and even if they could get it to flow up the pipe, it still gels the oil and hydrates in the pipe on the way up as it continues to drop pressure.

This whole idea of this box goes against nearly every design principle known in the GPA handbook. There wasn't an engineer worth his salt that bought into this outhouse idea. It was designed by the PR group and accountants, and sold to the media in hopes of managing the share price.




.

Oil Volcano Update

Wayne Madsen:



[...]

Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any "damaging information" about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a "national security issue." Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano's actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: "we've never dealt with anything like this before."

[...]





.

Emily's class

Today, I visited pro bono a 6th grade class at Visitation School in Kensington, one of the rougher neighborhoods in Philly. The kids were all well-behaved and happy. I really had a great time. On the far right is Bryana Martinez, an aspiring writer. She gave me three chapters to read. On the far left is Frank Thai, an ex student dropping in to hear me talk. Emily Diefendorf, in yellow sweater, is the teacher. Before my talk, we had lunch at Thang Long, a Vietnamese restaurant in the neighborhood. That's why there's a kid at the front holding a pair of chopsticks. It's the first time he had ever used chopsticks, and he was quite giddy with the experience. He told me about a Dominican dish that for the life of me, I can't recall the name of right now.

Kids being kids, they did ask me some goofy questions. My favorite, "You told us you can't sing and you can't dance, and you weren't any good at sports, so, ah, what are you good at?"

I also talked to Mr. Tung Nguyen, a handyman at the school. A Vietnamese immigrant, he came to the States in 1982, after escaping Vietnam by boat and spending a year at a refugee camp in Indonesia. He found work on a oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from New Orleans. Three weeks on the rig, then one at home, so he saved much, though the pay wasn't that great. The 27 men on the rig ate really well, but they weren't allowed to drink. After working hours, they fished. When this company went out business, he went to Spokane, Seattle and Kansas City, looking for work, before arriving in Philadelphia and hooking up with a steel processing plant. He remained there for 13 years before it shut down. All four of his kids have attended or are at the Visitation School, with the oldest ready to go to college. She is being offered a full, eight-year scholarship to four different schools, including Temple and Penn. Tuition at the Visitation School is $2,200 a year, with a discount for additional children from the same family.






.

Gulf Oil Slick Moves Near Southwest Pass

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Oil leaking from BP Plc’s damaged Gulf of Mexico well has drifted within 1.5 miles of the buoy marking the entrance to Southwest Pass, the main approach to the Port of New Orleans, a port official said.

“I just got a call from the port commissioner, and he said the oil is a mile and a half away from the main entrance,” Wayne Mumphrey, secretary treasurer of the Port of New Orleans said in an interview in New Orleans. “Once it passes the buoy, we have to start decontaminating every ship coming into the port.”

Mumphrey said two floating decontamination stations have been set up near the buoy to scrub oil from the hulls of ships entering the Mississippi.

It will take 10 to 12 hours to decontaminate each ship, which will dramatically slow incoming port traffic and that may cause ships to begin backing up into the Gulf, he said.

[...]

Mumphrey said a port study commissioned in the wake of a tanker spill that closed the Port of New Orleans for several days last year showed the economic impact of a total port closure on U.S. Midwestern communities from the mouth of the Mississippi to Minnesota is roughly $250 million a day.

“All the grain from the Midwest ships out through the Port of New Orleans,” Mumphrey said. “It can’t get out any other way.”




.

State terror in Exarcheia

taxikipali at libcom,5/6/10:


In an orgy of collective punishment the Greek police unleashed a brutal attack on Exarcheia, after the end of yesterday's protest march, destroying shops and social centres, evacuating a squat at gunpoint and brutalising the locals.

The police brutality seen on the streets of Exarcheia last evening after the end of the general strike protest march in Athens has been unprecedented and casts serious doubts on the nature of the present regime in Greece which is casting away its democratic veil to expose itself as what it really is: the continuation of the colonel's junta.

After the end of the protest march hundreds of riot and motorised policemen stormed Exarcheia, the down-town neighborhood of Athens associated with radical politics since the start of the 20th century. The police proceeded to brutalise bystanders and people drinking their coffee in the area, while smashing up Exarcheia square's traditional coffee house, despite the fact that it was filled with customers.

The locals did not hesitate to heckle the police thugs chanting "junta-junta" and "SS SS". In response the cops retaliated by beating anyone on their way and even invading a block of apartments. According to Ioanna Manoushaka (see photo) she was standing on the front door of the block shouting at the cops that they have made life in the neighborhood unbearable when policemen attacked her with globs breaking her arm and teeth. She then run up the stairs and locked herself in her apartment, but the riot policemen followed her and tried to smash the door for five minutes, while her and her husband, a well known composer, barricaded themselves.

Shouting "tonight we will fuck you", the police then proceeded to invade and smash the Social Centre (Haunt of Immigrants) of Diktio, the "Network of Social and Civil Rights", a left-wing group with many decades of action against state terrorism. According to the announcement of the Diktio, "The government of the IMF and of the junta of the market is trying to exploit the criminal act on the bank and impose a regime of terror in the country. The orgy of police-rule by means of chemical warfare and mass beatings reached its climax this evening in Exarcheia".

[...]

.

Gerald Celente on Greece: People will rise against bank bailouts globally

.

.

The future of art in an age of crisis

David Walsh, 21 April 2009:


[...]

This evening we are primarily addressing some of the historically specific problems that artists confront, or the historically specific form that the struggle for artistic truth takes today.

Aleksandr Voronsky, the Soviet critic and opponent of Stalin, pointed out 70 years ago, in his essay “The Art of Seeing the World” (1928), that it was very difficult for the artist to discover and genuinely accept the world, to see the world as it is, independently of us, inherently complex and beautiful, “in all its freshness and immediacy.”

He pointed to the habits, prejudices, frustrations and the host of other pressures of everyday life that weigh us down, deadening “the sharpness and freshness of perception and attention” and lending reality “a peculiarly gray, doleful and wretched coloration.”

Against all this, the artist seeks out, Voronsky wrote, “unspoiled and genuine images of the world,” which he described as “the principal meaning and purpose of art.”

If Voronsky was correct, and I believe he was, telling the truth in art has always been a great struggle. It is a demanding mental and physical effort, not to be undertaken lightly.

But are there not particular difficulties today? And are there not specific failings? Why does it seem there is such a chasm between artistic efforts and the character of present-day life, which for masses of the world’s population involves a daily struggle for survival? Why does art so often seem indifferent or blind to the crisis of human society, and to great historical and social questions in general?

We don’t agree that the central focus for art should be the artist and his or her impressions, but the independently existing world and its complexity, including its social complexity.

We propose to fight for something different. In the first place, objective conditions will impose a change. There is no possibility of going about one’s business in the same way. The world situation has taken a dramatic turn in the past year, and no one can shut his or her eyes to that—no one, at any rate, who intends to be taken seriously.

We have made the point on numerous occasions, that all layers of American society are unprepared for the present crisis.

Wide layers of the population too are taken unawares, shocked and stunned by the events altering their lives. Sooner rather than later, that shock will bring about changes in political consciousness.

What about the artists and intellectuals—how prepared are they? How aligned are they to the realities of the situation?

To put it somewhat more concretely: is there a body of work, or a single major novel, film, play or other art work that in some fashion alerted the population to the smash-up that was coming? Not perhaps in the sense of providing a specific economic warning signal, but a work, or works, that pointed to deep dysfunction ... who was it, for example, pointed to the elemental fact that the monstrous accumulation of wealth out of parasitic and quasi-criminal means could not go on forever?

Has the theme of social inequality, for example, the central social problem in American life in recent decades, featured prominently or even as part of the backdrop for major works?

What conscious attention has been paid to the facts of stagnating or declining living standards for tens of millions? Given the history of the US, the persistence of the “American Dream,” America’s supposed “exceptionalism,” it would seem worthwhile to look into the conditions of those being tossed about by big changes. Were the myths about American life alive and well?

Where is the great novel or play or film about the Wall Street tycoon, the hedge fund manager, the financial speculator, which goes beyond commonplace judgments to broader and more historically insightful evaluations?

I could go on. These questions have a rhetorical element. We know the answers to them, by and large. It would be difficult to point to a single major work that provided a serious, universal critique of American life and indicated that things were going very, very badly. Critical pictures of life, large or small, but pictures that took as their point of departure opposition to the status quo and committed concern for the fate of the mass of the people.

I want to emphasize at the outset that the artistic landscape has not been a barren one. The spark of human genius has obviously not gone out. Far from it. One can point to remarkable individual films (or scenes), novels (or passages), individual paintings and so forth that go against the grain, that confront life in a richer manner. In popular culture too, there are obviously enormously gifted, ingenious and energetic people at work. The ability to create dazzling and startling images and sounds has reached qualitatively new heights; nothing seems technically out of reach of contemporary artists. A variety of new media offer almost limitless possibilities for communication.

Serious difficulties, however, remain. For example, there have been a number of sincere anti-war films made about Iraq and the Middle East (Stop-Loss, In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Battle for Haditha, Grace is Gone, The Situation and others). But often such movies only go so far and no farther, or they contain a hodge-podge of left and quite right-wing patriotic notions.

It is difficult to point to a genuinely completed work, or body of work, in which the central challenge for any artist—how to shed light on life in this time and place in all its important dimensions?—is worked through exhaustively, to the very end, where the artist has given his or her all and made a substantial contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself.

For that, one has to have a coherent and integral view of life and society, something more painstakingly and deeply informed. One feels that the genuinely remarkable artist is not simply reacting to this or that immediate stimulus, with an impression or series of impressions, no matter how sincere, but has arrived at an understanding of and a feeling for the whole. Such a special gift of insight is not easily arrived at, but it makes itself felt in every aspect of a work, in its textures, its layeredness, its inescapable truth. We feel that in the great films of Welles and Chaplin and Ford, for example.

The fact that even entertaining the ambition to contribute to humanity’s understanding of itself sounds outlandish and presumptuous is an indicator of a difficult artistic period.

In novel writing, there have been serious efforts, but largely reworkings of the same themes, middle class discontent and anxiety, the self-observations and occasional self-loathing of the professional class, alternately tormented and self-satisfied, but rarely gazing beyond its apartment buildings and lofts.

The events of September 11 and its aftermath produced a flurry of novels—by Updike, DeLillo, Roth et al—and other works; understandably so, it was a major event. But one must say that the lack of historical insight into 9/11 is bound up with the general lack of interest in great historical and social questions, including the conditions of the broader population at home. The writers, many of whom live in New York or the Northeast, were shaken up by the terrorist attacks, but not driven to think deeply about them.

There is little serious new theater worth talking about, and poetry is largely a lifeless, academic affair.

We have lived through several decades in which official life has been dominated by foul ideas—the worship of wealth and selfishness, religious bigotry, militarism and chauvinism, the law-and-order hysteria, the victimization of the poor, and so on. The counteroffensive against the working class began in the late 1970s and has essentially never let up.

Along the way, various liberal and left intellectuals caved in—without too much resistance, in many cases. They found it pleasant to be wealthy and be in with the people who counted.

The self-denial of the intelligentsia, its relatively modest economic status, was a thing of the past. They wanted spacious condos and expensive cars and seats at the best restaurants and houses in the south of France, and to look at and create art about themselves.

[...]








.