"Prof. Michael Hudson" - Global Economic Crisis: Finance Is the New Mode of Warfare

By Prof. Michael Hudson

Global Research, July 18, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25676

July 13, 2011, KPFA in Berkeley, or online at KPFA.org., http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/71485

Topics: The jobless recovery; the debt ceiling and default charade; China; Greece: banks, not countries, receive the bailouts; financial warfare; IMF and EU; European Central Bank; US credit default swaps; US agricultural exports create food dependency; currency devaluation devalues the price of labor; class war of banks against the rest of society.

“When I was in Norway earlier this year, one of its politicians sat next to me at a dinner and said, “You know, there’s one good thing that President Obama has done that we never anticipated in Europe. He’s shown the Europeans that we can never depend on America again. No matter how good he sounds, no matter what he promises, we’re never again going to believe the patter talk of an American President. Mr. Obama has cured us. Our problem is what to do about the American people that don’t realize this nightmare that they’ve created, this smooth-talking American Tony Blair in the White House.”

            I’m Bonnie Faulkner.Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson.Today’s show, “Guns, Finance and Butter: Finance is the New Mode of Warfare.”

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"Paul Krugman" - Letting Bankers Walk

New York Times, July 17, 2011

By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/opinion/18krugman.html

Ever since the current economic crisis began, it has seemed that five words sum up the central principle of United States financial policy: go easy on the bankers.

This principle was on display during the final months of the Bush administration, when a huge lifeline for the banks was made available with few strings attached. It was equally on display in the early months of the Obama administration, when President Obama reneged on his campaign pledge to “change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes.” And the principle is still operating right now, as federal officials press state attorneys general to accept a very modest settlement from banks that engaged in abusive mortgage practices.

Why the kid-gloves treatment? Money and influence no doubt play their part; Wall Street is a huge source of campaign donations, and agencies that are supposed to regulate banks often end up serving them instead. But officials have also argued at each point of the process that letting banks off the hook serves the interests of the economy as a whole.

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"Gary Younge" - As the US Nears the Brink, The Budget Row is Exposing GOP Madness

Published on Monday, July 18, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/17/us-default-debt-ceiling-obama-congress

by Gary Younge

Back in 2004 I met a pleasant Republican called Burton Kephart, who had lost his son in Iraq and wanted to save my soul. Opening his Bible at Matthew and Romans, he told me I was born a sinner but that, if I accepted Jesus into my heart, I could be saved

I asked what would happen if I didn't. "Eternal judgment," he said. "Hell." 

You're never that far away from the apocalypse in US culture or politics. The most popular books of the past decade, the Left Behind series, are based on a fictionalised account of the Judgment Day. The 12 books sold more than John Grisham. "I fear for this country if [John] Kerry wins," said Kephart. "God has a plan for the ages. Bush will hold back the evil a little bit." The facebook page "If Sarah Palin wins in 2012 – it will be the end of the world!!!" suggests a similar reflex among liberals, even if it's generally not religiously inspired.

So when President Barack Obama talks about "averting Armageddon", there is good reason to be sceptical. In a nation given to hyperbole, where 59% believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, there's always a swarm of locusts on the horizon.

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"Subhankar Banerjee" - “Another Kind of Fukushima?” asks Whistleblower Robert Gilkeson

Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2011 by ClimateStoryTellers.org

http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/subhankar-banerjee-robert-gilkeson-another-kind-of-fukushima/

by Subhankar Banerjee

No, I didn’t make up the whistleblower title for Registered Geologist Robert (Bob) H. Gilkeson. For his important work on groundwater contamination at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in 2007 he received the annual “Whistleblower Award” from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability at a Washington, D.C. reception.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico is operated by competent people, right? And, is filled with respected scientists who always tell the truth, right? That is the “official story”—the world’s greatest science protecting America—that LANL has been feeding to the American lawmakers, media and the public for nearly seven decades. But now the northern New Mexico community members and organizations are determined to put an end to LANL’s “official story.” They’re building a “new story.” Here is their story.

On Wednesday July 6, LANL opened after being closed for more than a week due to the Las Conchas Fire that has become the largest fire in New Mexico history. As of July 16 it has burned 156,245 acres including large areas in crucial watersheds and sacred sites in the Santa Clara and Cochiti pueblo lands. That Wednesday afternoon I sat down for 3 1/2 hours of conversation with Bob Gilkeson, Joni Arends, Executive Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS), and David Bacon, board member of CCNS. I was shocked to learn about the massive amount of toxic and radioactive wastes that are on the surface and in subsurface pits at LANL. It got much worse—I learned about the great seismic hazard that has potentially catastrophic implications for the entire American southwest. LANL is also proposing to build a new $6 billion nuclear facility as part of an integral plutonium pit (triggers) production complex for building new nuclear weapons. You can stop this—it is your call.

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"Allison Kilkenny" - Koch Brothers' ALEC Tentacles Creep Into Your State

Monday 18 July 2011

by: Allison Kilkenny, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/koch-brothers-tentacles-your-state/1310997611

Thanks to the work from the Center for Media and Democracy [4] (CMD), investigative journalists like Beau Hodai [5] and The Nation's exposé [6], we now know that ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), a front group for major corporations, the Koch brothers and right-wing lobbying groups, actively disseminated model bills promoting its agenda to state leaders.

ALEC creates plausible deniability for state legislators by claiming it's not lobbying, of course, but merely making friendly suggestions and, in turn, the legislators ultimately reap the rewards of being extra nice to ALEC's corporate clients.

Though many of ALEC's activities are still only recently coming to light, we can already see the group has widespread influence in national politics.

Using its hilariously titled bills (one called "Economy Civil Rights Act" openly wages war on regulation and public services), the right-wing group aims to distribute its propaganda in all 50 states.

In one of their models, the group outlines its opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) regulation of greenhouse gases. ALEC claims the rise in carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases is not linked to a decline in welfare or public health. "Indeed," ALEC's bill remarks, "quite the opposite is true."

The model bill continues in an attempt to refute other overwhelming evidence of global warming: rising sea levels, rising ocean temperatures, retreating mountain glaciers, warming temperatures etc.

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"Michael Collins" - Running Rupert to Ground -- Vox Populi, Vox Dei

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Running-Rupert-to-Ground--by-Michael-Collins-110718-579.html

July 18, 2011 By Michael Collins How will they get rid of Rupert Murdoch and his toxic enterprises? July 4, 2011 may turn into the people's Independence Day.  On that day, stellar journalist Nick Davies of the Guardian released his story; Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World.  Twelve year old Milly Dowler had been kidnapped with foul play feared.  The Murdoch tabloid couldn't resist.  News of the World (the News) hired a private detective to hack Milly's voicemail.  Finding the mail box full, the News or its hired dick deleted existing messages to make room for new ones, all to fuel their ongoing coverage.  The deleted messages raised hopes by Milly's parents that she was still alive and using her voicemail. (Image) The Davies story elicited a reaction of near universal shock, outrage, and revulsion.  Milly had already been murdered by the time the Murdoch paper began its illegal tapping. The public revulsion resulted in immediate and fervent popular demands for justice.  Those demands were compounded by follow-up stories on other Murdoch media hacking.  As it turned out, the News also broke into the voicemails of war widows to capture their most intimate exchanges on the loss of fallen soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.   All in all, at least 4,000 citizens had their voicemails hacked to boost the Murdoch publication's circulation and profits.

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"Anne Mendenhall" - MONSANTO'S CRUEL PLANS

http://www.opednews.com/articles/MONSANTO-S-CRUEL-PLANS-by-Anne-Mendenhall-110717-947.html

July 17, 2011

By Anne Mendenhall

Monsanto began to take over our food supply in the 1990s.   First came soybeans with genes manipulated to withstand Monsanto's chief money maker, Roundup.   Shortly thereafter came Bt corn.   Bacillus thuriengensis is a natural organism which was being used by organic farmers for pest control.   Monsanto blasted it into corn seed and had its second patented crop.   GM canola and papaya followed soon after, and then along came Roundup Ready corn and rice.   Other biotech seed companies entered the game and applied for patents on vegetable crops and trees.   My understanding is that rice was manipulated to contain vaccines and to my knowledge has not been grown commercially.   

Recently, in spite of many protests and comments to the contrary, the US Department of Agriculture approved Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa for unlimited planting.   GM Kentucky bluegrass is also just approved without restrictions.   

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"Ralph Nader" - The Corporate Supreme Court; Time For Impeachment

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Corporate-Supreme-Cour-by-Ralph-Nader-110718-557.html

July 18, 2011 By Ralph Nader Five Supreme Court Justices--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy are entrenching, in a whirlwind of judicial dictates, judicial legislating and sheer ideological judgments, a mega-corporate supremacy over the rights and remedies of individuals. The artificial entity called "the corporation" has no mention in our Constitution whose preamble starts with "We the People," not "We the Corporation." Taken together the decisions are brazenly over-riding sensible precedents, tearing apart the state common law of torts and blocking class actions, shoving aside jury verdicts, limiting people's "standing to sue", pre-empting state jurisdictions--anything that serves to centralize power and hand it over to the corporate conquistadores.

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"Mary Bottari" - ALEC Exposed -- Milton Friedman's Little Shop of Horrors

Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2011 by PRWatch.org

http://www.prwatch.org/

by Mary Bottari

Although he passed away in 2006, states are now grappling with many of the toxic notions left behind by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.Although he passed away in 2006, states are now grappling with many of the toxic notions left behind by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

In her groundbreaking book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein coined the term "disaster capitalism" for the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock. The master of disaster? Privatization and free market guru Milton Friedman. Friedman advised governments in economic crisis to follow strict austerity measures, combining radical cuts in social services with the full-scale privatization of their more lucrative assets. Many countries in Latin America auctioned off everything standing -- from energy and water utilities to Social Security -- to for profit multinational firms, crushing unions and other dissenters along the way.

Now, U.S. states are in crisis. The 2008 Wall Street financial meltdown, caused by years of deregulation and lack of government oversight, cost Americans $14 trillion in lost wealth and eight million lost jobs. Today some 25 million are unemployed or underemployed. This jobs crisis has tanked federal and state tax receipts, adding billions to state budget shortfalls.

As the prime movers of this deregulatory agenda, the GOP spin machine has launched into hyper-drive in an attempt to wash the blood from their hands. Governors across the nation, backed by Wall Street's Club for Growth and the Koch Brother's Americans for Prosperity, are working hard to convince average Americans that a jobs crisis is actually a deficit crisis and that the culprits are not the big banks on Wall Street, but state, county and municipal workers.

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"HuffingtonPost" - Eating Meat Linked To Disease, Report Says

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/cut-back-on-meat-new-repo_n_901554.html

HuffingtonPost: 7/18/11 12:01 PM ET Updated: 7/18/11 04:17 PM ET

A new report released Monday claims the science is clear: Eating too much meat is bad for your health.

The so-called Meat Eater's Guide, compiled by the Environmental Working Group, is generating buzz for its "cradle-to-grave" look at the environmental impact of 20 popular types of meat, dairy and vegetable proteins. But it also emphasizes the potential health impact of eating too much meat, recommending that people cut back to decrease their risk of heart disease and certain cancers.

"The goal is to really make this information accessible to consumers," said Kari Hamerschlag, an agriculture analyst with the research and advocacy group. "On the health side, we really pulled together all of the information and tried to make it as clear as possible that there's not just one reason to limit meat consumption; there are a whole host of reasons."

The report, which weaves together statistics from various earlier studies, allows that meat can be an important source of protein and vitamins when eaten in moderation. But in the U.S., moderation may be a problem. The report cites data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization suggesting that Americans consume almost 60 percent more meat than their European counterparts, and four times more than in many developing countries. And much of that meat is either red or processed.

The health effects of this, the EWG report claims, are myriad: A 2009 report from the National Cancer Institute found that people who ate the most red meat -- which can have high levels of cholesterol-rising saturated fat -- were 27 percent more likely to die of heart disease. That same report also found serious meat eaters were 20 percent more likely to die of cancer than those who consumed the least amount of meat.

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