Tom Carter - US Congress passes authoritarian anti-protest law

A bill passed Monday in the US House of Representatives and Thursday in the Senate would make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by lengthy terms of incarceration—to participate in many forms of protest associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests of last year. Several commentators have dubbed it the “anti-Occupy” law, but its implications are far broader.

The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill.

The virtually unanimous passage of H.R. 347 starkly exposes the fact that, despite all the posturing, the Democrats and the Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with the corporate and financial oligarchy, which regarded last year’s popular protests against social inequality with a mixture of fear and hostility.

Read More:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/prot-m03.shtml

Richard Heinberg - $5 Gas = Long, Hot, Crazy Summer

Here in northern California gasoline is now retailing for $4.20 a gallon. Prices haven’t been this high since mid-2008. Forecasts for $5 per gallon gas in the U.S. this summer are now commonplace. What’s driving prices up?

Most analysts focus mostly on two factors: worries about Iran and increased demand from a perceived global economic recovery. However, as we will see, there are also often-overlooked systemic factors in the oil industry that almost guarantee us less-affordable oil.

Iranian Poker

Iran wants nuclear power and (probably) the capacity to build a nuclear weapon; the latter is unacceptable to Israel and the U.S. But there is more to the standoff than this. Iran is a strategic oil and gas exporting country that, for the past 30 years, has escaped integration into the U.S. system of client states; it also occasionally provides assistance to Israel’s enemies. Following the disastrous U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has emerged as the principal power in the region, capable of further destabilizing either of its war-torn neighbors. And Tehran has led a move to ditch the U.S. dollar as the standard currency of exchange in the global oil market.

Read More:

http://ecowatch.org/2012/5-gas-long-hot-crazy-summer/

Richard Clark - Grandest of All Ponzi Schemes? Foreign Central Banks Begin Buying US Stocks

A small number of central banks have started investing part of their reserves in US equities. About 9% of the foreign-exchange reserves of Switzerland's central bank were invested in shares at the end of the third quarter, the Swiss bank said on its website. In addition, the Bank of Israel recently began a pilot program to invest a portion of its foreign currency reserves in US equities.

It is becoming ever more apparent that we have an economic system increasingly rigged for the benefit of the superrich, who own most of our members of Congress, and are, by that means, able to continuously inflate the value of their holdings at the expense of everyone else.   

To wit:   

Next leg of the grandest of all ponzi schemes:   foreign central banks to begin buying US stocks outright, starting today!   

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Grandest-of-All-Ponzi-Sche-by-Richard-Clark-120303-39.html

China's urbanization unlikely to lead to fast growth of middle class

The number of people living in China's cities, which last year for the first time surpassed 50 percent of the national population, is considered a boon for the consumer goods market. That is based on the assumption that there will be more families with more disposable income when poor farmers from China's countryside move to cities and become middle-class industrial and office workers.

But the assumption overlooks a policy from the era of Chinese leader Mao Zedong that restricts the upward mobility of its rural citizens, says a University of Washington geographer.

This calls into question China's strength in the global market and its ability to overtake the United States as a global superpower, according to Kam Wing Chan, a UW professor of geography.

His findings are published in the current issue of the journal Eurasian Geography and Economics.

Read More:

http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/China_urbanization_unlikely_to_lead_to_fast_growth_of_middle_class_999.html

Cindy Folkers - The Demonic Reality of Fukushima

In the days following the March 11, 2011 beginning of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano repeatedly reassured the Japanese public, news media, and world community that there was “no immediate health risk” from mounting radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. His choice of words was very similar to the U.S. nuclear power establishment’s during the Three Mile Island melt down of 1979, as captured by Rosalie Bertell’s classic anti-nuclear primer No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth.

However, as the New York Times revealed Monday, Edano and his colleagues at the highest levels of the Japanese federal government were actually worried about a worst-case scenario, a “demonic chain reaction” of atomic reactor meltdowns spreading catastrophic amounts of deadly radioactivity from the three operating units at Fukushima Daiichi (as well as multiple high-level radioactive waste storage pools there), to the four operating reactors and pools at Fukushima Daini (just 7 miles south, which itself avoided catastrophe thanks to a single surviving offsite power line; several offsite power lines were lost to the earthquake, and all diesel generators were lost to the tsunami), to the operating reactor and pool at Tokai (much closer to Tokyo). Regarding such a nightmare scenario, eerily similar to what Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa depicted in Dreams, the New York Times reported:

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2012/03/02/THE-DEMONIC-REALITY-OF-FUKUSHIMA/

Steven Wishnia - The Truth About Drug-Testing the Unemployed

The new federal law that lets states drug-test applicants for unemployment compensation was a small win for the Republican-led efforts to examine the urine of everyone receiving government safety-net benefits. How many people it will affect depends on how the Department of Labor establishes the regulations—and on whether the courts continue to hold that such policies violate the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches.

House Republicans initially wanted to let states drug-test all 7.5 million people collecting unemployment compensation. The compromise reached in the payroll tax-cut deal, along with cutting six months off the time people can collect, authorizes states to test applicants for benefits in two circumstances: if they were fired for using drugs, or if the only occupation they’re suited for is one the Department of Labor lists as commonly requiring drug-testing.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154364/the_truth_about_drug-testing_the_unemployed

Un-Earthed: Is Monsanto's Glyphosate Destroying The Soil?

“The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.” --- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In light of this quote, had Monsanto been around during Roosevelt’s time, he would not have taken too kindly to their business strategy. After all, in 2007, 176 million lbs of an extremely toxic herbicide known as glyphosate,¹ first created by Monsanto, was sprayed onto the soil (and everything standing between it) in this country, with untold environmental and human health fallout.

Untold, that is, until now...

Read More:

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/un-earthed-monsantos-glyphosate-destroying-soil?utm_source=www.GreenMedInfo.com&utm_campaign=4f9335f73a-Greenmedinfo&utm_medium=email

White House refuses to reveal ties with Monsanto

Despite requests made under the Freedom of Information Act for correspondence out of the White House, the Obama administration is refusing to comply with calls to disclose discussions with Monsanto-linked lobbyists.

The US-based non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is demanding that the White House comply with a FOIA request for information that might link the Obama administration with lobbyists tied to the Monsanto corporation. Monsanto, an agricultural biotech company that rakes in billions each year, has become the enemy of independent farmers in recent years after the corporation has sued hundreds of small-time growers and, in many cases, purchased farms that are unable to compete in a court of law. As Monsanto’s profits grow and the group comes close to monopolizing the market for American agriculture, the company has at the same time thrived due its use of controversial genetically-engineered seeds.

Read More:

http://rt.com/usa/news/white-house-monsanto-peer-991/

Marsha B. Cohen - Consequences Of An Attack On Iran Are No Joke

 A grim joke made the rounds in late 2002 and early 2003, in the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq. The version I recall went something like this:

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney go into a Texas bar. Over a couple of beers they plan the invasion of Iraq, taking out Saddam Hussein and taking control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves. The big question, though, is how Americans might react to their starting another war, with victory still elusive in Afghanistan. They decide to do an impromptu sampling of public opinion, and invite an average, all-American looking guy standing at the bar to join them for a friendly drink.

“What would you think of us invading Iraq and taking over their oil fields, if you knew that 30,000 Iraqis and one American bicycle mechanic would be killed if we do it?” Bush asks.

The fellow slowly sips his beer, his brow furrowed. He mulls the question and looks troubled. Finally he asks, “Why should an American bicycle mechanic have to die?”

Cheney slaps the table and grins triumphantly at Bush. “I told you no one would give a damn about the 30,000 Iraqis!”

Read More:

http://www.lobelog.com/consequences-of-an-attack-on-iran-are-no-joke/

Michael Parenti - Free Market Health Care: True Stories

I recently wrote an article about my personal experiences in dealing with the medical system while undergoing surgery (“Free Market Medicine: A Personal Account”). In response, a number of readers sent me accounts of their own experiences trying to get well in America. 

Health care in this country is hailed by conservative boosters as “the best medical system in the world.” It certainly is the most expensive, most profitable, and most complicated system in the world, leaving millions of Americans in shock. None of the people who wrote to me had anything positive to say about the U.S. health system. Below are some of the responses to my article. (Several of the senders requested that their real names not be used). 

~ This first email, in a few words, contains one of the more familiar stories:

Read More:

http://michaelparentiblog.blogspot.com/