Greg Sargent - How Wall Street really views the protesters

Washington Post, Posted at 09:54 AM ET, 11/19/2011

By Greg Sargent

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes just aired an exclusive that provides an interesting look at how some of those being targeted by Occupy Wall Street may really view the protests. He reported that a memo from a prominent corporate lobbying firm to the American Bankers Association proposed an extensive public relations campaign — including opposition research into key movement figures and an elaborate media strategy — designed to discredit the movement, and Dems who embrace it.

The memo was authored by lobbyists at the firm Clark Lytle Geduldig Cranford — and there are two key takeaways. The first is that some allies of Wall Street firms see Occupy Wall Street as a potential long term political threat. The second is that they see the Democratic strategy of embracing the populist message of the protests as something that could work, rather than something that is an automatic negative for Dems, as conservatives keep proclaiming is the case.

From the memo:

Leading Democratic party strategists have begun to openly discuss the benefits of embracing the growing and increasingly organized Occuy Wall Street (OWS) movement to prevent Republican gains in Congress and the White House next year. We have seen this process of adopting extreme positions and movements to increase base voer turnout, including in the 2005-2006 immigration debate. If vilifying the leading companies of this sector is allowed to become an unchallenged centerpiece of a coordinated Democratic campaign, it has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullsye.

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Malcolm Ritter and Mari Yamaguchi - Future Cancers from Fukushima Plant May Be Hidden

Published on Sunday, November 20, 2011 by the Associated Press

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/20-1

Japanese people don't trust reassurances from government scientists

by Malcolm Ritter and Mari Yamaguchi

FUKUSHIMA, Japan  — Even if the worst nuclear accident in 25 years leads to many people developing cancer, we may never find out.

Looking back on those early days of radiation horror, that may sound implausible.

But the ordinary rate of cancer is so high, and our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure so limited, that any increase in cases from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster may be undetectable.

Several experts inside and outside Japan told The Associated Press that cancers caused by the radiation may be too few to show up in large population studies, like the long-term survey just getting under way in Fukushima.

That could mean thousands of cancers under the radar in a study of millions of people, or it could be virtually none. Some of the dozen experts the AP interviewed said they believe radiation doses most Japanese people have gotten fall in a "low-dose" range, where the effect on cancer remains unclear.

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Bernie Sanders - Democrats, Stop Caving In!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Democrats-Stop-Caving-In-by-Bernie-Sanders-111119-961.html

November 19, 2011 By Bernie Sanders If Obama and Dems on the super committee go along with cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the three pillars of the New Deal and the Great Society, and permanently extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent, the American people will shake their heads in disbelief. They will arrive at the valid conclusion that there are no significant differences between the two corporate interest controlled parties Here is something we all can agree on: Federal deficits are a serious problem. Here is something no one seriously disputes: Today's big deficits were caused mainly by big tax cuts for the wealthy, two unpaid-for wars, a horrible recession caused by Wall Street greed, and an expensive prescription drug program rigged to favor pharmaceutical companies. Here is something we should not agree to do: Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

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Seymour Hersh - Iran and the IAEA -- A Trove of New Fake Evidence

The New Yorker, November 19, 2011

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2011/11/iran-and-the-iaea.html#ixzz1e87pdqyN

The first question in last Saturday night’s Republican debate on foreign policy dealt with Iran, and a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report, which raised renewed concern about the “possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran,” struck a darker tone than previous assessments. But it was carefully hedged. On the debate platform, however, any ambiguity was lost.  One of the moderators said that the I.A.E.A. report had provided “additional credible evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon” and asked what various candidates, upon winning the Presidency, would do to stop Iran. Herman Cain said he would assist those who are trying to overthrow the government. Newt Gingrich said he would coördinate with the Israeli government and maximize covert operations to block the Iranian weapons program. Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s “greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint” and added, “Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon.” The Iranian bomb was a sure thing Saturday night. I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeatedly inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a “smoking calutron,” as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.

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Faiguni Sheth - OWS, Police Brutality, and the War on Terror: An Empire State of Mind

Published on Sunday, November 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/20-2

by Falguni Sheth

Over the last week, among the multiple images that horrified and angered the American public, two stood out: One is an image of Dorli Rainey, an 84 year old protester at Occupy Seattle with milk dripping from her face after being pepper-sprayed by a uniformed Seattle officer. Another is the video clip of a uniformed Davis, California police officer pulling out two cans of pepper-spray and directing it at the faces of non-aggressive, stationary student protesters at UC Davis. Both images have gone viral. I suspect this is because there is something so grotesque and terrifying about watching a uniformed officer pull out a can of chemicals that are designed to seriously, if temporarily, cripple and paralyze the its victims. Watching the lurid spectacle happen in real-time has the effect of paralyzing the viewer.

Besides the outrage that these events provoked, several questions have been raised, even by those who have followed most global political news over the last decade: “What are they thinking? Why these heavy-handed tactics? Why is it ok to assault people instead of arrest them?” And others, perhaps without knowing why, are horrified but not at all surprised. Why not?

These heavy-handed tactics should come as no surprise to any of us. The ability to assault people prior to—no, instead of arresting and charging them with crimes—has become an explicit staple of United States foreign policy since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, on Oct. 22, 2001. That bill, some 350 pages long and written over much longer than a month’s time, authorized the state police and army forces to wiretap, investigate, search and detain individuals as part of a pre-emptive strategy to seek out “suspected terrorists,” that is, before they could do damage to “US” (pun intended). Augmented to this was G.W. Bush’s presidential endorsement of torture and rendition strategies, along with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan under the auspices of waging a “War on Terror” and the associated military bombings of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (with President Obama’s continued support of rendition, the expansion of military drones targeted towards “suspected Al-Qaeda” buildings, and of course, civilians). Tack on Presidential Obama’s enthusiasm to assassinate suspected terrorists in lieu of a trial (Osama Bin Laden), even when they are American citizens (Anwar Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan).

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Frida Berrigan - Civil Disobedience, Do You Pay to Play or Do the Time?

Published on Sunday, November 20, 2011 by Waging Nonviolence

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/11/do-you-pay-to-play-or-do-the-time/

Reflections on Extending Direct Action by Not Paying Fines, Going to Court and Maybe Even to Jail

by Frida Berrigan

Standing in front of a judge is intimidating (to me anyway). It seems a whole lot easier to cross a line, refuse to move, or lie down in the middle of the street, than stand before a judge. I would rather be trussed up in handcuffs and crammed into a crowded police wagon than stand before a judge. They are often world-weary and judgmental (I guess it comes with the territory). I would rather stay in the grubby holding cell and drink the water that comes out of the little fountain on top of the stainless steel (seat-less) toilet than stand before a judge. They don’t really appear to be listening to what the people standing before them are saying. They often look out from heavy eye lids and one gets the sense that they think they have heard it all before. It is easier to hold a big sign or wear an orange jumpsuit or participate in street theater or leaflet the tourists or engage in conversation with an angry and alienated guy, than try and explain my motivations and thinking to a judge who I assume doesn’t have the time or interest to care.

I haven’t had a lot of chances to stand before a judge, but I am always really scared when I do. The most recent time, I emerged from more than 24 hours of “processing” in leg irons (I put “processing” in quotes to convey how much it sucked). We had been arrested early in the afternoon on January 11, 2008 at the Supreme Court, trying to unfurl a banner that said “Justice Denied.” In total, there were more than 90 of us inside the court building and on the steps outside, many dressed in orange jumpsuits and the rest wearing orange tee shirts under our jackets. Inside, after the banner was snatched away from us, we knelt down and began reading a statement together that described what men at Guantanamo had experienced of “U.S. justice.” We decided not to carry identification, symbolically and in a real way taking the names and identities of individual men at Guantanamo into U.S. courts and shedding some small bit of privilege and control that comes along with having a U.S. issued ID.

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Gareth Porter - Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim

By Gareth Porter

Global Research, November 20, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27770

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion. The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist - identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko - had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself in an interview with Radio Free Europe published Friday.  The latest report by the IAEA cited "information provided by Member States" that Iran had constructed "a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments" - meaning simulated explosions of nuclear weapons - in its Parchin military complex in 2000.  The report said it had "confirmed" that a "large cylindrical object" housed at the same complex had been "designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives". That amount of explosives, it said, would be "appropriate" for testing a detonation system to trigger a nuclear weapon.

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Camila Ruz - Amphibians facing 'terrifying' rate of extinction

Researchers say tropical regions of richest diversity are most at risk of losing frogs, toads, newts and salamanders

Camila Ruz

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 November 2011 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/16/amphibians-terrifying-extinction-threat

If the current rapid extermination of animals, plants and other species really is the "sixth mass extinction", then it is the amphibian branch of the tree of life that is undergoing the most drastic pruning.

In research described as "terrifying" by an independent expert, scientists predict the future for frogs, toads, newts and salamanders is even more bleak than conservationists had realised.

Around half of amphibian species are in decline, while a third are already threatened with extinction. But scientists now predict that areas with the highest diversity of amphibian species will be under the most intense threat in the future.

And they warn that a three-pronged threat could also cause populations to decline faster than previously thought.

Like many creatures, amphibians have been hit hard by climate change and habitat loss. But they have also been decimated by the spread of the deadly fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

One in three of the world's amphibians are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of endangered species. These include the Malagasy rainbow frog that lives in the rocky forests of Madagascar. It has the ability to inflate itself when under attack and can climb vertical rock faces. Found in an area smaller than 100 square kilometres, it is a prime target for the pet trade.

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Jill Richardson - 5 Ridiculous Myths People Use to Trash Local Food -- And Why They're Wrong

By Jill Richardson, AlterNet

Posted on November 18, 2011, Printed on November 20, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153121/5_ridiculous_myths_people_use_to_trash_local_food_--_and_why_they%27re_wrong 

It's become predictable. At nearly regular intervals, someone, somewhere, will decide it's time to write another article "debunking" the local food movement. The latest installment is by Steve Sexton, posted on the Freakonomics blog (which also treated us to a previous post called "Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores?") And we must not forget the leading anti-locavore, James McWilliams, who gave us "The Locavore Myth" and many other, similar articles.

The arguments are stale, shallow and often incorrect. But if you enjoy the flavor of organic heirloom tomatoes, fresh picked from the farm, here's how to read these articles without filling with guilt that your love of local food is doing the planet in and starving people in the Global South.

Myth #1: People who eat local eat the same diet as those who don't.

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Ellen Brown - SUPER COMMITTEE DEADLOCK: HEADS THEY WIN, TAILS WE LOSE

Ellen Brown

November 17, 2011
www.webofdebt.com/articles/super.php

It is no great surprise that with only days to go, the congressional “super committee,” given the herculean task of carving an additional $1.2 trillion out of the federal budget, has failed to reach agreement.  Why should six Republicans and six Democrats with diametrically opposed views agree in a few weeks, when Congress couldn’t shake hands on it after months of wrangling, despite the guillotine blade of a federal default hanging over their heads?      

Whether the super committee reaches agreement or not, however, the deficit hawks win.  If they agree, either $1.2 trillion gets cut from the budget or taxes go up by that amount; and the committee co-chair has categorically stated taxes are not going up, so that means the budget will be cut.  If agreement is not reached, $1.2 trillion in cuts automatically kick in, split evenly between domestic and military spending.  Either way, the economy will wind up with $1.2 trillion less in the way purchasing power.  The result will be to reduce demand, kill jobs, and put more people on the streets.

For the deficit hawks, however, it all seems to be going according to plan.  The super committee is characterized as an emergency measure that was rushed through to avoid an arbitrarily imposed August deadline for freezing the debt ceiling, but it has actually been in the works for years.  In 2009, it was called the “Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action”.  That plan died when its Senate sponsors, Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad, failed to secure 60 votes for passage in the Senate.  The Gregg-Conrad bill was criticized as railroading through legislation that would unconstitutionally slash domestic services without congressional debate, but its task force would actually have been LESS autocratic than the super committee, which has sweeping powers and needs only a simple majority among its 12 members to prevail.

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