Re: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution
If I may interject briefly, I saw a very timely political cartoon the other day: A bunch of founding father-looking dudes are gathered round a writing desk, where another is seated with quill in hand. One of the fellows on his feet asks, Are you sure everyone will know we're being ironic? On Jan 9, 2013 7:51 PM, Keith Addison ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote: Hi Jason From another old bit of parchment: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun wait... that was in the bible? i always presented it as a logical argument- had reasoning and eveything. :-) Why shouldn't it be logical? It's from Ecclesiastes. Careful, or I'll post the whole thing, I love it! I'm far from the only one, eg: Ecclesiastes has had a deep influence on Western literature: American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote: [O]f all I have ever seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man's life upon this earth - and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound. Admittedly it doesn't have a lot in common with the rest of the Bible. crap... anyways, i'm not saying he's wrong, i'm saying what good ol' mark twain did so long ago history might not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. its not the constitution, per se that is causing the problems, it's the fact that we didn't go right ahead and do what was suggested those 236 years ago, and re-write it every twenty-five years. Ah, yes. Instead of that it got 10 times older than its use-by date, and in the meantime the political system gained such a Gothic accumulation of patches and fixes and add-ons and excrescences that it's hard to see how it could possibly hope to achieve anything at all, let alone stuff like democracy and progress. Obese and senile. On the other hand, The Founding Fathers Versus The Gun Nuts, which I just posted, has something to say for it. i just about guarantee my kids have little or no connection to the social/political environment of even my parents, let alone that of 1776. Safe bet. shit happens, rules get outmoded, people die, and so on, ad infinitum. :-) Sounds like a New York version of Ecclesiastes. I like it! Bartleby's version: Ecclesiastes http://www.bartleby.com/44/4/**1.htmlhttp://www.bartleby.com/44/4/1.html Regardds Keith Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 20:47:05 +0200 To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.**sustainablelists.orgsustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org From: ke...@journeytoforever.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution Hi Jason giving up on the constitution would just give the US a new constitution. tradition and respect? that's all well and good, but somebody's going to want to write it down sometime or another, and it'll be the same rusty old arguments with a different piece of parchment two hundred years from now... there's no such thing as new. Paper shredders? :-) Sorry... He does have a point though, more than one, IMHO. From another old bit of parchment: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Would that it were still so. Until not very long ago, people were born, and not long after that they'd die, and between the two events very little changed, if anything. Now, for many or most of us, change is about the only thing you can rely on (seven billion humans ain't new?). The Bible is a wonderful book to go cherry-picking in. I suspect it's the same with the other great religions. And I think the US Constitution is often just the same - I posted a recent article explaining the crucial difference between what it actually says and what most Americans think it says about gun rights, for instance. Too often, it's just dogma. You don't need it. Other countries don't even have a constitution, like the UK, for instance. Literal, or legalistic, interpretations of the past aren't always the best guide to dealing with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. Things do change: And a genocide, and a civil war, over slavery. The interesting thing for me is that slavery was not a problem for Jesus (I'm not sure about most other major religions but I think this is true of them also), and nowhere does He mention democracy, equal rights, or any of the current cornerstone concepts we take for granted as truth. That is a surprise to me, and I wonder why, and I wonder what deep and complex lessons that might have for us, and what it tells us about our new thinking.
[Biofuel] Military Judge Refuses to Toss Out Charges Against Bradley Manning: Calls His Pretrial Punishment Illegal
US Army judge rejects motion to dismiss charges in Bradley Manning case By Naomi Spencer 10 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/10/mann-j10.html --0-- http://truth-out.org/news/item/13807-military-judge-refuses-to-toss-out-charges-against-bradley-manning-calls-his-pretrial-punishment-illegal Military Judge Refuses to Toss Out Charges Against Bradley Manning: Calls His Pretrial Punishment Illegal Wednesday, 09 January 2013 12:26 By Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report The nine months Pfc. Bradley Manning spent in a windowless cell in Quantico, Virginia - at times without any clothing - amounted to illegal pretrial punishment, a military judge ruled Tuesday. But Col. Denise Lind refused to dismiss charges against the 25-year-old Army Intelligence analyst, and instead decided that any sentence Manning receives if he is convicted should be reduced by a little more than three months. Manning was arrested in May 2010 and charged with leaking thousands of diplomatic cables and classified documents to WikiLeaks, an online organization that publishes secret information from anonymous sources. The veteran of the Iraq war is currently being held at Fort Leavenworth, charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and 20 other counts that could, if convicted, land him in prison for life. His trial is scheduled to begin March 6. Manning's attorney David Coombs notified Lind in November that his client may plead guilty to at least some of the charges. But on Tuesday, he asked for a dismissal of all charges. Dismissal of charges is not appropriate, Lind said, except in the case of outrageous conduct. Lind also noted Manning's pretrial detention was more rigorous than necessary and the conditions became excessive in relation to legitimate government interests. Still, there was no intent [to] punish the accused by anyone on the brig staff, Lind concluded, according to a report published by blogger Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake, who has been covering Manning's pretrial hearings. The intent of brig officials was to ensure Manning did not hurt or kill himself and was present for trial. The Washington Post reported that while Manning was incarcerated, he became so bored and starved for companionship that he danced in his cell and played peekaboo with guards and with his image in the mirror - activity his defense attorney [David Coombs] attributed to 'being treated as a zoo animal.' He was barred from exercising in his cell and slept on a mattress with a built-in pillow. He had no sheet, only a blanket designed so that it could not be shredded. Manning testified that he thought about committing suicide after his arrest and later sought to assure prison guards that he was not a danger to himself, but he was unsuccessful as the conditions of his confinement worsened. Forensic psychiatrists who saw Manning testified last month that there was no medical reason for him to be on suicide watch, the Washington Post reported. The government admitted last month that Manning was improperly kept on suicide watch for about a week. Last year, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture concluded the United States government subjected Manning to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment after he was arrested in Iraq. In an addendum to a report presented to the UN General Assembly on the protection of human rights, Juan Méndez wrote that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence. Mendez, himself a survivor of torture during Argentina's Dirty War, spent 14 months investigating Manning's treatment. He accused US officials in a December 2010 letter of using harsh tactics, like solitary confinement, against Manning in an effort to coerce him into 'co-operation' with the authorities ... allegedly for the purpose of persuading [Manning] to implicate others. Méndez stressed in his UN report that solitary confinement is a harsh measure that may cause serious psychological and physiological adverse effects on individuals regardless of their specific conditions. According to the Mendez report: To the Special Rapporteur's request for information on the authority to impose and the purpose of the isolation regime, the [US] government responded that the prison rules authorized the brig commander to impose it on account of the seriousness of the offense for which [Manning] would eventually be charged. Additionally, [d]epending on the specific reason for its application, conditions, length, effects and other circumstances, solitary confinement can amount to a breach of article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to an act defined in article 1 or article 16 of the Convention Against Torture. The US government countered, according to
[Biofuel] Big Oil, Big Ketchup and The Assassination of Hugo Chavez
Venezuelan legislature postpones Chavez inauguration By Bill Van Auken 10 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/10/vene-j10.html --0-- http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13800-big-oil-big-ketchup-and-the-assassination-of-hugo-chavez Big Oil, Big Ketchup and The Assassination of Hugo Chavez Wednesday, 09 January 2013 09:58 Greg Palast reviews the extraordinary career of Venezuelan President and Robin Hood figure Hugo Chavez, how he has cheated kidnap and assassination and may yet cheat death by maintaining his accomplishments. Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It's the oil. And it's the Koch Brothers - and it's the ketchup. [As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a free download here http://www.gregpalast.com/chavezdownload/. Based on my several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, it was filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available.] Reverend Pat Robertson said, Hugo Chavez thinks we're trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It was 2005 and Robertson was channeling the frustration of George Bush's State Department. Despite Bush's providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we'll get there), Hugo remained in office, re-elected and wildly popular. But why the Bush regime's hate, hate, hate of the president of Venezuela? Reverend Pat wasn't coy about the answer: It's the oil. This is a dangerous enemy to our South controlling a huge pool of oil. A really big pool of oil. Indeed, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of oil intelligence for the CIA, Venezuela holds a recoverable reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels, that is, a whole lot more than Saudi Arabia. If we didn't kill Chavez, we'd have to do an Iraq on his nation. So the Reverend suggests, We don't need another $200 billion war It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with. Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush's attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton. So what happened to change Clinton's hugs-and-kisses policy to Bush's shoot-to-kill? Here's the answer you won't find in The New York Times: Just after Bush's inauguration in 2001, Chavez's congress voted in a new Law of Hydrocarbons. Henceforward, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70 percent of the sales revenues from the crude they sucked out of Venezuela. Not bad, considering the price of oil was rising toward $100 a barrel. But to the oil companies, which had bitch-slapped Venezuela's prior government into giving them 84 percent of the sales price, a cut to 70 percent was no bueno. Worse, Venezuela had been charging a joke of a royalty - just 1 percent - on heavy crude from the Orinoco Basin. Chavez told Exxon and friends they'd now have to pay 16.6 percent. Clearly, Chavez had to be taught a lesson about the etiquette of dealings with Big Oil. On April 11, 2002, President Chavez was kidnapped at gunpoint and flown to an island prison in the Caribbean Sea. On April 12, Pedro Carmona, a business partner of the US oil companies and president of Fedecamaras, the nation's chamber of commerce, declared himself President of Venezuela - giving a whole new meaning to the term, corporate takeover. US Ambassador Charles Shapiro immediately rushed down from his hilltop embassy to have his picture taken grinning with the self-proclaimed president and the leaders of the coup d'état. Bush's White House spokesman admitted that Chavez was, democratically elected, but, he added, Legitimacy is something that is conferred not by just the majority of voters. I see. With an armed and angry citizenry marching on the presidential palace in Caracas ready to string up the coup plotters, Carmona - the Pretend President from Exxon - returned his captive, Chavez, back to his desk within 48 hours. (How? Get The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, the film that expands on my reports for BBC Television. It's free for the next few days here, thanks to the generosity of donors to our foundation.) Chavez had provoked the coup not just by clawing back some of the bloated royalties of the oil companies. It's what he did with that oil money that drove Venezuela's 1% to violence. In Caracas, I ran into the reporter for a TV station whose owner is generally credited with plotting the coup against the president. While doing a publicity photo shoot, leaning back against a tree, showing her wide-open legs nearly up to where they met, the reporter pointed down the hill to the ranchos, the slums above Caracas, where shacks, once made of cardboard and tin, where quickly transforming into homes of
[Biofuel] Why Progressives Should Oppose Hagel
Will Chuck Hagel's Appointment Actually Help the Anti-War Left? by Phyllis Bennis Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 by The Nation http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/09-9 Hagel's group sees Iran as a future ally Says Israel must give olive branch By Rowan Scarborough The Washington Times Tuesday, January 8, 2013 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/8/hagels-group-sees-iran-future-ally/ --0-- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33577.htm Why Progressives Should Oppose Hagel By Allen Ruff January 09, 2013 Information Clearing House - Following weeks of trial-balloon conjecture, President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel, the former Senator from Nebraska and oft-described moderate Republican, to succeed Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense. Conservative critics had raised objections as soon as Hagel's name surfaced as a probable nominee in mid-November. The usual pack of neocon watchdogs charged him with being inadequately hawkish on Iran and out of lockstep on Israel. Towing its increasingly neocon editorial line, the Washington Post on November 18th editorialized that Hagel was not the right choice for defense secretary. Citing the ex-Senator-cum-Washington insider's public record, the Post asserted: Mr. Hagel's stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term. (Hagel once had the temerity to suggest that Pentagon spending should be pared down. Imagine!) Detractors dredged up a back-when Senate vote against Iran sanctions as rightwing media hacks echo chambered alleged anti-Semitism based upon the Senator's years ago use of the phrase Jewish lobby. He certainly rankled some Israel right-or-wrong types in 2006 when he said, I'm not an Israeli senator. I'm a United States senator. I support Israel, but my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States, not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that. Liberal backers, in response, immediately sprung to the Nebraskan's defense. The Atlantic's James Fallows described him as a wise bipartisan pick with Vietnam combat-vet cred and a cautious realist-centrist record while filleting the bogus case against Chuck Hagel. Hagel in August 2005 had won favor among centrist types when he became the first Republican Senator to publicly criticize the Iraq war and to call for US withdrawal. Criticizing then-President Bush, the GOP, and the Patriot Act's erosion of civil liberties that December, Hagel stated that, I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president, He later went on, in 2007, to criticize plans for the Iraq war surge. Such rank-breaking statements, while endearing him to disquieted anti-war moderates, have never been forgotten by the Right. The problem today is that neither Hagel's detractors nor his supporters have really fully laid out who he is or why progressives should firmly oppose his appointment as the Pentagon's top gun. Certainly, those to the left should not fall into the trap of cheering on Obama's latest War Department pick, solely because the Right stands opposed. Currently a member of the board of directors of Chevron, Hagel led the charge in 1997 to block ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that would have committed the US and other industrial nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Hagel-Byrd Resolution, co-authored by the coal-friendly Democrat, West Virginia's Robert Byrd, argued that the Kyoto failed to include developing countries and posed barriers to US economic expansion. On his way through the revolving door to higher fame and fortune, Hagel announced in September 2007 that he would not seek a third term in the Senate. While his current mainstream biographies note that he happens to teach at Georgetown, they somehow consistently miss mentioning that he might have to give up his current position on Chevron's board. He probably will have to rotate out of his seat as co-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the appointed body of distinguished citizens selected from the national security, political, academic, and private sectors independent of the Intelligence Community, free from day-to-day management or operational responsibilities. with full access to the complete range of intelligence-related information. Hagel also currently sits on the board of directors of the American Security Project, a Washington-based imperial think tank committed to understanding and articulating American beliefs and values related to U.S. foreign policy, and forging a domestic bipartisan consensus on a new national security strategy that will restore America's leadership Founded in 2007, with Hagel and Hillary Clinton's State Department heir apparent,
[Biofuel] Oil Sands Raise Levels of Cancer-Causing Compounds in Regional Waters
'Smoking Gun': Tar Sands Report Eviscerates Industry Claims Research shows toxic contamination caused by mining 'world's dirtiest oil' worse than previously thought Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08-1 --0-- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oil-sands-raise-levels-of-carcinogens-in-regional-waters Oil Sands Raise Levels of Cancer-Causing Compounds in Regional Waters From carcinogens to acid rain, tar sands development is raising levels of industrial pollution across the north By David Biello January 8, 2013 FORT MCMURRAY-Air monitoring equipment litters northern Alberta. From Fort Chipewyan south towards Edmonton there are 17 sites measuring air quality, but here the monitoring outpost sits across the Athabasca River from the highway that connects the mining town with the oil mines to the north, and just down the road from the new multi-million dollar recreation center. Machines, such as the electronic nose or the laser-wielding robot that measures atmospheric ozone 10 kilometers up known as the sun photometer, constantly monitor the concentrations of pollution in the air. Data about acid rain-forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides levels feeds into a Web site updated every five minutes. Overseeing all this technology is Kelly Baragar, an air monitoring specialist for more than two decades who has worked in Middle Eastern deserts and Indonesian jungles before arriving here in the cold, boreal forest that is undergoing a rapid transformation into a working landscape of oil extraction. I have no issue bringing my family here, I'm just as happy here as anywhere, says Baragar, of the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association (WBEA), an outfit funded by the oil and gas industry to monitor air pollution from their operations in Alberta's tar sands. I don't see any difference. That is a testimony to industry efforts to clean up air pollution-or, as Scott Wenger, manager of government relations for tar sands producer Suncor says of the steam and smaller amounts of other gases billowing from his company's smokestacks and joining the cloud layer: We scrub it pretty good. It is also an illustration of the ubiquity of bad air, which has many causes, from forest fires to the off-gassing of tar sands mini-refineries like Suncor's, a record preserved in canisters of air and bags of lichen and moss that date back almost to Wood Buffalo's founding in 1997. The shy, self-effacing Baragar with his soul patch and salt-and-pepper hair, sees sulfur pollution from the northern U.S.-and even China-drift all the way to his remote air monitoring stations. But what goes up must eventually come down-and the pollutants put out by refinery smokestacks, the tailpipes of the world's largest trucks and other tar sands industrial equipment closer to home is accumulating in the water. It's in the water The Athabasca River has carved bluffs in the Alberta landscape on the its way north. But these natural bluffs are more than matched by the man-made sand dikes built to hold back many lakes-worth of tailings, the muck-laden water leftover after tar sands mining and treatment. Leaks of this muck, which contains a toxic stew of hydrocarbon residue, have always been a concern. There is a risk if there was a leak into the river, it would be disastrous, notes chemical engineer Murray Gray, scientific director of the Center for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta. But any release of tailings are disastrous for watersheds anywhere in the world. The difference may be the scale. Such waste lakes now cover 176 square kilometers, holding more than 830 million cubic meters of residue with another roughly 250 million liters of the muck produced every day. Wells are drilled all along the man-made bluffs to detect ongoing seepage and, if detected, to pump out the contaminated water. A small amount will get past that, admits Randall Barrett, northern region director for Alberta's Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) agency, although at a very slow rate, he adds. Given that the river also naturally erodes such tar sands deposits and carries away the bitumen, it remains difficult to determine whether the hydrocarbons in the river water came from natural floods or human mining efforts, despite abundant anecdotal reports of deformed fish and rare cancers in downstream communities such as Fort Chipewyan. After all, by one scientific estimate the Athabasca River deposits roughly an Exxon Valdez's worth of oil every four years or so along its more than 1,200-long kilometer journey. But that's only when scientists attempt to measure the pollution already in the river water. By measuring the toxic heavy metal pollution in snow, scientists have suggested that contamination exceeds background levels as much as 120-fold and can be detected as far as 85 kilometers
[Biofuel] New Questions over CIA Nominee Brennan's Denial of Civilian Drone Deaths
John Brennan vs. a Sixteen-Year-Old Boy by Medea Benjamin Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/09-0 --0-- http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-questions-over-cia-nominee-brennans-denial-of-civilian-drone-deaths/5318340 New Questions over CIA Nominee Brennan's Denial of Civilian Drone Deaths By Chris Woods Global Research, January 10, 2013 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism Claims by the Central Intelligence Agency's new director-designate that the US intelligence services received 'no information' about any civilians killed by US drones in the year prior to June 2011 do not appear to bear scrutiny.John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to take over the CIA, had claimed in a major speech in summer 2011 that there had not been 'a single collateral death' in a covert US strike in the past year due to the precision of drones. He later qualified his statement, saying that at the time of his comments he had 'no information' to the contrary. Yet just three months beforehand, a major US drone strike had killed 42 Pakistanis, most of them civilians. As well as being widely reported by the media at the time, Islamabad's concerns regarding those deaths were also directly conveyed to the 'highest levels of the Administration' by Washington's then-ambassador to Pakistan, it has been confirmed to the Bureau. This confirmation suggests that senior US officials were aware of dozens of civilian deaths just weeks before Brennan's claims to the contrary. Jirga deaths The CIA drone strike in Pakistan on March 17, which bombed the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan and killed an estimated 42 people, has always seemed a contradiction of Brennan's official statement. The attack was later justified by an anonymous US official as a so-called 'signature strike' where the identities of those killed was unknown. They insisted that 'a large group of heavily armed men, some of whom were clearly connected to al Qaeda and all of whom acted in a manner consistent with AQ-linked militants, were killed.' In fact the gathering was a jirga, or tribal meeting, called to resolve a local mining dispute. Dozens of tribal elders and local policemen died, along with a small number of Taliban. Within hours of the attack Pakistan's prime minister and army chief publicly condemned the mass killing of dozens of civilians. Pakistan's president also later protested about the strike to a visiting delegation from the US House Armed Services Committee, led by Congressman Rob Wittman. An official Pakistani government document issued at the time reports that Washington's then-ambassador Cameron Munter was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad on March 18 for a dressing-down. A strongly worded statement reported that 'Ambassador Munter was categorically conveyed that such strikes were not only unacceptable but also constituted a flagrant violation of humanitarian norms and law.' Munter also intended 'to convey Pakistan's message to the US Administration at the highest levels,' the Foreign Ministry press release claimed. While some challenge Pakistan's portrayal of some aspects of the meeting, it is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan's concerns to the highest levels in the US government. 'Not a single collateral death' Yet three months after the Datta Khel strike, John Brennan would insist that covert US drone strikes were so accurate that they were no longer killing civilians, and had not done so for the previous 12 months. He told an audience on June 29 that 'I can say that the types of operations that the US has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we've been able to develop.' It is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan's concerns to the highest levels in the US government. The Datta Khel attack was not the only time that civilians had died in the period referred to by Brennan. Working with veteran Pakistani reporter Rahimullah Yusufzai and field researchers in the tribal areas, the Bureau identified and published details of 45 civilians known at the time to have been killed by CIA drones in ten strikes between August 2010 and June 2011, the date of Brennan's speech. Many of those killed had died at Datta Khel. The Bureau presented a summary of its findings to the White House and to John Brennan's office in July 2011. Both declined to comment. Nine months later, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News challenged Brennan on his original claims. 'Do you stand by the statement you have made in the past that, as effective as they have been, [drones] have not killed a single civilian?' the interviewer asked. 'That seems hard to believe.' Brennan was robust, insisting that 'what I said was
[Biofuel] Europe in 2013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/10/pers-j10.html Europe in 2013 10 January 2013 Europe remains mired in its deepest economic and social crisis since World War II. In 2012, more people lost their jobs than in any other year for the past two decades, EU Commissioner Laszlo Andor said on Tuesday as he presented the European Employment and Social Report 2012. Those who were employed had less money in their pockets and the risk of sliding into poverty was rising inexorably, he noted. It was unlikely, Andor added, that the socio-economic situation in Europe will significantly improve in 2013. The situation is especially catastrophic in southern and eastern European countries. Previously, only wars have devastated national economies so thoroughly in such a short time as have the austerity measures of the European Union. In Greece and Spain, one in four is officially unemployed, and over half of all young people have no work. Average household income has fallen by 17 percent in Greece over the past three years and by 8 percent in Spain. The health care, pension and social security systems face total collapse. But despite the social catastrophe they have provoked with their austerity policies, European governments are intent on tightening the fiscal screws. They are no longer limiting themselves to the periphery of the euro zone, but are ever more ferociously attacking the working class in the core countries. This is confirmed by new, draconian austerity plans for Italy, France and Germany, as well as by the closure of auto plants in Europe. In her New Year's speech to the nation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the economic situation would not be easier next year, but instead more difficult. This is a clear warning. In Britain, where almost a quarter of the population already lives in poverty, the Cameron government is systematically dismantling the National Health System, public education and social welfare. Not a single party in the official political spectrum offers a way out of this vicious circle of austerity, recession and social decay. Whether nominally left or right, they all agree there is no alternative to fiscal consolidation and the satisfaction of the financial markets at the expense of social services, education and health care. In the elections due this year in Italy and Germany, the only issue is which party or coalition is best suited to implement the diktats of the financial oligarchy. In Italy, there are three camps standing in the election: the camp of Silvio Berlusconi, which unites the most criminal elements of the bourgeoisie with the open racists of the Northern League; the camp of Mario Monti, the international banks' man of choice, who has in the past year implemented the most severe social spending cuts in the country's history; and the camp of Pier Luigi Bersani, up to now the most reliable ally of Monti, whose main selling point is that he is better placed to integrate the trade unions and so-called left into the process of implementing government policy. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens are seeking to replace the conservative neo-liberal coalition headed by Merkel in order to more efficiently impose austerity and cuts in social services. They demonstrated their qualifications during the tenure of the red-green coalition government led by social democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. A particularly insidious role is played all over Europe by the nominally left-wing parties. They regard their main task as keeping the class struggle in check and preventing the development of an independent movement of the working class. To this end, they make verbal criticisms of austerity while working to channel social opposition behind the trade unions, which support the austerity program of the bourgeoisie and collaborate in its implementation. At the same time, the pseudo-left parties provide governments with the parliamentary majorities necessary for the implementation of their attacks on the working class, or they implement the attacks themselves. In Denmark, the red-green alliance, a collection of left Social Democrats, Stalinists, Maoists and Pabloites, recently voted for the budget of the Social Democrat-led government, which follows seamlessly from the austerity policies of the previous conservative government. In Greece, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) stands ready to replace the unstable coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. SYRIZA has repeatedly assured the international banks of its readiness to repay Greek government debt and keep the country in the European Union. In Italy, both the Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Left Ecology Liberty) and Communist Refoundation are preparing to support a government led either by Bersani or Monti, as they did previously with the government of Romano Prodi. And in Germany, the Left
[Biofuel] Hurtling Towards Climate Chaos: US Oil Production Set to Explode
Despite 'Year of Extremes' Corporate Media Continues to Ignore Climate Crisis Record-breaking heat, wildfires, drought, Sandy: Not enough to get them talking Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/09-1 2012 was hottest year recorded in US By Bryan Dyne 10 January 2013 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/10/warm-j10.html Avoiding a Climate-Change Apocalypse by Katrina vanden Heuvel Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by The Washington Post http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/08-2 Climate Change, Lack of Political Will Leading to 'Global Perfect Storm': Report World Economic Forum warns of imminent global disaster ahead of economic summit Published on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08-5 The Post-Crisis Crises Jan. 7, 2013 Joseph E. Stiglitz http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-warming--inequality--and-structural-change-by-joseph-e--stiglitz --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/09-3 Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 by Common Dreams Hurtling Towards Climate Chaos: US Oil Production Set to Explode Flying in face of dire climate figures, US continues to embrace fossil fuels - Andrea Germanos, staff writer Projections released Tuesday that US oil production is set to surge to record levels shows the US continuing down the path of runaway climate change. Reuters reports: [...] the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday that the country's crude oil production will rise by the largest amount on record in 2013, and is set to soar by a quarter over two years. Seth Kleinman, global head of energy strategy at Citigroup, told the BBC that the rise was due entirely because of the application of fracking. The EIA's figures came the same day as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 2012 was by far the hottest year on record for the US. Dr. Shaye Wolf, climate science director with the Center for Biological Diversity, warned that the blazing temperatures that scorched America in 2012 are a bitter taste of the climate chaos ahead. While Wolf says the NOAA data puts the heat on President Obama to take immediate action against carbon pollution, the projections for surging oil production show the US has no plans for escaping what climate expert James Hansen has described as a planetary emergency. Daphne Wysham, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and founder and co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, stated Wednesday that Obama's 'all of the above' energy strategy [...] dooms the U.S. and the world to higher temperatures, more nuclear accidents and higher energy prices. Meanwhile, poor countries like Uruguay are on track to 90 percent renewable energy by 2015 and rich countries like Germany and Denmark are on track to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 if not sooner. The U.S., with vastly more sun and wind resources, can and should do more to pull us from the brink of climate catastrophe. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] NATO's War on Libya and Africa
http://www.globalresearch.ca/natos-war-on-libya-and-africa/5311323 NATO's War on Libya and Africa Review of Maximilian C. Forte's new book By Stephen Gowans Global Research, November 10, 2012 gowans.wordpress.com The next time that empire comes calling in the name of human rights, please be found standing idly by Maximilian C. Forte's new book Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO's War on Libya and Africa (released November 20) is a searing indictment of NATO's 2011 military intervention in Libya, and of the North American and European left that supported it. He argues that NATO powers, with the help of the Western left who played a supporting role by making substantial room for the dominant U.S. narrative and its military policies, marshalled support for their intervention by creating a fiction that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was about to carry out a massacre against a popular, pro-democracy uprising, and that the world could not stand idly by and watch a genocide unfold. Forte takes this view apart, showing that a massacre was never in the cards, much less genocide. Gaddafi didn't threaten to hunt down civilians, only those who had taken up armed insurrection-and he offered rebels amnesty if they laid down their arms. What's more, Gaddafi didn't have the military firepower to lay siege to Benghazi (site of the initial uprising) and hunt down civilians from house to house. Nor did his forces carry out massacres in the towns they recapturedsomething that cannot be said for the rebels. Citing mainstream media reports that CIA and British SAS operatives were already on the ground either before or at the very same time as (British prime minister David) Cameron and (then French president Nicolas) Sarkozy began to call for military intervention in Libya, Forte raises the possibility that Western powers were at least waiting for the first opportunity to intervene in Libya to commit regime change under the cover of a local uprising. And he adds, they were doing so without any hesitation to ponder what if any real threats to civilians might have been. Gaddafi, a fierce opponent of fundamentalist Wahhabist/Salafist Islam faced several armed uprisings and coup attempts before- and in the West there was no public clamor for his head when he crushed them. (The same, too, can be said of the numerous uprisings and assassination attempts carried out by the Syrian Muslim Brothers against the Assads, all of which were crushed without raising much of an outcry in the West, until now.) Rejecting a single factor explanation that NATO intervened to secure access to Libyan oil, Forte presents a multi-factorial account, which invokes elements of the hunt for profits, economic competition with China and Russia, and establishing US hegemony in Africa. Among the gains of the intervention, writes Forte, were: 1) increased access for U.S. corporations to massive Libyan expenditures on infrastructure development (and now reconstruction), from which U.S. corporations had frequently been locked out when Gaddafi was in power; 2) warding off any increased acquisition of Libyan oil contracts by Chinese and Russian firms; 3) ensuring that a friendly regime was in place that was not influenced by ideas of resource nationalism; 4) increasing the presence of AFRICOM in African affairs, in an attempt to substitute for the African Union and to entirely displace the Libyan-led Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD); 5) expanding the U.S. hold on key geostrategic locations and resources; 6) promoting U.S. claims to be serious about freedom, democracy, and human rights, and of being on the side of the people of Africa, as a benign benefactor; 7) politically stabilizing the North African region in a way that locked out opponents of the U.S.; and, 8) drafting other nations to undertake the work of defending and advancing U.S. political and economic interests, under the guise of humanitarianism and protecting civilians. Forte challenges the view that Gaddafi was in bed with the West as a strange view of romance. It might be more aptly said, he counters, that the United States was in bed with Libya on the fight against Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists, since Libya led by Gaddafi (had) fought against Al Qaeda years before it became public enemy number one in the U.S. Indeed, years before Bin Laden became a household name in the West, Libya issued an arrest warrant for his capture. Gaddafi was happy to enlist Washington's help in crushing a persistent threat to his secular rule. Moreover, the bed in which Libya and the United States found themselves was hardly a comfortable one. Gaddafi complained bitterly to US officials that the benefits he was promised for ending Libya's WMD program and capitulating on the Lockerbie prosecution were not forthcoming. And the US State Department and US corporations, for their part, complained bitterly of Gaddafi's resource
