Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA) – Resolving the Atmospheric Emergency – April 9, 2014

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Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA)
                              +  Resolving the Atmospheric Emergency  +
                                                                     April 9, 2014
 
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
     It’s painful for me to feel obliged so frequently to point out the current breathtaking climatic ignorance–real or feigned–of US socalled progressives.
     I don’t want to dignify this disgusting piece posted yesterday at <commondreams.org>, so I’ll reproduce just the top of it:
 

Published on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 by Common Dreams

Costs Down, Profits Up: Green Energy Looking Good, Says UN

‘A long-term shift in investment over the next few decades towards a cleaner energy portfolio is needed to avoid dangerous climate change’

– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
 
     Yeah, don’t think twice, it’s all right as long as we alter our energy sources somewhat during the next few decades.  I can hardly believe it.
     This conclusion was reached in a “report conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance”.  Hey, so what is UNEP doing collaborating with an op as patently anti-environmental as the Bloomberg one?  Has it been infiltrated as thoroughly as WHO?
     Do the people at Common Dreams really believe this crap or merely circulate it to keep their readers giving money to them rather than buying agricultural land or emergency food stashes?
     We’re lucky if we still have even a few years left for cooling the Arctic and ending chemtrails–let alone a few decades!  A few more months is much more like it.
     In sharp contrast to the corrupt complacency of this “report” are these recent final words directly below from a highly conscious blogger.
                                                                     Power to the Flora,
                                                                
                                                                     Keith Lampe, Ro-Non-So-Te, Ponderosa Pine
                                                                     Volunteer
March 3, 2014

This blog is now closed (forever).  I’ve tried about five other times to write a “closing post” to convey my reasons for closing this blog and why now is finally the right time to do so, but could simply never write the words. There was either too much to say, or too little to say, and it was being influenced by a sense of outrage mixed with mind-numbing grief.

I’ve now reached the point where I can be reasonable about this – at least on the keyboard. So don’t worry – what follows is pretty mild, but I think it is important.

I’ve always known, as any insightful person probably does, that collapse of our civilization would eventually occur. There was never any possibility that humanity could continue on its destructive path indefinitely. Sooner or later, we’d screw things up so badly, so completely, and with such irreversible effects that we would destroy any possible chance for “recovery”.  I am convinced – although you may not yet be – that “that” day has now come and it cannot be undone by any means.

The cliff analogy often used really no longer applies. We’ve long since driven right off the cliff – all that remains is the spectacular crash that remains below. At the moment, some of us still hang in the space of empty air (and empty heads), a moment of blissful ignorance and euphoria that complete freedom through ignorance gives. But the rapidly approaching ground below is not to be ignored or denied – no matter what you read or believe. The disaster that awaits us all will be without precedent – and will never be repeated in the history of mankind. But for tens of millions worldwide already – that disaster has already happened and this is why the “cliff” analogy isn’t really applicable anymore. Their “collapse” has already happened.

Like you, I live in the generation that will experience the global collapse that began many years ago. At some point in time, we’d either over-extend ourselves, or release an uncontrollable technology, or deplete the environment so badly that there could be no chance of survival from these “oops” moments, mistakes that have grown in such size and scale that they utterly dwarf our ability to change them even slightly.  The stark warning signs that flashed by at light speed over the years were repeatedly ignored and dismissed – with the end result being we are now facing an irrecoverable disaster that will affect virtually all life forms on earth.

We’ve now committed ourselves to all three, a disastrous triple-whammy of human hubris and indifference, an unstoppable force of sheer stupidity and arrogance. Apparently, nothing can match this “force” – because almost everything has been tried to no avail. We’ve proven beyond all doubt that we are unable to control our population, or our technology, both of which are now wildly out of control, with the results being catastrophic environmental depletion occurring very rapidly on a global scale.  There is simply no possibility now for “recovery” as demonstrated below.

So for my children and for the troubling legacy that I have left them, and for their sake alone and none other, I dedicated the past twenty years of my life to learning everything I could about what was unfolding. What I discovered as I learned was worthy of a monumental disclosure, a once-in-a-humankind series of occurring events that pointed to only one inescapable conclusion, the shocking truth of an unfolding global catastrophe leading to only one possible outcome for all of humanity and all life on Earth.

As a father, I am deeply grieved to tears about the fate of my family and how fast we have ruined our only home. I’ve uncovered a stupendous amount of information that speaks loudly and clearly about what will occur, but no matter what the evidence may be, even in the cost of human lives now being extinguished, seemingly nothing could be done to change any of this on any meaningful scale. The willful destruction, the “collective suicide pact” of big industry and big oil and all those billions who embrace this utterly false paradigm continues to this day, accelerating daily, despite every protest and every attempt to slow it down.

The time that remains for humanity is really quite short now, only a few decades at most. Approximately ten years ago, I began a series of publications on this blog and two former forums, which has (now) proven beyond all possible doubt that nothing can or will change our behavior, or the outcome that we now all face. Early on, I focused on civilization, collapse, peak oil, peak energy and issues of freedom, politics and sustainable living. Later as my own awareness increased, I expanded my research and publications to include climate, personal preparedness, tyranny, war and many other topics – all of which are having a terrifying impact upon human lives the world over.

But the “big one” was the future habitability of our home (and only) planet. The planet was (and still is) being rapidly degraded, accelerating the possibility of collapse, even “guaranteeing it”. But it was actually much more then that in the end – what research revealed was something far, far greater than another collapse of civilization (which we might recover from, if that’s all there was). What was revealed through years of study was something else altogether – something humanity has NEVER had to face in our entire history. For 40,000 years, humans have lived on this planet, but at no time like today, did we live under the threat of total extinction from our own hand. But now we do – and it is very clear that we are completely incapable of doing anything about it in time.

Rhetoric? You decide, I’m not going to even bother any more with “trying to convince” people who refuse to listen or read the science or come up to speed on the research or even begin to gain the rudimentary understanding of the interconnected life-support systems that are now failing all over the planet. You do the work if you are truly interested in knowing the truth – that is the least you can do before joining the flotilla of “denial” that is headed to oblivion.

Over the past two months, there has been a gigantic amount of information on the rapidly escalating climate disasters taking place worldwide. There does still seem to be a lot of people who remain completely unaware of these events, probably because the American media refuses to publish them. That’s partly your fault – the information is readily available if you want it, but since it seems to interrupt the daily fantasy of being an Americant or watching the StupidBowl, it generally doesn’t seem to penetrate the public consciousness. It’s a rare individual who will actually READ anything or take the time to learn, the rest will instead rely upon virtually everything that they are told.

Americans absolutely love to be distracted, taking little to no interest at all in the real world occurring all around them or how they are affecting it. Somewhere between earth and sky and the fantasy illusions they’re being spoon-fed, they’ve parked their brains into orbit to become absolute putty in the hands of the policy makers and media executives and advertisers and the mega-national corporations that keep them alive. A Pavlovian response to the marketing, programming and incessant brainwashing is now all that is required for daily existence. Independent critical thought is actually considered a crime in America. These attitudes and beliefs are now so completely pervasive throughout our entire society that it’s downright scary. It’s like living in a land of zombies starving for brains.

Starvation is coming to America again. There, I said it. I won’t say it again. I’m placing the largest food orders of my life now, for myself and my family. I have zero doubts about what we can expect. The escalating climate disasters are going to dramatically increase every year, impacting farmers, future and food supplies in a very negative way.  I encourage all climate-deniers to not order any food from anyone (Apple has the right idea – time to take a stand). I can’t stand willful stupidity and frankly, I don’t want to feed it either.

I’ve updated our MRE page and Shelf Life page – pointing out that anyone that thinks they are going to be eating supermarket food after the collapse of civilization is nuts.  Ill-informed “advisers” (and Hollywood) are depicting “survivors” scavenging for food among the ruins of civilization years after the collapse. This is mythical bullshit.  You’ve got 2 – 5 years to eat wet-packed canned food before it spoils, and far less (3 – 12 months) to eat supermarket “dry goods”. In rare cases you might extend this a bit in cold storage or sheer luck (conditions would have to be just right), but you will not get the decades of shelf life that will be necessary from storable food.  You’d also better learn how to grow as much food as you can while you can and before the climate becomes so unpredictable that you can’t. I went with a large greenhouse, but it won’t ever be enough (or reliable) and therefore, will store as much long-term food as I possibly can.

Those of you in water-short regions – MOVE. Do it NOW while you still have “choice”.  You will soon have no choice, it’s only a matter of time and then you’ll be looking for a place for your sleeping bag among all the other refugees. Last year, over 30,000,000 refugees were looking for a place to live – what do you suppose it’s going to be like when it’s 3 billion or 6 billion bodies you’re having to step over to find a place to park?

There are many other reasons to move, but that’s really your responsibility to figure out. No place will be “safe” or immune from climate change effects, so decide what’s best for you. Consider population, proximity and the future availability of food, water, security and access. Refugees will be pouring in from everywhere – even some of you who are reading these words will fall into this category – so finding what is “right” simply isn’t possible. You’ll just have to do the best you can.

Personally, I have worked myself into the hospital trying to prepare a place for me and mine. It’s hard, difficult work to do everything that you can do to prepare for collapse, and it takes many years of intensive effort, but it’s quite impossible to prepare for extinction. Even still, I will try to live as long as I can, because I love life and I love those in my life (and they feel the same way). Being alive is a very precious thing, not to be taken lightly.  Respecting self, life, living and those in your life are the most important things you can do.

Ok then, if you managed to read this far, then read these links and articles. I hope to leave all of you with something that will reinforce the points above and why it’s time to shut this blog down and move on. The time that remains to all of us needs to be spent as wisely as possible. The evidence is growing daily now on what we’re all facing, and it’s nothing short of the extinction of all life on earth. We’re only now at the very beginning of the ‘effects’ that will worsen each year.  At the moment, civilization itself, through aerosol emissions is “shielding the Earth” from the full-effects of rapidly escalating temperatures. So when we stop, as we undoubtedly will, we can expect extremely rapid temperature increases in just a few weeks to a few months.

Basis for a Carbon Budget? by David Wasdell – The critical risk now facing humanity – Why there is NO carbon budget left whatsoever – The 2C° Delusion – It’s 10C° (extinction)

Mantle Methane (for background, read Unfolding Methane Catastrophe) – Methane Global Warming Veil 

The  8°C atmospheric temperature anomaly will be exceeded indicating that total deglaciation and major extinction will occur by about 2053. The buildup of the global atmospheric methane concentration (Figure 11) indicates that the oceans should start to boil off at 115°C to 120°C when the atmospheric methane concentration anomaly exceeds 20,000 ppb (20 ppmv) by 2080. The atmospheric temperatures will approach those on the surface of Venus (460°C to 467°C) when the atmospheric methane concentration anomaly reaches 80,000 ppb (80 ppmv) by 2100 (Figure 11).

At this rate of temperature increase the temperature anomaly in 33 years will be more than 8°C (7.26°C + 0.8°C, the present temperature anomaly) and the world will be facing total deglaciation and extinction between 2047 and 2053.

Although still not widely understood – no life can survive the temperature increases projected (which if you research even further, range over 15°C). The Arctic is already showing 20°C+ anomaly – in January no less!

If you have “any doubts” about “triggers events” occurring and when – stop wondering. It’s already happened.

Deglaciation means rapid sea level rise, inundating the coastlines and cities of the world. Over 3 billion people will be displaced if they are still alive. These temperatures also mean global food production will drop to virtually zero sometime between now and 2050.

Long time readers will realize that I’ve issued these warnings for years – that scientific reticence, and the IPCC have been consistently underestimating by several orders of magnitude the severity of the crisis now facing humanity and all life on earth. They were wrong and I was right, but it did little good, although the “try” that I always advocate (and still do) was there. The growing body of evidence is pointing to “worse and worse” with the ultimate “worst case scenario” now a 100% likelihood. Extinction is as bad as it is gets.

I may yet re-organize this blog for those who will come along later, I’m sure it could use it, but for now, my time will be spent on living out the remaining years of my life and loving those that I am privileged to know as friends and family. That is all that is left.

Food sales will remain open and available as long as possible, but there are absolutely no guarantees now of future food supplies for anybody anywhere. We just tripled the price on Quinoa due to shortages and availability, and I expect food prices to absolutely skyrocket as the climate gets worse.

As a finale – it did not have to be this way. I am heartbroken beyond words, I cannot even describe how I feel, carrying a grief with me that has scarred me very deeply. I have seen absolutely nothing that indicates that this future is not as real as it gets.

Rather, I have now absorbed countless articles and information from credible scientists and researchers that have supported these conclusions. It’s more than missing ice and rising temperatures and drought or floods that we face – the real culprit is human ignorance and apathy. Our hubris is still with us, even growing in America – the land of the stupid – with most yet believing (without evidence) that we can either solve the crisis or that it’s not actually happening.

Both views are dead wrong as the evidence shows. But I’m not going to engage such mindless stupidity anymore, it’s robbery of my time, my life, and what future I / you have left. I do not owe idiocy anything. Better to spend it doing what you love and embracing those you love.

Do pay attention to what you have left. Appreciate it for all it’s worth, which should be quite a lot since it won’t last much longer.

Take the time out of a busy life to take it all in again – maybe you’ll find some peace in “knowing” what is certainly hard and difficult to accept. We can make the unacceptable the acceptable, but only when we come to grips with what this really means now, and to do that, go outside and live.  Breathe it all in, slowly and deliberately. You’re still alive, so enjoy it and appreciate it while you still can.

This was a beautiful place. I am truly privileged to have had the opportunity to call it my home.  These are my final words.

***
08.04.2014, 19:02, Ann Fillmore <UUzul@aol.com>:
4/8 Tuesday- NW US — and here is a rare early morning catch. If this doesn’t prove they are spraying stuff into the fog/ moisture I don’t know what will. I woke up feeling like cr*p and so angry. Somehow I knew, or my body/ brain has learned that if I wake up feeling this way, THEY have been spraying the h*ll out of us.
Pull the image up close. It’s …. what’s another word for UNBELIEVABLE? INSANE? HORRIFIC?

And instant confirmation by Lisa David in Medford, OR, she counted 9 trails at this moment, below the cloud cover — same time as the satellite image which shows at least as many trails ABOVE the cloud cover:

***

April 8, 2014

March 2014 Arctic Sea Ice Volume 2nd Lowest on Record

The March 2014 Arctic sea ice volume, as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center, was the 2nd lowest on record at 21.818 km³. Only March 2011 had a lower volume, at 21.421 km³, as illustrated by the graph below, by Wipneus.
Another way of depicting the continued fall of the sea ice volume is the Arctic Death Spiral below, by Andy Lee Robinson.
This puts the sea ice in a very weak position. This month, the sea ice will reach its highest volume, which may well be the lowest volume on record for April. The Naval Reserach Laboratory 30-day animation below shows recent sea ice thickness.
The lowest sea ice volume for 2014 is expected to be reached in September, and – given the shape the ice is in now – will likely be one of the lowest minima on record. In fact, there is a chance that there will be no ice left whatsoever later this year. As illustrated by the image below, again by Wipneus, an exponential curve based on annual minima from 1979 points at zero ice volume end 2016, with the lower limit of the 95% confidence interval pointing at zero ice end of 2014.

Absence of sea ice will mean that a lot of more heat will be absorbed by the Arctic Ocean.

As NSIDC.org describes, sea ice reflects 50% to 70% of the incoming energy, but thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90% of the incoming solar radiation. After the snow begins to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15. The ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest. Furthermore, all the heat that during the melt went into transforming ice into water will – in the absence of ice – be absorbed by the ocean as well.

Such feedbacks are causing warming to accelerate in the Arctic Ocean, much of which is very shallow and thus vulnerable to warming. The Gulf Stream can be expected to keep carrying warmer water into the Arctic Ocean. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cyclones could make the situation a lot worse.

Warming of the Arctic Ocean threatens to destabilize huge amounts of methane held in sediments at the seafloor, in the form of free gas and hydrates. The danger is that release of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean will warm up the Arctic even further, triggering even more methane releases, as well as heatwaves, wildfires and further feedbacks, in a spiral of runaway warming that will lead to starvation, destruction and extintion at massive scale across the globe.

In conclusion, the situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the climate plan blog.

*
April 7, 2014

A team of researchers lead by Florida State University have found new evidence that permafrost thawing is releasing large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere via plants, which could accelerate warming trends.

The research is featured in the newest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We’ve known for a while now that permafrost is thawing,” said Suzanne Hodgkins, the lead author on the paper and a doctoral student in chemical oceanography at Florida State. “But what we’ve found is that the associated changes in plant community composition in the polar regions could lead to way more carbon being released into the atmosphere as methane.”

Permafrost is soil that is frozen year round and is typically located in polar regions. As the world has gotten slightly warmer, that permafrost is thawing and decomposing, which is producing increased amounts of methane.

Relative to carbon dioxide, methane has a disproportionately large global warming potential. Methane is 33 times more effective at warming the Earth on a mass basis and a century time scale relative to carbon dioxide.

As the plants break down, they are releasing carbon into the atmosphere. And if the permafrost melts entirely, there would be five times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere than there is now, said Jeff Chanton, the John Widmer Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State.

“The world is getting warmer, and the additional release of gas would only add to our problems,” he said.

Chanton and Hodgkins’ work, “Changes in peat chemistry associated with permafrost thaw increase greenhouse gas production,” was funded by a three-year, $400,000 Department of Energy grant. They traveled to Sweden multiple times to collect soil samples for the study.

The research is a multicontinent effort with researchers from North America, Europe and Australia all contributing to the work.

References

– Permafrost thawing could accelerate global warming – Florida State University news release
http://news.fsu.edu/More-FSU-News/Permafrost-thawing-could-accelerate-global-warming

– Changes in peat chemistry associated with permafrost thaw increase greenhouse gas production

***

Towing the Line for Big Oil and the Geoengineers

April 8, 2014

by Dane Wigington
geoengineeringwatch.org

How does the power structure keep people from uniting in a common cause? Divide and conquer. This strategy has in many ways been applied against the anti-geoengineering community.

All of us should research our opinions. We should make every effort to abandon preconceptions and bias, from whatever source. Headlines are not a source of data and even research data from recognized sources  should be verified with data from the ground. We all need to think for ourselves and not to blindly follow the herd. Unfortunately most of the climate science community is obediently following their clan in regard to the criminal denial of climate engineering. Just as unfortunately, much of the anti-geoengineering movement is being influenced by disinformation designed to put them at odds with the science community in regard to the reality of our warming planet. Divide and conquer at work again.

Who do you think would want you to believe the planet is cooling? Who would want you to believe that burning nearly 4 BILLION gallons of hydrocarbon EACH AND EVER DAY is not a problem for planet Earth? Who would want you to believe that cutting down and burning Earth’s forests has no effect on the climate? Who would want you to believe that there is no problem with the climate warming or disintegrating? Who would want to create division and dissent within the activist communities? All of us need to ask ourselves some honest questions and engage in honest objective research if we are to have any hope of standing on solid ground with our conclusions. Why do our conclusions about the true state of the climate matter? Because credibility matters to the cause of exposing and stopping global climate engineering.

Who is pushing for geoengineering?

Who is paying who to make the public believe what?

 funding of climate denial

Though the whole “climate discussion” can be very confusing, we should remember that this is the actual goal of those in power, to confuse and conquer.  There are volumes of completely fraudulent charts, graphs, statistics, articles, etc, in regard to the state of earth‘s climate, how does one decide what‘s real? How does one determine what is accurate? Who would pay for and put out false information on this subject besides Al Gore?

Would the fossil fuel industry and global corporations try to deceive us on the true impact of what they sell? What do you think?

How about the climate engineers, do they want leaders around the globe who are cooperating with their covert programs to believe they are not working to “cool” the planet? Or is it in fact only logical that the geoengineers and their military/industrial/media complex would try to paint the picture of a cooling planet even as Earth heads into meltdown? At minimum, wouldn’t the controlled mainstream media try to at least create confusion over this very polarizing issue? Shouldn’t we ask ourselves how it could be possible to burn nearly 4,000,000 gallons of hydrocarbon a day, defoliate the forests, poison the land, waters, and soils, and not affect the climate system? For those that at least recognize the lethal reality of the ongoing global climate engineering, is it logical not to recognize the true effect of such programs on the climate system? Climate engineering can and does create massive short term cooling anomalies at the cost of a far worsened overall warming.

Think for yourself, and do honest investigation.

Question #1:
No matter what anyone says from any source, can the planet be getting cooler if the world’s glaciers are melting? Is this contradiction possible? No, it is not. If you don’t believe that glaciers are in decline around the planet (and you really care about the truth) then watch “Chasing Ice”  and see for yourself what is happing to the ice around the planet.

Question #2:
If the planet is cooling, why would formerly frozen methane hydrate deposits be thawing and releasing all over the globe? How is this possible if its cooling? Again, its not possible without significant warming.  For those that don’t believe methane is thawing and releasing, all available data says you are patently wrong.

So what is the real overall picture with the climate?
Climate Engineering and Climate Lies
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/climate-engineering-and-climate-lies/

The bottom line is this, those anti-geoengineering activists that have been convinced of “global cooling” by the extremely well funded corporate/fossil fuel/military/media/industrial complex should at minimum consider the effects of the climate engineering they are engaged in fighting. They should at minimum consider the completely engineered nature of “winter storms” that the media is now so engaged in hyping up (to help covertly sell geoengineering as effective). The overall warming that comes from the engineered “cool downs” should also be considered. The ongoing climate engineering/weather warfare is making an already bad situation exponentially worse, putting us from the frying pan and into the fire.

If we are to successfully fight the scourge of climate engineering, we should focus on that issue squarely. If we are to be truly effective it is imperative to be credible. Anything short of solid research and solid conclusions from those in the anti-climate engineering movement gives the climate science community (and all who are connected with them) the excuse they need to throw all our proof of geoengineering out the window. None of this is about Al Gore’s hypocrisy, its about reality.

DW

Warming is NOT Part Of A Natural Cycle
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2433

Last Hours (methane release mass extinction)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGVTK-AAvw

Methane Thawing And Releasing Over The Arctic
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/02/high-methane-levels-over-the-arctic-ocean-on-february-17-2014.html

Chasing Ice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMVNBjc4

Dollars for Deniers, Big Oil Funds Climate Science Denialism
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/26/1182365/-Dollars-for-Deniers-Big-Oil-Funds-Climate-Science-Denialism#

Dealing in Doubt, How Big Oil Funds Climate Denial
http://www.rtcc.org/2013/09/10/dealing-in-doubt-how-big-oil-funds-climate-denial/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network

Scientific American, “Dark Money” Funds Climate Change Denial
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

Not Just The Koch Brothers Funding Climate Warming Denial
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-koch-brothers-reveals-funders-climate.html

Helping the geoengineers to sell geoengineering
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/helping-the-geoengineers-to-sell-geoengineering-updated-jan-4-2014/

Engineered Snow Storms Wreaking Havoc Around The Globe
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/geoengineered-snow-storms-wreaking-havoc-around-the-globe/

Global oil consumption at almost 4 BILLION gallons a day
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-11/iea-boosts-2014-global-oil-demand-estimate-amid-u-s-recovery.html

Fossil fuel industry pushes for geoengineering
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/08/12/204499/british-coal-industry-flack-pushes-geo-engineering-ploy-to-give-politicians-viable-reason-to-do-nothing-about-global-warming-is-that-why-lomborg-supports-such-a-smoke-and-mirrors-approach/

Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Wants Us to Ignore Climate Change Risk
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/why-the-fossil-fuel-industry-wants-us-to-ignore-risk-80330

Climate Engineering and Climate Lies
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/climate-engineering-and-climate-lies/

———————————————————————-
From: La Vía Campesina <via-info-en@viacampesina.org>
Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 10:19 AM
Subject: [La Vía Campesina] E-newsletter April 2014. Special issue Peasants’ seeds in resistance

Peasant seed systems are the root of food sovereignty and sustainability

Hunger is a social problem … to resolve … we must start by choosing peasant seeds as the basis for food sovereignty.” Paul Nicholson, a farmer from Basque Country.

The majority of peasants and smallholder farmers subsist on peasant seed systems, and farm-saved seeds. These systems mostly in developing countries, despite being resilient, are facing new and renewed onslaught from the transnational agribusinesses working together with the so-called developed nations through bilateral agreements and multilaterally in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In Africa, legislation is being drafted to pave way for increased use of industrial seeds, while the “second tidal wave of Green Revolution” sweeps over the continent driven by the winds of “addressing hunger through improved agricultural productivity”. In Latin America, countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil etc, peasants and farmers’ struggles against GMOs continue and major encouraging victories have been won. The seed laws being drafted globally are based on the UPOV91 Convention, a legal framework of property rights which includes “protection” of genetic material, certification and trade which excludes non-commercial seeds. The Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which have been displacing millions of small-scale farmers are being used to open borders to industrial seeds. Moreover, some national governments have set up discriminatory agricultural support systems which exclude farmers who do not use certain industrial seeds to qualify for government credit and support programs. This is despite the evidence that the monoculture and industrial farming methods are not providing sufficient affordable food and cause mounting environmental damage. If we lose the fight, not only nature will suffer grave consequences but humanity!

Below are summaries of selected articles and videos published between 2012 and 2014 to further provide compelling evidence of why we should be defending and struggling for the use and protection of traditional seeds, and continue to fight against transnational corporations (TNCs).

SELECTED ARTICLES

On April 17 We Defend our Seeds and Fight Against the Seed Industry

This year the 17th of April, international day of peasant struggles, is dedicated to the defense of seeds. This article explains why seeds are an essential basis for achieving food sovereignty because almost everything in agriculture depends on them: What we can plant and how it is grown; the quality and nutrition of our food, our ability to account for different tastes and cultural preferences; and also the wellbeing of our communities, our ecosystems and the planet. Moreover, it explains why this is not so much the defense of seeds in general but the peasant seeds in particular, which remain in the hands of the peasant and family farmers of the world. Examples of how to defend and struggle for seeds among the organizations in the 73 countries that make up La Vía Campesina, are highlighted. Read more and Globalize struggle! Globalize hope!

No Agro-biodiversity without Peasants, say GRAIN

The world is witnessing an explosion of popular initiatives and experiences to use, save and develop agro-biodiversity. At GRAIN we also see this happening. Seed saving projects, seed festivals, community seed initiatives and exchange networks are mushrooming everywhere. This is both extremely encouraging and dearly needed. We can’t count on governments to help us with the tremendous task of keeping biodiversity alive. They tend to move in the opposite direction as they facilitate the corporate takeover of seed and animal breeding, and promote industrial farming. We can only save agro-biodiversity if we save peasant farming. Global farmer movements such as La Via Campesina are trying to do precisely that by advocating food sovereignty. Food sovereignty promotes the use of agro-ecology, biodiversity, local markets and indigenous knowledge. It pushes for agrarian reform, fights against the industrial food system and global trade and puts local food producers centre stage again. Unless we all join and win the battle against the industrial food system and for food sovereignty, local agro-biodiversity initiatives won’t stand a chance of surviving. At most, they will become isolated pockets of interesting experiments in a world of uniformity, controlled by corporations. Read more …

Seed laws in Latin America: the offensive continues, so does popular resistance

GRAIN reports that as the world’s agribusiness corporations pursue their attempts to privatize and monopolize our seeds, and make traditional age-old practice of saving and breeding seeds a crime, popular resistance by peasants, farmers and social movements to such control has increased. This resistance has borne fruit in nearly every country in Latin America where campaigns and struggles for traditional seeds have been prevalent:
  • In Argentina, the draft of the Seeds Act being discussed in secret never emerged from the Ministry of Agriculture to be tabled in Parliament.
  • In Chile, societal mobilization helped secure a majority of senators to vote against the “Monsanto Bill.”
  • In Colombia, peasant mobilization put a temporary stop to Resolution 9.70.
  • In Venezuela, there are firm commitments to keep the principles upheld by Hugo Chávez from being betrayed.
  • And in Mexico, societal campaigning prevented the Federal Plant Varieties Act from being revised for compliance with UPOV 91. Read more…

Karnataka farmer develops non-Bt cotton seed bank

Jayashree Nandi of The Times of India, New Delhi published an article on a peasant farmer, Nagappa, who after three years of relentless efforts, managed to revive 13 varieties of indigenous cotton and 11 other varieties of non-Bt cotton on his farm. Nagappa, used to grow Bt cotton, a genetically modified variety developed by an American company, was finding it difficult to grow this variety as it did not allow mixed-cropping and in times low rainfall, the yields were low. This compelled him to search for native varieties from different states and through careful selection has developed new varieties. He is developing a seed bank of these indigenous varieties which are difficult to find even at research institutions.

His efforts have been applauded by others and are seen as a step towards reviving biodiversity and liberating farmers from the monopoly of seed companies, and require government support. Read more

NGOs Petition against Plant Breeders Bill in Ghana

Thirty seven international non-governmental organizations petitioned the Ghanaian Parliament over the Plant Breeders Bill, which is heavily tilted in favor of commercial breeders and undermines farmers’ rights. The Bill does not allow farmers to sell and exchange seeds. Farmers’ use of farm saved seed on its own holdings is limited to “personal use” and regulations by the Minister and may be subject to payment of royalties.

These organizations which signed the petition are concerned with the conservation of agricultural biodiversity for livelihood security and food sovereignty, promoting farmers’ rights and self-determination and citizen involvement in the decision-making process. Read more On this article by Ghana News Agency

Farmers mobilize in Brussels: “Reclaiming peasants’ rights over our own seeds”

Press Release – European Coordination Via Campesina

(Brussels, 20 January 2014) At the start of the year devoted to family farming by the UN to feed the world, peasants from all over Europe held a demonstration in front of the European Parliament on Monday January 20 2014. They called for reclaiming recognition of peasants’ rights to select, preserve, use, exchange and sell our own seeds. They also declared that they seeds are essential if peasants are to feed the world, and could overcome the challenge of discontinuing the use of toxic pesticides, protection of the environment and the struggle of adapting to climate change. Only peasant family farming helps to cool the planet. GMOs must be banned. Co-existence alongside them is not a viable option. Intellectual property rights on living organisms, which allow industry to lay claim to all the world’s seeds, must also be stopped. We call on the European institutions to enshrine these peasants’ rights in all regulations.

The global struggle for peasants seeds: a struggle for our future
In November 2013, La Via Campesina’ launched its publication “Our Seeds, Our Future” capturing ten experiences of peasant seed selection, saving, improvement, and re-use. These experiences in recovering and reproducing knowledge to improve peasant agricultural food production mirror what obtains in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. This marks a critical moment for the future of the planet’s seed diversity. While industry pursues legal and institutional battles to further control and monopolize global seed supplies, the evidence is growing in support of diversified peasant seeds and agroecology as fundamental to producing healthy food while mitigating environmental and climate impacts.
This publication is instructive and each experience proves that farmers are not only safeguarding traditional knowledge, but are also birth new knowledge and new techniques for improving seeds and sustainable agricultural methods. Farmers are thus originators, the scientists, who study problems and challenges obtaining in their localities and finding crucial solutions and answers to address them. They have done this over centuries, before the conception of capitalism, and will continue to do so, avoiding dependence on purchased industrial seeds and other agro-inputs. Read the new publication Our Seeds Our Future


Defending peasant seeds is fighting for our right to life

La Via Campesian- African Declaration on Peasant seeds

La Via Campesina together with African men and women farmers issued a declaration on Peasant Seeds. The declaration was issued on the 13th of November 2013, in Harare where members of La Via Campesina had gathered to discuss and prepare strategies to defend African peasant seeds against the current corporate and institutional attacks. The attacks through reforming of seed laws by SADC, COMESA and ARIPO in line with UPOV91 convention which seeks to set the stage for privatization and monopolization of seeds in the continent. Moreover, these laws seek to do away with peasant seed systems, and criminalise any exchange of farm saved seeds. The declaration calls upon the policymakers to uphold the seed rights of peasant and small farmers to sow, conserve, sell and exchange seeds. It rejects, among other things, the green revolution technologies and calls for the ban of GMOs. Click here to read the declaration and for more of the issues discussed in the meeting click here to read more

The International Seed Treaty: A resolution in support of Farmers’ Rights

Press Release of La Via Campesina

Last year (2013) on the 28th of September, the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, also known as the seed treaty, adopted a resolution calling on states to implement and support Farmers’ Rights, i.e. the rights of peasants and farmers over their own seeds. This followed the concerted pressure of regional groups from Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa and the Middle East, along with many Asian and European countries, and in spite of opposition from a handful of industrialized nations. The resolution acknowledges the important role played by farmers in the conservation and development of seeds, and welcomes the participation of farmers’ organizations and civil society in its work. The Governing Body also notes that patents and plant variety protection (PVP) can “interact” with Farmers’ Rights, implicitly acknowledging that they are currently opposed to them in many countries.
La Via Campesina welcomed this development and will be vigilant that this new resolution will be upheld. Read more on the treaty and for the press release of La Via Campesina issued before this crucial resolution click here


The European Commission organizes the pollution of our fields by industrial patented seeds

Press Release of the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC)

(Brussels, Tuesday, May 7) The European Commission adopted a proposal on Seed Regulations in early May. The proposal represented an assault on farmers’ and gardeners’ rights, as it opened wide the door to unrestricted commercialization of patented plants, extolling patents and property rights of the agribusiness industry and reinforced the bureaucratic control over such issues.
This goes against the reasons put forward by the Commission to reform the existing legislation, namely a need for administrative simplification and protection of biodiversity. The European Coordination Via Campesina called on the European Parliament and the European Council to amend this proposal, and to endorse the right of farmers to produce and exchange their seeds as opposed to endorsing patented seeds and ownership of living organisms by industry. Read more on this press release

GMOs in Mexico: A Crime Against Peasant And Indigenous Maize; A Crime Against Humanity

La Via Campesina- Press Release

In Mexico City, November 20, 2012, the multinationals Monsanto, DuPont and Dow are expecting a positive response from the Mexican Government to sow 2.4 million hectares of GM maize in Mexico, a surface area equivalent to that of El Salvador. The situation is extremely alarming since Mexico is the world’s centre of maize diversity, with thousands of varieties (each one the product of different climates, soils, ecosystems and cultures) in the fields of peasant and indigenous communities. Maize is currently one of the world’s three main food staples, so the contamination of Mexican maize by dangerous GMOs is a threat to the entire planet. These hybrid varieties are dependent on pesticides and other inputs, which peasants must purchase. For years, the Mexican Government has been jeopardizing the Mexicans’ food sovereignty by opening agriculture to free trade, flooding us with cheap, low quality maize and leaving thousands of peasants in poverty. Now they want to poison us with GM maize.
La Via Campesina organizations united with Mexican civil society and men and women peasants to oppose Monsanto’s demands and it called upon its members to organize a major actions and campaigns including filing complaints at Monsanto, DuPont and Dow and with the governments that support them; filing complaints with bodies such as the FAO and the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD); pressuring Mexican embassies throughout the world; organizing demonstrations and other actions; disseminating the information through all possible media. The people and peasant communities of Mexico resist the multinationals.

Click here to read more. The National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) published a Maize Manifesto in which they appealed to the Mexican against issuing of commercial permits to grow GMO maize. Click here to read the Maize Manifesto

VIDEOS

Last January 20, in Brussels, peasants from all over Europe, members of the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) protested outside the European Parliament to demand recognition of their rights to select, retain, use, exchange and sell their seeds. Plant local seeds, Harvest global future is the video of the mobilization

Interview with José-Manuel Benitez : this interview was realized on January 20, 2014, during the mobilization of the farmers of the European Coordination Via Campesina in front of the European Parliament.

Resistant seeds : A trip between Europe and Africa through agro-ecological practices of resistance, in disobedience to the laws that through patent rights prohibit storage, exchange and reuse of traditional seeds. This video was produced by Crovecia

The film entitled “10 Years of Failure, Farmers Deceived by GM corn” shows the dire situation of corn farmers in the Philippines who have adopted GM corn.

Argentina : the bad seeds. On the consequences on public health of the soy production in Argentina.

The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as Le monde selon Monsanto, the film is based on Robin’s three-year long investigation into the US agricultural giant Monsanto corporation’s practices around the world.

Of Peoples, seeds, Indigeneous breeds, forests and fields : Journeys of adivasis, dalits, pastoralists, small and marginal farmers across 11 districts in Andhra Pradesh, India, towards Food Sovereignty and Manchi Jeevitham as a way of life.


Via-info-en@viacampesina.org
http://viacampesina.org/Via-info-en/
https://mail.viacampesina.org/lists/listinfo/Via-info-en

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http://rt.com/news/anonymous-israel-cyber-attack-737/

#OpIsrael: Anonymous attacks hundreds of Israeli websites

Edited time: April 07, 2014

Hundreds of websites of Israeli ministries and organizations came under attack by Anonymous early Monday as part of the hacktivist group’s anti-Israel operation, dubbed #OpIsrael.

“On April 7, 2014, we call upon our brothers and sisters to hack, deface, hijack, database leak, admin takeover, and DNS terminate the Israeli Cyberspace by any means necessary” the group said in a statement.

The move is an act of protest against Israel’s policies, including those against Palestine.

“The further assault on the people of Gaza, who have been flooded by your sewage, terrorized by your military apparatus, and left to die at the border while waiting for medical attention will NOT be tolerated anymore,” the statement read.

“We will not stop until the police state becomes a free state and Palestine is free.”

On a website dedicated to the event, another hacker group – AnonGhost – posted a video saying that the attack will target every possible Israeli website in order to show solidarity with Palestine.

In March, hackers united under the AnonGhost banner claimed to have crashed the website of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The group posted the logins and passwords of the website’s users online.

The first cyber-attacks under the name OpIsrael were launched by Anonymous during and Israeli assault on Gaza in November 2012. Around 700 Israeli websites, including high-profile government setups such as the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli President’s official website, were taken down. Following the attack, Anonymous posted the personal data of 5,000 Israeli officials online.

The websites of the Israeli parliament, ministries and other government organizations stopped operating for some time after last year’s attack, which also took place on April 7.

A Middle East hacker who participated in the operation told RT that the “aim of the attack was to show the world the true face of Israel and its armed forces.” He said that last year’s attack was a warning for Israel to be ready for new, larger “surprises.”

In retaliation against the massive assault, Israeli hackers allegedly broke into the website OpIsrael.com and posted pro-Israeli content. The site was allegedly being used to coordinate cyber-attacks on Israeli sites.

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Oklahoma breaks record with hundreds of earthquakes after fracking intensifies

Published time: April 07, 2014

 

A series of earthquakes over the weekend continued to break alarming records of seismic activity in Oklahoma, which some scientists say is linked to increased fracking operations in the state.

According to Reuters, six earthquakes struck central Oklahoma between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, including a 3.8 magnitude tremor that was recorded around 7:42 a.m. Prior to this quake, three others hit the area and “rocked houses” in multiple communities: one at a magnitude of 2.9, and two others at 2.6 and 2.6 magnitude.

The day before on Friday, March 4, meanwhile, a 3.4 magnitude quake in the same area was followed up by a 3.0 magnitude event in the evening.

Speaking with Reuters, seismologist Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey said that not even four months into 2014, the state has already experienced more earthquakes (252) than it did the entirety of 2013 – itself a record-breaking year with 222 quakes recorded.

“We have already crushed last year’s record for number of earthquakes,” he said.

Additionally, Holland added, “We have had almost as many magnitude 3 and greater already in 2014 than we did for all of 2013.”

The spike in seismic activity has scientists concerned that the sharp rise in earthquakes is related to controversial oil drilling procedures such as fracking. This process – which consists of blasting highly pressurized water, sand, and other chemicals into layers of rock in an attempt to free oil and gas – has been connected to earthquake activity since wastewater is then pumped into underground wells that can cause friction near fault lines.

As noted in a recent report by the US Geological Survey, the number of earthquakes occurring in Oklahoma has risen to about 40 a year from 2009 – 2013, compared to three or fewer from 1975 – 2008. This data came alongside numbers for the rest of the United States as well, which saw a six-fold increase in earthquakes in 2011 when compared to 2000.

As RT reported in late March, state officials from Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas have initiated coordinated efforts to discuss strengthening regulations and standards regarding fracking operations, including possibly requiring oil companies to record the pressure in waste disposal wells every day instead of every month.

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April 8, 2014

First Fracking Trial in U.S. Opens in Dallas

The Parrs blame spills of hazardous waste and emissions of toxic gases from production tanks and various industrial equipment for a myriad of health problems.

Activist Post

The first fracking trial in the U.S. opens in Dallas today. Texans Bob and Lisa Parr of Wise County are suing Aruba Petroleum for property and personal damages which the couple claims they have suffered as a result of Aruba’s fracking operations. The Parr property was surrounded by natural gas frackers in 2009. The Parrs charge that frackers have so polluted their air and water as to destroy their right to peacefully enjoy their home and property and properly care for their pets and livestock, some of whom have died as a result of the fracking pollution, according to the complaint against Plano, Texas-based Aruba Petroleum.

Attorney David Matthews of Matthews & Associates and Brad Gilde – Houston, Texas-based lawyers – represent Bob and Lisa Parr and their underage daughter. The Parrs lived peacefully for years on their 18-acre ranch in the country outside Dallas, until they were surrounded by frackers in Nov. 2008. The fracking has polluted their air and water and natural environment, damaging their physical and emotional health, according to the complaint. A doctor certified in environmental medicine will testify that the Parrs are now partially disabled from the fracking operations. The native Texans filed suit in Dallas County Court in 2011.

The Parr property is located in Allison, a farming community in eastern Wise County. More than 50 natural gas wells were drilled within two miles of the property beginning in Nov. 2008.

The Parrs blame spills of hazardous waste and emissions of toxic gases from production tanks and various industrial equipment for a myriad of health problems. The suit lists more than 20 symptoms the family has experienced since 2008, including nosebleeds, migraines, open sores, heart arrhythmia, abdominal pain and coughing. The suit’s charges include assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence.The Parrs have also complained of mental confusion, which can result from toxic poisoning, as well as a host of other health problems that can be linked to toxic poisoning. The couple’s young daughter began experiencing symptoms such as nosebleeds, sometimes waking up covered in blood and crying. Several pets and livestock have sickened and/or died.The family has moved in and out of their beleaguered home, sometimes staying in Bob Parr’s in-town office, so as to be able to sleep – fracking can also be noisy – and breathe clean air. An environmental health specialist conducted various tests on the family and found “natural gas chemicals, compounds, and/or metals” in their bodies, according to the suit.

Bob Parr said the lawsuit was “a last resort. . . I need to protect my family and my way of life.”

Drilling occurs as close as 200 feet from the Parrs’ house. No environmental impact study was ever done before the fracking started. Frackers are apparently not required to employ any emissions controls. A special exemption to the clean water act was written for Halliburton in 2005 – something many call the Halliburton/Cheney loophole – so that the former Vice President’s company and others in the industry loop could frack peoples’ lands without pesky environmental regulations.

Thanks to the Cheney/Halliburton loophole, frackers like Aruba now drill through peoples’ lives and their aquifers with virtual immunity from environmental law. Frackers have been given virtual carte blanche by industry-sponsored state and national government officials.

The Declaration of Independence demands that all Americans deserve the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the Parrs charge that unregulated frackers now trample those rights.

A former thoracic surgeon, Dr. William Rea, who became only the third person in the United States to become board certified in environmental medicine, will testify for the Parrs. Dr. Rea was awarded the Jonathan Forman Gold Medal Award in 1987 for outstanding research in environmental medicine.

Source: Matthews & Associates

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Published on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 by Common Dreams

Battered & Broken by Cuts, Greek Workers Still Rise to Fight

Thousands strike across country in continued battle against the devastation of imposed austerity

– Jon Queally, staff writer

Thousands of Greek workers marched on parliament in Athens on Wednesday and a nationwide general strike was underway as public sector and other unions demanded an end to the austerity that has been imposed by the nation’s foreign creditors to detriment of the economy and the social fabric.

“Today’s strike action is being held for the working class to respond decisively to the measures the government is deciding against workers’ rights, unemployment and the abolition of collective wage agreements,” said leftist PAME union spokesman Giorgos Pondikos in a statement.

The strike comes two days ahead of a planned visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom many Greeks blame as a chief antagonist and proponent of the economic measures that have forced Greece to slash wages and pensions, privatize assets, and undermine public services. Those policies have come as conditions for foreign loans offered by the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Union–collectively known as the Troika.

“It’s time to save people not banks,” Eleni Prokou, a 59-year old economist who joined the day’s march in Athens, told Reuters. “Merkel and the troika should stop sticking their nose in our business.”

In addition to outside influence and pressure from the Troika, most workers say the Greek coalition government and the nation’s elite are to blame for allowing the austerity to stand despite the widespread pain they have caused to people and an economy with 28% unemployment.

“They are servants of Merkel,” said protester Aggelos Mikronis, a 60-year old mechanic, of Greece’s politicians. “I’m earning half of what I used to get.”

In a notable development amid the striking workers, the Greek government chose Wednesday to announce that it will float its first long-term bonds on the international market as early as Thursday. The world’s business pages were noting the irony of the announcement alongside the general strike. Greece has not participated in the international bond market in nearly four years, and though financiers take it as a sign that the economy is improving in the country, it is the workers in the streets and those struggling to survive amid historic poverty who are trying to tell a different story.

“This strike is our answer to the dead-end policies that have squeezed workers and made Greek people miserable,” said GSEE, one of the key unions behind the work stoppage and day of protest. “We are striking and fighting to put an end to austerity.”

Wednesday’s strike brought public transportation to a standstill, including train, bus, and ferry services. Hospitals, schools, and other public services are operating at a limited capacity.

According to Deutsche Welle:

Wednesday’s industrial action was directed in particular against Athens’ plan to lay off 11,000 public servants this year, with 4,000 state workers already dismissed in recent months.

The walkout left public services and schools shut across the country. Dock workers also stayed at home, leaving tourists stranded at islands because ferries did not operate.

Doctors and nurses at state hospitals also took part in the walkout and pharmacies remained closed.

On Twitter:

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Published on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 by Common Dreams

Maduro: Like in Kiev, US Fomenting ‘Slow Motion Coup’ in Venezuela

United States would like to “get their hands on [our] oil,” says leftist leader

– Jon Queally, staff writer

Venezuela President Nicolas Madura, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian published Tuesday, says the United States is actively fomenting a ‘slow motion coup’ in his country, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing his democratically elected government as a way to gain more profitable access to its vast oil resources.

Rejecting the dominate narrative presented by the U.S media regarding recent protests in the country, the man who succeeded Hugo Chavez as president and won re-election last year said, “They are trying to sell to the world the idea that the protests are some of sort of Arab spring. But in Venezuela, we have already had our spring: our revolution that opened the door to the 21st century.”

Maduro says claims the street protests are at least partly being fueled by U.S.-backed operatives, and defends this position by pointing to more than 100 years of history of Washington interference in Latin America as well as new details contained in files leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden—both of which make clear what U.S. intentions continue to be towards those who resist the military and economic dominance of the U.S. and its allies.

“Is 100 years of intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean not enough: against Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Brazil?” he said to the Guardian. “Is the coup attempt against President Chávez by the Bush administration not enough? Why does the US have 2,000 military bases in the world? To dominate it. I have told President Obama: we are not your backyard anymore.”

By comparison, Maduro claims that the opposition forces in his country are following the same model as the U.S.-supported anti-government protesters that recently overthrew the government of Ukraine. Like in Kiev, he explained, the right-wing opposition in Caracas and elsewhere have tried to “increase economic problems through an economic war to cut the supplies of basic goods and boost an artificial inflation.” What those protesting the government have tried to do, Maduro continued, is “create social discontent and violence, to portray a country in flames, which could lead them to justify international isolation and even foreign intervention.”

The Guardian’s Seumas Milne and Jonathan Watts, who conducted the interview, pressed Maduro on whether or not his government has been overly repressive against protesters and if political dissent is a punishable offense in Venezuela. As they report:

About 2,200 have been arrested (190 or so are still detained) during two months of unrest, which followed calls by opposition leaders to “light up the streets with struggle” and December’s municipal elections in which Maduro’s supporters’ lead over the opposition increased to 10%.

Responsibility for the deaths is strongly contested. Eight of the dead have been confirmed to be police or security forces; four opposition activists (and one government supporter) killed by police, for which several police officers have been arrested; seven were allegedly killed by pro-government colectivoactivists and 13 by opposition supporters at street barricades.

Asked how much responsibility the government should take for the killings, Maduro responded that 95% of the deaths were the fault of “rightwing extremist groups” at the barricades, giving the example of three motorcyclists killed by wire strung across the road by protesters. He said he has set up a commission to investigate each case. The global media was being used to promote a “virtual reality” of a “student movement being repressed by an authoritarian government”, he argued. “What government in the world hasn’t committed political or economic mistakes? But does that justify the burning down of universities or the overthrow of an elected government?”The protests, often led by students and overwhelmingly in well-off areas, have included arson attacks on government buildings, universities and bus stations. From a peak of several hundred thousand people in February, most recent demonstrations have dwindled in size and are restricted to opposition strongholds, such as Tachira state on the Colombian border.

A hardline opposition leader, Leopoldo López, who participated in the 2002 coup, and two opposition mayors have been arrested and charged with inciting violence. Another backer of the protests, María Corina Machado, was stripped of her post in parliament.

This was not “criminalising dissent”, Maduro insisted. “The opposition has full guarantees and rights. We have an open democracy. But if a politician commits a crime, calls for the overthrow of the legitimate government and uses his position to block streets, burn universities and public transport, the courts act.” Critics, however, insist the courts are politicised.

In the end, Maduro contends that Venezuela embraces the polarization that its democracy affords.

“Politics is not only for the elite, for centre-right and centre-left parties, while the elites distribute power and wealth among themselves,” Maduro said. “Venezuela has a positive polarisation because it is a politicised country where the large majority take sides over public policies. There is also negative polarisation that doesn’t accept the other and wants to eliminate the other – we must get over that with national dialogue.”

As for when he’ll step aside and on the revolutionary legacy of his predecessor Hugo Chavez?

“The people will decide until when I can be here. Be certain that if it is not me it will be another revolutionary,” he said. “What will be indefinite is the popular power of the people”.

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Ohio newspaper suing federal government after two journalists were detained by the military

Published time: April 07, 2014

The Toledo Blade newspaper in Ohio has filed a lawsuit against the United States government after two journalists employed by the outlet were detained by the military for photographing a tank plant owned by defense contractor General Dynamics.

Attorneys for the paper filed their lawsuit on Friday, April 4, one week after Blade reporter Tyrel Linkhorn and photographer Jetta Fraser were detained for around an hour-and-a-half after they were approached while taking pictures of the plant from public property outside the premises.

The journalists were reportedly taking photographs of scenes visible from the street when they were accosted by military security. According to Ms. Fraser, an officer told her that taking pictures of the facility’s power supply, even from outside the property, raised the “suspicion of terrorism.”

Linkhorn and Fraser were held for around 90 minutes, according to the lawsuit, before being released without charge. It took several hours for their camera to be returned, however, and when it was — only upon intervention from a United States senator — they discovered that their images from outside of the plant were deleted. Additionally, attorneys for the Blade say Ms. Fraser was restrained with handcuffs throughout the ordeal and threatened by military personnel and, on her part, she said she was treated in a “disrespectful and discourteous way” by security.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the Blade reported, called General Dynamics on the afternoon of the incident and convinced officials to return the journalists’ camera after they reviewed the images.

According to the suit, the entire incident violated the journalists’ First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights as protected by the United States Constitution. The paper is now suing three members of the military police, as well as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and two others, because they say the Blade staffers were unlawfully detained, that Ms. Fraser was unlawfully restrained and received unlawful threats of bodily harm, that their cameras were unlawfully confiscated and pictures unlawfully destroyed and that the journalists’ constitutional rights were unlawfully prevented from being exercised.

It is hard for me to believe that anyone in a public position is not aware that the Constitution admits anyone, including the media, to take photographs of buildings, scenes or situations that are readily observable from public spots,” Fritz Byers, a lawyer for The Blade, told the New York Times.

In an editorial published on Sunday this week, the Blade said that “Pentagon officials, from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the Army commandant at the plant to the rawest recruit, need to understand and acknowledge that such conduct was intolerable and can’t be allowed to recur, anywhere.”

This is not special pleading on behalf of The Blade or news media in general; no American citizens deserve to be mistreated as our colleagues Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn were,” the op-ed continued.

I’m personally shocked by this incident,” added Blade editor-in-chief John Robinson Block. “I believe our people were totally in the right.”

Dave Murray, managing editor of the Blade, said, “The Army does not have the right in this country to detain journalists, handcuff them, seize their cameras and destroy our work product on the whim of an overzealous military police officer.”

According to the account profiled by Times reporter Ravi Somaiya on Sunday this week, Linkhorn and Fraser were apprehended while on an entry road to Lima, OH General Dynamics plant, where no signs suggested the area was subject to restricted access. A guard’s station was around 30 feet further up the road, according to the complaint seen by the Times.

The photos Ms. Fraser took were taken outside the secure perimeter of the tank plant and were photos that anyone with a cell phone could take as they drive by,” managing editor Murray said.

Both Blade journalists say they believe they acted on the right side of the law throughout the ordeal.

I really don’t understand what I was not allowed to photograph,” Fraser told reporters at her paper. “If I can see it from the road, it’s available to the public eye.”

“I don’t want this to be about me or The Blade necessarily,” opined Linkhorn. “I just want to make sure that laws are followed properly and that people have the freedom that they should have.”

“My biggest concern is that we were doing something that I believe we were within our rights to be doing,” Linkhorn added, “not because we were journalists, but because we are US citizens and we were simply taking photos from public property.”

In the op-ed published by the Blade, the paper said that the military personnel went over the line when they detained the journalists, who earlier during the altercation provided press credentials to security.

The initial effort by the police officers to determine what the journalists were doing may have been proper,” the op-ed read in part. “But everything they did afterwards was not. They, and their employers, must be held accountable for their illegal actions.”

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NATO Members Conduct False Flag Terror in Attempt to Whip Up War

Global Research, April 08, 2014

Turkey Busted for False Flag Terror

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam) says that high-level American sources tell him that the Turkish government carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government.

Indeed, it’s long been known that sarin was coming through Turkey.

Turkey is a member of NATO. So we’re really talking about a NATO member launching a false flag attack against a non-NATO member, and then blaming it on the victim.

Indeed, a new tape recording of top Turkish officials planning a false flag attack to be blamed on Syria as a cassus belli was just leaked a couple of weeks ago, and confirmed by Turkey as being authentic.

In other words, since the last big Turkish false flag didn’t succeed in launching war against Syria, they’re going to try again.

This is not the first false flag by NATO members. For example:

  • Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this)
  • At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence
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It is not Russia that is Destabilising Ukraine. “The West has been needlessly Whipping up Tension”, Lavrov.

If we don’t co-operate soon, chaos may take hold

Global Research, April 08, 2014

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister

The profound and pervasive crisis in Ukraine is a matter of grave concern for Russia. We understand perfectly well the position of a country which became independent just over 20 years ago and still faces complex tasks in constructing a sovereign state. Among them is the search for a balance of interests among its various regions, the peoples of which have different historical and cultural roots, speak different languages and have different perspectives on their past and present, and their country’s future place in the world.

Given these circumstances, the role of external forces should have been to help Ukrainians protect the foundations of civil peace and sustainable development, which are still fragile. Russia has done more than any other country to support the independent Ukrainian state, including for many years subsidising its economy through low energy prices. Last November, at the outset of the current crisis, we supported Kiev’s wish for urgent consultations between Ukraine, Russia and the EU to discuss harmonising the integration process. Brussels flatly rejected it. This stand reflected the unproductive and dangerous line the EU and US have been taking for a long time. They have been trying to compel Ukraine to make a painful choice between east and west, further aggravating internal differences.

Ukraine’s realities notwithstanding, massive support was provided to political movements promoting western influence, and it was done in direct breach of the Ukrainian constitution. This is what happened in 2004, when President Viktor Yushchenko won an unconstitutional third round of elections introduced under EU pressure. This time round, power in Kiev was seized undemocratically, through violent street protests conducted with the direct participation of ministers and other officials from the US and EU countries.

Assertions that Russia has undermined efforts to strengthen partnerships on the European continent do not correspond to the facts. On the contrary, our country has steadily promoted a system of equal and indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic area. We proposed signing a treaty to that effect, and advocated the creation of a common economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific which would also be open to post-Soviet countries.

In the meantime, western states, despite their repeated assurances to the contrary, have carried out successive waves of Nato enlargement, moved the alliance’s military infrastructure eastward and begun to implement antimissile defence plans. The EU’s Eastern Partnership programme is designed to bind the so-called focus states tightly to itself, shutting down the possibility of co-operation with Russia. Attempts by those who staged the secession of Kosovo from Serbia and of Mayotte from the Comoros to question the free will of Crimeans cannot be viewed as anything but a flagrant display of double standards. No less troubling is the pretence of not noticing that the main danger for the future of Ukraine is the spread of chaos by extremists and neo-Nazis.

Russia is doing all it can to promote early stabilisation in Ukraine. We are firmly convinced that this can be achieved through, among other steps: real constitutional reform, which would ensure the legitimate rights of all Ukrainian regions and respond to demands from its south-eastern region to make Russian the state’s second official language; firm guarantees on Ukraine’s non-aligned status enshrined in its laws, thus ensuring its role as a connecting link in an indivisible European security architecture; and urgent measures to halt activity by illegal armed formations of the Right Sector and other ultra-nationalist groups.

We are not imposing anything on anyone, we just see that if it is not done, Ukraine will continue to spiral into crisis with unpredictable consequences. We stand ready to join international efforts aimed at achieving these goals. We support the appeal by foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland to implement the 21 February agreement. Their proposal – to hold Russia-EU talks with the participation of Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership states about the consequences of EU association agreements – corresponds to our position.

The world of today is not a junior school where teachers assign punishments at will. Belligerent statements such as those heard at the Nato foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on 1 April do not match demands for a de-escalation. De-escalation should begin with rhetoric. It is time to stop the groundless whipping-up of tension, and to return to serious common work.

 This article was amended on 8 April 2014. The sixth paragraph originally referred to “firm guarantees on Ukraine’s non-aligned status to be enshrined in its laws”. This was changed to “firm guarantees on Ukraine’s non-aligned status enshrined in its laws” as its status is already enshrined in law.

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Seymour Hersh Unearths More Lies on Syria

By Jonathan Cook

Turkey was almost certainly the party responsible for the attack. Continue

Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack? 

By Robert Parry

The significance of Hersh’s latest report is twofold: first, it shows how Official Washington’s hawks and neocons almost stampeded the United States into another Mideast war under false pretenses, and second, the story’s publication in the London Review of Books reveals how hostile the mainstream U.S. media remains toward information that doesn’t comport with its neocon-dominated conventional wisdom. Continue

The Crucible of Iraq

By Chris Hedges

Morality is turned upside down. Killers prey on the weak, the vulnerable and the innocent in the name of God or the state or some twisted ethnic loyalty. Continue

Sharp Rise in tensions in Eastern Ukraine

By The Saker

Why should Russia intervene.  All it has to do is wait for the final collapse and then pick up whatever piece it will deem worthy of interest. Continue

Obama Issues Threats To Russia And NATO

By Paul Craig Roberts

It is only a matter of time before it is universally recognized that the US is a failed state.Continue

The American Deep State, Deep Events, and Off-the-Books Financing

By Peter Dale Scott

Congress maintains the power of the purse, which gives lawmakers the ability to defund specific programs the federal agency holds dear, but the CIA maintains the documents and information Congress needs to see to effectively conduct oversight in the first place. Continue

Call Climate Change What It Is: Violence

By Rebecca Solnit

Social unrest and famine, superstorms and droughts. Places, species and human beings – none will be spared. Welcome to Occupy Earth. Continue

It’s Not Russia That Is Destabilising Ukraine

By Sergei Lavrov 

The west has been needlessly whipping up tension – if we don’t co-operate soon, chaos may take hold. Continue

Russia Announces Decoupling Trade From Dollar

By Peter Koenig

Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners – no longer in dollars. 
Continue

Indoctrinating A New Generation

By William Blum

Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he’s speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an honest man? Continue

How The CIA Made Dr. Zhivago Into A Weapon

By Paul Craig Roberts

What strikes me about the CIA memos is how similar the United States government is today to the Soviet government of 1958. Continue

The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case 

By Robert Parry

The Obama administration’s case against the Syrian government collapses, not that it was ever very sturdy. Continue

Seymour Hersh and the Spineless Nay-sayers

By Jonathan Cook

Those attacking Hersh have got their priorities way out of kilter. Continue

A Century of Deceit: World Wars and Zionist Militarism

By Brandon Martinez

Israeli militarists, masquerading as American thinkers, left behind a paper trail that unveiled their true objectives. Continue

Israel’s Intentions Become Clearer

By Jonathan Cook 

“Israel hasn’t changed. It is the same colonial entity pursuing the same ethnic cleansing policies it did for decades.” Continue

Chris Hedges on “Israel’s War on American Universities” 

Must Watch – Video

Chris Hedges talk at Northeastern University in support of its now banned Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Continue

“Eating the Children of the Poor and the Patriotic”

By Murray Polner

Deep down we know why some men kill after they return home from war. Continue

Why Are Americans Paying to Be Searched,
Spied On, Shot At and Robbed Blind by the Government?

By John W. Whitehead

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a disconcerting government mindset that interprets the Constitution one way for corporations, government entities and the wealthy. Continue

Thought Money Could Buy an American Election?
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

By Gary Younge

The supreme court’s relaxing of donation rules just made US elections even more undemocratic and corruptible. Continue

The Rich Are Running Latin America – And Why That Matters

By Noam Lupu and Nicholas Carnes

Government by the rich is not an irrelevant quirk of the political landscape. Continue

Postcard from the end of America: Columbus, Ohio

By Linh Dinh 

America’s priapric dreams, however, are nothing to be chuckled at. Increasingly vehement and bloody, they’re on course to blow up this Columbus experiment, if not the rest of the world also. Continue

Gimme Shelter

By Philip A Farruggio

“The Wall Street rental scheme, the mass purchase of 200,000 single family homes by hedge funds and private equity firms to convert to rental properties, has run into trouble” Continue

How Have These Corporations Colonised Our Public Life?

By George Monbiot 

Our politicians have delegated power to global giants engineering a world of conformity and consumerism. Continue

In Case You Missed It
Time to Wake Up: The Climate Denial Beast

Video

‘A deliberate, complex scheme of lies and propaganda”

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April 9, 2014

  • Featured / Best Exotic FENuclear > LENR >
    LENR-to-Market Digest — April 9, 2014 – Highlights this month include: Rumblings about pending E-Cat test results ‘remarkable’; applications include jet engine and miniaturization; Impossible Invention book by Mats Lewan; non-final rejection of US patent; myriad of MIT Colloquium reports; H-Cat progress; MFMP progress; 25 years. (PESN)

April 8, 2014

  • FeaturedWater > as Fuel >
    NRL Seawater to Fuel Program – It’s basically a non-LENR variation of the H-Cat: electrolyzing H, combined with CO2 in a catalytic process, to make fuel. Maybe a decade before it’s ready to deploy in on-site fuel creation in ocean applications. Meanwhile, they just flew a model plane on the fuel. (PESN)
  • Brillouin says: “Room Temp” LENR (link fixed) – “In phase I we saw the heat generation start in the 25-30 C range. So people should be able to see it at room temperature.” (Free Energy Blog; April 8, 2014)
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Is the U.S. a Fascist Society? Fascism is a Political Economic Structure Which Serves Corporate Interests

Global Research, April 08, 2014
Region: USA

Most Americans are taught in school that fascism is a ruthless one party dictatorship, the most popular example being Nazi Germany. This is a misconception. Fascism is a political economy, not merely a political system that existed in one moment of history. Fascism, as defined by Black revolutionary and assassinated political prisoner George Jackson, is the complete control of the state by monopoly capital. Fascism is the last stage of capitalism in the heart of the US imperial center where the relationship between the state and corporation becomes indiscernible.  A difficult, but necessary, task for the left in this period is to acknowledge that fascism is the system of rule in the United States.

The privatization of the public sector, de-unionization of the entire labor force, and violent austerity are the seeds of domestically grown fascism in the economic realm.  Such fascist activity has brought about the rapid decline of political and economic conditions for the working class and the rapid accumulation of wealth and profit for the ruling class. Workers are doing more and more on the job for less and less pay.  The jobless are either searching desperately for work or not searching at all.  Shelters are overflowing and turning the homeless away. The US has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners despite only possessing 5 percent of the world’s population.  Mass joblessness, poverty, imprisonment, and homelessness are material forces that breed fear and competition amongst the working class.

The paradox of fascism lies in its ability to sustain and grow in the midst of deteriorating conditions for the majority of the population. The racist foundation of this country is useful in this regard. The white working class steadfastly defends its privileges obtained from white imperial pillage of Black and indigenous people both here and abroad. The white ruling class maintains unity with the white working class because, although exploitation has heightened for everyone, Black and indigenous people (including undocumented immigrants) remain economically and socially oppressed to a much harsher degree than Whites.  To ensure racism does not precipitate a radical struggle between white supremacy and Black freedom, the US ruling class has molded and trained a Black political class. This class of neo-colonial elites, with Barack Obama leading the way, works in the interests of fascism by protecting the rule of the white ruling class while teaching the entire Black community that Black faces in high imperial places is not only desired, but also worthy of staunch defense.

Furthermore, fascism relies on a racist enforcement arm to control the political direction of the oppressed.  The expanded surveillance and military state that currently spies, detains, and wiretaps the 99 percent remains more dangerous and repressive for the Black community. The vast majority of wiretaps, police and vigilante murders, and stop-and-frisks happen to Black and brown people.  So instead of joining forces with the Black community to build a powerful movement, exploited white Americans can still rely on the state to enforce racism on its behalf.

The US corporate media and education system provide the ideological chains of fascism.  In this period, both systems serve as mouthpieces for US imperial ambitions, values, and behaviors. Fascism is normalized in the American mind through the inculcation of racism, individualism, and a depoliticized and inaccurate conception of history and politics.  The US education system conditions the oppressed and oppressors into their positions in society. Black and indigenous youth attend factory schools that emphasize obedience to authority, which instills a dehumanized and subservient disposition for a future in low-wage work or prison.  From K-12, Black working class youth are taught to “pledge allegiance” to the flag of genocide and colonialism in over-crowded, police-occupied, and privatized schools.  White youth “pledge allegiance” in better-funded schools more capable of conditioning them into positions of power.  However, all youth are taught a mythological version of US history that applauds white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalist development as “freedom” and “democracy.”

The corporate media, despite being far more monopolized than the US school system, provides a more diverse means of education. Corporations like CNN and the New York Times habitually lie about the facts of political events to protect the white ruling class and its institutions from accountability.  Corporate hip-hop, music, and television entertainment compliment corporate news syndicates by doping the mind full of mindless garbage.   It matters little if the media of choice is watching “Scandal”, listening to Nicki Minaj on the radio, or reading the Washington Post. The boardrooms of five corporations are manufacturing consent to the US fascist system. Malcolm X succinctly summarized the function of the corporate media when he said “if you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Friday, April 4th was the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination.  Although King never claimed that the US was a fascist society, he certainly was struggling with the fundamental structure of US society by the end of his life.  In “Where do We Go from Here” (1967) for instance, King stated that

“ . . . more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society . . .and you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the oil?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the iron ore?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?’”

Unsurprisingly, King’s opposition to racism, capitalism, and war placed a target on his life. The US government was found guilty of using its intelligence agencies to murder King in 1999.  The murder of King was part and parcel of the US government’s crackdown on the radical left, which is now imbedded in the legal framework of this country since the institution of the “War on Terror.”  King’s legacy should inspire us to dig deep into the roots of the type of society we live in and the type of society we want to live in.  George Jackson’s conclusion that the US indeed is a fascist society receives little attention from the US left. Further, this article could not possibly analyze in the detail deserved every element of the US ruling order. However, there is ample evidence that we should no longer be asking the question of whether fascism exists in this country, but rather, where do we go from here.

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NOTE:  Certainly this is a good time to republish this.   —  kl, pp
 

Understanding the U.S. War State: The New Fundamentalism, “America is God”

Global Research, April 08, 2014
Region: USA

This article was original published by GR in May 2003

“It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” -Hermann Goering

Genocide used to be a crime without a name. Although the most heinous of all crimes, the concept was not introduced into international language until after World War 2. Until then, military invasion and destruction of other peoples and cultures masqueraded under such slogans as progress and spreading civilisation.

I was shocked many years ago when I heard Noam Chomsky say that genocide was America’s defining political tradition. Then I realised that the United States (like Canada to a much lesser extent) was based on destroying the lives and cultures of the 25 million or so first peoples who had lived in America for millennia. In the case of the U.S., the story continued with the forcible seizure of Texas in 1845 from Mexican farmers and indigenous peoples, and Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California and other state territories shortly afterward in 1849. U.S. troops under the slave-owning General Zachary Taylor unilaterally invaded its southern neighbour under the false pretext of avenging American blood, and General Taylor soon vaulted into the White House as a presidential war hero. Even though a young Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, exposed the pretext, and connected it to a Anglo-British business strategy to impose free trade on the regions by financing the prior president, James Polk, into the White House as General Taylor’s commander.

In 1898, once again under the false pretext of self-defence (when the U.S.S. Maine sank from an internal explosion), the Philippines, Guam, Cuba in part, and Puerto Rico were seized from their peoples by another unilaterally provoked war. This war of aggression and occupation, like so many U.S. interventions since, was preceded by a media campaign of whipping up public hysteria and war fever. Media baron Randolf Hearst made the famous remark, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war,” not unlike the U.S. cable and network media daily drum-beat in recent months for war on Iraq. War is a major violence entertainment, and in close partnership with the Pentagon it can go on for months to divert the masses.

The tradition of misleading the American people by false pretexts for aggressive wars is an old one in U.S. history, but since the fascist interregnum war criminal invasions of other countries have not been accepted by public opinion. The U.S. under the control of the corporate war party now seeks to reverse this trend. By dint of the permitted 9-11 plane attacks on the World Trade Centre, an open presidential blank-cheque has been granted by Congress for attacking third-world countries so as to occupy their countries and control their resources. The now known blueprint of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others written in September of 2001 as the Project for the New American Century is clear on the plan to shape the international security order in line with American principles and interests. Armed domination of the Gulf region transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Oil looms large in this plan to rule the world for American interests. According to a report sponsored by oil corporations from the Washington Centre for Strategic and International Studies, oil is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold within the confines of the traditional supply and demand balances, but a determinant of national security and international power.

The U.S. state military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in under two years are expressions of this new supra-market policy. Before we pass over the pattern of facts at work as merely realpolitik, we should note that this armed-state project resembles fascism: not only in war criminal attacks on other countries in violation of international law, but in repudiating market relations to seize others valuable goods by armed force.

Facing Facts

As demagogic glorification of genocidal invasion once again escapes naming by a flood of falsehoods and projections onto the latest U.S. Enemy, we need to remind ourselves of facts that no mass medium once discussed [the period] from October of 2002 to March of 2003. As we lay bare the ruling deceptions here, we should keep in mind the unifying principle which is not seen. U.S. state justifications always project onto the designated Enemy what the U.S. security state is doing itself. If it loudly condemns another weaker states weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, violation of international laws, or attempts to impose its will on the world by terror, then we can deduce that this is exactly what the U.S. is planning more of, but is diverting attention from by accusing others. Test this underlying principle with every international accusation the U.S. makes next, and you will find that it is invariable confirmed.

The tactic works wonderfully with a lapdog press and political class who are excited into a kind of collective delirium by choral denunciations of the foreign demon who is the designated Enemy of the Day. (I will explain why in my analysis ahead of the ruling group-mind.) So exactly does the U.S. security state project its own violent policies onto others that one can tell what vicious policy it is about to escalate next by by the intensity with which the Other is accused of the crime. This is how we can best understand the endless accusation of the Soviet Union of a plot to rule the worldbefore 1991, and how we can best make sense of the official U.S. fixation on global terrorism today. Both predications disclose the inner logic of the U.S. war states own pattern of behaviour. I sometimes wonder whether this is a deliberate strategic tactic of diversion, or a structure of paranoid delusion built into the mind-set of U.S. culture.

Let us in this light examine the principal claims and concealments of the Bush Jr. administration in its pursuit of Iraq:

The Bush administration has tirelessly claimed to be upholding international law in its pressuring of the Security Council into action regarding Iraq’s violation of U.N. resolutions and international law. In fact, since its entry into office the Bush Jr. administration has sabotaged laws, covenants and monitoring protocols to protect individuals and peoples against nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines, small arms, international ballistic missiles, torture, racism, discrimination against women, arbitrary seizure and imprisonment, mistreatment of prisoners, crimes against humanity and war crimes, military weather distortions, biodiversity loss, and international climate destabilisation. Its latest overriding of international law and due process has been the forcible usurpation of the Security Council inspections of Iraq. No rogue state in modern history has remotely matched this continuous and systematic violation of international law and procedures to implement international law.

The Bush administration’s preparation and threat of military invasion against a country thousands of miles from its borders is unequivocally a war crime under international law, including Principles 1, 2 and 6(a)1of the Nuremberg Charter and Article 54 of the Geneva Convention. The fact that this war crime of preparing for and planning an invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led armed forces whatever the UN decides has never been openly discussed promoted the very aggression which the U.N. is constituted to prevent.

It is not as if there were any doubt about the Bush administration’s clear intention to put itself above the law as it incessantly accused Iraq of doing so. It declared from the beginning that it would go it alone with whoever was willing, and yet not a word of this declared threat to international peace and security issued from any U.N. ambassador, including Canadas Bill Graham, that this was a lawless intention and plan.

The effect on Iraqi citizens of the long-planned U.S. war of aggression against Iraq is said to be their liberation. The targeted victims since the first war on Iraq have, however, been most of all infants and children. The Bush administration’s planned Operation Shock and Awe is a self-imagery of Godlike power which is more blind in hubris than in 1991 when the U.S. military assault caused mass infectious disease, child dysentery and birth mutilation by deliberate bombing of civilian electricity sources, sewage and water treatment facilities and by the deployment of nuclear waste in shells and weapons. Over 500,000 children in Iraq have already died as a consequence of the last war according to UNICEF-a figure predicted in 1991 by the New England Journal of Medicine, and substantiated in 1999 by the leading British medical research, Lancet.

Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction about which the Bush regime has most pervasively trumpeted its concern were sold to Saddam at great profit by the U.S., Britain and other Security Council members. This is why Bush officials took the original Iraq report to the U.N. from the Council chair (then the military client state, Colombia), and deleted all the pages documenting these military sales before distributing the text to non-permanent members. Secretary Rumsfeld, meanwhile, has refused to work with the relevant Senate committees to expose and ensure against continued military sales to Iraq or its middlemen by U.S. armament manufacturers.

U.S. demands for Iraq’s compliance with U.N. resolutions are not and have not been its true concern since far more U.N. resolutions over far more years have been ignored by the U.S. military partner, Israel. Thus continuing war crimes and crimes against humanity by Israeli administrations are still perpetrated with impunity in the illegally occupied territories of Palestine-for example, by land and property seizures and continuous enlargement of the illegal occupation, collective punishments of the population, increasing assassinations, and destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes. Twelve to eighteen UN resolutions prior to the inspections were said to have been violated by Iraq during its years of living with militarily enforced destruction of its society. Israel before, and since, has violated 64 UN resolutions with impunity. No double standard of international law has been so long-term, blatant and systematic, except by the U.S. itself.

The regime change all along demanded by the Bush administration cannot benefit the Iraqi people as promised because the projected U.S. military occupation has not been about getting rid of Saddam (who the U.S. armed and supported into power), but has ever more directly been the forced takeover of Iraq’s publicly owned and controlled oil reserves. These reserves since the 1950′s have (despite Saddams U.S.-supported coup detat) financed the most advanced social infrastructure in the Arab world, free education, and universal health care. During the demonization of Iraq over the last 6 months, its public oil revenues have enabled a government program of guaranteed food for all citizens by a publicly run distribution system which the U.N. World Food Program described as the most efficient in the world. With oil as with all else, the greatest enemy to this empire is the civil commons of publicly owned resources which obstructs corporate market control. That the Iraqi government has, moreover, put a run on the U.S. dollar by converting its oil revenues into Euros instead of dollars is another unspeakable fact which is blocked out of all corporate media reports.

Watching the War Crime Unfold

The ultimate target of the U.S. war party has long been the greatest and most accessible high-quality oil reserves on the planet. The Bush oil party has long coveted it, and U.S. military invasion has been the favoured blitzkrieg method for getting it over years of planning – with no response by the Security Council. But world public opinion has not covered its eyes like governments and the corporate media. Turkey’s people were 96% against invasion of Iraq as its government considered large bribes, and Spain’s people were over 90% opposed as its Falangist prime minister joined Tony the War Poodle in barking for the invasion. Over 30 million citizens from across the world demonstrated against a U.S.-led invasion in one weekend, an historically unprecedented event.

The U.S. president’s response to all this has been revealing. He has told the world throughout that the U.N. itself is on trial, with him as God’s judge. The Security Council has been told for months that it either agrees to a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, or it is irrelevant. If it fails, the Bush administration will take the law into its own hands and invade distant and weak Iraq as America’s sovereign right. Try to remember when you heard this kind of demagoguery and defiance of international law before.

The difference has been most clearly in the use of the U.N. Pervasive aerial and ground inspections of Iraq’s territory, soften-up bombings of defences in the North and South, and successful commands to destroy short-range missiles which together had largely stripped Iraqs meagre defences by mid-March. During this process, U.S. and allied demands merely escalated from immediate abolition of weapons of mass destruction to-without any media noticing-demands for total disarmament. Best to have a helpless victim. Has history ever witnessed such a corruptly one-sided scheme to destroy and loot a defenceless country?

The Ruling Group-Mind

As I watched the Security Council Meeting on March 19 after military inspections of Iraq were forcibly terminated by the Bush Jr. administration’s decision to take the law into its own hands, I was struck by the intimidation of the Council members. They were in thrall to a ceremony of avoidance. The hard fact that the U.S. administration had just stopped the U.N.’s due process by its decision for lawless armed attack of Iraq was blocked out of view as if it had not been decided. That this massive armed military invasion was a grave violation of international law, the supreme international crime under the Nuremberg Charter, was never mentioned. The ritual of sacrifice prevailed instead as if in collective submission to the implacable ordinance of Fate.

Formal pieties and aversion of the facts ruled. The Secretary-General was congratulated for removing the inspection teams on the instruction of the U.S. adminstration so that they would not be harmed by its illegal invasion. The inspectors were again and again praised for inspecting Iraq’s military possessions before the full-scale illegal invasion forcibly prevented the completion of their work. Much angst was displayed for the humanitarian catastrophe about to unfold, with none mentioning that the lawless usurpation of U.N. process by the blitkrieg invasion of a suffering poor country would cause the mass terror. The long genocide was diplomatically sanitised by abstractions. In the case of the U.S., Britain and Spain, Saddam Hussein was held solely responsible.

Repeated ritual mantras of concern for international peace and security, alleged Iraq government violations not substantiated by the inspectors, official regrets, collective self- blaming, and much talk of rebuilding the society about to be destroyed were limned in a sleepwalk of official euphemisms. The theme that bound them all was the silence on the U.S. planned war-criminal attack in violation of the will and the legal process of the U.N. Security Council itself. Kofi Annan almost spoke out when he advised that a belligerent country is responsible under law for the costs of occupation. But the U.N. and Canada were soon ready to pay for picking up the pieces of another mass destruction of a poor society by U.S.-led forces.

I remembered all the history and accounts I had read of the Third Reich and the cowardice of official appeasement that enabled every step. The appeasement now was on the level of the mind itself. No-one dared to say what was happening. Threats and bribes by the U.S. had for months saturated the proceedings of the Council’s judgement, but there were to their great credit few takers of the blood money. The Security Council had repudiated the U.S.-led war by an overwhelming rejection of any motion for it. For the U.S. now to still lead an invasion was self-evidently against the Security Council’s will and decision, and thus wholly illegal. Yet there was a strange refusal to name the crime, the supreme international crime of a war of aggression against another state. One listened in vain for one explicit reference to the violation of the U.N. Charter, of the Nuremberg Charter, of international criminal law, of the Secretary-General’s own previous statement that a U.S. attack without Security Council support would be illegal, and of the usurpation of the will and process of the U.N. Security Council itself.

On the contrary, Iraq was being held accountable to obey the Council’s every demand to strip its meagre defences as huge U.S. and British armed forces formed on its borders. Ever louder U.S. threats of armed invasion outside the law and against Security Council vote was left to proceed as if it was a natural event. Everywhere in the media, the inevitable war was bowed before as an ordinance of destiny. It was only now a question of viewers watching U.S. forces destroy a society at will and with impunity, an ideal mass market site for the entertainment of lawless power. No-one thought to notice from within the Security Council Chamber and official global culture that every step of the mass terror against an essentially defenceless people was planned, chosen and executed in defiance of all international law by a sitting member state.

The monstrous construction had no author. Responsibility fell only on the victim. The U.S. became another onlooker at the inevitable war. Once it invaded, it became magnanimous in assigning the costs to others to pay for its mass destruction. It was now ready to co-operate with its international partners in the rebuilding of the country that it destroyed. No-one inside official society outside thought to hold the U.S. accountable for what it did. There is “no alternative” took another meaning. Now the no-alternative world the U.S. rules means criminal war invasion as an act of God.

The New Fundamentalism: America is God

As you observe the criminal war invasion of Iraq, the round-the-clock commentary and pictures, and the aftermath, watch for a silent general fact. There will no end of detailed discussion of the military operations of attack and occupation of a country rendered defenceless by Security Council demands, with much admiration and vicarious self- congratulation at the new weapons and strategic moves of the American Superpower. There will be no end of experts and commentators communicating adoringly to audiences about the high-tech assault instruments which are being tested on a third-world people to see how they work. Its a little like a high-school science experiment, advised the Pentagon Joint Chief of Staff to the militarily embedded CNN medium of public news.

The fact at the centre of the whole conflict and long in dispute will, however, soon be put down the memory hole with no one noticing. No one in the media or government will point out that the biological and chemical weapons that Iraq was declared to be hiding are not used, and did not in fact exist. No one will think to notice that this, the main justification of the war, the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam, was from start to finish a vast and criminal big lie. No one will wonder at their own cowardly complicity in the long train of destructive deceit and war crime even as the invading armies sweep across the country and the 3000 sorties of bombs fall with no hint of a chemical or biological weapon or nuclear device. Least of all will servelings of the ruling group-mind connect back to the Third Reich’s prototype of aggressive war. It is the Formula. Blame terrorists as the cause of the country’s police state measures. Accuse every country attacked of being an imminent threat to it to justify the invasion. Denounce all resistance as unpatriotic. Attack and occupy the weak country with total weaponry. The formula repeats as long as it is not called out.

The group-mind cannot compute what does not fit its fixed presuppositions. So predictable outcomes follow as if prescribed by the laws of nature. The inevitable war occurs like el Nino. Only the terrible infliction of damages are thought worth perceiving or talking about. The moral debate is silenced, left to the world’s peoples in the streets where only passing painted signs can speak. The co-ordinates of international law and the rogue war party in control of the White House are blocked of every discussion as if they did not exist. There will, in particular, be no discussion of this administration’s illegal presidency, its ever more ruinous failure to govern effectively at any level of the U.S. economy, the environmental meltdown which it leads, or the unprecedentedly pervasive corruption of its lead corporate gang-from all of which the latest orchestrated war is the ongoing system of violent diversion. The distraction and attack rhythm of one war after another will, if it is not seen through, continue to succeed with the Formula until the world is subjugated across its civilisations. As long as the self-evident can be denied, there is nothing to stop it. Discharges of condemnation of Saddam Hussein can occupy the mind instead, until the next Enemy is wheeled into the war theatre to extend the U.S. war states rule.

In Canada, the CBC and its retinue of U.S. explainers and apologists will report the world to us so we cannot see the meaning of what is happening. The local academy will occasionally provide the choral affirmation on cue. Thus Janice Stein of the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre will reassure us on CBC News coverage on March 20, the day that the U.S. crime against peace began, that We are targeting Iraq’s leadership and not its civilians. All are one in Americas view of the world as itself. What cannot be discussed is the U.S. war crime itself, even to deny it. It is unspeakable – so long as the ruling group-mind remains the invisible prison of our collective life.

The moral syntax of the American group-mind is the inner logic of the problem. In this era, the group-mind is American. All its principles are presupposed as the way that God is presupposed by the religious fundamentalist – an all-powerful, all-knowing and jealous ruler of the world, which none may doubt without social opprobrium and attack. U.S. witch-hunts of those who oppose the religion of America is the creed’s fanatical mode. But the creed is not confined to expression within America’s church of self-adoration. It is on a crusade across the world’s continents, with ruinous destabilization or armed attack of those who do not submit to its will for freedom.

The God of America is primitive. It worships itself. But there are a set of silently regulating principles at work through all the phenomena of its rule which together constitute the ruling group-mind which has imprisoned global culture within its premises since 9-11 .

Presupposition 1 of this ruling group-mind is that the U.S. national security state is America.

This assertion is never directly stated because that would reveal the absurdity of the equation. But the assumption nevertheless underlies every statement that has proceeded from U.S. government offices since 9-11. This preconscious equation explains, for example, why even the U.S. government’s official opposition, the Democratic Party, has abdicated from political responsibility in its fear of appearing to oppose unjustified wars against essentially defenceless third-world societies in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are incarcerated within the ruling structure of mind, more paralysed than 1930 Germans in their dread of being named as unpatriotic. This is a fear that can only be explained by the equation of the state military command and its apparatus with America. Beneath the surface phenomena of party politics rules the instituted group-mind in terms of which perception itself is constructed.

Thus the equation of America to its armed state apparatus is never publicly challenged in the official culture of the West because the equation is assumed a priori across the official leaderships of American allies. No-one who houses the false equation can tell them apart. They cannot see the demonstrable falsehoods of the war state, the overthrow of the Republic’s democratic traditions, and least of all the safety of millions of innocent civilians in other countries: because they assume America and its national security apparatus are one and the same. Since they love America, and America is it, they cannot distinguish their beloved country from the criminal gang institutions of the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the CIA. As these rogue secret societies rule across the world by the force of armed terror, mass disinformation, secret narco-links and political bribery and coercion at every level, lovers of America are obliged to defend this criminal global domination as America. This absurd equation obliges them to be, in short, blind dupes. It then further misleads them into supposing that anyone who opposes a gangster state rule of the world is anti-American. One absurdity builds onto another. The disorder ends as a paranoid mass cult characterised as patriotism, just as in the 1930′s with the worlds most powerful industrial state. It is in this false equation at the baseline of the group-mind that we find the kernel of the worlds problem – America’s self- definition as absolutist armed force unbound by fact or international law.

Presupposition 2 is that America is the ultimate source and moving line of the world’s freedom and goodness, God’s material embodiment on earth.

This assumption too is presupposed as true by definition, the prime article of faith of a fanatic religion. Full-spectrum dominance and pre-emptive attack of threats before they appear are not merely clinically paranoid delusions of power and persecution. They follow from the underlying and increasingly absolute assumption that America is God, the source of all Freedom and Goodness on the planet. The expressions of this deranged presupposition are evident in every speech of the former alcohol and cocaine addict occupying the White House, and there is no evident opposition from the parishioners of U.S. official culture.

Any indirect questioning or challenge of this first moral premise of the group-mind is attacked as a betrayal of the country and what it holds dear. American freedom comes to mean, then, only what establishes and maximizes the absolute right of the U.S. to command the world – specifically, to command as inevitable that all societies adopt an American-style market, American values and culture, and American military dominance in all areas of the globe as its vital interests. How do we test the rule of this fanatic basis of thought? It is expressed in Bush Doctrine policy documents throughout. But we can more easily discover its ruling principle at work by asking whether there is any limit placed anywhere on what the U.S. and vassal corporate states have the right to demand of other peoples and societies – including unconditional support of full-scale war against destitute societies over ten thousand miles from American borders.

Anything may go in the way of attack-dog journalism, but one hint of question of this ruling assumption that America is the moving line of the world’s freedom is heresy. The assumption is thus internalised prior to censorship. Self-censorship is this regime’s centre of gravity, and holds the group-mind in its prison. Those who oppose it hate freedom. Loyalty to this ultimate premise of social and political thought is what regulates the mind at a preconscious level prior to statement. It is the identity structure of the mob-mind across the world.

Principle 3 follows as a logical consequent from Principle 2. America is always and necessarily right in all conflicts with other nations or peoples or social forces.

This is not a truth which facts can disprove, because it is true by definition in the ruling group-mind. Disproving facts are irrelevant or of no consequence, even if by some chance they make it through the gates of the corporate media. This third regulating assumption explains why even the hardest facts soon disappear from sight if they throw doubt on America’s infallible moral superiority in cases of international conflict – for example the conviction of the U.S. by the International Court for its war criminal actions against Nicaragua, along with the $13.2 billion damages which were never paid.

Beneath the selection and exclusion of facts and perspectives which regulate editorial offices and policies, this third principle of the ruling group-mind too regulates perception and conversation beneath direct control. Before an exposing word is spoken, it is ruled out from within. It is an intersubjective operation, like the thought-field of playing a game. Any fact or argument which calls into question America’s moral superiority to any adversary is known to be hostile to freedom and the good in advance of consideration.

Principles 4 and 5 follow suit as ultimate moral imperatives for all Americans and their allies.

Any people or nation or social force which does not side with or opposes the U.S. government is evil (Principle 4), and so must, as an Enemy of world freedom and justice, be attacked by all means available-including pre-emptive armed force before the Enemy presents a threat (Principle 5).

Principles 4 and 5 have sharpened into patriotic absolutes with the Bush Jr. regime. Not even fabricated evidence – like the Gulf of Tonkin attack off Vietnam or the electricity cut-off of infant incubators in Iraq in 1991 – are thought any longer essential necessary to justify a military attack on another people’s territory and society. As George Bush Jr. said to a West Point audience this year: “If we wait for threats to materialise, we will have waited too long.” There is, therefore, no need for the threat to be real. Threats only need to be declared. That is is why the attack on Iraq by U.S. and British armed forces did not require anyone else to confirm that there was, in fact, a threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction being used by terrorists against America. The evil is known, as with witchcraft, by the accusation itself. Once accused, the Enemy becomes such by definition – because materialisation by fact is too late. Those who question the designation side with the Enemy. You are with us, or for the terrorists. Bush’s rage against French opposition to the war of aggression against Iraq thus follows necessarily. The logic of the ruling group- mind prescribes reality prior to its construction.

A self-evident baseline of entitlement is thus instituted for the rest of the world which is not spoken. America can go to war against accused enemies as it chooses on the basis of the self-propelling operations of its ruling group-mind alone. All one has to do is trigger the known stimuli which activate its value-set and its attendant emotions of rage. Since 9- 11, majority opinion support for Americas New War in any form follows from this lockstep of the group-mind. It is predictable so long as it remains unexposed to view.

=================
08.04.2014, 16:13, “ufka” <ufkartfm@pacific.net>:

gm pine,

this is about:
“Year eight pupils at an east London free school are learning that they can speak out and make a difference”
and the final comment is from one of the students:

“Kids our age often focus on things like footballers or being on TV, but this project has helped us look more to the world realistically, and look at the news and what’s going on,” she says. “This has helped us a lot because maybe when we’re older we can get into politics, or maybe this could open a whole new door into something else.”

the following was in one of the messages i sent during ultra about Generation Y or millennials:
“Millennials will become more like the “civic-minded” G.I. generation with a strong sense of community both local and global.”
so… (grin) as i have heard suggested in the past, “if you don’t get along with the kids you conceived, wait for the grandchildren, because they will be more like you” and (smile) that seems to be true.

have a great one, ~@~

—-
I want Nobody to control my life!  How About You?
============

                                    News Links, April 8-9, 2014

## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
New Study Raises Threat of Bankruptcies for Container-Shipping Industry
According to a new study by AlixPartners, the container shipping industry as a whole stands closer to outright failure than anytime since 2010. And the risk grows more serious each year.
Challenging outlook for containers, bulkers: HMM
Larry Summers calls on US government to spend
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has urged global leaders to form a global growth strategy to combat economic stagnation and has called upon the U.S. government to ramp up investment expenditure.
Nigeria just doubled the size of its economy with a stroke of a pen.
Over the weekend, Nigeria’s government made an accounting adjustment in how it calculates its GDP statistics. By changing the base-year in GDP calculations from 1990 to 2010, Nigeria increased the reported size of its economy by 89% over the weekend. So with a stroke of a pen, the West African nation leapfrogged South Africa to become the continent’s largest economy.
Banks May Reap $100 Million From Lafarge-Holcim Merger
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Rothschild and Zaoui & Co. are among banks that may split as much as $100 million in fees for their roles advising on the merger of Holcim Ltd. (HOLN) and Lafarge SA (LG) to create the world’s biggest cement maker.
The New Aristocracy: Where the rich stash their toysThe rich are on the hunt for secure, tax-free places to stash their fine art and luxury items, fueling a surge in demand for top-end warehouses known as freeports.

Can the Airline Industry Survive for the Long Haul?

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##

Luhansk Protesters Deny Holding Hostages
Protesters occupying the state security building in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday denied a charge that they had wired the building with explosives and were holding people against their will.
## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
Ukraine tries to quell pro-Moscow uprisings
Norway to Boost Oil Project Oversight after Cost Overruns
Norway is growing increasingly intolerant of delays and cost overruns at offshore oil projects and plans to keep a closer eye on operators, intervening when necessary, the head of the oil directorate said.
Russian Sanctions and the Negative Effect on Global Energy Security
After a series of headline-grabbing statements about the possibility of “switching” European consumers over to American gas, the US media hastened to announce the launch of Obama’s oil and gas offensive against Russia. In reality the EU is not currently prepared, neither technically nor in terms of price, to buy its energy resources from the US.  It would take at least ten years to adapt even the technically advanced German energy system to work with American gas supply. In a crisis, when it is particularly urgent to see a quick return on an investment, such projects are unrealistic.
Shale Gas Boom Leaves Wind Companies Seeking More Subsidy
The $14 billion industry, the world’s second-largest buyer of wind turbines, is reeling from a double blow — cheap natural gas unleashed by the hydraulic fracturing revolution and the death last year of federal subsidies that made wind the most competitive of all renewable energy sources in the U.S.
## Got food? ##
Oklahoma Swamped by Surge in Earthquakes Near Fracking
There have been more earthquakes strong enough to be felt in Oklahoma this year than in all of 2013, overwhelming state officials who are trying to determine if the temblors are linked to oil and natural gas production.
Mali suspects first Ebola cases as regional death toll tops 90
## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
Energy companies need insurance cover for cyber attack “time bomb”
Why Fusion Centers Matter: FAQ
Stores sharing biometric face data (Japan)
Automatically recorded images by security cameras of shoppers’ faces have been shared among 115 supermarkets and convenience stores in the Tokyo metropolitan and another area as an antishoplifting measure, without customers’ knowledge, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
Subsidized housing programs have been high on the government agenda in recent years as skyrocketing home prices in major cities have pushed many out of the market.
## UK ##
Throughout the developed world, there’s not enough money to maintain all that infrastructure. — RF
Troops on front line may be earning less than minimum wage
## US ##
Highway And Bridge Construction Firms’ Profitability Declining
The nation’s highway and bridge construction firms are seeing profitability decline at a time when sales growth is slowing, according to recent data on privately held companies from Sageworks, a financial information company. The changes also come as Congress in the coming weeks will take up how to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund, which is expected to run out of money later this year and faces a chronic shortage of revenue relative to spending. Construction industry advocates say uncertainty tied to the federal funding beginning in 2015 puts jobs at risk for roughly 300,000 people working on highway and bridge projects.
This is part of the downward spiral that characterizes the slow death of the industrial world. Expensive energy leads to less money for construction, which leads to fewer contracting jobs, which leads to less infrastructure construction and maintenance, which leads to crumbling infrastructure and even more stuff that needs fixing. Economic and energy experts like to point out that when economies mature, they will achieve GDP growth even as their energy demand declines. What they are overlooking is that much energy would normally be used to rebuild decrepit infrastructure, but this isn’t happening because energy is now far more expensive than when much existing infrastructure was built. “Mature” economies aren’t using as much energy mainly because they are skimping on the necessities of industrial society, not because they’ve gotten so incredibly efficient. Buildings are falling apart, roads are full of potholes, pipelines are leaking, bridges are collapsing, and everything is just going to hell faster than it can be fixed. Imagine our energy cost if governments avoided austerity and fixed everything that needs fixing. Infrastructure will just keep deteriorating because we can’t afford to do anything about it. But economists and energy experts will continue telling us how efficient we’re getting, even though much of the energy efficiency they are talking about is actually an illusion created by cutting corners. — RF

Ford Takes Its Turn as 434,000 Cars and SUVs Recalled

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