Mark Weisbrot - Obama Administration Escalates Confrontation With Iran: Why?

Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economics and Policy Research, October 27, 2011 Folha de São Paulo (Brazil), October 27, 2011 Em Português http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/obama-administration-escalates-confrontation-with-iran-why The Obama Administration announced two weeks ago that a bumbling Iranian-American used car salesman had conspired with a U.S. government agent posing as a representative of Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. This brought highly skeptical reactions from experts here across the political spectrum.  But even if some of this tale turns out to be true, the handling of such accusations is inherently political. For example, the U.S.  government’s 9/11 commission investigated the links between the attackers and the Saudi ruling family, but refused to make public the results of that investigation. The reason is obvious: There is dirt there and Washington doesn’t want to create friction with a key ally. And keep in mind that this is about complicity with an attack on American soil that killed 3,000 people. By contrast, the Obama Administration seized upon the rather dubious speculation that “the highest levels of the Iranian government” were involved in this alleged plot.  President Obama announced that “all options are on the table,” which is well-known code for possible military action. This is extremist and dangerous rhetoric.

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Gar Alperovitz - Occupy the Banks -- Strategies for Transformation

Published on Saturday, October 29, 2011 by YES! Magazine

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/occupy-the-banks-strategies-for-transformation

Beyond revolution and reform: On how we can fundamentally transform our financial system.

by Gar Alperovitz

The “occupations” now building around the country are a necessary and justified response to the outrages of a political-economic system that substitutes posturing for decision-making, looking the other way as the top one percent runs off with almost a fourth of the nation’s income and more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. The largely student/youth organized efforts might even be historic—if, that is, they come to terms with the reality that the challenge we face is systemic, not merely political and, that the crisis is also highly unusual in its demands.

For over a century, liberals and radicals have seen the possibility of change in capitalist systems from one of two perspectives: the reform tradition assumes that corporate institutions remain central to the system but believes that regulatory policies can contain, modify, and control corporations and their political allies. The revolutionary tradition assumes that change can come about only if corporate institutions are eliminated or transcended during an acute crisis, usually but not always by violence.

But what happens if a system neither reforms nor collapses in crisis?

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Bruce Levine - Americans Are Disempowered -- Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression?

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet

Posted on October 26, 2011, Printed on October 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152873/400_rise_in_anti-depressant_pill_use%3A_americans_are_disempowered_--_can_the_ows_uprising_shake_us_out_of_our_depression

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400 percent in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44. Among Americans 12 years and older, 11 percent were taking antidepressants by 2005-2008 (the most recently reported study period), and 23 percent of women ages 40–59 years were taking them.

Why has U.S. antidepressant use skyrocketed? Are the symptoms of what is commonly called depression—helplessness, hopelessness, and immobilization—always evidence of a medical condition? Or is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

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David Swanson - A 51st State for Armed Robotic Drones

By David Swanson

Global Research, October 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27354

Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon's plan is to give them their own state as well. Under this plan, 7 million acres (or 11,000 square miles) of land in the southeast corner of Colorado, and 60 million acres of air space (or 94,000 square miles) over Colorado and New Mexico would be given over to special forces testing and training in the use of remote-controlled flying murder machines. The full state of Colorado is itself 104,000 square miles. Rhode Island is 1,000 square miles. Virginia, where I live, is 43,000 square miles. The U.S. military (including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines) is proceeding with this plan in violation of the public will, new state legislation on private property rights, an exceptionally strong federal court order, and a funding ban passed by the United States Congress, and in the absence of any approved Environmental Impact Statement. Public pressure has successfully put the law on the right side of this issue, and the military is disregarding the law. I spoke with Jean Aguerre, whose organization "Not 1 More Acre" ( http://not1moreacre.net ) is leading the pushback against this madness. Jean told me she grew up, during the 1960s, on the vast grasslands of southeast Colorado, where the Comanche National Grasslands makes up part of a system of grasslands put in place to help the prairie recover from the dust bowl. The dust bowl, Aguerre says, was the worst environmental disaster in the United States until BP filled the Gulf of Mexico with oil. The dust bowl had been brought on by the government's policy of requiring homesteaders to plow the prairie. The recovery programs created large tracts of land, of 100,000 acres and more, owned by "generational ranchers," that is families that would hand the ranches off to their children.

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Paul Craig Roberts - Living in a Delusional World

COUNTERPUNCH,  OCTOBER 28-30, 2011

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/28/living-in-a-delusional-world/

I have come to the conclusion that Big Brother’s subjects in George Orwell’s 1984 are better informed than Americans.

Americans have no idea why they have been at war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for a decade.  They don’t realize that their liberties have been supplanted by a Gestapo Police State.  Few understand that hard economic times are here to stay.

On October 27, 2011, the US government announced some routine economic statistics, and the president of the European Council announced a new approach to the Greek sovereign debt crisis.  The result of these funny numbers and mere words sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its largest monthly rally since 1974, erasing its 2011 yearly loss. The euro rose, putting the European currency again 40% above its initial parity with the US dollar when the euro was introduced.

On National Public Radio a half-wit analyst declared, emphatically, that the latest US government statistics proved that the recovery was in place and that there was no danger whatsoever of a double-dip recession. And half-brain economists predicted a better tomorrow.

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Ralph Buehler, Arne Jungjohann, Melissa Keeley, Michael Mehling - How Germany Became Europe’s Green Leader: A Look at Four Decades of Sustainable Policymaking

By Ralph Buehler, Arne Jungjohann, Melissa Keeley, Michael Mehling

Solutions Journal, October 2011

http://www.thesolutionsjournal.org/node/981

How does one “green” an economy? For governments seeking a cleaner, more efficient, and ultimately more sustainable pathway to economic prosperity, this question entails both promise and great challenges. For one, the scale of transformation it requires is exceptionally daunting: in his 2011 State of the Union speech, for instance, President Barack Obama called on the United States to generate 80 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources and to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail, both within 25 years.¹ Compared to where the country stands now, these objectives presuppose unprecedented levels of investment in new infrastructure, new technologies, and relevant skills and education; yet at the same time, they also hold the prospect of new opportunities for job growth, innovation, industrial efficiency, and energy independence. With that in mind, one will invariably wonder, is such a transformation feasible at a time of constrained public budgets and slowly recovering economies? And perhaps more importantly, are the expected benefits of such a green transformation compelling enough to persuade a public that is exposed to conflicting messages about the underlying rationale, is critical of new regulation and expenditure, and generally is disillusioned with political authority?

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Slavoj Zizek - Occupy First. Demands Come Later

Published on Saturday, October 29, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/occupy-protesters-bill-clinton

Critics say the Occupy cause is nebulous. Protesters will need to address what comes next – but beware a debate on enemy turf

by Slavoj Žižek

What to do after the occupations of Wall Street and beyond – the protests that started far away, reached the centre and are now, reinforced, rolling back around the world? One of the great dangers the protesters face is that they will fall in love with themselves. In a San Francisco echo of the Wall Street occupation this week, a man addressed the crowd with an invitation to participate as if it was a happening in the hippy style of the 60s: "They are asking us what is our programme. We have no programme. We are here to have a good time."

Carnivals come cheap – the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed. The protesters should fall in love with hard and patient work – they are the beginning, not the end. Their basic message is: the taboo is broken; we do not live in the best possible world; we are allowed, obliged even, to think about alternatives.

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Western Corporations "Fight" for Libyan Oil. Who Will Get the Spoils of War?

By A. Tagiyeva

Global Research, October 26, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27321

Foreign companies will begin fighting for the Libyan oil and gas fields, particularly they will be the companies of countries that were active in the struggle to overthrow Gaddafi's regime, said a leading economist at the Egyptian Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, Ahmed al-Sayed Al-Naggar. "Countries such as France, Italy, UK and USA will compete for exploration and development of oil fields," Al-Naggar told Trend by telephone from Cairo. According to expert, during the struggle to overthrow Gaddafi's regime, "NATO intentionally inflicted air strikes on oil fields, as a result of which, the mining infrastructure of the country was practically destroyed. This was done so that Libya would be in need of foreign investments and Western aid in the energy sector after the war". "The new government of Libya is unlikely to nationalize Libyan oil, since they do not have sufficient capacity for its production. Libya needs foreign investments to restore the oil industry," said Al-Naggar. Al-Naggar also believes that along with major Western companies, smaller firms are also expected to participate, since there are plans to explore new oil fields, which will create a chance for those who have not previously participated in the country's oil sector. Libya is the eighth in terms of crude oil production among the 12 OPEC countries and the third in Africa after Nigeria and Angola. The main importer of Libyan oil is Italy, followed by Germany, France and Spain. Libya's proven oil reserves are estimated at 45 billion barrels. Before the war, Libya produced 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. The Head of Libya's National Oil Corporation Nuri Beruin said in September that currently Libya produces oil only on the Sarir field, but over the next six months, the oil production will begin on country's all oil fields and will reach from 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day.

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Mike Whitney - The Never-Ending Eurofiasco -- Bad and Getting Worse

COUNTERPUNCH,  OCTOBER 28-30, 2011

by MIKE WHITNEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/28/the-never-ending-eurofiasco/

Imagine if the local fire chief, in the spirit of conservation, decided he’d use no more than 1,000 gallons of water to put out any given house fire. Do you think the citizens would support that policy if their town was burned to the ground? And, yet, this is the same approach that eurozone leaders are using to address the debt crisis. The central bank (ECB) has virtually limitless resources (Think: printing press) to defend the debt of the individual states and to act as lender of last resort, but the eurocrats won’t hear of it. They refuse to use the ECB as every other central bank in the world is used. They’d rather reinvent the wheel by creating a funky, improvised emergency fund (European Financial Stabilization Facility or EFSF) that’s massively leveraged and which only provides a 20 percent “first-loss” guarantee on sovereign bonds. So, for example, if Italy goes belly-up in the next year or so and can’t repay its debts, then Mr. bondholder gets a whopping 20 cents on the dollar. Such a deal!

Can you see how ridiculous this is?

Look; US Treasuries are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States of America. What are Italian bonds backed by? Or Portuguese bonds? Or Irish bonds?

Under this new regime, they’ll be “partially” backed by a dodgy, undercapitalized insurance fund. That ought to shore-up investor confidence.

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Ted Cox - 4 Ways the Feds Are Attacking the Perfectly Legal Medical Marijuana Industry

By Ted Cox, AlterNet

Posted on October 27, 2011, Printed on October 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152891/4_ways_the_feds_are_attacking_the_perfectly_legal_medical_marijuana_industry

At the moment 16 states and Washington DC have legalized medical cannabis, providing safe access to patients, creating thousands of jobs and pumping millions of dollars in tax revenue into struggling state and local economies. Some of those state and local governments are working with their medical cannabis providers to adopt common-sense regulations and to cut down the potential for abuse -- with varying degrees of success.

But under the federal Controlled Substance Act, cannabis is a Schedule I substance -- right along with heroin, ecstasy and LSD -- and still illegal. The feds are concerned that medical cannabis is making its way onto the black market, that dispensaries are generating obscene profits and that cannabis providers are targeting children in ads.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden issued a memorandum in October 2009 saying the Justice Department was unlikely to go after cannabis patients, but that "prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority of the department." But recent months have seen a strong push-back by the federal government. With storefront dispensaries popping up across the country, and medical cannabis expected to grow to a $1.7 billion industry, here are four ways the federal government is fighting the burgeoning industry.

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