9/2/02
9:47:22 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Rescuers hunt for storm victims in South Korean resort - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17560/story.htm
Brazil says summit considers boosting nuclear power - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17555/story.htm
Schroeder calls energy conference in Germany - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17556/story.htm
Sound of conflict blurs Earth Summit rhetoric - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17557/story.htm
Ministers resume negotiations at Earth Summit - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17558/story.htm
OPEC said blocking Summit "green" energy goal - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17559/story.htm
Plain talking children refresh wordy Earth Summit - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17561/story.htm
Rio Summit's children plead for a better world - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17563/story.htm
INTERVIEW - WFP running out of distributable food in Zambia - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17565/story.htm
Kyoto climate goals are not enough, Blair says - MOZAMBIQUE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17554/story.htm
Japan looks to help Africa with revolutionary rice - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17564/story.htm
Toyota, Nissan to cooperate on hybrid systems - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17566/story.htm
Protest as French town stages bullfight - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17553/story.htm
SPP seeks to calm greenhouse concerns - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17552/story.htm
Rothschild, E3 launch carbon credit investment fund - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17562/story.htm
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS PICTURES:
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Greenpeace Ship Rainbow Warrior Leads a Peacefull Protest in Dublin Bay http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17569
INDIA: Greenpeace Activists Demonstrate Against Dow Chemical in Bombay http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17567
SOUTH AFRICA: A Protestor Demonstrates Against Animal Rights Abuses in Zimbabwe
http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17568
9/2/02
9:37:14 PM
SciTech Daily Review
Eyes write: Typing without a keyboard just got faster and easier
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020819/020819-5.html
DNA profiling promises to get to root of arboreal disputes
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=328098
Nanoantennas made up of tiny wires and spheres could yield super sensors
http://www.technologyreview.com/offthewire/3001_2282002_3.asp
Better living through french fries -- is biodiesel the fuel of the future?
http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/clifford082202.asp
A "universal virtual computer" may help machines of the future decode digital files from the past (registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/technology/circuits/29NEXT.html
At the end of its first week the World Summit is teetering on the brink of failure, with 14 key issues still in dispute and tempers beginning to fray
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992744
Ignore the recommended caffeine intake, calorie consumption and exercise time -- common sense is better than a calculator
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DA04.htm
9/2/02
8:27:54 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Wisconsin governor wants USDA to expand deer tests - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17527/story.htm
Biotech fears endanger starving Africans - USDA - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17538/story.htm
California adds wind power farm to electricity grid - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17531/story.htm
Suburban sprawl blocks water, worsens US drought - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17528/story.htm
US summertime smog may double in 2002 - green group - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17525/story.htm
Asarco offers environmental proposal on US plants - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17521/story.htm
UK's Bizzenergy plans to build six wind farms - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17533/story.htm
Surfers gather in UK for anti-pollution festival - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17523/story.htm
UK farmers get green light for GM rapeseed trials - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17539/story.htm
Data bank compiled to help endangered wildlife - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17544/story.htm
Rio Summit's children plead for a better world - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17535/story.htm
"Lettuce lady" dresses NOT to kill at Earth Summit - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17540/story.htm
Earth Summit faces protests over rich/ poor divide - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17545/story.htm
Zimbabwe rules out GM food aid, won't talk to US - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17537/story.htm
Business group pushes green guidelines at Summit - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17536/story.htm
UK assailed at summit for downplaying green agenda - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17541/story.htm
Canada sits on fence over Kyoto climate pact - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17546/story.htm
Embattled US goes on offensive at Earth Summit - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17532/story.htm
Crunch time nears for Earth Summit accord - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17520/story.htm
Earth Summit delegates not clearing up own mess - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17530/story.htm
Earth summit agrees Kyoto compromise - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17529/story.htm
Farming to feed hungry need not hurt nature - expert - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17524/story.htm
Bank plan to burn less oil rig gas may help poor - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17522/story.htm
FACTBOX - Earth Summit seeks to promote renewable energy - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17534/story.htm
Russia should scrap Kyoto pact, advisers say - RUSSIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17526/story.htm
Carbon dioxide? Norway can't get enough - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17543/story.htm
Germany's opposition says would amend recycling law - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17542/story.htm
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS PICTURES:
SOUTH AFRICA: Australian and US Environmental Group Challenge their Leaders at Earth Summit http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17551
BANGLADESH: Three-Wheelers Cueue Up For Registration http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17547
SOUTH AFRICA: Activist Lisa Franzetta Gives Out Vegetarian Food http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17548
CHINA: Three Gorges Dam Project Under Construction in Yichang http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17549
UK: WWF Member Wearing a Mask of US President Bush Huggs the Ball in the Shape of Earth in Johannesburg http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17550
9/1/02
4:45:09 PM
LOVE IS THE ANSWER
9/1/02
4:41:26 PM
Ohio Atomic Plant Is Investigated Over Acid Leak
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
This article talks about boric acid almost eating through a reactor head at the David-Besse plant in Toledo.
Please get a message to David Lochbaum (can't find an email for him right now) that I think that it is more likely to be hydrofluoroboric acid, which might explain the reluctance of authorities to provide details of the investigation.
The degree of corrosion indicated in the article strongly suggests the presence of hydrofluoroboric acid - the stuff will eat through most anything.
Check out the following sites.
http://www.srs.gov/general/scitech/stcg/Needs/01-5048.htm
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~hagerp/FFhybrid.html
George Glasser
http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/pollution.htm
9/1/02
4:38:24 PM
CANADIAN TELEVISION INDICTS BUSH / CIA IN 9-11 TERROR COMPLICITY (Real Player Video):
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/mayday/mediafile.ram
BBC TELEVISION INDICTS BUSH / CIA IN 9-11 TERROR COMPLICITY (Real Player Video)::
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram
Below is an interview excerpt on the 9-11 widow who is DEMANDING ANSWERS FROM BUSH about 9-11. The media has almost completely ignored her struggle. Demand the media follow Vanity Fair and Donahue's lead in "LISTENING" to this woman's concerns, and letting America hear her. They only USE 9-11 victims to help Bush war machine. [Media email addresses below article] URGE MANY OTHERS TO CONTACT THEM AS WELL.
KRISTEN [Kristen Breitweiser, one of 3 Middletown, New Jersey 9-11 widows interviewed in Vanity Fair's September, 2002 issue.]
[Excerpt from Page 282 of Vanity Fair, September, 2002, issue] By mid-April Kristen had connected with new blood - two live wire widows from the East Brunswick area - to try to pull off a rally on Capitol Hill demanding a full, independent investigation of the failures of 9/11. Kristen was back in full battle mode.
"How could there be such a colossal, systemic, utter failure that morning?" she fumed to me. "Between the F.A.A., the N.S.A. (National Security Agency), the C.I.A., the Secret Service, the F.B.I., I don't understand it. Two things really hang me up. There is no possible way that four planes could be simultaneously hijacked above the United States and no one know about it until they hit the buildings. And I don't understand how George Bush went in and spoke to second-graders when he knew that the first plane had hit the first tower. He was the commander in chief of the United States of America. We were clearly under attack, and he continues to read to second-graders?"
. . . "All planes were supposed to be grounded [after attacks on the W.T.C.]. So, you've got two planes left up in the air that aren't accounted for, and you're telling me the F.A.A. has no idea where they're going and that one is allowed to crash into the Pentagon? Like, I don't understand why normal American citizens don't find this, like, mildly disturbing. We spend billions of dollars on national defense for intelligence."
At least $30 billion, I interject [the interviewer interjects].
"Let me finish. You think I was a thorn with Ken Feinberg? Like, I haven't even begun."
[Earlier on Donahue, Kristen had told Donahue that she and other widows had had to beg the government for an investigation into 9-11, and she thought it was disgusting.]
CANADIAN TELEVISION INDICTS BUSH / CIA IN 9-11 TERROR COMPLICITY (Real Player Video):
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/mayday/mediafile.ram
BBC TELEVISION INDICTS BUSH / CIA IN 9-11 TERROR COMPLICITY (Real Player Video)::
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram
9/1/02
4:33:51 PM
History 101 - The Dream Is Dead
by John Brand, D.Min., J.D. YellowTimes.org Columnist, August 28, 2002
"One age misunderstands another; and an age without vision misunderstands all others in its own nasty way." - Ludwig Wittgenstein
"When the legends die, the dreams end. When the dreams end, there is no more greatness." - T.S. Eliot
America's problems, screaming at us from the headlines of the daily papers, are endless. What is our country's underlying disease? Is it terrorism? Is it our balance of trade deficit running into the billions? Is it a President who does not even think twice about shredding the Bill of Rights? Is it the millions upon millions whose credit card debts are staggering? Is it corporate executives who have no sense of morality? Is it the declining stock market?
None of the above are the substantive issues confronting our nation. They are merely symptomatic of our fundamental disorder. Our President desires to take our nation into a senseless war. It seems that neither he nor his clones have any real ideas about the disastrous consequences of such a venture. Yet, not even this Vietnam-like insanity is our basic problem. What is it then?
The vast majority of the people, those who govern and those who are governed, have no majestic visions of the potentials of our nation. We no longer dream the dream. We have lost the splendor of seeing our nation as a bastion of freedom. We have forfeited our inheritance of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
We crave money, power, and authority - not to see how we can use money, power, and authority to make this a great nation. No, we see these forces as ends in themselves. They have become the gods at whose feet we worship.
The love of money does seem to be the root of much evil. In 1936,when our nation was still in the midst of a backbreaking depression, President Roosevelt, in a speech to Congress, January 3, 1936 said, "We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed." Can any less be said today? The moral fiber sustaining our Ship of State is battered by the whirlwinds of avarice. The fabric of national decency is tattered and torn by the storms of a senseless - a neurotic - thrust for more and more filthy lucre in the hand of a few. Men and women possessing no sense of self-worth seek to find meaning for themselves in the size of their investment portfolios and their bank accounts. Lacking that sense of personal meaning and dignity stemming from the inner resources of one's own character, these misguided blind guides feel that too much is never enough. And so they cook books, rob millions of their investments, circumvent payment of taxes in an effort to compensate for the integrity lacking in their own personal essence. America, indeed, has inherited the evil of entrenched greed.
President Washington wrote to the President of Congress on August 16, 1777, "This matter I allude to is the exorbitant price exacted by the merchants and vendors of goods for every necessary they dispose of. I am sensible the trouble and risk in importing give the adventurers a right to a generous price, and that such, from a motive of policy should be paid but yet I cannot conceive that they, in direct violation of every principle of generosity, or reason and of justice, should be allowed, if it is possible to restrain 'em, to avail themselves of the difficulties of the times, and to amass fortunes upon the public ruin."
Can you imagine that many of those now elected to high offices or appointed to the Supreme Court would give their lives fighting for freedom for their fellow countrymen? Can you imagine that many corporate executives would pledge their fortunes to achieve liberty in the land? Can you imagine that many religious leaders -whose names are household words ö would put their honor on the line for the cause of unalienable rights? I cannot imagine that that would happen today.
Thomas Paine in "The Crisis Papers," 1783, wrote, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of man . . . are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of the world."
I admit I had to go to Webster to find out just what "cavilings" means. One definition is to be occupied with trivial matters. That, I believe, states our problems. Our controlling alphas are occupied with matters that to our Founding Fathers would appear petty and inconsequential. They would turn over in their graves were they to see grown businessmen worrying more about the daily value of their company's stock then providing goods and services at a fair price. They would condemn politicians selling their votes to PACs supporting them. They would throw up their hands in horror as they witness our nation seeking to impose its will on the world. Making money, the dirty side of politics, forcing others to comply with our ideas, are insignificant concerns when placed alongside the great ideals of liberty and justice.
The powers driving the Fathers to sacrifice their lives, fortunes, and honor in order to attain liberty were a profound sense of liberation from tyranny based upon the wisdom of the ages. The dream to be free is rooted and grounded in a particular understanding about the dignity of human beings. This certainly is not to claim that our forefathers had the desire to bring freedom to all living in the Colonies. Blacks, American Indians, and women were excluded from the dream. That failure stands as a permanent black mark in the annals of our nation. Yet, even with this fundamental error of judgment, the passion for freedom - at least for their fellows - sounded a clarion note throughout the world. It was an expression - an action - resonating from deep within the spirit, the heart. It is great testimony to the wisdom of the Fathers that by writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights they enabled minorities in later generations to attain their freedom. The dream marched on!
And that desire, that ideal, that transcendent value of liberty sustained the Fathers in the bitter circumstances at Valley Forge. Ideas, hopes, and beliefs in the rights won at Runnymede surged through their veins. Whatever actions ensued were the consequences of the commitment to those fundamental values. The sense of "becoming" and not of "having become" was the wind in the sails of the Ship of State. We were in the processes - on the road - of reaching toward the ideal that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." There was never any indication that by declaring liberty throughout the land that the implementation of these ideals had already been accomplished.
And not only had they not been attained then - they are not a fact today. What then is the difference between the mental perception of the Fathers and our own? The Fathers believed that their ideals were becoming. We believe that we are a nation that has already become! When a civilization's ethos implies that it has become - has arrived, has achieved - then dreams fade into dogmatism. Horizons disappear and become boundaries. Visions vanish and doctrine dominates.
Wisdom has given way to feverish activity. We embrace the belief that America has fulfilled its dream. And so we seek to impose our assumed superiority on the rest of the world. Not only that, the dogmatic leaders of our nation try to impose their will on everyone within the nation. We mistakenly assume that flexing our muscle, imposing our will on one and all, dispatching military forces all over the globe, is evidence of the assumption that our destiny has been fulfilled.
No longer do "old man dream dreams, and young men see visions." (Joel 2:28) Old men try to force everyone into the mold of their own self-image. Young men, devoid of visions, organize dot-coms. Vision has been replaced with sheer activity. The organic, the flowing, the growing, and the vital heartbeat have been replaced with the mechanical, the numbers, the systems, and the cold harshness of laws. There is no sense of history only a sense of conquest. There is no sense of mobility, of change, of transformation, and of nurture of the humane spirit. Metamorphosis has ceased. All effort, all attention, all resources are devoted to spreading a lifeless form. The present point, the immediate needs, become all consuming. The dream has died.
There is much activity but little wisdom. There is much physical exertion but little insight. When there are no dreams, there is no greatness. And all the grubbing has gone for nothing. What does the future hold for a nation so degenerate that profits are more important than people, money more important than morals, stock options more important than a social conscience?
Oswald Spengler paints the picture for us in his monumental work, <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195066340/yellowtimes-20>"The Decline of the West." Spengler proposed that once a people become strong enough to form a state, they develop a "culture." A culture is driven by moral values and ethical concerns. A culture is bursting with creativity, with a sense of becoming, but never with the feeling that it has become. In the midst of this excitement of nurturing a tender plant, there comes a time when the interests of the culture shift from conceptual values to materialistic benefits. Spengler calls that state a "civilization." He describes the last days of Rome when it had degenerated into a mere civilization and had ceased being a culture with these words.
"Romans were barbarians who did not precede but closed a great development. Unspiritual, unphilosophical, devoid of art, clannish to the point of brutality, aiming relentlessly at tangible success, they stand between the Hellenic culture and nothingness." The fall of Rome ushered in 400 years of Dark Ages throughout Europe. Spengler continues by saying that the Greek soul had given way to Roman intellect and that this is the difference between a culture and a civilization. "Again and again there appears this type of strong-minded, completely non-metaphysical man and in the hands of this type lies the intellectual and material destiny of each and every 'late' period." Spengler wrote this in 1917. How could he foresee the pervasive deadening force of materialism destroying our nation?
Jefferson's simple words, "The whole of government consists in the art of being honest" have been lost in the insane striving for personal aggrandizement and power. Our Vice President will not reveal any details of the group that met to discuss an energy plan for the United States. It does not take an Einstein to realize that we are dependent on foreign oil. Alternative sources of energy are all around us. Thermal heat, the solar atomic furnace, blowing winds, motions of tides and waves contain enough energy to drive our world until the sun fails to shine - possibly four to six billion years into the future. But the commitment of our leaders is to oil and gas. And so we are engaged in wars, in subversive activities, in effective economic suicide and continue chanting the oil and gas mantra. I do not know the place or the time when so many of our leaders had their blood replaced with sour crude now surging through their veins. They do not think of energy as being the lifeblood of a nation. They only think, oil, oil, and more oil.
A nation that has traded its birth right for stock portfolios and bank accounts has lost its thrust to search for avenues of greatness. It can no loner support differing points of view, critiques of its programs, and objections to its expansionary goals. These words taken from a letter Jefferson wrote to Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1800 are incised on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial. "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Jefferson had no tolerance for the suppression of anyone's opinion. To his nephew Peter Carr he wrote in a letter dated August 10, 1787, "Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfold fear."
Now we have members of our President's staff suggesting that criticism of any program, any idea, or any law stemming from the President's brow is an unpatriotic act. This man and most of his entourage, by inference, claim to possess absolute truth about all things. Unilaterally he declared international accords null and void. He forced through Congress a bill giving him unlimited trading powers. He proclaimed that we are at war but only Congress can declare war. The word on the street is that if anyone dares to oppose the President, the challenger is unpatriotic.
Free exchange of ideas concerning their dogmas is not tolerated. They are so impressed about the absolute correctness in their beliefs and actions that they seek to institute a national network of informers. The UPS or FedEx deliveryman, the postman on his or her appointed rounds, or a neighbor are encouraged to report miscreants to the Vaterland Security Office. The dream is dead.
President Eisenhower speaking at the Columbia University bicentennial dinner on May 31, 1954, said, "Without exhaustive debate, even heated debate, of ideas and programs, free government would weaken and wither. But if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that every individual or party that takes issue with our own convictions is necessarily wicked or treasonous, then, indeed, we are approaching the end of freedom's road."
Professor Marvin Olasky, School of Journalism, The University of Texas, is the author of the program embraced by President Bush making religion a partner with government. To Baron von Humboldt in 1813, Jefferson wrote, "History, I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." And to C. Clay in 1815, Jefferson wrote, "This loathsome combination of Church and State." And yet it is such a loathsome combination that Bush et al seek to impose upon our nation.
The destructive symptoms in our society are not primarily the result of foreign agents or terrorists. Forsaken ideals and lost expectations generate the destructive miasma of chaos in the land. In vain do we look for healing balms to the gods of Mammon, the PACs, and international entanglements.
The dream is dead! That is America's problem. All else is a nightmare resulting from the death of the dream. ___
John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of Shaking the Foundations
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/075961041X/yellowtimes-20
Source: http://www.rense.com/general28/sdhi.htm
9/1/02
4:29:22 PM
"The Secret Sharers: The CIA, the Bush Gang and the Killing of Frank Olson"
by Chris Floyd - Published by CounterPunch - August 28, 2002
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd0828.html
9/1/02
4:26:31 PM
'UN Chief Warns US Over Iraq'
By John Lloyd in Kabul
Published in the Financial Times on August 28, 2002
The head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan warned the US on Wednesday that it faced rising Afghan anger at its troops' presence in the region.
Lakhdar Brahimi, a highly respected diplomat and veteran UN troubleshooter, said the US-led coalition forces hunting al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan "are realising they must be more careful. The Americans are very much aware of how much anger there is against them."
Afghan frustration at the US grew after the discovery of mass graves near Sherbeghan prison, which may contain bodies of prisoners allegedly murdered by the Northern Alliance after capture. The prison was run by the Alliance, a close ally of the US in the war against terrorism.
The UN has led its own investigation but Mr Brahimi accused his predecessor, Francesc Vendrell, now the European Commission's special representative in Afghanistan, of "addressing the gallery" in calling for punishment for those who had perpetrated the alleged murders.
In a separate interview, however, Mr Vendrell said: "There must be an end to this culture of impunity which has plagued the society for 23 years."
On the separate issue of a possible US military strike on Iraq, Mr Brahimi said Washington should first gain UN assent before it could launch an attack on Iraq.
Mr Brahimi voiced deep concern at US plans for unseating the regime of Saddam Hussein.
He said: "If you were so certain in helping humanity you shouldn't have any problem in going to the UN and getting assent.
"If you want to intervene in Iraq, for example, you shouldn't have a problem in coming and getting support."
Mr Brahimi insisted the UN "must not be trampled on. It's an extremely useful instrument. It's not perfect - but it's the only instrument we have and we must use it in the best way possible."
Mr Brahimi's comments come in the wake of Monday's speech by Dick Cheney, US vice-president, giving strong support for an attack on Iraq.
9/1/02
4:25:20 PM
Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas
By Patrick E. Tyler - The New York Times - August 18, 2002
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.
Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition that they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter's questions about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq's use of gas in that conflict is repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for "regime change" in Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/international/middleeast/18CHEM.html
9/1/02
4:23:03 PM
Who Are The Terrorists?
Want another good reason not to attack Iraq? "Massacre at Mazar" is a film with testimonies accusing US of war crimes, New film accuses US of war crimes
Kate Connolly in Berlin and Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, June 13, 2002
A former chairman of Amnesty International yesterday called for an independent investigation into claims that US troops tortured Taliban prisoners and assisted in the disappearance of thousands of others in the war in Afghanistan.
Andrew McEntee said that "very credible evidence" in a British documentary film needed to be investigated. He was speaking after the first showing in Berlin of the film, Massacre at Mazar.
"This film raises questions that will not go away," said Mr McEntee, who led Amnesty International UK in the 1990s and is now an international human rights lawyer.
The documentary describes how thousands of Taliban troops were rounded up after the battle of Kunduz in late November and transported in sealed shipping containers to Sheberghan prison, a jail then under US control in northwestern Afghanistan.
The film alleges that large numbers of the prisoners died during the journey. US troops suggested the drivers take the bodies out into the desert at Dasht-i-Leili for burial. Two men said they were forced to drive hundreds of Taliban, many of whom were still alive, into the desert, and said that the living were shot. Footage showed large areas of compact red sand dotted with the traces of bones, including jaw bones, and pieces of clothing.
The filmmakers claim that thousands of Afghans, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and Tajiks may now be buried at the mass grave. UN and human rights officials have found the grave but have not estimated the number it contains. Only 15 bodies have been excavated.
A Pentagon spokesman last night denied the allegations: "US Central Command looked into it a few months ago, when allegations first surfaced when there were graves discovered in the area of Sherberghan prison. They looked into it and did not substantiate any knowledge, presence or participation of US service members."
The film's six witnesses have agreed to give evidence at any international war crimes tribunal.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,736324,00.html
9/1/02
4:13:31 PM
Missile Defense Fraud Double-Take
by Al Martin
The most recent Department of Defense fraud was a test in which a missile was allegedly destroyed by another missile over the Pacific.
A July 13 release by the Department of Defense claimed that this so-called ABM test has been declared a success.
The videotape, released to the media and shown on CNN and other networks, looks suspiciously similar to the admittedly dummied-up September 1985 Department of Defense videotape showing another supposedly successful interception of a ballistic missile under the former ASAT Program, the Anti-Satellite Ballistic Missile Program.
As a matter of fact, the videotapes are exactly the same.
How do I know? Not only do I remember it, but I have a hard copy printout. Having just compared it to the tape seen on CNN, it looks exactly the same. The only thing that's changed is the video-date readout at the bottom.
This latest "successful test" is another low-cost deception from the US Department of Defense.
I really don't blame them, though. They spend a lot of money dummying up the first test. It was later estimated by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) that the Department of Defense spent $43 million to dummy up this test. It actually cost a lot of money to do it the right way.
This latest fraud, however, is a very cost-effective deception.
You could call it Star War Fraud Redux. Now it's packaged up under the new ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) expenditures. But it was exactly the same tape they had shown before in 1985 -- a test which the Department of Defense later admitted was dummied up in an effort to continue congressional appropriations for Star Wars expenditures.
In that time frame (at the end of 1985), the Democrats in Congress were starting to get suspicious of the enormous Star Wars spending. This Star Wars spending peaked in 1986, and then it was sharply ratcheted down.
To put it in historical context, the GAO Report of 1988 stated that of the $531 billion spent by the Department of Defense from 1982 to 1988 under the guise of developing Star Wars projects, over 50 % of the money could not be accounted for.
In 1989, FARCO (Foreign Asset Recovery Control Office) revealed that during the peak years of expenditures on Star Wars programs (1985-1986), there was an enormous increase in the opening of offshore accounts by senior Reagan-Bush officials, including senior military officers and others closely connected to the Reagan Bush Regime, particularly in the defense industry.
That's one of the mandates of FARCO - to maintain an account of the flow of US monies as to foreign deposits.
According to a syndicated Newhouse report, current Department of Defense fraud is even worse than anyone can imagine. "For fiscal year 1999, the Pentagon Inspector General reported $2.3 trillion worth of untraceable accounting entries."
"For fiscal year 2000, auditors or the Pentagon's inspector General's Office found $1.1 trillion in bookkeeping entries that could not be tracked or justified," (Story - http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1a061301.html )
This was barely a minor blip in the news.
Originally, in the 1980s, it was the late Senator John Tower who was going to blow the whistle on the Star Wars Defense Fraud. He had planned to do so, and in fact he had documents regarding massive Department of Defense fraud involving the Star Wars program. He was carrying it in his high-security metal briefcase -- when his plane crashed.
The FAA still lists this as a "suspicious plane crash." It happened outside of Brunswick, Georgia. It should also be noted that the briefcase was never recovered after he crash The NTSB stated that they could not find the briefcase.
This is the Famous Briefcase Incident [See Chapter 9 of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider" by Al Martin]*
Peggy Tower, his daughter, complained and asked about the briefcase's whereabouts, after she was informed by famed congressional investigator Tom Strzemienski.
Then an investigator for Charlie Rose, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, Strzemienski was collaterally investigating the incident of the so-called "C130 Aircraft Diversion" from the US Forestry Service. He was trying to solve the problem -- why were all these C130s from the forestry department suddenly winding up in Libya?
He mentioned the type of documents her father was carrying to Peggy.
Subsequent to this event, in 1989, the Department of Defense did in fact return Senator Tower's battered briefcase to Peggy. It was still locked, by the way. When she had it opened, there were no documents inside.
This was the incident when the FAA inspectors showed up at the airport in Brunswick, Georgia. Later it was revealed that the men were not from the FAA, but were in fact from the Department of Defense. They were simply bearing FAA inspectors' identification badges.
Today the new ABM program is nothing more than a continuation of the old fraud of the Star Wars program.
The Al Martin Raw website predicts, as Senator Robert Byrd has already intimated, that five years from now, it will be discovered that fresh hundreds-of-billions of dollars in defense expenditures on the ABM Program are again unaccounted for -- disappearing into shadowy Republican-connected offshore accounts and institutions.
The ongoing frauds are so rampant and egregious that even the so-called watchdogs of the Department of Defense, the Pentagon Inspector General's Office has been publicly caught redhanded.
"Defense Department's inspector general's office is now under investigation for allegedly recreating financial records for an audit shortly before the documents were reviewed by an outside auditor."
"As described by an internal Pentagon report, the apparent fabrication required a dozen staffers to work long hours including overtime at a personnel cost of $63,000."
See "Who shall inspect the inspectors general?"
http://www.coxnews.com/washingtonbureau/staff/malone/061301IG-FRAUD13.html
Remember - it costs a lot to commit serious fraud.
The Pentagon should actually be commended for recycling their old Star Wars Fraud video as their latest so-called "successful" ABM missile defense test.
After all, a really good fraud deserves a double-take.
Source: http://www.almartinraw.com/column29.html
9/1/02
4:11:20 PM
Big business accused of hijacking Earth Summit
The UN World Summit is in danger of being hijacked by major corporations and a secret deal between the European Union and the United States, a coalition of non-profit organizations has charged. "What we are seeing is quite literally a corporate takeover of this process. So far corporate accountability has been dropped from the implementation text at the summit," Daniel Mittler, spokesman for Friends of the Earth International warned at a Press conference. "Key negotiations in Johannesburg are in danger of being stitched up by a controversial deal struck between US trade officials and trade mandarins in the EU Commission," Oxfam and the World Wide Fund for Nature added in a statement.
For the complete article in the New Straits Times [Malaysia], 28 August 2002, see:
http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/World/20020828081402/Article/
9/1/02
3:50:04 PM
Saving The Planet - Johannesburg Politics
by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde Diplomatique
JOHANNESBURG will host the world summit on sustainable development from 26 August to 4 September - an event of great importance, the biggest gathering of government leaders and heads of state in a decade, 60,000 people from more than 180 countries. The aim is to find answers to humanity's most pressing problems: how to save the environment, eradicate poverty, save our planet.
The planet is in a sorry state. The diagnosis of its ills was apparent a decade ago at the first earth summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Alarm bells rang: global warming was a fact; world supplies of drinking water were running out; forests were disappearing; many species were en route to extinction; and poverty was destroying the lives of more than 1bn of our fellow humans.
The world's leaders agreed that "the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialised countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalances". They adopted two conventions, one on climate change and one on biodiversity, as well as the plan known as Agenda 21, to promote sustainable development worldwide.
The idea of sustainability is simple: development is sustainable if future generations inherit a quality of environment at least equal to that inherited by their predecessors. Sustainable development presupposes the application of three principles: the precautionary principle, adopting a preventive rather than remedial approach; the principle of solidarity between all peoples of the world and between the present generation and those to come; and the principle of people participation in decision-making.
In many areas things have not improved in 10 years. They have got worse. With the acceleration of free-market globalisation, the "unsustainable pattern of consumption and production" has become even more entrenched. Social inequality is now at levels not seen since the times of the pharaohs. The fortunes of the world's three richest individuals now exceed the total wealth of the inhabitants of its 48 poorest countries. The ecological destruction of the biosphere by the rich countries has also accelerated.
Although the 30 most developed countries represent only 20% of world population, they produce and consume 85% of synthetic chemical products, 80% of non-renewable energy and 40% of drinking water. And their emissions of greenhouse gases per inhabitant are 10 times greater than those of the countries of the South.
During the past decade emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, increased by 9%. In the United States, the leading polluter, the figure increased by 18%. More than a billion people still do not have access to drinkable water, and almost 3bn (half of humanity) have only water of inferior quality. Thirty thousand people die every day as a result of drinking this polluted water - 10 times the number killed in the attacks of 11 September. The devastation of forests continues; 17m hectares disappear each year - an area four times the size of Switzerland. And since there are fewer and fewer trees to absorb the carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect and global warming worsen. More animal species are being eliminated - 13% of all bird species have gone, 25% of mammals, 34% of fish, a mass extinction the planet has not seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
The delegates who will gather for the summit travel with great hopes. But these will come to nothing if national egotism, the fetishism of growth, the logic of the market and the law of profit are allowed to take over. That was what happened during the preparatory conference in Bali in June. As a result it was unable to adopt a plan of action for sustainable development and ended in stalemate.
To save the planet it is imperative that the powerful nations meeting in Johannesburg commit themselves on at least seven key issues: an international programme for renewable energy, prioritising energy access for the South; undertakings on access to and supply of clean drinking water, aiming to reduce by the year 2015 the number of people who still lack this basic right; measures to protect forests, as already agreed in the biodiversity convention adopted in Rio in 1992; the establishment of juridical frameworks to make companies answerable for their ecological impact, and reaffirming the precautionary principle as the governing principle of all commercial activity; initiatives to modify the rules of the World Trade Organisation in the light of United Nations principles for the protection of ecosystems, and the standards of the International Labour Organisation; a commitment by developed countries to contribute at least 0.7% of their wealth to development aid; binding recommendations to wipe out the debt of the poorest countries.
By destroying the natural world mankind has been making planet Earth less viable as a place to live. There are processes under way that may lead to environmental catastrophe. The Johannesburg summit must find ways to reverse them. This is the challenge that we face at the start of the 21st century. Otherwise we may find that the human race is threatened with extinction.
Translated by Ed Emery
http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/08/01edito?var_s=%5C%27saving+the+planet%5C%27
9/1/02
3:46:39 PM
Nico Haupt
GROUND ZERO Forum NYC
http://forums.delphiforums.com/ground_zero2001
Dear friends, dear 911widows, dear fire fighters
I know the next two weeks will be a tough time.
It will be difficult to find the best way to respect all the feelings of the victims relatives, but also to find the right tone, probably including this email as well.
I can't express how i feel these days, but i still want answers and the truth. I know many of you researched on your own and wondered why your results haven't been addressed in public yet.
We wanna continue changing that.
Here are the most important events GZ support right now:
1) Shadowgovernment.info has finished a video remix of President Bush at the Booker Elementary School, doing nothing for 20-25 minutes, while he was knowing what was going on in NYC. This video will be soon distributed by
2) GROUND ZERO Forum will speak on US Radio on Sep1st. It's also a live radio stream on
http://www.businesstalkradio.net
Businesstalkradio is mirrored on 70 stations across the US.
The first show will be broadcasted and live streamed on the net at 5AM EST (Sep 1st).
It will be later on 50,000 watt
WWKB 1520 Buffalo
WFAS 1230 Westchester County NYC
WMET 1150 Washington/Baltimore
(These are the major New York stations)
The interview be repeated Sept 9.
My latest article reached 350.000 downloads at least worldwide. It was first mirrored on
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00068.htm
(911- The final dots Pt.2 -Top 20 LIHOP- Suspects? )
Please check out http://www.unansweredquestions.org They will update their latest infos about their next event in NYC on September 7th.
UQ had their first succesful press conference in June 2001 in Washington together with many represantatives of 911-widow group. The live broadcast of C|Span was cancelled on the last minute
Best to all of you
Nico Haupt, NY
9/1/02
3:23:47 PM
George W. Bush, Meet Maurice Strong
by John Passacantando, AlterNet August 27, 2002
The study of leadership is a great American obsession. We make rich men and women out of the historians who can teach us something new about those who led us in crisis or into new eras. Recent biographies have given us insight into Teddy Roosevelt, John Adams, Harry Truman and Thomas Jefferson.
Now look at the profiles of two modern leaders, George W. Bush and Maurice Strong, two men with backgrounds in the energy industry whose emerging legacies look like a Hollywood caricature of good vs. evil.
The most interesting background on Bush is the story of his oil company, Harken, which was bailed out at every turn by Poppa Bush's friends, using all the same financial techniques that are now starting to land CEOs in jail. Fortunately he didn't work on as large a scale as the folks at Enron or WorldCom, so fewer people got hurt.
Then W. came to Washington and has run an agenda to enrich people just like himself. He put in a weak SEC chairman so that nobody would bother his fellow CEOs taking shortcuts. He drove tax cuts for the wealthy with a reckless disregard for the finances of the United States, and worst of all, he tried to protect his oil cronies by pulling the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to stop global warming. So now we've got the crony capitalist tool in the White House and ExxonMobil driving U.S. energy policy.
Now for the other former energy industry executive-turned-world leader, Maurice Strong. Strong came to prominence as one of Canada's business chieftains, rising to the top of several major Canadian power companies. He then took a wild turn into the diplomatic world and went to the United Nations as an undersecretary-general in the early 1970s to lead the first conference in Stockholm on the environment.
Strong was the Secretary General of the Stockholm (1972) UN Conference on the Human Environment and the Rio UNCED/Earth Summit (1992). In other words, instead of spending his public career trying to further enrich the energy industry cronies he left behind in Canada, he has focused on trying to wrestle some of the greatest global ecological threats.
Now his greatest opponent is George W. Bush.
The Bush Administration has spent the last year using all its diplomatic powers to undermine the Johannesburg Earth Summit, now in progress. And yet more than 60,000 world leaders, activists and people concerned with poverty, hunger, global warming and war will be gathering trying to find solutions -- while Bush just worries about his CEO buddies back home.
The battle is on.
Recently, Strong gave testimony in front of the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. His words conveyed the frustration that even this former energy company executive feels about the path down which George W. Bush is taking the United States and the rest of the world:
"We face an ominous paradox as the evidence of our destructive impacts on the earth's environment and life-support systems has become more compelling while there has been a serious loss of momentum in the political will to deal with them. The United States is at the center of this dilemma."
The recent retreat by the U.S. from its longstanding role as the leading driver of these issues, as particularly evidenced by its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol of the Climate Change Convention, threatens the progress that has been made in collaborative management of our environmental problems in the past 30 years and the prospects for the further progress that is so essential to our common future.
The great historians will have to sort out why these two men differed so much, although at the current rate, kids the world over will want to know who stopped Bush -- and Strong is on the short list to do that right now.
John Passacantando is executive director of Greenpeace USA.
Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13967
9/1/02
3:20:42 PM
UN conference in South Africa pushes business "solutions"
The sham summit
August 30, 2002
NEWS STORIES about the Earth summit in Johannesburg focused on George W. Bush's decision not to show up. Maybe Dubya was afraid that he'd become the main target of protests.
He's personally responsible, after all, for finishing off what little remained of the initiatives from the last Earth summit, which took place in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The final act was the Bush administration's rejection of the 1997 Kyoto protocols to cut back on the emission of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Bush's decision not to go to South Africa is just the latest U.S. attempt to wreck an international initiative--on a list that includes arms control, land mines and pollution, to name a few. Washington's message to the rest of the world is that it will do whatever it wants--which is why people around the globe responded to Bush's snub with anger.
But the truth is that Bush never had much to fear about this conference. His big business buddies made sure of that. Aside from the influence of the IMF and World Bank preaching neoliberal economic policies, groups such as the International Chambers of Commerce and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development have lobbied since 1999 for the summit to recommend private, for-profit management of vital resources and services--and so-called free-market solutions to pollution and poverty.
No wonder the summit's preparatory materials avoided mentioning the impending famine in the Southern African countries that surround the conference. They might have been forced to discuss the causes of the famine, which include a drought intensified by the impact of global warming--and the devastating poverty of the region caused by a huge debt burden.
And this isn't to mention the difficulties that poor countries face competing in a world market where powerful countries set the rules through the WTO.
The summit is primed to serve corporate power in two major ways. One is voluntary agreements to govern business conduct. Like other corporate "codes of practice," these new agreements will "amount to little more than the re-branding of destructive activities as beneficial ones," as George Monbiot wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper. The other gift to big business will be a UN blessing for "public-private partnerships"--in which governments hand over control of resources, such as water or energy.
As a justification for these giveaways to rich Western multinationals like Bechtel, Monsanto, France's Vivendi and Britain's Thames Water, free-market enthusiasts claim that resources are used most efficiently when they're sold for profit. But some do admit that privatization has widened the gap between rich and poor--and that poverty bites even harder when everything comes with a "user fee."
The proposed solution is to allow some government action--not limits on how much can be charged, but cash grants to the poor to help them pay. This is in synch with Bush's pre-summit promise to increase development aid to Africa by $4.5 billion.
The amount is stingy. But the real problem is that the cash will never materialize. At the 1992 Rio summit, every rich country promised to double its aid budget--to 0.7 percent of economic output. Since then, aid has actually fallen to 0.22 percent of output.
Whether the summit "succeeds" in endorsing free-market solutions or breaks up with no agreement, the corporations and the governments that serve them can go on wrecking the earth and robbing the poor. The real hope for turning the situation around lies outside the UN--among the forces that protested the Earth summit.
How the free market is wreaking havoc
OVER THE years, the UN and World Bank have honed a strategy for talking about "sustainable development." The first step is to acknowledge an environment-related crisis that threatens the poor. The next step is to misstate the cause and scope of the crisis, and the charade ends with a free market-oriented business "solution" to a misdiagnosed problem.
UN summit documents around the question of hunger echo this method. They stress that food production is no longer growing faster than population--leaving multinational agribusinesses to recommend technical solutions like genetically engineered crops.
What's left out is the fact that, despite the production slowdown, there is now--and has been for decades--enough food to feed everyone. Yet 800 million people face chronic starvation--because of lack of money, not lack of technology.
The same verbal tricks show up when the free marketeers discuss the growing water crisis in poor countries. Drinking water is getting scarcer because of corporate methods of agriculture that demand heavy irrigation, industrial pollution of water, and a lack of proper sewage removal. But market "logic" reduces these problems to a simple question of "natural scarcity"--and declares that water would be best conserved if everybody paid market prices for privatized water.
Besides profits for the new water barons, the real results of water privatization have been higher prices, service shutoffs for the poor and mass layoffs of workers that lead to declines in service and water quality.
The big shots may talk about the wonders of the free market. But their rhetoric is a tool for pursuing their real goal, which is economic imperialism--the defense of profits of the biggest companies in the most powerful countries.
"We want to shut them down"
THE UN picked a strange place to advertise the benefits of the free market. It's not just that the region is in the grips of hunger--and an AIDS epidemic made worse by the prohibitive expense of patented drugs.
The summit itself is taking place in the posh suburb of Sandton, just across a cholera-infested river from the destitute Black township of Alexandra. Like the much bigger township of Soweto across town, Alexandra has a proud history of resistance to the racist system of apartheid--and now a new resistance to the free-market policies of the post-apartheid governments.
The resistance includes illegal restoration of water and power to those who have been cut off by newly privatized utilities--as well as movements of the landless to claim the housing that they were promised when apartheid fell.
The UN tried to head off confrontations by providing an alternative forum of "civil society"--15 miles removed from Sandton. And for those who can't pay the $150 fee to be part of "civil society," there's an area down the road claimed by the landless movement.
One division in the protest movement is between those who want "a seat at the table"--and those who think that gaining such a seat would be impossible or useless. "It is our aspiration to shut them down," said Trevor Ngwane, a leader of South Africa's thousands-strong Anti-Privatization Forum. "If we have the numbers, that is what we will do. We are inspired by what happened in Seattle and Genoa."
The main protest will be an August 31 march to the summit site that could draw tens of thousands. South African authorities are plainly worried. Last week, police arrested 77 landless protesters during one march--and another 30 the next day. Organizers say that the crackdown amounted to "an undeclared state of emergency."
The corporate and political leaders want to have their way in Johannesburg. But protesters have other plans--to expose the Earth summit as a sham.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2002-2/419/419_05_EarthSummit.shtml
9/1/02
3:17:37 PM
People Power
You may be only 1 in 6 billion, but every person can make a big difference
by Jane Goodall, August 18, 2002
The greatest danger to our future is apathy. We cannot expect those living in poverty and ignorance to worry about saving the world. For those of us able to read this magazine, it is different. We can do something to preserve our planet.
You may be overcome, however, by feelings of helplessness. You are just one person in a world of 6 billion. How can your actions make a difference? Best, you say, to leave it to decision makers. And so you do nothing.
Can we overcome apathy? Yes, but only if we have hope. One reason for hope lies in the extraordinary nature of human intellectual accomplishment. A hundred years ago, the idea of a 747, of a man on the moon, of the Internet remained in the realm of science fiction. Yet we have seen those things and much, much more. So, now that we have finally faced up to the terrible damage we have inflicted on our environment, our ingenuity is working overtime to find technological solutions. But technology alone is not enough. We must engage with our hearts also. And it's happening around the world.
Even companies once known only for profits and pollution are having a change of heart. Conoco, the energy company, worked with the Jane Goodall Institute (J.G.I.) in Congo to build a sanctuary for orphaned chimpanzees. I formed this partnership when I realized that Conoco, during its exploration, used state-of-the-art practices designed to have the least possible impact on the environment. Many other companies are working on clean forms of energy, organic farming methods, less wasteful irrigation and so on.
Another reason for hope is the resilience of nature-if it is given a helping hand. Fifteen years ago, the forests outside Gombe National Park in Tanzania had been virtually eliminated. More people lived there than the land could support. J.G.I. initiated the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education Project (TACARE), a program active in 33 villages around the park. Today people improve their lives through environmentally sustainable projects, such as tree nurseries and wood lots. We provide health care, family-planning and education programs, especially for women. As their education increases, their family size tends to drop.
While pollution still plagues much of the world, progress is being made. This May in Sudbury, Ont., I saw new forests that were recolonizing hills destroyed by 100 years of nickel mining. The community raised the money and worked for months spreading lime and planting vegetation on the blackened rock. I released the first brook trout into a once poisoned creek there.
Animal species on the brink of extinction can be given a second chance through protection and captive breeding-even if preserving a habitat conflicts with economic interests. A company in Taiwan planned to build a rapid-transit line right through the only major remaining breeding ground of the rare pheasant-tailed jacana. There was an outcry, but it was the only economically viable route. Environmentalists worked with the company to come up with a solution-moving the breeding ground. Water was diverted back into nearby wetlands that had been drained by farmers, and suitable vegetation was replanted. In 2000 five birds hatched in their new home, and when I visited there the next year, even more birds had moved to the site.
I derive the most hope from the energy and hard work of young people. Roots & Shoots, J.G.I.'s program for youth from preschool through university, is now active in 70 countries. The name is symbolic: roots and shoots together can break up brick walls, just as citizens of Earth together can overcome our problems. The more than 4,000 groups of young people are cleaning creeks, restoring prairies and wetlands, planting trees, clearing trash, recycling-and making their voices heard.
We have huge power, we of the affluent societies, we who are causing the most environmental damage. For we are the consumers. We do not have to buy products from companies with bad environmental policies. To help us, the Internet is linking small grassroots movements so that people who once felt they were on their own can contact others with the same concerns.
I feel deep shame when I look into the eyes of my grandchildren and think how much damage has been done to Planet Earth since I was their age. Each of us must work as hard as we can now to heal the hurts and save what is left.
Source: http://www.time.com/time/2002/greencentury/engoodall.html
9/1/02
3:12:37 PM
World leaders head for Earth Summit (August 30)
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=1304854
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - It's going to get up close and personal at the Earth Summit, as wrangling between officials from rich and poor nations over abstruse diplomatic language gives way to the arrival of squabbling world leaders themselves. (...)
Earth Summit feuds fester over rules for business
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17506/story.htm
CORPORATE-FREE UN: Earth Summit Opens With a Bang (August 26)
http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=3668
Harsh Police Action, a discussion paper pushing a free trade agenda and a diverse People's Forum are all in the spotlight as the Earth Summit opens. (...) Charles Secrett of Friends of the Earth said that the US is using the seductive language of sustainability to cloak a business as usual agenda. "Off the record, developing country delegates share the same concern, and are fed up US bullying." (...) The People's Forum: For those who cannot or do not want to attend the Summit proper, about an hour from the Summit is the Global People's Forum, where civil society bursts with diversity. At the Forum, the vast exposition hall has a bewildering diversity of exhibits -- but almost no visitors. (...) At the 1992 Earth Summit, for the all the contentiousness, hope permeated host city Rio de Janeiro, as new understandings about how to save the earth emerged and thousands dedicated themselves to doing just that. This time around, the high hopes are to avoid utter failure and violence. What a difference a decade makes. In the intervening ten years, we ran smack into the sobering reality that the world's most powerful governments and corporations weren't all that interested in sustainable development after all. Rather they are interested in free trade and big business-friendly investment rules, leading to debt and dependency for the South, with environmental protection and poverty alleviation strictly at the margins. The theme of corporate accountability, pushed by leading environment and development groups, has no chance at the Summit, except in so far as business may co-opt the phrase to mean something similar to voluntary corporate social responsibility. In fact, Summit organizers see corporate partnerships --not democratic control of corporations -- as the "innovative" agreements that will save face. That is, at least enough that the Summit will not be declared a fiasco. It is still two weeks too early to declare that the Summit should not have taken place. But it is clear that the political conditions are not right for an advancement of the Rio agenda. CLIP
Bali Principles of Climate Justice (August 28)
http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=3748
An international coalition has released a set of principles that "put a human face on climate change." The watershed document looks at global warming from a human rights and environmental justice perspective.
TAKE ACTION! Send a SOS to world leaders at SOS Planet action site
It is an attempt to raise awareness of the fact that world citizens are concerned that their leaders will fail to take action in Johannesburg.
WWF position on the World Summit on Sustainable Development
US Democrats say Bush blocking Earth Summit goal (August 30)
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17498/story.htm
JOHANNESBURG - A delegation of U.S. congressional Democrats accused the Bush administration yesterday of blocking plans to alleviate poverty and promote clean economic growth at the U.N.'s Earth Summit. (...) "The United states has a special obligation and opportunity (to promote clean growth) as the world's richest nation and its biggest polluter," said Earl Blumenauer of Oregon. The U.S. has said it will accept no binding targets for those goals and would offer no new aid money in Johannesburg after pledging to raise aid at a summit in Mexico in March. CLIP
Embattled U.S. goes on offensive at Earth Summit
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08302002/reu_48300.asp
Hitting back at critics who brand it the uncaring tool of greedy big business, the Bush administration showcased hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid projects at the Earth Summit Thursday. But Third World activists and environmentalists, as well as opposition Congressmen, cried foul, saying the money was not new and involved partnerships with corporations that would profit more than the poor billions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Corporate Capture by George Monbiot, The Guardian
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13896
If the world's transnational corporations have their way, the Earth Summit in Johannesburg will not only fail to tackle the ecological crisis, it may make it worse.
Earth Summit feuds fester over rules for business (August 30)
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17506/story.htm
(...) Activists say the U.N. gathering, officially the World Summit on Sustainable Development, should be addressing ways to make business fully accountable for social and environmental actions and accuse firms of hijacking the summit to shirk responsibility.
Big business accused of derailing Earth Summit
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17481/story.htm
Activists accused big business this week of hijacking the Earth Summit from a goal of halving poverty without poisoning the planet.
"Good" News: August 29, 2002
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13982
In solidarity with the overwhelming power of business interests at the World Summit in Johannesburg, GN/BN has switched over to the Dark Side.
Letter from the Earth Summit
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/08/08292002/s_48287.asp
The dire prediction that the United States intends to sabotage the conference seems to be coming true.
Don't Be Fooled: America's Ten Worst Greenwashers (August 29, 2002)
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13984
An annual report exposes the environmental lies corporations tell to earn your "green" shopping dollar.
Greenwash Academy Awards Announced
More than 20 corporations vie for these prestigious awards announced at a star studded ceremony at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. For nominees and
winners see http://www.earthsummit.biz
Shell Games at the Earth Summit (August 15)
http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=3508
Tracking the behavior of Royal Dutch Shell from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio to the WSSD in Johannesburg is particularly instructive in drawing out how global corporations have pursued a pro-environment and human rights public-relations strategy on the one hand, while continuing to be deeply engaged in destructive activity on the other. (...) While some may have gained skills working in the Niger Delta's oil fields as a result of Shell's "sustainable development" strategy, it is clear that the giant oil corporation's definition of sustainable development included extracting well over $30 billion in oil from operations in the Niger Delta region since 1956, which has brought little wealth or development to the Delta Region. Conveniently ignored in this best practices case study is the fact that Shell has also created a social and ecological disaster in the Niger Delta that has become a classic case study of the horrendous impacts of oil on people and the environment. Very little, if any of the $30 billion went back into the communities of the Niger Delta, where schools and health clinics are hard to come by, and where toxic contamination from oil spills and gas flares fill the water and air. CLIP
From Rio to Johannesburg: The Globalization Decade (July 24, 2002)
http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=3190
The world's governments, facing a deteriorating planet, are making a last ditch effort to save the Earth. The industrialized countries of the North and the developing countries of the South are scrambling to reach a global deal that will combine environmental protection and poverty alleviation. But a group of global corporations are claiming that they have the answers to the planet's environment and development woes and suggest redefining "sustainable development" to focus on "profit, planet and people."
9/1/02
3:07:36 PM
Extending The boycott
US academic M Shahid Alam* explains why he is happy to join the growing international academic boycott of Israel
In early April 2002, moved by the massacres in Jenin and the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure in West Bank cities by invading Israeli forces, two British academics, Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, circulated a call
posted at http://www.pjpo.org -- for an academic boycott of Israel.
This campaign was directed mostly at European academics, and so when it reached me nearly two months later, in the first week of July, there were only six American academics among the signatories. I carefully read the boycott statement, which entailed non- cooperation with "official Israeli institutions, including universities", and decided to sign the list. I also forwarded the call to academics on my mailing list.
However, most of the friends on my mailing list ignored the call. Only two responded, and both were more than a little troubled that I should support such a thing. One described this campaign as "destructive", another objected that this was an "attack" on academic freedom. And once my name was on the list of signatories, I promptly received two pieces of hate mail, one of them from India.
A few days later I came across a counter petition initiated by Leonid Ryzhik, a mathematics lecturer at the University of Chicago. In an interview published in the British newspaper The Guardian on 27 May he said that the boycott campaign was "immoral, dangerous and misguided, and indirectly encourages the terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds". And in the New York weekly The Nation for 5-12 August, Martha Nussbaum, an eminent American philosopher, wrote that she felt "relaxed" to be in Israel, where she had gone to receive an honorary degree from the University of Haifa, "determined to affirm the worth of scholarly cooperation in the face of the ugly campaign".
Having declared my support for the academic boycott of Israel, I believe I must now explain why I can not view this campaign as "destructive", "ugly" or supportive of "terrorist murderers". On the contrary, I see it as a moral gesture, part of a growing campaign by international civil society to use its influence to awaken Israelis to the ugly and destructive reality of the occupation, which has now lasted for more than 35 years and shows no sign of ending any time soon. At last, the cumulative weight of Palestinian suffering has begun to break through the crust of Israeli protestations of innocence. Although tardily, the world's conscience is now preparing to engage Israeli intransigence.
Increasingly, the world outside the United States understands that Israel is not a 'normal' country. The Zionist movement sought to establish an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine, a land inhabited almost entirely by Palestinian Arabs in 1900. Since no people has yet been known to commit collective suicide, this could only be accomplished by conquest and ethnic cleansing. This is how Israel emerged in 1948 -- through the conquest and ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians.
Yet this was not enough. Although Israel now sat on 78 per cent of historic Palestine, this fell short of Zionist goals. In 1967 this shortfall was corrected when Israel, after defeating Egypt, Syria and Jordan, occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Another, smaller campaign of ethnic cleansing was introduced into this second round of conquests.
Although the United Nations Security Council promptly passed a resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it had occupied in 1967, this had no teeth. Impressed by the Israeli rout of Arab nationalist forces, the United States deepened its partnership with Israel and promptly rewarded it by doubling US military and economic assistance.
As a result, 35 years later, Israel still remains the occupier of the West Bank and Gaza. However, in reality this occupation is merely a fiction, a farcical cover under which Israel buys time to introduce armed Israeli settlers, increase its control and ownership of Palestinian lands, push the Palestinians into ever-shrinking enclaves, escalate the violence against Palestinian resistance, and deepen the misery of Palestinian lives till the Palestinians are forced to flee their homes.
The logic of the occupation is brutal, and it should be transparent to all but the purblind. If Palestinian demography prevents annexation, and if Palestinians cannot be expelled in one fell swoop -- as they were in 1948 -- then the same results can still be achieved by forcing the Palestinians into Bantustans. If a million Palestinians can live in Gaza, a strip of 100 square miles, then the two million Palestinians on the West Bank can be pushed into similar enclaves, freeing 90 per cent of the land for Jewish settlers. It is about time that we gave up the fiction of the occupation, and described this oppressive regime by its proper name. This is Apartheid: one country with two systems of laws, one for the colonisers and one for the colonised.
I have two objectives in rehearsing, though briefly, this narrative of Palestinian dispossession. First, it is a narrative that has been denied repeatedly and falsified massively by Zionists. It therefore needs to be affirmed, simply and forcefully, again and again, in the expectation that world conscience will bear witness against the Zionist project of wiping out the Arab presence from Palestine to make room for Jewish settlers.
Once this narrative is affirmed, once it becomes clear that the destruction of Palestinians was necessary -- and was always known to be necessary and accepted as necessary --for Israel to emerge as an exclusive Jewish state, once it is admitted that the dispossession of Palestinians has involved wars, ethnic cleansing, massacres, villages destroyed, cities besieged, homes demolished, children maimed and killed, prisoners tortured, ambulances bombed, journalists targeted, municipal records destroyed, and trees uprooted, once all this destructiveness -- already accomplished, and more of it unfolding everyday -- is recognised then protestations about the "destructiveness" or "ugliness" of an academic boycott of Israel become insupportable, indeed unconscionable.
Leonid Ryzhik of the University of Chicago argues that the academic boycott "indirectly encourages the [Palestinian] terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds". Does he mean to say that this boycott "indirectly encourages" the Palestinian resistance, and anything that questions, delays or weakens the extension of the Zionist project to the West Bank and Gaza must be challenged, and neutralised? It must be affirmed in the face of such posturing that resistance is a Palestinian right, as it was a right of all colonised peoples who faced dispossession. Of necessity, dispossession is implemented by force, and it follows that resistance to the coloniser must also be violent.
The question, therefore, is not why do the Palestinians resist, nor why do they resist by violent means. There is a different question before the world's conscience: why have we for 50 years abandoned the Palestinians to fight their battles alone, beleaguered by a coloniser whom they cannot fight alone? Why have we allowed the Palestinians to be battered, exiled from their lands, herded into camps -- in villages and towns that have been turned into concentration camps -- exposed to the mercy of a coloniser who freely draws upon the finances, political support and military arsenal of the world's greatest power? In despair, marginalised, pauperised, facing extinction as a people, if the Palestinians now use the only defence they have -- to die in defence of their rights --who is to blame?
If the world's conscience now shows the first signs of acting on behalf of the Palestinians, it is to be hoped that this will mitigate the Palestinians' deep despair. When young Palestinians learn that academics the world over and young people on campuses in Britain, France, Canada, and United States are stirring on their behalf, this will convince them that they are not alone, and, once they are so convinced, they may be persuaded to renounce their acts of desperation. The academic boycott of Israel uses non-violent means -- it leverages moral suasion -- to reduce the violence of the coloniser as well as that of the colonised.
There are people who are shouting "foul" at the academic boycott, saying that this curtails the academic freedom of Israelis. I will readily admit that it does: the boycott is expected to work by shrinking the international avenues available to Israeli scientists for pursuing their work. Still, it must be emphasised that this curtailment is temporary and that it will end the moment Israel ends its occupation. It is also limited in scope. It only seeks to limit some of the advantages Israeli scientists derive from their interactions with the global scientific community. It does not threaten any fundamental academic freedoms.
This infringement of academic freedom -- temporary and limited as it is -- must also be seen in a broader framework. I readily concede that academic freedom is an important value, and it is a value that all humane societies should cherish. But there are also other values that we should cherish, other values that may even be more important, more fundamental, than the right to academic freedom. I believe it is reasonable and moral to impose temporary and partial limits on the academic freedom of a few Israelis if this can help to restore the fundamental rights of millions of Palestinians -- their right to life, to their property, to their lands, to freedom of movement within their own country, to sovereign control over their destiny, and to equal treatment under the law. This can only be denied if we confess a disproportion in the value we accord to Israeli and Palestinian rights.
One might, of course, argue that the boycott is a wasted effort, since it can have no appreciable impact on Israeli society and policies. This is a question about the efficacy of the boycott. There can be little question that Israeli scientists value the esteem and cooperation of the world's scientific community, as well as access to international funding. It can therefore be expected that if the boycott spreads, it could begin to reduce the effectiveness of Israeli scientists. Perhaps more importantly, it is unlikely that Israeli society can ignore the message that the boycott sends: that Israeli violations of Palestinian rights are repugnant, and will not be allowed to stand.
At the same time, I refuse to be cowed by invocations of the 'sanctity' of academia. More than ever, universities now help to reproduce the power structures of their societies; they are a potent source of ideologies of imperialism, as well as of race and class exploitation. Israeli universities are no exception. Through their links with the military, the political parties, the media and the economy, they have helped to construct, sustain, and justify the Apartheid system. I might have hesitated in adding my name to the boycott if I knew that Israeli academics had taken the lead in organising rallies, in organising sit-ins, and passing resolutions protesting the occupation, or that they had refused to work on projects that serve it. However, on the contrary, Israeli academia on the whole has shown that it is a party to the occupation.
The academic boycott of Israel offers one of the few means available to international civil society for seeking to end the occupation. Israel has pursued policies in the occupied territories that would have invited economic sanctions, and even military intervention, against any other country had it acted in like manner. America's capitulation to the Israeli lobby has meant that Israel can wage war against a civilian population -- using bombs, rockets, tank shells, and artillery fire -- with impunity.
Abandoned, isolated, beleaguered and unarmed, a few Palestinian men and women have responded to this massive force by weaponising their own deaths through suicide bombings, provoking still greater violence against themselves. But, paradoxically, this has also pushed world conscience into taking notice of the affront to humanity that is the Israeli occupation. The academic boycott is one small step the detribalised world is now taking to stop this affront, a step that all men and women who have risen above tribalism should welcome.
* The writer is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston.
Source: http://www.pjpo.org
9/1/02
2:59:06 PM
Thomas Merton And A Chip In The Brain
by Bill C. Davis
According to Thomas Merton, they want it. They want war. It's not that they want peace and a better way of life for the Iraqi people blah, blah. It's not that they want security and freedom for us. They want the war. As if they have a chip, not on their shoulder but in their brains and it is programmed for war.
Thomas Merton believed what the rest of the world is trying to tell Bush, Cheney and their tapestry of advisers: war will exacerbate all problems - it will bury the chip deeper in some and release it in others but war will only make more war - more violence - more anger - and more of what war has always given us.
War is not, as Rumsfeld told a sea of soldiers in camouflage, a difficult means to a positive end. Thomas Merton believed that for the likes of Rumsfeld, war is the end. It is their moment to do the irresistible. They have strong-armed their way to the top and now they can have what they want even as they say they wish they didn't have to want it. Yes -those of us who are more suspicious of their stated motives can say it's about oil and neo-colonialism - that may very well be the subtext to the text of their rhetoric - but Merton believes that even beneath the subtext is the intoxicating pull of war in these mysterious psyches. Like drunkards - war is the apple of their bloodshot eyes.
Merton, a trappist monk, would say that if Mr. Bush in fact had Christ as his philosophical hero he would be on the phone daily with Saddam Hussein. He would send e-mails - he would talk this drama down off the ledge. But that message of Christ has no place in an unabashed appetite for deadly "justice". He had the stomach for the death penalty as governor and he'll have the stomach for war as president.
Thomas Merton wrote in the 1960's that, "the motive for which men are led to fight today is that war is necessary to destroy those who threaten our peace." Merton calls this "pseudologic" and that "...war, in fact, is a complete suspension of reason. This is at once its danger and the source of immense attraction...the awful danger of war is not so much that force is used when reason has broken down but that reason unconsciously inhibits itself beforehand in order that it may break down and in order that resort to force may become inevitable."
We are in the middle of that perverse process right now. A clueless cabal agitates and sells their nobility as they lay the groundwork for war and tolerate the objections. They "understand" the natural apprehensions of informed and learned people of good will but they are further along in the decision-making and they may or may not wait for the rest of the world to "catch up."
Once the bombs drop and the blood flows they seem confident that the others will be absorbed by their pseudologic. We'll see dancing in the streets of Baghdad - we will view videos of the confiscated weapons and exposed labs where WMDs have been percolating and we will be told that we got there just in time. Thousands of lives later we will be told that we are that much safer now.
According to Thomas Merton, the only weapons of mass destruction are those chips in the fevered brains of the men and women in charge and until they are defused nothing and no one can ever be safe.
Bill C. Davis is a playwright http://www.billcdavis.com/
9/1/02
2:34:38 PM
I Call It Treason
by Doug McIntosh
You have to hand it to Mr. Magoo. I'll give him an A for chutzpah, that's for sure. The man is nothing but a common criminal of the white collar type. I openly and publicly call the FED chief a traitor, a coward and a common white collar criminal. The system is beyond accountability and I have a bad feeling this will end in blood. "Strike for Liberty and Honor" was the battle cry of our Revolutionary War, the Irish and also Bonnie Prince Charlie's cry at Culloden. Our criminal leaders have to go to jail on treason charges and there is no beating around the bush, pun intended.
Alan Greenspan did conspire, manipulate and commit "high crimes and felonies" by forcing state pension funds to bail out the stock market on July 24th, 2002. Quite honestly, for this alone Mr. Greenspan should be tried and executed for treason. In fact, what's left of America is headed towards a racial, economic and cultural civil war. The system is collapsing a little more every day. As for Mr. Magoo, he used his position to jawbone the pension funds to reverse the nearly 20% freefall in both Citibank and JP Morgan stock. Each one point of the DOW represents around one billion United States fiat dollars. The 1000 point swing since late July represents a staggering ONE TRILLION dollars of investment, or mal investment. Even the mainstream press admitted that the "little guy" sat this one out and the money came from pension funds, insurance companies and the like. In other words, the FED had the system bail out the system. Talk about economic incest. What the FED did is to loot the retirement plans of public employees. The government has already looted the private retirement plan called Social Security. The looting is done. The money is gone. What cynical, arrogant whores these people are. Common criminals posing as upholders of the law.
The FED is a private banking corporation that sets the economic policy for the people of the United States. I call that treason and worthy of death or exile for the oligarchic elite that has been destroying America since 1860. I think the United States was a Republic until 1860; then began a transition period until 1912 and 1913 with the FED and the Income Tax. We are now in the final phase. I guess you could call me a revolutionary seeking to restore the Republic. The bankers and the elite has already overthrown the true government. Here at gold-eagle.com we are all not so much revolutionaries as restorers. How can you overthrow the government when the current government has already overthrown it? And frankly, I think we are all getting pissed off about these usurpers posing as patriots. Our leaders are arrogant oligarchs bleeding the common people dry for their own purposes. And it will soon stop, one way or another.
As for the current economic situation, it is almost beyond comprehension. The disconnect between economic reality and the true economic reality is getting narrower every passing day. We were told there was no recession and then there was but it ended quickly. Now we are told we are in recovery, except the recession never ended. There is no double dip; there is only the death spiral. A wave of corporate bankruptcies has been happening since 2000. A wave of personal bankruptcies has been happening since 2000. June durable goods orders were down nearly 4% from May. I find it fascinating that the same court economists who ignored nearly two years of manufacturing declines, were so pleased with a few months of "reported increases." If two years of declines were ignored; then, why would any increase matter at all? These court jester economists are pathetic. We now see in July and August that retail sales are stagnating. The back to school season was a bust. Car sales are only being fueled by zero percent financing. I guess the novel idea you have to make money on cars is beyond the Big Three. In another essay I commented about the heavy debt loads, the pension fund liabilities and the need to generate cash flow to deal with this. How can the stock market avoid collapse when companies aren't profitable, can't service their debt and have cooked the books? It can't. Add to that the fact the foreigners have figured all this out and are starting to bail out of both the stock market and the dollar. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the logical result. It helps to be a doomer of course.
President Pretzel gave his speech on corporate accountability and the markets tanked. Mr. Greenspan gave his little speech and the markets tanked. Vice President Cheesy gave his little sound bite on corporate responsibility and nobody even noticed. The President should go to jail for his actions at Harken energy. The Vice President should go to jail for his corruption at Haliburton. And Mr. Magoo should go to jail for his destruction of the retirement hopes of millions of Americans. I believe Vice President Chessy will be impeached after the corrupt democrats retake the Senate and House in November. Mr. Magoo will eventually be allowed to crawl off and rot somewhere. Sir Greenspan the criminal has been recognized for his economic contributions to our age. Do they mean a culture of business and political corruption? Or how about the stock and housing bubbles? Perhaps they mean Mr. Magoo's manipulation of the stock and gold markets. Yeah, Mr. Magoo sure has made major contributions to our age. As for President Pretzel, he's in a class all by himself. Our very own wannabe führer, along with his police state. The economy is going to hell rapidly. The retail sales show the sheeple have figured it out. It's wag the dog time. If Bush is stupid enough to actually invade Iraq, a chain reaction of events will bring the end of our age. All in the next five years or so. Enjoy yourself and live each day to the fullest.
I spent the last weekend at the local Italian festival eating good food and enjoying myself. Except for the riot when Bush came to Portland you could almost think things were normal. That's the key: maintain the illusion of normalcy as long as you can. Won't work though. It's too late for the illusion to maintain its power. That's my basic message: the illusion is over and now reality is rearing its ugly head. The sheeple sense it. The sheeple are spooked. The wolves are circling the flock. It's only a matter of time before the screams start. Are you mentally prepared to deal with it? I hope so. I really do because destiny waits for no man or woman. And destiny, dear reader is now upon us. What we do with it is up to us. We are the captains of our fate and the masters of our own souls. The buck stops with us, individually and collectively. I hope the American people and the people of planet earth are up to the challenges facing us. If not, we will have a dark age. I believe we still have a choice. We will have to give up our illusions and take hold of the new unpleasant reality with both hands. If we do that, we have a chance to create a better system than the current farce. One's thing for sure, our leaders will have to go.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_02/mcintosh082902pv.html
http://www.rense.com/general28/treason.htm
9/1/02
2:23:02 PM
Investigators Conclude Russian Defector is Lead Suspect in Anthrax Mailings Case
Sandpoint, ID— Three veteran investigators have independently narrowed the field of anthrax mailings suspects to a single Russian defector affiliated with two heavily implicated defense contractors and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Kanatjan Alibekov, alias “Ken Alibek,” the President of Hadron Advanced Biosystems, should be re-interrogated by the FBI, according to three researchers who arrived at this conclusion independently. They say Stephen Hatfill—the military virologist cited by FBI officials in recent weeks as a chief subject was not likely involved in the mailings at all.
The three men include: Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz—a public health and emerging diseases expert, Michael Ruppert—a retired Los Angeles Police Department narcotics detective, and Stewart Webb—a federal whistle blower credited with supplying key evidence to federal prosecutors during the 1989 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) scandal. All three investigators say substantial evidence implicates Dr. Alibekov and the parties he served before and during the anthrax mailings, including the CIA. This, they propose, might best explain why the FBI’s inquiry has floundered.
Their compiled evidence is largely public knowledge. Dr. Alibekov was the first Deputy Director of Biopreparat—the Soviet Union’s leading biological weapons testing center. He oversaw military anthrax production for nearly 20 years, and was personally responsible for 32,000 employees at 40 facilities when he suddenly defected to the United States in 1992 to begin working for the CIA. According to interviews, Dr. Alibekov allegedly defected to help stop the biological weapons race, not for monetary reward. Yet, his activities in America indicate otherwise.
On May 20, 1998 Dr. Alibekov testified before the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress as a Program Manager for the Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI)—a leading military contractor and one of few institutional suspects identified by the press. William Broad of the New York Times (Dec. 13, 2001), upon Dr. Horowitz’s earlier urging, cited BMI as the chief CIA contractor for project “Clearvision”—an effort to produce the deadliest Ames strain anthrax ever developed. It was hyper-concentrated, silica-laced, electro-magnetized, and extremely transmissible. The facts indicate Dr. Alibekov, one of two leading anthrax experts contracted by the CIA at the time of “Clearvision,” may have managed the entire program during which the germ was sent from BMI to the BMI administered and supplied Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. From here or BMI’s anthrax lab in West Jefferson, Ohio, the never-before-seen anthrax weapon was transferred to envelopes and mailed from four locations including Trenton, N.J. and St. Petersburg, FL in early October, 2001. The mailings killed five people while scores of others were victimized by the ensuing fright and toxic side effects from taking CIPRO—the “anthrax antibiotic,” according to experts and news reports.
More suspicious ties to the Russian defector and Hadron Advanced Biosystems were realized when investigators learned of the second leading BMI and CIA anthrax contractor, and close personal friend of Dr. Alibekov, Dr. William C. Patrick, III. Suspiciously, Dr. Alibekov and BMI had contracted with this anthrax ace in the Spring of 1998 to predict the dispersal and damage capability of mailing such a hyper-weaponized germ much like the one sent to select members of the media and legislators on Capitol Hill. Evidence indicates Dr. Patrick, who holds several secret patents on America’s anthrax weapons, worked closely with Dr. Alibekov in developing the anthrax that was mailed.
The three independent investigators each cite economic and political motives for the targeted anthrax mailings. Given the high grade and technical difficulty in producing and handling this grade of anthrax, they reasoned, “white collar criminals” with access to military or pharmaceutical labs most likely acted on behalf of those who benefited most from the attacks and ensuing fright. Hadron, DynCorp, and BMI lead the pack of corporate and institutional suspects, the investigators say. A revelatory organizational chart prepared by Dr. Horowitz depicting the leading corporate and institutional suspects was mailed to more than 1,500 FBI agents late last year along with an extensive 25-page report still available over the Internet (link to http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthrax/anthrax_espionage.html)
Logically, the three investigators reasoned, the media was initially targeted to sway public opinion in support of government orders worth billions of dollars for hyped vaccines and drugs, much of which benefited Hadron, DynCorp, BMI and their directors and contractors. DynCorp was the major military and intelligence provider awarded $322 million to develop, produce, and store anthrax and smallpox vaccines for the nation. BMI, a leading defense and energy industry contractor, directed the US military’s Joint Vaccine Acquisitions Program. Bioport, LLC became a leading beneficiary. This British-controlled anthrax vaccine maker in Lansing, Michigan was sanctioned repeatedly by federal officials and members of congress for unethical business practices, violating health and safety guidelines, and vaccine contaminations that some researchers say may have triggered the mysterious Gulf War illness.
Corporate profiteering was firmly secured after the mailings to Capitol Hill, the investigators say. The specific targeting of Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), traditionally strong drug and military industry adversaries, reinforced their suspicions.
Dr. Horowitz had been studying anthrax advances since 1989. He correctly diagnosed “the beginning of the anthrax scam” one week before the first mailings were heralded by the media. FBI records show he urged the bureau to begin their ongoing investigation into anthrax-related bioterrorism on October 1, 2001. It took bureau officials six months to finally respond to his repeated urgent correspondence. “Then, rather than expressing gratitude and following my leads,” he said, “my two interrogators were primed to make me a suspect.” For this reason, Horowitz says, he can “feel for the plight of the bureau’s scapegoat”—Dr. Steven Hatfill.
Detective Ruppert, collaborating with investigative journalist Michael Davidson, followed their suspicions to Hadron and DynCorp through court records pertaining to a secret pirated military software program called PROMIS. They learned that Dr. Alibekov’s predecessor—Hadron’s past director and founder, Dr. Earl Brian—a business associate of form