Obama Is Preparing for War in South America

Interview with Eva Golinger…

1 Mike Whitney—-The US media is very critical of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He’s frequently denounced as “anti-American”, a “leftist strongman”, and a dictator. Can you briefly summarize some of the positive social, economic and judicial changes for which Chavez is mainly responsible?

Eva Golinger—-The first and foremost important achievement during the Chávez administration is the 1999 Constitution, which, although not written nor decreed by Chávez himself, was created through his vision of change for Venezuela. The 1999 Constitution was, in fact, drafted – written – by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory examples of nation building, and then was ratified through popular national referendum by 75% of Venezuelans. The 1999 Constitution is one of the most advanced in the world in the area of human rights. It guarantees the rights to housing, education, healthcare, food, indigenous lands, languages, women’s rights, worker’s rights, living wages and a whole host of other rights that few other countries recognize on a national level. My favorite right in the Venezuelan Constitution is the right to a dignified life. That pretty much sums up all the others. Laws to implement these rights began to surface in 2001, with land reform, oil industry redistribution, tax laws and the creation of more than a dozen social programs – called missions – dedicated to addressing the basic needs of Venezuela’s poor majority. In 2003, the first missions were directed at education and healthcare. Within two years, illiteracy was eradicated in the country and Venezuela was certified by UNESCO as a nation free of illiteracy. This was done with the help of a successful Cuban literacy program called “Yo si puedo” (Yes I can). Further educational missions were created to provide free universal education from primary to doctoral levels throughout the country. Today, Venezuela’s population is much more educated than before, and adults who previously had no high school education now are encouraged to not only go through a secondary school program, but also university and graduate school.

The healthcare program, called “Barrio Adentro”, has not only provided preventive healthcare to all Venezuelans – many who never had access to a doctor before – but also has guaranteed universal, free access to medical attention at the most advanced levels. MRIs, heart surgery, lab work, cancer treatments, are all provided free of cost to anyone (including foreigners) in need. Some of the most modern clinics, diagnostic treatment centers and hospitals have been built in the past five years under this program, placing Venezuela at the forefront of medical technology.

Other programs providing subsidized food and consumer products (Mercal, Pdval), job training (Mission Vuelvan Caras), subsidies to poor, single mothers (Madres del Barrio), attention to indigents and drug addicts (Mission Negra Hipolita) have reduced extreme poverty by 50% and raised Venezuelans standard of living and quality of life. While nothing is perfect, these changes are extraordinary and have transformed Venezuela into a nation far different from what it looked like 10 years ago. In fact, the most important achievement that Hugo Chávez himself is directly responsible for is the level of participation in the political process. Today, millions of Venezuelans previously invisible and excluded are visible and included. Those who were always marginalized and ignored in Venezuela by prior governments today have a voice, are seen and heard, and are actively participating in the building of a new economic, political and social model in their country.

2 MW—On Monday, President Chavez threw a Venezuelan judge in jail on charges of abuse of power for freeing a high-profile banker. Do you think he overstepped his authority as executive or violated the principle of separation of powers? What does this say about Chavez’s resolve to fight corruption?

Eva Golinger—-President Chávez did not put anyone in jail. Venezuela has an Attorney General and an independent branch of government in charge of public prosecutions. Chávez did publicly accuse the judge of corruption and violating the law because that judge overstepped her authority by releasing an individual charged with corruption and other criminal acts from detention, despite the fact that a previous court had not granted conditional freedom or bail to the suspect. And, the judge released the suspect in a very irregular way, without the presence of the prosecutor, and through a back door. The suspect then fled the country.

This is part of Venezuela’s fight against corruption. Unfortunately – as in a lot of countries – corruption is deeply rooted in the culture. The struggle to eradicate corruption is probably the most difficult of all and will probably not be achieved until new generations have grown up with different values and education. In the meantime, the Chávez administration is trying hard to ensure that corrupt public officials pay the consequences. That judge, for example, engaged in an act of corruption and abuse of authority by illegally releasing a suspect and therefore was charged by the Public Prosecutor’s office and will be tried. It has nothing to do with what Chávez said or didn’t say, it has to do with enforcing the law.

3 MW—Why is the United States building military bases in Colombia? Do they pose a threat to Chavez or the Bolivarian Revolution?

Eva Golinger—-On October 30th, the US formally entered into an agreement with the Colombian government to allow US access to seven military bases in Colombia and unlimited use of Colombian territory for military operations. The agreement itself is purported to be directed at counter-narcotics operations and counter-terrorism. But a US Air Force document released earlier this year discussing the need for a stronger US military presence in Colombia revealed the true intentions behind the military agreement. The document stated that the US military presence was necessary to combat the “constant threat from anti-US governments in the region”. Clearly, that is a reference to Venezuela, and probably Bolivia, maybe Ecuador. It’s no secret that Washington considers the Venezuelan government anti-US, though it’s not true. Venezuela is anti-imperialist, but not anti-US. The US Air Force document also stated that the Colombian bases would be used to engage in “full spectrum military operations” throughout South America, and even talked about surveillance, intelligence and reconnaisance missions, and improving the capacity of US forces to execute “expeditionary warfare” in Latin America.

Clearly, this is a threat to the peoples of Latin America and particularly those nations targeted, such as Venezuela. Most people in the US don’t know about this military agreement, but it they did, they should question why their government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, is preparing for war in South America. And, in the midst of an economic crisis with millions of people in the US losing jobs and homes, why are millions of dollars being spent on military bases in Colombia? The US Congress already approved $46 million for one of the bases in Colombia. And surely more funds will be supplied in the future.

4 MW—What is ALBA? Is it a viable alternative to the “free trade” blocs promoted by the US?

Eva Golinger—-The Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas – Trade Agreement for the People, is a regional agreement created five years ago between Venezuela and Cuba, and now has 9 members: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica. ALBA is a trade agreement based on integration, cooperation and solidarity, contrary to US trade agreements which are based on competition and exploitation. It promotes a way of trading between nations that assures mutual benefits. For example, Venezuela sells oil to Cuba and Cuba pays with services – doctors, educators and technological experts that help to improve Venezuela’s industries. Venezuela sells oil to Nicaragua and Nicaragua pays with food products, agricultural technology and aide to build Venezuela’s own agricultural industry, which long ago was abandoned by prior governments only interested in the rich oil industry. ALBA seeks to not just provide economic benefits to its member nations, but also social and cultural advances. The idea is to find ways to help members develop and progress in all aspects of society. ALBA recently created a new currency, the SUCRE, which will be used as a form of exchange between member nations, eliminating the US dollar as the standard for trade.

5 MW—Are US NGO’s and intelligence agents still trying to foment political instability in Venezuela or have those operations ceased since the failed coup?

Eva Golinger—-In fact, the funding of political groups in Venezuela, and others throughout Latin America that promote US agenda, has increased since the April 2002 coup against President Chávez. Through two principal Department of State agencies, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US government has channeled more than $50 million to opposition groups in Venezuela since 2002. The USAID/NED budget to fund groups in Venezuela in 2010 is nearly $15 million, doubled from last year’s $7 million. This is a state policy of Washington, which the Obama Administration plans to amp up. They call it “democracy promotion”, but it’s really democracy subversion and destabilization. Funding political groups favorable to Empire, equipping them with resources, strategizing to help formulate political platforms and campaigns – all geared towards regime change – is a new form of invasion, a silent invasion. Through USAID and NED, and their “partner NGOs” and contractors, such as Freedom House, International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Pan-American Development Foundation and Development Alternatives, Inc., hundreds of political groups, parties and programs are presently being funded in Venezuela to promote regime change against the Chávez government. US taxpayer dollars are being squandered on these efforts to overthrow a democratically elected government that simply isn’t convenient for Washington. Remember, Venezuela has 24% of world oil reserves. That’s a lot!

6 MW—How hard has Venezuela been hit by the economic crisis? Do the people understand Wall Street’s role in the meltdown?

Eva Golinger—-Actually, the Chávez government has taken important steps to shelter Venezuela from the financial crisis. People here in Venezuela absolutely understand Wall Street’s role in the crisis and know that the US capitalist-consumerist system is principally responsible for causing the financial crisis, but also the climate crisis that the world is facing. The Venezuelan government took preventive steps against the financial crisis, such as withdrawing Venezuela’s reserves from US banks two years ago, creating cushion funds to ensure social programs would not be cut and diversifying Venezuela’s oil clientele so as not to be dependent solely on US clients. Recently, several banks have been nationalized by the Venezuelan government and others have been liquidated. But this was more due to the mismanagement and internal corruption within those banks. The Venezuelan government reacted quickly to take over the banks and guarantee customers’ savings would not be lost. In fact, it’s the first time in Venezuela’s history that no customers have lost any of their money during a bank liquidation or takeover. This is part of the Chávez Administration’s policy of prioritizing social needs over economic gain.

7 MW—Here’s an excerpt from a special weekend report by Bloomberg News:

“Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery. Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January…Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months….Only 32 percent of poll respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction, down from 40 percent who said so in September.” (Bloomberg)

The frustration and disillusionment with the US political/economic system has never been greater in my lifetime. Do you think people in the United States are ready for their own Bolivarian Revolution and steps towards a more progressive, socialistic model of government?

Eva Golinger—-The rise of Barack Obama neutralized a growing sentiment for profound change inside the US. Hopefully, the slowdown in US activism will only be temporary. South of the border, there is tremendous change taking place. New social, political and economic models are being built by popular grassroots movements in Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American nations that seek economic and social justice. I believe strongly that models in process, like the Bolivarian Revolution, provide inspiration and hope to those in the US and around the world that alternatives to US capitalism do exist and can be successful.

The US has a rich history of revolution. There are many groups inside the US dedicated to building a better, more humanist system. Unity and a collective vision are essential aspects of building a strong movement capable of moving forward. Every nation has its moment in history. This is the time of Latin America. But there is great hope that the people of the US will soon unite with their brothers and sisters south of the border to bring down Empire and help build a true world community based on social and economic justice for all.

Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), named “La Novia de Venezuela” by President Hugo Chávez, is a Venezuelan-American attorney from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, “The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” (2006 Olive Branch Press), “Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela” (2007, Monthly Review Press), “The Empire’s Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion”, “La Mirada del Imperio sobre el 4F: Los Documentos Desclasificados de Washington sobre la rebelión militar del 4 de febrero de 1992” and “La Agresión Permanente: USAID, NED y CIA”. Since 2003, Eva, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and CUNY Law School in New York, has been investigating, analyzing and writing about US intervention in Venezuela using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about the US Government’s efforts to destabilize progressive movements in Latin America. Her first book, The Chávez Code, has been translated and published in six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian & Russian) and is presently being made into a feature film.

Understanding the Global-warming Jihadists

“I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather,” said John Burroughs in 1877. Today, anxiety about the weather is more common than ever, although it’s not inborn but cultivated in schoolrooms, through television sets and by lying, rapacious ex-vice presidents. And I have anxiety about the weather, too — especially when it’s being used to promote a destructive agenda.

This brings us to Climategate, the scandal everyone is talking about and that inspired British journalist James Delingpole to write “it’s [the climate con is] all unravelling now.” I only wish I could be so optimistic. Sure, we have the smoking gun of the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia, which provide evidence that we “deniers” were only denying a lie. And the erstwhile head of its Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones — a con man with a science degree if ever there were one — had to resign in disgrace. But don’t for a moment confuse a smoking gun with a coup de grace, or being sacrificed for the team with waving the white flag. I say this because I long ago realized something about man’s nature, something that may sound like a gross exaggeration: If a person has a strong enough vested interest in believing 2+2=5, he will surely insist it is so — in the face of all evidence to the contrary. But before I talk about who the real deniers are and what is being denied, let’s discuss the ugly reality reaffirmed by Climategate.

Here is the lowdown in a nutshell: Governments have used billions of dollars of our money to fund fraudulent science, which, in turn, is used to justify policy that would steal untold billions more from us through taxation and the handicapping of the private sector. This will, of course, stifle the creation of wealth, but it will also be a transfer of it. But this would not be so much from the rich to the poor; it would be from the poor and middle class to the rich and well-connected. Carbon-credit con men such as Al Gore will add to their many millions, while subtracting from the many millions some of the latter’s few dollars. It would move us toward a situation in which we’d have two Americas, as John Edwards might say. One would be a lying, covetous ruling class of John Edwardses. The other would be the masses, who would be perpetually mired in serfdom.

Yet defeating the climate con won’t be easy, because it isn’t just money that drives the con men. In fact, many of them are so married the climate con that they have become one with their misguided notions. Call it the Zen of Being Wrong.

One reason not to do wrong is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Obviously, Bill Clinton, John Edwards and Tiger Woods would never have felt the urge to lie about their affairs if they had never had affairs. Of course, the lying was immoral, but this is how one sin leads to another. A transgression leads to a lie, which leads to a full-blown cover-up, etc. And the deeper you dig that hole, the harder and more painful it is to climb out of it.

In the case of the climate con artists, the pain would be great and the price steep. Their creed has been likened to a religion, and in many ways it is. They aren’t global-warming theorists.

They are global-warming fundamentalists.

They have invested so much of their time, energy, emotion, ego and reputations in the climate con that to relinquish it would be to relinquish themselves; to call it a lie is to call their lives a lie. It’s just a bit like asking a Jihadist to give up Islam. These are not people who subscribe to AGW theory; they have submitted to it.

Then you have those who are using this religion to make money — and they and the true believers are often one and the same. These are the carbon-credit capitalists, the green-technology givers and greenback grabbers.

And we have to add to this the fact that all these people had become science’s Torquemadas, inquisitors bent on stifling inquisitiveness. Al Gore told us “The debate is over” as he and his co-religionists strove to root out heresy and sought to destroy the “deniers.” Thus, they have no reason to expect mercy. Surrender is simply not an option.

So forget about icebergs; the meltdown the climate con artists fear is that of their reputations, egos, finances and faith. Scientists or not, to admit error is not merely the alteration of a hypothesis to them; it is the loss of religion and meaning, the end of empire, the fall of Rome. It is complete and utter personal destruction.

Yet destruction is precisely what the climate-change con men would visit on the economies of nations in their delusional grip. Other lands, such as China and India, will never yield to such insanity. They may pay lip service to it, though, especially if doing so will encourage us to more thoroughly handicap ourselves. Then they can laugh and rise to prominence while we become the most recent great civilization to descend into backwater status.

As I write this, the climate-change con artists are meeting in Copenhagen, where useful-idiot communists are protesting in the streets while their standard bearers, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe and Bolivian President Evo Morales are railing against free markets and beating the red drum. Do you really think these folks care about the environment? The green that really concerns them is your money — and I do mean your money. Because if there is an “international” agreement to fight the phantom of climate change, you can bet your depreciating bottom dollar that we Americans will pay the freight. We are, after all, the world’s biggest energy suckers.

The question is, are we just the world’s biggest suckers?

Chavez, Mugabe and China are betting yes. And if we want to make fools out of them, we’ll cause radical climate change — to the political climate in Washington in 2010. It’s probably our last chance to prove who the fools really are.

Why Copenhagen Failed

To anybody interested in the future of the earth’s climate, the conclusion of the Copenhagen conference represents either colossal disappointment or profound rage. The financial pledges— if honored— that rich nations made to poor nations will do nothing to combat global warming. The few climate related agreements that were made were of zero substance, especially when compared to what the situation demanded.

The sorrowful outcome, however, could have been predicted in the conference’s first week, based on two seemingly unrelated events: The conference showcased the largest police action in Denmark’s history (including mass arrests of “troublemakers”); while also producing the largest ever boom in limousine rentals. Both happenings helped reveal the true nature of the conference, spelling doom for climate progress.

Contrary to the hopes of billions of people, the talks were a purely elite affair. Many of the thousands of delegates sent to the conference were not looking to save the planet, as advertised, but were looking out for the national interest of their native governments. Most of these countries are dominated by the “special interests” of giant corporations.

Big business in the rich nations used the conference as a cynical maneuver to maintain their economic dominance over the “emerging business” in the developing countries. This fact was at first obscured by technical language, until the now-famous “Danish Text” was leaked to the press in the first week of the conference.

This document was a conference proposal written by the U.S. and England, though submitted by Denmark. The Danish Text proposes that developed nations — the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc. — be allowed to pollute twice the amount of developing countries — China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc. — for the next fifty years.

If enacted, the corporations of the developing nations would be forced to function under an incredible economic handicap. Their governments would have, of course, rejected such nonsense, giving the U.S. delegates the needed excuse to blame China for the failed talks (the U.S. media has done this with absolute disregard for facts).

The Danish Text also proposed to move future climate talks out of the realm of the too-democratic UN into the U.S./Europe dominated World Bank. Obama has thus surpassed his predecessor in the realm of global arrogance.

However, the U.S. torpedoed the talks long before they ever began, forcing the international media to campaign in favor of “lower expectations.” The New York Times explains:

“… when Mr. Obama and other world leaders met last month, they were forced to abandon the goal of reaching a binding accord at Copenhagen because the American political system is not ready to agree to a treaty that would force the United States, over time, to accept profound changes in its energy, transport and manufacturing [corporate] sectors.” (December 13, 2009).

Instead of building upon the foundation of the already-insufficient Kyoto Protocol, the Obama administration demanded a whole new structure, something that would take years to achieve. The Kyoto framework was abandoned because it included legally binding agreements, and was based on multi-lateral, agreed-upon reductions of greenhouse gasses (however insufficient). Instead, Obama proposed that “…each country set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its target.” (The Guardian, September 15, 2009).

This way, there is zero accountability, zero oversight, and therefore, zero climate progress. Any country may make any number of symbolic “pledges” to combat global warming, while actually doing very little to follow through — much like billions of dollars rich countries pledged to Africa that have yet to leave western bank accounts.

Obama’s maneuvering to ruin Copenhagen was correctly assessed by Canadian writer Naomi Klein, who said that Obama, like Bush, is “using multi-lateralism to destroy multi-lateralism.” This means that Obama is participating in international organizations like the UN Copenhagen conference, with no intention of reaching agreements. Once the U.S. blames its overseas rivals for the failure to “cooperate,” a more independent path can be struck.

This is reminiscent of Bush’s path to invading Iraq: he used the UN Security Council to pass resolutions against Iraq, which helped him weaken Iraq while strengthening U.S. public opinion. But when the Security Council wouldn’t agree to an invasion, Bush assembled a pathetic “coalition of the willing” to attack, completely abandoning the UN (Obama appears to be following an identical approach with Iran). U.S. corporations wanted to dominate Iraq’s huge oil reserves and other treasures, to the detriment of the corporations within Europe, Russia, and China.

Another example of Obama’s fake multi-lateralism is the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. is again being blamed for blocking a multi-lateral agreement in this corporate-controlled organization — some U.S. corporations want market protection from rival corporations of other countries.

The international WTO continues to be unofficially abandoned in favor of regional (unilateral) trade blocs like NAFTA, CAFTA, the EU, etc., increasing international tensions, which, if one looks below the surface, are conflicts between giant corporations based in rival nations, battling for control of international markets, raw materials, and cheap labor.

The failure of the WTO, the UN, and now Copenhagen are all examples of an increasingly conflict-ridden world, based on the emerging economies challenging the rule of the old powers. This dynamic clearly resembles the situation prior to WWI, when the big powers — England and the U.S. — felt threatened by the rise of Germany and Japan, and used a strategy of “containment” to stunt their growth. The end result was war.

This time, however, China, India, Brazil, and Russia are the emerging threats, and the issue of climate change is being used as yet another tactic to “contain” their growth.

With such a dynamic unfolding, there can be no future multi-lateral agreements expected, minus the “symbolic” type that Copenhagen produced. The unbridgeable national conflicts are not the result of bad policy from naïve leaders, but an inherent future of a market economy [capitalism].

Giant corporations in different countries are constantly growing and competing with each other for a very limited global marketplace, always attempting to monopolize markets, raw-materials, and labor by any means necessary. This vicious competition pushes all other social issues into the background — human needs are subordinate to blindly chasing profits.

Such an irrationally competitive system cannot be smoothed over with good intentions and on-paper cooperation. Deeper, conflicting corporate interests between nations are the motor force pushing countries further apart the more cooperation is needed.

But soon the fake cooperation Obama stresses will be too much for the U.S. corporate-elite to bear. Many of them are bored with the international community, especially when the U.S. is the sole military super-power in the world. Soon Obama’s “failed attempts” to cooperate internationally will evolve into a more independent, Bush-like approach.

The largely ignored UN is likely to be further pushed aside so that brute force can continue to dictate US international policy, an agenda already begun by the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama’s expanding war in Pakistan, and the “looming threat” that supposedly Iran is.

As long as governmental policy is dictated by the corporations — represented in the U.S. by the two party system — multi-lateralism and cooperation are doomed. Thus, the battle to save the environment and end war must include a fight against these corporations, who wield a political/economic vise grip over society. Only by publicly controlling these billionaire-owned mega-enterprises can the peaceful and cooperative impulses of the earth’s people find their full expression.

Obama’s China Junket

“We’re Opening Doors for Wall Street and Nothing More”

Barack Obama took Hu Jintao to task this morning, scolding the dejected-looking Chinese leader at a press conference held in Beijing. Obama delivered one ferocious jab after another, claiming that China’s dollar-peg has cost the US millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs while creating gigantic trade imbalances which have destabilized the global economy and thrust the world into severe economic contraction. Obama demanded that the Chinese government convert to market-oriented exchange rates immediately to preserve jobs in America and to end the de facto tariff that China applies to US goods through its persistent currency manipulation. Obama’s sharply-worded prepared statement left the Chinese President gasping for air while the assembled members of the western media snapped to their feet in raucous applause.

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Hard to believe that an American president would stand up for his own people and act in the national interest.

The aforementioned press conference never took place. It’s a fairy tale. Barack Obama made a few innocuous comments about repricing the renimbi, but it was all just meaningless blather concocted for the American audience. US policymakers have no intention of rocking-the-boat and upsetting their Chinese benefactors. The system works just fine as it is…for the Big money guys, that is.

Do you know the real reason that Obama is in China?

Obama is carrying on the work of George W. Bush and Henry Paulson. He’s trying to pry open Chinese markets to US financial services. That’s right, the lavish executive junket doesn’t have anything to do with human rights, climate change, or dollar/yuan rebalancing. That’s all just public relations mumbo-jumbo. 100% bunkum.

True, China’s dollar-peg creates an unfair advantage for China’s manufactured goods, but so what? The Congress could change that in a minute by applying trade sanctions. But they won’t. Because Congress is owned by Wall Street, and Wall Street thrives on the current system. Here’s how it works: China sells the US cheap lead-based widgets, and then recycles the dollars into US Treasurys and “complex and utterly worthless” financial products. This provides the gargantuan investment banks with an endless flow of cheap capital to goose stocks and fatten the bottom line. Of course, the process does have it’s shortcomings, like the fact that it crushes the domestic work-force, but that’s how it was designed to work anyway. What economists call “unsustainable imbalances” are praised at the big brokerage houses as “windfall profits”. The total destruction of the US labor movement is just an added perk for these well-heeled, flag-waving, uber-patriots.

And here’s another item that might be of interest curious readers. This is an excerpt from an interview with Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach:

Question: How big are China-based multinational corporations now and how do they factor into this issue of global imbalances?

Stephen Roach: “They’re a big deal. Over 60 percent of export growth over the past twelve years has come from growth by Chinese subsidiaries of Western multinationals, but again the problem I have is that too many in the United States, especially the Congress but also Washington, focus on the bilateral trade imbalance between the United States and China. That’s just a fundamental economic mistake that’s being made.” http://www.cfr.org/publication/20486/avoiding_a_uschina_trade_showdown.html
peter Roach

Hmmm. So, a large portion of China’s industrial capacity is actually “China-based multinational corporations”. Now that’s interesting. So US workers are actually competing with US industries that are using sweatshop labor to enrich themselves while savaging the American middle class. Great. I wonder how many of these “industry leaders” affix the stars-n-stripes to their lapel each morning before they trundle off to work?

This just proves that the outsourcing of jobs, the off-shoring of businesses, and the “free trade” laws are mainly the work of cutthroat American corporatists not the “rascally Chinese” as the media would like everyone to believe. China is not destroying America; blue-blooded, brandy-guzzling, Harvard-educated Americans are. It’s just good-old-fashioned class warfare….and our class is losing.

For those who want to know what Obama’s trip is really all about; ignore Obama altogether and read Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “The Road Ahead for Asia’s Economies.” It tells the whole story. Geithner candidly admits that US markets will remain stagnant for years to come and that other emerging nations (ie China) will have to develop their own domestic markets so that Wall Street speculators can attach themselves parasitically to a more succulent host.

Timothy Geithner: “As U.S. households save more and the U.S. reduces its fiscal deficit, others must spur greater growth of private demand in their own economies……We also must keep our sights on maximizing the potential of global markets. Both exports and imports remain critical stimulate the flow of knowledge and innovation that is enabling emerging economies to catch up with developed-world living standards….To achieve durable growth, all of our economies must have flexible labor markets.”

In other words, more lowering of trade barriers, more lost jobs at home, more unemployment.

Geithner again: “Each of us has recognized the importance of strong financial regulation and fiscal balance, and is pursuing these goals in ways that reflect our own circumstances but complement each others’ efforts.”

Check.

The article concludes with a spirited appeal from Geithner to China to open its markets to the gaggle of financial pirates and bank-vermin who just blew up the global system and are looking for new prey.

Geithner again: “Among other things, emerging economies must strengthen their social safety nets through sustainable health and retirement-benefit schemes,(re: Wall Street) thus reducing the need for high precautionary saving that contributes to global imbalances. Regulatory frameworks conducive to competitive markets will support private enterprise, investment and innovation. (re: MBS, CDOs, CDS and other debt-backed exotica) In the emerging economies, deeper and more efficient financial markets will enable better intermediation of savings and enhance investment productivity.(re: “Please, let G-Sax and JPM hang their shingles in Tienanmen Square. We promise we won’t blow up your financial system like we did ours.”)

Reforms are also necessary to promote cross-border private investments, while ensuring an institutional capacity and prudent regulatory framework to enable markets to absorb capital flows … finance ministers of our respective countries, we are keenly aware that our future prosperity will be founded on a continued commitment to globalization.” (Timothy Geithner, Wall Street Journal, “The Road Ahead for Asia’s Economies”)

Blah, blah, blah.

Summary: Geithner and Co. see the US economy languishing in a low-grade Depression for the foreseeable future, therefore, Wall Street must progressively move its base-of-operations eastward.

This is the real reason behind Obama’s trip to China. There’s no truth to the rumor that US policymakers care about “currency manipulation” or the ongoing looting of the American middle class. That’s rubbish. China’s “dollar-peg” essentially serves the interests of the giant multinational corporations and Wall Street speculators who own the media, the courts, the congress, the White House and most of the country.

What is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.

Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.

Will it be coincidence if the next war—like the last—is consistent with the expansive goals of Jewish nationalists?

The Indo-Israel Alliance

December 2007 saw the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. diplomats that her return was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”

President Pervez Musharraf had announced that resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was essential to the resolution of conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target for Tel Aviv.

During Bhutto’s two terms as prime minister, Pakistani support for the Taliban—then celebrated as the freedom-fighting Mujahadin—enabled her to wield influence in Afghanistan while also catalyzing conflicts in Kashmir. By fueling tension with India, she also fueled an Indo-Israel alliance as Tel Aviv provided New Delhi an emergency shipment of artillery shells during a conflict over the Kirpal region of Kashmir.

In January 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning & Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region. That sale confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” That became apparent in April when Israel signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide India an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor.

In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and training. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Little was said about the Israeli interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia, using Israel as an intermediary while undermining Russia’s oil industry.

More Game Theory Warfare?

Bhutto’s murder ensured a crisis that replaced Musharaff with Asif Ali Zardari, her notoriously corrupt husband. By Washington’s alliance with Zardari, the U.S. could be portrayed as extending its corrupting influence in the region.

On August 7, 2008, the Zadari-led ruling coalition called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament against Musharraf just as he was departing for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia. As with many of the recent incidents in Pakistan, this violent event involved armed separatists.

But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have installed in office the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s infamous game theory war-planners? [See “How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare” http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/08/26/jeff-gates-how-israel-wages-game-theory-warfare/ and “Israel and 9-11” http://www.middle-east-online.com/English/?id=34283.]

In late November 2008, a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India’s financial center, renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.” By early December, Israeli journalists urged that we “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.”

Soon after “India’s 9-11” was found to include operatives from Pakistan’s western tribal region, Zardari announced an agreement with the Taliban to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside.

Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was marketed by mainstream media as proof of the perils of “militant Islam.”

With the Taliban and Al Qaeda portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist/ultra-orthodox coalition further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

More delay is destined to evoke more extremism and gain more traction for those marketing the “global war on terrorism.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued after the assault in Mumbai: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.”

In announcing that list, Islamabad was indicted by its exclusion even though Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a, abhors theocratic rule. The fact patterns suggest that Pakistan, not India, was the target of the murderous terrorism in Mumbai.

Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent mission to Islamabad was a diplomatic disaster. Abrasive and arrogant, America’s top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that it is surrounded by hostile forces and that the nation is being set up to fail by Jewish nationalist advisers to a nation it considered an ally.

In a climate of heightened tensions, Clinton undermined U.S. interests, boosted the Israeli case for a global war on “Islamo-fascism” and lent credence to the Clash of Civilizations.

Destabilization as a Prequel to Domination

As Afghanistan and Pakistan join other nations being destabilized by outside forces, key questions must be answered:

• Was India’s 9-11 a form of geopolitical misdirection meant to serve both the tactical goals of Muslim extremists and the strategic goals of Jewish nationalists? Who benefits—within Pakistan—from humiliation at the hands of India and the U.S.?
• With Bhutto’s murder and Musharraf’s departure, the crisis in Mumbai drew Pakistani forces to the Indian border and away from the western tribal region. Was that the geostrategic goal of these well-timed crises? What role, if any, did Israel play?
• Is delay in ending the occupation of Palestine part of an agent provocateur strategy? Was the latest assault on Gaza part of this strategy?

Each of these crises incrementally advanced the expansionist agenda of Colonial Zionists. Do these collateral incidents trace their origin to a common source? Is that source again using serial events to pre-stage a main event?

The public has an intuitive grasp of the source of this oft-recurring behavior. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in member nations of the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace.

Is terrorism limited to “Islamo-fascists”? Are mass murders also deployed—from the shadows—as a strategy of geopolitical manipulation by those who Ashkenazim philosopher Hannah Arendt described as “Jewish fascists”?

Perfect Storm Approaching The United States

While Leaders Snore and Citizens Sleep…

In this ongoing series with Dr. Jack Alpert, we hope to educate, enlighten and activate American citizens toward a sustainable future. In all great social change, it takes an educated citizenry to create “consciousness shift” which moves to “critical mass shift” that ends with a paradigm shift via “tipping point.”

When you look back on history, the good things that made your life better started with the Magna Carta for human rights. From there, humans fought and died to establish the U.S. Constitution. Gandhi guided India and all humanity toward peace. Susan B. Anthony won the right to vote for women in the United States. In most of the Middle East with their ancient cultures, women cannot vote, drive or enjoy an education. Martin Luther King marched for equal rights for people of color. Yes, the human race faces a great deal of educational challenge to move past antiquated paradigms.

But along the way, we need to change our energy, population and environmental paradigms sooner rather than later.

In Dr. Jack Alpert’s, “Civilization’s Perfect Storm”, he illustrates our current dilemma with the movie starring George Clooney, “Perfect Storm”. www.skil.org

“The “Perfect Storm” is a movie about down-on-their-luck fishermen who went fishing in a storm because they needed to make a living,” Alpert said. “Unfortunately it was not just a simple storm. It was a perfect storm. A perfect storm forms at the intersection of several colliding weather fronts. High winds and gargantuan waves sank the boat and drown the crew.

“Is it possible that global problems could join together to make a perfect storm and sink human civilization? Could fights over hunting grounds, famines, mal-distribution of wealth, slavery, genocide, ethic cleansings, religious or economic competitions, deforestations, fishery depletions, oil exhaustion, climate change, species extinction and global terrorism, combine to make the perfect storm that kills the human experiment?

“On fishing boats, people take precautions to weather storms. They close watertight doors, and wear safety harnesses and cold water survival suits. And they usually come home safe even in bad weather. However, in the “Perfect Storm,” none of these actions were enough to save their ship or their lives.

“Maybe we should ask, “Will our recycling, driving a fuel efficient car, insulating our house, sequestering our CO2, having only two children, and investing in technology to produce more with less, be enough to get us through a perfect storm of global problems?” Is it possible that if everyone copied our behaviors, “It would not be enough to survive that storm?”

“Is it possible that six and a half billion people don’t see global problems integrating into a perfect-storm? Is it possible they don’t see their politically correct, social justice, and green behaviors as being impotent to address these conditions?

“Is it possible they don’t see that civilization surviving the perfect storm conditions will require rapid population decline? They don’t see that each couple on earth must have at most one child per family. And they don’t see that even if everyone does, the ride to a nice future is going to be bumpy for some and dreadful for others.”

I find interviewing with Dr. Jack Alpert a study in certitude born from his scientific models that combine our current energy use, carbon footprint, Peak Oil, species extinctions now running over 100 per day planet-wide and climate destabilization.

Our predicament encompasses our refusal to manifest changes fast enough to guide us out of the approaching “Perfect Storm” rolling toward the United States as well as worldwide. As you might have read in my reviews of Chris Steiner’s $20 PER GALLON, we allow ourselves to run out of time and ability to outrun the approaching energy crisis, let alone climate destabilization.

When you include the multitude of predicaments facing our civilization—such as water shortages for starters—doesn’t it dawn on you that while our leaders push for population growth by adding 3.4 million people to this country annually mostly by immigration—that those in power to make positive change continue snoring even while awake?

When humans add 77 million more people to the planet annually, and those that suffer in overpopulated civilizations instead of practicing birth control— escape to other countries while continuing their profligate population increases—it doesn’t take a sixth grader to figure out the equation cannot continue.

The result, as Alpert said, we face a “Perfect Population Storm” that engulfs our ability to survive it no matter how much we might ‘think’ we can avoid it. We shake hands with the devil with a Faustian Bargain that leads to Hobson’s Choice.

Today, the United States ‘storms’ toward adding 100 million people in 26 years by 2035. Yet, we sleep, we snore, we yawn into our perilous future! It’s almost beyond comprehension how this ‘educated’ civilization allows itself to follow in the footsteps of China, India, Bangladesh, Mexico and others—without blinking any eyelash!

To continue pushing the solutions off into the future until we find ourselves left with two choices: door number #1 or #2. Door #1 allows you to walk over a cliff and door #2 allows you to step into quicksand.

While our leaders snore and we sleep, our civilization moves toward a “Perfect Population Storm” and only Hobson’s Choice to save us.

Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded Gates, said it best, ““Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy West not to stem the migrant tide, but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all–ten billion humans packed onto an ecologically devastated planet.”

The Nobel Prize, the Brand and the President

Imprisoned by the most dangerous Zionist guards…

People out there are divided whether it was a right decision to award Obama with a Nobel prize for peace. In fact, almost everyone around me is outraged, what ‘peace’ they ask, what about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Palestine? We are tired of promises they insist. The Nobel Prize committee on its part ‘highlighted Obama’s effort to support international bodies, build ties with the Muslim world, act in favour of nuclear disproliferation and fight Climate change’. Those who are unimpressed with Obama stress that the above is just ‘empty rhetoric’, nothing but ‘hot air’. “We want to see action, we demand facts on the ground”.

While Obama’s critics raise some valid points, they for some reason seem to fail to grasp the distinction between ‘Obama the Brand’ and ‘Obama the President’. The ‘Brand’ stands for hope and humanism. It tends to say the right things on the right occasions. It is ethically aware. It employs reason occasionally and it even manages to talk sense often enough. ‘Obama the Brand’ is, no doubt, a refreshing event in the Western political arena.

‘Obama the President’ is a different story altogether: It struggles, it fails to deliver, it fails to keep promises. It says things and does the opposite. ‘Obama the President’ is a politician and politicians are conditionally untrustworthy.

The failure of Obama to merge the ‘Brand’ and the ‘President’ into a continuous ethical reality is indeed a colossal tragedy. But it is not Just Obama’s tragedy, it is actually our own disaster. As much as the ‘Brand’ manages to spread some cheering humanist and universal statements, the ‘President’ is actually imprisoned by some of the most dangerous Zionist guards. ‘Obama the President’ has a big open bill to pay to the people who gave him the keys to his current white dwelling. In other words he has many Zionists to appease and another bunch of rabid Sayanim* that have managed to invade his office. To a certain extent, Obama’s failure to establish an adequate continuum between the ‘brand’ and the ‘president’ is due to the unfeasibility of a continuum between humanism and Zionism.

Unfortunately, Within the Western liberal discourse there is no obvious political means to confront the Zionist lobbies, and its infiltrators within the American administrations or any other Western democracy. Catastrophically enough, there is no practical or political means to stop the Wolfowitzes from taking us into another illegal genocidal war. Like in America, no one in British politics or media is courageous enough to elaborate on the close ties between Blair’s cabinet and his party’s leading fund raisers at the time when Britain was taken into a Zionist illegal war in Iraq. The West in general and the English Speaking Empire in particular have lost their survival instinct. It would be right to argue that within the post WWII Liberal discourse we lack the political apparatus to defend ourselves from the infiltration of Zionist foreign interests. By the time we are convinced that we have managed to silence one Wolfowitz, five Emanuel Rahms pop out in the background.

This is exactly where the Nobel Peace Prize comes into play. Rather than waiting for Obama to launch another Zionist war, rather than letting him nuke Iran just to make the Jewish state a ‘safer place’, they, the Nobel Prize committee have hopefully pulled him in: they gave him their biggest trophy in a very early stage of his presidential term. They basically bounded him to his ‘Brand’ i.e. hope, humanism, harmony and reconciliation. They told him, “listen to us Mr President, here is your trophy, once you accept it you may have to say NO to your Ziocons at home, for people with a peace medal cannot launch wars.” Obama may have to find some other policies to pursue peace rather than killing Muslims. Time will tell whether the Nobel Committee gamble justified itself. For the mean time we may have to agree that the Nobel Committee offered Obama an opportunity to bond the ‘Brand’ and the ‘President’ into a unified, dignified and ethical stand. Let’s hope that he takes the challenge.

As far as the Nobel Committee is concerned, this is probably the most clever thing to do. The committee should have thought about it a long time ago. Rather than waiting for too long, they should have awarded Blair and Bush in the immediate beginning of their terms. This could have saved the lives of millions of Iraqis and Afghans. They should also have considered awarding Shimon Peres with a Nobel Prize already in the 1950’s, this may have prevented him from building the Dimona nuclear reactor and later transforming it into a leading Zio-terminator. Henry Kissinger? Very much the same, they should have award him the peace medal on his Brit Mila (circumcision) ceremony when he was just 8 days old. This could have saved the lives of millions.

Nobel Prize for Peace should be used as a preventative means. Rather than wasting it on tedious humanists and boring peace lovers who do nothing but making the world nicer, we should better employ it in a preventative method. In current world affairs it should be used as an induced commitment to peace so we can avert the risk of Zionist wars.

If I read it correctly, the Nobel Peace Prize is there to help ‘Obama the Brand’ withstand the pressure posed on ‘Obama the President’ by his Ziocon ring.

Will Israel Ensure that History Repeats Itself?

The lead-up to the first U.S.-Iran talks in three decades saw a replay of the same modus operandi that induced the U.S. and its allies to invade Iraq in March 2003. Then as now, the invasion of Iran is consistent with a regime change agenda for Greater Israel described in a 1996 strategy document prepared by Jewish-Americans for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi program had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes.

Reports of a “secret” processing plant failed to note that Iran suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 until 2005. Seeing no change in the political climate except more sanctions and more Israeli threats to bomb its nuclear sites, Iran began building and equipping a new facility.

As with Iraq, there is no direct threat to the U.S. As with Iraq, mainstream U.S. media focused not on Israel—the only nation in the region known to have nuclear weapons—but on Iran. Enrichment is relatively easy compared to the steps required to design, build and reliably deliver a nuclear warhead. Activity around each of those steps can be readily detected.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that even if Iran were attacked, that does nothing to alter Iran’s nuclear prospects—except provoke them to develop the very weapons that the evidence suggests are not now being produced. Is this a calculated move to exert pressure on Tehran? Or to provoke them? Or is this a move by Washington to buy time from an “ally” that threatens an attack—with disastrous effects on U.S. interests and those of its genuine allies?

To catalyze a climate of insecurity among Jews, pro-Israelis periodically claim that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes to “wipe Israel off the map.” A correct translation confirms that what he urged is that “this occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.” Akin to the widely sought demise of the oppressive Soviet regime, that proposal enjoys the support of many moderate, secular and non-Zionist Jews who have long recognized the threat that Jewish extremists pose to the broader Jewish community.

No one can explain why Iran, even if nuclear armed, would attack Israel with its vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads, including several nuclear-armed submarines. In mid-July, Israeli warships deployed to the Red Sea to rehearse attacks on Iran. As in the lead-up to war with Iraq, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is again beating the war drums. This is the same adviser who, four days after 9-11, advised G.W. Bush to invade Iraq.

Citing Iran’s “covert” facility, Wolfowitz claims it is “clear that Iran’s rulers are pursuing nuclear weapons.…Time is running out.” Without a hint of irony, he argues that Iran (not Israel) “is a crucial test of whether the path to a nuclear-free world is a realistic one or simply a dangerous pipe dream.” In calling for “crippling sanctions,” Howard Berman, Jewish chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed similar concerns as did Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior Republican on the Committee and also Jewish.

If pro-Israelis cannot induce a war with Iran, the ensuing stability will enable people to identify who fixed the intelligence that deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq. Only one nation possesses the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to mount a covert operation over the lengthy period required to pre-stage, staff, orchestrate and successfully cover-up such an act.

The evidence points to the same network of government insiders and media proponents now hyping Iran. Who benefitted from war with Iraq? Who benefits from war with Iran? Not the U.S. or its allies unless, despite the evidence, Israel is viewed as an ally–rather than an enemy within.

Can the U.S. Muster a Breakthrough Strategy?

Like Afghanistan, Iran does not have a military solution. Nor does Iraq. Geopolitically, the greatest casualty of war in the region was the United States – its credibility tattered, its military overextended and its finances devastated by a debt-financed war that Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz projects could reach $3,000 billion. Compare that with the speedy exit and a $50 billion outlay that Wolfowitz assured policy-makers could be recovered from sales of Iraqi oil.

Those who induced that invasion persuaded Americans to commit economic and geopolitical hari-kari. Noexternal force could have defeated the sole remaining super power. Instead the U.S. was deceived—by a purported ally—to defeat itself by an ill-advised reaction to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil.

The only sensible and sustainable solution is one that serves unmet needs in the region while also restoring the credibility of the U.S. as a proponent of informed choice and free enterprise. While making transparent the common source of the deceit that induced the U.S. to war, policy-makers can also lay the foundation to preclude such duplicity in the future. That requires consultation among the U.S., its true allies and those nations in the region most affected by this treachery.

Only a design solution can counter today’s systemic sources of conflict, including the extremism fueled by extremes in education, opportunity, wealth and income. As with the fixed intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq, those sources of conflict are obscured by a compliant and complicit media with an undisclosed pro-Israeli bias.

A transnational network of think tanks could expose in real time how facts are displaced by what “the mark” can be deceived to believe. With the media dominance of pro-Israelis in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and other Western allies, that task must include the capacity to show how this deceit operates in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Absent such transparency, systems of governance reliant on informed consent will continue to be manipulated to their detriment by those who hide behind the very freedoms that such systems are meant to protect.

Running parallel with that transparency initiative must be an education program that deploys the best available technology to close the gaps in learning that sustain extremes in opportunity. Only a truly international effort can succeed in that essential task. Only trans-cultural education can preempt the mental manipulation that induced war in Iraq and now pursues war with Iran as proponents of The Clash of Civilizations gradually transform that concept into a reality.

What we now see emerging is yet another example of how wars are induced in the Information Age. Why would anyone expect modern warfare to be waged in any other way? As the common source of this duplicity becomes transparent, the solution will become apparent.

Lasting peace requires a Marshall Plan able to accelerate the transition to the Knowledge Society. This systemic challenge cannot be addressed absent a systemic strategy. The restoration of friendly and cooperative relations must include the practical steps required to heal this widening divide with education at the core.

Pedal To The Metal

Speeding Towards Stop Sign Without Breaks…

Americans, led by their indolent politicians, step on the population gas pedal at full bore into the 21st century without a map, route, plan or clue as to how they will solve their own accelerating human population numbers.

In excess of 150 million Americans live and breathe toxic air in overloaded cities. They grind their way through gridlocked traffic five days a week. They kill 44,000 fellow citizens annually in car accidents from clogged highways. Their rivers run with chemicals, fertilizers, herbicides, sewage and other contaminants enough to create 10,000 square mile dead zones where they empty into our oceans. They suffer water shortages so much so, that they completely deplete the Colorado River before it reaches the Pacific. Americans use so many chemicals to grow food; their acidified soils become more unhealthy and toxic to angleworms and nitro-fixing bacteria with each passing year.

Those chemicals in the air, soil and water create millions of cancer deaths annually around the world. Yet, no one advocates banning the contamination of this planet for future generations or the welfare of all other life on Earth.

All the while, humans burn through non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, minerals and metals as if there were no tomorrow. While every scientific indicator shows human activity destabilizing Earth’s climate—leaders admonish citizens to change their lights to the curly-cue mercury energy saving lights—as if THAT will solve our dilemma.

While American citizens suffer 15 million unemployed and 35 million subsisting on food stamps as well as 13.4 million Americans living in poverty—our U.S. Congress imports 160,000 foreign workers into this country every 30 days, month in and month out, year in and year out. All total, the U.S. adds 3.1 million more humans, net gain, annually on its way to adding 100 million people by 2035.

While that certain insanity continues, not one congressional member, media outlet or environmental organization addresses the obvious: we exhaust Earth’s ability to mitigate our presence on this planet. Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report dance around the population issue like a mouse trying to escape a hawk. Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Matt Lauer, Diane Sawyer, Harry Smith, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, Wolf Blitzer and others avoid it at all costs. Yes, they report its mounting consequences, but they won’t touch overpopulation growth.

Bryan Walsh, Time reporter, September 23, 2009, wrote a sobering column, “How much human activity can earth handle?” But nowhere in his piece did he address the population connection!

Walsh said, “The scientific name is the Holocene Age, but climatologists like to call our current climatic phase the Long Summer. The history of Earth’s climate has rarely been smooth. From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung drastically and often abruptly from one state to another — from tropical swamp to frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold, or Goldilocks weather. That stability has allowed Homo sapiens, numbering perhaps just a few million at the dawn of the Holocene, to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen. Without the Long Summer, that never would have been possible.”

It’s all related

“But as human population has exploded over the past few thousand years, the delicate ecological balance that kept the Long Summer going has become threatened,” Walsh said. “The rise of industrialized agriculture has thrown off Earth’s natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, leading to pollution on land and water, while our fossil-fuel addiction has moved billions of tons of carbon from the land into the atmosphere, heating the climate ever more.

“Now a new article in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature says the safe climatic limits in which humanity has blossomed are more vulnerable than ever and that unless we recognize our planetary boundaries and stay within them, we risk total catastrophe. “Human activities have reached a level that could damage the systems that keep Earth in the desirable Holocene state,” writes Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Environmental Institute and the author of the article. “The result could be irreversible and, in some cases, abrupt environmental change, leading to a state less conducive to human development.”

While we multiply our numbers, we degrade our planet-home. But you won’t see any meaningful attention to the root causes!

“Regarding climate change, for instance, Rockstrom proposes an atmospheric-carbon-concentration limit of no more than 350 parts per million — meaning no more than 350 atoms of carbon for every million atoms of air. Before the industrial age, levels were at 280 p.p.m.; currently they’re at 387 p.p.m. and rising. That, scientists believe, should be enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, which should be safely below a climatic tipping point that could lead to the wide-scale melting of polar ice sheets, swamping coastal cities. “Transgressing these boundaries will increase the risk of irreversible climate change,” writes Rockstrom.

“That’s the impact of breaching only one of nine planetary boundaries that Rockstrom identifies in the paper,” Walsh said. “Other boundaries involve freshwater overuse, the global agricultural cycle and ozone loss. In each case, he scans the state of science to find ecological limits that we can’t violate, lest we risk passing a tipping point that could throw the planet out of whack for human beings. It’s based on a theory that ecological change occurs not so much cumulatively, but suddenly, after invisible thresholds have been reached. Stay within the lines, and we might just be all right.”

“In three of the nine cases Rockstrom has pointed out, however — climate change, the nitrogen cycle and species loss — we’ve already passed his threshold limits. In the case of global warming, we haven’t yet felt the full effects, Rockstrom says, because carbon acts gradually on the climate — but once warming starts, it may prove hard to stop unless we reduce emissions sharply. Ditto for the nitrogen cycle, where industrialized agriculture already has humanity pouring more chemicals into the land and oceans than the planet can process, and for wildlife loss, where we risk biological collapse. “We can say with some confidence that Earth cannot sustain the current rate of loss without significant erosion of ecosystem resilience,” says Rockstrom.

Walsh said, “Rockstrom’s work delineates the limits to human growth — economically, demographically, ecologically — that we transgress at our peril.”

“Ongoing changes in global chemistry should alarm us about threats to the persistence of life on Earth, whether or not we cross a catastrophic threshold any time soon,” writes William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in a commentary accompanying the Nature paper.

I encourage you, fellow citizen, to take action, to push this issue toward the front burner. If you don’t, as you look out across the political landscape, who will? You haven’t heard one word from anyone in Congress and even President Obama. No matter how much conservation we practice at whatever level, everything becomes negated by adding 100 million people to this civilization and another 100 million after that, etc.

We need a “US Sustainable Immigration Policy” of a maximum of 100,000 annually; “US Water Usage Policy” and “US Sustainable Population Policy” in the 21st century if we expect to remain a viable civilization in the coming decades.

$20 Per Gallon: Change Before Crisis Hits

Part 3: Waiting until you’re in the crisis…

Christopher Steiner, author of $20 PER GALLON, paints a sobering picture for our civilization. He’s not alone. You may view this 86 minute compelling film “Blind Spot” by Adolpho Doring and Amanda Zackem: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/blind_spot/

I couldn’t take my eyes off the movie as I watched it three times. Once you see that documentary, you will understand exactly what Steiner, Bartlett, Catton, Tainter, Brown, Bradford, Steinberg and other top experts have tried to tell this society for 30 years. You will understand how we combine energy use and population increases to drive this civilization toward a tenuous future.

Yet, many continue thinking “Peak Oil” remains a myth. Others condemn this series with promotion of men like Stanley Meyer who created a car that runs on water. www.happymileage.com Somehow, Meyer died of food poisoning after he drove across the USA on 22 gallons of water. His secret died with him.

Another reader, Allen Miller, Klamath Falls, Oregon said, “You really should do some research on “abiotic oil.” Peak oil is a myth and an outright lie. I have been studying this for years. The Russians proved that if you drill deep enough you can find oil anywhere on the planet. Oil is made deep in the Earth and percolates up.”

If you investigate www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net, you may educate yourself beyond the rhetoric, myth and hearsay. We teeter on the edge of an abyss of profound and inevitable energy dilemmas. We will experience massive dislocation as we press against all resources. The definite lack of water will become our Waterloo more than oil.

In Chapter $12 a gallon, “The tide of gasoline prices will shift Americans from the burbs to the cities,” Steiner said. “If civilization is to march forward, however, a couple of acres simply won’t be an accessible or realistic part of most Americans’ lives, nor, with high energy costs, will a huge house and yard be a desirable way to live. Our cities will regroup, renew and grow denser.”

That, in my experience, creates a kind of urban mass insanity stemming from compacting human beings into 10 million person cages not built into our DNA makeup. If you look at our major cities today, you see the highest forms of aberrant behavior, huge police forces, endless mass psychosis, murders, violence and other problems. Steiner may be too optimistic!

At Chapter $14, small towns will take revenge on big box stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s.

“The sound of Wal-Mart falling will be one that all of us hear,” Steiner said. “Wal-Mart tallies $400 billion annually. It employs 2.1 million people. About 80 percent of Wal-Mart’s suppliers are from China. The makers of the cheapest stuff, the commodity junk, such as pens, clothes and house wares, will be hardest hit. Only the U.S. can inhale that much junk. In the U.S., 10,000 ghost boxes will serve as giant rotting gravestones for the era of mass globalization and merchandising. ‘Made in China’ won’t be the ubiquitous moniker marking our goods that it is now.”

At or before $14 gallon, plastics will change from oil to corn. We will develop biodegradable plastics from corn that will return ecological balance to the world.

In Chapter $16, “Many American farms faced with high gasoline costs will go local again,” Steiner said. “Rising gas prices will be the incorrigible gorilla that trashes our complex weave of food producers, shippers and wholesalers, ultimately changing the equation for good at $16 per gallon. Ferrying Central California’s bounty to New York will be economically unsavory.”

As Americans build hot houses, vegetables will grow and sell locally. Instead of Monsanto pouring herbicides, pesticides and damaging fertilizer all over our food, you can expect healthier produce. Personally, I think Monsanto, makers of the weed killer “Roundup”, should spray it over themselves for ultimate extinction! Ah, but I digress!

In Chapter $18, hang on to your seat belts! “The advent of a true high-speed train network in America will be the ultimate sign that our world has adapted to oil’s scarcity. Its existence would signal our country’s collective recognition that the world has changed forever according to energy’s terms.”

What will cause trains to become the dominant mode of long distance transport? You guessed it! The inevitable price of gasoline at $18 a gallon! “Stagnant societies tend to stay stagnated; vibrant ones adjust, adapt and move forward,” Steiner said. “We’ll see trains flying toward their destinations at 215 miles per hour.”

IT TAKES A CRISIS TO MAKE AMERICANS CHANGE

U.S. House member, Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), said, “If you wait until you’re in a crisis, your options are limited.”

“It will take a panoply of reasons why it will take a very high price per gallon to change how our government funnels our transportation dollars,” Steiner said. “The Pentagon will not cease to be a force in the world with gas priced at $18…that’s why the military is actually ahead of many other sectors of the government when it comes to looking toward a future of high gas prices.”

“Our energy future: hydro aperitif, wind appetizer, nuclear entrée,” said Steiner. “Electricity will become the fuel of choice.”

Steiner talks of the consequences of burning coal. Humans dump 33 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year—causing horrific damage as we acidify our soils and oceans. We cannot continue that kind of environmental destruction.

In the final analysis, Steiner promotes nuclear as the safest, cleanest and most abundant energy source.

At the book’s end, Steiner creates a future world where ‘Bill citizen’ doesn’t own a car, but travels by train everywhere in the USA. Airplanes faded from the skies years ago. He boards nuclear powered ships for vacations in Europe. He monitors his electrical usage. He eats foods grown locally. Only one of his friends owns an electric car, but it proves expensive on toll roads. He finds life less hectic and more fulfilling at slower speeds.

I found this book highly informative, well-written and extensively researched. No question our civilization heads into a sobering, if not worrisome future. What we face will not be a cake walk! To compound our eventual transition to electrical mass transport and nuclear power, Steiner omitted one factor in his ‘rosy’ view of the future. The United States expects to add 100 million people by 2035. Another 100 million on top of that by 2065 and another 100 million on top of that before the turn of the century! It’s that one factor that will magnify other shortages other than oil: water and resources. That 300 million added Americans will magnify environmental destruction, climate destabilization and a host of calamities already devastating China and India.

It will be interesting to see when an American author will write the progressive calamities titled Chapter 100 million more Americans; Chapter 200 million more Americans; Chapter 300 million more Americans. For your information, one writer has written such a book: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans by Frosty Wooldridge. Obtain a copy: 1 888 280 7715

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