Global Research

As family excitement builds over Thanksgiving, you would never know November was Native American History Month. President Barack Obama publicly announced the month, but many more Americans will be paying much greater attention to his annual declaration of thanksgiving with the ceremonial pardoning of a turkey.

Thanksgiving has a treasured place in the hearts of Americans, established as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to rouse Northern patriotism for a war that was not going well. Since then, Thanksgiving has often served other political ends.

In 2003, in the age of U.S. Middle East invasions, President George W. Bush flew to Baghdad, Iraq, to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with U.S. troops. He sought to rally the public behind an invasion based on lies by having a host of photographers snap pictures of him carrying a glazed turkey to eager soldiers. Three hours later, Bush flew home, and TV brought his act of solidarity and generosity to millions of U.S. living rooms. But the turkey the President carried to Baghdad was never eaten. It was cardboard, a stage prop.

Thus, as an example of hypocrisy and insincerity, Thanksgiving 2003 had a lot in common with the first Thanksgiving Day celebrated in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. A year earlier, 149 English Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower landed at Plymouth and survived their first New England winter when Wampanoug people brought the newcomers corn, meat and other gifts, and taught the Pilgrims survival skills.

In 1621, Governor William Bradford of Plymouth proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving – not for his Wampanoug saviors but in honor of his brave Pilgrims. Through resourcefulness and devotion to God, his Christians had defeated hunger.

Bradford claimed that Native Americans were invited to the dinner. A seat at the table? Really? Since Pilgrims classified their nonwhite saviors as “infidels” and inferiors — if invited at all, they were asked to provide and serve, not share the food.

To this day, we are asked to see Thanksgiving essentially through the eyes of Governor Bradford (albeit with a nod to the help provided by the Native Americans). Bradford’s fable about stalwart Pilgrims overcoming daunting challenges through God’s blessings was an early example of “Euro think” which cast the European conquest of the Americas as mostly heroic and even noble.

Having survived those first difficult winters, Pilgrim armies soon pushed westward. In 1637, Governor Bradford sent his troops to raid a Pequot village, viewing the clash as mortal combat between devout Christians and godless heathens. Pilgrim soldiers systematically destroyed a village of sleeping men, women and children.

Bradford was overjoyed: “It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and stench thereof. But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they [the Pilgrim militia] gave praise thereof to God.”

Years later, Pilgrim Reverend Increase Mather asked his congregation to celebrate the “victory” and thank God “that on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell.”

School books and scholarly texts still honor Bradford, ignoring his callous brutality. The 1993 edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia [p. 351] states of Bradford, “He maintained friendly relations with the Native Americans.” The scholarly Dictionary of American History [p. 77] said, “He was a firm, determined man and an excellent leader; kept relations with the Indians on friendly terms; tolerant toward newcomers and new religions….”

The Mayflower, renamed the Meijbloom (Dutch for Mayflower), continued to carve its place in history. It became a slave ship carrying enslaved Africans to the Americas.

The Earliest Freedom-Fighters

Thanksgiving Day in the United States celebrates not justice and equality but aggression and enslavement. It affirms the genocidal beliefs in racial and religious superiority that justified the destruction of millions of Native American people and their cultures, extermination campaigns that began soon after the Pilgrim landing in 1620 and continued through the U.S. Army’s punitive campaigns in the West during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries.

Still, Americans proudly count themselves among the earliest to fight for freedom of the individual and independence from tyranny. In that sense, on Thanksgiving Day, Americans might think to honor the first freedom-fighters of the Americas – those who resisted the foreign invasion of these lands – but those freedom-fighters were not European and their resistance started long before 1776.

Even before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, thousands of enslaved Africans and Native Americans had united to fight the European invaders and slavers. In the early Sixteenth Century during the age of Columbus and the Spanish invasion, these brave freedom-fighters were led by Taino leaders on the island of Hispaniola. One, a woman poet named Anacoana was captured at age 29. Another, a man named Hatuey, led his 400 followers from Hispaniola to Cuba in 1511 to warn the people about the dangers from the foreigners.

The following year, Hatuey was captured, too, and, the next year in behavior fitting with the civilization represented by the European invaders, Anacoana and Hatuey were burned at the stake.

Resistance to the invaders and their reliance on slavery continued to erupt in other parts of the Americas. In 1605, 15 years before the Mayflower reached Plymouth, thousands of runaway Africans, known as “maroons,” united with Indians in northeast Brazil to form the Republic of Palmares, defended by a three-walled fortress. From there, Genga Zumba and his 10,000 people repeatedly threw back Dutch and Portuguese armies. The Republic of Palmares survived until 1694, almost a hundred years, before finally being suppressed.

These early nonwhite freedom-fighters kept no written records, but some of their ideas about freedom, justice and equality found their way into the sacred parchment that Americans celebrate each July Fourth, declaring that all people are created equal and endowed with fundamental rights.

So, the fairest way to celebrate freedom-fighters in what the Europeans called the New World would be to start with the stories of Anacoana and Hatuey resisting the depredations of Columbus and his men and then move to the “maroon” resistance at Palmares.

Looking at the injustice that the victors often meted out to indigenous people and imported slaves, there is little reason to feel grateful for the later arrival of — and encroachments by — the ungrateful Pilgrims.

William Loren Katz is the author of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage [Atheneum] and 40 other books. His website is: williamlkatz.com. This essay is adapted from the 2012 edition of Black Indians.

Vladimir Putin answered questions from Hubert Seipel of the German TV channel ARD. The interview was recorded on November 13 in Vladivostok. President Vladimir Putin presents his views on the Ukraine crisis and defends Russia’s actions.

HUBERT SEIPEL (retranslated from Russian): Good afternoon, Mr President.

You are the only Russian President who has ever given a speech at the Bundestag. This happened in 2001. Your speech was a success. You spoke about relations between Russia and Germany, building Europe in cooperation with Russia, but you also gave a warning. You said that the Cold War ideas had to be eradicated. You also noted that we share the same values, yet we do not trust each other. Why were you being a little pessimistic back then?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: First of all, I gave no warnings or admonitions and I was not being pessimistic. I was just trying to analyse the preceding period in the development of the situation in the world and in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I also took the liberty of predicting the situation based on different development scenarios.

Naturally, it reflected the situation as we see it, through the prism, as diplomats would put it, from Russia’s point of view, but still, I think it was a rather objective analysis.

I reiterate: there was no pessimism whatsoever. None. On the contrary, I was trying to make my speech sound optimistic. I assumed that having acknowledged all the problems of the past, we must move towards a much more comfortable and mutually advantageous relationship-building process in the future.

HUBERT SEIPEL: Last week marked the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, which would not have been possible without the Soviet Union’s consent. That was back then. In the meantime, NATO is conducting exercises in the Black Sea, near the Russian borders, while Russian bombers conduct exercises in Europe’s international airspace. The Defence Minister said, if I’m not mistaken, that they fly as far as the Gulf of Mexico. All of this points to a new Cold War.

And, of course, partners exchange harsh statements. Some time ago, President Obama named Russia as a threat on a par with Ebola and the extremists, the Islamic extremists. You once called America a nouveau riche, who thinks of himself as a winner of the Cold war, and now America is trying to shape the world according to its own ideas about life. All of this is very reminiscent of a Cold War.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: See, you mentioned 2001 and I said that my perspective was rather optimistic.

We have witnessed two waves of NATO expansion since 2001. If I remember correctly, seven countries – Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – joined NATO in 2004. Two more countries joined in 2009. Those were significant geopolitical game changers.

Furthermore, the number of military bases is growing. Does Russia have military bases around the world? NATO and the United States have military bases scattered all over the globe, including in areas close to our borders, and their number is growing.

Moreover, just recently it was decided to deploy Special Operations Forces, again in close proximity to our borders.

You have mentioned various exercises, flights, ship movements, and so on. Is all of this going on? Yes, it is indeed.

However, first of all, you said – or perhaps it was an inaccurate translation – that they have been conducted in the international European airspace. Well, it is either international (neutral) or European airspace. So, please note that our exercises have been conducted exclusively in international waters and international airspace.

In 1992, we suspended the flights of our strategic aircraft and they remained at their air bases for many years. During this time, our US partners continued the flights of their nuclear aircraft to the same areas as before, including areas close to our borders. Therefore, several years ago, seeing no positive developments, no one is ready to meet us halfway, we resumed the flights of our strategic aviation to remote areas. That’s all.

HUBERT SEIPEL: So, you believe that your security interests have not been accommodated.

Let me return to the current crisis and to its trigger. The current crisis was triggered by the agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. The title of this agreement is relatively harmless. It is called the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. The key point of this agreement is to open the Ukrainian market to the EU and vice versa. Why is it a threat for Russia? Why did you oppose this agreement?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: In reality the economy follows almost the same path as security. We preach the opposite of what we practice. We say that a single space should be built and build new dividing lines instead.

Let us look at what the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement stipulates. I have said this many times, but it appears I have to repeat it once again: it eliminates the import duties for the European goods entering Ukrainian territory, brings them down to zero. Yet as Ukraine is a member of a free trade zone within CIS, zero customs tariffs have been introduced between Russia and Ukraine. What does that mean? It means that all European goods will flow through Ukrainian territory directly to the customs territory of the Russian Federation.

There are many other things that may not be clear for people who are not informed regarding these matters, but they do exist. For example, there are technical regulations that are different in Russia and in the EU, we have different standards. Those are standards of technical control, phytosanitary standards and the principle of determining the origin of goods. By way of an example I would cite the component assembly of cars in Ukrainian territory. According to the Association Agreement, the goods manufactured in the territory of Ukraine are intended for our market within the framework of the Russian-Ukrainian free trade zone. Your companies that invested billions of euros in factories in Russia (Volkswagen, BMW, Peugeot, Citroen, the US Ford, and others) entered our market on completely different terms, on condition of deep localisation of production. How could we accept that? So we said from the outset, “We agree, but let us proceed step by step and take into consideration the real problems that can emerge between Russia and Ukraine.” What were we told in response? “It is none of your business, so get your nose out of these affairs.”

HUBERT SEIPEL: I would like to turn to the past. When the EU‑Ukraine Association Agreement was discussed, the negotiations took quite a while. This caused rallies on Maidan in Kiev. I refer to the protests during which people demanded a better life within the European Union. But they were also protesting against the Ukrainian system. In the end all that resulted in a wave of violence.

After the then president failed to sign the Agreement, it provoked an outbreak of violence, and people were killed on Maidan. Then the German Minister of Foreign Affairs arrived and tried to find a compromise between the protesters and the government, and managed to do that. An agreement was made providing for a government of national unity. It remained in force for about 24 hours and then it disappeared.

You followed closely the developments of September 21 and you remember how you talked with Mr Obama and Ms Merkel.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Yes. Indeed, on February 21, not only the German Minister of Foreign Affairs but also his counterparts from Poland and France arrived in Kiev to act as guarantors of the agreement achieved between the then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition. The agreement stipulated that the only path the process would take was the peaceful one. As guarantors, they signed that agreement between the official authorities and the opposition. And the former assumed that it would be observed. It is true that I spoke by telephone with the President of the United States that same day, and this was the context for our conversation. However, the following day, despite all the guarantees provided by our partners from the West, a coup happened and both the Presidential Administration and the Government headquarters were occupied.

I would like to say the following in this regard: either the Foreign Ministers of Germany, Poland and France should not have signed the agreement between the authorities and the opposition as its guarantors, or, since they did sign it after all, they should have insisted on its implementation instead of dissociating themselves from this agreement. What is more, they prefer now not to mention it at all, as though the agreement never existed. In my view, this is absolutely wrong and counterproductive.

HUBERT SEIPEL: You acted promptly. You, so to say, annexed Crimea and justified it at the time based on the fact that 60 percent of Crimea’s population were Russians, that Crimea has a long history of being part of Russia and, lastly, that its fleet is stationed there. The West saw that as a violation of international law.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: What is your question exactly?

HUBERT SEIPEL: Did you underestimate the reaction of the West and the possible sanctions, which were later imposed on Russia?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: We believe that this sort of reaction was totally disproportionate to what had happened.

Whenever I hear complaints about Russia violating international law I am simply amazed. What is international law? It is first of all the United Nations Charter, international practice and its interpretation by relevant international institutions.

Moreover, we have a clear recent precedent – Kosovo.

HUBERT SEIPEL: You mean the International Court of Justice ruling on Kosovo? The one in which it stated that Kosovo had the right to self‑determination and that the Kosovars could hold a vote to determine the future of their state?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: (In German.) Exactly. (Continues in Russian.) But not only that. Its main point was that when making a decision concerning their self-determination, the people living in a certain territory need not ask the opinion of the central authorities of the state where they presently live. They do not need the approval by the central authorities, by the government, to take the necessary measures for self-determination. That is the central point.

And what was done in Crimea was not in any way different from what had been done in Kosovo.

I am deeply convinced that Russia did not commit any violations of international law. Yes, I make no secret of it, it is a fact and we never concealed that our Armed Forces, let us be clear, blocked Ukrainian armed forces stationed in Crimea, not to force anybody to vote, which is impossible, but to avoid bloodshed, to give the people an opportunity to express their own opinion about how they want to shape their future and the future of their children.

Kosovo, which you mentioned, declared its independence by parliamentary decision alone. In Crimea, people did not just make a parliamentary decision, they held a referendum, and its results were simply stunning.

What is democracy? Both you and me know the answer well. What is demos? Demos is people, and democracy is people’s right. In this particular case, it is the right to self-determination.

HUBERT SEIPEL: It shows immediately that you are a lawyer.

But you know the arguments of the West as well. The West says that the elections were held under the control of Russian military. This is the reasoning of the West.

Let me touch upon the next issue. Today, Ukraine is more or less divided. Four thousand people have died, hundreds of thousands have become refugees and fled, among other places, to Russia. In the east of the country, Russian-speaking separatists are demanding broad autonomy, some want to join Russia. In accordance with the Minsk agreement, ceasefire was declared, but people are dying every day. The country is bankrupt. Basically everybody lost in the conflict. Ukraine seems to have lost the most, but Europe and Russia did as well. How do you see Ukraine’s future?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Ukraine is a complex country, and not only due to its ethnic composition, but also from the point of view of its formation as it stands today.

Is there a future and what will it be like? I think there certainly is. It is a large country, a large nation with the population of 43–44 million people. It is a large European country with a European culture..

You know, there is only one thing that is missing. I believe, what is missing is the understanding that in order to be successful, stable and prosperous, the people who live on this territory, regardless of the language they speak (Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian or Polish), must feel that this territory is their homeland. To achieve that they must feel that they can realise their potential here as well as in any other territories and possibly even better to some extent. That is why I do not understand the unwillingness of some political forces in Ukraine to even hear about the possibility of federalisation.

We’ve been hearing lately that the question at issue should be not federalisation but decentralisation. It is all really a play on words. It is important to understand what these notions mean: decentralisation, federalisation, regionalisation. You can coin a dozen other terms. The people living in these territories must realise that they have rights to something, that they can decide something for themselves in their lives.

HUBERT SEIPEL: The central question in the West as follows: will Ukraine remain an independent state? It is the central question now on the agenda. The second question is whether Russia can do more? Maybe Russia has more opportunities to expedite this process in Ukraine, in particular with regard to the Minsk agreements?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: You know, when someone tells us that we have some special opportunities to solve this or that crisis it always troubles and alarms me. We have heard many times that Russia has a key to the solution of the Syrian problem, that we have some special opportunities to solve some other problem or the Ukrainian crisis. I always begin to suspect that there is an intention to pass on the responsibility to us and to make us pay for something. We do not want that. Ukraine is an independent, free and sovereign state. Frankly speaking, we are very concerned about any possible ethnic cleansings and Ukraine ending up as a neo-Nazi state. What are we supposed to think if people are bearing swastikas on their sleeves? Or what about the SS emblems that we see on the helmets of some military units now fighting in eastern Ukraine? If it is a civilised state, where are the authorities looking? At least they could get rid of this uniform, they could make the nationalists remove these emblems. That is why we have fears that it may all end up this way. If it happens it would be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Ukrainian people.

The Minsk agreements arose only because Russia became actively involved in this effort; we worked with the Donbass militias, that is the fighters from southeast Ukraine, and we convinced them that they should settle for certain agreements. If we had not done that, it would simply not have happened. There are some problems with the implementation of these agreements, it is true.

What are those problems? Indeed, self-defence fighters, for example, were supposed to leave some of the towns they had surrounded, are yet they haven’t left. Do you know why not? I will tell you plainly, this is no secret: because the people fighting against the Ukrainian army say, “These are our villages, we come from there. Our families and our loved ones live there. If we leave, nationalist battalions will come and kill everyone. We will not leave, you can kill us yourselves.” You know, it is a difficult problem. Of course, we try to convince them, we talk, but when they say things like that, you know, there is not much that can be said in response.

And the Ukrainian army also has not left some of the towns it was supposed to leave. The militias – they are the people who are fighting for their rights, for their interests. But if the central Ukrainian authorities choose not just to determine the demarcation line, which is very important today in order to stop the shelling and killing, but if they want to preserve the territorial integrity of their country, each particular village or town are not significant; what is important is to immediately stop the bloodshed and shelling and to create conditions for starting a political dialogue. That is what is important. If it this is not done, there will be no political dialogue.

I apologise for such a long monologue, but you make me go back to the essence of the problem.

What is the essence? The coup took place in Kiev. A considerable part of the country supported it, and they were happy partly because they believed that after the signing of, say, the Association Agreement there will be open borders, job opportunities, the right to work in the European Union, including in Germany. They thought that it will be like that. In fact, they have nothing of the sort. The other part of the country, the southeast, did not support it and said, “We do not recognise you.” And instead of starting a dialogue, instead of explaining to people that the central authorities in Kiev are not going to do anything bad, and on the contrary, they will propose various forms of coexistence and development of a common state, they are ready to grant them their rights, instead of that they begin making arrests at night. Once the night arrests began, people in the southeast took up arms. Once they took up arms, instead of stopping (the authorities should have the wisdom to do that) and starting this dialogue they sent the army, the air force, tanks and multiple rocket launchers. Is this a way to solve problems? And ultimately everything came to a deadlock. Is it possible to get out of it? I am sure that it is possible.

HUBERT SEIPEL: The question or, more properly, the claim made by Kiev today is that Russia supplies weapons to the separatists and sends its servicemen there.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Where did they get the armoured vehicles and the artillery systems? Nowadays people who wage a fight and consider it righteous will always get weapons. This is the first point.

But I would like to stress that this is not the issue. The issue itself is entirely different. The issue is that we can’t have a one-sided view of the problem.

Today there is fighting in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian central authorities have sent the armed forces there and they even use ballistic missiles. Does anybody speak about it? Not a single word. And what does it mean? What does it tell us? This points to the fact, that you want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there, all of their political foes and opponents. Is that what you want? We certainly don’t. And we won’t let it happen.

HUBERT SEIPEL: After the Crimea joined Russia, the West expelled Russia from the Group of Eight, this exclusive club of industrial states. At the same time the USA and Great Britain imposed sanctions against Russia. Now you are heading to a G20 summit of the most important industrial states on the planet. The focus there will be on economic growth and employment. They say, there is no more growth and unemployment is set to increase; the sanctions are starting to have an effect; both the ruble and the oil price have set anti‑records. The forecast of attaining 2 percent growth in Russia is unfeasible. Other countries are in the same situation. This crisis has a counter‑productive character, including for the upcoming summit, wouldn’t you say?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: You mean the Ukrainian crisis?

HUBERT SEIPEL: Yes.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Of course, who could benefit from it? You wanted to know how the situation is evolving and what our expectations are. Of course we expect the situation to change for the better. Of course we expect the Ukrainian crisis to end. Of course we want to have normal relations with our partners, including in the United States and Europe. Of course, the situation with the so-called sanctions is damaging for the global economy (it is damaging for us and it is damaging for global economy as well) and it is damaging for the Russian‑EU relations most of all.

However, there are some advantages as well: the restrictions imposed on some Russian companies on purchasing certain  goods from Western countries, from Europe and the United States, have induced us to produce these goods ourselves. The comfortable life, when all we had to do was produce more oil and gas, and to buy everything else, is a thing of the past.

With regard to growth, we should note that this year growth was modest but it was present nevertheless at about 0.5–0.6 percent. Next year we are planning to achieve 1.2 percent growth, the year after that 2.3 percent and 3 percent in three years. Generally, these are not the figures we would like to have but nevertheless it is growth and we are confident that we will achieve these figures.

HUBERT SEIPEL: Another theme to be discussed in Brisbane will be financial stability. The situation in Russia may also be complicated because Russian banks can no longer obtain refinancing on world markets. Moreover, there are plans to close for Russia the international payments system. VLADIMIR PUTIN: Russian banks have currently extended a $25 billion loan to the Ukrainian economy. If our European and American partners want to help Ukraine, how can they undermine the financial base limiting our financial institutions’ access to world capital markets? Do they want to bankrupt our banks? In that case they will bankrupt Ukraine. Have they thought about what they are doing at all or not? Or has politics blinded them? As we know eyes constitute a peripheral part of brain. Was something switched off in their brains?

The bank that I mentioned is Gazprombank, which only this year, this calendar year, has extended a loan of $1.4 plus $1.8 billion to the Ukrainian energy sector. How much is that in total? $3.2 billion. This is the sum it has allocated. In one case, it issued a loan to Ukrainian Naftogaz, which is a public company; in the other case, it allocated $1.4 billion to a private company in order to support Ukraine’s chemical industry. In both cases, today this bank has the right to demand early repayment because the Ukrainian partners have violated their loan agreement.

HUBERT SEIPEL: The question is if they are paying or not?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: (In German.) They are paying at the moment. (Continues in Russian.) They are servicing the loan. Naftogaz is servicing one of the loans. However, there are some conditions that are being violated. Therefore, the bank has the formal right to demand early repayment.

But if we do it, the whole Ukrainian financial system will collapse. And if we don’t do it, our bank may collapse. What should we do?

Moreover, when we extended a $3 billion loan a year ago, there was a condition that if Ukraine’s total debt exceeded 60 percent of GDP, we, the Russian Ministry of Finance, would be entitled to demand an early repayment. Again, if we do it, the whole financial system will collapse. We have already decided that we will not do it. We do not want to aggravate the situation. We want Ukraine to get on its feet at last.

HUBERT SEIPEL: Do you intend to propose ways to resolve the crisis in Ukraine?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Madam Chancellor is very much aware of all the nuances of this conflict. As for the energy problem, she has done a great deal for its solution.

As for the security issues, I would say that in this area our viewpoints and approaches do not always coincide. What is clear is that Russia and the Federal Republic of Germany want the situation in this region to be settled. We are interested in this and we will work for the observation of the Minsk agreements. There is just one thing that I always pay attention to. We are told again and again: pro-Russian separatists must do this and this, you must influence them in this way, you must act in that way. I have always asked them: “What have you done to influence your clients in Kiev? What have you done? Or do you only support Russophobic sentiments?” This is very dangerous, by the way. A catastrophe will happen if somebody surreptitiously supports Russophobia in Ukraine. It will be a real catastrophe! Or shall we seek a joint solution? If so, let’s bring the positions of the parties closer together. I am going to say something that some people in this country may not like. Let’s try to achieve a single political space in those territories. We are ready to move in this direction, but only together.

HUBERT SEIPEL: It is very difficult to correct the mistakes made by others. Sometimes it is only possible to correct one’s own mistakes.

I would like to ask you: have you made mistakes?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: People always make mistakes. Every person makes mistakes in business, in private life. Does it really matter? The question is that we should give a rapid, timely and effective response to the consequences of such mistakes. We should analyse them and realise that they are mistakes. We should understand, correct them and move on towards the solution of problems rather than an impasse.

It seemed to me that this is the way we acted in our relations with Europe as a whole and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular over the past decade. Look at the friendship that has been established between Russia and Germany in the past 10–15 years. I don’t know if we had ever enjoyed such relations before. I don’t think so. I see it as a very good base, a good foundation for the development of relations not only between our two states, but also between Russia and Europe as a whole, for the harmonisation of relations in the world. It will be a pity if we let it go to waste.

HUBERT SEIPEL: Mr President, thank you for the interview.

Five fractions in the recently elected Ukrainian Parliament agreed on a coalition pact November 21. Although the coalition still has to agree on the division of posts, it has already announced that it intends to step up its aggression in the east of the country and exacerbate Kiev’s confrontation with Russia.

The coalition chose the date of the one-year anniversary of the Maidan protests to announce its program. The demonstrations on the Maidan were supported by Western governments and led to a bloody coup that brought right-wing, pro-Western forces to power. The coup then led to the development of separatist movements in eastern Ukraine.

Now, one year on, five parliamentary parties, all of which supported the Maidan protests, have formed a coalition that plans to intensify a policy of war and enforce vicious cuts in social spending.

The five coalition partners agreed to increase military spending to three percent of GDP. They plan new methods of military mobilization and a renewal of the country’s security strategy. Their proposed “most urgent task” is NATO membership for Ukraine.

Up to now, the Ukrainian constitution guaranteed the nonaligned status of the country. With 285 seats in the 423-seat parliament, the new coalition now has the two-thirds majority necessary for the constitutional change, which would permit the country’s integration into the Western military alliance.

On Monday, President Petro Poroshenko confirmed these plans and announced a referendum on joining NATO within six years. Until then, all the criteria for inclusion in the military alliance are to be met.

Just a few days earlier, Poroshenko had decided to slash all state funding and pensions to the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. As a result, schools, hospitals and emergency services will no longer be funded, and pensions and benefits will not be paid.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is likely to remain prime minister, rejected any negotiations with the separatists. “We will not conduct direct negotiations with Russian terrorists,” he said.

The ruthless program of the new government is reflected in its personnel. The groups involved in the coalition are right-wing and ultranationalist forces. The Block Petro Poroshenko, with 127 deputies, constitutes the largest fraction in the new coalition.

Included in the ranks of other coalition partners, the Popular Front (76 seats), the Self-Help Party (34 seats) led by the Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyj, and the Fatherland Party (23 seats) headed by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, are numerous right-wing extremists.

Amongst the ten leading deputies of the Popular Front are three commanders of extreme right volunteer militias (Andrij Teteruk, Arsen Avakov and Yuri Beresa), which fought alongside the Ukrainian army against the separatists and are held responsible for serious human rights violations.

In addition to these three, Andrij Bilezkij also entered the Ukrainian Rada as a candidate of the Popular Front. Bilezkij founded the notorious Azov Battalion and was a longtime member of the right-wing grouping Patriots of Ukraine. According to the Kiev-based German historian Andreas Umland, Bilezkij is an “expressly biological racist” who “openly propagates the Aryan myth.”

The fifth coalition partner is the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, with 25 seats. Prior to the election, Lyashko had abducted and tortured suspected separatists in many parts of the country. The human rights organization Amnesty International has accused Lyashko of breaching international law. During the election campaign his party called for Ukraine to have its own nuclear weapons.

Although the new government has a large majority of seats, it by no means reflects the will of the people. In the parliamentary elections in late October, broad layers of the population were barred from voting. Opposition parties were suppressed and banned. Only 53 percent of the electorate went to the polls.

The integration of right-wing thugs into the government makes clear that the new regime can only enforce its reactionary program with the use of force against the population. In this respect it can rely on the support of the NATO powers.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the government’s announcement that it would seek membership in the military alliance. “The door is still open,” he said. “I recall that we had decided at the summit in Bucharest [in 2008] that Ukraine should be a member of NATO.” This decision is still valid if the Ukraine fulfills all the criteria for membership, he suggested.

On Monday, the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite promised weapons supplies to the regime during a state visit to Kiev. “We have agreed on the training of officers and participation in multinational exercises on the territory of Lithuania, a military-technical cooperation and supplies of certain types of weapons for the Ukrainian armed forces,” Grybauskaite said.

The talks between Grybauskaite and Poroshenko reportedly concerned a tripartite military alliance between Ukraine and two NATO members, Poland and Lithuania.

In a government statement on Wednesday, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel once again fiercely criticized Russia. “Nothing justifies or excuses the annexation of the Crimea by Russia,” Merkel said. She repeated her recent claim that Russia had broken international law. On Tuesday, the Chancellor addressed a conference of businessmen in Berlin and called for a continuation of sanctions against Russia.

According to a US military official, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the Pentagon is planning to station 100 armored vehicles permanently in Eastern Europe. The combat vehicles could be stationed “in the Baltic States and Poland, Romania and Bulgaria”, Hodges explained.

Given the aggressive policy of NATO and the integration of right-wing forces in the Ukrainian government, a vote held last Friday in a committee of the UN General Assembly was of especial significance.

Russia put forward a motion opposing the glorification of Nazism and other practices which incited racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance.

The resolution singled out for condemnation practices “which denigrate the memory of the countless victims of crimes against humanity committed during World War II.” In addition to the crimes of the SS, the motion named crimes committed by those “fighting the anti-Hitler coalition and who collaborated with the Nazi movement.”

There were 115 countries voting in favor of the motion, while 55 countries, including Germany abstained. Three countries voted against—Canada, the US and Ukraine.

Forensic examiners during an operation to look for human remains in the forested mountains outside Cocula on October. (Photo: Reuters)

FBI data released over the past month reveals that so-called “justifiable homicides” reached a record high last year, while the number of officers killed in the line of duty fell to its lowest level in decades.

According to the data, which appeared in a Monday article on the Washington Post web site, 461 American civilians were killed by on-the-job police officers in 2013, while 27 police officers were killed by civilians.

The article notes the correlation between the record killings and the militarization of American police over the same period, “fueled by a glut of surplus military equipment heading home from Iraq and Afghanistan.” The FBI’s “justifiable homicide” figures increase steadily around 1998, the year after the start of the US Government’s Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 program, which parcels out surplus military equipment to state and local police.

The FBI figures for “justifiable homicide,” defined by the agency as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty,” is widely acknowledged to be an undercount, according to the Post, because the methodology is not uniform from state to state. There are no comprehensive nationwide statistics on police brutality, despite the government being required to do so by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act passed in 1994. However, a Facebook page titled “Killed by Police,” which posts links to news stories on police killings, has counted more than 1,450 killings by police officers since its launch on May 1, 2013.

Los Angeles police kill two more over replica weapon

Sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles gunned down Eduardo Bermundez, 26, and Ricardo Avelar-Lara, 57, early in the morning of Sunday, November 16, after Bermundez was alleged to have threatened someone with a handgun that later turned out to be a replica.

This was at least the fourth police murder this year involving a person holding a toy or replica weapon. It follows the deaths of John Crawford III for carrying a pellet gun and Darrien Hunt for carrying a replica samurai sword. Only a week ago, police killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice on a Cleveland playground for carrying a toy pistol.

An eyewitness claimed that at around 2:20 AM Bermundez and Avelar-Lara pulled up alongside his car in an East Los Angeles parking lot and pointed the “weapon,” a replica .45 caliber handgun, at him. The eyewitness tailed their car while calling 911, eventually flagging down a sheriff’s patrol vehicle.

Deputies pulled the car over in a nearby apartment complex, where according to the police report Bermundez “started to pull a handgun out of his pants and point it in the direction of the deputies.” Police immediately opened fire, killing both Bermundez and Avelar-Lara, who was standing behind him. They were pronounced dead at the scene one minute later at 2:40 AM, twenty minutes from the first alleged incident.

Bermundez had been at his 3 year-old nephew’s birthday party the previous afternoon not far from where he was murdered, according to relatives. “It’s just hard to imagine that from one day to another he’s gone,” Bermundez’s cousin told the local ABC affiliate. “He was always a happy guy.”

NYPD beating of subway turnstile jumper captured on video

A New York police officer was caught on video Thursday night beating a black youth in the head with his baton for attempting to enter a Brooklyn subway station without paying the $2.50 fare.

The video shows the officer, who is also black, striking 20-year-old Donovan Lawson twice, first in the leg and then on the crown of his head, causing extensive bleeding. Striking a suspect in the head with a baton is against official NYPD policy. Lawson then stumbles through the station with the officer on his back before finally being pinned against a wall and handcuffed by four officers while his horrified girlfriend looks on.

In the video Lawson’s forehead bleeds so profusely that his girlfriend is drenched in his blood by the time the officers are able to pull her away. The eyewitness who shot the video on his cell phone said that before the video began Lawson had been pepper-sprayed, which was confirmed by the police.

Lawson, who had no criminal record prior to his arrest last week, was charged with fare beating, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and disrupting government administration. He later received treatment for cuts to his head at Woodhull Hospital. The officer was taken to Wyckoff Heights Hospital, where he was treated for injuries to his arm and hand.

New Jersey cops kill schizophrenic man during welfare check

Police in Phllipsburg, New Jersey killed Thomas Read, a 36-year old schizophrenic man, after his mother asked them to monitor him during an episode. Read was wielding a knife and “refused to comply with police orders,” according to the police.

Read had run out of his medication due to problems with his medical insurance, according to his mother Anne Read. According to family friend Joel Andreano, who told the Express-Times newspaper, “He was talking about flaming swords and stuff,” when he called him on Thursday. “He obviously was delusional. I called [his mother back] back and told her, ‘No, I don’t think he’s doing good.’ She should call the police.”

Police checked up on Read the following Friday without incident, according to Andreano, who told The Express-Times that Read seemed “calm, happy” when he met with him later that day.

The following Monday, police conducted another welfare check at Reid’s apartment, after his neighbor expressed concerns about threatening letters and a knife stuck to Reid’s front door, according to Adreano. Police found Read in his house when they arrived, and talked to him through his window, according to footage shown to The Express-Times. Read hurled an “unknown object” through an opening in the window at police, who responded by breaking the window and unsuccessfully attempting to climb through to get at Read. Police entered the house through a back entrance, according to residents, who reported that they heard “four or five” gunshots.

Andreano expressed his dismay at the police’s handling of the situation. “He needed help … He needed to get to the hospital because he didn’t have his medicine.”

Anthony Freda Art

According to a new report by Reuters, Western-backed death squad fighters operating in Syria are receiving a portion of their training inside Qatar via the Qatari government and the United States.

The unnamed sources of the information reported to Reuters that the training was taking place near Doha, Qatar in between the border of Saudi Arabia and the American al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. Air Base in the Middle East. Al-Udeid is located inside a military zone protected by Qatari special forces.

According to Reuters, “Syrian rebel sources” have reported to the news agency that many of the fighters trained in Qatar belong to the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of death squad fanatics passed off as “moderate” by Western governments.

The training, as described by the sources, has been running for close to a year.

Reuters states that the program involves the identification of small groups of jihadists fighting in Syria by the CIA, the relocation of these jihadists to Qatar via Turkey, and the subsequent training in “ambush techniques” by the U.S. and Qatar before the fighters are shipped back in to Syria via Turkey.

Although Reuters admits the training of the death squads in the art of ambush, the news agency attempts to claim that the fighters are in no way trained in IEDs or otherwise more advanced techniques.

While mainstream outlets like Reuters portray the “rebels” being trained at al-Udeid and surrounding locations as “moderate” or, at least, not members of the Islamic State, Reuters is also forced to admit that Qatar is by no means opposed to supporting IS militants in its battle against Assad. Indeed, Reuters states that “A source who works with rebel groups said Qatar had delivered weapons, mostly mortar bombs, to the Islamic Front and some FSA brigades about two months ago and had paid some salaries for Islamic Front groups.”

Such training of death squad battalions in Qatar is by no means the first recorded instance of Western operated jihadist training operations nor is it the largest. It must be remembered that, over a year ago, European press outlets reported that jihadists numbering in the tens of thousands were being trained in Jordan for the purposes of being deployed against Assad in Syria. These militants were the “highly-skilled” and organized fighters of the Islamic State that appeared in Iraq and Syria shortly thereafter.

Of course, the reality is that there is no discernible difference between the Islamic State, Free Syrian Army, or any other “militant/rebel” group operating against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Indeed, IS is nothing more than Al-Qaeda which is entirely controlled and coordinated by Western powers since the very beginning. IS followed from ISIS which followed from IEIL, IEI, and Al-Qaeda in Iraq/Nusra Front. The Free Syrian Army is nothing more than a public relations creation designed to operate as the public face of jihadist fighters who are every bit as brutal, fanatical, savage, and backed and controlled by Western powers as the IS.

Without a doubt, there is no such thing as a “moderate” rebel in Syria and the individuals who graduate from the Qatari/American training program will prove as much.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 300 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.  He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com. 

By John Read^a, Claire Cartwright^b, Kerry Gibson^b

Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Whelan Building, Ground Floor, Brownlow Street, Liverpool L69 3GB, UK

 ^b School of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Received 15 October 2013, Revised 21 January 2014, Accepted 27 January 2014, Available online 3 February 2014

Abstract

In the context of rapidly increasing antidepressant use internationally, and recent reviews raising concerns about efficacy and adverse effects, this study aimed to survey the largest sample of AD recipients to date. An online questionnaire about experiences with, and beliefs about, antidepressants was completed by 1829 adults who had been prescribed antidepressants in the last five years (53% were first prescribed them between 2000 and 2009, and52% reported taking them for more than three years). Eight of the 20 adverse effects studied were reported by over half the participants; most frequently Sexual Difficulties (62%) and Feeling Emotionally Numb (60%).Percentages for other effects included:

Feeling Not Like Myself – 52%,

Reduction In Positive Feelings – 42%,

Caring Less About Others – 39%,

Suicidality – 39% and

Withdrawal Effects – 55%.

Total Adverse Effect scores were related to younger age, lower education and income, and type of antidepressant, but not to level of depression prior to taking antidepressants. The adverse effects of antidepressants may be more frequent than previously reported, and include emotional and interpersonal effects.

Ed. Note: Note that the abstract above only reports the top 7 of the 20 adverse effects studied. The full text of the article, where the statistics for the other 13 adverse effects could be accessed, cannot be obtained without obtaining a copy of the journal, Psychiatry Research, Volume 216, Issue 1, 30 April 2014, (Pages 67–73) or paying an obscenely expensive fee to the publisher ($36).

You always know when the British Home Secretary comes clean about the number of “terror plots” that have been foiled that something ugly is waiting around the corner.  The dossier of justification is just about to be thrown at civil liberties – we got the necessary runs on the board, the attitude seems to say: have you?  Since April 2010, we are told that 753 people have been arrested on terrorism-related offences, with 212 charged and 148 successfully prosecuted.

“There have been attempts to conduct marauding ‘Mumbai-style’ gun attacks on our streets, blow up the London Stock Exchange, bring down airliners, assassinate a British ambassador and murder serving members of our armed forces.”[1]

Papers make the announcement part of what seems like a charity experiment. “Speaking as part of a new anti-terror drive” sounds like a radio plea for subscriptions and donations.  It is, however, serious fare.  The Counter-Terrorism Bill which is entertaining members of Parliament this week is the most serious of all.  While there is no visible sense that Britain, or any other country in Europe, the United States, or Australasia, is in any greater danger than at any time since September 11, 2001, May would let you to believe otherwise.  Since she is pondering the immeasurable – how “likely” is an attack to take place? – we are essentially dealing with the legislation of the worst sort: that which covers probabilities.

In support of her contentions, she utilises the tea-leaf reading habits of such bodies as the JTAC – the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre – which decided in the northern summer to raise the threat level for international terrorism from “substantial” to “severe”.  Turn the knob just the right way, and the policy will seemingly follow.

Some of the measures already chart the ground for hypocrisy.  At the very least, it leaves huge potholes for it. Ransoms, for instance, will be banned seeing how beneficial such proceeds have been for the ISIS war machine, though we know that governments will fork out when they believe the stakes matter.  Internet service providers (ISPs) are obliged to retain information linking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.  They are also being put in a position where they will have to do more.  Such errors of overstretch are typical to a mindset that sees threats of immeasurable harm that must be controlled by snipping the communications line.

Blame Facebook, for instance, if it doesn’t make an effort to alert the security authorities about the prospect of a domestic attack between the chatterers. It does not matter whether such attitudes are those of a hot air disposition, the crazed wishes of people baying for blood against a regime or an order.  The Lee Rigby report from the Intelligence and Security Committee, examining the circumstances that led to the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby, ticked the social media organisation off for not doing enough when it was revealed that one of the killers, Michael Adebolajo, had expressed one such view.[2]  Such indignation is the equivalent of scolding phone companies for not doing the dirty work of intelligence services.

May sees a fruit salad of threats to the British realm.  ISIS is one, but add to that Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda and home grown fanciers of aspiring caliphate growers, and you have a minister keen to think the brandish the dangers as credible.  Or so she suggests, mooting the point that the legislation “is not a knee-jerk response to a sudden perceived threat.”  The problem with this, as with anti-terror legislation, is that it tends anticipate the hypothetical with the actual.

Perhaps she also sees Prime Minister David Cameron, and many of her colleagues, as bits of fluff in the making of hard hitting policy.  As noted in a Spectator profile of her, “She doesn’t rate Cameron anymore.  She did, but not many more.”[3]  When a person is attempting to brush up their leadership credentials, everything is free game.

Such behaviour shows a synaptic blindness on handling the liberty of the subject by nibbling away at its provisions.  While in Britain, outrage will still gather in stormy opposition to such proposals as the ID card, matters concerning data retention over a search history on the Internet will garner a murmur in comparison.  More to the point, while the Coalition government is keenly promoting a heavy abridgment of those liberties, it was very happy to abolish the ID cards legislation as one of its first acts in 2010.

Forms of bureaucratic registration are merely aspects of a panacea, the whole solution to a markedly complex effort. But worse than panaceas, they tend to be placebos.  Monitoring citizens like chickens in a pen doesn’t guarantee a better citizen. But it certainly assures suspicion and detachment from the political process.  Commentary from such observers of the jerky security state such as Philip Johnston can laud the fact that ID cards are not a part of British political life yet offer little by way of criticism of the proposed legislation.  Pieties about the British belief in balancing and trade-offs are resorted to.  “That is why, despite Labour’s efforts 10 years ago, we can still walk down the street without being asked to produce our ID cards.”[4]

Perception is everything, and punishing people for perceptions is tantamount to detaining people for witchcraft and blasphemy.  Much of this suggests how little the road travelled on security matters has been.  The realm of hypotheticals remains an all too potent temptation.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Financial writer Bill Holter says the players in the gold markets are fearful. Why?  Holter says, “The GOFO rates, or gold forward rates, in London are negative.  They should never be negative, and they are more negative now than any time since 2001.  That shows extreme tightness in the metals market. To me, it shows mistrust.  It shows that people are saying I want my gold now.  I don’t want gold in the future, I want it now.  Negative GOFO rates should never happen.”  Holter also says that the COMEX market is what he calls “corner-able.” 

How much would it take to buy the entire deliverable gold and silver inventory? Holter says,

“The way I would put it is it’s a ham sandwich without the ham or the cheese.  You are talking about $1 billion would be enough to clean out COMEX gold registered category, and another billion dollars would clean out the silver inventory.   It’s nothing.  $2 billion dollars would clean the shelves dry.”

With reported fines being levied on banks for gold price rigging, it is clear the gold market is manipulated. Why manipulate prices of the yellow metal downward?  Holter says, “Gold is kryptonite to the dollar. The reason why gold and silver prices are manipulated down is to hold up the value of the dollar.  And thus, the value to the Treasury market which keeps interest rates down.  It allows us to keep interest rates lower than we normally could.”

What would happen if Russia or China spent $2 billion to clean out COMEX? Holter says,

“Russia could do that and China could do that.  We would see the entire system implode.  The question is do they want to do that.  This whole scenario is about bleeding gold from the west.  It’s about taking gold from the west and transporting it to the east.  Do they want to blow up the game before they got their fill?  Do they want to blow up the game before we run out of gold?  No, they don’t.  Is it this expiration that they are going to blow it up?  I don’t know, but I do know the COMEX is killable.  The question is have we run out of gold to deliver to China and also Russia?”

Holter says one of the overarching issues in global finance comes down to trust. Holter explains,

“The Russians, Chinese and Indians are all acquiring gold.  We have a Swiss referendum coming on Sunday.  They want to repatriate their gold.  This is about central banks not trusting central banks.  Interesting enough, the leading party in the polls in France is talking about repatriating French gold.  Why are there all these repatriations all of a sudden? The reason being is central banks are not trusting other central banks.  It’s all about trust, and gold is trust. . . . It’s going to be the last man standing.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with gold expert Bill Holter of Miles Franklin. 

(There is much more in the video interview.)

After the Interview: 

Bill Holter writes articles several times a week.  If you would like to follow his work on the Miles Franklin site, please click here.

Related reading by Bill Holter: http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-major-international-monetary-crisis-is-looming-the-suppression-of-gold-and-silver-is-comex-being-cornered/5416111

If you’re someone who believes in personal (not government-provided) charity and who likes to make sure that as many homeless people as possible get a decent meal each day, good for you. But you might want to avoid Fort Lauderdale, Florida, because you could wind up with a hefty fine and some jail time.

Seriously.

According to reports, police in the city issued citations and further threatened to arrest two priests and a 90-year-old World War II vet for the “crime” of feeding homeless people. A group of bozos on the city council recently approved a measure making the sharing of food a citable offense. As reported by The Daily Sheeple:

Fort Lauderdale police removed at least three volunteers, as well as the Sunday lunch they were serving to several dozen homeless people, citing a controversial new ordinance that prohibits food sharing. Passed in October, the measure was created to try to cut down the growing population of homeless people in Fort Lauderdale.

All it has really done is put a chill on charity.

“The whole world is watching”

In video footage located on this web page, you can see three police officers show up and disrupt an in-progress feeding program, removing Arnold Abbott, 90, the Rev. Canon Mark Sims of St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Dwayne Black of the Sanctuary Church.

As the men are being removed and the operation disrupted, several people begin to protest the police action, following the police officers as they escort the men to their patrol cars.

“Shame on you, arresting an elderly man!” shouted someone in the assembled crowd.

“The whole world is watching!” another shouted.

But the officers, who don’t have any choice but to enforce laws the city passes, were unrelenting. In the video one officer explains to the three men, “Basically you are going to be cited for serving to the community without proper accommodations. Everything is explained in here. This is a citation. If you guys continue to come out here you will face arrest.”

As The Daily Sheeple further reported:

The ban on sharing food is part of city officials’ recent efforts to cut down on the burgeoning downtown homeless population. The most recent law – passed by a 4-1 vote – limits where outdoor feeding can be located. It can’t be situated near another feeding site; it has to be at least 500 feet from residential property; and feed program organizers must seek permission from property owners for sites in front of their buildings.

City officials say the new laws are merely “public health and safety measures,” but opponents have begun referring to them as “homeless hate laws,” the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported.

“We are simply trying to feed people who are hungry,” Sims told the paper. “To criminalize that is contrary to everything that I stand for as a priest and as a person of faith.”

The program in question is operated by a group called Love Thy Neighbor. Abbott, its founder, has served food to homeless people for two decades.

“We’ve lost our collective minds”

The anti-homeless feeding ordinances follow additional mandates in Fort Lauderdale that have banned homeless people from soliciting at the city’s busiest intersections, from sleeping on public property uptown, and have strengthened measures against defecating in public. There is also a new measure making it illegal for anyone to store their personal belongings on public property.

“I’m not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in the city of Fort Lauderdale,” said Mayor Jack Seiler, in an interview with the Sun-Sentinel. “Providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive.”

But such ordinances don’t really do anything to address the cycle, either, or correct it – they just penalize anyone who wants to help such people.

“I think we’ve lost our collective minds. We’re arresting people who should be lauded and lauding people on Wall Street and elsewhere who should be arrested,” Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger, according to Sheeple’s source.

Sources:

http://www.thedailysheeple.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://www.local10.com

“I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”- Martin Luther King Jr., Interview with Mike Wallace, September 27, 1966

“Now, let’s get to what the white press has been calling riots. In the first place don’t get confused with the words they use like ‘anti-white,’ ‘hate,’ ‘militant’ and all that nonsense like ‘radical’ and ‘riots.’ What’s happening is rebellions not riots[.]”- Stokley Carmichael, “Black Power” speech, July 28, 1966

Many people are telling the people of Ferguson that they should not riot, that it is only hurting their community and they should instead engage in peaceful protests. However, this is deeply problematic as it ignores a number of issues.

People’s main concern regarding the riots in Ferguson come from a concern about private property. One could say that people are more concerned about the theft and destruction of private property than human life, but this needs to be made much more clear. People are more worried about the smashing and theft of inanimate objects than they are about human life. But it isn’t specifically human life, it’s black human life that many of these people could care less about.

On a deeper level, this is where capitalism and racism intersect. One of capitalism’s main tenets is the dominance of private property and how it must be protected. We can see that this has been transcribed in law, such as with the Stand Your Ground laws. Yet, also within the larger society there is a lack of caring for black life. In any situation, the media and general public regularly engage in victim blaming and look for anything, anything at all to assassinate the character of those who died at the hand of the police. This can be seen even today, when the media brings up Akai Gurley’s criminal record when discussing his death at the hands of a police officer. These two ideas have come together in Ferguson, creating a situation where people are more concerned about private property destruction than they are about the death of Michael Brown.

Many argue that the people of Ferguson are destroying their own community. Yet this is false. To quote Tyler Reinhard: “we don’t own neighborhoods. Black businesses exist, it’s true. But the emancipation of impoverished communities is not measured in corner-store revenue. It’s not measured in minimum-wage jobs. And no, it’s especially not measured in how many black people are allowed to become police officers.” The neighborhoods like Ferguson were not created by black people, they were created due to racist housing policies that black people had no control over. It should also be noted that Ferguson is 60% black, but has an almost entirely white police force and that the city government and school board are also almost completely white. So while they may live there, the black residents of Ferguson have little representation in the local community and are essentially living under a group of people that isn’t responsive to their concerns.

With regards to the riots themselves, the larger society is asking why don’t the protesters remain peaceful. The answer is two-part: peace has been tried and we are going to be condemned no matter what.

Society asks why aren’t the protesters peaceful, however we have to ask this: Why would you think that people would remain peaceful in the face of constant violence? Why would a people remain peaceful when their young people are being killed on an seemingly weekly basis by the very people who are supposed to protect them?

Black people have tried peace before. We were peaceful in the 1960s when we were peacefully protesting for our civil rights and were met with racist mobs, firehoses, and dogs, we had crosses burnt on our lawns, lynchings, and a bomb put in a church. During all of that time we remained peaceful even as society enacted massive violence and repression against us. Yet, violence against the black community continues today, the only difference is that it isn’t so blatant. Martin Luther King Jr. was nonviolent and died at the hands of an assassin, a violent act. Look at the Occupy protests, which were entirely nonviolent, the protesters were still met with violence, most notably in the form of a pre-dawn raid on Zuccotti Park. So even when protesters are nonviolent, they can still be met with violence.

The situation is currently such where if a black person is killed by the police, people immediately come out and find anyway in which they can besmirch or blame the victim, such as with the aforementioned example involving Akai Gurley. So they are already looking for ways to take the blame off of the authorities from day one. The situation changes, though, when oppressed people fight back. Not only is the violence denounced, but then it is used as an excuse to use massive amounts of violence against the oppressed, as we saw by the militarized police that have been used in Ferguson.

When people lash out against one incident, one may be inclined to call that violence, but when violence against your community has been going on for decades and people lash out, that’s no longer violence on the part of the oppressed, that’s called resistance.

When the question is raised of why aren’t there peaceful protests, it is also extremely hypocritical. Many have spoken out in person and on social media condemning the riots, but at the same time they are silent on the constant police brutality that the black community deals with and they are silent on the economic violence done against black communities, pushing them into ghettos where not only is there economic poverty but also a poverty of expectations. On a larger scale, they are also silent when other groups riot, such as when white people rioted over pumpkins. It is extremely hypocritical to speak out against rioters, but not have a thing to say about police brutality or to ignore others who riot.

At the heart of this is how society condones state violence, but condemns violence by individuals. This mindset is a serious problem as it only gives more power to the state and consistently puts state forces in the right, with the victims of state violence being forced to prove their innocence, a situation made all the harder due to people already assuming that the victim is in the wrong.

Many have pushed for peace, but peace and safety are not something the black people in America receive, whether we are just looking for help after a car accident, as was the case with Renisha McBride, or we are carrying a toy gun around, as was the case with John Crawford.

This is not the time to ask for peace. This is the time to say “No justice, no peace.”

Devon DB is a 22 year old independent writer and researcher. He is the Politics/Government Department Chair of the Hampton Institute and can be contacted at devondb[at]mail[dot]com.

The American people tend to view the Republican and Democratic parties as near polar opposites, but this is far from true. Indeed, they are clearly more united on the fundamentals underpinning U.S. society than they are at odds.

The heated legislative and political battles that characterize both parties, which are fought bitterly every two and four years in national elections and throughout the 50 states, are taking place within a much larger context of agreement between the right/far right Republicans and the center right Democrats.

We will touch upon this matter after discussing the recent trouncing of the Democratic Party in the Nov. 4 midterm elections, and posing this question: “Why are the Democrats so unpopular at a time when it was obvious that reactionary Republican obstructionism virtually paralyzed the political and legislative process?”

Compounding the GOP victory, a post-election Nov. 6-9 Gallup Poll revealed that the Democratic Party’s favorability rating among the American people was at its lowest point ever, 36%, compared to 51% just after the 2012 election that returned President Barack Obama to office for a second term. The Republican post-election tally was 42% this year compared to 28% — the lowest rating ever for either party — just a year ago in October after shutting down the Federal government for 16 days.

Fewer voters historically turn out for midterms, but this year that total was the lowest in 72 years — 36.6% of those eligible to vote at a time when the Democratic Party knew it was in trouble and made special efforts to get out the vote. It didn’t work. The result was not only that the Republicans gained control of the Senate and increased their large margin in the House but now also dominate over 60% of governorships and state legislatures.

Aside from the ideological right and left and those who closely follow politics, the great bulk of American voters — who far outnumber the ideologues and buffs — often possess little knowledge about politics, history, foreign affairs and the inner workings of national government, and are manipulated by the corporate mass media and political parties.

Those who control the levers of American society neglect to provide the masses of working people with a thorough understanding about the realities of American society because an enlightened citizenry would undoubtedly demand significant social change if the truth were known. The political parties are well aware of the consequences that might ensue if they heeded Thomas Jefferson’s famous words of 1820, and they will have none of it: “An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight.”

Far from educating, the contending parties invested billions of campaign dollars miseducating potential voters with endless stultifying, simplistic and deceptive negative attacks on the opposition.

Wall Street, the banking system, corporations and those who possess great wealth paid for this election and assuredly will be recompensed several fold in legislation, tax rebates, and favors from Congress and the White House. According to Demos, the liberal political policy organization:

Democracy has at its heart a basic promise: Citizens have an equal voice in deciding who represents them. This promise went unfulfilled again in 2014. Large donors accounted for the vast majority of all individual federal election contributions this cycle, just as they have in previous elections. Candidates alone got 84% of their individual contributions from large donors…. Just 50 individuals and their spouses accounted for more than a third of the total money raised by Super PACs this cycle.  Many candidates, including some whose individual contribution totals reach into the millions, report receiving few or even no dollars in contributions from small donors.

Both parties received about the same amount of cash, with the Democrats slightly ahead on the national level. Many thought that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowing virtually unlimited campaign contributions would principally harm the Democrats but that’s not the case. The two parties are thriving financially, while what’s left of democracy may have received a fatal wound.

The Democratic campaign was largely defensive, with most of its congressional candidates attempting to distance themselves from their own president. The apotheosis of this humiliating situation was when Democrat Alison L. Grimes, unsuccessfully running against Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, declared she disagreed with Obama and wouldn’t admit to having voting for him.

Viewing the election results and the disinclination of Democratic candidates to make a show of support for President Obama, Stratfor’s George Friedman wrote Nov. 17: “The president is no longer battling for the center but is fighting to hold on to his own supporters — and is failing to do so.”

There are several reasons for the sharp drop in Democratic electoral support this year, but it is not a shift to the ideological right/far right. It primarily was far more a rejection of the center right unwillingness of Obama and the Democratic Party to mount a significant fight-back against the economic and social tribulations increasingly afflicting the American working class, middle class and of course the poor.

In recent years working families have experienced drastic unemployment, underemployment or the fear of job loss; wage stagnation; widespread foreclosure of homes; mounting inequality; family insecurity; fear that one’s children won’t make it to the middle class; continual wars; political gridlock; startling examples of brutality by militarized police forces; runaway climate change, and more. And today’s Democratic Party, as opposed to a few center left reform years in the 1930s and 1960s, is pathetically ill equipped to defend these constituencies against the accelerating rampages of the U.S. neoliberal version of capitalism.

Combine this with the fact that voters are provided with only two viable (electable) parties, both right of center in varying degrees. Thus, the way for many people to register a serious protest is not to vote or to vote for the other party as punishment. The purpose of such a system is for power to change from one party to the other every several years so that over time a perfect equilibrium is achieved for the maintenance of capitalism.

A number of progressive and left commentators have noted the role the Democrats played in their own defeat, such as Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary in the Clinton Administration:

What the President and other Democrats failed to communicate wasn’t their accomplishments. It was their understanding that the economy is failing most Americans and big money is overrunning our democracy. And they failed to convey their commitment to an economy and a democracy that serve the vast majority rather than a minority at the top. The midterm elections should have been about jobs and wages, and how to reform a system where nearly all the gains go to the top. It was an opportunity for Democrats to shine. Instead, they hid.

He suggested they should have “come out swinging. Not just for a higher minimum wage but also for better schools, paid family and medical leave, and childcare for working families. For resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act and limiting the size of Wall Street banks. For saving Social Security by lifting the cap on income subject to payroll taxes. For rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, and ports. For increasing taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to the pay of average workers. And for getting big money out of politics, and thereby saving our democracy.”

Bill Fletcher, Jr., an educator, writer, unionist and board member of Black Commentator, declared: “ The Obama Administration has not led in a progressive direction…. Though the economy has improved, the condition for the average working person has not. Yes, unemployment is down but we are still dealing with structural unemployment that is weighing on everyone. The damage from the foreclosure crisis is far from over. And the rich are the ones who are benefiting from the improved economy.  To turn any of this around masses of working people need to be organized to fight for a division of the wealth.  Yes, that means building and supporting labor unions. But when the President does not make that a clarion call-except when speaking with union members — he has no answer to the public that is asking for their share…. Race, as always, was a factor. The Republicans had sufficient codes to make it clear that race was an issue in the election.

Robert Borosage of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future noted issues that should have been, but were not, on the Democratic campaign agenda:

There is a populist majority waiting to be forged. Majorities will rally for full-employment economics, for fair taxes on the rich and the corporations, investment in rebuilding the country and educating the children, strengthening retirement security, making college affordable, lifting the minimum wage, curbing CEO excess, empowering workers, guaranteed paid family leave, paid sick days and paid vacations, balanced trade to make things in America again, taking on the corruption of our politics by big money, investment in new energy and innovation that will create jobs and more.

Peter Beinart, writing in The Atlantic blog, argued:

“For the most part, Democratic candidates shied away from [the issues that most Democrats think really matter] because they were too controversial. Instead they stuck to topics that were safe, familiar, and broadly popular: the minimum wage, outsourcing, and the “war on women.” The result, for the most part, was homogenized, inauthentic, forgettable campaigns.”

During the next two years the Republicans will block all progressive legislation, but given the paucity of anything progressive in the last almost six years that won’t change much. During those years, as liberal economist and columnist Paul Krugman correctly observed, the Republicans engaged in “obstructionism bordering on sabotage.” The GOP will try to ram through reactionary bills but may not cause too much damage. The Democrats hold over 40 votes in the Senate, enough to block many bills, (except when there are defections by their conservative bloc), but Obama has a veto. At the same time Obama is expected to compromise on certain right wing bills, such as a tax cut for rich corporations, and possibly much worse.

The GOP will continue to support Obama’s expansion of wars, not only in Afghanistan where the White House just intensified America’s war commitment, but probably will work with the president to actively seek the military overthrow of the Syrian government, and to send larger numbers of U.S. troops to fight against the Islamic State. Professional warhawk Sen. John McCain is expected to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee, giving much him greater authority over wars and the Pentagon budget. In foreign policy the Republicans will support moves to exacerbate America’s new cold war with Russia and increase U.S. military arms and support to Ukraine.

Obama will spend part of the remainder of his term dwelling on his so-called legacy, trying to partially make up for the first six years with efforts to portray himself as something of a liberal now that he is a lame duck with considerably diminished powers. He routinely ignored or criticized party liberals and brushed aside the Congressional Progressive Caucus since taking office, much to the chagrin of millions of his voters who expected “change they could believe in” from what turned out to be a conservative presidency. Of a sudden he’s issuing a few executive orders that he could have implemented five years ago and adopting more populist rhetoric.

Despite much political sound and fury and sharp differences between the two official parties they are clearly more united on the fundamentals underpinning U.S. society than they are at odds, as we suggested at the beginning of this article.

For one of many examples, both uphold an essentially failing model of capitalism that prevails in the United States — failing in the sense of fulfilling the needs of the great majority of people.

Noting that the United States is “home to the worst inequality among the advanced countries,” progressive pro-capitalist economist Joseph Stiglitz, a past recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, recently described America’s harsh form of capitalism as being “designed to create inequalities. This fact was made abundantly clear during the financial crisis, when we socialized losses but allowed the banks to privatize profits, extended largesse to the victimizers but did little to help the victims who were losing their homes and jobs.” Earlier this year Stiglitz wrote, “an economic system that fails to deliver gains for most of its citizens, and in which a rising share of the population faces increasing insecurity, is, in a fundamental sense, a failed economic system.”

In this regard, liberal Robert Reich wrote Nov. 17: “Capitalism is a tough sport. If those at the top are winning big while the bottom 90% is losing — too bad. That’s the way the game is played.”

This “failed system” — where for instance 2.4 million children in the U.S. were homeless at some point last year — is the economic project of choice staunchly supported by both the Democratic and Republican parties, neither of which is prepared to propose graduating to the people-friendlier social democratic form of capitalism that prevails in much of Europe, much less building toward the considerably more egalitarian socialism.

Both parties are quite willing to tolerate the extreme class inequality for the masses of people that has been gathering momentum in the U.S. for nearly four decades — accelerating, it is useful to point out, during the eight years each of Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush and the nearly six years, so far, of Democrat Obama.

During these 22 bipartisan, post-Cold War years,

(1) the military budget has skyrocketed in a series of unnecessary, stalemated or lost wars against far weaker opponents;

(2) the two parties joined in deregulating key aspects of government controls on Wall Street, the banking system and corporations; and

(3) the disproportion of wealth and poverty has reached and is exceeding Golden Age proportions, as you will see in the next paragraph:

The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but about half its population of 319 million people are low income or poor. These people generally have very little, if any, wealth (i.e., assets over liabilities). Indeed, the bottom 90% of the U.S. population, including the working class and the entire middle class as well as low income and poor, possess only 25.6% of private national assets. The top 10% own the rest, in these proportions: Those in the 90 to 99 percentile own 34.6% of the assets. The top 1% enjoys 39.8% of America’s assets. And within that 1%, the top 0.01% has grabbed 11.1% of the assets. This most powerful one hundredth of one percent includes 16,000 families who own $6 trillion in assets — equal to the total wealth of the bottom two-thirds of American families combined.

Despite these realities, or more properly because of them, the Democratic and Republican parties still propagate the falsehood that America is a “classless” society of “opportunity for all.” They trumpet the glories of free market fundamentalism even as the economy and its benefits stagnate for the majority.

Regarding political donors, the top 0.01% was responsible for 40% of campaign contributions in the 2012 elections and at least that amount in 2014.  All told, about $4 billion, nearly all from big contributors, was spent on this year’s election and both parties received fairly equal amounts. All this money buys sufficient influence for the wealthy and corporate donors to basically control federal and state elections, thereby maintaining the socio-political parameters established by the ruling elite within which the political game must be played. Even as they fight over various issues, the Democratic and Republican parties operate well within these constraints.

Here are a few of the rules guiding those parameters: The two contending and colluding parties are in basic concord on these key issues:

·      Foreign policy, U.S. global hegemony, constant foreign military interventions and wars, enormous military budgets;

·      Allegiance to an increasingly laissez-faire brand of capitalism, and neoliberal globalization;

·      Servile loyalty to Wall Street, the banking system, and corporate power;

·      Plutocratic rule (government controlled by the rich) in place of democracy, though this is concealed from the people;

·     “Free” elections — so cherished in national myth and external propaganda — that are in fact dominated by the wealth of the 1% billionaires and their millionaire cohorts;

·      The existence of massive privacy-destroying surveillance at home and abroad;

·      Acceptance of economic and subsequently social inequality and a huge permanent underclass as the price multimillions of workers and their families must pay for the privilege of living within free market capitalism;

·      Virtual elimination of major new social programs for the people.

What have the Republican and Democratic parties accomplished in recent decades to modify a type of capitalism that has particularly abused the working class, lower middle class and portions of the middle class?

They have only made things worse because each has moved further to the political right over the last four decades. A few decades ago the Republican Party included a substantial moderate wing and was considered a right/right-center party, and the Democrats had a strong liberal sector and were a center/center left party, but those days are gone and are not coming back.

Obviously, from a formal left perspective, today’s center right is preferable to right/far right when confined in a two-party system. However, such a distinction contains compromising content beyond intense surface differences when each party’s principal obligations are to

(1) maintaining the existing socio-economic system by catering to its financial and corporate institutions and its wealthiest beneficiaries;

(2) sustaining its global imperialist structure of economic and military domination; and

(3) presiding over the increasing immiseration of the majority of the population as wealth and privilege increasingly accumulate for the upper classes.

These two parties, working in tandem with degrees of power alternating every few years, have jointly produced the economic, political and social situation that exists in the United States today — a system where the cherished concepts of democracy, equality and privacy rights are decaying before our eyes, the plight of working people is getting worse, and war has become a permanent condition of society. And since each party continues to gravitate further to the right the chance the Democrats will execute a significant left turn seem impossible.

A left turn, however, is an absolute necessity to resolve these problems and many more that afflict American society — most certainly including crises from economic inequality to climate change and the ever-present possibility of nuclear war — and it will only come from outside the 1% -controlled two-party system.

The BRICS Bank marks a major step to de-dollarization, and a new monetary system. It should replace the Western-dominated “predatory casino scheme” that has contributed to world wars and “economic terrorism,” says former World Bank economist Peter Koenig.

“A ‘BRICS system’ would offer a healthy alternative to the highly indebted and defunct dollar system, where money is printed at will,” Koenig said in an interview with Asad Ismi of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

A ‘BRICS system’ should be based on a new currency, which Koenig called ‘Bricso.’

“…it is high time that the currency of worldwide theft, abuse and exploitation – the US dollar – financial instrument for endless wars and economic terrorism, be replaced with a currency of peaceful endeavors that respects national sovereignty – a currency that works for the people, not for the elite few,” said Koenig adding that currently six US banks control more than 60 percent of all banking assets.

A new monetary system should replace the existing FED-BIS (Bank for International Settlement)-Wall Street “dollar denominated predatory casino scheme that has in the last 100 years alone largely contributed to – and benefitted from – two world wars, impoverished our planet, socially and environmentally,” Koenig said “This system is at the verge of a larger abyss than the depression of the 1930s.”

BRICS, which is actively leading a massive effort of de-dollarization, can become a viable alternative to the Western economic system, Koenig believes.

Moreover, he thinks BRICS is already in process of replacing it. Increasing cooperation between Russia and China is a clear example – the two countries started to carry out ruble-yuan swaps in June 2014 in order to free themselves from the traditional trading currency, the US dollar.

Ten years ago, the world’s reserves consisted to about 90 percent of dollar denominated securities. Today that figure has shrunk to 60 percent, the economist said.

Koenig believes Washington is afraid of losing the dollar’s monopoly on the global stage, and is trying to destabilize the situation in the BRICS countries. For example, by slandering the government of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil for corruption and high debt, or depreciating the Russian ruble by fraud and currency manipulations.

“Today, though steadily declining, most trading is still denominated in dollars and has to transit through a US bank and the BIS clearing system,” he said. “Under the FED-BIS-WS banking system currencies and gold are subject to exchange rate and interest manipulations”.

The potential of BRICS is promising indeed, as the members account for almost 30 percent of world GDP and about 45 percent of the global population.

African Americans are finally awakening from an almost two decade long sleep

Barack Obama, the obsequious errand boy for the financial and corporate plutocrats who own the U.S. government, made a pathetic appearance on national television to try to persuade the “natives” to remain peaceful in response to the non-indictment of the Ferguson killer-cop. His inane comments extolling the value of non-violence and the rule of law seemed strangely incongruent with the militaristic rhetoric and policies of his administration over the last few years.

Yet, Obama’s positions on law and violence are not as contradictory as they might appear when these positions are resituated within the context of imperial logic and the framework of power. Legitimate violence is always determined by history’s dominant powers and employed as a weapon to maintain and extend that dominance. Over the last five hundred years Europe emergedfrom the backwaters of history and cultural backwardness to predominance as a result of genocide and land theft in the Americas, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and colonial/capitalist development. The violent establishment of capitalism, racism, and heteropatriarchy enabled the West to impose its definitions of legitimacy, including “legitimate” violence.

Thus when Palestinians resist the theft of the their land and the killing of their people by Israeli colonists, their response is defined as illegitimate violence that sparks support for Israel’s “right to defend itself.” When Africans waged national liberation struggles to free themselves from European colonial domination in places like Kenya, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the West condemned their efforts as illegitimate. Furthermore, because those struggles were determined to be illegitimate, colonial powers felt justified to viciously attack those efforts with the support of the U.S. government. And when African Americans organized against police violence and for self-determination and our own definitions of liberation in the 60s, our efforts were deemed illegitimate. We were brutally suppressed with the full range of state terror tactics including beatings, deaths, infiltration, surveillance, and the jailing of activists for decades.

The fight for human dignity and human rights is what makes us human

Therefore, we should understand the State’s response to our discontent in the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown in this context. The heavy-handed use of violence to deny the people the human rights to peacefully assemble and freedom of association is consistent with the historical uses of violence to control and suppress opposition. And the state’s determination that more militant forms of popular resistance are illegitimate helped to shift the attention of the capitalist media to black resistance and away from the issue of impunity for yet another law enforcement official who literally gets away with murder.

The focus on the forms of resistance taking place in Ferguson is reflective of a shared, cross-class and racialized world-view that accepts the carefully constructed elite view concerning what constitutes illegitimate resistance. This hegemonic view creates a moral myopia that makes it impossible for many in white America to understand the point of view of the resisters to this non-indictment. This ideological and even cognitive disconnect makes the call for more national conversations on race such a dangerous diversion from the more immediate historic task at hand.

The task of the African American resistance movement is not to worry about sitting down with white people infected with the disease of white supremacy, but to build the capacity of black poor and working class folks to resist the intensifying expressions of repressive state power directed at our people. From that base, we can and should talk about building coalitions with other oppressed communities and people who are ready to take on the task of opposing the settler capitalist state at every level.

So while the corporate media has been somewhat successful in shifting the focus from the injustice of the non-indictment to the reaction of protestors, the insights provided by brother Malcolm X offer a framework for understanding what must be done.

Many of our young people are still prepared to pay the price for freedom

For Malcolm, resistance is not a crime. In fact, the fight for human dignity and human rights is what makes us human. But he argued that there is a price that people must be prepared to pay. According to Malcolm:

…you shouldn’t even be allowed around us other humans if you don’t want to pay the price. You should be kept in the cotton patch where you’re not a human being. You’re an animal that belongs in the cotton patch like a horse or a cow, or a chicken or a possum, if you’re not ready to pay the price necessary to be paid for recognition and respect as a human being.

And what was the price? “The price is death really. The price to make others respect your human rights is death. You have to be ready to die…” “This is all we want—to be a human being.”

In our quest for authentic freedom for ourselves and our children who are being spiritually and literally murdered, Malcolm is reminding us that we have to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. This willingness to sacrifice, as inchoate and thinly grounded as the mass resistance was in Ferguson, demonstrated, nevertheless, that many of our young people are still prepared to pay the price for freedom. We should be proud that the spirit of struggle, resistance, and sacrifice is still alive. The experience of Ferguson demonstrated to people around the world that despite the opiate of credit-based false prosperity, illusions of system inclusion and Barack Obama – African Americans are finally awakening from an almost two decade long sleep and in the process reawakening the spirit of resistance for everyone.

Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst. Baraka is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C. and editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He is a contributor to “Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence” (Counterpunch Books, 2014). He can be reached at www.AjamuBaraka.com.

This article reviews a number of developments that occurred between 2000 and 2014 related to the debt issue, various aspects of the international crisis |1|, international financial institutions, the scope of attacks against social and economic rights, and CADTM priorities.

Several changes have occurred since the end of the 1990s.

1. Several countries in the South have moved away from neoliberal policies

After over twenty years of neoliberal policies and multiple forms of resistance, towards the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the new millennium, several Latin American nations disposed of their neoliberal presidents thanks to massive social mobilisations and elected heads of state who implemented policies that meet the people’s interests. The people of those countries wanted to free themselves from measures derived from the ‘Washington consensus,’ as imposed by the IMF and the World Bank (privatisations, cuts in public services, ‘liberalisation’ of trade that deprives small local producers of any protection, enforced commodification, destruction of decent jobs, cancellation of subsidies for food staples and services such as water, electricity, gas, and transport). These policies were implemented on the pretence of repaying their public debts, much of which was illegitimate or illegal, as was the case in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia… |2| Ecuador’s government took a remarkable initiative in 2007-2008 when it carried out a complete audit of its debt with the active participation of representatives from social movements |3|. On the basis of this audit, it then suspended repayment of the part of the external debt identified as illegitimate, and imposed a significant reduction of the debt to its creditors |4|. This made it possible to increase social spending. Unfortunately, this initiative did not snowball as had been hoped, since other countries in the area did not follow suit.

On the upside, let us note that the governments of these three countries also increased taxation on large foreign corporations that exploit these countries’ natural resources. This development significantly boosted their tax revenues, and made it possible to increase social spending.

Moreover, citizens in these three countries democratically adopted new Constitutions, which include a measure on the removing of elected representatives at mid-term.

Finally, it should also be added that Bolivia in 2007, Ecuador in 2009, and Venezuela in 2012 took the wise step of leaving the WB International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

2. Increases in raw materials prices and currency reserves

In 2003-2004, the prices of raw materials and agricultural products began to rise |5|. This situation enabled the developing countries |6| exporting such products to increase their revenues, especially in strong currencies (dollar, euro, yen, and pound). Certain developing countries used the additional revenues to increase social spending, while most of them accumulated foreign exchange reserves |7| or purchased US Treasury Bonds—thus contributing to financing the leading world power. In other words, they increased their loans to the world’s principal economic power, thus contributing to maintaining its domination by providing it with the means to continue living on credit and maintaining a large trade deficit. An explanation for this is that the US borrows large amounts from countries that are prepared to purchase its debt instruments (US Treasury Bonds).

The table below indicates the volumes of US Treasury Bonds and other treasury bonds held in March 2014 by a number of developing countries. China alone has lent the USA $1,270 billion (from its foreign reserve exchange accumulated through its trade surplus with the USA), and therefore holds more than one fourth of US external public debt.

Developing countries that are creditors of the USA: values of US Treasury Bonds (in $billionsdollars) held in March 2014 |8|

The yield on US Treasury Bonds and other government bonds is from 0 to 2.57% in function of the maturity (one month = 0.01%, while 10 years = 2.57%) |9|. Given the inflation rate in the US, the real yield is very low, or even negative, which enables the US to finance itself at a very low cost.

3. The loss of power of the World Bank and IMF vis-à-vis certain developing countries

The increase in foreign exchange reserves and the decision of some governments in the South to use part of them to increase social spending and infrastructure investments have contributed to decreasing the influence of the IMF, World Bank, and most industrialised countries over some of the developing countries |10|. This loss of influence also comes from the fact that China and the other ‘BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), especially Brazil, have greatly increased the number of their loans to certain developing countries.

4. China becomes a powerful creditor

Another factor has reinforced this phenomenon: a rapidly expanding China has become the world’s workshop, and has accumulated huge currency reserves (mostly in dollars). In December 2013, China’s foreign exchange reserves reached $3,821 billion |11|. It has significantly increased its international trade, particularly with developing countries on various continents. It has also increased very significantly its loans to African, Latin-American, and many Asian countries. Its loans are now competing with those of the World Bank and the IMF, other multilateral financial institutions and the governments of the most industrialised countries. That has reduced the ability of these institutions and of countries in the North to exert pressure on some developing countries. However, we should remain vigilant regarding these large debts taken on by developing countries. China is a new capitalist power, which does not give anything away, and its investments are aimed at ensuring its control over the raw materials it needs and over the markets to which it exports its manufactured goods.

5. In 2014, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) announced the creation of a multilateral bank that would belong to them |12|

If this bank begins doing business one day (which is not sure), it will not be an entity capable of offering a positive alternative for developing countries, because the governments founding it are seeking to create a bank which will directly serve their interests (ensuring sources of raw materials and outlets for their exportations) and not those of the people.

6. Increases in internal public debt

Over the past 20 years, internal public debt has increased significantly. In a significant number of developing countries, it has become greater than external public debt (see table below on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico). This is true for all of the richest developing countries, particularly for the so-called ‘emerging’ economies.

Comparison of external and internal public debt (in $billions and as a % of total debt) for some Latin American countries (2000-2013) |13|

However, we should not be fooled. The domestic banks that issue loans to the public authorities of their country in the local currency are often in fact subsidiaries of foreign banks, and the loans in local currency, in many cases, are pegged to a strong currency (generally the dollar). This means that if the local currency is devalued or the value of the strong currency increases, the amount to be reimbursed increases considerably |14|. It also means that the major foreign banks are making large profits from the internal public debt. For example, Santander, the principal Spanish bank, makes enormous profits from the loans granted by its subsidiaries in Brazil |15| and other Latin American countries to public authorities by buying government securities from them. The same is true of other banks like Citigroup/CitiBank, which have a strong presence in Mexico, and the Spanish bank BBVA, present in several Latin-American economies, not to forget the British bank HSBC, which is particularly active in Asia.

7. The food and climate crisis

In 2007-2008, the peoples of the developing countries were faced with a sharp increase in the price of foodstuffs. This situation resulted in food riots in 18 countries. The number of people suffering from hunger, which was approximately 900 million before the crisis, increased by nearly 120 million, bringing the total to over one billion in 2009. As we will see farther on, that figure has gradually been reduced, but the fact can only alert us to the incredible vulnerability of hundreds of millions of people. This dramatic situation is directly linked to other factors related to the global crisis and the debt system. One thing is certain: the rising price of food staples and increasing number of human beings suffering from hunger are not the result of a lack of food resources throughout the world. Some of the factors behind this global food crisis, which is keeping one out of eight humans in a permanent state of hunger, are financial speculation on the prices of basic food items (and fuels) on the over-the-counter market in Northern countries, as well as the promotion of agro-fuels in Northern and some Southern countries— including Brazil —, land grabbing, the ‘free-trade’ agreements imposed on Southern countries, the end of subsidies for basic food staples and to local producers in Southern countries, and the priority given to cash crops intended for exportation to the detriment of local market gardening… |16|

In addition, the effects of the ongoing climate crisis are increasingly dramatic in developing countries. Here again, the policies rolled out by the World Bank in particular, and the productivist capitalist system in general, are part of the problem and not part of the solution |17|.

8. Debt is one of the core concerns in Northern countries, where it is considered to be the consequence of the crisis that erupted in 2007-2008

The crisis caused by major private banks in the US and Europe has generated a strong increase in the debt of the countries concerned. Private and public debt have become core concerns in Northern countries, particularly within the European Union and the United States. That is why the CADTM has engaged in more studies and actions targeting the countries of the North, while still not neglecting the South. The lessons drawn from the Third World debt crisis in 1980-1990 are very valuable for understanding the events that followed the crisis of 2007-2008 and taking action in its aftermath |18|. The countries in the North where people have been the most severely affected are Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Romania, Hungary, the Baltic Republics, Bulgaria, and Italy. The policies being applied by creditors in the most industrialised countries in the North today closely resemble those that were imposed on the countries of the South in the 1980s, which caused and exacerbated third world debt.

9. Centre/Periphery relations within the European Union based on domination 

The existence of a common economic, trade, and political zone enables European transnational corporations and the economies of the Centre of the eurozone to profit from the debt crisis in the Periphery countries (Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, and countries in central Europe and the Balkans), as well as in Italy, to make their companies more profitable and make points in terms of competitiveness with respect to their North American and Chinese competitors. At the current stage of the crisis, the aim of countries in the Centre of the eurozone is not to relaunch growth and reduce asymmetries between the strongest and weakest economies in the EU.

In addition, European leaders believe that the collapse of Southern Europe is going to translate into opportunities to privatize corporations and public goods massively at cut-rate prices. The intervention of the Troika and the active complicity of governments in the Periphery are helping them. The dominant classes in the countries in the Periphery are in favour of these policies, because they are counting on getting a part of the cake they have been drooling over for years. The privatisations in Greece and Portugal prefigure what is going to occur in Spain and Italy where the public commodities up for grabs are far more lucrative, given the size of these two economies.

The close ties between government leaders and Big Capital are no longer even concealed. Individuals from the world of high finance, and in particular the investment bank Goldman Sachs, are now at the head of several governments, in key ministerial positions, and President of the ECB |19|.

10. The crisis and the increase in public debt are misleading arguments exploited in the greatest offensive against human rights in Europe since the end of WWII.

Governments and employers use countless deceitful arguments in the greatest offensive in Europe since WWII against the economic and social rights of most people. Increasing unemployment, more and more debt to repay, the constraint of balanced budgets and the competitiveness of the European countries, between themselves, and on the world markets, are all used as postulates to attack and whittle away at social spending and public services.
For the Capitalists the agenda is greater insecurity for the workers, to reduce the worker’s capacity to organise and resist, while imposing lower wages and less benefits, at the same time as maintaining big differences between EU workers in order to increase the competition between them, and to precipitate them into the debt trap.

The report ‘Safeguarding human rights in times of economic crisis’ by Nils Muiznieks, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe (4 December 2013) draws an unforgivable picture of the consequences of the austerity measures applied in Europe. The sectors of education, health, employment, justice, housing, water distribution, and subsistence are all damaged by the nefarious effects of these policies. Nils Muiznieks stresses the inefficiency of austerity plans and their counter-productive results, which in the long term will cause necessary increases in public spending |20|.

Here are the opening paragraphs of the introduction to this important report:

Europeans are living through the deepest economic recession since World War II. What began as a meltdown in the global financial system in 2008 has been transformed into a new political reality of austerity, which threatens over six decades of social solidarity and expanding human rights protection across Council of Europe member states.

Austerity measures have exacerbated the already severe human consequences of the economic crisis marked by record levels of unemployment. The whole spectrum of human rights has been affected and many vulnerable groups of people have been hit disproportionately. Poverty, including child deprivation, is deepening and is likely to have long-term effects.

11. This is a worldwide attack on Labour by Big Capital.

What wage earners, pensioners and beneficiaries are going through in Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, among others, was imposed on the populations in developing countries during the debt crisis in the 1980-1990s. In the 1990s, during and after the Reagan presidency, the workers in North America were attacked, the Thatcher regime in the UK attacked British workers and similar policies were then applied throughout Europe, including in the ex-eastern bloc countries, which were subjected to the harsh policies imposed on them by their governments and by the IMF. According to the International Labour Organisation’s Global Wage Report 2012-13 ‘In Russia, for example, the real value of wages collapsed to less than 40 percent of their value in the 1990s, and it took another decade before wages recovered to their initial level.’ |21|. Then starting in 2003-5, although less harshly than in the Third World countries (the World’s poorest countries and the emerging economies), the attack turned against German workers. The harmful effects are still felt today by many people, even if Germany exports and the explosion of part-time work has limited the number of unemployed and part of the working class has not been directly affected.

This offensive, which started at the beginning of the 1980s, has intensified since 2007. The International Labour Organisation has analysed a shorter period (1999-2011) and made the following interesting remark:

Between 1999 and 2011, average labour productivity in developed economies increased more than twice as much as average wages. In the United States, real hourly labour productivity in the non-farm business sector increased by about 85 per cent since 1980, while real hourly compensation increased by only around 35 per cent. In Germany, labour productivity surged by almost a quarter over the past two decades while real monthly wages remained flat. |22|.

Further on, the ILO indicates:

The global trend has resulted in a change in the distribution of national income, with the workers’ share decreasing, while the share of income earned by Big Capital has increased in most countries. Even in China, a country where wages roughly tripled over the last decade, GDP increased at a faster rate than total wages, and hence the share going to labour went down. |23|

Evolution of wages as a percent of global GDP (1980-2011) |24|

This significant global trend is the demonstration of the increased added-value extracted from Labour by Capital.

12. Illegitimate personal debts

The CADTM has started focussing on a new field of analysis and intervention in the ‘debt system’. While whole populations are direct victims of the ‘debt system’, so are individuals: Indian farmers are being driven to suicide (more than 270,000 between 1995 and 2011 |25|), hoping to free their family from the burden of debt; millions of families are being dispossessed by the repossession of their homes by the creditor banks, mainly in the US (since 2007, 14 million families, unable to pay their mortgages, have been evicted from their homes by banks). The same is true in Spain, where about half a million families have been evicted |26|, in Ireland, in Iceland, in several central European countries and the Balkans. Women (men too) are victims predatory micro-credit systems in the South. English, Chilean, and North American students are over-indebted and needy or in downright misery, (the total amount of student debt in the United States exceeds $1 trillion, the equivalent of the external public debt of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa combined).

In fact, if one goes beyond appearances, it is not a collection of individual victims of injustice. These individuals are part of the classes being exploited and robbed by the capitalist system: the small farmers of the South, urban and rural proletariat of the North and South, educated youth from the working classes … Among the victims, women are the most exposed to class and gender exploitation: patriarchy and Capitalism work hand-in-hand to perpetuate a system of oppression and exploitation.

13. Lower interest rates in the United States and Europe have decreased the cost of debt in the South, creating a dangerous feeling of security

The lower interest rates imposed by the central banks of the most industrialised countries starting in 2007-2008 |27|, in order to help their major private banks and capitalist corporations, resulted in a lower cost to refinance the debt in developing countries. The combined low interest rates and high revenues from the exportation of raw materials have created a dangerous feeling of security for the governments of developing countries. However, the situation may be reversed in the near future: the price of raw materials could drop and interest rates may finally go up again |28|.

We must pay careful attention to this situation, and ask the governments in Southern countries to take advantage of the current economic situation that is relatively favourable to their country, and put in place policies in favour of basic human rights and nature protection. In sum, we must make a radical break with the current model of development.

14. Public and private debt has increased throughout the world, and the BIS itself has spoken of the ‘debt trap’

Private and public debt have skyrocketed in an extremely dangerous way since the beginning of the 2000s. First, there was an enormous increase in private debt (of financial corporations (banks in particular), non-financial corporations, and households), principally in the most industrialised countries. Then public debt literally exploded because of how the crisis was managed in the interest of Big Capital. In the most developed countries, public debt has increased by about 40% since 2007 |29|. Meanwhile, the debt of non-financial corporations has risen 30% throughout the world. Household debt has decreased (in response to attacks on buying power, jobs, and general living conditions, those ‘at the bottom’ have paid off their debts). The debts of financial corporations (major private banks in particular) remain the highest (they are much great than public debt), because their books have not really been cleaned up contrary to the reassuring speeches delivered by government leaders. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which is a forum for the principal central banks on the planet, launched an alert in its Annual Report published in June 2014 by speaking of the ‘debt trap’! Obviously, we are not astonished to learn that the BIS recommends we should continue pursuing neoliberal policies |30|, whereas in reality we must make a radical break with them.

15. The debt of developing countries, which represents a tiny portion of world debt, also increased

It is important to highlight that the total debt of all developing countries (internal + external public and private debt combined) represents only about 5% of total world debt. Meanwhile, public and private debt in the most industrialised countries, where only 15% of the world population lives, account for 95% of total world debt. The external public debt of all the developing countries (about $1.8 trillion), where 85 % of the world population lives barely represents 1% of total world debt. These figures clearly show how easy it would be to cancel this debt.

In reality, more than ever before, developing countries are net financial creditors of the most developed economies. These figures do not include the ‘ecological and historic debts’ people in developing nations could demand from the dominant classes of the most developed countries (and from the dominant classes in the developing countries, who have been complicit with those in the North).

Overview of the evolution of public debt

Evolution of the external public debt of developing countries from 1980 to 2012 (in billions of dollars) |31|

* PECOT = central and eastern European countries + Turkey

We observe that external public debt continued to rise from 2000 to 2012, particularly in Latin America, and in the countries of central and eastern Europe + Turkey (PECOT) as well as in south Asia.

Evolution of the external debt of developing countries and of the resources used to pay it back from 1980 to 2012 (in $billions) |32|

We observe a constant increase in the total volume of external debt. In terms of repayments, between 2005 and 2012, it is especially the ones made by private companies that increased. That means that private companies (industrial, commercial, banking, and so on) took on large amounts of external debt, and if there is a crisis, there is a very high risk that these debts will have to be paid back by the government, which has already occurred many times in the recent past.

16. Poor countries issue and sell external debt bonds on international markets

Rwanda and Senegal, two poor and heavily indebted countries, have sold public debt bonds on the financial markets of the North. This has never been seen before in the last 30 years. The Ivory Coast, having emerged from a situation of civil war just a few years ago, has also issued bonds although it is also one of the poor and heavily indebted countries. Kenya and Zambia have also issued debt bonds. This testifies to a highly peculiar international situation: the financial investors of the North hold huge cash assets, and faced with very low interest rates in their region, are on the lookout for higher yields. Senegal, Zambia, and Rwanda promise a yield of 6 to 8% on their bonds. They therefore attract financial companies, which seek to place their cash on a provisional basis even if the risks are high. The governments of these poor countries become euphoric and try to make their people believe that happiness is just around the corner although the situation may take a dramatic turn. These leaders are accumulating debt in a completely irresponsible way, and when the economic situation deteriorates, it will be their people who will have to foot the bill.
Furthermore, the bonds they issue are linked to contracts including clauses that could be real time bombs. We must require public authorities to make the contents of these contracts accessible to the public.

17. The Fed is destabilizing emerging market economies

When the US Federal Reserve System (the Fed) hinted in May 2013 that it would gradually normalize its policy, there was an immediate negative impact on the ‘emerging’ economies. What changes were proposed?

1. Reducing purchases of toxic assets |33| from the US banks, made to relieve them of this burden.
2. Reducing the acquisitions of US Treasury Securities from these banks, which the Fed does in order to give them cash injections |34|.
3. Raising interest rates (0.25% today).

This announcement itself was enough to lead major financial companies in the US and other countries (banks and their satellites in the shadow banking system, mutual funds, etc.) to pack-off some of their liquid investments from the emerging market economies (EMEs). This destabilized those economies: plunge in stock markets and currency depreciation (Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, India, South Africa …) |35|. In fact, the low interest rates prevailing in the US and Europe, combined with the central banks’ massive cash injections in the economy, have always set financial companies on the trail of maximum profit by investing in the EMEs, which offer better returns than the North. The outflow of financial investment from the EMEs towards the most industrialized economies can be explained by the fact that the financial companies expected attractive returns in the North as soon as the Fed hiked interest rates |36|. These companies thought that other ‘investors’ would withdraw their capital from these countries and it was better to act first. A herd mentality response resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Finally, the Fed did not raise interest rates and waited till the end of 2013 to reduce purchases of structured securities and treasury bills from banks. The dust has almost settled.

The situation in June 2013 gives some idea of what might happen if the Fed increases interest rates significantly. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central banks’ central bank, says ‘Capital flows could reverse quickly when interest rates in the advanced economies eventually go up or when perceived domestic conditions in the host economies deteriorate. In May and June 2013, the mere possibility that the Federal Reserve would begin tapering itsasset purchases led to rapid outflows from funds investing in EME securities’ (BIS, 84th Annual Report, 2014, p. 76, http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar201…)

The BIS brings to light a worrying trend: financial companies that invest part of their assets in EMEs do so in the short term. They can swiftly withdraw their funds if they discover other profitable avenues. The BIS says, ‘A higher proportion of investors with short-term horizons in EME debt could amplify shocks when global conditions deteriorate. Highly volatile fund flows to EMEs indicate that some investors view their investments in these markets as short-term positions rather than long-term holdings. This is in line with the gradual shift from traditional open or close-end funds to exchange- traded funds (ETFs), which now account for around a fifth of all net assets of dedicated EME bond and equity funds, up from around 2% 10 years ago… ETFs can be bought and sold on exchanges at a low cost, at least in normal times, and have been used by investors to convert illiquid securities into liquid instruments.’ (BIS, 84th Annual Report, 2014, p. 77, http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar201…).

In short, the wellbeing of the EMEs depends a great deal on the policy followed by the most industrialised economies (especially the US, Europe, and Japan). A hike in interest rates in the US may result in a significant outflow of volatile capital invested in EMEs with higher returns in mind.

‘In addition, roughly 10% of the debt securities maturing from 2020 or later are callable, and an unknown proportion have covenants that allow investors to demand accelerated repayment if the borrower’s conditions deteriorate.’ (BIS, 84th Annual Report, 2014, p. 76.http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar201…) This means that financial companies that purchased debt securities maturing in a relatively distant future (2020 or later) can demand accelerated and full repayment from a crisis-hit country. Obviously, this can only aggravate the situation of an indebted country: all inflows will stop simultaneously. This is another reason why the populations of developing nations need to be aware of the serious dangers posed by their country’s public debt. Payment of the illegitimate portion of the debt must be challenged immediately.
The decline in revenues from raw material exports is another factor that might lead to a fresh and acute debt crisis in developing countries, since China – a major consumer of raw materials for its manufacturing industry – has reduced its huge imports. A drop in the price of raw materials can be fatal to the economic health of developing countries, which depend mainly on exports. In this respect, raw materials prices might also drop if the Fed increases interest rates, as this reduces speculation responsible for high prices. The combined effect of a hike in interest rates and a decline in raw material prices could produce a situation similar to what happened in the early 1980s, when the debt crisis exploded in developing countries. It is imperative to learn from that crisis and to act, so that the Southern people do not have to foot the bill again.

18. Vulture funds |37|

Public debt has become the target of the speculative strategies of ‘litigating creditors, known as ‘vulture funds’. These are private investment funds, most of them located in tax havens, which specialise in buying up debt securities from States that are in default or on the verge of default. They then sue these States in the courts of English-speaking countries, demanding that they reimburse their debt at its nominal value, with the addition of interest, penalties for late payment, and court costs. Unlike traditional creditors, they refuse to participate in any negotiation and restructuring operation, preferring judicial solutions, and in case of non-payment, seizure of debtors’ assets (diplomatic properties, revenues from exports, and various assets invested abroad). Since the 2000s, some twenty States that are among the most heavily indebted on the planet have fallen prey to these strategies, in South America (Argentina, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Peru) and Africa (Sierra Leone, the Republic of the Congo, and Uganda), during major judicial-financial battles that are still in progress today. Since 2007, the phenomenon has been directed against countries in Southern Europe (Greece, Spain, and Portugal). In the future, vulture strategies are likely to prosper in the South and North. Newly issued debts continue to be placed under American or British law, which is favourable to creditors, and certain countries are again contracting debt on the international capital markets and show a preference for indebtedness to China, which will encourage future debt repurchases on secondary markets.

Argentina was in the spotlight in 2014, when the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Argentine government, and ruled in favour of the vulture funds NML and Aurelius, forcing Argentina to pay them $1.33 billion. Argentina adopted a law on 10 September 2014 aimed at providing it with a mechanism to defend itself against vulture funds. The CADTM would like to point out, however, that the best defence against them consists in refusing to recognise the competence of foreign courts in settling claims with creditors and inserting a clause in contracts stipulating that the local courts have jurisdiction.

19. Citizen audits

In recent years, movements have developed to work towards conducting a citizen audit to identify illegitimate, odious, and illegal debts. These movements in several countries |38| provide an opportunity for interesting and enriching reflection to clarify which parts of public debt should not be paid. With no claim to being exhaustive, we can propose the following definitions:

a) Illegitimate public debt: debt contracted by government authorities with no concern for the general interest or in such a way as to be detrimental to it.

b) Illegal public debt: debt contracted by the government authorities in flagrant violation of the prevailing legal order.

c) Odious public debt: credits extended to authoritarian regimes or which impose conditions for reimbursement that violate fundamental social rights.

d) Unsustainable public debt: debt whose reimbursement condemns the people of a country to impoverishment and deterioration of health and public education, increased unemployment, or problems of malnutrition. In other words, debt whose reimbursement makes it impossible for government authorities to guarantee fundamental human rights.

A citizen audit of public debt, combined in certain cases with unilateral sovereign suspension of its payment, can enable the illegitimate, unsustainable, and/or illegal part of the debt to be abolished/repudiated and the remaining part to be greatly reduced. It is also a way of discouraging this type of indebtedness in the future.

20. By way of conclusion: the impact of the ‘debt system’ – more topical than ever

The ‘debt system’ exploits public resources to pay creditors, to the detriment of people’s needs and fundamental rights. The relationship between creditors and debtors is therefore terribly unbalanced in favour of the former. One aspect common to the Latin American external debt crisis that erupted in 1982 and the euro crisis since 2010 is that in both cases the first reaction was to deny the evidence and do nothing. Subsequently, the measures taken are set up in favour of the creditors’ interests. In order to try to inverse the public deficit trend and thus be able to pay off the debt, adjustment or austerity policies are applied, whatever the price to be paid by the people, who are victims of the crisis. The creditors, supported by local elites, demand that the debt be reimbursed and that the adjustments be made to prioritise this repayment instead of all social needs, thus negatively affecting people’s most basic rights. The measures put in place also prove to be counter-productive, because they only make the problem worse. Excessive indebtedness becomes a structural problem.

The ‘debt system’ aggravates inequalities. Debt enables a privileged minority to monopolise a series of financial revenues that enable it to increase its wealth permanently. By consequence, the State loses resources necessary to satisfy people’s fundamental needs. The richest minority accumulates wealth, inequalities grow, and the increased power of the few enables them to exert greater pressure on public authorities with regard to policies. The rise in debt, and its concentration in a few hands, leads to a redistribution of income in favour of the richest members of society, which in turn is both the cause and consequence of heavier exploitation of labour and natural resources. In response, the CADTM, together with other organisations, argues that it is essential to audit public debt under citizen control in order to clarify its origins and determine which part should be considered illegitimate and/or illegal and therefore cancelled.

However, the CADTM is denouncing the entire debt system. It is the same mechanisms of domination and exploitation that govern public debts and illegitimate private debts, respectively subjugating people as collective subjects and as lower social class individuals (indebted small-scale farmers, families expelled from their homes by banks, women trapped by the micro-credit system in Southern countries, over-indebted students, etc.)

Of course, cancelling all illegitimate debts needs to be backed by other measures. For example, the socialisation of the banking and insurance sector to transform it into a public service, a radical reform of the tax system in favour of the overwhelming majority of the population, the expropriation of the energy sector and transformation into a public service, a radical reduction of working hours combined with job creation and increases in salary and social benefits, the improvement and extension of public services, the improvement of redistributive retirement pension systems, effective equality between men and women, and radical political reforms including changed constitutional processes. The aim is for these measures to be part of a vast plan for social, ecological, and political transition in order to get out of the devastating capitalist system. The struggle against the ‘debt system’ as a whole, more necessary than ever in both southern and northern countries, is part of the much broader-based struggle for a world freed from all forms of oppression and exploitation.

Translation by Christine, Snake, Mike, Charlie and Adam. Thanks a lot to all of them !

Notes

|1| For want of space, some aspects of the crisis, such as the climate crisis, are merely mentioned. The text does not cover every aspect of the international context. N.B. all figures are expressed in US dollars = $, unless specified.

|2| Éric Toussaint, Bank of the South An alternative to the IMF World Bank (CADTM, 2014). Available on line: http://www.scribd.com/doc/235391487…. We can also mention the massive and victorious mobilisation of the Argentine people in December 2001 in order to oust Fernando De la Rua’s neoliberal government.

|3| The CADTM participated directly in the presidential commission that led the audit of the Ecuadorian debt. Éric Toussaint, « An III de la révolution citoyenne en Équateur », 22 October 2009,http://cadtm.org/An-III-de-la-revol… (not available in English).

|4| Éric Toussaint, « Les leçons de l’Équateur pour l’annulation de la dette illégitime », 29 May 2013,http://cadtm.org/Les-lecons-de-l-Eq… (not available in English). Recently, however, Ecuador’s government seems to have shifted back to a more traditional (and harmful) approach: loans from China, a first loan from the World Bank (since 2005) in 2014, new issue of Ecuadorian securities on the financial markets led by Citibank and Crédit Suisse. This is worrying.

|5| This was a reversal of the previous trend. Generally speaking, the prices of raw materials dropped sharply as of 1981 and remained low until 2003-2004.

|6| Note on terms used: In the text that follows, the terms ‘developing countries’ (DCs) and ‘developed countries’ are simply the terms already used by the international institutions– because most of the data analysed comes from these institutions. The terms used to designate the countries targeted for World Bank development loans have changed throughout the years. At first, they were known as ‘backward regions’, then ‘under-developed countries’, and finally, ‘developing countries’, some of which are now called ‘emerging countries’. Nonetheless, it is important to recall the ideological and Western-centric connotations of this terminology. Indeed, essentially it takes into account only the economic dimension of development, and implies that there is only one model of development (the Western industrial and ‘extractivist’ capitalist model), and that certain countries are ‘behind’ and must catch up with other countries who are ‘further ahead’. The CADTM vehemently rejects this vision of the world. Likewise, when we make use of the terms such as ‘Southern countries’ and ‘Northern countries’, we are conscious that they are incorrect from a strictly geographic point of view.

|7| Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 84th Annual Report 2014, Basel, June 2014, p. 102, table V.1. Annual changes in foreign exchange reserves.

|8| Calculated by CADTM on the basis of US Treasury Department data, Major foreign holders of treasury securities, March 2014, http://www.treasury.gov/ticdata/Pub…

|9| See the yields published by the US Treasury: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce… (accessed 24 September 2014 ).

|10| The IMF has, however, succeeded in returning to the forefront of the scene in western Europe with the crisis that has severely affected the weakest Eurozone countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, and two Baltic Republics, Estonia and Latvia).

|11| Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 84th Annual Report 2014, op.cit.

|12| See Daniel Munevar’s (CADTM economist) critical analysis, ‘BRICS Bank: Is it an alternative for development finance?’, 28 July 2014, http://cadtm.org/BRICS-Bank-Is-it-a…. See also, Benito Pérez/Éric Toussaint, ‘The alternative, would be a Bank of the South, not the BRICS Bank’, interview of Éric Toussaint, Le Courrier, 19 August 2014 (http://cadtm.org/The-alternative-wo…).

|13| Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Latin American Macro Watch Data Tool.http://www.iadb.org. The data for Argentina’s debt correspond to 2012 instead of 2013.

|14| That is what happened between May and December 2013 for countries such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Brazil.

|15| In the case of Brazil, in 2014, government officials borrowed from private banks at an interest rate of 11%, while inflation was 6.5 %, which means hefty profits for the bankers.

|16| Éric Toussaint, ‘Une fois encore sur les causes de la crise alimentaire,’ (‘More on the causes of the food crisis’), 9 October 2008, http://cadtm.org/Une-fois-encore-su… (in French). See also: Damien Millet and Éric Toussaint, ‘Pourquoi une faim galopante au XXIe siècle et comment l’éradiquer ?’ (‘Why is hunger still rampant in the 21st century and how to eliminate it?’), 24 April 2009,http://cadtm.org/Pourquoi-une-faim-… (in French); Éric Toussaint, ‘Banks speculate on raw materials and food’, 10 February 2014, http://cadtm.org/Banks-speculate-on…

|17| Éric De Ruest and Renaud Duterme, La dette cachée de l’économie, Paris: Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2014. See http://cadtm.org/La-dette-cachee-de… (in French).

|18| Éric Toussaint, « Du Sud au Nord : crise de la dette et programmes d’ajustement », 4 June 2014,http://cadtm.org/Du-Sud-au-Nord-cri… (not available in English).

|19| Éric Toussaint, ‘Bankocracy: from the Venetian Republic to Mario Draghi and Goldman Sachs’, 11 November 2013, http://cadtm.org/Nouvelle-traductio…

|20| https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.I…

|21| ILO Global Wage Report 2012-2013, Executive Summary, Geneva, December 2012.

|22| ILO, ibidem, pp. VI-VII.

|23| ILO, ibidem, p. VII. The same report also underscores the increasing differences between low and high incomes in each country.

|24| UNCTAD, Trade and development report 2013, United Nations, New York and Geneva, 2013, p.15. Available at http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLi…

|25| According to Law in India, normally, if the head of a family dies, his debt cannot be transmitted to his family. This is one of the reasons some Indian agricultural smallholders commit suicide hoping to thus free their families from debt. However, this does not always work in practice. Swallowing pesticides is one of the most common methods used to commit suicide. It is also worth nothing that outside India, in Europe, especially in France there is an alarming rate of suicide among small farmers.

|26| Éric Toussaint, ‘Banks and the New “Too Big to Jail” Doctrine’, 9 March 2014,http://cadtm.org/Banks-and-the-New-…; ‘Bank abuses in the real estate sector and illegal foreclosures in the United States’, 4 April 2014, http://cadtm.org/Bank-abuses-in-the…

|27| In November 2014, the key interest rate of the US Federal Reserve stands at 0.25 %, that of the European Central Bank is 0.05 %, the Bank of England 0.5 %. The rate of the Bank of Japan has been 0% since the country entered a crisis in 1990.

|28| For raw materials, the price of a barrel of oil dropped significantly from May to November 2014. As I am writing these lines on 9 November 2014, the price of a barrel of oil was $105 on 1 May, 2014 and reached its lowest level in 13 years on 7 November 2014 ($83 dollars). As for interest rates, since June 2014 the US Federal Reserve has been suggesting they will soon increase. Although the Fed’s key rate is very low today (0.25%), the situation must be monitored closely. To that effect, see point 17 about what happened in 2013 when the economies of certain emerging countries were strongly shaken up.

|29| This is the estimate provide by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS): 84th Annual Report, op.cit., p. 10, Figure I.1. (June 2014)

|30| Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Ibidem, page 17.

|31| World Bank, International Debt Statistics, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/…

|32| World Bank, op.cit. Debt servicing is the total amount of repayments for interest and capital.

|33| The Fed has bought huge amounts of Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) from US banks. Its purchases of such assets between 2008 and early 2014 were worth more than $1.5 trillion. During 2012-2013, it purchased toxic assets worth $40 billion per month from banks and real estate agencies that guarantee mortgages, to reduce their burden. By the end of 2013, it started to make fewer purchases, which went up to $35 billion per month by March 2014. By October 2014, the Fed was holding $1.7 trillion in MBS, or about 21% of the total volume of such assets, an enormous amount. The Fed finally stopped purchasing MBS in November 2014.

|34| By October 2014, the Fed was holding US Treasury Securities worth $2.45 trillion. Please note, contrary to popular belief, the Fed does not buy Treasury Securities directly from the Treasury, it buys them through open market operations from private banks which had acquired them previously. See the US laws on this matter: http://www.federalreserve.gov/about…

|35| The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) describes this situation as follows: – ‘The first episode was abrupt and generalised in nature, with sharp asset price movements ending a period of fairly stable interest and exchange rates. As the sell-off spilled over from advanced economies, EMEs experienced a sharp reversal of portfolio flows, especially in June 2013. . . EME equities fell by 16% before stabilising in July, and sovereign bond yields jumped more than 100 basis points, driven by rising concerns over sovereign risk… At first, the indiscriminate retrenchment from EMEs affected many currencies simultaneously, leading to correlated depreciations amid high volatility. The currencies of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey depreciated by more than 10% against the US dollar during the first episode…. Brazil, India, Indonesia and Russia each lost more than $10 billion in reserves. Countries with rapid credit growth, high inflation or large current account deficits were seen as more vulnerable and experienced sharper depreciations.’ (BIS, 84th Annual Report, 2014, pp. 27-28).http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar201…

|36| For an analysis of what happened in 2013, please read Daniel Munevar’s “Inestabilidad en los mercados emergentes: El fin de un ciclo?” available only in Spanish here :http://cadtm.org/Inestabilidad-en-l… (1st part) and http://cadtm.org/Inestabilidad-en-l… (2nd part).

|37| I would like to thank Louise Abellard for her contribution to this point.

|38| Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, and others.

On Tue., Nov. 25, tens of thousands poured through the streets of Port-Au-Prince to demand the departure of President Michel Martelly. Observers and journalists reported that it was the largest anti-Martelly march yet during October and November, which have seen many outpourings around the country but particularly in the capital.

As usual, the marchers began in front of the churches St. Jean Bosco in La Saline and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Belair and converged at Rue Saint-Martin. After marching up the Delmas Road, they took Delmas 32 to Bourdon, and then marched on the National Palace. A week earlier, on Nov. 18, police fired on a similar large march at Delmas 32, killing at least two and dispersing the demonstration.

Among the many chants of the demonstrators, most noteworthy was “No negotiations with Martelly!” and “Martelly must leave for Haiti to be free!” The marchers also called the Haitian president a corrupt dictator, liar, murderer, drug-dealer, and kidnapper.

The nationwide mobilization has been dubbed “Operation Burkina Faso,” echoing the mass mobilization that successfully drove long-time president Blaise Compaoré from power in that country last month. Martelly plans to begin ruling by decree on Jan. 12, 2015 when Parliament expires because he has held no elections during his three and a half years in power.

“Martelly, here are the roaches!” roared the crowd, referring to a remark made by Communications Minister Rudy Hériveaux, a former Lavalas ally, about anti-government demonstrators some weeks ago.

Since Martelly has come to power, he has organized three carnivals a year and zero elections. He has corrupted state institutions, particularly the judiciary and Parliament. He replaced elected mayors with his own hand-picked representatives. Corruption is unprecedented. Unemployment, inflation and insecurity are all surging around the country.

In front of the Palace on the Champs de Mars, the demonstrators made it all the way to the 2004 Tower, where the police formed an impenetrable wall. Nonetheless, the demo did not finish with tear-gas, gunshots, or any other major incident like others in past weeks.

The police restraint was likely due to the Nov. 24 remarks of Sandra Honore, the head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), who is trying to play the role of “good cop.”

In an effort to brake the population’s growing radicalization faced with outrageous illegal arrests and police violence, she said: “The freedom to demonstrate and freedom of expression are rights guaranteed by international conventions, enshrined in the Haitian constitution and supported by the law.”

“The right to demonstrate and freedom of opinion is a sign of the consolidation of democracy in Haiti, and efforts must be made by both sides to avoid any recourse to violence, defamation, intimidation of all kinds, or acts that may contribute to peace and stability,” she continued. “As part of strengthening the rule of law, it is up to Haitian authorities to take the necessary measures to ensure that the right to peaceful protest is respected and that offenders are prosecuted… The period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10 marks 16 days of activism for the protection of human rights, it is up to all to reject violence in all its forms to move towards a stronger Haiti, more stable and more respectful the rights of all.”

“Operation Burkina Faso” will continue with mass demonstrations on Nov. 28 and Nov. 29, with the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, a Martelly regime backer, as one of the demonstrators’ destinations.

The leaders of several opposition political parties and organizations marched in the Nov. 25 protest, including Dr. Maryse Narcisse, Dr. Louis Gerald Gilles, and Dr. Schiller Louidor of the Lavalas Family, Turneb Delpé and Serge Jean Louis of the MOPOD political platform, activists from KOD, MOLEGHAF, Embark to Change, MONOP, and Grenadier 07, among others. Students, schoolchildren, teachers, and union members also took part in the march.

Partial list of the political prisoners whose release demonstrators demand

Josué Florestal , Enol Florestal

Jean Robert Vincent

Louima Louisjuste

Jean Anthony Nazaire

Nadal Aristide

Cleevens Aristide

Biron Odigé

Rony Timothée

Jean Lamy Matulnès (policeman)

List of the 18 people arrested on Oct. 17 who are still in prison

Jean Harry Delassin

Hérard Seradieu

Moïse Roody

Jean Jacques Renaut

Lovenson Mersier

Paul Joanel

Ralph Desilus

Lormicil Isaac Homme

Mérisier Jean Louiné

Louiredant Louivens

Clergé Jeff

Chervin Midlin

Sampeur Jonas

Laguerre Angello

Fritzner Montinat

Charles Altès

Vladimir Pierre

Partial list of people allegedly assassinated by the Martelly regime

Octanol Derissaint (vendor)

Fritz Gérald Civil (militant)

Georges Honorat (journalist)

Paul Ambroise alias Tikoton (militant)

Michaël Benoit alias Pouchon (militant)

Walky Calixte (policeman in Martissant)

Daniel Dorsinvil (human rights militant)

Judge Jean Serge Joseph

Police Inspector Yves Michel Bellefleur

Girldy Lareche

Partial list of people persecuted by the Martelly regime

Dr. Jean Bertrand Aristide

Senator Moïse Jean Charles

Lawyer André Michel

Lawyer Newton St-Juste

Edouard Joël Vorbe (Pacha)

Jean Nazaire Thidé

Assad Volcy

Franco Camille

Deputy Arnel Bélizaire

Rony Jean Philippe

When Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, they don’t know what they are celebrating.

In American folklore, Thanksgiving is a holiday that originated in 1621 with the Pilgrims celebrating a good harvest. Some historians say that this event is poorly documented, and others believe that the Thanksgiving tradition travelled to the New World with the Pilgrims and Puritans who brought with them the English Days of Thanksgiving. Other historians think the Pilgrims associated their relief from hunger with their observance of the relief of the siege of Leiden.

The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving, if it happened, might not have been the first in the New World. Historians say the Virginia colonial charter declared a Day of Thanksgiving in 1619, and other historians say the first Thanksgiving was observed by the Spanish in Florida in 1565.

Apparently, the different English colonies and later American states each had their own day of Thanksgiving, if they had one. Abraham Lincoln tried to make Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, but the country was divided by the War of Northern Aggression.

Thanksgiving became a national holiday with the completion of the Reconstruction of the South after the War of Northern Aggression and the extermination of the Plains Indians by the Union generals in the 1870s. This taints Thanksgiving as a celebration of the preservation and expansion of the American Empire and accurately reflects the goal of the political forces behind Lincoln.

Today, Thanksgiving is simply known as “Turkey Day” and a time of retail sales. But as you eat your Thanksgiving meal, contemplate that what you are really celebrating is an Empire rooted in war crimes. If Lincoln had lost, and if there had been at that time a Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan would have been hung as war criminals.

Sheridan was probably the worst of the lot. His war crimes against the South, especially those he committed in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, must have been forgotten by Southerns who vote Republican, the Party of Lincoln and Sheridan. But Sheridan’s crimes against the Indians were worse. He attacked the Indians in their winter quarters, destroying their food supplies, and sent professional hunters to exterminate the Buffalo, declaring: “Let them kill until the buffalo is exterminated,” thus depriving the Plains Indians of their main food source.

Considering the enormity of the Republican Party’s crimes against the South, it is a testament to the forgetfulness of people that Southerners vote Republican. Sheridan expressed well the Republican attitude toward the South, declaring on several occasions that “if I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell.”

In the 1870s when Democrats won elections in Louisiana, Sheridan, who had power over the state, declared the Democrats to be bandits who would be subjected to his military tribunals.

Sheridan graduated near the bottom of his West Point Class, but his immorality and viciousness propelled him to the rank of Commanding General of the US Army. Today he would delight in the endless US bombings of women and children in seven countries.

Note: The War of Northern Aggression is the South’s description for what those dedicated to preserving the Union called the Civil War. The South’s term seems more correct. The Union forces invaded the South. A Civil War occurs when contending parties engage in violence for control of the government. But the Southern states were not contending for control of the US government; they exercised their right of self-determination and withdrew from the union into which they had voluntarily entered. It was an act of secession based in divergent economic interests between an export agricultural economy in the South and a rising industrial economy in the North in need of protective tariffs. The Southern secession was not an act of war for control over the government in Washington.

Unionists saw secession as a threat to empire. Another country could be a contender for the lands to the West. In his books, The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked, Thomas DiLorenzo makes a case that the War of Northern Aggression was waged in behalf of empire. He quotes Lincoln to the effect that he would preserve slavery if it would preserve the Union, and, if memory serves, DiLorenzo quotes Lincoln’s generals advising him not to throw a bone to abolitionists by saying it was a war to end slavery or much of the Union army would desert.

Today Americans think of themselves as citizens of the United States. But in 1860 people thought of themselves as citizens of states. When Robert E. Lee was offered a top command in the Union army, he declined on the grounds that he could not draw his sword on his native state of Virginia. Lincoln used the war to establish the supremacy of the central government in Washington over the states to which the Constitution had given most functions of government.

The supremacy of the central government that Lincoln established advanced the forces of empire.

The “war to end slavery,” like the Iraq war to protect America from “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” looks more like fictional cover for the employment of violence in pursuit of empire than a moral crusade.

The Fukushima radiological emergency and challenges identified for future public health responses, Charles W. Miller, Chief of CDC’s Radiation Studies Branch, 2012: On 11 March 2011… a cascade of events was initiated that led to radionuclide releases causing widespread radioactive contamination… Radioactive material from Japan was subsequently transmitted to locations around the globe, including the U.S. The levels of radioactive material that arrived in the U.S. were never large enough to be a concern for health effects, but the presence of this material in the environment was enough to create a public health emergency in the U.S. The radiation safety and public health communities in the U.S. are identifying challenges they faced in responding to this incident…

Report on the 48th Annual Meeting of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) – Presentation by Charles W. Miller, Chief of CDC’s Radiation Studies Branch: The CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for the first time ever for a real world radiation incident. EOC activities were even more intense than for the swine flu pandemic in 2009. Cargo and passengers from Japan headed to the U.S. were screened, and there were contaminated passengers (and cargo). However CDC (nor anyone else) has authority to quarantine passengers contaminated with radiation… Communication was a problem. At first [the “A-Team”, an advisory team for environment, food, and health comprised of personnel from EPA, CDC, USDA, and FDA] had to speak “off the record”. Also noted was that… Early PAGs were guidelines, not rules… The final point was that Fukushima was a great tragedy for Japan; it also became a public health emergency for the U.S.

See also: CDC launches “zombie apocalypse” preparedness campaign based on Fukushima

In his book ‘The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective’, economist Angus Maddison noted that India was the richest country in the world and had controlled a third of global wealth until the 17th century [1]. Political unity and military security helped evolve a uniform economic system, increased trade and enhanced agriculture productivity. India was an exporter of spices, food grains, handicrafts, handloom products, wootz steel, musk, camphor, sandalwood and ivory items, among other things.

It was for good reason that Gandhi once stated the future of India lies in its villages. The village was the centre of a rural economy that was an economic powerhouse of entrepreneurialism. According to Sudhansu R Das, however, the British Raj almost dismantled this system by introducing mono crop activities and mill made products, and post independent India failed to repair the economic fabric [2]. As a result, successive administrations have ended up preparing relief packages from time to time and rural India is thus too often depicted a ‘basket case’.

In India, there is a plan to develop well-planned ‘smart villages’ (and cities) that have decent, modern infrastructure. The question remains, though, whether the government can restore the economic fabric of the village, which Das argues was once enshrined in a performing eco-system and a healthy social life based on fellow feelings and mutual co-operation.

If anything implies that India’s social and economic fabric requires restoring, it is the findings of the 2014 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) [3]. If someone is deprived in a third or more of ten weighted indicators, the global index identifies them as ‘MPI poor’, and the extent – or intensity – of their poverty is measured by the number of deprivations they are experiencing. Those indicators are based on health, education and living standards and comprise the following factors: years of schooling, school attendance, levels of nutrition, child mortality, access to cooking fuel, sanitation (open defecation, for example), access to water, ownership of assets, access to electricity and flooring material (eg, dirt).

·        Based on a rural-urban analysis, of the 1.6 billion people identified as MPI poor, 85% live in rural areas.

·        The highest levels of inequality are to be found in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries and in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

·        The researchers have paid special attention to the situation of the destitute, or what they term the poorest of the poor. Over half of the world’s poor are classed as destitute.

·        Countries which have reduced MPI poverty and destitution the most in absolute terms were mostly Low Income and Least Developed Countries, with Nepal making the fastest progress.

The MPI reveals some worrying aspects of poverty in India. Eradicating poverty in that country requires every person having access to safe drinking water, sanitation, housing, nutrition, health and education. According to the MPI, out of its 1.2 billion-plus population, India is home to over 340 million destitute people and is the second poorest country in South Asia after war-torn Afghanistan.

Some 640 million poor people live in India (40% of the world’s poor), mostly in rural areas, meaning an individual is deprived in one-third or more of the ten indicators mentioned above (malnutrition, child deaths, defecating in the open).

In South Asia, Afghanistan has the highest level of destitution at 38%. This is followed by India at 28.5%. Bangladesh and Pakistan have much lower levels. The study placed Afghanistan as the poorest country in South Asia, followed by India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.

Just 20 years ago, India had the second-best social indicators among the six South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan). Now it has the second worst position, ahead only of Pakistan. Bangladesh has less than half of India’s per-capita GDP but has infant and child mortality rates lower than that of India.

Writing India’s Deccan Herald newspaper, Prasenjit Chowdhury notes that according to two comparable surveys conducted in Bangladesh and India in 2006, in Bangladesh, 82% of children are fully immunised, 88% get vitamin A supplements and 89% are breastfed within an hour of birth [4]. The corresponding figures for Indian children are below 50% in all case and as low as 25% for vitamin A supplementation.

Moreover, over half of the population in India practices open defecation, a major health hazard, compared with less than 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of a wide range of basic social indicators, including life expectancy, child survival, enhanced immunisation rates, reduced fertility rates and particular schooling indicators.

What is going wrong?

“We build cyber cities and techno parks and IITs at the cost of the welfare of the downtrodden and the environment. We don’t think how our farmers on whose toil we feed manage to sustain themselves; we fail to see how the millions of the poor survive. We look at the state-of-the-art airports, IITs, highways and bridges, the inevitable necessities for the corporate world to spread its tentacles everywhere and thrive, depriving the ordinary people of even the basic necessities of life and believe it is development.” – Sukumaran CV [5].

Former Indian Finance Minister P.Chidambaram once claimed that his government’s economic neoliberal policies were pro growth and pro equity and envisaged 85% of India’s population eventually living in well-planned cities with proper access to water, health, electricity, education, etc. [6]. That would mean at least 600 million moving to cities – possibly hundreds of millions more when population growth is accounted for. He stated that urbanisation constitutes ‘natural progress’.

After 23 years of a shift towards neo-liberalism and increasing urbanisation, to what extent has the process thus far been ‘pro-equity’, ‘progressive’ or ‘natural’?

The drive towards neo-liberalism and urbanisation has thus far been underpinned by unconstitutional land takeovers and the trampling of democratic rights. For supporters of cronyism, cartels and the manipulation of markets, which to all extents and purposes is what economic ‘neo-liberalism’ has entailed in India over the last two decades [7-9], there have been untold opportunities for well-placed individuals to make an under-the-table fast buck from various infrastructure projects and privatisation sell offs: assets such as airports, seeds, ports and other infrastructure built up with public money or toil have been sold off into private hands.

The neoliberal model of development has seen the poverty alleviation rate in India remain around the same as it was back in 1991 or even in pre-independence India (0.8 percent), while the ratio between the top and bottom ten percent of the population has doubled during this period [10,11]. According to the Organisation for Co-operation and Economic Development, this doubling of income inequality has made India one of the worst performers in the category of emerging economies.

This is the type of development that is being forced through on behalf of elite interests via the World Bank, WTO, and the G8, etc. It is being driven through by what Vandana Shiva says is the biggest forced removal of people from their lands in history and involves one of the biggest illegal land grabs since Columbus, according to a 2009 report commissioned by the rural development ministry.

In the West, the route to capitalism or urbanisation was not ‘natural’ and involved the unforeseen outcomes of conflicts and struggles between serfs, lords, peasants, landowners, the emerging bourgousie and class of industrialists and the state. The outcomes of these struggles resulted in different routes to modernity (communism, fascism, capitalism) and levels of urbanisation [12,13].

Unsurprisingly, struggles (both violent and non-violent) are now taking place in India. The naxalites and Maoists are referred to by the dominant class as left wing extremists who are exploiting the situation of the poor. But how easy it is to ignore the true nature of the poor’s exploitation. How easy it is to lump all protesters together and create an ‘enemy within’. How easy it is to ignore the state-corporate extremism across the world that results in the central state abdicating its responsibilities by submitting to the tenets of the Wall Street-backed ‘structural adjustment’ pro-privatisation policies, free capital flows and unaccountable cartels.

That’s the real nature of extremism. It is the type of extremism that is regarded as anything but by the mainstream media.

The subjugation of India

Powerful corporations are shaping ‘development’ agenda in India and have signed secretive Memorandums of Understanding with the government. The full military backing of the state is on hand to forcibly evict peoples from their land in order to hand over land to mineral hungry extractive and processing industries to fuel a wholly unsustainable model of development. Around the world, this oil-dependent, urban-centric, high energy, high consumption model is stripping the environment bare and negatively impacting the climate and ecology.

The links between the Monsanto/Syngenta/Walmart-backed Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture and the US sanctioning and backing of the opening up of India’s nuclear sector to foreign interests have already shown what the models of ‘development’ being pushed onto people really entails, not least in terms of the powerful corporate interests that really benefit and the ordinary people that lose out [14,15].

Almost 300,000 farmers have taken their lives since 1997 and many more are experiencing economic distress or have left farming as a result of debt, a shift to (GM) cash crops and economic liberalisation [16]. And yet the corporate-controlled type of agriculture being imposed and/or envisaged only leads to bad food, bad soil, bad or no water, bad health, poor or falling yields and an impending agrarian crisis [17-20]. This form of agriculture has meant the US and the UK are now facing similar crises [21,22]. It’s a global crisis.

In addition to displacing people to facilitate the needs of resource extraction industries, unconstitutional land grabs for Special Economic Zones, nuclear plants and other projects have additionally forced many others from the land. Moreover, it has been a case of massive tax breaks for industry and corporations and underinvestment in rural infrastructure and farming [23]. It’s not difficult to see where policy makers’ priorities lie.

With GDP growth slowing and automation replacing human labour the world over in order to decrease labour costs and boost profit, where are the jobs going to come from to cater for hundreds of millions of former agricultural workers or those whose livelihoods will be destroyed as corporations move in and seek to capitalise and mechanise industries (eg wheat processing) that currently employ tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions)?

It is clear that farmers (and others) represent a ‘problem’: a problem while on the land and a problem to be somehow dealt with once displaced. But food producers, the genuine wealth producers of a nation, only became a problem when Western agribusiness was given the green light to take power away from farmers and uproot traditional agriculture in India and recast it in its own corporate-controlled image. This is who is really setting the ‘development’ agenda.

India is acquiescing to foreign corporations. Take a look at the free trade agreement being hammered out behind closed doors between the EU and India. It all adds up to powerful trans-national corporations trying to by-pass legislation that was implemented to safeguard the public’s rights.

We could see the Indian government being sued by multinational companies for billions of dollars in private arbitration panels outside of Indian courts if national laws, policies, court decisions or other actions are perceived to interfere with their investments. This is already a reality in many parts of the world whereby legislation is shelved due to even the threat of legal action by corporations. Such free trade agreements cement the corporate ability to raid taxpayers’ coffers even further via unaccountable legal tribunals, or to wholly dictate national policies and legislation. This agreement could see rural Indian society being restructured and devastated in favour of Western corporate interests and adversely impacting hundreds of millions and their livelihoods and traditional ways of living [24].

Do people really believe India’s future lies in tying itself to a moribund system that has so patently failed in the West and can now only sustain itself by plundering other countries via war or ‘free trade’ agreements, which have little if anything to do with free trade? At best, it shows a lack of foresight. At worst, it displays complete subservience to elite interests.

The bedrock of any society is its agriculture. Without food there can be no life. Without food security, there can be no genuine independence. Nowhere is this the case than in India where 64% of the population derives its sustenance from the agricultural sector. To control Indian agriculture is to exert control over the country. One needs to control only seeds, agro-chemicals and resultant debt and infrastructure loans. The World Bank, the IMF and the US State Department are well aware of this fact. Indeed, US foreign policy has almost always rested on the control of the agriculture of poorer countries:

“American foreign policy has almost always been based on agricultural exports, not on industrial exports as people might think. It’s by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.” Professor Michael Hudson [25].

US foreign policy is about power and control: the power to control food, states and entire populations. In many respects, the subjugation of India by the US rests on the likes of Monsanto eventually controlling agriculture and hijacking food sovereignty and the nation’s food security. The sanctioning of open field trails of GM crops in the country is the thin end of a very broad wedge that would not only boost the profits of global seed and agritech companies but would also serve US geopolitical interests.

Looting the economy

Rural society may have once been regarded as India’s bedrock and still is by many, but that bedrock is now being steadily dug up. Global agritech companies have been granted license to influence key aspects of agriculture by controlling seeds and chemical inputs and by funding and thus distorting the biotech research agenda and aspects of overall development policy. Monsanto already controls the cotton industry in India and is increasingly shaping agri-policy and the knowledge paradigm by funding agricultural research in public universities and institutes: it has been described as the “contemporary East India Company” [26].

In an attempt to control agriculture and despite evidence that suggests otherwise, agritech corporations promote the notion that they have the answers to feeding the world. People are generally hungry not because of insufficient agricultural production but because they do not have money to buy food, access to land to grow food or because of complex problems like food spoilage, poor food distribution systems and a lack of reliable water and infrastructure for irrigation, storage, transport and financing. If these deeper problems are not addressed and as long as food is not reaching those who are hungry and poor, increased agricultural production will not help reduce food insecurity.

We already produce enough food to feed the world’s population and did so even at the peak of the world food crisis in 2008 [27]. Moreover, India can already feed itself and arguably doesn’t need modern technology of poisonous pesticides, destructive fertilizers and patented GE seeds that can’t match 1890 or even 1760 AD yields in India [28,29].

“India has been self-sufficient in food staples for over a decade and more than that for cereals. Today, the country grows about 100 million tons (mt) of rice, 95 mt of wheat, 170 mt of vegetables, 85 mt of fruit, 40 mt of coarse cereals and 18 mt of pulses (refer to the Economic Survey for the data). These totals ensure that our farmers grow enough to feed all Indians well with food staples. We have 66 mt of grain, two-and-a-half times the required buffer stock (on January 1, 2013). The country has reached this stage through, first and foremost, the knowledge and skill of our farmers who have bred and saved seed themselves and exchanged their seed in ways that made our fields so bio-diverse.” – Viva Kermani [28].

Four GM crops account for almost 100 percent of worldwide GM crop acreage. All four have been developed for large-scale industrial farming systems and are used as cash crops for export, to produce fuel or for processed food and animal feed. The answer to food security, food democracy and local/national food sovereignty does not lie with making farmers dependent on a few large corporations whose bottom line is exploiting agriculture for their own benefit under the guise of ‘feeding the world’.

Various reports have concluded that we need to support diverse, vibrant and sustainable agroecological methods of farming and develop locally-based food economies [30,31]. After all, it is small farms and peasant farmers (more often than not serving local communities) that are more productive than giant industrial (export-oriented) farms and which produce most of the world’s food on much less land [32]. However, the trend continues to move in the opposite direction.

There has in fact been an ongoing attempt since the ‘green revolution’ to strip farmers of their knowledge and expertise in India:

“… (farmers’) legitimate claims to being scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts. Instead, they were reduced to becoming recipients of technical fixes and consumers of the poisonous products of a growing agricultural inputs industry.” – Viva Kermani [28].

Part of the current ‘development’ agenda in India is based on dismantling the Public Distribution System for food. Policy analyst Devinder Sharma notes that the government may eventually stop supporting farmers by doing away with the system of announcing the minimum support price for farmers and thereby reduce the subsidy outgo. He argues that farmers would be encouraged to grow cash crops for supermarkets and to ‘compete’ in a market based on trade policies that work in favour of big landowners and heavily subsidised Western agriculture.

By shifting towards a commercialised system that would also give the poor cash to buy food in the market place, rather than the almost half a million ‘ration shops’ that currently exist, the result will be what the WTO/ World Bank/IMF have been telling India to for a long time: to displace the farming population so that agribusiness can find a stronghold in India [33] (aided by the free trade agreement, which could see land in the hand of foreign entties who prioritise cash crops for export).

Monsanto, Bayer, Cargill, Walmart, Archer Daniels, Sygenta and other large corporations are ultimately eyeing control of the food system from lab to seed to field to shop to plate.

We need only look at what happened to the soy industry in India during the nineties (34), or the recent report by GRAIN [32], to see how small farmers are forced from their land to benefit powerful global agritech. Current policies further add to the problems faced by farmers due to ludicrous trade policies that encourage imports while driving down prices for produce at home [35].

If unfair trade policies, the colonization of official bodies or policy space by corporate players and other practices do not result in displacing farmers, it is achieved by repression and violence, as Helena Paul notes regarding the situation in Paraguay:

“Repression and displacement, often violent, of remaining rural populations, illness, falling local food production have all featured in this picture. Indigenous communities have been displaced and reduced to living on the capital’s rubbish dumps. This is a crime that we can rightly call genocide – the extinguishment of entire Peoples, their culture, their way of life and their environment.” [36]

A similar situation is happening in parts of India.

Much of what is taking place is often justified on the basis that high GDP growth has been achieved. But where have the benefits been accrued from the 8-9% year on year GDP growth in recent times?

Amartya Sen and the World Bank’s chief economist Kaushik Basu have argued that the bulk ofIndia’s aggregate growth is occurring through a disproportionate rise in the incomes at the upper end of the income ladder. To use Arundhati Roy’s term, the poor in India are the ‘ghosts of capitalism’: the ‘invisible’ and shoved-aside victims of a now rampant neoliberalism.

Furthermore, Global Finance Integrity has shown that the outflow of illicit funds into foreign bank accounts has accelerated since opening up the economy to neoliberalism in the early nineties. ‘High net worth individuals’ (ie the very rich) are the biggest culprits here [37].

India’s social development has been sacrificed on the altar of greed and corruption for bulging Swiss accounts, and it has been stolen and put in the pockets of the country’s ruling class ‘wealth creators’ and the multinational vultures who long ago stopped circling and are now swooping.

Hostage to ideology

Me-first acquisitiveness is now pervasive throughout the upper strata of society. Run out and buy some useless product because Kareena, Priyanka or another icon of deception says ‘because you’re worth it’… but never ever let this narcissism give way to contemplate why the rivers and soils have been poisoned and people are being been made ill in places like Punjab, agriculture is being hijacked by powerful agritech concers, land is being grabbed on behalf of any number of corporations or why ordinary people are violently opposing state-corporate power.

Much of this acceptance results from deals hammered out behind closed doors. Much of it results because too many are conditioned to be ignorant of the facts or to accept that all of the above is necessary for ‘growth’.

This is a country where the majority sanctifies certain animals, places, rivers and mountains for being representations of god or for being somehow touched by the hand of god. It’s also a country run by Wall Street sanctioned politicians who convince people to accept or be oblivious to the destruction of the same.

Many are working strenuously to challenge the selling of the heart and soul of India. Yet how easy will it be for them to be swept aside by officialdom which seeks to cast them as ‘subversive’ [38]. How easy it will be for the corrosive impacts of a rapacious capitalism to take hold and for hugely powerful corporations to colonise almost every area of social, cultural and economic life and encourage greed, selfishness, apathy, irretrievable materialism and acquisitive individualism, as well as the ignorance of reality ‘out there’ – what lies beyond the narrow concerns of spend and buy affluent India.

Consumerism’s conspicuous purchasing and consumption draws on and manipulates the pre-existing tendency to buy favour, the perceived self importance deriving from caste, the sense of entitlement due to patronage, the desire nurtured over the centuries to lord it over and seek tributes from whoever happens to be on the next rung down in the pecking order. Lavish, conspicuous displays of status to reinforce difference and hierarchy have always been important for cementing social status. Now icons of capitalism, whether renowned brand products, labels or product endorsing celebrities, have also taken their place in the pantheon of Indian deities to be listen to, worshipped and acquiesced to.

And the corporations behind it all achieve hegemony by altering mindsets via advertising, clever PR or by sponsoring (hijacking) major events, by funding research in public institutes and thus slanting findings and the knowledge paradigm in their favour or by securing key positions in international trade negotiations in an attempt to structurally readjust retail, food production and agriculture. They do it by many methods and means.

Before you realise it, culture, politics and the economy have become colonised by powerful private interests and the world is cast in their image. The prevailing economic system soon becomes cloaked with an aura of matter of factuality, an air of naturalness, which is never to be viewed for the controlling hegemonic culture or power play that it really is.

Seeds, mountains, water, forests and biodiversity are being sold off. The farmers and tribals are being sold out. And the more that gets sold off, the more who get sold out, the greater the amount of cash that changes hands, the easier it is for the misinformed to swallow the lie of Wall Street’s bogus notion of ‘growth’ – GDP. And India suddenly becomes capitalism’s poster boy ‘economic miracle’.

If anyone perceives the type of ‘development’ being sold to the masses is actually possible in the first instance, they should note that ‘developing’ nations account for more than 80% of world population, but consume only about a third of the world’s energy. US citizens constitute 5% of the world’s population, but consume 24% of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians [39].

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old and if you scale this to 46 years then humans have been here for just four hours. The Industrial Revolution began just one minute ago, and in that time, 50% of the Earth’s forests have been destroyed [40]. Forests are just part of the problem. We are using up oil, water and other resources much faster than they can ever be regenerated. We have also poisoned the rivers, destroyed natural habitats, driven some wildlife species to extinction and altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere – among many other things.

Levels of consumption were unsustainable, long before India and other countries began striving to emulate a bogus notion of ‘development’. The West continues to live way beyond its (environmental) limits. The current model of development is moreover based on a deceitful ideology that attempts to justify and sell a system that is designed to fail the majority of the global population and benefit the relative few.

This wasteful, high-energy model is tied to what ultimately constitutes the plundering of peoples and the planet by powerful transnational corporations. And, as we see all around us, the outcome is endless conflicts over fewer and fewer resources. Such conflicts are likely to gather pace as wars are not only fought to grab resources, but are also manufactured in order to destroy states from within by fomenting civil wars and thus destabilize economies and reduce demand for resources [41].

The outcome is also environmental destruction and an elitist agenda being forwarded by rich eugenicists [42], who voice concerns over there being ‘simply too many mouths’: those mouths would only take food from their rich bellies – bellies that long ago became bloated from the fat of the land, lucrative wars and the misery brought about by economic exploitation. The super rich who currently run the world regard most of humanity as a problem to be ‘dealt with’.

The type of ‘progress and development’ on offer makes any beneficiaries of it blind to the misery and plight of the hundreds of millions who are deprived them of their lands and livelihoods. If people cannot be removed from their land via making it economically non-viable to continue farming, tens of thousands of militia into the tribal areas to displace 300,000 people, place 50,000 in camps and carry out rapes and various human rights abuses [43].

In ‘The Greater Common Good’, Arundhati Roy writes about the thousands of tribal people displaced by the Narmada Sarovar Dam:

“Many of those who have been resettled are people who have lived all their lives deep in the forest… Suddenly they find themselves left with the option of starving to death or walking several kilometers to the nearest town, sitting in the marketplace offering themselves as wage labour, like goods on sale… Instead of a forest from which they gathered everything they needed – food, fuel, fodder, rope, gum, tobacco, tooth powder, medicinal herbs, housing materials – they earn between ten and twenty rupees a day… In Vadaj, the man who was talking to me rocked his sick baby in his arms… Children collected around us, taking care not to burn their bare skin on the scorching tin walls of the shed they call a home. The man’s mind was far away from the troubles of his sick baby. He was making me a list of fruits he used to pick in the forest. He counted forty-eight kinds. He told me that he didn’t think he or his children would ever be able to afford to eat any fruit again…I asked him what was wrong with his baby. He said it would be better for the baby to die than live like this.” [44]

The type of development that we are seeing is legitimised by a certain mindset and ideology. Vandana Shiva sums it up as follows:

“People are perceived as ‘poor’ if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.” [45]

The ‘poor’ must therefore be helped out of their awful ‘backwardness’ by the West and its powerful corporations and billionaire ‘philanthropists’. As with Monsanto and the Gates Foundation in Africa and the ‘helping’ of Africans by imposing a highly profitable (for the corporations) and controlling system of agriculture, the underlying premise harks back to colonialism and an imperialist mindset. What some might regard as ‘backward’ stems from an ethnocentric ideology, which is used to legitimize the destruction of communities and economies that were once locally based and self sufficient. The disease if offered as the cure.

Sudhansu R Das, who was mentioned at the start of this article, argues that reweaving the Indian village economy lies in the ability of the leadership to revert the change in societal behaviour that lets villagers prefer unnecessary consumer items to real economic assets.

Das argues that the young generation in villages today prefers fast food to homemade nutritious food. Similarly many biodegradable, handcrafted, daily use items give way to plastic and synthetic products. People give up many climate friendly traditional dresses, footwear and a wide range of homemade eatables for no convincing reason but for the influence of ‘the market’ and advertising. People are persuaded to borrow and live beyond their means. The mad craze for status symbol has indebted millions of people.

Pursuit of consumer comfort and decay in social value have broken the joint family system in villages which once provided safety to old people and saved family expenditure. Das calls for reinvigorating entrepreneurship in villages.

However, instead of this government after government aggravates the problems by creating an impression that the villagers are a backward, inefficient and unproductive lot who can survive only on relief. Das argues that with proper investment and appropriate policies, India’s rural economy could once again thrive. Bringing back Indian villages into shape needs honest and committed leaders at the helm, he argues.

If what is set out above tells us anything, it that India and other regions of the world are suffering from internal hemorrhaging. They are being bled dry from both within and without.

“Look at species destruction. It is estimated to be at about the level of 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth, ended the period of the dinosaurs and wiped out a huge number of species. It is the same level today. And we are the asteroid… There are sectors of the global population trying to impede the global catastrophe. There are other sectors trying to accelerate it. Take a look at whom they are. Those who are trying to impede it are the ones we call backward, indigenous populations – the First Nations in Canada , the aboriginals in Australia , the tribal people in India . Who is accelerating it? The most privileged, so-called advanced, educated populations of the world.” – Noam Chomsky [46].

Underpinning the arrogance of such a mindset is what Vandana Shiva calls a view of the world which encourages humans to regard man as conqueror and owner of the Earth. This has led that the technological hubris of geo-engineering, genetic engineering, and nuclear energy. Shiva argues that it has led to the ethical outrage of owning life forms through patents, water through privatization, the air through carbon trading. It is leading to appropriation of the biodiversity that serves the poor [47].

And therein lies the true enemy of development: a system that facilitates such plunder, which is presided over by well-funded and influential foreign foundations and powerful financial-corporate entities and their handmaidens in the IMF, World Bank and WTO.

Yet it is activists like Shiva herself and NGOs which advocate a different path that are attacked and smeared by officaldom. To open economies to private concerns, proponents of economic neoliberalism are always fond of stating that ‘regulatory blockages’ must be removed. If particular ‘blockages’ stemming from legitimate protest and dissent cannot be dealt with by peaceful means, other methods will be used. When increasing mass surveillance or widespread ideological attempts to discredit and smear do not secure compliance or dilute the power of protest, beefed up ‘homeland security’ and paramilitary force is an ever-present option.

Across the globe, powerful corporations and their compliant politicians seek to sweep away peoples and their indigenous knowledge and culture in the chase for profit and control. They call this ‘development’.

Is the narrative set out here to be dismissed because it is deemed too extreme and based on dogma? Tell that to the 340 million destitute that make up over half of India’s poor in 2014. Tell that also to millions around the world, from Greece to the US and beyond, who are bearing the brunt of ‘globalisation’.

If you are looking for extremism and dogma, look elsewhere. Look towards those whose unimaginable wealth feeds off and fuels a system of exploitation and conflict that is designed to benefit the few. That’s the nature of the model of development that is depicted as anything but. Nonetheless, it is the reality of the development we have.

Notes

1]http://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20World%20Economy–A%20Millennial.pdf

2]http://www.deccanherald.com/content/441179/challenges-abound-pm039s-model-villages.html

3] http://www.ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/

4] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/427901/poverty-alleviation-first-we-need.html

5] http://www.countercurrents.org/sukumaran221114.htm

6] http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=Ne310508cover_story.asp

7] http://www.countercurrents.org/wankhede250913.htm 

8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-investigation-the-great-british-energy-ripoff-8219565.html

9] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/09/big-banks-manipulated-gold-and-silver-markets.html

10] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/india-is-prospering-indians-arent-aiyar/158081-60-120.html

11] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16064321 

12] Robert Brenner (1976), “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe”.Past and Present 70

13] Barrington Moore (1993) [First published 1966]. Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: lord and peasant in the making of the modern world (with a new foreword by Edward Friedman and James C. Scott ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.

14] http://www.guernicamag.com/features/we-call-this-progress/

15] http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/13/vandana_shiva_on_farmer_suicides_the

16]http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/new-evidence-of-suicide-epidemic-among-indias-marginalised-farmers

17] http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/bt-cotton-losing-steam-productivity-at-5-yr-low-113020601016_1.html 

18] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/309654/punjab-transformation-food-bowl-cancer.html

19] http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-future-is-local-the-future-is-organic/5351677

20] http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227

21] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/250707/age-novelty.html

22] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-facing-agricultural-crisis-as-scientists-warn-there-are-only-100-harvests-left-in-our-farm-soil-9806353.html 

23] http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/importing-food-when-there-is-no.html

24] http://www.globalresearch.ca/free-trade-agreements-the-bypassing-of-democracy-to-institute-economic-plunder/5354197

25] http://www.prosper.org.au/2014/10/10/think-tank-times/

26] http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/monsanto-a-contemporary-east-india-company-and-corporate-knowledge-in-india/

27] ]http://www.cban.ca/Resources/Topics/Feeding-the-World

28] http://vivakermani.blogspot.in/2014/07/gm-food-crops-why-india-must-say-no.html

29]  http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227

30] http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/tdr2013_en.pdf

31]http://www.unep.org/dewa/agassessment/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).pdf

32]http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland

33] http://www.bhoomimagazine.org/article/cash-food-will-strike-very-foundation-economy

34] http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/flood-cn.htm

35] http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/while-indian-farmers-are-forced-to-dump.html

36] http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2267255/gm_crops_are_driving_genocide_and_ecocide_keep_them_out_of_the_eu.html

37] http://www.gfintegrity.org/report/country-case-study-india/

38] https://kavithakuruganti.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/foreign-hand-in-the-ib-report-joint-statement-from-vandana-shiva-aruna-rodrigues-kavitha-kuruganti/

39] http://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/380American%20Consumption.htm 

40] http://www.museoarchiviopolitecnico.it/resources/eco_facts.html

41] http://www.countercurrents.org/gibbins220414.htm

42] http://www.globalresearch.ca/genetic-engineering-eugenics-and-the-ideology-of-the-rich/5329025

43] http://www.infochangeindia.org/human-rights/no-mans-land/caught-between-the-maoists-and-the-salwa-judum.html

44] http://www.outlookindia.com/article/The-Greater-Common-Good/207509

45] http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/shiva112305.cfm

46]  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/american_socrates_20140615

47] http://www.spaziofilosofico.it/numero-07/2959/economy-revisited-will-green-be-the-colour-of-money-or-life/

When faced on the battlefield with a numerically superior enemy, one must attempt to divide his enemy into smaller, more easily dispatched opponents, or even more ideally, divide them against one another, and have them defeat each other without ever drawing your sword. For Wall Street’s 0.1%, divide and conquer is a way of life.

Divide and Conquer

Never in human history has there been a more effective way for tyrants to rule over large groups of people who, should they ever learn to cooperate, would easily throw off such tyranny.

At the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War, the British despoiled Zululand, divided it into 14 separate cheifdoms, each led by a proxy obedient to the British Empire. The British ensured that these 14 cheifdoms harbored animosities toward one another and fostered petty infighting between them to ensure British interests would never again be challenged by a unified Zulu threat. Before the British, the Romans would employ similar tactics across Germania and Gual.

Image: Zululand lies in flaming ruins, its legendary army decimated, but the British were not about to take any chances of allowing them to unite and resit again. They divided the defeated nation into 14 chiefdoms each headed by leaders harboring dislike for the others ensuring perpetual infighting and a divided, weakened Zululand never again to rise and challenge British subjugation.

In this way, the British Empire and the Romans managed to not only decimate their enemies, but by keeping them perpetually infighting, divided, and at war with one another, manged to keep them subservient to imperial rule for generations.

 But one would be mistaken to believe that imperialism is only waged abroad. Imperialism is as much about manipulating, controlling, and perpetuating subservience at home as it is projecting hegemony abroad. For the imperialist, all of humanity represents a sea of potential usurpers. The systematic division, weakening, and subjugation of various social groups along political, religious, class, or racial lines has proven an ageless solution for the elite.

One remembers the infamous use of Christians as a scapegoat for the corruption of Roman Emperor Nero, deflecting public anger away from the ruling elite and unto others among the plebeians.

This is a game that has continued throughout the centuries and continues on to this very day. While racial, religious, and political divisions are aspects of human nature, they are viciously exploited by the ruling elite to divide and destroy any capacity of the general public to organize, resist, or compete with established sociopolitical and economic monopolies.

Ferguson – Playing America Like a Fiddle 

Before protests began breaking out in Ferguson, Missouri, and even after the first of the protests in August, many across America’s polarized “left/right” paradigm began to find a common ground, shocked at the level of militarization the police had undergone and the heavy-handed response they exercised amid protests. Even among the generally pro-police and military “right,” there was concern over what was finally recognized as a growing and quite menacing “police state” in America.Politicians, the corporate media, and security agencies set off to work, dividing America’s pubic down very predictable lines. Convenient “revelations” that the police were connected with the ultra-racist Ku Klux Klan, coupled with growing choruses across the right to circle the wagons in support of the militarized police attempted to place those who converged on this common ground back into their assigned places on the “right” and “left” of America’s ultimately Wall Street-controlled political order.Regardless of its success, attempts to intentionally provoke violence, confusion, and division on both sides is an attempt by the establishment to keep people divided and weak while maintaining their position of primacy over the country and the expansive “international order” it imposes globally. It was this establishment, in fact, that intentionally militarized the police, intentionally cultivates both institutional racism as well as sociopolitical and economic rot in America’s inner cities, creating breeding grounds of violence and crime. So busy is America managing the predictable conflict amongst themselves, they have neither the time nor the energy to recognize their true tormentors.

In reality, the police and protesters and those across America and around the world “picking sides” have more in common with one another than the government and corporate-financier interests that reign in Washington and on Wall Street.

Get Off the Hamster Wheel 

One cannot accomplish anything by burning down one’s own community, killing one another, or complaining and protesting endlessly. Real revolution is not taking to the streets and destroying a political order, it is creating a new order that displaces the old.

The American Revolution, for instance, occurred after the colonies established their own economic system, as well as their own militias, political networks, and infrastructure. The violence broke out only after the British tried to reassert themselves amid the steady process of being displaced. By the time shots were being fired, the real revolution had already occurred – the subsequent war was to defend its success.

Today, the establishment constitutes unchecked, unwarranted power and influence held by the corporate-financier elite – an establishment we are in fact paying into daily every time we patronize their businesses, use their services, associate with their institutions, and pay in attention and time to their propaganda and political agenda we ourselves should be setting and executing. Ironically many of both the police and protesters clashing in Ferguson on opposite sides of the “conflict” have homes full of Wall Street’s goods, and subscriptions to many of their services.

Indeed, Walmart ends up filling our homes with most of the consumer products we depend on in America. A handful of agricultural giants feed us. A handful of pharmaceutical giants medicate us. A handful of energy monopolies light our homes and fuel our vehicles. You could fill a single sheet of paper with the names of corporate-financier interests that rule over nearly every aspect of our lives.Such monopolies exist because they have extinguished competitors. Ensuring that competition remains extinguished means creating a society that is incapable of producing individuals or paradigms capable of challenging their established order. This includes sabotaging the education system, creating a socioeconomic system that encourages unsustainable dependence rather than self-sufficiency and independence, and rigging rules, regulations, and laws against any potential upstarts.

The notion of Ferguson protesters demanding justice from a system created of injustice, upon injustice, is as absurd as trying to squeeze apple juice from a lemon. It is the definition of fantastical futility.

Instead of demanding justice, jobs, education, healthcare, food, and other necessities and desires from a system with no intention of ever empowering the people – a system that in order to continue perpetuating itself must by necessity never truly empower the people – we must begin working together locally to empower ourselves. Power stems from infrastructure and institutions – and locally this can be accomplished in innumerable ways. Already farmers’ markets, organic cooperatives, makerspaces, churches, community centers, community gardens, and charities along with innovative small businesses leveraging technology to do locally what once required global spanning industry to accomplish, all constitute the seeds of this shifting paradigm. For communities unlucky enough not to have one of these above institutions, or a lack of them, instead of baying for blood in the streets, burning building down, or clashing with police, build them.

The alternative media itself is proof of what power people have when they stop depending on others, stop demanding others to do their jobs properly, and instead take up the responsibility themselves. Expanding this paradigm shift to other aspects of our daily lives, from agriculture to energy, to education, will be key to true and enduring change.Ferguson teaches us that real change in the mind of many is still far off. America isn’t on the edge of revolution. A hamster wheel endlessly spinning has no “edge.” Those picking sides and bickering over the events in Ferguson are playing into an elementary strategy of divide and conquer. We are divided, Wall Street has conquered.

At the end of it all, Wall Street comes out even stronger. Because in the smoking remnants of our communities after all is said and done, we have even less with which to build an alternative to the system we live trapped within. Divided, we have half the people we should be joining together with, collaborating and building together with, to build the world we want to live in tomorrow.

Build, don’t burn. Collaborate, don’t complain. Don’t simply “resist” the system, replace it altogether.

When law is treated as an exercise of sterile objectivity, one where vision matters less than procedure, citizens can best forget that they play any viable role.  Seen through a naked prism of law and order, Ferguson, Missouri simply looks like black indignation against white order.  While it would be deceptive to tarnish all arguments with the colour divide, it is unavoidable in parts of a country where authority and policing are inextricably linked to race.  Slavery, after all, co-existed with enlightened notions of human equality for decades. 

The conservative press outlets, and certain commentators, have resorted to various tricks of the debate vocation – attack the dead man Michael Brown and make sure that he is buried again.  Hollow him out, mock him for his moral laxness. If such a man be shot, who cares?  He did not follow the legal code that is, we are told, colour blind.  Certainly, we can expect little by way of sympathy from Aaron Goldstein of The Spectacle Blog in The American Spectator (Nov 24).  Goldstein takes a good dump on President Barack Obama, and in many ways, he will have support for that.  “Obama has no credibility when it comes to talking about law enforcement.”

But the concern from Goldstein’s side is that Obama was foolish to bring Michael Brown into his UN General Assembly address two months ago.  America’s domestic scene is not worth mentioning in the same breath as other international incidents – we saw that constantly in the propaganda fronts of the Cold War.  Jim Crow was the grandest of Achilles heels in the disconcerting slush about one person and one vote.   The US could still proclaim civil liberties while many states within it kept segregation alive.  Liberty need not be equal to be valid.

This habit was not so easily junked.  American exceptionalism has a tendency of winding its way back into the rhetorical battle field about domestic failings.  There is only glamor, virtue and wickedness.  Why, suggests Goldstein, mix the matter of Brown’s death with Middle East instability and the problems of Ukraine and Russia?  Obama should have mentioned that “this young man had robbed a store a short time before his death.”

Keep it simple.  Had Brown been compliant, he would still be alive. (The fact that this point is hopelessly moot doesn’t discourage the commentator.)  “Perhaps this young man would still be alive had he obeyed Officer Wilson’s commands.  Perhaps this young man would still be alive had he not physically accosted Officer Wilson.” Perhaps Brown might be alive if the trigger thrill had not taken hold of Officer Wilson, or the blood mist cloud judgment.  In US policing, which is now a pseudo-military affair, the citizen is the problem.

Ditto Larry Thornberry, also writing for The American Spectator.  “Michael Brown orchestrated the circumstances of his own death. He has no claim to our sympathy.  He was not a victim.”[1]  Thornberry finds a monster before him – not the police officer but a person who “attacked and attempted to kill or do great bodily harm to a police officer who stopped him in relation to a robbery Brown had just committed.”  A bit more than an accosting, it seems.  With such logical argument, all thieves should be shot.  Feel sympathy, instead, for Darren Wilson, who “had his life torn apart for the offenses of doing his duty and being white.”  Colour arguments are everywhere, even when cloaked in the serenity of sound judgement.

Rich Lowry, writing in Politico, similarly advances the astral suggestion that “if  [Brown] had actually put his hands up and said don’t shoot, he would most certainly be alive today.”[2]  A sweet thought, Brown and Wilson, having a reconciliatory natter and breaking bread instead of playing with bullets in the act of “accosting”.  Amicable thieves will not be shot by a heavily white police force in Ferguson if they politely request not to.

Others seek the cool legal objectivity of the law as proof that the US legal system is ship shape.  The grand jury handed down “an objective decision” based on all the evidence.  So claims Ian Tuttle of the National Review.[3] “All indications are that the St. Louis grand jury acted with nothing less than utmost scrupulousness and diligence.”  Poor on sociology, Tuttle reduces the issue to fictitious flights of objective fancy.  He ignores who was on the jury, their backgrounds, and their detachment from the black community. There was no institutional distance between the shooter and the shot.

This reading verges on the archaic, a view of criminology so primitive it should be stuffed and cased. Wilson becomes the great exponent of decency in law enforcement, while Brown is deemed a spontaneously dangerous thug who got his just desserts. But Tuttle wants it both ways – the decency of the law, and the heat of the moment, where killing is warranted by the rather incautious arm of the law. Wilson exercised his judgment, if it can even pass for that, and killed Brown.  Such individuals as Wilson need a free hand, a standard that would virtually make any killing by police forces legitimate exercises of control.

The narratives of Ferguson have become flawed searches for villainy and purity.  It was always in the script, drafted without revision.  Vast swathes of the urban scapes in the US have become jungles of retribution and nervousness. The police see potential death everywhere, and treat the subjects of their protection as contrarian insurgents.  They are now behaving accordingly, becoming the very object of disgust that the authorities desire, a view that life may be short, but brutishness dangerously long.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Monday night’s announcement by St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch that police officer Darren Wilson will not be charged is being seen throughout the country and around the world as a judicial travesty.

From the beginning, the process leading up to the final decision was rigged for one purpose and one purpose only: to protect the cop who murdered unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Rather than present charges to a judge for an indictment, the state convened a grand jury, replacing a public trial with a secret, closed-door hearing in which the evidence was controlled by the prosecutor’s office, led by an individual with close ties to the police. This was followed by the highly unusual decision by the prosecution not to request and argue for specific charges.

Transcripts of the grand jury proceedings reveal clear and evident bias, with prosecutors devoting themselves to discrediting all evidence, including eyewitness testimony, that did not conform to the narrative that was required. Wilson, in contrast, went unchallenged as he presented his own self-serving account over the course of four hours. Throughout the hearings, the prosecutor’s office sought to place Michael Brown, not Darren Wilson, on trial.

Grand juries almost invariably file charges that prosecutors seek, and this case was no different. Despite the overwhelming evidence that a crime was committed, the grand jury did not indict because the prosecution did not want an indictment.

The whitewash of Wilson’s crimes, however, cannot be explained merely as the result of the misdeeds of McCulloch. The actions of the prosecutor were part of a highly orchestrated political operation, with the close involvement, as McCulloch himself was at pains to emphasize, of the Obama administration.

Given the enormous popular anger over the killing of Brown, and the clear legal foundation for a trial, one might ask why the grand jury did not at least return an indictment for a lesser crime, such as manslaughter. Or why an indictment was not delivered and a trial conducted—a trial that, given the sympathies of the prosecution, would have very likely produced the same result: the exoneration of Wilson. In the three months that passed between the killing of Michael Brown and the final decision not to indict, there was no doubt debate behind the scenes over these different possibilities.

Two factors explain the thinking of the ruling class in reaching the decision that it did. There is, first of all, the element of provocation. The ruling class has seized on the events in Ferguson as an opportunity to establish new precedents for repression in the United States. Indeed, the timing of the announcement of the grand jury decision, in the late evening, seems to have been deliberately calculated to create the best conditions for police violence.

In an escalation of the response to the protests in August, riot police armed with automatic weapons and armored vehicles, firing bean bags and tear gas, patrolled the streets Monday night. On Tuesday, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon—who declared a preemptive state of emergency a week before the grand jury decision—announced that 2,200 members of National Guard, a branch of the Armed Forces, would be deployed directly against protesters. An American city is effectively being occupied.

Second, the decision has the character of the ruling class circling the wagons. Whatever different tactical possibilities were discussed, in the end a decision was made that, in the face of mounting social unrest, there could be no concessions, for any concession would be seen as a sign of weakness and only encourage more opposition.

Yet in defending its rule through violence, the ruling class is only further discrediting itself before the entire world. A state that has organized wars in every region of the globe, invariably justified on the basis of defending human rights, employs the most brutal forms of repression against opposition within its borders.

In sections of the media there is a certain nervousness over the political consequences of these actions. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, for example, expresses concern that McColloch’s “pathetic prosecution of Darren Wilson” has reinforced “a sense among African Americans, and many others, that the justice system is rigged.”

The New York Times, speaking on behalf of sections of the Democratic Party, worries in an editorial posted Tuesday that the “scarred streets of St. Louis—and the outrage that continues to reverberate across the country…show once again that distrust of law enforcement presents a grave danger to the civic fabric of the United States.” This “grave danger” has been fueled, the Times writes, by the decision not to indict Wilson.

While these comments are generally framed in racial terms, the underlying issue is class. The ruling class is well aware that the policies it is pursuing—endless war abroad and social counterrevolution at home—are deeply unpopular. By a “grave danger to the civic fabric,” the Times means uncontrollable social unrest, even revolution.

While aware of seething social discontent, the ruling class has nothing to offer. The Times itself places its criticism of the grand jury decision within the framework of praise for the role of Obama, as if his administration were not central to both the outcome in Ferguson and the broader political crisis facing the American ruling class.

Obama’s own response to the grand jury decision is revealing. The president immediately rushed to make a statement on national television declaring the results valid and legitimate. “We are a nation built on the rule of law,” he said, “so we have to accept this decision was the grand jury’s to make.” This is nothing more than an endorsement of the judicial and legal fraud. While associating himself with a decision giving police a license to kill, Obama declared, referring to protesters, that there is “never an excuse for violence.”

Six years of the Obama administration have not gone unnoticed. Millions of workers and young people in the United States have begun to draw the conclusion that there is no mechanism within the existing social and political system to address their concerns or express their opposition. This understanding has only been further confirmed by the exoneration of Darren Wilson. These are the hallmarks of a system that is heading inexorably toward ruin.

The sudden reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has enormous implications for the War in Syria and beyond, with the potential to divide the Mideast and North Africa between rulers Abdullah and Thani in a more far-reaching way than Sykes and Picot did nearly 100 years ago.

Saudi Arabia and its Bahraini and Emirati clients ended their Cold War with Qatar last Sunday and reinstated their ambassadors to Doha. They had previously been unprecedentedly withdrawn eight months ago in March to protest Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Kingdoms saw as a threat to their rule. A few days before this major announcement, another Mideast rift had been supposedly patched up between the Al Nusra Front (rumored to be affiliated with Qatar) and ISIL (which has alleged links to wealthy Saudis) to work together in overthrowing the Syrian government, which may have portended Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s own reconciling. Now that Doha and Riyadh have reached an agreement to resolve their rivalry, they’ll likely divide the Mideast and North Africa amongst themselves to avoid any future conflict of interests, with Qatar getting influence west of Egypt and Saudi Arabia reigning to its east.

Cairo As The Cut-Off Point

During the presidency of Mohammed Morsi, the country was run by the pro-Qatari Muslim Brotherhood, and the former president himself is now being charged with high treason for allegedly passing on state secrets to Qatar.

Egypt will likely be the dividing line between Qatari and Saudi influence. During the presidency of Mohammed Morsi, the country was run by the pro-Qatari Muslim Brotherhood, and the former president himself is now being charged with high treason for allegedly passing on state secrets to Qatar. A month before his July 2013 overthrow, he radically altered his country’s policy towards Syria by cutting ties with the legitimate government and pledging financial support for the insurgents. Considering his Muslim Brotherhood affiliation, he likely envisioned supporting the same forces that Qatar is backing in the war, which would obviously have been seen as an expansionist threat by the Saudis.

These policies were abruptly changed when al-Sisi overthrow Morsi and placed him into prison. Since then, Egypt has gravitated closer to Saudi Arabia and its allies, receiving $20 billion in aid and investments from them. Not only has there been talk of Egypt working closer with the Riyadh-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, which member state Qatar stands at arm’s length in), but it’s also discussing its participation in an “anti-militant alliance” with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. It should be noted that both Egypt and the UAE reportedly bombed militant positions in Libya a few weeks ago, showing that they’re serious about combating the Islamists there. Saudi and GCC support for secular Egypt, which may seem perplexing on the surface, can be explained quite simply, since they’re more worried about an expansionist Muslim Brotherhood government there than they are about a defensive secular one that is opposed to Qatar’s influence.

The Qatari and Saudi Domains

Qatar:
Within this arrangement, Qatar and Saudi Arabia divide their influence west and east of Egypt, respectively. Considering Qatar’s ‘domain’, it may at first seem to have little of value, seeing as how Libya is a collapsed state at the moment. However, Qatar has strong influence among the militias there and the country still has the largest oil reserves in Africa (which continue flowing). Regardless of how the conflict is settled, it is very probable that political Islamists tied to Qatar will have some role or another in the government, thus elevating Doha’s regional influence through association. In neighboring Tunisia, although the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ennahda Movement lost out to the secularists in October’s parliamentary elections, the Islamists are still a legitimate and institutionalized political force there, meaning that they could potentially gain a second wind and win in a future election.

Over in Algeria, Europe’s second-largest gas supplier and one of Africa’s largest oil producers, long-running and ageing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika is once again in the hospital, raising questions about what will happen after his passing. He is the only leader Algeria has known since the end of the decade-long civil war that was fought against the Islamic Salvation Front, a political Islamic organization whose victory in the 1991 elections set off the conflict. Keeping in mind Algeria’s history, Qatar may attempt to support and reactive the lever of political Islam in a post-Bouteflika environment to gain commanding control over this geostrategic country, just as it tried to do in Egypt after Mubarak.

Saudi Arabia:
East of the dividing line, things are literally more conservative. Saudi Arabia and its associates want to safeguard their monarchies in the face of political Islam, so as long as Qatar keeps its Muslim Brotherhood partners out of the Gulf States, there won’t be any problem. The GCC may formally admit fellow monarchy Jordan into the club, which would then strengthen the group’s royal identity. In Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s proxies will likely join forces to strengthen the anti-government movement and eliminate unproductive infighting. Although it’s uncertain what the country would look like if the legitimate and popular government was illegally overthrown, one possible scenario would be internal fragmentation into warlord-presided ‘emirates’ where Saudi Arabia and Qatar would divide the spoils. When it comes to Iraq, the country is rapidly fracturing into three de-facto independent entities comprising the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias, with the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran exerting influence, respectively.

Despite the appearances of a détente between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, it might be premature to say that all problems have been resolved. The future of GCC member Oman after the passing of Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said could open a new rupture between the two, since he’s ruled the country since 1970 and hasn’t publicly designated a successor.

The Omani Wildcard

Many media outlets have been speculating about this in the past week, not only because the elderly Sultan has been in Germany since July for medical treatment, but also because Oman was hosting informal talks related to Iran’s nuclear program. If there’s a smooth transition of power and another Sultan ascends to the throne, then the Saudis won’t have an issue, but if things get more complicated and Islamic political forces agitate for representation (backed by Qatar), then the whole Riyadh-Doha reconciliation would collapse. Any kind of destabilization there could possibly result in a Saudi military intervention, either in the shades of Bahrain where it helped prop up a fellow monarchy, or a ‘reverse Bahrain’ where it would intervene against an Islamist government to restore the monarchy to power.

Save for unexpected developments in Oman, though, it looks like Qatar and Saudi Arabia have neatly divided the Mideast and North Africa between themselves, and the Muslim world might be witnessing the making of a new and wider iteration of Sykes-Picot, and just as equally undemocratic.

Andrew Korybko is the political analyst and journalist for Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW.

On Wednesday, Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian coordinator, appealed for USD 405 million to cover the costs of humanitarian programs for Afghan people in 2015.

More than 100,000 people have been forced from their homes in Afghanistan while 4,000 families are currently facing a tough time without adequate housing as winter is approaching, Bowden said.

Half a million Afghan children die each year of preventable disease across the war-torn country, he added.

Some 1.2 million children are “acutely malnourished” and food insecurity affects almost eight million people in Afghanistan, the UN coordinator said.

Elsewhere in his comments, Bowden raised concerns over the presence of some 225,000 Pakistani refugees in Afghanistan, saying it has added to the country’s humanitarian problems.

Last year, the UN demanded USD 406 million in aid for Afghanistan, but only received USD 237 million.

The United States, Britain, and their allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, as part of their so-called war on terror. Although the offensive removed the Taliban from power, insecurity remains across the country.

The Taliban militants have stepped up their attacks against the Afghan government, foreign forces and civilians. The group has vowed to escalate the attacks on Afghan forces and US-led troops, their bases, diplomatic missions and vehicle convoys before the foreign forces exit the country at the end of this year.

The Afghan parliament recently approved the controversial Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between Afghanistan and the US, which allows foreign troops to remain in the country beyond 2014.

Outgoing Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) chairman Phil Bryant — Mississippi’s Republican Governor — started his farewell address with a college football joke at IOGCC’s recent annual conference in Columbus, Ohio.

“As you know, I love SEC football. Number one in the nation Mississippi State, number three in the nation Ole Miss, got a lot of energy behind those two teams,” Bryant said in opening his October 21 speech. “I try to go to a lot of ball games. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it and somebody’s gotta be there.”

Seconds later, things got more serious, as Bryant spoke to an audience of oil and gas industry executives and lobbyists, as well as state-level regulators.

At the industry-sponsored convening, which I attended on behalf of DeSmogBlog, it was hard to tell the difference between industry lobbyists and regulators. The more money pledged by corporations, the more lobbyists invitedinto IOGCC’s meeting.

Perhaps this is why Bryant framed his presentation around “where we are headed as an industry,” even though officially a statesman and not an industrialist, before turning to his more stern remarks.

“I know it’s a mixed blessing, but if you look at some of the pumps in Mississippi, gasoline is about $2.68 and people are amazed that it’s below $3 per gallon,” he said.

“And it’s a good thing for industry, it’s a good thing for truckers, it’s a good thing for those who move goods and services and products across the waters and across the lands and we’re excited about where that’s headed.”

Bryant then discussed the flip side of the “mixed blessing” coin.

“Of course the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale has a little problem with that, so as with most things in life, it’s a give and take,” Bryant stated. “It’s very good at one point and it’s helping a lot of people, but on the other side there’s a part of me that goes, ‘Darn! I hate that oil’s dropping, I hate that it’s going down.’ I don’t say that out-loud, but just to those in this room.”

Tuscaloosa Marine Shale’s “little problem” reflects a big problem the oil and gas industry faces — particularly smaller operators involved with hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) — going forward.

That is, fracking is expensive and relies on a high global price of oil. A plummeting price of oil could portend the plummetting of many smaller oil and gas companies, particularly those of the sort operating in the Tuscaloosa Marine.

Tuscaloosa and Oil Price

Governor Bryant’s fears about the price of oil are far from unfounded, serving as a rare moment of frank honesty from Mississippi’s chief statesman.

As discussed in Post Carbon Institute‘s recent report, “Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom,” the fracking industry relies on high oil prices to stay on the drilling treadmill and keep shale fields from going into terminal decline. Further, future projections of shale gas and oil fields are wildly over-inflated, argues the Post Carbon report.

“Other factors that could limit production are public pushback as a result of health and environmental concerns, and capital constraints that could result from lower oil or gas prices or higher interest rates,” reads a passage in the Post Carbon report. “As such factors have not been included in this analysis, the findings of this report represent a ‘best case’ scenario for market, capital, and political conditions.”

Recent articles published in the business press further highlight the key caveat in the Post Carbon report, as did a recent Halcón Resources Corp investor call that discussed the Tuscaloosa Marine.

“Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, I’m going to do my darndest to make sure that people understand that we’re highly confident and we like the play,” Halcón ResourcesCEO Floyd Wilson said on the call.

“However, it is currently a relatively high-cost play and with currently low crude prices we will not be devoting a significant portion of our resources to TMS in the near term,” Wilson continued. “Having said that the TMS is certainly more susceptible to low oil prices than our other crude plays due to the higher well costs, a tempered approach to drilling in this play in the near term is warranted.”

A recent report published by energy investment firm Tudor, Pickering, Holt &Co., described Tuscaloosa Marine as the shale basin most likely to face severe impacts from the falling price of oil. The Tudor report said that drillers operating in the Tuscaloosa require oil to sell at $70-$90 per barrel for fracking to remain economically viable there.

The $80 Mark

Mississippi does not stand alone in feeling the hurt associated with a drop in the global oil trading price.

Bloomberg reported that companies operating in Utah and Texas have already slowed down drilling as a result of the high oil prices they had previously relied upon. In total, 19 U.S. shale plays will no longer be profitable if the price of oil continues to fall.

“Everybody is trying to put a very happy spin on their ability to weather $80 oil, but a lot of that is just smoke,” Dan Dicker, president of MercBloc, said in aninterview with Bloomberg. “The shale revolution doesn’t work at $80, period.”

Not all industry insiders, however, are trying to spin things.

Ralph Eads, a life-long friend of former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon and global head of energy investment banking at Jefferies LLC, agrees with Dicker’s assessment.

“If prices go to $80 or lower, which I think is possible, then we are going to see a reduction in drilling activity,” Eads told Bloomberg. “It will be uncharted territory.”

As of November 25, 2014, the price of Brent oil has fallen to $78.33.

Image Credit: Nasdaq

A Wall Street Journal article from late October concurred with others who said the Tuscaloosa will take a beating with the fall of the price of oil. But it also concluded that for operators in many other more prolific shale basins like theBakken Shale and Eagle Ford Shale, $60 per barrel is the break even point, not $80.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi…

To the smaller companies operating in the Tuscaloosa, recent oil pricing developments are likely no laughing matter.

But that didn’t stop Governor Bryant from cracking a joke to conclude his presentation at the IOGCC annual meeting.

In politics, as with Internet memes, ideas don’t spread because they are good—they spread because they are good at spreading. One of the most virulent ideas in Internet regulation in recent years has been the idea that if a social problem manifests on the Web, the best thing that you can do to address that problem is to censor the Web.

It’s an attractive idea because if you don’t think too hard, it appears to be a political no-brainer. It allows governments to avoid addressing the underlying social problem—a long and costly process—and instead simply pass the buck to Internet providers, who can quickly make whatever content has raised rankles “go away.” Problem solved! Except, of course, that it isn’t.

Amongst the difficult social problems that Web censorship is often expected to solve are terrorism, child abuse and copyright and trade mark infringement. In recent weeks some further cases of this tactic being vainly employed against such problems have emerged from the United Kingdom, France and Australia.

UK Court Orders ISPs to Block Websites for Trade Mark Infringement

In a victory for luxury brands and a loss for Internet users, the British High Court last month ordered five of the country’s largest ISPs to block websites selling fake counterfeit goods. Whilst alarming enough, this was merely a test case, leading the way for a reported 290,000websites to be potentially targeted in future legal proceedings.

Do we imagine for a moment that, out of a quarter-million websites, none of them are false positives that actually sell non-infringing products? (If websites blocked for copyright infringement or pornography are any example, we know the answer.) Do we consider it a wise investment to tie up the justice system in blocking websites that could very easily be moved under a different domain within minutes?

The reason this ruling concerns us is not that we support counterfeiting of manufactured goods. It concerns us because it further normalizes the band-aid solution of content blocking, and deemphasises more permanent and effective solutions that would target those who actually produce the counterfeit or illegal products being promoted on the Web.

Britain and France Call on ISPs to Censor Extremist Content

Not content with enlisting major British ISPs as copyright and trade mark police, they have also recently been called upon to block extremist content on the Web, and to provide a button that users can use to report supposed extremist material. Usual suspects Google, Facebook and Twitter have also been roped by the government to carry out blocking of their own. Yet to date no details have been released about how these extrajudicial blocking procedures would work, or under what safeguards of transparency and accountability, if any, they would operate.

This fixation on solving terrorism by blocking websites is not limited to the United Kingdom. Across the channel in France, a new “anti-terrorism” law that EFF reported on earlier was finally passed this month. The law allows websites to be blocked if they “condone terrorism.” “Terrorism” is as slippery a concept in France as anywhere else. Indeed France’s broad definition of a terrorist act has drawn criticism from Human Rights Watch for its legal imprecision.

Australian Plans to Block Copyright Infringing Sites

Finally—though, sadly, probably not—reports last week suggest that Australia will be next to follow the example of the UK and Spain in blocking websites that host or link to allegedly copyright material, following on from a July discussion paper that mooted this as a possible measure to combat copyright infringement.

How did this become the new normal? When did politicians around the world lose the will to tackle social problems head-on, and instead decide to sweep them under the rug by blocking evidence of them from the Web? It certainly isn’t due to any evidence that these policies actually work. Anyone who wants to access blocked content can trivially do so, using software like Tor.

Rather, it seems to be that it’s politically better for governments to be seen as doing something to address such problems, no matter how token and ineffectual, than to do nothing—and website blocking is the easiest “something” they can do. But not only is blocking not effective, it is actively harmful—both at its point of application due to the risk of over-blocking, but also for the Internet as a whole, in the legitimization that it offers to repressive regimes to censor and control content online.

Like an overused Internet meme that deserves to fade away, so too it is time that courts and regulators moved on from website blocking as a cure for society’s ills. If we wish to reduce political extremism, cut off the production of counterfeits, or prevent children from being abused, then we should be addressing those problems directly—rather than by merely covering up the evidence and pretending they have gone away.

Relations between Israelis and Palestinians have descended into a dangerous melee of tit-for-tat attacks and killings, with the violence of the past few weeks centred on Jerusalem. The city, claimed by Israel as its “undivided capital”, has been torn apart by clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian residents since the summer, when 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was burnt alive by Jewish extremists.

Subsequent attacks by Palestinians culminated last week in a shooting and stabbing spree by two cousins at a synagogue that killed four Jews and an Israeli policeman. In this atmosphere, both sides have warned that the political conflict is mutating into a religious one.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, cautioned that Israel’s intensified efforts to extend its control over the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, including by imposing severe restrictions on Muslim worship,risked plunging the region into “a detrimental religious war.”

Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service, concurred. He warned last week that Israel was stoking religious discord by encouraging Jews to pray at the site over rabbinical objections.

But despite these warnings, the Israeli government announced today it was drafting a law that would ban Muslim guards on the esplanade, making it yet easier for Jews to visit.

Government ministers, meanwhile, accused Abbas of religious “incitement” and masterminding the violence in Jerusalem.

Ari Shavit, an influential Israeli analyst, also blamed what he termed an emerging “holy war” not on oppressive Israeli policies, but on the spread of an Islamist extremism.

Shavit and other Israelis have preferred to overlook the obvious parallels between last week’s killings and an even graver incident 20 years ago. Then, Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler, entered the Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron in his Israeli army captain’s uniform and opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 29 and wounding 125.

One can only wonder why the timeline for Shavit’s holy war did not extend back to Goldstein’s massacre, or include the waves of attacks, including arson, by settlers on Muslim and Christian places of worship ever since.

Israel’s responses to these two massacres are more helpful in illuminating the fundamental causes of the recent surge in violence.

In Hebron, Palestinians rather than the settlers paid the price for Goldstein’s slaughter. Israel divided the Ibrahimi mosque to create a Jewish prayer space and effectively shut down Hebron’s commercial centre, displacing thousands of Palestinian residents.

Instead of pulling out of the settlers from the occupied territories following the massacre, Israel allowed their numbers to grow at record pace.

Although the anti-Arab Kach group Goldstein belonged to was outlawed, it has continued to operate openly in the settlements, including in Jerusalem. Goldstein’s tomb, next to Hebron, is a site of pilgrimage for thousands of religious Jews.

Palestinians, not Israelis, are again the ones suffering, this time after last week’s synagogue attack.

Israel has begun demolishing the homes of those involved in recent attacks, and is drafting laws to jail stone-throwers for up to 20 years and harshly penalise the parents of those too young to be jailed themselves.

On Sunday the interior minister revoked the Jerusalem residency of a Palestinian convicted of driving a suicide bomber into Tel Aviv 13 years ago – a prelude, according to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to many more such revocations.

Israel is also preparing to relax gun controls to allow thousands more Israeli Jews to carry weapons at a time when Palestinian taxi and bus drivers in Jerusalem say they are being regularly assaulted. Last week a bus driver died in mysterious circumstances, which Palestinians suspect was a lynching.

It should be no surprise that Jerusalem is the eye of the storm. For more than a decade it has served as a laboratory for the Israeli right to experiment with a model of political despair designed to make Palestianians either submit or leave.

House demolitions for Palestinians and settlement building for Jews, brutal policing and the encouragement of crime as a way to recruit collaborators are happening faster and more aggressively in Jerusalem than anywhere else in the occupied territories.

Since the second intifada erupted in 2000, East Jerusalem has been a political orphan. Israel expelled the Palestinian Authority, and jailed or deported Hamas leaders as they tried to fill the vacuum. Since then, Palestinians in Jerusalem have been defenceless against Israel’s intrigues.

Netanyahu and the right have made little secret of their wish to export a similar model to the West Bank, gradually eroding what control the PA still enjoys. But the spiralling violence in Jerusalem has exposed the paradox at the heart of their strategy.

Palestinian anger in the West Bank is every bit as intense as in Jerusalem but Abbas’ security forces still have the will and, just barely, the upper hand to keep a lid on it.

In Jerusalem, on the other hand, protesters face off directly with Israeli police. Because the city lacks organised Palestinian groups, the security services have been unable to penetrate them with collaborators. Instead Israel has been caught off guard by unpredictable attacks as individual Palestinians reach their breaking point.

By refusing to recognise any Palestinian national claims in Jerusalem, Netanyahu has forced the population to recast the conflict in religious terms. Unable to identify politically with either Fatah or Hamas, Jerusalem’s Palestinians have found powerful consolation in a religious struggle to counter the mounting threats to Al-Aqsa.

From this perspective, Netanyahu’s continuing efforts to weaken and undermine Abbas and the PA appear strategically self-destructive. Without them, the West Bank will go the way of Jerusalem – an ever more unmanageable colonial conflict that risks heading towards religious conflagration.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books).  His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

New government figures collated by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), show that the UK approved £7 million worth of military licences to Israel during the six months leading up to the recent bombing of Gaza. The licences, include components for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones), combat aircrafts, targeting equipment and weapon sights.

According to official sources, 2,127 Gazans were killed (including 513 children) and 10,895 were wounded. The UN reported that 70% of the Palestinian casualties were civilians.  On 5 August, OCHA stated that 520,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip been displaced, of whom 485,000 needed emergency food assistance and 273,000 were taking shelter in 90 UN-run schools. 17,200 Gazan homes were totally destroyed or severely damaged, and 37,650 homes suffered damage.

A former British Foreign Office minister has described the stance of the Cameron government during the Israeli land and air assault as “morally indefensible”.

Andrew Smith from CAAT, has said:

“Right up until the eve of the bombing the UK was supporting licences for the same kinds of weapons that Vince Cable’s own review found are likely to have been used against the people of Gaza.”

“Unfortunately it would not have been the first time UK weapons were used by Israel. The public was rightly shocked by this summer’s bombardment.

That is why the UK must announce an embargo on all arms sales to Israel and an end to military collaboration.

“Kryptos” (1990), by James Sanborn, a sculpture containing a message encoded with frequency tables, located at the CIA’s New Headquarters Building. (Photo credit: CIA)

Washington, D.C. – The CIA’s reactions to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy — 51 years ago this week — went from initial shock to suspicions of Soviet or Cuban involvement, to increasingly bureaucratic concerns such as the desire to establish a positive “bond” with incoming President Lyndon Johnson, according to a newly declassified internal CIA article published for the first time today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org).

Fears that Moscow might have masterminded the president’s killing rose sharply when the CIA was unable to locate Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for 24-48 hours afterwards.  Agency officials worried  that he was “either hunkering down for an American reprisal, or possibly preparing to strike the United States.”

This article is one of several from the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence in-house journal that the agency released as a result of litigation by a former CIA official against his former employer.  It appears today as part of an update to a compilation of similar articles the National Security Archive posted in June 2013.

The documents, both those from the original posting as well as the more recent ones, provide insider perspective and accounts of a variety of topics, including:

• The Presidential ban against CIA assassinations of foreign leaders, first enacted in 1976, which reflected both moral and practical reasons but never spelled out the exact scope of the prohibition
• A proposal for a far more draconian version of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act – including secret courts for intelligence officers accused of violating that law and criminalizing any revelation or purported revelation of a covert intelligence officer’s identity. (Document 10)
• A description of how President Kennedy ordered Director of Central Intelligence John McCone to halt his effort to launch a second investigation of the actions of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers — who had been shot down during a May 1, 1960 overflight of the Soviet Union. (Document 14)
• An account of how CIA and Army intelligence analyses in the late 1970s indicated that the U.S. had significantly underestimated North Korean military strength — and derailed President Carter’s plan to withdraw U.S. ground forces from South Korea. (Document 5)
• A description of the evolution of the CIA’s role in counterterrorism — with the Directorate of Operations initially being the primary component dealing with terrorist issues, and the Directorate of Intelligence eventually emerging in a leading role. (Document 23)
• A 2004 interview with current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan. (Document 20)
• An account of the origins of the CIA’s first human intelligence organization — the Office of Special Operations (Document 16).
• The recollections of Michael J. Morell, who would go on to become Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, of September 11, 2001, which he spent with President Bush. (Document 22).
• A description of the origins and applications of U.S. nuclear intelligence by Henry Lowenhaput, whose career in the field lasted for six decades. (Document 18).

The CIA began publishing Studies in Intelligence in 1955 to help build an understanding within the agency of the intelligence profession based on the insights and recollections of practitioners. The items in today’s updated posting fall into a number of categories — legal issues, intelligence analysis, CIA-NSA relations, counterintelligence, interviews, intelligence support and liaison, ‘denied in their entirety,’ the Kennedy assassination, and odds & ends.

New Revelations from Studies in Intelligence Articles

By Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson

Image, right: Sherman Kent, the “father of intelligence analysis,” with the inaugural issue of Studies in Intelligence. (Photo credit: CIA)

In 1955, at the suggestion of Sherman Kent, the head of the Board of National Estimates, the CIA launched a classified journal, titled Studies in Intelligence, “to promote a sense of professional identity, enhance proficiency, and build knowledge of intelligence cumulatively from the shared insights of its practitioners.”¹ The journal soon evolved into a quarterly containing articles whose classification, with rare exceptions, ranged from Unclassified to Secret. While the articles are not official statements of CIA or federal government views or policy, they do represent the thinking and recollections of an assortment of intelligence professionals.

Eventually, the CIA began declassifying some of the articles and releasing them to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In 1992, the agency also published its first unclassified edition of Studies — available to anyone interested. In 2002, the CIA began posting on its website unclassified articles from classified issues of Studies — a practice that continues to this day.

Today, information about and copies of Studies articles can be found on the CIA website – in addition to the 1992 and beyond material. They appear in an index of declassified articles (which apparently only lists articles declassified by the CIA at its initiative); other indices which allow direct access to some of the declassified articles; and the CREST/Electronic Reading Room collection. Apparently not available electronically are articles that have been declassified in response to FOIA/Mandatory Declassification Requests or litigation.

FOIA/MDR and Litigation

Over the last decade, the author filed a series of FOIA requests, starting with a 2002 request for tables of contents of 1997-2002 issues of Studies as well as any unclassified articles that appeared in those issues. (As noted above, the CIA did not post unclassified articles from classified issues until sometime in 2002). Subsequent requests covered tables of contents for 1985-1996, and years subsequent to 2003. Tables of contents for those and other years were also obtained via litigation by the National Security Counselors organization.²

Classified articles of interest whose titles appeared in the declassified tables of contents were then requested under the FOIA. Today’s collection consists of articles obtained from those requests as well as some of the unclassified articles obtained from the 2002 request.

The first posting would have been more extensive had the CIA not denied, over a period of two years, requests (in their entirety) for 17 of 20 articles.³ Four of those articles have since been released as the result of lawsuit on behalf of Jeffrey Scudder a former CIA employee who had filed a FOIA request for hundreds of articles — an act that apparently cost him his job.

The Posted Articles

The 26 posted articles in this briefing book can be grouped into a number of categories — legal issues, intelligence analysis, CIA-NSA relations, counterintelligence, interviews, intelligence support and liaison, ‘denied in their entirety,’ the Kennedy assassination, and odds & ends.

LEGAL

John Brennan, currently CIA director, previously served as director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. (Photo credit: CIA)

Legal issues covered in these Studies articles include prepublication review, the protection of the identities of U.S. intelligence officers, and assassination. The prepublication review process is treated (Document 24) by a former Directorate of Intelligence representative to the Publications Review Board, who offers an anodyne view of the process and an extensive list of “myths and realities.”⁴

The protection of intelligence officer identities is the subject of two articles. One (Document 11) provides a history of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) — from initial proposals, through opposition and revisions, to final passage. Another (Document 10) suggests that the legislation did not go nearly far enough. Thus, the author, who served as a law clerk in the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, asks: “if an intelligence officer may sign away his First Amendment right to free speech, then cannot the same officer also contract away his Sixth Amendment right to a public court?”

With respect to journalists, the author also suggests removing the limitations of the IIPA in prosecuting those who reveal the identity of a covert intelligence officer. While numerous newspapers and books have stated that the IIPA prohibits such disclosure, it actually only prohibits the disclosure by those who have had authorized access to such an identity (e.g. John Kiriakou) or who engage in a “pattern of activities” which seek to undermine/expose the U.S. intelligence effort.⁵The author suggests criminalizing not only any disclosure but any purported disclosure – so that even an erroneous disclosure would be a criminal offense. Further, his suggested wording for amended legislation would seem to leave open the possibility of prosecution for disclosing information that might lead to such identification even if it was not explicit.

A 1996 article (Document 3) is a significant contrast to post-9/11 legal issues concerning targeted killings. Its focus is on the implications of the prohibition on assassination that appeared in President Gerald Ford’s 1976 executive order and subsequent executive orders on intelligence.⁶ The article addresses the implications with regard to support for paramilitary operations, coup preparations (addressing the specific case of Panama and Gen. Manual Noriega), counterproliferation operations, and even deception operations directed at individuals — which might result in their imprisonment, torture, or execution by their own government. This is in sharp contrast to the discussion of legal issues in the Justice Department’s white paper on targeted killings, which focuses on the legal justification for a targeted killing of a U.S. citizen.

INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

Four articles deal with various aspects of intelligence analysis. In one case (Document 12), the article focuses on a subject of concern to many intelligence analysts during the Cold War – the cost of Soviet defense programs and the burden they imposed on the Soviet economy. Another (Document 17) examines intelligence analysis related to the Strategic Defense Initiative and successor missile defense programs.

A third article (Document 5), is the result of a CIA-funded study at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard — and illustrates the decades-long difficulty of producing reliable studies and estimates concerning North Korea. It examines the intelligence estimates produced by the CIA and Army concerning North Korean military strength — which significantly altered previous conclusions – and how they ultimately derailed President Carter’s plan to withdraw U.S. ground forces from South Korea.

Also, of contemporary relevance is the article (Document 23) on the inception and evolution of terrorism analysis in the CIA. The author notes that there was little pressure on the agency to produce terrorism analysis during its first quarter-century, and products such as the 1968 special national intelligence estimate, Terrorism and Internal Security in Israel and Jordan “were relative rarities.” The article goes on to describe increasing policy maker interest subsequent to the 1972 murder of Israeli Olympic athletes, and resulting Intelligence Community focus on the issue. He also describes how initially the Directorate of Operations’ clandestine collection activities were the principal element of the CIA’s counterterrorism activities — before the emergence of the Directorate of Intelligence as a key player in that effort.

CIA & NSA

Image, right: James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence and “CIA’s answer to the Delphic Oracle” from 1954-1974. (Photo credit: CIA)

Various works on intelligence have noted both the past competition and present cooperation between the CIA and National Security Agency.⁷ In “A Brave, New World” (Document 19), the author states that the CIA and NSA “are moving their strategic partnership beyond the optional cooperation of the past into a new era of collaboration,” and notes that the Director of Central Intelligence – George J. Tenet at the time – had viewed much of the success against al-Qaeda and its allies as the “direct result of CIA and NSA working together.”

He goes on to examine the origins of CIA-NSA discomfort in World War II and beyond, barriers to partnership, hints of change, the impact of the September 11, 2001 attacks, tangible results, asks if the partnership would last, and addresses the challenges ahead. Among the challenges identified are the development of joint strategic planning forums, increasing the pace and scope of efforts to find joint solutions to technical problems, and the incorporation of the concerns of line officers.

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE

Two articles address counterintelligence issues during very different portions of the CIA’s history. One (Document 23) addresses the roles of CIA counterintelligence chief (1954-1974) James J. Angleton and KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn in promulgating the thesis of widespread and successful Soviet deception against the West (the “Monster Plot”) and their impact on CIA operations and personnel. Among those whose lives or careers suffered were former KGB officer Alexandr Cherepanov (who was executed after the U.S. embassy returned materials he had provided), Yuri Nosenko (who was incarcerated by the CIA), and CIA officers Richard Kovich and David Murphy, who would each come under suspicion of being a Soviet mole. ⁸

Another treatment of counterintelligence (Document 21), by former chief of the National Clandestine Service Michael J. Sulick, focuses on counterintelligence in the counterterrorist effort. He argues that, because of how history played out, while counterintelligence failures during the Cold War were never exploited by the Soviet Union to launch attacks, similar failures against terrorist groups could result in “catastrophic” damage. Sulick goes on to discuss several topics: how terrorist groups operate like intelligence services; terrorist attempts to infiltrate their targets; the fact that there are now “more employees to worry about” because “personnel and facilities must also be defended from individuals with minimal or no clearance;” terrorist denial and deception; intelligence sharing; and further steps to be taken.

INTERVIEWS

Image of Document 8 (“Passing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act,” 1982)

Numerous issues of Studies have contained interviews with former or current senior intelligence personnel. In 1999, Studies published an extensive interview with John M. McMahon (Document 14), who joined the CIA in 1951, and eventually became Deputy Director for Operations, Deputy Director for Intelligence, and finally Deputy Director of Central Intelligence before retiring in 1986.

The interview covers his first years with the CIA in Germany, the U-2 program, the battle during the 1960s with the National Reconnaissance Office over satellite reconnaissance systems, a number of his senior positions (including DDO, DDI, and DDCI), relations with Congress, and covert action with regard to Iran and Afghanistan. With regard to U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (who was shot down in May 1960 over the Soviet Union, captured, and subsequently exchanged), he “did exactly what he was told,” McMahon noted. He went on to state that DCI John McCone was not convinced and planned to have Powers investigated for a second time – by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations – until President John F. Kennedy called McCone and ordered him not to pursue the matter.

The following year, Studies published an interview with then NSA director Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Document 15). Hayden spoke, inter alia, about his attempts to bring significant change to NSA, the impact of telecommunications change on NSA ( “our technological adversary is not a nation state but the global telecommunications industry”), the relationship between NSA and CIA, signals intelligence requirements, and limitations on NSA support to military commanders.

In 2004, current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then-director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (the predecessor of the National Counterterrorism Center) John Brennan was interviewed by Studies (Document 20) — an interview which focused on terrorism analysis. Brennan noted the TTIC had access to 26 unclassified and classified networks, and discussed whether “counterterrorism analysis” would represent a distinct career track; TTIC organization and practices as a model for the Intelligence Community; the need to break down the distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence; the distribution of terrorism analysis in the Intelligence Community; and information sharing.

Two additional interviews were conducted with former NSA Director and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence William O. Studeman (Document 2) and former NSA Deputy Director William Crowell (Document 1). The interviews focus on both internal Intelligence Community issues as well as public and Congressional attitudes concerning the Intelligence Community.

INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT & LIAISON

Three articles deal with three aspects of intelligence support and liaison. One focuses on intelligence support to Congress, another on support to policymakers, and the third on support to military commanders. In “CIA’s Intelligence Sharing with Congress” (Document 6), the author describes “the phenomenon of the President’s own finished intelligence being used by Congress to question and attack the President’s foreign policy initiatives.” Specific examples include Indochina (during the Nixon administration), the Persian Gulf, and Haiti.

CIA support to executive branch policymakers is the subject of a 1998 article (Document 9), written by a CIA official who spent two years as the agency’s liaison to the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for the New Independent States — a position established “to improve the CIA’s ability to understand the policy priorities and concerns of the bureau.” Half of the four-page article is devoted to the author’s specification of six ways in which CIA support for senior policymakers could be improved — which include “living with the customer” and “early bird service.”

Intelligence support to military forces, in the form of National Intelligence Support Teams (NISTs) is the subject of an article (Document 8) in a 1998 issue of Studies. The author reviews the background and operation of NISTs, which combined personnel and provided support from key national and defense intelligence agencies (including CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency) and provide support to commanders of joint task forces such as those involved with Operations UPHOLD DEMOCRACY (Haiti) and JOINT ENDEAVOR (Bosnia). In addition, the author makes a number of suggestions for improvements.

THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION AND THE DCI

The posted article (Document 26) was drawn from a classified history of John McCone’s tenure as Director of Central Intelligence (1961-1965). One part focuses on the initial investigation of a possible conspiracy — domestic or foreign — and McCone’s role. It notes that the CIA’s “inability to locate Nikita Khrushchev right after the assassination especially alarmed McCone and his deputies. The Soviet premier’s apparent absence from Moscow could have meant that he was in a secret command center, either hunkering down for an American reprisal, or possibly preparing to strike the United States.”

‘DENIED IN THEIR ENTIRETY’

What is particularly notable about four of the articles is that they were denied in their entirety by the CIA between 2010 and 2012 in response to FOIA requests — with the agency claiming that there were no releaseable portions either because information was classified or revealed sources and methods. The denied articles concerned a diverse set of topics — intelligence support to the U.S. Transportation Command (Document 4), the founding of the CIA’s human intelligence unit (Document 16), the origins and applications of nuclear intelligence (Document 18), and the recollections of a CIA officer (Document 22) of spending September 11, 2001 with President George W. Bush. An appeal of the denial ofDocument 4 was also denied.

The articles are notable in two ways. One is that they illustrate serious problems with the way the CIA responds to FOIA requests — often denying requests in their entirety based on no objective standard, and often seemingly on factors (such as convenience) other than legitimate FOIA exemptions. An examination of these articles released due to the Scudder lawsuit reveal a multitude of paragraphs that clearly should have been released, many clearly marked as unclassified.
The four articles also provide yet another illustration of the differences between Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation. The prospect of  the CIA having to justify its refusal to release documents, in whole or in part, before a judge often produces a more reasonable response with regard to the release of information.

ODDS & ENDS

Ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, May 1, 2003. (Photo credit: FBI)

Two additional articles concern events separated by over two hundred years. One (Document 7), focuses on Britain’s penetration of the United States diplomatic mission to France during the Revolutionary War. Penetration involved British recruiting of agents with access to mission members, theft of a mission member’s journal and Britain’s control of agents ostensibly operating on behalf of the United States.

In November 1990, at its Langley headquarters, the CIA dedicated an encrypted sculpture named ‘Kryptos’ – a structure with several messages carved into its surface, but messages whose content was concealed through encryption. [Since that time three of the four messages contained in the sculpture have been solved.⁹ One of the individuals, from the Directorate of Intelligence, in a 1999 article (Document 13) a member of the Directorate of Intelligence describes his work in decrypting the message.

For more information contact:
Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or [email protected]

Updated – November 20, 2014 (Originally Posted – June 4, 2013)

THE DOCUMENTS

Document 1: William Nolte, “An Interview with William P. Crowell, Deputy Director, NSA, Studies in Intelligence 39, 3 (1996). Secret.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

This interview with the Deputy Director of NSA, discusses, inter alia, key issues facing the Intelligence Community (which Crowell identifies as including information systems and the volume of NSA collection), the interaction between different intelligence collection techniques, and the declassification of VENONA material (concerning the decryption of Soviet diplomatic communications from the 1940s that identified a large number of U.S. citizens spying for the Soviet Union).

Document 2: William Nolte, “An Interview with Adm. William O. Studeman, Studies in Intelligence, 40, 1 (1996). Secret.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

This interview with Studeman, who served as Director of the National Security Agency (1988-1992) and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (1992-1995), covers his early career  and a number of issues — including the problems of interaction with other intelligence agencies, the problem of the Intelligence Community’s transition to the post-Soviet world, public and Congressional attitudes toward NSA, and Congressional oversight.

Document 3: [Deleted], “Covert Action, Loss of Life and the Prohibition on Assassination, 1976-1996,” Studies in Intelligence, 40, 2 (1996). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

In this article, the author examines the effect of the decision no longer to employ assassination as an instrument of U.S. policy, and the issues the prohibition raised with respect to other CIA activities that might result in the loss of life. These include lethal operations that directly risk the loss of life, lethal operations indirectly risking loss of life (e.g. demolition of a facility when it is believed to be unoccupied), and nonlethal operations (e.g. deception) directed at identifiable persons.

Document 4: [Author Name Deleted], “National Intelligence Support to the US Transportation Command,” Studies in Intelligence 40, 2 (1996). Secret.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

The U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) was established in 1987 to centralize the Defense Department’s strategic airlift resources. The article explores operations in Somalia, the command’s information requirements, the command’s evolution, Intelligence Community support, connectivity between the Intelligence Community and TRANSCOM’s intelligence component.

Document 5: Joe Wood, “Persuading a President: Jimmy Carter and American Troops in Korea,” Studies in Intelligence, 40, 4 (1996). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

During his 1976 presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter promised to withdraw U.S. ground forces from South Korea. This article is the result of a case study prepared at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and funded by the CIA. It reports on the intelligence estimates and studies on North Korean military strength produced early in Carter’s administration, and how those estimates resulted in U.S. forces remaining in South Korea.

Document 6: [Deleted], “CIA’s Intelligence Sharing With Congress,” Studies in Intelligence, 41, 3 (1997). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This short article focuses on “the phenomenon of the President’s own intelligence being used to question and attack the President’s foreign policy initiatives.” Specific cases discussed concern Indochina, the Persian Gulf, and Haiti.

Document 7: [Deleted], “British Penetration of America’s First Diplomatic Mission,” Studies in Intelligence, 41, 4 (1997). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

The focus of this article is Britain’s penetration of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Paris during the Revolutionary War. Successes included recruiting several access agents to provide intelligence on mission activities as well as the theft of the journal of mission member Arthur Lee, and the mission’s “recruiting” agents who were actually under British control.

Document 8: Capt. James M. Lose, “The National Intelligence Support Team,” Studies in Intelligence, 42, 1 (1998) . Unclassified.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

The author reviews the background and operation of National Intelligence Support Teams (NISTs) — combining personnel from key national and defense intelligence agencies (including CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency) — which provided support to commanders of joint task forces such as those involved with Operations UPHOLD DEMOCRACY (Haiti) and JOINT ENDEAVOR (Bosnia). In addition, the author makes a number of suggestions for improvements.

Document 9: [Deleted], “Increasing CIA’s Value Added to the Senior Policymaker,” Studies in Intelligence, 42, 2 (1998). Unclassified

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article is based on the author’s two years serving as the CIA’s liaison to a State Department component and focuses on his suggestions for increasing the CIA’s value to policymakers — including “living with the customer,” better service for “second tier” officials, one-stop shopping for “the facts,” stronger community partnerships, and “early bird” service.

Document 10: [Deleted], “Legislative and Judicial Safeguards for US Intelligence Personnel,” Studies in Intelligence, 42, 2 (1998). Unclassified.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

The author, who served as a law clerk with the CIA’s Office of the General Counsel, examines the history and enforcement of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), as well as exploring a number of options to enhance the protection of US intelligence personnel — including secret trials, and amending the IIPA to allow criminal penalties for any individual who reveals or purports to reveal the identity of covert intelligence personnel.

Document 11: [Deleted], “Passing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982,” Studies in Intelligence, 42, 3 (1998). Unclassified

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article provides a short history of the background behind the IIPA, the initial proposals for a law criminalizing the revelation of the identify of covert intelligence personnel, the various attempts to pass such legislation, opposition to some proposed provisions, and the ultimate passage of the IIPA.

Document 12: [Deleted], “Analyzing Soviet Defense Program, 1951-1990,” Studies in Intelligence, 42, 3 (1998). Unclassified

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article focuses on what was a major concern of some intelligence analysts during the Cold War — determining the actual cost of Soviet defense programs and the burden they placed on the Soviet economy. Among the author’s assertions was that “in every case, the [Intelligence Community] concluded that Soviet economic difficulties would impinge only marginally, if at all, on Soviet defense plans” and that “Only when Gorbachev’s perestroika was foundering was the idea of economic constraints on the defense budget gain a foothold in the national estimates arena, and even then the majority opinion rejected the notion that the USSR would unilaterally reduce its defense spending as it did in 1989.”

Document 13: [Deleted], “Cracking the Courtyard Crypto,” Studies in Intelligence, 43, 1 (1999). Unclassified.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

In 1990, the CIA unveiled a sculpture name “Kryptos” in the agency’s courtyard — a sculpture whose surface was covered with an encrypted message. This article, by a member of the Directorate of Intelligence, describes the process by which he deciphered most of the message.

Document 14: [Deleted], “An Interview with Former DDCI John N. McMahon,” Studies in Intelligence, 43, 1 (1999). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This interview, with John N. McMahon, who joined the CIA in 1951 and served in a variety of positions before he retired in 1986, covers his early days in the agency, the U-2 program, battles over satellite reconnaissance systems, as well as his tours as head of the clandestine service, the intelligence directorate, and as Deputy Director for Central Intelligence. In addition, he discusses the CIA-Congressional relationship as well as covert action with regard to Iran and Afghanistan.

Document 15: [Deleted], “An Interview with NSA Director Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden,” Studies in Intelligence , 44, 1 (2000). Secret/[Deleted]

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

In this interview, Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, discusses his attempt to bring significant change to NSA, his belief that “our technological adversary is not a nation state but the global telecommunications industry,” the relationship between NSA and the CIA (also discussed in Document 19), and other topics.

Document 16: Michael Warner and Kevin Ruffner, “The Founding of the Office of Special Operations,” Studies in Intelligence 44, 2 (2000). Secret/Noforn.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

This article, written by two CIA historians, focuses on the CIA’s first human intelligence organization — which would be merged in 1952 with the Office of Policy Coordination to form the Directorate of Plans (subsequently the Directorate of Operations and today the National Clandestine Service). It discussed  the early post-World War II development of U.S.  espionage activities, foreign liaison dilemmas, observations by foreign services, and moving from theory to practice. Despite the decades that have passed since the events described, the article has been heavily redacated before release.

Document 17: [Deleted], “Intelligence and US Missile Defense Planning,” Studies in Intelligence, 45, 2 (2001). Classification Not Available.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

After providing a brief introduction to the early origins of missile defense, this article addresses the establishment of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the post-Cold War shift in U.S. missile defense emphasis and the challenges of providing intelligence on threats, technical issues, and foreign reactions.

Document 18: Henry S. Lowenhaupt, “Origins and Applications of Nuclear Intelligence,” 47, 3 (2003). Secret.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

This article, written by one of the CIA’s long-time experts on nuclear intelligence, particularly the intelligence on the Soviet nuclear program, explores the early years on the U.S. nuclear intelligence effort. Lowenhaupt discusses nuclear intelligence collection in World War II, the detection of nuclear detonations, tracking airborne radioactivity, seismic technology, acoustic and EMP measurement, measuring plutonium production, environmental collection, as well as the contribution of U-2 and infrared imagery. A number of the sections are heavily redacted and the section on nuclear detection satellites is deleted in its entirety (despite the substantial amount of declassified information on the subject).

Document 19: [Deleted], “A Brave, New World,” Studies in Intelligence, 48, 2 (2004). Classification Not Available .

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article addresses the relationship between the CIA and National Security Agency in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It notes the origins of CIA-NSA enmity going back to World War II, barriers that have existed to a partnership between the two agencies, hints of change in the late 1990s, and the impact of 9/11. Its final sections focus on tangible results, the likelihood that the partnership will last, and the challenges ahead.

Document 20: [Deleted], “An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan,” Studies in Intelligence, 48. 4 (2004). Secret.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This interview with John Brennan, currently the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was conducted in 2003 — when he was the director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (which was subsequently absorbed by the National Counterterrorism Center). Questions include those about the center’s access to intelligence data, counterterrorism analysis as a specialty, the different components of the Intelligence Community involved in counterterrorism analysis, and the division of responsibilities for different aspects of counterterrorism analysis.

Document 21: Michael J. Sulick, “Counterintelligence in the War Against Terrorism,” Studies in Intelligence, 48, 4 (2004). Secret/[Deleted].

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

The author, who served as CIA Associate Deputy Director for Operations and became chief of the National Clandestine Service in 2007, notes that whereas U.S. counterintelligence defeats during the Cold War were never exploited by the Soviet Union in an actual war, terrorists “can immediately exploit information gained through espionage to launch attacks.” He goes on to explore the subjects of “terrorists as intelligence operatives;” “exposing terrorist spies;” “more employees to worry about;” terrorist denial and deception; intelligence sharing; and further actions.

Document 22: Michael J. Morell, “11 September 2001: With President,” Studies in Intelligence, 50, 3 (2006) Secret/Noforn.

Source: Scudder Litigation Release.

This article recounts the author’s experience with President Bush on the day of the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Morell, who subsequently served as Deputy Director of the CIA (2010-2013) begins in the hours before the attack and continues until Morell arrived back in Washington. It focuses less on intelligence and more on the movements and reactions of Bush and others.

Document 23: [Deleted], “Terrorism Analysis in the CIA: The Gradual Awakening (1972-80),” Studies in Intelligence, 51, 1 (2007). Secret.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article, after discussing the emergence of terrorism as an international issue, traces the development of terrorism analysis in the CIA from the Truman to Nixon administrations. It covers increased policymaker interest in the subject (particularly following the murder of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian terrorists in 1972), and the resulting increased Intelligence Community interest; the initially ascendant role of the Directorate of Operations; the Directorate of Intelligence’s subsequent larger role in terrorism analysis; and early analytical challenges.

Document 24: [Deleted], “CIA Prepublication Review in the Information Age,” Studies in Intelligence, 55, 3 (September 2011).Confidential.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

The author, who served as the first senior representative of the Directorate of Intelligence on the CIA Publication Review Board (PRB) offers an anodyne view of the publication review process. Topics covered include the origins and evolution of the PRB and review process, the impact of a vast increase in the number of submitted manuscripts, the meaning of the ‘appropriateness’ requirement, and “myths and realities of the process.” Asserted myths included that “the prepublication review process is unfair, arbitrary, capricious” and that “the PRB often doesn’t know what has already been released.”

Document 25: [Deleted], “James J. Angleton, Anatoliy Golitsyn, and the ‘Monster Plot’: Their Impact on CIA Personnel and Operations,” Studies in Intelligence, 55, 4 (December 2011). Secret.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

This article examines the roles of CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton and KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn in the formulation of the “Monster Plot” — which asserted that the Soviet Union had conducted decades-long, massive and successful deception operations against the West, including the use of false defectors and volunteers. It then examines the impact of Angleton and Golitsyn’s thinking on a number of cases and individuals — including Yuriy Nosenko, Lee Harvey Oswald, and several CIA officers who were alleged to be possible Soviet moles.

Document 26: David Robarge, “DCI John McCone and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” Studies in Intelligence 57, 3 (September 2013). Secret.

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act Release.

Director of Central Intelligence John McCone’s actions in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy is the subject of this article, drawn from a classified book on the Mc Cone’s tenure as DCI. It notes that McCone’s first action after hearing that the president had been shot was to visit Robert Kennedy at his home. The remainder of the article discusses  McCone’s oversight of the investigation of a possible conspiracy, his interaction with the Warren Commission, the impact of detection of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko, and his participation in what the author describes as a ‘benign conspiracy.’

NOTES

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon ordered an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to Ferguson Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,200, as part of a crackdown on protests in the St. Louis suburb over the exoneration of the police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown last August.

Nixon’s decision to triple the number of soldiers followed a day of denunciations of “lawlessness” and “destruction” by the media and government officials, including President Obama, to justify the military occupation of the largely working class city.

Popular anger over the failure of Missouri authorities to indict officer Darren Wilson fueled protests across the United States on Tuesday. Demonstrations, marches and vigils took place in almost every state and in scores of cities, involving many thousands of workers and university and high school students. Large protests took place in New York City; Washington, DC; Baltimore, Maryland; Atlanta, Georgia; St. Louis; Los Angeles; and other cities. In Oakland, Democratic Mayor Jean Quan presided over a police attack on 2,000 protesters Monday night that resulted in the arrest of 40 people.

Throughout the day, CNN, MSNBC and other television networks decried the supposed lack of military preparedness in Ferguson on Monday night and demanded more state repression. This was despite the fact that the town of 21,000 people was already under a police-military lockdown, with some 700 National Guard troops backing up 600 local police and state highway patrolmen and an unknown number of FBI and other federal agents.

Last week, Governor Nixon, a Democrat, in advance of the decision of the grand jury hearing evidence on the killing of the unarmed African American youth and prior to any mass protests or disturbances, preemptively declared a state of emergency and announced plans to deploy the National Guard to Ferguson.

This provocative and flagrantly anti-democratic action was followed Monday night by the arrogant and rambling remarks of State Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch attempting to justify, in the name of “fairness,” the decision of his rigged grand jury not to indict the killer cop, even on lesser charges of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

By all accounts, police and military forces essentially stood down following McCulloch’s press conference while a number of stores were burnt or looted—giving the national news networks the footage needed to malign the protests. Shortly afterwards, the military operation began, with a phalanx of security forces in riot gear moving in behind armored vehicles, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators and arresting at least 82 people.

For the most part, the media praised the supposed “restraint” of the police and pumped out grotesquely biased reports implying that the murder of an unarmed youth by an officer who fired 12 rounds into his victim was a legal and justified act of self-defense. ABC News broadcast an interview with Wilson in which the cop described Brown as a “demon.”

CNN reporter Don Lemon declared that “any discussion of police brutality, racial profiling and militarization had been overshadowed by rioting and violence.” The media vilified supposedly “criminal elements” for inciting violence, extending this slander to members of Michael Brown’s grieving family. Throughout the day, CNN replayed a New York Times video of the angry reaction of the murdered youth’s stepfather immediately after the decision to exonerate the cop was announced.

In statement posted on his Facebook page Tuesday morning, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said, “What happened in Ferguson last night was not a ‘peaceful protest.’ It was criminal, and was nothing that our community can—or will—tolerate.”

At his press conference, Nixon utilized the rhetoric of the “war on terror” to slander protesters and justify the dispatch of another 1,500 National Guard troops. “Last night,” he said, “criminals intent on lawlessness and destruction terrorized this community, burning buildings, firing gunshots, vandalizing storefronts and looting family businesses.” He vowed to make sure there would be “no repeat of lawlessness.”

Nixon referred to the need for “force amplification,” “rapid response teams,” “trained and ready soldiers,” and “force protection” for the police. Other officials referred to the “rules of engagement” for dealing with protesters, employing the same language as US occupying forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During an appearance in Chicago, President Obama, whose Justice Department has worked closely with state and local officials in Missouri to organize mass repression, placed the onus for violence on the protesters and then suggested that those opposed to police brutality could address their grievances through the courts and state and federal authorities.

The previous night Obama had spoken from the White House to defend the grand jury decision while attempting to pose as sympathetic to those outraged by the murder of Brown and the green light for more police killings given by the authorities in Missouri.

In words that deserve only contempt, the author of drone assassinations and defender of mass spying declared, “Burning buildings, torching cars, destroying property, putting people at risk—that’s destructive, and there’s no excuse for it. Those are criminal acts, and people should be prosecuted if they engage in criminal acts.”

The murder of Michael Brown is but one instance of deadly police violence that is rampant across the US, affecting white workers and youth as well as African Americans. This fact of American life is rooted in immense and ever growing social inequality and the militarization of society. In the face of popular opposition to the destruction of jobs, living standards and social programs, and hostility to war, the government is increasingly resorting to the methods of a police state.

Media focus on racial division diverting anger away from tyrannical government

Chaos has engulfed Ferguson, Missouri as the mainstream media is directing national attention to divisive racial issues at a time of rising tyranny in America.

Sensational revelations about government corruption are becoming a regular occurrence under the Obama administration. Ordinary Americans are being targeted while known terrorists are escorted through security. Kidnappers, rapists, and murderers are being released from prison; an action sanctioned by the President of the United States. The BATF allows guns to find their way to Mexican drug lords, while the federal government is fighting to disarm American citizens. Mega-banks launder billions of dollars worth of drug money.

Amidst this flurry of rampant corruption, Obamacare architect Johnathan Gruber admitted on video that “lack of transparency” was crucial in passing Obamacare and fool “stupid American voters” into accepting it.

Nearly every agency of government has acquired some form of armaments in the past several years. Police departments across the country are getting mine resistant vehicles. Homeland Security is acquiring billions of rounds of ammunition. The Department of Agriculture recently requested body armor as well as sub machine guns. Many other instruments of war have been stored and deployed.

A divided country

While the wealth of America is being systematically destroyed, divisive issues of race are being inflamed. Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly called Obama’s recent executive order on Amnesty for illegal aliens a “Fort Sumter” event, referring to the defining event at the beginning of America’s first civil war. Obama’s announcement came on November 20th, the same day that Mexico’s Revolution day was celebrated.

At the same time, riots in Ferguson Missouri have attracted the attention of national media, threatening to spark riots in cities across the country. The announcement of the grand jury’s decision to absolve officer Darren Wilson was seemingly timed perfectly to incite riots after 8pm.

National Guard stood down in Ferguson on orders of the White House?

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder told Fox News that, “Is the reason that the National Guard was not in there because the Obama Administration and the Holder Justice Department leaned on you to keep them out? I cannot imagine any other reason why the governor who mobilized the National Guard would not have them in there to stop this.”

The establishment is well aware that the country is growing increasingly skeptical of the federal government. Confidence in all branches of governmentare reaching record lows. According to Gallup, Congress has about a 7% approval rating; The presidency around 29% and the Supreme Court at 30%.

The establishment is attempting to direct the spirit of the nation into a destructive revolution of bloody conflagration and hate that will only result in more power for the elite.

If the nation is allowed to unify over issues of sound economic policy, purging government corruption, and re-affirming our moral code as a nation and as individuals, the corrupt elite will be brought to justice. As long as the country is divided this cannot happen. If the nation falls into chaos, these central unifying issues need to guide a real revolution of positive change that will rise from the ashes.

This generation, just as America’s founders did, will provide the heroes and legends for the next. Your actions and choices during this time will alter the outcome of this historical time period and set the cultural agenda for the next cycle. Its up to you.

Was it a conspiracy or was it incompetence?  Those appear to be the only two alternatives that we are left with after the horrific violence that we witnessed in Ferguson on Monday night.  The first round of Ferguson rioting back in August took everyone by surprise, but this time authorities had more than three months to prepare.  They had the ability to control precisely when the grand jury decision would be announced and how many cops and National Guard troops would be deployed on the streets.  But despite all this, the violence in Ferguson on Monday night was even worse than we witnessed back in August.  Either this was a case of almost unbelievable incompetence, or there was someone out there that actually wanted this to happen.  If someone out there is actually trying to provoke more violence in Ferguson, then the rioters are being played like a fiddle.  Most of them have no idea that they could potentially just be pawns in a game that is far larger than they ever imagined.  The only other alternative to explain what we just saw is incompetence on a level that is absolutely laughable.  Something definitely does not smell right about all of this, and let us hope that at some point the American people get the truth.  The following are 10 “coincidences” from Monday night in Ferguson that are too glaring to ignore…

#1 Federal, state and local law enforcement authorities had more than three months to prepare for the violence that would follow the announcement of the grand jury decision.  The mainstream media endlessly hyped this controversy and everyone knew that trouble would be brewing.  But despite an enormous amount of time to prepare, very little was actually done to prevent any violence from happening.

#2 Someone made the decision to make the public announcement about the grand jury decision in the evening.  Anyone involved in law enforcement knows that crowd control is far more difficult after dark.  This also ensured that instead of being tied up with work or school, a maximum number of protesters would be able to be involved in the violence.

#3 Fortunately for the mainstream media, the announcement of the grand jury decision was perfectly timed to provide the largest possible number of prime time viewers for the big news networks.

#4 Just like back in August, no law enforcement authorities of any kind responded while dozens of businesses were vandalized, looted and set of fire.

#5 According to Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, National Guard troops were purposely held back from intervening in the rioting that was unleashed when the grand jury decision was made known to the public…

In a press conference, he called the delay “deeply concerning” and said the Guard troops were availablebut were not deployed when city officials asked.

The troops had been readied last week by Gov. Jay Nixon as the grand jury announcement neared. But as gunshots rang out in the night and looters torched buildings, they were nowhere to be seen.

#6 It is being reported that the heavily armed National Guard troops were limited to “keeping the peace at a courthouse, patrolling the outskirts of town and preventing disturbances in other suburbs” as horrific violence raged in the heart of Ferguson on Monday night.

#7 Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder has accused Missouri Governor Jay Nixon of holding back the National Guard troops because of pressure from the Obama administration.  On Monday night, he angrily made the following statement to Fox News…

“Is the reason that the National Guard was not in there because the Obama Administration and the Holder Justice Department leaned on you to keep them out? I cannot imagine any other reason why the governor who mobilized the National Guard would not have them in there to stop this.”

#8 The Washington Post has documented that Attorney General Eric Holder had been in direct contact with Governor Nixon and had expressed “frustration” with the fact that the National Guard had been activated…

A top aide to Holder called the governor’s office earlier this week to express Holder’s displeasure and “frustration,” according to a Justice Department official.

“Instead of de-escalating the situation, the governor escalated it,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject. “He sent the wrong message. The tone of the press conference was counterproductive.”

#9 Firefighters in Ferguson did not immediately respond to calls to put out the multiple fires that were set by protesters.  As a result, many businesses essentially burned to the ground.  But this did make for some amazing television footage.

#10 In the worst of the “war zones”, journalists with cameras and microphones were crawling all over the place while there were hardly any police to be seen at all.  How is it possible that law enforcement could have failed so badly?  Could it be possible that this was orchestrated on purpose?

Sadly, as I have written about previously, the civil unrest that we are witnessing in Ferguson is just a small preview of what is coming to America.

The anger and frustration that are seething under the surface in this country have reached a boiling point.  Instead of coming together, we are seemingly more divided than ever.  Americans have been trained to hate one another, fear one another and blame one another.  I fear that we are not too far away from actually becoming ungovernable.

And when the next major wave of the economic crisis strikes and we start experiencing real suffering in this nation, the temper tantrums that we are going to witness in our major cities are going to make what is happening in Ferguson right now look like a Sunday picnic.

So buckle up and hold on, because it is going to be a really bumpy ride from here on out.

Ferguson is not the end – it is just the beginning of a horrible new chapter in American history.

Tahlequah Daily Press, Aug 7, 2014: USS Ronald Reagan… passed through radiation plumes and clouds… the ship and most of those onboard, tested positive for radiation exposure… Serio, now a broadcast journalism major at [CSUN], has recently written a column… on breitbart.com. “I feel as if people are not realizing how serious the issue is, and I would like to shed as much light on it as possible,” said Serio.

California State University, Northridge, Nov 12, 2014: Little did [U.S. Navy veteran Kelli Serio, 25] know her service would change the way she viewed the system she vowed her loyalty to… Serio may have been affected by radiation during what she calls her “final and most personally sacrificing deployment” in Japan… at 18, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy [and] was deployed off Japan’s coast… to assist with the cleanup of the Fukushima nuclear plant. While there, her carrier acted as a floating fuel station… Serio said she’ll never forget the day her captain said their water filtration system had been compromised… “I feel like we were done so wrong,” Serio said. “We were drinking the water.” Serio said she and the other 70,000 first responders have been dismissed by the government as if nothing happened out there. She wants justice… Serio’s team-like mentality has also led to her modeling with organizations like Pin-Ups for Vets… to help bring up the morale of veterans and current soldiers [and] bring awareness to the men and women who’ve served their country through speaking engagements and visiting patients at veteran hospitals… [E]arlier this year… she met her friend and mentor, Fox News reporter Hollie McKay [who recommended] Serio for a reporter position at [breitbart.com]… Her first piece for the website was a first-hand account of and a look back at Operation Tomodachi.

Breitbart, by Kelli Serio, Jul 23, 2014: I was onboard the USS Ronald Reagan [and went] directly through a radiation cloud. The commanding officer warned us that our water and ventilation systems had been contaminated, posing a critical health risk to all of us onboard. We were advised to refrain from showering or drinking water… Sailors worked tirelessly… while being left vulnerable to dangerous levels of radiation… most of us onboard the ship were tested for radiation exposure and many came back positive, resulting in full-body scrubdowns… [W]e were issued gas masks… myself and other junior sailors were asked to don protective garments in an effort to decontaminate the ship… Proper medical care for the victims of radiation exposure [is needed, it’s a] dire situation for many… Many of us are enduring the unfortunate consequences [and] hoping for care from the VA that appears to never arrive… we are reassured of our good health, despite the presence of mysterious and unexplained symptoms… A lack of coverage by the mainstream media has left victims without a voice… We do not want to be forgotten.

CBS San Francisco, Nov 21, 2014: Rare cancers, blindness, birth defects and now, two deaths. Hundreds of U.S. sailors… say they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation… [Steve] Simmons… began feeling weak and sick with uncontrolled fevers… Soon he was in a wheelchair, unable to walk. He says military doctors would never tell him what was wrong. “Every one of them wanted to discredit radiation as a possible cause,” Simmons said… “[There’s] evidence that the doses that were assumed to be on board the USS Reagan may have been under-reported,” said Dr. Robert Gould, a former Kaiser pathologist… “Given that there is more information that has come out, I think you would have to re-look at the entire situation,” said Dr. Gould. >> Watch the CBS broadcast here

«È il futuro», ha annunciato orgogliosamente il premier Renzi, inaugurando insieme alla ministra della difesa Pinotti il nuovo sta­bi­li­mento della Piag­gio Aero­space a Vil­la­nova d’Albenga (Savona), definito dai dirigenti dell’azienda un centro di eccellenza che permette di «mantenere il ruolo di global brand nell’aviazione d’affari acquisendo in parallelo quello di player mondiale nel settore difesa». In altre parole, alla produzione di aerei di lusso per superricchi ed executive di multinazionali, la Piaggio Aerospace (nuova denominazione di Piaggio Aero) unisce quella di velivoli militari, come il pattugliatore multiruolo Multirole Patrole Aircraft e il velivolo a pilotaggio remoto P.1HH HammerHead. Su quest’ultimo punta l’azienda per affermarsi nel settore militare. È un drone (velivolo senza pilota) di nuova generazione, progettato per una vasta gamma di missioni. Con una lunghezza e una apertura alare di circa 15 metri, e un peso massimo al decollo di oltre 6 tonnellate, il velivolo può volare per oltre 15 ore con un raggio d’azione di 8000 km, manovrando sia in modalità automatica che pilotato da una stazione terrestre. Con i suoi sofisticati sensori può individuare l’obiettivo, anche in movimento, fornendo le coordinate per l’attacco aereo o terrestre, o colpendolo direttamente con missili e bombe a guida di precisione. È quindi un sistema d’arma ideato per le guerre di aggressione in distanti aree geografiche. Così l’Italia «si toglie di dosso la muffa», ha dichiarato Renzi nel discorso allo sta­bi­li­mento della Piag­gio Aero­space, dove accanto al palco troneggiava un modello del nuovo drone, intendendo sicuramente per «muffa» l’Art. 11 della Costituzione sul ripudio della guerra. Quella della  Piaggio Aerospace è una «storia da raccontare», ha aggiunto Renzi, poiché è un’azienda che sembrava finita ma è ripartita. Come abbia fatto lo si capisce dalla composizione del suo capitale sociale: esso è detenuto per il 98,05% dalla Mubadala Development Company, compagnia dell’emirato Abu Dhabi presieduta da Sua Altezza lo sceicco Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, principe ereditario di Abu Dhabi e vice comandante supremo delle Forze armate. L’1,95% appartiene all’ing. Piero Ferrari (figlio di Enzo, fondatore della Scuderia di Maranello), passato dalle auto da corsa agli aerei da guerra: è stato sotto la sua presidenza dal 1998 al 2014  che la Piaggio Aero, oggi Piaggio Aerospace,  è entrata nel settore militare. Quindi l’azienda che Renzi indica all’Italia come fulgido esempio da seguire non è più italiana, ma appartiene quasi interamente alla famiglia dell’emiro di Abu Dhabi, il maggiore dei sette Emirati arabi uniti. «La nostra relazione di amicizia con gli Emirati arabi uniti – ha sottolineato Renzi nel suo discorso – non nasce semplicemente dal fatto che Mubadala è nel capitale di Piaggio o che Ethiad (altra compagnia degli Emirati) è nel capitale di Alitalia, ma nasce da un’idea profonda di condivisione politica». Nessuno ne dubita: gli Emirati, come l’Italia, sono legati a doppio filo agli Stati uniti e alla rete delle loro basi militari. Per questo a Washington, e di conseguenza a Roma, si passa sotto silenzio il fatto – documentato dal Rapporto 2014 di Human Rights Watch – che ad Abu Dhabi e negli altri emirati il potere è concentrato per via ereditaria nelle mani delle famiglie regnanti, mentre partiti e sindacati sono considerati illegali, i dissidenti vengono imprigionati e torturati, gli immigrati (che costituiscono l’88,5% degli abitanti) schiavizzati. Sarà questo, anche per l’Italia, il «futuro» di cui parla Renzi?

The International Monetary Fund has finally admitted that it was wrong to recommend austerity as early as it did in 2010-2011. The IMF now agrees that it should have waited until the US and EU economies were on a sustainable growth-path before advising them to trim their budget deficits and reduce public spending.  According to a report issued by the IMF’s research division, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO):  “IMF advocacy of fiscal consolidation proved to be premature for major advanced economies, as growth projections turned out to be optimistic…This policy mix was less than fully effective in promoting recovery and exacerbated adverse spillovers.”

Now there’s an understatement.

What’s so disingenuous about the IMF’s apology,  is that the bank knew exactly what the effects of its policy would be, but stuck with its recommendations to reward its constituents.  That’s what really happened. The only reason it’s trying to distance itself from those decisions now, is to make the public think it was all  just a big mistake.

But it wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate and here’s the chart that proves it:

(Democrats Reap What They Sowed, Rob Urie, CounterPunch)

There it is, six years of policy in one lousy picture. And don’t kid yourself, the IMF played a critical role in this wealth-shifting fiasco. It’s job was to push for less public spending and deeper fiscal cuts while the Central Banks flooded the financial markets with liquidity (QE). The results are obvious, in fact, one of the Fed’s own officials, Andrew Huszar,  admitted that QE was a massive bailout for the rich.  “I’ve come to recognize the program for what it really is,” said Huszar who actually worked on the program, “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.”  There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth.

So now the IMF wants to throw a little dust in everyone’s eyes by making it look like it was a big goof-up by well-meaning but misguided bankers. And the media is helping them by its omissions.

Let me explain: Of the more than 455 articles on Google News covering the IMF’s mea culpa, not one piece refers to the man who was the IMF’s Managing Director at the time in question. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?

Why would the media scrub any mention of Dominique Strauss-Kahn from its coverage? Could it be that (according to NPR):

“The IMF’s managing director wanted to give Greece, Portugal and Ireland the time needed to put their accounts in order, and he also argued for softening the austerity measures associated with the bailouts for those countries.

Greek economists say that under Strauss-Kahn’s leadership, the IMF was a counterbalance to the strict austerity policies favored by northern European leaders. In fact, according to the daily Le Monde, Strauss-Kahn is fond of calling those who argue for tighter austerity “fous furieux,” which roughly translates as “mad men.”

Strauss-Kahn’s view is that shock-therapy measures imposed on Greece and other European countries with sovereign debt crises will lead only to economic recession and severe social unrest.

Several commentators pointed out Monday that at a time of turmoil in the eurozone and division among European leaders, it was the IMF, under Strauss-Kahn’s leadership, that kept the eurozone’s rescue strategy on track.

The Financial Times said that the IMF’s single most important influence in the resolution of the eurozone crisis was political — amid a lack of political leadership, the paper said, the IMF filled a vacuum.
(IMF Chief’s Arrest Renews Euro Debt Crisis Fears, NPR)

Ah-ha! So Strauss-Kahn wasn’t on board with the IMF’s shock doctrine prescription. In fact, he was opposed to it.  So there were voices for sanity within the IMF, they just didn’t prevail in the policy debate.

But why would that be, after all, Strauss-Kahn was the IMF’s Managing Director, his views should have carried greater weight than anyone else’s, right?

Right. Except DSK got the ax for a sexual encounter at New York’s ritzy Sofitel Hotel. So the changes he had in mind never took place, which means that the distribution of wealth continued to flow upwards just like the moneybags constituents of the IMF had hoped for.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Funny how it’s always the Elliot Spitzers, and the Scott Ritters, and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s who get nailed for their dalliances, but the big Wall Street guys never get caught.
Why is that?

The fact is, Strauss-Kahn was off the reservation and no longer supported the policies that the establishment elites who run the IMF wanted to see implemented.  They felt threatened by DSK’s Keynesian approach and wanted to get rid of him. That’s it in a nutshell.

Do you know why the bigwig plutocrats hated DSK?

It had nothing to do with his sexual acrobatics at the Sofitel Hotel. Nobody cares about that shite.   What they were worried about were his plans for the IMF which he laid out in a speech he gave at the Brookings Institution in April 2011, one month before he got the boot. The speech got very little attention at the time, but– for all practical purposes– it was DSK’s swan song.  And, I think you’ll see why.

The experience must have been a real shocker for the gaggle of tycoons and hangers-on who attend these typically-tedious gatherings. Instead of praise for “market discipline”, “labor flexibility” and “fiscal consolidation”, Strauss-Kahn delivered a rousing 30 minute tribute to leftist ideals and wealth-sharing sounding more like a young Leon Trotsky addressing the Forth International than a cold-hearted bureaucrat heading the world’s most notorious loan sharking operation. By the time the speech ended, I’m sure the knives were already being sharped for the wayward Managing Director. To put it bluntly, DSK’s goose was cooked. Here’s a clip from the speech that will help to explain why:

“…The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes”…
Not everyone will agree with the entirety of this statement. But what we have learnt over time is that unemployment and inequality can undermine the very achievements of the market economy, by sowing the seeds of instability…

.. the IMF cannot be indifferent to distribution issues…

Today, we need a similar full force forward response in ensuring that we get the recovery we need. And that means not only a recovery that is sustainable and balanced among countries, but also one that brings employment and fair distribution…

But growth alone is not enough. We need direct labor market policies…

Let me talk briefly about the second lung of the social crisis—inequality…IMF research also shows that sustainable growth over time is associated with a more equal income distribution…

We need policies to reduce inequality, and to ensure a fairer distribution of opportunities and resources. Strong social safety nets combined with progressive taxation can dampen market-driven inequality. Investment in health and education is critical. Collective bargaining rights are important, especially in an environment of stagnating real wages. Social partnership is a useful framework, as it allows both the growth gains and adjustment pains to be shared fairly…

We have also supported a tax on financial activities (and) organized jointly with the ILO … to better understand the policies behind job-creating growth…

Ultimately, employment and equity are building blocks of economic stability and prosperity, of political stability and peace. This goes to the heart of the IMF’s mandate. It must be placed at the heart of the policy agenda. Thank you very much.”   (The Global Jobs Crisis— Sustaining the Recovery through Employment and Equitable Growth, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director IMF, April 13, 2011)

Can you imagine the chorus of groans that must have emerged from the crowd when Strauss-Kahn made his pitch for “progressive taxation”, “collective bargaining rights”, “protecting social safety nets”, “direct labor market policies” and  “taxes on financial activities”? And how do you think the crowd reacted when he told them he’d settled on a more enlightened way to distribute the wealth they’d accumulated over a lifetime of insider trading, crooked backroom deals and shady business transactions?

Do you think they liked that idea or do you suppose they lunged for their blood pressure medication before scuttling pell-mell towards the exits?

Let’s face it; Strauss-Kahn was headed in a direction that wasn’t compatible with the interests of the cutthroats who run the IMF. That much is clear. Now whether these same guys concocted the goofy “honey trap” at the Sofitel Hotel, we may never know.  But what we do know is this: If you’re Managing Director of the IMF, you’d better not use your power to champion “distribution” or collective bargaining rights or you’re wind up like Strauss-Kahn, dragged off to the hoosegow in manacles wondering where the hell you went wrong.

DSK was probably done-in by the people who hated his guts. Now they want to polish-up their image by rewriting history.

And, you know, they’re rich enough to pull it off, too.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

El pasado 30 de octubre, Suecia procedió a reconocer oficialmente a Palestina como Estado. La amplia cobertura mediática dada a este hecho se explica debido a que se trata del primer Estado miembro de la Unión Europea en reconocer a Palestina como Estado en varias décadas. Este reconocimiento fue incluso anunciado con antelación hace menos de un mes como uno de los primeros actos del nuevo Gobierno sueco electo (ver nota): a esta iniciativa las autoridades de Israel respondieron con un discurso ya bastante conocido cada vez que un Estado reconoce a Palestina (ver nota de Haaretz). Los mismos argumentos se escucharon en Costa Rica en febrero del 2008 por parte del Embajador de Israel y en Guatemala en abril del 2013 por parte de su homólogo acreditado en Guatemala. Aunado a ello, se apreció una reacción airada de las autoridades de Israel haciendo referencia a la sencillez de los muebles de la línea Ikea (ver nota de RT), que recuerda la reacción (igualmente airada) israelí ante la decisión de Brasil de llamar a consulta a su embajador en julio pasado, con referencia esta vez a la derrota de 7-1 sufrida por Brasil durante la Copa Mundial (ver nota de O Globo). En el caso de Suecia, Israel ha decidido esta vez hacer ver que su enojo es mayor a reconocimientos previos de Palestina, procediendo el mismo día 30 de octubre a llamar a consulta a su embajador acreditado en Estocolmo, según reporta el Jerusalem Post.

Unión Europea y Palestina: aspectos recientes

Este gesto de Suecia, que desde la perspectiva jurídica califica como un acto jurídico unilateral, rebasa el ámbito estrictamente jurídico: vino a reabrir el debate en Europa, la cual dio muestras de algunas divisiones en años recientes al abordar el tema del reconocimiento de Palestina como Estado. A ese respecto, vale la pena recordar lo ocurrido durante la acalorada votación realizada el 29 de noviembre del 2012 en el seno de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas:  la Asamblea aprobó con 138 votos a favor, 9 en contra y 41 abstenciones, el proyecto de resolución A/67/L.28 impulsado por 60 Estados (ver nota publicada en La Celosía) que reconoce a Palestina la calidad de “Estado Observador No Miembro” de las Naciones Unidas. En la lista de los 60 Estados proponentes de dicho proyecto de resolución no figura ninguno de los 27 Estados miembros de la Unión Europea, mientras que América Latina participa con Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Perú, Uruguay y Venezuela.

A la hora de votar el texto (ver texto de la resolución) en la Asamblea General, la aparente cohesión de Unión Europea se desvaneció por completo: a favor del texto votaron  Austria, Bélgica, Chipre, Dinamarca, España, Francia, Finlandia, Grecia, Irlanda, Italia, Luxemburgo, Malta, Portugal y Suecia. Los demás Estados de la Unión Europea se contaron entre las 41 abstenciones, con excepción de la República Checa, la cual considero oportuno votar en contra, conjuntamente con Canadá, Estados Unidos, Islas Marshall, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau y Panamá (ver detalle del voto) (Nota 1). Los Estados europeos que no forman parte de la Unión Europea y que votaron también a favor de esta histórica resolución fueron Islandia, Liechtenstein, Noruega, Suiza y Turquía. Islandia quien reconoció a Palestina como Estado en el 2011 y Turquía (en 1988) figuran en la lista de los proponentes del texto.

En una nota del Washington Post del 29/11/2012, el periodista  refiere  a una extraña propuesta de la diplomacia del Reino Unido a Palestina: esta última estaba dispuesta a votar en favor del texto siempre y cuando Palestina diera garantías de no accionar los mecanismos de la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI): “The U.K. suggested that it might vote “yes” if the Palestinian Authority offered assurances that it wouldn’t pursue charges in the International Criminal Court, but apparently came away unsatisfied” refiere el Washington Post, usualmente bien informado. En relación al voto de América Latina, Panamá se unió con los 8 Estados que votaron en contra de dicha resolución. A este respecto cabe recordar que en el 2011 el ex Presidente Ricardo Martinelli de Panama fue decorado por el American Jewish Congress (AJC) como “Light unto The Nations” (ver nota de prensa), en razón de que: “Martinelli, after his election in 2009, fulfilled a campaign promise to review Panama’s voting record on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the UN and other international forums”.

Al revisar con detalle la lista de los 27 Estados miembros de la Unión Europea que mantienen relaciones de Estado a Estado con Palestina, algunos bemoles se imponen. A Suecia desde el 30 de octubre, hay que añadir a Malta y a Chipre, que reconocen a Palestina como Estado (desde 1988), así como a los siguientes Estados del extinto bloque socialista ahora integrados a la UE, y que reconocieron a Palestina como Estado (también en 1988): Bulgaria, Hungría, Polonia, República Checa y Rumanía.  Durante el voto de noviembre del 2012 en la sede de las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York, Bulgaria, Hungría, Polonia y Rumanía optaron por abstenerse, mientras que la lealtad incondicional de la República Checa a Estados Unidos y a Israel obligó a su representante a votar en contra: un ejercicio de inconsistencia jurídica que posiblemente no tenga precedente alguno.

El caso de Costa Rica

Cabe señalar que Costa Rica procedió al reconocimiento y al establecimiento de relaciones de Estado a Estado con Palestina en el mes de febrero del 2008 (ver nota). A diferencia de Suecia, el anuncio fue sorpresivo, incluso para la misma Embajada de Estados Unidos, usualmente bien informada. En un cable confidencial dado a conocer por Wikileaks  (ver texto) se lee que: « On February 5, GOCR (Government of Costa Rica) Permrep Jorge Urbina exchanged  notes in New York with Palestinian representative Riyad  Mansour, formalizing Costa Rica´s recognition of the “”state””  of Palestine. The MFA in San Jose issued a release eight hours later confirming the news, which came as a complete  surprise to most local diplomatic missions (including Post)”. La sorpresa fue total para Israel, al haberse convertido Costa Rica en un socio incondicional en las Naciones Unidas y que mantuvo hasta el 2006 su Embajada en Jerusalén Oriental, en abierta violación a un sinfín de resoluciones de Naciones Unidas solicitando a sus miembros trasladar sus legaciones diplomáticas a Tel Aviv (Nota 2). Los mismos funcionarios del Departamento de Estado concluyen indicando que: “The no-notice, no-consultation way this decision was announced is also in keeping with the foreign policy decision making style of this second Arias administration” (Nota 3). Un cable posterior  (ver texto) evidencia la poca capacidad de anticipación de la Embajada de Israel en Costa Rica y de su socio norteamericano, al solicitar el representante de Israel a sus colegas norteamericanos saber cuál podría ser la nueva sorpresa de Costa Rica: “Ehud Eitam, Israel’s Ambassador to Costa Rica, told us on August 20 that Costa Rica’s relationship with Israel could be better in light of the Embassy move and increased Arab-Costa Rican ties.  However, he did not dwell on the issue and seemed to be more curious about what Costa Rica’s next no-notice international move would be”.

La iniciativa de Costa Rica con relación a Palestina se fundamentó en razones políticas y jurídicas. No obstante, fueron presentadas de tal manera que posteriormente a ella, la mayoría de los Estados de América Latina procedieron a reconocer a Palestina como Estado: después del 2008, Venezuela (abril del 2009), República Dominicana (julio del 2009), Bolivia, Brasil, Ecuador y Paraguay (diciembre del 2010), Perú y Chile (enero del 2011), Argentina (febrero del 2011), Uruguay (marzo del 2011), El Salvador y Honduras (agosto del 2011), Belice (septiembre del 2011) proceden de la misma manera, sumándose así a los reconocimientos previos hechos por Cuba (1988) y Nicaragua (1988). Los últimos Estados de la región en hacer este reconocimiento fueron Guatemala en abril del 2013 (ver nota) y Haití en septiembre del 2013. Nótese que si bien México alberga una representación de la Organización de Liberación de Palestina (OLP) desde 1975, no reconoce jurídicamente a Palestina como Estado. A la fecha, Colombia y Panamá de igual forma se mantienen en la región sin reconocer a Palestina como Estado.

Un reciente desglose de las distintas reacciones de Estados de América Latina a la ofensiva militar de Israel en Gaza de julio y agosto del 2014 (ver informe del CEMOAN de la Universidad Nacional de Heredia) da una idea de la sensibilidad creciente de los Estados latinoamericanos y de sus opiniones públicas con relación a la situación en Palestina. El saldo en vida humanas de esta ofensiva israelí al 4 de septiembre realizado por la Oficina de Asuntos Humanitarios de Naciones Unidas  (ver informe) era de 71 muertes israelíes (que incluyen las de 4 civiles y 66 militares) y de 2131 muertes palestinas (de las cuales 1531 corresponden a civiles, entre los cuales 501 niños y 257 mujeres). A ello hay que añadir más de 6000 heridos en condiciones críticas debido a la destrucción de muchos hospitales y refugios para personas heridas. Ante ataques tan desproporcionados como indiscriminados contra la población civil palestina, en abierta violación a las más elementales reglas internacionales que aplican en casos de conflictos (las reglas del derecho internacional humanitario), varios Estados de América Latina recurrieron a la técnica diplomática de la llamada a consulta (Nota 4).

Las posibles repercusiones del reconocimiento de Suecia:

Las declaraciones, dadas por la Ministra de Relaciones Exteriores de Suecia, Margot Wallström, explicando las razones para proceder a este reconocimiento de Palestina como Estado, fueron acompañadas por un comunicado oficial (ver texto completo) en el que Suecia anuncia que aumentará significativamente su cooperación con Palestina, triplicando su monto: “The Government also adopted a five-year aid strategy including substantially increased support to Palestinian state-building. Bilateral aid to Palestine will increase by SEK 500 million to SEK 1.5 billion over the next five-year period, in addition to Sweden’s substantial humanitarian assistance. Sweden’s contribution aims among other things to make it easier for Palestinians to support themselves and to continue living where they are, to strengthen women’s empowerment and strengthen resilience to environmental and climate changes”.

Celebrada por las autoridades de Palestina como “valiente e histórica” (ver nota), cabe indicar que esta iniciativa sueca podría tener repercusiones en la Unión Europea.  No sería la primera vez que Suecia adopta una postura de vanguardia en el seno del continente europeo en materia de política exterior. Por ejemplo, después de los Estados europeos pertenecientes al bloque socialista, fue el primer Estado de Europa occidental en abrir relaciones diplomáticas con la República Popular de China, el 9 de mayo de 1950, seguido por Dinamarca (11 de mayo de 1950), Suiza y Liechtenstein (14 de septiembre de 1950 ambos), Finlandia (28 de octubre de 1950) y Noruega (5 de octubre de 1954). El gesto de Suecia con relación a Palestina y su amplia divulgación en la prensa internacional (y en particular en las redes sociales) ha revivido el debate iniciado dentro de varios Estados miembros de la Unión Europea. En una nota de El Pais (España), titulada “Suecia impulsa el debate europeo al reconocer a Palestina como Estado”,  leemos por ejemplo que. “Este mismo mes, el Parlamento británico y el Senado irlandés han aprobado sendas resoluciones para pedir a sus Ejecutivos que se sumen a la lista de países que ya reconocen oficialmente a Palestina como un Estado”. El voto en el Parlamento británico realizado el pasado 13 de octubre reunió  274 votos a favor y 12 en contra, mientras que la reciente votación del Parlamento español del pasado 18 de noviembre reunió 319 votos a favor, una abstención y dos votos en contra (ver nuestro modesto análisis recientemente publicado en Diritti Globali). Ambos ejercicios evidencian una señal muy clara que posiblemente tenga a las autoridades israelíes un tanto preocupadas: en particular en cuanto a la actitud a adoptar y el tono de voz a escoger. La contundencia de ambos votos puede llevar a pensar que, lejos de un acto “simbólico” (como lo titula por ejemplo el New York Times, ver nota), la decisión de estos parlamentos tenga un alcance mucho mayor. Declaraciones hechas a inicios de octubre del 2014 por parte del vocero del Quai d´Orsay en Paris indican que Francia podría en algún futuro optar por reconocer a Palestina (ver nota de Le Matin). Más allá de las ambigüedades de la expresión “il faudrait bien à un moment reconnaître” usada por el vocero de la diplomacia francesa (y que dio pié para una cobertura mediática inusual en Francia y fuera de ella), Francia se apresta a realizar un ejercicio similar en estos próximos días al español y al británico.

La diplomacia israelí por su parte está demostrando, mediante diversas declaraciones de sus responsables en los medios de prensa, su temor  en cuanto a las repercusiones que pueda tener el gesto de Suecia en los demás Estados miembros de la UE: se pudo leer que “Israel fears that the move by Sweden could lead other influential European countries to follow suit” en una nota reciente del New York Times.

Conclusión:

A modo de reflexión sobre este delicado proceso que inició Suecia en el seno de la Unión Europea, nos permitimos citar de manera textual el planteamiento hecho por el ex canciller de Costa Rica, Bruno Stagno (2006-2010) expresado en una conferencia dictada en Montevideo (texto disponible aquí) y cuya solidez posiblemente haya inspirado a muchas cancillerías en América Latina y también fuera de ella: ““En 1947, Costa Rica, al igual que otros 12 países de América Latina y el Caribe, apoyó la resolución 181 (II) de la Asamblea General sobre el Plan de Partición del Mandato Británico de Palestina. En esa ocasión formamos parte de los 33 países que reconocieron tempranamente que la coexistencia de dos Estados se imponía como la peor solución, con excepción de todas las demás. Desde entonces hemos visto pasar una tragedia tras otra, incluyendo guerras e intifadahs, asesinatos y atentados, afectando seriamente el derecho a vivir sin miedo de ambos pueblos. Paralelamente, y sin un claro calendario estacional, hemos visto germinar las promesas y esperanzas generadas por diversos procesos de paz, sin lograr aún la cosecha de los dividendos de paz. Ha sido tierra fértil para dobles raseros, para intereses ajenos, y para una triste reiteración de eventos que postergan el cumplimiento del mandato acordado en 1947”.

El próximo 29 de noviembre se celebrará en todo el mundo el  Día Internacional de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Palestino declarado como tal por la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas en el año 1977, precisamente en conmemoración del día en que se adoptó la resolución 181 (II) de 1947. Es muy probable que en Estocolmo ondeen más banderas palestinas, así como en el resto de Europa y del mundo en señal de solidaridad con la causa palestina.

 Nicolás Boeglin

Notas

1. Un artículo del Washington Post intentó explicar las motivaciones de esta singular “coalition” (compuesta por Canadá, Estados Unidos, Islas Marshall, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Panamá, Palau y República Checa) para votar en contra de esta resolución sobre el estatuto de Palestina de noviembre del 2012. Esta denominada “coalición” (para retomar el término usado por el Washington Post) pareciera haber sufrido una reducción significativa: durante esta misma semana de octubre del 2014, la resolución de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas pidiendo levantar el embargo económico contra Cuba se votó con 188 votos a favor, 2 en contra (Israel y Estados Unidos) y 3 abstenciones (Islas Marshall, Micronesia y Palau) (ver nota).

2. En un libro editado en el 2013, el mismo Bruno Stagno escribe: “Recordé dos casos que de una u otra manera reflejaban el intricado, pero aún velado conjunto de intereses que entraban en juego al tratarse el tema de Israel. Como Embajador, Representante Permanente ante las Naciones Unidas, lo había vivido y sufrido. Recordaba como para marcarme en las votaciones sobre la situación en Medio Oriente, el entonces embajador de Costa Rica en Washington DC, Jaime Daremblum, alineaba a algunos miembros del Congreso de Estados Unidos, para que me enviaran cartas instándome o instruyéndome a votar a favor de Israel. El congresista Tom  Lantos sería el más insistente, dirigiéndose incluso directamente al Presidente Pacheco de la Espriella.  También, recordé la indignación con que la Embajadora Emérita, Emilia Castro de Barish, comentaba cómo en el pasado se había aceptado que un funcionario de la Misión Permanente de Israel  se sentara en la segunda fila de asientos, reservados para Costa Rica, con el fin de  velar por el voto “correcto” de Costa Rica “. Véase STAGNO UGARTE B., Los caminos menos transitados. La administración Arias Sánchez y la redefinición de la política exterior de Costa Rica, 2006-2010, Heredia, Editorial UNA (EUNA), 2013, pp.70-71.

3. En otro cable confidencial publicado en La Nación (Costa Rica)  – ver texto – los diplomáticos norteamericanos llegan a similar conclusión que transmiten a sus superiores  del Departamento de Estado: “Like the 2006 embassy move from Jerusalem and the 2007 recognition of China, Arias and Stagno acted quickly, without coordinating broadly within the MFA, with little/no public notice, and without truly consulting all the interested parties in advance”.

4. Sobre el significado y el alcance de esta técnica diplomática, remitimos al lector a un breve análisis nuestro publicado por el CEMOAN de la UNA de Costa Rica.

Nicolás Boeglin : Profesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)

The rights groups stated that the practice of killing suspects at the scene without trying to arrest and prosecute them is a cause of concern.

Moreover, the suspects’ families face the likelihood of having their homes razed in a punitive measure, the rights groups added.

Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, said it was “extremely disturbed” by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch’s comments on shooting to death suspects at the scene, describing the remarks as “provocative” and encouraging “execution without trial.”

Another Israeli rights group, the so-called Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), said in a statement that the expectation that “police officers will act as jury, judge and executioner, is improper and unacceptable.”

Amnesty International also noted that it has “strong suspicions” about a policy of “deliberate killings” by Israeli forces.

Amnesty’s researcher and campaigner, Saleh Hijazi, said the number of shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank has gone up.

On Sunday, a court in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) charged an Israeli policeman, identified as Ben Deri, with manslaughter in the shooting death of a Palestinian teenager during a demonstration in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian officials said 17-year-old Nadeem Nuwarah along with another teenage protester was shot dead during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators on the Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe) in the West Bank town of Beitunia on May 15.

Video footage showed a group of five or six Israeli police officers in the area, one of whom could be seen firing at the time when the two teenagers were hit.

According to Palestinian health authorities, the teenagers were killed by live ammunition, with human rights groups saying that an autopsy conducted on Nuwarah confirmed that he was fatally shot by a live bullet. The family of the second teenager refused to allow a post-mortem.

HRW statements about Ecuador’s policing are out of proportion compared to their statements about the disappeared students in Mexico.

Negotiators for Iran and the so-called P-6 powers—the US, the four other permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany—announced Monday that they have agreed to extend the deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement to “normalize” Iran’s civilian nuclear program by seven months. The new deadline is July 1, 2015, with a March 1 deadline for the framework of a final agreement and an additional four months to resolve all technical details.

Yesterday’s announcement came just hours before the planned expiration of the interim agreement under which the “final status” negotiations have been proceeding.

The US and its Western allies have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, charges Tehran has denied.

The nuclear charges against Iran were first made by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of Washington’s illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq. They have served as a pretext for the US to intensify its decades-long drive to compel Iran to forgo any challenge to US domination of the Middle East, the world’s most important oil-exporting region.

In 2012, the US and its European Union allies ratcheted up their sanctions on Iran, halving its oil exports and hobbling its overall trade by sequestering its overseas bank holdings and effectively freezing it out of the world banking system. These sanctions remain in force.

Under yesterday’s extension, as in the two previous interim agreements stretching back to last January, Iran will be allowed to repatriate about $700 million of its overseas assets per month. This is only a fraction of the almost $100 billion worth of Iranian assets—unremitted oil sale proceeds and Iranian central bank foreign currency reserves—currently frozen in the world banking system.

Under the new interim agreement, Tehran will continue to limit its enrichment of uranium to under 5 percent, delay activation of a plutonium reactor, and submit its nuclear facilities to an unprecedentedly intrusive IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspection regime.

At a press conference Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry boasted that the US-led sanctions have forced Iran to either dismantle or freeze much of its nuclear program. “Today,” said Kerry, “Iran has no 20 percent enriched uranium. Zero. None. They have diluted and converted every ounce that they have… Today, IAEA inspectors have daily access to Iran’s enrichment activities and a far deeper understanding of Iran’s program.”

Kerry added that the extension did not mean the negotiations might not still fail. Washington and its allies will review their options, said Kerry, if the March 1 deadline to agree on the framework of a comprehensive settlement is not met. “These talks,” said the US Secretary of State, “are not going to get easier just because we extend them. They are tough, they’ve been tough, and they are going to stay tough.”

The failure to secure a final agreement is a blow to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his government. Rouhani sharply criticized his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accusing him of needlessly exacerbating relations with Washington. He won the June 2013 presidential election largely on the basis of his claim that he could rapidly reach an accommodation with the US and its European Union allies under which the sanctions would be removed and Iran’s sovereign right to a full-cycle civilian nuclear program respected.

With the aim of wooing the US and its EU partners, Rouhani solicited the International Monetary Fund’s advice on slashing social spending, traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to declare Iran “open for business,” offered European energy companies privileged access to the country’s vast energy reserves, and repeatedly declared that Tehran would be willing to assist the US in stabilizing the region if Washington abandoned the sanctions and its efforts to bring about regime change in Tehran.

Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has strongly supported Rouhani’s efforts. In the name of “national unity,” he has repeatedly instructed Rouhani’s opponents within the clerical political establishment and the Revolutionary Guards’ high command to temper their criticisms of the government, particularly over the nuclear talks.

At the same time, Khamenei has frequently expressed skepticism about the outcome of the negotiations and urged that no effort be spared in the development of a “resistance economy.”

In a nationally televised address Monday evening, Rouhani sought to present the negotiations as a diplomatic triumph, going so far as to claim that a deal on Iranian terms was imminent. “This way of negotiation will reach a final settlement,” declared Rouhani. “Most of the gaps have been removed.”

Omitting any mention of Washington’s vow to retain sanctions against Iran for years to come so as to ensure its compliance with any final nuclear deal, Rouhani told the Iranian people that the P-6 “have reached the conclusion that pressure and sanctions on Iran will not bear fruit.”

While the P-6 is comprised of the world’s great powers with the exception of Japan, it is Washington, backed by the three EU powers, that holds the whip hand. As the negotiations came down to the wire last week, the US again made clear that any agreement with Tehran will be on its terms.

According to press reports, the US is adamant that Iran drastically curtail its civilian nuclear program, including eliminating more than three-quarters of its centrifuges.

Even more importantly, from Tehran’s perspective, Washington is determined to continue to subject Iran to crippling economic sanctions, with relief doled out incrementally and over a period of years. Moreover, during a lengthy initial period, the Western powers want only piecemeal suspension of the sanctions, not their repeal, so that they can be quickly reinstituted should they determine that Tehran has failed to fulfill its commitments.

Only after a prolonged period—in off-the-record briefings, US officials have spoken in terms of fifteen or twenty years—would the special constraints on Iran’s civilian nuclear program be fully removed.

In the run-up to Monday’s deadline, US officials repeatedly said they were not interested in another extension. This, not surprisingly, proved to be a bluff.

As Kerry’s remarks cited above indicate, the Obama administration and much of the US military-security establishment believe they have extorted significant concessions from Tehran and calculate that more can be won by continuing to cripple Iran’s economy while holding the threat of military action in reserve.

This faction also believes that under conditions where Washington’s strategy in the Middle East has been thrown into crisis by the failure to date of the US regime-change proxy war in Syria and the ISIS incursion into Iraq, Washington should continue to explore the possibility of enlisting Tehran in its efforts to shore up US hegemony over the Middle East.

There is already at least a tacit understanding between Washington and Tehran in respect to Iraq, with both providing military support to the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Tehran has also indicated its support for the new US-reconfigured regime in Afghanistan.

In a television interview Sunday, US President Barack Obama said “significant” differences with Iran over the nuclear issue remained. At the same time, he signaled that if the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite were to align with Washington, a US-Iranian rapprochement could be readily realized.

The possibility of such a strategic realignment, in which Iran, as in the days of the Shah, becomes a key pillar of US interests in the Middle East, has unnerved both the Israeli elite and the Saudi royal family. For the past fourteen months, they have both been doing their best to derail any nuclear deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday welcomed the failure to reach a final agreement, repeating his oft-stated demand that Iran’s entire civilian nuclear program be dismantled as the condition for any relaxation of sanctions. In an interview with the BBC, Netanyahu made a scarcely veiled appeal for the US Congress to scuttle the negotiations by imposing still harsher sanctions on Iran. “The fact,” said Netanyahu, “that there is no deal now gives” the US and its EU partners “the opportunity” to impose additional sanctions. That is “the route that needs to be taken.”

In his BBC interview, Netanyahu also reiterated Israel’s threat to strike Iran militarily, saying, “Israel, always—always—reserves the right to defend itself.”

The Obama administration, not without difficulty, has thus far been able to prevent the Senate from adopting legislation previously adopted by the House that would dramatically increase the sanctions’ bite, including by seeking to eliminate all Iranian oil exports.

On Monday, Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte issued a statement saying the continuation of negotiations with Iran should be coupled with further sanctions. Shortly afterwards, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, the outgoing chairman of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee, announced that he was eager to work in a “bipartisan” fashion to pass a new sanctions bill.

Psychiatric drugs are more dangerous than you have ever imagined. If you haven’t been prescribed one yet, you are among the lucky few. If you or a loved one are taking psychiatric drugs, there is hope; but you need to understand the dangers and how to minimize the risk.

The following overview focuses on longer-term psychiatric drug hazards, although most of them can begin to develop within weeks. They are scientifically documented in my recent book Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and my medical text Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition.

Newer or atypical antipsychotic drugs: Risperdal, Invega, Zyprexa, Abilify, Geodon, Seroquel, Latuda, Fanapt and Saphris

Antipsychotic drugs, including both older and newer ones, cause shrinkage (atrophy) of the brain in many human brain scan studies and in animal autopsy studies. The newer atypicals especially cause a well-documented metabolic syndrome including elevated blood sugar, diabetes, increased cholesterol, obesity and hypertension. They also produce dangerous cardiac arrhythmias and unexplained sudden death, and they significantly reduce longevity. In addition, they cause all the problems of the older drugs, such as Thorazine and Haldol, including tardive dyskinesia, a largely permanent and sometimes disabling and painful movement disorder caused by brain damage and biochemical disruptions.

Risperdal in particular but others as well cause potentially permanent breast enlargement in young boys and girls. The overall risk of harmful long-term effects from antipsychotic drugs exceeds the capacity of this review. Withdrawal from antipsychotic drugs can cause overwhelming emotional and neurological suffering, as well as psychosis in both children and adults, making complete cessation at times very difficult or impossible.

Despite their enormous risks, the newer antipsychotic drugs are now frequently used off-label to treat anything from anxiety and depression to insomnia and behavior problems in children. Two older antipsychotic drugs, Reglan and Compazine, are used for gastrointestinal problems, and despite small or short-term dosing, they too can cause problems, including tardive dyskinesia.

Antipsychotic drugs masquerading as sleep aids: Seroquel, Abilify, Zyprexa and others

Nowadays, many patients are given medications for insomnia without being told that they are in fact receiving very dangerous antipsychotic drugs. This can happen with any antipsychotic but most frequently occurs with Seroquel, Abilify and Zyprexa. The patient is unwittingly exposed to all the hazards of antipsychotic drugs.

Antipsychotic drugs masquerading as antidepressant and bipolar drugs: Seroquel, Abilify, Zyprexa and others

The FDA has approved some antipsychotic drugs as augmentation for treating depression along with antidepressants. As a result, patients are often misinformed that they are getting an “antidepressant” when they are in fact getting one of the newer antipsychotic drugs, with all of their potentially disastrous adverse effects. Patients are similarly misled by being told that they are getting a “bipolar” drug when it is an antipsychotic drug.

Antidepressants: SSRIs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro and Viibyrd, as well as Effexor, Pristiq, Wellbutrin, Cymbalta and Vivalan

The SSRIs are probably the most fully studied antidepressants, but the following observations apply to most or all antidepressants. These drugs produce long-term apathy and loss of quality of life. Many studies of SSRIs show severe brain abnormalities, such as shrinkage (atrophy) with brain cell death in humans and the growth of new abnormal brain cells in animal and laboratory studies. They frequently produce an apathy syndrome — a generalized loss of motivation or interest in many or all aspects of life. The SSRIs frequently cause irreversible dysfunction and loss of interest in sexuality, relationship and love. Withdrawal from all antidepressants can cause a wide variety of distressing and dangerous emotional reactions from depression to mania and from suicide to violence. After withdrawal from antidepressants, individuals often experience persistent and distressing mental and neurological impairments. Some people find antidepressant withdrawal to be so distressing that they cannot fully stop taking the drugs.

Benzodiazepine (benzos) anti-anxiety drugs and sleep aids: Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, Valium, Librium, Tranxene and Serax; Dalmane, Doral, Halcion, ProSom and Restoril used as sleep aids

Benzos deteriorate memory and other mental capacities. Human studies demonstrate that they frequently lead to atrophy and dementia after longer-term exposure. After withdrawal, individuals exposed to these drugs also experience multiple persisting problems including memory and cognitive dysfunction, emotional instability, anxiety, insomnia, and muscular and neurological discomforts. Mostly because of severely worsened anxiety and insomnia, many cannot stop taking them and become permanently dependent. This frequently happens after only six weeks of exposure. Any benzo can be prescribed as a sleep aid, but Dalmane, Doral, Halcion, ProSom and Restoril are marketed for that purpose.

Non-benzo sleep aids: Ambien, Intermezzo, Lunesta and Sonata

These drugs pose similar problems to the benzos, including memory and other mental problems, dependence and painful withdrawal. They can cause many abnormal mental states and behaviors, including dangerous sleepwalking. Insufficient data is available concerning brain shrinkage and dementia, but these are likely outcomes considering their similarity to benzos. Recent studies show that these drugs increase death rate, taking away years of life, even when used intermittently for sleep.

Stimulants for ADHD: Adderall, Dexedrine and Vyvanse are amphetamines, and Ritalin, Focalin, and Concerta are methylphenidate

All of these drugs pose similar if not identical long-term dangers to children and adults. In humans, many brain scan studies show that they cause brain tissue shrinkage (atrophy). Animal studies show persisting biochemical changes in the brain. These drugs can lead directly to addiction or increase the risk of abusing cocaine and other stimulants later on in adulthood. They disrupt growth hormone cycles and can cause permanent loss of height in children. Recent studies confirm that children who take these drugs often become lifelong users of multiple psychiatric drugs, resulting in shortened lifespan, increased psychiatric hospitalization and criminal incarceration, increased drug addiction, increased suicide and a general decline in quality of life. Withdrawal from stimulants can cause “crashing” with worsened behavior, depression and suicide. Strattera is a newer drug used to treat ADHD. Unlike the other stimulants, it is not an addictive amphetamine, but it too can be dangerously overstimulating. Strattera is more similar to antidepressants in its longer-term risks.

Mood stabilizers: Lithium, Lamictal, Equetro and Depakote

Lithium is the oldest and hence most thoroughly studied. It causes permanent memory and mental dysfunction, including depression, and an overall decline in neurological function and quality of life. It can result in severe neurological dilapidation with dementia, a disastrous adverse drug effect called “syndrome of irreversible lithium-effectuated neurotoxicity” or SILENT. Long-term lithium exposure also causes severe skin disorders, kidney failure and hypothyroidism. Withdrawal from lithium can cause manic-like episodes and psychosis. There is evidence that Depakote can cause abnormal cell growth in the brain. Lamictal has many hazards including life-threatening diseases involving the skin and other organs. Equetro cases life-threatening skin disorders and suppresses white cell production with the risk of death from infections. Withdrawal from Depakote, Lamictal and Equetro can cause seizures and emotional distress.

Summarizing the tragic truth

It is time to face the enormous tragedy of exposing children and adults to any psychiatric drug for months and years. My new video introduces and highlights these risks and my book Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal describes them in detail and documents them with scientific research.

All classes of psychiatric drugs can cause brain damage and lasting mental dysfunction when used for months or years. Although research data is lacking for a few individual drugs in each class, until proven otherwise it is prudent and safest to assume that the risks of brain damage and permanent mental dysfunction apply to every single psychiatric drug. Furthermore, all classes of psychiatric drugs cause serious and dangerous withdrawal reactions, and again it is prudent and safest to assume that any psychiatric drug can cause withdrawal problems.

Widespread misinformation

Difficulty in stopping psychiatric drugs can lead misinformed or unscrupulous health professionals to tell patients that they need to take their drugs for the rest of their lives when they really need to taper and withdraw from them in a careful manner. As described in Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal, tapering outside of a hospital often requires psychological and social help, including therapy and emotional support and monitoring by friends or family.

Meanwhile, there is no substantial or convincing evidence that any psychiatric drug is useful longer-term. Psychiatric drug treatment for months or years lacks scientific basis. Therefore, the risk-benefit ratio is enormously lopsided toward the risk.

Science-based conclusions

Whenever possible, psychiatric drugs should be tapered and withdrawn either as an inpatient or as an outpatient with careful clinical supervision and a support network as described in Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal. Keep in mind that it is not only dangerous to take psychiatric drugs — it can be dangerous to withdraw from them. The safest solution is to avoid starting psychiatric drugs! It is time for a return to psychological, social and educational approaches to emotional suffering and impairment.

Psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin‘s scientific and educational work has provided the foundation for modern criticism of psychiatric drugs and electroconvulsive therapy. He leads the way in promoting more caring, empathic and effective therapies. His newest book is Guilt, Shame and Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming Negative Emotions. His website is Breggin.com.

Peter R. Breggin, MD is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Breggin criticizes contemporary psychiatric reliance on diagnoses and drugs, and promotes empathic therapeutic relationships. He has been called “the Conscience of Psychiatry.” See his website at www.Breggin.com

WE WORK TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM, DEFEND OUR TERRITORIES, LIFE AND MOTHER EARTH, AND CONSTRUCT ´BUEN VIVIR´*

Translated from Original document by Lynda Sullivan, Celendín, October 25, 2014

From 23rd to 25th October social leaders, men and women, rural and urban ronderos*, environmental defense fronts, representatives of indigenous communities, peasant organizations, activists and authorities from across the country gathered together in Celendin to analyze the impacts of extractive capitalism and climate change in our territories and to strengthen our resistance and proposals in the face of these threats.

We consider that climate change is the most visible demonstration of the violence and damage generated by the extractive, patriarchal, capitalist model that has assaulted Mother Earth, violating in a systematic way our individual and collective rights, generating social inequalities and enormous discriminations, jeopardizing the future of humanity and aggravating the risks to our health. Therefore, the only viable answer to climate change is to change the core of this system.

In Peru, betraying its promises, the government of Ollanta Humala is deepening its policies of robbing our territories, promoting exploitation of our common goods and natural resources without limits, and deepening the criminalization of the protest and repression. The latest reforms proposed in Minister Castilla’s anti-environmental mega-package dismantle the little environmental regulation and territorial protection that had managed to advance in the country.

In the face of this, we set forth:

The urgent need to strengthen and encourage ´buen vivir´ for our communities in Peru, by means of strengthening sustainable production, local economies, and associations as alternatives to extractivism, in addition to the care of common goods, in order to face up to climate change and to forge a truly fair and democratic society. For this it is necessary to continue defending Mother Earth, our territories and our right to health so that we, the communities, be the ones that decide our destiny, and so that we can recover the harmony between the economy, society and nature. For this, we stand firm in our definite rejection of the extractive and hydroelectric projects that expand in a chaotic and violent manner in our territories.

It is essential to reform our political system and laws which currently back this economic model. One of the hardest and most difficult manifestations of this model is the criminalization of the protest and the repression by the state-owned forces put at the service of the companies, which has cost the lives of dozens of people and has permitted the judicial harassment of hundreds of social leaders and the imprisoning of many of them, as has occurred with our Awajun and Wampis brothers who defended the Amazon and the communities who defend our water. It is time to recover our democracy, so that our rights as communities and citizens are respected.

Even though we recognize the advances of our struggles, in terms of proposals, collective decisions and, in territories like Cajamarca, forging legitimate political representation, we also recognize that there is still much to do to strengthen our organizations at a local, regional and national level. For this we believe it is important to advance in strategies of articulation between our struggles, so that our local resistances and the self-determination of our territories, may join forces to transform the country.

OUR AGREEMENTS

For this we agree:

• We ratify the agreements of the first international encounter of the Guardians of the Lagoons, which took place in El Tambo, Bambamarca-Hualgayoc, on the days of 4^th, 5^th and 6^th August 2014 and we commit ourselves to the fulfillment of its agreements;

• We ratify our commitment to the defense of life, of our territories and of Mother Earth, with the construction of ´buen vivir´ for our communities, and a fair and sustainable developmental model of our own. Consequently, we ratify our decision not to permit the carrying out of extractive projects (mining, hydrocarbons, megadams and others) that threaten our security in the areas of health, environment and food sovereignty;

• We reaffirm our identity and rights as indigenous peoples, as peasant communities, as rural and urban ronderos, as Quechuan, Aymaras and Amazonian communities, with the right to autonomy and our own jurisdiction, and with the right to determine our way of life through the consuetudinary right and buen vivir (tajimat tarimat pujut; Sumaq kausay; Sumaq qamaña).

• We show solidarity and support for the struggle of Cajamarca against the mining activity, likewise, with the 52 defendants for Baguazo* and with Gregorio Santos Guerrero who is unjustly detained.

• We call for the organization of and participation in the Great National March of the Communities for Environmental and Climate Justice and the Protection and Liberation of the Defenders of Mother Earth where we will march to Lima in order to take part in the People’s Summit and demand the change of the system for climate, ecological and social justice. We will depart on 7th December from the lagoons of Conga to arrive in Lima on 10^th December, convoking all communities on the way;

• We call on all the regions of the country to take part in this great united and vindicating march, departing from their regions to gather together in Lima. We also invite the citizens of the world so that they actively take part in the Great National March of Communities;

• We convoke the construction of a network or coordinator of the social struggles to confront extractivism in the country which will allow the convergence of Andean, Amazonian and coastal communities and movements. For this we have formed an organizing committee, that will encourage the process of construction of this horizontal, plural and democratic space;

• We convoke the new local, provincial and regional authorities aligned to the country´s social movements, to govern from and with the communities, this implies the construction of mechanisms of participation, consultation, accountability and definition of strategies shared between the authorities and social organizations for good government and the construction of control mechanisms to avoid corruption;

• We commit ourselves to the fostering and strengthening of producer associations, on the basis of a fair economy and one of solidarity – the alternative to extractive activities, it should be formalized and in line with the Land-Use Planning Order*, for the productive diversification and the promotion of family and communal agriculture, agroforestry and other productive activities, with ecological handling and in harmony with Mother Earth;

• We recognize the fundamental participation of women in social organizations and in the construction of the ways of life that we want, and also in response to the huge consequences that extractivist, racist, patriarchal and sexist capitalism has brought to our lives. For this, we consider fundamental the promotion of the participation and leadership of women – in conditions of parity in all political spaces, as we recognize their contribution to the economy, politics, and culture and their role in the care of life and food sovereignty.

• Finally we propose to recognize and protect the rights of women to live without violence caused by social-environmental conflicts and the expansion of the extractivist developmental model, which leads to sexual harassment, sexual violence, labor exploitation, contamination, criminalization of the protest, femicide, among others.

• We vindicate and commemorate our wounded and our martyrs that fought for the defense of life, water and land.

• We show solidarity with the struggles of the communities of the world in defense of Mother Earth, land, water and life;

OUR DEMANDS of the STATE:
 
We demand…

• That the national and international authorities recognize that climate change is a symptom of the crisis which has been imposed by those with power on society and the world economy, provoking the destruction of nature and the commercialization of life. Therefore the only viable answer to change it is to put an end to this extractivist, predatory and ethnocidic capitalism in order to restore equilibrium with Mother Earth and to generate a fair and sustainable way of life;

• The immediate annulment of the laws of the anti-environmental, tributary and territorial package, (Law No. 30230) and the laws of criminalization of the protest and impunity that act against nature, human rights and democracy;

• The modification of the Law of Previous Consultation in concordance with the Agreement 169 of the International Labour Organization, subscribed to by the Peruvian state, so that it truly enables the self-determination of communities; as well as the modification of the National System of Public Investment so that it allows the promotion of family and communal agriculture and other sustainable productive activities.

• The approval of the proposals of law for the protection of the heads of water basins and fragile ecosystems, for the prohibition of the use of cyanide and mercury, and the human right to water, put forward in the National March for Water in 2012, as well as the proposal of law of the Platform of Land-Use Planning*, and the proposal of law framed to confront climate change by the Cumbre de los Pueblos (People’s Summit);

• A cessation of violence, criminalization and every kind of persecution or stigmatization of our brothers and sisters who fight for our social and environmental, individual and collective rights in our territories. That the hundreds affected by the repression at the hands of the forces of order of the state, put at the service of big business, see justice served and are compensated;

• Immediate freedom for the defenders of Mother Earth, life and of the rights of communities, unjustly on trial or imprisoned across the whole country.

• Respect for the will of communities, clearly expressed in public demonstrations, assemblies, elections and local or communal democratic consultations against the presence of extractive projects in our territories;

• Fulfillment of the agreements and commitments assumed by the government in the processes of tables of dialogue implemented in different parts of the country, such as in Espinar, Moquegua, Arequipa and others.

• Revision of the gas duct project by Sur Peruano, giving priority to national concerns and assuring that the primary beneficiaries are the communities who own the gas and not the transnational corporations;

• Cessation of the expansion of extractive activities in the country and, moreover, that those companies which have operated or that operate at present and have caused environmental and social damages, are obliged to make economic, social and environmental reparations to the affected towns and communities.

• We demand of the District Attorney and of Congress the creation of a commission of investigation and sanction for tax evasion, specifically the tax evasion of the Yanacocha mining company.

• That local, regional and national governments guide the municipal and regional public investment to encourage associations and the improvement of diversified production for a fair economy based on solidarity, generating productive links that allow the strengthening of the development of the internal market, assuring food sovereignty. They should also encourage policies of defense and protection of water resources and cultural heritage, support to sustainable family and communal agriculture and cattle raising, local and ecotourism, renewable energies, conservation, recuperation and sustainable use of biodiversity, respecting the multiculturalism of the country;

• The carrying out of hydraulic inventories, processes of participatory land-use planning, policies of environmental management and protection, and a genuine policy of consultation and referendums so that communities can make decisions about our territories and defend our right to ´buen vivir´;

We propose the strengthening of processes of decentralization to tackle the concentration of power and the political and economic decisions made by the ´elite´. We will work for the re-foundation of the politics of the country and for the surging of a new institutionalism of the state, decolonizing and breaking down the manifestations of patriarchy in all social, political and cultural connections, seeking harmony with Mother Earth and between communities.

PERU, I LOVE YOU, THAT’S WHY I DEFEND YOU!

Notes:

*Buen Viver: roughly translated as ´Living Well´
*ronderos: autonomous social justice organization – Rondas Campesinos (Peasant Rounds) and now includes Rondas Urbanos (Urban Rounds)
*Baguazo: referring to the events which occurred in Bagua in 2009
*Land-Use Planning Order: Ordenamiento Territorial
*Platform of Land-Use Planning: Plataforma de Ordenamiento Territorial

There have been marches, vocal demonstrations, petitions, and laws banning GMOs, but the US is still lagging in the ‘democratic’ freedoms it has promised its people. Russia, on the other hand, has completely banned GMOs, placing a moratorium on their imports for 10 years. The nation rejects GMOs due to numerous dangers, while the US continues to allow Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, and their bullying kind to contrive a cold war on the American people.

The VP of Russia’s National Association for Genetic Safety, Irina Ermakova, has said:

“It is necessary to ban GMOs, to impose moratorium (on) it for 10 years. While GMOs will be prohibited, we can plan experiments, tests, or maybe even new methods of research could be developed. It has been proven that not only in Russia, but also in many other countries in the world, GMOs are dangerous. Methods of obtaining the GMOs are not perfect, therefore, at this stage,all GMOs are dangerous. Consumption and use of GMOs obtained in such way can lead to tumors, cancers and obesity among animals. Bio-technologies certainly should be developed, but GMOs should be stopped. We should stop it from spreading. ”

Conversely, the ‘amber waves of grain’ are toxic. They are loaded with more GMO chemicals than ever before, and our government supports this act of tyranny.

The US State Department and executive branch have been acting as marketing agents for the companies who are patenting the most basic seeds necessary for human survival. Hilary Clinton has been caught doing a one-woman campaign to support GMOs like some sort of despotic middle-aged whirligig.

Our elected officials plan to implement DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, which if passed, will preempt state GMO labeling laws. What’s more, president Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act in 2013 after promising GMO labeling.

The seed industry has a global agenda, and it works its dark plan through the US.

Food and Water Watch recently found out just how deep and reaching the State Department’s agenda to promote biotech goes.

Russian Television (RT) corroborates it:

“After US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed that the State Department was lobbying worldwide for Monsanto and other similar corporations, a new report based on the cables shows Washington’s shilling for the biotech industry in distinct detail. The August 2011WikiLeaks revelations showed that American diplomats had requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to hold talks with politicians and agricultural officials in “target countries” in areas like Africa and Latin America, where genetically-modified crops were not yet a mainstay, as well as some European countries that have resisted the controversial agricultural practice.”

Even our universities are in the back pocket of these biotech corporations.

“The annual $500 million budget of Stanford University’s Department of Biological Engineering alone supports dozens of research projects for myriad commercial applications.”

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin says, “Russia must protect its citizens from GMOs.”

Fareed Zakaria once said that, “the Berlin Wall wasn’t the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell.”

It seems ironic that in the ‘land of the free’ we cannot democratically oust GMOs, and that our own leaders are now putting up their own walls that would deny us the right to know what is in our food.

Ukrainians are increasingly waging war over whom their enemy was in World War II: Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin.

On November 21st, the communist Soviet Union’s Georgian leader, Joseph Stalin, was twice cited by Ukrainian officials on two separate occasions as representing the Russia that today’s Ukraine fears, and must wage war (with help from the West) to defeat.

At the United Nations in NYC, Ukraine voted no on a resolution against resurgent nazism. As the UN’s press release about the vote recounted, “the representative of Ukraine said Stalinism had killed many people in the Gulag, condemning Hitler and Stalin alike as international criminals. Calling on the Russian Federation to stop glorifying and feeding Stalinism, he said he could not support the draft text.”

Samantha Power, the U.S. Representative at the U.N., gave as her reason for voting against the resolution, its unacceptability to the Government of Ukraine.

“Her delegation was concerned about the overt political motives that had driven the main sponsor of the current resolution. That Government had employed those phrases in the current crisis in Ukraine. That was offensive and disrespectful to those who had suffered at the hands of Nazi regimes. Therefore, the United States would vote against the resolution.”

The only other government to vote no on the resolution was Canada, whose conservative Premier, Stephen Harper, is an unwavering supporter of both the U.S. and this new Ukrainian Government. The final vote-tally was 115 in favor, 3 against, and 55 abstentions. All of Europe abstained, as did Japan. Australia and New Zealand also abstained.

On the same day, but in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, the country’s President, Petro Poroshenko, laid a wreath at the grave of one of Stalin’s Ukrainian victims, and he said, “The spiritual descendants of Stalin haven’t dissolved into the sea of history. They are celebrating their bloody ball in the temporarily occupied territories.” Poroshenko was referring there to the areas of Ukraine, now contested as Donbass, Novorossiya, or other names, where the residents are ethnic Russians and which have declared independence from the new Ukrainian Government, the Government that was imposed upon them at a coup in Kiev back in February.

Just as the pro-Russian rebels’ talking-points ever since that coup have been against Hitler and nazism as being allegedly resurgent from the new Government, the Ukrainian Government’s talking-points are now increasingly against an alleged resurgent Stalinism from Russia. Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, is thus being increasingly portrayed by Ukraine as a new Stalin.

The United States and Canada seem to agree with Ukraine, not with Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatists.

In World War II, both the U.S. and Canada were allied with Stalin against Hitler. So, too, were all of this U.N. vote’s abstainers, except Japan, which was allied with Hitler.

MOSCOW – The grand jury decision not to press charges against white police officer Darren Wilson, who, in August fatally shot an African-American teen in the US city of Ferguson, has triggered a new wave of protests.

St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert P. McCulloch’s statement Monday night that no charges will be filed against Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown is a travesty of justice.

The entire process through which the grand jury arrived at its decision is a legal fraud. The outcome is not the result of fair judicial proceedings, but political calculations. The grand jury returned the outcome the state was seeking: no charges for the police murder of an unarmed African American youth.

Despite the fact that the decision was not announced until after 9:00pm eastern time, there were protests Monday night throughout the United States, including in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

In Ferguson and surrounding cities, police responded by deploying SWAT teams in riot gear, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Convoys of armored police vehicles rolled through the streets. The roofs of some of the vehicles were lined with sand bags, with marksmen pointing assault rifles at unarmed demonstrators. At least 29 people have been arrested.

The mayor of Ferguson called for the deployment of the National Guard—previously activated by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, who declared a pre-emptive state of emergency last week.

President Barack Obama spoke immediately after McCulloch’s statement, mouthing a few perfunctory and semi-coherent comments, the main aim of which was to solidarize himself with the grand jury ruling.

CNN broadcast a split screen, showing on one side the police crackdown in Ferguson and on the other Obama declaring, “We are a nation built on the rule of law,” insisting that everyone had to accept the grand jury decision.

As police fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets, Obama decried “mistrust” of the police, declaring that “nobody needs good policing more than poor communities.” Obama spent a substantial portion of his brief remarks, delivered in his typical disinterested tone, castigating potential looters.

“There is never an excuse for violence,” Obama said. That is, in the name of respect for the law, Obama—who is responsible for untold violence all over the world and the destruction of democratic rights at home—gave his stamp of approval to a decision that essentially grants police a license to kill.

In his own remarks, McCulloch went out of his way to emphasize the degree to which the entire proceeding was coordinated with the Obama White House and the Justice Department.

In an extended speech, which included denunciations of the media and public opinion for “speculation” on the facts, McCulloch sough to obscure the basic fact of the case: an unarmed man was shot six times, including twice in the head, at a substantial distance from Wilson’s police car.

McCulloch said that “physical evidence” had contradicted the accounts of numerous witnesses, but did not specify what that physical evidence consisted of, aside from what he called a short-range gunshot wound to Brown’s hand. He likewise said that witnesses had indicated that Brown “charged” at Wilson, but that these witnesses had never previously come forward.

“Decisions on charging an individual with a crime cannot be based on anything besides a thorough investigation of the facts,” Wilson said. This exercise in self-serving apologetics by the prosecuting attorney served only to underscore the illegitimacy of the entire proceeding.

From the beginning, the three-month grand jury process was utilized as a way of bypassing a public trial for Brown’s killer. Under conditions of an actual trial, the facts of the case and the testimony of witnesses would be subject to adversarial proceedings. Instead, the prosecutor, who is known for his connections to police, substituted secret hearings behind closed doors, with evidence manipulated to produce the desired result.

In the end, the political establishment decided that no charges could be filed against Wilson—not even the lesser charge of manslaughter. The prosecutors did not get an indictment because they did not want an indictment.

The decision not to charge Wilson took place against the backdrop of a growing wave of police violence all over the United States, including last week’s killing of a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun in Cleveland, Ohio and an unarmed man in New York City.

The decision marked a stand taken by the political establishment that it would uphold the right of police to kill whomever they chose. Like all reactionary classes facing a crisis, the American ruling class decided that any concession to the demands of the population that Wilson be prosecuted would be politically dangerous and serve only to encourage opposition.

The ruling and subsequent police crackdown express the breakdown of democratic forms of rule in the United States, under the pressure of the growth of social inequality and the drive to war. The war on terror has come home.

From the dawn of history, elites have always attempted to enslave humanity.  Yes, there have certainly been times when those in power have slaughtered vast numbers of people, but normally those in power find it much more beneficial to profit from the labor of those that they are able to subjugate.  If you are forced to build a pyramid, or pay a third of your crops in tribute, or hand over nearly half of your paycheck in taxes, that enriches those in power at your expense.  You become a “human resource” that is being exploited to serve the interests of others.

Today, some forms of slavery have been outlawed, but one of the most insidious forms is more pervasive than ever.  It is called debt, and virtually every major decision of our lives involves more of it.  For example, at the very beginning of our adult lives we are pushed to go to college, and Americans have piled up more than 1.2 trillion dollars of student loan debt at this point.  When we buy homes, most Americans get mortgages that they can barely afford, and when we buy vehicles most Americans now stretch their loans out over five or six years.  When we get married, that often means even more debt.  And of course no society on Earth has ever piled up more credit card debt than we have.  Almost all of us are in bondage to debt at this point, and as we slowly pay off that debt over the years we will greatly enrich the elitists that tricked us into going into so much debt in the first place.  At the apex of this debt enslavement system is the Federal Reserve.  As you will see below, it is an institution that is designed to produce as much debt as possible.

There are many people out there that believe that the Federal Reserve is an “agency” of the federal government.  But that is not true at all.  The Federal Reserve is an unelected, unaccountable central banking cartel, and it has argued in federal court that it is “not an agency” of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.  The 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are organized “much like private corporations“, and they actually issue shares of stock to the “member banks” that own them.  100 percent of the shareholders of the Federal Reserve are private banks.  The U.S. government owns zero shares.

Many people also assume that the federal government “issues money”, but that is not true at all either.  Under our current system, what the federal government actually does is borrow money that the Federal Reserve creates out of thin air.  The big banks, the ultra-wealthy and other countries purchase the debt that is created, and we end up as debt servants to them.  For a detailed explanation of how this works, please see my previous article entitled “Where Does Money Come From? The Giant Federal Reserve Scam That Most Americans Do Not Understand“.  When it is all said and done, the elite end up holding the debt instruments and we end up being collectively responsible for the endlessly growing mountain of debt.  Our politicians always promise to get the debt under control, but there is never enough money to both fund the government and pay the interest on the constantly expanding debt.  So it always becomes necessary to borrow even more money.  When it was created back in 1913, the Federal Reserve system was designed to create a perpetual government debt spiral from which it would never be possible to escape, and that is precisely what has happened.

Just look at the chart that I have posted below.  Forty years ago, the U.S. national debt was less than half a trillion dollars.  Today, it has exploded up to nearly 18 trillion dollars…

But the national debt is only part of the story.  The big banks which control the Federal Reserve also seek to individually dominate our lives with debt.  We have become a “buy now, pay later” society and the results have been absolutely catastrophic.  40 years ago, the total amount of debt in our system was just a shade over 2 trillion dollars.  Today it is over 57 trillion dollars…

The big banks do not loan you money because they want to help you achieve “the American Dream”.  The elitists loan you money because it will make them wealthier.  For example, if you only make the minimum payment on a credit card each month, you will end up paying back several times as much money as you originally borrowed.  It is a very insidious form of debt enslavement that most Americans simply do not understand.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is also systematically destroying the wealth that you already have.  If you try to buck the system and actually save money, the purchasing power of that money is continually being eroded by the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies.  The following chart comes directly from the Federal Reserve and it shows how the value of the U.S. dollar has plummeted over the past 40 years…

Overall, the U.S. dollar has lost approximately 98 percent of its value since the Fed was first established in 1913.

Most people seem to assume that if we could just send the “right politicians” to Washington D.C. that we could get our economy back on the right track.

What those people do not understand is that our system is fundamentally broken.  We are trapped in a perpetual debt spiral that is destined to end in a horrifying collapse.  Just “tweaking” a few things here or there and adjusting tax rates a bit is not going to fix anything.  The vast majority of the “economic solutions” that our politicians talk about are basically equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

And of course the elite don’t want the rest of us to truly understand what is going on.  Just think about it.  Even though the Federal Reserve is one of the most important institutions in our society, and even though it is at the very heart of our economic system, our kids are taught next to nothing about the Fed in school.  The vast majority of them have absolutely no idea where money comes from.

Isn’t that pathetic?

But the elite know that if we did understand what they were doing to us that most of us would start to get very upset.  Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, once said the following…

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  The truth sets people free, so let us do what we can to wake our fellow Americans up to this insidious debt enslavement system which dominates our society.

It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I have had all of you as friends and associates during what has been a long war, not a good war, but a very long “financial war”.  As you know from these writings; this has been a war conducted by the Federal Reserve against the entire world, aided and abetted by major international banks via the manipulation of most every market on the planet.  The ethics and morals our country was originally built on …be damned!

The events mentioned herein relative to the suppression of gold and silver using dollar hegemony as the tool indicate a major international monetary crisis is dead ahead, this is obvious.  Power in the hands of the few have made massive gains for those at the top of the economic ladder while the average man has become a debt slave to the few.  There are of course the laws of Mother Nature and “unintended consequences”.  Those at the top who intend to “rule the world” are being challenged from the East in what I believe to be almost a winner take all “war”.  It did not have to be this way but the “West” has forced this.

I have never written “this is my most important writing ever!” but that day has now come.  So many events have all aligned at once which point to something very bad happening, very soon.  In fact, “very soon” could be as soon as the Monday following this Thanksgiving.  We saw many different events unfold over this past week which I believe are all connected in one way or another, I will try to connect them for you.  That said, please understand that we are and have been in a financial war for many years now.  This “war” is one between the East and West where the West’s paper financial system which has been in control for so many years is seeing its power wane.  It is this “wane” of the West versus the rise of the East that I believe is now, finally, coming to head.

If you recall, we had two Fridays in a row where gold and silver prices were smashed early in the overnight hours and into the morning, only to turn around violently and close very strongly for the day and the week.  This action is called an “outside reversal day” which over the years has been an extremely rare event in the precious metals.  It has been rare in precious metals because it was not “allowed”.  When I say “allowed”, please remember that COMEX is a paper exchange where possessing metal is not necessary to sell gold or silver.  All you have to have is “money” to post as margin and you are allowed to sell as many contracts as you have margin for.  There are “limits” to how many contracts one can buy or hold, these limits do not seem to have been enforced on the sell side …JP Morgan’s short position in silver as an example.

 So we had two outside reversal Fridays in a row, this was followed by the action this past Wednesday.  80 tons of gold was sold over a 15 minute timespan which knocked gold down $20 in the blink of an eye.  Please see the chart below courtesy of Dave Kranzler of IRD.

80 tons!  Let me put this in perspective.  80 tons is equal to two weeks worth of global gold production …sold in just 15 minutes!  This is nearly 2.8 million ounces. The interesting thing is, COMEX only claims to have 865,000 ounces of gold available for delivery so more than 3 times the amount of ounces were sold in 15 minutes than is even claimed as available for delivery! What followed however was the real stunner, very shortly afterward gold dug in its heels and started to recover …recover to unchanged in price!  Do you see the importance here?  Though this was not another outside reversal day, it may have been even more important.  The “paper” market absorbed two weeks worth of production in just 15 minutes without breaking!  I’ll get back to this shortly and tie it in to the rest.

If you recall, I wrote a piece back in August entitled “Kill Switch” http://silverseek.com/article/kill-switch-13503 where I put forth a hypothesis that the high and rising open interest in silver was actually the Chinese via proxies cornering the silver market.  The huge open interest in the nearby contract rolled out to the December contract.  At that point, the open interest in gold was at multi year lows as one would expect with prices down.  This has changed, just over the last 4-6 weeks, the open interest has steadily built in gold …while continuous pressure still on the price.  Before going any further, I have never seen the open interest rise to multiyear highs while the price was pushed to multi year lows in ANY commodity.  This is truly an anomaly and one that looks like it could be resolved very shortly.

This coming Friday is the 1st notice day for both Dec. COMEX gold and silver contracts.  COMEX in my opinion has a potentially huge problem where a default in both contracts is a distinct possibility!  As of this past Friday, 61,763 contracts still open, this represents 308 million ounces of silver.  The COMEX claims a registered (deliverable) inventory of just under 65 million ounces.  With only four days left there are roughly 5 silver ounces contracted for every one ounce available!

The situation in gold has quietly become much worse than silver, there were 162,509 Dec. gold contracts open which represent over 16 million ounces of gold.  The “registered” (deliverable) category at the COMEX inventory shows only 868,910 available to deliver!  Do you see the problem here?  There are only 4 days left until this contract goes into the delivery process, yet there are 20 ounces contracted for each ounce available!  I have one other amusing thought for you, remember the 80 tons sold in 15 minutes last Wednesday?  This was almost 2.8 million ounces compared to a deliverable inventory of just 869,000 ounces, in my opinion,  “FRAUDULENT” in capital letters!

Yes I understand, there are still four days left for the open interest to bleed down and roll out to the next contract month but we now stand in totally uncharted territory.  Never in the past has this much open interest been still outstanding with deliverable inventory as low as it is.  It is also astounding that total open interest could have risen to these levels while the price dropped.  For open interest to increase and the price to drop, the “initiation” to the opening of contracts has obviously been done by sellers.  This is exactly what I have been saying all along, the dropping price has been dictated by paper sales of COMEX contracts …but now there is a problem.  So much paper has been sold to dictate the price that the contracts outstanding simply dwarf the available metal to deliver.  Put another way, COMEX gold and silver look like they have been cornered!  Let me rephrase this, COMEX gold and silver are now “very cornerable”.  We will know shortly if this is true and “who” did the cornering.  I suspect we will find out that this has been a Chinese/Russian hand holding consortium and one that was carefully planned and done within legal bounds.  I think we will find out they in fact did play by the West’s rules and it was the “sellers” of nonexistent metal who fell into their own price fixing trap.  It has been a financial war, one that was declared by the West and looks to have been possibly won by the East.

The Dutch central bank said Friday it is repatriating some of its gold reserves from the U.S., making it the latest central bank in Europe to address public concerns about the safety of its gold in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis.  tons 

As the debate regarding whether or not Switzerland should keep the bulk of its gold reserves at home on Swiss soil reaches it’s climax – the referendum takes place on Sunday – it is telling that the Dutch announced on Friday that they have just secretly repatriated 122 tonnes of their sovereign gold reserves from New York back to Amsterdam.

The gold, worth $5 billion at today’s prices, represents 20% of the Netherlands total reserves. It now keeps 31% of its reserves in Amsterdam. Another 31% is believed to be in New York, with the remainder spread between Ottawa and London – the same locations where the bulk of Swiss gold is purported to be stored.

The trend towards gold repatriation began with Hugo Chavez bringing Venezuelan gold back to Caracas in 2011.  It has been followed by similar moves  by other large gold owning nations and central banks, most notably, Germany.

The repatriation movement has been driven by suspicion that the Federal Reserve and other central banks may have leased or sold gold it was holding on behalf of other countries to bullion banks and that this gold may have been used in order to suppress the price of gold in recent years.

Bizarrely, the Federal Reserve’s gold holdings have not been audited in over 50 years.

The last audit, and the last public visit, was in 1953, just after U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower took office. No outside experts were allowed during that audit, and the audit team tested only about 5% of gold there. So, there hasn’t been a comprehensive audit of Fort Knox in over 60 years.

Demands for gold repatriation also accelerated after the Lehman collapse and during the global financial crisis due to concerns that if the U.S. and world suffered a systemic collapse or a dollar crisis , nations may find it hard to secure their gold reserves.

The concern was that a desperate Fed could nationalise international gold reserves in order to prevent a dollar collapse or to rebuild confidence in the dollar after a currency crisis.

It is interesting to note that while some western economists, such as Paul Krugman, continue to denigrate gold, western central banks, do not appear to view gold as a “barbarous relic.” Nor do their eastern counterparts and their Chinese counterparts many of whom have been quietly reducing their dollar, euro and pound foreign exchange reserves and adding to their gold reserves in recent years.

The Dutch Central Bank went so far as to state that the action was designed to install public confidence in the ability of the central bank to manage crises. The prospect of further shipments from the U.S. remains open as they are keeping the logistical details secret.

Questions are already being asked about how the Dutch were able to repatriate such a sizeable volume of gold when Germany’s request was brushed aside. It may be that by taking a discreet approach the Dutch allowed the Federal Reserve room to manoeuvre – allowing them to harvest the metal from the open market. Skeptical analysts have suggested that the fall in the ETF gold holdings may have come in handy for the New York Federal Reserve.

Questions are also being asked about the faith of the Ukrainian gold reserves after the gold disappeared from the Ukraine’s central bank soon after the U.S. sponsored coup brought the new government to power.

The Dutch clearly view gold favourably as an important monetary asset and they also have demonstrated their belief that owning gold in a secure manner is of utmost importance.

Although the German Central Bank has stated that it trusts the Americans as custodians of it’s gold reserves – despite being denied access to vaults in New York to view their own gold – the campaign for repatriation of Germany’s gold remains strong.

Whether the Swiss gold initiative passes or fails this weekend it is still worth noting that a very large minority of Swiss are very conscious of the role that gold plays particularly in times of crisis.

During the reformation in Europe it was in these three countries – Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands – that independent thought flourished. Populations globally have been “dumbed down” in recent years but these nations still have a high level of public discourse and debate and the importance of prudence, saving, thrift and gold remains understood by many.

We believe that other central banks may have already quietly sought or indeed will seek repatriation of their gold from  New York, Ottawa and London. This has the potential to create a short squeeze as central banks may be forced to enter the market to acquire the physical bullion that they thought they already owned.

If these custodians are not in possession of the gold they claim to hold they, too, will be forced to buy gold on the open market where supply is now extremely tight as seen in gold remaining in backwardation.

We believe, like the Dutch, that only gold bullion in your possession or allocated gold stored in secure locations such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Zurich can be viewed as a safe-haven asset.

MARKET UPDATE

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,196.00, EUR 964.67 and GBP 764.51 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,193.25, EUR 958.59 and GBP 761.54  per ounce.

Gold prices were 1% higher last week. Gold and silver rose to three week highs Friday after China cut benchmark interest rates to support economic growth, leading to demand for precious metals as a store of value.

Gold in USD – 5 Days (Thomson Reuters)

China’s rate cut on Friday aligns them with the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan in deploying fresh stimulus and QE as ultra loose monetary policies continue globally.
Russia added to gold reserves in October, bringing holdings to the highest in at least two decades, IMF data showed last week and as announced by the Russian central bank governor (see here).

Gold has climbed 6% after touching a four-year low on November 7 amid increased demand for coins and jewelry, combined with signs that nations are boosting reserves. Central banks may raise purchases by as much as 22 percent in 2014, the World Gold Council estimates.

Gold in USD – 2 Years (Thomson Reuters)

The net-long position in gold rose by 21,634 contracts to 60,307 futures and options in the week ended November 18, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published three days later. Short wagers fell to 65,405 contracts, the least since September 9.

Gold rose 70% from December 2008 to June 2011 as central banks increased quantitative easing on a massive scale and currencies internationally were debased. The precious metal fell 28% in 2013, the most in three decades, after sharp and severe selling in the futures market, often during less liquid markets overnight in Asia, led to price falls.

Switzerland holds its referendum on the Swiss Gold Initiative this Sunday (Nov. 30). If passed it would  to require the Swiss National Bank to hold at least 20% of its assets in gold, up from about 8%.

Opinion polls suggest the no side will win but many opinion polls have been badly wrong in recent years. Voter discontent with the political establishment is likely to make the referendum tighter than is expected. A yes vote would surprise the market and lead to fireworks in the gold market Sunday night, Monday and next week.

Mark O’Byrne is executive and research director of www.GoldCore.com which he founded in 2003. GoldCore have become one of the leading gold brokers in the world and have over 4,000 clients in over 40 countries and with over $200 million in assets under management and storage.We offer mass affluent, HNW, UHNW and institutional investors including family offices, gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion in London, Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Perth.

Within a few days the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is going to meet with Ukraine’s best and brightest. They are coming to ask for money, weapons, and start lobbying for direct intervention. The thought that the halls of the US Congress can be sullied with this kind of people treading on its floors is beyond my imagination. You don’t need to care about Ukraine on this issue. American moral authority and the well being (electability) of some good Congressmen that only hear the propaganda might be at stake. Please take the time to read through and if this is not acceptable tell your Senator why.

A few days ago Vadim Troyan, a Battalion Azov deputy commander was appointed Kiev Oblast(Region) Police Chief. Azov Battalion is one of the punisher battalions responsible for rape, kidnapping, and murder of civilians across Donbass. Vadim Troyan has earned some of Ukraine’s highest medals in the process.

At their base city of Mariupol just during the month of October 2014 the police department had to report over 200 rapes committed by Azov and the Ukrainian National Guard in a public meeting held at the city police department. According to local residents in Mariupol which is a city of over 500,000; people are constantly going missing.

Young girls are being dragged away in broad daylight and some are never seen again. Azov battalion is taking men off the street that are never returned. In the last week of October twenty people were reported missing.

What is Azov Battalion

Interviewed Azov soldier admits torture on video english subs

Interviewed by Foreign Policy Magazine, Azov Battalion describe themselves as

“people with a European identity fighting with Sovietness. But the ‘European identity’ to which Oleg Odnorozhenko (Azov ideologist) aspires is one estranged from mainstream European and American liberalism. The Azov Battalion, whose emblem also includes the ‘Black Sun’ occult symbol used by the Nazi SS, was founded by Andriy Biletsky, head of the neo-Nazi groups Social-National Assembly and Patriots of Ukraine.”

Maidan Democrats? Meet the New Nazi Government

 Biletsky is also Arseni Yatsenyuk’s choice as a parliamentarian in Ukraine’s National Rada (Senate). In fact, all the supposedly democratic Euro-Maidan leaders have chosen radical neo nazi representatives for Senate seats. Biletsky has sworn he will drive a vote on Ukraine’s nuclear status. If successful, Ukraine will strive to develop nuclear arms. Sergey Melnichuk (battalion commander Aydar) was Oleg Lyashko’s choice for a Rada seat.

In the interview with Foreign Policy, the Azov commander Biletsky (now Ukrainian Senator) states:

“Unfortunately, among the Ukrainian people today there are a lot of ‘Russians’ (by their mentality, not their blood), ‘kikes,’ ‘Americans,’ ‘Europeans’ (of the democratic-liberal European Union), ‘Arabs,’ ‘Chinese’ and so forth, but there is not much specifically Ukrainian…It’s unclear how much time and effort will be needed to eradicate these dangerous viruses from our people.”

The battalion’s political platform supports the system of government devised by the Ukrainian nationalists of the 1930s and 1940s.

Really look at the description of a “Russian” and see if there is anything familiar here. American democracy is no different to them than Donbas people. This point needs to hit home in light of what they are doing.

Andrey Teeter

Andrey Teteruk the Commander of Myrotvorets (peacemaker) is also one of Yatsenyuks choices that is taking a Senate seat.

Andrei Teteruk who ran for lawmaker on People’s Front election list plans to attend parliamentary plenary meetings with weapons. “I hope I will not use it,” Teteruk said.

Myrotvorets (peacemaker battalion) is another punisher battalion. In Teteruk’s own words “ Peacemaker” is a police battalion. “Our task is to restore order in liberated settlements, clean from criminals, weapons. We did a good job in Dzerzhinsk; performed police functions, investigated, who supported separatists in the city.”

“I’m against solving problems by using weapons. With all that I’m a military man, run a military unit, but I was in Kosovo and saw the conflicts that were solved with weapons, it led to the fact that entire villages were cut out, from the oldest to the youngest. The war makes dirty both sides.”

Although honesty is a respectable quality every person in Donbass has been branded a separatist. Teteruk’s job as a punisher battalion commander is no different than the last part of his quote- to destroy entire villages from the oldest to the youngest.

Yuri Berea

Yuri Bereza is the Commander of Ihor Kolomoisky’s Dneipr 1. You guessed it Yuri Bereza is also now a Senator. What makes this clown a great pick for Maidan leaders to get behind is:

“Today, we are ready not just to defend [Ukraine], but to invade the Russian Federation, break into it with reconnaissance detachments and sabotage groups,” said Bereza.

Although I didn’t mention him by name I wrote about Bereza’s most notable accomplishment to date. In a hacked correspondence reacting to the remains of 37 civilians found in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian Rada, Deputy Oleg Pankevich questions Igor Kolomoisky’s sanity. Kolomoisky, one of the leading Jewish leaders in Europe, has his own Dnipr Battalion in the Donbass war.

According to Kolimoisky’s assistant Boris Filatov, they are just Neo-nazi animals. Kolomoisky’s Dnipr battalion is replete with swastikas and Neo-nazi mercenaries from Ukraineand other countries. Among his more notable accomplishments, Kolimoisky funded and planned the Odessa Trade House Massacre last spring. Kolomoisky has a new Nazi problem. Of the 37 civilians that were found tortured, mutilated and killed in this instance, 19 were Jewish. Thats why Pankevich called it a mini-holocaust.

Yuri Bereza is a new Ukrainian Senator who now has medals for torture and murder of innocent people.

Semen Semenchenko

I have written extensively about Sementchenko’s Donbass Battalion. Sementchenko is also a new Ukrainian Senator. His battalion accused him of running when the fighting started. When they were under attack he refused to deliver weapons his men did not have. He told his deputy commander to leave because” they are just meat anyway.” Semenchenko’s battalion has been responsible for a lot of horror done to civilians in Donbass. This man is an animal.

UCCA Lobbying

The ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA) has been lobbying the US Congress to give weapons to Ukraine. The men listed above are the representatives the Diaspora community chose as representative of their ideal of a Ukrainian nationalist in the mold of Stepan Bandera.

The United Nations (UN) recently released a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, accusing the volunteer battalions of violating international humanitarian laws.

The date they chose falls on Ukraine Day celebrations to insure they get the turnout needed to show the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that these men deserve American dollars, weapons, and training.

This excerpt is from nationalist volunteer effort:

“As I’m sure you know, these three Magiare not only our lovely commanders of the volunteer battalions Donbas, Myrotvorets, and Dnipro-1, they are also newly-baked parliamentarians from Samopomich and Narodny Front. And they are in DC this week to meet with congressmen and military officials and talk about how to defend Ukraine. At this very moment, Russia is training a 30 000 army in the occupied eastern territories and stuffing the region with its weapons, and Semenchenko asks for OUR HELP!”

“Remember, Ukraine is not only defending itself, but also peace in Europe, and the alliance between the US and its biggest friend, Europe, as well as international law.”

Considering that they want the US to attack Russia, should we thank them now or later?

What else does the Ukrainian emigres want from the US Congress?

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Voldymyr Ogrizko on Shuster Live (largest Ukrainian talk show): “‘Americans must be willing to die for Ukraine, because the former Soviet republic, fighting with Russia, defends the values of the Western world. And they are willing to die in Iraq or Afghanistan? If they are really talking about their values, they must be willing to die in Ukraine. Today we protect their valuables. This and our values. We protect their lives and their blood ,( He is talking about America )’ – said Ogryzko. He expressed the hope that the results of the elections in the US will bring Ukraine support.”

What Else Should the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Know?

Recently on the Ukrainian investigative program Groshi. which I was shocked to learn was still on the air after the coup did a program on prostitution in the Ukrainian army.

At first blush, I would agree that doesn’t sound like much except the commanders are forcing conscripts to act as prostitutes. The commanders are collecting 600 hryvna per outing and supposedly giving the conscript the equivalent of $4. Bear in mind that the conscript cannot refuse the order.

The conscript age in Ukraine is now 16 years old. Other soldiers or officers have their choice between a boy or a girl, man or woman. How is this not sanctioned rape within the armed forces? Will the US Congress support this?

To make matters worse for Kiev this backs up a story that would otherwise go unreported and therefore not investigated.

Oleg Lyashko Allegedly Rapes Young Soldier

A young soldier from the punisher battalion Shaktar (Miner) has tried to testify on video that the leader of the Radical Party of Ukraine, Rada MP, presidential runner up, and probably future president of Ukraine, tied, beat, and raped him. The website ukraina.ru carried the story. According to him he joined Shaktar to serve the motherland and the promise of good money. His work detail was logistics in the unit and keeping records.

The “Miner” cleansing Battalion soldier talked about how he was beaten and raped by the leader of the Radical Partyof Ukraine Oleg Lyashko. This was written on the website ukraina.ru. According to his story they tied him up and started gang raping him. He was given to Oleg Lyashko and Andrew Lozovoy who were looking for young boys.

In light of the Groshi story which ran on Ukrainian TV this needs to be investigated. This is the clip that was broadcast on Ukrainian TV.

Life in Mariupol under Azov Battalion

Sergey

In September a Mariupol resident “Sergey”wrote:

“I don’t want to go to war, but I will go if my family is harmed. I didn’t go to Referendum in May because I didn’t think it was that serious. I saw what Ukrainian Army did to Mariupol citizens on the 9 of May. I used to work back then. People with Ukrainian flags and stripes on their sleeves opened a fire on defenseless people. The people they shot were mostly elderly. This was at the Memorial Day to commemorate Mariupol’s Liberation from the Nazis.

“People began to run and hide where it was possible. Some of them ducked in the shops and a nearby hairdressing salon. In the city center the worst shooting occurred. I helped people to get to the hospital for free without any hesitation. I did five trips to the hospital and back. My car was full of blood. But that didn’t matter to me then. Now I hope that I saved some peoples lives.

“In spite of all this I didn’t go to the Referendum. I wanted to live in Novorossia, but I don’t know anyone who I can trust really. For several years I worked as a taxi driver, now I don’t. It is entirely dangerous. I am talking not only about losing your car, it is a common practice for soldiers to take away cars they like for their own use. If I am not mistaken, it is legal now. I am calling it dangerous because you can be shot, blown up or you can witness a crime the Ukrainian Army commits and killed for it. In July in the morning I was taking two young men from Melekino to Mariupol, and we were stopped at a blockpost by very rude young Ukrainian speaking soldiers.

“They asked to show us our passports. My passengers didn’t have any documents on them. So they were taken out of the car and soldiers beat them with the butts of their rifles. The soldiers shouted at those men and abased them. They made them get on their knees and threatened to kill them. I was left in the car. After about 20 minutes the soldiers let my passengers go. They promised to kill them next time if they did not have documents. Another time I saw one young woman that was grabbed out of her car. She was stopped at the Volodarskiy blockpost. She was about 25 or so. She was in jeans shorts and a sexy T-shirt. Soldiers began to flirt with her, invite her for a cup of coffee, but she refused and they grabbed her and threw her into a black car. I don’t know what happened later, but I can imagine.”

Ann, 42 years old in Mariupol said:

“I am shocked because of all those things which are happening. This war broke my life. I was looking forward to the referendum very much. I was happy to go there to vote for our freedom from this crazy country “Ukraine”. I realized after watching what was happening in Slavyansk in April and here in Mariupol on the 9th of May that fascist (Kiev)government wouldn’t let us go without bloodshed.

“I thought I was ready morally for war, but no, I couldn’t even imagine the horror of the ATO. We have to live, work, and study surrounded by heavy weapons.

“I remember one day when my 13-years old daughter was at school and I was at work. The skirmishes and firing began in the city. At the same time my daughter was supposed to come home, and I thought I would die while I didn’t hear her voice and she could tell me that she was ok.

“She saw a lot of armed people who shouted at several people to get on the ground. One of them was a woman. They pointed their guns at those people and all people near the soldiers. The traffic was blocked so my daughter came back home on foot. That happened in front of the tram station. After that I didn’t allow my daughter to go to school for days. I was afraid that she could be killed in one of those military operations. There are a lot of them now as because our town is occupied by Ukrainian mercenaries (Azov is has a foreign mercenary component). There are many more operations and these actions are more dangerous, bloody, and unprincipled.

“Battali
ons like “Azov” are especially fierce and brutal. They kill people, ruin their houses, steal everything from household appliances to clothes and jewelery. We don’t go out in the evenings. The streets are almost empty. I am afraid even at home because soldiers can break into citizens’ houses at any time they want. They have permission to do it from the Ukrainian government.

“I lost my job. I worked as a dermatologist and cosmetologist in one salon. Now it is closed and I don’t know how I will live with my daughter.

“Every day we see new units of APCs, tanks, and trucks loaded with soldiers in the town. We hear different gossip about bombing. Every day we prepare ourselves to die. It’s the worst nightmare. But I hope that it will be the end of this mess.”

Should Congress Support This?

Should the US Senate give a penny of American money to support these degenerates? When you understand the fact that the Ukrainian emigre community considers the men heroes that see you as Moskal? The UCCA taught these men their ideology. Most of the Senators and Congressmen that support nationalist Ukraine or listen to the ultra-nationalist UCCA lobby are not aware of what is going on. If you care about your congressman you need to let them know before they vote.

The money they appropriate will go directly into the murder of innocent people, torture, and rape.