The Three Essentials of Financial Reform

Tuesday 16 June 2009

by: Robert Reich | Visit article original @ Robert Reich's Blog

President Obama has promised regulations to prevent another crisis in the financial industry. (Photo: AP)

As the White House unveils its long-awaited proposals to prevent another Wall Street meltdown in the future, keep a lookout for three essentials. Without them the Street will revert to its old ways as soon as the coast clears. In fact, now that the government has bailed out the Street, the biggest banks will take even larger and more irresponsible risks because they're officially too big to fail. So these three reforms are critical.

1. Stop bankers from making huge, risky bets with other peoples' money. At the least, require they back their bets with a large percentage of their own capital, and bar them from raising money off their balance sheets through derivative trades. Also require they take their pay in stock options or warrants that can't be cashed in for at least three years, so they'll take a longer-term view. Best of all would be a requirement that investment banks return to being partnerships and the capital on their books be their own, not yours or your pension fund's. When investment banks were partnerships, every partner took an active interest in what every other partner and trader was doing. The real mischief started once they started selling shares to the public.

2. Prevent any bank from becoming too big to fail. Separate commercial from investment banking, as they were before the late 1990s. Commercial banks should return to their basic function of linking savers with borrowers. Investment bankers should return to their casino function of placing bets in the stock market and advising you and others about where to place your own own bets. Combining the basic utility with the casino only made bankers far richer and subjected you and me to risks we didn't bargain for. If separating commercial from investment banking isn't enough to bring all banks down to reasonable size, use antitrust laws to break them up.

3. Root out three major conflicts of interest. (1) Credit-rating agencies should no longer be paid by the companies whose issues are being rated; they should be paid by those who use their ratings. (2) Institutional investors like pension funds and mutual funds should not be getting investment advice from the same banks that profit off their investments; the advice should come from sources without a financial stake; (3) the regional Feds that are responsible for much bank oversight should no longer be headed by presidents appointed by the region's bankers; non-bankers should have the major say, and the regional presidents should have to be confirmed by the Senate.

These three reforms will reduce the possibility that you and I and other taxpayers will ever again have to spend billions bailing out bankers who robbed us blind while amassing fortunes. But because that would make it next to impossible to make such fortunes in the future, the big bankers will fight every one of these with all guns blazing, and their lobbyists in full force. They'll try to inundate you in a blizzard of buzz words. They want your eyes to gaze over, but don't let them. Keep focused on these three issues. Congress, for its part, may not be much help. It's awash in money from Wall Street. Big Finance is second only to the health-industrial complex in owning a large portion of the Hill. Barney Frank at House Banking can be relied on to try his best but others in the House and Senate may well roll over. The President wants to do the right thing but he's spread thin and spending political capital on health care. Tim Geithner doesn't have the stomach to take on the Street; the plan he announced a few days ago to regulate pay is a bad joke. Expect lots of blather about rearranging boxes on the regulatory organization chart.

Bottom line: Genuine financial reform will be almost as difficult to achieve as real universal health care. Immense private interests are amassed against the public interest in both cases because staggering amounts of money are at stake. But they are the two most important domestic issues right now. Keep careful watch, and weigh in.

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Rethinking Financial Regulation‏

June 17, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, Nate Carlile, and Pat Garofalo

ECONOMY

Rethinking Financial Regulation

Today, the Obama administration is rolling out its plan for reforming the financial regulation system. In an effort "likely to result in the most sweeping overhaul since the 1930s," the administration intends to address some of the regulatory gaps and oversights that contributed to the current economic crisis. "The goal is to integrate the system, make sure that there are not any gaps, and to make sure that we have a[n] updating of the regulatory system that worked back in the 1930s, but doesn't work with the kinds of financial instruments and the kinds of global capital markets that exist today," President Obama told Bloomberg News. The plan will, among other things, set up a structure to monitor systemic risk, develop a new resolution authority for winding down complex non-bank financial institutions, and establish a new consumer protection agency to police financial products. It will also mandate the regulation of derivatives and require financial institutions to retain part of any asset that they securitize and sell. Of course, the banking lobby is gearing up to oppose some of the reforms. "Wall Street seems to maybe have a shorter memory about how close we were to the abyss than I would have expected," Obama said yesterday. "All we're doing is cleaning up after the mess that was made." And even with all of these reforms, the administration will need to ensure that regulators follow through on their responsibilities, which is something that did not occur under the Bush administration.

REGULATING SYSTEMIC RISK: A key part of the Obama administration's plan is the creation of a system for monitoring firms and activities that are large enough to pose a threat to the entire financial system. As the administration explained in a draft of its plan obtained by the Washington Post, "no regulator saw its job as protecting the economy and financial system as a whole. Existing approaches to bank holding company regulation focus on protecting the subsidiary bank, not on comprehensive regulation of the whole firm." To address this, the Federal Reserve would be charged with ultimate responsibility for policing large firms, while other regulators -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency -- would be given "broader coordinating responsibility across the financial system." But there are concerns about burdening the Fed with such a huge additional workload or concentrating too much power in one agency. "We must ensure that we continue to increase our expertise so it is properly matched with the problems and challenges we will face in both our bank supervisory role and in meeting our traditional financial stability mandate," acknowledged Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. While the plan does call for the elimination of the Office of Thrift Supervision, it otherwise forgoes consolidating regulatory agencies.

ENSURING CONSUMER PROTECTION: A second facet of the plan entails the creation of a new agency that will be tasked with protecting consumers "from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards and other financial products." The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have broad powers to regulate the relationship between financial companies and consumers, "including writing rules, policing compliance and penalizing delinquent firms." Currently, regulators are simply too far removed from consumers to get an adequate sense of how financial products are being marketed on the ground level, a problem this council will seek to address. As Professor Elizabeth Warren -- a longtime advocate of a consumer protection council -- said, "[A]ll these lousy mortgages got sold, one family at a time...If we had had just basic safety standards in place from the beginning, then we never would have fed these into the front end of the financial system." But, the banking lobby has already made its opposition to the new agency clear. "It's bad for the consumers," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group for banks. "Give the power for consumer protection to the agencies that have real power."

WAIT 'TILL NEXT YEAR?: Bloomberg reported yesterday that the financial regulation plan "may be stalled into next year as Congress and the president set health-care reform and climate control as domestic priorities." The Senate reportedly won't even begin to consider the plan until after the August recess. As the Washington Post's Ezra Klein noted, waiting a year means "a solid eight to 12 months in which the broader public can lose interest in financial regulation and the financial industry can ramp up its lobbying effort in the Congress." The Atlantic's Derek Thompson posits that the delay "won't kill the will for financial reform, but it could turn the will into mush." In fact, Obama's regulatory proposals may already have been scaled back "because lawmakers and the public perceive the financial crisis has abated and support for more aggressive options has faded," said Peter Solomon, an investment banker and counselor to the U.S. Treasury in the Carter administration. But in an interview yesterday with the New York Times and CNBC, Obama reiterated that "we want to get this thing passed, and, you know, we think that speed is important. We want to do it right. We want to do it carefully. But we don't want to tilt at windmills." Obama reportedly wants to sign a bill this year.

America is bankrupt the national debt has tripled in one year to $15 trillion‏

newsviewsnolose@yahoogroups.com on behalf of dick.mcmanus

A Protest is Described As "Low-Level Terrorism" in a DoD Training Manual

The ACLU has written to the DoD regarding its Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course, which advises personnel that political protest amounts to "low-level terrorism". According to the document, all DoD personnel are required to complete the course on a yearly basis.

An example of material in the training course:

Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?

Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.

Attacking the Pentagon
IEDs
Hate crimes against racial groups
Protests ("protests" is the correct answer to this test question )

The ACLU points out that although in and of itself the classification of protest as terrorism is deeply disturbing, it is even more alarming when viewed in the context of the Pentagon's long term efforts to crack down on organized dissent.

The surveillance and pre-emptive arrest of protesters, on charges of "domestic terrorism", at last year's RNC by the FBI is also cited by the ACLU.

http://revolutionradio.org/2009/06/15/dod-training-manual-describes-protest-as-%e2%80%9clow-level-terrorism%e2%80%9d/#comment-12446

May 27, 2009 Even the 9/11 Commissioners themselves now say that they don't believe the government's version of 9/11. For example:

• The Commission's co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation"

• Indeed, they said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements (free subscription required)

• 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . ."

• 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"

• 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up"

• The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry - said "At some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/psychologists-weigh-in-on-911.html

Most economists expect the economy to continue bleeding jobs for the foreseeable future.

Most of the country aren't likely to regain their pre-recession employment levels until at least 2012 and 112 communities won't recover until 2014 or later. Seattle is in the 2012 group of areas of the US.

Of the 6 million jobs lost since the recession began 18 months ago, nearly 4 million were eliminated between November and April. The six-month freefall included a record four straight months with more than 600,000 job losses.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/69823.html

Some of the facts that should be plain that clearly show that economic collapse are coming:
1. 15% of all subprime mortgages were foreclosed in May with foreclosure rates climbing. Alan M. White of the Valparaiso Law School.
2. The Federal Reserve needs to "borrow up to $3.25 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Bloomberg
3. China has agreed to buy only 200 billion of Treasury T Bills (sold to finance the debt) total next year, while the oil exporting nations and the rest of the world have agreed to buy 300 billion total. This leaves over 2 trillion dollars that domestic investors will have to buy to float the deficit of the fiscal year that starts September 30th. Congressional Budget Office (After private investors had their private investments taken by the Government and the Unions in the Chrysler and General Motors deal, the experts say that the vast majority of the T Bills will not be sold, meaning the Government will have to print the money monetizing the debt)

5. Democrats in Congress hid a $100 billion bail out of the world's credit system by the International Monetary Fund, tucking it into the war supplemental intended for operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, according to lawmakers' aides quoted in a Reuters report.

6. "I will tell you what the problem is," Collin Peterson (Democratic Chairman of the Agriculture Committee) told the New York Times, "they (the banks) give three times more money than the next biggest group. It's huge the amount of money they put into politics. The banks run the place (US Congress)."

10. "The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s." This is three times the actual Bush deficit in spending in the first 100 days of President Obama's Presidency. Bloomberg

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread473087/pg1

A New Age of Neo-feudal Debt Bondage - Dr. Michael Hudson's analysis of the financial crisis

2009-04-12: US national debt tripled in one year, from $5 - $15 trillion, and according to some economists like John Williams, it's much higher under GAAP accounting - including unfunded liabilities around $65.5 trillion, an amount exceeding world GDP through FY 2008, meaning America is bankrupt. Williams also puts unemployment at 19.8% by reengineering it to include discouraged and involuntary part-time workers and excluding fictitious birth-death rate ratio inclusions. In America, one-third of home mortgages are in "Negative Equity;" that is, "the mortgage exceeds the (property's) market price pledged as collateral." Nearly half the American population has no net worth, and the gulf between richest and the rest is unprecedented.

Predator banks want to prolong the game as long as possible, grab all the wealth they can, force debtor nations to sell state enterprises at distress prices, then get new business by lending to investors who buy them on the cheap.

http://www.spartacuslives.org/node/20896

Dr. Michael Hudson: The Fed has turned "maintaining order" into a euphemism for consolidating power by the financial sector and the FIRE sector generally (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) over the "real" economy of production and consumption. Its leaders see their job as being to act on behalf of the commercial banking system to enable it to make money off the rest of the economy. It acts as the Board of Directors to fight regulation, to support Wall Street, to block any revival of anti-usury laws, to promote "free markets" almost indistinguishable from outright financial fraud, to decriminalize bad behavior – and most of all to inflate the price of property relative to the wages of labor and even relative to the profits of industry.

The Fed's job is not really to impose the Washington Consensus on the rest of the world. That's the job of the World Bank and IMF, coordinated via the Treasury (viz. Robert Rubin under Clinton most notoriously) and AID, along with the covert actions of the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy. You don't need monetary policy to do this – only massive bribery. Only call it "lobbying" and the promotion of democratic values – values to fight government power to regulate or control finance across the world. Financial power is inherently cosmopolitan and, as such, antagonistic to the power of national governments.

The problem is that none of this appears in the academic curriculum. And the silence of the major media to address it or even to acknowledge it means that it is invisible except to the beneficiaries who are running the system.

Source a Mike Whitney article

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930319-how-the-chicago-boys-wrecked-the-economy-dr-michael-hudson

Iraq, an unprecedented fall in the water levels of the Tigris and Euphrates

15 Jun 2009 Swarms of snakes are attacking people and cattle in southern Iraq as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers dry up and the reptiles lose their natural habitat among the reed beds. Doctors in the area say six people have been killed and 13 poisoned. The plague of snakes is the latest result of an unprecedented fall in the level of the water in the Euphrates and the Tigris.

The collapse in the water levels of the rivers has been swift, the amount of water in the Euphrates falling by three-quarters in less than a decade. In 2000, the flow speed of the water in the river was 950 cubic metres per second, but by this year it had dropped to 230 cubic metres per second.

Iraq has appealed to Turkey to open the sluice gates on its dams. "We need at least 500 cubic metres of water per second from Turkey, or double what we are getting," says Abdul Latif Rashid, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources. "They promised an extra 130 cubic metres, but this was only for a couple of days and we need it for months." His ministry is doing everything it can, he says, but the most important decisions about the supply of water to Iraq are taken outside the country – in Turkey, Syria and Iran. "In addition there has been a drought for the last four years with less than half the normal rainfall falling," says Mr Rashid.

Large parts of Iraq that were once productive farmland have already turned into arid desert. The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture says that between 40 and 50 per cent of what was agricultural land in the 1970s is now being hit by desertification. Drought, war, UN sanctions, lack of investment and the cutting down of trees for firewood have all exacerbated the crisis.

But centuries of irrigating the land without draining it properly has led to a build-up of salt in the soil, making much of it infertile. Lack of water in the rivers has speeded up the salinisation, so land in central and southern Iraq, highly productive 30 years ago, has become barren.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/as-iraq-runs-dry-a-plague-of-snakes-is-unleashed-1705315.html

Peak Soil Investment:

Jun 12, 2009: According to the Economist, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and China have been "quietly" buying more than $20 billion worth of farmland.

2008 was one of the top three crop production years in history. The sharp rise in crop prices over the past few years sent farmers around the world into full production mode. The past two years were exceptional. Even though, demand still outstripped supply and food riots broke out around the world. An average year will see about 1% to 2% growth – maximum.

The value of farmland has fallen drastically around the world. In the past year, the only major crop producing to see the value of its farmland rise is in the United States. Everywhere else is showing a completely different picture.

Comment: Why? Because it is a very limited resource and food prices will rise as food shortages increase.

http://wallstreetpit.com/5019-peak-soil-investment-this-quiet-land-grab-is-just-beginning

On 9 February 2004, Abu Musab al Zarqawi was a painful thorn in the side of the Jordanian authorities, an Islamist radical who was determined to overthrow the royal family. But he was nothing to do with al-Q'aida. Indeed, he had specifically rejected attempts by Bin Laden to recruit him, because he was not interested in targeting the West.

US propaganda would have us believe he was a member of the "inner circle" of al-Qa'ida's leadership.

Soon after the propaganda was published, US General Mark Kimmitt in Baghdad, lied to the in answer a questions from The New York Times stating, "We believe the report and the document is credible, and we take the report seriously... It is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come in to
this country and spark civil war, create sectarian violence, try to expose
fissures in this society." The story went on to news agency wires and,
within 24 hours, it was running around the world.

Comment: Is lying to the press by a US General, treason - is lying to WE THE PEOPLE, to the sovereign?

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22824.htm

While many analysts say he is using the Iraqi insurgency as a springboard to expand his operations, others argue his influence has been exaggerated.

In the run-up to the Iraq war in February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Zarqawi was an associate of Osama Bin Laden who had sought refuge in Iraq.

Intelligence reports indicated he was in Baghdad and - according to Mr Powell - this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaeda, which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq.

But some analysts at the time contested the claim, pointing to Zarqawi's historical rivalry with Bin Laden.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3483089.stm

Israeli minister wants sanctions on US - Anti-Americanism in Israel

June 9, 2009: "In a sign of growing concern in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government over U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policies, Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled proposed Israeli sanctions on the U.S . in a letter to cabinet ministers on Sunday.

"In the 11-page letter, obtained by the Jerusalem Post from a minister on Monday, Peled recommends steps Israel can take to compensate for the shift in American policy, which he believes has become hostile to Israel."

But in the interim," the Post reports, "the minister suggests reconsidering military and civilian purchases from the U.S., selling sensitive equipment that the Washington opposes distributing internationally, and allowing other countries that compete with the U.S. to get involved with the peace process and be given a foothold for their military forces and intelligence agencies."

The irony of someone "reconsidering military and civilian purchases" which are being made, or will be made, with our money is a real hoot - but the laughs are just starting!

There's just one conceivable answer to the suggestion that Israel should start "selling sensitive equipment that Washington opposes distributing internationally": when did they ever stop? The Israelis have been stealing U.S. technology and selling it to the Chinese - for one example - for years, much to Washington's chagrin. So does this mean they're going to be doing it openly, instead of sneaking around and doing it on the sly?

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/06/09/anti-americanism-in-israel/

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Matt Renner | Bank Plan Leaves Out Prosecution and Compensation

http://www.truthout.org/061709J

Matt Renner, Truthout: "Today, the Obama administration will
present a plan for reregulating the financial industry - one
of the most highly anticipated policy reforms on the president's

long list. But critics charge that the key to the future of the
financial system is accountability for crimes. The collapse of
the financial industry and the subsequent government bailouts
have enraged Americans, who see their government using tax
dollars to save a system which failed to protect the interests
of the little people."

Dan Rather: Tehran, Twitter, and Tiananmen

Dan Rather: Tehran, Twitter, and Tiananmen

By The Daily Beast

Massive protests, government crackdown, and media blackout -
Tehran today sounds like Tiananmen Square two decades ago.
But Dan Rather, who covered the China massacre, says the shift
in the media landscape over the last two decades means there's
no comparison.

Nygaard Notes #429 & #‏ 430

Nygaard Notes
Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Number 429, June 3, 2009

On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/

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This Week: Reversing the Roles, and... Read the Business Section!

1. “Quote” of the Week
2. UN Economic Crisis Conference Update
3. Reversing the Roles: The Right of Return
4. Buried in the “Business” Section

******

Greetings,

This issue is a little o’ this, a little o’ that. I have a bit of a backlog of short pieces that I don’t want to totally forget, so I will spend an issue or two or three catching up on some of these things before I recycle the roughly 700 pounds of newspapers that I’ve saved over the past few months. Nygaard Notes World Headquarters is a crowded place.

Thanks to all of you who have commented on my recent series “On Freedom.” That piece must have hit a nerve, as I am still hearing about it, even though it ran back in March. Thanks for all the feedback!

Some of you have asked how the Nygaard Notes book is coming along. After a short period of semi-neglect in April (due to a heavy workload in the other parts of my life) the project is back on track. I am doing a lot of re-writing, especially of the second section on how Propaganda works. Summer is usually a somewhat slow time for me, so I hope to get the manuscript ready to submit to publishers before the State Fair in August. The other parts of my life (the earning-a-living parts, that is) keep intruding in rude and time-consuming ways. But it shouldn’t be long now, thanks to the support of so many of you, financial and otherwise!

See you next week,

Nygaard

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1.
“Quote” of the Week

The theme of the June 2009 issue of U.S. News and World Report is a “Progress Report” on the Obama presidency, and the article on his foreign policy begins with these words:

“The few ‘Yankee Go Home’ signs that greet him abroad seem almost an afterthought, and when he enters a room of world leaders, he is the most sought-after man for a photo op and a handshake.”

Really, now. How a reporter for a U.S. newsweekly would determine what is a “thought” and what is an “afterthought” in the minds of protesters around the world is a complete mystery to me. But what this “Quote” illustrates is that journalists often see what they want to see, like the rest of us. Apparently what this reporter wants to see is a U.S. president who is loved around the world. The article, after all, appeared in a section called “A New Era,” with this headline: “A Bright Star on the World Stage: Obama Aims to Reset the Global Image of America.”

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2.
UN Economic Crisis Conference Update

In the last issue of Nygaard Notes I wrote extensively about “The UN Conference at the Highest Level on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.” Here are a couple of important follow-up points on that conference.

POINT #1: A few days after the last issue of the Notes it was announced that the conference—for reasons that are not entirely clear to me—has been postponed until June 24-26. No doubt it has something to do with the reality reported by the Global Policy Forum on May 14: “In the dire conditions of last December, the richest and most powerful countries actually agreed to the [Global Conference]. But now the big guys are having second thoughts and trying mightily to scuttle the process—either by preventing it from taking place at all, or by blocking any serious outcome. There is clearly a hope, strongest in Washington and London, that the pre-crisis economic order can be revived with minimal changes, so that everything can go on as before, with smiles again on Wall Street and in the City of London.”

And, sure enough, on May 26th the London Independent reported that “UN officials have told Reuters on condition of anonymity that no heads of state from developed countries were planning to attend...”

I’m guessing that the Conference has been delayed in order to allow for frantic negotiations to allow the voices of the poor to be heard in the centers of power that, so far, have turned their backs on the process. The world IS changing, and to observe the politics of this Conference is to get a glimpse of how much and how fast. Too bad the U.S. media isn’t helping people to observe it.

POINT #2: In relation to Point #1, I encourage readers to sign a petition entitled “An Urgent Call to G-20 Countries: Treat the UN G-192 Economic Crisis Summit Seriously.” The petition will put you on record as saying, in part, that “I join in calling upon all countries and especially the richest and most powerful countries that are members of G-20, to lend their full support to it and wherever possible to send their heads of government to attend” the UN Conference.

The petition was put together by the International Action Center. No matter what you think of the IAC, this petition is a good one, and you can edit the message as you like. (The text of the petition still refers to the original dates of the Conference, but I think it will still be meaningful.” You can find the petition on the web at http://www.iacenter.org/uneconconf/

I wish I had more resources to offer, but since virtually nobody (except Nygaard Notes readers!) has heard of this conference it doesn’t surprise me that so few appear to be organizing to support it.

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3.
Reversing the Roles: The Right of Return

One of the tricks to media empowerment that I have talked about over the years is what I call the “Reversing the Headline Trick.” It goes beyond headlines, actually, but the idea is simple: Take a news report that involves two actors (individuals, countries, parties to a conflict, whatever) and simply reverse the roles of the two and see if the story still makes any sense. It sounds simple—and it IS simple—but it’s surprising how often it yields important insights into the propaganda of the day.

A clear example appeared in the January 31st edition of the New York Times. The report began, “An Israeli leftist advocacy group said Friday that it was starting a campaign to help Palestinians sue the state of Israel for its use of their privately owned lands for Jewish settlement in the West Bank.”

The truly remarkable paragraph in this story was the eighth one, which gave “both sides” of an important controversy, and read like this:

“Much of the world views all Israeli construction in the territories that were conquered in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war as a violation of international law. Israel argues that the settlement enterprise does not violate the law against transferring populations into occupied territories, but that it represents a voluntary return of individuals to places where they or their ancestors used to live.”

I discussed that idea of “much of the world” in Nygaard Notes #293 (“Legal or Illegal? Who Says?”), but it’s that other part, the part about the right of people to return “to places where they or their ancestors used to live” that caught my attention here. The Times claims that “Israel argues” that, if people return voluntarily “to places where they or their ancestors used to live,” then it is not illegal, no matter what the world says. OK. What happens if we reverse the roles in this case?

The Times statement refers to Israelis returning to such places that are located on “privately owned lands” belonging to Palestinians. Switching it around, we come up with the idea of Palestinians returning to “places where they or their ancestors used to live” that are owned or controlled by Israelis.

If “Israel argues” that such returns are legal, then it would seem that Israel would have to also argue that it would be legal for Palestinians to voluntarily return to their ancestral homes in Israel. There are a lot of such “ancestral homes,” since an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from what is now Israeli territory when the Israeli state was founded in 1948. (It’s a little misleading to call them “ancestral homes,” since a number of people who were displaced are still living, so they would return to their own homes, if still standing.)

If we add in the descendants of the original 700,000 displaced Palestinians, the number of people with places in Israel “where they or their ancestors used to live” now are estimated to number perhaps five million. The population of Israel is currently about 7.4 million, of which about 1.5 million are non-Jewish. If the Times is right that Israeli authorities believe in the right to a “voluntary return of individuals to places where they or their ancestors used to live,” that has serious implications for the future of the Jewish state. So serious, in fact, that it is extremely doubtful that any authority in Israel really argues such a point. Or, if they do argue it, it’s doubtful that they are sincere.

If the Times had applied the “Reversing the Headline Trick” to this page-10 article, something would have been different about this story. If some authoritative Israeli source actually made the argument that the Times reporter says they did, then the story might have become a Front Page story. If no such source could be found, it may have led the Times editors to do their jobs and keep such propaganda out of the newspaper.

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4.
Buried in the “Business” Section

I never tire of telling my non-corporate friends to be sure to read the Business pages of the newspaper, as so many important things are reported there that may or may not have anything to do with “business.” By consigning them to the section that many people think is just for the investor and managerial classes, lots of important news fails to reach into the non-Business world where most of us live. Here are three recent stories that make the point.

Story #1: Corporate Corruption of the Environment

“Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research” That was the headline of a lengthy article on Page 3 of the Business section of the New York Times on February 20th. The article reported on “an unusual complaint” filed with the Environmental Protection Agency by a group of 26 corn-insect specialists, charging that “biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry's genetically modified crops.”

“The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes. So while university scientists can freely buy pesticides or conventional seeds for their research, they cannot do that with genetically engineered seeds. Instead, they must seek permission from the seed companies. And sometimes that permission is denied or the company insists on reviewing any findings before they can be published, they say.”

One scientist noted that “financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies.” So dependent, in fact, that the scientists “withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies.” As one scientist put it, “People are afraid of being blacklisted.”

Why was this important story relegated to Page 3 of the Business section?

Story #2: Doctors on Health Care

USAmericans tell opinion pollsters that the top domestic policy concern they have (after the economy) is health care. That’s why I am a bit puzzled as to why the following story appeared on the front page of the Business Section in the Star Trib of May 20. (At least it was the front page of the section.) The headline read: “Health Care Skimping; Patients Trying to Save Money Are Getting Sicker Before They Seek Care, Family Doctors Say.”

The story is that a national survey of family doctors was released on May 19th by the American Academy of Family Physicians. According to the AAFP press release, “The national poll of AAFP members shows that nearly 90 percent of the family physicians surveyed reported their ‘patients have expressed concerns recently over their ability to pay for their health care needs.’ 58 percent said they had ‘seen an increase in appointment cancellations.’ Furthermore, 60 percent reported they had ‘seen more health problems caused by their patients forgoing needed preventive care.’”

The Star Trib didn’t report most of the results of the survey in its article, for some reason. For instance, the AAFP says that “nearly 90 percent (87 percent) reported they had seen a significant increase in patients with major stress symptoms since the beginning of the recession.” Still, kudos to my local paper for at least covering this report; it wasn’t covered anywhere else, as far as I can see.

Story #3: Bailing Out Tax Evaders

Back on January 16th the federal Government Accountability Office released a report about corporations and taxes. Here are three paragraphs from the Washington Post Business Section:

“Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations—including several that are receiving billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to finance their recovery—have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying U.S. taxes on their profits, a government study released yesterday found.

“Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hotspots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where they can move their income into tax-free accounts.

“It is all legal, but it could come to an end, given the dire condition of the U.S. economy and President-elect Barack Obama's campaign pledge to close this popular business tax loophole. The Treasury estimates that it loses $100 billion a year in tax revenue as a result of companies shipping their income off shore, and congressional leaders are vowing to introduce legislation forcing big companies to pay full freight.”

In this case I can understand why both the Washington Post and the New York Times put this in the Business section (pages 1 and 2, respectively) since it had to do with corporate behavior. Still, this story was of interest to the general public—especially in a time of huge budget deficits that might be expected to put tax evasion in the spotlight—and should have been more prominently placed in the main section of the paper. I, myself, would have placed it on the front page.

**********

Subscriptions to NYGAARD NOTES are FREE. You can start your free subscription by visiting the NYGAARD NOTES website at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/ Or, just send an email to NYGAARD NOTES at nygaard@nygaardnotes.org All back issues are found there, as well, and are fully searchable.

NYGAARD NOTES grows by recommendations and referrals from readers. Please “give” free subscriptions to your friends, family members, and allies. Also, please feel free to forward any issue to anyone, or to reprint anything you read here. All of NYGAARD NOTES is in the public domain, to be used by whosoever can use it.

NYGAARD NOTES is completely supported by voluntary donations from readers and friends. That’s how it stays independent, and remains free to those who cannot contribute. If you want to help sustain this experiment in independent journalism—now in its ELEVENTH year!—please consider making a voluntary contribution by going to the NYGAARD NOTES website at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/ Then just get out your credit card and follow the instructions. Or, send a check through the mail, payable to “NYGAARD NOTES” at NYGAARD NOTES, P.O. Box 14354, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Thank you!

You can also support Nygaard Notes indirectly, by recommending my small business, River City Buttons, that makes custom, pin-on buttons for all occasions. Find it at www.rivercitybuttons.com

-- 
Jeff Nygaard
National Writers Union
Twin Cities Local #13 UAW
Nygaard Notes
http://www.nygaardnotes.org

Nygaard Notes
Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Number 430, June 17, 2009

On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/

******

This Week: Investigating Some Investigations (or, Trying To)

1. “Quote” of the Week
2. The Saga of the Pentagon Pundits
3. The Case of the Missing Report
4. Pentagon Investigates Itself Again. The Result? You’ll Never Guess

******

Greetings,

This week is a Double Issue of Nygaard Notes, and that’s partly because next week I hope to launch the much-belated Spring 2009 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive. (Hey, it’s still officially spring in Minnesota!) Thanks to all of you who have already renewed your 2009 Pledge (I was pretty late in getting your renewal notices out; my apologies.)

As for this week’s Notes, the longest piece you’ll see takes the form of a saga, of sorts. That is, it is a long, detailed account of a story that I have been following for over a year. I wanted to wait until there was some resolution before I wrote about it, but it doesn’t seem to be approaching a resolution, so why wait any longer? And anyway, it’s already a long saga – I don’t want to write a book about it! (I’m already writing a book, as readers of the Notes are aware, and one book is enough, believe me.)

Since I decided that this would be a double issue, there turned out to be room for a couple of other, shorter pieces on investigations, in addition to the Saga. Next week I’ll discuss the point of all this talk about investigations, but for now, sit back and enjoy the Saga of the Pentagon Pundits (And Other Stories).

In solidarity,

Nygaard

******

1.
“Quote” of the Week

Just before he was inaugurated, Barack Obama appeared on ABC’s Sunday talk show “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. After Obama reiterated his promise “We are going to close Guantanamo,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said to Mr. Obama:

“The most popular question on your own website is related to this. On [Mr. Obama’s transition website] change.gov, it comes from Bob Fertik of New York City and he asks, ‘Will you appoint a special prosecutor, ideally Patrick Fitzgerald, to independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?’”

And Mr. Obama replied, in part:

“Obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

Up to this point, every prosecution known to the human race has involved “looking backwards,” since it is very difficult to prosecute someone for events in the future. So this statement is really a bit of a non sequitur.

If this were only a non sequitur I wouldn’t make it the “Quote” of the Week. But, as you’ll see in this week’s case study of a Pentagon investigation, this type of lip service to the principle of no one being “above the law” while failing to actually examine what people have done in the recent past is all too common. And dangerous.

******

2.
The Saga of the Pentagon Pundits

Over a year ago The New York Times broke a major story that quickly became known as the “Pentagon Pundits” story. I’ve been following it fairly closely for the past fourteen months, and have talked about it elsewhere, but was surprised when I realized recently that I had never discussed it in the pages of the Notes.

The story is still unfolding, but rather than waiting for the story to come to a resolution (which it may never do) I am going to go into some detail on it right here and right now. I think this little case study has a lot to tell us about what happens when public outcry forces the powers that be to “investigate” some of the shocking, horrifying, and/or scandalous events that occasionally are allowed to see the light of day in the U.S.A. In addition, this saga offers some insights into the nature of accountability, propaganda, investigations, and power.

Finally, besides being informative and loaded with lessons, I think the saga is highly entertaining, as well! I hope you’ll agree. The saga begins back on April 20 2008.

The Pentagon Pundit Story Breaks

On the front page of the Sunday edition of the New York Times of April 20, 2008 ran a story headlined “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand.” The Times reporter, David Barstow, recently was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the story, which “revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq,” in the words of the Pulitzer committee. Here is a bit more on the background, in quotations taken directly from the Times article itself:

The article told the story of “a group of retired military officers” who “are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as ‘military analysts’ whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.”

“Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though,” said the Times, “is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance...”

Barstow described “how the Bush administration ... transform[ed] the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse—an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.”

“Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as ‘message force multipliers’ or ‘surrogates’ who could be counted on to deliver administration ‘themes and messages’ to millions of Americans ‘in the form of their own opinions.’ . . . The analysts . . .were framing how viewers ought to interpret events.”

The Pentagon offered the analysts all sorts of special access, briefings, and so forth, and “In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.”

“A few [analysts] expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.”

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Times that “The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people.” And that “earnest attempt,” reported the Times, “began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day. . .”

May 2, 2008: “Calling for an Investigation”

A couple of weeks after the Times broke the story, on May 2nd 2008, 41 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, sent a letter to the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) asking for some action on the scandal. According to the Associated Press, DeLauro “said it was important for the Inspector General to find out how high-ranking officials within the Pentagon were allowed to operate a program aimed at deceiving the American people.” In addition, she said, “we are calling for the Inspector General to launch an investigation to ensure no detail surrounding this program remains hidden.”

May 22 and 24 2008: Requiring an Investigation (or Two)

On May 22nd the House passed (by a vote of 384-23) the Hodes-DeLauro-DeFazio amendment to the 2009 Defense Authorization Bill. The amendment was intended “to prohibit the Department of Defense (DOD) from engaging in propaganda programs and requiring the GAO [Government Accountability Office] to launch an investigation into the DOD Military Analyst Program.” The amendment “also directs the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the Department of Defense in their program designed to indirectly influence media coverage of the War in Iraq through network and cable news media analysts.” The amendment, said co-sponsor Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire “will ... require a report to Congress by both the Defense Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office on whether previous restrictions on propaganda have been violated.”

Sure enough, two days later, on May 24th, the Associated Press published an article saying that both reports were underway. “A Defense spokesman, Lt. Col. Brian Maka, said Saturday the Inspector General's review will look at whether special access to Pentagon leaders ‘may have given the contractors a competitive advantage.” And, reported the AP, the GAO also said it was reviewing the program and whether it violated policies barring use of government money to spread propaganda in the United States.”

Note that, at this point (the end of May 2008), we have two investigations on the way. One by the Department of Defense Inspector General, which is a Pentagon office in charge of investigating the Pentagon. The other by the GAO, which is “an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.” In other words, one self-investigation and one outside investigation. Got that? Keep both of them in mind as we proceed...

(But, wait a minute. Before we do proceed I just have to tell a little side story. That reliable organ of the business classes, the Investor’s Business Daily, ran an editorial on May 27th 2008 noting the Hodes amendment, which they characterized as “a bill to stifle the good news that we're winning in Iraq.” The unsigned editorial added that “It's not as if the Pentagon brass, as they wage a global war on terrorism, don't have better things to do than sit down and answer foolish questions about public relations operations from a bunch of GAO bean-counters.”)

(Wait another minute! Here’s another side story: The Washington Post was the only US media outlet to say anything about a totally-separate report by the Pentagon Inspector General that came out on December 12. “Pentagon May Have Mixed Propaganda With PR,” read the headline, and the brief Page Two article told us that “The Pentagon's Inspector General said yesterday that the Defense Department's public affairs office may have ‘inappropriately’ merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department.”)

January 14 2009: The Pentagon Reports on Itself

On January 14th 2009, the Pentagon reported the results of its self-investigation. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon found itself. . . . innocent!”

Here’s how the Inspector General’s report put it: “We found insufficient evidence to conclude that the briefings and talking points provided to RMAs [Retired Military Analysts] while supportive of DoD operations, rose to the level of puffery or otherwise sought the self-aggrandizement of the agency, its personnel, or activities.”

Added the IG, “We considered the broader issue of whether the RMA outreach activities were designed to misinform the public, unduly influence public opinion, or otherwise constitute an improper effort to build public support for DoD activities.” After “considering” the issue, the watchdog said that “We found insufficient evidence to conclude that [the Pentagon] conceived of or undertook the type of disciplined public relations effort that is suggested by the foregoing question.”

All in all, said the Pentagon, “We determined that [all the things we were asked to look at] were conducted in accordance with DoD policies and regulations.”

The headlines duly reflected the reassuring verdict. “Retired Officers' Media Role Deemed Appropriate,” said the Washington Post. “Inspector General Sees No Misdeeds in Pentagon's Effort to Make Use of TV Analysts,” said the NY Times.

All of this led the amendment’s sponsor, Representative Paul Hodes, to remark “To say there are factual inaccuracies in this report is the understatement of the century. I think it is a whitewash.” We’ll see in a moment how accurate this assessment turned out to be. In the meantime...

The Times article concluded by reminding readers that “Two other inquiries into the program are continuing. One, being conducted by the Government Accountability Office, is scheduled to be completed next month. The other is being done by the Federal Communications Commission, which has regulatory oversight of broadcasters.”

So now we have three investigations to track. The completed one by the Pentagon, one by the GAO, and also an FCC investigation.

May 2009: "Riddled With Flaws, But..."

The weekly news magazine U.S. News and World Report has a column called “Washington Whispers,” in which the following tidbit appeared on May 4 of this year under the headline “Rumsfeld Aides Trash New York Times Pulitzer”:

“Rumsfeld's current spokesman, Keith Urbahn, cites a January 2009 Pentagon Inspector General's report debunking the [NY Times Pentagon Pundit] story: ‘The Times's reporting on DoD’s routine outreach to military experts didn't merit a place in the paper, much less a Pulitzer.” and “Between the New York Times and the Pentagon's Inspector General office, it's pretty clear which is a more credible and non-partisan source.”

Credible, you say? Two days later, on May 6th, the Pentagon’s Inspector General office withdrew their January 14th report because it was “so riddled with flaws and inaccuracies that none of its conclusions could be relied upon.” That’s the New York Times paraphrasing Donald M. Horstman, the Pentagon's deputy Inspector General for policy and oversight, in a memorandum announcing the withdrawal. The Times, the only newspaper to report on this story, ran their brief article on page 21, saying, “In a highly unusual reversal, the Defense Department's Inspector General's office has withdrawn a report it issued in January exonerating a Pentagon public relations program that made extensive use of retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks.”

“In addition to repudiating its own report,” said the Times, “the Inspector General's office took the additional step of removing the report from its Web site.” (Nygaard Notes was able to find a copy of the original, 85-page report, however. If anyone wants to read it, contact me and I’ll send you a PDF copy.)

The unfortunate part of this retraction is that the DoDIG memo concluded by saying “We have determined that additional investigative work will not be undertaken to reissue the report because the ... program has been terminated and responsible senior officials are no longer employed by the Department.”

Yes, you read that right: The Pentagon officially admits that the investigation they did, mandated by Congress, was worthless. But they’re not going to produce a real report. Let bygones by bygones!

Postscript: The Mystery Continues, and Deepens

Well, that takes care of the Pentagon’s investigation of itself. But what about the other two reports, one by the Government Accountability Office and one by the Federal Communications Commission?

I haven’t been able to find out anything about the FCC report, but if and when they respond to my inquiry (Case Number CIMS00002118116) I’ll be sure to let you know.

The GAO report, in contrast, is an interesting little story-within-a story, which I relate in the next article.

******

3.
The Case of the Missing Report

In the last article I mentioned that the New York Times, in its January 17th article on the bogus report by the Pentagon’s Inspector General, said that “Two other inquiries into the program are continuing. One, being conducted by the Government Accountability Office, is scheduled to be completed next month.”

As I began working on this story about the Pentagon pundits last month, I thought I would take a look at that report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the Congress had ordered and that was scheduled to come out in February. After all, I have looked at many GAO reports and usually find them to be quite reliable and informative. So I went to the GAO website, as I have many times, and was surprised to find not a hint of any such report. This was on May 6th, a good three months or more since the report was due to be ready, according to the Times.

So I wrote to the GAO research office, describing the report and saying that I had been unable to locate the report on the GAO website. “Can you help me?” I asked. The following day, May 7th, I received a response that was so succinct I will reprint it here verbatim: “Hello Mr. Nygaard, I have been unable to locate any report on your subject, I didn't even see anything pending. Thanks for Contacting GAO Research services, Anna GAO Research.

Hmmm... I thought. No report. Nothing pending. That’s odd.

A month went by, and I was working on this story again and found myself reading the recently-retracted report by the Pentagon Inspector General. Imagine my surprise when I ran across the following paragraph on page 2 of that document:

“Also, members of Congress requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Enforcement Division of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct concurrent inquiries regarding the use of military analysts. The GAO is writing a legal opinion concentrating on issues of fiscal law—specifically, the potential misuse of DoD appropriations for publicity or propaganda purposes... The DoD Inspector General team coordinated their efforts with ... the GAO ... to avoid duplication.” [Emphasis added.]

I knew by this time that the Pentagon report was “riddled with flaws and inaccuracies,” but I didn’t think this reference to the two reports was one of them. So I wrote to my friend Anna at the GAO again, quoting the paragraph above and asking her “Are you sure there is no record of such a report?” She again wrote back very promptly, mentioning only a report from 2005 and adding that “Your inquiry is for something from 2009 and it may be in the works but hasn't hit the database that I'm allowed to use to search for such things.”

Along the way I also telephoned the offices of Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro and Michigan Congressman John Dingell, both of whom have been pushing for an investigation of the Pentagon Pundits. Their press secretaries staffs were very friendly, but couldn’t find out what was going on with the missing GAO report, either.

While I was at it, I asked DeLauro’s press secretary about the FCC investigation. She told me that the FCC had told her that the investigation “is underway.” These investigations can take as long as 15 months, she said to me, adding that she would keep an eye on it.

Finally, I emailed the New York Times and asked Mr. Barstow what he knew about these things. Never heard back, not surprisingly.

Three investigations. The Pentagon’s investigation was a whitewash, and no followup will be done. The FCC investigation is months away, at best. And the GAO investigation exists in some other dimension, if it exists at all.

I’ll keep following this story.

******

4.
Pentagon Investigates Itself Again. The Result? You’ll Never Guess

Two days after his inauguration, President Obama issued an Executive Order saying that “The Secretary of Defense shall immediately undertake a review of the conditions of detention at Guantanamo to ensure” that all detainees are being held “in conformity with all applicable laws governing the conditions of such confinement, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.” Obama gave the Pentagon 30 days to report back.

When this new report of a Pentagon self-investigation was released it was about five weeks after the Pentagon exonerated itself in the Pentagon Pundits case. Like the earlier report, this one also ran to 85 pages or so and, like the earlier report, the Pentagon in this case once again found the Pentagon... innocent!

The Guantanamo report was released on Friday, February 20, and the New York Times relegated the report, as did other papers, to the inside pages. Their headline—“Pentagon Finds Guantanamo Follows Geneva Conventions”—was also typical. (The Washington Post: “Review Finds Detainees' Treatment Legal.”) The basic story was well-summarized in the Times’ lede paragraph, which read, “A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions.”

The Times reported that the President’s Executive Order “was widely seen as an effort to defuse accusations that there were widespread abuses at Guantanamo.” I don’t know who “saw” it that way, and as to how yet another self-investigation was supposed to defuse anything, that’s even more mysterious to me.

Amnesty International made a statement in response to the Pentagon report. Amnesty said that “It comes as no surprise that the Pentagon would say Guantanamo meets international human rights standards,” despite the fact that “there have been many well-documented accounts of abuse at Guantanamo over the past few years” and “it's clear the abuse of prisoners continues.”

We’re not done yet. Another report—an independent one—came out just three days after the Pentagon’s second whitewash. On February 23rd the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights released this other report, entitled “Conditions of Confinement at Guantanamo: Still in Violation of the Law.” This report went unnoticed in the U.S. except for a fine report by the Latin America branch of the Inter Press Service (IPS). Their story was headlined “U.S.: Report Contradicts Govt Claims of ‘Humane’ Detention.”

The 19-page CCR report stated that there are “continuing abusive conditions at the prison camp, including conditions of confinement that they say violate U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.” IPS said that “The report details multiple cases of abuse occurring in the last month and a half.”

On February 24 the Times did note some of this criticism in an article headlined “Administration Draws Fire For Report on Guantanamo.” After noting that “detainees' lawyers and human rights groups ridiculed the 85-page report,” the article failed to clearly explain why they might do so. A media-monitoring group, or a maniac like Nygaard, can find out, but most citizens don’t have the time needed to find it themselves.

Finally, three days after that article, on February 27th, the Washington Post reported that “A United Nations special investigator has concluded in a report scheduled for release Friday that foreign intelligence agents sent to question U.S.-held terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay had violated international human-rights laws.”

I’ll have more to say on investigations and their fates in a hierarchy of power next week in the Notes.

**********

Subscriptions to NYGAARD NOTES are FREE. You can start your free subscription by visiting the NYGAARD NOTES website at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/ Or, just send an email to NYGAARD NOTES at nygaard@nygaardnotes.org All back issues are found there, as well, and are fully searchable.

NYGAARD NOTES grows by recommendations and referrals from readers. Please “give” free subscriptions to your friends, family members, and allies. Also, please feel free to forward any issue to anyone, or to reprint anything you read here. All of NYGAARD NOTES is in the public domain, to be used by whosoever can use it.

NYGAARD NOTES is completely supported by voluntary donations from readers and friends. That’s how it stays independent, and remains free to those who cannot contribute. If you want to help sustain this experiment in independent journalism—now in its ELEVENTH year!—please consider making a voluntary contribution by going to the NYGAARD NOTES website at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/ Then just get out your credit card and follow the instructions. Or, send a check through the mail, payable to “NYGAARD NOTES” at NYGAARD NOTES, P.O. Box 14354, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Thank you!

You can also support Nygaard Notes indirectly, by recommending my small business, River City Buttons, that makes custom, pin-on buttons for all occasions. Find it at www.rivercitybuttons.com

-- 
Jeff Nygaard
National Writers Union
Twin Cities Local #13 UAW
Nygaard Notes
http://www.nygaardnotes.org

June 17:

1885 : Statue of Liberty arrives

The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, arrives in New York City's harbor.

Originally known as "Liberty Enlightening the World," the statue was proposed by French historian Edouard Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the 151-foot statue was the form of a woman with an uplifted arm holding a torch. In February 1877, Congress approved the use of a site on New York Bedloe's Island, which was suggested by Bartholdi. In May 1884, the statue was completed in France, and three months later the Americans laid the cornerstone for its pedestal in New York. On June 19, 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty arrived in the New World, enclosed in more than 200 packing cases. Its copper sheets were reassembled, and the last rivet of the monument was fitted on October 28, 1886, during a dedication presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

On the pedestal was inscribed "The New Colossus," a famous sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Six years later, Ellis Island, adjacent to Bedloe's Island, opened as the chief entry station for immigrants to the United States, and for the next 32 years more than 12 million immigrants were welcomed into New York harbor by the sight of "Lady Liberty." In 1924, the Statue of Liberty was made a national monument.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Interest
1885 : Statue of Liberty arrives
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=5107
1579 : Drake claims California for England
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5098
1775 : The Battle of Bunker Hill
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5099
1940 : France to surrender
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5100
1972 : Watergate burglars arrested
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6931
1994 : O.J. Simpson arrested after flight from justice
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5101

American Revolution
1775 : Battle of Bunker Hill begins
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=724

Christian Group to Burn Children's Book at the Stake

Posted by Mustang Bobby, Shakesville at 11:40 AM on June 16, 2009.

These folks have a lot to learn about civil liberties, not to mention a lot about Christianity, too.

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A so-called "Christian" group in Wisconsin has some hot plans for a book in a local library.

Francesca Lia Block, an award-winning author of young-adult books (the "Weetzie Bat" series among them), has known for a while now that one of her novels, "Baby Be-Bop" is at the center of a controversy in West Bend, Wis.

A few days ago, she found out that it might be burned at the stake. "Baby Be-Bop" is on a list of titles that a local group calling itself the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries objects to seeing in the public library. In February, the group asked the library's board to remove a page of recommended titles about gay and lesbian issues for young people (including "Baby Be-Bop") from the library's Web site. Then they demanded that the books be moved from the youth section of the library and placed with the adult collection, "to protect children from accessing them without their parents' knowledge and supervision."

[...]

Now an outfit called the Christian Civil Liberties Union has gotten in on the act, suing the library for, according to the West Bend Daily News, "damaging" the "mental and emotional well-being" of several individuals by displaying "Baby Be-Bop" in the library. Since attempts to label the novel as "pornographic" have failed, the (somewhat shadowy) CCLU hopes to brand it as hate speech, in part because it contains the word "nigger." The complainants, described as "elderly" by the newspaper, claim that Block's novel is "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic] and anti-Christian." They want the library's copy not only removed but publicly burned.

"Baby Be-Bop," a title from the Weetzie Bat series that describes the youth of Weetzie's best friend, Dirk, is, in Block's words, "a very sweet, simple, coming-of-age story about a young man's discovery that he's gay." Dirk is beaten by gay bashers but steadfastly clings to the possibility of finding love. Block finds the disingenuous charges of racism particularly distressing. "Obviously I use those words, including 'faggot,' which is also in the book, to expose racism and homophobia, not promote it," she said. "It's a tiny little book," she added, "but they want to burn it like a witch."

I wouldn't question the CCLU in the area of "hate speech;" they seem to be experts in that field.

It's one thing to want a book that might be considered inappropriate for children put on a shelf in a library that clearly states that it is meant for adults, but this book doesn't sound anything like that; contrary to the feverish obsession of these ignoramuses, there's more to being gay than just having sex. (True to form, the folks who carry on about morality and the Radical Homosexual Agenda are a lot more preoccupied with sex than any normal person -- gay or straight -- should be.) To advocate for publicly burning a book brings it to a level of psychosis that reaches way beyond looking out for what's appropriate and what's not. These people have a deep-seated phobia about anything connected with homosexuality, and it's pretty scary that they're disturbed enough to come out, so to speak, with their rage and their hatred.

These folks have a lot to learn about civil liberties, not to mention a lot about Christianity, too.

Tagged as: christians, free speech, lgbt, book, book burning

Mustang Bobby is a regular blogger for Shakesville.

Studies Show Art Audience Decline

Tuesday 16 June 2009

by: Jacqueline Trescott | Visit article original @ The Washington Post

Nine-year-old Eden Shiferwa participates in the Sketching After School program. (Photo: Suzanne Kreiter / The Boston Globe)

Two separate national surveys gauging youth and adult participation in the arts reported yesterday that visits to art museums are declining.

A study of nearly 4,000 eighth-grade students, part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found dwindling field trips over the past decade. "The percentage of eighth-graders who reported that they visited an art museum or gallery with their classes dropped from 22 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 2008," said Stuart Kerachsky, the acting commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the assessment.

The National Endowment for the Arts also released new data yesterday showing that fewer adults were choosing an art museum or a visual arts festival as a leisure-time destination. From 1992 to 2001, 26 percent of adults reported that they visited such attractions, but the number for 2008 dropped to 23 percent. The decrease is small, but it may portend coming declines as the most loyal part of the museum audience ages. The exception, the NEA said, was in the D.C. metropolitan area, where 40 percent of adults said they had visited a museum in 2008 - reflecting tourism and free admission at most major museums.

In addition, the agency noted sizable declines between 1982 (when it first started documenting arts participation) and 2008 in almost every performing arts field. It reported double-digit rates of decline for classical music, jazz, opera, musical theater, ballet and dramatic plays.

The NEA survey "shows that audiences for the arts are changing," said Patrice Walker Powell, the acting NEA chairman. "While many now participate in arts activities available through electronic media, the number of American adults who are participating in live performing and visual arts events is declining. The findings underscore the need for more arts education to foster the next generation of both artists and arts enthusiasts."

The National Assessment of Educational Progress report is part of a periodic federal look at how America's students fare in various subjects. Arts education was last measured in 1997, but because of budget constraints, the survey was limited this time to music and visual arts. The schools and students were selected at random, said a spokeswoman, and the questions took various forms.

Some results were promising. Students were asked to identify the instrument in the opening solo of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Fifty percent correctly identified the clarinet.

Other results indicated that students need improvement in basic skills. In NAEP's visual arts component, students were asked to do a self-portrait. Only 4 percent received the highest mark of "sufficient," while 57 percent received a "minimal" rating, the third-best ranking.

General accessibility to arts instruction remained constant, the NAEP report said. Music instruction was offered at least three or four times a week in 57 percent of the schools and visual arts instruction in 47 percent.

Yet there were several gaps in student scores. Whites and Asian/Pacific Islanders scored 22 to 32 points higher than black or Hispanic students. On music questions, public school eighth-graders scored 14 points lower than private school students and nine points lower than their private school counterparts in the visual arts sections.

The recession's impact on school arts programs has not been statistically evaluated, but anecdotal indicators are not encouraging.

"School budget cuts are underway, with more projected next year," said Eileen Weiser, a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, speaking of the economic climate in Michigan. David W. Gordon, the superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education, said California is cutting back on school buses, which would further jeopardize school trips.

»

Published on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

'Public Option' Pales Next to Single Payer

by Nicholas Skala

The following remarks were delivered to a closed-door meeting the Congressional Progressive Caucus on June 4, 2009:

Today the Congressional Progressive Caucus faces a choice. That choice is whether Members should maintain their unflinching support for single-payer, or to accede to intense political pressure to support the plan currently being developed in Congress under the direction of President Obama: a mandate for Americans to purchase an insurance plan from a massive new regulatory “exchange,” with one plan potentially being a “public option.”

The difference between these choices could not be more stark: single-payer has at its core the elimination of U.S.-style private insurance, using huge administrative savings and inherent cost control mechanisms to provide comprehensive, sustainable universal coverage.

The “public option” preserves all of the systemic defects inherent in reliance on a patchwork of private insurance companies to finance health care, a system which has been a miserable failure both in providing health coverage and controlling costs.

Elimination of U.S.-style private insurance has been a prerequisite to the achievement of universal health care in every other industrialized country in the world. In contrast, public program expansions coupled with mandates have failed everywhere they’ve been tried, both domestically and internationally.

Many progressives accept that the “public option” is inferior to a single-payer system, yet support it because of its perceived political expedience. It is my aim today to convince you that the “public option” program currently being developed is not only bad health policy, but bad health politics.

On two separate occasions last month, physicians and nurses were dragged from the Senate Finance Committee in handcuffs for demanding that single-payer be considered in our nation’s health reform debate. These were American doctors and nurses, people who care for patients, people who want to practice medicine, not protest and disrupt Congress.

But these professionals risked their careers and their freedom. They did this not because they thought that the “public option” was “good” and single-payer “better.” They did it because they are firmly convinced, by well-established health policy science, that the so-called “public option” has no hope of remedying the systemic defects that cause their patients to suffer and die, sometimes before their very eyes.

Millions of dollars have been spent by political advocacy groups to commission polls and statistics “proving” that their health reform is “politically feasible.” Yet political winds do not make good health policy. Careful examination of science and experience do. And it is in the science and experience that we see that single-payer offers the only way to truly comprehensive, universal and sustainable health care, and that “public option” schemes offer only more of the same: tens of millions of uninsured, rapidly deteriorating coverage, an epidemic of medical bankruptcy, and skyrocketing costs that will eventually cripple the system.

First, because the “public option” is built around the retention of private insurance companies, it is unable - in contrast to single-payer - to recapture the $400 billion in administrative waste that private insurers currently generate in their drive to fight claims, issue denials and screen out the sick. A single-payer system would redirect these huge savings back into the system, requiring no net increase in health spending.

In contrast, the “public option” will require huge new sources of revenue, currently estimated at around $1 trillion over the next decade. Rather than cutting this bloat, the public option adds yet another layer of useless and complicated bureaucracy in the form of an “exchange,” which serves no useful function other than to police and broker private insurance companies.

Second, because the “public option” fails to contain the cost control mechanism inherent in single-payer, such as global budgeting, bulk purchasing and planned capital expenditures, any gains in coverage will quickly be erased as costs skyrocket and government is forced to choose between raising revenue and cutting benefits.

Third, because of this inability to control costs or realize administrative savings, the coverage and benefits that can be offered will be of the same type currently offered by private carriers, which cause millions of insured Americans to go without needed care due to costs and have led to an epidemic of medical bankruptcies.

Supporters of incremental reform once again promise us universal coverage without structural reform, but we’ve heard this promise dozens of times before.

Virtually all of the reforms being floated by President Obama and other centrist Democrats have been tried, and have failed repeatedly. Plans that combined mandates to purchase coverage with Medicaid expansions fell apart in Massachusetts (1988), Oregon (1992), and Washington state (1993); the latest iteration (Massachusetts, 2006) is already stumbling, with uninsurance again rising and costs soaring. Tennessee’s experiment with a massive Medicaid expansion and a public plan option worked - for one year, until rising costs sank it.

The Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (the model for a health insurance exchange) leaves hundreds of thousands of federal workers uninsured, and has proven unable to contain costs.

Negative results in a recent series of randomized trials explodes the hope that chronic disease management will cut costs. And the CBO has thrown a wet blanket on the notion that electronic medical records save money.

As Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, have remarked, a public plan option does not lead toward single-payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan. A quarter-century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry-picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan - which started as a single-payer system for seniors and have now become a funding mechanism for HMOs - and a place to dump the unprofitably ill.

Progressive supporters of the “public option” readily concede that single-payer is a superior system. Indeed, their response to evidence that their plan won’t work is to commission more charts and graphs emphasizing its political feasibility.

The “public option” is truly the embodiment of health policy designed by sound bytes, cobbled together from snippets of information gathered from focus groups and public opinion polls, and centered around well-polling buzzwords such as “choice” and “shared responsibility.”

Such a plan may be enough to excite the political classes in Washington, who care more about what they think can pass the Congress than what will actually deliver universal, comprehensive health care for all. But doctors and nurses, the people who actually work in the health system, see right through it. They are going to jail because they know that this plan won’t work for their patients.

Nobody is going to jail for the “public option,” because the American people cannot be inspired by band-aids and half-measures it is impossible to believe in.

These doctors and nurses are the manifestation of a social movement, millions strong, that is waiting to be mobilized by the leadership of the Members in this room. Polls consistently show that two-thirds of the American people want single-payer. At a recent hearing in Montana convened by Sen. Max Baucus, only 10 people of three hundred said they were happy with the insurance they have. Sixty percent of physicians support single-payer, as do the U.S. Conference of Mayors and 39 state labor federations and hundreds of local unions across the country.

We’re told that holding out for single-payer is politically unwise, but to compromise and accept a bad plan at precisely the time when popular support and grassroots energy are on the side of true reform is the real political miscalculation.

The history of great social achievement is rife with instances in which the forces of institutionalized power told social movements - as they now tell this one - that what they wanted was too much, or too fast, or too soon. I think, of course, of the abolition of human slavery, the enfranchisement of women, the Civil Rights Movement, Social Security, the minimum wage, an end to child labor. In each of these instances, social movements held fast to their principles and soon discovered that they had been told was “politically unfeasible” one moment was political reality the next.

We currently have a better chance to pass single-payer than Lyndon Johnson had when he passed Medicare. Unlike the public option, single-payer - because it holds the potential to finally realize universal, equitable health care - can be a vehicle to inspire the American people for progressive change.

The voices of doctors and nurses can achieve extraordinary resonance when they speak selflessly in their patients’ interest. But your leadership is crucial to inspire the American people. It is my hope that you’ll see fit to provide it.

Nicholas Skala is a former senior research associate Physicians for a National Health Program. He is currently a Juris Doctor candidate and Harry L. Kinser Scholar for Health Law at Northwestern University School of Law. He can be reached at n-skala@law.northwestern.edu

BREAKING NEWS: New Report Projects Devastating U.S. Climate Impact‏

Report: Climate Change Already Affecting US
http://www.truthout.org/061709O
David A. Fahrenthold, The Washington Post: "Man-made
climate change is already lifting temperatures,
increasing rainfall, and raising sea levels around
the United States -- and its effects are on track to
get much worse in the coming century, according to a
report released this afternoon by federal scientists.
The report, 'Global Climate Change Impacts in the
United States,' covers much of the same ground as
previous analyses from US and United Nations science
panels. It finds that greenhouse-gas emissions are
'primarily' responsible for global warming and that
rapid action is needed to avert catastrophic shifts
in water, heat and natural life."

If you aren't sure why global warming is our top priority, please read this email.

Moments ago, the White House released a detailed scientific report forecasting devastating impacts of global warming in the United States if we don't take dramatic steps now to cut our global warming emissions.

As example of the kind of impacts we can expect in a warming world, the climate of Illinois could resemble the climate of Texas by the end of this century.

The report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, breaks down climate impacts region-by-region

The Northeast:

• Hartford and Philadelphia could average 30 days of 100+ temperatures per year while Boston could see more than 20 100-degree days per year;
• Native maple, beech, birch, spruce and fir forests could be almost entirely lost;
• The climate of New Hampshire could resemble the climate of North Carolina.

The Southeast:

• Much of Florida and southeast Texas could see more than 180 days in the 90s per year while other southeastern states could see more than 100 90-degree days per year;
• Spring and summer drought has already increased by 12 percent and 14 respectively over the last 30 years. The frequency, intensity and duration of droughts in the region are likely to increase;
• Sea level rise and stronger storm surges could inundate and ultimately flood coastal communities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

The Midwest:

• The climate of Michigan could resemble the climate of Oklahoma and the climate of Illinois could resemble the climate of Texas;
• Deadly heat waves like the one that killed more than 700 people in Chicago in 1995, will become more frequent. Under higher emission scenarios, Chicago could experience up to three such heat waves every year;
• Higher emissions scenarios would cause a water level drop of 1-2 feet in the Great Lakes, threatening shipping, infrastructure, beaches and ecosystems.

The Great Plains:

• Hotter, drier summers will threaten the already overused High Plains aquifer, which irrigates 13 million acres and provides water to 80% of the people in the region;
• Increased temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels will threaten farming activities with more drought, pest infestations, and faster weed growth;
• Under higher emission scenarios, North and South Dakota, which currently see only a handful of 100-degree days, could see 50 or more days of 100+ temperatures per year.

The Southwest:

• Under higher emission scenarios, the southern half of Arizona, southeastern California and Las Vegas could see more than 120 days with 100+ temperatures;
• Most of the region could see precipitation levels decline by more than 40%, pushing already water-strained areas over the edge;
• Southwestern forests will be decimated with less water, more wildfires and more invasive pests. Under higher emissions scenarios, California's mountain forests could decline by 60-90%.

The Northwest:

• Mountain snowpack runoff, critical water needs, could run 20-40 days earlier, threatening water resources in summer months;
• Declining summer streamflows and warmer water temperatures could push salmon and other cold water fish species, already stressed by human activities, over the brink;
• 100-degree days are rare today in the Northwest. Under higher emission scenarios, much of the region could see 30-40 days of 110+ temperatures per year.

Without action, this is the future that awaits our children. We can't let it happen.

The good news? The U.S. House could vote on a landmark energy and global warming bill as soon as next week. We're doing everything we can to pass this bill and keep the pressure on the Senate to move a bill of its own.

Here are three things you can do now to help:

1. Take action to urge passage of the bill in the House.
2. Forward this email to all your friends and family.
3. Share facts about your region on Facebook or Twitter. Please include a link to our action alert: http://support.edf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=118

Thanks for all you do,
Environmental Defense Fund

P.S. In addition to the human toll, this report reinforces the dire threat American wildlife face in a warming world. Go to our Warming and Wildlife campaign to meet and see seven "ambassador" species that face a bleak future in a warmer world.

Environmental Defense Fund
1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20009
1-800-684-3322

Rhode Island passes new medical marijuana law‏

Great news! Rhode Island just passed a new medical marijuana law.

In landslide votes of 68-0 and 35-3, the Rhode Island General Assembly today overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's (R) veto of legislation to allow the licensed, regulated sale of marijuana to seriously ill patients. Rhode Island will now become only the second state (after New Mexico) to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensing.

This expands the law that MPP passed in 2006, which protects medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail. Under that law, patients were allowed to grow their own marijuana or designate a caregiver to do it for them, but many patients didn't have regular access, and some were even assaulted trying to buy marijuana in the streets. Thanks to the new law, patients will now be able to obtain medical marijuana safely and legally from three state-regulated and licensed compassion centers.

MPP gives a special thanks to the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, an MPP grant recipient, for incredible organizing work.

If you support this work, would you please consider automatically donating $5 or more on your credit card each month to help us pass similar bills into law?

We're also making great progress in Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, and New York:

• On June 3, the Delaware Senate Health Committee voted 4-0 to pass the first modern medical marijuana bill ever introduced in Delaware. The bill is based on MPP's model legislation, and MPP's Noah Mamber testified in support of the bill. This is the first year MPP has funded medical marijuana work in Delaware, and we're making rapid progress.
  
  
• On May 27, the Illinois Senate passed a medical marijuana bill by 30-28. MPP has been lobbying and organizing in the state since 2004, and this year, we ramped up the pressure — running TV ads featuring two patients and generating more than 4,000 e-mails and 3,600 calls to legislators. After the Senate victory, a House committee swiftly approved the bill, but the legislature recessed only three days later. We have until the end of 2010 to pass the bill this session.
  
  
• In New Hampshire, MPP has retained a top lobbying firm and grassroots organizer to pass a medical marijuana bill, and it looks like the legislature will send Gov. John Lynch (D) the legislation to sign later this month. Back in March, the House passed the bill, 234-138, and on April 29, the Senate passed an amended version, 14-10. This is the first time either chamber has approved medical marijuana legislation, and we need your help for a final push, complete with radio ads, to urge Gov. Lynch (D) to let the bill become law.
  
  
• Our chances of passing medical marijuana legislation in New York this year got more complicated last week, when the state Senate tumbled into a major leadership battle. The Assembly has passed similar legislation twice (in 2007 and 2008), but it still needs to be voted on by the Senate, where it has already passed one committee. We've built an impressive coalition: Virtually the entire state medical community, including the state medical society, nurses' association, and hospice association, support medical marijuana access. And 76% of New Yorkers support the bill, including 55% of Conservative Party members (the state party to the right of Republicans).

This is amazing progress for just a few months. Our state lobbying efforts are costing quite a bit of money, but it's all paying off. Would you please donate today so we can continue pushing hard in these states?

Make a one-time donation to our work

Become a monthly pledger to provide us with ongoing funding for our work

Together, we're on the path to victory, but we need your help to keep going.

Thank you,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $2.35 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2009. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

The Earth Is Hiring: Paul Hawken's Inspiring Commencement Speech

By Paul Hawken, YES! Magazine. Posted June 11, 2009.

"Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it."

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Editor's Note: The follow in the Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009 at University of Portland.

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food -- but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

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Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible. Interested? Read an interview with Paul Hawken and David Korten.

NORAD and FAA committed perjury to 9/11 commission‏

newsviewsnolose@yahoogroups.com on behalf of dick.mcmanus

NORAD and FAA committed perjury to 9/11 Commission

It is now being reported that investigators for the 9/11 Commission drafted a memo in April 2004 stating they believed that the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lied to commission investigators by indicating the military's readiness was sufficient on 9/11. Commission staffer John Azzerello is reported to have given the memo to Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, a leading neocon, who then "buried it."

Commission investigators wanted a strongly worded criminal referral on NORAD and FAA perjury sent to the Justice Department but Zelikow downplayed the complaint and later told Phil Shenon, the author of "The Commission" and New York Times reporter, that he did not know of the criminal referral issue at the time.

CHENEY LED BRIEFINGS OF LAWMAKERS TO DEFEND INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES


June 3, 2009 Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush
administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive
methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has
been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the
interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

An official who witnessed one of Cheney's briefing sessions with
lawmakers said the vice president's presence appeared calculated to
give additional heft to the CIA's case for maintaining the program.
Cheney left it to the professional briefers to outline the
interrogation practices, while he mounted an impassioned defense of
the program.

For all but seven of the 40 meetings listed, however, the documents
outlined which agency led the briefing and which provided support.
And on at least five occasions, they spelled out that then-CIA
Director Michael V. Hayden led the classified meetings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060203999_pf.html

Read Pat Buchanan's book Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War and learn about the Germans in WWII who didn't have any military capability to attack England after the Battle of Britain, no air superiority and no ships to transport troops or equipment to England. Learn about how Hitler allowed the British to evacuate their troops from the shores of Dunkirk and flee back to England when Hitler's army could have killed them all on the beach. Learn about how the Germans didn't have a blue water navy and only a limited number of subs. Learn about why the US should have just let the Nazis and Stalinist kill off each other. Learn about how WWI was another war we should never have gotten involved in

CENTCOM now employs 242,657 contractors in its area of
responsibility

June 1, 2009: In a brief summary based on recently released reports about
contractors in the employ of the Pentagon in connection to the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater, reported
that "According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with
Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in
the number of 'Private Security Contractors' working for the
Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29%
increase in Afghanistan, which 'correlates to the build up of forces'
in the country. . . . Overall, contractors (armed and unarmed) now
make up approximately 50% of the 'total force in Centcom AOR [Area of
Responsibility].' This means there are a whopping 242,657 contractors
working on these two U.S. wars."

Source via Joe Thompson thru Mark Jensen

http://rebelreports.com/post/116277092/obama-has-250-000-contractors-in-iraq-and-afghan

===============

6a. World wheat output forecast

2005-2006: 605 million tons

2006-2007: 596 million tons, due to "dry and hot weather around the globe,"

2007-2008 ??

2008-2009 ??

2009-2010: ?? down about 4 percent from last year projected Jun 09

19 percent decline in production in the United States, a 9 percent decline in the European Union and a 27 percent decline in Ukraine

6b. US Corn output ( over one-third of total global output)

2007-2008: 791.63 million tons

2008-2009: ?? declined
2009-2010: about 785.1 million tons = a decline of 7 % from 2008-2009, but still the third highest total on record == – projected Jun 09

6c. Rice output:

2009-2010: A small increase – a little more than 5 million tons -- in total global production will not
represent a major increase in supplies projected Jun 09

7. World's food stocks enough to feed the world for: (world grain supply*)

1999-2000: 116 days (115 days)* average since 1960 has been about 79 days' supply. Today, it's about 49 days.

2006: 57 days (predicted) prices up 20%

2007-08: 53 day source: MAY 11, 2007http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/wasde/wasde-05-11-2007.txt

fall of 2007 45 days source: June 28. 2007 Source: Agora newsletter

2009-2010: Decreased production in both the corn and wheat sectors and nearly steady rice production could make 2009 an interesting year for commodities.

June 2, 2009 http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090602_global_economy_summer_harvest_and_global_food_supplies

So what went wrong with the Republican Party? It's all about religion!

Two religions have destroyed the Republican Party: evangelical Christianity and Christian/Jewish Zionism. Evangelical Christianity created the Religious Right which forever linked the Republican Party to the anti-abortion, anti-sex education, anti-evolution and anti-gay crusades.

Zionism, American-style is a politicized version of a religion. The neo-con side got traction when religious Jews became Zionists and when religious Christians (evangelicals) hopped aboard to hasten the "Rapture."

The result of the Republican Party being taken over by these religious groups was that we got George W. Bush. His idea of governance was a hands-off, all-government-is-bad-government neglect, combined with an unnecessary war in Iraq inspired by a form of Zionism that sees all Arabs as a threat, Islam as evil, America as an exceptional place duty-bound "by God" to keep the world safe for evangelical Christian "values," on the one hand, and militant Christian and Jewish Zionism on the other.

What's caused the Republican Party's real meltdown? It's that it has ceased to exist as a political party and is instead a dwindling weirdly eclectic collection of uneducated rubes led by a few fearful angry far right thinkers who talk in media sound bites geared to the types of people who watch Fox News.

The Republican party today serves the narrowly defined religious interests of two angry and fearful Jewish/Evangelical minorities who are themselves bastardized offshoots of their Christian and Jewish traditions.

Asked whether the interests of Israel and the US are identical, only 28 percent of Obama voters agreed, while 59 percent disagreed. Among McCain voters, it was the reverse: 78 percent of McCain voters said US and Israel interests were identical (!) and 15 percent said they are not.

The results of a new Zogby poll are interesting. They suggest that Obama would have strong support for a US diplomatic effort to forge an Israel-Palestine deal, even if it means tough pressure on Israel. According to the poll, when asked if the United States should "get tough" with Israel in order to back up its call for an end to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, fully 50 percent of Americans said yes, with just 19 percent saying "do nothing," and 32 percent not sure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/republican-disaster----th_b_205388.html

Will Congress declare war on Western Pakistan? Or did Congress authorize "hot pursuit" from Afghanistan into adjacent countries? Does the Constitution still require Congress to vote whether the US will go to war?

The Obama administration is increasingly treating its growing intervention in Pakistan as a separate counter-insurgency war for which it is demanding the same kind of extraordinary military powers obtained by the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq.

$400 million requested by the Pentagon for a new Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund

The US government, still without a clearly articulated strategy, calls for a heavily militarized escalation of forces into a conflict that cannot be resolved through military means, we would be well advised to arm ourselves with the wisdom of the historical record. As it now stands, President Obama is being led into the graveyard of empires by the same misguided philosophers of war that helped spawn this disaster in the first place.

Afghanistan's Hindu and Buddhist roots and the invasion attempts of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the Arab armies, the British armies and about a dozen other major intruders.

Already on the brink of implosion-- in the words of Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, "give the Soviets their Vietnam" -- the USSR collapsed soon after the conflict. But along with its demise came one of the most unfathomable humanitarian catastrophes in modern history. One million Afghans were killed during the war. Five million fled to neighboring countries. Two million were internally displaced. The nation's infrastructure was reduced to rot and rubble, and the landscape was scarred and pockmarked with landmines, many of which still claim victims today. In addition to the dead, over four million Afghans were horribly maimed or disabled.

http://www.truthout.org/053109Y

In the course of the discussion, Cheney used the exact words "blew up the World Trade Center " in reference to the al Qaeda network which, according to the official version, masterminded the 9-11 operation but absolutely did not "blow up" the World Trade Center since that implies implanted explosives and an inside job of some kind.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the man who killed 3,000 Americans on 9-11, blew up the World Trade Center , attacked the Pentagon, tried to blow up the White House and the Capitol Building . . . an evil man," said Cheney to Schieffer.

In December 2004, Rumsfeld stated the following from a podium when visiting Iraq, as excerpted in a brief video clip: "And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon. . . ."

The claims by some independent researchers that the real plane was shot down at a different, but nearby, location in Pennsylvania have always been dismissed by higher-ups in government and big media. Some say a cruise missile or similar device was shot into the ground, as a diversion, at the official "crash scene" in Shanksville, which left no distinct plane wreckage behind.

Comment: And the coroner couldn't even find teeth in the hole in the ground.

Also, in an Oct. 12, 2001, statement by Rumsfeld in Parade magazine, he refers to "the missile" that damaged the Pentagon, even though the official story says Islamic terrorists flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, and there was no missile. Again, there was no discernable commercial airliner wreckage. Even the lawn by the impact site was undisturbed.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/terrorists_911_177.html

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Iran's Twitter Revolution

Iran's Twitter Revolution

By The Nation

Forget CNN or any of the major American "news" networks.
If you want to get the latest on the opposition protests in Iran,
you should be reading blogs, watching YouTube or following
Twitter updates from Tehran, minute-by-minute.

The Public Option

June 16, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, and Nate Carlile

HEALTH CARE

The Public Option

Few issues are more pressing to President Obama right now than health care reform. As the New York Times recently reported, Obama has decided to "exert greater control over the health care debate," with an "intense push for legislation" that includes "speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers." Yesterday's speech to the American Medical Association (AMA) was a major part of this effort, since the group recently registered its opposition to the creation of a public insurance plan -- a key plank of Obama's health reform efforts. "The public option is not your enemy, it is your friend," Obama told the nearly 500 attendees at the address. Indeed, as The Wonk Room's Igor Volsky has explained, the public option remains the best way to "restore competition into the consolidated health insurance market, lower health care premiums, lead the way in innovation, and improve health quality." (The Wonk Room has put together a document debunking the top myths about the public option here, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund has a new analysis showing how few health insurance choices most Americans currently have.)

DOCTORS SUPPORT A PUBLIC PLAN: The AMA is opposed to the creation of a public health insurance option, claiming that it "threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans." While the organization has tried to walk back its criticism, it still seems to oppose the essential aims of a public plan: the ability to negotiate cheaper rates with providers and push private insurers to do the same. Obama's speech yesterday before the AMA's House of Delegates -- "the burial ground of health overhaul efforts past" -- was thus widely anticipated. In fact, he is the first president to address the group since Ronald Reagan in 1983. In the speech, Obama stayed firm in his commitment to a robust public option. "Insurance companies have expressed support for the idea of covering the uninsured -- and I welcome their willingness to engage constructively in the reform debate. I'm glad they're at the table," Obama said. "But what I refuse to do is simply create a system where insurance companies suddenly have a whole bunch more customers on Uncle Sam's dime but still fail to meet their responsibilities." Not all doctors are on the AMA's side. Although the group still calls itself the "house of medicine," only about half its members are actually practicing physicians and the group "represents maybe 20% of physicians in this country." Indeed, doctors nationwide have begun to distance themselves from the AMA. Doctors For America -- a grassroots organization representing doctors in all fifty states -- recently issued a statement and hosted a conference call in support of a robust public option.

THE GHOSTS OF 1993: Part of the drive behind Obama's recent "push" on health care legislation, according to the New York Times, is the memory of President Clinton's failure to pass reform. Yesterday, The Progress Report joined other progressive bloggers for a small meeting with Clinton at his office in Harlem. He said that Obama has a far better chance of passing health care legislation than he himself did in 1993, when Clinton faced a hostile political environment and severe budget constraints. "I had just passed a budget in which we raised taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes on the working poor, and were on track to reducing the deficit, and...we couldn't raise taxes again," explained Clinton. "So when I had an employer-mandate that in effect, guaranteed that the health insurance companies would be joined by the small business community -- at least the organized small business community -- which made it harder to pass." Clinton said that he believes Obama will work with the Senate to achieve the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. But he urged Obama to be ready to use the budget reconciliation process if necessary -- which would require just 51 votes to pass health care -- to achieve a bill that would ensure universal coverage, cut costs, improve the delivery system, and boost preventive care. "If he can't get a good bill, I wouldn't give away the store on that," he said.

CO-OPTING THE DEBATE: Although the AMA opposes the robust public option that Obama is proposing, it has said that it is "willing to consider other variations of the public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress." One of the alternatives that has received the most attention is Sen. Kent Conrad's (D-ND) idea of consumer-owned health cooperatives that would "be subject to the same standards [as private plans]." But co-opts, however defined, are not a substitute for a public plan with the capacity to "improve health quality by championing payment innovations or other delivery system reforms." As Volsky writes, "After all, one of the advantages of a truly national public plan is its ability to improve care quality by spearheading reforms and innovations."

TORTURE -- 9/11 MASTERMIND SAYS HE MADE UP STORIES IN RESPONSE TO TORTURE: Newly declassified documents show that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad said he lied about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden after being subjected to torture. "I make up stories," Muhammad said when talking about his reaction to the techniques personally authorized by President Bush. When told to reveal the location of bin Laden, Muhammad said he would relent and say, "Yes, he is in this area." This information "underscores the unreliability of statements obtained by torture," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, the group that fought for the release of the documents. The documents also undercut Vice President Cheney's assertion that torture techniques resulted in "first-rate intelligence." According to the documents, which include transcripts of Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Gitmo, detainee Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, said the CIA told him that "they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden." "They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,'" Zubaydah said. Ben Wizner, the ACLU's lead lawyer in the lawsuit, said there was no reason to keep the reports of detainee abuse secret. "There is only one explanation for the continued suppression. It is not to protect national security, it is to protect the CIA from accountability," Wizner said.

2 on Healthcare

Kevin Zeese | Congress to Transfer Hundreds of Billions 
in Tax Dollars to the Insurance Industry
http://www.truthout.org/061609M

Kevin Zeese, Truthout: "Yesterday, as Sen. Tom Harkin
(D-Iowa) left the health-care hearing room, he leaned
over to me and said: 'I used to sell insurance. The
basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive
the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools -
separate health care plans - and that is why health
care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient
and less expensive and one pool would be the least
expensive. That's why single payer is the answer.
' Nothing like common sense."


Obama Defends Government-Sponsored Health Insurance Program
http://www.truthout.org/061609O

Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: "President Obama,
the American Medical Association on Monday, offered a
forceful defense of creating a controversial new
government-sponsored health insurance program as part
of a broad overhaul of the nation's system. Speaking
to a group that has voiced strong reservations about
the concept, he said: 'The public option is not your
enemy; it is your friend.' In some of his strongest
language to date, Obama took on critics who argue that
a new public insurance plan will undermine the private
sector and lead to a European-style single payer health
system, calling those attacks a 'Trojan horse.'"

June 16:

1884 : First roller coaster in America opens

On this day in 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters around the country.

Coney Island, a name believed to have come from the Dutch Konijn Eilandt, or Rabbit Island, is a tract of land along the Atlantic Ocean discovered by explorer Henry Hudson in 1609. The first hotel opened at Coney Island in 1829 and by the post-Civil War years, the area was an established resort with theaters, restaurants and a race track. Between 1897 and 1904, three amusement parks sprang up at Coney Island--Dreamland, Luna Park and Steeplechase. By the 1920s, Coney Island was reachable by subway and summer crowds of a million people a day flocked there for rides, games, sideshows, the beach and the two-and-a-half-mile boardwalk, completed in 1923.

The hot dog is said to have been invented at Coney Island in 1867 by Charles Feltman. In 1916, a nickel hot dog stand called Nathan's was opened by a former Feltman employee and went on to become a Coney Island institution and international franchise. Today, Nathan's is famous not only for its hot dogs but its hot dog-eating contest, held each Fourth of July in Coney Island. In 2006, Takeru Kobayashi set a new record when he ate 53.75 hot dogs with buns in 12 minutes.

Roller coasters and amusement parks experienced a decline during the Great Depression and World War II, when Americans had less cash to spend on entertainment. Finally, in 1955, the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, signaled the advent of the modern theme park and a rebirth of the roller coaster. Disneyland's success sparked a wave of new parks and coasters. By the 1970s, parks were competing to create the most thrilling rides. In 2005, Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, introduced the Kingda Ka roller coaster, the world's tallest (at 456 feet) and fastest (at 128 mph).

By the mid-1960s, the major amusement parks at Coney Island had shut down and the area acquired a seedy image. Nevertheless, Coney Island remains a tourist attraction and home to the Cyclone, a wooden coaster that made its debut there in 1927. Capable of speeds of 60 mph and with an 85-foot drop, the Cyclone is one of the country's oldest coasters in operation today. Though a real-estate developer recently announced the building of a new $1.5 billion year-round resort at Coney Island that will include a 4,000-foot-long roller coaster, an indoor water park and a multi-level carousel, the Cyclone's owners have said they plan to keep the historic coaster open for business.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Interest
1884 : First roller coaster in America opens
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=52616
1958 : Leader of Hungarian uprising executed
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5096
1963 : First woman in space
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6930
1977 : Brezhnev is Soviet president
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5097

American Revolution
1738 : Patriot printer, publisher and postmistress, Mary Katharine Goddard, born
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=723

2 on Labor

Labor Teams Up With Enviros to Pass Climate Bill
and Promote Green Jobs
http://www.truthout.org/061509EA
Kate Sheppard, Grist Magazine: "After working for the
United Steelworkers International Union for 30 years,
Lauren Horne left in January to take on a new role
within the labor movement - rallying union members to
help fight climate change.... Horne is now one of five
veteran labor organizers working on the ground for the
Labor Climate Project in Rust Belt states."

Unions and Migrant Workers Coalesce
From Coast to Coast
http://www.truthout.org/061509LA
Peter Costantini, Inter Press Service: "Up the Pacific
Coast from California to Washington, through the
heartland in Texas and Illinois, and over to the
Atlantic Seaboard in New Jersey and New York, local
trade unions and mainly immigrant workers centers are
experimenting with new modes of cooperation."

Home Loan Scamming Is Still Going Strong -- and Now You're Paying for It

Home Loan Scamming Is Still Going Strong -- and Now You're Paying for It
By Yasha Levine, AlterNet

Welcome to subprime swindle 2.0: the feds' desperate attempt

to reinflate the popped housing bubble. Read more »

Wolfram/Alpha: Nerd-Powered Web Gadget of the Future?

. Posted June 16, 2009.

The launch of Wolfram/Alpha could take us to an era of emerging artificial intelligence a self-organizing Internet -- or not.

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After personal-computer technology took off in the 1980s, visions of artificial intelligence danced in pop culture's head.

Some brat in his bedroom pranked NORAD into War Games. The gamer reality of Tron booted up, while Hackers, Sneakers and other digital archetypes fought for advantage in The Matrix.

In the so-called real world, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google fought for primacy in the search game, where smart and dull surfers punched questions into their computers and waited for a response. Until now, the computer has only been able to communicate back using links, text, videos and ads.

But with the recent unveiling of Wolfram/Alpha, a computational knowledge engine powered up by physics, math and computer genius Stephen Wolfram, that communication and computational evolution has just accelerated. However, slowly.

"Our rather ambitious goal is to compute everything that is computable," explains Eric Weisstein, senior researcher in the Scientific Information Group at Wolfram Research, the company behind Wolfram/Alpha as well as Stephen Wolfram's groundbreaking computational software Mathematica. "We're only at the very beginning of the process, and we have ambitious plans for data, computation, linguistics, presentation and more."

Simply put, the query field on Wolfram/Alpha mashes input through its complex algorithms and heuristics and replies not with a set of links, like Google or Yahoo's search engines, but rather with stats, graphs and analysis.

Punch in "Lennon Lenin" and you'll get a breakdown of each cultural icon's age, place of birth and other comparative knowledge. Punch in "Microsoft" and "Google," and you'll get the current prices, financials, fundamentals, projections and more for both stocks. Get tougher and try to solve the integration Sin[(a-b) x]/2+Sin[(a+b) x]/2n, and you'll get enough math to give you a headache -- and an "A" on your homework.

In fact, if you ask Wolfram/Alpha the meaning of life, it will give you the only answer yet achieved: 42, from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

But one thing Wolfram/Alpha will not give you is the type of general information the majority of the world expects when it asks its computer something. Punch in "Star Trek," and you get the crew and cast of J.J. Abrams latest film, and nothing else.

"As a search engine, it's weak," argues CNET's technology reporter Matt Asay. "But it's pretty interesting as a way to compute datacentric relationships between two things. Perhaps its biggest inhibitor is that it requires very different inputs from Google to be useful. You can't just 'search.' You have to have some idea of how to construct an inquiry."

In other words, it's for nerds.

"Wolfram/Alpha is not a search engine, and its functionality and goals should not be confused with traditional search engines," cautions Weisstein. "Search engines can only find information if it explicitly exists on a Web page somewhere on the Internet. Wolfram/Alpha can provide answers to infinite classes of questions based in its collection of facts and computational knowledge without them having to be written down somewhere. So it can answer many questions and perform computations that a search engine would have no chance to do."

This discrepancy between what the public currently does on the Internet and what it still can learn to do is damping down some of the unrestrained hype that accompanied the computational engine's debut in May.

"A new paradigm for using computers and the Web? Probably," Convergenceofeverything.com's Tom Simpson was quoted in The Independent's brazenly titled article "An Invention That Could Change the Internet Forever." "Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organizing Internet? Possibly."

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Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.

Vast Forests Are at Stake: What Kind of Lumber Is "Nature Friendly"?

By Christopher Pollon, The Tyee. Posted June 15, 2009.

Two stamps of approval are competing for the title of "nature-friendly wood." Big timber firms back the one critics call greenwashing.

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A contented-looking man stands in front of a posh house in a bathrobe, gripping a morning newspaper and coffee. The caption for this full-page New Yorker ad identifies him as "the new environmentalist."

"These days, a growing number of consumers want the good life, but not at the expense of the environment," reads the copy. "So when they shop for everything from newspapers to building materials, they look for SFI certified wood and paper products."

The year was 2007, and this ad was among the first shots fired in a high-stakes PR war that continues to play out across North America today. The combatants are the two largest rival forestry certification non profit organizations in the world: the industry-created Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which was conceived by a coalition of North American environmental activists.

At stake, then and now, is a multi-billion dollar international market for eco-certified wood products, which rewards environmentally-responsible forestry companies with improved access to retail and business-to-business customers.

What both certification programs have in common is that their respective logos -- appearing on books and 2x4s and everything between -- carry a promise of "sustainability;" both indicate that eco-conscious buyers can relax and know they are buying a product that they can feel good about.

What the rivals do not share, is a common vision of what sustainability looks like on the forest floor, and whether the differences between certification standards matter at all.

"We don't believe that consumers are sophisticated enough to have learned at this point what FSC stands for versus what SFI stands for," says Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of SFI Inc. "Most of the large customers….are feeling good about recognizing and awarding that ten percent of the global forest base that is certified, rather than expending energy on trying to decide who is the A+ and A- student."

Battle for hearts, minds and markets

The current certification battle started ramping up in 1999, the year Home Depot announced it would give "preferential treatment" to FSC-certified wood -- a move motivated at least in part by pressure from the environmental groups that created the FSC.

Faced with losing access to the biggest North American markets, the SFI intensified promotional efforts, distancing itself from its parent trade group the American Forestry and Paper Association (AF&PA), even though as late as 2007, the newly "independent" charity was still receiving unspecified "contract services" from this trade group (as disclosed in its tax return).

During this same year, SFI hired Canadian forestry certification expert Abusow as President and CEO, and with her, the U.S. public relations firm of Porter Novelli, which was paid $1.8 in fiscal 2007 to rebrand and rebuild the SFI from the ground up.

"I am committed to growing SFI's recognition and importance among conservation groups, buyers, forest managers, industry, and policy makers," said Abusow of her plans for SFI at the time.

SFI's total 2007 revenue grew to over 5.5 million, from $624,890 the year earlier, and just $344,155 in 2002. With this funding -- of which $3.2 million came from membership dues from member forestry companies -- the SFI waged a new PR campaign in North America, including billboards, full-page consumer magazine and newspaper ads, and a growing presence at influential printing and building trade shows.

What's the difference? SFI vs. FSC

In 2008, forestry company Tembec Inc. was in the unique position of "upgrading" a large swath of mixed aspen and cottonwood near Chetwynd BC from SFI to FSC, shedding light on some of the differences between the competing standards.

"Generally speaking, if you follow the B.C. provincial regulations, you're pretty darn close to meeting SFI," says Doug Braybrook, Tembec's Fibre Procurement Superintendent for the Chetwynd area.

The company was required under FSC to conduct much broader consultations to create forestry management plans, including local First Nations, outfitters and trappers. Braybrook says the company had to identify areas of "High Conservation Value Forest," which were mapped with the input of local stakeholders; once identified, habitat for caribou, bull trout, rare birds and plants had to be managed to protect the wildlife.

More intact forest was required on the edges of streams, lakes and wetlands, and Tembec performed a mandatory " pre-industrial condition assessment" -- which considered what their forests looked like prior to industrial logging, and how it could be managed to more resemble that state.

"FSC is definitely the more onerous standard to get and maintain," says Chris Stagg, the Chief Forester for Tembec Western Canada, who was involved in the Chetwynd-area FSC process and today oversees nearly a million hectares of FSC-certified forests in East Kootenay. "It's the most expensive for sure, by a fairly wide margin." (Stagg says this cost and effort does not translate directly into higher returns on Tembec's wood and pulp products -- but the benefit is still significant. "For getting access to the best customers, the Home Depots and Lowes for example, FSC certification really does make you first out the door," he says. "When times are tough and people are not calling others, they are still calling us."

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Christopher Pollon is a Tyee contributing editor who has been published in a wide range of newspapers and magazines. This is the first in an occasional series on forestry certification issues the Tyee will be running in the coming weeks.

Intriguing Plan in Michael Moore's Home Town: Bulldoze the Ghost 'Burbs, Return Them to Nature

By Tom Leonard, The Telegraph (UK). Posted June 13, 2009.

Concept of razing post-industrial "rust belt" empty neighborhoods draws interest in Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities.

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The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 percent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.

Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.

Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.

Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.

"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said Mr Kildee. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."

Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective programme at the University of California, Berkeley, said there was "both a cultural and political taboo" about admitting decline in America.

"Places like Flint have hit rock bottom. They're at the point where it's better to start knocking a lot of buildings down," she said.

Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000.

Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000.

The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.

In the city centre, the once grand Durant Hotel – named after William Durant, GM's founder – is a symbol of the city's decline, said Mr Kildee. The large building has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline began.

Regarded as a model city in the motor industry's boom years, Flint may once again be emulated, though for very different reasons.

But Mr Kildee, who has lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities should sprawl – Flint covers 34 square miles.

He said: "The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there's an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they're shrinking, they're failing."

But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few people to pay for services, he said.

If the city didn't downsize it will eventually go bankrupt, he added.

Flint's recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.

They could then knock them down or sell them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated abroad.

The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.

Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same.

Already, some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.

Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were already obvious, he said.

The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee.

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again."

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25 Years in Prison for Pot? Drug Warrior Congressman's Idea Is Way Obsolete

By Paul Armentano, NORML. Posted June 15, 2009.

Rep. Mark Kirk thinks that the magic number of 15% THC concentration in marijuana should lead to a 25-year prison penalty.

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They say that every action spurs an opposite reaction. Well, that certainly seems to be the case in Congress.

Just days after Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, along with 13 cosponsors, reintroduced HR 2835, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009 in Congress, Republican Rep. Mark Kirk (Illinois) has called for federal legislation to sentence certain first-time marijuana offenders to up to 25 years in prison.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk to push tougher sentences for more-potent marijuana
via The Chicago Tribune

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk will call for legislation Monday that would toughen drug-trafficking laws regarding a highly potent form of marijuana, with penalties of up to 25 years in prison for a first-time offense.

The law would target offenders who sell or distribute marijuana that has a THC content exceeding 15 percent.

… Drug dealers are increasingly cross-breeding plants to produce high-potency variants of marijuana, which are called “kush” in street slang when they have 20 percent THC, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran said. “When you amplify the strength of it, you are increasing the harm to the system,” said Curran, who supports the legislation, which would amend a federal law. “They are more dangerous behind the wheel of a vehicle. It’s not a good idea to have people that messed up.”

… The Republican North Shore lawmaker said he plans to release more information during a news conference in Chicago on Monday, where he will be joined by representatives from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department, the Lake County Metropolitan Enforcement Group and Waukegan Police Department.

Okay, where to begin? Well, we can start with U.S. Representative Mark Kirk. According to the Congressman’s website, Rep. Kirk is “pro-personal responsibility.” Unless, of course, we’re talking about allowing responsible adults (or patients) the choice to relax (or medicate) in the privacy of their own homes with a substance that is objectively safer than alcohol (or most prescription pharmaceuticals). Then, naturally, all bets are off.

Representative Kirk’s website also alleges that the five-time-elected Congressman is “pro-science.” Unless, of course, we’re talking about cannabis — in which case he is actually “pro-ideology” and “anti-science.” After all, if Rep. Kirk was truly interested in the science of cannabis he would already know that:

1) According to a 2008 review (see page 12) of marijuana potency by the University of Mississippi, the average THC in domestically grown marijuana — which comprises the bulk of the U.S. market — is less than five percent, a figure that’s remained unchanged for nearly a decade.

2) THC — regardless of potency — is virtually non-toxic to healthy cells or organs, and is incapable of causing a fatal overdose. Currently, doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody among Rep. Kirk’s staff or at the Lake County Sheriff’s office seems to be overly concerned about its potential health effects.

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Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), and is the co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink (2009, Chelsea Green).

What I Learned at My First Orgy

By Greta Christina, Greta Christina's Blog. Posted June 15, 2009.

There's nothing quite like seeing six naked people having sex. I undressed, joined in and learned lessons that are with me to this day.

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I know. The title makes it sounds like a third-grader's report on her trip to the planetarium. But you know, except for the third-grader part, it was sort of like that.

And I thought you might be interested to hear the story. I mean, who doesn't like a good orgy story?

My very first orgy happened when I was in college. Surprise, surprise. I call it my first orgy, but in a sense it was my only orgy: I've been to a decent number of sex parties since, but this was my only "puppy pile of bodies commingling more or less indiscriminately" that we tend to think of as a classic, Capital O-Orgy.

It happened more or less spontaneously. Or at least without any planning on my part. My boyfriend and I were hanging out on the steps of the student union, when these three girls came up to us, said they were putting together an orgy and asked if we wanted to join them. The girls were sort of renowned on campus for being what I would now call "sex-positive bi-dykes" but didn't have a term for back then (hi, ladies, I still remember you fondly; if any of you are reading this, drop me a line) ... and it only took a couple of seconds for me and my boyfriend to arrive at an enthusiastic yes.

They said they needed a couple/few more people and asked if we could round up anybody. So I raced off to one of my best friends and spent half an hour unsuccessfully trying to convince him that the obviously most sensible action would be for him to blow off studying for his big math test and come to the orgy instead. (I was arguing that in 20 years he'd never remember the math test, but would always regret having passed on an opportunity for an orgy. An argument I still stand by.) Alas, my rhetorical skills failed me; so I finally gave up on my friend and headed back to the dorm room where the festivities were being held.

There is nothing quite like walking into a dorm room with six naked people having sex together in a pile on the floor. Especially when one of them is your boyfriend. I had a brief moment of -- well, "shock" is too strong a word, let's call it "sudden adjustment" or "category error" -- as the reality of the situation was rather crudely borne in on me. Then I decided, "What the fuck, this is what I'm here for," hurriedly shucked my clothes and joined in.

And I learned two very important life lessons: lessons that stay with me to this day.

Important Life Lesson Number One: I really and truly do like having sex with other women.

I'd known that I had sexual feelings about women for a long, long time. But apart from some childish experiments that could only be considered borderline sex at most, I'd never done anything about it, except swipe my dad's Playboys and fantasize nonstop. I'd been calling myself "bisexual" ever since I'd heard the word (at about age 12); but I also couldn't really be sure that the word was accurate.

I had serious Nancy Friday My Secret Garden damage and had been persuaded that having fantasies about something doesn't mean you really want to do it. Even when you have said fantasies constantly, every hour of every day, and have had them for years. (Note to Ms. Friday: No, having sex fantasies doesn't necessarily mean you want to do that thing in real life ... but it sure as hell means that sometimes.)

This orgy was the first time I had actual, unquestionable sex with another woman. The first time, to put it crudely, that I put my tongue on another woman's pussy. And the moment I put my tongue on that other woman's pussy (hi there, L., if you're reading, I remember you, too, and very fondly indeed), my core sexual self-identity was transformed from "woman who has fantasies about other women but isn't sure what that means in her real life" to "dyke." It took no time at all. Tongue hovering above the pussy, not so sure; tongue on the pussy, dyke.

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Read more of Greta Christina at her blog.

Driftwood horses

These young ladies build horses out of scrap driftwood they find...

Not only are they beautiful but they are using what Mother Nature has left behind in order to create another form of art.

Hope you enjoyed and will pass this on to others.

June 15:

1215 : Magna Carta sealed

Following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule, King John puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or "Great Charter." The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation's laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations.

John was enthroned as king of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in 1199. King John's reign was characterized by failure. He lost the duchy of Normandy to the French king and taxed the English nobility heavily to pay for his foreign misadventures. He quarreled with Pope Innocent III and sold church offices to build up the depleted royal coffers. Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king.

In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king's abuse of feudal law and custom. John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. On June 15, 1215, John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which after minor revision was formally issued as the Magna Carta.

The charter consisted of a preamble and 63 clauses and dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside 13th century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that "no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised...except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus and inspired England's Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679).

In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure--civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. Upon his death in 1216, however, the Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king's forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued the Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law.

The Magna Carta has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration; it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England. Four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Interest
1215 : Magna Carta sealed
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=6929
1846 : U.S.-Canadian border established
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5093
1864 : Battle of Petersburg begins
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5094
1877 : First African American graduate of West Point
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5095

American Revolution
1776 : Delaware declares independence
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=722

Help Save the Earth, Time to Subsitute Hemp for Oil

By Dara Colwell, AlterNet. Posted June 18, 2009.

Every man-made fiber we wear, sit on, cook with, drive in, are by-products of the petroleum industry -- all of which could be replaced by hemp.

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As the recession renews interest in the growing hemp marketplace as a potential boon for the green economy -- even Fox Business News has touted it -- hemp is becoming impossible to ignore.

But the plant's potential extends far beyond consumer-generated greenbacks. A low-input, low-impact crop, industrial hemp can play a significant role in our desperate shuffle to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"In terms of sustainability, there are numerous reasons to grow hemp," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial-hemp advocacy group.

Goggin launches into its environmental benefits: Hemp requires no pesticides; it has deep digging roots that detoxify the soil, making it an ideal rotation crop -- in fact, hemp is so good at bioremediation, or extracting heavy metals from contaminated soil, it's being grown near Chernobyl.

Hemp is also an excellent source of biomass, or renewable, carbon-neutral energy, and its cellulose level, roughly three times that of wood, can be used for paper to avoid cutting down trees, an important line of defense against global warming.

When it comes to hemp, environmental gains are inexorably intertwined with economic ones. The auto industry, hardly synonymous with being green but which has had the research dollars to apply new technology, can vouch for Goggin. For years European car makers have been using hemp-fiber-reinforced composite materials to replace fiberglass and in other components, such as door panels or dashboards. And now their American counterparts have joined in.

Blending hemp with plastics is not only cheaper for producers, but natural-fiber composites are roughly 30 percent lighter, which in turn leads to greater fuel efficiency for customers. And when they finally hit the junkyard, those parts partially biodegrade. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Honda all use this technology.

Now, where there are cars, there's fuel, or these days biofuel, which has become a contentious issue as America fights for energy independence while attempting to combat climate change.

Biofuels -- fuels derived from plants -- actually are nothing new. Rudolph Diesel, who invented the diesel engine, designed his machine to run on peanut oil, and his contemporary, Henry Ford, intended his Model-T to run on ethanol, of which hemp provided the major feedstock until the 1930s. Even Thomas Edison championed bio-based fuels, suspicious of the growing dominance of the petroleum industry, which boomed after America began taxing alcohol -- as both a beverage and a fuel -- to help pay for the Civil War.

To wean ourselves off foreign oil, the U.S. heavily subsidized the corn-based ethanol industry to the tune of $7 billion in 2006, according to zFacts, a Web site run by economist Steve Stoft.

Critics argue that the production of corn-based ethanol is problematic because corn consumes more energy from fossil fuels (such as petrochemical, nitrogen-based fertilizers) than it yields, and its production has a negative impact on the price and availability of edible corn, a staple in countries such as Mexico.

In 2007, because so many farmers north and south of the border switched to growing industrial corn, the price of corn flour in Mexico skyrocketed 400 percent, sending rioters into the streets. People need to eat and to do so, they have to be able to afford food, which begs the question: How green is ethanol when it deprives folk of basic food?

"In reality, corn isn't a viable option," says Goggin, who explains that hemp, which can be grown both as food and fuel -- its seeds, harvested for protein and essential amino and fatty acids, or for oil, which is converted into biodiesel -- has roughly four times the cellulose biomass potential of corn. "Compared to hemp, which can be harvested for multiple purposes, it's very inefficient."

As biomass, hemp can be converted into fuels such as methane, methanol and gasoline, which can help curb the world's growing appetite for palm oil used to make biodiesel, and which is having a colossally negative environmental impact.

In densely populated Indonesia, companies are draining local peat swamps and clearing virgin tropical forests, home to the endangered orangutan, to make room for palm oil plantations. This alone has resulted in 2 billion tons of carbon-dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere a year, according to the conservation nonprofit Wetlands International.

The same is happening in Brazil's biodiverse cerrado region south of the Amazon, where sugar cane and soy plantations are replacing native vegetation. Deforestation now accounts for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Global Canopy Program, an alliance of rainforest scientists based in Oxford, England. Tropical forests are essentially the planet's lungs -- and without lungs, well, it's a no-brainer ...

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New Declaration Says "Sexuality Is an Essential Part of Humanity"

By Marcela Valente, IPS News. Posted June 13, 2009.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation launched the world's first declaration of sexual rights in the Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

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BUENOS AIRES, Jun 10 (IPS) - In an effort to promote the free enjoyment of human sexuality, separate from reproduction, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) launched the world's first declaration of sexual rights in the Argentine capital on Wednesday.

"We want states to commit themselves to protecting these rights, and for the United Nations to adopt them in future meetings," Carmen Barroso, IPPF regional director for the Western hemisphere, told IPS.

"Sexual Rights: An IPPF Declaration", the result of two years' work by a multi-disciplinary team, proposes that "sexuality is an essential part of our humanity," and that its free expression "is a component of human rights." The Declaration espouses "the entitlement to experience and enjoy sexuality independent of reproduction."

The New York-based IPPF, which has offices in over 150 countries, provides training and technical assistance for the promotion and defence of sexual and reproductive health for men and women on every continent.

Barroso said that in Latin America, there is "inertia" on the part of governments, which agree to proposals for developing sexual health issues but do not translate them into public policies. There is also a "tremendously conservative" lobby in the United States, she added.

"The new administration" of U.S. President Barack Obama "is no longer exporting the obscurantist, anti-scientific and absurd ideology that demonises the use of condoms and argues that they do not provide protection against disease, but resistance to them continues in the region," she said.

There are also "structural factors" in Latin America that hamper sexual rights, such as poverty, lack of education, gender inequality and other inequalities "between social classes, between ethnic groups, some of which are extremely underprivileged, and between regions, even within the same country," she said.

For example, Argentine physician Enrique Berner, president of the Adolescent-2000 Health Foundation (FUSA 2000) and head of adolescent services at the "Dr. Cosme Argerich" Acute General Hospital in Buenos Aires, said at the launch ceremony that the teenage pregnancy rate in the south of the Argentine capital is three times the city average.

The south side is one of the most impoverished areas of the city, where more than 20 percent of pregnant mothers-to-be are under 18, compared with an overall average of less than seven percent for the capital.

Barroso, an expert on sexual and reproductive health, said human rights in general gained ground in the mid-20th century, and expanded in the 1990s with the recognition of children's rights. In the mid-1990s, the U.N. affirmed reproductive rights, "but sexuality was tagged on as an afterthought," she said.

"People talked about sexual and reproductive rights, but in fact they meant reproductive rights only," she said. In 1995 at the World Conference on Women in Beijing, sexual rights were introduced in the negative, as "women's right not to suffer harm, violence or coercion" in sexual intercourse, she said.

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News & Views | 06.15.09‏

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Monday 06.15.09 Headlines... Community Aims to Beat Corporate 'Personhood,' Save Environment http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/15-1 Obama to AMA: US Healthcare Costs Are a 'Ticking Time Bomb' http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/15-9 World Bank Loan Withdrawn From Brazilian Cattle Corporation http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/15-4 Pro-English Measures Being Revived Across US http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/15 Supreme Court Won't Hear Appeal of the 'Cuban Five' http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/15-6 and more... **************************************************** Video... Malalai Joya Speaks at the Global Forum on Freedom of Expression http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/06/15 **************************************************** Views... Chris Hedges | The American Empire Is Bankrupt http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-0 Paul Krugman | Stay the Course http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-5 Tom Engelhardt | Charisma and the Imperial Presidency http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15 Judy Norsigian/Jennifer Potter | A Singular Solution for Healthcare http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-3 Nomi Prins | The Big Bank Bailout Payback Bamboozle http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-4 Ellen Brown | Out of the Ashes of GM: the Phoenix of Renewable Energy http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-10 Diane Ravitch | Obama Gives Bush a 3rd Term in Education http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-9 and more... **************************************************** Newswire... Conservation Groups: Off-Road Vehicle Plan Threatens to Destroy Public Lands Near Grand Canyon http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/15-14 Constitution Project Applauds Bermuda for Welcoming Uighurs http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/15-9 Amazon Watch: US Government Pressured to Take Action on Peru Conflict Given Role of US-Peru Trade Agreement http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/15-10 CEPR: U.S. Treasury Responds to CEPR's Cost Estimate for IMF Funding; CEPR Responds http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/15-15 and more...

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In Synch With History

Saturday 13 June 2009

by: Hervé Kempf | Visit article original @ Le Monde

In an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, pollster Jean-Daniel Lévy, shown here, asserts that the perceived trade-off between the environment and social issues no longer obtains. For many, the economic crisis has validated the environmental approach. (Photo: www.mairie-reze.fr)

One swallow does not make it spring; the European election is exceptional; abstention was massive; the right has strengthened its majority in the European Parliament. Certainly. I agree. Ja. Yes. Si. Oui.

It is nonetheless legitimate to think that the environmentalists' good result in the June 7 European elections (about 20 percent in France if we don't leave out the Independent Environmental Alliance's 3.63 percent, added to Europe Ecologie's 16,28 percent), is not a fire in the pan or an accident due to exceptional circumstances.

Political environmentalism's long and slow progression begun in 1974 with René Dumont, traces - in spite of its successes, relapses, divisions, and hesitations - a regular ascent. And so the June 7 success may be taken for what it is: environmentalism's ascension to political maturity.

Also see below:
The Economic Crisis Has Validated the Environmental Project •

The first and most important point: Europe Ecologie has won in the field of ideas. Fully acknowledging the gravity of the environmental crisis, the list was able to link that observation to the social question. Its proposals on agriculture, energy, biodiversity fit together logically, in a period of economic upheaval, with the idea of an environmental conversion of the economy and with that of a social safety net designed to correct inequalities (for example, the income cap). In fact, political ecology's analysis jibes with the historical situation. In contrast, the Socialist Party's tumble results from the intellectual degeneration of that party, which seems to have stopped thinking since ... too long ago.

That means that the future of political environmentalism depends on its ability to enrich its thought and make it live, notably in relation to the middle- and working-class concern to make ecological transformation not only acceptable, but desirable.

Second point: a collective political practice. In spite of pressure from the media system that wants to see only stars - and preferably one star only - Europe Ecologie's success is due to the fact that strong and diverse personalities were able to work together, demonstrating the obvious fact that capitalist psychology dissimulates: Cooperation is more effective than competition.
The third success, still prospective, and which is one of the keys to successes to come: not to reduce democracy to the sole dimension of representation, but to involve citizens in nonviolent action that animates the political debate. In this regard, people will attentively follow the mobilization launched around the Copenhagen climate conference and the mischievous interventions of collectives such as "Save the Rich" [Sauvons les riches].

The question - one that other political commentators better informed than this modest chronicler are currently cashing in on - of alliances with other forces remains. I will settle for thinking that if the ecologists succeed in maintaining their present intellectual, cooperative and democratic energy, the rest will come of itself.

--------

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The Economic Crisis Has Validated the Environmental Project

Thursday 11 June 2009

by: Guillaume Malaurie | Visit article original @ Le Nouvel Observateur

Many think that the social issue will win out over environmental dreams. The opposite is true. That's the analysis of Jean-Daniel Lévy, Director of the Department of Political Opinion at the polling institute, CSA.

Le Nouvel Observateur: Europe Ecologie has kept pace with the Socialist Party. Is it truly political environmentalism's D-Day?

Jean-Daniel Lévy: There is one certainty: Those who deemed that the social question invalidated the environmental ideal were profoundly mistaken. Moreover, we've observed in all our recent studies of French citizens' opinion and behavior that the crisis has never diminished demand for environmental reforms. This is most notably the case for organic food: Four out of ten French people (in a 2008 survey) consume at least one organic product at least once a month. And 84 percent want the development of organic agriculture. Another example: Ninety-three percent of consumers have already changed or renounced a brand for environmental or societal reasons. And of the motivations for voting in these European elections, our exit poll data place the environment in second place (29 percent) behind employment (42 percent). This is an environmental sensitivity that mobilizes managers and high-level professionals as much as it does service professionals, although somewhat more on the left (35 percent) than on the right (29 percent).

N. O.: Could we say that the crisis has given environmental solutions credibility?

J.-D. Lévy: Yes, because sustainable development is no longer perceived as a luxury, but as the deployment of non-negotiable health safety measures. That concerns defensive and restorative ecology. Then - and this is a novelty - the vision of global ecological society and its promise of a shift to green growth constitutes an alternative horizon that is now credible. An opportunity for more "reasonable" development than the race for double-digit profits and the waste of all-out consumption. We must recognize that it's one of the very few turnkey discourses available today. We must also emphasize that the green word is beginning to make inroads into working class milieus, since 14 percent of blue collar workers gave their vote to Europe Ecologie on Sunday. That is barely two points less than the average among all voters. It's enough to observe the Cohn-Bendit list's score in Seine-Saint-Denis (17.67 percent), which puts it in second place in front of the Socialist Party (15 percent). Same phenomenon in Essonne and Val-de-Marne.

N. O.: The trial of the return to the candle is over. When did this recognition of the pertinence of the environmental vision begin?

J.-D. Lévy: The interaction between ecology, the economy and social progress was certainly precipitated by Barack Obama's pronouncements concerning eco-business, electric cars and green energies. That these scenarios so close to science fiction should be validated by the United States is helpful. It is just as true, that by crashing into recession, the capitalist model, which promised eternal growth, lost its attraction. And validated the approach of a less frenetic, less wasteful, but sustainable development.

--------

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

»

Barack Obama vs. Harriet and Louise

Monday 15 June 2009

by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

President Barack Obama has proposed an optional public health insurance plan to provide real competition to existing private health insurance plans. (Photo: Getty)

It may not be as exciting as the Thrilla in Manila, but its outcome will have far more impact on the lives of tens of millions of families across the country. The story is straightforward. President Obama had stepped up to challenge the insurance industry in order to reform the health care system in the United States.

Specifically, he is proposing to create a public health insurance plan, like Medicare, that people would have the option to buy into. Ideally, this would ensure that everyone had a good health insurance option available to them and provide real competition to the existing private plans.

For the private insurers, competition is the crux of the problem. Insurers don't want to have to compete with a well-run public plan. That's not how they make money. The most effective route for a private insurer to make money is to avoid insuring people who get sick, not by providing good care for those who need it.

If workers and their employers had the option to buy into a well-run public plan, instead of dealing with the Aetna, Cigna and United Health types, tens of millions would take advantage of this option. In spite of the industry's propaganda, the public sector actually provides health insurance more efficiently than the private sector.

Medicare's administrative costs are equal to about 2 percent of what it pays out to providers. For private insurers the ratio over expenses to payments is typically over 15 percent. Blue Cross of North Carolina, which was prepared to take the lead in bashing President Obama's plan, boasts that its ratio is now under 20 percent. This compares to an expense to payout ratio of more than 25 percent earlier in the decade.

It is easy to see why private insurers have such high costs. Their top executives boast paychecks that run into the millions or even tens of millions of dollars. They have large marketing and advertising costs, and don't forget the dividends to shareholders. It is understandable that they would be upset about competing with a public plan that doesn't have these expenses.

The competition with a public plan would hit insurance industry profits in two ways. First, fewer customers means less profit. If 20 to 30 percent of the industry's customers migrated to a public plan, profits will drop by 20 to 30 percent, other things being equal.

But, it gets worse. In order to avoid losing even more customers, the private insurers will almost certainly have to lower their profit margins. As a result, they are likely to make less money even on the customers they are able to keep. The net effect could be a 50 percent, 60 percent - possibly even 70 percent - drop in profits. For the folks who profit by not paying for care, you're talking about an economic disaster.

The insurers are not about to take this threat to their profits quietly. They could lose hundreds of billions in profits over the next decade if they face competition from a robust public plan. They will get Harriet and Louise bulked up on steroids for this one, pushing every crazy scare story in the world. At the same time, they will be making promises (i.e. bribing) and threatening every member of Congress within their reach.

They will also enlist allies. The axis of evil in this story includes the pharmaceutical industry, the hospital lobby and highly paid medical specialists, all of whom worry that a successful public plan could reduce the size of their trough. As it stands, these providers are able to charge prices that are hugely out of line with what their counterparts receive elsewhere in the world.

If the US computer industry were like the US health care industry, we would be paying $1,000 for a bottom-end computer. Fortunately, we have competition in computers, so it's easy to find computers that sell for less than $400, but the health care industry does not want people in the United States to benefit from the same sort of competition in health care.

So, get ready for the show. Win or lose, the boys and girls in the insurance industry can be counted on for a real serious fight. But, the millionaires in the health industry are hugely out-numbered by the hundreds of millions who will benefit from serious health care reform. As Mohammed Ali might have said about the health insurance executives: "they too ugly to be champion."

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Dean Baker is the Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. CEPR's Jobs Byte is published each month upon release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment report.

Moyers Interviews Robert Reich on "Who Runs Government"

Friday 12 June 2009

by: Bill Moyers | Visit article original @ PBS

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. (Photo: J. Emilio Flores / Getty Images)

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. Get out the stretchers and unroll the bandages. The fight is joined.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: In order to preserve what's best about our health care system, we have to fix what doesn't work. For we've reached the point where doing nothing about the cost of health care is no longer an option.

BILL MOYERS: Despite the speech President Obama made at a Wisconsin Town Hall meeting this week, the question now is will he push back against the profiteers of health care? A powerful coalition has emerged to keep the profit in sickness and disease - the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, the big drug companies, the insurance giants, Rupert Murdoch's media empire, all of them opposed to what my guest says is real health care reform.

Robert Reich was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor; he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, and headed the Clinton Administration's successful effort to raise the minimum wage. Now you can hear him on public radio's MARKETPLACE and read his byline all over the mainstream media and across the Internet, including his blog at Robertreich.org. He is the author of eleven books, including this, the most recent, SUPERCAPITALISM: THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS, DEMOCRACY, AND EVERYDAY LIFE.

Robert Reich, welcome to the Journal.

ROBERT REICH: Hi, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: I wanted to talk to you because you do know how Washington works. TIME MAGAZINE called you one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. So take us inside for a moment or two into how you think this healthcare debate is playing out after the President's speech yesterday.

ROBERT REICH: Well, we're now just about in the real time of fight and conflict. Republicans and the healthcare lobbies, mostly big pharmaceuticals, their trade associations, also the big insurance companies, private insurance companies, they are bringing out the big guns, the lobbyists, the threats, the promises. They're swarming all over Capitol Hill. And the question is how hard the President's going to fight back?

So far the style of the White House is to set objectives and to let Congress come up with the details.

But I think the President's going to have to get involved in the details to a much greater extent because the lobbyists on the other side have so much to lose, they fear, and so much to gain, they expect, if they win.

BILL MOYERS: But this President seems given more to finesse than fight. He seems to want- you know, he said in his speech yesterday, "Let's get everybody together." Has consensus become his primary aim?

ROBERT REICH: Well, he wants a bill apparently that has some Republicans on it. He only needs 51 votes in the Senate to get healthcare through on a Reconciliation Bill. That's a big victory for the Senate Democrats that wanted him to be pushing hard but he seems to be indicating he wants some Republicans on that bill. The Republicans are not willing to budge. They don't want what's called a public option which essentially would be something like Medicare that gives people a lot of bargaining leverage to get lower drug prices and also puts some pressure on private insurers. That public option is going to be absolutely critical. That's where the fight is going to really be squared.

BILL MOYERS: One of the problems with the Clinton health plan when you were Secretary of Labor was that it was too complex to explain to journalists like me, members of Congress, and the public. So in a sentence, if you can, tell me what a true public option would be in healthcare reform.

ROBERT REICH: Well, regardless of what you want to call it, Bill, it could be called liverwurst. I mean, it simply means that the public- average members of the public have a choice, if they want it- of either their private for-profit insurers like they now use or a public not-for-profit insurer.

And that public insurer would resemble ideally Medicare- low administrative costs. And it would have the economies of scale. It would be so large that it could actually negotiate low drug prices and very, kind of low premiums. That's what the private insurers are scared of. That's what the-

BILL MOYERS: Why are they scared of that?

ROBERT REICH: Because that means that their profits will be squeezed. They don't want anything that's going to squeeze their profits. And, they're putting up smoke screens. They're putting up other things that may look like public options but don't have the bargaining leverage to get drug prices down and also to keep the private insurers honest.

BILL MOYERS: How do we know the real thing?

ROBERT REICH: Well-

BILL MOYERS: How do we know the duck from the decoy, right?

ROBERT REICH: Well, there's a very simple test. And that is the public option big enough and is it going to have bargaining leverage to get drug prices down and keep private insurers on their toes, forcing them to cut prices.

There's nothing actually pushing the system unless you have a public option that gives the insurers and the pharmaceutical industry and the hospitals a real run for their money.

BILL MOYERS: In other words, in one word, competition.

ROBERT REICH: Fierce competition.

BILL MOYERS: With the private for-profit insurers, right?

ROBERT REICH: Absolutely right. See, right now, Bill, we've got a medical system in which private for-profit insurers are spending a lot of money trying to avoid sick people. It's an absurd system. And all of that money they're spending, marketing and finding groups of people who are relatively healthy and at relatively low risk and avoiding the sick people, all of that money is being wasted.

And they're also- as anybody knows who has private insurance, you've had the experience, I've had the experience, they contest a lot of claims, not only our claims- but also doctors' claims. They are in the business of making money. They are for profit. I don't blame them. They are part of-

BILL MOYERS: Capitalism-

ROBERT REICH: -capitalist system.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

ROBERT REICH: But unless they are going to be pressured, genuinely pressured to reform through a public option, there is nothing that's going to change them.

BILL MOYERS: Well, I guess what puzzles me is whether you can squeeze them, as you say, pressure them without regulation or if you just think having a competitive rival out there that is negotiating for prices and trying to come in at a lower cost than the private health plan, you can really achieve anything.

ROBERT REICH: Well, that's a good question. You know, the single-payer system would be the best of all.

BILL MOYERS: Because?

ROBERT REICH: Because a single-payer actually would have huge bargaining leverage, be able to tell the providers what they can do and what they can't do without it being- this isn't socialized medicine. A single-payer would actually have the reins.

BILL MOYERS: You heard the President say yesterday that we can't go to single-payer because we're too late in the game. It would change the rules.

ROBERT REICH: Well, look it, I lived through Bill Clinton's healthcare attempt-

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, how did you do that? That-

ROBERT REICH: Not very well. But a President, to some extent, has got to be politically realistic. There is no real political option in Congress now for a single-payer.

BILL MOYERS: Wait a minute. The folks who are fighting for single-payer out there say it is feasible if only Congress would look at the economics of it.

ROBERT REICH: Well, a lot of things are feasible if Congress looks at the economics of them. But politically, no, unfortunately and I'm a big single-payer fan. Unfortunately, we cannot get there from here because the political forces are just too strong against single-payer.

BILL MOYERS: Are the business forces prescient when they say that if we get a public option, it opens the door down the road to single-payer?

ROBERT REICH: If the government simply requires that the public option pay for itself, can be not-for-profit, just pays for itself that's not going to be necessarily a direct opening to single-payer. But it is going to force the private insurers and the drug companies and the medical suppliers to be honest, to control costs, and to provide better quality.

BILL MOYERS: You've got these powerful lobbies that you've been writing about on your blog. And you said on your blog this week that the real question for you is the extent to which Barack Obama will push back against these lobbies. What's your answer to your own question?

ROBERT REICH: I don't know, Bill. This is the first test where there is huge organized opposition. And it's coming from very, very powerful lobbies who have prevailed- not just for ten or 15 years. You've prevailed for decades on this issue. So this is the truth time in terms of how able and willing the President and the White House is to really set boundaries and push members of Congress.

So it's at this point- and I'm talking about the next two or three or four weeks. I mean, we're talking about crunch time right now- that the President has got to step in and be forceful and be specific. And I don't know whether he will be. I hope he is.

BILL MOYERS: What will you be looking for?

ROBERT REICH: I'll be looking for whether he can say to Max Baucus, for example, of Senate finance, "Look, this is what I want. And if you're not going to go along with this, I want to know why. And if you're not going to go along with this, then would something else you want down the line you're not going to get." In other words, he's got to really create very, very specific conditi